Environment Committee on Feb. 8th, 2024

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to welcome today's witnesses.

I would like to come back briefly to the comment my colleague Mr. Leslie made a little earlier, that there needed to be more investment in water technologies. I think that is in line with what you said. We also talked about that with the previous group of witnesses and with Ms. Gomez, who is still with us, I see.

However, Mr. Leslie said that there had to be cuts in our tax system at the same time. I don't really agree with that. I have been to countries where there is no tax system, and there simply is no drinking water. There are open-air sewers.

On the other hand, I agree completely on the need to do more with our money, with taxpayers' money, and to invest in municipal infrastructure. In my riding, rural communities are faced with drinking water systems and sewer systems that are obsolete. That is the challenge we will have to meet. In fact, if we want more housing, we will have to have systems that are a lot more functional and able to provide a high flow.

Earlier, someone mentioned the fuel tax program and Quebec's contribution, or TECQ. Under the program and the TECQ, with Quebec's contribution, Canada invests a portion of the gasoline excise tax revenue in municipalities' infrastructure. That concerns you, Ms. Vodanovic and Mr. Laneuville.

I would like to hear your concrete proposals in that regard, and I would ask that you each present your proposals, in turn.

[Maja Vodanovic]

I will answer first because I have been following the work done by the city of Montreal closely. I can tell you that of the revenue generated by the gasoline tax in Quebec, $200 million has been dedicated to our city. That is the best thing that can happen. It is like a gift from heaven, because it allows us to invest in a truly stable way. We know that we will have this money, which enables us to carry out maintenance on all our systems, replace the lead pipes, and so on. We know that we need that money, that we are going to continue needing it, and that it will always be there.

That is the kind of funding we want to have, because, otherwise, we will not get it done. We have to do maintenance, we have to adapt to climate change, and we have to comply with the new secondary wastewater treatment regulations. That amounts, at a minimum, to an additional $2.4 billion.

That is just gargantuan. It is enormous.

[Mathieu Laneuville]

I am going to talk about the gasoline excise tax. The federal government has long wanted to tie funding to the construction of new housing, and that presents us with a challenge at present. We think this is bizarre, because we have a big water supply deficit. We can't think about adding new housing to it. We need a good water system in order to have good housing and a good sewer system to be able to have new housing.

We need to think first about our primary infrastructure before building new housing. We believe the priority would be for the TECQ to no longer be tied to building new housing. That is an important message, which I wanted to send.

You also talked about how to go about improving the situation. We think that water conservation is the best vector. Because of climate change, pressure has really grown on our water resources.

Compared to the past, to all of human history, we are currently witnessing a demographic explosion everywhere on the planet. That also puts pressure on our water resources. We can manage it by conserving water. That way, new people will be able to come to our rural and urban communities and we will not need to build new infrastructure.

In a nutshell, if we conserve water, we will be able to admit new people.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

We can see that the gasoline excise tax is not always a bad thing. In fact, it is helping our municipalities in Quebec.

I would also like to ask you a question, Ms. Chronopoulos.

You mentioned the importance of local municipalities and the crucial role played by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the FCM, in building resilience when it comes to the climate and water in cities.

Can you tell us more about that?

[Soula Chronopoulos]

Okay. I am going to take the opportunity to answer Mr. Deltell's question as well.

When it comes to innovation, entrepreneurs run into a lot of obstacles at the municipal level. Patricia Gomez talked to you about that. In our ecosystem, there are at least 80 people who, like her, have solutions. However, they do not have the resources to implement them. The challenges that municipalities have to meet have been the issue.

That said, there are innovators who have solutions when it comes to collecting data and keeping it up to date, to provide access to high quality data everywhere. Some design smart meters, others collect algae for producing biogas.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities can give the municipalities a mandate, to help them. It could be done using grants and awards. In this way, innovations could be developed, or at least tested. At present, because we do not have the appropriations or funds needed to help local entrepreneurs, they go elsewhere. We are exercising leadership at the global level, certainly, but these entrepreneurs do not have enough reasons to stay in Canada.

