44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 24, 2022 11:00AM
- Oct/24/22 12:09:12 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I was talking about an amendment that was in there previously, so I have touched on the bill, but sometimes the truth does hurt.
I will finish with my example, quickly. When it comes to these lithium projects, we are missing the opportunity to source them tariff-free in that three-year window because of the impact assessment project. We were told in committee it would take approximately 10 years to be able to get a project going because of the Impact Assessment Act, so it is very important to have that issue raised when we are talking about this bill because we are talking about the environment.
As much as the Liberals want to talk about Canada leading a new industry of critical minerals for a green economy, the time frame, as I just referred to in that example, is an obstacle to starting these new projects. The government has spent a lot of time talking about how we have an abundance of raw materials for this emerging sector. Canada has what it takes to successfully compete in the global market for electric vehicle batteries and other products, and there is a lot of potential there if it works out.
It has always been true that our country is blessed with having so many natural resources. It is the economic foundation of our prosperity. The Liberals point to critical minerals as the answer to reducing emissions, creating new jobs and strengthening our position through an energy transition, but how can it happen if it takes too long to review and approve, for example, mining projects? All the minerals will stay in the ground.
The Liberals see an opportunity in front of them, but their own policy will make us watch on the sidelines as it passes us by, and they will sabotage their own environmental plan. The delay makes it all but impossible to get ahead of the curve and be competitive. I will take this opportunity to remind the government, once again, that stakeholders told us this when we were studying the subject at committee. This is what happens when the government does not listen or respond to practical feedback from industry. It is counterproductive.
I have already raised this issue with the minister, but the government has not acknowledged it and has not shown a willingness to reconsider what it is doing. Unless we take a different approach to development, one that is compatible with protecting the environment, this is a problem that will continue to hold us back. It will remain a lose-lose scenario.
There is another example of this that is closer to the subject of the amendment. Under the new fuel regulations, the government wants to rely on expanding the production of biofuels Again, it offers it as a solution for both the environment and our future economy. This would increase demand for crops like canola, and we are advised farmers should produce the higher yields required without using more land to do it, which remains to be seen.
However, this creates an incentive in a market dynamic for farmers and ranchers to switch to producing biofuel crops. That is their decision to make, and rightfully so, and many will probably want to do so because of the prices and other factors. It is not explicitly part of the regulation or the policy behind it to favour biofuels, but the reality is that we will have people breaking up natural grasslands to start growing these crops that offer higher returns. This is something I have already seen across southwestern Saskatchewan in my riding, and also elsewhere.
These are sensitive ecosystems, which could be the sort described as a vulnerable environment, as we see in Bill S-5, but this is a vulnerable environment at risk from environmental policy instead of toxic substances. If there is a strong incentive to break them up, they will no longer be conserved, as is currently being done, by farmers. After that happens, we will never get them back. As a result, we would also lose carbon sequestration and the other benefits grasslands and similar areas provide.
If we are trying to protect the environment, we cannot consider it in isolation, as though it is something opposed to industry. This is a real example where economic activity has brought added benefits to sensitive ecosystems. For a long time, the agricultural sector has preserved and revived the grasslands. It is in its best interest to do so. This fact has been recognized and included in conservation efforts, but now we are starting to disrupt the balanced relationship that exists, and that would have a negative impact on the environment.
This all goes to show the danger of something that sounds good as an environmental policy but does not care as much about consistency or consequences in the real world. It can interfere with climate goals and cancel itself out. With Bill S-5, it would be unfortunate if something like that happened again in an unforeseen way. It is why we need to carefully consider the details and feedback we are getting from stakeholders when we hear them at committee or when we are back home in our ridings.
Finally, the bill itself provides a right for anyone to request an assessment for whether a substance is capable of becoming toxic. This opens a wide door for the department to take in a large number of assessments outside of its regular work. We have seen how Liberals manage federal services and how easily those have been overwhelmed, whether it was with processing passports over the summer or the backlog of air travel complaints.
There is room for improvement in this bill, and we hope any remaining concerns will be resolved.
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- Oct/24/22 12:54:26 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House, especially on matters related to the environment. As we know, I am my party's climate change critic. I am therefore very happy to speak about Bill S‑5.
My colleague, the member for Repentigny, the Bloc Québécois's environment critic, has already informed the House of the Bloc Québécois's position on this bill. We are obviously in favour of the principle of Bill S‑5 because it is high time that the federal government take steps to modernize Canada's primary environmental protection legislation, known as CEPA.
Passed in 1988, CEPA established a framework for managing toxic substances and gave ministers the authority to regulate sources of pollution. The revised act came into effect in 1999 and there have been few amendments since. That means that the legislation that is to protect Canada's environment is over 20 years old. A lot has changed in 20 years. Science has evolved, industry practices have evolved and, unfortunately, the environmental crisis has worsened.
The update to CEPA is obviously good news, but members will not be surprised to hear me say that the Quebec nation is and must be solely responsible for public decisions concerning environmental protection in its jurisdiction.
Moreover, in April 2022, all members in Quebec's National Assembly passed a motion affirming Quebec's primary jurisdiction over the environment. To be clear, Quebec's elected representatives strongly stated their opposition to any federal interference in the environment in Quebec.
Over the years, we have developed environmental law in a way that allows us to move Quebec forward responsibly and for everyone's benefit. In doing so, we have exercised all of the powers that belong to us under the division of powers set out in the Constitution of Canada. Quebec's environmental sovereignty is effective because we fully assume the space available.
The Environment Quality Act is Quebec's primary environmental protection legislation. Naturally, its purpose is to protect the environment and the living species inhabiting it.
Quebec law prohibits the deterioration of the quality of the environment or the emission of pollutants or contaminants. It provides recourse to residents affected by any offence that compromises the quality of the environment, its protection and the protection of living species. It requires that an environmental impact assessment be conducted to carry out an activity that could present a high risk to the environment. It creates a special access to information regime, governs projects or activities that could have an impact on wetlands and bodies of water, and provides criminal penalties for individuals who contravene the law.
Reformed in 2017, Quebec's Environment Quality Act allows us to meet the highest standards in environmental protection. It is complemented by other Quebec environmental legislation, including the Sustainable Development Act, which allows the public administration in Quebec to consider the principles of sustainable development in its actions, including the principles of environmental protection, precaution, prevention and respect for ecosystem support capacity.
In Quebec, we also have an act affirming the collective nature of water resources and to promote better governance of water and associated environments, which gives every individual the right to access drinking water for hygiene and cooking and ensures that there is no net loss of wetlands and bodies of water. We also have the Natural Heritage Conservation Act, which seeks to protect the land by creating protected areas, and the Act Respecting the Conservation and Development of Wildlife, which seeks to protect wildlife from over-harvesting and their habitats from degradation.
Finally, there is Quebec's civil code, which also contains provisions to protect the environment, in addition to other laws and regulations that also protect the environment even though that is not their only purpose. Most importantly, Quebec has its Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms which, since 2006, states, “Every person has a right to live in a healthful environment in which biodiversity is preserved, to the extent and according to the standards provided by law.”
