ENVI Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Á

1115

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

Mr. Victor Shantora (Acting Executive Director, Commission for Environmental Cooperation)

Á

1120

Á

1125

Á

1130

Á

1135

Á

1140

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Victor Shantora

Mr. Bob Mills

Á

1145

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, BQ)

Á

1150

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—St. Clair, NDP)

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1155

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.)

Mr. Victor Shantora

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Victor Shantora

Â

1200

Mr. Paul Szabo

The Chair

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

Mr. Victor Shantora

Â

1205

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

Â

1210

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

Mr. Victor Shantora

Mr. Bob Mills

Â

1215

Mr. Victor Shantora

Mr. Bob Mills

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

Mr. Victor Shantora

Mr. Joe Comartin

Mr. Victor Shantora

Mr. Joe Comartin

Mr. Victor Shantora

Mr. Joe Comartin

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Victor Shantora

Â

1220

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Â

1225

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Victor Shantora

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

Â

1230

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

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NUMBER 024

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1115)  

[English]

    The Chair (Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): Good morning.

    We welcome today the witness from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation located in Montreal. As we all know, the commission was created as a parallel institution to NAFTA at the time when the agreement was launched. We are very fortunate to have a very fine former civil servant with us who is still serving the public interest in the capacity of pro tem executive director of the commission.

    I apologize for the delay, and on behalf of my colleagues, I would like to say we are delighted to have you here. We would like to hear from you about the report you have prepared on taking stock. The floor is yours, and it will be followed by one round of questions.

    Mr. Shantora, welcome to the committee.

[Translation]

    Mr. Victor Shantora (Acting Executive Director, Commission for Environmental Cooperation): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, committee members, for inviting us here today.

[English]

    I am really pleased to be here. I appeared before your committee some years ago, so it feels like old home week to come back and give you some perspectives other than as a member of Environment Canada.

    What I'd like to do, Mr. Chairman, in the next 15 minutes or so is give you three things basically, a little background about the CEC, to situate you in context, some highlights from the “Taking Stock” report, particularly in a Canada-U.S. context, and a summary of what we think are the conclusions and the recommendations. These are preliminary, our thoughts only, but if it's food for thought for your committee, hopefully, it will help you as you continue your deliberations.

    As Mr. Caccia has already indicated, in North America the Commission for Environmental Cooperation has been created as an environmental side agreement to the NAFTA, and our role is to work with the countries to enhance cooperation, to avoid trade disputes, where we can, and to develop action plans in areas that are of mutual concern to the three countries.

    As you probably know, North America has some 410 million people. Under NAFTA, we represent the largest trading block in the world, Canada-U.S.-Mexico. While the United States is the world's largest economy, I think it's well worth noting that our economies are intertwined to such an extent that we really do need each other as three countries. It's not, I would say, a U.S.-dominated system. Certainly, they are influential, but in respect of the resources and manufactured goods, the three countries work together. So we've got the world's largest economy in the United States, the world's seventh largest economy in Canada, and the world's thirteenth or fourteenth largest economy in Mexico. Mexico, by some standards, is considered a developing country. Certainly, their environmental and other laws aren't as robust as you would find in the United States or Canada, but I would suggest to you that as the thirteenth or fourteenth largest economy in the world, they are a powerhouse in their own right, and they are making strides to move from the developing to the developed world. For instance, they've recently joined the OECD. We produce some $11 trillion U.S. in goods and services annually, and about $640 billion of that is traded between our three countries. Trade has more than doubled among our three countries since NAFTA was signed in 1993.

    We like to say to people we have three countries, but we have one environment. Quite obviously, people might wonder a little about that--how can you say the snow in the Arctic and the rain forest in Mexico somehow are one environment? I would just like to point out that if you think about it as our ecosystem, migratory birds may well winter in the southernmost parts of Mexico, but they will likely nest up in the high Arctic in the summertime. Monarch butterflies nest in Mexico, but their range is throughout North America. There are whales moving up and down both coasts. So in that sense, it is one ecosystem, and it's worth the three countries taking the time and the effort and putting in place the programs to manage that shared environment.

    The mission for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation is to foster cooperation and public participation to address conservation, protection, and enhancement of our shared environment for present and future generations in the context of increasing economic, trade, and social links among our three countries. I think that makes us a little different from other international environmental organizations, because the work we do on the environment always has a linkage to trade.

Á  (1120)  

    The Commission for Environmental Cooperation is led by a council of ministers, Minister Anderson from Canada, Christine Todd Whitman from the United States, and Victor Lichtinger from Mexico. They meet at least once annually and give us the political direction for the work program that we're to implement.

    Our role basically has three parts, to foster an enhancement in regional cooperation, as I've already mentioned, to provide quality information and analysis to the governments and the public, and to maintain a forum for public participation. One of the tenets of the North American environmental agreement is that we should strive to achieve meaningful public input in everything we do, so that public participation element is a very important component of the work we do.

