[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, May 14, 1996
.1152 
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): I call this session to order.
I welcome you here this morning.
Just to bring you up to date, this is the third round table of our forum on jobs, the environment and sustainable development. Yesterday afternoon we had a round table where we discussed sustainable development, what it means and what it can mean for the job agenda, and it was a very fertile conversation. A lot of very good points were made around the table, and we had quite a packed table yesterday afternoon.
This morning we have just concluded a session on waste management. Unfortunately we ran a little bit over time, so we're going to try to catch up on our time.
We have three project presenters, so we'll hear from each of those and then we'll commence a round table discussion. But before we do that, could we just go around the table and have everyone introduce themselves and state where they're from?
My name is Karen Kraft Sloan. I'm the member of Parliament for York - Simcoe and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment.
Mr. Adams (Peterborough): I'm Peter Adams. I'm the MP for Peterborough and a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.
Mr. John Lammey (Environmental Officer (Goose Bay), Department of National Defence): My name is John Lammey. I'm the environmental engineer at the air force base in Goose Bay, Labrador.
Mr. John de Gonzague (Senior Policy Adviser, National Office of Pollution Prevention, Environment Canada): I'm John de Gonzague. I'm with Environment Canada in the national office of pollution prevention.
Ms Catherine Cobden (Manager, Environment, Zero Effluent Program, Avenor Inc.): I'm Catherine Cobden, and I'm manager of environment with Avenor Inc.
Mr. Michel Arès (Executive Director, Resources Kitaskino XXI Inc.): My name is Michel Arès, and I'm executive director of Resources Kitaskino XXI Inc., a native company that works in geomatics.
Mr. Anthony Downs (Director General, Environment, Department of National Defence): My name is Tony Downs. I am director general of environment for National Defence.
Mrs. Payne (St. John's West): I'm Jean Payne, the member of Parliament for St. John's, Newfoundland, and vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.
Mr. Jim Elsworth (Director, Atlantic Coastal Action Program, Department of the Environment): I'm Jim Elsworth, manager of the Atlantic coastal action program of Environment Canada.
[Translation]
Mrs. Guay (Laurentides): Monique Guay, member for the Laurentides riding and official Environment Critic.
M. Guy de Bailleul (Director, Department of Rural Economy, Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, Laval University): Guy de Bailleul, Director of the Department of Rural Economy in the Agriculture and Food Sciences Faculty at Laval University.
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[English]
Mr. John Edmonds (President, Total System Organic Management for Turfs, Edmonds Landscape and Construction Services): I'm from Halifax, Nova Scotia, representing Edmonds Landscape and Construction Services. My name is John Edmonds.
The Co-Chair (Mr. Caccia): I'm Charles Caccia from Toronto.
Mr. Robert Gale (Principal, Ecological Economics): I'm Robert Gale from Ecological Economics in Toronto.
The Co-Clerk of the Committee (Mr. George Etoka): I'm George Etoka, the clerk of the subcommittee.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): And we've just had another member join us here. Would you like to introduce yourself?
Mr. DeVillers (Simcoe North): I'm Paul DeVillers, the member for Simcoe North.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much.
The three presenters we have are John Lammey, Catherine Cobden and John Edmonds. I would ask you to keep your presentations to ten minutes each.
Mr. Lammey, could you start first, please?
Mr. Lammey: Madam Chair, thank you for this opportunity to describe the approach of the Department of National Defence towards pollution prevention in Goose Bay, Labrador.
As we see it, pollution prevention involves eliminating the causes of pollution rather than treating the symptoms. My team and I are experienced in treating the effects of pollution. However, we're also focusing our efforts on ensuring that no future clean-ups are required.
We have taken the approach that pollution prevention and environmental stewardship as a whole are the responsibility of every employee at our facility. My environmental team has eight members, and five of these are dedicated to addressing past concerns. We're too small to enforce environmental regulations at every section of the base without support from each employee.
In addition, while each member of my team is a specialist in his or her own field, the employees on the ground know the specific processes better than we do, so we draw on their knowledge and expertise, as they usually know best where the areas of concerns are and typically have an idea on how they can be fixed.
In 1993 we employed an environmental management system at my facility. We are currently in the process of updating our EMS and ensuring it's consistent with the ISO 14000 criteria.
The focus of the EMS in Goose Bay is Goose Bay Environmental Action Plan. This document is distributed to each section on the base as well as to all regulators and any other interested parties, including the town and various media organizations.
In the plan we strongly emphasize pollution prevention and provide a detailed plan on how to minimize our negative environmental effects. We have found that when a process emits pollution, it's generally inefficient, and by addressing these inefficiencies, which usually results in cost savings, we can also reduce the amount of pollutants released to the environment.
There are three keys in our program to achieving pollution prevention: we train our employees very well, we stress the environmental assessment process, and we conduct audits to ensure that everyone is operating in an environmentally responsible manner. We use voluntary compliance with our employees whenever possible. We've found this works very well, and wee have only had to resort to the stick a couple of times.
Personnel are trained in environmental responsibility and liabilities on an annual basis, using a package developed by Mr. Downs's directorate in National Defence headquarters and presented by my team. The training package stresses the elements of pollution prevention and reminds the participants that they're individually liable for the actions they perform at the base. It also details the actions to be taken if an incident does occur.
This annual training is supplemented with various seminars conducted by my team throughout the year as well as by the distribution of pamphlets on environmental assessment and environmental responsibility, again developed by Mr. Downs's directorate.
We recognize that despite the best training and the high level of awareness of our employees, environmental instances will still occur. Our goal is to eliminate them. However, when they do occur, we're also prepared to deal with them efficiently and effectively. To help us achieve this, we conduct environmental exercises of our emergency response team at least once a month to ensure that people are highly trained and have enough equipment and adequate equipment.
We are in the process of developing unit environmental officers; it will be a secondary duty for one person in each section. They will be given specialized training and will act as a first point of contact for me and my team. We feel these people will increase the profile and awareness of environmental protection to even further than it currently is.
In my experience the environmental assessment process is critical to pollution prevention. It allows us to anticipate potential effects and mitigates them before they occur. We stress the full life-cycle approach, from design to construction and operation through to decommissioning, being included in the EA.
The employee in charge of the project is responsible for completing the EA. He or she typically conducts the initial screening, which is then reviewed by my section. If a detailed screening and further environmental assessment is required, it's conducted either by my team or through consultants. However, the person in charge of the project is responsible to ensure the environmental assessment is completed.
To ensure the EA is completed very early in the planning process, we've linked the completion of the EA with funding for the project. This guarantees that environmental considerations are fully integrated into the design process.
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The last key is compliance audits. My team and I regularly conduct compliance audits with each of the sections at my facility. These audits are primarily non-confrontational and are a means of identifying and addressing any concerns that may be present.
We follow the CSA and Environment Canada approaches to auditing. Our EMS is audited once a year by members of Mr. Downs's directorate as well as by members of the environmental section at our air command headquarters. We've established a process to ensure that any areas of concern raised at any of these audits are addressed very quickly.
One success of my facility I'd like to highlight is in energy efficiency. By employing the suggestions we receive from employees and from the results of energy audits, we've achieved a significant decrease in emissions from our heating and power plant. Cost savings are approximately $2 million a year.
