[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, May 14, 1996
.0904 
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): I'd like to call this session to order. I want to welcome everyone here this morning. We had a terrific session yesterday. Every spot around this table was filled, and everyone had wonderful comments to make on what sustainable development is.
So now that we have that behind us, we are moving forward. A lot of people were talking about action. Today is the day we're going to focus on action.
.0905
Before we go too far into this, I would like to welcome the students from Sir Winston Churchill Public School. They're here with their teacher, Ms Charbonneau.
These students have been acting on some of the things we're going to be hearing a little bit more about today. They've been involved with paper recycling and reduction in the use of paper. They've been working on garbageless lunch days, composting and school-yard naturalization, and they've also received Friends of the Earth awards for their special work on the environment.
Before we go too far this morning, I thought we could start by introducing ourselves around the table.
We're also very honoured to have Minister Sergio Marchi, Minister of the Environment, here with us this morning, and he will say a few words after our introduction.
My name is Karen Kraft Sloan. I'm the member of Parliament from York - Simcoe.
Hon. Sergio Marchi (Minister of the Environment): I'm Sergio Marchi, and I work for all of you.
Mr. Douglas King (Manager, Business Development, Know Waste Technologies): My name is Douglas King, and I'm with Know Waste Technologies.
[Translation]
Mr. Asselin (Charlevoix): My name is Gérard Asselin. I am the member for Charlevoix and I represent the Bloc québécois, which is the Official Opposition party, on the Standing Committee on Environment. I am accompanied by Ms.Guay, who is the member of Parliament for the Laurentides riding.
Mr. Denis Cardinal (Director General of the Corporation d'amélioration et de protection de l'environnement de Baie-Comeau): My name is Denis Cardinal and I am Director General of the Corporation d'amélioration et de protection de l'environnement de Baie-Comeau.
[English]
Mr. George Cornwall (Director, Hazardous Waste Branch, Department of the Environment): Good morning. My name is George Cornwall, and I'm the director of the hazardous waste branch with Environment Canada.
Ms Augustine (Etobicoke - Lakeshore): I'm Jean Augustine, member of Parliament for Etobicoke - Lakeshore.
Ms Lori-Lee Flanagan (Environment Coordinator, House of Commons): Good morning. My name is Lori-Lee Flanagan, and I'm environment coordinator for the House of Commons.
Mr. Finlay (Oxford): My name is John Finlay. I'm the member of Parliament for Oxford.
Mr. Frank Peters (Consultant, Canadian Plastic Lumber): Good morning. My name is Frank Peters. I'm representing Canadian Plastic Lumber, out of Lindsay, Ontario.
Mr. Robert Redhead (Director, Corporate Government Affairs, Laidlaw Inc.): Good morning. My name is Bob Redhead. I'm director of corporate government affairs for Laidlaw Inc.
Mr. Forseth (New Westminster - Burnaby): Good morning. My name is Paul Forseth and I'm the member of Parliament for New Westminster - Burnaby, British Columbia.
[Translation]
Mrs. Guay (Laurentides): My name is Monique Guay. I am the Bloc québécois member for the riding of Laurentides and I am also the official Environment critic.
Ms Liliane Cotnoir (Doctoral Student in Environmental Sociology, Université de Montréal): Good morning. My name is Liliane Cotnoir. I am here as a doctoral student in environmental sociology. I am working on waste management issues. I belong to a coalition of environmental groups interested in waste management.
Mr. Benoît Laplante (Researcher, World Bank): Benoît Laplante, researcher for the World Bank. My field of endeavour is environment economics.
The Co-Chair (Mr. Caccia): Good morning. My name is Charles Caccia and I am a member of Parliament for Toronto.
[English]
Mr. Joseph Hall (Project Coordinator, Waste Diversion Branch, Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton): Good morning. I'm Joseph Hall. I'm with the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. I'm a project coordinator in the solid waste division.
[Translation]
The Clerk of the Sub-Committee (Mr. Etoka): Good morning. My name is George Etoka and I am the Clerk of the Sub-Committee on Environmental Awareness for Sustainability.
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): We have one more who sneaked in over here.
Mr. Adams (Peterborough): I'm Peter Adams. I'm the MP for Peterborough, Ontario.
Mr. O'Reilly (Victoria - Haliburton): I'm John O'Reilly, member of Parliament for Victoria - Haliburton, home of the best plastic recycled lumber in Canada.
Voices: Oh, oh!
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): We'll likely hear more about that this morning, right, John?
Mr. O'Reilly: Definitely.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Again, thank you very much.
Mr. Minister.
[Translation]
Mr. Marchi: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. Good morning everyone.
[English]
Thank you, Karen, for having extended an invitation to perhaps say just a few informal remarks before your round table starts in earnest. Also, after this I have to get to cabinet committee, where the Prime Minister actually does take attendance, and if you don't show up sometimes you get in trouble.
My first thought is to say thank you to my good friend and colleague, my parliamentary secretary, Karen Kraft Sloan, for the work that she, along with other members of Parliament on the subcommittee from all sides of the House, have done in order to put this two-day forum together. I compliment her and the others on this initiative because it's an important initiative.
Also, when we pay thanks and appreciation to our parliamentarians, I think we would be remiss if we didn't also pay the same kind of appreciation to the panellists who are around this table this morning and for the duration of the day, and the panellists and individuals who were around this table yesterday, for giving of their time to come and join elected representatives in sharing their experiences - bad, good and indifferent - in terms of their stories on environment and sustainable development.
So I compliment the elected representatives as well as the panellists and the participants, particularly representatives from a local school. Just to keep our collective feet to the fire is very worth while indeed.
.0910
My second thought is on why it is important that you have come together. I can't think of anything more important to Canadians than a clean, healthy, sustainable development. It really is about getting the basics right.
Obviously, in terms of their elected leadership, in terms of their leadership that comes from within, in terms of citizens, Canadians want many things. Obviously jobs are at the top of the agenda. Many people are concerned about unity. Individual parents want to know how their young kids are going to break into the job market. So there are a lot of competing issues.
Some issues aren't really competing at all, as clearly you will touch upon the relationship between jobs and the environment, but there is a lot of other interest out there.
When I say getting back to basics, I mean that a clean, healthy, sustainable environment is really at the bottom of everything we do. It is the foundation. If we don't have a clean, healthy environment, we're not going to have too many other things in life, as individuals, or as a community, or as a nation.
So it's important that you've come together, because it reflects the importance Canadians attach to the environment, especially when we talk about young kids who are not only involved today but obviously inherit tomorrow.
In my estimation, your coming together is important for two reasons. First, and obviously, it's to share that information, that knowledge and those experiences. We need to do that in order to understand what people are doing, and to emulate, promote and showcase that latest knowledge, that latest experiment, that latest technology.
Second, apart from the whole issue of substance, is the question of process. Your coming together is important because there's a certain frustration across the country. Many individuals perceive that the environment lacks a political constituency. Sometimes they measure the lack of a political constituency, for instance, by how many questions I get in Question Period. Without raising any criticism of any side of the floor, I can say that I don't get too many questions in the House on the environment. Thank God, perhaps, because otherwise I might be in trouble.
When they compare my position now, for instance, to my former post, Immigration, where the opposition asked a lot of questions, individuals across the country come up to me and say,Mr. Minister, you must enjoy it, it must be relaxing, given that you've moved from Immigration to Environment.
Yet, if the truth be known, I'm a lot busier behind the scenes with Environment than I ever was at Immigration. Yes, it's true, perhaps I get a bit of a relaxing time from time to time in Question Period, but behind the scenes I'm a lot busier on the environment than I was on immigration.
Or people say, well, hold on a second, there really isn't any pressure coming. Where is the latest crisis? What's your big concern anyway?
So a number of people in this town and across the country perceive that there is a lack of a political constituency. If we allow that actually to be true, then I think the environment and sustainable development in this country and around the world is in trouble.
That's why I think that from a process viewpoint this coming together, this partnership, is very important, because apart from the substance, I hope you also discuss the plumbing side of the equation, the ideas, the technology and the knowledge, the poetry.
But sustainable development needs both poetry and plumbing. So how can we improve the plumbing in order that people don't get caught with this notion that somehow the environment lacks a constituency because the profile has been dipping for a number of years?
What things can we do together in order to have that wake-up call, if you will, to institutions, to governments, and to the media? I think the public is already there. The public is ahead of their politicians and their government, and we have to harness that energy.
That's why, for instance, I was pleased that in the meeting with the G-7 ministers of the environment in France last week, the French, who are the chairs of this year's G-7 summit, accepted a proposal from us, from Canada, to invite the NGOs from those seven countries to participate with the ministers.
.0915
I can tell you that it benefited the discussions. It was the very first time that was done. It was considered revolutionary by some. I thought it was pretty basic.
It did three things. It made the meeting practical. It brought the G-7 meeting, which sometimes deals in theory and abstract notions, down to earth, down to the ground where it belongs.
Second, it made us accountable. The ministers had to account to their respective NGO representatives individually and collectively, and that's good. We all need a reality check and an accountability session from time to time.
Third, we talked about the partnership. How do NGOs with governments build a political constituency? How do the NGOs from the G-7 countries build a partnership with NGOs in the G-77 world, because we have to watch ourselves, because most of the world is poor, and many people in the world view the G-7 with suspicious eyes?
So the question is not only to concern ourselves with the G-7 countries, but with the G-77. Many people suggest the worldwide experiment of sustainable development is going to hinge on whether it's going to be a success in the world of the G-77. Given that governments the world over are cutting back on foreign aid, it will also mean that the multinational corporations will in fact have a big say in determining whether we reach sustainable development in that part of the world, whether they use best practices, or whether they use common denominator or basement practices. So the partnership in the rest of the world is extremely important.
The other issue from which we took some consolation was that the G-7 ministers of the environment wanted to concentrate on the economic integration of environment and the economy, and justifiably so. That's the big challenge, both in Canada and the world. How do you get the signals on the economy and the environment pointing in the same direction? How do you make sure the tax system is also in favour of sustainable development?
We offered another notion, which was also accepted, to talk about health and the environment, because if we are to build a public constituency, the constituency, the profile on the environment, we need to speak health.
Just as Canada has two official languages, I believe the environment has two official languages. One is economic, largely internal, within a government, within the departments and among governments - i.e., how do you integrate the economic signals with the environment? That's economic language internalized.
But for me, if you want to communicate with the world, with the audiences in all our countries or in Canada, the language is health. That's the other official language for me. It is the health and environment component that packs a passionate, emotional pitch that will wake up a number of individuals in this country and will serve as a bit of an alarm clock.
As I said to this committee a few weeks ago, you couldn't separate health and environment even if you wanted to. I also mentioned that when someone gives me a memorandum in my department they could easily make it out to the Minister of Health, because in the final analysis it's the same thing.
Because of the importance of health to all of us, it's number one. As my mom and dad said, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.
Because of the importance of our health care system in Canada and the pressure it is under, and because the health policy identifies, in part, who we are as a people and what we are as a country, it would be inconceivable if we didn't speak the language of the people on the environment. If we don't, we're going to be dysfunctional, because we will be discussing a different language than the people are, and the two tracks won't meet. That's why many times people's lists are very different from government lists, and the environment is a classic example.
Most of you know about that eco-research study that did two lists. It was fascinating that they identified 22 issues and asked a list of elites versus a list of Canadians where they think the environment belongs. The list of elites, made up of politicians, senior mandarins, senior business leaders and senior media, ranked environment as the tenth item. Then they took a list of average Canadians, and the average Canadian list ranked environment as the second item.
.0920
So that is a message for us that we're not speaking the same language. I think we need to synchronize, and for me that's why we need to have both the economic and the health languages.