    Providing quality information and analysis is basically why I'm here today, to give you some highlights from our latest “Taking Stock” report, which only covers the United States and Canada, it does not yet cover Mexico. They about a year ago put their enabling laws in place to require public reporting of the kind Canada and the United States have. They're now in the process of writing the specific detailed regulations, which I think should be out shortly. So I would hope in the next two or three years the reports will give us a snapshot of the three countries.

    Now I come to key findings. First, large amounts of chemicals continue to be released and transferred in Canada and the United States, over 3.3 million tonnes: 206 matched chemicals between the United States and Canada are either released or transferred within those two countries. Many of these are environmental and health concerns. They are toxic chemicals, but in some cases they can also be carcinogens or neuro-developmental toxins. Some 254,000 tonnes are of that type.

    Air continues to be the main dumping ground for chemicals released on site. About 50% of the releases on site are to the atmosphere. Electricity generating facilities are the number one air polluter in North America, accounting for about 43% of all North American air emissions. Those are sulphuric acid and hydrochloric acid, so the acid gases are the principle pollutants from this sector.

    In addition to large amounts of chemicals being emitted into the air, facilities are sending an ever increasing number of chemicals off site to be treated or disposed of. They could end up in land fill, sewage treatment plants, or other facilities of that ilk. Fortunately, I would also say--and I'll come back to it later--about half of the wastes that are taken off site are actually moving to recycling facilities. So that is a positive sign.

    Second, our report finds a big increase in the so-called small p polluters. Many facilities that report smaller amounts of chemicals, under 100 tonnes per year, increased the amounts of chemicals they released and transferred between 1998 and 2000. These facilities with chemical releases and transfers represent about 80% of North American facilities, about 15,000 facilities. They're smaller releasers, but they're releasing more. In Canada these small p polluters registered a 66% increase in releases and transfers, in the United States the same group recorded an increase of 29%. These are more numerous facilities, and they're located in communities across North America. It just suggests to us--and I'll come back to it in the conclusions--that if the big p polluters are doing a good job, which they are, and are reducing their pollution steadily, by 7% over the last six years, the small p polluters are more likely to be in your community, in my community. This is of concern.

Á  (1125)  

    There are big changes in how pollutants were managed over the past six years. These cause us to ask whether we are seeing real progress or an environmental shell game. For the first time we have a North American picture of releases and transfers over a six-year span. In general, we see fewer chemicals being released at the facility, especially to air, and more being shipped off site for disposal, and when it's going to disposal, it's usually going to land fill. The net result is a slight decrease, 5%, in the total amount of chemicals reported over the past six years. This lack of progress, as I would describe it, in the reduction in the total amount of chemicals released suggests that we need more in adopting pollution prevention philosophies. In other words, right now I think the impression seems to be that we'll create the pollution and manage it after the fact. We'd suggest, as the Canadian Environmental Protection Act suggests and leading thinkers suggest, that pollution prevention, control at source, or rethinking why this stuff has to be produced in the first place warrant further work.

    As an aside, we did a bit of an analysis on last year's findings, and what we found was that companies that reported that they were thinking pollution prevention did a better job of actually reducing releases than those that didn't. So it suggests that some rethinking needs to take place.

    Canada and the U.S. show different trends. In general, facilities reporting to the national pollutant release inventory in Canada show a slower rate of reduction in on-site releases from 1995 to 2000 compared to the toxics release inventory in the U.S., 3% for NPRI and 19% for TRI. Canada continues to lag behind U.S. reductions in air releases. From 1995 to 2000 the U.S. saw a 31% reduction in on-site air releases, in Canada the number was just 5%. If you take a more recent slice of that data set, between 1998 and 2000, we actually show that our two countries are moving in opposite directions. The U.S. continues to drive downwards by 8%, Canada actually increased by 7%.

    There are big changes in cross-border chemical waste traffic, and that includes recycling. I should say first that most chemicals are managed within national boundaries, over 80%, but if you recall, perhaps a year ago, and certainly two years ago, there was great public concern about U.S. hazardous wastes moving to Canada, particularly Ontario and Quebec. Quebec has tightened up its regulations, Ontario has signalled that it will be tightening its, and the net result is that U.S. wastes coming into Canada have decreased quite markedly, to the point where Canada now was actually a net exporter of chemicals in 2000, the U.S. a net importer.

    This report also provides a first look at persistent toxic and bio-accumulative chemicals, such as dioxins and furans and mercury. I won't get into the details of that, but again I emphasize that this is very important, because these kinds of chemicals are the ones that are the greatest threat to the environment and to human health, and they are usually released in very small quantities. So having lowered the reporting threshold, we now have our first look at dioxin emissions and mercury releases. I won't get into the statistics, because I can't really report any significant trends one way or the other, but I would say it's good news for the environment and the public to know where these chemicals are coming from and who is doing what to deal with them.

