WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LA GESTION DES DÉCHETS
TURTLE LAKE RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION
ENVIRONMENT AND PLASTICS INSTITUTE OF CANADA
BROWNING-FERRIS INDUSTRIES LTD
CONTENTS
Thursday 30 January 1992
Waste Management Act, 1991, Bill 143 / Loi de 1991 sur la gestion des déchets, projet de loi 143
Terry Howes
Terry Goodwin
Turtle Lake Ratepayers Association
Ted House, president
Ruth MacKay, head of environmental committee
Waste Wise
Diane van de Valk, project manager
Rita Landry, chair
Town of Markham
John Morand, administrator
Dalo Keliar, commissioner of works
Township of Scugog
David Dietlein, councillor
Environment and Plastics Institute of Canada
Fred Edgecombe, executive director
Christopher LeClair, manager, legislative affairs and member services
Zero Garbage/Scugog
Colin Kemp, representative
John Hastings
Patch Farms
Francis M. Redelmeier, proprietor
Margaret Cranmer-Byng
Browning-Ferris Industries Ltd
Douglas Hatch, senior vice-president
Friendly Fuels Inc
John Guenin, vice-president
Steven E. Sawell
Ardee Recycling Inc
Robert Durgy, president
Virginia Maclaren
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):
McClelland, Carman (Brampton North/-Nord L) for Mrs Sullivan
Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East/-Est ND) for Ms Haeck
Turnbull, David (York Mills PC) for Mr Stockwell
White, Drummond (Durham Centre ND) for Mrs Mathyssen
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Johnston, Barbara, Ministry of the Environment
McRobert, David, Ministry of the Environment
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff/ Personnel: Richmond, Jerry, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1022 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.
TERRY HOWES
The Chair: The standing committee on social development is now in session. I would like to welcome everyone this morning to our hearings on Bill 143.
I would like to welcome Terry Howes. I see you are at the podium. Please begin your presentation by introducing yourself. You have 20 minutes, and we would appreciate it if you would leave some time for questions from committee members. Please begin your presentation now.
Mr Howes: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Terry Howes from the good city of Etobicoke. I have taken the time slot of my friend Mike DeMartigny, who is an unquestioned expert on the topic of waste disposal. Mike is building a couple of facilities in Europe and was called away on short notice, so he asked me to tell his story. I myself am not an expert and I cannot answer questions that you might have of a very technical nature, but I certainly am broadly aware of Mike's system.
We have available to us here in this province a proven, Canadian-developed technology capable of solving our garbage problem. Facilities utilizing this technology could be built long before the Keele Valley site is filled up. Furthermore, they could be self-financing, paid for by tipping fees and electric power revenue. No government subsidy should be required. Is that not refreshing?
The late New Brunswick engineer George C. Copeland worked on fluid bed reactor disposal technology for most of his working life. He was acknowledged as being the authority in the field and had over 200 patents to his credit. The company he founded has built over 70 of these facilities worldwide, including five in Canada, three of which are here in Ontario.
Solid waste under this technology is converted into heat, which can provide steam for electricity or be used for any industrial purpose. The residue, a dry ash, is negligible. There are no moving parts and maintenance is minimal. The system is smoke-free and odourless and exhaust gases are in compliance with all regulatory requirements.
I watched with great interest the presentation by Mr Olivier of Ogden Martin Systems Ltd yesterday, as I am sure you did, with his interesting slides and so on. Here is a picture of one of Ogden Martin's plants which you would have found in his presentation yesterday. It has a great big smokestack attached to it. There is only one reason anybody would put a smokestack on anything, and that is because there is smoke. Smoke is unburned carbon, which is unburned fuel.
You have beside you a photocopy of a little picture of a Copeland facility, which the clerk was kind enough to make for you. It is not a very good photocopy, but you will see what a chimney looks like on a Copeland facility. It is just a little pipe with steam coming out of it. There is no smoke because it is so very efficient.
Systems in operation here in Ontario are in Thunder Bay, built in 1971; Thorold, a few miles from us, built in 1973, and Cornwall, built in 1975, all for wet wastes from paper mills.
Mr DeMartigny has asked me to invite you, if anybody can find the time or inclination for a little bus trip, over to Thorold to the Ontario Paper Co, where he would be delighted to show you the facility that has been operating since 1973. This no promoter's dream. This system works and it can be the answer to our problems. You can see for yourself.
I checked yesterday with the enforcement branch of the Ministry of the Environment. It turned up there are no complaints or outstanding work orders against any of these Ontario facilities which have been in operation for 15 to 20 years getting rid of wet wastes.
Others are in Europe, Japan, South America, Taiwan and throughout the USA. The system of most interest to this committee perhaps would be that in Duluth, Minnesota. It was built in 1978 and handles all the garbage and sewage sludge for this city of 90,000, and it was built by Copeland. The Duluth operating authority would be pleased to show visitors around its facility and tell of the city's experience with it, but amazing to say, no Canadian has ever asked. Can you believe it, with the problem we have? There is that facility, an hour away in a jet, and nobody has even bothered to look at it.
Copeland's company is represented here in Ontario by Mike DeMartigny. He has never been able to get any interest, much less encouragement, from the ministry concerning this system. We seem to have a closed mind. Must we in this province for ever be down in the dumps? We have the technology available to us to solve this problem. There is no question about it; it works. Why do we not use it?
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. It would be a pleasure to answer any questions you have.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr McClelland, first question.
Mr McClelland: You indicated just at the conclusion of your comments that there seems to be a closed mind at the ministry of late.
Mr Howes: Yes, sir.
Mr McClelland: Let me tell you, sir, that the number of people who have been before this committee over the better part of this week and certainly last week, with few exceptions, have said that they are very concerned with Bill 143. What we have to contend with, unfortunately, is a bit of what I call and what other journalists have indicated is a bunker-type mentality.
People have come into this committee and they have said things like, "We agree with the principle of nonexportation of waste; we agree with the government's position on incineration," and that is entirely what the government members gravitate towards. Even within the context of people who agree with the general principle of the bill or the intent, the government people will gravitate towards that and not hear the criticisms that are being levied about the bill itself.
Yesterday we heard a very good presentation by an individual and the government wanted to ask questions about niceties of interpretation of the law in terms of civil rights. They do not want to talk about the content of Bill 143. So you have some great difficulty, sir -- I think you recognize that up front -- because what you are trying to deal with here is to convince a government that has said, "We don't want to talk about the substance; we don't want to talk about reality; we don't want to look at scientific data; we don't want to hear people who don't necessarily agree with us." For that, I share your frustration.
I know that you are here representing a friend, a colleague, and it is a great difficulty, but as a businessman, how do you feel about a government that says: "We don't even want to talk to you. We won't even give you the time of day"? It is not a matter of encouragement, but the courtesy and fairness of a reasonable hearing. It seems to me that is what you are asking for, an opportunity to put your case forward, and you are not even being granted that. Is that correct? Is that what I am hearing?
Mr Howes: That is true. It is a great big world out there and DeMartigny is busy with customers all over the world. He lives here; he is a citizen of this province. He loves it, but really, he has given up. What more can I say? These facilities are operating efficiently and they have been for 20-odd years right in this very province and throughout the world, and nobody will look at them or cares about them. There you are.
Mr McClelland: My fear is that a lot of other people are going to give up. Let me tell you what happened last week.
Mr Howes: What does one do?
Mr McClelland: I do not know what people do, except for the people around this province and the business community around this province to begin, I guess, en masse to phone and write to their local members, their NDP members, and to write to the Premier and to phone and write to the Minister of the Environment and tell them that it is time they begin to do what they said they would do, and that is to listen to people.
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I do not know, sir, what you do. You have come here in good faith to make a presentation. I do not want to discourage you, but I caution you to recognize that throughout the hearings in the last week and a half or two weeks, the government members have consistently refused to listen to people who come here.
What they do is they pick a point here and say, "Well, yes, you agree with this because you don't like incineration." I use that as an example because it is sort of contrary to what you are saying. They will focus on that and not hear that the presenter says that basically the bill is flawed. Even the so-called interest groups that support the NDP government have come and said: "We don't like the bill. It's bad legislation." So what do they do? They focus it and kind of hunker down in the bunker and say, "Well, we're going to pick on those little things that you say you do like." So you are really up against something here.
The person who came in and really espoused the position that we are going to ban outright without even considering it was a brought-in, paid-for expert out of the United States. That is the kind of thing you are up against, and I share your frustration, sir. I do not know what to say other than to say to you to keep at it, be tenacious; for the people of Ontario, the business community in Ontario to keep telling this government that to say it is interested in listening to business is not good enough; it has to do it.
It is not, "We want to listen, but do not really tell us unless you agree with us." All I can tell you, Mr Howes, is thank you for being here. I hope you do not give up. I hope your associate, who is a proud Canadian and wants to be a part of this community, will continue the fight and will be, together with your colleagues, men and women who want to make a contribution and want to build this province, will not give up on this government. I can only tell you that we share your frustration and we hope some sanity will prevail.
Mr Howes: Perhaps one of the government members would like to ask me a question. I would like it very much.
The Chair: They are on the list next, actually. Mr Wiseman.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to begin by saying that the myth-maker from the Liberal Party is continuing to spew and to attempt to make myths again.
Mr Howes: How about you ask me a question? I only have 20 minutes.
Mr Wiseman: I will. I have a list of questions, but you have to understand that the accusation that people have been paid to come before the committee is categorically incorrect and not correct information, as are a lot of the things he has said. We have had Pollution Probe come before this committee and outline in clear terms why it opposes incineration and why it supports this bill for the diversion of waste. We have had Rural Action on Garbage and the Environment from southwestern Ontario say the same thing. So a lot of what he is saying is incorrect and I think that should be noted.
Now to get to why you are here, I do not know if you can answer these questions because --
Mr Howes: I will try, Mr Wiseman. I am here as a courtesy to a friend and as a concerned citizen. That is why I am here. Go ahead with your questions.
Mr Wiseman: The first question I have is the cost of building a facility. How much does it cost?
Mr Howes: I cannot answer that for you. There are so many variables. You are asking me, with all respect, "How long is a piece of string?" It could be this size or that size or anything in between. But they are economical. There are 70 of them operating throughout the world. They are there because they are cost-effective. The income from them can carry their debenture interest, and make a profit in instances, depending upon what the tipping fees are like. So what it would cost, which would be in the scores of millions, does not really matter all that much because the income from it will meet its debenture cost, plus a profit. There you are.
Mr Wiseman: Could you supply us with material that would indicate what it cost to build, say, the one in Duluth, Minnesota?
Mr Howes: Yes, easy. I would be glad to.
Mr Wiseman: And its running costs, what the tipping fees are for the facility to take the garbage? I also would like to see the analysis of the effluent that is --
Mr Howes: It is right there on your desk.
Mr Wiseman: I have this.
Mr Howes: No. You also have a little thing showing the smokestack, and at the bottom of it is the analysis.
Mr White: Unfortunately, it is a photocopy which is hard to read.
Mr Howes: We will get you a better one. Mr Wiseman, it meets all regulatory requirements throughout the world, including Japan. The Japanese, with all their shortcomings, are the people, so we are told, most concerned in the whole world about the question of pollution, because so many people live in such close quarters. This operation of his -- several operations there in Japan, actually, meet every requirement of the Japanese government, so it will certainly meet ours. Mr Wiseman, the system works and it meets every single possible ecological requirement. There is no question about it. All you have to do is to phone the Ministry of the Environment, as I did yesterday, and ask. There are a couple of guys up there who deal with enforcement. They said they have never, ever had a problem with this one in Thunder Bay, Cornwall or Thorold. There is the answer for you. Ask them.
Mr Wiseman: What I am trying to get at, and perhaps you could supply the information, is from the point of view of recycle, reduce and reuse, how that would be compatible with a system like this and what this system needs to function. For example, it has a bacterial pool, so I am interested in what has to go into those pools in order for it to function. I am interested in knowing about the diversion. Can this kind of system work if you divert major portions of the waste stream, such as the waste from food terminals and from supermarkets that is clearly of the same compostable nature as leaves? Can it work if you divert all paper products? Can it work if you divert all materials such as leaves and so on?
Mr Howes: To answer that question for you, Mr Wiseman, I am going to tell you how it was that my pal DeMartigny, who is a great one to spot an opportunity, came to be an expert on this unlikely subject. I think that will answer your question.
He was flying over the state of Texas in a private plane and he noticed two mountains. Can you believe it? He said: "There are no mountains in Texas. Fly over those things. I want to look at them." They turned out to be collection stations -- they have a name for them in Texas -- where they bring cattle from hundreds of miles and they feed them and ship them and that short of thing. I do not know what they call it, but they have dozens of them down there and they have been going for scores of years. Everybody knows what the rear end of a cow does. These mountains were mountains of cow dung. Do you believe it?
So Mike, who is a great visionary, said to himself: "My God, in India they burn that stuff. They make little patties of it and that's how they cook." He got hold of the power utility in Texas and said, "You're overlooking a major resource in this state. You've got a source of electricity for free." To make a long story short, they retained him. This is a true story. They retained him and they said, "Listen, DeMartigny, you might have a good thing there." They retained him and in a couple of years' work he determined -- first of all he found Mr Copeland, the ultimate expert, a fellow Canuck, on this subject.
Anyway, they retained him but they warned him and said: "Listen, DeMartigny, there's one thing that will blow this deal. If those cowboys decide to sell that cow dung instead of giving it away, it will blow the deal," and that is what happened. Anyway, that is the true story of how DeMartigny got to be an expert on this subject. Yes, among other things, you can convert cow droppings. It can burn anything.
Mr Turnbull: I must admit that I am amused by the story. As my colleague here just suggested, we have heard more stories of cow dung from the other side of the floor over the last few days. My problem is that I do not impugn the motives of people who come here and say that they are against incineration. I am absolutely convinced they are saying it from the depth of their hearts and that they are concerned about this solution.
However, it appears to me that we have a government that is prepared to listen to people who, no matter how good their motives are, may have flawed information. The last bulk of the technical information suggests that we should at least consider the possibility of incineration. I am not running out and saying we should be incinerating, but it does occur to me that we need a group of experts studying this and studying the worldwide programs you have mentioned that are under way in Japan, for example.
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The great problem is that we have a government at the moment that has said that it is dedicated to consultation but it is not really. What it is is a whole propaganda machine which suggests that they listen and really they have meetings to get the electorate to think they are doing things and they are really not.
My question to you is, as a non-expert, how would you --
Mr Wiseman: Excuse me, I think that is a point of order, impugning motives on the part of the government.
The Chair: I will consider your point of order, but I do not believe that is a point of order. Mr Turnbull, it would be helpful if you would be careful not to impugn or even suggest that you are impugning motive.
Mr Wiseman: It is possible in this democratic process that the duly elected government, having the right to make choices after having listened to everybody, has the right to choose --
The Chair: It is not appropriate for you to make that speech at this time. I am going to have to deduct the time from the next presentation.
Mr Turnbull: I have to say that the last comment from Mr Wiseman, having --
Mr White: When we talk about speeches?
The Chair: You are out of order, Mr White.
Mr Turnbull: Having listened to some of the comments that are made by Mr Wiseman across the House floor on many issues, talking about impugning motives, this is truly somebody who lives in a glass house making that remark.
To return to my question --
Mr Wiseman: This line is totally unacceptable.
The Chair: I have asked Mr Turnbull not to, as I have sometimes said, tease the bears. This is his time. I would ask that you address Bill 143.
Mr Turnbull: A wise zookeeper.
How would you address the problem of the people who, from the bottom of their hearts, do not want incineration because they think it is bad? How can we persuade them at least to have an open mind? Can you comment on this?
Mr Howes: I really do not know the answer to that. I do not know what to do. The facilities are operating in this very province. They meet every single requirement. They can operate without costing the people of the province a dime and nobody cares. I do not know what to do and neither does DeMartigny, so he operates elsewhere in the world. I do not know what to do.
Mr Turnbull: In the last election the Conservative Party suggested a program called the Big Energy Saving Team program, which would encourage entrepreneurs in Ontario to develop environmental leading-edge technology we could sell so that not only would we be able to solve our environmental problems but we would be able to provide the funds to help these companies to export around the world. Could you comment on that?
Mr Howes: This particular technology was developed over a good many years by a Canadian from New Brunswick. It does not require any government funding at all.
The Chair: I thank you very much for appearing before the committee this morning. Mr Wiseman, you have a question for the record.
Mr Wiseman: Yes, in my questioning of you I asked for a list of the material your facility would need to burn. What I would like to know is, could you supply me with this list of materials, and will it burn materials that would be more properly recycled or reused?
The Chair: What that means is that our clerk will present you with a copy of the question Mr Wiseman has just asked. If you are able to respond in writing, we would appreciate that. If we could have it before February 14 it will become part of the public record, and if it is after February 14 it will be made available to all members of the committee for their deliberation.
We very much appreciate your coming this morning.
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Madam Chair: I want you to know that I come to these hearings every day at great sacrifice of other things -- we all do -- that we could be doing in our constituencies, because our constituencies are experiencing a very serious recession.
The Chair: What is your point of order?
Mr Martin: I will come to that.
The Chair: Well, we have a deputant waiting.
Mr Martin: We come here, particularly on the government side, with great seriousness about a bill that we think will have great impact on the future of the people we serve. I think the opposition in the last round has brought into some question the seriousness about this business by referring to the Chair as a zookeeper.
The Chair: That is not a point of order. I will review the Hansard.
Mr Martin: It certainly reflects on what we are doing here in a very serious way.
The Chair: I appreciate your point of view. Mr Martin, you are out of order. You do not have the floor. We have a presenter and I think we should hear from him at this time. I will review the Hansard, and if there was a legitimate point of order I will report back to the committee.
Mr Howes, thank you very much for appearing this morning.
TERRY GOODWIN
The Chair: I call the next presenter, Terry Goodwin. Would you come forward. You have the floor. Please speak into the microphone. You have 20 minutes for your presentation and we would appreciate if you would leave some time for questions.
Mr Goodwin: My name is Terry Goodwin. I reside at 122 Thornridge Drive in Thornhill, north of Steeles and west of Yonge Street. I am representing myself. I am fairly late to these particular proceedings and I would like to enlighten the committee about steak platters and bathtubs.
First of all, I would like to thank the particular members of the Legislature who made the considerable effort to make sure this bill did come before this sort of committee so that it is well studied. I am somewhat dismayed by the inferences that have been made that it is going to happen anyway. I think what has happened, or the suggestion, at least, is an abuse of the parliamentary process we have.
I think it is something all of us as citizens across not only the province but maybe the country as a whole really should be thinking about very carefully. I hope every member will go back and look at this process of bringing it through this way, because when we hear further noises, taking something to Ottawa and so on, we find out it is the intention of this present government, as stated, that it wants to bring essentially the same system there. So there is no check; there is no balance.
Back to steak platters and bathtubs. I am obligated to one of my nephews who lives in the United States, is a consulting engineer and designs landfills. He is environmentally concerned. He said people usually do not like what his client or clients want to do. When I discussed this with him several years ago, he explained that taking a pit or quarry and filling it up with garbage is not the right way to go, primarily because of the hydrological processes that are involved there.
He said what is much better is to take a fairly level piece of ground and put down your pad on that, then build up your landfill on top of that and 16 years later it is all gone. Of course, on that pad you have to put your drainage and so on for the leachate. That is what I call the steak platter. He did not call it that. Opposed to that, I have to think of the quarry or the open pit as being the bathtub, because you have to keep the water out as well as the leachate in and then drain it away.
The problem he was having at that time was that people were saying to him: "What are you going to do with the runoff in a storm? What are you going to do with the leachate?" At that time he was saying that the lagoons that should be constructed should take care of a five-year storm. Five-year storm is a no-no here in this province. We talk about 25- or 100-year storm.
Again, what they are doing at Keele Valley right now is just putting it into the sanitary sewers. Eventually it ends up at Pickering. My understanding is that the resulting sludge is burned.
I am not entranced by the existing process there. I recognize that in continuing we will have other things wrong, so I would hope that people, and particularly the technicians working for the provincial ministry, would recognize that a steak platter is far preferable to a bathtub type of design.
You must recognize, however, that if you are going to use a steak platter, you are going to cut down some trees someplace and that some agricultural people may get upset that it is potentially usable land for agriculture. You have to make those tradeoffs before you start. I think that is proper for the ministries concerned to go after and sit down and argue among themselves so they know they have a fairly firm position on it.
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One last point: If we are going to use roads, the access should be primarily off either highways 401, 410, 400 or 404, and probably with unused or unopened road allowances at the present time. I think this business of hauling it through existing communities or potentially increasing it is very poor indeed.
I do not understand the minister's mandatory that she will not use rail. I have been in the transportation business for most of my life, and I recognize that the rail may not be interested in what are essentially terminal operations. I do not think it should be hauled to the ends of the earth, but I do believe that there may be one or two unused rail lines or lower-use rail lines that may help the access.
That is in essence what I have to say, steak platters versus bathtubs. I would be very ready to answer any questions. I have given the clerk copies of the Vaughan resolution, which I believe Mayor Jackson had the other day, so you have already seen that. I have also given the clerk copies of the letter that came out from the interim waste management group telling us that we could not do anything any more, which I am afraid is either patronizing or paternalistic or both. I cannot help but be very cynical about the whole process, but I would hope that every member of the Legislature would go back and think carefully about what is being done to the parliamentary process by following this. Thank you. I will answer questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Goodwin. Mr Martin, you have the floor.
Mr Martin: I just wanted to thank you for coming forward and sharing particularly that part of your presentation which referred to Bill 143. I wanted to talk just for a few minutes about the process, because you brought it up at the beginning and the end of your comments. Certainly the process here is one we inherited that goes back in tradition a long way and one that we are quite committed to until that process is changed somehow. My experience in it to date, in the year and a half I have been around, is that it is a good one. We have gone out to the public on a number of occasions on various very important pieces of legislation, we have listened, and the actual legislation that resulted from that reflected very seriously that we listened and were sensitive to some of the concerns that were raised.
The other thing I think we need to keep in mind here that sometimes the opposition forgets is that we were elected on September 6, 1990, to govern this province. We were given a majority mandate. We inherited a number of challenges when we came here that we had no responsibility for creating. One of them is this one. We have come forth with what we think is a very sound package that will not only take care of the immediate crises but launch us into the future in a very positive, creative, proactive way.
I am wondering if you have any suggestions as to a different process that we might consider in light of some of your comments re this process here.
Mr Goodwin: I do not want to get into constitutional matters now. I would agree that this system was in effect prior to the present government being here, but my concern is that the government apparently intended to put this thing through without this public discussion we are getting here right now. That may be an ability to do things, but to go and to try and do it I say is objectionable and is a reflection on the parliamentary form of government.
Mr Martin: If I might, it may be objectionable to you to do that sort of thing, but it has been done before and I suggest to you it will be done again by not only this government but other governments until we change the process, but that is the process we have to work with. We had what we considered a very grave crisis on our hands and we tried to deal with it in this way. You obviously have some criticism of that, as others will. However, there are those out there who have come before us here who actually do agree with us, in spite of what you will hear from the opposition in the question that will come now.
Mr Turnbull: The points you raise are most important. The fact that we had a process for public consultation which was established by the Conservative government and strengthened over the years by it and was followed by the succeeding Liberal government -- to find the whole process completely undermined by the minister taking virtually dictatorial powers is something which surprised me, frankly, because I had always felt that Ruth Grier, the minister, was at least truly dedicated to the environment and dedicated to the public process. But the suggestion you have just heard from the government side that it has a crisis I think ignores the fact that the minister had 18 months in office without doing anything and in fact killed all the interim sites which had been developed under the previous government. We were told that they needed the legislation through within a matter of about five or six weeks, without any public consultation. In fact it was the opposition which forced, as you correctly stated, these public hearings.
I would like to get you to comment on the question of going from, on the one hand, an almost endless environmental process, where it seemed we could never reach a resolution, to the present situation where we see the minister take dictatorial powers and does not allow any public input for the extension of these sites. Could you comment on that, Mr Goodwin?
