Manitoba Committee Hansard — 7 March 1989 (PUNR Committee, Sitting 16, 34th Legislature, 1st Session)

34-1-punr16

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

MG-8048 First Session - Thirty-Fourth Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba STANDING COMMITTEE on PUBLIC UTILITIES and NATURAL RESOURCES 37-38 Elizabeth 11 Chairman Mr. H. Pankratz Constituency of La Verendrye VOL. XXXVII No. 16 - 10 a.m., TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1989. Printed by the Office of the Queens Printer. Province of Manitoba ISSN 071 3- 9454

MANITOBA lEGISlATIVE ASSEMBLY Legislature Members, Constituencies and Political Affiliation NAME CONSTITUENC Y AlCOCK, Reg Os borne ANGUS, John St. Norbert ASHTON, Steve Thom pson BURREll, Parker Swan River CARR,James Fort Rouge CARSTAIRS, Sharon River Heights CHARLES, Gwen Sel kirk CHEEMA, Gulzar Kildonan CHORNOPYSKI, Wi lliam Burrows CONI\IERY, Edward Hon. Portage la Prairie COWAN,Jay Churchill CUMMINGS, Glen, Hon. Ste. Rose du Lac DERKACH, leonard, Hon. Roblin-Russell DOER,Gary Con cordia DOWN EY, James Hon. Arthur DRIEDGER, Albert, Hon. Emerson DRIEDGER, Herold, l. Niakwa DUCHARME, Gerald, Hon.

Riel EDWARDS, Paul St. James ENNS, Harry Lakeside ERNST, Jim, Hon. Charleswood EVANS, laurie Fort Garry EVANS, leonard Brandon East FllMO N, Gary, Hon. Tuxedo FINDlAY, Glen Hon. Vir den GAUDRY, Neil St. Boniface GlllESHAMMER, Harold Minne dosa GRAY, Avis El lice HAMMOND, Gerrie Kirkfield Park HARAPIAK, Harry The Pas HARPER, Elijah Rupertsland HEl WE R, Edward R. Gimli HEMPHill, Maureen Logan KOZAK, Richard, J. Transcona LAMOUREUX, Kevin, M. lnkster MALOWAY, Jim El mwood MANDRAKE, Ed Assiniboia MANNESS, Clayton, Hon. Morris McCRAE, James Hon. Brandon West MINENKO, Mark Seven Oaks MITCHEL SON, Bonnie, Hon.

River East NEUFELD, Harold, Hon. Rossmere OLESON, Charlotte Hon. Gladstone ORCHARD, Donald Hon. Pem bina PANKRATZ, Helmut La Verendrye PATTERSON, Allan Radisson PENNER, Jack, Hon. Rhineland PLOHMAN, John Dauphin PRAZNIK, Darren Lac du Bonnet ROCAN, Denis, Hon. Turtle Mountain ROCH, Gilles Sp ringfield ROSE, Bob St. Vital STORIE, Jerry Flin Flon TAYLOR, Harold Wolseley URUSKI, Bill lnterlake WAS YLYCIA-LEIS, Judy St.

Johns YEO,Iva Sturgeon Creek PARTY LIBER AL LIB ERAL NDP PC LIB ERAL LIBER AL LIB ERAL LIB ERAL LI BERAL PC NDP PC PC NDP PC PC LIB ERAL PC LIB ERAL PC PC LIBER AL NDP PC PC LIBER AL PC LIBERAL PC NDP NDP PC NDP LIBER AL LIBER AL NDP LIB ERAL PC PC LIBER AL PC PC PC PC PC LIBE RAL PC NDP PC PC LIBER AL LIBE RAL NDP LIBER AL NDP NDP LIB ERAL

lEGISlATIVE AS SEMBlY OF MANITOBA THE STANDING CO MMITTEE ON PUBliC UTiliTIES AND NATUR Al RESOURCES Tuesday, March 7, 19 89 TIME - 10 a.m. LOCATION - Winni peg, Manitoba CHAIRMAN - Mr. Helmut Pankratz (la Verendrye) ATTENDANCE - 11 - QUORUM - 6 Members of the Committee present: Hon. Mr. Con ner y Mrs. Ch arles, Messrs. Enns, Gill esham mer, Harapiak, Helw er, Pank ratz, Plohman, Rose, Taylor APPEARING: Mr. Storie Mr. Cowan Mr. R. L (Nick) Carter, Chairman Mr. R. J. (Ri ck) Cooke, Ch ief Executive Officer Ms.

Caroline Kaus, Secretar y-Treasurer MATTERS UNDER DISCUSSION: First Annual Report of the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Corpora tion, fiscal period ending Decem ber 31, 1987. Mr. Chairman: We are going to be discussi ng the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Management Corporation and, at the same time, we have one vacancy which must be filled before we can start the com mittee mee ting. Mr. Gill esham mer. Mr. Harold Gilleshammer (Minne dosa): I nomina te Ed Helw er. Mr. Chairman: Mr. Ed He lwer has been nomina ted. All in favour? Comm ittee Mem bers in favour? Agreed.

Then i would like to ask the Minister in charge whether he would like to make some opening comments. Hon . Edward Connery (Minister of Envir onment and Workplace Safety and Health): I just have one opening comment. I think it is important that we take a look at the make-up of the board of the corpo ration prior to our coming into office. This is not meant as a criticism but pointing out that there were seven mem bers on the previous board , one that was basically in active. We had two women and a total of three from Affirmative Action, which could be three out of the seven could be Affirmative Action.

All of those people came from the City of Winnipeg . Ther e had been what-p ardon me, one person from outside the city who res igne d shortly after the board started up. 298 The make-up of the current board is 11 mem bers. Ther e are four women , three who would be consider ed visi ble minorities. Seven out of the eleven are Affirmative Action. Five are from the City of Winnipeg , and six are from outside, which covers a very wide range from Winkler to Pin awa to Roblin to -(In terjection )- not Chur chil l, but to Flin Flon, which takes in a fairly wide range.

I am very ple ased with the make -up of the board that we have on the Hazardous Waste Corpora tion. lt covers jus t about the total make-up of the population of Manitoba. Mr. Chairman: Thank you , Mr. Minister. With that Mr. Enns. •

(1005) Mr. Harry Enns (lakeside): I wonder , Mr. Minis ter, in view of the fact that this is a new corporation, I think perhaps making its first appearance before a legislativ e comm ittee, if the Minister would be good enough to introduc e staff that is with him this morning. Mr. Conne ry: Ye s, I will. We have Nick Carter who is the chairman. We have Rick Cooke, the ch ief exe cutive officer, and Carolin e Kaus who is in the financial side. Mr. Chairman: Then we are open for que stions now to the Minis ter. Mrs.

Gwen Charles (Selkirk): I notice in the report that it mentions that research is one of the object ives set out for the corpora tion. Could I have an overview please of what research is going on at the corpor ation? Mr. R. J. (Rick) Cooke (Chief Executive Officer): Ye s, we do have some interest in research in a broad sense. We have been looking at a numb er of joint ve ntures related to the dev elopment of ha zar dous waste treatment and disposal tech nology.

One potentia lly would involve Atomic Energy of Canada who have some tech nolo gy that might be of interest and there are several other locally based technolo gy dev elop ers that we may be able to participate with. One of the opportunities I think we have as we develop a facility is to provide a place wher e commercial demonstration of new treatment technol ogies could take place. We see that as a side bene fit, if you like, and part of our research mandate. Mrs.

Charles: When we get into the area of recycl ing, one of the largest problems, as I unders tand, which I believe is within your mandate, is the problem of finding com panies that will recycle the recyc lable s. Is this a major priority for your corporation or is it inde ed under the mandate of your corpo ration?

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 Mr. Cooke: Recycling of hazardous wastes is certainly something that we have a strong interest in, both in terms of our own investments in development and encouraging other people to do that. Solvents, organic solvents, mineral solvents, are perhaps the best example. There are now three recyclers operating in the province for those kinds of materials . We direct material to them and, in fact, promote them in that way. One of the major limitations in recycling hazardous waste-the materials that we deal with-is finding somebody to take them back.

One of the solvents, again using that example , very often the people that originally generated the material are reluctant to take it back. There are specification limitations often associated, for example, with the aerospace industry where military specifications require the use of virgin material as opposed to recycled material. So there are some market limitations in doing it and it is the kind of thing that I think we work with other people in the business to try to solve. Mr.

Connery: Yes, I think, as I pointed out last Thursday, our department or myself with staff have gone to Edmonton to take a look at their recycling . We were in Regina. Once again , as Rick, the manager, says it is the market for recyclable products. Until we have a market to take them, there is not much point in drawing them out of the waste stream and creating another unsightly disposal area-or not a disposal area but a mound of, whether it be paper, plastic, glass or whatever. As you know, one of the problems we have is with the Rolling Mills at Selkirk not wanting to take the pesticide cans .

So we have a major problem that where we were able to dispose of them in a recyclable way because of the concerns of the union-and I am not going to say the union is wrong. If they are concerned about a health hazard, although there has been no way of determining whether there was a health risk to the workers, they were concerned and so, because of that concern, the mill decided not to recycle cans. That affects the Province of Saskatchewan who now has-I forget how many hundreds of tonnes, whether it is 5,000 tonnes or 500,000 tonnes .

It is a massive amount of pesticide cans that they have no market for and neither does Manitoba. So this creates some other concerns. As you know, with the glass industry there is very little use for recyclable glass. What do we do to encourage recycling and, as a department, we are taking a lot of looks at various ways? Is there an up-front charge on products that we buy so that when it comes time for disposal of a used product , whether it be oil, tires or so forth, there is a fund there to collect and dispose of it in environmentally safe ways?

These are many, many of the ideas and this is why we are looking this year to some ideas from the general public to give us their input and from those that are specialized in the area of recycling. As you know, we have a recycling person within our department. That is not a large enough one . We want to improve and 299 expand on that, using the expertise that is in the community which there is a lot of. *

(1010) Mr. Cooke: Yes, Ms. Kaus pointed out one other thing that we do in that area that I should have mentioned which is we finance the Manitoba Waste Exchange which, while our interests are hazardous wastes, the Waste Exchange does exchange a whole range of materials , the bulk of which are non-hazardous. It is part of a national network, in effect, where generators of a waste can list those wastes and potentia l users of that waste can then source them. That is a national and, in fact, a North American network of which we are part. Mrs.

Charles: Yes, with my close association with the municipalities, I am very concerned about landfill sites and dumps. Certainly they are not anybody's new creation. They are a hazard that has developed over years of misinformation and innocence, I believe, but in many cases we are looking at hazardous waste sites in my opinion with what has been spilled into dump sites and I realize that the protection, or the overview of landfill sites , is under the Department of the Environment. But I want to know if there is any association-and it speaks of coordination of elements of the syste m and the corporate mandate.

I want to know if there is any coordination between the Department of the Environment looking after landfill sites and this corporation as to looking after hazardous waste facilities. Does the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Corporation look into dump sites, identify the municipalities or anyone else indeed as to hazardous waste sites. Mr. Cooke: I guess we do not examine any situation in a compliance context. We will provide a service where environmental hazard relating to hazardous waste occurs. As I think you correctly identified, potentially, landfill sites are receivers of hazardous waste .

It is a sad fact but historically our hazardous waste has gone into the same locations as our other wastes, sewer systems, landfill sites . The object of our work is to separate that waste stream and deal with it properly . We work quite closely with both municipalities and the province in terms of identifying where waste currently goes and where it comes from. That is part of our business development and market identification. Anyone in our bus iness would do that. It is very important to us though.

The question is essentially regulatory in nature, is enforcement of regulatory standards by municipalities, probably as much as the province, and the key to effectively dealing with hazardous waste. That will generate the market that will justify the capability that we are developing. If I might I would make a plea in this context for enforcement, and notably municipal enforcement, as facilities are available. Mr. Connery: At the meeting of the CCREM Councils in Montreal in April, the main issue we were about to

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 discuss at that meet ing was the cost of cleaning up orphan sites. At Manitoba's request, the ozone layer is now part of that discus sion, and I think it is going to be broad and wide-ranging issues that will come forth. As you know, ther e are many, many orphan sites of what would be cons idered to be hazardous and have hazard ous ma terial in them and tha t need some reha bilitation. Who is respo nsible for these costs? We do not know who the owners are. The owners are gone. So all of these orphan sites have been iden tifie d.

