Bill C-16 (Historical)

Environmental Enforcement Act

An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment

This enactment amends certain enforcement, offence, penalty and sentencing provisions of the following Acts:
(a) the Antarctic Environmental Protection Act;
(b) the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act;
(c) the Canada National Parks Act;
(d) the Canada Wildlife Act;
(e) the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999;
(f) the International River Improvements Act;
(g) the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994;
(h) the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park Act; and
(i) the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act.
It adds enforcement officer immunity to the Acts that did not expressly provide any. It also adds the power to designate analysts for the purposes of the Canada Wildlife Act and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act. It also adds inspection and search and seizure powers to the International River Improvements Act.
It amends the penalty provisions of the Acts by establishing distinct ranges of fines for different offences, by creating minimum fines for the most serious offences, by increasing maximum fines, by specifying ranges of fines for individuals, other persons, small revenue corporations and ships of different sizes and by doubling the fine amounts for second and subsequent offenders.
It amends the Acts to make the liability and duty provisions of directors, officers, agents and mandataries of corporations, and those of ship masters, chief engineers, owners and operators, consistent between the Acts.
The enactment amends the sentencing provisions of the Acts by adding a purpose clause, by specifying aggravating factors that, if associated with an offence, must contribute to higher fines, by requiring courts to add profits gained or benefits realized from the commission of an offence to fine amounts, by requiring courts to order corporate offenders to disclose details of convictions to their shareholders and by expanding the power of the courts to make additional orders having regard to the nature of the offence and the circumstances surrounding its commission.
The enactment adds to each of the Acts a requirement that details of convictions of corporations be made available to the public and that all fines collected be credited to the Environmental Damages Fund and be available for environmental projects or the administration of that Fund.
This enactment also creates the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act which establishes an administrative monetary penalty scheme applicable to the Acts listed above as well as to the Canada Water Act.

[Hannah Rogers, Executive Director, Environmental Enforcement, Enforcement Branch, Department of the Environment]

In 2009, Bill C-16, which was known as the Environmental Enforcement Act, made a number of changes to the enforcement scheme of CEPA, and a number of other pieces of legislation.

We are now 10 years past that point. There was a requirement to do a review, to make sure that fine amounts and sentencing provisions are effective, and consistent with public values, the economy and other relevant circumstances over time.

We have to do this on a periodic basis. We are at that time right now. That review was launched in December, and it's going to take about a year. We're gathering input from stakeholders, indigenous partners and the public. Once that has been completed, and there is a report, there will be an opportunity for the government to consider its findings, and look at it in tandem with the committee's 2017 recommendations. It can then make some recommendations in terms of whether there are changes that should be made as we go forward.

That's a quick summary of what is coming over the next year on the EEA review.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Very good.

Mr. Armstrong, I hear your issues and concerns. I didn't hear the same issues and concerns being raised when the Government of Canada brought to our committee their Bill C-16, which was an omnibus bill to amend the environmental enforcement provisions to make them more effective for the Government of Canada.

A very similar provision exists in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act under section 17. The experience has been, over the life of that act since 1984, that there have not been monumental requests for investigations. In fact, it has not provided overwhelming work or red tape. That provision and this provision in clause 14 are consistent with the North American agreement on environmental cooperation, under which Canada has committed to make provisions to enable citizens to be involved in the enforcement process and request investigations.

If you read on to subclause 15(2), it very clearly says that the investigation will not proceed if it is frivolous or vexatious. So that has already been thought through and dealt with.

On the issue of foreign entities, it's my understanding that in our last meetings we already clarified and redefined the provision on entities. So I'm not really sure where this issue of foreign entities arises. They would not be qualified to apply here, given the definition of entity in the bill. It's simply a provision that would extend the rights and opportunities accorded by the government under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to other environmental statutes.

It simply provides for a consistent opportunity, where information comes to the attention of the public, to file a request for an investigation of a suspected violation. There is no obligation to proceed. It's in the hands of the department to take a look at it. If they're already proceeding with an investigation, then so be it. It's my understanding, from my years of working with enforcement officers, that they appreciate people bringing these matters to their attention.

This provides that if you want to bring a complaint forward to the government about an alleged violation, you have to do it in a very organized way and provide certain information. In fact, it avoids wasting time. Right away you provide this concise statement on what provision of the act you think is violated and your evidence supporting that.

I appreciate your input, but the provision already exists in law. The intention of this provision in my bill simply accords that right and opportunity across the board to all environmental statutes, which is appropriate and would be consistent.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

While I find the input by Mr. Calkins very interesting, last year the government brought forward Bill C-16, an omnibus bill to amend environmental enforcement provisions of federal environmental statutes. It appeared that there was a very careful review of all the enforcement provisions. In their wisdom they did not bring forward any amendment to rescind section 17 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which provides for citizens to apply for the investigation of an offence.

So Mr. Calkins may feel this way, but it doesn't appear to be the position--

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I think it would say “to the extent of any conflict”, or it could be “any alleged conflict”. I don't know.

My suggestion is that we're close to it, and we might want to pursue more legal opinion and get back to that, maybe at the next meeting. That is what I'm suggesting. I think--I'm trying to find similar provisions, and I just haven't had a chance to find any--that is a good amendment. I appreciate that being brought forward. I think that should assuage some of the concerns raised by particularly the shipping industry. We certainly went through all of this when we did the amendments to Bill C-16 and endeavoured to bend over backwards to address any of their issues.

On the issue raised by Mr. Woodworth, I don't really see it as a relevant comment. That part of the bill is the purpose, and new subclause 6(2) is simply another stand-alone subclause that clarifies the purpose of the bill. I don't see necessarily that it's intended to clarify what will become subclause 6(1). I think it's a good clarification that has been tabled.

I understand, having talked to the drafters, that the numbers are automatically adjusted. I had asked that question myself to the drafters.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few brief comments. I don't think I want to belabour this. A lot of the witnesses dealt with these issues far more eloquently than I possibly could.

I do want to touch immediately on the issue of first nations. I in fact added the Assembly of First Nations to the recommended list of people to appear. Unfortunately, the timing just did not work for them. I certainly will, when I leave this meeting, encourage them to submit a written brief.

I was of the view that once we had ended our hearings, we would not be soliciting further briefs and witnesses. If we're still welcoming them, I'll certainly encourage those who have not contributed to do so. In fact, I've spoken to a number of people who said they would have happily submitted written briefs. They didn't realize it was still possible. So I'm glad to hear that the Conservative members of the committee want to encourage additional people to submit their views. I will do so as well.

The government has done a good job of endeavouring to present the viewpoints of one group of witnesses, and that was from industry. Not surprisingly, they are coming in and opposing a new environmental law, particularly one that would enable impacted communities to participate in environmental decision-making. I've dealt with this kind of opposition for 40 years, so it comes as no surprise. I fully expected that, although I have to say I was disappointed that.... There are a good number of senior representatives of industry in Alberta who, had they appeared, I think would have put forward a somewhat more measured perspective as they've been participating multi-stakeholder groups with people across Alberta for five decades.

So we've heard a wide array of viewpoints. Yes, we heard from some industry saying it would open the floodgates for litigation. On the other hand, we heard from a good number of witnesses saying, contrary to that, in both the U.S. and Canada there had not been a floodgate of litigation. We heard that most strongly from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, who very clearly said that the most valuable result of their provincial Environmental Bill of Rights is that it has encouraged and facilitated more members of the public to step forward and express their views on any new environmental law or policy.

Some intervenors, some witnesses, in fact called for even stronger expanded citizen rights, and were disappointed that my bill did not go far enough. Everybody has those proposed amendments before them. I did not choose to bring forward those amendments. I stuck to my guns and tried to keep the bill more measured. Of course, it's open to any member to represent all of the witnesses who testified. So far, we've only heard from a certain perspective.

I'm a little taken aback that the government would criticize committee members who've gone to the effort to sit down and actually submit amendments that they think will strengthen the bill. We may have different perspectives on these amendments when we finally get to them, but I respect them. I respect that they take the time with their colleagues and their staff to sit down and go through the bill and come forward with amendments.

I would have welcomed a number of friendly amendments, frankly. I would have happily accepted amendments, as the government has spoken to, on amending the “precautionary principle” definition. I would be happy to accept any amendments. But they've chosen not to strengthen the bill and provide that it be more measured; that's their discretion.

I want to thank the witnesses and our analysts for their hard work in expeditiously turning around that material and reviewing the various environmental bills of rights that exist in Canada. I note that pretty well every other environmental bill of rights uses the term “resident”, so I'm a little puzzled why we couldn't use that in the federal bill when in fact that's the term used at the provincial level. That remains puzzling to me, having heard the evidence and having received that useful information from the analysts.

On the matter of redundancy, far from being redundant, the bill simply makes rights consistent under all federal environmental laws that are already extended under CEPA, and in some cases extends them somewhat. In fact, that's what Bill C-16 did, and we all worked assiduously to assist the government in processing that bill, which they still have not seen fit to put into effect. And that's in fact what this bill does: it extends equal rights under whatever manner that we're reviewing in the environment.

As far as impacts to permits and revision of legal approvals are concerned, the government always has the power to revise any regulation, any law, any policy, any permit, any approval, any authorization. That's allowable under the law. All this bill does is to give the public a right to be at the table when those decisions are made, or to ask that such a review be undertaken.

I'm a little puzzled at all of this speaking on and on about the lack of certainty. In fact those in industry are themselves often calling for government to open up and relax laws. There's been a major campaign orchestrated from this country by industry for the United States to relax their environmental laws. So there are lobbyists on both sides. All this bill does is ensure that the public have a right. The reason it's in there....

Frankly, as the tabler of this law, I have to tell you that if there's anything in this bill that I would want to survive, it would be those provisions. I'm saying that for a very specific purpose. I had the pleasure of serving as the first head of law and enforcement for NAFTA's environment commission. That commission operates under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. Under that agreement, signed by Quebec, Alberta, and the federal government, as well as counterparts in the United States and Mexico, all of our Canadian jurisdictions who have signed on have undertaken to enable advance notice and opportunity for the public to be engaged in the development of any environmental law and policy. All this bill is doing is enacting that at a domestic level.

I'm kind of astounded that I haven't heard on this from the parties on the other side, who are usually great defenders of NAFTA—and the NAAEC is a side agreement to NAFTA.

So that's precisely what the bill does. It simply takes an international agreement and implements it domestically, which is the way the system works in Canada.

I don't want to elaborate any further. I think we have clearly heard that certain members of our committee like what they heard from industry. Probably there's a variety of opinions around the table about how they would weigh the evidence heard, and that's why we tried to hear from as broad an array as possible.

In closing, Mr. Chair, I want to move that this debate now be adjourned.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Precisely. And isn't the purpose of this bill to ensure that those rights are available under all laws, certainly under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act? It's a very modern act, to the credit of the last few governments. They've bent over backwards to update and modernize that law.

But unlike Bill C-16, for which the government did an omnibus bill and amended a lot of statutes, they have not taken similar action in updating equal rights, for example, under the Arctic waters protection act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, or the Fisheries Act. Is it not correct that the level of rights and opportunities is not the same under all federal environmental statutes?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'd like to thank the representatives for presenting on my bill.

Mr. Broad, your association, the Shipping Federation of Canada, and the Canadian Merchant Service Guild, the International Ship-owners Alliance of Canada, and the International Transport Workers' Federation all intervened against the government's enhanced enforcement bill, Bill C-16, did you not?

[John O'Connor]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am speaking to you from Quebec City. I was not able to be with you in Ottawa today.

I would like to thank the committee for allowing me to participate in this session by teleconference.

My name is John O'Connor, and I am the chair of the environmental committee of the Canadian Maritime Law Association.

Unlike some of our colleagues here, the Canadian Maritime Law Association has been around for many years, long before the federal Department of the Environment was commenced. In the marine field, as a matter of fact, one of the more important years was 1967. That was the year of the huge pollution, the very large oil pollution, in Europe that led to an international convention that is enforced today in Canada. This very important convention, which we call the civil liability convention, is enforced in this country. Canada is a member to this convention.

That was in 1967, and we, the Canadian Maritime Law Association, commenced our environmental committee immediately after that accident. We participated with the Government of Canada in the adoption of that convention, or at least in having input into the adoption of that convention, in 1969.

Canada did not join the convention, by the way, until 1989, but we did eventually become a member.

In the meantime, in 1973, Canada put together what was then part XX of the Canada Shipping Act, which was the very first piece of federal legislation in the marine field that had anything to do with civil liability and oil pollution.

Our committee has been around for a long time. I personally have chaired it for many years, and we have spoken to many bills. I must say that today is a fun experience for me. I'm always somehow in the group of the industry people who are usually speaking negatively about bills. Today, to hear all these committees speak positively about it, it's heartening. We too support much of the bill.

Our view is that many of the frustrations and problems that other areas of the environment have encountered are less present than in the marine field. In the marine field, when there is an unfortunate accident, or pollution, it's often very high-profile. The government does not sit back and do nothing. On the contrary, our experience is that not only is the Department of Transport very active but also even the Department of the Environment itself has taken a great interest in marine activities over the years.

Just as reference, you may think of Bill C-15 in 2005 and Bill C-16 in 2009. I was flattered to be asked to speak to those bills in both the House and the Senate, by the way.

I think what I would like to do, in the time I have, is simply underline that our association is in favour of anything that will assist in reducing pollution or improving the environment. The bill, then, certainly is not something we're against. However, there are three points I'd like to raise, because I think there are three flaws in the bill and I just want to bring them to your attention. Perhaps this committee will be able to address some of these problems.

First, you have to understand how the bill is divided. Clause 16 creates the environmental protection action. Clause 19 talks about remedies. Clause 22 talks about a true judicial review under the Federal Courts Act in section 18.1. Finally, clause 23 creates a new civil action.

It's a bit complex, the way they've done it, but I've heard people today talking about “patchwork” application. To my mind, patchwork application means that in different parts of the country there are--or there are not--different pieces of legislation available for use in environmental matters. But patchwork doesn't just mean horizontal. It can also be vertical. The problem we have in Canada is that with all the good faith we have in trying to settle these problems, we have built overlapping levels of legislation. This is a problem that the CMLA has spoken to before.

In other words, we adopted these international conventions, which are very strict and very clear. We tried to create clear and obvious remedies for when environmental problems involve vessels. Then we'd go and adopt Bill C-15 and Bill C-16, which give almost overlapping remedies without any clarity as to whether the convention should overrule or be overridden by the legislation.

I'm sure you know that Parliament is sovereign enough that if it enacts a piece of legislation, the fact that it may have adopted an international convention does not mean that the convention overrules. It's the contrary: Parliament is so sovereign that it can decide not to respect its international obligations, if it wishes.

Our view is that we should have some clarity on how the conventions and the legislation fit together. To do so, we have addressed three points.

The first is in clause 19 of the bill. Where we're talking about the remedies under clause 16, there seems to be something that I personally do not understand. Subclause 19(2) says, “If the Federal Court finds that the plaintiff is entitled to judgment”, it may “(a) suspend or cancel a permit or authorization” of the defendant.

Yet clause 16 clearly states there's only one defendant; ìt's called “the Government of Canada”. The Government of Canada does not hold permits, so I'm wondering how subclause 19(2) fits into the scheme. I think it may be a bit of an oversight, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

My second point has to do with clause 23. Clause 23 creates a civil action. The Canadian Maritime Law Association feels that the civil action that is created in the marine field is not necessary, for the simple reason that we already have civil actions under our CLC, the civil liability convention. Then they added civil actions under the environmental legislation that was amended under Bill C-16 and Bill C-15, notably the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, and the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, both of which allow a civil action that seems to overlap the CLC action, which is enacted under the Marine Liability Act. Now we're adding a new civil action.

We do not speak out for any environmental section except marine: we don't believe it's necessary to have a new additional civil action in clause 23 for the marine world. But again, we're not speaking about other sectors of the environment.

We noted that subclause 23(3) clearly states that it “is not a defence to a civil action” that the activity was authorized by an act of Parliament or a regulation. This is in contradiction to the Ontario legislation and frankly seems a bit surprising. If there is federal legislation on the table saying you are supposed to or you are enabled to do something, and it somehow comes into a pollution question, at least in the marine field, it's difficult to understand how this would work. You would say that you're going to have someone taking a civil action and that you cannot set up a defence that it's permitted by legislation.

You will also notice that paragraph 23(3)(b) goes on to say “there is no reasonable or prudent alternative”. Unlike other sectors, you can think of certain pollution in the marine field that is unfortunately absolutely necessary. For example, a vessel is unable to have a propeller that's turning unless there is some lubrication of the propeller shaft.

It's provided for in federal legislation that this small amount of pollution is legal. It has to be. Otherwise, the ship would not be able to function Therefore, it's baffling as to how this would work. You would have someone saying you're polluting because of your propeller shaft. We would be saying that it's provided for under the legislation and under the international conventions and someone would say that's not a defence.

With regard to clause 23, we would suggest that it be limited to fields other than the marine field. At the very least, it would seem that subclause 23(3) goes one step too far.

I would like to conclude by talking about international conventions. We've heard people speaking about international conventions this afternoon, and in our submission to Parliament we have added a suggested clause, which is on page 3 of our submission. It's in English and in French. Simply, why not add a clause to this act stating that it is intended to complement our international convention obligations and rights, not to over-ride them? That way we would at least know that Parliament intends to have the international conventions it has adhered have priority over this act.

As a final point, I would like to say--and this is my own error, as I put this together in great speed and haste to try to get it to the committee in time--that on page 2, I refer to sections 54, 55, and 57 of the Marine Liability Act because I was looking at my own handwritten copy. But in fact that was changed with Bill C-7 in 2009 and should read sections 48 and 78. I apologize for that error; it is entirely my own.

