Evidence of meeting #151 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was project.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Thank you.
Thank you both for testifying today. I'll start with you, Mr. Gibson.
In terms of habitat banking, can you see how it could encourage the offsetting of project impacts instead of impact avoidance or minimization?
5 p.m.
Senior Environment Specialist and Chair of Fisheries Working Group, Renewable Generation and Environment, Waterpower Canada, Ontario Power Generation Inc.
That's a great question. I think that comes down to the hierarchical approach that the regulator is bound to pursue, so I can see that as a potential criticism. Having been part of many projects while I have worked in the industry over the past 20 years, I haven't seen that approach. I have seen most of the early consultation with a regulator being specifically focused on avoidance, mitigation and then, as a final solution, the offsetting of the project. I haven't experienced that.
5 p.m.
President, Ontario Waterpower Association
Yes. We are responsible for the environmental assessment process in Ontario. Our environmental assessment process very clearly maps out the mitigation hierarchy, so you cannot get to mitigation until to you go through avoidance and prevention. I have heard that as well—that everybody is going to leap to compensation—but that's just not the way it works.
5 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
We have heard concerns that third party habitat banking could be open to manipulation and that it's hard to establish equivalence between banked habitat and what is being damaged. Can you maybe speak to that, Mr. Gibson?
5 p.m.
Senior Environment Specialist and Chair of Fisheries Working Group, Renewable Generation and Environment, Waterpower Canada, Ontario Power Generation Inc.
Sure. I can speak only to the Big Island wetland project. We have an advisory team that includes a research scientist from DFO and different universities. They look at the accounting of our credits. They are actually measuring the productivity of our bank and ensuring that it is performing the way it should. It's not left to industry to show correct performance. It's usually, as in the case of the Big Island project, an advisory group that comes to a consensus that the productivity is what we committed it to be.
I would argue that there are some safeguards there in large projects, but again, those would come through the regulations.
5 p.m.
President, Ontario Waterpower Association
I would point out that the conversation about whether or not an offset works is a conversation that happens whether you are talking about habitat banking or compensation that happens outside of banking. The same observations would be made with respect to a project that was being authorized by Fisheries and Oceans Canada for which specific compensation measures were required by DFO as a result of their authorization. All we're talking about here is being more proactive and shifting that conversation forward and putting those measures in the bank, so to speak, so that when the offset actually happens, we've already done something.
5 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
We've heard from first nations that there has been a lack of input from them around third party habitat banking. Can you talk a bit about your relationship with first nations around governance and decision-making, how you're determining acceptable habitat credits and how you determine the scope and location of the offset projects and priorities?
5 p.m.
Senior Environment Specialist and Chair of Fisheries Working Group, Renewable Generation and Environment, Waterpower Canada, Ontario Power Generation Inc.
I can try. I may have to get back to you on that one, though. That's a good question for our corporate team at OPG to see what was involved in the environmental assessment in terms of consultation. I don't want to speak on their behalf, but I can absolutely get you that information.
I can only assume that through the environmental assessment process there was consultation with the first nations communities around Big Island as well as around the new Darlington nuclear facility, but for specific roles, I would have to get back to you.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
5:05 p.m.
Senior Environment Specialist and Chair of Fisheries Working Group, Renewable Generation and Environment, Waterpower Canada, Ontario Power Generation Inc.
Again, I would have to get back to you. I can't speak off the top of my head.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
5:05 p.m.
President, Ontario Waterpower Association
Yes. Again, I won't speak on behalf of the first nations, but the reality in Ontario over the last 10 years at least, particularly in greenfield hydro development in northern Ontario, has been that the first nations are actually proponents and partners in the projects. They are co-proponents leading the environmental assessment process.
Now, there are still obligations with respect to the Crown's duty to consult with their neighbours and with others, but the reality in our business, at least in this province right now, is that projects are being led by or in partnership with first nations, which makes the whole conversation about how you look at environmental assessments as opportunities to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge. It's a different dynamic from what it was even 10 years ago.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Absolutely. Having that indigenous knowledge piece is critical.
Can you speak to some of the concerns and some of the challenges you have had around habitat banking? You have both spoken highly of the positives. Mr. Gibson, do you want to touch on some of the challenges you have had in your experience?
