Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue No. 68 - Evidence - May 29, 2018 (morning meeting)
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 29, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 9:30 a.m. to Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019.
Senator Percy Mockler (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: My name is Percy Mockler, a senator from New Brunswick and chair of the committee.
[Translation]
I want to welcome all of you in the room and all the Canadians who are watching us on television or online.
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As a reminder to those watching, the committee hearings are open to the public and also available online at sencanada.ca.
I would now ask the senators to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Pratte: André Pratte from Quebec.
Senator Moncion: Lucie Moncion from Ontario.
Senator Jaffer: Mobina Jaffer from British Columbia. Welcome.
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Senator Deacon: Marty Deacon, Ontario.
Senator Marshall: Elizabeth Marshall, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Eaton: Nicky Eaton, Ontario.
Senator Neufeld: Richard Neufeld, British Columbia.
The Chair: As chair, Senator Marshall, we want to congratulate you on your new granddaughter, a 10-pounder.
Senator Marshall: More than 10 pounds.
The Chair: There is no doubt it might be another accountant, or like her grandmother, an auditor general. Congratulations.
Senator Marshall: Thank you. I’ll pass it along.
[Translation]
The Chair: Also present are our clerk, Gaëtane Lemay, and our two analysts, Alex Smith and Shaowei Pu, who team up to support the committee’s work.
[English]
Colleagues and members of the viewing of the public, the mandate of this committee is to examine matters relating to federal estimates generally, as well as government finance.
Today, we continue our consideration of the expenditures set out in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, which were referred to this committee on April 18, 2018.
For the first hour, we have officials from Environment and Climate Change Canada. We invited them to talk about their funding request in the Main Estimates and possibly focus on learning more about the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. We welcome Carol Najm, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services and Finance Branch; and Matt Jones, Assistant Deputy Minister, Pan-Canadian Framework Implementation Office.
Ms. Najm and Mr. Jones, thank you for accepting our invitation to share with us your vision and also the plan of action.
I have been made aware through the clerk that Ms. Najm will have opening comments, which will be followed by questions from the senators.
[Translation]
Ms. Najm, the floor is yours.
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Carol Najm, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services and Finance Branch, Environment and Climate Change Canada: Good morning, senators. It is our pleasure to be here with you today to discuss Environment and Climate Change Canada’s proposed spending in the 2018-19 Main Estimates.
In terms of these estimates, including Budget 2018, they include a total of $1.5 billion in planned spending, which represents an increase of $528.6 million, or 54 per cent, over last year’s Main Estimates.
With this funding, Environment and Climate Change Canada will provide national leadership to take action on climate change by setting pathways for Canada to reduce its domestic greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a resilient low-carbon economy; work with provinces territories, municipalities, Indigenous peoples and other partners to implement the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change; prevent pollution in ecosystems, water and air; conserve and protect species and habitat; provide weather and environmental information; and develop and enforce environmental regulations.
The department will continue to drive action on climate change, oceans and clean energy. Canada will host the leaders of the G7 Summit in June of 2018 and will advance the implementation of the Paris Agreement at the 24th Conference of the Parties in December of 2018 so that climate action can be assured for generations to come.
Environment and Climate Change Canada will continue to protect Canadians and the environment from harmful substances through scientific assessments of substances and by developing and implementing control measures, such as regulations. In 2018-19, the department will implement regulations to ban asbestos in Canada, limit toxic emissions from refineries and petrochemical plants and reduce contaminants in effluent from mining.
The department will also continue to protect migratory birds and species at risk through, for instance, the establishment of protected areas. In 2018, the department will also continue to advance the designation of Scott Islands Marine National Wildlife Area as an important habitat for migratory birds.
In addition, efforts will be focused on protecting the population and habitats of a number of priority species, such as caribou. In support of the protection of the caribou habitat, Edéhzhíe national wildlife area will be designated and managed together with the Dehcho First Nations.
Finally, work will begin on the nature fund with corporate, not-for-profit, provincial, territorial and other partners to make it possible to secure private land, support provincial and territorial species protection efforts and help Indigenous capacity to conserve land and species.
As climate change contributes to more severe weather events, the department will place greater emphasis on collecting and communicating severe weather information. New radar and supercomputing will contribute to the department’s increased ability to provide accurate and timely warnings of weather events such as storms, tornadoes and flooding. Communities, economic sectors and targeted users will continue to benefit from the 24-7 weather and environmental information.
For the first time in recent years, the Main Estimates include 100 per cent of the measures announced in the budget. These estimates include a new central vote under the Treasury Board Secretariat for budget implementation.
For Environment and Climate Change Canada, the central vote presents $71.4 million, which includes $52.9 million for protecting Canada’s nature, parks and wild spaces; $16.3 million for adapting Canada’s weather services to climate change and $2.2 million for protecting marine life.
I hope this summary provides the committee with the insight members had been seeking on the 2018-19 Main Estimates for Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. We will now turn to questions from senators.
Senator Marshall: I wanted to start with a couple of questions on your comments. The new initiatives that you’re saying are now included in the budget for the first time is in vote 40 in Treasury Board. Has that gone through your department for challenge or is that yet to be done? My understanding is that Treasury Board has to approve all of those individual items. It’s in vote 40, but it stays there until it goes through some sort of challenge process. Can you tell us about that?
Ms. Najm: That is correct. It is recognized under Treasury Board and through the review process and the challenge with Treasury Board ministers. Those, once approved, will appear in subsequent estimates. Similar to the processes in place for supplementary estimates, we will follow that to seek approval of the funding, at which point they will come into our estimates through supps.
Senator Marshall: If we would have any questions on your 2018 budget initiatives, you would be able to answer those questions. I don’t have any right now, but you would be the right person?
Ms. Najm: Yes.
Senator Marshall: I’ve been looking at the results report for the department, and also the 2018-19 departmental plan, and you referenced the migratory birds. I know there is something there on that in your results, but you also mentioned the caribou. The caribou is not mentioned. Can you tell us about your results report? Because there are certain things there, but other items aren’t there. The other area I was interested in was contaminated sites. How do you pick what gets included and excluded in your results report?
Ms. Najm: Thank you for the question.
Our departmental results report is aligned through our departmental results framework, and it’s structured with our four core responsibilities — climate change and clean growth, protecting and managing pollution, conserving nature and predicting weather and the environmental conditions. It’s a roll-up of all our programming. The departmental results report is meant to report on results holistically across the department, and that is the structure with which we report up through it.
Because of that, not all results will be identified in the departmental results report, but they are available on the Treasury Board website where it goes into the details of all of the individual programs of the department, and we report results at the detailed level through the online reporting.
Senator Marshall: What I found for your departmental results for 2016-17, you’re saying if I wanted to see something on the caribou, I could go into the Treasury Board website and it would be there.
Ms. Najm: Correct.
Senator Marshall: When I look at the actual details of what’s being reported, under climate change and clean air, it says that Canada’s national target is a 17 per cent reduction from 2005, but there are no details there. By looking at the results from 2014-15 to 2016-17, I can’t tell how close we are to our targets. Where would I go to find that information?
Matt Jones, Assistant Deputy Minister, Pan-Canadian Framework Implementation Office, Environment and Climate Change Canada: Thank you for the question.
Canada has a couple of targets nationally that we have committed to internationally. The one you’re referring to is the 2020 target. There is a second one under the Paris Agreement that is a 30 per cent reduction by 2030.