In summary, I feel that pollution prevention is the most important aspect of environmental management. Our employees are a vital link in our pollution prevention program, and with training and guidance they can produce exceptional results.
In conclusion, Mr. Downs and I would like you to visit our display in the next room if you have a free moment throughout the day.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much.
Catherine Cobden, please.
Ms Cobden: Madam Chair and committee members, I am very pleased to have the honour to share with you our progress at Avenor toward totally effluent-free technology.
I want to start my presentation this morning with a little bit of context as to why we feel total effluent-free technology is so important, in the global context, to the industry.
Avenor, incidentally, is a pulp and paper industry. We have six mills across Canada and one in the U.S. - just for those of you who are not aware.
I'd like to start by talking a little bit about what are the major global issues the industry, or Avenor, has identified that we need to align ourselves with to understand where we need to be in the future to be leaders in environmental management. We met with a number of experts in the environmental management area, experts in academia, the environmental organizations, in industry itself and in other industries. We tried to get a really broad flavour of where people saw environmental issues going in the future.
We came up with a list of what those major issues are. To this group, certainly, this won't be all that surprising. Population growth was found to be, in our minds, the biggest concern we're facing, not only as an industry but as the world. This has a significant impact on the industry. The fact that we use an awful lot of fresh water, and the availability and supply of fresh water in the long term, is a key area we need to address. This is really where our commitment is derived from.
Clean air is another big issue, as is transportation. I'm just going to flip through these fairly quickly by way of introduction. Sustainable forests, both boreal and coastal, and plantation forestry are key issues we know we need to address, as are energy, product life cycle, and of course trade and environmental international agreements.
The culture in which we do business has substantially changed. We no longer look nationally or even within the North American border. We are truly global in perspective. So we need to take this global approach to understand where we have to be, both environmentally and to maintain competitiveness.
Totally effluent-free: that is definitely one of the major cornerstones of pollution prevention for our industry. In 1994 a memorandum of understanding was signed between PAPRICAN, the federal government and the industry to pursue closed-cycle technologies. Basically, this memorandum of understanding covered all types of pulp and paper operations at various degrees of water use. It's really intended to accelerate our industry toward total being effluent-free.
In our opinion, closure will reduce pollution at source and result in the recovery of valuable water, fibre, chemicals and energy. This is truly the heart of pollution prevention.
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We also believe very strongly that closure has to be holistic in approach. It cannot be that you close the water cycle and have an impact on air or solid waste. So really you have to be holistic in approach with system closure.
We face, in Canada, a significant challenge in applying closure technology to the pulp and paper industry that exists today. Essentially the pulp and paper mills in Canada, with a few exceptions, were formed in the early 1900s at a time when a philosophy existed that there was an endless abundance of water and other precious resources. So we are really facing a challenge of doing that conversion and learning to adapt our facilities. This is where the memorandum of understanding between our research organization, the government and ourselves is very important.
Avenor really been a pioneer in system closure through our Thunder Bay facility. We heard Ms Flanagan this morning mention how employee awareness and drive is so important in all of this. I'm really proud to say that the genesis of the pollution prevention project going on right now in Thunder Bay was employee driven. That was driven by our history with being totally effluent-free.
In the 1970s, Avenor attempted to put in the first-ever closed kraft process using a process called Rapson-Reeve. Unfortunately, due to product quality and corrosion problems, this process was not successful. But I have to say on the other hand that it wasn't completely unsuccessful. We were able to put in a process that used a lot less water than typical mills of that vintage. So we do have a long history of looking at closure.
We are presently in the throes of doing something on our news mill side that's substantial and groundbreaking for our industry. As I mentioned, it was initially identified in 1994. It was identified when, after putting in state-of-the-art secondary treatment systems in our kraft side, our employees were seeing the results of this. They saw clear effluent coming out the other end. They wondered what they could do. Can we not utilize this back in the process? How can we do that? So they really drove the process initially.
Here's what then happened. We were in the middle of building a secondary treatment system for our news mill. Let's incorporate that into the design of this system is what we said. I'm quite pleased to tell you that today this system has been completely designed to be totally effluent-free. So the hardware and the piping is all there.
We are in the process now of doing a final trial whereby we need to establish a water quality database. We will do a full-scale recycle initiated in a step-like fashion in June 1996. We will be starting at 10% recycle rate, which is very conservative. We're going to take one step at a time as we increase our recyclability.
We're hopeful that if this is successful we will be able to transfer all of this technology information to all newsprint mills in operation in Canada. So this is groundbreaking stuff.
We have set a few philosophies to proceed. These are definitely consistent with sustainable development. That's because you have to have a balance between economic, social and environmental considerations.
On the economic side, we cannot have mill production levels decrease; they must be maintained. Product quality cannot be compromised, obviously. We are competing in a global environment, and our quality is what stands us in good stead. We must keep that cost-competitiveness.
Cost-competitiveness is really something we feel we have a good opportunity to achieve through the recovery of chemicals, heat and energy as well as savings. So we're quite positive about this.
We're in the process of doing some ongoing research. This will identify and complete our understanding of energy savings, boiler-feed water impacts, and whether or not chemicals are cycling up, which is going to be a problem in continuing to recirculate. So we're looking at all that kind of stuff.
Some additional types of things we're looking at are, of course, health issues. Is there a health issue with recycling this effluent? We're definitely taking the steps to look at that. Of course, there's product quality and putting the right systems in place so we know that we have to change as we increase this level.
The future? This issue of closing up the loop and recycling all the effluent we use and doing it in a holistic manner is a long-term priority issue for the pulp and paper industry, certainly for Avenor. We're very pleased to be really off the mark on this one.
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PAPRICAN, through an MOU with the federal government, has identified those needs that we have for various types of production processes. This is going to cause a lot of substantial change in the way we do business. A lot of this technology that we may need to implement we're not even aware of yet today, especially on the kraft pulping side. We're really trying to find some answers there.
Of course, the challenge to all of us, both the federal government and the industry, is to accelerate our move towards system closure so we can apply it to all types of facilities and at all different water levels.
Thank you very much.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much for a very comprehensive overview. I've actually had the opportunity to tour the facility in Thunder Bay and was quite impressed.
When we first met as a subcommittee, we sent out questionnaires to various members to see what kinds of issues they were interested in around sustainable development and how to implement that. It was very interesting, to me especially, that people were very concerned about how to make changes in their own homes, at the residential level. We found that a lot of members who had filled out the questionnaire were very interested in things like environmentally sensitive lawn care.
So in terms of meeting with the needs of our audience, shall I say, we have John Edmonds, who is here from Edmonds Landscape and Construction Services of Halifax, with a total-system organic management for turfs from Halifax. We welcome you this morning, Mr. Edmonds.
Mr. Edmonds: Thank you for the opportunity. As you can probably appreciate, this is sort of the pinnacle of our business, but I think this is a very worthwhile forum, and I need to thank people who have allowed me to be here.
First, there have been a lot of good questions, and I'd just like to hold the question... It's a shame that the member from Quebec isn't here, because he had a good question when he said that this recycling is great, but who was going to buy these products? What about efficacy? Who's going to consume them? You can compost forever.
I heard Mr. Adams. I had the benefit of attending yesterday afternoon.
