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View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
It being 3:45 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-269 under Private Members' Business.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Pursuant to order made on January 25, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-206, under Private Members' Business.
View Mélanie Joly Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I was having technical problems, not with the vote we just had, but with the previous vote on the motion moved by the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. I would like to change my vote and vote in favour of the motion.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
All those opposed to the hon. minister's moving the motion will please say nay.
I hear no dissent. The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.
There being no dissenting voice, the vote has been changed accordingly.
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Lenore Zann Profile
2021-06-22 18:22 [p.9004]
moved that Bill S-205, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Parliamentary Visual Artist Laureate), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
She said: Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill S-205, which seeks to create the position of Parliamentary Visual Artist Laureate. This would be an officer of the Library of Parliament, similar to the current Parliamentary Poet Laureate's position. The mandate of the Parliamentary Visual Artist Laureate would be to promote the arts in Canada through Parliament, including by fostering knowledge, enjoyment, awareness and development of the arts. In this bill, the arts are defined as drawing, painting, sculpture, print-making, design, crafts, photography, videography and filmmaking.
I would like to thank the sponsor in the Senate of this bill, Senator Patricia Bovey, for her work in moving this legislation to the House. I would also like to acknowledge the artist Peter Gough of Nova Scotia, who was the originator of this wonderful idea. Sadly, Peter passed away before he could see his idea become a reality. However, there are many other incredible artists in Nova Scotia and across Canada who I am sure will be happy to see this bill move forward and honour his memory and the work of Canada's arts community.
Bill S-205 is based on the same concept, as I said, as the Parliamentary Poet Laureate. The Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada, the chairperson of the Canada Council for the Arts, and the president of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts have all provided their witness testimony about this important bill, as has the director of the National Gallery of Canada.
The position would have a two-year term with a mandate of promoting the arts in Canada through Parliament, including by fostering knowledge, enjoyment and development of the arts. I cannot emphasize enough or too greatly the contribution that Canadian artists make to our society, our collective well-being and our understanding of each other: lifelong Canadians, new Canadians, immigrants, first nations and refugees. The arts can break down barriers that exist between us, which is something we need today more than ever. Canada's artists have been illuminating what it means to be Canadian, where we have been and where we are going through many different media and from the views of many different cultures and regions. These are sometimes critical, but are reflective of who we are.
Over the past year and a half, we have been living through some of the most challenging times faced by our country in decades. The pandemic has forced us into isolation. It has led to loneliness and despair for many Canadians and for our youth, as well. I have to say our youth are looking forward to the day they can get out and enjoy the arts in person again and as my dear, departed niece, Maia, said to me shortly before she passed away this week, “What would life be without music? Life would be so depressing without music.” I have to say that I completely agree with her. Throughout this pandemic, Canada's artists have been there to provide us with a bit of light and hope while we await a time to come when we can be together again as friends, families and colleagues.
The arts are also economic generators. As the third-largest employer in Canada, the arts and culture sector employs some 600,000 Canadians and contributes 7.5% of our GDP. Research has demonstrated that the arts contribute positively to our health, education and the environment, and I suggest we need more arts in schools. The arts are mental health programs. Members can ask any child to tell their story, and I am sure they would rather do it through drawing, through writing or even through drama and putting on a personality, than try to speak as themselves. Sometimes this is much easier for people to do.
Where would the tourism industry be without Canada's arts and artists? The arts are a universal international language and the lens through which other nations recognize us as Canadians. It makes us different from the Americans. The Americans have their own arts and culture, but we need to support ours so we are not drowned out and so people can hear our own stories and our own voices, not just American ones.
The cultural components of international events are there not just to entertain but to show the world who we are, and we are very good at doing this. The Government of Canada has committed to restoring the cultural pillar to our foreign policy. We are depicting ourselves to the world through the arts, which on the international stage creates a greater understanding of who we are.
I believe it is time for our Parliament to have a visual artist laureate, whose works would preserve for posterity the events that grip us as parliamentarians and the work we do to make Canadians' lives better. I ask for members' support in making this initiative a reality. It is a tangible manner of thanking our artists for their contribution to Canadian society, especially during trying times such as these.
I would like to say the words of George Elliott Clark, our former parliamentary poet laureate. The poem is entitled “On the Proposal for a Visual Artist Laureate”:
The blank page—the blank canvas is— Undeniably delicious— Like fog, which obscures, then reveals— What Hope imminently congeals— A fantastic architecture— Imagination born secure: What Vision— the I of the eye— Had dreamt, is What answering Why. . .. Rainbows erupt from paint or ink— And film sculptures light—in a blink; A needle, weaving, is lyric, And whatever is shaped is epic. Art's each I articulate, Whose vision ordains a laureate.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
View Matthew Green Profile
2021-06-22 18:29 [p.9004]
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's preamble talks about the selection process and about having a visual artist laureate selected from a list of three names reflective of Canada's diversity. Why is it important for the hon. member to ensure that Canada's diversity is reflected within her private member's bill?
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Lenore Zann Profile
2021-06-22 18:29 [p.9005]
Mr. Speaker, I believe that the whole planet is made up of different stories, and people of different cultures view reality and view life from different perceptions. It is only by hearing and seeing and telling the tales of all of them that we see a whole beautiful earth and life. That is why it is so important to have diversity expressed much more than it already is here in Canada, so that more people can experience it and, hopefully, grow from that experience.
View Caroline Desbiens Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague from Cumberland—Colchester for her bill, which we here in the House appreciate.
I would like to ask my colleague if it would not be more advantageous, in terms of spreading the load, to have a committee of artists in Parliament who could reflect diversity better than a single person could, since a single person might be biased and influenced by their own perceptions. Perhaps a committee garner more universal support than a single person.
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Lenore Zann Profile
2021-06-22 18:31 [p.9005]
Mr. Speaker, that is a very thoughtful question, and I understand where the hon. member is coming from.
Here in Nova Scotia, we have an arts committee that the province has selected. Its members decide who gets which grants and things like that here in Nova Scotia. However, to be honest, art by committee is a very difficult thing. Each artist brings their own view and their own perspective to their work. We do not usually get 10 people, for instance, making a sculpture. We get one artist creating something themselves and then sharing that view with the world.
That is what this bill is focusing on: bringing a spotlight to individual Canadian artists. A different artist would be chosen every two years to have that spotlight and be able to share their works with Canadians.
View Kate Young Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Kate Young Profile
2021-06-22 18:32 [p.9005]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Cumberland—Colchester for bringing this bill forward. As the mother of a visual artist who graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, I am very proud and really happy that the member has done this.
Does the member think that Canadians really underestimate how the arts have impacted the people we are?
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Lenore Zann Profile
2021-06-22 18:33 [p.9005]
Mr. Speaker, I think that the population in general underestimates how much the arts influence their lives and how much they need the arts to connect. I mean, during the pandemic, what did people do? They watched television, watched series and read books. It was the arts that helped keep people together and kept them sane.
Sadly, in my own riding, there was the loss of the life of one young man, an 18-year-old who loved the theatre. He dropped out of school and was not able to do what he loved to do. It was his happy place, but it was taken away from him because of COVID-19. I say that more arts will help Canadians. The arts help us to stay strong and help us mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill S-205 and to affirm the importance of the arts for our national life and indeed for all people throughout all time in history. The appreciation of beautiful things and the enjoyment of them is fundamental to the human condition. It is part of what elevates our minds and develops our thoughts and creates space for our greater understanding of goodness and of truth, in unity with beauty.
I was thinking of jumping-off points for talking about this issue. I was reminded that in the Catholic tradition, today is the feast of St. Thomas More. St. Thomas More is known better for some things than for others, although he was a composite figure known for his many different contributions to politics as well as to literature. He is best known for how his career ended: He was executed for refusing to endorse the king's marriage. He did so on a point of principle and a point of conscience. Regardless of whether members agree with the particular stand he took, we can all admire the courage of a politician who takes a stand on a principle and understands that the things they believe in are more important than their career or even their life.
St. Thomas More was also a great humanist. He talked about justice. He talked about human dignity and spoke explicitly about the connection between the ill treatment of people and crime. His writings and comments on those subjects have been sources of inspiration and content for people across the political spectrum. Particularly on the artistic side, he was someone who was able to develop ideas and present political points, indirectly perhaps, in the form of beautiful literary compositions.
If members have not read it, I encourage all to read Utopia. This is where we get the concept of utopia as sort of a political construct. He wrote this relatively short book, Utopia, in which he imagined a voyage to a faraway country called Utopia, and he describes in detail the characteristics, the modes of interaction and the beliefs of this fictitious people. Of course, he was living at a time when it was difficult to make certain kinds of political points directly. As his later career demonstrated, if one believed in certain things and expressed those opinions, there could be very dire consequences, not just in today's sense of people being cancelled but of actually being cancelled.
He spoke about certain ideas and raised certain questions through this description of an imaginary society that operated according to different norms and different rules. There were many questions at the time, and there still are, about what he really meant in many aspects of this book. Was he describing an ideal society? On the other hand, there were things about that society that seemed to be different from things that he defended and advocated as a politician. Maybe he was not describing an ideal society; maybe he was simply trying to expand the creative imagination. He was trying to give flower to possibilities by creating a space in which it was acceptable to think about things that would have been seen as maybe too subversive if he had been commenting directly on norms or policies in his own country.
I think what Utopia demonstrates is the beginning of the tradition of trying to subvert established ideas through the subtlety that is possible through art when it is is maybe harder to present those alternative concepts directly. There has since been this whole genre of utopian or dystopian literature, with dystopia, obviously, being the inverse of a utopia. There are many great modern works that pick up on this tradition and use this device of imagining another place, another time, another context to subtly comment on our current realities. Some of the works of Margaret Atwood, of course, are famous in this regard, such as The Handmaid's Tale. The Children of Men is another great dystopian novel that I have read recently, and I think it has a great deal of value in it.
The point I am trying to make is that art has value in and of itself. It is also a vehicle by which questions can be raised and thoughts can be provoked that are not as obvious, not as directly accessible through explicit political speech, and, indeed, possibilities can be opened that are unexamined otherwise or harder to argue for directly.
That can be the case perhaps because of direct repercussions for those who propose contrary ideas, but that can also be the case simply because certain concepts are so out of the mould that it is hard to envision what they would imply unless they are actually described in a more literary format. Thomas Moore is one example of someone who successfully provoked the creative imagination through art and literature.
We can see the value in Parliament creating this position of a visual artist laureate as appreciating our artists, as affirming the value of arts as a mechanism by which Parliament uses its position, its leadership role within the country to affirm the importance of the arts. However, it is also an opportunity to recognize, in our national life, so many of the conversations we have about the big challenging issues facing our country. Questions of justice, questions of human rights and questions of how we behave and respond to certain challenges can be proposed and shaped through art.
With that in mind, I am very supportive of the bill. It is one of many private members' bills before the House, some of which have come from the Senate, that do have great value and that Conservatives are pleased to support. From what I understand, Bill S-205, like Bill S-204, which we were speaking to last week, had the unanimous support of all senators. Like Bill S-204, it also has a great deal of support in the House. By all indication, I think all members will be supportive of the valuable provisions contained in that bill. It is one of those things hopefully parliamentarians can work together on across different important private members' bills as well as across different chambers to move these things forward.
In the context of the legislative timeline we have in front of us, unfortunately it looks like the Prime Minister is trying to malign the work of Parliament to create the impression that Parliament is not working. The reality is that this Parliament has worked substantially to move certain important issues forward; it just has not always worked in a way the government has liked.
One example the sponsor of this bill will be familiar with is the work being done at the Canada-China committee, a committee that was created even though the government did not want it created, a committee that undertook important studies, did important work on the situation in Hong Kong, a committee that has been part of discussions that have happened at other committees as well on recognizing the Uighur genocide, something that happened through the leadership of Parliament and not through the leadership of the government. Now we have a situation of Parliament asserting its rights to access documents. These are important cases of the leadership of this Parliament.
If the Prime Minister is critiquing Parliament, it has less to do with the fact Parliament is not working and more to do with the fact that, from his perspective, Parliament is working too well. Parliament is doing things the government may not like, but nonetheless Parliament has been able to lead, oftentimes through the collaboration of opposition parties and sometimes working with individual members of the government as well.
Nonetheless, we are in the situation now as we approach the end of the spring session where it looks very much like the Prime Minister, in trying to malign the work of Parliament, is trying to position himself to justify calling an election. If that happens, of course, it will put important legislative initiatives that have not yet passed in jeopardy.
We should reflect on the fact that as we possibly come to the end of the spring session, in some cases, we have bills that have been passed in the Senate and are now in the House. If the House could find a way of dealing with them, it would allow us to move forward ahead of the spring session so those bills could become law.
As I have described, this is important legislation. It recognizes the profound role that arts play in our national life, the profound role of beauty in the human experience and also the role arts can play in provoking questions and ideas that might not get discussed otherwise.
View Caroline Desbiens Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, what a fantastic way to wrap up this session of the House.
The purpose of the bill is to create the position of parliamentary visual artist laureate, who would be tasked not only with producing artistic creations, but also with promoting the arts in Canada, through Parliament, including by fostering knowledge, enjoyment and awareness and development of the arts among Canadians. That is a noble task, but it is an ambitious one for a single person.
Visual art can be universal, and carries across languages. Visual art tells a story, creates, projects the real and the abstract. According to the Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Québec, and by its very nature, art is a reflection of human expression and is intimately linked to its time. As a result, it is an exceptional vector for dissemination and dialogue, offering the public opportunities for interaction, which are indispensable to the development of society. That is a nice definition. Although art is often seen as a mirror on society, just like it, it is interpreted according to the beholder’s experience and history. This experience, our experience, tints our gaze with its colours, so that, where someone sees the ocean, another sees the sky; where someone senses solitude, another feels free; where one human sees the desire to exist or to remember, another may perceive hatred and even contempt.
Art is a powerful means of expression, and finding a person who can create it and express themselves without censure in a strong and pure work of art and in a context where everything is politicized is quite a feat. How can an artist express passion and neutrality, inspiration and representativeness? That is quite the challenge. Textures, colours, nuances, anything can be symbolic: positive for some, negative for others. Everything can be open to interpretation. Unfortunately, we have seen this on many occasions. Art commands freedom. While I am the last person to want to stop someone from creating and making a living from their creativity, the fact remains that the artist will shoulder heavy responsibilities.
As a committed songwriter myself, I know that using the right words is extremely important and has an impact on the listener. I once created a work where song met visual art. Entitled Chansons sur toiles, it won an award in Switzerland. It was a reflection, a mirror of the paintings of Charlevoix by Charlevoix artists. My songs were painted at that point in time.
Having met several visual artists, and being aware of the magnitude of the challenge involved in painting a song, I may have a better grasp of the challenge that awaits this person. Creating a visual expression of Parliament and of all the citizens it represents, often in a context of confrontation, or at least divergence, for everyone to see and absorb is not a simple task. The sad greyness of recent times that obliged us to remain unwillingly estranged from one another, unnaturally separated, only adds to the challenge the artist will have to face.
This being said, art has the power to move us, anger us, delight and amaze us again, and to make us think and evolve. All of this, as we see life from another perspective. We now understand just how much we need each other, how much every little gesture means and how intensely we feel the need to see each other again, embrace each other.
Art will undoubtedly reflect our emergence from the darkness. It does not often happen that every human being on the planet goes through the same tragedy, but the message of hope and love that will come out of this time will be all the more beautiful and grand. Art will have to reflect all this and more. It will have to guide us forward, focusing our attention on the values and hopes we all cherish, but not all for the same reasons. What influence will this artist have on climate change, for example, and on the different opinions expressed in Parliament?
How will the artist convey the fundamental difference between the Liberals' multiculturalism and Quebec's interculturalism, which is more innovative and more in keeping with reality, while remaining impartial? Rather than staying in isolation or feigning indifference, will they be free to express diversity, which is an impetus toward cultural sharing and exchange, in its most beautiful form, namely its uniqueness and recognition?
The artist will also be responsible for fostering and promoting the arts. They will have to find the right tone and then promote the arts, hence the importance, nay, the need for fairness. I do not know how much leeway and freedom they will have, given the obligation to do it through the Parliament of Canada.
Will they have to respect some historical or political criterion? This type of thing is very pervasive, and all communities must be assured that the work will be shown for what it is, for its cultural, social and historical value, and contextualized within the experience of every member of the community, rather than as one in a succession of specifically Canadian works that remain within the strict confines of Canadian values, which are sometimes imposed by the powers that be at the time.
No, the artist must be a person from Medicine Hat, with all that that entails, a Franco-Saskatchewanian, a Huron-Wendat, a Franco-Ontarian from northern Ontario, an Acadian, a Montrealer from Côte-des-Neiges, the Plateau or Hochelaga, a north shore resident or a Nisga’a, a person from Charlevoix, a Magdalen Islander, a person from Lac Saint-Jean or an Innu, with all the richness that every story, every root and every conviction carries.
That is why I have my doubts when I think about who could become the parliamentary artist and bear this weighty responsibility worthy of every virtue. Since the Bloc Québécois is certainly not against virtue, we hope that the artist will be up to this demanding task. What makes a nation belongs to the nation, and its expression belongs to its artists, who have different and at times opposite visions. That is exactly what allows a society to evolve upward.
That is why my humble reflections have led to this conclusion: limiting Parliament to a single signature, free as it may be in its personal interpretation, means giving the power of messaging to a single spirit, however open it may be. That can only limit the immense openness this Parliament needs to be able to express all of our various visions, for now and for the future. That is what I hope for Parliament and for the artist who will inhabit it.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
View Matthew Green Profile
2021-06-22 18:53 [p.9007]
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Bill S-205 as a proud Hamiltonian and member of Parliament representing Hamilton Centre, which for generations has been an epicentre of the arts, a refuge, a place where artists have come to live, create, explore and indeed share their contributions with the rest of Canada. I am excited about this act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act to create a parliamentary visual artist laureate, and I am struck by the ways in which visual art has had an impact on my life.
Those who are familiar with Hamilton or have had the privilege of visiting our incredible city no doubt will have stopped at some time by the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Any child who went to school there would no doubt recall the trips to the Art Gallery of Hamilton. In particular, any small child, I can assure members, can spend hours at the permanent installation of the Bruegel-Bosch Bus by Kim Adams, if given the opportunity to experience it. In fact, any person looking at that installation could spend hours wondering, dreaming and interpreting its meaning.
There is so much in the arts that enriches our lives in society. As I walk around my own riding of Hamilton Centre, I am struck by the beauty, inspiration and indeed the stories that are told through our public art. There are barriers to art. There are certainly class implications to art and people's ability to access it in fair ways. Perhaps there was a time in our city when art was confined to places like the art gallery or other institutions that may not have been accessible to the public.
I think the opportunity to have a national parliamentary visual artist laureate speaks to our calls for open access to art, understanding that everybody, regardless of income or area code, deserves to have exposure to the splendour, the beauty and the stories of art.
I would like to take this moment to acknowledge some of the profound impacts that local artists have had on our city. There was a time, not too long ago, when Hamilton was an affordable place to live. Of course, that has changed over the years, but what remains are the artists who, over the last 10 or 15 years, decided to make Hamilton their home. There is a unique culture, a collectivist culture, within Hamilton, where artists take care of one another and create spaces that might not be present. I had the opportunity and pleasure of serving with the Hamilton Community Foundation in the transition from the idea of art as philanthropy versus art as a part of an actual built institution or forum within our cities, and I would like to thank my dear friend Jeremy Freiburger with Cobalt Connects for helping me provide some of that reference point.
