Evidence of meeting #91 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was debate.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Finally, with the time I have left, can you elaborate a bit on tillage practices and new crop varieties that can increase resistance to drought and improve water policy?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Unfortunately, we only have nine seconds left. Maybe you can take that up on a future question.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will be exceedingly brief, with just one question for Mr. Pentland, if that's okay.
Mr. Pentland, in your remarks, you shared priorities around flood damage reduction, climate change adaptation, water prediction, river basin priorities, water data and water research. It seems to me that we're very lucky in the province of Ontario to have so many great conservation authorities doing the science and doing this work.
Is it your view that this new Canada water policy could take lessons from Ontario's vast knowledge and resources in infrastructure with respect to our conservation authorities and apply that same logic and reason across the country? That will be my only question. After that, I cede the floor to you.
Member, Forum for Leadership on Water
I served for several years on the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, and I'm very much impressed by their model and by their work. One of the things I really like about their model is that it's self-financing.
For most of these things that are being suggested, there's a nice start and you fund them up front, and then they die over the years. These conservation authorities have lasted for 70 years, mostly because they're self-financing. They are financed through a per capita levy on municipalities. They've been around for 70 years and are still very healthy. My authority, for example, has a budget of $10 million or something. As a citizen, I probably pay $10 a year to support that. It's very good value. They do very good work in a lot of areas. There are very good examples that could be....
On the question of flooding, I think I will add just a bit on that. After the flood in B.C., FLOW, together with a recently retired bureaucrat from the B.C. government, did a detailed policy analysis of the flooding and what could be done about it in the future. I just offer that up. I will send that to the secretariat at some point. It may be useful for you.
Another general point, while I have the floor here, is that I've been listening to some of your seminars. They're very useful and for very good reasons. It's obvious that all politics are local: You're getting a lot of local questions and a lot of local advice. You're not getting much advice on national policy—very little substantive advice on national policy. I'll just put out an offer for the analysts for when they're doing their work. If they have any questions about national policy, please feel free to direct them to us. We will be very happy to help you with those.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
In fact, Mr. Pentland, if I could, I'll formally request in writing the top five things that a national policy ought to include from your wise.... That's off the top of my head. If you have a different way of compiling it, or if you have some recommendations for us, a written report would be very helpful and very much appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
Ms. Pauzé, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Pentland, I'd like to pick up on what you said in your opening remarks. You have a lot of experience, 60 years of observing a lot of major changes in water-related issues. However, one of your top priorities for the next decade is chemicals management. That's very important to me, especially since Health Canada is being asked to approve more and more of them. That's why I think the timeline for that priority should be five years. What are your thoughts on that?
Please keep your answer brief because I have another question for Mr. Madison.
Member, Forum for Leadership on Water
Thank you for the question. I agree with you in principle.
There's something called the Collaborative for Health and Environment. It's an international group of the best experts in the world, and they give seminars about twice a month. In fact, right at this moment, there's one going on on the question of endocrine disruptors and their impact on children's brain development and learning abilities.
I think we should keep an eye on that very closely. The direction these experts are sending us.... We'll never understand risk well enough to regulate strictly on risk, and we'll have to move in the direction of judging whether things are essential or not. I think we're going to move in that direction.
On the timing question, what the bureaucrats will tell you and what the industry will tell you is that this is—
Member, Forum for Leadership on Water
—a continental and perhaps even a global industry, and you can't move ahead in Canada faster than that. I don't entirely buy that, but we probably can, because some of the European countries do move ahead very quickly.
What will happen typically—
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
I'll stop you there, Mr. Pentland. Essentially, what I want to do—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
I'll give you another 45 seconds because Mr. Garrison won't use all of his time.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
If Mr. Garrison isn't using all of his time, that gives us a little more, Mr. Pentland. Then I'll ask Mr. Madison a question.
Member, Forum for Leadership on Water
Typically, what happens is that the Europeans move first in this area, the Americans follow, and then the Canadians follow. I suppose we'll always do that, because there is no substantial chemical industry in Canada, so we're kind of tied to the Americans.
Maybe Mathieu wants to add something.
