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44th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • No. 201
CONTENTS
Monday, May 29, 2023
House of Commons Debates
Volume 151
No. 201
1st SESSION
44th PARLIAMENT
OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD)
Monday, May 29, 2023
Speaker: The Honourable Anthony Rota
Private Members' Business
[Private Members' Business]
[English]
Department of Public Works and Government Services Act
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-222, An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood), as reported (without amendment) from the committee.
There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed, without debate, to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour, once again, to rise to speak to this small but mighty bill, Bill S-222. It would require the minister of public works and government services to consider the environmental benefits of building materials when building federal infrastructure.
This bill has come a long way to get to this point. Today, we begin third reading with a real chance of seeing this bill become law in the coming days. I am very encouraged by the unanimous support that Bill S-222 has received here in this House at second reading and in committee, where it was passed and returned here without amendment.
I would like to thank retired senator Diane Griffin for sponsoring this bill in the other place in this Parliament. It began its life as my private member's bill, Bill C-354, in the 42nd Parliament. It passed through the House in that Parliament but died an unfortunate and unnecessary death in the Senate. It was an innocent bystander of some other political manoeuvring. I will mention as well that an earlier version of this bill, one more specifically targeted at wood alone, was tabled by Gérard Asselin, a member of the Bloc Québécois, in 2010 as Bill C-429.
It has been a long and tortuous path to get to this place here today. I am really looking forward to seeing this bill become law at last.
One thing I have not mentioned in my previous speeches on this bill is the role that Natural Resources Canada officials played in helping move this bill forward in the 42nd Parliament. I want to mention in particular the efforts by Sandra Schwartz, who helped amend the bill and focus it on the environmental benefits of building materials.
I would like to concentrate my comments today on the testimony we heard at committee on Bill S-222.
One of the witnesses in the hearings was from the Quebec Forest Industry Council. They pointed out three ways that forest products can help decarbonize construction. The most obvious of these is the fact that long-lasting wood products store carbon that was taken out of the atmosphere as the trees were growing.
The second is that the new trees that replace the trees that were harvested continue to store carbon throughout their lives. This is a more complicated calculation that must take into account the full life-cycle analysis of harvest and production. The QFIC has asked that such life-cycle analyses be developed by the federal government. It is my understanding that those analyses are being developed. They have been developed for other building products but are being developed for wood products.
The third is the fact that forest products can help decarbonize construction because there is such a huge potential for growth in the use of these products. Only 5% of large buildings use wood as a primary component, so increasing that percentage would have an increasing beneficial effect.
Both the International Association of Fire Fighters and the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs testified as well before committee. Firefighters are naturally concerned about the safety aspects of building construction in Canada, as they are the ones who literally put their lives on the line to fight fires within these buildings.
As building codes change to include new advances in mass timber construction, firefighters ask that their safety be an added objective in those new codes. I can add here the assurance from other committee testimony that mass timber construction has been shown to be as safe as or safer than standard concrete and steel structures after testing by the National Research Council and other agencies. Government officials pointed out that the procedures asked for by the bill are generally in place in government policy or are in the process of implementation, including the life-cycle analysis of environmental impacts of various building materials.
There is a real sense of urgency in the forest industry for any policy changes that would help that sector produce more jobs and create more wealth within our rural communities, all in the face of a reduced harvest. This bill would do that. By increasing the government procurement of mass timber products, it would increase the domestic markets for our lumber and create new jobs for turning that lumber into long-lasting mass timber beams and panels. We lead the North American mass timber industry, but it is still a small sector and needs careful attention or we will lose that lead very quickly.
Structurelam, the pioneer company in mass timber in North America, based in my hometown of Penticton, has recently been forced to restructure and sell its assets because of an unfortunate contract disagreement with Walmart. Hopefully, it will remain in Canada and regain its strength as the leading proponent of engineered wood on the continent. However, its story is a reminder that the sector is in a vulnerable position, still open to growing pains. A bill promoting government procurement could provide significant benefits at a critical juncture in the growth of the industry.
I spent much of last week in Washington, D.C., talking to American legislators about international trade between Canada and the United States. One of the big issues there obviously is the softwood lumber disagreement. The wonderful thing about mass timber is that not only is it beautiful and safe and not only does it create new jobs, but it can be exported to the United States without facing the illegal tariffs we have under softwood lumber. This bill would help create domestic markets so our mills that create two-by-fours and two-by-sixes will have more domestic markets, allowing them to grow and keep going in the face of this dispute, which has really harmed mills across the country.
I have to remind everyone that, while I and others have concentrated on wood products in this debate, the bill is open to any materials that provide environmental benefits. I met repeatedly with the cement industry and heard of its efforts to decarbonize the concrete that makes up so much of our infrastructure today. The cement industry believes it can be competitive with forest products in many cases in these full life-cycle analyses on environmental benefits. I commend those efforts and would simply say that this is what I hope to accomplish with this bill.
Buildings contribute up to 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and we must take all steps to reduce those emissions. Whether those reductions are achieved through the use of mass timber, new decarbonized concrete products or other sustainable products is not important. What is important is that we act quickly to change the way we construct buildings as part of our existential efforts to fight climate change.
Bill S-222 would be a step in that direction. I hope that today we will see continued support so that this bill can become law at last and create beautiful, safe and environmentally friendly buildings across this country, and support industry and mills across this country.
After unanimous support at second reading and at committee, we have the opportunity today to end debate and see this bill become law within a day or two. I hope that all other parties will allow debate to collapse so we can get to a vote quickly. I do not know why any party would want to prolong this process.
I thank everyone here for their support of Bill S-222 and look forward to a short and positive debate.
Mr. Speaker, one thing that has been underestimated is public awareness. I think a great deal of education could be espoused by making more people aware of the degree to which wood is making a comeback as a building product. We are now seeing skyscrapers being built with wood. Most people would be of the mindset that we require metal or steel to build anything above six or seven stories. I wonder if the member could provide his thoughts with regard to the way that wood is making a comeback in that industry.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North for that comment, because this is really what is at the heart of this bill. It is not forcing the government to pick and choose winners or losers. What it is aimed at doing, which has been its aim from the start, is shining a light on wood to say that we have been building with concrete and steel for decades and centuries, so let us look at wood. To do that, we need education. We need to not only educate the public to realize that this is a possibility, but also educate architects, engineers and construction people on the benefits and the how-to of building large buildings and infrastructure with wood.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member, during his speech, spoke about a trip to Washington last week. The forestry industry has been reeling from the softwood lumber dispute between the United States and Canada. Perhaps the member could provide an update to the House about some of the discussions he had and the work he did in order to resolve this dispute.
Mr. Speaker, I would really like to thank the member for the opportunity to comment on that. It is very important that Canadian legislators go to Washington, and anywhere in the United States, to put forward our case on softwood lumber. In their laws, the Americans have the right for the wood industry to put forward complaints about how international trade occurs, but there is no mechanism, for instance, for American home builders to be third parties to those complaints in the courts of the United States. We put forward that case. We spoke to American home builders. We spoke to legislators.
It is unfortunate that it seems the way the American timber industry is handling this is that it knows that, if it brings forward complaints, it will always lose to Canada before tribunals and courts. However, in the intervening years that those tribunals take, we lose mills. It almost seems that this is the aim of the United States, and that is precisely the case I brought up when speaking to the U.S. trade representative and other legislators in Washington.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, to hear that we will finally be able to make the use of wood a priority is music to my ears.
I was around during the forestry crisis in Quebec back in the 2000s. After the decision to go green, it became clear how little information about the use of wood had reached insurers, schools and future engineers and architects.
Quebec has had a proven track record for more than a decade. In my colleague's opinion, is it not high time Canada passed this bill?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, it is past high time for this bill to be adopted. Quebec brought forward the wood charter many years ago. British Columbia brought in its Wood First Act. This is the kind of bill we need in the federal world to push for federal infrastructure to be built with wood and other environmentally friendly products so we can fight climate change, support the forest industry and have beautiful, safe buildings that will last for centuries.
Mr. Speaker, it is not the first time I have had the opportunity to express some thoughts in regard to Bill S-222. In fact, it is an issue that has been debated for quite a while here in Ottawa. What surprises me, at least in part, is the fact that we have not ultimately seen its passage. As the member has referenced, this bill has been other bills in the past, and there does seem to be a fairly wide base of support for what the bill is actually talking about.
I think we constantly underestimate the true value of our wood products here in Canada, which can be broken down into different areas. The area that seems to get a great deal of attention is softwood, the trading that takes place between Canada and the United States, and how the wood barons from the States want to upset the apple cart, believing that, by doing so, their own specific industry will benefit. However, that has proven not to be the case, and it is a thorn in the side that has caused a great deal of hardship here in Canada and, I would suggest, also in the United States. I appreciated the question posed to the member in regard to it, because dealing with wood tariffs and the trade-related issues and the impact they have on the industry here is an ongoing issue in terms of production and harvesting of wood, as well as impacts on the consumer in the United States who wants to be able to have Canadian wood to use in building homes and so forth. I just want to start off by recognizing the fact that this is still there and continues to be a thorn. As the Minister of Finance and the Minister of International Trade will tell us, what is important in dealing with that issue is that we make sure we get the right deal, a fair deal for Canada, and that we do what we can as a government to minimize the cost. There is significant cost related to companies and job losses and so forth in Canada when these types of trade issues surface, and it is indeed unfortunate.
When we think of timber buildings or timber, most people would be quite surprised not only to find the degree to which wood is better for the economy in many different ways, and for our environment, but also that it is something we can use in the construction of large buildings. In the late 1980s, I remember going downstairs in a house I had purchased and finding out it had a wood foundation. That was quite a surprise for me. I had always thought the foundation would be made of concrete. Then, after investigating the matter, I found that, in the late 1980s, people were talking about the insulating factor and the structure of the wood being more than adequate in terms of longevity and the life of the home. Ever since, I have been very much open to the idea of how we could better utilize wood.
The member spoke of it from an industry point of view, and there is no doubt that Canada is very well positioned in this industry. I am not sure we rank number one, but we would definitely be in the top three, possibly second. I think it is between Canada and the United States. However, wood harvesting is a strong, healthy industry, and there are multiple players, both advocating and ensuring that we have an ongoing stock of trees into the future. That is something critically important.
When we look at timber buildings now, my understanding is that, more and more, we are starting to see them built higher than 10 floors. The record is probably somewhere between 14 and 20 floors; I do not know offhand. However, I know that, in speaking to the legislation in the past, I have made reference to a couple of the buildings. If one had the opportunity to take a look at the construction and see some of these towers of timber, they would be quite impressed by their strength and the tonnage that can be held by the construction of these buildings. They are becoming more and more popular. I think that, in the last decade or so, we have seen a growth in that industry that is fairly impressive. In fact, I was looking at one story that made a comment in regard to how, in the city of Toronto, a number of the skyscrapers, condominiums and so forth, are being made of timber. That is why I really believe this would expand opportunities.
Over the weekend, Winnipeg hosted the 2023 Skills Canada National Competition. Skills Canada does a fantastic job of bringing young people who have skills and are working in the trades to the city of Winnipeg, where there were literally thousands of students who attended in the convention centre. They got a sense of the degree to which those skills are there and are very real, producing jobs into the future. One would need to look only at the carpentry area and some of the construction being done with that component. I think there were somewhere in the neighbourhood of 45 different skill sets. Many of them are related to wood products and construction. Organizations directly and indirectly benefit from the development of that particular industry.
This morning, my colleague made reference to forest fires in her area, and there are forest fires virtually throughout the country. We all need to be concerned about that. It raises the environmental issues. It is an issue of stewardship and making sure that, as much as possible, we are minimizing the negative impacts on our environment and expanding where we can in industries that make us that much healthier as a nation.
I would suggest that, through the passage of the bill, we would see the promotion of timber and wood in construction areas, with the federal government playing a role; it could contribute to ensuring that the industry continues to grow, and that is one of the reasons I had posed the question to the member opposite in regard to public awareness. I really and truly do not believe that the public as a whole is aware of the fact that skyscrapers nowadays can, in fact, be built using wood products, that there is a surge taking place, and that it is becoming more common to hear of buildings six storeys or more being built primarily with wood.
I think, when we take a look into the future of the growth of our country, whether industrial, commercial or residential, the demand for wood is going to continue to increase. It is going to be important that the federal government work with the provinces, territories and indigenous leaders in ensuring that this is an industry that does well into the future because of the many positive environmental reasons, plus the creation of jobs and so forth. There are all sorts of opportunities there, and I am glad to see that the bill is once again before the House. I believe, as I am sure all members do, that it will pass through, and I look forward to it ultimately becoming law.
I am glad that the member did mention the forest fires back home. In my old constituency of Argyle-Barrington, a number of people have been shipped away, not knowing if they can go back home. I know that people in the riding of Halifax West are going through the same thing; thousands of people have been sent away, evacuated from the area. Of course, our thoughts and prayers are with them, and we hope their homes are there when they go back.
Continuing debate, the hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac.
Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to reflect the sentiments you just expressed to our friends and neighbours in Nova Scotia and throughout the country who are continuing to battle forest fires. I thank our first responders and firefighters and their families for their huge sacrifice in making this recovery possible, getting these fires under control and protecting the good people of our region.
I rise today to speak to Bill S-222, which is regarding the use of wood, the increase in the use of wood and the effective use of wood in achieving our country's objectives. Any time we have the opportunity to discuss expanding the use of Canada's natural resources and Canada's forestry, I am passionate about it, because I think it is so important.
This is somewhat personal to me, because the region I represent has a lot of forestry-based industries. In fact, my dad worked for over 50 years in a pulp and paper mill in Nackawic, the little community I grew up in. In 1991, Nackawic was named Canada's forest capital. In fact, it may have been recognized as the forest capital of the world. It is the home of the world's largest axe, which is still there today, not far from where my office is located.
Any time forestry issues come up, I am going to be listening quite intently. My family and my upbringing were very positively affected because of the forest industry and the good-paying jobs it afforded those who worked in that industry. As well, my father-in-law was a private woodlot owner and worked in the woods, cutting wood, for years. That was not far from me, actually, in the neighbouring district of N.B. Southwest. Forestry is very related to my family personally, so any time we can talk about the increased use of Canadian goods, Canadian natural resources and Canadian forest products, I get excited about that.
The bill before us would provide an opportunity for the increased utilization of a renewable resource, which is our forest. Canada is blessed with an abundant supply of incredible forests across our vast country, and with that abundance, I think we obviously need to utilize it to benefit our people in a way that is responsible and will be sustainable for generations of forestry workers to come.
The reforestation practices that are being developed by both private sector and others is incredible. I have toured some of the tree nurseries in my region and the province, and the innovation, technology and incredible developments that are happening related to tree planting, reforestation and our tree nurseries are unbelievable. In Juniper, there is a large tree nursery operation, and there are others throughout the province.
Every time we can put another tree in the ground, we are doing the planet a huge favour. I think it is important that we continue to invest in proper reforestation, so that there will be an industry in the future that is very much sustainable. Those who are in that sector recognize the importance of that, as well as of responsibly harvesting and replanting.
With that in mind, I think we need to do everything we can as Canadians and as a government to promote Canadian natural resources, including our forest and wood products. We have some of the best wood products in the world, if not the best. I may be a bit partial, but I think they are the best; they are amazing, resilient wood products. Our craftsmen and those who work in the sector produce incredible goods with them.
It is amazing what has happened within the forestry sector as well. It has innovated, developed and transitioned. The mill in my hometown used to be a producer of newsprint, and then it went into magazine print. Of course, it was into Kodak finishing print, back when they used to print pictures off, which seems like a long time ago, and the mill used to make the high-quality type of finished paper. However, it had to go through an entire innovation, and now that same mill is producing wood-fibre product that is being turned into clothing. It is really remarkable, the innovation that has gone on to be able to be a sustainable industry and continue to provide good jobs throughout our region, let alone all the spinoffs that come from the forestry workers.
However, there are some areas that definitely need to continue to be addressed within forestry-related products. We have an ongoing softwood lumber tax issue that needs to be a priority for this government of the utmost importance. It directly affects mills in my region, which are being put at a definite competitive disadvantage. We need this to move up the chain of priorities, so that whether they are on the west coast, in British Columbia, or the east coast, in New Brunswick and throughout the Maritimes, these mills, their products and this industry are being stood up for. I believe this bill is one step toward doing that, to make sure we get more Canadian wood products into increasing numbers of markets and better utilization of those wood products even within our own country. That will be a good development.
What we also must ensure is that internationally we are doing everything we can to stand up for our natural resource sector in this country. That includes forests, but it also includes our oil and gas. It includes our other energy. It includes smelting and aluminum. It includes it all. Canada has great resources, and we need to make sure that the resource sector is stood up for, not apologized for and not talked down.
We have a great news story to tell when it comes to Canada's natural resources. It is time that all of us, as representatives of this country, stood up for our own resource sector, which has provided unbelievably good jobs for millions of Canadians from coast to coast. I am hoping that this bill, Bill S-222, will help lead to that by talking about increasing the utilization of wood products.
I think that in our good pursuits, if we do things more environmentally responsibly and sustainably, that is all good, but we can do that while continuing to develop our natural resources. Canada has the best-regulated sectors in the world relating to forestry, natural resource development, mining and energy extraction. That is nothing to apologize for, nothing to run from, but something to trumpet and something to talk about loudly and clearly and be enthused about.
When a sector is hurting, governments need to step up to the plate and say that they are standing and they have our backs because they know Canadians are relying on these sectors for their livelihoods and their employment.
I encourage the government to not only implement this bill and get it in place but expand the emphasis on Canadian natural resources, including our forestry sector, our oil and gas sectors and our mining sectors. That means every type of natural resource development. One thing is for sure: In a time of global economic insecurity and instability, the time for increased Canadian self-reliance is now. The time for increased Canadian natural resources and energy on the global markets is now. The time the world is looking for more Canadian food and natural resource products is now. This is not the time to retreat, back away and apologize. This is a time to step up and say we are here to make a difference. Canada can fill the void and the vacuum in the world with the best-produced products in the world.
I am thankful to all those who work in the forestry sector, including my dad, who retired after 50 years of carrying a bucket to a mill. I thank them for doing what they are doing in the forestry sector. I thank them for the innovation that is happening in that sector. Together, we can do some great things for Canada by developing our natural resources.
Thanks for bringing forward this bill. We look forward to doing whatever we can to see it get through.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passionate speech concerning Bill S‑222.
It was interesting to see some enthusiasm, which is exactly what we want to see when it comes to wood construction. Unfortunately, we see nothing of the kind, especially from the government over there. I would even add that previous governments were no different, because I never saw past Conservative governments being any more proactive or enthusiastic about wood construction either.
Perhaps my colleague could convince me otherwise. I would like to give him the opportunity to speak to what past Conservative governments have done to promote the use of wood in construction.
It is not question and comment time. It is the turn of the hon. member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères to speak.
The hon. member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères.
Mr. Speaker, I am so used to dealing with questions that I forgot that it was time for my speech. Thank you for the opportunity to give my speech.
However, I think what I just said is still relevant to any speech. Maybe my colleague could answer that question at another time.
Anyway, we are discussing Bill S‑222. The “S” means that the bill originated in the Senate. Unelected representatives are making a contribution to the debate by introducing the bill that is before us. Quebec got rid of its version of the Senate. Eventually, at the federal level, some thought will need to be given to what to do with the Senate, with this group of people who do not represent the population, but who are simply appointed by the sitting Prime Minister. The very concept is hard to explain.
Let me get back to Bill S‑222, which seeks to ensure that the government considers the benefits of wood in developing its requirements before launching calls for tender. That is not a bad thing. It is actually a good thing, because it means that there is a willingness to do more for wood construction. We cannot be against that. That is why the Bloc Québécois intends to support Bill S‑222.
However, we think that this bill lacks ambition. It could have gone further. It could have pushed harder. That said, that may be just what Bill S‑222 and its sponsor intended, namely to do something that is not overly ambitious and that does not go too far so that it can get the approval of the government, which itself does not have much ambition for wood or the forest industry in Quebec. Maybe the sponsor thought that a bill that does not go too far would stand a better chance of being supported by the Liberals.
That is too bad, because we in the Bloc Québécois have raised this issue in the past. In 2010, Bill C‑249 was tabled by Gérard Asselin, the former member for Manicouagan, a heavily forested riding. He was keenly aware of the reality and needs of the forest industry and the need to look to the future on this issue. In 2014, the Bloc Québécois tried again with Bill C‑574, tabled by Claude Patry, the former member for Jonquière—Alma. He had initially been elected as an NDP member, but he came to realize that that party did not represent Quebec, so he decided to join the Bloc Québécois. I should note that Jonquière—Alma is also a heavily forested region.
Those two MPs understood Quebec, its needs and the importance of pushing harder for wood construction. The big difference between Bill S‑222 and the Bloc Québécois bills is the use of different terms to promote wood construction. The Bloc bills speak of “giv[ing] preference to” the use of wood, whereas Bill S‑222 speaks of “consider[ing]” wood's comparative advantages. Of course, “considering” is fine, but “giving preference to” is just that much stronger.
That is what we would have liked to see in this bill, and we will be pushing for it if the bill returns to the House for third reading. We are very hopeful that this bill will get unanimous support in the House. There is hope that will happen. I have yet to hear from all my colleagues on that point, but it would be an encouraging sign for Quebec's forestry industry, which, unfortunately, does not receive sufficient support from the federal government.
It seems like the federal government in Ottawa only has eyes for oil. Whenever oil comes up, dollar signs are not far away. The oil industry gets cheques and subsidies to the tune of billions of dollars. However, when it comes to the forestry industry, it is a whole other story. The government finds it really tough to provide the support that Quebec's forestry industry needs. Often, it gives our forestry industry peanuts, while sending hundreds of millions of dollars across the country, with a bit going to British Columbia and a bit going to eastern Canada.
One year, I thought I was hallucinating, because I read that it was offering financial assistance to deal with spruce budworm. I thought it was great that the government was announcing financial assistance for that in its budget, but then I realized it was only for eastern Canada and British Columbia. There was not a cent for Quebec. It was as if there were no forests in Quebec, as if Quebec's forestry industry did not exist.
That basically shows us what this government's priority is, that is, everything but Quebec. That about sums it up. Quebec is more advanced than Canada when it comes to wood. Of course, we welcome and support Canadian initiatives like this bill, but Quebec already has its own policy for incorporating wood into construction. It is a useful policy that perhaps the Canadian government should learn from. The aim of the policy is to ensure that wood is systematically incorporated into all new buildings whenever possible.
Why should wood be used in construction? I think that it is an essential element, a crucial element. In fact, the Quebec Construction Code was actually amended in 2010 and 2015 to allow the construction of six-storey wooden buildings. Today, the Régie du bâtiment du Québec, Quebec's building authority, even allows for buildings with up to 12 floors under certain conditions. A specific application must be submitted, and it must demonstrate that this would be feasible and that it would be done safely. In short, builders can construct wooden buildings up to 12 stories tall. That is significant.
What we know is that about 80% of all commercial, industrial and institutional buildings could be built of wood. Almost everything could be built of wood. We know that residential wood construction is already quite strong. In that respect, not much promotion is needed even though, at times, construction that could be done in wood is not.
For Quebec, forests are more than trees. They are much more than that. In fact, they are part of our identity, part of who we are. They are part of our territory, of our history. They are part of the collective imagination in Quebec.
For hundreds of years, as we know, the fabled settlers were farmers in the summer and lumberjacks in the winter. In our collective imagination, the forest is inseparable from Quebec's identity. In a way, it goes much further than the famous two-by-four. Two-by-fours are interesting because they symbolize construction itself, but much more can be done. In the past, there was the craze surrounding newsprint, which was the main wood product for a long time. Today, that needs to be rethought and other stronger and more relevant products need to be found going forward.
The forest in Quebec is our past and our present, but it is also our future. Unfortunately, it is being neglected. I repeat: it is being neglected by the Canadian government, the federal government, for whom it is not a priority. Its priority is oil, and that shows in the investments.
Obviously, in Quebec, we are proud of our forests and we would like to be able to promote them more. Today, there is more and more talk about buying local and short distribution channels, for example. That is precisely it. Wood is taken from Quebec and is used in construction in Quebec. Is that not incredible? Jobs are created in the regions of Quebec with that wood. Is that not incredible? That is all our regions are asking for: the ability to develop our forests.
Unlike oil, wood is a renewable resource. The use of wood is environmentally friendly. When construction uses steel or concrete, for example, what happens? Greenhouse gases are emitted. When construction uses wood, the carbon is captured. The opposite happens. In fact, it is much better. It is magical in a way.
It is far more magical than those facilities receiving millions, not to say billions, of dollars in subsidies from the federal government for carbon capture and sequestration. We do not know whether it has been scientifically proven or whether anything will come of it. We know that there is one thing that works: timber construction. Why not take that direction? One cubic metre of wood captures one tonne of CO2, which is a pretty big amount.
While Canada is pumping billions of dollars into oil, I encourage everyone to support our timber industry for a strong Quebec, a green Quebec, a Quebec that is proud of its forests, that does not neglect them, that takes care of them and that takes care of the planet.
I hope that the House will pass Bill S-222. The government has been taking a hands-off approach, in particular by allowing Resolute Forest Products to be bought out by Chinese interests. It needs to adopt a policy that will allow us to take care of our forests and promote our products, and it needs to invest the money needed to make that work.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this Senate bill.