My third point is that we can't afford to pull any punches. I think we need the straight goods and we need the straight facts, and what better individuals than the experts around this table today and yesterday to give us the straight facts and to put on the table the kinds of challenges that Canada faces? If we don't have the straight facts or the straight goods and we don't understand the straight challenges, then how in God's name are we ever going to think of the right solutions to the right problems, of the right precautionary principles, not as a reaction, but as a pre-emptive strike, if you will, to be proactive?
At the same time, we have to balance that with a sense of hope. We have to give hope to these young kids. I mean, we can't have all doom and gloom. There are problems, but there are also good things happening. This is where it also comes back to the plumbing side.
How do we showcase the worthy projects, whether they be initiatives of my department in Action 21, in Corner Brook, where they have a hazardous waste program to try to inform the public and hopefully have 50% of the people in Corner Brook understanding the whole issue of hazardous waste; whether they are in Mirabel, Quebec, where a mobile unit is gathering reusable or recyclable materials with the cooperation of the municipal government and regional government; or whether they are the projects some of our experts around this table are involved with? How do we bring that out? How do we show that there's dynamism, that there's energy, that there are good things coming? How do other people, other countries, emulate those projects and those practices?
This is one of the issues that was bedevilling, for instance, the Commission on Sustainable Development meeting in New York. When you take a global measurement, sometimes you get depressed. Like a giant ship liner, you can't turn it overnight on a loonie. Sometimes you're downstairs and you're turning the wheel in a maddening way, but the ship of state doesn't turn as quickly. So you can get depressed if you only rely on global measurements - although it's very sobering, so we have to take those global measurements.
But if you look at the local measurements, then you get a different read. The biggest energy I got when I was in New York was not listening to all the speeches from the politicians of 185 countries who said many of the same things in prepared text. It was going to visit the youth caucus from those 185 countries.
That's where the greatest energy was, for a number of reasons, for example, because of how they came to the problem. Also, while I was there, they showcased the different projects that those young people were involved with all over the world. It was great: Rescue Mission Planet Earth. I mean, just the cover says, please read me. I mean, the cover jumps out and says read me, rather than the grey, stuffy documents that we sometimes get when we go to visit the UN. It was the young people, then, who had those programs on the march.
So the question for us was, how do we bring that energy and dynamism into the CSD, which quite frankly was a bit on the dull side and was a big yawn for many of the world's media?
So next year, five years after Rio, we have that accountability session. How do we mobilize the world to pay attention to next year's CSD, for instance? We've advocated that maybe we should take the show on the road. I'd like to hear from some of you on that through my parliamentary secretary and our members of Parliament, because it looks as though it gets trapped in the whole paraphernalia of the UN and the financing, and it's just another debate.
So should we take it on the road? I think we should. I think a few people will pay attention.
.0925
Second, should ministers of the environment or our leaders go? I think our leaders should go, and at the G-7 meeting we recommended this unanimously to Mr. Chirac, Mr. Chrétien and all the other leaders. Only the leaders can redouble the efforts and the momentum and try to capture the moment that has sagged since Rio. Only they...not only they, but they can do it the best.
But second, only they can integrate the environment with health, the economy and trade, if they wanted to. A minister of the environment can't. I can battle, I can get frustrated, I can fight the good fight, but the Prime Minister of Canada or the President of France can make it happen a lot easier.
So the message of having the leaders there not only would give momentum, but it would integrate the different languages that we must speak when we speak the vocabulary of the environment.
Third, we suggested that the youth co-chair next year's meeting. Let them co-chair this meeting next year. After all, I think they did the best work at this reunion. They had the most energy, and they had something to say. If we have the co-chairs as youth, it symbolizes that they're not only the voice of tomorrow - for goodness' sake, they are tomorrow.
So I would hope that with a bit of help, the sustainable development process, which is going to be absolutely pivotal next year, can also be strengthened by this two-day forum.
My fourth point, and it's one I don't need to preach to this group, is the whole question of jobs. You know there used to be the old paradigm that it's either a good environment or a good job, but you can't have both. Obviously that's the old school.
The new school says of course you can have both. We need to communicate that to Canadians. We need to make Canadians converts to that. We need to make all members of Parliament converts to that, that Canada has a glorious opportunity. There are 4,500 companies already involved in the environmental technology area, so we don't have to rebuild the wheel here. We have to build on the foundation.
There are already 150,000 Canadians employed. It generates $11 billion, one-fifth, I believe, for export, and the market worldwide right now is some $400 billion.
To those observers who ask if we can have both, I say, you don't think that environment technology creates jobs? You don't think that there is a market for our goods?
When we talk to our young kids about jobs...these jobs aren't make-work projects, they're not part-time, they're not short-term; they're good jobs, good-paying jobs, and jobs for the future. We somehow have to cement that fact both for governments and for Canadians.
The whole issue of waste management, for instance, is a perfect case in point, your next subject on the hot table. It's an industry generating $2 billion in revenue. It employs about 38,000 people, and it accounts for 0.5% of the GDP. In other countries it's even bigger. In the States, I believe, it's 1% of their employment.
So environmental technology, jobs, growth are complementary, and the environment does not get in the way of growth and good jobs; it augments them.
On that note, I would hope that the companies represented here, and others, make use of the technology partnership program that our government announced. According to the red book, 25% of those funds will be funnelled to environmental technologies.
I want those industries and companies, or those mom-and-pop shops that have an idea in the basement waiting to blossom, to make use of that fund, and to know that we're in competition with other sectors and industry.
I don't want the environmental industry not to have their applications. I don't want to hear from others that somehow the applications from the environment technology field are slow or not as good. I think they're as good as anyone else's, and I think they can also be in plentiful numbers if in fact we make use and take advantage of that program.
.0930
My last thought is on the whole question of the national leadership on environment. There's a lot of talk among federal and provincial governments. Environmental management is one of those issues that is always seen on the agenda of either ministers of the environment or a first ministers conference, such as the one we will be having in June.
The question Canadians want us to answer is, how do we do it jointly, but how do we ensure that it's done nationally? I think that as governments we spend too much time talking about how we manage the environment and who does what. We spend too much time on that rather than asking the fundamental question, what is it that someone must do for the environment? Then figure out how we manage the task.
I don't like talking about management of the environment first and talking standards second. I think that's backward. What Canadians want us to do is to create some national leadership through the imposition, jointly arrived at, of national standards - high, appropriate national standards. If you can get a level floor where the escalator only goes up and never goes below, then that's where Canadians want us to go, whether it's on water, on air, or on the other elements of this file.
There's a challenge for governments not to talk about management without knowing the mission statement, particularly at a time when there are some pretty serious cutbacks across the country. We've done our cuts at the national level, but there are some cuts in the province of Alberta and in my province of Ontario that are worrisome.
What Canadians are seeing is some inconsistency. On the one hand, you have some provincial governments saying, give me more power, give me more responsibility. Then Canadians also see some pretty serious cutbacks. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to ask where the environment then goes if you have serious cutbacks and more decentralization or more devolution.
What they fear is that the environment will fall between the cracks. I don't think they want us to do that, I don't think we should allow that to happen, and that's why federal-provincial cooperation is absolutely instrumental in ensuring that it doesn't happen.
We also have to get our priorities right, and that means talking standards first and management second, as opposed to the old paradigm that seems to say who does what, rather than saying what do we need to do for the betterment and protection of the environment?
So those are just four thoughts, plus my first thought of thanking you, just to give you my sense of this whole question of sustainable development.
I thank you again for coming together. I look forward to receiving from Karen the conclusions of this two-day forum. I also want to make sure that it doesn't stop here, that if we talk a bit about the plumbing as well, we will ensure that these ideas don't stop in this Railway Committee Room, but have a chance of travelling the country, just like rail used to do some years back.
Thank you.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you, Mr. Minister.
Were there any very short questions - one or two - from the round table?
Mr. O'Reilly.
Mr. O'Reilly: Mr. Minister, do you have any sense that your department should take over the conservation authorities that have been cut by the Province of Ontario?
Mr. Marchi: A number of individuals have raised that question, and it's at a very preliminary stage. I haven't made any pronouncements yet.
Second, if you contemplate that, you also have to have the financial ability to carry that. I know that vis-à-vis heritage and national parks, there is a debate between some provinces and the national government about who should look after the national parks.
A number of individuals have made those pitches. It's very preliminary, and we're simply looking at that without making any commitments.
So if you do have some specific issues or recommendations, I certainly would receive them with open arms.
.0935
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you.
Peter Adams.
Mr. Adams: Mr. Minister, I noticed that you have Rescue Mission Planet Earth. I've seen the international one, but I understand that a Canadian edition is available
[Translation]
in English and in French.
Mr. Marchi: Here, the text is in English, but we also have French language copies.
[English]
I believe 16,000 copies will be distributed across the country. I don't know if you have enough copies for the delegates around the table today, but this is the Canadian version of Rescue Mission Planet Earth, which is an international initiative. This report is just coming on the market, so it'll be coming to a book store near you. It's a fabulous document and perhaps we can all receive a copy.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): I believe we have about 30 copies here today.
Paul Forseth, please.
Mr. Forseth: Mr. Minister, welcome to the committee today. In your opening comments you alluded to the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, and how in the past perhaps there has been too much discussion about whose jurisdiction is whose.
As you know, there's been a push to develop a more cooperative approach under this word ``harmonization''. I have been talking to some of the provincial premiers, and they think harmonization has one more try and then that's it, it's going to die as far as they're concerned. I'd like you to comment on that.
Often people in the community get very frustrated about bureaucrats who continue to argue about the shape of the table rather than getting something done as a result of coming out the door. Where are we going with harmonization? What do you see?
Mr. Marchi: First, I don't think it's the bureaucrats as much as the politicians. I think I mentioned this at my last visit to the committee, but I believe the officials of my department and of ministries of the environment across the country largely work very well Monday to Friday. Many times they get things ironed out where there's a federal-provincial trigger. They have a way, nine times out of ten, of working them out.
Sometimes I think the problem comes when you bump the issue upstairs. Then you get the elected representatives together and the jurisdictional battles ensue. So on a practical working basis, I think our officials do a very good job. I don't take that just from my federal officials, whom I believe, I've also talked to provincial bureaucrats, who by and large confirm it.
Secondly, talk of harmonization is always preceded by somebody saying there's so much overlap and duplication that we need harmonization. So I say, okay, show me where. Give me examples. I find that the list of duplication or overlap is generally a lot shorter than people think it is.
A couple of years ago there was a federal-provincial exercise and they identified nine regulations where they thought there was some duplication or overlap. They solved eight, so there is one to go. For the meeting that's coming up at the end of the month, hopefully we will put pen to paper and list those areas rather than simply talking about them, because then they say we're using up a lot of resources. Well, how much?
So I don't think the environment can afford to speak in general terms. We need to be very specific. If there is a legitimate list of duplication and overlap, then I think Canadians would want us to work on that.
Third, there is overlap, but it's not bureaucrats doing the same thing to the same people in the industry. Sometimes it's a question of both the federal and provincial inspector each getting a vial from the same river for different purposes.
The question there is how to coordinate better. Could we send one to get two vials, with one vial going to the federal and the other to the provincial government? That's a different discourse.
Sometimes people talk about harmonization and it's a code word for other things. When you press people and say if there's not a lot of duplication, why harmonize, they'll start talking to you about assessment. I think that's behind some but not all of the calls for harmonization. I think some people want the federal government out of assessment, but I think that would be a big mistake unless there are agreed-upon high national standards where there are joint ventures, and where the federal and provincial governments have the ability, based on the panel recommendations, to act.