Clearly, when it comes to advancing environmental justice or strengthening environmental protection in Quebec, it is futile to pin our hopes on the Canadian government. I am not saying that Quebec has a perfect model. We also share responsibility and need to do much more to protect the environment. What I am trying to say is that there is already a model in Quebec, because this falls under its jurisdiction.
I therefore invite members from all parts of Canada to focus their efforts on their provincial legislatures and urge their provincial counterparts to pass legislation that protects the environment. I encourage them to claim their rightful space in this domain with two goals in mind: to protect nature and to protect provincial autonomy, which is being undermined within the Canadian federation. If they want to draw on Quebec's environmental protection laws, they are welcome to. The provinces would do well to work together on the environment.
That being said, under the current legal framework, the federal government does have certain environmental protection responsibilities. The Bloc Québécois intends to do everything in its power to ensure that the federal government does its job properly, and one of its jobs is to modernize the CEPA. This is a necessary legislative update, and we will give the matter the full attention it deserves.
The Bloc Québécois is eager to work with all parliamentarians to ensure that the revised legislation best reflects the recommendations of health and environmental protection groups, as well as partners in the chemical industry who are most affected, particularly when it comes to chemicals management, the list of toxic substances, improved accountability for risk management, a comprehensive assessment of the cumulative effects of substances and mandatory labelling requirements.
My colleague certainly talked about a letter sent to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change that was signed by no fewer than 54 Quebec-based groups, including women's groups, health sector groups, neighbourhood groups and more than 200 citizens from all walks of life, expressing their deep concern about toxic contamination. They are right to be concerned, since much work remains to be done on this. I have that letter with me and would like to read a few passages from it.
As the letter says, these substances can be found all around us, whether it is in the air we breathe, both indoors and outdoors, in furniture and certain interior coverings, in our homes and offices, in our clothing and food and in a range of personal care products we use every day.
The letter mentions bisphenol A, better known as BPA, which is found in many items. It mentions that “despite their toxicity, there are still flame retardants in some children's sleepwear”. There may be toxic substances in the footie pyjamas worn by so many babies.
BPA, a well-known endocrine disrupter, “can mimic or interfere with estrogen in our bodies, producing a myriad of health effects”. There are many adverse effects. I will name a few because the list is rather startling.
The effects include “altered estrogen action, early onset puberty, altered breast development and breast cancer, ovarian cysts, polycystic ovarian syndrome, uterine fibroid, altered sperm count and quality, neural and behavioural effects, sex-specific changes in brain structure, obesity and Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, altered liver function, and more”.
The letter also mentions perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. These are also very toxic substances that can be found almost anywhere and cause “cancers (testicular and kidney), hormone malfunction, thyroid disease, liver problems, immunological effects including decreased vaccine response, reproductive harms including decreased fertility, pregnancy induced hypertension and abnormal fetal development.”
I apologize to the interpreters as I read this rather quickly.
The letter also mentions that all these substances end up “in our waterways, our landfills and elsewhere” and obviously are found in our own human ecosystem, which has significant human health impacts.
Like most of my colleagues, I have received dozens of letters from my constituents and people across Quebec asking us to change CEPA to reflect the realities of the 21st century. I agree with them that we must do this important work.
In particular, they are asking that we strengthen the implementation of the right to a healthy environment. I must say that that will not be achieved by inserting the right in the bill's preamble. The changes we make to CEPA must contribute to ensuring that we have a healthy environment.
If we examine the bill carefully, we see that it does not create a real right to a healthy environment. Sure, it is mentioned in the preamble, but the bill does not contain any provision that would make that right enforceable in the courts, unlike the right that has been established in the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms since 2006, as I mentioned earlier.
Obviously, citizens can always count on the Bloc Québécois when it comes to protecting the environment and promoting health. Good health is essential, and we often take it for granted. We fail to make the direct correlation between the environment and health, or rather between human health and environmental health. However, that is what people like Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers, a family doctor at the CIUSSS in Montreal East, are working hard to do. She is also the chair of the Association québécoise des médecins pour l'environnement and a member of the board of directors for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. She thinks that climate change is the single biggest health threat in the 21st century and our biggest opportunity to do better. She also thinks that we need more ambitious public policies to protect our health and, obviously, I agree with her. She once said the following with regard to sustainable health, and I quote: “The best cure for the environment does not require a prescription”. Every day she sees the impact that climate change is having on the planet's health and people's health, and so she gave herself the mission of raising awareness among politicians and citizens.
I was speaking about Dr. Pétrin-Desrosiers, but she is not the only one who is addressing this issue in the public sphere. The World Health Organization has also declared that climate change is the greatest threat to human health. I want to share some of the facts that the WHO has published on its website:
Climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health—clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter.
Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
The direct damage costs to health (i.e. excluding costs in health-determining sectors such as agriculture and water and sanitation), is estimated to be between USD 2-4 billion/year by 2030.
Areas with weak health infrastructure—mostly in developing countries—will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond.
Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases through better transport, food and energy-use choices can result in improved health, particularly through reduced air pollution.
That is the main message from the WHO. Yes, the problem is significant and people are already feeling the effects of climate change, but by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, we may be able to help mitigate those effects.
I will continue to read what the WHO wrote in October 2021. It said, and I quote:
Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity, and health professionals worldwide are already responding to the health harms caused by this unfolding crisis.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that to avert catastrophic health impacts and prevent millions of climate change-related deaths, the world must limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.
We already knew that because it is something we hear often.
Past emissions have already made a certain level of global temperature rise and other changes to the climate inevitable. Global heating of even 1.5°C is not considered safe, however; every additional tenth of a degree of warming will take a serious toll on people's lives and health.
While no one is safe from these risks, the people whose health is being harmed first and worst by the climate crisis are the people who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it — people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities.
The climate crisis threatens to undo the last fifty years of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction, and to further widen existing health inequalities between and within populations. It severely jeopardizes the realization of universal health coverage (UHC) in various ways — including by compounding the existing burden of disease and by exacerbating existing barriers to accessing health services, often at the times when they are most needed. Over 930 million people — around 12% of the world's population — spend at least 10% of their household budget to pay for health care. With the poorest people largely uninsured, health shocks and stresses already currently push around 100 million people into poverty every year, with the impacts of climate change worsening this trend.
Obviously, those of us who live in a country with a public health care system are a bit more fortunate, but that is not the case for everyone around the world.
I will keep reading what the WHO says:
Climate change is already impacting health in a myriad of ways, including by leading to death and illness from increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, storms and floods, the disruption of food systems, increases in zoonoses and food-, water- and vector-borne diseases, and mental health issues. Furthermore, climate change is undermining many of the social determinants for good health, such as livelihoods, equality and access to health care and social support structures. These climate-sensitive health risks are disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, including women, children, ethnic minorities, poor communities, migrants or displaced persons, older populations, and those with underlying health conditions.
...scientific advances progressively allow us to attribute an increase in morbidity and mortality to human-induced warming, and more accurately determine the risks and scale of these health threats.
