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View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2019-06-17 17:17 [p.29206]
Mr. Speaker, climate change is real. It is primarily driven by human activity, and we are experiencing very serious consequences as a result today.
There is no doubt in my mind that the challenge relating to climate change constitutes an emergency here in Canada. I am so proud to lend my support to the motion on the floor of the House of Commons to declare an emergency in respect of climate change in our country. We need not panic, because we can be optimistic. We know that the solutions to this existential threat are before us, if we can simply muster the political will to implement the solutions that we know very well exist today.
Over the course of my remarks, I hope to offer some insight into the nature of the consequences we are experiencing, to give some of my insights on the opportunity that could be garnered if we embrace climate change as an economic growth strategy, and to perhaps provide some additional insight, for any of those listening, into the political dynamic that we are facing today as we approach the next election with climate change being a central issue of importance to the campaign.
To begin, I do want to address some of the consequences that we are facing, but perhaps before, although it seems trite to say so, it is important to explain the science behind how we know climate change is real. The recent report from Environment Canada, “Canada's Changing Climate Report”, signals that Canada is experiencing warming at twice the rate of the global average. In some parts of our country, it is five times that rate.
The consequences that we are seeing are apparent in our communities. This science has been corroborated for decades by groups like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A majority of the world scientists who are studying climate change acknowledge not only that it is happening, but a primary driver of what is happening is human industrial activity. It is incumbent upon us to take action if we are going to avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change that we are seeing.
Though I probably do not have to explain to many in this room, we can observe these consequences in our community. If we look at my home province of Nova Scotia, we deal with increased storm surges and hurricanes. The report I mentioned, “Canada's Changing Climate Report”, flags that the city of Halifax in my home province of Nova Scotia in the next few decades is going to experience floods at four times the rate it does today.
We look at our colleagues from New Brunswick, who I have had numerous conversations with about the floods that their province has been experiencing. We have seen pictures circulating on social media of highway signs that are completely submerged under water. We can look at a few years ago in Quebec and Ontario, and we see the heat waves that took dozens of lives. We can see the forest fires in western Canada. We can see the melting of our glaciers in northern Canada. There is not a community in our country that has not been impacted by the environmental consequences of climate change.
It is important to acknowledge that it is not just environmental consequences that we are experiencing as a result of climate change, there are social, health and economic consequences as well. When I see communities next to coal plants, we can observe a higher rate of childhood asthma. There is increased lung and heart disease in communities. In fact, there is a physical threat to many folks, like those who had to flee the fires in Fort McMurray.
The fact is we know that these consequences are having an impact. In addition, we can point to the changing patterns and migration of infectious diseases. I know ticks have become a much bigger problem in Nova Scotia. They were not when I was a kid. With them, we are seeing a similarly rising level of Lyme disease in my home province.
The fact is, we can observe these changes. There are social consequences, like communities physically being displaced, the impact on wildlife that communities have traditionally hunted, indigenous and non-indigenous alike. We are seeing consequences that are changing our weather patterns, our climate systems that are changing the way that we have to live and forcing us out of the habits and traditions we have practised for generations.
If the environmental, social or health consequences are not enough to inspire action, we can see the economic losses that we are experiencing today. If we look at the data from the insurance sector in Canada, we see that they are starting to change the way that they assess the risk of climate change. I take it that most people here would accept that the insurance sector is doing what it is in the best interests of its bottom line.
From the time of the mid-1980s until 2008 or so, the average payout in the insurance sector for severe weather events in Canada was between $250 million and $450 million. Since that time, the average has climbed to about $1.8 billion, exceeding $2 billion most recently. That number is projected to grow. This is having an impact on the cost of insurance.
There are some homes that simply will not be able to be insured. There are provinces and communities in Canada that are spending taxpayer dollars to help relocate families from homes that are no longer in a safe area, places that used to have 100-year floods once every 100 years are now having them every few years.
The fact is there is something happening, and those who are watching their pocketbooks very closely are changing their behaviour. They are reflecting a new reality.
It is not just the insurance sector. Members should look at the costs to municipalities paid for by by local ratepayers of building out flood mitigation infrastructure, for example. That cost is borne by taxpayers. The cost of inaction is simply too great to ignore.
However, it is not all bad news because we actually see an enormous opportunity to invest in the measures that are going to help deal with the consequences of climate change. Canada's Building Trades' projection is that as many as four million jobs for the Canadian economy could be added if we embrace new building codes that would actually bring us up to a standard that can help us reduce our emissions.
I have companies in my own community like the Trinity Group of Companies that have embraced energy efficiency as an economic growth strategy. It started out with a couple of great guys from home who were pretty handy and were able to do some local contracting work. Due to investments of successive provincial governments, we have actually seen energy efficiency take hold and homeowners who want to save on their power bills hire a company to come in, conduct an energy audit and make their home more efficient. It has grown from an operation with just a couple of guys into an organization that has dozens of employees and is present across the entire Atlantic region.
There are incredible world-leading companies like CarbonCure in Dartmouth that are delivering incredible products when it comes to carbon sequestration, pulling the carbon emissions out of our atmosphere and using it to strengthen products we need like concrete. Another company, just five minutes from where I live today, is MacKay Meters. It has secured a patent to build electric vehicle charging stations into their parking meters. This is truly innovative stuff that is going to help change the world that we live in.
Of course, the value that we gain from researchers who are working in our communities, researchers like Dr. David Risk at the FluxLab at StFX University in Antigonish, is actually developing instrumentation that can help detect gas and methane leaks in oil and gas infrastructure across Canada. He is commercializing this technology, not only to make a profit but to continue doing more research, keeping young people employed in a rural community that has a university that I represent.
There is also a missed economic opportunity if we do not address the worst consequences of climate change. I represent a province that relies heavily on the fishery in order to sustain the smaller communities that dot the coast of Nova Scotia. What we have seen take place in Maine over the past few years, a loss of 22 million pounds in their lobster catch, would be devastating if and when it comes to Nova Scotia, and if we continue to see the acidification and warming of our oceans off Nova Scotia. We can only expect that the lobsters will either move or suffocate inside the waters where they traditionally live and sustain a local economy.
