SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 121 - Oct/31/22

Oct/31/22 12:13:44 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I will pass along the best wishes to Hayden and his family from this place. I think we have highlighted again that it is absolutely essential for us to do our jobs in this place. The member points out that Conservatives have a strong history and legacy of good environmental management and protection, and of acknowledging the complicated way that has to be accomplished. Certainly, when it comes to committee, we need to make sure we look at the amendments the Senate made and the full subject of the bill to ensure we get it right, because jobs and our environment depend on it.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/31/22 12:14:26 p.m.
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This brings us to the end of the 20-minute speeches. We are now down to the 10-minute speeches. Therefore, I would like to recognize for debate, the hon. member for Calgary Shepard.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)

Oct/31/22 12:14:40 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, what a great privilege it is always to rise on behalf of my constituents. It is just too bad I missed my opportunity to be recognized to speak for a 20-minute slot now that we have moved past the first five hours of debate. It is always a privilege to be speaking on behalf of my constituents and rising to share some of their views. On this legislation, it is a bit more difficult. It is 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, which then reminds me of a Yiddish proverb. I will save members the Yiddish pronunciation, but it is that a man studies until he is 70 and he dies a fool. I am always gratified to learn of new things that I do not know. Oftentimes, as parliamentarians, we need to be reminded how much we do not know both by our constituents, but also by reviewing legislation such as this. If they had asked me before I was first elected back in 2015 if this type of legislation was on the books, I would have said I did not know. Therefore, I want to offer up a bit of history on how we have come to this point where we are modernizing this act. From the outset, while I do have quite a bit of concern with the contents of the legislation, different parts of it and how we have come to this point, I will be supporting it. The Yiddish proverb is a reminder that there is always more to learn and I am always learning more about what the legislation says. One key that I have heard from constituents in the past is about beauty products. I have a lot of constituents in my riding who are entrepreneurs and they run smaller, unique-product companies. They were specifically worried about toxic substances. Toxicity, of course, is primarily based around how much of the substance there actually is, and we should keep that in mind. This legislation would split the list of toxic substances into two schedules: one with the highest risk to health and environment; and two, lower risk but still regulated. Some of the other things the legislation proposes to do is mostly to reduce red tape. A lot of different stakeholder organizations and industry sectors are quite supportive of this. They would have less paperwork to fill out. It would be a more streamlined process. Again, reducing redundancies and unnecessary red tape, or paperasse as they call it in French, is necessary. Especially nowadays when people have so much opportunity to use digital methods of delivering services and informing government regulators, it is an opportunity to do that. With respect to the process of how we got here, it has taken five years for the government to get to the point where it is offering up these modernizations in Bill S-5. This government legislation came through the Senate, which is the complete reverse of how this place is supposed to work. The House of Commons is supposed to consider legislation and send it to that other place, the Senate, to then do sober second thought. Now we are doing the complete reverse. Bill S-5 should have come to us as government legislation from the government benches so we could consider it here first. Because that work was not done in the House of Commons, the senators did it. They passed 24 amendments, and I have concerns with many of those amendments. The legislation would be made worse through these amendments. If we amend Bill S-5, it would go back to the Senate for reconsideration, and it will go back and forth. During this debate, I have heard several government caucus members say that they want to expedite this bill. They are worried that the bill is not going through the process fast enough. Of course, any one of us here is allowed to rise on behalf of our constituents and try to catch your eye, Madam Speaker, to speak to the legislation on behalf of our constituents. After five years of waiting to get to the point where the Liberals are and then claiming that it needs to be expedited, knowing full well that a single amendment passed at the environment committee or at report stage by the House would send the bill back to the Senate, is a dishonest way of going about the debate. With respect to claiming that opposition parties are delaying it, debate is not delaying. Debate is careful consideration of government legislation. There are many amendments with which I have problems. Maybe I will spend just a bit of time on the preamble question, because it has been crowed about quite a bit by government caucus members that a right to the environment is being inserted into law. Some opposition members outside the Conservative Party have mentioned the fact that it is not an