The other thoughts I've expressed are those of my committee.

Once again, thank you for the opportunity.

[Cynthia Wright]

I can take that, Mr. Chair.

As the member is aware, with regard to the environmental damages fund more acts will now require payment into that fund when Bill C-16 is brought into force. We're aiming to bring that part of Bill C-16 into force in the spring of 2010. That will bring into force the changing of the actual fines and direction into the environmental damages fund, and some of the other measures that were passed as part of Bill C-16. The part that is yet to come is the part dealing with the creation of the alternative measures, which is another piece of legislation that has to be developed as part of that.

With respect to the funds that are in the supplementary estimates, there are some pieces of legislation that already direct funds into the environmental damages fund, notably under the Migratory Birds Convention Act. It's an authority that can be used under other acts, but the Migratory Birds Convention Act does direct to that fund.

This fund under supplementary estimates (B) is primarily for staffing people to improve the management of the fund. With the increase in fines and more acts using the environmental damages fund, we expect to have a larger fund to manage. This is to put the people in place and make sure they're trained to manage contribution agreements and to do marketing and awareness about it.

We're already doing a lot of work, not only with our own staff enforcement officers but with the judiciary in raising their awareness so that they are aware of what's coming in terms in higher fines and the direction into the environmental damages fund. The $150,000 is mostly directed at people and the training of those people.

This is a four-year funding and it will be ongoing past the four years at about a half-million dollars. The first four years is about $1.6 million. This is the beginning, for hiring the people, training them, etc. We'll be adding more people as we get to the ongoing level at about a half-million dollars.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity not to close today. My arm was starting to get sore, as the closer.

I thank all of our officials for being here this afternoon.

I wonder if I could start with a question from the supplementary estimates. There is an amount of $184,000, I believe, with respect to funding for the environmental damages fund. I have a couple of questions with respect to that amount and the fund itself.

Could you start by clarifying what the $184,000 funding is for? Could you update us and clarify whether this is the new Bill C-16 version of the fund that is now in effect here? Third, have any fines been assessed under Bill C-16 as of this point?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate chamber Her Excellency the Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

Bill C-18, An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, to validate certain calculations and to amend other Acts—Chapter 13.

Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment—Chapter 14.

Bill C-29, An Act to increase the availability of agricultural loans and to repeal the Farm Improvement Loans Act—Chapter 15.

Bill C-24, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Peru, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Peru and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Peru—Chapter 16.

Bill C-38, An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act to enlarge Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada—Chapter 17.

Bill C-41, An Act to give effect to the Maanulth First Nations Final Agreement and to make consequential amendments to other Acts—Chapter 18.

Bill C-39, An Act to amend the Judges Act—Chapter 19.

Bill C-33, An Act to amend the War Veterans Allowance Act—Chapter 20.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate on the extension of hours. I take the government House leader at his word. I believe he is sincere when he says he is disappointed that he is not able to speak at greater length. However, I did not see that same degree of disappointment on the face of his colleagues.

I think we can frame the debate this way. As a hockey nation, Canada is seized by the playoffs. We are in the midst of the finals right now, and we are seeing a great series between the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

I know the people in Cape Breton—Canso are watching this with great interest, as Marc-Andre Fleury, formerly from the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, who had a rough night the other night, and Sidney Crosby, from the Cole Harbour area, are still in the thick of things. They are looking forward to seeing the outcome of tonight's game.

I am going to use the hockey analogy. If we look at the last game--and I know the member for West Vancouver is a big hockey nut--with a five to nothing outcome, what the government House leader is asking to do would be similar to Sidney Crosby going to the referee after a five to nothing score at the end of the third period and saying, “Can we play overtime?”.

The die has been cast on government legislation through this Parliament. Pittsburgh did nothing in the first two periods that would warrant any consideration for overtime. Maybe if they had done the work in the earlier periods, they could have pushed for a tie and overtime, but there was nothing done. Certainly there was every opportunity for the government to bring forward legislation, and it missed at every opportunity.

Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said, “You know, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.

If there is such importance now in passing this legislation, we can look back, even to last summer, when every Canadian knew, every economist knew and every opinion rendered then was that we were heading for a tough economic downturn and the Prime Minister took it upon himself, with total disregard for his own law that he advocated and passed, that elections are to be held every four years, to drop the writ and go to the polls in the fall.

During that period, the economy continued to sputter, Canadians lost jobs and hardship was brought upon the people of Canada. It was an unnecessary election. Nonetheless, we went to the polls and a decision was rendered by the people of Canada.

We came back to the House. We thought at that time that the government would accept and embrace its responsibility and come forward with some type of measure that would stop the bleeding in the Canadian economy. We understood that there were global impacts. We felt it was the responsibility of the government to come forward with some incentive or stimulus, a program that would at least soften the blow to Canadians who had lost their jobs.

However, it came out with an ideological update, and it threw this House into turmoil and chaos. I have never seen anything like it in my nine years in the House.

It is not too often that we get parties to unite on a single issue. However, the opposition parties came together because they knew that Canadians would not stand for the total disregard for the Canadian economy exhibited by the government through its economic update. Canadians had to make a strong point.

In an unprecedented move, the NDP and the Liberal Party, supported by the Bloc, came together and sent the message to the government that this was not acceptable, that it was going to hurt our country and hurt Canadians. We saw the coalition come together.

There were all kinds of opportunities for the Prime Minister. The decision he made was to see the Governor General and to prorogue Parliament, to shut down the operation of this chamber, to shut down the business of Canada for a seven-week period. For seven weeks there was no legislation brought forward. If we are looking at opportunities to bring forward legislation, I am looking back at the missed opportunities. That was truly unfortunate.

The House leader mentioned that there has been co-operation. I do not argue that point at all. When the budget finally was put together and presented in the House we, as a party, and our leader, thought the responsible thing was to do whatever we could to help as the economy continued to implode and sputter.

Jobs were still bleeding from many industries in this country. We saw the devastation in forestry. We saw the impacts in the auto industry. People's entire careers and communities were cast aside. Time was of the essence, so we thought the responsible thing was to look at the good aspects of the budget and support them. There was ample opportunity to find fault in any aspect of the budget, and it could have had holes poked in it, but we thought the single best thing we could do was to make sure that some of these projects were able to go forward, that some of the stimulus would be able to get into the economy so that Canadians' jobs could be saved and the pain could be cushioned somewhat.We stood and supported the budget, but we put the government on probation at that time.

We continue to see the government's inability to get that stimulus into the economy. The evidence is significant. The FCM, the mayors of the major cities, premiers of provinces, groups advocating for particular projects for a great number of months are looking for the dollars to roll out and they are wondering when that will be. It is just not happening. There is great concern.

We do know that part of the problem is the Prime Minister's and the government's inability to recognize the severity of the problem. When we look at some of the comments over that period of time that we were thrust in the midst of an election, a TD report, on September 8, 2008, said, “...we believe the global economy is on the brink of a mild recession”. Scotiabank forecasted recessions in both U.S. and Canada.

The Prime Minister was denying it back then and saying there was going to be a small surplus. In November he said we were going to have a balanced budget. Then with the budget, he said maybe there will be a small deficit. With the ability of the Conservatives to calculate and their ability with numbers, we can see how far the government has fallen short, because the week before last we saw that a $50 billion deficit is now anticipated this year.

For the people at home, people who pay attention to these issues, that $50 billion is significant.

Just to get our heads around it, I remember three weeks back there was a very fortunate group from Edmonton who threw their toonies on the table and bought some quick picks and the next day they won $49 million. They won the lottery and that was great. If they were feeling charitable and brought that $49 million to the Minister of Finance to apply to the deficit, and then the next day they bought another bunch of tickets and won another $49 million and gave it to the finance minister, if they were to do that day after day, week after week, month after month, and if we factor in that we do not charge interest on this deficit, it would take 20 years to pay off that $50 billion deficit.

That deficit was supposed to be a small one. Two months before that, it was supposed to be a balanced budget; and two months before that, there was supposed to be a small surplus.

We have done our best. We have worked with the government as best we can to try to get that stimulus into the economy, to try to help generate some kind of economic activity within this country so that jobs can be saved and Canadians can continue to work. We know that we have had some successes here. Some 65% of the legislation put forward by the government has been passed.

We have worked with the government. We supported the war veterans allowance and the farm loans bill. Bill C-25, one of the justice bills, came through here the other day and was passed unanimously on a voice vote. We had Bill C-15 last night and we had the budget.

Regarding extending the hours, disregarding whether it was incompetence or whatever the political reasons and the rationale were to call the election and to shut down government through the prorogation, there were plenty of opportunities to avoid that and bring forward legislation.

I thought the government House leader was generous in his comments last week when he himself recognized in his comments on the Thursday question:

...I would like to recognize that, to date at least, there has been good co-operation from the opposition in moving our legislative agenda forward, not only in this chamber but in the other place as well.

That shocked a lot of people on this side of the chamber.

He continued:

I want to thank the opposition for that co-operation.

We have certainly done our part over here, but we have great concern about the extension of the hours and the additional costs with that. We think the legislation that is coming forward now in various stages can be addressed during the normal times here. Certainly on this side of the House we want to make this chamber work. We want to make this Parliament work and will do all in our power to do so.

As of last night, seven of eight bills originating in the House, for which the government wants royal assent by June 23, have been sent to the other place.

Bill C-7, on the Marine Liability Act, passed third reading in this House on May 14. The transportation and communications committee in the other place is holding hearings on that now, so that is fairly far down the road.

Bill C-14, concerning organized crime and the protection of the justice system, passed third reading in the House on April 24, and it is in committee right now in the other place.

Bill C-15 just passed third reading. That is on the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment, passed third reading on May 13, and committees are already being held in the Senate.

We want to try to continue to work in these last days of the session. Certainly we want to continue to nurture and support the relationship on legislation that we can believe in, that is not totally offensive. In a minority Parliament, sometimes all parties have to put a little bit of water in their wine. We are certainly willing to do that. In our past record we have demonstrated that we are willing to do that and we will continue to do so.

However, we have a great deal of difficulty with regard to the extension of hours. We are not sure about the other two opposition parties, but just judging by the questions that were being posed today, I would think they are probably like-minded in this area and they are concerned about this proposal being put forward by the government.

We will be opposing the extension of the hours, and that is how we will vote on this particular issue.

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

Can we discuss the motion before voting? I want to explain why I am going to vote against this motion.

First of all, it sets a strange precedent for this committee, meaning we decide to put other issues even before bills under review. I would remind the government that when Bill C-16 came before committee, the opposition committed to giving the bill priority because we believed that government bills and private bills should take precedence over all other matters. I would also remind the government that it, too, committed to giving priority to Bill C-311 because it believed that private bills should come before other matters.

Therefore, I think this motion sets a dangerous precedent within this committee, by putting other matters ahead of private bills. So if this applies to Bill C-311, I would like it recorded in the blues of this committee so that it will apply to all other matters and all other bills sponsored by the government or even the opposition.

Environmental Enforcement Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for an excellent presentation regarding Bill C-16. We are looking at a bill that is 193 pages long and is quite involved.

One area that I would like to question her about is the whole area of the enforcement officers and the training methods for these officers. We are concerned that the officers be highly trained in their jobs and therefore able to correctly implement the environmental practices.

Again we are concerned about the government's capacity and desire to enforce this act, once we go through the final processes and pass it into law. Would the member comment on that particular issue of the enforcement officers?

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, although I rise in support of this bill, I would like to take this opportunity to expand on some key points and concerns. We feel that Bill C-16, an act that relates to the environment and enacts provisions respecting the enforcement of certain acts that relate to the environment, is a step in the right direction. For this reason, we are supportive.

However, it should be noted that this act is still lacking in several areas. Hopefully we will see many more improvements to this act in the near future. I think it is ironic that the government has tabled the bill claiming that it is committed to enforcing environmental laws, given the fact that it has failed to live up to its Kyoto commitments. Furthermore, let us not forget that this is the very government that is busy gutting federal environmental laws in order to expedite its so-called stimulus package.

It has relaxed the very requirements and laws pertaining to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which could very well result in ecological impacts on some of our waterways. The Navigable Waters Act was gutted by the Conservatives during the 2009 budget and we think that is an exceptional shame. This underlines the fact that they have no long-term vision or real understanding of environmental issues. Improvements to be made include the need for enforceable regulations pertaining to greenhouse gases or for countless toxins and pollutants that are awaiting regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act or the Fisheries Act.

Bill C-16 redefines penalties. However, the penalties are not increased for corporations. Under the bill, there is no jail time for corporations that break laws, yet it increases the financial toll and jail times for individuals. This is another example of how the government favours the big corporations. We saw that today with respect to the $90 million, based on the Auditor General's report, where the businesses are basically using Canada Revenue as an investment purpose as opposed to a way to pay their taxes. We think that is a shame.

The increases in individual punishments are, at times, five times those originally prescribed prior to Bill C-16. Yet the same adjustments are not made in relation to corporations. Basically, Bill C-16 amends eight different acts to create a uniform system of punishment. However, it is noted that these particular punishments are flawed. The impact on individuals has been increased dramatically, yet the punishments for corporations are basically inconsequential.

Most of us remember, in April 2008, the incident pertaining Syncrude Canada Ltd. and the impact on environmental issues that it created. Improvements—

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real privilege to speak to Bill C-16. It is an issue close to my heart and the hearts of many Canadians.

The bill amends nine environmental bills, and it creates a new act. It builds on the work the Liberal Party did in 1995 on the environmental damages fund. I want to thank the Liberal critic for the hard work he has done in trying to move these issues forward in the House.

The march to extinction is something all of us are aware of. It receives short attention in the House, but we have never seen this rate of increase in the destruction and elimination of our species in the history of our planet. The cause of it is human activity. Seven billion people on our planet are having an indelible impression on our world. Some of it is good; some of it is bad. Between 8 million and 14 million species exist on our planet today, and the rate of extinction in those species is truly frightening.

This bill creates increased penalties for violators. It forces violators to not only pay fines but to also pay money to repair the damage they have done. It is a welcome change. We, in the Liberal Party, support the bill moving forward to committee to strengthen it and make it even better.

This bill is good but it flies in the face of actions by the government, which have been extraordinary. Many members on the other side do not know that the government has been removing critical funding to various species programs that have been established by some of the finest scientists in Environment Canada and NGOs across our country. The Conservative government has been eviscerating programs that are critical to the protection of habitat and species.

I will provide some hard facts and numbers. The national wildlife area protection program protects critical habitat. What did the Conservative government do? It carved off $2 million, a huge chunk of its funds.

The budget for the migratory bird program, which monitors the health of bird populations, was cut by 50%. This is at a time when the change in bird populations has been truly frightening. I am going to get to that later on. There has been a massive reduction in bird populations in Canada, and many of the birds that migrate from points south to the Arctic make a stopover on our territory. The government has been eviscerating programs necessary for monitoring their activities.

The Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network analyzes the health of ecosystems. It is incredibly important. The government cut an astonishing 80% of its funds, for heaven's sake. I ask that the environment minister put that money back for these programs. If the government cares about biodiversity in Canada and cares about our environment, I ask that it put the money back.

This happened in the face of the red list that was done by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The IUCN is a body that started in 1943. It has over 11,000 scientists around the world, and it does the most comprehensive assessment of biodiversity on our planet. In fact, the IUCN started the World Wildlife Fund. It is the premier organization that interacts with and integrates environmental groups, NGOs, and government bodies all over the world.

The International Conservation Caucus Foundation was very happy to host Julia Marton-Lefèvre, who is the director general of the IUCN, earlier this week. She eloquently spoke to government members, government ministries and members of the ICCF, telling us about the catastrophe that has befallen the species of our planet. She is asking that Canada be a leader in this area.

The Liberal Party's former environment minister, who is here today, did an extraordinary job in his work internationally. He is a member of the ICCF, and he is making incredible contributions here in the House and internationally based on his extraordinary and unparalleled experience. The government would be wise to listen to the former minister of the environment in these areas. There are many things it can do.

I will outline some of the problems we have right now.

What is the unprecedented rate of increase in extinction that I mentioned? According to IUCN, 44,837 species have been assessed and 38% are threatened with extinction. There are 22% of all mammal species and 31% of all amphibians that are threatened with extinction. That is a very important group; I think this is the year of amphibians, if I am not mistaken.

Amphibians are very important because they are the proverbial canary in the mine shaft. They are amphibians in a mine shaft, if you will. They are so sensitive to our environment that when they go it is a harbinger of things to come. It is not good.

With respect to birds, 14% are threatened with extinction. Regarding warm water reef corals, the corals that build up reefs in warm waters, 27% are threatened with extinction. With respect to fish, 90% of the fish species we are harvesting right now are at the limit or beyond the limit of their carrying capacity. We are overfishing the earth's oceans.

What can be done? As I mentioned before, seven billion people on our planet are having an indelible effect. The IUCN and the WWF and others will tell us there is a basic principle we have to look at.

Integrated human activity and conservation can be done, but it requires an integrated approach. If we simply say we have to protect and conserve places without taking into consideration the needs of human populations, we do not preserve the areas we want to preserve. In fact, unless the areas generally have value to people, there is a much greater risk of those areas being destroyed.

The best bet is to ensure that those areas have value for people. Some areas have to be protected by not allowing any human activity. But most areas can be managed in a way that ensures the human environmental footprint and activities are minimal so there is a benefit to humans and a benefit to the areas that are important in terms of critical habitat.