President of the Board of Directors, Regroupement des organismes de bassins versants du Québec
I think I agree with that.
I'll continue in French for the sake of clarity. The fact that water is a scarce resource in Europe means that it has to deal with these issues long before North America does. However, once the issue or the risk is known, it tends to turn up here pretty quickly.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Here's the question I wanted to add. Earlier, you talked about regulations being fluid. Can we be more enabling without compromising the regulations or making them too weak? I think regulations need to be rigorous, but if we make things easier, is there a chance we'll be less rigorous?
President of the Board of Directors, Regroupement des organismes de bassins versants du Québec
I think that depends on what's being regulated. I think it also depends on how jurisdiction is shared between the feds and the provinces.
There are some things where regulatory rigour is good as long as the regulations are submitted to all the stakeholders they impact and are accepted by them. For example, when you're working on a bill, it's good to have all the stakeholders involved at the table. That can help get to a solution that works for everyone. The Canada Water Agency can provide that kind of platform.
Everyone will agree that there has to be regulatory rigour on this, but the stakeholder working group may decide that, for other kinds of problems, regulation isn't the way to go and other types of more socially innovative tools would work better.
December 12th, 2023 / 1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Mr. Sopuck, DFO has a history of interfering with farmers and landowners who manage the landscape, as I have much experienced over my farming career.
How do we ensure that federal departments are not doing more harm than good when developing freshwater policy?
Former Member of Parliament, As an Individual
I strongly favour, Mr. Mazier, the incentive approach when dealing with private land. When you have regulators coming onto your land and basically interfering with farming operations, it simply does not work. It creates nothing but antagonism in rural areas.
I think I mentioned in my previous testimony that when DFO was on the prairie landscape in full force, the officers would show up with guns at municipal meetings. We're a very gun-friendly area where I live, but that's disconcerting. Nobody shows up with a firearm to a municipal meeting, even though it may have been government policy. The point I'm making is that this policy was implemented by people who did not know what they were doing.
I served on the fisheries committee for nine years, and when we were reviewing the changes we made to the Fisheries Act, one of your colleagues, Ron Bonnett, from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, was absolutely scathing in his criticism of DFO officials coming on his farm. This is in spite of the fact that Mr. Bonnett had won many awards for conservation and was exemplary in the field of on-farm conservation programming.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I'm reflecting a little on Mr. Pentland's testimony. He offered some documents and ideas, as far as developing federal policy goes.
You mentioned before the difference between the PFRA and the proposed water agency, which I have very few details about. It seems to be quite a common concern among all Canadians—whoever I talk to right now. The government is talking about it, but we don't know many details.
If you could table the same type of document Mr. Pentland will—some dos and don'ts of developing a national water policy in Canada—it would be much appreciated by the committee, as well.
We're going to the Great Lakes now.
How significant a threat are algae blooms in the Great Lakes? How do we address this?
Former Member of Parliament, As an Individual
When I was on the environment committee—this was about five or six years ago, or maybe more than that—we did a study on the Great Lakes water quality. I would heartily recommend to all committee members that this study be reviewed.
As we discussed in my earlier testimony, algae blooms result from non-point source pollution, which is basically runoff from the watershed. My colleague here on the panel talked at great length about B.C. watersheds, and I strongly agree with her approach. What needs to be done is.... Runoff, whether it's from farms, cities, towns, roads or suburban developments, somehow needs to be controlled. The eutrophication is largely caused by phosphorus. People often think nitrogen is involved. That's not the case, as shown by the great work at the Experimental Lakes Area by Dr. Schindler. It sounds simple, getting rid of phosphorus input into lakes, but it's devilishly difficult, because just about everything we do on the landscape causes some kind of runoff.
Eutrophication is a problem in the Great Lakes. It's a problem for lakes that are naturally eutrophic. Lake Erie is a naturally eutrophic lake. It's not really a problem in Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Those are oligotrophic lakes that are nutrient-poor. However, Lake Erie is nutrient-rich to begin with, with an excess of phosphorus. Knowing the development going on in Ontario, both urban and agricultural, and the loss of wetlands, Lake Erie, from a eutrophication standpoint, is in serious trouble.
Conservative