When we broke the last time, I was providing the committee with some perspectives on the manner in which I think this bill is flawed. I won't repeat what I said about the precautionary principle that has been adopted elsewhere in our law and adopted in the Rio Declaration by the United Nations, I believe, but which is not really repeated in this bill, but, rather, is found in a different form in this bill.
Having said that, I suppose the only other thing I would add on this point, speaking as a lawyer, is that the problem is that you cannot predict what will be the interpretation of a new or a different formulation of another principle. We may have different interpretations in different bills. In this case, the bill lacks the term “cost-effective”, among other things.
I also began to speak a little bit about the three underlying themes that I think make this bill rather dangerous and difficult for any responsible government or parliamentary committee to adopt. One of them has to do with redundancy. I quoted already some of the evidence from Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Melaschenko about that.
I then began to speak a bit about the question of the judicialization of environmental policy that this bill will create, and the resulting regulatory uncertainty that will occur. I think I should expand a little bit on that, because if I just talk about regulatory uncertainty, people may not know what I'm speaking about. It's important for people to understand what I'm speaking about, because the reality is that our existing regulatory process requires developers of all kinds, from the builders of the smallest subdivision to the builders of the largest hydroelectric project, to take a great deal of care in their approach to the environment. People who make these developments spend a lot of time and effort and money complying with a whole host of environmental regulations designed to secure the right balance between protecting the environment and still achieving the reasonable goals and aspirations of Canadians.
The most unfortunate thing about the bill that we're studying today is that it allows courts simply to set all of that aside. So a developer of any kind can spend years and years, and thousands or millions of dollars, complying with existing regulatory requirements and proceed with their development, only to have that development reviewed by the court at the instance, not just of a Canadian but of a resident, including non-Canadians and, indeed, even foreign governments. I'll get to that in a moment. But having gone through years of development and millions of dollars of regulatory compliance, a developer can face having all of that being set aside if a judge doesn't agree with the decisions that have been taken by the regulators.
Now, what is a developer to do when faced with such a dilemma? Quite frankly, factoring in the “lottery costs” of not knowing whether a court will agree or disagree with existing regulations will, at the very least, make development much more difficult and much more costly, and will certainly make people think twice before they undertake developments. Ironically, that will apply to hydroelectric developments, which we would in fact like to encourage in order to reduce greenhouse gases.
So that's what I mean when I talk about the regulatory uncertainty that will be caused by this judicialization of environmental policy.
Of course the real gist of it is that in fact this bill does allow for judicial environmental policy, and that is implicit in the remedies that are available under this bill, particularly in clause 19. I'm only going to refer to subclause 19(1), since we will be dealing with amendments later regarding subclause 19(2).
Paragraphs 19(1)(e) and (f) permit the court to
(e) order the defendant to restore or rehabilitate any part of the environment;
(f) order the defendant to take specified preventative measures.
In that case, it is the federal government that is under the court's order, but of course the federal government can be ordered to impose requirements on private individuals and/or to halt development and/or to in fact order developments to be taken back.
We're not allowed to talk about amendments, so I can only say that I certainly hope the other provisions in clause 19 do not get imported into clause 23, on civil action, or else those provisions will be applicable directly to private third parties.
Any of these orders in subclause 19(1) would allow a court to craft its own environmental policy. Of course before it even gets to the remedies, the court has to figure out what is meant by the federal government being a trustee of the environment and what is meant by a “healthy and ecologically balanced environment”.
And while all of these are legitimate questions, what underlies them is the superior question of who decides. Does an unelected judge, who may or may not have the expertise that the Department of the Environment has, get to decide what is a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, what the duties of the government as trustee of the environment are, and how we restore the environment or rehabilitate it? Or do publicly elected and accountable democratic members of Parliament and accountable governments make those decisions?
I couldn't put it any better than did the British Columbia Business Council, which stated:
More broadly, the Bill implicitly adopts a view that regulators, Parliamentarians and other public authorities cannot be relied upon to arrive at sound decisions pertaining to the environment.
I practised law for 30 years, and as much as I respect the judges I've appeared in front of, I know they do not always get it right and they often do not have the expertise that would be required in environmental matters. And not only that, but they are subject to the adversarial system, at least in English Canada, which means that the party with the best lawyers and the most money will often win the day.
In addition, in court we operate on what might be referred to as a “king of the hill” theory; that is, there is a winner and there is a loser. Judges are not tasked with building consensus the way members of Parliament and others in a system of democratic governance are tasked. So there are great concerns with this whole approach.
Michael Broad of the Shipping Federation of Canada gave the following comment in his submission:
We can easily foresee this section being used to challenge the government on any environmental regulatory standard at any time. This runs exactly counter to the regulatory predictability that is so essential for our industry to operate within.