Mr Goodwin: I cannot help but agree with your comments about the method actually being used here. I think it is entirely out of place and the matter should have been tackled a lot sooner. I believe that maybe even some of the proposals of the previous deputant become very acceptable, although I can understand that the minister was under some constraint on accepting those because she went up to Windsor to talk about the -- may I call it the outhouse across the river? It was a very poor way for them to do things up there, but I think we have the technology here in Ontario to do things properly.
I do not know how this province can get out of the hole that has been dug over the past years as far as waste disposal is concerned. I have suggested one thing. If you have to go and make a landfill, make it a steak platter instead of a bathtub. I think if you do that and then do your access on overlays, you may find out you have 10 or 15 sites that will probably not affect people all that much. If you use your recycling and everything else first, you are going to cut it down.
I was rather disturbed to read in the paper this morning that the mayor of the municipality immediately south of Vaughan was saying: "Do away with the blue box. It costs too much money." Some of these things will cost money.
Mr McClelland: Thank you, Mr Goodwin. We are told by our friends opposite that they could anticipate some criticism, and well they should anticipate that criticism -- precisely what you talked about.
I want to reinforce for you, sir, and for those who are observing these proceedings that in fact it was the wish of this government to have this legislation, which was introduced during the municipal elections, passed prior to December 17, with no public consultation of any kind. Furthermore, in trying to arrive at some concession, if you will, in terms of allowing public hearings, the government maintained the position that it would only do so on the understanding that when this went back to the House it would be limited very significantly. So really the only opportunity to make your points and to put forward your criticism -- constructive criticism, in some cases, and legitimate concerns -- is through this committee, which was given extremely reluctantly by the government. Having done that, they are now going to take this back to the Legislative Assembly and say, "You're just going to ram this through and that's the way it's going to be."
Giving consideration to what you said, sir, in terms of a government that, yes, inherited a process in terms of committee work and also inherited a legal framework that has been fought for for many years in terms of environmental protection across this province, has chosen to disregard that process as well, which looks upon coming to this committee process as a bit of a sacrifice rather than a fulfilment of responsibilities, I find it absolutely outrageous that a member would come here and say it is a sacrifice to be here when it is a responsibility to be here, to do what he is being paid for.
I want to know if the parliamentary assistant -- and you might want to respond to that -- will say it is still the intention of this government to take this legislation back to the House and ram it through in three days upon return of the House in the spring. That is the stated intention of the government. Mark my words well, if the government calls this piece of legislation in the House, if it does not see the folly of its ways, withdraw it and start afresh, as it ought to do, I guarantee it will ram it through in less than three days.
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Mr Goodwin: I think it is appropriate to quote the oft-stated comment of Winston Churchill that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. I just hope we do not abuse what we have. I agree with Mr McClelland that this comes awfully close to it. Maybe not this time, but if this whole process is allowed to go this way, we have lost something that is very dear to us, and some time in the future it will be used by others.
I am a new Canadian, but I also have many people in our municipality who are new Canadians. Some of them come from Italy. I was discussing this with one of them, a member of council, just two days ago. He pointed out that Mussolini did come to power through the democratic process but he abused it.
I do not think we should abuse the democratic process, particularly the parliamentary system, without giving it great thought. I hope every member of the Legislature will go home and think about that carefully, not just for political reasons. Somebody who was scriptwriting for Reagan a few years back said, "Sometimes politics gets in the way." I hope everyone will go back home and think very carefully about what is happening.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to thank you for your presentation. Your description of a landfill site has tweaked my interest. Although it is not part of this bill, the technology of landfill is really quite interesting. Because of my involvement in the battle against the P1 landfill site and the shortened Environmental Protection Act process the Liberals were using there, we became immersed in types of landfills. Your description is interesting. If a landfill site is properly closed, the water should not seep through it; it should come off it, and therefore, there should not be the problem of leachate you are talking about. My question is if you could supply us with better details of the technology you have described so we can give that to the Interim Waste Authority and other people to look at. It has been presented in another manner.
The other part of my question is, because landfill site technology is advancing thanks to the work of your nephew and others in that field, and you have also endorsed the 3Rs -- recycle, reuse and reduce -- landfill sites in the future are going to contain significantly different content than they do now. That means they will pose different problems, but if some of the worst has been removed, it will be significantly less of a problem. I would like you to comment on that if you could.
The Chair: Mr Martin, a question for the record.
Mr Martin: I was just wondering if you are aware of the provision by the minister in the proposed legislation and the attendant documents for very full public involvement in the process as it unfolds in the context of this legislation. If you are not, perhaps we could discuss that and give you those documents so you know they are there.
The Chair: Question, Mr Turnbull?
Mr Turnbull: Yes, for the parliamentary assistant. Since there have been various references today and in fact on the news last night to the blue box program, I would like the ministry to provide us with the approximate percentage breakdown of all materials that are collected in blue boxes across the province and the percentage of those materials that are actually being recycled, because I have heard some rather alarming information as to what percentage is being recycled and what the cost of the blue box program is.
The Chair: Question, Mr McClelland?
Mr McClelland: Yes, to the parliamentary assistant. I want to know if it is still the intention of his government to limit debate on third reading and to push this bill through without full, complete debate when we return in the spring.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. The questions you have not had time to answer verbally today will be made available to you by the clerk. If you have time, we would appreciate it if you would communicate with us in writing, and as you heard me say before, if we receive it before February 14 it will form part of the public record. We do appreciate your comments and I think all members of committee listened intently, particularly the comments you had about democracy. Thank you very much.
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Madam Chair: I would like on the record to separate myself from the reference to this process being likened to the process under the administration of Mussolini in Italy.
The Chair: That is not a point of order, Mr Martin. I appreciate the comments, but we have people waiting to make representations.
Mr Martin: I would like to separate myself from that particular context. There is enough cynicism out there about the political process as it is without this kind of inflammatory --
The Chair: You are out of order, Mr Martin.
TURTLE LAKE RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION
The Chair: The Turtle Lake Ratepayers Association, please come forward. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. Would you begin by introducing yourselves to members of the committee. Would you begin your presentation now, please.
Mr House: Good morning. I am Ted House. I am the president of the Turtle Lake Ratepayers Association. Turtle Lake is located in the Parry Sound area. With me is Ruth MacKay. She heads up our environmental committee.
We are actively concerned over Bill 143 as citizens of Metropolitan Toronto and as members of the executive of the Turtle Lake Ratepayers Association. Because of the urgency and gravity of the GTA waste disposal problem, we are worried that an ill-conceived bill will cause many more problems in the years to come throughout Ontario. Governments throughout time have often, in the name of expediency, legislated laws which upon reflection have not solved problems and have chipped away at our democratic rights. People have, through the Environmental Assessment Act, the Environmental Protection Act, the Municipal Act and the Ontario Municipal Board Act, etc, put into effect a process that would protect the citizens in times of waste crisis. Through experience, minor changes might well increase the effectiveness of these laws. However, the changes that parts of Bill 143 envision deal with the very spirit of these laws and actively work against their purpose in some vital areas.
We are anxious in particular because of the complexity of waste disposal issues. Not only is expertise needed in effecting a waste site decision, but expertise is needed in the short- and long-term effects on the environment, the economy, the health and general quality of citizens' lives. For example, the dangers of thousands of unknown, stronger-than-in-the-past chemicals recombining to form possibly destructive compounds close to highly populated areas needs to be evaluated by a person with probably a doctorate in environmental chemistry. The need for an advanced hydrological understanding of a particular site is self-evident, and the socioeconomic aspects of any site require input from local residents with knowledge and experience. Engineered waste disposal sites are notorious for problems with liners, covers, gases and leachate. Their very size makes any problem gargantuan. Like the Kirkland Lake mine site suggestions, the effects on the groundwater have to be pondered.
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There are no simple solutions. Alternatives have to be evaluated as objectively as possible, and even with the best of these objective assessments, mistakes will happen. Without a variety of environmental disciplines, disaster over a 12-to-20-year or more life of a landfill becomes increasingly inevitable. The present acts, although not perfect, are aimed at preventing this result. We would like the NDP government to think again about Bill 143, particularly for the following reasons.
By eliminating the necessity of hearings in the Environmental Assessment Act, the rights of citizens, municipalities and groups to present valuable knowledge or expertise and alternate suggestions are jeopardized. The democratic process invites public input. Taxation with representation is a Canadian principle. Quick, easy, streamlined dictatorial solutions are not necessarily the best ones. Many problems in this complex issue could escape attention without environmental hearings. Democratic citizens do have the right and responsibility to be heard and their facts evaluated.
By putting authority in the hands of a director there is no immediate connection with the electorate. Another democratic principle is violated. By virtue of being a public servant, accountability is not so direct. By taking decision-making powers away from municipalities, important local issues may not be addressed.
Competence in a variety of environmental issues is difficult to find. Waste management consulting firms have arisen because of the complexity of locating and engineering landfills. Municipalities have had trouble with a variety of these firms due to what seems to be unsatisfactory decision-making on the basis of a limited knowledge of (a) the study area, (b) local issues, and, (c) having the economic, social and cultural issues as the last levels of inclusion in site selection.
For an example of a questionable decision, please note in Appendix I the site suggestions for a waste disposal site to deal with waste from seven townships and the municipality of Parry Sound. Please note that it is suggested that the large landfill site for 20 to 40 years be 150 metres from Turtle Lake, which is the headwaters of the Seguin River system and close to Seguin the headwaters of Shadow River, which leads directly into Lake Rosseau.
At this time I would just like to show you what is proposed. Seasonal residents here all get expropriated. The landfill is 150 metres from the lake --
Mrs MacKay: On a flat field.
Mr House: -- on a flat field and virtually everybody on this side of the lake is in full view of that. Where are the socioeconomic protections? This is what you get from a consultant.
As well, the Seguin River system includes seven interconnecting lakes with a population of about 1,000 seasonal residents, who will all be affected. This is an area where most citizens use lake and river water for drinking and recreational purposes. If consulting firms which make their living by advising on waste management issues come up with answers that have obvious problems, surely the director will also make some highly questionable decisions. To be not accountable to the public through election and hearings could change a blunder into a disaster.
The ministry could provide travelling highly-skilled experts of a better quality than some of our consulting firms to assist municipalities throughout Ontario. This group could have an education at the doctorate level in a variety of fields of waste management such as hydrogeology, environmental chemistry and ecology. There could be a grass-roots knowledge of the effects of waste on sand, clay, limestone, etc, of the southern sedimentary area, including the GTA, as compared to the Canadian Shield.
This troubleshooting group could act for the municipalities in an advisory capacity far beyond the present situation from the very beginning. Thus expensive and unrealistic consulting fees would be avoided by the municipalities. The quality of the advice would be more pertinent to the geological and socioeconomic area. Many of the municipalities' objections would not arise in the first place. Negotiations, leadership and teamwork by both the ministry and the municipalities may avoid undue hardship and financial cost to local citizens. A more knowledgeable, active role than at present is needed, but not a streamlined dictatorial role by the Ministry of the Environment.
Precedent is being set for all of Ontario. Whenever issues become controversial, sticky or difficult there will be pressure on the director to take over, thus denying the public the right to speak through hearings and consequently stifling intelligent input. Each time this happens it becomes easier for the director to be given the decision and hearings to be bypassed. Directors are open to human failings such as manipulation or limited understanding of some aspects of an issue.
If the director assumes that he or she can always hire consulting firms to answer difficult technical questions or to set up waste management master plans without problems, he will be sadly mistaken. Unfortunately, because of limits to a director's time, the effective decisions may be made in some geographic areas by someone much less qualified or objective. The pressures of this position may discourage qualified persons from applying for the job.
Thus, by erosion of the authority of the Environmental Assessment Act and the Environmental Protection Act, etc -- acts which were carefully considered -- we may end up in a much worse crisis. In our anxiety about Metro's urgent waste disposal site selection, we may lose both reasonable answers to our waste crisis throughout Ontario and our democratic rights. To set a precedent for Ontario's waste-management decisions by permitting elimination of assessment hearings and giving autocratic powers to the director may cause more expenses, more problems, more dangers and more wasted time. Please think twice before proposing more simplistic answers to waste management.
In summary:
1. Public input throughout waste-management process, including hearings, is vital.
2. Municipalities, with public input, need to play an active role in decision-making. Final decision-making should not be in the hands of a director.
3. There is need for provincial government ministries to provide to all areas, not just the GTA, a more competent and varied level of guidance from the very beginning than is presently provided, including when and if to hire a consultant.
4. Precedent is being set for all of Ontario with Bill 143, not just the GTA.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. The first questioner: Mr Martin.
Mr Martin: Thank you as well for your presentation. I think it was well put and we certainly appreciate the fact that you took the time and effort to come here today. I want to assure you, sir, that the long-term landfill sites that will be considered will undergo an environmental assessment hearing, because the minister believes in an open, accountable process with full participation, contrary to what you may hear from the opposition.
I also pick up from your comments that you are interested in options being considered. I am from the north, maybe a little further north than your concern here. Would you want us to open the process to consider all of the options re the one you want to protect here as well as other sites in other places outside of the GTA for the GTA waste?
Mr House: I think that options have to be discussed and either put aside or graduated to a higher level. But to make a decision to automatically discount alternatives is wrong. If they are wrong, let's prove it.
Mr Turnbull: What I am getting from your presentation is a set of concerns and a specific suggestion as to how you would improve the process, namely the concern you expressed, which may set a precedent for other municipalities, that the ministry is moving in and assuming dictatorial powers and taking away the ability of concerned citizens to have an environmental process which has been set up very well in this province years ago and has served us very well. But I have to give my own bias. I think one of the problems is that we have stretched out this process to an endless degree and now we are going to the other end of the extreme, which is also despicable: the idea that we are going to take away the right of citizens to have input.
The thrust of what you are saying, and I want you to correct me if I am wrong, is that you believe the minister should not be taking these powers but instead should be setting up a core of expertise which would act as consultants to municipalities to ensure that the correct qualified people would be available to even the smallest municipality to solve the garbage crisis. Is that the thrust of what you are saying?
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Mrs MacKay: Perhaps you could explain the waste management board in Parry Sound. How many from the ministries are on the board?
Mr House: I think two.
Mrs MacKay: Two: one from Ministry of Natural Resources and one from the Ministry of the Environment. You can understand that a small municipality is not able to afford people to advise on a world quality. Yet the issue is important. The issue is going to affect the Muskokas. It is going to affect the Seguin system. When you have somebody perhaps with an environmental course or two and with a biology degree and an honest, good person doing a fabulous job within his capabilities, but one person with more limited education, the results may be questioned.
Mr Turnbull: Let me just direct you back to my question. Do I understand correctly, that you are saying it is wrong that you eliminate the ability of citizens to have input into this process?
Mrs MacKay: Very much.
Mr House: Yes, that is wrong. Up north, municipalities feel that their hands are tied. They start with a process but, through no fault of their own, they have no expertise in waste management. Along comes a consultant who says: "I've got the answer for you. We'll give you a waste-management plan." It was only just before we found out that the municipalities also found out that they are putting it right beside a lake. It was a surprise to everybody.
What we want is the guidance from the ministry to guide municipalities from the very beginning, before they hire a consultant. I have one comment from the waste reduction office, where it says, "If and when to hire a consultant." It is a very important statement to make. The government has to supply information to municipalities before they get into this process.
Mr Turnbull: Okay, guidance, not dictatorship.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Turnbull; your time is up.
Mr Sola: I would like to start off by commenting on what the government member has said. He stated that the minister was committed to an open public process and public involvement, and I think that was correct while she was in opposition. But now that she is minister, she has designed Bill 143 -- it was not the opposition parties -- and Bill 143 is designed to take away that exact right from the public any time the minister deems it to be a crisis. So the crisis may have been there at the time she became minister, but due to circumstances, some within her control, some beyond her control -- like the economy, where the government may be partially at fault -- the crisis has sort of ebbed, except for Britannia. That is why Bill 143 should no longer even be contemplated: because she has time to go through the process. Do you feel that your rights as a citizen and the fairness the government has been promoting while in opposition have been eroded by Bill 143?
The Chair: We are going to have to accept that question as notice; you used the amount of time. Mr Wiseman, question for the record?
Mrs MacKay: The answer is yes.
Mr Wiseman: I thought I had one minute.
The Chair: You had one minute, but the deputants used up additional time. I am asking members to help stay to the schedule.
Mr Wiseman: Very quickly. One of my residents has a cottage across from this proposed site. I know about it because he has been in my office discussing it with me on a number of occasions and has asked me about the Interim Waste Authority document for draft criteria for site selection. Have you seen it? Are you involved in the environmental process for the re-evaluation of the Environmental Assessment Act? Are you aware of the initiatives paper, Regulatory Measures to Achieve Ontario's Waste Reduction Targets: Initiatives Paper No 1, and have you contributed to the input for this document? The last question is, how would you use the Environmental Assessment Act as it now stands and guarantee the creation of a landfill site within the time frame that is necessary in the GTA to meet the needs of the GTA?
The Chair: There will not be enough time for you to answer all the questions. There is one minute. Would you sum up, make any comment you can and then you can submit in writing your answers to the questions that have been placed on the record.
Mr House: Just in closing I would like to say that, from being part of this process and from watching at home, it is evident that there must be changes to Bill 143. I would like to encourage the committee to compile all this information and put forward the necessary changes. What I think Bill 143 has done is encourage interested groups like ourselves and the public to come forward and talk about waste management. It is very important, public participation. I think it is fortunate that this has been done before any new long-term sites have been chosen in the GTA.
Mrs MacKay: It does not necessarily have to be a revision of Bill 143. It could very well be a revision -- and perhaps much safer -- of the present Environmental Assessment Act.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming before the committee today.
WASTE WISE
The Chair: I call next Waste Wise. Please come forward and introduce yourselves. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. For the information of members of the committee and anyone who is watching these committee proceedings, in an attempt to stay on time and ensure there is sufficient time for people making presentations, I offer more leeway to the deputants than I do to committee members as far as time, and I deduct the time from committee members rather than from the deputants. I know that that meets with the approval of all committee members. We are here to hear from the public, so when I am keeping time I am trying to let the presenters have their say. Please begin your presentation now.
Ms van de Valk: It sounds like you are running a very tight ship here so we will bear that in mind.
My name is Diane van de Valk. I am project manager of Waste Wise. Waste Wise is a registered charity. We have come to you today to talk about what we are doing in Halton Hills. With me I have Rita Landry. She is the chairman of Waste Wise. She will also address the board and make several comments. So, as a matter of protocol, I ask for a two-minute summary at the end.
What I am going to do is tell you, first of all, why Waste Wise exists. The second thing I am going to tell you is what Waste Wise is. Then I am going to tell you what is at Waste Wise. Then I will turn it over to Rita, and then I will close.
First of all, I want to ask the members of the panel, how many of you have ever heard of the Acton quarry? Three people have heard of the Acton quarry. The Acton quarry landfill proposal is one that has been on the table for four and a half years. Two groups, one by the name of POWER, Protect Our Water and Environmental Resources, and the more recently formed FOAD, Furiously Opposed to Acton Dumping, have formed to fight this proposal and have spent collectively in excess of $100,000. This is a proposal to put in excess of 20 million tonnes of garbage into a leaky limestone quarry in the Niagara Escarpment. We use well water in our town. That is our only source of water. We are very worried.
Perhaps a show of hands again would be helpful: How many people here know of the 14 sites that Halton region has identified as possible sites for energy from waste? One person knows about these 14 sites. Five of them are in the town of Halton Hills. We feel very threatened by this, and for that reason the group ICE, Incineration Counteracts the Environment, formed. We actively lobbied Ruth Grier to ensure that she carried through with the party policy, which was a ban on municipal solid waste incineration.
In Ruth Grier's statement about that ban on incineration, what she said was, incineration was a disincentive to waste reduction and recycling. Everything you will hear by the proponents of incineration will contradict that. It will not address it. There are still concerns certainly about emissions and so on. They are very valid concerns, but as a disincentive to waste reduction and recycling, that was first and foremost in our minds. You will understand that in a minute when I describe the message Paul Connett brought to us.
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We in Halton region produce 250,000 tonnes of garbage a year. We are part of the GTA. The GTA produces 5 million tonnes of garbage a year. I would like to ask you, why is it that Halton is part of the GTA? I am asking that rhetorically, because I know the answer. The answer is because we have space, holes in the ground and countryside where you can put incinerators. So, suddenly as part of the GTA we have to be part of the solution that we do not want to be part of.
Waste Wise is really the brainchild of Paul Connett. When he came to us in June of 1989 he described the overflowing bathtub. That made an awful lot of sense to us. Does everyone remember that analogy? I think he used it here. What he said was that pipes and sponges and buckets are not the solution. Landfilling and EFW is the equivalent of pipes and buckets and sponges. What we have to do is turn off the tap. That makes perfect sense, does it not? Turn off the tap. We thought about that, and we thought that in all of our discussions with individuals about garbage we always went back to the same thing: Garbage is not a technological problem; garbage is a social problem. We have to change the way we live. We have to change the way we do business. So, we pulled together Waste Wise, understanding very clearly that if we continue to call garbage "waste" we will not be thinking about this problem very creatively.
To get into what exactly Waste Wise is, Waste Wise is a registered charity. There are three goals. The first is to educate all waste generators about waste reduction in the context of sustainable development -- all waste generators. That is significant: not just residential, not just commercial, not just industrial, not just institutional, but all of them. The second goal of Waste Wise is to divert reusable and recyclable materials from disposal. We are doing that through a number of ways and I will describe that in just one second. The third goal of Waste Wise is to become self-sustaining within three years. Currently we are funded by all four levels of government: the federal government, through the environmental partners fund; the provincial government has been most helpful through the waste management branch, through the Cleansweep lottery and through the Environmental Youth Corps program; finally, our local governments, the regional municipality of Halton and the town of Halton Hills, have also supported the project.
What we have done is pull together under one roof what we think is one step towards the direction of turning off the tap and creating that social change that is required to fix this problem. It is not a Band-Aid. We are attacking the root of the problem. So what we have is an education centre and information service. When you first come into Waste Wise you will see displays about household hazardous waste, displays about backyard composting and displays about where to find markets for your industrial co-products, if you are a generator of those things.
As an information service, we provide local businesses with opportunities for markets. We share with them the information we have as far as waste exchanging is concerned. So we are developing in the town of Halton Hills a network of businesses that can communicate with one another and share their wastes -- what we now call at Waste Wise "resources." They are not wastes; now they are resources.
The next thing you will come to at Waste Wise is a dropoff for recyclable materials that are not handled through the blue box program. There are eight different grades of paper, five different grades of plastics, scrap metal, aluminum and a whole host of odds and ends like egg cartons, coat-hangers, corks, elastics, twist ties, bread tabs and packing chips. All these things are used within the community.
The next thing you come to is the flea market. The flea market is an opportunity that goes perhaps beyond Goodwill and the Salvation Army in that we take a broader variety of materials and the revenue from those materials goes towards operation of the centre. So that is what is at Waste Wise.
I would like to turn it over now to Rita. Then, as I mentioned, I will close.
Mrs Landry: I would like to mention that we did bring a video of the Waste Wise operation. They are making a copy of it here, I believe, so if anyone wants to help himself to a copy it is here now. We would also like to invite you to come to Waste Wise and actually see how it runs and possibly pitch in and sort a little waste yourself.
Interjection.
Mrs Landry: That is right, exactly.
We have a few concerns about the way things are managed right now regarding waste management. The first one is municipality regulations versus private sector regulations.
I would like to read an excerpt from a letter written to the town of Halton Hills from Ruth Grier, dated September 24, 1991. She says, "As I have clearly stated before, municipalities are expected to manage their own waste within their own borders."
