Environment Committee on Nov. 21st, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

How are we doing with...?

[A voice]

They're still on the phone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay. I think we'll just move to the first round of questioning.

You have about two and half minutes left. Let's talk about the weather to see if the sound quality is good.

[Jesse Zeman]

I could say all kinds of things about what was happening here in British Columbia this summer. If we get an opportunity to continue the presentation, I'll round that out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I haven't seen thumbs down. You're good to go. You have two and a half minutes left.

Now they're down.

[Jesse Zeman]

Is it thumbs down now after testing again?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It's passable, but they may interrupt. Also, maybe if you speak slowly, it will be easier for the interpreters. I don't know, but go ahead.

[Jesse Zeman]

We'll go right into funding. Without dedicated funding we're unable to plan or look ahead, and we find ourselves in a state of reactive firefighting.

The Province of British Columbia has taken a leadership role in starting the watershed security fund, with an initial endowment of $100 million. The Watershed Security Coalition, of which the BCWF is a member, believes that with the $400 million from the province and $400 million from the Government of Canada, we can secure an additional $200 million to create a $1 billion fund. This fund can be supplemented annually by a water—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'm sorry. We're going to have to go to questions. We'll see what happens if a question is directed your way, Mr. Zeman.

We'll do a six-minute round, starting with Mr. Kram.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Chair, my questions are actually for Mr. Zeman. Could we maybe spend a few more minutes troubleshooting the technical details and come back to me at the end of the round? Would that be doable?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes. We'll go to Ms. Taylor Roy, then.

Ms. Taylor Roy, you have six minutes.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's such a large field that it's really difficult to know where to begin, so I'll begin at home with an example that affects my riding, the watershed of Lake Simcoe.

My question is really about the collaborative work of the provincial, territorial and federal governments in addressing freshwater pollution. Lake Simcoe is affected by many things, but one is continued development and the building of highways close to the lake itself, which has resulted in many threats to the lake, of which I won't go into the detail.

Really, my question is about how, as a federal government—even through the new freshwater action plan and freshwater agency—we are able to protect these important freshwater sources. Other levels of government may exempt them from environmental assessments in projects, and where we have no jurisdiction, how may we proceed to look at something and evaluate whether what's being done is going to have a deleterious effect on the water quality in particular?

Perhaps we can start with Alexandre. You're in the room here. Can you give me some thoughts on that?

[Alexandre Lillo]

Yes, absolutely. You are right, the question is very much on point. That is where the main issue lies.

I think we have to see jurisdiction over water as a fluid power. The pun was not intentional, but that is the case. This fluidity is seen at all levels, whether for a regional watershed, for example the Mackenzie River watershed, which covers an enormous area, or the much more localized watershed of a lake. There will be issues relating to fisheries and navigation that will unarguably fall under federal jurisdiction, but of course there will be overlap between those and provincial and municipal or even indigenous jurisdictions.

Given this, it becomes a matter of collaboration. Starting from the principle that whatever the extent of the land affected, we may encounter a strong intergovernmental dimension, I think the role of the federal government, in this scenario, is really to initiate cooperation. Its role is to implement the necessary tools, the safety net, to avoid falling into a situation where we are no longer able to manage water because management is too fragmented and no political agreement can be reached. Certainly, in political terms, there are very strong issues. However, I think the federal government should institute the necessary and sufficient guardrails while respecting regional diversity and richness.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you. I'll follow up on that.

One particular project in my community is something called the Bradford Bypass. It's a proposed 16.2-kilometre road. It's going to cause a lot of runoff. There will be effects of climate change. It's going through wetlands and many other things.

With this, it's been determined, especially with the latest ruling by the impact assessment board, that the federal government cannot look at the project to protect the waters of Lake Simcoe, even though that is something we are talking about in the water agency. I understand the idea of co-operation, but it requires both levels of government to co-operate.

Do you think legislation or something else is needed? You talked about water as its own entity or having its own rights. Do you believe something else is needed so that the federal government can, in fact, protect these very important sources of fresh water for communities when provincial governments are not doing so?

[Alexandre Lillo]

One of the first things we have to note, and your question puts that very clearly in perspective, is that we can address water management-related issues via other access points, for example environmental impact assessment or biodiversity impact studies. We can also consider the management and protection of water itself as a unit. At present, the problem is that we are coming at it from different angles when we address water-related access points rather than having a much more holistic vision of water management and the associated mechanisms.

