SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 197 - May/15/23

May/15/23 5:05:48 p.m.
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That is all the time for questions and comments, but I am going to give my normal reminder for everyone to be sure that we keep our questions and comments short so we are able to get everybody to participate in this. The next time around, I will call on the member for Kitchener Centre because he has tried a number of times to get into questions and has not been able to. Continuing debate, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis has the floor.

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Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)

May/15/23 5:06:10 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House for the second time to speak to Bill S‑5. I was also very pleased to chair the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development when we studied and amended this bill. Members may not know that, in 1999, I was the assistant to a member who sat on the environment committee. I was therefore quite familiar with the process of the first round of amendments made to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This is a bit of déjà vu, but I see that we have made some progress with Bill S‑5. I would like to start by talking about tailing ponds. As we know, these are large artificial lakes that are found in the oil sands region and were built by the oil sands industry in the Athabasca River basin in northern Alberta. Everything having to do with water in that region, including the tailing ponds, is something I have long been interested in. In 2009, I launched a study at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. At the time, I was a member along with the Prime Minister, who had just been elected as an MP. There was another member with us, the member for Ottawa South. We were in the opposition and we managed to convince the other opposition members at the committee, because it was a minority government, to adopt the motion to conduct a study. We had to work with the other opposition parties to get permission from the committee before we could embark on a study. We studied the impact of the oil sands industry on aquatic ecosystems in the Athabasca River basin. We did this work somewhat in collaboration with the late David Schindler, who was one of the greatest experts in the world on aquatic ecosystems. At the time, he was conducting research into this topic. The committee was chaired by my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, who is directly in front of me in the House. He is not listening to me right now, but he was the chair of the committee. Up to that point, it was claimed that there were pollutants and bitumen in the Athabasca River, but that it was normal, that it had always been like that, and that explorers had found bitumen in the river 200 years ago. However, David Schindler conducted a study to prove that the bitumen was coming from the oil sands industry through toxins released into the atmosphere. When it rained, those toxins in the air were falling into the river and polluting it. Why am I mentioning that? The reason is that, while we were studying Bill S‑5 in committee or shortly thereafter, Imperial Oil's Kearl project experienced a tailings leak. We have invited the company and members of neighbouring first nations to appear before the committee to discuss the issue. We are going to have further discussions on the subject shortly. In a way, as far as I am concerned, we are coming full circle because the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development's study dates back to around 2009-10. Why did I mention tailings ponds? It is because the Senate added tailings ponds to Bill S‑5 before it was sent to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. We discussed that amendment at great length in committee and it attracted media attention. All of a sudden, the media was reporting that Bill S-5 was being studied. The NDP, the Greens and the Bloc Québécois, I believe, wanted to keep a reference that the Senate had put in the bill regarding tailings ponds. I am pretty agnostic on whether the reference to tailings ponds should stay in the bill, but the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development decided to remove the reference. I am quite agnostic about whether we mention tailings ponds in CEPA. However, I know that the Senate amendment, which we reversed in committee, garnered a lot of attention because we were studying the bill at the same time the Kearl tailings pond leak occurred. As I said, I am agnostic, as such a mention would be nice, especially in the context of what has happened at the Kearl site, but it would add nothing to the powers of the federal government. The federal government already has a fair amount of power with tailings ponds. I do not mind if it is put back in, but my only fear and concern is that, if we had not taken out that reference, and if we get specific in the language in CEPA around tailings ponds, we could be detracting from the generality of some provisions that relate to pollution. The government already has the power under CEPA to compel information about substances and activities for purposes such as conducting research, creating an inventory, or formulating objectives and codes of practice, which is in subsection 46(1) of CEPA, which reads: The Minister may, for the purpose of conducting research, creating an inventory of data, formulating objectives and codes of practice, issuing guidelines or assessing or reporting on the state of the environment, publish in the Canada Gazette and in any other manner that the Minister considers appropriate a notice requiring any person described in the notice to provide the Minister with any information that may be in the possession of that person or to which the person may reasonably be expected to have access, including information regarding the following: (a) substances on the Priority Substances List; Then there is a whole list of areas before it continues with paragraph 46(1)(f), which reads, “substances that may cause or contribute to international or interprovincial pollution of fresh water, salt water or the atmosphere”. This would include what is going on in the oil sands industry and could include tailings ponds. Further down in the list, paragraph 46(1)(k) reads, “the release of substances into the environment at any stage of their life-cycle”. Under CEPA, the government can request information about tailings ponds, what is in tailings ponds and how tailings ponds are reacting. However, the government, just to give a little added heft to the bill, added proposed paragraph 46(1)(k.1): “activities that may contribute to pollution”. Therefore, we are really creating a wide net here to capture any kind of activity, but the law, as it is, captures tailings ponds and gives the federal government the right and the power to oversee these large structures. As I said, I would not mind if it were put back in, but I do not think it is necessary. I do not think the committee erred by removing the specific references to tailings ponds and to hydraulic fracturing, which were added by the Senate when the bill was first studied there.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

May/15/23 5:15:59 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Mr. Speaker, we heard from our colleague from Timmins—James Bay about the implications of not doing more to get toxic substances out of our environment. These are substances such as asbestos, mercury and lead. It continues to be the case through the bill that pollution prevention plans would be optional. Our colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands had put forward amendments that would have required pollution prevention plans. At the current pace of voluntary pollution prevention plans, we will not have the toxic substances in schedule 1 all covered for another 100 years or so. How can the member support the bill as it stands with this voluntary approach?