But in the same letter she says: "However, you should also note that should the proposal for a landfill in the Acton quarry be approved, that landfill would be free to accept waste from within its approved service area. Waste collected by or on behalf of the GTA municipalities will be disposed at either the existing or the long-term GTA sites. The privately managed industrial, commercial, institutional waste stream would also be received at the GTA sites. However, the generators of this waste would also have the option of disposing of this waste at any facility suitably approved to receive it including, potentially, a landfill in the Acton quarry." Obviously that is contradictory to what she is trying to force municipalities to do.
Bill 143 must clearly define what the definition of waste is. I would also like to draw your attention to an article, "Waste Disposal Site Approvals in Ontario," by Harry Poch. This is supposedly a Supreme Court of Ontario decision. They "noted that waste disposal approvals are necessary only if the materials to be disposed of are `wastes.' If not defined or designated as a `waste,' a material will not require" an EA. They also go on to say that "if a material does not have a further beneficial use it will be found to be a `waste.'" I think that definitely needs to be looked at.
There needs to be an official policy from the Minister of Energy supporting Ruth Grier's ban on incineration, EFW, refuse-derived fuel and tire-derived fuels -- whatever the consultants want to come up with as a new name, it needs to be supported by the Minister of Energy.
As for the EA process, it is a shame Mr McClelland is not here today. The EA process, otherwise known as "How the private sector can get what it wants" -- I ask you, what is democratic about a process that only permits a community one choice, and that choice is, at what level are you going to accept this proposal?
We feel some of the board has not been biased. There seems to be a constant push for private sector bury-and-burn solutions. I am sorry, but it is very difficult not to want to comment on the Ogden Martins of the world who were here the other day with their words that technology minimizes contamination.
I am going to steal a line from a very good friend of ours, Will Collett. He says he thinks the best question to ask is, "Just how much Drano would you like to put in the family's orange juice in the morning: a little? A lot?" I think the answer here would be zero for many of you.
I would like to pass it back to Diane to close off. Thank you.
Ms van de Valk: In closing, I would like to send out a plea to this committee: Put aside the private sector interests that stand to gain and profit from waste management alternatives that the people are not in favour of. Put first and foremost in your minds the needs of the people of this province. In my opinion, what the people need is a solution, not a Band-Aid. That is what we ask of you. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentation.
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Mr Sola: Your last comment was: "What the people need is a solution, not a Band-Aid." Do you not see that Bill 143 is exactly that, a Band-Aid? It lets the minister define what a crisis is, and once she defines that something is a crisis it allows her, in order to provide a solution she sees fit for that time and place, to override any rules that have been established.
Ms van de Valk: To a degree, yes, I agree with you. Back to my comments about Halton region being a part of the GTA, how was the GTA defined and why is it that the town of Halton Hills, all of 34,000 people producing 10,000 tons of garbage a year, is a part of the GTA? Who defined them? It is our information that people who stand to profit defined the boundaries of the GTA. We are not prepared to work on the assumptions that were handed to the NDP when it took power. The assumption was that the GTA exists and has a garbage problem. We disagree.
Mr White: I want to thank you both for your excellent presentation. I found it very encouraging that you are not only taking on an issue like this and obviously have researched it and have a lot of clarity, but are taking on responsibility in your own community for these issues. I am very struck with how, rather than saying it is a technological problem, it is something the experts can do, the highly paid experts and frequently highly paid-off experts, you are saying, "No, this is something we can have control over." The issue you are assuming, taking care of garbage rather than waste, reducing it, I think is excellent. The whole issue of thinking globally and acting locally is excellent.
I am wondering about a couple of issues. You mentioned your concern about incineration, and also the issue of transportation. As far as you are concerned, the GTA or the community should be responsible for its own waste, whatever is left at the end of that "stream." I am wondering if you could comment a touch on both the incineration issue and where you think the move is for incineration, and as well on the transportation issue.
Ms van de Valk: I do not understand the question as far as transportation is concerned.
Mr White: The idea of transporting waste to northern Ontario, to Halton Hills.
Ms van de Valk: A basic premise we have always worked on is that communities have to become responsible for their own waste. That is what we want to try to do in Halton Hills, and we are more than happy to help other communities set up a similar type of facility. This is the kind of accountability we are asking of our local politicians, to say that if this is the kind of business we want in town we have to take into consideration all the servicing required for those businesses, whether it be water, sewage, garbage, roads, whatever.
Once we begin to foster this community awareness of the needs of the community, then we will be thinking much more holistically. That applies to every community. In my opinion, Metropolitan Toronto knew this garbage problem was coming and, while wringing its hands looking for sites and so on, has jeopardized the neighbouring communities while it sat on its hands. That is unacceptable. It is time for them to face the music, and somebody is going to have to make that happen.
The Chair: There is only time for you to place your question on the record, Mr Martin; the deputants have asked for some time to sum up.
Mr Martin: Could I raise a point of order first, then, just to say that since the Conservatives are not here, do we get to share their time?
The Chair: I have already done that.
Mr Martin: You have already done that. It is really unfortunate that they and Mr McClelland are not here to hear a different perspective. I was really interested in your focus on what this committee should be about, which is the common good of all the people of Ontario. That is what this legislation is about.
I would like to ask you on the record how many people, how many voices out there you represent in this question.
The Chair: You can now sum up.
Ms van de Valk: Can I answer that question first?
The Chair: As part of your summation, yes.
Ms van de Valk: How many voices do we represent? I could not even begin to guess. I mentioned the groups POWER, FOAD and ICE. We are also affiliated with Citizens Acting Now in Orillia and Waste Not in Orillia. We are affiliated with Riverwatch. There are numerous organizations. Collectively, this is the approach we are taking. We have a register at Waste Wise. We have over 1,000 names in that register of families -- one name per family -- in Halton Hills that have come to Waste Wise and are using that facility and actually sorting their paper into eight different grades and their plastic into five different grades.
I will turn it over to Rita to give her last word. My last word is back to my plea: You cannot underestimate the willingness and the desire and the sincerity of the people of this province to solve the problem. They do not want a hole in the ground. They do not want an incinerator. Nobody wants those solutions, so we really have to start being creative about this. That is what the people of this province want. No more Band-Aids.
Mrs Landry: I was just going to add that, since the release of the Dr Connett video on Waste Wise, groups from all over the world are now phoning or writing Waste Wise to send information on how they can do the same. I would like to leave you with the words of Dr Gofman, who sums it up best, "If you make waste, it belongs to you."
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate your appearing before the committee today.
TOWN OF MARKHAM
The Chair: I would like to call now the town of Markham. I ask that you come forward, please. Introduce your deputation for the record. You have 20 minutes for your presentation.
Mr Morand: Thank you, Madam Chairman. My name is John Morand, and with me is Mr Dalo Keliar. We appreciate the opportunity to meet with your committee and discuss Bill 143.
I am a home owner with a well, the town administrator of the town of Markham, sometime outdoor writer and the first Canadian chairman of the American Economic Development Council. Mr Keliar is a home owner, environmentalist, professional engineer and commissioner of works for the town of Markham.
I have not come here to discuss my concerns as a home owner. I believe you have already had numerous presentations from groups representing the concerns of home owners and ratepayers. I share many of those concerns.
I have not come here to speak to you as a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. You have had very good briefs presented to you over the last few days by the Canadian Bar Association and environmental lawyers. I hazard to guess that many of my fellow members of the law society have made their mortgage payments over the past few months by drafting responses, critiques and addresses for your committee. Quite frankly, I share many of the concerns expressed in their presentations as I have been watching them on television.
We are here to represent the town of Markham. First, we would like to do a little bit of bragging because those of us who live and work in Markham believe Markham is a leader in Ontario, Canada and North America in waste reduction. We will provide to the committee information, a schedule to our presentation, that indicates a reduction of between 29% and 35%, depending on the formula you use, from 1987 in the town of Markham. We do not talk about it; we get out and do it. Markham's industry has been a leader in industrial waste reduction. You will be pleased to know that IBM last year reduced its solid waste by just under 80%.
Having said all that, we have the same concerns voiced by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the region of York, Vaughan, Metropolitan Toronto, and a variety of other municipalities across the province. We strongly support the presentation made by the region of York.
I also come to speak to you as chairman of the American Economic Development Council and as an economic developer who has been in the private and public sectors for the past 25 plus years. Prior to doing that, I would like to ask Dalo to address you.
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Mr Keliar: We have read with interest Minister Grier's January 20, 1992, proposed changes to the new Waste Management Act. We appreciate her comments, which I am sure reflect the initial consultation she had with a variety of groups.
There are many issues which require immediate attention. One point which is of specific concern to our municipality is the support of the effort of many volunteers, environmentalists, home owners, businessmen and others involved in waste management. We are talking specifically about the motion regarding incentives which would support, not undermine, our waste management goals.
To state our case more clearly, we are concerned about the proposed change of rebates to local municipalities. There is a possibility that the town of Markham will be receiving substantially less in rebates per annum. Due to the proposed method of calculation we are looking at a revenue decrease of over $1.5 million, which represents approximately a 6% tax increase to our ratepayers. In other words, the better we do the more it costs the ratepayers. Why are we going to be penalized for doing a good job?
Mayor Lastman's comments on the blue box program yesterday point to the concerns shared by the other GTA municipalities about runaway costs for waste management. The more we do the more it costs, and frankly our ratepayers are expecting us to get better at it and more cost-efficient. The proposed legislation should clearly reward the efforts of communities like Markham which are successful in reducing waste. There must be financial support and reward for such endeavour.
We cannot afford more programs started by senior levels of government that are funded in initial stages and then downloaded to the local taxpayers. If we are going to be your hired guns, please pay us.
Hand in hand with that is also our request to you for support and encouragement in the development of new markets for recycled materials. Price fluctuation or occasional total disappearance of the market is causing instability and at times financial losses to reduction and recycling efforts, and this is being reflected in the mill rate.
Thank you for your attention. John Morand would now like to make some more comments as an economic developer.
Mr Morand: Madam Chair, we all know that perception becomes reality. We are all aware that over the past couple of years the GTA has lost more than 100,000 jobs, and that leakage is continuing.
Faith Popcorn, in her book The Popcorn Report, refers to two terms, "cocooning" and "cashing out." I suppose we all know what "cocooning" is: It is wanting to feel safe, wanted, a sort of hyper-nesting; you want to stay where you are if you are well treated. "Cashing out" refers to taking your chips and going somewhere else where you feel good or where they make you feel good. I will be sending to members of the committee a paper I am delivering to a thinkers' conference in the United States next week that really examines what is happening in North America in terms of the trends industrially.
Many corporations in Ontario, as a result of shifting trends reflected in Toffler's book and Zysman's book on post-industrialization, are cashing out. Frankly, as a result of globalization and free trade they are now in a position to go any place they want to in North America where they will be well treated. I am concerned that certain provisions in this legislation will lead more of our industry to break out of its corporate cocoon here in Ontario and recocoon somewhere else, at a loss of additional jobs to our province, causing additional cost to our province.
We currently have a firm with some 800 employees that is investigating opportunity somewhere else. We have discussed this firm with the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology senior management.
Quite frankly, we must continue to provide options for industry to move industrial waste out of the province at low rates. In a discussion with Minister Grier at a meeting on this matter, she expressed a justifiable concern about the loss of revenue from export of waste. It was my suggestion that perhaps we look at the other side of that equation.
I believe it is essential that a cost-benefit analysis be done to look at the cost of losing those industries that move out of the province, in part to reduce the cost of waste management. Of course, I would like to see a business plan on how $152-a-tonne tipping fees -- $740 million collected over a number of years -- is going to be reflected in a solution.
Second, the proposed legislation limits other methods of waste management. There is, frankly, an incredible business opportunity for the province and its entrepreneurs to continue to develop high-tech methods of solid and liquid waste treatment. We must continue to explore opportunities for incineration and cogeneration. I refer members of the committee to Alvin Toffler's book Powershift, page 490, talking about the new neural network and the speed at which things are happening and how industry is reflecting those changes.
When a new government is elected we all look forward to constructive changes, consultation and effective listening. Change is best achieved when participation is wide and responded to with a mix of pragmatism and philosophy. There are many changes required to this legislation. They are evident in the many briefs you have and will receive.
I would just remind you, as an ecosystem economic developer, that I believe everything is interrelated and you should be aware of the total impact of your legislation.
Recently the Legislature passed a bill, the Development Charges Act, Bill 20. That bill was passed to address what looked like a relatively simple problem. Quite frankly, it totally changed how growth municipalities in this province are financed. It is my understanding that you and your staff are looking at the impact of that legislation. Please be careful in your final recommendations on this piece of legislation; its impact is far-reaching. Its impact may be more far-reaching than is evident on its surface. We thank you for this opportunity to make a presentation.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation this morning.
Mr Martin: I wanted to thank you for the presentation, too. It was very good and, I think, highlighted very clearly some of what we ran into when we arrived here on September 6, 1990: a crisis. The crisis was actually generated very much by competing interests around the question of garbage and waste management.
Through this bill we have very clearly indicated that our concern is the environment and the common good and dealing with waste management under that umbrella. To do that you sometimes have to make tough choices and decisions. However, we also need to be sensitive to some of the things that were there before and some of the concerns from communities like yours, which have grown to depend to some degree on the revenue generated to do other things.
How do we do that balancing act -- protect the common good and the environment -- versus trying to accommodate those who would like to make some money on the industry of waste management?
Mr Morand: First, let me state my bias. I do not have any problems with anybody making money. Making money creates jobs; making money is the engine that drives this province.
Mr Martin: At what cost?
Mr Morand: Making money is what has made us one of the wealthiest nations in the world, so I do not have a bias against that. I think you have to balance always what is happening. You have to use your judgement; you have to listen to the very good people who have spoken to you and will be speaking to you. Leadership, to quote a good friend of mine, is a bitch. It is never easy to make decisions. The decisions you have to make are incredibly difficult because you have a lot of competing interests.
I have absolute faith and confidence in the members of the Legislature to wend your way through the legislation, through the proposals and comments being made to you and come up with a reasonable, logical approach. You are going to have to balance a variety of interests, but do not give up on one. Investigate all of them. You have very good officials in a variety of ministries. Get them to work together; get them to work with the local municipalities. The answer is there.
Mr Martin: It is good to hear somebody come forth who has confidence in this --
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Martin. A question, Mr Turnbull; you have the floor.
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Mr Turnbull: I, too, share your view; I do not have a bias against profit. There is definitely a conflict between the right of citizens to have a full airing, through public review, of potential dump sites and, on the other hand, the need to expedite the process. But we have gone from one extreme of having an almost endless hearing to no hearing at all with respect to the extension of two dump sites. Could you comment on that?
Mr Morand: Perhaps I will make a comment, then Dalo can. I worked for the Hamilton-Wentworth region from 1978 through 1983. As some of you know, we proceeded to go through public hearings and instituted a new landfill site. In fact, the federal government, the provincial government and the region paid for a film to be done on how we did that. We used an environmental procedure. We worked with the citizens' groups. We reviewed the technology and the documentation given to us by the scientists. We worked together. The process then was perhaps a little simpler. I think the process has been made much too difficult. The process has become a way you stop things rather than get on with things. I think one of the challenges you have is to clean the process up.
We have a little thing we are looking at at the Markham town hall. One of our senior administrators has a slide show. It is two really tough-looking guys standing in an alleyway. He calls it the 30-15 protection system. Our people are going to have 30 days to comment on an application. At the end of 30 days he sends Louie around with a baseball bat to find out why it has not been commented on, why it has not moved off the desk. On the second pass they have 15 days. You should get better at it. So you have to do what the municipalities are doing: You have to put time frames in place for your officials and other officials to comment, get back and move it forward.
Mr Sola: First of all, coming from the city of Mississauga, I would just like to have my municipality share the podium with you as far as your leadership position in waste reduction is concerned. I would like to touch upon the profit motive expounded by the government member, but from a different angle. Mr Keliar, maybe you could give me an answer to this. It is in reference to your statement on rebates to local municipalities. You say that the better job you do, the more it costs your ratepayers. This is the flip side of the coin on profits: What does that do to provide incentive for your municipality to be better at your job of reducing waste?
Mr Keliar: I am afraid I would have to reply rather indirectly than directly by way of examples. What has happened in our municipality is that we have reduced our overall -- specifically, I had to mention that. Again, I am sorry I am referring directly to Mississauga's perhaps competitiveness with the town of Markham. I am proud of it and I am proud of having more municipalities to compete with each other. That is great. However, Minister Grier, in her January 20 statement, declared that on the average, a GTA person consumes and wastes as much as 1.1 ton per year per person. That comes to something over six pounds per day, which is totally incredible, if we think that each and every one of us throws away over five pounds of waste. This is insane. Sorry for using such strong terms, but I feel that strongly about it.
We would like to ask you for your forgiveness. Here is really the attachment which should have been given to you. I would like to give it to the clerk, please, for distribution to all members of the committee.
In the town of Markham, if our calculations are correct -- and I believe they are at least approximately correct -- the consumption comes to 1.5 pounds per day per person. I believe that is incredible; that is fantastic. I am extremely pleased to see my good friend Don Cousens come here to hear that, because he is the one who is promoting all of that and supporting it very much.
The calculation is based at this piont in time on the tonnage taken to the dump site. The proposal has been that, no, it is going to be recalculated on a per-capita basis, on the population figure. In other words, the incentive, which is in the reduction of your tonnage, is being totally lost. It is simply not there. In fact, the more we are going to be reducing our overall tonnage, basically the less we would get.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. If there is additional information you would like to share with the committee, you may do so in writing. I have a couple of questions for the record that members would like to place. You can respond to them in the future.
Mr White: I am very impressed with your recycling and reduction and I am wondering, in regard to Markham's procurement practices, if you favour recycled materials and whether you have that as a town bylaw.
Mr Cousens: I just want to say thank you for being here. I apologize for not being here for your whole presentation.
Mr Sola: My question is directed to Mr Morand. On page 8 you talk about "industries that move out of the province, in part to reduce the cost of waste management." Do you have any figures that can tell us how great a role reduction of waste plays in management costs?
Mr Wiseman: I would also like to congratulate you and Markham for your efforts in recycling. Last year there was enhanced 3Rs funding from the province. Do you think all municipalities should be encouraged to achieve what Markham has achieved?
The Chair: Thank you. The questions that have been placed on the record will be made available to you by our clerk. If you respond before February 14 it will form part of the public record. If not, all members will receive a copy of it after that and be able to consider it during their deliberations. We appreciate your coming forward this morning. Thank you very much.
Mr Morand: Thank you. All of us are counting on you.
The Chair: Thank you.
TOWNSHIP OF SCUGOG
The Chair: I would like to call next the township of Scugog; please come forward. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. Please leave some time for questions from committee members and begin your presentation now by introducing yourself.
Mr Dietlein: My name is David Dietlein. I represent the township of Scugog and the township's position on Bill 143.
There is no question that in the greater Toronto area and, indeed, in many areas of the province, we are facing a garbage crisis. The need for satisfactory landfill sites has never been more urgent. In the zeal to address this problem, however, one must not overlook or choose to ignore the fundamental rights of individuals and communities which happen, through no fault of their own, to get in the way of this search.
As you are aware, waste management is a regional, not a municipal responsibility. We will be relying on the region of Durham to address those waste management aspects of the bill.
As a municipality, we are greatly concerned about the infringements this bill makes on civil and community rights. With regard to part I of this proposed bill, if passed it would trample on the rights of Ontario property owners. This legislation will give the provincial government extraordinary powers to enter any property. According to subsection 7(1), any inspector authorized by the province would be able to enter any property he or she feels should be tested for its landfill potential. The land owner will be assumed to have been notified seven days after notice was sent by prepaid mail. If the owner was absent or otherwise did not receive the notification during this period, his or her property could legally have been tested for its landfill potential without his or her knowledge or permission and without a warrant.
Permission should be required from a property owner for such testing, as has been past practice. The property owner would have no right to appeal a decision of a provincial inspector. With the passage of Bill 143 the property owner has no legal recourse to prevent excavation on his property. If he attempts to physically stop trespass, section 10, paragraph 2, gives the province the right to arrest him.
We find it surprising that a government would propose such a law as section 9, which would clearly violate a citizen's rights. Save and except for a period exceeding 90 days, the individual property owner does not even have the right of representation before a judge or a justice of the peace. The use of either a judge or a justice of the peace to rubber-stamp a decision with regard to waste management is an abuse of the judicial process. In effect, this bill implies the judge issue a warrant whenever requested by an inspector. We question whether any judge would have the environmental expertise to determine the merits of any case put before him or her by an inspector.
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Part II of this bill pre-supposes that the location of three landfill sites within the GTA is a suitable solution for our waste management problems. According to section 14, no alternatives will be considered. Other waste reduction and recycling methods, incineration and transport of municipal solid waste outside the GTA are all potential solutions which have been rejected out of hand. These methods should be used for comparison in any environmental assessment. The environmental assessment process is used to select the alternative which is the least harmful to the environment. If alternatives are not considered, how can this be achieved? For instance, we feel the option to transport municipal solid waste to an abandoned mine pit in Kirkland Lake must be reconsidered on its merits. There is little public input on the basic approach to waste management.
Part III of Bill 143 further erodes civil and community rights in that the requirements of the Environmental Protection Act, the Environmental Assessment Act, the Ontario Municipal Board Act, the Municipal Act, the Planning Act, the Regional Municipality of Durham Act, the Regional Municipality of Peel Act, the Regional Municipality of York Act and the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act are negated. These acts were put into place to protect the environment and the citizens of this province from abuse. Suddenly the Environmental Assessment Act no longer applies, as is shown in section 7. If the minister has the power to override an environmental review with respect to matters included in section 17, what guarantee do we have that this will not happen again?
The province mandates waste management decisions, abrogating any assessment and leaving the municipality with the cost. If the province wishes to take over waste management, it should be prepared to provide the funding. Part III gives the province the power to do anything it wants without any checks and balances. It is a law that undoes previous legislation without replacing it. For all practical purposes, there is no law. How can one be guaranteed a hearing if one opposes a minister's decision? What right do we have if we do not agree with a decision?
We feel that the assessment of the environmental impacts of landfills is extremely important and there should be no loopholes. If this bill is passed in its present form, small subdivision proposals -- as small as three houses -- would be placed under greater scrutiny than major landfill developments. This is the exact opposite of what should be the intent of environmental assessment. Projects that have the potential of great impact on the environment should not be fast-tracked through the approval process. The township of Scugog is opposed to any weakening of the environmental assessment process with regard to either expansion or location of landfill sites.
This bill does not address the impact municipal solid waste management projects will have on the local municipalities. We are very concerned about the potential impact on township finances and local roads, and we feel this should have been covered in the legislation.
In conclusion, we ask you to consider whether the end justifies the means. Yes, the need for landfill sites is pressing and urgent and, yes, there have been difficulties in the past in gaining access to potential sites, but to implement a bill which would remove so much of the protection from municipalities, the environment and the individual citizen is to initiate a process which runs counter to the fundamental concepts on which our society has been built.
We respectfully request that sections 1 and 3 be revised to afford the level of protection that individuals and communities have the right to expect.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
Mr Cousens: If your statement, coupled with the many others that are coming in, had some impact, and it may have some impact -- I am trying to carry on the positive note from Markham's administrator and commissioner. You can only hope that what you are saying will have an effect. I sincerely believe that because so many people are feeling as strongly as you are and taking the time to come down here and make a presentation with sincere, good recommendations, the province has no choice but to look very seriously at their proposals.
The points you have made I feel have been touched on, but I think to have the perspective from Scugog is very important. It confirms the direction we are trying to take in my caucus. I want to publicly acknowledge what you are saying and hope and pray the government will very seriously consider the opinions you have. Does this have the support of your council as well?
Mr Dietlein: Yes. All seven members have voted for it, so it is a unanimous decision. Everybody has read through this proposal and there has been input in from a number of councillors, in particular a Councillor Gadsden of Scugog Island. Yes, it is totally supported.
Mrs Fawcett: Thank you for taking the time to come, because it is really important for us to hear from the public. I am almost worried that I find myself agreeing with my colleague Mr Cousens.