If I understand your question correctly, you want to know whether we could have much more radical legal tools, such as legal personality. That may be an option, yes. I think the legal personality of water, the rights of nature, or the mere fact of giving water existence as an actor, for example if we have a committee composed of persons who are there to represent water, will protect us from ourselves, in a way, and enable us to move forward in our interaction with the environment.

That said, there are legal problems, not to mention that developing strategies like that would take time. The important thing, however, is to change our perspective. We are realizing that things as they are today are no longer working. I believe that tools like those would allow for a radical change of perspective that would help us move forward. Would it radically change political relationships and force political cooperation? That might not be the case. It depends on what form of the tool were to be adopted. In a context of cooperative federalism, imposing some things is always complicated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

It is now Ms. Pauzé's turn.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of the witnesses for being with us. I think they have all, in their presentations, addressed the fact that there were new challenges and problems that are amplified in the climate emergency we find ourselves in. I think all the witnesses agreed on that.

I have six minutes, Mr. Lillo, so if you are not able to complete all your answers, you can always send notes to the clerk, who will send them on to us.

Some experts believe that effective implementation of a policy on water needs to have tangible roots at the local level, and that it is physical proximity, in fact, that will determine the use of resources and the degree of pressure on ecosystems.

As you understand things, could too high a degree of administrative centralization have a negative effect on the water management and environmental protection policies that have already been put in place by other orders of government?

[Alexandre Lillo]

That question is extremely important and very much on point.

I believe these two things are not mutually exclusive. We have to distinguish between the strategy and the political and legal tools we are going to use, on the one hand, and their impact and results, on the other. We have to be able to reconcile certain issues that are very local, like those raised in the previous question, with issues that are much less local. For a transboundary river, for example, we have to be able to have a holistic view, by definition.

I think the legal strategy should allow for systematically overriding these jurisdictional conflicts, instead of working case by case. It is all very well to work case by case, but legally, there should be a vision that is much more adaptable, whatever the case.

When a water-related problem arises, it is virtually certain there will be a division of powers dimension. That is the base. I am thinking again of the case of sewage being discharged in Montreal a few years ago. You have heard about that. It was very localized, it was happening in Quebec, in Montreal, but the federal government stepped in, for a host of reasons. To avoid this kind of thing, we need to have mechanisms by which an environment of cooperation would already exist in every potential situation.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

So, in the example you just gave, Canada has the responsibility of having an effective legal framework to prevent water pollution and protect the quality of the resource.

What about water pollution caused by pesticides? I would like to address that subject with you. In fact, another witness was just talking about that. It is an issue that concerns many observers. Good intentions are voiced, but what gets done seems to be quite different, because the pesticide lobby is very strong.

What do you think?

[Alexandre Lillo]

I think that to date, there is a difference between tackling existing problems, like pesticides, and equipping ourselves, institutionally and legally, to think in different ways about managing these problems, whether to mitigate or to prevent their consequences. When we have pesticides in the water, yes, we have to take a more technical approach to cleaning that water. I am not an expert in this area, but I can tell you that the legal framework for water management today does not enable us to anticipate this kind of thing. We have three provincial ministries involved on the left, four federal departments on the right, and then the municipalities, and none of these people talk to each other and they all work in isolation. It is really this aspect that I am interested in.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

When our committee started this study, yes, we saw that there were 18 to 20 government departments dealing with water. That makes no sense.

The main problem is still the lack of political will. We saw this in the case of the PMRA, for example, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency: people were resigning because there was too much pressure or because they did not have the documents they needed. The case of that agency became a horror story.

How could a Canada water agency mitigate that problem?

[Alexandre Lillo]

It is ironic, but I think it will take political will for the Canada Water Agency to be able to mitigate all of that. For better or for worse, the beauty of Canadian federalism is that we have to address this political will in order to come up with something collectively, even if we have conflicts over jurisdiction.

I think the agency will have to adhere to certain values and certain principles of cooperation, and call on certain very strong political considerations as soon as possible in order to tackle these issues; otherwise, the same problem will certainly always arise.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Does that mean that you think the Canada Water Agency should have all the legislative tools for taking action?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Lillo, I would ask you to give a brief answer.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Obviously, in the Bloc Québécois, we always protect the powers of Quebec and the provinces in the constitutional framework.