In western Canada, we saw an enormous dip in production in the energy sector when forest fires that are linked to climate change ravaged parts of western Canada. The fact is that we can look at any province and see that.
In the Prairie region, the agricultural sector is under threat. I met with a young researcher, who did a master's thesis on the impact of climate change on agriculture in the Prairie provinces, recognizing that the Prairies are in the rain shadow of the Rockies and do not benefit from some of the weather that helps make our soil fertile, essentially large amounts of rain. They rely heavily instead on the spring melt that comes from our glaciers. When they finally disappear, there may be insufficient water and increased droughts that prevent our agricultural sector from growing.
These are very real and obvious risks, if we just take the time to speak with people who have been studying them. Frankly, we need to take this opportunity because the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, a Canadian, has identified that there is a $26-trillion opportunity in clean growth and Canada should be on the front end of that wave so that we can capitalize on not just the growth but the jobs that come with that growth. We can do the right thing and do the smart thing at the same time.
However, it is difficult to have discussions in this chamber and in Ottawa when it comes to climate policy, because the starting point is not only that we need to address the problem and do something about it. Sometimes we have to turn back the clock and prove the science to one another before we can have a meaningful debate. To me this is completely unacceptable.
What Canadians are going to face come October is a choice between a Liberal government that is advancing an ambitious agenda, trying their best to fight climate change and making a meaningful difference, not only to reduce our emissions but to capitalize on clean growth opportunities, and a Conservative Party that has refused to put forward a plan on climate change to date, despite their leader saying more than a year ago that he was going to find a plan that would comply with the Paris Agreement targets.
With respect, the Conservative Party has said it is going to be releasing their plan later this week. I do not have much hope that it will be worth the paper that it is written on. When I look at some of the Conservative members who would have informed that plan, it gives me great trepidation. We have seen members identify piles of snow in western Canada in February to suggest that that is evidence that global warming is not taking place.
Some Conservatives have indicated that the phenomenon of rising global temperatures is simply like folks walking into a room and their bodies giving off heat. We have seen other members suggest to school children in Alberta that CO2 is not pollution but plant food. Just recently, one of the caucus member sitting in the Senate indicated that a recent power outage was due to the Prime Minister of Canada's anti-energy policies.
The Conservatives are saying we should retreat from the global conversation on climate change by withdrawing from the Paris agreement. Even the the leader of the Conservatives and deputy leader have recently tweeted articles, suggesting that the link between climate change and severe weather events has not been proven.
If this is the kind of information feeding into the plans that are developing, I have great disappointment in advance of the plan being released if these are the kinds of conversations that are taking place behind the scenes.
We know that the Conservatives' provincial counterparts are pushing forward the same kind of laissez-faire attitude when it comes to climate change. The Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has advanced a policy dismantling flood protection and then has shown up at flood zones and said, “I wonder what could possibly be going on.” He has set aside $30 million to fight climate action, rather than take action on climate change. That money could make a difference. He has launched a frivolous campaign to post stickers on gas stations. At the same time, he purports to support free speech. This makes no sense.
The climate economists who have been covering this issue are suggesting that his plan is not only going to slow down our reduction in emissions, but it is going to be more expensive for households as well.
With respect to my NDP colleagues, I have a lot time for their ideas, because I know they care about climate change and protecting the environment. However, I do have reservations about the policy suggestions they have advanced. I think we can work together to accomplish certain ideas, but others have very serious problems that need to be addressed.
In some of the commentary I have heard around our plan to put a price on pollution, NDP members have indicated that big emitters are exempt. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on. The NDP has advanced a plan that would put a price on big emitters, but, as the Ecofiscal Commission has pointed out, it would not lead to a reduction in emissions globally, because it would simply encourage polluters to leave Canada and pollute elsewhere even more. This would hurt the Canadian economy and would not contribute to our emissions reduction efforts.
Other examples from the NDP include the declaration that we need to immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies. We need to take action on fossil fuel subsidies, do not get me wrong. In fact, to date, we have phased out eight that were embedded in the tax code. However, the blanket ban the NDP proposed on this specific issue would lead to fundamental consequences, which are certainly unintended, because the plan was not very well thought through.
Examples include the denial of subsidies that support diesel to northern and remote indigenous communities, which rely on diesel for electricity, and the denial of subsidies for the potential research I mentioned at the flux lab at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish. Some of the products being developed with those research funds are going to reduce emissions in the oil and gas sector. Similarly, the NDP plans would deny the opportunity for us to invest in certain infrastructure that is helping us transition from gas and diesel-powered vehicles toward alternative fuelled vehicles.
I am happy to work with my colleagues in different parties to advance ideas that make sense. However, we cannot make statements that they will work before we have actually thought them through.
I would like to take some time to mention some of the actions we have taken to date.
We are facing a climate emergency, and a lot of attention has been given to our plan in this place with respect to putting a price on pollution. However, we are not a one-trick pony. Our plan has over 50 measures that would help to bring emissions down.
I want to take a moment to discuss our plan to put a price on pollution to educate the public on how it works. It is pretty simple. If something is more expensive, people buy less of it. When it comes to carbon pricing, every penny generated from revenues related to the price on pollution is kept within the province where the pollution is generated. Those revenues are directly returned to residents living within those provinces.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has stated in a public report that because of the structure of this kind of a plan, eight out of 10 families can expect to be better off. They will receive more money than the price on pollution costs them. The number of families that will be out of pocket will be a modest amount, but they will be among the 20% wealthiest Canadians living in provinces where our plan applies.
This is not some hare-brained idea born simply out of the Liberal caucus in Ottawa. It has broad-based support among anyone who has any expertise in the conversation about climate change and economics. In fact, last year's Nobel Prize winner in economics won the Nobel Prize for developing an approach to climate change that would do exactly what the federal government's plan is doing: put a price on pollution and return the rebates directly to households so the majority of folks are left better off.
