On Tuesday evening, May 28, I received a voice mail message from Marilyn Churley, NDP Environment Critic. Apparently, through negotiations, the opposition parties had managed to get third reading of Bill 81 delayed to give the public more chance to comment on Bill 81 in light of the Walkerton Report Part ll. The presentations were to take place the following day from 3:30-6:00 p.m. at Queen's Park.

Hence, when my house guests left on Wednesday, I left at the same time and headed to Toronto. My point form notes about what I would say were written on the subway from Warden station.

Below you will find the Hansard record of the motion, some concerns expressed by Ms. Churley and Mr. Peters (Lib), and the presentation I made on behalf of CREEK. The committee was composed of 4 PC's (in addition to the chair), 2 of whom talked throughout my presentation, 1 NDP and 1 Liberal. CREEK's presentation was first. Please remember that much of this was ad lib and hastily put together.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT
COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES GOUVERNEMENTALES

Wednesday 29 May 2002 Mercredi 29 mai 2002

The committee met at 1540 in committee room 1.

The Chair (Mr Steve Gilchrist): Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the standing committee on general government for the purpose of considering Bill 81, routine proceedings now being over.

I'll ask Ms Churley to start things off very quickly with a motion about what we're actually doing this afternoon.

Ms Marilyn Churley (Toronto-Danforth): I will read the motion into the record, because of changes in our procedure, and then I have a brief point of order.

I move that, notwithstanding the report of the subcommittee on committee business that was moved and adopted by this committee on Monday, May 27, 2002, the standing committee on general government will consider Bill 81, An Act to provide standards with respect to the management of materials containing nutrients used on lands, to provide for the making of regulations with respect to farm animals and lands to which nutrients are applied, and to make related amendments to other Acts, as follows:

1. Public hearings are to be held on Wednesday, May 29, 2002;

2. Witnesses that wish to appear before the committee will be scheduled as they call in. Organizations will be given 20 minutes and individuals 10 minutes to speak;

3. Clause-by-clause consideration is to be held on Monday, June 3, 2002;

4. The deadline for amendments is to be Friday, May 31, 2002, at 12:00 noon;

5. The deadline for written submissions is to be Thursday, May 30, 2002, at 6:00 pm.

The Chair: Any debate?

Mr Toby Barrett (Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant): Mr Chair, I just want to draw to your attention that I am subbing as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture. I am also very pleased that the Minister of Agriculture is here for some of the proceedings this afternoon, given her long-standing interest.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Any further debate on the motion?

Seeing none, I'll put the question. All those in favour of the motion? Opposed? It's carried.

Ms Churley: I just want to raise a brief point of order. We're back here because the NDP has had some problems with this bill. As you know, although we are supportive overall, we have some concerns, and we're coming back to make some amendments, particularly in light of part two of the Walkerton report.

I note that in section 2 in the binder we have just received -- and I find this highly unusual; I presume this is from the ministry -- there are a couple of pages of quotations supporting passage of Bill 81 and several pages of news releases from people supporting the bill. What is missing from here -- and it should be included in the committee, which is supposed to be balanced, as we hear from everybody -- are some of the concerns raised by people about the bill.

I just want to point out that I have a problem with that coming to a committee from a minister's office without the balanced approach. We all agree that we heard different sides to some of aspects of this bill, and that is not included in the information that is being provided to the committee. I just wanted to make a note of that.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Churley. I'll certainly take --

Mr Steve Peters (Elgin-Middlesex-London): On a point of order much along the same lines, Mr Chair: Can we be assured by the minister or possibly the parliamentary assistant that all correspondence that has been sent to the minister's office, either in support or not in support of this legislation, has been included in this binder?

Mr Barrett: Mr Chair, it's my understanding that correspondence, certainly very recent correspondence, has been included. I think you would find this under tab 2. I think the expectation is that certainly any material that comes in to the clerk would be forwarded to this committee.

Mr Peters: On the same point, Mr Chairman: Are we assured that we have all the correspondence sent to the minister that has been received, say, in the past day or so?

The Chair: Before I ask Mr Barrett to respond, it's not within the purview of this committee to in any way intrude in the normal affairs of a ministry. The instructions to correspond with the clerk are always posted on the parliamentary channel.

I can give you the assurance -- you should have some other information before you -- and in fairness to you, because you weren't here two days ago, there were some items of correspondence received on Bill 81 that were distributed to the Liberal members on that day. That included both positive and negative observations. So I have complete faith that the clerk has distributed every piece of correspondence that she has received, and that would have been the instructions posted on the parliamentary channel.

Mr Peters: But you can't guarantee that we have everything the minister has received.

The Chair: I don't think anyone has ever suggested that is a protocol that a committee would involve itself in. I would just say to Ms Churley that I don't have a copy of the binder here but I would think, just taking the very high-level approach to this, that when the day comes that you want to talk about your Safe Drinking Water Act, it's not likely you would be standing up and articulating the opposing point of view. Recognizing that if the ministry has prepared an information booklet, it is only appropriate the ministry would be advancing the ministry position. I don't think we can lose sight of the fact that it is the clerk who is the neutral arbiter of items such as this. There is an alternative -- and I'm certainly not trying to be cute when I say this -- and that would be that the ministry not share its perspective at all with members of the opposition.

Ms Churley: I'm sure we're all anxious to get on with the hearings and I'll just say this: it's my understanding that the clerk was not asked to complete this binder, that she wasn't aware of some of the material in there, and I would still say information provided to a committee, as opposed to the government or an individual member, should be fair and all of the correspondence representing all the different views should be in the binder. This particular binder has only the positive letters, faxes and press releases urging the government to get on with the bill and expressing disappointment it didn't pass, that sort of thing. I find that not useful and not fair to what's supposed to be a committee weighing all of the evidence we've got.

