44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 3, 2023 02:00PM
- May/3/23 3:56:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today on behalf of many constituents across the country who have asked that the government acknowledge the important contributions that German Canadians have made to this country, and recognize that during World War I and World War II, innocent German Canadians and Austrian Canadians were interned, alongside enemy combatants.
They recognize that Ukrainian Canadians, Japanese Canadians and Italian Canadians were apologized to, and the petitioners would like the government to apologize for their unlawful internment.
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- May/3/23 4:50:25 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, this is the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and I appreciate that there has been some work done on this bill to make it stronger and very much appreciate the work that my colleague from Victoria has done on this bill. However, as I have been sitting on the committee listening to the testimony on the Kearl mine spill in northern Alberta, I have been listening to horrific testimony from indigenous leaders on what this has meant in their communities.
I wonder if the member could tell me how on earth he can look those people in the eye and explain to them that tailings ponds would not be protected under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and that the water and land in their communities, where they fish, hunt and live with their families, are not worthy of being protected under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. How on earth can Liberal members stand and say that tailings ponds do not deserve any sort of environmental protection through this act?
It baffles the mind, and I certainly am not comfortable going back to those people and telling them that the government does not care about the environment they live and breath in.
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Madam Speaker, I will be supporting the bill, and I thank my colleague for bringing it forward. He spoke a bit about some of the groups that would be protected by having this put into legislation.
Could he perhaps tell us about some of the other pieces of action the government undertakes that we would also need to protect, in the event the government was to change?
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is a delight to stand in this place and represent the great people of Edmonton Strathcona.
Today we are talking about Bill C-316, an act to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act regarding the court challenges program. Basically what this bill would do is amend the Heritage Act to require that the Minister of Canadian Heritage maintain the court challenges program, making sure that this is now in legislation, so that if any future government wanted to cut this program, it would have to do it through legislation. Of course, it would not be a perfect protection for this program, but it would be a good start. It really does make me think about all of the different policies I would like to see protected that have been put in place by various governments. I am going to come back to that as we go forward.
Some people in the House today have said that this is bad legislation and is not something that should be in place, and they have expressed what I would consider some pretty faux outrage about this particular bill. I want to highlight that there are a number of people who believe in the court challenges program, very notable groups that actually think this court challenges program needs to be put into legislation and also needs to be protected and expanded.
The New Democratic Party has been calling for an expansion of this. There is very little money that is allocated to this. It is a very small fraction, a drop in the bucket, compared to what we spend on the justice department. We would like to see this expanded. We are not alone. The people who would also like to see this program expanded are people like Cindy Blackstock and other advocates within the indigenous communities. Legal organizations, including the Women's Legal Education & Action Fund, or LEAF, would love to see this program expanded and put into legislation so that it is protected. Even more notably, the Canadian Bar Association supports the court challenges program.
There are people around this country who are leaders on this and who have asked for this program to be maintained and expanded. It is something that all parliamentarians need to consider. Very few of us are experts in the fields in which we produce legislation, so we take advice from experts. I would say, when we are looking at the justice system, that the Canadian Bar Association, Cindy Blackstock and others would be excellent examples of experts we should be listening to.
There are several reasons why this program is so important, but one of the ones that mean the most to me is that it levels the playing field. It allows Canadian citizens to have access to justice. Often, those Canadian citizens who are least likely to be able access justice are marginalized Canadians. They are women, indigenous people and members of the LGBTQ2+ community. For the people who are often disproportionately impacted by the justice system in a negative way, this helps level the playing field.
I strongly support the program. We could work on making the bill stronger. Certainly, I would like to see the government commit to better funding. We have been calling for stronger funding for this program for some time, so we would like to see that.
I want to talk a little tonight about some of the other things that I think we should be putting into legislation. We are all lawmakers in this place. As I was preparing the notes for my speech this evening, I was thinking about how important it is that we put things into legislation to protect them, protect them from potential future governments that do not share the values of ensuring that there is a level playing field within the justice system for Canadians.
The first thing that came to my mind is my Bill, C-205, which is actually about the Impact Assessment Act. I was very happy, because Minister Wilkinson—
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Madam Speaker, when I brought that bill forward, the Minister of Natural Resources was kind enough to take what was in the bill and put it into policy. That bill actually said that coal mines, regardless of size, would trigger the Impact Assessment Act. Prior to that, it had to be over 5,000 tonnes a day, but we just took that little bit out. That made it so that all coal mines would trigger the federal Impact Assessment Act. The reason that was important is that companies were trying to skirt around that. I do not know if members know this, but, in Alberta, there is a real movement to mine in our Rocky Mountains, which Albertans are appalled by. I think most Canadians would be appalled by it. That is an example of something that is only in policy.
I retabled that legislation in Parliament for the simple reason that, in policy, it is not protected the same way. What happens is that, if another government comes in, a government that maybe does not believe in climate change or maybe does not believe that there is a need to protect the environment, to protect the Rocky Mountains and to protect our vital natural resources in this country, it would be able to take that out of policy and just start strip-mining and taking down our mountains. Of course, we do not want that to happen, so we would like to see this put into law, put into legislation to protect against that.
There are other things I can think of that are exactly the same. We saw, in our development dollars spent in the Stephen Harper years, that there was no support for the full range of reproductive services for women around the world. That was cut out of our official development assistance, even though thousands of women a year die because they do not have access to the full range of reproductive services. That is another example where I would very much welcome legislation being put in place to protect people's right to the entire range of reproductive resources. That is just another one.
I could bring up another example, from last night. Many of us were here very late last night, working with my colleague for Winnipeg Centre, who has been calling, tirelessly, for a red dress alert. A red dress alert is something that, if we put it into legislation, would be very difficult for another government, which maybe did not believe in women's rights the same way, to take that out. I would welcome that from the government, that it would actually step up and make sure that the red dress alert is actually done, finished and put into legislation, and that it would be much more difficult for a government that does not believe that there is a genocide of missing and murdered indigenous women in this country to take it out.
Those are just a few examples of why I think it is important that we look at programs and policies that are in place and think of ways we can protect those very important programs and policies by turning them into legislation.
I know that New Democrats will sort of be supporting this bill. We will continue to call on the government to do better by this program. We will continue to call on the government to allocate more funding to ensure that more people would be protected by this very important program.
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