It is not just Nobel laureates and Liberal politicians who support this plan. Mark Cameron, the former director of policy for Prime Minister Harper, is behind this kind of an approach. In fact, Doug Ford's chief budget adviser testified in the Senate in this Parliament that the number one thing we could do to transition to a low-carbon economy was to put a price on pollution.
Most recently, the Pope made statements, just this last weekend, indicating that carbon pricing was essential. He said, “For too long we have collectively failed to listen to the fruits of scientific analysis, and doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain.”
When I talk to people in my community, particularly young people, I see them advocating for the kind of change that all of these different folks have been suggesting we should be taking for so long.
Let us look at the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal case that recently dealt with the constitutionality of the federal government's backstop that implemented a price on pollution. The court said that carbon pricing was not just part and parcel of an effective plan to reduce emissions; it said it was “an essential aspect...of the global effort to limit GHG emissions.” It put the word “essential” in italics so folks like us who are sitting in this chamber would pay extra close attention to the importance of advancing this important mechanism, which we know to be the most effective thing we can do to bring down our emissions.
However, we are not a one-trick pony. We are advancing measures to phase out coal. By 2030, 90% of the electricity in our country will be generated from non-emitting resources. We are making the single largest investment in the history of public transit. We are making record investments in energy efficiency to support companies that are advancing green technology. We are changing methane regulations to reduce the fastest-growing sources of GHG emissions that are driving climate change today. We have adopted new vehicle emissions standards. We are working on a clean fuel standard.
We are also taking steps to protect nature. I know Canadians, the ones who I represent in Central Nova, have demanded that we take action to protect nature and to eliminate plastics from our marine environment. We put forward a $1.5-billion oceans protection plan early in our mandate.
More recent, we announced that we were moving forward with a ban on harmful single-use plastics. We are putting the responsibility to deal with the life cycle of those plastic products on the manufacturers rather than on the end user. We expect that this is going to create economic opportunities in the plastics industry. At the same time, we prevent the discharge of harmful materials into our environment and in particular into our marine environment.
I want to spend a minute of the few I have left talking briefly about the impact that climate change and human activity have had on nature.
Since the 1970s, the earth has lost about 60% of its wildlife. This should shock the conscience of every Canadian. Let us look at the largest countries in the world. Canada is one of five countries that represents about three-quarters of the world's remaining wilderness. We have an opportunity and an obligation to address this issue. We are seeing the impacts today with some of our most iconic species.
Caribou herds across Canada are suffering because of immense deforestation. We have seen the southern resident killer whale population dwindle in recent history. We have a number of other species at risk. Globally, it is expected that one million of eight million species in the world are at serious threat of extinction if we do not change direction.
I have spent a lot of time dealing with the southern mountain caribou. In British Columbia right now, there are population units that have just a handful of animals left. They have been there for thousands of years but will disappear. We have made the single largest investment in the history of Canada to protect nature by more than doubling our protected spaces.
However, we know that it is not enough and we know we need help to get there. We need every Canadian to be pulling in the same direction. The time to come together is now. People who are living in a community that has a solar co-op can figure out how they can take part. If they want to take part in a community cleanup, they are doing something. Through collective global action, we can make a difference. Quite frankly, we do not have a choice. It is the smart thing to do and it is in our self-interest.
I am proud to speak in favour of this motion to recognize that we face a climate emergency. I am even prouder to work as part of a government that is doing its best to do something about it.
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2019-06-14 12:30 [p.29134]
Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and honour to rise today to present two petitions on behalf of residents in my riding of Courtenay—Alberni. These residents are from Courtenay, Cumberland, Parksville and Port Alberni.
The petitioners call on the government to address the opioid crisis. They cite that since 2016, over 11,000 Canadians have died preventable deaths from fentanyl-poisoned sources. They also cite that these deaths are more than all deaths combined from SARS, H1N1 and Ebola.
The petitioners want the Government of Canada to declare the current opioid crisis and fentanyl poisoning crisis a national public health emergency under the Emergencies Act in order to manage and resource it, with the aim to reduce and eliminate preventable deaths. They want the government to reform current drug policy to decriminalize personal possession. Last, they want, with urgency and immediacy, a system to provide safe, unadulterated access to substances so that people who are using substances experimentally, recreationally or chronically are not at imminent risk of overdose due to a contaminated source.
View Cheryl Hardcastle Profile
NDP (ON)
View Cheryl Hardcastle Profile
2019-06-07 12:18 [p.28760]
Madam Speaker, the second petition is also from residents in Windsor—Tecumseh, who are highly conscious of the issue of the opioid crisis and understand that in order to access certain resources nationally and to have an approach with the aim to reduce and eliminate preventable deaths, we have to declare this a national public health emergency under the Emergencies Act, and they urge us to do so.
View Niki Ashton Profile
NDP (MB)
Mr. Speaker, today we learned that the Minister of Indigenous Services lives in an alternate universe when it comes to Grassy Narrows. He said a deal was in place, but the chief says otherwise. He said shovels were ready, but contractors have not even been lined up.
The Liberals say there is political will, but today Liberal MPs refused to move an NDP motion calling on the government to put the money into a trust fund before it is too late. Is it not ironic that we have finally found the one trust fund our trust fund Prime Minister will not support?
Why is the government choosing to delay, deny and obstruct? Will it finally deliver justice to the people of Grassy Narrows?
View Dan Vandal Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Dan Vandal Profile
2019-06-06 14:43 [p.28701]
Mr. Speaker, our government recognizes the health issues that the people of Grassy Narrows have endured for over 50 years and that continue today.
We share the community's goal of finding a solution that meets its needs. We remain steadfast in our commitment to building a health facility in Grassy Narrows. We will continue discussions with the chief and council until we arrive at a solution. This facility will get built.