.0940
Without that, I think it would be very dangerous for the things I talked about on the national leadership front, because toxics aren't local. Toxics are national. Environmental pollution worldwide is obviously international. You have to be careful when you come at the harmonization aspect, because a lot of people mean different things. I think that will be on the table.
I think there are negative points to the EMFA. The Province of Quebec was not part of it, so I'm not sure that's a national solution. The aboriginal people were not part of it, and I don't see how we can talk sustainable development and environment without involving our first peoples.
The NGOs were unanimous in rejecting the EMFA. We have to pay attention to the 2,000 organizations who work day and night for the environment - maybe they know something about the environment. Industry by and large liked the harmonization, but there were also industry groups that were confused about the EMFA. Coming back to my original point, sometimes there's a tendency to want to swallow the elephant in one gulp. Let's manage, and here's the master strategy, rather than first asking what it is we want to do.
Secondly, as a new minister, I want to know where the standards were upon which the EMFA was built? I'm not sure it was built on standards. I think it was high on process but low on the substantive arguments of standards. I'm not being ideological and saying harmonization is a dirty word, but we have to understand what the word means and what we should do.
I think we will bring a number of alternatives and features to the table, and I understand some provincial ministers will be coming to the table with some new thoughts. In this way we can move the file, but move it in a way that it's going to be understandable and acceptable. The old version of the EMFA had as many friends as it did critics. If that's the case, then it doesn't solve the federal-provincial dilemma.
If governments and ministers come together.... As I mentioned with the endangered species example, if we forget that it's the endangered species that we're concerned about and we fight all the time about whose rock the bird lands on, we're going to miss. Canadians want us to focus on the bird, not the rock. The question is whether our governments, federal and provincial, can do that. If they can, I think we will advance the files. If we can't, I think we're going to fail, and I think we're going to let Canadians and the environment down. Harmonization is an important cog in that wheel. I think we can get it right as long as we're talking the same language on the environment, regardless of which government level you come from.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you, Mr. Marchi.
In my work with the minister I've been very impressed with his passion and commitment to this file. I'm glad we've had this opportunity to share some of this with our audience and the round table participants.
Again, I want to thank you very much. I know how busy your schedule is. You've shown how important this round table is by being here and sharing your thoughts with us. I guess it's your turn to scoot upstairs to that other round table and do some fighting on behalf of the environment.
Thank you.
Mr. Marchi: Thank you, Karen, and have a good day.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much.
Before we go any further, I would like to go over our schedule this morning. As I said yesterday, we had a round table that focused on an understanding of sustainable development and a discussion about that. Today we're going to focus on some practical examples of where it works in our communities, businesses, industries and government.
.0945
The first session this morning is going to focus on waste management. For an overview of the process we will have three projects presented, and they will have 10 minutes each. I'm going to be a bit of a stickler when it comes to time, because we have a lot to go through. After the project presentations we'll have our round table discussion, and I'll get into that a little later.
First up is Douglas King, manager of business development, Know Waste Technologies, a diaper recycling business in Mississauga.
Mr. King: Thank you.
I think it goes without saying that when one gets involved in the recycling business in any way, it creates jobs. The sustainability of the environment - I don't think I need to belabour that point, so I'll focus on describing for you what is perhaps best described as the next generation of recycling. The commodity that we are recycling, disposable diapers, were never thought of as being a commodity that would be reused in any way. They consist of a combination of materials as opposed to a single commodity.
The company was started some eight years ago by a mother of two with two sons in diapers who made it her mission in life to come up with a way to recycle these products. She did this by approaching some of the manufacturers to solicit their contribution, in either in-kind donations or funds to work in an R and D capacity, to try to come up with a method for recycling diapers or incontinence products.
She was successful in garnering some funds and further successful in receiving some grant money from the Ontario environment minister. Beginning in January 1990 a pilot project was begun that involved four Toronto area hospitals. The purpose was to determine whether or not this could be recycled, and the primary focus was to to try to recover the high-grade, high-value wood pulp fibre used in these products and put it in a condition that was saleable, thus proving the commercial economics of the business.
For a six-month period we collected materials, brought them back to our plant - which was a very small set-up then - and established that these products could be recycled. From there and beginning in the fall of 1992, a full-scale plant was constructed. Three years ago we began providing a service to the institutional marketplace - hospitals and nursing homes, or homes for the aged in the province. We currently service 170 of these institutions, ranging from London to Ottawa. The Ottawa area one began about one month ago.
Institutionally, it's a fairly straightforward process to keep this material separate. It is kept separate for a series of handling reasons, and because of the nature of the material. For nursing homes this represents about half of the solid waste they generate, so it's a substantial portion of their waste stream.
We have essentially proved the institutional case, so our next challenge is to move forward into the household or residential marketplace.
I'll take a moment to describe the process. The materials that are utilized to manufacture diapers and/or adult incontinence products consist first, primarily of high-grade wood pulp fibre; second, of a mixture of polyethylene and spun bond polypropylene, or two kinds of plastics; and finally, of an absorbent jelling material or an absorbent polyacrylite, which captures liquids and retains it.
The technology we have discovered is the ability to separate these components, in particular to separate the jelling material from the wood pulp fibre so that it has a valuable end-market. Those are the strengths of the patents that we hold, which are now in place throughout North America and in parts of Europe. Having said that, we are still operating only one plant in Mississauga, Ontario, which isn't at capacity yet.
The process is best described as a large commercial laundry and a miniature pulp mill where bags are fed into a system. There is primary trommel, wet trommel, separation of the plastic materials and then segregation of the human waste materials, which are then treated at the sewage treatment plant in Peel, which is where we're located. There further separation of the absorbent jelling material or polyacrylite from the wood pulp, and then the pulp is sent to market.
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The next phase, as I was mentioning a moment ago, will be to move forward into the residential and daycare marketplace. For a year now we have had a pilot project under way in Metro Toronto that deals with some 200 daycare centres. On its own, that will not be a sustainable project. Our material needs to become integrated in a co-collection system, as other recyclable commodities do. To run around and collect this on its own is a very expensive way of doing things. While we're subsidized and we don't pay for the collection, this can go on, but realistically it will come to an end sometime in the new year.
Having said that, we have a number of different ways of accessing material from the residential marketplace, the first of which was started in Orillia about 18 months ago in a drop-off centre at their landfill site. We recovered about 1% of the solid waste or just under one tonne per month from that community of about 30,000. They have taken the next step forward and are curb-side co-collecting our material and taking it through the recycling process, or integrating it with other commodities.
That leads us to the next stage in terms of curb-side co-collecting this material. We are in a pilot stage there in terms of what system or manner it will integrate best with in that regard. In Orillia it's co-collected with the truck that collects the garbage as opposed to the truck that collects the recycling, simply because it fits better under that set of circumstances. We will soon have pilot projects in Etobicoke under way that will show it being integrated as a commodity in its normal sense or fashion.
The final manner in which we will begin to access material from the residential marketplace is through a partnership with a company that is in the cloth diaper laundering business. They will offer an alternative service of disposables that are delivered to the household and collected on a weekly basis. In terms of jobs, this would probably be the largest creator of new employment for people.
That's our company and where we're at today with programs and projects. I would invite any questions and comments you may have.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Mr. King, I thought you had a video.
Mr. King: I did, but the audio doesn't work.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Okay, that is unfortunate.
Mr. King: It will be playing in the display room next door.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Okay, thank you.
I think we'll finish the other two presentations and then entertain questions from the round table participants. Next on my list is Denis Cardinal, president of Corporation d'Amélioration et de Protection de l'Environnement (CAPE).
[Translation]
Mr. Cardinal, go ahead please.
Mr. Cardinal: I am very pleased to be with you today for this forum on sustainable development, and in particular this round table on waste management, which I prefer to call resource management, given that there are more resources than there is waste, as everyone is now aware.
The Corporation d'amélioration et de protection de l'environnement (CAPE) is a non-profit organization devoted to improving and protecting the environment in the Baie-Comeau region since 1989. We have three main fields of endeavour: the management of residual material, in other words the application of the three R's , namely reduce, reuse and recycle; environmental education; and a «river» file, for which we set up a committee responsible for protecting the St. Lawrence River in our area.
Last week, I had the opportunity of participating in the Eco-Summit, in Montreal, the purpose of which was to set directions for sustainable development for the next ten years. We presented 500 projects and 400 of them were successful. I had the opportunity of submitting the project entitled La Ressourcerie, that I will be talking about a little later on, as well as a project for the future, entitled Enviro-équipes.
At the Eco-Summit, 13 priorities were decided upon. Among them integrated waste management applying the rule of the three R's and environmental education as an essential tool for sustainable development. I find the latter particularly important, and we will see a little later on how we applied it in our region.
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Our concept of sustainable development is very simple: what we say is that there can be no sustainable development without the commitment and active participation of citizens. In our view, the solution is very simple, but not enough is being invested in that.
Nowadays, when we talk about waste management, we mostly talk about technology and landfill sites. We talk about what to do to go about making land disposal sites safe. We talk about double geotextile membranes and systems to trap leachate. We talk about millions and millions of dollars in investment in sanitary landfill sites.
Luckily, there is more and more talk of selective collection and therefore of recycling, but the first two Rs, namely reduction and reuse are almost completely forgotten. There is not much we can do to make room for the people and enable them to take concrete action in view of reducing and reusing waste.
Landfill sites are full of building materials, bicycles, chesterfields, armchairs, things that people throw away but could nevertheless be repaired and reused.
We must make room for the people, enable them to participate more and develop new concepts with that in mind.
The CAPE has experimented with various things in that area. La Ressourcerie obtained some rather interesting results. La Ressourcerie is a concept that relies on the dynamic forces of a community, namely the people, the institutions, the associations and the companies in order to reduce, repair, recover and recycle as much material as possible while at the same time attempting to maximize environmental, social, educational and economic benefits. It is quite a tall order.
I would like to give you a few examples of what this project has brought about. In the area of economic benefits, in 1995, we succeeded in creating seven full-time jobs at La Ressourcerie. We also created 40 social insertion subsidized jobs. We thus enabled people on social assistance, unemployed workers and others who did not necessarily have a place in society to participate in our project. We gave them a role and the results we obtained were very interesting.
We also provided for other commitments. Six people from the Pavillon de la Falaise, an organization devoted to mentally handicapped persons, and a full-time educator have been working for us for four years on that project. A teacher and five students from the Polyvalente des Rives are also involved in a community insertion program. Various employers also send us trainees. The detention centre is involved in a reparative program that we are all looking forward to, but that has not yet been fully developed because of lack of space.
There is also Mesures de Rechange Jeunesse (Baie-Comeau) Inc. These are young people who have committed certain crimes but who have accepted to spend a certain period of time with us as volunteers. All of the schools as well as the school board and 170 waste collection services are taking part, and the results have been good.
We are also involved in the repair, reconditioning and resale of reusable objects, such as furniture, all sorts of building materials, windows, washing machines, dryers, etc.
We also gathered windshield washer liquid containers in view of reusing them. It is a very simple example, but the number of containers that can be found in landfill sites is absolutely unbelievable. We pick up the containers and reuse them. We either resell them or give them to organizations that fill them up with their own products.
We have also organized telephone book collection. Here again, it is a very simple, down-to-earth activity, and it is proof that you get excellent results when you make room for those who ask nothing better than to get involved.
Together with the schools, we carried out a telephone book collection program. In 1993, we recovered 17,400 telephone books out of a possible 19,000. Quite a healthy outcome. Last year, we recovered 14,000 out of a total of 19,000, etc. The results have been good.
