44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 19, 2022 02:00PM
- Oct/19/22 4:58:14 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, every day, Canadians are exposed to chemicals from polluting industries that spew harmful chemicals into the air we breathe and into the waters of our lakes, our rivers and our oceans. At home, we also experience this in the products we use.
Canadians expect their government to take action to protect them and their families from these toxic substances. They expect their government to ensure that all people have the right to live in a healthy environment. However, Canada's main environmental law to prevent pollution and regulate toxic chemicals is decades out of date. While over 150 other countries already have legal obligations to protect the right to a healthy environment, Canada does not.
These are things New Democrats have been calling on the government to fix for years. While we are glad to see this bill finally come forward, there are some critical and troubling weaknesses and loopholes in the bill.
In the two decades since the Canadian Environmental Protection Act was last updated, the number of chemicals that people in Canada are exposed to in their daily lives has grown exponentially. There has been a 50-fold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950 and this is expected to triple again by 2050. Personal care products are manufactured with over 10,000 unique chemical ingredients, some of which are either suspected or known to cause cancer, harm our reproductive systems or disrupt our endocrine systems.
Over the last 22 years, we have also learned much more about the harmful cumulative effects of these toxic chemicals on our health. Nine out of 10 Canadians have hormone-disrupting chemicals used in consumer products in their blood and urine. We now know that exposure to hazardous chemicals, even in small amounts, can be linked to chronic illnesses like asthma, cancer and diabetes. According to Health Canada, air pollution is a factor in over 15,000 premature deaths and millions of respiratory issues every year in Canada.
This is also an issue of environmental justice.
Frontline workers, who are predominantly women and racialized people, often have higher exposure to hazardous chemicals. We know that, across Canada, indigenous, Black and racialized people are disproportionately impacted by toxic dumps, polluting pipelines, tainted drinking water and other environmental hazards. The former UN special rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes has stated, “The invisible violence inflicted by toxics is an insidious burden disproportionately borne by indigenous peoples in Canada.”
This is why this bill is so important. Without modernizing legislation to update chemicals management in Canada, and without the legal recognition of the right to a healthy environment, Canadians will continue to be exposed to unregulated and harmful chemicals.
The NDP has a long history of advocating for environmental rights and enshrining the right to a healthy environment in law. My colleague, the MP for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, has a private member's bill on enshrining the right to a healthy environment in an environmental bill of rights. For years, New Democrats have introduced legislation on the right to a healthy environment.
The MP for South Okanagan—West Kootenay has been urging the government to amend Bill S-5 to incorporate the stronger language in his private member's bill. However, the government has not even committed to whether they will accept all of the amendments that the Senate put forward.
While it is good to see the government finally taking steps in this direction, it is important to note that adding the right to a healthy environment in a limited way under CEPA is not the same thing as ensuring that, broadly, all people have the right to live in a healthy environment. There remain troubling limitations on how the right to a healthy environment will be applied and how the right will be enforced.
While the Senate has made several positive amendments to improve the bill, including removing language stating that the right to a healthy environment should be balanced with economic factors, they have also left us with outstanding concerns about the enforcement of that right that they were not able to address.
One of the most disappointing and concerning gaps is that the bill does not touch on the citizen enforcement mechanism in CEPA. The citizen enforcement mechanism is, frankly, broken. It has never been successfully used. The process is so onerous that it is essentially impossible for a citizen to bring an environmental enforcement action. Without a functioning citizen enforcement mechanism, there are serious questions about how the right to a healthy environment can be truly enforced.
Because the government decided not to fix the enforcement of CEPA in the bill, it will be out of scope for amendments. This is a huge gap, but there are also other critical gaps in the bill. It lacks clear accountability and timelines for how toxic substances are managed. It lacks mandatory labelling so Canadians can make informed choices about the products they use. It would not fix loopholes that allow corporations to hide which toxic substances are in their products.
If we want to protect the environment and our health, we have to ensure that we are following the advice of scientists and experts, not the interests of big corporations. These big corporations, made up of some of Canada's biggest polluting industries, have been attempting to stop amendments to Bill S-5, amendments that would strengthen the bill. They are lobbying against better protection for people and for communities. These groups wrote to the Senate, urging the Speaker “to reverse the amendments introduced by the Committee and pass Bill S-5 as it was originally introduced.”