The Chair: Again, Ms Churley, let's not get off on a tangent here. The fact of the matter is, that is the ministry's presentation. The ministry has in fact, and the minister --

Ms Churley: I'm expressing my view on this --

The Chair: I hear your view, but I don't know if it's realistic that you would expect Hudson's Bay to be promoting Wal-Mart.

Ms Churley: I'm expressing my view and I think it's also highly unusual.

The Chair: Duly noted. With that, let's move on to the hearings, if we may.

COUNTY REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION KO-ALITION

The Chair: Our first presentation will be from the County Regional Environmental Evaluation Ko-alition. Good afternoon and welcome to the committee. Just to be fair to all the participants this afternoon, because routine proceedings went a few minutes late, we'll shave a few seconds -- it will probably be only half a minute -- off each presentation. In case folks don't know, committees are not allowed to proceed after a vote is called and we expect there will be a vote at 5:50 this afternoon. Please proceed.

Ms Linda Roberts: Hi. I'm Linda Roberts, the chairperson of CREEK, which, as you have stated, is the County Regional Environmental Evaluation Ko-alition. "County" refers to Prince Edward county. Anybody who lives in Prince Edward county always refers to it as "the county," and hence the name. On behalf of CREEK, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to be here today, even though I had to really hustle to get here.

The reason CREEK is in existence is that it's a group of residents at the east end of Prince Edward county -- I know you probably won't be able to see this map, but it helps me explain things. It is kind of large. Prince Edward County is an island. This is the eastern tip of the island. On the north side is a body of water called Adolphus Reach. On the south side is Lake Ontario. There is a cove called Prinyer's Cove. Immediately southwest of Prinyer's Cove is a large marsh which is designated a provincially significant environmental wetland. Immediately southwest of the provincially significant environmental wetland is an intensive livestock operation. This livestock operation has two barns holding almost 3,000 hogs and an open pit with a capacity of a million gallons of raw manure that is sitting right next to the wetland, which is obviously a matter of concern.

Also in terms of the geology of the region, Elmbrook clay and Solmesville clay is the area where the effluent is spread and these clay formations are described as having imperfect external and internal drainage. The spreading of the raw manure usually occurs between 90-day and 120-day intervals and it is spread in the areas that are marked yellow here, so the fields are just to the west and in part impinging on the wetland and just to the east and impinging on the wetland. When you're dealing with a million gallons of manure going in this kind of area, there are some really very serious concerns.

We are concerned about respiratory problems due to airborne particles, but more particularly we are concerned about the water. There are approximately 180 houses in the area, all of which are dependent upon wells -- some drilled and some shore wells. Obviously there's concerned about that. Also in the cove that I pointed out to you is a very popular boat mooring site, and visitors from all over the province and from the United States come and moor to enjoy the beautiful area and stay as long as the smell's not too bad. If they stay, they also tend to swim in the cove. The marsh I showed to you drains into that cove and the marsh is next to the effluent spreading. So it's the water that really concerns us.

CREEK really wanted legislation to regulate this type of industry and we were really pleased when Bill 81 was proposed, but when we actually saw Bill 81, we were very disappointed with the bill as it currently stands.We made a presentation in September 2001 in Peterborough. I'll just review the concerns we expressed at that time very briefly.

We were concerned that the bill includes traditional farms which are regulated under the Farming and Food Production Protection Act and the Environmental Protection Act, and sewage sludge, septage and paper sludge, which are already managed under waste certificates of approval. We believe the legislation should follow the lead of the United States of America, where the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that large agricultural operations will be required to have permits under the national pollutant discharge elimination system, as factories already do. We also believe Bill 81 should limit its focus to intensive livestock operations.

Our second concern was that we were dismayed the regulations did not accompany the legislation. Without the regulations this is a hollow piece of paper to us. It doesn't help us in any way.

One of the areas in part II, subsection 5(2) of Bill 81, suggests there be an assessment but it doesn't say "hydrogeological" assessment. We believe it's very important that any assessment of ILOs involve a hydrogeological assessment.

We believe, in terms of places like Prinyer's Cove where there's swimming going on near an ILO, that the Ministry of Health should be involved to test the water and post warnings on a regular basis, as is done in provincial parks. We believe that monitoring, enforcement and mediation should be handled by provincial agents.

The legislation recognizes the possibilities of "danger to the health and safety of any person," "impairment or serious risk of impairment to the quality of the natural environment for any use that can be made of it," "injury or damage or serious risk of injury or damage to any property or to any plant or animal life," yet states that "a provincial officer may exercise the power to enter and inspect land or premises without a warrant." We believe that the wording should be changed to "a provincial officer shall exercise the power conferred by this section to enter and inspect land or premises on a regular, prescribed basis without a warrant."

Without the requirement for detailed records and regular auditing by provincial officials, compliance can be expected to be poor or non-existent.

I've gone on far longer than I intended to.

My main points that I wanted to get to, actually, were that in view of the publication of Walkerton part two from Justice O'Connor -- and I won't have to repeat it if you did receive this from me. It was sent to the clerk. I brought out the recommendations that Justice O'Connor made that really address more of CREEK's concerns than Bill 81 does.

I do believe it's incumbent upon the government to take the time to examine the Walkerton report and try to incorporate as many recommendations as it can into Bill 81 and deal with this as a source water issue.

Finally, when it comes time for the regulations to be developed, I would also request that Justice O'Connor's comments be respected where he says, "Consultation should err on the side of inclusion, both regarding which parties are consulted and regarding the level of involvement in the process. Consultation should never be pro forma...." I request that for the development of the regulations. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate your taking the time to come before the committee today.