ECOLOGY AWARENESS GROUP, LANDSCAPE AND ENVIRONMENT
PROTECT OUR WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES
ONTARIO WASTE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
CONTENTS
Tuesday 15 February 1994
Environmental Protection Amendment Act (Niagara Escarpment), 1993, Bill 62, Mr Duignan / Loi de 1993 modifiant la Loi sur la protection de l'environnement (Escarpement du Niagara), projet de loi 62, M. Duignan
Joan Cornfield
Reclamation Systems Inc
Donald Mills, legal counsel
Walter Graziani, president
Ecology Awareness Group, Landscape and Environment
Giuseppe Gori, past president
Town of Milton
Gordon Krantz, mayor
Emelio Iovio, planning director
David Hipgrave, chief administrative officer
Protect Our Water and Environmental Resources
Barbara Halsall, past president
Janice Brooks; Harvey Kirkwood
Douglas Larson
City of St Catharines
Denis Squires, assistant city solicitor
Ontario Waste Management Association
Nancy Porteous-Koehle, president
Terry Taylor, director, public affairs
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
*Akande, Zanana L. (St Andrew-St Patrick ND)
*Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)
Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
*Duignan, Noel (Halton North/-Nord ND)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
*Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
Mills, Gordon (Durham East/-Est ND)
*Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)
Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND) for Mr Winninger
Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville ND) for Mr Winninger
Murdoch, Bill (Grey-Owen Sound PC) for Mr Tilson
Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L) for Mr Curling
Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND) for Mr Mills
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West/-Ouest PC) for Mr Harnick
Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna
Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1009 in the St Clair/Thames/Erie Rooms, Macdonald Block, Toronto.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AMENDMENT ACT (NIAGARA ESCARPMENT), 1993 / LOI DE 1993 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA PROTECTION DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT (ESCARPEMENT DU NIAGARA)
Consideration of Bill 62, An Act to amend the Environmental Protection Act in respect of the Niagara Escarpment \ Projet de loi 62, Loi modifiant la Loi sur la protection de l'environnement à l'égard de l'escarpement du Niagara.
JOAN CORNFIELD
The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): Ms Joan Cornfield, welcome. You have half an hour for your presentation.
Ms Joan Cornfield: I'm going to make a slight change. I will hand out my handout to the members of the committee after I make my presentation.
Mr Chairman, members of the standing committee on administration of justice and ladies and gentlemen, I am one of the few people in these hearings who does not represent a large organization or who is not designated as part of a group. Therefore, I had to ask myself, who am I representing? I decided that I was speaking for those of your constituents who are environmentally concerned. I also decided that my job was to present the big picture. I come to fulfil those two commitments and to speak as a supporter of Bill 62.
November 1991 to June 1992 was a period of intense activity for me. I attended a big international conference of women in November 1991; 1,500 women from 83 countries getting ready for the Earth Summit. In March I spent four weeks at the United Nations working with the women's caucus at the last preparatory committee before the Earth Summit. Then in June of that year I went to the Earth Summit itself.
Out of those experiences I wrote 57 letters to George Bush, then President of the United States. I sent George the first 34 letters but I don't think he received them, because he didn't reply. By then it didn't matter, though, because I realized that George was really a symbol of all people in high office, in the military, in political positions, in industry, in business, those who now hold the reins of power. Because you people are representing Ontario residents, I know I'm addressing some Georges now, both in the standing committee and among the presenters too.
I would like to begin by reading one paragraph from my first letter, dated December 20, 1991:
"George, suppose they're right? The environmentalists. Suppose these prophets of doom who say we have only 10 years to save the planet are right? Ten years. Or less. And right now you are sitting there as head of the most powerful nation on earth, embedded in worldwide social, economic and political systems that are destroying it. Our only home. Throughout all the millennia humans have inhabited the face of this planet, you are now at the nexus, the turning point, that very short time we have to begin to undo the harm we have inflicted on our living earth, our fellow beings, our brothers and sisters. Maybe you didn't bargain for this dubious privilege, but nevertheless it is yours."
My first question to the Georges who may be in this room, including those who are going to speak against Bill 62, is, suppose those environmentalists are right.
Here are some statistics from the Canadian organization Global Awareness in Action:
Each minute, at least 51 acres of tropical rain forests are destroyed; we consume almost 35,000 barrels of oil; 50 tonnes of fertile soil are washed or blown off crop land; and we add 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Each hour, 1,692 acres of productive dry land become desert; 1,800 children die of malnutrition and hunger, which makes a total of 15 million children each year; $120 million go on military expenditures, making a total of $1 trillion each year; 55 people are poisoned by the pesticides they use and five die; 60 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in the United States alone. As an aside, 50 years ago, one in 20 women in North America developed breast cancer. Now it's one in eight.
Each day, over 230,000 babies are born; 25,000 die of water shortage or contamination; 10 tonnes of nuclear waste are generated by the existing nuclear plants; 250,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid fall as acid rain in the northern hemisphere; 60 tonnes of plastic packaging and 372 tonnes of fishing net are dumped into the sea by commercial fishermen; almost five species of life become extinct. The present rate of extinction is at least 1,000 times the pace that has prevailed since prehistory.
This is to give you some idea of the devastation that has taken place on this planet in the last 24 hours.
Now I'd like to read from a column in the Star, January 29, 1994, by David Suzuki. He is quoting Alan Thein Durning's comments from Worldwatch. This is going to give you a time-line sequence on one of our problems:
"`Imagine a time-lapse film of the Earth taken from space. Play back the last 10,000 years, sped up so that a millennium passes every minute. For more than seven of the 10 minutes, the screen displays what looks like a still photograph: the blue planet Earth, its lands swathed in a mantle of trees. Forests cover 34% of the land. Aside from the occasional flash of a wildfire, none of the natural changes in the forest coat are perceptible....
"`After seven and a half minutes, the lands around Athens and the tiny islands of the Aegean Sea lose their forests. This is the flowering of classical Greece. Little else changes. At nine minutes -- 1,000 years ago -- the mantle grows threadbare in scattered parts of Europe, Central America, China and India. Then 12 seconds from the end, two centuries ago, the thinning spreads, leaving parts of Europe and China bare. Six seconds from the end, one century ago, eastern North America is deforested. This is the Industrial Revolution. Little else appears to have changed. Forests cover 32% of the land.
"`In the last three seconds -- after 1950 -- the change accelerates explosively. Vast tracks of forest vanish from Japan, the Philippines...most of Central America and the horn of Africa, from western North America and eastern South America, from the Indian subcontinent and sub-Saharan Africa. Fires rage in the Amazon basin where they never did before, set by ranchers and peasants. Central Europe's forests die, poisoned by the air and rain. Southeast Asia resembles a dog with mange. Malaysian Borneo appears shaved. In the final fractions of a second, the clearing spreads to Siberia and the Canadian north. Forests disappear so suddenly from so many places that it looks like a plague of locusts has descended on the planet.
"`The film freezes on the last frame. Trees cover 26% of the land. Three fourths of the original forest area still bears some tree cover. But just 12% of the earth's surface -- one third of the initial total -- consists of intact forest ecosystems. The rest holds biologically impoverished strands of commercial timber and fragmented regrowth. This is the present: a globe profoundly altered by the workings -- or failings -- of the human economy.'
"Seen this way, the planet's forests are being irrevocably lost in the geological blink of an eye. Plotted over a mere 10 millennia, the curve of forest devastation leaps almost straight off the page in our lifetime. And if we add to that graph the generation of pollution, the loss of topsoil, human numbers, production of greenhouse gases, and so on, the curves all climb vertically in the very last moments. Individual disasters like Chernobyl, large clear-cuts, Bhopal, megadams or oil spills are merely part of a terrifying spasm of annihilation."
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For the last four years, I have been immersing myself in all the complexities of our ecological crisis at a doctoral level. These studies have led me to the inevitable conclusion that those environmentalists are right, that humanity indeed stands at the point of no return. Either we human beings change our ways or we exterminate ourselves, and the point of no return is close. We may even have passed it. You and I, those of us who are adults in this group, will very likely live out our natural lives. But our children? Our grandchildren? Unless we act now, I believe we are condemning them to unimaginable suffering, a suffering compounded by the certain knowledge that not one human being on the face of this planet will survive, not one, and for our children, no hope.
But what happens to us when we begin to consider that these environmentalists are right? What happens to us psychologically? Elizabeth Kuebler Ross gives us the clue in her work with terminally ill patients. We enter the grieving process. There are five stages to this process: denial, rage, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. I wrote to George about this process too. Here is another paragraph from that particular letter:
"Now we're all entering the grieving process, at least all of us who have heard and addressed the fact that those environmentalists may be right. And because the catastrophe of a planet in a terminal illness is so huge, so beyond us all, our grief is proportionally less able to cope with the enormity of what we've facing and our leaders and business people, because they have comfortable lives, are most likely to be in denial. It's easy to be in denial if you have a swimming pool in the backyard and a two-car garage and well-watered shrubs and trees surrounding your property. It's easy to be in denial if all your associates are in denial too. I suspect you are in denial, George."
Denial is the first stage. In denial, you go on as if nothing bad has happened, business as usual. This first stage is still the operative one for most of the people I know: "Global warming? With this winter? Give us a break." The statistics aren't out yet for this year, but two summers ago we had a wet, cold summer. We in Canada got firsthand evidence that global warning was an illusion. But worldwide, the temperature did edge up just a bit. It edged up. We still have lots to eat here, so we really can't believe that the thinning ozone layer will result in damaged crops. Other parts of the world are not so lucky. Famine is already widespread in Africa. In Chile sheep are becoming blind because of overexposure to ultraviolet rays.
We really don't want to consider that the growing joblessness, the growing violence, the growing disregard for the rule of law, the growing erosion of our national sovereignty by the globalization of business just might be connected to the deterioration of the earth's health, do we? Denial.
In New York, I interviewed a Canadian delegate. I asked this person if the rest of the Canadian delegation was at all perturbed about the environmental crisis. "They're scared to death," was the reply, "and they don't know what to do."
I would suggest to you that these delegates were not in denial. They had negotiated the first step in the grieving process and had acknowledged the problem. So they found themselves face to face with fear, a very unpleasant state to be in, but the first step to begin to address the crisis.
What has all this got to do with Bill 62? Bill 62 seeks to ban landfill sites on the Niagara Escarpment. Halton, incorporating 23% of escarpment lands, has most of the quarries that big business interests know would bring them lots of money if they could be filled with garbage. So what if it's a UNESCO biosphere reserve? Money makes the world go round, doesn't it?
Southern Ontario residents, businesses and industries are producing garbage at a great rate. The garbage has to go somewhere, doesn't it? And of course we have foolproof technology to ensure safety; and do these groups want to criticize the NDP. Garbage has been a big headache for the NDP. "Why did they have to pick 56 sites at first," they ask, "and then narrow them down to three? Why did the NDP have to get a great number of us all upset when they were going to narrow them down to three anyway? And of course it was a stupid idea to stop Kirkland Lake from dumping that garbage in their mine shaft. Wasn't it? And now, if Bill 62 passes, we won't even be able to put the garbage in our own backyard. This is getting quite ridiculous, isn't it?" So say those who want to landfill on the escarpment.
The arguments of such people arise out of denial. The NDP has done us all a great favour by getting us upset about landfill sites, about telling us we have to deal with our own garbage, about refusing to trek it up to Kirkland Lake, and Bill 62 reinforces that point because, if it passes, we won't be able to put that garbage on the escarpment either. Sooner or later, more and more of us are going to get through our denial on this issue and address the real problem, the production of garbage itself.
Garbage is the result of the consumer society. The industrial northern countries, comprising about 20% of the world's population, now consume 80% of the world's goods. They destroy the earth's resources and suck wealth out of the developing nations, further impoverishing already poor people. Then they spew that wealth out in waste products.
In New York, at PrepCom IV, the poor southern nations begged the northern countries to reduce their consumption, begged us to reduce the pollutants that threaten us all, begged us to provide the money and technological resources to help them develop sustainably. I heard some of their pleas. We, the rich, the ones who did the polluting in the first place, turned our backs on them.
Underneath all this human posturing and jockeying for money and power and prestige, all this talk about how we are land owners, all this talk about how our technological improvements will solve our problems -- underneath all that lies the Earth. The Earth doesn't care about our human concerns, it doesn't care at all, and if we destroy its capacity to sustain us, we will go like the dinosaurs. To realize that one fact is to begin to get out of denial.
David Suzuki's 12-year-old daughter spoke to all 105 heads of state at the Earth Summit. She reduced many of them to tears. We human beings are easily moved to emotion. But emotion isn't going to save us. Action is. Even though the present mechanisms of government are not really adequate to the environmental tasks we face, they are all we have right now and we must use them.
Therefore, when you consider Bill 62, you are making a decision of tremendous importance, because to aid Bill 62 on its way into the statute books of Ontario law is to partake in a process that will lead us to a sustainable future. It may seem like a little baby step in the face of the huge problems I've touched on in this presentation, but it's the one right in front of you now. All over the world, other policymakers are beginning to take little baby steps out of their own environmentally unfriendly situations too. So you're not alone. When enough of those steps join together, we'll be able to show our children that we do care about their future, that we want them to have a life. Thank you for your attention.
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The Chair: Thank you. We'll begin with the third party today. Mr Murdoch, two minutes.
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): No questions.
Mr Noel Duignan (Halton North): Indeed it's a great pleasure to see you here this morning, Joan. I think your caring and compassion for the environment and for humanity is well shown here this morning, the same as it was right around the province and indeed around the world. Again, I appreciate your comments. Your point is, what if the environmentalists are right?
Ms Cornfield: That's right.
Mr Duignan: What if RSI happens to get an amendment? It will have to go to the amendment process, and it's because of amendment 52. What if they get the decision to go ahead with the landfill site? Will the directors of RSI be living on the escarpment? Will they be living downstream from the escarpment?
It's strange, but in the latest corporate search of RSI, and we're waiting to see if there's any connection back in some of the directorships as well, there's only one individual of the directorships of RSI living on the escarpment, in Campbellville; the rest of them are living in Toronto, Victoria, British Columbia, New York state or Connecticut.
These people have no interest in the community of Halton Hills or any community along the escarpment. That's the problem, because if these people had to live where they were going to put the garbage, they would be singing a different tune than what they're singing later on this morning.
Ms Cornfield: What I have come to believe is that every single person on this planet is in this together. Maybe rich people and maybe people who live away from the escarpment or away from wherever the polluting is taking place all over the world are going to be lucky and their descendants will live -- I don't know how long. But we are all on the way out. You cannot stop pollution at the borders.
Denial is a very common thing; it's a natural phenomenon. I'm in denial most of the time, because if I were not, it would take all the heart. I'm here today because I believe there's still time. But there's not time if we remain in denial. If we think of this as a community thing, we have to build communities, but we are a global community now. We have to deal with these problems globally, and that's one of the scary things, that the international networks are not there yet. They have to get there.
People, and I don't care where they're coming from, business, politics, the military -- the military is causing 30% of the pollution in the world today -- have to realize that they cannot afford to let something like the Niagara Escarpment erode. They cannot afford to keep producing garbage. It's too late for that now. We have to go through that grieving process and we have to get to the point where we realize that life is different now; it can never be the same. We have to go on.
Mr Duignan: It's quite obvious that there are a number of people still in denial and who figure that money can buy them a piece of heaven somewhere. But in fact that's not the case at all.
Ms Cornfield: It isn't.
Mr Duignan: We'll be facing notices like that, where the town of Cayuga, for example, February 11, now will have to have the drinking water trucked in. That's the type of situation that RSI wants the people of Halton to face in the coming years.
Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Thank you, Ms Cornfield, for your presentation. I must say -- it had nothing to do at all with your presentation -- I was listening with some degree of surprise to Mr Duignan's question, because I think that he was saying that those who don't live on or near the Niagara Escarpment are somehow incapable of dealing with this issue.
I happen to live in the region of Peel, not on the escarpment, but I certainly would think that I and my colleagues of all three parties would have the capacity to understand and deal with this particular issue. I was a little surprised with that type of exclusionary comment made by the member.
My question to you though, as someone who without any doubt is significantly concerned with the past and very much concerned with the future -- and I think a lot of people share those concerns. The bill is a blanket prohibition against sites and systems on the Niagara Escarpment. I take it that you are in full agreement with this legislation.
We have an amendment that Mr Duignan is ostensibly going to be moving before this committee, and that amendment will permit transfer stations, recycling facilities, composting sites. It will permit using, operating, altering waste disposal sites on the Niagara Escarpment. My question to you is, in light of your very powerful presentation and in light of the amendment which Mr Duignan has indicated he will be moving, do you support the amendment that Mr Duignan is going to be moving?
Ms Cornfield: I am not basically a political person. I was very impressed with the environmental lawyer who spoke yesterday. I thought he made good sense. I was a high school English department head; I'm retired now. But I really come from a point of common sense. We are in a mess and we've got to get from where we are now to sustainability.
My common sense tells me that if there's somebody who has a building permit and wants to build a house on the escarpment, and he's got the okay, got the go-ahead, sure, he can put in a septic tank. If there's a landfill already on the escarpment that is beginning to leak, of course you fix it up. That's common sense.
Mr Offer: I'm sorry, but this doesn't answer my question. I appreciate the attempt. This does not speak about remediation work. This does not speak about a septic tank. This talks about new facilities: transfer stations, recycling facilities, composting sites.
My question to you -- and it is not a political question -- is that the fact of the matter is that in two or three days we are going to be discussing this particular bill in the clause-by-clause analysis. You come with a great deal of experience. You care very much about the land, the water, the air. My question is, do you support the amendment? I and everyone on this committee have to know, if possible, the answer to that question.
Ms Cornfield: Then I would say, if what you say is correct, that it is not involving present facilities, I am against the amendment.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Cornfield. We enjoyed your presentation. It was very informative.
RECLAMATION SYSTEMS INC
The Chair: I call Reclamation Systems Inc, Mr Walter Graziani, president, and Mr Donald Mills, solicitor. You've seen the process. Try to leave some time for questions at the end, if you can.
Mr Donald Mills: Good morning. My name is Donald Mills. I'm a lawyer, one of those fellows. Sitting beside me is Mr Walter Graziani, who's the president of Reclamation Systems Inc, known in this room and elsewhere very fondly as RSI. We'll use those initials because it's a lot faster to say RSI.
First, I want to thank you on behalf of RSI for giving us the opportunity to come and dialogue with you this morning. We appreciate the opportunity and we hope in fact it will involve a dialogue. Second, I want to say that I believe we're the only delegation that has complied with the request of the committee to put our views in writing and provide 25 copies to the committee by last Friday. We did that.
I've been around these halls long enough to know that you're very busy people and the chances of most of you having read that brief by now are perhaps not great. But I do urge on you to please take the time, before you come to clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, to read the 13 pages that we put together for you. I think they highlight the points we would like you to take into consideration as you review the bill. It would certainly be an insult to your intelligence for me simply to take the time this morning to read through it line by line with you. I don't intend to do that.
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As I sat reflecting last night on what I could do in the limited time that we have to best put RSI's position into perspective, it occurred to me that you might appreciate a presentation which cut through the legalese that we lawyers are so infamous for and tried to deal with the situation in layman's language, trying to explain to you what we feel this bill is trying to do.
If I could characterize it this way -- I do believe that Mr Duignan would not disagree with it as an accurate characterization, but of course, he will tell me if I'm wrong after I've done it -- I would suggest that this bill has three real sections in it which have the following effect.
The first section says that notwithstanding seven and a half years of due process by RSI, through the legislated environmental and planning processes of this province, and the expenditure already of some $6.5 million in going through that process, this Legislature, in its wisdom, ought to arbitrarily stop the judicial process, terminate the application, put a halt to it and say it's over and done with, it's killed, to use Mr Duignan's words.
In my review, it's somewhat ironic that we're appearing before the administration of justice committee because surely that would be a denial of natural justice in its baldest terms. Nevertheless, I'll come back to the individual sections, but that would be my characterization of the first section of the bill.
The second section says that if you own property anywhere within the Niagara Escarpment plan and you have any thoughts or you might ever have any thoughts about allowing your land to be used for a landfill or for waste management facilities, don't even think of it, don't dream about it. It's out of bounds no matter where your land is, no matter what the merits of it may be. Again, I'll come back to that one in a moment in discussing the three sections.
