Environment Committee on Feb. 13th, 2024

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

In your 20 years of experience, have you noticed any commonalities regarding the water quality of rivers? Is it mostly industrial pollution, in other words, chemical pollution? Or is it pollution resulting from how it's used, including uncontrolled use?

[André Bélanger]

In the summer, the biggest source of water pollution is swimming, which is a municipal responsibility, whereas in the fall and spring, it's caused primarily by the agricultural sector.

Phosphorus is the greatest river killer. We touched on that earlier. The phosphorus and nitrogen found in all Quebec rivers come largely from agricultural activities, and there are still no clear strategies to remedy the situation. Besides that, 30% of phosphorus also comes from the Great Lakes.

We have quite a challenge ahead of us to ensure that the regulations are properly enforced at the watershed level.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

We were pleased to have some scientists appear before the committee last week, folks who are conducting pilot projects on road salt treatments. A pilot project is under way in L'Assomption, so clearly, Ms. Pauzé is well served.

Over the years, have you noticed any changes in the phosphates and other products that pollute our rivers? Do you believe that the use of salt is having a direct impact on water quality in urban and suburban areas?

[André Bélanger]

It's clear that salt has a major impact on water quality.

As Ms. Malcolmson mentioned earlier, urban development and soil mineralization are major challenges that are not being sufficiently addressed. Protecting rivers requires land-use planning, in other words, planning that puts limits on the use of land.

We just wrote to the president of Northvolt to remind him that his company is going to mineralize an area that absorbs water, which, by extension, has a direct impact on the river, the water table and the possibility of flooding.

I think this really is the biggest Achilles heel in terms of government decision-making.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Your presentation earlier was laid out theme by theme and seemed very Cartesian. I really appreciated it.

You talked about citizen participation. Can you tell us what that looks like? Do you have any specific examples of how citizen participation can—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It would have to be a specific example, very briefly.

[André Bélanger]

There is a concept called “freedom space,” which involves giving rivers back enough space to flow freely. Trying to convince people to give up their homes or cabins in order to allow rivers to flow freely is the kind of citizen engagement that will help us gain the social licence to make the necessary changes to adapt to climate change.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Taylor Roy.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to direct my questions to the executive director of Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition.

Ms. Malcolmson, thank you for being here today and highlighting the challenges we face with Lake Simcoe and the pollution loading up on the lake.

You started by mentioning the Chippewas of Georgina Island. There are other first nations, like the Rama and Beausoleil first nations. It was not too long ago that the first nations under the Williams Treaties actually got back the rights to harvest fish.

Looking at not only the levels of pollution that exist but the new contaminants, like the PFAS and other contaminants we are finding now, it would seem that newly found right could be very difficult to exercise if the fish are in fact contaminated.

When you talked about the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, you mentioned that they weren't going to do a review unless asked to do a review on the health of fish.

I am wondering who they are waiting to be asked by. I think you have asked repeatedly for that review. Who needs to ask? Is it the province that has to ask?

[Claire Malcolmson]

It's under the Ministry of Transportation Ontario. They exempted themselves from doing a typical environmental assessment. It is a streamlined, self-approved environmental assessment. They're really behaving like it's already approved, and all they really need to do is to mitigate.

I'm here to assert that if we're going to save the water and the things that live in the water, like the bait fish or the fish, we have to actually investigate. This is an example. I have now reviewed all the information. There are a lot of holes.

The information we have that says that the project proponent—in this case, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario—would request a review was from, actually, a petition. We did a formal petition to Jerry DeMarco's office. At the time, Joyce Murray was minister of DFO, and her response indicated that they were waiting to be asked.

I have never participated in an environmental assessment before, let alone a very unique, streamlined, self-approved one, so I'm not really sure what the typical process is. I just sent a letter to the project team in Ontario for the Bradford Bypass. I wanted the project team to respond to these concerns, but they're not even monitoring their email, just as an example of guardrails being gone in Ontario. Therefore, I have to wrap this all up as a package for the DFO.

I don't think it's really appropriate that the project proponent would have to ask for a review. Maybe that's a question you can answer for me too. Is it not appropriate for the DFO to request a review? That's what our letter to DFO will say: that we think, given all the evidence I'm giving you about how many holes there are in this information and that multiple layers of federal jurisdiction could be affected by this work, you should request a review.

