WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LA GESTION DES DÉCHETS
SUPERIOR-CRAWFORD SAND AND GRAVEL LTD
CONCERNED CITIZENS OF KING TOWNSHIP INC.
PUBLIC COMMITTEE FOR SAFE SEWAGE TREATMENT IN METROPOLITAN TORONTO
THE CONSERVER SOCIETY OF BURLINGTON
CITIZENS FOR A SAFE ENVIRONMENT
MAPLE VILLAGE RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION
GATES OF MAPLE RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA
CANADIAN RESTAURANT
AND FOODSERVICES ASSOCIATION
QUICK SERVICE RESTAURANT COUNCIL
CONTENTS
Thursday 13 February 1992
Waste Management Act, 1991, Bill 143 / Loi de 1991 sur la gestion des déchets, projet de loi 143
Jolly Bottoms Inc
David Jollymore, president
George Yanaky, representative
Superior-Crawford Sand and Gravel Ltd
Michael I. Jeffery, representative
Concerned Citizens of King Township Inc
Margaret Coburn, chair
Jean Hunt, vice-chair
Dual Removal Systems Ltd
Izzie Abrams, representative
Joshua Creek Ratepayers Inc
Roger Mailhot, chairman, environmental committee
George Brown, vice-president
Public Committee for Safe Sewage Treatment in Metropolitan Toronto
Karey Shinn, co-chair
Muskoka delegation
William Rogers, mayor, township of Muskoka Lakes
William F. Clark, past president, Muskoka Lakes Association
The Conserver Society of Burlington
Ellen Baar, representative
Peter Tabuns, councillor, ward 8, city of Toronto
Citizens for a Safe Environment
Aine Suttle, executive director
Maple Village Ratepayers Association
Peter Badali, president
No Ganaraska Dump Committee
John Magder, representative
Gates of Maple Ratepayers Association
Fausto Sacchetti, president
Older Women's Network
Rivka Phillips
United Steelworkers of America
Henry Hynd, director, District 6
Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association; Quick Service Restaurant Council
Douglas Needham, president, CRFA
Patti Jameson, chair, QSRC
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Présidente: Caplan, Elinor (Oriole L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Sola, John (Mississauga East/-Est L)
Cousens, W. Donald (Markham PC)
Fawcett, Joan M. (Northumberland L)
Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)
Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent ND)
Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie ND)
Mathyssen, Irene (Middlesex ND)
O'Connor, Larry (Durham-York ND)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West/-Ouest PC)
Sullivan, Barbara (Halton Centre L)
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)
Substitution(s) / Membre(s) remplaçant(s):
Abel, Donald (Wentworth North/-Nord ND) for Mr Hope
Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC) for Mr Cousens
McClelland, Carman (Brampton North/-Nord L) for Mrs Sullivan
Ruprecht, Tony (Parkdale L) for Mrs Fawcett
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Jackson, Jim, Ministry of the Environment
Giffen, Alex, Ministry of the Environment
Johnston, Barbara, Office for the Greater Toronto Area
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Richmond, Jerry, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1004 in room 151.
WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LA GESTION DES DÉCHETS
Resuming consideration of Bill 143, An Act respecting the Management of Waste in the Greater Toronto Area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act / Projet de loi 143, Loi concernant la gestion des déchets dans la région du grand Toronto et modifiant la Loi sur la protection de l'environnement.
JOLLY BOTTOMS INC
The Chair: Our first delegation is Jolly Bottoms Inc. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We appreciate your appearing this morning. This is Bill 143, the Waste Management Act, 1991. We ask if you would leave a few minutes at the end of your presentation for questions from members of the committee. Would you please begin your presentation now.
Mr Jollymore: I appreciate this opportunity to address this committee in respect to Bill 143. Jolly Bottoms Inc supplies reusable adult incontinence products to hospitals, nursing homes, extended care facilities and institutions for the aged and the physically and mentally impaired. In support of the facts we have submitted with this brief there are copies of pertinent articles and research. The sources are accurate.
Bill 143 falls short in part IV when the bill addresses the issue of research and reduction. It fails to prioritize, in the order of importance, these issues. Bill 143 suggests that prohibition should be expanded to cover the sale of packaging and containers contrary to the act, and regulations would be expanded to cover the sale of disposable products and products that pose waste management problems, but it fails to adequately identify products which obviously fall under this description. I would ask if disposable diapers fall within this description.
Bill 143 identifies experimental projects aimed at possible results down the road but fails to encourage proportionately the immediate reduction of waste possible through proven, reusable products available to the market today.
Cloth reusable products are an alternative which is available now. Reusing cloth diapers produces waste reductions immediately. Reusable products are an immediate, economical, viable solution to an environmentally hazardous concept. There is no acceptable reason to continue polluting this country by disposing of a product which has proven to have a negative impact on the environment when there is an alternative.
Washing reusable diapers is a safe, environmentally aware, economical process. It also offers an alternative to the institutions which enables them to achieve environmental goals as set down by their administrative boards.
The diapers themselves, through the laundering process, are given proper pH levels and are tested for chemical residue. The products are tested routinely for various bacteria both by the laundry service and the institution.
Effluent produced in the laundry process is controlled within guidelines as set down by the pollution control department of the municipality or the Ministry of the Environment. The pH levels must be maintained in the effluent within set guidelines, and laundry facilities should address and provide treatment for such problems as biological oxygen demand in the effluent. A properly operated laundry service produces a product of exceptional quality without causing stress or negative impact on the environment.
Human faeces must be treated in a treatment facility. Human faeces can carry over 100 intestinal viruses. These viruses may live 14 days while rainwater washes them from the dump through the water table and into the drinking water.
I am sceptical of an environmental policy which allows the production of an environmentally unsafe product and then implements another questionable process to dispose of the unsafe product. When practical and economical alternatives are available to replace environmentally unsafe products there can be no question as to what the correct policy should be.
Disposing of disposable diapers is not quite as simple as the manufacturers had led the consumer to believe. When soaked with faeces and urine, the diapers become fire resistant, and toxic gases and PVCs, polyvinyl chlorides, are released into the atmosphere as the plastic smoulders.
Both biodegradable and disposable diapers are made of a cellulose fibre or paperlike material and a plastic cover. In biodegradable diapers the plastic is mixed with starch. However, the breakdown does nothing to help our landfill situation because the product, after breakdown, still takes up the same space in the landfill, so we do not get to put more waste into the landfill even if we wanted to.
It is clearly better not produce waste in the first place, or to reuse it or to recycle it into new products, than it is to continue dumping it into landfill sites. Further, biodegradable waste, especially biodegradable plastic, may pose an even greater threat than just removing the incentive for recycling. Recyclers are being told that plastic waste containing even a fraction of starch will not be accepted for recycling because the starch interferes with the recycling process and damages the quality and consistency of the recycled product. Plastics are difficult enough to recycle without this added problem. Mixing biodegradable plastics into the waste stream will make it even more difficult to find recycling opportunities for waste plastics. The word "biodegradable" is rapidly turning into a marketing manager's dream, once again to the detriment of the environment.
Even if a disposal system for disposable diapers could be safely implemented, it would be very presumptuous to assume that people in our communities would endure yet another recycling project, perhaps referred to as the brown box. Without the total cooperation of all the people in each community, such a program would be inefficient and disposable diapers would still be filling our landfill sites and causing environmental problems.
The answer is not to produce the environmentally harmful product and then try to dispose of it; the answer is to produce an environmentally friendly product which we can all live safely with. Cloth diapers have been used century after century, and I have yet to see a mountain of them in a landfill site, nor have I ever seen a cloth diaper on the side of the street or sidewalk. Disposable diapers are a poorly researched econowrap for infants which, in their short 25-year existence, have proven to be a resource-consuming, land-polluting product. Nearly 10 billion disposable diapers are manufactured from wood pulp each year in North America -- 800 million pounds of paper used once and then thrown away, full. For each baby, over half a ton of non-biodegradable waste.
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Bill 143 with appropriate changes or a similar bill with more precise definitions and guidelines is a necessary improvement to the act. However, this Bill 143 is inadequate in defining such terms as "biodegradable" and is vague as to which products are acceptable and which are undesirable.
The bill fails to identify immediate reductions in waste as having priority over experimental projects aimed at examining procedures which may or may not prove successful.
During the last provincial election I listened closely to the campaigns of the various representatives of each political party. The environmental objectives of the New Democratic Party were announced to the people of Ontario and I recall the indication towards the reduction, reusing and recycling philosophy of environmental awareness.
The people of Ontario expect competent leadership. This government must fulfil its commitment. To do otherwise will undoubtedly undermine any credibility it is trying to establish. To switch directions in the face of pressure from the large business sector will demonstrate a lack of ability to lead and govern this province for the people of Ontario.
Reduction: Eliminating the use of disposable diapers reduces the numbers of them going into the landfill sites. Reuse: Using cloth diapers over and over again promotes a program of environmental awareness acceptable to everyone. Recycle: Recycling the materials in a product to make other products is conducive to reduction of waste going into landfill sites. Under which of these categories does burning or composting plastic and paper fall? Burning these products produces dioxins and composting merely breaks the plastic down into smaller fibres which disperse into the soil or hide. It is still there. These processes do not even fall into the programs and priorities addressed by the provincial government.
It is not acceptable to invest in the destruction of our world for the purpose of personal gain or rewards. Investment in the preservation of this world is far more rewarding, both now and in the future.
That completes my presentation.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Did the other deputants wish to make some comments at this time?
Mr Jollymore: No, not at this time.
The Chair: Fine. I will reserve some time for you at the end.
Mrs Mathyssen: Thank you for coming to the committee this morning. I appreciate this information very much.
I would like to ask you a question, though, based on something we heard yesterday. We had a representation from the Ontario Long Term Residential Care Association which talked about diapers and about the bacteria and germs that are contained in soiled diapers. But their concern was that it would be very expensive to launder and look after these diapers and that they simply could not afford it. I would like you to respond to that particular sentiment as expressed here yesterday.
Mr Jollymore: The concern in regard to the expense of maintaining --
Mrs Mathyssen: Of laundering and separating the laundry for the facility.
Mr Jollymore: First, I would indicate that it is definitely a proven business enterprise. There are even just locally, here in Toronto, laundry facilities which for years have been providing reusable incontinence products to institutions in the Toronto area. I would name for one, for instance, the Clean Team in Markham.
In costing reusable products of course there is the fixed overhead to be considered as well as the life and maintenance of the product. In the comparison between using a product over and over, and in this particular case I would suggest to you that under proper washing conditions 150 to 200 washes can be obtained out of one product, it does not cost 150 to 200 times the cost of a disposable product to manufacture a reusable product. The room is there. The business is competitive and economical.
Mrs Mathyssen: So it would make good economic sense for residential care?
Mr Jollymore: Definitely.
Mrs Mathyssen: Thank you. I appreciate that.
The Chair: Mr McClelland.
Mr McClelland: Apparently one of the deputants would like to respond. Go ahead.
Mr Yanaky: There was one other point. In our particular service that we provide, we provide to the institutions such as hospitals and old age retirement homes the product and the laundry service. So we are very competitive as far as comparing to disposable diapers. I would even venture to say that we can beat their prices.
Mr McClelland: I would like to give you an opportunity to expand on that. There are many that would say the debate is still open with respect to disposable versus reusable, that the environmental impacts in terms of bleaches into the water system is an offset, if you will. Would you expand on that? I just want to throw that out for you to put forward your case in response to that; not criticism, but the counterpoint, if you will.
Mr Yanaky: David is more knowledgeable about the technical end of it, but I will say that as long as there is competition out there, there is always going to be some kind of question mark. Let's put it this way: We are competing for a portion of the market as well as disposables.
Mr Jollymore: In laundering products you could produce an undesirable effluent. The Ministry of the Environment is obviously aware of this and has set down guidelines in regard to different chemical residues in the effluent and what is acceptable and what is not. Attached with the supporting documentation you will all receive with our brief is a copy, in my particular case, for instance, of the city of Orillia's pollution control department's letter to me indicating its concerns and the requirements of operating this particular type of business in its city.
As well as that, I would mention that the use of chlorine bleach has become obsolete in some cases. There are chemical supply companies in this area who supply chlorine bleaches that have had all the heavy metal removed. Furthermore, I would mention that we have opted to use a hydrogen peroxide bleach, which is considerably more expensive but contains no chlorine whatsoever.
In fact, hydrogen peroxide is used on occasion in different situations in the cleanup of environmental spills. If the laundry facility is operating competently, it should have looked at all these issues and answered them for itself and be operating in a manner which is acceptable to the community it is operating in and acceptable to the Ministry of the Environment.
The Chair: Mrs Marland, did you have a question for the Jolly Bottoms presentation this morning?
Mrs Marland: Not at this point, thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mr Sola: I just wanted to throw one question at you that arose yesterday. The question arose as to the safety of reusable diapers as compared to disposable. They were saying it is much more difficult to control or prevent the spread of disease and germs with reusable diapers than with disposable diapers. I wonder what your comment on that would be.
Mr Jollymore: I would tend to agree with that statement in general. Yes, it would be more difficult to deal with the spread of bacteria with a reusable product which is being used over and over again on various residents, in comparison to a disposable product which is used once and thrown away.
This difficulty is addressed in your laundry process by means of the temperatures at which you wash, for one; the chemicals which you wash with, second; and third, there are various bacteriostats and germicides which can be used in the event that chlorine, which is an excellent germicide, is not used. In our particular case, for instance, we use a bacteriostat in our final rinses which produces a hygiene product for the institution which is virus-free.
Mr Wiseman: I was just reading some of your information that you added here about diaper rashes and problems with disposable diapers on babies. I can bear testimony to that. We have had three children and what you have said is true.
We have heard from the private sector: "Do not push us. Do not regulate us. We will do it voluntarily." You are from the private sector and you are saying: "Push them. Regulate them." Could you perhaps explain how we could approach or look at that kind of dichotomy in what people are saying to us?
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Mr Jollymore: You are asking me to be a politician.
Mr Wiseman: I am asking you to give me some help.
Mr Jollymore: Yes, I am very definitely indicating to you that I think there should be at the very least, very easy to understand guidelines set down, and the people made aware. There has been lots of time on both sides for all the arguments to be presented. The disposable companies have made their positions known and are doing their research as to what they could do. The cloth companies have their positions and are doing what they are doing now. The problem I see is simply that nobody is willing to make a decision, to assess and evaluate what is available and make a recommendation as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
I am not suggesting to you that you should ban disposable diapers. They do have a use. They were advertised in the late 1960s when they first came out as "the convenience of the 1970s." I do not think even the disposal companies realized how convenient they were. This is a habit that is going to have to be broken. I am not suggesting to you that it may be a particularly popular move, but 30 years from now, if the move is not made, you are going to be particularly unpopular for not having made it.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr Jollymore: Thank you. I appreciate your time.
The Chair: There are some who would think that was not a political statement at all. We very much appreciate your appearance before the committee and thank you for your presentation. If there is additional information at any time that you think would be helpful to the committee, we would encourage you to communicate with us in writing.
I do not know if I speak for anybody else on the committee but I really like the name of your company.
Mr Jollymore: Thank you very much. Thank you all.
SUPERIOR-CRAWFORD SAND AND GRAVEL LTD
The Chair: I would like to call for our next presentation, Superior-Crawford Sand and Gravel Ltd. I would like to welcome you to the standing committee on social development. You have 20 minutes for your presentation and we would ask if you would leave a few minutes at the end for questions from committee members. Please begin your presentation now.
Mr Jeffery: My name is Michael Jeffery. I am with the law firm of Fraser & Beatty and I represent Superior-Crawford Sand and Gravel Ltd, which owns approximately 475 acres abutting the existing Keele Valley landfill site. The submissions on behalf of Superior-Crawford this morning will be essentially confined to issues related to the Metro-York region and those issues will include the following with respect to part II of Bill 143: We wish to address the issue of only one site, the time frame of 20 years, capacity estimates, ministerial policies, whether or not the Environmental Assessment Act should apply and the role of the private sector.
In addition, we wish to comment on part III of Bill 143, specifically on the need for part III, the inspection powers and the issue of injurious affection, and we will complete our submission with recommendations for amendments.
The apparent emergency which has led to the emasculation, in our view, of the Environmental Assessment Act proposed in Bill 143 essentially has disappeared. We now know, based on estimates provided by the ministry and the minister's opening statement to the committee, that there is sufficient time to do a fuller and more proper environmental assessment for a long-range solution and to have a hearing at which the assessment should be scrutinized fully and fairly by all interested parties.
Why only one site? At the outset of the hearings, the minister advised the committee that finding one environmentally acceptable landfill site would be extremely difficult. Its environmental and social impact on a local community would be significant, and essentially for that reason the bill specifies three sites rather than one for the GTA. That is found under section 12 of the bill.
Exactly the same principle and reasoning, in our view, applies to Metro-York. The landfill requirements for Metro-York are four times those of Peel and six times those of Durham. If it is appropriate to have one site for Peel and one site for Durham then, in so far as impact is related to capacity, it is equally appropriate to have more than one site for Metro-York.
A prudent and fair environmental decision-making process inevitably includes, and is required by the act to include, alternative methods of carrying out the undertaking. That normally entails consideration of the option of more than one landfill site. We submit there should be consideration of more than one landfill site in Metro-York.
Dispersal is a fundamental principle of managing environmental impacts. The legislation should not preclude consideration of more than one landfill site as more than one site would permit the environmental impacts to be dispersed and diffused rather than concentrated at one point.
Municipal landfill sites of more than one location in the municipalities, particularly Metro-York, would permit a more equitable sharing of the waste disposal burden. Considering social impacts, neighbours of a landfill site may be more outraged if they alone are required to sustain the impact of landfill for the entire Metro-York region which in fact generates a major portion of the province's garbage.
The only reason put forth for imposing the legislative straitjacket on the process of restricting the search to one site is efficiency. It is assumed that it is more efficient in terms of cost and the environmental approval process to assess and develop one site rather than several sites. This supposition may be right or wrong, but should efficiency override environmental considerations? The number of sites should be one of the matters considered in order for a full and proper assessment to be completed. Restricting the proposal and assessment to only one site is a serious and major departure from the provisions of the Environmental Assessment Act.
Similarly, the 20-year time frame should not be a matter for legislation but should be a matter for scrutiny and assessment. In our view, the only rule that is right is that waste quantity estimates are always wrong. They are always being revised as time passes and site data accumulate. There is no indication that there is any scientific credibility to, or foundation for, the 20-year period from an environmental perspective. It may be that longer time frames are appropriate and it may be that shorter time frames are appropriate. As for land use planning and impact concerns, it is necessary to have in mind the need for permanent surrounding land uses and plans, to have in mind the cost and the construction of an infrastructure. All of these may be expensive but rendered totally redundant or wasted in 20 years.
These are issues that simply must be assessed. With respect to interested parties, in all fairness, they have a right to be heard.
Capacity estimates: Future capacity estimates, as stated, are always wrong. They are always being revised as time goes on in the light of reality experience. In our view, if there is a waste management crisis and nobody is exactly sure whether or not this is the case, it is because the Ministry of the Environment and others have produced wrong capacity estimates in the past.
To postulate a process that excludes quantitative estimates from challenge is to put forth something that in our view is patently wrong. To require, as the legislation does, that the assessments and hearings be based on what must necessarily be wrong estimates is to some extent ridiculous.
The same comments apply equally to estimates of reduction, reuse and recycling. Those estimates as well profoundly affect estimates for required capacity. Capacities and capacity estimates are the very types of things that should be subjected to proper assessment and scrutiny and challenged, if necessary.
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Ministerial policies: Many consider that the legislation makes puppets out of the Interim Waste Authority and the board by forcing them to comply with the minister's policies. That would strip the board of the discretion that is its function and duty to exercise.
Subsection 15(3) enables the minister to influence the decision of the board because the board must "have regard to" the estimates, "make its decision consistent with" the procedures set out in section 14 and "take into consideration" the minister's policies. That subsection goes very far in permitting the minister to rig the decision by imposing a straitjacket on the context for the decision-making. The board should be required to do no more than "take into consideration" the various matters referred to but should not be subject to the more restrictive standards that are imposed in that section, namely, to "have regard to" or "make its decision consistent with."
It is important that the very best decision be made by the board after all issues have received full and proper airing and after consideration of all interests of all parties. It is important that the hearing be fair, bona fide and impartial and not be directed essentially by the minister.
We understand that a long list of sites has been prepared in apparent compliance with draft criteria that were put forth last year, criteria that may, with or without modification, become ministerial policies.
If so, that would be alarming. Those draft criteria are deficient, in our view, in a number of respects. For example, economics and efficiency, which are overwhelming public concerns, are not included in the draft criteria. That is particularly ironic when it is economics and efficiency that drove the policy that there should be only one site for the Metro-York region. If a list of sites was in fact prepared in compliance with those criteria, that list may wrongly have excluded the right site.
Once again, these policies should be subject to assessment and public input, and ought not to predetermine the outcome of the process.
Should the Environmental Assessment Act apply? The EAA requires that a sound and scientific, in terms of methodology, process take place before decisions are made that will affect the environment. It is important that the decision respecting a major future landfill site be made in the context of the provisions provided by the act.
Decisions that one and only one site will be put forward, that not less than a 20-year time frame will be considered and that the minister's quantity estimates will govern ought to be subject to full and proper scientific scrutiny at the hearing. Although ideologies and political beliefs are and ought to be important, nevertheless the issues that are excluded from the Environmental Assessment Act process by Bill 143 are so important and so significant that excluding them is tantamount to repealing the act with respect to one of the very matters for which the act is intended and is appropriate.
The role of the private sector: The IWA is government owned and run. It is paid for by the public from tax revenue. The draft site selection criteria proposed by the IWA show that government-owned sites are to be preferred over privately owned sites. We represent a private company and request that the legislation clarify the position and role of the private sector and whether privately owned lands may be acquired by the IWA.
The need for part III of the bill: We support in general the provisions of part III of the bill. The Keele Valley site has been in operation for many years. It is being tested and monitored constantly. It is functioning in a safe and secure manner and there is no indication that it will not continue to do so. The needed and costly infrastructure is now in place. There are no incremental impacts, other than on our client, generated by the proposed expansion. In our view, no useful information with respect to the proposed interim expansion would be generated by a further environmental assessment or by any further hearings at this point.
We agree that the principle of putting environmental interests first is in the public interest. It is inherent in that principle that needed expansions be directed to sites where it is known, rather than merely projected, that pollution will be not be generated.
Inspection: Metro, on page 3 of its brief, advises that the powers of the inspectors referred to in subsection 17(11) could be used by Metro to enter our client's lands to implement the minister's report under section 29, despite ongoing litigation. We take strong exception to subsection 17(11). It is draconian and, in our view, also raises charter issues.
Injurious affection: We urge that section 19 of the bill be retained. A major landfill site does generate offsite adverse impacts. It is important, in our view, to maintain section 19 in the act rather than eliminate it, as the minister indicated would happen. Otherwise people and property that may suffer long-term adverse impacts from the ongoing use of the site may have no remedy or opportunity for relief. In our view, that would not be fair, nor would it be right.
In summation, we recommend the following: to permit the IWA to select and propose more than one site in Metro-York; to permit the IWA to consider a range of time frames rather than be restricted to a 20-year time frame; to permit the IWA to form its own capacity estimates; to require the board to do no more than "take into consideration" the minister's policies; to clarify the role of the private sector, and to delete subsection 17(11). In addition, we would recommend that part III in general be retained and that section 19 be retained.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We have just a very few minutes remaining, approximately five minutes in total, actually four minutes in total. I have Mrs Marland first. Perhaps what we should do is, if you could just put your questions, then we will give the deputant a couple of minutes to answer them all.
Mrs Marland: Thank you, Mr Jeffery. I appreciate your comments on the term of long-term sites. It would seem to me entirely far more practical if it was not tied down to as long a period as 20 years, and I think perhaps that is part of the inference you are making. I think we are going to be much more successful in establishing a new site if people can be guaranteed that it is there for 10 or 12 years and then it is over and finished, not reversed, of course, the way this bill is reversing the Britannia 12-year agreement. If you tell people it is going to be there for 20 or 30 years, nobody is going to want it.
You talked about the IWA being paid for by the taxpayers. Are you aware that the $17 million the province gave the Interim Waste Authority to set up and get rolling is going to be fully collected from those regions where it is working? In the case of Peel, where we have already spent $8 million on trying to find a new site, we are also going to be billed for anything the IWA does in Peel.
Mr Jeffery: Should I respond at this point?
The Chair: We will let everybody put their questions on the record. Mr McClelland.
Mr McClelland: I do not know if there is a particular response you can summarize for what I would like to put to you, sir. It seems to me that what you are saying is that Bill 143 does a number of things. It does not consider a scientific or environmental perspective in terms of its implementation; it does not allow challenge, assessment or scrutiny in the full sense of the word. Rather in fact what it does is let policies that, as you so aptly put it, are ideologically formulated dictate waste management for this province. It excludes the very best decisions being made. You used terms like it "rigs the decision," removes "sound and scientific" evidence, with the result that it is "tantamount to repealing the act," that act being the Environmental Assessment Act.
Is there some way you could summarize that and try and bring home the point somehow, which is what we have been trying to do in this committee, that Bill 143, with some exceptions you have pointed out, although there is some merit in some of the points, for the most part in the structure is contrary to the framework of law and protection and evolution of environmental law in this province to date, that Bill 143 basically wipes it all off the map and we start fresh with ideology and not scientific, empirical law?
