ENSU Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DURABLE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, February 19, 1998

• 0914

[English]

The Chairman (Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.): Bonjour. Good morning. Today we welcome our witnesses from the Canadian Labour Congress. They are the secretary-treasurer, Mr. Dick Martin, and the national director for workplace health, safety and environment, Mr. Dave Bennett. We apologize for the delay and we welcome you again.

Would you please go ahead? The floor is yours.

Mr. Dick Martin (Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Labour Congress): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, members of the committee.

First of all, I do want to thank the committee for inviting us to testify before you today. Many of our members work in industries covered by federal environmental legislation, and they are all affected by pollution, to the point where, environmental protection measures having failed, they then lose their jobs. All of our members, as well as the general population, are affected by pollution, as it is a social issue.

• 0915

As an organization, the Canadian Labour Congress is committed to effective environmental protection measures. Many local unions now deal with environmental issues as well as workplace health and safety issues, and some have set up joint union-management committees to address environmental problems arising out of the workplace.

The point of discussing enforcement is to determine the state of compliance with federal environmental law. I want to suggest to the committee right away that questions of enforcement are relatively easy to address, but their relationship to compliance is difficult to determine. Enforcement figures do not by themselves tell us the full story about the degree of compliance with environmental law.

When the CEPA enforcement and compliance policy came out in 1988, the first year of CEPA, it announced bluntly that good legislation must be effectively enforced. We now know that this is not happening. In 1992-93, for example, there were 1,233 inspections concerning CEPA regulations, with 93 investigations, 105 warnings, 4 directions and 22 prosecutions with 17 convictions. By 1995-96, the position had deteriorated. There were only 963 inspections, with 94 investigations, 87 warnings, 15 prosecutions with 8 convictions, and no directions issued at all.

The thrust of prosecutions changed somewhat, with many more on the export and import of hazardous wastes at the expense of prosecutions under the ozone regulations and on PCBs. The success rate for prosecutions was also down.

I would like to suggest to the committee that the problem is less with prosecutions than with the pattern of Environment Canada's enforcement activity. Clearly, Environment Canada is having less and less of an enforcement presence, but this enforcement presence is the best guarantee that the law will be observed.

The key figure concerns directions, which went from an abysmally low figure of four in 1992-93 to none at all in 1995-96. The threat of prosecution is the strongest incentive to conform to environmental law, but the clumsiness of the legal system and the generally low level of penalties shows that in practice enforcement has to rely on a much greater number of less severe enforcement activities. Where these are absent, there is no evidence of general compliance with federal environmental law.

Are we really to believe, for example, that voluntary compliance does work? After all, the state of enforcement of CEPA was never high. It was poor even before voluntary compliance became the vogue. It is not as if voluntary compliance came to replace enforcement of the regulations. There was little to replace. To us, the more likely explanation is the business onslaught against the misnamed “command and control regulations”, which has taken enforcement from low levels to levels that are even lower.

The committee may also want to examine the relationship between the decline of enforcement activity and the regionalization or decentralization of Environment Canada's activities.

Various alternative enforcement methods have been proposed for CEPA and all are worthy of consideration. In this connection, I'd like to draw the committee's attention to three proposals from the Canadian Labour Congress.

The first is increased whistle-blower protection for workers who report breaches of law and bad environmental practice and who report it not just to inspectors but to the public through the media. After all, pollution is a public issue and workers should have the right to publicize it without fear of sanctions.

The second is the legal right to refuse to pollute, which parallels a long-established right in Canada to refuse unsafe and unhealthy work. Currently only Yukon has this right in law.

Thirdly, we argue for the legal right to joint union-management environment committees to supplement the legal obligations in all of Canada for joint union-management health and safety committees. All of these proposals would, if implemented, result in greater compliance with environmental law.

I want to turn now to the second of the two big issues in the enforcement of environmental law. This is the process of handing over the enforcement of federal environmental law to the provinces and territories, under both CEPA and the Fisheries Act. Here the situation is even more cloudy and obscure than that of direct enforcement of federal law.

The public certainly loses track of compliance with federal law, and so, I believe, does the Government of Canada, which certainly appears to be the case in terms of the lawsuit being launched against the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, with even the fisheries department acknowledging that it doesn't know how many convictions there have been. It seems to be very difficult to find out what is going on within the provinces, which is strange to us in this age of information and computers. We should have this information at our fingertips.

• 0920

However, for example, as of June 1, 1994, four sets of CEPA regulations no longer applied in Alberta, being replaced instead by equivalent Alberta regulations. The federal government states in the CEPA annual report, 1995-96, on page 22, that it receives reports on the compliance status of relevant industries and enforcement actions on the part of the Alberta government.

But, I contend, neither this committee nor the public can be sure whether the Alberta regulations really are equivalent or are only roughly so, whether enforcement compliance with the regulations meets any federal standard, or whether this agreement has successfully eliminated duplication, as claimed. For all we know, this is deregulation by stealth.