Fortunately Manitoba has very few orphan sites compared to Ontario and Quebec wher e, of cou rse, a lot of the hazardous waste over the years has been gene rated. I must say a lot of that hazardous waste was gener ated in response to our purch ases; so, while some provinces mig ht say look, we do not have the problems so why should we be a part of the reha bilitation ? In esse nce, because we bought some of those articles from those provinces, we were part of the hazardous waste problem. An Honourable Member: Guilt by association. Mr. Connery: Guilt by association. That is right. The Memb er is right.

So we have contri buted to those orphan waste sites. lt is a major conc ern, and of cou rse now from here on in we want to ens ure that peop le are responsible, the user pay sort of syndrome. We will make sure that those people are paying for the sites and we do not end up with orphan sites. *

(1015) Mrs . Charles: I am still just trying to piece this all together , and I suppo se that probably your dep artment is still trying to put all the puzzle pieces together as they are being ident ified, really .

If a hazardous landfill site is found or a landfill site believed to be hazardous, whether it is an ope rational site or other wise and it is iden tified through the Department of the Env iro nment as being a hazardous disposal site, whether those are hazardous goods as we know them or whether it is a mi xture that is indeed not safe for the water system, does the Department of the Env iro nment then turn to this corpor ation for disposing of that site, or exactly who would take apart a landfill site if it were deemed to be ha zardous and dispose of it? Mr.

Connery: We could definitely bring in the Hazardous Waste Corpo ration. They are part of that although the y are not gene rally in the area of cleaning up of waste sites, but if there was material that was iden tified in that site the corporation could be involved in it. Ther e is no question that that could be.

As I pointed out last Thur sday, where ther e was a hazardous waste site that was found along the river west of Portage La Prairie, the, the Env ironment Department we nt in and cleane d it up but were able to ident ify the person or persons respons ible- corporation respons ible- for disposing of it and they were ch arged back. In some instances, the sight cannot be. lt is an orphan site and we do not know who is respons ib le . lt will be cleaned up and then hopefu lly you try to recover it. This happens in many cases. Rick, do you- Mr.

Cooke: Perhaps I cou ld add, on a comm ercial basis, we would respond to anybody 's quer y with 300 respect to a site clean-u p. We, I think, have the capability to do the assess ment and manage and contract for what techno logy might be needed to do that. Certainly, if req uested on a comm ercial basis by a private owner of a site, a municipality, or by the Provincial Government at their choice, we would ob viously resp ond on a fee for-service basis. Mrs.

Charles: So the corporation is not just mandating to look at hazardous waste that is portable, shall we say, it also is looking after hazardous waste sites or a situation that may occur, that you would clean up? Mr. Cooke: No. I think what I was trying to indicate is, if ther e is a site that requir es clean up, ther e is a hazardous waste on it that requir es rem oval or some rem ediation of that site. We do have expertise in the area to be able to respond to that kind of prob lem. We do not excl usively have that expertise. Ther e are a numb er of other people in other parts of the country in that business.

We have no mandate, or exclus ive mandate, to do that kind of work here in the province, but we do offer that capabi lity if it is required. Mrs. Charles: So you then are not mandated to sort · of overview disp osal of any hazardous goods. I am getting a no from the Minister, so I will take it as that. My direct que stion then would be, when the fluoride contamina tion occurred at Shoal Lake, was that a situation where this corpo ration would be involved or did this corpor ation have any inter vention in watching the disposal of the fluoride? As I unde rstand, it was dump ed down the sewers of Winnipeg again. Mr.

Cooke: We had some very prelimin ary contact from the city in that ev ent, as I rec all. Mr. Yee would have had the contact reg arding the ev entual disposal of that material . If it is deemed to be a hazardous waste and to be dealt with as such, we would certainly deal with it on a commer cial basis. I am not sure that decision in fact has been made. All I know is we have had an inq uiry. The ma terial is in the hands of the city and/ or the Department of the Env ironment. Mrs. Charles: So is it fair to sum up in saying that your corporation only looks after hazardous goods when somebody comes to you? Mr.

Cooke: I think that is a fair statement. As a proponent of facilities and capa bility and services in the area, that is our role . We are not controllers or reg ulators and we cannot force ourselves on any situation. Certainly, the reg ulator can direct people to us, but it would have to be the regulator either municipal or provinci al. Mrs.

Charles: To the Minister then, it has been seen throughout the que stioning in this com mittee then that ther e is no one de partment rea lly oversee ing all hazardous goods and that even if the paperwork goes through the system that ther e can be a muni cipality, there certainly can be private ind ustry, in some cases, the department, Gove rnment department itse lf, and in some cases the corp oration. Does the Minister have

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 any plans into setting new policy that there would be some overall direction in watching and looking after the disposal of hazardous goods or even the usage of hazardous goods so that we can at least identify them and keep a tab on where they go and where they wou ld end up? *

(1020) Mr. Connery: I think the question is getting back into the Department of the Environment rather than the Hazardous Waste Corporation per se. The Hazardous Waste Corporation is a body that will be asked by the Government, Department of Environment , or other people, to dispose of hazardous waste or to collect it, to put it together and act as brokers for recycling or for destination to a disposal area . That is the role of the Hazardous Waste Managemen t Corporation.

We can ask them to become involved in a particular spill or, as with the ozone layer, to give us some expertise and some advice on the handling of the PCBs, where we asked them to be part of the situa tion where we could elimi nate storage sites by them collecting for us on our behalf and putting them into storage. That is being done . Mrs. Charles: Just for information, is there any one goods, hazardous waste-that, above all others , is causing problems that we should look out for in the province? Is there a list of bad guys , so to speak?

We speak of PCBs and certainly it has developed , if nothing more, the fear in people's minds of PCBs. Is that a major concern of this corporation? Are there other concerns? For instance, nuclear waste is always a problem, probably high on the list because of its longevity of hazard . I s there a list that is available to the public of substances we should be watching? Mr. Cooke: There are lists available of regulated hazardous wastes in The Handling and Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act . We publish them periodically as well.

I am not sure that there is a priorized list available, which I think is what you are asking for. We certainly , with our technical people, could sit down with any list and attach our own priorities in terms of hazard to them. You mentioned nuclear waste. That may well be very high on the priority of any list, but it is not on our list simply because we are not in that busines s.

In response to your question about, if I sensed it right, where PCBs fit in this whole equation, what is better and what is worse, PCBs are not a good guy on the list but, in my personal view, technically they are a long way from being a worse guy. Perhaps the controversies about PCBs have served the useful purpose of highlighting concern about hazardous waste but it has also created a lot of paranoia, quite frankly , in the public and has led people to do some very expensive things as well.

It is a chemical of concern, largely because of its long-term presence in the environment in rising to the top of the food chain. In this area, generally, perhaps the worst single materials that we handle on a regular basis or would identify are some forms of chlorinated pesticides found in rural communities, or one in concentrated form, one 301 of the worst materials . But there are quite a number of industrial waste water streams that certainly should have priority attached to them as well.

So without sitting down with the list and a chemist putting numbers beside it, I cannot give you an answer more direct than that. Mrs. Charles: Seeing as how you have in some areas in some way, although not a priorized list, identified substances that are particularly problems to the province and, because in the rural areas, in particular run-off from farms, flooding and such like occurs and it gets into our water streams, is there any associat ion between your corporation and the department's monitoring the level of pollution in the rivers?

My particular concern obviously is the Red River, to identify pollutants in the river beyond the narrow sphere that they now judge the river pollutants from. *

(1025) Mr. Cooke: I am not sure directly . It is certainly technical information that is made available to us as it is to the general public when those sorts of evaluations are done, and certainly it identifies compounds which could be identified as emanating from the hazardous waste environment, but it is very indirectly done in that context. Mr. Harold Taylor (Wolseley): Last week, at this committee, we got a little bit into this situatio n of hazardous wastes in the city.

The unfortu nate incident of the explosions in the sewe r was made reference to, which unfortunately was not the only time that has happened. A question was posed of Mr. Cooke as to whether there had been communications with civic officials and his response was in the affirmative , but I do not think we got enough information on the table . Could Mr. Cooke maybe just elaborate what it was that they were asked to do or was it part of the initi ative, the outreach initia tive , of his corporation just to get out to groups that handle hazardous wastes in a major way and it fell out of that?

What was the role that the corpor ation was able to play? Mr. Cooke: I think the latter, Mr. Taylor. We have an ongoing dialogue with the city. In a sense, their treatment systems or their systems is where a lot of the hazardous waste is going . That is a sad fact, and that is what we are trying to change. The occurrence in the sewer system as you correctly identified is not necessarily a unique event. That did sensitize the city and particularly their technical people , and I think our dialogue has improved subsequent to that event.

We are actively working with the city on the potential development of the siting transfer stations in the city. We have been invited to make presentations subsequent to that to the Works and Operations Committee at City Council. They have asked us jointly with their technical people and officials to come up with a proposal on how the city could participate in the c;levelopment of our system. All of those, I think, are positive things and are in progress.

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 11/lr. Taylor: I like that comment at the end about the long er term situation and their willing ness to act in a coo perative fashion. In those discu ssio ns thoug h, Mr. Cooke, they did not take advantage of the exper tise resid ent in your corpor ation, to use you in effect as a form of publ ic consu ltant to dev elop a response, the response we saw this fall, with some changes in the city's app roach to toxics and expl osives in the sewer system. You were not called upon to play that sort of a role then. Mr.

Cool!:e: Certainly they discu ssed those things with us on an informal basis, a normal technical ex change basis -informal publ ic consu ltant. We are certainly plea sed to provide them any kind of adv ice and assist ance we can, I gue ss, within reason. At some po int, it becomes a more comm ercial arrangement, but we maintain an ongo ing dialogue with the city. The y are a waste generator the mselves and therefore a client. We have been active ly working, for exam ple, help ing them in their labor atory facilities, putting together a waste management system.

They thems elves, I think, are quite com petent to do that, but we are providing some assistance as we ll as working with them on facility de velopment . Mr. Taylor: Then you did not deal with the issues of the hierarchy of licences for various types of hand lers of hazardous wastes in the city or the monitoring alteration, the minor alteration , the city propo sed or fre quency of testing inspection of firms, any of those types of things? You did not get into that sort of level of detail I gather then from what you are saying? *

(1030) Mr. Cooke: A numb er of those things were discussed. They ask our opinion certainly on monitoring, monitoring te chnol ogies, one of our staf f do es ha ve some backg round in another ju risdic tion and was able to informal ly, I think, provide them with some advice. With respect to licensing of carriers and that kind of thing, I think th ose consu ltations were held wit h the Depart ment of the Env ir on ment as be ing more re gulatory in nature. Mr.

Taylor: Given what has been found out about what was going on with the unfortunate rampant dump ing of unde si rable su bstances into the sewer system and the risk attended theret o, what is your view on the le vel of monitoring that is now in place and which it is ju st on a very infreq uent basis? They mig ht do one or two a week; the y may do one every two weeks of the loads be ing dum ped. Do you think that the system emplo yed now, which is a variation of what was, is satisfactory, given the situation? Mr.

Cooke: I am trying to think of an analogy that might be appropr iate and it is not an appropr iate questi on, I think, to ask somebody who-i f you ask me as a busines sman, should there be mo re enfor cement to gen erate mor e bus iness for my business, I would answer in the affirmative. I think that is fundamentally what you are asking. I think the question is whe ther it is ade quate and those kinds of 302 things are best directed to the regulatory authorities. The one comment I can make is that the city is- Mr. Chairman: Please, no interru ptions. We will give Mr. Cooke an opportu nity to answer. Mr.

