National Defence Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Our analysts are here, so we can now start.

Thank you all for your patience. Democracy is a strange and wonderful beast at times.

It's my privilege to welcome the Department of National Defence here for our study on contaminated sites.

We have with us Brigadier-General Colleen Forestier; Peter Hammerschmidt, assistant deputy minister, infrastructure and environment; Saleem Sattar, director general, environment and sustainable management; and Major-General Erick Simoneau, deputy commander, military personnel command.

Thank you, all, for joining us.

I understand that Major-General Simoneau and Mr. Hammerschmidt are going to split the opening five minutes.

[Peter Hammerschmidt, Assistant Deputy Minister, Infrastructure and Environment, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, I'll start.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak to the Department of National Defence's approach to managing contaminated sites.

I'm pleased to be joining you today on Anishinabe territory. Major-General Simoneau and I will be splitting our time for opening remarks.

I am here today in my capacity as senior designated official for real property management at National Defence, and I am joined by Saleem Sattar, director general of environment and sustainable management.

I will provide a short overview of the framework under which our contaminated sites program operates and then provide results of our ongoing efforts to clean up contaminated sites on our military bases.

Defence follows the Treasury Board's directive on the management of real property, which requires custodian departments to:follow standards and guidelines endorsed by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment; prioritize remediation risk or risk management activities on sites that pose the highest risk to human health and the environment; and certify annually that the information submitted to the federal contaminated sites inventory is complete and accurate. National Defence has a total of 1,947 sites listed in the inventory, of which 1,201 are closed and 627 are classified as active sites. These are sites where additional assessment, remediation or monitoring activities are required.

To carry out this work, National Defence relies on funding from the federal contaminated sites action plan, or FCSAP. FCSAP is a cost-shared program that funds efforts to reduce the risks these sites pose to human health and the environment. DND has been a partner in FCSAP since its inception in 2005. It has so far received close to $1.2 billion in funding, and we consistently spend over 90% of our available budget year over year.

FCSAP is an enormously valuable program to us. Defence projects that have benefited from FCSAP include the distant early warning line cleanup project, which was completed in 2014 and, at $575 million, the most significant environmental project by the Canadian government at the time. Another example is the Goose Bay remediation project in Labrador, which received $143 million from FCSAP and was completed in 2020. Over the last four years, Defence has spent nearly $273 million managing contaminated sites, and we have closed over 250 sites with this funding. This year, we are on track to spend another $65 million and close a further 50 sites.

In recent years, we have placed special emphasis on sites with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Although PFAS are found in thousands of commercial and household products, their use in firefighting foams has led to PFAS impacts on military installations, as well as off base. This is not unique to Canada, nor is it unique to DND. Many countries and allies are faced with this challenge, and it will continue to occupy more of our focus, going forward.

The Department of National Defence recognizes that past practices have left a legacy of contamination on military bases and other sites where the Canadian Armed Forces have trained or operated. We are committed to responsibly managing the effects of our operational legacy and doing our part to safeguard the health of Canadians.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to your questions. I'll give the rest of the time to Major-General Simoneau.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Major-General Simoneau, there seems to be an inequality in the split here. You have about a minute left.

[Major-General Erick Simoneau, Deputy Commander, Military Personnel Command, Department of National Defence]

Well, I'll make the best use of it, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting us to appear before you today. We truly believe in the importance of the work under way and appreciate the opportunity to contribute to it.

As mentioned earlier, I am Major-General Erick Simoneau, deputy commander of military personnel command. With me is Brigadier-General Colleen Forestier, doctor and director general of health services.

As you know, the Canadian Armed Forces are often deployed overseas and operate in austere and high-risk areas. Therefore, we take the risk analysis very seriously to provide our members with the best possible protections. This includes the responsibility of commanders at all levels to comply with all relevant regulations and policies, including Health Canada standards and guidelines, as well as the use of all available methods to protect our personnel.

From a medical perspective, this is achieved through the Canadian Forces' health services, which operate 33 clinics and subclinics throughout Canada, in addition to two in Europe and some at sea, where our Canadian Armed Forces are tasked to serve. Our health system also holds comprehensive records of our members' health, including any potential risk and exposure to hazards. It provides clinical assessment and treatment that allows us to provide copies of this information directly to our members and Veterans Affairs Canada.