actual right to have a healthy environment. In fact, that portion in the modernization of the act is being inserted in the preamble. During his intervention on this legislation, the member for Dufferin—Caledon reminded the House that when it is in the preamble, it is often not considered by justices, by judges, if a matter comes before the court. Placing it is in the preamble essentially means that it is just something one reads ahead of time, but it is not the substance of the legislation. The government's claim, after five years of this “consultocracy” that it has set up, is that we now we have to expedite it through the House of Commons and quickly get it to committee. Then at committee, I am sure the members will say the same thing, that they need to get it quickly through committee in order to get it back to the House to be considered, and probably with no amendments. We saw that the Senate had a substantial amount of amendments to the legislation. However, it has been moving at a glacial speed, and it is not the job of the House of Commons to act like a slot machine. We do not just roll in government legislation, either from the Senate or the floor of the House, and then expect members to say yes to everything and pass it on to the next stage. There are members here who can weigh-in on the legislation. There are Conservatives members who are professional engineers, such as the member for Sarnia—Lambton. She has expertise in this material and she can share that with the House. There are members who were, in their previous lives, builders. There are members who, in their previous lives, worked for chemical companies. They can all make a contribution here. Also, we come from different ridings where we have major industrial energy projects, major mines being built or are operating, which can provide insight into how legislation like this should function, and that insight should come to the floor of the House of Commons. I will also mention on this preamble component that the Liberals are adding for a healthy environment, which is something that is completely unenforceable. They say they cannot define it further and will need another two years to figure out what it means. Therefore, not only are we being told that we have to rush the legislation through, probably without amendment after the work of the Senate, but that they will take another two years to figure out the substance of the communication on the legislation. Essentially, it is a modernization and reduction of red tap and not actually an environmental piece of legislation. We have seen this before. The carbon tax, for example, is not an environmental plan but a tax plan. Also, the cut on taxes for the middle class actually resulted in every member of Parliament earning a bigger tax cut than a Canadian who was not in a middle income bracket. Actually, anybody earning less than $43,000 got nothing from the government in that tax cut. To get the full tax cut, one had to earn the full $93,000 to be at the top end of that middle-income tax bracket. The Liberals do this all the time. They claim one thing in legislation, which is actually something completely different, and then after many years of consulting, they say that things must be expedited through the House to have the legislation pass. I have seen it happen many times before. I would rate this legislation as a C-, but it has given me an opportunity to go back to my Yiddish proverb. It has also given me an opportunity to look at legislation about which constituents of mine do care. They want a healthy environment. They want to know that toxic substances are being reviewed and considered, and that there is some type of goal post in place for different industries and entrepreneurs to look at before they decide what to put into their products and how they make their products. At the same time, they do not want more years of consulting after the fact. They do not want framework legislation; they want legislation and enforcement that works, that is reasonable and that is not over the top. We are not trying to manage the economy, we are trying to be good stewards of the economy, and legislation like this is trying to reach that point. We always have an opportunity to learn something new, and that was the Yiddish proverb, that a man studies until he is 70 and dies a fool. It is a reminder to all of us that there is always something new to learn. My offering to the Liberals is that they can learn something new through the legislation they are now trying to rush through the House. The 24 amendments they received from senators, and some of them made the legislation worse, is a reminder that legislation should start in this place. They should consult more with the House of Commons and members of Parliament before they bring forward legislation like this. Despite that, I will be supporting the legislation to get it to committee so that, hopefully, we can fix it there and make further amendments, which will then further delay the bill. However, that is not our fault. We are here for the people to ensure we pass legislation that makes sense for them.

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Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ)

Oct/31/22 12:24:26 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech. Strengthening environmental protection is a good thing. We are not against virtue. However, based on what my colleague said earlier, I am wondering whether this is just wishful thinking. Is there not something else we could focus on to ensure a healthy environment after this bill is passed? What commitments could the Conservatives make to improve the environment for all of their constituents?

