Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Mr. Ben Sveinson): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Department of Environment.

Does the honourable Minister of Environment have an opening statement?

Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Environment): Mr. Chairman, I presume my critic would like this to be as abridged as possible.

First of all, however, let me express my appreciation for the dedication and effort of the staff. The Department of Environment is not a large department, and they have managed to keep the issues in front of them and provide sound environmental management over the past year of which I think they can all be justifiably proud.

First of all, let me read the mission statement as the department has outlined into the record, and that is simply to ensure a high quality of environment for present and future generations of Manitobans.

Briefly, let me say that we have a professional staff with a high degree of professional and technical competence, in my opinion, and Manitoba has developed a good reputation across the country in terms of our involvement which generally exceeds the level of involvement given the size of the population of our province relative to other jurisdictions. Manitoba has had the lead or been very active in a number of initiatives, including water quality objectives, harmonization of regulation, which I would like to touch on later, ozone-depleting substances control and contaminated sites legislation.

I am very proud of what I consider a very effective emergency response team, and I am pleased to indicate that, in my view, there is a good level of morale and sense of purpose among the members of the department.

There are a number of issues which are consuming a lot of departmental time. As I mentioned, harmonization of regulation at the national level through the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment has been a priority item for literally years. Partnerships with local governments have taken on singular importance in recent years, as well as a much closer liaison with all other departments of government.

In day-to-day operations, we are focusing much more on regional solutions and developing innovative approaches to enforcement, in fact developing an alternative approach to the command and control philosophy. We are placing greater reliance on setting objectives and targets and standards, as opposed to prescribing specific technologies and approaches in environmental control. We are extending our resources through involvement of others, using delegation and empowerment and using financial instruments, licences and orders to ensure clients respect the compliance and practise environmental stewardship.

The department has a very active continuous improvement initiative. In November of the past year, the department adopted a continuous improvement plan being led and implemented by an implementation team within the department with a full commitment of senior departmental management.

The mission has been to lead a process for involving everyone in the department and continuously improving how work is done to best meet customer expectations of service and quality and the vision to deliver the highest quality of service to achieve the best value for tax dollars. The focus is on satisfying needs as identified by our clients.

There has been a considerable amount of work using training, communications and pilot projects in the south-central region and financial services being brought up to speed by target date.

Other goals in this initiative have included awareness integration into the strategic planning process and consultation with external contacts.

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Let me say just a word or two about co-location of the department. I am not sure if my critic has been aware of the joint initiative between the province and the federal authorities to potentially co-locate the two departments. The federal department is also looking for new physical property at the same time as the provincial department is. I would have to be perfectly candid and say that I am not giving this much more than a 50-50 chance of achievement, but it is certainly a goal that I would support, but I sense that there may be more time needed to pull things together than what may be available to us, plus there is always a question about whether or not the provincial expectation of cost capabilities as compared to federal cost allowances for housing and space, whether or not we can find compatibility in that. It would be a first in Canada, and there are common needs that could be served. Perhaps I am not optimistic enough, but I put on the record that it would be a laudable objective but one which I think may be a while in coming.

During the last fiscal year, as I said, I believe we have a very capable emergency response unit, and during the past fiscal year, the department responded to 516 calls through the emergency system involving 394 environmental accidents.

With contaminated sites, we are continuing to work on the legislation in that respect and leading in a fair bit of the discussion across the country in relationship to how we should be managing the contaminated site liability issue.

Bristol Aerospace continues to be an interesting case, and I would just like to point out that a ground water remediation facility started operating in 1994. The parameters for the facility are reported monthly to the department, and to date, all reported parameters have fallen within the criteria, so I would like to indicate that I think not only did we deal with that issue from a direct fallout from the discovery of the contaminated water supply, but there are ongoing efforts being put forward by the company itself.

I should touch on the Domtar issue for a moment. We issued an operating licence in September '94 to Domtar to allow Triwaste to commission their new thermal-phase separation unit on the Transcona site, a test unit for soil cleanup. The test has now been completed, and if results are successful, a second director's order will be issued to Domtar to complete the soil remediation which will take from 12 to 18 months. Baseline environmental risk assessment was submitted and approved in 1994, as required by the director's orders.

Something that the opposition may well want to spend some time discussing is the prevention initiatives that we are now embarking on, which, again, reinforces a shift in Manitoba's approach to environmental protection from control and remediation to prevention. The branch that I referred to was established in '93, to maintain the management of new program initiatives within the department, such as waste reduction and prevention, ozone-depleting substances and to promote the application of practices that avoid the creation of waste.

It is my expectation that this will be part of a thrust that is occurring all the way across the country because every jurisdiction is now finding that they need to spend more time on pollution prevention, so that they can eventually reduce their demands in relationship to long-term responsibilities for command and control or cleanup responsibilities.

Perhaps I should spend a moment on waste reduction and prevention. We have been successful in a number of areas in getting towards our 50 percent reduction. The tire recycling program, which I am sure my critic is well aware of, was set up in '93.

In its first full year of operation, it recycled the equivalent of one million tires, which was funded by a tax which has now become a levy of $3 on new tires that was fully dedicated to the fund in support of this function. Those dollars have now been turned over to an arm's-length stewardship corporation, as an arm's length government body to manage these funds. During that process, we have now cleaned up over a hundred waste disposal grounds and eliminated their tire piles, and I am sure that they, as a result, have picked up a fair bit of cash in support of maintaining their program.

The board is made up of the Canadian automotive association, the Rubber Association, the Western Canadian Tire Dealers and Retreaders Association and the deputy minister of Environment as a direct appointment from government.

Balding material and recycling, which has been the topic of some considerable discussion over the last year is now a reality in over 70 municipalities across the province. We are fully expecting the City of Winnipeg to come on stream this fall. Under this program, support payments to municipalities will be up to $152 a tonne for materials recycled from a depot or a curbside and the City of Winnipeg will be eligible for $128 per tonne from a curbside and $84 for depot programs. It is expected to recover in excess of 80,000 tonnes of packaging and fibre materials from residential waste stream once we have this program fully operational.

In 1995-96 the emphasis will be on smooth transition to having the stewardship corporations in place to provide funding for programs to promote tire and multimaterial recycling across the province. New waste minimization efforts for used oil composting and hopefully construction waste will also be pursued. A plan for household hazardous waste needs some additional work.

Along that line I should point out that I believe we have in excess of 6,000 tonnes of ONP currently being recycled annually in the province, but that means we are getting less than 20 percent of the estimated 35,000 tonnes of ONP, old newsprint, out of the system, and we hope that the new multimaterial collection system will remedy that. Given the high price of newsprint, we think that this will also become industry driven very quickly.

Another objective that we have in the short term is to have an oil recycling and collection system come on stream. We now have an opportunity to partner with the two western provinces and we think that very quickly we will be able to get that initiative up and running.

I presume we will be touching for a few minutes on the Sustainable Development Innovations Fund, for which I am also responsible. It was a very successful fund year this past fiscal year for projects approved under the fund. The authority totalled just over $3.5 million. Support was provided to 215 projects for waste management and recycling initiatives, environmental industries, Environmental Youth Corps and other sector areas such as water conservation, supply, agricultural development, urban environment, Endangered Spaces and species, and also for education.

We provided funding for the development and implementation promotion of a number of innovative projects in support of sustainable development, and we will spend some time later discussing that, I am sure. We have been involved in a number of initiatives, some of which become much more important viewed in the larger context. Having Clivus Multrum move to Winnipeg as its headquarters for producing its composting toilets and the plastic moulding expertise at Acrylon Plastics with facilities based here in Winnipeg and Winkler, allows them to produce here for world-wide distribution, plus gives us the opportunity to have that method of dealing with human effluent used much more aggressively in our own jurisdiction.

I am turning fairly quickly here. I would only indicate that I will not spend any time on regulatory initiatives, but let me indicate that the stubble-burning initiative has, in my view, worked out extremely well after having had another year under our belt. Last fall was again a situation where we saw a much more compatible situation between agricultural burning and the urban centres.

The State of the Environment Report was published again this year and we will discuss that, I am sure, later on. Mr. Chairman, I will invite questions from my critics.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I thank the Minister of Environment for those comments. Does the official opposition critic, the honourable member for Selkirk, have any opening comments?

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Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. I want to begin by thanking the minister for his abridged version of his opening remarks. He made many, many important points, ones that we will be exploring and looking into further as we proceed this evening.

I want to pay tribute to both of my predecessors as the critics for the official opposition. That is the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) and the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh). Both of them did an excellent job representing our party on environmental issues over the last number of years.

I want to use this time we have this evening to gain information regarding environmental issues, this being my first Estimates as the newly appointed critic. I want to take the chance to familiarize myself more with environmental issues and use this opportunity tonight to do so. As I mentioned to the minister earlier, as a guide I would like to go through the 1995 State of the Environment Report. I think it is an excellent resource for me as a critic and it will serve as a useful discussion document this evening.

In particular, I wanted to concentrate on issues related to water and to waste management. If we do, hopefully we will have a chance to get through and deal with the Sustainable Development Innovations Fund and I want to put on the record that I hope the minister will be bringing forward or talk to his House leader to bring forward the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Management Corporation so we can raise issues regarding that corporation as well.