I think about the ways in which a parliamentary visual artist laureate could set an example for the rest of the country and, as the previous speaker mentioned, give a snapshot of the uniqueness of the diversity within this country. I thought it important and I raised the question, when the sponsor from Cumberland—Colchester presented this private member's bill, about the importance of having this artist laureate be reflective of Canada's diversity, because it is often the case that when we go into these spaces, we do not just look for who is there; if we are coming from diverse communities, we often recognize who is not there. That is why her reference to our 2016-17 poet laureate George Elliott Clarke was so important to me, because I recall hearing some of his many works where he would speak truth to power in ways that might have been absent without his lived experience.
When I reflect on that and I look at the ways in which our neighbourhoods have been transformed by public art, the way in which there is a wonder in finding and discovering new pieces of art, whether they are murals on walls, whether they are from graffiti artists who have contributed to our community, or whether they are sculptures, any way in which visual art presents itself, I am deeply grateful.
For those members who know my community, there was a time when the public's perception of my neighbourhood was one of a stark industrialism, which has its own artistic beauty, but certainly is beautified by works of public art. I think about the ways in which those works are representative of our city, the ways in which this visual artist laureate could be representative of our country.
If I may take this moment, I would like to acknowledge the newly named executive director for Hamilton Artists Inc., my friend, neighbour, multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Derek Jenkins, and the newly named collective public programs coordinator, John Hill, who is an Oneida artist and who believes that art can give people the tools to imagine new and hopeful worlds. I love that. I love the promise that it brings, and I feel like that could encapsulate the promise that this private member's bill could bring.
We have so many talented artists in our city. I could spend an hour today pitching all the amazing people who would make incredible visual artists laureate. I think about the way they are connected to all the incredible community groups within our city, like the Coalition of Black and Racialized Artists, which has served a mandate to support and uplift the much-needed diversity within our arts and culture scene.
I think about the visual alchemist Stylo Starr, the world-renowned photographer George Qua-Enoo, the incredibly important and affirming work of Herstory Doll creator Queen Cee, or her husband, Leon 'Eklipz' Robinson, who has the distinct cultural legacy as a graffiti master, hip hop extraordinaire, poet, photographer, painter and filmmaker. In fact, I had the privilege of working with him on a project where he took small children and allowed them to create their own art in our incredible Gage Park, which remains there today, by the pump track, indeed a monument to the creative nature of our children and their ability, when they are connected through programs to art, to build beautiful things in our community.
I often also reflect on the ways in which some of my favourite works reflect the struggle that people have felt in this country, and I reference the Montreal mixed-media artist Kit Lang, whose work Incendiary: Mary Joseph Angélique reflects the historical and present-day truths facing the African Canadian diaspora in Canada; or the Hamilton-born artist Kapwani Kiwanga, whose contributions can offer a critique on settler colonialism; or the works of Syrus Marcus Ware, whose portraits commemorate the activists and the revolutionaries of our communities to ensure that Black, indigenous, racialized, queer or trans people, or people living with disabilities, are given safe and creative spaces. I think about Camille Turner and her perceptions of Canadianness and her performance in the persona of Miss Canadiana, which confronts the ideas of the Black body as being foreign or other.
The list goes on and on, about the incredible opportunity that this private member's bill provides the House of Commons today to honour, to lift up and to exalt the artists and the artistry that we have in this country, the multiculturalism and diversity that make this country unique.
In closing, I would like to thank the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester for bringing this important private member's bill and allowing me the opportunity to stand in the House today to share with the members just some of the many incredible artists we have from my city in Hamilton Centre.
View Sonia Sidhu Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Sonia Sidhu Profile
2021-06-22 19:02 [p.9009]
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to speak today in support of Bill S-205, which calls for the creation of a parliamentary visual artist laureate.
I want to thank my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester for bringing this important bill to the House of Commons. I would also like to thank Senator Bovey for introducing the bill and for the role it would play in promoting the arts across Canada. Senator Bovey has had a long career as a promoter of the arts, and we would all be hard pressed to find anyone who matches her expertise in this field. She previously called for this in a bill introduced in the last session of this Parliament, as did Senator Wilfred Moore in 2018. Twice it has successfully passed the Senate and made it to the House, so let us work together to pass Bill S-205 in this House.
Similar to the poet laureate, this would be a non-partisan officer of Parliament in the Library of Parliament tasked by this institution with promoting the arts throughout the country by fostering knowledge, enjoyment, awareness and development of the arts. The position comes with a wide mandate, as the visual arts can include drawing, painting, sculpture, print making, crafts, photography, videography and filmmaking. The mandate would be to promote the arts in Canada through Parliament by producing or commissioning artistic creations. At the request of the Speaker of either House, he or she could produce artistic creations for use in Parliament or on occasions of state. The artist laureate could also sponsor artistic events and give advice to the Library of Parliament regarding the library's collection and acquisitions to enrich the library’s cultural holdings.
Like other countries, Canada finds itself in a place where we are looking back at our history and reconsidering whom we choose to commemorate and celebrate. This is why I particularly appreciate the fact that the bill specifies that the final laureate must be chosen from a list that reflects Canada's diversity. If this bill is passed, over time we will find ourselves with laureates representing the many cultures that exist within Canada: anglophones, francophones, indigenous people, newcomers, men and women, and people of all backgrounds working in all mediums of the visual arts.
The arts community often runs on a not-for-profit basis and often needs the support of government institutions and grants. Our government provides funding for the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada, the National Film Board, CBC/Radio-Canada and other institutions that cultivate our artists and bring them to the world stage. In 2017, the government announced an additional investment of $300 million over 10 years for the Canada cultural spaces fund, more than doubling the program's annual budget until 2028. As well, budget 2019 included additional investments to support arts, culture and celebration through five Department of Canadian Heritage programs, and to support arts presentation. This is one more way we can show our support for the industry.
The pandemic has been difficult for the entire arts community. Museums and galleries had to close their doors, and artists' businesses slowed. However, many have embraced the new challenges that this represents and found news ways to deliver their programming online, and our government has been there to support many of them.
In my community, the Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives, known as PAMA, features a variety of permanent and touring exhibits of paintings, photography, sculpture, historical artifacts, and also serves as the main cultural archives for our region. It showcases historical and modern indigenous artwork, artifacts of local history, pieces by local artists and much more.
Last October, PAMA received a grant of $100,000 so they would have the resources to continue their work in preserving our local heritage during the pandemic. It was also just recently announced that they would receive $800,000 from the federal government to make much-needed infrastructure improvements to their facility.
In my community, there are many initiatives that promote the creation of arts by members of many diverse communities. The International Film Festival of South Asia is one such example. As the largest South Asian film festival in North America, IFFSA is an outstanding platform for local artists to showcase their talents. The festival is not only limited to movies. This festival has a deep social role promoting civic engagement and culture dialogue.
In my riding of Brampton South, the arts sector is also supported through other federal initiatives such as the Canada summer jobs program. Summer jobs in the arts are supported through the Beaux Arts Brampton gallery, right in downtown Brampton, and the Arts and Culture Initiative of South Asia. Perhaps artists who come up through the Peel Art Gallery, or any of these other local programs, would one day find themselves as the parliamentary visual artist laureate.
Art, in all its forms, has the potential to be both a reflection of a society and a reflection of its strength and weakness. It is a manifestation of our hopes and dreams, as well as our daily struggles. Through paint or stone, artists do not just open themselves up to us, they open us up to ourselves.
I am looking forward to not only the passage of this bill, but also the great works of art that would be promoted by our nation's future laureates.
View Scott Aitchison Profile
CPC (ON)
View Scott Aitchison Profile
2021-06-22 19:10 [p.9010]
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to speak. I must admit, I need to thank the member for Richmond—Arthabaska. We are members of the heritage committee together, and he asked me if I would speak to this bill, which we support. He asked me if I would speak to it a bit earlier today. Without a lot of time to prepare, I thought it would give me a great opportunity to speak to what we have heard a lot about already today in this chamber, which is the importance and the power of the visual arts to inform, educate and heal. Many members have said that so eloquently already.
What I find interesting is that so far I have not heard, including from the other Conservative member who spoke on this topic already, about how the arts are important for telling our story as Canadians. They are important for living a full, self-actualized life. They are part of our growth and healing. As a Conservative, I also think it is crucially important we point out the importance of the economic impact of the arts.
I can give members all kinds of examples in my riding of Parry Sound—Muskoka. Parry Sound—Muskoka is a beautiful place with many beautiful vistas. It is visited by many thousands of tourists and cottagers every year. One of the things that is unique to Muskoka is the fact that we have so many artists who live in and around the beautiful lakes and trees that make up our landscape.
In fact, the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour was one of the very first studio tours established in Canada back in 1979. There are dozens of artists, such as Catherine O'Mara; Janice Feist; Stan Tait, who makes jewellery; Miranda Britton, who makes jewellery; and Marni Martin, who makes beautiful tapestries.
These people do such incredible work, and they create such beautiful items, but they also created careers for themselves. They all work in this field, and they have had tremendous success. The Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour is a great example of why supporting the arts is also a really smart economic move. I point out that one example for my colleague from B.C.
I would like to point out as well that Senator Bovey from the other place presented this motion in the first place, and it has since been brought here. She pointed out the importance and impact of the arts sector on the economy. She reported that the GDP of cultural industries in Canada in 2017 was $58.9 billion, or $1,611 per capita, which is about 2.8% of national GDP. Those numbers are from 2017. It is a significant contributor to our economy.
I also think about the local artists in my region when I think about the importance of telling our story. I think back to one of the founding members of that Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour, Brenda Wainman Goulet, who sadly died suddenly a few years ago. I was the mayor of Huntsville at the time, and when I was asked by the family to speak at the memorial service, I thought long and hard about the work that Brenda Wainman Goulet did. She took the rugged granite of Muskoka and blended that with metals and created some of the most beautiful sculptures I have ever seen.
When it came time to beautify the front of a new theatre that was constructed in Huntsville, the Algonquin Theatre, we looked for an artist to create something special, a special statue in front of the theatre. Brenda Wainman Goulet created a bronze sculpture of Tom Thomson, the famous pre-Group of Seven artist who was famous for painting striking Canadian landscapes of the Canadian Shield. I have seen more people have their photo taken with that bronze statue in downtown Huntsville than anything else in town.
At the time of her memorial, I was thinking a lot about the importance of beauty. It brought me to thinking about something I had read years before called Italian Journey, which I am sure Mr. Speaker is familiar with. It is actually an edited verison of the diary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was a very accomplished young man in the 1700s. He had been appointed to Duke Karl August's privy council at the age of 25.
He was very accomplished. He oversaw the expansion of silver mining in the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. He implemented reforms to the university there. He sat as a member of the war and highway commissions, all at the age of 25. He was a very accomplished young man. He was also instrumental in the planning of the botanical gardens and the reconstruction of the ducal palace, which is a UNESCO world heritage site today in Italy.
At the age of 37, though, Goethe was frustrated and feeling like something was lacking in his life. To recharge, he decided he would travel through Italy, and from 1786 to 1788 he travelled through Italy. He chronicled his experience, of course, in his diary.
He really yearned to understand what possible conditions there were in Italy that made it such a paradise. Italy was obviously well known at the time to be a beautiful place. He concluded that, with what seemed to be a limitless expression of art absolutely everywhere in Italy, beauty was not a momentary reprieve from the dreariness of everyday life. It was everyday life, and it filled his soul.
Art is good for the economy, and it is good for the soul. It is important for us to share and understand our stories, for generations to come to understand our stories, and to certainly understand in a meaningful way what we do around here. For these reasons, I think it is very important that we all in this House support this bill and the concept of a visual arts laureate for Parliament.
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I rise to highlight the fact that, despite the great importance we place on arts and culture, I find it unfortunate that we are debating Bill S-205, which seeks to create the position of parliamentary visual artist laureate.
At a time when the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons are going around telling the media and anyone who will listen that the Conservative Party is filibustering and blocking important legislation, here we are at 7:20 p.m. debating a bill to create an artist laureate position. Is this bill critically important to moving our country forward?
We know that the Prime Minister probably wants to call an election this summer. I just wanted to put on the record that, notwithstanding the importance we place on arts and culture, which are so important to society, I find it very odd that we are debating this matter today when the government is falsely accusing us of filibustering on all the other bills.
That said, I want everyone to have access to the arts. It is very important. Despite what some may think of us Conservatives, we are educated people, we travel and we visit cathedrals, monuments and museums. We are not totally stupid, far from it. However, we do not like being told that we are holding up critically important parliamentary business. With only 24 hours left in the parliamentary session, we are currently debating a bill to create an artist laureate position.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.
View Francis Drouin Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise virtually in the House today to speak to Bill C-206.
I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South. I am sure he has had many discussions with farmers.
I also want to thank Michel Dignard and Réjean Pomainville, two farmers from my region I greatly respect and who informed me of the impact that the changes could have on farms. I am very grateful to them.
Personally, I supported the bill because I made a commitment to those two farmers. I want to thank them. They did the right thing by telling me about the potential repercussions this could have on farming.
The bill seeks an exemption to the price on pollution. There are computerized grain dryers, but they are still rather rare in Canada. Most farmers have to use propane dryers, and those who are lucky enough to have a natural gas connection can use a natural gas dryer.
Given that the price of the carbon tax will increase to $170 by 2030, we hope that new technologies will be available on the market by then. I am sure that our government will present potential solutions and that it will invest to enable our farmers to take advantage of those solutions, which must, of course, be market solutions.
Climate change is real. For example, we know that the oil and transportation sectors account for approximately 52% of greenhouse gases produced in Canada, the heavy industries account for about 10%, and the agricultural sector accounts for roughly 10% as well.
We are trying to reduce the effects of climate change in the agricultural sector. The goal is not to penalize our farmers but to decarbonize their suppliers.
I supported Bill C‑206, and I also support the objectives and changes that our government presented.
The rebate program for farmers, which will allocate an estimated $100 million to the four provincial jurisdictions that have decided not to put a price on pollution, is a recognition by our government that we have to decarbonize the way we dry grain. However, right now those technologies may not be available to the majority of farmers. Obviously, by 2030 the price on pollution will rise to $170 a tonne, which sends a market signal to those who create new technologies to adapt technology so that it is not necessarily carbon heavy. That is where I believe we need to go. It is the only way to decarbonize our economy.
We know the ag sector contributes 10% of our greenhouse gases. However, I know that farmers have done a tremendous job, such as our egg farmers, who are able to produce more than 50% of what they used to 50 years ago while reducing their carbon emissions by 50%. There are positive stories out there. Farmers have adopted new technologies, whether they are biodigesters, solar panels or those to make their dairy barns extremely energy efficient. They are doing a fantastic job. What we are trying to do now is decarbonize the majority of their suppliers.
I was happy to hear that there is now a $200-million fund to help with the adoption of cover crops. I think that is an extremely important domain of science. If we could reward farmers so that cover crops play an even bigger role in capturing carbon, it would be an extremely good news story. The world will be looking at our net-zero products, and whether it is our produce or the other things that farmers grow, farmers will always be there. However, I think cover crops have a major role to play. I have started seeing farmers adopt it in my riding. Not everyone is, but some surely are, and the $200-million fund that was presented in budget 2021 will be there to help and guide them.
Last week, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food launched the agricultural clean technology program, which has a fund of $165 million. There will be some money there to help farmers improve their green energy and energy efficiency, and help them further adopt precision agriculture. When we think about precision agriculture, we know there used to be days when farmers would just lay fertilizer across the land. Nowadays they can actually pinpoint, to the plant and to the row, where they need to put fertilizer, should they need it, to help improve plant health. That is the way of the future. The fertilizer industry has a role to play, and it is stepping up to play that particular role. Soil health is another important conversation we need to have in this country, and I think farmers want to be part of this particular conversation.
To get back to the matter at hand, as I said at the beginning of my speech, I have supported Bill C-206 because of a simple commitment that I made to two farmers back home. I certainly do not support an exemption that would last forever, but I do know that technologies will be available to our farmers. With the funds that were announced through budget 2021, there will be some dollars to help farmers adopt new technologies on the farm.
Grain drying is something that I will be looking at in my riding to see who has the most efficient method. It is part of my summer pet project to visit farms once it is safe to do so. It will help me better understand where farmers could make changes and where they might not necessarily have to rely on traditional technologies.
I want to raise another issue. Earlier we talked about cover crops and our government's $200 million fund for cover crops. There are a lot of trees on our farmland, and deforestation of private lands is a major problem.
I am not trying to single out farmers, because I know they are doing what they have to do to earn an income and support their families. However, part of that $200 million our government announced is for a reverse auction program, which is a really interesting initiative that encourages farmers to conserve existing wetlands and trees on their private property to capture carbon. These are all measures we announced in budget 2021 to help farmers reduce on-farm greenhouse gas emissions. This is an important thing to do because that is where the industry is heading.
I think we would be sending a wonderful message to the rest of the world if we could produce food while having a positive impact on the environment and limiting our greenhouse has production. We would be the envy of the world, and I think that is how Canada should position itself.
Again, I thank my colleague from Northumberland—Peterborough South for his bill, which I support. I wish him luck. Even though this bill will not help the green transition, it is an important part of the conversation.
View Christine Normandin Profile
BQ (QC)
View Christine Normandin Profile
2021-06-21 11:14 [p.8818]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise again to speak to Bill C‑206 today, as I did at second reading. Today, we have come full circle. I propose that we look at the bill by asking five basic questions, which we should ask more often in these cases: who, when, how, what and where. It is very simple.
I will start with who, in other words, those we are proposing this bill for. Unlike other political parties, we in the Bloc Québécois do not tend to give gifts to people who do not need it.
Farmers kept the agriculture sector going in a crisis, which is not easy. We know that farm owners had a very tough time on the labour front. This hurt food security, supply and, in some cases, animal health. Management of issues surrounding the arrival of foreign workers has been problematic, and, a few days ago, assistance from the government in support of quarantine was cut in half.
However, even before the crisis began, our farmers were already struggling. Climate change is causing even greater uncertainty around crops and harvests. Furthermore, it is getting harder and harder to find young farmers to take over, particularly because the price of land keeps going up year after year.
People who grew up on the land and worked with their parents will find it increasingly difficult to take over the farming operation. There are rare occasions when parents can afford to be generous and gift the farm to their children, instead of using the value of the farm business they have built up their entire lives to fund their retirement. In other cases, given the rising cost of land and quotas, it is hard to find young farmers to take over.
Why are we doing this, that is, why are we debating Bill C-206? We must remember that the bill would amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, including section three, which lists the products that are not taxed, in particular those for farming purposes. Natural gas and propane were missing from the list of exempt products. Why does Bill C-206 seek to add them to section three?
A carbon tax discourages people from taking a certain action and encourages them to choose a behaviour over another. However, in order for that to happen, people must have options, and that is exactly the problem.
There was an example of this in my riding during the rail crisis. CN just stopped delivering propane for two weeks when farmers had to dry their crops, which was a critical time for them. The moisture level in crops was very high that year, and had farmers not been able to dry them, they would have rotted, which would have resulted in the loss of an entire year's income.
In this particular case, propane was the only option, since any alternatives are still in the pilot-project stage and are not a viable option for large-scale farming businesses. When I asked farmers, who were worried about not getting the propane they needed, they told me that there was no alternative to propane, but that they would like to have one.