Christmas tree recycling is another example. We fully expected that people would come on board. It was all voluntary. We gathered 2,000 Christmas trees. There are some 9,000 households and we know that a lot of people have artificial trees. That being the case, 2,000 trees is quite good.
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There are several other projects that we tried to develop in order to foster community participation: the cleaning-up of 100 kilometres of waterfront in Baie-Comeau, that produced some 540 tons of material, 90% of which we were able to recycle. These are very good results.
Another example: a student paper. We talked earlier about young people and how important it is to educate and sensitize them. Well, we created a student paper called L'Écolo-journal that is distributed throughout the school board to fourth, fifth and sixth year students. Students are given the opportunity to speak out in the paper. We suggest activities for them and are trying to build energy there. That is what counts.
In closing, I would like to say a few words about two promising concepts we have been pushing, namely the Enviro-équipes and the EnviroGeste card.
As for the "enviro-teams", we have one-on-one visits in the various neighbourhoods. We set up teams of residents who are willing to do volunteer work in their neighbourhood with a view to improving the environment in the neighbourhood and in their own private homes. It is important to give them hints and advice and to encourage exchange. We set up several committees and citizens are getting involved. This goes to show that citizens are really willing to take up all the space we are willing to give them.
The EnviroGeste card is a new concept aimed at encouraging the purchase of products that are less harmful to the environment. With the card - about 20 companies signed on - customers are entitled to savings when they purchase products that are more environment- friendly.
That is about all I had to say. We must invest in the areas of reduction and reutilisation. If we took the money spent on technology and devoted it to reduction and reuse, and if we made room for the people and gave some impetus, then we would have no trouble at all reaching our objectives. Thank you.
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much, Mr. Cardinal. It is indeed a very comprehensive project.
Now we have Frank Peters, who is representing CPL from Lindsay, Ontario.
Mr. Peters: I'm going to try to give you a quick overview of the company, how it started and what we do.
We are not recyclers. This is one of the issues we've been trying to clarify with various different departments of various different governments. We are a company that utilizes the product generated by recyclers. In other words, we buy or procure in some fashion waste plastics of all types. Virtually every type of plastic material you can find in this world, with the exception of polyvinyl chloride, ultimately ends up in our plastic lumber, which you can see next door.
I'll give you a quick history of how the company came into being and why it is in Lindsay, Ontario. In 1992, I guess the opportunity to purchase some equipment that was destined for a company called Superwood Mississauga but was sitting on a dock in Montreal came to the attention of an individual from the community of Lindsay. I think he saw dollar signs and thought this was a wonderful technology. My gosh, there is all sorts of plastic garbage in the world, and if we can simply take that and turn it into something and sell it, we should all be able to retire millionaires.
He sold this concept to a number of businessmen in the Lindsay area. They said yes, it makes sense to us. We can buy this equipment for a very small amount of money because it's sitting here and it's from Ireland and they don't want to ship it back. And voilà! We have a business based in Lindsay.
There wasn't a lot of thought. It wasn't about getting involved in an environmentally based industry. It was very simply about starting a business. An individual who was able to secure the attention and resources of some very successful businessmen in the community got the thing started.
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That individual who started the company with the resources of the local businessman went on his way and is now involved in another type of business. A fellow by the name of Jim Smiley, whose background was finances, was brought in. He had spent 25 years as an accountant with various corporations in North America. He started to build an intelligent company - one that would actually make money and do some good.
They spent two to three years getting to the point where they were producing a high-value product. It's expensive. Everybody who comes over to our booth asks how it compares to wood, and I ask what kind of wood we are talking about. It is an expensive product as compared to the cheapest wood in the world, but it is very inexpensive compared to the wood that you have to replace every two years.
So they've fine-tuned the product and they now have a marketable wood alternative. They have gone about building a market for this new product, and changing people's minds, changing the way people think about the natural inclination to go cut down a tree to build your log home. Now it's go find out who's picking up plastics that can be utilized in a second life.
I have a lot of points on it, and I provided a copy for your reading at some future point. The points that I wanted to discuss relative to this meeting are about to come.
I started out by saying that it was an opportunity. It made sense to the people who invested their hard-earned money into it because it was based on an existing, seemingly proven technology, the equipment existed, there seems to be an unlimited supply of recyclable plastics, and there is a growing premium on landfill space so there should be no problem getting people to support us in this project.
The public is aware and there's been a growing awareness, as anybody who has small children realizes. The public awareness of recycling, reusing and reducing is very high and gets higher every day my daughter comes home from school. And there's a diminishing supply of forestry products worldwide, so this made sense as a business.
The environmental benefits - and that's why we're here today - are obvious. It's a diversion of waste products from landfill. This is a place to send your plastics. This is a place where you know it will get used for something of value.
We reduce the dependency and reliance of forestry products. This is a better product than wood for some applications - not everything, obviously. It's got a long life. All of the energy that went into cutting those trees down and shipping them to market don't have to be used as often. If you put plastic lumber into use once in your environment, you worry about it a number of years from now as opposed to every second year.
There are no additional things applied to it. There's a lack of finishing stains. There's no leaching into the environment, as exists with pressure-treated lumber, for example. The environmental benefits are obvious, and at the end of the day, when you're done with it, give it back to us and we'll recycle it one more time. We'll grind it into pieces and chunks and feed it into our extruders again.
One of the issues being discussed here today is the impact of small companies such as CPL on the environment of workaday world. We've had a direct impact on recycling because we've had to educate recyclers on how to handle their products so that they are of some use to us. CPL procures roughly 1,500 tonnes a year from 125 different suppliers, and we're only at about 70% plank capacity. That will grow to about 5.5 million pounds of plastic when we have to start adding more equipment.
All of our plastic, in order for us to be economically viable, has to come in a certain fashion. In other words, we require it to be cleaned, bailed and sorted to a degree before it comes in. So our recyclers have to maintain their employment levels at such a level that they can provide us with the plastic in a usable fashion. Also, we keep all the local businesses and individuals in Lindsay paying some attention to recycling and bringing the plastic to us.
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We directly employ six people year-round - it doesn't sound like much, and it isn't; we'd love to triple that - just in administrative and management capacities. Everybody there wears a bunch of hats. For example, I'm employed with them on a part-time basis, simply because it's a small company that can't afford to have a lot of high-priced management around. I would love to be high-priced management.
What we really have is a general manager, somebody whose job it is to procure plastics, somebody whose job it is to make this stuff and make sure the equipment keeps running. The equipment didn't come with warranties. When we bought them off the dock in Montreal there was a book with two or three pages saying this is how you make Superwood, and of course Superwood went out of business and we didn't want to make Superwood. So they've gone about learning how to take these things apart and fix them. They have one guy who does that.
About the actual production employees, it takes four people to run the operation. It takes one to make sure the machines are operating, and that person has to have the skills of an artisan. The plastic changes almost minute by minute, so that person is watching every single board that comes out. If it's supposed to be green and we just fed in a bunch of red plastic, he or she has to make some adjustments. So that person is very important to the operation and to getting a consistent product. On top of that, we have two people who sort and grind the stuff and another person who puts it away.
That's the plant. It varies at different times of the year. We have either one shift going or three shifts going. Right now it has just geared up to three shifts again.
Indirectly we have created roughly 25 small businesses around Ontario. The company made the decision that the primary marketers of the product would be local, because this is something that has to be shown to people, explained to people. It's a high-service, high-explanation kind of product. Our primary marketers of the product are individual businesses. Maybe they are in the deck-and-dock business on one side. They build decks, they build docks. Maybe they're in landscaping and they've taken as a sideline the distributorship of plastic lumber, if you will, for the metro community of Carp. Those businesses are out there.
We have a number of agents in Ontario, but also in western Canada, the United States, and Australia, that are not carrying a tonne of lumber around in their trunks but are authorized to sell our product. In December we shipped two container loads to Australia for the first time.
The reason Jim Smiley, the general manager, isn't here today is that he's entertaining some mystery delegate from Australia. We haven't quite figured out who he is, but I guess Jim would know by now because he was due in at 10 a.m. He was coming up from Australia to talk to us about purchasing not the product but the technology. So we hope we all get to go down there next winter, when it's sunny and warm, and teach them how to make plastic lumber.
The other businesses that have got on board.... We talked about the very localized.... A couple of points that were made in the last two days were about the importance of getting a global concern down to the local level. Often these are small businesses that are very much part of the community. They may have one little idea, and that idea might be a Muskoka chair, it might be a pallet or something like that, and they put all their time and energy and most of their resources into setting up a business to take plastic lumber and turn it into something of value to an individual consumer. Then they go sell it in shopping malls or invite people out to their acreage or whatever to see the stuff.
That's probably the most interesting aspect of the business, where CPL itself as a company is selling it in truckloads to industrial users. The real grassroots of it, the business that has been built up today, has been built through one guy selling to one person. It has taken the company from $150,000 in sales in 1992 to approaching $1 million in sales this year and finally breaking even.
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In terms of the investment to date, the shareholders are a group of individuals from Lindsay who initially invested about $600,000. They have since topped it up with ongoing investments in research and development, marketing, market development and ongoing operations, to the tune of another $900,000. The end result today is that they have put about out $1.5 million from their own pockets or their personal banks' pockets and into the business.
The government programs utilized to support all of this investment on our part include roughly $10,000 from the National Research Council to do some research that actually never led anywhere; Jobs Ontario subsidies for twelve people - eight of whom are still employed by the company today - who were subsidized in their training period; an application before Revenue Canada, I believe, for a tax grant for R and D, which runs to the tune of about $56,000, but it has been sitting there because we're a small group and, frankly, nobody in our group has the time to do the application and the homework necessary to get it finished; and a six-month subsidy supplied by the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism for the employment of one sales agent whose focus was international trade. And that's it.
As I say, this is a company that was started by businessmen, and as a business. We didn't have any lofty ambitions or aspirations to be saving the world. We are coincidentally using 3 million pounds of plastic and are putting it to good use. We're proud of that, and it is obviously one of the selling features of our product, but we make no argument other than the fact that we coincidentally have a favourable impact on the environment.
We are in business and are trying to become profitable. That went directly to a point that was made yesterday: How do you get the two to live together? How do you get environment and industry to work together? The answer is that if you make it so that money can be made doing it, industry is going to get involved.
So that's what we have to say about plastic lumber today. I'm sorry if I ran too long.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much, Mr. Peters. It's a very simple but elegant idea.
What we're going to do now is go into a round table discussion. We have a lot of people around the table, so I would ask you to bear with us because we are quite behind right now. Please keep your comments to under five minutes, and preferably closer to three minutes. You may want to ask questions of the people who have made their presentations, or you may want to talk a little bit about the projects that you're familiar with in terms of your own experience.
I'm taking a speakers list, from which we'll have three speakers. There is then a group of individuals in this room who have been very patient, and they have something they would like to say. So we'll start with our three speakers from the round table, and then we'll go to the students from the school.
I have Mr. Adams listed first.
Mr. Adams: Madam Chair, of the three speakers, I know the most about CPL. That's partly because it's in my region and partly because our colleague John O'Reilly, the member for Victoria - Haliburton, is on their sales staff.
I have a general point that I tried to make yesterday. I visited Mr. King's display, and I picked up on something that Mr. Cardinal said. He said their main objective is to involve the population, involve the people. It's my view that the largest problem we face in sustainable development at the moment is not science, it's not technology, and it's not, in some ways, leadership. It is the fact that we have still yet to convince ourselves, in our inner souls, that it is necessary.
For example, we're very keen on the environment. Outdoor education and outdoor recreation is a big thing, but we fly in to lakes, we take automobiles to ski resorts that have been very carefully prepared, and so on. We exercise more, but we do it without giving up our cars - we still have them - and we buy titanium bicycles.