There are a lot of young innovators in Canada when it comes to technology, but they are going elsewhere. That is truly unfortunate.

That flushing sound we hear is that we're going south.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Pauzé, the floor is yours.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I would like to welcome all the witnesses once again.

I will not have enough in my six minutes' speaking time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Do what you can, Ms. Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Before starting, I would like to make a comment. A lot of organizations come to testify before the committee. I note that the terms "our investors" or "increase the return" are often part of their vocabulary. What I see is that there are always conflicts around water usage.

If we take taxpayers' money to develop water technologies, it has to be effective. We would like it to deal with the health of water and water systems, which means monitoring PFAS, agricultural contaminants, radionuclides and industrial waste, among other things. That is what we want. We do not want investors to make more money. That concerns me a bit.

Ms. Vodanovic, I am going to talk to you about Chalk River, of course. I have heard you on the radio, and I know that you are the spokesperson for the Montreal Metropolitan Community, or MMC, on this subject. I also know that you have a very firm position on the despicable decision by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the CNSC, about the nuclear waste mounds in Chalk River.

I imagine that you are somewhat stunned by that decision, as was I. All, or nearly all, municipalities have come out against that plan, along with indigenous communities. We talk about reconciliation, but we act in complete contradiction of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We run roughshod over them and tell them the plan will go ahead even though they do not want it.

To your knowledge, does Montreal have technologies to detect radionuclides in its water treatment facilities?

[Maja Vodanovic]

We can detect them, but we can't stop them. If the water were to become radioactive, we could do nothing to change it, because we do not have the necessary equipment. That is one of the reasons why we were against this plan.

We do not know exactly what is going to be on the site over the next 50 years. In addition, the site will have to be monitored for 500 years, but no one can monitor a site for 500 years. We are very concerned, because the site is located right beside the water, alongside the groundwater. We are afraid that climate change and floods will mean that it gets to the Ottawa River and affects everybody downstream, right to Montreal.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I agree with you entirely.

I recently learned that there is already tritium in the drinking water of municipalities on the banks of the Ottawa River. So that element is coming toward us. As a Montrealer, I thought it made no sense for me to be drinking that water.

I would also like to point out something that I find a little strange.

We are always told that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is independent, but I am going to give you an example that shows why I do not consider it to be very independent.

Rumina Velshi, the president of the CNSC, spent a lot of time at conferences and events talking up the small modular reactors we are all familiar with. However, she has been replaced by Timothy Berube.

When I did a bit of research to find out who this man was, I learned that he has a doctorate in "divinity". The bulk of his university curriculum at the University of Metaphysical Sciences involved meditation, angels and chakras.

Since learning that, I have been a bit worried, particularly since the CNSC has appointed him as acting president. Am I the only one who finds this strange?

Mr. Laneuville, let's talk about the Canada Water Agency.

Last week, a witness told us that since the Agency was created, it has been given all sorts of little mandates by the whole world. It has been told that it should look after X river and Y lake and Z creek, and so on.

Did we not put the cart before the horse when we created this agency?

Could we not first have established objectives and principles of action?

[Mathieu Laneuville]

That is a very good question, Ms. Pauzé.

At Réseau Environnement, we have worked with the Canadian Coalition for Healthy Waters and the Coalition québécoise pour des eaux saines. We believe it was important that this agency be created and that we be able to get on with the job. We participated in its creation by providing it with all our comments.

Before the Agency was set up, there was chaos, and it was difficult for the members of our network to work with more than 17 departments and agencies on the subject of water.

One of the problems we had to deal with was this. At the moment, we are working on the freshwater study. We believe that water, whether freshwater or saltwater, knows no borders.

The study is critical for our St. Lawrence River and estuary. Why? Because, at present, we are evaluating the volume of total nitrogen in freshwater.

Total nitrogen does not have a major impact on our freshwater. However, our estuary, and our famous Matane shrimp, are threatened, and, if the trend continues, we will have none left in a few decades.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Laneuville, I am going to stop you...

