[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, April 16, 1996

.0840

[English]

The Chairman: Colleagues and ladies and gentlemen, the witnesses today, as announced, are from the Department of the Environment. They are Ruth Wherry, a scientist and the director of interparliamentary relations; Ed Norrena, director general, technology advancement directorate; and James Riordan, director of the national office of pollution prevention.

Welcome to the committee. We are looking forward to your presentation. There will be questions afterwards, as usual. Who would like to start?

Mr. Ed J. Norrena (Director General, Environmental Technology, Advancement Directorate, Department of the Environment): I would.

I would like to first thank the chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and the distinguished members of that committee for having us here to discuss CEPA with you once again.

You've introduced the team we have here to talk to you today. My intention was first to have James Riordan speak to you for five or ten minutes on pollution prevention and then open it up for discussion from the members of the committee. Following that, I would have Ruth talk to you about the administrative section of the government response and again follow up with some discussion of that. After that, I gather that some elements needed to be discussed from the last session we had with Ruth Wherry a week or so ago. It's at your discretion what you want to do with us at that point.

[Translation]

We are pleased to be here to discuss CEPA. Thank you very much.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Norrena, before we go to Mr. Riordan, you may want to announce the nice gift you have for each member of the committee this afternoon.

Mr. Norrena: Yes. This afternoon we will be delivering the text that Ruth is - We thought Ruth was going to carry them all here for us this morning, but we will have a taxi or a courier service bring sufficient copies for the committee today. Basically it's a listing of the 400 submissions we've received so far from various respondents to the government response to CEPA. There is no analysis in this document; it's purely a copy of what we received.

The Chairman: With Ruth's autograph on it if requested?

Mr. Norrena: Of course. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. James Riordan (Director, National Office of Pollution Prevention, Department of the Environment): I've handed out a brief overhead presentation, five or so slides in both languages, français au verso. I thought I'd give a few highlights from the government response.

Basically the government response supports the committee's recommendations regarding pollution prevention. It supports the committee's recommendations that pollution prevention should be a guiding principle within the act, that pollution prevention should be the priority approach to environmental protection, and that pollution prevention should be reflected as described by the committee in the hierarchy of approaches, a diagram at the back of this presentation.

We had the fortune of developing a federal pollution prevention strategy and policy while the committee was having its hearings across the country last year. The government benefited greatly from the input we received both through our own public consultations and through the consultations of the committee. Many of the conclusions that we came to in parallel support one another, and I think that's a positive thing.

The government response proposes the definition of pollution prevention as it appears in the first slide. That definition, as I said, resulted from consultations with the public at varying levels, the private sector, non-government organizations, labour organizations and communities. We believe it is certainly complementary in intent to the definition proposed by the parliamentary committee.

.0845

We also agree with the benefits. The government supports the parliamentary committee's review of the benefits of pollution prevention, both the environmental and health benefits as well as the economic benefits that are resultant from the implementation of pollution prevention practices.

The benefits that are real and that are happening today in areas where people are applying pollution prevention are listed here. When talking about pollution prevention we like to talk about the analogy that's used in Creating Opportunity, the health analogy or the analogy to health care - that is, we prefer to be dealing with the causes of pollution rather than continually dealing with the symptoms. That's the essence of pollution prevention, looking at the causes at the start of the processes rather than controlling or remediating after there's a problem or emissions.

I'll move to the next slide. The government has responded to all of the committee's recommendations with regard to pollution prevention. I mentioned earlier that pollution prevention should be a guiding principle in the act. We agree with that. There should be national standards. This is discussed at some length in the government response not only for pollution prevention standards but also for guidelines and codes of practice of all types that deal with pollution.

Pollution prevention planning has become an important tool in achieving improved environmental performance and we're very pleased the committee is recommending pollution prevention plans for CEPA toxic substances.

The importance of tracking activity in the area of pollution prevention is very important. We're proposing, as the committee did, to include a tracking mechanism for pollution prevention activities on the national pollutant release inventory.

Enforcement measures should consider pollution prevention particularly where there is an infraction of CEPA. We're currently working with the provinces and the territories to design a national recognition program for activities in this area.

Finally, the committee suggested we further explore what's possible in the area of voluntary approaches. We're suggesting we continue to do this and perhaps that we find some legislative base for this activity in the Department of the Environment Act, as opposed to within the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

It's important to note that in the modernized CEPA what we're talking about is a section on pollution prevention, a guiding principle on pollution prevention, but also in each of the other sections. For example, in the toxics area and in the area of environmental emergencies, pollution prevention plays a very important role and is reflected as such in the government response.

I have a copy of the pollution prevention strategy I mentioned earlier. I will distribute this at the conclusion of my comments. This was approved by cabinet in June 1995. It sends the policy direction that was required and is required with regard to where this government intends to go with pollution prevention. What's possible with CEPA is the regulatory backstop to ensure pollution prevention is advanced as the priority approach to environmental protection in Canada.

There are five sectors within which we're working on pollution prevention. Within the federal government pollution prevention plays an important role in greening of government initiative. With the provinces we're developing a national strategy that builds on the federal strategy.

With the private sector, a number of partnerships are under way with a number of major sectors like the Motor Vehicles Manufacturers' Association, the big three, right down to the dry-cleaning sector and the printing and graphics sectors, which are addressing small and medium-sized enterprises.

The committee recommended the government institute an information clearing house. We started work on that at the end of the last fiscal year and we're continuing to work on that. It will be an electronic means for people at all levels of society to access information on pollution prevention.

Finally, we're incorporation pollution prevention into our international agenda. A good example is with the Organization of the American States. Those are 35 countries in this hemisphere, all the countries with the exception of Cuba. We've struck a partnership for pollution prevention that will help us enable other countries to begin to work in this area of pollution prevention.

.0850

One side benefit is that some of the pollution reaching our Arctic, for example, originates in other countries, and we are of the opinion that if we can assist or enable these countries to avoid some of the mistakes we've made in the past by adopting pollution prevention as an approach to their environment protection, then perhaps we can prevent the long-range transport of some of these toxics into Canada.

If we could move to the next slide, the one with the circles on it, the circles and the triangles - This is the intention: the left side is supposed to characterize the fact that we are doing prevention now and a fair amount of control and remediation. What we'd like to do is reverse that where we're doing more prevention, some control and some remediation.

As I said in the opening comments, there are two thrusts: one is to improve environmental performance and the other is to advance Canadian competitiveness.

One example I might give is the pulp and paper sector, which a number of years ago was emitting 500 grams of severe toxics in the dioxins and furans. With strong legislation and regulation and by implementing pollution prevention practices, the pulp and paper industry managed to reduce those emissions from 500 grams to four grams, by 97% to 98%.

In the process that sector became much more competitive. Some of their European markets were reneging on contracts because of the types of activities they were using in the production of paper. So by implementing pollution prevention and by improving their environmental performance, their product became more competitive. Last year they profited $4.4 billion.

The last slide actually came out of the text of the House of Commons standing committee report, page 49. It talks about what I alluded to earlier, that pollution prevention should be a guiding principle. It should be the priority approach to environmental protection. It talks about the hierarchy of approaches, the definition, and some of the policy tools and practices we're proposing. I would say the government response fully supports this type of activity. It even has at the top the triangles with the shift from the current approach to the new approach.

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will end my comments and be open to any questions you might have.

Sorry, Mr. Chairman, I have one more comment. It's important to note the response in this document of the industry associations and environmental and health groups, just to give you some flavour of the responses.

By and large the industry associations and companies that responded to the government response are of the opinion the minister should not have authority to require preparation and implementation of pollution prevention plans. They support a primarily voluntary approach to achieving pollution prevention and believe the government should be consistent and harmonized with the pollution prevention requirements. They speak about a definition of pollution prevention that should include reuse and recycling.

The environmental groups on the other hand believe the minister should have the authority to require pollution prevention plans, both for preparation and implementation for all CEPA toxic substances as recommended by the standing committee, that the government should be consistent with requirements for pollution prevention planning, and that the definition of pollution prevention should be more stringent and include the avoidance of the generation in use of toxic substances.

So it was important you have some idea of some of the public response to the government response to your committee report. Thank you.

The Chairman: Are there any further comments?

.0855

Mr. Norrena: Not at this time, Mr. Chair. Perhaps we could take some questions from your members.

The Chairman: All right. I think we are ready for that.

Before we start, let me indicate that our researchers have prepared a comparative study between the recommendations of this committee in the CEPA report and the proposals by the government. That study will be ready in both official languages on Thursday of this week and will immediately be distributed to members. I would urge you to have a look at it, because it will give you an idea of the progress made by the government in relation to the very progressive proposals by this committee.