Results on both of those targets are in a number of places. One, we have a national greenhouse gas inventory that is released annually that will tell you where we are. There’s a two-year data lag, but it will tell you, looking backwards, where our national emissions are on an annual basis. In terms of progress toward future targets, those projections are included and publicly available through both the report to first ministers that we do annually, the first of which was released on December 9 last year, and it has a breakdown of those numbers, and also in our reporting to the United Nations. We have a regular reporting to the UN climate change process known as our national communication that breaks those numbers down in great detail.
Senator Marshall: I spend a lot of time on the government website looking for information. Is it possible to put all of those results in one place? You have to go to the department, to the Treasury Board, and now there is some information in the report to the first ministers, and there is something else in the report to the UN. It’s a challenge to find information. Is there something, as a department, you could look at?
Ms. Najm: For our own information, we can, but you have to appreciate that the climate change clean air agenda is a Government of Canada priority and involves 11 departments or more. It’s the first year we’re reporting against it, so I think we’re learning as we go, but we take measures to ensure it’s the same source data that feeds all of the reporting requirements we have. In fact, it’s something we have looked at, how would we do it differently in this new world.
Senator Marshall: If there are 11 departments involved, are you the lead department or umbrella? You would keep your fingers on what the other 10 departments are doing?
Mr. Jones: Yes, that’s what we strive to do, to help with the coordination across the many departments and agencies involved in implementing various pieces of the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Minister McKenna is the lead minister and our department is the lead department.
Senator Pratte: Thank you for being here this morning. On the low carbon economy funds, I understand most of the provinces have signed agreements on the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund. In Budget 2018, it was indicated that announcements would be made on the Low Carbon Economy Challenge. Can you give us an idea of what the timeline is for this? Is an announcement imminent?
Mr. Jones: The Low Carbon Economy Fund is broken into three funds, essentially. The two primary funds are the leadership fund, as you mentioned, and the challenge fund. The challenge fund was announced by Minister McKenna some months ago, and we have since engaged with provinces and stakeholders and done a call for expressions of interest. Very recently, we have received a collection of expressions of interest under that fund, so that fund is closer to a competitive process and broader than the leadership fund. The leadership fund is focused on individual provinces and territories where we have matching funds to invest in programs and projects. Under the challenge fund, it’s more of a call for proposals, and it’s open to industry and communities and organizations beyond provinces and territories. That fund has formally launched, and we have received a collection of expressions of interest that we’re pouring through now.
There is a two-step process. The first step is expression of interest, which is fairly administratively light — a quick project description. They apply online. We’re sorting through those. The most promising ones will be invited to make more detailed proposals that we will evaluate. We’re in the process of implementing that fund now.
Senator Pratte: Does that mean that under the challenge fund, monies will not be allocated on a per capita basis but simply on the yield of GHG emission reductions?
Mr. Jones: Yes, exactly. For the leadership fund, as you pointed out, there is a set funding formula, which is a base amount of $30 million per jurisdiction, plus a per capita element so that the more populous provinces receive more funds. On the challenge fund, it’s more of a merit-based program where we’re evaluating proposals on their merits with respect to emission reductions, cost-effectiveness and other co-benefits, and there’s no set geographical distribution of those funds.
Senator Pratte: Thank you very much. In Budget 2018, you mentioned, Ms. Najm, the nature fund, and I was trying to understand what your department’s role is. It’s a $1 billion fund. Is your department the lead department for this? What is the amount that is attributed to your department for this project?
Ms. Najm: Environment and Climate Change Canada is the lead. Our partners are Parks Canada and Fisheries and Oceans.
Our role is basically to protect species at risk and protecting/conserving habitat areas. The overall envelope was announced in the budget of $1.3 billion. That amount has yet to go to Treasury Board for approval. You can appreciate that the amount distributed by department is also subject to approval, at which point we can disclose, once approved.
Senator Pratte: That is 1.3 billion over a period of —
Ms. Najm: Five years.
Senator Pratte: That’s not in Budget 2018? That’s not in the funds allocated yet?
Ms. Najm: The amount for 2018-19 is already in the Main Estimates under the central vote. It’s $52.9 million for the 2018-19 portion attributable to Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Senator Pratte: Would there be monies then also for Parks Canada and so on?
Ms. Najm: You would find that in the central vote under Parks Canada.
Senator Pratte: But you are the coordinating department for that program?
Ms. Najm: Yes.
Senator Eaton: To follow on my colleague Senator Pratte on the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund, you have $1.4 billion being distributed on a per capita basis. There are some provinces that have not joined this. There are possibly two others, Ontario and Alberta, who after the next elections this spring have said they will do away with the carbon tax. They’re going to dismantle it. What happens then? What will you do if Alberta and Ontario opt out of the carbon tax?
Mr. Jones: As it stands presently, there is only one remaining jurisdiction that hasn’t signed on to the pan-Canadian framework, and that is Saskatchewan. We had communicated to Saskatchewan. We encouraged them to submit proposals and to join on. In the end, at least so far, they have decided not to do that. As explained to them, those funds have been moved from the leadership fund, which was provincially allocated, to the challenge fund, which they are eligible to apply to, the same as companies in Saskatchewan. The Government of Saskatchewan itself can apply to the challenge fund, and we expect that they will do that.
When it comes to the potential for other jurisdictions to remove themselves from the pan-Canadian framework, we’re giving some thought to how we would handle that if and when that becomes an issue. In our bilateral funding agreements with individual jurisdictions, we have clauses and provisions to allow for recouping those funds, if necessary. Our position is that those funds, the leadership fund explicitly, is to support the implementation of the pan-Canadian framework, so if they’re not implementing the pan-Canadian framework, those funds should be no longer made available.
We’re still in the process of finalizing funding agreements with a number of jurisdictions, but all the agreements will have clauses related to opting out. We’ll address that issue if and when it happens.
Senator Eaton: The deadline for applications to the Low Carbon Economy Challenge was a couple of weeks ago. You have said you have applications. Are they mostly from municipalities or mostly from business? Can you give me a rough breakdown?
Mr. Jones: Certainly, and I can provide more specificity after the meeting. The largest source of applicants is the private sector, so more companies than any other category. We received a fairly even distribution of applicants from industry, from the non-profit sector, from municipalities, from provincial governments and also from Indigenous communities, so quite extensive breadth of applicants. We received approximately 650 expressions of interest, which exceeded our expectations.
Senator Eaton: I guess you will hope more will come from Saskatchewan, Ontario and Alberta if they opt out.
Mr. Jones: We’re going through all of the proposals, but we do have proposals from every region of the country and quite a large number, so we’re pleased with the number of applicants so far.
Senator Eaton: If I am correct, Mr. Chair, I think the Prime Minister just created another huge national park in the North which will become the biggest forestry area that cannot be cut or industrialized. Am I crazy or did it happen a couple of months ago?
Ms. Najm: That question should be directed to Parks Canada.
Senator Eaton: That was a lead in to my next question, which is I remember years ago we studied revamping the Canadian forestry industry. Canada is considered the most forested country in the world, and we’re a huge carbon sink. Do we take that into account when we’re looking at our carbon footprint?
Mr. Jones: Yes, certainly. For a country like Canada, obviously the carbon sequestered in our forests is an important consideration. There are methodologies within the UN process to take credit for carbon sequestration. Right now, we have not included the estimate of the carbon sequestration in our forward projections of our emissions, so we have time to do so. We’re working through our methodologies and our accounting.