Similarly, in the early 1990s the Auditor General of Canada published reports on the state of compliance with metal mining liquid effluent regulations under the Fisheries Act. They were not good. But then the issue inexplicably disappeared from the annual reports. The public thus has no information on the state of compliance with federal law, quite possibly because the federal government itself has lost track of the state of compliance with those regulations that have been handed over to the provinces for administration and enforcement.

How much worse will the situation be if the environmental harmonization agreement is implemented, especially if the federal government strips itself of the minimal terms of a devolution under section 98 of CEPA? Just before the environmental harmonization agreement was signed on January 29, environmental organizations released some Quebec figures on the appalling state of compliance and enforcement of the pulp and paper mill effluent regulations under the Fisheries Act.

What the federal government now proposes to do is to generalize this procedure and shed itself of any and every environmental responsibility that it is constitutionally able to. There is every indication that this will be an absolute disaster for national standards of environmental protection.

Finally, I would like to draw the committee's attention to alternative types of regulation. The CLC has proposed to this committee and to the government that it produce effective pollution regulations for federally regulated industries. This would be of enormous benefit to environmental protection and would provide the flagship for similar legislation on the parts of the provinces and territories.

But it would be some time before such regulations could eclipse traditional effluent control regulations, i.e., to render them obsolete. Such regulations are our main bulwark against wholesale degradation of the Canadian environment. Without proper enforcement they are useless.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. We're prepared to answer any questions.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Martin. That was very helpful and very much to the point.

Would you like to start, Mr. Gilmour?

Mr. Bill Gilmour (Nanaimo—Alberni, Ref.): Thank you for being here this morning.

I guess what we're all striving for is a balance. I think we all want to make sure that the environment is protected, but with a set of regulations that works and isn't overly onerous, with the big hammer.

My understanding is that most businesses and their employees are good players and follow the regulations. What we really want to get, all of us, is those who don't.

I hear what you're saying with the whistle-blower type of legislation. I worked in a fairly large logging operation and we had our union-management committee. In fact, I was the head of the environment part of the safety committee, and it worked very well. The employees weren't afraid of saying they had had an oil spill or whatever; in fact, they were right up front about it. When we did have problems, the government fully understood that we worked together and that we weren't trying to hide anything. So you see, I've been there.

What do you see as the balance? That's what I'm trying to find out. In your mind, how do we strike that balance between a volunteer-type of regulation where the companies and the employees work together to make sure there is a balance and getting the bad guys, the ones that are trying to slip it out, trying to hide it?

• 0925

Mr. Dick Martin: I don't necessarily disagree with you, I guess. I'd like to at least believe that a majority of corporations and their employees are in compliance and are concerned about the environment, and aren't going to dump all the garbage that's created into the environment. However, there's a considerable amount of so-called bad guys out there also, upon whom we have to put enforcement.

We think there are a number of ways. First of all, we do believe good acts and good regulations are needed. After all, we don't just tell the general public that we're going to take cops off the highways because there's going to be voluntary compliance with the speed limits. We know that doesn't work very well. We employ police to try to enforce the speed limits on the highways and safe driving practices.

Good corporations and good operations have nothing to fear from good regulations. They're going to be in compliance, and consequently they will operate in a normal pattern, provided, of course, they meet the objectives of the regulations. Those who have bad operations have a lot to fear from good regulations and good enforcement. They have to smarten up and clean up their act.

So we still believe good regulations with proper enforcement is the key way to go, and on top of that, understanding that you probably never will have enough inspectors to cover all the operations.

We talk about the whistle-blower. Unfortunately, at least from our point of view, a lot of workers aren't covered by collective agreements. They don't have any protection. If they step out of line, especially if they were found to have reported to an inspector or to go public over it, they won't have a job. It's as simple as that. So they are really held back from reporting it. That's why we think the whistle-blower legislation is important. It gives them protection for such a thing.

Finally, we think the union-management safety and health committees have improved occupational health and safety within operations. There's a lot to be desired, I might tell you, but we still think it's improved.

We think the same thing should apply to environmental concerns through having these joint union-management environmental committees. It brings the employees into the loop, so to speak. They know what they're producing, what is going out, and they will have good suggestions on how to clean it up. After all, many progressive corporations have found out that if you listen to the employees who work with the machinery and the process day after day, you'll get some pretty good ideas on how to improve it.

So they would find that not only would their environmental record improve but probably their efficiency rate would improve substantially at the same time. Unfortunately, though, some folks are in another land and don't think it should operate that way.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Pratt, followed by Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Martin, on page 3 of your presentation, in connection with the federal regulations that were replaced with Alberta regulations in 1994, you say:

But, I contend, neither this Committee, nor the public, can be sure (1) whether the Alberta regulations really are equivalent or only roughly so;...

Is there a problem in terms of the information the Alberta government is producing? Can we not compare the federal with the provincial regulations fairly readily in terms of the information available?