Well, how do we get people to do it? I could sense this frustration, anxiety, and uneasiness in that we know there's a problem out there, but what do we do about it? I went through this same catharsis in 1989.
Let me put my business into context. It's landscape management. We do about $5 million, which is fairly large. It tends to be a small business in Canada, but we're one of the largest. About 40% of that was construction in 1989-90.
We went through the same catharsis. We felt something was wrong with the way we did business. We had purchased millions of dollars worth of pesticides to control weeds and insects, and we used synthetic fertilizers. Our people were getting sick. We had to buy more and more of them.
The reason I'm giving you this background is that I agree with the Minister of the Environment. He said we had the philosophical discussion, so what do we do about it? How do we engage and invoke this process to go forward? I sense all these questions. It was good to have that open discussion.
In 1989 we decided to change the way we did business. We didn't philosophize about it but changed the way we did business. We had 150 people and 80 vehicles. It was not small. We're not a big business like Inco or Noranda, but it was a heavy-duty task.
So how do you go about it? As I go through this mosaic, because you set the thing up yesterday and this morning, maybe you can get some idea as to how I feel it can be done on a macro level.
First, there's the literacy problem. We had to educate ourselves. This is what MPs have to do, not in a session like this but through education. I had to educate myself as to the micro problem and how to change my business, but have a macro understanding of the world, i.e. waste management and so on.
I do agree with the concern that the environment starts in your own backyard. I heard someone say yesterday that your backyard goes to Africa. That's true, but if you can't do it in your own backyard or in the intimacy...
It was asked yesterday whether, in our most private moments, we practised sustainable economic development. Well, we all know that we don't really do it, so how do we invoke that?
We talked about public health. We go with public health because it is related. We get sick.
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The trouble with problems in the environment with respect to the use of pesticides, specifically my business and synthetic fertilizers, is that it's insidious and cumulative. We know though the health information that they are carcinogenic and so on. There is science to back this up. With synthetic fertilizers and other chemicals, everything we do on our land drains into waterways and just impacts everything.
Our business I think is considered as a very small business and it really is non-essential, but the landscape management industry, which is turf management for golf courses, commercial and institutional properties and recreational facilities and parks, is a major component. It does over $4.5 billion of business a year in North America currently.
Less than 5% is organic, but this is the most rapidly growing sector. Driving this is the increasing public concern about chemicals, the increasing regulation of their use, and so on.
There are also defined uses. This is where it crosses over into waste management. This is the key to answer the question here. Also, the other member from Quebec talked about pig manure and what we will do with the pig manure, because we're going to replace the manufacture of synthetic and chemical fertilizers.
But there will be be hard choices. It just cross-fertilizes.
With respect to the hon. member from Quebec, he wondered what we should do about synthetic fertilizers. We have a problem with organic waste stream products. It's 60% of what goes in the landfills now.
As for going to the community that produces synthetic fertilizers with a loss of jobs, I think this is another area in which MPs can take a tip from what we have done. They have to get involved with the community - i.e., instead of saying we're going to lose 200 to 300 jobs and wonder what to do, go in and help the community solve the problem instead.
People aren't stupid. When you talk to them about synthetic fertilizers, they know they come from a non-renewable resource: the petrochemical industry. We heard Mr. Gallon or somebody talk about how we need to preserve energy, which is one of his things to support sustainable economic development.
Hard decisions have to be made. I think if MPs and decision-makers go into communities where there could be a loss of jobs... We have to add the other two Rs, by the way: redesign and replacement. That is just part of the scenario.
Our approach is in the total-system organic management brief.
I've got a few more things, then I'm done. I know it's an area in which I'll lose people.
This is a new technology that focuses on the urban and suburban environment. It involves the use of specific management strategies and products to create ecologically healthy environments at a relatively low cost.
We have addressed the cost. We are alive and well after 1989. We have made a total conversion. We have created upward of 50 jobs in the technology area. We have trained people at the low end. They have become very committed, because I think most people - we communicated to all the stakeholders: employees and consumers - can sort out whether you're sincere.
Take the MPs. I don't want to be too rough here, but I just want to say, as the environment minister said, let's get it out on the table. If the MPs educate themselves, become familiar and deal with the community... This is where the community and society is headed: how to solve our own problems. If the MPs become aware of how to deal with these issues, there will be economic opportunity and jobs.
The major products we use are drawn from the waste streams of urban and rural industries, thereby helping to create economically viable solutions to waste disposal problems and to substitute for imports. It is an information-intensive, whole-system approach involving new alliances between different industries, industries and municipalities, and educational and government institutions. By capitalizing on initiatives already taken by business and institutions in the region, the early development of this technology will afford significant export opportunities.
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This is a big business. I don't want to bash the chemical companies, but they're keeping this quiet. It's a $25 billion business, this fertilizer and the use of chemicals. Why do we need these chemicals for aesthetic purposes? For agriculture I can take it, but we do not need pesticides in synthetic fertilizers for aesthetic purposes. But the homeowner, who uses 67% of this stuff, which is unregulated, goes ahead.
Here's where the rubber hits the road. What do we do about it? What do we do to replace the pesticides and the synthetic fertilizers with organic products?
We have developed the science. You have to develop the technology. You have to answer the people who ask the question: does this work? That's efficacy of procedures and efficacy of products. You have to test them. You have to put them through protocol.
We have done that. We converted our whole business. It's the total commitment of 150 people. We have reduced our use of chemicals by 80%. It's not just replacing a product with another; it's a technology.
You have the tools here. You people have the tools here. Green procurement was touched on today and in regard to the greening of the Hill. I forget her name, but it was a nice program. She talked about the compost going to DND. I don't know what happened to the compost once it got there, but...
I'm glad, sir, that you're here from DND, because you have a wonderful book, which I picked up, entitled The Commander's Guide on Environmental Protection. It's excellent. It lays out the tools you have, which applies to all departments.
On page 32, under the heading ``Natural Resources Management'', it goes through the protocol and it's all very good, and then it gets down to ``Integrated Pest Management'', where it has all the right words:
- Treasury Board policy - the Auditor General and everything we talked about -
- requires that all Departments have Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs.
- While maintaining the primary objectives of health and property protectionm the principles of
an IPM program are to:
- - reduce pesticide use...
- - replace pesticides...and
- - redesign the underlying management system to prevent pest problems and conserve
beneficial species
- These are the three Rs, and the most important is ``redesign''.
In your own A Strategy for the Canadian Environmental Industry you have all of these initiatives. It's a very good book. You talk about getting the provincial and federal ministers together. Under ``Progress and plans'' you say:
- In view of the logistical and emerging fiscal considerations, a meeting at the ministerial level is
unlikely to be held in the foreseeable future.
Then you go to the federal government commitment, green procurement initiative 13. It's all out here. We have the eco-logo now, which is certification, so this isn't just bluster and rhetoric. We have gone through these processes.
The bottom line is what you can do. You have the tools here. You need to educate yourselves. You need to use the Treasury Board mandate as it concerns our our industry, and you need to understand the implication. It's full of economic opportunity and it's full of jobs, but you have to get a grip. It crosses over to waste management.
As the gentleman here said, what do we do with all of this stuff? Well, there are all of these waste management projects and they're all different by region. They need to be tested. We've done it in the field. We've done it in demonstrations. It can be done.