Á  (1130)  

    I should also say, as an aside, that under one of our other CEC programs we have North American regional action plans in either development or implementation. So we are dealing now with things like mercury, PCBs, etc., while in the case of dioxins and furans we hope to start our action plan soon.

    Finally, let me talk about some positive changes that are possible and are being recorded. First, the big p polluters as a group are making significant progress, I would say, with releases and transfers. They're 5% down overall. It doesn't sound like much, but when you think that our economic activity in the period 1995 to 2000 was of the order of a 20% increase, the fact that we're starting to see a drop is significant and needs to be acknowledged.

    The data show that the power of regulatory changes, public pressure, corporate stewardship programs and bringing all this kind of stuff into the public domain create the atmosphere for continued action focusing on pollution and reducing it. Some industries in some sectors have been more successful than others in making reductions. In Canada, I just note, the pulp and paper mills in particular have made significant strides in reducing water pollution. The hazardous waste and solvent recovery sector has reduced its releases and transfers by 25% between 1998 and 2000. A particular success story for the United States and Canada is with benzene emissions. I think your committee actually focused on this issue a while ago. Benzene emissions are down 49%, I believe, in the past several years. It just goes to show that with the power of government, industry, and the public all focusing on an issue, something can happen.

    The findings tell us that we need to work together to increase our efforts to reduce the creation of pollution in the first place, before it needs to be managed. That was my point earlier--pollution prevention pays. It's the 3M company's logo, they mean it, they're serious. Every time they look at pollution and ask how they can prevent this, they save money. The report illustrates the need to focus efforts particularly on facilities releasing smaller amounts of chemicals. Governments have taken the important first step of making pollution prevention a national priority. It's in the policies governments have now. I think what we really need to do is press harder to translate policy into program into action.

    So what is the CEC recommending be done about these issues? First, we think we should be working with the three governments to explore further the small p polluter findings and examine possible reasons for the increase in total releases. As I said previously, those 15,000-odd companies are likely to be in our backyards, in our communities. I think we have a right and a real reason to be concerned about what's happening there, and we need to generate public support to get some action and turn the trends around.

    Governments, industry, and the public need to work together to achieve a quicker rate of reduction in total releases and transfers. I think the information we put together here and the national pollutant release inventory in Canada are vehicles for doing that. As an example, I think some of you may know of Bruce Walker, an environmentalist in Montreal who works with the organization STOP. He has been working very closely with the community around the Montreal east refineries and the refineries themselves. They've done some really excellent work in reduction of benzene emissions and other fugitive emissions, but also preventive programs. I think it would be worth your while, Mr. Chairman, to get a briefing from Bruce on the work they've done there.

Á  (1135)  

    We've seen some companies set very ambitious goals of 35%, 50%, even 90% reductions in some cases, and they've achieved them. I think they need to be recognized and applauded for their good work. We need to encourage other companies to do the same.

    Large companies and industrial associations can play a helpful role in mentoring smaller companies on managing their pollution or preventing it.

    We've seen some examples of greening the supply chain. A large company looks at its entire supply from raw material to the goods they send out the factory gate and makes a point of saying, how can we reduce the pollution from this sector? That needs to continue.

    The public can meet with local facilities and work towards further reductions. All the member companies of the Canadian Chemical Producers' Association have set up community advisory committees so the community works with their specific plant to understand what the pollution problems are, then works to resolve them.

    The CEC and the three governments can continue to work together to further strengthen pollution prevention efforts, particularly for the small p polluter group.

    Finally, I'll come back to Mexico. While this report only covers the United States and Canada, we are continuing to work with Mexico, so that hopefully, in the coming three or four years we will have a North American picture of releases, from the southern part of Mexico right through to the Arctic.

    I'd just like to acknowledge and congratulate the folks at Environment Canada in the national pollutant release inventory program for the work they've done. They haven't been sitting still, they haven't been static with their program. They've been adding chemicals, they've been adding industry sectors. They are, I believe, adding this year criteria air contaminants, so you'll see in the future sulphur dioxide, NOx emissions, fine particulates. Greenhouse gases, I think, will be added in the next couple of years. They're enhancing the requirement for pollution prevention reporting, and they're reducing reporting thresholds for persistent bio-acccumulative toxic substances.

    That, I think, is a model. The United States is on a similar track. We're very much engaged in encouraging Mexico to go in a similar fashion. All of which, I think, is world-leading in providing information to the public, providing the statistics, so the public, the opinion leaders, the decision-makers can make sound decisions about how we can manage our collective environment better.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Á  (1140)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Shantora.

    Mr. Mills, five minutes.

    Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Chair, I wonder, as we have a quorum now, if we could deal with the motions. When would you like to do that?

    The Chair: After the first round.

    Mr. Bob Mills: Okay.

    Thank you very much for appearing.