Having said that, I will start with Mr. Forseth.

Mr. Forseth (New Westminster - Burnaby): Thank you very much.

I'd like to start with a general question. The broad public impression is that the federal level of government administration and the provinces are sometimes in a wrestling match with each other, especially around the CCME. I'm wondering what you'd have to say as to how we can use CEPA and its intended changes and improvements to bring the levels of government together to protect the environment.

How do you see what we're talking about today working for better end results rather than just continuing levels of bureaucracy working with each other? We come into committee and talk, and yet stuff is still happening out in the community. I'm looking at CCME, but also beyond that, to actually delivering something on the ground in a more cooperative way.

Mr. Norrena: I take it from your question that this isn't specific to the pollution prevention stuff James was talking about. It's more of a general question as to how we're going to deal with it.

Ruth will be talking about the administrative section, which deals with federal-provincial relations and how we work together. As you're well aware, the environmental protection field is a joint federal, provincial and municipal responsibility. In fact it's everybody's responsibility.

There is overlap, and in some cases there is duplication. A little bit of overlap is not a problem. We've been working with the provinces over the last two years to find a spot in CEPA where they might see themselves in CEPA itself. They have just recently put to us a position, which we're analysing at this point in time, that allows for national delivery of several aspects of the renewed CEPA.

Mr. Forseth: May I just stop you there for a moment? When you say ``they'', specifically who are you talking about?

Mr. Norrena: We're talking about four provinces in particular: British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick. They met, spent a day in a workshop and then introduced it to us. They've since introduced the proposal to the federal-provincial advisory committee we have, which supports the management of CEPA itself. We're looking into it.

What's important is the fact that the federal government does not lose accountability for its CEPA responsibilities. But what's important, too, is that the people with the talents best suited for certain activities in the environmental protection field are available to do those, but not losing any accountability for what the Minister of the Environment for Canada has responsibility for. He will maintain that responsibility.

Mr. Riordan: With regard to pollution prevention specifically, in November 1993 the CCME was able to facilitate an agreement by all parties to the council to declare a national commitment to pollution prevention. We've since been building on that national commitment.

.0900

When the federal government announced its federal strategy on pollution prevention, there was an interest from a number of provinces to develop a national policy. The importance of a national policy is for us to be all saying relatively the same thing and sending relatively the same directions. They won't be identical, but they'll certainly be consistent, predictable, long-term directions. It will be those kinds of directions. It's understood by provincial governments, as well as the federal government, that if we're contradicting one another, it doesn't do anyone any good.

So there's been work in this area of pollution prevention since before this national commitment in 1993. As I said earlier, we're currently negotiating an awards program and a national strategy, as well as where we can define specific roles and responsibilities to avoid any duplication, which is what Ed was alluding to.

Take one example, which I mentioned earlier. The motor vehicle manufacturers agreement includes both the Ontario government and the federal government so that we would avoid any overlap or duplication.

Thank you.

Mr. Norrena: Mr. Chair, this is a topic that could probably run on for about three or four hours and would be very valuable for all of us to discuss. I guess what I'd like to mention is the fact that, over the last two years, there has been something that I guess some people have fondly called - other people have not so fondly called it this - the EMFA or harmonization discussions.

One of the elements that these four provinces have introduced is the possibility of using one of the schedules in that EMFA, environmental management framework and agreement, which is the one that deals with policy legislation and regulation, as being a way of dealing with some of the principle elements of CEPA, such as the air pollution side of it.

It's to look at it from the point of view of what the problem is, defining the issues and the externalities and so forth, and identifying who should be doing what within that particular project area - the air pollution side - within what timeframe and with what legislation. It's all those aspects of it.

It's looking at a particular topic through national eyes, as opposed to federal or provincial eyes, to see who is best suited to do what in that particular area, but not losing any accountability or responsibility. That was made very clear.

The Chairman: So the EMFA is a different process, is it?

Mr. Norrena: That's exactly it, sir.

The Chairman: Who is in charge of it?

Mr. Norrena: Who is in charge of it? There is absolutely nobody in charge of it at this point in time. It's purely a proposal that has been presented by the provinces to us at this point.

The Chairman: Who is examining the proposal?

Mr. Norrena: The environmental protection service - Tony Clarke, myself, Vic Shantora.

The Chairman: I'm sorry for the interruption. Carry on.

Ms Ruth Wherry (Director, Intergovernmental and Legislative Accountability, Environment Canada): I was only going to say that if you wanted to go into this discussion on federal-provincial and administration, that's exactly what I was going to present and give a bit more, instead of always having to explain that a bit of it was in here. Do you want me to go ahead and do this right now?

The Chairman: It would certainly remove some questions from the minds of members. It would allow members to ask probing questions, perhaps, on the subject matter. This is why I was inviting further presentations earlier, but I thought you had completed that. If you're going to make a presentation on federal-provincial relations, by all means, do it now.

Ms Wherry: Okay.

The Chairman: Mr. Steckle, do you mind if I come back to you?

Mr. Steckle (Huron - Bruce): Not at all.

The Chairman: Is that all right?

Mr. Steckle: That's fine.

Ms Wherry: In the current CEPA from 1988, there's section 6 in the introduction of the legislation, which requires the minister to create a federal-provincial advisory committee for the obligatory consultation on regulations related to the release of toxic substances, storage, handling, transport, the construction and inspection of disposal sites, and any other environmental matter of mutual interest.

There's also the authority for the government to sign administrative agreements with provinces and territories. These are work-sharing agreements. Part II, which is toxic substances, part V, which is international air pollution, also allow for equivalency agreements with the provinces. That means that where there is a regulation of equivalent effect, the federal regulation would not apply. The provincial one would apply, but the federal government would still be accountable.

.0905

The government response to the committee's report is proposing a guiding principle, which would be cooperation with the governments of the provinces, territories and aboriginal peoples in implementing interjurisdictional environmental measures, as well as retaining the administrative and equivalency agreements that can be made with provinces and territories.

There is a proposal to extend the authority to do administrative agreements with aboriginal peoples and equivalency agreements with aboriginal peoples who have self-government regimes relating to aboriginal lands, who have authority to enact and enforce their own environmental laws and who have enacted such laws.

The government response is also proposing to change the federal-provincial advisory committee into a national advisory committee, which would include representation from the provinces, territories, federal government and aboriginal peoples.

In terms of some of the other recommendations the standing committee made, there would be sunset clauses in administrative and equivalency agreements. They would expire five years after coming into force.

The proposed agreements would be published in part I of the Canada Gazette. There would be a 60-day comment period and it would be referred to the standing committee for comment on these agreements during the 60-day period. The minister would publish an accounting of how all comments were handled in part I of the Canada Gazette and the Governor in Council would approve the final text of agreements. The final text would be published in part I of the Canada Gazette.

I'll just give you a little bit of the reaction and the comments we received on the government response.

We have written submissions from the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C. Hydro, Manitoba Hydro, Ontario Hydro and Quebec Hydro. They believe the federal role is too strong and interventionist. They believe provinces and territories should have responsibility for dealing with environmental problems. They strongly support harmonization between federal, provincial and territorial governments.

They support linking CEPA with the CCME environmental management framework agreement. They want the federal government limited to issuing global direction on environmental matters following consultation with provinces and territories. They want CEPA to provide for environmental protection on aboriginal lands. They believe that aboriginal involvement in administering CEPA should come slowly. They want CEPA to provide for first nations to take responsibility for environmental management of their lands and resources where possible.

We've had bilateral meetings and conference calls with the provinces and territories - I'm sorry, I don't have it to give out - since the government response was released. They basically want those parts of a renewed CEPA that call for national action to adopt wording that reflects the concepts and principles of the CCME environmental management framework in areas such as pollution prevention, objectives and guidelines, and codes.

British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick have submitted a proposal for a partnership approach to toxic substances management under a renewed CEPA. It would provide cradle-to-grave management of toxic substances under one umbrella. The federal-provincial advisory committee under CEPA would be the mechanism. It would require new authorities in CEPA to allow agreements that go beyond administrative and equivalency agreements, such as authority to have provincial officials designated to work under CEPA.

Alberta says it will probably support the proposal. Northwest Territories and Newfoundland like the proposal but caution that the small jurisdictions would not have the resources to actively participate in the partnership.

The current status of this proposal is that the provinces and territories are continuing discussions among themselves, and when they have more of an idea of where they stand officially - because this is an informal proposal at this stage - we would have a bilateral meeting with them, probably in early May.