The third section would say something like, "Notwithstanding that the province has established waste management systems which are designed and are effective, not only in preserving the environment but in enhancing it, for the purposes of the Niagara Escarpment or those lands within the Niagara Escarpment plan, such waste management systems shall not be permitted to exist and the functions which they carry out for the people of the region must be carried out off the escarpment." I'm not here to fight the battle of section 3, because time doesn't permit that and it's not really relevant to section 1, which I am here to dialogue with you on.
I do point out to you, and I think many of the delegations have pointed out, and Mr Duignan's amendment attempts to address, the problems. I simply say this about section 3: If you're going to say in a bill, "You can't have waste management systems on the escarpment," but in a separate section say, "Notwithstanding that, you can have them," why mention waste management systems at all? Why not just delete reference to waste management systems from the bill? However, that's really just a gratuitous comment for you because I would like to you direct your thoughts, in relation to the RSI application, to section 1 of the bill.
In discussing section 1 with you, I will be asking you take into account that many of the points I make relate equally well to section 2, the one that says people who have land but are not now in the process of developing landfill can't do it in the future. Yesterday I think it was Mr Stockwell who characterized this bill in relation to those land owners as downzoning and I think he correctly did that.
Downzoning is a concept that is not well liked by anyone who owns land, and there are certain legal implications attached to a governmental body taking action which has that effect. I'll be happy to comment on the legal consequences. They are certainly not, in my interpretation of the law, consistent with the gentleman from the Canadian Environmental Law Association who spoke about it yesterday. I've had some considerable experience in the field, I suggest a lot more than he has, just by virtue of the fact that I've been practising in the field for 35 years.
Nevertheless, I want to come back to section 1, the section which Mr Duignan very clearly and very honestly -- we give Mr Duignan 150% for candour and straightforwardness. Our brief suggests in the opening pages that by giving copies of some press releases he has been open and straightforward about it from the start. Bill 62 is designed and is aimed to kill the RSI landfill. If the RSI landfill application were not at the stage it is currently at in the judicial process, Bill 62 would not be required.
It is true that it has a motherhood content to it that says that this is good for the whole of the escarpment, we must stop it in the whole of the escarpment, but I think Mr Duignan would be fair in saying -- and his remarks a few minutes ago which treated RSI, I think, with some disdain show that he has no confidence in and no respect for RSI and what it is trying to do and that his bill is designed to stop the process in its tracks.
What is the function of a legislative body in dealing with judicial process? Perhaps it's rhetorical to be asking that to the administration of justice committee, but it seems to me that this committee would want to uphold the tenets of natural justice in this province above all else.
If Mr Duignan's bill was consistent with government policy and was, as he says and as the gentleman from the environmental law association said, designed to close a loophole, then that might make some sense. But I suggest to you all with the greatest respect that there's no loophole being closed by this bill. The loophole doesn't exist. The process is there. It allows this procedure to be carried on, and because it does, Mr Duignan wants to stop it in this circuitous and simplistic way and, in my respectful submission, in this improper way.
Let me tell you for a few moments what the policies of this province have been for a number of years in relation to the RSI application. I'll interweave into this recitation the facts that relate to the Niagara Escarpment Commission, which played a very big part in the development of that policy.
We begin with the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act itself, which is a creation of this province. It's a policy statement, it's a very worthwhile document and its goals and objectives have already been espoused to you by other delegates. There's no suggestion by our side that this isn't an admirable policy for the province to have. RSI has no intention of flouting or in any way taking away from the goals and objectives of the Niagara Escarpment Commission. I shouldn't say the "commission," but the "plan," because the commission and the plan don't necessarily coincide on their goals and objectives.
In 1989, you heard the chairman of the commission say yesterday, NEPA 52 was enacted. This is an amendment to the Niagara Escarpment plan, which was designed at the time, quite honestly and openly, to prevent landfills from occurring on the escarpment. There was a protracted series of public hearings and eventually a report given to the cabinet and the cabinet deliberated on it and eventually came down with a decision.
It's appendix E to our brief and I would ask you to please read it when you have the moment, but I do want to just read the first page of a press release issued by the government at the time when the Honourable Ruth Grier was the minister. Contrary to the wishes of the Niagara Escarpment Commission that landfills be precluded, this is what the government said in relation to NEPA 52:
"Ontario has tighter controls on waste disposal in the Niagara Escarpment area as a result of a provincial cabinet decision yesterday to amend the Niagara Escarpment plan.
"References to landfills and related operations formerly permitted under a definition for `utility' are deleted from the plan."
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I'm going to emphasize the following words:
"Cabinet's decision effectively requires landfill proposals to undergo a rigorous plan amendment process for new or expanded waste disposal operations or if there is a change in the type of material being disposed of.
"Landfill sites approved prior to cabinet's decision are not affected, nor are proposals for new or expanded waste sites that are already being processed. As well, small-scale recycling, composting and waste transfer facilities serving local communities continue to be permitted."
So it is clear that while NEPA 52 was hoped by the commission to prevent landfills, the cabinet decided the opposite. It simply said, "We're tightening up the proposals, there must be a plan amendment before it can be done and of course you must go through all the processes."
Then the next thing was, coincidental with that, the environmental assessment procedures of RSI were proceeding, and during those, of course, there was very strong opposition voiced and everyone tried to get the bill killed.
There is a section in the Environmental Assessment Act called section 11, which most of you may or may not have heard of or at least understand and which gives the minister the power to kill, effectively, a proposal that is the subject of environmental assessment if she feels it's appropriate to do that. In spite of all the lobbying that went on at the time, the minister, to her credit, determined in November 1991 that this would not be the case with the RSI application and that it should go forward and the environmental assessment should be subjected to a government review.
It was during the next six months. During that time the opponents still fought very hard, through a letter-writing and lobbying campaign with the minister and the government, to bring section 11 into play and to kill the proposal. To the government's credit, that was not done, and in March the government notified the joint board that the matter was to proceed.
I'll skip over the procedures that have happened since then, because I'm happy to answer them in questions, and simply come to the next step which was taken to try kill this proposal by the Niagara Escarpment Commission and the others opposed to it. That was to ask the minister to declare the proposal, that is, the proposal to amend the Niagara Escarpment plan which is an integral part of the procedure, frivolous and vexatious. There is a section of the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act that permits that, and the commission in its wisdom decided this was the way to go. Again to the credit of the minister and this government, that proposal was rebuffed and it was not considered to be frivolous and vexatious.
We come down to the point today where we're about to be able to have the matter finally tried on its merits by a new joint board -- and again, if you want explanation of why there was an old joint board and a new joint board, I'll be happy to give that. The fact is, however, that there is a joint board duly constituted under the Consolidated Hearings Act waiting to hear this matter.
The reason it isn't hearing it right now is that the original joint board had determined that some of the applications that RSI had made were not in satisfactory form to be considered by the board. Since that time we've been putting those applications into form and we expect to be ready for a preliminary hearing before a joint board later this spring. That is why the panic is here from Mr Duignan and his supporters, that all of a sudden we're about to get heard on the merits and that can't be allowed to happen.
There are three matters I want particularly to draw your attention to in these remarks that relate to that property that is shown up on the board there, on the easel.
We've heard much, you've heard much and we agree with all of the laudable comments about the pristine conditions of the Niagara Escarpment and the need to preserve them. All of us, however, have our warts, and the Acton quarry is clearly a wart on the Niagara Escarpment.
That picture was taken in 1987. Since then, the rest of the property has been excavated and you have 160 acres of hole in the ground with jagged rock walls 100 feet high, and it is not a pretty sight. It has to be dealt with and our proposal proposes to restore it to its natural condition over a period of time. Obviously, it takes time.
The opponents should understand that this is not an anomaly of history. This quarry is being enlarged by the procedures of the province of Ontario today and will continue to be, and the land to the south of it will be opened up and enlarged. So it has to be dealt with. We're not dealing with a loophole; we're dealing with a real fact, a scar that must be dealt with. We believe that when we're given the chance to have a hearing and to put all of the matters before the board, the board will then decide whether or not this is an appropriate condition.
The biggest concern expressed in all of the hype that has been put before you and put in the press and put to the minister and everyone else is that this is a water problem, that this is situated on fractured dolomite or limestone, and everybody knows that limestone carries water and this is going to pollute the water systems.
If you'll take the trouble to read our submission, you will see that there are quotes taken directly from the government review of the environmental assessment, and they say not equivocally, they say unequivocally the ministry is satisfied that the concerns about groundwater interference are not well founded, that there is not a problem, the government policy is met and this matter should be heard by a board.
So all of the speakers who have come to you and said with the best of intentions and undoubtedly in good faith, "Everybody knows that this is a disaster waiting to happen," are simply not being fair to the facts. An environmentalists' hearing that we're about to have before a joint board is going to encompass about nine months of time. I couldn't possibly explain to you in five or 10 minutes all the things that will be said there that will either make the project fly or, if it doesn't deserve to fly, make it sink.
The second thing, and I've already alluded to it, is the fact that this is supposed to be closing a loophole. I would hope that you, as members of the justice committee, would all recognize there's no loophole in the present legislation. This legislation, this bill, if it's permitted to go ahead, will be stopping the judicial process by a piece of legislation and, in my view, that would be unprecedented in this province.
The third objection that is made to it by Mr Duignan and his supporters is that it would create a dangerous precedent. Well, I don't know whether any of you know it, but this is the only pending landfill application now in process on the escarpment. To allow it to proceed to its natural conclusion, whatever that might be, is hardly creating a precedent.
Therefore, for you at the very least to provide an amendment to your bill, if you decide the bill has merit to go ahead, that would grandfather this one application is the way that the Legislature has traditionally treated matters of this nature by allowing those in the mill, as the courts call it, to continue in the mill and let the judicial process determine where they are. To do otherwise would be to expropriate their rights, if you want to use a trite phrase, without any remedy being available to them. Let me come back to that one point and then I'll stop because I see that I've used 20 minutes.
The downzoning of property occurs, if it's done by legislation, where a piece of legislation like the parkway belt legislation, with which you will all be at least somewhat familiar, takes away the rights of owners of land to certain uses that they might previously have had. The courts have said that in appropriate circumstances that can happen without compensation.
Those are rights, and if you look at all the cases, in spite of what my learned colleague said, those are cases where there were no plans under way, no procedures. People just held land that they thought they were going to be able to do something with in the future and the province in its wisdom said no. That would be the situation applying to other land owners on the escarpment who may want to use their lands for landfills but haven't started any procedure because they don't have anybody interested in doing it at this time.
That's not the situation, with the greatest of respect, with the RSI application. This has been in the mill seven and a half years at an expenditure of $6.5 million, and a lot more still to be spent. We're not asking you to be sympathetic to us for having spent that money. It's a risk that business takes, but it's a risk that we were entitled to take. We followed all the right procedures, we're about to be heard by a court and we certainly hope you will not deprive us of that right at this stage.
Finally, one point that Mr Duignan made in his criticism of RSI in his questioning of Ms Cornfield: The RSI does not have at the present time any American directors or owners. The information he has is old. We had an American owner that is out of it and they're now Ontario owners. There's one director resident outside of Ontario and he happens to choose to live in British Columbia.
I'd be happy to answer any other questions you have, but there's one other point I must mention. In the proposed amendment there's an exoneration clause -- it's the last clause at the bottom of the page -- which I find to be totally offensive and unprecedented. It purports to exonerate everybody, including the members of the Legislature and the crown, from any liability for offending the rights of private citizens of this province.
I've been practising for 35 years and I can tell you without hesitation that there has never been, to my knowledge, a piece of legislation like that and I would suggest to you that it is totally inappropriate. We would now welcome the opportunity to answer any questions or dialogue with you.
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Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): I find your presentation interesting and thought-provoking. Having a leaking landfill site in my own riding, and that is in the escarpment, I guess I have some more sympathies with Mr Duignan than I do with your application.
I am somewhat concerned with, as you say, downzoning. You have been working with this now, as you say, for seven and a half years, and yet shall we say with changes in governments, changes in philosophy, I would think that in light of what was happening with clause 52 there was some hint given to you that probably the concerns of this government, in particular over the last three and a half years, probably deviated somewhat from the policies of previous governments and that the kind of application that you were putting forward might not find the same favour as it might have when our landfill in St Catharines got built, which was in 1976.
Mr Donald Mills: Would you like me to comment?
Ms Haeck: Sure.
Mr Donald Mills: I think you raise a very good point. You have an older landfill that was created at a time when the restrictions that now prevail and the technology that now is available were not available, and therefore you apparently have a problem in St Catharines. It can be dealt with and I'm sure it will be dealt with because people like you will make sure that happens.
In the present environment, however, what this government in particular can be praised for doing is, it has tightened up, as the press release said, the requirements, and now the strictures that apply to the establishment of the landfill are so tight that unless you can establish to the satisfaction not just of the ministry but the joint board after the ministry that all of these things are met and the environment is not going to be harmed, you just don't get approval. So it's a terribly great risk that a proponent takes in going through the process.
All I'm saying is that we respect the new criteria that apply. When our proposal gets heard by the joint board, all the opponents will get the chance to see that state-of-the-art technology is being applied here which will enhance the environment, not detract from the environment, and I say that in all sincerity. But I can't give it to you here because we don't have time. We will get our chance to show that in the hearing, and if we can't show it we'll be out of luck.
Mr Duignan: On a point of order, Mr Chair: The witness raised the issue that I hadn't given correct information with regard to the directors of RSI. My information is as of February 4 and based on a filing they made October 22, 1993. I suggest that if there has been a change in directorship, they certainly haven't complied with the Corporations Information Act and filed those changes.
Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West): I may very well vote in favour of Bill 62 and whatever amendments come forward, but I am concerned about the process, about fairness and about equity. Indeed, we in the committee are dealing with your particular application as it affects your rights right now, and apparently nobody else has -- at the present time we have a private member's bill coming forward. This is a very significant issue, covering a lot of communities in the province. My question is, first, why is it a private member's bill and not a government bill?
Second, the clerk and the researcher have indicated to me that they do not have on record at the present time any indication as to whether or not the Ministry of Environment and Energy supports or opposes this bill, and that concerns me. If there is something in writing concerning the ministry's position, it should be part of the record. We are sitting here virtually as a court and we don't have a complete record and that bothers me immensely.
I want to ask Mr Mills whether he has anything in his possession, or whether his client has anything in his possession, which indicates whether or not the ministry supports Bill 62 or opposes Bill 62, whether or not you know anything about that part of the issue, because as you said, there is a process for filing briefs, submissions etc. We're sitting here as a court, we're entitled to have all the evidence and all the information.
It's highly unusual for this significant legislation to be a private member's bill and not a government bill. I want to know where the government sits, I want to know whether there's anything on record and I want to know, if there is nothing on record, can we get something on record by noon tomorrow? But I'd like to know your interpretation of the equity of not having that information on the record.
Mr Donald Mills: First, in direct answer to that question, Mr Chiarelli, we agree that it's totally unfair for Mr Duignan to make the statement that the ministry supports this, when our information is the very opposite. We don't have anything in writing and I suspect Mr Duignan doesn't have anything in writing. The minister has certainly been represented by his staff at these hearings, but the staff aren't empowered, I'm sure, to speak to the committee, and I think it's most unfair that you would be asked to make a determination without knowing where the ministry stands.
We should have been told, I believe, as we were verbally, where the ministry stands. The best I can give you, sir, is that it's our understanding that the ministry does not support the bill.
Now, I can go a step further than that and say that in the materials we have filed -- and if you'll take the trouble to read our submission, you'll see -- we make reference to decisions made by the ministry, statements made by the ministry which are totally inconsistent with support of this bill.
Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): I agree with Mr Chiarelli with respect to the concerns he has outlined, not the least of which, of course, is the ministry position.
The member who sponsored this bill has told us at this committee at least once, and in the past, that there's ministry support, and from what I've read of the affidavits put before us, it just seems in the past two years that, categorically, the Ministry of Environment and Energy has gone out of its way to say, "We're going to allow this process to carry on."
I guess I'm very frustrated having all these constituents down here from the member's riding whom he has whipped up, I can understand why, there's very real concern in the riding. But as far as I can tell, there's no ministry support. There's an amendment -- I don't know if we have it yet; I came in late -- the amendment that Mr Duignan offered up yesterday, the proposed amendment, that the proponents of the landfill haven't seen, nor have the residents seen. We're sitting here today with contrary positions outlined by the ministry officials. You know, this is getting to be really a bad scene.
Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): Mr Chairman, does he have a question?
Mr Stockwell: Well, I may well have a question. If you want to hear my question, I'll try and sum up, sir. I'm sorry if I've taken too much time.
The Chair: That's the point here. We have limited --
Mr Chiarelli: Is this a kangaroo court?
The Chair: Go ahead, Mr Stockwell. We're limited in time, but please continue.
Mr Perruzza: Do your job --
The Chair: Mr Perruzza, it's not helpful. Mr Stockwell, we're limited in time. Please direct yourself as best you can.
Mr Stockwell: I understand that, and I apologize for taking the time, Mr Chair, but it is very frustrating sitting here trying to get a position from a government that won't give us a position on a private member's bill that apparently, from the documents, it doesn't support, bringing in all kinds of people from this riding, boosting up their hopes, when I'm not sure that the government even supports this member's bill.
All I can ask the deputant is, from your discussions, meetings, reports, has anyone told you at any time that the government is supporting this private member's bill, or is it just in the private member's head that he thinks the government is supporting this bill?
Mr Donald Mills: All of the discussions we've had, at all of the levels we have had them, have indicated to us this is not government business; this is not a bill which the government is prepared to support. We were naturally concerned when the matter got past second reading stage to committee; it's very unusual for a private member's bill to do that. It has been appropriate for it to happen because it has given everybody a chance to air their views, but in the final analysis, it shouldn't be the automatic pre-emptor to a third reading.
So the answer to your question is, we have every indication that this is not government business and will not be supported as government business, but it's all verbal.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Mills and Mr Graziani, for coming today.
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Mr Offer: Point of order. Point of privilege.
The Chair: I'll take the point of order.
Mr Offer: There have been some discussions which have just been carried on that deal with whether the ministry does or does not, whether the minister does or does not support this bill. The reason it is a point of privilege is that the first question that I asked in this hearing was to the sponsoring member. That was the question, does the ministry support this particular piece of legislation? The member responded in the affirmative, and we have to know what the situation is now --
Mr Perruzza: I'd like to speak to that.
The Chair: No, I'm sorry. I won't take the debate on this. This is not a point of privilege. I understand the questions that members are raising. At the appropriate moment, Mr Duignan, you can --
Interjection.
The Chair: It is not a point of privilege.
Mr Stockwell: Did he mislead the committee?
Mr Offer: He made a statement on Hansard.
The Chair: That is not a point of privilege.
Mr Stockwell: It is a point of privilege. Did the member mislead the committee when he told us there was government support?
The Chair: Mr Stockwell, that is not a point of privilege, nor a point of order.
Mr Stockwell: I was misled as a member --
The Chair: Mr Stockwell, we understand the comment you've made and that Mr Offer has made. I'm going to move on to the next deputant. Mr Duignan will have an opportunity to make his comments as we go along, because I don't want to delay the deputants. We will have the time to discuss the other matter.
Mr Duignan: I simply want an opportunity to challenge the allegations made by some members here.
The Chair: You will. I will do that.
Interjections.
The Chair: Mr Duignan, hold on, please. Mr Stockwell, it's not helpful.
Mr Stockwell: It would be a lot easier if you'd just show us the letter. Then we could move on.
Mr Perruzza: All you're doing is raising questions, innuendos, clouds.
The Chair: Hold on. No, I'm not taking any discussion on this.
Interjection.
Mr Stockwell: I would ask the member to withdraw.
The Chair: He doesn't have to withdraw in committee. Members can say all sorts of idiotic things at times.
ECOLOGY AWARENESS GROUP, LANDSCAPE AND ENVIRONMENT
The Chair: Next we have Ecology Awareness Group, Landscape and Environment, EAGLE, Mr Giuseppe Gori. Mr Gori, we're running out of time. You've seen the process. Please begin any time you're ready.
Mr Giuseppe Gori: I will be very brief. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak in front of you. I would like first of all to congratulate Mr Duignan for proposing this bill.