    I have a lot questions I'd like to ask you, but let me start with public involvement, municipal involvement, provincial involvement. Those are all good things. Let me use my favourite example, though, where it doesn't seem to be working, and I hope you can tell me it is. That's in the Fraser Valley, the second most polluted airshed in Canada. Here we have thousands of members of the public involved, we have the provincial government opposing the project, the City of Abbotsford opposing the project. Sumas will be built right on the border in Washington, and the aquifer will be drained from Canada. The pollution will come back into Canada because of the flow of air. There are health problems and so on. I wonder what your organization is doing to get involved in that process. The problem between the State of Washington and the Province of B.C. would seem a perfect place to put some of this into practice. I wonder if you could tell me what's happening there.

    Mr. Victor Shantora: There's nothing specific we're doing on a local or regional basis that I can offer you today, but let me say that given that air pollution is a major concern of all three countries now, we have established a North American working group on air quality. Actually, I can bring this issue to their attention, because I think there are a number of transboundary hotspots that are worth taking a look at.

    We have done some work on transportation corridors, the boundary areas where a lot of this good trade we're having between our three countries is moved by freight, by truck. What we're finding is that air quality deteriorates in those border regions. There are seven of them, as I recall, that were of particular concern. So we've made some recommendations focusing on what can be done related to truck traffic. I think it's a little more specific than what you're asking me.

    Mr. Bob Mills: I'm talking about power plants. This is just one, but there are 12 being proposed. The NEB hearings are going on right now; they started on the 26th of this month, and they'll be going on for the next month or so. It would appear to me that it's a done deal, and there are now 11 other proposals to be put right on the border where we will get the overhead power lines, we will get the pollution, and the only benefactor really is the Province of Alberta, which will sell them the gas. But now you have the most polluted area, you have municipalities, provincial governments opposed. The only ones speaking on the Canadian side in favour are the Alberta government, and the Canadian government is deafeningly silent. It would appear that this should be something where we are negotiating with the Americans to say, hey, look, it's the location that's wrong, we are not necessarily opposing the power plant.

    So it's very good to talk about free trade working and all of that, but here we have a specific example, and it just appears that your job isn't being done or the federal government's job. Environment Canada isn't really involved, and yet we are talking about the second most polluted airshed, soon to become the most polluted airshed, in all of Canada. There is just nothing happening on the federal scene, as far as I can see.

    The other thing I wonder about is the reporting of chemicals, getting involved with Kyoto and so on, trying to figure out how we are analysing the actual emissions. I'm not convinced that we have much accuracy in our actual measuring, and I wonder if you could just elaborate on that measuring.

Á  (1145)  

    Mr. Victor Shantora: We don't actually develop the analytical techniques that are used for reporting. Those are done through the Canadian, U.S., and soon Mexican jurisdictions. That reporting can be by actual emission measurements, it can be by mass-pounds, it can be by calculation. There have been concerns in the past that maybe it isn't as accurate as it should be, but that's the way it is today, and I think the experts continue to develop the methodologies for calculation. You'll see it improve over time. But I think it generally is reflective of the state of play with releases into our environment.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Mills.

    Monsieur Bigras.

[Translation]

    Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    First off, thank you to the witnesses for coming. My questions will pertain primarily to trade and the environment, and more specifically, to the relationship between free trade and the environment. That relationship is one of the themes of your submission.

    While North American free trade agreements have been signed, we've noted that from the standpoint of the environment, there is no real North American consensus. The Kyoto Protocol is a good example of this. Despite the trade agreements signed, no consensus has been achieved on issues such as climate change, particularly as regards the Kyoto Protocol.

    Given that your mandate, among other things, consists of promoting the effective enforcement of environmental laws, what role do you foresee for yourself in the future in terms of acting on an international consensus and on the desire of certain states to implement legislation or regulations to combat climate change?

    For example, if Quebec were to decide to bring in framework legislation with a view to combating the effects of climate change, what steps would you take to promote these environmental acts to guard against situations like MMT and Sunbelt Water? Pursuant to Chapter 11, legislation aimed at protecting the environment is being challenged.

    What measures do you intend to take to protect environmental legislation that will be implemented by the federal government or by certain provinces?

    In so far as fighting climate change is concerned, could the present situation not lead to court challengers? I just mentioned two cases. The one involving Ethyl Corporation is another. Because of our current system, do we not run the risk of becoming a safe haven for polluters?

    When a State or a government decides to take on its responsibilities for environmental matters by enacting legislation or regulations, it finds itself at a disadvantage since other, clearly irresponsible states, can choose to ignore the international consensus and in the process become a safe haven for polluters.

    How do you foresee these issues unfolding in the future?

Á  (1150)  

[English]

    Mr. Victor Shantora: It's hard to answer in just a few words, but where we identify environmental problems that are a mutual concern, where the three countries agree there's a problem common to all of us, the CEC does step in and gets the countries working together to define the scientific basis, the monitoring, the evaluation and make some recommendations about whether the environment is getting worse or better. Then that's turned back to the countries themselves to address the problem. That's one way of doing it.