View Linda Duncan Profile
NDP (AB)
View Linda Duncan Profile
2019-06-06 17:12 [p.28722]
moved that Bill C-438, An Act to enact the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights and to make related amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
She said: Madam Speaker, there are many in this place who know that I have long awaited the opportunity to debate this bill again. It is Bill C-438, an act to enact the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights and to make related amendments to other acts, because that includes an amendment to the bill of rights.
This is the fourth time that I have tabled this bill in 11 years in this place over three Parliaments. I believe the first time I tabled it was as soon as I was elected, somewhere between 2008 and 2009. That bill was debated and went through committee, and I will get into that in a minute. Today, in the brief time I am allotted, I hope to say what an environmental bill of rights is, what its origin is, why it is needed, and who has endorsed the need for an environmental bill of rights.
The environmental bill of rights legally extends the right to a healthy, ecologically balanced environment to Canadians. It confirms the duty of the Government of Canada to uphold its public trust duty to protect the environment. It amends the Canadian Bill of Rights to add environmental rights. It extends a bundle of rights and tools to Canadians, including having a voice in decisions impacting their health and environment, having standing before courts and tribunals, and having the power to hold the government accountable on effective environmental enforcement and on the review of law and policies. It extends protections for government whistle-blowers who release to Canadians information that is relevant to health and environmental impacts.
As I mentioned, I have tabled this bill four times over 11 years in three successive governments. My bill actually survived a challenge and gained a speaker's ruling in my favour when the Conservatives tried to crush it in 2009. It did proceed to second reading and on to committee. Sadly, it was essentially shredded at committee. It then died on the Order Paper when the early election was called.
I retabled it again, as I mentioned, in 2011 and 2015 and again in a revised, updated form in 2019.
Why is an environmental bill of rights needed? Community voices, the voices of non-governmental organizations and indigenous voices are absolutely critical triggers for action to protect health and the environment. Federal law and policy is made all the stronger with public engagement, and public rights are absolutely critical to government accountability. That has been my direct experience over the almost 50 years that I have been an environmental lawyer and advocate.
I want to now give a couple of examples of what happens when the public is engaged and their rights are upheld, and what happens when they are not.
One strong example is an engagement that I had, along with a small community organization in Alberta. We were dealing with how to improve air emissions from coal-fired power. Coal-fired power is still the major source of electricity in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and it is huge in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Mercury from coal-fired power is the largest source of industrial mercury in North America, and mercury is a neurotoxin. It was the first substance listed by the federal government under the former Environmental Contaminants Act and was incorporated into the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, yet to this day, the federal government has never regulated mercury from coal-fired power.
I intervened as a volunteer in the review of the standards. It is a consensus process. I dug in my heels. If industry wanted to get their emissions standards for NOx, sulfur dioxide particulate, they had to agree to my recommendation that mercury had to be captured by that sector, and there had to be a law in place. To the credit of the Alberta government, they enacted that law.
That is a clear example showing that had my community not intervened, neither the federal nor the provincial government would have stepped forward, after 40 years of burning coal in Alberta, to actually stop the flow of mercury into our lakes.
Another example that we have been talking about over the last couple of months in this place is the issue of mercury at Grassy Narrows, and there is a different example. If the indigenous community at Grassy Narrows had been directly engaged in decisions on how those industrial operations were going to operate in their community and along the river and had been engaged on the issue of whether or not it was safe to put effluent that had high levels of mercury contamination into the river, and if they had been given the information on the potential health and environmental impacts and a seat at the table to have a say in how that plan should operate, I do not believe that we would be facing the health impacts and the expense of cleaning up that area now.
Those are the two differences in what happens when we have some environmental rights, the opportunity to be at the table and access to information. The other, Grassy Narrows, is an example of where we did not do that and there is a high cost, both health-wise and financially.
A number of times in this place I have raised concern with the impact of emissions on the indigenous community next to the Sarnia industrial complex and the failure of both levels of government to combat those and do proper health studies and control. That community has struggled just in trying to get basic information on what the emissions are, whether controls are in place and whether it is impacting their health.
Ongoing frustration was felt by indigenous communities in northern Alberta when they attempted to finally have a health impact study delivered in their communities on the impact of oil sands emissions on their health, despite the fact that there was a release quite some years ago about the high rate of rare cancers. A lot of work was also done by scientists, showing a buildup of contaminants in the Athabasca River, in the air and on the land.
Just this week, three chiefs in that area published an article in The Hill Times. They said the oil sands is the only activity in their area for employment and economic development. They invest in the oil sands. They demand to have a seat at the table on decisions as to whether or not they are going to allow the draining of the contaminated water in those tar ponds into the Athabasca River. It is going to contaminate the Athabasca River on to Lake Athabasca and on into the Northwest Territories. This has been going on for many years and the government, behind closed doors, has been making these decisions.
This is a perfect example of the need for an environmental bill of rights. If we had an environmental bill of rights, those communities would have the right to all that information, the right to the process that is going on, and the right to have a seat at the table in determining whether or not that is a wise decision.
The Mikisew Cree eventually had to go to UNESCO to demand that there be action on the impact of the Site C dam, the Bennett dam and the oil sands operations on the Peace-Athabasca Delta and the world heritage site. They issued directives, and we are still waiting for the government to act on those directives.
Two other final examples are pipelines. If the former Conservative government had actually listened to its advisers, if it had listened to first nations and if it had listened to the environmental community, it would have known it could not proceed with the northern gateway pipeline until it respected first nations' rights and interests. It was the same issue on the TMX pipeline, but as the court held, there was no consideration under the government obligations with regard to endangered species. Therefore, those projects have been stalled or cancelled.
If we had an environmental bill of rights, it would clarify the right to participate, the right to access to information and the right to access to experts and to legal counsel, so that one could come to the table in a constructive and informed way.
Who has endorsed this concept? Some provinces and territories have enacted an array of environmental rights, and some of those limited rights have been enacted in federal laws. Sadly, a good number of those laws were downgraded by the Harper government. That government downgraded the federal impact assessment process, thereby limiting the opportunities for people to participate and the kinds of projects that would be reviewed, including the expansion of oil sands projects and in situ operations.