My name is Giuseppe Gori. I represent a group of citizens called EAGLE, Ecology Awareness Group, Landscape and Environment. EAGLE is a group of residents in the Halton section of the Niagara Escarpment area. We are very concerned about preserving the natural environment in that area, specifically regarding the surface waters, the environmentally sensitive areas -- there is ESA 28 and ESA 29 -- and the underground water as well. We are also concerned with those activities which by their very nature would disrupt and destroy the natural environment and irreparably change the natural landscape of the escarpment.
The Niagara Escarpment, because of its rock formations, its underground waters, its surface waters and important environmentally sensitive areas, has been recognized as a unique area in Ontario, and indeed in Canada, by the United Nations.
I am sure that you know and that you have enough information about the rock formations and about the environmentally sensitive areas. I don't have the time to go into technical details here. I'm sure everybody here is aware of the importance of this information, so I'll skip the technical details.
I would like to give you a little bit of historical perspective and ask you to consider the intent of this bill with respect to what the intent was in the past with respect to legislation that has been proposed in the past.
The Niagara Escarpment, this strip of land, is actually quite narrow. In some areas it's only about one mile wide. Several efforts have been done in the past to protect this strip of land from large developments which would disrupt it and which usually have no specific need to be located in this particular strip of land.
Since 1968 the Ontario government has recognized the uniqueness of the escarpment face and its scenic value and tried to preserve the Niagara Escarpment and the natural aspects of this area. There was a study commissioned, probably around 1967, which was completed in June 1968. It was the Niagara Escarpment Study: Conservation and Recreation Report. This study recommended that "special consideration should be given to ensuring the preservation of the escarpment features."
In 1970 the Niagara Escarpment Protection Act was passed, which specifically defined this strip of land as a "protected zone." More recently, in 1980, the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act was unanimously passed. The purpose of this act was "to provide for the maintenance of the Niagara Escarpment and land in its vicinity substantially as a continuous natural environment, and to ensure that only such development occurs as is compatible with that natural environment." That's section 2.
This act also confirmed the mandates of the Niagara Escarpment Commission, including the purpose of completing the Niagara Escarpment plan with specific objectives, including the following: "to maintain and enhance the quality and character of natural streams and water supplies" and "to ensure that all new development is compatible with the purpose of this act as expressed in section 2," the section we just quoted above.
The Niagara Escarpment Commission, in accordance with that mandate, has since amended the Niagara Escarpment plan to specifically state that no waste disposal should occur on the escarpment.
Now, you probably have heard enough from other presentations about possible damage of waste disposals in this kind of rock formation and, again, I don't want to go into those technical details. You probably have enough information from other presentations.
Bill 62, in accordance with the purpose of the above acts and in accordance with the direction and recommendations of the Niagara Escarpment Commission, entrenches years of efforts into law by amending the Environmental Protection Act.
As a business person, I am particularly concerned about undue government regulation and interference with free enterprise. However, government must interfere where private interests would go against the interests of the public at large for the only reason of maximizing their own profit.
In other words, what I'm saying is that government should do what the people themselves cannot do or what private corporations cannot do or will not do. However, it must take action when the above conditions do not apply. In this case, the private interests of waste disposal are in direct conflict with the interests of the people. The government must take action.
Through this bill, by setting a rule prohibiting waste disposal across all of the escarpment, no particular private interests would be specifically targeted, and future generations would profit by inheriting from this generation an area where people and the environment did gracefully coexist.
It is with great relief that we welcome Bill 62. We would like to encourage the members of all parties to support this bill and to do one action today that will protect this area from exploitation for generations to come.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I don't have very many questions, save as to this: You come before the committee in full support of Bill 62, and I'm wondering if you could share with the committee whether you've seen the amendment as suggested by the member.
Mr Gori: Yes, I've seen the amendment. I did not have the time to study it in detail. However, what I realize is that the amendment makes a little more strict the regulation. The intent, to me, is not changed. The intent of the bill is not changed by this amendment. Again, from what I understand, and it's a superficial review, I do not see anything in the amendment that goes against the intent of the bill.
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Mr Offer: For myself, it's hard for me to reconcile some of the issues here. I'm hopeful that you and others will be able to help me through on this, because you've spoken quite directly about Bill 62 and the need to prohibit all sites and systems on the escarpment. I understand why you're saying that, but then the amendment does allow the type of things that you in your main presentation speak against.
It seems to me, as we work through the bill and move into the clause-by-clause, I will want to know your position as to whether it is, in your opinion, permissible on the Niagara Escarpment to have new transfer stations, new recycling facilities and new composting sites; whether it will be permissible on the escarpment, in your opinion, to deal with, in altered form, the use/operation of an existing waste disposal site.
Mr Gori: It's difficult to deal with existing situations. Existing situations have acquired certain rights and you cannot close them down immediately from one day to the next. As far as new disposal sites, we would be completely against it, and as far as recycling and transfer stations, I don't think there is any particular reason why they would have to be located specifically in that strip. However, I do not know whether legally it is possible to prevent this kind of situation, especially when it is a temporary situation.
Our preference I guess would be no all the way, but in certain cases, the Niagara Escarpment plan allows, for example, for quarrying, for other particular developments, for private houses to be built, for certain ponds to be allowed, for farm purposes and so on and so forth. I'm not here with the experience or the expertise to debate any single particular development in the escarpment, but the intent of this bill is to prohibit those large developments which would change the natural nature of the escarpment, which would interfere with the environmentally sensitive areas, which would change the landscape for ever.
Mr Offer: My final question: Outside the issue of landfill sites, you are content with the protections afforded to development in, on and around the Niagara Escarpment as given by the Niagara Escarpment Commission and the Environmental Assessment Act or the Environmental Protection Act, but you are not content with that process and protections by those bodies in so far as landfill sites are concerned.
Mr Gori: I'm not content with the situation where the Niagara Escarpment Commission does not have the power to enforce its own regulations. The Niagara Escarpment plan is not entrenched into law. That's why I think this bill is necessary, because without Bill 62 the Niagara Escarpment Commission cannot enforce its Niagara Escarpment plan.
Mr Murdoch: Just to carry on with that, that's not right. The Niagara Escarpment plan is law. So you certainly aren't right there, and I guess maybe you don't understand the act. The Niagara Escarpment plan is an act; it's a law. It's not a policy statement of the province; it's an act. So they do have the right to enforce their law.
Mr Gori: I'm not a lawyer, but the way I understand it is that there is an act called the Niagara Escarpment act which then provides for the creation and the maintenance of a commission which has as its mandate what is called the Niagara Escarpment plan.
Mr Murdoch: That's right.
Mr Gori: Now, whether the Niagara Escarpment plan itself is law, I don't know.
Mr Murdoch: It is. So they don't need another act.
I was going to reflect on what Steven said, which is that you're not content with the way the system is set up now to get a landfill site. You mentioned that you weren't content with that. Is that right?
Mr Gori: I'm not sure I understand your reference to landfill site.
Mr Murdoch: There is a process set up in the province now that people have to go through if they want to obtain a landfill site. I understand RSI has done that, but you're not happy with it.
Mr Gori: I understand. My presentation stresses the fact that this area is a unique area and it's a special area and it should specially be protected. So the normal process of applying for a landfill should continue and is valid across Ontario, but certainly wouldn't be valid right here in this block or in downtown Toronto or in special areas where these things should not be done.
Mr Murdoch: In the area you're talking about, there is only, as you mentioned, in some places a mile at the most. Do you realize, once it leaves that area and gets up past Dufferin county, into Grey and Bruce counties, there are three and four miles and it's not all rock face, but if a bill like this goes through, it affects the whole area?
Mr Gori: Yes, but the reason why in certain areas it's larger is specifically because those features of the escarpment have been recognized for a large area. So I'm very much prepared to support this for all of that planning and plan area that has been identified to have those specific features.
Mr Murdoch: Obviously, you haven't travelled the whole escarpment then, because you're totally incorrect when you say that. In our area, as I said, it goes in some places for three or four miles and the rock face or the natural area is two or three miles away. So it does not cover it all. The plan has never been designed right. This bill covers the whole plan, so that's improper.
Mr Gori: What you're saying is that the plan area has not been correctly identified.
Mr Murdoch: Certainly it hasn't.
Mr Gori: In that case, the best thing to do is to issue an amendment to the Niagara Escarpment plan to remove those areas from the plan.
Mr Murdoch: You could do that or you could take bills like this and not adopt them, because they are doing something that isn't proper to begin with.
Mr Gori: No. I don't think that's the correct situation. This bill is correct. If you are stating that the area in some cases does not have the features that make it part of the plan, then the correct action is to revise that plan and amend it.
Mr Murdoch: You're going backwards.
Mr Stockwell: I listened with great interest that you don't believe in government overinvolving itself in private citizens' and business capacity. You believe that government should be there to facilitate, and as a free-enterprise person, a private business person, you can see the problems with government when it gets too involved.
If you've read the draft, what do you think, as the free-enterprise-thinking, private business person that you are, about subsection 1(2), which says no matter how badly we treat somebody, no matter how much we cost them, no matter how wrong we are, the caveat, the end phrase is, "You can't sue us"? As a private free-enterprise business person, what do you think of that clause?
Mr Gori: I would say yes, I agree with you. It's not a particularly reassuring statement.
Mr Murdoch: It makes you think something's wrong, doesn't it?
Mr Gori: If that's the answer you wanted, as a private citizen.
Mr Stockwell: I just want the answer that you want to give, that's all.
Ms Haeck: If I can pursue that for a minute, the fact is that you on the one hand have some concern about the clause that Mr Stockwell raised, but by the same token you indicated that you fully support the concept of "for the betterment of all" legislation coming forward relating to the health and wellbeing of not only yourself but the people who live within the escarpment lands, because of the possible environmental hazards associated with a landfill site. I did hear you correctly in that, did I not?
Mr Gori: You put a lot of words in my mouth.
Mr Stockwell: Get used to it.
Ms Haeck: Did I get the concept at least right?
Mr Gori: The intent I guess is correct, yes.
Ms Haeck: The intent of Mr Duignan's bill, one which I support in relation to the health and wellbeing of a lot of citizens in my area, because I don't live adjacent to an existing landfill site that is polluting the lives and properties of people who live adjacent to that landfill site. Seeing the potential for those hazards, you would agree with the overall intent of Mr Duignan's bill?
Mr Gori: That's correct.
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Mr Duignan: Just very briefly, whereabouts is your house in relation to the quarry?
Mr Gori: It's within the corner of influence.
Mr Duignan: I think you're actually the last house prior to the quarry site.
Mr Gori: It's the second-last house.
Mr Murdoch: Now we know why he's upset.
Mr Duignan: So would I be.
Mr Perruzza: Now you know why he's upset, that makes it all right?
Mr Duignan: I know your passion for saving the escarpment, because you're in the process of moving a number of amendments to the Niagara Escarpment plan act. Could you tell me about your latest proposal that you're trying to get approved?
Mr Gori: Yes. Thank you, Mr Duignan, for giving me the opportunity. I would love to discuss in more detail some of the issues related to quarrying, for example, but I have initiated two amendments to the escarpment. Both of them are still going through the process. I believe the first one is four years old. The second one, the last one that you mentioned, tries to include in the Niagara Escarpment plan area, I don't remember the exact figure but approximately 2,000 acres that are now not within that area, for the same purpose, for protection.
Specifically, in that area there are several wetlands identified by the region of Halton. Part of ESA 28 is also contained in that area. More specifically, there is a 100-acre untouched piece of land that is just south of the quarry. I believe it's the property of the quarry, United Aggregates. That part is also proposed to be included as natural area in the Niagara Escarpment plan area.
The Chair: We're out of time, Mr Duignan. Mr Gori, thank you for coming today.
Mr Stockwell: Did you get the letter?
The Chair: Mr Gori, right now Mr Stockwell is asking another question. Mr Duignan, do you want to respond to those questions that were raised at this time, before the next deputant?
Mr Duignan: First of all, as you know, I don't need to respond to allegations made by RSI or indeed by the member. However, I do have the support of my colleagues; otherwise this particular Bill 62 would not be going to public hearings at this particular point in time.
Mr Offer: On a point of order, Mr Chair: On the response made by Mr Duignan, when this committee opened at 1:30 yesterday afternoon, the first deputation was by the member. You will then recall there was an opportunity for questions by opposition parties.
As the Environment critic for my party, the first question I asked Mr Duignan was whether the ministry and the Minister of Environment and Energy support this piece of legislation. Hansard will show Mr Duignan responded in the affirmative. He said yes. That is somewhat different than what he has said now.
Mr Duignan: That's not a point of order, Mr Chair. Maybe you'll give me an opportunity to finish what I have to say.
The Chair: Mr Offer, it is not a point of order. I'm allowing you to make your statement, but it will not go on. I will not allow this dialogue to go on and on. It is not a point of order, but you have made your point.
Mr Offer: Then let me ask the question of the member once more, whether he wishes to respond or not.
The Chair: That's fine. I will allow a few minutes.
Mr Offer: Does the minister and the Ministry of the Environment support this piece of legislation?
Mr Duignan: It's nice to know that actually one can finish making one's statement before being interrupted. The member who asked the question, Mr Offer, perhaps misunderstood my response to the question about MOEE support for my bill. What I meant in answering yes was that MOEE has been supportive in assisting me to improve my bill. For example, they helped me draft --
Mr Stockwell: Oh, please. Give me a break, Noel. Get a grip.
Mr Duignan: On a point of order here, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Mr Stockwell, would you allow him to finish his statement.
Mr Stockwell: Move on. Do they support your bill?
The Chair: Mr Stockwell, I would like the member to complete the statement, and then we can move on to the next deputant.
Mr Perruzza: A point of order.
The Chair: Not necessary, Mr Perruzza, really.
Mr Perruzza: I do have a point of order.
The Chair: Points of order are usually on process.
Mr Perruzza: It is process, though.
The Chair: Procedural process.
Mr Perruzza: Procedural, yes.
Mr Duignan: Again, as I said, they helped me write my amendment and they have basically approved my particular amendment. I did not say at any time that I have a written letter of support from the ministry but rather that MOEE has been supportive of my efforts to make this a good piece of legislation. I also would be extremely surprised if Mr Mills's statement was accurate when he stated that MOEE staff have apparently stated unequivocally that they do not support the bill. That is not the case at all.
Mr Stockwell: Do they support it?
Mr Duignan: I would just like to correct the record on those two issues.
Mr Perruzza: A point of order.
The Chair: Mr Perruzza on a point of order.
Mr Perruzza: I'm not understanding this. I'll tell you why I'm not understanding it. It's to do with the procedure, quite frankly. We're here, right? This bill got referred here by the Legislature, by the House. We're here to do a job, and that is to review this, listen to people, review the legislation, go through the legislation clause by clause.
Then it will be reported back to the House, and then at that point there will be another vote. That's the way laws have always been made in this province and quite frankly in this country, right? We're not deviating from that at all. In fact that process is moving right along.
The Chair: Thank you. It's not a point of order.
Mr Perruzza: What's their point?
The Chair: It's not a point of order, but I think you made the point.
Mr Stockwell: I want my point of privilege now. I asked, I've been patient, I want my point of privilege.
The Chair: A point of privilege.
Mr Stockwell: In no uncertain terms, the member I believe has misled this committee. The question was put directly and I asked for a ruling. The question was put directly: Does the Ministry of Environment support this piece of legislation? The member answered, not, "Yes, they supported me in holding the pen while I wrote it," not "Yes, they supported me when I got a legal opinion," he said, "Yes, they support this piece of legislation."
Now it's come to our attention in the second day of public hearings on this piece of legislation that in fact maybe they don't support this piece of legislation. He has no supporting information to suggest they support it other than, "They helped me write it."
Mr Perruzza: So what are you suggesting?
The Chair: Mr Perruzza, please.
Mr Stockwell: I ask you, Mr Chair. I believe the member has knowingly misled this committee into believing the ministry supports his piece of legislation when there is nothing on the record that says so.
The Chair: Thank you for the point.
Mr Gary Malkowski (York East): A point of privilege.
The Chair: Hold on, please. We cannot censure individuals for things they say in committee as we can in the Legislature.
Mr Murdoch: Really?
The Chair: We can't. Members can say some extraordinarily crazy things. The member raises a point of privilege. It is not a point of privilege. You made a statement as to your point of view about what he said. He's now replied on that point about what he was talking about with respect to the ministry's view or support or otherwise.
Mr Stockwell: Okay.
The Chair: So we don't have a point of privilege. The points have been made on the other side. Mr Duignan has made his points; you've made yours. Unless there is any additional information to be added --
Mr Duignan: On the same point, Mr Chair: I take great offence at what the member has said. I believe he has used unparliamentary language and I ask him to withdraw that.
Mr Stockwell: Which one?
Mr Duignan: "Misled."
The Chair: Mr Duignan, you have made your point quite clearly. He's made his point. We can't force members to withdraw statements they have made in committee. All I'm trying to point out is that you've made your statements on the record and he has made his. I want to move on to the next deputant.
Mr Malkowski: Mr Chair, just a point of privilege, if I may: I'm finding this conversation and this process a little offensive to the speakers who've come here today to present. Let the speakers finish with their presentations and let's get on. We can debate this ourselves at some other point.
Mr Offer: Prior to the deputants coming, I'm going to be making a motion to hopefully clarify this matter. Would you like it to be heard now?
The Chair: I would rather not. I'd rather hear this next presentation.
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TOWN OF MILTON
The Chair: Welcome to this committee. You have seen that we're an active committee, active legislative members, and you know the process. Please begin any time you're ready.
Mr Gordon Krantz: I'm Gord Krantz, mayor of the town of Milton. On my right-hand side is Mel Iovio, planning director, and on my left is David Hipgrave, CAO for the town of Milton. We do have a document that's hopefully been passed around, and for the most part we will be reading from that document. It is our intention to respond to anything technical by Mr Iovio, anything financial by Mr Hipgrave and anything in general by myself. Thank you again for hearing from us.
The town of Milton is before you this morning to lend its full support to Bill 62 for three major reasons:
(1) Milton relies on a groundwater source for its public water supply. Therefore, protection of this valuable resource from contamination by landfill sites is paramount.
(2) Milton recognizes the Niagara Escarpment as a unique physical feature worthy of its designation as a biosphere reserve. Landfills are an incompatible use of this area.
(3) The cost to defend these principles through a Niagara Escarpment plan amendment process is getting beyond our financial capabilities to bear.
On June 5, 1989, council supported Niagara Escarpment plan amendment 52, and on May 19, 1993, in response to a proposal by MPP Noel Duignan to table private member's Bill 62, council passed the following resolution. It was resolution 777-93 and it was moved by Councillor J. Challinor and seconded by Councillor A. Melanson:
"Whereas the town of Milton recognizes that good water supplies must be protected for the present and future citizens of this community; and
"Whereas the town of Milton appreciates the natural beauty and special place of the Niagara Escarpment;
"Now therefore it is moved that this municipality recommends that the Legislature of Ontario give unanimous support to the private member's bill which proposes to forbid the placing of any future landfills (garbage dumps) on the Niagara Escarpment."
That was carried.
At this time I'd like to turn it over to Mel Iovio to elaborate on any of the environmental and land use concerns. Again, as I mentioned earlier on, Mr Hipgrave will touch on some of the financial points a little later.
Mr Emelio Iovio: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Basically the town's concerns with landfill in the escarpment are predominantly a result of the inappropriate biophysical nature of the escarpment for this use.
The town of Milton has a total land area of about 38,000 hectares, and 20% of that is in the Niagara Escarpment plan area. The escarpment is the most prominent feature in the municipality, and Rattlesnake Point, which is owned and operated by the HRCA, is a highly recognizable location that attracts many rock climbers and tourists and is highly visible from Highway 401, particularly areas such as our Glen Eden Ski Area.
Approximately half of the Niagara Escarpment area consists of environmentally sensitive areas. These areas consist of the Hilton Falls complex, the Crawford Lake and Rattlesnake Point escarpment woods, Milton Heights and the Guelph Junction woods.
The Niagara Escarpment falls within the deciduous forest region, commonly referred to as the Carolinian zone, a reference to many species which have an affinity with the areas farther to the south. Because the deeper fertile soils in southern Ontario have been cleared for farming, examples of these Carolinian forests are limited to the escarpment areas and the wooded ravines.
Of all the lands within the Niagara Escarpment plan area and the areas northwest of the plan area, 95% of that area in Milton is either regionally or provincially significant wetland. The thin soils above the escarpment and the fractured nature of the Lockport-Amabel formation results in high infiltration of rainfall in this area. Portions of many of the small creeks are also captured by bedrock fissures, thus recharging our groundwater.
