Bill C-30 (Historical)

Canada's Clean Air Act

An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Energy Efficiency Act and the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act (Canada's Clean Air Act)

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to promote the reduction of air pollution and the quality of outdoor and indoor air. It enables the Government of Canada to regulate air pollutants and greenhouse gases, including establishing emission-trading programs, and expands its authority to collect information about substances that contribute or are capable of contributing to air pollution. Part 1 also enacts requirements that the Ministers of the Environment and Health establish air quality objectives and publicly report on the attainment of those objectives and on the effectiveness of the measures taken to achieve them.
Part 2 of this enactment amends the Energy Efficiency Act to
(a) clarify that classes of energy-using products may be established based on their common energy-consuming characteristics, the intended use of the products or the conditions under which the products are normally used;
(b) require that all interprovincial shipments of energy-using products meet the requirements of that Act;
(c) require dealers to provide prescribed information respecting the shipment or importation of energy-using products to the Minister responsible for that Act;
(d) provide for the authority to prescribe as energy-using products manufactured products, or classes of manufactured products, that affect or control energy consumption; and
(e) broaden the scope of the labelling provisions.
Part 3 of this enactment amends the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act to clarify its regulation-making powers with respect to the establishment of standards for the fuel consumption of new motor vehicles sold in Canada and to modernize certain aspects of that Act.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Climate change was the top priority for all parliamentarians, I think Mr. Jean also said, as well as for the government. We're getting somewhere. That's very useful; that's very helpful. I'd like to hear more from the government, if it's possible, Mr. Chair, today or in early meetings, as to how the thigh bone connects to the knee bone and the knee bone connects to the leg bone. How, for example, would we deal with one of the amendments put forward by the ENGO community, which is to reduce greenhouse gases by 80%, using 1990 as a baseline, by 2050? That's a very interesting and aggressive target. We're going to want to hear from an awful lot of witnesses on that.

But I need to hear more from the government in terms of how Bill C-30, being the clean air plan, the government's plan, connects to energy policy. How is it going to connect to the government's transport policy plan? How is it going to connect to consumption decreases reannounced last week? We'll agree that perhaps they were jointly founded programs--EnerGuide and a few others, for example--that were reannounced last week. Where does this fit, if we consider that the country has a puzzle-like response, with pieces of the puzzle on the climate change challenge? How does this fit and connect to the other policies of the government?

If we treat this bill in isolation, Mr. Chair--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm really pleased to have heard my colleague Mr. Jean a moment ago. It's the clearest statement I've heard in a year about the government's climate change plan.

I just heard two things. I want to make sure, and I'm not being facetious at all, and this is helpful in the context of the journey we're going on. Bill C-30 is the plan--the beginning, the middle, and the end of the plan. You held up a document and said that Bill C-30 is the plan. That's the government's plan on climate change, right? I think I heard that.

Second, I also heard that climate change was now the top priority of the Government of Canada.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I would not like us to go too quickly, and I would not like the schedule to be established solely on the basis of an agreement between the NDP and the Conservative Party. It is very important for the schedule to be established by all political parties.

Rather than suggesting days and times, we might perhaps take a look at available time slots, bearing in mind that votes are held on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Perhaps we could also take into account the fact that the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development will continue to sit. In my view, there are a number of things we should take into account before deciding on our future business immediately, as it has been suggested we do. That is the first aspect I would like taken into account. I am quite sure that the clerk will tell us what time slots are available.

The second issue is that of witnesses. I would like to thank Mr. Cullen for his remarks. When we begin our study and establish the list of witnesses, we must of course take into account the testimony that has already been given to avoid duplication. We should agree on a principle. The principle we would support is that the committee should work more intensively on the study of Bill C-30—and that is indeed the spirit of the NDP's proposal. However, I would have great difficulty in supporting the motion moved by the NDP and amended by the Conservative Party, a motion that would rush us and compress the schedule, without knowing exactly what that would involve.

I believe that we can strike a balance between moving quickly and conducting an intensive study. I am among those who believe we can work three days a week on this bill, even though I am not convinced that it will suit me in the end. We can go quickly while hearing as many witnesses as possible, but we should be cautious before approving a schedule that might have a number of consequences, because we failed to take certain factors into account.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to say that we do have a plan. People keep talking about us not having a plan. Here's the plan: it's called Bill C-30, and that was the government's proposal. It's not perfect, and we accept that it's not perfect. It's just like Mr. Cullen's proposed outline, which may not be perfect. That's why we're here, and that's why the government agreed to strike this committee: to hear from all Canadians, through their parliamentarians, and so that we could hear the experience that all people have at this table.