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Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia

May/15/23 5:16:54 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Mr. Speaker, that was a good question. The bill is quite revolutionary in the sense that it would tighten control over the most hazardous substances, and it would put the emphasis on prohibition of the most toxic substances. One would not need a pollution prevention plan if the government, through the new CEPA, were to say there was a prohibition on the release of that particular substance. Also, CEPA in general takes a risk management approach, providing regulations on how to use particular substances, which can be very restrictive. I think, in some ways, it comes down to the same thing. I think what the government was trying to do was avoid redundancy.

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Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

May/15/23 5:17:52 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I see that the committee is here in full force to talk about Bill S‑5. I have to say one thing. I do not share the committee chair's enthusiasm for the passage of Bill S‑5 or the great progress it could bring about. The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the bill, but without much enthusiasm. In our opinion, this bill makes only a small step, not great strides. The Senate made some worthwhile amendments, but the government and the official opposition did not support them. I know that my colleague does not share my assessment of the work that has been done. The Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that we missed an opportunity to do a lot more for the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

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Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia

May/15/23 5:18:53 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Mr. Speaker, it is true that the bill evolves every time we make amendments to it. There is already talk of a second bill in this session of Parliament to further strengthen the act. Perfecting the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a long-term project, so to speak. I can be less enthusiastic if my colleague would prefer. The member must admit that the whole idea of a right to a healthy environment is a major step forward. Obviously, that right is not set out in the Canadian Constitution, but it will influence all sorts of laws and regulations. It is an important part of the act.

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Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)

May/15/23 5:19:54 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for going down memory land with CEPA 1999. He was there. I think the hon. member eloquently described why Bill S-5 already covers the situation of tailings ponds and fracking. Like him, I am agnostic. I wonder if he would comment further on some of the measures the minister has introduced to deal with the current situation, with ongoing monitoring, restoring trust, and involving the first nations affected in decision-making and, particularly, long-term solutions.

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Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia

May/15/23 5:20:39 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Mr. Speaker, indeed, we saw when we invited representatives of indigenous communities and representatives from Imperial Oil and from the Alberta Energy Regulator, that there had been a communications breakdown. I know “communications breakdown” is a term from the 1960s, but it is very pertinent when we are talking about what happened with the Kearl project. The minister has taken steps to bring the stakeholders together to work out perhaps a new protocol on communicating in the cases of incidents like that. Again, this is something the minister has the power to do, and he is doing it. It is a welcome development.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/15/23 5:21:30 p.m.
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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.

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Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)

May/15/23 5:31:22 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I will start with agreeing with the hon. member that the energy sector is extremely important in our country. We need the energy. What we do not want is pollution, particularly carbon dioxide pollution. CEPA is used to manage greenhouse gases and has been absolutely critical in putting a price on pollution, which the hon. member campaigned for in the last election. His position seems to have changed. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills made it a centrepiece of his Conservative leadership campaign. Stephen Harper used to support a price on pollution, until he did not. Can the member explain his flip-flop and the stark fact that he has switched his position?

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

May/15/23 5:32:18 p.m.
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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—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/15/23 5:32:35 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/15/23 5:32:38 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, does the member's party platform count?

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/15/23 5:32:43 p.m.
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That is a point of debate. I would ask the hon. member, if he has questions and comments, to wait until the appropriate time. The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

May/15/23 5:32:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I doubt it—

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Doubt
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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/15/23 5:32:58 p.m.
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Order. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Charlie Angus

May/15/23 5:33:03 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I think being a Speaker is really tough, and I want to thank you for such a wise intervention there. I really appreciate it.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/15/23 5:33:08 p.m.
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That was not a point of order, but I greatly appreciate the hon. member's comment. The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

May/15/23 5:33:15 p.m.
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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.

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Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

May/15/23 5:34:18 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, because he touched on the fact that all the parties here have had sometimes similar and sometimes different positions on the environment. When we worked on Bill S-5, the Green Party, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois all had more or less similar amendments because we relied on experts from all the environmental groups. Unfortunately, the Liberals and the Conservatives voted against the suggestions we put forward based on the input of environmental groups. We feel that it was the industry's ideas that prevailed. Yes, it is important to listen to the industry because it has experts, but it is also important to have representatives from environmental groups who are also experts. Was too much emphasis put on the industry's agenda in our analysis of Bill S-5?

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