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

Right. Thank you.

Yes, it seems that under the jurisdiction of DFO, and in our jurisdiction, are indigenous rights, although we're transferring that and hopefully they will have more rights to directly ask the Government of Ontario about what's happening.

With the Ministry of Transportation, the Government of Ontario basically exempted the entire project from an environmental assessment. Then the Ministry of Transportation is saying they're not going to request any kind of review from DFO, as well.

[Claire Malcolmson]

AECOM, the consultant team working for the MTO, have been hired by the MTO to write these reports. The way they word it is that they will determine if they think a review is needed, and then they will ask for it. I'm just here to sound an alarm. This is not appropriate.

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

Yes. This sounds like perhaps something the Canada water agency can do in terms of having the federal and provincial levels collaborate.

I was reflecting on what you were saying about the phosphorus levels. The phosphorus levels have gone down over time, but they haven't gone down enough. They're going to increase, obviously, with more development. It seems a little bit like medication in that, rather than addressing the underlying cause, you try to treat the symptom, only to see that there are side effects and that, in fact, the problem is going to persist.

Therefore, I think this issue of how the federal government can work with provincial governments is very important. Thank you for bringing that up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Pauzé, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Higgins, I'd like to remind you that I would very much appreciate having access to the study on oil spills. The page doesn't exist at the moment. I will have a question for you in a moment about DataStream.

Mr. Bélanger, I have one last question for you. Could you explain how you liaise with the other stakeholders involved in water management in Quebec?

[André Bélanger]

We are fortunate in that we're not institutionalized. We do a lot of work with watershed organizations. In a way, we're the bad cop and they're the good cop. We work closely together on certain issues.

We publicly denounce some situations knowing full well that consultations can then take place with the stakeholders involved, so we see ourselves as a catalyst, so to speak. I like to say that we're the acupuncturists who ensure that everything keeps flowing.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

Back home, we have an organization called the Comité de valorisation de la rivière L'Assomption, which you've probably worked with before. Yes, swimming is allowed in the river.

Mr. Higgins, you mentioned the DataStream tool. Could you tell us how you are associated with that tool and what information your institute provides to DataStream, which looks quite promising? A representative from DataStream will actually be appearing before our committee in the second panel of witnesses.

[Scott Higgins]

My organization has its own open database as well. We freely share our data with anyone and everyone. We've collected that data for over 50 years.

We're also in the watershed of Lake Winnipeg. We share our flow data and the water chemistry data from our monitoring program. We share that routinely now to the data stream portal.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

My last question is for either Mr. Bélanger or Mr. Higgins and has to do with the Canada Water Agency.

The two organizations you represent have given different mandates to the Canada Water Agency. That's what we've been seeing with every panel of witnesses. We don't know anything at the moment, and there's no direction.

Can you comment on that?

I'll ask Mr. Bélanger to answer my question first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Bélanger, your answer will have to be very brief.

[André Bélanger]

Obviously, the mandate has to be... There's no better uniting force than data. We need to be able to conduct thorough studies and look at the international scene as well as the rest of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That's perfect.

Thank you.

Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Higgins, I wanted to circle back to you.

When it comes to community-led data collection of fresh water, the program I am most familiar with is the Lake Winnipeg Community-Based Monitoring Network. I'm wondering if you think we have an adequate number of those kinds of programs across the country, or if you think that one of the roles of the new Canada water agency would be to try to foster more of that activity and to enhance it where it already exists.

Finally—and then I'll hand it over to you—I am curious. My colleague Laurel Collins has talked a lot about the idea of having a youth climate corps to guarantee employment for young folks and to help combat the climate crisis. Do you think these kinds of community-led exercises in data gathering could benefit from something like a youth climate corps?

[Scott Higgins]

That's a great question.

There are a lot of community-based organizations and citizen science groups in Canada. An example might be the lake partner program in Ontario, in which citizens have been going out and measuring water quality in their lakes for decades now. This said, there are real gaps across the country, and organizations like this need to be supported. They're very efficient at what they do in terms of cost efficiency and their ability to reach a wide number of lakes. It's just a really good way to do it.

I'll say that one of my first jobs out of high school was with an environmental youth corps in Ontario, and it was a great experience. I think it's great to provide training to young people, but at the same time, I absolutely agree with you that these youth can be harnessed to help collect this sort of monitoring data.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.