Evidence of meeting #130 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 pfas.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
There are a lot of conversations about PFAS, for obvious reasons, but as well, I think, Professor Wang, you talked about mercury, microplastics and the oil spills. We've heard about TCE, about hydrocarbons.
Can you talk about how we are determining those longer-term impacts as we see them, especially as we talk about the legacy impacts, but also maybe the non-regulated and those longer-term health impacts? How are we measuring that? How are we looking at that? Do we have enough resources?
Professor, As an Individual
Yes, mercury is the contaminant that I study the most. I think I can use that example.
I'm not pointing fingers and saying that DND is responsible for mercury contamination in the country. It's only a small player in a big, complicated picture, and we do have long-term monitoring from the environment, from water and air, but also from fish. Actually, when it comes to mercury, we have long-term monitoring for people, for human health—for example, blood—especially in women of childbearing age across the country and especially in the north.
Those data are valuable. That could serve to some extent as an example for other contaminants, right? When we're doing this kind of human health study, it would make sense to start to monitor other contaminants.
In terms of emerging contaminants, there are the microplastics and the oil spills, especially in the Arctic. An oil spill per se is not necessarily an emerging contaminant, but in the north, as we start to see shipping throughout the High Arctic, say, and Hudson Bay, those oil spills will happen, whether it's from the ships or when they were refilling communities or when you have a military base operation in the north. Those things do happen.
A lot of this is still in the early stages, as Dr. Sauvé mentioned, so that we don't really have a very good idea of what's going on. That's something we can build on based on the lessons we've learned from mercury and others.
December 5th, 2024 / 8:50 a.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
What are the health risks for contaminants like benzene, toluene or ethylbenzene if an individual were to be exposed to them via groundwater?
Professor, As an Individual
I can address that a little bit, but maybe Dr. Sauvé could add to it.
Yes, that's what we call “BTEX”, right? We're talking about the relatively small organic hydrocarbons. Those often are associated with petroleum oil, let's say, as well as other sources.
Those are not necessarily long-lasting, so if there's any good thing, those typically do not last in the environment for very long, but when you have them in groundwater, they still could persist for a relatively long time. Those are relatively easy to monitor, and it's often relatively easy to identify their sources.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Is groundwater contaminated with PFAS safe to drink?
Full Professor, As an Individual
It depends on how much, because “contaminated” means there's more than the background.... I think it's a question of how much, and the answer varies between what the countries are and what the experts have evaluated. There's a bit of a gray zone, but—
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
All right.
What are the health risks for individuals exposed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that have seeped into the groundwater?
Professor, As an Individual
That's what we call PAHs. Again, those are known or probable human carcinogens, and again, the bottom line is that it's always about the concentrations, right?
As an environmental chemist, I can tell you that if I have good enough detection limits, the chances are that I could detect just about everything in any media. Just because something is showing up in your water or in the air it's not necessarily a huge concern. It's all about the dose, the concentrations. We need long-term monitoring data to see the concentrations and to see how long a specific human population or ecosystem is exposed to that.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay.
We know that during the 1950s and 1960s, in Winnipeg and Suffield, the populations in those areas were sprayed with a cadmium gas. When you go out sampling public water places, are there any traces of cadmium still lingering in the water and, for example, in Winnipeg?
Professor, As an Individual
Yes, I've heard an anecdotal story, and I don't really have the primary literature to back me up, but I think what you mention is probably related to Churchill. I thought I heard a story that could be related to that.
As I've mentioned, in Churchill you had a quite extensive military operation by the U.S. during the rocket-launching era, but I'm actually not aware of such things happening in Winnipeg.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay.
In your testing, is there any evidence in these public water samplings that any population in Canada, no matter how concentrated or maybe remote and dispersed, is being tested upon, other than perhaps the usual agricultural chemicals that are sprayed on farms?
Professor, As an Individual
I think there are a lot of ongoing monitoring programs that would include, say, cadmium, as you mentioned, right? Drinking water is tested, commonly, and for those contaminants, the drinking water guidelines are very well established.
I would assume that the health authorities or whoever is monitoring in a long-term program should have access to that data. One thing, of course, is that often in this country what we hear about in the news is lead. That's not necessarily due to military operations, but it gives you an idea of those monitorings that are ongoing.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Have you found any peculiar substances that were rather inexplicably assigned? Is there any evidence of any low-flying balloons, for example, or any type of dispersal that is non-agricultural and is still occurring somewhere?
Full Professor, As an Individual
There are some pesticides used within forests or for non-agricultural applications. They would still be pesticides, but they would be non-agricultural, and pesticides contain PFAS—
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Is there any evidence of or background in what you have done to suggest that there had been previous military spraying or a use of chemicals in Attawapiskat? The tables are showing us that there is quite a bit of non-natural substances there in the groundwater. I just wondered if that was related to any military activities at some point in time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Ms. Gallant.
Madame Lambropoulos, you have five minutes, please.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here to answer some of our questions.
Mr. Sauvé, you said you had met with representatives of Health Canada. I would like you to tell me about your experience. Were they receptive to what you had to tell them?
Full Professor, As an Individual
I would say that the people at Health Canada were very happy I had contacted them and had shared the information I had. I assume that not all professors send them information. Some of the information sent had not yet been published, so I just asked them not to distribute it outside the department. However, I told them they could use that information to hold discussions about certain problems that were raised. When it comes to questions of public health, I tend to be pretty generous. That said, there is no reciprocity on the part of Health Canada and the Quebec Ministry of the Environment. I send them information when there is a public health problem, but the two departments won't inform me about their new data. It is a one-way street.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Have you found that they were receptive, despite everything? Did they react or take measures to improve the situation, in your opinion?
Full Professor, As an Individual
We had taken almost 500 water samples in Quebec. That was probably the largest database on PFAS in drinking water in Canada. It was very valuable information that the people at Health Canada could have based their recommendations concerning PFAS on.
The recommendations do have to incorporate the effects of PFAS on health, but we have to come up with something that can be managed reasonably. It includes an element of management. We can't say that all Canadians' drinking water is no good and all water has to be treated. We have to do a cost assessment and see whether it is reasonable. The data show, based on what Health Canada proposed, that less than 5% of water systems had water that needed to be treated. It is complicated for the people in La Baie, for example, but these are very special cases. If we know the places where water poses a problem, we can manage that handful of cases.