Mr Cousens: Oh, that is terrible. We have agreed on this one largely along the way.
Mrs Fawcett: I am particularly interested in the section of your brief where you take exception to the inspectors and the definite removal of civil rights of land owners. Do you think that should be absolutely stricken from the bill or did you discuss at all an alternative or an amendment to that section?
Mr Dietlein: My feeling is that you should have left it the way it was before. You should have permission from the land owner.
Mrs Fawcett: Before you even step on?
Mr Dietlein: Yes, as before. I know it is difficult, but in this kind of procedure what is going to happen is that -- in Scugog we had experience with the two Durham landfill sites in the region. There was strong opposition from residents because of the fact that they could not go on the land without permission, but at least the residents had a say. In that case residents opposed it. Again, I think property rights should be paramount and people should have the right to say "yes" or "no" to a test.
Mr Martin: As I said to the previous presenters, this is a very difficult task that we have in front of us and certainly our job as government is to consider the common good, and particularly at this point in our history, the environment, in decisions we make. We are trying desperately to do that in front of very compelling competing interests.
I was interested in your point that we should be considering the possibility of other sites and I was interested in your experience in Scugog with the site that your community did not want that was almost foisted upon you through a process that was in place before. In light of that, you might want to share with us the process of willing host and that whole question. In opening up the possibility of shipping garbage up north, does that not also require us to then consider other sites such as the site in Scugog?
Mr Dietlein: If you want to ship it up north, that is a willing host situation. Again, I would not wish a landfill site on anybody, but if Kirkland Lake is willing to accept it and it passes through an environmental assessment process I say go for it. You are going into areas that are unwilling, and certainly a lot of our area in Scugog township is totally unwilling. You see, we are lumped in with the greater Toronto area and certainly in my ward, which is Cartwright, most of the people do not even want to be a member of the greater Toronto area because of the taxes and the regional problems. We are in a different watershed altogether. We are really part of the Kawarthas.
Mr Martin: So you might understand that some people in the north might have the same kind of feelings you do about what might be a possible proliferation of those kinds of projects.
Mr Dietlein: The thing is, my understanding of the north, and I was brought up in a mining town myself, is that in some of these mining towns the environment has been devastated tremendously and I do not know how much greater harm you can do in such areas. I do not know about Kirkland Lake specifically, but I know where I came from with Gagnon, Quebec, as a kid, and you can see that on a satellite photograph as a crater.
Mr Martin: And you would understand that if we did not want --
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Martin. You no longer have the floor.
Mr Sola: Thank you, sir. Your presentation is a devastating indictment of Bill 143. For instance, when you say Bill 143 is a bill which says the end justifies the means, and to state, as you do, that the province has the power to do anything it wants without any checks and balances makes it practically a situation where there is no law, goes against the grain of anything associated with democracy and you are just agreeing with people who have stated that the minister is a dictator and autocrat, that she is creating a police state and that Bill 143 is a hostile act against the people of this province. I just want to commend you for stating your views so specifically and giving us that added insight into what the people of Scugog think. It will give us a little bit more leverage to pressure the government to listen.
Mr Wiseman: My question has to do with this concept of willing host again. As you are well aware, the region of Durham designated Pickering as a willing host. That meant that P1 would go under the rather dictatorial EPA that the Liberals had put into place. If this bill is opened up, it is within the realm of possibility that the regional municipality of Durham will designate Scugog as a willing host.
Mr Dietlein: Anything is possible with dump sites. I have learned that. But again, I am concerned about our property rights.
Mr Wiseman: I was more interested in your giving me a perspective on how you think you would differ from Pickering in terms of being designated as a willing host by a greater municipality.
Mr Dietlein: The thing is that Scugog township is a lot farther to the north. It would essentially be exported over the Oak Ridges moraine into another watershed.
Mr Wiseman: Sorry, that does not wash within the regional municipality of Durham. Scugog is part of Durham. They could be designated as a host.
Mr Dietlein: Yes, I realize that.
The Chair: I have one minute remaining. I suggest you put your question on the record and that we allow the deputant a chance to sum up.
Mr White: As you note, the bill deals with the regional municipality of Durham and not with the local municipalities. A submission from the regional municipalities is in fact in support of most of the bill in terms of the location of landfill sites. What I have concerns about is, if each municipality has a viewpoint, do we not then have the people of Pickering with their particular NIMBY concerns versus the people in Bowmanville? How do you determine what is an appropriate landfill site?
Mr Dietlein: I do not point fingers at any other municipality, at Pickering or other municipalities. I do not get involved in that. But we are very concerned about it because come April there is a potential of an announcement of 20 sites. If five or six sites are announced in Scugog, we are devastated. We are ruined.
Who knows how long this process is going to go on? It certainly will not go on according to any timetable. The timetable is off already. We are trying to get through the recession. We only have 10 building lots coming up for approval in 1992 in the entire township of Scugog. We are in poor shape, and certainly we would be ruined.
Mr Wiseman: Could I just ask a question for the record? I would like some clarification from the parliamentary assistant on what the timetable would be, pending the passage of this legislation, moving from the long list to the designated site.
The Chair: The committee very much appreciates your coming forward today to make your presentation. We thank you very much. Over the course of our hearings if there is additional information that you or your council feel would be helpful to us, we encourage you to communicate with us in writing. Thank you for appearing today.
Mr Dietlein: Thanks a lot. It is a pleasure to be here.
The Chair: Did you want to answer that now?
Mr O'Connor: We could probably get someone from the IWA to explain the process, because you are actually quite a way into the process.
Ms Johnston: As we have said before, the process goes from the long list to the short list to the preferred site. If the long list were to come out, say, in the spring with the short list in the fall, the studies would be conducted and the preferred sites identified, say, in early next year.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Thank you all. The standing committee on social development stands in recess until 2 pm this afternoon.
The committee recessed at 1225.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1403.
ENVIRONMENT AND PLASTICS INSTITUTE OF CANADA
The Vice-Chair: I recognize a quorum. Our first delegation this afternoon is the Environment and Plastics Institute of Canada. Would you please come to the microphones and identify yourselves.
Mr Cousens: Are you going to give them an hour, Mr Chairman? They are certainly worthy of it.
The Vice-Chair: All our delegations are worthy of an hour, but they have been allocated 20 minutes. We would appreciate it if you would allow some time towards the end for questioning by committee members.
Dr Edgecombe: Ladies and gentlemen, I am Fred Edgecombe. I am with the Environment and Plastics Institute of Canada, which is a program of the Society of the Plastics Industry of Canada. The Society of the Plastics Industry is the trade association that represents the resin producers, the resin processors and the machinery and mould manufacturers in Canada. We do have some comments to make on Bill 143. Your clerk has been provided with copies of our presentation and I trust she will deliver these to you.
By way of background, I would like to position Ontario's plastics industry for you. It employs approximately 80,000 people in this province and has shipments of about $9 billion. For many years it has been one of the fastest growing segments of Ontario's economy. Of the production from the plastics industry in Ontario, 39% goes into packaging. Our concerns about Bill 143 are primarily related to those sections that pertain to "litter, packaging, containers, disposable products and products that pose waste management problems" included in sections 28 and 29 and subsections 33(9) and (12). Our concerns are multifold, although we can break them down into four broad headings: regulation without consultation, the arbitrary nature of the proposed legislation, the development of an unlevel playing field for manufacturers and users based here in Ontario, and regulations before voluntary action.
We recognize, of course, that Bill 143 is an updating of an omnibus piece of legislation that becomes effective through the issuing of regulations. The bill provides sweeping ministerial powers to issue regulations that would be unique to Ontario. The first of the series of regulations, of course, has been outlined in draft form in the Ministry of the Environment's initiatives paper. However, unlike federal regulations, which are governed by the regulatory reform act, there is no requirement for the provincial government to give notice or carry out public hearings prior to the issuing of regulations. Thus far, the only public input on the Ministry of the Environment's draft regulations was a call for written submissions, along with meetings between ministry officials and certain interest groups.
In order that regulations are the product of informed input from all stakeholder groups, Bill 143 should legislate a requirement for public hearings to be held prior to the drafting of regulations. Additionally we believe the proposed regulations should, as in the case of federal government regulations, be subject to a detailed socioeconomic impact analysis. As it now stands, we believe that regulations passed by order in council provide little opportunity for meaningful public input and consultation to produce workable public policy. For example -- I will speak to this later -- the format of the consultations surrounding the development of the national packaging protocol are perhaps a model that should be considered.
Moving on now to the arbitrary nature of proposed waste management legislation, the section of Bill 143 pertaining to "litter, packaging, containers, disposable products and products that pose waste management problems" is driven by an orientation to environmental policymaking which can only be described as arbitrary. Examples of this approach are sections 28 and 29 and subsection 33(12), which empower the Minister of the Environment to study, prohibit and in some cases regulate the sale of "products that pose or may pose waste management problems," taking into account such ill-defined considerations as "the environmental appropriateness of packaging, containers, and disposable products." Such targeting of products for regulation can, in the lack of defined criteria, be arbitrary and prone to subjective weighting of environmental factors.
Bill 143 and the regulations to which it is intended to give effect focus exclusively on solid waste management issues to the potential detriment of other equally compelling environmental arguments. Before the Ontario government hastily moves to regulate certain products, it must consider the entire environmental impact of such a move. Energy conservation, resource consumption and atmospheric emissions are just some of the other salient environmental considerations that must be taken into account when devising waste management regulations that potentially single out specific products. While the science of environmental impact analysis is still in its infancy, the Ontario government must take a much broader approach to environmental policymaking than the one inherent in Bill 143.
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Like all public policy, Bill 143 and its attendant regulations must be examined in a context of international competitiveness. The genuine need for the development of regulations to protect the environment must be balanced against the obvious necessity of ensuring that Ontario remain a competitive jurisdiction in which to operate.
In this regard, section 29 prohibits the use, offer for sale or selling of any packaging, container or disposable product or material that in someone's opinion is contrary to the act or poses waste management problems. This section offers wide scope for arbitrary prohibition in a manner that does not address how international trade and indeed interprovincial trade in goods will be handled. It is essential that Ontario producers be provided with a level playing field so as not to find themselves disadvantaged relative to manufacturers etc located outside the province or outside the country.
Likewise, subsection 33(9) refers to the placement of marks of conformance on products, labels and packaging. This section has the potential to require labelling specific to Ontario and if used as a model by other jurisdictions in Canada, balkanizes Canadian business in adding costs and loss of productivity.
Once again, control of imports is essential but is not addressed, in a manner that recognizes the reality of international competition. Failure to recognize this will contribute to a litany of other factors that are rendering Ontario a less competitive manufacturing location. Compared with many US states, for example, Ontario processors face higher wage costs, a more onerous tax regime and in many cases higher energy costs. Arbitrary environmental regulations that place additional costs on manufacturers or users of the products targeted in Bill 143 will make it increasingly difficult for them to remain internationally competitive.
Are regulations truly necessary? The plastics industry is a subscriber to the national packaging protocol. Its representatives have sat on the National Packaging Task Force since its inception and the industry has worked with this multistakeholder group to bring about a rational national approach to the diversion of packaging waste. NPP is a voluntary program with provision for regulation if needed. Its goals and targets have been accepted by all the provinces, including Ontario, and the federal government. Its guide to preferred packaging practices has been endorsed by all the stakeholders active in NPP, including Ontario.
It is our belief that a national system is necessary for Canada. Even a national system, however, will have problems in dealing with imports if regulation is necessary. Regulation may not be necessary if Canadian producers and users of packaging work together for the greater good. The cooperation that has been demonstrated to date augurs well for the future and in the cold light of free trade, GATT and other international structures is likely to be the only mechanism that can work. The voluntary initiatives must be allowed to proceed and the province of Ontario should not risk jeopardizing the national activity through arbitrary regulations.
Mr White: I was quite intrigued with your presentation, gentlemen, and I have a couple of questions. The first is a slight diversion from your presentation.
I represent an area called Durham Centre, which is heavily dependent upon automobile and auto parts manufacturing. In consequence, there is a large component of plastics in that area. In fact, that is one of the areas where I think we are somewhere in the forefront in the world in terms of plastic foams etc for automobiles. A local recycler of steel, a very large corporation, has a major difficulty, and that is concern about the different plastics that are in the automobiles and the fact it cannot reuse them. They end up in chips and huge berms and it is very difficult to process that. I understand that in Europe there is an endeavour to ensure that those materials can be reused or recycled and I am wondering if you could comment upon that in regard to the auto industry and perhaps other large-scale plastic uses.
Dr Edgecombe: Yes, I can, Mr White. The company you refer to has been meeting with us and a multistakeholder group that represents the auto industry, the plastics industry, major auto shredders other than the one you referred to, the government of Ontario, the government of Quebec and people from the National Research Council to try to address this problem. You should realize that the cars being shredded today are 1979 to 1981 hulks, and of course the environmental concerns at that time were not as well developed as they are at the present time. We have work going on at the National Research Council analysing what the components are of auto shredder residue. We are carrying out experiments, actually, to determine if some of the foam can be rebonded and used in other applications.
There are some things that can be done with those materials today. For example, there is a calorific value equivalent to soft coal in those materials. However, that is not a solution that is acceptable in some jurisdictions.
Similarly, in Europe there is a lot of concern for older cars. The concern is coming into the United States as well and we are working very closely with our US counterpart, the Council for Solid Waste Solutions, on the issue. We feel that over the next year or so there is going to be even greater activity in this area, because we want to be proactive and address the issue before it becomes an overwhelming one and we are trying to play catch-up. But it is being addressed and the multistakeholder group is working on it.
Mrs Fawcett: Thank you for your presentation. How did you hear about Bill 143? Were you given any prior knowledge or did you ask to be allowed to put your input in, anything like that?
Dr Edgecombe: We run many programs in conjunction with the Ministry of the Environment here in Ontario, so we have very close contact with it. Consequently notice of the bill came from them and we thought it would be fit for us to make a response when the request went out to make submissions. We are one of those to whom the request went.
Mrs Fawcett: Before the bill was presented in the Legislature?
Dr Edgecombe: We knew it was being presented in the Legislature. We knew it had gone to committee. I suspect our knowledge of the state of it was perhaps a little bit late in addressing it prior to being introduced.
Mrs Fawcett: I would imagine you perhaps could have suggested some changes.
Dr Edgecombe: I could have made all these comments long before it ever received reading on the floor of the House.
Mrs Fawcett: As it stands, you would really like to see some amendments to that section of the bill.
Dr Edgecombe: What I would like to see are some safeguards built into the legislation so that there would be adequate investigation of the regulations that could fall under the onus of this omnibus piece of legislation.
Mr Cousens: That was a good presentation. You took four points and made them in a way that one would have a hard time not understanding them. The consultation one talks about process. As I talk with industry, as much a concern as any is the surprises that government drops on it -- not just this government, but any government -- and the need for consultation and the way to have it. To me there is a lesson for all of us on that one. You are not involved in the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy or any of those associations where you would have an inside view with the ministry, I guess.
Dr Edgecombe: We have very close contact, so we know what is coming down and we have some hints of what is going to be in the other four initiatives papers apart from Regulatory Measures to Achieve Ontario's Waste Reduction Targets: Initiatives Paper No 1. We have commented on initiatives paper 1. I think what we would prefer to have is more of a multistakeholder approach to the consultation. We do not know what others have said. The dialogue does not seem to be as productive as it might be.
Mr Cousens: The other issue -- I would love to have more conversation with you; the time just does not permit it -- is on the national packaging protocol. I worry a lot about what is happening with part IV of this bill, its impact as it separates Ontario from the rest of the country, either through the bill or the regulations that come from it, which can make Ontario an uncompetitive place to do business in. Has anyone done a financial analysis of the impact this bill could have on your business if we see an implementation of some of the worst scenarios?
Dr Edgecombe: We have not done that ourselves to the extent you might want.
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Mr LeClair: One of the difficulties with the legislation is that it provides all sorts of opportunities and empowers the minister to single out specific products. We can tell you that 39% of a very large industry in Ontario is devoted to plastic packaging and related products, but until you see specific regulations targeting specific products we cannot turn around and say that is going to result in 12,000 jobs in the Mississauga area or something of that sort, but certainly the potential is there.
Mr Cousens: There is an economic impact to this. I believe that as a businessman.
Dr Edgecombe: The economic impact is not difficult to see in a very general sense. If you have to make ketchup containers that are labelled specifically for Ontario and are quite different from what you would ship to Manitoba, it provides you with another product line, another inventory. It just multiples. You ask yourself the question, since the province probably cannot control the border, "Should I take my packaging operation over to Buffalo and ship into the province and into the rest of the country?"
Mr Cousens: I just feel that if there are members of your organization who have a sense of what it will do to Ontario business by having regulations brought in that make Ontario non-standard with other provinces in Canada, then any information like that could be useful to Mrs Grier as she is about to confirm this bill.
Mr Wiseman: It is always interesting to hear ideas come forward from the public. I understand your group met extensively with the waste reduction office staff with regard to regulations in initiatives paper 1. I would like to hear how many meetings you had, what the interaction was and what kinds of ideas were exchanged. Also, the minister has committed to consult on any future regulations. I think that is an important point to make.
Dr Edgecombe: We have had a lot of informal discussion with the waste reduction office. A representative of the waste reduction office appeared before my management committee and gave us some advance warning on the nature of the various initiatives papers that were coming down. We had casual conversations. We put in a written submission. There are some parts of initiatives paper 1 we have some problems with. We submitted that. We have had no written response but I have had, again, casual conversations. It is largely of a casual nature rather than a structured nature. That has been the input on that particular paper.
Mr Wiseman: Are you also aware that the minister has committed herself to consult on future regulations?
Dr Edgecombe: Yes. When the government came into power we were aware of a structure that would facilitate actually more multistakeholder input than perhaps had been seen heretofore. Of course that structure was divided into a number of areas that are pertinent to waste reduction, but we have not seen that structure coalesce. Perhaps it still will. It is still early in the game.
The Vice-Chair: The last question posed by Mr Cousens will be given to you in writing by the clerk. We would appreciate it if you could respond in writing prior to February 14.
Mr Cousens: Mr Chairman, I am not going to worry, because I think it is difficult; if you can, but do not put any extra pressure on yourselves.
Dr Edgecombe: We will provide some examples, Mr Cousens.
The Vice-Chair: Any additional information you have, if it comes in before February 14, becomes part of the record of this committee. If it comes in after that date, the committee will take it into its deliberations.
ZERO GARBAGE/SCUGOG
The Vice-Chair: The next group is Zero Garbage/ Scugog, if they would come to the microphones, please.
Mr Kemp: Good afternoon. I am Colin Kemp from Zero Garbage in Scugog. Zero Garbage/Scugog was formed in September 1990 on Durham region's announcement of five dump sites, two being in Scugog. We represent citizens who were concerned about the site selection process and the manner in which it was carried out. There seemed to be no thought to alternative disposal methods and little regard to the disruption of residents' lives and jobs.
We have been actively involved in research on waste management and have made presentations to Durham region on reuse centres, a new type of waste facility, mandated source separation and product stewardship.
In November 1990 the Ministry of the Environment announced the takeover of waste management from the greater Toronto area municipalities. In June 1991 the minister announced an action plan for the waste crisis in the GTA and the formation of the Interim Waste Authority. These decrees further extended the process and put a further strain on citizens previously under threat of a dump site on or adjacent to their property.
After the regional site report, it was obvious that landfill site selection was a political process, if not in the initial stages then in the elimination of sites by constraints and screening, and in the final stages by offering municipal incentives to ambitious politicians with a wish list.
We met with the IWA to help understand its mandate and explain our position. We worked with the IWA and were impressed with its draft summary and criteria document. We had some questions on the document, which were partly answered. This led us to the conclusion that giving the IWA any information would be detrimental to citizens and the environment in general. In fact, this proved to be true and is the reason we are here today.
Although we do not have any constitutionally guaranteed property rights, citizens do own property and have common-law rights. Bill 143 takes away this protection. The problem starts with section 7, the restoration of property clause. The term "in so far as is practicable" is vague, and who is to determine what is practical? Section 8 concerns notice to the land owner. It does not take into consideration that a land owner could be away for more than the designated time for notice or the possibility of a postal service interruption.
Section 9 would allow an inspector to obtain a warrant authorizing access to land he suspects would be suitable for a landfill site and then denies the property owner the right of representation before a judge or justice of the peace. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 7, states: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice." We suggest the exercise of provincial inspectors' powers under Bill 143 as it now stands would conflict with section 7 of the charter.
We believe this part of Bill 143 should be amended to require permission from the property owner and compensation, should testing be allowed. We also question if any justice of the peace would have the experience necessary to judge the merit of any landfill site inspection proposal.
The bill orders three new landfill sites for the GTA and then specifically invalidates sections of the Environmental Assessment Act in order to achieve this end. In a statement before this committee, the Minister of the Environment referred to the GTA's Solid Waste Interim Steering Committee's previous proposal to meet the waste crisis. Two new interim landfill sites in Brampton and Whitevale were granted exemptions under the EAA. Minister Grier said, "Our party, in opposition, had clearly stated that this was not acceptable," yet the same minister has introduced this bill, which would grant exemptions to the Environmental Assessment Act. The EAA is there to help choose the method least harmful to the environment and to look at other types of waste disposal or reduction. Abandoning the EAA process, as this bill will do, is not in the public interest.
Other sections of Bill 143 have been addressed by Durham region, but Zero Garbage, and I believe I speak for most taxpayers, objects to the provincial government mandating programs that require municipal funding. If the provincial government takes on a project such as waste management, then it should be fully funded from provincial revenues.
We feel that selecting landfill sites, specifically in the GTA, may not be the answer. Alternatives do exist, but they seem not to fit the philosophy of this government. It is unfortunate that we have not seen any positive sign of the ability of this administration to handle waste management. The Interim Waste Authority, the waste reduction office, the waste management office, agree that product stewardship and mandatory source separation are the answer.
We understand that other parts of Bill 143 will attempt to address these issues. However, it appears the Ministry of the Environment is trying to find a place to bury waste as quickly as possible, then find ways to reduce and recycle without upsetting lobby groups. We think this process is similar to garbage export to a willing community -- out of sight, out of mind -- and will allow vested interests to abrogate their responsibilities.
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We need to see government action on reducing our wastes; for example, used tires. In January 1991, a report from the Ministry of the Environment recommended a safe method of tire disposal -- cement kiln feedstock, with its proven technology. This has been rejected out of hand by the minister. Instead, we pay out millions of dollars to guard tire stockpiles and invest in a plant to produce crumb without a proven market. I may be wrong on that.
Another examples is LCBO containers. Instead of all taxpayers paying a high price for collection and recycling, why not let the user pay through a deposit system? We were advised by the Minister of the Environment that a decision was to be made in July 1991. Now, in January 1992, the latest information from the minister is that a decision on LCBO containers is to be made by the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, with no specific date. Soft drink containers: There is no need for non-returnable soft drink bottles and cans. Twenty years ago there were no non-returnable pop bottles. Other provinces have deposits on cans. We do not see why Ontario cannot return to refillable pop containers.
Taxpayers are presently subsidizing paper producers for silviculture. If their products are costed fairly, their recycled value becomes evident and the need for landfill is reduced. Yet again the Minister of the Environment has passed this to the Ministry of Natural Resources. The Minister of Natural Resources has said that subsidizing the forest industry helps it compete in world markets. I suspect this may be against GATT principles.
The absence of legislation to cover obvious recyclables does not create an atmosphere of trust in the government's plan for landfill sites.
In conclusion, we agree the need for waste management is urgent, but over a year has passed since responsibility for GTA waste was taken over by the Ministry of the Environment. We have yet to see some indication of the ministry's willingness to introduce what Zero Garbage believes to be simple legislation on high-profile material. We know much reduction has taken place, from composting to reusing and recycling, but the numbers are not accurate. The export of garbage to the United States because of lower tipping fees has compromised targets for diversion from landfill.