These corporations do not want to be accountable for their toxic pollution. They do not want the right to a healthy environment to be enforceable. They would prefer the bill the Liberals originally put forward. They would prefer a bill with enough loopholes to keep profits and pollution high, but people fundamentally have the right to live in a healthy environment. It is why New Democrats are fighting to amend and fix these loopholes.
In addition to pushing the government to fix the bill, we have also been pushing for an office of environmental justice. The United States already has an office of environmental justice as part of its Environmental Protection Agency, and it has had it since 1992. If we established such an office in Canada, it could not only help coordinate the national strategy on environmental racism, improving our understanding of the burden of preventable environmental health hazards faced by indigenous, Black and racialized communities, but also help us assess possible interventions to address these hazards and ensure that all Canadians have the opportunity to enjoy the same level of environmental protection.
Environment and Climate Change Canada is going to need more resources and capacity if the government is truly committed to addressing environmental inequities and upholding the right to a healthy environment. An office of environmental justice could provide structure and additional capacity to carry out this important work.
I find the failure to address enforcement in Bill S-5 the most troubling loophole, but I want to mention a few other gaps in the bill. It does not include legally binding and enforceable air quality standards. It would fail to establish a more open, inclusive and transparent risk assessment process for the evaluation of genetically modified organisms. These are critically important areas the government has chosen not to address, and since the government did not open up these sections, like the section on enforcement, they are areas the government has deemed out of the scope of the bill, so it is not open to fixing them with amendments. This is incredibly troubling.
It has been over 20 years since CEPA was last updated. The environment committee studied this issue and made recommendations on how to fix it five years ago. We have been waiting for this bill, waiting for years, so why have the Liberals left so many gaps, loopholes and issues that still need to be fixed?
Canadians cannot wait another two decades while they continue to be exposed to unregulated and harmful chemicals, while the environment is polluted, and while human health is threatened. We need to protect Canadians now. My New Democrat colleagues and I will continue to push the government to improve the bill, and we will not stop fighting for the right to a healthy environment, a truly enforceable right that ensures that all Canadians can enjoy safe products and a healthy environment for generations to come.
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- Oct/19/22 5:08:52 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question, and I also enjoyed working on the environment committee with him.
Yes, the delay is extremely troubling. It has been 20 years since the last time the Canadian Environmental Protection Act was updated, and it has been five years since we received recommendations from the environment committee. To now have a longer timeline is unacceptable.
What is truly unacceptable, though, is to put forward a right to a healthy environment that cannot be enforced. That is what the government has done. What we want is to protect Canadians, the ecosystems, the environment, the air, the land and the water. This is vitally important, and we need to do it right.
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- Oct/19/22 5:10:16 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for her question, for her work and for the motions she has put forward to protect watersheds and fresh water around Canada.
I really appreciate her bringing up the motion that the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay has put forward, because it is an environmental rights bill. To just put it in the preamble of this update to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is not the same thing. To talk about the right to a healthy environment is not the same thing as having a broad approach to making sure that across government this right is being protected. It is also not the same thing as ensuring that the mechanisms we have to enforce that right, to protect Canadians, are in place.
I hope the government will look at the bill presented by the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, but I also hope it will reconsider and open up the section on citizen enforcement, so that we can protect Canadians and the right to a healthy environment.
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- Oct/19/22 5:12:24 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate. Before I get into the substance of Bill S‑5, I would like to share a brief history of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and before I do that, I want to talk about the harmful effects of pollution on human health and emphasize how crucial it is to keep enforcing tough regulations to minimize pollution.
In 2017, The Lancet commission on pollution and health concluded that pollution is the greatest environmental risk factor for disease and premature death worldwide. An update to the original report published in 2017 was recently released. It finds that pollution is still responsible for a staggering nine million premature deaths per year, which is one in six deaths worldwide. These nine million pollution-related deaths each year are nearly 50% higher than all deaths worldwide attributable to COVID‑19 to date. They are also higher than all deaths in 2019 attributable to war, terrorism, AIDS, TB, malaria, and drug and alcohol use combined. Air pollution is the largest contributor to pollution-related deaths, accounting for 6.67 million total deaths.