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

Oct/31/22 12:24:57 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, as an MP from Alberta and as an Albertan, I would say that we have environmental regulations governing the largest industrial companies operating the biggest projects in our province. When it comes to legislating and regulating our province's biggest corporations, we are leading the way. The rest of Canada could follow our lead on things like ethane and methane. For large industrial projects, we have very strict rules governing gas emissions. We have also had a price on greenhouse gas production for a very long time for our province's major oil industry producers. Anyone can come to our province and ask us questions. Our public servants are excellent; their excellence is world-renowned. All this information is available online, and I encourage the member to come to Alberta and see it for herself if she wants.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Oct/31/22 12:26:12 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, it is somewhat disappointing the way the Conservatives are looking at this legislation, legislation to protect and provide support to Canadians, that deals with the environment. Stakeholders from coast to coast to coast are quite anxious to see the legislation move forward. The Conservatives are using the excuse of wanting more time to debate it. They will say that about anything in order to filibuster. We are constantly having to look for partners to get bills through. We are not trying to say that debate should absolutely and completely end today. If the Conservatives are in support of the legislation, why not allow it to go to committee stage? Why do they have to talk out every bill in order to frustrate the legislative process?

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

Oct/31/22 12:27:06 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, that is a rich argument from the member for Winnipeg North, who has probably spoken more words in the House than any other member. I dare say that perhaps he has spoken more than his entire caucus combined possibly. Maybe we should add the member for Kingston and the Islands. This is the place where consultation happens with the citizens of our country. The House of Commons, through its members of Parliament, are representatives of the people. We will do our job.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Oct/31/22 12:27:39 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, that was an interesting speech by the member from Calgary, as always. I will have to add the word “consultocracy” to my vocabulary. He mentioned how unenforceable the law would be. The CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, has been on the books since 1999, and it has never been enforced in any way. Could he perhaps give us some ideas on how we should make it enforceable? Canadians deserve to live in a clean and healthy environment and we need to be able to enforce that.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

Oct/31/22 12:28:15 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, just to be clear with the member, I said that the right to a healthy environment, as it is embedded and updated in the legislation, is unenforceable because it is in the preamble. It gives no force of law, essentially. Someone cannot go to court and make a claim before a judge that this is somehow an enforceable right. It is not in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is not a right that someone can make a claim against. In terms of enforceability, this is already enforced in the industry. The industry in Canada is already trying to meet these expectations. This legislation will impact hundreds of thousands of people who work across the different sectors. All of them are trying to do the right thing by the environment and also by their community members. Nobody is out there with the goal of polluting unnecessarily or of dropping toxic chemicals into the environment. They know this legislation exists and they are trying to meet its expectations, but inserting it into the preamble is what makes it unenforceable.