We see this bill as a start, but would ask the committee to consider the precedent the bill would set on the rights of citizens and the right of government to change laws to expedite policy. We respectfully request that Bill 143 be redrafted to amend the sections that remove protection of the environment and violate citizens' rights.
Mrs Fawcett: Thank you very much for being here. This is Scugog's day, I believe, and we welcome you to the committee. This seems to be my bailiwick, but I am interested in what you think of the right of land owners and the right of inspectors to come in with police backup. Have you obtained any legal opinion on the powers under Bill 143?
Mr Kemp: Yes, we have. It is felt the Charter of Rights would apply there, only there would be a test case. No matter what, if it is still in there, a land owner still has the right to kick the inspector off and go through court again. So we might as well do it right in the first place.
Mrs Fawcett: Would you say then that either this section should be removed or revamped and amended in some way?
Mr Kemp: Certainly.
Mr Cousens: You stole my line. It is Scugog's day, is it not? We had a representative of your council here who made a very impressive presentation. Yours is too.
People are paying attention to what is going on at Queen's Park. It is obvious the direction you are taking is one that gives us all a sense of leadership about where we should be going. We really have to do something to reuse articles like pop bottles and other things. History has shown us there have been ways of doing that in the past. We are just playing around with it right now.
One of the worries I have is about landfill sites. I am pretty worried about Whitevale becoming one of the selection points in Durham, because the ministry would not release the list of possible sites. It has held that back. I am not sure why. You can never find answers to these questions when you are in opposition, so you have to hope that somewhere it will fall out. You raised the question about landfill sites and the process, using environmental assessment. I would like to take you off that a little bit. Have you any concerns as a group about where the landfill sites are going to be selected in Durham and the processes that are going to be followed? I guess you are concerned about the process.
Mr Kemp: I am very concerned about a dump site being down the road from me. Certainly I am. But we believe the Interim Waste Authority document is fair. We have had input into that and we believe it is one of the ways to go. The previous report done by the region was a political process entirely. They had an aim where they wanted to put it. This process seems to be fairer. However, we need a sign from the government that it is going to do something. We have no faith they are going to do anything, because there was obvious legislation, to me anyway, that needs to be implemented.
You can go back to the previous administration. They had or a similar answer on LCBO bottles. I have the correspondence from the previous minister. It is all up in the air.
Mr White: I would like to congratulate on your presentation. Earlier this morning, we had several of the same points made by one of your councillors, who is still with us this afternoon. The reminders you gave us on how vigilant we should be as a government in regard to the LCBO and other issues is very well done and very pointed. I believe your councillor suggested there might be some five sites in Scugog. Were those sites that were picked up during that shotgun approach about a year or so ago?
Mr Kemp: Yes, the MacLaren report by the region. Two were in Scugog.
Mr White: In regard to site selection, this is a very difficult process, of course. Not many people want a site down the road from them, although they might want it on their grounds for monetary reasons. But as to the powers of access which you and your councillor were very vehemently in objection to, to determine if a site is appropriate you need to look at it; you need to be on it. That is a violation of private property in the sense that one is enabled to gain access to it, but it would seem to me that it is appropriate because it is for a legitimate public purpose. We are not talking about damage to property but rather a public purpose here. What suggestions do you have in a situation like this, where you need to look to see if this land is appropriate? What are the dangers?
Mr Kemp: I agree it is difficult, but I think the government has the cart before the horse. Let's look at getting rid of some of the garbage. If people could see that the government was making a real effort to control the production of garbage by true product stewardship, then I think there would be less objection to some of the site selection processes.
With regard to getting on to various people's property, if you had a farm in an area that could possibly be a dump site, would you want to let people on there?
Mr White: Of course not, but it is still for a legitimate public purpose.
Mr Kemp: Yes, but we do not see it that way at the present time, because the government has shown no initiative to bring in mandatory source separation and product stewardship.
Mrs Fawcett: Under your alternatives you were talking about selecting landfill sites and methods that do not seem to fit the philosophy of this government. I guess we had ideas as to what the philosophy of this government is. Now myself, I am confused as to what really is its clear philosophy. Would you have expected that this government would allow all alternatives to be on the table and would go through a full environmental assessment and then make the decision on what it would consider best, rather than automatically ruling out, for instance, transportation of waste or incineration, without looking into that as even a remote possibility?
Mr Kemp: Yes, we would expect the government to look at all alternatives, bearing in mind that everybody understands, I think, that if we reduce our production of waste, then the alternatives become very much easier to define and very much easier to choose.
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Mrs Fawcett: But as soon as you eliminate some, then you may have lost the absolute best way.
Mr Kemp: Right.
Mr Wiseman: I am intrigued by your paragraph 5 on page 2 where you say, "After the regional site report, it was obvious that landfill site selection was a political process, if not in the initial stages then in elimination of sites by constraints and screening, and in the final stages by offering municipal incentives to ambitious politicians with a wish list." I would really like you to expand on that and give me examples.
Mr Kemp: Very simply, we have a very strong objection to the potential in the IWA document for municipal incentives. It is very easy for an authority like, say, the Ministry of the Environment or the IWA to say to a couple of potential or really down to the bottom line potential communities, "We will build this recreation centre for you if you can help push it through." We know this type of thing happens.
That is where we see municipal incentives. In rural areas, like where I live and like where you are hoping or were hoping to put a dump site, it is easy to get the community centre for one particular ward of that community and just ignore the other outlying, more rural areas, which has happened with us. A small-town politician can get what he wants for the small town for a dump site in the boonies, as it were.
Mr Wiseman: You can have my assurances on this. The mere hint that any political interference is getting in the way of the Interim Waste Authority selection of a site in Durham or any other municipality will be received by me with the greatest amount of wrath that has ever been seen.
Mr Turnbull: When you look at alternatives, undoubtedly, as many of the experts who have come forward have said, one has to look at incineration. It does not mean you have to embrace incineration, but at least have an open mind on all of the alternatives for getting rid of garbage. One of the problems we have is a government that is philosophically blinded to that as an option I do believe it has arrived at that view for very decent reasons. There is nothing sinister about it. They have been stirred up to believe that this is something inherently evil.
How can you persuade people who have become frightened about an alternative to open their minds? I know that is a very leading question but I think it really goes to the heart of opening up this debate on incineration again. By that, I am not advocating incineration; I am just saying I think it behooves us to review it again.
Mr Kemp: I do not advocate incineration at all. Among our group, we have done some research into it and we do not like it for two reasons. One is the smokestack emissions. We can never be sure of the scrubbers working properly. Second, it demands fuel. It demands people produce garbage for it, so really it is a mill to takes garbage, that really needs it and will not run without it. That is not the way to look at it.
Mr Turnbull: We had a rather interesting presentation this morning --
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Turnbull. Your time is up. Thank you, Mr Kemp. Before you leave, the parliamentary assistant has asked to clarify a matter that was raised earlier.
Mr O'Connor: I know a couple of members have raised, and you raised it in your brief at the bottom of page 5 and on to page 6, LCBO containers. The office of waste reduction was established about a year ago now and we have someone here, David McRobert, who maybe can address that. I know it is something committee members were concerned about and as members of the public I am sure we are concerned about where it is in the process and whatnot. I will ask David to respond and kind of update us.
Mr McRobert: Actually I would also like to address the matter of product stewardship, because that was also touched on. I know you have heard some comments on product stewardship and certainly this is an area of policy development the government has expressed support for. We happen to think that product stewardship is the way of the future for waste management. We in the waste reduction office think product stewardship offers a great deal of potential but it has to be applied very carefully as a policy area. How it will apply in the context of liquor bottles is unclear.
The possibility of imposing deposits on liquor bottles is under consideration right now by the government. The LCBO is not directly regulated by the Ministry of the Environment; it is regulated by the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Our ministry is working with the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations on development of a policy related to deposits on all beverage containers. It is unclear what decision will be made, whether there will be further development of the blue box model or whether deposits will be used as a mechanism to recover containers from the waste stream.
A study was done by Proctor and Redfern, which is a consulting company -- It was released in late December -- that suggests a deposit system for liquor containers would be quite expensive relative to blue box systems and there has been some concern expressed about which of the two systems might be better. There is no doubt that each system has very different implications in terms of who pays, and that point is very well taken.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. Under the constraints of time I am forced to cut you off from further elaboration.
JOHN HASTINGS
The Chair: I would ask the next group to come forward, please: John Hastings, a councillor for the city of Etobicoke. You have 20 minutes, sir. We would appreciate it if you would leave some time towards the end of your brief for questions by members of the committee.
Mr Hastings: Rather than read the thing -- most people can read and skip pages -- I will quickly go through some of the concerns I have with this legislation, as a municipal councillor having just read it about a couple of Saturdays ago.
Essentially what concerns me and some members of our council -- I do not speak for all of them because they have varying views about this subject as well -- is that this particular piece of legislation, if it goes through pretty well in the form in which it is presented, is going to be the classic downloading of costs on the municipality.
In primary consideration of that, I think this piece of legislation, if it goes through pretty well as it stands, even if they make some minor amendments to notification of the director and what the minister can do or cannot do, the end product is going to be -- I do not want to be a gloomster and predict some sort of doomsday scenario, but I am chairman of our works and environment committee and this morning I had a meeting with our works commissioner.
We are going to be meeting with the chairman of the Metro works committee tomorrow at about this time regarding the future prospects of the blue box program in Metro. The Metro Toronto government, with the disastrous financial budgeting that it has to do in the next few months, is trying to change the agreement that was worked out in 1988 between Metro Toronto and the four area municipalities that are involved in the blue box program. This is a program with financing coming primarily from Metro -- it comes from the same taxpayers' pocketbook, basically -- in which they would pay certain costs of the startup and the operation of the program: trucks, the replacement of blue boxes, promotion, all that administrivia that is attached to such a program.
Now they have a proposal, in the midst of an agreement between the area municipalities -- ironclad; it has been signed by different sides, representatives from the municipalities -- and they are coming along and saying, "We're going to change this agreement in midstream, even before it runs out," which is October 30, 1993. I heard last night that Mayor Lastman is asking a whole pile of questions about the prospects and success -- in his estimation; I do not agree with him entirely -- about the future and the past of the blue box program in Metro and the costs involved. It is about $65 a tonne if you take all the garbage and do no source separation, just take it and dump it somewhere, against $190 for the blue box program when you do the recycling. One of the intricacies of this agreement is that Metro is trying to propose that there ought to be a cap on the cost of overtime to get the job done.
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I give you that background in light of what is in this bill. What is in this bill, from what I can see, is that if we do not make some changes or keep our options open, we are going to end up not being able to collect garbage, at the latest by 1995, and I think even earlier. Regardless of whether you have a renewal of the blue box program in Metro and you get recycled products being used etc, there is not going to be a place to dump it. Facetiously, although I am starting to think more seriously, I was thinking of telling my own constituents that perhaps they ought to look at the space they have on their property, and if they can find a little area and get a building permit to expand it, maybe they ought to start looking at dry garbage being placed there.
You may think I am being absolutely absurd, but when you look at the practical consequences of what is happening and the dynamics occurring in the relations between Metro and the area municipalities -- I hope I am wrong again -- if we cannot resolve this financial impasse of a binding agreement, we are going to end up in the courts. We just went through this two years ago over tax collection. This is absolutely crazy, to think that we would be going to court and having a group of lawyers representing different municipal viewpoints, paying them X dollars per hour. We have not solved the problem at all. What I am primarily concerned about with a lot of the proposals in here is that we are going to delay and are not going to have a solution of any sort by 1995, even if you override all environmental assessments and impose stuff on us with no financial contribution to carrying out the job. Those are my major concerns.
Aside from that, I find some of the things in the bill absolutely hair-raising in terms of the powers a director would have, whoever this person is going to be, particularly in the area of overriding existing agreements among municipalities and with the private sector. For example, our city has an agreement that has been going on since 1984 with Waste Management Inc for the collection of garbage from high-rise apartments. Even that is under threat by Metro. They want to renegotiate that one. There is a dynamic in that one. This is one we thought we had settled for many years. We are going to end up, I believe, not having any kind of solution by 1995-96 if we sit around and say, "You can't do this and you can't do that, but here's what we're going to impose on you, and there aren't going to be any resulting financial contributions," or if there are they will be so minimal they will make very little impact on the local tax base.
I am not trying to be completely negative. Possibly, if you do not read this, my title suggests that it is another whining municipal politician coming down here blaming all the folks because they cannot get their act together. Maybe that is part of the tone, but if you read through it, I have tried to offer some alternatives. If you are going to go this route of a waste management authority, why do you not make it it a full-fledged crown corporation, have it at arm's length from the government, have appointments at pleasure, all those sorts of things, and try to get the best input from people? If you are going to get a landfill site selected, give reasonable time frames for notices for people to appear.
Let's get away from the heavy-handed nature of this bill. I see from the Ministry of the Environment: "We know best and we're going to make you do this. It's really good for you. You should love being ground down." I would like to see a little more creativity in things. I made some suggestions. Possibly they are a little idealistic, but then this whole bill, to a great extent, is based on idealism, so I guess I am allowed to have a little idealism from that viewpoint.
I would like to see the Ministry of the Environment really look at its regulations in terms of trying to get recycled products moving. That is a very tough thing to do. It is easy to regulate people; to give you a little example, regulation 309 regarding batteries. This one I had not even thought of. I got a call from a constituent of mine before Christmas with a suggestion: "Why can't we create a program, almost immediately" -- he was being creative; he thought he was being helpful -- "of keeping all the little batteries from beepers, razors and hearing aids out of the landfill and put them in plastic bags, keep them separated and see if we could get people to take these products and re-create them? If you cannot collect them through the blue box program, why don't you get your new director of waste management to get some retail stores going in this area?" But when I looked, I said: "You can't do that, John. There's regulation 309, which lays out all the groundwork for why you shouldn't do so."
The Ministry of the Environment has to protect us from ourselves to a great extent, but surely to goodness we need a little less heavy-handedness in regulations and a little more creativity, phraseology like -- I do not see it in here, but if you went through it, there would be pilot projects and who you can contact. I had to make phone calls to find out if a pilot project would be entertained by the ministry for our city if we got into this area, either through the retail level of collection of barrels or through the blue box program. He said, "Yes, there would be some," and I thought: "My goodness, I'm getting a bureaucrat here who believes in a bit of creativity. We're not all heavy-handed folks."
My message is that if we have to have this legislation in the form it is, can we not at least, I would make a plea, lighten up a little on the heavy-handedness and allow the municipalities a little creativity and flexibility? We have picked up garbage. Etobicoke has the leading percentage of diversion from landfill in Metro, 21%, the highest, and yet we are going to get penalized under this bill, and especially under the future prospects of the recycling program, the blue box program, for being as cooperative and as efficient as we have been. We are going to end up not collecting the garbage. That is my greatest fear. I hope I am wrong, but I see indicators from hardly anybody that we are going to avoid that disaster the way this bill is written now. I hope that when the members read through this they will say, "Yes, there are a couple of possibilities we could look at." I hope I am not taken as being totally negative, although if you read the title only and forget the rest, it looks that way.
Mr Turnbull: I heard the comment of Mayor Lastman yesterday, which somewhat amazed me, and I wonder if you could comment on it. He was suggesting that a lot of the materials that are now being collected in blue boxes, to the extent that the markets have collapsed for them -- that while it is being environmentally sensitively collected, it is then going back into the mainstream of garbage dumps because there is no market for it. Can you comment on that?
Mr Hastings: I do not have the exact costs, but I think the questions he asked at Metro are very relevant and valid. With regard to the newspaper program, it looks like we are going to have a lot of the old newspapers taken up, because we have now got the de-inking capability with the new plants, but with aluminum cans and a lot of the glass the market has completely dropped out. There is not the market there was when we started on some of these products in October 1988 and into 1989 when we had a stronger economy.
Mr Turnbull: The problem, as I understand it from Mayor Lastman's comments, is that we are spending a significantly larger amount to collect it through the blue box program and then it goes back into the main waste stream, having added an extra burden to the taxpayer but not having achieved the thing we all feel very good about, that we have sorted our garbage and taken it out in the blue box.
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Mr Hastings: Long before Mayor Lastman raised these questions, I had raised with our own works commissioner whether with the white goods, for example -- we had a problem with that last summer, with newspaper, before the new plants came on stream. Where was all the newspaper going? Where were all these products going? I would not be surprised -- I am going to look into it; you can only do so many things a day, as we all can -- if there were a lot of products we have sold the public on. I have been part of that too, because I believed in doing some recycling. We may have oversold ourselves a bill of goods with the public.
Actually I think that to some extent the credibility of the whole blue box program is at stake here, aside from the cost factor of storage. People will very quickly not put things into a box if they know that the costs are high and it is not ending up in a recycled product, that they are being stored somewhere. I do not think we have the full story from Metro on that, nor from our own officials. I think that is where this whole program is very shaky right now. I do not want to alarm you on that, but I think there are some concerns.
Mr Wiseman: You have raised some very good points. For me, this whole battle with Metro over the blue box program is déjà vu back to the early 1970s when it was looking for a landfill site and started a recycling program that went into the dumper as soon as it found a landfill site.
My question is about the emergency powers of the minister and the Environmental Protection Act. The minister indicated in her opening remarks that the authority would not be delegated. These powers have been used only infrequently. Given that context, do you have any other thoughts on these powers?
Mr Hastings: If you are going to go this route of one person having so much power, there have to be better time frames of notification of what he or she is going to ban. I think there have to be hearings, or if not hearings at least some mechanism of appeal, particularly with respect to the product bans and the bans on packaging. That to me is even more frightening than whether a director can order somebody to do something, because you are going to put a lot more people out of work, I am afraid.
Mr Wiseman: This is initiatives paper 1. There has been considerable consultation with the packaging sector, with the waste reduction office. This is an ongoing thing. The minister has indicated that these consultations are going to be ongoing and that any resulting regulations will develop out of consultation.
Mr Hastings: If you are going to have consultation with the packaging industry of Canada about certain types of plastics and cellophane wrappings on things, let's at least get some time frames for it to build and make the changes. Let's have a database developed, if there is not one, as to how long it would be required for a ban to be brought in. You can see the difficulties when the city of Toronto decided suddenly to ban newspapers that did not have a certain recycled quotient in them by, I think, July of last year. They had to back off.
I do not think it helps your credibility, and I mean your governmental credibility across the line, when these edicts are issued and then cannot be followed through on on a practical basis. I think you are going to have to not just have consultation with an industry, but take some of the stuff it is suggesting and use it to some extent in the way you develop a regulation, so that you do not end up creating fewer jobs. That is the other major concern I have about this legislation.
Mrs Fawcett: Thank you, Councillor Hastings, for being here and presenting this. I think you have outlined some good alternatives. Whether they will be listened to is another thing. I was really interested in this concept of downloading, because all municipalities are really worried about that kind of thing. It just seems that governments do this to the municipalities. Also, the blue box being in jeopardy is a real concern. I do not know whether I heard any numbers. Do you have any idea what the cost implications of this could be?
Mr Hastings: Yes. If Metro does not stick to its agreement with the area municipalities, it is going to cost the city of Etobicoke approximately $1.25 million for the three items on the agenda tomorrow, the biggest one being the overtime problem. Etobicoke has the best in terms of the blue box cost per tonne: $74; the city of York is $143 and North York is $130. Metro Works Commissioner Ferguson is proposing a cap on overtime at $125 a tonne.
We would maybe be okay for a few months into this if we end up going this route, but we certainly are not going to say, "Okay, guys, you can do this to us and we don't mind." We are not going to do that. It would cost us about $5,000 in the first two months because of the way we have managed our time and the overtime. What our works commissioner has suggested to the other commissioners is that we share information more. The other item on that agenda tomorrow deals with promotion of materials. Metro wants to cut its cost from approximately $75,000 to $31,000, a 50% decrease.
They also want to have their particular newsletters and we want to have ours. My suggestion to them would be, why not give us the data and we will put it in our newsletter verbatim without changing a comma, to keep our costs in line. We want to co-operate to get things done. I have had problems with Metro on some of the ways it is doing things, but despite the problems, we kept working at it. But if this agreement thing is broken, that puts into jeopardy to some extent the blue box program itself because it is affecting the very financial underpinnings of it.
The Vice-Chair: Now there are questions for the record.
Mr White: I was very impressed with your discussion of the problems with the blue box and the recycling of products. I believe some work is currently ongoing to enhance that. My question is really for the parliamentary assistant. What is currently going on in terms of market development for recycled products?
The Vice-Chair: Mr Cousens.
Mr Cousens: No, I do not have a question.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. That takes you off the hook because that question was posed to the ministry.
PATCH FARMS
The Vice-Chair: The next group is Patch Farms. Would you come to the microphones, please, and identify yourself for the purposes of Hansard. You have 20 minutes to make your presentation and we would appreciate some time towards the end for questioning by members of the committee.
Mr Redelmeier: I certainly appreciate the opportunity to tell my story. Our family has owned Patch Farms and we have farmed there for over 50 years. I first want to highlight the points I want to make. We farm right next door to the Keele Valley landfill site, so I can tell you from firsthand experience what the detrimental effects are and how they could be prolonged and worsened if this legislation is passed.
I do not need to tell you that the Keele Valley landfill site is the largest landfill site in Canada and one of the largest in North America. If this bill passes, we will be deprived of our long established right for a public hearing before an impartial tribunal with the assistance of the necessary consultants. I consider it a breach of common justice that the right we have had all along since before the present cycle was established should be taken away from us just by the stroke of a pen.
Our family immigrated from the Netherlands in 1939 and we purchased our farm the following year in 1940. We have farmed there ever since in as productive and environmentally responsible a way as we possibly could. In the process, we have developed one of the best herds of purebred Jersey cattle in the country. Our milk production has increased year after year. Our breeding stock has found ready markets all over the world. In Canada, in the United States and in Central and South America we have been recognized as a leader in the field, with all due modesty.
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The Keele Valley landfill site was established directly across the road; that is, directly on the other side of Major Mackenzie from what we call our west farm where the whole milking herd is kept. The location is in a mined-out gravel pit. We like to think the name Keele Valley is a misnomer. It is actually what would be more appropriately called the Upper Don landfill site because the east branch of the Don rises in that area that is now the landfill site. I would also like to point out something that probably has been done to you already, that this is part of the Oak Ridges moraine that we and the Ministry of Natural Resources and other agencies are anxious to preserve.
When the Keele Valley landfill site was established, this was only done after provisional approval was given and it was only done after very lengthy hearings. They were lengthy, were very thorough and were all very much open to the public. The hearings lasted a long time. When the first applications were made they were refused because it was not shown that they were environmentally sound. A new application was made and this was heard under the Environmental Appeal Board, and the board ruled that provisional approval should be given. But that approval certificate contained 31 clauses and subclauses for the protection of the environment, the neighbouring farmers and other residents. There were 31 clauses in that provisional certificate of approval that had to be observed by the operators.
As a result, I think the operation is acceptable. I take my hat off to Metropolitan Toronto for operating the site in the best way it possibly can. If there are problems, they try to alleviate them as best they can, although in some cases that is just impossible. Under the circumstances we have been able to carry on farming. We know there are times when there are garbage smells that are rather pervasive. There is blowing dust, blowing sand and blowing debris. The blowing debris at times has included throwaway diapers that have blown over our land. There is a nuisance of birds and other vermin, and of course the truck traffic. There are a thousand truck movements every day and a large proportion of those pass right by our gate on Major Mackenzie drive. However, we have been able to manage. The ministry monitors the quality and the quantity in our wells and streams and assures us that so far the quality is within its parameters. There are one or two substances that are somewhat abnormal, but they tell us not to worry about it.
I have been a member of the Keele Valley Liaison Committee which consists of members like myself who are neighbouring farmers and others from the community. There are the chairmen of various ratepayers associations, the municipal council in Vaughan, representatives from Metro, both politicians and staff, and representatives of the Ministry of the Environment and so on. In my capacity as a member of that liaison committee I have access to any reports that have been issued. The ministry and Metro Toronto are very open in making those reports available, although sometimes it takes two or three years after those reports are published.