The existing power grid would not even have the capacity to generate enough heat for drying grain. It is as though people expected to one day have electric hot air balloons—they are very popular back home—but this is not going to happen overnight. Technologies like biomass are still too new, and there is not enough incentive for us to expect quick changes in carbon pricing.
That brings me to my third point: When will it happen? This is the part I find unfortunate, because we are three days out from the end of the parliamentary session and the summer recess. This Parliament could end up being replaced with a new one, based on the election rumours we are hearing.
It is really unfortunate that we are debating a bill this important and necessary at the eleventh hour, knowing that it could end up dying on the Order Paper, just like Bill C‑216, the bill on supply management introduced by my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, or the bill on farm succession planning, which the Senate just started studying.
On this third point, I want to say how disappointed we are with the government's management of the legislative calendar, because we are currently debating a great bill that, unfortunately, may never see the light of day.
How is Bill C‑206 being dealt with?
This part is a bit nicer. As I was preparing for my speech on my drive in to work this morning from my riding of Saint-Jean, I listened again to what happened and what my other colleagues said, particularly those who are members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. I was very happy to hear how well people are working together on this committee. There is no excessive partisanship since everyone is serving the same cause, that of farmers and those who feed us. It is in that spirit of co-operation that a key amendment was proposed to improve Bill C‑206. This amendment is really worthwhile, because it addresses the concern that some might have about the fact that there is a gap in the bill, the ultimate purpose of which is to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The amendment sets an end date for the exemption for natural gas and propane. In other words, natural gas and propane will be exempt from taxation for 10 years in the hope that, a decade from now, there will be new technology that will enable us to stop using natural gas and propane. That is our hope, anyway, but the government needs to get cracking because farmers do not want to be passive witnesses to these changes. They want to be part of it, but they need help. Contrary to what some people think, farmers do not wake up in the morning thinking about how great it is that they can go out and pollute. They just want help finding alternatives that are commercially viable, because they operate in a global market and cannot pass costs on to their customers. They would no longer be able to compete internationally, so we have to give our farmers that support.
The final point is, where is that supposed to happen? People might think that it is obvious it should be done in the House of Commons and Parliament, because that is where bills are passed and amendments made. That seems obvious, but nowadays, very few things that should be obvious are.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to the parliamentary spirit that has characterized Parliament during the pandemic. I would like to take a few moments to pay tribute to the interpreters, the support staff and the tech support who made it possible for us to function relatively normally, despite COVID‑19.
I also want to express my hope that, despite everything, we will get back to normal quickly, so that we can have accountability, so that there is someone in the House who answers questions, and so that reporters can do their job and ask parliamentarians questions as they leave the House. I also hope that we can go back to normal sooner rather than later so we can get parliamentarians working co-operatively, apart from the occasional stormy question period.
When we parliamentarians are working together face to face, we are able to move files along more efficiently, understand one another better, and remember for whom, why, how, where and when we create bills. It is fundamental to remember that, and that is what we are reminded of when we sit in the House in person.
With that in mind, I want to acknowledge the work of the House, but I also want to take a moment to remember the farmers. I wish Bill C‑206 could have gone forward. I cannot help but think of all the people I have known since I was a little girl growing up in the country. As members can imagine, it has been quite a while since I was “little”.
My thoughts are with our farmers, in the hope that, if not this time, Bill C‑206 can come back sooner rather than later and eventually be passed by the House and the Senate.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
View Matthew Green Profile
2021-06-21 11:23 [p.8819]
Madam Speaker, I have had many occasions to rise with privilege to share a bit about my own family history. I have spoken a lot about my father and the African Canadian diaspora, but I have not had the privilege of speaking about my mother's side of the family, a family that settled not far from here, about an hour from here in the South Mountain area. It is a place I have fond memories of, stories of my grandfather with a grade-six education being told by his father that the world and that road ahead is as long as he can make it.
My grandfather, Nelson Scharf, in fact had a cheese factory in Russell and Haliburton. It was a connection we had to the supply chain and the agricultural sector here. My grandmother, Doris Forward, had a family farm in Winchester. My cousin, Tom Forward, is still on the land and works within the dairy sector today.
I think about those early memories of visiting those farms, visiting the cheese factory, being up close as a child and seeing these hard-working people, folks who often do not get enough credit for the number of hours they work and for what they provide this country.
I rise today with the honour, on our 60-year anniversary as New Democrats, of being from the founding party of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which aimed to alleviate the suffering that workers and farmers felt and endured under capitalism. We are, in fact, the only party that was founded by farmers, so it is an honour and a privilege to be here today with that family background and that party background in support of this bill.
I want to take a moment and thank the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, a gentleman whom I have gotten to know in my committee work and somebody who I know has brought with him the good intentions of supporting the constituents within his riding.
For those who are tuning in and trying to get a sense of what this is all about, this bill, Bill C-206, seeks to amend the definition of “qualifying farming fuel” in the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to include natural gas and propane. Of course, this issue is complex. I will not pretend to be an expert, and there is certainly a lot of room for improvement at the committee stage, but this legislation stems from an unseasonably wet autumn in 2019, which was called “the harvest from hell”, when grain farmers were using propane and natural gas heaters to dry their grain. Without these grain dryers, grain rots and becomes worthless as food or as a cash crop contributing to our GDP.
There is currently no viable alternative to the use of propane or natural gas for the operation of these dryers, and because propane and natural gas are currently not covered under the act qualifying for farm fuels, grain farmers are forced into a situation of contributing more CO2 into the atmosphere as a result of carbon taxes on the cleaner fuels. The Grain Growers of Canada has confirmed, as of February of last year, that many of them have turned to higher-CO2-emitting diesel fuel, which is listed, ironically, as qualifying farm fuel in the act, for grain dryers to avoid the higher-taxed propane or natural gas heaters.
As our very learned critic for agriculture, the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, has stated, ultimately what we want is high-CO2-emitting industries to be contributing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and if we penalize the agricultural sector with a higher price for choosing a cleaner fuel option, we are running entirely counter to our ultimate objective of combatting climate change by reducing GHG emissions. Our critic for agriculture, the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, states quite rightly that farmers are not only well aware of what the effects of climate change will be, but they are also one of our greatest tools for fighting climate change.
When we are looking at this bill, I think we have heard this false dichotomy between Liberals and Conservatives about carbon taxes being the defining feature of climate change. The Liberals would suggest this is a market solution and Conservatives would suggest this is yet another tax. As New Democrats, we recognize that reducing greenhouse gas emissions ought to be our objective, and we do not feel that providing this in this particular way meets that objective. While the intent of the bill is sound, making it easier and more affordable for farmers to burn cleaner fuel should be a no-brainer, and using no fuels whatsoever or existing clean technologies is just not a viable option.
I think of my family who are still in this sector. My cousins, the Weagants, sold farm equipment throughout Ontario. I also think about the hard-working farmers in my city. I am a very proud MP representing Hamilton Centre, and many people do not know that while we have close to 600,000 people, the geography of our city encapsulates a very large portion of rural areas in the greenbelt and into some of the tender fruits land.
We are here today hoping to see a better outcome on this particular issue, to ensure that we are not adding to the complexities of the food supply chain and that we are cutting through the noise into a bit of a more intelligent argument about, again, a party founded by the CCF and about supporting our farm workers. Those who are out there across Ontario, Quebec and, indeed, across the country know that the New Democratic Party was founded on those principles.
The Regina Manifesto, right there in our founding documents, says, “The security of tenure for the farmer upon his farm which is imperilled by the present disastrous situation of the whole industry, together with adequate social insurance, ought to be guaranteed under equitable conditions.” It is right there, in the foundation of the CCF, which, 60 years later, would become the NDP of today.
I hold that position, and I support our agricultural sector. I know that farmers are on the front lines of climate change, and I know that they will play a key role in our food security and our ability to adequately adapt to the changing climate, which will have a direct impact first on them, and of course, in the spirit of the hard-working people of my own family, those who continue to this day to work the land and to acknowledge our precious connection to the land, the food that we have and the food supply chains.
In closing, I would like to thank the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford who, on the technical aspects of this, has been absolutely incredible for me and our caucus to help us better understand the nuances, because we want to see a just recovery. We want to see a just transition for workers. We acknowledge that farmers are indeed some of the hardest-working people, and that includes the migrant workers who work alongside them in our fields.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the members of the House for allowing me to rise with the deep privilege that I have in the waning days of this Parliament to be able to share a little about myself, my family and our ongoing support for workers as New Democrats.
View Karen Vecchio Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Speaker, it is a wonderful Monday morning. After listening to the earlier speeches, I would like to offer my thanks. My thanks to the Liberal Party member, who I just heard speak about the importance of this bill. Then there was my friend from Saint-Jean, and I did not know that she grew up on a farm, so we have a few more things in common. My thanks as well to the member for Hamilton Centre.
This is something that we have to recognize, as it is so important to our farmers. They are the ones who produce our food. They are the ones who, throughout this entire pandemic, have been working to support Canadians. Looking at this bill, I think it is absolutely exceptional.
I would really like to thank my great friend, the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South. I actually drove through parts of his riding yesterday on my return to Ottawa from Elgin—Middlesex—London. The one thing I see in southwestern Ontario is beautiful agricultural land. There are lots of different commodities and sectors, but it is a big farming community. There are some big pockets of cities, but surrounding all of those big cities are acres and acres of great farmland where they are producing necessary commodities and food.
I am going to start with a very simple quote, which actually comes from the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South. He said this at committee, and I want to put it in the record of the House of Commons because this is a very valuable debate.
These are things that are very, very important to my riding, so I appreciate having the opportunity to speak to this bill for the farmers who are living in Elgin—Middlesex—London. I can tell members that, according to Statistics Canada, in 2016 there were 1,930 farm operators in Elgin and 3,260 farm operators in the county of Middlesex. These are things that are very, very important to my riding, so having the opportunity to speak to this bill is an honour.
To quote my good friend, at the agriculture committee he said:
The greenhouse gas pollution pricing currently allows qualifying farmers an exemption on certain farm fuels such as gasoline and diesel; however, it fails to extend that exemption to other fuels such as natural gas and propane. This is challenging on many different fronts, as farmers quite often don't have other options and their only option for their particular industrial equipment may be natural gas and propane.
The science says that natural gas and propane are often cleaner fuels than diesel or gasoline. Why would we not include them in this exemption? Farmers, after all, are stewards of our land and, along with our indigenous people, were some of the first environmentalists standing up for the land and also for the animals and plants located on their properties.
That is why I wanted to talk about propane. I have quite a bias, to be honest. The former chair of the Canadian Propane Association is a resident of Elgin—Middlesex—London. He is also the CFO for Dowler-Karn, which is probably one of the biggest distributors of gasoline and fuel products to multiple farmers in the southwestern Ontario region. I can sit down with him, and when I call Dan Kelly with a question, he will answer. If he does not have the answer, he will find it, because he is out there working for Canadian farmers.
He brought this to my attention as well. He said that Bill C-206 is excellent and what we need to do. He was actually hoping that we would not have to put through Bill C-206, and that the Liberal government may recognize the issue and put it in the budget, but we did not see that. The government does not recognize that it is going to take more than just two or three years for farmers to transition to greener fuels.
I was really happy to see this bill continuing on to third reading, but as the member for Saint-Jean indicated, these are the final days, so I hope that today we can get through this. After we return to Parliament, hopefully this is a bill that the Senate will look at very quickly. This is what our farmers need and what they are asking for.
Continuing on to the Canadian Propane Association, I would like to read a statement I received from it. I am sure everybody has received it as well. It explains why we should support this bill and the importance of the exemption that would come to our farm operators.
This statement, I believe, was put out after the vote on second reading of Bill C-206, a vote of 177-145. All opposition parties actually agreed and recognized that this is something that needs to be done. We saw that the Liberal government was not good with that, yet it may have had to do with it coming from an awesome Conservative. We may never know. However, I will read out the Canadian Propane Association's statement, which says:
“Discouraging the increased use of carbon-intense fuels such as gas and diesel in favour of low-emission energy like propane for agriculture applications would be a win-win for the environment and for farmers’ bottom line,” said Nathalie St-Pierre, President of the Canadian Propane Association....
“The principle of the GGPPA is intended to encourage a reduction in the use of carbon-intense fuels,” said St-Pierre. “By exempting gas and diesel but not allowing the same exemption for propane, the law actually encourages the increased use of gas and diesel – this is environmental nonsense.”
Just moments ago, we heard my friend from Hamilton Centre say the exact same thing, which is that, because of this, people are beginning to use diesel. The government has established the carbon tax, but it is actually giving an exemption to a dirtier fuel. We have an option here. The statement continues:
St-Pierre said that CPA members are also hearing from their customers in the agriculture sector about the significant added cost due to the federal carbon tax. According to an estimate provided by the Parliamentary Budget Officer last December, over the next five years about $235 million will be collected from farmers for using natural gas and propane.
I will note that statistic. I was speaking to Dan about this. On behalf of the farmers in our area, he sent a cheque for over $1 million for just a few months for carbon tax collection. That $1 million that could have been used for so many other things, perhaps new technology, workers or new things on farms, but instead, that money is paid to the government.
We are talking about $235 million. I have heard people say that the government is going to lose $235 million. To me, the government should not be taking that $235 million in the first place, so it would not be losing revenue. This is revenue it should not be taking, so we have to look at this as not being a loss of revenue for the government.
The government had no business taking the $235 million in the first place because, at the end of the day, who pays for it? It is going to be the farmers. After the farmers, who pays for it? It is going to be people sitting at their tables, eating their cornflakes or their eggs from the local chicken farm. These are the people who, at the end of the day, are going to be impacted.
Yes, this bill is good for farmers, but it is also good for Canadian consumers who want to support the agricultural industry in Canada, especially that in Elgin—Middlesex—London, which is so important to me.
We have talked about inflation. In the last few weeks, inflation has been really key. We have talked about how much the price of wood and lumber have gone up. Housing is a big issue. In my riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London, there has been a 46% increase since last April in the cost of a two-storey home. Inflation is an issue, and the government is adding more costs to our goods.
If we talk about poverty reduction strategies, we need to see what we are doing that is creating more barriers. I look at not giving this exemption as just another barrier to reducing the high cost of our goods right now. Farmers know that, when they are paying all this money, it affects their bottom line.
I am so fortunate to work with Scott at the Grain Farmers of Ontario in my area. He is the zone manager there. I thank Scott, who always works with me. The Grain Farmers of Ontario is the province's largest commodity organization, representing over 28,000 barley, corn, oats, soybean and wheat farmers, and it has been very supportive of Bill C-206, an act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act regarding qualifying farming fuel.
The Grain Farmers of Ontario is supporting this bill because of its exemption of the carbon tax for on-farm fuel and calls on all MPs to consider the tax on grain drying and its impact on the agriculture system in Canada. It is quite simple. The government should not be making money off a tax that negatively impacts a farmer's ability to market viable grain. The carbon tax does not make that happen.
Brendan Byrne was the chair of the Grain Farmers of Ontario on February 22, 2021. There are a lot of AGMs going on, so that may not be his position now.
As we have always indicated, farmers have been doing great work in our communities. They are the stewards of our land. I think of some of the great projects that have been done in the back of farmers' fields with wetlands conservation. Those settlements are being taken back.
I love farmers, so I am very supportive of Bill C-206, and I thank the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South for bringing this bill forward.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, it is great to be back in the House. It is great to have a vast audience across the way to hear what I am about to say, although the member for Kingston and the Islands may not entirely agree with it.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this excellent private member's bill, Bill C-206, from my colleague for Northumberland—Peterborough South, and in particular to talk about the significant failures in environmental policy on the part of government and how it is imposing costs on Canadians without a real plan to help us achieve our environmental objectives vis-à-vis climate change.
I will start briefly by congratulating the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South on his excellent work on this bill and so many other issues. He serves as the shadow minister for revenue in our caucus. When I hear “shadow minister of revenue”, I think it sounds exciting, but he really has grabbed this position by the horns. It has been a pleasure to work with him on a number of revenue issues, including trying to bring about reforms to the direction and control system.
This member has been a great champion of the charitable sector, trying to push the government to reform various aspects of the regulatory and legislative environment around revenue, especially direction and control, to really empower our charitable organizations and help them move forward. I want to congratulate the member for all his work, particularly in this bill, on behalf of farmers in his riding and elsewhere.
Bill C-206 seeks to change the definition of a qualifying farm fuel to include certain fuels not currently included, and that is a step forward in terms of allowing any fuel a farmer would use to be qualified as a qualifying farm fuel, and therefore not having the carbon tax applied to it. Right now, while natural gas and propane are not identified as qualifying farm fuels, gas and diesel are. Not only does this impose additional costs on farmers, but it also gives farmers an incentive to move away from using natural gas and propane and toward using relatively more gas and diesel.
In all likelihood, this is sort of perverse incentive that encourages greater greenhouse gas emissions, so this member is rationalizing the system through this bill in a way that would reduce costs for farmers and help our environment by removing this artificial incentive to use fuels that pollute to a greater extent.
One would think this is a no-brainer on that basis. If this is going to reduce costs for farmers, but is also going to help our environment by providing more of an incentive for farmers to use cleaner fuels, why would it not just be automatic that everyone in this House supports it? The Liberals are stubbornly clinging to their position that the way they did it was fine.
The big problem with these Liberals on so many aspects of their environmental policy is they do not understand the way in which perverse incentives can lead to worse outcomes for the environment, and they are not willing to look critically at the impact of those incentives on behaviour.
One of the issues we have talked about a lot in the Conservative caucus in terms of the failures of the Liberals' environmental policy is this issue of border adjustments. The Liberal approach is to impose carbon taxes on Canadian producers, Canadian farmers and Canadian consumers, but not to apply those same requirements on people outside of Canada who are producing products and then selling those products in the Canadian market.
The effect of this is that it is artificially creating an advantage for foreign producers, the people manufacturing goods and growing crops outside the country who are trying to then sell those products in Canada. One is creating an advantage for those outside Canada who are selling their products to Canada over Canadian producers. This obviously does not make any sense, in terms not only of protecting our own economic interests, but also of responding to the environmental challenges we face.
When one makes it more expensive, and in the case of this particular bill, it relates to farming, and when one imposes more costs on Canadian farmers and therefore tilts the field against our farmers and in favour of people involved in agriculture production outside of the country, that is not helping the environment. It is simply hurting our own economy at no environmental benefit.
We understand, in this caucus, that the challenges we face in terms of climate change are global challenges. Canada has to do its part, but it also has to put in place policies that recognize that emissions can happen outside of the country, and when they happen they impact us. We need to have a structure that integrates an appreciation for the global impact of climate change.
That is why the Conservative environmental plan, for the first time from any party, proposes a strong policy around border adjustment tariffs. There has to be an equivalency between the burden imposed on Canadian producers and the import adjustments that are taking place. We should not be creating a tilted playing field in which we are actually creating an advantage for those producing greenhouse gas emissions outside of the country.
We have raised this issue of perverse incentives: incentives in the policy that actually encourage the wrong kind of behaviour. In the case of border adjustments, we are talking about an incentive that the government has created, in its approach to environmental policy, to move production outside of the country.
If someone is making products for the Canadian market right now in Canada, that person is paying carbon tax. If someone is producing those products outside of Canada in a jurisdiction that does not have a carbon tax and then selling them into Canada, they are in an economically advantageous position, at least vis-à-vis the carbon tax.