Cooke: I guess the one comment I cou ld make is that the city's awareness and concern about monitoring the sewer system appears to us to be increasi ng. I am aware that they are se eking additional resou rces for enforcement capa bility which, again for the business reaso ns I outlined earlier, I think is a positive step. Mr. Jerry Storie (Fiin Flon): I did not attend the prev ious com mittee meeti ng so if I am be ing some what re dundant in terms of the questio ns I ask, I ask the com mittee's indulg enc e.

I would like to go back to a question that was asked by my col league from Selkirk at the last meeti ng about the nature of waste and how it was defined by the corpor ation and the corpor ation's role in managing waste that is in the province, but more broadly then that, waste that may be transported through or into the province. I just would like a definition of waste from the perspective of transportation. Mr. Cooke: The ma terials that we deal with are provinc ially regulated hazardous wastes that would be defined under The Transpor tation and Handling of Dangerous Goods Act.

In addition, we will handle indus trial wastes which are other wise de nied access. We may well not be non-regulated and may otherwise be den ied access to municipal facilities. There is a rel atively small amount of that kind of material. We also deal with material that would be hazardous waste but because of the small quantities in which they are gen erated would not fall under the reg ulations. The typical exam ple of that is household genera tion of hazardous waste. We do not deal with materials that are not listed as a regulated hazardous waste that would come from a registered waste gen erator.

To use the U.S. terminol ogy, so-called delisted waste, those kinds of material s. Mr. Storie: Define a de listed material again. Mr. Cooke: lt is a U.S. regulatory term that is gaining some favour, I think. lt means that a waste su bstance that has undergone some treatment or some analysis and is certified as be ing non-hazardous in a numb er of U.S. ju risdictions and I believe the USEP A use that terminology . Mr. Storie: So anything technically that has been de listed would be, by definitio n, non-ha zardous? Mr. Cooke: That is the U.S. inter pretation of it perhaps inappropr iately in the busine ss.

We tend to use the ph rase a little bit, jus t picking it up from our Amer ican nei gh bours, but it has no re gulatory standing in Canada. Mr. Storie: So the fact that it is deli sted may or may not sig nify anything in terms of its toxicity? Mr. Cooke: A waste de listed by US EPA, it would be very unlikely that it would be considered a hazardous

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 waste in this country. The U.S. regulation governing hazardous waste generally and particularly

definitions tend to be somewhat more stringent than ours. Mr. Storie: You made reference in your first answer to materials that would be denied access to municipal waste facilities. What kind of materials are we talking about? Mr. Cooke: There is a grey area that a material that is not deemed to be hazardous to the environment or health under national or provincial regulation but, for one reason or another, a municipal ity, through its own by-laws, may choose to deny to its landfill site, for example. lt is things like, an example that we know of, lime sludges.

Things that may be land farmed may go to a landfill site, but the municipality or the land farming operation may choose to deny that. Where do th ese materials go? I guess by exclusion we end up as the alternative. Our facilities that we are in the process of developing will handle those kinds of materials when they are identified . The one potential type that we have identified are things like lime sludges. Mr. Storie: I guess that would lead me into a whole series of questions about the scope of the operations of this corporation five years or ten years from now. lt seems to me that given the rather vague

definitions and regulations requiring municipalities to store waste, there may be a tendency over a period of time for municipalities to say no, we are not taking chances with any of this and it is all your responsibility. Perhaps you could define for me or clarify for me how the corporation is going to distinguish between what will be accepted and what will not be, and how are you going to say no and whom are you going to say no to and who is going to say no. Mr. C ooke: You have identified a phenomenon that has increasingly occurred in other jurisdictions.

As more soph isticated waste management facilities become available, less sophisticated facilities that municipalities may operate- and I say that advisedly- particularly in this province and in the City of Winnipeg where very sophisticated landfill facilities do exist. This material has been increasingly dir ected to facilities such as ours. My overall response is as that market develops and if there is a need we would respond to service that market. Mr. Storie: I guess my next question is to the Minister then.

Has the Government thought, or is it in the process of preparing lists of materials, designations of types of hazar dous materials, that would not be the responsibility of the corporation? The mandate, if you read the Annual Report and other material on its mandate, is extremely broad. Maybe as an initial step that had to be so. I am wondering if there is in place or if you are preparing some sort of list so that everyone has to accept some resp onsibil ity for waste management.

Mt Connery: We are not preparing a list that precludes anything of a hazardous nature being handled by the Hazardous Waste Corporation. 303 Mr. Storie: So the Minister is conceding the possibility that the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation will become the disposal ground for the province, or that it will have a series of sites that will manage all waste? * (1 040) Mr. Connery: Not necessarily. They are mandated to handle hazardous waste material, not necessarily non hazardous waste material. Mr. Storie: I am just referring back to a conversation I thought we had, Mr. Chairperson, where Mr.

Cooke indicated that there may in fact be a problem at some point because municipalities do not want to take any risk with materials that may or may not technically be hazardous. But because there is a perception that they are hazardous, there is a fear that they may become hazardous, and the end result will be that municipalities will in fact close their disposal grounds to virtually all waste and that the waste corporation would then become responsible. Mr. Cooke: Maybe I can clarify that, Mr. Storie. I did not identify it as a problem.

I identified it as a business opportun ity and I think there is a difference. Where there is a need it is our job, certainly not on an exclusive basis but we would have the facilities, not for the disposal, for the treatment and safe permanent disposal of the residues for those kinds of materials. We really look to two levels of regulators that will generate our market. The one and obvious one is that long list of materials, 3, 126, I believe at last count. They are listed in the TDG Regulations. These are materials that under law are considered hazardous and have to be managed as such.

If they are waste materials, they have to be managed as hazardous waste. We also look to the municipal regulator in any decisions that they may make with respect to their own facilities, be they sewer systems or landfills, and they may well identify markets. That is the grey area, if you like, that I identified of industrial waste. I guess we know it is not large in this jurisdiction right now, but we know from experience in other jurisdictions, and particularly Ontario, that as regulatory enforcement increases, as it will inevitably, there is this identification made and we will certainly respond to that need.

Mr. Storie: I gather the Minister has left open that the Hazardous Waste Corporation will not refuse any waste, that essentially their mandate is quite open. The Minister indicated that. I just want the Minister to confirm that is what he said. Mr. Chairman: I guess it is his prerogative that he can reply if he wants to and he need not if he does not. Mr. Connery: You answered your own question. Mr. Chairman: Mr. Plohman, have you got a question? Mr. John Plohman (Dauphin): Yes, I have a few statements to make.

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 Mr. Storie: I have got a couple of more que stions. Mr. Plohman: Jerry is not finished yet, Mr. Cha irman. I de fer to my colleague if that is okay with you . Mr. Chairman: Please go ahead , Mr. Storie, with your questi on. Mr. Storie: Ju st to move off the que stion, that aspect of hand ling of waste. Back to the question of transpor tation of waste into the province, an example was the transpor tation of sludge from California into Manitoba clearly contained some elements of the 3,1 26 hazardous materials, including cadmium, arsenic and so forth.

That would be under your definition hazardous material, would it not? Mr. Cooke: Not ne cessarily . I do not know tha t particular material. I would make an assum ption about it th at it was probably de listed un der California reg ulation. That is an assumption on my part, not having anything to do with it. Hazard is defined obvio usly by the subs tance in its pro perties but also by amount and by risk of exposure. Those are the kinds of criteria that are app lied to any definition of hazard, particularly amount.

Small quantities of hea vy metals exist in many substances and are not necessarily deemed to be hazardous goods or in waste form hazardous wastes, so I re ally could not make a judgm ent calling that particular material hazardous because it contained heavy metals, which I think was the concern . Mr. Storie: You are not aware of any testing that was done by the province or by federal agencies with respect to the material or materials that are flowing into Canada, Manitoba? Mr. Cooke: That would not be something we are involv ed with.

We are not a regu latory authority and do no t get involv ed in that kind of control. Mr. Storie: So the res pons ibility then for making sure that whatever materials end up in Manitoba clearly lies with the province or the federal Government. Mr. Cooke: Both the federal Gove rnment, on a national basis, and the provincial Government. Certainly the expor ting country has some ob ligations of notification. Ther e is a common ma nifest.

If it is a hazardous materi al, hazardous good or a hazardous waste and is re gulated as such as the point of origin, then a manifest system would apply to that material with no tific ation for appro priate ju risdict ions is our understanding. Most of our busine ss is exporting waste to the United States, so the situation, with the materi al, it is hazardous waste, being expor ted to treatment facilities in the United States. We have to go through a manifes ting system, a series of registration num bers. lt is computer tracked.

Each jurisdiction receives copies as it passes through licensed carriers to a licensed facility that will deal with it. Mr. Storie: Mr. Chairpers on, perhaps to the Minister or to the CEO . Do eit her of you see the possi bility of the corpor ation becomi ng involv ed more extensively , 304 or extens ively in the handl ing of waste from other jurisdictio ns? Is that part of the mandate as it currently exists? Mr. Connery: There is no mandate. There has been no decis ion made on the impor tation of hazardous waste from other provinces or other jurisdictio ns.

We do not have, as Ontario or Alberta has, a closed border to hazardous waste. As you know, the Gov ernment of B.C. says the y will not be a net impo rter, so the y do export hazardous waste and also impor t on an equal amount so they are not net impor ters. The fact that we are looking at some regional concepts where, because of the vo lume s, it would be very expensive for one province to dispose of all its ma terial and each province doing the same thing, where there could be some regio nal abili ties to dispose of hazardous waste in the most econo mical fashion for its citize ns. Mr.

Storie: The Minister is saying they have made no decis ion . Is ther e an inclination? Is the Minister inclined towards es tabl ishing the waste corpo ration and operating it as a waste facility for profit, or is he more inclined to have a poli cy that says that we will manage the total volume of waste we prod uce, simi lar to B.C .'s poli cy that says it will not be a net exporter of waste? Mr. Connery: When a decision of that nature has been made, I will assure you, you will be one of the first to know. Mr. Storie: That is gratifying. My colleague had some que stions. Mr.

Plohman: I want to go back to the issue of siting of hazardous waste disposal site, because I think this is a very impo rtant issue and one that I believe was not address ed, at least to my satisfaction , satisfactorily at the last hear ing, the com mittee meeti ng that we had. As a ma tter of fact , ther e was some disturbing inform ation that was provided to us at that meet ing. We had comments from Mr.

Cooke in which he said, I am a little concerned, the siting criteria, this document here that is prepared by the Crown corpo ration is a piece of tech nical work done by the corpo ration as a proponent. lt is our proposal of the kinds of criteria that in our best technical judgm ent and based on our view of exper ience in other places that we would propose in doing our work. Then he said certainly other proponents may take diffe rent appr oaches to siting in the province. ..

(1050) Then Mr. Connery said, just previous to that, he made this state ment. He says do they go out to the department first and find out the criteria? This would be the logical and commo n-sense thing to do. However, there are no criteria, he later admitted, that would be follo wed by the private sector in siting for a hazardous waste disposal site in this province. There are proposed criteria for the Crown corpo ration that the y will follow, but ther e are no criteria that have been es tablished by the province to apply to the private sector. I ask the Minister whether he intends to-and I do not think this was asked last time he said ther e will

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 be the same criteria, but Mr. Cooke said those were just suggestions and they would not necessarily apply to other proponents. Does he intend to apply those criteria by regulation to the private sector? Mr. Connery: As the Member well knows, depending on the proposal put fort h, wil l de pe nd on what regulations are imposed. Is the proponent asking for a collection site and then become a transfer to other jurisdictions? There would be no question the Clean Environment Commission hearing would give some regulations to that particular proposal . Another one might be a destruc tion site.

Dep endin g on the propo nent, what the proponent is proposing, of course, is to what licence they will be given. Of course, the department and various groups will make presentation to the hearing. The Clean Environment Commission then will make recommenda tions, de pend ing on whether it is a Class 1 or 2, to the director. If it is a Class 3 under The Environment Act, then it would be to the Minister. lt would depend on what would be recommended, depending on what was being proposed by the propo nent, but strict regulations will be in place.