In the short- to medium-term, the health impacts of climate change will be determined mainly by the vulnerability of populations, their resilience to the current rate of climate change and the extent and pace of adaptation. In the longer-term, the effects will increasingly depend on the extent to which transformational action is taken now to reduce emissions and avoid the breaching of dangerous temperature thresholds and potential irreversible tipping points.
When a credible organization like the WHO publishes this kind of report, I think it is our duty as elected representatives to take it seriously and, more importantly, to act to mitigate the effects as much as possible.
Of course, just modernizing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act alone will not solve everything, but there are still some aspects that deserve our attention and need to be properly defined. We therefore need to analyze those aspects carefully to ensure that the modernized act really does allow the federal government to fulfill its responsibilities in the area of environmental protection, while ensuring respect for Quebec's environmental sovereignty.
I would like to point out that the bill does include a number of elements that raise some issues of a constitutional nature. Every level of government can pass laws to protect the environment if those laws are related to an area of constitutional jurisdiction under the Constitution Act, 1867. This is what is known as concurrent jurisdiction.
Consequently, the federal Parliament can pass legislation on toxic substances given its jurisdiction over criminal matters. However, Bill S-5 is about more than regulating substances. It proposes to regulate products. It seems to me that this broadens the federal government's role. The bill proposes to allow the environment minister to require the communication of information concerning activities that could contribute to pollution.
Regulating products and activities or pollution is different from regulating toxic substances. Here is another example. Usually, when prohibitions are issued under the Criminal Code, they are accompanied by sanctions for non-compliance with the law. I do not think this is the same as issuing authorizations, much less authorizations that have conditions attached. If the federal government can pass legislation under the Criminal Code, the law should not use public policy instruments that the Criminal Code does not allow to be used. My colleagues must agree that this could be a slippery slope.
As members know, I am an environmentalist. Saving the planet, saving biodiversity and fighting climate change are important to me. I trust no one believes that I would be happy to forgo regulating pollution, far from it. I simply want the government to respect the division of powers and especially the work that is already being done in Quebec. In addition to respecting the principle, we also have to try to avoid costly administrative and regulatory overlap that leaves everyone confused.
If the government wants to pass good legislation that is supported by the parties, it has to take steps in advance to ensure that the constitutional validity of its legislation will not be disputed. Did it consult the governments of Quebec and the provinces? I would be surprised, because the bill in its current form has quite a few constitutional problems. Those need to be addressed.
Accordingly, during the study of the bill, the Bloc Québécois will ensure that there are no clauses or provisions in it that can be considered intrusions into the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. Of all the areas that unquestionably fall under federal jurisdiction, all my colleagues from the other parties, as well as the Minister of the Environment, know that they can count on us to ensure that we have the most robust environmental legislation possible. It is our duty to make sure of it. It is also our duty to reassure the public and give it what it is asking for: a real right to a healthy environment.
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- Oct/24/22 1:15:21 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for asking such a great question.
Including the right to a healthy environment in the preamble of a bill is one thing. However, if the legislation itself does not reflect that idea, it is difficult to achieve.
I was saying that there is a link between health and the environment. Just about everything is interconnected. We must make the necessary efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions; otherwise, we will not necessarily reduce the risk to human health. It is all interrelated. I think we have to act on several fronts at once.
I am not necessarily encouraged when I see how little action this government has taken over the years. I do not think we are going to get there tomorrow morning. It requires far more complex changes, but we need to start somewhere.
Modernizing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a good thing. However, it is clear that Bill S-5 does not address all areas of environmental legislation. I think there is still a lot more to do after this bill is passed.
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- Oct/24/22 1:23:32 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, there are so many other things that can be done to protect biodiversity.
When I hear about the government green-lighting oil exploration projects off the coast of Newfoundland—like Bay du Nord, which just got approval—and about how these projects can threaten marine species, I cannot believe it. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is not the only environmental protection tool we have; there are other ways to take action too.
According to the World Health Organization text I shared earlier, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions can positively impact the observed negative effects of climate change on health. I think that, by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, we can achieve that.
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- Oct/24/22 1:24:34 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to talk about Bill S-5. We on this side of the House certainly have some concerns about the bill, and I will talk about that a little later in my speech.
First, this is an environmental bill. It is the first update to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act in a very long time. Of course, protecting the environment is something that is very important and something that we should all care very deeply about. However, the challenge we have is that this is a government that talks a lot about caring about the environment, its members say lots of things about how they care about the environment, but the actual translation of that into measurable, quantifiable improvements to the environment is really almost zero. I am going to talk a little about that.
Let us talk about the carbon tax. It was brought in with enormous fanfare by the Prime Minister and his Minister of Environment, saying it was going to be the cure for reducing carbon emissions across the country. I will skip to the end of the story where, in fact, we find that carbon emissions have not gone down. They have gone up every single year under this Liberal government. I will say it again, because it is worth repeating. Carbon emissions have gone up every single year under this Liberal government, which claims to be the big defender of the environment: “We're going to solve climate change, because we brought in a carbon tax.” In fact, it is an absolute failure.
Someone who is paying attention on the other side, or who has done some of their research, will say, no, carbon emissions went down in 2020 and things are going great. It is true that carbon emissions did go down in 2020 by 5.8%. However, it is now 2022, and some people will forget but that was at the peak of the pandemic. The economy contracted by 9% during that time. My statement is that, if this is actually the Liberals' plan to reduce carbon emissions, then just be honest with Canadians and tell us that it is their plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5% and reduce—
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- Oct/24/22 1:27:23 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, some members do not like hearing the truth and want to interrupt other members when they are speaking.
Going back to my point, I was talking about the fact that the current government has such a terrible record on the environment. That is because there are a number of promises in this bill that the government says it is going to do, which I say it will not do because it has a track record to show that it does not do the things it says it is going to do. I hope that will satisfy the member who chose to interrupt.
If that is the plan, for the Canadian economy to reach its carbon tax emissions it is going to have to contract by 45%, because a 5% carbon reduction is a 9% reduction in GDP. If that is the Liberals' plan, they should tell us about it.
The other part is that the government is supposed to put more money back into the pockets of Canadians. Of course, it does not. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has been abundantly clear that it does not put more money back into the pockets of Canadians. If we do the hard work, like the hard math, and I know the current government does not like to do the hard work and the hard math, and we factor in the cost of the carbon tax throughout the entire Canadian economy, it ends up costing Canadians more money than they get back from the paltry cheques the government sends them every so often. The worst part is it detrimentally and adversely affects people in rural communities, like in my riding of Dufferin—Caledon, where people have no choice but to commute long distances to work and put gas in their cars. They heat their homes with propane because that is the only option they have. Those paltry rebate cheques absolutely do not even come close to covering the cost of the carbon tax they are paying.
The Senate passed 24 amendments to this bill and I will say that 11 of them are of great concern. We have yet to hear what the government thinks of those 11 amendments, which I will come back to later in my speech.
I still want to flesh out why I think there are so many problems with this legislation and the fact that the current government will not live up to the promises in it with respect to the right to a healthy environment. I am going to touch on that.
