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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, May 2, 2002

0905

The Chair (Mr. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.))

Mr. David Coon (Policy Director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick)

0910

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

0915

0920

0925

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

0930

0935

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

The Chair

Mr. Randy Fleming (Inter-Church Uranium Committee)

0940

The Chair

Mr. Randy Fleming

0945

Ms. Maisie Shiell (Inter-Church Uranium Committee)

The Chair

Ms. Maisie Shiell

0950

0955

1000

The Chair

Ms. Maisie Shiell

1005

The Chair

Ms. Maisie Shiell

The Chair

Mr. Allan Morin (Minister responsible for Environmental Initiatives, Métis National Council)

The Chair

Mr. Allan Morin

1010

Mr. Garry Lipinski (Co-Chair (Ontario), Métis National Council)

1015

1020

Mr. Allan Morin

The Chair

Mr. Mills (Red Deer)

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

1025

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. David Coon

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. David Coon

The Chair

Ms. Maisie Shiell

Mr. Bob Mills

Ms. Maisie Shiell

1030

Mr. Bob Mills

Ms. Maisie Shiell

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Randy Fleming

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Allan Morin

1035

The Chair

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Allan Morin

Mr. Garry Lipinski

1040

Mr. David Coon

The Chair

Mr. Randy Fleming

1045

The Chair

Mr. Lunn

Mr. David Coon

Mr. Gary Lunn

Mr. David Coon

Mr. Gary Lunn

Mr. David Coon

Mr. Gary Lunn

Mr. David Coon

Mr. Gary Lunn

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.)

1050

Ms. Maisie Shiell

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Maisie Shiell

1055

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. David Coon

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Allan Morin

Mr. Garry Lipinski

1100

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Allan Morin

The Chair

Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)

Mr. Garry Lipinski

The Chair

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Julian Reed

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

Mr. Julian Reed

The Chair

1105

Ms. Maisie Shiell

The Chair

Ms. Maisie Shiell

The Chair

Ms. Maisie Shiell

1110

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

The Chair

Mr. David Coon

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

NUMBER 069

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Thursday, May 2, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0905)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): Good morning. Welcome to our meeting. We are involved in a slow marathon through Bill C-19, which is a bill attempting to update the Environmental Assessment Act, and we are hearing witnesses, now entering maybe the final stretch, more or less.

We are very glad to have you here as witnesses today before this committee, particularly to have in the room a veteran in governmental issues and struggles, Mrs. Shiell. It's nice to see you again. I also welcome Mr. Fleming, Mr. Lipinski, Mr. Morin, and Mr. Coon.

According to the agenda, it would be David Coon to begin.

Mr. David Coon (Policy Director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick): Thank you, Mr. Caccia and members of the committee. We appreciate the opportunity for the Conservation Council of New Brunswick to present to you our views on Bill C-19.

Although we haven't been involved on an ongoing basis in the review, we've had a long involvement with the federal environmental assessment process since its inception in the various phases it's gone through, up to and including CEAA itself. We've been involved in several projects on the ground that have triggered CEAA or are in some way affected by CEAA in recent years, this year too, and they all raise serious questions about the adequacy of the federal environmental assessment legislation as we have it, but most importantly, the adequacy of the amendments in the bill. We're concerned that they fail to address some of these important concerns.

The minister has set out three goals to improve the environmental assessment process, to provide a greater measure of certainty and predictability to all participants, enhance the quality of assessments, and ensure more meaningful public participation, all important goals. What I want to do with our presentation is highlight some experience--I'm calling it a view from the trenches--with particular cases that should serve as a bit of a reality check on both CEAA itself and the amendments that are being proposed to achieve the three objectives the minister has laid out.

The overarching questions we believe the committee should be concerned with are whether CEAA provides an effective tool for reviewing projects of environmental significance and providing the public with open and effective means of participating in such reviews, and if not, whether the proposed bill and the amendments it contains fixes the problem. At this point, based on these case studies I'm going to present to you, the answer would appear to be, no.

The first three cases are all in the Maritimes, cases where CEAA was either not triggered or sidestepped and where that would continue to be the situation if this bill were accepted as currently written. Then there is a case where CEAA was triggered, but the project was relegated to the ghetto of screening, also a case that poses special considerations in the context of this bill, because it deals with environmental restoration. Then there's a case where CEAA triggered screening, but this case demonstrates significant problems with the federal-provincial agreements that sometimes seem to sidetrack CEAA; it also raises issues of the discretionary ability of responsible authorities to include public participation or not and some questions concerning the impacts of Bill C-19 suggestions on class assessments for streamlining the smaller projects. Finally, there's a minor project where simple class screening, as proposed in the amendments to streamline the process, would be a serious problem.

The first case I would like to address is the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station. The Conservation Council had the dubious honour of participating in the very first panel review in Canada under the federal environmental assessment process, and that was April 3, 1975. The project was a proposal to build a CANDU reactor on the Bay of Fundy adjacent to the fishing communities of Chance Harbour and Dipper Harbour.

¿ (0910)

The Chair: From memory, who chaired it, do you know?

Mr. David Coon: I actually did look that up, wrote it down, and since I didn't recognize the names, didn't bring the names.

The Chair: It was not Mr. Seaborn, was it?

Mr. David Coon: It may well have been Mr. Seaborn.

Nineteen years after that project first generated electricity, it's worn out, long before it was supposed to be. NB Power and AECL are now proposing to reconstruct a nuclear plant at an initial cost of $850 million, and subsequent costs over the life of the plant they're projecting to be than $2 billion. This will be the first life extension of a CANDU reactor. In other words, it's being forced into retirement, and it would stay there unless this work were done, which entails completely rebuilding the brittle core of the reactor, as well as many other changes. AECL, the federal corporation, will serve as the contractor. The proponent claims this will give a further 25 years of operation. Of course, that carries with it ongoing emissions, effluent, and waste generation from the plant and associated risks, but this refurbishment, as they call it, will avoid a federal environmental assessment screening, never mind a panel review. Why? Bill C-19 would not require this to be assessed either.

It appears that this project escapes all CEAA triggers. Instead, the Canadian Nuclear Regulatory Commission will carry out a CEAA screening of some proposed modifications to the radioactive waste storage facility on site. We were quite flummoxed when we heard that was going to be done. When this above-ground storage facility for radioactive waste was first constructed, it was done without any environmental assessment whatsoever, despite efforts on our part and by others to try to bring that about. Now adding a few more of these concrete silos to contain the radioactive waste on the existing site is going to trigger CEAA, as opposed to the actual project itself. Of course, these additional silos wouldn't be required at this time if the plant were left in retirement. Our question is, has there been some horse trading here to massage a political issue, while avoiding scrutiny and public accountability on the main event that would come about through CEAA?

So the issue in this case is that a major nuclear development, with extensive federal involvement and, I might add, federal guarantees through AECL on both the cost of construction and its performance afterwards, is exempt from CEAA. That's the first case.

The second case deals with oil and gas exploration in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence off Nova Scotia, something that has made the national news over time. There's a battle some of you may be familiar with being waged in Cape Breton and P.E.I. that will define to a great extent the future of our coastal waters and communities in the Maritimes, and it's over the exploration licences granted by the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board to Corridor Resources and Hunt Oil. This is adjacent to the Cabot Trail and the Cape Breton Highlands national park. We're talking about 600,000 acres of sea bed running 80 kilometres along the shore, 32 kilometres out into the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence towards Prince Edward Island. Hunt Oil's concession alone covers about 1.5 million acres of the Sydney Bight. Both of these areas are critical fish habitat and migration routes. Community-based multispecies fisheries have been carried out there for centuries, first by first nations, then joined by Acadian and anglophone fishermen. A DFO habitat status report declares that the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence in that area is extremely sensitive to a myriad of species. We have a moratorium on George's Bank on oil and gas exploration. DFO, at the hastily called public hearings--not under CEAA, but public hearings held locally in the area--admitted that this area is more biologically diverse than George's Bank, where that moratorium is currently in place.

I won't go into any further details about the risks involved, but the most disturbing thing about this situation is the abdication of responsibility by those agencies with the legislative mandate to protect fisheries and the environment. Through memoranda of understanding with the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, both DFO and Environment Canada have handed over their environmental protection mandates to this petroleum industry licensing board, thus apparently sidestepping CEAA.