I propose that we pass the Estimates as a whole and that we, instead of going line by line, ask questions related to all issues here this evening, and when we are done, we just go, pass the line by line.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I thank the critic for the official opposition for those remarks. Under Manitoba practice, debate of the Minister's Salary is traditionally the last item considered for the Estimates of a department. Accordingly, we shall defer the consideration of this item and now proceed with consideration of the next line.

At this time, we invite the minister's staff to join us at the table, and we ask that the minister introduce his staff present.

Mr. Cummings: On my immediate left is Norm Brandson, the Deputy Minister of Environment. At the end of the table is Wolf Boehm responsible for finances; Serge Scrafield over by the fan, assistant deputy minister responsible for approvals and everything else that we can give him; and Carl Orcutt immediately to Norm's left, acting deputy minister from time to time, assistant and responsible for enforcement.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We are now on item 1.(b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $321,400, on page 53 of the Estimates book and on page 23 of the yellow supplement book.

Mr. Dewar: I just wanted to raise one issue here. Last year, I contacted the deputy minister regarding the sale of the AMSCO cast products plant in Selkirk to a company in Edmonton called Quality Steel. I believe the deputy minister then contacted the person in Edmonton and I assume dealt with all the issues that were raised by the president or I believe he is a vice-president of Quality Steel. I just want to know or ask what issues were raised by the representatives of Quality Steel? I just want to know what issues were raised by this company.

Mr. Cummings: Every time we have a new investment or a turnover of some of these sites where there is potential for site contamination, there is a review by government or by responsible authorities. I presume that was the first part of his concern at that time and that was what I understand the department followed up on that site to check for contamination and if there was any liability associated with the site.

(Mr. Mike Radcliffe, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

I sort of missed the second part of the question. Do you want to know what the result of that investigation was?

Mr. Dewar: Yes.

Mr. Cummings: We received assurances that dollars have been allocated for appropriate cleanup of the site, management of the site by the existing owner. Those dollars have been set aside to our satisfaction.

Mr. Dewar: What were some of the problems that were found on that site?

Mr. Cummings: Your usual contaminations that you get around a foundry. You have oil, lubricants and some associated wastes. You might get a bit of lead I suppose, but I am not sure that was even one that we found. It was not seen to be an unusual site, I am told.

Mr. Dewar: Was the ground water in the immediate area tested?

Mr. Cummings: We would have to check to see what all was done in review of that. We might find the answer in a minute or two if you want to proceed with another line of questioning. Other than that, I will have to get back.

Mr. Dewar: I do want to thank the deputy minister for responding to my concerns. The business was sold and the jobs there were saved, so I thought that was--I am pleased that they took such immediate action to deal with the concerns raised by the individuals from Quality Steel.

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could put something on the record that flows from that type of question. Generally, in reviewing these sites what we end up with, as I have learned to understand it, is a risk analysis of the site. If you were asking, was their ground water checked, I suppose the first question would be, was there any potential for it to have got into ground water? If it was a heavy clay with no sign of it having permeated down very far then you are dealing with a much different situation than if you are sitting where there is potential for permeation into a sensitive aquifer or things of that nature.

We have found a number of times in the Red River Valley that the contamination has been contained more to the upper layer until you get over toward where the Bristol situation was and further east as well. I do not know if that helps, or not.

Mr. Dewar: That is fine. I am prepared to pass this line.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): The item under discussion is item 1.(b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $321,400--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $78,600--pass.

1.(c) Financial and Administrative Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $817,700.

Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chairman, under this particular line, the department looks after the administration of The Freedom of Information Act requirements. Have there been any in the last year?

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Mr. Cummings: Each department has a Freedom of Information officer. Wolf Boehm is our officer responsible for responding to the requests.

We had 11 Freedom of Information requests. They ranged from two requests on the Domtar site; information regarding the review process of the Portage water diversion project in '91, '94 which would be more commonly known as the Pembina project; a copy of records and correspondence regarding a former gasoline service station and there were three requests on the one site; information regarding my international travel, that was an easy one; information from Woodlands; and information regarding toxic waste sites in the province--really nothing too complicated.

Mr. Dewar: I am prepared to let it pass.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): The item under discussion is 1.(c)(1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $817,700--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $231,800--pass.

The next item for discussion is 2. Environmental Management $10,914,000. The first item for discussion is (a) Environmental Operations (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $4,347,400--pass.

Mr. Dewar: Excuse me.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): Sorry, we have a question.

Mr. Dewar: I do want to ask a few questions related to--this is where one would ask questions related to the enforcement of legislation and regulations pertaining to The Environment Act?

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): I am sorry. Could you repeat the question?

Mr. Dewar: I would like to ask some questions about environmental licensing procedure, and this would be the appropriate line?

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): What is your question?

Mr. Dewar: Okay, good. Thank you. I want the minister to provide to us today and update us on the proposed arena project and the environmental licensing procedure of the proponents.

Mr. Cummings: First of all, the proponent has to provide information to the federal authorities who will be responsible for screening whether or not there is federal involvement, in this case maybe a federal involvement whether or not they can answer the questions appropriately in the screening process so the feds can advise on whether the process they have been presented with has been acceptable or otherwise.

The issue of the arena, whether or not it is a class of development under our existing Environment Act, that decision has to be made. But you can read as well as I can, if you look at the Environment Act and list of developments, it is not in there.

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

We have a number of other things, however, that the proponent has to do in order to make sure that we do not have a problem on our hands. They have to make sure there is not contamination on the site. They have already taken steps in that respect. They have to follow all appropriate procedures and any activity that would occur on the site.

Manitoba Heritage has or will be reviewing the project as well. Based on any information we have received up to this point, there does not appear to be contamination onsite. There have certainly been contaminants there at one time or another, but there is no evidence that we have a contaminated site on our hands or that it is going to be a problem.

Just let me be a little bit more explicit about the federal process. We are co-operating as well. We are making sure the information is provided to the federal authorities so they can in fact decide in their screening process whether or not any process other than what is already begun needs to be followed for environmental review of the site to meet their standards. That will be their decision.

We have made no decision at this point either, but the information that I am giving you should give you a pretty clear picture of the fact that this project is an awful lot like a number of other ones we are faced with from time to time. The issues that are raised are every bit and in many cases much more so planning issues than they are environmental.

Some of the questions that have been raised around the siting of the arena and what that means to that part of the city, relate more directly to some of the planning issues and decisions within Plan Winnipeg than they do to what would be classified as environmental issues under The Environment Act.

Mr. Dewar: Does this project require a provincial environmental licence?

Mr. Cummings: As I said, it is not designated under the act, and at this point we have not made a final decision, but it does not appear necessary for it to be licensed under our act.

Mr. Dewar: My review of the act and my extensive knowledge of this area leads me to assume that Class 2 developments, No. 5, it talks about recreation, multipurpose resorts, recreation and tourist developments that would not be included in there.

Mr. Cummings: No.

Mr. Dewar: So then the minister has said there has been some testing done at the site. Who did that testing, and what did they discover?

Mr. Cummings: First of all, we had the two departments, both federal and provincial, who did a review of the site, and, following on that as I understand it, the proponents have had consultants onsite once they received permission to go onsite from the city. They have done testing, and to this point we have not found a problem.

Mr. Dewar: As the minister is aware, we raised the concern of a possibility of PCBs, considering that it is a former Hydro substation that is currently on the site. There has been no identification of PCBs there currently.

Mr. Cummings: None that I have been made aware of. Just a minute, I will give you the most--any equipment onsite has been emptied and sampled, and there is no evidence of PCB contamination found, and so that is good news. I mean, unless you are of the view that you want to stop the project.

Mr. Dewar: Stopping the project aside, it is good news that there is no contamination found in any soils in the province of Manitoba, of course.

I still have a few questions here about the act, and I am interested in the Manitoba Environmental Council. Can the minister provide us with some information regarding this council and their recent activities?

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Mr. Cummings: That is a reasonable question. It is no secret that this is not necessarily an ongoing love affair between the Manitoba Environmental Council and the minister's office. The Environmental Council is there by clause in the act to provide advice to the minister and to the ministry.

At one point, I felt that the Manitoba Environmental Council was too close to provide advice, that they were lodged among the department virtually with their office and their personnel. I do not mind people on an ongoing basis having the opportunity to ask the department and/or political people about activities, but I think there needs to be some kind of a formalized logical progression of giving and receiving advice. So I have reconstituted the Environmental Council primarily with the same players that were always there, plus a few more, and I guaranteed them access to me and to my office a minimum of four times a year for a minimum of two- to three-hour meetings to provide ongoing advice on environmental matters and to exchange ideas.

We have accomplished a fair bit in the last six to eight months, and as much as we are now getting to the point where the council, instead of spending their time writing papers that they were presenting to the Clean Environment Commission and to every other public process--and they are still quite capable and able of doing that--they are also providing direct advice to the minister on issues, not only the issues as they are in front of us today.

We had a meeting last week which was somewhat interrupted, but we had at least half a meeting last week, and what we are working on is a situation where they will bring forward, and I will bring forward a mutually agreed agenda of future items that we see needing to be addressed, of an environmental nature, which means that they really have an opportunity to influence the thinking of myself and others prior to policy or decision being firmed up. At the same time, they have an opportunity to hear directly from the minister as to why we are moving in specific directions on matters of environmental concern.