5:05 p.m.
Senior Environment Specialist and Chair of Fisheries Working Group, Renewable Generation and Environment, Waterpower Canada, Ontario Power Generation Inc.
Sure. Absolutely.
With a large project like a new nuclear project, you're trying to quantify the potential impacts of the facility in advance, so there's a lot of teamwork and a lot of collaboration that go into assessing the impact of the new facility.
Once that is established and you devise a project, you really have to look at quantifying and accounting for the productivity losses and gains. That accounting process, I think, has been a long process for OPG. It has not been one that we have been straying away from, but it has been a detailed process.
Again, I can't speak to the economics of it today, but we are annually looking at the productivity of the Big Island wetland to ensure that it is offsetting the potential impacts of the facility.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Great.
Mr. Norris, I'll go back to you. Do you have any kind of feedback on the challenges?
5:05 p.m.
President, Ontario Waterpower Association
Yes. I think I mentioned in my remarks that I had the pleasure of sitting on Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry Wetland Conservation Strategy Advisory Panel. We were tasked under the previous government, over a period of about six months, with providing advice to government on an offsetting policy, which is really what we're talking about here. Incorporated into that was a conversation about habitat banking, which is what we're talking about here, and third party habitat banking.
In my experience, the notion of enabling the concept is not the hard part. That's what I think the Fisheries Act should do. Where the rubber hits the road, as I said in my deposition, is with getting down to the regulatory framework—how it's going to be administered, what's going to count, and what the policy framework around implementation will look like. It's all useful work, and work and thought that have been done before.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Johns. Your time is well up.
We will now go back to the government side and Mr. Hardie. You have seven minutes or less.
Go ahead, please.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you both for being here.
When did you do that work on the wetlands for the Big Island project, Mr. Gibson? Do you recall?
5:05 p.m.
Senior Environment Specialist and Chair of Fisheries Working Group, Renewable Generation and Environment, Waterpower Canada, Ontario Power Generation Inc.
I'm looking through our notes. We're doing annual reporting, so I have our annual report here for 2018. I believe that project was undertaken around 2013.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
All right.
The way I put my head around this notion of third party habitat banking is that you have a project. You will go through the avoidance and mitigation, but you see some net detriment. You will go out then and look for somebody who has done something good, and you basically buy those credits from them.
I would presume, if we're looking at the regulations, that the regulations should more or less say that whatever you buy should be equivalent to or even a little better than what you have lost.
That then suggests that if somebody has proactively gone out and has worked on some sort of restoration or whatever, it would take some time to find out exactly how effective that has been.
What kind of lead time would somebody who wants to be in the business of third party habitat banking have to be working with? How would they know, for instance, that a company the size of yours was planning something that they would maybe get to work on to get your business?
This is right down into the cogs and wheels of this thing. I'm interested in seeing how that would work.
5:10 p.m.
Senior Environment Specialist and Chair of Fisheries Working Group, Renewable Generation and Environment, Waterpower Canada, Ontario Power Generation Inc.
Absolutely. I think there are a lot of examples in the States of how these banks get established and who invests in them originally to get them going, but productivity does change over time.
In the case of OPG's Big Island wetland, I believe there was a hypothesis or a projected productivity credit. What would the credits look like in year two, year three, year four and year five? As wetlands age, they actually become more efficient and more productive in their capacity. There is that level of technical expertise that comes to the table and starts talking about those things.
Specific to someone going out and doing that work, often organizations like OPG don't necessarily have the in-house technical expertise to do that type of work. There are speciality organizations that do, so in allowing that partnership to happen, again, you can almost guarantee better outcomes when you have an established bank, established credits and established productivity. If I have to come and buy 10 credits from you, the regulator can insist on my buying 12 and ensuring there's a better outcome for any uncertainty associated with the project.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Ducks Unlimited has come up a few times. Of course, they're quite well known for going out and restoring habitat, though what it kind of sounds like is that if they go out and do work that they were going to do anyway, all of a sudden we're giving them an opportunity to monetize the work that they were going to do anyway.
We may still end up with a net loss of habitat if they've done the work that they were going to do anyway. It's not as though they're going to go out and do additional work to offset the damages caused by a project. Do you catch me on this?