¿ (0915)

Despite widespread opposition from the fishing industry and concerned citizens, and despite a direct threat to fish populations and their habitats from the kind of seismic testing that would be carried out, both of which are federal responsibilities, this massive intrusion into coastal waters--and I want to emphasize that we're talking about coastal waters here, very different from the offshore in their vulnerability and importance economically--on which many thousands of jobs depend, not only in Cape Breton and P.E.I., but in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well, because, as we know, fish move, is not going to be subject to CEAA and will not be assessed for its environmental impact.

So the issue here is that MOUs among responsible agencies appear to allow proponents to avoid CEAA triggers that otherwise will kick in and sideline the federal environmental assessment in areas of clear federal jurisdiction, in areas where there's ample evidence of serious environmental risk. Bill C-19 doesn't address this problem. So it will result in no improvement with that issue.

Third, staying in the marine environment a little bit, since we're based on the east coast, is the issue of fish dragging in sensitive marine habitats. On the Scotian Shelf we now know there are ancient corals that likely have been diminished extensively over the past 50 years by heavy fish dragging with otter trawls. The few remaining coral beds, some of which form, essentially, coral forests, very likely provide critical habitat for fish seeking shelter. Little is known about these underwater environments, since they were only acknowledged by the scientific community a few years ago, thanks to the work of fishermen to bring this to light and the work of the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, working with those fishermen to bring the scientific community's attention to focus on this issue.

Research on the corals has barely begun, but already we know they are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, and their role in supporting marine life is assumed to be important. Even so, DFO has allowed fish dragging to resume on George's Bank, where corals are known to be. This is in the face of increasing scientific evidence about the harmful effects of bottom-dragging in general on a variety of bottom-type habitats, in addition to coral. More than once concerned fishermen and environmentalists have called on DFO to conduct an environmental impact assessment on bottom-dragging, starting back in the mid-eighties, when bottom-dragging technology changed dramatically, allowing access to areas that were not previously accessible, and when also declines in fish populations were becoming dramatically evident. DFO has steadfastly refused.

So it's ironic to us that a relatively small project on a stream inland in which trout are found requires a CEAA screening, while the potential loss of vast areas of underwater fish habitat or, in this case, the remnant populations of deep sea coral through the use of heavy otter trawls does not trigger CEAA. It's a sad testament to the failure of the federal environmental assessment process that a citizen's group with no resources must resort to the courts to try to protect the specific habitat for which DFO is clearly responsible.

So the issue here is that activities affecting huge areas of a marine environment containing even rare and perhaps endangered species, such as coral, which also serve as habitat, despite being clearly in the federal jurisdiction, are not subject to CEAA. Bill C-19 would not change that situation.

The fourth case we're actively involved in right now is the Petitcodiac River and estuary. Now we're getting into a case where CEAA has been triggered. Back in the sixties a kilometre-long causeway was built between Moncton and Riverview, 30 kilometres above the head of tide on the Petitcodiac River. Very quickly, widespread habitat and ecosystem damage was caused by the massive sedimentation that continues to this day. The river is now one-tenth its original width and much shallower. Thirty kilometres of estuary and associated salt marsh have been destroyed. Fish such as the Atlantic salmon and the Atlantic shad have been extirpated from the system--these, in fact, are the upper Bay of Fundy Atlantic salmon that are now on the COSEWIC endangered species list--and the dwarf wedge mussel, found only in the freshwater reaches of this river, is now extinct. Because of its fish and habitat responsibilities, DFO is a primary agent in this problem, and thus in its solution.

¿ (0920)

As a joint initiative, New Brunswick and Ottawa, are now launching an environmental impact assessment of four options for restoring fish populations and the river and estuary ecosystems. At issue is the potential death or potential recovery of New Brunswick's third largest watershed and the intended ripple effects out into its estuary in the Bay of Fundy itself. An environmental assessment will take as long as three years and cost $3 million dollars. The project itself to restore the river will take many more years after that and cost as much as $20 million. It's a very controversial issue. Many municipalities and citizen groups and others from across the province have lined up on both sides of the issue.

Despite the scale and scope of the project, and thus the environmental assessment, despite its long controversial history, and despite the recommendation of a special advisor to the fisheries minister himself that a CEAA panel be struck to review the project, the project will only be screened at the end of the provincial EA. The rationale of DFO officials is that it's a small project, only some changes to a one-kilometre causeway. Thus, even under the bill before you here, public access to and participation in the environmental assessment, rather than being prescribed by CEAA, must be negotiated with federal and provincial bureaucrats, because, of course, we're dealing with screening. Even in the new bill there's no provision for intervener funding under screening, despite the fact that in this case it's a three-year, $3 million dollar process. Thus potential interveners are left to lobby ministers to do the right thing and ante up some money for their participation. If they can't convince ministers, they're on their own.

The other important point--and it's unique, perhaps, because of its magnitude--is that this project and others like it meant to restore ecosystems are not well suited to the current definitions and approaches to environmental assessment provided by CEAA. So here we have a project that's actually intended to restore an ecosystem on a large scale. EAs are geared towards mitigating impacts of development projects or proposals, and consultants who make their livings doing environmental impact assessments are internally wired to think in that direction. Thus, this Petitcodiac River restoration EA, where several options will be evaluated for their effectiveness in restoring the river, putting a bridge span in the causeway, operating the flood control gates differently, and so on, and any unwanted impacts that might result, is not really fitting well within the conventional environmental assessment framework. As a result, we're concerned that the goals and approaches will be twisted to fit the conventional framework, and thus the outcome could well prevent the original intent, which in this case is restoration.

So to summarize this issue, a controversial project that will affect most of southeastern New Brunswick and the upper Bay of Fundy watershed can be defined as small under CEAA, and therefore avoid more structured federal assessment that provides for public participation and funding, and the bill would also provide, in the case of a comprehensive study, those possibilities. Second, this massive restoration project, which is arguably the largest in Canadian experience to date, does not fit easily within the structure of CEAA, which is supposed to promote sustainable development, and the amendments in the bill do not address this fundamental issue either.

Let me move on now to the next case....

¿ (0925)

The Chair: Mr. Coon, this is most interesting material you're reading to the committee. In fairness to the other witnesses, though, could I ask you to compress the balance of your brief?

Mr. David Coon: I will, Mr. Chairman.

There are two further cases, and I'll briefly address them. One is at the opposite end of the Bay of Fundy in the Quoddy region, where I live myself, where the bulk of the maritime salmon aquaculture production is. We were very pleased that this was to be subject to screenings under CEAA, and assumed DFO would be open to public input into the decisions. We felt the demands of CEAA would impose some rationality and structure onto the process of site approvals for salmon aquaculture in New Brunswick.

However, in the first year of application CEAA screening was a disaster from the public perspective, because of the federal-provincial MOU on aquaculture. The entire process was confounded by provincial constraints. This included DFO's receiving applications for these sites through the province, rather than directly from the proponents. This being so, the information was made subject to all the confidentiality provisions under the provincial Aquaculture Act, really sidelining the whole intent of CEAA with respect to providing for meaningful public participation. This year it's not turning out much better. Clearly, public participation is not wanted in this process, and because this is a screening, DFO is under no obligation to provide for public participation.

There are a couple of other triggers that are in the brief, a couple of other issues related to this that I won't deal with, except the final one. These aquaculture projects, under the bill, would very likely be considered in the category where class screening is applicable, and this is very important, because while management and husbandry practices on a site might be standardized, the specific location of a fish farm has tremendous influence on whether the farm will have an environmental impact. A very well run farm can ruin the bottom and create dissolved oxygen problems in one location and be clean as a whistle in another. So where it is sited is incredibly important. Further, much depends on other activities in the area. Certain sites may be spawning or nursery habitat for other species or adjacent to protected areas. So class screening, as envisioned to streamline the process for smaller projects under the bill, could end up ignoring these site-specific factors that determine what the impact of the site might be.

So again we have the problem of federal-provincial agreements, in this case hindering the effective application of CEAA with respect to assessing the siting of these aquaculture projects, and the potential that if the bill went ahead as proposed, class assessments would be presented, with potentially disastrous effects on site-specific areas under consideration.

The final case is an interesting one. It deals with particularly small projects, something you would think not to worry about. It was the construction of a fisheries building on the first nations reserve at Tobique. This triggered screening. It was just a building construction project, so you'd think it's insignificant, but this addresses two issues. The bill suggests we're going to draw on more local knowledge, and again there's the issue of class assessments. In this instance people locally were well aware that hazardous wastes had been buried by the power commission on that site, where the building construction was to go on, back in the 1960s, in the old days, when the province, through the federal government, was able to permit things like dumps to be established on reserves without any particular input from band members. So two band councillors and a band member approached me about this. They had been told environmental assessment had been done and there was nothing to worry about, and they said, there's this problem, there are hazardous wastes buried here, and we're going to be disturbing this site and constructing a building. What are we to do?