Mr. Dick Martin: I'll let David respond to that.

Mr. Dave Bennett (National Director, Workplace Health, Safety and Environment, Canadian Labour Congress): This is a good question, and we appreciate the question.

Quite so, with point one; with enough research you could research both the federal and the Alberta regulations and look at them in terms of degree of equivalency, both in terms of the content and the enforcement procedures mandated by each set of regulations. Quite clearly, you can do that, perhaps without too much difficulty—or at least without too much difficulty for professionally trained researchers, qualified environmentalists who have an interest in the field.

The second one surely is radically unclear by anyone's standards. Surely it's not enough for the federal government to say, well, we're getting this information from the Alberta government, but neither the reports from the government, the CEPA annual reports, nor any other vehicle actually divulges this information to the public.

• 0930

So on items two and three, there really are big questions as to whether federal law in effect is being properly enforced and properly complied with in the province of Alberta.

From our reading of section 98 of CEPA, the government has not in fact broken the law over the disclosure of information to the public, unlike the current allegations over the state of enforcement of and compliance with the Fisheries Act, information that's only come out in the last few days. In this case, it does not look as though the government has actually broken the terms of the law, but I think any reasonable person would have to conclude that the state of information that the public gets over the de facto compliance in Alberta with federal law is an unknown quantity.

Second, we can't be sure that the government really does have the appropriate information, because nowhere has it been divulged to the public.

Mr. David Pratt: Thank you.

The Chairman: Madam Kraft Sloan, followed by Monsieur Charbonneau.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): I want to refer to what you said on page 2, that “command and control is misnamed”. I'm wondering if you could expand on that. Why do you feel it's misnamed?

Mr. Dick Martin: I don't know who coined the phrase “command and control”. It sounds as though the government previously was some kind of Stalinist regime that was under command and control. To be blunt, it's absurd.

It was probably coined by the Canadian chemical producers. We sat on various committees of Environment Canada that had Industry Canada on them too. To be very blunt about it...and this is under the previous government, under the Conservative government regime. We were trying to have joint resolutions to address the issues of the environment. There was a very locked battle for a very long time between us, with environmental colleagues, and essentially some officials of Environment Canada and certainly Industry Canada.

We were quite upset that Industry Canada continued to sit through these hearings when we were dealing with the environment. I'll tell you what I called Industry Canada. I said the Gestapo was there to watch what Environment Canada was doing so that we don't come up with any really good legislation or recommended regulations on environmental protection.

Since that point in time, as we say in our brief, command and control, which seems to be in vogue, hasn't worked. We contend that proper enforcement of good regulations does work and will work, and that voluntary compliance is quite absurd. As the other member of the committee said, sure, there are a lot of good operations, but there are plenty of bad ones still out there polluting the environment.

I think a case in point is that, if you recall, only about a week ago there was a report on the state of affairs of the Ontario environment under the Harris government. It's an absolute disaster. There's a good example of volunteerism going on—dumping toxic substances down the sewers, and the Ontario environment minister saying that's okay.

I mean, it's just out of la-la land. It's okay to poison our waters and riverways and the Great Lakes and the land; that's voluntary compliance.

Our statement to the Canadian chemical producers was, “I don't know why we should go with voluntary compliance. You guys weren't even complying with the regulations before”.

So as far as we're concerned, what we need is more good regulations. By “good”, I'm not talking about hassling people or companies unnecessarily, but we have to have a clean environment. We want it cleaned up. We have to have enforcement policies. We have to have convictions where there has been bad faith and bad operations out there.

There's no evidence, in our opinion, that this is going to hurt either competitiveness or efficiency. We contend that, on the other hand, it's in fact going to improve the efficiency of companies.

There are some companies—3M Corporation is one that comes to mind—that have really tried to put in the closed loop and to have a lot of recycling within their operations. The executive vice-president of 3M told us in the committee that their profit margins had gone up, their efficiency had gone up, and they weren't polluting the environment.

• 0935

Everything we've seen seems to confirm that. I'm especially talking about U.S. operations, of course. But they got that under way.

On the other hand, we believe we have a growing crisis continuing in the environment, with both effluents and greenhouse gases. Regulations are clearly the way to go, with proper enforcement and good inspectors.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: With your level of concern about enforcement in environmental regulation in Canada right now, how would you improve the system? What are some of the key things you would do to improve things?

Mr. Dick Martin: Aside from what we have put in our brief here—we think those would go a long way towards rectifying the situation—we've made our views known about the whole issue of harmonization and devolution to the provinces. We are not at all satisfied that devolution to the provinces.... Some provinces will have a larger concern about environmental issues and some will have less, but then there will be inconsistency across the country.