Louisiana-Pacific is a situation where we have a licensing process that we followed through that we are quite proud of. There are people who sit on that advisory council who do not agree with our direction, but that is the essence of good public debate and public advice. I do not have to sit only with those who agree with me all the time to get a good understanding of the issues, and this is a council of that nature. The debate gets pretty exciting, let me tell you, but I think useful and a far better format than used to occur, let us say, three years ago.

Mr. Dewar: How many members are on the council and who are they?

Mr. Cummings: I cannot tell you the exact number, but we have people like Christine Common-Singh, Bill Pruitt. I am told we have 11. I can get you a list. We have the former head of Ward Lab. We have Mr. Will Grieve, Rick Howard, Bill Turnock, to name some of the names. We will get you a list.

Mr. Dewar: Does the council have a budget and what is that amount?

Mr. Cummings: No.

Mr. Dewar: What level of remuneration do the council members receive for their advice?

Mr. Cummings: None.

Mr. Dewar: Is this a new practice?

Mr. Cummings: No. They never did receive a per diem. They still receive their expenses.

Mr. Dewar: That is fine. I would like to ask some questions related to the different classifications, Class 1, Class 2, Class 3 development of licensing requirements, the main differences between the different classifications.

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, I always have to be careful. This is sort of the reverse from the waste disposal ground classifications.

Mr. Dewar: I will ask that one later.

Mr. Cummings: A Class 1 is being reviewed because of pollution concerns only. A Class 2 would be for pollution plus other issues, and Class 3 would be for large projects where there is designation by the minister. An example would be Conawapa. We do not get that many Class 3s.

Mr. Dewar: Yes, I did see those in the regulations, but what are the main differences in terms of the approval procedure?

Mr. Cummings: A Class 2 would be a more complex issue, and you would be more likely to have a Clean Environment Commission public hearing process in reviewing it.

Mr. Chairman, I also have the names of the Manitoba Environmental Council. I can read them into the record. I have Christine Singh, Rick Howard, Dr. Bill Turnock, Dr. Ian Rollo, Dr. Diane Malley, Dr. David Punter, Dr. Peter Miller, Will Grieve, Dr. Bill Pruitt, Dr. Derek Muir, and Mr. Jim Ball. There are a lot of doctors on there. That must be a healthy crew.

Mr. Dewar: Is there a requirement for public hearings on all the level of classes or just 1, 2 or 3?

Mr. Cummings: I suppose you could argue that under any given circumstance, hearings could be called at any level, but they are much more discretionary in Class 1.

I should put on the record, they are in fact discretionary for them all, but obviously the onus is--[interjection] It is not a matter of waiving it so much as it is a matter of actually deciding to do it. Waiving would indicate that they are mandatory and then waived, but it is the reverse.

There is always a requirement for public publication of information. The public is never excluded in that sense.

Mr. Dewar: Who makes the final approval in each of the classes to grant a licence?

Mr. Cummings: Classes 1 and 2 are directors' licences, and the minister would be the appeal. Class 3 is the minister signs the licence, and the next authority which would be cabinet would be the appeal.

Mr. Dewar: Who is the current director of licensing?

Mr. Cummings: Larry Strachan.

Mr. Dewar: So if a group brings forward a project, and Mr. Strachan either approves it or denies it, that group can appeal that to you?

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Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, it is not just Mr. Strachan. There are a number of directors who would have approval authority, but any director's decision is appealable to the minister's office.

In fact, just for information, something that took a little while to sink in with me, and it is not entirely related to what you are talking about but does provide some excitement out there from time to time, and that is a director's order, for example, regarding a contaminated site.

Very often, people get very excited if they get an order, but sometimes an order has to be issued so that an appeal can be launched in order to finally get someone other than just the owner of the property involved in the cleanup. It is not as onerous as it sounds. It is actually meant to be user friendly.

Mr. Dewar: Has the government ever appointed an environmental mediator to settle disputes between groups?

Mr. Cummings: Yes, not as often as probably we would like to, but we have had a few examples of where we have done it. Remember that you need to have two willing parties at the table to be able to mediate. If somebody tells you to buzz off, it is kind of hard to have mediation concluded.

On a couple of occasions or maybe three or more, I cannot remember the exact number, it is not large, we have asked the chairman of the Clean Environment Commission to sit down with both parties, when it is not something that is necessarily an issue that he would hear in a licensing sense, but because of his independence and being seen to be outside of the department and at arms length from the minister, he is a very credible person to sit down and attempt to mediate on occasion, and, in fact, has given himself the opportunity to do some upgrading, so he is increasingly capable of doing more of that.

But a couple of instances where it should have worked, at least one party said, well, do we have to do this, and the truth of the matter is they do not have to. So if they walk away from the table, then mediation does not occur. Very often, it occurred around the siting of lagoons or siting of waste disposal grounds, those types of things where it is partly a planning issue. I mean, you can engineer a safe solution for a landfill perhaps, but you do not want it next to your house. Well, we have regulations to protect it from being right next to your house.

We also used Jenny Hilliard on one occasion to attempt mediation in the general scrap proposal to develop an extruding plant--recycling shredder fluff.

I guess we had some success on the Teulon lagoon. Dale was involved in that one. Manigotagan sewage outlet, I believe we also had some success with that one, and Dale was involved there, as well, but it is not used as much as we would like it to be.

Mr. Dewar: Well, who decides how to use the mediation process? Is it the minister or do people come to you and ask, could you set up a mediator to help us settle this dispute?

Mr. Cummings: Generally, it has been by our own initiative. I cannot recall if we have actually been--on one occasion, we were asked, but we had such an ingrained disagreement between the parties that I did not do it.

So, occasionally, we would have directors who would recommend it or regional directors where they have a hot potato on their hands. It is sometimes more political than it is environmental, to tell you the truth. Nevertheless, you have to get all the people to the table, and you have to have a credible mediator.

I am not sure that we could legislate the requirement to have people appear at the table. I mean, they could appear there and then still not move. If they want to truly settle it, however, they need to be willing to enter into the discussion.

I suppose it is very often ones that we were unable to successfully mediate where there are entrenched views that they simply do not want something, regardless of how many safeguards you offer them or issues that they might want in the licence.

Mostly, if they just do not want something, mediation looks like a sign of weakness on the part of the opponents, so they, generally speaking, refuse it.

Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to move to the next section, which is Environmental Management, but I believe some of the issues that I will be raising probably fall into both.

Mr. Cummings: Leave it open.

Mr. Dewar: Leave it open. Okay, that is fine.

Mr. Cummings: He can pass it, but he can go back, if he wants to.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 2.(a) Environmental Operations (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $4,347,400--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $1,104,000--pass.

2.(b) Environmental Management (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,588,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $2,616,300--pass.

2.(c) Legislation and Intergovernmental Affairs (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $162,500--pass.

Mr. Dewar: Where are you, sir? I just want to find out what page.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Page 54, (c)(2). You do not have the blue supplementary book?

Mr. Dewar: I had to give it away to somebody else.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Page 33. Are you there?

Mr. Dewar: Well, we obviously want to stop the process somewhere, so we can ask our questions that we want to ask.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Okay, we will finish this one.

Item 2.(c) Legislation and Intergovernmental Affairs (2) Other Expenditures $95,300--pass.

2.(d) Manitoba Hazardous Waste Management Corporation--pass.

2.(e) Joint Environmental Assessment Review--pass.

2.(f) Alcohol Beverage Container Recycling Program--pass.

Mr. Dewar: I wonder if we can begin by just paying tribute to all those individuals who produced the State of the Environment Report for Manitoba 1995 Focus on Agriculture. I am probably giving too much praise to the government, but I do want to recognize all the men and women who put this report together and did all the background and the preparation of it.

What does this report cost to produce?

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Mr. Cummings: Over two years, it would be about $95,000 which is remarkably low. We assigned one person within the department to begin the next report as soon as this one is published. We are somewhat in a flux, looking at format. As you can see, it is a pretty substantial publication to put out every two years.

When you are looking at trends and the direction of measurements, sometimes you find yourself repeating yourself year over year, because two years is almost not far enough apart to know whether you have a blip in the environment as a result of some weather condition or other matters or whether there is something truly occurring, changes in the condition of particular areas that you are looking at.

There is some consideration being given to publishing a focus publication every two years and doing a much more significant one along the lines of what you have in front of you every third one or some such rotation like that, not to avoid the responsibility of doing the report but to make it so that the trends are clearly representative of what is happening, and in the interim doing shorter focused reports. You could do something on water quality, agriculture, mining. You could do something every two years, as we do now, but focus it more sharply on specific aspects and without doing all of the comparisons and trends the same way that we do every two years now.

It is up for discussion, but when you compare our publication with what the feds have done, it cost them millions and millions of dollars to publish. I appreciate what the member has said. He has gone up several notches in my estimation, because something that has always frustrated me somewhat is that there is a lot of independence put into this publication, and we ask each department to provide information, and then the Department of Environment plus some editorial contractee compiles the report, and it is intended to give as clear a picture as possible of what is occurring out there.

From what I have seen of reports in some other jurisdictions, this is much more straightforward and readable. It is not written as deep research material. It is meant to be usable by schools.

The one question that needs to be perhaps addressed further is whether or not we should also be putting forward a report that is--now I am searching for words.

When we look at what has happened in some of the other reports, I find some of them contain an awful lot of salesmanship, which this one, we have tried to keep it less that way, but we took a significant risk when we started to put in trends because there is always a question of whether you are accurately judging which way the trend is going.