So you can see that in the case of the building alone there's no environmental impact assessment, but you see too the site-specific problems and the local knowledge people had,. They had to fight hard, including members of the band council, to get this acknowledged, asking for my assistance on this, because of the knowledge the Conservation Council has of the environmental process. We attempted to intervene, contacted Indian Affairs, and as usual, Indian Affairs did not respond to the Conservation Council, because we're outside the first nation. When this was relayed to band council members, they pointed out to me, well, we have that problem all the time, so don't worry about it.

¿ (0930)

In conclusion, we'd like to make one comment and a couple of recommendations.

We see that the balance has really shifted away from public participation to the participation of experts, and we don't see the bill fundamentally addressing this. And to properly do an environmental impact assessment, because we're dealing with a lot of uncertainty and questions of environmental risk, the determination of the acceptability of that risk really has to involve significant and meaningful public participation. We don't see Bill C-19 fundamentally addressing this issue.

Second, it would appear to us, based on these kinds of case studies, that the responsible authorities, to the degree possible, are trying to avoid CEAA or minimize its utility. CEAA is a hoop to jump through, and we don't see the bill as addressing this problem particularly.

To redress this imbalance we see between expert and public participation, to provide greater certainty and predictability to all, there are a number of things. We believe that public participation in screenings should be made mandatory and provisions for participant funding should be made possible at the screening level, depending on the case--I gave the example of the Petitcodiac River restoration.

Class screening must have a mechanism for identifying site-specific issues, as in the case of aquaculture or siting of buildings, where there's a potential problem with the site identified based on local knowledge. We think this could be done in a two-phase assessment, where there's a generic assessment for the actual development and a specific assessment of the site itself related to the activity.

Third, we think the comprehensive study list has got to be expanded to capture the breadth of undertakings that pose significant risks or present significant restoration opportunities, as in the examples I gave, the massive reconstruction of a nuclear power plant, the dragging of sensitive bottom habitats, and the restoration of ecosystems.

Next, we believe the process for making rules on whether cases will go forward to a panel review must be not only clearly defined, but expanded to include screening report cases.

Next, we think CEAA should have responsibility for organizing and coordinating public participation, from scoping meetings all the way up to consideration of comprehensive studies. In our experience, to have responsible authorities, especially when they're often a proponent, play such a prominent role in facilitating public participation results in much misunderstanding and confusion among the public. We have had many citizens attend meetings not understanding that they were scoping meetings, thinking they were just information meetings held by the proponent, only to discover later that they were scoping meetings and consultation meetings. This is not to mention throwing up barriers to public involvement in those meetings to begin with, as in the current CEAA assessment of the modifications for radioactive waste storage at Point Lepreau, where the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is holding hearings in Ottawa for a project in southern New Brunswick, public hearings to consider whether the scope of the assessment is adequate, which is totally unacceptable and creates a tremendous barrier to public involvement.

And finally, streamlining the approach to minor projects we think is a great idea, but we think it needs to go farther, to avoid the problems we identify. We think the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency should have the power to exclude projects that are minor from screenings if no level of environmental assessment is warranted.This will put the fear of God into a lot of people, but it would take out a lot of inconsequential projects clogging up the system, and it would be easier then, I think, to have meaningful public participation at the screening level if a lot of those insignificant projects were taken out. To do this, a permit would have to be issued by the agency, the minister essentially, to certify that the project was intentionally screened out and provide any terms and conditions the project might have to meet in its implementation.

¿ (0935)

We think the bill as currently proposed clearly offers some modest improvements, and I haven't touched on those, because we wanted to address the concerns, but it falls far short of achieving any of the three goals the minister has established to improve environmental assessment through the review process in this bill. There are fundamental problems with CEAA as it currently stands, many of which I have outlined through the specific cases we've had involvement in. We hope that as before, when the committee dealt with the original bill that created CEAA, you are able to fundamentally strengthen the bill and strengthen environmental assessment in Canada. I hope our contribution has provided some food for thought in that direction.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you--bringing back the memory of some 200 amendments. Is that what you're suggesting?

Mr. David Coon: I'm sorry, bringing the back the memory of what?

The Chair: Of some 200 amendments that were on the table when CEAA was first brought before this committee.

Mr. David Coon: I was only trying to bring the memory of the success the committee had in bringing some of those amendments forward into the act.

The Chair: Thank you for bringing these very precise recommendations to the committee, they're very helpful, and also for bringing some institutional memory back.

We'll move on swiftly now to Mr. Fleming.

Mr. Randy Fleming (Inter-Church Uranium Committee): Good morning, Mr. Chair.

I and Mrs. Maisie Shiell are representing the Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Co-operative, which is based in Saskatchewan. We want to take this opportunity to thank you and the members of this committee for giving us this opportunity to make our presentation today.

The Inter-Church Uranium Committee is a multipartite group, made up of a diverse number of organizations representing mainstream members of churches, educators, members of the scientific community, and ordinary citizens like myself and Mrs. Shiell, who have debated the particular issues of uranium development, starting back in the late 1970s with the development of a refinery for processing uranium in Warman, Saskatchewan, adjacent to Saskatoon.

Let me preface my remarks today by stating what I believe. Perhaps some of you may agree with me that security today is an elusive concept that calls up government's concerns to protect the territory and population against threats to the stability of its national order, specifically the social well-being, or to the important societal values in this country. No less important is the environment in which each one of us must live and co-exist. I don't propose today to repeat what is contained in my submission. I simply would like to give an overview and let Mrs. Shiell make her presentation.

We believe that if the purpose of marrying scientific analysis with public involvement is simply a search for those environmental impacts that are only a little less damaging, to quote Professor Gibson, or cause the least harm to the environment, when, in actuality, environmental assessment is no more than an attempt to allow a project we know will be environmentally disruptive to proceed in the same fashion as its predecessors, without measuring the price, then the EA process becomes a dangerous and potentially hazardous process in and of itself.

It's well to remember that the supposed objective quantification of risk does not provide us with ethical imperatives. The technical issue of defining a risk tells us nothing about whether that risk should be taken. Because quantitative disputes can be resolved on technical grounds and values disputes cannot, disagreements tend to get settled on analytical or technical grounds. At least, this has been the experience of the members of our committee in the context of the uranium regulatory process. ICUC views the environmental assessment process for uranium development as often relying on scientific evidence that can best be described as tentative or conjectural in reaching decisions.

This morning I want to take the opportunity of simply showing you a brief history of the surveys and research that have been done over the last 20 years in Saskatchewan, bringing us to the point where we are in 2002.

¿ (0940)

The Chair: Mr. Fleming, you can do that, by all means, but keep in mind that we have Bill C-19 before us, so as to make your presentation relevant to the bill.

Mr. Randy Fleming: Thank you, Mr. Caccia. I simply propose to show you the body of scientific evidence that has been produced over that period of time, but has failed to really quantify or measure the risks adequately, and to show you where we're at right now, where the risks have manifested themselves in actual problems in the Athabasca watershed.

This is the first study that was completed in 1981, “A Preliminary Assessment of the Environmental Conditions of Two Abandoned Uranium Mine Tailings Sites in Saskatchewan”, the two oldest mines, which were started in the early fifties and closed in 1976. This was followed in 1988 by “The effect of uranium mine tailings on radionuclide concentrations in Langley Bay, Saskatchewan”, the Athabasca Lake area, and later by “Movement of dissolved radionuclides from submerged uranium mine tailings into the surface water of Langley Bay”. This was a study that was done looking at the effects on the ecosystem within that same area a year later, in 1990. And I should point out that there were other studies Mrs. Shiell has acknowledged in her research. Unfortunately, I didn't have copies of those.

This is a further study of radionuclides, which, as you can see from the site map, extended a little further south and showed the process of dissipation of radionuclides into other areas, extending along the food chain.

And then we come to 2002. This was highlighted in the February 1 StarPhoenix, in a feature articlen that basically describes the results of some of the research that was done, putting a price tag on the cost of trying to clean up abandoned mine sites as a result of radionuclide tailings that had accumulated and hadn't been cleaned up previously.