    A second way is through information like this being brought into the public domain. A particular example is the hazardous waste imports into Canada from the United States, a major public concern in Canada. That created the pressure to get the governments to tighten up their laws and regulations.

    As to shelters for polluters, we do work in two areas that tries to get at that. It's a major challenge, because this is something new under trade agreements, it really hasn't been done before. One way is through our economy, environment, and trade program to take particular sectors--we just finished a report on electricity, to relate to Mr. Mills' question--and analyse what's happening in the various jurisdictions, determining if there is a pollution haven being created here, and if so, what recommendations can go back to governments.

    A final way I think we serve the public in addressing whether or not countries are enforcing their laws is that under the environmental side agreement there's a process, which I'll just describe quickly as article 1415. Basically, any citizen in any of the three countries, if they believe a country is not enforcing its environmental laws, can bring a petition to us, and we, as an independent body, can analyse that and bring the facts to light. But again, we don't act on that, we bring the facts to light, and it's brought back to governments. The governments, if they believe laws aren't being enforced, can take action.

    The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Bigras.

    Mr. Comartin.

    Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—St. Clair, NDP): To follow up on that, Mr. Shantora, some of your staff quit about a year or 18 months ago because when they recommended pursuing some of these studies, so that those facts would be fed back to the communities and the public would have a better perspective of what is happening in the environment as a result of the trade agreement, their request for resources to follow up those studies was turned down, as I understood, by one of our deputy ministers and one of the senior officials in the U.S. administration. So I'm having difficulty with the credibility of some of the material that's coming out, but more importantly, with your agency aggressively looking at the state of the environment.

    I have a second area, with regard to the cross-border traffic problem. I'm from Windsor, and we have, of course, the worst results of the lack of planning under NAFTA. There's a 500% increase in cross-border truck traffic since the FTA came into effect, a good deal of it idling adjacent to residential areas. Are you aware of any attempt on the part of the trucking industry to clean up the pollution coming from their engines, and how quickly is that going to happen? Do you see regulations forcing that industry to do it more quickly? Second, there's the matter of moving more of the cargo off trucks and onto rail in order to cut down on this pollution.

Á  (1155)  

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I'm sorry, I really can't offer any comment on the staff leaving. We certainly have people coming and going, but beyond that, I really can't offer any comments.

    As to the truck traffic, I think there are three elements being worked on right now. One has to do with the vehicle emission standards themselves, so new trucks are cleaner than old trucks. The second has to do with the diesel they burn, improving the quality of that fuel. That will also reduce emissions. The third aspect--and this is left to state and provincial governments for the most part--relates to inspection and maintenance programs for existing vehicle fleets, requiring them to undergo some sort of periodic emission testing to make sure the equipment put on the truck when it was new continues to operate in a proper fashion. I can't tell you chapter and verse of where they are in the various programs, but those are three initiatives I understand are under way.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

    Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Thank you.

    I live in the greater Toronto area. My riding has a coal-fired generating station, and it is in the wind patterns of the Ohio Valley etc. One of the things that noted in your report is that there's a difficulty with the comparability of Canadian and U.S. reporting and measuring. How do we make sure we can properly characterize the migrating damage if we don't have collaboration on the monitoring and reporting?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: With Canada and the U.S., the comparability for power plant emissions is pretty good. It can be better, obviously, but to go back to several years ago and the acid rain program that was launched in both countries, there was a fair bit of work done at that time to ensure that a ton of sulphur dioxide as measured in the United States was roughly equivalent to a tonne in Canada. I hope memory serves me well on this, but I think the United States went further, requiring more detailed and more continuous reporting of their sulphur dioxide emissions, for example, than did Canada. So I think that's probably where there is a dissimilarity. But I would say that overall, if someone hands you a report that says what the power plants in each of our countries are doing in respect of releases, that gives you a pretty good idea of who is emitting, how much they are emitting, and the relative contribution per stack, per sector, in Canada, in the U.S.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Are you familiar with how that relates to other chemical transfers that would also be a concern? We have a plant that does a superrefining process to get very fine oils etc. We are talking about particulate, benzene, other emissions. How do these get measured in regard to migratory properties?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: It's hard to answer that. Reports like this basically tell you what's being released out of a stack or an effluent pipe, they don't tell you, once that pollution is released, where it goes. There's other work being done by scientists that does that.

    Specifically with benzene, we did take the next step, trying to analyse how it is distributed in the environment. I don't have it with me, and I would have to send it back to you after I get back to the office, but you can see a pattern of benzene releases that's regional. There are local hot spots, and a refinery is a hot spot, but beyond that, there are also vehicle emissions. What I could show you if I had the report would be a map of North America with a map of population centres superimposed, and what you'd see is a dense cloud of benzene emissions. The cloud would get much denser where you have a refinery or a chemical plant or what have you. Work like that does get done, but it's done on a chemical-by-chemical basis.

