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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development
EVIDENCE
CONTENTS
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
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The Chair (Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray (Chairman, Canadian Section, International Joint Commission) |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Bob Mills |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Bob Mills |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Bob Mills |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Dr. Gail Krantzberg (Director, Great Lakes Regional Office, International Joint Commission) |
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Mr. Bob Mills |
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The Chair |
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Mr. John Herron (Fundy—Royal, PC) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. John Herron |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. John Herron |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—St. Clair, NDP) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Dr. Gail Krantzberg |
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Mr. Joe Comartin |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Andy Savoy (Tobique—Mactaquac, Lib.) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Andy Savoy |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Dr. Gail Krantzberg |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris—Moose Mountain, Canadian Alliance) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Dr. Gail Krantzberg |
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Mr. Roy Bailey |
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Dr. Gail Krantzberg |
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Mr. Roy Bailey |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Dr. Gail Krantzberg |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Ms. Anne MacKenzie (Economics Advisor, International Joint Commission) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Alan Tonks |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Alan Tonks |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Alan Tonks |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Alan Tonks |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Bob Mills |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Bob Mills |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Murray Clamen (Secretary, Canadian Section, International Joint Commission) |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Joe Comartin |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Julian Reed |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Dr. Murray Clamen |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Julian Reed |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Roy Bailey |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Dr. Murray Clamen |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Alan Tonks |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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Mr. Alan Tonks |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.) |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
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Right Hon. Herb Gray |
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The Chair |
CANADA
Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development |
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EVIDENCE
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
¹ 
(1535)
[Translation]
The Chair (Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. Today, we are meeting with representatives of the International Joint Commission, which is studying the matter of the Great Lakes.
[English]
Mr. Gray, it's a pleasure to see you again with us. We are looking forward to your presentation and to the fine work your commission is doing on the Great Lakes. As usual, after your words there will be a good round of questions, if not two.
Welcome to the committee, to you and the members of your delegation.
Right Hon. Herb Gray (Chairman, Canadian Section, International Joint Commission): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd also like to thank the members of the committee as a whole for inviting me to appear today. I have to express not only my thanks but the regrets of my co-chair, Dennis Schornack, who was going to be here today and share the 20 minutes briefing time with me. He was unable to make his plane connections from the United States to be here. I'll present a summary of his remarks as part of my own, but we'll be sticking to the 20-minute period allotted us.
To help me with answers in due course, I have Dr. Murray Clamen, the Canadian secretary of the commission; Anne MacKenzie, senior adviser; and Dr. Gail Krantzberg, director of the Great Lakes regional office of the commission.
In the interest of saving time, I'm starting at the top of page two of your notes. I understand that this committee is interested in the quality of the water of the Great Lakes as seen from an IJC perspective. The most recent perspective of the IJC itself was presented in our last biennial report and our special report on areas of concern. These documents were provided to you in June and discussed at that time.
Today I'll review for you the highlights of the work of our boards by issue. The reports of all of our boards are publicly available. We have some copies of the consolidation of these reports with us today, and they are on our website. Many of the issues being addressed by the boards require more work than can be accomplished in two years, and they will be continuing over the next cycle of years.
We have two boards reporting to us, set up by the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. They are the Water Quality Board and the Science Advisory Board. We also have a council of Great Lakes research managers, and two entities that operate all across the international boundary but focus also on the Great Lakes. I'm talking about the International Air Quality Advisory Board and the Health Professionals Task Force.
I will now speak more specifically on that aspect of the work of each board that is relevant to your consideration of water quality. First is mercury in human health. This is something being dealt with by the Science Advisory Board and the International Air Quality Advisory Board. Once mercury enters the environment it will cycle repeatedly within the biosphere between earth, air, and water. In sediments, it can be converted into methyl mercury and become increasingly concentrated in tissue as it moves up the food chain.
Many of the fish consumption advisories in the Great Lakes Basin are an attempt to protect humans from excessive exposure to mercury through the quantity of fish they eat. The International Air Quality Advisory Board has been working with models to determine the sources of mercury in the region. The Science Advisory Board has been looking at the human health impacts of mercury. In order to protect human health, more effective means of advising people on how to reduce their exposure to mercury in fish will be needed. I want to say, however, that the commission has always insisted that better consumption advisories are only a short-term solution. The best long-term solution is reducing the amount of mercury and other persistent toxic substances in our environment.
I now turn to the matter of areas of concern and lake-wide management plans--AOCs, RAPS, and LaMPs--and the interest of our water quality board in these. The 41 remaining areas of concern around the Great Lakes need considerably more effective priority effort by the governments if real progress is to be made in restoring the Great Lakes within this generation. Areas of concern, as you know, are geographic areas where there is greater environmental degradation than in the other areas of the Great Lakes. That degradation represents a debt, passed from previous generations to future generations, as real as the fiscal debt.
I would just like to remind you that any programs to deal with water policy cannot ignore the contaminants that have been dumped into our lakes and rivers over the past some 100 years, and the buildup in sediment. They are still being dumped, although fortunately in lesser amounts. Contaminants are still impacting the health of humans and the ecosystem.
Next I turn to the state of Lake Erie. Our Water Quality Board has been monitoring the troubling situations of the dead zone in Lake Erie and the outbreak in the region of avian botulism. Research is still underway. There are no definitive answers, only hypotheses. That research is being carried out by a national scientific group, with main leadership coming from Dr. Jan Ciborowski and the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor.
From what we have been told, it appears the dead zone in the central part of Lake Erie is a recurring phenomenon, but it has become worse in recent years and is believed to be linked to lower lake levels and increased phosphorus. Avian type E botulism, which affects fish or the birds that eat them, may be linked to alien invasive species--zebra mussels, quagga mussels, and the round goby. Water temperature is also believed to play a role.
Both of these Lake Erie-related issues underscore the importance of never relaxing our vigilance in monitoring and surveillance, even when we think we've made real progress. The Great Lakes are dynamic systems requiring constant management.
Next I'll turn to the issue of urbanization: the land use and water quality linkage. This is being looked at by our Science Advisory Board. Of great concern is the increase in population in the Great Lakes, and that it will be exceeded by the increase in urbanized land. This sprawling development trend will mean more sewage requiring treatment, more paved and roofed surfaces over which precipitation will rapidly flow, and more airborne pollutant loading from increased vehicle distance travelled. The impervious cover that comes with this kind of development is a particular concern from a water quality perspective. One estimate is that two-thirds of this impervious cover is habitat for cars--roads, parking lots, and driveways.
The commission's Science Advisory Board will be continuing its work on this critical topic in an attempt to find ways so the urbanization and sprawl trends do not totally undermine the progress to date in cleaning up the Great Lakes.
Next I'll turn to climate change and its impacts on the Great Lakes Basin. Again, our Water Quality Board is following this. Much of the general discussion on climate change has been on mitigation, or ways to reduce the production of greenhouse gases. But of equal importance is adaptation, or ways to be prepared for the likely impacts of a changing climate. In this respect, the commission's Water Quality Board has been looking at possible effects of climate change on the Great Lakes, and determining their linkages with restoration activities. For example, higher or lower water levels due to climate change could greatly alter the usefulness of a created or preserved wetland.
The sewage treatment upgrades and storm water management systems being designed at this time need, in this design effort, to consider the impact of different water levels on the efficiency of their operations. More extreme storm events will couple with the increase in impervious surfaces just mentioned to cause real water quality problems from the runoff. Contaminated sediment may have an increased risk of being disturbed by natural or human events if dropping water levels bring it closer to the surface and allow contaminants to be re-suspended into the water column.
Now I have a few words about alien invasive species. I discussed this issue at length with you when we met on June 5. The commission as a whole continues to be quite involved with this issue. Of particular concern is the ongoing potential for more introduction of alien invasive species from ballast water in ocean-going ships entering the Great Lakes. So I urge you to pass a resolution, as the fisheries committee of the House has already done, recommending to the governments that the International Joint Commission be given a reference to coordinate and harmonize binational efforts for action to stop this ongoing threat to the economy and the biological integrity of the Great Lakes. This is dealt with at much greater length in our 11th biennial report.
