44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 15, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Nunavut for her remarks. I had the opportunity to visit her riding back in 2018. I met with indigenous leaders and territorial leaders there, as well as the Northwest Territories, as part of a trip with the foreign affairs committee.
One of the issues we discussed was the government announcing an offshore drilling ban. This was announced back in 2016. The Prime Minister announced it alongside President Obama. We heard that leaders in the territories got a phone call 45 minutes before that happened. It was a complete lack of consultation.
The presumption seems to be on the part of the government that if it is blocking development, if it is saying no to something going forward, then somehow it does not need to consult. In reality, it should be consulting in either case. The government brought in a policy that has severely limited economic development in the north without proper consultation with indigenous or territorial leaders.
Can the member share what the current conversation is around that issue? Does she think the government should have been consulting before implementing this kind of policy?
191 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 4:30:31 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table today a petition signed by many concerned Canadians about immigration from Hong Kong.
The petitioners note the various circumstances that have unfortunately contributed to the decline of the rule of law in Hong Kong, as well as threats to previous promises that had been made about democracy. The petitioners describe some of those events. They also raise concerns about the impact on the ability of those involved in the democracy movement to come to Canada. The petitioners believe rightly that those who are involved in the democracy movement and have had unjust charges applied to them as a result of their democracy advocacy and involvement in protests should not be prevented from coming to Canada on that basis.
There have been various prominent cases of well-known Hong Kongers like Phin Lao and Ray Wong who have experienced challenges coming to Canada as a result of an expectation that they present to police a certificate. There are many other cases from those who are not able to share their names. The petitioners of various backgrounds stand in solidarity with Hong Kongers and others who are concerned about how Canadian immigration needs to not discriminate against those who have been involved in the democracy movement.
The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to recognize the politicization of the judiciary in Hong Kong and its impact on the legitimacy and validity of criminal convictions, to affirm its commitment to render all national security law charges and convictions irrelevant and invalid in relation to inadmissibility provisions, to create a mechanism by which Hong Kong people with pro-democracy-related convictions may provide an explanation for such convictions on the basis of which government officials can grant exemptions to Hong Kong people who would otherwise be deemed admissible and to work with other allies, such as the U.K., the U.S., France, Australia and New Zealand, to waive criminal inadmissibility of Hong Kong people who have been convicted for political purposes and who otherwise do not have a criminal record.
345 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 4:32:35 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the next petition that I am tabling expresses the opinion of petitioners that strong medical evidence exists that access to psychedelic-assisted therapy can effectively treat existential suffering in dying, depression, anxiety, addiction, PTSD and other mental health conditions and improve quality of life.
The petitioners believe that psilocybin required for psilocybin-assisted therapy is currently only available in clinical trials and by special individual permission from Health Canada, despite its low potential for harm. Further, the petitioners argue that it is paradoxical and unethical to allow MAID in these cases while preventing the same physicians from using this kind of psychedelic-assisted therapy for those in this situation.
The petitioners call on the government to allow Canadians to have timely, unrestricted access to therapeutic psilocybin in any form, as needed, to alleviate their suffering via section 56 exemptions.
141 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 4:33:35 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the next petition that I am tabling is with regard to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the People's Republic of China. The petitioners highlight the history of that persecution, which has now been going on for decades, as well as the work of David Matas and the late great David Kilgour in exposing the issue of forced organ harvesting and trafficking targeting Falun Gong practitioners.
The petitioners are calling on Canada's Parliament and the government to do everything they can to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking and to call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
108 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling is in support of Bill C-257. This is a private member's bill that I have put before the House. The petitioners highlight the importance of protecting Canadians from discrimination on the basis of their political beliefs. They recognize it is the fundamental right of all Canadians to be politically active and vocal, and that it is in the best interests of Canadian democracy to protect public debate and the exchange of differing ideas.
Bill C-257 seeks to add protection against political discrimination to the Canadian Human Rights Act by adding political activity or belief as prohibited grounds of discrimination. The petitioners call on the House to support Bill C-257 and to defend the rights of Canadians to peacefully express their political opinions.
134 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 4:35:02 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I would like to table today deals with another issue of political discrimination.
It notes that the Liberal Party of Canada, in its 2021 election platform, put forward a proposal to discriminate against organizations in the application of charitable status if those organizations have views that are different from those of the Liberal Party on the issue of abortion. Charitable status rules already prohibit dishonest conduct and do so on a neutral basis, but the Liberal Party proposal would be to apply another values test, effectively discriminating on the basis of opinions on other issues and preventing organizations such as hospitals, houses of worship, schools, homeless shelters and other charitable organizations from being able to access charitable status on an equal basis. This is opposed by the full charitable sector. A broad range of charitable organizations oppose this proposal from the Liberal Party.
The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to protect and preserve the application of charitable status rules on a politically and ideologically neutral basis without discrimination on the basis of political and religious values and without the imposition of another values test, and to affirm the right of all Canadians to freedom of expression.