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Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Oct/31/22 12:29:13 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, it has been interesting to hear the debate here so far today. Part of that is addressing an important new bill before Parliament, 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. These are important environmental considerations for Parliament to consider. It would be updating a bill that was initially passed, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, back in 1999 and it is well past due. I understand from my colleague, although I did not know this before he spoke in the House today, that it has been five years since this bill has been under review. Five years is a long time. The past five years were interrupted by two elections, one of which was completely unnecessary and changed the entire legislative agenda so that we could not address these things in ample time here in this place. We are supposed to be looking at legislation in Canada and how we can do better at what is on the agenda. This bill, as my colleague pointed out, came over to us initially after it was passed at the Senate with many amendments. In this case, we seem to be the chamber of sober second thought on what has been brought to us as an amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. All Canadians want a strong Canadian Environmental Protection Act to make sure that the substances that are transmitted in society have some very clear guidelines around how they are going to be approved by the regulatory process. Make no mistake: There are good things about this bill that I support. I hope to get into some committee work and go through the detail here on some changes that are required. Some of the changes would be undoing some of the amendments that were put in place in the Senate, which actually served to move this legislation backward as opposed to forward. What does work in this bill is getting rid of some of the redundancy in regulations. In the House, I have spoken many times about the weight of government and the weight of regulations. There is overlap not only between different levels of government, as in provinces, municipalities and the federal government, but also within the government itself. We have a combination of looking at the same regulations through various departments. It is a waste of time, a waste of money and a waste of effort for the companies that have to go through that process. Dealing with those in one fell swoop, as this legislation seems to propose, is a better way of getting past regulations that industry has to go through in order to move things forward. I will point out that I have been involved in bills in the House of Commons where we did expedite things very clearly. I remember my work with the previous minister of natural resources in the 43rd Parliament when we moved forward on the regulatory advancements required for offshore work to regulate workers and make sure they stayed safe. This was work that had been delayed for years. As a result, for the offshore workers in Canada, primarily in Newfoundland but also Nova Scotia, the regulations were not on top of each other anymore, and there was a legal void as to what would happen in an accident. The minister at that time, who was a very good minister, worked together with me behind the scenes and made sure that we advanced that as quickly as possible. We got it through the House and over to the other place. I stand corrected; it actually came from the other place. We got it through the House as quickly as possible, through committee, because we had addressed everything that needed to be addressed in that legislation. Not having that legislation available at that time was putting workers at risk. When things need to move quickly in the House, we move them quickly. Our job is to make sure we look at what is best for Canadians and address what needs to be changed in legislation brought before us. I am going to talk about this legislation a bit because there are some clear deficiencies. There are some good things, as I have noted, in this bill, and we do need an updated Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This also brings changes to other legislation. There are some things I have questions about. I question a lot of the bureaucratese that we address here in the House of Commons. The language in the bill identifies certain things that I know are going to require further definition down the road. Those are things like “vulnerable populations”. Can we define what a vulnerable population is? I have not seen it prescribed anywhere in legalese. It talks about “the principle of non-regression and the principle of intergenerational equity”. All of these things are nice concepts on paper. As yet, they have no standing in any court of law, because they have not been in front of any court of law. That is one of the problems here. We can put these things on paper and then, all of a sudden, somebody will actually challenge them and they will be in front of a judge. As my colleague said earlier, a judge does not get to look at the preamble of a bill. He only looks at the bill. He says, “This intergenerational equity thing is something profound, and here is the ruling I have.” That, of course, will layer its way up to every court in Canada. Then we will have a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada on what is meant by intergenerational equity, to say nothing of the intergenerational inequity that the current government has visited upon Canadians repeatedly over the last seven years. The amount of deficit that we have incurred with the government foisting taxes upon future generations of Canadians is the definition of intergenerational inequity. Our kids, our grandkids and our great-grandkids are going to be looking after bills that the government refuses to pay today. Those are things that are going to have to find their way through in the wash. It is better that we find those things in the wash here than 10 years later after several court iterations and several millions of dollars through our court system. We would have to reverse everything that has been done over that time. We talked about toxicity in this bill. I recall, not so long ago, that they talked about plastics being toxic. I know that the plastics industry was very upset about that. I used Tupperware last night. I used a baggy this morning. Is that toxic? Am I using toxic goods? I think that we really have to get toward what toxicity actually means for the communities that we are acting on behalf of. A watch-list for these substances becomes capable of being overused and misunderstood by the bureaucrats and the legalists who might get involved with it. There are other definitions in here, like “the right to a healthy environment”. I am all for a healthy environment. Everyone knows that. How we put that into a right, as far as Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is a mystery to me. I know that a lot of my colleagues think a healthy environment looks like a golf course and that is not at all the case. A healthy environment is actually something where we have a whole bunch of bugs, if we will. We start at the very basic level here, and things move their way through the ecosystem. Sometimes nature, in its healthy environment phase, is not pretty. If we take a look at the agriculture we produce in Canada, that agriculture, quite frankly, is a manipulation of nature. If we look at this, somebody could challenge it and could say that is making the environment unhealthy. We are plowing fields and that is killing a whole bunch of moles, voles, insects, birds, nests and everything else in order to feed the world, which Canada does very well. I am challenged by some of the terminology that is in here. We need to balance all of this against social and economic factors. We need to make sure that we have risk assessments and risk management profiles that show exactly what we are trying to accomplish and balance it with what is good for all of society. One of the other issues in here that we have seen in regulatory overreach, which we have seen in many government bills in their regulatory approach, is the ability for anybody to request that a minister look to see if a substance is toxic. There are all kinds of nuances going on in our court system currently in Canada where that is being abused by many organizations that are trying to stall developments in Canada. This opens the door to more of the same. Once we start opening the door to more of the same in every measure of society, we are going to have nothing but litigation from self-interested entities all the way through our legal system. That is what has to stop. That is what has to move forward a little better here to make sure that we get better legislation for all Canadians. Those are my main points. I am looking forward to the government considering how we can make some good recommendations and good amendments so that this bill, the terms around it and the definitions that we are talking about are addressed clearly, so that we can address good legislation for Canadians going forward.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Oct/31/22 12:39:24 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, it is interesting. The Conservatives are criticizing the government because the Senate is assisting us on some very important legislation. However, Stephen Harper had no problem doing the same thing. In fact, he even brought forward environmental legislation through the Senate. When Conservatives talk about the use of the Senate being incorporated into our legislative agenda, they need to reflect while looking in the mirror. The legislation we have before us has been here since February, through the Senate. It passed through the Senate in June. We introduced it long ago. If every member speaks on the legislation, it would never pass. When would the Conservative Party want to see legislation such as this pass? Why not allow it to pass into committee where stakeholders and other MPs could contribute to the debate and discussion?