.0910

As Ed mentioned, we in the department currently are working on how we would respond to such a proposal and how we would make sure federal accountability was retained, etc.

Then there are the industry associations and companies. Their comments on the administration part and the government response is very similar to the provinces' and territories'. Few commented on the proposals related to aboriginal lands. Those who did were positive to the proposals for aboriginal involvement and equivalency agreements with aboriginal peoples, but they believe it should happen slowly.

As to the environmental and health groups and concerned citizens, the general consensus is that the federal government should play a strong leadership role in environmental protection. They're very concerned that the federal government will devolve its authority and accountability to provinces and territories. They believe provinces and territories cannot, or are not willing to, adequately protect the environment and human health of Canadians.

The majority believe CEPA should not be linked up with the proposed CCME environmental management framework agreement. They believe intergovernmental harmonization should focus on gaps in environmental protection.

Few commented on aboriginal lands. Those who did believe aboriginal people should be represented on the proposed national advisory committee and the federal government should be allowed to sign environmental management agreements with self-governing aboriginal peoples.

The last set of comments is from the aboriginal peoples. They reflect the comments of the environmental and health groups related to federal, provincial, and territorial roles and responsibilities in environmental protection. They want to be involved in intergovernmental harmonization efforts. They want to be represented on the proposed national advisory committee. They have nominated 18 representatives so far - a first nation representative from each province, an Inuit representative from the two territories, from northern Quebec and northern Labrador, and two Métis representatives from the western provinces.

They want to create their own environmental protection regimes and environmental laws outside of CEPA that would affect aboriginal lands, in keeping with self-determination policy. They want CEPA to provide for first nations to take responsibility, where possible, for environmental management of their lands and resources, and they want authority to prevent negative industrial activity. If they cannot, then they want compensation for the damage caused on aboriginal lands.

The Chairman: Mr. Norrena.

Mr. Norrena: What I would like to do first is apologize to the committee for not having copies of this available. We're in the process of translating them. We will have them circulated to the committee. There are probably about a half dozen slides that would be very useful to the committee at this point in time. Please accept my apologies.

On the proposal we started talking about earlier, the one the provinces have given us, I should also indicate to you that we have looked at the impact of that, at least from an initial point of view, to the government response and to the potential drafting instructions that might come from it. At this point in time we don't see any large changes, with the exception of identifying the possibility of having provincial officers designated as CEPA officers. It's more a matter of how we do the business as opposed to the accountabilities. The accountabilities would be retained within CEPA itself.

The Chairman: It would appear to me, from what Ms Wherry told us in her reporting on these responses, that there is a polarization of views on the government proposals, and that both the government proposals and the committee reports are somewhere in between the two poles. Is that a correct assumption?

Mr. Norrena: Yes. I meant to give you a bit of a story on what we received.

We have received 400 submissions. You've seen the size of the document itself. The reaction from all sides has been all over the place. It was almost as if the government response was not something we'd retained a balance on.

Everybody has all of a sudden given up on the things they've agreed to. There's a bit of a mêlée out there. Some of the things that we felt were nailed down and agreed to by all parties, all of a sudden the parties have pulled back.

.0915

It leads us to believe that what we have, as you concluded, is in fact a balance. We must continue to forge ahead to maintain that particular balance in the government response.

Some of the issues that are very contentious at this time are the right to sue and pollution prevention. Other issues are -

Ms Wherry: From the industry perspective?

Mr. Norrena: - waste management, the definition of recycling, the role of provinces. It's a difficult balance at this time.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Forseth, would you like to conclude your intervention on the first round?

Mr. Forseth: I think I'll conclude it there for the first round, to give others a chance. I'll come back. Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Steckle, please.

Mr. Steckle: This is a very complex issue. What I see emerging from this, which is not surprising, is that those who end up paying or taking remedial measures to deal with industrial waste and pollution are finding themselves polarized on one side, with government on the other. The environmentalists are finding themselves somewhere in between, polarized as well.

How are we going to bring these people together? The environmentalists want a lot of things done quickly. Those who are going to be doing the paying or taking the corrective measures, industry perhaps - if you want to use that group for now - are saying that because they're doing the paying, they want to do it at a pace that may be different from what government wants.

Some are saying they want government not to have the strong iron hand; others are saying they want government to have a firmer hand in this whole issue. How do we find ourselves coming to some sort of a common - Some people want a volunteer movement; others want mandatory measures brought in. How do we rationalize all of that? This is going to be - and it's not unusual to see this happening, it's rather common - sort of the NIMBY kind of thing: everyone else but me.

The Chairman: Perhaps it is not something that can be rationalized, because it is a political question.

Mr. Steckle: I know, that's why I asked the question.

The Chairman: Therefore, by definition -

Mr. Steckle: They're not the politicians, we are, and we want some answers for these political questions.

The Chairman: Exactly. You're causing some embarrassment among our witnesses, but if they want to tackle it, by all means they can go ahead.

Mr. Norrena: The way I would tackle it is to say it is in fact politics. This is the politics of environmental protection. The bunch of us here with Environment Canada and a number of you around the table were involved in the run-up to the development of the government response. It was not an easy run-up. There were many, many discussions on various issues. We came to conclusions on those issues; people gave on one side and gave on the other side, and the happy medium that appears in the government response is what we did achieve.

When I say it's the politics of the issue, I mean that both sides now are saying that if they don't push hard on this side, the others are going to push hard on that side and will swing over this way, so the forces have to be kept up there. The tension has to be there. That's what we`re involved in right now. It's the tension.

I was absolutely and totally surprised to see a document that thick come at this time, but it also demonstrates the value of the work that was done earlier in coming to the government response. An awful lot was on the table at that time and an awful lot of agreement was made at that time to put it to bed. This is certainly the politics of environmental protection at play.

The Chairman: That applies, Mr. Steckle, to any other measure that touches the core of economic and social interests. If you read the historical records of the time when the idea of abolishing child labour was first ventilated, you would be surprised to see the polarization then as well. Whenever you make certain progress, if you like, and certainly you touch upon existing activities - by which I mean human and industrial activities, which are also economic - then you are bound to face a polarization of views. Therefore the rationalization you are looking for can only come from a political perspective.

.0920

Mr. Steckle: If I may go on and be specific about an issue, you mentioned the partnership we have with our North American neighbours on issues of pollution prevention. What about the issue of the kinds of controls we have on ships that are allowed to frequent our coastal waters in terms of prevention of a further happening such as the Exxon Valdez? Recently another shipping disaster - tremendous magnitude of pollution. How do we control that? I think that is a controllable. I think there are ways we can control that, prevent it from happening. But we're not preventing it from happening. It's continuing to happen. How can we bring about measures? I think these are places where government can act and where we need to act, where we can make an immediate impact on the ecosystem when it comes to our coastal waters.

Mr. Norrena: There are two parts to the answer to your question. Obviously the first part deals with pollution prevention: it's the philosophy that we have to get out there, and CEPA is going to be only one of the vehicles we use to get the pollution prevention philosophy out there. If you go back to the Brander-Smith report and the recommendations that resulted, it deals with double-hulling of vessels, adequate facilities in harbours, identification of the ecosystems out there, which ones are sensitive, how much protection and preparedness are required and so forth.

All of this is very necessary for us to do; in fact, we've undertaken to do that. There has been a total revamping of the Canada Shipping Act to deal with that. Our international involvement with marine pollution from land-based sources is one aspect of it. The London Dumping Convention is continually addressing that aspect of it.

So we're dealing with that through legislative changes. We're dealing with that by making sure that we are, if not leading internationally, at least keeping up with them in terms of what's needed for protecting the marine environments. Putting pollution prevention into CEPA is going to be a large step forward in creating an awareness of pollution prevention for our coastal communities. So it's all of those.

Mr. Steckle: I'm just wondering whether our mandate in government is broad enough that we don't use another country's flag to get around the issue. I don't think that we can excuse ourselves or that there should be any room left for contravention of those measures we want applied so that we don't have these kinds of things happening again. They are continuing to happen and people are asking the logical question: why are they happening?

The very things you've mentioned, the double-hulling and these kinds of things, are preventive measures, but there are certainly ships out there that shouldn't be out there doing what they're doing. The pollution is out of this - One can't imagine. This is a starting point, but it's one that everyone in this world is obvious of, so we need to make sure we cover the bases. I think people are ready to accept that. Maybe the shippers aren't, but I think the public is. It's politically the right way to go as well.