Senator Eaton: Will it be counted going forward? I’m sure you have heard about the Bay of Fundy andthe blue carbon. It will sequester twice as much carbon as a tree does. I’m just throwing that out.
Mr. Jones: Certainly the sequestration component of the accounting will be important in Canada. There are areas where there’s active science and research ongoing to see if there are opportunities for greater sequestration through biological processes, including microbes and other things that could make a contribution above and beyond forest and agricultural soils.
As it stands right now, the UN rules allow for carbon sequestration to be accounted through land use broadly, forest and soils and wetlands and grasslands. That’s a much easier accounting to do for some small countries than a country like Canada. We’re working through our options for our methodological approaches and our inventory, but we absolutely intend to include those figures in our national accounting.
Senator Eaton: When you come back next year, I’ll ask you how far you got.
Mr. Jones: I will bring my colleagues from forest service.
The Chair: We have officials of Parks Canada in the audience, and we can ask them.
Senator Eaton: I’m fine. What I really wanted to know was our forest sequestration.
The Chair: So you were satisfied with that.
Senator Jaffer: Welcome, and thanks for your presentation. It was very useful.
I’m looking at your departmental plan. In the plan, it says to engage Indigenous peoples in clean growth and climate change. It talks about your commitment and reconciliation. I’m a little lost as to why the Indigenous governments and organizations are not eligible to receive the leadership fund. Was there consultation?
Mr. Jones: Certainly engagement with Indigenous peoples is a key priority for us in how we design and are implementing the Low Carbon Economy Fund. Announced at the same time as the pan-Canadian framework itself was the creation of three separate dedicated tables; one with First Nations, one with Metis, and one with Inuit, announced by the Prime Minister jointly with his counterparts from the three national organizations. So those processes are ongoing. I’m the federal co-chair with my Indigenous counterparts for each of those three tables, and we’re working closely with them on every aspect of the pan-Canadian framework. Colleagues from departments across the federal family are involved in that process.
On the Low Carbon Economy Fund specifically, it was originally designed as a leveraging fund with the provinces and territories. That said, the challenge fund was created in part to allow for Indigenous participation, and we have since split that fund. I failed to flag the third piece of the Low Carbon Economy Fund from the earlier question, but the challenge fund is divided into two, which is essentially large and smaller. That was directly in response to feedback from First Nations who said they don’t want to compete with Suncor. There are big and small individual communities, so the second fund is created for smaller communities, smaller companies and smaller organizations, so we have taken steps to build greater access to the Low Carbon Economy Fund for Indigenous communities.
Senator Jaffer: I just came back on Monday from the ParlAmericas conference on climate change and women. One of the things that came up a lot was gender-based analysis. How are you doing gender-based analysis when it comes to this budget? I’m looking at process because you can’t tell me. It’s not transparent.
Also, I understand that the gender-based analysis is gender-based analysis plus four, which means it includes other communities, not just women. Can you explain the process that you followed to arrive at this budget? I understand every department has to do that now, right?
Ms. Najm: As part of the Governor-in-Council process through memorandums and Treasury Board submission, there has been gender-based analysis, which is inclusive. Every MC will require that analysis be required in the MC for decision makers to take into account once we have policy.
Senator Jaffer: What is MC?
Ms. Najm: A memorandum to cabinet. At that point, the gender-based analysis is further articulated in the position in terms of how the program is designed to address that.
Senator Jaffer: And you would include that when sent to the Ministry of Finance?
Ms. Najm: We include that in all of our submissions to all departments.
Senator Jaffer: I was looking in my research. I forgot you mentioned, what year did you look at getting rid of it completely?
Ms. Najm: I will tell you that the work will be launched in 2018-19. I will have to come back to you with the details as to when and how.
Senator Jaffer: I appreciate that. I understand that, but we’re still selling it abroad. Will that continue?
Ms. Najm: I will have to get back to you on that.
The Chair: Ms. Najm, you will get back through the clerk?
Ms. Najm: Correct. Thank you.
Senator Neufeld: Thank you, folks, for being here. I just want to touch on Saskatchewan and the Low Carbon Economy Fund. I’ve been provided with 11 projects that the Government of Canada has provided to Environment Canada. Even though the Government of Saskatchewan has signed on to things that the government is asking for, are these things still being actively looked at in real terms? They are all projects that would reduce greenhouse gases.
Mr. Jones: Absolutely. With regards to Saskatchewan and their emission reduction proposals, we’ve been working closely with them for many months. We’ve encouraged them to submit proposals through the challenge fund, and they have done so. We’re in the process of evaluating those.
There are some that are emission reduction projects that we see as having potential and being legitimate, but they’re a bit outside the scope of the Low Carbon Economy Fund. We’ve created a process within the federal government to direct projects to appropriate funds. There is green infrastructure and some funds related to clean technology, et cetera, as well as the Low Carbon Economy Fund. To avoid people getting the runaround where we point to Infrastructure Canada, who point to NRCan, who points to Industry Canada, we have a process to evaluate proposals to determine which fund they are the best match with. We have done that with some Saskatchewan proposals and directed them towards other funds.
We’re evaluating all those that are in line with the terms and conditions of the Low Carbon Economy Fund, through the challenge fund.
Senator Neufeld: When will decisions be made?
Mr. Jones: We’re going through the assessment of the challenge fund proposals now. As I mentioned, there are 650 of them. We’ve put in place a fairly rigorous process for evaluating those. In the next couple of months, we want to go back to every applicant with either a yes, a no or a yes but suggest modifications, and then the next step is the very formal proposals. This year we hope to finalize all of the funding decisions.
Senator Neufeld: In a couple of months, you say?
Mr. Jones: Yes.
Senator Neufeld: I’m going to watch for that in a couple of months.
In your planning and priorities, you say, “compliance, promotion and enforcement of wildlife.” You’re looking at a target of 90 per cent by 2020, yet it shows that from 2014 to 2016-17, you’ve been anywhere from 90 to 97 per cent. Why the drop? Why are you going to do less but you want more money?
Ms. Najm: I would have to come back. I don’t have the answer to that.
Senator Neufeld: We appreciate that. You’ll provide that through the clerk so we can have a look at it.
I noticed in the Main Estimates a decrease of $12 million for the Species at Risk Act. Can you tell me why?
Ms. Najm: Correct. That current funding in our estimates expired at the end of the year, and that’s why renewal is being sought in the budget. Right now, the funding for that is again located in the central vote. Once it’s approved by Treasury Board, it will come into our Main Estimates numbers.
Senator Neufeld: Okay. Thank you.
Senator Deacon: To continue in that vein, I’m trying to get a better sense of the scope and scale at this moment. I heard the number 650 a moment ago, and I’m trying to understand. Since December and January, how many provinces and territories have submitted proposals for sure? Beyond that, what criteria is the EEEC using to try to determine the amount of funding for each project? Are there limitations in terms of size and cost of projects? What is that range?
Mr. Jones: For the Low Carbon Economy Fund, for the leadership fund, as you pointed out, there is a funding formula where it is distributed among provinces. I have a breakdown that I can share with you, if you’re interested.
On the challenge fund, we’re assessing the projects against a set of criteria that have been articulated on our website. We’ve actually provided an applicant guide. When it comes time to apply, they have a full breakdown of how they will be assessed. Key criteria for that fund are emission reductions achieved and the costs associated with those emission reductions. We’re trying to maximize the emission reductions per federal dollar invested, but we’re also looking at other co-benefits, so jobs created and other environmental benefits as well, because some projects simultaneously reduce air pollutant emissions and so forth.