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Mr. Greg McLean

Oct/31/22 12:40:28 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I do not recall criticizing the government for moving this agenda through the Senate. First, I said that this time we in the House of Commons are the body of sober second thought. I know that, for my colleague on that side, it might be second thought. We are trying to be sober here and to make sure we actually put some analysis into this, and not just ram it through like my colleague on the other side would like us to do. I am a member of the environment committee. I know where this is going to end up. It is going to be on my desk. I have already put some effort into looking at this bill and how we could address the changes that would be required going forward. We are going to make sure that we get this bill. I would challenge the member: If it took five years to get here, why does he think jamming it through here in 10 minutes would be appropriate? I think we need to address these things.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Oct/31/22 12:41:27 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I just want to add some comments to the member's concerns around how this idea of the right for Canadians to live in a healthy and clean environment would be approached. In this bill that we are debating today, Bill S-5, the new Canadian Environmental Protection Act would only extend those rights as far as the bill goes. It would basically be around toxins, air pollution and water pollution. The federal government has a wider mandate than that. We have a lot of environmental legislation on the books, including the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act. Would the member agree that we need to extend that right to the entire federal mandate?

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Mr. Greg McLean

Oct/31/22 12:42:25 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the question from my colleague with whom I sat on committee in the last Parliament. He always has some excellent input into the manner in which we need to move legislation forward. Let me say that this whole issue around a clean and healthy environment is a great concept, and I fully subscribe to it. At the same time, I look at this nonsense that I hear in the House from members in the House, and not the member in question here, and I need to make sure that we have clarity on what we are trying to accomplish. I have heard many times, at committee and in the House, about how emissions from oil and gas, for instance, are actually limiting people's lifespans. However, when we look at the increasing lifespan of Canadians, it is significant. We have actually done very well with the lower cost of energy and lower emissions in this country. I want to make sure we continue on that, and that as Canadians' lifespans continue to increase we get better and expect more from our legislation around how we treat Canadians. That is what I am after here.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Oct/31/22 12:43:33 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I am certainly very concerned that this bill not be rushed through. I agree with him insofar as that comment. This is a very complex bill. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a very long act in six parts. The government has chosen not to review or update part 6 at all, which deals with marine dumping and genetically modified organisms. That section needs attention but will be outside the scope of the act for parliamentarians to review, unless the government steps up and says we need to modernize this section as well. I am also concerned about protecting this bill from court challenges. We need to put back in the list of toxic substances, schedule 1.