[Translation]
Mr. Irving, of the Canadian Hydropower Association, speaking on behalf of Hydro-Québec and other members, in my view,
[English]
stated as follows:
We anticipate that allowing any entity or resident of Canada to seek recourse in the federal courts will open the floodgates to vexatious, obstructionist, and interminable legal challenges.
The interesting thing is that Mr. Miller, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, in discussing the application of Ontario's legislation, mentioned that there are more parameters, and it's stricter and more restricting in its applications. And that was in the design. If you review the comments, made at the time of drafting, on the rights to sue, the actionable portions of our bill were intended to be the backstop, the last resort only to give vigour to the other provisions.
In the bill before us, there has been a deliberate omission of the measures that Mr. Miller was talking about at that point.
Mr. Baillie said as follows:
This is a good development for Nova Scotia and our entire Atlantic region, and I'm happy to applaud it.
The arrangement, when finalized, will be a good example of how our environmental goals and economic objectives can work together. This is just as the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act envisioned.
He's talking about this type of project, going forward.
Second, we need to work better together, as a region, if we are to ensure our future prosperity and independence.
Perhaps most importantly, the project due to come online in 2016 will end Newfoundland's isolation from any Canadian power market.
The P.E.I. government also has plans to take direct responsibility for wind power development on the island, as well as, of course, promoting energy efficiency measures.
Both deals will involve significant new high-voltage transmission lines, much of them under water, new lines that will go from Labrador to Newfoundland and from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia, and they will be a big player in both additions to the grid. Given the age of the current cable connection with New Brunswick, P.E.I. will also need to install a new transmission line.
With the linking of Newfoundland and Labrador to the rest of the region, our regional market could ensure the most economical use of generating resources. Instead of each province seeking profit, often at the expense of its neighbours, resources could be deployed to the province with the lowest-cost reliable power on the eastern seaboard.
Another editorial—I only have two more, I'm not dragging things out here—stated this:
The two agreements signal a new spirit in Atlantic Canada, one intended to replace talk with action and to move ahead....“A rising tide lifts all boats.”
These new initiatives are positive signs of a desire in all four provinces to become more aggressive in developing regional energy resources to promote economic development across Atlantic Canada.
An hon. member: He's filibustering.
Mr. Scott Armstrong: I'm not filibustering, no.
This is my last one:
Just as important, offshore oil has given Newfoundland the fiscal capacity to fund a mega-project. That's happened just as Nova Scotia Power gets very motivated to find alternatives to the dirty coal-fired generation it relies on for more than 80 per cent of its output. Hydro power is clean, renewable and its price is predictable. Fossil fuels are none of those things.
So I think you can see there's a lot of support for this project, not only from the politicians involved, but from all four provinces, the editorial boards of all four provinces, and it is seen as “our CPR”, to quote the NDP premier of Nova Scotia. This is a project, as the hydro project in the Bay of Fundy is also a project, that's going to produce clean, green, renewable, perpetual energy, which is exactly what we should be supporting.
This bill, however, has the potential to threaten that, and I'll tell you why. Clause 22 of the bill envisions any plaintiff, even someone as far-removed or completely unaffected by the specific matter--such as an issuance of an individual permit--may apply for judicial review of the government decision. If this provision is implemented, it would be certain to lead to a marked increase in litigation around environmental assessments, approvals, and permits issued by responsible federal ministries and regulatory bodies.
Clause 23 says we note that compliance with the terms of a permit or licence is not a defence to civil action that may be brought under this provision, and the current language appears to contemplate that it would apply even to matters falling within provincial and territorial jurisdiction. Needless to say, this would cause a high degree of uncertainty for many business operators, while also setting the stage for conflict between levels of government. In our view, it is wrong in principle for a piece of federal legislation to openly encroach on provincial jurisdiction or to purport to limit the exercise of legitimate provincial powers in this way.
We have four of the most economically depressed provinces in this country working together for one of the first times to produce clean, green, perpetual energy, and here we have a bill that would allow not only someone in a different province, but a competitor within that province, to challenge it legally, slowing it down, challenging every permit, which would stop a project or delay the project or continuously challenge the project—maybe not even a Canadian citizen, but any resident or any entity that has a residence in Canada. North Korea, China, anyone who is against this project, anyone who's against this development, could legally challenge this in court.
So here we have what we're referring to as the CPR of this century for Atlantic Canada now going to be challenged by people maybe not even of Canadian descent. Maybe not even Canadians are going to challenge this in court: every permit.