In terms of the guidance, the smallest project is $1 million and the largest is $50 million. There is quite a broad range. In some cases, we’ve seen quite large proposals come from large industrial facilities; in other cases, smaller projects. Some of those have been related and bundled together to get to the $1 million threshold.
Senator Deacon: I saw the criteria posted. I reviewed that piece, and I was trying to think about it. Yes, there is the published criteria, but as some of these projects get larger and larger and go from $1 million to $50 million, do other factors come into play? That’s what I was wondering.
Mr. Jones: One thing I can add to my response is the internal process for evaluating these proposals. Anything over $10 million requires Treasury Board approval. There is an established and rigorous process there. For smaller projects under that threshold, we have a rather rigorous process as well. We have a dedicated secretariat administering the fund and an interdepartmental team of experts from within Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Industry Canada, comprised of engineers and experts, to evaluate the merits of the proposals. We have project evaluation panels that are allocated to each project. They need to go through that assessment. We also have a technical advisory group that reviews them, and then there is an interdepartmental ADM committee that puts forward recommendations for Minister McKenna’s decision.
Senator Deacon: Thank you.
The Chair: Supplementary question from Senator Andreychuk, please.
Senator Andreychuk: Regarding your last answer, I’ve been following some of the issues in Ontario that came out of the Auditor General’s statements on alternate energy projects that we use to protect the environment. They had criteria there. They went through projects, but the results in the end showed that they didn’t meet their criteria. The results weren’t there in the way they should have been. Did you take any of the lessons learned from that process into your process and adjust it? You say you have evaluation boards throughout. That reminds me of development, where we had assessment upon assessment at the front end but very little at the end to find out if we actually accomplished it. Would you respond to that?
Mr. Jones: Sure, I’d be happy to. Thank you.
We agreed that it’s important to learn lessons from policies and programs across the country and elsewhere. We’ve tried to do that in our evaluations of our approach to addressing climate change.
With respect to the Low Carbon Economy Fund specifically, we’ve established our funding agreements with the provinces where we would only release funds at certain periods of time, and there is a reporting requirement throughout. If a project or a program went off the rails or failed to deliver, we’ve avoided a situation where we wait until the end, find out it’s a fail and the money has been allocated. We’re allocating money in increments based on progress as we go. There are checks there to ensure that if things aren’t being delivered on in the way they were envisioned, we know and we know before we allocate all the funds.
Senator Andreychuk: Would we be able to follow that tracking? If so, where?
Mr. Jones: I would have to get back to you on the plans for making that information public. Certainly they’re reporting to us. I’m not clear if there are privacy issues there or not, but potentially, yes. Certainly we have to report on the Low Carbon Economy Fund results through multiple measures. I fully anticipate detailed auditing on that program.
[Translation]
Senator Moncion: I have a quick question about the figures. Your budget for 2016-17 was $1.005 billion. For 2018-19, you are talking about $1.515 billion. Is that increase really intended for matching grants for projects that will be created rather than your department’s administration?
[English]
Ms. Najm: The Low Carbon Economy Fund is over five years, and there is $250 million in 2017-18, $500 million in 2018-19 and 2020-21, and $250 million dollars in 2022.
The biggest increase, the $500 million this coming year, the majority of that is for grants and contributions. There is a small component that’s for the secretariat services in O&M. It’s split between the two, but the majority is grants and contributions.
Senator Marshall: In a break, I was speaking to Mr. Jones about the 2018-19 departmental plan because Senator Jaffer had referenced it. I was asking him about the $575 million for taking action on clean growth and climate change, and he said 11 of the 15 performance indicators are new so there are no results available for them. But you were saying that they’re being developed. I was wondering why the government would put $575 million into a program without the performance indicators. Was there funding provided for that program in previous years?
Mr. Jones: For the Low Carbon Economy Fund specifically, we do have performance indicators that are mostly around emission reductions achieved and emission reductions per dollar of federal investment. But when we were chatting during the break, I was mentioning that for adaptation programming, indicators are more complicated than simple emission reductions because it’s difficult to evaluate the vulnerability to the impacts of climate change because there are many different impacts and many different types of vulnerability.
Like other countries in the world, we’re struggling a little bit to determine the appropriate indicators and the data sources to support those indicators, and we’ve launched and just recently completed a task force with academic experts to help develop indicators on the adaptation side.
Senator Marshall: Would you need to know what your indicators are in order to decide where you’re going to spend the money?
Mr. Jones: Certainly, and we have, through the MC process and the Treasury Board process, developed the indicators related to the Low Carbon Economy Fund, and we’ll be reporting on those. I don’t have those in front of me, but they are very focused on the emissions reductions achieved, which we can track relatively easily.
Senator Marshall: Contaminated sites interests me mostly because there is a contingent liability for the government. I was trying to track the funding that you were providing for the contaminated sites. First of all, the data that I could find on the government website only takes us to 2016. Is there any more current data available? I was looking at where are we at now. I looked at phases 1 and 2, which were just now completed, and we’re into phase 3. Is there something more current than 2016?
Ms. Najm: The 2016 result would have reported back on the completion of phases 1 and 2. Phase 3 ends in March 2020, at which point we’ll report on phase 3 results.
Senator Marshall: So there will be no periodic updating on phase 3?
Ms. Najm: There will be reporting on the estimated value of the environmental liabilities through the public accounts reporting, but in terms of results with individual sites, I would have to get back to you on when the next reporting would be on phase 3.
Senator Marshall: I’d be interested in that because looking at your website, there is discussion there about the 23,000 sites, and it also mentions what’s active, what’s suspected and what’s closed, et cetera. Based on what I found, there are 612 contaminated sites planned to be remediated under phase 3 for $1.35 billion, so that’s an average of $2 million each. Is there any further information on what sites are going to be remediated? It sounds like there are sites identified, so where would I find that information?
Ms. Najm: I just want to clarify. The numbers you’re quoting are whole-of-government and not specifically Environment and Climate Change Canada. We co-lead that program with the Treasury Board Secretariat, and I believe there are about nine or 10 departments involved.
Senator Marshall: Yes, because I’ve asked similar questions of all the departments.
Ms. Najm: Yes. The secretariat is housed within Environment Canada and co-led with Treasury Board. I would have to get back to you on when the reporting on the detail across all departments will happen. I know we do it regularly as part of our departmental results reporting.
Senator Marshall: You do it internally?
Ms. Najm: We do it internally and we all report, but I’m not sure when we update the information collectively across the government.
Senator Marshall: And then publicly disclose it?
Ms. Najm: Correct.
Senator Marshall: Thank you.
The Chair: I have two questions. In answering a question from Senator Pratte, you said your department was the lead ministry.
Ms. Najm: Please, remind me which question.
The Chair: On a question that was earlier asked by a senator, you said your department was the lead department on carbon and your plan of action for the Canadian government. Am I right?
Ms. Najm: Correct. Yes.
The Chair: Therefore, what sectors of the economy would be most affected by a tax on carbon emissions across Canada? Which industries would be most affected? And since you’re the lead department, what impact would that have on the economy?
Mr. Jones: What impact would that have —
The Chair: On the economy.
Mr. Jones: I think it’s fair to say that the implications of carbon pricing by sector roughly follow the emissions associated with the individual sectors: industrial sectors, the transportation sector and building stock, et cetera.
