44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 3, 2024 10:00AM
- May/3/24 10:49:48 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague on his French. I think it always deserves mention when we see people from other provinces of Canada who choose, out of respect for others and perhaps out of personal interest, to learn the language of people who are part of the same country, at least for now. A lot of Quebeckers are learning English or know it well. We usually see the opposite, I mean, francophones who learn and speak English. We rarely see anglophones learning French. I have to point that out.
To answer my colleague's question more specifically, I cannot say that I am surprised by his question about the government's reluctance to do its job. That is generally what I said in my speech. This is a government that rarely shows much interest in its own job. It is usually more interested in things outside its jurisdiction, in jurisdictions that belong to the Government of Quebec, like health and education. It even meddles in our laws, such as our law on secularism. It usually lectures us, yet it does not even look after its borders.
The best example is customs. During the pandemic and even up until not so long ago, we saw endless lineups at customs, staff shortages and exasperated travellers speaking out about situations and flight cancellations, sometimes due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.
We truly have a federal government that does not do its own job and yet lectures everyone else. If I could make one recommendation to the federal government, it would be to concentrate on its own job.
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- May/3/24 11:06:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the municipality of Saint‑Cyprien‑de‑Napierville was immensely proud to inaugurate Rue Joseph-Marceau on April 19. The street's namesake, Joseph Marceau, was a local man, a patriot who was exiled to Australia and was the only patriot to remain there.
His Australian descendants visited Quebec for the ceremony. They feel it is a true honour to know that one of their forefathers was a patriot. Thanks to the work of documentary filmmaker Deke Richards, the people of Châteauguay—Lacolle are making an effort to shine a light on the history of the men who were deported to Australia, since many of them came from our region. We are forging ties with our friends across the Pacific, who, like us, are striving to uphold the democratic ideals these men held dear.
I would like to acknowledge the presence of Marie-Anne Alepin, president of the Société Saint‑Jean‑Baptiste de Montréal, and Chantale Pelletier, mayor of Napierville. I also want to thank Mayor Jean-Marie Mercier and the members of the Saint‑Cyprien‑de‑Napierville municipal council, who are contributing to our collective duty of remembrance.
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- May/3/24 11:22:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister should be ashamed of himself for waiting seven days and still not announcing the end of this program, which is costing lives. Six lives a day are being lost in British Columbia, and what are the Liberals doing in the meantime? They are waiting and studying the issue.
Dirty needles are being found on soccer fields. Nurses are having to stop breastfeeding because they fear for their health given they are exposed to fumes from drugs being consumed in hospitals. Crime is on the rise. People are afraid. Quebec is not immune to this crisis.
When will the Prime Minister stop dithering and end his radical experiment? We want a date, please.
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- May/3/24 11:24:32 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member opposite knows full well that no active requests have been made by authorities in Montreal, Quebec or elsewhere, so this pilot project will not be extended to Quebec or Montreal. He is well aware of that, and I would invite him to watch what he says about that.
That being said, we will not take any lessons from the Conservative Party, whose senior adviser has done an about-face and is saying that what the Conservatives did when they were in government was immoral.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-375, introduced by the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, who is one of my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.
Despite the rhetoric from the member for Niagara Centre, we in the Bloc Québécois see this bill as useful. It aims to improve coordination between the federal government and the governments of Quebec and the provinces by promoting their autonomy when it comes to environmental protection.
The purpose of Bill C-375 is to amend the Impact Assessment Act so that, in certain cases, the federal impact assessment process does not apply to a designated project. More specifically, it would substitute the federal process with the provincial one in the case of designated projects. I will give an example later. This would be done in a way that fully respects the rights of the province. This is not about exempting any project from environmental assessment. In any case, that is our analysis.
Without going into too much detail, I will touch on some of the conditions that must be met and are set out in the bill. Designated projects must be the subject of a written agreement between the minister responsible, the Minister of Environment and the government of a province. The process must also “identify mitigation measures for the adverse effects of the projects”. The bill also provides for public consultation, as well as ways to break the agreement, based on specific mechanisms. There are other elements in the bill.
From the outset, it must be acknowledged that the Impact Assessment Act is not trivial. It is anything but trivial. This is therefore our opportunity to ensure that the provisions set out in Bill C-375 provide the proper framework for the process of non-application of the Impact Assessment Act. It must also ensure that the rights and prerogatives of each level of government are fully respected.