Mr. Norrena: I think you've just hit on the biggest irritant that occupied my - My previous job was working in the Atlantic region and dealing with environmental emergencies and these ships that would have countries of convenience owning them, or that's where they came from. It was very difficult to identify accountability and responsibility and try to push the best practices in their face, so to speak, or try to convince them it's the best thing to do. But it's only by leadership that we can do it as Canadians. If we take what responsibilities we have and try to push them as much as possible, it's the only way we can achieve this - and through international dialogue, pushing the best forward.

The Chairman: Madam Kraft Sloan and then the chair to complete the first round, unless Madam Payne has a question, or Mr. Taylor. I invite them to indicate to me. Madam Kraft Sloan.

.0925

Mrs. Kraft Sloan (York - Simcoe): In your presentation and in the slide on pollution prevention in a modernized CEPA, you have ``Environmental Performance Agreements (Covenants)'', and this is identified as something fairly significant. Yet when I go through our material about CEPA, it's mentioned in a paragraph on page 89 as part of non-regulatory measures.

If you take a look at the chart on page 49, the last page of your slide, environmental performance agreements or covenants aren't mentioned. They're just part of non-regulatory measures as different aspects of dealing with toxic substances with regard to pollution prevention. I was just wondering if you could go into a little bit more detail on what you mean by this and what kind of priority is being placed on this.

Mr. Riordan: Going back to the committee report, you're right that there was a recommendation to the effect that the committee suggested that the government continue to explore voluntary or non-regulatory approaches to environmental protection. We have been doing that.

Just to expand on it a bit, we currently have seven memoranda of understanding with a number of industrial sectors ranging from chemical producers to motor vehicle manufactures to dry cleaners, printing and graphics, and so on. We have a major program called ARET, the accelerated reduction and elimination of toxics, which I had the opportunity to discuss at this committee last year. This is a program that's attracted participation from 270 different companies.

What we're finding from these programs is that a non-regulatory approach is one tool in the environmental protection toolbox. It's something that can often demonstrate results more quickly than a regulation can.

We're also finding that non-regulatory approaches are applied quite well in some sectors and for some substances, but not in all sectors for all substances. For example, in ARET we're seeing real results on 117 toxic substances, 13 of which are regulated. We wouldn't be seeing results on the other 104 unless we regulated them, and it's unlikely that we could regulate that number of substances within my lifetime.

What we're proposing is what the committee proposed, and that is to continue to explore the possibilities of this, not by abandoning the regulatory approach but perhaps by helping us to refine our regulatory approach. In one of our recommendations the Government of Canada proposes to consult on whether this kind of activity should be addressed through the Environment Act. Within the act it would be made clear that non-regulatory approaches should only be used for non-regulated aspects and substances.

I guess we're saying a number of things. It does work in some sectors. In ARET we're seeing the reduction or elimination of 20,000 tonnes of toxic substances by the end of this program, which is the year 2000. These are results that we would not have gotten otherwise. We think that's good.

Mrs Kraft Sloan: I guess maybe I didn't make my question very clear. I understand what you're talking about in terms of regulatory, non-regulatory, volunteer and all that. I was specifically interested in environmental performance agreements and covenants as a particular approach or tool or whatever.

Mr. Riordan: In our estimation we're seeing an evolution of these agreements. An MOU is the first step. An environmental performance agreement will have specific targets and schedules. It will have increased public participation. Quite honestly, we've been criticized in the past for not having public participation in some of these agreements. Perhaps it will have performance bonds attached to those agreements so that if there is abrogation of the agreement, then the performance bond would apply.

.0930

The covenant is something our minister began to talk about only last week. From what I understand, he's talking about involving local communities in these covenants. He's basing it on the Dutch example. In the Netherlands the Dutch government negotiates covenants - that's what they're called - with industry and local communities, or local authorities in the parlance of their language. Upon signature of those covenants they de facto become law.

What I'm talking about - and I think this may answer your question - is the evolution of the non-regulatory approach to environmental protection.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: I was just wondering, because in our report we talked about non-regulatory measures and we identified a couple of examples, and then all of a sudden I see this sticking out, as opposed to something that says ``evolved non-regulatory approaches'' or ``exploration of non-regulatory approaches''. I see this as a fairly small concern that was identified and flagged on a grocery list. I'm wondering about the priority of it and the status of something like this.

Mr. Riordan: It was at the bottom of the grocery list, and I guess that's why I added it: to give the full picture to the committee. But we are studying it, and in my comments I said it was unlikely that we would expect it to be included in CEPA, from the direction the committee -

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: It was likely to be?

Mr. Riordan: It was unlikely, in that we were exploring perhaps finding some legislative base for it outside of CEPA.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: All right.

Mr. Norrena: We recognize that an awful lot of voluntary agreements have been made. We've had some criticism in the past for these having been made in the back rooms. There's been some criticism that maybe we're trying to avoid regulating by going this route. We're looking at it from that point of view.

We're also looking at it from the point of view that for some of the voluntary things we've engaged in, we only get part of the crew coming in and doing what's right by the voluntary agreements.

We're trying to bring in something that is a useful tool; that's closer to a regulation; that there's accountability for, with targets and milestones; that's totally transparent; and that's good for the environment. It's just another tool we'll stick into our tool box.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Thank you.

The Chairman: Madam Payne, do you have a question?

Mrs. Payne (St. John's West): I have a short question, Mr. Chairman. It may stem a little from what Mr. Steckle said earlier.

I realize the federal government has developed standards and hopefully will be successful in enforcing them, but I want to speak a little about something very close to home.

I come from Newfoundland. I recall that for the past fifteen or twenty years there has been a pollution problem with St. John's harbour. I've seen that ball go back and forth from provincial governments to municipal governments over and over again, and still, twenty years later, nothing has been done about it.

It all comes down to economics. How do we balance that kind of problem? Is there a point at which the federal government says enough is enough - something has to be done to correct the situation? Or are the provinces just left to try to deal with it in the best way they can? How do we reach a balance there?

The Chairman: Before you answer that, may I make a brief interjection?

There are two types of economics. One type of economics calculates as an asset, as an economic activity, as a positive, the cleaning up of the Valdez oil spill. Therefore it shows in the national accounts as a positive, desirable economic activity. The other economics is the one that deducts the damage caused to the environment by that particular spill.

We operate under an economic system that calculates the Exxon Valdez oil spill as a plus, and therefore we operate under an economic framework with which we constantly have problems. This is in a way what you are raising now.

.0935

I'm sorry if I have perhaps intervened in your reply, but I thought it was essential to draw this line of distinction between economic activities that we calculate as positives right now, which sometimes have enormously negative environmental impacts.

Mr. Norrena: Mr. Chair, I spent three glorious years in St. John's, Newfoundland, and I'm very well aware of the problems you're speaking about.

The only solution to that is bringing awareness of the environmental insults that are happening to our harbours and so forth to the public and bringing the value of the resource up in economic terms by making the resource they're impacting valuable. I know St. John's harbour. There is a commercial fishery just outside of the harbour and I'm sure it's being affected. I'm sure the people who consume the lobster and fish from that particular area always wonder whether or not there are some heavy metals coming down from one the plants associated with the area.

Control at source and pollution prevention are part of CEPA. We'll help with that, but pollution prevention is probably the biggest thing. People will be looking at their plants and their homes, looking at how they're impacting on the environment and seeing if they can reduce pollution at source before it becomes a problem that ends up in the sewer, which ends up in an outflow, which ends up in the bottom of the harbour itself.

Municipal infrastructure is a problem in Canada and it can't be totally addressed by CEPA. It has to be addressed by people becoming aware of the problem they're creating, by people investing properly in their infrastructure, and by people valuing the water they consume so that they pay enough to pay for the treatment required for dealing with the sewage itself and for maintaining the systems in place in each of the communities.

A lot of the community awareness programs that I guess you're involved in would be very important in an area like the St. John's harbour. I guess that's one of the 13 community awareness program sites. There are a lot of local awareness programs that are happening at that site, but it's not just CEPA. It's developing an ethic. It's developing an advocacy toward doing the right thing by the environment, although pollution prevention is a big part of it.

Mrs. Payne: I have a follow-up comment rather than a question. I feel as though at this point the city is saying to the province that it does not have the finances to deal with this situation. The province is telling the city it has to fund. In the final analysis, who says this must be done?

