Environment Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go from the beginning of the French part.

[Pierre Petelle]

Okay.

We're pleased to highlight some of the many ways that Canada's plant sciences sector is actively contributing to Canada's environmental sustainability by protecting our biodiversity and ensuring clean air, soil and water.

CropLife Canada represents an innovative and solutions‑oriented industry that supports sustainability, food security and economic growth.

In addition to providing farmers with tools that increase productivity and sustainability, our members develop products used in a wide range of non-agricultural settings, including urban green spaces, public health, invasive species control and transportation corridors.

CropLife Canada advocates for predictable, science-based regulations, both federally and provincially, that protect human and environmental safety and encourage innovation and competitiveness.

[Terri Stewart, Executive Director, Chemistry, CropLife Canada]

There is no question that the global agricultural community is currently facing some enormous challenges, all of which we've heard talked about today: climate change, severe weather conditions, water scarcity and increasing global population. This is all while the amount of arable land available for agriculture is shrinking due to urban expansion.

With water shortages on the horizon for much of the world, growers continue to actively seek out tools that help them reduce water. Canada's agriculture industry is focused on providing crops that are better able to withstand drought and other extreme weather occurrences, are more efficient at storing carbon in the soil and have better nutrition profiles to help us meet our health needs and reduce the impacts on our health care system.

Collectively, our ag sector is focused on protecting those crops from the various weeds, insects and diseases that grow more prevalent each year with climate change. This allows growers to grow more food on less land than ever before, leaving more untouched habitats for pollinators and other species. These innovations are part of a highly regulated system in Canada that protects the health and environment of Canadians.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency ensure that all of these innovations meet high safety standards and are protective of health and the environment, including our water resources.

In terms of why farmers need to use pesticides, pesticides can destroy entire crops, which can increase production costs, making food more expensive. When the crops are lost, so are all the resources, including water, that are used to grow them.

Globally, there are over 30,000 different species of weeds, 3,000 species of fungi and 10,000 species of insects that plants must combat on a daily basis. Even today, up to 40% of global crop production would be lost due to weeds and diseases.

When we're thinking about pesticides and plant breeding innovations, they help protect crops and give them the best chance of success to make agriculture as efficient as possible. Technologies are being used to develop and apply crop protection products, and these are changing rapidly.

Precision agriculture techniques using GPS, drones and sensors are helping growers make better-informed crop management decisions so they can use inputs and resources, including pesticides and fresh water, more efficiently, increasing productivity and furthering sustainability efforts. This is all good news for agriculture and the environment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Unfortunately, your time is running out. There will certainly be questions for you, Ms. Stewart and Mr. Petelle.

Mr. Deltell, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon. Welcome to your parliamentary committee and your Canadian Parliament.

Mr. Chair, a certain water quality issue affects us all. Many witnesses shared their concerns about jurisdictions. Lucky for us, people at this table today can answer specific questions about jurisdictions.

My first question will go to Mr. Fisher.

When we talk about the Great Lakes, we're talking talk about Canada, the United States, five different states and Ontario, obviously. How do you deal with so many jurisdictions to be sure we can have clean water in the Great Lakes?

[Mark Fisher]

It's a great question, and thank you for it.

There are really two main mechanisms where that work happens, the first being the Boundary Waters Treaty from 1909.

More recently, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement from 1972 is really the framework that brings both federal governments together alongside Ontario and Quebec, the eight Great Lakes states, first nations and many others to look at how we are trying not only to restore the Great Lakes from past challenges we've seen from industrial development and urban development but to protect the Great Lakes for future generations.

It's important to say that over the last 50 years there has been tremendous progress. Albeit slow, it's been positive and in the right direction, but there's certainly more that we need to do.

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

Can you give examples?

[Mark Fisher]

We can drink the water, but when it's treated. There are high levels of nutrients in Lake Erie that are causing toxic algae blooms. There are 20 million pounds of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes; it's not just an oceans problem. We're still seeing restrictions on the type and amount of fish you can eat.

We're making progress, but there's a lot more that we need to do to make sure the health of the Great Lakes is beyond “fair”, which is what the status is today.

When you think about that from a federal government and funding perspective, with the new funding that was announced this year, I think we'll be investing about $58 million a year over the next 10 years. It's estimated that the algae problem in Lake Erie alone will cost the Canadian economy $300 million a year.

We need a lot more investment in science, in protection efforts and in restoration efforts, not just through the federal government but in working with the provinces of Ontario and Quebec as well as the cities and rural communities that share the coastline of the Great Lakes. Then, ultimately, we need to try to do more with the United States.

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

If we want to fight pollution, we have to identify pollution and where it comes from. My point is, how can you be sure where the pollution is coming from when you have so many billions of litres of water travelling from, I would say, state to state and country to country? How do you deal with that? How can you identify the source of pollution?

[Mark Fisher]

It's fair to say that over the last decade—and technology has certainly helped with this—we can do a much better job of identifying point sources of pollution and non-point sources of pollution. For point sources, we know it's end of pipe. We know where it's coming from. Non-point, not so much, but there is technology that allows us to be able to identify where that non-point source pollution might be coming from.

As it relates to the health of the Great Lakes, the federal government has responsibility for the lakes—they're international waters—but what happens on the land within the watersheds is a provincial responsibility. Ultimately, it comes down to what the federal government and the provinces can do together to make sure that what's happening on land is not causing further harm to the health of the lakes. That's where collaborative governance—that collaborative science and management—is so important.