This should be fixed so that we have a fair environmental policy that encourages improvements to environmental performance, but does not encourage the wrong kinds of adaptation, such as moving work outside of the country. As other colleagues have talked about as well, in the case of this bill we are talking about another case of perverse incentive. In imposing the carbon tax on certain kinds of fuel and not others, as the system is currently structured, there is an incentive for farmers to use fuels that may be more expensive and that may produce more in the way of emissions.
I think we can do better. The member for Northumberland—Peterborough South has quite rightly seen the opportunity to do better and has thus put forward a bill that seeks to adjust the incentive environment. That is why I am very supportive of this bill. I would encourage all members to be supportive of it and to push the government to recognize something. It has been a talking point of the Liberals for a long time. They say the environment and the economy go hand in hand, yet they impose restrictions and taxes that hurt our economy and provide no benefit to the environment.
It does not make any sense that they would impose obligations on Canadian producers and not have the corresponding adjustments happening at the border. It does not make any sense from an environmental standpoint. If they really believed that there was a unity of objective that could be pursued between the environment and the economy, they would be supportive of the plan that we have put forward, which includes these kinds of border adjustment measures.
In general, in our environmental plan as announced by our leader, the money that is gathered through the deductions paid when people purchase products that emit carbon is put back into their pockets to also pay for adaptation. Our plan is not just about taking money away from people who are producing: It is about giving those resources back to them to invest in adaptations that improve their environmental performance. Our plan is very different from what we see from the Liberal government. The government is trying to use the environment often as a way to raise extra revenue. Our approach is to target measures that are going to improve the environment, while also supporting our industry.
On this side of the House, we recognize the important role of our farmers. We recognize the value of having agricultural production in Canada. We want to strengthen farming communities. We recognize that from a basic security, food security and well-being perspective, it is important to have strong agricultural production happening here in Canada.
We have championed this position, as a party, from the very beginning. We understand that it is not enough to just say it. Within every party we hear members saying flowery words about the agricultural sector, but the Conservative Party has always been there to stand with our farmers, and Bill C-206 is another example of that.
View Dan Albas Profile
CPC (BC)
Madam Speaker, it is certainly an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola to speak to my colleagues about Bill C-206, brought by the MP for Northumberland—Peterborough South, who has done an excellent job of finding an issue that resonates not just within his riding but right across the country. I will make a few short points about this, because I believe that Private Members' Business provides the opportunity for members, such as the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, to bring up issues they are hearing locally to see if they are salient. The adoption of this bill through second reading to committee and now to third reading shows there is a consensus in this country. The Liberals were the only party to vote against it. Every other party recognizes that Canada's future is, in great part, due to agriculture. Many may argue that Canada's past was formulated on that, and I would say that is true, but so is the fact we can do more.
In fact, in the majority government the current ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, put forward the Barton report and said that Canada could do so much more by working with agriculture. It could expand exports and feed people not just across our country but around the globe. It seemed for a while that the report might go somewhere. Most farmers thought it was great to have a government that was focused on that. Unfortunately, the government was not. Rather, it was focused simply on ideology and not on helping to connect the dots to make it work for farmers.
As the MP who sponsored the legislation said, the Grain Farmers of Ontario stated, “there are no readily available grain drying technology replacement alternatives that are cost effective. Drying grain is essential for marketing grain.” This points out that when the input costs are too high, grain farmers will lose traction to other areas that have better prices. Unfortunately, it is a commodity market and we cannot just say, “Buy Canadian because Canada is great.” People in other countries also need to feed their families. If the rate for our grain is too high because of input costs, these people will simply go to another cost provider.
The member of Parliament for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan previously mentioned the concept of carbon leakage, which is where adding extra regulations or taxation beyond that of another jurisdiction eventually makes it difficult for a place with a carbon tax, such as Canada's, to compete. I should know this. A B.C. Liberal government was the first to introduce a carbon tax in British Columbia. It found out quite quickly that the farming community would not be able to be competitive. Therefore, along with cement, it ended up having to subsidize many of those activities.
I am grateful the MP for Northumberland—Peterborough South has brought forward something that will help with that competitiveness. The bill has received broad agreement, with the exception of the Liberal government and its backbenchers. I am sure there was a whipped vote on this, so I know many Liberal members probably felt very sympathetic and wanted to vote alongside the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP to support our farmers, but unfortunately it seems many on that side do not question the government's position as much. In fact, some seem to want to carry it on all day long, but enough about the member for Kingston and the Islands.
I just have a few more things to say. The Conservatives believe we should be working with agriculture. The government has put out a clean fuel standard that is so complicated that farmers do not know what opportunities are there. They are worried about getting lost in the paperwork. It is the same government that is making it more difficult for farm operations to use small amounts of propane. The government is basically encouraging them, through red tape, to move to diesel. We know it is not as clean, as easy to store or as manageable. The current government seems to always be at odds with what farmers need and want.
I will say this. Members like the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South and our Conservative caucus will be standing up for our farmers. We will put forward solutions, and we will have a meaningful impact on our greenhouse gas emissions while growing the economy, especially for our farmers.
View Philip Lawrence Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Speaker, it is absolutely my pleasure to rise on my private member's bill, Bill C-206. To me, it is a fantastic wrap-up for the year, if we go to an election.
A couple of weeks into being an MP, I was in Ottawa and my staffer came to me and said, “You won the lottery”. I did not think I had bought a ticket. What did that mean? I had gotten number 16 on the private member's bills, which then put in place a large canvass of issues: ones that affect people across Canada and in my wonderful riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South. One issue that kept coming up was the impact of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act on the agricultural sector.
I am a very proud advocate for and supporter of the agriculture sector and rural Canada in general. I had been told that dirtier fuels like diesel and gasoline were exempt from the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act but propane and natural gas were not, and of the impact this was having on our local farmers. When I had the opportunity, I was compelled. This was something I had to bring forward for the residents of Northumberland—Peterborough South and for our farmers across the country.
I have enjoyed this process. It has been an iterative process and it has been collaborative. In fact, this whole hour has been an island of its own in a sea of partisanship. This has been full of non-partisanship. We had the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell stand up for my private member's bill and for a commitment he made to a couple of constituents. That is the very epitome of what it is to be from rural Canada and rural Ontario. When we give our word in rural Ontario and in rural Canada, we stand by it. That is exactly what this member did, and I salute him.
One of the issues he brought to attention in his discussion was that things may change, and that very well may be. That is why the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford made a wise amendment to my private member's bill, which was to timeline it and have it go for only 10 years. If technology evolves and, in a decade, we can get to a point where there are biofuels or some other way, we are all for it, but as of now there is no other solution. Climate change is 100% real, and we are all in the House to fight climate change.
In the absence of exemption, we are pushing our farmers out of competitiveness because they are dependent on worldwide markets and on trade boards for pricing. When a cost is increased, such as with the carbon tax, it is put directly on the tables of our farmers. Farmers work so hard. Especially through this pandemic, they have not stopped for a moment, and because of that they have kept our food supply the best in the world. We produce the best grain, the best poultry and the best beef right here in Canada, and we need to make sure that our farmers stay competitive because when we increase input costs, those come directly from the farmers.
These costs not only affect our farmers, but entire rural communities because farmers are largely the ones who drive our economies. They are the ones who go to tractor dealerships and buy tractors. They are the ones who go to local restaurants, and there may be only a couple of restaurants in their towns. They are also the ones who support our local grocery stores, so we need to support and protect our farmers.
As I said, we are at the end of the session. I would like to take a moment to thank all the wonderful members of my constituency of Northumberland—Peterborough South and thank the farmers for this wonderful piece of legislation that I have been able to work with. Particularly, I would like to thank Brandon from the Grain Farmers. I would like to thank my staffer Hailey, who was fantastic and critical to doing this. Most important, I would like to thank all the members of the agriculture community who worked so hard to get this on board. We will have a vote on Wednesday and we will get this across. Hopefully, we will be back in session so we can get this bill passed and help our farmers.
I thank everyone out there so much. It has been a great pleasure to hear all the interventions. Some of my best friends, across the aisle and otherwise, have spoken. The member for Hamilton Centre is even wearing a blue suit for us, if I am allowed to acknowledge that he is in the chamber. I really appreciate that. I thank everyone for their learned interventions and their contributions. It is a great day for farmers.
View Alexandra Mendès Profile
Lib. (QC)
It being two minutes past noon, the time provided for debate has expired.
Accordingly, the question is on the motion.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
View Bernard Généreux Profile
CPC (QC)
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to request a recorded division.
View Alexandra Mendès Profile
Lib. (QC)
Pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the recorded division on the motion stands deferred until Wednesday, June 23, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
moved that Bill S-204, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (trafficking in human organs), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-18 13:31 [p.8791]
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of privilege. I would ask you to please allow me a brief moment, hopefully only two or three minutes, to emphasize what I believe the Speaker needs to look into.
The issue is this: What is a breach of privilege?
I would like to get a clear understanding that goes beyond what our Standing Orders say because I believe that, at a time when Canadians need Parliament to work to help them through this pandemic, we are seeing an opposition tactic being used that is very toxic in terms of partisanship. The issue is that of privileges and points of orders and to what degree they can be used as a tool to filibuster.
So, without me contributing beyond that, I would be very much interested in a ruling coming from the Speaker's chair. Is there a limit, and how far is too far? I am concerned about the limited amount of time and how privileges are actually being used. As a parliamentarian, I am very much interested in this issue.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:33 [p.8791]
I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary.
On the face of what he has suggested, it does refer back to my earlier comments. Typically, when a member is posing a question of privilege for the consideration of the Chair, it is on them to present their arguments so the Speaker may decide whether a breach of privilege has indeed occurred. If it has, then a motion is moved and the debate can be taken.
To the hon. parliamentary secretary's question, the amount of time is completely at the discretion of the Speaker. Once he or she has heard enough and are convinced that they have been provided enough information with which to render a decision on the proposition, as has been seen here this afternoon, the limit has been reached and we move on to other business.
The opportunities to raise questions of privilege are an important privilege of hon. members, but they can only interrupt the process of debate and the day's business to the extent that conventions and practices permit, and ultimately, the chair occupant, the Speaker who hears the intervention, decides what that is.
I think we will leave it at that.
The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with you. I would submit further that, as you said, it is a right of members to present their point of privilege, and it is indeed a sacred and very important right, but it is also the responsibility of all members not to abuse that right. From time to time it would be your job to determine if such an abuse is occurring.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:35 [p.8791]
That is indeed correct.
The hon. member for Flamborough—Glanbrook.
View David Sweet Profile
CPC (ON)
View David Sweet Profile
2021-06-18 13:35 [p.8791]
Mr. Speaker, in that vein, I am wondering whether the parliamentary secretary actually gave you the requisite notification that he would be raising that point of privilege, which is a concern as well.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:35 [p.8791]
That is a good question, but when the parliamentary secretary initially raised his point of order, I was not too sure whether it was a new question of privilege. Indeed, I received it as, if you will, almost a follow-up intervention with respect the two earlier questions of privilege the House has been involved with.
However, it is a good reminder for hon. members that, if they wish to bring something like that before the House, a one-hour notice is required, and I urge hon. members to do that.
I see that we are six minutes into our time for private members' business, so we will start debate on that now.
We will start with the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, Bill S-204 would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ without consent. It fights the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking.
I am not going to speak much about the bill because everyone already knows this bill should pass. This bill has already passed the Senate twice and the House once, unanimously. This bill started out as a Liberal bill under Borys Wrzesnewskyj and Irwin Cotler.
The question today is not on the substance of the bill. The question is about whether the government is committed to doing what it knows to be the right thing and allowing this bill to pass, or whether it will prevent the bill from passing. If this bill passes now, then the House can immediately resume consideration of the government's budget, so the government can either support that to happen, or we can spend the hour talking, delaying both this bill and the budget bill.
Therefore, I would like to seek the consent of the House for the following motion. I move that notwithstanding any Standing Order, special order or usual practice of the House, at the conclusion of today's debate on Bill S-204, the bill be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in a committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, it was disappointing to hear the no from—
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:38 [p.8792]
Just one moment, there is a point of order from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I believe after someone puts forward a motion in the middle of their speech, they do not get to continue speaking after. I think the proper rule would be to go to the next speaker, would it not?
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:38 [p.8792]
In the normal context, yes. Given that the motion was proposed in such a way that it would be acted upon at the end of today's debate, the expectation is that it would go the full hour, and members who are scheduled for debate would participate in it. In the normal course, a motion, for example, an amendment, would be proposed at the end of one's speech. If the amendment carries at that point, the debate would then continue on the amendment, and the member would have used all their time to do that.
In this particular case, because the proposition was to essentially take effect at the end of the hour, I will accept that the members would normally have their time remaining for their remarks.
Did the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan want to add to that point of order, or would he like to pick it up from here?
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat of a moot point. I am very disappointed the member for Kingston and the Islands chose to say no to this unanimous consent motion given that the House has unanimously supported this bill in the past, but I have finished my speech.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
If the member is able to confirm I am the individual who said no, I would love for him to be able do that, but in the meantime, perhaps he should not suggest it until he is somehow able to confirm it.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:40 [p.8792]
I think we heard this earlier today. When yeas and nays are provided in the House, they are general in nature and not necessarily assigned to individual members.
I am going to go back to the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan to finish up his remarks. He has 13 minutes remaining if he wishes to use all of that, and then we will continue in the usual way. It appears as though the hon. member is finished.
We will now go to questions and comments.
The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-18 13:40 [p.8792]
Mr. Speaker, my question to the member is related to the request he has asked of the House. Would he agree that what he was attempting to do is best done through House leadership teams, where they can try to see if it is possible to do what he has requested?
For example, would the member support the quick passage of Bill C-30, which is the budget bill, given the implications for the pandemic and supports for Canadians? Would he support such a measure for Bill C-30, Bill C-6, Bill C-10 and Bill C-12?
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:41 [p.8792]
It seems that we have lost the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan's signal. We are not sure what happened. Given that we are partway into this, we will have to wait to see if he can get reconnected. We will pick it up at a later time under the debate on the motion before the House.
We will go to the next scheduled member on the list. The hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek.
View Judy A. Sgro Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important issue today, an issue I have cared about for a very long time, as do many members of the House.
Before I do that, what a pleasure it has been to serve with you, Mr. Speaker. You have been kind and constantly pleasant, even if we have been on opposite sides of the discussion. You are always very polite to everyone in the House. In your role as Deputy Speaker, you have done a fine job. I wish you and your lovely wife much happiness in the future as you go into what is called retirement, but I have a feeling it is not really retirement for you.
As I rise today for what will most likely be my last opportunity to speak before we recess for the summer break, I look forward to the opportunity of being back in my riding of Humber River—Black Creek full time this summer. It seems like it has been ages since I have seen my constituents, especially being able to give them a hug and playing bingo with them.
I cannot wait to visit the local community parks, the various seniors groups and, mostly important, to spend some more time with all my family, not just my husband. It has been quite some time since I have had the opportunity to hug my grandchildren, and I know it is similar for you, the Speaker. After recently receiving my second dose, this will mean the world to me.
However, before that happens, I want to take this opportunity to thank all the teams, the clerks and all the people in the team that kept us going forward in the diligent management of this year's House proceedings. It certainly was an extremely difficult time and a real learning experience for many of us. We could not have done our job if everyone had not done such an incredible job. It is amazing what we have accomplished in such difficult times. I thank all of them.
I would also like to thank the House of Commons support staff for their tireless effort in assisting members to operate in a virtual Parliament. The number for IT help is front and centre in my home, by my computer. Like all my colleagues, when things are not working, I have to call the wonderful people in IT for help. I thank all of them.
It was not an easy job, but we all managed to get through it. It is my hope that we will soon see some normalcy in all our lives—
View Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, we are supposed to be debating Bill S‑204. From what I understand, the Liberals do not want this bill to pass quickly.
It is very nice and all to want to thank everyone, but the member's comments have nothing to do with the subject at hand.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, on that same point of order, when we come toward the end of a session like this, it is not uncharacteristic for us to allow members a brief opportunity to thank people. She spent half the time thanking you, Mr. Speaker, for the incredible work you have done before departing on your retirement. She was thanking a few members of her staff. She was literally just getting started when the member interrupted her. It was entirely appropriate and we should allow the member to continue now so she can get on with her speech.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:46 [p.8793]
I thank the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands and the hon. member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean.
The question of relevance certainly applies to all debates in the House. At the same time, however, there are always members who take the liberty of making a few comments on other matters. I am sure the hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek will quickly come back to the relevant subject before the House.
The hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek.
View Judy A. Sgro Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I have been following the debates all week and many of my colleagues have used their time in their interventions to acknowledge the wonderful work that various people have done.
I very much support Bill S-204.
As members know, we had a late night last night. We were voting on the main estimates to approve the necessary programs that were going to make a difference in all Canadians' lives, programs that would help get people back on their feet after surviving this global pandemic. It has not been easy, but we have been there for Canadians.
It is my hope that in the coming days, when we deal with bills like Bill S-204, we will see the swift passage of bills like Bill C-30 and other important pieces of legislation, which still need to be addressed, so we can ensure that the supports needed to help Canadians through the final stages of this pandemic are in place. That is why we are all here in this place. We do not need to be told by other colleagues that if we want to get Bill C-30 passed, we have to turn around and get some other bill passed. That is not the way democracy works.
We are to represent our constituents and make a positive difference, and I believe Bill S-204 would make a big difference in the lives of many people.
Bill S-204, formally known as Bill S-240, passed both in the House and in the other place in 2019. I was very proud to be one of the persons, along with my colleagues, who passed this important bill. I appreciate the fact that my colleague has raised this issue, brought it back and continues to move it forward, because it is a very important bill.
Unfortunately, Bill S-240 never became law due to the dissolution of the House before the federal election. That happened to many good pieces of legislation. It is long overdue that this Parliament pass legislation like Bill S-204, dealing with a practice that we all are appalled to know continues in spite of many of us calling for the abolition of it. We know it continues on many days and in many countries.
Similar bills have been sitting in Parliament for over 12 years, during which time many innocent lives have perished due to the organ transplant trade, something we all find completely appalling. Two previous private members' bills were tabled by my former colleague, the former member for Etobicoke Centre, and my life-long friend, someone we all love and respect, the Hon. Irwin Cotler.
I am the chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Falun Gong and I am all too familiar with the issue of organ harvesting and how this bill could help put an end to this horrific practice. I have seen many pictures and talked to people who have had their family go through this terrible process.
Bill S-204 proposes to amend the Criminal Code to create new offences in relation to trafficking in human organs. The bill also would amend the Criminal Code to enable Canada to assume extraterritorial jurisdiction to prosecute, and that is very important. There is no sense having legislation if we do not put teeth in it. We need that ability to prosecute, in Canada, Canadian citizens or permanent residents who commit any of the proposed offences abroad.
I was recently told about number of Canadians who were going abroad, specifically to China, and getting kidney transplants and different things done. I would like to ask Canadians, before they do that, to think about where those organs come from. This would make it an offence for any Canadian to go abroad to take advantage of that.
It would also amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to provide that permanent residents or foreign nationals would be inadmissible to Canada if the responsible person were of the opinion that they have engaged in any of these activities relating to trafficking in human organs. Imagine that for $5,000, someone can get a transplant, never asking where that organ came from.