The Liberals promised in the 2015 campaign that they would immediately strengthen federal environmental laws. Four years into it there is still no action on the report of my committee on reforming CEPA, which would have expanded environmental rights, and we do not know what the fate of Bill C-69 is. We are waiting with bated breath to know what will happen to all of those regressive amendments proposed in the Senate.
The North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation was a side agreement to NAFTA. It was enforced by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, where I had the privilege of working for four years as the head of law and enforcement. Under that agreement, Canada, along with Mexico and the United States, committed to public participation in conserving, protecting and enhancing the environment. It also committed to giving people the opportunity to comment on proposed environmental measures and the right to seek a report on effective environmental enforcement, stand before administrative, quasi-judicial and judicial proceedings, and have access to remedies. Those are exactly the provisions that are in the bill before us today.
Canada already committed years ago to move forward and uphold these rights. Therefore, I have tabled this proposal over and over again to try to encourage the government to respond to the current trade law. In a minute, I will speak about what the government could have done and was asked to do.
There is a side agreement to the proposed new trade law. However, I am sad to say it has been downgraded from the existing one. All of the trade deals that have been signed and sealed since NAFTA have downgraded the environmental rights enshrined in the side agreements.
The United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur was asked to look into human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a clean, safe, healthy and sustainable environment. He travelled the world for four years. On behalf of the Human Rights Council, he issued an environmental bill of rights framework for all nations to adopt. Guess what. It is exactly the framework in my bill.
Over 90 nations have extended these rights through constitutions, laws, court rulings, international treaties or declarations. Canada is far behind.
In 2009, the Aarhus convention was signed by many countries of the world, and in large part by European and Scandinavian nations. It committed the signatories to provide access to information, public participation decision-making and access to justice and environmental matters. Canada said it did not have to sign it because it was already extending those rights. In fact, it has not done that yet.
Recently, to the credit of many in this place, many members of Parliament signed the environmental rights pledge issued by the David Suzuki Foundation through the Blue Dot campaign. We had a big celebration on Monday night, celebrating the fact that so many parliamentarians were committed to enacting environmental rights.
This is something interesting. In 2018, the Liberals held a federal convention and passed a resolution. That resolution reminded the Liberals that in June 2010, all Liberals members of Parliament present in the House of Commons voted in favour of Bill C-469, which was my environmental bill of rights. The convention reminded the members that the United Nations recognized environmental rights as a basic human right. They then passed a resolution, saying that the Liberal Party of Canada urged the Government of Canada to enact legislation establishing a Canadian environmental bill of rights.
I have said all along, since the first day I was elected in 2008, that I would welcome the government of the day taking my bill and enacting a full-fledged bill. Here we are with a couple of weeks left in this place and nothing has occurred. That is why I am delighted I can debate the bill, and I look forward to the response of some of my colleagues.
To date, over 3,000 Canadians have signed petitions, both e-petitions and hard-copy petitions, saying that they support the enactment of this environmental bill of rights. Ecojustice, the David Suzuki Foundation and, most recently, the Social Justice Cooperative Newfoundland and Labrador have endorsed this bill and called for action by the government to enact this law.
I look forward to hearing the comments from other parties in the House. It has been my absolute pleasure to work with other members of Parliament on environmental matters. I know there are strong promoters of environmental rights here, and I hope to hear from them this evening.
View Niki Ashton Profile
NDP (MB)
Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Indigenous Services went to Grassy Narrows to sign an agreement based on a two-year-old promise to a community that has been ravaged by mercury poisoning. However, he returned empty-handed.
Today, in committee, adding insult to injury, the minister blamed the chief, saying that the chief just “changed his mind”.
Let me be clear. Grassy Narrows is calling for what it was promised, including a mercury care home and treatment centre. Grassy Narrows deserves justice, not gaslighting.
When will the Liberal government quit the blame game and keep its promise to the people of Grassy Narrows?
View Seamus O'Regan Profile
Lib. (NL)
Mr. Speaker, I was in Grassy Narrows, because building a health facility there is a priority for us. The hope was to sign an agreement to move forward in addressing the needs of the community. It is part of a process of consensus building and negotiation in the best interest of the outcomes for that community and looking after those who are no longer in the community but need attention and care.
These conversations are ongoing. We will continue working with Chief Turtle and his council until we agree on a solution that meets the health needs of Grassy Narrows, not only now but in the long term.
View Alistair MacGregor Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be standing in this place to give my thoughts on the bill that is before us. It is unfortunate that with yet another omnibus bill, one that clocks in at almost 400 pages, we are unfortunately having to debate this bill under the yoke of time allocation, which was moved earlier this morning. I believe this gives us five hours for report stage and five hours for third reading for a bill of this magnitude.
This is the fourth Liberal budget I have had to sit through. I was one of those members who were elected in 2015 and have served the entire duration thus far. I have noticed two things with respect to the Liberals and their budgets. They like to always repeat two things. Number one is that they were the ones who brought in a middle-class tax cut, and number two is that they are lifting all of these children out of poverty with the child benefit. Let me address the first one before the government House leader cheers too loudly on that front.
I want to point out two facts. Number one is that in 2017, according to Statistics Canada, the average income in Canada was $46,700, and the median income was $35,000. Now the Liberals are claiming this as a middle-class tax cut, when in fact it is actually the middle-income tax bracket cut, which they lowered by 1.5%. This is very important, because they keep on perpetuating this basic thing. The middle-income tax bracket starts at $46,000 and goes up to $93,000. This means that this benefit is not going to help the average Canadian. I can also clearly speak for most of my constituents. They do not have incomes that go into that range, or if they do, they are getting maybe the first amount.
What the Liberals did, however, by giving that tax cut for that bracket was give themselves all the maximum tax cut of about $675,000, because a member of Parliament's salary allows the member to command the full benefits of that tax cut, when most Canadians, as evidenced by Statistics Canada, are not in fact benefiting from that tax cut. I have spent almost four years in this place listening to Liberals talk about that, and the evidence does not back them up. It is not the middle class. It is a middle-income tax cut of 1.5%, and the wealthiest of Canadians under $200,000 of income are the ones who benefited the most. Let us get that out of the way.