    I hope I've answered your question.

  (1200)  

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Tonks.

    Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Shantora, for being here.

    When you talk about your next steps, you talk about focusing on the small polluter, finding the what, why, and how. You also talked about finding out why some of the large emitters are able to reduce their emissions and a mentoring program with small emitters. I want to focus on the small emitters, because it seems to me there is a jurisdictional vacuum with respect to municipalities and ambient air. What appears to be a proliferation of small polluters, to me, would indicate that there might be more risk in the first instance for small communities where this kind of phenomenon is occurring. Can you elaborate on the urgency here and whether the premise of my question is one that gives you concern?

    Second, we are endeavouring in this committee to look at the state of environment reporting as a more hands-on tool, out of questions raised by the Auditor General about action plans. Can you give us a sense of how this committee could be helpful in what you are doing to deal with the issue of beefing up environmental reporting?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: The matter of small polluters we'd certainly characterize as something that needs a lot more focused attention, earlier rather than later, for the reasons you've well described. My own experience from when I worked with Environment Canada is that you set your priorities, and usually, if it's that big smoke stack or that big effluent pipe or that big dirty polluting sector, that's where you put your emphasis. Perhaps it's time for governments to move beyond that and deal with the smaller companies now. It's going to be a challenge, because there are many more of them, and there are probably going to be some resource issues in enforcement with those smaller companies.

    But as I indicated in my recommendations, if you can build a partnership between federal, provincial, and local governments, if you can build a partnership between large companies and small companies and do the mentoring program, there are cases where that's been proven to work. There's an industrial park in the northern part of Toronto--I just forget the name of it--that had lots of pollution in creeks and that sort of thing. That group of companies got together and launched the mentoring process, and as far as I know--this is going back four or five years--there was tremendous progress in reducing pollution, reducing public complaints, saving money as they were preventing pollution. So it can be done.

    As to state of the environment reporting, we issued our first state of the environment report for North America about 15 months ago now. It was a fairly general document. We simply tried to pull together where all the databases were and do a bit of analysis, and it ended up being about this thick. We hope now to be much more targeted and much more specific. If there's an air pollution problem, what is it? Is it coal-fired generating plants? What can we say about those coal-fired generating plants? Are things getting better or worse? If there are threatened or endangered species across North America, what are they, where are they, where are the habitats that need to be protected? I can't give you specific details about how the second report will evolve today, but I think it will be more targeted and more useful to governments--here are the environmental problems, here are some opportunities for solutions.

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    Mr. Alan Tonks: Would that report deal with small polluters and the progress you're making?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I think that's exactly the direction we were going.

    The Chair: Mr. Shantora, I would like to congratulate you on producing this fine study “Free Trade and the Environment” and the interesting chapters contained in it. There is a very short reference to chapter 11, I noticed, on the issue of the Ethyl Corporation; what happened in the Canadian jurisdiction is not touched upon, probably for some political reasons.

    But I'm aiming at the very interesting section entitled “Incomeand Equity Effects Linked to Trade”, particularly at page 20:

In Canada, the poorest three-fifths of households made less at the end of the 1990s than they did a decade before, when the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement was signed. At the same time, the wealthiest one-fifth of Canadian households saw their assets grow by almost 40 percent from 1984 to 1999, while the poorest one-fifth of Canadian households saw asset values actually contract. A similar pattern is taking place in the United States, in which the incomes of the poorest one-fifth of households contracted in absolute terms by 2.4% in the past decade.

Of the three countries Mexico appears to have the most significant gap in income groups.... The evidence, though, suggesting a widening in the poverty gap within Mexico indicates the most pronounced divergence occurring between the northern and southern states, with the latter continuing to experience an absolute contraction in income levels

Could you elaborate on your conclusions on this particular subject? There is also a reference in your analysis to the UNDP and WTO, but can you give us an overview at this stage on your conclusions as to the relationship between free trade and incomes?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I can't give you a substantive response, simply because I'm not an economist and I'm not sure I could do it justice. We can bring the experts if your committee would like to pursue this at a future date. We are continuing this kind of work through symposia where we bring the best economic minds together, we pick a sectoral area, we ask the economic experts to do the analyses, much like what you've seen here, we come together, debate, and conclude, and then we publish the findings in a report like this. This was the product of our first symposium. Our second symposium finished in Mexico City in March. It dealt with the energy sector and with agriculture, and we'll have similar findings coming out probably in the next two or three months.

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    The Chair: Well, Mr. Shantora, an economist would conclude that whether international trade between the free countries doubles or triples, it has no effect whatsoever on reducing the gap between the haves and the have nots. Is that a fair conclusion?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I think, based on this, it is.

    The Chair: So all the benefits that were promised from NAFTA in regard to increased incomes for the lower levels have not materialized.