We very closely follow progress made in science and learn from that, but we cannot do this alone. We collaborate with Veterans Affairs Canada, the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research and Statistics Canada, among others, to conduct multi-year population level comparisons of CAF members' health. This allows us to identify potential hazards, mitigate risk and provide the highest level of support for any CAF members in the course of their service.

The health and well-being of our members is our priority, and we are committed to the highest standards of care for those who serve Canada.

Mr. Chair, thank you, I will give you back the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Tolmie, you have six minutes.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you, Chair, for having me back.

Thank you to our witnesses and to those who are serving. I appreciate their service to our country.

I have quite a few questions, and I'm not sure we're going to be able to cover all of them.

Mr. Hammerschmidt, you mentioned legacy.

I think this is an important question I have. The concern I will bring to this table is this: Say there's a base that has been in operation for 60 years. There was a contaminated site on this base that wasn't identified because we've not addressed this until recent years. That site has been built over.

How do you identify built-over contaminated sites? How do you identify sites that were in the past, but are not on your list? What happens in that kind of scenario?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

Thank you for the question.

I think this was gone over a bit in the previous session with witnesses from TBS and Health Canada.

We identify sites by following the standard process endorsed by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. Part of that process is, of course, doing a historical review of all information we have within our repositories. That is step one and is usually the most valuable way to identify the potential for contamination on sites on some of our bases.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you. That's very important for us to know.

We've identified the sites. What about the people who worked on those sites? How do we link that to something that has been, like I said, paved over or moved around? I'm representing Veterans Affairs. We have a veteran who comes in and says, “I am suffering because I worked with toxins or contaminated...”, but it's no longer identified on an existing base.

How do we address this to help that veteran with a claim and identify the source of their medical condition?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

Thank you for the question.

Again, the historical information we have on any given base would probably be the first place to start when trying to make a connection between potential contamination and the particular health circumstances of an individual. That's probably more in the health and safety space than the contaminated site space, although, of course, there could be linkages to a potential contaminated site. There is work we would need to do across various lines in our department, from the contamination side, in order to make connections to the health and safety side, and the medical side, and to identify whether there is any potential linkage there.

I think that's outside of my area of expertise.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

My main concern is that we're able to link people who maybe have health conditions to previous sites that may no longer be there in order to help them validate their claims. I think that's something important we should be looking at.

We talked about health services. We talked about custodians. Who is the custodian of a wing, a base or a unit and says that it's their responsibility?

Also, who has the expertise to identify what a contaminated site is in the military or on a base?

[Brigadier-General Colleen Forestier, Director General, Health Services, Clinical, Department of National Defence]

Thank you for the question.

With regard to the custodian of the base or the wing, from a health services perspective, we provide all the guidance we can and provide the professional expertise in the area of occupational and environmental health hazards. That information and guidance is provided to the base and the wing commanders, who have the overall responsibility for the health and safety of those CAF and DND employees on their bases.

That's a twofold answer to your question. The base commanders have the overall custodianship of the health and safety of the members on their bases or wings. Health services provides the occupational and environmental health expertise on health hazards. It provides that guidance and risk mitigation advice as well as the health care to CAF members serving on that base.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate a little bit here.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You only have 20 seconds to do so.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Okay. I'll be back. I'll save that question for a later round.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That's an excellent choice.

Mr. Collins, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to our witnesses today.

The minister has been very clear that a number of our properties will be transferred to housing providers to assist with affordable housing. There are residential requirements as it relates to contaminants. It's a pretty high bar in different provinces, and I'm sure all of the regulations are different. I'm just wondering what process you go through to ensure that those properties do meet regulations provincially. I'm assuming we're using provincial regulations. That is one of my questions. What process do you undertake when you're going through the decontamination process?

Then I have another question supplemental to that. You mentioned that 1,200 sites have been closed over the years. Environmental regulations are constantly changing. How do we retrospectively go back and investigate some of those properties that might have been decontaminated in the early days, in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the environmental regulations may not have been as strict as they are today?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

Those are great questions. Thank you very much.