Mr. Norrena: You've basically put us into a conundrum here. There is provincial legislation that suggests they shouldn't be polluting the harbour itself. There is federal legislation. The Fisheries Act doesn't allow deleterious substances to frequent waters occupied by fish. I think I misquoted that -

In fact the answer is that somebody has to put money into the situation, so it's economics as well. A lot of people in a lot of coastal communities in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and so forth have had centuries of being able to discharge their outfalls into the high-energy harbours and off into the Atlantic Ocean. You have a history of basically a right that some people have sort of assumed over the years.

It all has to go back to awareness. I don't think legislation is the answer in this particular case. It's making people want to do it.

The Chairman: The demonstrations in the States are sometimes very effective, you understand.

Mr. Taylor, please.

Mr. Taylor (The Battlefords - Meadow Lake): Mr. Chairman, as you know, and for the witnesses' benefit, I'm a strong believer in the concept of pollution prevention. I believe we have to do all we can to get a real commitment to an effective program that initiates pollution prevention. When I read the government's response, I feel the proposals for the model pollution prevention plans are merely a guideline.

.0940

I'd like your comments on one matter. Basically, in the absence of regulations specifying criteria for inherent toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation, does this not mean there will be no method for evaluating the alternatives to substances subjected to pollution prevention planning? Secondly, as I see it, the government does not specify the circumstances under which pollution prevention plans would be made public. Can you elaborate a little bit more on whether or not we will have any circumstances under which these plans will be public?

Mr. Riordan: It's a very complicated question, so I'll try to take it in the parts you presented.

The model pollution prevention plan was generally supposed to be a guideline, a model, what we would expect in a pollution prevention plan. There has been some work done by the Canadian Standards Association that we use as an example. I have a copy of that in my bag and I can share it with you. It lists the steps a company or an entity would go through in the development of a plan. This is just a snapshot that says the guideline could be expected to contain some of the following components, but we would have to work on that guideline.

The second thing is that pollution prevention plans would be required for CEPA toxic substances. That complies with the direction provided by the standing committee. So in regard to the criteria for what it would be, what the planning would be, where the planning would be directed, the legislative requirement of the plan would be directed at those using CEPA toxic substances. We don't have authority to go elsewhere. The federal government doesn't have the authority to require pollution prevention plans from everybody, from every company, and so on, but we do talk about encouraging other companies to use this method to better improve their environmental performance.

The link with toxicity is important. Our pollution prevention strategy is tied very tightly to our toxic substances management policy. The toxic substances management policy gives criteria for persistent bioaccumulation and toxicity in assessing substances as toxic. It calls for applying pollution prevention techniques to the control and management of these toxic substances, and I think this policy is proposed to be well represented in a renewed CEPA. So I think we do cover the persistence in bioaccumulation and toxicity criteria in our proposed response.

Those first two sounded the toughest, but I think the last one is the toughest question: When does a pollution prevention plan become public? We went through some significant debate on this subject, and the whole idea of producing a pollution prevention plan of any kind was resisted by certain sectors of our society. The comments reflect some of that in the sense that it's perceived as an intrusion into the private sector.

We were trying to carry out the direction and what we understood to be the intent of the committee's recommendation in attempting to assess how we would get a plan produced and implemented without requiring that all of these plans become public. That became a real stopping point, an obstacle to our discussions. People we consulted with in the private sector and in other government departments were saying that if we want them to make all these pollution prevention plans public, they would have lawyers do them, would meet the criteria, and that's it. If we want them to implement the plans, they don't want to be forced to make them public.

.0945

So what we did was to build it into our proposal that the minister requires the production and implementation of a pollution prevention plan. The plan itself would not be submitted to the government for review, but could be required by the minister, at the minister's discretion. As well, the companies or associations or entities that were required to produce pollution prevention plans would submit a formal declaration attesting to the preparation and implementation of that plan. So we as a government would receive a formal declaration that these were prepared.

In the event that there is an incident, an accident, or some non-compliance with CEPA, we automatically would be able to require that the company submit the plan to the minister. The provisions for making these public would follow that requirement to submit a plan to the minister.

Did I get your three points?

Mr. Taylor: Yes. I'm pleased to receive the answer, although I'm not pleased with it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Madam Kraft Sloan, do you have a brief question for this second round?

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: I thought we were on the second round.

The Chairman: No, not yet. The chair would like to ask a couple of questions.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Then I'll wait until the second round.

The Chairman: I have two brief questions. One is a follow-up, in a way, to an earlier question on page 49 of the pollution prevention scheme you have. It seems to me, in the second-last box entitled ``Policies and Tools for Preventing Pollution from Toxic Substances'', the bullet that carries the name ``Technology Development and Transfer'' is an extremely important one in that context.

As well, the word ``incentives'' ought to be added to that particular line. If you don't have incentives for technology development but just rely on a normal course of development, you end up with completely different scenarios. Let me give you an example in the field of energy production, which is one of the most critical in terms of pollution and where there are enormous opportunities also for pollution prevention.

If we were to invest considerably in technological development of renewable resources, we could in a few decades reach a non-polluting scenario that would be quite different from leaving that sector without incentives. So I would urge you by way of a comment - added to the one made by Madam Kraft Sloan - to revise this box and strengthen it on the technological side, for what it's worth. I realize there are not many funds left these days in that particular sector, but things may change, particularly the incentive side.

Mr. Norrena: I really appreciate your comment in that particular area. It falls very directly into the new post I've just occupied dealing with technology for Environment Canada.

To me, investing in technology is good for the economy, good for jobs and good for growth in Canada, but it's also tremendously good for environmental protection. We build and enhance the capacity in Canada to be able to deal with the problems we have in Canada as well as to develop some capacity for dealing with global problems.

To me, that's a great suggestion.

The Chairman: Thank you.

The other question has to do with the only sector on which the committee did not strike a positive chord with the government and did not make progress, namely, biotechnology. It would be helpful if you could perhaps bring us up to date on that particular front, and indicate to us why there is so much emphasis on industry in the field of biotechnology by way of policy-making, and why the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food also has such an ascendancy on that subject.

.0950

If industry were not motivated by profit-making, one could sleep peacefully and expect there to be a normal force in the advancement of biotechnology, but we know what happens when profit is a motive. Here there is a public interest at stake, which would seem to indicate, at least to some of us, that if anything industry could play a role as one of the interested parties, if you like, but certainly not as the dominant party.

To some extent the same can be said of Agriculture and Agri-Food. We have the report of the agriculture standing committee from way back in 1994 on that infernal abbreviation, rBST, as you know. The moratorium is still on, so evidently there was an influence by parliamentarians on that aspect. The time has come now to broaden the analysis of the impact of biotechnology. That is a subject this committee will want to examine thoroughly in the next few weeks to come up with some hopefully helpful suggestions.

What are your comments, please?

Mr. Norrena: Mr. Chairman, I suggest that Ruth speak to what we've heard in terms of the comments on biotechnology coming in from all sectors. Then maybe I could come back and speak to what's happening within Environment Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. I'll turn it over to Ruth right now.

Ms Wherry: In the public comments on biotechnology that have come in from industry associations and companies, they do not want Environment and Health Canada to duplicate regulatory functions if there is already legislation in place. They want the responsibility for biotechnology to rest with the department that has the legislative responsibility for the product or process. They want CEPA to act only as a safety net for those products and processes not covered by existing acts.

Regardless of who's doing the regulating, their views on federal involvement in regulating biotechnology are mixed. Some industries believe that regulations that promote innovation, that encourage investment and that are internationally competitive should be made a priority with respect to regulating biotechnology. Some agricultural industries believe there should be more stringent regulations with federal involvement. Some associations, such as the Ontario Seed Growers' Association, believe the government should not hinder new biotechnology if it is designed to improve foods, environmental integrity and/or agrifood industry competitiveness.

With environmental and health groups and concerned citizens, the general consensus was that the biotechnology proposals were disappointing and inadequate. A strong majority believes that biotechnology should be regulated by the government and that the responsibility should rest with both Environment Canada and Health Canada. The CEN biotechnology caucus wants CEPA to provide the minimum assessment notification standards for all biotechnology products, as recommended by the standing committee. Aboriginals agree with the views of environmental and health groups.

Those are the comments that have come in.

Mr. Norrena: I will speak to what Environment Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and others are doing on the subject at this time.

We are proceeding with the safety net regulation. It has been on the books for the last two years and we've been working with our interdepartmental colleagues trying to make sure it's the correct one. We're in the final touches of that. In fact, I think it has been blue-starred at this point.

The Chairman: This being what?

Mr. Norrena: Blue starred by - blue stamped.

The Chairman: What does it mean?

Mr. Norrena: It means that it has the judicial okay from the Justice people as being a good first draft for legislative purposes. This is a separate regulation.