The Hazardous Waste Management Corporation is look ing at an all encompassing site, whether it be for basically most things. Mr. Cooke: In reading back the phraseology I used, perh aps I was not conv eying exact ly what I was meaning. I did not want to in any way imply that I was speaking for another propo nent. Each prop onent will obviously make its own decisions. Mr. Plohman: Is that what you said? Mr. Cooke: Yes. I just wanted to underline that. Tha t is our best judgment on t he kinds of things that we would look for, based on our technical expertise.

We have also presented it in a fashion that it is discussable with the public. A lot of siting criteria, and we feel quite strongly about this, should have a substantial amount of input from the public and more specifically from the communities involved. So we have also said that the criteria we are prop osing are not cast in stone. The y are discussable and negotiable with the communities involved. In fact, we would expect the communities to dictate a number of those criteria that we may have started the discussion on.

We have suggested siting criteria for both a central treatment and disposal facility, and for a transfer station facility. I would add though that the transportation siting criteria that we have applied for would envision quite a small, very simple storage operation. Most facilities that involve any handling or processing of hazardous waste, in our view, would involve the major criteria that if we were developi ng them, that would be involved there. Mr. Plohman: Mr. Chairman, Mr.

Cooke also said at the last committee meeting we had that one jurisd iction in Canada does have regulations that determine the criteria, that outline the criteria for siting. Can Mr. Cooke indicate which province that is and whether, in fact, those regulatory criteria are the same essentially as the ones that the management corporation is now working under? 305 Mr. Cooke: In a sense I am glad you asked that question. The province is British Colum bia. The y chose to issue siting regulations, really in response to a specific pro ponent in that province. They were cu rrently reviewing those.

British Columbia has the advantage of having some areas that would be classified as a desert. Their second criteria virtually said the facility had to be in a desert. We do not possess a desert as far as I know, or a definable one and, quite frankly , sand dunes are not a good place to put hazardous waste fa cilit ies. One of the problems tha t some jurisdictions have had, and this has occurred in the United States, where regulations have been written for criteria by the jurisdiction, often in response to one particular development.

There has been concern that they ultimately do not work and this is, in fact, what happened in British Colum bia. My last understanding was that they were reviewing that as going through an exercise. For the most part our criteria I think more than meet those that prevail in mo st other jurisdictions. We have published a document that does review legislative siting criteria in the United States. lt is a grey-c overed document that I have a copy of here that we would be pleased to share with you. lt gives you some idea of what other jurisdictions have looked at. Mr.

Plohman: Well, my concern is tha t we have a scenario where the Crown corporation has to, through an exhaustive process-a nd I believe that is a good process-p rove that the site that they select is a suitable site. lt meets all of the stringent criter ia that is established, as well outlines the requirements that are needed for a suitable di sposal site and th en demonstrates that to the public, through the hearing process, that is the best site through the selection process.

So the onus of proof is on a Crown corporation to demonstrate or prove to show that that is a suitable site to the public and to the Government and to the peopl e. The onus of proof is upon the Crown cor poratio n. Wher eas with the private sector development, we have the proof changed, reversed. Where the public, the interveners, the people concerned about the environment have to come forward at a hearing and prove that specific site selected, through whatever arbitrary means, is not a good site and does not meet the criteria.

So that is a reverse onus, and what I am saying is that I like the criteria that is in place by the Crown corporation and I believe that those same criteria should apply before site selection for a private sector company as well. There is the provision for that as we evolve this whole process under The Environment Act that we passed,

Section 41(1) of The Environment Act, being

Chapter E125 of the Continuing Consolidation of the Statutes of Man itoba, sets out a num ber of areas wher e regulations can be established for exactly precisely what I am sayi ng. I am suggesting to the Minister that in fact, now that he has arrived at that point where an appl ication has been made, a site has been selected by an individual company, that these should be put

Tuesday, March 7, 19 89 into re gulation and req uired by the priv ate sector to the same extent that they are req uired by the Crown corpora tion, tha t they shou ld be publis hed as re gulations in the Gazette, as all re gulations are, and the y should be co mmun icated to the industrial sector, as well broadly to the public, so that compan ies know that. I am propo sing, Mr. Chairman, that this sho ws - (I nterje ction)- Mr. Taylor is making comments about sayi ng the former Gove rnment should have done this. Things evolve, you can do so much at one time.

Provision was made for this and I am sugge sting it be done . I would ask the Li beral Opposition to su pport this propo sal that this be made reg ulatory. If the y do not, then I wonder where their position is as we ll as the concerns about the private sector. I wou ld propose, Mr. Chairman, that we ask the Minis ter, as a comm ittee, to provide the se regulations, to put these reg ulations in pl ace under The Environment Act, Se ction 41(1), that is provided there, empo wers him to do that through the Lieutenant-Governor -in-Counci l, so that the se are applied to the priv ate sector. Mr. Chairman: Mr.

Minis ter, do you want to make a com ment? *

(1100) Mr. Connery: Wel l, this has nothing to do with the Hazardous Waste Management Corpora tion, it is to do with siting through the Environment Department. But I am not going to refuse to answer the question because it is no t-1 thought a ques tion was asked. I would be happ y to answer it.

While it is not appropria te to the discussi ons, I think it is appropr iate to say that priv ate corpora tions will not be given spe cial privi leges to do things less stringent than the Crown corporation. lt is up to the proponent to do all of the environmental im pact stud ies tha t wou ld be req ue sted by the department . Our department has dev elop ed a process of thing s that have to be done. As you know, Sus sex was the first applic ation that has come from the private sector sinc e the Act was in place.

They have es tablished a process, the process being that the proponent has to ensur e and give ev idence that the site is a safe site for what the y are proposing. Ther e will be expert testimony from the Depart ment of Environment, who would make some recommenda tions and from other people-local people, environ mental grou ps. Becaus e somebody has purchased a site does not mean that it would necessarily be given a licence to carry on what the y are propo sing to do on that site. Mr. Plohman : Mr.

Chairma n , I have pro posed these for regulation because the Minister has not giv en this committee assuranc es that the same criteria that apply to the Crown corpora tion in siting will be applied to the priv ate sector. He has waffled on that. He says it depends on what the opera tion is and so on, and I want to know whether the same criteria are going to 306 apply. He said he could not give those assurances at this comm ittee mee ting. He did not say he could not, he just did not gi ve those assurances. I believe that it has to be in regulation. That is why I proposed it. Mr.

Taylor: I think this is a fine opportunity for the Minister of the Environ ment to confirm that he will fill the reg ulatory gap left by the NDP that when they set up the Manitoba Hazard ous Waste Management Corporation they did not give it ex clusiv e rights to be the handl er, accumula tor and disposer of hazardous waste but said that it will be a public sect or function and that other s in the priv ate sect or could also be there doing that sort of thing. Then there should have been the accompanying regulations that went with that philo soph ical statement. Obviously the reg ulations have not been ther e.

So I guess the quest ion to our now Minis ter of Environ ment is he prepar ed to plug the hole that the NDP left? Mr. Con nery: I am not convi nced that there is a ho le. That is your words, that there is a gap. If there is a gap that needs to be filled , as a Gov ernment we are not reluctant or afraid to fill gaps. We defi nitely are filling gaps on an ongoing basis. That is not being critical of the previous Gove rnment because, as the Mem ber for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) said, thin gs change, times chan ge.

We become much more stringent in reg ulation as we learn more about things that are happening to our environ ment. We continue to upg rade and to make chan ges, and rightfully so. Those chan ges will continue to happen. If ther e are chan ges req uired ther e is no problem; the y will be done.

Site select ion of a hazardous waste proposal will be done very stringently with full input, with no differences between the priv ate sector and the public sector as far as the reg ulations or the criteria that would be set forth for them to do it. lt depends on the propo sal put forth by the proponent and the location that they are proposi ng as to what the criteria could be. Mr. Taylor: Also to the Minister. The other point brought out by the former admin istration rep res entatives here was the issue over siting criteria . This was mentioned last Thur sday.

I think the point is valid, that there are questions about the siting criteria available in Manitoba at this time and to what deg ree has it really evolved along the lines of that in other ju risdictio ns. I do not think anybody would refute the point that it has not evolved as far as it should have. We have a case of yes, we do have siting criteria, but there are other jurisdictions that are quite some distance ahead of us in ev olving absolutely incl usive siting criteria to guarantee the safety of the workers, the adjacent area, and the general population.

The question is in that the inheritanc e was of a set of siting reg ula tions for any ha zardous waste management facility were not fully developed. What is the position of this Minister in taking them further along so that they are more inclus ive and, quite frankly, more safety orient ed ?

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 Mr. Cannery: Dealing with it from the Hazardous Waste Corporation, not the private sector and other ones because we are dealing with the Hazardous Waste Corporation, Manitoba, well, Al berta is the only one that has a site tha t has been approved and licensed . From that aspect, Manitoba has been looked upon by B.C. and Saskatche wan as being leaders in site selection, and I had that confirmed to me when we were in Regina by Mr. Strachan and Mr. Swan from Saskatchewan, that they are looking to Manitoba's criteria and to how Manitoba is doing it.

I am very pleased with what the Crown corporation has done and pleased with the mandate that the previous Government gave them to allow them to pursue it and they have done a very good job. When it comes to Manitoba, I think we can be proud of what we have done. lt always can be better. The re is never such a thing as being perfect, but other provinces have had a very difficult time in selecting a site and I think that Manitoba is one of the leaders in this direction. Mr. Taylor: Mr.

Chairman, the matter is serious but there is a degree of humour here in the sense that the NDP has raised the issue as to whether the siting criteria which they gave to the now Conservative Government is adequate and it is from them. On the other side, the Minister is saying he is very pleased with his inheritance. Not at all-the same criteria is emplo yed for both, and it is not fully developed yet . Mr. Chairman: Any more questions to the Minister? If not, are we prepared to- Mr.

Harry Harapiak (The Pas): I would like to go back to a question that was raised just briefly earlier and that was the expl osion that happened in the City of Winnipeg when that gasoline was dumped into the sewer system. We have talked to several operators of liquid waste, hazardous waste, and they still feel that there is a real need for having a disposal site for gasoline and petroleum products.

I am wondering if the Hazardous Waste Corporation has followed up on the suggestion that was made during last ye ar's Estimates that Shell Oil, Imp erial Oil, be approached to see if they were willing to let their storage facilities be used as a storage facility for the general haulers of liquid waste. Mr. Cooke: That is one of the things that we are investigating, storage for contaminated motor fuels diesel and gasoline. The re is one commercial operator in the city that does have some separation capability and is able to deal with some of that material.

The issue of illegal dumping of that material is more one of cost to the original possessor of it than capability to deal with it. I think if people are willing to pay the amount of money it takes to deal with that material then it can be dealt with. The illegal dumping is essentially unconscionable, being done by people who are not willing to pay. Mr.

Harapiak: I guess there have been some suggestions made that they should increase the cost 307 of disposing of this hazardous material, but I think if you increase the cost of disposing of it then therefore it is going to give more opportunity for the small operators to get around the law and dump it illegally so it is the matter of cost. I think that there should be some obligation on the part of the public corporation that they would try and provide a site that could be used as a storage-a nd there is some value to this, petroleum products if they are refined and reprocessed they can be used again.

I think that this can probably come near to meeting the costs that would be brought forward to handl e this. * (1 1 10 ) Mr. Con nery: I appr ecia te the conc ern and the comment made by the Member for The Pas (Mr. Harapiak). We discussed earlier the fact that when a product becomes a waste and if it is oil, whether it comes out of your car, in the garage, what is the value of it. There is right now very little value, if nil. In fact, it is an expense.

I do not think we want to be having the cost of the disposal and transfer and all that put on the backs of the Hazardous Waste Corporation and therefore paid by the public. I think that would be a very expe nsive process. I think we need to look at other ways of generating income which I had mentioned earlier. Maybe on a quart of oil there would be a 10 cent up-front charge that everybody would pay when they bought that quart of oil, maybe $5 on a car tire, $50 on a refrigerator.

The se are the possibilities, that when it came time to dispose of it there was a source of money to pay for the proper disposition, and that would take away the need for people trying to dispose of a product in a non-environmental fashion. Mr. Chairman: Any mor e questions? Mr. Harapiak. Mr.