My final remark is you have the tools; you have to peel off the layers of just green procurement. Get under it. As one of the chapters says, push the departments. We had a good relationship when we dealt with the Department of the Environment, the Department of Industry, ACOA and so on, but the buck stops at the top. The parliamentarians have to get out there.
I know you live in a reactive world. This comes and that comes and you forget about this. Be proactive. You have the tools there. It's not going to cost you any money to go and look. We have proven that it costs less money to manage lands in a non-chemical way.
I'll end with that.
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The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much. As I think we've been learning through our two days here, it's local and it's national and it's global, and it's global and it's local.
I wanted to just mention the fact that some new members have joined us at the table. Maybe we could start with Senator Spivak.
Senator Spivak (Manitoba): First of all, I want to congratulate you, Karen, for arranging this forum and all the presenters. I was here yesterday and listened to some of it. I caught the rest of it on CPAC.
I think as the minister and other people mentioned, it's absolutely vital to raise the urgency quotient here on Parliament Hill with regard to environmental matters. I am a member of the Senate committee on energy and natural resources. Just recently we passed an alternative fuels bill, which the House of Commons approved. We have had hearings since then - just recently, in fact - to see what's happened since then. Of course, there's a mandated agenda and targets for how the departments have to act.
Here's what we found. We found that the fuel suppliers have everything in place. They are ready to go. The car manufacturers have everything set. There is no impediment with the fuel suppliers, the infrastructures or the car manufacturers. Where is the obstacle? Here on Parliament Hill. Because even though there are mandated targets as early as 1997, there's no urgency.
So I think you are absolutely right, Mr. Edmonds, that the buck stops here. There is tremendous leverage for the federal government, even though everybody says, no, it's not government, it's community. But there is tremendous leverage, most especially in setting by example and by leadership.
I congratulate you, and I thank you for allowing me to sit in with you. I'll be happy to hear the rest of the discussion.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you. It wasn't my efforts alone. We had a hard-working subcommittee as well as George and members of the research staff. It does take a lot of effort to put these things on. I appreciate your participation.
We have Mr. Finlay and Mr. Ianno. Please state your name and where you're from.
Mr. Finlay (Oxford): I am the member for Oxford.
Mr. Ianno (Trinity - Spadina): Thank you very much. I would like to echo what Senator Spivak said, and congratulate you for putting this in the forefront. As we know, environment is an everyday event.
My riding is Trinity - Spadina, downtown Toronto.
I was interested to hear what you had indicated, that 67% of all fertilizers are used in urban areas. I think it's very important that many of us take the information back to our ridings and try to encourage our constituents to utilize the available methods so that we can all participate in a better living environment.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much.
Michel Arès, you are with Resources Kitaskino. I found out about your organization very recently. If the members of the round table could just indulge us here, perhaps you could just say a few words, Michel, about what you're doing. Then we'll get into our discussion. It's a very unique project, and I think it deserves a special mention at this time.
[Translation]
Mr. Arès: Thank you, Madam Chairman.
If you don't mind, I would like to circulate one or two documents for the information of Committee members.
First of all, thank you for inviting us to take part in this round table.
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I am here representing a company called Kitaskino XXI, as well as Attikamek members of the Mamo Atoskewin Attikamek Association, which is our company's principal shareholder.
Over the past five years, we have developed two specific technological niches. In both cases, we use a great many environmental technologies. I can come back to this later, if you like.
The first technological niche involves development of data bases containing traditional aboriginal knowledge. In co-operation with the Research and Training Branch of Hydro-Québec, our parent company has developed a data base as part of a research project undertaken in the area between 1990 and 1993. Through this initiative, we were able to gather information from trappers, elders, and members of the three Attikamek communities of Weymontachie, Obedjiwan and Manawan.
This traditional knowledge reflects the practice of traditional activities on our territory. It reflects the Attikameks' profound understanding of their environment and the protection that has been instrumental in maintaining that environment.
I was appointed projet leader and thus had an opportunity to travel all across the Attikamek ancestral territory known as Nitaskinan.
Our research allowed us to gather more precise information on cultural sites, such as campsites, canoe trails and portages, historical sites and burial grounds. We also collected information on areas used for subsistence activities, such as hunting, fishing and trapping grounds and gathering areas.
We conducted this research in two stages. The first stage allowed us to prepare a plan for collecting the information, as well as to develop methodologies for integrating scientific knowledge and traditional aboriginal knowledge. Thus we were able to prepare reference documents to validate information on activity areas and, during the second stage, justify elements connected to living environments identified in the information provided by the Attikamek.
This data bank is now complete. It was completed during the second phase and now covers an area of 25,000 square kilometers. It is the largest geographical data bank in all of Eastern Canada. More than 3,000 wildlife habitats are identified in our data bank, as well as more than 700 cultural sites.
The environmental technology used for this project relies on geomatics - in other words, a computerized system of geographic coordinates - to gather and store information to be used for analysis. This data bank and the exercise we have been through have provided us with a great deal of information. We have in fact produced reports that are now available from Hydro-Québec and explain the scope of the work undertaken.
It is important to remember that thanks to this data bank, we now have access to information that can be drawn upon for land use planning and management and for assessing impacts and mitigation measures. We can also use this data bank for cultural and educational purposes.
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We are also able to monitor wildlife habitats. In terms of wildlife habitat protection, our kit shows a winter range or a moose yard, which is a very sensitive habitat. We were able to locate that habitat through Attikamek knowledge and practice of traditional activities.
We are very pleased to have this opportunity to present our kit to the committee and to inform members that many native forestry communities in Canada now have access to this information. I would also like to say that this information is essential not only for environmental protection, but for job creation, in the sense that protecting these habitats requires development of soft silviculture works.
Naturally, this develops manual work, but also the long term survival of traditional activities that are an integral part of these communities and the basis of the economy. Theirs is a traditional economy. Subsistence activities in aboriginal communities are important, and as well as being a source of employment are linked to cultural values.
I would just like to quickly review the various themes we were able to develop as a result of this project: respect for use values which are the basis for sustainable development, maintenance, protection of the traditional economy which is linked to cultural values and a way of life, the development of soft forest management technologies, and also the building of bridges between scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge.
I would just like to conclude by mentioning that our other technological niche involves remote sensing, in which we have developed some expertise in recent years, so that we are now able to monitor the status of the land base using traditional knowledge stored in the data bank.
Through remote sensing, we are able to establish, monitor and assess any depletion of, or increase in, wildlife potential and wildlife habitats. While we understand the points raised by Mrs. Cobden, a particular focus for us is sustainable forestry, which we consider to be paramount, and which must in our view be approached with due consideration for use values of other land users, especially aboriginal communities. Thank you.
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much. Those sentiments were certainly well expressed yesterday and I appreciate your intervention.
We will now go to the round table discussion, and I would ask you to keep your comments fairly limited. Monique, you're first.
[Translation]
Mrs. Guay: I found your comments most interesting. If we really made an effort to use these natural technologies, we would save our planet. However, implementation is not a simple matter.
The major problem - at the political level, I mean - is that pesticide use is controlled by federal legislation but administered by municipalities. In my riding, where there are fabulous golf courses and extraordinary landscapes, we have a by-law requiring that a particular pesticide be used, whereas the by-law in a neighbouring municipality authorizes use of a different pesticide. The system lacks balance.