First, I would just like to point out that the Conservative member who spoke earlier talked about how much the Conservatives support the bill. Of course, they could really show that support by ensuring that it receives speedy passage to move on to the next stage, instead of prolonging debate on the matter.
Canada's built environment is a significant contributor to GHG emissions, with more than 25% of GHGs coming from the construction, use and maintenance of residential, commercial and institutional buildings. The embodied carbon is the GHG emission arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance and disposal of building materials from building construction. It is responsible for 10% of all energy-related emissions.
In 2019, the World Green Building Council called for a 40% reduction in embodied carbon by 2030. To ensure that Canada meets its GHG reduction commitments, both energy use and carbon emissions need to be reduced simultaneously. This bill puts into law that, for most federal construction, GHG reduction must be a part of the planning process. It is the smart thing to do, and it is the right thing to do. Currently, this is only an internal federal policy.
Wood is one of the best materials for reducing the carbon footprint in buildings. The low embodied carbon of wood products stems from the fact that the manufacturing process is not energy-intensive, because it relies predominantly on electricity and uses long-lasting forest products that have sequestered carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Great advances have been made in tall wood construction. It is now possible to build more buildings in a safe, ecologically sensitive way than in past construction. These new technologies offer an obvious opportunity to increase the use of wood in building and thus support the forest sector in Canada, which has been beset by difficulties caused by American tariffs through the softwood lumber dispute, the pine beetle epidemic in British Columbia, catastrophic forest fires and reduced fibre supply because of past harvests.
As the largest producer in Canada, the federal government could give this sector a much-needed boost by using this cutting-edge technology at home. If passed, this bill would require the Department of Public Works to consider any potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefits when developing requirements for the construction, maintenance and repair of federal buildings.
In 2009, B.C. passed the Wood First Act, which aims to “facilitate a culture of wood by requiring the use of wood as the primary building material in all new provincially funded buildings”. In 2013, Quebec adopted the Wood Charter, which requires all builders working on projects financed in whole or in part by the provincial government to consider wood in their construction plans; it also requires project managers to prove that they have calculated the greenhouse gas emissions of wood versus other materials in the pre-project stage.
Different versions of this private member's bill were introduced in past Parliaments, and they were supported by the NDP. Early versions of the bill explicitly asked the minister to consider using wood. However, that text was amended in the 42nd Parliament to direct the minister to consider any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefits instead; it may also allow the use of wood or any other thing, including a material, product or sustainable resource that achieves such benefits.
That bill, Bill C-354 passed in the House but died in the Senate at the end of that Parliament. It was introduced as a Senate bill in this Parliament. This version of the private member's bill is inspired by new developments in wood construction technology. Large buildings constructed with mass timber can be built quickly. They are also cost-competitive, and they meet fire safety requirements.
Advances in wood construction technology have demonstrated that large buildings and other infrastructures can be built with wood. Recently, the University of British Columbia constructed the Brock Commons student residence; it is the world's tallest wood building, at 18 storeys. Toronto's George Brown College is currently building Limberlost Place, a 10-storey mass timber structure, at its Waterfront Campus; this will be the first institutional building of its kind in Ontario.
In 2014, the Cree community of Mistissini, Quebec, opened the Mistissini Bridge, a 160-metre-long bridge with semicontinuous arches made of glue-laminated wood beams. It is one of the largest wooden structures in Canada, and it won two national awards at the 2016 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards.
Canadian companies lead the mass timber sector in North America, with production plants in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. Because wood has lower embodied carbon than most building materials do, this bill offers us the opportunity to support innovation in the forestry sector while, at the same time, helping the Government of Canada to meet its GHG emission reduction targets. This is especially the case in these difficult times, because the sector faces large duties from the U.S.
Given the developments in the technology, this idea is one that is being used more and more around the world. It makes sense to use this technology more at home. In budget 2017, the government provided Natural Resources Canada with $39.8 million over four years, starting in 2018-19, to support projects and activities that increase the use of wood as a greener substitute material in infrastructure projects.
Bringing this forward is our way to call on the government to continue to support this activity through government procurement. It is time for us to move forward. This bill has been around and through the block a number of times. I repeat, as I stated at the beginning of my speech, that if the Conservatives say they support moving forward with this bill, then they should show it with actions and stop the delaying tactics. Let us get on with it, get it done, support the industry and do what is good for the environment. That is the path forward.
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be standing up today. I want to thank the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, my neighbour, for bringing this bill forward. I certainly do support the forestry sector, which is not only significant for Canada; it is very significant for Kootenay—Columbia. In fact, the forestry sector is 10% of the workforce in Kootenay. The only industry that is bigger is mining and that is metallurgical coal. Other than that, forestry is number two.
I just want to go through some of the sawmills that are in the Kootenays, to show the gravity of how large this is and how supportive we are in using wood for building, whether for housing, commercial buildings or industrial buildings.
For example, in Elko, we have a Canfor mill. It produces spruce, pine and fir dimensional lumber and it uses red lumber in other specialty products.
In Castlegar, we have Interfor, which produces high-quality dimensional lumber.
We have the Radium Hot Springs Canfor mill in Radium. It plays a large role in global operations in high-value forest products. The mill produces spruce, pine and fir dimensional lumber and red as well.
There is Interfor in Grand Forks, which produces dimensional lumber.
There is Downie Timber Selkirk, which is huge in Revelstoke. It produces specialty products like, for example, poles.
There is Kalesnikoff. I am going to come back to Kalesnikoff because I want to talk about that sawmill in South Slocan. It is a family-owned business for four generations, building standard dimensional homes, with up to 110,000 square feet of mass timber facility.
Then we have Canfor in Wynndel, which was owned by the Wigen family and was sold recently. It was Wynndel Box and Lumber and WynnWood.
In Galloway, we have the Galloway Lumber Co. It produces lumber for North America and for Japan.
There is Porcupine Wood Products in Salmo, which produces dimensional lumber from second-growth western cedar logs.
There is J.H. Huscroft. I am going to come back to J.H. Huscroft as well. That is from Creston and Erickson. It is a family-owned business and has been since the 1920s.
There is Joe Kozek Sawmills in Revelstoke. He works with red cedar, hemlock, spruce, pine, Douglas fir and more.
There is also the McDonald Ranch and Lumber company in Grasmere. I am going to come back to that as well. People have done some very interesting projects there.
There is the Bear Lumber company in Cranbrook.
There is North Star Hardware and Building Supplies in Invermere. There is Harrop Procter Forest Products; and Harrop is just outside of Nelson. There is the Greenslide Cattle Co. in Revelstoke. There is the Take to Heart Specialty Wood Products in Revelstoke as well.
What is important is what the sawmill owners and loggers and anybody involved in the forestry sector have done. They are getting to the point where they are specialty sawmills. They are not just a mill that takes all the wood. They actually separate it and sort the logs. They are trying to get the right log to the right mill where it can be produced to build and to be able to be more efficient because of the cost and the expense of staying in business.
For example, now, using laminate lumber, there has been a lot of talk about how we can use wood products to build 10-plus-storey buildings. For example, the Kalesnikoff sawmill in South Slocan uses glulam, which is a system where the operators glue wood together and it is actually as strong as steel and concrete. That is how companies are able to build these taller buildings. They also use a CLT, which is a cross-laminated timber, and that is for walls and roofing. Therefore, these new processes have given sawmill operators the ability to manufacture specialty wood to be able to build to the strength that is required for what was exclusively for concrete, but now to be able to use lumber.
Also, with respect to Kalesnikoff, the owner is a fellow named Ken Kalesnikoff, who is a good friend. He is a fourth-generation sawmill owner and he said to me one time, “Let me tell you about sawmills, cutting wood and tree lots. We have been doing this for four generations and I want my children, their children and children beyond to be able to do the same thing.”
When it comes to the environment, planting trees and so forth, he and his company know they have to sustain the environment, and they are building forests for future generations. Their team strives for best practices to ensure renewable resources flourish as much today as they will tomorrow because they understand that this is their business. They are professionals in logging and reforestation. As an example of reforestation, 445,135 seedlings and 360 hectares of forest have been planted. That is the environment policy of owners such as Kalesnikoff, Huscroft or Glen McDonald at his place in Grasmere.
I will talk a bit about one other company, Spearhead, in Nelson. It has more architects than builders. It builds prefabricated large buildings that are numbered, so it is like putting Lego together. They are absolutely perfect because they are all built by architects who ensure that they are perfect. That is a very unique business just outside of Nelson. We helped it bring in some specialty equipment and specialists from Europe to help set up that equipment.
Government Orders
[Government Orders]
[English]
Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act
Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change)
moved that Bill S-5, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill S-5, strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act.
Due to the vital work of parliamentarians, Bill S-5 has progressed steadily and it is now a stronger bill because of the parliamentary process and remarkable collaboration among partners, stakeholders and the public.
The government supports this bill and urges members in both chambers to pass it. The bill has reached a critical juncture. We must now turn our attention to ensuring the bill, as amended, receives royal assent without delay so that the government can get on with the very important work of implementing it in co-operation with partners, stakeholders and the public.
With this goal in mind, we wish to address some concerns raised during debates over the last couple of weeks. In particular, I refer to comments regarding the scope of information-gathering powers under CEPA, as well as the framework for assessing new living organisms under part 6 of the act.
The hon. member for Victoria spoke at length about tailings ponds and moved an amendment at report stage to restore amendments adopted in the other place that added explicit references to hydraulic fracturing and tailings ponds to the non-exhaustive list of information that the Minister of Environment and Climate Change can compel.
The ENVI committee reversed this amendment, removing the explicit references to hydraulic fracturing and tailings ponds, and the government was supportive. I will briefly explain the rationale behind the government's initial position on that change and then explain why the government ultimately decided to support the hon. member for Victoria's motion to reinstate the language regarding hydraulic fracturing and tailings ponds.
Section 46 of CEPA, the provision in question, gives the minister broad authority to compel others to provide information about substances and activities for various purposes, such as conducting research, creating an inventory of data, issuing guidelines, and assessing and reporting on the state of the environment. This is a very broad information-gathering authority and it provides the basis for the department's national pollutant release inventory, NPRI.
The NPRI tracks over 320 pollutants from over 7,000 facilities across Canada, specifically in relation to tailings and waste rock. Facilities must report the quantity and concentration of NPRI substances disposed of in tailings or waste rock management areas on site, or sent to another facility for disposal in such areas.
Section 46 is already being used to compel persons to report information regarding the use of tailings ponds, and Environment and Climate Change Canada then publicly reports this information through the NPRI.
With respect to hydraulic fracturing, the NPRI also captures underground releases from certain in situ oil sands operations and the department provides guidance to facilities on how to report substances that are injected underground.
As introduced, Bill S-5 proposed to broaden the information-gathering power in section 46 by adding a new paragraph directed at activities that may contribute to pollution. Without question, such activities would include hydraulic fracturing and the use of tailings ponds, so adding additional explicit references to tailings ponds and hydraulic fracturing under section 46 of CEPA was not necessary for the minister to compel, collect and report information on these activities. I realize this is really getting in the weeds.
That said, recent events in Alberta underscore the importance of understanding the risks to the environment and human health from tailings ponds. Although adding specific references to hydraulic fracturing and tailings ponds to the bill would not, in and of itself, address the potential environmental and health risks associated with these activities, this change would make explicit that the government has the authority to compel, and does collect and report information related to tailings ponds. That is why this government supported the hon. member for Victoria's motion.
What else is this government doing to effectively reduce these risks?
Since the federal government was made aware of the seepage incident at the Kearl oil sands mine, we have been working to get to the bottom of it, support indigenous communities and collaborate on improving the reporting system for these kinds of incidents. We hear loud and clear the concerns being expressed by indigenous communities regarding the management of the tailings and the potential impacts on the local environment and communities. We have been in continuous contact with these folks.
In April, the minister sent letters to indigenous leaders about a new notification and monitoring working group, which would include the federal and provincial governments, indigenous communities and the Government of Northwest Territories, which is downstream. Northern indigenous communities will also be kept well informed and engaged. We are proposing a governance structure that includes co-chairs, with representation from the federal and provincial governments and indigenous communities. From the federal perspective, an enhanced communication protocol must be developed to improve notification at all steps in the notification process in cases of future environmental emergencies.
Environment and Climate Change Canada enforcement officials have also been very active on the ground. Just the other week, the department's enforcement branch opened up an investigation into a suspected contravention of subsection 36(3) of the Fisheries Act at Imperial Oil Limited's Kearl oil sands site. Subsection 36(3) of the Fisheries Act prohibits the deposit of a deleterious substance into water frequented by fish or in any place where the deleterious substance may enter such water.
Environment and Climate Change Canada enforcement officers and environmental emergencies officers have carried out inspections at the site since they became aware of the incident on February 7, 2023. In addition to the investigation, officers will continue to monitor the mitigation measures taken by Imperial Oil Limited to prevent impacts to fish-bearing water, as required by the Fisheries Act direction issued by Environment and Climate Change Canada enforcement on March 10, 2023.
This brings me to a very important point: Tailings ponds and, indeed, many other activities that pose risks to environmental or human health are not necessarily issues that can be exclusively addressed under CEPA. While CEPA is a large act that deals with many topics, it is not always the most appropriate act for addressing every issue or risk. In certain cases, it would be more efficient and effective to manage risks under another federal act that is best placed or specifically tailored for addressing those risks. It is for this reason that Bill S-5 proposes amendments that provide the flexibility to meet risk-management obligations under CEPA using other federal acts, including those for which another minister is responsible, like the Fisheries Act.
I wish to address concerns expressed by the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands regarding the amendments to part 6 of the act and clarify a couple of things regarding the new proposed approach to public participation under this part.
Part 6 of the act deals with products of biotechnology, also known as living organisms, and provides for a robust framework for the assessment and management of risks associated with new living organisms. As introduced, Bill S-5 did not propose any amendments to this framework. However, thanks to the important contributions of stakeholders such as Nature Canada and others throughout the parliamentary process, amendments were adopted to part 6 that, if passed, would require that the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and my colleague the Minister of Health consult with interested persons when assessing new living organisms that are vertebrate animals, such as AquaBounty and AquAdvantage salmon, as well as other organisms that may be prescribed by regulation.
During the report stage debates, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands suggested that the term “interested persons” had a specific meaning, namely that it would preclude the participation of indigenous peoples, scientists and the public in the assessment process. That is not at all the case. Quite to the contrary, this amendment is intentionally broad to ensure that everyone can participate. In fact, “interested persons” is the exact same language in the provision of this bill that requires the Minister of Health and I to consult on the implementation framework for the right to a healthy environment.
Coming back to the amendments to part 6 adopted by the ENVI committee, there is also a requirement to publish a notice of consultation before undertaking the consultations themselves. This notice would be publicly accessible and would serve the purpose of allowing interested persons, including indigenous peoples, scientists and members of the public, to identify themselves so they can participate accordingly. This requirement to publish a notice of consultation was absent from the proposal moved by the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. For that and other reasons, the government could not support it.
Lastly, on the topic of part 6, it is important to note that much of the act is implemented through regulations, specifically the new substances notification regulations for organisms, or NSNRO, a particular aspect of the regulations. These regulations set out the details of how new living organisms are assessed and managed.
In October of last year, the government published a discussion paper and launched consultations on the modernization of these regulations. The discussion paper highlighted themes of increasing openness and transparency, and responding to advances in science and technology. These are key components of this regulatory review exercise, and the new statutory requirement to consult under CEPA will be an important complement to this work.
I encourage stakeholders interested in the framework for assessing new living organisms under part 6 of CEPA to participate in the regulatory review process for the new substances notification regulations. After considering comments received, the government will make recommendations for amending the regulations and will invite additional feedback.
I would like to reiterate that the government appreciates the work of the members of the Senate ENEV and House ENVI committees to strengthen this bill and ensure that it will make a difference in the lives of Canadians. The government urges our colleagues in the other place to accept the amendments made by the elected officials in this chamber and send this bill to receive royal assent without delay. Only then can the government get to work putting these important changes into practice.
Once this bill comes into force, we will begin a range of regulatory and implementation initiatives. The two main initiatives will involve developing both the implementation framework for a right to a healthy environment and the plan of chemicals management priorities.
Within two years of coming into force, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change will develop an implementation framework with the Minister of Health to set out how the right to a healthy environment will be considered in the administration of CEPA. There will be opportunities for the public to participate in the development of the implementation framework, and progress on the framework's implementation will be documented annually in the CEPA annual report. We also need to develop and implement the plan of chemicals management priorities, also within two years of royal assent. Stakeholders and partners will be consulted as part of the plan's development.
Animal testing was a major theme throughout the parliamentary process. The government remains committed to taking steps toward replacing and reducing reliance on vertebrate animal testing. The government will continue to work with industry, academia and our international partners to develop and evaluate non-animal methods. Through Bill S-5, the plan of chemicals management priorities will include a strategy to promote the development and use of methods not involving the use of vertebrate animals.
Beyond these two key implementation deliverables, additional regulatory and implementation activities will be needed to operationalize remaining amendments, which will modernize Canada's approach to chemicals management. For example, regulations will need to be developed to define the properties and characteristics of the new subset of toxic substances that pose the highest risk. There will be opportunities for stakeholder input throughout the regulatory process.
The government will also work on developing policies and guidance for publishing and maintaining the watch-list and for facilitating a more open and transparent confidential business information regime. Similarly, policies and guidance will be developed to flesh out the process for the public to request the assessment of a substance. Finally, the government will continue to work on developing a broad labelling and supply chain transparency strategy, expected to be published later this year.
In closing, I urge all members of this House and the other place to vote for strengthened environmental protection and for a healthier Canada for all Canadians by supporting Bill S-5.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be participating in today's debate. I am also very pleased to see my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, again. I have a lot of respect and esteem for him. I will give him a moment to put his earpiece on properly so that he can hear the interpreters. Incidentally, I would like to thank them for doing such a great job.
Before raising a substantive issue, I would like to point out that, in my opinion, the government has made a mistake. It is a logistical error, but it is annoying. We are here in the House to debate a bill on the environment, Bill S-5, on which the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development worked very hard. At the same time, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development is meeting to debate another issue. To my knowledge, this is the first time that an issue is being debated in the House and in committee by the same MPs. I think that this is an oversight on the part of the government House leader. I encourage him to be more careful in future.
My question for the hon. member is as follows. On January 30, in committee, the member and his party voted in favour of a motion moved by the Conservative member for Calgary Centre. The motion sought to withdraw an amendment that had been proposed by Senator McCallum. When the NDP presented its amendment here in the House two weeks ago, however, the Liberal Party voted in favour of it. That is the exact opposite of what it did in committee. Why take both sides on the same issue?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his hard work and participation on Bill S-5 at the committee stage. We spent over 50 hours between the Senate and the ENVI committee studying this bill, so we did a thorough job. I compliment the hon. member on his contributions, which were frequent and very positive. For the most part we agreed.
The amendment to which he refers I spoke about extensively in my speech. The amendment related to tailings ponds and fracking was, I think, a happenstance of circumstances. We know there was an oil spill and seepage in northern Alberta that has caused heartache, worry and fear among indigenous communities. I think we as a committee wanted to highlight that and give it special attention. At the end of the day, those provisions were already covered under CEPA, but the committee, with that amendment, felt the need for emphasis. That is why we, in the end, went with that position.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the environment, there is often a huge difference between what should be done and what ends up being done. Bill S-5 is sort of symbolic that way, meaning that we are doing a little when we should be doing a lot more.
The Bloc Québécois, the Green Party and the NDP, which are other parties but can still contribute, wanted to add teeth to the bill so that it would have some clout and could make bigger and more beneficial changes to help the planet.
However, it appears that the Liberals' goal was to limit the scope of the bill, which I find disappointing. In its current position, the Liberal government knows full well that it can always count on the Conservatives' support when it wants to limit the environmental scope of certain bills. It also knows that, even when it is being extremely pro-oil, it can count on the NDP's support when it needs its budget to be adopted, along with its credits for oil companies.
Does the parliamentary secretary not realize that his government always sides with the oil companies? It is sad, because, in the end, the entire planet will have to pay the price.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the member heard, but one of our Conservative colleagues just said that we had gone too far. That is an interesting contrast to his statement.
For the first time, we are introducing a right to a healthy environment. We are going to take our time. We are going to take the next 24 months to define that right and to define how it will be implemented. It will have teeth. It will help us better the environment for our kids, our grandkids and indigenous peoples.
In closing, I would add that the Bloc will be supporting the bill. We are very happy to hear that, because his colleague was very active and very collaborative, and made very good suggestions on improving the bill.
Mr. Speaker, rarely have I been so frequently referenced by a parliamentary secretary while bringing forward a bill, being Bill S-5, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, a bill with which I have decades of familiarity through the strange happenstance that I was in the Minister of Environment's office and worked on it before first reading in 1988. I will let that sink in for a minute.
I grieve the reality that this bill is weaker than what we brought forward in 1988, but let me turn quickly to the points that the parliamentary secretary made. I never asserted that the words “interested parties” would preclude the involvement of indigenous people or scientists. The amendment that I attempted to bring forward at report stage was to ensure that the opportunity to provide for relevant indigenous knowledge and scientific information was protected.
I will put it to the hon. parliamentary secretary that I did not claim that “interested parties” precluded indigenous peoples and scientific knowledge, but that it does not specifically include them, and “interested parties” in the jurisprudence usually means a party, such as a chemical company, that has a direct interest.
I would also like to put this to the hon. parliamentary secretary. When he says that part 6 of the act, which was essentially untouched over the last 20 years, dealing with genetically modified living organisms, in his words, has a “robust framework”, could he explain how it is that Canada is the only country in the world to have approved genetically modified animals for human consumption?
Mr. Speaker, if I reference the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands often, it is an indication of the deep respect that I have for her and the long time that I have known her as one of the foremost environmental activists in our country.
We are going to be consulting broadly on part 6, because we want to implement regulations that will have teeth and that will address some of the concerns about genetically modified organisms. In my speech, I referenced genetically modified salmon. This was raised at committee repeatedly. If a genetically modified organism escapes into the wild, it could literally pollute the gene pool of living organisms there.
With respect to indigenous people, I want to thank Senator McCallum, who happens to be from Manitoba, my home province. She really added so many important provisions that recognize the important role indigenous people play in our country in protecting the environment. UNDRIP is referenced; traditional knowledge is referenced, and those kinds of provisions are a great improvement in the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I know my friend, for many years, has been a very strong advocate on the environmental file, in particular with regard to waterways. I know he was in charge of a press conference we just recently had in the city of Winnipeg, dealing with the Canada water agency, and I am wondering if he can provide his thoughts on how important that is to our country and to our city.
Mr. Speaker, CEPA and the Fisheries Act help protect our water, but the federal government needs to show more leadership on water, and I want to thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who repeatedly called for an independent departmental agency that would report directly to the minister, which we now call the Canada water agency. It would help to protect and manage our waterways, working with provinces, territories, indigenous governments and communities, and other stakeholders for time immemorial.
Canada is home to 20% of the world's fresh water, and we have to protect it.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, as I said a few moments ago, I am very pleased to be participating in this debate.
As members know, since October, I have had the privilege of being the official opposition's shadow minister for climate change and environment. I am honoured by the confidence placed in me by the hon. member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition and our future prime minister. Of course, I intend to take this responsibility very seriously. In fact, this is essentially the first bill I have been able to devote 100% of my time to. I participated in almost every stage of the bill.
Climate change is real. Humans have an impact on the creation of climate change, which is why humans must find solutions. That is why we offered our full support to the committee, along with the government and the other political parties, to make sure that the bill can be passed, balanced with the necessary political debate. Let me explain.
This bill seeks to update an act that was adopted nearly 24 years ago, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.
[English]
It is totally normal and useful to review a bill that was tabled almost a quarter of a century ago, so this what we did in a committee of the House. The Senate also did that job of adapting what was tabled in 1999 to the reality of 2023 and more.
[Translation]
That is why we wanted to strike the appropriate balance between protecting the environment and the future of this planet and taking the Canadian economy and Canadians' lives into account. That is what this bill tries to do.
The bill has received support from environmental groups and the industry, but not unqualified support, not blind support. These two groups often disagree on the common good, but they did agree on one thing, which is that it was time to move forward.
[English]
I recall that the bill was tabled in the Senate, and all the people who are interested in environmental issues will say it is time to move forward and act. For sure, it is time to act, but unfortunately the bill, though it may be passed today or tomorrow, will be a year to two too late. This is because this piece of legislation was tabled in the old Parliament, and it was before the Prime Minister decided almost two years ago to call the shots and call an election during the fourth wave of the COVID pandemic. It was an election that cost more than $600 million of taxpayer money for almost exactly the same result we had. This was only because the Prime Minister wanted to move by himself, but for that we lost a full year of parliamentary work on that piece of legislation.
[Translation]
The bill as it stands is essentially the same as the earlier version that was introduced during the previous Parliament. This time, the government has decided, and that is its right, to introduce it in the upper chamber. It was debated in the Senate as Bill S-5. It was then sent to the House of Commons to be debated here. That is interesting, and this is where we have some concerns. I will come back to that.