Diapers, Mr. King, are also an example of this. I was a great supporter of the movement to prevent the arrival of the so-called disposable diaper. Mr. King has come up with a wonderful solution to it. It's a multiple-material device that replaces, very easily, a reusable cloth diaper.
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Nowadays, you can get a service in which the diapers change in size as your children grow. The overall cost of those diapers, including the cleaning and replacing of them and all of that, is a quarter of the cost of disposable diapers.
This is not criticizing Mr. King here. The fact of the matter is that I have four children, each of them has children, and only one of the four uses cloth diapers. I would use that as an example of the fact that we have not convinced ourselves of the importance of the sustainable environment.
I wonder if anyone would care to comment on that. Mr. Cardinal, for example - I wonder if he's given any thought to how you persuade each of us to behave all the time in a responsible, sustainable way.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Please keep your comments very brief.
Mr. Peters: What Peter says is very true. Lindsay is a small community. CPL is a relatively large business in a small community. One of the things that occurs there is that everybody in the community drops off their plastic directly at the factory. This is a good thing, we think. However, on the street there are houses as well. Recently one of the things that occurred was that people dropping off the plastic were doing a good thing, but they weren't always as careful about putting it right in the bins. A couple of plastic bags blew down the street.
Now there's a neighbour whose very greatest concern is that we're not environmentally conscious because we allow plastic to just run around the neighbourhood. Here you have an individual whose greatest concern is his yard - plastic is blowing into his yard - raising the question of the environmental consciousness of a company whose job it is to recycle 3 million pounds of plastics a year.
You're very right. People get focused on the wrong things about the recycling industry. It becomes something that's very personal to them, and it's either good or bad. For example, cloth diapers are a pain, so I'll be recycling everything else but that. It's not a global, heartfelt concern about the environment on anybody's front.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you.
Mr. Redhead, please.
Mr. Redhead: I have a very short statement and a question. It seems to me one of the common threads we've heard from all three speakers this morning is that there is a challenge with the definition. We're here talking about ``waste management'', and in itself that's a challenge. It has a kind of negative connotation to it to start with.
I guess maybe this is an observation for some of the folks from Environment Canada in the room who have already been engaged in this issue. I think one of the big barriers to some of the things we're talking about is these definitional issues and how we get captured under programs, federally and provincially, by virtue of the things we're doing being deemed to be within a certain context, and maybe they're right outside. I think Mr. Peters mentioned that.
My question really is to Mr. King, in relation to some experiences we've had in our disassembly approach to the business machines. One of the challenges is to take these things apart, because they have so many parts that are different, in terms of screwheads, etc. The people we're working with are changing their product to facilitate that.
My question is on the sources of the materials you're now managing. Is the make-up of these materials a challenge? For example, are the plastics inconsistent? Could they be changed to be more consistent?
Mr. King: There are two manufacturers in the baby diaper market, if you will, Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble. Then there is a third major manufacturer of those products that puts out branded labels, Paragon, part of a warehouser group. There is also another series of them in the adult incontinence market.
Adult incontinence products represent 90% of the 425 tonnes a month of material we recycle today. However, the component parts are the same. The engineering, design and integration of the various component parts are different from company to company. The primary factor is that the component parts are the same, which would be the issue we need to concern ourselves with.
We don't have a crystal ball that will absolutely ensure that is the case for the long term. However, the manner in which the products are made or their performance and utility is to perform a certain function, primarily that of capturing liquids, and the parts utilized in order to perform that function, are unlikely to change in the future from what we understand, or believe, will be the case.
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The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you, Mr. King. Jean Payne.
Mrs. Payne (St. John's West): As has already been said, there seems to be a common thread running through the discussion this morning. Mr. Adams brought it up and others.
On behalf of the Prime Minister, I just recently presented the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in Science. The project involved a professor in one of the schools in my riding who was doing almost the same thing Mr. Cardinal is doing there. The community was practically ignoring the whole problem of waste management, and this professor managed to pull the whole community together to do this fantastic project. There's an environmental awareness in the community now that no one had ever expected.
It seems to me that one of the problems we're having is the cost of collecting these items for recycling. You just mentioned, Mr. Peters, that you're only now breaking even in your company. From listening to the others, there aren't any major profits. I'm wondering whether there is a means by which we can encourage people to collect their recyclables, and whether there is a better way to do it and increase people's interest.
Also, I think Mr. Cardinal mentioned that the people he's employing are mostly at the lower end of the scale, low-wage earners. Can we look at another aspect, that perhaps higher wages can be paid? There are a number of things that I think need to be addressed.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Mr. Cardinal, would you like to respond to any of those questions?
[Translation]
Mr. Cardinal: On the employment side, we are obviously dealing with participants in social insertion programs, as I was saying earlier. These people are not underpaid. In our society, whether we like it or not, some people are simply left by the wayside. We have decided to give those people the opportunity to acquire work experience.
I can tell you that results so far are already very good. Several people who started with us are now full-time staff members and others acquired such a positive work experience that they were able to find jobs with other companies in the area. This is why I do not think these jobs should be perceived as being bargain basement wage jobs.
What we are attempting, rather, is to seek out underprivileged members of our society in order to give them a chance to shine. This is what we are attempting to do for the community as a whole, and it is what I was explaining earlier. We are making room for them, and there is not much of that these days. We are giving them the opportunity to get involved and to show what we are capable of doing when we work together. We must promote these gestures.
Of course, we talked about landfill and selective waste collection. How can we obtain a better return from selective collection? I do not know if the question was worded quite that way, but it always boils down to the same thing. Handing out blue boxes to citizens along with a little flyer is not going to help us maximize recycling. We must go beyond that, we must revitalize these operations.
This is why citizens must be made accountable. Who produces waste? You, us, everyone. We must make people more accountable and get them more concretely involved in order to go beyond blue boxes and flyers. That is what involvement is about.
I do not know if anyone has anything further to say on what I have just spoken about or if you would like further details. It would perhaps be good for me to know if anyone wishes to have more details.
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Perhaps if you had some more specific questions, Madame Payne, you could ask them a little later. We are getting tight for time.
Mrs. Payne: I think he has answered most of the questions. There was another element to it, but that's fine.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): One of the things we talked about yesterday around sustainable development was that it's an integration of ecological, economic and equity concerns. Finding a way to provide livelihoods for people who don't have those livelihoods supports this equity notion within sustainable development as well.
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I'd like to call on the students from Sir Winston Churchill Public School. Everyone has been very patient going through these rather dry proceedings, as they are sometimes to some people - dry, but very important, right?
Thank you, Mrs. Charbonneau.
Ms Letitia Charbonneau (Teacher, Sir Winston Churchill Public School): I'm not going to say very much. My students have prepared a presentation on the activities they participate in - and not just participate. They developed the strategies themselves, identified the problems, did some creative problem-solving, found some solutions and implemented them more or less successfully this year. We've had some major successes; other things we need to keep working on.
Each representative of our subcommittees is going to speak a bit about their activities. Matt is going to introduce the group.
Mr. Matt Harris (Grade 8 Student, Sir Winston Churchill Public School): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and hon. members. I'm Matt Harris, a representative from the green team from Sir Winston Churchill School.
Our green team was formed by students at our school who truly care about the environment and a very eager teacher. Our green team is split into four groups: waste reduction, which ran ``garbageless'' lunch this year; compost, which took care of composting; naturalization, which took care of the bird feeders and the plant life around the school; and recycling, which made sure that cans, paper and plastic were recycled in the right places.
We'd like to thank the staff from our school and other students from our school who are not here today, especially our school's custodian, Carl Siefert.
We have five speakers here today to make a presentation about what we do. We had one for composting, but unfortunately he missed the bus and couldn't come.
Mr. Blake Curtis (Grade 8 Student, Sir Winston Churchill Public School): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and hon. members. My name is Blake Curtis and I am the representative of the recycling committee.
The recycling committee bought blue recycling bins and distributed them all around the school to each class. We also made each class choose a representative to take the bins down to the big bin downstairs when they were full. The big bin gets picked up once or twice every two weeks.
The recycling committee also tried to get non-bleached, recycled paper for the school, but it was too expensive because we could not order the paper through the school board, and the company that takes care of our photocopiers would have backed out of our deal even though the paper is okay for the machines. Perhaps government subsidies to companies that produce this kind of paper and government standards that give approval for this paper would help in the future.
Thank you very much.
Ms Grace Yip (Grade 8 Student, Sir Winston Churchill Public School): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and hon. members. My name is Grace Yip, and I will be informing you about our school's garbageless lunch system.
Every Thursday is garbageless lunch day. The system works by each class getting a reminder poster with a pocket to hold the participation slips. Each slip has the date, a place to write the class and the participation percentage, and a line for the signature of the teacher on duty to ensure that the percentage is correct. The class representative will drop the slip off at our class after lunch. When we are through recording the participation of the classes that participated, the slips are then recycled.
We hope to have our legacy passed on to the next generation and make every day a garbageless lunch day at Sir Winston Churchill School. Next year the school policy will be two garbageless lunch days per week.
Perhaps the garbageless lunch would be more successful if there were no taxes on reusable containers. Thank you.
Mr. Yasser Matar (Grade 8 Student, Sir Winston Churchill Public School): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and hon. members. My name is Yasser Matar, and I am here today to talk to you about an issue concerning waste reduction.
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For the past years, schools have been using disposable milk cartons that create waste. My classmates and I have thought a lot about this and found a better solution. The solution is to use plastic milk bottles. They are reusable and have competitive prices.
The students have to pay a deposit on the bottles, but when they return them, they get an amount of money back. The students have to rinse them, but we also have over a dozen volunteers to do so. Although we have the support of student council, we have had problems convincing other people at the school that this is not too big an inconvenience.
As I leave you today, I would like to ask you if you could consider a government subsidy for dairy companies using these types of bottles, to convince schools to change to them.
Thanks a lot.
Ms Anne Edens (Grade 8 Student, Sir Winston Churchill Public School): Good morning, ladies, gentlemen and hon. members of Parliament. My name is Anne Edens.
As you can see, our school, Sir Winston Churchill, is very involved in environmental issues. We have set up a program to honour those who have made an outstanding contribution to our cause, saving the environment.
We have started a program to get people involved in the environmental issues facing this world today. We believe that the person or people who have helped most to improve the conditions around the school deserve recognition, and that is why we have started the Friends of the Earth Award. Fellow students and teachers may nominate anyone in the school who they feel is deserving of this award. The winner receives a certificate and gets to keep the trophy for a month.
We hope this award will be adopted by the other schools in the community. You as politicians can help us by celebrating the achievements of the young people in our community by showing your support on Earth Day. You may wish to donate awards and present them to these young people on Earth Day.
Thank you for inviting us today and listening to our presentations.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Not only have you reminded the adults in the crowd of our obligations to the future and to you, but you have certainly honoured us with your presence. I want to congratulate you on your truly remarkable efforts and the efforts of your teacher and your school in supporting you in this.
Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate this.
Mr. Adams, did you have something you wanted to add?
Mr. Adams: Yes, Madam Chair.
Ms Charbonneau and the Green Team, I would imagine that it's not possible for you to take the whole day off school, so you may not be with us this afternoon.
I don't know if you realize that sitting among you is Mr. Chuck Hopkins, who in fact is the person who has produced the Canadian editions of Planet Earth, the children's edition of Agenda 21. As some of our colleagues here know, this is a children's activity book that is being produced by children like the green team here.
I'm sure that before you leave, if you don't have them already, Mr. Hopkins will give you an English and a French edition. You'll be one of the first schools in Canada to have our own version of Planet Earth.