Let's talk about that experience.

Mr. Bigras, we sat together on the environment committee in the 38th Parliament.

Mr. Cullen, we sat together on the environment committee.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, we sat together in the environment committee, and we heard all these witnesses, as did Mr. McGuinty.

Of course, Mr. McGuinty was the chair of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. I think it was from 1995 to 1999 or something like that, but he certainly has good experience.

Mr. Watson sat with us in the 38th Parliament on the environment committee, and so did Mr. Warawa and I.

We have a huge database and people who have experience with the witnesses we've heard already, but we have to start somewhere. We want to start and we want to accomplish something. That's what this government wants to do. It does want to get results, Mr. Holland. It wants to protect the health of Canadians and clean up the environment, and you've seen that happen through some of the announcements that have been made recently.

What we don't want to do is nothing. We want to get something done, and we need to set a time schedule that may not fit for everybody. This is this government's priority, and we're hoping it is the entire Parliament's priority, to get something done for the health of Canadians. The reality is that we can make this a priority. If we see which people are not interested in pushing it forward and which people are interested in pushing it forward, I'm prepared—and I think you'll find that all government members are prepared—to sit through the March and April breaks so that we can get this done and have a better quality of life for Canadians from one end of this country to the other.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

The problem with the NDP model is, frankly, its incompleteness.

Our basic position--and I thought it was the position of all the opposition parties and the NGOs initially--was that this was an unnecessary piece of legislation, and that was why we rejected it. We said we actually had a piece of legislation that could do most of this. It's called the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and we can regulate under that. Indeed, ironically, the government can still regulate under that without even introducing the new bill, and plans to. The regulations that will be brought in are under the existing Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

When the NDP decided to change tactics and to work with the government, we said all right, we've got to be careful that whatever else we do, we do not weaken the existing legislation, the CEPA legislation, that we at least do no harm.

There are a number of issues that have been identified by the non-governmental organizations very effectively in a submission to us, and it would seem to me that the template that the NGOs have laid out has identified correctly the major concerns that we all felt in the month of October, when we collectively--that is to say the three opposition parties and the NGO community speaking unanimously--had a problem. They now have identified those issues, some of which are not flagged in the work plan. For instance, there is no reference in the work plan to the real difficulty in Bill C-30 regarding provincial equivalency agreements. There is no reference in the work plan to the real challenge of having two sets of lists, the list of toxins under CEPA and a separate list of substances that would be pulled out and identified as pollutants and greenhouse gases. Those are subjects worthy of consideration because they show major flaws in the bill that would weaken the existing CEPA provisions. They need to be dealt with.

Similarly, there is nothing in the NDP template to deal with the challenges of the notice of intent to regulate, which also has been very thoroughly criticized by the non-governmental organizations. We need to see how the notice of intent to regulate will work with the bill, because the real guts of the matter are in the notice of intent to regulate.

All of those things are very well laid out in the NGO submission. I'm not saying that we will endorse every single thing that the NGOs have said in terms of targets or anything else. I will say that I think they have correctly identified the challenges we had with the original draft of the bill, way back when, which all of us agreed on. We would have a fuller discussion of those points--incorporating, by the way, many of the points that are here, but in a fuller fashion--that the NDP has put forward. So I would offer, as an alternative way of dealing with our concerns, the things we all agreed on, which have been very well captured by the January 22 submission of the NGOs, which we could recirculate. You could borrow mine, if that would be helpful.

All I'm saying is we've got to do it seriously. We're not going to take forever on this, but let's organize it in terms of the problems we had with the bill, not in terms of general terminology about international experiences and models. It won't deal with the CEPA preamble. Are we going to make a specific reference to the Kyoto Protocol or not? We all thought we should.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We've having a ping-pong game here. We're ping-ponging back from one subject to another, Mr. Chair. I want to come back to the comments made by my colleague, Mr. Bigras.

I think everybody at this committee is seized with the importance of trying to come up with an outcome that makes sense for the country. It is facile and it is dismissive to speak of this committee's work as something that can be hurried. Bill C-2 took months of negotiations. Hundreds of amendments were considered. It was an important piece of legislation that passed through all-party support.

No one is trying to delay this. This is the 21st-century challenge of the hugest proportions. Here is our challenge going forward, as I see it, going back to Mr. Bigras's comments: I don't know how this bill fits into the government's plan. I haven't seen a plan. I am still trying to divine a plan.