Suffice it to say that we believe the research that should have been done at the time these mines were closed was not carried out. Mrs. Shiell is going to elaborate a little further on what she believes to be some of the vital parts of Bill C-19 that may address these shortfalls.

Thank you.

¿ (0945)

Ms. Maisie Shiell (Inter-Church Uranium Committee): Good morning, honourable members.

I will take you to what's happening in Saskatchewan today, where we are developing a 21% uranium ore in McArthur River. This is why I appealed so very strongly to come here to tell you today about it. I don't see the agency, the act as it is, or Bill C-19 as addressing our problem in Saskatchewan today.

The Chair: You're quite right, Maisie, in that observation. It has been made by other witnesses too. If you want to help this committee, try to keep in mind that what we are studying right now is Bill C-19.

Ms. Maisie Shiell: I did give you my paper, and I'm saying what we are doing is unsustainable. The bill is meant to encourage the responsible authority to build sustainable development. What we're doing in Saskatchewan, with this very high-grade mine, is going in the opposite direction. The World Summit on Sustainable Development that is meeting in Johannesburg later this year has written to us and asked us to look into how sustainable development is working. We have to say--and this is what my whole background paper is about--sustainable development has become less sustainable today. I think this fits into what we are talking about with the act, doesn't it, Mr. Caccia?

I'm quite old, and I'm not very good at remembering what I'm going to say. Can I just read you my presentation?

The Inter-Church Uranium Committee Education Co-operative has been following this since before 2000. This act is being used to allow ever higher grades of uranium to be developed. It is the contention of the ICUCEC that the development of high grades of uranium ore, which average up to 21%, is an unsustainable development.

In mining uranium, large quantities of alpha-emitting radionuclides from the decay of U-238 are brought up to the earth's surface, from where they can become available to the environment. I have provided three attachments, and attachment two explains the decay series of uranium and why this is about to happen. If you do have questions, this is a very important attachment. I have highlighted the alphas because this is the problem that is not being recognized and that there are no scientific reviews about. There is no scientific support that would give one confidence that in the long term, the alpha-emitting radionuclides from the long-lived radium-226 and thorium-230 will not genetically and somatically damage the cells in plants and animals. If you look at this attachment, you'll see that thorium-230 has nearly an 80,000-year half-life, radium has a 1,600-year half-life. These are decaying into more alpha-emitting radionuclides. I know it is complicated, yet I am not a scientist. I have concentrated on this since 1976 to find out who's right. This is such a controversial subject.

¿ (0950)

A well-known radiobiologist, Dr. Ward Wicker of the University of Colorado, sent ICUCEC an e-mail on November 26 in answer to our request for his thoughts on the effects of alpha radiation. Dr. Wicker said he was unable to take a position on the effects of alpha irradiation, because of the general lack of knowledge, which he explains is based on the controversy about the relative biological effectiveness of alpha irradiation--that's what they call it, the RBE. He says, “We are very ignorant when it comes to estimating the dose rate to the germ cells and tissues, and we are also ignorant about how to interpret the effects from a given dose rate.”

The unsustainable development of high-grade uranium is being allowed to proceed by using paragraph 20(1)(a), whereby the responsible authority can allow a project to go ahead if, in his or her opinion, the project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects, provided mitigating measures are proposed. This is my problem: the project officers are saying these effects are insignificant. There appears to be no requirement in this act for the responsible authority to support his or her opinion with scientific data. This, I feel, is a tremendous flaw.

The higher the grade of ore, the larger the quantities of radium and thorium that are brought to the surface of the earth, where they can become available to sediments, to the biota, and to the water. The majority of these radionuclides will go into the tailings pit, where they will be controlled by pumping and treatment during operations, which are probably, in the case of McArthur, to last about 20 years. What happens at the end of that? Can we continue to pump and treat for centuries, hundreds of centuries? As I explain on this chart, these radionuclides will continue to decay into more alpha-emitting radionuclides long after these pumps have had to be shut off. There are no mitigating measures possible once these alpha-remitting radionuclides get into the plants and animals. This is not like any other poison. Genetic damage will be passed on to succeeding generations. No high-grade uranium mine has yet been decommissioned, so we have no precedent.

¿ (0955)

Paragraph 4(b) of the CEAA states that the purpose of this act is “to encourage responsible authorities to take actions to promote sustainable development.” We believe this purpose, to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, is not being achieved at the high-grade uranium mines in Saskatchewan. If this paragraph is to be corroborated, section 20 needs to be amended.

In the 1999 discussion paper of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency they describe how environmental assessment is recognized as an important decision-making tool in support of sustainable development.

The environmental assessments of projects use scientific analysis and public involvement to identify possible adverse environmental effects before they occur.

How has it happened that this serious thing is being allowed to go ahead without any scientific study on the effects of alpha radiation? ICUC believes there should be a requirement to support scientifically the responsible authority's opinion that the project is not likely to cause significant effects. I believe you asked a committee to study some, and we will be trying to involve ourselves in that.

The Canadian Environmental Forum on the World Summit on Sustainable Development invited ICUCEC to submit a short paper on the state of sustainability of radioactive waste in Canada in 2002 compared to 1992. For the high-grade uranium development in Saskatchewan our conclusion has been that because of the 21% average grade of the McArthur River mine, which came on stream in November 1999, and the fact that still no research has been done on the genetic effects of radium-contaminated organisms, at the Saskatchewan uranium mines we have been progressively moving away from sustainable development since 1992. We recommend that your committee take a serious look at this situation in Saskatchewan, which appears to be making a mockery out of this act.

À (1000)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Ms. Maisie Shiell: I hope it will be helpful to you. I know it's adding an extra burden; it does take study, but you don't have to be scientist. Also, about the Inter-Church Uranium Committee, I'd like to present you with this little booklet we did. We had a 20-year anniversary. We all contributed to it, so you'll learn a little bit about us.

In Saskatchewan there's been a great deal of propaganda, and the majority of people are in favour of continuing with uranium. The Inter-Church Uranium Committee does get some small funds from the churches, but not enough even to hire anybody in our office, because the churches say in their parishes everybody is in favour of it. So we really have difficulty, and it is for our future generations we need to look into this.

Thank you.

À (1005)

The Chair: Again, your presentation is invaluable to us. Thank you very much. We're glad you made it all the way to Ottawa. It's quite a distance to cover.

Ms. Maisie Shiell: Will there be any questions, Mr. Caccia?

The Chair: Yes, when we've had our third presentation.

Mr. Lipinski or Mr. Morin.

Mr. Allan Morin (Minister responsible for Environmental Initiatives, Métis National Council): Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the standing committee, fellow witnesses.

First, I want to say I have been involved with the environment for many years, and I have been involved with Maisie going back to 1976 and the Bayda enquiry, so I know her well. She's a true champion of the uranium issue, and she's pointed out a number of interesting things that have never been dealt with, such as decommissioning of the mines. There are about 67 mines in Saskatchewan that are still left open to this date and have never been decommissioned. I think it's a serious fault that as Canadians, we allow these mines to be opened without decommissioning them. I think she makes a very interesting point, because it is really detrimental to the environment.

My name is Allan Morin, and I'm here today in the capacity of the Métis National Council Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I also would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Mr. Garry Lipinski, who is the chairman of the Métis Nation of Ontario and an appointed member of the Métis National Council Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

The Métis National Council welcomes this opportunity to appear before the committee to address Bill C-19, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I wish to begin by thanking all the members of the committee for making a special arrangement to seek the input of the Métis nation on this important matter.

I would like to use this opportunity for a dual purpose, first to provide members of the committee with factors to consider from the Métis nation in relation to Bill C-19, and second, to stress the need to strengthen Métis participation in the application of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

We have tabled our document with the clerk, so I won't go into the background of the presentation we're going to make. It's the history of the Métis nation, and I go into the background of the Métis National Council. What I want to say is that the Métis National Council is made up of a head office in Ottawa and representatives and governing members from mainly the Métis Nation of Ontario, the Manitoba Métis Federation, the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of Alberta, and the Métis Provincial Council of British Columbia. The Métis National Council estimates that the Métis population is approximately 300,000 people in Canada, with a majority of this population located in the prairie provinces.

I want to point out some misconceptions and misunderstandings on the part of the federal government and the general public about the Métis.

The Chair: As long as you do that within the context of Bill C-19, Mr. Morin.

Mr. Allan Morin: Yes, it affects Bill C-19.