We believe the environment should really be in the same category as national defence and national affairs. I don't want to get into a constitutional hassle before the committee, but how is a government able to go to Kyoto, sign an accord in Kyoto, and then have provinces saying, well, we're not going to live up to that accord? This is quite absurd. I know it's in our federalism framework, but it seems to me that does indicate the federal government should have a lot more authority over the environment, especially when the environment goes across the provinces; everything—air goes across provinces. Water goes across the provinces and goes into the oceans and that type of thing. How we can devolve it to the provinces is just beyond me. We have to be part of the international community coming to grips with these things, and the only way that can be done is by the federal government exercising control.

I might be trying to close the barn door and the horse is out now, but I would hope the committee and the federal government would revise their notion about the whole issue of harmonization. “Harmonization” sounds like a great word, but many times it's a race to the bottom. We'll go to the lowest common denominator, not the highest common denominator. That's exactly what seems to happen. We clearly think the federal government has the major role in policing the environment and cleaning it up.

How do you do that? Well, going back to the regulations, we think regulations and the act.... This committee has hearings. We think there is room for serious tripartite involvement. When I talk about tripartite, I'm talking about labour, business, government—and when I talk about labour, I'm also talking about environmental groups—putting good, solid regulations together. And when there can't be agreement, the government makes a decision on the issues.

I can tell you it has worked in the Department of Labour on occupational health and safety matters. There has been agreement between labour and business on a great deal of matters. When we can't agree together, then the government makes a decision. We know it's usually going to make one side or the other angry, so both labour and business try to come to an agreement before the government has to make that decision. I think the environment is a clear place where that can be too.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: So you've seen enforcement in occupational health and safety at a higher or a more satisfactory level than you have on the environmental side?

Mr. Dick Martin: As I said, there's a lot to be desired, but it is improving. We would be in a lot worse a situation today if we didn't have the joint committees and the joint regulations we have agreed on at a federal level.

We continue to be critical about enforcement. This issue of enforcement is also before the Department of Labour, because there's a lack of inspectors, there are too many inspections, and that type of thing, but we think the regulations generally are pretty good. We just want to get into enforcement.

• 0940

We do have a step forward in the fact that we do have a lot of joint health and safety committees, whereas the environment doesn't have that whatsoever unless we negotiated it in the contracts. As I say in the brief, we have negotiated it into some contracts, but very few and far between, quite frankly.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you. Dave, did you want to say something?

Mr. Dave Bennett: Yes. I will add a little bit to what Dick has said.

Dick mentioned the huge amount of consultation that goes on before so-called command and control regulations are put into law. This is particularly true over the key regulations under the Fisheries Act that deal with effluents from mines, refineries and pulp and paper mills. It's a bit bizarre to categorize or stigmatize regulations as being command and control when there's been a huge amount of consultation with business before the regulations are produced and, in some cases, actual agreement with business that these regulations should be put into law, i.e., there is an agreement with business that these regulations are good for the environment and good for the economy.

As I say, it is strange to categorize these things as command and control when in fact they, in many cases, have been put into law after a very highly democratic and open process of public consultation.

What the term does is to confuse the notion of command and control, which either originated from Joe Stalin or from the military. In fact, it's a military phrase and it's quite a proper part of military discipline to have command and control disciplines within the military. That's where it originated. What in fact is meant is that these are traditional emission control regulations. They regulate the amount of pollution that enterprises are allowed to put out into the environment, and it's like—what's the word—a deliberate confusion of terminology to confuse a control regulation in terms of command and control within emission control regulation. These are particularly important, as we've said, in the case of the Fisheries act.

As we see it, there is a mix of tools that the government can use to ensure that the regulations are properly enforced. We've referred in our brief to what we call the regulatory presence of Environment Canada. We've referred to mechanisms within the workplace, which Mr. Gilmour also referred to, that help to ensure compliance and therefore obviate the need for inspectors, directions and even prosecutions. But we're very strongly of the view that these regulations should be properly enforced in order to secure proper compliance with federal law.

The comments we made toward the end were that, yes, there really are alternatives to emission control regulations. They should be looked at. We see the possibility of national programs revolving around alternative types of regulation, but at the same time we say it will be a long time before these traditional emission control regulations are displaced.

What might these alternatives be? In the area of pollution prevention, we see a set of federal regulations as being very different from traditional emission control regulations. The way you do pollution prevention is fundamentally different from putting down a table of limits to emissions. So there's one form of alternatives.

A form of alternative that I think has been thoroughly neglected, both by the Treasury Board of Canada and by the business community...but the objection to it has been in the form of dismissing it as a legitimate form of regulation, of claiming that there really are no alternatives here apart, possibly, from voluntary compliance. The net result is that the public and the Government of Canada have not been able to explore alternative forms of regulation, because the whole enterprise has been castigated even before the enterprise has begun.

• 0945

So pollution prevention regulations will be one form of alternative. The second form would be to have regulations that insist on the implementation of best-available technology in regulations, or BAT. Third, there are technology-forcing regulations. This means a requirement to institute forms of technology that don't yet exist in order to secure environmental objectives.