¹ (1540)
Let me talk about emerging issues of interest to all our boards. We had a meeting of the boards last February, a special workshop, to identify issues of importance for the Great Lakes over the next 25-year horizon and to identify initiatives that represent the most promising future opportunities for sustaining progress under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. I will give you the highlights from each of the five theme areas discussed at that special workshop. Copies of their consolidated report are available to you in hard copy and of course on the website.
First, new non-chemical stressors impacting the Great Lakes Basin's ecosystem are invasive species, climate variability, increases in nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, habitat loss, and food web dynamics. Understanding the interconnections between the physical, biological, and chemical processes is the key to implementing a science-based approach to decision-making and, more important, to action.
Second, new chemical stressors. There are tens of thousands of chemicals currently in the market for which there is, as yet, no assessment of potential risks to human health and the environment when they get into the air we breathe or into the water column and then potentially into aquatic organisms and fish. Some that have been identified are flame retardants, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, and some commonly used pesticides.
Next, new effects found from chemicals already studied; for example, PCBs, DDTs, dioxins, mercury, and toxaphene. There's increasing evidence of subtle but serious effects at ever lower quantities than previously suspected. This obviously has to be taken into account.
Next, the changing ecology of the Great Lakes as a whole. The Great Lakes have undergone tremendous ecological change in the past 200 years of human development. Yes, they are at last slowly recovering from their degraded state, but to be realistic, they will not be returning to their historic natural state as it was at the time of the arrival of the Europeans, so a shared long-term vision for the lakes is needed to guide their management and their restoration. We must ask what is the objective for restoration in measurable terms.
Next, the matter of new policies. In the three decades of the agreement, the policy approaches have moved from regulatory to pollution prevention to the integration of the economy and the environment, and the precautionary principle has become established in both countries.
There are areas of the Great Lakes that could be leaders in policy development, and many potential policies are important, such as a zero discharge standard for point sources and creative land use policies.
Currently, there are some governmental coordinating mechanisms, such as the Binational Executive Committee of the U.S. and Canada of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, popularly referred to as the BEC, but there is no one governmental institutional mechanism to consider and propose new policies on a binational basis for the Great Lakes.
Based on the commission's past work, including the biennial meeting, which took place two weeks ago in Ann Arbor with some 400 people in workshops and open forums, the commission is currently defining its priority work and that of its boards for the next cycle, 2003-05. I think, therefore, I should next go on and give you the highlights of my American colleague, U.S. Chair Dennis Schornack, who, as I said, because of planes being cancelled and so on, is not with us today.
¹ (1545)
At that meeting the focus was to recognize the strong and growing momentum within the Great Lakes Basin, particularly on the American side where there is a major restoration initiative of the Great Lakes. Of intense interest for participants was a report from congressional representatives regarding pending legislation in both the American House and Senate—proposals of the same magnitude as the $7 billion budgeted by the American governments to restore the Everglades in a comprehensive way.
These proposals have created a buzz around the basin, to use Chairman Schornack's poetic language, such that the stars and planets are lining up for a major restoration initiative to become a reality, particularly on the American side of the border. The convergence of these factors—the upcoming review of the agreement by the governments as required by the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the 2005 review of the Canadian federal Great Lakes program, the public momentum for a major Great Lakes initiative based on action by the U.S. Congress, and the growing public awareness of the threat of invasive species—present tremendous opportunities in the coming year for renewed incentives to restore the lakes at a pace that is more likely to see something meaningful accomplished by certainly the end of the current cycle of years.
In response to this discussion, the International Joint Commission issued a declaration and a communiqué. This declaration, which I think has been circulated to you, has been forwarded to the governments of the United States and Canada. In this declaration the IJC requested a special mandate from the governments to define a substantial and appropriate role for the commission in the review of the agreement.
The agreement does already give the IJC a very clear role in assessing progress in restoring beneficial uses and in assisting the governments in achieving the overall goals of restoring the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes. However, the IJC's role in the forthcoming comprehensive review by the governments as mandated by the agreement is not well defined. I do say, however, that the agreement gives the IJC the right to report at any time on any issues it wishes to draw to the attention of the governments.
To conclude, our request to this committee is straightforward: first, that you acknowledge the consensus around the basin that a serious and thorough review of the agreement must be conducted; and second, that hopefully by the end of the year, our commission, the International Joint Commission of Canada and the United States, receive a mandate from the government to fulfill what is set out in the declaration, and there are five headings in that regard.
Of course, we again reiterate our view, as expressed to this committee and as accepted by the fisheries committee and as set out in our 11th biennial report, that in order to kick off a coordinated management of a program in both countries involving all the relevant departments and agencies to deal with the issue of alien and invasive species, we need a specific mandate, or reference, on this topic as well.
The IJC and, more importantly, the people who live, work, and seek their recreation in the basin should have a clear indication from the U.S. and Canadian governments that they are committed to the review, that they want our advice—and I include the advice of groups like this committee—and that they will act upon that advice.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward, with the help of senior staff who are with me today, to doing my best to answer your questions and respond to your comments.
Thank you. Merci beaucoup.
¹ (1550)
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Gray.
Before we do that, could you please take us through the five key responsibilities that the IJC believes it should undertake? You pointed at them vaguely, but it would be nice if you could take us through them one by one.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Yes, I'll be happy to do that.
I wanted to make sure I concluded within the 20-minute level.
The Chair: Please proceed.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: First, our Great Lakes Water Quality Board could conduct an operational review of the agreement, focusing on the linkage between the agreement and the ability of the agencies to implement its provisions.
Second, our Science Advisory Board should conduct an intensive review of the scientific underpinnings of the agreement, detailing what language remains relevant and what language needs updating, based on the changes in knowledge and ecological conditions.
Third, the commission should act as a conduit to and from the public, providing a forum for the many stakeholder organizations to provide their views on the strengths and weaknesses of the agreement and of the process for the review.
Fourth, the commission could offer advice on how best to conduct that review. For example, should non-governmental organizations be observers? What should be the test bed for new ideas? What roles should states and provinces play, since they are primary implementers of many aspects? Should the cities be at the table? What are the roles for parliamentary committees like this one and U.S. congressional counterparts?
Fifth, the commission could provide guidance on the commission's role with respect to the agreement and how we as a commission might improve coordination across the border, build public support, and speed the process for restoration.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me a chance to once again put these points on the record, not simply by tabling the document but by presenting them aloud. Thank you.
¹ (1555)
The Chair: Thank you . Can we take it from your notes that you would hope by the end of the year to receive a specific mandate from the Government of Canada?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Well, it's our hope. It's our request. We can't confirm the response, but certainly we are ready to undertake the responsibility.
The Chair: This mandate would come from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Well, it would come through the Department of Foreign Affairs of Canada and the Department of State of the United States. They would give us, I suppose, a formal reference to carry out the tasks I've outlined. It would come on behalf of the two governments who are signatories to the International Boundary Waters Treaty, on which the commission is based, because those two departments are the formal links of communication between the commission and the two governments.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
We'll start, as usual, with Mr. Mills.
Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.
It's my pleasure to welcome Mr. Gray to the committee. It's certainly nice to see you again.
I have several questions. The first one is around invasive species and the ballast water problem. I wonder whether you think it's time that we had a mandatory legislation, which basically would force shipping companies to treat all of their ballast water. I wonder if you have any idea of what that might cost or what the implications might be to industry if we in fact were to request that of all shipping companies.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: There are various treatment options. I don't think any have been fully tested, such that the costs are definitely known. Some of the options, like using biocides, might have other problems if the sludge in the water, even if the water is discharged in the oceans, is discharged in the Great Lakes.
