Evidence of meeting #127 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was site.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We'll have to leave the answer. That was a very long five minutes.
All right, Ms. Mathyssen. You have five minutes.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Just to go back a little to when we were talking about these workplace exposures, things that you have to deal with and trying to assess.... People are working every day, and they may not understand or be made aware of the toxicity of the things that they're working with. Then, time goes by and they have these longer-term side effects.
You mentioned that communication is very important, and that the conversation, the awareness, is consistently there, but beyond a long-term cancer risk there are so many different kinds of exposures. There's reproductive health. People might not directly attribute it to their workplaces, but they may see other things or try to look at family history—all of these things. What assessment is being done? What is the federal government doing to ensure that the communication is happening actively so that people and workers truly understand, in federal workplaces, that they are potentially in an exposed state, that they are exposed, I guess you could say?
Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Department of Health
Thank you very much for that question.
Health Canada does not play a role in the occupational health and safety space, but I can offer that there is a very elaborate occupational health and safety program across the country, delivered from both provinces and territories and at the federal government, through the labour program in Canada.
Department of National Defence officials could speak more eloquently about how they communicate to workers the risks that may be at their facilities, whether they are from just regular practices, day-to-day activities or exposure to contaminated sites. Again, there is a well-defined list of chemicals currently in commerce. There's a well-identified body of science, which is evolving, that understands the risks. The current occupational health and safety program is reliant on a base of decades of science that understands these chemicals and other risks that may be present in the workplace.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
In my riding the Department of National Defence owns a property. It used to be an ordnance depot. It's directly now beside the site where they're building a large amount of housing. There's a community park. It's quite an active area. When I started to look at the potentials of the use of DND land—as in building housing and the uses of it—I discovered that it's listed under the federal contaminated sites inventory. It's an active site of chlorinated volatile organic compounds contamination with high priority for action.
Now, the government spent nearly $18 million on remediation of this site. There have been 38,600 metric tons of soil treated and 48.5 million litres of contaminated water. Can you comment on the scope of this site and, then, what you would have expected your departments, the custodian DND, to communicate, related to the scope of that contaminated site, to the community?
Director, Contaminated Sites Division, Department of the Environment
I think I know the site you're referencing. Is it the Highbury Complex, maybe? It's not a site that we've been involved in. It's not an area where DND needed advice from us about ecological risks, so I can't really offer specific perspectives about that site and how DND managed it other than to say, at a high level, that it followed the standard steps of proceeding through assessment, planning and remediation.
We understand it's closer to the finish line now than it is to the starting line, but the details would have to be spoken to by DND.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
That doesn't really answer...and maybe it's something that you can't. However, is that, in your expert opinion, a large site? How are the dangers of that site, the potential risks and so on, related to the size of that site? How are they communicated to the public in that area?
Then, I would ask, are they public? Is that consultation public?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
There are three or four questions, and we are over time. Can you answer those briefly?
Director, Contaminated Sites Division, Department of the Environment
They would have be asked of National Defence.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
There's confirmation of PFAS contamination on Base Petawawa. What would be the short- and long-term consequences of PFAS exposure?
This site was specifically on Garrison Petawawa's firefighting training area.
Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Department of Health
PFAS are well characterized, as I've explained earlier in some of the comments I've made. There's a well-defined body of science that shows effects on health, including on multiple organisms and systems, including the liver, the kidneys, the thyroid, the immune system and the nervous system. There are also reproductive and developmental effects. The risks from PFAS have been well characterized in a lot of the science publications that have been put forward.
I don't know the specifics, necessarily, of the Petawawa base, but I can say that a drinking water quality objective has been established by Health Canada that identifies a threshold toward which it would be the expectation of all provincial, municipal and federal entities to strive. That would not mean that a single exceedance would cause dramatic health effects. However, it's exposure over time that we would be concerned about with regard to increasing the health risks of the issues I just outlined.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
How would they even capture or make the observation of the health effects versus that contaminant in the soil? These are the types of conditions that would occur as a regular consequence of firefighting—cancer, etc. Has there ever been a study done that looks at the medical records of firefighters—former firefighters and existing firefighters—and compares those to the potential consequences of their being exposed to it? Is that something that has been done?
Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Department of Health
Firefighters have been identified as a population more disproportionately impacted by a lot of chemicals and concerns, not just PFAS but also other chemicals and issues of concern.
The federal government has looked at biomonitoring data and cancer rates amongst firefighters. There was just recently a firefighter action plan that this federal government put forward, and it assesses a variety of chemicals that firefighters are more predominantly exposed to.
In short, it's clear that firefighters are a vulnerable population with regard to chemicals exposures. The actions that have been put forward to reduce PFAS are geared towards minimizing the exposure to the entire population but also to firefighters.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay. I have two quick questions.
Is there anything to suggest that the contaminated sites on Canadian Armed Forces bases would have been excavated and carried off site for any reason?
Director, Contaminated Sites Division, Department of the Environment
It is common practice in contaminated sites management to exhume contaminated soils and to move those to a certified disposal facility.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay. However, if there was a new construction going on and they didn't have this money available, if they just needed to dig the hole and do something with the soil, would that stay on base, or would they just get rid of it for whoever was willing to pay for the build?
Director, Contaminated Sites Division, Department of the Environment
I'm unable to speak to that.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay.
Along with the contamination and the firefighters, there are also the ranges. There are decades of spent ammunition and lead in the soil, so much so that the ranges are no longer able to be used because there are depressions. If we have to send soldiers off to war or even to monitor a hot zone, it would be nice if they knew how to shoot. However, in Petawawa, they've had to close down a number of the ranges because they're just all sinking from the contamination.
What plans are there to decontaminate these range sites so that they can be rebuilt so that our soldiers can use them to practice shooting?
Director, Contaminated Sites Division, Department of the Environment
I'm not aware of the details of the DND's plans for remediating any of its ranges.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
It's only chemicals, not the spent ammunition or anything that would have leached from the ammunition, that are be ameliorated at this time.
Executive Director, Investment Management Directorate, Office of the Comptroller General, Treasury Board Secretariat
DND would be best placed to speak to the specifics. My general understanding is that DND has a specific program for unexploded ordnance in addition to the federal contaminated sites program.
The DND officials would be best placed to provide the details for those specific sites to you.
Conservative
Liberal
November 26th, 2024 / 5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marie-France Lalonde Liberal Orléans, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to say thank you to the witnesses for their appearance today.
Mr. Cain, I hope you'll be able to answer these questions.
I was made aware of the work the government is doing under the chemicals management plan on the current state of the science for PFAS in Canada. The government made a science-based decision to exempt a class of fluoropolymers. I'm not an expert on those big words. From the scope of that report....
Actually, can you explain to this committee what those substances are and the rationale behind the decisions to isolate that group of chemicals? Could you also please remind us what the next steps are under the process to focus on substances of concern?
Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Department of Health
I can certainly respond on behalf of....
Indeed, there was a recent report that published the scientific findings of the class of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances. Based on that assessment, it determined there was a subclass for which there was a certain amount of uncertainty on both the health and environmental effects of that subclass within that broader class of PFAS chemicals.
There's a certain threshold by which it is determined under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to take regulatory action on this class of chemicals. It was felt that further analysis was required on that subclass prior to making a full scientific determination.
In terms of a path forward, there has been a commitment to add fluoropolymers to the plan of priorities, which is a requirement under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. There is a commitment to undertake an assessment in the near future of that subclass of fluoropolymers to determine whether or not they do have any health or environmental effects.