Again, it may sound strange to members of the Government of Canada to hear proposed a set of regulations that require businesses to do things that at present they're incapable of doing. But if you look at best practice—the military is one example, the United States and northern Europe another—then forms of technology-forcing regulation are by no means strange at all. The possibility of those types of regulations ought to be explored.

It's a matter of speculation as to whether the whole of the pulp and paper industry has taken a fundamentally wrong tack in setting the terms of discussion in terms of emission control regulations when there's a real possibility that a far better strategy would have been to insist on deadlines for the implementation and institution of best-available technology and the production of technology-forcing regulations.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you. Monsieur Charbonneau.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): First of all, I would like to tell our witnesses that it is always interesting to read their briefs. They always go right to the point and bring forward proposals in a language that I appreciate very much and that is typical of a well-organized union.

I would like to come back to your three proposals. The first one is an increased protection for whistle-blowers. We know that this committee has already made a recommendation to that effect and that there was a response by the government. We will see in a few days or weeks what formula has been decided upon for the new version of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Your second recommendation concerns the legal right to refuse to pollute. I would like to ask you whether you have approached the Federal Department of Labour about this.

[English]

Mr. Dick Martin: No, not on this particular issue. We've been dealing with occupational health and safety. We do push that issue forward in terms of being able to refuse to perform unhealthy or unsafe work, but we have not put this proposal forward. We categorized it and said that Environment Canada should really be dealing with that. However, it might very well be something we should be putting forward to the Minister of Labour.

We're reluctant right at this point, because part II of the occupational health part of the Canada Labour Code is now being put together by Justice, and hopefully the Minister of Labour is going to bring it forward.

But it's certainly something I have to leave in the hands of this committee at this point in time, and see what you come up with. If they were to recommend it, we would run with it, in both the Department of Labour and Environment Canada.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: In any case, you could certainly consider bringing that claim forward to the Department of Labour.

Your third recommendation deals with the legal right to have joint union-management environment committees. I know that some important work has been done in the past few years in the area of occupational health and safety. You are asking for the legal right to have committees. However, the usual practice in the labour movement is that unions seek these types of instruments through negotiations and try to enshrine them in a collective agreement.

• 0950

Can you refer to any precedent or any positive results that you have obtained in this regard in some industries or some companies within the normal process of collective bargaining? Are there any examples of this or of progress being made in some industries?

[English]

Mr. Dick Martin: The auto workers, in their collective agreements with the big three auto makers, have instituted joint union-management environment committees. In some smaller contracts the steel workers have been able to negotiate such things. We would be happy to get the auto agreements and forward them to the committee, if you would like to see what they contain.

Those are the main ones, are they not, David?

Mr. Dave Bennett: And CUPE.

Mr. Dick Martin: And CUPE, yes. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has also negotiated some union-management environment committees.

Some have taken two approaches. Some have negotiated strictly a union-management environment committee, but others have made sure the environment is included in discussions on occupational health and safety. They have simply extended it and said this is a committee dealing with safety and the environment. It makes complete sense to us, because how can you really deal with them necessarily separately? It's a matter of structure. We say if you're dealing with health and there's pollution inside the plant, that's going to affect the workers inside and it's going to affect the workers and citizens outside. So it is not only an environment issue but a health issue.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Indeed, these issues are interrelated. You are demanding the legal right to create committees. That right does exist: it can be exercised by negotiating and executing collective agreements. That right is not being denied. It is there and it can be exercised through collective bargaining, isn't it? So, what do you want more? Do you want it to be mandatory or do you simply want the right to do it?

[English]

Mr. Dick Martin: Yes, we want it to be mandatory. We want legislation. Not all factors are equal all the time. Powerful, more influential locals have that power. Smaller ones do not have that power.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: That brings me to a broader question. I did not see in your brief any reference to partnerships between labour organizations and industrial associations.

I don't know whether you have any comment in that regard. But there are still several industrial sectors that come before this committee or other committees and describe their commitment to protecting the environment. Power utilities, pulp and paper, chemical products and the petroleum sectors all come to mind. They appear before us and tell us: "Here we are, we are responsible. We are environmentally responsible. We have all these programs in place." Isn't there a forum where you, as an organization,—at the level of your large member federations or at the level of the Canadian Labour Congress—can try to forge high-level partnerships through which you could then, one collective agreement at a time, try and build that network of committees?

[English]

Mr. Dick Martin: Sometimes that's possible, but I have to tell you that most of the time it's not. We have very conflicting views about how to clean up the environment and contain pollution. Our alliances are basically with the environmental movement, not the corporate side of things. We find it increasingly difficult to find any common ground, much of the time.

I can give you an example. We appeared before this committee only a couple of weeks ago and we talked about the issue of ISOs, international standards, which are non-governmental, non-United Nations or anything else that is dominated, created by and dominated by the corporate world, in particular, to a large degree, the international chemical industry, which in fact excludes governments from much of its discussion, excludes environmentalists, and certainly excludes labour, yet these ISOs are being adopted and referred to by many governments. It's totally lopsided.