I think we should start by having mandatory rules, which exist up to a point in the U.S. but not in Canada, for ships entering the Great Lakes to discharge their ballast water on the high seas. Right now there are mandatory rules in that regard with respect to the U.S. side and voluntary guidelines on the Canadian side. But there's a loophole with respect to NOBOB vessels, which declare no ballast on board. They're not inspected. There is inspection, as I say, now--maybe I didn't make this clear--at the entrance to the seaway. The guidelines are voluntary on the Canadian side. I think Transport Canada is moving to have them in the form of binding regulations sometime next year.
Mr. Bob Mills: Do other countries, particularly the European countries, have stronger regulations on ballast water? It must be a problem wherever you have a port or wherever you have a ship coming from one continent to another. Are you aware of international regulations?
º (1600)
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Well, you're exactly right, this is an international problem. There are alien species, such as the green crab, infesting saltwater ports. I think individual countries have rules, but I'm not sure. Maybe my staff can help me on which countries have mandatory rules. I know that the International Maritime Organization is working on a treaty or binding convention on this, but I think they're a long way away from getting the language of the treaty fully negotiated such that countries can start signing it.
So they are making progress, but if somebody says to this committee, you don't need tougher rules for the Great Lakes, the IMO is going to deal with this, please tell them that the IMO's work is welcome, but we'll all turn blue and be under water before they get to the point of having any binding agreement.
I don't know if my staff would like to add anything about the foreign countries. I know that Australia has some very tough rules. For instance, I think some alien species got into Brisbane Harbour. It has a narrow harbour entrance, something like Halifax, and they closed the harbour with a boom and zapped every living creature in the harbour to get rid of the alien species. This they achieved, but I don't think it would be possible elsewhere unless you had the very precise geographic circumstances of the Brisbane Harbour.
That's the only foreign example that comes to mind.
Mr. Bob Mills: Okay.
This morning we heard from the environment commissioner that some 406 old pesticides had to be reanalyzed by the year 2006, and that the commissioner and others for the last 15 years had asked the government to examine them to see if they still should be used. So far they've examined only six of them, and all six failed the test and have now been outlawed.
As a result, it would seem to me that if this has been going on for that long, some of these 406 pesticides must be a major problem to the Great Lakes--for instance, through agriculture seepage into the Great Lakes and so on. Are you aware of which ones those are, and should we as a committee be putting pressure on Environment Canada?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: I don't want to treat this lightly--it's a serious problem--but you say 406 and I thought there were 2,000.
Mr. Bob Mills: Well, she identified 406 this morning.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Oh, I see. At any rate, I don't want to treat this lightly. If the number is down to 406 that haven't been tested...well, this is a serious problem. That's why I alluded to this, perhaps too briefly, in talking about ongoing themes for the work of the IJC.
Perhaps Dr. Krantzberg could give us a comment on that.
Dr. Gail Krantzberg (Director, Great Lakes Regional Office, International Joint Commission): The Science Advisory Board of the IJC has been looking at ways of speeding up that screening process by looking at specific chemical properties, at what are called “quantitative structural activity relationships”. They look at the structure of the chemical so that rather than having to test 406 chemicals, they can screen off a very large proportion of those that have a particular shape, size, and composition. They will continue to look at that to speed up the screening of those chemicals and give guidance to governments.
I hope that's helpful.
Mr. Bob Mills: Okay.
The Chair: Mr. Herron, please.
Mr. John Herron (Fundy—Royal, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have only a few questions.
I'll read one quote that Mr. Gray utilized in his release of September 12. It is quite stark. He says, with respect to the progress to restore and maintain the chemical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin and the ecosystem itself, “We see no evidence based on the nature and pace of current activities that restoration will happen within the next generation's life time.”
I think I heard you say a little while ago that you can only assist governments if those governments let you do that. What political will do you need from the Government of Canada, and obviously your colleagues in the States, to ensure that our drinking water and the basin itself is better restored? If you're saying that the global pace is problematic, what do you need from the Government of Canada in order for you to do your work?
º (1605)
Right Hon. Herb Gray: First, a couple of general comments. We said in our annual report that in looking at the three basic measures--drinkability, swimmability, and fishability--the water is drinkable if properly treated. So in that context, again, we don't expect to restore the water to the way it was when the Europeans came and people could scoop the water out of whatever river or lake, no matter how close to a great industrial area. But with proper treatment, the objective of drinkability is generally achieved.
With respect to cleaning up the lakes during the next generation's lifetime, I don't have the quote in front of me, but I think I was speaking particularly about the so-called areas of concern, the 42 hot spots, the worst areas, only two of which have been so-called delisted, or having beneficial uses totally restored and having that certified by the commission and the governments. I'm talking about Severn Sound and Collingwood. Two more are very close, Presque Isle in Pennsylvania and Spanish River, I believe.
To be more specific in my answer, one powerful tool the commission has is that it doesn't make secret reports to the government. It doesn't hand them private reports. All of our reports are public. We do our utmost to publicize them, to gain the support of stakeholder groups, and to gain the support of parliamentary and congressional committees. So in terms of political will, I ask groups like this to press the governments of the day for the kind of action called for in our AOC report last May, in particular, so that something meaningful will happen, at least to get rid of the 42 hot spots within this generation's lifetime.
In addition, there has to be movement forward generally, such as removing areas where there isn't sewage treatment, or the sewage systems are such that there could be runoff in the case of storms. There is a general need for action, but I think we have to have some priorities, and we have to finish cleaning up the 42 hot spots.
Mr. John Herron: Thank you, sir.
Your response in terms of the reports you make public dovetails with my second question. One of the recommendations you've made, IJC recommendation 3, is to:
| Improve public information and decision-making by: |
| increasing funding, technology and staff for monitoring, surveillance and information management to support the SOLEC indicator reporting |
I was a little bit floored when I read the first line from the Government of Canada's response to you, that “Canada supports the intent of this recommendation”. It doesn't seem to really support the recommendation itself.
When I was in Windsor, talking to folks, I was really floored when I heard about the number of reports that aren't really that public in terms of health effects, in terms of birth defects and cancers, and in terms of other environmentally related diseases in that regard. So I'd like to ask you, do you think the Government of Canada is being as forthright as they need to be with respect to the myriad health information they have in their possession?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: First of all, you're quite right that if you look at the government responses that the agreement requires, a lot of the responses are such that they accept the intent of the recommendations. I don't think in any case have they said they reject them; they simply accept the intent.
In terms of moving forward, the relevant departments have to have funding so they can hire personnel, upgrade their laboratories where necessary, and do work. With respect to any health data connected with areas of concern, I'm advised by my staff that there is no funding for Health Canada to analyze that data.
I also want to observe that all of our reports, as I say, by the commission itself and by our boards, are, I repeat, public. They're posted on our website. We have attempted, especially since I've become chairman, to draw the attention of the public to them through the media with relevant press reports. Now, perhaps you can encourage the media to give even more attention. I can't say they've been unkind or unhelpful--quite the contrary--but if they could give even more attention to reports as we put them out, certainly all of the commissioners would be delighted.
º (1610)
Mr. John Herron: Thank you very much, and thank you for coming to see us again, sir.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Herron.
Mr. Comartin, please.
Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—St. Clair, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Gray, the resolution on the invasive species is coming up before the committee on Thursday. It was scheduled a couple of weeks ago today. That committee meeting got cancelled, and then last week I was away, but it will be before the committee on Thursday. I expect it will receive substantial, if not unanimous, support.
By way of questions, at the Ann Arbor conference a couple of weeks ago a number of issues were looked at, but the issue of the quantity of phosphorus getting into the Great Lakes from animal waste runoff was not addressed, or at least not that I saw. I wasn't able to get to all of the seminars.
I just wonder if any research is being done on that, and if so, if anybody's been able to draw conclusions on how much of an impact that phosphorus runoff from animal waste is having--what percentage, if you can do that--on that dead zone in Lake Erie.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: I was chair of the workshop on Lake Erie--each commissioner had to take turns chairing the various workshops--so the discussion there is fairly fresh in my mind. I think they did discuss increases in phosphorus compared with the situation a few years back, when everybody celebrated the restoration of Lake Erie. That was mentioned. But we have to recognize that when we're talking to scientists, they start off with hypotheses or indications, and it takes them some time to reach the point where they say, this is our definite conclusion.