I would like to go back to the Constitution of 1867 and remind everyone that there is no reference to the environment in terms of the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments. I would presume that if the fathers of Confederation were here with us and we used the term “environment”, a question mark would appear over each of their heads. Of course the Constitution talks about forests and fisheries, but purely from the perspective of resource development, not from the perspective of resource protection.
The division of powers in environmental matters is not a static thing. It is a result of court rulings or the product of case law. That case law does not grant sole responsibility to any one level of government. In other words, the environment is a shared jurisdiction.
At this point, I would like to talk about the well-known Hydro-Québec case, when the Supreme Court decided that the federal government did indeed have the right to legislate on the regulation of toxic substances under criminal law. In this case, Hydro-Québec, a Crown corporation, was charged with dumping polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the Saint-Maurice River in the early 1990s under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
In its arguments, the Crown corporation stated that the regulation of toxic substances did not fall under criminal law and that the federal government was using criminal law as a pretext, or colourable device, to infringe on provincial jurisdiction. In a rather close five to four decision, Justices La Forest, L'Heureux-Dubé, Gonthier, Cory and McLachlin said, and I quote:
The protection of the environment, through prohibitions against toxic substances, constitutes a wholly legitimate public objective in the exercise of the criminal law power.... The legitimate use of the criminal law in no way constitutes an encroachment on provincial legislative power, though it may affect matters falling within the latter's ambit.... The use of the federal criminal law power in no way precludes the provinces from exercising their extensive powers under s. 92 to regulate and control the pollution of the environment either independently or in co-operation with federal action.
In other words, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a cornerstone that is rooted in our criminal law. It is serious business. Anyone who says that the act is not robust or strong is minimizing the powers enshrined in the act.
What does Bill S-5 do? No doubt it has been mentioned in other speeches, but it does the following: It recognizes the right to a healthy environment. This is something that many constituents have written to me about. They are asking for this bill to incorporate it. It also confirms the government's commitment to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The bill recognizes the importance of minimizing the risk to vulnerable populations, namely children and those who live in high pollution areas. Very importantly, it requires that cumulative effects, that is, how chemicals interact with each other, be considered in substance risk assessments. That is not nothing; this is something that is value-added to this legislation.
Of concern also to many of my constituents, the bill seeks to reduce the use of animals in testing the safety of products. Also, Canadians would be able to request that specific substances be assessed outside the government's particular assessment priorities. There is a role for citizens in this bill and that is in regard to the role and right to request that specific substances be assessed.
Let us go back a bit in the history of CEPA. Let us go back to 1999. The first update to CEPA was in 1999. I remember that very well because I was working on the Hill as a political staffer and the MP I worked for was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of the environment. There were lengthy consultations with stakeholders on how to amend the bill. The committee hearings were quite extensive and involved.
CEPA, 1999 incorporated for the first time the precautionary principle, which, again, is not nothing. The precautionary principles states:
Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
I remember there was a lot of debate around that definition of the precautionary principle. No doubt many people would like to see the definition perhaps be a little stronger and maybe not mention the term “cost-effective” as in cost-effective measures. Nonetheless, it is there in the bill.
Also in CEPA, 1999, there was a focus away from managing pollution after it had been created, to preventing pollution in the first place. CEPA, 1999 also included provisions for regulating vehicle emissions which, as we know, the government uses in the battle against climate change.
Finally, CEPA, 1999 established a new, more rigorous and timely approach to assessing whether a substance is or may be considered toxic to the environment or to human health. In the act, toxic is defined as having “an immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity” constituting or possibly constituting “a danger to the environment on which life depends” or constituting or possibly constituting a danger “to human life or health”.
Bill S-5, as I understand it, would inject more rigour into the process. Here I quote:
The new regime will retain the risk-based approach in the current Act. For substances assessed as meeting the criteria to be considered toxic under CEPA, the amendments would then require that the Ministers give priority to prohibiting activities in relation to said toxic substances of the highest risk. The criteria for substances of the highest risk would be set out in regulations, and would include persistence and bioaccumulation as well as criteria for such things as carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, and reproductive toxicity. These regulations will be developed in consultation with stakeholders.
