Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 12 - Evidence - April 1, 2015
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 1, 2015
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 7:48 p.m. to study challenges relating to First Nations infrastructure on reserves.
Senator Dennis Glen Patterson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening. I would like to welcome all honourable senators and members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples either here, via CPAC or the Web.
My name is Dennis Patterson. I have the privilege of chairing the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. I represent Nunavut in the Senate.
Our mandate is to examine proposed legislation and matters relating to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada generally. This evening, we are pleased to hear testimony on a specific order of reference authorizing us to examine and report on the challenges and potential solutions relating to infrastructure on reserves, including housing and community infrastructure, and on innovative opportunities for financing, including more effective collaborative strategies. We have completed our hearings on housing and are now in the last stages of our study on infrastructure.
Today we will hear from three witnesses representing the National Research Council of Canada. The NRC provides Canadian firms with research and development support in order for them to bring new technologies to market. Of interest to the committee tonight is the NRC's information relating to building codes and to innovative building materials and products that might be of interest to First Nations.
Before proceeding to the testimony, I would like to go around the table and please ask members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Moore: Wilfred Moore from Nova Scotia.
Senator Sibbeston: Nick Sibbeston from the Northwest Territories.
Senator Dyck: Lillian Dyck from Saskatchewan.
Senator Watt: Charlie Watt from Nunavik.
Senator Beyak: Lynn Beyak from Ontario.
Senator Enverga: Tobias Enverga from Ontario.
Senator Greene Raine: Nancy Greene Raine from British Columbia.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas from Alberta.
The Chair: Members of the committee, I know you will help me to welcome our guests this evening from the National Research Council of Canada: Mr. John R. McDougall, President, Executive Offices; Mr. Michael Swinton, Research Officer, Building Envelope and Materials, Construction; and Mr. Philip Rizcallah, Manager, Canadian Codes Centre, Construction.
Thank you for appearing to assist the committee. We look forward to your presentation, which will be followed by questions from senators. Please proceed, Mr. McDougall.
John R. McDougall, President, Executive Offices, National Research Council of Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening. As has been noted, I'm John McDougall, President of the National Research Council of Canada.
[Translation]
Thank you for inviting me here to speak today; I hope that our discussion will make a contribution to the committee's deliberations.
[English]
I hope that all of our remarks will be helpful to you this evening. I'm here to look pretty, mostly. I have my real experts beside me: Philip Rizcallah and Michael Swinton. They're the experts of the building code and construction technologies activities of the National Research Council. We will be looking mostly to them. I believe that Philip appeared last February in earlier deliberations of the committee.
We all know that Aboriginal communities are growing rapidly. As your interim report observed, many of these communities confront serious challenges with respect to the availability and condition of their housing and related infrastructure.
[Translation]
To begin, I would like to take a few minutes to remind committee members about the mandate of the National Research Council of Canada.
[English]
We obviously don't address the policy aspects of some of these challenges, but I'm confident that with the people we have here tonight we will be able to share their knowledge and experience to assist and inform the committee as it considers those topics. I will pay particular attention to those related to housing, infrastructure, safety and our involvement in remote and rural areas. These are places where I think we can help you out. We provided a short summary of some of the areas in which we work that might give you some thoughts about areas you wish to pursue more explicitly.
NRC's mandate is essentially to support economic growth through development and to do-risk technology development for industry and government. In that sense, we work with a lot of companies, but we also work in strict technology development that is used to improve the performance of existing products, underpin their development and help to produce innovative new products. In that respect, we work with a lot of suppliers to the construction industry to ensure that their products perform to specifications and to demonstrate that they will actually meet building codes, energy codes, fire codes and so on.
NRC is also the coordinator and custodian of Canada's model building code. This model code, and I emphasize the word "model,'' is developed in collaboration with regulators, manufacturers, inspectors and builders along with the input of NRC experts. I use the word "model'' because code application is actually not a federal responsibility; as a result, the work we do does not carry the aura of federal law. A model code actually provides a foundation and encourages common standards. Provincial governments or other jurisdictions can choose to endorse or adapt the model code, or they can modify it, or they can establish independent standards.
Regulation of building construction and safety on First Nations reserves, specifically residential homes, is not regulated, for the most part, through provincial jurisdictions. The responsibility rests with the band council or the chief. On some reserves, there may be agreements with provincial or federal bodies to receive consultative service. Although most band councils try to adhere to provincial or national codes, the degree of administration and enforcement of these codes varies dramatically depending on the reserve, even if they have chosen to nominally adopt them.
Many jurisdictions across Canada adopt the model code as their own. Some modify it to reflect special regional needs, and some choose to go their own way. Increasingly, it is becoming the national standard. That means it is being adopted more or less intact. Codes evolve based on experience and on product innovation, with a major update occurring every five years. That approach provides a reasonable compromise between stability, flexibility and economic considerations. In extreme circumstances, a model code element could be changed quickly, especially if a safety-oriented deficiency is identified that has the potential for serious impacts.
Codes are not typically retroactive since it isn't economically feasible to retrofit existing buildings every time a change is made in the code. A jurisdiction may choose to update a requirement at any time, and it also has the authority to do so retroactively if it sees fit to do so. It is also important to remember that a code does not guarantee any particular outcome. It has to be used taking into account the specific situation and circumstance in which it is applied. Practical methods to build to code requirements and to enforce codes are required; and appropriate cost- effective building products must be available. The two have to go in lockstep, as you can imagine.
A builder may not follow the code. If a deficiency is not picked up by an inspector, it may well lead to problems such as leakage and mould, excessive energy losses, ventilation or air quality problems and so on. Inadequate maintenance can also lead to the same result.
That, I hope, gives you a basic framework in which to consider your questions tonight. We will do our best to answer anything that you may wish to put before us.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for the presentation. From what I heard and read, I notice that some provinces have modified the National Building Code for their jurisdictions. The committee has heard that building codes may not be appropriate for all First Nations. How flexible is the building code in allowing for building practices that can adapt to the various climatic and geographical needs, such as northern housing?
Philip Rizcallah, Manager, Canadian Codes Centre, Construction, National Research Council of Canada: The National Building Code, as Mr. McDougall mentioned, is adopted by the provinces. In some cases, provinces will take the code and adopt it in its entirety. In some cases, they will modify that code to reflect or adapt to geographical needs. In B.C., for example, they will modify the code and possibly introduce more seismic requirements or more stringent seismic requirements. In northern climates, they may introduce more stringent requirements for heating or for permafrost. The code is designed such that it can be modified and adapted to suit any geographical situation.