.0955

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Regulation?

Mr. Norrena: Regulation, yes.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: I thought you talked about legislation.

Mr. Norrena: I'm sorry. The safety net regulation is to apply when there is no other legislation with operating regulations in place. That provides a safety net for Canadians for products of biotechnology. That's the premise we're under at this time.

Agriculture Canada and I believe Health Canada are working toward developing their notification and assessment regulations for their various biotechnology products. Agriculture Canada is dealing with the Seeds Act, the Plant Protection Act, the Fertilizers Act and I believe one other. I'm not sure of the other one.

Anyway, they have what we call blue-starred regulations as well and they're planning on gazetting these in the very near future for public comment. All of these, including ours, have notification and assessment requirements for dealing with the toxicity of the products of biotechnology.

The problem with the two sets of regulations - I'm speaking specifically of Environment Canada and Health Canada as ours under CEPA and the others under Agriculture Canada - is that under Environment Canada we have the requirements criteria for assessing toxicity based on section 11 of the existing CEPA and they're within the regulation, whereas the other regulations for Agriculture Canada, the seeds, feeds, fertilizers, and I've forgotten the other one, are based on guidelines. So there's a difference in the two, in that one is very rigorous. The regulations are there and so forth.

With both these sets of regulations going out to the public at this time, we expect to have some advice given to us as to what the right mix of guidelines versus regulation will be. Both Agriculture Canada and ourselves are looking forward to that. That's the status at this time.

The Chairman: When will the process be completed?

Mr. Norrena: Agriculture Canada was hoping to have its regulations out before the planting season, but I'm not sure whether it will be able to do that.

The Chairman: Mr. Forseth, I had you down to be the first one on the second round.

Mr. Forseth: I'm sorry, I've run out of time. I have another meeting to go to.

The Chairman: I'm sorry about that.

Mr. Asselin and then on the second round Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

[Translation]

Mr. Asselin (Charlevoix): I would like to thank the people from Environment Canada for coming to meet with us this morning. In particular I would like to thank the witness who has an extraordinary text that no doubt required much research. It is important, when people from Environment Canada or from another department meet with committees, to have a text of substance. I have nothing against slides, but they only provide an outline, the main points.

Within these main points, there is surely content. This is what is missing this morning. The oral presentation went very well, but as is often said, verba volant, scripta manant. It is important for a member to be able to refer to a document in order to better understand.

My questions deal mainly with the role that Environment Canada plays with regards to the provinces. More and more, when we refer to this role, we refer to municipalities. We know that they are the babies of the provinces. You are going to say to me that the provinces are the babies of the government. And I have to add this before you say it to me.

.1000

Municipalities already have environmental committees, environmental laws, standards, and regulations on waste management.

Regional municipalities together manage intermunicipal sanitary landfill sites using strict regulations.

Municipalities also have water management and snow removal management regulations. In order to prevent any squabbles between the federal and provincial governments, we must first and foremost give to each one the role that they have to play. Municipalities have management responsibilities; let's put them in their hands and do the same for the government.

In my opinion, the federal government should coordinate or supervise or do both; this would eliminate much overlap and duplication, which is very costly for government, both at the federal and provincial level.

I believe that the provinces should take the lead in environmental issues within their boundaries, especially with regards to municipalities.

The federal government, in its role as coordinator or supervisor, could ensure that the environmental laws that are enforced follow the standards and thus enhance as much as possible quality of life for Canadians.

If the federal government played its true role, it might have had the time, since 1970, to do what it should have with regards to the Irving Whale issue. We wouldn't have waited until 1996 to do the job.

This is a first question and it took a while to ask it. I know that your answers are also quite long, but I am going to ask one last question.

The present government has decided to cut 35,000 jobs from the Public Service. Will these cuts reduce the work and the role of Environment Canada before the most recent budget and personnel cuts?

If you tell me that the situation has not changed, it is because Environment Canada was spending much too much money; and if the personnel cuts in your department don't gibe you any problem and you continue to do your job, it is because there were already two many people at Environment Canada and it was time to clean it up.

The Chairman: Mr. Asselin, you have asked a question that the official will have a hard time answering; of course it is a political question.

Mr. Asselin: I am aware of that, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Tomorrow, you have the -

Mr. Asselin: Mr. Chairman you will agree with me that these are the people who must manage government operations. If I asked the minister the question -

The Chairman: Tomorrow, you will have the time to ask the minister the question.

Mr. Asselin: You will understand, Mr. Chairman, that the minister cannot answer on behalf of the director general, because it is the latter who is managing his operations. The minister is not aware of everything that is happening at the operational level.

The Chairman: But you would like to know the consequences of the budget cuts, correct? This is a political question that should be dealt with by the minister; but if the official would like to answer you, I do not see any objection.

Mr. Norrena, would you like to provide an answer?

[English]

Mr. Norrena: Yes, I would.

[Translation]

Please excuse the English.

[English]

First of all, I'd like to address your first question. It could be answered in a long or short fashion.

.1005

I've worked with Environment Canada for some 21 or 22 years, and 20 of them have been in Atlantic Canada. I know how to work with provinces. I have worked with provinces. When I was responsible for my resources, I made sure there was no overlap and duplication. We worked with provinces to make sure that if we were going to plant A - We decided amongst ourselves at the beginning of the year what our priorities were, and we in fact did that. We sorted out who would be doing what so that the industry wasn't plagued by two or three individuals coming in unannounced and bothering each other and causing hiccups and so forth.

This has been an ongoing practice. Of more recent times, the last two or three years, we have worked even harder to make sure the perceptions of overlap and duplication were not there. We've used CEPA, in particular, the Fisheries Act and the pulp and paper regulations to come to arrangements with the provinces, administrative agreements that deal with the pulp and paper sector across Canada.

In Atlantic Canada we have something called an ``umbrella accord'', where we have all of the responsibilities. We work out arrangements for each of the involvements we have, each of the pieces of legislation, in particular the pulp and paper regulations. We've come to a conclusion as to how we would do this, how we would enforce them, whether it's the province delivering them or whether it's the federal government delivering them.

So we spend considerable time making sure we don't waste taxpayers' dollars. It's important to us. It's important to our children. I'd rather have the dollars spent on environmental protection to correct water pollution matters or air pollution matters.

In terms of the last couple of years of work under the environmental management framework, although we've not embraced it fully, the fact that we worked together on each of the eleven has been an experience that has allowed us to think of more ways where we can do things better. We are in fact looking at what the federal role should be in each of these.

I mentioned at the beginning of the discussion here that we did have a proposal from the provinces on how to deal with various parts of CEPA itself. We're considering that. We think it can be done, but it's a matter of us agreeing that it should be done in that fashion. Unity is a very important topic at this point in time, but better still is spending taxpayers' dollars wisely. That is more important.

You're right about the fact that provinces have all kinds of regulations and by-laws and guidelines. So do municipalities, and so do regional governments, but they're mostly dealing with waste management issues. What we have with CEPA is something that deals with toxic substances, and toxic substances that are in commerce today. You have to look at that from the point of view of who is most properly suited to be able to deal with that. There is a large science component. Environment Canada, the federal government and Health Canada have the capacity in that area that provinces don't necessarily have.

I'll flip you back into your second question, about cuts and so forth. Environment Canada had a 34% cut over the program review period. Each of the provinces across Canada have had similar cuts. Now it's a matter of making sure the gaps are addressed, not overlap and duplication. That's my concern. My concern is that there will be a lot missed out in terms of passing on to our future generations a country that has a good environment.

Ontario right now is going through a fairly massive shake-up, particularly on the environment side. Alberta went through a 30% cut. Thinking back to Newfoundland, I think there are maybe 20 to 25 people left in the environment department. P.E.I. has a handful. Nova Scotia is very much reduced as well. Right across the country the environment side of provinces has been significantly reduced.

We have to work together. It's a shared jurisdiction. Peace, order and good government is one of the principles we operate under. That deals with the commerce side, our international responsibilities and our transboundary responsibilities - and fisheries as well, I apologize. But provinces have to deal with the natural resources side of that, and they are in fact doing that.

.1010

I'll let you ask that question to the minister tomorrow, when he appears before you, because I don't think I could properly address it.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Norrena.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan, on a second round.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Mr. Norrena, I think you've answered the issue of federal-provincial duplication very well.

The other thing I would like to point out to Mr. Asselin - Unfortunately, you were not with the committee when we travelled around the country all last year, interviewing Canadians from all walks of life and from the private and public sectors. Certainly this issue of overlap and duplication was brought up at every session. The advocates of this particular idea were never able to identify any significant area of overlap and duplication, so I think trying to deal with the perception of that is certainly one of the effective ways of trying to handle it.