Harapiak: The suggestion that the Minister is making is that you want the consumers to be pay ing for the disposal of the by-product after it has served its useful purpose, but I think the corporations are making profits. lt is not very difficult to follow some of the annual reports that are coming out for some of these corporations. There is a pool of money there that is available for coming up with some recommendations or suggestions of how it can be disposed of. I think that is where the responsibility should lie. Mr. Con nery: The Member says should the consumers pay.

I think most people would look at a user pay system. Th ose that use the most should be obligated to be paying for the most for distributing it. Should the corporation be paying for the disposal of large amounts of industrial waste that maybe there is no immediate home for? I think not. I think that is not the responsibility of the corporation and the consumer. Mr. Harapiak: What comes as a result of this is we are having peo ple ju st du mping out into our environment.

Is it a greater damage to all of us than in the long run coming up with some strict regulations for the corporations to come up with some method of disposal? I think that there should be some regulations

Tuesday, March 7, 19 89 drafted which make it necessary for them to disp ose of those products. Mr. Con nery: As the Mem ber knows, in the case of PCB s the corpo ration in some instances, whether it be a com munity club or some thing along that line, are picking up PCB s and storing them for them at no cost. Whe re it is a com mercial venture, they are pick ing them up and there is a charge made for storage. Those people will also be required to pay for the destruc tion at some point when those facilities are available. Mr.

Harapiak: One other area I notice is dealing with the City of Winnipeg but still dealing with hazardous waste. I am wondering if the Hazard ous Waste Corpo ration has been involved in drafting some policies or working with the city in how to deal with some of the hazardous wastes that are being dump ed in the Cit y of Wi nnipeg .

Ther e are ex amp les of wher e dangerous shipments of corros ive su bstances were dump ed into the City of Winnipeg wastes, and I am wondering if the corporation has been involv ed at all with the City of Winnip eg in how to dispose of some of thes e materials that are com ing into the city dump s. Mr. Cooke: The y will contact us reg ularly as do the prov incial reg ulators when there is a requirement to collect, arrange treatment, and proper disp osal of material. If your ques tion relates to how do you control that ev ent, that is not some thing that we real ly play a role in.

Those discussions I am sure occur between the prov incial and city enforcement offici als. Mr. Storie: Mr. Chairpers on, I am interested in the Minister's response to a couple of que stions by my col league from The Pas, and hi s insistence that the principle that we should be following in terms of waste management is the princ iple of user pay.

I thought we had fairly we ll esta blished the pri nciple of pollu ter pay and that the corpo rations, whether the y are using flora carbons or Freon or whatever in refrigerators, is that General Motors should be picking up the $50 fee , or Gene ral El ectric I should say, not the consum er. We are starting to app roach this whole thing from a kind of backwards perspectiv e. The Mini ster is no w suggesting that our prices are inev!tab!y going to rise 10 perc ent, 15 percent or whatever percent because we are going to demand it, we are going to take responsibility for it.

The fact is that the corpor ations who are producing the se materials, whether it is plastic for plastic cups or material for refrigera tors, should be taking some re sponsi bility for it. The Minister's appr oach, if it is going to be, we will just add on to the consumers' costs in every case so that the public and then management, I think tha t is regressive.

I think that the whole purpose of establ ishing manufacturing relations which go vern the prod uction of material and chem icals and so forth that pollute is to control it at sour ce, not after the consumer has consu med the product, then is left with the problem, or we col lectively are left with the problem of disposing of it.

I hope the Minister is not suggesting that someho w the new app roach of the Gove rnment is going to be the consumer pays at the end of this process, rather than we manage the que stion of waste from the 308 begin ning, from the producer's point of view and the manufacturer's point of view . Mr. Conn ery: Well, it is the age old story that we get from Mr. Storie, or I should say the Mem ber for Flin Flon. The consumer pays regard less. You can say that -(Interjection)- Mr. Chair man, could we have some order. Mr. Chairman: Mr. Minister, you have got the floor. Mr. Conner y: I notice that- Mr.

Chairman: Order , please; order , please. Let us keep our que stions to the report and, if not, then let us pass the report. Mr. Rose. Mr. Con nery: No, I have to finis h- Mr. Chairman: Mr. Minister .- (In terject ion) - Order , please. Mr. Con nery: Just be patie nt. I think it is important to say that you can say that the bus inesses will pay it, but inevi tably it is passed on to the consumer . lt is nice to say that the y will pay it, but it will be passed on to the consum er. You can say that businesses are paying the payroll tax and 90 percent of it is passed on to the consume r.

All of the se things that you levy against businesses even tually get paid by the consumer . There is no free lunch where somebody else is going to pay for it. So to say that it should be paid by the manufacturer, you can say that the y pay for it, it will be tacked on to the cost of produc tion and the consumer will pay for it. Our goal would be to try to elimina te hazardous waste in the prod uction, such as CFCs, and the sooner we can elimina te the produc tion of CFCs, the better this plane t will be.

We are meeting in April to discuss, and maybe we can speed up the 10 -year process that has been re commended by Ontar io and the fed eral Gove rnment. You saw that the September '87 Montreal Protocol was out of date within 18 months. Maybe we can do things quicker than what we establ ished . There is no such thing as the consumer not paying in the long run. Mr. Bob Rose (St. Vita l): Mr. Cha irman, in regard to the corpo ration, if the y had any dealings with any of the car washes and their methods, or any problems they have in disposi ng of waste? Mr.

Cooke: Ye s, we do periodi cally talk to car washes, and in a numb er of cases have offered them some advice. They have some problems with I think detergent solutions going into the sewer sys tem . There are some things that they can do. We do provide a sou rce base tech nical assistance service for waste gene rators, and certainly car washes have contacted us in that context. I do not have the details of exactly what we have done for them. Mr. Yee would have that, but I could certainly, if there is an instance that you are specifically interested in, perhaps we could talk about it. Mr. Rose: Mr.

Chairman , I am inter ested in it from not only a standpoint of the pollution, but I know my

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 colleague to the left is interested i n it with regard to the drinking water, when it gets into the system and ultimately into the Red River.

This may be a little bit out of your jurisd iction, but I am wondering either now or in the future if you could supply us with information as to how often you have been called into irregular disposal by car washes, and if in your judgment the monitoring-and I know that the city has regulations in force as to how to handle products coming through the car washes-b ut in your opinion are you satisfied that the monitoring by the City of Winnipeg is sufficient, not only for those regular contaminants that would come from a car wash, but also the fact that they would become almost an ideal secret spot to dump other wastes without anybody really being able to detect it?

For instance, it would be far easier to put a hose in there than it wou ld in a hose, say, on a main street in Winnipeg. * (112 0) Mr. Cooke: I can certainly answer your first question, how many times have we been compl ied with respect to compliance is none. We are not in that business. The contacts we have had with them are people, commercial operators who, I think, recognize they have a problem and they are trying to be good citizens and what can they do about it. I think the rest of your question would best be answered either by the city or the provincial regulatory authorities. Mr.

Rose: Our health departments or the province and the fire departments are making regular visits to homes and businesses. I am sure they have many instances where they discover or have suspect the storage of hazardous wastes. Is there, and to what degree do we have a liaison with these municipal organizations? Mr. Cooke: We have an ongoing contact with the association. I am trying to think of the name of the association but it is the association of fire departments around the province. We have given presentations on the kinds of things that we can do.

Tha t same kind of liaison, I am sure, exists with regulatory authorities so that certainly if there is a complia nce situation the fire departments and similarily, I would think, the police would know who to call. lt would not be us obviously but there is that kind of communication. There is also training provided for fire dep artments in dangerous goods handling. They are first responders for spills and things li ke that. I think vir tually all volu nteer fir e departments in rural areas and certainly the large urban fire departments have received training. Mr. Rose: Mr.

Cooke has alluded to training for the fire departments throughout Manitoba. Is their expertise used in some of those training programs, the expertise of the corporation? lt seems to me th at is one of the things they would do. Mr. Conne ry: Basically, for the WHIMI S and so for th, the training is done at Brandon and fire departments are schooled there in the handling of these goods. Mr. Taylor: To Mr.

Cooke, the subject I wanted to raise was the situation that has finally evolved in Canada 309 wher e th ere are now protocols and regula ti ons applicable across the countr y for the handling of hazardous goods, something that we have only had fairly recent ly . We had quite a hodgepodge of regulations before and then quite a few gaps, in fact.

Now that there is a national approach to this sort of situation and given that the corporation is one that does participate in sending goods out of the province and that sort of thing, and also as it is from to time called upon as adviser in this area, what sort of opinion does Mr. Cooke have at this time as to the effectiveness or shortfalls or where there needs to be improvements in that set of protocols and procedures and regulations that are now employed across Canada? I would like his opinion on it and comment as to where new work might be done to further improve them. Mr.

Cooke: Again, this is opinion of the regulated as opposed to the regulator. I think you have more faith than I do on the national approach to regulation. The regulations that are being promulgated nationally and being worked on under the Canadian Environmental Pr otect ion Act, th at new Act where th e federal Government does assume some powers nationally, most are very, very preliminary. There is one major success in that context and that relates to the transportation of dangerous goods where a national initiative, of which Manitoba historically played a very large part.

The provinces and the federal Government developed national legislation that was then adopted almost uniformly throughout the country, again, Manitoba being a leading proponent of that legislation and one of the jurisdictions that had it fi rst. In terms of gaps, the current provincial regime is, in our opinion, quite comprehensive. There are certainly things that will evolve in terms of regulation but it is quite good. lt compares quite favourably to other jurisdictions in the country.

The benchmark in Canada tends to be Ontario and I think Manitoba would certainly follow quite closely after Ontario in terms of regulatory structure. The one area that is being considered under the USEPA legislation that, I think currently is something of a gap, relates to the export of waste from the country. There certainly is contemplation of, at the national level, and there is currently consultation going on with the waste management industry and including ourselves on th ese regulations related to the control of exports.

Canada is a major waste exporter, just as Manitoba is substantially a waste export ing province. lt really results from OECD initiatives, concerns about exporting to the Third World. We do not export to the Thir d World. There will be in this country, I suspect, under federal initiative, export controls that will require the exporter to assume some responsibilities in terms of liabilities, qualification of his out lets, and things like that. Tha t will fill a needed gap. Mr. Taylor: Are ther e other areas that you have encountered any gaps in the work that you have been doing?

Is it strictly then in that export area or has there been any cases where the proced ures for tra ns ship ment between pr ovi nces after you have

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 accumulated a certain type of hazardous product here in Manitoba and you are shipping it somewhere else for disposal, have you run into any problems in the way the system has been set up for that interprovincial transportation, either in the sense of administratively or in the practical sense in the actual handling in any way? Mr. Cooke: I have to answer that question from the point of view of the regulated. No, the current system is workable. lt is not difficult to comply with. lt is like any system. Once you figure out the forms it works reas onably wel l.

There seems to be good lia ison betwee n the regula tory author itie s in the various provinces. As a waste manager we find the system quite workable. That is the comment from the point of view of an operator. I would also offer the personal opinion that it does provide a high level of safety and protection. Mr. Taylor: Jus t following on that, the way the whole system has been set up there is an expectation of complia nce by the pr ivate sector . There is an expectation of compliance of provincial departments and agencies.

There is an expectation of compliance of federal departments and their agencies with one notable except ion, that being the Depar tment of National Defence. I wonder if you care to make a comment on the fact that that department is not required to do any training and in fact in the recent shipments of PCBs in this province and into an expor t mode could not assure that there was any training done of the staff and the supervisors. This was done at a relatively high level by officers of that department. They could not offer that assurance.

I ju st wonder if you have a comment on, tha t somebody who is experienced in this area of handling commodities of that nature as to what degree just experience in handling explosives like shells is going to translate as automatically, therefore, experience in handling these types of commodities. * (1 130) Mr. Conne ry: Tha t does not c ome under the perusal of the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation. lt comes under the federal legislation which is strictly federal . There is no province that has any jurisdiction over it. We can make comments.