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Laneuville, we are going to let Ms. Pauzé interrupt because she does not have a lot of speaking time.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Laneuville, I wanted to interrupt you to say the following to you.

You think that the Agency can do this, while other people think it can do that. A lot of people who have testified before this committee have told us about the various mandates the Agency has been given. Seriously, I would not want to be working there.

Everybody is assigning it mandates, because it has not been given a clear direction as to its objectives and the issues it is to work on.

I will read you what one of the witnesses said [Translation]: "Responsibility for the entire global hydrological cycle and prioritizing maintaining the carrying capacity of ecosystems are therefore two sides of the same coin, and that must necessarily guide the work of a Canada Water Agency... ."

However, it was not given that objective. That should have been done following a consultation and political decisions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Ms. Pauzé.

Ms. Collins, the floor is yours.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses.

My first question will follow up on some of the comments that have been made about the brain drain and how Canada is doing in comparison to the United States—maybe first to our witness from AquaAction, but then also to our witness from Foresight Canada.

I'd love to hear what you see as the concrete steps Canada needs to take not only to keep some of our skilled folks here but also to train up and ensure that the next generation has the skills they need to go into these fields.

[Soula Chronopoulos]

I think that first of all we need to make sure that there are available grants for them. Right now, even though there are a lot of federal grants from ISED they're not specific for water technologies, as we've said.

Two, they also don't have enough clean tax credits—nothing. When we have our U.S. counterparts going to them and saying, “hey, no taxes, so come to Michigan, come to New York”, they're jumping on that. The United States recognizes a major problem. There is no water crisis plan, and they're trying to develop one, so they're coming to Canada and they're taking all this amazing talent from us.

I'll let my colleague speak about this too.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Yes, and just before you jump in, I want to follow up.

It's really disappointing to see this federal government hand out billions of dollars for carbon capture and storage to oil and gas companies that are making record profits. At the same time, we don't have comparable funding for really important water tech.

Thanks for this.

It's over to you.

[Heather Crochetiere]

Yes. Thank you so much for the question.

As I said in my remarks, we have a big problem with the technology adoption here in Canada. As a result, as we heard from Ms. Gomez earlier, she is having a hard time finding someone to actually adopt her technology. She may go elsewhere or she may focus on other priorities.

Tax credits and incentives are absolutely important. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, but beyond direct funding, the government could look at things like developing water standards in environmental regulations, which would push industries to adopt those cleaner technologies here at home and give our Canadian entrepreneurs an opportunity. They could look at things like innovation and high environmental requirements for all infrastructure development programs, like those that are delivered by Infrastructure Canada. Really, it's about making sure that our procurement policies here at home enable the adoption of innovative water technologies, rather than prevent them.

It's also finding opportunities. I like what we heard earlier about using federal facilities and infrastructure to try to provide those pilot opportunities. A lot of Canadian entrepreneurs in the water-tech sector, when they go to develop their technology, don't have opportunities to pilot it here. We need to create those opportunities for people to develop those use cases that they can demonstrate to customers and showcase those pilots at home—and hopefully not leave Canada, but be able to export their technology and sustain a business here in Canada.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you so much.

One of the policies I've been pushing forward in Parliament is a youth climate corps. Part of that is ensuring that we're training up young people into the sustainable jobs of the future.

Just quickly, Mayor Vodanovic, I know that you started a youth advisory... I'm wondering if you've seen this at the municipal level and if you're struggling to find skilled folks in these areas. What do you see as a possibility to get young people involved?

[Maja Vodanovic]

Yes, there is a lack of workers in general in every field. Especially for our water plants, in the sewer plants and in the filtration plants, we don't have enough students coming out and graduating. I even went to different schools and talked to them about everything we're doing. I said, “Come and work here. If you want to work in the environment, there's no better way than to actually do it concretely and change things.”

So I do go and talk to them. Next week I'll be talking to them at the Université de Montréal.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Laneuville, did you want to jump in?

[Mathieu Laneuville]

Yes. We need more water operators in the province of Quebec. We needs thousands of them and we train less than 100 per year.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Chair, I didn't press my timer. How much time do I have left?