Essentially, at the heart of the matter, as I said, this bill is a revision of the environmental laws that we have had for almost a quarter of a century. However, there are also new elements. First, we recognize the right of citizens to live in a healthy environment. That is a principle that we Conservatives support. This is obvious. However, it must be precisely defined.
The bill provides for two years of work to be able to define the legal framework, since, as we know all too well in our business, the devil is in the details. We therefore have to be sure that we have a really good law and proper regulations. The profile of populations said to be vulnerable must also defined. When there is mining or natural resource development, this may have a direct impact on people’s lives, just as the construction of a plant or new infrastructure can have a direct impact on a population. This is what we define as vulnerable populations and we need to make sure that all this goes well.
There was an agreement to move forward. That is what we did.
In fact, as the parliamentary secretary said earlier, there have been more than 50 hours of committee work to be sure that we could directly address many aspects. Noting is perfect in this world, but we still worked well together, hand in hand. In addition, it always made me smile to see that we were finally getting along more often than we may have thought with the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. As a resident of Quebec, I have known him for many years, as well as his very active role in defending the environment. Let us remember that 30 years and two weeks ago, he founded the group Équiterre with a few friends. As we know, Équiterre is now suing him for damaging the Canadian environment. Bill S-5 is off to a good start. We have clear objectives and we support them.
However, now in our parliamentary work, something surprising, if not disappointing, has happened. That is what we call a flip flop. A party voted for something during parliamentary committee work and, when it came to the House, changed its mind and voted against it. They have that right. We do not dispute that right. It is just that we were a bit surprised and shocked, particularly since the flip flop was not related to a misplaced dash or comma in the text of Bill S-5, but instead about a fundamental element, respect for provincial jurisdiction. In our view, the amendment adopted by the House, particularly with the support and assistance of the Liberal government, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, the Green Party and the independents—in short, the Conservatives were the only ones who opposed it, and I will have the opportunity to clearly explain why—is an intrusion into areas of jurisdiction.
The amendment as presented was not in the main bill when it was introduced in the last Parliament and in the Senate a year and a half ago. That element was not in it. It is an amendment that was proposed on June 1 2022, almost a year ago, by the senator from Manitoba, an amendment that essentially seeks to regulate tailing ponds and hydraulic fracturing. Basically, when work on natural resources is being carried out and there is hydraulic fracturing, that leaves tailings. That is why a legal framework was developed for that situation. In our view, this amendment, as proposed and adopted by the Senate, is an intrusion into provincial jurisdiction. That can be challenged, but that is our view.
In fact, our perspective has been so well explained that, when we came before a House of Commons parliamentary committee, the member for Calgary-Centre suggested that these elements of the bill be withdrawn and that this amendment not be adopted. When the member for Calgary-Centre says something, it is because it has merit and is based on facts. There is jurisprudence to support it and relevant documentation. I have learned a lot from the co-operation and work of the member for Calgary-Centre.
He was so convincing that he was able to persuade the government party in the parliamentary committee. All the liberal members, who are not the majority, but the largest parliamentary group in parliamentary committee, decided to support our proposal to set aside Senator McCallum’s amendment presented in June 2022.
Let us review the facts: The bill does not provide for the regulation on hydraulic fracturing. Senator McCallum proposed an amendment to give teeth, depth and political weight to the federal government’s authority over this event. We get to committee and our party says stop, this is an intrusion into provincial jurisdiction, and the Liberals vote with us. It is great, it is perfect, we agree. This is just one of many aspects, and I am focusing on that.
I am being honest, and I am sure that the Liberal MPs will agree with me. It is impossible to fully agree on all of the items.
In fact, I have been known to say that, if someone ever meets a politician who says they are completely in agreement with their leader, their party, all of their colleagues and the election platform, they are looking at a complete liar. It is humanly impossible, and the same is true for everyone. I see the hon. member for Winnipeg North, who I am sure is nodding in agreement with me.
What I am trying to say is that the more than 50 hours of work done in committee was an attempt to achieve consensus. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we did not. Sometimes we agreed, sometimes we disagreed. That is the big picture.
[English]
We are supportive of the big picture of this bill, but we have some disagreements, as all of the parties have disagreements with some aspects of this bill.
[Translation]
Everything was going well, it was great. We did our work in committee. When we got to the House to make a few speeches and accept the tabled report, three amendments were proposed: two by the Green Party and one by the NDP. The NDP’s amendment is essentially the same as Senator McCallum’s.
That was a surprise and a disappointment, a bitter turn of events. Although we had the support and the agreement of the Liberal Party to make sure there was no interference in provincial jurisdiction, the Liberals switched sides and voted in favour of the NDP’s amendment. I acknowledge that that is their right. Anyone can change their mind. That is called evolution. Sometimes, when we change our minds, we evolve. I will say it that way to be polite.
Some of my colleagues suggested that that is the nature of the coalition. As we know, the government has been working collaboratively with the NDP for a year now, even though they were certainly not given that mandate during the election. Canadians were not asked to vote for a coalition. The NDP said Canadians should vote for them and against the Liberals, and the Liberals said they should vote against the NDP, since they were not the NDP. Now, everyone is perfectly cozy, working together. That is the reality.
The Liberals then flip-flop and support their coalition with the NDP, going against what they did in committee, against protecting provincial jurisdictions, against the fact that a bill should not lead to a constitutional dispute. On the contrary, we need to clarify the situation.
These people crashed the debate and created this situation. What a disappointment. That is why, unfortunately, we will be voting against the bill, which, as amended, creates a legal precedent rife with consequences.
[English]
This is why, last week, many of my colleagues from Alberta published a communiqué that says, “Canada's regulatory oversight framework is based upon clear division of responsibilities between the provinces and the federal government, as defined in our Constitution. The continued attempts to muddle this jurisdictional responsibility have led to a convoluted process of project approvals, duplication of costs, and uncertainty amongst investors.”
[Translation]
Basically, what they are saying is that jurisdictional squabbles between the federal and provincial governments slow down projects, slow down the process and create uncertainty. They do not encourage people to move forward. People always hold back a bit. That is unfortunate because Canada is needed now more than ever. The world needs Canada's energy and natural resources more than ever, because we develop those resources responsibly and with respect for human rights in order to ensure they are sustainable. That is what Canada is known for.
When layers of debate are created between the federal and provincial governments, it stalls all of that. Canada deserves better than another squabble between the federal and provincial governments. That is why we do not support this bill. I must also say that I was rather surprised that, both in committee and in the House, the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of this interference in the debates between the federal and provincial governments. We know that the Bloc Québécois always says that it is there to defend the interests of Quebec and that, by so doing, it is also defending the interests of all the provinces on jurisdictional matters, and yet in this case, the Bloc is giving the federal government more power to intervene in an area of provincial jurisdiction, natural resources.
This should come as no surprise. As members will recall, the Bloc Québécois supported Bill C-69. This actually goes back quite some time. It goes back to June 13, 2019, during the first Parliament of this Liberal government. The Bloc Québécois supported this Liberal government's Bill C-69. One could say that this goes way back, and wonder what it has to do with today's subject.
Bill C-69 established a federal authority that supersedes the provincial authority for the development of hydroelectric resources. Everyone knows that Quebec has extraordinary hydroelectric potential, with dams that were all developed in the 1950s. Most were completed in the 1960s. We are very proud of them. Some that come to mind are the Beauharnois power station, which was expanded three times, or the Bersimis-1 and Bersimis-2 power stations, built in 1953 and 1956. There is also the Carillon generating station, which was given the green light in 1958, and the Manic-Outardes complex, which was developed in the 1950s and completed in the 1960s.
Quebec is very strong on hydroelectric production, but Bill C-69 contains a clause that says that the federal authority has the power to order environmental feasibility studies for these projects. This was well explained in an article by Alexandre Shields in Le Devoir. No one can really say that Mr. Shields and Le Devoir are Conservatives. That is the last thing anyone can say.
In an article published on September 29, 2022, Mr. Shields gives a clear description of the situation saying, “That means that a major project...would involve the submission of an impact assessment study [to the federal government]. The federal government would then lead a process including public consultations and the drafting of a report....Then, the federal Minister of Environment would have to publish a ‘decision statement’ to authorize, or not, the construction of the concrete work.”
Bill C‑69 granted the federal government the option to exercise veto power over hydro projects in Quebec, and the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of it. The Bloc Québécois voted for the NDP-Liberal coalition amendment, which allows for federal involvement in provincial jurisdictions. That does not make any sense to us. Natural resources are Canada's resources and we should be proud of that. We should be proud of the women and men who work in this sector. We should be proud of these people who, along with many others, create wealth in our country.
The last thing this industry and these people need is a jurisdictional squabble. That is what the Liberal-NDP-Bloc-Green-Independent amendment does. That is why we are voting against this bill.
In closing, I want to say this: This government prides itself on its fine words, but the results are sorely lacking. Let us recall what it said in 2015:
[English]
“Canada is back. Canada is back."?
[Translation]
Canada has far to go. The UN handed down a severe verdict in a report tabled at COP27 in Egypt concluding that Canada ranks 58th out of 63 nations on environmental issues. I am not the one saying this. It is written in black and white on page 11 of the UN’s document. This is unacceptable from people who are constantly lecturing everyone. Need I remind members that the Liberals never managed to achieve their own greenhouse gas emission reduction targets? They will say that is not true, that it has happened. The only time it happened was when the country shut down its economy because of COVID-19. I hope that their plan is not to shut down the economy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Our plan is based on four basic pillars. First, we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through fiscal incentives to invest in new technologies. We need to give green energies the green light so they can be more accessible to Canadians. We need to export Canadian know-how. We should be proud to be Canadians and to develop our natural resource potential because, here at home, in Canada, we do it right.
The fourth pillar is that everything should be done in partnership with the first nations. Together we can meet the challenges of climate change and the environment. Unfortunately, this bill, because of an amendment adopted at the last minute following a reversal by the Liberal Party, with the support of the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, the Green Party and the independent MPs, is going to trigger another federal-provincial dispute.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his remarks and his hard work on the ENVI committee.
As I mentioned in my speech, materially, the NDP amendment really does nothing to detract from the bill. It is because of the Kearl tailings pond spill that the committee, in the end, voted to draw attention to this particular issue, so that it gets special attention. It is not a jurisdictional issue. This was already covered under the act and we are very careful about jurisdictional matters with federal legislation.
My understanding was that the Conservatives were going to support the bill coming out of committee. Does this one change cause them to change their mind and to now vote against the bill after 50 hours of deliberations, during which the Conservatives mostly agreed with most of the amendments?
Mr. Speaker, my answer is really simple: Yes. Unfortunately, yes.
First of all, the hon. member said that amendment changed nothing. So why did he vote for it if it changed nothing? I do not understand why. The issue is what we have seen in Alberta following the tragedy there. Well, everything was said before. If I understand correctly what my colleague said, it changes nothing, and so if it changes nothing why did they vote for it?
We see, unfortunately, an attack on the jurisdictional procedure. Some people will say no, some people will say yes, and that is the problem. We are going to start another fight for that, and who do we think will win that? It will be the lawyers. I have nothing against them, but, yes, for sure, we would start a new fight with that, which is the last thing we need when we talk about climate change, environmental issues and developing our full potential.
Yes, we will vote against the bill, because it is not a minor agreement. We were surprised to see the flip-flop of the Liberals with the support of the NDP, Bloc, Greens and independents.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, which, as always, was passionate, well illustrated, and provided some really good arguments.
We are probably experiencing the sixth mass extinction event for the species on our planet. I would like to ask my colleague a very specific question, since we are debating an environmental bill that protects species. Everyone is familiar with the monarch butterfly, that little orange butterfly. It is a species at risk that will now become an endangered species. A good part of the land where the monarch butterfly feeds on milkweed, its main source of food, is part of the Montreal airport. Over the past 10 years, the monarch butterfly population has declined by 85%. Our Minister of Environment says he defends biodiversity, but he is doing absolutely nothing to protect the monarch butterfly on federally owned land.
What would the Conservative Party do to save the monarch butterfly?
Mr. Speaker, I must admit to the member that this is the first time I am hearing about this. I will take that under advisement, because I do not want to treat it like an insignificant detail. On the contrary, little things like that are what is hurting our environment and we need to take the work seriously.
Because we do need to take this work seriously, it would be very hypocritical of me to start pleading on behalf of that beautiful little orange butterfly. It would be like if I were talking about blue jays. Out of respect for this issue, for my colleague, for the House and for myself, I will not just rattle off any old answer, but yes, we need to be careful.
I understand very well the political spin that my colleague is putting on this, seeing how the Minister of Environment, the founder of Équiterre, is currently being sued by Équiterre because he decided to develop the full potential of Canada's natural resources through projects like Bay du Nord, which we applaud.
Beyond that, I will take the member's suggestion under advisement and come back to it another time.
Mr. Speaker, sometimes I have a hard time following the Conservatives when it comes to fossil fuels, oil and the fight against climate change.
In the last budget, I do not know how many times I asked the government whether it would stop giving money to big oil. I want to remind members that, in 2022, the five major oil companies made $200 billion in combined profits. In the most recent budget, our friends opposite continued to give those companies money in the form of direct and indirect assistance for carbon capture, which we now know does not work. That is greenwashing.
I do not understand why the Conservatives are voting against giving the oil companies money. I am trying to understand.
Mr. Speaker, there is one thing I am fully prepared to recognize, and that is the hon. member's love for Quebec and Quebeckers.
I know that he knows—as I said a few moments ago in a parliamentary committee—that Quebeckers do not exist in a vacuum, that they live on planet Earth and that, last year, according to a study by the École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal, Quebeckers consumed 18 billion litres of oil. Today's reality is that Quebeckers consumed 18 billion litres of oil last year.
I am more than willing to hear all the arguments about getting rid of oil, because it is terrible, because it is this or that. Yes, but the fact is that Quebec consumes 18 billion litres of oil. In addition, 47% of that oil comes from the United States. The last time I checked, neither Texas nor Louisiana contributes to equalization.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's comments and his speech.
I liked the part in his speech where he said that it was okay to disagree with people from his own party, or with the leader of his party. I agree with that.
I noticed a few things. There is a kind of division that I have a hard time rationalizing. For example, some Conservative members believe in climate change and some do not. In my opinion, the distinction seems geographic.
Can my hon. colleague from Quebec explain why he is being cautious about the oil and gas sector when it comes to this bill?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, let me pay all my respects to the quality of the member's French. We have all worked to learn a second language. When I talk about a second language, I am not talking about French. I am talking about the second language after our mother tongue language.
[Translation]
For as long as we need natural resources, including fossil resources, and for as long as we need oil, I will always stand for what is right for Canada, just as I support hydroelectricity and everything that comes from our country's natural resources.
Can we be proud to be Canadians? Yes, we can and we must. The same goes for all natural resources.
Mr. Speaker, the Green Party also opposes the bill. The two parties that will be voting against Bill S-5 are the Green Party and the Conservative Party, but they will do so for completely different reasons.
We think this is a bad bill. It runs counter to the goal of modernizing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
The hon. member talked about Bill C-69, which, for the Greens, was also a bad bill. I also voted against Bill C-69 because it establishes a system that is entirely at the discretion of a single minister, with no regulations across all federal regulation.
That was more of a comment than a question.
Mr. Speaker, as some often suggest, people on opposite sides of the world eventually come together. Perhaps that is why the Greens and the Conservatives will be voting the same way, but obviously for different reasons.
The only thing I would like to add about Bill C-69 is something Alexandre Shields wrote in an article on the subject. He said that the office of the environment minister declined to comment on the matter, because it remains a “hypothetical project”. However, the minister did recall the provisions of the act, which clearly stipulate that a new dam would be subject to the act.
If the Quebec government decides to go ahead with a new hydroelectric dam, Ottawa has no say in the matter.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, the carbon tax is an absolute failure. I have a two-part question.
Could the member address how the carbon tax is an absolute failure and how it has failed to reduce emissions?
We, as Conservatives, have significant concerns regarding the amendments passed in the Senate. There are 24 different amendments, 11 of which make the bill significantly worse.
After five years of consultation, how can this be drawn out further? Can he speak directly to the Liberal flip-flop causing the bill to collapse?
Mr. Speaker, we just have to look at the facts. After eight years of the Liberal government, people pay more taxes and we still have more pollution. These are the facts. This is why the Liberal carbon tax does not work.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois believes that the Quebec nation has sole jurisdiction over public decisions concerning the environment and Quebec's territory.
On April 13, 2022, parliamentarians belonging to all political parties represented in the National Assembly of Quebec unanimously adopted a motion affirming the primacy of Quebec's jurisdiction in matters of the environment. The elected officials of Quebec unanimously oppose “any intervention by the federal government in matters of the environment on Quebec territory”. The Bloc Québécois fully endorses that position and strongly advocates for the interests and values of Quebec in the federal political arena.
That said, in the existing legal framework, the federal government has certain environmental protection responsibilities. Bill S‑5 is part of that effort. Unfortunately, what is lacking are ambitions to guide action on this important file that is environmental protection.
What is even more concerning is the fact that environmental protection, which has been undermined for some time, requires us to make up for measures that should have been implemented a long time ago. This was discussed in our last debate when my colleague from Repentigny called for prevention to be a fundamental pillar of this law.
Quebec's Environment Quality Act, adopted in 1978, underwent a major reform in 2017. The act seeks to protect the environment and safeguard the species inhabiting it. Quebec law prohibits the deterioration of the quality of the environment or the emission of pollutants or contaminants.
In addition to our Civil Code, the following laws are also related to environmental protection in Quebec and its support: the Sustainable Development Act, the Act to affirm the collective nature of water resources and to promote better governance of water and associated environments, the Natural Heritage Conservation Act and the Act respecting the conservation and development of wildlife.
I had the honour of working on improving the first Quebec law on sustainable development introduced in 2004 at the National Assembly of Quebec and adopted in 2006. I remember the discussions we had about principles related to the foundation of sustainable development, including the precautionary principle. I will come back to that.
Obviously, I need to seek unanimous consent to share my time with my colleague from Repentigny.
Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to split his time?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Mr. Speaker, environmental policy requires trade-offs between health and environmental protection and commercial and industrial interests. If the committee had kept the improvements from the Senate and voted in favour of the amendments proposed by the Bloc Québécois or the ones from the Green Party, this part of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act would have translated to a much more balanced approach. The refusal to improve the act by relying on best practices will unfortunately allow commercial and industrial interests to dominate and influence decision-making in Canada.
Nevertheless, my colleague from Repentigny secured a victory for environmental protection when it comes to the precautionary principle. In the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the phrase “precautionary principle” was translated as “principe de prudence” in French. In our opinion, this flawed translation did not capture the essence of the precautionary principle, which is to refrain from doing something in case of risk, while “prudence” in French suggests the idea of taking an action and managing its risk. That is very different. The Bloc Québécois believes that recognizing the precautionary principle is essential to framing the implementation of a bill that seeks to protect the environment. The Bloc managed to rally the committee members in favour of correcting this, and we are satisfied and proud of that.
The issue is this. Under the current regime, a substance must be proven to be toxic before it can be banned. In the meantime, such substances may be posing a threat to human or environmental health. Canada is falling behind when it comes to the pace at which new substances are being assessed. If we apply the precautionary principle rather than just being prudent, then, one would hope to see a reversal of the onus of proof, which would mean that authorization would be granted only once a substance has been proven not to be harmful to human or environmental health.
It is true that the intent of Bill S‑5 is to give recourse to those who have been affected by issues involving environmental quality, environmental protection and the protection of living species. The bill seeks to make it mandatory to conduct an environmental impact assessment before carrying out any activity that could pose a high risk to the environment and to create a special access to information regime. It also seeks to regulate projects or activities that might impact wetlands or bodies of water and sets out criminal sanctions for those who break the law.
It is on that last point, the matter of crime, that we see the true scope of the right to a healthy environment.
Our political party is not fooled by the fanfare. Beyond the emotion and promises of the government about the inclusion of this right in the law, no one can deny that its scope will be very limited. If the government were serious about its desire to create a new right, it if had a little political courage, it would propose a round of constitutional negotiations with its partners in the federation to add this right to the Canadian Charter of rights and Freedoms. It would ensure that Canadians could be certain that this right could be enforced and that there would be penalties for breaching it. The government would clearly ensure that it paves the way to greater environmental protection with robust measures carrying penalties.
In case some members are not aware, the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms is quasi-constitutional in scope. I mention that because this charter established the following in 2006: “Every person has a right to live in a healthful environment in which biodiversity is preserved, to the extent and according to the standards provided by law.”
Canada's environmental law does not have the same scope.
Enacting laws that are merely symbolic, and therefore not really enforceable, is just wrong.
The details of this right to a healthy environment will be defined and framed by an implementation framework that will not be shared with us until two years from now. The scope of its application will be limited to this single legislative measure. The amendments to Bill S‑5, which proposed balanced, carefully considered legal mechanisms to allow recourse to the courts if that right is violated, were rejected out of hand by the Liberals and the Conservatives.
Since we are on the subject, it would be entirely justified to demand that Canada set an example in protecting the environment and human health, which are increasingly at risk because of the toxic substances at the heart of the part of the act covered by Bill S‑5. The government can decide what message it wants to send but, notwithstanding the precautionary principle, are the provisions it describes as improvements in Bill S‑5 really that much of a gain?
My colleague from Repentigny will argue that the absence of a preventive approach and the gutted Senate amendments on public participation perfectly illustrate the bill's missed opportunities.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that, at least in good part, we have support coming from the Bloc with regard to Bill S-5.
One of the issues that the hon. member raised was guaranteeing a healthy environment for Canadians. When I look at the legislation, it is a very strong and powerful step in the right direction. I think Canadians as a whole would see it as positive. I have no doubt that it would take a bit of time to work out how we best deal with ensuring that right.
Does the Bloc believe that the only way it could be dealt with is through a constitutional change? If so, does the member really believe that, whether in Quebec, Manitoba or any other jurisdiction, people want to see the Constitution reopened?
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, one thing is certain: The government talks a great deal about this right to a healthy environment as if it were indeed enshrined in the Constitution. If it were really serious, this right would be constitutionalized.
When the government implements reform and revises laws only to go to committee and oppose improvements—amendments that could improve or, at the very least, guide the government's intentions and expressly reflect those intentions—we have to weigh all that.
When we look at the current government's investments in projects like Bay du Nord, I must say that there is some uncertainty about the government's real desire to improve things.
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois member began his speech by talking about Quebec's primary jurisdiction over the environment and about how Quebec should have full power over environmental matters within its territory.
My question is this. The Bloc Québécois avoided saying much of anything about independence during the past two election campaigns, but this weekend, it talked about little else. Why did this party, which claims to be more separatist than ever, support an amendment by the Liberals, the New Democrats, the Greens and the independents that is a direct attack on a provincial jurisdiction?
More importantly, how is it that, on June 13, 2019, in the House, this member and other colleagues behind him voted in favour of Bill C-69, which gives the federal government veto power over hydroelectric dam projects in Quebec?
Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether my colleague followed the work that was done in committee. One thing is certain. If he wanted to be more accurate, he could have at least said that the Bloc Québécois worked really hard and that its amendment to have the federal government respect Quebec's jurisdictions was not adopted.
My colleague conveniently forgot to mention that because what he is known for in the debates that we have in the House is always putting a partisan spin on things that everyone should agree on and that should be dealt with in a non-partisan manner.
Talking about our convention when we are supposed to be talking about Bill S-5 seems rather obvious and pointless to me. I could have done the same thing, but that is his approach. That is why we are very different, and that is likely why we are not members of the same party.
Mr. Speaker, I have a concern. We do a lot of work with environmental groups. It is good to have legislation that recognizes a citizen's right to a healthy environment. We support that principle. However, what happens if the Liberal government then goes on to approve oil and gas projects that will jeopardize that right to a healthy environment and exacerbate the climate crisis?
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.
Mr. Speaker, these oil and gas projects will indeed exacerbate the climate crisis and also negatively impact peoples' health. The primary determinant of health and disease is the environment. That is quite obvious. They cannot see the forest for the trees.
When it comes to the environment, there should be no compromise. Then the government is surprised that it needs to sink huge sums into taking care of peoples' health, at least in Quebec. It is all related. How the government is choosing to invest its money does not suggest a real intention to move forward and improve the right to a healthy environment.
Mr. Speaker, concerning Bill S‑5, I think some members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development would agree that our work was very technical and challenging. I would like to commend my parliamentary assistant. As members, we have the microphone, but by our sides are hard-working people. If not for the tireless efforts of Ms. Grimard, I could never have accomplished the work I accomplished in committee.
Before I get to the heart of the matter, I would like to mention that of the 12 parts that make up the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Bill S‑5 essentially addressed part 5, on toxic substances and all matters related to public participation and its corollary, government transparency. Also included were classification procedures as well as evaluations of groups or classes of substances.
As we know, Canada waited 25 years before launching a review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Over the decades, and around the world, some mechanisms went through a major overhaul. Recognizing the progress made is only right and reasonable. We have examples, which I will now discuss.
We had an opportunity to learn from the regulatory regime in the European Union, the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals, or REACH. It is a regulation to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by chemicals, while enhancing the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry. It strikes a balance.
It is not perfect, of course. It is exposed to lobby groups and regulatory capture, but the system provides for a true analysis per chemical family. If bisphenol A is evaluated, then there will also be an evaluation of the other molecules, such as bisphenol S. There ends up being an evaluation of a large number of chemicals at a time.