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The Chair: Your time is up. Mr Wiseman, put your question please.
Mr Wiseman: You commented in the brief about a list of long-term sites. It has been indicated here on more than one occasion by the IWA that this list of sites does not exist, and I think it is somewhat mischievous to continue to produce a myth when those facts do not jibe with what we are getting from the Interim Waste Authority. It is tantamount to calling them liars and I do not like that.
The Chair: Did you have a question?
Mr Wiseman: I would like him to comment.
The Chair: You have about two minutes for --
Mrs Marland: He did not like you using that word. Could we have some parliamentary language there, Mr Wiseman?
Interjection.
The Chair: I am sorry, Mr McClelland used all the time available for your caucus.
Mr Jeffery: To start off with, as a former chair of the Environmental Assessment Board, I have some serious concerns with what the proposed legislation does in terms of fettering the discretion of the board and what it does to the environmental assessment process in general. Our position is simply that if the board is required to make a decision after a full environmental assessment, yet is fettered in its discretion and is required to take into account and make its decision consistent with policies set by the minister, then in effect it very much undermines the integrity of the legislation itself.
The environmental assessment legislation provides for a consideration of a number of factors, including things like alternative sites, including things like alternatives to the undertaking itself. The ministerial policies set forth in this bill would preclude some of those considerations. As a result, in our view, if you are going to say the proposal is going to be subject to environmental assessment and it is going to be subject to the Environmental Assessment Act, then that proposal should be assessed in accordance with the methodology that has been developed over several years under that act, and that is to take into account a full appreciation of everything: time frames, alternatives and a number of other issues in terms of the alternatives to landfill itself, whether it is incineration or whether it is reduction or reuse or recycling.
The Chair: Mr Jeffery, I want to thank you very much for your presentation this morning. We always seem to be running out of time. It is very frustrating to have to cut people off. I would like to remind you that you can communicate further with us in writing. We have received your brief and we are going to be receiving additional information from presenters over the course of these hearings. Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming this morning.
Mr Jeffery: Thank you for the opportunity.
Mr McClelland: May I raise a point of order while the next deputant is coming?
The Chair: What is your point of order?
Mr McClelland: It seems to me that if I were to say to the member opposite that he said something that was tantamount to a lie, you would have called into question my use of that terminology. It seems to me as well therefore that if a member uses that language, "tantamount to a lie," to a deputant, that has to be taken into consideration.
I would also say within that context that it is interesting to note that the government that said there was a list, that promised there was a list, and we have a memorandum that says there was a list, is now saying that an individual who comes forward on that expectation is saying something tantamount to a lie.
I think it raises tremendous issues in terms of credibility and sincerity, and I want you, Madam Chair, to review the appropriateness of my colleague referring to a deputant's statement as being tantamount to a lie. I believe those were the words that were used. I think it is very clear that it is uncalled for and inappropriate. I would ask you to review the record, and if you so find, I ask you to ask Mr Wiseman to withdraw that and to issue an apology.
Mrs Marland: On the same point, Madam Chair: I think that since the government members have been here 18 months, they should now understand that when we hold public hearings, we invite the public to come before these committees as our guests. Whether or not you agree with them, I do not think to refer even indirectly to a deputant having said something about lying is appropriate.
Mr Ruprecht: Madam Chair, on the same point.
The Chair: No, I am not going to permit any further discussion at this time. I think it is best that we move on with the public hearings.
CONCERNED CITIZENS OF KING TOWNSHIP INC.
The Chair: I would like to call Concerned Citizens of King Township Inc. Please come forward and begin your presentation by introducing yourself to the committee. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We would appreciate it if you would leave a few minutes at the end for questions.
Mrs Coburn: I am Margaret Coburn. I live in the village of Schomberg, one of the three villages in King township, and I have with me my vice-chairman of the Concerned Citizens of King Township Inc, Jean Hunt, who farms about 500 acres in King township and breeds, raises and shows shorthorn and Lincoln Red cattle, and has won many awards.
Thank you for your presence here this morning to hear yet another deeply concerned response to Bill 143, An Act respecting the Management of Waste in the Greater Toronto area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act.
The Concerned Citizens of King Township Inc is a 24-year-old citizens' organization which "exists to provide opportunities for members of the community to foster and support actions that maintain the rural character of the township and preserve its environmentally significant features, while accepting the necessity for some growth within the township, and for an adequate tax base to meet the needs of the community." That is directly from our constitution.
We have been incorporated as a non-profit organization under the Corporations Act of Ontario since March 1990. Our membership is made up of approximately 175 families, property owners in five of the six wards of the township. We hold four public meetings each year, conduct a bus tour of selected natural features in King each year and provide our members with four newsletters annually. We have a membership in STORM Coalition -- which I believe you heard from a couple of weeks ago -- of which we are a founding member, and in King RORES, which is another group I think you heard from a couple of days ago.
Our guest speakers at our public meetings have included David Crombie, Ron Kanter and Carman McClelland, representing Environment Minister Jim Bradley in the spring of 1990. We are looking forward to hearing from John Sewell on March 5 of this year.
We have been involved in the Solid Waste Interim Steering Committee, SWISC, and the IWA programs. We have examined Bill 143, and some of the public debate in the House through Hansard. We would like to thank the members of the House who have spoken so eloquently against this bill. We are aware of the statement made to this committee by the Minister of the Environment and minister responsible for the greater Toronto area on January 20, 1992.
We have read the submissions made to you by STORM and RORES, by the township of King, and some of us were present when the region of York made a strong and I hope effective presentation to you. We congratulate these groups on the strength of their presentations, which certainly demonstrates the depth of their concern, and we share that concern with them. This bill should be withdrawn.
Rather than repeat the specific wrongs that are in the bill, which are by now well known, we have elected instead to present to you positively what we believe should be the route taken by this government.
We are of course supportive of pursuing the government's 3Rs. In fact, we feel that if any kind of arbitrary restrictions, such as those in Bill 143, are to be placed upon anyone, anywhere, it should be upon industries and retailers who still produce unnecessary packaging, upon businesses and government whose love of making innumerable copies is legendary and on the contributors to our junk mail travesty. The producers of unnecessary waste should indeed be candidates for some arbitrary decisions, albeit within a limited time frame, until they finally realize we do not want excess stuff to overload our waste disposal processes.
But to present a restrictive proposal such as this one in Bill 143 that will eliminate protection for the very issues that many of us have fought for for years, protection of the environment, respect for our natural resources, the realization that intelligent planning must include an awareness of and support for the natural elements, many of which are irreplaceable, is beyond belief.
To continue to put underground, particularly in populated areas, vast quantities of waste material, the effect of which cannot be easily determined until it is tragically obvious, simply cannot be condoned, and we expect the government of our province to know this and to listen to all alternatives, to consult and to act upon the best advice possible, without narrowing the pool of information from which this advice can be drawn.
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We agree with previous presenters that this appears to be a panic bill, guaranteed to bring out the backlash that is developing and gaining momentum. We agree that:
1. All alternatives in technology should be explored.
2. All possible locations for sites should be looked at, not just narrowed down to certain areas.
3. No single community, such as York region, should be asked to accept Metro garbage if that garbage cannot be handled within the boundaries of Metro. I cannot believe this could be politically motivated, as has been suggested, but on the other hand, there appears to be no other explanation.
4. Environmental assessment laws must not be suspended as a solution to our problems, as appears to be the case.
5. An awareness of the importance of the Oak Ridges moraine to the whole province, and to Metro Toronto in particular, with respect to its impact on the quality of water, must be fostered and acted upon now, not ignored by this minister today in Bill 143 and yet lauded by another minister yesterday as a matter of provincial interest, meaning that minister is aware of its importance.
These points have been made both in the House by members of the opposition and to this committee by municipal officials and ordinary citizens. From our unique standpoint, we wish to bring to your attention our position.
As a citizens' organization, we have aggressively supported the implementation of our township's official plan. In November 1990 a draft update of our 1970 plan contains six goals, three of which are: to preserve the unique and rural character of the township, to protect, conserve and enhance the natural environment of the township and to promote the long-term availability of agricultural lands for agricultural purposes within the township. These goals have been consistently pursued in King under the 1970 plan.
In the past three years, our organization has taken part in four Ontario Municipal Board hearings regarding proposed developments that would impact on our rural areas. We have succeeded each time in our position that rural lands in King should be preserved.
In 1989 the Bolton bypass proposed by Caledon, which was to come up the town line between Caledon and King, was deleted from an official plan amendment by the OMB, and the issue sent for review to the Ontario Environmental Assessment Advisory Committee, which recommended that a bumped-up environmental assessment should take place. This recommendation was accepted by the then Minister of the Environment, and the assessment is now taking place.
In June 1990 OMB Chairman Ball rejected a severance proposal for 69 acres to be divided into three lots, saying, "It is clear from the evidence that King township wishes to continue a policy of slow growth and controlled development to preserve the rural area."
In May 1991 OMB Chairman Santo rejected a proposal to divide 23 acres into four lots, saying the proposal does not conform to the official plan policies, the intent and purpose of which are "to reduce the intensification of non-farm uses, and thereby reduce any potential conflicts with the active agricultural community."
Finally, in January 1992 OMB Chairman Wilkes rejected a severance proposal to divide a 24-acre parcel into two lots, saying, "The official plan contains the general policy that the predominant use of the land in areas designated rural should be for agricultural or conservation purposes, and the principal issues (in this case) are official plan conformity and concerns over the effect that this conveyance might have on future applications of this kind."
I submit that if this bill proceeds and if a certain area of King township should be selected in the rural area with no chance of an environmental assessment nor input from residents, the successful efforts of our members as concerned members of the community to preserve the rural nature of the area will result not in the inappropriate residential development they fought to prohibit, but in a landfill site full of Metro garbage.
I respectfully assure you that such an outcome will be bitterly resented, and if politics are in any way involve in this, I would say it will ensure the continued election of non-NDP members to represent the area in the foreseeable future.
Madam Chair, I would like to ask Mrs Hunt to add to this.
Mrs Hunt: Waste management is a problem that can be solved by research and experiment, public education and cooperation. The ministry needs no further authority to proceed on this basis.
The people of this province are entitled to a logical solution to the waste problem. We do not accept statements or decisions not based on facts. We will not accept a statement from the ministry containing phrases such as "I know," "As I said," "I would like," "I determine," "I hope," "I believe," "I have heard" and "I am increasingly confident." We cannot accept a statement from this ministry that takes a year to answer an urgent letter, or perhaps never answers that letter.
We cannot accept Bill 143 from a ministry that desires to take from Canadians even one of the democratic rights we consider our heritage. That is the final outrage.
Mr McClelland: I do not know where to begin, quite frankly, because I think you sum it up in the final paragraph. It is a bill that in my view says, "I'm sorry, anything that you've fought for and things that you believed in and as a society have fought for collectively do not matter." I would add a couple of phrases to one of the quotes: "I know best," "I know better," "I know better than anybody else," "My ideology is all that matters" and "The ideology of the government is what is important." People do not necessarily matter any more. Promises that were made do not matter any more.
I can simply say to you that there are a lot of people around the province who heard earlier some reference to a list. I am sure the people of King would love to know what parcels of land are being considered as possible waste sites. We were told in this committee earlier that no list exists, and we accept that as fact. We also know that much work has been done on parcels of land. The criteria have not been applied to parcels of land. We have been told in this committee that parcels of land are somewhere in the funnel. Clearly what the government could do, if it is true to its word, I would say, is produce those lists so that people such as yourselves know which parcels of land were under consideration.
It is the height of hypocrisy, it would seem to me, for a government to say that it wants people to be involved, it is concerned about people, and to bring forward a piece of legislation like Bill 143 that says, "What you say does not matter any more, because we know best." It is very much a principle of democracy that is at stake here. It is contrary to every fundamental principle we believe in and this government used to espouse prior to being elected. I do not know how better you could have said it. If you want to add to that, please do.
Mrs Coburn: I think the bill is really scary when you read it as to the potential of what it could turn into. We are delegating powers to people that I really do not think should be there. In that context, it is scary.
Mr McClelland: Not the people. You are saying the powers should not be there?
Mrs Coburn: The power should not be to specific people, like inspectors and others. They are being given powers that I think are too strong and should not be there. I think we do not need that kind of power. The bill seems to speak to that: "This will done, and that" -- as you say, that does not matter -- and "This is what shall happen. Those people can go in and they don't need to answer to us." It is this kind of wording that we are really nervous about in the bill.
The Chair: You have the floor, Ms Haeck.
Mr McClelland: I wanted to clarify that you were not saying people per se, but people in general.
The Chair: Mr McClelland, you no longer have the floor.
Mr McClelland: I know I no longer have the floor. But that is not what you wanted to say?
Mrs Coburn: Yes. Thank you very much.
Ms Haeck: While I did want to ask a question regarding views on incineration, I am going to defer to Mr Wiseman at this time.
Mr Wiseman: You have mentioned the Interim Waste Authority and that you have had some involvement with that. Is it safe for me to assume that you have read the criteria?
Mrs Coburn: Yes.
Mr Wiseman: Then you know that in the very first section, class 1, 2 and 3 specialty-crop farm land will be excluded from the site search area; that you know that hydrogeologically difficult areas will also be excluded; that under the social criteria, lands adjacent to urban areas that have already been established will be excluded; that in one of the sections it talks about the role and the criteria for fairness and what kind of weight it will be given in the criteria selection process; and that what is really allocated for the site selection search within the document is land that has been under official plans, or otherwise indicated to be industrial lands and lands of subdivision that have not yet had site plan approvals or submissions on, which means that the site selection process is very narrow in terms of where the IWA can in fact look for long-term sites. Having said that, I would like your comments on whether you think that is fair, or what other criteria should be added to ensure that absolutely the best site is located.
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Mrs Coburn: The Oak Ridges moraine does not come into it at all, for one thing, which is a matter of concern to us, and, as you say, the first three classifications of agricultural land. But there is also valuable agricultural land which is not necessarily class 3. There are classes 4 and 5, on which agricultural activities are successfully taking place right now in King township. I do not think it really rules that out.
Jean, did you want to add something?
Mrs Hunt: Large dairy farms are operating on classes 4 and 5.
Mr Wiseman: But the criteria would exclude them.
The Chair: Your time is up, Mr Wiseman. Thank you very much. Mrs Marland, you have the floor.
Mrs Marland: I think the main point is that we do not have any security anyway, in spite of the things Mr Wiseman has just said. This is the same minister who believes in a bill of rights while in fact this government is a bill of nobody's rights. This bill actually mandates the government to have all the rights and have the public pay without any input or any say, any representation at all. It is really a government dictatorship with all the powers resting with the government and all the bills being paid by the taxpayers. No matter whether they say they are going to exclude this land or that land, how can we know? They have completely gone 180 degrees from when this minister came in 18 months ago. Then they took 18 months to bring forward this bill, which was absolutely ludicrous.
I would just like to congratulate you for being here. Obviously a 24-year-old grass-roots organization such as yours should be listened to by a government that said it was always for the grass-roots and the people of this province. It is too bad they have such short memories.
The Chair: Thanks very much, Mrs Marland. There was no question and our time has expired. On behalf of the committee I thank for appearing this morning. If there is additional information you think might be helpful to committee members over the course of our deliberations, please feel free to communicate with us in writing.
DUAL REMOVAL SYSTEMS LTD
The Chair: I would like to call next Dual Removal Systems Ltd. Begin your presentation by introducing yourself to committee members. You have 20 minutes for your presentation, and we would appreciate it if you would leave a few minutes at the end for questions from committee members.
Mr Abrams: Thank you for giving me this opportunity to address you today. My name is Izzie Abrams and I represent Dual Removal Systems. Dual Removal is a waste-hauling company located in Toronto. We directly employ 47 men and women and create indirect jobs for over 200 others.
By now, you have heard presentations from one extreme to the other with respect to Bill 143. I am sure there have been presentations that have ranged from being vitriolic to being complimentary in nature. The crisis in this province is not a crisis of waste management but of government leadership. We need a government that will lead, not a government that thinks it needs to control every aspect of our lives. What we also do not need is a government that creates vacuums by its legislation and then announces it is the only possible solution to the problem it has created.
We need legislation that enables and fosters economic development, not legislation that disables such activity. It appears that Bill 143 enables the provincial government to have far-reaching powers to control waste activity at a multitude of jurisdictional levels. As you must realize, this can and has fragmented any advancement to our waste management practices. It also obscures opportunities for innovation to help solve problems. We simply do not know whether to turn left or right at Main Street.
We all recognize the need for change in the manner that organizations and households buy products and create waste. Changes are also required in the way wastes are collected, processed and stored. Some of those changes are behavioural, some are structural and some are regulatory. It will take policymakers, educators and the private sector working together to realize these changes. What we do not need is regulatory fragmentation of the process. What we do need is leadership that recognizes opportunities do exist for partnerships to be built to pursue the required breakthroughs.
The demand for high-quality waste material requires efficiently integrated separation, transportation, transfer and constant refining of systems. The opportunity is certainly here to apply sophisticated manufacturing and process control technology in order to achieve improvements in efficiency, economics and quality.
Clearly you would have to agree that this does not sound like the role of a regulatory agency. Why then do we find ourselves discussing legislation that has this very impact? Perhaps the answer to this question can be found after the answer to the next question. What is the real purpose of this legislation? Why did the minister introduce the bill without a statement in the Legislature and without public consultation? Is the concept of a consultative process reserved only for those who agree with the government?
We need to stand on guard when we sense the development of yet another state-run agency. This one could be called the Ontario Waste Management Utility. Over time such utilities become authoritarian and monopolistic, and their managerial competence is questionable. With this in mind, I would like to offer some specific comments about Bill 143. These will be brief and to the point.
Part I of the act substantially changes the program that the Interim Waste Authority was originally set up for. It changes it into a crown agency and allows this agency to designate inspectors and give them power of entry to private property. These new powers are far-reaching and excessive.
Part II continues along the path of disregard for what already exists and implies that an environmental assessment is no longer necessary. Others have said this before, but it is worth repeating: If there is a problem with the EA process, then let the process undergo a change. Do not circumvent it because it is just not currently convenient for the government. The Minister of the Environment has sufficient powers to deal with an emergency if indeed one exists.
The legislation should not reject the notion of a fully integrated waste management program which might include incineration and shipment of processed waste beyond wasteshed boundaries. Such solutions should stand or fall on their own merit and should not be prejudged. Landfills should be sited and located based on sound environmental principles and not on some notion that they must fall within jurisdictional boundaries.
As experienced waste managers, we can tell you that the composition of waste and the handling of materials will change over time as our society progresses. We will see new innovations in product design that will help reduce waste and technological advances in waste processing equipment that will lead to greater levels of diversion, all leading to a very different waste stream than the one we see today.
Part III deals with the power of the Minister of the Environment and would allow the minister to override the Environmental Protection Act and any other agreement which may have been made in good faith by both private and public entities. This allows the minister to expand existing sites without allowing for any recourse for either citizens or businesses that may be affected. It also sends a clear message out to the world, and in particular to the investment community, that Ontario is no longer the place of freedom and opportunity it has always been thought to be.
Part IV is the most dynamic part of the legislation because it dictates what generators may have to do with their materials. It also shows disrespect for the efforts of those people and companies that, especially over the last four or five years, have invested in and implemented systems which have reduced the amount of waste being generated.
We have spent millions of dollars to recover marketable materials through processing facilities. We are prepared to further augment our reduction and diversion efforts already in place, but like so many others we are unsure of what is coming up. The private sector, as well as regional and municipal governments, is on hold until after this legislation is dealt with. We simply do not know whether to go right or left at Main Street.
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In summary:
1. The bill does not appear to provide the best economic and environmental solutions to our waste management concerns.
2. The bill appears unfair to the private sector, potentially eliminating the role of the private sector waste-recycling company. It also does not indicate a partnership role for the private sector. In particular, it does not support the historical role of government regulating while the private sector implements and operates under those rules.
3. The bill reduces the scope of the landfill site search and of environmental assessment requirements, indicating that the province has already accepted that changes to the Environmental Protection Act are necessary.
4. The bill does not appear to support the belief that successful waste policies and programs must contain a well-balanced combination of options, including the potential of energy from waste and shipping of materials to where they can best be processed in an environmentally sound and economical manner.
5. The bill would give the minister the power to define any material or operation, or the use or sale of products, to be under the jurisdiction of the ministry and would potentially have dynamic implications for the business sector, which has to compete on a national and, yes, global basis. The bill also gives power of entry and allows for tests on private property if the minister wishes, and is indifferent to the rights of the land owner.
6. The minister already has emergency powers under the EPA in the event of a crisis. This bill appears to say they are going to use and exceed these powers. The bill will give no recourse to any resident, region or municipality, nor does it necessarily respect any agreement already in existence should the minister decide to take action. At the same time, the bill contains the direction to pass responsibility to unelected officials.
7. The bill appears to show desire to control industry and its materials in general.
8. The bill would prevent business from shipping materials to a location out of the province or an area, while allowing the province to direct material out of an area, if it chose, or to direct material into an area.
9. The bill sets a tone which is anti-business and further creates a poor atmosphere for maintaining business in Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you very much for an excellent presentation, Mr Abrams. Question, Mrs Marland? We actually have about 10 minutes in total remaining for the entire committee, so you have about three minutes.
Mrs Marland: I was about to get excited; I thought I had 10 minutes.
The Chair: No, your caucus has three minutes of that time, and then I will allow Mr Abrams a few minutes at the end to sum up.
Mrs Marland: Mr Abrams, thank you for your concise and very deliberate presentation. You are absolutely right that the concept of consultative process is reserved only for those who agree with the government. We happen to know that on the labour law reforms act because they write to people who are in business and tell them they will put them on a list of people they may consult with. That is in a case with somebody in Mississauga who employs 3,000 people. Whether it is this bill or other bills, you are absolutely right, that is the attitude of this government. It certainly is being a dictatorship, as I said a few minutes ago.
Is it not interesting that they will dictate what generators will do with their materials even though they are not doing anything in research and development to expand and develop new markets for those materials? As a gentleman said yesterday, they are going to make us count our Kleenexes but there is not anywhere they necessarily have created a market for those recycled materials to be used.
You say: "The bill appears unfair to the private sector, potentially eliminating the role of the private sector waste-recycling company. It also does not indicate a partnership role for the private sector." Of course it does not, because this government is out to destroy the private sector in everything, whether it is child care, care of the seniors or waste management.
Obviously knowing and understanding as well as you do where the ideology of this government is -- goodness knows how it is going to protect the jobs of all its friends in the unions, because there will not be any jobs the way it is treating business -- do you have any comparison, being as familiar with your industry as you are, with other provinces in Canada that work with your peers in your industry?
Mr Abrams: The answer is yes and no. I have wide experience throughout North America with waste handling. It is clear to me at least, and maybe I am a minority of one, that government has a responsibility to pass policy and introduce legislation but that the private sector has the task of carrying out that legislation. When that legislation becomes prohibitive to the point where you can no longer conduct your business, then the government might as well own your business.
Mrs Marland: Exactly.
Mrs Mathyssen: We have heard from a significant number of environmentalists and incineration experts that incineration is not safe, it is not environmentally sound because it produces toxins dangerous to human health and dangerous to the environment and that there is no technical panacea, as people who do not want to accept that testimony keep insisting. In light of your statement about the need to consider incineration and energy from waste, I am wondering where you would site an incinerator. Where would you place it in light of the fact that it is dangerous to the environment and dangerous to the people who live around it?
Mr Abrams: I am not saying that it is dangerous --
Mrs Mathyssen: I am.
Mr Abrams: -- and I am not indicating where I would -- I will answer your question if you will give me a chance. I listened to you. I am not saying that incineration is dangerous; I am not saying that it is 100% risk-free, but walking across the street is not either. I would suggest that the information you are getting may be one-sided and I am sure we can bring to this table expert witnesses who would have the opposite view on energy from waste. I am not suggesting for a moment that we run out tomorrow and site an EFW plant next door to Queen's Park. What I am saying is it needs to be considered as part of the options to the solution. Burning coal for power is as unsafe as nuclear power and perhaps even more unsafe than burning energy from waste. I would rather see an EFW plant cogenerate electricity than a nuclear plant generating electricity, and if you would like to tell me the opposite, then I guess the people will decide which is safer.
The Chair: Mrs Mathyssen, your time is up. Mr McClelland, you have the floor.
Mr McClelland: Sir, I think you have just seen an example of the consultative process. You come forward and present a brief that talks about Bill 143 in its broadest terms. You get a consultative process that says: "Hey, there's something that we want to talk about in incineration. We want to focus the issue, because we don't want to listen to what you're saying. We don't want to hear the deficiencies that you're putting forward and the concerns." You are saying that we have to stand on guard, to use your terms, with state-run agencies. "The great experiment of 75 years has collapsed in the Soviet Union, but we want to try because we believe that governments can do a better job."
They do not want to hear you say that, so they want to talk to you and challenge you on incineration and divert the focus of what you are saying. That is the consultative process that we have engaged in throughout these hearings. That is the frustration that many people in business have come and said, and that is why they say Ontario is no longer a place of freedom and opportunity. They do not seem to understand that a consultative process is not laughing when you are presenting a position that is contrary to the government's and sneering when you challenge them.