If you are looking for private investment in this project, how can you guarantee those investors that the project will go through and will not be challenged legally in court? How can we go and ask people to invest in this project, which will produce clean, green, perpetual energy? Where is the certainty for those investors investing in this project?
These are just one or two projects. There could be hundreds of projects in the future, destined to produced green, clean energy, that are going to be stopped.
That is why I cannot support this bill, Mr. Chair, and that is why I'm going to support this motion.
Thank you.
Many of my colleagues have already spoken to this motion. At the risk of repeating, I'll try to do my best to focus on what I think the concerns are.
I'd like to, first of all, just congratulate my colleague from Alberta for tabling this bill and for trying to move this agenda forward. It's a laudable goal, to be sure. You know, she and I have both spent a large portion of our lives working in the environmental field protecting and defending the environment. So I don't doubt, in my own heart, her motives for trying to do what she thinks is in the best interests of the environment.
But I also understand reality. And the reality is that not everything is about the environment. There are social factors. There are economic factors that need to be brought into play. We've heard from witness after witness after witness, other than environmental groups, which stand to benefit the most from this legislation, that it's not the environment that stands to benefit the most from this legislation; it's environmental lawyers and judicial activists who stand to benefit from this legislation.
This bill is so fraught with problems in its original drafting that I'm concerned about the number of amendments we've seen. It's quite unusual to see a private member's bill of this size and scope actually brought forward. I actually don't recall, in the years I've been here as a member, a private member's bill quite this large, quite this broad, and quite this comprehensive even getting this far. I'm not sure that it's even within the rules, but I assume that it is, because it has gotten this far.
I just wanted to speak for a few minutes and hopefully change the minds of some of my colleagues across the way. I'd first of all like to set the stage by saying that I would actually welcome this bill coming back again in the future, after any member of this committee or any member of the House of Commons has had an opportunity to look at the testimony, look at the original drafting of the bill, and look at the various amendments.
Mr. Chair, I don't know how many there are now. I guess more are coming in all the time. Is that right? I think we have 30 or 40 proposed amendments. That's not even counting the ones that may come from the floor.
I think all members of this committee would actually like to come out of here and go back to our constituencies and say, “You know what? We've done something good. We have an environmental bill of rights.” That's an easy thing to say in front of a microphone, and most Canadians would think it's a great thing. Of course, the devil's always in the details.
Due to the way the bill is structured, clause 16 relates to clauses 19 and 20 and so on. Given the intertwining of the various clauses of the bill, if we were to try to go down the road of trying to amend this bill 30 different times, not to mention all the suggested friendly amendments that would come from the floor, and we make an amendment here and we don't make the following amendment in the following clauses of the bill, we could end up with--I think somebody else coined the term--a “Frankenbill”. I think somebody said that. I don't think that would do any justice to anyone.
We've had a good, healthy, wholesome debate about this. I think there is probably room for discussion on a bill that would circumscribe some of the limitations we see in provincial legislation, such as the environmental bills of rights in Quebec or Ontario or the various territories.
There is no circumscription to the limits of this bill. It's so broad and comprehensive and allows so many opportunities for other interests to intervene in Canada--using the environment as smoke and mirrors--and to basically attack us economically through this environmental bill that I think we really need to proceed cautiously and really, really think this through.
I'll give you some examples of some of the problems I see. I'm quoting from the Conseil patronal de l'environnement du Québec.
I hope I said that right. I'm doing the best I can with my French. I'm better in Polish.
We've seen the reverse onus in legislation in Canada before, in human rights legislation. Somebody can have, however frivolous or vexatious the accusation may be, all of the resources provided to them, while all of the onus is then put on the defendant to prove a negative, which is a virtually impossible thing to do. My friend Ezra Levant would probably speak to that.
We've had some issues there, where these reverse onus...in this particular case, it would give all of the weight.
There is a clause in the bill that would actually allow compensation, I believe, to anybody who is actually filing a complaint.
Subclause 21(2) reads as follows:
A plaintiff bringing an action under subsection 16(1) may be entitled to
(a) counsel fees regardless of whether or not they were represented by counsel
Well, that sounds like money for nothing. There was a song about that back in the eighties, but I don't want to go down that road.
(b) an advanced cost awarded upon application to the court
Basically, the court and the taxpayers of Canada are now funding environmentalists who want to bring action, whether or not they're represented by counsel.
The clause of the bill is quite rightly called “Entitlement”. Well, taxpayers are I think getting a little bit tired of entitlements. I'd like to know when the taxpayers get some entitlements. They're entitled to getting their tax dollars used in good order.
So when I see these reverse onus clauses and I see clauses like this as far as entitlement is concerned, it starts to concern me that we're basically creating or expanding the legal industry to take over the environmental management of our country, which I think completely undermines the democratic process.