I must say that that particular shipment of PCBs from the obsolete radar sites, the Government was notified in advance. lt was shipped appropriately , and it was shipped to the airport appropriately and disposed of. Ther e was no secret as was alluded to, that it was done secretly.

In fact, the American Air Force or our air force was on Peter Warren's show sometime before the shipment left the City of Winnipeg, so there was nothing clandestine with the movement of that product. lt was a hazardous waste going back to the original country that had brought it in, and it is nice to see them take their own product back. While it is under federal jurisidiction, there is good communication between the Federal Government and provincial jurisdictions in the handling of product.

I think 310 tha t is even improvi ng where we have better communications and dialogue to ensure that even though it is under federal jurisdiction, that we are notified and satisfied that it is moving appropriately. Mr. Taylor: I guess I understand what the Minister is saying in the sense of it being under federal jurisdiction. I do not question that at all.

What the issue is, is what is this Minister's comfort level knowing that one federal department is not required to comply with the federal legislation and is specifically exempted, and does not require that its staff nor its supervisory staff have the same training in the handling of the goods that the other federal departments have, that his department has, that the other agencies under his control have, and that those in the private sector who are also involved must have? lt is that comfort level that I am asking about.

How does he feel about it or is he quite satisfied, whether he feels that there should be a req uir ement of DND, the Depar tment of National Defence, that they should ha ve the same training and ex perience before they start hand ling these commodities? Mr. Connery: As a former employee of Transport Canada you might be able to enlighten us on some of these things. Wha t is you r comfort level? Mr. Taylor: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chai rman: On a point of order, Mr. Tay lor? Mr.

Taylor: Yes, to inform the Minister that a 20,000 person department working in all areas of transportation, mine was hardly in hazardous goods. Mr. Chairman: A dispute of the facts is not a point of order. Order, please; order, please. Mr. Minister, is this on the point of order? Mr. Con nery: Yes, on the point of order. For the edification of the members of the committee, the Member for Wolseley (Mr. Taylor) was also affectionately known as "Captain Chaos" in the federal Transport Department. Mr. Chai rman: Order, please. A dispute of the facts is not a point of order. Mr. Taylor: On a point of order, Mr.

Chairperson. Mr. Chai rman: On a different point of order? Mr. Taylor: On a different point of order, I would ask that the Minister withdraw that comment and get on with the su bject matter. Mr. Chai rman: Again, let us stick to the report that we are discussing. Are there any more questions? Mr. Storie. Mr. Taylor: Excuse me. I believe I still have the floor. Mr. Storie: Mr. Chairperson, on a point of order, I am not going to leap to the defence of-

Tuesday, March 7, 19 89 Mr. Chairman: Mr. Storie, on a point of order . Mr. Storie: -m y colleague, the Mem ber for Wolsele y (Mr. Taylor), but I do think that the Minister's comment was somewhat out of order . Mr. Connery: If it would make the com mittee pleased, I will withdraw the comment. The tact remains that it is the re, but I will withdraw it. Mr. Storie: We have better names for you . We are not going to put them on record. Mr. Chairman: Order, please. You should be recognized before you speak. Mr. Taylor: Thank you very much, Mr. Cha irper son . Mr. Chairman: Is this on that point of order? Mr.

Taylor: No. The point of order I belie ve has been dealt wit h, and I was pr epared to continue my ques tioning. Mr. Chairman: Okay. Proce ed, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor: Thank you. The last question posed did not receive an answer. If there is no an swer to it from the Minister, I will pose an ad ditional ques tion, but is the re a response on that aspect of the comfor t le vel regarding this exception of that department? Mr. Connery: Based on the fact that we have no jur is dict ion over the natio nal legisla tion or the Depar tment of National Defe nce is one thing.

The tact that we have good cooperation between the Fe deral Government and the provinces gives me a comfort zone that when things are happening in this particular case, I think that should indicate that there would be a comfort zone. The previous Govern ment obv iously did not feel threatened by what was happen ing, and I do not think that they should have felt threatened by what was happening becaus e -it is getting difficult to hear , Mr. Chairperso n. Mr. Chairman: Mr. Minister, would you please continue. Mr. Conner y: I give up, thank you . Mr.

Taylor: lt is getting difficu lt both ways to hear what is going on. My concern about that comfort le vel rel ates also to the same thing we saw with the situation in the North Transcona CP Yards where everyt hing was thought to be in order through federal Env iro nment Canada. At least tha t is what our provincial Gove rnment said , but that was not what the fed eral Mini ster said . I will go on and ask the que stion here is that our expectati on is that we will -(Interjectio n)- I am trying to raise a ques tion, but I am havi ng trouble here with the noise that is going on on the sidelines, Mr. Chairper son .

Mr. Chairman: Ple ase, Mem bers, could we have your attention, please. If you want to have any discuss ions, 31 1 let us have them outside this room. Let us stick to the repor t that is before us, the Annu al Report, and Mr. Taylor you have the floor. Mr. Taylor: Ye s, thank you very much, Mr. Cha irperson. In that we are expecti ng to see very shortly a ship ment by rail through this province of PCBs and assorted burned debr is from the recent fire at St.

Basi le- Le Grand just outside Montreal , is this Minister using the Hazardous Waste Management Corpor ation in any way as an advisor on how to handle that particular very large and ob vi ously high pr ofile shipment across Manitoba? Mr. Conne ry: They ha ve been in con tact wit h Env iro nment Canada? No. Mr. Taylor: Ju st to confirm that, Mr. Chairperson, they are not playing any advisory role to the Minister then on this matter is what I am hear ing. Is it the Ministe r's intention to have an ob server on that train riding shotg un as it crosses Manitoba in the way that the Ontario Minister is doing? Mr.

Conn ery: Is the Mem ber for Wolseley (Mr. Taylor) volunt eer ing? I accept your offer. Mr. Taylor: lt is obvi ous that this Minister does not take the matter serio usly and we know the knowledge level that he has exhibited on PCBs has not been terr ibly great. I put that to him in all ser iousness, because I am aware that the Ontario Minister will have an observer on that train for that purp ose when it crosses Ontario and I ask the question in all ser iousness. Is it the inten tion of Mr.

Con nery to in any way have a role played by his department or other agenc ies in the same sort of fashion in Manitoba to assure Manitobans as to the safe conduc t of that very special train across our territory? Mr. Connery: Once again, Mr. Chairm an, we are de viating from the discussions of the Hazardous Waste Management Corpo ration but, for tha t Mem ber's edificat ion , we will be notified in advance.

We will be notified 30 days in advance of the shipment coming through; we will be notifying the RCMP as to the dates, and dates it is. lt is not one date, the re are going to be seve ral shipments, because the Hazardous Waste Corpo ration in Al berta and that is on hold until after the federal ele ction as you may be aware - An Honour able Member: Pro vi ncial ele ction. Mr. Connery: -or provincial ele ction , then maybe they will reopen the border to that particular shipment. Right, at this point, it is closed . There will be seve ral shipments.

We do not know for sure how many, as you know, because it is a hazardous waste material . lt will be manifest ed . The train crews will be fully aware and informed of how to handle any inci dent -t hat is unlikely to happen -b ut in any case the y must be prepared and aware. We will no tify every resp onding un it thr oughout Mani toba that cou ld re spond to an accident. When those shipments are

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 going thr ough, the RCMP will be notified so that all towns along that line, whichever line it is, and we will be given the routing of the shipments. They will be notified in advance that the product is coming through just in case something should be necessary. They are familiar with how to respond to a PCB spill. As you are very well aware, the product will be very well containerized. The shipments of hazardous goods under the federal Hazardous Goods Transportation Act is very, very stringent, and in fact a car could probably roll over and nothing leaked out of the car of any PCBs.

The handling of it and the containerizing for the shipment are under very, very stringent regulations. We will be kept informed when it is coming and also the people down the line will be informed. We will be watching the shipment of those PCBs very, very carefully and we are assured that there is no problem, but we will be prepared. " (1 140) Mr. Taylor: I thank the Minister for some information. In any case, I assume though that the role of his ministry and agencies will not be in a participation sense, but just that they are aware of and passing information on to the appropriate sub-agencies such as the RCMP.

I think that point is quite clear. Before we get into voting on a report, I had a question of the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Carter, and that we are dealing here with the first annual report of the corporation and the date that this report is good for is the calendar year 1987. Now that is fine to deal with that. The question I have is that some-a little over two, almost two-and-one-half months ago, we ended the second fiscal year of the corporation. When will we be dealing annual report No. 2? Mr. R. l. (Ni ck) Carter (Ch airman): The short answer to that is when the Minister chooses to table it.

The report is, of course, in preparation. We will be ready for him at the time that he does it. The customary fashion, I believe, is controlled by the Rules of the House at the very least. l\ll r. Taylor: Yes, then my que stion follo wing that response from Mr. Carter is to the Minister in sayi ng, will we be seeing annual report No. 2 for 1988 a year from now, or is the expectation we could see it later this spring? Mr. Con nery: I would assume when the House goes back in the report should be ready- I will find out when the report will be. Mr.

Cooke: The Provincial Auditor, who is our internal auditor, has finished his audit on our 1988 books and the text of the report was supposed to be on my desk this morning, by happenstance, for presentation to our board at its next board meeting. Tha t is scheduled so that the report will be available at the next sitting of the leg islature as, I believe, the convention is. Mr. Taylor: Thank you, Mr. Cooke, and the only concern I have, Mr. Chairperson, is that one of Mr.

Cannery's 312 cabinet colleagues last week suggested to one of our Members that there will not a spring Session at all and that we will be getting together the 15th of September. This is from a Minister's mouth and I thought that was a little more than hearsay. I hope it is only hearsay, but that is what we have had. What I would like to know is then the Minister fully expects to be presenting this spring and, if there is not a spring Session would he be prepared for there to be a meeting of this committee so that presentation could be made and that we do not have to wait till next fall? Mr.

Con nery: The Member is aware of the procedures and, as it says, we have a certain period of time after the House reconvenes to table it in the House. There is no desire, there is no attempt to not present the next annual report. it will be presented as quickly as we can. There is no attempt to hide the facts from the members of this committee. I will echo the sentiments from the Member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman), that I think the Hazardous Waste Corpor ation has done a good job for the province in the whole process.

Even if they were not doing a good job we would not be trying to hide it, but I think in this case they are doing a good job, an excellent job, and it will be presently, as quickly as we can. Mr. Tayior: I would like to echo those comments of the Minister about the performance of the corporation to date and also we will expect to see him in short order in some sort of a format to deal with it. Mr. Conne ry: Be careful about that short stuff. Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh! l\ll r. Storie: I would like to follow up on a couple of questions that I had asked earlier.

Perhaps the Minister can indicate whether the corporation currently has any

schedule or is preparing a

schedule of charges for those who deposit waste or leave waste with the Hazardous Waste Corporation. Mr. Cooke: lt is a process of we provide estimates to our customers of what the costs are and, in effect, bid the jobs. Those estimates are based, in part, because we are dependent on other people, other treatment and disposal facilities dependent obviously on estimates that we receive from them. In the longer term, as part of our long-term business plan, when we have our own facilities, I think we will probably be in a position to publish price lists which is conventional in other places.

We are not able to do that at this time. We use, for ex ample, the price li sts tha t the Al berta Cr own corporation publish as references. Mr. Storie: Will there be provision for individuals? Can individuals drop off hazardous wastes? Mr. Cooke: Yes, there is that provision now. We certainly, in any emergency situations, will often respond to. We do conduct periodic household hazardous waste collections. We participate in a major one here in

Tuesday, March 7, 19 89 Winnip eg prov iding the technical supp ort. lt is done by people, really volunt eers of the Depar tment of the Environment, city, some of the environmental groups and our own staff. We also are off ering a service to small com mun itie s, particula rly vol unteer fire depa rtments, any smaller commu nity that is having a commun ity cle an-up, those kinds of events. We will supply staff to colle ct any hous ehold hazardous waste that is brought in. We have done them as far away as Sno w Lake and certa inly this spring expect to have quite a numb er of them of that kind of activity.