I do not know what more I can say, sir, other than I hope that somehow it will get through to somebody in the senior levels of government, because we have here a response, I think, that you just saw ample evidence of. "We don't want to talk about the whole package. We'll pick the little point that we think we might be able to score a point or two on," realizing that the whole body is sick. "We're going to look at the one little finger that maybe we can make a case on." That is the consultative process. You have seen it in evidence. You have seen it right now. That speaks volumes to the people of Ontario who may be watching about the kind of government we have that says: "We'll do it our way. The experiment has failed all around the world, but trust us, we'll run it." As you say, "We may as well run the business, because we know best."
The Chair: Thank you, Mr McClelland. I did not hear a question. There is time, Mr Martin, for a quick question.
Mr Martin: I need to put on the record that I am taken aback by the information you present. I want you to know that contrary to Mr McClelland and Mrs Marland, this government is showing leadership in this field. The public demands action on waste reduction and part IV delivers this. Part II provides an environmental assessment process. It simply rules out so-called options like incineration, which has been discredited here before this committee. This bill does not exclude the private sector. The government believes in cooperation. Initiatives Paper No 1 would provide new opportunities for private sector waste companies. Are you aware of the paper and did you comment on it?
Mr Abrams: I did not comment on it in this brief, and I am aware of the paper, yes.
The Chair: There are a few minutes remaining, about two or three, if you would like to sum up or if there is anything further you would like to share with the committee, Mr Abrams.
Mr Abrams: Thank you, Madam Chair. I pretty well said what I had to say in my paper. I would just like to say again: Just because we disagree on issues does not mean we are not focused on the solution to the problem. No one single source, not this government, has all the answers, and when you rule out part of the solution, you are going to rule out getting the problem resolved. So when you do not listen to the private sector and you think you can do it better than the private sector, what you are going to have is a problem of epic proportions that will only result in what you see resulting in the eastern bloc countries today.
The Chair: Thank you very much for appearing before the committee. As I have told others, if there is additional information over the course of our deliberations that you think would be helpful, you can communicate with us in writing. All members have received a copy of your brief, and we do appreciate your appearance.
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JOSHUA CREEK RATEPAYERS INC
The Chair: I would like to call next Joshua Creek Ratepayers Inc. Please come forward. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. I would ask that you begin your presentation by introducing yourselves to members of the committee and that you begin your presentation now, please.
Dr Mailhot: Madam Chair, members of the committee, thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to make this presentation. My name is Roger Mailhot. I am a member of the Joshua Creek Ratepayers. I am chairman of their environmental committee. My occupation is director of scientific affairs in a pharmaceutical company responsible for the development of new medications.
I am accompanied this morning by Mr George Brown. Mr Brown is vice-president of Joshua Creek Ratepayers, and he is financial officer in a publishing company here.
This is the plan we plan to follow here for our presentation. I would like to give you first a little bit of background on our ratepayers' group. Mr Brown would like to share with you some experiences we had with incineration issues in the Halton and Oakville area. I would like to share with you our experience with comprehensive recycling. I think we have some very interesting information to provide you on this. Finally, there are three conditions we would like to enunciate here that the committee should consider, or any organization should consider, before incineration can be considered as a method of waste disposal.
Let me start with the background on our organization. The Joshua Creek Ratepayers operate in east Oakville. We extend from Winston Churchill Boulevard to Maple Grove Street. This organization represents 1,800 households with more than 600 paid memberships. It is important to note that our organization has demonstrated over the years a dedication to seriously studying socioeconomic matters in Oakville and Halton region.
Since 1971 our approach to various issues has been a constructive one. We have worked with the staff at various levels of government and with politicians. We have helped to provide the politicians with workable alternatives supported by both the staff and the residents. Our ratepayers' group includes members with expertise in many fields who have devoted considerable time and resources to evaluating projects which have environmental impact. Let me give you some examples.
Our organization participated actively in 1984 in the evaluation of a proposal by Halton region to establish an EFW plant at Ford, Oakville, and Mr Brown will relate this experience to you on the second point. Mr Brown was vice-chairman of the solid waste advisory committee of the regional municipality of Halton, which produced its report in March 1986. Our organization has been very active in evaluating the proposal by St Lawrence Cement to burn garbage in its cement kilns located on Lakeshore Road. We are currently opposing this proposal because it does not meet the conditions that I will discussion in point 4. Finally, as I will explain in point 3 of this presentation, we worked with Halton regional government to bring some solutions to the garbage problem. I believe that our interest and commitment in this field is clear and genuine.
I would now ask George to explain to you our experience with incineration issues in Oakville and Halton region in the last 10 years.
Mr Brown: First of all, the first incinerator in our area was the one built by Tricil over near St Lawrence Cement, which was to burn hazardous waste and was shut down, I think, almost 10 years ago because it was a hazardous incinerator. There were no controls on anything. I do not know if you remember, but it has been shut down for quite a while.
After that was the Swaru, solid waste reduction unit, incinerator which is still working in Hamilton, which I have toured, and then, as Roger mentioned, was the proposal by the Halton region to build an energy-from-waste plant. The reason was to get environmental assessment approval of the landfill site, which I am sure probably many of you know. We finally will be opening it up this fall after, I think from when it was originally proposed, almost 15 years. It was a long and laborious process which included a very serious look at incineration on a 600 tonne-per-day plant at the Ford Motor Co. After that, Ford Motor Co has built its own Petrosun energy-from-waste proposal to handle its corrugated paper and skids. Then, as Roger mentioned, St Lawrence Cement has been talking to us for about eight years about its proposal.
Going back to the first, the regional incinerator which is what really woke us up, I would not be sitting here today if it had not been the enlightened views of the residents who came to us, an organization, and said, "You have to look at this." Incineration is an engineer's dream. You have a great big thing. You take a problem, you dump it in and it all goes out in smoke.
I remember a medical doctor who came to us. I did not know what a furan or dioxin was before, and we started looking at it and back then the Ministry of the Environment's approach was, if you build the stack high enough the dispersion is broad enough and therefore the pollution meets the standards. There was no concept of what the overall effect is. If you take that same kind of philosophy with a car engine, then you can have a car engine pollute as much as you want because the individual effect from a car is relatively insignificant, but taking them all together it makes quite a bit.
We got quite heavily involved in that and also with Ford Motor Co. Ford Motor Co pulled out because it saw it was going to jeopardize its own proposal. Their own proposal, which is the current active incinerator in our area, is an interesting one because it was made possible by a grant from the federal government called the forest industry renewable energy program, which was looking at alternative uses of energy.
It took skids that were being recycled with a skid manufacturer and the corrugated that went to Domtar at the time and burned them. It was $1 million from the federal government that made it possible. This was a pilot project for Ford Motor Co and it was going to do this at its other plants throughout North America. It is still the only one.
When the Ford Motor Co was making the presentation to the region Domtar came and said: "Look what you're doing. You're taking our major source of corrugated" -- back then in 1985 -- "we are recycling" -- which they were currently recycling -- "and now we're going to have to import corrugated from the United States to go through our plant in Brampton." Since then we have managed to solve that supply problem otherwise, which I think is a credit.
Here we were taking material that was currently being recycled and burning it, and the idea was to get energy to the Ford Motor Co. They went ahead and they got it up and going. Also, what was attractive to the Ford Motor Co point of view was that 12 people used to sort it and it replaced them with three operators in their energy-from-waste plant on Royal Windsor Drive, and it created steam, which heated the plant in the winter.
In the summertime they just burn it, because they do not need the steam. John Mackay, who is the director of waste management of Halton region, went and said: "Instead of burning this, why don't you give it back to us so we can recycle it? We've got a recycle program going." And they said, "No, it would be too labour-intensive because we have laid off those 12 people, and we no longer have the people to sort it out because now it all goes in one great, big bin and gets burned out."
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What we have is an energy-from-waste plant that in the summertime becomes an energy-to-waste plant because we are burning all that recyclable material and sending it up in things. In my mind, that is certainly what was discovered when we were looking at a reasonable proposal, that incineration of garbage is a detriment to recycling.
When the Victoria Hospital incinerator went in, which was one of the first incinerators here in Ontario, from an energy-from-waste point of view, the director there pointed out that he did not want to propose a recycling program because it would take away his fuel source, so we have got conflicting priorities here.
At one time, when Charlie Coles first came to us and said they were thinking of burning garbage -- that was before I understood the impact on recycling -- I said: "Maybe that's a good place to burn garbage. It's nice and hot, it goes way up and gets spread." But through my involvement over the years I first found out about dioxins and furans. Charlie maintains that their plant would do it, but then I discovered that particularly in Europe they have had problems with the heavy metals, the chromiums, the leads and the mercuries, and that these do not go away.
St Lawrence Cement, using its numbers, will put four tonnes of lead into the atmosphere a year. This is not pollution that is going away; this is pollution that is directly entering the air we are breathing and the water we are drinking. We do not see it but it is there.
We have been involved with St Lawrence Cement since before it started considering its refuse-derived fuel proposal, because quite periodically we find our cars and our houses covered with a white layer of dust, which is called a particular problem. The Ministry of the Environment has worked very closely with St Lawrence Cement and for eight years St Lawrence Cement has promised to clean up the problem. It finally got so bad that a year ago the Ministry of the Environment issued a work order telling them to put in a baghouse. I understand that when Charlie Coles was here he was asked about it. He said, "No, the work order is not there." Their reason is because they have now taken it to court, which effectively delays it even further.
Here we have a company that for 10 years has ignored what even back then was pollution, under weaker standards than we have now today. Their intentions have been good. They have had lots of engineers come in, but they have been afraid to put the big bucks into it and now they are saying: "That's some separate problem. We want to burn your garbage." As nice as they are and as cooperative -- they have taken us through their plants and so forth -- the fact of the matter is that they are still polluting the area. I find it very difficult to see that we can consider burning garbage there, although there are technical reasons. I guess that covers our experience. Out of all this we decided to do something about it, and Roger will describe that now.
Dr Mailhot: We wanted to be positive in our action and not just to be a group protesting and protesting and we said we would do something about it. In Oakville they instituted the blue box program in 1988. At that time the region had estimated that it would derive something like 12% to 15% of the total domestic garbage. But in our area in Oakville and the ratepayers' area people are pretty compulsive, it seems, therefore the compliance was very high. Believe me or not, after one year we were diverting 25% of the total domestic garbage. It was far beyond the expectation. This number corresponds to what at that time the region had planned to achieve by the end of the century.
We were very encouraged by the results and therefore we started meetings with the Halton regional staff, regional politicians, our past MPP Mr Doug Carrothers, the deputy minister of the Ministry of the Environment, Mr Gary Posen, his director of waste management, Hardy Wong. The representative of the ministry was very helpful, I must mention. Our objective was to convince these people to run a pilot project in Halton region to show that 50% diversion is achievable and to identify means for the implementation of such a project.
After two years of efforts and the collaboration of all the people I have mentioned above the project started last July, thanks to the financial support of the regional and the provincial government. The project consisted of asking 600 residents of the Joshua Creek area of Oakville to separate their garbage in a three-way stream. All their yard and kitchen waste is assembled in clear plastic bags and is composted at the central composting centre. All the remaining garbage is put in a super wheeled blue box. That is what we call the super blue box. We brought you an example of the super blue box. It is a very convenient box on wheels. In this the region was very specific. Essentially you have everything that you have in a regular blue box plus additional plastic. There was a very specific list of what we had to put in it. The third one was all that was not going into composting and was not going in this blue box.
Let me give you the results of that. I checked again yesterday. The results after three months were absolutely fantastic. Yesterday I checked the results with the director of waste management from Halton and here is what he told me. At the present time, from July to December, with this system we have diverted 55% of the total domestic garbage from the general waste stream. This does not take into account backyard composting which is taking place in our area. I would suggest that we are diverting altogether probably 60%.
Let me read something from the director of waste management on this as a matter of fact. He sent this letter to the participants. John Mackay said:
"After only a few short months, super blue and the yard-kitchen waste recycling program are diverting over 50% of the total. This is an impressive number. As many of you know, the provincial government's target is 50% by the year 2000, and you are already there. Your dry materials are finding their way to market, and the yard waste compost early test results show a good-quality compost measured by our environmental standards. Joshua Creek residents, you guys are terrific."
I think that is a great achievement, and I think in 1991-92 we were where we should normally be in the year 2000. In my mind this project is in the process of demonstrating that the objective of the provincial government to recycle 50% of the garbage without incineration is achievable.
Let me now pass to the fourth portion here. I would like to suggest to you, based on our experience, the conditions I think should be met before incineration can be considered. First, I think it should not be permitted before the implementation of a comprehensive, mandatory domestic-industrial recycling program with a minimum of 60% recovery. We know now from our experience that it is achievable. As George said, if you institute incineration before recycling it works against recycling. The Ford company is a typical example.
The next point is that empirical data must demonstrate that burning is safer than any other alternative method of disposal of the remaining garbage. I am talking about empirical data, not theoretical data, as has been suggested by St Lawrence Cement. It is all calculated and it is not empirical data. They never ran an experiment to show us empirical data, so it should not be done. There are good methodologies at the present time to establish the relative safety of some of these measures.
Finally, I think we should define restricted incineration. If we are going to move in incineration, we should define what we are going to burn based on that information obtained in the empirical data and it should be granted only to companies with a clean environmental record. On this basis St Lawrence Cement is not qualifying, because in the last 10 years it has a real bad record, at least in environmental pollution.
In summary, we tried to share with you some of our experiences with incineration issues in the last 10 years in Halton and Oakville. I was certainly very pleased to share with you the fantastic results we have obtained with our comprehensive recycling program, which incidentally will continue until next July, for one year. We hope that at least the three principles or conditions we have enunciated here can be of some help to the members of this committee to make their decision.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation before the committee today. We appreciate your coming, and if there is additional information you would like to share with us, you can continue to communicate with us in writing.
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PUBLIC COMMITTEE FOR SAFE SEWAGE TREATMENT IN METROPOLITAN TORONTO
The Chair: I would like to call next Karey Shinn. Please come forward. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We ask if you would leave a few minutes at the end for questions from committee members. Please have a seat at the microphone and would you begin your presentation now.
Ms Shinn: My name is Karey Shinn and I am a co-chair of a citizens' group known as the Public Committee for Safe Sewage Treatment in Metropolitan Toronto. I am also a member of the public consulting committee, as a member of the public, as it were, that was formed to participate in the full individual environmental assessment of the Ashbridges Bay sewage treatment plant, notably the largest sewage treatment plant in Canada. This engineered mechanism chlorinates up to 180 million imperial gallons of water a day and possesses a certificate of approval that dates back to 1949 to incinerate up to 106,873 tonnes per year, or 102 tonnes per day or 12 tonnes an hour, every hour of every day of every year. This will not stop. We do not get a limit, as a landfill does.
Environment Canada has measured 34 inorganic pollutants detected in combined bottom ash and fly ash, including many toxins such as lead and chromium. There are 13 measured chlorinated organics or cancer-causing compounds found in the stack emissions at the plant. Previous to the 20,000 tonnes of sludge now being piped to the Ashbridges Bay plant from the Humber plant to be incinerated, a study by Mr Pickett in 1986 recorded between 40,000 and 53,000 kilograms of particulates in stack emissions, including arsenic, lead, mercury, chromium and cadmium. These are being regularly dumped on the community.
We support the part of the act that effectively eliminates the incineration of waste materials in section 14. We support the ban on incineration of solid waste. We understand the debate about incineration is over and that it is a responsible decision that has been made by the Ministry of the Environment, especially now. We felt that when the Commissioner Street incinerator was shut down, it was only after that time that serious blue box and recycling alternatives were really evaluated.
Certain things are not open to negotiation, especially the fundamentals of physics that demonstrate the principles of matter and the conservation of mass. It is does not go away when you burn it. It is with this understanding that our committee requests that the Ministry of the Environment really ban the incineration of solid waste and include the incineration of sewage sludge. This is such a high percentage of biological matter which in most other jurisdictions is composted, and it is being burned, as I speak, at five tonnes an hour from the Metro Ashbridges Bay plant.
I also point out that until the solids in the sewage process are included in this act, no landfill will really be free from hazardous waste. This is because for some strange reason that we do not understand, sewage sledge is exempt from regulation 309, as it applies to the land, and not 308, as it applies to the air. However, curiously enough, the better the emissions control on the stack, the more we have the toxins in the ash, and the ash is not subject to the regulation.
I understand today that this ash would meet the regulations. However, because things are not tested, or it is not an obligation that they are tested, I do not think that is good enough. Why? Without these regulations affecting this solid waste, we are left in the unfortunate position where all the solids that are screened out of the system before they are treated are put in landfill, and there are thousands of tonnes of them. They are taken away to Brock West or Keele Valley or wherever.
Let us consider what we are doing.
First, I will say that sewage sludge, once dewatered, is solid waste. It is also potentially hazardous waste. Responsibility must be taken for this solid waste.
The Metro Toronto solid waste environmental assessment plan, SWEAP, document 7.2 demonstrates the problem when sewage sludge management is not included. Here is a document that purports to be a comprehensive waste strategy but which is not. For instance, it ignores the continued use of in-sink garborators, whereby compostable food wastes are instead being juiced up, washed down the drain and added to the overnutrification of Lake Ontario or taken out in screenings and sent to landfill.
Metro states that it has no obligation for the disposal of liquid industrial waste and industrial hazardous waste, yet residential hazardous waste is managed by Metro through the operation of 10 household hazardous waste depots and an on-call collection service called toxic taxi. The household hazardous wastes are collected from Metro depots by private waste management firms and managed at approved hazardous waste facilities.
They have no obligation, which presumably made it okay for the Metro works department to collect over $6 million in 1990 alone through its model sewer use bylaw 143-83 that allows the ICI sector, the industrial, commercial and institutional sector, waste generators to knowingly dump a long list of toxins, starting with A for aluminum to Z for zinc, into the public sewer. Here in Metro we are fortunate in that most of the excess sewer strength that is being paid for by this bylaw is actually food processing waste, which is basically biological in nature. Again this is highly compostable.
Do not misunderstand our position. Polluters should be made to pay, but the province has not addressed the treatment of these wastes. Many toxins are on that list. Photofinishing companies, fine arts colleges, everybody is dumping chemicals down the sink, at home as well.
Some empty containers require specialized transport and disposal, but the SWEAP study has failed to identify sewers and sewage treatment plants as hazardous waste disposal sites for the contents of many of these identified hazardous waste containers, which are after all the products that required the labels. These substances and resulting wastes, usually chemical, are routinely put down the drains. Included are paints, cleaners, medications etc.
Surely this is having a serious impact on treatment, neither designed for nor obliged to handle toxic public and ICI sector wastes as suspended solids, especially considering the huge volumes of purely biological waste that these toxins contaminate, and the residential communities which have become the unwitting hosts to this burgeoning business of incinerating tens of thousands of tonnes of this chemically laden sludge, to say nothing of the carcinogens being created when tonnes of liquid chlorine are added to this mess in the name of disinfection. I question the chlorinated toilet paper here which is added to it and burned.
There has never been a public inquiry into the incineration of our chemically laced sludges in Metro -- and it does not look like it is going to be included in SWEAP -- nor a credible evaluation of the health risk to the community. Both these points were noted in the city of Toronto Department of Public Health document called the Environmental Health Effects of Waste Incineration in the City of Toronto, 1987, by A. S. Macpherson, MD, MSC, medical officer of health.
What we are looking at is a certificate of approval on the Ashbridges Bay stack from 1949 that will allow the Ashbridges Bay treatment plant to double the amount of sewage sludge being burned today as of right, and this is wrong. They did have a renewal, but it was over 10 years ago and it was never looked at. Here I find it appropriate to repeat something said by John Jackson from Great Lakes United in your first week of hearings when he cited the Uniroyal Tire plant certificate. There exists today no legal mechanism to re-evaluate these old certificates. The public is locked out of this process and never was introduced in the first place. The certificate of approval for the Ashbridges Bay plant was originally given at a time in history when no one could have foreseen what a degraded state the environment would be in today, in 1992, and this certificate was so excessive as to still be up to only half its capacity.
It is my understanding that the health risk assessments frequently used consist of tests on animals and findings from mortality statistics. This means no one in this room would have been assessed for health impacts, as we are not given the status of test animals, nor are we dead yet. These old certificates are meaningless pieces of paper that are affecting the quality of public health. There must be a new evaluation method developed for these certificates and a direct route into any certificate that is not being renewed or has not been reviewed for a period of five or 10 years. I use five years as an example, as I understand there is a method of evaluating emissions by studying various plants and soils in the fallout area over this period.
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Our committee will suggest that the Ministry of Health be given a veto power over the renewal of these old certificates of approval, and through the public interest be given the authority to enter into any existing certificate of approval for the purpose of reducing health risk to any host community.
This process may have the desirable effect of re-evaluating regulatory requirements under both regulation 308 and regulation 309. It also fits into a proactive health care practice that would eventually save the public from health costs. I have spoken to several doctors in our area and they are just bewildered because they are working very hard with many cases of asthma and other sorts of pollution-related disease. They find themselves telling their patients they should leave the neighbourhood. They would really like the government to do something to help them. They have been feeling that this should be done at some level so they can carry on with healthy people.
At present, Metropolitan Toronto is pocketing tipping fees and the provincial Ministry of Health pays for impacts on the public. The Ministry of Health cannot prevent crushing health costs without any way to make polluters accountable.
Here I will also note that the health of the community is not necessarily part of an environmental assessment. We have been told in no uncertain terms that Metro has no obligation to carry out any kind of community health assessment. The only health assessed is that of workers on the plant site. Given that the stack at the sewage plant is 600 feet tall, it is likely that the community is on the receiving end of the emissions as much as, if not more than, the plant workers. Perhaps a shorter stack would make Metro realize the problem.
The Environmental Protection Agency is carrying out what it refers to as a "health risk assessment," at our begging for years, because of the health concerns we have in the Riverdale wards. This health risk assessment is based on mathematical models and not on real people who live in the community. For instance, if 50 people on one street are dead and 50 people on another street are alive, they will make an assumption on mathematical terms that 50% of the people are okay. That does not tell us why these other people are very ill or dead. It has been widely criticized as an inadequate baseline assessment. What we are looking for are limits on emissions that are allowed in any given industrial area, with all weather conditions and other nearby pollutants included. I certainly question the wisdom of placing these numerous stacks in the Riverdale area, near the lake, where the breeze is always off the lake on to the city.
One example of the double loading into the air over the residential communities north of the industrial port lands is the nitrogen oxides given off from multiple stacks in the area when they combine with the tonnes of hydrocarbons off the Gardiner Expressway. This is really fun because we are told we have even more ultraviolet radiation this year. We have exactly all the right elements coming together with exactly the right weather conditions to make a lot of urban smog, so we can expect a lot more respiratory problems. These emissions are baked in ultraviolet radiation and form ozone. This is obviously a health problem.
Section 18 of Bill 143 has begun to address certificates of approval, and we appreciate an initiative that could be used for the public interest without the burden of an Environmental Assessment Board hearing. We do not understand how any environmental assessment can be carried out as if the site existed on a different continent far away from, in our case, 18 or so other stacks in the same area.
I also have a problem with the chlorine tanker car at the Ashbridges Bay site because the Hearn generator, which they tell us will not start up tomorrow but will probably start up at some time, is within evacuation distance of the tank.
We understand that the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement, MISA, is going to address source controls of toxics entering the sewer system. This will work if it is not diluted by industrial, commercial and institutional sector sewer users and does not come too late to be considered with sludge management alternatives. As long as it is toxic, everybody wants to flush and forget, burn it and pretend it is going to go away somewhere.
The Canadian Standards Association, CSA, should include chemical waste in liquid suspension in its national standards for auditing wastes on premises if it is an onsite-produced waste.
Both the Ashbridges Bay sewage treatment plant and the Highland Creek plant incinerate solid waste and have never been evaluated as waste disposal sites. Some 30,000 people enjoy the Beaches park right next to the Ashbridges Bay site and it is very close to the residential community. Sewage plants would certainly be described by the meaning for waste disposal site in section 24 of Bill 143.
In reference to section 74 of the Environmental Protection Act regarding litter, packaging, containers, disposable products and products that pose waste management problems, in clauses 74(b) through (f), as set out in section 28 of Bill 143, we would request the word "flushable" also be used to describe products. This will prevent landfilling through the sewer.
A major problem for us is the proliferation of government. I now wish to say a few words in regard to the creation of this Interim Waste Authority. Here we have a problem. Which is interim, the authority or the waste? Whatever the meaning, please do not give the beleaguered public any more bureaucracy. A growing number of us feel we must begin to shed these bureaucracies beginning with Metro, and I will give you some reasons why.
One level of government must take responsibility for certain decisions in specific areas. Let me use the example of waste management. The province must have the authority in this area. Why? Because it is at the provincial level that ministries exist to research and set regulations and standards. There must be some type of public forum which involves all the parties in the Ministry of the Environment so that we can deal with this once. It is then simply the job of the municipalities to do the works under the set criteria, legislation and regulations. In this context, it is more acceptable to design Bill 143 as a Waste Management Act for the province in some way -- I am not saying Bill 143 is great, but we want a Waste Management Act that applies provincially -- and not create differences throughout the province. If you have good waste criteria and legislation, you can privatize, you can have municipalities take responsibility, because there are clear sets of defined regulations and values and a way for the public to get to them once.