I'm also very concerned when I hear people insisting that the province take responsibility over certain kinds of things in the area of environmental protection and when we see the province of Ontario, which is my province, getting out of the field of environmental protection. I'm really pleased to hear you talking about how to address the gap. I think that has to be the focus of the debate.

One of the areas of interest to me and to a lot of members of the committee who were involved in writing the report was aboriginal issues. I'm just wondering if any of the witnesses have any comments about the general sorts of responses you've had to aboriginal communities.

I know, Ruth, you mentioned a few things about the administrative aspects of CEPA, but I'm wondering in general how well received were the recommendations put forward by the committee or what the criticisms were. I'd also like to know the government's response to the aboriginal communities.

Ms Wherry: We're still receiving submissions from aboriginal communities. A couple more came in this week actually, but they're not represented in the analysis I gave you.

By and large, we've gone to a great deal of effort to make sure that the aboriginal communities were consulted and informed about the standing committee's report and the government response and that there were many proposals in it that were directly related to aboriginal involvement in environmental protection. As I said, we are getting comments from them - they're still arriving - but they're commenting from the perspective of - They share many of the same views on environmental protection as environmental groups and health groups.

In terms of aboriginal involvement, they very much want to be a part of this national advisory committee, which would include aboriginal representation. As I explained, they are nominating exactly whom they want to be the representative on that committee. They're very clear that in relation to self-determination they want to have environmental protection under their own control, but in the meantime there's a gap. CEPA needs to provide environmental protection on aboriginal lands, with the basic understanding that as aboriginal communities they develop their own environmental protection regimes, with the capacity and the laws to do so. Then they would want the kind of equivalency agreement the provinces have, to be able to have their own regulations and be exempted from CEPA.

Basically, that's the kind of feedback we've been getting from them.

Mr. Norrena: To add to what Ruth has said, I read one particular submission in which they're looking forward to the ability to use equivalency agreements and to have their own environmental protection regime, but they're also expressing a great concern right now that there is that gap. They want something really fast and they don't think Environment Canada and Health Canada can provide the tools as quickly as they need them, right now. So they're very concerned about that.

.1015

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: I'll raise this privately.

I've heard these comments from industry that the federal government is far too interventionist. We heard one of our big concerns from witnesses from coast to coast, from people who are involved with the department and outside of the department, from environmental groups, and right across the spectrum. They talked about the problems around enforcement. They felt there weren't enough resources for enforcement and that we weren't active enough in undertaking some of the enforcement mechanisms. So it's somewhat puzzling to me for the industry groups to say we're far too interventionist. What do they want? I'm trying to understand.

A witness: Voluntary.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Voluntary has certainly to be part of the toolbox and one of the tools. But if voluntary is such a good method, then why are we sitting here with an environment committee and wondering what we're going to do about a renewed CEPA? So I'm just wondering when they talked about the federal government as being far too interventionist if they cited particular examples and if there were a couple of examples you could think of in general.

Ms Wherry: Basically, the regulatory - for example, mandatory pollution prevention planning requirement -

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: The possibility of this happening.

Ms Wherry: Yes, exactly.

Mr. Riordan: When we're talking about pollution prevention plans and making them public, as you said earlier, the issues industry raised were largely business confidentiality and competitiveness. They were of the opinion that if they made these plans public, it may give an undue advantage to a competitor, for example. Another one is that the government was getting inside the plant gates.

What seems to be a misconception is that for CEPA we're talking about toxic substances only. It is significant but it's not everything we should probably be addressing because of our limited mandate in that area. So I think some people are just reacting to the fact we may require plans, as you pointed out, but they're not really certain as to how it affects them.

In motor vehicle manufacturing, for example, they use thousands of different substances. Some are toxic and some aren't. Merely the indication by this committee that we may be requiring pollution prevention plans sets a direction to certain companies. They've begun to do inventories of all of the substances they use - and this is good, yes - to try to determine which might be on the CEPA toxic list and which aren't. Rather than storing large quantities of these substances on their premises, they're actually moving to bringing in a chemical service that provides quantities on demand.

So there is a reaction, a real reaction, to this document and to other directions established by government. That's important, but it won't do everything. So requiring plans for CEPA toxic substances is a minimum, I would suggest.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: The other thing is that some people in industry have recognized that pollution prevention saves them money. Energy efficiency saves them money. We have just-in-time inventory and we have just-in-time personnel. A lot of companies are working in those areas. So why would you want to have storage of lots of toxic chemicals on your facility? Because it takes up money from your working capital position and it puts you at liability and all kinds of different things.

.1020

I worked with a couple of municipalities in my riding to get them information on how to more efficiently utilize their sewage treatment plants. Just by making sure that chemicals and processes are applied at the right time and in the right quantities you can boost your plant's productivity without having to spend millions of dollars to put on an addition or to build a new sewage treatment plant. Some of these really simple things are good business practice.

Ms Wherry: I have just a comment on something you said. It's good business practice, it's really efficient, it saves a lot of people money and it's really good, but there is another quite interesting angle you can look at and it's coming from some chemical industries. In terms of concerns with pollution prevention, chemicals are being used much more efficiently and the sales of chemicals are dropping. I just wanted to put a bit of perspective in terms of -

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: But what the chemical industries can start to take a look at is adding value to their product by offering technical consulting as to the use and storage, etc., of their substances. There are job creation spin-offs related to this kind of stuff.

Ms Wherry: I agree with you. I just wanted to make the comment about why there are some concerns with pollution prevention from some industries.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Only so many chemicals are going to be used, whether they're used in the first six months or spread over a two-year span. Maybe you can have a greater synchronization and coordination of ordering and use and things like that.

I spent some time with Shell Canada and Shell explained to me the concern they have with selling their product down the line. They have liabilities. If they're dealing with a small company they've sold some of their product to and if that company doesn't have the financial means to withstand a lawsuit, they're going to come back to Shell.

One of the things Shell has been doing is working very aggressively to ensure that people who are buying their products know how to use their products so that they don't have liability in the long run. I think this removes some of the liability for some of the other chemical producers as well. It makes a more efficient system overall.

The Chairman: Are there any other questions on the second round?

Then, from the chair, here are two questions on your presentation. If you look under pollution prevention in a modernized CEPA, when you bring up the item, the second bullet, ``national standards'', what do you mean by that? Do you mean standards that are a mix of federal, provincial and territorial suggestions, settling for the lowest common denominator, or are you suggesting something else? What does national mean?

Mr. Riordan: The intention is to develop guidelines and codes of practice. Mr. Chairman, this is something we have experience with and have been doing, developing guidelines and codes of practice with the provinces that often become adopted as regulations by the provinces and territories.

A good example would be a guideline and code of practice for dry-cleaning, which requires a certain level of training for people who deal with perchloroethlyene, a toxic substance. That would be a standard or a guide. A standard for me is code for codes of practice, guidelines and so on. It would be continuing to develop national standards -

The Chairman: But does it mean balkanization of standards or does it mean uniformity first of all?

Mr. Riordan: I would say it means uniformity. It means cooperatively arriving at the same -

The Chairman: And secondly, if it means uniformity, does it mean an agreement on the lowest common denominator or does it mean something else?

Mr. Riordan: I think that as a federal government we always aspire not to be moving to the lowest common denominator.

The Chairman: Yes, we know that, but what is the reality behind national standards?

Mr. Riordan: The experience is that it's not the lowest common denominator in some of the guidelines and codes of standards we have experience with.

Mr. Norrena: I think we characterize it as something 13 jurisdictions agree to.

The Chairman: Is the slowest vehicle in the train determining the speed?

.1025

Mr. Riordan: No. I think the adoption of the guideline as a regulation is the flexibility that's built in. For example, I'll stay with the guideline for dry-cleaning. I believe Alberta has adopted it and made it into a regulation and Ontario is implementing it as a guideline, whereas other provinces do not yet have the financial capability or the resources to actually adopt it. So you'd be promoting, assisting, and advising in those areas, but the option is to adopt it either as a guideline or as a regulation. The question is when.

The slowest car doesn't determine the speed of the train. The speed of the train is determined by the availability of the standard and the desire of the provinces to implement that standard.

The Chairman: How is the standard arrived at?

Mr. Riordan: Through negotiation.

The Chairman: What is the benchmark for the desirable standard?

Mr. Riordan: An example might be this federal pollution prevention strategy, which complements the standing committee's report. We've set a standard and some of the provinces are reluctant to rise to that standard.