This is particularly common in the Hilton Falls environmentally sensitive area. As a result, numerous springs occur in the face of the escarpment, contributing cold water to the surface drainage network. Groundwater flow lines indicate major discharge zones along our Twelve Mile and Sixteen Mile creeks. The zones of significant recharge are located northwest of the escarpment brow, in particular in the area of Campbellville. In general, the flows go southeast from the escarpment. Much of the surface water in these tributaries travels towards the Twelve Mile and Sixteen Mile creeks to Lake Ontario.
The municipality takes its public water supply from three well fields. All are situated on the Milton outlier and are just one and a half kilometres from any quarry site.
One of the quarry sites we have, and we have eight of them in the municipality, is owned by Dufferin Aggregates, a subsidiary of St Lawrence Cement. The quarry is one of the largest in North America, about 1,150 acres of licensed area, of which about 950 acres is to be used for extraction. At its peak, the quarry supplied 30% to 40% of the GTA stone production. Approximately 1,200 trucks of stone left the site daily. There are other large quarries of the same magnitude that are owned by large firms, such as Lac Minerals, in our municipality.
Currently there are no landfill sites on the escarpment in Milton. However, waste management has become an extremely lucrative industry and certain companies could be tempted to pursue a Niagara Escarpment plan amendment to either locate a new facility in the escarpment area or utilize an existing quarry for landfill purposes.
The town and other government agencies are currently working hard with quarries to prepare rehabilitation plans. Dufferin currently has an exciting proposal to create three rather large lakes with four artificial islands in the centre. Rock walls along the edge will be left to naturalize to habitat for birds, and wetland areas have already been created to regenerate certain parts of the quarry. The quarry will perform a stormwater management function as well as a major potential tourist attraction in future.
The town is very eager to ensure that the proposed rehabilitation is realized in about 20 years when the quarry has been completely mined. Plans will be required for the other seven quarries as well. Should waste management become a lucrative option for these quarry operators, it could undermine successful rehabilitation of these sites.
Furthermore, it seems that there has been sufficient negative experience with landfilled quarries in the Niagara Escarpment areas to support the government in specifying legislation that will preclude these uses from the escarpment and directing these uses elsewhere.
During the hearings on the Niagara Escarpment plan amendment 52, Hearing Officer Donaldson heard both anecdotal and technical evidence from residents and professionals. He heard from the residents of St Catharines with respect to leachate contaminants rising in the creek known as Leeward Court Stream beginning in 1983 and heard later of experiences with leachate fumes and methane gas in 1987, along with further leachate eruptions in and around the houses in their neighbourhoods in 1988.
The original decision to allow the Glenridge landfill to be situated in a quarry on the Niagara Escarpment had been based on assurances that the unique nature of the site, combined with the proposed leachate collection system, would prevent contamination of the local escarpment streams, but this has not proven to be the case. It is extremely difficult to prevent the escaping of leachate in fractured limestone, which is typical of the Niagara Escarpment. It provides the worst possible containment for landfill from a hydrogeological point of view, given the unpredictable flow of groundwater through the fractured limestone, so that the recovery of leachates through a collection system would be extremely difficult.
Given the types of waste we have today, the leachate can contain potentially hazardous chemicals. Contamination of the springs and seeps in the escarpment face can lead to water becoming undrinkable and vegetation die-offs, in addition to contamination of the groundwater supply for considerable distances below the escarpment. Often leachate is collected by hydraulic traps, which is a method of pumping groundwater to lower the water table along the landfill so the leachate can be collected.
However, the groundwater must be pumped for a period of decades or longer, and such a pumping leads to long-term lowering of the water table in the areas of the landfill. Such continued pumping can have effects of drying up the seeps and springs along the escarpment face, resulting in the loss of water in the escarpment streams and wetlands and a loss of groundwater supply downstream from the landfill.
During the joint board hearing for the Halton landfill site, seven general principles were established with respect to siting landfill sites. They are:
(1) The hydrology of the area must be comprehensible.
(2) The loss of contaminants should be minimal, and preferably zero, as a result of either natural containment or engineered works.
(3) Natural containment and attenuation of containments is preferred to engineered containment and attenuation.
(4) If it is predicted that contaminants may move away from the landfill site, then the migration pathway should be predictable.
(5) It should be demonstrated that the predicted leachate migration from the site will have no significant adverse impact on surface waters.
(6) Monitoring to identify the contamination migration and escape paths should be straightforward,
(7) There should be the highest possible confidence in the effectiveness of contingency measures to intercept and capture lost contaminants.
As you can see, the seven principles strive to reduce the unpredictability of contamination of surface water and groundwater. Engineered solutions are often proposed. However, the solutions are extremely expensive to plan, build and monitor. Should there be a fault in any of these three phases, serious contamination to the environment can occur. Consequently, any site should be weighted heavily in terms of principle number 3, which is that natural containment and attenuation of containments is preferable to engineered containment and attenuation.
1150
Engineered solutions are also subject to the vagaries of economics. Although it may be clearly the intent to adequately construct and monitor facilities to the highest degree of confidence, in poor economic times the quality may vary.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Donaldson weighed all of the evidence heard and was compelled to agree that the Niagara Escarpment plan amendment 52 should be approved. He observed that one way or another, leachate escaped from the Glenridge landfill site, causing long-term inconvenience and discomfort to persons living nearby as well as polluting the environment. The fact that Glenridge landfill site is located in a former quarry atop the escarpment was relevant.
The answers presented to the seven principles put forward by the joint board for the Halton landfill site in February 1989 were answered by experts both in favour of and opposed to the amendments. The answers varied but appeared to agree on the point that natural containment of contaminants at the escarpment sites is lacking and must rely on engineering, that the escape from the site of these contaminants is unpredictable and must be mitigated and that the interception and capture of contaminants at sites along the escarpment may be hard to detect and even more difficult to intercept.
The evidence heard seriously questioned the suitability of the escarpment lands for siting of landfills. The conclusion of the evidence was that, despite careful engineering in the preparation and management of the sites, the escarpment lands are generally unsuited for the siting of landfills, due chiefly to the uncertainties for satisfactory containment.
The town of Milton's water supply is derived from three well sites that would be directly in the path of migrating ground and surface waters after they pass the eight quarries in the town.
The planning process in Ontario has already established the principle of land use segregation or prohibition of uses that clearly are not in the best interests of the community. The Environmental Protection Act and the environmental impact assessment process are insufficient to properly evaluate a proposal of this magnitude within the overall objectives of the Niagara Escarpment plan.
In February 1990, UNESCO designated the Niagara Escarpment as a biosphere reserve. The reserve is to perform three main roles: conservation of ecosystems and biota of a particular area; establishment of demonstration areas for ecologically sustainable land and resource use; and provision of logistic support for research monitoring, education, training and related conservation and sustainable uses. This designation clearly elevates the status of the Niagara Escarpment to a natural feature of global interest.
It is the objective of the Niagara Escarpment plan to protect unique ecological and historic areas and maintain and enhance the quality and character of natural streams and water supplies. Land use in the area is to be compatible with the purposes of the act and to provide public access and outdoor recreational opportunities. To prohibit landfill sites in the Niagara Escarpment area is quite consistent with the purpose of the Niagara Escarpment plan and is in keeping with its designation as a biosphere reserve.
David Hipgrave will speak on the cost issues.
Mr David Hipgrave: Good morning, Mr Chair and members of committee. The town of Milton is also extremely concerned with the potential costs of defending its point of view with respect to development of landfill sites in the Niagara Escarpment. Precluding such development through provincial legislation could potentially save the town tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars. Recently Halton Hills was involved in a Niagara Escarpment plan amendment process that has cost the town in excess of $750,000.
The town of Milton has also experienced its own costs in relation to what it judges to be illegal landfilling and composting facilities that grew incrementally as a result of pressures for these uses and the lucrative nature of these businesses. Many thousands of dollars have been spent and the hearings have not yet been completed. Under the current legislation, municipalities must rely on their own instruments provided to them through existing legislation, that is, official plans, zoning bylaws, to defend their positions. All of these are subject to appeal.
Hearings are now being fought on a technical planning level as opposed to broad policy directions. Armies of experts are now required to respond to a myriad of experts retained by proponents, resulting in months of hearing time and expense. We have seen recently that this process has brought the OMB considerable difficulties in order to accommodate these hearings in terms of time.
We are also all aware of the effects that the social contract and expenditure control measures have had on municipalities. Even should municipalities be able to afford lengthy and expensive hearings, I'm sure and I know that we have other pressing needs to spend these dollars on for social good, rather than to oppose a development which obviously should not be permitted. The proposed legislation would bring about a greater level of comfort that is needed by municipalities to ensure that we will not be put in a position to have to respond in this manner.
The escarpment is a unique biophysical area that takes up a tiny proportion of the land area in Ontario. Surely sites could be directed to other lands in Ontario without a great inconvenience to future proponents.
We at the town of Milton are currently in the midst of preparing a strategic plan and a new official plan. Many of the public and the agencies that have been consulted -- and we've consulted many people -- reiterate the importance of the escarpment as central to the future of Milton from both an economic development perspective, as a valuable tourist destination, and to serve the town's residents in their pursuit of appreciating the natural environment. For these reasons, we would ask the Legislative Assembly to support and approve private member's Bill 62. Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Stockwell.
Mr Stockwell: Thanks, uh, Rosario.
The Chair: Marchese.
Interjection: I'll turn the names around so you can see them.
Mr Stockwell: First, it's good to see David here again. I recall vividly at Metro, when we were searching for a landfill site, the input and knowledge that you brought to the table. I do understand the positions that you put forth, although it was a little bit different. We were looking for one and you're stopping one.
I would ask one quick question, though. I don't know if we can get into the engineering feats of this process, because I don't think this is the forum, and I doubt anyone at this table would be considered an expert with respect to the groundwater and so on and so forth. But you spent quite a bit of time on that, and the question that I have is on page 219 in the conclusions of the Ministry of the Environment's report:
"The ministry's prime concern is with the technical suitability of the proposed undertaking. The ministry is determined that the proposal to establish an engineered landfill in the Acton quarry meets ministry standards for acceptability in terms of groundwater impacts."
Now, they said, "Okay, go on to the next stage." I understand what you're saying is probably relevant, and in fact your thoughts exactly. But the question has to be put: If you, as a municipality, ended up making a decision or moving forward on an issue and the province jumped in and stopped you cold without any compensation, I wonder what your reaction would be.
It's probably more of a political than an engineering question, but having said what I've said with respect to the Minister of the Environment's report -- this government's minister -- if they jumped in and stopped you cold on some issue that you felt was very important, how is it that you'd react to such a situation?
Mr Krantz: Inasmuch as it was referred to as probably a political question, being of political background, and again not a novice in it either, I rather suspect that I would certainly react to defending my turf, our turf -- I refer to that as the town of Milton in this instance, and certainly the region of Halton -- as to how it would affect our groundwater that has been referred to. I'd react to it violently if I thought for a moment that it was going to impede the wellbeing of a community: the town of Milton, the region of Halton.
Mr Stockwell: The question then springs quickly: Would it not make more sense to force this through a full environmental assessment under the Environmental Protection Act than what I believe to be the situation of opening up this province -- and I'm not certain the Ministry of Environment supports it any more -- to a potential horrendous lawsuit? Without doubt, in my opinion, you're opening yourself up to a horrendous lawsuit by passing this very site-specific piece of legislation.
Mr Krantz: I certainly can't refer to the legalities of it. I don't profess to be of a legal mind. But certainly what I do profess to react to is the very genuine concerns of people in the town of Milton and the region of Halton. Again, I don't profess to be an expert on what happens across the province, but I can assure you that I would like to think of myself as an armchair expert on what happens in the town of Milton in the region of Halton, dealing with landfill issues.
Mr Murdoch: You have no trouble with Bill 120.
1200
Mr Malkowski: That was well presented. I'd just like to respond with a couple of comments before I ask my question. I was born and raised in Hamilton but I grew up in Milton because I went to the school there and I know the Niagara Escarpment and the Kelso Conservation Area. It's something I enjoyed growing up with. It was part of my education. It's something I want to preserve. That's part of the reason why I'm sensitive to the environment.
The Kelso Conservation Area and also the Bruce Trail -- when I was young, myself and a number of my friends used to enjoy those. We'd go out. It's something I want to see continue for the future, not only for people who go to school there but also for the people who live in Milton. Thank you for your hard work on this.
Another thing: You know that the opposition members seem to be trying to use, I don't know, in their questions some kind of scare tactics. Perhaps we're not quite paying attention, but I want to talk about a more non-partisan approach to this issue because this is the environment after all.
If you were to arrange a tour for us, let's say, or some of the Environment critics in the opposition parties and us too and the members of the standing committee to come and see for ourselves, it might change some minds. I don't know if you've contacted any of the Environment critics in the opposition parties to find out what their response would be to actually coming out and seeing.
Mr Krantz: Certainly I'd have no problems as far as the municipality is concerned with arranging such a tour; I would actually encourage that.
I can also share with you one of the other hats that I wear as an elected person, as one of Milton's representatives on the Halton Region Conservation Authority. I suggest to this group that I am quite familiar with that portion of the Niagara Escarpment as it goes through our watershed. I do not just talk about political boundaries -- the town of Milton, the region of Halton -- but a watershed. I would certainly attempt to make that available for this committee or anyone else who was interested.
The Chair: Ms Haeck, if your question is short, we can do it; otherwise, no.
Ms Haeck: Actually, it's just a short comment. I want to thank the members from Milton for bringing to the attention of all -- I'm not sure if "thank" is the right word, but definitely I appreciate the fact that you've brought forward the Glenridge landfill. I know the members from the city of St Catharines are coming later but it's in my riding and you have ably described the plight of my residents on Leawood Court. Mrs Matthews is coming before this committee on Wednesday at 10 to explain what has happened to her as a result of the leachate migrating into her house.
I did want to make a short supplementary to page 4. At the bottom of the top paragraph, you were talking about the pumping of the leachate and trying to deal with the seeps and what have you. What has happened in St Catharines is that the pumping trying to deal with the leachates has in fact resulted in sort of deep groundwater wells being tapped. As a result of this, a very salinated water has come up and there is some concern about the vegetation on the escarpment.
I think people should understand that some of the engineering solutions are not only costly but also dangerous. I think you have ably described some of these concerns. Thank you.
Mr Chiarelli: I have a very precise question. Over the last five to 10 years has the town of Milton ever taken a planning decision to completely ban dumps in the escarpment and, if not, why not?
Mr Krantz: Certainly, as I recall just from memory at this point, we have taken the position on not encouraging, not supporting and -- I will stand corrected -- on discouraging dumps from locating in the escarpment, anyplace in the municipality. I can only suggest that we're no novice to it. I can assure this committee of that.
Mr Chiarelli: But we have a private member's bill which has taken the initiative to ban dumps in the escarpment. Why has your municipality not done that within your area of responsibility in an official plan or some decision that would simply say, "We do not permit in this municipality dumps in the escarpment"? You have not taken that decision up to now. Why have you waited for a private member's bill to do that?
Mr Krantz: We've tried every which report. Again, I heard suggested earlier on partisan politics being involved in it. I've tried now with three governments to do that very thing. I don't care how it's done, just as long as it's done.
Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): One quick question, if I can: The resolution that was passed at your council basically says, "We want to ban landfills in the escarpment." I don't know whether you've had a chance to look at the revision.
I'm wondering if your concerns would be satisfied with something that would be quite a bit more simple and basically reflected the much more simple wording you have, which is, let's say, "No dumps in the escarpment." This is quite a bit broader than that, I think. I'm wondering whether you're satisfied that this achieves your goals or is too broad. Would you be happy if it just said, "No dumps in the escarpment"?
Mr Krantz: On seeing that document just a short while ago, Mr Iovio, Mr Hipgrave and I got our heads together for a very quick few moments. I think it would be safe to say that we generally support it, from what we could derive from quickly reviewing that document. I know that sounds like a political response, and it is.
The Chair: Thank all three of you for taking the time to come and make your presentation to us today.
Mr Perruzza: Mr Chairman, I move that we break.
The Chair: Mr Offer has a motion.
Mr Offer: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I'm going to move a motion in light of some of the discussion that went on this morning. I think it's important for all of the people who are here as well as the committee members.
I move that the committee request the Minister of Environment and Energy to attend before this committee or to provide in writing the government's position on Bill 62 prior to the conclusion of the hearings of the legislative committee on administration of justice, which shall be no later than February 16, 1994.
Just by way of very brief comment, I think it is important for all of those people who have come before this committee on a position on Bill 62, and in light of Mr Duignan's first answer to my question yesterday, that we do receive the position of the ministry. I recognize that on short notice it might be difficult to get the minister here and that is why this motion has also stated that the government's position in writing would be sufficient.
Mr Perruzza: I move that we call the question.
The Chair: I want to see whether there's further debate on this, Mr Perruzza.
Mr Perruzza: You can't do that. You've got to vote on my calling the question.
The Chair: There has not been sufficient debate to call the question. I would prefer to see whether there's any disagreement or agreement on this as quickly as we can and then move to a vote. Mr Stockwell, are you in agreement with Mr Offer's tabling?
Mr Stockwell: I would be in agreement with that motion. I would ask just a clarification. He's asking for the minister or a letter from the minister?
The Chair: That's right.
Mr Stockwell: Okay. If that answer is no, I would ask then that we can revisit it because if the minister can't even give us written notification, which I could see being a problem, I wouldn't mind having ministry officials then at least, if that can't be done.
Interjection.
Mr Stockwell: Yes, just a simple amendment to it.
The Chair: So that would be minister, ministry, ministry official?
Mr Stockwell: No, no, let's just rank them. I want to see the minister or I want to see the --
Mr Murphy: Let's just move another motion.
Mr Stockwell: Fine. Then I can wait if they say no. Because I think this is turning into crass politics by the local member and the government. They refuse to take a position on this, leaving us in the situation of having to bring forward deputants from the member's riding. It's nothing more than crass politics because if the government isn't going to support this, then it's not going to get third reading and we've just wasted a whole bunch of people's time.
Mr Duignan: Call the question, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: I think we're ready for the question.
Mr Chiarelli: Are you going to gag your own government?
Mr Offer: Recorded vote on this.
The Chair: On a recorded vote, all in favour of the motion?
Ayes
Chiarelli, Murdoch, Murphy, Offer, Stockwell.
The Chair: Opposed to the motion?
Nays
Akande, Duignan, Haeck, Harrington, Malkowski, Perruzza.
The Chair: The motion is defeated. This committee is recessed until this afternoon at 2 o'clock.
The committee recessed from 1209 to 1413.
PROTECT OUR WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES
Ms Barbara Halsall: My name is Barbara Halsall, and I'm past president of POWER. That stands for Protect Our Water and Environmental Resources. Our citizens' group formed in 1987 and incorporated in 1989. Someone suggested here this morning that Mr Duignan had whipped us into a frenzy. I think we've been whipped into a frenzy for a long time, ever since RSI brought this proposal forward.
The group came together when a landfill proposal for the Niagara Escarpment was announced. As a matter of fact, the citizens were really shocked to find that what they believed was a protected area could be targeted for landfill. We found that the people who were concerned and came together were concerned about the environment in general and about the Niagara Escarpment in particular.
I should mention that the RSI licence, as they preceded me, is for all of Ontario. If you've got an area set aside as special, to bring garbage from all of Ontario just boggles the mind.
POWER has held environmental conferences, worked to raise community environmental awareness. We were accredited by the United Nations. Last year, I received the Environmental Literacy Award from the Halton Board of Education for my work with schools.
POWER spent over $20,000 to participate in amendment 52 to the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act, and for a group that raises money through bake sales and garage sales, that's a lot of muffins. I say that so you'll understand we're serious about protecting the escarpment. Some of our members, trying to demonstrate a solution for garbage, established Waste Wise, which is a resource and recycling centre with an ongoing flea market, and I urge you all to visit that in Georgetown.
There was a question about whether this whole thing would apply to septic systems. If you check the legislation, you will find that there are definitions under part V, section 25, of "waste management," and then 26 says, "This part does not apply to the storage or disposal by any person of the person's domestic wastes on the person's own property unless the director is of the opinion, based on reasonable and probable grounds, that such storage or disposal is or is likely to create a nuisance, or to any sewage or other works to which the Ontario Water Resources Act or the regulations thereunder apply." So I think we can lay that concern to rest.