CIDA has an enormous opportunity to do this. Personally, I have been to Africa 26 times. I have had a great opportunity to spend time at the KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Service in South Africa

I am bringing that up for a reason. Back in the 1890s, the KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa had the second-largest land mammal in the world, the great white rhino. Sixty of these animals were situated in one small area, in Umfolozi reserve in South Africa. The South African government said it was the custodian of this extraordinary species for the world and it had to preserve the rhinos' critical habitat. The government did that.

The government also recognized that if it was going to expand the numbers, it would have to expand habitat. So, the KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Service has expanded the habitat, and it has created conservancies. There is a benefit for people, but there is also a way to generate funds that can be shared for people in primary health and education and infrastructure, particularly for rural populations. There is also money to create and protect habitats, do scientific assessments, pay for game guards and expand and buy new territory to protect more habitat. There are lessons there for all of us.

The result, if I can use the example of the white rhino, is that now there are more than 18,000 rhinos. The population went from 60 to 18,000 in less than a century. It was an extraordinary act. The principle I am driving at is that we can do this.

CIDA does not get this. I do not understand why. They can, and they should, have a department in CIDA that could actually integrate conservation, environmental protection and human development. They could fit wonderfully together. To look at them as two separate parts is illogical, unworkable and ineffective. To combine them both would be very effective.

The Prime Minister should call on the relevant cabinet ministers, those involved in the environment, health and international development and have a working group to integrate these actions. The silo does not work. And I am going to get to some of those other principles later on.

Alanna Mitchell was also part of the international conservation caucus. She was a Globe and Mail reporter, who was named by Reuters as the top environment reporter in the world. As a Canadian, this was something to behold.

She has written a book called Sea Sick, in which she eloquently describes the effect of humans on our oceans. She made a very poignant point: if ocean life dies, life on the land will die too.

The reasons for this are complex, but part of the reason is global warming. When the temperature in the ocean rises, there is acidification that causes a change in the pH level. This change affects the living creatures in the ocean, resulting in a massive die-off. This causes a feedback mechanism where the rising temperature of the ocean reduces the ability of the living creatures to absorb carbon dioxide. We get this terrible feedback loop that we do not want.

As I said, the former environment minister, the former leader of my party, has fought hard for Canada to take a leadership role. He set extraordinary benchmarks for the world to follow. The Conservative government has dropped the ball. It is looking at intensity targets. The government has no concept, no plan whatsoever to deal with the Copenhagen conference that is going to take place at the end of this year.

The world climate conference is going to be held in Geneva, on August 31 to September 3. Canada should play a prominent role at this conference. We should also be going there with an effective plan of action to deal with this issue. It is not good, it is not effective, and it is irresponsible for the government to simply put its head in the sand and say that others will deal with it. That is not good enough. The government's failure to develop an effective program would be a huge act of irresponsibility towards the citizens of our country. The government should be listening to members of the Liberal caucus and other political parties who have great ideas and can help make Canada a leader in this area.

I want to talk about carbon sinks. We have to look at carbon sinks as areas with value. Take a forest, for example. We cut down the trees and those trees are sold. But those carbon sinks have value now. A hectare of tropical jungle, for example, will take out about 200 tonnes of carbon every year. If a value is put on carbon, at say $10 a tonne, that is $2,000 a hectare. That is a huge amount of money to a developing country. That money would convince the country not to cut down the trees in that jungle.

This is important, because the two great lungs of the world, in Amazonia and the Congo Basin, are being destroyed as we speak. Once they are destroyed, we cannot get them back. There is an urgency on this matter that I cannot overstate. The failure to deal with this now will affect the health of this planet for generations to come, and there is no going back.

Canada should take a leadership role in supporting the REDD program. The carbon sinks in the world have a value, and the REDD program convinces countries not to destroy what really belongs to all of us.

There was another innovative program, which took place in Cameroon. It has an area between two national parks that is crucial habitat. Cameroon is a poor country and it does not have the money to protect that habitat. But if that area is leased out, it could be protected and a larger area could be created that is crucially important for the migration of animals.

Canada should take a leadership role in convincing the international development community that part of the money for official development assistance should go into these programs. Areas could be preserved by leasing them at a small amount of money, thereby protecting critical habitat and preventing them from being destroyed. These areas are really part of a legacy for everyone around the world; they do not belong to one country. If we protect these areas, we protect the health of our planet.

I would also like to speak on the issue of trafficking. Most Canadians know about the trafficking in guns, drugs, people, alcohol and cigarettes that takes place in our country. What they probably do not know, and this is a shocking embarrassment, is that Canada is one of the top conduits in the world for trafficking in endangered species. It is true. Organized crime benefits from this illegal product.

We are a conduit of products, whether it is products from big cats, the various tiger species existing in Asia, our own bear gall bladders, bear paws, a host of different animal products, that are trafficked through Canada.

There is also an online trafficking process that takes place now. In fact, the International Fund for Animal Welfare did a great assessment of this and it was frightening. It took a look at 7,100 auctions taking place online for the trafficking and selling in endangered species products.

These were animal parts, as outlined in appendix I and appendix II. These animals are threatened with extinction. As I said before, appendix I lists at all the big cats species, such as the Bengal tiger, the Siberian tiger and the Sumerian tiger, which is down to 300. There has been a massive decrease in the Bengal tiger. All the various tiger subspecies are being destroyed.

Canada has the trafficking of bear products and other animal products, both large and small. Let us not forget reptiles and birds are trafficked illegally all over the world.

The government needs to take these issues seriously. It must look at working towards developing effective legislation to address the trafficking of these products on line. The failure to do this will contribute, and has contributed, to a massive change and effect on the ability of these animals to survive.

Part of the solution is to have robust domestic legislation, enforcement of that legislation and awareness. We can work with our partners in the NGO community and in others. We have a lot of extraordinary environmental groups in Canada. In fact, the International Conservation Caucus Foundation has hosted the IUCN, the WWF and Alanna Mitchell on the effect on our oceans, and we will host others. COSEWIC was here recently also.

The lack of attention the government has given to the environment is an abrogation of its responsibility to protect environment.

Another mismanagement on the part of the government is the Navigable Waters Protection Act. I do not know why the government attached changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act to the budget bill, Bill C-10. This has caused enormous concern among Canadians. It has nothing to do with the economy.

This is a various serious problem in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. There are concerns about access, environmental protection, projects moved forward without any interest whatsoever on the effects those projects will be on our areas.

Right now we have a mega marina project proposed for the inner harbour in Victoria. In my view this project is a recipe for a human disaster. Without the proper assessments, the project will cause a safety hazard, which will potentially cause the death of Canadians.

Canada has an enormous opportunity. The march to extinction is occurring now. Our biodiversity is linked to our survival. Once this is gone, it will never come back.

If we fail to deal with this problem now, if we fail to integrate conservation and human development, if we fail to integrate economic interests and preservation, if we fail to take an international approach to protect the large carbon sinks in the world, if we fail to have an effective plan to deal with global warming, if we fail to protect the our areas of critical habitat, if we fail to do these things, then our species will be doomed too.

The House resumed from May 12 consideration of the motion that Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment, be read the third time and passed.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that guy had his turn to talk a long time ago. He tied us up for 20 minutes yammering away and now he is still tying us up yammering away. I have the floor, if I might point out.

When I think of the concentration of this bill on individuals rather than corporations, I look to the United States where a company like W.R. Grace has been penalized enormously for its environmental degradation. The chairman and the entire board of directors were perp-walked into the courtroom in handcuffs. All of them were tried criminally for the contamination that their business caused.

In this country fines for dumping PCBs into a river until very recently were tax deductible. Not only were they paltry and tiny and almost insignificant and in no way acted as a deterrent, but they could be written off as a legitimate business expense on taxes against income. I am very proud I played a role in changing that atrocity. In the mid-1990s, bribes could be written off as a tax deduction in this country.

We are way behind other developed nations in terms of meaningful penalties for those who would contaminate and degrade our environment.

The Conservative government says it wants to get tough on crime. There is a whole type of crime that it is wishy-washy on. There is a lot of crime that the Conservatives are soft on. The Conservatives do not want to offend any of their corporate buddies by imposing meaningful discipline and penalties. I can point to one example of what I am speaking about.

The government talks about getting tough on crime in Bill C-16. It talks about increasing penalties for individuals who may contaminate a waterway. In one category of the bill, the government talks about a vessel being a boat, obviously, and bilge waters not being allowed to be discharged in a harbour, et cetera. All that is good, but the bill does not mention fixed platforms anywhere. We all know with the explosion of offshore--

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the opportunity today to speak on Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment.

I would say that this bill is something like an apple pie. No one can be against apple pie: the only thing is, apple pie does not solve all our problems. I say this because we are talking about standardizing the framework for monitoring environmental legislation and imposing harsher fines on polluters. This is all very good, and I think everyone will be in favour of it.

That being said, it is clearly not enough because, even though the potential fines provided for in the bill would be staggering, if there is no one to enforce the law, if there are not enough resources in Environment Canada and not enough commitment from the government to implement these laws, then quite simply no one will be fined, and so the deterrent effect that is sought will simply not be there.

On this subject, I would direct your attention to the report by Hélène Buzzetti in Le Devoir of March 5, 2009, that officials in the environment department had admitted that since 2000 there have been an average of 3 to 14 charges relating to enforcement of environmental legislation by the federal government, one to five convictions per year, and the maximum fine of $1 million has been imposed only once in 20 years. We think this is inadequate, even though the principle of the bill is most praiseworthy.

This bill entirely avoids the most glaring and most urgent environmental problem on the planet, namely, global warming and the increased concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

I would like to offer a little scientific reminder of what is happening to illustrate the difference between greenhouse gases and pollution. I remember hearing at the beginning of this government’s mandate, when we were studying the budget in the Standing Committee on Finance, that pollution would be tackled in order to reduce greenhouse gases. It must be clear that these are two different things. Once again, here we have a bill that aims to raise environmental standards and make them uniform—here this refers to pollution—but does not specifically target the greenhouse gas issue.

What is the difference? Pollutants are substances that are harmful to the environment, to human beings—in many cases—or to ecosystems. This includes oil spills, emissions of toxic products of all kinds and land development that is detrimental to an ecosystem's functioning. Wetlands are a good example; they are environments with very high biodiversity but where the ecological balance is also very fragile. There is a need for intervention on this issue.

Now, one might think that this bill is going in this direction. That is not entirely false, but at the same time—I repeat—this is only a way to paint things green. There must also be a real will to apply and enforce the law. However, all of this does not relate to the issue of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

When I heard the Conservatives confuse greenhouse gases with pollutants, I was a bit surprised because carbon dioxide, CO₂, is not a pollutant. It occurs naturally in the environment and has no effect on the human body, provided it does not displace oxygen. Nothing changes. CO₂ enters the lungs and comes out just the same.

The problem with greenhouse gases, as their name indicates, is that they reflect the sun’s rays back into the atmosphere, where the warmth is captured, like in a greenhouse. We are not talking about a pollutant here but an inert gas. There are other gases, too, but the main one is CO₂, which is not affected by the legislation on toxic substances, spills, or any other legislation. It is not regulated because it is not a pollutant as such.

The Bloc Québécois has been asking for years for a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because, even if they are not really toxic, they can have a dramatic impact on our planet, on humanity, and on the citizens of Quebec and Canada. We need to take action and take it quickly. This is the greatest environmental issue of the day, and there is nothing in the bill before us to tackle it.

Canada is divided on this. Both the Liberals and Conservatives want Canada to be an oil-producer, an energy superpower when it comes to non-renewable fossil fuels. This primarily benefits the western provinces and some maritime provinces. In Quebec, there is a strong consensus instead that we should proceed with the Kyoto protocol and base our economy on non-renewable, non-polluting resources that do not emit greenhouse gases. We could speculate for a long time on how attached Quebeckers are to the environment versus people in the other provinces, but I think their contrasting positions are based more on some very concrete realities.

The Prime Minister obviously does not believe in the Kyoto protocol or even really in global warming. His counterpart, the Liberal opposition leader, argues in favour of the tar sands and is a firm believer in them. Why? Because it is in Canada’s economic interest, at least in the short term, in my opinion. If everyone in Quebec thinks we should follow the Kyoto protocol instead and abandon the other path, it is because this is in Quebec’s economic interest. Why? There is one very simple reason: Quebec produces no oil and very few hydrocarbons. Quebec is made poorer by oil and our dependence on it.

Some federalist parties have the temerity to come to Quebec and say that Alberta’s tar sands are making us richer. I fail to see how Quebec can be enriched by purchasing oil from outside its boundaries. I would make the following comparison. When someone goes to the gas station to fill up, he is made poorer not richer. Every time a barrel of oil enters Quebec, money flows in the other direction out of Quebec. It is in Quebeckers' economic interest to reduce our dependence on oil.

This is not just an economic issue. For a long time, the main political parties in Quebec, both the Parti Québécois and the Liberal Party which forms the present government—I want to be clear that I am referring to the Liberal Party of Quebec, for the Liberal Party of Canada wants to promote and develop the tar sands—have formed a strong consensus on complying with the Kyoto protocol. Basically, this means we have to set an absolute greenhouse gas reduction target relative to 1990 levels.

There is a mechanism whereby a corporation, province, state or territory that exceeds its objective, performs better than its assigned target, can sell emissions credits to an institution, organization, state, province or territory that has not met its targets. This trading principle derives from two things. First, this is a global problem. Reducing a tonne of GHG in Chapais or Djibouti changes nothing, since the objective is one less tonne of GHG on our planet. Global reduction is the objective. On the other hand, reductions may be less expensive in some places than in others, and so this mechanism is put in place.

When the Kyoto protocol was devised, 1990 was set as the base year. The Conservatives and Liberals want to change the base year, to move it ahead to 2003 or 2006. Why? This may seem very technical to those watching us. This is often the misfortune of the political issues we have to debate, for often they are not very sexy or entertaining. What can it change if the year on which our calculations are based is 2003 or 2006 rather than 1990? It changes everything. It is no longer the same concept at all.

Since 1990 industry in Quebec, particularly the manufacturing industry, has made substantial efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile in the rest of Canada the emissions rate has simply exploded, reaching levels never seen in any other western country. That increase occurred under the Liberals, who did nothing to reduce greenhouse gases, and it has continued under the Conservatives. Unfortunately, we must acknowledge that it will probably continue, whether the Conservatives remain or are replaced by the Liberals. There is a consensus in Canada on developing the oil industry. The two parties have even supported a budget in which the main so-called environmental measures consist in helping out the oil companies, which you will agree are in great need of help. You will of course have noted the sarcasm in my words.

By setting the base year at 2003 or 2006, as the government would do, we wipe out all of the efforts that have been made by Quebec industry. At the same time, we wipe out all the economic potential and any possibility for these companies such as Alcan, which are asking the federal government to set up a system based on the Kyoto protocol with 1990 as the base year, to sell greenhouse gas emissions credits and to be somehow compensated for the efforts they have made to reduce their emissions.

Conversely, by moving from 1990 to 2006, we also wipe out the entire explosion of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the industrial sectors that made no effort, and in fact even increased their pollution levels.

The oil sands sector is the perfect example. Since the first efforts in any process of industrial rationalization are always the easiest, instead of it being polluter-pay, it is polluter-paid. Those who have made the least effort since 1990 will be economically rewarded now while those who have done their part, most of them in Quebec, the only province that has made absolute reductions in greenhouse gases, will be punished.

The government also wants to move from an absolute greenhouse gas reduction to a relative one in terms of intensity. What does this mean and what difference does it make? Are these not just highly technical terms that are the stock in trade of environmental specialists, and lack much effect? Absolutely not, they are not trifling in any way. On the contrary, they are very important.

The absolute targets set out in the Kyoto protocol say that there is a limit to what this planet can withstand, and that there is no connection between that limit and the economy. The planet cannot withstand more greenhouse gas emissions because the economy is in better shape. There is no connection between the two. Mankind has to reduce emissions, we must go from x tonnes to y tonnes, and we must not exceed that. Period. On the other hand, the government's approach, with Liberal backing, is intensity targets. They say we must not product more than x tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per production unit. This means that a province, a company, or some other entity, with twice as much oil sands development, for instance, would be authorized to pollute twice as much.

Once again, a greater effort is being demanded of the manufacturing sector, when it has been experiencing economic difficulties and has the same or even lower production volume, than of industrial sectors that are in full development.

Clearly, there is a conflict between two visions that are not guided, at least not solely, by environmental issues. They are closely tied to economic interests, which is also the case for many of the decisions made by every other company in the world. The problem that Quebeckers are dealing with is that they are and always will be in the minority in this Parliament. The Conservative Party, with the support of the Liberal Party and the NDP, have ensured that a shrinking proportion of members of Parliament will be here representing Quebec. Fortunately, the Bloc Québécois members, who make up two-thirds of the members from Quebec, are still here to take a stand for Quebeckers. Unfortunately, Quebeckers are getting less and less representation in the other parties, and their voices are being drowned out in caucuses that care only about the Canadian majority's interests. Not because they are mean-spirited or because they dislike Quebeckers, but because the national parties are bound to defend the interests of the majority of citizens.

There is no way for Quebeckers to escape this situation other than by taking control of their own fate and becoming the majority in their own country. Once we become a sovereign country, we will develop our own environment and green energy policy, one that considers our future and the planet we will be leaving to our children, an environment and energy policy that is in line with our economic and development interests.

The Bloc Québécois is also working hard to help Quebeckers understand that it is impossible to advance Quebec's interests on a regular basis in the federal Parliament. The only solution available to Quebeckers in the medium term is to become a sovereign country and to make our own decisions according to our own values and our own interests.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-16 at second reading. This bill requires a respect for and an understanding of science and innovation, a discussion of climate change and real investment in climate science.