We are also going to talk about the fact that the government put in this bill that anyone can have a substance assessed. Under the current government, we cannot get a passport. It has lost track of 500 criminals, who were subject to deportation, and does not know where they are. However, it is going to have the capacity to somehow deal with the hundreds of thousands of requests that are going to flood into the department to have a substance assessed, because the legislation is very clear that anyone can ask for such an assessment. It is inconceivable that the current government would think that is a good thing to include in this piece of legislation.
I will talk about why I do not think the government is going to be able to implement half of the things it put in this bill. The commissioner of the environment did about 10 reports on the progress of the Liberal government with respect to the environment. Guess what. Virtually all of them got a failing grade.
Let us talk about a just transition for coal workers. The environment commissioner was very clear that there was no just transition for coal workers. In fact, they were left out in the cold. Therefore, when we hear the government saying that everyone is going to enjoy a right to a healthy environment, I have enormous skepticism that it is actually going to do that. It did not help coal workers. It talks about a just transition all the time. The government says it is going to provide a just transition for any energy worker who is displaced by any of its punitive pieces of legislation, whether it is the no-development bill, the carbon tax or anything else. The government claims it will be there for anyone who is displaced. Do members know who the first people were who were displaced? It was coal workers. Where was the government? Absolutely nowhere. The commissioner was clear. The government left coal workers with virtually nothing, but it is going to enact a right to a healthy environment and therefore all Canadians are going to enjoy this right. I do not think it is going to deliver that, because it does not ever deliver anything that matters with respect to the environment.
The other thing the Liberal government has put in this bill is that plastic-manufactured items are now in schedule 1. When the current government was first elected it said there would be no more Ottawa knows best and no more telling the provinces what to do, but that it would be this wonderful government that rules by consensus. Guess what. The provinces are now suing the federal government as a result of plastics being placed in the new schedule 1 of this legislation.
It is hard to talk about how many times the Liberals say they are going to do something and then actually do nothing or do the opposite. We could talk about freedom of information and this being a government that is going to be open and transparent by default, but the system is absolutely a mess as a result of what? The Liberal government. Again, it says it is going to do something, but it does not do anything or it does the opposite.
Let us talk about this vaunted right to a healthy environment. First of all, it is in the preamble, and when something is put in the preamble it actually has different legal weight from something that is actually in a section in a statute. Again, the Liberals snuck it into the preamble to virtue signal and say to people they care so much about a healthy environment that they are going to put it in the bill, except they did not put it in the bill. They put it in the preamble, which has different legal impact than putting it in the statute itself.
There we go. Number one is that they are not delivering yet again. It is in the preamble and not in the actual statute.
What is worse about it is that there were five years of consultation for the Liberals to come up with this piece of legislation. If all of this was so important, why did it take five years? I have no explanation. This is a government that finds it very difficult to walk and chew gum at the same time. Its members cannot do more than one thing at once. They sort of stumble from one crisis to another.
There were five years to consult to draft this piece of legislation. Now the Liberals say the right to a healthy environment is really important and they will enshrine it in legislation, but they stuck it in the preamble and now say they need a further two years to figure out what it means. This is a government that is not moving slowly. This is a government that is moving basically in reverse, when Canadians do actually deserve these things.
It speaks to the absolute incompetence of the government. It cares so much about the right to a healthy environment that it is going to consult on it for five years, then because it realizes it probably needs to get some legislation put forward, it is just going to say it will consult for another two years. Who knows what that is going to turn out to be? The Liberals have not given any suggestions on what that is going to be. They have not talked about what that consultation would entail, who would be consulted or where those consultations would take place. These are things the Liberals say they are going to do, but I have very little faith in their actually doing them.
They said there were going to be extensive consultations on plastic bans. When we talked to a lot of industry stakeholders, they were not consulted at all, so I am not necessarily sure that what the Liberals say about consultation is actually going to come to fruition.
This is what we talk about when the Liberals say in the legislation anyone can have a substance assessed. Let us think about that for a minute. That is not narrowly defined. It is as inclusive as it can be; it is anyone. Any Canadian, if this bill passes, can go forward and ask for a substance to be assessed. That is going to create a deluge of requests for assessments from environmental groups, from concerned citizens and from others.
That would mean the department, which is already busy enough with what it has to do, would become overwhelmed, and when departments become overwhelmed under this government, which is something that happens literally every other day, we cannot get a passport. We have all been through that. There were a number of constituents who got in touch with my office who said they could not get a passport and asked if we could please help. I said to them that I tried to get my son's and daughter's passports renewed for our vacation, and I could not, so our vacation was cancelled. This is how effective the government is on managing something as simple as issuing a passport.
I know I heard the minister one day in question period saying they had no idea how to anticipate the influx of applications. It is very complicated. Passports expire on five-year or 10-year increments. The math is very hard, like 2022 to 2027 or 2032. I know complex, difficult math equations are something the government has incredible challenges with. When we look at the ability for anyone to assess a substance, how are the Liberals going to handle it?
The minister has not talked about it. None of the members opposite have talked about it in their speeches. It is like they have not contemplated how difficult that could be. We know they have not, because they did not contemplate how difficult it would be to issue a passport. The Liberals clearly did not contemplate how difficult it would be to keep track of 500 criminals who faced deportation orders. They are all gone. What is the explanation from the government? We have no explanation. I think maybe it is, “Oops.” That is where the government is on that.
We support referring this piece of legislation to committee to be studied, but we have grave concerns about it, concerns that I am going to continue to express today. It is so easy to say one is going to do things. The government says it is going to do all kinds of things. The difficulty comes when it actually tries to implement the things it says. That is the hard part. There is an old Seinfeld episode in which Jerry Seinfeld is trying to rent a car, and the car is not there. He said that anyone could just take, take, take reservations; it was holding the reservation that was the difficult part.
The Liberal government can make all kinds of environmental announcements, saying it is going to do this or that, that it is going to solve climate change or reduce carbon emissions and that it is going to have a just transition for coal workers. That is the easy part. The hard part is actually doing it. That is the part the government is really not very good at.
That is what I am deeply concerned about with respect to this piece of legislation, both with the right to a healthy environment with respect to anyone being able to assess a substance, and with the fact that plastic manufactured items have been placed on schedule 1.
What is that going to lead to? This is being talked about. This is a government that likes to demonize plastics. It is in all the government's things. The Prime Minister famously did a press conference where he talked about the drink box, water bottle kind of thing that he wanted to eliminate.
Plastics are critical in our lives. We could look at the medical field. If we are going to be looking at further regulations of plastics, what is that going to mean if we go in for an operation? Lots of surgical instruments use plastics. Are we going to end up getting IVs made with wood, because we are against plastics? It is the virtue signalling that we are going to do something, again without doing the hard work of thinking it through and deciding what is actually the best course of action.
Virtue signalling is something the government does so often, it is difficult to keep up with. It continues to talk about its record on the environment, and again I am going to go back to the fact that it is so poor that it leads me to think that the government is not going to implement what is in this particular piece of legislation. It keeps talking about an energy transition. That is what it wants to do. That is the government's big thing, that we have to get off fossil fuels.