We are talking about a bill, and this is a complex area. Clearly, regulations will be required. One cannot put everything in the bill. Much of the detail will have to be contained in regulations.
Another interesting fact about Bill S-5 is that the bill, if it is passed and I assume it will be, would require the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to publish and maintain a watch-list. This is something new. By watch-list, we mean a list of substances that have been determined to be capable of becoming toxic under CEPA. We are not just talking about substances that are determined to be toxic, but those that could be determined, after study, to become toxic, if, for example, exposure is increased. The watch-list would help importers, manufacturers and Canadian consumers to select safer alternatives and avoid regrettable substitutions.
Another interesting fact about CEPA, which I do not think has really been talked about too much is that CEPA is relevant in the context of the fight against climate change. When we talk about the measures to battle greenhouse gas emissions, we refer a lot to the price on carbon, the price on pollution, but we do not really focus on CEPA.
I was elected and already sitting in the House in 2005, and I remember that the government of Paul Martin added greenhouse gas emissions to CEPA, 1999, namely those emissions from large industrial emitters, citing the “worldwide scientific consensus that there is sufficient and compelling evidence to conclude that greenhouse gases constitute or may constitute a danger to the environment on which life depends.”
This was almost 20 years ago. Even back then the Liberal government had the foresight to understand that climate change was a real and growing problem and made amendments to CEPA, 1999 to give itself the leverage, the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. I do not recall the Conservatives being thrilled with this change at the time, although today they happily preach the regulatory route to supporting clean technologies as the preferred alternative to putting a price on carbon.
It has been mentioned and talked about even today in this debate that one of the major steps forward through Bill S-5 is the introduction of the right to a healthy environment. I will read the new section 5.1(1) of Bill S-5, which says:
For the purposes of paragraph 2(1)(a.2), the Ministers shall, within two years after the day on which this section comes into force, develop an implementation framework to set out how the right to a healthy environment will be considered in the administration of this Act.
I will come back to this in a moment.
There is another very important aspect of Bill S-5 which should not be minimized. It has been mentioned; the member for Victoria touched on it. The bill seeks to minimize risks to the health of vulnerable populations. By vulnerable population, we mean “a group of individuals within the Canadian population who, due to greater susceptibility or greater exposure, may be at an increased risk of experiencing adverse health effects from exposure to substances.”
Those with greater susceptibility may include, for example, children and those in poor health. Those with greater exposure may include workers and those living in areas where levels of pollution are particularly high.
In addition, the new law would require that the government conduct research and studies, including biomonitoring surveys specifically in relation to the role of substances in illnesses or in health problems which may relate to vulnerable populations.
This is where Bill S-5 intersects with Bill C-226, which in this Parliament is being sponsored by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, but was first introduced by the member for Cumberland—Colchester in the last Parliament. It has been referred to as the bill on environmental racism.
Bill C-226 is identical, except for a couple of grammatical changes and some wording, to the bill that came out of the environment committee before the last election. This bill goes a bit further than Bill S-5 in being very proactive and prescriptive in engaging with vulnerable populations on the risks they face.
For example, Bill C-226 requires the minister to develop a national strategy to promote efforts across Canada to advance environmental justice, and to assess, prevent and address environmental racism.
The bill requires that this strategy include a study that includes an examination of the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk, information and statistics relating to the location of environmental hazards. It must include measures that can be taken to advance environmental justice and assess, prevent and address environmental racism and that may include possible amendments to federal laws, policies and programs, the involvement of community groups in environmental decision-making, and lastly, the collection of information and statistics relating to health outcomes in communities located in proximity to environmental hazards.
In an effort to leverage the new right to a healthy environment and the protection of vulnerable populations, it has been suggested that Bill S-5 be amended to require that the minister specify what actions the government will take when ever a substance for which an ambient air quality standard has been established, when the average ambient concentration of such a substance in a geographic area exceeds the standard.
I think this is very important. I think it was alluded to by the member for Victoria. Going back to the beginning of my speech, this is where pollution really impacts human health. It is often through air pollution. Many are calling for an amendment to the bill that would require the government to develop actions whenever it is determined that the ambient air quality in a particular area is above standard.