The other question that needs to be asked about this type of reporting is if we should not be looking at a state of the environment but a sustainability or state of sustainable development. That, obviously, would not be an appropriate title but to look more at the sustainability of our practices.

Mr. Dewar: How many copies are produced, and how wide is the circulation of the document?

Mr. Cummings: Five thousand reports are published. I would indicate that we have gone back to the original concept, which was that these would be distributed to schools and other libraries and free of charge to other individuals who may be interested.

For a brief period of time we thought that the product was of high enough value that people would likely want to pay something for it, but we ended up with a number in storage. So if we felt that if this was truly going to be out there and in the hands of as many people as possible, and if we believe it is as worthwhile as it is in putting the effort forward to do it, then we are better off to have those publications out there in appropriate hands as opposed to keeping them in storage. Just on the economic side, but I am told that 5,000 plus or minus a few, once you have everything set up and you start publishing, 5,000 is not an unreasonable number.

Mr. Dewar: On page 7 of the report, I quote. It says: Eventually, it is hoped that regular reporting will make environmental indicators as familiar as the cost of living index and the Gross National Product.

My question is, how far is the department along in establishing such environmental indicators?

Mr. Cummings: It is not something that we would develop in isolation. Council of Ministers is working on what would be environmental indicators. The national round table is working on what would be considered acceptable indicators of sustainability. I spent a number of years on the national round table, and subcommittees of that round table worked and developed those indicators. They will be, at least in part, I think, adopted by CCME. It is more likely that is the direction we will go in getting reliable benchmarks as opposed to just indicators of the state of environment.

We already have other indicators that we can use. I mean, we know what is considered good water quality. We know what is considered good air quality and so on, but those are not the only indicators of environmental quality.

Mr. Dewar: Do you know if other jurisdictions in Canada or North America, do they have environmental indicators?

Mr. Cummings: I am not aware of any jurisdiction that has adopted a complete set of indicators of sustainable development or environmental indicators. I did not put on the record, however, where probably some of the more credible indicator work maybe ends up coming from, and that is, the IISD is working on indicators and is using Manitoba as a pilot. So we co-operate with all three areas, the IISD, CCME and the federal authorities.

Mr. Dewar: I would like to then move to the section on water, one of the concerns I wanted to raise tonight. Of course, there are a number of issues that can be raised, but I do want to concentrate on that in the time we have available. I know the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) may be interested in raising some issues in this area as well.

It was announced earlier, I believe, this week or maybe last week, that the federal government is withdrawing financial support to the Freshwater Institute of Winnipeg, which is currently, I believe, located on the campus of the University of Manitoba. According to the press article I have before me, the team is slated for a reduction from a staff of 54 to 16. Is the minister aware of this staff reduction and the general withdrawal of funding?

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, in a general sense, we have been aware of the pending fall of the other shoe in a number of areas. There are going to be several shoes that are going to drop over the next couple of years with federal funding. This particular one is freshwater fish, so they are in an area that is pretty narrow in its scope. Any interaction we would have with them in terms of whether this department would be directly impacted or not would be, I guess, on anything they do on water quality and associated fish habitat issues. Given the location of the member's riding, I can appreciate his interest in freshwater fish and what that might mean to the province. They do research, I am told, on areas such as mercury levels and other contaminants that would be affecting freshwater fish, but they do not just serve Manitoba. I guess that is really where I am getting around to. They serve more than just Manitoba. So yes, we will lose something when we lose them, but it will not be irreparable.

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Mr. Dewar: What action then is the minister going to take to try to fight this job loss?

Mr. Cummings: We have been meeting for the last number of months with federal Environment which has a lot more areas of responsibility than the provincial Department of Environment has. We are much more on the regulatory and quality monitoring side, and the federal area is much more dispersed and goes into a number of areas that cross over into Natural Resources.

It is indicated to me by the department that the freshwater fish habitat is already pretty well covered by provincial activities. That in itself will not disappear. We have had a number of issues that we have been discussing with the federal authorities in terms of reduction of funding, reduction of staff, and it has been a very integral part of discussion associated with CCME as well as just Manitoba to the federal authorities because this really even gets into harmonization. If they are going to withdraw from certain areas, if they expect the provinces to just pick it up, I suppose they might be whistling in the dark. If they in some logical way want to reorient the responsibilities of the federal and provincial authorities, avoid duplication and overlap and at the same time make sure that we have more appropriate management of the issues, very often this could mean that the provinces could do more on the ground and respond more quickly to some of the issues.

If the feds would confine themselves to areas of research and perhaps more raw research as they have done--we have seen it in forestry and we have seen it in agriculture--instead of being all things to all people, the federal and provincial authorities could divide their responsibilities better, reduce the overall cost to all jurisdictions and manage our way out of what is going to be a declining capability on the part of the feds and to some extend the province of Manitoba and other jurisdictions to manage these.

(Mr. Jack Penner, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

What I fear, however, is that they are going to arbitrarily withdraw, they are not going to follow what might be, I think, a pretty well laid out plan that has been discussed at the staff level. If that is the case, we are going to have increasing problems. If we can get the federal authorities to move in an organized way with their reductions and share some of their responsibilities with us, maybe we can do more efficiently what they are doing today and save them some money at the same time, and then we could all win. I am not overly confident that is what is going to happen. So there is going to be a lot of serious problems arise as we go through the next three years. The feds have laid out a three-year plan in terms of gross numbers for reduction of staff and resources, but I do not think they have laid out a three-year plan on how they may interact with provinces to make sure that there are not big gaps in the management of responsibilities.

Mr. Dewar: Let us move to another issue. That is the problems that are faced by our First Nations people, and again, it is from your report where they talk about the high number of cases of hepatitis A involving First Nations people.

What role can the province play in ensuring that these communities can deal with this problem?

Mr. Cummings: While I am getting a note from the department here, first of all, you are talking about a basic public health issue in terms of water quality and protection of public health and the water that they are using. I am in danger of answering you in a way that gets me into a whole lot of other areas jurisdictionally within federal-provincial relationships. I mean, the federal-provincial relationship on responsibility for treaty and status residents within the province speaks directly to that too, because we have responsibilities on and off reserve for delivery of infrastructure and infrastructure really will dictate the water quality in many respects.

We work closely with the federal authorities, the same as the Department of Family Services, I would think. There are some of the communities that were able to co-operate much more closely with than others too in terms of where we can be of use, but we, through our public health inspectors and Dr. Guilfoyle, the provincial public health officer, becomes involved in these issues. But I think it goes back to really this issue is not going to be easily resolved until some of the larger issues are resolved around federal-provincial responsibility for infrastructure and delivery of health programs in all of our communities, including our native and remote communities. The remote communities are not the issue so much as those that are on reserve or off reserve in many cases.

Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chairman, again just moving along, we do have quite a bit to cover this evening.

Under the heading Watershed Management to Improve Water Quality: The watersheds can be influenced by two types of pollution, the point source pollution and nonpoint source pollution. It suggests that one of the ways to deal with this is to establish a buffer zone along waterways. Is the minister aware of any examples of where this is being done currently in the province?

Mr. Cummings: Yes, on a case-by-case basis, there are some communities and some areas where they are of their own volition moving to establish buffer zones where they recognize that perhaps there is activity going on that is helping to nutrify some of the water courses. I mean, we now have codes of practices being put out by agricultural organizations. Well, first of all, the code of practice in protecting water quality, reducing access to water courses by livestock where possible. That is one aspect. Our agricultural regs, it will take time before the full impact of the regulations start to really produce measurable results, I suppose, but as you get new operations coming on stream and then as old ones are upgraded, they are developed in a way that is much more protective of any pollutant getting into the watercourse.

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It seems to me there is a project in several areas, but there is one on the Little Saskatchewan, south of Minnedosa, where they are literally fencing cattle out of the river. I have avoided regulation in that respect because there is such a variation. How do you define a surface water? You have to do it area by area. The member for Dauphin is sitting to your right and I am sure he knows as much about it as any of us do in terms of what happens. He probably is to your right actually. Each area has certain specific problems but defining surface water and how you might define a regulation around that.

This is why I am an advocate, as our government has proven I think, that we want to establish a good working relationship with existing conservation areas and establish more where the people in the area are willing to do so. Lake Dauphin is actually, despite problems that are there, one of the better examples of where the local people have been given some responsibility. They have got involved, they are having battles locally. But the fact that they are keeping them local battles and not asking for wise men from the south to come in with buckets full of cash to solve the problem which are unlikely to arrive in any volume in today's world, they are going to come up with better water quality in the long run.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Penner): Mr. Minister, I just wanted to clarify one comment that was made here. I was not quite sure whether you said, right or right winger.

Mr. Dewar: As long as I am to his left.

The issue that surfaced recently is the toxic blue-green algae that has been discovered or tested for in Manitoba, and I just want to ask the minister where in Manitoba are they currently doing testing for this algae?

Mr. Cummings: Some of the ones that we have, in fact we are doing some follow-up sampling on, from this report, is Pelican Lake, Rock Lake, three locations on the Pembina River upstream of Pelican Lake, approximately midway between Pelican and Rock and, again, approximately midway between Rock and Swan Lake.

We are not even attempting to do the whole province. We are doing some focused sampling, I understand, in the region, so that we get a picture of what is happening in a region, as opposed to a scatter-gun approach. We are also into Shoal Lake and Deacon Reservoir.