Science and innovation must be fundamental to this bill. Environmental enforcement requires monitoring and surveillance. If we look at the atmosphere, we must look at atmospheric chemistry and how carbon dioxide and methane increase in the atmosphere. It requires looking at ice cores and the percentage of carbon dioxide from two million years ago.

Science is important. Science and innovation matter more than ever, because the challenges we face, climate change, emerging diseases and shrinking biodiversity, are greater, and the potential benefits are larger. Canada must innovate to stay competitive, as our country must vie with emerging countries such as China. Fortunately, innovation can be cultivated through incentives for research and development that is important for environmental enforcement, encouraging higher education, fostering collaboration between business and universities and expanding excellent and relevant public research.

Innovation requires leadership and real reform. China, the United States and a few other countries are blazing a trail. Canada must also forge ahead.

President Obama understands that research is fundamental to meeting America's needs. During his inaugural speech, he said:

We will restore science to its rightful place... We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.

It is even more exciting that President Obama is backing his words with action and money. He appointed top scientists to key positions, including Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chu as energy secretary, and Harvard physicist John Holdren as head of the White House office of science and technology. Moreover, the Obama administration is adding $10 billion to finance basic research that is important to environmental monitoring.

In stark contrast, the three agencies that fund basic research in Canada must cut spending by $148 million over the next three years. James Drummond, chief scientist at the polar environment atmospheric research laboratory at Eureka says he will be able to improve the lab through new infrastructure funding but he will not be able to afford to operate it as the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences received no new money in the budget. Without new funding, the foundation will shut down by March 2010, along with 24 research networks studying climate change.

As a scientist and former professor, I know urgent action is needed to safeguard research, keep talent in Canada and build for a better economy and environment. The government must increase funding for Canada's three granting councils, and it should match, on a proportional basis, the support offered in the United States. The government should ensure that programs and scholarships funded by the granting agencies are not restricted to specific fields.

It is my fervent hope that President Obama's appreciation for research and his optimism will spread to Canada as we discuss environmental enforcement. Last year, an editorial in Nature criticized our government for closing the office of the national science advisor, its skepticism about the science of climate change and silencing federal researchers.

It is the second point that troubles me with respect to Bill C-16, namely the failure to mention the elephant in the room: climate change.

The Conservative Minister of the Environment proudly reported:

In the election campaign, our government committed to bolster the protection of our water, air and land through tougher environmental enforcement that holds polluters accountable. Today we delivered. ...the new measures, will provide a comprehensive, modern and effective enforcement regime for Canada.

How truly comprehensive is the proposed bill if it fails to address our most pressing environmental issue, namely climate change?

Global warming will impact the very items that Bill C-16 aims to safeguard. As a result of climate change, we are already seeing changes in caribou, polar bear and seal populations, and changes in permafrost and impacts on traditional ways of life. In the future, climate change will potentially impact migratory birds, their flyways and possibly even the spread of influenza.

Our country's current climate change policies are widely criticized by external research bodies, parliamentarians, the public and the scientific community. In contrast, President Obama is recognized for taking global warming seriously. He is listening to scientists who tell us that the situation is outdistancing our efforts to confront it. The president said:

We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now, that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be dealt with in a serious way.

President Obama has since called for hard caps on global warming, cleared the way for tougher clean car standards, declared an intention to play a constructive role in international climate negotiations and introduced a serious green stimulus package.

However, the Prime Minister believes the differences between the American and Canadian regimes are not nearly as stark as some would suggest. He said:

When I look at the President's platform, the kind of targets his administration has laid out for the reduction of greenhouse gases are very similar to ours.

Climate Action Network Canada and the US Climate Action Network, representing 100 leading organizations in Canada and the United States that are working together to prevent catastrophic climate change and promote sustainable and equitable solutions, argue that Canada needs to overhaul its current approach and raise its level of ambition to have a credible climate change policy.

Today the issue of climate change is more pressing than ever, as considerable time lags in the climate system mean that many impacts of climate change are already locked in over the coming decades. Today's buildings, power plants and transportation systems continue to produce increased emissions, meaning an even greater delay and increased warming in the future. Moreover, as some of the climate risks materialize, the economic costs will be much steeper than those from the current financial crisis.

Canadians want action on climate change, as recognized by a former Conservative environment minister who said, in 2007, “Canadians want action. They want it now.”

As testament to this, almost 10 million people participated in Earth hour 2008, in 150 cities from coast to coast to coast. People in cities across Canada held candlelight dinners, enjoyed time with family and friends and went on neighbourhood walks. In Toronto, electricity demand dropped by almost 9%, the equivalent of taking 260 megawatts off the grid or approximately 5.8 million light bulbs.

Canadians understand that Earth hour will not reverse or reduce climate change, but it will raise awareness about the climate change challenges the world is facing. Earth hour presents a good opportunity for people to show their federally elected representatives that they support action to fight climate change.

It is worth noting that most Canadian provinces have emission reduction targets that are much more ambitious than those of the federal government. Canada's largest province, Ontario, is moving ahead with the cap and trade system based on absolute caps aimed at meeting its reduction target of 15% below 1990 levels by 2020, with an implementation date of January 1, 2010.

The Conservative government must protect our atmosphere, and it must build partnerships with business, consumers, local authorities and the energy sector. It must find abatement solutions and reduce fossil fuel subsidies that currently put a premium rather than a penalty on CO₂ emissions. Indications of climate change must be treated with the utmost seriousness and with the precautionary principle uppermost in parliamentarians' minds.

Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of humankind, which may lead to greater competition for the earth's resources and induce large-scale migration. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries.

Leading entrepreneurs, scientists and thinkers identify the greatest challenges facing humanity over the next 50 years as producing clean energy, reprogramming genes to prevent disease and reversing the signs of aging. They describe sunshine as a source of environmentally friendly power, bathing the earth with more energy each hour than the planet's population consumes in a year. They identify the challenge, namely capturing one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the earth to meet 100% of our energy needs, converting it into something useful and then storing it.

Solving the clean energy challenge will change the world, but change will not be met without economic and political will, as cheap polluting technologies are often preferred over more expensive clean technologies despite environmental regulations.

However, humanity is up to this challenge, as shown by financial and political investment in President Kennedy's tremendous vision in 1961 to land a man on the moon, and the initiatives to build the CN Tower and construct the Chunnel connecting England and France.

Today we need a new vision, or in the words of James Collins, “a big hairy audacious goal”, a renewable energy goal that stimulates progress and leads to continuous improvement, innovation and renewal.

We must economically and politically invest in renewable energy to protect our environment. It is no longer a choice between saving our economy and saving our environment. Today it is a choice between prosperity and decline. It is a choice between being a principal producer and a consumer in the old economy of oil and gas or a leader in the new economy of clean energy.

We must remember that the country that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.

Failure to limit climate change to 2°C above pre-industrial levels will make it impossible to avoid potentially irreversible changes to the earth's ability to sustain human development. We have a five in six chance of maintaining the 2°C limit, if worldwide greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 80% by 2050 relative to 1990.

In light of this science, there were 17 sessions on climate change under the theme, “the shifting power equation”, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this year. A total of 2,400 global leaders, including 800 CEOs, attended sessions, such as the economics of climate change, make green pay, the legal landscape around climate change, the security implications of climate change, and culminating in a plenary session entitled “Climate Change: A Call to Action”.

Clearly, global business leaders recognize that climate change is a serious economic and social challenge and that delaying mitigation will make future action more costly. Business leaders are therefore committed to addressing climate change and are already undertaking emission reduction strategies in their companies. More important, they support the Bali action plan and its work program to negotiate a new international climate policy framework to succeed the Kyoto protocol, and are ready to work with governments to help this happen.

There are numerous opportunities to mitigate and adapt to climate change, from carbon capture and storage to cleaner diesel, to combined heat and power, to fossil fuel switching, and to hybrid vehicles, to name but a few key mitigation technologies.

In closing, our most daunting challenges are the global economic crisis and climate change. Humanity needs a climate change solution that is scientifically credible, economically viable and equable.

Finally, we must heed the words of 12-year-old Severn Suzuki who, at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, was fighting for her future and who challenged us to fight for all future generations when she said:

Do not forget why you are attending these conferences—who you are doing this for. We are your own children. You are deciding what kind of world we are growing up in. Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying, “Everything's going to be all right. It's not the end of the world. And we're doing the best we can”. But I don't think you can say that to us anymore.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is of great interest to be entering this afternoon's debate. I think it is precipitous also for the timing. Just this afternoon, Canadians saw the Auditor General of this country and the Commissioner of the Environment release their extensive report, which turns into a condemnation of the government's own ability and willingness to enforce the laws, their own laws, that are on the books.

Here in Bill C-16, which is substantial in size, one must be given over to the question of whether this is actually going to take place. These rules and regulations, this set of fines and penalties that the government has little or no intention of actually enforcing, are no laws at all.

There are number of themes that are recurrent in Bill C-16, which is, in a sense, a housekeeping bill that tries to gather together a number of environmental penalties and set minimums and maximums for those infringements on the environment.

I myself represent Skeena—Bulkley Valley, which is the northwest quarter of British Columbia. It is absolutely rich in resources but also a conduit for some of the most volatile and dangerous goods in Canada and a place where some of the most dangerous projects are being pushed by the government, and hopefully the former government in British Columbia, such projects as coal bed methane and offshore oil and gas.

While the government promotes these projects, what is relevant to Bill C-16 is that they say Canadians should rest assured that if we are going to roll the dice on this oil and gas project in a sensitive ecosystem, in the Hecate Strait, which is the windiest, waviest place in Canada, it is okay to put the rigs up because we have strong environmental laws.

That is what has been proposed and Canadians can sleep well and rest assured, but lo and behold, when the auditor of the country comes forward and takes a look at the enforcement of those laws, the measurement of the pollution, the accountability and transparency of government, the laws do not become worth the paper they are written on. This is what calls into question the efforts of the government in Bill C-16.

There was good work done by my colleague, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, on the bill at committee in trying to augment the penalties, because we see a rise in penalties to individuals who pollute the environment but we do not see the same concurrent rise in penalties for corporations.

We see that businesses, in a sense, are meant to keep the status quo, while individual Canadians, heaven forbid if they were to do the same thing, would see an increase of four times and more in the penalties.

The enforcement of any of these rules is absolutely essential and critical, because again, the government could give a wink and a nod to industry in saying it will put out a bunch of regulations.

I do not know if members of the House or the public remember when the minister announced the bill. It was quite a flashy display. He spent tens of thousands of Canadians' hard-earned dollars, taxpayers' dollars, to walk down the street some several hundred metres to a five-star hotel to announce that this bill was coming up.

He could not do it here in Parliament, which was sitting that day. We have many nice rooms in which to announce bills. The minister thought it was very important to show the seriousness of the government's intention. He actually had enforcement officers. I always feel sorry for these men and women of the force, because they have to do it. They have to stand there as props for the government, to show how tough the minister was going to be on environmental polluters, meanwhile in full knowledge of the audit going on in his own department showing that there was no enforcement intention from the government. It was not going to bring these penalties or any such penalties.

Whether it is straight out pollution we are talking about, oil spills, toxic spills, leaks, sewage and all the rest, we see the government stripping environmental regulation after regulation. It includes the loopholes for assessments, saying more and more projects of greater size and potential impact are going to be exempt from assessments.

We saw the absolute travesty that was in the budget. There were many, but there was one in particular with respect to the environment. The government used the budget as a Trojan horse. It wheeled the thing in here saying it was all about the economy, and it slipped inside it a little piece about the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

In the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the government stripped out a whole lot of regulations. Conservation groups have been coming to me and other members of the House with serious and deep concerns, not only about the effect that this stripping of the Navigable Waters Protection Act will have on our environment and the conservation of our environment but the fact that there was no debate and discourse whatsoever.

This is a government claiming transparency and accountability, and it slides into a bill about the budget a piece about the environment and navigable waters and the protection of our streams and rivers in this country. Conservation groups such as the B.C. Wildlife Federation got involved, and Mountain Equipment Co-op, for goodness sake. All these groups raised a concern in a coalition scrambled together at the last minute, because they never thought a government would do this kind of thing and strip out a 100-year-old act.

It was one of the first acts put forward and brought to full comprehension in this country to protect navigable waters, the waterways that Canadians relied on for trade and commerce and now rely on for a whole assortment of reasons. The government chose a budget, in which to fundamentally change the act.

The government claims, and it goes to Bill C-16 again, that there was too much red tape and it was holding up all those shovel-ready projects that we now know the government has hardly spent $1 on. I asked the government, if this was so important and there were so many projects being held up, to provide Canadians and members of Parliament with a list of all the projects, of all the jobs that were not being created because of the terrible Navigable Waters Protection Act, to show us the proof and evidence as to why it had to strip out this bill.

Of course, the government provided nothing, not a single project anywhere in the country that condoned this. Then one begins to question the philosophy and to suspect what the government is truly about when it comes to protecting our environment.

This bill has a whole series of thoughtful comments and amendments to eight other acts in Canada. As I said, it is quite a hefty tome and quite complicated, but is it worth the paper it is written on if the government does not actually intend to enforce it?

We see this again in the auditor's report. A private member's bill was brought forward by the official opposition and was worked on by all members of the House in the last Parliament. The government is just choosing not to abide by a Canadian law.

It is here, in the government's own words and text, where Environment Canada says it does not need to actually monitor greenhouse gas emissions, but here is the irony. It can measure the emissions that it is going to count on in the government's own plan in the future, but it cannot take account of anything that has happened in the past. How are Canadians meant to have confidence in the government's ability to negotiate anything, what to order for lunch, never mind a serious agreement like what will happen in Copenhagen?

According to the Auditor General, and I will quote in order to get it right, “In the plans prepared to date, the department has not explained why expected emissions reductions can be estimated”, so those are the estimated reductions in the government's own plans, “in advance but actual reductions”, meaning what is actually happening in the environment, “cannot be measured after the fact”.

The government feels totally confident in saying to Canadians that it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by such-and-such by such-and-such a date. It can measure that and get that accurate, but it cannot measure the things that have already happened because it is too complicated and not cost-effective to measure.

Going back to the idea of enforcement and penalties, this comes from a party that has prided itself on being tough on crime and on pushing every criminal to the letter of the law. It campaigns on it every time, but it only means it for certain types of criminals, not ones who pollute our environment. Those ones get off the hook. For those ones, it will not press the letter of the law. It has been shown time and time again.

This is a government that picks what criminals it will go after. Some are truly criminal, while there are others who, say, tip over a railcar and dump it into a lake and pollute the rivers or put out greenhouse gases that endanger future generations, who break the government's own regulations and laws, and the government may or may not enforce those penalties. Those criminals, the government is not planning to get tough on.

One cannot help but wonder about the collusion at the moment of the crime, when the government puts forward Bill C-16 and other such bills and says it will quadruple the fines for individuals but it will leave the fines for corporations the same. Then the Auditor General says, with regard to the few regulations that exist for pollutants under the greenhouse gas emission acts that exist as law in this place, the government is unable to enforce them, unable to account and does not provide the penalties. How can Canadians have confidence in the government when it cannot follow through on such simple measures?

The very industries that are doing this polluting, or those that are suspected to, have asked the present government and the previous government for certainty. They want to know what the rules are.

Industry wants to know what the actual carbon emissions limits and pollution costs will be, because it can put that into its actual budgets. Industry can figure out what the cost of doing business will be.

Instead, the government slipstreams in behind the United States and is just waiting, forming a talk shop with the Obama administration.

The actual regulations are two years late in terms of the government's own promised commitments to bring them forward to industry and to Canadians. They are two years late by the government's own fault and admission. Nobody here is holding them up. These regulations are done in-house. They do not even have to be brought to Parliament.

For two years, industry and Canadians have been waiting and have received nothing. There is no excuse for the government. There is no logistical problem. There is no problem with the data. There is no problem with knowing what regulations to put in place, because all the other industrialized nations in the world have gone ahead of Canada and put the rules in place.

The fact of the matter is that the government is still stuck in a place where it is either the environment or the economy; it has to be one or the other. This is where the government is going to have to give itself a shake and wake up.

These are the same characters who would look at a GDP result and say it is the only measurement and number they need in order to know how the economy is doing.We in northwestern British Columbia know that after the Exxon Valdez spill, which occurred just north of where I live, the GDP went through the roof. It did fantastic that year for Alaska. Business was booming. According to the government's systemic failure to manage the economy, that was seen as successful.

The regulations that the government proposes in Bill C-16, which is now before the House on its third and final reading, take small steps. However, at the basis of the philosophy of whether Canadians can feel confident about the government's sincerity and ability to actually enforce its own laws, it is found wanting time and again.

When the government sets the limits and the penalties so low, as it did in Bill C-16, it allows business to slide them in as a cost of doing business. I do not see the government proposing such penalties in other areas of criminal law. With a $5 fine for a break and enter, a criminal could sit back and say, “Well, if that is the penalty to break into a house, that seems worth it.” The government understands in that case that it must present a penalty that is a deterrent, so that perhaps the criminal will not break into Canadians' homes and will not steal things.

Yet when it comes to the environment, the government provides paltry fines that a lot of the biggest and most profitable companies will look at as a cost of doing business. If the cost of making their production safe is x, as opposed y, which is the cost, maybe, of a fine, then if y is smaller than x, they will just not do it and will let the pollution run forth.

Industry knows that fines are not coming from the government, that enforcement is not coming. How do they know this? It is evidenced by the Auditor General of Canada, a non-partisan and unbiased officer of Parliament who looked at the government's own laws. It applied the test of those laws to the government and found it wanting yet again.

The only reason the government thinks it can get away with this is because it thinks there is no political consequence. The government thinks that presenting these laws with press announcements at the five-star hotel down the road will somehow replace actual effect, spending thousands of Canadian taxpayers' dollars to rent the place and send the whole press corps down the road so the minister can look tough standing in front of a bunch of enforcement officers, for what? Could it not have done the same thing 50 feet down the hall?