The other thing is with the child benefit. I will give it to the Liberals that for a lot of families it was absolutely great to see an increase to child benefits. There is a big “however” to that. When I go door knocking in my riding, especially in the south end, in Langford, which is populated by a lot of young families, the biggest concern they have is with the availability and affordability of child care. There are simply not enough spaces. Yes, it is nice to get that bump up in child benefits, but if the primary caregiver, whether it be one partner or the other, wants to go out and get a second job, it is actually the lack of availability of spaces that is really holding that parent back.
Furthermore, I talk to small businesses in the region that have three, four or five employees. When they lose one employee because that person is going on maternity leave, they are losing a huge part of their workforce. If small businesses could have that national child care system the NDP has been advocating, that would help them, because that employee could make a return to work in a timely manner, safe in the knowledge that his or her child has a space to go to. It makes economic sense, which is why we have had chambers of commerce talk about it.
As to this particular bill, I want to talk about some of the things that are missing. In British Columbia we have an opioid crisis, which has absolutely ravaged our province. I believe we lost 4,000 people across the country in 2017. It has been absolutely devastating, yet in this budget we do not see any further resources to help those front-line workers who are dealing with this. We do not see any move by the federal government to match the government of B.C. in declaring this a national emergency under the federal Emergencies Act, which would allow the federal government to deploy more resources.
Pharmacare was a missed opportunity. I brought this up during the Adjournment Proceedings debate last night, when I was following up on a question I had asked in February. It needs to be said again.
The Liberal Party first promised a national pharmacare system in 1997, 22 years ago. The Liberals have had the benefit of having had majority governments in 1993, 1997, 2000 and again in this mandate, the 2015 mandate. Here we are, at the very tail end of the Liberal government's majority mandate, and what do we have? We have an expert panel that will release more recommendations, which are probably going to be a repeat of what we all know, that a national pharmacare system would save Canadians money. We know it has to be comprehensive, universal and fully public. It is the missing part of our national medicare system.
The Liberal government likes to make a great big deal about its national housing strategy, but when we look at the numbers, the lion's share of the money actually starts flowing after the next federal election. I appreciate that the Liberals keep on getting up and talking about all the things that are coming. I have dug into the numbers in my riding. A lot of the funding announcements are actually federal funding that was already in place before the national housing strategy.
If the Liberals want to raise the issue, I have the phone number for Mayor Stew Young of the City of Langford, one of the fastest growing municipalities in all of British Columbia, if not Canada. He could tell them where the federal government has been. MIA is what he will say.
I have a lot of students in my area. My riding is home to Royal Roads University. We have Vancouver Island University, the Cowichan campus. Of course not too far away, we have the great University of Victoria, which is where I attended school.
The price of tuition has gone up considerably since I went to university. I remember I thought it was fairly high back in my day. However, these days I look at the costs that students are paying, the debt they are being saddled with and the fact that the federal government is still collecting interest off that debt.
When a person gets into their late 20s and early 30, those are supposed to be the most productive years of their lives. We are asking them to start a family, start that new job. However, if they are saddled with that crushing debt and having to pay interest on it, interest which the federal government is collecting, that is a missed opportunity. I do not know why we are profiting off this crushing student debt. That opportunity was missed. I certainly hope that the students who are intending to vote take note of that and take note of where the different political parties stand on that issue.
I will end with the total missed opportunity that comes with the federal government's continued subsidies on oil and gas. This was a clear Liberal promise on which they have failed to deliver. We can look at the billions of dollars go into an industry, which we know we have to start levelling off if we are to meet our climate targets. We have a carbon budget. We are not meeting it.
For people who complain about the cost of doing so or the cost of transition, I would ask them to look at the forecast for the wildfire budget in British Columbia for this year. What will the costs be of mitigating and adapting to climate change? What about the billions of dollars we will to have to spend to help people when their homes are flooded out, when their farms are burned or when they cannot even produce a crop because of successive droughts and/or floods.
These costs are coming our way and they are going to be momentous. They are going dwarf to anything. The fact is that the government is continuing to subsidize this industry when the new economy of the future, the renewable energy economy of the future is the one that is growing. It is the one where the jobs are and it is the one demanding the skill sets of many of our oil and gas workers.
We need to stop subsidizing oil and gas. We need to put our money in the economy of the future. This is a missed opportunity to proclaim loudly that in 2019 we understand the science, that we know the deadline we were working against and that we absolutely must honour not only the present but our children's future by making that transition. It will require a Herculean effort. Unfortunately, what I have seen thus far is not matching the reality in which we live.
With that, I will be voting against Bill C-97. Again, it is full of missed opportunities. We could have done so much better.
View Chris Bittle Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chris Bittle Profile
2019-05-31 13:22 [p.28367]
Mr. Speaker, it is good to see a steady hand back in the chair. I was concerned about the previous speaker who was sitting there, but order has been restored in the House. That is is the most controversial thing I may say in my speech, but I call it as I see it.
When I decided to run for politics, I had been working with a local organization for six years and was chair of that organization. It is called Quest Community Health Centre in St. Catharines and it provides primary health care to those who would not otherwise have access to it. It may seem that in a universal system of health care, everyone should be able to access primary care. We all have a health card in our pocket and we can get that level of treatment, but it was a surprise to me that it did not happen. Many people fell through the cracks and their primary source of treatment was the hospital, which is more expensive, less effective and leads to sicker people.
It gave me an opportunity over those six years to meet the clients at Quest Community Health Centre, those who had economic challenges, those who were homeless and living on the street, and those who had addictions, mental health or concurrent disorders. We talked a lot about the social determinants of health, meaning all of the factors in our lives that have an impact on our health. It is not just a matter of going to the hospital or seeing a doctor, because there are a lot of economic and socioeconomic factors that play into health.