Increasingly, it's about working with large cities—for example, Montreal and Toronto—where, when there are heavy rain events, you still see to this day combined sewer overflows that are dumping raw sewage into the Great Lakes. That's only going to be fixed by massive infrastructure investments, which cities do not have. They need the support of the Canada Infrastructure Bank and other funding mechanisms to be able to tackle some of these infrastructure challenges that lead to some of the environmental problems in the Great Lakes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Fisher, for your testimony.

Mr. Miltenberger, you have been part of the government. Thank you so much for your service as a member of the assembly there in the Northwest Territories.

Based on your experience, can you tell us how a territory can deal with the federal government and also with the first nations? The Northwest Territories are very specific. How did you deal with all the different jurisdictions?

[J. Michael Miltenberger]

The first thing we did in the Northwest Territories in my time—it took us about 60 years—is that we negotiated a devolution agreement with Canada to take over more of our own autonomy. We had our own self-government agreement for land, water and resource development. In my mind, we got rid of about 5,000 kilometres of red tape.

We took over responsibility with indigenous governments. We recognized that we have to work collaboratively. We figured out how to do things like co-drafting legislation for things like the Species at Risk Act and the Wildlife Act, which we did co-operatively, with many hands on the pen. It was a bill that government [Technical difficulty—Editor] into the assembly and it was voted on [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'm sorry. You're cutting out a bit, Mr. Miltenberger, but in any event, the time has run out.

We go to Mr. Ali for six minutes.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here and sharing your knowledge and experience.

Mr. Petelle and Ms. Stewart, climate change poses a threat to food security. Particularly concerning this year is the very light snow cover in some parts of the country, which means less water provided by snowmelt in the spring. If that is followed by a dry summer, crop yields might be considerably lower. I know that farmers are quite resilient in applying crop science to meet challenges. Can you tell the committee about emerging plant science technologies that might mitigate the effect of water scarcity on crops and crop yields?

[Pierre Petelle]

The question is very pertinent. If you've heard of CRISPR technology and gene editing, it's the new scientific discussion being talked about now, but in agriculture it's the here and now. Certainly we've had a lot of genetic engineering over the years to make better and more resilient crops, but now, with the promise of gene editing, this can happen much faster and is much less expensive, so the entrants can be smaller companies, public breeders and universities, not just the larger multinationals that have typically been the founders of the gene technologies up till now.

That's a very promising technology, but again, the regulatory environment that I mentioned in my remarks is really critical, because we've been working for seven years, paving the way for gene editing so that CFIA and Health Canada can accept a submission and know how to approve and regulate it. That's the part I think we really need a collective, whole-of-government approach on. If we want Canada to be at the forefront of innovations and some of these technologies, including drought-tolerant crops, crops that are better adapted to some of the climate stressors we have, and short-stature crops that are more resilient to wind—there are all kinds of innovations—we have to make sure our regulatory environment enables those products. Part of the work we do, really, is to create that environment for our members.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Ms. Stewart, do you want to add something to that?

[Terri Stewart]

No, I'm good. Thank you.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

To Mr. Petelle, Ms. Stewart and Mr. Fisher, we had some testimony during this study that expressed concerns about the lack of incentive for farmers to prevent agricultural runoff into rivers, streams and lakes, and the resulting threats to water quality. Can you suggest how this situation might be improved?

[Mark Fisher]

I think this question came up a bit during the last session, with Nutrien.

We work with a partnership collaborative in Ontario called ALUS, which is the acronym for Alternative Land Use Services. It's a fantastic program that is able to engage farmers and other partners directly to look at edge-of-field solutions, which could be taking out marginalized land and putting in habitats that are positive for addressing climate change and for biodiversity. Because the farmers are making a decision to take that land out of production, they're getting compensated for that, just as they would for selling a crop.

When we look at these types of innovative programs in which a farmer is able to get a benefit for taking that marginal land out of production, and we see that nature benefits as a result of that, I think that's a win-win for both the farmer and government. Because they work and they're farmer-driven, I look at how the government plays a role in enabling and providing funding for those types of programs.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Fisher, how do you think Canada can build a plan to protect and restore the Great Lakes over the next 50 years, as they continue to face challenges from a growing population and industrial activity?

[Mark Fisher]

That's another great question.

As I mentioned before, the health of the Great Lakes is increasingly driven by what is happening in the watershed and upstream. I think that, over the next 50 years, if we're really going to understand change and risks to the lakes, we're going to have to do a better job, at least in the case of Ontario, of working hand in hand with the provincial government, with large cities and with rural communities to make sure that we understand what those risks are with respect to point sources of pollution, non-point sources of pollution and the impacts of climate change on the Great Lakes coastlines, and try to tackle these issues in a collaborative way.

There's no way we're going to be able to address these issues if the federal government is doing its thing, the province is doing its thing, and cities are trying to manage at the city level. I think it's really going to come down to collaborative science, understanding the risks and challenges that we're going to face in the next 50 years, collaborative governance, co-investment and trying to work together to get ahead and get out in front of some of these challenges. Not one level of government alone is going to be able to solve the issues that we're facing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Pauzé, you have the floor.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Chair, before you start the clock, I want to know whether there will be a second round of questions, given that we currently have six minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

There will be a second round of questions, but it will be shorter.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Okay. That's fine.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Bouchard, at the end of your opening remarks, you raised the issue of jurisdictions. The different levels of government are always straddling jurisdictions and squabbling over them. Mr. Miltenberger said that most water‑related decisions are made at the local level. He succeeded in getting indigenous people and municipal officials to sit at the same table. It's clearly a local jurisdiction.

Does it make sense for the federal government to create the Canada water agency?