Our government is committed to ensuring our criminal justice system keeps communities safe, protects victims and holds offenders to account. We condemn the illegal and exploitative trade of human organs in the strongest of terms, and that was shown in the previous vote on Bill S-240, and will be on this one as well. We continue to have very strong feelings on things like this, as I believe all Canadians do.
Organ trafficking, the practice of extracting organs through coercive means to sell them for profit, is absolutely reprehensible and it is a global challenge, not just the challenge we are talking about today, which frequently involves the exploitation of vulnerable individuals. It is a complex issue that requires both legislative and policy responses. Our government is proud to support this important bill, with targeted amendments that would make it better to achieve its objectives.
I very much look forward to seeing its passage by Parliament contrary to what my colleagues seemed to indicate earlier. This a bill that we all want to pass and then have very strong enforcement to end human trafficking in organ transplants.
If I do not get another opportunity to do so, I wish everyone a blessed summer and I will see everyone in September.
View Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, Bill S‑204 would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad to receive an organ harvested without consent. This bill combats the horrible practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking in human organs. I will not get into the bill because everyone agrees that it should be passed.
This bill has already been unanimously passed twice by the Senate and once by the House. Initially it was a Liberal bill introduced by Borys Wrzesnewskyj and Irwin Cotler. The issue today is not about the bill.
The issue is whether the government is committed to doing what it knows is the right thing and will allow the bill to pass or whether it will decide otherwise. If this bill is passed right away then the House could resume debate of the government's budget. The government can either agree to this or spend an hour talking about it, delaying both this bill and its own budget.
Accordingly, I would like to seek the unanimous consent of the House to move the following motion: That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House, at the conclusion of today's debate on Bill S‑204, the bill be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in a committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.
View Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I believe it is quite obvious what the Liberals are doing. Afterwards, they will tell us that the opposition was being partisan and playing politics. Quite frankly, that is disappointing today.
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-06-18 13:55 [p.8794]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in support of Bill S-204. The bill would prevent the illegal harvesting and trafficking of human organs, penalize Canadians who participate in or facilitate the illegal black market for organ harvesting and deter people from getting involved in this immoral and unregulated industry that is loaded with illegal businesses. This illicit and illegal organ-harvesting industry is hurting vulnerable people across the world. A global shortage of organs has driven this illegal industry, which relies on low-income populations as donors and wealthy foreigners as recipients. It is illegal and immoral. It is an industry that preys on some of the most vulnerable people across the world. We have to recognize that this demand is fed by wealthier nations and individuals.
According to experts, the illicit trafficking of organs on the black market has grown exponentially as demand has grown and supply has become more limited. Who are the victims of this illicit trade? As is mostly the case with the trafficking of organs, they tend to be the poor, who are vulnerable and exposed to exploitation. They are commonly refugees living in terrible and unsafe conditions. They are often told they will get large sums of money or released from debt. Specifically in the case of kidneys, the most commonly harvested organ from living donors, recruiters will even tell victims that the kidneys will grow back. These victims are desperate and seen as easy prey for exploitation.
The perpetrators who are often implicit in the trafficking of organs include a wide array of people, from the recruiters who identify the vulnerable victims, the transporters, the staff working at the clinic or hospital, the medical professionals who carry out the surgery and the wealthy westerners who buy these organs. There is a whole chain of people who end up profiting from this horrific crime.
Just over the border in the United States, over 114,000 people are on the organ waiting list with a new person added every 10 minutes. The World Health Organization estimates that 10,000 kidneys are traded on the black market worldwide annually. That is more than one every hour. We just cannot go on like this. It is completely unacceptable and we as members of Parliament have to do something about it. This is the fourth—
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
I will interrupt the hon. member there. The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan is rising on a point of order.
View Warren Steinley Profile
CPC (SK)
View Warren Steinley Profile
2021-06-18 13:58 [p.8795]
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sorry to interrupt my colleague.
Because of the numerous points of orders that were brought during private members' hour, I was wondering if that time will be added to the end of the hour.
Standing Order 30(7) states:
If the beginning of private members’ hour is delayed for any reason, or if the hour is interrupted for any reason, a period of time corresponding to the time of the delay or interruption shall be added to the end of the hour suspending as much of the business set out in section (6) of this standing order as necessary.
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
To the hon. member's point, the points of order that were brought were not counted as part of the hour of debate on this. That should clarify the hon. member's point of order.
We will continue with the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni.
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-06-18 13:59 [p.8795]
Madam Speaker, this is the fourth time that this issue has been brought before Parliament. The situation is urgent, especially for those who are being preyed upon. Clearly it should not be a partisan issue. I know it is June and I know it is a difficult time, but, sadly, here today partisanship is now playing in on this bill that could be saving the lives of those who are being preyed upon in developing countries. We need to stop waiting around and get this done.
I am really disappointed to see how things are playing out today. This is exactly the sort of bill that should get cross-party support and all sides of the House should be able to and can agree that we have to do more about this and that this has to be stopped, not at some distant time in the future but right now. There have been opportunities today to advance that, so it is very disappointing. The victims of this crime simply cannot wait any longer.
Here in Canada, we are way behind in dealing with this issue on organ trafficking. We look at other countries, such as Spain and Norway and Taiwan, that have passed similar pieces of legislation to tackle this issue. Europeans have a convention entitled, “Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs”. We have to start catching up with the rest of the world by acknowledging the problem and taking action to fix it. The international community must come together on this issue. Canada needs to be a leader and establish clear conditions that will cut off the organ-trafficking industry's profits and the illegal businesses.
While most organ trafficking occurs abroad, measures must and can be implemented to ensure Canadians on long organ donation lists are not perpetuating this brutality by purchasing trafficked organs out of desperation. While we debate this bill to stop international organ trafficking, I do want to take time today to commend my colleague and good friend from Calgary Confederation for taking great action here at home and in this House that I know will address many domestic needs for organs. I am aware it just received royal assent. His bill, C-316, would deal with tax records being used for an organ donor registry. It is a highly commendable proposal that can be part of the solution to increase the supply of safe, legal and consensual organ donations, in an ethical way that respects human rights. This will have a real impact on people's lives here in Canada. I am honoured to continue to work with my colleague and to be a part of supporting his proposal, both his bill from the last Parliament and the bill that just passed.
The NDP really wants to ensure that this bill is passed swiftly and that those who have been harmed by this illicit trade are given the justice that they deserve. To support this, we must do more domestically to encourage ethical, safe organ donations, including giving Canadians more options to be able to sign up to the organ donation registry.
Organ harvesting and trafficking abroad is a horrific crime against humanity. It must be stopped. Canada can and must begin the process of fixing this injustice by passage of this bill.
Again, I am disappointed today that partisan politics have come into play. We support dealing with this horrific crime of organ harvesting and trafficking abroad.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-18 14:03 [p.8795]
Madam Speaker, I have been listening very closely to what has been said. In good part I agree when members talk about the partisanship we are seeing on the floor, but I take it from a different perspective, where, over the last while, there has been a great deal of partisanship on the floor of the House of Commons.
I know that a good number of people are watching and are very much interested in this piece of legislation ultimately passing and receiving royal assent. There was a great sense of disappointment when it passed the House of Commons but the Senate was not able to get its royal assent. There is no doubt that a vast majority of Canadians recognized that it should be a crime to travel abroad without the donor's consent in order to get an organ transplant.
They try to give a false impression. I referred to it yesterday, and more and more we are seeing this unholy alliance of opposition parties coming together to try, in every way possible and in as partisan a way as possible, to make the Prime Minister and members of the Liberal caucus look bad. Seriously, I am not aware of any Liberal member of Parliament who would want to prevent this from becoming law. There are procedures that need to take place. Each political entity has a House leadership team with whom the issue could be addressed.
I say, to individuals like Irwin Cotler, David Matis, Maria and so many others who have been strong advocates on this issue, that what they are witnessing today is a partisanship that is not coming from the government. The government is doing what it can to ensure that there is a series of pieces of legislation. I could cite specific examples that have been provided to me. We know that we could pass this with unanimous consent, as we could do for a number of pieces of legislation.
Where was this empathy for the people the legislation would benefit, for example, when we dealt with Bill C-3? Bill C-3 was about the judicial appointments and training. Members will recall that it, too, passed the House of Commons in the last Parliament and the government reintroduced it as Bill C-3. How many hours of debate took place on that bill, even though it went through the full process the previous time? It was hours and days, but the Conservatives did not want it passed, and for what reasons? I will let people follow the debate.
Members will say that the issue has been debated already. I remember opposition members, when the shoe was on the other foot, would say that it was the previous Parliament and there are new members of Parliament who were just elected back in 2019 and ask if they should not be afforded the opportunity, if they want to be able to contribute to the debate. I understand the rules, the process and how things operate regarding legislation. We now have an offer saying that if we pass this bill unanimously right now, we will be allowed to debate Bill C-30. Members can imagine the hypocrisy. That is the reason I raised the matter of privilege I raised earlier today.
Last Friday and this Friday the NDP and the Conservatives were working together through privileges to prevent the government from being able to deal with legislation. Is this legislation not also important? What about other private—
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
I do have to interrupt the hon. member.
The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan is rising on a point of order.
View Warren Steinley Profile
CPC (SK)
View Warren Steinley Profile
2021-06-18 14:08 [p.8796]
Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg North has talked about how much he knows about the parliamentary practices and procedures of this House. I have been listening intently, and he really has not talked about human trafficking—
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
That is a point of debate and not a point of order.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-18 14:08 [p.8796]
Madam Speaker, shame on the member for the interruption.
I have debated this issue. I have supported this issue's advancement, and I suspect that it will get through second reading at some point, as other private members' bills will. If there is keen interest such as I have heard today on the floor of the House from all members, I would suggest that they raise the issue with their respective House leadership teams. Maybe there is a way in which it can be accommodated.
Is this select group now going to prioritize all the other areas and bills that are before us and say these ones too should be rushed through the House of Commons without debate, let alone some debate? I could list Bill C-6 on conversion therapy. I could talk about Bill C-30, which is going to help millions of Canadians, many of whom are in desperate situations. Then there is Bill C-12, on net zero and the environment, and Bill C-10. That does not even go into the many private members' bills from many of our colleagues who are very interested in advancing their ideas, resolutions and bills.
That does not take away from the importance of the debate on this bill. I suspect that when it comes to a vote, every member will likely vote for it as they did previously. The ones who are trying to score political cheap shots today are the opposition parties. In the days going into summer, this is brought to the table. If the people who are pushing for this legislation really wanted to do a service for the audience, there is a better way of doing it. I suspect some of them know that, but they have chosen to do this in their partisanship, while saying the Liberal government is preventing it.
Out of respect for some of the individuals I have referenced, I will work within my caucus, as I know my colleague from Toronto who spoke prior to me will. We understand what the bill and the legislation will do, but we also understand that after today there are three days left of this session before we break for the summer. There are still opportunities to try to shame one political entity into unanimous consent for personal or political views, or to try to make others look bad. I believe that the manner in which this issue is being dealt with today is just wrong.
I have been on House leadership teams for 30 years. It would be nice to see this bill passed at all stages. If that is possible, then I would really recommend that members watching or participating use that same passion in talking to their House leaderships. There might even be some other members who have other ideas for legislation that may be important to them and to Canadians, and that could allow us to set a good example around the world.
Canada taking action can have a positive outcome for other nations. I recognize that, but I also recognize that at the end of the day, in order for us to succeed we have to have a process. If we are respectful of the process and work in collaboration as parties, we could probably achieve a lot more, as we did for the private member's bill the first and second go-round.
I would invite members who are following the debate to participate in a discussion afterwards with regard to how I feel, using my expertise, about what could be done with regard to this legislation.
I suggest this as an open gesture of goodwill, because I, like the former Liberal speaker, support the legislation.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak to this bill today. Before I do that, I want to address some of the observations I have had from the debate so far today.
The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan took the floor, introduced the subject, talked a little about it and then said he wanted to move that we vote on it. If a minister had brought forward a bill, even a bill that he or she knew the House would definitely support, can members imagine the outrage that would have come from the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, in particular? It has happened on a number of occasions.
That is what this is about. This is about letting all members have the opportunity to speak to these very important pieces of legislation.
To my colleague from the Bloc, I cannot remember his riding, but I am pretty sure that when he was speaking, his famous father was actually in the background of his shot at one point, which I thought was pretty cool by the way. I would say the same thing to him. The Bloc had an opportunity to speak to this. The member had an opportunity to speak to this. Then he tried to move the same motion again.
I am more concerned about why opposition parties seem not to want to allow Liberal government members to speak to this. The member for Courtenay—Alberni, with all due respect, spoke for almost a full 10 minutes, and then shamed other people for wanting to speak. His party has 24 seats in the House, and he occupied a full 10 minutes of the 60 minutes of debate.
I find it very troubling when, especially on the motion that we are talking about, someone could come forward and say, “Here are all my thoughts. Now let us vote.” To the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, the manner in which he clearly went about doing this and getting this legislation to be voted on very quickly, perhaps the opposition could have picked somebody to run that exercise who could have perhaps shown more diligence or respect for the process? They could work with parties, talk to the parties beforehand and say, “This is what we want to do. Would you consider asking your members to limit how much they speak so we could do this? Is that a possibility? If not, are there other concessions we could make?”
We could have had a discussion and tried to negotiate. I had my speech ready to go here when I found out I might not have the opportunity to speak to this. I just think that if the opposition was genuine in really wanting this to pass, and we have seen it before, it would have used resources differently. It is almost as though they wanted this reaction from the government, so that it could say, “See? This is such a great bill and nobody else wants it to pass.”
I am very happy with the work that this bill has gone through, both in this House and in the other place, and that it is back before the House. If we do not specifically wrap it up now, we will have an opportunity to continue it in the fall. It is important. Now I want to turn to my prepared notes because I know I will run out of time if I do not.
Bill S-204 proposes a number of reforms that would target trafficking in human organs. We know that trafficking in human organs is a transnational, global challenge. This heinous crime involves the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable living in under-resourced developing countries. International estimates indicate that organ trafficking nets between $600 million and $1.2 billion U.S. annually in illegal profits.
Generally, wealthier individuals, often from developed countries, drive demand for organs, and the supply of organs usually comes from developing regions of South America, Asia, Africa, India and China. Bill S-204 seeks to end organ trafficking by creating organ trafficking-specific indictable Criminal Code offences. The bill's proposed offences would prohibit obtaining an organ or otherwise taking part in the removal of an organ without the informed consent of the person from whom it was being removed. These offences criminalize organ trafficking-related conduct when there is evidence that organs were extracted through this coercive process.
The bill would also create an indictable Criminal Code offence that would prohibit obtaining an organ, or otherwise taking part in the removal of an organ that is obtained for financial consideration. This transactional offence would criminalize organ trafficking-related conduct where there is evidence that organs were purchased.
Furthermore, the bill would ensure that Canadians and permanent residents of Canada were not able to escape criminal liability by going abroad to commit these offences. We have heard why it is so important that it be part of this. I listened to what the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan said at the beginning. Based on his comments, this is why that is so important.
The bill would achieve this goal by enabling Canadian prosecution of Canadians and permanent residents of Canada who commit any of the proposed offences abroad. This reform, together with the bill's financial transaction offences, criminalizes transplant tourism, which involves buying organs abroad.
The bill would also create a new category of inadmissibility to Canada for foreign nationals and permanent residents who engage in organ trafficking conduct. Specifically, it would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to make those who engage in the conduct prohibited by this bill inadmissible under the provisions that apply when foreign nationals and permanent residents have violated human or international rights, for example by committing war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Vulnerable people who have organs extracted coercively or who sell their organs out of financial desperation deserve the protection of criminal law. As I have explained, these are reforms that would achieve that goal by creating specific organ trafficking Criminal Code offences that apply extraterritorially.
Currently, the Criminal Code prohibits conduct related to coercive organ removal through its human trafficking offences, which apply extraterritorially, and its assault offences, which do not. However, this can be difficult to prove, particularly when a person is coerced into doing this overseas or is led overseas to do it.
The bill's financial transaction offence would provide extra protection for the vulnerable by criminalizing anyone engaged in conduct that involves the commercialization of organs. This includes those who extract organs for profit, those who facilitate the extraction of organs for profit and those who buy organs for their own use regardless of evidence of these practices taking place. The offence would address the demand that fuels organ trafficking. There is no doubt that organ trafficking is a serious global problem that harms the most vulnerable. It is a problem that requires a comprehensive and effective response.
In Canada, organ transplantation is governed by a legislative framework that encompasses both health and criminal law. Provincial and territorial human tissue gift statutes regulate organ donation. They contain regulatory offences that prohibit the sale, purchase or dealing in any human tissues or organs outside the applicable regulated framework. The applicable provincial and territorial legal framework has never allowed for the commercialization of organs, but these regulatory measures do not apply extraterritorially.
Ongoing efforts to increase legitimate organ donation in Canada complement these reforms. Since 2018, Health Canada has been leading an initiative called the organ donation and transplantation collaborative with provinces and territories, Canadian Blood Services, patients, families, clinical and administrative stakeholders, and researchers. The collaborative's goal is to achieve organ donation improvements that result in better patient outcomes and increase the number and quality of successful transplantations.
As I have indicated, we need to protect the vulnerable against those who are engaging in criminal activity, particularly those who are subject to that criminal activity. We need to protect those who might be interested in selling an organ out of financial hardship. A motion such as this that comes through both Houses, here and the other place, will truly assist in making this activity much more challenging for those who want to do it illegally.
View Adam Vaughan Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Adam Vaughan Profile
2021-06-18 14:24 [p.8798]
Madam Speaker, in my riding of Spadina—Fort York, the intersection of Spadina and Dundas is the scene of virtually a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week protest of this very single issue. During the last campaign, as I do my work out of my constituency office, which is located at Spadina and Dundas, the people who protest this issue talked to the public and talked to me. They saw my face and my name on the billboard at the office building where their protests are staged, and they asked me a question in the last Parliament. They said they knew how I voted on this issue but asked why I did not speak to it. Clearly, the people leading the campaign to prevent this horrendous practice want people to not only support their cause, but advocate for it. They want to see how and why that advocacy will be effective and where and how that advocacy will be used to advance the issue they are speaking to.
If I were to go back to the protesters and organizations leading this debate and say that I just decided to vote but not speak to it and not honour my commitment to speak to it, I would disappoint them. I am thankful that a number of members of the House have created this debate and this space to forward the work that was started by my cherished colleague Irwin Cotler, and then Borys Wrzesnewskyj, because not all of us get the opportunity, due to our parliamentary duties, to speak to every issue that comes in front of the House. If we did, every debate would take days and days and weeks and weeks.
We try to prioritize, but in this situation I made a commitment to the residents I represent, and in particular the organizers and protesters who stand guard on this issue, that I would speak to this issue. I thank my colleagues for affording me this opportunity, and I hope members opposite understand that for those of us who represent communities where this issue is most poignant, affording us a chance to speak to it is part of our responsibility and duty to this House, but also to the people we represent. I hope it is not seen in any other light.
There are a number of different dynamics that drive this issue, but there is also great disappointment in the inability of our Houses of Parliament, both the other place and the House of Commons, to get this legislation through in the last term. We know why that happened. It did not happen because this bill was filibustered; it happened because several other critically important bills were filibustered, including the work on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It was in fact that filibuster in the House that prevented the Senate from getting to this bill. Thankfully, all sides now seem to have seen a way forward on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and hopefully that bill will get royal assent on Monday.