There is a four-foot thick liner that protects the aquifers from leachate. The latest report that has been made available to me covers 1988 and it indicates that 70 centimetres of the 120-centimetre-thick liner have already been penetrated with leachate. They also indicate that there are a great many observation wells drilled in and around the landfill site and they show how far the pollutant is migrating. So far, the closest observation of that pollution is in a well that is about 100 metres from our well. So far, we are safe.
What I am concerned about is the enlargement of that site that is made possible by this legislation. A site could be enlarged, could be operated over many more years in contravention of the provisional certificate and without any hearings of any kind that are open to the public and open to me to indicate my concern. The approval would be given by the minister or officials and it is my experience that even with the best will in the world, the officials cannot substitute for my input.
In other words, after lengthy and thorough hearings that have established the safeguards that are in the provisional certificate, the assurance was given and we were led to believe that our environmental interest would be safeguarded. Those are to be denied by this legislation.
To me those proposals are against the fundamental justice system under which we live.
Mr Wiseman: It has always amazed me how the powers that be determine that the best place for a landfill site is on top of an aquifer or beside a creek or beside some body of water. It is the same in the riding I represent, which is Durham West. We have the Brock West landfill site which is considerably worse than Keele Valley. We also have the unfortunate pleasure of receiving the leachate that is collected from Keele Valley because it is put into the sanitary sewer system and goes to the Durham-York system. It is processed about as far away from my house as you are from Keele Valley. So it is not without a considerable amount of concern that I approach the topic of the extension of the Keele Valley site. It may be far away in terms of geography, but it is very close in terms of what could happen in the ecosystem approach to the world that I think we see.
We have heard that this is the best engineered landfill site in the world. We also know that there are going to be studies done, and the minister has indicated and has committed herself that if the extension cannot be done safely, it will not be done. Can you comment on that?
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Mr Redelmeier: If the minister is so sure that it is environmentally sound -- and that goes further than just saying "safely" -- she should not be afraid to have this opened up to a proper environmental hearing.
Mr Wiseman: In terms of that, can you give us some kind of schedule or some kind of approach to a full Environmental Assessment Act that would meet the requirements of yourself and the fact that capacity may be needed before a full Environmental Assessment Act is completed? How do we get a full Environmental Assessment Act done in time to have the capacity necessary?
If you can answer that question, I am sure the Interim Waste Authority would be really quite interested in hearing how that could be done so that this provision of this bill would not be necessary. That is the fundamental question.
Mr Redelmeier: Let me just straighten myself up. As far as I am aware, the Interim Waste Authority is looking at long-term sites and is not looking at this site.
Mr Wiseman: They would be interested to see how they could do that one quicker too, I would think.
Mr Redelmeier: They had workshops, and I attended one of the workshops of the society. They had a schedule indicating deadlines when certain activities would take place. According to their schedule, their work would be completed in five years' time.
Mrs Fawcett: I too have a problem really understanding the whole leachate collection and what is happening with the plume. We had a similar thing with a major landfill site in Northumberland where the plume reportedly was only moving so quickly and therefore the neighbour did not have to worry. Then within months it was sort of at the line. It had moved a lot more quickly and it was not being looked after, and so the municipality had to purchase the farmer's land.
I worry, as you must be worrying: How good is the liner? What is the capacity? If they are going to put more garbage on top and all those things, do you know who is responsible for tracking this and making sure it is safe? We hear that somebody is collecting data, and I know the data are not always correct. They do not know how quickly things can happen.
Mr Redelmeier: In that respect, it was mentioned that it was called possibly the best-engineered landfill site in North America. I can accept that because Metro is under requirements. Metro is required to have independent consultants who monitor a number of things: the integrity of the liner, the flow of the water and water quality. They have to issue reports. Those reports are assessed by other independent consultants from the ministry, and they bring in the reports.
The reports are very slow in coming. As I mentioned, the latest one is 1988. But I think I pretty well trust those reports, and when those reports tell me the water in the well is within their parameters, I accept it. I am not sufficiently an expert to be able to tell you whether those parameters are too loose, but they are within the parameters.
Mrs Fawcett: There are the time constraints of an environmental assessment; I realize that. But to just throw it out completely -- there has to be some way the public and we can be absolutely sure that people like you will not be in danger of losing your water system and so on.
Mr Redelmeier: With respect, the time constraints are not nearly as severe as they are made out to be. Our liaison committee has been told that there is capacity for at least five more years in Keele Valley. Of course, the Interim Waste Authority claims it will have permanent sites ready within five years. Give or take a year or two, I think there is still lots of time for a proper environmental assessment hearing.
Mr Cousens: When Mr Redelmeier made his presentation, I do not think he really conveyed to the committee the high esteem and regard in which he is held in his community, which is very close to the one I live in. Certainly I respect immensely his opinion and his presentation.
Francis, you are close enough to it that you have a sense for it, and to me you say it well; you touch on the rights of a citizen. But then I know you as an environmentalist as well, very concerned with the future of our environment. We may have a hearing on the extension, expansion and adding to Keele Valley, but if there were a hearing -- this is a hard question to a good friend -- what would be some of the issues we would want to raise? I think you have touched on them, such as the Don and the way it is going to be. It is being corrupted now, its headwaters. But what are some of the issues that would be raised for public hearings on the expansion of Keele Valley?
Mr Redelmeier: One of the things that may not have come out very well is that one of the conditions in the certificate of approval is that the height of the fill shall not exceed the highest point of the land before gravel is extracted. There is a definite limit given: 1000 feet above sea level. It is one of the most prominent places in the area. If it is raised still more, it will become a real landmark visually and one that is part of our environment. It will become a horrible eyesore when you drive by there, like we do when we stand outside the barn and look that way, seeing truck after truck unloading tons and tons of papers, flying papers. They are right in front of your eyes. That is another part of the environment that should not be desecrated any more. According to the certificate of approval, the land is to be covered and made into something that is attractive, but this is postponed indefinitely by the proposal in this act.
MARGARET CRANMER-BYNG
The Vice-Chair: I would ask that the next witness, Margaret Cranmer-Byng, come to the microphone, please. You have 20 minutes to make your presentation. We would appreciate it if you would leave some time towards the end for the committee to pose questions and make comments.
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: My name is Margaret Cranmer-Byng and I am a resident of Thornhill in the city of Vaughan. I have come before you today as an ordinary, very concerned citizen. I am active with my local ratepayers' group. I am also a member of environmental and naturalist groups, and I think these interests of mine are reflected in the concerns I bring before you.
I would like to express my strong support for a major portion of Bill 143. I feel that a Waste Management Act is badly needed. Strong measures to encourage and require waste reduction, to reduce packaging and to drastically cut down on the amount of material going into landfill sites are things that environmental and community groups have been advocating and will continue to support.
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I would like to interject here, having heard a previous speaker talk about the loss of jobs due to a reduction in packaging, that I feel we have to reduce packaging, period. We have to reduce what goes into the landfill sites, and the jobs must be relocated. We cannot expect everything to stay the same. There must be change. There is a growing awareness of our need to change our ways even if it causes us inconvenience. We can accept this change and personal sacrifice and we welcome strong legislation to make it happen.
What we cannot and must not accept is legislation which fails to protect our natural resources, our streams, and particularly our groundwater from potential degradation in either the near or the distant future. I think there is a profound shift in the way that thinking people view the land and its resources and there is a growing feeling that today's actions make tomorrow's heritage. When we speak of the future, we do not just want our government to think for the next five years. We want you to make sure it is all right for the next 50 or 100 years.
For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we cannot accept legislation which gives a government the power to override the proper process by which environmental impacts are measured and judged. When I read part III of the bill, I was shocked. A short-term solution which could cause long-term harm is no solution. I believe no government should give itself the power to do this.
I would like to emphasize some specific concerns that I have with respect to the Keele Valley landfill site. I am not directly affected by Keele Valley -- that is, by smells, dust and noise -- but I am well aware of its vast size and its location at the headwaters of the Don River, which flows into Lake Ontario, the source of drinking water for millions of people.
What are the long-term implications of loading more into this dump than it was planned to receive? When I speak of the long-term implications, I would like to suggest that there are many uncertainties in the future, one of them being the possibility of global warming and climate change. This possibly could cause reduced levels in our lake, in which case pollution of the water would be much more severe. I think this is an implication that we would want our government to consider.
Questions that we do not have the answer to: Who knows what has already gone into that landfill site? How much hazardous waste has been dumped over the years before the special collections were set up? How much is still going there inside green garbage bags? How can this be adequately treated if seepage does occur? What toxic substances could show up in Metro's drinking water?
These uncertainties prove to us that the environmental assessment process must not be cast aside and that our environmental rights must be respected. I would strongly urge that part III of Bill 143 be deleted. The other, proactive measures could then be approved and implemented and the Interim Waste Authority's search for new landfill sites can then resume without further delay.
I would just like to finish by saying that I attended one open house and two workshops, one in Metro and one in Scarborough, and I believe that if they could just get on with the process, it could be finished ahead of time. People at the workshop were suggesting ways of speeding the process up by tightening up the criteria right from the start, rather than having loose criteria to start with and a long list and then another process for short-listing. If this could be compacted and put into a shorter length of time, I believe there is a very good chance that a new landfill site could be safely found and safely made by the time our existing sites are filled, if we all work together. I feel there is a very strong impetus from the community to see this does happen.
Mr McClelland: You have said in your conclusion that the uncertainties you set out so well in your summary prove that the environmental assessment process must not be cast aside and that your environmental rights and those of your neighbours must be respected.
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: All of us, yes.
Mr McClelland: You will hear from many people, and it has been put before this committee that certainly with respect to Keele Valley there is an opportunity to conduct hearings. Many have suggested that in fact you could have a full environmental assessment. That has been suggested. The position of the government is, "We will do our best to try to accommodate that."
On the other hand, the same government had indicated at one point in time that absolutely nothing will happen without an environmental assessment, so it is not a great deal of comfort, I would presume, for people such as yourself to hear from this government, "We will do our best," particularly in light of the fact that it has clearly broken a promise made to you and, I would suggest, to millions of people across Ontario by implication. That is the ultimate conclusion one must draw. They have made promises, they have broken them, and that impacts on every resident in the province.
The reality is that a lot of people are not really excited about this right now. A lot of people in the press say: "This is just another routine that we're going through because it's people who don't want garbage in their backyard. We have heard it all before. These are arguments we have heard and it is more garbage and there is not really a story here."
How do you respond to that in terms of the impact this has on you as a person, and potentially on everybody in the province? I guess what I am looking for is whether you can, in your own words, help us somehow try to paint a picture of the potential gravity of what is taking place here with respect to the parts of the bill, specifically parts II and III, that you feel so concerned about. You mentioned specifically part III.
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: Yes.
Mr McClelland: How can you as a citizen try to impress upon our friends in the media and elsewhere in the province the seriousness of what is at stake here?
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: I think there are two very important things. First, to follow up on what you have just said, if this legislation goes through -- we are being told by the media that it is for reasons of emergency and expediency -- those arguments could be used in all kinds of different situations where a government wished to do something it had said it would not do, had legislated against doing, and then wanted to change its mind without a hassle. The implications of overriding legislation are very great.
Mr McClelland: Does that remind you of something you would expect in Ontario, or is it something you would expect, quite plainly, elsewhere in the world and perhaps a generation or two past?
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: I certainly do not expect it in Ontario.
Mr McClelland: It seems to be more consistent with ideology that was born 30 or 40 years ago, or longer, and the great experiment with that type of ideology has failed everywhere else in the world but here, apparently.
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: I think there is a lot of sympathy for any government in power, and it does not matter which particular government it is, that has to deal with a problem like this. It is a serious problem, but it is almost like an overreaction. It is like a panic situation and we do not feel this is justified. We do not need a War Measures Act; this is something that can be handled by the existing legislation.
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Mr McClelland: It is interesting. When I referred to this as the environmental War Measures Act, the NDP laughed at me and said that was foolish. I notice they are not laughing at you today.
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: No. The second thing I would like to say -- I did not put it on my page here -- is that, as Mr Redelmeier said, the setting up of the Keele Valley landfill site was done under the Environmental Protection Act and it was done for a certain capacity. I feel very strongly that this should be adhered to. Vaughan has always been promised that when the dump is full, the dump is full and somebody else goes.
Mr Cousens: This could well be York region day again. I noticed Margaret Cranmer-Byng was coming and then she came into the room. She is another person I have known for a long time. I am really impressed and pleased that you are here making a presentation. Margaret is one of the people to whom I have turned for help. I do not think you have helped me enough; I need a lot where I am coming from.
I leave myself open -- New Democrats love it when a Tory leaves himself that wide -- but we are all learning from this. One of the problems I have with this bill is that I would like to just touch on the area that has to do with packaging and what is going on in that. I want you to help explain what direction you would take on it. Should Ontario take a position that is different from other provinces on packaging guidelines, even though it might be the right thing environmentally but could make it economically uncompetitive for businesses in Ontario to stay here? That becomes the matter I am trying to deal with. I think the guidelines are good, but at what cost? Could you comment on that and the philosophy behind that on packaging?
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: I cannot answer that completely because I know that within the packaging industry there are a lot of weighting factors I am not aware of. I feel that in general the best thing would be to reduce packaging by incentives rather than by rules. That is idealistic. I feel there is a lot that could be done to reduce unnecessary packaging but the product could be just as attractive. We do not want products to be so unattractive that nobody wants to buy them. Among some members of the public, when a thing is overpackaged, it puts them off. I think this is the area we need to play up.
As regards how much legislation or how that legislation will detract from Ontario's retailers and manufacturers to be economically viable, I do not know. I would not want to harm Ontario's manufacturers or retailers, but I think there is a great deal of room for improvement.
Mr Wiseman: Thank you for your presentation. You probably heard my comments earlier, and there is another part to this story.
The selection of site P1 in North Pickering was done somewhat arbitrarily and even the engineers said it would be a hydrogeologically difficult site to turn into a landfill site. The reason they said that is it sits on an aquifer that feeds three creeks, the Little Rouge, the Petticoat and the Don, but they were going to go through an environmental assessment. My constituents agreed with me and agreed with Ruth Grier and said that was not acceptable. In the process of doing that, both site P1 and site 6B, which have exactly the same scenario in terms of short-circuiting the EA -- by the way, we as a community never asked for P1 to be pulled. We asked for a full Environmental Assessment Act hearing, but it was so difficult it was just unbelievable.
My question has to do with the consequences of maintaining that promise and what that has led us to, and that is a problem with where garbage goes. In Peel, for example, the Britannia landfill site was scheduled to close in June. there is a gap that was to be closed. Where would they put their garbage, because site 6B was removed? The other part of the problem is, where would Metro and Durham put their garbage? It turns out that Brock West, which is also in my riding, has capacity because of the lower volume going into it. My question to you is pretty much the same question I presented earlier, about the minister saying that if it cannot be done safely, it will not be done. The other part of the question is, how do we make sure, under a full Environmental Assessment Act hearing, that we do not have a problem in two or three years because we do not have any capacity?
Mrs Cranmer-Byng: I remember seeing the minister on TV, on the steps of the Legislature, saying, "If we find it's bad for the environment, we won't do it." Our concern is that so many decisions have to be made and are made without complete knowledge. Knowledge is so infinite. I believe there is still a lot that is not known about hydrogeological conditions. By the time it might be found out, "Oh, no, it's not safe," we might have received a whole lot more garbage. How are we going to undo the damage? I think my position would be that we have to know ahead of time. As I have just said, a landfill site that was planned for a certain capacity should stick with that capacity. Supposing there is a shortfall say of a year, even if it means a short-term, top-of-the-ground, pile-type dump to tide us over, surely that would be environmentally better than extending the life of either Keele Valley or the landfill site near you without knowing the implications for 50 years.
Mr White: I was very impressed with your support for the proactive moves in part of the bill with regard to environmental protection and reduction in materials. Do you think this bill should become even stronger when it comes to regulating packaging and waste materials?
The Vice-Chair: Mrs Cranmer-Byng, that question will be given to you in writing by the clerk. If you could respond prior to February 14, it will become part of the official record. Otherwise, the committee will take it into its clause-by-clause.
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BROWNING-FERRIS INDUSTRIES LTD
The Vice-Chair: Our next delegation is Browning-Ferris Industries Ltd. Perhaps you would come to the microphone and identify yourself for the purposes of Hansard. You have 20 minutes to make your presentation, and we would appreciate some time for questioning by members of the committee.
Mr Hatch: My name is Douglas Hatch and I am the senior vice-president, corporate development, and a director of Browning-Ferris Industries Ltd, a Canadian corporation that provides a broad range of waste management services across Canada. We have our head office in Etobicoke. BFI Canada is the second-largest waste management company in the country.
I have distributed for you today a written submission.
Mr Cousens: A big one.
Mr Hatch: It is a big one. There are a lot of important things in there, but I will not have time to read it all out to you. There is a description in more detail about my background and that of my company and the business it is involved in.
I would like to point out that while we do operate some landfill sites in Canada and have some active landfill projects both currently and prospectively, we have a much higher level of activity in the recycling and waste processing area. There is a major transition happening in our industry that is affecting our company as we come to grips with the challenges of the 3Rs. Our customers require those services and we must respond to what our customers are asking us to provide.
Before paraphrasing from the text of the submission, I would like to point out there are three important attachments in sections II, III and IV. In section II there is correspondence I sent to Mr Drew Blackwell in December and copied to the Minister of the Environment, being my company's response or comments on Initiatives Paper No 1 regarding the 3Rs.
In section III there is a letter addressed to this committee from one of Canada's pre-eminent hydrogeologists, Mr Grant Anderson of Gartner Lee Ltd. Mr Anderson identifies, from his work for the Ontario Waste Management Corp, the distribution of the widely varying soil conditions throughout southern Ontario and their relative suitability for waste disposal. You will see there is appended to Mr Anderson's letter a map that shows the soil classifications.
In our view, there is ample technical expertise and field experience to make the following conclusions:
1. There exists in parts of southern Ontario an abundance of deep, dense clays that offer a very high degree of environmental safety for landfill. Few jurisdictions in North America have these conditions available to them.
2. The soil types in the GTA are not within the preferred class of soils for landfill. Landfill in the GTA will require man-made barriers to leachate migration, all of which will eventually fail. This primary reliance on man-made barriers is unnecessary in Ontario and does not conform to existing Ministry of the Environment policy on landfill siting criteria.
3. Bill 143, by further forcing waste disposal in the GTA, does not put the environment first. Instead, we are repeating the mistakes of the past, made at a time when, because we were environmentally ignorant of the harm from leachate contamination and because of economic expedience, we proliferated sites on the outskirts of every town, village and city, irrespective of the soil conditions and the consequences for environmental safety.
The third attachment, appearing in section IV, is a paper I recently delivered at a joint international waste management conference held in Toronto. That paper is on the subject of developing relationships with host communities regarding a landfill project. The key point for consideration from that paper is that there is very little opportunity to develop a constructive host community relationship unless the environment is put first. The siting of a landfill must meet the highest environmental standards.
In the time available, I would like to briefly review what the key objectives of regulatory policy on waste management should be, how Ontario measures up currently and what the major obstacles are to reaching those regulatory objectives. I will conclude with a recommendation for six new principles to underline reform of the regulatory system.
We believe the following should be the three key objectives of Ontario's waste management policies to create an effective regulatory system. It is against these key objectives that Bill 143 and any other new legislation and regulations should be assessed:
1. Protection of the environment should be the first and primary consideration. Ontario should take a leadership role in setting environmental standards for waste management facilities.
2. Ontario needs to provide for its own waste management solutions and not continue to export much of its waste to Quebec and the United States.
3. Ontario needs a sustainable program on 3Rs capable of diverting 50% of solid waste from landfill by the year 2000.
How is Ontario doing currently against these objectives? Except for the 3Rs, it is doing very poorly. Even with the 3Rs, the sustainability of a program that will reach the year 2000 target is in doubt, but there has been some progress. Certainly the 50% target is achievable, but future progress will be increasingly difficult and more economically burdensome if the government continues with some of its current approaches.
As for the other two objectives, on the export issue, we export for disposal to Quebec and the United States most of our hazardous and biomedical waste. More recently, significant quantities of solid waste from Halton and the GTA have been sent to US landfills. This is irresponsible in our view inasmuch as Ontario has the means to manage this waste within its borders if it had the will or the resolve to establish new disposal facilities.
The lack of facilities also has implications for the environment. Ontario has fallen seriously behind other major North American jurisdictions in environmental standards on waste management. The regulation that sets standards for landfill sites has not been significantly amended since it was created 20 years ago. There are many operating sites in Ontario that were licensed without a public hearing and have only an antiquated regulation to operate by. Many of these sites were not sited in proper locations. There are environmental problems.
New innovations in landfill management practices, of which there have been many over the last 20 years, have not been applied generally but do become applied when a site goes through an approval process for site modification, and they end up with new conditions attached to their licence.
If Ontario put the environment first, it would take a leadership role in setting standards for landfill sites and close those that cannot comply. That is what the environment and the public deserve, but it is not happening. It would make the disposal capacity shortage even worse, and by shutting down a lot of local inadequate sites, the minister's principle of local responsibility for waste management would be impeded.
As for the obstacles to meeting the three key regulatory objectives, I think there are three main obstacles: (1) an unwieldy and ineffective approval process; (2) the minister's policy on local responsibility for waste; (3) the government's attitude towards the role of the private sector in waste management. I will touch on each of these briefly.
It is time we faced up to the fact that the Environmental Assessment Act has been a failure and that major reform of this approval process is desperately needed. The principles underlying the act are well intentioned and appropriate. In practice, however, it is too vague and unwieldy to operate in an adversarial process. It is a field day for lawyers whose clients wish to delay, obstruct or defeat a proposal. The experience with defeated proposals does not lend itself to the conclusion that the environment has been better served by the result. More commonly, improvements to the management and preservation of our environment have been precluded.
Apart from the results that have been produced, the process is also too costly and too lengthy for proponents, whether they are from the public sector or the private sector. In the past decade, public and private sector proponents have spent several hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps over a billion dollars, on waste management planning and environmental assessments for disposal site projects. Ontario has virtually nothing to show for this expenditure.
The environment, as the predominant issue in the approval process, often becomes submerged by the social or political issues that typically surround projects considered under the Environmental Assessment Act. The practical application of the act has failed to result in a process for a balanced consideration of factors that are relevant both to the environment and to the public's acceptance of the project. Other regulatory jurisdictions have managed much better in defining an approvals process that fully addresses environmental issues and allows for public participation.
The failure of the Environmental Assessment Act is evident by the historical level of political intervention by the government to exempt projects in whole or in part from the legislation. Bill 143 is a further example of such intervention. Major expansions to existing GTA disposal sites are being authorized not only without the evaluation of environmental effects among alternative approaches but also without the benefit of a hearing.
Further, and more dramatically, the long-term development of waste disposal sites for the GTA, which is undoubtedly the most significant waste management undertaking in the province's history and, likely, for the next two decades, is being effectively exempted from the requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act. Although the long-term siting project is not formally exempted from the legislation, that is mere form and not substance. The consideration of alternatives is so restricted that in reality this approval process is akin to the sitespecific technical assessment of impact on the natural environment that is provided under part V of the Environmental Protection Act.
The minister has done her own evaluation of the alternatives and she will have precluded, by Bill 143, the Environmental Assessment Board from conducting an objective evaluation based on evidence for reasonable alternatives to large landfill sites in the GTA. The minister rejects export of waste to other communities in Ontario and she rejects the use of incineration. If her basis for this conclusion is sound, why not subject it to the scrutiny of an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal?
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Her rejection of alternatives is based upon a belief that other communities should not have to resolve the GTA's waste disposal problems. The fallacy of the local responsibility issue is discussed in the next section, but even if there was legitimacy to this position, it presupposes that there is, within the GTA, environmentally suitable locations for landfill. That is not the case, especially when there are much better choices available within the province.