There is no benefit to the public in the present system that allows teams of consultants to be hired by many levels of government for the expensive exercise of debating or negotiating one level of government against another level of government. The common factor in all levels of government is the public. Surely the only negotiations of value must take place between the public and the decision-makers. Individuals have the right to argue and present the public interest, not bureaucracies fighting among themselves.
Regions and Metro simply become the equivalent of new ministries, competing with provincial authority -- I would include the GTA there -- and it is the province that can create or disband these ministries. The real power to govern comes from the provincial government. The municipalities are allowed to exist by virtue of this higher authority. You have the authority to stop them too.
There is no need for Metro council. They are mistakenly being funded as representing the public just because they are directly elected. I find it very interesting because I think they have quite outlived their usefulness for us. We find it very difficult to understand how when we elect these people -- and what was proven in the municipal elections was that they are very unknown people. People did not know who their Metro councillors were. It is so confused that on a city level, we elect a mayor who is running on crime principles. They think the police are run by the Toronto city government. It does not make any sense to the public and it is pretty obvious to us that it is becoming very confused and expensive.
We are the individuals who live in the communities that will be directly affected by these decisions and are prepared to do what most elected politicians cannot do once they are in office, that is, work within the communities to effect real change, like the two men who were here just before us. They have a pilot project up with 600 houses. That is the kind of public interest we need more of, to prove we can do these things.
We are the people who need the consultants, not the Metro works department. We are the people who live under the stacks and near the landfills. If there is one phenomenal aspect these hearings have demonstrated, it is that the public who have presented to you here are better informed than many elected councillors in Metro or at the city level. We find we elect one councillor and then we have teams of them making votes that affect our community. We cannot reach these people. For that, I think the city government works at a much better level for us, although I still have a problem with some of that. Metro is just getting a little bit difficult for us.
We are obviously committed to achieving a conserver society. Please fund the interested people. Give us one level of government with clear areas of decision-making so we are not worn out and dragged through as many as 17 different bureaucracies and agencies, all demanding public participation on their timetables at our expense, and only to end up in a council vote. It just does not work. I am sorry; it does not work.
It has always been a curiosity to me that politicians are often left to evaluate projects, local politicians who have no education standards set for their office, no education in specialized fields such as environmental engineering, and who are susceptible to lobbyists and private interests. It would make far more sense to fund the people early in the environmental assessment and then have the councillors respond to the wishes of the people. We could deal directly with a changed Ministry of the Environment. It is our tax dollars that are at stake at all these levels of government, and we are being systematically starved out of what should be our forum in the process.
I have at least one comment to make with regard to risk. We must resolve the problem of megaprojects, which always present a huge risk in what will always be in someone's local community. The reasoning that argues the greatest good for the greatest number of people can backfire. Over time there will be high risks in all our communities. Why can we not begin to plan and avoid creating these high risks?
We have an interesting case of the Darling rendering plant, of which the Toronto harbour commissioner said, "It's gone." It is now taken over by the city of Toronto. They say, "It's back." They have a 10-day reprieve and they are going to chlorinate the odours for us. They are going to make them go away by chlorinating them. They have taken a bad smell and are now making it toxic. It is not good enough. They have to go. For some reason, there is this strange process that happens when one government takes over another government's authority, and it is just not working for the public. We have been through this exercise once.
I do not really like the Nintendo attitude I find among the people who want to burn everything either. You can always score high points in these games, but you will never win. You are going to be dead. So I am very much pleased to see there is a ban on incineration. I would like to see it applied to all the solid waste, including the sewage sludge, and I am sure it will save us at least $4 million in hydroelectricity alone.
I am sorry I have gone for so long.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. All members have received a copy of your written brief, and we appreciate your coming before the committee today.
The standing committee on social development stands adjourned until 2 o'clock this afternoon.
The committee recessed at 1204.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1404.
MUSKOKA DELEGATION
The Chair: The standing committee on social development is now in session. I would like to call our first presentation, the Muskoka delegation. Please come forward, take seats at the microphone and you have 20 minutes for your presentation. We would appreciate it if you would leave some time for questions.
Mr Clark: My name is Bill Clark and I am past president of the Muskoka Lakes Association. I am here in support of the speaker, Mr Bill Rogers, the mayor of the township of Muskoka Lakes.
Mr Rogers: As mayor of the township of Muskoka Lakes in the district municipality of Muskoka, I appreciate this opportunity to express on behalf of our ratepayers my comments on the proposed Bill 143, the Waste Management Act. As Muskoka is outside the greater Toronto area, I will not be commenting on parts I, II and III but will deal directly with part IV, which will have an impact not only on my municipality but on the whole of the district of Muskoka.
First, ladies and gentlemen, I must ask the question, is this legislation appropriate? Ratepayers who speak to me every day indicate their frustration with more proposed legislation, more hearings and more bureaucracy when it appears that the legislation presently in place is already unwieldy. I am sure it is everyone's wish to find an environmentally sound method of handling waste within reasonable economic limits. The passing of more legislation and regulations does not answer the basic question of what to do with waste so the natural environment is not adversely affected. In my opinion, Bill 143 does not answer this question.
I could go on at some length over the amount of money spent in creating legislation, regulations and processes that do not solve the real environmental problems associated with waste disposal. Over the past number of years, there have been millions of dollars spent on waste management master plans, with no real solution being prescribed for the problems Ontario faces today. I believe the money could have better been spent resolving our real environmental problems on a site-specific basis and in fine-tuning present regulations for waste disposal. This would direct the expenditure of taxpayers' money to the development of environment-friendly facilities, rather than the production of more studies and more master plans.
I was pleased to read that the minister, Mrs Grier, has agreed to amend section 26 of the bill so that the minister will retain the responsibility of requiring a municipality to take actions on waste. Down-delegating authority to appointed staff has always caused me concern. I am, however, still concerned over the wording suggested in subsection 29(1) of the Environmental Assessment Act, changing the word "director" to "minister," "If the minister considers it advisable in the public interest." It concerns me that there need not be a defined public interest to permit an order to be issued, but merely a sense that the minister considers it advisable in the public interest.
This kind of legislation can lead, in my view, to the type of situation that transpired recently in McDougall township in the district of Parry Sound. The landfill site in that township was owned and operated by private enterprise. When a leachate problem was discovered and the owner was not in a position to meet the requirements of the Ministry of the Environment, the minister ordered the municipality to assume operation of the site and to resolve the problem. The McDougall situation affected six municipalities, including our own, none of whom were consulted prior to the issuance of the minister's order.
The impression one is given reading subsection 29(1) is twofold. First, one senses that the big, bad municipality is doing things all wrong, does not care about waste disposal and the minister will save the public from its ineptitude. I would prefer to see the section indicate that consultation between the minister and the municipality will take place in an effort to arrive at a solution to a particular problem. Second, subsection 29(1) seemingly can be liberally used in situations such as the McDougall situation to force municipalities to solve problems that are not rightly their own. If there is indeed a provincial interest in forcing a municipality to step in, surely the costs of the municipality's efforts should be paid for by the province. Thus there should be some guarantee of funding if a municipality is forced to act to solve a third-party problem under this section.
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It is a well-known policy of the Ministry of the Environment to encourage two or more municipalities to find solutions to waste management problems on a cooperative basis. It is also ministry policy that each area or region should take responsibility for managing its waste within its own geographic boundaries.
On a collective basis, the area municipalities within the district municipality of Muskoka have sufficient resources to meet their waste disposal requirements for at least 10 years. Those municipalities in which the disposal facilities are located have shown their willingness to share these resources with the rest of Muskoka. However, they are prevented from doing so because their service areas are confined to the limits of the area municipalities concerned. In order to change these limits, approval is required under the Environmental Assessment Act, the Environmental Protection Act, and for all I know, a plethora of other acts. Quite frankly, if it were not so serious a matter, a casual observer might consider these barriers to the implementation of ministerial policies to be somewhat amusing.
If you get the impression that I am rambling without making concrete suggestions as to how to improve the proposed legislation, it is because my council and I have spent many years and so much money trying to arrive at a solution to the whole waste disposal problem and we are completely frustrated. Are we really gaining here or are we just spinning our wheels? If we must have more legislation, then let it be designed to help us cut through the existing red tape and not to create more.
In closing, I would like to make a couple of suggestions or points here. First, the provincial government should use its legislative authority to facilitate solutions to waste management problems throughout Ontario and not just in the greater Toronto area. In particular, we in Muskoka need authority to expand the service area boundaries of the existing disposal facilities to include the entire district municipality. We need this authority now and we need it so that we can apply our scarce resources to the protection of the environment and not to an endless round of studies and hearings.
Second, the provincial government should move as expeditiously as possible to create firm markets for recyclable products, and where such markets cannot be developed, to establish a system of refundable deposits for containers of consumer products.
Mr Clark: I just might add that I am past president of the Muskoka Lakes Association, which is -- it may be a surprise to some of you -- the largest ratepayers' group in North America, as far as it has been able to find out. It represents well over half the residents of the Muskoka region and a far greater percentage of the residents of the township of Muskoka Lakes.
The only thing about which I think our association would differ from the presentation that has come forth from the township is that we support the district waste management master plan, but we support that the service areas should be amended by the district without the necessity of going through an environmental assessment.
I have a cottage that is in Gravenhurst, but from my dock, with a good five iron, going northwest I hit the island opposite me that is in his township, and if I turn right and get a good one wood I hit my in-law's island, which is in Bracebridge, and their garbage is not any different. I have lots of capacity for garbage in my jurisdiction in Gravenhurst. It is a long-distance call to both of those islands in different phone areas, and we are tired of these quirks of history being maintained, first in regard to telephones -- I am not here to talk about telephones -- but also in regard to garbage. We treat Muskoka as one region and we think our garbage should be treated as one, because we pay our taxes on a common basis. We think the district should have the right to manage the waste disposal in the entire region and to have access to all the sites that are available without the environmental assessment.
Mrs Mathyssen: Thank you for coming and presenting this brief. You have some very interesting ideas and we will be looking at them closely. My question is in regard to your concern about markets for recyclable products. Do you have a recycling program in your municipality, and what problems, if you have this program, have you experienced regarding marketing the materials you have collected?
Mr Rogers: We have an organization of four of the municipalities within the district of Muskoka: Bracebridge, Huntsville, Gravenhurst and ourselves, the township of Muskoka Lakes. It is called the Muskoka Recycling Association. We recycle all plastics, cans, bottles. We have facilities for cardboard and we have a central plant in Bracebridge that is managed and operated by Muskoka Containerized Service on our behalf.
There is a great difficulty and great fluctuation, particularly in the plastics. At the present time we have a great stockpile of plastics for disposal. The problem I see is with these beverage containers, the recyclable ones. The use of recyclable beverage containers has gone up, I believe, 37% in the last three years over returnable and refundable bottles. There has to be some legislation to force more refundables to be used again, rather than subsidizing the pop companies in recycling.
Mrs Marland: I was just going to tell Mayor Rogers that last night I asked the executive director of the Recycling Council of Ontario about having a refundable incentive on recyclable soft drink containers. You are talking about consumer products generally, which would be even more encouraging.
Mr Rogers: Liquor bottles.
Mrs Marland: Yes, anything.
Mr Rogers: Yes.
Mrs Marland: He agreed with me that as long as the amount was realistic it was an incentive and worked. I must admit I did not realize the management of waste was not a district responsibility in Muskoka. If anybody should have known that, I should. It seems that just for the economies of operation, let alone the practical aspect you have brought very well to this committee this afternoon -- but this opens my eyes to understanding that there must be many district municipalities across the province that have the same limitations you have been working under. It just does not make any kind of sense. Why do we have regional school boards and put areas together under regional government? Because there are some economies. Obviously that is what you are asking for, is it not?
Mr Rogers: Yes. As a matter of fact, a letter came forward from our chairman last year along with a motion requesting that the District Municipality of Muskoka Act be changed so that the district could take over the responsibility of solid waste. That is still sitting down here in somebody's basket and we cannot get action on it.
Mrs Marland: Have you had any response at all to that resolution?
Mr Rogers: To my knowledge, no.
Mrs Marland: That is appalling.
Mr Sola: How comfortable are you with the provisions of Bill 143 that give the minister, Ruth Grier, the authority to solve the problem you express in suggestion number one and to solve that by decree whereby, first, she declares an emergency, then she directs your municipality to solve that emergency? She tells you how to solve that emergency and then she shows her generosity by allowing you to pick up the tab.
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Mr Wiseman: Are you aware that Initiatives Paper No 2 will be dealing with the very problem you are describing?
Mr Rogers: I am sorry. Could you give me that again, please?
Mr Wiseman: You are aware of Initiatives Paper No 1, which is on waste reduction. Initiatives Paper No 2 will be on this very issue you are talking about and will be in consultation and formulation stages over the next little while. Are you aware of that? Maybe you have been told.
Mrs Marland: How can he be aware of it if it is not even out?
The Chair: Mrs Marland, you do not have the floor. Mr Wiseman, you have placed your question. Do you care to respond?
Mr Clark: I will answer that on behalf of the association. It is an unfair assumption that we can know what is being formulated behind the scenes.
The Chair: Did you want to sum up?
Mr Rogers: We are down here because we are very concerned about the issues. We just feel so frustrated because we cannot do anything about it. As municipalities, it is like crying in the wind, and it has been for about 10 years. I have been on council for about 10 years and for about eight of those 10, it has been crying in the wind.
The Chair: Do you have a question of the parliamentary assistant, Mrs Marland?
Mrs Marland: The question I have of the parliamentary assistant, through to the minister, is since there has been a resolution from the township of Muskoka Lakes and the district --
Mr Rogers: A motion by the district; the chairman wrote the letter.
Mrs Marland: There has been a resolution from the district municipality of Muskoka to the minister. Could I ask when we can see an answer to that letter and that resolution of that region?
The Chair: Your question is noted.
Thank you very much for appearing today. We appreciate it. I would point out to members of the committee that in response to requests from Mr Cousens regarding responses from the ministry to questions, a sheet was distributed today that pointed out the questions that had been responded to.
Mrs Marland: .On a point of order, Madam Chair: I was going to bring this up since it had been left on our desks today. I just briefly wanted to say that obviously this was a good memorandum to request from Mr Richmond, our research officer. Since there were 42 questions asked and we have only had 16 answers, are we still anticipating getting those answers in good time for consideration before the clause-by-clause consideration of this bill?
Mr O'Connor: Thank you for bringing up again the work our researcher has done in gathering up the numbers for us and breaking it down by percentages. As I said before, we are going to endeavour to get all the answers we can as quickly as possible. We have 11 more that will be distributed today. We will try to keep them coming as quickly as they are made available, and then we will get them to the committee as quickly as possible.
THE CONSERVER SOCIETY OF BURLINGTON
The Chair: I would like to call for our next presentation, the Conserver Society of Burlington. Please come forward and begin your presentation by introducing your delegation. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. If you would leave a few minutes for questions by committee members, we would appreciate that.
Ms Baar: Let me begin by introducing the president of the Conserver Society of Burlington, Gordon Askwith. We are both members of the political action committee which developed the brief prior to approval by our membership on February 3. I will not be reading from the brief. I have tried to summarize that material so that there is more time to address issues.
We are a chapter of the Hamilton and District Conserver Society and many of our members were involved in the environmental assessment of Halton's landfill site which will open in November of this year. Our region has exceeded the 1992 waste diversion targets and our members were influential in getting Burlington to be a sustainable development community.
In relation to Bill 143, we support the ban on incineration, since data indicate it reduces the incentive to reduce waste. We support the proposal to provide statutory authority for the Environmental Appeals Board within the legislation. However, we would like the term of office for members to be specified in the legislation. That of course increases the independence of the tribunal.
We believe Bill 143 places too much emphasis on the blue box rather than expanded recycling, too little emphasis on reduction and reuse, and does not facilitate approval of wet/dry systems which have enabled Guelph and east Oakville to rapidly divert more than 50% of the waste stream from landfill. Furthermore, the bill fails to address refillables and deposit systems. You have probably heard quite a bit about that concern. It does not require a 50% reduction in packaging from 1992 levels by 1995. It devotes too little attention to compliance and enforcement and it fails to ban the export of waste or to promote new assumptions that are absolutely critical if you are going to have substantial waste reduction.
We urge opponents of the ban on incineration to address the evidence from Germany and Holland, countries with state-of-the-art incineration technologies. That evidence suggests those incinerators are producing unacceptably high levels of dioxin. The levels are so high that public health officials have recommended restrictions on breast feeding.
At the back of our brief we have summarized Guelph's experience with a pilot wet/dry system that diverted over 60% of the waste stream from landfill. Yet that city has been unable to get the approvals necessary for composting organics so that the wet/dry system can be adopted throughout the city. They applied for that in August of last year.
Bill 143 would exempt garden waste from assessment under the Environmental Protection Act, but other organics would not be exempted. What we are arguing is that all organics should be exempted and more emphasis should be placed on promoting widespread implementation of this proven methodology for speeding achievement of the province's diversion objectives.
Bill 143 fails to provide for rapid implementation of expanded recycling. The legislation should cover all of the dry waste, for example, that is recovered in Guelph. We have given you, on page 6 of our brief, a list of the materials that are part of the dry waste stream in Guelph.
If reliance is to be placed on recycling or reuse, contingency plans must be in place so that when the markets prove inadequate, a pre-designed strategy can be implemented rapidly. In the absence of such plans, there will be a stop-go approach to waste reduction and targets will not be met consistently. Containers should be refillable and hazardous materials such as paint cans and batteries should be returned to the point of sale. Manufacturers, not municipalities, should be responsible for disposal since that will provide an incentive to reduce toxicity and to increase reuse.
We are concerned that packaging reduction work plans do not specify a required timetable for reduction. There is no incentive structure employed to encourage reduction, and legal control will not be employed to achieve that reduction.
The legislation assumes that an auditing system will provide an adequate incentive to achieve reductions consistently. That is a very fallacious assumption.
The legislation should provide for such things as stickers and then bans on products employing excessive packaging. What I am suggesting is that a hierarchy of incentives is needed and it is missing from the legislation. The ministry has addressed manufacturers only, and in doing so has ignored food outlets where reusable plates, cups and utensils should be required or a sizeable charge required.
A ban on exportive waste is another incentive to reduction that is missing from this legislation.
In summary, we are arguing for a bolder approach than is provided in Bill 143. As well, we want to see more rapid and more certain implementation.
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Mr McClelland: Thank you for being broad and long-term in your outlook. I think that is quite frankly where the hope of our society and future society lies in dealing with issues of the environment, and particularly as we discuss waste management.
I want to touch base very quickly and ask you to expand on your comments with respect to the deposit system and recycling versus refillable. There has been some controversy and difficulty. On the one hand, we want to promote recycling. People say the recycling program is in jeopardy. It has been suggested by some that perhaps the failure of the current government to move ahead with the recycling program and to deal with some of the outstanding issues concerning OMMRI is that it is afraid to be seen favouring recycling over reuse. At the same time, however, we have the interesting dichotomy that the current regulations with respect to refillable are not even anywhere close to being enforced despite repeated promises that they would be. I wonder if you could expand somewhat on that issue and your view of the importance of our moving ahead with recycling as well as reusing and the enforcement of the existing regulations.
Ms Baar: In terms of the enforcement of the existing regulations, one of the difficulties that has been encountered is that the courts have not taken the provision seriously. That provided a problem for those trying to prosecute the cases several years ago. The difficulty was that the courts became an ineffective way of providing the incentive for refillables. That means you have to find an alternative way of providing the incentives, if courts are unwilling to take it seriously.
Mr McClelland: Could you qualify that for us somewhat? Is it not true that after the initial difficulty there was successful prosecution under the regulations?
Ms Baar: Yes, but prosecution does not seem to be the best way of getting that part of the legislation --
Mr McClelland: I agree it is not the best, but it is a way; it is a tool that is available.
Ms Baar: Yes. I feel Ontario has to move towards administrative penalties in that area. That would improve consistency of enforcement for a piece of legislation of that kind.
In terms of the concern about the success of the blue box, I think you have to see the blue box as part of a larger waste management policy. Once you see a much more expanded blue box program, there will be much less concern about the loss of that program. In Halton, by last August, we had achieved better than 27% waste diversion with just a blue box program. I think the major problem with the blue box program derives from not having a plan in place for when you do not have the markets. The difficulty with the blue box is its dependence on markets that vary a great deal. When you gather a more diversified waste stream through a recycling program, you reduce your dependence on any one source of revenue. That is one of the reasons it is so important to dramatically expand the number of products being handled through your dry waste stream.
Ms Haeck: I appreciate your comments. You are obviously a very articulate spokesperson for the environment. On your second-to-last page of the written brief as opposed to the attachments -- it is headed up "Failure to Promote New Assumptions" -- you make the statement, "The manufacturer is the waste generator and the manufacturer should bear the primary responsibility for waste disposal costs." I am not sure to what extent you have had a chance to follow some of the presentations that have been made to us. There is definitely a fair bit of controversy from the packaging end and even the responsibility end of it. As succinctly as possible, do you support the German green dot system with regard to packaging?
Ms Baar: Yes.
Ms Haeck: Do you think it would be easily applied beyond those borders?
Ms Baar: One of the things we have to understand about German regulation is that they have been able to achieve much better implementation. In Canada and the United States we always fall down at the implementation stage. I think it is very worthwhile in the regulatory area for us to look at the German experience because that is where they have done best.
Ms Haeck: So you are a strong advocate of regulation as opposed to, as some of the deputants would have it, that it should be strictly voluntary?
Ms Baar: I know that guidelines only work with highly motivated companies. There is a great deal of research in that area. The big issue becomes what kind of incentive system you are going to use. You can use things other than legal control in order to provide your incentives. Voluntary regulation will only be done by those companies that are highly motivated, and there are very few of those.
Mr Wiseman: That was almost the same question I had. You say, in that same section: "We urge adoption of a bolder approach with more rapid and certain implementation. Research has demonstrated that both Canada and the United States are ineffective in implementing regulatory change rapidly." We have heard from a number of groups that have said, "Oh, don't do that. We'll do it voluntarily." It is worth noting again that some companies will do it voluntarily and then there are some that will not even approach doing it. Somehow or other you have to get those companies in line. Regulation seems to be the way, or some kind of legislation or fines. Do you agree with fines? What would you suggest?
Ms Baar: Fines can be used. Fines and a sanctioning approach work very well with those companies that are not highly motivated. There is quite a bit of literature to support that kind of thing. You can also take away other kinds of privileges. In many ways, figuring out the kinds of privileges that can be removed is the best way of developing an incentive system for effective regulation.
Mr Wiseman: Would one of those systems perhaps be banning the product they had from a landfill site, or whatever is in the waste stream? We had a company here that wants to recycle oil filters. They have said they are meeting resistance in doing this because the companies say that unless it is regulated by the government, they are not going to do it.
Ms Baar: Okay. You can use bans for certain things. At an earlier stage we suggested stickers that say "Excessive Packaging" and give consumers information they can use in making their buying decisions. There is a whole series of ways, but my main concern is that there has not been enough attention to what kind of incentives you are going to provide. This is actually legislation that provides guidelines that are not legally enforceable.
Mr Wiseman: In New Jersey they have police who go around the streets. They open the garbage and take pictures of the house it is in front of and say, "This house isn't doing its part in the green stream."
Ms Baar: Yes, reputation can be used very effectively as an incentive, and that is part of reputation.
The Chair: There is a minute left if you would like to sum up or if there is anything further you would like to share with the committee.
Ms Baar: I do not think there is anything else.
The Chair: For your information, and for anyone who is watching these proceedings, you will receive a copy of the Hansard, the record of your presentation from the clerk once we have it. The full Hansard is at Publications Ontario, which is at 880 Bay. It usually takes a couple of weeks before the Hansard is available from them. I always tell people making presentations, and also any of those people watching the proceedings, that if they want to communicate with the committee they can do so in writing, through our clerk.
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PETER TABUNS
The Chair: I would like to call next Peter Tabuns, city councillor. Welcome. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We ask that you leave a few minutes for questions, if you can.
Mr Tabuns: My name is Peter Tabuns. I am city councillor for ward 8 in Toronto. My ward is located on the east side of the Don River and includes a large residential area and the greater part of the port industrial lands. This proximity of residential and industrial has developed a sharp sense of environmental concern in the community. Through joint action we have shut down the Commissioners Street garbage incinerator and blocked the construction of two others. We have not acted alone. Other communities in Ontario have united to oppose incinerators, the proliferation of landfills and the environmental approach those facilities represent.
My community has recognized, however, that NIMBY is not an adequate response to the waste crisis. Consequently there is broad support for programs that will substantially accelerate waste reduction and recycling. In light of all this, I urge you to review Bill 143 as quickly as possible, correct whatever minor imperfections there are and pass it. While it is not perfect, it is the best, most intelligent response to the garbage crisis ever put forward by any provincial government.
A number of criticisms have been levelled at the bill that I believe need to be assessed closely. One suggestion holds that third reading should be delayed until the minister prepares a paper setting out a proposal for material management in the GTA and the respective roles of the different players in the waste management field.
There is no doubt the issue of marketing will be crucial to the success of the recycling efforts set out in the draft legislation. However, there is no reason we cannot, at the same time, proceed with the legislation as is, so that the setting up of the recycling facilities, materials collections systems and waste audits can proceed. There is no reason we cannot continue to search for permanent landfill sites. A call to delay third reading of the bill while this further paper is developed and reviewed is not practical and ignores the time lines we are faced with in this province. It is reminiscent of the approach that was taken in the past, and that led us to the garbage crunch of the late 1980s and early this decade.