First, it is a myth that the Métis are nothing more than individuals who claim they are of mixed aboriginal and non-aboriginal ancestry. In reality, the Métis are an identifiable and distinct nation of people who have existed and continue to exist in western Canada. This existence as a people has been recognized domestically, as well as internationally, throughout the Métis Nation's history.

It is a myth that Métis have access to and are provided with assistance from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. In reality, the Métis have no access to and receive no benefits from the billions of federal dollars expended through INAC annually.

It is a myth that the Métis do not have established governing structures with the capacity to implement self-government. All the Métis National Council governing members hold a province-wide ballot box election for their leadership. They maintain their own registries for membership. They deliver Métis-specific programs and services to people. We are financially and politically accountable to the Métis Nation.

It is a myth that the Métis are included within aboriginal initiatives announced by the federal government. Federal ministers often use the term aboriginal. However, they exclude the Métis from access to these initiatives, because of the lack of understanding of the Métis Nation's unique need and governance structure, or they use the federal government's position, with respect to jurisdiction concerning the Métis, to avoid addressing our needs and issues.

It is a myth that the Métis have established processes to address their outstanding claims within the Canadian federation. On the contrary, the substantive outstanding issues between the Métis Nation and Canada are not being addressed politically. In many cases this has forced the Métis to seek justice through the judiciary. The current federal policy takes the position that the Government of Canada will not negotiate with the Métis and refuses to recognize that the Métis have existing constitutional rights that need to be reconciled within the Canadian federation.

That gives you an overview of some of the misconceptions the government has. Now we'll get into the recommendations with Bill C-19, because that's what we're here for today. I will now turn it over to my colleague Garry Lipinski to make that presentation.

À (1010)

Mr. Garry Lipinski (Co-Chair (Ontario), Métis National Council): Thank you very much, Métis National Council Minister Allan Morin, for opening our presentation to the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, and all the presenters for their presentations so far.

Also, Allan, I would like to recognize a couple of other key support people for the Métis Nation that have joined us here. We have Bob Stevenson, a Métis person originally from Alberta who's moved among the Mohawks and works with the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, also for the past number of couple of years chairman on the aboriginal working group for species at risk. Joining us here also is a Métis National Council staff employee who works diligently on the environmental portfolio for us, Paul Heighington.

Mr. Chair and other members, my colleague Mr. Morin gave some very good and quick introductory comments with respect to the Métis Nation position, and in the interest of time, he mentioned that we have tabled a document for your future reference, and we didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. A lot of it is background history on the Métis National Council and the Métis people.

I feel it is imperative to highlight for the benefit of some who perhaps aren't aware of it that Métis people are a distinct aboriginal people within Canada, and that's going to be a theme that gets lost very often in the act and bureaucracy and as it plays out in the field. As one of the distinct aboriginal peoples in Canada, equal to, not less than or greater than, the Inuit people, equal to, not less than or greater than, the first nations people, the Métis people are likewise recognized in the Constitution. However, as things play out in the field and through acts and legislation, and on the ground in this particular case, environmental issues, Métis people are often the forgotten people. That will be something of a theme that our recommendations will try to bring forward.

With the homeland, Métis people are keenly aware of the concept of environmental assessment. We depend upon a vibrant, healthy environment to ensure that a balance is maintained in our economic, social, and cultural survival and quality of life. Based on long-acquired knowledge capacity from being on the land, the Métis have a long history of actively participating in monitoring, assessing, and protecting the environment. For Métis people the interaction with the environment still continues today. On this basis, the MNC participated in the five-year review of CEAA, because it presented an opportunity to evaluate CEAA's effectiveness in ensuring that there's a balance between sustainable development and sound environmental management in the assessment of potential projects from our perspective.

In our view, the introduction of Bill C-19 and its proposed amendments have the potential to improve the elements of the environmental assessment process. However, we feel the government is still falling short of the meaning of the true test of strengthening the incorporation of aboriginal perspectives outlined by the Minister of the Environment as one of the key initiatives in strengthening the proposed act.

Although the Métis Nation has only been recently involved in CEAA through the five-year review, we feel it is our best and only chance to provide input on the following sections of CEAA that trigger aboriginal participation, in the hope of strengthening the Métis perspective in CEAA.

First, section 10 and subsection 59(1) set out the jurisdictional role of band councils to be involved in environmental assessment of projects that are to be carried out in whole or in part on a reserve that is subject to the Indian Act. Although there are several concerns raised by first nations over inconsistencies in the process and the prevention of full delegation of the EA responsibility to first nations, I believe the government should consider the role of the local Métis government structures in the EA process, which in many cases in Western Canada are located alongside reserve lands. Our recommendation is that the federal government expand the current scope of these sections to take into consideration Métis governing structures and institutions on the local and regional levels.

À (1015)

Second, clause 9 proposes changes to section 16, which states that aboriginal traditional knowledge may be considered in environmental assessments, but it is currently at the discretion of the responsible authorities, federal departments. In our view, traditional knowledge is rooted in Métis culture and lifestyle. It is a knowledge system that is a combination of knowledge passed down through generations and an individual's own observations, experiences, and interpretation of the land and its resources. TK is not only an information source, such as the location of a particular plant or the number of caribou in a given herd, but the framework for other processes in our communities, for example, building consensus in decision-making and receiving guidance from what we call people who know. Our feeling is that aboriginal and traditional knowledge must be incorporated in the application of the act. Moreover, we believe there is a need in this legislation to follow the commitments made regarding aboriginal traditional knowledge in the Convention on Biodiversity ratified by the Government of Canada. So we recommend that the new section 16.1 be amended to require that the consideration of aboriginal knowledge be mandatory, instead of discretionary.

Third, subsection 48(1) of the current act narrows provisions for ensuring aboriginal participation, jurisdiction, and full party status in the environmental assessment process. As you are aware, the act only applies to federal lands under the Indian Act in the aboriginal authorities, with land rights affirmed or agreed upon through land claims and comprehensive claims. As it stands, section 48 will not trigger full participation of local Métis government structures in the environmental assessment of proposed projects that would have environmental and cultural effects on Métis traditional lands and interests. Our recommendation is to amend this subsection to include full participation of local Métis governing structures in environmental assessment processes for projects that may have environmental and social impact on Métis lands.

Métis National Council, as a representative body of Métis people and communities, has a unique role to play in environmental assessment processes within Métis traditional territories and land management areas. There's a need for Métis involvement that goes beyond the mere logic of good policy. In our view, the law uniquely imposes on the crown a positive duty to protect aboriginal interests in lands or resources that may be adversely affected by federally authorized decisions.

We believe that as the Powley and Blais cases approach the Supreme Court of Canada, in the near future that may determine a greater scope for the Métis Nation in relation to the environmental assessment process. Rather than the federal government being reactionary, the Métis Nation wants to be engaged in the environmental assessment process in a constructive and proactive manner. Our recent introduction as a full member to the regulatory advisory committee of CEAA is a step in the right direction towards approving our role in the environmental assessment process.

Working in the following areas could enhance this relationship with the federal government in relation to CEAA further, first, as the department applies the consultation mechanisms with Métis, first nations, and Inuit people, such as under the aboriginal working group on the proposed Species at Risk Act; second, in the harmonization of the act with existing aboriginal self-government structure and land claims regimes, in addition to provincial environmental assessment legislation; and in defining the role of aboriginal traditional knowledge as it pertains to the act and full participation of the MNC and other national aboriginal organizations in the development of federal guidelines.

Finally, capacity needs to be addressed with the Métis Nation. Métis need access to long-term sustainability funding, not only to build technical resources and human capacity to address matters affecting social, economic, and cultural institutions, but also to look to Métis traditional lands and interests.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members. I'm now going to ask my colleague Mr. Morin to make some concluding comments.

À (1020)

Mr. Allan Morin: Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, and especially the member of Parliament from my riding, Rick Laliberte, I thank you for listening to our remarks. In closing, I wish to emphasize that the Métis Nation wishes to be part of an effective and accountable environmental assessment regime and its promotion of sustainable development. We are prepared to work with Environment Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to achieve these goals for the health of our environment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Morin, and thank you, Mr. Lipinski, for your presentation. We are very grateful that you took the time to prepare a brief, which is being circulated.

We'll start now with Mr. Mills.

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to thank the presenters for coming today. I think we see some true, on-the-ground dedication to the environment. We appreciate that.