I understand there are some federal and provincial jurisdictional issues around doing this, but I hope it is something that the committee will explore with expert witnesses and perhaps an amendment will be introduced to this effect.
This connects to another issue that I received a lot of mail about in the last few years. The bill seeks to reduce reliance on animal testing. I have many constituents who have written to me in relation to animal testing for cosmetic product development. They have written to me saying that we have to stop this. In fact, the bill opens the door to minimizing the use of animal testing. The Senate made some amendments to make that part of the bill even stronger.
I have met with stakeholders, particularly animal rights groups like the Animal Justice Canada, Humane Canada and the Humane Society International/Canada. They have recommended strengthening this part of the bill even more. The Senate amendment talks about refining the use of animal testing, but that leaves the door open a little too wide according to those I have met with.
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- Oct/19/22 5:35:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his work chairing the environment committee. It is a pleasure working with him.
The member spoke about receiving lots of correspondence about the right to a healthy environment. The first people who came to me about the right to a healthy environment were Franny and Rupert. They started advocating for this in 2014 when they were seven and 10 years old. Now, eight years later, they are still incredible environmental advocates, and they want to see a strong right to a healthy environment.
One of the ways the government could do that is to open up the section on enforcement and ensure that there is a strong citizen endorsement policy, and one that is not broken the way the current one is. I am curious about the member's thoughts on ensuring that the right to a healthy environment can be enforced.
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- Oct/19/22 5:36:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her ongoing focus on enforcement. As some members of the House may know, the member had the environment committee study enforcement.
I agree that enforcement is really the name of the game. It is an issue that is more general than related to the right to a healthy environment. I believe that the right to a healthy environment is incorporated in many pieces of environmental legislation. However, we must remember that the right to a healthy environment is not a constitutional right but a right within a law that can be changed depending on the government.
The right to a healthy environment exists through the Impact Assessment Act, the Fisheries Act and through legislative instruments the government has to protect the environment. That right is pervasive, and enforcement should always be a focus of the government.
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- Oct/19/22 6:05:57 p.m.
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Yes, Madam Speaker, again, I was pointing out that perhaps we should tackle some of these issues more in relation to specific issues.
I mentioned reproductive toxicity. That is a noble cause to tackle, and I would like to see us tackle it. If there are environmental impacts that are causing that, let us get to the bottom of it. If it is the BPA in our plastics, let us prove that. Let us work on it. That is important, rather than these kinds of “boil the ocean” bills.
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- Oct/19/22 6:24:07 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, as I said in an earlier intervention, there is no doubt that there is a need to update the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and that there are some very good things in Bill S-5.
However, surveys have found that there are a lot of toxic substances in ordinary consumer products. We had a study that found very high levels of lead in products that were being sold in dollar stores, including in canned food and children's toys. This bill does not have any requirement for more transparency from corporations about the presence of toxic chemicals in ordinary consumer products. Why is that left out of this version of the bill?
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- Oct/19/22 6:41:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about the right to a healthy environment, which obviously we support. I come from a coastal community. I can tell the House what it is like in coastal communities today. People cannot go anywhere without finding expanded polystyrene littered and broken apart along coastal shores, whether it be in coastal British Columbia or in Atlantic Canada. We know there are alternatives to expanded polystyrene that can be used which the government is not enforcing. The same member supported my Motion No. 51, which called on the government to regulate polystyrene in marine environments and reduce it, but the government has not done anything.
I am hoping my colleague will come forward with what the government is going to actually do to tackle polystyrene in marine environments and end this environmental disaster that is taking place. It is impacting our food systems, the environment and the ecosystem that absolutely relies on a healthy environment. I hope my colleague and his government will finally take real action in banning polystyrene from being used, especially in industrial use and marine environments.
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- Oct/19/22 6:43:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, a lot has been said this evening as far as the track records of the different parties in this place are concerned. I would just like to draw the member's attention to this. The Conservative omnibus bill, Bill C-45, is pretty infamous. It revised the Fisheries Act and removed sections of banned activities, which resulted in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat. It also altered the Navigable Waters Protection Act. There were so many pieces in the omnibus bill that were just an attack, an assault, I would say, on environmental protections in this country.