Part II of Bill 143 has been criticized for precluding waste management options such as incineration or waste export. I believe such criticism is ill-founded. No one would seriously suggest that we take our waste to public parks and burn it in large pits. No one would suggest that modern garbage trucks be replaced with pickup trucks. Likewise, the framers of this legislation have precluded options that do not make sense in terms of the larger environment.
Waste incineration generates hazardous waste. It is very expensive and generates far fewer jobs than recycling. In fact, its very success undermines the success of recycling efforts. If you believe the world has infinite resources, then incineration might be seen as sensible, leaving aside the problems of cost, low job creation and toxicity problems. Unfortunately the world does not have infinite resources.
The weakness of the waste export idea is equally apparent. Cheap disposal is fundamentally inimical to recycling, reuse and reduction strategies. The costs of processing waste to extract usable materials make more sense when the real cost of disposal is made more evident. Landfill space located close to the source of waste generation is more expensive space. It is space that has to be conserved.
Waste disposal practices are discouraged by expensive landfill; waste export encourages wasteful practices. Any politician who represents an area outside the GTA should also recognize the threat the untamed river of waste from the Metro area presents to rural areas.
The suggestion that the proposed amendments to the Environmental Protection Act contained in part IV of Bill 143 be deferred is simply a stall. If we are to come to grips with the waste crisis in the first half of this decade, if we are to avoid another brush with crisis, then we need to act now to bring the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors fully into waste reduction and recycling. All else is window dressing. These changes are crucial to setting up an environmentally sound waste management system for the whole province.
The reality of our current garbage crisis makes attempts to stall the bill for partisan reasons a grave mistake, should anyone be interested in such action. Without a comprehensive, mandatory recycling program in place, many people will face the prospect of locating waste incinerators or landfills in their backyards. Those who stand in the way of solutions now will and should be in for a very rough ride.
The requirement of recycling for businesses, institutions and industries will address those sectors of the economy that generate most of the waste in this society. In its recent report on the impact of recycling on job opportunities, the Worldwatch Institute found that there are now 30,000 people engaged in recycling aluminum in the United States. That is twice the number engaged in primary aluminum production. In Vermont, recycling facilities generate 550 to 2,000 jobs -- that depends on the kind and size of the facility -- for each one million tons of material that they process. For incinerators, on the other hand, the range is 150 to 1,100 jobs, and for landfills, 50 to 360 jobs.
This bill will offer a tremendous economic boost to the recycling industry. Not only will it speed up approvals for recycling facilities; it will provide the raw materials for those plants.
The intention of this bill -- to reduce waste and steer waste materials into recycling plants -- will promote job creation and new industry. The city of Toronto's economic development committee supports the idea of accelerated approvals for recycling plants. In addition, the committee may be interested to note that last week the city of Toronto's city services committee heard deputations on our requirement that newspapers sold from vending boxes on Toronto sidewalks contain at least 50% recycled materials. The deputants from the Canadian paper-making industry told us that a large part of the American paper-making industry has already reached the 40% recycling level but few Canadian mills have done so. Canadian paper, increasingly, will have trouble competing in jurisdictions where there are recycled-content rulings. As jurisdictions across North America press for recycled content in paper, and increasingly in other products, I believe, Canadian and Ontario industry will be shut out unless we have access to a secure, stable supply of recovered materials.
In summary, this bill promises to set the stage for real change in the waste management field. It provides the basics necessary to avoid future crises. It will boost economic development and make Ontario industry competitive in the markets of the future. For those of us faced with the task of protecting the natural world around us, the task of protecting the health and economic wellbeing of our citizens and the task of laying the base for a sustainable society, this bill is fully supportable. Do not let yourself be sidetracked by requests for delays.
Ms Haeck: Thank you so much for some of your comments. For those of us who represent areas outside the GTA, what you are saying really rings true.
We have had a series of documents given to us today by Notre Development Corp, which is the company that wishes to take the Toronto garbage off to Kirkland Lake. I am not sure if your group has had a chance to review some of the evidence given to this committee. Definitely the number of trains and trucks that are going to have to be involved in moving Toronto garbage to Vaughan and then shipping it north is obviously going to have quite a serious impact on a much larger environment and really is something a lot of us have some great concerns about. Would you care to comment on any of that?
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Mr Tabuns: Yes. The idea of waste export, I think, really came forward in a serious way about two years ago. At that time, I was involved with a group in Toronto called It's Not Garbage. We concluded at that time that the plan was environmentally nonsensical, that there would be generation of a huge amount of CO2 in just transporting the waste from the GTA to wherever its final destination was going to be, when in fact what we needed was to keep the waste close to home, first of all, to provide us with opportunities to recover all the usable materials from it.
I think, and I have said this in my presentation, there is tremendous job potential there, and that is being recognized in studies, particularly the one done by the Worldwatch Institute.
The other concern is that over the long term we have to reshape the way we deal with goods and materials, and if we think we can chew up northern Ontario, destroy large tracts of it through mining or strip mining, ship the usable products down to the south where they can be enjoyed and then ship all the detritus back, we are making a wasteland of part of the province.
We should be minimizing the extraction from the north, minimizing that environmental damage, and then, when we have that material, not throwing it away but reusing it over and over. If you can export the waste quite cheaply, there is no incentive to conserve, no incentive to try to recover that material. If you keep that material close to home, it is very expensive to dispose of it, and that high price helps with the economics of recycling itself. It is a lot more economical to recycle at, say, $60 or $70 a tonne, if it costs you $150 to $200 to throw it in a landfill; whereas, if you have cheap waste export, who cares?
Ms Haeck: Exactly. I most heartily concur.
Mr McClelland: I find it an interesting comment on the opening page where you said you urge quick passage of the bill in spite of its minor deficiencies. There are a number of people, sir, who have been before this committee who see the removal of basic, fundamental rights of citizens as more than minor deficiencies. I think you should be aware that the vast majority of opinion, quite frankly, has been that when you begin to deal in a situation where you remove the EPA, remove the EAA, remove the provisions of the Ontario Municipal Board and the Planning Act, legislation that you have a responsibility to fulfil under the terms of your leadership at city council, when you take those out of the hands of the elected people and the citizens of the province, there are somewhat more than minor deficiencies in the bill.
To comment on one of your comments here, that politicians from areas outside the GTA should also recognize the threat of the river of waste that may come from Metro, it is true that they should. They should also recognize the threat of the power reposed in the minister in this bill to override every vestige of local autonomy and local authority and decision-making power. That is evidenced in Bill 143. If anybody kids himself for a minute that it cannot happen in his backyard, he should think of what happened at Keele Valley and think of what happened at Britannia and so forth. It can happen anywhere in the province, and I think people would be naïve to do that.
Just in terms of your partisan comment, I want to ask you if you happen to be a member of any particular party.
Mr Tabuns: Oh, yes. I would like to comment on that first and then I would like to respond to your remarks. I am a member of the NDP.
As to your remarks, I feel that in so far as the ability of the minister to act in an emergency is concerned, there is not a substantial change from the powers that existed beforehand, and that is the opinion of the city of Toronto solicitor as well.
I want to point out that the reason we have a crunch at Keele Valley is that this problem has been neglected for decades. We were talking in the mid-1980s in Toronto about the need for heavy duty recycling. It was ignored. No provincial administration in the past has said: "Okay, we have a substantial problem. Let's start making sure we get those materials from the ICI sector and process them so that we are not faced with a choice in the future about setting up our public parks as dumps or implementing lifts at Keele Valley."
I am sympathetic to people who live in that area. I live in an area that has for decades been the dumping ground for Metro Toronto as well and I have talked to people from Vaughan in the past.
Mr McClelland: Do you think you would be more sympathetic if the site was in ward 8?
Mr Tabuns: In fact, I was at a public meeting recently where I fought to have a recycling plant set up in my ward, and I am working with a group in my ward --
Interjection.
Mr Tabuns: Excuse me, Mr Stockwell.
Mr Stockwell: Recycling plant for a dump.
The Chair: Order, please. You do not have the floor, Mr Stockwell.
Mr Tabuns: Manners, please. Anyway, I have also worked with a group in my ward that is promoting the idea of a composting plant.
Mr McClelland: We also know that the composting plant you are working towards is a product of your friend Mr Gilbert and is funded by the public sector, as opposed to the private sector.
Mr Tabuns: Wait a minute. Just a second here, Mr McClelland.
Mr Stockwell: Manners, manners.
The Chair: What I would suggest is that you allow Mr McClelland to ask his question and then you can respond.
Mr Tabuns: I was just speaking, actually, Madam Chair.
The Chair: He has the floor.
Mr McClelland: In terms of fairness, an intention of part IV of the bill is to reduce waste and so on; it is not "the" intention of the bill, in terms of your brief. Anybody who read the bill would be hard-pressed to say the intention of the bill was in terms of reduction of the waste stream. It is "an" intention; it is perhaps a significant intention of one part of the bill, part IV. I think it is important to keep that in mind and keep that in perspective. Many people who are rigorously opposed to Bill 143 have also said they applaud the sentiment behind part IV. They just think it arrives at it in a terribly wrong way, and quite frankly, a very dangerous route of trying to arrive at a laudable goal. Certainly the methodology of getting there would be called into question by many people.
Mr Tabuns: I just find the accusation about a composting plant odd and strange. I have never talked with Mr Gilbert about it. He has always been a proponent of incineration. I have always disagreed with him on the matter. The idea came from a citizens' group that I was involved with at the time, not from Metro.
Mr McClelland: We will hear from them later.
Mr Stockwell: Give me an example. You said you can recycle at $60 or $70 a tonne. Can you tell me where?
Mr Tabuns: No. I am sorry, I should not have used that figure. I just pulled that out of the air as a comparison between recycling cost and disposal cost.
Mr Stockwell: When you say you are discussing with your constituents opening a recycling plant in your ward, do you think that is a fair comparison when we are comparing the expansion of the largest dump in Canada in Keele Valley?
Mr Tabuns: No, I do not. I am just saying the citizens in my ward recognize that they cannot just say someone else takes the waste, that they are willing to support waste reduction/waste recycling facilities. I will tell you that since we live near such a large industrial area, since there has been so many difficulties with Metro in the past, there is some concern about Metro and its operations in any event, but people are still willing to say, "Well, the waste has to go somewhere and we are willing to put up with the truck traffic, the potential noise and so on," so that the waste is dealt with in an environmentally sound way rather than in an unsound way.
Mr Stockwell: What is the unsound way?
Mr Tabuns: Incineration.
Mr Stockwell: There were many other methods that were being looked at prior to the minister's pulling every site off the table. There were lots of ideas about disposing of the garbage. It just so happens she pulled all the sites off the table and told us there was not going to be a garbage gap or crisis, which precipitated this piece of legislation. Then all of a sudden, a year later, she decided, "Oh, I've made a huge mistake; there is a garbage gap." Now she is expanding Keele Valley and Britannia and she has held these people up with no environmental hearings and just expanded them.
Do you think that is fair and reasonable? Do you think this legislation is fair and reasonable, trampling over all the acts, including the Planning Act? I never thought I would hear an NDP member anywhere say, "Yes, we should trample over the Planning Act to approve legislation like this." Do you think that is a fair and reasonable approach?
Mr Tabuns: First of all, I do not remember the minister saying there was not going to be a garbage crisis.
Mr Stockwell: She did.
Mr Tabuns: My recollection is different. I would be happy to look through the record, and if I am wrong, I will apologize.
The Chair: I think it is important just to clarify this. It is on the record as a statement that was made by the minister in the House. It is available in Hansard for you.
Mr Tabuns: Okay, then I apologize.
I understood from talking to people in the Whitevale area, at the very least, that the selection of that site was profoundly flawed. I had no difficulty with that being pulled off the list. I did not examine every other site. I understood certainly from pronouncements at Metro towards the end of the 1980s and the beginning of this decade that there was a severe garbage crisis. I do not think that has eased. I do not know exactly what the final figures will be on what Keele Valley will hold, but if in fact we are in a garbage gap crisis, it makes more sense to me to expand Keele Valley than to rip up new farm land without a proper examination of whether those sites are environmentally acceptable.
Mr Stockwell: You are in fact saying you support expansion of Keele Valley and Britannia without so much as one second of environmental public hearing. Do you think that is an acceptable approach to use in dealing with the waste crisis in this province? Is that acceptable by your standards?
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Mr Tabuns: I would want to hear from the minister whether the option in this instance was dumping the material in parks in the middle of urban centres. If that was not the alternative, then I would think there should be hearings. I am sure there will be people from environmental groups speaking on that matter.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation before the committee today. We appreciate your coming.
CITIZENS FOR A SAFE ENVIRONMENT
The Chair: I would like to call next Citizens for a Safe Environment. Please come forward and introduce yourself to the committee. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We appreciate your coming today.
Ms Suttle: My name is Aine Suttle and I am with Citizens for a Safe Environment. Thank you for allowing me this time to present the views of Citizens for a Safe Environment on this proposed bill.
The major points we would like to make are:
1. Incineration of garbage is an outdated, environmentally damaging technology and the present government took a courageous step in banning it, which we absolutely support.
2. The environmental assessment process is very important. However, while it may seem to be a good way for citizens to have input into the process of planning and approving projects, it can actually at times become a form of abuse that does not necessarily protect citizens. It can keep them running in circles attending meetings. If you load enough EAs on a community, it cannot keep up with them all and some of the projects are bound to get through whether they are good, bad or indifferent. EAs can also be divided up into small pieces so that people have to attend so many meetings to get the complete picture that they are likely to lose because they have let some small part slip through.
3. Citizens are ready to be part of the solution. They need honest leadership and the resources to develop appropriate solutions to the garbage crisis in their own neighbourhoods.
Our group was formed in 1983 to oppose the incineration of garbage in the south Riverdale area of the city of Toronto. At the time we already had a plus-30-year-old garbage incinerator puffing pollution over our neighbourhood. We then found ourselves facing proposals to build two more incinerators within two kilometres of the existing one, plus we still have the Ashbridges Bay sewage incinerator polluting our gardens, beaches and Lake Ontario. As you can imagine, we are no fans of incinerators and actually find this idea of including incineration as part of the overall plan to deal with our wastes absolutely ludicrous.
You probably would have called us a NIMBY group when we set out. We certainly did not want more incinerators, but it was not based on prejudice. Originally we were just horrified that anybody, never mind our city government, would even consider bringing more pollution into the neighbourhood which had been assaulted with lead by Canada Metal for so many years. We had seen our children damaged by lead and it did not take too much intelligence to figure out that more smokestacks were not going to improve our health. South Riverdale has a 24% greater mortality rate than other areas in Metro.
We were assured these incinerators were state of the art, the best available, no pollution. Can you believe it? I have since heard that very line used over and over. You stand under a stack, watch the smoke coming out and listen to incinerator proponents assuring people there is no pollution in the smoke. They must think the general public is brain-dead.
The TSI Trintek no-pollution incinerator would have produced daily: 178 kilograms of carbon monoxide, 394 kilograms of sulphur dioxide, 300 kilograms of hydrogen chloride, 178 kilograms of nitrogen dioxide, 69 kilograms of particulates, 4 kilograms of hydrogen fluoride, 56 grams of arsenic, 16.5 grams of chromium, 27.2 grams of mercury, 455 grams of zinc, 26.5 grams of cadmium, 306.7 grams of lead, 12.9 grams of nickel, 7 grams of PCBs and 94 grams of dioxins. No pollution.
The city of Toronto's proposal to build another garbage incinerator included a table which showed how the air would not really be much worse as a result of a few more incinerators. For example, lead would only be increased 106% per year, a mere 1,427 kilograms; this in a neighbourhood that had a smattering of knowledge about lead. They must have thought we were all so damaged we could not read.
I am sure when the Commissioners Street incinerator was built it was state of the art too, but by the time it was closed down it had been found to have the highest readings of dioxin of any fly ash tested in the world. That is what world class means to us in our neighbourhood. It met all Ministry of the Environment standards etc. Remember that the ash was being landfilled, so not only our neighbourhood was being affected but whichever landfill accepted it now has this huge amount of toxic waste scattered all over the place.
According to Metro's own records, the amount of dioxin going into the furnaces was multiplied six times as a result of burning. I have to tell you that neither of these two incinerators did get through the process, but it took a lot of years out of our lives to stop them.
Rather than carrying on in this vein, I would just like to say the conclusion we came to was that not only should incinerators not be built in south Riverdale; they should not be built anywhere. Members of our group have spoken at public meetings to discuss incineration all over the province, letting people know what our experience has been and what our research has shown. We have also responded to requests for help from other provinces. It was a huge burden lifted off our shoulders when Ruth Grier announced the ban on incineration. Now we have been freed up to help establish an alternative waste reduction plan.
A poll taken a few years ago showed that 71% of residents in Metro were in favour of incineration. That may be so, but just try siting one anywhere and see what happens to the support in the local neighbourhood. Sometimes I think the solution would be to announce the siting of incinerators in every municipality in Metro, because the support for the alternatives of the 3Rs and composting would skyrocket.
This leads me on to the question of full hearings for all waste management facilities. This would appear at first glance to be the solution to neighbourhood concerns, and there is certainly a place for hearings. However, unless there has been a rational, equitable site search in the first place for any facility, hearings can become a form of abuse in themselves.
Since its founding in 1983, Citizens for a Safe Environment has been involved continuously in preparations for hearings on at least six different facilities, all within a five-kilometre block. There was the city of Toronto's refuse-fired steam plant, the TSI Trintek energy-from-waste incinerator, the Commissioners Street transfer station, the Commissioners Street material recovery facility, the refiring of the Hearn generating station, and best of all, the Ashbridges Bay sewage treatment plant expansion. I know I am forgetting others.
Social life in south Riverdale revolves around environmental protection hearings. Conversations go like this, "Are you going to the political action committee for Ashbridges Bay tonight?" Reply: "Well, I'm not sure because the environmental liaison committee is meeting tonight also and I didn't make the last one because I had to go to the public meetings about the decommissioning of the Ball Barrel site. However, I will see you at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre environmental health committee meeting on Thursday. You will be there, won't you?"
Last year I counted the number of meetings I went to on various things to do with our degraded environment and it came to over 100. I am not a professional working in the field of environmental studies, although I feel like I am getting there whether I like it or not. I am a homemaker and ex-occupational therapist. Things have reached a ridiculous level in our community. Whenever I hear the words "environmental assessment hearings" I get a headache. You would think there was nothing else to do with waste than burn or bury it.
Ours may seem a very narrow perspective, but I know there are other communities that are in the same boat. Environmental assessments can become a form of abuse when you keep trying to site everything in the same places over and over again. Personally I would like to get back to seeing movies, renovating my house, seeing friends; the ordinary things people do.
Despite our cynicism, we are still hopeful. We as a community would love to see a composting plant in the port industrial area. We proposed the idea to Metro in 1989 and were turned down. We again submitted a proposal to them in 1990, which they took a little more seriously. We seem to be stuck at present on the issue of who will control the plant. As residents with a long history of trying to protect ourselves from the neighbouring alien industrial environment, we are not prepared to accept just any plant or even invite any plant into our area.
We feel it is very important we do our own research into technologies for composting, odour abatement, operating conditions and the legal means to control odour and other pollutants. We are tired of listening to engineering companies tell us what is best for us. We, as neighbours, have different priorities than engineering firms. We want to be part of the solution to our present environmental crisis and we are prepared to take responsibility, but we must have the resources to do our own research. Your government could probably save a lot of money by funding communities to design waste reduction plans for their own neighbourhoods. You can see it in Georgetown with the Waste Wise project. We are also prepared to take similar steps, but we cannot do it without money. Environmental protection cannot be run on a volunteer basis.
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An example of the priorities we as a neighbourhood have is that we are not prepared to take anyone's word that a certain technology is odour-free. We want to contact the neighbours of existing plants and ask them if the plant is clean. Neighbourhood noses are a better judge than any high-tech odour detection system.
We know from bitter experience that existing legislation does not protect us from the effects of pollution, so we want to develop contracts that would be specific to our circumstances and that would have the agreement of all parties involved: the operators of the plant, the neighbours, the Ministry of the Environment and anybody else who is involved. We want to make sure the plant will fit into the neighbourhood appropriately and that it will not at any time become a burden. We want to take our fair share. We are not prepared to carry the load for everybody else.
The Ashbridges Bay sewage treatment plant is a perfect example of the problems created when one community takes the load for the wider community. As long as somebody can build a monster home in Markham, use as much water as he likes, use all sorts of household hazardous materials and then flush it all down the toilet to a distant community where he never sees the results of his actions, and certainly never feels the effects, he will continue to pollute our water and ultimately destroy our planet.
True social development is based on social equity and a rational process, not just economics.
Mrs Mathyssen: Thank you for coming here. I think you have given it a human face by talking about your neighbourhood, and I wonder if you would tell me a little more about that neighbourhood. We have had people come in here and say that the technology regarding incinerator stacks in Europe is such that we need have no fear, that the technology will protect us. Yet you mentioned high mortality rates and health problems. Could you explain that? How do you know that really is connected to the incinerator?
Ms Suttle: I am not necessarily saying it is directed only to the incinerator. But if you put an awful lot of smokestack-polluting industries beside a residential neighbourhood, it is bound to have an effect on people's health. You cannot breathe in that much pollution and have absolutely no effect. I am no scientist, and I think you will find that very few scientists are willing to say, "Yes, this plant is causing this." So you have to -- I do not know if we will ever get to a point where you can do that -- work on common sense.
Mr McClelland: Citizens for a Safe Environment was instrumental in shutting down an incinerator previously, under a previous government.
Ms Suttle: That is right.
Mr McClelland: In fact it played a very active role and was significantly instrumental in some good community advocacy on behalf of the citizens.
Many people who come before this committee, yourself included, seem to focus on a particular aspect, which is human nature; we all have our areas of interest. I want to simply say, again for people who are watching who may be interested, that Bill 143 is not just about a ban on incineration; it is much more. There has been some allusion that people have suggested that people who are speaking against Bill 143 are pro-incineration. That is not necessarily the case at all. It is not an issue. That happens to be a component of the act. It is one small piece of the act, and I think there are many other ways of doing it.
I would be interested in your comments. If that is the issue of importance to you, I would simply invite a comment from you that you could surely accomplish that goal without removing so many of the rights of citizens that Bill 143 removes.
Ms Suttle: I have to comment, though, on your point about incineration. It seems to me kind of ludicrous that it has been banned -- the debate has gone on for years -- and yet money is being wasted on looking into the whole thing.
Mr McClelland: But Bill 143 is not necessarily about incineration. It is one small part of it.
Ms Suttle: It may be small, but if it gets through it could be very large.
Mr McClelland: Nobody is saying it is not important, but to suggest Bill 143 is redeemable -- I do not know if you are saying that. Are you saying Bill 143 is redeemable because it has one good thing about it? Is that your position?
Ms Suttle: What I am saying is I am very concerned at the amount of pro-incinerator talk that I hear in the media and at the other levels of government. When I see, for instance, the Metro government spending an awful lot of money on a task force to look into incineration when it is banned, in a period of a depression, it seems absolutely ridiculous to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on something that is banned.
Mr McClelland: With respect, you have not answered. Am I safe in saying then that your anti-incineration position does not necessarily mean you are pro-Bill 143 in its entirety?
Ms Suttle: No, I probably am not pro absolutely every last word and every last detail. The spirit of the bill is what I support.
Mr McClelland: The spirit of removing the EPA and the EAA and the Planning Act and the OMB and basically citizens' participation? As a citizens' group, are you in favour of that spirit of the act? A large number of people have referred to it as dictatorial in its very fundamental nature inasmuch as it basically says in many instances, "Sorry, people, you don't have a voice here." That is what the bill would say to you under other circumstances. If by accident of geography or circumstance you happened to be in a different place at a different time, I wonder how you would react if bad elements of the bill were impacting your particular citizens' group.
Ms Suttle: Unfortunately I think we have landed at this point in time where it is very difficult to deal with things. This is a problem that has been going on since the --
Mr McClelland: So it is better that we have no public involvement at all then?
Ms Suttle: Just a second. Let me finish, please. The whole garbage crisis has been going on for about 20 to 30 years. It is not something that has suddenly come up. This government came into office how long ago? A year and a half ago?
Mr McClelland: Yes.
Ms Suttle: As far as I am concerned they had a problem dumped on them. They have to deal with it in the best way they can. I think it was courageous on their part to take such steps as banning incineration and saying that export is not acceptable. We all have to deal with garbage in our own communities. The thing is that if you are proposing safe alternatives like composting plants, material recovery facilities and landfills that have all the toxics taken out of them, all the organics taken out of them, it is a very different situation than the sorts of landfills we have been dealing with up to now. I think there should be hearings, but there is a time limit.
Mr McClelland: I am pleased to hear that because the time limit, according to newspaper articles, is 1999 in one case. Landfills report 30% less trash. I find it curious that it is a problem that was suddenly dumped on the hands of the current government and that justifies -- I find it curious, quite frankly, that you support the ideology that says: "Sorry, we have a price. We don't have to listen to people."