• 0955

Notwithstanding that, there are at some points joint labour and management environmental workings enterprise by enterprise, but at a national level there's very little agreement on which way to go.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: One last question, Mr. Chairman. You deal next in your brief with the issue of environmental protection and the devolution to provinces of some responsibilities. You have made an interesting case for the need to ensure for the federal government a dominant and significant role in this matter.

Yet, I must take this opportunity to remind you—even though you probably know that already, but it does no harm to remind it once in a while—that in the province of Quebec, your affiliate, which is called the Quebec Federation of Labour, in French the Fédération des travailleurs du Québec, is constantly seeking to reduce the role of the federal government and demanding that federal responsibilities be transferred to Quebec, and they never miss an opportunity to sit down side-by-side with the separatist government that is in place in that province.

Do you have some discussions with the FTQ, the Fédération des travailleurs du Québec, about this whole issue of environmental protection, and since this is your point of view, about the inconvenience of transferring some responsibilities to the provinces? Do you draw their attention to this and what is their reaction?

[English]

Mr. Dick Martin: We're aware of the FTQ position on all matters. We have long discussions with them, and you're quite right, they're a part of the Canadian Labour Congress, but it gets right into the whole constitutional question. We do believe that Quebec is unique, is different, and has to be treated in a different way. We do not agree that just because you treat Quebec in a different way, that you have to treat British Columbia in the same way, or Alberta, or Saskatchewan, or Manitoba.

Consequently, we think.... I mean, this is a broader discussion than just environmental matters, obviously, but we believe the federal government should still have the dominant role while understanding the nature of our federalism, and understanding in particular the nature of Quebec within federalism.

So we do not have big arguments with the FTQ. We believe in the right to self-determination. They operate their show, but they're a part of us on a national and international basis.

In answer to you, yes, Quebec has a special place and a special way to operate, but it does not necessarily, nor should it, apply to the other provinces. It really quite bluntly angers us that Alberta insists that if you're going to treat Quebec in a certain way, then Alberta has to be treated in that same way. Not so!

The Chairman: All right. Thank you.

We have Mr. Casson, Mr. Laliberte, then the chair, then we will have a quick second round. Following that, we'll go into a short meeting in camera.

May I invite Mr. Casson to start?

Mr. Rick Casson (Lethbridge, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Are you aware of particular incidents where labour has reported some non-compliance of the environmental law and it has not been acted on?

Mr. Dave Bennett: There have been cases of so-called whistle-blower protection where workers have exercised the right to blow the whistle, but these have not been, on the whole, in the environmental area. There have been isolated or individual cases from British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario where workers were refused.

• 1000

In the case of Ontario, it has gone to the Labour Relations Board and has been settled there, but considering the state of the law on whistle-blower protection, it's not at all surprising that the right hasn't been exercised. It's simply not there, and when there's no protection in law it's clearly not going to happen. In the relatively rare cases where it does happen, it has caused controversy.

The ultimate answer for us, if you like, is that the law needs to be changed to clarify just what people's rights are. There were some small but significant moves in Bill C-74, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, in that they did go a little bit in the direction of what the Canadian Labour Congress proposed. It was not far enough, but at least there was a move there and that move was certainly appreciated. We hope to see that amendment retained and strengthened in the new version of CEPA, when it happens.

The moral of the story is that no, there has not been much activity over environmental whistle-blower protection. When it has happened, it has caused controversy.

Mr. Rick Casson: We were told yesterday that Environment Canada acts on every incident that's reported to them. Do you agree with that?

That's the question I'm asking. Are you aware of any circumstance where somebody has reported an incident and Environment Canada has not acted on it in some way, acknowledged it, inspected it, or done something?

Mr. Dave Bennett: Are you asking about workers or about the public?

Mr. Rick Casson: They said all, but in your case, workers.

Mr. Dave Bennett: I think most of the reports in fact will come from the public, because there's very, very little whistle-blower protection under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act right now. If you look at the figures on enforcement, well, what does it mean to act on something?

Mr. Dick Martin: Going back to your question, we can only relay the statistics that we put in our brief in terms of how many inspections were done and how many convictions and how many directions and that type of thing. It certainly seems to be going in a downward spiral in spite of the fact that there are obviously more enterprises and more operations from year to year. So as the amount of operations and enterprises increase, the inspections, directions and convictions go down. It doesn't seem to make much sense to us.

Mr. Rick Casson: You also talked a bit about harmonization not being able to work, but one of the things we talked about in harmonization is having the CEPA regulations as a standard that all have to meet. In order to do that...you say there's no reporting, there's nothing that comes back to clarify, it's not published, you don't have access to this information. Is that a key component to this, that the follow-up data has to be maintained to ensure that it's being done?

