National Defence Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2024

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thanks for your generosity, sir.

We'll be hearing from Veterans Affairs folks shortly about their responsibility to provide compensation to CAF members who got sick from exposure during their service. We'll be hearing from a lot of people living on military bases who became sick through exposure.

Can you tell this committee what responsibility the Department of National Defence has to take care of their employees, not only to avoid exposure to contaminants but also to provide compensation for illness caused by exposure?

[MGen Erick Simoneau]

Mr. Chair, I'll take this one.

Once we know there is a situation on one of the bases where we are the custodian, we document everything and take appropriate mitigation actions in order to protect our population.

In any regard, should a CAF member become sick for whatever reason, we always treat them. We have our own health services that replicate what the provinces have. We have the whole spectrum and jurisdiction to care for our personnel, and we do.

A situation that may be of interest is when a symptom or medical situation reveals itself after the release of a CAF member from the forces. Since we document everything, we know where our members have been posted. If a site reveals itself, we will be able to match the two. We communicate that information. We always have a hotline with Veterans Affairs colleagues. They know exactly where our members were. That's a good question to ask them after us. If they can link it to service, regardless of the cause, they will be inclined to provide this. They're very proactive in that domain.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Does this remain the same for civilians?

I would also like to ask if there are any proactive measures. Say somebody works on a site, and you already know it's contaminated. Whether they do or do not show any symptoms when they retire, there is a possibility. Is there any proactive measure for that?

I was also asking about civilian employees.

[MGen Erick Simoneau]

I'm not the expert on the civilian side. However, our wing and base health and safety committees represent the whole population on base, including the civilians. When we learn about a situation on one of the bases, we always take the appropriate mitigation measures, which guide the public service to espouse the same measures to protect their personnel.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Tolmie, go ahead for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Mathyssen tried to steal my thunder earlier on.

I am going to circle back and ask the question again.

Becoming a base commander or a wing commander is no small feat. We have highly intelligent officers who are running bases, so this is no discredit to their intelligence. Their expertise is in the training that they've received throughout their career. Now we're dealing with toxic chemicals that are on the base, and they need to learn how to identify that.

Brigadier-General Forestier, you mentioned that you give them information to help them identify. My concern is this: Can they overlook that? Is that something that is either overlooked or ignored? Maybe they have budgetary restraints and don't want to deal with the chemical issues, so instead of dealing with them right away, they want to push them off.

How do we address this? How do you address my concerns that I have with these questions?

[MGen Erick Simoneau]

Once we have the advice from the medical experts, but also from the environmental officers, which we discussed earlier, as well as from the health and safety advisers—that's what the wing and base committees are all about—we would share that information.

A wing commander would never sit on information received. They most likely don't have all the resources or the knowledge, but they can reach back to the ADM(IE) or to the NDHQ matrix in order to enable themselves.

It's really important that we realize they're not alone on their wings and bases, although they're the face and the voice to the people. They always have the NDHQ backing trying to enable them through a plan of action, through frameworks, through medical advice and through health and safety advice also.

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

Let's say a wing commander comes in and is there for two years. Then the wing commander moves on, is there for two years and then moves on again for two years. How do we know there's follow-through, that the contaminated sites are being addressed, and that the sites are not slipping through the cracks?

[MGen Erick Simoneau]

I'll take this one, Mr. Chair.

As you suggested in your opening comments for this second round, it's no small feat to become a wing commander or a base commander. The onboarding process is very thorough and very regimented. This element—the health and safety and the medical—is a big portion of a handover between two commanders. This cannot fall between the cracks. Someone cannot blame ignorance on those issues because those files are documented and are passed on to the next commander.

Also, as I mentioned, they can reach back. Those connections with the NDHQ, with the mother ship, have occurred, and they will continue with the next commander to be implemented as required.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Hammerschmidt, do you want to comment?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

I was going to complement that answer just to say, and Erick alluded to it, that the institutional continuity is there at NDHQ, including my team and other resources as well.

In terms of general operations, our RP, our real property operations group, in all of its presences across the country, does regular testing, as we're required to do under the Canada Labour Code, for air quality and water quality at our sites. There is a continuity of practice that is going to be happening regardless of the change in command at bases.

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

Thank you for your answer.