It is a little rich for the sort of back-and-forth that we are filibustering to be raised in this context, when the parties opposite, in particular the Conservatives, know that the Conservatives filibustered this one in the last Parliament. They are suddenly now demanding immediate action on this file, when they could have achieved immediate action on this file years ago if they had co-operated. They take no responsibility or accountability for that, but their obstruction, even in the majority Parliament, had an impact on the legislation that was proposed and that we are talking about here today.
Let us not talk about the strategies and the inside baseball of House affairs and the various tactics that various House leaders use to try to achieve progress on parts of the agenda that are a priority to their party. That is politics. That is the House, and that is what happens in Parliament, but to pretend that there is some sort of ideological purity on that or partisanship that is independent of ulterior motives is a little rich, especially coming from a party that has been filibustering, in particular, the legislation on conversion therapy, which impacts Canadians' civil liberties and Canadians' human rights now, as we speak. For the Conservatives, in particular, to stand on a high horse on this one only makes me wonder if they have ever actually seen a horse—
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
Unfortunately, I will have to interrupt the member.
The hon. member for Carleton is rising on a point of order.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-18 14:28 [p.8799]
Madam Speaker, the member asked if we have ever seen a horse. We have seen part of one, but my point of order is different from that.
Government members are now filibustering this private member's bill and have done so for half an hour now, which is pushing back debate on the budget. We were anxious to get working on the budget. Had Liberal members not been filibustering this particular bill, would that have allowed us to get through the time-allocated portion of the debate on the budget? That is my question.
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
Unfortunately, that is not a point of order; therefore, the hon. parliamentary secretary may continue his speech.
View Adam Vaughan Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Adam Vaughan Profile
2021-06-18 14:29 [p.8799]
Madam Speaker, that was an excellent impression of the horse's end that I think the member was speaking to.
At any rate, the issue I am talking about now is the issue of organ harvesting, which happens primarily because our own organ donation system is not working. In fact, the city of Toronto has the lowest enrolment of organ donors of any other municipality in the country. We have worked very hard as city councillors and as elected federal and provincial politicians to reverse that. It is a public education campaign; it is a change in the system by which people register; it is a whole series of processes that must be addressed to take away the demand for this unspeakable activity, which we hope to make illegal through this bill. We have to do better on organ donations in this country if we are going to contribute to the eradication of this horrible practice that sees people leaving the country to attain organs in a way that is unbelievably horrendous and hard to describe in simple terms.
Part of the bill also requires us, as politicians, to think about the public education campaign part of this and to relieve the anxiety and desperation of Canadians across the country who are seeking to achieve full health through the miracles of modern medicine. We also have to make sure that we remove barriers for people who do want to donate, and make sure that for those who have signed up to give the gift of life, the process becomes easier and is facilitated in a way that would alleviate the pressure on people to go looking in the dark corners of the globe to do what they have to do.
As well, the research and the work done by many community activists and leaders to highlight where some of these terrible practices emanate from have to be broadened. We tend to focus in, because of the work of a particular organization, on one particular part of the world, but this is a global phenomenon that requires us to understand it in a more complex way and to do the research and the public education so that Canadians do not unwittingly take part in what they think is a legitimate operation and end up contributing to the harm that is being done to so many people around the world. This is also part of the work that has to be done.
It is not addressed in the bill, but perhaps there are ways, through committee, that it can be enhanced and developed, and perhaps it can be tied [Technical difficulty—Editor] in this country and make them more efficient and more humane. I think that is part of the process and part of the reason many of us want to speak to the bill in a way that generates a much stronger and much more important piece of legislation.
However, if we pass the bill on to the other House, if it goes through the parliamentary process and gets voted on, and I believe all parties have indicated support for it, then we will also need those parties in this House that have caucus members who sit in the other place, because we need the other House to also prioritize the bill in the way that has been spoken to today by several opposition members. It is not good enough for political parties to just stand in one chamber and say they want speedy passage, if they know in the back of their mind that in the other chamber their colleagues, their caucus members, their political movement, will do everything they can to frustrate every other piece of legislation that is coming through the parliamentary process. We need some consistency out of the Conservatives on the bill and we need some co-operation, which is the last point I would like to bring to this debate today.
All the processes and all the legislative agendas that collide in the House of Commons, such as measures brought forward by the government, by private members and by political parties in this House [Technical difficulty—Editor] slowing down legislation, but how little they contribute to speeding up legislation. We have had some good examples when there has been consensus on some critical pieces of legislation. The situation around UNDRIP is a perfect example where, quite clearly, the tenor of the House changed. As people thought more deeply about the information and the circumstance, they realized that some of the good legislation proposed by our government required immediate passage, and I think we saw some progress on bills like that.
I also think back to last week, when an opposition motion designed to blow up the national housing strategy was presented, and all opposition parties sided against the government. I find it ironic that, as they sought to destroy the national housing strategy, including the rapid housing initiative, the right to housing, the work on the co-investment fund, and the work being done in building housing in every riding, in every part of this country from coast to coast to coast, no sooner had members of the opposition voted to destroy the national housing strategy that they called up the parliamentary secretary to the minister in charge of CMHC and asked if we could fast-track some of the projects in their ridings, because they want to get the work done and they know how critical the job is.
If members are going to talk out of both sides of their mouths, they should try to be consistent. They should not try to destroy the program and try to acquire access to the program simultaneously. They should be honest about their approach here. I think that it is incumbent upon all of us to do that, to find a co-operative way forward, to work across party lines to achieve on issues that need to be achieved on and not to play these sorts of games where they deflect and present false arguments, when things are clearly in need of speedy passage.
I look forward—
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
Unfortunately, the hon. member's time is up, so I will go to resuming debate with the hon. member for Surrey Centre, and I will advise him that he only has about two minutes to begin his debate.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I would like to seek the consent of the House for a motion that would allow every member, who so wishes, to speak and still expedite passage of this bill.
I would like to seek the consent of the House for the following motion.
I move that, notwithstanding any Standing Order, special order or usual practice of the House, the House shall sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment to consider and dispose of Bill S-204 as follows: the member currently speaking, as well as all members of the government caucus may speak for not more than 10 minutes on the second reading motion; and when every member of the government has spoken or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, Bill S-204 shall be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed. When Bill S-204 has been read a third time and passed, the House shall adjourn to the next sitting day.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
Normally, when somebody seeks unanimous consent, it implies, and it is quite often why we start off that unanimous consent statement by saying such, that discussions have happened among the parties. Discussions did not happen among the parties before we heard this motion. The member needs to have those discussions, and I would encourage him to do that.
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
On that point of order, I would say that was just a point of clarification on the point of order. That is something I would normally say if there was debate on the point of order.
Therefore, the hon. member for Surrey Centre has two minutes, and then I will interrupt the proceedings to move on to the orders of the day.
View Randeep Sarai Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Randeep Sarai Profile
2021-06-18 14:38 [p.8800]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the second reading debate on Bill S-204, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (trafficking in human organs), which came to us on May 10, after having passed in the other place.
This important bill proposes to protect vulnerable persons who have organs extracted through exploitation of their vulnerabilities by creating new Criminal Code offences targeting organ trafficking-related conduct that would apply extra-territorially, including a financial transaction offence that would criminalize transplant tourism, a practice that involves purchasing organs abroad, usually in under-resourced countries; and amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to make foreign nationals or permanent residents of Canada who engage in conduct that would constitute an offence under one of the bill's proposed organ trafficking offences be inadmissible to Canada for having violated human or international rights.
International research indicates that traffickers may coerce vulnerable victims into giving up an organ and that organ donors often come from less wealthy nations. That is why organ trafficking affects certain populations disproportionately. Patients from wealthy countries travel abroad to obtain organs from donors in impoverished countries who may suffer from desperate poverty and may feel the need to sell their organs out of financial desperation.
Donors may also be deceived by traffickers into trading their organs for money that may not be paid at the end of the surgery. This exploitation of extreme poverty in certain parts of the world, for example in North Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Central America, drives organ trafficking.
In addition to the abuses I have just noted, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports that “In cases of trafficking in persons for organ removal, victims may be recruited through deception, [and may not be] fully informed as to the nature of the procedure, the recovery and the impact—”
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
I am sorry. The hon. member will have eight minutes the next time this matter is before the House.
The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. The order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
It being 3:10 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-254 under Private Members' Business.
Call in the members.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-271 under Private Members' Business.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on Motion No. 62 under Private Members' Business in the name of the hon. member for St. John's East.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
I declare the motion defeated.
I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 53 minutes.
It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver East, Housing; the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable, Seniors; the hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country, the Forestry Industry.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-16 17:31 [p.8558]
Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise tonight to speak to Bill C-269, an act to amend the Fisheries Act regarding the prohibition of the deposit of raw sewage. It is a bill from the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who also has been Speaker. I probably have not agreed with many of the things the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has said over the years, however the issue of raw sewage in our water system is a very important thing to be discussing and I am glad we have an opportunity here to do so.
We know an element of this is under provincial jurisdiction, but people should be able to know we have a top quality environmental system in this country to keep people safe. It should be an issue we are all deeply concerned with. My hon. colleagues can probably speak of many municipalities that have issues with raw sewage being pumped into waters and rivers.
However, one of the things I am not really seeing in the bill is the effect in areas under direct federal jurisdiction, which are of course first nations reserves. It is really important for Canadians to understand that across Canada there is a two-tiered system of infrastructure, a two-tiered system of health, a two-tiered system of education and a two-tiered system of rights.
Those are the rights that exist for citizens of this country under provincial or territorial governments, and the rights of those citizens living on the reserves of our nation and who are under the mandate of the Department of Indigenous Services, the old Indian Affairs and the ultimate colonial system. For them, there is chronic underfunding for basic infrastructure.
When the Liberals ran in 2015 on getting rid of the water crisis and told everyone they would have the mission accomplished by the beginning of 2021, it inspired and galvanized Canadians. Canadians asked themselves how it was possible that in a nation as rich as Canada, in a country with the greatest water resources on the planet, so many people could not turn on their taps and drink safely. Dirty water is also tied to sewage and broken sewage systems.
When the Prime Minister was elected on that promise, people believed he would follow through. What would be an easier thing for the incoming Liberal government to do than to ensure we have proper water? What the Liberal government did not promise to do was deal with the water systems, which include sewage. Why is it important to understand that distinction? It is because the government decided it was going to do it on the cheap.
I remember the terrible Kashechewan water crisis, and Kashechewan is in a terrible crisis right now with COVID. The Minister of Indigenous Services sat on his hands and did nothing until the COVID crisis blew up out of proportion. It took me back to when I was first elected in 2005 and there was an E. coli outbreak in Kashechewan. We saw the same lack of action then.
At that time, the sewage system in Kashechewan was built near the water treatment plant because it was done cheap. When the rain came and the sewage treatment settling ponds overflowed, they flowed into the water system. Kashechewan did not even have a proper backup system so that if something came into the outtake it would actually stop the incoming sewage. The government did not bother to put that in because it was done on the cheap. We need to think about it in that perspective, because the water crisis that caused E. coli in that community and led to the mass evacuation of the entire community was the result of the failed sewage system.
When the Prime Minister failed on his latest promise on water, people asked how it was possible. The Prime Minister's number one promise was supposed to be that he was going to deliver clean water. If we look at community after community and at the Indigenous Services list of communities with safe water, the Liberals are always focused on the press release and not actually assessing the real problems.
They spend a lot of time saying they have gotten rid of this boil water advisory and that boil water advisory. I have been in communities that were told they got rid of six boil water advisories. That is because at the very edge of town there was a building that had a well and now that well was clean, but the rest of the community was not safe. That is not a comprehensive solution.
I asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to cost out the Prime Minister's promises, and he was very clear that the government was deliberately underfunding the training that is needed to run a water treatment plant. The government was deliberately underfunding maintenance. Only the Department of Indigenous Services could cut a ribbon at a plant, walk away and think that there was never going to be a need for maintenance. Any municipality would say that things break.
There are isolated communities like Marten Falls' Ogoki Post, where the sewage lifts are hit by lightning and the boards “kack out”. Residents call and tell the department their sewage lifts are not working anymore and the feds say that it is not their issue. How is a community of 300 going to fix the fried-out sewage lifts? What happens? The sewage gets into the water, the water treatment plant starts to go down and then the feds say they are not going to fix that because it is not in their capital budget, but they will spend upwards of $2 million a year on bottled water. That bottled water money is not new money. It comes from another community where infrastructure was supposed to be built. They are taking money from an infrastructure project in one community that desperately needs it and they are buying bottled water for another community because they refuse to fix the issue.
When Liberals look at fixing the water situation, they look at what is cheapest, what is easiest and how to get out of it without having any more costs. I will give the example of the community of Attawapiskat. The water supply is a stagnant pool. It does not matter how many chemicals are pumped into that water: It will never be good, clean, safe water. The more chemicals that are pumped into the water, the more caustic it becomes and the more damage it does to children's skin. It is really something to see children living in Canada with open wounds all over their bodies. Anyone can go to any northern first nation and see the effects on these children.
Every now and then the media will pay attention and the government will say it does not understand the mysterious cause of these illnesses and rashes. It is obvious. It is because a stagnant pool of water gets chlorine dumped into it to make it drinkable and when the children are bathed in it, it damages their skin. Their skin starts to open and that is when the infections get in. This has happened in so many communities. I have had to medevac children out because of these conditions.
Another example is Neskantaga, which has gone 26 years without water. The Minister of Indigenous Services keeps scratching his head. He cannot figure out why he cannot get clean water to Neskantaga. It is because Liberals are willing to build a plant, but not willing to build all the infrastructure that supports the plant. A municipality needs a proper water plant, a proper source of water and proper pipes. It needs an entire system in order to get water to the community. Someone from Neskantaga said what the Liberals are offering to do is put a new engine in a rotted-out Ford vehicle, thinking we can drive it down the road. It cannot be done without the proper infrastructure. There needs to be proper piping, a proper water source and a plant that is actually built for the needs of the community. This is something the Department of Indigenous Services will never do.
We also see the same companies getting hired over and over again. In any other municipality, if a company built a water plant and the plant failed, there would be an investigation. Does anyone think that company would get the contract the next time? Not a chance. However, when a water plant fails, the Department of Indigenous Services says, “Oh well, whatever. It is just another day at the office.” The bonuses still go out to the senior bureaucrats and things do not change. These are the fundamental inequities that people are facing. There are communities like Maniwaki, just 100-and-some kilometres up the road from Ottawa. The Kitigan Zibi reserve cannot get clean water, but beside it the municipality of Maniwaki has clean water.
Why is that? One is under a provincial system and under that provincial jurisdiction, there are clear standards. There are obligations. There are rules in place. They have to deliver clean water to their community. However, the neighbouring reserve is under the federal government, so there is no obligation or standards. The feds do not want to put the standards in place because they do not want to spend the money.
That is what systemic discrimination looks like. It is in the water. It is in the sewage. It is in the school systems. It is in the failed health.
I am very interested in this bill and I am very glad that I had a chance to speak. I will be here all week taking questions.
View Nelly Shin Profile
CPC (BC)
View Nelly Shin Profile
2021-06-16 17:42 [p.8559]
Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise today to speak to Bill C-269, , an act to amend the Fisheries Act (prohibition—deposit of raw sewage), which was tabled by my colleague, the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
As the Fisheries Act currently stands, there is no definition of raw sewage. Bill C-269 would amend the act by adding raw sewage to denote the following:
raw sewage means sewage that has not yet been processed or treated to separate and remove contaminants, and includes
(a) used water from sanitary appliances that contains human fecal matter or human urine,
(b) used water, other than the type of water described in paragraph (a), from sanitary appliances or from other appliances in a kitchen or laundry, and
(c) surface runoff and stormwater that is mixed with the type of water described in paragraph (a);
The bill inserts a statement in section 34 of the act that would not allow raw sewage to be eligible for an exemption permit from the minister.
Bill C-269 amends section 36 of the Fisheries Act by adding, “No person shall deposit or permit the deposit of raw sewage in water frequented by fish.”
The bill also states non-application for Canadian fisheries waters located in the Northwest Territories, in Nunavut or north of the 54th parallel in Quebec or Newfoundland and Labrador.
The bill also indicates that anyone dumping raw sewage in water frequented by fish is guilty of an offence and liable.
The act would come into force five years after the day on which it receives royal assent.
Bill C-269 is simple and straightforward. It calls for accountability and urgency of action. For me, personally, it triggers a vision for improved environmental protection and infrastructure.
In 2015, when the member for Ottawa Centre was the minister of environment, she allowed the City of Montreal to dump eight billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River. Regardless of any justification, that is an unfathomable amount of toxic matter that was dumped into the water. I cannot even imagine what the repercussions of that were.
According to Environment Canada, from 2013 to 2017, more than one trillion litres of untreated waste water is known to have leaked or been purposely dumped across Canada. The City of Victoria and surrounding municipalities finally became one of the last major communities to stop dumping sewage into water in 2020. According to Mark Mattson, president of non-profit water protection organization Swim Drink Fish, Canada still has ongoing sewage pollution problems.
Bill C-269 is necessary to protect our waters from contamination and for wildlife species in water to be able to survive and thrive. It is time there was no more ambiguity on this. Being the member of Parliament for Port Moody—Coquitlam, Anmore and Belcarra, I have the privilege of being an advocate and steward for many environmentally sensitive places within my riding. This privilege brings responsibility. Today, I would like to highlight a very special and globally significant creek, which is Stoney Creek, which some of the rivers in my riding feed into.
Stoney Creek is the environmental lifeline for countless wildlife, as well as an urban oasis for both my riding and the neighbouring riding, Burnaby North—Seymour, and the greater region. Countless hours and decades of work by stream keepers from the Stoney Creek Environmental Committee, as well as local residents, has resulted in the return of salmon to Stoney Creek.
Today, Stoney Creek is the most successful Vancouver area urban creek for returning salmon. Stoney Creek is the spawning grounds for chum and coho salmon, as well as steelhead and trout. It is also significant on a global basis as it is home to the endangered Nooksack Dace. Approximately 10,000 Nooksack Dace remain.
It is very moving to watch the salmon on their spawning journey. I see their long, upstream and painful journey of perseverance ending in sacrifice for the next generation. It is very emotional to watch. I was shocked to learn that after torrential rainfalls, sometimes raw sewage overflows from Coquitlam sewers and makes its way to the celebrated Stoney Creek where the endangered Nooksack Dace have made their home and the coho and chum salmon come to spawn.
It is troubling for me that sewage overflow coming from my riding in Coquitlam is contaminating the aqua ecosystem in the riding of Burnaby North—Seymour in Stoney Creek. Upon discovery, I officially offered my assistance to the mayors of Coquitlam and Port Moody to seek federal infrastructure funding for their sewer systems when they seek upgrades.
However, I am perplexed as to why the member for Burnaby North—Seymour, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who has been in office longer than I have, has not taken any action on this troublesome issue or championed funding for sewage infrastructure when the harm is being done to wildlife in his own riding and reports of sewage being dispensed into Stoney Creek have been happening under his watch for years.
According to obtained records, since 2014 at least nine documented discharges of sewage have occurred in the Stoney Creek watershed. Raw sewage has spewed from manholes in my riding and flowed into the creek, and some experts believe that raw sewage is also escaping through exfiltrating from the Metro Vancouver Stoney Creek trunk line and flowing into the groundwater and ultimately into Stoney Creek.