One of the factors at the centre of all of our health is housing. Canadians across the country say that we need to do better on health, but we have to look at the socioeconomic factors around that. As I said, housing is one of those significant factors in that where we live within our community can almost determine what our life expectancy is. Those who are living in the urban centre of St. Catharines have a lower life expectancy than those living a mere 10 minutes away, where my family lives. That is shocking.
When we take the idea of housing as being at the centre of health care, we can apply it to so much more. We should be looking at housing as a centre of the debate on mental health, as a centre of the debates on poverty and the opioid crisis and the criminal justice system. There are no simple answers to any of these problems we are facing, but one of the easiest things we can do is to provide housing. This is what I brought forward.
In Niagara and this is true across southern Ontario, the wait lists for housing are staggering. It can take more than 10 years to find a single apartment through the Niagara region housing system. We should be shocked by this. We can say there is no cost to the taxpayer, but the costs of homelessness are huge. For all of the other issues I talked about, if we do not provide housing, the downstream costs are enormous.
It was exciting for me to go with that point through the election campaign, and I know my Conservative friends are very excited to hear about it, especially the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Chris Bittle: It is disappointing that the member from Aurora is laughing at an issue of homelessness when this is a serious discussion.
We went door to door and said that housing is at crisis levels in our community.
It did not get there overnight. It was governments of all political stripes, federal, provincial, municipal, that abandoned their responsibilities under housing. They did not do enough, and that has led us to the housing crisis we now face. People are waiting a decade to find affordable housing. The vacancy rate in St. Catharines has fallen below 2%, which makes it a crisis level.
I was excited last week to go to a new development at 527 Carlton Street in St. Catharines. It is the first affordable housing development built in St. Catharines by Niagara Regional Housing since the 1970s. It is almost criminal that we have ignored a crisis like this for so long. Through the national housing strategy, the federal government contributed $7 million to this project.
It was wonderful to meet with the residents, many of whom have been waiting a long time. Many of them had been living in substandard housing. It was wonderful to talk to them and see smiles on their faces. It is wonderful to know that government can help.
We hear a lot about cuts. We have to cut. Government is spending too much. We have to cut, cut, cut. This is what government spending looks like: being able to look at constituents who are smiling because they now have a place to call home. This is fundamental.
The amendments we made at committee stage on the national housing strategy recognize the importance of housing to the well-being of all people in Canada. They reflect the key principles of a human rights approach to housing that requires a national housing strategy to focus on improving housing outcomes for those in greatest need.
The national housing strategy act would establish a national housing council, with diverse representation, including people with lived experience of housing need or homelessness, to provide advice to the minister responsible for housing.
The amendments we are bringing at report stage on the national housing strategy would further entrench the commitment already made on the accountability of the proposed federal housing advocate, ensure greater accountability, enhance the advocate's role in researching systemic housing challenges, and empower the national housing council and give it more freedom to report to the housing advocate and to report findings to the minister.
If we are going to address this housing crisis, we need all levels of government to come together. I am proud to work with my mayor, Mayor Walter Sendzik, and our city council. They are passionate about the housing strategy. I hope our provincial government steps up, but I am worried that it will not.
As I only have a couple of minutes left, I would like to touch on the issue of infrastructure, which is important to all of our communities. Our communities are all facing infrastructure deficits from money that was not spent. At the end of the day, if there are infrastructure deficits and there is no help from the federal government, it ultimately means higher property taxes and higher water bills.
My worry at home is a project that happens every few years. I am talking about the Canada Summer Games. Niagara won the bid. The federal government stands ready to commit and to build, but the provincial government is absent. It refuses to come forward for Niagara to develop sports infrastructure.
When it came to Red Deer, Alberta, which hosted the last games, it got $80 million when two Conservative governments worked together. I still hold out hope that the Ford government is listening and cares about Niagara and wants to see this project move forward.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2019-05-30 14:36 [p.28298]
Mr. Speaker, the people of Grassy Narrows believed the Prime Minister when he made a solemn promise to build a mercury treatment centre. He even gave them a timeline, and then nothing happened. I guess we should have known that the punchline was coming when the Prime Minister made a joke about them to his rich donor friends. The punchline came yesterday: an empty agreement. No wonder Grassy Narrows refused to sign that bogus agreement. Politics is full of broken promises, but what about this one?
How does the Prime Minister justify such deplorable treatment of the people of Grassy Narrows?
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, building a health facility in Grassy Narrows is an absolute priority. That is why the minister went yesterday to meet with the chief and council in the community. Progress is being made and we are committed to a comprehensive solution that meets the needs of all of the community. The people of Grassy Narrows have suffered for over 50 years. We will find a path forward on a plan that meets the needs of the community now and in the long term.
View Erin O'Toole Profile
CPC (ON)
View Erin O'Toole Profile
2019-05-30 16:29 [p.28315]
Madam Speaker, I am joining the debate on Bill C-93 today, and the clock has been pushed out. I was originally supposed to speak some time ago, but as happens often in the House, we were delayed. Therefore, I am delayed in my phone call with my friend Wolf Solkin, a 96-year-old veteran at Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue in Quebec. If Wolf is watching, I will be calling him after these remarks.
Wolf would inspire all Canadians. He is 96. He helped liberate the Netherlands. Now he is an advocate for veterans and his comrades at Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, which is a hospital I helped transfer to the Quebec government as minister. However, the service is not living up to the standards we expected. We are trying to work on Wolf's concern and solve that, so I will be with Wolf in a moment.
The only time I dealt with cannabis as veterans minister was as a form of treatment for veterans. With Bill C-93, we are looking at the expedited record suspension route for simple possession of cannabis, but this is actually an example of another fumbled element of the cannabis legalization from the government. As the Liberals approach the election in the fall, that is literally the only issue I think the Prime Minister can look to and say that he kept his promise.
However, we have actually had to deal with the aftermath of rushed and often ill-conceived timelines and consequential public policy moves with respect to the Prime Minister's election promise. This is an example. That is not to say that we are going to turn back the clock when the Conservatives form government in the fall. Marijuana will remain legal, but we will try to address some of the public safety concerns, such as some of the concerns that pediatricians, the Canadian Medical Association and others have had.