Mrs Marland: Ms Suttle, in your brief you talk about how busy all of you are, and I commend you and your group for your community involvement. But it is rather ironical where you list all the things you are wondering about: where you can divide your time and whether you should go to this environmental liaison meeting or the meeting about the OMB hearing or whatever. You gave the kind of example of busy, grass-roots, community-minded people very well. I realize Mr McClelland was going down this road, but I have to ask you about the very example you give about how busy you are. Obviously, as committed and concerned citizens, you have picked up that opportunity for input. It has been very important to you.
Ms Suttle: I would not say we picked it up. To protect ourselves and our children we had to. We have no choice. That is the problem. What I object to is that if you just talk about hearings in isolation and do not talk about site selection with that, it does not cover the whole picture. If you are putting a sewage treatment plant -- we do not have a landfill; we have a lakefill -- the incinerator, the MRF or material recovery facility, the composting plant, the transfer station, everything in the one small area --
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Mrs Marland: I know. I understand that. I came from the same background. I do not really want to say, "I came from"; I am still part of the background that elected me 19 years ago and that is to represent the concerns of the public. The fact that you are involved means you have had an opportunity to be involved.
I just wonder how you are going to feel when the government becomes such a dictator that there is no more opportunity, if the government chooses, for the public to have that input. There will not be any more meetings for you to go to, because the decisions are going to be made in an ivory tower down at Queen's Park. If they are going to eliminate all the rights of the public under the existing statutes in this province, then even though you have not wanted to do it -- it would not be your first choice; you would rather be like what I would have preferred to be, at home reading to my children, but like you I was out night after night.
I believe in the public process. I think we cannot just elect government and have it sit down in its ivory towers never having to hear from us again. That is what I see Bill 143 doing. It gives all the powers and all the rights to the government, but you and I will be paying all the bills and we will have no choice or input into the policy.
Ms Suttle: My understanding of Bill 143 is that it does not completely eliminate hearings; it will shorten them and we may not have a full environmental assessment on every project.
Mrs Marland: Does that not concern you?
Ms Suttle: Yes, it concerns me to certain extent. But I would be much more concerned if we were talking about the source of waste disposal facilities we have had in the past and which I do not see in the future as long as we follow the spirit of Bill 143 and go with the 3Rs and composting and very clean landfills that do not have the toxics and the organics, as I said before.
The Chair: Thank you very much for appearing before the committee today. I appreciate your coming. I have told others that if over the course of our hearings there is additional information you would like to share with us, please feel free to communicate with us in writing.
MAPLE VILLAGE RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION
The Chair: I would like to call our next presentation, the Maple Village Ratepayers Association. Please come forward. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. I ask that you begin by introducing yourself. Leave a few minutes at the end for questions from committee members. Welcome.
Mr Badali: Thank you for allowing me to speak to the committee on this very critical issue. My name is Peter Badali. I am president of Maple Village Ratepayers Association, representing approximately 3,000 taxpayers. We are strongly opposed to part III of Bill 143.
We, the residents of Maple, do not trust this government. We thought we had an ally and an understanding politician in Ruth Grier; we really did. We have been saying for many years that this landfill emergency has been orchestrated and tunefully played by Metro Toronto. They have been compromising their political will by ruling out any alternative and pooh-poohing any landfill consideration within their borders and saying there is no emergency.
Ruth Grier echoed that same belief. I present a letter she wrote in March 1989 to the then Minister of the Environment, Jim Bradley. I wish to read it to this committee.
"Dear Mr Bradley:
"I am writing to urge you, in the strongest possible terms, not to exempt from the Environmental Assessment Act the proposal of Metro Toronto to extract clay in a 171-hectare parcel of land immediately north of the present Keele Valley landfill site.
"Metro has known since at least 1980 that additional clay to line the Keele Valley site has been needed. For that reason there is no justifiable reason to argue that the Environmental Assessment Act should be skirted because of the alleged `emergency' nature of the problem. It seems to me that Metro has not managed the planning aspect of Keele Valley very well, and that they should not be rewarded for mismanagement with an Environmental Assessment Act exemption.
"I suggest that for you to waive the requirements of the act in this case would run counter to everything that you have said in your term as Environment minister about sound waste management and environmental planning."
Mr Stockwell: Déjà vu all over again.
Mrs Marland: Déjà vu.
Mr Badali: Déjà vu. Now do you know why we do not trust anybody?
Mrs Marland: Yes, we do.
Mr Badali: We thought we had an understanding compatriot; instead, we were sold a bill of goods. Bill 143, part III, is a bill of no goods. There is no emergency, just political expediency. There are good, viable options to expanding the Keele Valley landfill site and a responsible government should be seeking the options. They should be taking positive steps forward.
Do you want to hear another example of mistrust? This New Democratic Party has declared the Oak Ridges moraine as an environmentally sensitive area. Keele Valley is within that area -- yes, amazing. "Well, we'll just exempt it." Yes, that is right: new democracy.
The Keele Valley landfill site sits atop the aquifers of the Don River, which is part of the Oak Ridges moraine. There are only four feet of clay separating millions of tonnes of garbage and our water, the same water system that feeds southern Ontario its water. There is that word again, clay, the commodity that is absent in the vicinity of this landfill, the commodity Ruth Grier was speaking of. Let's not worry about rain forests. We have a natural disaster right here in southern Ontario. Am I overreacting? I do not think so.
The Ministry of the Environment will not guarantee that the clay liner will not crack. They will not guarantee that something could not go wrong. Invariably, something may. Do you know what will happen when it cracks? Poison; it will poison our water. If you say we have plumes that will catch the waste and divert it to our sewer system, yes, the Ministry of the Environment admits that the plume is shifting southward. They do not know why. This landfill is very unique. Never before have 20 million tonnes-plus of garbage ever sat in one concentrated area. It is the largest landfill in Canada, the third largest in North America. We do not have any history or data on what could happen. Now Ruth Grier and this government want to gamble that it will not become the largest environmental disaster in Canada. Do you want to take that chance?
When we elected the New Democratic Party, we did not think it would turn into the "no-democratic party." There is no emergency. Expanding the Keele Valley site is no alternative, because we just may have no water. Please hear us. Respect our environment, respect our livelihood and remove part III of Bill 143.
Mr McClelland: Sir, you have said it well and I guess you have said it all. I can tell you this, though. You are not going to get a hug from the parliamentary assistant saying what a good job you did, like the other citizens' group that came in here. Unfortunately this happens to impact you and you do not see it as a good bill. Of course it does not have any impact on the other group. They happen to be very much tied in with the NDP, so they are going to get a pat on the back and a hug and told that they did well. You, sir, will not receive that accolade from the parliamentary assistant for the Ministry of the Environment because you have come down and laid it out as it is. For that I thank you. I wish you well. I hope you are heard and I hope you are understood.
Mr Badali: Thanks a lot.
Mr Stockwell: I would like to go back to before the last election, around August or September when everyone was campaigning. What exactly did this government promise you and your area about the Keele Valley landfill site?
Mr Badali: They said they would not expand it.
Mr Stockwell: Is that right?
Mr Badali: Yes. We heard through, I guess, Laurie Orrett, who was running in the campaign, that Bob Rae had gone to the landfill site. None of us were there, so this is all at third hand, but he said that the Keele Valley landfill site would not be expanded. It was a great little tour of the site they did.
Mr Stockwell: It is lucky the press was there at that time.
Mr Badali: They were there? We have been trying to locate --
Mr Stockwell: Yes. I have some stuff you might like to see.
Mr Badali: Good stuff. Actually I have been trying to locate that.
Mr Stockwell: The next question is, have they contacted you subsequent to the election? Have they met with you? Has the Minister of the Environment met with you?
Mr Badali: No, she has not met with the Maple Village Ratepayers Association. We have sent a letter to her. We are also part of Vaughan CARES so we are active in that area as well. I am also part of the Keele Valley landfill liaison committee, which meets once a month. So, no, we have not met with --
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Mr Stockwell: Have you requested meetings?
Mr Badali: No, we have not. We worked through Vaughan CARES on this one.
Mr Stockwell: Have they requested meetings?
Mr Badali: I believe so. I would have to check that.
Mr Stockwell: What are the pure tonnage numbers that you have been told, the total amount that you are going to see put on your site in the expansion?
Mr Badali: Numbers were never talked about. As a matter of fact -- I have never seen the actual document -- it is contours that are talked about, elevations.
Mr Stockwell: I understand elevation and contours but I would like to know total tonnage.
Mr Badali: We have been told 20 million and we have been told 25 million may be possible as well with the packing down.
Mr Stockwell: The settling.
Mr Badali: Exactly.
Mr Stockwell: So you do not know exactly.
Mr Badali: No.
Mr Stockwell: What about the fact that you have a contract signed by Metro council, do you not --
Mr Badali: Yes.
Mr Stockwell: -- that they cannot put any more there than what is allowed? Are you planning on suing them?
Mr Badali: Yes, we are. I know Vaughan CARES sued them successfully in their bid to expropriate land to extract clay. We sued them and succeeded in winning that right as well. We will sue. Definitely.
Mr Stockwell: So this will cost Metro taxpayers' money, the lawsuit.
Mr Badali: Absolutely.
Mr Stockwell: Terrible. Thank you.
Mr Wiseman: You probably heard my comments to the other ratepayer groups from Maple and the concern that this whole landfill has for me because of the presence of the York-Durham sewage treatment plant in my riding at the lake and the fact that any leachate or any accidents or anything that happens in your landfill site will wind up on my beaches.
It is disturbing. But we are brought to this from a historical perspective. Under the Liberals, P1 was put on the table under the Environmental Protection Act. Mr Stockwell supported that when he was on Metro council. When his leader, Mike Harris, came to Whitevale he said that should they be elected and form the government, they would not allow the site to go ahead without a full environment assessment and hearing. Presuming that they are honourable people and that the party would not change its position as Mr Stockwell has been pushing it to do for the last 18 months, assuming that there would be a full --
Mr Stockwell: A point of order.
The Chair: That is not a point of order, Mr Stockwell. Mr Wiseman has the floor.
Mr Wiseman: -- assuming that there is a full Environment Assessment Act hearing --
Mr Stockwell: He is inferring that --
The Chair: It is not a point of order, Mr Stockwell.
Mr Wiseman: -- on P1 and as you can understand, the residents of Pickering who were upset about this choice of P1 were prepared to go to court. They had hired a lawyer -- I was part of that group -- and were prepared to drag this thing out, I promise, for ever. I understand the same situation existed for site 6B. Site 6B was created out of a problem by the Liberals who pulled site 6A. So assuming --
Mr Stockwell: Point of privilege.
The Chair: That is a point of view. You do not have the floor.
Mr Wiseman: -- all of these things came to play, there would still be a shortfall. Under the Solid Waste Interim Steering Committee, the region of York had nominated a lift and expansion of the Keele Valley site for --
Mr Badali: Five million tonnes.
Mr Wiseman: -- as its interim waste proposal. It brings me all the way around to the question about the lift on Keele Valley and the fact that in an emergency situation, which is going to develop under the Tories, assuming that they are honourable people, and under us because we are honourable people, and in contradiction to the P1 selection which was done behind closed doors, how would you have helped solve the problem? You talk about there being alternatives. I am interested in what the alternatives would have been, given that, as one of the other deputants said, the spokes of the wheel come all the way around.
Mr Badali: I think one of the alternatives would be to look seriously at the Kirkland Lake proposal right now and give that a sound hearing rather than dismissing it altogether and saying, "Out of sight, out of mind," which Ruth has gone on record as saying. I think you should be seriously considering -- we have heard the term -- a high-tech incinerator somewhere. I think you should look seriously at that as well. There was talk of bringing the garbage to Hamilton at one point. Hamilton wanted the right to land some planes at the airport and Metro Toronto could not agree to that. Something happened to that effect. That was a proposal that was quite a few years ago.
There are different options. There are viable options and they should be sought after rather than looking at the easiest way -- "Let's expand the Keele Valley landfill site" -- because it is going to be very dangerous. You expand that site beyond 25 million tonnes and this is serious stuff. With 25 million tonnes of garbage in one area, we do not know what the heck has ever happened with that. I do not care what emergency you have. That is putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. That is what I equate it to. If you think that is the alternative, then let's do it; let's all kill ourselves, because we are going to be doing that. That is not an alternative. That is suicide.
Mr Wiseman: The comments that were made by Mr Cohen, who has a PhD and is an expert in incineration, clearly indicated that burning garbage was a method of distributing dioxins. As we heard from the previous deputant, the Metro incinerator creates the dioxins and that would distribute it over a greater area. I hope you will go and read the CP proposal for Vaughan when it comes to its proposal because what that would do is have every truck with its garbage from all over the GTA move to Vaughan to unload to put on a train to send to Kirkland Lake.
Mr Badali: Yes, but that would have special roads as well. My understanding from Scott Somerville and Lorna Jackson is that comes right off Highway 7 and Highway 400.
Mr Wiseman: In Pickering, in reference to that, the only road the garbage trucks can use in Pickering is Brock Road from Highway 401 and they all obey the law because they are good law-abiding citizens. It is just that all those other trucks on the side streets and everything are not actually theirs.
Mr Badali: Yes. Okay.
The Chair: There is approximately three minutes remaining. I can divide it. I believe Mr Stockwell has an additional question, so could you just place your question, Mr Sola? Then anyone else can place them and we will allow the deputant to respond.
Mr Sola: Would your opposition to Bill 143 be just as strong and just as loud were the government in power the Liberals or the Conservatives? Are you opposed to the direction that Bill 143 is going in --
Mr Badali: Absolutely.
Mr Sola: -- or to the party that is in power?
Mr Badali: No.
The Chair: Mr Stockwell, do you want to place your question?
Mr Stockwell: What is an acceptable time limit on environmental assessment hearings that you would accept, and exactly how much are you receiving in the way of environmental assessment hearings on the expansion?
The Chair: Miss Haeck, place your question, please.
Ms Haeck: We have heard from deputants who have indicated that tipping fees at places like Keele Valley will generate a lot of income, but Peel region has asked that injurious affection to be taken off the table so people like yourselves cannot receive any monetary compensation for noise or any other pollutants. What would your comments be about that?
Mr Badali: Oh jeez, easy questions. First off, I believe I answered that question. I think any party that put this forward we would not support at all. We think we need an Environmental Assessment Act. We need protection. We need democracy in the whole system. As far as a time limit is concerned, I do not know. I am not a lawyer. I know the time limit is five years but whatever is acceptable in the act presently, I think would suffice.
Your question on --
Ms Haeck: It is called injurious affection; basically it is getting some monetary settlement.
Mr Badali: I am not sure how much money Vaughan gets because of that.
Ms Haeck: Toronto is getting about $150 now.
Mr Badali: That is right. I am not sure how much Vaughan is getting of that. Is that your question, basically?
Ms Haeck: If injurious affection goes off the table you could not sue in any way, shape or form for any kind of compensation.
Mr Badali: We should be able to, absolutely.
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The Chair: We appreciate your coming before the committee today. A question to the parliamentary assistant?
Mr McClelland: A point of clarification: I think it is important to understand -- maybe the parliamentary assistant or legal staff would like to clarify -- that removal of section 19 does not necessarily mean it will not sue. It in no way abrogates any common law rights that exist for citizens. By removing section 19, it does not embody it in statute law. To suggest that this removes the right to sue, I think might have been said in error and I am sure Ms Haeck did not mean that sense. Staff may want to clarify that for the record and for the deputant because I think it ought to be understood.
Mr Owens: I think we should get a little bit of clarification on that. Jim Jackson is a solicitor from the Ministry of the Environment.
Mr Jackson: The removal of section 19 would not remove any existing rights to compensation under the Expropriations Act and it would not remove any common law rights for damages for nuisance or negligence that neighbours might have.
The Chair: I have a question that follows on that. We had representations yesterday which said that if this was the case, then why would you not be explicit in this legislation as well?
Mr Jackson: Section 19 dealt with a relatively small point in the Expropriations Act, the distinction between the injurious affection compensation that a neighbour is entitled to arising out of operations or construction. Under the Expropriations Act a person is entitled to injurious affection arising out of both construction and operation of a public undertaking if some of his land is taken. If no land is taken, he is only entitled to compensation for injurious affection arising out of the construction and not the operation of the undertaking.
The Chair: You were here yesterday when we had the other representation. My question is, is the issue then clarification of who they would sue or who they could take action against?
Mr Jackson: The issue is only whether or not any damages, injurious affection, arise out of the construction of the undertaking or whether they arise out of the operation of the undertaking. That only becomes relevant with respect to people whose land is not taken, but there is no proposal to take land in connection with either of the two lifts.
The Chair: I think there will be an opportunity for further discussion during clause-by-clause, but you have raised an interesting point.
NO GANARASKA DUMP COMMITTEE
The Chair: I call the next presentation, the No Ganaraska Dump Committee. Please come forward. I ask that you introduce yourself to the committee members. You have 20 minutes for your presentation.
Dr Magder: I am John Magder. I am the chairman of the No Ganaraska Dump Committee, I wish to thank you for the privilege of presenting our brief commentary regarding Bill 143.
Our committee represents hundreds of residents in the Durham community of Newcastle. This is an area in this province that has operating waste landfill sites, toxic waste storage sites and a nuclear energy plant, among other environmental dangers. The committee was formed in the fall of 1990 to address the selection of three sites in the immediate community that were being considered potential candidates for Durham's long-term waste landfill site. As our concern with the issue progressed, we became deeply aware of a cruel and faulty process that had rained blight upon thousands of other Durham residents and thousands of acres of prime agricultural land around them. At every opportunity we questioned the process that had been undertaken, suggesting a wide range of improvements. We have been treated politely but not seriously by nearly everyone to whom we made presentations -- the town of Newcastle, the region of Durham, the Byers committee and the Interim Waste Authority representatives.
The IWA's initial efforts in selecting the new Durham site coupled with Bill 143 suggest hundreds of hours of hard work were meaningless.
Our input was not unique. Other groups in Durham have made similar and even stronger presentations. We have seen none of their input in the draft approach and criteria for Durham region's landfill site search or in Bill 143. Surely if the Minister of the Environment is sincere in applying her party's desire to involve participatory democracy in its decision-making, there should be some significant evidence that she has recognized the concerns of people most directly involved in the efforts of the IWA, the body to which she is prepared to entrust the broad powers outlined in Bill 143.
Now we will make some comments regarding certain portions of the bill.
Part I, section 3, expropriation: We have made the point in numerous presentations that in the process of expropriation, fair market value of land that has already been depreciated over several years by the site selection process and the subsequent environmental assessment process can never be fair. Compensation should reflect the value of the land as it would be once approved as a landfill site, not as depreciated farm land.
Section 4, hardship: We felt this was a step in the right direction. However, it does not address the difficulties created when site lists are announced and during the interval until the final site is selected and approved. During the region's recent site search in our community, farmers could not readily mortgage, sell or build once the initial site announcements were made. Home owners planning to sell for purposes of relocating had their property values depreciated and in many cases these properties could not be sold at any realistic price. The consideration of hardship must be extended in the legislation to include hardships created by the initial and ongoing aspects of the site selection process.
Now this is where we were more than upset. Sections 6 to 11, inspection: These sections must be abandoned and replaced with a fair and inoffensive mechanism to accommodate the site selection process. Certainly if the legislation included a section that would allow inspectors to enter urban homes to observe response to the 3Rs mandate and penalize those who denied them access, political hell would break loose in this province like nothing ever seen before.
Our committee questions whether the police have such powers of access. Compensation, again, is not addressed except compensation for property damage. Who pays the legal costs for the property owner who does not wish to allow access? Who compensates the farmer whose planting and harvesting are interrupted by the inspectors? Who is liable for injuries incurred by the inspectors in their duties? Does the Workers' Compensation Act and other legislation protect the land owner from litigation resulting from such injury? Is this committee confident that these questions are easily answered and that they have been adequately considered by the ministry's legal advisers?
We would suggest that if the criteria selected for purposes of identifying potential landfill sites were understood by most and accurately followed by the consultants, and a land owner could readily understand that an equitable process led to his property being selected, then negotiations regarding access and compensation would more easily follow. The IWA and its consultants should not have the Big Brother threat of this section of Bill 143. They must undertake the site selection process in a fair and forthright manner, not in the careless, thoughtless fashion previously experienced in Durham.
Ruth Grier, in her statement to this group on January 20, said that one of the three components of action to deal with the GTA situation was establishing a process to find long-term landfill sites as quickly as possible with an environmental assessment. Bill 143 is the foundation of her plan.
She also stated that the GTA would be given additional powers, including authority to conduct essential site investigation in a way that minimizes intrusion into individual privacy and a considerate approach to any expropriation that will be required. We have not seen that in this document. Where is it?
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Opponent funding is mentioned, but only at the stage of environmental assessment of a chosen site. No mention is made about compensation to those who legitimately oppose the site selection process. Again, though this need has been pointed out repeatedly by many, funding for opponents to the site selection process apparently has been ignored.
The minister has deleted section 19. What public input did the ministry receive on this issue prior to deleting it? Your committee should ask why "interested parties" did not include groups such as ours. We have considered the issues that were to be addressed in section 19, as have all opponent groups in Durham. Were any opponents involved as interested parties?
The IWA consultants have provided no evidence that they have applied public input to the draft process and criteria. Once armed with such a powerful legislated weapon as this bill, they can tailor the site selection criteria in ways to facilitate a hasty decision that will be devoid of public input -- input the minister assured would be sought and considered.
For the last two years we have heard frequent mention of the "environmental assessment game." To permit Bill 143 to pass unchanged and as it stands today will change the rules of the game to the further detriment of the opponents. The playing field will not only be uneven; it will be completely tilted towards the opponents' end of the field.
Mr Wiseman: Rather than ask you questions, I think you have raised a number of questions and what I would like to do is to ask the parliamentary assistant to respond to some of the concerns you have raised and perhaps try and alleviate some of those questions for you now.
Mr O'Connor: Some of the questions you raised deal with the power of inspection and some rights and what not. Those are very good questions and they are questions the committee had actually raised through our hearings. A package of answers has been passed around to all committee members. Before we open it up and get into further dialogue along that line, perhaps we will get a copy for Mr Magder so he can review it as well. Then the committee members will have a chance to review some of the questions, because there are a ton of questions that have been answered here. If you take a look in your package from Wednesday, January 22, it goes into quite a bit of detail as far as expressed power of entry is concerned. It deals with the charter and the precedents of the power. It talks about different acts it is present in right now, the Ontario Water Resources Act, the Environmental Protection Act, the Cemeteries Act, the Building Code Act, the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act, the Planning Act, the Health Protection and Promotion Act. There is quite a bit of detail that has been provided. Rather than go into it right now, maybe we can allow people to ask you some questions. Thank you for that question, Mr Wiseman. I will make sure you get a copy of that.
Mr McClelland: I do not really have a great deal to say other than to commend you on your presentation and thank you for some of the questions you brought up. With respect to the compensation you talked about, one of the suggestions that has been made, recognizing the position of municipalities, that they felt some injustice with respect to section 19 as it stood inasmuch as they were potentially the pockets that would be hit for any compensation -- given the fact that it was by order of the minister that for any injurious affection that may be visited upon individuals, then the municipality would have to pick up the tab -- one solution I have suggested, and I would be interested in your comment on it, is that there be a system set up that would either apportion and/or take into account the fact that it is the Minister of the Environment making the order potentially causing the injury and the loss of value to the property. Therefore it should be compensation that would come out of the general revenues of Ontario. The remedy would be available to people, but the remedy would be drawn from the correct source. In other words, if the minister is making an order, she cannot hide behind the municipality to pick up the cost of that injury to individuals. I would be interested in your comment on that, sir.
Dr Magder: Are you implying that this section should remain?
Mr McClelland: Personally, I think it should remain, with the change.
Dr Magder: With the qualifications you suggested.
Mr McClelland: I will be very candid with you. I am sympathetic with the municipalities' point of view. They are saying, "It's not our fault we're in this position," but I think that can be balanced with the citizens' position that says, "It's not our fault either and we ought to be compensated for it." Surely the compensation should come from the power that is ordering the --
Dr Magder: Maybe Mr O'Connor can tell me if the minister did consult with interested parties such as ours. I know it was mentioned in her address that the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and interested parties brought forth this concern of theirs. I understand that, but did she consult with the people, the other guys, the opponents, the people who were going to be affected, who were happy with this section 19 because it addressed problems that were obvious before?
Mr O'Connor: With regard to injurious affection, I am not sure exactly how many people participated in it. I know there were a number of people, not only the association of municipalities but actually some municipalities outside of that as well, who participated in sharing their concerns around that. We have heard from a citizens' group as well. I do not know whether Alex Giffen has anything more to add.
Dr Magder: Did she talk to any anti-landfill site people in Metro?
Mr Giffen: The provisions regarding injurious affection relate to the minister's reports issued under part III of the act to Metro Toronto, the region of Peel and the region of Durham. Those municipalities have expressed concerns that the existing rights and rules and legislation are adequate to protect injured parties and that the addition of section 19 would add additional uncertainties and confusion. The minister was persuaded by those arguments that the Expropriations Act and common law provide adequate protection and that these additional measures were not appropriate.
Dr Magder: Therefore, is this the forum for the grass roots, the people really involved, to state their case? In other words, on the input provided to this committee, is it a fait accompli or is it --
Interjection: Yes.
Dr Magder: Okay. I just want to know.
Mr McClelland: My question is for the parliamentary assistant to ask if he would obtain a list -- it is a terrible word to use around here these days -- of people who were consulted and if in fact there were any organizations. I know AMO was. I know the region of Peel was.