Let us talk a little about that, this sort of woke energy environmentalism. Germany spent a couple of hundred million dollars on trying to get carbon out of its electricity grid. Over the past 20 years, it has been doing that, and it has spent hundreds of billions of dollars. This is the path the Liberal government wants us to go down. It does not want to learn from somebody else's mistakes. After hundreds of billions of dollars, Germany has taken its dependence on hydrocarbons for electricity from 84% to 78%.
I am not an investment person, but I can tell members that is not a good return on investment. The average per kilowatt hour cost of electricity in Germany is 45¢, and here in Ontario it is 13¢. Imagine spending hundreds of billions of dollars, barely moving the needle and paying some of the highest electricity rates in the world. That is the result of those kinds of policies. That is the same policy road that the Liberal government wants us to take a trip down with respect to electricity generation in this country.
Again, this brings me back to why we have such an incredible challenge with this bill.
There are 24 amendments that were passed in the Senate, and, yes, there is supposedly an Independent Senators Group, but they are all appointed by the Prime Minister, so these are members of the Senate who are beholden to the Prime Minister, to a certain extent.
Is that what the government's plan is for this piece of legislation? We on this side and, I am sure, all the other opposition parties would like to know that. Does it support all these amendments?
They changed the definition of “right to a healthy environment” at the Senate. That is a significant change. Is the government supporting that amendment? We would like to know.
They made changes to “living organisms”. They made a big change with respect to the precautionary principle. I am very happy that Bill S-5 preserves the precautionary principle, but they removed “cost” from “cost-effective”. That is a very important balancing point with respect to the precautionary principle.
What is the government's position on having done that? Is it going to change that at committee? Is it going to work with the opposition to do that? We do not know.
It has been wonderful to discuss this bill and discuss Liberal failures on the environment and how I think they are going to translate into Bill S-5. I hope the government will take some of these criticisms of the bill seriously, with respect to the right to a healthy environment, with respect to the precautionary principle and, of course, with respect to how anyone can have a substance assessed.
I hope it will take these requests to amend seriously and that it will do the work in committee to make these changes so this bill can be supported at third reading.
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- Oct/24/22 1:45:32 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the member campaigned on not raising the carbon tax above $50 a tonne, and now it is going to go up to $170 a tonne. I find the question a little rich.
First of all, what people campaigned on in a previous election has nothing to do with Bill S-5. I will say this, though: I am against the Liberals' carbon tax. We have always been against it.
It does not do anything. I could go on and on about it. Carbon emissions have gone up every single year under the Liberal government, every single year, except the pandemic year, when they liked to say that things were working but then they did not want to talk about the contraction to the environment.
The PBO has made it clear: It does not put more money back into the pockets of Canadians. By any measurable metric, their version of the carbon tax is an unmitigated failure. We are against it. We will always be against it. We will scrap that carbon tax once we form government under the leadership of our new Conservative leader, which we look forward to.
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- Oct/24/22 1:47:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot ask for a better question than one about Liberal hypocrisy.
When we talk about the environment, the government will not approve projects in Canada, let us say a project with lithium, so that project goes on and gets done somewhere else in the world, because the world needs lithium. It goes to a country that has carbon emissions that are 10 to 15 times higher than what would happen if the project were done in Canada. It is generally a country that has lower environmental standards on all other measures of the environment. These countries have terrible human rights records and terrible employment standards for their employees. The government says it has cleaned up its balance sheet, but the global balance sheet on all those metrics gets so much worse.
There is no carbon dome over Canada. When we export our carbon emissions to other countries, along with the jobs and the tax revenue, all we do is make the world a much worse place on all those things we talked about. This is the same kind of thinking that the Liberals bring forward with the right to a healthy environment, which they do not define and no one knows what it is, and with respect to the fact that anyone can assess a substance. All these things are absolutely nonsensical.
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- Oct/24/22 1:49:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not my position to postulate on what our campaign election promises might look like coming up in the next election. I am not the leader of the party.
However, I will say this. The unequivocal fact is that the Liberals' carbon tax is an abysmal failure. We are against it. We have been very clear and unequivocal about that. It does not reduce emissions, and it does not put more money in the pockets of Canadians.
I am going to talk again about my riding in Dufferin—Caledon. I have people who commute an hour to an hour and a half every single day to get to work. These are people who are not rich. The carbon tax is punishing them every single day they fill up their tanks with gas. When they heat their homes with propane, they are punished again, and the government does not care, because people in rural communities do not vote for the current government.
The carbon tax is punitive. It is designed for the person who lives in a downtown urban centre, who can take transit and buy their energy from Bullfrog Power or some other company that provides allegedly green electricity. Everybody else, including all the people in my riding, is absolutely punished by the carbon tax. I am against it. Everyone in this party is against it, and we are going to scrap it when we form government.
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- Oct/24/22 1:54:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have an interesting fact: The only government, outside of a pandemic, where carbon emissions have gone down was under Stephen Harper. That is the first time. It took a pandemic that savaged our economy by 9%, a 9% contraction in GDP, for the Liberals to get a 5.8% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. I think that is their secret plan. They are just sort of whispering it to themselves. That is how they are going to lower emissions, by savaging the Canadian economy.
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- Oct/24/22 2:16:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, a very close friend of the Prime Minister, said in early September that putting a carbon tax on home heating fuel would place “undue economic burdens on the people of this province.” The four Atlantic premiers wrote to the federal environment minister around the same time to request an exemption on the deadline to end the tax exemption on home heating fuel. They were flatly turned down by the Liberal government, whose intent to tax the right to heat one's home reflects its cult-like beliefs that taxing the essentials of life will lower carbon emissions. The NDP coalition partners are partial to the same cult-like beliefs. According to the chair of the Council of Atlantic Premiers, energy poverty in Atlantic Canada is nearly 40%, the highest in the country.
Atlantic Canadians are counting on their MPs to stand with them when they stand to vote today on a motion to axe the carbon tax on home heating fuel.
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- Oct/24/22 2:56:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely shocking. Weeks after the climate catastrophe of hurricane Fiona, the Conservatives want to take a tool off the table that would reduce emissions, fight climate change and put more money into people's pockets.
I want to assure the hon. member that we will be there to help Atlantic Canada to rebuild. We will also be there to help Atlantic Canadians transition to greener forms of energy.
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- Oct/24/22 3:03:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives across the way never talk about the costs of climate change. In the member's province of B.C., climate change is killing people and ravaging the economy. About 600 people died under the heat dome last year. It was a $9-billion impact to the local economy.
Climate change is real. Lives are real. These costs are real. We have a plan to reduce emissions, build community resiliency and create the clean jobs of tomorrow.
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- Oct/24/22 4:19:09 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I should apologize to the folks in the gallery, because this is probably not the day to come and listen to a debate. Bill S-5, as riveting as we try to make it, probably does not have the most riveting debate.
I just will recap, as I was cut short prior to question period, some of the concerns we have with Bill S-5. I will say that the Conservatives are going to support sending Bill S-5 to committee, but there are some concerns. The number one concern we have is trusting that the government is going to do what it says it is going to do, because as we know and have seen for the last seven years, it has failed on a number of its promises and has not delivered on a number of its promises.