We have a government that's elected, we have policies brought forward, we discuss and debate these things at length, and to have all of that basically become redundant in the hands of a judge who may or may not get it right....
We've seen lots of decisions in the history of our country that, looking back, some members would say, I wish that was a different decision. But once you have that decision, you're stuck with it.
I would just like to say, you know what? We need to seriously look at this. I think it's so broken that I don't know if we can actually save it.
On that particular point, I would just urge members to basically consider setting this bill aside and have a future member at a future date take this bill, go back through the testimony, take a look at the amendments that were proposed, and come up with something a little more accurate at a starting point. We're just too far off on the starting point.
I would also like to talk about the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association's submission.
I have the submissions here. There seems to be a case here where we're trying to move to clause-by-clause so quickly to...in order to block it, I think the rest of Canada is just catching up to what the environmental movement is doing here. We're starting to get some fairly coherent and knowledgeable submissions.
The Seafarers' International Union of Canada states:
...we believe some clauses of C-469 could be revised in order to clearly state that Canadian seafarers cannot and will not be held responsible if an incident occurs when applying the actual international and national standards of the current legislation. In our over-regulated industry we have to be able to rely on the framework provided by regulations to know what actions we are or are not authorized to perform.
We've heard in testimony after testimony—this one included—that basically everything that a government agency does, whether it's Environment Canada or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or whoever authorizes a permit, can be second-guessed by any entity. Just imagine the potential opportunities for outside interests to use this legislation to beat us about the head for any reason that they deem necessary—economic, social, whatever the case may be.
I kind of like the approach they've taken in their last part, saying we have enough legislation, we have enough rules, we have enough information out there, but “considering there are actually very stringent regulations to be met by the crewmembers I strongly believe that we will all gain in choosing education and information” instead of basically criminalizing people for carrying out their duties as authorized under a permit.
The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association says, “We see no gap in the current regulatory and environmental framework that requires a far-reaching bill such as C-469.”
Chair, our committee just went through the exercise a little while ago of taking a look at water and the oil sands. We looked at that for months. It has spanned two parliaments now—under the 39th Parliament and into the 40th Parliament. We heard from numerous witnesses that every regulatory permit, every project, takes upwards of seven years and millions and millions of dollars in engineering and research and mitigations, plans for reclamation, and all of that now can be second-guessed by Bill C-469.
CEPA also said this:
As proposed, Bill C-469 would change many fundamental principles and relationships that currently underpin Canada's legal and governmental system--a system that has functioned for nearly 145 years on the sound foundation of “peace, order, and good government”.
Well, there's a group here in Canada that seems to think that this bill will upset that peace, order, and good government. I happen to agree with them.
They went on to say:
This is not the way to improve and protect our environment. Adversarial action destroys trust and increases costs and process burden to all sectors of society, including the federal government and indirectly tax payers.
We hear this constantly in the House of Commons. For example, I believe there's a mine closure in northern Manitoba or Ontario. I think the whole case behind the mine closure is that regulatory burden is so severe it give the mine an economic disadvantage. Of course, those regulations have been put in place for reasons being pushed by watchdogs. But the same members who push for these regulations also push for aid to bail these same companies out, propping them up with government subsidies. This is the kind of situation that we're getting ourselves into, and it just doesn't make any sense to me.
The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association went on to say that, “Civil actions brought so easily under Bill 469 could be used inappropriately to delay projects or to leverage positions in negotiations with proponents.”
Imagine if you were applying for a federal grant, going through this whole process that clause 16 would apply to. Say you were going to produce some type of energy. Your company, Company X, goes and bids. My company, Company Y, makes a bid for the same project. Your company wins the bid. My company loses. I immediately file an action under Bill C-469, delaying your project, not because it's not good for the environment, but simply because I don't want to give you, as one of my competitors, the financial advantage of the grant that you rightfully applied for and won.
These are the kinds of short-sighted things that just haven't been thought through in this piece of legislation, and they cause me no end of concern.
We heard from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, and we have the National Energy Board. In Alberta, we have the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. We have all of these experts and knowledgeable people making decisions. They're appointed to make these decisions in the best interests of Canadians, the best interests, in my case, of Albertans. To have them second-guessed constantly at every stage by somebody who may not even be a resident of the province, may not be directly affected by the proposed undertaking, is simply going too far.
We've heard from numerous witnesses. I think Johan van't Hof was here, and he said that he has no end of trouble already, under the existing environmental legislation, securing funding for projects. The banks are so risk-averse these days. To throw any added uncertainty into the process, particularly when the risks are as large as those proposed by Bill , would simply put a freeze on the entire thing.