Mr. Dick Martin: Absolutely.

Mr. Rick Casson: What forum, or where should this be done?

Mr. Dick Martin: Once again, I think it's incumbent upon the federal government to have that information to be able to relay it to any interested party that wants to know what the state of affairs is.

As a Canadian citizen, it seems to me that if I'm really interested in the environment I shouldn't have to approach every province to find out what they are doing, what are the results and that type of thing, especially when so-called harmonization is to have a certain level across the whole country. So it seems to me it should be Environment Canada or Fisheries and Oceans that can report on what's happening out there.

Mr. Rick Casson: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you. Next we have Mr. Laliberte.

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, NDP): I refer to your three points again in my questions. Aside from Canada in the international perspective, what examples do you have of whistle-blower protection that exists in federal law or federal environmental protection in other countries? Another is, during the last week and a half we have been listening to Environment Canada and their great reliance on their so-called intelligence. That's basically what this is. They depend on the ability of other people to point to the hazardous waste infractions by manufacturing or transportation.... Our ports and railroads are practically open to international sources of hazardous waste, but labour seems to be everywhere. It's like customs. Customs has about 3,000 officers working in 300 ports, or whatever. But labour is everywhere, in every aspect at our borders—in transportation, in manufacturing, in shipping, in everything.

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I believe there should be a major relationship between organizations and our workers for the betterment of our community. The community has a right to know. Some of these industries are located in neighbourhoods, and if labour is their family they have a vested interest in that community.

I just wanted to dwell on that to see if.... I wasn't aware of the history of the dialogue on CEPA and the whistle-blower legislation. I missed your previous dialogue on that.

Mr. Dick Martin: I'll ask David to answer some of this.

When you talk about relying on intelligence, it's like military intelligence; it's an oxymoron. I feel that way in terms of so-called environmental intelligence. If they're relying on intelligence, I don't know who they're relying on to give them that information, except I assume the general public. But I think the general public should be aware of the right to know. I totally agree with that, the right to know what is coming out of that factory or that enterprise or that operation into both the air and the water.

Once again, sometimes it gets highly technical. I might be standing on the shore and see a fluid come out of a factory, but I don't have the slightest idea what's in that in terms of chemicals. Are they toxic? Are they carcinogenic? What are they going to do to the fish and the habitat and so forth?

What you really need is chemical analysis. You need chemists. You need engineers to explore that. It seems to me that once again that's up to Environment Canada to have those specialists aboard who can do that type of testing. A lay person is in no position to do the testing until it's too late, until we've had a body count, and that's what we're trying to prevent. There's not going to be a body count, but we'll take the precautions to make sure nothing happens before it happens.

That's why we think the environmental assessments are absolutely necessary before big operations go into effect, and there is good policing of the enterprises.

On the whistle-blower issue, I think David can probably report on that. I believe a lot of it exists in Europe.

Mr. Dave Bennett: Briefly, some Canadian jurisdictions already have some form of environmental whistle-blower protection in law. The current Canadian Environmental Protection Act allows the reporting of environmental offences against CEPA to federal inspectors, but the law only covers direct employees of the federal government.

Bill C-74 proposed that this right should be extended to workers in all federally regulated industries, i.e. to everyone covered by the Canada Labour Code; for example, everyone in the jurisdiction of the federal workplace. That was a welcome move. But there were two limitations to what C-74 produced. One was that it only applied to violations of CEPA; it did not accord the right to report any environmental bad practice. Secondly, it did not protect workers who went public; it only protected reporting to inspectors. We've made the case that pollution is a public issue, so you should have the right to report publicly.

There was some progress in C-74, and we want to see that progress reflected in the future Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The legal right to refuse to pollute, which workers have in Yukon, was not in CEPA, Bill C-74.

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The Chairman: Thank you.

We will go into an important but brief in camera meeting very shortly, but before that we have Mr. Pratt with a short question. I would like to ask one as well.

Mr. Pratt.

Mr. David Pratt: As a follow-up to Mr. Charbonneau's question, I was curious about your position in terms of the Quebec situation and the devolution of powers in terms of the environment. Can you expand on that a little bit? I got the impression that you were saying that Quebec should be free to manage all of the environmental laws, to freeze the feds out completely. Is that the position of the CLC on this?

Mr. Dick Martin: Our position is that with reference to the FTQ, or the QFL, Quebec Federation of Labour, we have a unique and special relationship with them. They sit on our executive committee and our executive council. We have said that we will not, as the Canadian Labour Congress, interfere in their affairs in Quebec. They're free to seek what positions they want to within Quebec, notwithstanding the fact that we seek to have a lot of consultation with them on a number of issues.

For example, they do have people who sit on some of our national committees. They sit from time to time on our national environment committee and our occupational health and safety committee.