This reminds me of the previous environment minister who spent $85,000 to announce a plan in Toronto that he could have announced right here. He held three different press conferences: one for business in one part of the city, one for the media in another part of the city, and another one for the environmental groups. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent on this little charade. What was announced? It was the Turning the Corner plan.

What a fantastic plan, which was actually talked about in the auditor's report today, which the government cannot account for. The government has had three plans, three ministers, three years, and all have failed to get the job done.

So the government comes forward with Bill C-16, an amalgamation of old acts and old bills that it wants to combine. It tells us to rest assured that it is going to get serious about the environment, finally. It is going to go after the polluters. The Conservatives shake their heads and rattle their sabres, but unfortunately, nothing changes.

I will go back to the point around certainty because it is important for Canadians to understand that this is the actual intersect between business and the environment.

Businesses consistently said to us that they were frustrated with the Liberal Party and the Liberal government because it announced Kyoto. The Liberals went to Kyoto, signed onto Kyoto, ratified Kyoto and promised rules. A great number of businesses, in good faith and good intention, went forward and made some of the changes that would be required under a carbon-constrained economy, which is in Kyoto and which other countries have actually done. They would make the change and the government would come up with another plan and say that it would get to the regulations later. They would make more changes, spend more money, make their businesses less polluting, hoping to get some credit for it and the government would say “later”.

Then the Conservatives came in and the same movie started again. They said that they would get serious, that this was their climate change plan. Because the first two failed, now they would turn the corner, and they called the document “Turning the Corner“. The Conservatives are turning the corner so many times they are walking in circles.

The fact is when we look for regulations, when we look for the hard evidence of what businesses can count on and account for in their own ledgers as to where they spend the money, what the price of carbon will be, how they trade on the carbon markets with the U.S. and the international community, there are none. There are promises that are now two years old, and industry is still waiting.

The minister pretended today, during the question and answer period, that he would somehow show up in Copenhagen with some ability to negotiate. How can the we negotiate without credibility? The other countries know Canada's record. They know the government's intensity-based plan is used by no one else. Not one country in the world uses intensity to measure its carbon emissions.

Does that not give Canadians pause? Have we stumbled upon some unique solution to climate change with which the other countries will jump on board? No one else uses it because it does not work. It is not effective. We cannot measure, we cannot manage, we cannot control under an intensity regime. We told the Conservatives, when they first came to government, that it was a farce.

Finally, two weeks ago the Minister of the Environment stood and said that maybe the intensity regime would not work, that maybe the government needed an actual hard limit. Two years were wasted again. Why? Because the government is interested in only taking policy, not making it.

When it comes to protecting our environment, when it comes to being responsible on greenhouse gas emissions, the Conservatives are found wanting, not simply by New Democrats, who proposed a comprehensive bill. The government asked for policy. We proposed Bill C-311, which passed through the last Parliament, which the government killed by proroguing Parliament again. The Conservatives are addicted to this. How democratic and accountable is it when the government of the day, because it does not like what is going on, Parliament, shuts Parliament down and locks the doors.

It is getting to be a habit of the Conservative government. Three times it has done that. Three times it has killed its own legislation. The members will scream out “coalition”. Twice the Conservatives did it with no threat of anything other than laws that were in this place, put forward by elected people meant to represent the people of Canada, not the will of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Time and time again, Canadians have sent parliamentarians forward to do something about climate change, to bring legitimate legislation forward. It is no longer good enough for the Conservatives to sit on their moral high ground talking about transparency and accountability when the auditor of the country says that it is a lie, that it is otherwise, that it is a mistruth.

This cannot continue. The government has to own up to its responsibilities. It is the Government of Canada, not the government of the Conservative Party of Canada. When the Conservatives get that through their heads, they will finally start to bring legislation forward that matters, that makes a difference and that Canadians can start to believe in this place again and know this place can fix a problem that we all created.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is still possible to have recourse to the courts. That possibility is included in Bill C-16. There is the concept of strict liability, which is not the same as presumption of guilt.

The company must demonstrate that it took all reasonable care and attempted to take corrective steps before the offence was committed. There have been a number of Supreme Court rulings in this area to which we can refer. I am thinking, for instance, of the Wholesale Travel Group case which demonstrated that, in the case of strict liability, the burden of proof was different for the prosecution and for the accused. The company always has that leeway if it can prove due diligence.

That is one of the provisions of this bill.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's very thoughtful and excellent presentation. I like his comments about an east-west power grid, something that we would sure like to have out of Manitoba and our hydro system.

Bill C-16 deals with strengthening the penalties, but there is no rationale for the minimum and maximum penalties that are indicated in the bill. In fact, what it does is it usurps the authority of the courts by prescribing the minimum penalty and the maximum penalty.

We should have a situation where the courts have some leeway to make higher penalties. For example, the maximum penalty is increased to $6 million, but that seems very minimal if we look at a case like the Exxon Valdez or other situations like that. Clearly, this would be a very small and a very limited penalty to have in a case of a huge spill like that. There should not be a maximum. It should be left to the courts to make a decision.

In the bigger picture, could the member comment on the long-promised strengthening standards and regulations for air pollutants, toxins and greenhouse gases? Then I will proceed with another question.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-16. The least that can be said is that this bill is a lengthy one. It amends a number of environmental statutes and it has been anticipated for a very long time. When it comes to environmental protection, be it the Migratory Birds Act, the Fisheries Act or the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, we have too often seen Canadian legislation that gives polluters a break.

Canada does have environmental legislation, but when we look more specifically at the regulatory regime associated with each act, in terms of fines and penalties, we realize that for some companies it may unfortunately be to their advantage to pollute. The penalties and fines are so low that it is worth it to break the laws enacted by Parliament. That is what was perverse in the regulatory regimes that we were presented with up to now.

The truth of this can be seen in the fact that in February 2009 a company like Syncrude in Alberta could discharge toxic substances into the tailings ponds used in oil sands production, with the result that nearly 500 ducks were killed. What was the consequence for Syncrude? It was sentenced to a maximum fine of $800,000 or a maximum of six months’ imprisonment.

We know these companies that make profits that might be described as colossal. An $800,000 fine is not much to pay to keep exploiting the oil sands. And so we saw companies polluting our environment with impunity, telling themselves it was better to keep going and pay the fines than to lose some of their profits. This is not acceptable in a regulatory regime when we want to send business a message. The polluter-pay principle must be applied, not the polluter-paid principle.

For that reason, we supported Bill C-16 in principle when it was introduced. We worked with all of the opposition parties and with the government to make some improvements, and we listened to the witnesses. When the bill was considered in committee, we realized that some witnesses had not been consulted by the government. We can agree or disagree with certain industries. I am thinking, for example, of people in the shipping industry, who told us they had not been consulted before Bill C-16 was introduced. That is totally unacceptable.

The government has a number of consultation mechanisms. It has advisory committees. This is a bill that the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development is asking for. This change in the regulatory regime has been called for by the environment committee since 1998. For over 11 years, parliamentarians, in committee, have been asking the government to amend the penalty and fine regimes because they were unacceptable. For 11 years, the government could have consulted industry, and it did not so. That is somewhat disappointing.

That is why the parliamentary committee decided to invite both the Shipping Federation of Canada and the workers affected by the legislative changes. As I said, these were essential changes requested by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development back in 1998 in a report called “Enforcing Canada’s Pollution Laws: the Public Interest Must Come First”. Back in 1998, as I remember, during the 36th Parliament, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development made 24 recommendations to the government, including four that I will repeat: first, that the minister should develop and publish a comprehensive enforcement and compliance policy with the act; second, that the minister should undertake a comprehensive review of the regulations—and revise them if necessary—to ensure that they are adequate, up-to-date and enforceable; third, that the minister should take the necessary steps to have certain offences designated for the purposes of the ticketing provisions under the Contraventions Act; and fourth, that more resources should be assigned to the proper enforcement of environmental legislation.

These four groups of recommendations were at the heart of the 24 recommendations of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development regarding the enforcement of the law. That is the reality in Canada.

I was first elected in 1997 and have seen a number of pieces of legislation passed in this House, including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and all the rest of the environmental legislation. In actual fact, though, this legislation is not enforced. As a result, one of the committee’s recommendations in 1999 was that more resources be assigned to the proper enforcement of environmental legislation.

It is no use having the best environmental legislation, the best Canadian Environmental Protection Act, if there are no authorities with the power to enforce it, nor the resources to do so. Despite the existing legislation, the result is a complete mess on the environmental level.

That is why our regulatory regime had to be modernized. Penalties had to be increased considerably to avoid tragedies like the one I described with Syncrude, which had charges laid against it in February 2009. We should also remember the Exxon Valdez catastrophe that happened 20 years ago in the north. That kind of thing must never happen again because the people responsible got off very lightly, not only to the detriment of the ecosystem but also of the economic development of these regions. In order to avoid situations like that, we need to be very strict and increase the penalties. However, our environment cannot be protected with just a law and order approach.

We cannot simply increase our fines and prison terms. We also have to change our ways of doing things. We have to be able to say to companies like Syncrude that if they do not install nets to protect ducks, they will be subject to increased fines of something like $4 million, as provided under the new regime in Bill C-16.

We must make people realize that the decisions we make with respect to production and consumption have enormous consequences.

Let us look at the oil sands development. It is a good example. It is not only a contravention of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, but also a contravention of the legislation we have passed here in this House.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has demonstrated this to us today. Bill C-288, which was introduced in this Parliament by the hon. member for Honoré-Mercier, was passed at first and second reading and amended in parliamentary committee. Then it received royal assent. It requires the government to report annually in compliance with its obligations under the Kyoto protocol. But the government has not honoured its commitments.

The example of oil sands development is not just a violation of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, which is being amended today, it is also a violation of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, for which we are still awaiting a regulatory framework from the government.

When this bill was introduced, we expected the government to announce something about Canada’s environmental compliance with respect to climate change. We expected the government to move from a regulatory framework on climate change to actual legislation on climate change, as Quebec has announced today.

Quebec has introduced a bill to comply with its climate change obligations by setting a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, and to fall in line with what U.S. President Obama is about to do by setting an environmental cap and trade, capping greenhouse gas emissions and creating the structure and framework for a carbon market that can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, today in this House, we are debating whether we are going to increase the fines from $800,000 to $4 million for those who decide not to install a net near a settling pond at the oil sands sites.

Eleven years after the report of the environment committee was submitted, we are still thinking about what we should do under existing environmental legislation, whereas in Quebec and the United States they are debating laws on climate change.

Quebec and other provinces like Manitoba, which produced one of the first plans for fighting climate change, the American states and the American administration have understood that when we fight climate change, we are tackling a number of environmental issues; we are tackling the importance of adopting renewable energy; we are making sure that we have greater energy efficiency in our homes and in industry; we are protecting ecosystems; and we are protecting our water resources.

If Canada adopted climate change legislation, our energy production would very probably no longer be the same. We would no longer have to count on oil sands production and exploitation as an energy source in Canada. If we did not have to do that, we would not be talking today about whether we should increase fines under the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, to $4 million from $800,000.

We would not be asking how we can protect our water quality in Canada, because we would have decided to use renewable energy. We would be using that resource to produce energy rather than using it to extract oil in the west. We would be using wind to produce energy. We would be using our natural resources intelligently, not just to produce energy, but also to create an economic force in North America. That is what the American administration has understood and what the Conservative government has failed to understand.

Our energy policy and economic policy are still in the stone age. We still believe that fossil fuel is where the energy revolution in Canada lies, when it really lies somewhere else altogether. We have moved from a coal revolution to an oil revolution, and tomorrow it will be a renewable energy revolution. That is where we are going, but the government is instead deciding to invest in the oil industry and provide billions of dollars in tax incentives to an industry that is exploiting a resource that does nothing but create environmental externalities and that puts Canada in the stone age of economic development.

That is totally unacceptable. It is not the path that Quebec has decided to follow. Quebec has decided to invest in renewable energy and focus on energy efficiency. If we are not capable of connecting the east and west to fight climate change, Quebec will make the connection between north and south, if need be. If Canada does not understand that energy for the future means developing renewable energy, if Canada does not understand that this calls for a cap and trade system, if Canada is not prepared to understand that we need a carbon exchange, we will do business with the American states, because they will understand that in budgetary terms and in fiscal terms, that is the direction the future is taking us.

When we compare the Prime Minister’s budget to the budget presented by the Obama administration, we realize that Canada is investing only one sixth as much per capita in energy efficiency and renewable energy as our neighbours to the south. Is this acceptable, when we know that every dollar invested in fighting climate change creates jobs? This is so well known that the UN has invited United Nations member countries to adopt what is called a Green New Deal. If we are to have an economic recovery, we have to inject massive amounts of money into our economy to create green jobs. And all this time, the government is bringing in budgets that give the oil industry tax incentives and help to increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Today, we are debating a bill that increases environmental penalties when we should be debating legislation and a bill on climate change. That is what we expect and we hope to have it before the climate change conference to be held in Copenhagen next December.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised a point that I would like to take up with him. Bill C-16 deals with the enforcement of essentially many environmental laws in Canada, the government's ability to apply fines, what those fines will be and the nature of them. The government needs these tools to enforce and apply its own laws, which is what some laws are guided by and how they are presented.

On the environmental side of things, my colleague mentioned the bill we proposed on climate change. Today, the Auditor General dealt with Bill C-288, a bill out of the previous Parliament. We now have Bill C-311, and the two are meant to join together and take us through the Kyoto period into what is now being called the Copenhagen round of climate change.

However, around all of these laws and prescriptions that we are giving to the government and to the economy around climate change and, in this case, the pollution of greenhouse gases, if the government is unwilling to enforce its own laws and apply the penalties that are contained within those laws, acts and measures, is it not up to conscientious, thoughtful members in this place to find a way to force the government to abide by its own laws? Are there any clauses in Bill C-16 that we can encourage and augment? It is a principle of Canadian democracy that we pass laws in this place and then the government enforces them. Have we lost it all with the government? Does it have any credibility left when it comes to the environment or climate change?

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment, be read the third time and passed.

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

Madam Speaker, as the member said, it is time we changed the enforcement regime and imposed stiffer penalties. But imposing stiffer penalties is not enough. We also need to change how we do things, and this bill does not address that issue. That said, we will support Bill C-16.

For example, in February 2009, Syncrude was charged with dumping toxic substances into tailings ponds at the company's oil sands site north of Fort McMurray, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 500 ducks.

What is a $300,000 fine or a maximum prison sentence of six months to a super-rich company like Syncrude? Will the member admit that we need to not only increase sentences and fines, but change how we do things in order to protect the environment better?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Madam Speaker, the great thing about Bill C-16 is that it makes the fundamental recognition that Canada's current enforcement regime is out of date.

In the Speech from the Throne, the government committed to act and make polluters accountable. Canadians want us to crack down on polluters, poachers and wildlife smugglers, and that is what the bill would do. The legislation delivered on the government's three main goals: deterrence, denunciation and restoration of the environment.

With respect to specific incidents, there is obviously a difference between being negligent and looking at environmental contamination as a cost of doing business. This bill would come down very hard on companies that are negligent and companies that are merely acting abhorrently toward the environment and looking at fines as merely a cost of doing business. Through this bill, we will ensure that companies understand that this government and this party stand firmly behind the environment and its protection for future generations.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the third reading of Bill C-16, the environmental enforcement act, which has been reported to the House by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development with minor amendments and all-party support for its fundamental principles. I thank the members of the committee for their work on the bill and the improvements they have made to it.

The bill fulfills a Conservative Party election promise to bolster the protection of our environment through tougher enforcement. It complements a number of steps the government has taken since coming into office three years ago, including a $22 million commitment in budget 2007 to increase the number of Environment Canada enforcement officers by 50%, and a further $32 million in budget 2008 over two years to enhance the enforcement operations of Environment Canada and Parks Canada.

Bill C-16 proposes extensive changes to the fine, sentencing and enforcement provisions of nine environmental protection and wildlife conservation statutes. The bill has three primary purposes: to ensure convictions act as strong deterrents, to express society's abhorrence for environmental offences and to contribute to environmental restoration and enhancement.

Especially important to the deterrence objective of the bill, is its modern, tough fine scheme. I am please to say that the bill has been reported to the House with no amendments to the fine scheme it proposes.

While the bill does not change the existing requirements for environmental compliance in Canada, its modernized fine scheme is intended to provide better guidance to courts about what constitutes appropriate fines. The purpose is to ensure that penalties for environmental offences are not simply seen as the cost of doing business. The bill does this by introducing minimum fines for the most serious offences, requiring courts to consider aggravating factors and increasing most maximum fines.

As such, if Bill C-16 becomes law, fines for individuals who commit the most serious offences will be liable to a fine ranging from $5,000 to $1 million per day fine. Large corporations that commit the most serious offences will be liable to fines ranging from $100,000 to $6 million per day per offence. These ranges represent significant improvements.

Currently, the statutes amended by the bill contain only maximum fines and completely lack direction on appropriate starting points. This has led to inadequately low fines that have never anywhere near reached the maximum amounts possible. Currently, for example, although CEPA allows for fines up to $1 million, the highest fine ever imposed under that act was $100,000, so substantially less than the maximum penalty.

It is our goal, through our environmental compliance regime and enhanced enforcement, to try to prevent environmental damage and preserve our environment for all Canadians. However, if we contemplate the possibility of a significant environmental offence, we may also, through the provisions of the bill, contemplate significant sentences as a result.

