- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- South Okanagan—West Kootenay
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 61%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $128,729.57
- Government Page
- May/29/23 1:52:14 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, obviously, I think it is a good idea that we have a right to a healthy environment embedded in some legislation. I would say that the government was so timid about this that when they first brought forward Bill S-5, that right was only in the preamble. It had to be moved into the body of the text to have any legal impact at all. However, we are hearing now that it is unenforceable, as all kinds of civilian actions towards this bill are, and we need that changed.
Yes, this is a step in the right direction. As in so many things with the government, better is always possible. I would hope that we would see some movement very quickly to fix this so that Canadians can truly have that right to live in a healthy and clean environment and back it up with some accountability for government actions.
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- May/15/23 1:49:08 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I am really confused as to what my colleague wants here. He talks about how important it is to have a clean and healthy environment, as well as how Canadians expect and want that. However, he says we need fewer regulations for that clean environment. How do the Conservatives expect us to maintain a clean and healthy environment without regulations in some form that will keep companies like Imperial Oil in check when they spill toxins into rivers? How are we supposed to do that without regulations to make sure that our children and our children's children will have a clean and healthy environment here in Canada?
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Madam Speaker, the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo briefly mentioned health care and seemed to indicate that we were spending too much money on health care. I am wondering what he had in mind for health care. If we want to move to a more private health care system, like the States, they spend twice as much on health care per capita than we do and they have a poorer outcome. Their life expectancy is five years less.
I am wondering what the member's plans are for health care.
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Madam Speaker, this act is largely concerned with protecting the environment and human health from toxins and maintaining air and water quality, but there is widespread agreement that CEPA is overdue for a substantial improvement. For one thing, it is widely considered to be unenforceable as it now stands, as there are multiple obstacles to enforcing it and remedies cannot be used.
A lot has happened in 23 years. New chemicals have been invented that potentially impact our health, and the public has been increasingly concerned about the health of our environment and the impact of it on our health and on the populations of animals and plants that we share the world with and depend on for our well-being. A poll in 2017 found that nine in 10 Canadians are concerned about exposure to toxins from consumer products, 96% agreed that labels should disclose the presence of those toxins in consumer products and 92% agreed that Canada should recognize the right to live in a healthy environment.
I would like to concentrate my remarks today on that final point: the right to live in a healthy environment. There are 159 countries around the world with legal obligations to protect the human right to a healthy environment, but Canada does not have those legal obligations. There are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but there is no federal law that explicitly recognizes the right to live in a healthy environment in Canada.
International efforts to recognize that right go back to the 1972 Stockholm declaration, which recognizes the right to “an environment of equality that permits a life of dignity and well-being”. Fifty years later, this past summer, on July 28, the UN General Assembly passed a unanimous resolution that recognized the right to a healthy environment around the world. With Canada voting for that resolution to finally join the rest of the world and with the 92% of Canadians agreeing with it, it is certainly high time that we had federal legislation that recognized this right. I am happy to say that Bill S-5 provides a step in that direction.
The preamble of CEPA will now include the following statement: “Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes that every individual in Canada has a right to a healthy environment as provided under this Act”. That is a good step, but there are limitations to that statement. For one, as the member for Repentigny mentioned, it is in the preamble where it does not really carry much legal weight. Also, the right is clearly restricted to the provisions of the act. In other words, it is around the control of toxins, air quality and water quality.
This new act would also state that those rights are “subject to any reasonable limits” and that those limits will be elaborated on in the implementation framework through “the consideration of relevant factors, including social, health, scientific and economic factors”. It is therefore important to see how these rights will be upheld. The implementation framework of this bill will apparently also elaborate on mechanisms to support that right.
While Bill S-5 seems to be a step forward in recognizing the right to live in a healthy environment, there are serious concerns that the right will not be backed up by measures that improve the enforceability of the act. In fact, the Senate committee studying the bill reported:
This committee would like to state their concern that the right to a healthy environment cannot be protected unless it is made truly enforceable. This enforceability would come by removing the barriers that exist to the current remedy authority within Section 22 of CEPA, entitled “Environmental Protection Action.” There is concern that Section 22 of CEPA contains too many procedural barriers and technical requirements that must be met to be of practical use. As Bill S-5 does not propose the removal or re-evaluation of these barriers, this Committee is concerned that the right to a healthy environment may remain unenforceable.
In discussions that I have had with top environmental lawyers about Bill S-5, I have heard more concerns that the implementation framework proposed in this bill would interpose the government between public rights and the remedies needed when those rights are violated.
My first suggestion would be that the bill be strengthened by giving the residents of Canada more power to ensure that their right to live in a healthy environment is upheld. That is one of the things that my private member's bill, Bill C-219, would do.
Bill C-219 is entitled the Canadian environmental bill of rights and will be debated later in this session. I would like to spend some time covering its provisions, because it suggests several ways Bill S-5 could and should be improved. I would like to mention here that Bill C-219 was drafted by my former colleague Linda Duncan, a brilliant environmental lawyer who was the MP for Edmonton Strathcona for many years. She introduced this same private member's bill four times during her career as an MP. It was never voted down but, unfortunately, died in each of those parliaments before becoming law.
As I mentioned earlier, one of the limitations of the right to a healthy environment proposed by Bill S-5 is that it is restricted to the provisions of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. It does not cover environmental protections outlined in other parts of the federal environmental mandate, such as the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Impact Assessment Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, and so on. Bill C-219 would provide umbrella coverage to all federal legislation outside of CEPA. CEPA was carved out of Bill C-219, apparently to avoid clashing legislation.
On top of that wider coverage, Bill C-219 would provide stronger protections of the right to a healthy environment. Specifically, it would give residents of Canada the right to, among other things, access information about environmental concerns, standing at hearings, access tribunals and courts to uphold environmental rights, and request a review of laws. It would also provide protection to whistle-blowers.
To conclude, I reiterate that I will be supporting Bill S-5 at second reading, but I hope the government will look carefully at my bill to see how it might inform efforts to improve Bill S-5 in committee amendments. I also hope that if the government is serious about extending the right to live in a healthy environment to all Canadians, that it will support my bill, the Canadian environmental bill of rights, to extend and strengthen that right to the entire federal mandate.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for mentioning health care workers. As we all know, they have been at the forefront, the pointy end of the stick, as far as COVID goes in terms of both their physical health and mental health risks.
Another sector that has really been impacted by COVID is tourism. Two years after COVID began, the government still is not getting the supports right for many tourism operators. Independent contractors of any sort, including independent travel advisers, are not able to access any supports. New businesses that started up just as COVID was starting up are still unable to access the supports that all of their competitors have.
I am wondering this. Can the member comment on why the government seems to be blind to all of these needs?
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