The carbon tax has done nothing but make things more unaffordable for Canadians. It has done nothing to cut emissions. As a matter of fact, emissions have gone up every year with the imposition of the carbon tax. The Liberals have waged war on our natural resource industry and energy sector.
There is no doubt that I live in an area ravaged by wildfires, drought and flooding. We have to take concrete action on climate change, and what the government has done is stand up and say all the right things. However, it has literally done nothing. I introduced into the record some bills that have waged war on our natural resource sector and energy sector, making it more difficult for them to compete on the world stage. As a matter of fact, the Liberals have landlocked Canadian resources in many ways and have failed to secure a softwood lumber agreement. They like to say it was all due to the previous government, yet every time something happens, they fail to take responsibility.
The Liberals are in government, and I will perhaps pre-empt our colleagues across the way as to some of the questions they are going to ask. They are going to ask where the Conservatives' plan is for climate change. They are in government at this time, and they have had seven years to come up with a plan, yet they have failed to do so.
Bill S-5 deals with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, or CEPA, which has not been significantly updated since it was passed in 1999. Bill S-5 would be the first major update since 1999. It recognizes that every Canadian has the right to a healthy environment and requires the Government of Canada to protect this right, which I do not think anyone on this side would disagree with. What we do disagree with is that it is going to take the Liberals another two years to figure out what that means. What does it mean for every Canadian to have the right to a healthy environment? Now they are going to study it for another two more years.
One thing that is always challenging with the government is that it tells us and Canadians, “Just trust us. We'll get it done.” We should just trust, when we send a bill to committee, that it will consider the amendments and flesh out all the details in parliamentary committees. However, we have seen time and time again that the government fails to take up any of the considerations the opposition gives.
I am in the health committee right now. As a matter of fact, we start in 10 minutes. We are studying Bill C-31, a bill that has been rammed down our throats, although I think it is well intentioned. It is the rental and dental bill, and I will remind Canadians that we have essentially been given by the government and its costly coalition with the NDP two hours to study this piece of legislation and question the ministers. It is predicted that up to $10 billion is going to be spent on it, so there are just two hours of study on a piece of legislation that is very important.
I know members are going ask what I have against our most marginalized communities. I live in an area and jurisdiction where rent is very, very expensive. I am not disagreeing that the amount of money they are going to give, which I think is $600 or $500, will help for perhaps a week of rent in our neck of the woods, but what happens to Canadians who are struggling the rest of the time?
The Liberals come out with these schemes, and all we are saying is, “Show us a plan.” They have had seven years to deliver on plans, and I will remind them again that when we are talking about environmental protection, the government, after seven years, still continues to approve dumping billion upon billions of litres of raw sewage into our waterways. In 2017 alone, an estimated 167 billion litres were pumped into the waterways. Just this April, Quebec had a massive issue in Quebec City, I believe, where over two days in April, 21 million litres of sewage were dumped into the St. Lawrence River every hour. Again, every hour, 21 million litres of raw sewage were dumped.
Bill S-5 also deals with, and muddies the water a bit on, provincial jurisdiction. Again, the government, as we have seen over the last seven years, likes to ram things through. It is ham-fisted in its approach to legislation.
We know that Bill S-5 takes aim at the plastics industry and now lists plastic in schedule 1. While the Liberals have taken the word “toxic” out, substances that are regulated are still referred to as toxic. The plastics industry has some concerns with that.
When I talk about plastics, I will be the first to admit that when I was on the fisheries file, I was staggered when I saw the amount of plastic waste in our oceans. At any given time, there are about 5.25 trillion macroplastic and microplastic pieces floating in our oceans. Yes, we have to do things to combat that and have to be smart about that. There is no disagreeing with that. However, let us remember some of the important parts of society that plastics and the plastic industry contribute to.
In the health care field, plastics have been widely used to create medical tools and devices, such as surgical gloves, syringes, insulin pens, IV tubes, catheters and inflatable splints. These products are created for one-time use and help prevent the spread of dangerous diseases by eliminating the need to sterilize and reuse a device.
There is enhanced safety. The durable nature of plastics allows for its application in the creation of medical safety devices, such as tamper-proof caps on medical packaging, blister packs and various medical waste disposable bags.
Regarding increased comfort, previously, the health care industry used metal or metallic medical devices, especially in the field of prosthetics. I have a prosthetic in my knee right now that I am dealing with, which is something I am very well aware of. Owing to the durability and versatility of plastic, it is now used as a replacement for such medical components.
Regarding innovative applications, since plastic can be moulded per the requirement of a specific application, it has also been used to develop new medical devices. Also, the cost effectiveness of plastic means that it can not only be mass-produced at a cost-effective rate, but allows for a wider range of applications, making it a worthwhile investment.
Regarding the benefits of plastic, while I am not up here defending the plastics industry by any means, given what I said earlier in my speech about plastic waste and the microplastics that find their way into our oceans and waterways, there are benefits and advantages of plastics in terms of greening our industry and cost effectiveness.
An EU study, which I have in front of me, says that 22% of an Airbus A380 double-decker aircraft is built with lightweight carbon fibre-reinforced plastics. That saves fuel and lowers operating costs by 15%. It also lowers the emissions of that aircraft.
About 105 kilograms of plastics, rather than the traditional materials in a car weighing 1,000 kilograms, make possible fuel savings of 750 litres over a lifespan of 90,000 miles. This reduces oil consumption by 12 million tonnes and, consequently, CO2 emissions by 30 million tonnes in the European Union alone.
If we look at renewable energies and the use of plastics there, we know that pipes, solar panels, wind turbines and rotors all use plastic and petroleum components in them as well. When we look at cutting our greenhouse gases and making sure our homes are greener and more efficient, double-glazed windows are essential for energy-efficient homes. They have a minimum of 35 years of life and are easily maintained.
There are a number of things we can all agree on. The things that we disagree on and have concerns about are the 24 amendments the Independent Senators Group, which we know is not so independent as it is appointed by the Prime Minister and the government, brought forward.
It is challenging for us to trust what the Liberal government is going to say. I have been here for seven years. This is my seventh anniversary of being an elected member of Parliament, and I came here not so jaded. I have good friends on the other side, and I will say that there are good people on all sides of the House who come to Ottawa with the best intentions. However, sadly, what we just saw for the vote on the Conservative opposition day motion put forward by my hon. colleague from Calgary Forest Lawn is that only one Liberal member of Parliament voted in favour of it. He stood up for his constituents.
I will remind people that this is about the government tripling its carbon tax and making things more costly for those who live in rural and remote areas and depend on heating oil and propane to heat their homes. Canada is the only G7 country to have raised fuel taxes during the period of record-high global fuel prices, and energy analysts have predicted that Canadians could see their home heating bills rise by 50% to 100%, on average, this winter.
When this was brought up in question period, the parliamentary secretaries and the Minister of Environment stood and asked what the Conservatives have against the carbon tax, especially when the good folks on the east coast have just gone through such a horrendous natural disaster with the hurricane that took place, the 100-year storm. I heard one of my Liberal friends say there were 100-foot waves. It is unbelievable. The pictures and images are just incredible, yet the Liberals are not concerned about the cost of living, which has become unattainable for those living in rural and remote areas. Things are getting harder and harder, and even Liberal premiers are appealing to the government to do whatever it can to cancel its planned carbon tax hike and make things more affordable.