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In my area, more and more landscape gardeners and planners are using non-toxic products - «green» products that do not harm the environment. I would like to see that become a more common practice, but there is a cost associated with it, and everyone isn't prepared to pay more to protect the environment. I'm afraid we're going to have to live with that for a few years to come.
As far as the department is concerned, I think there has to be a major effort if we want to set an example. We often hear about the kinds of things that have to be done, but we don't really know what concrete steps are planned.
I personally believe we have a lot to learn from the aboriginal peoples. They have adopted a different approach to cultivating their environment. Linking scientific information to traditional activities could be very useful, and certainly less costly than the technology now being used across the country.
Those are my comments, and I would like to hear your reaction.
[English]
Mr. Edmonds: With respect to the cost, that is the illusion. We would be out of business, but since 1990 we made the conversion. It is complicated. It's not just changing products; it's applying the technology. We made a conversion. In fact, it created 50 to 60 jobs. It took up the slack in the construction sector, because the bottom dropped out of this in 1991 and there was no construction. We were able to preserve and create jobs, but the point to make here is that it's cheaper. It's cheaper.
My chartered accountant, David Morse, says:
- Let me say, that our experience with the organic landscape transition has been positive. After
all, we began this approach four years ago and we are still in business today despite the very
difficult economic climate. My first thoughts in making these changes were from an
accountant's penny-pinching point of view and I was somewhat sceptical that spending more
money on a customer was going to make the company more profitable.
What I was saying about procurement is that I'm getting the same specs from DND. They're 15 years old. They have produced a good book, but if you look at all the government departments - I met with Public Works and Government Services last year and so on - I'm getting the same specs. They're 15 years old, high-nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides and so on.
The politicians have to get into the departments and push them. I'm not going to blame the bureaucrats. I talked to them down in Halifax and they're just waiting to hear from Ottawa.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): I'm pleased to say that soon the new commissioner for the environment and sustainable development will be appointed in the Auditor General's office, and every department will be required to do mandatory sustainable development strategies. Hopefully this will help.
The next three speakers are Robert Gale, John Finlay, and Professor Guy de Bailleul.
Mr. Gale: It's a pleasure to be involved in a forum where there are so many interesting projects. I'd like to speak to a project I've been involved in, the publication of information that may help parliamentarians in developing environmental economic policy.
As managing editor, I am pleased today to announce the publication of a new journal called Environmental Taxation and Accounting. In fact, I have copies of the announcement that the clerk could perhaps distribute while I speak.
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This is intended to be an international journal. It's published out of the U.K.
I want to emphasize that the journal is not just about increasing taxes, the subject of some concern in yesterday's and today's sessions. This is really about shifting taxes, shifting taxes off people, off labour and off profits and onto pollution and resource-depleting activities that we've generally agreed are harmful to the environment, the economy and to the idea of sustainable development.
In picking up on some of the preceding comments, I want to say that we can achieve behavioural change by taxing polluting behaviour. We need to tax polluting and resource-depleting behaviour if we are to change that behaviour, if we are to discourage it, if we are to provide incentives to make people change at either the corporate or individual level.
We need to focus on the term ``redesign'', for example. We need to focus on redesigning the tax system. That's where parliamentarians have, I think, a very important role to play. We can tax fertilizers, for example. We can tax pesticides, to help Mr. Edmonds deal with the promotion of organic solutions, and to help reduce health costs elsewhere. So I think parliamentarians do have a huge role to play in looking at the tax system.
Now, that comes as more or less a statement on that project I've been involved in. The other contribution I'd like to make to the deliberations for parliamentarians over the rest of the day is really to challenge parliamentarians to think perhaps a little bit more critically about the type of assertions they hear in the debates put forward about why environmental actions should not take place, or do not take place, about why there is a certain amount of procrastination in moving forward, in reaching new targets, in developing new action plans and so on.
I think part of that boils down to the fact that we generally have difficulty debating the real issues, possibly because the issues get framed in ways we've become comfortable with in the industrial model of how the economy works.
I have a whole list of assertions I'm using to help understand what people tend to say about the environment when they're trying to frame a way for not doing anything. I won't run through the entire list now, but there are a couple of arguments we often hear that make it difficult to advance environmental sustainability measures.
One of them is the assertion that protecting the environment will cost jobs. It's almost as if it's hard to rebut an assertion like that, particularly an MP at the local level faced with a major issue of local employment. But I think we need to argue that case very strongly.
I'm trying to make the link here to the overall theme for the forum.
The fact is that job dislocation is an inevitable part of capitalism. It occurs all the time. Jobs are lost or gained because of technological change or shift in consumer demand. We don't really unduly concern ourselves about that.
The same can be said of environmental efficiency measures. Some measures will clearly create jobs, some will lead to job loss. We shouldn't shy away from it or be frightened off by it. We should accept it. Where jobs are lost, they will tend to be in areas where there are high ecological costs. That should be considered as a legitimate job loss.
Overall, when we value the environment properly, we will in the end get more jobs as the economy is restructured toward eco-efficiency. There may, of course, be a need for transition plans in the interim, ways to minimize social and community costs. But I want to emphasize that relative to job losses in other areas, for example, with free trade, with deregulation, with bankruptcies, with real estate crashes and so on, job losses associated with the environment are extraordinarily minor. They really ought not to frighten us. So that's one assertion we ought to tackle with more vigour.
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The other assertion we ought to tackle with more vigour is that of environmental standards, that environmental standards higher than our competitors will make us less competitive. I think that's another one that needs to be explored in greater depth. We have the Porter hypothesis to look at, which can help contribute some information to that argument as well.
I would encourage parliamentarians to look at the assertions put forward by those trying to resist a measure, and try to help them understand the assertion, and debate it.
I thank you.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you, Mr. Gale. I wish you good luck with the launch of your new journal.
Mr. Gale: Thank you.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Mr. Finlay.
Mr. Finlay: I must apologize to the first two speakers, but I want to put in a plug for the displays across the hall in the other room.
I did have the pleasure last summer of talking to John Lammey about Goose Bay. As you know as a member of the subcommittee, I guess that's why he's here, because I thought it would be a good thing for us to learn how the military there was dealing with contamination and turning it into recycled waste, even though it's 90 feet down.
It was an interesting experience that summer, and I appreciate very much, John, your being here.
But I would suggest to everyone that the displays are well worth looking at, and talking to the people there. That's why I was a little late here.
I certainly appreciate Mr. Gale's accounting book here. The members of the environment committee and past members of the environment committee - I'm just an associate at this time - are constantly trying to do what you suggest - that is, to question whether in the end it is sustainable, whether or not in the end it is a plus on the balance sheet and on the social contract.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you.
Professor de Bailleul.
[Translation]
Mr. de Bailleul: One is tempted to ask whether one could apply Mr. Edmonds' comments and conclusions about landscape management to agriculture: in other words - since this is part of the agenda - whether organic farming is a technology that has less serious environmental impacts than conventional farming, in addition to being cheaper.
But if you don't mind, Madam Chairman, before we do, I would like to come back to what was said yesterday and which really forms the backdrop to today's discussions - that is, the concept of sustainable development.