We heard from the environmentalists who testified that they were looking for that very hammer. They said that very few actions would be brought forward through this legislation, but that all they wanted was the hammer hanging high over the head. Well, that hammer would result in an investment freeze. It would create a paralysis within a bureaucracy that is already taking too long to make some of its decisions. We're just paralyzing the decision-makers, creating a system where everybody is covering his tracks and nobody is willing to make a decision. When that happens, we get arguments for more government, more involvement, and less and less gets done. So I'm very concerned.
Also, I think the world is moving back towards the model of sustainable development, the three pillars of sustainable development. I think that this bill, at this time, is heading in the wrong direction.
The timing of this bill was probably about 20 years ago, when it should have been brought forward to Parliament when conditions weren't so well. I worked for years in the wintertime—I was a park warden in summertime--as an oil patch worker in Alberta. I loved it. It was great for my family. It provided an economic environment that was important for my family. Talking to my colleagues, I heard stories about how dirty the oil patch used to be in the 1960s and 1970s and so on, and how much it's matured to this point today. This legislation is 20 years too late, in my estimation.
However, Mr. Chair, I see I've already used 15 minutes of the committee's time. I thank my colleagues. It looks like they might be listening through the earpiece. Bernie listened to me anyway.
Thanks, Bernard, I appreciate that.
Colleagues, just to sum up, again, there is no harm in putting this aside, taking a look at it in the future. Let's have this bill brought back. If we already have 30 proposed amendments, let's take a look at this legislation. Obviously there are concerns from around the table, if there are that many amendments that are already tabled. Let's just put it aside. The bill can be brought back forward, re-authored based on those amendments and brought back forward. We'll have a much cleaner starting place to work from, and I think that's a smarter course of action.
From that perspective, Mr. Chair, I'll be voting in favour of the motion.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Right off the bat, I want to say, Mr. Chair, that I intend to support the motion moved by the parliamentary secretary, Mark Warawa. It is an extremely important motion.
It is true, Mr. Chair, that I am looking at the bill with new eyes, because I had the opportunity to be present when the bill was introduced and when the witnesses had their say. And that involvement has led me to throw my full support behind Mr. Warawa's motion. I am now genuinely and deeply convinced that this bill goes against Quebec's best interests and threatens one of the cornerstones of its energy sector: hydroelectric development.
Mr. Chair, we have heard from a number of witnesses. I do not mean to harp on what my colleagues have already made very clear, but we have heard that this bill could have extremely serious economic ramifications for the maritime provinces. My colleague, Blaine Calkins, who has been on the environment committee since 2006, if I am not mistaken, also took an objective look at the bill with the noble intention of getting it through.
But the fact of the matter is that amendments are not what is in order. Instead, this bill should be scrapped for the sake of Canada's environmental regime.
Mr. Chair, the House of Commons document that was given to us at the very beginning talks about Bill . It also talks about the bill's two key elements, one of which is the substantive right stipulating that every Canadian resident has the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. That, in itself, is a commendable principle.
However, various Supreme Court of Canada decisions also refer to the substantive right to a healthy environment, which may mean that certain aspects of the substantive right to environmental quality have already made their way into Canadian law.
So the bill and its substantive right component are, to a certain extent, redundant, if you take Canada's existing body of environmental authority into account.
But where things really get complicated is in terms of procedural rights. And, in fact, we heard from a number of witnesses who were most opposed to that aspect of the bill. I have here an excerpt from the brief submitted by the Shipping Federation of Canada regarding Bill , which was submitted to the committee on October 21:
[...] we are concerned that Bill C-469 would enable anyone to challenge any regulatory standard at any time, thereby trumping the existing regulatory process and creating regulatory unpredictability.
So I would ask the honourable members of this committee, through you, of course, Mr. Chair, the following question: Are we here to create unpredictability—
:
Mr. Chair, I wanted to come back to the question that I asked the witness from the Shipping Federation of Canada. This is what he said, “I don't see the reason for this law.”
Mr. Chair, is it really the committee's job to play the sorcerer's apprentice with Canada's environmental laws? That is what we need to ask ourselves when considering Mr. Warawa's motion. That is the question I put to you, Mr. Chair, and to myself. My answer is “no”. I have no intention of wreaking havoc on Canada's environmental regime with a bill that would create regulatory unpredictability, according to all the stakeholders. Mr. Chair, we heard from a number of witnesses that this bill would make life very unstable for them.