It's my understanding that they are definitely working at examining where the increased phosphorus has come from. And I don't have to tell you--we're from the same area, and we've followed this for years--that compared with the seventies, by the time we got into the mid-eighties people were delighted that phosphorus had greatly decreased. That's why so many people are really troubled by the backsliding with Lake Erie, not only with respect to avian botulism but also the phosphorus and so on.
How much of it comes from the digestive system of the zebra mussel—one hypothesis—or the quagga mussel? How much of it comes from human intervention, from farm or industry runoff? The scientists, as I recall, have not quantified that, and I have urged them to move on it. As I say, it's a wonderful binational group of scientists, headed by somebody you probably know, Dr. Ciborowski of the University of Windsor.
I'd like to ask Dr. Krantzberg to help us on that, please.
Dr. Gail Krantzberg: You pose a very difficult question, because you can quantify the amount of phosphorus coming in through agricultural runoff and the amount, just in totals, coming out from sewage treatment plants. But what's coming off of agricultural runoff is a lot more reactive in the environment, so for the same total amount you could create a worse problem with animal waste.
One of the big problems faced by the Lake Erie Millennium Network, referred to by Chairman Gray, is that over the last five or close to ten years, tributary loadings from non-point-source discharges, such as agricultural runoff, into Lake Erie in particular have not been measured. That's why scientists are having a very difficult time trying to untangle whether it's zebra mussels, recycling, or new sources coming in from tributaries. The data really isn't there.
So to answer a question posed earlier, on what Canada can really do to help get on with the job of cleaning up the Great Lakes, one thing would be to enhance the measuring and the monitoring, to reinstate the tributary monitoring program, so that the question can be answered.
º (1615)
Mr. Joe Comartin: I would agree with you, Dr. Krantzberg, on the need for monitoring. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development made an estimate in the 2002 report that the waste coming from animals was equal to the waste that would come from 100 million human beings living around the Great Lakes. I don't know where she got that figure from, and I don't know where her data came from, but that was as recently as 2002. So I would suggest it's not just a question of monitoring that, even though we should know how much, in fact, is getting into the Great Lakes.
Is anybody looking at a solution here, at a resolution of the problem of runoff? How do we deal with it, how do we prevent it? Is it the farming community that we have to point to? Is it the large industrial-style farms? Has anybody done an analysis of solutions rather than simply trying to analyze how great the numbers are?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: The Lake Erie Millennium Network scientists want to go beyond analysis to solutions, but they insist they haven't reached the point where the analysis is sufficiently definitive. They themselves can point to solutions, but as a layman I'm not bound by the same constraints as real scientists. I hope that doesn't undermine the validity of my remarks too much, but I do want to say if you want to deal with runoff, whether it's from factories and their parking lots or whether it's farms, there have to be regulations that are enforced.
Some of this may well be municipal, but generally I think this is something the provincial government will have to take a closer look at. I know this can be quite controversial. There are those in the agricultural sector who say they're responsible, they're containing their runoff and so on, but are there some people who aren't living up to the approach taken by some of the more responsible people? This is an area where, in my personal view, there is a role for government on behalf of the community as a whole to come up with some guidelines that don't prevent farming from being carried on successfully, but at the same time protect the public at large from the harmful effects of runoff.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Comartin.
For the second round, we have Mr. Reed, Mr. Savoy, Mr. Bailey, then the chair.
Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'm concerned with the process of being able to challenge some of the current technology that's applied around the Great Lakes that results in runoff. I'm thinking, for instance, of the big-pipe syndrome, which we're still involved with, where we put a pipe down into the water and draw our municipal water supply, then we put another pipe in to discharge our effluent under the same body of water. That's happening in the riding I represent right now; there's a big pipe being completed.
What's vexing about the situation is there is no effort made by planners to use existing water efficiently. We live in one of the most wasteful areas, because we've always assumed we had lots of it and we didn't need to worry. Here's a situation where there is no legislation, for instance, to mandate the harvesting of rain water in new subdivisions. It's a very simple thing in Europe, but it doesn't exist in Canada. There doesn't appear to be any regulation or legislation that mandates the recycling of grey water. But if those kinds of techniques were used in these growth areas, there would be no need for the big-pipe syndrome. I find this a source of great frustration.
I don't know where the IJC fits into this picture, whether it's through recommendation that government has to pass on to other government, or whether you need to be mandated with some teeth to be able to deal with those kinds of issues.
º (1620)
Right Hon. Herb Gray: You raise a topic that is worthy of hearings on its own. The conservation of water covers many areas; for example, the irrigation practices of farmers.
This summer I was in southern Alberta and northern Montana, because we have oversight over the St. Mary's and Milk rivers, which cross the boundary and provide water through irrigation works for hundreds of thousands of acres. Some of you may have visited the area around Taber, Alberta, and south of Lethbridge and so on. They have what they call wheels moving across fields, and some sprinkle water across the whole field from the top. They're moving to a new concept where the water is discharged from the bottom. That cuts down on the amount of water needed to properly irrigate the fields by a tremendous amount. That technology can make a difference.
I don't want to be frivolous here, but there are toilets that use a lot less water per flush than the older models, and so on. There are a lot of things that can happen just by updating homes or appliances, and so on. Conservation is very important.
That's another reason, by the way, for Bill C-6, which bans bulk water removals from the Canadian side of the Great Lakes and other basins. The Great Lakes, as you know, are basically a closed system. Only 1% a year is being replenished by snow melt and precipitation. So we have to be careful what we're doing in terms of the use of wells or pumping from aquifers that otherwise would discharge into the Great Lakes.
You raised a very important topic. I'll have to learn more about the pipes you mentioned.
There's another issue about transfers of water within the Great Lakes Basin. People in Georgian Bay, for example, are very unhappy about a pipeline that's either being built or being planned to bring water from Georgian Bay to the Kitchener area.
The commission gets involved in these things only if they impact on the international boundary. I have to learn more about the pipelines you've talked about, whether they are structures the commission should be taking an interest in. It depends on how far out in the water they go, and things of that nature.
I'm sorry I'm a bit vague on this point. But I do want to commend you for raising the issue of conservation. A lot more could be done in that regard, even in areas like the ones that you, I, and others here come from, which seem to have supplies of water that would make conservation unnecessary. That's not true, and the issue deserves to be pursued.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Reed.
Mr. Savoy, on a second round.
Mr. Andy Savoy (Tobique—Mactaquac, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Welcome back, Mr. Gray. It's great to have you here.
I have two questions. The first is on the invasive species issue, specifically the impacts that invasive species have on the sport fishing industry along the Great Lakes region. I understand there is a lot of research and there are control mechanisms in place for invasive species, and that they're trying to quell the damage to the sport fishing industry. But I've been hearing concerns that Canada hasn't been coming to the table on this issue to the extent the U.S. has.
Can you comment on that? Is that within the mandate of the IJC to address?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: We've taken a great interest in alien invasive species. I think some of you know we've formed a working liaison with OFAH, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. I think they have 80,000 members. They have an excellent program to educate sports fishermen about what they should do to avoid inadvertently introducing alien species into our Canadian water basins, for example: be careful what's in your bait box; does your boat need to be washed before you put it on your trailer and go from, I don't know, the Mississippi into Lake Michigan? Invasive species have had an impact already on sports fishing, and it could have a worse impact.
Let me give you two examples, one encouraging and one possibly threatening. The sea lamprey, when it got into the Great Lakes 50 years ago, almost destroyed the native species, especially in the upper lakes. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission was formed to find a way of dealing with the sea lamprey. After years of effort and the expenditure of a lot of money, they worked on a number of ways of reducing the sea lamprey, such that the species it almost destroyed has come back.