The Metro Vancouver Stoney Creek trunk line was constructed in 1959. Over time, concrete piping and gaskets will tend to deteriorate, increasing the likelihood of both infiltration of groundwater into the pipe and inflow from surface water entering collectively inflow and infiltration, or I and I, as well as exfiltration of sewage into the groundwater and creek.
Records obtained via freedom of information requests show the following levels of E. coli in Stoney Creek. On September 18, 2020, there were 8,664 colony-forming units per 100 millilitres of water. In August there were 7,701, and in October there were 4,611. Samples exceeded 1,000 colony-forming units per 100 millilitres on six days. Ultimately, to solve the problem, new sewage infrastructure needs to be built. From obtained records, it is apparent that Metro Vancouver trunk line is over capacity, a very common phenomenon.
Meanwhile, the catchment's population is projected to increase 15,000 to 50,000. Constituents and other nearby residents are concerned that not expanding the sewage infrastructure promptly will result in increased contamination of Stoney Creek as well as situations where new home purchasers will not be able to move into their new homes due to lack of sewage capacity. Something similar recently happened in Campbell River, another B.C. community.
The topic of sewage is not a glamourous one, but waste elimination is a basic health and safety issue that needs to be dealt with. As we have seen, a microscopic virus like coronavirus has done much damage in our lives and to our establishments. Development of residential homes is a natural part of urban sprawl. Building more affordable housing is necessary to allow young families and first-time homebuyers to break into the housing market and have a home, but development without proper infrastructure is dangerous for the community and surrounding ecosystems.
Bill C-269 is a good place to start to trigger more accountability and action to upgrade all the infrastructure needed. Development is inevitable, but without the proper infrastructure, we could see a host of problems, of which the impact could be the contamination of our waters and harm to endangered species and salmon. It requires a concerted effort among all tiers of government to solve this problem effectively of aging sewage infrastructure and innovating new systems to meet the demands created by growing development in urban and suburban centres like my riding, and extreme weather events from climate change. If done with efficacy, a simple bill, like Bill C-269, could instigate the unfolding of a larger vision to yield greater protection of vulnerable fish, species and water habitats and improve public health and safety and job creation to help reopen our economy.
This is a problem across our country, and municipalities are aware of it, but they are stuck. They have so many other pressing matters they have to get to that without the funding, it gets shuffled under the pile. With Bill C-269, accountability would be placed. We can keep talking about the environment with trumpet blasts, but without deadlines and rules and a plan to accomplish these goals, it is still talk and no action. We know, as humans, we all need a deadline and some rules to get anything done. I see this bill as one that has great potential to help us literally clean up our act.
One thing I did discuss with the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle was the five-year term clause. In discussing it with him, it is something that should be debated and discussed with fulsome conversation so that we are helping the municipalities set themselves up for success and not failure. It should not be punitive. It should be something to help them get things done efficiently.
In closing, I feel that this is an issue that has been around for a long time and everyone is aware of it, but it is one of those things that nobody wants to tackle because the money is not there. We know that with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the minister promised $35 billion, but how much of that is used for things like this?
Moving forward, as we discuss Bill C-269, I hope that we can come to the table, bring our different ideas, and use this as a starting point to break that cycle of all this aging infrastructure not being dealt with, so that we can protect the environment, so that we can move forward with positive, prudent development that does not create other problems, and so that municipalities do not feel like they are alone but that they have the support of other tiers of government.
View Terry Duguid Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Terry Duguid Profile
2021-06-16 17:53 [p.8561]
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-269, an act to amend the Fisheries Act (prohibition—deposit of raw sewage), and to reiterate the key issues with this bill.
The government opposes Bill C-269 for multiple reasons. It would reduce environmental protections. It would negatively impact current federal, provincial and territorial collaboration on waste water. It would impose significant financial and practical challenges on all levels of government. It would be redundant and could weaken existing federal pollution prevention powers.
As the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle knows, the Fisheries Act is the federal government's most effective tool to prevent and set strong controls for the management of waste-water releases. The tools created through the Fisheries Act combined with our government's historic investments of $2 billion in support of over 1,700 water and waste-water projects across the country have made significant progress in protecting the water quality of our lakes, rivers and oceans.
The Fisheries Act already prohibits the release of deleterious substances, pollution into water unless the release is specifically managed under federal regulations. The Fisheries Act also contains strong regulatory controls requiring notification of pollution releases and that every effort is taken to prevent a release or to mitigate potential adverse impacts, if one is unavoidable.
We all want to end releases of raw sewage. That is why our government has invested nearly two and a half times the amount of federal funding for waste-water projects compared to the previous Conservative government over the same period, the same Conservative government that in 2012 gutted the Fisheries Act's most powerful pollution prevention tools and severely underfunded investments in water and waste-water infrastructure.
I would also point out that, as the former leader of the Conservative Party, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle proposed cuts to billions in public infrastructure funding, the same funding that helps support critical water and waste-water projects in communities across the country.
Prohibiting raw sewage, as this bill prescribes, would not prevent all untreated waste-water releases from occurring. Due to years of chronic underfunding in public infrastructure under the previous Conservative government, our government has had to step up and invest in critical waste-water treatment to minimize the occurrence of such releases.
Let me be clear. There is already an effective and responsible approach in place to address this problem. Releases of raw sewage are already managed under the federal regulations for waste water, or they are prohibited under the Fisheries Act. Our government has been clear in its commitment to protect Canadian waters. That is why in 2019, we strengthened protections in the Fisheries Act by restoring lost protections and incorporating comprehensive and modern safeguards.
If enacted, this bill would mean taking several steps back. The bill does not introduce any new protections, enhanced monitoring or regulatory controls to address waste water beyond the strong measures that already exist within the act. This bill would not increase, but would reduce, environmental protections, and would have significant and harmful impacts on the ability to prevent and manage pollution under the Fisheries Act.
If enacted, this bill would take raw sewage out of the definition of deleterious substances, thereby removing raw sewage from all other critical protections and requirements that the Fisheries Act currently provides. In addition, by removing raw sewage from the existing prohibition of deleterious substances in the Fisheries Act and excluding northern waters from the proposed bill's scope, this would create a gap where raw sewage could legally be released in the north. This is unacceptable.
While our government's current national strategy effectively targets the most significant sources of pollution, this bill would impose enormous fiscal and practical challenges to all levels of government for a minimal environmental benefit. Eliminating raw sewage within five years would mean replacing the underground plumbing networks in over 700 cities across Canada at a cost of over $200 billion.
Aside from the unprecedented cost, it is simply not possible to design, plan and build new or upgraded waste-water treatment facilities in over 700 cities across Canada in under five years. A typical planning and construction cycle for waste-water infrastructure would usually take 10 to 20 years.
We need to acknowledge that many communities are already making investments to reduce the environmental impacts associated with waste-water infrastructure. This includes projects to advance waste-water treatment, green infrastructure and converting waste to energy. These projects are a much more cost-effective way to achieve environmental outcomes than spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a small percentage of reductions.
The government cannot support such a poorly thought-out bill. It does not add value to the existing strategy to address waste water in Canada. Instead, it actively threatens it. Furthermore, our government already has a robust national strategy in place that establishes achievable and predictable timelines for communities to complete the necessary treatment system installations and upgrades. While upon first glance this bill would appear to offer environmental benefits, a closer look reveals that its proposed legislative changes would create considerable negative environmental and economic consequences.
To wrap up, our government is making historic investments in critical waste-water infrastructure to support our comprehensive national waste-water strategy, which combined will keep Canadian waters safe and healthy.
View Kristina Michaud Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I must say that the Bloc Québécois welcomes the Conservatives' desire to engage in a debate on water quality and the pollution of our rivers.
At first glance, it might be surprising to see the Conservatives interested in the issue of water pollution. Let us not forget that, during the last campaign, they promised to take action on the dumping of waste water in waterways.
It must be said that the Conservatives happily rode the wave of Montreal's “flushgate”, when the city was forced, in 2015, to dump eight billion litres of waste water into the St. Lawrence.
It was probably to fulfill this promise that the former Conservative leader, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, introduced Bill C‑269. Again, we welcome the Conservatives' willingness to look at ways to reduce water pollution.
It is true that the debate on Bill C‑269 is an opportunity to draw attention to an important environmental issue: the problem of sewage being discharged into our waterways. This is not the first time the Conservatives have focused on this issue.
I would like to return briefly to the promises around sewage treatment and, in turn, federal inaction on this issue.
In fact, in July 2012, Stephen Harper's government enacted the wastewater systems effluent regulations. This was the first Canadian standard for sewage treatment.
At the time, the federal government estimated that 75% of existing waste water facilities met the new standard. For the remaining 25%, the government promised to provide funding to help them comply, and it established three categories of facilities.
The first category includes the highest risk facilities, which must comply with the new standard by 2020. The second and third categories are those facilities that pose less of a risk and have until 2030, as is the case for Montreal, or 2040 to comply with the new standard.
The then minister of transport, infrastructure and communities, Denis Lebel, promised that Ottawa would invest for the long term and would work in partnership with the provinces. For its part, the Union des municipalités du Québec estimated that it would take $9 billion to upgrade municipal facilities in order to bring them into compliance with the new federal regulations. That was in 2012.
According to a recent Réseau Environnement report, it will actually cost at least $17 billion just to upgrade the existing treatment facilities, which are beginning to show their age.
This amount does not include waste-water treatment plants that do not comply with federal regulations, nor does it include the investments required to build treatment plants in municipalities that do not have any. In March, Le Devoir reported that 80 Quebec municipalities still do not have waste-water treatment plants.
Ten municipalities in the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspé region, the region I represent, still do not have treatment plants at the outlet of their sewer systems. It is 2021. That is unbelievable. This is a serious, ongoing problem, but the federal government is slow to get involved financially.
Sewage spills happen frequently in Quebec, I am sad to say. The Fondation Rivières counted more than 60,000 spills in 2019, which added up to a total of over 470,000 hours of sewage flow into Quebec rivers and streams. The water pollution problems do not stop there.
The most recent research has brought to light the adverse health effects of endocrine disruptors in water. When these chemicals are present in the environment, they can enter the bodies of animals and humans, interact with their hormones and affect all systems in the body.
This is often harmful for both animals and humans. Even small quantities of these substances in the environment can have a significant impact. The adverse effects of endocrine disruptors have been observed in fish and mollusks in the St. Lawrence River, as well as in amphibians in rivers in southern Quebec.
Many scientists agree that endocrine disruptors are a contributing factor in certain cancers and can cause reproductive issues in humans, though few studies have been conducted in this area.
Research is currently focusing on the endocrine disruptive potential of several chemicals, such as parabens, polychlorinated biphenyls and pesticides.
The presence of microplastics is another problem that demonstrates the importance of addressing waste-water discharge into our rivers and streams.
Scientists at McGill University published a study in 2020 in the well-respected journal Environmental Pollution that found that microplastic pollution in the St. Lawrence River is of the same order of magnitude as that measured in waterways near densely populated cities in China. The researchers found, on average, 832 particles of plastic per kilogram dry weight of sediment. That is four times higher than the levels found by another team in the Ottawa River a few years ago. This finding places the St. Lawrence among the worst waterways analyzed to date. One of the problems is that microplastics linger in the environment for a long time. Since they remain in the sediment, many organisms are at risk of ingesting them and passing them up the food chain.
In short, all of this data about endocrine disruptors and the presence of microplastics shows that there is a a significant and disturbing amount of pollution in our waterways as a result of sewage spills, and we must do something about it.
Let us get back to Bill C‑269. Unfortunately, this bill does not contain a solution to the problem of sewage spills. Why not? Because it is inconsistent. It will still allow certain hazardous materials to be discharged. In short, Bill C‑269 is not as good as it looks.
It is true that, to reduce water pollution, we need effective regulations to stop sewage from being released into the environment. However, this bill allows the discharge of certain “authorized” substances, including petroleum products such as oil, gasoline, diesel and grease, chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals, fertilizer runoff and more.
Consequently, even if it were passed, Bill C‑269 would allow industry to discharge waste water contaminated with petroleum products from their facilities into our rivers, provided that the discharge complies with the Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations. This means that waste water contaminated with chemicals like the ones I mentioned earlier would be allowed, but effluent from municipal waste-water systems would not. What will municipalities do then?
Montreal has been talking about building an ozonation plant to treat waste water for the past 15 years. The project was first announced by the Gérald Tremblay administration with a completion date in 2012, which was later pushed back to 2018. In 2019, Radio-Canada revealed that it should finally be completed in 2023 at a cost of half a billion dollars.
In February 2020, Valérie Plante's administration published a notice of interest for the construction of the plant. So far, however, there have been no developments. It is safe to say that the 2023 target may once again be postponed, but the City of Montreal has until 2030 to comply with existing federal regulations.
It is all well and good to draft regulations, but if a municipality is unable to build a water treatment plant because it simply cannot not afford it, what will the federal government do?
The solution for keeping sewage from polluting our waterways, including the St. Lawrence River, does not lie in arbitrary, unenforceable obligations or prohibitions. It lies in meaningful investments to help municipalities fulfill their waste-water treatment responsibilities.
The Bloc Québécois believes that, if we want to solve this problem together, we must demand that the federal government invest in waste-water treatment infrastructure through targeted, substantial, multi-year funding. Otherwise, neither municipalities nor Quebec will be able to fix the problem.
In conclusion, I will reiterate that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of having a debate on water quality and pollution in our rivers. We must admit that the debates on Bill C‑269 are drawing attention to this important environmental issue. However, for all of the reasons I mentioned, the Bloc Québécois will be voting against the bill.
Again, this bill does not contain a solution to the problem of sewage spills. The health of our waterways requires financial commitments that are not included in Bill C‑269. It requires a solid, long-term commitment on the part of the federal government. The government must invest heavily in municipal waste-water treatment infrastructure by means of appropriate transfers to Quebec and the provinces.
View Dan Albas Profile
CPC (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I must admit that during my time in this place, I have always found great value in private members' business. It is our opportunity as members of this place to bring forward legislation that we believe will ultimately better serve this great country. Yes, there is a lottery system in place, but there is also nothing to stop the government of the day from taking a great idea in a private member's bill and incorporating it into government legislation. Indeed, we have witnessed this practice before.
Another aspect of private members' business is that often members in this place will vote more freely than on government bills. That can add a very interesting dynamic, particularly during a minority government.
Given my passion for private members' business, I must state in advance that I am speaking in support of the bill before us, as it is important to me.
The bill proposes to exclude raw sewage from the definition of “deleterious substance” so as to entirely prohibit its deposit in water, which is a critically important environmental protection we can pass in this place. Indeed, I suspect that if we asked Canadians, most would believe that this is already a banned practice in Canada. However, as we know, the minister can sign off and essentially provide an exemption to it, just as a former environment minister of the Liberal government has done previously, and that should concern us all.
Increasingly, what we see with the Liberal government is that environmental policy is being applied in a discriminatory manner. While I could provide a number of different examples, I would much rather not. Politicizing this issue is ultimately not helpful in this debate. I would like to think that if there is one thing we can all agree on in this place, it is that it is never a good thing to dump raw sewage into fish habitat. I hope that we would all agree on that point. It should be a basic guiding principle of environmental stewardship that we do not contaminate fish habitat.
While I believe there is much we can agree on in principle with the bill, I also recognize that there are criticisms.
Critics have raised the cost to municipalities as one of the criticisms. It is a fair point. However, it also acknowledges that some municipalities are currently adding to the problem, and that a lack of revenue to fix the problem is the primary reason.
On that note, I will point out that the bill proposes that it will not come into force until five years after the day on which it receives royal assent. That is five years to take action, five years to ensure that this becomes a bigger priority for the federal government and five years to work out the details with local governments. Yes, I realize that there are many challenges and many reasons why some can argue this cannot be done in five years. However, to those people I would ask a very simple question: Does anyone want to argue that this should not be done? On that point, I would like to think we can all agree.
I am hopeful about it. If we can agree that it should be done, let us ask ourselves how. If we do not start taking steps in that direction, it would be fair to say that this bill is not perfect, but few ever are.
Having said that, we need to send the message that fish habitat protection is a priority. Critics raise valid points: It might be difficult and it does involve costs. On the issue of costs, it is important to say that we must also consider the cost of inaction.
In my former riding, the water supply for a small rural community was contaminated with fecal matter, which made the drinking water supply unsafe.
To secure the drinking water supply, the source of the contamination had to be found. The process is not as simple as it sounds. They changed the source of the water supply. Costly, unpleasant and heavy chlorination in the water treatment system was to blame.
Back-flow valves were installed. All of that cost a lot of money. Finally, a proper sewage treatment plant was installed. That occurred under a former Conservative government, but that is not the point. The point is that today that community water system is no longer contaminated and, more importantly, the groundwater is not contaminated.
This all matters because the Okanagan River system passes through this unincorporated community, where currently local indigenous communities have been working in partnership, and very successfully I might add, to restore lost salmon habitat. It is an incredible success story. Obviously, it also speaks to the importance of not dumping raw sewage into fish habitat.
To those who raise the valid concerns of cost to local government, I point out that there are many costs of inaction that can result from the situation. More importantly, critics aside, I come back to one simple point: While some have raised concerns over getting this done, I have yet to hear anyone suggest that it cannot be done or that it should not be done. I have only heard that it could be challenging.
Current government members, in 2015, told Canadians, hand on their hearts, that better was always possible. I submit that Bill C-269 proposes better protection for our fish habitat than is currently available. This bill is an important next step in moving forward to better protect our environment.
Before I wrap up, I would like to thank the member who sponsored this bill, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, for his ongoing leadership and commitment to seeing this gap in our governance addressed. This gap, whether it was intentional or not, exists. We cannot let this go by saying there is a cost. We need to count the current costs to the environment. There are challenges here, but it is because of members like the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle that we are debating this important subject, adding a spotlight to an issue that has haunted this country for too long.
As I said before, I hope we can all agree in this place that dumping raw sewage into fish habitat is wrong and that we need to do our part, in partnership with communities, local government, the provinces and indigenous communities, to make this problem go away so that we all can have clean water and feel proud of the contributions we have made to this issue.
I thank the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle for helping to elevate this argument and for this debate. I hope that all members will put aside partisanship and say yes to his proposal.
View Marilène Gill Profile
BQ (QC)
View Marilène Gill Profile
2021-06-16 18:18 [p.8565]
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking today about Bill C‑269, an act to amend the Fisheries Act, which I can summarize very quickly as being a good idea only at first glance. My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia agrees with me completely.
There have been at least 10 sewage spills in Quebec in recent years. Consider the spill of millions of litres of waste water in the Richelieu River in Saint‑Jean this past March. It was the fourth such spill in three years. The same thing happened in Longueuil in 2018, when 150 million tonnes of polluted water spilled directly into the St. Lawrence River for eight straight days. It is also impossible to forget “flushgate” in Montreal in 2015, when no less than eight billion litres of waste water was dumped into the St. Lawrence.
These examples are only some of the many similar incidents that have occurred, since sewage spills are unfortunately not a rare occurrence. In Quebec alone, Fondation Rivières counted 60,660 spills in 2019, adding up to a total of 471,300 hours of overflow. That is a lot.
Considering all of the data and the pollution in our waterways, we might have expected a far more ambitious bill. That is why I called it a good idea only at first glance earlier.