At our last meeting, there were some concerns about chemicals that may be used by the military but may not be on the Environmental Protection Act list.

How are we addressing that? Can you give me an answer? I'm sure you've watched the recordings and are prepared for us to ask that question at this meeting. There are weapons chemicals that the military has used. The EPA has its list, but are these chemicals being identified, inventoried and added to this EPA list?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

Yes, it's less a contaminated sites issue than a health and safety issue, but nevertheless, we do maintain lists of agents and any toxic substances that we work with that could be harmful.

As an institution, we have responsibilities under the Canada Labour Code to ensure that all of those are well identified and well managed, and that there are processes and protocols for dealing with those chemicals, as well as storing them. There are processes in place that we follow on all of our bases across the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Tolmie.

The final questions will be from Ms. Lapointe.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hammerschmidt, you mentioned in your opening remarks that allied countries are facing similar challenges.

Can you tell this committee how our allies have responded to this issue? Are there lessons we've learned from what they've been doing or have done?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

Yes, there are similarities among our countries. We have similar regimes in place, at the end of the day. Most of the allies we work with closely have similar programs to fix that. These are centrally controlled programs their defence departments draw on to address contamination on defence-related sites. Because a lot of our allies have similar types of contamination, we can draw lessons from how they deal with and remediate those contaminants.

In terms of the way they prioritize contaminated sites, there are some great similarities there, because they also prioritize the potential for impacts on humans and the environment. It's a very similar regime in terms of how they approach contaminants and the need to address those contaminants. As I mentioned earlier, PFAS is one of the emerging contaminants that is driving a lot of concern and a lot of the work.

Science is science regardless of borders. We can draw on a lot of that from our allies.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Can you run us through the process of removing contaminants from sites? I expect there would be factors that probably make some of the removals even more complicated.

I have a part B to that question. What measures do you take to minimize and mitigate the risk to our Canadian Armed Forces members and the surrounding communities, if that's applicable?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

Every site is different in its own way because of the nature of the contaminant and the nature of the site itself. They'll all be site-dependent. However, in terms of typical remediation work, there's a lot of....

Regarding maritime environments, I was in CFB Esquimalt in Esquimalt harbour last week. I saw the results of a lot of the work they've been doing. There, it's a dredging operation. All of the material on the bottom of the harbour is dredged up, screened and cleaned. Then, if necessary, the cleaned-up material is pushed back into the harbour. Over time, we've been able to make some very significant progress in Esquimalt harbour by using that method.

On land, there will also be the screening of material. Soil is either disposed of off-site or cleaned and returned to the site, depending, again, on the contaminant and the nature of the precise site.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

What about the environmental impacts of these contaminants? How are they measured by the department, and what steps do you take, again, to minimize or mitigate the risk to the environment?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

A remediation type of activity can happen a few ways.

You can remediate by dealing with the contaminant on the site. I won't even try to get into any kind of scientific explanation of the process there, but you can deal with it on the site, or you can dispose of it.

Then there are also risk mitigation activities to block off the site or make it somehow inaccessible. There are other types of risk mitigation activities that could be undertaken.

I don't know whether Mr. Sattar has a few more examples, but there are multiple ways to deal with this.

[Saleem Sattar]

There are two main tools we use to assess risk: a human health risk assessment and an ecological risk assessment.

The ecological tool helps us identify impacts on flora and fauna. We look at plants, animals and fish. That ecological assessment helps us then design mitigation measures and solutions for contaminated sites.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

In what way can you involve communities in the work you're doing?

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

We can involve them from a contracting or economic perspective, in the sense that communities could be involved in the actual remediation work itself. They will be engaged if there's any potential for migration, or any potential impact of contaminants on the local communities. We can engage communities on their views about future potential uses of those sites.

At the end of the day, they live there. They need a voice in how those sites could potentially be used once they're cleaned up.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

[Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I think it bears repeating. We could recommend Sudbury as a terrific example of a remediation site.

Before I let you go, the Department of Transport, when they're intending to acquire airport lands or some such thing, puts a notice on everybody's title within a certain proximity to the intended site. Is there a similar program with the military when there's an intention to acquire a site where there's a notification to the proximate landowners that there will be a military base there? It's not just contamination. It's also a significant impact on the neighbourhood.