    Mr. Victor Shantora: That's as much as I know.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Mills, second round.

    Mr. Bob Mills: To come back to communicating with the public, responding to the public, getting the public involved, you emphasized that and I agree fully. Yet I come back to my example. For three years there have been rallies of 6,000, 8,000 people. The City of Abbotsford has spent a million dollars bringing in experts. I just don't know how you couldn't have seen that was a problem, how an agency like yours couldn't have tried to get involved between the U.S. and the Canadian governments to get them to sit down to work on the problem. I don't want to be overly simplistic, but it just seems this would have been a perfect place for your organization to get involved. It's real. They have a 39% greater health problem in that area. There are all kinds of evidence. This one plant is going to put five tonnes of emissions per day into an already overcrowded airshed. They're coming from the U.S. The power is being used in California. Washington doesn't allow overhead power lines, and yet they're going to run down the main street of Abbotsford. These are just so obvious, things an agency like yours could have been very useful in mitigating. Yet that hasn't happened. I just don't know why.

    Mr. Victor Shantora: It's still not a satisfactory answer, but I neglected to mention previously that under the environmental side agreement there is a provision that the countries should develop cooperative arrangements regarding transboundary environmental impact analysis. I can't cite you chapter and verse, but it's been a bit of a challenge to develop that framework document. It's still not done, the countries are still working on it. Now that I think about it, if we had such a framework arrangement, it probably would help to address the point you're making.

    I might add that there is a similar situation developing in the Tijuana-San Diego area. There are power plants going up in Mexico to feed the California market. There's exactly the same issue about the hydro wires, local air quality, regional air quality, etc. So it's a real issue, I will not disagree with you on that point, and more should be done.

    Mr. Bob Mills: This is what I thought your agency was designed to do, to work with the three countries when there are these problems. There is another one between Mexico and Texas. It would seem to me the very reason for your existence is to work on these kinds of problems between two countries, not to be antagonistic, but look at the science, to put it together. It seems all one-sided right now.

  (1215)  

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I agree.

    Mr. Bob Mills: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Comartin.

    Mr. Joe Comartin: Mr. Shantora, with the reporting we're getting on the chemicals, it's hard doing a comparison. According to the notes I have, the U.S. requires 648 chemicals to be reported, Canada only requires 267. That was as of “Taking Stock 2000”. In fact, of those 267 only 206 are common with the U.S. Has that situation improved at all on the Canadian side?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: Yes. As I mentioned, the NPRI continues to add chemicals to the list. We're very careful with the matched set of chemicals we compare, the 206, to make sure we're comparing apples to apples. We have an initiative under way to get Canada and the United States, and Mexico when they come on board, to adjust their practices, so that we can move beyond the 206 and have a good matched set of 300 or 400 or 500 chemicals.

    Mr. Joe Comartin: Do you know how many additional ones Canada is now requiring reports for? I guess I should ask about the U.S. as well, because the U.S. has about 60 we report on that they don't.

    Mr. Victor Shantora: What I have here is says 73 chemicals are now being added to NPRI. In the United States, I don't know for what reason, the toxics release inventory also requires that a whole subset of pesticides be reported on. Canada does not. That's in large measure the reason for the discrepancy.

    Mr. Joe Comartin: And Canada is not taking any approach at this point to add the pesticides?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: Not that I'm aware of.

    Mr. Joe Comartin: This is all anecdotal, I don't think there are any formal reports, but there are suggestions that with the formerly large polluters, those emitting the largest number of toxic substances, some of it may be moving offshore into South America or elsewhere in the world. Has your agency come across any indication of that?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: No, we haven't. I'm not sure we've specifically looked at that. I can check into it, though.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Tonks.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    To follow up on the line of questioning I had before, I'm particularly interested in the correlation between the emissions information and an attempt to characterize the threat to the public. In your state of the environment report do you attempt to do that, to say, okay, the explanation of the threshold change in mercury 1996 to 2000 indicates that there has been a huge increase in mercury, and the impact that may have on health is thus? Is that the tone and nature of your state of the environment report, or is it just a quantification of the emissions?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: We probably go part way to what you are suggesting. It wouldn't be simply a quantification of emissions, because we do that every year. Where the health experts can give us dose responses relative to certain levels of pollution, that would be reflected in our state of the environment report, to the extent that it's available. Sometimes it's not available, but the more of this kind of information we can provide, the better the value in our product.

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    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Shantora, the commission has three ministers at its head. How frequently do they meet?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: They meet at least once annually. Their next meeting will be June 24-25 in Washington, D.C. They have senior officials called the alternative representatives. They meet or have a conference call four to six times per year, and it's those senior officials working with us in the secretariat who basically build the agenda for the ministers' meeting, the discussion, the decisions that have to take place.

