Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of Bill C-579, An Act to reduce the effects of urban heat islands on the health of Canadians, sponsored by my colleague from Honoré-Mercier. The purpose of the bill is to address the effects of higher temperatures on large urban areas. I too live in a large urban area, in Montreal.
This is how Bill C-579 defines “urban heat island”:
“urban heat island” means a built-up area in an urban environment in which the average air temperature is markedly greater—as much as 12 degrees Celsius hotter—than that in nearby rural areas.
As I said, my own riding of Westmount—Ville-Marie, which is heavily urbanized, is a good example of a region that is affected adversely by this phenomenon.
As the city of Montreal grew, forested areas and vegetation were cut down to create office buildings, parking lots, and residential complexes. These kinds of structures absorb heat much more readily and result in localized rises in temperature.
Heat islands are forming on the earth's surface and in the atmosphere. On hot summer days, the temperature on the outer surface of buildings, in parking lots and on roadways can often be between 27 and 50 degrees Celsius higher than the air temperature. In the evening, this accumulation of heat in urban infrastructure is released, thereby keeping the air temperature elevated. The higher temperatures of urban heat islands, particularly in the summer, can have a definite impact on the environment and the quality of life of a community.
Urban heat islands have a number of effects, including increased energy consumption, higher levels of air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions, negative impacts on human health and increased discomfort, and degradation of water quality. The average number of premature deaths in Toronto due solely to extreme heat is estimated at 120. That number could be a lot higher, because mortality rates increase sharply during extremely hot summers.
High daytime temperatures can seriously compromise people's health when the mercury does not drop enough in the evening and when air pollution levels are high. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, extreme heat can cause respiratory difficulties, heat cramps and exhaustion, non-fatal heat stroke and heat-related mortality.
An assessment rendered from the 2010 urban heat island summit in Toronto, which was attended by local decision-makers, heat researchers and industry representatives, concluded that the issue could not be tackled by a single measure or by a single municipal department. This is why it is important to have federal government leadership.
The bill has several objectives.
First, the Minister of Health and the Minister of the Environment must establish a national strategy to reduce the effects of urban heat islands that includes the following elements: (a) create a public awareness campaign on air quality and heat islands; (b) develop an inventory, prioritizing heat islands; (c) develop action plans that must address: (i) the management of urban biodiversity; (ii) the promotion of community green projects; (iii) the protection of natural areas; (iv) the establishment of greening areas to be developed; and (v) the promotion of public transit and sustainable transportation.
Within 90 days of this act coming into force, the minister must convene a national conference establishing this strategy.
This bill focuses on the health and safety of Canadians, as well as the health of the environment. It aims to make the Canadian government a world leader by urging it to work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and specialists to come up with an action plan.
I know it might seem terrible for this government to have to work in partnership with the provinces and scientists, or to have to play a leadership role when it comes to the environment, but one can always hope that the government might actually change its position on something.
Many municipalities have begun tackling the problem of heat islands, but their efforts have been scattered and are not nearly substantial enough to produce real results. Some measures taken involve increasing the amount of vegetation and the number of trees, creating more parks, building green rooftops and rooftop gardens, installing cool roofs and using cool pavement.
Luckily, there are potential solutions that can help mitigate the effects of urban heat islands.
As Dorothy Maguire, a Ph.D student in natural resources sciences at McGill University in my riding, wrote in a recent article:
...researchers have found that the effects of heat islands can be reduced through innovative urban planning and design that increases the amount of urban green space! Vegetation in the city cools surface temperatures by increasing the amount of heat reflected back into the atmosphere (called the albedo effect). The same way that we sweat to cool our bodies, vegetation reflects sunlight and releases water into the atmosphere to cool the city down. Trees also provide shade, reducing the exposure of heat-absorbing surfaces to sunlight and giving us city-dwellers a cool place to relax. We need to encourage strategies to reduce the urban heat island effect in Montreal, like developing green roofs, preserving existing natural areas and reforesting degraded ones.
Measures similar to those proposed in this bill were implemented in the early 2000s and have been quite successful. There is no doubt that the phenomenon of urban heat islands is a problem in urban centres. The targeted interventions set out in the bill should help improve public health, environmental quality and energy efficiency in urban areas, as well as in surrounding suburbs and rural areas.
We need to deal with this issue, which affects environmental health, in order to help our society move toward more sustainable and effective solutions.
Studies have all shown the same thing: the presence of urban heat islands has harmful effects. For example, they negatively affect water quality, increase atmospheric pollution, increase heat stress and create an environment that is conducive to the spread of vector-borne diseases.
As I mentioned earlier, there are many documented examples that show how effective green projects are in reducing the effects of urban heat islands, increasing energy efficiency and improving public health and general environmental conditions in cities.
This is an important bill that focuses on both the environment and health, two issues that are important to me and my constituents.
I would like to thank the member for introducing this bill, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.