I'm reminded of Yogi Berra's famous expression that when you come to a fork in the road, take it. I'm just not sure what fork we're supposed to be taking.

I don't know whether this Bill C-30 is in the context of Kyoto, or not in the context of Kyoto. I don't know how this connects to the government's ongoing discussions, for example, on the expansion of the oil sands, if there are such discussions. I don't know how this Bill C-30 fits with the expansion of nuclear power, if there are such plans. For us to assume that it can be hurried through at this level of complexity and to suggest that it might all have been heard before is not necessarily true. It's not right to speak like this.

Canadians know this is the challenge of the 21st century, and they want to see us come up with a reasonable plan that does not force us to commit economic hara-kiri while at the same time achieving our domestic reductions, Mr. Chairman, and participating internationally as good international citizens. So I'd like to have a generalized discussion, to pick up on what our colleague from the Bloc Québécois has put forward,

a general discussion on themes, and on the direction in which we are going. That will not take more than half an hour. The only answer I have heard the government giving in the past 30 minutes is that it expects to make no changes to the bill. I would like the government to say more about its plan.

This is not a question of partisanship. The point is to hear the government talk about its plan, if there is a plan. This is the government's bill. Where are we going with it?

As my colleague Mr. Godfrey said, if we're going on a high seas fishing expedition and we're going to land any species, I don't think that's the right process.

I'd like to hear from the government on this. How does this fit in? Where is this going? What do you contemplate? When do you intend to regulate? You published a notice of intent to regulate in the fall. I'm sorry, but with all due respect, big deal. Governments do this all the time, at all levels of government.

Where are we going? Where do you see us going? Canadians want to know where we're going. Need I remind you, you're in charge. Where are you taking this nation-state? Are we inside of Kyoto or are we out of Kyoto? These are the kinds of discussions that have to be held before we get into the four corners of this draft statute. Having a discussion about witnesses here or there is not going to help us achieve what we want to achieve until we get a generalized and more clear understanding of what journey we're on here.

To suggest that it's only the opposition parties who are compelling this debate on Bill C-30 is wrong. It's false. It's not true. Everybody in the House of Commons and all parties want to see this move forward productively. So please help me as a single member of Parliament and help all Canadians understand where we're going. I think that's part of what we ought to be doing before we get into other questions, such as should we have five meetings a week? Should we have 40 or 60 witnesses? Has it been said before elsewhere, in some other committee?

With all due respect, even if it's been said somewhere else in another committee, it may not apply to the context of this bill. That's our job as parliamentarians. As a lawyer I wouldn't do that. Those of us with legal training wouldn't do that. It is against the code of ethics.

So this is my plea: can I please hear something from the government in terms of where this journey is supposed to take us? Where do we contemplate being? Are we working towards budget deadlines? If we are, then say so, for the love of God. Tell the Canadian people where we're going. If you're not able to tell us where we're going, perhaps we should run it back up the flagpole, hear from the minister or the Prime Minister, and find out what the authority of this committee is purported to be.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Bigras mentioned that we have a duty to hear from witnesses. I agree, but we can also look at that in a very effective way. To bring clarity, I would suggest that one of those first witnesses could be the minister himself, and then people from the department. We can ask them why Bill C-30 was drafted the way it was. That would get us off to a fairly quick start.

The minister has made it clear that he's available when the committee would like him to come, and he's looking forward to coming here at an early opportunity. So we could start with the minister; it could be this week. As I said previously, I'm willing to work as hard and as long as is necessary to see this not in a prolonged process but in a very effective and speedy process. Canadians are asking for a quick resolution to this. There's an urgency on this file. Many of us around this table have shared the urgency of dealing with the environmental file.

I hope Mr. Bigras is not suggesting a long and protracted process, but a very effective and efficient and quick process.

A question to you, through the chair, Mr. Bigras: would you like to have a quick or a long process?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

The government made a proposal. The spirit in which we want to work in this committee consists in finding a balance between the urgent need to take action, while ensuring that we have every means at our disposal to combat climate change, and the transparency and openness that we need to hear as many witnesses as possible. This is what I meant regarding the approach that we should choose.

As far as we are concerned, we agree that we must use every means at our disposal. This must be done within a limited period of time, and not in the medium term. We must act quickly, but even if we have all the testimony from the Standing Committee on the Environment and the Committee on Natural Resources, our task consists in hearing a series of witnesses regarding Bill C-30. In my opinion, this is the balance that we must seek to establish between the urgency of acting in the face of climate change on the one hand, and transparency on the other hand. Our selection of witnesses and our choice of dates for the meetings should be based on these principles.