It may have come as some surprise to some of the Liberal MPs who were not here in the last Parliament that I, and many MPs in the Conservative ranks, including my colleague from Kootenay, David Wilks, a former RCMP officer, supported the legalization step of decriminalization. It was not a full legalization rushed in this fashion. It was a ticketing approach by law enforcement, which the Liberals suggested would be a big problem, but it actually would not. In many ways, it was an unofficial way law enforcement could deal with it while still keeping the substance a controlled drug and illegal and keeping our international treaties and things like that in line. That was the approach many of us were advocating, because it was time to look at a new approach with respect to cannabis. Many of us recognized that. We did not want to see serious criminal sanctions for young people, but how could we also still talk about the public health risks associated with this drug? It is a minor drug with fewer complications and harms than many others, but let us also not kid ourselves. There are public policy and public health challenges with it. Therefore, I want to thank my former colleague, David Wilks, and other people for a serious discussion on this.
We are not going to turn back the clock. The leader of the Conservative Party has said that clearly, but we will try to address some of the concerns that have been raised on border issues by the CBSA, on public health and particularly on youth and the impact of cannabis on the developing brain. I was a little disappointed, personally, as a father and someone who has delved into this issue for many years in Parliament, that there was not any guidance with respect to the age of 18 or perhaps a higher age. These are the debates we should probably have rather than the rushed, often misguided public policy we have seen with the government.
I am going to raise a few concerns I have with the bill. Nothing shows the poor planning of the government more than how many pieces of substantive legislation it has on the docket with literally fewer than 20 days of Parliament left. The Liberals now have us sitting literally until midnight every day to try to rush through things that they say are priorities, such as Bill C-93, such as child welfare for indigenous Canadians and a whole range of other bills. That shows that they are not a priority, when after four years, they are in the final weeks of Parliament.
The main public policy concern I have is that the bill would actually create a new category of record suspension. Where there is a normal sort of pardon record suspension process, this would accelerate it and have no cost for a certain provision.
I do not think Liberals have raised a public policy rationale for why that is done, particularly when they defeated the bill from my colleague and friend in the NDP, the member for Victoria, on expungement. There were a lot of Conservatives who voted for the NDP bill and wanted more of a discussion of expungement within the context of record suspension. Why? It is because one of the major problems with the Liberals' rush on marijuana has been the border issue.
Canadians may not realize, and this is acute in places like Windsor and British Columbia, that if they are asked by an ICE agent, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the United States, whether they smoke marijuana, they can be barred from entry to the United States. If they need to go to the United States for work, that hurts their economic liberty and job prospects. Even with President Obama, the Prime Minister's bromance friend, as he has described it, the government could not get an assurance that ICE would take that one screening question off its list. That would have been a modest proposal.
In light of that, expungement is actually a superior route, because a record suspension is not recognized by the United States. If we are talking about creating a special category, we should have a wider discussion of expungement because of the risk that the U.S. would not agree. Maybe the Prime Minister brought it up with the vice-president today. He certainly did not bring up a whole range of issues, but that is still a big miss, because people's liberty could be impacted. The member for Victoria put forward some very thoughtful proposals. He is a member who will be missed for the public policy input he has.
A concern the Canadian Police Association has raised, which is very on point, is the fact that there is no ability to distinguish simple possession cases that were initially more serious cases that had been pleaded down to simple possession. In criminal cases where the Crown pleaded down a charge to simple possession, at the time the Crown did that because there would still be a criminal charge and a criminal record associated with this, so the Crown was satisfied with pleading down the charge, saving the judicial system money and that sort of thing. We should probably try to pull those cases out of a one-size-fits-all approach to record suspension.
A lot of us want expungement or some sort of ability to recognize that since marijuana is legal now, people's job prospects and other things should not be encumbered by a criminal record. However, we should also say that if the Crown could really only guarantee a conviction on simple possession, but the person was culpable or guilty of many other things and there was a plea deal, those cases are very different from the typical case of a young person or someone not causing any harm, not dealing, not doing any associated criminal acts and being caught for simple possession. This rushed one-size-fits-all approach does not allow that to be distinguished, and that is what the Canadian Police Association has raised as a serious concern.
As we are in the final days of Parliament, the Liberals crushed the expungement bill of my colleague from Victoria getting to committee. We really have not had a serious discussion of the issues underlying expungement versus record suspension and why the government seems to suggest that expungement is open for other former crimes from the past. We are really glad to see some of the past violations for sexuality and things like that removed and expunged. That is good, but we should also have a debate on why that route was not chosen in this case, because of the impacts on people's ability to travel to the United States. Until the government deals with that issue bilaterally with the United States, that will remain something Canadians should be very concerned about.
I have a final few words about the rush here. The Canadian Medical Association, physicians, pediatricians, the provinces themselves and law enforcement have all asked at various times in the government's marijuana agenda for input and slowing down the process. After 100 years of one way, we should make sure we get the balance right. I can assure Canadians of one thing: We will try to get the balance right when the Conservatives are on that side of the floor in the fall.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2019-05-29 15:00 [p.28223]
Mr. Speaker, the people of Grassy Narrows have suffered 50 years of lies, cover-ups and broken promises. Two years ago, the Prime Minister promised that that spring there would be shovels in the ground to build a mercury treatment centre, and nothing was done.
Enough with the broken promises. Where is the money for the mercury treatment centre? What is the timeline? Why is the Prime Minister refusing to cover the treatment for people who have been poisoned by the corporate and political crime at Grassy Narrows?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2019-05-29 15:01 [p.28223]
Mr. Speaker, we recognize the numerous health issues the community suffers to this day. We remain steadfast in our commitment to build a health facility in Grassy Narrows. At the invitation of Chief Turtle, the minister is actually visiting the community today. We are focused on moving this critical work forward, working with the community to advance a solution.
It is imperative that we all work together and ensure that the people of Grassy Narrows get the support they need.
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