The third thing we are doing -and again this will be su bject to re gula tory appro val-we hope this spring or summer to es tablish a col lec tion depo t here in Winnipeg, a small self-co ntained facility that would be avai lable probably on a one-d ay-a-week basis for people to deliv er waste that they have on a re gula r basis year round. That is an initiative that we are prese ntly work ing on. Mr. Storie: Would the re be any fee attached to the one that you are talking about now? Mr. Cooke: No. This is a public program that is, in effect , a servic e we are pr ov iding the provi ncial Gov ernment. Mr.

Storie: Thank you and I appr eciate that. I hope I gather from that there is no intention of es tablishing fees, depos iting fees, dumping fees for individu als. Mr. Cooke: Ye s, that is cor rect. Mr. Storie: Thank you , Mr. Chai rperson. Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): I just have a ques tion. While they were talking about car washes earlier , are car washes governed under the Manitoba Building Code? Do they have to have a simi lar system to garages or service stations whereby the y have catch basins for the different wei ght materials , such as oil or heavier weight materials such as grit?

Service stations now have to have a certain type of catch basin to meet the code. Do car washes come under that same jurisdiction? Mr. Cooke: I quite frankly do not know . I would make that assumption, but I am not famili ar with the building codes and the codes that would be applicable to the des ign of a car wash. The environmental reg ulatory authorities could probably advise on that. Mr. Connery: We will get that information for the Member . Mr. Chairman: Mr. He lwer, any more questions? Mr. Helwer: No. Mr. Harapiak: I wanted to echo the words that were expressed by my colleague from Dauphin (Mr.

Ploh man) and the Minister on the tremendous job that the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Corporation is doing. 313 I am a little concerned about the viability of the corpora tion with all the priv ate industries in se tting up and cream ing off some of the opportun ities that exist in the hazardous waste field. My colleague centers around a set of re gulations that apply to two Manitoba hazardous waste reg ulations, and I think the playing field should be lev elled off. I think the same re gu lations should apply to the priv ate corpora tions.

So, ther efore, I move that the commit tee reco mmend to the Minister that they implement this regula tion as set out in sched ule "A" which has been circula ted by my col league from Dauphin . Mr. Chairman: lt has been moved by Mr. Harapiak that the re gu lations, as circul ated-are there any corr ect ions to be made to these reg ula tio ns , as circula ted? Mr. Harapiak: I bel ieve the re are some correc tions to the letteri ng: (

d) becomes (

e) and then the ch anges are chang ed all the way down as a re sult of that, just the letter (

d) becomes (e). Mr. Chairman: The (

d) becomes (e)? Mr. Har apiak: Rig ht. * (1150 ) Mr. Chairman: And another correction on the la st paragraph. THER EF ORE that the commi ttee reco mmend to the Minister that the - Mr. Con nery: I read that change . Mr. Chairman: Oh, you read that change into it. Ok ay, thank you very much. Mr. Enns . Mr. Enns: Mr. Chairman, I have no objec tions to the motion put on the table by Mr. Harapiak, but I do ob ject to the process. Re gulations are an extrem ely impor tant adjunct of the whole legis lative process.

To ask a committee and comm ittee Mem bers who have, certainly in my instance, little or no opportunity to study the impl ication of the regulations being propos ed is simply not acceptable to me. I wish to make it known, however, that my object ions do not stem from any particular oppos ition to the regulations per se. lt is just the man ner in which they are being introduced that I have some difficulty with.

Re gulations drawn up under any act req uire a great deal of consi dera tion, a great deal of thoug ht, presented by the admin istrators respo nsible to the resp onsible Minis ter, then are put forward and promulga ted ev entually as the regulations per taining to that act. I jus t do not feel that this commit tee at this stage of its deli bera tions can accept at face value the motion put forward by the Mem ber for The Pas (Mr. Harapiak) for the reasons cited. Mr. Taylor: Mr.

Chai rperson, there has been discussion at this table the last two mee ting da ys that ther e may be some gaps that were left unfortunately in the regulations and that this propo sed set of regulations

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 might help fill that gap. In that sense, the principle of what is being proposed might be quite acceptable.

But to take a set of regulations that have been presented here without the bene fit of vetting it by the officials who will have to employ those reg ulations, without having it vetted by legal counsel that we would normally have at the table and, in all fairness, without having it vetted by the other two caucuses and the series of critics that probably will want to have a look at this, I am not prepared to deal with it in this fashion and at this time because I feel tha t would be total ly imprudent.

If, however, we can deal with it on an exped itious basis in the sense of the officials able to respond on a priority basis to this and have it brought back, if the will is amongst the three Parties that on a fairly early basis-and by that I mean within a couple of months at most- then let us get on with it.

I think if this was to have been dealt with today in this fashion, then it should have been dealt with in a different fashion through the offices of the three House Leaders, so that there was the opportun ity to deal with each of us in our caucuses and in our critic roles, so that we knew roughly what our feelings were on it and came back with close to identical positions between the three groups after private discussions and talk with our approp riate research staff, we could deal with it. But I think it would be very unwise to just accept willy nilly this document now. I understand the essence of it.

I understand the concern of the NDP proposers wanting to put it forward there. I am not questioning sincerity on their part. I think they have recognized that we potentially might have a gap there, and they have put this forward. But I think it has to be dealt with and handled in a little different fashion. I am not prepared as a Member, and I will recommend that to my colleagues here, today in vote. Mr. Connery: I agree with the Member for Wolseley (Mr.

Tay lor) that had there been need to pass them, they should have been vetted earlier. it could have been submitted to our various caucuses a month or two months ago that this was a concern that was there. To pass them just at this point without the benefit of legal counsel, without the benefit of department input, so I agree. I think it would be inappropr iate, not that we want to stifle any need for reg ula tion wher e regulation is needed that should be put in place, but I think it is not appropr iate in this fashion to do it at today's meeting. Mr. Bob Rose (S t.

Vital): I just was going to ask, express the same views . . . . Mr. Harapiak: Mr. Chairman, these recommendations or guidelines have been around for quite some time. The Minister was in the House when they were debated and put into place, as to how they would affect the Cr own corpora tion. So th ere has been ample op portu nit y to de bate that.

We were under the impression that these regulations were appl icable to corporations that were coming into the province. lt was just last Thu rsday that we learned they did not apply to the corporation they were making application to locate in Manitoba. 314 As you will see from the closing THEREFORE, it is a recommendation to you and therefore we are not expecting you to take it word for word, but I think you can take it to Cabinet, as it has to be carried out. You have to take it to your Cabinet colleagues.

So it is a recommendation that you do take it to your Cabinet colleagues and then they can do what they like with it. Mr. Connery: I appreciate the sincerity of the Member for the Pas, and I can assure him that I will take these regulations to our department for vetting to have a thorough look at and to see what can be accommodated in this light. Mr. Chairman: Okay, then anyone else who wants to speak on this motion? Mr. Harapiak? Mr. Harapiak: No. Question. Mr. Chai rman: The question before you is whether these recommendations of regulations as moved by Mr. Harapiak shall pass. All those in favour?

Against? lt is not carried. lt is defeated. Mr. Taylor . Mr. Taylor: If it is in order, Mr. Chairperson, I would like to move a motion of referral of this material through the Minister of Environment to his departmental staff for review and report back to this committee on an ASAP basis. Mr. Chairman: Unfortunately, Mr. Taylor , if you want to make a motion, it has to be presented in writing. I believe that you would have to speak to the Government House Leader before you would want to make that type of a motion for another meeting. The meeting would have to be set by the Government House Leader. Mr. Tay lor: Mr.

Chairp ers on, we kno w tha t this committee will be meeting for the other annual report, the '88 annual report in any case, of the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Management Corporation. lt would be an opportune time. There would be the window. I do not see why a motion of this nature req uires the concurrence of the Government House Leader. lt is a case of saying there is something on the tabie that is worth discussing. I do not want to see it lost and I do not want to see it unofficial.

I would like to see it in the official record and that it will be dealt with and responded back in a timely way, and that is the motivation that I make the motion and I would question the Assistant Clerk as to whether my motion is out of order. I am sayi ng, is that motion out of order? I am suggesting it is not. If this motion is not out of order and we are only relating to mee ting time, then I put in an as-soon-as-possible basis. I did not set a date. Ther efore the motion should be in order. Mr. Chairman: The Government House Leader will have to set the date. I think, Mr.

Tay lor, you are agreeing to that basis. Mr. Connery: I made a commitment to vet it through our department and to have a close look at it along with all of the other reg ula tions and par t of the

Tuesday, March 7, 19 89 legi slation. When we sit again as a comm ittee, then you will have the full oppor tunity to ques tion us on what we did. If we have not acted in an appropria te way, you will have the oppor tunity to critic ize us. Mr. Jay Cowan (C hurchill): There is an easy way out of this which I think resolves the problem and that is not to �ha ve this commit tee app rove the report . The comm ittee therefore has to come back for another mee ting. The dates and times of those mee tings are set in consultation between the three Hous e Leaders.

If people want time to review the matter, and if the Minister wants time to have his department review the matter, and I want to come back to that with a quest ion in ju st one moment, my rec om mendation to the comm ittee wou ld be that as soon as it finishes today's deli bera tions, it adjourn, but it not pass the report and ther efore there is a requirement for it to come back. * (1 200) Mr.

Con nery: If the House is going to be sitting, and I have no way of being able to tell you when the date is, I do not know, I would not want to really see us reconvene this comm ittee jus t to review that if we are going to be present ing the new annual report because, as you know, when we meet out of the Sessi on th ere is a per diem for every Mem ber that sits, and also ther e is a cost for all of the factors going on, so it is a fairly expensiv e item for the Gover nment. This is not an attempt to not report back.

But if we are going to be sitting and we are going to be making the next annual repor t in a reas onable period of time, would this not be the oppor tunity then to discuss it once more? Mr. Taylor: The NDP House Leader (Mr. Cowan ) puts forward an interes ting way of deal ing with this and it may be the way we should look at it. The other report we know will be ready in a couple of months, at the worst a couple of months, I think probably faster than that.

My motion on the table stands and I would put some sort of a condition on it that the y review and report back through the Minister on this matter before us would be within what would be generous, by the middl e of May. Does that seem reaso nable? Mr. Chairman: Mr. Taylor, I understand the point wher e your motion confl icts is with setting the time, because the time, the Gove rnment Hous e Leader sets. The rest of your motion would be at the next mee ting. I think that would be appropria te. Mr. Taylor: I did make the sugges tion but I did not get a res ponse.

I had altered the wording and I had said on an as soon as possible basis which is not setting a date, it jus t says what is practical. And I would be satisfied with that, but I do not want this le ft where we walk away this morning and some thing has been put on the table and it is left hanging. I have seen this happen too often in Gove rnment, and not just in this realm of Gove rnment either . Mr. Chairman: Or even this level of Govern ment. 315 Mr. Taylor: That is exact ly what I am talking about.

So I think it is important that it be officially dealt with by motion and I think the motion from my viewpoi nt and my experience is in order and all we have is a hang-up of dates, so we will say as soon as pos sible and leave it open-ended like that. We are going to be looking for the good intentions of this Minister and his companion, the Government House Leader. Mr. Conner y: They have st ill got to agree when it is going to come back in so you can set times and if the y do not agree, the time is irrelev ant. Mr. Chairman: I unders tand that the mover is not setting a time.

He is just stating next time when this commit tee would reconvene. Mr. Cowan: Before we call the ques tion, just a question to the Minister. The Minister indicated that he wanted his staff to review the se reg ulations. Have staff of the department not reviewed the regulations to date? Mr. Connery: They have reviewed reg ulations on an ongoing basis, but I will get the information and bring it back to you. Mr. Cowan: But on the se specific re gula tions thems elv es, it would seem to me that-or the criteria they would be reviewed with staff as they are being de velo ped . Was that not the case?

Maybe someone from the corpora tion can assist. Mr. Cooke: The Department of the Environ ment, along with many other peo ple, have those documents, have reviewed them and provided us with a res pons e where we as a proponent have approached them in our follow up. Mr. Cowan: Perhaps then we can have some indication as to what the response from the department was with respect to them. Mr. Cooke: This is not an official response. This is a profes sional response. lt has been generally favourable in our understanding, and acceptable to them.