If you recall, a year ago, there were some questions raised about potential problems in water that was coming into the Winnipeg water supply that never did reach a level that we needed to do anything about, but there was a short time when there was some concern about an algae bloom that was leading to the type of nasty stuff that--I do not think I can pronounce the name, to tell you the truth. What did we call it? It is just called algae; that is, microcystis.

Mr. Dewar: Well, has the department detected any of the algae in any of your samples so far?

Mr. Cummings: Well, obviously, there was some detection last year. That is why there was some additional sampling being done this year, and, yes, there have been some samples that detected this algae, but none that are above acceptable levels. Let us put it that way.

Mr. Dewar: In what areas of the province are you finding the algae?

Mr. Cummings: I am sorry, I did not hear the question.

Mr. Dewar: Where are you finding the algae?

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

Mr. Cummings: I cannot give you specific locations and levels. This will all be published information when we are done. I am told that the most likely place to find it right now is probably farm dugouts where you will find levels that are detectible.

Mr. Dewar: What action can the department take to treat the algae, to kill the algae?

Mr. Cummings: Well, as I understand the situation, if we are able to study and determine locations and levels and so on, we have to decide what the risk factor is. Anything that can be done to reduce the growth of algae, I suppose would work on this stuff, as well.

To back up what I was saying a moment ago, it seems to me that--and I am certainly not a chemist or a biologist--even things that we are starting to do in regular practice today, like aerating a farm dugout, will reduce algae bloom which will help avoid this type of toxic algae growing just the same as it would any other type of algae.

I do not think the intention--and I do not want the member to feel that there is impending doom out there, but it is something that we want to have information on in case we get a future situation where we have rapid growth and we need to know what the potential is for some of that to occur.

Mr. Dewar: Has the department detected any levels of the liver toxin in Shoal Lake this year?

Mr. Cummings: We cannot absolutely say that there has not been any level detected in Shoal Lake, but I am pretty sure there has not been, and, certainly, we have not had any of the tests anywhere that have been level that have been unacceptable or of concern. Hot weather has something to do with this. It does not mean we will not.

Mr. Dewar: How often is testing done in the Shoal Lake area; in particular, testing done for this particular algae?

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Mr. Cummings: We routinely have done testing monthly. With this program, I am told, the city has been asked to take some additional samples, and that will give us a better picture.

Mr. Dewar: Following up again in terms of Shoal Lake, we all know that is a source of Winnipeg's drinking water and it is a concern to all of us. There was a watershed agreement signed in 1994 between Ontario and the five First Nations bands bordering on Shoal Lake, and it states here that Manitoba had been invited to the discussions. Has Manitoba participated in the discussions so far.

An Honourable Member: Are we participating?

Mr. Cummings: Well, yes, we are participating, but there ain't much happening. We have a problem, and I suppose we will now have a chance to try the new administration on for size in this respect. There are two issues: one is just the straight issue of development in the area, but the second part of that is, we have always been of the view that there needs to be a management zone, if you will, in that area and that Manitoba should be entitled to be an active participant.

The Rae administration seemed to put an enormous amount of emphasis on native participation. I am not going to comment whether--like they certainly have a right to participate. The level of control and participation becomes part of the issue. The bands, at least one band said they would not talk to me. The only person they wanted to talk to was the Premier (Mr. Filmon). I mean that would be nice, but certainly if you want to have meaningful discussions, you have to allow some of us flunkies to get on with doing some of the work. That became an issue. You have to then look at if you are going to have regional management, is there going to be co-management of some of the resources?

First and foremost, what caused us grief over the last year is the complete abrogation of the Shoal Lake agreement that was signed between the City of Winnipeg, the province, the feds and Shoal Lake No. 40 Band. As I understand it, 40 now wants to get out of the agreement. The last letter I saw said they no longer recognize the agreement, as I recall. So going back to Ruth Grier's time as Environment minister in Ontario, we have actively pursued discussions in this area. The former premier certainly seemed to agree to enhancing the Shoal Lake water quality agreement and doing something in that area, but we really have not had much action in the last while, neither have we had much demand for development.

The one band, 40 I guess, is still pushing for a road to go through there. We believe that would be the end of protection of the water quality in that area, to tell you the truth, that we really would have development spring up around what is a pretty pristine water supply source right now.

So the answer is a qualified yes.

Mr. Dewar: I wish the minister well in his discussions.

An issue, of course, that I have to raise, I raise it I think every year, is the situation concerning the quality of the water that flows by my community in the Red River. At this point, in Selkirk the last number of weeks, we are forced to rely on the Red River to supplement our drinking water. I believe it is 40 percent currently comes from the Red River, and residents of the community of Selkirk rely upon this water as their source of drinking water. The minister, of course, is aware that it is treated and all of us assume that it is safe to drink.

What actions can the minister take, or is he prepared to take, to deal with the big, big issue of cleaning up the Red River?

Mr. Cummings: When you talk about water quality and water supply, and I know that you are focusing on water quality, but I also think that we should be talking in the broader sense about water quality and delivery of water to all the communities in the capital region, I always find it interesting that there is probably surplus capacity in the Shoal Lake system somewhere that could put water into Selkirk, but I am not saying that in the sense that we should be abrogating responsibility to clean up the Red as much as possible.

The same thing is true in the other end of the city. I mean the St. Germain-Headingley issue was about the delivery of water to a large extent. They want quality water delivered into their communities, but on the strict question of water quality in the Red, we are still in the ongoing process with the city. I mean, we are talking several, several millions of dollars to get the city's act cleaned up so you are not getting the problems that you see coming by your door.

Disinfection was recommended by the Clean Environment Commission, and we have in fact proposed that the city include disinfection in the development of its water treatment facilities over the next five years. We have asked for an overall sewage treatment plan and we have included the dollars. I guess the ball is sort of in the city's court at this juncture. Now the criticism is always--and I will acknowledge--that you can always go faster and get more done but you do have to have the dollars available to do it. We are not going to put people in Selkirk at risk. That is not going to happen. You need quality water. Drawing it out of the Red is tougher to treat and deliver.

I think what you will see to solve the problem is over the long term--not just even the changing of one plant in Winnipeg will answer your problem because it is that storm sewer overflow that is going to get you every time. You can have all your treatment plants right up to snuff, and you are still going to have a number of days when that storm sewer overflow is going to make the water quality in front of Selkirk less than desirable.

I would invite the member to think in the bigger picture about what we are talking about in capital region, and water is part of it. The city has a plan where they can go to another lake. They can go to Lake Natalie if they need to, I believe it is called. They can also go to the Sandilands out here for additional well water to supplement Shoal Lake water. Those pipelines can flow two ways.

The member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) has talked many times about the possibility of having a pipeline south from the city and it could be a two-way situation. Aquifer water could be accessed and come back to the city occasionally from that area if a system were in place and if our planners, municipally and provincially, could get together to look at the bigger plan on some of these issues. We would all gain, but they are massive infrastructure dollars. We can build on the infrastructure that is out there, but if you will allow me one moment to be philosophical, I think the problem is going to have to get worse in terms of supply before you are going to get all of the different authorities to really turn their minds to co-operating on dealing with this issue.

Now that we have plenty of water in our rivers again, people are probably not as concerned as they were two years ago. Two years ago, they did not think we could take any water out of the Assiniboine to send down to the Carman, Winkler area. This year, everybody was probably hoping they could send a whole bunch down there. It is a reflection of the ebb and flow of prairie rivers partly.

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Mr. Dewar: I thank the minister for the answer. There are two issues of course. One is the long-term cleanup of the Red and, of course, I realize that it is. The other is the short-term problem we have and that is to find a new source of drinking water, and that is an interesting recommendation or suggestion.

What they are currently doing in Selkirk is they are upgrading the water supply by phase one and Phase 2. Phase 1 is the construction of a multimillion litre storage container, underground storage container. Phase 2 of that project was to--and this is simple terms--dig a well to fill stage one, but the problem is that the federal government has now decided they are no longer committed to Phase 2, so what we are going to have in Selkirk is a huge storage facility with no capability of putting water--that is at the moment. I raised this with the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach) the other day, and they claim they are working on that and I wish them well.

You mentioned the disinfection of the sewage. What would that cost?

Mr. Cummings: We are guesstimating, but if memories tell us correctly, $13 million per plant and take $13 million times three--does that sound right--plus the associated operating dollars which could be a half a million a year--pardon me, $2.5 million, not a half. I missed the $2 million. So it is an expensive proposition.

Mr. Dewar: Whose responsibility is it to cover those costs? Is it the province or is it the City of Winnipeg?

Mr. Cummings: It is pretty much the city. The water development and infrastructure programs, very often the province assists in the early stages of development with the communities and then shift as the tax base grows but, at the same time, the city switched to a block funding program a few years ago at their own request, as I recall. I think it probably occurred under the Pawley administration. So their capital dollars are blended in with the approximately $100 million they get every year transferred from the province.

Mr. Dewar: Do you know if the City of Winnipeg made an application to deal with this issue under the infrastructure projects?

Mr. Cummings: We would not necessarily know, but no one in this group has heard of it.

Mr. Dewar: I think you are absolutely right, because I do not think they have. I guess it is unfortunate, but it is not a big priority for the City of Winnipeg at the moment.

One of the recommendations of the Clean Environment Commission was to have a warning device to detect high levels of fecal coliform. Has the government moved at all in establishing this warning system?