I am in the habit of saying that this is probably one of the most successful concepts to be introduced in years. Much of its success has to do with its fuzziness; in other words, everyone agrees with it. It's a concept that involves economic goals, social goals, environmental goals, and everyone can decide on the proportioning that best suits his purposes.
Everyone subscribes to the goal of sustainable development and everyone talks about sustainable development, but no one agrees because we probably realize that there are inescapable, fundamental changes going on in society that are of far greater magnitude and are far more serious than the ones we usually talk about - like those we have to grapple with on a regular basis during periods of economic recession or slowdown, and so on.
The temptation is to seek magic solutions. Environmental technologies are one of those magic solutions. Let me explain. I am not saying a major effort is not required to try and develop process technologies with reduced environmental impacts. During this session, we have discussed a variety of examples that we should try to encourage and disseminate.
But perhaps we should also be careful not to assume that all environmental technologies contribute to sustainable development. Indeed, the effect of any environmental technology is to propose a production process or means of controlling pollution that will be beneficial.
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But it is possible that some environmental technologies seek to address problems that would not even arise under an appropriate sustainable development strategy. Perhaps some environmental technologies are intended to handle pollution resulting from activities that we should consider abandoning.
Let's take the example of farming. We talk about organic farming as one of the technologies that should be disseminated in the farm production sector in order to reduce environmental impacts. We now know that the farm sector is one of the main contributors to certain forms of pollution, notably soil and water pollution.
As early as several decades ago, though, farmers started using a completely different production process - that we call organic farming here - and it seems to have far less serious environmental impacts. If you were to ask farmers who practise organic farming whether this is an environmental technology, most of them would reject such a vision out of hand. They would say that organic farming is a way of life, a philosophy, a different way of viewing farm production and life in general.
Should we consider converting all farmers to this view of farming? I don't think that is possible; in fact, I don't even think it's advisable.
For argument's sake, let's treat it as a technology. At the present time, the number of so-called certified producers in Quebec is estimated to be around 500 or 600. There are about 2,000 who are certifiable - meaning that their practices are consistent with recognized organic farming requirements. As you may know - and the Globe and Mail had an article about this in this morning's paper - discussions are currently underway with a view to incorporating environmental standards in the FAO's Codex Alimentarius, so that there are worldwide standards for certifying organic products.
Roughly 7 to 8 per cent of Quebec farmers practise this kind of farming. Their share of production is far lower. It is probably reasonable to assume that the figure is about the same for Canada and the U.S.
Ironically, this is not an activity that developed in order to reduce environmental impacts. That was really more of a consequence. It's something that developed to provide consumers with so-called natural products - products that consumers could trust not to contain traces of pesticide residues of any kind.
I think it can be said that for the most part, conventional farming meets those same requirements. There are very few traces of pesticide residues in any agricultural products available here in Canada. And yet as a result of these requirements, environmental impacts have been reduced. Thus one can say it is an environmental technology, since it can be said to be environmentally effective.
Is it also economically effective? A number of interim studies seem to suggest that comparable economic results can be observed among both organic and conventional farmers. As far as I'm concerned, it's much too early to try and draw any conclusions, because there is a good chance that we would fall into our own trap. Being an economist, I often criticize economists, but the fact is they occasionally say things that make sense - such as, there's no free lunch.
If we stop using certain inputs, though, they would obviously have to be replaced with something else and the cost could be higher. So, from an economic standpoint, we may get comparable results, but in the long term, we have to expect that this technology will cost more.
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Finally, is this a technology that contributes to sustainable development?
Let's consider the case of organic beef, which is beef raised on organically grown products.
At the present time, livestock are fed mainly corn. And yet as far as sustainable development is concerned - in other words, with due regard for balance not only on a country- or continent-wide scale but on a planetary scale, one might consider that it is absurd to continue to feed corn to livestock.
[English]
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much. I think you've raised for us a very fundamental question: what is technology and technology's role?
Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams: At the risk of people thinking there's an echo in the room, in the previous forums I've tried to make the point that I think the technology is there, the science is there, but it's the will of individual people that is still lacking. With this exercise and all the work you're doing, I think part of it is designed to make us all behave differently as individuals.
One measure of this is that our committee was told not so long ago that each of us around this table represents as consumers, and I assume therefore as producers of waste, 60 citizens of the Republic of China. The Republic of China is not a particularly poor developing country. It's a country where people live reasonably well. There are a lot of literate, educated people and so on. So each of us represents 60.
One way of thinking of this is that if we succeed in halving our production of waste, we still will represent 30 citizens of China. That's one way of thinking of it. The other way is to think what will happen when the citizens of China, without any increase in their population, reach our level of consumption. If they become the same as us in consumption and in production of waste, they would then represent 60 billion or 70 billion people. We are worried at the moment that the earth's population is about 5 billion and is going to double to 10 billion. That's one of the worries.
By the way, I'm not pessimistic about this, but I think the problem is enormous. We all have to do something and we're all doing something in different places, in gardens and parks, in agriculture, in forestry areas.
My question is for Ms Cobden, because I think the pulp and paper industry has made great technological strides. I really see that. In the last 20 years some remarkable changes have gone on. But with respect to effluent-free production and the whole closed-loop thing - the idea that the stuff is not waste so you bring it back and reuse it, because waste by definition is something useful that you're not using - do you really think it is possible for us to continue to consume paper in a way that is genuinely effluent-free? In other words, is it finally possible for us to continue using paper - and I buy your products - in a way that genuinely has no waste, no impact on the environment?
Ms Cobden: We're not there yet, but I hope that from my presentation this morning you get the sense of how much urgency and effort is being put in to help you as a consumer to understand that impacts are being mitigated. We are making substantial progress today, don't get me wrong, but certainly towards total effluent-free -
Mr. Adams: I accept the progress. I do.
Ms Cobden: Right. We are quite encouraged with initial results towards total effluent-free. It's a crystal ball exercise at this point whether we'll actually be there, but we are very encouraged by it and by our initial results. We will be in a position maybe five years from now to talk about it for all production processes. Today I was focusing on newsprint production, which is substantially different from kraft mill processes, a chemical-based system.
So we have a long way to go, but we shouldn't be pessimistic and I'm glad to hear you're optimistic. We are very optimistic. Part of that optimism then generates itself in the amount of effort we're putting into it.
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But you're absolutely right - we're doing a lot of initiatives to try to educate our consumers on the impact of facilities and forest management practices, trying to institute change through talking and finding out things such as traditional land use and so on. It's in the right direction, and maybe some day we'll get there.
Mr. Adams: Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): I have, as the next three speakers, Jim Elsworth, Jean Payne and John de Gonzague.
Mr. Elsworth: Madam Chair, I am really encouraged by the presentations and the comments. I'd characterize the three early presentations we had as pioneers, certainly. I think as all pioneers out there looking to sustain themselves, they want to know where their followers are.
Equally, a common thread that ran through the presentations was a sense of the holistic, holistic in terms of closing the loop, holistic in terms of local, global and national, and holistic in terms of involving people, everybody being a knowledge-holder, a decision-maker and an implementer. It's not a linear process. We all possess knowledge, whether we're a scientist or a farmer or a factory worker or whatever. Certainly in making decisions we have to integrate our various forms of knowledge of socio-economic, environmental, traditional, anecdotal, pure sciences, etc.