The purpose of this, as I see it, is that the Niagara Escarpment is different, is special. Its ecosystem, the water it contains, needs the safeguards of Bill 62 so it can be enjoyed by generations to come. I'm confident that when you have a full understanding of the information I'll present, together with what you hear from other supporters of the bill, you will appreciate the importance of the escarpment. I'm sure that what you'll hear will cause you to not only support the bill but urge its quick passage at third reading. Please do not delay passage, or you will find there are proponents of landfills who rush to bring their proposals forward because you have not used Bill 62 to close that opportunity off.
I hope you have received the handouts which give the percentages of municipalities that come under the Niagara Escarpment plan. I thought we should mention that at the outset. There seemed to be a great deal of confusion, and I think Mr Murdoch felt he was the most hard done by of any area because there was such a large portion under that jurisdiction. When you see the numbers on paper, you will see that Halton has 22.8% and Grey has 14.2%, which is substantial. But if Halton can find a landfill and do it outside the plan area, which we have done, probably others will manage to do the same.
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I have some slides with me. The authors of this beautiful book were unable to appear. They are on Saltspring Island out in BC. They sent a few slides along so you would have an appreciation of what we're talking about. We get inside these bricks and steel and we can't see the outdoors, and it's very hard to imagine what we're talking about.
This first slide is not from Pat and Rosemary Keough. This slide is from a quarry in the escarpment. As you can see, it's a massive size from the air. Another view of that same quarry.
This is Tews Falls, down near Dundas.
Here we have the Calypso, which is called by most people the Fairy Slipper.
This is a pitcher plant from the Bruce Peninsula.
Someone who is part of the Halton-Peel Field Naturalists gave me something he had written, and I think it's appropriate to read it at this time. Don Scallon is not only vice-president of the Halton-Peel Field Naturalists; he is a teacher and cares deeply about the environment.
He says: "We are not exempt from the laws of nature. We can't eliminate its components without consequence. Ready contact with natural systems helps us recognize this interconnectedness. Contact with nature engenders respect, love and commitment to save it and, thus, ultimately ourselves. One of the finest places to connect with nature in southern Ontario is the Niagara Escarpment."
The escarpment, as you may well know, runs through the most densely populated area of Canada, so actually six million people live within a 90-minute drive of the escarpment.
This slide here is an escarpment overhang. This is a view from the escarpment at the forks of the Credit.
This is Inglis Falls in Owen Sound.
Here we're atop the escarpment at Driftwood Cove.
This is the Beaver River between Kimberley and Heathcote.
This is an interesting one. It's Devil's Punch Bowl, Stoney Creek. It illustrates the fractured limestone, because we have so many seeps of water coming through, forming those icicles. Here's a second picture of that same area up a little bit closer.
Here we have DeCew Falls near St Catharines.
This is a sea cave on Flowerpot Island.
Lastly, the picture that was chosen for the cover of the book, Flowerpot Island.
You can see we're talking about a very spectacular area. The escarpment is unique; that means one of a kind. This protection was supported by all parties. Everyone has reminded you of that.
The biosphere designation: I was present at the ceremony when Dr Frederico Mayor was there and the presentation was made to Premier Peterson. A biosphere reserve conserves examples of characteristic ecosystems of some of the world's natural regions, putting our natural wonder on a par with the Galapagos Islands.
It seems significant that we're considering this bill today with Heritage Week less than a week away. Bill 62 will preserve some of our natural world to leave for the future citizens of this province and Canada. The escarpment is the birthright of our great-grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. Bill 62 builds on the legislation already in place. Halton region did a very good chronology of some of that.
Under the original Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act, the door was left open for landfills under the list of permitted utilities. Amendment 52 was brought forward to address that problem. The whole idea for fixing that error came from our former MPP, Walt Elliot. Amendment 52 was recommended to cabinet after approximately five weeks of hearings.
We had everybody there: city of St Catharines, Niagara Falls, town of Halton Hills, region of Halton, Halton Region Conservation Authority, Walker Bros Quarries, Steetley quarry, Reclamation Systems Inc, Glenridge Landfill Citizens' group, Greensville Against Serious Pollution, POWER, the Flamborough chapter of the Conserver Society, the NEC, as well as five other individuals. The witnesses included three planners, two hydrogeologists and a professor of biology.
After all the evidence was presented and all the witnesses were heard and everyone was thoroughly cross-examined, the recommendation from the hearing officer was that the words "waste collection, disposal or management" be removed from the definition of permitted utilities because waste disposal is incompatible with the purpose of the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act.
The purpose is: "To provide for the maintenance of the Niagara Escarpment and land in its vicinity substantially as a continuous natural environment, and to ensure only such development occurs as is compatible with that natural environment." If we're to be consistent with the purpose of the act, garbage dumps do not belong on the escarpment plan. I hope we don't have to repeat that whole hearing -- that took five weeks -- here this week. Sometimes it seems like we are.
The cabinet recognized landfill as being incompatible with the protection of the act by passing amendment 52, signing it in May 1992. This bill is the logical progression from policy to legislation. It's efficient because it will cause proponents to focus on areas that will cause less damage. It's effective because it will provide the necessary protection for the escarpment.
The escarpment is more than just a pretty place. I know when you see all these pictures, people are saying, "Oh yes, there it is, and we've seen it before." Some people maybe have seen it too often because they don't know what they're looking at any longer. Water is the most important resource we have in the world. No plant or animal can exist without water. Believe me, I've tried it with my house plants, and when I don't water them, they die.
Very often one of the issues we think separates us from the Third World is that we have safe water. Exotic chemicals finding their way into more and more of our water supplies cannot be removed. Water is a finite resource. There is no more water now on earth than there was millions of years ago. I like to tell students when I go out to talk to schools that we're drinking the water the dinosaurs drank, which is quite a startling thought.
There are two aspects to the water situation. There is groundwater, and surface water.
The surface water is easier to understand because for the most part we can see it. Although some surface water is fed by underground streams, the escarpment is the headwaters for many of the river systems of southern Ontario. How can we in all conscience knowingly, and I say knowingly, place a major source of pollution at the headwaters of our major river systems? At our local Acton quarry, two watersheds divide. Water flows down to Sixteen Mile Creek through Oakville; water flows to the Credit River system where Ministry of Natural Resources has re-established the salmon population over the last few years. Just 1.5 kilometres from that same quarry, water drains into Blue Springs and down through the Grand River system. If a subversive agent wanted to target an area that would do the most damage with a dump, I think we've found it. We've got three river systems right there.
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The groundwater: The escarpment is also an important water recharge area for some of our major aquifers such as the Guelph aquifer and the Amabel aquifer. The porous nature of the escarpment -- I usually describe that rock to students as being almost like a sponge because of the many cracks and openings in it. You saw that in the slide with the icicles hanging down, that the water just pours out of that rock. That rock tilts to the west and that means water seeps down to the water table and extends far beyond the plan area.
When I first became involved, it was because of my concern over water contamination. I contacted Dr Cherry from the Groundwater Institute, University of Waterloo, and from the information I received, it's clear that once an aquifer is polluted, you cannot return it to its original state.
There are places where they've tried to clean up, and one example is Mercier in Montreal, and millions of dollars and five years later the water is not drinkable. The environment is a little bit like Humpty-Dumpty: If we screw it up enough, all the king's horses and all the king's men will not be able to return it to function.
People all along the escarpment drink water in rural wells and through municipal wells. If we pollute our major aquifers, what will the cost be to municipalities, to the province? Would we choose to risk the water that's used by so many people? William Ruckelshaus, a former administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, testified at a public hearing in his new position as CEO for Browning-Ferris Industries, and I quote, "All landfills will leak." I think this man knows something.
As drinkable water becomes more scarce and more precious, we cannot afford to risk the irretrievable loss of water in the major aquifers that are fed by the escarpment. In the case of RSI, their engineering -- which, according to Mr Mills, we haven't seen yet, so I guess they've changed their environmental assessment document -- is unproven. We're not going to be the test case.
The engineers, who are so competent, their own preliminary feasibility study said that water under the quarry flowed this way, and now we know that water flows that way. They based their feasibility on whether to go ahead on incorrect information.
At the moment there is a consolidated hearing taking place in the Greensville area, and at that hearing the proponent of the landfill testified that the polluting life of the landfill will be 300 years -- 300 years. I don't think we can really grasp that.
Last week's edition of US News and World Report tells us that scientists are now investigating the link between breast cancer and environmental poisons. In fact, the National Institutes of Health in the US has just held an entire conference on that topic. What are we doing to the planet, we as human beings? What are we doing to ourselves?
There's a recent advisory from Cayuga that NDMA has been discovered in the municipal treated water supply at three times the maximum acceptable limit. It says the citizens are advised not to use the municipal water for drinking or cooking. We don't want to have more of those kinds of stories. We don't know yet where the pollution came from, but we can guess: If you put NDMA in upstream it will flow downstream.
Both of my parents died of cancer. If the last six years I have donated can save one person from going through that kind of hell, it's been worth it.
If you're against Bill 62, you're in favour of protecting a frivolous application. A frivolous application is an application for a site that's completely unsuitable. Would you support an application in Lake Ontario? Certainly not. One in the middle of the Grand River? Absolutely not. But what about one at the headwaters of our river system? Logically, if legislators hope to protect the water, you must say no once again.
If we're all agreed that an application is ridiculous, it only makes good sense to have clear rules for the proponent. Without clear rules, a frivolous application triggers the whole EA process, which is incredibly lengthy, painful beyond belief, and can bleed a small community dry as it tries to prove the obvious: that garbage does not belong in the escarpment.
Someone asked, "Why doesn't Milton just have an official plan amendment?" Well, what would happen? It would go to the OMB. Then it would be part of a consolidated hearing, and there goes the money all over again.
We need a vision, and you as legislators need a vision. What did the escarpment look like 100 years ago? What will it look like in the year 2094? We need a vision beyond the next election. If you believe, as I do, that we must leave something for future generations, then you must support this bill. What will you as legislators be remembered for?
The great cathedrals of Europe in many cases took over 100 years to build. The builders knew they would never see the building completed, but they toiled on their whole lives because they had a vision of what could be in the future. I ask you to have that vision today. The Niagara Escarpment is recognized by the world. It is what Ontario is known for internationally and it's our cathedral for future generations.
Mr Duignan: Welcome to the committee hearings, Barbara. Thank you for making the presentation. You've added everything, you've said everything, and you made it crystal clear why people should support Bill 62. Have you had an opportunity to review my proposed amendment and have you any comments on it?
Ms Halsall: If POWER wanted to say absolutely what we think about it, we would probably like to review it with our lawyer. The way these things are written, one never knows what you've just agreed to and what you haven't agreed to.
Under amendment 52, I think the idea was that there would be local, small things. Anything that becomes large doesn't belong there. I would be concerned about adding future waste to sites. There's a leaking quarry: the Steetley quarry in Greensville is an absolute mess. It's supposed to be closed. That company thinks it needs four more years of garbage to make it better. I would worry that this might open the door for something like that. And I kind of liked what Mr Lindgren from CELA and CONE was saying the other day, that perhaps the MOE already had some of the powers to deal with the situations that might arise.
Mr Duignan: I appreciate your comments.
Mr Chiarelli: Obviously, I'm very impressed with the level of public support for this bill. Mr Duignan is obviously in tune with a lot of constituents and beyond his riding as well.
I want to ask a question or two about the process. We find ourselves here now before a committee on a private member's bill. You described some of the processes you were involved in, the money you spent as a group. I don't know whether you had intervenor funding or not.
Ms Halsall: If you find out about intervenor funding, it comes to so little you wouldn't recognize it.
Mr Chiarelli: What I was interested in is the level of resistance your group has found in the process to getting to a point where, in effect, dumps will be banned in the escarpment.
I was the one who asked the question about an official plan. You obviously have a number of municipalities. They had the authority to incorporate into their official plans a policy that says there shall be no dumps in the escarpment. My understanding is that, at least in the case of Milton and the other municipalities, they have not passed such an amendment that made an absolute ban in the escarpment.
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We have the Ministry of Environment having been involved in the process with this particular applicant or group interested in this particular site. There seems to be not a lot of movement on the part of the ministry in terms of providing a satisfactory solution to what your group is lobbying for, and all these members of the public who are here today and have sent in letters of support. Maybe I'm not precise with my question, but --
Ms Halsall: I'm searching for it.
Mr Chiarelli: Is it satisfactory for you to have to rely on the uncertain process of a private member's bill on something that's so important to so many people, when we are finding that we can't get confirmation whether the ministry is in favour of it or not? What that does is water down the weight of the argument when it gets into the Legislature, that the ministry's not on side, that people in the communities, for example, have not passed official plans banning the dumps.
Ms Halsall: Many municipalities have passed motions of support for this bill, and I'm sure that will be presented to you later. I'm aware of quite a long list. But you're saying, what about the ministry? Gosh, I don't know a whole lot about what goes on down here, and sometimes I'm glad I don't, but it seems to me that if the Ministry of Environment were to pick up this bill now and perhaps reword it to make it slightly different, we would be back starting all over again, and I don't want to see this start all over again. If the ministry wants to wait and let it go to the Legislature and let people pass it, that's just fine with me. If you're worried about it getting to the Legislature and not passing there, there are people who will beat the legislators over the head until they have a firm understanding of what's important here.
Mr Chiarelli: I'm concerned about the process. I think I'm looking at this objectively. I'm from the Ottawa area, and I don't follow the local planning processes and the details of the environmental matters that happen, for example, in your particular community. I'm looking at the information coming forward. I've been very active in my own area with a lot of citizen groups on issues, municipal board hearings etc. I know what the process is like and how frustrating it is. You now are relying on a private member's bill. Why could you not have relied on previous decisions by municipalities banning dumps, not reacting to a private member's bill? Why could you not have relied on those and why can you not rely on the ministry?
Ms Halsall: Even if there were a plan amendment that banned landfills within a municipality, would that not be appealed to the OMB, would that not be part of a consolidated hearing?
Mr Chiarelli: I'm saying that an official plan goes to the OMB and it's approved. If that ban were approved in an official plan, in those municipalities that did that, the ban would have existed long before the private member's bill.
Ms Halsall: It was an error. It wasn't done. Gee, I wish they had, but now we've got to deal with what we're stuck with.
Mr Stockwell: With respect to the groundwater discussion, you've read the preliminary hearing that was conducted by the joint board, June 1 to 11, 1992. Their comments do not agree with your statements with respect to the groundwater. The impact as outlined by the government in conclusions on page 219 said: "The ministry's prime concern is with the technical suitability of the proposed undertaking. The ministry has determined that the proposal to establish an engineered landfill in the Acton quarry meets ministry standards for acceptability in terms of" --
Ms Halsall: I've read that. Do you want my comment on that?
Mr Stockwell: How come you and the ministry are singing a different song?
Ms Halsall: I think the person who reviewed that is wrong, quite frankly. If you're going to blast in a quarry for 30 years and tell me there are no cracks in the bottom, I've got property in Florida that's under water that I could sell you. I just don't think that is reasonable. We've got just as many experts we can line up on the other side who will say they don't get the picture on this.
Mr Stockwell: But with all due respect, it's the ministry staff, who have not offered any support for this legislation, who have commented on it and said it's worthy to continue.
Mr Perruzza: Oh, there he goes again. What's the point?
Mr Stockwell: I'm not arguing with you. I'm just telling you what the ministry has said.
Ms Halsall: That one person at the ministry said.
Mr Stockwell: But how about the ministers themselves who've allowed this to go forward from the cabinet? They've had an opportunity to kill this.
Ms Halsall: Jim Bradley had an opportunity to kill it. This has been going forward for ever. I'm not going to get into what the ministry did or didn't do. I'm looking at what we're dealing with now. Is the escarpment important? Should we have landfills in it? Do we want to pollute the water? I don't, and I think it is important.
Mr Stockwell: With all due respect, I don't think you'd have much disagreement with respect to the pollution of the water and whether we want to? Of course not. But there are many municipalities in this province, and I'm not sure I can find you one that thinks putting a landfill in their municipality is the route to go.
Ms Halsall: I think there's one.
Mr Stockwell: Well, I can show you one, and it happens to be in a quarry that they want to put the landfill. I can also show you hundreds and hundreds of municipalities that would come forward, much as you've done today, and say, "This is the wrong place to put a landfill," and give you reams of information why.
Should landfills go through the proper process, be examined by experts based on their suitability, rather than on local members putting a private member's bill before the Legislature saying, "Hey, my municipality's out; you can't put a landfill in Halton," "My municipality of Etobicoke's out; you can't put a landfill in Etobicoke," "You can't put one in the Rouge." You can't put one anywhere in a lot of these spots. Is that how we should handle the whole process?
Ms Halsall: For the municipalities where the Niagara Escarpment is concerned -- the Niagara Escarpment legislation was brought forward by your government. It was their idea, and everybody said wow, and "Aren't they far-thinking?"
Mr Stockwell: But they didn't say no landfills.
Ms Halsall: That was an error. We're dealing with less than 1% of Ontario; if you look at that sheet that was handed out, it is 0.17% of Ontario. We're saying, "Out of that little, little bit, please don't put garbage there," and we've got people here who are saying, "Gee, isn't it the only place to put it?"
The Chair: We've run out of time. Ms Halsall, thank you for your presentation today.
JANICE BROOKS
HARVEY KIRKWOOD
The Chair: I invite Ms Janice Brooks and Mr Harvey Kirkwood. Welcome, and begin when you're ready.
Ms Janice Brooks: I'd like to let Harvey go first.
Mr Harvey Kirkwood: Janice had originally intended to go first. I thought, "Here we have a case of beauty and the beast," and we have now a reversal of it, so we go from here. Sorry. Already I'm getting nervous.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak today regarding Bill 62. I had some concerns about doing this today because I'm an older person, probably the oldest person in the room, but I have lived on the escarpment for a long time. My wife and I have lived near or on the escarpment all our lives. Our early life was spent up in the Caledon area near the escarpment, and the last 43 years we have lived in Acton beside the proposed RSI dump. I thought because of my concern I would try and do this today.
My wife and I have lived on or near the escarpment all our lives, and for the past 43 years we have lived near Acton. A quarry has been operating next door to our farm since 1961. In past years, there were two municipal dumps operating in the area adjacent to the escarpment. These were both closed in the early 1970s.
In 1972, Indusmin, which then owned the quarry, made plans to use it as a solid waste site. These plans were abandoned after further study. Then, in the early in 1980s, Halton region also rejected this quarry in its search for a landfill. Now Reclamation Systems Inc is again proposing this same quarry site for a solid waste landfill to accept garbage from anywhere in Ontario.
The Niagara Escarpment is a unique landform that has been recognized as being significant. It was our provincial government that formed the Niagara Escarpment Commission to protect it. The commission's mandate is to maintain the escarpment as a natural environment for future generations. Two years ago, the Niagara Escarpment Commission passed amendment 52, which would prohibit garbage dumps on the escarpment without an amendment to its planning act, but this does not stop the proponents from applying and putting the province through these expensive and lengthy environmental assessments.
Because the escarpment is rich in aggregate, it has in the past been exploited for its aggregate resources to accommodate the rapid growth of southern Ontario. The escarpment is dotted with giant holes left by these quarries. Upon completion of a quarry, they should be rehabilitated to their natural state, as was set out in the licence. Unfortunately, many of these quarry owners are seeing an opportunity to further exploit the escarpment by filling these holes up with garbage to rehabilitate them, so-called.
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Several years ago, it was declared a biosphere reserve by the United Nations, being a distinct honour. The escarpment represents only a narrow ribbon of land running through the centre of the province, from Niagara to Tobermory. Surely our Legislature can protect this area from being used as a dumping ground for the province. By passing Bill 62 at third reading this Legislature will be taking a step in that direction.
Regarding amendments to the bill, I would advise caution in case the original intent is lost or diluted in the process. I am sure you are aware of the seriousness of the situation. I hope, as Mr Elliot expressed yesterday, that all members, regardless of political feelings, work together for the common good this time. I was rather shocked by the display that seemed to indicate otherwise before the noon break, but maybe that was just a short thing and it might pass. In the past, at times I have supported all the parties, as I saw fit.