The fine scheme introduced by the bill is further enhanced by requirements for the court to consider the principle that fines should be increased to reflect every aggravating factor associated with an offence. Examples of particular aggravating factors are listed in the bill to ensure consistent treatment across the country. As with the fine ranges, the committee made no amendments to the provisions concerning aggravating factors.

Another key component of the bill is its proposed enhancements of court order authorities on sentencing. It is widely recognized that fines alone are not sufficient to deter offenders, denounce their behaviour and ensure environmental restoration. That is certainly something we heard from witnesses who appeared when the bill was before committee. As such, the bill seeks to improve the creating sentencing power of judges by harmonizing and improving existing authorities provided by the statutes amended by the bill to courts upon sentencing.

I am pleased to say that the committee made several important amendments to these court order provisions. The bill, as introduced, was intended to ensure courts have access to a full suite of creative sentencing powers upon sentencing, such as remedial orders, compensation orders and orders concerning community service. As reported to the House by the committee, the bill's amendment to the court order powers are even stronger, ensuring consistency across statutes and clarity in the language used.

For example, collectively, the members of the committee ensured that courts would be able to direct the offender to pay money to community organizations to assist in their work in communities affected by these offences. In the same vein, I am happy that the bill's provisions concerning public disclosure of environmental offences, especially with respect to corporate offenders, have remained intact.

Members of the committee recognized the important deterrent and denunciation effect of the provision obliging the minister to maintain, in a registry accessible to the public, information about all convictions of corporations for offences under the act and the provision obliging courts to order corporate offenders who have shareholders to inform their shareholders of these convictions.

Beyond its focus on the outcome of prosecutions, the bill would give enforcement officers better options for addressing offences that require immediate action. The bill does this by allowing officers to issue compliance orders. I am happy to say that the committee also recognized the value of this important tool and made no amendments to it whatsoever. Furthermore, the bill, as reported to the House, has stronger provisions concerning analysts. These are scientific and technical experts who can play an important role in gathering evidence of offences.

I thank the committee members for their cooperation in ensuring all provisions necessary for analysts to function effectively were included in this bill.

Finally, and of note, the bill, as reported to the House, also retains its original proposed environmental violations administrative monetary penalty act. This proposed act would ensure the benefits to environmental enforcement from modern and efficient enforcement tools, tools that will ensure a consistent response to serious environmental infractions.

Again I thank the members of the committee from all parties for their excellent work. Bill C-16 is an impressive, important initiative that would strengthen the federal environmental protection regime and protect our environment for future generations.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The Speaker has received a letter from the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel informing him that a clerical error has been found in the reprint following committee stage of Bill C-16, the Environmental Enforcement Act.

In the report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, an amendment to clause 39 was not recorded correctly in the French version. Regrettably, the report to the House and the reprint of this bill have included this error. The amended text should read as follows:

q) verser, selon les modalités prescrites, une somme d'argent à des groupes concernés notamment par la protection de l'environnement, pour les aider dans le travail qu'ils accomplissent à l'égard du parc où l'infraction a été commise;

Therefore, since the Speaker is convinced that this is a clerical error, he is requesting that the wording of the French version of clause 39 be corrected. In addition, the working copy of the bill will be corrected at the next reprinting, after third reading.

There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed, without debate, to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Environment and Sustainable Development

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development in relation to Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment.

[Sarah Cosgrove]

It's consistent with the proposals between Bill 16...and the government motions would then ensure consistency of all nine statutes and that they reflect this list.

[Sarah Cosgrove]

Your question has a complicated answer, in that it's inconsistent across the statutes. We compiled the comprehensive list in the overview we distributed on the first day of consideration of Bill C-16. It's on page 23 of that document. We can pass that page around in both languages, if that assists the committee.

[Sarah Cosgrove]

Three already do, and there are proposals to ensure that all nine being amended by Bill C-16 contain this provision.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, one of the things the bill attempts to do is to make the sentencing options that are available to judges uniform across a number of the acts that are being amended. In the course of reviewing the bill after it was tabled, it was discovered that some of the sentencing powers that were intended to be made uniform were in fact left out of parts of Bill C-16. So this is a housekeeping thing.

We're now in the area of the Arctic.... I'm sorry, I've lost track of the name of the act, but it's the Antarctic waters act or something like that. In this particular act, the amendment of Bill C-16 inadvertently left off an ability for the judge to direct an offender to pay an amount to an educational institution for scholarships for students enrolled in studies relating to the environment. It was an inadvertent omission, and because we're trying to give uniform powers to judges for all of these acts, it should apply to this act as well as to others. In fact, that provision was omitted from some of the others too, so we're putting it in to ensure that there's uniformity.

These studies that are related to the environment can include, for example, a broad array of subject matters, including biology, geography, engineering, and other disciplines, and the term that was used in Bill C-16 in fact only referred to environmental studies. So we have broadened that out to “studies related to the environment” in order to make it consistent and broad across the board.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Chair, the amendment is that Bill C-16 in clause 17 be amended by replacing lines 32 to 35 on page 23 with the following: (5.1) Paragraph 66(1)(m)

Would you like me to read the whole text?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Chair, Bill C-16 is a huge bill, but there's a suggestion of how to deal with it efficiently. Maybe the legislative clerk can give us some guidance.

If we were to begin with “Shall clauses 2 to 11 carry?”, we could deal with that in a lump, because there are no amendments proposed to any of those clauses. The first amendment deals with clause 12, and then we can deal with the amendment. I don't know if there's consensus support to move that way, quickly and efficiently.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Okay. Let me phrase it in the opposite manner, then. Bill C-16 does require notification to the Attorney General in relation to prosecution of foreign vessels where UNCLOS might be involved. Am I right about that?

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Is it proposed that the same prosecutorial policy that has been used and is currently being used for the Canada Shipping Act will also apply to prosecutions under the legislation referred to in Bill C-16?

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Does the Canada Shipping Act, like Bill C-16, generally impose liability, including prison terms?

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

In that sense, it's on all fours with the legislation we're dealing with.

Secondly, Mr. MacCallum, in response to Mr. Bigras' question about what degree of certainty you feel on this issue, I want to verify that I heard the answer correctly. Did you say that the courts almost universally accept the position that you're proposing in analyzing Bill C-16?

[Sarah Cosgrove]

There are two points raised there, Mr. Chair. The first related to international law and the application of UNCLOS. It's a matter of reliable practice that the Attorney General is made aware if charges are ever laid in the zones of maritime waters that would trigger UNCLOS requirements and restrictions on the use of prisons. The Attorney General would not, at that time or during sentencing hearings, request prison. So the bill as drafted is not in violation of international law, and it is a matter of reliable practice that prison terms are not sought when they are in contravention of international law. There has been no history of that scheme not working to date.

In terms of enforcement policies, I believe Cynthia Wright answered that question when we first appeared. We've been focusing, obviously, on the development of this bill. If and when it comes into force, we would update existing enforcement policies and procedures. Those do exist now, and they obviously don't currently reflect Bill C-16. We definitely need to see how this evolves through the parliamentary process first. Those policies and procedure will then be updated, though.

Mr. Chair.

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

Ms. Caron, do you think that Bill C-16 is consistent with Canada's international commitments respecting the Convention on the Law of the Sea?

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

And I want to get to those limitations. Without necessarily stating it with any certainty, the industry suggested to us that the 1991 judgment couldn't apply in the case before us. What certainty do you have? Perhaps the industry could institute proceedings to establish that the Wholesale Travel Group Inc. judgment does not have to apply in the case before us, with respect to the provision of Bill C-16 or to the act as such.

Do you have any legal opinions? What certainty do you have that this doesn't open the door to legal challenges?

[Renée Caron]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I do apologize to the members of the committee, as I was expecting questions and didn't prepare a presentation, but I do have some other points.

Regarding the question of the shipping industry's economic viability and how Bill C-16 might affect that, we understand this issue in relation to two principal concerns that were raised. One was the issue of there being strict liability plus high fines—because maximum fines have increased under the bill. The other is that of strict liability plus imprisonment. My understanding was that those issues were raised by two different witnesses who appeared before you on Thursday, but who didn't necessarily share the same view. But those are the two main issues.

I'd like to point out to the committee that no other industry has raised similar concerns with Environment Canada, although these other industries are also subject to strict liability plus imprisonment, and strict liability plus the fine amounts, as identified in the bill.

Regarding the issue of strict liability plus imprisonment, the Department of Justice can speak more to the legal fine points. Nonetheless, this is actually a long-standing reality under the Canada Shipping Act and the MBCA, and even before the due diligence defence was legislated in statute, it was available as common law. So all the MBCA did was codify that due diligence defence.

Also, regarding the issue of strict liability plus imprisonment, the point of aggravating factors was raised on Thursday. I want the committee members to be sure to understand that aggravating factors do not come into play in the determination of whether imprisonment should be part of the sentence; they only relate to the issue of fines.

Regarding the point about strict liability plus the high fines, the committee heard several times of $6 million as a maximum fine under the bill for a first offence, and $12 million as a maximum for repeat offenders. I'd like the committee members to be aware that the regime for fines is a tiered regime and there are many gradations within that regime as to how much of a fine might be imposed. The regime is tiered along the lines of the type of offender as well as the lines of the seriousness of the offence. For individuals, including an individual seafarer, there was actually no change in the maximum fine for a serious offence; and because we created the new category of less serious offences, the maximum there is lower than what it would have been in the legislation previously. In addition, all of the fines are even lower if the prosecutor pursues by summary conviction rather than indictment. So this is another way the fines can be tailored to the seriousness of the offence.

For large corporations and large vessels, the $6 million for a first offence is the maximum and the $12 million is for a repeat offence. And those are for the most serious offences. For less serious offences, the maximums are $500,000 for a first offence and $1 million for a repeat offence.

Finally, there is a third type of offender in terms of their financial capacity, and this one is in between the individual and the large corporation or large vessel. This third one is the small revenue corporation or smaller vessel. For them the maximum fines are lower than what they are for the large corporations and large vessels.

Regarding the $6 million and $12 million, or the maximum fines, we expect that they will rarely be imposed in practice. Also, regarding the maximum amounts, as was indicated in previous testimony by Environment Canada, those amounts were borrowed from the Ontario legislation after a review of the maximums across Canada. In relation to this point, I would say that while the acknowledged purpose of the bill, in part, is to increase penalties, the ultimate aim is to protect the environment, not to put more people in prison or to collect more fines.

I'd like to move on to the Marine Liability Act. The Migratory Birds Convention Act currently allows for a vessel to be charged with an offence if it disposes of some material or some pollutant in water, harming migratory birds. That could be an oil spill or some other type of pollution damage. The bill doesn't change that. The current MBCA also allows the court to order an offender to pay compensation for remedial work the government might do that flows from the offence that occurred.

The existing MBCA clearly preserves the limitation of liability regime, which is set out in the Marine Liability Act in subsection 17.1(3). So in the case of an oil spill, provided it wasn't intentional or reckless, the Marine Liability Act establishes the regime limiting liability, and essentially, in my layperson's understanding of it, it's an international insurance scheme. The MBCA doesn't detract from that, and in fact it preserves it. The shipping industries did mention to us that some of the other statutes could have a similar provision, and accordingly, there are four government motions to add similar language to other bills to ensure the Marine Liability Act does apply.

I would turn it over to the Department of Justice to deal with the more constitutional and charter issues.

[Renée Caron]

In relation to the issue of consultation, Environment Canada proceeded with the usual practice through the development of Bill C-16, and that included the protection of cabinet confidence. During the development of the bill, Environment Canada did consult internally with other affected government departments, including extensive consultations with Transport Canada. These consultations with Transport Canada were at both formal and informal working levels, and these definitely informed the development of the bill.

Also per the usual process, the provisions of the bill were fully vetted by the Department of Justice all the way through the bill's development to ensure that it was consistent with the charter and with the Constitution.

The day after the bill was tabled, on March 5, Environment Canada did send out a notice to a long list of stakeholders affected by the bill, covering many different industries. This included several in the shipping industry, notably the Shipping Federation of Canada, the Canadian Shipowners Association, and the Canadian Maritime Law Association. We opened the lines of communication with stakeholders as soon as possible after the bill was tabled. Representatives of the shipping industry did provide valuable input during the process following the March 5 notice that was sent, and the government wishes to address a number of unintended errors in the bill that were identified. Accordingly, eight draft government motions, which relate to the shipping industry's concerns, have been brought forward, and we look forward to continuing the dialogue with the shipping industry as we hope to move forward with the implementation of Bill C-16.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you. I just want to again make the point that due diligence provisions currently exist in CEPA.

During the 2005 interventions the witnesses have been consistent in their position that they believe they were non-constitutional, but they are indeed constitutional. The other point I wanted to make is that BillC-16 deals with nine different statutes, not just shipping. The effects will not be just on shipping, but right across Canada there will be a higher degree of environmental enforcement. I'm just commenting on Mr. Boucher's concerns that his children maybe shouldn't be in seafaring, or Mr. Lahay, that these statutes are Canada-wide, not just shipping. It sounds to me that shipping wants to be exempt, but the rest of Canada will have to deal with these tougher regulations and tougher enforcements.

I believe we need to have consistency right across our country, including shipping. We do not look at the worst-case scenario, because the worst-case scenario does not apply, or rarely. We need to have good environmental enforcement.

The few minutes that I have left I'd like to pass on to Mr. Woodworth.

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

With respect to strict liability, the Supreme Court rendered a decision in the Wholesale Travel Group Inc. case. It clearly ruled that the availability of imprisonment did not alter the conclusion that strict liability does not violate the Charter.

I would therefore like to know whether, in your opinion, this Supreme Court decision should be taken into consideration as part of our discussion on Bill C-16.

[Kaity Arsoniadis Stein]

Why don't I start here? I can tell you that right now the international community is watching the Bill C-16 developments very closely. Right now, our global economy is really suffering. Canada has fared pretty well. Our banks are doing better than most banks globally and have an excellent track record, so there is a revived interest in Canada for investment.

Internationally, on the concerns with what Bill C-15 did, a lot of companies, blue-chip, great companies that are currently here, did risk assessments to see whether they should remain in Canada or do they owe it to their employees and shareholders to go to a less hostile environment? We did see downsizing, and we do know directly of two companies that were waiting to hear what would have happened with the result of Bill C-15. When Bill C-15 became law, these two companies went to Singapore. That's a fact, and we've heard of others.

The international shipping community is a small community and the links are tremendous. For example, the chair of ISAC is also the vice-chair at the International Chamber of Shipping. He's the vice-chair of the London Club, one of the largest P and I clubs in the world. He works with the Magsaysay Group. It is his company. They employ the biggest chunk of world seafarers globally. The connections go on and on. It's a small community.

One of our trading partners for Canada is Asia, and I can read here the Asian Shipowners' Forum joint statement: “The meeting was attended by 119 delegates from the Shipowner Associations of Australia, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea...”. At page 12, they highlight the Canadian Migratory Birds Act. I'll read from the statement: “The Forum noted the amendments to the Canadian Migratory Birds Act (1999) made by the adoption of Bill C-15 and continues to support the concerns expressed by the Canadian shipowners.”

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

If I could go back to your point regarding the Marine Liability Act, as I understand it, you're concerned that some of the provisions in Bill C-16 regarding compensation or cleanup orders may conflict with international conventions. Is that a correct statement of your concern?

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

Mr. Chairman, now is not the time to extrapolate. It is important that we focus on Bill C-16, and, although Mr. Woodworth is asking some very relevant questions, with all due respect to him, they do go beyond the scope of our study pertaining to this bill.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Okay.

I want to understand further the concern with respect to the civil test of balance of probability being applied, as opposed to the higher, criminal “beyond a reasonable doubt” test. Given that this particular aspect of Bill C-16—and this is where Mr. Woodworth was going—is restricted only to the administrative monetary penalty component of the act, I want to ask you to clarify, if you would, why you think this would affect the burden of proof in the prosecution of offences, given that this test only applies to the AMP component.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Other than the enforcement provisions, which are being strengthened through the proposed legislation and amendments through Bill C-16, is there anything the industry could do to bring an added level of comfort to anybody sitting around this table that they're taking matters into their own hands to make sure this problem doesn't exist, so the enforcement route doesn't have to be used?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'm not asking for blame. I'm just trying to get a sense of how it is that we are in the eleventh hour, just before going clause-by-clause, and you're raising fundamental problems here with the legal regime inherent in this bill. You're telling us we don't know what will take precedence: domestic law, as through the amendments of Bill C-16, or international conventions?

I'm trying to find out why this even got here without Justice Canada and the largest law firm in the country having solved these problems before this arrived. We've heard from Ms. Arsoniadis Stein that there are measures here that fall outside the ambit even of international comparisons, that other domestic regimes don't have similar measures, that this is going to have a serious net impact on investment in shipping in this country. We're then hearing from you that this is a mismatch of different attempts to cobble something together under tough environmental laws. I'm not sure what the theme is. We're now finding out before going to clause-by-clause next Tuesday that, in fact, it's incoherent.

What has to be done to correct the bill?

[Kaity Arsoniadis Stein]

I will ask Peter Lahay, from the ITWF, to give the full history, because he was involved during the Bill C-15 days and is currently involved in Bill C-16.

[Christopher Giaschi, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am a maritime lawyer. I am the west coast vice-president of the Canadian Maritime Law Association. The Canadian Maritime Law Association was established in 1951. We are an organization composed of both individual and constituent members. Most of our individual members are maritime lawyers who practise across the country. Our constituent members come from all facets of the Canadian marine industry.

The CMLA is Canada's representative to the Comité Maritime International, an organization that was established in 1897 and that is primarily concerned with international maritime law and the uniformity of maritime laws, not just through conventions but through various national associations such as the Canadian Maritime Law Association.