I do want to get back to that point about the pioneers and where are the followers, and ways we can encourage ourselves and others to follow up on these great initiatives and help them be put into practice a little faster. Following the pioneers, we have the innovators, the early adaptors and the late adapters. Finally we have laggards, who don't come on board until they just about get overtaken by circumstance, which seems to be the case more often than enough.
I think this is perhaps where social marketing comes in. I think there are great strides there in social marketing itself, and applying it to some of these techniques we're using. We often find in these things that it's not lack of money, it's not lack of technology, it's making the connection of ``What's in it for me?'' for people, to get them to adopt and change their behaviour patterns, etc.
We heard a few methods, some reference to economic instruments and taxations and new technologies. I think those are very important, essential tools, but they can only take us so far. I think the big learning curve, and one of the more critical points, is how do we, individually and collectively, as was referred to earlier, in our quietest moments, make the right decisions? I think that's where a lot of work has to go into it so that we can adopt these things.
I think a challenge was thrown out there that I don't want to see fall off the table. I interpreted it this way. For people in the House of Commons, who have done an excellent job internally managing waste and doing audits and conserving, I seem to hear a challenge from Mr. Edmonds to look outside the doors to the grounds, look at energy consumption, look at the consumption of chemicals and fertilizers going on, and in the slightly bigger picture become aware and involved in what's happening in your own environment outside the walls of the building.
Perhaps the National Capital Commission, in this case... It's great to have what Mr. Edmonds might call a ``small industry'' take up the challenge and come up with an innovative approach, but where are the big champions? Where is the old school? Where are the leaders there? I would suggest that in terms of the National Capital Commission, if Roméo LeBlanc were to say tomorrow that as of today and in the future he did not want any chemicals or any synthetic fertilizers used on the grounds of Rideau Hall, the National Capital Commission would quickly adopt new practices, new approaches.
Again, I guess it boils down to social marketing, that when our clients, those we work for, demand a better practice, we adapt pretty quickly. I guess that boils down to sustainable livelihoods, whether we're talking about people in the turf industry, what sustainability means to them and to their future to adapt and change, adopt a better practice. We adapt pretty quickly.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Mr. Elsworth, you're with the ACAP program in Nova Scotia.
Mr. Elsworth: The Atlantic region.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Could you tell us a little bit about this program? When I was out in Saint John I had the opportunity to receive a briefing from the group there. It was very impressive. It's a wonderful example of how the community can come together around some of these issues and how the federal government has actually had a role in that. Perhaps you could just take a few minutes to tell the round table about your program.
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Mr. Elsworth: Thank you for the opportunity. I'll attempt to be brief.
Actually, in Atlantic Canada there currently are thirteen ACAP initiatives, as we call them. In the Atlantic coastal action program - they are actual round tables - socio-economic/environmental interests come together and integrate their aspirations and try to define the environment they would like to have in terms of very explicit detail: water quality, air quality, sustainable livelihoods, beneficial uses, quality of life, etc. Then they integrate their efforts from that point to identify issues and actions that will take them toward that vision of sustainability.
All of them bring to the table a lot of different interests. I mentioned the socio-economic. There are universities, first nations people, people from the non-traditional power base, if you like, who get involved in a consensus-based process to do this and get on with it.
I would like to pass on one interesting thing. When they integrate all these various aspirations in Atlantic Canada, not surprisingly, where the economy is struggling, to say the least, the first foot forward usually ends up making traditional livelihoods sustainable, such as bringing back things such as shellfish harvesting - which has been closed to pollution - a multi-million dollar industry; how to make existing industries sustainable, where they get into pollution prevention to make sure that what they have now stays sustainable, not only to save costs but to make sure the resources it uses and the clients it satisfies maintain them; and also looking at ways to bring in new sustainable livelihoods so there's a diversification of livelihoods in these communities, such as bringing in ecotourism, geomatic industries, etc.
But in this process they practise what I call ``ecosystem jujitsu'', where they can take an aspiration, whether it's socio-economic or environmental...and even if you're a pure capitalist, take your intent, take your energies and focus it into something that is positive and a plus for the environment. I think that's the capacity that's been building.
I'll close there, but I'll just reiterate that it boils down to what I heard someone say earlier, that people have to answer, for themselves, what's in it for them. When they answer that question, then you have them.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much, Mr. Elsworth.
Jean Payne, please.
Mrs. Payne: Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to say how interesting all of the speakers have been around table this morning. I'm particularly interested in John Edmonds's proposals, and his plan to go organic all the way - we hope. As well, I think the comments Michel Arès had with regard to traditional protection and the use of the environment were extremely interesting. As a person who comes from the area I do in Newfoundland and Labrador, it's something that's not new to us there.
Jim, I hope ACAP finally manages to convince the City of Saint John to do something about the pollution that's happening there. As both you and the people in your organization know, it's a very terrible situation, one that rivals only Halifax, I think.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you, Mrs. Payne.
John de Gonzague.
Mr. de Gonzague: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to start out by saying I've really enjoyed the presentations made this morning. One of the things I noted was that in every speech, every talk, there was a reference to improved efficiency in what we're doing. I think that's really the basis of pollution prevention.
I've been in the environment department for 25 years now. I started at its inception. If I look back and observe back then the talk, the approach, used, it was very much one of how to manage or how to control the waste we've produced. When we look at it that way, we look at having industry pay a lot of money for controlling or managing waste.
Over the years we've rethought that, and we've come to the conclusion that there's a better way of doing it. That has been expressed in a Government of Canada policy document on pollution prevention. What we're trying to do now is to internalize the costs and opportunities that pollution prevention brings to Canadian business. That's really the essence of sustainable development - integrating the environment and the economy.
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To really make that clear I'm going to make a brief observation. For any businessman in an activity, we're looking at two streams: one is a product stream and the other is a waste stream. When you look at it in that sense, one makes a lot of sense for the businessman and one doesn't make any sense. The businessman buys materials and equipment and hires people, and in the one that makes sense, he makes a product and he makes a profit. However, if you look at it from the other stream, the businessman buys materials and equipment and hires people, and makes waste. And not only does he make waste, but he has to dispose of it, so he pays people to get rid of it for him. All in all, it's just a total cost stream.
What pollution prevention is all about is reducing or eliminating that waste stream so that you don't have to deal with it. If you look at the products you buy, your materials and your feedstocks, and you look at the activity that you have to do for clean production, what you have is a stream that concentrates on the product side. It makes a lot of sense for business because it's a lot more efficient, and the end result is improved Canadian competitiveness for business. I think that's the message we're trying to give in Pollution Prevention: a Federal Strategy for Action.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much.
Mr. Finlay told us a story about what Mr. Lammey was doing up in Goose Bay. It had something to do with you buying material from the Canada Tire store, was that it?
Mr. Lammey: Yes.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Perhaps you could tell us about your low-tech approach to environmental clean-up.
Mr. Lammey: The other component to our pollution prevention program and our overall pollution management is our investigation and remediation program. Back in the early 1960s there was a release of fuel, and when DND took over the facility in 1989 we investigated fully and began to recover the fuel. We found that high-tech solutions really didn't work, so we're using very low-tech, basically Canadian Tire technology to recover this fuel.