Senator Enverga: Is the National Building Code flexible enough? Have you found a code for log cabins, houses made of logs, or such buildings?
Mr. Rizcallah: Our code doesn't deal specifically with log houses, but what it does do is reference a CSA standard, the Canadian Standards Association. You would have to build and design to a specific standard referenced within our code. That's for the log cabin itself, and then features within that cabin would have to meet the requirements of the building code. It is adaptable to that.
Senator Enverga: It is adaptable to that?
Mr. Rizcallah: Yes.
Senator Enverga: At the same time, the beauty about log cabins is you can build it from the resources around the area and community. Have you found any sort of great applications for these log cabins? How would you rate log cabins as —
Senator Raine: Log homes.
Mr. Rizcallah: Log homes. I don't know. I'm not quite sure what you mean by how would we rate log homes.
Senator Enverga: You have the National Building Code. How does the National Building Code —
Mr. Rizcallah: The National Building Code won't differentiate whether you build with plastic logs or regular timber. You still have to build to minimum requirements. As an example, we recently introduced a national energy code for homes, and the log-home industry came to us and said, "You are imposing requirements for insulation of these walls and ceilings that we can't necessarily meet because of the nature of the construction.'' The code did adapt to allow them to continue building these and using these. They were adaptable for that need.
You are not necessarily going to meet every requirement that you will find in the National Building Code, but you will meet the minimum requirements.
The Chair: Just to follow up on that, we note from your handout that the National Research Council has engaged First Nations in the last two years regarding the feasibility of adapting national model codes for First Nations. Can you give us more detail on what you have done in that respect, please, either now or later?
Mr. Rizcallah: Within the last two years, we were approached by one of the band councils, one of the associations. I do apologize, but I can't remember which one it was. They asked us if we could take the National Building Code Part 9, which is the part that deals with residential homes and small buildings, but primarily for residential homes, and they asked whether we could take the illustrated guide, which is a guide that aids and complements that part of the code, and tailor it so that they could use it on their reserves, on their lands. We have had some dialogue with them, and that dialogue has not materialized. It stopped.
What they were asking for was to take the cover off that guide, put their cover on it and modify some of the sections so it would be easier for their designers, their builders, to apply the requirements of the code.
Senator Dyck: In your material, you also talk about developing different ways of suppressing fires. On this committee, we have heard about a number of children who have died in fires, usually in the northern or remote parts of the country.
Someone mentioned to me that they thought there was some kind of powder that could be used rather than water, and I don't know if that's true or not. That would be part of the question. In your information, you are talking about using the compressed-air foam, CAF, technology as an alternative. I am wondering whether that kind of technology would be fairly easy to obtain. Would it be cheaper? Would it be much more accessible to people who live in remote areas so that they would be able to put out a fire at an earlier time, say before the firefighters actually got there? Would they be able to contain it a bit with that technology?
Michael Swinton, Research Officer, Building Envelope and Materials, Construction, National Research Council of Canada: Yes, excellent question. The CAF technology was developed at the National Research Council and was licensed and is a commercially available product. The NRC also performed some tests with the foam in an actual house in Yellowknife.
It is not a powder, but the foaming technology greatly expands the ability of this product to put out a fire without much use of water. I think that's important in many communities that may not have the water pressure or the large supplies of water to put out a fire.
The tests, in fact, were quite successful. They allowed the fire to grow beyond what a detector might have been involved in, and even then it was able to put out the fire. This is a promising technology for the North because of limited water resources and firefighting capability that may be some distance away.
Senator Dyck: Have you been sharing this information with Aboriginal Affairs, or is there a way you can get the knowledge out to various remote communities?
Mr. Swinton: It is something we have been mentioning in consultation. We have a broad number of technologies that we discuss.
Last fall, we formed an ad hoc technical committee on northern housing and infrastructure, and we coordinate with Aboriginal Affairs on that committee, as well as Natural Resources Canada and CMHC. I can make a point at our next meeting to highlight the value of this technology in northern applications.
Senator Raine: Could you describe the technology? Is this a fire extinguisher or a pumper truck?
Mr. Swinton: It is technology that is hooked up to a sensor so that it is more like a sprinkler system in the house. The problem with sprinkler systems is that they're expensive, they require water, the water might freeze, and if left too long then the water destroys the house if the fire doesn't. The CAF technology is more efficient in those regards.
Senator Raine: This would be automatically deployed when it detects heat or something like that?
Mr. Swinton: That's correct.
Senator Raine: If you had a pot burning on a stove, you could set it off?
Mr. Swinton: That's correct. That's a good example. That was the example that was used in the test in Yellowknife.
Senator Raine: It is not a portable unit you would go get and —
Mr. Swinton: I don't know the answer to that. I can make the answer to that available to the committee. We have experts who have not only developed the technology but also seen the technology to commercialization, and I am uncertain as to the various products that are available that are based on this technology.
Senator Raine: Maybe it would be good to give us a link to the commercial applications. Thank you.
Senator Dyck: Can it be installed in an older home fairly easily, as a retrofit?
Mr. Swinton: This is not my area of expertise, so I'm not familiar with the detail. I'm familiar only with the broad technology and the fact that it has undergone tests. The local fire marshal has looked at the product, looked at the results of these tests and so on. That's the limit of my knowledge on this technology.
Mr. McDougall: What we can do for the committee is make available who the licensee is that's actually deploying it and give you some connections to their contact information.
The Chair: Would you please do that through the clerk?
Mr. McDougall: Sure.
Senator Raine: I wanted to ask a little more about the code. What is referred to as the national code is really the model National Building Code. The national code is the code that other people can adapt or not adapt, but it is not a code that is enforced, because that is done provincially. Am I right on that?
Mr. Rizcallah: You are right in a sense. The model code is used as the basis for the Ontario code, the Alberta building code, fire codes, plumbing codes, but the national code itself is adopted in some jurisdictions. Some provinces will adopt the national code.
Senator Raine: The national code is the same as the model code?
Mr. Rizcallah: Yes. We call it the model code because the other provinces model off that code, but the national code and the model are the same code. Some provinces will adopt the national code as it is and refer to it as the national code. They use it in Nova Scotia and other provinces.