Also, products can be marketed only if there has been an analysis, a management assessment that is based both on the risk and the hazards. The confidentiality of corporate data is not in fact protected, but industry must instead justify the need for confidentiality. This regulatory system, with help from the European Chemicals Agency, allows assessments to be done much quicker. Through this mechanism, we can better prevent these substances from entering the market or being present in our consumer products.
It also makes it possible to take a hybrid approach to the management of toxic substances based on both the risks and the hazards. In our opinion, this approach is essential to promoting the prevention of pollution by these substances. It means that when risks cannot be managed, the authorities can restrict the use of substances in various ways and, eventually, the most dangerous substances must be replaced with less dangerous ones or are simply banned.
In committee, I asked Joseph F. Castrilli, an environmental law expert with the Canadian Environmental Law Association, questions about the benefits of the European regulation, with which he is familiar. He replied that the Canadian Environmental Law Association had incorporated part of the REACH regulation into its proposed amendments.
These proposed amendments were brought forward by the Green Party, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois. Unfortunately for us, these proposed amendments were not accepted as the Liberal-Conservative coalition voted against them.
The president of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada attended the same meeting. I asked him the same question abut the European regulation. He told me that that was already being done in Canada.
There were two different stories. I did not have time to delve any further, so I could not follow up on issues that should have been raised during the meeting. Clearly, the industry representatives did not like the fact that I had brought up REACH. Within minutes, the Bloc Québécois received an email to further explain REACH. That was not my first time seeing something like that. When someone disagrees with the industry, it is because they lack education, so the industry will simply try to do a better job of explaining things.
I would say that the email was a bit misleading, but the Bloc Québécois had done its homework to get a good sense of this European system. REACH puts the burden of proof on companies, and that is fine. Industry may well recommend designations, but there are sectoral committees of experts and specialists such as the expert group on persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances. I will use imagery that everyone can understand. It is as if there are clearly visible lines on the pavement and REACH adds guardrails to prevent us from falling over the edge.
The European federation's regulatory framework includes various mechanisms that do not exist, or are very tentative, in Canada. That is the truth. These are tools that, although they do not make it entirely safe, certainly have the merit of slowing down what I call the gangrene of regulatory capture and leaving “everything to the industry”.
In Europe, REACH strikes a balance between the risk-based approach advocated by industry and the hazard-based approach, which it wants to avoid at all costs. Furthermore, the REACH process and that of the European Chemicals Agency clearly make room for public consultation. Yes, ordinary citizens have their say, but so do experts in toxicology and medicine, as well as specialists in regulation and standardization. The public consultation process provided for under REACH really does exist. A person would have to be acting in bad faith to say that REACH makes no room for public consultation.
This consultation is so comprehensive that in European public processes, calls for comments and evidence allow interested parties to register their interest, express their views in the preparatory phase and comment on the various documents relating to restrictions. There is transparency; reports are accessible. The public can also submit additional information to justify or support their comments. Canada could have followed that example. Unfortunately, I have to say that it was a missed opportunity.
Let us come back to Bill S‑5. Bill S‑5 was sent to the House with impressive improvements regarding public participation and transparency. Amendments were proposed to clarify and relax some sections without compromising rigour. However, it is a disappointment. We had hoped that, after over 20 years or two decades of waiting, the government would enshrine its oft-repeated claims in law. This could have been such an extraordinary moment. Unfortunately, I would say that transparency, consultation and science were left by the wayside, which I found disappointing.
The Minister of Environment and Climate Change has reminded the House many times that his department's work has been applauded by environmental groups, which is true. However, he mentioned only the praise and none of the criticism that we see when we read the rest of the news release.
The government and the official opposition both said no to prescriptive language that would have increased the public's access to the consultation process. That would have also helped the government to be more transparent and considerate towards the individuals and civil society groups concerned. Unfortunately, the Liberals and the Conservatives voted against this progress, which came from the Senate, and against the amendments proposed by the opposition.
I will close by saying that I will continue to be involved in the upcoming legislation to review the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which the Minister of Environment and Climate Change has committed to. As members can see, I do not give up easily. I do have one wish. I hope that when it counts, the government will build and play its role as legislator with integrity for the public and not just for industry.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the member could provide some thoughts in regard to the issue of toxic chemicals. Given the way technology has advanced and given chemists' contributions to many aspects of life in general, we know there is a need to stay on top of the issue of toxic chemicals and chemicals that could be listed as toxic. Does she have any insights that she would like to share with the House with respect to that?
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for the question.
The advantage, for example, in Europe, is that assessments are done by family of toxic substances, allowing much more to get done. What happens here is that the substance is put on the market and the assessment is done afterward. In the meantime, if the substance is unfortunately declared toxic, it ends up in our consumer products and in the air. That is what I really wanted to see change.
Yes, in Quebec we have our department and our laws, which are much stricter and more restrictive than federal legislation, but the thing is, the environment is across Canada, it is across the planet. Essentially, we have to try to adopt best practices. Unfortunately we had the opportunity to do that, but we did not.
Mr. Speaker, important things are happening here in Parliament, but important things are also happening in society. On behalf of the NDP, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the sudden passing of the Quebec actor Michel Côté and to offer our condolences to his family and friends. This is an immense loss for the Quebec theatre community and the artistic community. I am sure my colleague shares these sentiments.
On the subject of the environment, it is all well and good to have the right to a healthy environment, but many folks would argue that this does not go far enough and that we should be using a new term, “ecocide”, which would put environmental crimes on the same level as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Instances of massive environmental destruction could then be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court. There is a whole movement known as Stop Ecocide Canada and Stop Ecocide International.
Is this something my colleague could see being useful for defending the environment?
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. Seriously, I was running around all morning and I did not look at the newspapers. I did not know that Michel Côté had passed away. Truly, when my colleague mentioned it, I was in shock and could hardly believe it. I extend my condolences to Michel Côté's family, and I am certain we will take the time to do so at the appropriate moment.
Now, as for ecocide, I invite parliamentarians to attend an event from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday with the people from Stop Ecocide Canada. It is an extraordinary idea, an idea that is serious and goes a long way. However, if we do not start talking about it now, it will never happen. I think these people are very courageous to propose the idea of ecocide in an oil-producing country. We have to start somewhere and I congratulate them for it.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am happy once again to rise and speak to Bill S-5, a bill that updates the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
I have spoken a couple of times on this bill at various stages, and I will repeat some of the messages I gave in those speeches. Here we are at third reading. We have responded to the committee report, which brought forward a few amendments, including one from the NDP that was voted on at report stage. At committee, Conservatives and Liberals took out a statement about tailings ponds in particular. The NDP proposed a report stage amendment that put those words back into Bill S-5 that were put there originally by the Senate, which dealt with this bill before us, and I was happy that amendment passed.
Now, I am a bit discouraged that Conservatives seem to be indicating they are withdrawing their support for this bill just because of those two words, “tailings ponds”, going back into it. I am not sure why they consider the words so toxic that they cannot support the bill, but we are very much of the opinion that it really needs to be highlighted as one of the points in protecting the Canadian environment. We have had so many issues around tailings ponds, not just in the last few months at the Kearl project in Alberta, but in British Columbia with the Mount Polley disaster, and various other situations. This bill, Bill S-5, and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act really deal with how we should deal with toxins that are put into the Canadian environment, and tailings ponds are one example of where, when we have disasters, an inordinate number of toxins are poured into the environment at once. I think that requires special mention, and I am glad we see that wording back in this version of the bill here at third reading.
Just to give some background, this bill was first introduced in the previous Parliament as Bill C-28. It was never brought to the floor of the House to debate, and, months later, the government called an election, so it died on the Order Paper. However, it gave Canadians and environmental law experts and scientists a chance to look at this long-overdue bill to update the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, as it has been over 20 years. Those people found a lot to be concerned about that was missing from the bill. The government had a year to answer those concerns, yet in this Parliament it introduced the bill exactly as it was in Bill C-28, so there was no attempt to fix things ahead of time, which has caused real problems.
I have even heard Liberals saying in debate at report stage that we need a new version of CEPA, so we need a new bill to update it as quickly as possible to fix those things, because they were found to be out of scope. We cannot expand the scope of bills here in this place once they come to us, and this bill requires some of that desperately, which I will talk about later.
Since CEPA was first introduced over 20 years ago, the number of chemicals that people in Canada are exposed to in their daily lives has grown exponentially. I think it has grown by over 50 times since 1950 and is expected to continue on that trajectory. All these chemicals are toxic in their own way. These are brand-new chemicals that natural environments have no experience with, and we are only discovering, year after year, the impacts of these chemicals on our environment, our health and the health of plants and animals in our environment, even at very small levels. Over the last two decades, science has discovered more about the cumulative effects of even small doses of these toxic chemicals, and without this modernized legislation, Canadians would continue to be exposed to unregulated and harmful chemicals.
This is long overdue. Environmental scientists and environmental legal experts have long recognized that. Some of the changes that Bill S-5 would make to CEPA that are significant are the recognition of the right to a healthy environment, and I will talk more about that later; the commitment to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, under the act; strengthening the chemicals management plan, including to take into consideration vulnerable populations, cumulative effects, reproductive and endocrine toxicity, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity and neurotoxicity; alternatives and class-based assessments to avoid harmful substitutions; and labelling and other-risk communication.
I would like to back up now and just say how Canadians are so proud of this country, and one of the great sources of that pride is our environment. We are blessed to live in a vast country, and our relatively small population, concentrated at the southern border, has given us the impression that our environment will remain clean, healthy and sustainable, no matter what we do to it and no matter what we throw at it. That attitude has, obviously, gradually changed over the last 50 years or so, and now over 90% of Canadians believe that it is important that we have the explicit right to live in a clean and healthy environment. It is very timely that this bill finally recognizes that right.
Last year, on July 28, 2022, the UN General Assembly passed a unanimous resolution that recognized the right to a healthy environment around the world. One hundred and fifty-nine countries already have legal obligations to protect the human right to a healthy environment, but Canada does not. There are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but there is no federal law that explicitly recognizes the right to live in a healthy environment. Bill S-5 would change that, so it is a positive step forward, but it is important to back up declarations of rights with legislation that enforces those rights.
Unfortunately, the previous version of CEPA was considered unenforceable, and this one is no better. In fact, the Senate committee studying Bill S-5 wanted to fix this enforceability and, quite remarkably, the senators attached this note to the bill when they sent it forward to the House. After they had passed it with the amendments that they could make, they attached this message. I have read this message in each of the speeches I have given, but it is so remarkable that it bears repeating. This is what the Senate committee said:
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.
As I said before, the reason the Senate did not amend this bill to make it enforceable is that it was considered out of scope. The real disappointment here, of course, is that the government had a year to fix this. It knew that this enforceability was one of the main concerns people had about Bill C-28 in the previous Parliament, but the government did not fix it. I don't know whether that was just out of incompetence or whether it really did not want to fix it.
This relates directly to the welcome new declaration in Bill S-5 that Canadians have a right to live in this healthy and clean environment, but we need a transparent and open process to hold the government to account with respect to that declaration and to that right.
As I have said, CEPA is primarily concerned with protecting Canadians and their environment from the toxic chemicals we are so good at inventing, producing and pumping into our environment. There has been a fiftyfold increase in those chemicals over the past number of decades. However, CEPA does not concern itself in general with other matters of federal legislation around the environment, such as environmental impact assessments, fish habitat, migratory birds, species at risk, etc., so this declaration of the right to live in a clean, healthy environment has rather narrow coverage. It covers only matters within the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
I have a private member's bill, Bill C-219, that is called the Canadian environmental bill of rights. It was first written and presented by Linda Duncan, the former NDP MP for Edmonton Strathcona. Ms. Duncan is an expert environmental lawyer who produced this environmental bill of rights and introduced it over three Parliaments during her time here. It passed second reading in 2009 or 2010 and went to committee, but each time she presented it, it did not make it through the full Senate procedure, so it never became law. I was very honoured and happy to present it again as Bill C-219 in this Parliament.
Among other things, it basically takes that right to live in a clean, healthy environment that Bill S-5 talks about and expands it to the other Canadian federal legislation that we have that deals with the environment. It is not a broad-brush approach, but specifically attached to those pieces of legislation. In fact, when the House of Commons legal team was asked whether it was constitutional, the answer was that of course it is constitutional because it is not really an environmental bill; it is a human rights bill. It holds the government to account for doing what it should be doing under those different environmental pieces of legislation that we have at the federal level.
I would like to make it clear that the NDP will be voting in favour of Bill S-5. We are happy that the government has ceded to some of the amendments that we wanted to bring in to improve Bill S-5. We did not get all that we wanted, but we think this is an important step forward, and we are certainly happy that there is language about the right to live in a clean and healthy environment that is finally recognized within federal legislation. We are happy that this bill confirms the government's commitment to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples under the act.
This bill has many shortcomings, some of which I have listed, but one that I have not mentioned is the total lack of anything around air pollution, toxins in the air. This is something that we really have to get into federal legislation, because it is just as important, if not more so, than some of the other forms of pollution we have to deal with.
I am heartened to hear comments from Liberal members that they would welcome a new version of Bill S-5, a brand new update to CEPA that would bring in some of the problems that have been considered out of scope here, especially around enforceability.
As I say, most Canadians, including myself, would be happy to see this bill pass. I know that most parties will be voting for this bill, albeit some reluctantly. I am disappointed to hear that the Conservatives seem to be pulling their support over the tailings ponds issue. I hope that the Senate will deal with it promptly, so that we can enjoy its benefits and quickly start the process of crafting that new bill that will make CEPA even stronger. That act would truly protect Canadians and ensure that we, along with our children and grandchildren, can continue to live in the clean and healthy environment that is our right.
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting. Going out of second reading, there was a sense that we would be receiving virtually unanimous support. Although the Green Party had reservations in regard to Bill S-5, it looked as though it was going in a forward direction, with the Conservatives actually supporting it. Having listened to Conservatives earlier today, the best I can tell is that they do not want to support the bill because of an amendment related to tailings ponds.
The member was there at the committee stage. Can he explain to the House what he believes is so substantial within the amendment that it is now causing the Conservative Party to vote against the legislation as a whole?
Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I was not there at the committee stage to hear that, but I have heard comments in debate here about it. It was an issue during the debate at report stage. However, the member would have to ask the Conservatives that question. I can only guess, and I would rather not put my suppositions onto this. However, I am disappointed.
Mr. Speaker, we originally talked about supporting the bill. We are absolutely for the environment. We are conservationists at heart across the way in the opposition here. However, one thing we are deeply worried about is the government's over-regulation.
I come from northern B.C., where oil and gas is a big part of what we can give the world in terms of reducing pollution. I was also just up in Yukon, talking to them about critical minerals and getting those developed. However, they say that with the government's over-regulation, instead of getting it developed within eight years, it is going to take at least 30 years. Therefore, here we are seeing more red tape being added to getting our resources developed with this legislation.
Can the member answer this question: What is he going to do to actually see some of the good things that Canada produces get to world markets?
Mr. Speaker, I spent much of last week in Washington, D.C., with the international trade committee. We talked to quite a number of legislators and congressmen, and almost every one of them brought up this issue: How are we going to get materials mined so that we can get the clean tech of tomorrow going? They all said that what the United States needs is a mining impact assessment system like Canada's system. They held up Canada's system as the shining example of how things should be done.
Therefore, I do not know what concerns the Conservatives have. Apparently, from the outside world, we are seen as leaders in developing mines and developing them properly, so that we have not only a clean environment but also the materials we need for the future.
Mr. Speaker, now that we are at the last stage of the bill, third reading, it is not that the Green Party has reservations, as my colleague just said. Unfortunately, the Green Party is now against the bill because it would weaken our ability to regulate toxic chemicals across Canada and because it only pretends to create the right to a healthy environment. It is a right that cannot be enforced; it is basically a bumper sticker and not a right.
Again, everyone who is concerned about the environment across Canada and various environmental groups are being told that the government will bring out a new version of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act really soon. What is my hon. colleague's honest assessment of how likely this is and when it may happen?
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. However, I am not holding my breath. I think that if the government wanted to do this right, it would have done it right the first time.
All I would say is that my private member's bill has that enforceability part baked into it and extends it to the other parts of the Canadian federal legislation on the environment. It carves out CEPA, because of issues around that legislation, but I would hope the government would use this as a model to fix CEPA once and for all.
Mr. Speaker, I tend to disagree with the leader of the Green Party and the suggestion about looking at the right to a healthy environment. At the end of the day, it is incorporated into the legislation. I suspect that what we will see will be more information being provided on the issue of those rights in the coming days, weeks and months ahead.
I think we need to recognize that this is a significant step forward, where we have a government policy, in essence, making it very clear. It is more than just a policy; it is done through legislation. Canadians have a right to a healthy environment.
I wonder if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to how important it is to talk about this. There has been a lot of discussion about the environment in general, but when we get a statement of that nature in law, it is a significant step forward. Obviously, it is not going to resolve all the issues. Mechanisms, protocols and so forth need to be established. At the very least, we have a government for the first time that is actually incorporating that sort of a principle in legislation.
Would he not agree that the incorporation of a right to a healthy environment is good for all Canadians?
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.
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to rise and speak to legislation that will have a very positive impact on Canadians.
If we listen to what Canadians are talking about, we often hear the issue of the environment coming up. Within the Liberal caucus, I can assure people who are following the debate that, whether it is me or members of the Liberal caucus, we have a high degree of sensitivity in wanting to ensure that what we are doing here in Ottawa reflects Canadians' desires and interests in terms of what they are telling us.
Canadians tell us that the environment does matter and that it counts. We have a government in a minority situation. They would like to see members of Parliament, on all sides of the House, recognize the importance of the issue of the environment and start taking actions to support the words we use during an election.
We see the position that the official opposition is taking on the environment. I want to use two examples. Today, it is all about Bill S-5 and what is happening with it. It is about how the Conservative Party has once again made a change towards the environment. I would suggest that this is a negative change. This is consistent with what the Conservative Party did in the last federal election.
We constantly get criticized by the Conservatives regarding a price on pollution. Most Canadians see and recognize the value of this, as do other countries and jurisdictions around the world. They see that pollution should not be free and that there should be a price on pollution. However, only the Conservative Party of Canada here in the House of Commons, from the get-go, said it opposed a price on pollution. After being tuned up by Canadians, it actually said it is now in favour of a price on pollution.
In the last federal election, every one of the members sitting here today actually said they agreed with a price on pollution in their election platform. They all campaigned on it. However, with a new, shiny, ultra-right leader, they now say they do not support a price on pollution.
How is that relevant to the debate we are having today? It is relevant because not that long ago, about two weeks ago, the Conservatives were telling Canadians that they voted in favour of Bill S-5 and they thought Bill S-5 was a good idea. They were right two weeks ago when they were telling that to Canadians. They were ultimately responding, in part, to what their constituents were telling them.
One of the biggest things in Bill S-5 deals with the right to a healthy environment. Imagine taking a statement of that nature and incorporating it into law. This is why I asked my NDP colleague to provide a comment on it. Given what Canadians are telling us about the importance of the environment, how could someone oppose that? How is it possible that the Conservatives would vote against it?
If we want to talk about popping the bubble of hope, that is what the Conservatives have done in recent days. The Conservatives have said that they now oppose Bill S-5. Why did they flip-flop?
An hon. member: Because of you. You flip-flop.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, they say it is because of me. I do not think I carry that much influence within the Conservative caucus.
I can say that the Conservatives are on the wrong side of yet another important environmental issue. They need to understand that the environment does matter. When they say they are now opposed to it, what are they voting against? They are voting against what their leader often talks about: common sense.
Why would one oppose the right to a healthy environment? Yes, a lot of regulations and protocols need to be established to ensure that right, but, again, for the very first time, we actually have that now in legislation, the very same legislation that the official opposition is going to vote against when it comes up for a vote.
Maybe we should wait another week or two. Maybe they might change their mind again on this issue.
It is an important vote. We are dealing with additional regulations to deal with toxic chemicals. What is it about toxic chemicals that the Conservative Party of Canada feels, within this legislation, is bad? We are not hearing that.
The Conservatives are not saying that they do not like this legislation because of this particular aspect. They are talking about tailings ponds and apparently that is what caused them to flip, even though, before the amendment, it came to the House from the Senate with it.
One has to start questioning where the Conservative Party is on the environment. I will give part two when we begin debate again after question period.
Statements by Members
[Statements by Members]
[English]
Indo-Pacific Region
Mr. Speaker, Indo-Pacific region is growing in terms of population and economy. It is also a strategically important region in the current turbulent global situation. The region offers much-needed markets for Canadian exports and a secure place for Canadian investments. Canada has a well-formulated Indo-Pacific strategy. Among other things, this highlights the importance of our relationship with India.
India is a growing market for our exports, with pulses today and potential products like small nuclear modular reactors in the future. India is also a secure place for our increasing need to diversify our investments. Our pension funds and the private sector have already invested $84 billion there.
India is also the leading source of our much-needed skilled immigrants and a major provider of international students.
National Prayer Breakfast
Mr. Speaker, today marks the beginning of the 58th annual National Prayer Breakfast and leadership dinner here on Parliament Hill. The Canadian National Prayer Breakfast is the longest-running parliamentary event in Canada and is the longest-running national prayer breakfast in the world.
I am deeply grateful and honoured to be serving as chair for this year's event that is seeing people from coast to coast and around the world come to be part of it. In these times of great uncertainty and instability throughout our world, it is of vital importance that we remember that there is a source higher than we are to which we can turn. As the psalmist, King David, once said, when our hearts are overwhelmed, lead us to a rock that is higher than we are.
I encourage all members to join me in welcoming all those attending this year's National Prayer Breakfast, leadership dinner and young leaders summit, and may God continue to keep our land glorious and free.
Shalem Mental Health
Mr. Speaker, Shalem Mental Health is a Hamilton-based organization providing critical mental health services to children, youth, couples and families in more than 100 communities across Canada, including in my riding of Hamilton Mountain.
We know that social inequities can affect physical and mental health. Shalem delivers thousands of hours of subsidized therapy every year to those who would not otherwise be able to afford it. Its inclusive and often creative approach to mental health has established it as a leader in the areas of trauma-based attachment therapy and psychotherapy.
Shalem regularly collaborates with local community and child welfare agencies to reduce or eliminate barriers to healing, such as with its art outreach program for street-involved youth. May is mental health month, and I would like to thank Shalem Mental Health for continuing to broaden the scope of its important work, which it now delivers through employee assistance programs across the country.
Shalem will be celebrating its 60th anniversary next month, and I wish the organization hearty congratulations.
[Translation]
Michel Côté
Mr. Speaker, today, we have lost one of the greats. Michel Côté has left us.
He always made us laugh and now, leaving us like this, he has broken our hearts. He had a spectacular career, first with Marcel Gauthier and Marc Messier in Broue, the most popular play in Quebec history. A record 6 million people have gone to see it. That is phenomenal. His television hits include Omertà: la Loi du silence and La petite vie; we all cherished Pierre Gauthier and Jean-Lou, two characters who were polar opposites. His movies include Cruising Bar, Liste noire, Le dernier tunnel, C.R.A.Z.Y.—in which I had the honour and privilege of starring alongside him—and De père en flic, to name but a few.
He is a giant who has left his mark on generations of Quebeckers, and will continue to do so for a long time to come. Quebec's artistic community has just lost one of its most extraordinary representatives.
To his family, friends, loved ones and all Quebeckers, I offer my deepest condolences.
Le Centre d'action bénévole de Gatineau
Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to have the opportunity to acknowledge the 35th anniversary of the Centre d'action bénévole de Gatineau this past May 25.
For more than three decades, the centre's team has delivered a host of services directly to the Gatineau community, services such as meals on wheels, transportation support, friendly visits and more.
I applaud the team's energy; they have made volunteerism and community involvement their priority for the past 35 years. These volunteers have given the Gatineau community something very special. Without their dedication, our community life and the help provided to the more vulnerable would not be what they are today. We owe the centre a debt of gratitude.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank the entire team, the centre's board members and its many volunteers.
I thank them and wish them a happy 35th anniversary.
Michel Côté
Mr. Speaker, all of Quebec is in mourning today. Iconic actor Michel Côté has left us far too soon at the age of 72.
This immensely and uniquely talented man, who was proud to call Lac-Saint-Jean home, had a profound effect on generations of Quebeckers who saw him perform on the stage and on screens big and small. From Broue and C.R.A.Z.Y. to La petite vie and Omertà, Michel Côté made us laugh and he made us cry. He had a singular knack for bringing to life the characters he played, as varied as they were. Regardless of what part he was playing, we believed it. Wherever he went, we followed.
Michel Côté was a respectful and respected man who has left an indelible mark on our history. He is no longer with us, but he will live on forever in our hearts and minds as one of the greats.
On behalf of my colleagues, I want to offer my heartfelt condolences to his lifelong partner, Véronique Le Flaguais, to his sons, Charles and Maxime, and to his many friends.
[English]
Rock Lacrosse Team
Mr. Speaker, the Toronto Rock lacrosse team had its playoff run end recently, and while heartbreaking, I want to extend congratulations for another terrific season.