We did not have an opportunity to debate this bill in the House of Commons. Therefore, we must make sure that we can get the work done in this committee.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The government believes Bill C-30 is a very good piece of legislation. Bill C-2 went to a legislative committee, and Bill C-30 has now been sent to a legislative committee. We are open to input on how to make it better. Many of the opposition members have clearly said they would like to have an opportunity to make Bill C-30 better and that's why it's at committee.

We began the meeting with comments that many have already been down this path and have received information from witnesses. Therefore, Mr. Cullen presented a motion to have previous witness testimony and discussion included at this committee. I think that was a good choice. I don't think we need to spend hours, weeks, or months going over new testimony when we've already heard relevant testimony.

What I'm looking forward to is working together with other members of the committee and hearing their recommendations on how we can move forward. I'm hoping we can move this forward quickly. I'm hoping we meet as often as necessary so that we can have this dealt with and maybe do clause-by-clause within a few weeks.

As I've said from the outset, this is not here for a rewrite, it's here to be strengthened. We look forward to input from select witnesses and also members of the committee. If we need to make it stronger, then we're open to that.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

To begin with, let me say that I welcome this motion. I think that it is an excellent idea.

Mr. Cullen told us that its purpose is to allow us to obtain more information. We should then be able to make better decisions by taking into account the work done by the Standing Committee on the Environment. On the other hand, I want to be clear about the intent of the motion. In fact, we were told that we should avoid doing work that has already been done.

I want Mr. Cullen to assure us that this will not prevent certain witnesses who already appeared before other committees regarding the Kyoto Protocol from appearing before this committee and presenting briefs on Bill C-30. If we are sure of this, we will support our colleague's motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We have a quorum. I'd like to call to order meeting number two of the special legislative committee on Bill C-30.

My military mind likes to start things on time, so I appreciate everybody being here. I hope we can continue to do that. We have a lot of work ahead of us, so it's important that we start on time and get to it.

I'd just ask the media to clear the room.

I want to welcome everybody back. I hope everybody had a good break at Christmas--and the word “break” is in italics, because everybody worked pretty hard over Christmas. I know I did; I'm sure you all did too. I hope everybody's ready to work hard, because Canadians are watching us and they're wanting to see some progress on what's an important issue for all of us.

I'd like to put out a plea to everybody on all sides that this is not question period. I know it's naive to say let's park the partisan politics, but let's do that as much as we can and work in a spirit of cooperation, because this is obviously an important issue for all Canadians and all parties in the House.

We want to go back to the House with a good quality product in a good timeframe--that will be up to members of the committee--so we can take back to the House and ultimately the Canadian people something that will make a difference for Canada, for the world, for our children and our grandchildren. It will probably always be a work in progress, but the key word is “progress”, and that's what we're here to initiate.

I'm looking forward to the task in a spirit of cooperation. I'm sure everybody here is as well, and we'll press on with the agenda.

Mr. Cullen.

The Environment

[John Baird, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, last October, our government was the first in Canadian history to say that it would deal with industry. This is very important.

It was very clear in October that this government would regulate greenhouse gas emissions and air quality. Last week, the Prime Minister said that this announcement would be made in the coming weeks or months. Bill C-30 is a very important part of this.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I assume it would be standard operating practice, but I assume it would also be useful for the clerk to distribute to everybody the original package that announced what has now become Bill C-30, particularly the notice of intent to regulate. I assume that is going to happen. I got a copy of the bill, but I don't know if I got the....

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I understand the parliamentary secretary's arguments, but one must bear in mind the very reason we are here today. If we are sitting around this table today, it is because the government believes that the opposition can help improve Bill C-30. Our contribution is directly proportional to the opportunities given to the members of the official opposition to ask the witnesses questions. In order to acknowledge the commitment of each political party here, and to make a constructive contribution to this process, we must adopt the format that I have suggested, which will allow for the members of the opposition to fully participate.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My arguments on this motion will also underscore and clarify the Bloc's commitment, here on this committee. As we are a legislative committee, I believe that it is our duty to delve into the substance of the matter. C-30 deals with important issues that we must discuss and debate. It is my hope that this committee will focus on the real issues, and allow another entity, such as a steering committee, to deal with planning and organization. This legislative committee has too much work to do on Bill C-30, to be able to tend to matters that can very well be looked after by a steering committee.

It is entirely up to the committee to decide whether or not it wishes its discussions on planning, organization and details held in public, within a committee of the whole. Nonetheless, I believe that we can be much more effective if we refer these technical discussions to a steering committee.