I will remind Canadians that on January 1, they are also going to wake up to a payroll tax, with more money being taken away by the Liberal government. All it has done is make things harder and harder. The Conservatives will agree to pass Bill S-5 to get it to committee, but we have some serious concerns.
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- Oct/24/22 4:33:35 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I was trying to square some of the comments in the hon. member's speech, particularly the one around us not doing anything for climate change but ramming things down people's throats. I was thinking of what we have done on climate change with the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change that we introduced and the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act that we introduced. I was on the environment committee when it worked on that and am still on the environment committee, where we will be studying this bill if it gets directed to us.
Climate change and health vulnerability are brought together in a Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health report that the committee just received. It looks at the assessment of human health impacts of climate change. It is important that Bill S-5, as the member has mentioned, makes a bridge between human health and the right to a healthy environment and the other programs we have introduced around climate change.
Could the hon. member expand on that, please?
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- Oct/24/22 4:55:06 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for talking about refitting buildings, especially, and lowering energy there, which is something we certainly agree on as New Democrats. Even the Conservatives had it in their platform, so it is something we all agree on.
The government, through Natural Resources Canada, put out the greener homes grant so people could retrofit their homes, lower their emissions and save money when it comes to home heating. However, I got an email from Tom, in my riding, who is one of many. He said, “Greener homes is a great program on paper and helps to motivate homeowners with energy-efficient upgrades, but if I knew the process would be this long and arduous I likely would not have applied. It needs to be fixed. Please help.” He cannot even get a call back. He has been waiting for months for his refit program.
Can my colleague speak about how important it is that when people do the right thing, the government follows through and makes sure they get the rebate quickly so they are encouraged to invest in clean energy?
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- Oct/24/22 5:09:10 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I am quite pleased to take part this evening in the debate on Bill S‑5 on the environment, especially since it has been nearly three weeks since I was named the official opposition critic on the environment and climate change. I want to thank my leader, the member for Carleton, for trusting me with this exceptional mandate.
It is also exceptional to all Canadians, especially to our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren because they are the ones we need to think about when we consider taking action regarding the environment and climate change.
I am weighing my words. I am the climate change critic because climate change is real. Humankind, men and women, have contributed to it and humankind, men and women, have to participate in mitigating climate change and the impact it has on humanity as a whole and on the planet.
I also want to commend my colleague from Dufferin—Caledon. I have had the honour of working with him for nearly two years. He used to be the environment and climate change critic. He was very helpful and instrumental in the entirely acceptable and honourable transition between my previous duties regarding industry and the ones I am tasked with now regarding the environment and climate change.
The debate today is about Bill S-5, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act.
Bill S‑5 is a technical bill that also provides a vision for the environment for the next 50 years. The bill also updates the regulations that have been in force since 1999. It goes without saying that we needed to make some major changes. We should also remember that this bill is more or less the same bill that was introduced as Bill C‑28 in the previous Parliament.
Speaking of the previous Parliament, more than a year ago, the current Prime Minister called an election one fine summer day when he decided that it would be a good idea to spend $630 million of taxpayers' money on an election that resulted in a House of Commons that was essentially the same. In the middle of a pandemic, when he said that we had to focus on the fourth wave, $630 million was spent. When we were in the midst of a fourth wave, the Prime Minister called an election, with the result that today, one year later, we are debating exactly, or just about, the same bill that had already been debated in the House of Commons. If it seems today that the government is not acting quickly enough on the environment, this is proof. The Prime Minister called a $630-million election so that the House of Commons would end up in about the same position, and now we need to start Bill C‑28 all over again.
It is rather surprising that the government decided to go through the other chamber. We know that we have a bicameral system, which means that there are two chambers, the House of Commons and the Senate. Both have the same legislative power. They both have the same power to tax citizens. The government decided to bring back Bill C‑28 but through the Senate this time. Then, the House of Commons needs to examine it. All of this is normal and above board, and I am not in any way trying to call into question the legitimacy of the upper chamber. On the contrary, I greatly appreciate the serious and rigorous work that senators do. They are able to work in a less partisan manner because they do not need to get re-elected. We therefore understand that it is exactly the same thing, but we are still rather surprised to see such an important bill originate in the Senate where there are no ministers, rather than in the House of Commons like normal. I guess I should say “as usual” because there is nothing abnormal about a bill originating in the Senate. I would not say that.
This bill was amended 24 times. The initial bill, Bill C‑28, was introduced again almost word for word in the Senate. The Senate examined it and made 24 amendments. We will have the opportunity to come back to that later, but in our system, it is important to understand that when the Senate makes amendments, the House of Commons must approve them.
If the House does not agree, the bill has to go back to the Senate so that the Senate can say whether it does or does not agree. If it does not, then the bill returns to the House. That can happen many times. Generally speaking, according to parliamentary tradition, a bill is passed in the House of Commons and then it goes to the Senate, which can make amendments. If the Senate does make amendments, then the bill returns to the House of Commons. If the House rejects the Senate's amendments, then the version of the bill passed by the House of Commons returns to the Senate. Usually, the Senate passes the same version, otherwise we can be playing ping-pong for a rather long time, and that may not necessarily be for the good of Canadians. We will see how things go with this 65-page bill.
Basically, as members were saying, this bill is an update of the Environmental Protection Act, 1999, which sets out general priority areas of action for the environment. We are wondering whether we should continue in that direction or whether things should be done differently. The bill talks about how everyone has the right to a healthy environment and about considering vulnerable populations.
When speaking of vulnerable populations, the first words that come to mind are “first nations”. The Conservatives' vision is that first nations must be and are partners in prosperity. When we undertake environmental projects, projects to develop our natural resources, projects that develop what we have on our land for the benefit of all Canadians and humanity through the intelligent use that we must make of it, we have to ensure that first nations are partners in prosperity.
In that regard, I would like to cite the example of natural resources in Quebec, which is a part of the country that I know well, to say the least. I am going to share a secret that I want everyone to keep under wraps. In my seven years in the Quebec National Assembly, I have always had a keen interest in natural resources, which I liked to call “natural riches”. Our resources are clearly riches when they are developed intelligently and respectfully.
Earlier I was listening to my colleagues and friends from the Bloc Québécois rightly talk about Quebec's expertise in green energy and renewable energy. Look at the hydroelectric projects. Let us not forget that Hydro-Québec was founded in 1944 under the leadership of the government of Joseph-Adélard Godbout. Then, in the 1950s, there was a lot of development involving this natural wealth that was the natural resources and the power of hydroelectricity. In 1949, the Beauharnois plant, which was managed by Hydro-Québec, doubled in size. In 1951, work began on the first major dams in the middle of the forest, the Bersimis-1 and Bersimis-2 dams, inaugurated in 1953 and in 1956.