In addition, the federal government adopts the national code as a standalone document. They'll take that national code, and whenever they build any federal facilities, they'll follow that national code as well.
Senator Raine: When you talk about standards, those are the standards that are contained in that code?
Mr. Rizcallah: That's correct. The national codes reference approximately 650 standards. The Canadian Standards Association, you will see Underwriters Laboratories, NFPA, a number of standards within their document.
Senator Raine: Then with regard to log homes, because I'm particularly interested in that, the new national energy efficiency code, how is the energy efficiency of a house defined and arrived at? What is the issue between stick-built houses and log houses in terms of energy efficiency?
Mr. Rizcallah: I don't want to get into too much technical detail, but when you're building a home to section 9.36, which is the section that deals with energy efficiency for homes, it will stipulate how much insulation you have to put in walls and ceilings. It's difficult to put insulation inside a log wall because it's one assembly. In that situation we've exempted the requirement for certain R-values, certain insulation values in those walls.
Senator Raine: What is the R-value of a wall?
Mr. Rizcallah: I'm not sure what the number is, but it could vary depending on the nature of the construction.
Mr. Swinton: Typically a 2-by-6 wall might have R20. That's a good rule of thumb. You would have to have a considerable B.C.-built log house to come anywhere close to that.
The issue is not that the log home can't meet the R-value requirement; it's that if you add insulation, either on the inside or outside, you'll lose marketability of the home, of the log itself. You don't either see it from the outside or the inside if you insulate.
Senator Raine: I lived in a log home for many years and always observed that the colder the weather the warmer the walls were inside because there is something about the heat transfer; as it gets colder it has a different R-value. I don't know if that's ever been studied. I suppose they know what the R-value of logs is, and I believe it's based on the diameter of the log. It doesn't transfer through the place where the wall is the thinnest, where they're sitting on top of each other, it transfers into the middle and out again.
Mr. Swinton: I was on the first energy code team that was published in 1997. We then did calculations, techniques to assess the R-value of log homes, taking into effect the profile that you're talking about. So there are techniques — we called them profile factors at the time — that come up with a total R-value based on the diameter of the log and the profile.
There are log homes with squared logs, for instance, and so their profile factor de-rates the R-value very little. The round-log homes, as you've just mentioned, have a narrower part that doesn't offer as much insulation, so the R-value of the wall is de-rated accordingly.
Senator Raine: I only know that when we were making the decision to build the log home, we were told that the heat does not transfer through that, if you like, place where they would normally chink it, but if you're doing a scribed log it transfers into the middle and then out again, so it's the same.
Obviously, when you're doing R-values, the size of the windows is probably a bigger factor in heat loss than the R- value of the walls.
Mr. Swinton: Yes, and because of that the R-value requirements of the windows are separate in the code. It's simply treated as a separate element. So it's much more expensive to get even R4, 5 or 6 in a window compared to the R-value of the wall, so the requirements are much less.
Senator Raine: The overall national energy efficiency code, is it a code for the building as designed, including the walls and the windows?
Mr. Swinton: It's an excellent question. All the components are treated in the code, so the walls, the roof, the basement if there is one, exposed floors over garages for instance that are unheated. All those are treated separately, but there are also provisions in the code to look at the home — for instance, a log home — in its totality and determine whether the total performance of that house is the same as what it would be for a regular prescribed house that meets the code.
There are alternate compliance paths built into these codes, and there are documents that show how these compliance techniques can work.
Senator Raine: There is nothing stopping somebody today from deciding that they want to live in a house like that and they're willing to have very small windows, for example, to have a warmer house?
Mr. Swinton: Yes, there are rules for doing that calculation. For instance, if they have a log home with an attic, they might choose to put more insulation in the attic to compensate if they were coming a little short on the performance due to other components in the house. Those are what we call trade-off routes. Those calculations can be done by the industry.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much.
Senator Sibbeston: Thank you. How much of your effort, money and personnel are devoted to dealing with housing problems associated with remote and colder parts of our country?
Mr. McDougall: That's a very difficult question to answer. Many of the things we do would be broadly applicable, whether it's north or south. Other things are incredibly specific, so that's why you get into the kinds of exceptions and considerations that Mr. Swinton has been describing.
If we were to ask, for example, Philip could give you a sense of the scale of the effort that goes into code development.
Mr. Rizcallah: Speaking in generalities without giving a cost, when a committee — we develop our codes through committee — looks at homes, for example, and we want to update requirements for homes, the representation on that committee is geographically represented. We also have representation from various industries, regulators and general public interest.
When they look at the changes that they're going to introduce into the code, they have to look at it from a national level. They say we will not just put something in the code that will work in warmer climates. They have to make sure that what they put there is going to be adopted in Nunavut and can be adopted in Yellowknife, just like it can be adopted in the southern part of Ontario.
They consider all those elements in the code. When they look at permafrost, for example, that requirement is put in the code. It may not apply everywhere in the country, but that requirement is in the code to deal with that. Consideration is given to all those features.
Senator Sibbeston: I know in places like Yellowknife and Whitehorse, the cities have adopted higher ratings for their insulation in the houses. It's pretty well straightforward, a common-sense approach, it seems. It's so cold, so you need more insulation.
The other matter that I do know is that up in Whitehorse they have a centre that deals with cold climate. They do experiments and research to do with cold climates.
As an example, when we were up there last spring they told us about this. We had a witness who came before us who said he now has a machine that can turn plastics into oil that can be used for heating, because there is a lot of plastic that's sent up and basically thrown away. So it's kind of practical research in how life in the North can be improved. There are innovative ways that people can turn plastics into a useable commodity: oil.
To me, that real kind of Arctic research and things like that would really benefit people. They are doing other practical things that I'm aware of. But you're not in that realm, I take it. It seems that these people are specifically attuned to and deal with practical cold climate issues.
Mr. McDougall: Just a quick comment, and then I will ask for some additional ones to be made here.
First of all, it's not accurate to assume that we're not in that kind of work. We do a lot of work that relates to the use of waste materials to convert them into value. We do work in terms of looking at alternative forms of energy for the North. We're doing a lot of things like that.
It's interesting. The centre you talk about in Whitehorse is actually a partner of ours. We work with them. Their director sits on our council. So we're actually very close.
Michael, maybe you want to add more specifics.