It is true that Bill C‑269 has given the House the opportunity to talk about the environment and the protection of our waterways. The Bloc Québécois is certainly not going to complain about that. However, Bill C‑269 does not offer any real solutions to the complex problem of sewage spills.
Unfortunately, it does not cover all waste water or all the harmful substances that could be discharged into the environment. It does not contain any real solutions for municipalities that are forced to release their sewage into our rivers, including the St. Lawrence, because they do not have adequate treatment systems.
The first fundamental problem with Bill C‑269 is that it contains only half measures. The first clause of Bill C‑269 excludes raw sewage from the definition of “deleterious substance” in the Fisheries Act. That is the problem.
Bill C‑269 prohibits the deposit of raw sewage, which could prevent another “flushgate” in Montreal. However, it permits the deposit of several other substances that are just as deleterious, meaning the Conservatives' bill opens the door to discharges of all kinds in our waterways. Allow me to list a few substances that the Conservatives forgot: petroleum products, chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals, industrial effluent, paint, and cleaning products like bleach.
If we want to truly protect our waterways, we need to go much further. Prohibiting the discharge of waste water is one thing, but allowing the deposit of all sorts of other equally dangerous substances is quite another. If the Conservatives want to prove that they care about protecting our waterways, they should revise their bill to avoid creating two categories of pollutants.
I would like to mention another problem with Bill C‑269. How do the Conservatives plan to prohibit the discharge of waste water if the municipalities do not have adequate water treatment facilities to stop doing it?
Let us consider the facts. Le Devoir recently reported that 80 Quebec municipalities do not have waste-water treatment plants. The article also mentioned a report by the Réseau Environnement that estimated we will have to invest at least $17 billion just to upgrade existing treatment facilities, which are beginning to show their age. Even with $17 billion, we will not achieve the miracle solution the Conservatives think they are proposing.
For the Bloc Québécois, until effective regulations against waste-water discharge are implemented, the problem will never be fully resolved. The real solution is clear, but it does not appear in the bill. It is so simple: The federal government must make substantial, regular investments, with dedicated, multi-year funding, to help the municipalities, which should not have to cut corners when it comes to protecting our waterways.
The federal government must invest in order to allow municipalities to build adequate waste-water treatment infrastructure.
In conclusion, if the Conservatives want to look good and burnish their green credentials by showing concern for the health of our waterways, including the St. Lawrence River, they must be bolder and propose real solutions, none of which appear in Bill C‑269.
If the Conservatives really want to solve the problem of sewage spills, they must think about including all harmful substances, and the federal government must help municipalities build adequate treatment systems, or the problem will resurface and will never be totally resolved.
For these reasons, the Bloc Québécois will vote against Bill C‑269.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-16 18:24 [p.8566]
There is just enough time to invite the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle for his right of reply. The hon. member will know he has up to five minutes.
The hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
View Andrew Scheer Profile
CPC (SK)
Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate all the members of Parliament who spoke in favour of this bill. Out of respect for the House's time, I will not repeat the points that I made in my original speech, but I would like to just take a few moments to address some of the misinformation that I heard throughout the debate from members who are opposing this bill.
First of all, and we hear this argument all the time from them, the Liberals are making the false allegation that Conservatives were not going to make the same commitments to infrastructure spending as they did. This is completely false. In the last campaign, our platform committed the same amount of money to be partnered with the provinces and municipalities in order to rehabilitate our cities, towns and municipalities.
It is the current Liberal government that has allowed billions of dollars in infrastructure spending to be lapsed, so there is no doubt that cities and towns are feeling the burden, the weight of the lack of action and the extra burden that follows when the federal government does not partner with those dollars. When it allows those dollars to be lapsed, it means that there is further pressure on cities and towns and further pressure on property tax payers.
Another bogus argument I heard was that somehow this bill would weaken protections. Only to a Liberal would banning something lead to weaker regulations. Right now, the minister is able to grant these types of permits, and as was already referenced this evening, did just that when the government allowed the City of Montreal to dump billions of litres of untreated raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River. This is clearly just a case of the Liberals projecting onto another party what they themselves are guilty of.
The Liberal member for Lac-Saint-Louis asked in debate about why the Conservatives did not include it in their platform if this idea was such a good idea. That is an easy one to address. We did include it. We made a campaign announcement, and it is on page 27 of the previous campaign platform our party ran on. This is a long-standing commitment that our party has been in support of.
Another member this evening talked about how this bill would permit the dumping of raw sewage in northern communities. They have that completely backwards. This bill would ban the dumping of raw sewage, but it leaves an exemption for northern communities, recognizing the additional burdens that they face in terms of meeting the needs of their infrastructure requirements.
That means that this bill would not immediately apply to them, but they would be covered under existing regulations. Those existing regulations that are already out there, as was mentioned, would not disappear with the passage of this bill. These are complementary pieces of legislation, and this is no excuse not to support this bill.
I heard, just a few moments ago, from the Bloc member who was wondering why there were not other types of harmful substances covered in the bill. Again, that is not a reason to vote against this bill. If we can all agree that raw sewage should not be dumped into our rivers, lakes and oceans, then surely we can pass this bill.
If there are other substances that members would like to see added to the list of things that would be banned from being dumped, Conservatives are all ears for that. However, members would know that, in a private member's bill, there is a need for much greater focus. Focusing on something that is achievable and practical, something that we can certainly all immediately agree to, is necessary in terms of a private member's bill. Private members do not have the same ability or the same tools as government ministers have.
If the government were saying it was not going to pass this bill because it is coming with a comprehensive list of harmful substances that should not be dumped into rivers, lakes and oceans, then I would be happy to participate and coordinate on that, and I would be happy to support that type of initiative, but it is not. There is nothing on the Order Paper coming down the pipe. Therefore, why would we not take this easy step to ban the dumping of raw sewage?
I know members have talked about the cost. There is no doubt that this would add a significant cost on municipalities, and here is where Conservatives have the answer. The Liberals are talking about the fact that they do not have the funds available to do that. They have no problem costing our economy billions of dollars, attacking our energy sector or cancelling pipelines, even though there is no evidence that those measures have a positive effect on the environment, as we shut down production here in Canada only to see emissions go up in other countries. However, we have a simple, tangible, practical, achievable proposal, and suddenly the Liberals are pretending they are worried about the cost. That is where we know where we can find the money.
The Liberals have put $35 billion into the Infrastructure Bank, an institution that has completed zero projects in four years, so there is plenty of existing funding that Conservatives would make available to municipalities so they can comply with this new law.
As my colleague from British Columbia mentioned, there is a five-year term clause coming into force, so the government has time, and a future Conservative government has the time, to partner with these municipalities to ensure they have the investments they need to upgrade the systems, so once and for all, we can stop dumping raw sewage into our waterways.
It is 2021, and Canada is a developed nation. There is no excuse for this practice to continue. That is why I am so pleased to present this bill to the House.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-16 18:30 [p.8567]
It being 6:30 p.m., the time provided for debate has expired. Accordingly, the question is on the motion.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request either a recorded division, or that the motion be adopted on division, I invite them to rise and indicate so to the Chair.
The hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.
View Karen Vecchio Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-16 18:31 [p.8567]
Accordingly, pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 23, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
The hon. member for Louis‑Saint‑Laurent is rising on a question of privilege.
View Gérard Deltell Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise on a question of privilege. I move:
That this House find the Public Health Agency of Canada to be in contempt for its failure to obey the Order of the House, adopted on June 2, 2021, as well as the orders of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, adopted on March 31 and May 10, 2021, and, accordingly, orders its President to attend at the Bar of the House, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions on the second sitting day following the adoption of this Order, for the purposes of (a) receiving, on behalf of the Agency, an admonishment delivered by the Speaker; and (b) delivering up the documents ordered by this House on June 2, 2021, to be produced, so that they may be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel under the terms of that Order.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
Hon. members may recall that the Speaker made a statement on this particular matter earlier this day and is satisfied that it meets the notice and admissibility requirements.
Debate is on the motion. The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.
View Gérard Deltell Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to take part in the debate tonight. This is a very important debate that we have to address.
We are talking about transparency. We are talking confidence of Canadians in their institutions. We are also talking about the role of the House of Commons and the role of each and every member of this Parliament. We are here because we have received a mandate from our constituents. Those are our real bosses.
It is not the Prime Minister who can dictate what the House can do and how the truth can be provided. This is why this debate tonight is of key importance for the way we see the House functioning and how democracy can work in Canada.
In the next few moments, I will reiterate the circumstances surrounding our being gathered here today in the House to speak to an order of the House involving a public agency.
This is about the surprising ties that may have existed between the National Microbiology Laboratory located in Winnipeg, a national Canadian laboratory, and the Wuhan laboratory linked to the militaristic communist government of China.
Surprising events have occurred in the past few months in this, Canada's most important and highest-security microbiology laboratory. We have confidence in this institution, but that confidence may fall away if we do not get to the bottom of things. That is why, here in the House, we want to get to the bottom of what happened.
Four events that occurred in this lab are of particular concern to us. When I say us, I do not mean the official opposition, I do not mean the Conservatives, I mean all Canadians. We have seen recent reports on CBC and Radio-Canada, and in The Globe and Mail, where the story originated, featuring fairly neutral witnesses and observers with no political affiliations who believe that some troubling events took place in Winnipeg. There are four such events.
First of all, the Winnipeg lab gave a top security clearance to a researcher with ties to the Chinese military. How did this happen? We want to know why, but we are not able to as yet.
I want to be very clear. When we talk about the Chinese military and about China, this has nothing to do with racism or xenophobia, as the Prime Minister had the audacity, and I would even say the intellectual dishonesty, to say in the House. Nor are we fuelling conspiracy theories, as a parliamentary secretary speaking for the Prime Minister so insultingly said last week. No, we are not playing chicken, as the Minister of Health so shamefully put it last Friday in the House, when I asked her some embarrassing questions. That is too bad, because that is my job, and I will keep doing it.
The questions we are asking about the relationship between the Winnipeg lab and the Wuhan lab have nothing to do with xenophobia or conspiracy theories. Nor are we engaging in a game of chicken on this, contrary to what Liberal members and the Liberal Prime Minister have said in the House.
First, a researcher with ties to the Chinese military was given the highest security clearance for the work he could do inside that lab.
Second, two deadly viruses were sent from the Winnipeg lab to the Wuhan lab. It is possible that everything was done by the book and that there is absolutely nothing to it, but we still need the documents to prove it. However, as long as they refuse to be transparent, we do not have the answer. The second point then is the transfer of deadly viruses.
Third, two senior researchers, the ones who played central roles in the microbiology research being conducted at this institute, were escorted out of the lab by the RCMP. A few weeks later, they literally lost their jobs. Losing a job can happen to anyone, but when people are escorted out by the RCMP, it seems to me they do not necessarily have a clear conscience.
According to CBC reports, these two researchers—they are a couple, a man and a woman—were earning a combined salary of about $250,000 Canadian. That is a very respectable amount of money for that level. The problem is that they were living in a $1.5-million house around Winnipeg and Gimli. The banks there seem to be pretty generous: They were willing to lend people making $250,000 enough money to buy a $1.5-million house. That raises some questions.
Lastly, after these three events, two senior executives at the Public Health Agency of Canada suddenly resigned and retired. Why? That is what we want to know.
Because this is a public agency, the following four events trouble us as parliamentarians: A foreign researcher obtained the highest security clearance; two deadly viruses were shipped from Winnipeg to Wuhan; two highly placed researchers—the institute's leading researchers—lost their jobs and were expelled and marched out under RCMP escort; and, finally, senior executives at the institute suddenly left their jobs.
These are legitimate questions, which were actually raised by The Globe and Mail. I want to point that out.
As members of Parliament, we have a job to do. This is why the opposition tabled a motion a few months ago to create a special committee on Canada-Chinese relations. This is quite important in the events of today, and also in the relations we should have with this country.
This committee worked on those issues, and wants to know what happened in this institution, Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory. Then twice, on two occasions, the committee asked the Public Health Agency of Canada to table documents about those events, on March 31 and on May 10.
On two occasions, the Special Committee on Canada‑China Relations asked senior officials at the Public Health Agency of Canada, which is responsible for the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, to table documents concerning these four events. At the time, the fourth event, the sudden departure of two executives, had not yet occurred.
On two occasions, the director refused to properly respond to the committee's request. That is why, on June 2, here in the House, we, the official opposition, put forward a motion to demand that the government, through the Public Health Agency of Canada, table the documents that are key to understanding this matter. This was not a wish or a request, but an order of the House to get to the bottom of these events. Unfortunately, the government did not act on this request, and I will come back later to the circumstances surrounding its unfortunate decision.
Some may be tempted to say that we should calm down since this is a matter of national security, microbiology and international relations. People may think that it is not true that all these documents can be published easily and that we have to be careful. Of course we have to be careful; we are well aware of that.
That is why our motion on June 2 was quite clear, as were the two motions adopted at committee. We established a framework that was absolutely relevant. The Clerk of the House of Commons, with the support of experts, can identify, detect and ferret out any items that might be truly sensitive and do not warrant being made public for national security reasons. He can look at the administrative facts that may have led to two researchers being escorted out by the RCMP or another researcher who is associated with the Chinese military being given a very high security clearance. These are perfectly legitimate questions. However, once the documents are made public, they can be sifted through, as is done in many cases, by the experts and specifically by the Clerk of the House of Commons, whom we trust.
However, the government decided to override the House's order to produce the documents. The Prime Minister raised national security concerns and claimed that the Liberal government had already created a body that had all the necessary latitude to examine and analyze these types of situations. That body is the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and it was created in 2016 by the Liberal government.
The Speaker noted that it was not a parliamentary committee, but a committee of parliamentarians.
The Prime Minister was quite proud last week to say that the government had struck this committee to get to the bottom of this without jeopardizing national security, and he was proud to say that all political parties were represented on the committee. That was a mistake: The second opposition group had not been represented for months. Need I point out that we requested transfers for our representatives in September and he did not respond until last week? What a surprise. For months and months, he had no interest in this and, all of a sudden, he is interested.
The committee of parliamentarians the Prime Minister created is his instrument. That is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it has its limits. The group can receive documents. Actually, the Prime Minister and his ministers love to talk about how they gave the committee documents and the committee will do the work, but they leave out the rest. The Prime Minister leaves out the part about how he has the right to veto every single document that is analyzed, every single committee resolution and every single committee finding.
If the Prime Minister personally does not want a document to be released, he is the one who decides that, nobody else. If the committee's recommendation does not suit him, he alone can decide if it is made public or not. If the committee finds that there is a national security issue but the Prime Minister disagrees, he can decide not to talk about it.
I do not even have the right to ask members what happened in that committee, because its members took an oath to not say anything to anyone. I would never jeopardize the legitimacy, honesty and integrity of my colleagues who sit on a committee and who have sworn an oath to not say anything. However, what is the point of setting up a committee of parliamentarians if those who are part of that committee are unable to talk about what goes on there? The words “Parliament” and “parliamentarian” come from the same root word as “parler”, a French word that means to speak, which only makes sense. This committee is the Prime Minister's personal instrument, because he is the one who has the right of veto over everything.
In the ruling the Speaker gave about two hours ago, he very clearly indicated that this committee existed but that it was not a parliamentary committee. I am not going to put words in the Speaker's mouth. However, we believe that this committee is completely under the yoke of the Prime Minister because he gave himself the right to veto the committee's decisions.
We raised a question of privilege because the motion had been adopted, it was about an order of the House, and the government had defied it. We challenged the government's approach by raising this question of privilege and not two hours ago the Speaker of the House of Commons recognized that, on the face of it, we were indeed right.
We are gathered here this evening to determine whether we want to move forward and continue working on this file. We believe that the director of the Public Health Agency of Canada was wrong in refusing to hand over these documents and that is why we are asking that these documents be tabled here.
We also want the director of the agency to be admonished for failing to obey an order of the House, as stated in the Speaker's ruling. We are also asking for relevant documents to be delivered to the House and reviewed by the Clerk of the House to ensure that national security is not jeopardized and, above all, that the orders of the House are obeyed. That did not happen under this government and it is disgraceful.
Since some members have spoken at length about it, I would like to remind members that there was an incident in 2010 concerning the release of documents that could pose a threat to national security. At the time, Speaker Milliken ruled that the documents had to be made public. It has to be done in a certain way, but documents can be made public.
Some members will say that at the time the Conservatives did not want to release the documents, but now that we are in opposition that is what we want. Stop right there. These are two completely different situations.
Members will recall that the 2010 issue pertained to the Afghanistan war. It must be pointed out that we were involved in a military operation, we were in a war zone. Our soldiers, our men and women, were deployed to a war zone and were risking their lives. We had allies, and Afghan interpreters were helping us in the war we were waging against terrorism together with our international allies. We had Afghan nationals who were risking their lives. We had Canadians in uniform who were proudly serving in the military and putting their lives at risk.
That is not at all the case today. We are talking about questionable administrative decisions that resulted in an agency giving the highest security clearance to a researcher associated with the Chinese military. We are talking about an agency that decided to give two extremely rare and dangerous viruses to a foreign laboratory. We are talking about an agency that gave a very high security clearance to two researchers whose career ultimately ended in a shameful and dishonourable manner. They were expelled and escorted out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We are talking about two civilian executives who left the administration unexpectedly.
These are questionable administrative decisions that cast a shadow on Canada's great, proud and honourable reputation in the field of research. To my knowledge, that is not at all like what happened in Afghanistan. As far as I know, no one's life was at risk in Winnipeg, at least I hope not. We are not talking about a foreign army like the one we were fighting in Afghanistan. I hope not. We are not talking about allies and friends like our Afghan interpreters putting their lives at risk. These are two completely different things.
Woe, then, to those who dare to draw a parallel between the events of 2010, President Milliken's decision or our entirely legitimate and pertinent reluctance when we were in power because we were in a war zone, and what is going on today when we are in the opposition and are demanding information that would allow us to get to the bottom of things and shed light on situations that deserve our attention. We believe that this situation compromised our national security.
Let us take a quick look at the facts. Ten days ago, the House ordered the government of Canada to table documents in the House. It was an order of the House. The government did not obey the order. Rather, it flouted the House of Commons and the will of the majority of members elected by Canadians, eventually doing its own thing and giving the documents to an entity literally created by the Prime Minister. This entity is entirely under the Prime Minister's control; he has veto power over anything that happens in the committee and anything that might come out of it.
We are asking for the documents to be made public. We asking for the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada to come back to the House and take the blame, as written and defined in your decision, so that Canadians can learn what happened in these questionable relations deserving of an investigation between a key research and scientific institution, Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg and another laboratory located in Wuhan following four events that cast a shadow on Canada's reputation and integrity, especially since our scientists must work under the most secure conditions possible, with the support, assistance and confidence of all Canadians. They deserve nothing less.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
Mr. Speaker, I voted against the motion that the Conservatives introduced, because I do believe this is an issue of national security.
If we listen to what the member has said, we would think these documents have not been provided at all, and nothing could be further from the truth. The documents were provided to a committee, in fact, two committees: one committee where redaction was required and another committee where there were no redactions whatsoever.
At the end of the day, we need to recognize that there is an issue of national security. The documents in question have been provided in two forms to two different groups, where the membership is made up of members of Parliament from all sides of the House.
Does the member not recognize that the Conservative Party could be wrong? Maybe there is a sense of national security, and the Conservative Party of Canada is overlooking that issue in favour of political partisanship in the chamber, which is what we have seen over the last couple of weeks.
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