In 1954-55, very serious work began and studies were conducted on the two major rivers in Quebec for their extraordinary potential for hydroelectricity, the Outardes and Manicouagan rivers. In 1958, the Government of Quebec gave the green light for the major development of the seven main hydroelectric power plants that we have on the Ottawa river and the Manicouagan river. Everyone remembers Manic-5. Work there began in 1958.
The was also true for Carillon in 1959-60. The Carillon plant is an interesting example because, as early as 1959, the government had indicated to Hydro-Québec that the plant was to be run by French Canadians, as they were called at the time, in other words, Quebeckers. It was the first time that Quebeckers were responsible for the development of a power plant, and it was inaugurated in 1962, if I am not mistaken.
In short, a great deal of potential was developed in the 1950s and 1960s with the work that was done. I mention this because, in 1965, there was an agreement between the Quebec government and the first nations where the Manicouagan-Outardes project was located. A financial agreement was reached in 1965. It was worth barely $50,000. Six years later, when the Quebec government, under Robert Bourassa, launched the massive project in James Bay, the first nations there were not happy and held large demonstrations to ensure that they would be included as partners in those projects. After years of good faith negotiations between the first nations and the government of Premier Robert Bourassa, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was established.
I may be wrong about that, which is fine because it will give me a chance to learn more about our national history in Canada, but, to my knowledge, that was the first time there was such a lucrative agreement between equals, a partnership for prosperity between a government and first nations.
That agreement set the bar. In just 10 years, the parties moved from a $50,000 agreement to a permanent agreement for prosperity with positive economic outcomes for first nations and for the Quebec nation in the hundreds of millions of dollars. To us, it is clear that first nations are partners for prosperity in natural resource and environmental project development. I hope my colleagues will forgive me for going off on a bit of a tangent, but I do think it was somewhat interesting.
Getting back to Bill S‑5, let us talk about the toxic substances list. This is the central element of this bill, which addresses the rules for assessment, ministerial powers and products that can become toxic. We all need to realize that science has made incredibly rapid progress, which is a good thing. What was being done 10 years ago is obsolete; it is already outdated. We have to constantly adapt and update our techniques for properly developing and identifying products that are now toxic. Used one way, they may not necessarily be toxic, but if they are toxic, we have to be sure of it and know exactly where they will end up. That is what this bill takes on while at the same time cutting red tape and redundancy.
There was a lot of environmental work happening as well, and some environmental rules overlapped. I would like to mention that responsibility for environmental issues is shared between the provinces and the federal government, and everyone must act in good faith. The federal or provincial governments must not duplicate one another's work or do something twice in order to say they did it while the other did not. We must be effective and we must be partners. Our leader and our party have been very clear on this.
We know that the Quebec government, through its premier, announced about a month ago that it wants to revive major hydroelectric projects. However, that does not necessarily mean building a new power plant in the middle of the forest on a river that is not currently developed. It could also mean refurbishing current facilities or taking a river with an existing dam and building a second one next to it. That is exactly what happened with Manic-5 in the 1970s. Another outlet was created on the west side, and it was named Manic-5-PA. A second power plant could be built off an existing dam to produce energy, not as much as the first, but still quite a bit.
These are projects that we believe in. If the government has the will to forge ahead, we have full confidence in the province's environmental assessors. There is no need for federal assessments in this case in order to accelerate access to this green energy, this hydroelectric energy.
That is why it is also important to update all the products related to the environment and human activity, especially chemicals. We fully support this update. It needs to be updated.
Where we do have concerns, however, is regarding how to go about updating it. This could lead to agreements that might undermine future efforts. It is important to understand that decisions in this field must be based on science as much as possible. They must be as rigorous as possible, and they need to take into account all the technological and scientific advances that are being made to identify a particular product. A particular product may be toxic initially, but when better treated, when properly treated and placed in the right location, perhaps it can be a creative source. We need to be careful in how this is defined. Nevertheless, the industry also needs to be aware of this situation and think about how to remove a product that is toxic today but could be made non-toxic later on with proper and effective treatment. This needs to be proven.
I am going to talk about risk management, but first I want to talk about the general principles that we agree on.
We agree with the principle of the right to a healthy environment. That goes without saying, although I might add that this is nothing new. I learned that this morning by doing some research and talking to some people who are a lot more familiar with this file than I am. The state of Michigan enshrined this fundamental principle in law in 1970. They did that over 50 years ago in Michigan, a very industrial state in the heart of the United States. That description of Michigan is a bit of an understatement since Michigan is home to so many industries, including the auto industry. That state enshrined in law the principle of the right to a healthy environment in 1970. To my knowledge, it has not gone bankrupt yet. Yes, we can live like that.
The same is true of Yukon, which enshrined this principle in its legislation in 2002.
As I said earlier, Bill S-5 seeks to reduce the red tape and the duplication of work for the shared provincial and federal jurisdiction. As long as everyone agrees, as long as work is not duplicated and, most importantly, as long as neither government steps on the other's toes, I am sure everything will go well.
That is why, as I stated earlier and mentioned in a question to my Bloc colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue, we have confidence in the provinces, whether for Hydro‑Québec projects or the third link project.
Let us come back to the issue of risk management.
It is a very delicate situation that deserves to be well known. Canada has laws concerning risk management that are among the best in the world. We are known and renowned for that. It is nothing new because the chemical and petrochemical industry has existed in Canada since Confederation. We have always been a leader in development, but also in risk assessment, especially over the past 50 years.
Canada is a world leader in risk management in several areas. I had the pleasure of describing the development of Quebec's hydroelectric sector in detail and the major projects that were implemented in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and on James Bay. Our expertise in hydroelectricity is world renowned.
The same goes for carbon capture. Here in Canada, we have developed techniques and made some cutting-edge technological and scientific breakthroughs. We should be proud of this knowledge, which we can export, because pollution is a global problem. Other places in the world do not have the same stringent standards as Canada, and unfortunately, pollution travels.
In Canada, we have champions in the areas of green, solar, wind and hydroelectric energy and carbon capture. Let us be proud of our accomplishments and our national success stories. Let us also be proud of what we are capable of doing to export them. This creates wealth for our country, but above all, it creates wealth when we share our expertise with the rest of the world so the entire planet recognizes and agrees that Canada is a leader in many fields and that its leadership will benefit all of humanity.
When a pollutant like CO2 arrives at the border, it does not bother with the ArriveCAN. It wastes no time crossing the border and coming straight into our country.
Canada is not the only country facing major problems because of climate change. Canada has valuable expertise, and we need to spread the word. We need to champion that expertise.
I want to come back to Bill S‑5. I have one minute left and just enough time to say that 24 amendments have been proposed and we have concerns about nine of them. They are the ones we think create more problems and more red tape, so we should be more wary of that.
In closing, for us as Conservatives, climate change is real, humans are partly responsible for it and they must make the necessary efforts to correct the situation. Since this government came to power and implemented the Liberal carbon tax, pollution in Canada has not decreased. On the contrary, it has emptied the public's wallets and people are not getting their money's worth, contrary to what the Liberals say. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said as much.
For us, the environment is first and foremost about reducing greenhouse gas emissions through research and development and access to green energy. We want to accelerate the implementation of projects and promote Canadian expertise.
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