Could you comment further on the Conservatives' record as far as environmentalism is concerned?
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- Oct/19/22 6:44:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Fredericton is a very strong environmental advocate. I really do appreciate the many contributions she makes to the government caucus.
The member is quite right. The elimination of support for the experimental lakes program is another good example. It is something we have reinforced and continue to try to improve wherever we can. I am sure that she will ensure there is a high level of accountability in Fredericton and every other region of the country and that they are being well served by government programs.
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- Oct/19/22 6:44:58 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise in the House of Commons and to get a chance today to speak to Bill S-5, which is a piece of government legislation that comes to us from the other place. After it was introduced there, several amendments were made to the bill and it was sent to this House for more consideration. This piece of legislation mainly focuses on how the government will administer the Environmental Protection Act, 1999, as well as the Food and Drugs Act. I will talk about some of that in a moment.
First, it is worth noting that this is another environment bill coming from the Liberal government, which is a frequent topic. That is always something interesting to see when we consider the long list of hypocrisy, double standards, failure and empty promises that we keep getting from the government. That is why we often have to wonder what exactly the Liberals are trying to do whenever they are trying to bring something like this forward. Sometimes they are pushing political agendas or special interests in the name of supposedly helping the environment. Other times they are quickly trying to change the subject to distract from their failed policies or one of the many scandals that they seem to find themselves involved in on a regular basis.
For all we know, that might be why the government added a general statement that we should protect the environment, without really defining or explaining it any further. Regardless, it is important to remember how the Liberals tend to operate when any bill on this topic comes from their government.
Until recently, I was on the public accounts committee. Along with reviewing the Auditor General's reports, we had the privilege of being able to look at the environment commissioner's reports on a regular basis as well. This gave me and my Conservative colleagues a closer look at the government's record of not keeping its promises or of missing its targets. It is remarkable how, over the course of time on the committee, and I am sure many other members here who have sat on the committee would agree with me, there is a recurring theme of overall failure to get things done and accomplished. More than half of the reports that we saw in this particular Parliament indicated significant failure. In some cases, the government is not delivering because there was no plan or no effort at all to get it done.
The last environment commissioner's report that I worked on had to do with the just transition, as the government supposedly calls it. This is what the commissioner told us:
[T]he government has been unprepared and slow off the mark.... We found that as Canada shifts its focus to low‑carbon alternatives, the government is not prepared to provide appropriate support to more than 50 communities and 170,000 workers in the fossil fuels sector.
The government identified Natural Resources Canada as the lead department to deliver just transition legislation in 2019.
[We found [t]he department took little action until 2021, and it did not have an implementation plan to address this significant economic shift.... Without a proper just transition plan in place, there are risks that are comparable to what occurred with the collapse of the northern cod fishery in Atlantic Canada in the 1990s.
Why is this important? I represent an area in southwestern Saskatchewan and my colleague from Souris—Moose Mountain is in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan. Right where our borders meet is an area that is going to be affected by this supposed just transition by the government. The towns of Rockglen, Willow Bunch, Coronach and many other communities in that area are going to be directly impacted by this. What we have seen repeatedly through the delays is that the government has not actually taken any steps yet to help these communities with this transition as the government is removing the number one economic driver in those communities and throughout that entire region. This has only been exacerbated these last two years, but that does not give the government the excuse of not being able to deal with something that it has implemented and forced upon these communities.
Whenever the government takes something away from someone, it has to be able to backfill it or replace it with something else. That is what the government is supposedly trying to do with a just transition, but we are just not seeing it. It is really important. Having gone through so many of the public accounts reports and seeing the failure, not even to have a plan in place is doing an extreme disservice to these communities.
I will talk about the town of Coronach as well. Coronach is in the riding of the member for Souris—Moose Mountain. I met with the mayor because he is part of a regional group that is represented by both Rockglen and Willow Bunch in my riding. He was talking about how their town specifically was designed to accommodate a population base of closer to 2,000 people. The town has only around 800 people right now, though. With the removal of the coal mine and power plant from the riding, who knows what is going to happen to that population?