As I mentioned earlier, my wife and I have lived for 43 years on the escarpment and prior to that near the escarpment. Strange things happen in rock formations. We have a strange problem on our own property. A dried-up pond on our place, due to the pumping from the quarry nearby, fills up in the spring with surface runoff water from the snow and rain. That water drains to the basement of a nearby house, which happens to belong to my wife and me. We have to put a three-inch pump in there. We've searched as diligently as we can. We don't know where the water leaves the pond, but we know it comes to the basement of the house, which is about 500 or 600 feet away. Because we keep that pump going until the pond lowers, and then just an ordinary sump will keep it out until the pond is dry, we know it comes through the rock formation. Of course, that's up on the Amabel and we know they're down on the lower Cabot Head, but it just shows you how rock formations do leak.
Looking around the committee today, you all being younger people, I don't imagine there are very many in this room who remember Hurricane Hazel. How many remember the night of Hurricane Hazel? Do they remember where they were at that time?
Mr Murphy: It was named after my mother.
Mr Offer: Well, in Mississauga, we think it was named after someone else.
Mr Kirkwood: Anyway, we lived there at that time. There was mined-out limestone where they made lime then, but there wasn't anything like there is now. I can just picture what would happen to that area if it were filled with garbage and we had a night like Hurricane Hazel. Of course, everybody will say this only happens once in a hundred years. But we know it might not be a hundred years; it could be next year. What would happen to the garbage in there if we had that situation? That worries me because of future generations.
I have quite a stake in the future. My wife and I have six children and 16 grandchildren. They all live on the escarpment. This is a very vital concern to me, as well as for the whole area, because I firmly believe, having worked in the quarry and having observed the water patterns and the pumping in there over the years -- I worked for Indusmin quite a while there -- there's so much left to chance.
I'm just getting at a loss for words, so Janice, being a younger person, I'll let her go on and then we'll try to answer any questions.
Ms Brooks: Before I commence my presentation, I would like to thank you for allowing me to speak here today.
My name is Janice Brooks. I'm 16 years of age and in grade 10 at an advanced/enriched level, with some grade 11 courses, maintaining an 85% average.
Due to my growing up and living within the Niagara Escarpment plan area, I have a very avid interest in its protection for today and for years to come. My interests have taken me on many very exciting experiences from which I have learned a lot. I have been involved in an environmental protection project since the age of 11, and I regularly attend meetings and presentations on these topics. I particularly have special interests in politics, law and French.
This past September I was honoured to be one of eight 15-to-17-year-olds from the province of Ontario to travel to Ottawa to join students from across the country at the program Encounters With Canada. During this week-long stay at the Terry Fox Centre, we studied law, politics and French.
En septembre passé, j'ai eu l'honneur d'être une des huit personnes, âgées entre 15 et 17 ans, de la province de l'Ontario à voyager à Ottawa. J'ai participé dans le programme Rencontres au Canada, avec des élèves de partout au Canada. Pendant cette semaine au Centre Terry Fox, nous avons étudié la loi, la politique et le français.
This coming May I will be attending the Hugh O'Brien leadership conference in Mississauga for high-academic-standing students from across central Ontario.
I learned that the subtle beauty of the area in which I live was created in part by the Niagara Escarpment. The majesty of its aesthetic beauty has been a force that has driven me to help protect it.
Many rare and beautiful life forms are found within the Niagara Escarpment plan area. This beauty and rarity has brought the United Nations to proclaim the area an international biosphere reserve. This recognition is special because it says this area is ecologically unique and must be protected. All of these are reasons I support Bill 62, the banning of landfill sites within the Niagara Escarpment plan area. I also feel that this bill is not a site-specific bill.
As I speak to you today, I would like to give you a picture of what the future would be like if landfill sites are permitted on the Niagara Escarpment. There are many damaging results that you would not see in your generation, but my generation will.
The Niagara Escarpment is facing many threats, but none as real and with such disastrous consequences as putting landfill sites atop it. Landfill sites are areas of land that have been dug out by mining or specifically for the purpose of filling with garbage and refuse.
First, I would like to give you a few facts about landfill sites and the Niagara Escarpment. The Niagara Escarpment as I am going to refer to it is not only the rock faces, steep cliffs and sea stacks such as Flowerpot Island, but also the flora and fauna, animals and people who live and work there. There are over 300 kinds of birds, 90 types of fish and 100 different species of plants. This unique ecosystem is what has earned the Niagara Escarpment the title of being one of only 300 international biospheres in the world.
The Niagara Escarpment is a very important water collection and filtration site. The rainwater falls into the highlands, and as it flows into lakes and rivers it is filtered by rocks and swamps. These remove many of the impurities found in rainwater. In the Niagara Escarpment plan area, water is often found as close as 10 feet, or three metres, below the earth's surface. Water that flows from the Niagara Escarpment is a source of drinking water for many millions of people.
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This garbage which will be shipped from many areas to landfill sites is not only very unsanitary but is a lure to rats, mice, roaches and gulls and many other scavengers. These scavengers would spread waste and disease all over our fields and towns. Trucks carrying this waste to landfill sites often leave trails along our roadsides and on private property, causing a loss of property value.
"Landfill": Let's correct this misnomer right here. Landfill would entail placing land in a fill area. What we really have here is wastefill sites. These facilities are usually placed in old strip mining operations or a hole dug in the earth's surface specifically for placing refuse in.
Everybody thinks, "I don't want a wastefill site in my backyard." If this is so, why would somebody want to put a wastefill site on the Niagara Escarpment? The Niagara Escarpment should be considered everybody's backyard, because when it comes to placing wastefill sites atop it, it's everybody's responsibility and everybody will be affected.
If wastefill sites were placed on the Niagara Escarpment, the environmental damage will be thousands of times worse than the pollution from wastefill sites in better locations. Why is this, you ask? When a pit is dug for a wastefill site or a wastefill site is put in a quarried-out pit, there is a need to seal up all entrances of water. How can you do this if the formation you are relying on is fractured limestone? You would expect that one would look to the best geological formations, such as granite, and not to limestone, one of the worst.
If a liner is placed in the pit, for example, how are they going to allow for pressure of water from the outside? Sooner or later the water is going to break though, and when it does, it spells major ecological disaster. The toxic soup of leachate will travel into the groundwater and into lakes and rivers. This toxic soup will travel underground and above ground, first polluting the water of nearby residents. By this time, there will be absolutely no way of stopping this disaster. The water will continue to flow and this toxic soup will have polluted all of southern Ontario, southern Quebec and parts of western New York and Michigan states. After that, nobody knows how far this pollution will travel.
If this pollution were ever to happen, and it won't if our provincial government passes this bill, then life that exists on the Niagara Escarpment would die, the people and animals would become ill and all the plants would be killed, even the hardy cedars that have graced the cliffs of our Niagara Escarpment for over a thousand years. All would be gone. All that would be left of a once beautiful international biosphere reserve will be freak mutations of the original species.
This will also have major economical damage. What generation will pay for the care of the ill and the environmental cleanup, if any can be done, and who is going to pay for the relocation of many millions of people? Because of the environmental damage, the economy of the province will be severely affected, and instead of continuing to be Canada's heartland, it would become indeed Canada's wasteland.
Now I'm going to give you an alternative, an alternative that is wanted by many of my generation and most certainly all generations in the future. This alternative would have farm land, forest and rock faces stay as they are: farm land, forest and rock faces. We would have quarries, pit mines, pits and depressions in the ground stay as they are or rehabilitated into wildlife reservations, pollution-free parks, reservoirs to hold drinkable water for municipalities, lakes for fishing and swimming and skating ponds for winter recreation. The list goes on and on.
All of these alternatives would reduce unemployment and boost the tourism industry for future generations and for today. This is what the future wants: a safe, natural environment to grow, to live and to enjoy.
There's no such thing as a safe wastefill site, but there are much safer places to put a wastefill site, places that would not ruin a biosphere reserve, all the life in it and all the millions of human lives around it. For the same cost as a new, modern wastefill site, we could have some of the most economical, safe and up-to-date recycling plants. All materials must be made so that they can be recycled.
To put a wastefill site on top of the Niagara Escarpment, with all the alternatives we have, is like putting a leaking nuclear reactor on an old barge in the middle of Lake Ontario. They both would have the same disastrous results in the end: a deadly ecological demise of all life forms.
You are the legislators of today, but I may be one of the legislators of tomorrow. If you make the wrong decision in the near future and permit wastefill sites on the Niagara Escarpment, the technology and legislators of tomorrow may not be able to correct your disastrous mistakes. This is why the Niagara Escarpment must be protected for all time.
The only group I am here to represent is the future and the youth of the world, and I trust this committee will recommend that this bill be approved for third and final reading in the upcoming sitting of the Legislature, because this is our future at stake. Thank you. Merci pour votre attention.
Mr Murphy: Thank you very much for your presentations, both very well done. Like Mr Chiarelli, I am not from Mr Duignan's area -- I represent a riding in downtown Toronto -- so I have to be somewhat educated on what is happening, and your presentation certainly helps.
I was just thinking about your example of your house and having been there for a long time. I know the commission has some power over what you can or can't do with your house. I'm not sure how far it goes, but I have heard some stories. If you were given approval, for example, for an extension to your house or building a new house on the escarpment and at some point halfway through the process it was decided, "We'd better not allow any more extensions, any more building," if you're halfway through the process and the law is changed so that from now on we don't allow any more building, the question I have, from a responsible legislator's point of view, is should you be allowed to continue your extension or should it apply as of that point on and you should be compensated for tearing down your extension and paid for the costs you've put out? How would you deal with the issue of you being halfway through your building?
Mr Kirkwood: My thinking is that they should be able to come to a decision before I start it, not try and stop us halfway through.
Mr Murphy: Absolutely, that would be the ideal. But if somebody is halfway through the process when you decide, as responsible legislators, what should you do with the person in that position?
Mr Kirkwood: If that building was encroaching on the rights of others or something of that nature, I might not like it, but I could understand why they did it.
Mr Duignan: I wish to thank Harvey and Janice for coming along this afternoon. It's not very often that we get the younger generation's point of view on any legislation, and legislation we enact or don't enact has an impact on the future generations down the road. Your point of view has been well worth it. And no doubt we will see you in this place some time in the near future. Please keep up the good work, and thank you for coming.
The Chair: Mr Kirkwood and Ms Brooks, I speak for all the members when I say we appreciate your presentation, your interest and your activism. Merci beaucoup, Janice, pour avoir fait cette présentation.
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DOUGLAS LARSON
Dr Douglas Larson: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here, if only because I see most of you on TV and it's nice to see some flesh and bones for the faces I see so regularly on the news.
I've handed out a two-page summary I will read for the record. It's very brief, and I will make myself available for questions when I'm done.
These comments are made regarding private member's Bill 62, An Act to amend the Environmental Protection Act in respect of the Niagara Escarpment. My comments are based entirely on my experience as a scientist working in and on the Niagara Escarpment since 1985. I have coordinated the research activity of about 45 people since that time, and our group has been responsible for publishing numerous scientific papers and book chapters dealing with the ecology of the Niagara Escarpment. Over a hundred national and international magazine, newspaper, radio and television items have been produced about our work.
I am not a member of, nor have I ever been a member of, any political action group or organization of any type, although I have given public lectures to nearly 60 groups over the past four years. I have believed that membership in such societies could be interpreted as evidence of partiality.
My comments will be very brief. Cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment support the most intact and the most ancient forest ecosystem in eastern North America. All parts of the escarpment from Grimsby to Tobermory show more or less the same pre-settlement forest structure: old slow-growing trees, abundant dead trees, lichens, mosses, ferns and a wide assortment of other wildlife that appear to be distinctive; that is, the structure of the ecosystem is not like the rest of Ontario.
The cliff ecosystem has not been exposed to fire, logging or other human disturbances. Its structure has been relatively constant over the past 4,000 years, and recent data suggest that its form has not changed much in 8,000 years. The oldest individuals of eastern white cedar were nearly 1,600 years old when they died, and many of the ancestors of the current tree population have been lying at the bottom of the cliff without decomposing for 3,500 years.
The cliff ecosystem supports the slowest-growing trees in the world. An entire microcosm of more than 30 species of algae live within the solid limestone walls of the escarpment. These are very unusual properties for a forest ecosystem in North America, or in the world, for that matter.
I have been asked to give formal presentations of our research results to universities all across North America. Without exception, my hosts are amazed that such a slow-growing and structurally intact forest ecosystem would be present in the midst of heavily industrialized North America. The economic value of studying such a forest, especially from the point of view of using it to learn about long-term climate change, is enormous.
At the current time, the cliff ecosystem of the Niagara Escarpment is buffered from the outside world by the lands included in the Niagara Escarpment plan area. These lands contain richly wooded second-growth forests, as well as farms, factories, houses and schools. At present, the encroachment on the cliff ecosystem is impeded somewhat by the Niagara Escarpment plan, which effectively discourages consumptive exploitation of escarpment lands.
The proposed legislation would seek to add one more piece of legislation restricting human behaviour within the plan area by discouraging the creation of waste disposal sites within the plan area. This legislation boldly announces to the public of Ontario that further encroachments on lands adjacent to the Niagara Escarpment must be curtailed.
From the point of view of the long-term value to science and society, I claim that we must allow no further loss of this habitat. The legislation should be passed, because it demonstrates to all Ontarians and to the world at large that an enlightened, affluent people can achieve sustainable environments by curtailing their exploitation of them. If we can't do it here, we can't do it anywhere. Thank you.
Mr Murdoch: There will be lots of questions on this, but I'll bring up the problem I have. You mentioned the lands in the natural area, and they're not the same as what's in there. I'm not going to argue with the point about the slow-growing trees in the natural area and the rock face and the swamps that are part of the natural area. But then we have the protection out to the rural area, and in my area in Grey and Bruce it goes out sometimes three and four miles.
Dr Larson: You're speaking about the plan area.
Mr Murdoch: Yes. But this bill unfortunately takes in that plan area, and that's where I have some problems with it. The more we go into it, it seems to be a bill just for the Halton area, but when the bill was introduced, it took in the whole Niagara Escarpment plan area. In our area we do have a lot of area that's out of the natural area. I'm sure you know what I mean by "natural," "protected" and "rural." I have some concerns with that. Would you not say that some of the rural area could be used as a landfill site? I'm talking about our area.
Dr Larson: Whether or not such lands should be used for a landfill site is really outside of my expertise. I would point out that the problem you've indicated is in the boundary of the Niagara Escarpment plan area as it was originally designated.
The people who drafted the borders of the Niagara Escarpment plan area did not have the advantage of knowing what we know now about the structure of the cliff face ecosystem on the escarpment. In fact, to be honest, as a professional ecologist, if it had turned out that the cliffs supported a second- or a third-growth forest ecosystem, in other words, one that was heavily disturbed, most of my comments would not apply, because it would have been a system already heavily disturbed by human activity.
Really, what you're suggesting is that a reconsideration of the boundary of the Niagara Escarpment plan area might be appropriate. I would agree with you that it might be appropriate to do that, but it's almost a secondary issue. I've been asked to respond to a piece of legislation that has been proposed now, and given that that's what I've been asked to judge, my comment is that we are better off as a society with that bill passed than without it passed.
Mr Murdoch: I can understand what you're saying, but you've got to respect the rights of some of the people who are in the area that now, if this bill is passed, will be included. The county of Grey is going through its waste study and it's going to have to come up at some time with a site. I'm not saying they have a site anywhere near the escarpment now -- that process hasn't come there -- but it could happen.
Dr Larson: As an ecologist, if I were to design the Niagara Escarpment plan area based on what we now know about it as an ecosystem, a functioning, intact, ancient ecosystem, I would draw it differently, and anything I can do to help in the redrafting of borders to the Niagara Escarpment plan I would be more than happy to help with. But that's almost a secondary issue.
Mr Murdoch: Well, it is and it isn't, for me. Someone earlier said we only have 14% of the land in Grey, but we have 158,000 acres of it compared to Halton, which only has 55,000. So we do have a lot of land in our area.
Dr Larson: The point my brief tries to make is that we sitting in this committee room have almost no idea how amazing the rest of the world finds this place. You have to travel and visit scientific and land management groups in other countries, especially in the UK and the US right now, to appreciate how amazed they are to find this kind of ecosystem in the middle of seven million people. In fact, the occurrence of it is really the basis for the Ministry of Environment's support of our climate change research right now.
If this cliff ecosystem had been in the middle of Ellesmere Island, I suspect the Ministry of Environment or the federal Department of the Environment would have had much less interest in support for the research on climate change, because there are so few people living in the immediate vicinity. We are going to be able to tell Ontarians and actually North Americans about the extent of recent climate change because of the fact that this ancient forest is there. My job for the future, to follow up on the last speaker, is to ensure that subsequent generations of people will also be able to learn from it, in ways we haven't even thought about yet. The more we encroach on it in any form, whether we're talking about landfill sites or whether we're talking about heavy industry, the less opportunity there will be in the future to learn from this habitat.
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Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): You said from Grimsby to Tobermory it shows the same pre-settlement forest structure. Is there something different between Grimsby and the Niagara River?
Dr Larson: Dynamite. Long sections of the cliff face, around Hamilton and from Grimsby to the falls, were blown up by well-meaning people from the 1880s to the 1940s. It was believed that the jagged, rugged-looking cliffs with the twisted trees represented a real estate hazard: Some people have property at the base of the cliff and they would look up through their picture windows and see a 45-ton boulder positioned in such a way as to make them uncomfortable while eating dinner. As a consequence, there was a program that officially blew it up to make a nice straight edge, and all of those places have been lost.
They are slowly recruiting the same kind of flora and fauna that we have on the natural Niagara Escarpment. By the way, this recruitment of the natural flora seems to also be occurring on all of the quarry sites that we're currently researching. We have a very active research program right now funded by the Ministry of Natural Resources, looking at the controls of natural recolonization on cliffs and quarries. It looks like, as in the scaled cliffs around Hamilton and around Niagara Falls, there is a very slow but inevitable return to a natural Niagara Escarpment flora, given the slow passage of time. However, even around Niagara Falls, I have found a few places that the blasters didn't get to, and there is the same pre-settlement forest structure in very small pieces of the cliff edge.
Ms Harrington: When was that done? In this century?
Dr Larson: Yes. Some of the blasting was done recently. As far as I'm aware, the ski area on the Milton outlier was partially created by blasting away at the cliff edge to create a nice slope down from the top. I don't want to vilify the people who did that. They didn't know what they were doing, and there's some defence offered them by that.
Ms Harrington: Along there, we have the St Catharines city landfill, Walker Bros Quarries, right in line with it, followed by the Niagara Falls city dump. They're all lined up there right along the escarpment face.
We really wish we had a magic wand to make garbage disappear. Barring that, garbage disposal is a fact of life. We now I think are agreeing that the Niagara Escarpment is not the place to put it. I'm sure there are other precious places across Ontario which are not appropriate places for landfills. I don't know whether we'll need legislation to protect them, or how they would be identified and laid out and mapped scientifically. Do you feel there are appropriate areas for landfill across this province, or what's the solution?
Dr Larson: Again, I'm not an expert on this. If my private opinion is of any value I'd be glad to give it to the committee, but I don't think you should place any weight upon it at all.
Ms Harrington: What is your opinion?
Dr Larson: There are ample opportunities for multiple smaller-scale landfills that, if properly configured, actually can be turned into recreational areas. I've seen this done in Michigan successfully. The city of Guelph is very interested in getting its own wet-dry facility going, again sitting on top of limestone outcrops at the side of the Speed River, right near one of my research sites.
We as a society have to recognize that we make it, we deal with it. I agree with Ruth Grier's admonition for us to deal with it as locally as possible. Having said that, there are some better situations and some worse situations. I'm not sure there's enough evidence yet to show the catastrophes that many environmentalists predict. At the same time, if any of them are right, it seems to me that the cost of making remedial solutions to that in the future might be enormous. It's certainly something we should do very carefully. The answer might be a larger number of small units rather than a small number of large units.
Mr Duignan: Just to satisfy my own curiosity, were you the individual who recently discovered the thousand-year-old trees on the escarpment?
Dr Larson: It seems recent to me, but it was in 1988. Yes. We first came across old trees on the Milton outlier and then proceeded in 1989 to show that the entire escarpment is involved in this same kind of recurring pattern of old trees along the escarpment.
Mr Chiarelli: I appreciated your presentation. You indicated, "The encroachment on the cliff ecosystem is impeded somewhat by the Niagara Escarpment plan, which effectively discourages consumptive exploitation of escarpment lands." You go on to say that this particular bill is "one more piece of legislation restricting human behaviour within the plan area by discouraging the creation of waste disposal sites within the plan area." To me, it seems you're looking at long-term preservation.