I am proud that the Rock owner, Jamie Dawick, chose Oakville as the team’s home for its state-of-the-art practice facility and head office. The TRAC, as it is fondly known, hosts the Rock’s pre-season games before Christmas, when they accept donations to the food bank and the Oakville firefighters toy drive.
Players like Oakville’s own Dan Dawson, who gives his all on the floor every game while working as a firefighter and giving back to his community, exemplify the culture of the team.
This summer the Rob MacDougall Memorial Tournament to be held at the TRAC will raise funds for KidSport. I have been a proud season-ticket holder for over 20 years and want to say thanks to the Rock for another great season. “Go Rock Go.”
Innovative Agri-Food Businesses
Mr. Speaker, with a once-in-a-century global pandemic, worldwide increase of agricultural commodity prices, energy costs and, most importantly, climate change and population increase, maintaining access to sustainable and affordable food systems is an important priority.
In parallel with our government’s initiatives, Fresh Green Farms, a Vancouver-based private enterprise run by brothers Bahram and Shahram Rashti, has championed the path towards sustainable food systems using vertical farming.
Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting their facility in B.C., where I saw first-hand how UP Vertical Farms is doing its part in helping Canada navigate its food security issues by developing Canada’s largest, most advanced and cost-effective hydroponic vertical farms to locally grow high-density leafy greens, all while maintaining the operation’s environmental impact at a minimum. At full capacity, they would be able to serve not only B.C. but western Canada.
I would like to congratulate the Rashti brothers for the inspiring work they are doing for their community and for Canada.
Opioids
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the serving and retired members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for their dedication and service to Canadians, keeping us safe for the last 150 years. Congratulations.
The price of everything continues to rise, as do, unfortunately, opioid deaths. Over the last eight years, Canadians have witnessed an overdose increase of 300% as the Liberal government continues to flood our streets with taxpayer-funded drugs. In communities like Cranbrook and Nelson, addicts are taking free government drugs, selling them, using the proceeds to buy fentanyl and dying of overdoses. Safe supply inhalation sites are not a solution, and our communities are in chaos. The sounds of children laughing outside the local fast food restaurants have been replaced by the sounds of emergency service vehicles dispatched to yet another overdose, dispatched to yet another repeat violent crime.
An overwhelming number of residents in Kootenay—Columbia are calling for the government to immediately reverse its deadly policies and redirect taxpayer-funded drugs to rehab, detox, treatment and recovery programs. Let us bring our loved ones home.
Queen's University
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to welcome representatives from my alma mater, Queen's University, to Parliament Hill today.
Queen’s is a leader in Canada and around the globe. Last year, it was ranked seventh in the world by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, which measures contributions to the United Nations sustainable development goals. That real-world impact is thanks to Queen’s exceptional students, faculty and staff.
Quickly emerging as a leader in critical minerals and EV batteries, Queen’s is helping to move Canada toward a low-carbon and prosperous economy. Queen’s is working to train more family doctors and nurses to address the critical shortages faced in our communities.
There is exciting and groundbreaking work happening across all disciplines. The McDonald Institute is building on Nobel Prize-winning research to unlock the mysteries of dark matter, and position Canada to lead breakthrough scientific discoveries.
Once again, I welcome Queen's University. I hope my fellow parliamentarians will join us for a reception this evening at 5:30 p.m. in Room 228 of the Valour Building.
Nova Scotia Wildfires
Mr. Speaker, I am speaking from the fire command centre in Shelburne County on the wildfire crisis at both ends of my district, here and in Halifax.
A massive wildfire in Halifax, where I was this morning, forced the evacuation of 18,000 people. That is as many people as are evacuated currently in western Canada. Most left with only the clothes on their backs, as the fire moved extremely fast. There are no fatalities and no missing people so far. The Halifax fire continues to burn out of control, and many homes have been lost.
I was at the Halifax comfort centres last night and this morning. The stories are heartbreaking. People rushed to their cars as the fire swept into their backyards, forced by 40-kilometre-an-hour winds.
Here in Shelburne County, we are battling an out-of-control wildfire covering 20,000 acres. The communities from Port Clyde to Barrington West have been evacuated and are under threat. More than another 2,000 people have been evacuated.
To professional and volunteer firefighters, saying thanks does not seem like enough as they risk their lives to save our communities. I thank the countless volunteers helping these families. Our prayers go out to the families in these uncertain and tragic days. Please pray for our communities.
New Brunswick Forest Fires
Mr. Speaker, a forest fire is currently uncontained a few kilometres outside of Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, in Bocabec and Chamcook. Yesterday evening, the fire was approximately 100 hectares in size. Today, it has grown by over 400%. Four hundred families have already been evacuated, and it is not known how many homes have been destroyed. This morning, seven fire water bombers resumed work, but on-the-ground resources are needed.
My deepest gratitude goes out to the firefighters, volunteers and other first responders working hard to get these fires under control in my riding, elsewhere in New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia. I know the federal government has reached out to my premier and I appreciate that. I urge the federal government to offer any assistance to maritime provinces, local emergency personnel and my constituents to control and extinguish these fires. Godspeed.
[Translation]
Michel Côté
Mr. Speaker, today all Quebeckers and Canadians are mourning the loss of a great actor, a creative force, a great man. Michel Côté was the perfect blend of passion and discipline. He was a charming and extremely sensitive person.
As an actor, he had great range. He could go from playing Jean-Lou in the sitcom La petite vie to playing Pierre Gauthier in Omertà, not to mention his inspired portrayal of four separate characters in Cruising Bar. On stage, he was one of the pillars of the play Broue, which was performed more than 3,000 times. He was a caring man and a family man. He actually played several father roles, including in that masterpiece of Quebec cinema, the film C.R.A.Z.Y., and in the comedy De père en flic.
Michel will remain forever in our hearts.
[English]
Indigenous Police Services
Mr. Speaker, a few months ago, I asked that tripartite first nations policing agreements be renewed and their core funding be increased. As of March 31, funding has stopped flowing for Treaty 3, the Anishinabek Police Service and the UCCM Anishnaabe Police Service.
Police services under the first nations and Inuit policing program, unlike other police services, are under threat because of contract imposition instead of fair negotiations. An expedited judicial order against the federal government has been filed just to get basic core funding back. There is deep concern about increasing crime rates, which puts the safety of first nations communities at risk.
The Crown has a legal obligation to ensure first nations policing is an essential service, negotiated based on identified needs and funded at a standard comparable to non-indigenous communities. Let us not repeat the mistakes of our colonial past. Let us ensure these indigenous police services immediately have the resources and specialized training they require to better protect their communities. They need a fair contract with clear terms of reference and adequate funding now.
[Translation]
Michel Côté
Mr. Speaker, Quebec is in mourning. Quebec is in shock. Michel Côté is no longer with us. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. We extend our deepest condolences to them.
We are also thinking of those close to him, but we now realize that we were all close to him. Michel Côté was a part of our lives, and we are collectively and individually in mourning.
There are great actors we admire, and there are popular actors we adore. Michel Côté was both: part Gilles Latulippe, part Jean Duceppe. He left his mark with roles in C.R.A.Z.Y., Cruising Bar, Omertà and La petite vie.
He gave us moments of laughter, joy and pure emotion—
I am sorry to interrupt the member. This is a serious topic, but I am hearing people chatting.
[English]
I want to remind everyone that S.O. 31s reflect what is going on back home, and we all want to hear what the hon. member has to say. I would encourage everyone, if they are going to talk, to please whisper and not speak loudly.
[Translation]
I will ask the hon. member from Drummond to start from the top.
Mr. Speaker, Quebec is in mourning. Quebec is in shock. Michel Côté has left us. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. We extend our sincere condolences to them.
We are obviously thinking of those close to him, but we suddenly realize that we were all close to him. Michel Côté was a part of our lives, and we are collectively and individually in mourning.
There are great actors we admire, and there are popular actors we adore. Michel Côté was both: part Gilles Latulippe, part Jean Duceppe. He left his mark with roles in C.R.A.Z.Y., Cruising Bar, Omertà and La petite vie.
He gave us moments of laughter, joy and pure emotion, for which we will be eternally grateful. It was fun having him with us. It is sad that he is no longer here.
I invite everyone to watch one of his movies, one of his shows or even one of his interviews. Let us take the time to see what an amazing human being he was, what a great actor he was, and to enjoy his sense of humour, his playfulness and his humanity.
Michel Côté was one of the greats, and he was one of us. We miss him already.
[English]
Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, under the Prime Minister's watch, Beijing interfered in two federal elections, set up illegal police stations and targeted the family of a sitting member of Parliament. In a blatant conflict of interest, the Prime Minister appointed a family friend and member of the Beijing-financed Trudeau Foundation to investigate Beijing's interference.
From the start, the report had no credibility, because by the time the Prime Minister's fake rapporteur decided to meet with the former leader of the Conservative Party, the member for Durham, the report had already been written. The report has no credibility because its author is not independent, but rather the Prime Minister's Beijing-compromised friend.
If the Prime Minister had any integrity, he would fire his fake rapporteur and call a truly independent public inquiry.
Parliamentary Soccer
Mr. Speaker, spring has returned and with it parliamentary soccer. Yes, indeed, the FC Commoners are back for another season of the beautiful game, with MPs from all parties taking the pitch against an assortment of foes.
[Translation]
Last week, we had our annual game against the pages. This was the first match since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The pages were well prepared. Some of their players were in full uniform, and their pre-game warm-up was intimidating.
[English]
To boot, they brought a cheering squad and had chants, makeup and even signage. My favourite poster said, “GET YOUR OWN WATER!”.
A great time was had by all, including some post-game merriment over pizza and beverages, of course those suitable for minors. Though the final score favoured the aging squad of MPs, helped by some younger staffers, I admit, the big winners, as usual, were the pages. Their dedication on the pitch is only surpassed by their dedication to this chamber and all of us who serve in it.
Three cheers for the pages. Hip hip hooray!
Oral Questions
[Oral Questions]
[Translation]
Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, after Beijing interfered in two elections to help the Prime Minister, after Beijing threatened several members of Parliament, after Beijing paid $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation to influence the Prime Minister, he finally appointed a rapporteur to investigate. However, that rapporteur is himself a member of the Trudeau Foundation and a friend of the Prime Minister, who is now trying to hide the truth.
Will he finally fire the rapporteur and call a public inquiry?
Mr. Speaker, the only person here who is trying to hide the truth seems to be the Leader of the Opposition himself.
The Privy Council Office offered him access to the most sensitive documents that the special rapporteur reviewed in order to reach the conclusions that were made public last week. The Leader of the Opposition refused, because he would rather play petty politics on an issue that affects Canadian democracy.
It should be in the interest of all members of the House of Commons to support measures that will strengthen our democratic institutions.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, no, what I refused is to be silenced.
The government will not pull me into a room, stamp public documents “secret” and then tell me I cannot speak, because we need to speak about the fact that Beijing interfered to help the Prime Minister in two successive elections, that Beijing threatened members of Parliament to try to win influence and that Beijing gave $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation to buy the favour of the Prime Minister. Then he named a former member of the Trudeau Foundation and a ski buddy to look into the matter, who has now only tried to cover it up.
Will he fire this fake rapporteur and call a public inquiry now?
Mr. Speaker, it is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada who is silencing himself by refusing to take the briefings. It is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada who is covering his own eyes from the same information that Mr. Johnston had access to, which other non-partisan professional public servants had access to. It leaves Canadians wondering why. Is it because he would rather play partisan games than do the hard work? I think we know the answer to that question and it is yes.
Mr. Speaker, one does not need a fake briefing or a “secret” stamp to know what the documents say. They have already been quoted verbatim in the media because of leaks by a seriously distressed security agency that is trying to expose what has gone on behind the scenes.
We now know what is surreal. There are at least two police stations run by Beijing, a foreign dictatorship, in Canada. The minister said they were closed. We have now found out that not only are they open, but they got tax dollars from the government.
Will they shut the police stations and call a public inquiry now?
Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada is sinking in the quicksand of his own logic when calling the briefings fake. What does he think the public servants who work in the security establishment have been doing, other than advising the government on how we can protect the people who defend our democracy every day?
If he is seriously about it, he will take the briefings, roll up his sleeves, sit at the table and help us defend our democracy from foreign interference.
Mr. Speaker, what do I think the public servants at CSIS have been doing? I know what they have been doing. They have been picking up the phone and calling the media to blow the whistle on the cover-up on that side of the House of Commons.
[Translation]
They have proved that there are at least two police stations that are still open and that got tax dollars from the government. These are police stations run by Beijing, not Canada.
Will the government finally shut down these police stations and call a public inquiry?
Mr. Speaker, the Conservative leader is the one who wants to cover his eyes from the information.
[English]
We have insisted that we are prepared to work with the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada to make sure that he has access to the same classified information that Mr. Johnston had, that the two panels who verified the integrity of the 2019 and 2021 elections had, that NSICOP will have and that NSIRA will have. It is he and he alone who refuses to take this issue seriously because he refuses to take the briefing.
Mr. Speaker, I refuse to be silenced, unlike members of the government.
Given that the tradition in this place is that opposition members can pose questions to any member of the government, my question is for the leader of the NDP. He has said that he wants a public inquiry. Now is the time for him to prove it.
Will the member leading the NDP state clearly now that either the government calls a public inquiry or he will break off his coalition?
Mr. Speaker, we have watched as a party that once recognized David Johnston as one of the most outstanding—
I am going to interrupt and ask that the hon. member start over. It just got noisy all of a sudden. I am not sure exactly what happened. I will ask everyone to take a deep breath.
Please restart.
Mr. Speaker, what we have seen is that members of the party opposite, which once recognized David Johnston not only as an outstanding Canadian but also as somebody worthy of being the Governor General of this country, appointed under Stephen Harper, now, because his report does not conform to the party's politics and does not conform to its political interests, are attacking and maligning his character. This is part of a pattern of the party opposite. It is more interested in politics. It is more interested in making partisan points than it is in the facts on the ground.
There is not a member of the House who does not stand strongly and firmly in support of democracy and against those—
[Translation]
Let us get right to the point, Mr. Speaker. David Johnston's report on Chinese interference is a farce. No one accepts it except the Prime Minister and China, which is having a great laugh.
There is no way we are going to let the Prime Minister get away with not calling a public inquiry.
What would it mean if there were no public inquiry? That would mean no inquiry into the threats against elected officials, no inquiry into the Trudeau Foundation, no inquiry into the intimidation of the Chinese diaspora and no inquiry into the 11 candidates who were funded by China. This charade serves only to protect the Prime Minister.
When will there be an independent public inquiry?
Mr. Speaker, I once again encourage the leader of the Bloc Québécois to accept the government's offer to access the most sensitive and specific details that Mr. Johnston and the committee of parliamentarians, which includes a representative from the Bloc Québécois and from each of the other opposition parties, had access to. I would encourage him to access all that information and get all the facts before coming to unfounded partisan conclusions.
This is a serious matter that requires a serious response. I invite the Bloc Québécois to do exactly that.
There are some distinct voices that we can recognize in the House. I am sure that they would not want to be named publicly.
[English]
There are some distinct voices, in both languages, I might say. That is very Canadian, but it is still not parliamentary. I am sure the hon. members do not want me to name them, so we will just go on to the next question.
[Translation]
The hon. member for La Prairie.
Mr. Speaker, this report seeks to protect the Prime Minister, not to shed light on Chinese interference. That is why no one has changed their mind about the need for a public inquiry. Quebeckers and Canadians alike are calling for an inquiry. The polls are clear.
This report that is soft on the Prime Minister was written by a man who was selected by the Prime Minister. That is not what the public and the House want.
News flash: The Bloc Québécois will hound the Prime Minister every day until he launches this inquiry.
Does he understand that he will not get away with this that easily?
Mr. Speaker, again, I invite my colleague from La Prairie to talk to his leader and convince him to take advantage of the government's serious offer to share highly sensitive intelligence, so that the leader of the Bloc Québécois and his colleague who sits on the committee of parliamentarians in charge of looking into precisely this type of issue can look at the very facts that Mr. Johnston and the committee of parliamentarians will see to reach their conclusions.
I think that is the least the Bloc Québécois can do on such an important issue.
[English]
Innovation, Science and Industry
Mr. Speaker, we learned this weekend that negotiations with Stellantis to resume the production of the EV battery factory in Windsor are not going well. I do not know why the Conservatives are moaning about this. This is very serious. There are 2,500 jobs at stake, and it is the future of the automotive sector of our country.
Will the government ensure that those jobs do not end up going to the U.S. and that, instead, we keep those jobs here in Canada and do everything possible to make this deal go forward? While the Conservatives want this deal to not go forward, we want it to go forward.
Mr. Speaker, the answer, absolutely, is yes. We will ensure that the deal goes forward. We will ensure that the jobs will stay in Canada. That is why we have a $120-billion clean economy plan.
What else will we ensure? We are going to ensure that Ontario pays its fair share, because this is an investment in a particular province, and we know Canada is a country of regions and regional equity is really important. We are going to ensure that the company comes forward with a reasonable offer as well.
Housing
Mr. Speaker, the government needs to back up those words with action and protect the factory.
[Translation]
Across Canada, rent prices are skyrocketing, and Quebec is no exception. Rent keeps increasing at a breakneck pace. In Montreal, rent for a one-bedroom unit is now more than $2,100. For most Quebeckers, that means there is not much left to pay the bills and buy groceries.
When will this government finally step up and put an end to this crisis?
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
I would like to remind him that, since our initiative with the national housing strategy, Quebec has received more than $5 billion to build or renovate thousands of housing units. We will continue to work with the Government of Quebec, particularly on the third round of the rapid housing initiative that we have just come to an agreement on with the province.
[English]
Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, I am in trouble. I am being investigated, and my company is being investigated, but my colleagues should not worry; it is going to be okay. I have appointed my long-time neighbour and friend to investigate. Wait; sorry, I thought for a moment I was the Prime Minister.
Appointing one's friend to investigate oneself is unethical, absolutely. No one other than the Liberals puts any faith in this old friend's report.
What will it take for the Liberals to finally call a public inquiry?
Mr. Speaker, I quote: “Mr. Johnston has a strong record of public service, a broad base of support and an impressive list of achievements. He has extensive legal expertise, a comprehensive understanding of government and a deep appreciation of the duties and tasks now before him.... David Johnston represents the best of Canada.” That was said by Stephen Harper.
It is interesting that somebody whom the Conservatives lifted up and venerated as one of the greatest Canadians, when he disagrees with them, suddenly is roadside trash. Suddenly, the things he says mean nothing. It is despicable, and I have great disregard for the way in which somebody—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Are we okay to continue? There is a lot of chatter going on. It is nice to see members getting along, but if they want to talk among themselves, they should go into the lobby or leave. They do not have to be here. If they want to talk among themselves, that is okay, but they should not do it here when people are trying to hear the question and the answer. Do I have everyone's agreement on that? Very good.
The hon. member for Dufferin—Caledon.
Mr. Speaker, a conflict of interest arises when there is an appearance of conflict. Appointing an old friend to investigate oneself is an absolute appearance of conflict. To do that knowingly is completely unethical. Therefore, we get to the point where we have to ask why. Why would someone appoint a friend? What are they hiding? Why would a public inquiry not be called? The question Canadians ask every day now is this: What are they hiding?
I will ask again. What will it take for the Liberals to finally get rid of this conflict of interest report and call a public inquiry?
Mr. Speaker, of course, David Johnston has been a great friend to Canada. He is somebody who has dedicated his entire life. The idea that Mr. Johnston, after a lifetime of dedicated service, including service that the party opposite called him into—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
I will ask the government House leader to start over. I am having a hard time hearing. There are some comments being made and some shouting taking place. We will wait until everyone calms down.
The government House leader.
Mr. Speaker, what is clear is that David Johnston has dedicated his life to this country.
The reality is that national security is something that I know every member of the House is deeply seized with, and that is precisely why we are having a hard time understanding why the Leader of the Opposition refuses to take information, why he refuses to take his hands from in front of his face and look at the information he has been asked to look at in the interest of national security so that we can work together to preserve the democracy we all so deeply care about.
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister appointed a family friend and Trudeau Foundation member to investigate, more like cover up, foreign interference by Beijing in our democracy. That family friend then appointed another Trudeau Foundation member to supposedly clear them of their conflict of interest, and then hired a lifetime Liberal donor to work for them. This has been a sham from the very beginning. Canadians do not have confidence in this process.
That is why they want a public inquiry, and that is why that was what was passed in the House. Will the Prime Minister call one today?
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives can continue to malign Mr. Johnston despite the fact that he has distinguished public service, which was recognized by a former Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper.
The fact is that his first report speaks for itself in its quality. It looked at the most accessible information and verified that the 2019 and 2021 elections were free and fair, and it carves out a path in order to bring Canadians along in a way in which we can protect our democratic institutions. It is solely the Conservatives who want to continue to engage in partisanship rather than defend the national interest. They should reverse course.
Mr. Speaker, if the minister does not know what a conflict of interest is, let me give him an example. The Trudeau Foundation takes $140,000 from the dictatorship in Beijing. Then, in investigating foreign interference, the Prime Minister, who shares the same name as the foundation that was the target of a foreign influence operation, appoints a member of that very foundation, two members of that foundation, in fact, to investigate foreign interference.
They do not understand what a conflict of interest is, and that is exactly why we need a public inquiry: to get to know what these Liberals knew and when they knew it, and so we can restore confidence in our democratic institutions.
Will they call the inquiry today?
Mr. Speaker, the person whose character they are maligning is actually David Johnston, the person whom they appointed to look into the allegations against former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney. It was okay for them to choose him to look into malfeasance for their former prime minister and former leader, but now, all of a sudden, they do not trust him. All of a sudden, he is not a credible Canadian.
It is beyond all reasonableness that they attack and malign, frankly, anybody who stands in the way or disagrees with advancing their political interest.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, it turns out that the Prime Minister's special rapporteur was not that special after all, except maybe for his ties to the Prime Minister's family and his attachment to Communist China.
What other reason could there be for Mr. Johnston to reject an independent public inquiry into Beijing's interference despite a majority vote in the House, the recommendations of national security experts, and the wishes of the majority of Canadians?
The Prime Minister picked the title, the mandate and the findings of the possibly special, but definitely not independent, rapporteur. Will the Prime Minister end this circus and order an independent public inquiry today?
Mr. Speaker, our government has taken the threat of foreign interference seriously from the moment we formed the government.
The former Conservative government was in power in 2013 when intelligence agencies detected the growing threat of foreign interference. The Conservatives, however, did absolutely nothing to strengthen our democratic institutions. We have done exactly the opposite since we formed the government.
We will rely on reports by experts from everywhere to strengthen our democratic institutions.
Mr. Speaker, here is what makes the Prime Minister's special rapporteur so special: Beijing's President considers him to be an old friend of China; he established a Confucius Institute, which is linked to the Beijing regime, at the University of Waterloo; he received an honorary doctorate from a member of the Chinese Communist Party; three of his daughters studied at universities in China; he was a member of the Trudeau Foundation, which received $140,000 from the Beijing regime; and he himself boasted about being a close friend of the Trudeau family.
Will the Prime Minister end this glaring conflict of interest today by launching an independent public inquiry, which will now also have to shed light on the appointment of his friend as special rapporteur?
Mr. Speaker, perhaps my colleague opposite should consult his former boss, Mr. Harper, the former Conservative prime minister of Canada, who asked this individual, Mr. Johnston, to serve not only as the Governor General of Canada, but also as an adviser to the former Conservative government about an issue as important as a public inquiry into the Airbus situation.
If they were confident that this individual had sufficient judgment carry out those duties, I think it is unfortunate that they have lost that confidence for partisan reasons.
Mr. Speaker, all human rights groups in Canada from the Chinese diaspora community are calling for a public inquiry into Beijing's interference.
Mehmet Tohti, representing the Uyghur nation in Canada, pro-democracy dissidents in Hong Kong, the Falun Gong and Tibetan independence fighters—all of whom were already experiencing Chinese intimidation tactics on Canadian soil long before this scandal broke—denounced the Liberals in The Globe and Mail. These Canadian citizens have been abandoned by their own government.
The Liberals must now do right by these individuals and call an independent public inquiry.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to reassure the member and all of my colleagues in the House.
It goes without saying that if any diplomats here in Canada fail to comply with the Vienna Convention, we will, of course, declare them persona non grata. That is exactly what we did with the former Chinese consul in Toronto, Zhao Wei.
Under the circumstances, I would be happy to work with my colleague to ensure that we continue to support the Uyghur community and shine a light on human rights violations in China and around the world.
Mr. Speaker, I am not the one asking for this. They are.
The government needs to stop using security reasons as an excuse whenever the issue of Chinese interference comes up. We do not have the memory of a goldfish. We remember the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was tortured in Syria. There were plenty of security issues in that file. However, there was an independent public inquiry into the matter that, moreover, was initiated by a Liberal government. Clearly, when they want to, they are able to launch such an investigation.
Why do they not want to do that in this case?
Mr. Speaker, with all due respect for my colleague, the independent special rapporteur, Mr. Johnston, meticulously reviewed classified information. He verified the findings of two other independent panels regarding the fact that the 2019 and 2021 elections were free and fair. Now, he is recommending that we invite all Canadians and everyone to have an open and transparent conversation about creating new tools to defend our democratic institutions.
Mr. Speaker, am I to understand that the Liberals can organize a public inquiry into events that happened in Syria and that involved the secret services of three countries, but they cannot organize one into Chinese interference in Canada?