The primarily objective and interest of the Canadian Maritime Law Association is the establishment of effective and modern maritime laws and, in an international context, uniformity of those maritime laws, which we have come to know is absolutely essential when you're dealing with ships that move from place to place.

One of the things we are not is a lobby group for any particular maritime interest at all. We represent all maritime interests, and most of our lawyers have acted for all interests on both sides of the fence, as we say, both for and against ships. So we're not a lobby group; we're a broad-based group that's primarily interested in effective and modern law.

We have submitted a submission that I presume you all will have had. There are a few provisions of Bill C-16 that concern us, and those are the main points, the highlights, proposed paragraph 291(1 )(k) of CEPA and 16(1)(d) of the Migratory Birds Convention Act. These are the provisions that empower a court to order an offender to pay any person for the cost of cleanup, etc., following a pollution incident.

And in proposed section 274 of CEPA and proposed section 13.07 of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, there's a provision that provides for compensation for a new phrase, “non-use value”. We're particularly concerned about what that is.

The other provisions we're concerned about are proposed section 13.15 of the Migratory Birds Convention Act and proposed section 9 of the new Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, establishing various levels of criminal liability for the master and the chief. Some of the my friends here today have expounded upon some of those concerns.

Our primary concern with respect to these various provisions is that they tend to violate or are inconsistent with current international conventions and current Canadian legislation in relation to marine pollution. The more important conventions are, first of all, UNCLOS, which was mentioned earlier. That's the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Article 230 of that convention--I'm not going to read the complete article to you--starts out: “Monetary penalties only may be imposed with respect to violations of national laws”. And this is in relation to pollution, monetary penalties only. It seems pretty clear that imprisonment should not be an option when you're dealing with something that comes under UNCLOS. It also provides in sub-article (3) of article 230:

In the conduct of proceedings in respect of such violations committed by a foreign vessel which may result in the imposition of penalties, recognized rights of the accused shall be observed.

Of course, recognized rights aren't defined there, but certainly in common law jurisdictions and also in civil law jurisdictions there are some basic rights afforded to any accused, one of which is the presumption of innocence, which I know the international shipowners have spoken on today, and they provided a number of briefs to you on that precise point. However, it is also arguably in violation of UNCLOS.

The CLC convention, which is an international convention related to oil pollution incidents and oil pollution damage, provides in article III:

4. No claim for compensation for pollution damage shall be made against the owner otherwise than in accordance with this Convention.

That specifically says that claims against the owner must be made in accordance with the convention. The next sentence says that the servants or agents of the owners, or members of the crew, are immune from any such claim. Keeping in mind that Bill C-16 empowers awards to be made against the owner and against the crew in sentencing, it's arguably in violation of the CLC.

Similarly, section 51 of the Marine Liability Act, which basically imports the CLC-type concepts into Canadian national law, provides that a shipowner shall be liable for the costs of the reasonable measures of cleanup actually undertaken. “Actually undertaken or to be undertaken” is the wording in the statute, which again would not provide for a non-use value type of award, which the new act is allowing for. That's not actually undertaken. That's something that's pulled out of the air.

Both the CLC convention and the Marine Liability Act provide for limitations of liabilities to shipowners and servants and agents in respect of oil pollution damage claims. In fact, Canada has a very sophisticated regime for compensating for pollution claims. It has multiple layers. Within Canada there is the ship-source oil pollution fund. Then there are the various fund conventions and the supplementary fund, which, in Bill C-7, we're just about to implement in Canada.

The current Bill C-16 doesn't take into account limitation of liability at all, and clearly it needs to. Essentially the problem is that in Bill C-16 we're disguising civil liability and civil compensation in quasi-criminal provisions, which is not fair and is not the right way to go. We're trying to do indirectly what we can't do directly.

Finally, I will say that we endorse the concerns that have been expressed about reverse onus, the test of the balance of probabilities, and the presumption of innocence. We have made a recommendation in our brief about at least one clause that can be put into the various pieces of legislation to ensure that international conventions that Canada has signed will have precedence whenever there is any conflict with any of these pieces of legislation.

Thank you very much.

[Kaity Arsoniadis Stein, President and Secretary-General, International Ship-Owners Alliance of Canada Inc.]

I am very pleased to be appearing before you. I would like to thank the committee for taking the time to listen to us. I would also like to thank Mr. Radford for organizing this meeting.

My name is Kaity Arsoniadis Stein and I am the president and secretary general of the International Ship-Owners Alliance of Canada. Our group represents approximately 400 vessels, locally and internationally, managed out of Vancouver, including bulk carriers, tankers, and containers, as well as tug operators and BC Ferries, one of the largest ferry operators in the world. Teekay, which is one of our founding members, transports more than 10% of the world's seaborne oil.

I'm also here today on behalf of the Council of Marine Carriers, an association operating Canadian tugs and barges, covering the entire west coast of North America and the Arctic, and the Canadian Shipowners Association, which represents vessels trading in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, with an annual trade volume of over $18 billion.

The board of directors of the Vancouver Maritime Arbitrators Association lends its full support, as well as international shipping associations, whose letters have been submitted in our brief—the International Chamber of Shipping, Intertanko, Intercargo, Hong Kong Shipowners Association, and our global partner, BIMCO.

We fully support the objective of strengthening Canada's environmental laws and making sure those laws are enforced. Our concern is that the reverse onus situation brought about by former Bill C-15 of the 38th Parliament has not been corrected by Bill C-16.It has instead created a greater problem, since the possibility of strict liability fines of $6 million will be made available on a per-day basis. With the aggravated clause, it is $12 million available on a per-day basis.

Bill C-15 has removed the traditional legal concept of the presumption of innocence, thus breaching our constitutional guarantees of section 11 of our charter. The leading case on this issue is Wholesale Travel Group, 1991, where our Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, currently the only remaining justice who served on this, stated that “...the penalty of imprisonment cannot, without violating the guarantees in the Charter, be combined with an offence which permits conviction without fault or because the accused has failed to prove that he or she is innocent...”.

It is important that we do not lose sight of fundamental principles of law. There are serious flaws associated with the loss of the presumption of innocence. One is that they breach international principles that are codified in the IMO convention and UNCLOS, to which Canada is party. MARPOL 73/78 makes a fundamental distinction between accidental and intentional pollution. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea supports MARPOL and points to monetary penalties rather than imprisonment being the normal sanction. They provide serious criminal sanctions against almost everyone involved in the shipping operation without regard to whether the incident was accidental.

The development of these measures has had a negative effect on Canadian credibility in terms of our status as an important trading nation. These measures have, without a doubt, dissuaded business investment in Canada. Not a single shipping company that we are aware of has set up in Canada since the passing of Bill C-15.

Our government has invested $2.5 billion into the Pacific gateway and is working on a comprehensive package to stimulate the Canadian economy. If Canada, an export nation rich in resources, plans to retain and expand its current industry, our laws must be amended to provide confidence and security. Any blue chip company involved in transport that has located itself in Canada for a number of excellent reasons must now weigh these reasons against the risk of exposure to its directors, officers, and employees, and seriously consider relocating to less hostile jurisdictions.

You have letters of concern from the international community. Since the passing of Bill C-15, Canada has been blacklisted as an unfavourable jurisdiction to do marine business. It is publicized widely that Canada must amend Bill C-15 through Lloyd's List, P and I club circulars, and annual statements, and the international community is watching the progress of Bill C-16 very closely.

The international community is watching the progress of Bill C-16 very closely. I'll take a moment to read two excerpts.

One is from the International Chamber of Shipping, the ITF, and the Oil Companies International Marine Forum. It is a joint statement, a collective statement, and it is in the brief:

The introduction of the “due diligence” requirement in the case of accidental or non-intentional pollution is...problematic. We acknowledge that an accused person or vessel will not be found guilty if they can show that they exercised due diligence.... However, it is unreasonable, particularly in the case of accidental pollution, to apply strict criminal liability thereby placing the burden of proof on the accused to rebut an automatic assumption of guilt. Such an automatic assumption of guilt, where imprisonment is possible, raises significant human rights concerns.

I'll also read from Intertanko's support statement:

Bill C-15 seeks to introduce a strict liability offence for acts of pollution by individuals including a vessel’s master, officers as well as the vessel’s owner’s directors or officers. The prosecution is not required to prove the accused’s intent to commit the offence. We are very concerned that such provisions will, in effect, criminalize accidental or non-intentional pollution, and will seriously prejudice the master’s or crew’s action during a potential incident. While we recognize that an accused person is able to escape conviction provided he or she has proved that all reasonable steps were taken to prevent the pollution, the accused person is considered guilty and must prove his or her innocence, rather than vice versa.

The shipping industry has been requesting an amendment for the past four years and has worked very closely with Environment Canada and Transport Canada. While we fully support measures to protect the marine environment, we also seek to ensure that regulations are balanced, safeguard our crews, and do not prejudice the safe operation of vessels. We support the efforts in environmental legislation to minimize pollution and make polluters pay. These efforts should not, however, imperil individual liberty. Every individual has the right, in a modern democratic society, to the presumption of innocence. No one should be imprisoned without proof of commission of an offence and due process.

We have retained numerous lawyers to check this point for us to ensure that we're not in error. I will read from one of our statements. It's a joint legal opinion again, and it is in the brief:

It is entirely incongruous with the principles that should guide free and democratic societies, which purport to guarantee the presumption of innocence, to sweep away those constitutional rights for those who face imprisonment for infractions which involve a lack of diligence.

Finally, we have had consultations with Sarah Cosgrove and have met with some MPs from this committee. Given their concerns, we have reconsidered our previous submission and now suggest the clause that follows, which we believe preserves the fundamental objectives of Bill C-16 yet also addresses our concerns and those of the international community.

We therefore recommend that every act amended by Bill C-16 include a clause in the following terms:

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this act, where imprisonment is sought as a penalty, every accused shall be presumed innocent of the offence charged and shall at a minimum be entitled to a defence of due diligence.

Thank you for this opportunity to make our views known. I hope that we will find a solution that satisfies everyone.

[Mark Boucher, National President, Canadian Merchant Service Guild, International Transport Workers' Federation]

Thank you very much.

I'm Mark Boucher. I'm the president of the Canadian Merchant Service Guild, a professional association of 5,000 Canadian ships officers. The guild is an affiliate of the International Transport Workers' Federation, or ITF, representing over 600,000 members in all sectors of transportation. The ITF works to improve conditions of seafarers of all nationalities and promotes regulation of the shipping industry to protect the interest of seafarers. While the guild represents primarily licensed officers and senior crew members and marine pilots in Canada, the ITF represents almost all categories of the 15,000 seafarers on the ships in Canada's domestic industry.

The guild did send in its own written submission, but I'm comfortable to speak on behalf of the entire ITF caucus, because the guild is saying the same things as the ITF is saying. We take a very special interest in legislative matters affecting all Canadian seafarers.

I know you had to make a decision on short notice regarding whether to hear from us today, and we certainly appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak to you on this matter.

I want to say from the outset that seafarers are on the front lines of pollution prevention, and the Canadian seafarers, in particular, have a very good track record. Both seafarers and their representatives are in favour of having effective laws concerning environmental protection, and we recognize and support Canadian society's strong disapproval of environmental offences.

Bill C-16 amends a number of pieces of legislation affecting seafarers, including the Migratory Birds Convention Act and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. These were also the principal pieces of legislation that were amended in 2005 by Bill C-15. A disappointment that is common to both Bill C-15 and now Bill C-16 is that it was very late in the game when we became aware of this piece of legislation. The guild and the ITF are more accustomed to being invited to provide input regarding proposed legislation in the marine transportation field, where we have been working closely with Transport Canada, and where consultation is held in an early and meaningful manner with a broad cross-section of groups, regarding important pieces of legislation such as the Canada Shipping Act. For many years we have contributed valuable input to transportation legislation in this manner, and that has provided us an opportunity to have a clear understanding and a certain comfort factor with a number of controversial proposed legislative changes. However, it was only yesterday that the guild and the ITF were given any opportunity to be briefed on Bill C-16 by government officials and to ask questions and provide comments.

It's more important, though, that I point out that the marine industry is having tremendous difficulty recruiting Canadian seafarers. This is a worldwide problem in the seafaring industry everywhere, and the key point today that I wanted to make. The average age of the seafaring workforce in Canada is very high, and we are trying to address this chronic shortage of seafarers right now by doing everything we can to recruit young people into the industry.

The guild and the ITF have a number of promising HR initiatives under way in cooperation with several other organizations, and we're making some progress on the quality of life ingredients for seafarers, but more progress needs to be made.

We need to ensure that effective training schemes are in place for entry-level positions and for career development and progression to senior levels, aboard ships as well as in pilotage. The entry-level positions and then the junior officer positions are the feeder groups for senior-level positions, not just on ships but in pilotage work and for certain shore positions in industry as well as in the regulatory field and government.

One of the things that are bound to affect the recruiting efforts that are under way and that scare off potential candidates is this type of legislation. Bill C-15 didn't help this situation, and it is not being corrected now. In our view, we see the problem being taken up another notch. What we see Bill C-16 doing is communicating to potential candidates in the marine industry that if you are a seafarer, you might get caught up in this, and you might be fined huge amounts of money and spend a fortune trying to defend yourself. These are very negative things when we are trying to attract new people into the marine industry. Canada needs a strong marine industry. We need to be able to attract a new generation of seafarers and do everything we can to make it fair for them and not have them treated unfairly.

We feel that this bill is unfair. One of the things it is proposing to do is reduce the crown's job by making it easier to get a conviction. We see this as a serious disincentive and a threat to having a strong domestic seafaring industry, which is important to Canada. Whether we foster it in legislation or not, Canada is a maritime nation, and the marine shipping that's going on right now across the country is vital. We need to build the marine industry, and that won't happen if seafarers here are treated unfairly, making it even more difficult to recruit a new generation of seafarers.

There has been a lot of recent discussion stressing the need for increases in enforcement. The first point I want to raise concerning this bill is with regard to proposed subsection 20(2) of the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, under Bill C-16, which, on page 186, states that:

The Minister has the burden of establishing, on a balance of probabilities, that the person, ship or vessel committed the violation.

This is reducing the onus of proof on the crown, which would be found in a penal case where it is beyond a reasonable doubt, to the lower civil test of a balance of probabilities, which, as we understand it, means that if those hearing the case decide it is more likely than not that you committed the offence, then they have to convict, and they don't have to be concerned with reasonable doubts.

Our view is that in this atmosphere of an appetite for increased enforcement, which we wholeheartedly support, this proposed threshold of proof is too low. While this does simplify prosecutions for the crown, it is not affording proper rights to the accused ship's crew members, and we are concerned this will facilitate convictions.

Our second point concerns proposed section 13.15 of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, as amended by clause 102 of Bill C-16, which on page 145 states that:

In a prosecution of a master or chief engineer...it is sufficient proof of the offence to establish that it was committed by a person on board the vessel, whether or not the person is identified...

The existing legislation now specifies in old subsection 13(1.6) that vicarious responsibility does not apply to masters and chief engineers. Bill C-16 proposes the opposite, and I'll talk more about that in a second. Not only that, but in proposed subsection 280(2) of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, as amended by clause 73 of Bill C-16 on page 93, there's a change to indicate that:

...if the master or chief engineer...authorized...or participated in the offence, the master and chief engineer are a party to and guilty of the offence, and are liable....

We don't see why that was changed, because the only word that was changed was the word “are”, which indicates both of them and not just the one who may have committed the offence. Whereas before it said “the master or chief...as the case may be, is a party to the offence”, now it is proposing to say “the master and the chief engineer are party to the offence”. That change makes them both liable if either one of them does something that is unreasonable.

Obtaining the qualifications required for these senior levels of officer certifications takes many years, and it's at these senior levels that the shortage of qualified, licensed personnel is the most serious. Many of the officers at this level are fully eligible to retire right now. Increasing the criminalization of seafarers will drive them away. If that happens and the ship won't move, whatever important work the ship was doing will grind to a halt because they will have three-quarters of a crew but can't sail anywhere without key individuals. We need to do everything possible to reassure seafarers that they will be treated in a fair manner.

To sum up, we've already submitted a letter to the committee covering these same items that I've described.

We propose the removal of the new automatic vicarious liability of the master and the chief engineer that's found in proposed section 13.15 of the Migratory Birds Convention Act as amended by clause 102 of Bill C-16 on page 145.

Second, we pointed out that the revision that is proposed by clause 73 of Bill C-16, on page 93 in proposed subsection 280(2) of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, refers to both of the seafarers in the positions of chief and master, instead of one or the other, as the case may be. We're proposing that this amendment be deleted as well.

We proposed the removal of the unacceptable reduced onus of proof that is found in proposed section 9 of the enforcement measures of the new Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act as enacted under clause 126 on page 186 of Bill C-16.

I've explained that we need to have a level playing field, especially since we already are having such difficulties recruiting. Despite the work that is going on, there's already too much negative publicity and too many disincentives for young people to enter the marine industry. There are already enforcement mechanisms that are effective without having to increase the criminalization of seafarers. The seafarers are employees working day to day for employers. The seafarers see themselves as the ones who would be getting hit with fines and jail terms. The employers are not going to go to jail for them, and they're not going to pay their fines for them. The pool of candidates who are willing to take that risk by becoming seafarers is decreasing.

I want to thank the committee for giving me an opportunity to present our input and comments on this important piece of legislation, and I hope the views we sent in by letter a few days ago will be given consideration.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Welcome, everyone, to the 17th meeting of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Today is our last meeting with witnesses on the subject of Bill C-16, an Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment.

Our witnesses today are from the marine industry. I thank you for being here today. I know some of you came from far away, as far away as British Columbia. You're representing essentially three groups, the Canadian Maritime Law Association, the International Ship-Owners Alliance of Canada Inc., and the International Transport Workers' Federation. The way we will proceed is that each group will be given eight minutes to present, and that will be followed by rounds of questioning.