Mr. Swinton: In fact, we work very closely with Stephen Mooney. He's asked me to referee a competition this week of innovations of the type that you're talking about. So we do work closely together. We're fans of his, and we have highlighted this at the bottom of our some of our descriptive work here in the Yukon.
They're very proactive in energy efficiency in homes. In fact, our partnership has flourished with them. We've studied the use of a very innovative technology, the vacuum insulation panel that develops 10 times the R-value per inch of normal insulation. We've worked here in the lab and in the field to develop the product and learn how to install it better. We have our master carpenters working on this technology.
But at some point, we wanted to test it in the field and in cold climates. It's with the Yukon innovation centre, in partnership with Yukon Energy Solutions Centre, that they took this on. We had demonstrations in Whitehorse. In fact, last year a house was built in a First Nations community in Haines Junction; and a demonstration house, led by our partners in Yukon, was built. We have been in discussions to follow up on that house and monitor it, the way we did a demonstration over the last few years in Whitehorse.
Again, thank you very much for bringing up the good work of the centre. As our president, Mr. McDougall, outlined, we work very closely with them.
Senator Moore: Could a First Nation come to you with a problem or come to you specifically and say, "Look, we have this situation. Give us some ideas about fixing it''? Is that possible? Could they come to you directly, or is it all through a larger umbrella that they have to go through? Is there any kind of process for them to reach out and get good, current advice?
Mr. Rizcallah: We can probably speak from two sides where there are innovative products or codes. But if the advice has to do with codes, how do we apply a certain part of the code or this application to this type of situation that we have, we can provide that advice. We have the technical experts within our office to do that.
We often do get inquiries from the public, even people on First Nations, saying, "We're building a community centre and we'd like to know what kind of ratings we need for the floors or what kind of exiting requirements we need,'' and we would provide that advice to them.
From the innovative product side, anybody could come to the NRC with a product and say, "We'd like to have this new product and this new innovation evaluated for use. It's not necessarily referenced in the code, but we'd like it evaluated.''
Senator Tannas: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. I wanted to understand a couple of things. How many provinces have adopted the model code, unchanged, and don't put any of their own customization in?
Mr. Rizcallah: None have, because there's always a jurisdiction that has some sort of either political pressure or geographical differences or some societal issues that they need to incorporate into their code. So there is always a minor tweak. On average, if you look at it across the country, anywhere from 95 to 97 per cent of the national model code is adopted intact. So we're talking about a 3 to 5 per cent variance. Some jurisdictions have a little more variance, but that's on average.
Senator Tannas: If we had a panel of provincial code guys here, how many of them would say their code is above and beyond the national code as opposed to just different; it's more rigorous, or it's better?
Mr. Rizcallah: I sit on such a panel, and we do hear the feedback and comments that come back from the jurisdictions. Very few of them say that theirs is actually of a higher level, a higher degree. It's very hard to compare. You're comparing apples and oranges.
As an example, somebody comes in and says, "We're going to build a larger building and we're going to put sprinklers in this building, and smoke alarms and wider exits.'' So this building is very safe. In their minds, they'll say, "What we've done is we've made the corridors wider.'' So this is one jurisdiction, compared to the national. The national will say, "Okay. Our corridors are narrower, but the building is smaller.'' It has to be as a whole package, so it's very hard to say.
There are some jurisdictions, and the latest example would be Ontario. We recently introduced requirements for combustible construction, wooden buildings, and they go up to six stories in combustible. Ontario chose to be different from what the national had. They said, "We feel more comfortable if we put concrete stairwells in the building. We're going to adopt everything in the national, but we're going to go with a concrete stairwell.''
The other jurisdiction said, "We're comfortable with the wooden stairwell, but we've added a few smoke alarms in the building.'' So they've offset it differently. They're not really saying one is better than the other; there are some slight variations.
Senator Tannas: You do a major overhaul every five years and add things if something pressing comes up from a public safety point of view.
Would other provinces update more often, less often? Would there be provinces that would be kind of the vanguard out there doing things faster than you, or do you find that you are the market leader, if you will?
Mr. Rizcallah: I'd like to say we're the market leader, but it's not always the case. There are some jurisdictions that, if we're at the end of a cycle — it takes about five years to get something into a code, and if we're at the end of the cycle and we haven't tackled the subject matter that has just popped up in a jurisdiction — seniors homes would be a prime example of this — we would have done some of the work.
This is an example that happened five years ago. We worked on introducing requirements for seniors care homes. We developed the changes two years into the five-year cycle. It was another three years before we actually adopted it into our codes.
The provinces saw that and said, "You know what? We really need this in our jurisdiction now.'' They took that material and adopted it right away in their jurisdiction. But usually they look to the NRC because of the research and the validation that we have, and they take our material, and they may introduce it quicker than the national code puts it out.
Senator Beyak: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for sharing the information that you had on the CAF technology. That has been a great challenge for us over these many committee meetings, and it certainly sounds as though there might be a solution.
Can you think of any other innovative products or methods that would help First Nations in the other issues and challenges they face, which are mould, mildew, general upkeep of the properties?
Mr. Swinton: In our building, we have a mould lab. What we do there is, of course, grow mould. We have it attack products that are susceptible to mould, biological degradation. We do that on purpose to see the reaction, and also especially to test products that claim to be mould-resistant. A number of products on the market are available. Of course, they're at a cost premium.
So that research is there. It is ongoing, and there are products available. Generally, this is an area of specialty in our group. What we try and do is specify wall systems that are automatically moisture resistant. If you can eliminate the moisture, then the mould won't have a basis to grow. That's really the principle. A lot of these principles are reflected in the requirements of the National Building Code.
Now, that being said, there are assumptions that we use to develop the code requirements that can be exceeded in the normal operation of a house. When that happens, then you would require something that may go beyond or might have to go beyond code to resist it. There are techniques for doing that.
Generally, our first line of attack is to try to keep the humidity low in the wintertime. The farther north you go and the colder it is, hopefully the drier the interior of the house is, but if it's not, then that's where the combination of say poor wall or compromised wall insulation and higher humidity will almost inevitably lead to mould growth.
We understand the principles. The problem is that there's a tipping point involved. The humidity in the air is invisible, people don't realize it's there, and in their walls there might be insulation missing or furniture close to the wall that prevents good air circulation, and mould will grow. It is not the fault of the people living inside. It's just that in physics, this tipping point occurs, and it essentially starts, not raining, but it is simply condensation on the surface, as you see every time someone in a household takes a shower.