Something is missing, and that something is political will. It would take political will to rise above partisan politics and protect our democracy. It would take political will to protect citizens of Chinese origin who are really feeling the sting of the regime's intimidation.
When will the Liberals get their act together and order an independent public inquiry?
Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague about putting Canadians and members of all the diaspora communities at the centre of our approach. This is exactly what Mr. Johnston recommends, namely, that we hold public hearings to engage in a conversation based on facts, not on fear, and to study all our options for creating new tools to protect our institutions.
This is not a partisan issue. It is a Canadian undertaking.
[English]
Carbon Pricing
Mr. Speaker, NDP-Liberal tax hikes make life cost more for struggling Canadians. The first carbon tax makes everything more expensive, and it fuels inflation, so most Canadians are paying more than they will ever get back. The second carbon tax will add over $1,100 more per household, and there is no fake rebate scheme for that one.
Combined, that is almost $4,000 in new taxes per Alberta family, and it hurts low-income Canadians the most. When will the costly coalition axe the carbon taxes so Canadians can afford gas, groceries and home heating?
Mr. Speaker, every time we put forward an affordability measure, whether it is dental, rental or the Canada child benefit, the opposition votes against it. Its members have no credibility on affordability.
By the way, the climate action rebate is an affordability measure. Eight out of 10 families will get more back than they pay at the pumps. While the opposition is focused on cryptocurrency and conspiracy theories, we are focused on Canadians, affordability and fighting climate change.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, the most recent report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer confirms that the Prime Minister's new fuel regulations are regressive and that lower-income households will pay proportionally more than higher-income households.
However, the Prime Minister's website says that the Liberals will cut taxes for the middle class, while asking the wealthiest Canadians to pay a bit more.
Since the Prime Minister does not know how to tell the truth, can he explain to single mothers in Quebec why this new tax is going to cost them so much?
Mr. Speaker, we agree that we need to make sure that life is affordable. We have implemented a lot of measures to ensure that things will be affordable in the future.
However, it is also important that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We need a plan to fight climate change, which we and almost all of the other parties in the House have. The Conservatives are the only ones who do not have a plan to fight climate change. They want to leave our children and grandchildren with a poor future.
We need a plan to—
Mr. Speaker, we do have a plan. Our plan is to leave money in the pockets of Quebeckers and Canadians, something this government cannot seem to grasp.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer was clear. This will cost Quebeckers and Canadians an extra $436. Is this a plan to help the environment? No, it is a plan that makes everyone poorer.
Does the single mom who has to put gas in her car to take her kids to soccer understand that this new tax is going to cost her an extra $436 a year, while the government tries to make everyone believe the opposite?
Who is telling the truth? Is it the Parliamentary Budget Officer or this government?
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague what he plans to say to mothers when their children no longer have clean air to breathe because of problems caused by climate change. I would like to ask my colleague what the price should be for a healthy environment.
Not only do the Conservatives have no plan to act on climate change, but when we propose measures to help Canadians, the Conservatives vote against them.
We are here to fight climate change, protect our children and make life more affordable.
[English]
Housing
Mr. Speaker, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Halifax is over $2,500. That is a 25% jump from last year, and workers' wages are not keeping up. People can no longer afford to pay rent because the Liberals are allowing big housing corporations to buy up rental units and jack up the rents.
Families should not have to compete with multi-million dollar corporations to find a place to call home. When are the Liberals going to stand up for Canadians and make rent affordable?
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague on the fact that speculative investments in real estate contribute to higher prices. That is why our government imposed a tax on residential real estate owned by non-Canadians. We have imposed a moratorium to stop foreign investments in this country.
We will continue to work with all the provinces because it is a shared responsibility.
[English]
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Mr. Speaker, I wrote an urgent letter to the ministers of public safety and immigration about 700 Punjabi international students who are victims of a targeted exploitation scheme. A consultant used fake university admission letters for their student visas without their knowledge. As a result, 150 students are scheduled to be deported.
This is unacceptable. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship says that victims of fraud should not be punished. We need more than words. Will the government immediately stay the deportation orders for these students and provide them with a pathway to permanent status?
Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear, our focus is on identifying culprits, not penalizing victims. Victims of fraud would have an opportunity to demonstrate their situation and present evidence to support their case. We recognize the immense contributions international students bring to our country. We will continue supporting them.
Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, over the weekend, thousands of Nova Scotians had to flee their homes as wildfires spread across the province.
One fire is ongoing and still not under control in the Upper Tantallon and Hammonds Plains areas of my riding of Halifax West. People's homes have been put at risk in the blink of an eye. The situation is so serious that Halifax regional municipality has declared a state of local emergency.
Could the Minister of Emergency Preparedness update the House on the situation on the ground and the conversations our government has been having with the province?
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Halifax West for this very important question and for the strong advocacy of all of our colleagues from Nova Scotia.
Let me first take the opportunity to commend the incredible hard work being done by firefighters, first responders and community volunteers, who have been working tirelessly to protect Nova Scotians throughout this event.
We are hearing reports that many homes have been lost, and our thoughts are with the over 16,000 people who have been displaced during this extremely challenging time. My office has been in regular contact with our provincial counterparts. I spoke with Minister John Lohr of the provincial government this morning to ensure that they will have the support they need. Our shared priority is the safety of all Nova Scotians. We will be there to help all of those impacted as they recover from this tragic event.
Carbon Pricing
Mr. Speaker, while Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, pay their mortgages and put gas in their cars, the Liberals are doubling down on their disastrous carbon tax, a tax that will increase the cost of a litre of gas by 41¢ and increase the price of everything.
Now, the Liberals' second carbon tax would add 17¢. Including GST, that is 61¢. Just how high does the Prime Minister want prices to go?
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives do not seem to realize that there is a cost to climate change.
There was a $9-billion impact to the Canadian economy, in B.C. in particular, from the fires, drought and floods. Six hundred people died under the heat dome, and there was a $4-billion impact from hurricane Fiona. Fires are raging in Nova Scotia and northern Alberta.
What is it going to take for the Conservatives to stop the denial and take climate change seriously?
Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister does not care about monetary policy, Canadians pay the price.
These combined carbon taxes would cost Saskatchewan families $2,840. That means fewer available dollars for groceries, gas and mortgage payments. The Liberal financial crisis has already forced 1.5 million Canadians to use food banks in a single month.
With gas prices already at $1.60 a litre, just how high does the government want prices to go?
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, we are barely at the start of the hot summer season and fires and forest fires are burning in several places in Canada, which will entail extraordinary costs for families, municipalities, the provinces and the federal government. It is totally irresponsible of the Conservatives to want to not only get rid of the price on pollution, but also vote against the budget that proposes meaningful measures to help families while inflation is high. It is irresponsible.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, carbon tax 1 and 2 would hammer Atlantic Canadians, with it ranging from $2,081 in P.E.I. to $2,166 in my home province.
Atlantic premiers, including the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, begged the Prime Minister to not put carbon tax on home heating fuel. Their request fell on deaf ears.
Now these premiers, including Premier Furey, ask the environment minister to not implement carbon tax 2. Will the Liberal government stop trampling over the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and axe this useless carbon tax?
Mr. Speaker, we have heard from our colleagues on both sides of the House about the devastating fires in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. I would like to remind my colleagues about the devastation of hurricane Fiona. All that comes with a price. It is sad that the others do not have a plan to address all this because there is more coming. I hope and pray that no one is hurt in this because there are more disasters coming. We have a plan to address this climate change. I wish the people across the aisle did.
Mr. Speaker, there they go again with that stupid guilt trip. Fishermen like the Jacobs brothers—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
I am sorry. I know it is an emotional word, but I do not think it is a parliamentary word. I am going to let the hon. member start over and use proper language, please.
Mr. Speaker, there they go again with that unbelievable guilt trip. The Jacobs brothers from Fogo Island and fishermen like them who take to the ocean in Canada's most dangerous profession are going to be hammered when a carbon tax is placed on the very fuel that they need to feed their families. Will the current government that knows its carbon tax is a failure axe this useless carbon tax and stop trampling on the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?
Mr. Speaker, I think that we can all agree that affordability is very important. That is why we have put into place programs like the heat pump program, which will directly benefit Atlantic Canadians disproportionately across the country.
However, it is also important that we actually have a plan to fight climate change, which is an existential threat to the future of the human race. It is appalling that the party opposite has no plan to fight climate change. It has no plan for the economy of the future in terms of building an economy that can thrive in a low-carbon future. Later this week, I will be in Newfoundland to make a major announcement that is the direct result of having an appropriate, thoughtful plan to fight climate change.
[Translation]
Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, according to rapporteur David Johnston, Chinese interference is everyone's fault. Yes, it is the fault of the media, CSIS and officials. In short, it is everyone's fault except that of China and, above all, that of the government.
Seriously, the government wants an inquiry into Chinese interference that does not talk about China's interference or about the Liberals, who were the targets. No one will accept such a charade.
When will there be an independent public commission of inquiry?
Mr. Speaker, as the government, we took action from the start to create authorities to review our measures to counter foreign interference in our democratic institutions.
A committee of parliamentarians representing all parties and having access to the most sensitive information will evaluate all measures that are in place and make recommendations to the government on how we can further strengthen the measures we implemented.
That is precisely the work we look forward to doing with all parliamentarians.
Mr. Speaker, it is incredible what the government would have us swallow if we were to accept Mr. Johnston's findings.
The investigation into Chinese interference would not be about interference, simply about the bureaucratic process. David Johnston, the man chosen by the Prime Minister, would be at the helm to the very end. Furthermore, his findings would only be disclosed behind closed doors to people who would then be sworn to secrecy for the rest of their lives.
That is ridiculous. If that is not an attempt to obfuscate, what is it?
Mr. Speaker, all of Canada's national security allies are taking appropriate action to protect Canada's most secret national security information. I know the Bloc Québécois does not like that, but that is exactly how a responsible government works.
However, we have accepted the special rapporteur's recommendations on the difficulties in order to share information with political leaders within the government. The good news is that my colleague from Public Safety and the Prime Minister have addressed these deficiencies.
[English]
Carbon Pricing
Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister is dropping the hammer on Canadian families who are already struggling to put food on the table. He is crushing Canadians with yet another carbon tax on July 1.
Here is what is going to happen: Canadian farmers are already facing $150,000 a year in carbon taxes on carbon tax 1. Carbon tax 2 will make farming financially impossible. It will also increase diesel prices 25¢ a litre, further driving up the cost of food. Eight million Canadians are already using a food bank every single month. The Liberals should be embarrassed. Why does this Prime Minister not realize that when the government increases taxes, farmers go bankrupt and Canadians go hungry?
Mr. Speaker, what I find very disturbing is that we have not heard a single word about the wildfires from the Conservative Party of Canada that are raging across the country right now. Instead of talking about the impacts—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Order. I just want to remind people that shouting someone down can be considered a form of bullying, and nobody wants to be accused of being a bully.
The hon. minister from the top, please.
Mr. Speaker, I guess I hit a nerve with the Conservatives, because they are quite agitated about the fact that I pointed out—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan has a very strong voice and tends to drown everyone out. I just want to remind him to keep it down.
The hon. minister from the top again, please.
Mr. Speaker, I guess I hit a nerve with the Conservatives, because they are recognizing that they have not spoken about wildfires and the thousands of their own constituents who have been driven from their homes.
Instead of talking about the real impact and cost of climate change, they choose to talk about the fact that we have a plan and are actually fighting it because we care about Canadians, we care about their future, and there is no future for Canadians if we are not protecting their livelihoods, and their lives quite frankly, and making sure that we are fighting climate change while protecting them.
Mr. Speaker, I do not hear the Liberals talk about agriculture.
Carbon tax 1 is already driving up the cost of food production. Now carbon tax 2 will increase the cost of diesel, pricing our farmers out of the market.
Inflating the price of groceries makes it more expensive for families to put food on the table. Rising input costs put our Canadian farmers at a competitive disadvantage to the point where we are going to be bringing in food from South America cheaper than we can grow it in our own backyard here at home.
Why is the Prime Minister set on crushing Canadian farmers with taxes and starving Canadian families?
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, farmers are the first to be affected by climate change and extreme weather events. Encouraging the biofuels industry means encouraging canola farmers, so I am rather shocked that our Conservative colleagues do not see how this is a good thing for canola farmers.
Mr. Speaker, the government is not doing anything to make food more affordable. With its plan for a second carbon tax, farmers will be even more overburdened and the price of food will continue to rise. A record number of people are visiting food banks, like Moisson Beauce in my riding, which does not have enough resources to keep the shelves stocked.
We need policies that reduce the price of food and inputs for farmers. When will the Prime Minister make feeding Canadians a priority?
Mr. Speaker, this gives me an opportunity to remind my colleague of some of the measures that we put in place to help those who need it most, including the Canada child benefit and the various benefits for low-income workers and caregivers.
I also want to take this opportunity to remind the House that the local food infrastructure fund is now open. Money from this fund can be used to pay for equipment for food banks, community gardens and many other organizations in our community.
[English]
Foreign Affairs
Mr. Speaker, as the first Filipina member of this House, I join my colleagues in working to strengthen ties between Canada and the Philippines.
Canada is home to nearly one million people of Filipino origin, and that number is growing every single day. As we conclude Asian Heritage Month, and on the eve of Filipino Heritage Month, can the Minister of Foreign Affairs outline the vital role that this relationship plays as part of our government's ambitious, new Indo-Pacific strategy?
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and friend from Mississauga—Streetsville for her important advocacy and her fantastic work.
It was my first trip to the Philippines, and we know the country is extremely important in the context of our Indo-Pacific strategy. I had the chance to meet with government members, as well as civil society and business leaders.
Of course, as we head into Filipino Heritage Month, I look forward to engaging even more with the Filipino community. I was in Winnipeg just last week doing that, and I look forward to working with my colleague from Mississauga—Streetsville on this very issue.
Public Safety
Mr. Speaker, $300,000: that is how much the Liberal government has gifted to charities identified as hosting Beijing's illegal police stations in Canada. The government famously disqualified faith-based charities from the same student summer jobs funding for not agreeing to Liberal ideology.
Apparently, though, charities identified as hosting Beijing's illegal police stations do qualify as matching the Liberals' values attestation.
Why is the government funding Beijing's illegal police stations instead of shutting them down?
Mr. Speaker, every single one of us in this chamber has a responsibility to take the issue of foreign interference seriously. What we have seen from the Conservatives is the exact opposite.
They have voted against legislation to give our national security establishment more powers to fight this scourge.
We heard their own national campaign director in the last election say that members of their caucus did not take this issue seriously and now we have the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada who refuses to take the briefing. To him, I say, “Take the briefing and take this issue seriously, so that we can fight foreign interference together.”
Justice
Mr. Speaker, I spent most of my adult life working in the criminal justice system and I can say, unequivocally, that I have never seen bail in such a precarious state. After eight years of the Liberal government, violent crime is up 32%.
The wheels really started to fall off with the passing of Bill C-75 and now the Liberals have tabled amendments to bail that, in my reading, would not have applied to Constable Pierzchala's alleged killer.
When will the Liberal government undo the harmful effects of Bill C-75, to end catch-and-release and keep Canadians safe?
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-75 codified a number of Supreme Court of Canada decisions and did not fundamentally change the law of bail in Canada.
However, listening to provincial premiers, provincial ministers of justice and public safety, and police officers, we have proposed amendments to the bail regime to answer their concerns.
Here is the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police: “We commend the government for acting on the urgency for legislative change and for recognizing that our...amendments were not calling for a complete overhaul of Canada's bail system”.
We are listening and we are getting results.
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of these Liberals, violent crime is up 32%. Recently, in Toronto, a 75-year-old woman was approached from behind and stabbed in the neck.
This Liberal bail legislation fails on bail reform. Under the proposed bill, the accused killer of OPP Constable Greg Pierzchala and countless other repeat violent offenders would still have been released on bail.
Will the government stop the catch-and-release agenda, stop making our streets more dangerous and undo its irresponsible changes in Bill C-75?
Mr. Speaker, again, from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police: “We are convinced that the legislative changes put forth in Bill C-48 will go a long way to help eliminate the preventable harm and senseless tragedies attributable to violent and repeat offenders across Canada.”
We heard from provincial justice ministers and public safety ministers that we needed to attack repeat violent offenders with weapons. That is precisely what we are doing. We have done it in consultation with stakeholders. We have worked and listened to police associations across Canada and we have a bill that will strengthen our legislative framework.
Canadian Coast Guard
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Coast Guard protects our coasts and oceans from the Pacific all the way to the Atlantic and everything in between. Its work keeps Canadians safe on the water and creates the conditions for a thriving blue economy.
Can the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard please inform the House how we are making sure that the Coast Guard has the ships it needs to serve Canadians?
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country for his great work on coastal matters.
The Canadian Coast Guard does provide critical services in our waters, everything from aiding navigation to spill cleanup and saving lives, which is why I was so pleased to announce $2.5 billion in federal investment to build up to 61 new vessels for the Coast Guard. That will give it the modern capabilities that it needs while creating good-paying jobs right across Canada.
Fisheries and Oceans
Mr. Speaker, the development of a co-managed marine safety centre with the Pacheedaht First Nation in my riding seems to have been abandoned by the government. This project is supposed to be a meaningful effort for reconciliation and protecting our oceans.
When I previously raised this issue with the minister of fisheries and oceans, she did not answer my question. Moreover, there was no mention of the agreement with the Pacheedaht, who have now been waiting for over three years.
Therefore, I will ask this again: Why does it appear that the government is ignoring the Pacheedaht First Nation and stalling the development of this important project? When will we see the commitment?
Mr. Speaker, our and my commitment to indigenous reconciliation is absolute. It is a really strong focus of our government, including our funding. It is a very strong focus of the fisheries ministry, the department and me personally. I will investigate the situation that the member has just raised. I commit to our government doing everything it can to ensure that any commitments are met. Reconciliation is one of our government's very top priorities.
Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, on June 19, 2019, as some members of this place will recall, we voted that we were in a climate emergency. The next day, we bought a pipeline. Now, Canada is hotter and drier; we are experiencing wildfires across this country. We have to thank our firefighters and be so grateful to them.
I know the hon. Minister of Emergency Preparedness is working very hard. Could he tell us how many provinces have wildfires right now? How much earlier in the season are we experiencing that Canada is in flames?
Mr. Speaker, there are currently 179 wildfires burning in Canada, 68 of which are out of control. Those fires are in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Over 20,000 people have been evacuated from their communities, and nearly a million hectares of forest have been lost to these fires. Frankly, this season has begun weeks ahead of what we would normally anticipate. These fires are occurring at unprecedented levels.
[Translation]
Michel Côté
[English]
Points of Order
[Points of Order]
Mr. Speaker, during question period, the MP for Burlington did something indirectly that she is not allowed to do directly, which is to imply that two of the members of this House were not here.
Both myself and the MP for South Shore—St. Margarets raised the fires that are burning out of control in our provinces. It is disgraceful that the member said otherwise. She also misled the House.
I think she should reconsider her words and apologize. We raised this issue. We are here, and we are doing our jobs.
Government Orders
[Business of Supply]
[English]
Business of Supply
Opposition Motion—Opioid Crisis
The House resumed from May 18 consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.
It being 3:19 p.m., pursuant to order made Thursday, June 23, 2022, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion of the member for Carleton relating to the business of supply.
Call in the members.
And the bells having rung:
[Translation]
(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)
(Division No. 334)
YEAS
Members
AboultaifAitchison
Albas
Allison
Arnold
Baldinelli
Barlow
Barrett
Berthold
Bezan
Block
Bragdon
Brassard
Brock
Calkins
Caputo
Carrie
Chambers
Chong
Cooper
Dalton
Dancho
Davidson
Deltell
d'Entremont
Doherty
Dowdall
Dreeshen
Duncan (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Ellis
Epp
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Fast
Ferreri
Findlay
Gallant
Généreux
Genuis
Gladu
Godin
Goodridge
Gourde
Gray
Hallan
Hoback
Jeneroux
Kelly
Kmiec
Kram
Kramp-Neuman
Kurek
Kusie
Lake
Lantsman
Lawrence
Lehoux
Lewis (Essex)
Lewis (Haldimand—Norfolk)
Liepert
Lloyd
Lobb
Maguire
Martel
Mazier
McCauley (Edmonton West)
McLean
Melillo
Moore
Morantz
Morrison
Motz
Muys
Nater
O'Toole
Patzer
Paul-Hus
Poilievre
Rayes
Redekopp
Reid
Richards
Roberts
Rood
Ruff
Scheer
Schmale
Seeback
Shields
Shipley
Small
Soroka
Steinley
Stewart
Strahl
Stubbs
Thomas
Tochor
Tolmie
Uppal
Van Popta
Vecchio
Vidal
Vien
Viersen
Vis
Vuong
Wagantall
Warkentin
Waugh
Webber
Williams
Williamson
Zimmer
Total: -- 114
NAYS
Members
AldagAlghabra
Ali
Anand
Anandasangaree
Angus
Arseneault
Arya
Atwin
Bachrach
Badawey
Bains
Baker
Barron
Barsalou-Duval
Battiste
Beaulieu
Beech
Bendayan
Bennett
Bergeron
Bérubé
Bibeau
Bittle
Blaikie
Blair
Blanchet
Blanchette-Joncas
Blaney
Blois
Boissonnault
Boulerice
Bradford
Brière
Brunelle-Duceppe
Cannings
Casey
Chabot
Chagger
Chahal
Champagne
Champoux
Chatel
Chen
Chiang
Collins (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek)
Collins (Victoria)
Cormier
Coteau
Dabrusin
Damoff
DeBellefeuille
Desbiens
Desilets
Desjarlais
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Diab
Dong
Drouin
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Dzerowicz
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Fillmore
Fisher
Fonseca
Fortier
Fortin
Fragiskatos
Fraser
Freeland
Fry
Gaheer
Garon
Garrison
Gaudreau
Gazan
Gerretsen
Gill
Gould
Green
Guilbeault
Hajdu
Hanley
Hardie
Hepfner
Holland
Housefather
Hughes
Hutchings
Iacono
Idlout
Ien
Jaczek
Johns
Joly
Jowhari
Julian
Kayabaga
Kelloway
Khalid
Khera
Koutrakis
Kusmierczyk
Kwan
Lalonde
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Larouche
Lattanzio
Lauzon
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lemire
Lightbound
Long
Longfield
Louis (Kitchener—Conestoga)
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacDonald (Malpeque)
MacGregor
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Maloney
Martinez Ferrada
Masse
Mathyssen
May (Cambridge)
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
McDonald (Avalon)
McGuinty
McKay
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod
McPherson
Mendès
Mendicino
Miao
Michaud
Miller
Morrice
Morrissey
Murray
Naqvi
Ng
Noormohamed
Normandin
O'Connell
Oliphant
O'Regan
Pauzé
Perron
Petitpas Taylor
Plamondon
Powlowski
Qualtrough
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Sahota
Sajjan
Saks
Samson
Sarai
Savard-Tremblay
Scarpaleggia
Schiefke
Serré
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Sidhu (Brampton East)
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Simard
Sinclair-Desgagné
Singh
Sorbara
Sousa
Ste-Marie
St-Onge
Sudds
Tassi
Taylor Roy
Thériault
Therrien
Thompson
Trudeau
Trudel
Turnbull
Valdez
Van Bynen
van Koeverden
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vignola
Villemure
Virani
Weiler
Wilkinson
Yip
Zahid
Zarrillo
Zuberi
Total: -- 208
PAIRED
Nil[Translation]
The next question is on the main motion.
[English]
Shall I dispense?
Some hon. members: No.