In terms of the implications, my colleagues who are present from the Carbon Pricing Bureau, who are the experts on this topic, recently released a study that was based on the assumption that the federal backstop approach applied across the country, in which case the analysis showed minimal impacts on GDP growth.
The Chair: Okay. You have not answered the question, but that’s fair. For example, what impact would it have on the energy industry?
Mr. Jones: I’m not the lead official on carbon pricing. We have a dedicated team that works explicitly on that topic exclusively, and I do have a colleague here from that team. If you would like them to join, they can provide a more detailed answer than I’m in a position to provide, if you agree.
The Chair: I have been informed that Ms. Judy Meltzer is from the Carbon Pricing Bureau. For clarity, could you answer the question?
Judy Meltzer, Director General, Carbon Pricing Bureau, Environment and Climate Change Canada: I’m Director General of the Carbon Pricing Bureau at Environment and Climate Change Canada. Thank you for the question.
With respect to impacts on emissions-intensive trade-exposed sectors, we are in the process of developing the federal approach to carbon pricing and are in the process of continuing to engage with industry and other stakeholders as well as provinces and territories on these questions.
What I would note that I think is relevant to this question is that the system being designed at the federal level is explicitly designed to take into account the competitiveness and carbon leakage risks that potentially present themselves to sectors, like you said, whether it’s the energy-intensive sectors like oil and gas, chemicals, fertilizers, iron ore, pelletizing, et cetera, and lime cement. We know those are industries that do have relatively high emissions per unit of output and have limited ability to pass through costs, so we’re working to design that component of the system in such a way that we do have a price signal.
We do want to create incentives to reduce emissions from those sectors. We want to reward and recognize cleaner performance. Under our proposed system, emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries that were actually performing well and producing their product in a clean way would actually get surplus credits from the Government of Canada that they can trade. Conversely, we want to make sure that those that don’t have that same level of clean performance do face a price on a portion of their emissions.
The system is being designed for these industries so they get an exemption from the fuel charge. For those of you who aren’t living and breathing carbon pricing, the proposed federal system has a fuel charge component and output-based pricing component for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries. Those industries will get relief from the fuel charge, and they will face a compliance obligation on a portion of their emissions above a certain threshold.
We put out a regulatory proposal in January and we released some details on where we proposed to set these standards. They would be set on a sector level, on a product basis, but we’re very much in discussions. We know some sectors may need adjustments to the proposed starting to point to ensure we minimize risks to competitiveness and carbon leakage, in particular.
The Chair: The forestry sector was alluded to previously by a senator. Canada is the most forested land in the world, after I believe another little country, but have we discussed with the forestry industries what impacts and what role the forest could play in reducing emissions?
Ms. Meltzer: Thank you for the question. These are timely questions.
Let me answer that in two ways. Yes, we are having those discussions. I would flag that we just actually released some further guidance yesterday about how facilities under the federal carbon pricing system — and I should note that we don’t yet know where the federal system will apply; that’s still to be decided, based on what provinces and territories decide to do — but we have just released a paper that gives more detail about what compliance options industries under this output-based pricing system would face. One of the options they have in order to comply is using offset credits. This is relevant for sectors like agriculture, waste and forestry where we can send a price signal to non-regulated sectors and give credit to some of the emissions reductions in those sectors. I’m happy to share the links and the paper with you. It provides some more details, although it doesn’t get into detail about each sector.
When I think of forestry, we’re also thinking through the pulp and paper industries, et cetera, so we’re engaged with those industries. They’re part of our intensive engagement on sector working groups, helping us think through the design of this part of the system.
The Chair: Can you provide this through the clerk for all the senators, please?
Ms. Meltzer: I’d be happy to.
The Chair: Thank you.
As we go from $10 per tonne to possibly $50 per tonne, Canadians have a right to know what impact it will have — since we’re looking at fuel — on a litre of gasoline.
Ms. Meltzer: I agree, and I would flag a couple things.
The benchmark price, as you say, starts at $10 a tonne in 2018 and rises $10 a year to $50 a tonne in 2022. Again, just to reiterate: We don’t yet know where the federal system will apply, but if it does apply, that’s the price for the fuel charge component.
As you are probably aware, we have the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act tabled as part of the budget implementation act that is currently before Parliament. In Schedule 2 of that bill — and it’s in the public domain, because we released this in January 2018 — we have a table that breaks down what that price per tonne translates into per volume of a particular type of fuel. The rate differs by fuel type because the level of emissions that come from combusting different types of fuel varies. For example, in 2019, at $20 a tonne, for the price for gasoline, the fuel charge adds about four cents per litre and about five cents for diesel per litre. This is in the public domain, and we’d be happy to share that with you.
More generally, that’s what the carbon price translates into per volume of fuel, but regarding the impacts more broadly, those are really going to depend on the design of the systems that provinces and territories put in place and also how revenues are used. We know from the existing examples out there, whether in Alberta or B.C., rebates are used to, in some cases, fully offset the cost impacts for low-income or middle-income households. As Matt noted, we released an impact paper on April 30 that talks in broader brush strokes about the economic impacts, but specific impacts of specific programs are still to be determined. They will be contingent on type and consumption of fuel and energy used, how revenues are rebated, et cetera.
But the actual translation of a tonne into a price per litre is available in the draft legislation.
The Chair: That is available from coast to coast to coast and regions per region, depending upon the activity of their economies.
Ms. Meltzer: The conversion of the $10 or $20 per tonne into a rate per litre of fuel is consistent.
The Chair: Ms. Meltzer, thank you for your clarity and for answering our questions, and thank you to all of the officials.
Honourable senators, after the appearance last week of Indigenous Services Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the committee wanted to learn more about how the money could be used in terms of housing. For our second hour this morning, we have before us experts on the link between health and housing. They are researchers recognized in their respective fields.
We welcome, first, here in Ottawa, J. David Miller, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Carleton University. From the Meno Ya Win Health Centre in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, appearing by video conference, we have Dr. Tom Kovesi, Pediatric Respirologist, Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the University of Ottawa. Accompanying Dr. Kovesi, we have Dr. Yoko Schreiber, Infectious Disease Specialist, Ottawa Hospital.
We welcome all of you and thank you for accepting our invitation.
I have been made aware by the clerk that Dr. Kovesi will make the first presentation, to be followed by Mr. Miller, and then we will move to questions.
Dr. Tom Kovesi, Pediatric Respirologist, Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the University of Ottawa, as an individual: Good morning and thank you once again for inviting us.
Respiratory infections are a key threat to the health of First Nations and Inuit children, particularly babies. Rates of hospitalization for Inuit babies for viral infections of their very tiny airways, which is called bronchiolitis, and pneumonia are up to 30 times higher than for infants living in Southern Canada. Research done by our group has shown that hospitalization rates for First Nations children living on reserve in northwestern Ontario are three to four times higher than the Ontario average. Similarly, rates of tuberculosis or TB in Nunavut are over 200 times higher than among Canadian-born non-Indigenous people.
Clearly, there are multiple reasons for the extraordinarily high rates of acute respiratory infection among the Indigenous children, including poverty, undernutrition and very high rates of exposure to commercial tobacco smoke, but our research has also shown that inadequate housing plays an important role in this problem.