But, yes, we are saying that if they want to seek and pursue that, to have control over Quebec, then they're free to do that. What we are saying, though—

Mr. David Pratt: Just to be clear, does the CLC support the FTQ's position, then, with respect to the entire devolution of environmental authority to Quebec?

Mr. Dick Martin: Yes, precisely.

Mr. Dave Bennett: I might add that the question of the current application of federal law in Quebec—namely, the Fisheries Act—is a very different business from the question of what environmental powers ought to be devolved to Quebec. We have had allegations and suggestions very recently that federal law is being improperly applied in Quebec under the current constitutional and legal arrangements. What I'm saying is that's a very different issue from the question of devolution of environmental powers.

Mr. David Pratt: How is it being improperly applied?

Mr. Dave Bennett: I can only cite the case, which we've already cited in our brief, of the application of federal law in Quebec—namely, the Fisheries Act. Environmental organizations are coming up with new information on the Fisheries Act, which I understand they're going to present to this committee on Tuesday. Their conclusions and their contentions exactly reflect what we've said in our brief—namely, that the federal government itself has lost track of the proper application of federal law, the Fisheries Act, in the provinces.

Mr. David Pratt: I can appreciate that, but I guess I find there's a little bit of a contradiction. I mean, I agree with Mr. Martin's earlier statement about the fact that we have rivers that flow from province to province, and air that's shared among provinces. But the logic of the position escapes me when it comes to your suggestion that Quebec should be an island within the federal set-up that way. It seems to me that the ammonia or the benzene going into the waters of Quebec are no different from that coming from Ontario, or New Brunswick, for that matter.

Mr. Dick Martin: You're absolutely correct. When you get into this whole discussion, one can only hope that between Canada and Quebec there would be an agreement on what levels are permissible and enforcement procedures and so forth. I think Quebeckers are as concerned about the state of affairs of the environment as anyone else would be, and would consequently put the pressure on their provincial government to observe national standards—or international standards, for that matter.

So that's where we're coming from. We are saying that we think we, as Canada, can handle that with the exception of Quebec, but we're not going to be able to handle it if we're going to give this to eleven or twelve jurisdictions to carry out. Dealing one on one with one jurisdiction, we think we can accommodate that, but getting it all over the place in the rest of the country just seems impossible.

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The Chairman: Mr. Martin, you are expecting the average citizen in Quebec to play a much more intensive and active role vis-à-vis his or her provincial government than citizens do in the rest of Canada.

Mr. Dick Martin: No, not necessarily.

The Chairman: Yes, you do, because you are saying the citizens of Quebec ought to put pressure on the provincial government. You are not saying the citizens in Saskatchewan should put pressure on the provincial government.

Mr. Dick Martin: No, don't read that into my remarks, Mr. Chairman. I do think there has to be a greater awareness amongst all citizens in all the country on environment issues. As a matter of fact, there probably is. At least there's a level of concern out there in every citizen in the country about environmental issues. I would only hope the awareness and concern will become higher. I do believe the Harris government in Ontario is going to pay a price for its lack of concern about the environment and lack of enforcement. I think it's going to pay a political price for that.

The Chairman: But why shouldn't the citizen in Quebec rely on Ottawa for the solution of certain pollution problems?

Mr. Dick Martin: What I'm saying is that Ottawa can have these national standards, which we are advocating, certain processes and procedures, and we would hope Quebec would be in some compliance or accommodation with those national standards. We do agree that whether it's a national issue or an international one, we are all on this planet together. Consequently there seems to be, I would hope, the pressure on individual provinces, on individual countries, to reach these maximum standards.

The Chairman: All right, then let me ask you one question. Could you again provide this committee with your proposals for pollution prevention regulations, so as to refresh our memories, please? You mentioned them in the last paragraph of your brief today.

Mr. Dave Bennett: It has actually already been done, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Would you do it again?

Mr. Dave Bennett: Sure.

The Chairman: Sorry. I missed that portion of your input, and it would be helpful at this time if we could look into it.

Secondly, can you tell us what you think of the regionalization of the decision-making process within Environment Canada? Do you have any comments to make on regionalization of the decision-making process in investigation, inspection, and enforcement? Is it good, bad, or indifferent?

Mr. Dave Bennett: We don't have any direct evidence or anything substantial to say about this issue on environment jurisdiction. We do know that in occupational health and safety the regionalization of Labour Canada's services has led to a deterioration in health and safety compliance and also inconsistency in the ways in which the law has been applied. Similar allegations have been made by environmental organizations over the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. We're not in a position to substantiate that. We only ask the committee to consider that as a possibility. But it's not just harmonization. It's not just the federal government shedding its responsibilities. It's the unevenness of Environment Canada's enforcement procedures.

The Chairman: Finally, do you favour a totally independent enforcement office, as recommended by this committee in a CEPA report in 1995?

Mr. Dick Martin: Yes.

The Chairman: We thank you very much for your input. We look forward to receiving your suggestions on pollution prevention regulations.

[Proceedings continue in camera]