[Chair read text of motion to House]
The Deputy Speaker: If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)
(Division No. 335)
YEAS
Members
AboultaifAitchison
Albas
Allison
Arnold
Baldinelli
Barlow
Barrett
Berthold
Bezan
Block
Bragdon
Brassard
Brock
Calkins
Caputo
Carrie
Chambers
Chong
Cooper
Dalton
Dancho
Davidson
Deltell
Doherty
Dowdall
Dreeshen
Duncan (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Ellis
Epp
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Fast
Ferreri
Findlay
Gallant
Généreux
Genuis
Gladu
Godin
Goodridge
Gourde
Gray
Hallan
Hoback
Jeneroux
Kelly
Kmiec
Kram
Kramp-Neuman
Kurek
Kusie
Lake
Lantsman
Lawrence
Lehoux
Lewis (Essex)
Lewis (Haldimand—Norfolk)
Liepert
Lloyd
Lobb
Maguire
Martel
Mazier
McCauley (Edmonton West)
McLean
Melillo
Moore
Morantz
Morrison
Motz
Muys
Nater
O'Toole
Patzer
Paul-Hus
Poilievre
Rayes
Redekopp
Reid
Richards
Roberts
Rood
Ruff
Scheer
Schmale
Seeback
Shields
Shipley
Small
Soroka
Steinley
Stewart
Strahl
Stubbs
Thomas
Tochor
Tolmie
Uppal
Van Popta
Vecchio
Vidal
Vien
Viersen
Vis
Vuong
Wagantall
Warkentin
Waugh
Webber
Williams
Williamson
Zimmer
Total: -- 113
NAYS
Members
AldagAlghabra
Ali
Anand
Anandasangaree
Angus
Arseneault
Arya
Atwin
Bachrach
Badawey
Bains
Baker
Barron
Barsalou-Duval
Battiste
Beaulieu
Beech
Bendayan
Bennett
Bergeron
Bérubé
Bibeau
Bittle
Blaikie
Blair
Blanchet
Blanchette-Joncas
Blaney
Blois
Boissonnault
Boulerice
Bradford
Brière
Brunelle-Duceppe
Cannings
Casey
Chabot
Chagger
Chahal
Champagne
Champoux
Chatel
Chen
Chiang
Collins (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek)
Collins (Victoria)
Cormier
Coteau
Dabrusin
Damoff
DeBellefeuille
Desbiens
Desilets
Desjarlais
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Diab
Dong
Drouin
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Dzerowicz
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Fergus
Fillmore
Fisher
Fonseca
Fortier
Fortin
Fragiskatos
Fraser
Freeland
Fry
Gaheer
Garon
Garrison
Gaudreau
Gazan
Gerretsen
Gill
Gould
Green
Guilbeault
Hajdu
Hanley
Hardie
Hepfner
Holland
Housefather
Hughes
Hutchings
Iacono
Idlout
Ien
Jaczek
Johns
Joly
Jowhari
Julian
Kayabaga
Kelloway
Khalid
Khera
Koutrakis
Kusmierczyk
Kwan
Lalonde
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Larouche
Lattanzio
Lauzon
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lemire
Lightbound
Long
Longfield
Louis (Kitchener—Conestoga)
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacDonald (Malpeque)
MacGregor
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Maloney
Martinez Ferrada
Masse
Mathyssen
May (Cambridge)
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
McDonald (Avalon)
McGuinty
McKay
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod
McPherson
Mendès
Mendicino
Miao
Michaud
Miller
Morrice
Morrissey
Murray
Naqvi
Ng
Noormohamed
Normandin
O'Connell
Oliphant
O'Regan
Pauzé
Perron
Petitpas Taylor
Plamondon
Powlowski
Qualtrough
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Sahota
Sajjan
Saks
Samson
Sarai
Savard-Tremblay
Scarpaleggia
Schiefke
Serré
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Sidhu (Brampton East)
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Simard
Sinclair-Desgagné
Singh
Sorbara
Sousa
Ste-Marie
St-Onge
Sudds
Tassi
Taylor Roy
Thériault
Therrien
Thompson
Trudeau
Trudel
Turnbull
Valdez
Van Bynen
van Koeverden
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vignola
Villemure
Virani
Weiler
Wilkinson
Yip
Zahid
Zarrillo
Zuberi
Total: -- 209
PAIRED
Nil
I declare the motion defeated.
We have a point of order from the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.
Mr. Speaker, if possible, I would appreciate it if my vote in the first vote could be recorded as nay as opposed to yes.
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
[Routine Proceedings]
[Translation]
Supplementary Estimates (A), 2023-24
A message from Her Excellency the Governor General transmitting supplementary estimates (A) for the financial year ending March 31, 2024, was presented by the President of the Treasury Board and read by the Speaker to the House.
[English]
Petitions
Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition of deep concern to the residents of Saanich—Gulf Islands. I mention in particular Leslie Mcbain, a resident of Pender Island, one of the founders of Moms Stop the Harm. She lost her son tragically in the opioid crisis. So many moms have lost their kids. The efforts of this one group have definitely influenced policy across Canada, and at this point, the Canadian Public Health Association, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, the World Health Organization and the United Nations all recommend drug decriminalization.
We are not so much in an overdose crisis, as the petitioners point out. We are in a poisoning crisis and a public health crisis. We must listen to the recommendations of social workers, frontline workers, nurses, doctors, drug users and individuals directly involved in the drug-using community and decriminalize drugs in Canada. The only way to save lives is to ensure that there is a safe supply and that there are adequate mental health supports to stop the slaughter of people across this country from fentanyl poisoning and opioids.
Mr. Speaker, I rise once again on behalf of the people of Swan River, Manitoba, to present a petition on the rising rate of crime.
The common people of Swan River are demanding a common-sense solution to repeal the Liberal government's soft-on-crime policies, which have fuelled a surge in crime throughout their community. A surge in robberies by repeat offenders has forced nearly every business to install bars on their windows and buzzers on their doors, and now many local businesses are considering closing their doors for good. To say that crime has significantly impacted the local economy is an understatement.
The people of Swan River demand that the Liberal government repeal its soft-on-crime policies, as they directly threaten their livelihoods and their communities. I support the good people of Swan River.
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know and I am sure the member knows, we are not supposed to give our own editorial comments on a petition. At the end of presenting his petition, even though the member said he supports the people, he was indirectly doing what he cannot do directly. He was basically saying that he supports the petition.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise this afternoon to present a petition signed by over 160,000 Canadians across the country and initiated by Caitlin Glasson, a strong trans activist in my community.
The petition recognizes that the world is becoming increasingly hostile to transgender and non-binary folks. It also recognizes that transgender and non-binary people's right to live as themselves is being restricted and removed in many places, including places that have historically been presumed safe. This includes, they point out, more than a dozen U.S. states that have enacted or are considering legislation to eliminate or criminalize gender-affirming care. They also point out that Canada has prided itself on being an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming society for everyone, regardless of gender identity or gender expression.
The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to extend to transgender and non-binary people the right to successfully claim asylum in Canada, regardless of where they may be applying from.
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a number of petitions today. The first one comes from Canadians across the country to draw the attention of the House to the report calling for the clergy of religious affiliation to be removed from the Department of National Defence.
The petitioners are concerned about this. They say that this report slanders mainstream Canadian religions. They are concerned that the Canadian Armed Forces might remove chaplains. The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada and the House of Commons to reject the recommendations of this report. They are also calling for the Government of Canada to affirm the rights of all Canadians, including Canadian Armed Forces chaplains, to religious freedom.
Mr. Speaker, the second petition I am presenting today comes from Canadians across the country who are concerned about the risk of violence increasing to women while they are pregnant.
The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to quickly pass a bill, which is in front of the House right now. They are calling on the House of Commons to recognize the abuse of pregnant women and the infliction of harm on these women as an aggravating circumstance for sentencing in the Criminal Code.
Mr. Speaker, the next petition is from Canadians across the country who are concerned about a Liberal Party platform of 2021 to deny charitable status to organizations with convictions about abortion that differ from those of the Liberal Party.
This would jeopardize the charitable status of hospitals, houses of worship, schools, homeless shelters, food banks and other charitable organizations that do not necessarily agree with the Liberal Party of Canada on this matter of conscience. Many Canadians depend on the benefits of these charitable organizations, and the government has previously issued a values test that discriminated against worthy applicants of the Canada summer jobs program, denying funding for any organization that was not willing to check a box endorsing the political positions of the governing party.
Charities and other non-profit organizations should not be discriminated against because of their political views or religious values, and they should not be subject to politicization or a values test. All Canadians have the right, through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to the freedom of expression without discrimination.
The petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to protect and preserve the application of charitable status on a politically and ideologically neutral basis, without discriminating on the basis of political or religious values or imposing another values test, and to affirm the right of Canadians to freedom of expression.
Mr. Speaker, the final petition I have today is from Canadians from across the country who are outraged and concerned with the comments of Louis Roy of the Quebec college of physicians. He recommended expanding euthanasia to babies, from birth to one year old, who have come into the world with serious health challenges.
This proposed legalized killing of infants is deeply disturbing to these Canadians, and they want to state emphatically that infanticide is always wrong. The petitioners are urging the Government of Canada and the House to block any attempts to allow for euthanising children.
Questions on the Order Paper
Government Orders
[Government Orders]
[English]
Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-5, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to continue speaking to Bill S-5, which we began debating again a few hours ago. When I started my comments, I made reference to the fact that I think there is a great deal of disappointment from many stakeholders due to the Conservative Party's change of heart. If we were to check Hansard from a couple of weeks back when we were talking about Bill S-5, I suspect one would see that I even implied that the Conservative Party was in favour of Bill S-5.
Something has happened in the last little while that has convinced the Conservative Party to vote against Bill S-5. I do believe that it is a bad decision by the Conservatives. They still have a little bit of time to think about what they are doing with Bill S-5. I hope they will considerate it once again and adopt their original position of voting in favour of Bill S-5 because it does a wide variety of things, all of which, I believe, support the wishes and desires of many Canadians, the constituents we represent.
It is interesting to look at the legislation. It covers a number of areas that I know Canadians are very concerned about. I wanted to highlight a few of those spots and then maybe go into depth on the issue of our environment and how important it is that, as parliamentarians, we do what we can to support legislation of this nature and broaden that support so it goes beyond just legislation. There are many budgetary measures.
Canadians are watching. They are very much concerned about how politicians are voting on important issues of the day, the environment being one of them. It has been really interesting to listen to the debates, not only now but also during second reading. I had the opportunity to not only address the issue in part but also to listen to a good number of people. Whether it was in the House of Commons, the Senate of Canada, or the standing committees of Parliament, we have had a great deal of debate on this issue.
The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, a substantial piece of legislation that provides a great deal of comfort to Canadians, is being enhanced and given strength after a couple of decades. There are some areas that I know people would be very, very pleased with. There are areas of concern, such as animal testing, for example. We are seeing non-animal testing methods being incorporated to a degree that it is going to be encouraged. I see that as a very strong positive. It is something that should be mentioned during the debate.
It deals with the issue of reconciliation. Thinking about the environment and the stewardship of our environment, how can one not factor in our first nations that have taken such good, quality care of our environment? If we get into the beliefs, heritage and culture of indigenous peoples, we get a very encouraging reflection on our environment and how important it is that we are there for mother earth. We can think of UNDRIP and the recommendations through reconciliation. As a government, we made the commitment to respect UNDRIP and its ruling. We will continue to support that. That is also incorporated into the legislation.
There are ideas about the toxic substances out there and how those substances could be labelled. It is important that the minister has the ability to ensure there is more transparency and accountability on this issue. Again, this is within the legislation. The expectation from the public as a whole is that information is knowledge. Finding out the content of many of these substances through labelling so the government can ensure there is higher transparency is a very strong positive. Those are three of the things I want to provide a brief comment on, as well as emphasize a couple of other points that are really quite encouraging.
I talked about the idea of a right to a healthy environment. This morning there were a number of members who made reference to that aspect of the legislation. It is encouraging to hear members, whether from the Bloc or the NDP in particular, supporting that right in a very tangible way. It was interesting when one member of the Bloc suggested it should be incorporated into Canada's Constitution. Even the principles of protecting the environment and what could be incorporated into the Constitution interest me, but I do not think Canadians as a whole want to see that debate on the Constitution opened up, not at this time, and I suspect, not for quite a while.
However, it emphasizes the point, which is the reason I make reference to it, that people are very much concerned about environmental rights. This bill not only talks about the importance of a right to a healthy environment, but also, for the first time, incorporates it into legislation. I see that as a very strong positive. We will get more details as time goes on as to how that is going to be assured, as well as the protocols and procedures that will be established to ensure Canadians feel comfortable knowing not only that they have that right to a healthy environment, but also that it is incorporated into the legislation for the very first time.
I know the Green Party has some concerns with the legislation. It is with some admiration that I look to the leader of the Green Party and her history on this particular file. She had pointed back, I believe, to 1988. That was the year I was first elected, and I can say that, back in 1988, there was not much debate inside the Manitoba legislature about the environment. There is no doubt that over the last three decades we have seen a substantial growth of public debate and discussion on the issue of the environment. I would acknowledge that she is one Canadian who has been at the forefront of some of these environmental pushes.
Where we disagree would be when I talk, for example, about the right to a healthy environment, I believe it is substantive, but I know members of the Green Party would have liked to have seen more to it than just the statements being referenced in the legislation. The idea of providing strength to the regulations regarding toxic chemicals, and the way in which government needs to play a very strong role, is absolutely critical, and this legislation deals with that.
When I posed questions earlier to, and listened to comments from, in particular the Conservative Party, it was a Conservative member who seemed to be upset with the fact that there are too many regulations and too much paperwork involved with environmental policy. That is what he was making reference to. I would suggest that these regulations are really important.
When we talk about toxic chemicals, legislation does not deal with every aspect of it. Rather, it establishes the framework. We rely on our civil servants to be able to provide the details, through regulations and other forums, so we know we are in fact doing what the principles of the legislation set forward in good part. Therefore, unlike what the Conservative member earlier today was trying to imply, I would suggest to members that good, solid environmental regulations are absolutely critical to supporting the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
The member should not be shy in terms of recognizing that, but that was the only member who actually made reference to that. When the critic brought up the issue, I had posed the question in regard to why the Conservative Party had changed its positioning on this legislation, because the only thing we had really heard, officially, coming from the Conservative Party was in regard to the tailings ponds. If the Conservatives were to look at the tailings ponds issue, they would find that there is no substantive difference in terms of what came into the House of Commons during second reading, went into committee and then came back. I would challenge the Conservatives to explain that difference in terms of the degree to which it has caused the Conservative Party to reverse its policy position on the legislation.
The bottom line is that, in regard to the issue of the environment, there is an obligation for legislative measures and budgetary measures. I asked the question in terms of how we mix those things in together, and I want to provide what is a fairly extensive listing of the types of things that we do to complement the legislation. Let us think of it in this way. This is what the Government of Canada is doing today: clean electricity investment tax credit; clean technology manufacturing investment tax credit; clean hydrogen investment tax credit; enhancing the carbon capture, utilization and storage investment tax credit; expanding the eligibility for clean technology investment tax credit; a clean electricity focus for the Canada Infrastructure Bank; supporting clean electricity projects such as the Atlantic Loop; securing major battery manufacturing here in Canada; delivering the Canada growth fund; enhancing the reduced tax rate for zero-emissions technology manufacturers; and supporting clean technology projects.
There are so many things that one could actually make reference to with respect to the environment, including banning harmful single-use plastics and making zero-emissions vehicles that much more affordable. I have already commented extensively in the past about the price on pollution. These are all things, both budgetary measures and legislative measures, which the Government of Canada over the last number of years has put into place as a direct response to listening to what Canadians' expectation of the government is. We are bringing that to Ottawa, listening to what our constituents are saying and developing legislative and budgetary measures that support the desires of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and for good reason.
All one needs to do is take a look at what is happening in our environment today and listen to what is happening around the world. Canada does have a leadership role to play, and this is a government that is living up to that leadership. We see every day, through the minister, with respect to the car he drives, the policies he announces and the budgets he presents to the House of Commons through the Minister of Finance, that this is a government that is committed to protecting our environment.
Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting. It is almost as if my colleague from the Liberal Party has not actually paid that close attention to the developments that have taken place regarding Bill S-5. When this bill came from the Senate, there were some concerns. In fact, his party shared some of the concerns that the Conservative Party shares. At the environment committee, which I am pleased to be a part of, we were able to address some of those concerns and not play politics. We worked very diligently to try to find the appropriate balance that we thought would be acceptable to industry, to environmental advocacy groups and to those involved across the board. Not everybody was happy with the way Bill S-5 came out of committee, but certainly the result at that point in time was something that could be supported fairly broadly.
What is interesting is that NDP members moved this amendment at committee, and the Liberals voted against it. Instead of working together, and instead of putting politics aside for the best interests of industry and environmental groups, the Liberals decided to kowtow to their coalition partners and to throw out the jurisdictional issues surrounding provinces and surrounding some of the very sensitive concerns with tailings ponds. Can this member say why, instead of working together, they decided to play politics with an issue that is so important to so many across this country?
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting in terms of everything this legislation has actually gone through, whether in the Senate committee meetings or the House of Commons committee meetings. I was not present during those House of Commons standing committee meetings, but I can tell members, from everything I have heard, that the Conservative Party's decision to not support Bill S-5 was because of an amendment that was brought forward by the NDP and then supported. It is an amendment that raises an issue in a public fashion. In terms of substantive action, though, I am not too sure.
Can the member, who will likely get another question, tell us specifically what it is with that particular amendment that would have an outcome such that the Conservative Party has made the decision to ultimately change and flip-flop its position on Bill S-5, given the importance of this legislation? I would suggest that the member cannot clearly demonstrate that.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I will start with a little aside to congratulate my colleague from Repentigny for her exceptional work in committee.
In his speech, my colleague spoke about the issue of labelling. The Senate proposed all sorts of amendments concerning labelling, toxic substances and even GMOs.
Why did the Liberals vote against these amendments? Will the Liberals promise to make labelling a focus of the next study to be undertaken soon?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, we do know that there would be an ongoing review, because it is mandated from within, with regard to labelling. As I indicated to the member who just provided another question, I was not actually at the committee. What I do know is that there were committee amendments brought forward from different political entities, and I thought there was a high sense of political co-operation. We saw government amendments and also opposition amendments pass, and I suspect there would have been a more detailed answer to the specifics at the committee stage.
Mr. Speaker, air pollution has very well documented human health risks, and we now know much more about the human health impacts of air pollution, especially particulate in the sub-2.5-micron range, such as from wood smoke. I am wondering why the bill would not address anything, in terms of binding and enforceable standards for air quality. It seems like a considerable omission.
Mr. Speaker, I am a former health critic for the Province of Manitoba. The quality of air, whether from stubble burning or forest fires, is an issue that came up periodically when I was acting in that capacity. There is no doubt that emergency facilities, doctors and so forth, fill up. Air pollution is very real. It is tangible. I was not part of every aspect of the legislation. I do not necessarily know exactly what the legislation would do with regard to air quality, but I would concur that it is an issue we should all be concerned about, and I suspect that, at some point in the future, we will even be dealing with it in a more detailed way.
Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary was speaking before question period about this, and I know he spoke at length about the Conservative Party's flip-flops when it comes to the environment, in particular on the fact that all 338 candidates for the Conservative Party of Canada in the last election ran on a platform that priced pollution. Now, suddenly they do not, and I have heard only one member in the House actually say she regrets having run on that, and I applaud that member for that. I will not call her out by name, but she did such a great job in doing that.
I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary would agree with me that more Conservatives should heed her leadership and stand up to say they regret having run on that commitment, considering they do not believe in it now.
Mr. Speaker, who am I to defend the Conservatives? I can say that it would be awfully awkward when they take a look at their own party platform. We know that, as candidates, when we go knocking on doors, we are there supporting the party platform. All 338 Conservative candidates made it very clear in the last election that they do support a price on pollution.
Some members have heckled that they take it back, but hindsight is 20/20. The bottom line is that they did do a flip-flop on that. The relevance to that issue, to what we are debating today, is that, once again, we see the Conservative Party taking a flip-flop on an important piece of environmental legislation. I think that Canadians would be very disappointed, given that it includes things such as the right to a healthy environment. The Conservatives are actually going to be voting against it.
Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking the member for Winnipeg North for recognizing the more than three decades of work that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has put into environmental protection, such as what is in this bill.
He spoke about working in a collaborative fashion. The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands put forward two dozen amendments, amendments that, for example, would have ensured that the so-called right to a healthy environment is not just considered. We need rights protected. That is what her amendment would have ensured. However, as with every single amendment she presented, the same thing happened. They were all voted down.
If the member for Winnipeg North believes in a collaborative approach and in the right to a healthy environment, could he speak to why the governing party did not support ensuring that the right is actually in this bill?
Mr. Speaker, coming from the province of Manitoba, where the Liberal Party is maybe not as strong as it could be, where we did not have party status, I often found it most effective, when working with the government members and ministers, to work alongside them, to provide suggestions, ideas and amendments and so forth. There are different ways in which one can try to get things passed through. I know there are challenges to not having party status. I faced those challenges for many years in the Manitoba legislature.
There is no doubt the committee could have given more attention to a number of the issues that the leader of the Green Party had brought forth.
Mr. Speaker, my question is very simple. Why did the Liberals flip-flop from how they voted at committee, in the collaborative environment that we had come to, on a bill that the Liberals were obviously happy with, opposing a similar NDP amendment at committee? Why did they flip-flop and betray the collaborative initiative of a committee that was endeavouring to find that right balance? Why are they prioritizing politics above the environment, industry and what is best for Canadians?
Mr. Speaker, he did not answer the question I actually posed to him, to tell us what within the tailings ponds the member is so offended by. Instead, he says that we are taking a flip-flop. He should look in a mirror.
The Conservatives are actually saying no to Bill S-5. They are going to vote against Bill S-5 because the leadership within the Conservative Party has given them that instruction. I think there are a number of Conservatives who are scratching their heads and asking why they are doing so. At the end of the day, there is no real rationale other than that the Conservative leader told them to.
It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, Correctional Services of Canada; the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, Rail Transportation.
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise and speak to the government's attempts to modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act with Bill S-5.
CEPA has not been significantly updated since it was passed in 1989. Through Bill S-5, the government is attempting the first major update since CEPA's inception. However, as members might be aware, Bill S-5 does several things, and some are better than others. I would like to take a minute to run through some of what this bill proposes to do.
Bill S-5 adds language to CEPA that recognizes every Canadian's right to a healthy environment and requires the Government of Canada to protect this right. Within two years, the minister is required to develop an implementation framework as to how that right to a healthy environment would be considered. Bill S-5 also puts language into CEPA that highlights the government's commitment to implement UNDRIP and recognize the importance of considering vulnerable populations when assessing the toxicity of a substance. Bill S-5 also aims to create a stronger regime for substances that are identified as toxic under CEPA and are of the highest risk by creating a schedule, schedule 1, to replace the list of toxic substances.
The industry impacted by CEPA has concerns about the list of toxic substances. While the word “toxic” is being removed, the substances to be regulated are still referred to as “toxic”. The plastics industry, for instance, would have an objection to this, in my opinion.
Bill S-5 also sets out the criteria by which the government would look to manage or regulate a substance. Essentially, the bill would create a watch-list. Bill S-5 also claims to allow for environmental risk assessments for drugs to be done solely under the food and drug regulations, and it removes the duplication of such monitoring under CEPA as well. This would be a first, I think, in the government's history, where it has actually tried to reduce red tape and the regulatory burden. Bill S-5 also allows any person to request that a minister assess whether a substance can become toxic; this is toxic in itself. It is very concerning to me, because it could open the government to thousands of requests, and frivolous requests at that.
The environment minister is a very ambitious minister. He likes to create all these plans that say a lot but do very little. He sets targets to be achieved, and he misses them time after time. The minister has a poor track record of meeting targets. Asking him to ensure that the assessment processes are correctly in place and to develop the framework for what a right to a healthy environment looks like, while trying to meet net-zero targets, is a big ask.
Bill S-5 does a lot of potentially complicated things. Moreover, the minister has difficulty drafting a substantive action plan for the environment. How are Canadians to trust that the minister will get these things right, when his track record shows us otherwise? More importantly, how can the industry trust this?
When we speak of the environment, we need to speak of some of the things that are being said. Back when I was a young lad in the early 1960s, I remember we had a civil defence system that was made up of volunteers. This had to do with the fact that we were just a few years out from the Second World War, and there was a concern about nuclear bombs. These things were scaring us at that particular point in time: the missile crisis and the nuclear bomb attacks.
In the 1960s, we were talking about global climate cooling, and we had everybody scared then as well. In the 1970s, we spoke about acid rain and concerns existing around that. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was all about global climate warming. In the year 2000, it was Y2K. Since global warming and global cooling did not seem to match what was happening in reality, we now simply talk about climate change. When we think about the environment, we think about the things that have to be done.
In the seventies, when I was going to university in Edmonton, I remember that there was this choice: One could take the electric trolley or stand out there and smell the diesel exhaust. Being a farm kid, I kind of knew what that was like, but nevertheless, it was important for us to make choices and recognize the difference. It was decided that the electric system would not work under those circumstances, so it went directly to diesel buses. Now, of course, we are going back. We are trying to take a look at electricity, providing we could get a grid that could handle it.
I mention that because it has been 60 years of catastrophic snake oil salesmen predicting different things that could happen. They have predicted how, in 10 years' time, we are going to have cities flooded, how we are going to have all these issues and how animals are going to go extinct. We hear that all the time.
Every once in a while, I go to Drumheller. I take a look at a sign above the canyon there saying that, 10,000 years ago, we were under a kilometre of ice. If one wanted to talk to the Laurentian elites, Montreal actually had two kilometres of ice over top of it at that time.
Things change; the climate changes. That is how we got our rivers. I know I deal with the effects of climate change right now when I have to go out into my field and pick rocks, because that is how they got there. These are the sorts of things we have to realize. Things do change.
I think back to Greenpeace leader, Patrick Moore, the founder, and his push was in nuclear power—
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The bill before us, Bill S-5, has no relation to climate change or any of the topics yet referenced. This is not a generalized debate on environmental policy.
This is about a specific bill that is inadequate and that proposes to regulate toxic chemicals and improve their regulation. As much as it pains me to ask, when might the hon. member speak to Bill S-5?
I will remind members to stick to the topic at hand and to make sure we stay on relevance.
The hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View.
Mr. Speaker, since it is up to a minister who has a very shaky track record, it is important that I discuss that. However, I will attempt to put all those statements in context, because, of course, we think about the minister and what he has done. It is a new generation of Greenpeace that he was part of. Patrick Moore has completely looked at that group and said the only thing green about it is the money it has brought in, and that comes because of the antics of the group. Therefore, it is important that previous Greenpeace people and previous people who were involved in the environment look and advocate for a common-sense management of our environment, where we would be 180 degrees opposite to the eco-activists who are now influencing all left-wing parties here in Canada. That is the point I had wanted to make on that particular issue.