If your spouse has a cold and sneezes in your house, that sneeze will form an aerosol cloud. However, the ventilation system in your house or apartment, which continuously exchanges stale indoor air with fresh outdoor air, will rapidly clear that infectious aerosol. In Ottawa, acute viral infections like the common cold are typically spread hand to nose. If your spouse sneezes on a doorknob, you touch the doorknob and then you scratch your nose, you’ll catch his or her cold.
In contrast, our studies have shown that ventilation in houses in Nunavut are so poor, or perhaps absent, that the aerosol cloud it is going to form is a cloud that lingers and that babies are going to breathe in. Studies have shown that if you catch influenza in the usual hand to nose route, you’ll get the flu. In contrast, if you inhale the virus directly into your lungs, you’re going to get pneumonia. Similarly, studies have shown that reduced ventilation markedly increases the risk of catching tuberculosis if someone in your house has an active infection.
In Nunavut, the problem isn’t just the ventilation but the fact that houses are extremely small and extremely overcrowded. While the average Canadian house has two to three occupants, a tiny home in Nunavut or on a First Nations reserve has an average of six persons per house. A weak ventilation system that might be able to cope with two people will be overwhelmed when there are six or more.
We’ve shown that putting heat recovery ventilators, which increase the exchange of fresh air with stale air in the house, in the houses of Inuit children reduces their risk of getting sick. All new housing in Nunavut have HRVs installed. However, they’re not being retrofitted in older housing, and overcrowding remains a huge problem, especially in a territory with an elevated birth rate.
We know surprisingly little about the houses of First Nations children living on reserve, which is why we’re currently conducting this research here in northwestern Ontario and why I’m speaking to you from Sioux Lookout. We know little about the ventilation in these houses, although we’ve already shown that these houses, like the ones in Nunavut, are extremely overcrowded.
Other issues that are likely important in First Nations housing in many communities include the fact that many of these houses have wood stoves for heating. We know little about small particle emissions from these wood stoves, which may impair the immune system and increase the risk of lung infections.
Moreover, people report that many of these houses are contaminated by mould related to repeated flooding events, poorly situated houses and inadequate maintenance of housing stock. Mould can increase the risk of wheezing in babies, respiratory infections and asthma.
Finally, frequent hand washing is an important means of preventing respiratory, gastrointestinal and skin infections. In the many communities that lack potable water, people wash their hands less, which increases the risk of these infections.
Improving housing is essential for improving health, not just the children’s but everyone’s. Overcrowding increases the risk of mental health conditions. When people need to move because of risk within their houses, a lack of available housing means there is often no place for them to go.
Indigenous communities urgently need more housing, increased budgets for maintenance, retrofitting of exiting housing and access to potable water. In addition, further research is needed to target specific links between housing and health in Indigenous communities.
Thank you very much for allowing me to share my thoughts.
The Chair: Thank you, doctor.
J. David Miller, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Carleton University, as an individual: Good morning. Thank you for taking the time to consider my remarks today. I have three points.
First, since 1985, a lot of money has been invested to understand the connection between housing and health in urban Canada. This information facilitated knowledge translation and quite a bit of effective change.
Second, it has been assumed that houses that work in Ottawa will also work in the North or in rural and remote First Nations communities. As Dr. Kovesi has implied, this assumption does not hold. The houses fail, and they make children sick.
Finally — and this is very important to me — it is very well understood that occupant and community knowledge is the single most important factor in maintaining a healthy home. When I look at the information available in First Nations communities on connections between housing and health, I don’t understand it, and some issues that are really important in rural and remote communities are not addressed at all, and it’s understandable why.
I want to comment on some history. In 1981, the provinces and territories asked the federal government to begin serious work on what we would call today housing and health. Why did that happen? The consequences of decisions made after the first energy crisis, along with other changes in housing construction, were being felt at that time.
Those of a certain age may well remember the UFI crisis and the rise of mould and dampness, the mouldy condominiums in Vancouver. These are serious issues that have cost the country an enormous amount of resources and have also left a legacy of disease in the open population that we’re going to live with for another half a generation.
House dust mites are the single most important cause of asthma in most Canadians. When I was born, they didn’t exist in Canadian homes.
Over the last three decades, the Government of Canada, the private sector and the academic granting system have supported among the largest studies of housing and health conducted in the world, focused on children and infants. These have been conducted in cities from sea to sea, but including some work in rural southern Ontario and Prince Edward Island.
My comment here is that housing conditions that affect your health are in some ways similar but in other ways different, depending on whether you live in Vancouver, Quebec City or Charlottetown. As I alluded to, this knowledge has allowed the development of world-class materials for urban Canadians, mainly, on what they can do to recognize problems and improve their indoor environments. Awareness drives fixes, improves the building codes and increases the durability of the housing stock. The focus has always been on child respiratory health, something that has motivated more than 20,000 Canadians to help with this work.
In stark contrast, as Dr. Kovesi said, there have been few careful studies of the connection between housing and health in First Nations communities. Dr. Kovesi provided evidence on the health of infants he first saw coming from Nunavut to CHEO twenty years ago. Just consider what that meant. It meant flying from Pond Inlet to Iqaluit and then to Ottawa, at great expense.
As he described, this led to efforts not just to document the problem but also the evidence-based steps to ameliorate the respiratory disease burden that are making a difference. One of the stories I tell about that work is that two years into the study, it became clear to me that we should ask a second time for ethical approval from the Inuit authorities for our double-blind intervention aimed to reduce respiratory disease in kids. After some fairly long time, the elders came back and said, roughly, “We know if you don’t do this, nothing will ever change.” So evidence has essentially forced a circumstance where HRVs, in general, are installed in the North.
In Nunavut, the houses met ventilation codes that make good sense in Ottawa. As we found, under the conditions in remote Inuit communities and in Alaska, the prescribed ventilation rates increased respiratory disease and contributed to making some infants very sick and having to come to Ottawa.
As outlined by Dr. Kovesi, kids living in fly-in communities in the Sioux Lookout zone have high rates of asthma, bronchiolitis and pneumonia. As with Nunavut, it is my view that the design of federally funded new housing in rural and remote communities is not appropriate. They fail too quickly. I’m willing to defend that, if you’re curious.
The Chair: Thank you, Professor Miller.
Senator Eaton: As you said, Dr. Miller, awareness drives fixes, improves building codes and increases the durability of the housing stock. This is music to my ears, because as long as I’ve been on this committee — and this applies to you, too, Dr. Kovesi — I have asked CMHC and INAC, every year they come before us with their housing estimates, how much money they are going to spend on Indigenous housing, and it’s always quite generous. But then when you ask if they are being built to code, “No.” “How many people do you think will live in these houses?” “We don’t know.”
They seem to be, whether it is out of respect for First Nations, Inuit and Metis, very hands off. They give the money, but there are no building codes. Nothing is followed. This is said to us every single year.
Have you been in contact with CMHC or INAC to share your studies with them? We’ve heard that there is going to be a housing symposium of Indigenous and Inuit administrators this summer to look at building codes that would be geographically and culturally relevant to where they live. Have you been asked about this, or do you know of this?
Mr. Miller: Senator, I’m not familiar with the particular meeting, but the work that I have described has been supported by CMHC and by Health Canada over many years.
Senator Eaton: Why are they not trying to do something about it?
Mr. Miller: Dr. Kovesi and I were at a meeting of First Nations, engineers and technical people in Thunder Bay this past summer, talking about our study and a little bit about what I have tried to discuss today. One of the things that really struck me is that we were in a room with about 25 or 30 First Nations band councillors and officials responsible for housing, and this issue of codes came up. It’s not completely true that the houses that get built are not built to a code, but they’re built to a code that is the National Building Code.