Mr. Cummings: Whether it will be the City of Winnipeg or otherwise, if the fecal coliform count gets high in a given body of water, we would post it. We have meetings going on this week with the City of Winnipeg about implementing something around that recommendation.

If you are asking, did we post any last year, I do not think so.

The recommendations of the CEC were more specific about a more aggressive communications program. That has not been implemented.

Mr. Dewar: Again from the report, it says in the summer of '93, record rainfalls resulted in frequent overflows of the sewage system here in the city of Winnipeg, which allowed, unfortunately, raw sewage once again to enter the Red River.

That was in '93. This year, as we know, the levels were high again. Has the department detected higher levels this year than last year or the year before because of the high level of rains?

Mr. Cummings: I almost hate to give you this answer, but first of all, we have been drier than normal in terms of local rainfall, statistically, plus you have high volumes of water going down the river, so probably the answer would be negative in terms of increased counts. It does not mean that the potential is not still there.

Mr. Dewar: Well, as long as the result is negative, I do not mind being corrected, but how often is testing done in Selkirk for fecal coliform?

Mr. Cummings: You will have to wait a minute.

The question was how often do we monitor. It is much the same as Shoal Lake water. We have a regular monitoring schedule, and then that can be modified if conditions would appear to warrant it, so there is some. You could argue that there could be a more rigorous testing program, but we know that the problem is there.

I imagine your question is based on protection of the Selkirk community, and that is more based on the management of the treatment system at Selkirk to make sure that the water is adequately handled.

I would like to correct something I put on the record a few minutes ago. The cost of the treatment of the city's three plants would not be 36 or whatever it was I said. It would probably be $20 million and rising to put the three plants up to full capability for disinfection, plus the $2.5 million operating once they were in place. I think I gave you a figure that was something like $42 million or something. It is not that high.

Mr. Dewar: If you would not mind responding to that then, if the City of Winnipeg was to spend that money, what impact would that have on the level of pollution in the Red River?

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Mr. Cummings: Some days not very much. That is the argument. I can give you something more precise but the fact is that will not do away with the overload problem they have on the storm sewer system. That is a mechanical problem that has to be fixed. Any time we do not have that overload problem then the river would be in good shape. Look we know, as well--I am sure everybody at Selkirk probably knows--we are getting better quality water from the States than what we are delivering to you. That is acknowledged.

Part of it is agricultural, too. Believe it or not the agricultural--well, let me rephrase that. It sounds like I am sceptical. The fact is that the agricultural practices are improving, and I am told, and ask staff to correct me if I have the wrong understanding here, but the agricultural practices recently are improving to the point where they are not degrading the Red River the way they did a decade ago. So even in Manitoba, we are not having the impact that we did have but the city still has a major impact.

Mr. Dewar: The good thing is, of course, we do not rely upon the Red River as our source. It was just used as an emergency source a couple of years ago and now, unfortunately, this year.

I just want to ask the minister, is the minister completely convinced that the water, once it is treated, is safe for human consumption?

Mr. Cummings: Yes, I have no reason to believe otherwise.

The department has given me one other piece of information here that I did not give you before and that is, you asked me if all the plants were up to snuff would that solve the problem. To put that in perspective, you could then safely swim in the river but, on average, there would be 30 days when you still should not. So, on average, you get 30 days. No matter how complete the treatment system is at the plants, you still get 30 days when the city is overloading and discharging through its rain sewer system instead of into its treatment plants. Is that correct? Yes.

Mr. Dewar: I still just urge the minister to continue to work on this on behalf of the constituents, not only of Selkirk, but all those who live downstream of the city of Winnipeg.

Mr. Cummings: Could I just add to that, that we have probably done more in the last number of years to get on with this problem than has occurred in the previous number of years. The debate is essentially closed about whether or not the city should put in disinfection. The water quality objectives and the report of the Clean Environment Commission would indicate that they should. It is a matter of how soon it gets done.

Mr. Dewar: What influence can you have as the Minister of Environment to force the City of Winnipeg to take some action?

Mr. Cummings: We licence their plants.

Mr. Dewar: Which means?

Mr. Cummings: I guess we could order them to do it tomorrow but that would be a bit of a violation of where we have tried to bring this along in an incremental way in terms of impact on the city's ratepayers and at the same time trying to protect the downstream users.

When we had the Clean Environment Commission hearings, the commission did not come out and recommend an overnight change. They acknowledged that this was a big enough problem, that the city had an infrastructure problem that has been built up over 80 years or maybe a hundred years, that it will not be undone easily. The city's argument, of course, is that even, as I said, with disinfection the 30 days mitigate against the good that would be done but, in the long run, we have to aim towards the best quality water in the rivers. So the Clean Environment Commission recommendations, we will continue to pursue them.

If you are asking me will I order or am I likely to order or is this government likely to order tomorrow the city or anytime in the next short while, the city to within six months or six years have their disinfection in place, you are looking at an incremental upgrade of each of the plants. The west end plant just had $22 million spent on it last year. There are other costs they have associated with their upgrades so we are trying to get them to integrate this improvement as they upgrade their plants. It is probably not as fast as the people in Selkirk would like, but it will get there.

Mr. Dewar: Well, I do agree with the minister there.

Following up on the Red River and other contaminants that are found in it, on pages 72 and 73 there is a number of graphs. One would indicate the level of salt, phosphorus and nitrogen. They all, unfortunately, seem to be taking a bit of an upward trend as the Red hits Selkirk. The dissolved oxygen fluctuates.

Can you explain why there seems to be such an increase in those levels? I guess we could begin with the salts.

Mr. Cummings: Well, '91 would be dry, would it not?

Mr. Dewar: Well, it is not only in the Red.

Mr. Cummings: This probably is not going to give the member much comfort, but I suppose, it is pointed out to me that the reality is that you are the closest community to the mouth of the river so you have got all of the total accumulative impacts of what may have impacted on the river from start to finish. I am looking at the phosphorous as one. That would seem to follow that trend. I do not know why '92 should be higher in that case. Nitrate levels are higher in '89.

Mr. Dewar: It is not only in the Red though. Obviously, it fluctuates for different reasons, but there just seems to be a disturbing trend over the last number of years from '85 upwards, and again '85, that there seems to be an increase in these chemicals.

Mr. Cummings: Well, I am not sure if this is relevant, but I know that '89 was a dry year. An awful lot of particles carry, which probably had adhered to them a number of combinations of materials off of agricultural land. They were blowing and then they ended up, in some cases, they blew into drainage which in turn ended up, I am sure, washing into the system.

I am told that can be quite a source of pollutants getting into the water system where there is erosion that contributes to it, but I really cannot, on short notice, unless somebody in the department can help me out, answer your question in those areas.

The conclusion is, however, that there really is not a verifiable trend over the years and that may be the best sign. In fact, I would think it is the best sign.

In '85, nitrate levels, for example, there was a dramatic drop. There was also a drop in phosphorous in '85, and 1980 was not that far below '89, which was the high. It went down.

Have I still got the floor, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Yes.

Mr. Cummings: The graph, for purposes of illustration, those lines are up to the top of the graph, but I remind you to look at the numbers on the left-hand side. We are talking about milligrams per litre and we are talking about .2 to .6 to .7. I mean, they are very, very small measurements.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr. Chairperson, I thank the member for Selkirk (Mr. Dewar) for being patient with me. I am just going to ask a couple of very brief questions.

There is an issue that is becoming very important to no doubt the residents of all of Winnipeg in terms of the proposal of an additional landfill site, but it is nowhere more important to the people which I happen to represent. There is a great deal of concern with respect to what is being proposed.

The Clean Environment Commission is going to be conducting hearings with respect to it. I have had discussions with BFI, in particular, along with some of the city administrators, and I am somewhat confused. I would like to think I do not confuse that easily, but what I am being told, or at least the questions that I would have is whether or not there is a need for an additional landfill facility?

I have not been convinced as of yet that there is in fact that need. It seems to me, and as I say, I believe I have touched base with the different stakeholders, if you will, that because of user fees being charged we have seen a company that has come up with a proposal to have their own landfill site, thereby not necessarily having to pay into user fees. If in fact that is the real reason for having another landfill site being brought to the city of Winnipeg, I have some real concerns with it.

I asked, for example, the city, which also has a conflict of interest in terms of, well, is there a need for a third, another landfill site to feed the city of Winnipeg or for the city of Winnipeg to use? The response I have received is, no, there is not. Again, I acknowledge that there is a bit of a conflict of interest, but it is a fairly convincing no. It is not argument that is being put forward.

The first question that I have is: Is there, in fact, a need, and can the Department of Environment justify the need for another landfill site to serve the city of Winnipeg?

I know part of that argument when the minister responds will be, well, this landfill site is not only to serve the city of Winnipeg but also rural municipalities that are around the city of Winnipeg. I know that is going to be part of the argument because that is part of the argument that BFI had provided me, but in essence what we are talking about is a vast majority of the material that is going to be going into the landfill site will be coming from the city of Winnipeg. The City of Winnipeg has a bias, so does the BFI. They also have somewhat of a bias and a conflict of interest.

When I met with residents from the Meadows West area, I had indicated to them that my primary concern will be, first and foremost, justifying the need. If they are able to justify a need, then it is a question in terms of finding the ideal location. No one wants one in their back yard, I will be the first to admit that, myself included. But if there is a need, let us talk in terms of what is the ideal location.