203 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 4:36:17 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, next I would like to table a petition that calls for the release of Mr. Huseyin Celil. Mr. Celil is a Canadian citizen who has been unjustly imprisoned in China for over 5,000 days. He is a Canadian citizen and a Uyghur activist who has been detained in China as a result of his advocacy for justice and for the human rights of Uyghurs.
The petitioners note that he was taken from Uzbekistan and unlawfully sent to China. The Chinese government has refused to recognize Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and denied him access to lawyers, family and Canadian officials. He was coerced into signing a confession and underwent an unlawful and unfair trial.
Evidence, the petitioners note, now clearly shows that the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs meets most if not all of the criteria of genocide, as outlined in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to demand that the Chinese government recognize Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and provide him with consular and legal services, in accordance with international law; to formally state that the release of Mr. Celil from Chinese detainment and his return to Canada are a priority of the Canadian government of equal concern as the unjust detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor; to appoint a special envoy to work on securing Mr. Celil's release; and to seek the assistance of the Biden administration and other allies around the world in obtaining Mr. Celil's release, as was done in the other cases of arbitrary detention that were mentioned.
275 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 4:37:46 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the final petition I want to table in the House—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Speaker, I am actually going to table one more just to honour the member across the way, who I know appreciates this so much.
The second last petition I am going to be tabling raises concerns about proposals put forward for the euthanasia of infants. It notes that Louis Roy of the Collège des médecins du Québec recommended expanding euthanasia to “babies from birth to one year of age who come into the world with severe deformities and very serious syndromes”.
The petitioners are horrified by this proposal. They believe that infanticide is always wrong, that killing children is always wrong and that proposals for legalizing the killing of infants are deeply out of step with the recognition of universal human dignity that should define our criminal law. The petitioners therefore call on the Government of Canada to block any attempt to legalize the killing of children in Canada.
179 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 4:38:47 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the final petition highlights a proposal by the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination from 2022. It was a proposal to, ironically, discriminate against chaplains from certain faith backgrounds whose faith traditions do not share the presumed progressive direction of the government.
The petitioners call on the House of Commons to reject the recommendations on chaplaincy for the Canadian Armed Forces in the final report of the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination, and to affirm the right of all Canadians, including Canadian Armed Forces chaplains, to freedom of religion.
104 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 5:21:30 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to address the House this afternoon on Bill S-5, legislation that the government has put forward in the Senate and is now with us in the House. It is a bit of an environmental policy omnibus, as it brings together a number of different kinds of provisions updating various pieces of legislation.
Conservatives are prepared to support this legislation. We think, generally, that the direction of it is positive, that it improves on its absence. Therefore, we are going to be supporting it, but it is also an opportunity to reflect, more broadly, on the government's approach to environmental policy because I think we are seeing, at a macro level, a lot of failures from the government in environmental policy. These are failures in how it acts and how it thinks about the environmental challenges in front of us.
Before I get into particulars, I wanted to propose a framework for thinking about environmental policy. When we debate questions in the House, there are some questions we debate that deal in moral absolutes, questions of absolute right or absolute wrong about how we are acting or how the state might treat a person. In such cases, we do not apply a consequentialist filter to determinations about those things. We say that this sort of action is absolutely unacceptable, regardless of any sort of effort to interpret the consequences in a favourable way. There are issues we deal with that relate to questions of absolute right and wrong, absolute justice and injustice, etc.
There are also questions, though, that we evaluate on consequential grounds, where the thing being done in and of itself is not intrinsically impermissible, unjust or just. Rather, the thing being done, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, can be assessed in its consequences.
In moral reasoning, there are those who tend to want to apply absolute moral considerations to a broader range of areas, and there are those who want expand the space of areas in which we consider things on a purely consequentialist grounds. Those are important debates, and there are maybe cases at the margins where we ask if this is a scenario where we would apply absolute reasoning or consequentialist reasoning.
For those with a certain kind of view and a perspective on the environment, they take a very absolutist approach. They are the ones to say that one ought not to be producing greenhouse gas emissions, or one ought not to be engaging in certain kinds of industrial production, period, full stop. If it is hurting the planet, therefore it is an absolute wrong, regardless of the immediate consequences. There are those who take that perspective.
My view is, though, that an environmental policy consideration should be viewed through a consequentialist lens, that is whether emissions are justified in a particular case or not, whether emissions should be allowed and what kind of regulation or taxation policy should be applied in particular cases. Those should be evaluated, not through the lens of moral absolutes, but through the lens of consequences. Does allowing emissions in a particular case produce better consequences or not?
Those who take the opposite view and argue for absolutist evaluation on environmental policy, I think, have to explain why we should not consider consequences. Why should we not countenance that producing emissions in certain cases may have better consequences for humanity in general, or for the environment in particular, just because of an absolute opposition they have to producing emissions in a particular case? I do not see any text or basis for saying that there is an absolute moral prohibition on producing greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, I see this as being a space of consequentialist moral evaluation.