In our view, this is a trading-in of the environment in favour of the pre-eminence of local responsibility, which is a serious and indeed dangerous tradeoff for the environment, and entirely unnecessary. In our view, the best course of action is to reform the Environmental Assessment Act immediately and let the issue of GTA waste disposal undergo a proper evaluation of alternatives. There is still plenty of time to do this if there is political will to proceed.
On the issue of the political focus on local responsibility, the minister has stated her belief in a conserver society, in that we cannot transition ourselves from a consumer society to a conserver society unless, on a local basis, there is responsibility taken for the management of waste. However, we submit that furthering conservation goals does not require a waste management regulatory system that is defined by municipal or other political boundaries. Indeed, our ability to meet the three key objectives I have outlined for an effective regulatory system will be significantly impaired by carving up the province into municipal waste fiefdoms. This issue has implications not only for the siting of our future disposal facilities but also the implementation of important recycling and waste processing infrastructure.
On the siting of disposal facilities, the minister has expressed the belief that people will generate less waste if they have a landfill in their backyard. Can we seriously accept the proposition that people will generate more waste in the GTA if waste is exported to sites outside the GTA? Has the historical use of GTA sites to this point affected the rate of generation? Do people or businesses in the city of Toronto even know where the Keele Valley landfill site is? Will they generate more waste if the waste is shipped elsewhere? Why does local responsibility not apply to hazardous waste and biomedical waste? Is it because the minister thinks that all solid waste landfills are environmentally the same? She is quite wrong if she does.
We can see no basis for linking generator behaviour to the location of facilities for processing or disposing of waste. We suspect the minister is trying to act as a protector of other communities. Certainly there is a social fairness issue for a host community that is often a very sensitive issue for it when it is being asked to receive other people's waste. We think, first of all, that it is an issue for those communities to determine. Furthermore, the fact of the matter is that unless we wish to continue with the proliferation of small sites improperly sited within every population cluster, landfill sites will also receive waste from areas outside the immediate community that experiences the site as its neighbour. Surely Vaughan is already an unwilling host for Metro garbage.
However, if we are to put the environment first, we should pursue a policy of fewer but better sites. Fewer sites is only progress if we put sites in the most suitable environmental conditions. If we set a lesser standard, then communities everywhere can complain that their neighbouring municipalities should look after their garbage. If we set a high standard, we can start to build public trust in the environmental safety of these sites. There is opportunity from that basis of no compromise on environmental protection to develop a supportive host community relationship. We have succeeded in doing this in this province and elsewhere, and we know it is not impossible for others.
With respect to local responsibility and 3Rs, we are witnessing the delegation of waste management approval powers to regional and county municipalities. The direction of government policy is to make those area municipalities responsible not only for the residential waste, which has been historically collected by local municipalities, but also the privately collected industrial, commercial and institutional waste. These municipalities are increasingly becoming waste regulators as well as waste operators. It is, in our view, an inherent conflict of interest. It is analogous to the federal government investing authority in Petro-Canada to regulate the other Canadian oil companies. There are many examples currently of obstruction of private sector initiatives to invest in 3Rs projects which do not serve the key objectives of an effective waste management regulatory system.
As legislators, you should realize that waste, as well as the reusable material derived from waste, are commodities that have market value and will flow according to the market systems for such commodities. The Soviet Union has demonstrated the futility of a planned economy attempting to allocate resources and control the flow of goods and services. These planned approaches provide misallocation of resources and create diseconomies of scale and other economic inefficiencies. It also fosters conditions conducive to black markets.
Such results are not only substantial business perils for a company such as ours but produce unnecessary additional cost that will impede Ontario's progress in meeting the key regulatory objectives. If Ontario is serious about 50% diversion by the year 2000, then it needs an efficient, economically rational market economy for waste and derived materials. The government of Ontario has the means to positively influence such a market economy, but we do not currently see it moving in that direction.
The final area is concern about the government attitude towards the private sector. In our view, Ontario is missing a substantial opportunity to work with the private sector, which has a long-standing involvement in the waste management business. In addition to the companies that have traditionally been here, there are a lot of new entrants with new technologies. We cannot go at this with the approach that the public sector can do it all by itself. It does not have the money to do it. We do not think it will be as innovative in doing it. We really believe that we will get a lot further if we accomplish it together.
I would like to conclude by urging the Legislature and the provincial government to adopt the following principles in developing their approach to regulatory reform: (1) the environment comes first; (2) respect and encouragement for participation by the private sector; (3) cooperation and flexibility in the face of change; (4) a bias for action; (5) reform of the approvals process and reduction of political interference at all levels; (6) open markets for waste and waste-derived materials.
There is an urgent need for regulatory reform, but in our view Bill 143 is not the answer. I hope the Legislature will have the wisdom and the collective will to embrace the three key regulatory objectives we have set out and the six principles for defining the components of a new regulatory system that will better serve the environment and the people of this province. Thank you for the opportunity to make this submission. I hope you will find it to be constructive and useful.
The Vice-Chair: This was certainly a comprehensive and thoughtful report. Unfortunately we have practically run out of time, so I will ask the members of the committee to put their questions on the record. Mr Hatch, the clerk will provide you with the questions in writing and we hope you will be able to respond by February 14 in writing for it to become part of the record of the committee.
Mr Cousens: On page 2, when you talk about an abundance of deep, dense clays in southern Ontario, one of the problems I have is that I do not know where some of those sites are. If there is a possible list of some of those places where there are better --
Mr Wiseman: There is a map in the back.
Mr Cousens: Is there a map in the back? And it is all there? Thank you; I will review it further.
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Mr Wiseman: I would be interested in your comments on part IV of the bill, which clearly speeds up the approval process for the 3Rs facilities, such as recycling plants and composting sites.
Mr McClelland: I would like, if possible, some expansion on the submission of Gartner Lee that Bill 143 has the impact of forcing landfills where they should not be located.
The other point is this: I take it you are trying to be diplomatic and non-confrontational. In your brief you write that the government of Ontario is moving in an "opposite direction" to positively influencing a market economy. When you said it, you said they were not moving in that direction. I just wonder if you would help clarify that.
Mr White: The government is also committed to the reform of the environmental assessment process. The concerns you mention I think are very valid. The Ontario Environmental Assessment Advisory Committee is recommending changes. Did your firm make any submissions to the environmental assessment program improvement project?
The Vice-Chair: As stated, we would appreciate if we could get the answers in writing by February 14. Otherwise the committee will take your answers into consideration on deliberation of the clause-by-clause. Thank you very much for a very thoughtful presentation.
Mr Cousens: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: Regrettably I am not able to stay for the rest of the afternoon session. We will have Hansard. I am not able to find anyone else from our caucus because we are involved in other committees and activities. I would therefore like to have any time allocated for questions from our caucus given to the Liberal caucus, if possible.
Mr Wiseman: I believe that would take unanimous consent, Mr Chairman, and that is not forthcoming.
The Vice-Chair: I guess we have no unanimous consent. Thank you very much for your offer.
Mr Cousens: I just have to say that the Liberals are doing a better job than those guys.
Mr Wiseman: How would you know? You are hardly ever here.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. That is not a point of order; that is a point of opinion.
Mr Cousens: If I had your brains, I would go someplace else.
FRIENDLY FUELS INC
The Vice-Chair: The next delegation, please, Friendly Fuels Inc. Would you come to the microphone and identify yourselves for the purposes of Hansard, please. As you have seen, we ran out of time for questioning on a previous presentation, so we would appreciate it if you would leave some time towards the end of your brief for questions by members of the committee.
Mr Guenin: My name is John Guenin. I am vice-president of Friendly Fuels Inc, and in a certain way I represent small business. I do not know if you have had the opportunity of having representation from any organization that represents small business, but there are two people in my business, and we had the opportunity approximately 18 months ago as a group to look at environmental issues. I work in the residential heating area and for many years I was personally concerned about some of the problems that were being generated with fuels that were being used. We decided, with others around the country, and I am talking here of Canada, that we would like to go into it and study what we could do to help solve some of our environmental problems. Consequently we created and incorporated an organization that is dedicated to trying to promote environmental solutions to some of the problems we have had.
I have not prepared a speech. You will find in the folder I have given to you a brief summary of the comments I would like to make. My intention is not to go into detail on Bill 143, but rather to take a global look at this document. You have probably heard many things during these two weeks. I have personally followed the debates on television in the evenings and have been interested in all the comments that have been made. My purpose therefore is to make some comments and some suggestions and ask some questions.
I would like to say that our company supports the general thrust of Bill 143: reduce, reuse and recycle. We are dedicated to that, and I am sure you have seen that 90% to 100% of the people who have come here have endorsed this program. It is a good program. It is definitely geared to helping us solve some of the problems.
Nevertheless, with Bill 143, and looking at it from a global point of view, I am worried about the decision-making process. You might find this strange when we have a committee like this where we have been asked to share our views and to point out some of the weaknesses of the program. Participation in the decision-making process is extremely important. The question we have to ask ourselves is, what happens when there is not full participation of all interested parties in the decision-making process? It creates unnecessary frustrations.
As a small business, I would like to say to you that I am in that category of frustration, because I have attempted to open dialogue, to have dialogue, and it has been extremely difficult to do so. I am not yet in the category of apathy that says, "I don't care."
I hope you will not mind if I use an anecdote. We care for an invalid in our home. She is a grandma. She had reached the age of 70 and we decided to give her a birthday party. We invited her and her daughter to come, and we had a wonderful time. For some reason, this person, who is deaf, has a hard time expressing her feelings. Towards the end of the party she must have been thinking of quite a number of things. She came to her daughter and said, "You know, when I die, I want to be incinerated." The daughter looked at her and said: "No way; I'm not going to do that. I couldn't stand the thought of incinerating you." For a few minutes the argument went back and forth on incineration. I was standing there and listening. I said, "Maybe, grandma, you won't need to worry about it, because incineration is going out the door and the government is making the decision for you." She looked at me with a strange look and said, "I want to be incinerated."
That prompted me the next morning to call the places where people are cremated, and I found out that there are quite a number in town. I asked them if they had any problem with incineration and what was happening regarding legislation on incineration. They said, "We have no problem." I said to them, "What do you feel for the future?" "We don't know exactly what is going to be happening, but we will continue to operate as long as we can, as long as we have the authorization to do so."
This prompted me to look at the reduce, reuse and recycle cycle. The problem of incineration is not dealt with in Bill 143. I personally as a citizen am disappointed that something was not said about incineration. Incineration comes from the Latin incinerate, which means to burn to ashes. I have brought with me, and I hope nobody will take offence to that, but I am a former teacher so I suppose I operate on -- a beautiful jar. My grandpa weighed 220 pounds. If he was incinerated, he would be in this jar. That is reducing, is it not?
I am in the industry of heating, and in particular I am involved in an industry which is called pelletization. There are maybe two pounds of pellets in this bowl. When I burn them, that is all that is left: a few grams of product. I say to myself, "By golly, this is reduction -- not reduction of garbage, but reduction of products that can be useful to society." The environmental act bans incineration. I would like to suggest that incineration is not all that bad. Uncontrolled incineration is bad, but when you can control incineration, it is extremely good.
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There was an article in the Globe and Mail, which I am sure you all read, on Tuesday, January 28, 1992: "Charest Unveils Plan to Study the Effects of Global Warming." Listen to this: "Critics say Spending on Research Must be Wedded to Practical Initiatives.
Friendly Fuels made a commitment 18 months ago, to promote a fuel that is friendly to the environment: pellets. This is made with waste wood. You are free to come and see it afterwards. We came to government knowing this bill was coming into existence and we asked government what advice it would give us regarding pelletization. Lo and behold, I got the answer, "This is incineration and you cannot do it."
We went to the different groups which take care of environmental concerns -- Pollution Probe and Greenpeace -- and they too said to us, "If you're doing something with incineration, you cannot do it." We went to Friends of the Earth. We got a response from Friends of the Earth, "What you are doing is most valuable and we would like to support you." After having discussed it with Pollution Probe, after six months we received a response that its position had changed and that the use of pellets for fuel was a very positive idea.
As far as I am concerned, if the authority that lies in Bill 143 continues to go the way it is going, we are going to have some very serious problems with communication. I personally, once I found out we were on the right track, decided to try to develop the concept of pelletization. I am a small businessman. It was 18 months ago and since then I have been struggling to try to get the notion across that pelletization is not incineration. There is a definite problem with communication and with understanding each other. I have tried very hard, visiting different people and different offices, and everywhere I get the same answer: "This is not allowed. It is considered incineration."
The Ontario government put out a document, which I have here with me, entitled Wood Waste Generation and Management in Ontario. In Ontario alone we produce 2.2 million tons of wood annually. There is lots of it produced here. Yes, we can definitely reduce this amount. Even if we reduce it by 50%, there is still 50% that exists. I want to be very practical and bring to you a very short episode of what has happened to us as we have invested in and put all our funds into different projects, and have got nowhere to this point.
We found people ready to invest. We found people ready to work. We found a plant that is ready to operate but that has been closed for six months. But because this concept does not agree with the general concept of the government, we have not been able to proceed. What is worse -- please do not take offence to this but let's accept the facts -- is that there are several small plants in Ontario that could pelletize, and lo and behold, our American friends have come here, picked up the equipment and brought it down to the United States. Worse still, they are making pellets in the western United States and pellets are being freighted from Oregon and from Seattle to Ontario, to Quebec and to the Maritimes.
I have in my mind, as a man, as an individual, as a human, some questions I have asked myself in this process. It is fine and dandy to have rules and regulations and to have Bill 143, but what are these regulations going to do to those who need work, to those who are out there looking for money to survive?
I was in a little town in southwestern Ontario not long ago. I had to look into the eye of a man who was the manager of a plant and tell him, "I cannot open this plant because what I am doing is illegal." Yet he will stand on the side of Highway 40l and we can all do that, and we will see these trucks coming from the western United States carrying thousands of tons of this product. Lo and behold, some of them are making it with equipment bought in Canada. Some of them are using materials bought in Canada, in BC and in Alberta. Because we cannot do this here in Ontario, because of legislation, because of the interpretation of legislation, we are here sitting on our backsides unable to proceed. How can I explain it? How can I make him understand that it is right for our friends down south to make these and that we cannot make them?
I understand legislation. Legislation is absolutely necessary, but we must ask ourselves and you must ask yourselves: "What are the consequences of this legislation going to be? What are they going to do? What is this legislation going to do to my children and to my grandchildren? What are the results of this legislation?" The result, at this point in time, of having totally banned incineration is that there are people who today could be working who cannot. I realize that I have maybe gone a bit beyond the framework of this committee, which is directly focused on Bill 143, but I wanted simply to sensitize you, to make you aware of legislation you are working on that tomorrow could be detrimental to the workers in Ontario.
I will read my conclusion, which is on the second page of my summary. You have some documents that will back up all my statements. My presentation was not meant to point fingers at any particular civil servant or department, but rather to suggest that whether times are tough or not, it is imperative that we all work very closely together. Small businesses such as mine and corporations fully understand that environmental concerns are and will be part of our daily lives for years to come.
On March 3, 1992, that is to say this year, the Banff Centre for Management and the University of Toronto are organizing a seminar entitled Environmental Issues as Strategic Opportunities: Lessons from the US, Europe and Japan. In his invitation letter Hugh Arnold, associate dean of the University of Toronto, says, "Organizations that succeed in the 90s will be those that find ways to enhance the protection of our environment and simultaneously increase productivity and innovation."
Finally, a quote from Fortune Magazine: "In the 1990s, environmentalism will be the cutting edge" -- listen to this statement -- "of social reform and absolutely the most important issue for business."
FFI, my company, has already acted and wishes to encourage the government of Ontario, as it moulds the environmental and legislative infrastructures for the 1990s and the 21st century, to introduce and enforce laws and regulations that will allow all Ontarians to achieve growth and prosperity not only for themselves, but also for their children. Let's keep the lines of communication open.
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The Vice-Chair: Another very well researched and thought-provoking and eloquent presentation. However, once again we have run out of time. I ask members of the committee to put their questions on the record for response in writing by Mr Guenin.
Mr White: I will be brief. I am very enthused by Mr Guenin's presentation. It reminds me very much of the corn-fed stoves and those corn pellets, a very diverse use of waste products. My understanding, though, is that this would actually fit in very well with waste diversion. There is not a problem in terms of the ban of incineration on municipal solid waste. My question really is for the parliamentary assistant, basically to see first of all if it is the case that his program fits in very well with the issue of diversion, and second, if there can be any suggestions made in terms of governmental support, whether that is from the Ministry or Energy or from your own ministry.
Mr McClelland: I am a little bit concerned, because my question is very much similar to Mr White's. I want to ask the parliamentary assistant if he could explain or present to anybody what the great distinction is between having a fireplace in the Premier's office burning wood and another fireplace somewhere burning wood pellets that were derived from wood from Ontario. I quite frankly do not understand the distinction. It would be helpful if maybe we could make sure, as our friend has suggested, that this be clarified not only for the presenter here today, whom I should congratulate, but also for other people who are asking for some assistance in terms of interpreting the proposals.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for a very eloquent presentation. I regret we did not have more time to pose some questions to you, but I guarantee that you have raised some questions that are very thought-provoking.
STEVEN E. SAWELL
The Vice-Chair: Our next witness is Steven Sawell. Come forward, please. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We would appreciate it if you would leave some time towards the end for questions. You have seen that our last two presenters have taken up all the time they were allocated.
Mr Sawell: I will do the best I can. I am going to use some visual aids here because it is getting late in the afternoon and you probably need some help focusing on some things.
I am here as a private citizen and as a scientist. I spent the last eight years researching ash from municipal waste incinerators under Environment Canada's national incinerator testing and evaluation program. Just to give you a bit of background on that program, in 1984 the federal government established the program to look at the potential impact of municipal waste incineration on human health and the environment. That program just wrapped up last month.
What I would like to do is to put some things in context for you. Dealing with the ash on the back end of an incinerator, you have to know what is going in the front end. You have to understand the characteristics of the waste stream going in. You have to understand the types of incinerators. You have to understand how they operate and you have to understand the emissions.
That is where I am coming from. What I hope to do is put things in the proper perspective here because there is an overall context we are looking at. Basically, with Bill 143 we are looking at 3Rs or 4Rs.
Some of the issues I would like to touch on are environmental compatibility with all waste management systems and all processes; that is, composting, recycling of plastics, recycling of glass, recycling of aluminum or ferrous and looking at municipal waste incineration. They all have environmental impacts somewhere along the line. We have to look at the economic realities of the situation. Are they being compared on an equal basis across the board? Finally, we have to look at public needs and public fears.
The public needs to have its waste collected and disposed of. We cannot store it in our garages. We cannot very well keep it in the backyard for too long without causing a vector problem, so we need to get rid of it. But most people do not understand the process that goes on in terms of landfill. They are afraid of landfills, do not want to live near landfills and certainly do not want to live near incinerators. But I think a great deal of that is based on the fact that they just do not know what is going on. Public education can go a long way in terms of alleviating some of those fears.
To get right to the heart of the matter with incineration, does it pose a health risk? Do the air emissions pose a health risk? Does the ash disposal cause a health risk?
To address the air emissions first, I think if we look back 10 years ago, incineration got a pretty bad reputation. It was probably well deserved back then. The systems were poorly designed and poorly operated and certainly did not have much in the way of air pollution control systems. In the last 10 years, though, the industry has certainly cleaned up its act. They have done a tremendous amount of research and have got to the point where air emissions are no longer a real issue. They have become a moot point.
Just as a case in point, in 1989 the World Health Organization released a document after it had evaluated the health risks of municipal waste incineration on human health. There is none with modern, well-maintained and well-operated systems. If you read my submission, there is a reference in there to Dr Michael Suess.
Ash disposal: When we get to ash disposal it gets a little bit more interesting, because what we are talking about is capturing the material before it gets out of the stack and into the atmosphere. That material was hazardous back then and it is still hazardous now, but what do we do with it?
You have to separate things into two different phases. There is bottom ash and there is fly ash. Bottom ash is the material you get off the grate of the incinerator. It is exposed to temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius, so it is very heat-stable, and because it is heat-stable it is also pretty inert. It does not do anything. It can be sent to a landfill and it is not going to cause any problems. As a matter of fact, in some countries in Europe they use it as road base material, fill for embankments and things like that.
Fly ash is a different story. It tends to be enriched with heavy metals, such as lead, cadmium and zinc, which pose toxicological problems. It also tends to be fairly soluble because it is in a salt matrix. It condenses out of the flue gas. What we have to do is to spend a little bit of time and effort treating the fly ash coming out of the back end of a system. What you are looking at is about 10% of the total stream coming out of an incinerator, which works out to about 2% or 3% of the total volume of waste going into an incinerator. There are ways to treat it. There are solidification techniques. There are other chemical techniques to be able to stabilize the material and prevent it from being leachable and it can be disposed of.
What about the environmental advocates' argument about diminishing the incentive for recycling? I do not think there is a real problem here, because most incinerator operators will tell you they do not want the glass, they do not want the ferrous and they do not want the aluminum in their incinerator. It is a lot of wear and tear on the system and it acts as a heat sink, so they are really losing on that point. You do not want yard waste in there either, something we could use to compost, simply because it is too wet. You put it in the incinerator and you cannot operate the thing properly, so in terms of diminishing the incentive for recycling, I do not think there is any.
Let's talk about recycling for a minute. Is recycling cost-effective? There is an awful lot of emphasis put on recycling in this bill. Is it really cost-effective?
SuperWood Ltd has been in the news lately. They have basically been put into receivership. They are the people who took Tetra Paks and made wood fence posts and garden furniture out of them. They have warehouses full of finished product they cannot find a market for and they have all kinds of warehouses full of raw resources, empty Tetra Paks that they cannot use.
We have to look at that. I am not saying that all recycling is not worthwhile. Certainly aluminum is worthwhile. It is true recycling. It is taking an aluminum beer can and turning it back into an aluminum beer can. It is very cost-effective and it is very energy-effective too. There is an 80% energy saving if you take an aluminum can and recycle it back into an aluminum can.
But if you are taking materials in a recycling world and changing the form of that material and making new products, you are expanding the consumer base. You are not taking anything out of the waste stream, so I think we have to look at this issue a lot more carefully in terms of costeffectiveness.
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What about being environmentally friendly? Incinerators have been under the microscope for the last 15 years and they have been dissected pretty well. The same thing has not happened with recycling industries or composting. There are a lot of problems with composting, especially in terms of heavy metals. You have to remember that the waste stream going into the incinerator is where the problem lies; it is not the incinerator itself. If you are going to recycle material, you are still going to have the same type of problems, whether it is a recycling facility or a compost facility. You are still going to have to deal with the same elements, bar none. I think that is important to remember.
What is the best approach? I think we can look to our European friends for some help here. I will use Sweden as an example. In 1986 the Swedish government imposed a moratorium on municipal waste incineration similar to what this government did last April, I believe it was. A year and a half later that moratorium was lifted. What they did was go to a very aggressive integrated strategy -- aggressive recycling on the front end, aggressive reduction of packaging, aggressive reuse -- and the majority of the material left over had to go through an incinerator. That is law over there; it is mandatory. Anything going to a landfill has to go through a municipal waste incinerator before it goes to landfill. Typically what ends up going to landfill in Sweden is solidified fly ash from the back of an incinerator. They use an awful lot of their bottom ash, so you are saving approximately 97% of your landfill space.
Finally, to wrap up quickly, let's make use of a fully integrated waste management system. There are four Rs; let's use them. We have targets of 25% reduction by 1992. It is 1992 right now and we have not reached that. If you are going to look at the end of the year I still do not think you are going to reach it; you are not even going to come close. By the year 2000 we are supposed to have 50% reduction. If we do not use all four Rs we are not even going to come close and we are going to have landfills, which are a far sight worse than having a municipal waste incinerator.
I will be happy to entertain any questions you have.