Mr O'Connor: Okay. That is for the record?
Mr McClelland: Yes. We are talking about citizens' groups, organizations and individuals who may have benefited from section 19, if that balance was brought into the discussion process.
Mr Stockwell: Mine is more of a comment than it is a question. This is the process that is apparently supposed to be used for input from private citizens and groups to effect change in this legislation, but you have to understand that it is a lot like talking to trees. They did not want to have this process in the first place. They were forced to take this process by the opposition parties. They never wanted you to be here and they never wanted to hear from you or any other affected people, simply because they said point blank, "We do not want to have public meetings or public hearings or committees on this bill." Really what it comes down to is that they have been forced to have these meetings, but if you think you are really making a lot of impact, I would think again.
Dr Magder: I would like to thank you for your consideration. I have seen legislative committees in action on television. It is the first time I have been before one, and in spite of the comments from Mr Stockwell, I hope some of the stuff people present here does sift through to the powers that be.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your comments. They are appreciated, and you did very well for the first time, may I add.
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GATES OF MAPLE RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: The next group is the Gates of Maple Ratepayers Association, if it would come forward, please. Would you please identify yourself for the purposes of Hansard. You have 20 minutes and we would appreciate it if you would leave a few minutes for questioning towards the end.
Mr Sacchetti: My name is Fausto Sacchetti. I am the president of the Gates of Maple Ratepayers Association.
The proposed Bill 143 is the result of the minister's attempts to unilaterally impose her self-proclaimed and ill-founded methods on the residents of this province. The use of such an all-encompassing bill to circumvent well-established protection and precautionary legislation is tantamount to using Gestapo tactics to wage her own vision of war on waste, and it is too bad for anyone who disagrees with her methods.
Clearly all alternatives are not being considered. Only her politically influenced choices are being followed and clearly these choices have already been made. Through an expensive body of redundant research called the Interim Waste Authority, she has been attempting to retroactively legitimize those choices.
Where is the continuity of sound judgement and logic when a minister can on the one hand expound on the virtues of saving a natural phenomenon like the Oak Ridges moraine and on the other hand refuse to answer why she would consider the expansion of a landfill that sits directly on it?
Yes, the minister clearly stated she would take and has taken steps to stop dead in their tracks over 500 projects slated for development on or even near the Oak Ridges moraine. But when it comes to the Keele Valley landfill site -- where, of course, the technically superior and state-of-the-art clay liner has already succumbed to the existing tonnage and begun to leak leachate -- which sits directly on top of the Oak Ridges moraine containing the headwaters of the Don River, she says smugly, "I have made that decision and I am going to stick by it." Well, Madam Minister, that decision is wrong. No bonus points. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. You lose Final Jeopardy, Madam Minister.
Jeopardy is what you are putting this and all other communities in Ontario in by removing the teeth of the Environmental Assessment Act and the Environmental Protection Act. You have no track record because the existing technology has no track record. You do not know what is going to happen 20 years from now. Not even the experts are willing to speculate on the long-term integrity of a facility with a pre-determined capacity. Yet you and your ministry are willing to gamble on your perception of an emergency without any regard for new facts and existing data.
What emergency? According to the latest reports provided by Metro, the existing capacity at Keele Valley should accommodate disposal until 1997 or later, yet you feel that changing legislation to accommodate your original perception of an emergency is wiser than proceeding with the environmental assessment hearings promised by Premier Bob. If hearings had been started 18 months ago, instead of establishing your own retro-rationale committees, we would have been halfway through the process. But no, your ministry is busy dispensing with the thousands of man-hours spent by the previous government. God forbid that some of their findings and existing data could expedite matters. Your own IWA people have admitted they have little or no use for previous work in their parataxis -- produced, of course, under the ministry's guidelines -- a work that is somehow complete and now awaiting government sanctioning without public scrutiny.
It was a struggle for the residents of our community, especially those groups most affected by the ministry's decisions, to be a party to the initial round of public consultation initiated by the IWA, let alone to include and then move social equity on to the short list of criteria for the new search. It is still a struggle, because when all is said and done and the choices are made public, it will surely lack in the area of "compensation for injurious effects."
Where are the champions of social equality? What is happening to the people's party? Is there a shortage of socially conscious advisers for your ministry? Are people not a primary consideration of the environment? Must they be relegated to secondary consideration behind flora, fauna and the zebra-striped, single-winged earwig in the assessment of affected life-forms? Surely the minister's workload, as both Minister of the Environment and head of the greater Toronto area, has not compromised her judgement with a possible conflict of interest?
Conflicts? Metro cannot export waste beyond its boundaries, even though Keele Valley is outside its boundaries, but it is possible for other municipalities to do so. Vaughan and Metro reached an agreement after eight years of hearings and studies. Metro agreed to take care of York region's waste for the next 20 years. Now, according to the minister, York region is responsible for Metro's waste.
Well, we might as well rewrite the book on contract law while we are at it, because the minister says it is okay to break other laws as long as it follows the ministry's new law. Wrong. Once again, strike two, full count, nobody on base, bottom of the ninth, and you are way, way behind.
Let's talk about the bill. Ladies and gentlemen, we are all willing to take responsibility and appropriate action in dealing with waste management. Therefore, let's not allow the illegitimate birth of this bill to penalize those communities which have done more than their fair share in that regard.
If I can draw your attention to some notes from an environmental information bulletin that was put out, it speaks clearly on part II, which deals with waste disposal sites, and says, "The environmental assessments prepared by the Interim Waste Authority will be required to discuss certain alternatives to the three sites involving waste reduction, reuse, recycling and other single landfill sites. Because of environmental effects and to ensure local responsibility for waste produced, incineration and transport to other regions are ruled out." Why? It just is.
Part III is "Implementation of Minister's Report." It does not say how to implement the minister's report, should it be implemented. No, it is just carte blanche: implementation of it.
There was a perceived disposal gap of at least two or three years. That was then. Let's talk about now. Direct orders: Peel region must extend the life of the Britannia Road landfill site. Why? Metro Toronto must extend the life of the Keele Valley landfill site, which is located in York region. Why? The requirements apply even though implementing them will require one municipality to do something that would otherwise require the consent of another municipality or would contravene a municipal bylaw or agreement or a statute or regulation designated in the regulations. Why? Why must we break the law?
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a letter here dated March 7, 1989 addressed to the honourable Jim Bradley, then Minister of the Environment:
"Dear Mr Bradley,
"I am writing to urge you, in the strongest possible terms, not to exempt from the Environmental Assessment Act the proposal of Metro Toronto to extract clay in the 171-hectare parcel of land immediately north of the present Keele Valley landfill site.
"Metro has known since at least 1980 that additional clay to line the Keele Valley site has been needed. For that reason, there is no justifiable reason to argue that the Environmental Assessment Act should be skirted because of the alleged `emergency' nature of the problem. It seems to me that Metro has not managed the planning aspect of Keele Valley very well, and that they should not be rewarded for mismanagement with an Environmental Assessment Act exemption.
I suggest that for you to waive the requirements of the act in this case would run counter to everything that you have said in your term as Environment minister about sound waste management and environmental planning.
"Yours sincerely,
"Ruth Grier."
Okay, Ruth. Wrong.
Part III of the new Bill 143: The Environmental Assessment Act does not apply and Ontario Municipal Board approval is not required. Is that not convenient? "A certificate of approval may be issued for the enlarged landfill sites and new transfer station or stations even if a hearing under part V (waste management) of the Environmental Protection Act has not taken place, although a hearing is not ruled out." Gee, I did not feel stupid when I woke up this morning.
We must expunge the impunities there present and replace them with legitimate procedures that have due process and regard for past errors, howsoever caused, and all alternatives, giving better priorities to social equity. The repercussions of passing this bill in its present form and at the sole and unfettered discretion of the present government are endless. The dangerous precedents set by its passing will surely give way to subrogation of other important legislation.
I cannot stress enough the vile mood of our community as a result of this act. Every community group, business, resident, institution and neighbouring town has been alerted to the threat of a government-created subtopia, and the spectre of militancy looms large over the horizon.
Even though things may have started out as "Bob's Excellent Adventure," it is time to put an end to "Bob and Ruth's Bogus Journey."
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The Chair: I think the response from committee members to your presentation, while there were smiles and laughter, was only because of the style, not the substance. I know there are several who want to ask you questions. You certainly had the full attention of committee members.
Mr McClelland: I want to affirm what the Chairman said. It is refreshing. Thanks for your energy. It has been a long process and a long day, and you certainly had, I believe, all our attention regardless of what side of the political fence we sit on.
You laid it out pretty well. One of the things you alluded to was the problems we now have and how to serve the cause. I am going to take this opportunity to put a question to the parliamentary assistant, because I believe your presentation, sir, really cannot be added to. You did a superb job. I want to touch on something you alluded to in terms of prior process.
It is not directly with your group, but it is the same bill, and the same rights are being overridden in Peel. There has been a suggestion throughout the course of this committee that one of the reasons is because the site selection process under the Environmental Assessment Act was stopped by the former government under the direction of the then minister, Mr Jim Bradley. I am going to ask the ministry to indicate on whose advice it was stopped, what the rationale was for that process being stopped and whether or not it was the advice of ministry officials that led to that decision. There has been some implication -- in fact, some direct statements -- that there may have been some other motivation. I want to say on this record to the parliamentary assistant, clarify clearly why the process in Peel was stopped, under what advice, and what direction was given to the minister from staff in that regard.
Ms Haeck: In your presentation, you made some comment with regard to technology, particularly on page 3. However, I was wondering if you had had a chance to follow any of the other deputations. Have you have watched any of the presentations given during the last few weeks?
Mr Sacchetti: Unfortunately I was not able to follow each presentation. I did, however, receive publication and written information with regard to the contents of presentations made previous to mine, especially from our own area.
Ms Haeck: I see. So you really have not had the whole array of presentations that we have had?
Mr Sacchetti: Over the due course of my involvement in the city of Vaughan, as a member of a liaison committee established by the ministry, the region, the Metro works department and the city of Vaughan, I have been privileged to view endless amounts of technical information and endless amounts of other information which I am sure forms the basis and content of practically everything that has been said here today. As to having viewed each presentation individually, I am sorry, I have not.
Ms Haeck: No, I realize that is a rather large undertaking, but I know that in watching it, sometimes you would get a different sense of the kinds of presentations on either side of the question. The reason I asked that was particularly in relation to the kinds of technologies that have been put forward to us. Some people are proponents of incineration. Are you?
Mr Sacchetti: The incineration process should not be overlooked. It is clearly the job of the ministry and of government to look at everything. To arbitrarily rule out incineration without the benefit of any public scrutiny is clearly a mistake. That is where we feel we have been shortchanged. I am sure there is technology and there are studies elsewhere in the world, particularly in Japan and Europe, where incineration has been carried on for many years, that the government obviously has not taken into account.
Ms Haeck: You also comment about the fact that with the IWA, and definitely some other comments the minister has made, somehow she may not be taking into account those other technologies. I would like to turn to the parliamentary assistant and query the ministry staff, through him, with regard to the kind of technical data they have reviewed, possibly even the IWA, as to the kinds of choices that were made in formulating their decision eliminating things like incineration.
The Chair: Thanks very much Ms Haeck. Mr Stockwell.
Ms Haeck: I was wondering if the ministry could respond.
The Chair: You want the question now.
Ms Haeck: This is for now, to respond to Mr Sacchetti's comment about the fact that he was not aware that the IWA was taking into account any particular data.
Mr O'Connor: I do not know whether Barbara Johnston from the IWA had a chance to hear the question.
Ms Johnston: I am still confused as to what the question is. You are interested in the site search process for the IWA?
Ms Haeck: What kind of data you may have taken into account to scope the whole process.
Ms Johnston: I think that is a question better answered in writing.
Ms Haeck: I am sorry; I did not hear that.
The Chair: They would like to answer it in writing.
Ms Haeck: I see.
Mr Stockwell: That will be answered in writing?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Stockwell: The deputant spoke about the retroactivity aspect of the decision-making. When this was being discussed under the Liberal government, there was some talk about expanding the site by some five million tonnes, was there not?
Mr Sacchetti: I believe there was discussion to that effect, earlier on, yes.
Mr Stockwell: The other thought was about the interim dump sites and long-term dump sites being proposed. Exactly why they were pulled off the table, I do not know to this day, but they were all pulled off the table. Did you consider that a reasonable response to the issue, that we were heading down the right road, at least, in this province on landfill?
Mr Sacchetti: I believe our feelings at the time reflected a very grave concern with one committee in particular that had been set up, the Solid Waste Interim Steering Committee, and then the formation of the greater Toronto area. The confusion resulted in trying to establish exactly who was going to guide this tremendous search for a long-term site. I believe all the region's own sites were pulled off the table when the greater Toronto area was formed, if I am not mistaken. To throw away thousands of man-hours in any department of any government, regional, municipal or otherwise, to us seemed a complete waste.
Mr Stockwell: When the NDP and Mr Rae made the promise not to expand the Keele Valley landfill site, did you believe them?
Mr Sacchetti: Having had the landfill site virtually in my backyard for the last eight years, we were somewhat relieved at the time, but of course with an upturned eyebrow.
Mr Stockwell: When they got elected, did you expect them to carry forward on that promise?
Mr Sacchetti: Their being the proponents of social equality and the socialist government for the people, to hear the people and all the desk pounding that occurred around this issue, we certainly did not expect a complete flip-flop on it.
Mr Stockwell: The same goes for the Minister of the Environment, who was carrying your --
Mr Sacchetti: The Minister of the Environment has totally shocked us in more ways than one with her totalitarian approach to the whole issue, even when questioned at a meeting at which she was a guest speaker back in August for the Toronto Real Estate Board, where she clearly, bluntly refused to answer the question of whether she thought it was a wise decision to expand a landfill site that sits on the Oak Ridges moraine. At that time I came to the quick realization that it was going to be her way or no way.
Mr Stockwell: That happens in the House sometimes too. Could you tell me exactly what you felt when they made this announcement?
Mr Sacchetti: We were absolutely disgusted. In my closing remarks you will see that I have alluded to a spectre of militancy looming over the horizon. Taken seriously or not, I think you should consider the social anger that is present right now in some communities.
Mr Stockwell: It is the total hypocrisy of it all. It is the fact that they came out and made promises they could not keep. They totally reversed and now they have left you with literally -- in the worst-case scenario in the old days you were looking at five million tonnes. Today you are looking at 20 million or 25 million.
Mr Sacchetti: To use a politically correct buzz term for the 1990s, faeces occur.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I did not realize that was politically correct.
Interjection: Is it environmentally correct?
Mr Stockwell: It is biodegradable.
The Chair: Again, I would have to say we are not laughing at anything other than the style. You certainly have a very graphic and descriptive way. You have got our attention and you have made a very important presentation to this committee. Thank you for coming today. We appreciate it.
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OLDER WOMEN'S NETWORK
The Chair: The next presentation will be from the Older Women's Network environment group. Please come forward and introduce yourself to the committee. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We ask that you leave a few minutes at the end for questions.
Mrs Phillips: My name is Rivka Phillips. I am here on behalf of the environment group of an organization called the Older Women's Network. This organization is, as a whole, not primarily concerned with environmental issues. The Older Women's Network focuses on issues particularly affecting older women and encourages women to participate actively in decisions affecting their lives and society. We started in 1986 with seven women. Our membership today is over 300. Our work falls into two main categories.
The first is an advocacy program addressed to all levels of government: federal, provincial and municipal. The second consists of interest and support groups. A list of some of our advocacy program activity is on the sheet you have. I might mention the last one, security of shelter. We are in the process of building a rental cooperative apartment building, provincially financed, on city-owned land, geared to income with 142 units and there will be environmental protections in it.
Our environmental group, on whose behalf I am here today, was formed about two years ago. In this group the activities of course are not just for women, but for all living beings and our earth. We have advocated to all levels of government, primarily in the form of letters, on such issues as clear-cutting of forests; measures to reduce carbon dioxide pollution, which relates to the depletion of the ozone layer and global warming; such questions as increased rail transportation and hence reduced automobile use; improved fuel efficiency in cars; more bicycle routes in Toronto; protest against the James Bay II power project, and action to reduce or eliminate pesticides in public parks.
A few remarks about Bill 143: It seems ironic at the moment to say that we are pleased the bill has such comprehensive coverage in view of what I have just heard in the last hour or so. We are pleased with the good follow-up and inspection provisions the bill provides. On the not-plus side, we would like to see more emphasis on the following: clearly specify to manufacturers to correct waste-causing packaging; a requirement that industries pay for, or contribute largely to, the cost of cleaning up the pollution they cause; encouragement to individual citizens to draw waste-causing packaging etc to the attention of the manufacturers and retailers and the government. We think more help is available from individual citizens, adults and schoolchildren than has as yet been activated.
Our proposal regarding Bill 143 deals with one limited area, much less sweeping in scope than some of the presentations I have heard in the hour or so I have been here. It deals with the collection and disposal of two kinds of hazardous wastes, mainly from households: worn-out batteries, as used in small radios, cameras, toys, Sony Walkmans etc and empty containers from paint and cleaning supplies.
It becomes a question of cost for adequate disposal arrangements versus environmental damage from inadequate arrangements. Some people will make the effort to take these toxic materials to disposal sites themselves. If they do, the question is, are the disposal sites adequately accessible? Is their location adequately publicized? When we think of sidewalk pickup of these materials, we wonder if the pickup days are known and are frequent enough. If the answer to all these questions is no, and I think it is, then even environmentally concerned citizens tend to dump these materials in the ordinary pickup of garbage. From there it leaches its poison into the soil, and subsequently into the rivers and lakes, resulting in almost irreversible damage. That is something we are extremely concerned about.
There is one thing we think could be done. It is a small step, but it would achieve some reduction in pollution. Could we consider the small batteries, the nine volts, C, D, AA and AAA, separately from the paint and cleaning supply containers? Gas stations, even in their presently reduced numbers, and firehalls might agree to have large, adequately secured bins for used batteries. Pickup from this smaller number of locations would be less costly. I guess this arrangement could pull in over 90% of these batteries because gas stations are easily accessible, certainly to car drivers but also to pedestrians.
There is also the whole question of non-rechargeable batteries versus rechargeable ones and rechargers. The present ratio of non-rechargeable to rechargeable is about six to one. I checked that figure with a couple of Radio Shack stores, both in Toronto and Kingston. How can we reduce this six-to-one ratio? On the minus side, rechargeable batteries are expensive, approximately three to one, $12.95 versus $3.39 for a nine volt. Rechargers are expensive. They range in price from $18 to $34 for rechargers that will recharge all types of batteries, and recharging takes 12 to 14 hours. The lifetime of a recharged battery is about half that of a new battery, so recharging has to be done often.
On the plus side, any improvement in the six-to-one ratio is a gain. There is certainly a cost-saving in the long run. Manufacturers of rechargeable batteries might be persuaded to reduce the price, because increased sales volume would compensate for lower unit price. Retailers could be asked to remind purchasers of the existence of rechargeable batteries at the time of purchase. A small reminder at the point of sale might improve the six-to-one ratio. These measures would achieve some reduction in improper disposal of hazardous wastes without any great cost.
Regarding empty containers from paint, would it be possible for the trucks that collect from the blue boxes to omit one blue box pickup, perhaps once in two months or three months, and get the paint containers instead? Another possibility would be to return the empty paint containers to the place of purchase, which I am sure they would appreciate greatly.
I see in a letter from the Metro works commissioner, dated December 3, 1991, that it is estimated that about 16.3% is presently retrieved by current methods of collection at what the commissioner states is a very high cost. His letter states, "If this program cannot achieve a higher percentage of recovery of household hazardous wastes at a lower unit cost, it should be considered for termination." I think that is shocking. Surely in this extremely dangerous and irreversible pollution of land, and eventually of lakes and rivers, we cannot allow cost to determine policy.
Speaking now of water pollution from toxic wastes, I would like to go for a moment beyond the jurisdiction of bill 143 to what I think is the area of the Ontario Water Resources Act. Large industries, such as pulp and paper mills, of which there are at least three in Ontario, and a company like Uniroyal in Elmira, a chemical industry, are serious polluters of our rivers and lakes. We think it is no longer utopian to realize it is environmental concerns that must determine economics and politics, not the other way around, and that we must act upon that realization, recession and deficit mania notwithstanding.
We were pleased to see in the Globe and Mail of January 17, 1992, that the British Columbia government has set new, tough controls and deadlines on pulp and paper toxic waste discharges, and that means technology to reduce the source, not just contain the discharge, and that industry foots the bill. We realize this water pollution has gone on for years and was permitted by previous governments not only in Ontario but in all of Canada, but environmental awareness is so much greater now that the pressure is on today's governments to take strong action. We hope Ontario will return to the tougher position it considered earlier in its mandate.
I realize the suggestions made here regarding batteries and paint containers are a small part of the problem, but many small bits can achieve a significant impact.
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The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for a very thoughtful presentation. Miss Haeck is first for questioning.
Ms Haeck: I really appreciate the fact that you have taken some time out of your day to come here and give us your views. I am not sure if you had a chance to arrive somewhat earlier in the day, because there were a couple of other people whom you may have found some symbiotic relationship with. There was the Conserver Society of Burlington that raised some similar concerns as you have in your paper.
Mrs Phillips: I did not.
Ms Haeck: I would like to refer to page 2 of your brief where, under section 2 particularly, you raise some points around packaging. I am not sure if you are at all aware that the green dot system has been adopted in Germany as a means of identifying recyclable packages and packages that have to go back to the manufacturer in the same way as you suggest with paint cans. How would you feel about a broad, very general application of that kind of system in Ontario?
Mrs Phillips: It would be good because it would place considerable onus upon the manufacturers to limit the toxic material to the greatest possible extent and probably a much greater extent than they are presently doing.
Ms Haeck: Yes. Obviously from your comments you are very much in favour of the 3Rs.
Mrs Phillips: Yes.
Ms Haeck: Are you working in a community group to broaden the 3Rs in your area?
Mrs Phillips: We network with a number of organizations, one of which was here today, and we are members of It's Not Garbage. The "network" word in Older Women's Network is a reality, not just a word.
Ms Haeck: Obviously you take a great interest in what is going on in society as a whole. Returning to the packaging issue, have you thought about any deadline, any time frames in which reducing packaging should take place? There is a national packaging protocol available, but currently it is primarily voluntary.
Mrs Phillips: I do not think the deadline can be the same for one industry or manufacturer as for another because it depends on the product and on the package, but I am very concerned that the manufacturers must feel there are teeth in such a thing. For example, just a week or so ago I was going to buy something at a Pharma Plus drugstore near me but did not because I told them I did not like the packaging. I went across the road to an individual drugstore and he had it in a non-waste-causing package. I bought it and I took it back to the drugstore. I think there is quite a bit individual people can do.
Mr McClelland: I just want to make a comment about the name of your organization. It is certainly young in spirit. We appreciate it and appreciate your being here. You talked about rechargeable batteries. One of the great solutions is that everybody should have a five-year-old child live with them for a week or two and they would certainly be into using rechargeable batteries to survive financially. Thank you very much for being here today. We appreciate the spirit you embody and bring and we look forward to the future and to our kids' future as well. We thank you for that.
Mrs Phillips: Radio Shack told me that the people who use the rechargeable batteries almost more than any other are the children who have toys that need them.
Mrs Marland: I want to also congratulate you on being here today. It is wonderful you are so committed and actively interested in the environment and the conservation of the environment. Where you say that you think your suggestion regarding the batteries and the paint containers is a small part of the problem, I want to give you a suggestion because I, like you, think small parts make up a very large whole, and I think it is an important part you are addressing.
I have made this suggestion now to both ministers of the Environment and have not had a response from either the Liberal or the New Democratic ministers. I am going to suggest that maybe you could do this through the school boards. My suggestion is that schools, especially at the elementary level, the age when battery-operated entertainment devices and toys are most heavily used, every three or four months have a day when the children would be encouraged to bring their old batteries to school. Then the school could look after taking them to a hazardous waste disposal location. The educational aspect and the awareness that creates in the children will eventually lead them to be adults who are not like us, as we have been so abusive throughout our generations with batteries and paint cans. I am not suggesting this for paint cans, but I think the suggestion about the batteries would be great and it would be great if that suggestion came from you to the school boards.
Mrs Phillips: I used to teach in North York. I phoned the North York board just to see what kind of environmental program they have. I had also phoned previously. They have an extensive environmental program and they make the children aware that what they want is not just an intellectual realization of environmental issues, but action.
Mrs Marland: That is great.
Mr Wiseman: California is in the process of working towards banning all solvent-based paints. That is a market that should be viewed as probably the toughest regulatory market in North America. Cleaning solvents and that market are also being tightened up. It is with respect to what you can use to clean paint brushes and so on. All solvent-based, petroleum-based products are being banned.
As a way of handling batteries, in my constituency they have igloos and on the side of the igloos are places for batteries to be deposited to be picked up to be recycled. Why would anybody throw any paint away? Why not take it to an exchange place where people who are looking for paint can come and pick up what is left over and take it home and use it?
Mrs Phillips: Very often it is the empty can, not the partially empty can.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation today. We appreciate your appearing before the committee. If there is additional information you would like to share with us, you can do so by communicating with us in writing over the course of our hearings. Thank you.