To try to get a better understanding of this in the North, we did have a project to monitor the indoor relative humidity and the outdoor humidity and calculate where it might start condensing on walls. We have done that in log homes in Carmacks, Yukon, for instance, and in Inuvik under the coldest conditions. In that study, we tried to identify what these tipping points were and perhaps how much more insulation or how much better built the wall would have to be in order to avoid the condensation and mould problem.
Senator Beyak: That was very helpful. Thank you.
Senator Raine: Is there much difference between the moisture resistance of a drywall wall and a wood or log wall?
Mr. Swinton: That's a very good question. It depends on the type of treatment at the surface. There are paints that will block the moisture entirely from getting into the drywall, but you might see, then, condensation at the surface. The same thing could happen for wood. Wood has extremely good properties for handling moisture. In other words, you can have moisture move through wood without there being a situation that arises where you have condensation or the creation of mould. Drywall can be similar, but, for instance, if there's no paint at all, then the drywall has paper backing, and we know that mould can grow quite easily on paper backing if it's continually moist. All these conditions determine this tipping point that I'm talking about.
Senator Raine: We were in communities where the power was very expensive and a home with more people in it than it was designed for and more moisture, and the constant running of the fan was an issue. You could just see it was going to go over the tipping point pretty quickly.
Mr. Swinton: Yes.
Senator Raine: Are there any solutions for that?
Mr. Swinton: There are. They are usually expensive. For instance, one of the phenomena that happen, the house that was built in demonstration in Haines Junction in Yukon featured very high R-value walls that were built very carefully and tight, and so there are a number of barriers that are built into the wall that prevent the moisture from running through it. As well, because the R-value is so high in the wall, you rarely throughout the year reach this tipping point. The warmer the wall on the inside, the better it is.
What you are describing is a bit of the perfect storm. We saw this a bit in one of the Carmacks homes. If the temperature is allowed to drop because it is just so expensive to heat, you can have a huge setback overnight, or if the home is heated with wood and the temperature drifts down to maybe 10 degrees overnight, and we have seen that happen, then you have conditions where the moist air might start condensing on the surfaces during that period. If that happens repeatedly day after day, then you get the conditions for mould to grow.
There are various strategies — the barrier strategy, the more insulation on the outside, which is one of the features of that demonstration home in Haines Junction, and combinations of those.
The Chair: Is the NRC aware, through your work, of innovative building materials or techniques that might be of interest to First Nations communities that would be more efficient, more cost-effective and perhaps more amenable to be used with unskilled labour?
Mr. Swinton: The NRC is continually evaluating a number of products that come to our Canadian Construction Materials Centre. For short, we call it CCMC. These are products on the market. They vary in price range. We don't normally look at the price of the product, but we do look at the performance. Our CCMC staff do an evaluation of that product according to code. They comb through the code and do an assessment of what these products are expected to do within wall systems or roof systems or general construction systems, and they're evaluated to code. That is a measure of assuring that the product will perform in its intended use.
It would be difficult to pick out any of these, but we could have a project that would optimize the use of those on the basis of cost. Our partners at Natural Resources Canada have looked at optimizing the cost of the wall system, for instance, for energy efficiency. Those exercises are possible to do. I have published basement guidelines where we looked at cost optimization. Unfortunately for us, the types of constructions that we recommended and showed in lab work and fieldwork that worked properly and avoided mould issues, for instance, were more expensive to install, and they're not necessarily the preference of the builders unless they're directly going after mould-resistance items.
The exterior insulations, as I mentioned, are a strategy, and there's a broad spectrum of them. The vacuum insulation panel that I talked about unfortunately is at the high end of the insulation cost range because it is a panel that was actually developed for refrigerators and other white goods, freezers. It is that technology within your refrigerators that allows the new versions of refrigerators to be much more energy-efficient and also have thin walls so that you optimize on the freezer space. As a result, those products are very expensive to deploy throughout a house right now, and it would require much-expanded markets for the cost to come down on these types of products.
I don't have a ready-made recipe for building a fail-safe house that experiences extreme humidity conditions and would cost less. There are tools available that would look at cost and deliver code-compliant acceptable solutions.
Senator Raine: When you said "that would cost less,'' I think you said they were more expensive to install or to build. Is that the actual cost today to build, or is that considered over the life of the house? We have seen that a lot of homes are finished in 20 to 30 years. A home that would last 80 to 100 years might cost twice as much money, but you would still save money.
Mr. Swinton: That's right.
Senator Raine: Are you talking about the life-of-the-home cost or the installed cost?
Mr. Swinton: Generally, we do our costing calculations on a time horizon of maybe 25 or 30 years, and that might be too long for the types of houses that you are looking at. Really, a house ought to be able to last that long, properly built. That is the number, but it's an assumption we make as an example in our guides. You could change that number and end up being able to justify a level of less insulation, for instance, because you wouldn't be getting that payback for as long a period.
It is better to design a structure that is quite expensive to put up and have it last more than 30 years, at least the life of the mortgage; although I understand the mortgage issue is a completely different issue that this committee is considering. That is a target. I don't think anybody would design a house for 15 or 20 years on purpose, unless it was a temporary structure; and that's a whole different discussion.
Senator Raine: There are homes all across our country that are hundreds of years old.
Mr. Swinton: Yes.
Senator Raine: Am I to gather, then, that the building codes when they were built were better than now because they lasted longer?
Mr. McDougall: I will make a comment. There are two things here, one being a question of values at any particular point in time and what people consider to be appropriate. As one who in some prior work activities had a fair amount to do with the housing industry, I know that the challenge with housing, especially the purchase of housing, is that people will walk across the street for very small amounts of money. It discourages builders from looking at life-cycle costing such as you describe. In its absence, it tends to lead to a minimalist kind of design and construction rather than more optimal things. You could say that historically people were intending to live in them for a long time so they built them to last. Today, the person building a house is different than the person living in it; and the dynamics of the exchange change quite a bit.
One thing that would probably be beneficial to consider at some point somehow is whether it is possible to get some life-cycle thinking into the housing in First Nation communities.
Senator Watt: I have pretty well run out of the questions I wanted to ask. Nevertheless, I'm going to raise questions along the same line that everybody else has been asking.
Thank you for your presentation. I will start by asking you about a point you raised on the Canadian Construction Materials Centre. I imagine that institution is probably gathering up some technologies, innovative ideas and so on to test and put to use at the same time.