Senator Eaton: You can go back and hear our statements, and they deny that there’s any kind of — anyway, the point is —
Mr. Miller: To finish my thought, in Ottawa and in Ontario, or Quebec or Quebec City, we can choose which aspects of the National Building Code make the most sense for us. I was astonished and offended, frankly, that it became clear that the suggestions of the community that we were engaging with on how they would think it might be better to build a house are not part of the dialogue. That really needs to change.
Senator Eaton: But don’t you think that a code that’s geographically and culturally relevant should be developed in various areas, whether it’s the Yukon or northern Labrador or Iqaluit?
Mr. Miller: Absolutely. As I explained, in the open population, starting from the UFI times, that’s what the health work drove. We discovered there wasn’t enough ventilation, so we added ventilation to the National Building Code. That type of work has not been done adequately against the whole relevant ecozones where First Nations communities exist.
Senator Eaton: If, as you say, CMHC and INAC have been aware of what you and Dr. Kovesi have done and that building codes in other parts of the country take health matters very much into consideration, why do you think houses in the North don’t have codes? Why haven’t these codes been developed long ago?
Mr. Miller: I have been part of this housing research since I was ordered to begin doing it when I worked for the government.
Senator Eaton: Why haven’t things changed?
Mr. Miller: I think the reason is it has not been a priority. I have complained about this. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption that the ventilation rates that we use in Ottawa should work when you build a building in Nunavut, but there was no evidence except Dr. Kovesi and his colleagues at CHEO receiving dozens of Inuit babies every year and asking why that is.
Senator Eaton: Dr. Kovesi, can you perhaps tell me why your and Dr. Miller’s work has largely been ignored up to now by INAC, Health Canada and CMHC?
Dr. Kovesi: It’s an important question. There is a housing crisis in nearly all these communities, certainly many First Nations communities. In the communities where there is a limited housing budget and there is urgent need for more housing, at times the need to build houses overrides the thought of the money that needs to be spent building the houses to code.
The other important piece is not just ensuring rules are followed, but also housing maintenance and the situation of the houses. Even if you build a house perfectly to code, unless you maintain it so it lasts and you educate the people living in the house to help with the maintenance, that house is going to fail.
Senator Eaton: In the South, you would never be able to get away with that. Anyway, I hope very much that your research is used and taken seriously this time, because CMHC has a large amount of money this year again to spend on housing and they have some money to look at experimental ways of doing things. I hope they take your research into consideration. Thank you.
Senator Pratte: To follow up on this, Dr. Kovesi and Dr. Miller, there’s a lot of money being spent and planned to be spent in the next few years. Is there enough money? My impression is there is a lot of money being spent. Is the money being badly spent? Is that part of the problem? Or is it a matter of not enough money being spent?
Dr. Kovesi: Thank you for the question, Senator Pratte. I think it’s still a valid question that there is not enough money being spent. Unfortunately, building in fly-in communities or communities that are available only with access by ice roads in the winter is incredibly expensive. What seems like a lot of money in Ottawa for housing is not a lot in the North. I live in Ottawa as well. It is actually not that much money when you get up North.
These are populations that are rapidly growing, so even if it seems like we’re building a lot of houses, in reality we’re not building enough houses. Certainly in all the communities I go to, when you talk to the housing departments in each community, you’re consistently told that there isn’t enough money for maintenance. In incredibly harsh environments, when it’s minus 40 out or very damp, unless you do the maintenance, that house will not last nearly as long as it does in Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver, which ultimately increases the cost because you need to build houses again.
Mr. Miller: Nonetheless, it is important to remember that in the housing stock of Canada, it’s not all perfect. It can never be made perfect because it’s a huge social investment. What we try to do, though, is make sure that the people who live in the houses have a good understanding of things that they can do to ameliorate or reduce risks. As a public policy problem, if we could build buildings that no matter what you did in them they’d be okay, we would, but it does also require this knowledge translation.
For example, I have a heat recovery ventilator in my home. The material you get off the website from CMHC — which is a wonderful organization although its research capacity has been much reduced — and Health Canada, actually I don’t really understand what it means for me when I maintain it. I have seen, in contrast, materials produced for a First Nations community in Quebec that is pretty understandable. This issue of the critical importance of not doing things that exacerbate the health challenge of the building can never be underestimated. We cannot design buildings to be perfect.
Senator Pratte: Should the emphasis be put on new houses? Are the older houses salvageable? A lot of money is put into retrofitting old houses.
Mr. Miller: There are 140 million houses in North America, and 10 per cent of them have some problem or other. Making them perfect is a pentagon-sized budget, to address the problems that are most relevant for reducing exposures to disease.
For example, we did a big prospective study on Prince Edward Island. Many of the houses were rural. One of the risk factors turned out to be people storing too much firewood in their house, something my great-grandfather would have thought was hysterical. By bringing all that wood in the house, it brought contaminants into the building. These are perfectly sensible, intelligent people, but no one ever told them that is not the best way forward.
I can give another example of some of the studies from Dr. Kovesi this year where, in bedrooms far away from the woodstove, furniture was pushed right up against the wall. The consequence of that is it will grow mould then, and pulling it back a bit would fix that. No one ever told the mother of that house to just bring it back an inch or so. We would see that in Wallaceburg when we studied those homes. It’s not anything to do with who it is but to do with someone saying this matters and here are a few simple things you can do. It’s essential we do that better because we cannot build enough houses quickly enough to address the problems.
But the second piece of it, as Senator Eaton has pursued, is that if we are going to build more homes, I would really wish that they last longer than 15 or 20 years and be healthier. My brothers and I now own a house that’s 100 years old. It’s a perfectly good building. Some ancestors of my mine in New Brunswick build a house in 1788 that’s still there. It still works perfectly well. We can do that if we wish.
Dr. Kovesi: This comes back to Senator Eaton’s question. There is a need to build houses that are also culturally appropriate, and it really runs together. There has been some interesting work done by a cultural architect at CMHC. What he said was if you go to your house tonight, probably your spouse is in one room working on the Internet, and you’ll be in a room somewhere else working on your emails or whatever, and your kids might be somewhere else. Everyone is in a different part of the house. In traditional Indigenous cultures, everyone stays together. You often have a common room, which is very crowded and everyone stays there, and a bunch of bedrooms way off in the side that no one really uses except to sleep. If this is a house in a First Nations community with a wood stove, you have a nice warm living room with very little heat even getting to the bedrooms, and then you get fluctuations as people come in and out. If you fluctuate temperatures and there is a little dampness, again, you get condensation and mould. So when building new houses, building houses in the North that it makes sense to be in, and makes sense for those occupants, it is really important and remains underappreciated.
Senator Cools: I would like to thank the witnesses for coming before us.
I must tell you, Dr. Kovesi, I truly respect your work, but at the same time I also hasten to tell you that I believe that the practice of medicine and doctors is a vocation, not just a profession. I thank you for all your years of study to know what you know and to be able to practice medicine as you do.
I also thank you, too, Dr. Miller.
We know all child mortality is always colossal tragedy. Do you have any idea now or any exact information that could tell us the rate of infant and child mortality — and the two are slightly different — among Indigenous people?