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UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA
The Chair: I would like to call next the United Steelworkers of America. Please come forward and introduce your delegation. You have 20 minutes for your presentation and we would appreciate it if you would leave a few minutes at the end for questions from committee members. I understand the driving is bad. You came in from Hamilton? Is that the latest traffic report? We are glad you are here and got here safety.
Mrs Marland: That's through Mississauga.
The Chair: I understand the traffic is never bad in Mississauga and that the weather is occasionally bad in Mississauga. Is that correct, Mrs Marland?
Mrs Marland: That is correct.
Mr Hynd: My name is Henry Hynd and I am the director of the United Steelworkers, District 6, which is Ontario. The United Steelworkers of America appreciates this opportunity to comment on Bill 143, An Act respecting the Management of Waste in the Greater Toronto Area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act.
Our union represents over 75,000 workers in Ontario and we share and support this government's commitment to achieve waste reduction targets. Strong initiatives designed to divert waste from landfill by enhancing efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle are necessary and long overdue. It is our hope Bill 143 and its regulations will provide a model in this country for the development of effective waste reduction strategies.
Our union in Ontario represents workers in a wide variety of environments including steel mills, container production facilities, mines, resource refineries, chemical production and nuclear facilities, offices, nursing homes, hotels, hospitals and financial institutions.
Employed in some of the most dangerous occupations, working frequently with hazardous materials, the United Steelworkers have fought hard for strong health and safety regulations to protect workers. When we talk about workers, we include their families and communities. As such, our efforts also address the environmental and job protection measures to maintain healthy workplaces and communities.
For example, a joint labour-management environment committee at Inco in Sudbury is looking at measures to reduce waste and pollution while maintaining a viable, competitive and productive operation. In the steel and container manufacturing sector, research is under way to look at effectively closing the loop on steel containers, ensuring maximum recovery and recycling of steel products and waste and, in turn, maximum diversion of this waste from landfill sites.
It should then be understood that our participation in these hearings is motivated by a deep conviction that we consider environmental protection legislation as both workers and environmentalists.
This is particularly true in these economic times. As we have said in consultations with the waste reduction office, we must develop long-term strategies towards prosperity that are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. Measures to manage and reduce waste cannot be developed and introduced without the full participation of workers and their organizations.
This bill provides an approach that, implemented effectively, will place increased responsibility for waste reduction plans on municipalities, communities and employers. While we support the intent of the bill, we urge you in your deliberations to, as we have done, look at improvements to:
1. Increase and guarantee the participation of workers, their organizations and community groups in discussions and decisions about waste management and waste reduction plans;
2. Ensure adequate public information and education programs;
3. Ensure public ownership and operation of landfill and waste management sites;
4. Ensure adequate review of waste reduction plans in light of long-term targets and objectives to reduce waste.
The Interim Waste Authority and waste disposal sites: Parts I, II and III of the bill provide a mandate for the Interim Waste Authority and the management of landfill sites in the greater Toronto area.
There is no question that the current crisis in the greater Toronto area requires special attention and care. We support objectives of the Interim Waste Authority and sections in the bill to restrict environmental assessments from considering alternatives of incineration and export of waste from the greater Toronto area, as an example, a proposal to export waste to the Kirkland Lake area. Our organization, the Steelworkers, has some support for that among our members, but there are also members who oppose the transportation of our waste to the Adams mine site in Kirkland Lake, and there are those who would prefer that an environmental study be done before any decision would be made on the transportation.
Of course, it is a difficult thing for our union. Kirkland Lake is an area where we have lost a lot of members. A lot of mines have closed and therefore there is the economy: How do workers replace the employment they have lost in the mines? That is a difficult issue for us to address, but we are addressing it as best we can.
Like many taxpayers and groups that have appeared before you, we are encouraged by attempts to finally coordinate waste management and reduction efforts, not only in the greater Toronto area but throughout the province. However, strengthening and expanding the mandate of the Interim Waste Authority may help to develop a long-term integrated plan for the GTA and provide other municipalities with a model of how to establish and maintain effective waste management facilities and programs.
For example, while restrictions on environmental assessments should encourage accelerated efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle, we are concerned that residents and municipalities may not have the resources to responsibly achieve waste reduction targets. Although other pieces of legislation outline a process for environmental assessments, given the additional responsibilities placed on municipalities in this bill, there clearly need to be more resources set aside to inform, educate and involve taxpayers in the decisions about landfill and waste management sites.
While part IV of the bill provides for funding and research of demonstration and experimental programs to reduce, reuse and recycle, it seems apparent that additional and immediate resources are required in the greater Toronto area to minimize current waste flow to landfill and maximize diversion from future sites. We therefore support sections in the act that provide for planning of landfill sites in light of estimates of the capacity of other waste reduction initiatives to divert waste from landfill, but in addition we would further support measures building on this coordination that may enhance the role of the waste authority to recommend immediate funding of facilities and programs to reduce waste flow to existing and future landfill sites.
Amendments to the Environmental Protection Act: Part IV of the bill introduces amendments to the Environmental Protection Act. It should come as no surprise that it is this section of the proposed legislation we see as most essential in developing a long-term effective waste reduction and management strategy for Ontario. It is also in this section that we would like to see amendments to ensure consultation with workers and their unions.
The United Steelworkers of America represents workers engaged in the manufacture of steel and aluminum containers. I am sure you are aware that enforcement of current regulations on beverage containers is currently under review. It has been our position that we cannot develop policies on beverage containers in isolation of broader packaging questions and long-term strategies to protect jobs and the environment in Ontario. Many of the amendments to the Environmental Protection Act will lead us in this direction.
As we noted previously, we are currently engaged in research to close the loop for steel containers. We believe it is possible within the steel sector, for example, to develop stewardship of steel products to ensure maximum recovery and diversion from landfill. Much of the steel produced in Ontario is dependent on scrap, and plans to develop future, less energy-intensive steel production facilities will be even more dependent on what can be collected for recycling. This is just one example of how we may see the amendments have the effect of reducing waste, as well as increasing productivity and sustaining employment.
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It is the effects on employment that lead us to strongly recommend the inclusion in this bill and its regulations of measures to ensure the participation of workers and their unions. Public policy to conduct waste audits and develop waste reduction plans in consultation with affected workers and their unions will help us to ensure that plans, for example, take into account possible training or retraining needs due to the introduction of more environmentally sound work practices and products. In addition, it is workers themselves who are working with the materials and products that may end up in the waste stream. As a result, they are often in the best position to examine and evaluate waste management practices, as well as to recommend how to improve work methods to reduce waste.
Participation of workers will also help to ensure more effective public education in our communities. Recently one of our members who works in the production of aerosol cans was confronted by her child, who had been taught in school that what her mother was producing was hazardous to the environment, in spite of the fact that the aerosol cans that are produced today are environmentally sound. You can imagine how ashamed and torn one feels when you are told by your child that your job is destroying her environment and that of future grandchildren. Unless workers are well informed, as in this example where the company converted some time ago to non-CFC, ozone-friendly spray mechanisms, it is difficult to respond.
Late in 1991 the Waste Reduction Office released Regulatory Measures to Achieve Ontario's Waste Reduction Targets: Initiatives Paper No 1. Amendments to the Environmental Protection Act included in Bill 143 will allow the minister to implement measures included in its initiatives paper. The majority of Steelworkers members are employed in workplaces to be covered by these regulations. From offices and manufacturing sites to hotels and hospitals, employers will be required to prepare and maintain waste audits and work plans, as well as implement source separation of waste for recycling or reuse. A simple requirement to post a waste reduction plan in the workplace is not good enough. The United Steelworkers asks this government to include measures in the legislation requiring employers to consult with the affected unionized employees in their workplaces to develop effective waste audits and action plans.
Whether it is restructuring to increase productivity or restructuring to provide for cleaner and more efficient production, the importance of worker participation and investment must be recognized. As taxpayers, while we welcome amendments to assist in research and development of new recycling establishments, for example, we would also like some assurance from the government that priority will be given to funding sites and operations that are publicly owned and operated.
We know from examples like the blue box program and the Keele Valley landfill site that there are tremendous costs, as well as potential revenues, associated with waste management. Therefore, the minister should require that assessments for landfill sites and the impact of extending the life of existing sites, available to the public, include projections of costs and income. Moneys raised through these sites should be invested in local municipally and publicly run and operated recycling or composting facilities or other 3Rs projects. In turn, moneys raised through these facilities should be reinvested in projects to clean and protect our environment here in Ontario. If taxpayers are to have the responsibility for waste reduction and management, they must profit financially, as well as environmentally.
In closing, the United Steelworkers believes we have come a long way from the days of workers pitted against environmentalists. We all have a responsibility to protect the environment, and you, as our representatives in this government, have a responsibility for planning and coordinating programs to protect our environment. In our view, effective planning, implementation and enforcement of environmental protection legislation is completely dependent on the participation of people in their communities and in their workplaces. In this way we will achieve waste reduction targets.
We thank you for this opportunity to comment and look forward to the enactment and implementation of this legislation that will, we hope, enhance efforts to sustain employment and a clean environment here in Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. Mr McClelland, you have the floor. There are approximately six minutes in total for questioning. I would ask that you be as brief as possible.
Mr McClelland: I wonder if you would comment on page 6. You said there is a crisis. I draw to your attention that there is much debate about that, that most people involved in the management of waste in and around Toronto suggest that in fact there is no crisis. We have heard a couple of deputations today and others on previous occasions say that the capacity of Keele Valley, by way of example, stretches at least until 1997. Then you go on to say you support the objectives of the IWA as set out in the bill to restrict environmental assessments, but you qualify it, "from considering alternatives of incineration and export of waste from the GTA."
First, apart from that last clause, "from considering alternatives," do you support the objectives of the bill to restrict environmental assessments absent that qualification?
Second, I am just wondering about your comment "enhance the efforts to sustain employment." There have been a considerable number of representatives from the private sector. I also acknowledge that you prefer a public-sector-run system in total, but a number of private sector organizations have said Bill 143 really calls into question our viability in the future in this province, perhaps putting thousands of people out of work. Whatever comments you might have would be appreciated.
Mr Hynd: I obviously disagree with the comment. To have an environment that is safe and provides some potential for a future in our country, I do not think, is an unwise thing to consider and certainly --
Mr McClelland: I do not think I suggested that.
Mr Hynd: I thought that is what you said.
Mr McClelland: No. Let's be very clear. The question is twofold: First, do you support the bill to the extent that it removes the environmental assessment process without the qualification that you added in your brief, and second, how do you feel about the fact that Bill 143, according to some people who should know, may put thousands of people out of work?
Mr Hynd: I could not comment on whether they believe that thousands of people are going to be put out of work. I believe we can increase employment in Ontario if we develop safe waste management techniques.
Mr McClelland: So do they.
Mr Martin: I was intrigued by and actually I can identify a bit with your concern re the shipping of waste to the north. Certainly that option has been painted by some folks as a very attractive option for workers in northern Ontario. You know and I know that the government, the industrial sector and your leadership and membership are working very diligently to try to create new work in northern Ontario for the folks who live in the communities I live in. You said you had some difficulty as you struggled with that question, as I do. Perhaps you might want to expand a bit on what those difficulties are.
Mr Hynd: The difficulties are that, obviously, any opportunities for employment in the north are viewed initially as being positive. When one looks at the creation of employment, if that is the only question one addresses, then it is an attractive thing for people in Kirkland Lake, as an example. When one looks at the employment that is being created, then obviously there are different viewpoints in the community of Kirkland Lake and from people in Toronto and throughout this province as well, that the transportation of excessive waste that is being produced and is not being reused and recycled poses a great many problems for people.
There are people in our union, in the Steelworkers in Kirkland Lake, who support the transportation of garbage to Kirkland Lake; there are those who are opposed, and there are those who would have preferred, in making their decision, to have an environmental assessment. All I can say is that from the union's point of view, we do not believe this is the road to go, where we fill land sites in major cities and then export our garbage outside to other communities. There must be a better way, and the better way is to develop as best we can the reuse, the recycling and better landfill opportunities for waste. As an example, we dump a great deal of newspapers in the waste landfill sites, and there are ways to recycle paper and replenish the land with newspaper. You can plow newspapers into soil and make it more fertile. We would rather do that than store garbage in some mine, which may or may not provide long-term sustainable employment.
The jobs we would like to provide are jobs that are long and sustainable. It is a difficult issue, but I think it is an issue we must come to terms with. I do not think we can say that we can keep filling land sites in major cities and building greater land sites, and then when we have accomplished that move the garbage out.
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The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation today. We appreciate your coming before the committee to discuss Bill 143. All the committee members have received a copy of your written brief. If there is additional information you would like to share with us, please feel free to do that in the future through our clerk.
Mr Hynd: This is handy for everyone. Thank you.
The Chair: Everyone has a copy of that.
CANADIAN RESTAURANT AND FOODSERVICES ASSOCIATION
QUICK SERVICE RESTAURANT COUNCIL
The Chair: I would like to call our next presentation. Please come forward and introduce your delegation. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We ask if you would leave a few minutes at the end for questions from committee members.
Mr Needham: Good afternoon. My name is Douglas Needham. I am president and chief operating officer of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association. Joining me is Patti Jameson, chair of the Quick Service Restaurant Council, which is a sector council of our association.
We would like to begin our presentation by telling you a bit about the foodservice industry, our two organizations and what we are doing to reduce waste. Then we will provide some specific comments and recommendations with regard to Bill 143.
The Canadian restaurant association is a national organization representing all sectors of the foodservice industry. We have ll,000 corporate members, who control 30,000 foodservice outlets across Canada. The foodservice industry is a large and diverse sector of the Canadian economy and nationally we represent 4.5% of the gross domestic product, 5.2% of total employment and 6% of small business.
In Ontario, foodservice sales last year were $6.7 billion and the industry provided employment for 160,000 residents. Ontario's foodservice industry includes 11 different sectors that feed customers in a variety of circumstances, ranging from fine dining to quick service restaurants, to institutional feeding in schools, hospitals, plants and offices.
The five largest sectors of our industry are liquor-licensed restaurants, which represent 29.6% of sales; quick service restaurants, which represent 20.5% of sales; hotel, motel and resort foodservice, which is 13.5%; institutional feeding, which is 10.2%, and takeout and delivery, which is 7.4%. Despite the high profile of large national chains, Ontario's foodservice industry continues to be dominated by independent operations, which represent 78% of foodservice sales in the province.
The foodservice industry grew very rapidly in the postwar period due to a number of factors including demographic, economic and regulatory changes, principally the rapid increase in the number of working women in our society, the growth of leisure and business travel and the relaxation of liquor licensing in the 1960s and 1970s. Our market share of the food dollar vis-à-vis grocery stores jumped from 18% in 1963 to 40% in 1989. However, in the past two years it has dropped back to 36%.
Ontario's foodservice industry has been devastated by a number of factors in the last couple of years, one being the recession, another being the GST on restaurant meals compared to the zero rating on groceries, the high Canadian dollar, cross-border shopping and other factors that have weakened Ontario's tourism industry. In 1990 real foodservice sales dropped 2.4% compared to 1989, and in 1991 real sales plummeted a further 19.3%. All sectors are experiencing negative growth, including the quick service sector, which traditionally has been somewhat resistant to recessions.
Both CRFA and the Quick Service Restaurant Council have been proactive in the campaign to reduce waste. We have endorsed the national packaging protocol and Ontario's waste reduction action plan. Most important, both organizations have committed resources and launched initiatives designed to help the foodservice industry to achieve those goals. Our association continues to work with both the federal and the Ontario governments to identify and implement solutions designed to reduce waste generated by the industry.
At the federal level, our association is working with Environment Canada and the Department of National Health and Welfare on the implementation of the national packaging protocol to ensure that it meets the realities of our industry. To give you just one example, it should be noted that the use of recycled materials in food packaging does involve health and safety restrictions. These have to be identified and defined so that they are understood by both industry and government.
In Ontario our association is working with the waste reduction office, providing input into programs such as the Initiatives Paper No 1. We have also accepted an invitation from the waste reduction office to sit on the newly created strategy team for wet waste reduction, where we look forward to addressing organics, which are the single biggest category of waste generated by the foodservice industry.
At the municipal level, our members are actively supporting local initiatives such as the city of Toronto's new restaurant recycling program, in which glass, metal, plastics and corrugated are being diverted away from landfill.
Working with governments to define environmental goals and strategies is just one of our responsibilities as a national trade association. We are also communicating those goals and providing workable guidelines to our members in order to help them achieve these objectives. In addition to newsletters, meetings and conferences on waste management, CRFA has recently published a step-by-step guide on the environment called Going Green Without Seeing Red. This comprehensive guide, which has been provided to the committee, is being distributed to our members free of charge.
Now I would like to ask Patti Jameson, chair of the Quick Service Restaurant Council, to tell you a little bit about that sector council and to give our recommendations with regard to Bill 143.
Ms Jameson: I am here today as the elected chairman of the Quick Service Restaurant Council, but my real job is with Tim Donut Ltd, which is the licensing company for franchised Tim Horton stores throughout Canada.
The Quick Service Restaurant Council was formed by leading quick service restaurant companies with a mandate to meet or exceed waste reduction goals established by the federal and provincial governments. If I may, I would like to briefly outline the QSRC's activities before I specifically address Bill 143.
The first step for the Quick Service Restaurant Council is to gain an understanding of the quantity and nature of waste produced by our sector and to develop a strategy to reduce that waste. That process is currently being undertaken in a major research study which was awarded to Resource Integration Systems Ltd, a Toronto-based consulting firm specializing in waste reduction, recycling and composting.
Preliminary findings from the RIS study reveal that total waste generation by Ontario's quick service restaurant sector was 71,100 tonnes in the year 1990-91. That represents approximately 0.5% of the total waste generated in Ontario. The study found that in a typical quick service restaurant establishment waste was generated as follows in the back of the house, 59%; in the front of the house, 24%, and takeout packaging only 17%. In terms of composition, quick service restaurant waste was quantified as organics and food waste, 39%; other fibre, 37%; mandated source-separated recyclables, 14%; flexible plastics, 5%; rigid plastics, 4%, and other materials 1%.
With these and other findings, RIS is working with the Quick Service Restaurant Council to develop a waste reduction strategy that the sector will implement between now and the year 2000. That strategy is still in its formative stages, but based on the RIS findings it is quite clear where we must focus. Back of the house waste represents 59% of total waste. It is under the complete control of restaurant staff and consequently it is where we can make the greatest impact on waste reduction. Individual members have already started working with their suppliers on the development of reusable shipping containers for buns, produce and meat deliveries and the elimination where possible of corrugated shipping containers and recycling programs for the remaining corrugated.
In terms of composition, organics, or food waste, is the single greatest category, representing 37% of total waste generated by an average quick service restaurant. This offers a solution based on composting. While this is in its infancy here in North America, we are already talking to composting companies about participating in a pilot project in the greater Toronto area.
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Packaging represents another kind of challenge to the QSRC. It is worth noting that 87% of packaging is fibre, with the balance being 11% polystyrene and 2% other plastics. Takeout comprises 55% of packaging and is where our initiatives are pretty well limited to reduction in weight and size. This will undoubtedly be part of our strategy for waste reduction. The remaining 45% of packaging is disposed of on premises where we can supplement our reduction program by the recycling of polystyrene materials and composting of fibre materials.
Now I would like to turn to our recommendations with regard to Bill 143. Our comments are limited to the portions of this bill that would amend the Environmental Protection Act. We are particularly concerned about the broad powers that would permit the regulation and/or prohibition of the sale and/or use of packaging, containers and disposable products. Both CRFA and QSRC are concerned that these broad powers to regulate and/or ban specific products by regulation may expose these products to arbitrary treatment. In doing so, that action could pre-empt other solutions and be counterproductive to the environmental goals of the province. The proposed amendments fail to define the criteria for exercising these powers, nor does the bill include an objective system of due process or appeal. In our view, the bill creates a situation where the potential for precipitous action or reaction, however well-intentioned, can arise.
Our collective experience with polystyrene is a case in point. This material became a lightning-rod for environmental concerns in the 1980s. If these regulations had existed, polystyrene might have been severely regulated or even banned. With time and patience, government and industry were able to make this material a desirable environmental product. CFCs were removed and a significant commitment was made to the collection and recycling of this material, with the result that polystyrene is increasingly being diverted from landfill. We submit that the polystyrene success story could have been different if the government had had the power to react to public pressure without due process and sober second thought.
CRFA and QSRC have similar concerns with amendments to the Environmental Protection Act that would grant powers by regulation to prescribe plans for waste management and require waste generators to seek approval for waste management plans, implement those plans and achieve waste management objectives as specified in the regulation. We are concerned that these broad powers could generate arbitrary regulations governing waste audits, waste management and waste reduction objectives, above and beyond those specified in current federal and provincial goals. Again, the proposed amendments could lead to rash and reactive measures against specific industries without the benefit of due process and appeal.
It is the position of CRFA and QSRC that the guidelines contained in the national packaging protocol and Ontario's waste reduction action plan represent a fair and equitable response to waste reduction. Industries that can and do meet these goals and contribute their share towards waste minimization should be permitted to operate in a stable and predictable environment without fear of arbitrary regulations and/or bans aimed at specific products or industries.
In conclusion, it is recommended that the foregoing amendments be withdrawn from Bill 143 or, at the very least, that an objective system of due process be incorporated into the legislation in order to protect industries and businesses from arbitrary and misguided regulation.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your excellent presentation. Mrs Marland, a question? We have approximately eight minutes in total. I ask that you be brief with your questions.
Mrs Marland: I congratulate both these presenters. I think it speaks very well for your industry that you are here today on behalf of your industry, and I may say on behalf of the public, because we are dependent on how you do business to maintain our health and safety in your establishments. I am certainly aware of Tim Horton and the standards it maintains. I think it is great, Patti, that you hold the position you do with that particular company.
Ms Jameson: Thank you.
Mrs Marland: But it must really frustrate you to hear what some of the possibilities may be with these regulations, while at the same point you know the public is expecting you to protect it. You must wonder if rubber gloves, because of the fact they are so difficult to dispose of, may end up being one of the things that could be reversed by a dictatorial government that decides, "It's too much waste and it's not going to be included in your waste audit." That is an exaggeration, but I am wondering if you would be willing, as representatives of your industry, if you were asked or were invited by the ministry, to sit down and work out regulations that minimize the waste, which is the goal of all of us, but still protect the people who eat in your establishments.
Ms Jameson: Absolutely. We would very much welcome that kind of input and participation. That of course has to be our biggest concern in running a food service establishment, ensuring that we are giving the public what it deserves. To have an input in that kind of regulation so we ensure that we are able to run our operation in the way that will best serve the public, we would welcome and would want to do so very much.
Mrs Mathyssen: Thank you for coming. I think your concerns about arbitrary regulations are quite reasonable and I was glad you had been involved in the consultation with Initiatives Paper No 1. I have a couple of quick questions. Are all companies following the national packaging protocol, and second, if they are compelled to follow this protocol, would it not make it fair, would it not make a level playing field so you could compete and do business in a more equitable way?
Ms Jameson: The answer to the first part of your question is that certainly all the members of the Quick Service Restaurant Council are endeavouring at all levels of their operations to met the Napp regulations. Obviously there are difficulties and costs involved in getting through some of the obstacles to actually meet those objectives, but I believe we are putting forth, as an industry, a tremendous effort in coming up with new and innovative ideas and am working very closely with all the suppliers to our industry to ensure we can put the proper processes in place to meet those requirements.
The Chair: One more question, a quick one, from Mr Sola, and then you can complete your response.
Mr Sola: I took a quick glance through your booklet, Going Green Without Seeing Red, and I noticed you have a waste management action plan, the first step of which is a waste audit. Since you did not comment very much on the mandatory waste audit requirements of Bill 143, I am wondering what effect or what impact that would have on your industry.
The Chair: There is about two minutes in total remaining. We would appreciate your response within that time line.
Ms Jameson: I think that with waste audits we understand, as an industry, in the QSRC that they are necessary. We have conducted them ourselves to show us what waste we are generating. But as far as waste audits to be conducted in conjunction with the regulations that are coming about are concerned, we have to ensure that they can be simplified so that not only the members of our group that belong to chains can respond correctly to those audits, but we also have to remember the members of Doug's association who are small independents who perhaps do not have the resources behind them to be able to understand and clearly follow the implementation of what comes from those waste audits.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation before the committee today. We have had three full weeks of hearings now. This is the conclusion of the third week. I think I speak for all members of the committee when I say that we have had very interesting presentations and that the hearings have been productive. Next week we will be travelling. Our first day is in Sudbury and then we go to Kirkland Lake, Kingston and finish the week in Sarnia. I want to thank you for appearing before us today and say how much we appreciated your coming before the committee. If there is any information you or anyone watching these hearings would like to share with us over the course of our hearings, please feel free to communicate with us in writing.
Mrs Marland: I wonder if we could have a response to a question I will place on the record to the minister through the parliamentary assistant, and that is the obvious interest and opportunity of Mr Douglas Needham, on behalf of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, and Ms. Patti Jameson, on behalf of the Quick Service Restaurant Council, and their offer to work with the ministry and with the minister to develop regulations that would protect the public while minimizing waste. Would you respond to these two people about their offer to work with you, please?
Mr O'Connor: I think that is very kind of you and I am sure the ministry and the minister will look forward to having some input.
The Chair: The standing committee on social development stands adjourned until Monday morning in Sudbury.
The committee adjourned at 1725.