Everybody else is concerned about cost-effective buildings and about how it costs so much money in isolated communities, especially up in the North. Have you looked into dome houses to see whether they would be feasible in some communities, especially in the Arctic? The dome houses are being built, I believe, throughout the United States, as we speak. Some are already coming to Canada. I know of one that will be built in the Laurentians this coming June. Have you ever tapped into the technology of dome houses?
Mr. Swinton: No, we haven't, that I recall. It is an interesting structure that has been around for a long time. I can understand its appeal in the North. As far as I know, we have not assessed the product as a construction material or for a housing form. It is used, and that brings up a good point. It would require engineering to be assessed to ensure that the code requirements are met with the dome structure.
Senator Watt: They basically use cement and spread it from the inside all around, and it becomes a dome house. Apparently, they are fireproof. When a disaster takes place on the American side, from time to time, those are the only houses that survive. They might be an idea for the future because we don't know what is coming in the Arctic due to climate change.
As you mentioned earlier, there is also permafrost to consider, which is disappearing in the Arctic so fast right now. Maybe 10 years down the line we might not have to worry about permafrost.
Mr. McDougall: That's true.
Senator Watt: At this time, it is down six to eight feet. It used to be three feet, just to let you know.
You raised the matter of mould. Only last week, I was up North listening to a radio program hosted by CBC. There was an old man from the High Arctic. He was talking about the type of house that we receive now in the North from the South and about the moulds. He was talking about lack of air circulation. His answer to that is the same as when you build an igloo. When you build an igloo, you need to be able to breathe when inside. If you don't have a hole, called a "nose,'' at the top of the ceiling, then you have a problem breathing; so it's a health hazard. That's what he was pointing out. For the kinds of houses built today, whether down South or in the North, he seems to think that's the key to the problem. Could you look into that, or do you already have experience with that? If you do, I would like to hear it.
Mr. McDougall: Let me back up a little and then come back to answer your question. At the NRC, we carry out research and development work. We do the work on the code and a number of other things. One thing that this sort of question raises in my mind is how we go about doing work. We try to figure out what the real problem is and whether we can actually develop solutions for it. As you correctly point out, often solutions exist somewhere, but they may need to be adapted to new materials or whatever it might be.
This is the sort of thing where I would see the potential, perhaps, for the people of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories to put together a group of interested communities and perhaps local contractors and so on and see if they want to come together and work together and see what we can do with that.
If there is interest in that, we would certainly be interested in talking to them about it and seeing whether it would be possible to do that.
Senator Watt: Yes, I do know some people who are wrestling with that technology, and those engineers could easily be brought to your attention to get together with them, and from there maybe something can be developed positively for that purpose.
Mr. McDougall: If you want to connect us, we would certainly be willing to follow up.
Senator Watt: I would be prepared to do that. Just to give you another example, which I have not been able to understand, when people are talking about mould, I built my house myself personally, not with the contractors, 35 years ago, and that house is still standing. It might not look like a new house from the outside, but if you go inside you probably would like it. I never experienced mould. I have seen mould outside attached to part of the building, then I look to see how much has penetrated inside the building. There's none. That's in the Subarctic, Kuujjuaq.
It makes me wonder, because I followed the old traditional way for that building to breathe. That's the way my house is. It breathes, the same way as I breathe. I have never had any health problems within my house. I never had any problem with the lack of air, and I never experienced the mould. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that buildings have to breathe. It is the same as a human being. If you don't breathe properly, you are going to get sick. A house gets sick. That's the way I see it.
Mr. McDougall: That's absolutely true.
Senator Watt: This is something worth looking into.
Mr. Swinton: I agree. In our Arctic program, we have described a bit of our work in our handout. We do have some work on heat recovery ventilation, which we know is a technology that is used broadly in the South here but has more difficulty delivering fresh air in the North and costs precious electricity to operate. We are very open to studying solutions of the nature you are talking about that we would call a more passive form of ventilation. It has a long history of success in the North.
Senator Watt: The contractors or the engineers would like to touch base with you. You're wide open, I understand.
Mr. McDougall: Absolutely.
Senator Dyck: I'm glad that Senator Watt brought up that traditional ventilation method. I actually wrote it down, and I wasn't going to bring it up. I can't remember whether it was at UBC or the University of Victoria where they built longhouses and traditional housing, and they talked about the need to use traditional ventilation. It was a passive system, and it solved a lot of the problems.
He wisely pointed out that sometimes the solution is there in the traditional methodology, and we don't always get to talk to the people who know what the answer is to the problem.
I think it was at the University of Victoria when I toured the traditional building there. They were trying to explain to me how great it was, and I just didn't follow it, but clearly it's been used down South as well as up North. It is really a comment as opposed to a question.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Watt: The other point of view, one of the things that was said by the old man that I was mentioning to you that I listened to on the radio, is that even if you have ventilation on the side of the building or on the floor, he said, it does not work. It is a waste of time and money. That's the way he put it. Even if you open windows, if you think that is enough air coming in, he said no. It would have to be constant flow.
Senator Raine: I wanted to ask whether the HVAC system is mandated by the national code.
Mr. Rizcallah: It is. There's a section dedicated solely to the HVAC in our codes.
Senator Raine: In that section, does it allow for the old-fashioned way?
Mr. Rizcallah: The section will talk about how if you install a heat recovery system in a building, you have to meet certain standards for that system. It's not restricting you; it's not forcing you to put an HRV system in your home, but it tells you how to do it if you do put one in.
The Chair: I understand the NRC will consider demonstration projects?
Mr. McDougall: I'm not sure what you mean by that.
The Chair: We have been studying First Nations housing, and we have seen a lot of problems with lack of building code, with poor materials, poor design. You've got initiatives that are looking at the Arctic and about fire and about mould-resistant building materials. I'm just wondering if it might be possible within your programs to consider some kind of a demonstration project that would be targeted at some of these challenges of First Nations in remote locations.
Mr. McDougall: I think what I was alluding to, Mr. Chair, if we can find a collective of people in the North, shall we say of vested interest, who want to go down that path, we can help them do that. Like any other circumstance, we would have to figure out how to fund such a project, where does it come from. If we can get the group of interested parties together, then that gives us a chance to start moving something forward.
The Chair: It sounds like you've got a lot of resources available to such a group.
Mr. McDougall: To bring to bear to something like that, yes.