Having said that, again, another argument could be put forward in terms of the need to privatize. I am concerned in terms of if the government says, well, we want to provide competition, then is it next year we are authorizing another landfill site for Laidlaw because Laidlaw has a proposal that they want to put into place.

The minister could, quite accurately, indicate that, look, there are all sorts of private landfill sites throughout the different rural municipalities that are out there. I think we have to be fair in acknowledging that the city of Winnipeg is very distinct, and the size of a landfill site that we are talking about is fairly significant. I have been fairly clear in terms of, as I say, the residents that make up the area that I represent in terms of wanting to ensure that the right thing is done.

The question that I would ask the minister, because again we do not have too much time, is, there is a Meadows West residents' group; would the minister make available, if the Meadows West residents' group found it was necessary, to have someone from within the department go out and explain the process and the pros and cons?

I know they have had representatives from BFI--I definitely do believe it would be advantageous if the minister would indicate that, if given enough time or notice, he would have someone from within the department come down and explain the process, because I know that there was a significant process, that BFI has already gone through a significant amount of investment. I treat it very seriously. So do the residents of Meadows West, and I am sure that they would welcome the opportunity to have someone from within the department attend one of the executive meetings in a very open fashion. It is not to try to put them on the spot, but rather to get a better understanding of the issue at hand and also the process.

I would ask if the minister would be prepared to make that sort of a commitment.

Mr. Cummings: Well, the member for Inkster covered quite a range of aspects of the discussion around the BFI proposal. He closed with a fairly specific question.

Explaining the process is one thing, but the department is not the proponent, nor am I the proponent, which the department would be representing me and government, of course, in any of their undertaking. Explaining the process, however, might not be what the member has in mind. I mean, that is straightforward enough.

There is an ad in the paper this week that poses some questions. Those are the questions that were meant to stimulate thoughts and potential presentations to the Clean Environment Commission's first hearings in August. They are hearings under the part of the act that talks about the capability of conducting an investigation.

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An investigation seems to imply a wrongdoing. In this case, an investigation is meant to imply a gathering of information. If the member has seen those questions--and there is also a brochure that has been put out that is very much along the lines of what is advertised in the paper. I should have brought one tonight for purposes of this discussion because it is meant to lay out just the very questions that you posed. What are we doing--and this becomes what we want at this stage--the need and justification to the extent that, is another site needed. Should the city have a monopoly? I mean, that probably comes as close to crystallizing the whole question as anything else. Should the city have a monopoly over the waste that is produced within its boundaries? I will be interested to hear what businesses who produce commercial waste may have to say about that, because today they pay someone to take their--the city will not come and pick it up, so they have only one place to take it right now unless they find their own source, and some of them do haul outside of the city today.

The city probably does not know how much waste it is losing today, but some of it, it does not want to know about because they do not want it. Over in the Springfield area, I am sure there is some waste that has gone to the rural landfills out there. It is quite legitimate that it go there, but I am sure the city does not want to know about it. If they did, the owners of the waste probably do not want to haul it across the city and pay, what is it, $43 a tonne to put it in Brady, if they can find a cheaper place to put it. Now, that does not mean to imply that I think BFI or anybody else is going to undercut the city by very much, because if that is what the market is, then they probably would assume that they can make a pretty darn good profit at that price, given the known costs of operating, $43 a tonne tipping fee.

That gets me back to my original comment about what are commercial operators going to say in terms of the fact that if the city does not come and pick up their waste today, so they have to hire a trucker--it might be BFI, it might be somebody else--to take it across the city to put it in the Brady landfill and pay them $43 a tonne so that they can dump it, they may have something to say about whether or not there is an opportunity for a site that maybe does some recycling of some of their product. I do not know what BFI will propose. We have not seen their proposal, frankly, and maybe it is a discussion that is never going to have to be finalized, but we all assume we are going to see a proposal.

The question that the city made some good political hay out of was that they were going to lose revenue from the Brady landfill; therefore, they would not be able to enter into a recycling program because they would not be able to use the profits from Brady to pay for the recycling program. I suppose I might as well say it as think it. The fact is it seems to me they are going to make money on the recycling program the way the markets are starting to evolve right now, so the wheels are starting to come off of that argument.

But we do have a regional problem that needs to be dealt with. We are faced with a number of municipalities, some of which are part way into the process. I have already received a rather excited letter from one of the municipalities that is part way into siting a landfill in their own jurisdiction. They said, are we going to be roped into this discussion because BFI and the city are having a fight? Do we now have to come in and defend our proposal for a landfill too? No, but they might want to come to the hearings and make their feelings known about regional capability of landfill, because up until recently, the city would not allow some of the rural municipalities to get into Brady.

Now, I am not any dumber than the next guy. I know that BFI wants more than just the surrounding municipalities. They have had some discussions, and I really believe there needs to be more discussions between BFI as the proponent in this case and the city as the jurisdiction that is likely to be the most impacted by anything that they might do because of their capability to develop something of some significant size and see if there is not some swaps that are available.

Brady could accept materials from BFI, and the city could put materials in BFI's site, given appropriate haulage and reciprocity of tipping arrangements. Both parties have said they are willing to discuss, but then they never do, and both parties have said they are prepared to publicly defend their position, and this prehearing, the best way to describe it, that we have called will allow them to publicly defend their position in the framework of what the commission is asking. It will give everybody a chance to have a say at the table and not just those two players.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Chairperson, what I will indicate maybe to the residents' association is that if they feel that it is necessary to have someone from the department to talk about the process, that they write to the minister, and I hope and trust that he would at least see favourably to responding positively to that.

The other comment I would make is I would think that there might be some benefit--I know the hearings are, I believe, at the Convention Centre--for the residents, because the residents are first and foremost my top priority, and I believe they should be for the government, because it is the residents who pay the property taxes and choose to live in the city, and they deserve the ability to be able to have that direct input. I think it would be advantageous to provide them the opportunity to have one of the hearings within, for example, the Meadows West School or something of that nature.

Having said that, again, I appreciate the member for Selkirk (Mr. Dewar) letting me come in at this point when he was asking questions, and the minister might want to quickly respond to those comments.

Mr. Cummings: Very briefly, I am usually more than willing to be flexible or encourage flexibility on these things, but the Clean Environment Commission has a very significant expense setting up and moving because of the recording, because of the scheduling and because of translation services in this case, I believe, as well, so they have sort of given me the indication that they want to set up in one location and it was fairly central to the region. In this case, they are encouraging the municipalities from outside of the city to come down to the Convention Centre, as well.

So I would encourage you to encourage your interested citizens to come. There is no reason why, however, if there is a committee or an organization in your area that would like to hear directly about what the process is and how they might become involved, we will do everything we can to help out.

Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chairman, all of us are deeply concerned about the situation concerning the forest fire problems we are having here in Manitoba, notwithstanding the great human tragedies, also the great loss of resources and in wildlife.

Is the Department of Environment monitoring the situation? Will the minister provide us with an update in terms of the environmental impacts on our province's ecosystem?

Mr. Cummings: You are probably a little bit ahead of us in the sense that we have a multidepartmental response to these issues and the Department of Environment is not a disinterested observer, but it would be what we can pick up through monitoring. Where this will show up likely is in water quality and air quality and ultimately in harvestable forest licensing, all of those areas. I am not sure that I can give you a real clear picture.

I think you are a little ahead of us in asking us how we can tell you, other than what the obvious impacts are regarding the environment. We would be called upon if there was ongoing air problems in communities. That is why we are evacuating people. You do not necessarily have to have a monitoring program to know when they should get the heck out. If it is an impending danger, you are better to be on the safe side. The department is saying probably any ecological assessment will come after the fires are out.

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Mr. Dewar: Again, moving along, there are so many important issues that we have to overlook today, but I do want to deal with the issue of waste management. The member for Inkster was talking about waste management and landfill sites, and so on.

I met with an individual who raised some issues with us, Mr. Roy Sveinson and Mr. Sveinson is--[interjection] I know the relationship there but he did ask us to raise some concerns here. His company is Moosehorn Supply.

Is the minister aware of his proposals and some of the very interesting proposals that he has put forward in his plan?

Mr. Cummings: Yes, I have met with Mr. Sveinson on probably three different occasions.

Mr. Dewar: What are your general thoughts on his proposal? He tells us that his proposal here, his initiative, could recycle 80 percent of the wastes here in the province of Manitoba. I am sure that would be of great interest to the minister.

Mr. Cummings: There were a number of things occurred all about the same time. There were a number of proposals, not exactly like Mr. Sveinson's, but there were a couple of other proposals that did talk about single-site processing of all of the waste and an attempt to get the recyclables out at the same time. We were already well into a multimaterial program when the proposal first came forward in terms of implementation of fines and collection of levies and moving towards funding of the multimaterial program.

As the city has demonstrated several times in the discussions around the Manitoba multimaterial stewardship program, in the end it is the city's waste. If the city were to choose to go this route, I do not think that I would or should step in to stop them if it is a practical application.

There were several parts to this and one part was, was there any availability of funding through the Sustainable Development Innovations program as well, did not mean to appear to be disinterested. We, in fact, reviewed it seriously, but we did not rate it high on our list of proposals that were lined up for funding under the Sustainable Development Fund, and you know the size of the fund.