Dr. Kovesi: There is an admittedly non-medical source, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, but there was a report that came out in the last couple of weeks that nine children under the age of five have died in Nunavut since January. So mortality is a huge issue.
Senator Cools: The thing is, I know a little bit about child mortality. I grew up in Barbados, and my uncle was the first Minister of Health in Barbados when they reached the stage where the government had ministers and a cabinet. He was committed to the reduction of child mortality, and he organized the vaccination of every child on the island of Barbados. The people who supported him mostly were the public health doctors. So I want you know that doctors are important.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you to all three of you for being here. Listening to you, I get nothing but a sense of your commitment to this issue and your passion, and I’m also grateful to you for your persistence in this issue.
Senator Eaton and I are both on the Arctic Committee, and at that committee we hear some of the same things that you’re saying. There are two ways to look at this — throw your hands up and ask what you can do. In the South, it’s easy to say that, but we are Canadian, we are national politicians, we have to do something.
I will ask this of all of you: If you had a magic wand, on what issue would you like to make a difference? You have given a number of ideas. What would be the one thing you could say that would make the difference?
Mr. Miller: Well, for me, as a public health-oriented person, I would wish us to spend the time to understand how to build houses that will last longer than 20 years and are appropriate for the climate.
Dr. Kovesi mentioned the cool. If you have a wood stove, of course, it gets hot, and in P.E.I. it was exactly the same, and then it gets cold outside. As a result, when I look at the houses that my settler ancestors built, they were square to prevent that from happening. Maybe they didn’t know that’s what they were doing, but that’s what you would see in Quebec and Acadia and in my part of Eastern Canada.
We really need to begin a process of thoughtfully understanding how we should build these buildings and build them out of things that last. One of the reasons mould became a big problem was the rise of paper-faced gypsum wallboard. My parent’s last house, built in 1963, was plastered. You can’t grow mould on plaster. As a colleague of mine says, even the stupidest of the three pigs didn’t build a house out of paper. When you have a building in a water-vulnerable environment and you build it out of materials that are not inherently durable, up there that’s a problem. Down here, that’s no big deal. We can deal with it.
Before acting and moving forward, I think it really is critical to have a serious discussion about what the designs should be and what sort of materials should we build, and let’s aim for a building that will last longer and require less maintenance because there isn’t a Canadian Tire or whatever around the corner.
Dr. Kovesi: I would say education, which needs to go in every direction. It needs to educate the builders and the contractors and the people designing these codes to be aware of the links between housing and health. There is more to code than just ensuring that the house is energy efficient. It means educating the housing departments in every one of these communities on how to maintain these houses in the healthiest possible way. It also means educating the occupants about the things they can do to improve the longevity of their houses and also to keep those houses healthier. Often it’s simple things as, Dr. Miller alluded to. It’s keeping firewood outside if you have a wood-burning stove. It means burning dry wood rather than wet wood, which releases less smoke and fewer contaminants. It means stop burning garbage. Those are messages that are not hard to communicate but we need to do a better job of communicating.
Senator Jaffer: You say education, and I, of course, accept what you’re saying, absolutely, but the population in the North is so transient, it’s rotational and sometimes people come there for a short time. That also adds to the problem of education and building long-term housing.
Dr. Kovesi: It will also help to bring in more Indigenous builders who will stay in those communities
Senator Neufeld: We talked a lot about the eastern Arctic but not about the western Arctic. Is it much the same? Have there been studies done as you folks talk about, or is it just in the eastern Arctic that people have done studies on these issues about housing? What happens in Yellowknife or further west? What goes on there? Is there anything happening that you’re aware of?
Mr. Miller: Both Dr. Kovesi and I feel somewhat frustrated that we haven’t done many studies of the specifics of the connections between housing and health in First Nations communities. Indeed, between the two of us, we’ve done five of the six studies in First Nations communities that we have, one in B.C., one in New Brunswick, Nunavut, and a couple in Ontario. Nunavik has been studied; Alaska has been studied. But there will be generalities.
The reason I told the story of what was done 30 years ago is that it was understood that unless we did that kind of work, we wouldn’t know how to properly change the building code. We would not know how to produce good education materials properly. As I said at the outset, it follows that if you live in St. John’s or Vancouver or southern Ontario, your environment is different enough that those generalities need be tempered with specifics, so your question is well founded. We should make inquiries of that type.
Senator Neufeld: You referred to “up there.” I don’t live in Vancouver. People think if you come from British Columbia, you live in Vancouver. I live in northern B.C., actually not far from the 60th parallel, so “up there” meaning?
Mr. Miller: We’re at 45 degrees latitude now where Dr. Kovesi is and more north right across the country.
I mentioned little had been done in rural environments, and the only substantive study would have been done in Prince Edward Island and a little bit in New Brunswick. I would offer that the generalities apply except on the matter of information. In P.E.I., for example, and New Brunswick, where I’m from, people burn wood a lot as either secondary heat or even primary heat. They do so because oil is expensive and gas isn’t generally available. Yet, we don’t produce good materials on wood stoves even for the folks in P.E.I. There hasn’t been, in answer to your question, as much attention outside major urban areas, and that’s a question of money and time, not that lack of will.
Senator Neufeld: Thank you.
Dr. Kovesi: : If I can add, I think the question is extremely important. We know frighteningly little about housing conditions in First Nations communities across Canada. I am sure there are major differences between communities in New Brunswick or the Northwest Territories or in coastal B.C. If you ask me what’s the ventilation rate of the average house in any of those regions, we don’t know. We’re just getting information for Sioux Lookout. For the Northwest Territories, we know there are huge health discrepancies between Inuit living on the eastern side of the Northwest Territories and Dene populations that are more in the interior, and again, we need more information in both areas. We need them across the country, and that’s very much a process that we’re still in the early stages of accumulating.
Senator Neufeld: Thank you.
Senator Deacon: I do ask a question that may be a bit repetitive from your opening statements. It was a bit difficult hearing when we started this morning. Dr. Kovesi, when you spoke this morning, I heard the number “30 times” on our speaker, but I didn’t hear the rest of what you said with respect to the incidence of respiratory illness in our Indigenous populations, what you have seen in trending and rates of change over the last 10 or 20 years. If I’m asking you to repeat something, I would ask that at the will of the committee, because it was hard to hear.
Dr. Kovesi: I apologize if I wasn’t talking loud enough.
In Ottawa this year, out of every 1,000 babies born, about 10 will be admitted to CHEO, the children’s hospital, with a respiratory infection called bronchiolitis, or RSV. In Nunavut, out of every thousand babies born, up to 300 will be admitted into the hospital with RSV bronchiolitis, which is the highest rate reported anywhere in the world. Those rates have come down a little bit. I think that reflects social determinants of health, but they are still hugely elevated.
This year in Sioux Lookout, out of every thousand babies born, 30 to 40 will be admitted to hospital with RSV bronchiolitis, so three or four times higher than the national or provincial average.
Rates of bacterial pneumonia are elevated, and Nunavut is currently having an epidemic of tuberculosis, and the highest rates of TB are in Indigenous populations like in Nunavut where the rates are about 200 times higher than among Canadian-born non-Indigenous persons.
Senator Deacon: Thank you.
The Chair: To the three witnesses, thank you very much for sharing your information and comments with us. There is no doubt that senators will continue on this matter. Dr. Schreiber, Dr. Kovesi and Professor Miller, with your humour from New Brunswick, thank you very much for being here.
(The committee adjourned.)