Mrs Fawcett: Thank you very much for your presentation. We had a very different presentation: The almost evangelical Dr Connett told us about the absolute horrors of incineration. I am sure he believes that and believes he has the scientific data to back it up. But your story is quite a bit different. In your opinion, does the cement kiln operation -- we also had that presentation -- stabilize fly ash and render it harmless to the environment?
Mr Sawell: Looking at cement kilns, I do not think you have a problem in terms of the organic contaminants on the back end. With the heavy metals, cement kiln dust is produced as a waste byproduct in the cement industry anyway, and that is a waste product. I have actually used cement kiln dust in solidification formulations for municipal waste incinerator ash so, yes, I think it can be controlled. You can solidify the material on the back end. It is a very small component of the cement industry's waste stream, so I think it is probably feasible. What the cement industry is probably going to have to do is pull up its socks in terms of its pollution control systems.
Mrs Fawcett: But it certainly would be quite feasible to do.
Mr Sawell: It is quite feasible, yes, I believe so.
Mr Wiseman: I have a whole bunch of questions. How much time do I have?
The Vice-Chair: You have five minutes.
Mr Wiseman: I read recently in a paper that an Illinois court ruled that municipal solid waste incinerator ash, both bottom and fly ash, must be considered hazardous waste and treated as such. The incinerator industry will likely appeal this decision, but they must have had some evidence.
Mr Sawell: Just to give you background on that, when you are looking at the regulatory issues in the States you are looking at a very different climate. In the States there have been two court rulings, one exempting municipal waste incinerator ash from hazardous waste regulations and this one, a court of appeal that overturned an initial ruling that said it was exempt from hazardous waste rules.
You have to remember that in the States there is a very adversarial approach to it. In Canada we have much different guidelines. We do not combine our ash up here. The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment released a document in 1989 on operation and emissions from municipal waste incinerators. Ash management was part of that package of guidelines. We separate bottom ash and fly ash. I believe in this province, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Nova Scotia they have adopted those guidelines as legislation. Bottom ash can go to a landfill site whereas fly ash has to be treated as a hazardous waste.
In all the years I have done work on ash, bottom ash is a very benign substance. Fly ash is not, and there is a recognized problem that has to be dealt with. It is a very small component of the total waste stream coming out of a municipal waste incinerator. You have to remember that there is a big distinction between Canada and the US in terms of how they regulate their ash. In the States they combine all their ash.
Mr Wiseman: My second question has to do with the London Victoria Hospital situation and the fact that it has spent huge amounts of money trying to landfill its ash, to the point where it is considering shutting down the incinerator.
Mr Sawell: An operation at $5 a tonne at the tipping scale is ridiculous. I do not think anybody could operate on that basis. Typically what you are talking about for operation of a municipal waste incinerator is about $35 to $40 a tonne to break even, to keep the plant going. If you look at Vancouver, which has a 750-tonne-a-day plant, it operates at about $63 a tonne tipping fees, as they come across the scales. Victoria Hospital basically signed a bad deal in terms of the contract on the front end.
Mr Wiseman: My understanding of the Vancouver incinerator is that they are now re-examining the plume dispersal area for contaminants, with some considerable consternation about what is accumulating in the ground from the plume.
Mr Sawell: I know there have been several studies done, especially in Europe. Some of my colleagues and very close friends have done a lot of studies looking at heavy metal enrichment of soils around municipal waste incinerators, both before and after putting air pollution control systems on them. In the after, they find nothing. As a matter of fact, they have a tough time trying to find things above background level. So I think an awful lot has to be done in looking at whether it is background contamination going into that area or whether it is the plant itself.
I am quite familiar with the greater Vancouver regional district facility. I know there are quite a few industries right around the area. Some of them are very dirty industries, as a matter of fact. To point a finger at GVRD itself is going to be pretty tough to do, especially looking at the stack gases that are coming out, because they are monitored on a regular basis -- as a matter of fact, daily. There is not a heck of a lot coming out of that plant.
Mr Wiseman: My next question has to do with the cost of the --
The Chair: This will have to be a question for the record.
Mr Wiseman: He said I had five minutes.
Mr Sola: You have used five minutes.
Mr Wiseman: Oh, have I?
The Chair: When I sat down he told me you had one minute left.
Mr Wiseman: Then this will be for the record. Lake county's garbage incinerator: As it nears completion, two of the county commissioners are contemplating idling the $79-million plant before the first tonne of trash arrives.
Mr Sawell: Which county was this?
Mr Wiseman: Lake county in Florida. What they are getting at here is the huge cost of putting the plant into place and then burning the trash. That makes the next question: You were talking about what goes in the front end. I would like you to give us a description of what would have to go into the front end and how effective the 3Rs programs are once -- you cannot answer that. They are not going to let you.
Mr Sawell: They have very aggressive recycling programs. They still have to get rid of about 40% to 60% of the waste stream left over: materials like Tetra Paks that you cannot market anywhere, even if they have been recycled. To give you an answer on that, there is a lot of commercial waste. Residential waste is a very small component, as we all know, of the total waste stream. Where the real problem lies is the commercial waste stream.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr Wiseman: She caught up to her mistake.
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The Chair: The parliamentary assistant distracted me by pointing out that he is wearing new glasses. I told him I thought they were very attractive, and I was less attentive to the fact that you were answering the question that should have been placed on the record. I will deduct it from the next presentation.
Mr McClelland: I would be delighted if you would continue your response. I think it would be very useful. On the basis of an analysis of a comprehensive review of scientific evidence, I would like to know what you think about the policy that says we are not even going to consider incineration in terms of looking at proposed alternatives within the framework of a full environmental assessment within the context of a full master plan waste management system. In your professional opinion, is there any scientific basis on which one could draw that conclusion arbitrarily and say, "We are just not going to look at incineration, period"?
Mr Sawell: I think it would be a very large mistake for you to throw away a tool like that. I do not know what I can say other than that we have four tools that are very viable. Let's make use of them all to the best of our abilities. But let's make sure everything is on a level playing ground. When we compare the issues between recycling, composting and incineration, let's look at it with a very critical eye to the other side of the issue, rather than just pointing a critical finger at the incineration side. If you look at Halifax, it just went through a solid waste master plan that had composting and incineration identified in its system. No one responded for bids to the composting plans because they cannot get rid of the compost coming out the back end. It is too enriched in heavy metals. Agriculture Canada will not let them market it, so what good is putting the plan in the front end?
Those are very real issues we are going to have to look at. Again, it goes back to the waste stream itself; that is where the real problem is. We have heavy metals, and for a lot of the products we use in day-to-day life, we either have to find a way of diverting them or substituting for them.
Mr McClelland: Rather than embracing a general tenet -- almost a faith, if you will -- you say it would be more appropriate to look at them critically, analytically and scientifically and arrive at solutions from a progression of analyses, rather than from a predetermined position of philosophy.
Mr Sawell: I think that is fair to say. If you look at the Europeans, they have gone through all these growing pains and basically, if you look at Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and France, they all have recycling up front. They try to reduce as much as they can in terms of legislation on packaging. They may reuse more than we do. They certainly have incineration; they certainly have not dampened it.
The Chair: We appreciate your presentation. Over the course of our hearings, if there is additional information you think might be helpful to committee members, we would appreciate it if you would communicate with us in writing. Thank you very much for appearing before us today.
ARDEE RECYCLING INC
The Chair: I would like to call next Ardee Recycling Inc. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We would appreciate it if you would begin by introducing yourselves to committee members for the purpose of the record. Do not worry about the microphones in front of you. If there is a problem, I will let you know. They will pick up everything you say. I have told people watching these hearings that the Hansard is available at Publications Ontario at 880 Bay Street, and it usually takes about two weeks to get the full transcript available there. You may begin your presentation now, and we ask that you leave a few minutes at the end for questions from committee members.
Mr Durgy: I am Robert Durgy, president of Ardee Recycling Inc. This is Gordon Onley, marketing vice-president.
As a small recycling business, we support Bill 143. We would like section 74 of Bill 143, however, to include an amendment to ban oil filters from landfill sites. That is what I would like to speak to you about today.
In Ontario there are 13 million oil filter changes. The majority of these oil filters are going to the landfill. As well as the oil filters going to the landfill, there are a million gallons of residual oil in the used oil filters making its way to landfills where it eventually leaches out.
In this oil there is cadmium, chromium, arsenic and also benzene, a known carcinogenic, which eventually gets into the landfill. Presently used oil from automobiles is sent to be recycled. It is not allowed to go to the landfill sites. The contradiction here is that the oil filter can go to the landfill site with this residual oil in it. Each oil filter has approximately 6 ounces to 24 ounces of residual oil, depending on whether it is a small vehicle or a larger truck filter. That gets into the landfill. From the toxic side it is not very good that the used oils going to the landfill through the oil filters. But there is also the potential of recyclable steel in oil filters, which in Ontario is about 8,500 tons of recyclable steel. About 17,000 cubic yards of space would be saved if we were to recycle these used oil filters, which our company does presently.
As well, if there was legislation on these 13 million oil filters and they were to be recycled, in our personal case it would mean approximately 200 to 300 jobs, because it is very labour-intensive to recycle these oil filters. The obvious potential there to get people off unemployment or welfare, to come in and recycle these used oil filters would definitely benefit a lot of people.
In talking to the private sector, we have been out marketing this and right now, when we have been seeing accounts, we have been going in on the moral and ethical thing. We have been marketing it for about a month now and have had a lot of really good results in terms of government and municipal fleet vehicles that are generating used oil filters. However, with the private sector basically what we are hearing back is, "Yes, we know there's a problem here and we know there's residual oil that is ending up in the landfill site, but at this time we would rather see legislation than our particular company take on your service and pay whatever the cost is to have the oil filter picked up," because of the economic times and because it is such a competitive situation. If it is legislated, then it is a fair playing field for everyone. If Canadian Tire is doing it, then Mr Lube is doing it. It all equals out. It ends up that the end consumer pays whatever the extra cost is each time he goes in to have his oil changed. That is what we are hearing back from the private sector.
Mr Wiseman: I guess I should declare a conflict of interest here, because they have come to see me. In fact, Gordon is my brother-in-law. I think you should know up front that they asked to come before the committee and how they would do that. But I do have some questions.
The Chair: I do not think that being your brother-in-law would constitute a conflict under the Legislative Assembly Act. It might be of interest.
Mr Wiseman: It is of interest. It just shows you how far the green sweep sweeps. I would like you to describe what you do with the filters so that everybody has a good, comprehensive idea of what goes on.
Mr Durgy: You might want to refer to the report I have given out as I explain it. There is a breakdown in grams of the amounts of different components which exist in the oil filter and which parts we recycle. We do not recycle 100% of the oil filter, but we are recycling 97.3%. If you go on one more page, you will see a breakdown of the actual oil filter. What we do is take the oil filter to our factory and break it down almost can opener style and then fillet it. It is very labour-intensive. That is why I get back to the jobs that would be involved in doing this.
Then the steel is broken down. It goes to a steel person and the steel is recycled, which could be into many different things: a Coke can to a car to perhaps even an oil filter again. The rubber gasket goes to another party, is recycled and ends up, from what they tell us, being mud flaps for vehicles. The used oil is drained out through the process and it ends up going to the same people who recycle oil from any of the auto body shops.
Mr Wiseman: Did you have any trouble finding markets for these products after they were separated?
Mr Durgy: No, not at all. There is a machine out on the market right now that crushes oil filters.
Mr Wiseman: I have seen it.
Mr Durgy: The problem with that is that when you crush it, all you are doing is condensing the rubber gasket, the paper filter and some of the used oil still in the container. That is a problem. The steel people do not need that. They have such an influx of steel coming in that they do not need to have crushed oil filters that might pose a problem to their recycling procedure. The only thing they asked of us -- we have that in written form, which we can give to you, from the two particular people -- was that it be clean of oil, because of the toxic nature of it, that the rubber gasket be clean and as well that the steel filter be clean. The only thing we have left is the paper filter, which we cannot find a home for right now. We are working towards finding a home for it. Once the paper filter has been separated from it and crushed -- we crush out any remaining oil -- we are down to 2.3% of the filter which would potentially have to be landfilled for the interim.
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Mr Sola: Some of the questions I was going to ask have been answered already. How many products do you produce from the recycled filters? Is there a market for all the products produced from a recycled filter except for that 2.3% you just mentioned?
Mr Durgy: Definitely. Again, you have the steel filter, which goes to the steel person and is recycled into many different areas, whether it is a Coke can, a beer can, a car or maybe even an oil filter again. Then the rubber gasket would go to the rubber recycler. What they are doing with these rubber gaskets in this case, which they have given to us in writing, is that they become mud flaps. Those are the two I know offhand. Used oil of course is recycled to be used in motor vehicles again.
Mr Sola: Is this a viable economic entity? I do not want the situation to occur again, as was mentioned earlier today, where you have recycling and spend money for sorting and storing and everything else and eventually all that effort is just added on to the cost of landfill because there is no market for it, and the municipality gets sick and tired of storing it and then it goes back into the waste stream. All these products that you separate are actually reused?
Mr Durgy: Yes, absolutely. There is a risk from our point of view, just in terms of the Ministry of the Environment. We have to be certified as a waste processing site. What is involved is that there is a bond so, for instance, if we go out and fill our warehouse with hundreds of thousands of oil filters and cannot recycle them or find a home for them, we lose the bond. As a businessman, I have looked into it and found the markets and definitely have commitments.
The Chair: We really appreciate you coming. It is important for us to hear a number of different perspectives. If over the course of the hearings there is any additional information you think would be helpful to us, please just write to us.
Mr Durgy: Okay, great. I appreciate the time.
VIRGINIA MACLAREN
The Chair: I would like to call now Virginia MacLaren, department of geography and the program in planning, University of Toronto. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. We would appreciate it if you would leave some time for questions. Please begin by introducing yourself for members of the committee.
Dr Maclaren: My name is Virginia MacLaren. I am an associate professor in the department of geography and the program in planning at the University of Toronto. I have been involved in waste management research activities for the past several years and have a number of students working in the field.
I have a very brief statement for this submission. I wish to address part IV of the bill and specifically that part which concerns empowerment to make regulations for industrial, commercial and institutional waste reduction.
I am in favour of the proposed regulations and believe they will benefit not only the ICI companies required to undertake them but also the general waste management planning process in Ontario. There have been numerous studies showing that waste audits, for example, are an effective first step towards identifying significant opportunities for companies to achieve economic savings through waste reduction.
Having waste audit data available is also particularly important for waste management planning at the municipal level. Since ICI waste comprises about 60% of waste being sent to municipal landfills in Ontario, knowledge of ICI waste generation data is essential for determining expected landfill lifetimes. Knowledge of existing or future waste diversion activities in the ICI sector can also help in forecasting landfill capacity requirements.
Waste composition data is also important in municipal waste management planning. For example, before banning a material at a local landfill, a municipality might be investigating the availability of markets for the material, which in turn could be or would likely be related to the potential supply of that material among existing and future landfill users. Without waste generation and waste composition information in the ICI sector, market evaluation becomes more difficult and introduces uncertainties about the impact of such a ban on the ICI sector.
ICI waste generation and composition data can also be fed into economic models, such as input-output models, for identifying and forecasting the linkage between increases or decreases in economic activity and increases or decreases in waste generation in a municipality. At the University of Toronto we are currently working on the development of such a model. However, we have had significant problems in developing the model, because of a lack of waste generation and waste composition data for the Metropolitan Toronto area or for industries in Ontario in general. In fact, as a result of this we have undertaken to administer our own comprehensive sample survey of ICI firms in the Metro area.
I would like to mention two improvements to the proposed regulations: first, to establish waste auditing guidelines, and second, to link waste management plans to provincial waste reduction targets. With respect to the first recommendation, I refer back to one of our graduate students who is working on this issue of waste composition studies. Although we do not yet have the final documentation or final report from him, I can tell you a couple of things that I think are relevant for the proposed regulations.
First, he has found, not surprisingly, that there are very few firms keeping records on the amount of waste they are currently generating, on a per tonne basis, by weight rather than by cost. This means it is very difficult for firms, especially smaller firms, to provide estimates of their annual waste production amounts.
Second, even fewer firms have knowledge about the composition of their wastes unless a waste audit is available. Therefore, surveys of the kind he is attempting can provide, at best, only rough estimates for this kind of composition and generation information. There are a lot of uncertainties about the type of information being collected. They are also very costly and time-consuming to undertake. Although I feel they are very important for waste management planning, there are a number of problems. On the other hand, if waste audit data are already available for firms that are sampled in a survey of this kind, it would definitely allow for more accurate and effective waste management modelling and planning.
The second point I want to comment on is the relationship between waste reduction targets and waste management plans. It seems to me that if there were some linkage between the province's waste reduction targets and proposed waste management plans for the ICI sector, it would offer more incentive for ICI firms to actually reach those targets. This type of linkage is already working in the packaging sector under the auspices of the national packaging protocol, as you are probably aware, where the packaging industry has agreed to try to meet voluntary targets within a certain time period. In the absence of such targets, it is not clear what incentive other than an economic incentive, if it is identified through a waste audit, there would be for ICI firms to develop innovative waste reduction plans.
Mr McClelland: It is very well thought out and set out in terms of some positive suggestions. I note you are concentrating only on the regulatory powers that would flow under part IV and not the rest of the bill. Indeed, that has been the thrust of many people who have been in support of Bill 143. They focus their attention in support of part IV and very little, if any, support for parts I, II and III; in fact, quite the opposite.
With respect to part IV, you talk specifically about the ICI. There has been some concern raised that I have heard. I would like to have your comment. If I can try to put it succinctly, there ought to be some distinction between the regulations that would impact on municipalities and the public operation, and those regulations that would impact on business. I see that as problematic in terms of an overall scheme and a comprehensive plan, but I also understand the concerns that municipalities have in terms of being dealt with in the same body of regulations as would the ICI sector.
I wonder if you have turned your mind to that in any way in terms of the potential -- I will not use the word "dislocation"; I do not think it is accurate -- inappropriateness, if you will, of applying the same set of regulations to distinctly different groups, distinctly different in terms of their operation and their financing base and their management structures.
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Dr Maclaren: I have not, from an academic point of view, perceived a significant problem so I have not given it that much thought. If there is perhaps more incentive for this to occur as a matter of course within the public sector, within municipalities themselves, then there is perhaps less need for a regulatory approach. But I am sorry; I am not familiar with the views of the different groups that are involved and what their concerns are.
Mr White: You suggest that a number of businesses do not have adequate information in regard to the waste that is being produced and yet we hear a number of assertions that government should not require audits or reduction plans, but should rather take a voluntary approach to environmental audits and waste reduction. Do you think a completely voluntary approach will work with the kind of time lines we are faced with?
Dr Maclaren: A voluntary approach might work if there were an incentive for companies to participate or to volunteer; in other words, some kind of deadline indicating that if the voluntary approach, as is being taken with the national packaging protocol, does not work, then there would be regulations brought in. Given the time lines Ontario is looking at for its proposed regulations, though, I am not sure whether we have enough time to organize a voluntary approach for companies to get together to agree on representatives who would try to allocate the waste reduction limits among different firms so that it would be equitable. If perhaps, as you say, there was more time, we should consider the voluntary approach. There is an example, namely, the national approach to packaging for targets.
Mr McClelland: I have a question for Mr O'Connor that flows from that, from some of the discussion in any event. There has been discussion, certainly in industry, those that participate now in financing the blue box recycling program, in terms of arriving at an understanding and formalizing an understanding that would probably ultimately mesh with part IV regulations. In short, those that participate in blue box funding are saying we need to have some kind of understanding here that will level the playing field with respect to those who are not participating.
How do you see the failure, quite frankly, of your government to move ahead in executing that memorandum of understanding or negotiations with those that participate in the blue box funding and the impending regulations under part IV? Another way of putting it is, why do you not get on with levelling the playing field for those who are already participating at the same time as moving ahead with part IV regulations? It seems to be, in my view, contradictory to put one on the back burner and then to presume to proceed with part IV regs.
Mr O'Connor: Thank you for the question, and thank you for your presentation. As you know, there has been quite a bit of cooperation with Ontario Multi-Material Recycling Inc and the government in trying to come up with the plan for reduction. We have David McRobert from the office of waste reduction to address some of the concerns you have raised.
Mr McClelland: The basic question is, why is not anything happening with moving that forward? It has been basically ready since 1990. It has not been executed as far as I know. We hear all the time that OMMRI is in jeopardy. It would certainly be one way of removing one of the clouds hanging over us. It is ironic that we are talking about Part IV and yet we have the system in place and we cannot seem to move ahead.
Mr McRobert: Certainly levelling the playing field is a very important issue to many different groups in the private sector, and it is something our office is actively working on. We expect this issue will be squarely addressed in a future initiatives paper, which will deal with financing issues, which hopefully will be released some time in the spring. Until then there will be every effort made to work cooperatively with OMMRI and to try to resolve the issues that have been raised. But it is a very complex matter and unfortunately it is difficult to implement a mechanism to level the playing field without also moving on some of the regulatory initiatives that we are working on in Initiatives Paper No 1.
Mr McClelland: Not to enjoin a debate here, I recognize that it is difficult, but the fact of the matter is that much work was done up to 1990 and virtually nothing tangible, apparently, has been forthcoming since that point in time.
Mr White: Can we leave this debate until after the witness has left?
The Chair: That is out of order. In fact, the rules of procedure of the committee are that the caucus can use its time in whatever way it wishes in questioning either the deputant witness or the parliamentary assistant. They can make a speech. That is the rules of procedure, so I would just ask that we observe that and allow members to complete the use of their time as they wish.
Mr McClelland: I might add, Madam Chair, that it flows clearly from the discussion of the deputant in any event, and perhaps Mr White does not understand that, but thank you for your contribution.
Mr Wiseman: I have read on page 2 that very few firms keep records on the amount of waste they are currently generating. I am really quite shocked at that because it would seem to me that a company would really want to know what it is generating, where it was going and how much it was costing them.
I know that IBM, for example, has managed to recycle 70% of the paper it produces. There are a couple of other companies in my riding that are so concerned and have done such cost audits that they know that if they are able to accumulate the strip from around the outside edge of a mould-stamping process, they are able to save X number of dollars, and they are currently looking at trying to develop techniques of reusing that strip. They are also looking at ways of recovering other parts of the process so that in the long run they can recycle and maximize every ounce of product in the manufacturing process. By the way, they are being assisted by the program from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology which allowed them to hire an engineer over a three-year period to do that.
I am quite startled at this, because every time -- since I have been involved in waste management for about five years -- companies do this kind of analysis of their waste stream, they always find out that they are saving money. So what is going on?
Dr Maclaren: I agree. Waste auditing is the first step to identifying cost savings from waste reduction. I should point out that this study that is currently going on at the University of Toronto, for example, is a sample survey. In other words, we are sampling in a random, stratified manner a number of firms in different sectors. Based on this information, there are certainly some firms out there that are doing as you suggest, and particularly the larger firms which tend to be the firms that are more able to afford the cost of a waste audit and the ones that are aware, perhaps, of the cost of a waste audit at the present time.
Many of the smaller firms know what their waste management costs are because they are billed by the waste hauling company, for example. But may not be as familiar with the exact amount that is being hauled away they because the waste is hauled away in bins which may or may not be full whenever they are collected. They cannot give exact figures on how much they are generating because they are being billed on a flat rate or on a per-bin basis rather than on a per-weight basis. That leads to inaccuracies in trying to relate, for example, volume in a bin to estimated fullness in a bin to the amount that might be produced by a firm. But certainly there are examples out there of companies that have undertaken waste audits and have found that the cost savings are significant. Even though it costs a certain amount to have a waste audit done, the cost savings are usually sufficient to cover the cost of the waste audit.
The Chair: That concludes today's public hearings. For the information of anyone watching and for members of the committee, the standing committee on social development will reconvene on Monday, February 10, at 2 pm to continue with public hearings on Bill 143, the Waste Management Act, 1991.
The committee adjourned at 1722.