Obviously, I want to start by talking about a witness who, in my view, is extremely important, Mr. Irving, the president of the Canadian Hydropower Association. As we all know, Hydro-Québec is a member of that association, Mr. Chair. These people ran out of adjectives to describe just how disastrous this bill would be for the hydroelectric industry, Mr. Chair. This is a bill they described as “harmful” and “destructive”, Mr. Chair. This is a bill that would have extremely detrimental and disastrous ramifications for the country's hydroelectric development, a jewel in Canada's renewable energy crown. This is a bill that would harm the development of green energy sources, Mr. Chair. And that is nothing to scoff at.
Not only did we hear about the redundancies the bill would create, Mr. Chair, but we also heard a lot about the uncertainty this bill would create, particularly in terms of the legal actions it would expose developers to. We know that this kind of legislation would totally discourage investors from undertaking any sustainable development projects, Mr. Chair—the people who have plans, the people who truly want to pursue sustainable development initiatives—because they would have to operate within a process that would open them up to legal action. Their position is clear. This is a bill that would hinder sustainable development by creating a climate of uncertainty. I think the Canadian Hydropower Association made its view abundantly clear.
But theirs was not the only evidence we heard. We received a legal analysis covering five points, which, to my mind, are extremely relevant, and that analysis is even more reason to support Mr. Warawa's motion, especially if members care about respecting federal and provincial jurisdiction.
Mr. Chair, you know that we are committed to the principle of open federalism. That means that we accept that the environment is an area of shared jurisdiction. So we must ensure that the federal government's legislative agenda respects areas of provincial jurisdiction. Bill clearly infringes upon provinces' jurisdictional authority over the environment, as I just mentioned. As we all know, under the Constitution Act, 1867, the environment is an area of shared jurisdiction. We also know that since that time, environmental law has come a long way. And that has been possible because we have been able to maintain a balance, Mr. Chair. Under this bill, anyone would be able to challenge a bill at any time, but only after it had gone through all the legal, administrative and environmental channels.
We know, for instance, that Quebec has instruments such as the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE) in place. We also know that the Canadian government works alongside the BAPE. When a situation arises requiring intervention under the law, Canadian legislation stipulates that an assessment be done, and that assessment is carried out jointly, Mr. Chair. That brings to mind a project that was subject to a joint assessment by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the BAPE—the LNG terminal project, to name just one.
So, as you can see, there are already mechanisms in place. Once the process has been completed, once a decision has been reached, Mr. Chair, and reasonable and necessary adjustments have been made, we have to live with those consequences.
Under this bill, anyone could turn everything upside down and create a climate of legal uncertainty. That is totally unacceptable. That infringes upon the provincial domain.
For that reason alone, the bill should be withdrawn, reviewed and reworked to make sure that it respects jurisdictional authority, one of the tenets of Canadian federalism.
As I mentioned, by jeopardizing the future of hydroelectric projects, the bill creates an imbalance in terms of sustainable development, an area that seeks to align the interests of the environment, the economy and society. At the end of the day, this bill throws that balance out of whack. It duplicates existing legislation, as we saw, Mr. Chair.
Of course, one of the most important points was raised by the officials from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. They told the committee that we could not move forward with this bill because it did not make any sense. It does not take into account decades of work on the part of parliamentarians to set up national environmental protection agencies.
Mr. Chair, we have clearly seen that this bill truly creates considerable legal uncertainty, for all sorts of reasons. That is why we absolutely must take the time to discuss Mr. Warawa's motion at length and to carefully consider our role as parliamentarians. And as such, we have a duty. We must do the responsible thing and defeat the bill.
In conclusion, I would remind you of what the Canadian Hydropower Association said. Stakeholders in other industries shared those same concerns with us.
For those reasons, Mr. Chair, I intend to support Mr. Warawa's motion. And through you, as always, Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues across the way and my Quebec colleagues to stand up for sustainable development in Quebec and to put a stop to this bill.
Thank you.
I have a few brief comments. I don't think I want to belabour this. A lot of the witnesses dealt with these issues far more eloquently than I possibly could.
I do want to touch immediately on the issue of first nations. I in fact added the Assembly of First Nations to the recommended list of people to appear. Unfortunately, the timing just did not work for them. I certainly will, when I leave this meeting, encourage them to submit a written brief.
I was of the view that once we had ended our hearings, we would not be soliciting further briefs and witnesses. If we're still welcoming them, I'll certainly encourage those who have not contributed to do so. In fact, I've spoken to a number of people who said they would have happily submitted written briefs. They didn't realize it was still possible. So I'm glad to hear that the Conservative members of the committee want to encourage additional people to submit their views. I will do so as well.