Now, interestingly enough, the sea lamprey is down to 10% of what it used to be, but as you're probably aware, once an alien species gets into a basin, it can never be totally eliminated. It can only be reduced and controlled. That is a helpful and encouraging thing.
What is frightening is the risk of the Asian carp getting into the Great Lakes. It's being held back by a single electronic barrier. We've gotten money for a back-up generator. We're testing bubble technology. The Asian carp is not a predator of other fish, but it's a voracious eater of plankton, the food of many species. It has destroyed many species in the Mississippi, into which it escaped from fish farms, where it was brought in for a good reason: to eat snails. So if it gets into the lakes and begins breeding, it'll have a terrible effect on those species of sports fish that depend on plankton.
If I can smuggle in another point--I know you have limited time--it's on the zebra mussel. Some people say oh, that's great, it clarifies the water. I'm told there are some sports fish that prefer murky water and prefer to be in water down near the bottom that's less clear. So while the zebra mussel may clarify water, it's not necessarily a good thing for all species of sports fish.
I'm sorry to smuggle that in, but I'll hand the microphone back to you.
º (1625)
Mr. Andy Savoy: Thank you very much.
On the second question, in terms of the contaminants that exist in our Great Lakes system now, I'm looking for an explanation on what types of contaminants exist. I assume there are the organics--TCDD, TCDF, and the PAHs, PCBs. I didn't hear much on the inorganic side--cadmium, zinc, mercury, lead--in terms of metals.
But in terms of the contaminants that exist, we know the ambient levels of contaminants over time can be very detrimental to health and to future generations, certainly. How significantly has that problem been assessed? What are the exposure paths, for example? What are the specific groups at risk? What's being done about it? When we are looking at remediation in terms of mobilizing sediment in a decontamination process, will that actually introduce new contaminants into the Great Lakes?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Well, working on your very insightful questions in reverse order, that's the problem. Assuming we have the funds to remove contaminants, will digging them up stir things up so that the dangerous chemicals or metals escape into the water? That's why some people say you have to deal with each situation on its own. Some people say that for certain situations what they call natural remediation is best, where you cover up the area and you let things develop slowly. In other areas, you have to get the shovels in the water, maybe build dykes around the sediment and remove it. Then there's a risk there.
Now, about metals, I'm going to ask Dr. Krantzberg to help us here. I did talk about mercury. There's a lot of work looking into that and the connections between mercury, whether it has built up in fish people eat or is just suspended in water, and its effect on the health of pregnant women, children, the elderly, and so on.
With respect to the other metals and anything else you want to say about mercury, I'd call on Dr. Krantzberg again.
º (1630)
Dr. Gail Krantzberg: Thank you.
One very short point on dredging is that up until the mid-1990s all dredging was for navigational purposes; there were no environmental dredges. Now, actually, Environment Canada is a leader in the development of environmentally sound dredging technology, so that you can reduce resuspension and settling the berms that Mr. Gray was referring to. I think it's an important point--before I get to the metal question--to be clear about. There are ways of mitigating sedimentary suspension, and that threat should not be held up as a reason not to go in and get the worst out.
What we're finding is that many of the metals that were really problematic have declined in concentrations in the environment, notably lead. But other metals that are associated with the automotive sector--zinc, cadmium and some others--are increasing in concentrations as we see more vehicle usage in the basin.
The types of effects we're seeing in the at-risk populations, in terms of the exposure pathway being the Great Lakes, really are on those who consume either large amounts of fish from the Great Lakes or consume fish without using the advisories wisely. The particularly sensitive populations are the embryos exposed in utero. We're seeing now, as Mr. Gray mentioned, things like neurological damage at concentrations that are orders and orders of magnitude below what we believed to be safe levels some years ago.
So while declines are happening in some substances, our increasing knowledge on the subtle and long-term insidious effects of these chemicals is increasing. You can see a downward trend. But while the health ramifications are no longer cancer deaths, what's it doing to the IQ of our future population?
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Savoy.
Mr. Bailey, Mr. Tonks, and the chair.
Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris—Moose Mountain, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome back, Mr. Gray.
This topic covers so many other areas: forestry, agriculture, urbanization. I happened to be in the area when the big Mississippi floods came. I can tell you the people there would tell me those floods and the contaminants that were carried off those hundreds of thousands of acres of asphalt and everything that came down were far more dangerous to agriculture, in the backup--some of the rivers were backing up and flowing the other way--than the pesticides used.
But it seems every time we start a project based on some science, you get the counter-science at the same time. I'm really interested in the fact that bordering right at the Great Lakes you've millions of acres of agricultural land--millions. In a recent publication by scientists about the GMO products, the figures they use for the tonnes of spray that were no longer required in the production of the crops sounded to me like good news for the Great Lakes.
I am led to believe we have two opinions varying here. But is it not true that the pesticides and insecticides that are used are so concentrated that with a quick rainfall, for the land bordering the lakes and the rivers that flow in there, they're probably some of the greatest pollutants we have in the Great Lakes water system? I know they are in the Mississippi River.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: You've highlighted a problem. In general, things that are used for good purposes with good intent can be found to have harmful purposes.
Certainly when it comes to agriculture, I'd like to point out that individual farmers and their organizations feel they're great conservationists. They are trying to manage their fields and operations in a way that is environmentally relevant and sustainable, and we certainly want to encourage them in that regard, especially since one of the working principles of the commission is to encourage sustainable development; that is to say, development that's consistent with sound economical principles such that we'll have a sound environment there for future generations.
Also, we support the idea of the precautionary principle, which is that we can't wait until there is 100% conclusive, absolutely uncontroversial argument about any risk. If we wait for that it may well be too late, and we have to act where there are reasonable, sound grounds for action. But obviously the grounds have to be there.
You raise an important point. I wonder if I could call on Dr. Krantzberg to comment, especially on the pesticide issue.
º (1635)
Dr. Gail Krantzberg: The question you raise is a very difficult one; that is, the proponents of genetically modified organisms will say, if you use GMO, we reduce the pesticide use in the environment. That sounds like a sound argument, and yet the uncertainties associated with environmental consequences of GMO is a hotly contested debate, too. The role of the commission in that type of issue really is one of bringing the scientists to a forum, if you will, for that debate, to engage in the debate, and to have a consultation with many of the different viewpoints, so that the commission can then formulate its own advice.
That's what we did at the emerging issues gathering that Mr. Gray referred to, and as our Science Advisory Board looks at land use--and not just urbanization but also agriculture land use--that may well be something they decide to take up in a workshop format.
I don't think there's a simple answer to the question, but I think the debate needs a forum for resolution. That's something that the IJC can offer.
Mr. Roy Bailey: One more quick question. With regard to the fire retardant, the chemical used in forest fighting, what is the basic chemical and what danger does that chemical possess? It remains there, obviously. It doesn't burn. As for controls to the run-off, is there a danger of that chemical spilling into the lakes and eventually into the rivers and so on?
Dr. Gail Krantzberg: We're dealing with polybrominated diphenyl ethers. They're very closely related to PCBs. They're very persistent in the environment. They're not just used for control of fires; they're probably in the fabric we're sitting on right now. We're finding concentrations of these chemicals increasing exponentially in the near-shore waters of Lake Ontario, for example.
Their actual effects on human health are not very clear, but because structurally they are like PCBs, our presumption based on a precautionary principle is that there is a danger here. There is a real risk in that we need to understand that and look toward product substitutions and alternate ways of managing substances so they don't leech out into the lakes.
Mr. Roy Bailey: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bailey.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Do we know that these fire retardants... I saw them sprayed on hillsides when I was in the Okanagan a few weeks ago. You can still see the residue. Are the chemicals in those red sprayed foams the same thing that is used in furniture and so on?
Dr. Gail Krantzberg: Yes, as far as I know. It's a whole class of chemicals, so the specific substance used there may be a bit different from what we're sitting on, but it's a category of chemical, like PCBs. There are thousands of them.
The Chair: Mr. Tonks.
Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I, too, would like to welcome Mr. Gray and his associates back.
I'd like you to be specific, if you would, with the committee. You have a request that we acknowledge the consensus around the basis that a serious and thorough review of the agreement be conducted. I assume you have that. I assume from the kinds of questions. Are you looking for an official resolution to that extent?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: We certainly wouldn't object. In fact, we'd welcome a formal statement by the committee.
I should add that the last time the point was reached when under the agreement a review was called for, the two governments said they looked at the matter and didn't think any changes were required and didn't carry out a public review. I'm not even sure they published a report.
Ms. Anne MacKenzie (Economics Advisor, International Joint Commission): No, they didn't.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: In fact, that was generally welcomed six years ago by stakeholder groups. They worried about the agreement being reopened. But there's been an almost complete change of mood in these intervening six years.
I might mention that the clause whereby you can amend the agreement and the clause calling for the review are not the same. They're two separate parts of the agreement. But be that as it may, we didn't sense anybody at our three-day meeting saying not to have a thorough, open public review of the kind we've called for in our declaration.
The mood has changed. Maybe the fact situation has changed. That's why we issued this public declaration at the end of our biennial meeting. We would certainly welcome any formal statement of support by a body of this kind.
º (1640)
Mr. Alan Tonks: Okay. You say that the IJC would like to receive a specific mandate from the Government of Canada. Again, I don't understand. The review isn't challenging the mandate of the IJC.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Let me clarify that. The agreement says the review is carried out by the signatories to the agreement, that is, Canada and the United States. If we ask for a mandate in this regard from the two governments, we're asking for what we would call a reference, that is, a formal request accompanied by the necessary funds to carry out the task and the request.
For example, we had a formal request from the governments to look into the issue of bulk water removal from the Great Lakes, which we said was a bad idea and shouldn't be done. This contributed to the legislation we're all aware of. This came, by the way, not just from Canada but jointly from the two governments. They provided the funding, because we can carry out studies only in a very limited way, as we don't have a big program budget.
If it's something substantial like this, we would not only need a formal request but hopefully the request would be accompanied by the necessary funds. It's not a threat to the current role of the IJC. We're just saying that within that role here's a task we'd be happy to take on—helping you carry out the comprehensive review of the agreement that people around the Great Lakes Basin and beyond feel is now something timely that needs to be done.
Mr. Alan Tonks: On that point, Mr. Chairman, it should be something that perhaps you should take under consideration with respect to the appropriate envelope as a policy issue for finance to look at this review and to make an allocation, or find an allocation, within the existing budget. I don't know how that works in our system, but perhaps we should take that under advisement.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: The first step is for the governments, mainly Foreign Affairs and Environment, to decide they'd like to make a request of the kind that you and I are talking about. Of course, obviously they would have to have the funding either from their own budgets or from an allocation through Treasury Board or the estimates.
While our treaty allows individual governments to make requests for us to do something without the other government coming along, the practice over 100 years has been that these requests come jointly from the two governments.
Mr. Alan Tonks: Do I have time for one further question, Mr. Chairman?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Alan Tonks: With respect to the actual process of undertaking the review, and I have read carefully the five points you have raised, you do raise one issue with respect to the role of cities and against the terms of reference of your review with respect to the functionality—who carries out particular functions, who does what. You have raised the issue of whether cities should be involved. I certainly have a bias with respect to watershed issues, in particular the role of cities. I think they should be.
Because that's such an important issue, how will you involve the province with respect to the role in defining how things go?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: The general way we carry out a reference is to establish a binational board of experts, usually people seconded from government departments in both countries—federal, provincial, sometimes municipal, sometimes from universities. They would issue a report, and we'd hold public hearings based on the report but not limited to it. In the light of the comments in the public hearings, the commissioners, with the advice of their expert staff, would go and write the report.
What we're saying in our declaration is that perhaps there should be a variant of this. Perhaps there should be a series of working groups—a municipal working group, a provincial working group. Mind you, when we're talking about provinces, basically it's the province of Ontario. Because of the way the St. Lawrence goes into the ocean through Quebec, they feel they have a Great Lakes role and we don't object to that.
I can tell you the way we traditionally carry out—with a lot of success—our work on responding to references, but that doesn't mean we can't be innovative and have different tables coming together. You and I can come up with a lot of good models for this purpose.
º (1645)
The Chair: Thank you.
Let me offer the following observation on this very timely and important presentation today. In the first part, Mr. Gray, you paint a very alarming picture, and it is one that probably was written in a very sober and precise manner without using exaggerations and unnecessarily alarming terms. It is very clear as to what you are conveying to your readers. It may be that in the climate change section a reference could be also made to the impact of climate change on the navigation capacity of the Great Lakes, or at least of the St. Lawrence River, and thus give another dimension to the danger posed by climate change.
The other point has to do with the request you made on June 5. Mr. Comartin has already prepared a motion on the alien invasive species that will be before this committee on Thursday for its discussion and possible approval.
Then you provide us with the five theme areas of the workshop, which are very revealing in some respects and which convey the necessity of giving the commission certainly a mandate that is much stronger than so far.
We come to the second part by your colleague Chairman Schornack. It seems to me that what he proposes in his brief through the five key responsibilities, to use his terminology, with respect to the special mandate that he's seeking, are very modest key responsibilities that he's requesting compared to the picture painted in the first part of the report. If all five of them are read in their totality, they convey certain powers that one would have expected the commission to have had for a long time, rather than something that is a new requirement, for the first time, in order to fulfill its mandate under the review. Maybe more clarity is needed, and therefore these five key responsibilities are essential.
I was hoping to find a search of responsibilities that would, either under the agreement or regardless of the agreement, give the commission greater powers to fulfill its mandate. The reason for expressing that hope is that after all these decades of efforts by the commission and after all the reports that have been written, the task of restoring the Great Lakes and removing the chemical, physical, and biological damage so that the integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes is brought back is still an elusive goal. And that has nothing to do with you and your predecessor. It has to do with the fact that the powers given to the commission are too weak. They're not adequate.
º (1650)
So I would submit to you that the first half of your submission today, as alarming as it is, is not adequately matched by the five key responsibilities requested by your colleague for carrying out the review of the agreement. But if you feel these are adequate, then perhaps you might tell us so today, so that we can go home with the reassurance you're satisfied that what is being requested with these five key responsibilities will do the job you think needs to be done. I don't have to read them again, as they're all before us.
Is that a fair question?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: You've raised some important points.
First of all, the overall roles of the commission and its authority come from a treaty--
The Chair: We know that.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Well, if you'll just bear with me, they come from a treaty negotiated between Canada and the United States with great difficulty in 1909. If the commission is to have additional authority so that Canada or the United States can issue orders that have to be carried out, such as something like declaratory judgments, for example, then the treaty will have to be renegotiated.
The Chair: Perhaps the question I should have asked you, Mr. Gray, is this. Given that it's a treaty that is almost 100 years old, is it perhaps not time to review the treaty?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Well, I ask you to consider whether such a treaty could be negotiated today in its present terms, in view of the positions of the U.S. government, let's say, or conversely, the Canadian government. Could such a treaty be negotiated today? There are those who argue that the treaty, whatever else should be in it, could not be negotiated in the present climate of relations between Canada and the U.S. So if you give notice that you want to renegotiate the treaty, you end up with the risk of having no treaty, or having one that's weaker and with less impact than is the case today. What you've asked is something deserving further research and a set of hearings on that topic alone.
I've come here today to ask for a meaningful and complete review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. When this last came up six years ago, there was no such detailed review with or without the involvement of the IJC or stakeholder groups. The governments felt it wasn't necessary, because they said they didn't want to change the agreement. Interestingly enough, I repeat, the stakeholder groups didn't object; they were afraid that opening up the agreement in the course of a review would lead to its weakening.
Now there's a different mood, and they feel that some parts of the agreement are sufficiently outmoded. There are lists of chemicals to be watched, not including other chemicals of the kind that Dr. Krantzberg and I have referred to, which need either to be updated or changed in legislation to be dealt with by regulations, or in that sort of thing.