By the time you get back to where you are dealing with proposals of this nature, you are down closer to $2 million than $3 million by the time you take some of the Green Team and things like that off the top, in terms of funding, and the tire recycling money that was there. So we did not dismiss this out of hand, but we did not embrace it either as a provincial strategy.

Mr. Dewar: What would you suggest I tell Mr. Sveinson about your approach so far? I think this is a very, very exciting initiative. He has claimed to us that he could recycle 80 percent of all wastes, and I think that sounds quite, quite exciting. I think the government should look at this very seriously. I want to know why you have not yet?

Mr. Cummings: Well, we did look at it seriously. The fact is that the $5 million or so annually that is being collected is in the hands of the Manitoban stewardship board. If he were to convince them that this would be the way to go and then convince the city that he could have a contract--I mean, it can be exciting but it may not be doable.

I do not have any personal animosity towards the proposal, but there is not any vehicle for funding. One of the questions was would we pay on materials being put in storage. That was exactly the reason why we did not go with almost all of the tire proposals that we had. People wanted to be paid to collect the tires, and they said, do not worry, we will dispose of them. Well, what a great potential for disaster that would be. Have $5 million a year for three years, you have got $15 million worth of stuff in a pile somewhere, and then the company disappears on you. That is not a risk I am prepared to take, but I am not in any way going to degrade or attack the proposal. It will work in some areas, but it just has not got its foot in the door here.

Mr. Dewar: So what action do you suggest I convey to the proponents of this proposal to get provincial support, or are they seeking provincial support?

Mr. Cummings: Well, you can tell them my answer is--my answer has not changed from the last meeting that we were at, and that was that there is more than me has to be convinced of the validity of this program.

We have set up a program that has got to be driven by the entrepreneurial skills of the private sector out there and have the blessing of the municipality. The funds are paid through the municipality to the recycling program that is considered acceptable.

As I recall, one of the first proposals that Mr. Sveinson put forward was to put an incinerator. I know the second one did not include an incinerator, but he was prepared to use heat recovery and put an incinerator on the campus at the U of M. All you need to do is do a review of the literature on how environmentalists view incinerators being fed by an unpredictable source of fuel and all the questions about heavy metals and everything else that can be emitted. That is a whole different ball of wax.

The second proposal, unless I have got the two proposals confused, was more for the managing of the entire waste and the removal of the recyclables, but if the recyclables are not going to be marketed quickly, you are going to need an enormous backlog of cash. I guess you can take Hansard and provide it to them if you are asking me for what you might say in terms of advice. I do not have any more advice than what I have already given.

Mr. Dewar: Again moving on, following up on an issue that was raised by my Leader with the Premier (Mr. Filmon), and that was a fine that was waived on, I believe, soft drink companies, can the minister provide us with a bit of an update on that, please?

Mr. Cummings: Yes, the fines have in fact not been waived. It does not mean that there may not be an eventual relief in that respect, but for the last six months everybody has been jumping up and down about the fact that we relieved them of this penalty. We have not done it yet, although we have indicated that the support through the MPSP and the Manitoba Soft Drink Recycling program could be used to--if they were to be put in place appropriately, there would be an opportunity for the remission of this penalty.

To understand this issue, you have got to go back to the implementation of the 2-cent levy on beverage containers. At the time that levy was to be implemented, the Manitoba soft drink industry was subsidizing the Manitoba Soft Drink Recycling program to the tune of over $1 million a year. That has been verified.

As soon as the legislation and regulatory process was put in place, that would get the 2-cent levy up and running, they were under no obligation to continue running MSDRI, the big trucks that you see rolling around the city and the province collecting recyclable beverage containers.

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If they had have shut that program down at the time that the levies were being imposed or the regulation was being put in place, they would have put at least half of our small communities that were recycling out of business. They had a contract with the Manitoba Liquor Commission which they could have probably broken, so we would have no recycling collection capability across the province. Simply by them shutting down that program, they would have saved more than the cost of the assessment for them not having met the targets that we set for the collection of beverage containers in the province.

I think there is another important distinction. These were not fines. These were an assessment, an additional assessment, that they were to pay if they did not meet the previously agreed to targets in terms of the percentage of collection. I cannot remember the exact numbers, but I believe they were being asked to collect 60 percent, and they were somewhere under 50 percent. That is the type of ratio.

So what we got was a significant collection program continuing in the province at the time that we were in transition. What the beverage container industry asked for was if they continued that program and aggressively worked to implement the MPS fee or as it is now known the MMSB, the Manitoba multimaterial stewardship board program, they asked that they have those additional assessments waived, which under the act I understand the minister has the authority to do.

That has not occurred, but as I have always indicated, that was the approach that we wanted to have happen in the province. We did not have any fewer numbers of dollars being spent. We probably ended up having more dollars being spent in support of recycling than we would have had otherwise because of the ongoing subsidy to MSDRI.

So the end result is--as you have asked, what is the full story behind that. We are doing a full accounting of the verification of the monies that the beverage container industry has spent in support of MSDRI, and we are looking at the contribution, where we are taking $5 million annually rather than $1 million annually out of the beverage container industry under the new levy program, and we are putting all of that together to get the best bang for our buck in the collection of the materials. I cannot tell you much more than that. It has not occurred yet.

Mr. Dewar: Well, unfortunately, we are running quite low on time.

Mr. Cummings: We have the staff here from the Sustainable Development Innovations Fund if you would like to ask some questions in that area. I presume you might have some concerns about that, so we could do that before we shut down.

Mr. Dewar: The member for Dauphin has some specific questions he would like to raise, so I will let him raise those now.

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Actually, I have a whole bunch of questions that I am not going to be able to get into. They were questions that I have been asking before, and your colleagues in cabinet have sort of sifted me down through the Estimates process, and I am landing on your table here.

Mr. Cummings: Did they pass the buck?

Mr. Struthers: You go deal with them.

It has to do with environmental assessments. What stage is the environmental assessment surrounding Louisiana-Pacific at? I know they have done the assessment having to do with the building, and the building has been underway, close to being built, I understand.

Are there going to be further assessments on the environment surrounding the extraction of the hardwoods from the area?

Mr. Cummings: The forest program?

Mr. Struthers: That is right.

Mr. Cummings: I guess I should preface this by saying we are the only jurisdiction in Canada that has forest management licensing that is overlaid by an environment act licensing, and the Clean Environment Commission will be holding hearings on the forest licensing to Louisiana-Pacific in September.

Mr. Struthers: Okay, still sticking with Louisiana-Pacific, the other question I had was, what technology is Louisiana expected to have to control the emissions coming from that plant? From your department, what are your expectations of Louisiana-Pacific?

Mr. Cummings: I know why the member is asking the question, but I have to go back to the fundamental aspect of the way licensing is done, and that is a standard is set that they must meet, and how they meet that standard from a technological point of view is generally left up to the proponent, because they have the capability of deciding the best balance of cost and benefit to achieve the final level of air quality, in this case, that is required under the licence, but it will have the E-tube and the RTO, as I understand their present intentions.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairperson, from what you just told me then, how is your department going to enforce any kind of standards with Louisiana-Pacific? If it is left up to them, how will your department be looking at enforcing the standards that you want them to meet?

Mr. Cummings: I would not want you to imply that it is left up to them, that the standard is left up to them. The standard, we will enforce the standard--[interjection] You say how? We shut them down. I mean that is as simple as that. They meet the standard or they do not operate. That is not something I would ever likely expect to have happen, but that is the reality of the licence requirements.

Monitoring is done under our supervision, so that we have a good grasp of emissions. The debate about what the technology should be in that plant, the very first technology that they talked about putting in was already far more advanced than--everybody talks about the plant that was in B.C. The opponents were pointing to the plant in B.C. and talking about all the problems it was having. It did not even have the beginning of the technology that they were planning on putting into this plant at Swan River, so there was no comparison between the two plants.

Then the debate, as I recall, during the hearings, degenerated down--degenerated is not the right term, but the debate revolved around whether or not they would have the most modern technology. Through the course of the debate, the discussion was the one we just had is, we set the standard and how they get there will be their problem. They have said they could get there by various means, but then near the end of the hearings or part way through the hearings they have said that was when they were going to put in the RTO technology, I believe, if I have got the terms correct, and everybody seemed to be happy, and that was how it evolved.

The discussion after that was that they had a plant in the States that was operating with that technology and it had a Monsanto unit attached to it. I do not understand the processes any more than what I have been spoon-fed, but the bottom line was that they felt they could meet the emissions with that other system. The fact was if they could meet the emissions, we would be prepared to license them, but their experience with that plant apparently began to deteriorate, and they decided to stick with the original E-tube and RTO technology. So that is the long and the short of it.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Resolution 31.2: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $10,914,000 for Environment, Environmental Management, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1996.

Item 3. Clean Environment Commission (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $231,500--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $182,000--pass.

Resolution 31.3: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $413,500 for Environment, Clean Environment Commission, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1996.

Item 4. International Institute for Sustainable Development $1,375,000--pass.

Resolution 31.4: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $1,375,000 for Environment, International Institute for Sustainable Development, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1996.

The last item to be considered for the Estimates of the Department of Environment is item 1.(a) Minister's Salary $22,800. At this point we request the minister's staff to leave the table for the consideration of this item.

Item 1.(a) Minister's Salary $22,800--pass.

Resolution 31.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $1,472,300 for Environment, Administration and Finance, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1996.

This completes the Estimates of the Department of Environment.

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