Senator Watt: I'm wondering out loud. Would you be open to the idea of even going as far as then receiving those people who would be prepared to talk to you about their knowledge and what they're trying to do in terms of new technology, innovative ideas? Aside from that, looking into local materials is where my interest comes in. If we could use local materials that don't require being transported from the South to the North, for example, that would cut the cost down tremendously.
Mr. McDougall: I think all of those things are important ideas; that is the way I would characterize it. We have been looking at things like that from different perspectives. For example, we know that one of the biggest costs in the North is fuel of various kinds, so anything that gets away from having to move fuel to the North, transport things to the North, haul fuel to make power to use in the North, et cetera, is advantageous. Our thinking is going down those paths.
Clearly, economics have a lot to do with the ability to deal with that kind of thing. The other thing you have to be absolutely open-minded to — and you've already raised it — is that there is local knowledge that should be taken advantage of. There's no doubt about that.
Senator Raine: I just wanted to mention that near where I live, in the Skeetchestn First Nation, which is just west of Kamloops, they have designed an octagon-shaped house, kind of like a roundhouse; they call it the roundhouse. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that.
Mr. McDougall: I've seen it.
Senator Raine: Their objective was to use the pine beetle wood, which is readily available, and to design something that could then be assembled, would be put in a kit and sent and assembled.
Have you been involved in doing any testing on that at all?
Mr. McDougall: No.
Senator Raine: How would that work if they wanted NRC to do testing on that?
Mr. McDougall: Companies and organizations come to us all the time, thousands a year, literally. Sometimes it's to test a new product. Sometimes they have an idea; could we actually make it work and then turn it into a new product? Various things like that occur.
We have two sides of the organization. We have the side that does research and testing, the scientific and engineering side, and then we have our industrial-research-assistance side which works with small companies that may have ideas of things that they want to develop, and they can actually provide them with some financial support to help them do it. If they come or contact us, we're certainly always interested in taking a serious look.
Senator Raine: In terms of the testing, is it all done in Ottawa, or are there other locations across Canada?
Mr. McDougall: It would depend on what it is. Some things would come to Ottawa because we have special capabilities here — for fire testing, for example — which you don't replicate all over.
There are other organizations not unlike us but smaller in scale and perhaps not as comprehensive in different parts of the country that we can connect them up with. Yukon College is an example of a special capability where we can point them in that direction.
We're not trying just to fill our own shop. We're trying to do things in the most efficient way we can. Our industrial- research people know all these organizations and the capabilities all over the country and will steer them in the optimal direction.
Senator Raine: I think when it comes to First Nation housing, the need is so overwhelming that we need to find solutions that can be ramped up quickly, but we also have to encourage people to build their own homes and put that longer life cycle into it because it's theirs.
Mr. McDougall: It is interesting, apropos the earlier question, about why houses maybe last longer, and you are a good example. You built your own to a quality that you wanted to build and with the techniques that you wanted to use and so on.
Senator Watt: — materials.
Mr. McDougall: It doesn't necessarily have to be; that's correct. There are other elements here that we have to think about, too, other than maybe just the materials themselves. The construction, the fabrication, a lot of that has much to do with it.
The Chair: This Canadian Construction Materials Centre, does the public have access to the information there?
On our tours, we saw some tiles, some new building-block material that was light and superior in many ways to concrete and other building materials. Are you finding things like that that would be useful to know about in looking at the challenges of building in remote communities?
Mr. Swinton: The Canadian Construction Materials Centre has a registry, and it's available on line. It literally must have thousands of products in it.
We're not involved in the marketplace, but builders may look through these. Building officials, when they see these products coming in with a design that the builders submit to them for a building permit, can refer to these because they're shown to have met the requirements of the code, and an opinion is given to that effect. That opinion is taken by the authority having jurisdiction, and then it either accepts the product or not within the construction system. That's the way it works.
That's a poor answer to what you're asking, because we're at arm's length from the marketplace. We don't actually go through the registry and pick out our own favourites and assess them that way. It really is a true marketplace. There is no rating given to these in the registry except that they're shown to pass code under certain conditions, and the conditions are listed.
The Chair: That's very helpful, and I understand the independence of the research council.
Senator Enverga: Thank you again. As I understand, the NRC has been in existence for 60 years, and you've been looking more at the active technology for 60 years, so it's a good number of years.
During those 60 years, have you ever found the golden grail, something that's the best material that can be used after all these years? Has there been any result at all? You must have tested a lot of them. Have you found any real solution, or are you close to anything like that? Where are we right now?
Mr. Swinton: Actually, when we were researching this brochure, I found a publication. I think it was from the early 1950s, and it was on permafrost research in the North. There were studies on a house in, I think, Pangnirtung on Baffin Island, and what they were laying was the foundation of our understanding of how the foundations of these houses work in permafrost. Through that there were evolutions of different technologies.
One of the strategies that emerged is being applied today and is the subject of one of the standards that was developed recently by the Canadian Standards Association related to northern issues.
We looked at using the air from the house and the heat pump — this is like a refrigerator — and driving it down under the house so that the heat from the house or the building wouldn't melt the permafrost. There was actually a demonstration of that technology, and it was shown to work.
Nowadays, they've gone to a passive form, which is maybe more germane to the North. They're called thermopiles. They have a liquid that, when it cools down, gets heavier, and it goes down into the pile or the thermosyphon underneath the slab and keeps the permafrost intact. As that product heats up from either the heat of the house or the soil, it comes back out, grabs more of the cool air in the wintertime and so on.
There is a new standard now on how to apply those properly in northern circumstances and in what circumstances they work best.
That technology, who was first to have this idea I'm not sure, but there is actually a company in Alaska with a subsidiary in Canada. There is a head office in Winnipeg that supplies this technology, and it is deployed in northern climates.
Senator Enverga: It says here "Research program.'' Who owns the technology after you have them do the research? Is it the private sector? Do they have a say about these technologies?
Mr. McDougall: It depends on how it's done. If a company comes in and pays for all the work, they own it all. If we do it, the Government of Canada owns it, basically through us as administrators, and we try to make it available to people. The primary thing we're interested in is that the technologies that get developed get out and into the marketplace. If they're good technologies, we want them to move into the marketplace. Whether we still own them or somebody else does, we're still working with that end in mind.
Senator Enverga: Where are we now in finding the real solution to housing?
Mr. McDougall: That's an interesting question, partly because technology keeps changing, and it really depends on what you're trying to do.