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Mr. Greg McLean

Oct/31/22 12:44:19 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I share my colleague's concerns about how we get things done in the House and about making sure we address legislation quickly. One of the issues in this bill of course is that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a criminal act, so we are moving a lot of redresses here toward a criminal approach to things, with a lower bar, a more civil law bar, for how those are approached, so we are impacting two sets of laws here that might not serve Canadian society well. These are some of the things we have to consider in this, and I am open to everything my colleague has to say about how we can make this better.

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Mr. Brad Vis (Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, CPC)

Oct/31/22 12:44:58 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure to rise on Bill S-5. Five years ago, at the environment committee, as a parliamentary staffer, I took part in the extensive review that took place, I believe, in 2017. Indeed, the committee members at the time looked at the whole scope of this legislation, and I hope to provide some insight from my time on that committee during my remarks today. While I am in support of Bill S-5 in the fact that it deals with the right to a healthy environment and some of the critical issues included in CEPA 1999, I would be remiss if I did not mention a juxtaposition of things happening in British Columbia at the moment. Right now, we have a government that is purportedly concerned about the impacts of toxic substances on our lives, on our health and on the health of infants most importantly. Just yesterday I went to IKEA with my family and bought some new furniture. I know that furniture is subject to many of the schedule 1 toxic substances list, and those toxic chemicals are applied in the production and manufacturing of almost all consumer goods that we use in Canada. At the same time, though, the government has decided this year to decriminalize the use of fentanyl, which is killing hundreds, if not thousands of people every single year in my province. Why do we care so much, on the one hand, about the application of CEPA 1999 and amending it to keep our communities safe from toxic substances, when at the same time the Government of Canada is effectively legalizing the use of a toxic substance that is killing people every day on the streets of Vancouver and throughout British Columbia? Earlier in the debate today, a number of people spoke to the fact that the bill before us today does not address the full scope of changes that are needed to modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I would generally agree with this assumption and the concern put forward by members on all sides of the House. For example, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which is complicated legislation, overlaps and works in conjunction with other pieces of legislation that determine how we use products and substances in our day-to-day life, one example being the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. In the last number of years, we have seen a huge influx of electric vehicles coming into the marketplace. I think it would benefit consumers in Canada if we had updated standards on the use of the batteries, for example, that are used in these cars, and the impact it could have on the environment when they reach the end of their life cycle and have to be recycled. Another example of things we could have been discussing is living organisms or biotechnology. I know many of my constituents are concerned about genetically modified organisms. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is the law that deals with such substances. We have not seen a major update despite major advancements in the technology regarding the products, food and even vaccines that we might ingest into our bodies that could be impacted by such provisions. A big one is preventing water pollution from nutrients. One of the things the Department of Environment and Climate Change wanted to see addressed in 2016, when we went through the review, was the labelling of products such as bleach or other household goods that we use on a regular basis. We need to know the impact those products have when we put them down the drain, and what might happen off the coast of Victoria, for example, when they are dumped directly into the ocean. We need our Canadian Environmental Protection Act to be updated to know what we are putting into the ocean and the impact it has on marine life, especially in British Columbia. As other members have mentioned, Bill S-5 does nothing to address marine pollution. I would be remiss if I did not ask why the government would not address that, because it is in the process of hiring hundreds of new people to work at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Transport Canada on a marine protection plan for the Pacific coast. How in the world could it not update CEPA to work in conjunction with the billions of dollars it is purportedly spending on protecting B.C.'s coasts? It has the opportunity right here in the House of Commons. Another big thing we could have done to address the environment is related to preventing pollution from the transboundary movement of hazardous waste and hazardous recyclable material. One of my colleagues from Simcoe, the secondary breadbasket of Canada, put forward a bill to try to update some aspects of CEPA as it relates to recycled goods. We have so many goods on which we could a better job of making sure they are dealt with in a respectful way. We also need to be very careful, and CEPA could be doing this, to look at the importation of goods and whether they meet Canadian standards. An updated CEPA could give consumers more confidence in the products they are using if the government had the courage to do the hard work of updating the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. Another key aspect of CEPA that could have been addressed is preventing and responding to emergencies. This is particularly important to the people of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. One of the provisions that Environment and Climate Change Canada asked for in the last review in 2017 was to allow for field research related to environmental emergencies, and for exemptions for urgent, time-sensitive issues of national security and remedial provisions. This was really relevant to my riding when it had to replace so many culverts as it related to fish-bearing streams. There were so many applications to our environmental laws in the context of an emergency that could have been addressed if the government wanted to do the hard work. Another area the government could have addressed, which is probably the fifth or sixth already, is environmental protection related to federal activities on aboriginal lands. Aboriginal lands and reserves, in many cases, are not subject to provincial environmental laws, and we do not know about the application of federal laws or the overlay of the two jurisdictions. We could have used this opportunity in respect of UNDRIP. Instead of just talking about UNDRIP, we could have taken the concrete administrative step of improving the application of environmental laws or their administration in the context of aboriginal lands. Another area we could have looked at is strengthening the enforcement of CEPA. Since the review that took place in 2017, the Government of Canada went through a major process with Volkswagen Canada. Volkswagen was not following the laws in Canada related to the Motor Vehicle Safety Act and was not reporting on the emissions from certain vehicles. In the United States, there were billions of dollars in lawsuits after this. In Canada, our enforcement of environmental laws is much weaker. We could have used this opportunity to strengthen the enforcement of environmental protection in Canada. Another area we could have looked at that I briefly touched upon is facilitating intergovernmental co-operation. We have a large bureaucracy in Canada. There is lots of red tape. There is overlapping jurisdiction and there are overlapping laws. Updating CEPA could have clarified how federal, provincial and territorial laws work in the context of equivalency in the administration of environmental protection in Canada. We could have looked very closely at encouraging public participation, moving administrative barriers to allow more citizens to participate and bring petitions forward to the minister of environment, which is a very key aspect of the bill on issues of concern. We could have clarified how that would work in the Canadian context. Finally, the preamble in Bill S-5 talks extensively about protecting the right to a healthy environment. Unfortunately, the government seems to punt all the hard work down the road. Why did it not clarify the legal definition of “a right to a healthy environment” instead of giving our public servants two years to determine the definition? We have a responsibility in committee and in this chamber to do that hard work now, not leave it for down the road. It is a failure of the government not to define “a right to a healthy environment” instead of just punting it down the road. I could go on. I am quite dismayed that the Government of Canada did not do the hard work that many of its members put forward in recommendations. Unfortunately, it is too afraid to do that hard work.