Mr. Hopkins, is that okay?
Mr. Chuck Hopkins (Senior Adviser, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; Adviser, TESCOR): I think that's excellent. It is symbolic that this will be the group to receive the very first off the press. I would be pleased to do that.
Mr. Adams: Thank you.
Have you shown them that? I don't know where we're looking now. Many people here will not be here this afternoon, but Mr. Hopkins will be describing these. These are produced by children all over the world. It's a children's workbook and the Canadian editions are now available. AsMr. Hopkins said, the green team will be receiving the first copies.
Thank you very much.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time on Parliament Hill.
Now we'll go back to our round table discussion. I have Benoît Laplante, Joseph Hall and Monique Guay on my list so far, as well as others. These are the next speakers.
Mr. Laplante: Thank you. It's always difficult to get back to some economic fundamentals after such enthusiastic efforts.
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Since I'm an economist, what I'm going to express are the views of an economist, which may be characterized as particular, if not peculiar sometimes.
As you know, Canadians are among the largest, if not the largest, producers of solid waste per capita on earth. One may want to ask why that is. Why do we produce so much waste? Why do we observe excessive levels of pollution?
When economists look at this fact, they point out the following reason: we observe such amounts of waste being produced because using the environment is free. When a polluter emits pollution, it does not have to pay a price for each unit of pollution it produces. When a household produces waste, it's free.
You might say, no, in fact it's not free; households do pay for waste collection and solid waste management. That is true, but the price they do pay is absolutely independent of the quantity of waste they produce. Hence they have absolutely no incentive to undertake any effort of whatever kind to reduce their production of solid waste, apart from some environmental considerations, which indeed they may have.
As a result of that, regulators, being born to regulate, introduce legislation and regulations of whatever nature to try to reduce the amount of solid waste being produced. So we have regulations on packaging and on this and that. What we do not have is a correction of the prices that producers and consumers are facing in their daily decisions on production and consumption.
A large number of municipalities in the United States - actually thousands - and, according to a recent survey I did with my colleagues in Edmonton, over a hundred municipalities in Canada have started to use economic instruments to try to create incentives for solid waste reduction. By economic instruments in this particular case I mean in most cases the pay-per-bag scheme, or unit pricing, where households have to buy, for example, stickers and put those stickers on every bag of solid waste they produce.
Obviously if they have to pay in that manner for each bag of solid waste they produce, they have the incentive to reduce the amount of solid waste they produce and do more recycling, more composting, more reusing and what not.
Two questions are raised each time I talk about unit pricing. One is that of course if you introduce a price for each bag a household produces, you may create more incentives for recycling and all that, but you may also create incentives for illegal disposal of that waste, that is, people taking their waste to the fields, the rivers or whatever. The fact is that in all cases this problem is not genuine and is temporary, that is, at the beginning of the introduction of the new scheme. With information programs, this problem can be alleviated.
The second problem, which is more difficult to tackle, is that of course going from a scheme with a tariff structure that is independent of the quantity of waste produced to a tariff structure that will be directly a function of the quantity of waste produced clearly has redistribution impacts. Mainly those who are going to benefit are those producing a little amount of solid waste, and those who are going to pay for it, or pay more than under the current tariff structure, are those producing lots of solid waste.
Well, those producing lots of solid waste are typically families with children, and there is a genuine concern as to whether or not we want this particular group of individuals to pay more for solid waste management than what they're currently paying.
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There are ways we can go around that, but in many cases where unit pricing has been discussed in Canadian municipalities, in Edmonton for example, the introduction of unit pricing has been defeated on that particular argument. It is not fair for families with children to pay more for solid waste management.
So those are two issues that one has to deal with: illegal disposal and redistribution impact.
I simply want to conclude by saying that the problem with plastic, with overpackaging, and with the excessive level of pollution is not that those producing or using those goods are greedy and solely profit-oriented. The problem is with consumers obviously consuming all those products. It's not that they don't care about the environment. Some of them do care, and care a lot. The problem is that in their production and consumption decisions they do not have to pay the price of their actions. That is the main problem.
We should focus on making sure that prices correctly reflect social costs, and by that I mean all the costs. I mean environmental costs, health costs.... We should make sure that prices reflect all costs and then let people decide what they want to do at those prices. It's absolutely fundamental that we aim at correcting prices to include all of those costs.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much, Mr. Laplante.
Joseph Hall, please.
Mr. Hall: Thank you.
I have a quick note for the students in the green team over there. I can solve one of your problems right away. Your milk cartons with polycoat are now recyclable. Talk to your recycler, and you can probably arrange a pick-up along with your other schools.
As I stated earlier, I'm with the Ottawa-Carleton region, and in terms of economic development and sustainable development, we're actually partners with some of the businesses around here. Laidlaw is one of our contractors for blue box collection, garbage collection, leaf and yard waste. As for Know Waste Technologies, our homes for the aged actually supply some of the incontinence products to them and to CPL as well. We'll probably soon be partners, because our new blue box program will be collecting all forms of plastic.
We have a mandate for waste management. We deal with all the recyclables and waste, and, as the previous speaker mentioned, at a cost. We've contemplated user-pay, but at this time we're going to go with a carrot, not with a stick.
By a carrot, I mean that we have a lot of technologies around the table and they represent a great opportunity, such as, recently, aseptic packaging like milk cartons and all forms of plastic. Fibre enhancements in terms of recycling have been great, at a cost. Plastics, although technically recyclable, are very costly to collect, to process, and to deliver to a recycler. It costs anywhere from $100 to $600 a tonne, which has to be borne by the taxpayer.
Ideally, it would be good to have a plastic producer to speak to product stewardship, what we've been discussing around the table. When you change a product's components to make it unified, it makes it a lot easier to deal with at the end.
With respect to diapers, speaking of price, the cost has come down recently. Previously, when Know Waste was in town, the price for our homes for the aged to get involved was a little bit high, but they've been able to match the price to our current tipping fee. A tipping fee is the cost per tonne to throw garbage away.
Both the technologies of CPL and Know Waste ideally could be cheaper than disposal technology. Here's my question to both of you: when do you think each of your technologies will actually pay for commodities to be recovered rather than charge a tipping fee?
Mr. King: I'll start. Under the current arrangements we have here in the Ottawa area we are paying for the commodities, although we are indirectly involved in that we now are a receiver of goods, as would be the situation with CPL here, whereas traditionally we were previously the ones who organized the contracts and set the whole thing up. We are paying $30 a metric tonne to receive these materials today.
However, I would like to point out that this stretches us to the maximum under the current pulp pricing circumstances. If we had to do it again, we probably wouldn't have started at $30 a tonne. Our current mandate is to receive materials at our door, not pay a revenue and not charge a tipping fee. Any of the expanded plans we have right now are on that basis as opposed to being on the basis of being able to pay.
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But we're not immune to markets, like any other recycling organization. Obviously, in our particular case, there's a considerable cost to get the final product to market in terms of additional processing. Over half of what we receive is human waste, which has to go to a sanitary sewer.
At any rate, the long and short of the answer is that I don't think we'll be paying a high price for our commodity at any time in the future, frankly.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you. Can we go on to John O'Reilly, please.
Mr. O'Reilly: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I have to tell you that I am not the chief salesman for Mr. Peters' company. Actually, the chief salesman is Tony Verbik. He's a friend of mine. He was back at about the third row, I think. He does most of the marketing, so I deal directly with him.
When this conference was planned, I immediately ran down to Madam Chair's office with a piece of plastic lumber and a brochure. I said that it was a great product. It's used throughout the town of Lindsay for all their parks and recreation furniture. Sir Sandford Fleming College has used it on ecoprojects in the Caribbean and found out that it expands quite rapidly with a lot of heat applied to it.
The biggest problem I see with it is that there appears to be a lack of product at the supplier's yards. Tony Verbik would probably confirm that I'm forever calling him when people say I can't find it. Where is it? So it's in demand.
It creates, in my mind, three, or maybe four, problems. I wanted to ask Mr. Peters in particular, with the marketing of the product, the expansion and growth of the company, the collection of the materials and that famous word ``profit'' at the bottom, what the federal government in particular can do to enhance those four areas. I consider these vital because we are talking about saving the environment in a certain way. Collection is one of them. Could he comment on user-pay?
I can remember his sitting on the town council in the town of Lindsay with seven tractor loads of plastic material for which we were paying storage but with no place to go. So we were most appreciative of this company coming to Lindsay and taking some of this product off our hands.
But it's a problem in many areas. Consider Mr. Laplante's analysis. Do you pay to pick it up off the side of the road because people won't take the product to the dump because they don't want to pay to go to the dump? Or do you incorporate it into the collection services of the municipality or a government agency?
Thank you, Madam chair.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Please respond, Mr. Peters.
Mr. Peters: I'll respond actually to both at the same time, because the question of the sourcing and the collection of the material is an issue to CPL. It is the raw material. It's the product we procure and acquire from a variety of sources. Obviously it's our job and our buyers' job to keep the price we have to pay for that down to a minimum.
That minimum would be, in the best case, somebody paying us to take it off their hands. In the worst case, last spring, there was a a worldwide demand for recycled high-density polyethylene plastics, creating a price as high as 40¢ per pound, which obviously is out of the reach of CPL. But typically we were paying anywhere up to 8¢ a pound to get it delivered to our door.
We buy the product. That has a direct impact on our ability to make a profit, obviously. When we know there's a great glut of plastics around the world, yet you can't get enough of it, but there's a demand and people are taking the recycled product over to China, there's something wrong there. That means that we need to get our hands on all the plastic that's going into the landfill. That's what will keep the price of the product down. So some form of collection that captures more of it is the goal so we don't get into these demand situations.
The marketing is probably the toughest thing. It takes money to market. It takes money to introduce a brand-new product to the market. It takes great expertise in some cases, which generally comes with a price tag. That's really the simple answer to CPL's ability to grow their market as a shortage of capital.
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When you've invested what the investors have in building the product, in learning how to build the product and in teaching themselves how to improve the product, you run out of money at a certain point. Quite simply, that is the issue. How can you get it out into more of the marketplace? How can you make it more accessible? How can you get it so you can buy it at every store in North America? It takes time and money to get that product out. That's really the simple answer where CPL is concerned.
That's it.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you, Mr. Peters.
Madame Guay.
[Translation]
Mrs. Guay: I listened to the comments made this morning. I for one would like to see us come back to the basic problems, come back to the field to talk about concrete issues.
In my view, Mr. Cardinal, what you are doing is educating people and I am convinced that if you let up the slightest bit you would have to start all over again. One must work relentlessly to convince people to continue doing what they are doing in a given area. It seems that people are ready to make an effort as long as it does not cost them anything. However, as soon as they see that they might have to devote more energy to something, then their interest wanes. I say that that is where the problem is in the area of conservation.
As far as blue boxes are concerned, my impression was that 70 per cent of people do not even know what they are supposed to put in them. There is education to be done in this area.
As far as composting is concerned, this has become very popular. At one time, everyone wanted to make their own compost. I would like to know how many people are still doing that today. It was a trend, that is all.
We talked earlier about diapers. Obviously, disposable diapers are much easier to use. People are always in a hurry and it would not be easy to go back to cloth diapers. There again, it is a matter of education. All of these things have to be learned.
You talked earlier about imposing a tax, and I found that interesting. People are already overtaxed. We pay taxes on everything. I would be curious to know how you would go about getting people to pay more. Would this be done at the municipal level? Should the government invest in this sector or should it assist, in some way or another, those companies that wish to pay more attention to the environment, either through tax reductions or start-up assistance to help them make the necessary transformations and comply with sustainable development requirements?