What happens is that the expectations of housing are changing constantly, and that's leading to new products all the time. The challenge, ultimately, is systems that in an integrated way will work and deliver a good, high-quality, sustainable, long-lived building.
That's a constantly moving target because it's a balance of cost and energy efficiency. It's what it looks like, so the architecture and interior design matters. There are a lot of things at play. It would be nice if there were this magic thing that would work. If we went back 100 years, back to your earlier comment, you would probably think the igloo was amazingly designed for the North; it did a job. But you don't see a lot of people choosing to live in igloos as their permanent home anymore. It's interesting.
Senator Enverga: I was lucky enough to be in Iqaluit a year ago, and I found the houses there were up to date. Maybe if we can use the technology that was used in building houses in Iqaluit, then we would have successful housing for everyone in the North. Especially with the housing where there are stilts on the permafrost buildings, have you thought about that?
Mr. Swinton: The difficulty with what you're suggesting, in my opinion, is that basically the Canadian way to building construction is a free-market approach. So the successful technology is the technology that each individual builder finds his niche market for, and that results in houses that are successful; their reputation grows, and they continue their business.
There are many variations. In our basement guidelines, we looked at maybe eight different types of materials that needed to be put into the wall to function properly, and the combination of all of those ended up in 80,000 choices. Remarkably, builders end up making one of those choices, and they succeed with it, but another builder in another market and another condition will make other choices and succeed with that. Some people will make the wrong choice, and mould grows or something, and their reputations are damaged.
It would be difficult for the NRC to jump in and determine that the market can only build this winning combination. It's not the role that NRC plays in industry. Mr. President, you may wish to back that up or not.
Mr. McDougall: I think you said it very well.
Senator Enverga: So you can't dictate what they really want. You said there are dozens of choices out there, but you can make recommendations as to the code. Let's say we have hundreds of materials there; can you pinpoint which will be according to your code? That means you have control over what material will be used. Is that correct?
Mr. McDougall: In broad terms, what the code is trying to do is create a minimum standard of acceptable performance for various components of a building. That's really what it comes down to. Once you get past that — obviously, we don't want to build something that if you stand on the floor it collapses. It's that kind of thinking. It's not to say you have to make a floor with A, B or C. It has to be able to perform this way. The product will be built. It will be verified that it will stand up to that load, for example, and therefore, it will be acceptable material.
Mr. Rizcallah: When we develop our codes and make changes every five years, one of the things the committee has to consider is that we're not limiting design and innovation. They purposely go out and make sure that you can choose any one of a hundred different ways to do whatever you want to get that outcome. Otherwise, we're restricting market access, so it's a fundamental principle when we develop our codes.
Senator Enverga: Summing it up, I want to know, let's say I wanted to build something in the Arctic. Would you be able to tell me what kind of material I should be using? Would you be able to tell me what kind of materials or codes I would need? Would you be able to dictate something like that to me right now?
Mr. Rizcallah: Through the code, we would be able to tell you what the performance requirement is for that particular situation. Then through maybe some products that are out on the market or through various engineering designs, you would have choices to meet that performance requirement, but we wouldn't dictate that this is the only way you're going to be able to get this solution.
Senator Enverga: You make recommendations only?
Mr. Rizcallah: We don't even make recommendations.
Mr. McDougall: We do not make recommendations about any product. We will only say that a product has met certain performance specifications.
Senator Enverga: But can't you say that after all our research testing, this is the best product?
Mr. Rizcallah: In a way, we do that with the CCMC evaluation, which essentially says that this product will perform to this requirement and will meet the code to this level, but there may be six or seven other products that will do the same thing. You can choose out of those six or seven products to meet the requirement.
Senator Beyak: I was in Europe in 2008 on an environmental seminar on innovations, and they had a model home in Germany and Japan and a subdivision in Minneapolis, and the homes were completely self-sustaining. A young student had figured out how to melt plastic bags that left no air quality problems. They could put tires, rubber, plastic and garbage waste into a hole in the kitchen and it lit and heated the house. They were just working on it.
Have you heard anything about any of that or that kind of technology coming to Canada? I haven't followed up on it. I was fascinated with it at the time.
Mr. McDougall: I can comment a little bit. There are all kinds of combustion technology being looked at for a whole variety of purposes to fuel against just straight waste that's in the garbage can in the extreme to very selective streams of waste that you can do certain things with.
Earlier today, we were actually talking about a technology that is based on making liquid fuel from wood waste, for example. We were talking about the fact that landfills will actually produce methane, and if you can capture the methane and burn it, it's actually better than letting it escape into the atmosphere because it has less greenhouse gas effect and so on.
There are always enormous numbers of innovative ideas floating around. One of the challenges with a lot of these things is moving from a laboratory or a small bench scale to something that is really scalable for mass use or for large- scale use or whatever it may be. That's the challenge. But we're constantly on the lookout for that sort of thing. We do some of it ourselves. It's happening in many places.
Senator Raine: I don't know if you can answer this, and it's kind of a completely different subject, but I'm interested in toilets. Of course, in a lot of communities, people live on acreages and they're not hooked up to a sewer system. There are a lot of different kinds of toilets. I heard of one in China that is waterless. Is the National Research Council doing anything on that?
Mr. Rizcallah: I haven't seen anything on the research side. On the code side, we certainly have put requirements in the code for waterless urinals. I haven't seen the waterless toilet yet, but that's certainly something currently permitted through our code, and there is technology out there for waterless toilets. The technology is there. We just reference standards that are actually tested on a product.
Mr. McDougall: Just on this area, probably 30 years ago we had a composting toilet. I can't remember now what it was called. They were actually pretty good, but you had to manage them very carefully. It was not really designed for a family with children because they just tended — it was either overloaded or under-loaded, or things that shouldn't have gone into it went into it and destroyed the digestive process.
But, again, there are technologies of all sorts. If you can think about it, you can probably find somebody who's doing it.
Senator Raine: I really don't know what is happening in the communities in the North with sewer systems and toilets and things like that.
Mr. McDougall: Some of your committee members are probably more current on that than I am. A lot of hauling was going on and still is in a lot of communities. There are obviously opportunities of all kinds that might be dealt with, if you set your mind to them.
The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen, for a most informative evening. We very much appreciate your attendance and the information you've shared.
With that, I will adjourn this meeting.
(The committee adjourned.)