The first question, Mr. Coon, comes from your description of DFO. The committee has heard me say this a number of times before, but our view of DFO from western Canada is very different. We just have 27 new offices in Alberta, for example, new DFO offices in Saskatchewan, and these guys wear bulletproof vests and carry guns and knock down doors. They are very different from the way you described DFO, as a group who cave in to almost any environmental assessment. So I'd like you to comment on that, because we've heard other witnesses describe DFO as these wimpy fellows who really cave in all the time, and we don't see them quite that way. Mind you, we don't have a lot of fish either, so maybe that's why they can be so powerful.

Second, I'm concerned about the federal-provincial cooperation when it comes to environmental assessment. I'd like each of you to address that issue; I think you have in part. I wonder how we can make that work better.

Finally, is the science there to really find out about these radionuclides that get into the food chain? We should have that science. Is there enough there to show it right through the food chain? Are there a lot of data in the area that have not been looked at in environmental assessment.

The Chair: Mr. Coon first, then Mrs. Shiell.

Mr. David Coon: I guess we had the unfortunate experience of the same arm of DFO you're referring to in the terrible incidents at Burnt Church. I won't say anything more about that.

We're talking about a whole other part of DFO. Through direct experience, particularly in the case of the aquaculture siting review process, we have seen exactly that happen. For DFO to receive the applications that should be screened by CEAA via the province and that to end up being subject to provincial confidentiality clauses under provincial legislations is totally unacceptable. There's a terrible problem there.

We're all for federal provincial cooperation, but unfortunately, the experience on the ground is that what you get is federal-provincial game playing and trade-offs. To use the example of the Point Lepreau radioactive waste facility that's currently being reviewed under CEAA, that's a joint review, the lead in that case being the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. But they made it clear to the provincial level of government that for their part, they did not want to see this review provincially as a reconstruction of a nuclear power plant. They wanted that as the side show, and the main thing to be this relatively minor matter of expanding the radioactive waste management system there to deal with the future waste that would be generated if the thing is rebuilt.

The federal-provincial interaction has been continually used to enable proponents and the responsible authorities to either evade CEAA triggers or downplay the utility of CEAA as it currently stands.

À (1025)

Mr. Bob Mills: So you see Bill C-19 as being able to place the federal power over the provinces. Is that what you're saying?

Mr. David Coon: I'm saying Bill C-19 will not accomplish that.

Mr. Bob Mills: No, but we should be amending it so it does.

Mr. David Coon: It needs to address these problems.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mrs. Shiell, would you like to reply to Mr. Mill's question?

Ms. Maisie Shiell: What you seem to be saying is, if there's no evidence, why should we go and look for it?

Mr. Bob Mills: No. You mentioned that the science should be used, and I'm just asking whether the science is there showing the food chain and showing where the tailings are coming from into the biological cycle. Is that scientific evidence there and being ignored by environmental assessment?

Ms. Maisie Shiell: The first thing is that these high-grade mines are being developed now, so the pumps in the treatment plant are controlling them, but the radionuclides are going to be decaying for many thousands of years later. You can't keep the pumps in treatment plants running all down through those centuries, can you?

As far as the knowledge goes, have you been following the Canadian Environmental Protection Act at all in this committee? It has suggested that radionuclides be added to the second priority substance list. Big studies have been coming out, drafts of them, and I've been following them very closely. They started in February 2000, and the last one came out in July 2001. You'll find that these studies talk about radionuclides, and nearly all the studies being done are about the gamma and the beta radiation. There are no studies about alpha-emitting radiation. In the last draft, July 2001, of the second priority substance list there are sections on alpha, and you find the difficulties written in there, but this is not being accepted by the government. When you look on the web page, all you find is the one from the year before, July 2000. It is very well worth reading, and I do quote the genetic piece in attachment 3. I compared what they are saying to what Dr. Wicker is saying, the approaches to each. Dr. Wicker says, I'm sorry, I can't give you an opinion; there isn't any study. They're saying, we can go ahead anyway; we are almost sure the effects will be very minor. This is the problem.

À (1030)

Mr. Bob Mills: That was the point I was trying to get to. We're looking at Bill C-19 and amendments to it to make it better, so that it will deal with the issues you bring out. It will be our job, then, to recommend that the science be looked at in environmental assessment. That's where I'm going. I'm not questioning the science.

Ms. Maisie Shiell: I was suggesting that in paragraph 20(1)(a), when it says the responsibility authority, in his opinion, has no..., we add in “based on scientific study”. It must be in there for this particular problem.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Mills.

Mr. Bob Mills: I think Mr. Fleming just had a brief comment.

Mr. Randy Fleming: In answer to your question about whether or not the release of radionuclides is extending through the food chain, probably the most compelling case that there is science and a need for further study is the study I referred to that was commissioned by Environment Canada from Dr. Patricia Thomas in 1995.

Mr. Bob Mills: Thank you.

Mr. Allan Morin: I'd like to respond to the part of the question where he asks about federal-provincial cooperation on environmental assessment. First, there is a lack of aboriginal involvement in environmental assessment, a lack of participation, and I think both levels of government need to recognize that when they assault aboriginal territories, they must consult aboriginal people. What the federal-provincial cooperation does is accommodate the multinational companies and development. It doesn't really take in the interests of the people who are really affected, especially in aboriginal territory.

Second, through the years since 1976, when, with Maisie, we addressed Bayda and other inquiries, we've been telling the federal and provincial governments that they must make the companies accountable. The companies come in, they extract the resources, but they're not accountable. They don't decommission, and I think it is a responsibility of the companies to decommission what they've taken out, because it affects the aboriginal territory that was assaulted by these companies. It affects our traditional lifestyle as people. It affects our food chain, because our animals eat vegetation from the waste. It affects our health. It affects our waterways.

So that's where federal and provincial cooperation can be used, to begin addressing these issues. Since 1976 we've been telling government that there are six or seven open pits in Saskatchewan, and no action has been taken to decommission any of them, and it is affecting our traditional lifestyle and our food chains. When are these actions going to be taken by the federal and provincial governments?

À (1035)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Morin.

Mr. Laliberte.

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, Lib.): I have a question to all the presenters. I look at environmental assessment, and when you're dealing with environment, you're dealing with an ecology. All of our ecology is tied into ecoregions. The closest one we have is in our watershed regions. In Saskatchewan, if we use the uranium as an example, you're dealing with three river systems. You've got the Churchill River, which is in the central area, but you also have the Mackenzie River, which flows to the north, and the North Saskatchewan, which flows on the edge of the prairies. When the environmental assessments take place, they're taking place within a province, because they're provincial projects. So most of the assessments are within provincial boundaries, as is the case with Alberta, the Tar Sands. When they assess the Tar Sands, they focus on the Alberta regions, they don't look at the Saskatchewan or other ecoregions. I look at the aboriginal involvement across the country, and there are basically three identified groups, Inuit, Métis, and first nations. I think there should be a balance on the ecoregions, not by jurisdiction of provinces or by jurisdiction of aboriginal groups or interest groups in our communities. I think assessments should be based on our ecoregions.

The uranium mines or the tailing ponds are on the edge of the lake and blow onto the lake at Lake Wollaston, a unique lake that flows to two river systems. So those radionuclides you talk about follow that ecosystem and the fish and plants in that river system, and then flow into two major river systems in Canada. I think that's where the responsibility of the federal government comes in. I think there should be a national purpose and a national responsibility to deal with environmental impacts on ecoregions.

I'd like to ask the group that presented here this morning, if we base our environmental assessments on cumulative or specific elements, should they be based on ecoregions? Should we be looking at where the site is promoted and using provincial boundaries and political boundaries to assess, or should we be more focused on ecoregions and ecosystems? That seems to be what I'm hearing from a majority of groups, that we always focus within our provincial realms, but we do have an transboundary impact by air or by water. Maybe the jurisdictions should be more balanced. Does the federal government have that responsibility? Should we be addressing the transboundary issues and bringing environmental assessments beyond the proponent provinces and territories?

The Chair: Mr. Morin, this question seems to be addressed to you.

Mr. Allan Morin: I'll let Garry answer. We've been discussing these limits.

Mr. Garry Lipinski: We were listening, Mr. Laliberte, and concurring. Certainly, we recognize that we should all be concerned, because pollution and its effects don't remain in one spot. As you quite rightly point out, they can get into a river system and move into other provinces and other jurisdictions, and they can go beyond a first nations jurisdiction into a Métis jurisdiction, into a rural jurisdiction, into urban jurisdictions, and ultimately, all Canadians are affected by those issues. We concur that there should be a joint effort in addressing that.