Certainly the other major group that we feel should re spond to those criteria are the specific communi ties that will be inv olv ed in dec iding and cer tainly that is the stage that we are only just embarking on now. Mr. Cowan: So to clar ify in my own mind then, the Minister said that he would want to take the se criteria back to his depart mental staff for review. lt appears as if the criteria have been reviewed by the depar tmental staff and that the response was for the mo st part favourable and positive. If that is the case, then I wonder why it is necessary to take the criteria back to departmental staff.

Mr. En ns: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order . We are not prog ressi ng in a di rect ion that su rely is no t appropria te for a commit tee of this nature. We have had some indication from the admin istrators of this corpora tion before us that, yes, as you would expect,

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 they have been made aware of certain regulations being drawn up but the House Leader of the New Democrats (Mr. Cowan), a former Minister, above all is aware of the procedure that is followed. That then has to proceed through departmental staff, decisions have to be arrived at, ministerial decisions have to be arrived at. The corporation has to present the proposed regulations to their Board of Directors-or not necessarily to the Board of Directors but certainly be made aware of the implications of the regulations before they can be considered in a manner that now is being suggested.

I just think that the Member for Churchill (Mr. Cowan) is leapfrogging, a process here in a way that is not traditional for this committee to behave and I still voice my original objections. I think that the process here is extremely important that we allow the Minister and his department to proceed with it in a normal acceptable way. I can accept the desire, the request for the Member for Wolseley (Mr.

Tay lor) to have this committee go on official note or on official record that some time frame be put on to it, that this committee is interested in seeing this particular set of regulations being reviewed and back before us, but surely the Minister has to have some leeway in working out the mechanics of this and to suggest anything less is simply not being reasonable. Mr. Chairman: We have a motion before us, and on that motion, Mr. Cowan. Mr. Cowan: Speaking to the motion, what I am trying to do is get a better understanding of what the Minister intends to do.

The Minister put this matter off on the basis that he needed his departmental staff to take a look at the criteria. In subsequent questioning to the corporation, we found out that the Minister's staff have in fact taken a look at the criteria and in fact have found the criteria to be generally acceptable and their response was generally positive. That undercuts what the Minister suggested needed to be done and that was that the staff review it.

Now, I understand that others want to take a look at the criteria as well and I think that is important, but I do not think that at this point in time we should do it on the basis of what the Minister suggested, that is that his staff look at it because he was obviously unaware that his staff had already looked at it and had already given some sort of tentative positive response to it. Now, if I am incorrect in that, I should be told, so that we can clarify exactly what needs to be done in order to expedite this matter.

No one is suggesting that it has to be dealt with today, but I think what is being suggested by Mr. Tay lor (Wolseley) and by others, and I think what is being accepted by the Government, is that this matter must be dealt with as exped itiously as possible. In order to determine how exped itious one can be in dealing with it, one needs to know what needs to be done. If it is a matter of the co mmunities reviewing it, tha t is one matter; if it is a matter of the departmental staff 316 reviewing it when they have already reviewed it, that is another matter. I think we need a bit of clarification.

There is a bit of a contradiction on the floor right now. Mr. Chairman: Okay, thank you for your comments. Before us we have at the present time a motion moved by Mr. Tay lor tha t this committee recommends to the Government House Leader (Mr. McCrae) to include the recommendations and regulations tabled today to be included in the next committee meeting which will be set by the Government House Leader in regard to the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Management Corporation. Mr. Taylor . Mr. Taylor: Mr. Chairperson, the Second Opposition Party House Leader (Mr. Cowan) just made a comment.

I saw that the Minister was about to make a response. If I could hear that, I would not mind if we could get that on the table before the vote. Mr. Connery: Well, department officials can take a look at regulations and make some comment to other groups and have maybe some opinions, but they are not official opinions of the Government. Until that happens, then- Mr. Chairman: Okay, then- Mr. Cowan: For clarification, each time the Minister addresses this subject, there is a bit less clarity. He said earlier th at he wanted to hold this so that departmental staff could review it.

I understand from the corporation that departmental staff have already reviewed it. Well, now I listened carefully to these things, but maybe I misunderstood. Perhaps I misunderstood what was being sai d. If the corporation can clarify exactly how this has been reviewed by departmental staff, that might be helpf ul. *

(1210) Mr. Cooke: The re has been no official review by the Department of Environment. There has been no official review of these proposal documents by the Department of Environment or other departments which might well be involved. We have consulted with them on their development, and the opportunity to provide us with that technical input has existed . We have not made any official proposal nor have received any official response. I am sorry my earlier comment of having received some, I guess, positive response from them, I think was unofficially.

They have given us an indication that they do not see any difficulties with our applying them. The y are a criteria for application by a proponent as opposed to regulations. I think there is a subtle distinction there. Mr. Cowa n: So, if I unders tand it corr ect ly , the departmental staff who have reviewed it, like it. Mr. Enns: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. Mr. Chairman: On a point of order, Mr. Enns. Mr. Enns: With all due respect, it is not simply not appropriate for Members of the committee to attempt

Tuesday, March 7, 19 89 to create a deba te between staff, the Minis ter, to try to solicit from staff decisi ons which obviously have not been made yet. But a cle ver deba ter that I am prepared to acknowledge Mr. Cowan is, if we giv e him another half an hour, he will have some fun with Mr. Cooke and whatever other staff is brought before us. I think the position has been made very clear . Staff has looked at the se proposals. Uno fficial ly, many of the proposals look attractive, but have not officially informed the Minister whose final res ponsi bili ty it is to carry the se regulations forward .

Up until that point in time the re is real ly little that this comm ittee should be doing, other than sug gest , as Mr. Taylor has sugge sted , that we look at them exped itiously . Mr. Chairman: Mr. Cowan, on a point of order . Mr. Cowan: No. Mr. Chairman: Then I wou ld like to go back to the proposal of Mr. Taylor and, if that still stands, his motion still stands, I will req uire that be in writing from you, Mr. Taylor. I have it here before me. If you can initial it, then it is actually- Mr. Taylor: You read it out before and it was acceptable. Mr. Chairman: That is right. Mr. Cowan: On a point of order , Mr.

Chai rperso n. Mr. Chairperson: On a point of order , Mr. Cowan . Mr. Cowan: Let me be cer tain in my own mind as to what is happ ening here. You are conc luding the deba te even though ther e are still que stions that we would like to put forward to the Minister. Mr. Chairman: No, as the chairman of this comm ittee, I would say that Mr. Taylor brought forward a motion and we are deal ing with that motion. An Honourable Member: He ar, hear! Mr. Chairman: Jus t to clarif y. This is a se cond mee ting that has been had and this is the first time for a few minu tes that you have sat in on this mee ting.

There might be a lot of ques tions that you have to this comm ittee at the prese nt time, but unfortunately you have not been around the last two meet ings. With that, we have this motion before us, and I am deal ing with this motion at this present time. Mr. Cowan: On a point of order , what are you doing with this motion at this time? I might rem ind you , Mr.

Chairp ers on, that it is the right, the privi lege and the res ponsibil ity of any Mem ber of this Leg islature to sit in on any comm ittee mee ting at any time, to put forward ques tions which the y belie ve are in the best interests of their cons tituents and in the best interests of the people of this provi nce. I rese nt quite frankly any sugges tion by yourself or any other individual on this comm ittee that what is going on today by this line of ques tioning is in any way out of order , or is in any way 317 not in keep ing with the common practises of the se comm ittees over a long period of time.

We know that mem bers can come in the commit tees at any time and can leave commit tee mee tings at any time in order to deal with issues which are of importance to them. I certainly hope that there was no reflect ion or no impugning of motives on my part, no impugn ing of any sort of violation of the traditions of the se comm ittees by your comments, Mr. Chai rpers on. I think that is important to clarify, firstly. Second ly, when a mem ber does come in and the re is a motion before the floor, there is ge neral ly an opportuni ty for de bate for that motion.

If you are going to cut that deba te short, there are ways to do that, and you will need the sup port of the comm ittee in order to do that. But as long as the motion is on the floor, and as long as there are ques tions to be put to the Minister or any other mem ber of the Minister's staff through you rself, then I would sugge st that we have a right and a res ponsi bil ity to do so. An Honour able Member: Turn up earlier next time. Mr. Cowan: lt has nothing to do with earli er. If you cannot read the se things, then that is your problem. Mr. Chairman: Mr.

Cowan spoke on a point of order and a dispute over the facts is not a point of order . I, at this point in time, would like to get back to the motion that is on hand and I will call for the ques tion. All those in favour of that motion? Mr. Cowan: No, I am sor ry, if you are calling for the ques tion, we will call for the ques tion. We will then determ ine whether or not the motion is put and we will see if the Mem bers of the Liberal Party are prepar ed to join with the Cons ervativ e Party to cut off the de bate on this impor tant issue. Mr. Chairman: I called for the ques tion, all those in favour? Mr.

Kevin Lamour eux (lnk ster): Mr. Chai rperso n, on a poin t of order . Mr. Chairman: Mr. Lamour eux, on a point of order. Mr. Lamour eux: If the NDP Ho use Leader has ques tions to put forward to the Minister regard ing this report, he should be given the opportunity to ask the ques tions prior to the motion if the ques tions are pertai ning to the motion directly. Mr. Cowan: Whi ch the y are. Mr. Lamour eux: Then let us hear the ques tions. Mr.

Chairman: I think in all fairne ss as Chairman of this comm ittee I would like to clar ify one thing and that is the ques tions I think I addressed every Member that posed a ques tion to the motion. That is what is in ques tion at this point in time, so I would once again like to ask all those in favour of the ' motion, ple ase raise your hand?

Tuesday, March 7, 1989 Mr. Cowan: No, no, no, you are going to have to do it right. If you want to railroad it, you are going to have to railroad it right. Mr. Chairman: Okay, wait a minute. Are there any more questions in regard to the motion? Mr. Harapiak. Mr. Harapiak: A question on the regulations just put forward. Has Mr.

Connery said that the department staff have not had the opportu nit y to have an opportunity to evaluate them and see how they would affect private corporations that are coming into it, so that the same regulations that would apply to the Crown corporation would not be put in a position where it would come into the province, or what is his concern about having these regulations brought in? Mr. Connery: There is no question that the department has had an opportunity to review them.

I am not satisfied that we have had sufficient review of them and, as Minister, I am not prepared to say that I am prepared to accept them as they are. We are not opposed to regulation and we are not going to be having different methods of site selection for the private sector versus the public sector, but I want a better opportun ity to review these regulations with the department and at such time then be prepared to make a valid statement as to whether we think they are appropriate or not. Mr. Plohma n: Mr.

Chairman, I think clearly the Minister's concerns with this whole thing is whether he wants to regulate the criteria for site selection in this province for the private sector or not, not whether the regulations or the criteria that we have proposed are suitable or not. I would like him to cl arify that point. The re is a big difference there. The fact is that he has not said that he would agree to passing regulations dealing with site selection for the private sector. That is why we brought the motion forward in the first place.

He said that he did not want those kind of regulations for the private sector, he said that he would determine on a case-by-case basis. That made me concerned . We have criteria that are in place for the public corporation and we have to question the Minister as to whether his problem with this whole pr ocess is whether he do es not want regulations at all, or whether he does not in fact like what is the substance of the criteria that we have put forward. He has left the impression now on the record that it is the substance of those criteria. He is not sure he likes those criteria.

I would submit to him and ask for his clarification as to whether in fact it is because he has not even made up his mind as to whether he wants to regulate or not. Tha t is the question. • (1 220) Mr. Chairman: Well, Mr. Plohman, in all fairness as Chairman of this committee, that is not what is before us at the present in our motion. Mr. Plohman: Well, that deals with this particular issue, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman: I believe that is out of order to demand the Minister to

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	34-1-punr16
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	34th 1st hansardpdf punr16.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	96b26d76150953998e99980307921d678c74f866

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