So I think we have to deal with first steps. Unlike the treaty, there is a specific provision to review the treaty after every third biennial report. We're asking for the kind of review that did not take place six years ago; and in this I think we have the support of stakeholder groups, whether they involve the navigation industry, industries that use and discharge water, cities, or citizens' groups. The two governments have not yet decided what kind of review they want to carry out, so we, the commissioners, thought we should state a position early and say (a) there should be a detailed review; and (b) we should play a part in it, not just respond to what you've done. We're here today to talk about that particularly.
If you ask us what action steps we've come here to ask of you, we want you to reiterate, hopefully, the need for a reference on alien species. We want you to support the kind of review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement that we've called for, one with our involvement, your involvement, and the cities' involvement, something that didn't happen six years ago.
Frankly, reopening the treaty, or giving notice that if it isn't renegotiated we will cancel it, is another very big subject. I'd be happy if you looked at that, and I would come to talk about it, but I would prefer to deal with that after some reflection, especially in light of the general comments I've made.
With respect to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, it's possible the review may say the agreement should be amended to give the International Joint Commission a stronger role in monitoring that agreement than it has at present. The agreement now calls for the commission to assist the two governments in carrying out their obligations. When the agreement was first signed, the commission did a lot more of that; then the governments said, oh no, we're going to do this ourselves. But then all of this was caught up in the matter of downsizing of government activities, reduction of spending, and so on.
So this is something that may be a result of the comprehensive and meaningful review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement that I've called for, which is that the IJC be involved in applying the agreement in a way that it was involved when the agreement was first signed.
º (1655)
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Gray.
For a second round, Mr. Mills.
Mr. Bob Mills: Thank you.
I have a jurisdictional question. I'm pleased to hear that you were out looking at the Milk River, which has an effect across both borders. I wonder if we could move further west to the Fraser Valley and talk, as people have heard ad nauseam from me, about the Sumas project.
Obviously, the water for that project in Washington State on the U.S. side comes from Canada. That's where most of the aquifer is, and the Sumas River is being used as a place to dump sewage from that plant. It crosses the border in both cases. Water is going from Canada into the U.S. to be used for industry, and then the waste water is being dumped into the Sumas River, which then comes back to Canada and drains into the Fraser.
I've been rather astonished that the NEB is holding hearings. Thousands of people have objected to this program. The B.C. government has objected to this program, and many Washington state residents have opposed this program, yet we've seen no international agreements come into effect. We've seen no review of the NAFTA environment panel. We've seen no review by your agency.
It seems to me that going to the NEB first to approve a project is rather like putting the cart before the horse. I wonder what would have initiated your involvement. Why aren't you involved in a project like that?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: For us to be formally involved there has to be a formal request from the governments. Unlike the NAFTA panel, we can be approached. If we are approached to do something by way of looking into a problem and recommending what to do about it, we will bring that to the attention of the governments and in effect say, here is the concern raised with us; if you want us to look into it, please give us a formal reference.
The way the treaty is written, you cannot, as is the case with the NAFTA, come and ask us to please look into this, and then we'll make the decision without the governments giving us the request. If the governments want to give us a reference, we will be delighted, without fear or favour, to look into it and say what we think.
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Mr. Bob Mills: Would that be both governments or just the one government?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: No. The way the treaty is written, the request could come from either government, but I don't think there's been any case since the commission was set up where the request wasn't joint. Technically, if you look at the language of the agreement, one government could make the request and we'd have to act on it.
I have to say that under what we call our alerting function, we have written to the two governments expressing the concern as conveyed to us by some of the parties involved. We have actually stepped into the matter.
With respect to the NAFTA CEC process, people can go to the NAFTA directly and ask for them to carry out a review. I don't know if anybody has approached the NAFTA CEC for that purpose, but that's open to them.
Also, the other thing I wanted to say is that interestingly enough, although some of the waters from the estuary of the Fraser drain across the border, our legal advisers say that the Fraser is not a boundary water as defined in the treaty. I thought the estuary waters draining across the border might make them a boundary water, but because the main stem of the Fraser is entirely in Canada, I'm told that it's not a boundary water. That's what lawyers tell me.
I'll have to ask Dr. Clamen to comment on water going from Canada to be used by the Sumas project and waste coming back the other way.
The Chair: Very briefly, please.
Dr. Murray Clamen (Secretary, Canadian Section, International Joint Commission): I think the answer is very simply what the chairman has already indicated. In that particular case, if we were going to do an investigation of that nature, it would require a specific reference from both governments indicating precisely the terms of what they would like us to study.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Comartin, a brief question.
Mr. Joe Comartin: There was a report out overnight on the lack of enforcement in the United States for the types of chemicals Dr. Krantzberg was talking about, ones escaping at very low levels but accumulating in the biosphere and specifically in the Great Lakes. In less than 25% of all the cases was there any enforcement taken against the companies that caused the spill of the chemical into the waterways either adjoining or going directly into the Great Lakes. I'm just wondering if there's any role here for the IJC.
I also want to say this is not being critical of just the American side of the border. My assumption would be that the ratio in Canada, certainly in Ontario, would be roughly the same. Is there any role the IJC could play here by way of recommendations to governments in both countries to step up enforcement?
One of the reactions by government agencies was that they were simply unable to either do the inspections or take an enforcement role because they are not properly funded. Is there a role there on the part of the IJC to make recommendations in this regard in order to safeguard the quality of water?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: There are two things we could do. We could contact the governments and say, this matter has been raised with us and what are you doing about it? We can also talk about this in our next biennial report, and we're in the cycle of drafting it now. This is something we'll have to take a look at. For us to do that, it would have to be work by consensus in the commission, like a caucus or a cabinet committee, so I'll draw this point to the attention of my colleagues.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Comartin.
Mr. Reed, a brief question.
Mr. Julian Reed: I just have one question. How much pressure are you feeling these days on the diversion question? Any?
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Right Hon. Herb Gray: I'd say basically none. All the projects that were in the public forum at the time we were given our reference on water uses of the Great Lakes have become entirely quiescent. I think one reason is that when they sat down and did the economics seriously, the projects didn't seem to be economically feasible. But that doesn't mean that as shortages of water develop in the southern United States or elsewhere in the world, people won't come along and try to revive these projects or think of new ones. That's why, by the way, the governments have given us a reference to update our 19--
Dr. Murray Clamen: Our 2000—
Right Hon. Herb Gray: For the report we brought out in 2000, we started looking into it in 1998, I think. We hope to bring that report out by the end of the year, so stand by and hopefully we'll talk about that. We've had a task force report, we've had some public meetings, and now it's up to me and the other commissioners to sit down and write a formal report. We're working on drafts now.
Mr. Julian Reed: The reason I ask is that I had occasion to meet with some Mexican senators a week ago, and the question of water usage on these border rivers is really a serious situation. The Rio Grande and two other rivers are, for all intents and purposes, dry before they hit the ocean. Two countries are demanding that water, and I'm wondering what kind of pressure, even latent pressure, there may be to push more that way.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: At the present time, the whole issue with respect to the Great Lakes is, as far as I am aware, totally quiescent. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be vigilant; that doesn't mean it might not surface at any time, to use a water-borne metaphor. That is why we will have another report out on the current situation by the end of the year, hopefully.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Bailey, please.
Mr. Roy Bailey: In eastern North Dakota about two years ago there was talk of draining some of the water that normally flows into Devils Lake into the Red River, which flows north from the U.S. Could Manitoba as a province ask for your assistance in this dispute, and vice versa, could North Dakota ask their federal government through their representation on this committee? As far as I know, this has been quashed, it's not going ahead, but were you asked to become involved in this dispute?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Let me put it this way. We're following this very closely, because we know that people in the United States would like to have a formal reference on this, but the Government of Manitoba and our federal government have not agreed that this is the case. We have received no reference from either government at this point, and I think the American side is more interested in the reference than the other side. But I am just giving you a general impression. I think that's basically the story with respect to Devils Lake.
