Good afternoon. Thank you kindly for inviting me back to Ottawa to speak today.
I applaud the members for studying the role of the federal government in protecting and managing Canada's fresh water. As a water-rich nation, Canada has a disproportionately large responsibility on the world stage to be a good steward of water, and the federal government must rightly provide the leadership to do so.
As an aquatic ecotoxicologist, I have devoted the last 25 years to the study of fresh water in Canada, with a focus on understanding aquatic pollutants, including nutrients, mercury, flame retardants, microplastics, oil spills and oil sands contaminants.
Today, I will speak to the issue of fresh water in Canada's oil sands, but before I do, I wish to correct some misconceptions about water I heard in earlier meetings, particularly in reference to the Canada water agency.
First, while it's true that water accumulates in water bodies such as lakes and rivers, in reality water is much more than that. Water is dynamic and exists in many forms and in many places. Water is frozen in glaciers, exists as a gas in the atmosphere, flows underground in spaces between soil particles and exists within our own bodies. Water can be and is contaminated at any and all of these stages. My message here is that if we are to truly protect and manage Canada's water, we must do so throughout its entire hydrologic cycle.
Second, while it's true that water is a resource, again, in reality water is so much more than that. Water is life. Water is a habitat for fish and wildlife. Water, for many indigenous peoples, is a living entity with a spirit—not a resource, but a relative. My message here is to centre reconciliation and indigenous ways of knowing in an effort to redefine our relationship with water.
Now I'll go to the broad policy failure in Canada's oil sands.
This committee has been studying a recent incident of a toxic leak from Imperial Oil's Kearl oil sands mine. Much of the conversation has focused on the communication failures. Certainly, there were grievous errors in communication, but these dwarf the much more profound failure in water management and policy.
Let me elaborate. Currently, 1.4 trillion litres of Canada's water are held by the oil sands industry in tailings ponds. This water has been taken from the Athabasca River and then used numerous times for industrial processes to extract bitumen from oil sands. While reusing water multiple times for bitumen extraction has reduced the volume of water extracted from the river, it has also created a serious problem. It has concentrated salts, metals and naphthenic acids in these waters, making them toxic to fish, amphibians, birds and mammals. I would be happy to submit a brief to that effect.
This highly toxic water is then stored in rudimentary earthen pits that were never constructed to be anything more than temporary settling ponds. As a result, the tailings ponds are a massive liability. I hope the Kearl incident wakes us to this ticking time bomb.
There is a solution. The industry must be required to treat and release its waste water—not at the end of the mine's life and not after the industry goes bankrupt and taxpayers are on the hook, but by the industry, in real time, during mine operation. It's 2023, not 1967. We can do this, and we have done this for other types of waste.
Here are two examples.
Think of domestic waste. In cities, we don't defecate in latrines in our backyards anymore. Sewage is centralized, treated with primary, secondary and even tertiary treatment processes, and then released to the environment. The waste-water systems effluent regulations were developed under the Fisheries Act, and the Government of Canada is responsible for managing the risk posed by substances listed under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
Think of the pulp and paper industry. The federal pulp and paper effluent regulations were developed under the Fisheries Act in the 1990s to manage documented threats to fish, fish habitat and human health. When mills implemented treatment processes to remove suspended solids and break down organic matter, the quality of effluent increased dramatically, and downstream ecosystems, including fish habitats, are now better protected.
My message here is that a policy whereby the oil sands industry is required to clean up its industrial waste water in real time as the wastes are produced is the best way forward. I assert emphatically that it's much better to plan for intentional discharges of treated water regulated and monitored by provincial and federal bodies than to have a tailings pond fail and result in an accidental spill of highly toxic waste water to the Athabasca River and the communities living downstream, including indigenous peoples. Such a catastrophe is nothing short of national tragedy and an international shame.
In closing, I recommend that, one, the Government of Canada embrace a holistic and respectful definition of water and re-envision its relationship with water through the lens of reconciliation with indigenous peoples. Two, I emphasize the tremendous need for the federal government to take action and require Canada's oil sands industry to deal—not tomorrow but today—with the enormous dangers of the toxic chemicals in the tailings ponds.
Thank you.