To date we've recovered over 910,000 litres of fuel from the ground, and we're averaging about 2,000 litres of fuel a day in that area. We're currently doing a study with Natural Resources to reuse that fuel in their summer boilers. So we're actually turning what used to be product and was then pollution back into product again, and trying to complete the cycle and reduce the waste leaving the base.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): What were the components of this amazing new machinery?
Mr. Lammey: They were basically very simple, off-the-shelf items: a pumping system, total-float pumping, which is basically a piston that pushes all the fuel and water to the surface; and an oil-water separator that by gravity separates out the fuel for reuse and reinjects the water into the groundwater regime.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Who was responsible for developing this?
Mr. Lammey: It was an in-house design completed by DND and entirely staffed by DND personnel.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Well, excellent. Thank you very much.
I have Anthony Downs and Paul Forseth on my list. Mr. Downs.
Mr. Downs: I just wanted to give a little wider perspective than Mr. Lammey had. Everything he has talked about at CFB Goose Bay is of course occurring across the Canadian forces, and I thought you might be interested in our overall programs.
It's interesting to come to this forum, because you think you have a program going and it's going pretty well, and then you come here and find out what other people are doing. There is room for improvement all the time. I take Mr. Edmonds' point too, and his challenge with respect to our fine words on going to organic pesticides and fertilizers and maybe not following through with the specification, which we will follow through on.
A line department such as National Defence, of course, operates much the same as a big industry does, so we are dealing with the regulations and the policies on a continuous basis. Sustainable development to us, besides encompassing the government's overall aims, really means that we would like to minimize our adverse impact on the environment and, where possible, have a positive impact on the environment, while still maintaining our ability to train and operate so that we can carry out the roles that the Canadian government has set for the forces. That is no mean feat, but I think we are getting ahead of the program.
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Awareness has been mentioned as a key factor. Awareness certainly is the first part of our pollution prevention program, making sure that people understand the impact of what they do so they can take steps not to do it if there's an adverse impact.
Looking at the environmental assessment, as John mentioned, I think that's a key part, the first step in pollution prevention. You look at the impact of the activity you're going to do and take steps to mitigate that or eliminate any adverse impact before you go, therefore preventing that possibility of pollution. I think that's the second key in our pollution prevention program.
We have a whole series of initiatives, which I won't table now, that range from recycling of wastes and reuse of hazardous materials to military equipment upgrades to minimize their impact on the environment. We have a green base project. We actually have four bases out there where we're trying to maximize pollution prevention aspects, investing in those bases to see what the art of the possible is.
I think the next key item in our pollution prevention program is land use management. That is where we're taking tools such as GIS and doing an inventory of the flora and fauna, and then looking at the kind of military activity we do in those training areas, putting that together in an integrated training area management system such that we can continue to do the training and live with the environment that's there. That's one of our keys.
With that, Madam Chair, I'll say thank you.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you very much, Mr. Downs. Mr. Forseth is next.
Mr. Forseth: Thank you very much.
We've been talking generally this afternoon on the theme of pollution prevention. We want to be able to make wise choices and prevent disaster instead of having to come up after and remediate. I was certainly thinking of the move to try to internalize all the costs so that when you buy something, when you make an economic decision, that price represents the total load or the cost to the environment of future generations. All the principles and the policies and the implications should be wrapped up in that price, which should really help us, even at the individual scale.
You know, there's a view out there, especially from constituents, that industry, that large polluters, have no environmental conscience. So they ask politicians... They phone me, they send me letters. The average response is, you have to regulate, you have to outlaw, get after those guys - especially when it's someone out there rather than touching me personally in my home or the choices I make. I come back to the market decisions and say that market forces, if utilized, rather than laws, regulations and so on, are a powerful shaper of behaviour for the future.
So we have to live better, live right, prevent rather than remediate. While we have an awful lot to do to clean up the past damage, I think into the future we have to live more in harmony rather than in conflict with our life support system, which is this planet. So we can look back and say, well, would an archaeologist coming along, looking at how we lived in the 1990s, say we were a rather wasteful society? The average Canadian in the 1990s would throw away about a tonne of garbage or whatever each year. Just think of the empty toothpaste tube, the cereal box, the pop can on my desk here, the food left on the plate. Natural resources such as water, wood and fossil fuels go into the production and the transportation of these things - then we throw them away. Depending on how we look at it, it's like throwing away our valuable resources. No wonder an archaeologist in the future would say, looking back and digging into our past, we were a very wasteful society.
So we have to change those things, change not someone out there but my individual behaviour. Avoid food packages in individual servings, I suppose, or buy in bulk where you can. It saves money and the environment. Buy multi-use items rather than single-use, when possible. Use your own cloth bags for shopping. Donate your clothes to charity and use the Salvation Army. Buy beverages in a refill container instead of in one of these. Use rechargeable batteries and share your newspapers and magazines with friends.
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I had a great time buying some used books the other day, and got a great price. It's good that books and material can have an ongoing recycled life. We should wrap our presents in reusable cloth bags. A neighbour lady of mine started her own little home business. She calls it ``Rewraps''. She uses fancy cloth material and sells it for Christmas presents so that these things are rewrapped every year with a new tag and so on. She does this with her own sewing machine in her bedroom.
I suppose we can rent items instead of buying them, and pack our lunch in reusable containers. We heard that from the school kids today in a contest, I suppose, in a one-upmanship game of who could be most sensitive, even in the classroom. We can support our community recycling programs and buy products that contain recycled materials. We can use both sides of the paper and use a durable mug instead of a throw-away container.
I guess there are a hundred and thousand ways we can be creative and encourage our friends and neighbours to do the same so that it becomes a lifestyle choice and something that is a fashion. Generally, when it is ``the thing to do'', it's amazing how we can find it to actually do that kind of behaviour.
So that is, in a small and personal way, how we can individually all become pollution preventers.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thanks very much, Mr. Forseth. I guess if you don't dirty it, you don't have to clean it up - right?
Are there any other short comments from around the table? Mr. Edmonds.
Mr. Edmonds: I have just a couple of short comments. Those are all excellent suggestions, but I think we need a critical mass. I think we need a focus. I think this land and water management thing is quite important.
I think what you brought up, Mr. Gale, about user-pay if you use pesticides or synthetics...you know, it should be user-pay. In Quebec they should have the impetus there, because they have spent a lot of money, huge amounts of money, encouraging organic fertilization plants, and they should encourage that.
Just one more thing to link it to public... This is a report on naturalization. It says: ``Active Living - Go for Green! is a joint initiative of the Fitness Directorate, Health Canada, Active Living Canada...'' It makes a comment in the executive summary that ``Evidence of Federal Government policy intervention in the subject matter surveyed is almost non-existent...''
So I guess from the positive point, you had the tools to deal with it, you had the Auditor General. As you said yourself yesterday, the government can be the catalyst.
The Co-Chair (Mrs. Kraft Sloan): Thank you. Those are good words for summary.
Again, I want to thank all of you for being here for our session. I invite you, if you haven't already done so, to take a look at the exhibit booths and displays across the hall. The Canadian Environment Industry Association will be hosting a reception after the final round table today, so I invite you to attend that.
This session is adjourned.