The committee will have to begin by clearly sorting out what distinguishes the proposed amendments to Bill C-375 from the provisions that already exist in the act concerning the exemption from an impact assessment or its delegation to a provincial government. In addition to the questions and necessary verifications on this aspect of the bill, which the committee's study will give us additional guidance on, the Bloc Québécois has three reasons for supporting the bill before us.
We are pushing to have all projects, including those under federal jurisdiction, respect the laws of Quebec, as well as the municipal rules of towns in Quebec. Secondly, in Quebec, as we know, when they are conducted, the environmental assessment processes are more rigorous and better tailored to public expectations than the federal process. We feel that in a Quebec context, an environmental assessment could never be less rigorous than its federal counterpart. More rigorous assessments mean that we can better protect the environment and, consequently, better meet the needs and social aspirations of all Quebeckers.
Finally, we need to avoid absurd situations. I have an example. Some projects undergo an impact assessment under federal legislation when they have already been rejected in a Quebec decision following a Quebec-led environmental assessment. The best example is the GNL Québec project. Quebec said it was over, it was settled and it was a no. The federal government then barged in and said it would do a little impact assessment.
Could Bill C‑375 really protect Quebec from this type of decision? It remains to be seen. We will discuss it in committee.
When it comes to the environment, there is an important point that bears repeating. It has to do with the constitutional issue of jurisdictions and shared jurisdictions. Those jurisdictions are unclear when it comes to the environment. First, we can all agree that any government must take responsibility and meet certain obligations, and that environmental protection is one of them. With that in mind, the Bloc Québécois is proposing that the Government of Canada take action in that regard, while being very careful never to act in a way that would contravene Quebec's environmental laws and policies.
The problem is that the federal government has assumed the right to circumvent Quebec's laws for activities that fall under its jurisdiction. Some activities and infrastructure are only partly covered by Quebec laws because they fall under federal jurisdiction. We could mention for example wharves, ports, airports, telecommunications infrastructure, federal properties and so on. That hurts Quebec.
We demand that the federal government respect the laws of Quebec when it comes to federal activities and federal projects throughout Quebec.
In so doing, we are defending what is known as Quebec's environmental sovereignty, in accordance with the unanimously expressed will of the Quebec National Assembly. More than two years ago, on April 13, 2022, to be precise, elected officials from all political parties represented in the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion asserting the primacy of Quebec's jurisdiction in matters of the environment and opposing any intervention by the federal government in matters of the environment on Quebec territory. That is the definition of Quebec's environmental sovereignty. In 2018, I introduced a bill along the same lines in the House. The Conservatives and Liberals voted against it. I dare to hope that now, at least, the official opposition party will agree with our amendments.
I am going to talk about the port of Quebec and use it as an example of what I was saying earlier. Ports are under federal jurisdiction. The port of Quebec is emitting dust that is settling on the Limoilou neighbourhood. At one time, it was called the red dust on Limoilou, and it contained all kinds of things that my colleagues would not want to breathe. When the inspectors responsible for enforcing Quebec's environmental law visited the port to perform an inspection, they were told that it was federal land and that they had no business going there. That is the kind of decision we are challenging. That is the kind of problem we want to solve.
The Bloc Québécois's solution is the only one that would allow Quebec's environmental protection and land-use planning laws to apply throughout Quebec. We know the federal government is good at patting itself on the back and congratulating itself on its environmental actions, but at the end of the day, it is vital to recognize that regulations and legislation, which are the preferred tools for advancing environmental protection, must be respected. Too often, the federal government says one thing and does the opposite. I could give some examples, but I do not think I will have the time, which is too bad.
Perfection is not their forte, but one thing is clear: Canada has no business dictating to us or lecturing us on how to protect the environment. Quebec's legislation on environmental policy is far more stringent than Canada's. Quebec's Environment Quality Act, which has been in force since March 2018, is the primary environmental protection law in Quebec. It enables Quebec to move forward responsibly for everyone's benefit by creating a modern, clear, predictable, optimized environmental approval system that meets the highest environmental protection standards. In addition to being accompanied by other, more specific legislative measures, our law “makes it an offence to impair the quality of the environment or to emit pollutants or contaminants”. What is more, this legislation:
provides recourse to residents affected by any offence that compromises the quality of the environment, its protection and the protection of living species; requires that an environmental impact assessment be conducted to carry out an activity that could present a high risk to the environment; creates a special access to information regime; governs projects or activities that could have an impact on wetlands and bodies of water; and provides criminal penalties for individuals who contravene the law.