Coronach is a town that is uniquely set up to grow and blossom, if only there were some proper investments into the community, from both the private sector and the government, particularly from the government, when it is removing the number one driver of the local economy. This is a town that has all the potential in the world to be able to do more, but the government is making sure it will achieve less, and unfortunately it is going to be at risk of suffering a fate similar to other communities that have had their entire economies wiped off the map.
Again, I look at Rockglen and Willow Bunch. The government spent some money in those communities. That had nothing to do with this just transition plan, yet the government is saying that it was actually from that funding stream, which is completely backward and is not actually helping to address the problems these communities are going to have going forward. These are problems such as broadband, which would be a far more appropriate investment by the government into their communities. Instead, it is investing in other areas that are not on a priority list for these communities. They are seeking an opportunity going forward as the government removes this critical industry from them.
Something else the committee looked at in public accounts was the carbon tax. The Liberals call it a price on pollution as though it is supposed to help protect the environment and we have just not seen the results yet. It is supposed to be their signature policy for the environment, but we see it is not actually a serious approach to the issue of the environment. Instead, it has turned out to be a great excuse for the government to take more money from Canadians' pockets, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer has released reports to confirm that Canadians, in fact, are receiving less than what the government is taking from them.
On the government's claims about the carbon tax being revenue neutral, when I asked the finance department about the amount of GST charged on top of the carbon tax, it confirmed that is over and above the $4.3 billion collected last year, but it could not actually give me a number because it was not keeping track of it. This is absolutely insane, because when we look at an energy bill, and I have many farmers who are sending me their bills to show how much carbon tax they are paying on their energy costs to dry grain, heat their barns and things like that, there is the carbon tax price and right below it there is a line for the federal GST that is collected.
Over time that becomes a lot of money, because there is a lot of carbon tax being collected now, but as we see the government planning to triple the carbon tax going forward, all the way up to $170 a tonne, that is going to be problematic, and we are going to see that GST number rise, yet the government does not even know how much money it is collecting from it. It is just insane. I do not even really know what more to say than that.
Bill S-5 is a bit different from the more outrageous examples out there. In particular, it would bring the focus back to Canada's legal and regulatory frameworks, which have already been in place for a long time. While many industry associations have supported the bill from when it was originally introduced, they have also expressed their concerns with some of the amendments it has received since then.
It is our job in the House to consider all of this and carefully review everything so that we can get the right balance, and hopefully the government will listen and reconsider some of the changes made to how it originally wrote its own piece of legislation. One of the first questionable issues for Canadian industry is a change to the wording related to the precautionary principle.
At first reading, the bill originally used standard wording, which is internationally recognized. It read, “the lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”. The key word in that sentence is “cost-effective”. It demonstrates that we fully expect the co-operative and responsible approach on the part of our industries to protect the environment. This expectation also includes awareness and respect for the needs and circumstances for those same industries. That is quite clear.
However, this statement has been amended to say, “the lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”. Such a change is not as small as it might sound. Those two words are clearly different with their emphasis, and this causes a shift in the meaning and interpretation of that section.
The other problem is that the bill refers to the precautionary principle, which is an international concept of long-standing international recognition. It represents a balanced approach between the environment and industry, and there is no need to move away from it. The wording for it is “cost-effective” and our law should faithfully reflect what it is citing, instead of creating uncertainty by changing what it says and what it means.
I will turn to another amendment made to this bill about assessing whether a substance is toxic. The original version mentioned vulnerable populations, but it did not include “vulnerable environment” as a new term, which has been added along with it. In Bill S-5, it is vague and unclear, which is not helpful and can create regulatory uncertainty for stakeholders dealing with the process of assessment or enforcement.
Again, we must not lose sight of the right balance between strong protection for the environment and practical concerns expressed by our industry. In that regard, it is a real possibility for a regulatory regime to become excessive and hostile to development.
We have seen a similar situation that is unnecessarily blocking resource projects across the different regions of the country. The Impact Assessment Act process has not only ruled out new pipelines for oil and gas, but also created challenges for forestry, and even more so for new mining projects, which are needed for the government's green ambitions.
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