Dr. Clamen.
Dr. Murray Clamen: We'll hear from one of our technical boards in a couple of weeks at our semi-annual meeting, but they just give us an update on what the situation is, much as you're describing.
Manitoba, if they wanted a reference, for the sake of argument, would probably approach the federal government, and then the federal government would discuss it with the State Department and bring in North Dakota. In that way, the four parties would be involved.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bailey.
Mr. Tonks.
Mr. Alan Tonks: The IJC has complimented the United States on its cleanup of areas of concern through the Great Lakes Legacy Act. Is there any equivalent legislation in Canada? Would you suggest that, if there isn't, we should pass such legislation and strategically use that to focus in on those areas?
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Right Hon. Herb Gray: I don't think we've complimented the U.S. We have reported what they have accomplished. We not only talked about what hasn't been done, but where something has been done, we felt that it should be recognized.
I don't think there is anything as comprehensive in Canada. It could be that with some of the infrastructure funds that are being given to cities, things could be done in that regard, but there is nothing equivalent to some of the U.S. programs, such as Superfund, I guess they call it, and so on. Certainly there would be room for something like that. It could be well used in Canada, but there is no equivalent.
I don't know if we've handed out compliments, but we have stated fairly where the Americans or, for that matter, Canadians have gone beyond doing nothing; then we record that. We don't say in all cases that's enough, and so on, but we feel that in order to encourage further progress we should.... For example, I was in Hamilton last week when they updated their stage two cleanup program for Hamilton Harbour. They made a lot of progress, though not enough, but I went there because I think they deserve some recognition.
While I painted a clear, uncompromising picture of the situation with respect to water quality in the Great Lakes, I didn't take the time to talk about what has been accomplished. The situation with regard to treatment of waste has involved hundreds of millions of dollars, and in that regard the Great Lakes are a lot better than they were years ago, when it comes to phosphorus. With the exception of the backsliding in Lake Erie, the situation is a lot better. To say nothing has happened would not be correct, but at the same time, to say that nothing more has to be done would be equally incorrect.
As I said perhaps too obliquely in my remarks, you never can say something is totally accomplished when it comes to a dynamic system like the Great Lakes. You have to recognize what has been done, you have to be vigilant that there is no backsliding, and you have to keep pushing ahead to get the remaining part of the task done. That's what we're talking about.
Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Tonks.
Mr. Gray, a committee of assistant deputy ministers has been formed to examine federal water policy. Can you see a role for that committee to perform in connection with your review?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: It's up to the government, so they say, the format that they adopt to carry out the review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. We've sketched out five areas, which I appreciate your drawing our attention to, in our declaration. As to how the committee of ADMs will fit in, frankly, I have to inform myself.
I just want to mention that there is on the books a federal water act, and I think you have the publication. Not too long ago a document came out talking about federal and provincial water policies. It's a rather attractive booklet. But I think work under the federal water act, going for cooperation with the provinces in water policy, is inactive and has been for many years, although I think some of the provinces--Manitoba and Quebec--have water policy documents. So as to where that comes into it, I just leave that on the table for you.
Also, I should add that, being an international organization, while we work closely with at least six departments in Canada and their counterparts in the U.S., we're not under the rubric of assistant deputy ministers and deputy ministers reporting to the Clerk of the Privy Council. That's why, when we talk about bringing our views to the attention of government, we say we communicate with the two foreign ministers. That's a technicality, but I just want to leave that with you.
I will follow up on what you say about the committee of ADMs.
The Chair: Has this committee of ADMs taken the initiative of contacting the commission?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Not as yet, but we'll seek them out. We'll be proactive.
The Chair:
My other question is about the language used in the first item of the five key responsibilities, which reads:
| our Great Lakes Water Quality Board could conduct an operational review of the agreement focusing on the linkage between the Agreement and the ability of agencies to implement its provisions. |
Is there a message implied in this language? Is there some sense that the agencies do not have the ability to implement its provisions? What is the real significance of that other puzzling sentence?
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Right Hon. Herb Gray: You could fairly read that interpretation into the language. The agencies themselves will tell you that they have had severe cutbacks in funding over the past ten years, and as a result, their capacity for monitoring either new chemicals or existing chemicals has been cut back. If you had officials here from federal-provincial departments, they would readily agree that this has been the case. All you have to do is look at the estimates over the past ten years.
The Chair: What injection of funds would be required to make the agencies capable of implementing their mandate?
Right Hon. Herb Gray: I haven't done work of that kind, so I wouldn't like to speculate.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Szabo, to conclude.
Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The last time the IJC appeared before us, we were talking about, among other things, alien invasive species in the Great Lakes and the statistical information about dealing with one while one more is being created. The numbers are still staying relatively stable in terms of invasive species.
It raised the question at the time, and I guess it's still a question of interest to me, as to whether the IJC, in terms of this new dialogue or maybe opportunity to have dialogue with the governments of Canada and the U.S., can raise the issue about whether the IJC should be a little more aggressive in proposing policy initiatives to address such things as the inability to get a handle on matters such as alien invasive species--unless there was some significant commitment, say, to bring in mandatory regulations on ballast or some other factors.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: I'd like to think we've done that. It is something that needs to be said more than once, until there is a favourable response. For example, I think that under the leadership of the environment department, there's supposed to be work going on to develop a comprehensive plan; but this has been going on for several years, and it's not targeted to be completed for several more years.
So certainly we're pressing for things of that nature to be completed a lot faster. Frankly, if I were to use my own language, we're pressing for movement from plans and proposals to concrete action. That's why we feel there has to be an agency—such as ours, which we proposed—to be overall coordinators of the process. As I think I mentioned, and as is in our 11th biennial report, there's all sorts of work going on in bits and pieces across a number of departments and agencies in Canada, and in the equivalents in the U.S. This has to be pulled together, and we have to move from planning, proposals, and working papers to concrete action.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Szabo.
On July 2 of this year, the U.S. representative, Thomas Reynolds, announced a multi-billion fund to aid Great Lakes cleanup efforts. Do you have any idea whether that Great Lakes trust fund has been formed and what its...
Right Hon. Herb Gray: As a matter of fact, around that time, I accompanied Chairman Schornack to Washington. We appeared before a Senate subcommittee, and we spent time talking to individual senators and representatives.
What has happened is the equivalent of first reading of bills in the House of Commons. There is a bill tabled by Senator Levin of Michigan and Senator DeWine of Ohio; it's a bipartisan bill. There's been an equivalent bill tabled in the House of Representatives by Congressman Emanuel and Congressman Kirk of Chicago. And, yes, they have other congressmen of both parties lined up behind them, with Senators Levin and DeWine having equivalent support from other senators. It is at the equivalent of our first reading. I don't disparage that at all; in fact, it's encouraging that there is this momentum.
So we have to hope that our U.S. counterparts will press ahead, and that this will encourage relevant action on our side of the border.
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The Chair: Do you have any forecasts on when the 41 remaining areas of concern will perhaps be 40?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Right Hon. Herb Gray: If the recommendations in our AOC report are followed through, in which we made very concrete, specific recommendations for management and oversight as well as funding, then I certainly think this will happen in this generation. That may seem like a long time, but in the U.S., some of the contaminated sediment problems are hard to seize, and so on, in terms of what's involved and the hundreds of millions of dollars involved.
So some are easier to tackle, and some are harder. If you want to talk about every single one of them, some will be done in relatively few years, but some will stretch out longer. If the two countries adopt the concrete, specific recommendations in our AOC report, then, yes, I think you'll see some much more meaningful and speedier action than has happened since the AOCs were identified and listed back in the early 1980s.
The Chair: Minister Gray, my colleagues and I would like to thank you and your colleagues for appearing before us today. We'll certainly to our best to deal with the requests you've put forward.
Right Hon. Herb Gray: Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup.
The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.