The government has done a good job of endeavouring to present the viewpoints of one group of witnesses, and that was from industry. Not surprisingly, they are coming in and opposing a new environmental law, particularly one that would enable impacted communities to participate in environmental decision-making. I've dealt with this kind of opposition for 40 years, so it comes as no surprise. I fully expected that, although I have to say I was disappointed that.... There are a good number of senior representatives of industry in Alberta who, had they appeared, I think would have put forward a somewhat more measured perspective as they've been participating multi-stakeholder groups with people across Alberta for five decades.
So we've heard a wide array of viewpoints. Yes, we heard from some industry saying it would open the floodgates for litigation. On the other hand, we heard from a good number of witnesses saying, contrary to that, in both the U.S. and Canada there had not been a floodgate of litigation. We heard that most strongly from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, who very clearly said that the most valuable result of their provincial Environmental Bill of Rights is that it has encouraged and facilitated more members of the public to step forward and express their views on any new environmental law or policy.
Some intervenors, some witnesses, in fact called for even stronger expanded citizen rights, and were disappointed that my bill did not go far enough. Everybody has those proposed amendments before them. I did not choose to bring forward those amendments. I stuck to my guns and tried to keep the bill more measured. Of course, it's open to any member to represent all of the witnesses who testified. So far, we've only heard from a certain perspective.
I'm a little taken aback that the government would criticize committee members who've gone to the effort to sit down and actually submit amendments that they think will strengthen the bill. We may have different perspectives on these amendments when we finally get to them, but I respect them. I respect that they take the time with their colleagues and their staff to sit down and go through the bill and come forward with amendments.
I would have welcomed a number of friendly amendments, frankly. I would have happily accepted amendments, as the government has spoken to, on amending the “precautionary principle” definition. I would be happy to accept any amendments. But they've chosen not to strengthen the bill and provide that it be more measured; that's their discretion.
I want to thank the witnesses and our analysts for their hard work in expeditiously turning around that material and reviewing the various environmental bills of rights that exist in Canada. I note that pretty well every other environmental bill of rights uses the term “resident”, so I'm a little puzzled why we couldn't use that in the federal bill when in fact that's the term used at the provincial level. That remains puzzling to me, having heard the evidence and having received that useful information from the analysts.
On the matter of redundancy, far from being redundant, the bill simply makes rights consistent under all federal environmental laws that are already extended under CEPA, and in some cases extends them somewhat. In fact, that's what Bill did, and we all worked assiduously to assist the government in processing that bill, which they still have not seen fit to put into effect. And that's in fact what this bill does: it extends equal rights under whatever manner that we're reviewing in the environment.
As far as impacts to permits and revision of legal approvals are concerned, the government always has the power to revise any regulation, any law, any policy, any permit, any approval, any authorization. That's allowable under the law. All this bill does is to give the public a right to be at the table when those decisions are made, or to ask that such a review be undertaken.
I'm a little puzzled at all of this speaking on and on about the lack of certainty. In fact those in industry are themselves often calling for government to open up and relax laws. There's been a major campaign orchestrated from this country by industry for the United States to relax their environmental laws. So there are lobbyists on both sides. All this bill does is ensure that the public have a right. The reason it's in there....
Frankly, as the tabler of this law, I have to tell you that if there's anything in this bill that I would want to survive, it would be those provisions. I'm saying that for a very specific purpose. I had the pleasure of serving as the first head of law and enforcement for NAFTA's environment commission. That commission operates under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. Under that agreement, signed by Quebec, Alberta, and the federal government, as well as counterparts in the United States and Mexico, all of our Canadian jurisdictions who have signed on have undertaken to enable advance notice and opportunity for the public to be engaged in the development of any environmental law and policy. All this bill is doing is enacting that at a domestic level.
I'm kind of astounded that I haven't heard on this from the parties on the other side, who are usually great defenders of NAFTA—and the NAAEC is a side agreement to NAFTA.
So that's precisely what the bill does. It simply takes an international agreement and implements it domestically, which is the way the system works in Canada.
I don't want to elaborate any further. I think we have clearly heard that certain members of our committee like what they heard from industry. Probably there's a variety of opinions around the table about how they would weigh the evidence heard, and that's why we tried to hear from as broad an array as possible.
In closing, Mr. Chair, I want to move that this debate now be adjourned.
:
I'm glad to get back. I appreciate the good spirits around the table. We've got into a little bit of a situation here in front of the committee that we don't normally find ourselves in. But I think everybody is still working with the best intent of moving forward.
Frankly, Chair, the reason I moved the motion is because it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that this bill, based on the testimony I've seen, based on the submissions I've seen, and based on the numbers of amendments that have been put forward, is a major undertaking.
As I said earlier, most private members' bills are usually one or two clauses. They make a tweak to existing legislation. This bill, in and of itself, is a major undertaking that affects almost every aspect of how the Government of Canada administers itself, runs itself in the adjudication, and basically puts itself out there in terms of managing the environment, managing the economy, and so on.