The Chairman: How do you set the standard, on the basis of what information?

Mr. Riordan: On the basis of negotiation with stakeholders, with the public. It's similar to what this committee does.

The Chairman: But you must have a starting point before you start negotiations. What is your standard starting point?

Mr. Riordan: The science would determine our standard starting point. For example, with the science surrounding the use and impact of perchloroethylene on the environment, we would look at the toxicity and the bioaccumulation. Those factors determine what is a safe measure of control or management or prevention in the use of that substance.

The Chairman: Is it a public sector or a private sector science?

Mr. Riordan: In that case it's a public sector science.

The Chairman: You have the resources to do that?

Mr. Riordan: We have had the resources and we will have the resources to do that with the next level of priority substance evaluation, yes.

The Chairman: On the fourth bullet, ``Tracking progress'', is that a new term for the old-fashioned monitoring?

Mr. Riordan: Yes.

The Chairman: On the next chart on the federal strategy for pollution prevention, the second bullet is on the pollution prevention action plan within the federal government and with the provinces. Once the plan is arrived at, how do you monitor progress?

Mr. Riordan: The commissioner for sustainable development will require each of the federal government departments to develop and implement a sustainable development plan. Two years following the date of appointment of the commissioner for sustainable development, the commissioner will audit these sustainable development plans that are developed by each of the departments.

The Chairman: So this is where the commissioner comes into the program?

Mr. Riordan: That's correct.

The Chairman: What about within the provinces?

Mr. Riordan: Within the provinces, I've mentioned a couple of things, guidelines and standards. We're close to developing a national strategy on pollution prevention. We have eleven provinces and territories that have signed on to an approach very similar to that arrived at by the federal government and very similar to that prescribed by the standing committee. We've run into a bit of a problem with one province, which is having some concerns about the definition of pollution prevention as it stands now.

The Chairman: Which province is that?

Mr. Riordan: British Columbia.

The Chairman: Is the definition too weak or too strong?

Mr. Riordan: Our federal definition is considered too strong by British Columbia.

The Chairman: Does Mr. Sihota say that?

Mr. Riordan: I don't know if Minister Sihota believes that, but certainly at my level they're saying that.

The Chairman: That's fascinating.

I have one final question, because the committee has to look at a brief item before we adjourn. On the international agenda, are you satisfied that we are adhering to and complying with the Basel Convention?

.1030

Mr. Norrena: Yes, I am. We've looked at that. We've looked at what I guess our weaknesses are with respect to that particular section of the government response, and I feel confident that we'll be able to meet our requirements under the Basel.

The Chairman: Then why did we abstain from a vote in January or February this year on the question of transboundary movement of toxic substances?

Mr. Norrena: I'm sorry, I didn't understand that.

The Chairman: Then perhaps you ought to have a chat with our ambassador for sustainable development on how we're implementing the Basel Convention and then perhaps indicate to us whether you're satisfied that we are complying with the international agenda. I'm not asking you on carbon dioxide, I'm just asking you on the Basel Convention - at your convenience.

Mr. Norrena: Okay.

The Chairman: This has been a very fruitful meeting. I want to thank you all for making it possible.

Thank you, witnesses. We'll now allow you to fly freely into the outer environment.

We have to look briefly at the schedule the clerk has put together with an enormous amount of work and attention. It is a schedule for the next several weeks. We need to have your concurrence on the content of the schedule.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: We have a bit of a problem. The subcommittee has to meet at least once or twice before May 13 and 14. I think you can recall the conversation I had with you yesterday.

The Chairman: I'm told by the clerk that there is room for the subcommittee this afternoon or any Tuesday afternoon.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Are we going to keep this pace up until June?

The Chairman: Yes, we are - but not in the summer. I appreciate your concern for the subcommittee. I'm told that today it could meet. If that is not convenient for you -

The Clerk of the Committee: These are two-hour meetings, and there are two time slots in the morning. The committee meets 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. The period 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. is open, and the period in the afternoon is also open.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Other members have very busy schedules. Madam Payne sits on the fisheries committee, and I have a lot of briefings too. It will be very difficult to try to fit it all in.

The Chairman: We leave it to your ingenuity.

The Clerk: I would like to point to the members a few things. The meeting on April 24 involves three committees, which is unusual. They are transport, natural resources and this committee. It's the International Joint Commission, and concerns specifically the water levels of Lake Ontario. It does not deal with water quality or anything else.

The Chairman: That's a good point, to stress that it is on water levels, because that is the request made by the IJC people. It could cause difficulties for them if we depart from that understanding.

Tomorrow the minister is here. On Thursday we have the executive director of the environment commission related to NAFTA, Mr. Lichtenger. Both meetings promise to be extremely interesting. I'm sure you will play a role in questioning.

The Clerk: There's also a joint meeting on May 2 with the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, further to your instructions, regarding the follow-up to the Yellowknife conference, where the parliamentary secretary headed the delegation.

.1035

The Chairman: It is important that this committee find a way to report back to the House of Commons on the Yellowknife effort, which absorbed a lot of time and energy on the part of several members present here and not present here. So the meeting of May 2 is intended to have an elaboration with Foreign Affairs. Mr. Graham, the chair of that committee, was extremely receptive.

Having done that, we must pass a motion that would convey the conclusions to the House of Commons so it is on record there as well, rather than being just an item of the past that remains forgotten.

The Clerk: Finally, Mr. Chair, at the last meeting there was an agreement by the committee that we invite NGOs, non-government organizations, for the main estimates, which is a relatively new concept. It was done in the past, but not extensively. A few groups are interested in appearing on the main estimates: CELA, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and CIELAP, the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: When are they appearing?

The Clerk: I haven't scheduled them yet. That's why I raise that there may be one meeting.

The Chairman: Later in May.

The Clerk: It will only be one or two meetings.

The Chairman: Also, as a result of instructions by this committee as agreed upon a few weeks ago, the director generals of Environment Canada are invited to this committee for an informal lunch, either as a group or individually, when they happen to be in town. That will be an additional feature.

The Clerk: You will find that on May 9 there are two RDGs, Ontario and Quebec, appearing with the deputy minister to provide a view of the overlap between Ottawa and the regions.

The Chairman: The Quebec director is a new one, Monsieur Asselin, so you may want to meet him and have a good a good chat with him as well.

The Clerk: Again, this is a relatively new concept. It's not brand new, but something committees haven't done much in the past is to invite regional directors.

The Chairman: Madam Payne.

Mrs. Payne: Mr. Chairman, I hesitate to say this with such a full schedule, but as you recommended, I did speak to the chairman of the fisheries and oceans committee, and they are in fact very interested in meeting with this committee. I don't know whether that is something that was intended to be scheduled in here.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Could we not do something like that over dinner? That makes life a little bit easier. It's trying to get things done in the day that is very difficult.

The Clerk: I did take note of that. I also approached the clerk of the fisheries committee. I am aware that they are now meeting extensively, I believe - correct me if I'm wrong, but almost night and day - so I feel that perhaps once their schedule is a bit more routine we can examine that.

Mrs. Payne: In any event, I think it should be before we break.

The Chairman: We will be glad to comply. There's nothing like political will, Madam Payne, to make things happen.

Mrs. Payne: I'm finding that out.

The Chairman: Or not happen.

[Translation]

Mr. Asselin.

Mr. Asselin: Is the forum scheduled for May 13 and 14 being prepared? Will we know the agenda?

We have also made proposals. I have given the names of the president of Union des municipalités du Québec, of Reynolds, which has a large environmental committee, and of a municipal household waste management corporation. When will we know if our proposals have been accepted?

The Chairman: Ms Kraft Sloan, would you like to respond?

[English]

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: I'm meeting with the researcher and the clerk of the committee this afternoon.

I'm sorry; I didn't get all of what you said.

The Chairman: Mr. Asselin is planning to bring to the forum personalities he mentioned earlier from various sectors in his area.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: The idea is those invitations are sent out through the clerk of the committee. When you attended the last subcommittee meeting, you were asked to submit any names of presenters or participants you wanted as of the Wednesday following that meeting, and the clerk of the committee would be handling those logistics.

I'm meeting with them this afternoon and I'll be able to have more information about setting up a subcommittee meeting and that sort of thing. Okay?

.1040

[Translation]

Mr. Asselin: Thank you.

[English]

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Okay, thank you.

[Translation]

The Chairman: That means that we must speak with the other clerk.

[English]

Having lost the quorum, we can adjourn.

Return to Committee Home Page