That is part of the theme we are trying to build into our participation. Currently, in a lot of decision-making processes Métis are left out. They will specifically identify a first nations community within a province or a jurisdiction, because they can go to a map and see it. Likewise with the Inuit, they see the traditional territory. But there are no federal maps that point out and highlight where the Métis communities are across the Métis homeland, with the exception of a few, perhaps, in Alberta, where there are some Métis settlements, and perhaps in other remote parts of the northern prairies. For most of the homeland, there are no federal or provincial maps that highlight and point out where our Métis communities are. One of the points we were bringing forth in our presentation was that we need these amendments in there to make mandatory our participation in the EA process, to have our input into that.

Beyond that, within the aboriginal population--and when I use the term aboriginal, I'm talking about first nations, Métis, and Inuit--we've been pushing on all fronts, international, federal, provincial, environmental, health, whatever, that we should incorporate into the decision-making process our aboriginal traditional knowledge, and again, we brought that forth in our presentation, the requirement for aboriginal TK. For anybody who's familiar with, has studied, or has listened to people who are talking about aboriginal TK, it brings forth a holistic perspective, which would incorporate the things Mr. Laliberte talks about. It isn't just about the open pit mines left there, it's about the effects of blowing the tailings into the river, into the watershed, affecting the fish species and the plant species that would be living off that and the animals that would be going to feed on the water system as it worked down, as it would do. Those are things that come out of incorporating aboriginal TK into the decision-making process.

À (1040)

Mr. David Coon: I have just a quick comment, which is that when Canadians are asked what they believe the federal government's primary responsibilities should be, in addition to questions of national defence, they identify repeatedly defence of the Canadian environment. That's the expectation we have of our federal government, that it play that role through the pieces of legislation it has. There needs to be cooperation in provincial agendas for development and so forth in areas of provincial jurisdiction, but when all is said and done, Canadians expect the federal government to represent us in defending the Canadian environment. When we think of the environment, we don't think about the environment of southwest New Brunswick or the environment of New Brunswick, we think about the environment in Canada and beyond. The actual assessments certainly could be done on an ecoregion basis, but obviously, the administrative arrangements have to be made, where it's appropriate or required, between federal, provincial, and aboriginal levels of government.

The Chair: Mr. Fleming.

Mr. Randy Fleming: Mr. Laliberte, I would only add to what Mr. Lipinski has said that biologically, Canada is an astoundingly diverse place. There are an estimated 140,000 species of plants and animals that have been identified, and apart from the ecoregions you referred to, there are no less than 10 faunal habitats that span the country. I think it's important, as you pointed out, that you not limit or circumscribe the environmental assessment process with boundary issues. It comprehends much larger spaces when you're trying to examine cumulative effects.

À (1045)

The Chair: Thank you.

We will now hear from Mr. Lunn, followed by Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Gary Lunn (Saanich--Gulf Islands, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the presenters for their presentations. They were very interesting.

I will try to refocus this, to go back to Bill C-19 specifically, and I've got two specific questions for Mr. Coon. First, he talks about the nuclear generating station in the Bay of Fundy that lasted for about 19 years and is now going to be refurbished. That will extend the life for 25 years, and there will be extensive work done to refurbish that site--correct me if I miss part of it. But for all this construction that will happen there, the CEAA will not apply, other than with the construction of the new storage silos. Is that correct?

Mr. David Coon: It's a proposal at this point. It hasn't been accepted by the provincial government.

Mr. Gary Lunn: I'm trying to get to some of the--

Mr. David Coon: That's correct.

Mr. Gary Lunn: That's what you were saying. I'm going to get to my question now. I'm just trying to get the facts out here. So the renovations that are being proposed, other than the storage silos, will be exempt from the CEAA, will not require environmental assessment.

Mr. David Coon: That's correct.

Mr. Gary Lunn: What specifically do you suggest, then, we put into Bill C-19 that would correct that?

I'll go on to number two, and I'll let you answer both of them. You talked about the exploration licences for oil and gas off Prince Edward Island, and again, I want to make sure I've got the facts correct. They have actually sidelined the CEAA process and, through an MOU, have handed over all the responsibility to the petroleum board. I believe you said that. What would you do in Bill C-19 to ensure that this didn't happen?

Those are my two questions, one on the nuclear generating station and one on the licences for oil and gas offshore, which is a big issue coming up in British Columbia. What specifically do you suggest as amendments to be put into Bill C-19 to deal with those two issues?

Mr. David Coon: With respect to the first question, we've made a recommendation that the comprehensive study list be expanded to include the refurbishment or reconstruction of nuclear power plants in lieu of their retirement, in other words, where you would basically have to reconstruct the reactors.

With respect to the oil and gas, our sense is that the memoranda of understanding between Environment Canada, DFO, or other responsible federal authorities and provincial agencies should include specific provisions to ensure that CEAA doesn't get sidelined, that this should be explicitly addressed in those MOUs. How you would actually do that, we'll leave up to you, but we believe that would help the problem. That would help ensure that CEAA didn't get sidelined as a result of these MOUs.

Mr. Gary Lunn: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lunn.

Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for those presentations. Their depth and substance make us aware that it's one thing to create policy, but it's another thing implementing it and knowing the implications on the ground, so to speak. I appreciate very much that it came through loud and clear.

I'm looking at the issues with respect to the checks and balances that are provided through public participation, that bring the best available science, the best available information, and best practices to bear on the process of environmental assessment. The implications environmentally of radiation, the implications of deep-sea trawling and fishing that's scouring the habitat are truly representative of sustainable development issues. They affect the legacy with respect to the habitat for future generations.

The bill suggests mandatory participation through the scoping process into the comprehensive part. Ms. Shiell and Mr. Coon, you indicated that this is the stage where comprehensive risk analysis, bringing forth to the full the best science, occurs. It's my understanding that the bill provides for not only the participation, but funds for interveners to provide that kind of check and balance on the process. Would that not satisfy at that stage, with risk analysis, the kinds of concerns you are bringing forward, or is it too limited in some way?

À (1050)

Ms. Maisie Shiell: Take the example of the McArthur River, how this has been allowed to go ahead without any scientific analysis of alpha radiation. This is the problem: we say just radiation. Studies have been done about gamma and beta, down in the States and in Russia, from some of the accidents and so on. We've got scientific analysis of gamma and beta. What we haven't got is scientific analysis of alpha. If you look at this chart, you see the difference betwen the alpha, the gamma, and the beta. We've got no scientific analysis about this problem, especially about the ionization.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Ms. Shiell, may I just interrupt? If you have mandatory intervener funding, and there's a gap in the scientific information, you, as the intervener, would be able to bring that to bear in the comprehensive study process.

Ms. Maisie Shiell: I was going to tell you what happened with McArthur River. An inquiry went on. In this inquiry there were five different lines, very high, including McArthur River and Cigar Lake, which is just as high, but hasn't come on stream yet. McArthur has already come on stream. There were Clarke Lake and McLean Lake. This was a massive review. It was very difficult to keep up with. McArthur River has been allowed to go ahead, and this doesn't have to come in front of an environmental assessment, because it's on the exclusion list, it's already gone through a review. When you look at the act there, it says, if the significance is not expected. The reviewers are very good, they bring out very good reports, but there's no question that in the report on the McArthur River the reviewers did not say there are no significant results. But the act says you must provide mitigating measures, so you provide mitigating measures for mining.

À (1055)

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you, Ms. Shiell.

Mr. Coon.

Mr. David Coon: There's no doubt it's an improvement that provisions be made for the comprehensive study to involve the public, as in our recommended changes. However, it doesn't address the problem I gave examples of in these various cases, where very large and significant projects get ghettoized at the screening level, where none of that is available. I expect we'll see more of that happening now there is provision for intervener funding and more meaningful public involvement at the comprehensive level. Responsible authorities of the federal government will try to ensure that more significant projects will sit at the screening level and not move up to the comprehensive. That's the problem. We have it now, and it could be accelerated now the more comprehensive stage of the process has got more meaningful public participation. That would be our concern.

Mr. Alan Tonks: I see.

Intervener funding is one thing, but you mentioned the Métis perspective. We've heard this before, the capacity to be proactive, as opposed to being reactive. The act specifies that aboriginal, first nations, and Métis people should be involved in the comprehensive assessment as it affects the habitat. Are you being provided with the tools to do the job, to build your resources and have people on the ground working in advance of those kinds of issues, so that when they occur, you have the capacity to respond?