I believe that there are tremendous possibilities but that certain efforts remain to be made. Governments and environmentalists must continue to make additional efforts in order to increase sustainable development opportunities.
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you.
Benoît would like to respond.
Mr. Laplante: Each time I talk about unit pricing, this issue of it being another tax is always raised. The fact is solid waste management - collection, landfills and whatever - is not free today. You are paying for it; it's somehow included in your municipality tax bill. It is not free. You are paying for it.
Unit pricing is replacing that fee with another one. Typically municipalities using unit pricing have seen a reduction in the total cost of solid waste management because the amount of reduction in the production of solid waste has been such that the overall cost has been lowered.
So it's not a new tax. It's substituting a tariff structure that is absolutely independent of the quantity produced with a tariff structure that directly depends on how much you produce, exactly as you pay for each litre of gasoline you consume or each cubic metre of water you consume. It's exactly the same principle.
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It is not a new tax. It is not a stick. It is a price. For each piece of paper you consume, you pay a price. Is that price a stick? Of course it's not a stick. It's exactly the same idea.
We should applaud the efforts of Mr. Cardinal and others - they are great efforts - but the problem with his blue boxes, as in most cases in Quebec, is they are empty. Why is that?
Well, why would people devote effort to cleaning their bottles, tuna cans and whatever? Why would people devote effort to getting informed and getting the right sort of information if they don't have to pay for the amount of solid waste they produce? There are a bunch of other things to do in life than to get informed about solid waste, unless indeed you can see that there are benefits from being informed and taking proper action.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying unit pricing is going to solve all your problems. It's not going to solve all your problems, but it's certainly part of the solution. What I see now is not enough emphasis on that particular instrument - and it's one instrument among many others - to address that issue.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much.
Liliane Cotnoir, Gérard Asselin and Lori-Lee Flanagan.
[Translation]
Ms Cotnoir: I would like to make a comment on what has just been said regarding the tax. It is a measure that could perhaps be put in place, but only after having offered citizens the possibility of having collection, recycling, composting and selective collection of organic waste and dangerous household waste material.
Obviously, with a good sensitization and education program, participation should be very good. It is perhaps more difficult in the larger municipalities.
A tax is something that could be put in place following a sensitization program and all of the other instruments. We must pay careful attention to the way in which such a measure would be put into place. Before going that route, you must offer people tools for reduction and recycling.
In my research work, in my doctoral program, I gave a lot of thought to social controversy in the area of waste management. The mobilization of the population in the area of waste management is a phenomenon that exits in Quebec but that is also found in other areas of the world, namely Canada, the United States and Europe. Obviously, the problems we see in Quebec exist elsewhere as well.
I identified four major problems we can be faced with and four important measures that can be put in place to change the framework we find ourselves in.
One of the major problems of recent decades, but it varies from one region to another, - in Quebec, it has been a problem for the past five years especially - is the concentration of waste disposal in certain regions in particular.
Certain regions that had landfill sites or waste disposal technologies have become major importers of waste from other areas. This has created tremendous social equity problems, because the environmental impact is being concentrated in smaller communities. This has also had a major effect on the sensitization of people. It is indeed difficult to sensitize people who see their community import 600,000 or 160,000 tons of waste when they only produce 20,000. This is why it is important to take this into account.
Another important element that social controversy brings out, when we go into the field... If you are a researcher or a politician, you do not always have the time to go into the field and see for yourself. I decided to do some action-research and to see what goes on in the field. When you go out in the field, you realize that there is no waste disposal technology that has no impact whatsoever on the environment, on people's surroundings. When you live close to a landfill site and you go out on your deck at the back of your house for a cup of coffee, you hear the trucks go by and you smell the drain-off, etc. This is what people living in these areas have to cope with. Waste disposal technologies inevitably have an impact on the environment.
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There is another problem relating to waste management. Even though everyone produces waste, even though everyone has a garbage can at home, in many cases, citizens do not necessarily participate in the making of the decisions that will impact upon their daily behaviour.
In areas where an effort has really been made to sensitize people, to involve them in decision-making, to give them comprehensive information on the nature and the origin of waste materials and on the cost of waste management, citizens are truly involved and are very much aware of the effects of their non-participation in collection and recycling programs. They are also very aware of the positive effects of recycling, such as job creation and worthwhile projects. In this context, it is much easier to find solutions.
The other important but less obvious element is the wastage of resources due to the dumping of waste at landfill sites rather than its recycling or its reduction at source.
These are the four major problems that we have determined to be at the root of social controversy.
People living in the regions are often better able to cope with problem situations because it is their lot and they have tried to find solutions . Others, even though they do not have to live with the problem, sometimes find solutions if they are sensitized to the issue.
In order to resolve the first major problem, that of fairness, the regions must be made accountable, in other words, they must be made to manage their waste locally, so that regions no longer import or export waste. Each municipality or group of municipalities should manage its waste locally and find its own solutions.
The other measure that must be put in place is that of the democratization of decision-making. We must ensure that all citizens become involved, and this at every stage of the process. This is something we often hear in the regions. People want to have their say and to ensure that the solutions that are chosen fit the needs of the families, of those who have to take care of their own garbage everyday.
Another important element is access to information. We must ensure that all citizens have access to all of the information they need.
Obviously, waste management, applied locally and democratically, is not going to eliminate the impact of waste on the environment. In order to resolve that problem, programs based on the three R's must be put in place cooperatively and as quickly as possible. As far as cooperation is concerned, we still have work to do to ensure that the message that is given is the same everywhere.
I would conclude by saying that none of these measures will be able to be put in place if the producers of waste are not made accountable. Mr. Laplante suggested a solution. We must however go higher up in the production chain to make manufacturers accountable too.
Resources must be made available to municipalities for the management of dangerous household waste, organic waste, etc.
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much.
Next on the list is Gérard Asselin.
[Translation]
Mr. Asselin: I would like to start off by congratulating Mr. Cardinal for his excellent brief that showed us, this morning, that in certain areas, in Quebec and in Canada, there are non-profit organizations that are interested in the environment.
Mr. Cardinal began by telling us about his three R's formula, which is to recover, recycle and reuse. He talked about selective collection, sorting rooms and La Ressourcerie. We know that jobs are created in all of these areas and that we are dealing with recyclable materials that do not necessarily bring about collection or disposal costs.
Mr. Cardinal, I would like you to tell us if there are customers and users for all of this recovered, recycled and reused material. Today, we can recycle a lot of things. We know that everything can be recovered, from paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, metals, steel, aluminum, copper, wood, to household appliances, such as those mentioned earlier, and even Christmas trees.
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However, it is important to know whether or not there will be customers to buy these products that we will have recycled. We also know that what is recycled does not wind up in intermunicipal sanitary landfill sites. Municipalities costs are thus reduced.
Very often, municipalities fail to understand the importance of the environment. When they have tax bill cuts to make, the first area they look at is that of the environment. They will deprive themselves of a selective collection service, of a sorting room and of other resources so as to not have to pay their set-up costs because in their view these costly operations are not yet very popular with citizens. If there are customers for all of these recycled articles, then these services will eventually pay for themselves.
It would be unfortunate to pick up articles, to sort them, clean them, package them and then see them wind up in intermunicipal sanitary landfill sites because no one wanted to buy them. Unfortunately this is what is going to happen if we do not find customers for these articles or this recycled waste.
My question for Mr. Cardinal is the following: are there enough takers for the household appliances and other articles that you recycle?
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Mr. Cardinal.
[Translation]
Mr. Cardinal: This is not a problem. There are ways to liquidate all of what we collect, be it furniture or even unserviceable household appliances. These appliances can be taken apart and the metal components reclaimed. There are scrap dealers in Baie-Comeau. Building materials such as wood, metal and certain types of insolation can also be recycled. Just think of the number of cottages that are being built on the North shore. There are takers for all these materials.
One must not forget the underprivileged either: they may not have the means to buy new furniture or appliances, but they can come and purchase articles that we have repaired. As far as reuse markets are concerned, there is really no problem.
There should also be some accounting of the savings that are realized due to the simple fact that these materials are not being buried in landfill sites. These are costs that are avoided. This must be taken into account. This is important because landfill sites are becoming more and more costly to set up, build and maintain. If by recycling conventional materials, building materials and all sorts of objects we succeed in prolonging the life of landfill sites by four or five years, we will save millions of dollars. We might even be able to set up a fund with the money thus saved. This money could be invested in education and community involvement among other things. This is perhaps an interesting idea that should be looked into.
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you.
Lori-Lee Flanagan is with the Greening the Hill program at the House of Commons. I put a little extra pitch here, because this is a program all of us who work on the Hill are very proud of.
It's your turn now, Lori-Lee.
Ms Flanagan: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to thank you, on behalf of the employees of the House of Commons, for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.
Listening to
[Translation]
the participants, I found the idea of environment sustainability through the participation of the people a very interesting one.
[English]
I think the key to environmental sustainability is people. Implementing numerous programs that are part of the Greening the Hill program, our team found that finding participants is keying into the interests, and giving people the tools and opportunities to succeed in the initiative we're about to launch or implement.
Another key component to the program is having some type of feedback mechanism so that people's efforts into one domain are not lost. They have some indication of what happened. To provide a forum where these employees who are really champions of environment be given an opportunity to be saluted, we developed an environmental employee award and recognition program.
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I think les intervenants really provided a very holistic point of environment sustainability. With regard to our waste reduction initiatives, it is first of all important to provide people with the information. What can they do? I'll give you an example.
A waste audit for Parliament Hill found that over 50% of the waste stream is composed of paper products. Another 25% of our waste stream is composed of organics - compostibles. A further 8% of the waste stream is composed of plastics such as PETE, polystyrene - your plastic knives and forks - and HDPE, which is hard plastic 2. Over another 3% is composed of glass bottles; over 4% is composed of metals, such as pop cans; and about 10% is composed of other products such as textiles, composites and wood.
Recyclables make up about 90% of our waste stream. Presently we have a program on-site that takes in or can recoup all these products. I think it's only through the partnerships with food services, in terms of our enhanced composting program, that we were enable to increase our compostibles through the recuperation of compost. I'll give you two figures: In March 1995 we were composing 720 kilograms; in March 1996 that was moved to 3,813 kilograms of compostibles sent to DND. Now, this is really phenomenal, and it's only because we have a tight partnership with food services. They are the people who are very conscientious that none of this food waste is sent to landfill. It's also thanks to DND, which takes the compost.
With respect to our better paper-save program, since its inception in 1989, we have recycled approximately 4,240 tonnes of paper products, on which we receive revenue. The revenue is up to a total of around $140,000 - the previous year it was $9,000, and then it was up to $50,000 - because we were able to renegotiate our contract with our hauler. The beauty of having a good relationship with our hauler is that he picks up the glass, cans, and PETE and HDPE plastics for free. That's a cost savings to the House of Commons. And we were able to renegotiate our polystyrene collection as well, simply by minimizing it through the same hauler.
We have a green building, the one at 180 Wellington, in which we try to move towards zero waste by following the good example of Bell Canada. We've installed multi-material recycling centres on each floor, and we have about 500 people who voluntarily took mini-bins as part of the waste reduction effort. And I'd like to share with you some of the results, because they are significant.
In three months, we have seen a 415% increase in the amount of cans collected; a 165% increase in the amount of glass collected; a 101% increase in the amount of newspapers collected; and 32 bags of polystyrene plastic collected - in a three-month period from the commencement of the recycling centre program.