I think that everyone will agree that that is fairly comprehensive. The use, planning, development and protection of land all fall under the responsibility of Quebec's regulatory authorities and its municipalities. The same goes for the other provinces of Canada.
The Bloc Québécois notes that the bill before us is perhaps a bit narrow in scope. We think that there are some provisions missing. We welcome the process that will follow, but we certainly have no illusions about its potential to get the federal government to respect the laws that are in the best interests of Quebec and the provinces. In closing, such an objective, that of respecting our jurisdictions, would be a true sign of enlightenment coming from a state that is always trying to infringe on our jurisdictions with no regard for its own Constitution.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to this bill.
The issue of impact assessments and environmental studies is significant, given that Quebec, Canada and the entire world are going through an extremely intense environmental crisis, biodiversity crisis and climate crisis.
I was a bit surprised by the speech by the member for Repentigny, who is a Bloc Québécois member. I would like to remind her that, unfortunately, pollution and greenhouse gases do not recognize provincial borders. What is happening in the Prairies, out west or up north has consequences on the lives of Quebeckers.
I would also like to take this opportunity to give a bit of background, because an important report was released by Environment and Climate Change Canada this week. The report indicated that Canada's greenhouse gas emissions increased by 10 megatonnes between 2021 and 2022. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change was very pleased about that. To quote a well-known film, I could say, “and he is happy”. That is mind-boggling, because he is saying that at least the numbers are better than they were in 2019. They are better than they were in 2019 because something happened in 2020 that had a pretty major impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. It was the pandemic. COVID-19 is saving the current environment minister's statistics. Had it not been for the pandemic, there would be no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Let me put things in context. What we have also learned is that, from 2005 to 2022, Canada's overall emissions decreased by a measly 7%. That decrease is mainly attributable to the pandemic, which all but wiped out economic development, trade, travel and so on. The economy had to be put on pause for there to be a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions. If we factor out the pandemic, the Liberals' plan is not working.
The Liberal government's current target is a 45% drop in emissions by 2030. Emissions have dropped 7% in 19 years. There are five and a half years left to do the rest, that is, to reduce emissions by 38%. We have barely managed to reduce emissions by 7% between 2005 and 2022, and that included the pandemic period. Now they would have us believe that we are going to cut emissions by 38% in five and a half years. This makes no sense, unless we have a pandemic every year. It is our choice. It has to be one or the other.
All this is happening while the Liberals are running hot and cold. They are incapable of really taking on the big polluters and big oil companies who are largely responsible for the current situation. That is because of all their projects, including the Trans Mountain project, the pipeline they bought with our money to the tune of $34 billion.
What we found out through the work of journalists at The Globe and Mail was that the Liberals were about to impose a special tax, a special tax on the excessive profits of oil and gas companies, but at the last minute, under lobbyist pressure, they backed down. It disappeared from the budget. That is what The Globe and Mail is reporting. It just goes to show how much sway the oil lobby has over the Conservatives or the Liberals.
Before I tackle the bill specifically, I would like to point out that the oil and gas sector has the highest share of GHG emissions, at 31%. It is the fastest-growing sector, the sector with the fastest-rising environmental impact and the heaviest polluter. We all know that the best way to stop this insanity is to cap oil and gas sector emissions.
The Liberals and the Minister of Environment, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, keep promising that they will do this, but we are still waiting. Today, during question period, we found out that they have promised to publish draft regulations. Wow, we are going to get draft regulations. We are going to get the beginnings of an outline for some regulations that may or may not materialize someday. If that is not the government dragging its feet and straining people's credulity, I do not know what is.
The issue is urgent. We need a cap on oil and gas emissions, but the environment minister thinks it can wait a while longer.
This cannot wait. The Alberta government said a few weeks ago that the forest fire season had already started. It is expected to be even worse this year than it was last year. My NDP colleague from Victoria said she never thought she would ever see forest fires start in British Columbia before winter was over. That is the new reality.
If people breathed in smoke last summer, they had better brace themselves, because this summer will be even worse. It is possible that last summer will be the best summer we will have for the next 10 years. I take no pleasure in saying that. People are getting sick and dying from air pollution, from forest fires and from fine particles in the air. That is the reality.