I had folks from Alberta in my office here in Ottawa last week, from a responsible company, Capital Power, and they weren't even aware that this legislation existed or what the ramifications were. They have a great project in my riding, Genesee 3. They're building Genesee 4. They were talking about emissions-free, coal-fired electrical generation. I guess others around this table might not consider that responsible. I guess we're going to go back to the days when we rode on bikes, whittled out of wood with a bone knife. Anybody who does anything different, as far as I'm concerned, is using energy, which is what this bill is intending to target.
Notwithstanding that, I think Albertans particularly are starting to wake up to the potential economic devastation this bill would have in its current form. We've already heard from just a handful of witnesses. We have a handful of briefs here and already we have over 30 proposed amendments to this legislation, based on that handful.
The sponsor of the bill herself has said that it's too bad there wasn't time for first nations to prepare and come and speak to clause 4 and the various other clauses of this bill that affect land, I believe the definitions clause. And there are other parts of the bill that address first nations or aboriginal people's issues.
I do believe that other organizations, once they start to realize the fact that the opposition parties.... I don't know; there is no other word in English for a pact between people to basically concoct a certain outcome than “coalition”. I don't mean that as a negative or a derogatory word. It's just the way it is. I mean, they're working towards this. They want to stop the debate on the motion.
I think we were probably a couple of minutes away from actually voting on that motion if we could have actually had an opportunity to vote on it. But you know what? If the intention of the opposition is to stifle debate now and to basically bring this bill back before Parliament in its current form or in a form that's not acceptable and in as hurried a fashion as possible, before we've had a full airing of all of the potential consequences of this particular legislation, I think it's irresponsible.
So that's why I moved the motion, Mr. Chair. I would have moved the motion regardless, had we had an opportunity to vote. This is of particular serious consequence to Canadians. It's of particular serious consequence to our economy at a time when Canada is just recovering and is in a fragile state, and when the rest of the world is still basically in economic upheaval. To throw this bill into the mix at this particular point in time is frustrating.
I want to hear from more people; I want to hear from more stakeholders. The proponent of the legislation talks about how the public doesn't have enough input into the process of permits and so on. Well, I would argue that she's trying to close debate so they don't have enough input into this proposed legislation.
You can't have it both ways, Mr. Chairman, and that's why I will be supporting this motion.
Thank you.
:
--and here we have Ms. Duncan, Mr. Bigras, Mr. Scarpaleggia saying, no, no, let's move, let's go.
It's important that we hear from these witnesses because of how it will affect existing agreements and permits. We have Haida Gwaii; there is a permit, an agreement we have, where we protect the trees. We protect the environment, the ecosystem, from the top of the trees to the bottom of the ocean.
Chair, is there any other place like this in the world? No, not in Canada, not anywhere in the world. This is the first. With this wonderful agreement, we've been able to protect a very valuable jewel in this world.
Now, this could be all under attack by how many people? It would have to be a group of people. If Ms. Duncan's bill went ahead, if this was rushed through, as these coalition members want to have this, with no more witnesses, could this be attacked by the action of one resident in Canada? Absolutely. We've heard this.
So should those groups be encouraged to provide a briefing submission? Absolutely. And where is that, where is that briefing? We don't have it before us.
So I want to thank Mr. Calkins for his motion. I think it's important. I'd like to hear from other business. Of course, the members across the way, shockingly, don't want to hear from other witnesses. Why is it? Well, you know, maybe they don't want to hear the facts on how this bad bill would affect Canadian business.
One of my colleagues a moment ago reminded us that the economic recovery in Canada, globally, is fragile, and for us to be playing with one of the strongest economies in the world.... It's definitely the strongest of the G-7. We've heard that. To play around with that, it appears, for political....
Well, I don't want to impugn any of the motives of any members across the way—I respect them individually—but their parties are willing to sacrifice the environment, they're willing to sacrifice the economy, they're willing to sacrifice everything for political motives.
I encourage those parties, Chair, to work for Canada, work for what's in the best interest for the Canadian economy, for the environment.
They do not want Canada to achieve jobs in a strong economy. They don't seem to appear to want us to protect the environment. We have some of the toughest environmental legislation in the world, and that's not good enough. They want to pit province against province. The Bloc wants to have us secede their legislation and have a federal environmental bill of rights that would trump what they have. It's not good enough for the Bloc; they want now the federal government....
Well, I don't agree with that. I think we should be calling representatives of the provinces. We have Mr. Blaney, but maybe we need to have the environment minister from Quebec come here. Maybe we need to have other industry.
We have the Canadian hydroelectric association. What about—