Mr. Allan Morin: As I indicated before, the Métis people are always underfunded. We have no capacity building whatsoever to enable us be involved in the EA at the screening or the comprehensive level. We have no capacity for technicians to assist us in our presentations and so forth. That is something we're lacking as Métis organizations. If we're going to be an effective organization assisting in the environmental assessments, we need the tools, as you say. Some of the tools provide the expertise we require, and we don't have those at this particular time. It's important that we have that capacity, in order for us to address our issues in a more scientific or technical way. That's the best way I can answer it.

Mr. Garry Lipinski: We talked about capacity in our presentation, and Allan, in his opening comments, said there is a myth out there. First nations do get core funding for participation in various things in Canada, as do the Inuit. The Métis people don't get any of that. It highlights the point I'm raising. For our participation in the five-year EA review, the national level participation, there was $20,000. At the provincial level we were afforded an additional $3,000, if the provinces wanted to come in and participate in the five-year review. I undertook that initiative within Ontario. You don't have to think too long to know that to participate in that, you're going into a deficit immediately. How can you participate in the province-wide review for $3,000? That highlights what we talk about when we say we have no capacity provided for us to participate effectively at the national, provincial, regional, or local levels. That's why we make such strong interventions.

With respect to the previous questions that were raised, a lot of the funding you're talking about there, I'm under the impression that for the screening process no funding is provided. The funding comes in at the third level, at the comprehensive level. Again we go back to capacity. When these things work themselves out on the ground, you're talking about communities in remote isolated areas, where we don't have, in a lot cases, the expertise and the technical people to deal with that. So how can you even begin to enter the process? People like Allan and myself are very often the people who will come and say, they're going to do this in our territory, they're going to do this in our community, what can we do? We don't currently have the capacity to assist our people. Again, we've talked about this in our presentation, and we hope it'll take.

Á (1100)

Mr. Alan Tonks: Have you raised that issue at the RAC and tried to get that back to the minister?

Mr. Allan Morin: We have a representative at the RAC. His name is Dwayne Roth, and he brings forward our recommendations.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Tonks.

Madam Torsney, did you want to ask a question relevant to this?

Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.): Yes. I was wondering if there is a concerted effort to encourage young Métis to go into the study of biology and to acquire the technical skills. Is there a program to say, look, there's a really great future here, either through scholarships or through some kind of encouragement in the school system, that kind of capacity building? You obviously can't have the same person running around trying to meet all the needs for the large community.

Mr. Garry Lipinski: We have some support mechanisms through our provincial affiliates that encourage our people with scholarships and bursaries and education format. The problem is that if we get a person educated enough to deal with these areas, he's absorbed into the mainstream and drawn into the urban centres, where there are jobs and opportunities, and who can blame anybody for their betterment? So if we don't have the resources to keep people in the areas where we need them, of course they're going to be drawn into the mainstream and to the more urbanized centres, working for the corporations etc.

The Chair: Mr. Reed.

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

My questions will relate directly to Point Lepreau. I apologize for being shanghaied out of here to vote at another committee.

How much do you pay for power in New Brunswick? What's the retail price of power?

The Chair: I don't know that Bill C-19 deals with the price of power.

Mr. Julian Reed: I'll get there. I'm really curious to know who would make a decision to spend $3,000 a kilowatt to refurbish a nuclear plant, plus the cost of the long-term storage, plus the cost of dismantling. You're quite right, no nuclear plant's lasted over 20 years, and refurbishing's at a cost higher than the original capital cost of the plant. Whose accounting process would say this is a good deal?

The Chair: Mr. Coon did not appear before this committee to answer these kinds of questions.

Mr. David Coon: I can give a brief answer, and it's simply that if Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is going to offer to pay you if the reactor does not perform up to scratch, if they offer to guarantee the price of reconstruction and pay penalties to you if it goes over, the deal starts to look a little more attractive.

Mr. Julian Reed: Thank you for that answer, I appreciate it. That's what I wanted to ask, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Reed.

There are two questions from my end of the table. One is to do with alpha radiation, the other is to deal with Mr. Coon's presentation.

Mrs. Shiell, you drew our attention to the chart under the title “Uranium-238 decay series”. On the first line, when you outline the half-life of U-238, does that 4.5E09 years mean 4.5 10 to the ninth, or what does it mean?

Á (1105)

Ms. Maisie Shiell: It means 10 to the ninth, 4.5 billion years. I went to a class last year, and this is the way my teacher taught it. It looked as though that was how I was going to have to put it onto the computer.

The Chair: Because of your intervention, and it's certainly a matter of concern, I will ask the clerks to conduct an inquiry and some research on the deficiency of information on alpha radiation, to see whether there are studies currently taking place or planned in the future, by contacting the Royal Society, the AECL, and failing that, the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna. We will see whether anything has happened that might be helpful also to your work. When that is completed, we will get in touch with you. Of course, we members of the committee will be informed. Is that satisfactory?

Ms. Maisie Shiell: Yes.

Could I just answer the first question about the 4.5 billion years? Because it's decaying for so long, it's decaying very slowly. The shorter the half-life, the faster the decay. They talk about uranium itself. They give all their things in micrograms instead of becquerels. They don't consider uranium itself a truly bad radionuclide problem, because it is decaying so slowly. But it is these other ones. Polonium-214 is 160 thousandths of a second. That gives such a punch. It's got such a high energy, 7.7 MeV. I felt that needed to be said.

The Chair: Thank you for bringing that up. We will bring the outcome of this research to you once it is completed. I want to thank you for bringing this item to our attention.

Ms. Maisie Shiell: On research, the IAEA did a study in 1999 rejecting the philosophy that ICRP and our government has always gone on, which says that as long as humans are looked after, the biota will be all right, don't bother about it. The study, IAEA Tech. Doc. 1091, says it is not correct in all cases.

So these are very hazy, difficult problems. The latest is PSL-2, the second priority substance list, and that has been stopped. There was meant to be a public meeting about it, but it was cancelled one week before the date because the companies and the government can't agree about the RBE.

Á (1110)

The Chair: All right.

Mr. Coon, you produced for the committee six recommendations, and they're all very clear and helpful, but I have some problems with number 3 and number 6. Perhaps you could expand on them. How would you legislate the full breadth of undertakings in the new act if an amendment were to be written along the lines of your recommendation number 3? It reads: “The comprehensive study list must be expanded to fully capture the breadth of undertakings that cause significant risks....”

Mr. David Coon: Our suggestion to the committee would be that it proceed by looking at examples like those I gave, where major products are not listed for comprehensive study and should be incorporated. So the amendment would be to lengthen the comprehensive study list to include a number of particular undertakings that currently aren't on it, such as the refurbishment of nuclear power plants.

The Chair: Can you provide us with specific examples, so as to illustrate number 3 in a manner that can be then put in the form of a possible amendment?

With number 6, you are suggesting streamlining the approach. This is a very delicate suggestion you are making, because it could backfire, it could be a difficult one. You say the agency “should have the power to exclude projects from screenings if no level of environmental assessment is warranted.” Who's to make that assessment in the first place, and how?

Mr. David Coon: I'll give the example of the way it works in New Brunswick. The project must be registered in that case with the environment department, which is the responsible agency, and then a determination is made whether to screen it out or screen it in. If it's screened out, they screen it out with conditions, maybe, and it goes forward with the approval flowing out of that process. If it's screened in, it goes through the environmental impact assessment process provincially. We've certainly seen it abused at the provincial level as well. However, it strikes us that the way CEAA currently deals with these tiny projects that clog up the system is taking time, effort, money, resources, and people away from undertakings of more importance. It must be an administrative nightmare.

The suggestion was made in the bill to try to handle it somewhat through doing more class assessments, taking a kind of generic approach. Maybe that will do the job, despite the inherent dangers I outlined in the brief in site-specific concerns, but it struck us, looking at the kinds of inconsequential things that often get caught in screening, that they don't really need to go through the screening process. There's got to be a better way to screen those out before they go too far along.

The Chair: If, on your way back home, you come up with some further suggestions on how to implement 6, jot them down on the back of your train ticket or airplane ticket and let us know. We would certainly appreciate your advice on how to do this.

Mr. David Coon: I will do so. The train doesn't go to Saint John any more, as Elsie lets everyone know, so it'll be the plane.

The Chair: Mr. Coon, Mr. Fleming, Ms. Shiell, Mr. Lipinski, and Mr. Morin, thank you very much for your presentations this morning. They were most informative, very educational, and very helpful.

This meeting is adjourned.