We need legislation on the impact assessment process for major projects to ensure that we meet our Paris Agreement targets, uphold our commitments on biodiversity and our treaties with indigenous peoples in the spirit of reconciliation, and show respect for local communities through proper consultations.
I understand where the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent is coming from when he says that we need to avoid redundancy. One process is better than two. I am just saying that we need to be careful. The federal government has specific responsibilities, particularly when it comes to biodiversity and wildlife. I think that it is important to have a process for ensuring that projects comply with our international treaty obligations, particularly the Paris Agreement, and that we meet our specific responsibilities toward indigenous peoples and species at risk, in terms of biodiversity. If the government steps back from the process as this bill suggests, it will give some provinces the opportunity to unilaterally approve projects that will have a major impact on all Canadians. The NDP is worried provinces may rubber-stamp projects, speeding up the approval process to say yes to everything, which will increase the negative impacts on our environment and ecosystems. This is an important issue for us. We voted against Bill C-69 because we did not think that it went far enough, because it did not have enough teeth and because we were concerned that it gave the minister far too much discretion.
However, it has already been used. This law was used to delay an expansion of the Vista coal mine in central Alberta after civil society groups and activists fought hard for an environmental assessment of the project and for a number of their concerns to be addressed.
Given the ongoing environmental and climate crisis, the NDP is very reluctant to give up a tool that can effect change. We cannot simply say that if the province is doing it, everything is okay, without taking a look. As we see it, this would mean certain Conservative provincial governments could approve some projects that will have a major impact on everyone and that will not comply with our international agreements. We believe in strong, firm measures. The federal government needs to be present, watchful, and capable of shouldering its environmental protection role and going after big polluters like the oil and gas sector.
The Impact Assessment Act is an important tool for keeping our air and water clean and ensuring a healthy environment and healthy surroundings for everyone.
In closing, I would say that we cannot overlook the fact that, as far as greenhouse gas emissions and pollution are concerned, borders, provinces and countries do not exist. We believe in taking responsibility and keeping watch for the sake of our future and our children's future.
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Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to support my dear friend, the Conservative MP for Louis-Saint-Laurent. His private member's bill is timely and would inject some badly needed common sense into how we conduct environmental impact assessments in this country.
The goal of this legislation is rather straightforward. It would allow for a single environmental impact assessment for each project, to avoid unnecessary duplication. It would make the system more efficient, more co-operative and more predictable, all things that no one in Canada could ever possibly say about the current environmental assessment process.
The legislation proposes the creation of a mechanism of agreement between the federal and provincial governments to reduce duplication of federal and provincial environmental assessments. It speaks volumes that a prairie boy from Manitoba and a distinguished parliamentarian from Quebec can see eye to eye on such an important issue facing our country.
In our Conservative caucus, we work together on ways to bring our country together rather than tear us apart. We understand that a rising tide lifts all boats. We do not go looking for fights with premiers or infringe on provincial jurisdiction. Now, under the Liberal government, of course, that has not always been the case. We have seen ministers, and even the Prime Minister, pit east versus west and rural versus urban. It should not be this way. It is dangerous and it is short-sighted. No wonder there is more division and anger than at any moment in my life in this country.
I view this legislation as a first step in rebuilding that trust and respect among our regions and our provinces. It would provide a pathway for all levels of government to sit down and work together to actually get projects off the ground. As the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent so eloquently said during his speech, the bill strives for “collaboration, not confrontation”.
The “Ottawa knows best” approach is what is dividing our country. We only have to look at the Supreme Court's decision on Bill C-69, which found certain elements to be unconstitutional. It was a naked federal power grab that infringed on provincial jurisdiction. While it was unfortunate that it took the Supreme Court to determine this once and for all, it provides all of us a reminder that even the federal government can be humbled. Even the most powerful and sanctimonious are not exempt from the Constitution.
There was once a time in this country when we got things built: the railway, which forged a nation together and connected east and west; the St. Lawrence Seaway, which opened the country to the Atlantic Ocean; the TransCanada pipeline, where western energy fuelled the major cities of eastern Canada. These projects provided the foundation of our economy, and without them, we could not get our products to market. I simply cannot imagine what our economy would look like today without them, and they are still contributing. They are still contributing wealth and prosperity to our country. They create countless jobs and contribute the taxes that pay for our schools, our health care and our highways.
This brings us to the bill we have in front of us today.