I guess you've partially answered my question. A number of people have come forward and talked about environmental disaster. In the context of your presentation and in the context of environmental disaster, does one more site -- not a number of sites and not a policy of approving sites in the future, but the RSI site -- translate into environmental disaster down the road?
Dr Larson: No.
Mr Chiarelli: In other words, if that site were to be grandfathered or permitted because of certain legal reasons or whatever and then from this point on no further sites were permitted, does this one site impact on what you're saying significantly or is it very incremental?
Dr Larson: It's incremental. My answer was no, and it's incremental.
This habitat is about 700 kilometres long in Ontario. By the way, there's another 500 kilometres of it in Wisconsin and in Michigan, so we don't own all of the Niagara Escarpment; we only have about two thirds of it. It's a circular-shaped basin.
Having said that, the encroachment has been gradual. The rock scaling that happened in Niagara Falls eliminated that portion of it; the scaling around Hamilton took away that portion of it. Every time a road cut is proposed through the escarpment, there's a bit more that goes. Certainly, whatever is proposed for one particular site will not, in my view as a professional ecologist, result in a large-scale catastrophe. It will be an incremental loss, but a loss to us all. What happens is that the habitat right now is a long river of rock that is linked together by this series of lowlands covered with glacial till. Every time we lose one of these links in the chain or every time one of these links in the chain is allowed to corrode somewhat -- that's probably a better analogy -- we lose an increment of control over our future.
No, I'm not one of those who argues in favour of the catastrophe hypothesis. I don't see any evidence in the literature that such catastrophes would happen. Now, if one happened to own property near that site, that might appear to them to be catastrophic, but as a professional scientist I'm interested in the way the place works, and on the basis of the evidence I know, any loss to the place by allowing one more site to be licensed would be an incremental loss, a small-scale catastrophe perhaps, but spread over the entire escarpment it would simply be one more kick at an already wounded dog.
Mr Offer: I have a question dealing with not just landfill sites or waste disposal sites or waste management sites, but anything that goes on in the Niagara Escarpment. You know there are certain permitted uses, a certain ability to deal with the escarpment. I'm moved by what you have said about anything that goes on in the escarpment being an assault against the escarpment itself. Would you be in support of just freezing the escarpment as is, save any remediation?
Dr Larson: No. I'm in favour of having sacrificial lamb components of the escarpment, and the site that comes to mind the most quickly is Rattlesnake Point. The amount of devastation to Rattlesnake Point by pairs of feet, like we've all got, has been enormous, and by the rock-climbing community. The rock-climbing and hiking community wants to expand access via more access provided by the Bruce Trail all along the escarpment. I am against that as much as possible, and I've written articles for the climbing association admonishing them against trying to get more climbing routes. What we really need is to have some areas of it, the best-representative areas of it, put aside as solidly as possible so they can be used passively and non-aggressively, and then visit to hell, if I can speak that way, the other places which have already been taken to such an extreme degree of destruction that it's almost too late for them.
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If you've ever gone for any hikes around the edge of Rattlesnake Point, there are nothing but adult trees left. In fact, when those adult trees die there will be a desert unless there's an active replanting campaign. As long as it's already been so devastated, we might as well continue to have very heavy use there.
Mr Offer: Wouldn't the quarry fall within your definition of sacrificial lamb?
Dr Larson: "The" quarry or quarries?
Mr Offer: Quarry.
Dr Larson: I'm not talking about "quarry"; I'm talking about quarries. All my comments were addressing the bill, and the bill proposes that a ban or some kind of restrictive legislation be placed upon the creation --
Mr Offer: Any existing quarry. Would that not fall within your -- you're an expert at this thing. You gave some very interesting information.
Dr Larson: So what's your question?
Mr Offer: I asked the question about any sort of development of the escarpment and you said that there are areas on the escarpment that have been walked upon, trod upon --
Dr Larson: And otherwise.
Mr Offer: -- to such a degree that in your expert opinion they have been fairly badly hurt. If I hear you correctly, you're saying that those areas, let them continue to be walked and trod upon and let everyone visit that, but let's keep the rest of it as pure as possible.
Dr Larson: Yes, as pure as we can afford to keep it.
Mr Offer: The obvious question I would ask is, based on your expert opinion, isn't the existing quarry part of that walked-upon, trod-upon area, sacrificial --
Dr Larson: You're switching scales on me. I'm sorry to interrupt, but what do you mean by "the existing quarry"?
Mr Offer: Any existing quarry.
Dr Larson: Okay. Then could you rephrase your question? I thought you were speaking about one specific quarry when you said it.
Mr Offer: Any existing quarry that lies within the Niagara Escarpment. I'm not the expert you are, so I can't --
Dr Larson: I'm just trying to find out what your question is.
Mr Offer: My question is that there are certain quarries on the Niagara Escarpment now.
Dr Larson: Many -- 2,000.
Mr Offer: And I would have thought they would fall within your definition of having been ruinous to the escarpment.
Dr Larson: Yes.
Mr Offer: And then you have said that you should leave certain things as sacrificial lambs, that as long as nothing further takes place, we are doing something in a positive fashion. So the question I was attempting to pose to you, and I apologize for the imprecision --
Dr Larson: No, don't apologize. We're just trying to understand one another.
Mr Offer: -- was whether the quarries that now exist on the Niagara Escarpment are, in your expert opinion, within the definition of the phrase "sacrificial lambs."
Dr Larson: That's a hard one to say yes to, because I'm still not sure what you're getting at. Let me try to rephrase it.
Mr Offer: Okay, you ask the question.
Dr Larson: Are you suggesting that continued quarrying be done in existing quarries?
Mr Murphy: What do you do with the quarry?
Dr Larson: Well, that's a separate one. We'll just deal with his first, if you don't mind.
Mr Murphy: Aren't we asking the same question? I think we are.
The Chair: Answer that question and then perhaps get to the other question.
Dr Larson: If there are existing quarries and there is a proposal to start up a new quarry, it's better to continue to exploit the existing quarry because it has already been quarried, and to that extent it's better to expand it than it is to dig a new hole in the ground and make a new quarry.
If your question had to do with switching the use from quarry to landfill, that's another issue.
The Chair: What is your response to that?
Dr Larson: Again, I'm not an expert on landfills. If I could be assured of the absolute, ironclad lack of leakage from such a quarry, perhaps I wouldn't be too upset. But as far as I know, limestone bedrocks are extremely porous, and therefore my primary concern has to do with the engineering of such sites to ensure that they cannot leak.
Mr Offer: There is a follow-up question to this.
The Chair: We actually allowed 10 minutes for your question. I was very generous because we were all interested in that.
Mr Stockwell: He took five minutes to get the questions clear.
Dr Larson: That's right. I'm a demented university professor and can't ever get my questions straight.
Mr Offer: We've heard some wonderful presentations, and this is just a continuation of these presentations. In terms of the ironclad guarantee against leakage, would you be at all reluctant to leave this to an environmental assessment hearing?
Dr Larson: I have to claim ignorance again. I don't know enough about the environmental assessment process to know how much faith I should have in the hearing component of that process.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr Larson. We found it very interesting and very insightful.
Dr Larson: Thank you for having me.
CITY OF ST CATHARINES
The Chair: The city of St Catharines, Mr Denis Squires and colleagues. Mr Squires, perhaps you can introduce the others.
Mr Denis Squires: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I appear with two engineers: city engineer Paul Mustard, and Dave Smith, our environmental engineer. I'm going to make a presentation and they will be available to answer questions with me, particularly as you may have some pertaining to the Glenridge quarry operation, about which you will be hearing, in St Catharines.
I have filed with the Chair a copy of minutes from February 7 and a confirmation bylaw which in effect authorizes me to be here and speak on behalf of the city of St Catharines. The material I've left with you is less formidable than it appears and I expect to make my way through it fairly quickly.
The city of St Catharines submits that Bill 62 should not be enacted in its present form. As it's drafted, it makes certificates of approval unavailable even for uses which the Niagara Escarpment plan permits. This will result in a statutory scheme, when you take the legislation all together, under which certain waste disposal operations would be permitted or could be established in the plan area but for which no certificate of approval could be had. This is a rather odd result, and it is because the legislation does not conform to the Niagara Escarpment plan, strictly speaking. This in turn has serious consequences for waste disposal in St Catharines. As a result, I've been asked to attend and make this presentation before you.
The bill changes the law to make the operation of the city's existing, permitted waste disposal site illegal if a new certificate of approval should become necessary in the course of its operation.
A little background on the Glenridge site: The city of St Catharines disposes of household waste at that site. It commenced operation in 1976, which predates approval of the Niagara Escarpment plan in 1985. It's a municipal facility. It's operated by the city of St Catharines. It's located in a plan area and is therefore an existing use. It's also a permitted use because it's in the urban area designation of the plan. An urban area is not green space; it's developed. It certainly is in our area, at least.
Proposed waste disposal operations in the urban area do not require an amendment to the Niagara Escarpment plan. The range of permitted uses there is subject to the development criteria and objectives as incorporated in local planning documents, official plans and bylaws that are not in conflict with the plan. In the urban area, changes to permitted uses and expansions, alterations, are all permitted. They don't require a plan amendment provided it meets the regulatory regime imposed by the plan itself. But you can do these things there without a plan amendment, and that, I will be submitting to you, is a critical distinction.
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I'll just refer to these; I don't propose to go through these exhaustively. I have the urban area criteria set forth at tab A. On the second page, page 19, is the provision which pertains to changes to permitting uses, expansions and alterations. Likewise, over the page are the provisions applicable to existing uses which can be expanded pursuant to the requirements of the plan itself.
Over on the last page at that tab, I note there are some uses from amendment 52, which are waste disposal types of uses, that the commission likes. They accepted these from the operation of amendment 52, and I'll come back to that in a moment. But for purposes of existing uses, they can expand.
Turning to amendment 52, it had the effect of deleting waste disposal operations from the definition of "utilities," and utilities were permitted in four areas of the plan. They are no longer permitted in those four areas. The urban area is not one of those four areas. New waste disposal operations or expansions to existing facilities are permitted in the urban area designation under the criteria of the plan.
When amendment 52 was brought forward, the commission basically said, "If you want to have a landfill operation in the plan area, you've got to get a plan amendment, because these are very intrusive and they have environmental consequences." However, they accepted certain of these, ones they liked, the ones I call the warm and fuzzy ones, the friendly ones: Small-scale recycling and composting are accepted in amendment 52. That was at the last page I showed you at tab A. Certificates of approval under this bill will not be available for those.
I'm submitting to you that the bill, as it's drawn, is inconsistent with the plan and inconsistent with amendment 52, because it represents a total, outright, blanket prohibition.
I want to turn to the public interest, because the public interest was specifically addressed when the plan was established. The act established a process to ensure that escarpment lands within the plan area would be protected, and from the legislation ultimately emerged the plan which serves as a framework of objectives and policies to strike a balance between development, preservation and enjoyment of this resource. This language is found at the introduction to the plan itself, and I've attached a copy at tab C.
At tab D I've included a copy of the minister's letter, only to make the point that reconciling of divergent views was necessary to safeguard natural features for future generations when the plan was developed.
I'm submitting to you that the approval of the plan by cabinet in the first instance represented a determination that waste collection, disposal and management uses were compatible with the purpose and objectives of the act.
We have large-scale public uses permitted: sanitary sewage, gas and oil pipelines, electrical lines and towers, telephone lines, public transportation systems and broadcasting facilities. Not because these enhance the natural environment of the escarpment, but because they're justified out of public necessity, out of public need, they were permitted.
Niagara region is actually somewhat unique in the waste disposal field. The area municipalities have waste disposal responsibility, but in St Catharines it's us; we're responsible at the city level. Glenridge quarry is used for household waste, Walker Bros for industrial, commercial and institutional, ICI. Both of these facilities are in the plan area, so we're interested in Bill 62 on that account. The bill represents a substantial impact on our ability to fulfil our waste disposal responsibility.
I want to distinguish us from the private sector. Private operators can reallocate their resources for other purposes in response to adverse legislative change. We, no matter what, will be responsible for waste disposal. We can't go away. In discharging our responsibilities, we're dependent on private sector operators. We are at the beginning of the site selection process for a new landfill site. It's proposed that the Niagara Escarpment plan area will be excluded from lands available for candidate sites. We're not looking in the plan area. The exclusionary criteria have been identified, and I threw in a copy at tab E just for your reference.
We are participating in a club approach to waste management and we have developed a regional municipality of Niagara waste management master plan. The objective of that plan ultimately is to reduce from 13 existing waste disposal sites within the region to three centrally located sites.
Turning again to Glenridge quarry's operation, because it, we feel, will be impacted by the bill, a question arose over interpretation of conditions for filling new cells at the Glenridge site. As a result, city staff developed a proposal to provide interim disposal capacity until a new longer-term site can be established. This involves an exchange of approved but unused disposal capacity from the unused new cells to existing cells. We will be operating within our capacity limit, but instead of putting it here, we're going to put it there. We're going to use the old cells rather than new cells with a grade level change, if that proposal succeeds on its technical merits.
This proposal will allow us to continue to use the site for some six years. It does not require an amendment of the Niagara Escarpment plan; it does not require an environmental assessment. The city has published particulars of the proposal, and I've included them at tab F for your reference. I'm hoping you'll find that material fairly comprehensive.
The existing cells at Glenridge will be fully utilized this year, probably by November. If the site is required to be closed then, when we reach current approved final contours for existing cells, we have to send our waste somewhere else. The cost of doing so will amount to some $5 million annually in addition to current costs. This translates into some $32 million over the next six years of unused capacity. Some of the citizen organizations have questioned the numbers and they may suggest to you a lesser figure, but let me say that no matter how one cuts it, it's a substantial economic impact to St Catharines.
The expenditure, if it's $5 million annually, will result in about an 11.5% tax increase for all property owners in St Catharines: residential, industrial and commercial. The industrial and commercial taxpayers will derive no benefit because Glenridge deals only in household waste. A report to council reciting these figures is attached at tab G.
The grade modification proposal was approved by city council in September 1993 -- the minutes are at tab H -- but if the passage of the bill should make a certificate of approval unavailable, the site will become unusable after the capacity of current cells has been met. This means that the total allowable capacity of the site will go unused, and we submit that is a waste. Apart from its economic consequence to us, we will have a landfill site, which could accommodate more waste, which goes unused. That result would ensue only because Bill 62 is passed in the form of the blanket prohibition in which it now is.
The plan was developed having regard to the reconciling of divergent interests, and we do submit that a balance has to be struck. The balance originally struck by the plan was altered by amendment 52, but neither the plan nor amendment 52 has affected Glenridge to require a plan amendment for alterations to the site, where existing and where permitted. I wish to emphasize that.
During the amendment 52 hearing Halton region appeared -- and I understand it's before you to address Bill 62 -- as a party for the purpose of supporting the amendment. Halton submitted that landfilling should not be permitted in the plan area. At the same time, they were depositing a substantial portion of their waste in the Niagara Escarpment plan area at the Walker Bros quarry, using capacity which would otherwise presumably have been available to us, and they incinerated the balance in New York state, because they can't incinerate in Halton, as their current facility was not then operational.
I'm not criticizing Halton as such. The point I wish to make, though, the lesson that has to be drawn from this, is that the complexities of the issues are such that Halton supported an amendment to the plan which was inconsistent with its waste disposal practices. I submit that didn't represent a proper balance between the responsibilities it exercises as a public authority.
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The objectives of Bill 62 have to be addressed. The bill seeks to avoid the hearing process involved in a plan amendment or an EA. I have emphasized to you that our grade modification proposal and other alterations to the site require neither. Affecting Glenridge by Bill 62 will not advance the objectives of the bill in that respect.
With respect to new sites, as recorded in Hansard, the proponent of the bill has referred to the escarpment as a natural environment and biosphere reserve, which indeed it is, and the member expressed concern about the application of RSI in Halton Hills to use the Acton quarry as a private landfill site. It's not necessary to prohibit certificates of approval for existing and permitted uses to achieve the objective expressed with respect to that site.
Finally, there are only some existing operating landfills in the plan area. I don't believe any have been approved since the plan itself was approved. Every one of these ultimately will be closed. Is it really necessary to impose this level of regulation, which we submit will have a dramatic effect on St Catharines, for so limited an objective?
Existing operations should not be subjected to a consideration of whether such a use should be permitted in the plan area, as that determination's already been made; they are already there. Given that their presence has been established, and given the expense and other commitments that have been made with respect to them, they should be allowed to fulfil their function on the grounds of public necessity, by which they were initially permitted. It does not serve the public interest that certificates of approval should be absolutely prohibited for these sites.
In conclusion, Bill 62, as drawn, will establish an anomalous statutory regime for waste disposal operations in the plan area. The reach of the bill exceeds its objectives. It will have a substantial, if not catastrophic, effect on the economic interest of St Catharines for little, if any, we submit, environmental benefit in so far as Glenridge is concerned.
Bill 62 denies certificates of approval for uses permitted by the plan. In that respect, it's inconsistent with the plan, the statutory regime under which permitted use is required. That a new certificate of approval cannot be made operational is, we submit, unsupportable. The regime then is not required to achieve the legislation's objectives.
Because the bill has the potential to prevent operations at the Glenridge site and result in our early closing, we appear before you. We're also concerned that even remediation requiring a certificate of approval could not be undertaken for the Glenridge site, or for any other site we have that's closed, let us say, in the plan area.
It's submitted that the bill shouldn't be enacted in its present form, but if it must be enacted, certificates of approval should be available for existing or permitted uses in the Niagara Escarpment plan area. I would invite you to turn to tab K, because I've taken the liberty of drafting an amendment. This represents an alteration to the proponent's bill by creating subsection (a), which is from the bill, and subsection (b), which is new.
Subsection (b) has the effect of allowing certificates of approval in respect of a waste management system or a waste disposal site which is an existing or a permitted use as provided in the plan and which does not require an amendment to the plan. It's submitted that this amendment would enable the objectives of the bill to be met, while at the same time being consistent with the Niagara Escarpment plan. It would also spare, as a result, the Glenridge quarry landfill site from substantial adverse impact.
Finally, I wish to leave you with this question: If a use is permitted in the Niagara Escarpment plan, why on earth wouldn't certificates of approval be available for them? That completes my presentation.
Mr Duignan: Thank you for bringing forward your concerns from the city of St Catharines. My approach to this whole bill over the period since I introduced it and before that is that it's a very non-partisan issue. You have brought a legitimate concern here to this committee, and hopefully, that non-partisan position will continue to the point that we can get this bill approved as amended. Have you had an opportunity to review the proposed amendment to the bill?
Mr Squires: I have prepared a comment with respect to it, but I don't know what its status is or whether it was before you. I can leave you with a copy of this, if you like. The difficulty I have is that I haven't subjected it to any rigorous analysis, because I only saw it for the first time yesterday, but I did dictate some thoughts on it and I'm prepared to leave them with you, if that's of any benefit. I do have some comments on them and I'd be happy to make them now.
Mr Duignan: I would appreciate the comments you have on the amendment, because it would help us in our deliberation in clause-by-clause.
Mr Squires: In many respects, it meets the same objections that we have to Bill 62 in the sense that it still doesn't square with the plan. There are still instances of permitted uses which would not get a C of A. We still have that problem with it.
We have concerns about the inadequacy of the opportunity to develop a more intelligent response. We don't think you should pick and choose between uses permitted by the plan to determine which are capable of a certificate of approval. If it's approved by the plan, we submit it's appropriate that a C of A be available, period.
I believe the amendment to Bill 62 selected from some of the amendment 52 uses. It didn't describe them in the same language either, so I had a concern that maybe the plan and the bill mean different things in some respects. That result, to me at least, seems to be unnecessary. It's possible to make them square, so why not do so?
I don't think existing sites should be required to demonstrate that a certificate will result in an environmental benefit, and that's one of the criteria. Would you prohibit an environmentally neutral proposal which is being advanced for a more economic or efficient operation of a site? We have a concern that by requiring there be some environmental benefit, it's unduly restrictive.
And it's again the comment I made with respect to existing sites. There's a limited number of them, and by affecting what they can do, given that they're going to be closed anyway, you're having a great impact with potentially little environmental benefit, given that the sites are already located there. If it were a case of a new site, I would be prepared to yield, but when you have them already there and operating, if you affect them so they can't fulfil their function, can't be fully utilized, you result in an inefficiency which requires landfilling elsewhere unnecessarily.