When one is looking at environmental policy through a consequentialist lens, when one is producing greenhouse emissions here, one always has to ask if it is displacing greenhouse gas emissions somewhere else. What are the net effects, in human security, human happiness, economic well-being and the environment? In general, the consequentialist reasoning Conservatives apply is why we are inclined to be very supportive, for instance, of energy development here in Canada, which we see as displacing less clean, and also potentially more negative, from a security perspective, energy being produced in other countries.
We say that expanding the Canadian oil and gas sector, even if it is within a certain narrow geographic band, might increase apparent emissions. However, if it is decreasing global emissions because it is displacing emissions in other cases, or if, in the production of that energy, we are generating new technology that could be used in other parts of the world to have positive effects overall, we are willing to say that, yes, that industrial activity is a net positive so we support it.
In other cases, they might say that Canada's producing more energy is bringing about security improvements in the world. If we are displacing Russian gas being exported to Europe by increasing our production and exporting it to Europe, the consequential impacts would be that Russia would not be able to fuel its war machine by selling gas to Europe so it would not able to continue this war. Russia's being less able to prosecute the war against Ukraine would be good for security, human life and well-being around the world. This is particularly true not only around Ukraine, but also more broadly. It is a positive overall.
Rather than taking an ideological, absolutist approach to environmental policy, we need to take a consequentialist approach to look at the full range of impacts, what the economic, well-being, security and environmental impacts are, and weigh the decision to develop versus the decision to not develop within that larger consequentialist framework.
As I try to understand where different parties are coming from in the House and why they come to different conclusions, I see a philosophical difference on environmental policy between the official opposition, for instance, and some of the other parties in this place. It is not that one group of people is concerned about the environment and the other is not. We are all concerned about the impact of policies on the environment. We all recognize the role that environmental policy plays in contributing to humans' flourishing or not and to human well-being, etc. However, we believe that those evaluations should be done in a consequentialist way, as opposed to this absolute opposition to certain kinds of development and resources, etc.
We hear things from even the government that suggest that it is buying in to this more absolutist way of looking at environmental policy when we have, for instance, repeatedly tried to push the government. We have said it is important to develop our oil and gas sector, for instance, to displace less environmentally friendly sources of energy in other parts of the world. The government members will say that, no, these particular kinds of fuels are the energy of the past and the solution to 20th century instead of the 21st century. Just factually, that is not true. Oil and gas continues to be a very significant part of the global energy mix. Moreover, it shows this kind of attachment to an absolutism with the effort to apply the kind of language of moral absolutes to an area in energy policy where more consequentialist considerations are more appropriate.
I just wanted to put this on the record as a way of thinking about what kinds of differences exist between parties on environmental policy because it is often convenient for us to paint with a broad brush to say that this group of political actors care and this group of political actors do not care. We can have better conversations and more substantive understandings of each other if we try to look behind that to say what is motivating different political actors to come to different conclusions.
Just to summarize, Bill S-5 is a bit of an omnibus bill that covers various kinds of environmental policy changes. It is a bill that most parties in the House support, although there are some with different quibbles. We have a shared concern in the House for the environment and a shared recognition that environmental policy has an impact on human life and human well-being. Moreover, we see the environment as a good in and of itself and not just as a means to other goods. Also, we make those environmental policy considerations through a more consequentialist moral framework, rather than an absolute one, which is more appropriate for the particulars in this case.
1449 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 5:32:18 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I have not switched my position on this issue. I have been quite clear on it. If members think otherwise, they are welcome to search the record to see if they can identify instances where I have said the opposite—
43 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 5:32:55 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I doubt it—
6 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 5:33:15 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, sometimes we have people in the House casting swine before pearls.
The government's approach to environmental policy is to say that increasing taxes on Canadians is going to solve the problem. I think we should look at the consequence of that approach to see if it is working. Again, I recommended looking at consequence as a means of evaluating the value of a policy.
The government has not met any of its environmental targets. People are paying more. Canadians are struggling with affordability, and the government is failing to meet its environmental objectives. The only case where we have seen improvements in its environmental performance was when it tanked the economy during COVID. We need a strategy that can improve the environment while having a strong economy, and the government has not found that approach.
138 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 5:35:12 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I was trying to find a great quote from the Seven Pillars of Wisdom on experts. I may refer to it later.
Suffice it to say, members will obviously, in the committee process, bring in different witnesses. There will be different experts who work in different roles and wear different hats. Some may be involved in environmental advocacy organizations and have one perspective, while others may work for industry and obviously have another perspective informed by their expertise and the context in which they work.
I will go back to the comments I made in my overall remarks that we need to recognize the balance required in environmental policy and consider the policies we pursue in the context of pursuing overall human flourishing.
125 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 5:36:50 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I think the member is onto something, that people should be able to access information about the risks the products present to them. I also wonder if we need to have a broader conversation about labelling and how that information is presented.
I can recall various debates where people wanted all kinds of information and more detailed labels, but that can present certain challenges and barriers when those labels are not read in detail anyway. Therefore, we would need to have a conversation about QR code labelling and other tools where people can access that information easily, but it does not require the constant reprinting of labels in response to new information. That is a broader conversation, but it is an important area to discuss.
127 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