Canada is now a place where undertaking a project has become so risky that companies would rather take their money elsewhere, anywhere for that matter, and the proof is in the pudding. The number of natural resource projects completed between 2015 and 2024 has declined by 36.4%. According to the government's own numbers in its annual inventory, it shows a steep decline in major projects that are under construction or planned in the next 10 years. In 2015, the inventory held $711 billion in major projects, but by 2023, that had dropped to just $572 billion.
The reality is that, over the years, governments have made it so incredibly complicated, layered with various departments and agencies, that navigating the environmental assessment process is simply too daunting for people and companies to want to do. Now, I would be remiss not to point out that various politicians, such as the current Minister of Environment and Climate Change, view this regulatory nightmare as a success, because it stops certain projects from ever getting off the ground in our country. However, do not take my word for it. In a previous lifetime as an environmental activist, with a bit of a penchant for getting arrested every now and then, our Minister of Environment was quite proud of his efforts to derail the energy east pipeline.
The reality is that activists will never agree to certain projects, regardless of the process, the conditions or even their purpose. There is no lithium mine that could be used to build electric batteries in this country that would good enough for these activists. They will move on from one argument to the next until something sticks. They believe that if they could bog down the entire process, inevitably it will scare off the proponent of that project.
It is disingenuous, as almost all of these activist organizations, many of them, if not most of them, being foreign-funded, have no intention of trying to make sure certain projects are built in the most environmentally conscious way. They want them stopped, no matter what and at all costs.
Now, unfortunately, the fox is in the henhouse, running the Department of Environment and Climate Change Canada. It is no wonder Canada cannot get anything built any more.
The truth is that these activists will use every tool at their disposal, including hijacking the environmental assessment process, to advance their own ideological goals. That is their right. We do live in a democracy. People are entitled to their opinions, and they are entitled to speak out as they see fit.
What people are not allowed to do is to violently attack pipeline workers, like what has happened in British Columbia. The fact that radicals, armed with axes, attacked their fellow citizens just because they were working on an approved pipeline speaks volumes to how radicalized some people have become in this country, with no thanks to the Prime Minister and to the current government.
How did we end up in a place where extremists threatened fellow Canadians, vandalized and destroyed property and defied court orders? How did we become a place where activists can just barge into a room and violently disrupt an energy board hearing?
The reality is that even when governments think they are creating the conditions to get a social license, it will never appease these activists. They are not interested in the facts. They do not care about the evidence. They just want to stop projects from being built in this country.
I challenge any one of my fellow MPs to ponder these questions: In the year 2024, could we have built the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Rocky Mountains? Let us think about it. Does anybody believe that we could have actually built that railway in this current process? Could we have built the TransCanada pipeline through the Canadian Shield if this project started in 2024?
It is a frightening thought experiment, but it underscores how precarious our situation is, currently. Whoever would have thought that the federal government would have spent billions of dollars to nationalize a pipeline just to get it built in this country?
As we look to the future and to the incredible deposits and the wealth of natural resources and critical minerals that our nation has been blessed with, will Canada seize the moment, or will it just be yet another wasted opportunity?
Sadly, under the current Liberal government, it has not only failed to capitalize on that opportunity, but it has made it that much more difficult to get a mine up and running. In fact, under its watch, we have seen a decline of 36.4% of completed mines and a 55% drop in total value of proposed mining projects. At the time when these critical minerals are needed to build our electronics, our batteries and our solar panels, do we have an impact assessment process that will get these mines operational?
At a time when the Beijing regime has cornered the critical minerals market, which puts our manufacturers and our entire supply chains at risk, do we have an impact assessment process to free ourselves from the whims of a dictatorial country and to become a reliable supplier to our allies in an increasingly volatile world? At a time when our European allies are desperate to rid themselves of Russian energy, do we have an assessment process to build infrastructure to get our LNG to port?
These are the questions that we need to be asking ourselves. Do we want to be a nation that not only upholds stringent environmental standards but also excels in actually getting things built, or do we want to be a nation that stifles every opportunity at every turn while our adversaries and other nations around the world take advantage of their wealth of natural resources?
Let us work with our provincial counterparts to make government efficiency the standard practice rather than the occasional experience. Let us respect the Constitution and provincial jurisdiction. Let us stop the adversarial legal and political battles preferred by the high-priced lobbyists and lawyers. Let us transform Canada into a place where the foremost talent in environmental sciences, engineering, biology and scientific research actually works together, rather than at odds.
Let us get Canada working again.
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