When I was on the environment committee and, now, as a member of the natural resources committee, I have talked about the need to recognize the contribution that Canada can make to the world. Europe is begging Canada to help stabilize its energy needs. For Europe, the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia has solidified the need to have stable energy partners. Further to that, people in many countries in Europe are seeing the light, evaluating their previous policies and pivoting to return to traditional energy resources. Germany is bringing coal plants back online to meet its energy demands. The Netherlands has temporarily shut down wind farms because of their impact on migratory birds. They are doing a few other things that are hurting their farmers; this, I am sure, is something that we could speak about in another debate.
Last summer, I attended the OSCE meetings in Birmingham, England. We were there to discuss food security, energy security and security in Europe. Certainly, the energy security topic was hotly debated. The Canadian government delegation was led by ideology. I had the privilege of working with other European parliamentarians to push back on this ideological rush to unreliable energy sources at a time when our allies need to be assured that we have stable energy.
Ideology corrupts science. One does not start with an ideological position, look for markers that can be manipulated to support one's position and then proclaim that the science is settled. That is not what science is all about. However, the minister and his people seem to do that just about every time they develop a plan, regulation or new environmental bill.
Domestically, the government seems to believe that its greenhouse gas targets will be met primarily through the three items of a rapid expansion of EVs, a reduction in fertilizer use and the eventual phasing out of Canada's oil sands. These beliefs are so far out of touch. Sadly, there will be major repercussions for Canada and the world because of these short-sighted policies.
As we move forward as a nation, we should ensure that every action we take is measured. I have spoken many times about this at environment and natural resources committees. Perhaps because of my 34 years as a math and physics teacher, I believe that whatever technology we consider, we should measure the impact from the first shovel we need to dig it up to the last shovel we need to cover it up.
EVs require much more energy to produce than ICE vehicles. There are environmental impacts from rare-earth mineral excavation and chemical processing for any electrical components. Even revamped electrical grids will never be fail-safe. Windmills require hydrocarbons for both manufacturing and maintenance. Used solar panels will need to be disposed of properly. Fortunately, as Canadians, we have the know-how to meet the challenges that we face.
We should be looking for solutions that are tailored to the uniqueness of the communities in which we live. This means we need to celebrate our strengths rather than exaggerate our differences. It means recognizing indigenous leaders who want a future for their young people in a resource rich country and do not want to be dictated to once again by a government that claims to know best. This eco-colonialism is something we have to be cautious of, because we are looking at a government that says as long as we do things its way, it can help us out. That is one of the issues that I believe are so critical.
When I speak to leaders in our indigenous communities, I hear that they are looking for opportunities for their young people and their communities. When they hear governments say they do not want things done that way or that they are shutting things down because they have better jobs for people, that is where the frustration comes in.
It also means caring for each other, giving workers the best opportunities to grow and succeed and fulfilling our role as responsible energy suppliers on the global stage. That is one of the concerns I have. As I said in an article:
When I was first campaigning in 2008, a local energy worker who had worked all around the world told me how proud we should be of Canada’s energy sector and its environmental record. He stated that the only ones close were the Australians, and that was only because they were aggressively implementing Canadian state-of-the-art technology.
The quest for excellence is still part of the Canadian oil and gas industry’s DNA, but there have been hurdles, perhaps well intended, that have lessened the industry’s ability to remain on the leading edge. Limiting the access of oil and gas to world markets through federal legislation, denigrating the industry at international fora, and advocating against investment in Canada’s oil and gas sector have had consequences.
What the industry needs is certainty. A strong, supportive government is not what international players see. What they see are investors seeking opportunities elsewhere. With the energy disaster that is taking place in Europe, our potential energy customers see confusion from this government; we have a world-class product to sell, but leave the heavy lifting to others.
The Canadian industry needs an updated and modern CEPA. The inclusion of the NDP amendment that encroached on provincial jurisdiction was opposed at committee by the Liberals, but at the last minute, they flipped-flopped to support it, leaving this bill open to more jurisdictional court battles and uncertainty.
The history of the environment minister is a case in point of activism and the damage that is done because the Liberals just do not care who they hurt. Most Canadians are aware of the minister scaling structures to get arrested to make his point, but they probably do not know that he also trespassed on the modest home of then premier Ralph Klein, and in doing so dramatically upset Ralph's wife Colleen, whom I knew personally. He has no remorse and still to this day is proud of his actions, and the Prime Minister rewards his reckless criminal behaviour while Liberal members, along with their NDP coalition partner and the opportunistic Bloc members, just sit back and smile. I would have thought that a regional party like the Bloc would have voted against further provincial encroachment, but they voted in lockstep with the Liberal-NDP coalition.
Alberta has always had pristine water, fresh air and fertile soil. We produce the cleanest oil and natural gas in the world. That is why the Lougheed government embarked on a program to get natural gas to every rural resident possible. That could happen for all of this country if we would think our way through this problem.
Alberta, through the oil sands, has financed and carried this country through some tough times. In fact, the oil and gas sector is the feedstock for the products that will be covered under CEPA, as well as the feedstock for every other type of energy source that this world needs. However, as I mentioned before, the minister and the government do not care who they hurt or how they damage industries or interprovincial relationships.
The last-minute support of the NDP amendment, among the other reasons I have outlined, is why I will not be supporting this bill.
I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
Bill S-5, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development for the purpose of modifying clause 9 with the view to safeguard provincial jurisdiction with respect to regulating mining tailings ponds and hydraulic fracturing.
Mr. Speaker, I am inclined to ask the member if he wants to say anything else that can be clipped to use against the Conservatives in the next election, but I will just point out one of the fallacies in his comments. It is something I talk about a lot in the House. He spoke about how harmful electric vehicles are to the environment compared to standard fossil fuel-burning vehicles. The thing is, though, that the batteries for electric vehicles can be completely recycled. As a matter of fact, there is a firm in my riding that can recycle 97% of an electric vehicle battery so it can be reused in another EV. This is not going to happen in the future; this is happening right now.
How can the member possibly make such an argument when a battery for an electric vehicle can continue to be recycled endlessly into the future, whereas when we burn fossil fuel, it is gone, it is burned and we have to burn more again the next time and more the time after that and the time after that?
Mr. Speaker, it takes 500,000 pounds of earth to make that 1,000-pound battery, and it is not without toxicity.
It is very interesting when I hear the government say how it is going to handle this. It says we have all these rare-earth minerals here in Canada, so is it not a great idea for us to use them rather than buying this technology from China? Of course, I will leave that there.
Here is the issue. How can we ever expect to produce the batteries required with the rare earth minerals we have when we have a government that restricts all development? We can look at the bills that have been presented to stop oil and gas. We will have exactly the same bills to stop people from having mines in their communities, and it will go from there. We have heard this sort of thing from the members of the NDP. They are standing up for jobs, but they say not to bring any of this into their regions. That is the problem we have.
As far as being able to recycle batteries goes, it is great, but to put another battery into a vehicle takes $10,000 just to get the car to a spot where the new battery can be put in it. Yes, it would be great if we could recycle it, maybe using storage banks and that type of thing, but I believe all of those things have to be thought about. That is why I said we must measure this entirely, from the first shovel to dig it up to the last shovel to cover it up. In no way am I suggesting that this is not something we should measure.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify one small point. The percentage of rare earth minerals in the lithium ion batteries used in electric vehicles is 0%. That is the first thing I wanted to clarify.
Next, what must be taken into account is the lifespan of a vehicle. It may take more energy to assemble an electric vehicle, but with its lifespan, it becomes far more environmentally responsible than a gas-powered vehicle. The member did not get that far in his reasoning.
When I was listening to his speech, I let out a big sigh. Everything he said could be challenged, but one thing in particular made me shudder. His entire speech made me shudder, but one part in particular startled me and that was when he said that warnings against climate change are propaganda or ideology.
That stood out in his entire pro-oil mantra and his comments about using the war in Ukraine for opportunistic reasons. He recited the mantra of the Conservatives, who are on the brink of proposing that the prayer in the house be a prayer to oil and that a good glass of oil for babies be added to the Canada food guide.
What stood out in the middle of all that was when he said at one point that warning people about climate change was ideological. He said people are fearmongering by talking about flooding and so on. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we are in the middle of a climate crisis. We are living it. It is happening. It is our reality and it is science.
I have a simple question for the member. Does climate change exist, yes or no?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, of course the climate has been changing. That is the point I made when I said that we went from about two miles of ice on top of Montreal 10,000 years ago to cutting the St. Lawrence River and all of that. We know that it is changing. The point being said is that this means the man-made part is accelerating it. That is the discussion we are having, and I want to make sure we understand that because I am talking about both. I think that is really the critical point here.
The other thing I am saying is about the stories we listen to that say water is going to be 10 metres higher. Rich guys are still buying mansions on the oceans, insurance companies have not gotten to the stage where they are putting an extra premium on that and mortgages are still for 40 years, so not everybody is taking the things being said as 100% accurate.
Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my friend from Red Deer—Mountain View's somewhat perplexing and troubling remarks, and one part in particular stood out to me. I think I heard him say that the people warning about the environmental harms of acid rain in the seventies and eighties were “snake oil salesmen”. I wonder whether that is his personal view or it represents the position of the Conservative Party.
Mr. Speaker, that is my personal view, and of course I was not speaking specifically of ozone depletion and that sort of thing. Things have been done to deal with different aspects of this, and looking after our water, looking after our air and looking after our soil are the three things that are environmental. Taking the CO2 in our glasses and saying we should tax it because it is a pollutant does not make sense. We can look at the rate of carbon dioxide now and look at how much is put into greenhouses to get plants to grow properly. That is the aspect we need to look at. Anybody who believes we are just going to take something from 1850 and analyze how things are going to take place is not getting to the point.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for representing the views of his constituents in this place. He is an elected member of Parliament. He gets to reflect those views. Despite what other parties may think is indignation and may say to impose indignation on his comments, I want to ask the hon. member what his constituents' views are with respect to the carbon tax itself.
Mr. Speaker, in my riding there is a lot of agriculture and we looked at the added costs that are involved with an average farm. We did the calculations when it was about $30 a tonne, and at that stage I believe it was around a $10,000 cost. Of course, by the time it gets to $170, we can multiply it through, which is where that cost is.
We are able to kind of tinker around the edges insofar as to say that maybe we could take a look at charges to the fuel they use, but that does not change the other costs that are associated with it, such as the fertilizers they need and the trucking that is associated with products coming in and going out. This is the part where we realize the quantity of agriculture products that are sold around the world, and here we are putting ourselves in a straitjacket in order to satisfy the concept of the Liberal Party that we should have a carbon tax.
They do not have a carbon tax in the U.S., which is our major partner that we are dealing with, and so there is competition against our farmers. Of course the folks in my riding look at it and ask, “Where is the fairness?” These stories we get that say, “Oh well, you're going to get some money back” do not quite cut it with them.
Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I believe if you seek it you will find unanimous consent to just keep letting this member speak—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
I am hearing a lot of “no”.
There is another point of order.
The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.
Mr. Speaker, for a member of the House to suggest that another member of the House does not have the right to represent his constituents in this place goes beyond the pale—
We have now fallen into complete debate.
Continuing debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health.
Mr. Speaker, I wish I could have seconded the motion from the member for Kingston and the Islands just a moment ago. It was a good point.
As parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health and the member of Parliament for Milton, I am proud to rise to speak on Bill S-5. It is important to take some time to speak to the work that our government has done on modernizing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which is our cornerstone environmental legislation.
In a nutshell, CEPA recognizes a right to a healthy environment, as provided under CEPA. It imposes a duty on the government to protect the right and uphold related principles such as environmental justice. It also requires ministers to develop an implementation framework within two years, and to conduct research to support the protection of the right.
It also is expected to support strong environmental and health standards now and into the future, robust engagement, new research and action to protect populations that are particularly vulnerable to environmental health risks.
On that topic, I think we would be remiss not to recognize that recently in Alberta, there have been tailings ponds leakages into the Athabasca River and various other tributaries that went unreported to communities that were affected downstream. This is exactly the type of activity that we need to prevent and legislate into law as unacceptable, to ensure that we are protecting people from these toxic substances.
In the previous speech, there were some numbers thrown around and I would just like to put into modern context a few of those numbers, if I could. I heard the member opposite refer to 500,000 pounds of material that would need to be extracted to build one car battery.
I completely accept that it requires mining to build a modern car battery. They are up to 1,000 pounds and they are certainly intensive when it comes to mining. That does not go without saying. To put that into context, though, 500,000 pounds is about 226,000 kilograms. That would equate to about 10 years of fuel, if one were to convert that to gasoline. An average car would use about 2,000 to 3,000 kilograms of gasoline every year. Do the math and, unless I have done it completely improperly, I think that equates.
What does it take to get gasoline? That is something that we did not necessarily have the opportunity to measure or consider.
In the context of the oil sands, that requires, every single time some fuel is removed through the process, four tonnes of sand and four barrels of fresh water just to make one barrel of synthetic oil. I will say that again: four tonnes of sand need to be excavated and then four barrels of fresh water need to be used and most of that is then stored in a tailings pond. It is important to recognize that those tailings ponds were never meant to be long-term solutions for that toxic substrate of the process, but they continue to be used in that form and fashion.
What do we get out of one barrel of synthetic oil? One would get 42 gallons of gasoline. That is 160 litres of fuel.
What did that require? It required four tonnes of sand to be removed. Four tonnes of sand is 4,000 kilograms of sand. We are now on a similar metric to what the member opposite was saying needed to be excavated to build one car battery, which would obviously be good for many trips.
I am fortunate enough to drive an electric car and I can say that I have driven 30,000 kilometres in the last year in that electric car without having to use any gasoline.
There is no question that the carbon footprint of one of these electric vehicles is higher on the first day that one drives it compared to an internal combustion engine, but the point is that it does not require any gasoline. If one compares the amount of sand that needs to be removed from the ground in order to produce one litre of gasoline to how much is required to produce a car battery, one realizes that, yes, cars require a lot of mining. We all know that. That is something we should know.
However, we also have to take into consideration how many acres and acres of boreal forest are necessary to clear for oil sands activity and how much water it requires in order to refine that bitumen down to a usable product.
Moving on from the topic of electric car batteries and gasoline, I would like to talk about how this bill, Bill S-5, strengthens the foundation for the management of chemicals and other substances that are found in our environment through industry.
The bill would require an integrated plan of chemicals management priorities, with timelines and annual reporting. It would implement a new regime for toxic substances of highest risk.
It would create a watch-list for substances of potential concern, and consultation on new living organisms that would allow the public to request assessments, and ministers would have to address risks using the best balanced and best placed act.
It is really important to recognize that this is creating a framework for the future that would evolve as technology evolves and as new technologies are implemented and new forms of mining are implemented in our mining sector to go after all of the critical minerals that new technologies would require. Bill S-5 would evolve with it.
This bill would also confirm a focus on assessment of real-life exposures, supporting the shift to safer chemicals, replacing and reducing reliance on animal testing, increased openness, transparency and accountability in decision-making. It would also include amendments that affect all of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, including information gathering, research authorities, reporting on indigenous reconciliation and other confidential business information.
I would like to take a moment to reflect on something a little more personal. When my father's family first came to Canada from Holland, they moved to southwestern Ontario and engaged in agriculture. One of my father's first jobs was picking tobacco around the Tillsonburg area, which was a very common practice. Thankfully, the tobacco industry has fewer customers these days and there are fewer people farming tobacco.
It was not actually the tobacco plant that led to harm to my family so much as the product that was sprayed on those tobacco plants, Roundup is a very common insecticide that is still, unfortunately, used in many agricultural applications these days. It is a herbicide. I thank the member opposite. I do not know everything about this, so I am glad that we are working in a place that allows for us to collaborate a little.
Whatever the pest, Roundup was attempting to prevent the infestation of those tobacco plants. It also causes neurological degenerative diseases, like Parkinson's, which my dad suffers from, I should say lives with these days. He does not like to say that we suffer from diseases. It is very well documented that Roundup causes neurological, degenerative disorders like Parkinson's. My dad has been tested for the type of Parkinson's that he has, and indeed it is associated with a high exposure to herbicides, as my colleague point out. Roundup is in that category.
These chemicals that we have used throughout—
An hon. member: Glyphosate. Roundup is a trade name.
Mr. Adam van Koeverden: Roundup is a trade name, okay. Mr. Speaker, members can tell I did not grow up on a farm. I picked apples every once in a while. My apple farmer uncle, Gerry, who is now deceased, used to call me “the city boy” when I would come to the farm and pick apples. I guess he was right. Thanks for confirming my wise old Uncle Gerry's assertion that I was a city boy.
Glyphosate caused harm to my family. I will say that my dad has taken on his fight with Parkinson's with quite a lot of consternation. He is a really remarkable guy for managing his disease the way that he has. I do not think it is necessary for people to be exposed to things like that. I would hate to know what types of disorders and diseases tailings ponds and other toxic industrial applications might prove to impact folks with. I hope that we do not see more spillage, because that certainly was devastating for those communities that surrounded that.
Moving on, Bill S-5, known as CEPA, was introduced on February 9, 2022, more than a year ago. Since then, Senate committees and the House of Commons environmental committee have received 105 written briefs. If I compare that to how many briefs we receive at the health committee for similar pieces of legislation, I would say that is a lot. It is probably triple what we received for the most recent bill studying children's health. They have spent, collectively, over 50 hours studying that bill, with a lot of great input from experts, industry leaders and a tremendous number of witnesses at those committee hearings.
They have received over 80 witnesses' oral testimonies, and they have debated over 300 amendments tabled. This is one of the most debated pieces of legislation that we have seen in this House and through the Senate over the last couple of years. This excludes any of those subamendments because, of course, there have been considerable subamendments as well.
I think all members of this House can agree that there has been extensive debate around this bill during second reading in the House of Commons. This bill actually received more debate time than the budget implementation act would usually receive. I do believe we can all agree that it has had its time here to see the light of day.
Prior to those recent amendments, as many of my colleagues have pointed out, CEPA had not been updated in over two decades. Much has happened over the last two decades. A lot of new technologies have come to the fore and there are plenty of new chemicals to account for. We need to ensure they are not having a negative impact on people's health.
During this time, over the last two decades, we have certainly developed new technologies and we have deepened our understanding of toxic substances. Across the board, we are getting better at science, especially climate science. Our environmental legislation needs to reflect this important progress.
It has been said a number of times throughout debate today that this bill is not one that is focused on climate change; it is focused on toxic substances in our environment. I think that is very true. However, at the same time, we need to consider the impact of many of the industries that directly increase climate change and have a negative impact on climate change and warming, as well as the dryness of our climate currently and the incidents of wildfires and other horrendous natural disasters. They are all related, and we need a 360-degree view and a science-guided, evidence-first approach to preventing harm when it comes to the technologies that we are adapting to and all of the new methods by which we are going to get enough energy for transportation and for all the other things, like heating our homes, that we rely on. It is so important that our legislation advances forward with the technology and with all those new developments.
For the first time ever, CEPA recognizes the right to a healthy environment for Canadians. To ensure this right is meaningful and taken into account when decisions are made under CEPA, this bill includes a number of requirements.
For instance, it requires that the government must develop, within two years, an implementation framework describing how this right to a healthy environment would be considered in the administration of the act. This framework would explain, among other things, how principles of environmental justice, non-regression and intergenerational equity would be considered under CEPA. The framework would elaborate on principles such as environmental justice, meaning avoiding adverse effects that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, and issues of non-regression for continuous improvement of environmental protection.
CEPA, as it is, is a very technical and lengthy bill. We have heard a lot of testimony from expert witnesses from all backgrounds. I think it is extremely thorough and I am glad it is one that most members in this House seem to support. In debate, we have heard from all parties and it seems like the majority of members do support this bill.
That said, we have also heard from constituents via email. I know I have. I have received some from fantastic, environmentally focused organizations in my riding.
One I want to point out is Sustainable Milton. Sustainable Milton is a group of concerned citizens who regularly take action to advocate for and directly clean up our environment. They are a wonderful group of people, and I want to give them a shout-out. They have led town cleanups in our community. I want to acknowledge that litter is a visual concern, for the most part. In our environment, it is annoying to see litter, but it is nothing compared to toxic substances that are going to have a deleterious impact on our health. However, Sustainable Milton has done a really great job leading these litter cleanups. I am grateful to have taken part in a couple, and I want to thank all of the councillors who led their own cleanups as well with the stewardship of Sustainable Milton.
I would also like to reference the Halton Environmental Network, which was actually cataloguing a lot of that litter and looking into whether some of it had any deleterious impacts on waterways and tributaries. Milton is a bit landlocked, but it has quite a lot of watershed down to the Lake Ontario area and the basin around there.
What we put into our environment matters. It has an impact on habitat, and it has an impact on the water we drink. I want to thank the Halton Environmental Network and Sustainable Milton for their stewardship and action on environmentally focused activities in Milton. I also want to thank them for their emails.
I have received dozens of emails from constituents asking our government to position Canada as a global leader in developing more non-invasive methods, non-animal methods and methods that are less harmful to our health and to the health of animals.
We know that we are connected to our environment, not just through the air that we breathe and the water that we drink, but also through the food chain. A lot of our food is produced locally. Last week, I had the chance to visit Monaghan Mushrooms, a farm in my riding that produces fully three-quarters of the local mushrooms that our community consumes. If someone had a mushroom omelette in the last couple of weeks, I would encourage them to have a look at the label. I would bet the mushrooms were produced in Milton, Ontario. Those are all the button and portobello mushrooms. Then there is also another farm in Milton that produces all the specialty mushrooms. I learned a lot about fungus last week.
What I know is that those mushrooms, as they are being produced, drink the same tap water we do. They require soil, which is produced locally, actually through manure from Woodbine Racetrack. They actually provide a service to Woodbine Racetrack, one of the largest horse-racing facilities in Canada. They take all of the horse manure and put it directly into a compost mix, and that compost is then used to produce mushrooms.
Why am I going on about horse manure and mushrooms? It is because the horses that race at Mohawk racetrack in Milton drink the water from the surrounding area, and if they are like the animals in my life, they sometimes just drink from puddles. They eat grasses and locally produced vegetation, and then their excrement leads to something that is used to produce the food that we consume on a daily basis.
We are all connected through the water that we drink, the air that we breathe and the food that we consume. It is so important to make sure that the toxic chemicals that might exist in only a very small percentage in things like grasses, table water or any of a variety of things do not biomagnify all the way up into something that we consume on a regular basis and then have a deleterious impact on our health.
At committee, members heard from Dr. Chandrasekera, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Alternatives to Animal Methods, an international expert in this field, who presented technological innovations that have been made in producing viable alternatives to animals for testing. Health Canada is working to address the issue of animal testing outside of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
Our government has also passed a motion that would see the requirement to report on the operation of the act with respect to indigenous peoples to be done annually, rather than just once every five years. That revised requirement ensures consistent annual reporting on all issues raised by indigenous groups in relation to this act. These motions will improve transparency and ensure that the government remains accountable.
We know that climate change is a real threat that affects all Canadians, and now more than ever we must have strong environmental protections to protect our health from toxic substances that enter our natural environment. Our country has an opportunity to be a leader in climate policy, and passing an updated, strengthened CEPA is absolutely vital to this.
In closing, I would like to say that in previous speeches today I have heard quite a lot of talk about tailings ponds and whether this is a bill related to climate change. I think I have touched on how it is related to climate change but possibly in more of a tangential way. Climate change is real. I know this is not something that is universally held as a conviction in this House. Unfortunately, some people like to talk about historical accounts as to how much ice was above certain towns or cities in Canada. That probably would not be true if one were to consult a historian or a paleoclimatologist.
However, the fact remains that we have an obligation as a country, as a government, to stand up for the health and wellness of Canadians, and that includes animals and vegetation, because those products do biomagnify into our biology as well.
Mr. Speaker, the member's last comment talked about the health and wellness of Canadians. I wonder if he would consider the impact of the carbon tax, which is adding thousands of dollars to Canadians' cost of living and fuel costs. It has an impact.
I just want to make a quick comment also that in British Columbia we had something called “AirCare”, which tested vehicles for about two decades. Then it was scrapped because the pollutants from vehicles were reduced so dramatically. I just wonder why the focus is not on technology, as opposed to taxes, which have failed. The Liberals have not yet met any of their climate objectives.
Mr. Speaker, the question was about carbon pricing, which is not directly related to CEPA, but I am happy to talk about it.
I would point out that in the great province of my colleague opposite who asked the question, there is no federal backstop program because there is a provincial government that prices carbon, and always has. If I am not mistaken, that was an action by the previous Liberal government in British Columbia. I know there are some members on the Conservative side who sat in that government at the time. Perhaps he knows one of the members opposite who sat in that Liberal government. I know the Liberals in B.C. might have more in common sometimes with some of the members of the Conservative Party here.
Carbon pricing works. That is a truth. That is something the Conservatives universally felt, just a little over a year ago, when they all ran on a promise to implement a carbon price in Canada, but they have had an about-face. The new leader of the Conservative Party, the member for Carleton, does not believe in carbon pricing. At a recent Conservative convention, there was a question as to whether or not climate change exists and it was a