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All Topics

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Oct/31/22 12:55:00 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, within the legislation there is a significant move forward in recognizing that Canadians have rights with respect to the environment. In good part, I think the legislation is seen as a very strong, positive foot forward. Does the member have any sense of when he would like to see the legislation go to committee, where we can have more direct input from stakeholders and others and get into some of the things the member talked about in his speech? When can we start having that dialogue at the committee stage?

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Mr. Brad Vis

Oct/31/22 12:55:49 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, it is the government's prerogative to determine what we debate and how long we debate matters in the House of Commons. I will note that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is very complicated legislation that touches upon most aspects of our day-to-day lives. That requires significant debate and study of the very challenging and difficult issues that are brought forward in this legislation, which affect everything from imports and exports and consumer product awareness to the cumulative impacts of toxic substances on our lives. That requires a lot of time in the chamber.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Oct/31/22 12:56:43 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, a consistent issue the Conservatives will bring up is that all pieces of legislation require a considerable amount of time and there should not be any sorts of limitations and so forth. We have substantive legislation that is fairly widely supported, and as far as I know even the Conservative Party is supporting the passage of this legislation, so it seems everyone in the chamber is supporting the legislation. My concern is that there are all sorts of other things we could be looking at. I have a very straightforward question. Are Conservative Party members saying they would like to pass it out of second reading this year? Are they saying we should wait, because they have so many speakers that we might need to take it into 2023? Can the member give Canadians a sense of how long he would like to see this in second reading?

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