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Mr Chiarelli: You spent a fair amount of time at the beginning talking about the fact that Bill 62 would override the Niagara Escarpment plan. You haven't had the benefit of hearing the dialogue and the discussion before now, but I interpret the intention of the member whose bill this is and the government members to do just that. They intend this bill to override the Niagara Escarpment plan. They intend it to be a total ban. That's the sense I'm getting from this particular committee.
It's also been made very clear that the Ministry of Environment is very reluctant to go on the public record in support of this legislation. I suspect the reason is that Bill 62 compromises the integrity of the planning process, as you have pointed out in your submission, and, as some other members of this committee have pointed out, it probably compromises the integrity of the legal process in some respects, in the case of the one applicant who's been mentioned very frequently in these hearings.
I think those are givens at the present time. That appears to be the way the legislation is going. There's a lot of public support and there's support from the members on the government side that Bill 62 should be that draconian and should override the integrity of the planning process.
I don't know what advice I can give you other than to ask, as a lawyer who's practised presumably for a number of years, what's your assessment of legislation that does that and which I would assume the government's own Ministry of Environment refuses to align itself with? What's your assessment of that type of legislation as a lawyer talking about process?
Mr Squires: That kind of legislation, a complete, outright, blanket ban, has the deficiencies which I suggested in so far as it doesn't recognize uses which the Niagara Escarpment Commission likes, that it supports, and that's the body that administers the plan area. I think regard should be had to the plan in drafting provincial legislation.
The legislation is not regulatory; it's an outright prohibition. That has certain impacts. If the government of the day determines that this draconian legislation is appropriate, that that's what it wants, it will proceed to cost the city of St Catharines the cost of diverting waste at $5 million, or whatever it may be, annually and will result in the closing of a not-fully-utilized site as a conscious act. The government will do that with its eyes open, if only because we came here today. All I can do is make this presentation.
Mr Stockwell: You've read the draft; you just haven't had a lot of time to digest it. What did you think of the last section, subsection (2)?
Mr Squires: It's not in my draft. I think it's inappropriate. We can't do that sort of thing at the municipal level, and we have the same kinds of problems.
Mr Stockwell: We were told yesterday you could.
Mr Squires: Well, I would beg to differ. I stand to be corrected, however. For example, when we get an applicant for a building permit to establish a use we don't like and which happens to be lawful, we're not really in a position to pass zoning legislation to foreclose that person once the application is in. However, the province of Ontario is not in the same boat. I tend to be somewhat less sympathetic with the province. The province, because it wields that kind of authority, has a greater responsibility.
Mr Murdoch: I want to thank you for coming and bringing this problem to us, and I'm sure there may be others with this bill. But hopefully the government, before we're done here in the next couple of days, will take your situation into consideration. You've drafted an amendment at the back, and hopefully they can take that and put it into the amendment they had and switch it around so it will solve your problems. I just hope you stay around for the next few days and keep an eye on this so we can resolve your situation. I would hope they didn't intend to put you in this spot, but they have, and there may be other problems.
Mr Squires: We're not suggesting that it was done as a conscious act.
Mr Stockwell: No, purely unconscious.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Thank you very much, Mr Squires, and the delegation from St Catharines.
ONTARIO WASTE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
Ms Nancy Porteous-Koehle: I am Nancy Porteous-Koehle, the president of the Ontario Waste Management Association. With me today is John Sanderson, our vice-president, and Terry Taylor, the director of public affairs for the Ontario Waste Management Association.
We appreciate the opportunity of appearing before you today. We have some very serious reservations about this proposed legislation. During the next few minutes, I would like to outline our concerns to you. In the end, I hope to convince you that Bill 62 is unnecessary and unfair.
First and foremost, you must not forget that there is already a sophisticated process in place that thoroughly reviews all applications for new waste management facilities. I speak, of course, of the Environmental Assessment Act and the requirement to submit any application for a new landfill to the Environmental Assessment Board for a full review.
In our opinion, the board has never approved a landfill that it should not have. In making its decisions, the board fully takes into account all the issues raised by the citizens who make their homes in the proximity of the proposed site. The board and the OWMA are aware that golf courses, ski hills and housing developments are more welcome uses of land than landfill siting. But the board and the OWMA are also aware that landfills are an inevitable societal requirement.
People will always need landfills. They are a necessary component of a solid waste management system. They have to be built somewhere, and the present government has decreed that they have to be built close to the residences of the people whose waste they receive. In our opinion, there are four major problems with Bill 62.
First, it subverts a fair and effective process, a process that can and does include the Planning Act, the Ontario Municipal Board, the Environmental Assessment Act and the Environmental Assessment Board. The present procedure guarantees that all applicants receive a fair hearing. All applicants may not be happy with the outcome of their hearing, but at least it can be said that those hearings are fair.
This bill would eliminate that system of fairness and equity. This bill would override those decisions that grant certificates of approval, even after it has been proven that the applications have merit. That simply is not fair. If the Environmental Assessment Board, in its wisdom, approves a new facility, why should the applicants be estopped by overriding legislation such as Bill 62? What further purpose does the Environmental Assessment Board serve if separate legislation is able to neutralize it and undermine it?
Either the people of Ontario have faith in the existing system, or they don't. If the system is found wanting, then fix the system. That's a better approach than applying a Band-Aid. In our opinion, the present approval system, although not perfect, works a lot better than if it were replaced by a patchwork of competing and contradictory legislation.
The second problem we have with Bill 62 is that it is patently discriminatory. The golf courses and the ski hills of the Niagara Escarpment are special, but so are similar facilities throughout the province. How can this government tell the folks who live in the region of Peel that their concerns are unfounded and unwarranted and that they're going to get a new landfill despite their protests? Try to convince the people in Durham region that the Oak Ridges moraine isn't as important as the escarpment. I think you would have a tough fight on your hands.
To carry this through to its illogical conclusion, why does Bill 62 mention only the escarpment? Why don't you amend it to include York, Peel and Durham regions, or for that matter the rest of Ontario? What possible justification is there for exempting one specific area of the province when everyone in Ontario is challenged by solid waste disposal?
Our third concern relates to the long-term implications of this bill. Eventually, every existing landfill on the escarpment will reach its absolute capacity, beyond which it will not be able to accommodate any further waste. This will happen regardless of all the waste diversion efforts and programs that are introduced. Eventually, the landfills on the escarpment will run out of room. Then what?
This bill cannot change the laws of physics. It cannot allow a completely full landfill to be enlarged. This bill also prevents new landfills from being established. So I ask you, if you can't enlarge the existing facilities and you can't build new ones, where is the waste going to go?
The answer is simple. Waste from the Niagara Escarpment will then be exported to other areas of the province, and that, my friends, is entirely contradictory to present government policy. What signal does this send to the people of Ontario? That the present government practises a policy of local final disposal -- but not on the Niagara Escarpment, because the people who live there are special? Again I think that would be a tough sell.
Finally, there's a negative economic implication to this bill. The present wording would prohibit the establishment or enlargement of any waste management system and the commerce and industry that is dependent on it. Bill 7, a recent bill, defined a "waste management system" as comprising both services and facilities. This includes companies that haul waste, companies that recycle, companies that consolidate waste for final disposal, companies that compost organics, as well as all the attendant industries they support.
This bill would prevent the creation of a lot more than just new landfills. It would stifle any further development of the waste management industry on the escarpment, and that means no new jobs and no new investment in recycling, in composting or in waste hauling. I don't think that is the message this government wants to send out to the many thousands of unemployed who live on the escarpment.
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Ladies and gentlemen, Bill 62 is shortsighted, selfserving, unfair, illogical, discriminatory and regressive. It is simply a bad piece of legislation that should not be passed.
I look at the members of this committee and I see that many of you represent ridings in the greater Toronto area. Is there a more politically sensitive issue than the disposal of this region's waste? Would not every voter who lives within 60 miles of Queen's Park want their own version of Bill 62?
Before you cast your final vote, consider your own constituents. Many of you know that I too had the privilege of serving in elected office. I too stood on my constituents' front porches at re-election time and I have defended my record and answered their tough questions. I know what it's like to be accountable to the voters. Because I've been there, I can ask you, how will you be able to look them in the eye if you vote for this bill? How will you justify to your constituents that you addressed the concerns of the citizens of the escarpment and gave to them a better deal than you are willing to give to the people who sent you here?
That's the end of my presentation. I would be pleased to answer any questions, if there are any.
Mr Offer: We have had circulated an amendment to the bill that is being proposed by Mr Duignan. In fairness, it has not yet been moved, but it has been proposed. First, are you aware of that amendment? If so, could you share your thoughts on the amendment in terms of your presentation?
Ms Porteous-Koehle: I just received a copy of it about seven minutes ago. I have not digested it fully, but when I look at what I do see, I just see that it's going to make a bad bill even worse. I look at the first one, clause (a), "A transfer station or recycling facility" -- it does not apply to that -- "which receives waste only from the local municipality in which it is located." Even that causes a problem. Under Bill 7 that was just recently passed, local municipalities can pass on the responsibilities to regions or to counties to handle waste disposal or any part of the waste stream, and this runs against that.
Mr Offer: So under Bill 7 there is the opportunity for the upper-tier municipality to take over the waste management of a particular area, and that bill was proposed by the government, and now if an upper-tier municipality does that it will run counter to the amendment.
Ms Porteous-Koehle: As I look at this -- I haven't had a lawyer look at it, but that's how it appears to me from just that first one I've looked at.
Mr Terry Taylor: There's also an implication for the permit-by-rule facilities that Bill 7 contemplates. That's one section. The other section of the amendment, which is the new subsection (2), is particularly insidious. I understand that right now there are companies or applicants that have hearings before the board for landfills. It's entirely possible that the board in its wisdom might even grant a certificate of approval for that landfill, and they'd be all set to go except for this piece of legislation. There's a term they call expropriation without compensation. This bill would prohibit that applicant from suing the government for the loss of the many thousands and thousands of dollars it's invested in its landfill application. It's an insidious amendment to an insidious bill.
Mr Offer: There's been a lot of discussion around the amendment. As you know, the bill is really but one section and so many people have come to speak on the bill, and the amendment to the bill is in fact longer than the bill itself.
People are coming, and we're trying to get an understanding of not only how people view the bill and why, but also whether their opinions would change in light of the amendment that is possibly going to be moved. It's making a true investigation of the bill very difficult in many ways, when an amendment has more words to it than the bill itself and not many people have seen the amendment to be able to comment on it.
Earlier in the hearings there was some thought that the bill as found in Bill 62 would stop any remedial work that was required on any existing landfill site. I'm wondering if you've addressed your mind to that.
Mr Taylor: Our understanding of the bill is that it had relatively little impact, other than the enlargement issue, on landfills that already were in operation and had already received their certificates of approval. There's an enlargement issue, obviously, down the road, there's a closure issue down the road. Maybe we were mistaken, as perhaps you can be by just a simple bill, but we thought it had relatively little impact on existing facilities, that its major impact was on future facilities.
Mr Murdoch: St Catharines was here before you, and it had some problems. They have an existing landfill site and, as I understand it, they want to put another lift on the existing one they have, but in order to do that they need another approval because they're going to take the garbage from another cell and put it there. They feel that this bill stops them from doing that.
I just want to thank you for your presentation. It's something we've been trying to say here and try to get across for days, that you can't just take one part of the province and say, "No more dumps there," or eventually everyone would want this.
In my area of Grey I have a problem, because we have more acres in the Niagara Escarpment than anybody, and we're doing a waste study right now, and if it comes up that it should be in one of the rural areas of the escarpment in my area, this bill would outlaw that. I personally would have no problem with something like this bill if it were just on the natural area. It runs against your presentation, because then do we not put it on grade 1 farm land or whatever? But I wouldn't have any problems supporting it for the natural area because we have, in our area, a lot of the natural area we wouldn't want to put a dump on. But there is a process in place already.
Ms Porteous-Koehle: And that's what we're trying to say, that the Environmental Assessment Act is there. If that act is wanting, let's look at that act and amend it.
Mr Murdoch: You'd almost have to say, by this bill being put forward by a government member, that maybe he has no faith in his government's process that it has established. Would you have to agree with that?
Ms Porteous-Koehle: Well, I can't --
Interjections.
Mr Murdoch: It's your riding. It's your people, Noel.
Interjection.
Mr Murdoch: Are you not in government? It's been three years now you've been there.
Mr Stockwell: Have there been any talks with the ministry people with respect to whether it supports this piece of legislation brought forward by the private member? None.
What about expropriation without compensation? I've asked a number of people about whether this is actionable. As you can see on their amendment, the last paragraph says, "No matter what we do to anybody, no matter how unfair we are and how unreasonable we are and how much money you've lost, you can't sue us." Is it actionable? Can they do this, in your opinion?
Mr Taylor: I'm not a lawyer, Mr Stockwell, but I think that's a pretty fair interpretation of the meaning of that phrase.
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Mr Duignan: Thank you for coming along and participating in this process of democracy. However, we stand at opposite sides of this particular issue. I've known Nancy for a number of years, and my staff has worked with the particular company you work for showing what our particular stand is on the environment issues in this province.
When I stand on my doorsteps at election time and I talk to my people in my riding, I have to talk about justice to the people in my riding, who have been subjected for nearly 20 years now to applications in this particular quarry. The recent application by RSI has cost, for example, the city of Halton, some $750,000. That's 3% of the municipal tax base. Where is the justice for the people in that area? I always thought, and I know the opposition harps on it, that landfill sites should only go into those areas which are acceptable to the municipality they're going into. This landfill site does not --
Mr Stockwell: What about Bill 43?
Mr Duignan: Bill 43 excludes the Halton region from landfill sites.
Mr Stockwell: Do any of those sites want those landfills? You're putting them there.
Mr Duignan: I talk about the justice for my community, for Halton region --
Mr Stockwell: Talk about justice for the people of Peel, Durham and York. It's injustice.
Mr Duignan: -- and for other communities around the Halton area that depend on the water system from the Niagara Escarpment. When you site a landfill site in an area such as the Acton quarry -- I mean, it's limestone. It leaks.
What do we do down the road if we do site a landfill in the Acton quarry and we have a leachate problem to the water system that supplies Acton and parts of Burlington and Brampton and Georgetown? Then we have to cart in water to those communities, such as happened in Cayuga last week. What would you say, standing at doorsteps at election time, to those people? What would you say?
Ms Porteous-Koehle: I too have had to answer that for the 12 years I was in office, because all over Peel there were landfills being proposed. Every year we had a new landfill site being proposed.
The Environmental Assessment Act is there. It's there to protect all parts of the environment. It's a very tough document for any company to get through. You really are jumping through hoops. Not only is there that document; there's the Ontario Municipal Board you have to go before, and all different, other agencies of the government hat you have to prove the worth of your project to and it has to be judged environmentally sound. That's the document we would like you to work across the whole province.
We're willing, as an industry, to work under the Environmental Assessment Act. If there are changes to be made to it, we recommend to you, respectfully, to make the changes that are necessary there to protect sensitive areas. And we believe the document does, but if it has to be reviewed, let's review it. Let's not throw legislation on top of legislation on top of legislation. The people in the Niagara Escarpment area, from one end to the other, will be protected and can be protected under that act.
Mr Duignan: You're quite familiar with amendment 52. Amendment 52 basically outlaws landfill sites on the Niagara Escarpment, except that if you want to site one you have to go through an assessment process. The chances of a landfill site approval in the Niagara Escarpment are pretty nil, but what's happening is that the communities in which the proposal is being made are put to enormous expense for nothing. It's been going on for 20 years in the Halton region, for example. Are we going to subject every municipality along the Niagara Escarpment to the same process, that when you say no once, it's not enough, that you come back, the third time around now, to say no again? And the taxpayers are paying for that.
Ms Porteous-Koehle: It's happening in Peel, it's happening in Durham, it's --
Mr Duignan: Yes, so we've got to get it -- I appreciate you coming along here, Nancy, and participating in this process of democracy. We have met on many occasions, on friendlier terms, but this is part of the process of democracy.
The Chair: Thank you for coming and taking the time to make your presentation to us.
Mr Perruzza: I'd like to take this opportunity to make a short motion, and really to leave it more at your discretion than anything else. I think we should get some people here to have a technical briefing, and speak to some of the ministry people around some of these issues. I leave it to you to find the time and to invite the appropriate people to appear before us so we can talk to them.
The Chair: Are you putting a motion?
Mr Perruzza: Yes.
Mr Stockwell: What do you mean by "get some technical people"? Could you be a little more vague?
Mr Perruzza: I think we should go through some of the technical aspects of the bill, and some of the legal language in the bill, for sure.
The Chair: He's proposing that some ministry people come forward and answer technical questions you might have.
Mr Stockwell: Will we not do that in clause-by-clause?
The Chair: There would be an opportunity in clause-by-clause to ask questions of ministry staff. We could do that.
Mr Offer: How will there be?
Mr Stockwell: We've already said they can't come, though. That's the only problem. The government said they can't come.
Mr Murdoch: Yes, you already voted against that.
The Chair: All right. If you do not want that, that's fine.
Mr Stockwell: No, I'm asking a question. Considering that we've already told them they can't come, how do we get around that hurdle, now that they want them to come?
Mr Chiarelli: You voted the other way before. Why did you change your mind?
Mr Murdoch: Yes, you voted against this.
The Chair: Mr Stockwell, the original motion was --
Mr Chiarelli: You voted against that before.
Mr Duignan: No.
Mr Chiarelli: You did so.
The Chair: If the members do not want ministry staff for questions we can simply overlook the motion and just be done with it.
Mr Stockwell: No, Mr Chair. I'm asking how we do it, since they said they didn't want them.
The Chair: The motion, as I recall, had to do with if the minister could not come and present, that a letter from the ministry be forwarded. That was your motion. What Mr Perruzza's suggesting, which is the third option I thought you were getting at, is that perhaps -- but that's fine. Mr Perruzza's suggesting that ministry staff come and answer questions. That's the motion.
Mr Stockwell: Let me just get this clear. It's not as clear as you're suggesting, Mr Chair.
Mr Duignan: I think that's out of order, Mr Chair.
Mr Stockwell: Noel, you can't talk and listen at the same time. They've suggested that the technical answers to the questions -- are these technical answers? Were you looking for the engineering and reports and lawyers to talk about legal phrasing, or are we looking at ministry staff to tell us that they in fact support or don't support this legislation?
Mr Perruzza: That may very well be one of the questions you want to ask.
The Chair: Mr Perruzza, could I propose that you withdraw your motion?
Mr Perruzza: I can do that, or people can simply vote against it. I'll withdraw my motion if that's something they don't want to have happen.
Mr Stockwell: Hold it. We're not suggesting we don't like the motion. All we're asking is that you also allow opportunity to question ministry staff on whether they support the legislation.
Mr Offer: As this is a private member's bill, it is my understanding that this committee would not have the opportunity of a ministry technical briefing. That would occur only if it were a government-sponsored bill. Hence we go back to the original motion. If the government approves of the legislation, I can see it giving us a briefing on a piece of legislation it is supporting. But if it is not supporting the legislation, how is it that they, in logic, can give us a briefing on legislation they have absolutely no intention of seeing through to completion?
Interjection.
Mr Offer: It's not my point of view. And I have the floor. The fact is --
The Chair: Mr Offer, I'm trying to facilitate so that we don't go on and on.
Mr Offer: You can't keep taking this ridiculous line of reasoning.
The Chair: I understand his point. His point is that a technical briefing is based on an initiative by the government saying, "Here is a technical briefing on what we are presenting." What Mr Perruzza may have been proposing was that we have ministry staff to answer questions you might have, whatever questions you might have.
Mr Stockwell: Perfect. I'm in favour.
Mr Duignan: I think the motion is out of order. It is contrary to the motion that was turned down by the committee earlier today. I move adjournment, Mr Chair.
Mr Perruzza: No, we're in the middle of a --
Mr Stockwell: Noel, keep your shirt on. I'm in favour of the motion.
Mr Perruzza: Mr Chairman, my motion does simply this: It gives you the authority, as Chair of this committee, to request ministry people to come and speak to a bill that is properly before this committee. It gives you that ability to do that. That's what it does.
The Chair: All in favour of that? Opposed? That carries by two.
This meeting is adjourned until 10 tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1629.