With respect to the mini-bin - and I have to admit the mini-bin is about the size of that jug, so it was a real paradigm shift for many people - a bit of the initiative here was that you only had a small bin in which to put your garbage, so people therefore increased their recycling efforts. I think ofMr. Laplante saying that people don't use the blue boxes, but maybe if we limit where they can put their garbage, they may think twice about how they recycle. So we gave them the tools to do so, and since we started this program in November, we've seen about a 75% extra reduction in waste from the Wellington Building.
I have to say our office doesn't drive the process. It's the employees of the House of Commons and the members of Parliament who drive the process. We provide them with the tools, the training, the communication tools, and they go ahead and tell their colleagues about the initiatives.
So from my standpoint, I think we're doing a wonderful job, but I think it's people who really drive the process. Thank you.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): We think you're doing a wonderful job as well. I wasn't quite sure what you were referring to when you were talking about the mini-bin, but now I get the point. Georges just told me that he's in that building and has a very small container to put his garbage in.
I have Paul Forseth, George Cornwall, John Finlay and Charles Caccia as the last speakers on my list. I hope I have gotten to everybody at least once.
Mr. Forseth: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
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Today, in a general sense, instead of talking about waste management...it's really materials management and recycling. We're told as Canadians we generate roughly twice as much garbage per person as residents of France, Germany, or Italy. Perhaps that's arisen because cheap energy and lots of landfill space have been available and fairly affordable in the past. I think we have a growing awareness of the environmental costs of extracting, transporting, processing, packaging, distributing, consuming, and disposing of a wide range of products and materials. Certainly this spurs us on to the three Rs, or maybe we could call it the four Rs: reduction, reuse, recycling, recovering, or whatever.
In the long run we're looking for success on the triple bottom line: the bottom line of economics, of the environment, and of society or what our quality of life is. In essence, taking those things together is what sustainable development is all about.
Over the long term, I suppose the nature of environmental technology or the industry is likely to change dramatically. As preventing pollution and relying on products and services that produce less waste and consume less energy assume greater importance in the marketplace, perhaps our expertise will be employed more at the front end of the product and process design phase instead of in cleaning up at the back end, and instead of collecting a tremendous amount of material we will make less to dispose of at the front end.
I'm encouraged by what we've heard today. I think we are on our way. Hopefully we can teach our children well. May we live well by example ourselves and may we be able to live in a truly sustainable world.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much, Mr. Forseth.
George Cornwall.
Mr. Cornwall: Thank you, Madam Chair.
With the recognition that solid waste management is principally a provincial and municipal responsibility in Canada, the federal government, through Environment Canada, has been playing a strong leadership role. We have helped to establish national standards. Minister Marchi in his opening remarks underscored the importance of having national standards, and I would cite as a couple of examples for this forum this morning our help in the creating of national composting guidelines, which were developed in collaboration with provincial jurisdictions and other stakeholders. We've also led and helped the development of national packaging stewardship guidelines. These two examples have been issued through the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, the CCME forum.
We've also helped in the facilitation of national action through CCME. I would cite as an example the National Packaging Protocol, a multi-stakeholder group dedicated to the reduction of packaging waste that goes to landfills, reductions in the area of 50% by the year 2000. We've been active in helping raise public awareness in Canada.
I might use this as an opportunity to recognize that some of the pamphlets and brochures we've helped develop are available in the booth next door. There's some really excellent information, collected by a number of stakeholders.
I might mention that Canada does have a national commitment to reduce by 50% by the year 2000 the amount of solid waste that goes to landfills in this country. I think we're making good progress. That's a commitment that was made in 1989 by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.
But I think it's particularly reassuring today to see the results of community action, because that's where the basic change of attitudes and the call to action really have to take place. I'm particularly impressed by the results Mr. Cardinal reported to us this morning. I can't help but rejoice in the unbridled enthusiasm we saw this morning in the students from the Sir Winston Churchill School.
Federal public servants are also committed at the community level in the communities in which we work, for example, at reducing solid waste going to landfill. Lori-Lee Flanagan has given you a report on the very significant and proud performance that has happened right here on Parliament Hill. Other departments are making similar progress, and I'd like to cite just a few examples.
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Many departments are implementing programs to reduce paper and save money by converting paper forms into electronic format. Veterans Affairs has converted 300 of its 1,000 forms to date, and Statistics Canada has converted about 40% of its forms. When you translate these into savings of waste materials that are actually landfilled in this country, it really does mount up to significant proportions.
Environment Canada has put in a no-waste program in its headquarters. That was established in 1994 and in less than a year achieved a 75% diversion rate of wastes from going to landfill.
I too have a mini-bin on my desk. I don't have waste collection from my office. My blue bin gets emptied every day or two for recycled paper, but the little bin that's on my desktop is my responsibility and I take it myself to the centrally located waste bin. It does help achieve a change in attitude, and federal government employees are becoming committed to that action in the workplace.
On our floor in Place Vincent Massey, we have not one but two worm composters. Organic material from our operations goes into those worm composters and they're maintained and managed by employees of the waste management branch. It's not a task that everybody wants to do, but we have some enthusiastic practitioners in the waste management branch on the floor on which I work.
I'll just cite another couple of examples. The Winnipeg taxation office of Revenue Canada has achieved impressive results in the area of recycling, including 11,000 pounds of cardboard in a 4-month period, 1,600 printer ribbons, and the elimination of 700 telephone books through the use of CD-ROM technology.
Correctional Service Canada has generated an estimated 33,000 kilograms of garbage daily and is diverting a good deal of that organic material into a composting operation. That adds to the three-R process a fourth R that devotes itself to the recovery of material or energy. Through composting, for example, material that might otherwise end up in a landfill is actually recovered and put back into beneficial use.
Madam Chair, thanks for the opportunity to talk about the community of public servants and their contribution to waste recycling.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much, Mr. Cornwall.
I like the idea of worms. Who says you can't bring your pets to work with you?
We are running just a little bit late, but we're doing not too badly. We have two more speakers, John Finlay and Mr. Caccia.
Mr. Finlay: I certainly appreciate the positive atmosphere that has been generated here this morning towards involving all of us in this real problem. I have just a few brief comments.
Liliane, I guess you're saying yes in my backyard, instead of NIMBY, not in my backyard. I think the problem we have is that of course many of our industries and our producers of product are multinational.
Mr. Laplante, your emphasis on unit pricing is a good one. I wonder, though, that Mr. King and Mr. Peters both told us of problems of sourcing an adequate and steady supply of the products they need. The price fluctuates quite a bit, from what you've told us. Putting that with Mr. Forseth's image or metaphor of the triple bottom line, it seems to me that we need everybody's cooperation and we need government's cooperation. We need international cooperation in getting this idea into most of the natural resource industries.
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I still find it very difficult to understand that the more electricity we use, the less it costs the consumer. I think we have to do some serious thinking about that.
I think Mr. King and Mr. Peters' problems are maybe because natural resource industries have to keep people employed. They have to sell product. Since they don't have to pay the real price for the product, it affects what recyclers do and how we try to manage the waste scheme. Because if they decide they can sell it for less in order to maintain a world market, or a niche in the market, they'll do that when necessary. I think we have to get everybody to understand that we're on one earth and we have to work together. Profit is not the only motive. We have to have Mr. Forseth's triple bottom line.
Thank you.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much, Mr. Finlay.
Charles Caccia, please.
The Co-Chairman (Mr. Caccia): There are two brief aspects I'd like to address, one flowing from Ms Flanagan's update, which is very interesting. We all welcome it. It's an effort started in the 1980s by a number of MPs no longer on the Hill. There certainly has been considerable progress made.
However, we operate and work in probably what could be termed the most energy-inefficient buildings in the country. It's a real embarrassment. They're inefficient in terms of heat retention, because of the age of the buildings and the outdated structure of frames and the like - the losses are considerable - and in terms of electrical lights that cannot be switched off or that are consuming energy well beyond the current technology permits.
From that perspective, a lot of work needs to be done on the Hill. I hope somehow, in your concluding recommendations, you have some thoughts that could be conveyed to the Speaker to accelerate the process of making the buildings really energy efficient.
As well, it would be very helpful to know more about the progress we're making on alternative fuels for the green buses. Some imaginative experiments have been conducted. It would be useful to know what the conclusions are from those experiments, and also what is the next generation of technology that you intend to experiment with in terms of local transportation, which could become a model for other locations and other jurisdictions.
Finally on this topic, Madam Chair, there's the fact that we use plastic items to a degree unseen and unheard of, having switched from plastic to ceramic in the late 1980s. We have now switched back to plastics in the various cafeterias and the like. That aspect is one that leaves much to be desired and ought to be addressed, to establish the fact that good old ceramic is still the more environmental way to go.
A discussion on waste would not be complete if we didn't also look at radioactive waste management, particularly in our country, because of our mining activity and because of our utilities. In that respect, the Auditor General gave a signal last year in one of his reports that we ought to take into account and explore in the months ahead the inevitable solutions we've been searching for, since these type of mining activities and electricity produced by nuclear reactors have been introduced in our country.
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The Auditor General in essence says a disposal problem will face us in the next several decades and that the federal share of the burden of disposing is roughly $850 million, out of a problem that amounts to some $10 billion, which in his report he calls the potential liabilities. So we have here a typical phenomenon whereby the enjoyment and use of one commodity, in this case electricity, by one generation transfers and builds up an economic burden for the subsequent one, or two, by way of leapfrogging the intermediate one, if we are to go by the assessment of seventy years made by the Auditor General.
In other words, who's going to pay for this liability and when? Do the electricity rates or, for instance, the mining companies carry that financial burden in a manner that builds up a fund that eventually can be used for the safe disposal of radioactive waste material? We do not know.
Some utilities, such as Ontario Hydro, claim they are doing it, but we have never seen that in writing. Others make verbal commitments but don't go beyond that.
The management of radioactive waste is a problem that is staring not only at us in Canada but also at other jurisdictions. As you know, we have been tunnelling for over two decades in Manitoba to find a solution there for safe disposal. The Americans have been tunnelling in the state of Nevada for the last thirty years. These are actually terrific job-creating initiative programs, because they keep busy several hundred people for a lifetime, if not two. I'm sure sooner or later a solution will be found.
But let us not indulge in the belief that the rates we're paying for electricity in certain parts of the country really reflect the true cost of it. They do not, or at least that assurance has not been given in a convincing manner.
In any discussion of waste, Madam Chair, I think it is incumbent upon us to examine this very difficult aspect as well. Thank you.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much for your comments, Mr. Caccia.
As always with environmental issues, they are not separate; they are linked to other concerns. We will be discussing energy conservation at the round table this afternoon. I think we can see some very definite linkages with what Mr. Caccia has just pointed out for us. He also addresses the very clear positions that were put around the table yesterday about equity in terms of intergenerational equity. We spoke of seven generations into the future.
I would like to thank you very much for attending this session this morning. As I told the participants of the round table yesterday, this is being televised. We will have use of video tapes, which we will send, as individual members, into our communities, our schools and our community groups.
If anyone around this table or in the audience in this room or at home watching our presentation today is interested, they can certainly contact us, and we will get them a video tape. There may be a small user fee of $3 or $4, but that's life nowadays.
Henry Lickers, who spoke to us very eloquently of thinking seven generations in the past and seven generations in the future, also said yesterday that we have to thank the people who allowed us to come today. We have very busy lives and we have commitments in other places, and whether it's family, a friend or colleagues, you have taken your time away from them to spend time with us, and I want to thank them for that.
I would like to remind you that there are exhibit booths in the room across the hall from this room. I invite you to go through those and talk to the people there if you haven't had that opportunity.
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Tonight there will be a reception hosted by the Canadian Environment Industry Association, and I invite anyone who is able to attend that.
This session is closed. We'll reconvene in about five minutes or so. Thank you very much.