    The Chair: Is there a record of the decisions made by ministers or their officials when they meet in turning down requests made by one country or by two, it being vetoed by the third?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I don't know, Mr. Chairman. I'd have to get back to you on that. Certainly, any time a decision is taken by council there is a resolution that supports that decision. The extent to which it describes who is for or against I can't tell you right now.

    The Chair: Does the council of three ministers decide by consensus, by unanimity? Is a majority vote sufficient to adopt an agenda item?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: There are different provisions in different parts of the agreement. In the article 1415 process I described earlier, where any citizen can petition if they believe the law is not being enforced, it's actually laid out that two of the three have to vote in a certain direction. Most discussion items lead to consensus.

    The Chair: Is there a record of requests that were turned down with a vote of two to one?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I'll check and get back to you, but not in the past year I've been acting executive director.

    The Chair: When this happens, could we have also the description of the issue?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: Okay.

    The Chair: Would you say the three ministers act independently of their cabinets when making decisions related to the commission?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: No. I think they make a specific point of saying, when they come together in a meeting, they're actually representing their governments, not just their ministries.

    The Chair: So one could safely conclude that this commission acts as an extension of the respective governments, rather than as an extension of respective environment ministers.

    Mr. Victor Shantora: Yes.

    The Chair: Therefore, the commission is operating under the influence of interests that go well beyond environmental interests.

    Mr. Victor Shantora: They certainly take into account interests that go beyond environmental interests.

    The Chair: So to call it an environmental commission is a misnomer.

    Mr. Victor Shantora: No, I don't think so. I wouldn't agree with that.

    The Chair: How would you put it?

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    Mr. Victor Shantora: The environment ministers, I would say, are championing the environmental cause related to the agreement, but they're taking into account the consensus or whatever process is developed in arriving at a decision based on the facts that are relevant to the country.

    The Chair: Have the environment ministers, for instance, championed the cause of an interpretative statement under chapter 11 on investments?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: No.

    The Chair: Is there an explanation for that? Wouldn't that be a logical item to champion for the three environment ministers, in the light of the experience with Ethyl Corporation?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I can't really answer that, Mr. Caccia. I can say the joint public advisory committee recently held a public workshop on chapter 11. There's some advice they've passed on to the council of ministers. I think that's currently under consideration by the ministers. There's been no response to date that I'm aware of.

    The Chair: Is this an item that will be on the agenda for the next meeting of the three ministers?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I don't believe so.

    The Chair: And yet it was discussed here in Ottawa at the Chateau Laurier at the last meeting here in Canada of the three ministers. What happened to that particular issue, investors' rights in chapter 11?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I don't know.

    The Chair: Could you find out for us, please?

    Mr. Victor Shantora: I can try.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Shantora, we are very grateful for your appearance. We appreciate very much your good work. Your commission is certainly very important, and we hope to see you again soon.

    Mr. Victor Shantora: Thank you. Thank you for your time.

    The Chair: We now have the motions by Mr. Mills. Would you like to read them?

    Mr. Bob Mills: I think everyone has them. I think they're fairly standard motions. The first one is to call the minister once we have the estimates or supplementary estimates. I don't believe we've done that the last year or so. The second one says, when the Auditor General lists something that is part of the mandate of this committee, we also call the Auditor General and officials to look into whatever that item is.

    The third one has been dealt with, I understand, tabled in the House.

    The Chair: On the first motion, I would like only to say that as Mr. Mills correctly indicates, it has not been done in the past year, or the previous year, or the year before the previous year, perhaps not even for four years, which does not reflect very well on the alertness of the official opposition, which can call for these kinds of estimates any time it wishes. So we are glad to notice that the official opposition is coming to life.

    Mr. Comartin.

    Mr. Joe Comartin: I want to plead guilty to coming to life on this. I was pleased to see the motion coming forth from Mr. Mills, because I had been thinking about doing the same thing and feeling somewhat contrite about not having done it in the last couple of years as well. I think it is an oversight. However, I don't want to let any other members of this committee off the hook. I think we all have a responsibility, as individual members of Parliament and as ongoing members of this committee, to be responsible, not just at this committee, but at all committees for estimates. We all deserve a slap on the wrist.

    I would like to say to Mr. Mills I'd be very happy to support his motion.

    The Chair: So we vote on the first motion.

    (Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

    The Chair: On the second motion, Mr. Comartin.

    Mr. Joe Comartin: I know we haven't looked at this, but there are probably times when there's an event that should trigger the commissioner's coming before us as well. I don't know if Mr. Mills has applied his mind to that, I can't say I have. There are times when Madame Gélinas or somebody from her office should be almost automatically asked to come, along the same lines of what we're doing here.

    The Chair: Mr. Comartin, Madame Gélinas is covered by the motion, because she belongs to the Auditor General's office.

    Mr. Joe Comartin: When I saw the motion, I was thinking we were limiting it to just the Auditor General. Okay. Thank you.

    (Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

  (1230)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Mills.

    On Thursday we have a very important visit.

    The meeting is adjourned.