I'll address the latter question first. I think you're right. Environmental regulations do evolve over time. We have a really good sense of what contaminants would be in any closed sites. They're closed for a reason. They're closed because they went through a process. That process would have identified the type of contamination that resides at those particular sites.

With any kind of major evolution of an environmental regulation, we would then have the ability to know what we're looking for in terms of those closed sites and would then assess whether we need to reassess that site, reopen it and treat it as required.

In terms of the process around divestment, there is actually a very formulaic process that custodians use in the Government of Canada when we want to divest surplus properties. Part of that process—I think this is point number three, but I could be wrong—is looking at the question of contamination, assessing whether there's contamination on the site and then undertaking any necessary remediation to ensure that the site can be used down the line.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

From a transparency perspective, there's a lot of information online that members of the public can access via the government's website.

In those instances where there is contamination that has gravitated off-site, it becomes a liability issue for the government. Is that right? Certainly, those in the bureaucracy not only have a fiduciary responsibility to limit the cost to the government, but also have an obligation to be transparent and to let the community know that this has happened and to what extent.

Can you talk about how we wrestle internally with our policies as they relate to limiting liability? In communities where residential or commercial industrial properties have now located just outside the fenceline of these legacy properties, how are we transparent with our neighbours in ensuring that they have all the information they need to keep either their employees safe or their families safe?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

Yes, absolutely. Transparency is very important to us. We are committed to being transparent, and particularly about these kinds of issues because, of course, they have the potential to impact Canadians. We've tried to lean forward in that space.

For example, in 2019 we changed some of our policies to ensure that there are now protocols in place to ensure we engage external stakeholders, like landowners with adjacent properties, or communities that might be impacted by off-site migration of dangerous substances. We changed our policy to ensure there are protocols in place and that we engage those stakeholders immediately, in both the instances of the actual off-site migration of substances and the potential off-site migration as well.

For example, we did this precisely in the context of PFAS off-site migration in the context of Saguenay, in the context of North Bay and in the context of Mountainview, by Trenton.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Very quickly, in terms of when the custodian changes and it's no longer the government, and contamination is found on a property, what obligations do we have with the new custodian to play a part in the cleanup of that property?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

I think the government has been very clear in its commitment to addressing those types of situations. It has the federal contaminated sites action plan, but that's for legacy government properties.

For those properties not owned by government, there is something called the shared responsibility framework that's in place. This is a vehicle through which the government can contribute to the addressing of contaminated sites when there were federal activities that led to that contamination.

For example, Defence has at the present time three shared responsibility framework agreements in place. We're negotiating a fourth in order to do exactly that: to be able to contribute to the cleanup of contamination off federal property.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madam Normandin, it's wonderful to see you again.

You have six minutes, please.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's always a pleasure to see you, even if it's by video conference.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

My first question is about the identification of contaminated sites. Last week, the committee heard from the heads of the contaminated sites directorate. One thing they told us was that they didn't have access to registries where each of the sites could indicate the chemicals that had been used in the past. Indeed, it is often several years after their use that we realize that products are contaminants.

How do you go about raising the red flag, for example? When you see that a product is a contaminant, you contact the contaminated sites directorate, but what exactly is the process? Are lists of contaminants that have been used on DND sites provided to you on a regular basis? How does it work in terms of identifying potentially contaminated sites?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

Mr. Chair, I'll return to the process that we put into place for all contaminated sites. There's a very detailed and kind of deliberate way that we move through this.

We first identify potential sites. We can do that based on our own knowledge, but we can do that based on concerns raised from elsewhere. We will then collect and review as much documentation as we possibly can to identify what kinds of activities took place at that site, which could of course then inform the type of contamination that could potentially be there. We look not just at the contaminants, but also at the pathways and the receptors, so in other words, the contamination plus the way in which that contamination could potentially impact human health and the environment.

We'll then do initial testing that will give us a good characterization of what is on the site. That then leads us to the point at which we can classify a site. As you may have heard during the previous session, that classification is very important for the federal contaminated sites inventory. The classification prioritizes that particular site in the inventory and allows you to make informed decisions about how to allocate resources against it.

With that classification, we'll again have a really good sense of how important it is, because it really captures the risk to humans and the environment, and that will inform how we go about informing potential stakeholders, employees or anyone who could potentially be impacted by the contamination.