Would you, Mr. Boucher, like to go first today?

Mr. Boucher, welcome. We look forward to hearing what you have to tell us.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Did you have anything on this point of order?

Just hang on a minute. We do have our agenda out there. We'd need to change the agenda today. I would require unanimous consent from all the members to change the agenda we circulated previously and agreed to, which said that today we're dealing with Bill C-16. I'm more than happy, after our two hours are up dealing with Bill C-16, to go in camera and have a discussion about future business. Right now we have our witnesses here. We made the agreement in the past that we'd be dealing with Bill C-16 today, and that's the way we should be going.

I need unanimous consent. Do we have unanimous consent to go in camera, as suggested by Mr. Scarpaleggia? This is a non-debatable motion.

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

Mr. Chair, I too was surprised to see the orders of the day for this morning. In fact, while we did not make any decision concerning our future business, I was under the impression that the Shipping Federation of Canada, the industry representatives, were going to appear this morning. Unless we are told that they were going to talk about something other than Bill C-16, it seems to me that we were to have them with us this morning.

Indeed, we have not agreed on our future business, except that the Chair of the Committee was given a mandate and he undertook to consult with the Chair of the House to see if we were to go ahead with the study of Bill C-311.

I would think that before we proceed with the study of Bill C-16, the Chair should at least report to us on his consultations with the Chair of the House so that we know if we should proceed to Bill C-311 immediately after studying Bill C-16.

Without this information, the government would clearly have an advantage while another bill should also be studied immediately after Bill C-16. Thus I would like the Chair to give us his report on his consultations.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I call this meeting to order. We're going to study the estimates today, as well as continue on our work on Bill C-16 while we have the minister here.

We do appreciate that Minister Jim Prentice, who's the Minister of the Environment, is joining us today and taking time out of his busy schedule. He's joined by Deputy Minister Ian Shugart. Welcome to the committee.

With that, Minister, would you bring us your opening comments?

[Sarah Cosgrove]

There is a substantial amount of commentary pointing out that in general the higher the penalty, the greater the deterrent. There are studies that demonstrate that our current penalties are inadequate. The minimums proposed through Bill C-16 are part of an overall scheme aimed at giving guideposts to the judiciary and signalling that higher penalties are more appropriate for these offences. They're to be read in conjunction with aggravating factors, purpose clauses, and first principles that serve to establish the need for raising penalty amounts.

[Sarah Cosgrove]

We should start by mentioning that the policy objective behind the amendment proposed in Bill C-16 is not to remove discretion from the judge; rather, it is meant to add a level of accountability to the process of allocation of funds. It's our intention to amend the EDF policy once the bill comes into force. This would be to ensure that where a judge has made a recommendation, priority would be given to the EDF funds directed towards that organization, pending its ability to demonstrate that it can spend the money on the intended project and in the intended timeframe.

There have been rare instances in which organizations have become insolvent or are incapable of spending the funding. When that situation arises, the funds sit in limbo. Although that doesn't happen in the majority of cases, the bill's amendments were aimed at ensuring that the funds would be spent on environmental restoration.

[Sarah Cosgrove]

While the judiciary, I understand, has discretion, the judiciary certainly is bound by what would be set out in a statute if Bill C-16 passes.

[Chantal Proulx, Acting Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Regulatory and Economic Prosecutions Branch, Public Prosecution Service of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members. On behalf of the PPSC, I am pleased to have this opportunity to address this committee in its continuing examination of Bill C-16, the Environmental Enforcement Act.

Joining me is Erin Eacott, a front-line prosecutor with our Edmonton regional office. Ms. Eacott has considerable experience prosecuting offences under some of the statutes that would be amended by Bill C-16.

With your permission, I'd like to make a brief opening statement to frame our discussion. Since the PPSC is a new organization, I propose to provide you with a bit of background on its creation, its mandate, the services it currently provides in relation to environmental investigations and prosecutions, and how we expect Bill C-16 to impact upon current PPSC operations.

The PPSC was created on December 12, 2006 with the coming into force of the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, which forms Part 3 of the Federal Accountability Act.

The PPSC replaced the division of the Department of Justice that previously conducted federal prosecutions. The deputy head of the PPSC reports directly to the Attorney General of Canada and is known as the Director of Public Prosecutions, or DPP.

Our enabling legislation, the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, outlines the powers, duties and responsibilities of the PPSC. Its mandate is simple—to prosecute criminal offences within the jurisdiction of the Attorney General of Canada on behalf of the federal Crown in a manner that is independent of any improper influence and respects the public interest.

In addition, the act mandates us to provide advice to law enforcement agencies such as Environment Canada and Parks Canada Agency in respect of investigations that may lead to prosecutions.

Providing legal advice during a criminal investigation ensures that investigative techniques and procedures are consistent with the evolving rules of evidence and Charter protections.

Our role as legal adviser to investigative agencies is distinct from the investigative roles they perform. The PPSC is not an investigative agency and our prosecutors are not investigators. Although prosecutors provide advice during the course of an investigation, prosecutors do not initiate, direct, or supervise investigations. They do not gather evidence; that is the role of Environment Canada and Parks Canada agency enforcement officers.

Prosecutors and enforcement officers exercise separate and independent roles in Canada. Enforcement officers decide whether to commence an investigation, who to investigate, how to investigate, and whether to lay charges at the end of an investigation. This separation between investigative and prosecutorial authority is well entrenched in Canadian law.

Once charges are laid by the enforcement officer, the prosecutor must decide whether to proceed with the prosecution. The test we use is as follows. The prosecutor examines the evidence to see whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction. If there is, then he or she decides whether, in light of the provable facts and the whole of the surrounding circumstances, the public interest requires the prosecution to be pursued. If the prosecutor is not satisfied that the prosecution should proceed, he or she can put an end to it by withdrawing or staying the charges.

In exercising prosecutorial discretion, our prosecutors are guided by a desk book. This document, called The Federal Prosecution Service Deskbook, is available publicly through the PPSC's website.

In four jurisdictions in Canada, namely Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, and New Brunswick, there is a practice of pre-charge approval in environmental matters. In those jurisdictions, prosecutors exercise their discretion to prosecute once the investigation is completed but before the charges are laid. We apply the same test in pre-charge jurisdictions as we apply in post-charge jurisdictions, except that we must be satisfied the test is met before the police or the investigative agency lays the charges.

I turn now to address the operational impact of Bill C-16 on the PPSC.

Many of the statutes proposed to be amended will include mandatory minimum fines that must be imposed upon a conviction. In addition to mandatory minimum fines, the increase in the maximum penalties, doubling of fines for repeat offenders, mandatory additional fines for economic advantage gained, cumulative and per day fines, purpose clauses, sentencing principles and aggravating factors, are strong signals to the courts that these offences are very serious.

Greater penalties, improved powers to fashion creative remedies in sentencing, and the ability to revoke operating licences, will, we believe, add complexity and lengthen sentencing proceedings. There may also be constitutional challenges to this legislation.

In summary, we anticipate more trials, increased complexity of proceedings, and many more investigations due to the increased number and efforts of the enforcement officers. In terms of implementing Bill C-16, our prosecutors will continue to advise enforcement officers during their investigations and will inform the court on the intent of Parliament in passing the Environmental Enforcement Act. Our prosecutors will advocate firmly but fairly for principled sentences based on the law and the evidence before the court.

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[Cynthia Wright]

Thank you.

The enforcement bill, Bill C-16, would strengthen environmental enforcement to make polluters more accountable. The amendments are designed to contribute to the three main goals: deterrence of environmental offences, public denunciation of environmental offences, and restoration of environmental harm resulting from unlawful activity. These main goals are achieved through amendments to the fines schemes, to the sentencing provisions, and to the enforcement tools.

The bill proposes to amend six Environment Canada-administered statutes, including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, and the Migratory Birds Convention Act. It also amends three Parks Canada-administered statutes, including the Canada National Parks Act.

The bill also introduces an entirely new statute, the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, which I will discuss towards the end of my presentation.

With respect to the fines, to best understand what the bill proposes, it is necessary to first summarize the existing fines schemes under the statutes it amends. Currently, all offenders under these acts are liable to a maximum fine and/or maximum jail term. The highest current maximum fines are under CEPA, the Antarctic Environmental Protection Act, and the Migratory Birds Convention Act, at $1 million on indictment or $300,000 on summary conviction.

Other acts have lower maximum fines. For example, the International River Improvements Act currently provides for maximum fines of $500 on summary conviction and $5,000 on indictment.

Fines imposed by courts tend to be much lower than the maximum fines. The bill attempts to address this by introducing minimum fines for the most serious offences and increasing the maximum fines, by introducing higher fines for corporate offenders than for individual offenders, and by ensuring all statutes authorize the doubling of fines for second and subsequent offences.

This slide shows the fines scheme proposed by the bill. For the minimum fines for the most serious offences—by that term we mean those that are involved in direct harm or risk of harm to the environment or obstruction of authority—the proposed fines scheme includes different fines for individuals, corporations, and small-revenue corporations. These distinctions are meant to reflect the respective financial capacity of each type of offender and to ensure fines achieve their goals of deterrence and denunciation regardless of the wealth of the offender.

The proposed fines scheme also changes maximum fines from the existing high of $1 million for all offenders to $1 million for individuals, $4 million for small-revenue corporations, and $6 million for corporations. Finally, the proposed scheme provides double fine ranges for second and subsequent offenders.

Importantly, the bill authorizes the court to consider substantially similar offences under other federal or provincial environmental or wildlife laws when determining whether an offender is a second or subsequent offender.

The bill adds a provision to each statute directing that the fines collected under the statute are to be credited to the environmental damages fund to ensure they can contribute to environmental restoration goals. Currently, most funds are generally paid to the Receiver General, where they are not necessarily available for restoring environmental damage resulting from offences. The environmental damages fund, which was created in 1995, makes compensation received as a result of court awards, settlements, and voluntary payments available for rehabilitation or restoration projects. Money in the fund is to be used, where possible, for projects in the area where the harm occurred. It may also be used for research and education related to protecting and restoring the environment.

The bill adds a purpose clause to the sentencing provisions of the statutes it amends, which sets out the fundamental purposes of deterrence, denunciation, and restoration of the harmed environment. The bill also emphasizes the importance of accounting for aggravating factors when determining appropriate penalties. It adds to each statute the principle that the amount of the fine should be increased to account for every aggravating factor associated with the offence and reflect the gravity of each of those factors. It adds a list of specific aggravating factors that should be taken into account, including that the offence caused damage to the environment.

The bill ensures that when considering the gravity of aggravating factors, such as damage to the environment, the court takes into account damage to both use and non-uses of the environment. Use value and non-use values are terms of environmental economics. Their inclusion in these statutes will ensure that the full value of the environment is considered by sentencing judges.

Use values include the value derived from the direct use of the environment, such as the use of water for drinking, as well as the value derived from indirect use of the environment, such as the value of a healthy river for recreational fishing. It also includes option value, the value of the environment for a future use.

Non-use value includes the environment's existence value, the value received from knowing that a resource, a good, or a service exists, and its bequest value, the value received from ensuring that a resource, good, or service will be available to future generations.

The bill contributes to the objective of deterrence by increasing access to information about convictions. It introduces a requirement to each act for the minister to establish a publicly accessible registry of corporate convictions. This would be an Internet-based registry, housed on Environment Canada's enforcement website.

The bill also adds a provision to each statute obliging the court to order corporate offenders to notify their shareholders of the facts relating to a commission of offence and the details of the punishment imposed. This obligation is new to each statute. Previously, courts were authorized under some statutes to order offenders to publish the details of the conviction. The bill retains that discretionary authority, while at the same time adding this new mandatory order. The obligation recognizes the deterrent effect that public disclosure has on corporate behaviour. Contravention of such an order will be considered an offence for which the offenders are liable to the highest fine ranges.

Bill C-16 also proposes to add a provision to each statute, obliging the court to order an offender to pay an additional fine equal to an estimated value of any benefit, advantage, or property gained as a result of the commission of the offence. The bill also introduces explicit authority for the courts to suspend or cancel a licence, or other authorizations issued to offenders under the statute contravened, and for the courts to prohibit offenders from applying for a new licence or permit for an amount of time.

Most of the statutes amended by Bill C-16 already authorize the court to make a number of orders upon sentencing an offender. These range from ordering the offender to undertake restoration work to compensating the government for remedial work. As these provisions were added over time, the bill ensures that each statute has a comparable suite of authorities that are relevant to each one.

Bill C-16 makes amendments to the enforcement tool provisions in the statutes as well. It adds an authority for enforcement officers to issue compliance orders to several statutes. The compliance orders already exist under CEPA. By using them, enforcement officers can cause a person to cease an illegal activity or correct a contravention without having to seek an injunction or initiate a prosecution. Those formal court procedures involve specific steps and take time before remedies can be effected. As such, they're not ideal for addressing an offence that is causing or will cause immediate harm to the environment. However, a compliance order can be issued without delay. Persons who are issued a compliance order can apply to the chief review officer, an administrative decision-maker established under CEPA, to have the order reviewed. As such, fairness is ensured while enabling enforcement officers to have access to a speedy remedy for situations where immediate action is deemed necessary.

Bill C-16 further strengthens the enforcement tool by adding authority to several acts for the minister to designate analysts. Analysts are scientific or technical experts who may accompany enforcement officers to carry out specific inspection activities, including taking samples. They already operate under some statutes, including CEPA, and have been very useful. The bill also extends the limitation period on instituting proceedings by way of summary conviction from two to five years and changes the day on which this period begins, from the day on which the minister becomes aware of the offence to the day on which the offence occurs.

Finally, the bill also gives enforcement officers and analysts operating under each of the acts the same level of immunity from personal liability that is already afforded to marine safety officers, pollution response officers, and inspectors operating under the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. It ensures that enforcement officers and analysts can perform their duties in good faith, without fear of civil suits.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, the bill also creates the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act. The new act would set out the necessary framework to establish a system of administrative monetary penalties that are applicable to other statutes. The administrative monetary penalties are modest financial penalties that are limited to $5,000 for an individual and $25,000 for a corporation and are meant to provide a quick and more efficient response to the less serious offences than prosecution provides.

Administrative monetary penalties may be imposed on persons or ships by enforcement officers who have reasonable grounds to believe that the person or ship has committed an offence. Persons or ships subject to an administrative monetary penalty may pay the penalty outright or contest it administratively. The bill authorizes the chief review officer appointed under CEPA to hear appeals of administrative monetary penalties.

This ends my formal presentation, but I'd like to draw the attention of committee members to two additional documents that we've provided. One is a general overview of the bill that shows the nature of the amendments, the statutes under which it applies, and the pages and clauses of those statutes. The second one is a table that summarizes through an easy overview all the amendments that are made, where they're made, and where they already exist in the statute.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We're going to start our study on Bill C-16. And as we always do with bills, we kick off with a briefing from departmental officials.

Joining us again from the Department of the Environment are Cynthia Wright, acting assistant deputy minister of the environmental stewardship branch; Albin Tremblay, chief enforcement officer; and Sarah Cosgrove, manager, legislative advice section. We also have Linda Tingley, senior counsel, Department of Justice. From Parks Canada we have Darlene Pearson, director, legislation and policy. Welcome, all.

We're going to kick off with a 15-minute presentation from Environment Canada.

Are you presenting on behalf of Environment Canada?

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Environmental Enforcement Act

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House to speak to Bill C-16, an act to amend the Environmental Enforcement Act.

This bill, as has been stated previously, would amend environment bills and create one new act. The purpose of the bill is to stiffen penalties for environmental offences. This is the first step in the right direction.

In the past, the effectiveness of Canada's environmental legislation and regulations has been hampered by the lack of an adequate enforcement regime.

Mr. Speaker, before I go forward, I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

Bill C-16 attempts to address the shortcomings of the current laws and puts in a stronger enforcement regime. It introduces stiffer fines, penalties and new sentencing powers, and strengthens the government's ability to investigate and prosecute infractions. Canadians do need to know that there is an effective environmental enforcement regime. They need to know that polluters, poachers and wild life smugglers will be punished or will be fined and will pay for it.

Bill C-16 would not only introduce enforcement tools like fines but also sentencing. The drafting and architecture of the environmental enforcement was accomplished in many stages during three successive Liberal governments, and I am glad to see that this has been carried forward.

Climate change and its impact on the population is a well-known fact. Climate change is a global phenomena and is affecting every country.

Today I was at a breakfast meeting with the deputy minister of Jamaica. He stated that the Caribbean Islands are facing the wrath of climate change. He stated that, as a young man, hurricanes were very rare, once in 10 years, and that now hurricanes hit the islands and surrounding area on a regular basis. This has had a devastating impact on their economy.

Countries that rely on agriculture have seen their crops fail badly or totally destroyed. We have seen devastating results in our own country. In Canada, we have had droughts on the prairies and rivers dry up or overflow. Our rivers are being polluted making the water undrinkable, unsuitable for swimming or anything else and for sea life as well. We have seen the impact of climate change on the northern communities. Their way of life is threatened. The snow is melting and the polar bears are in danger.

The elephant in the room, as we discuss environmental enforcement legislation, has to do with what the government is doing to address the issue of climate change. The government has no regulatory framework for climate change.

The government has made claims that its plan would reduce GHGs by 20% by 2020 but the C.D. Howe Institute, the RBC Dominion Securities and 11 independent groups stated that the government's plan will not work. In fact, at the public accounts meeting, the Commissioner of the Environment stated that the government had achieved nothing with some of its tax credits, for example, the TTC tax credit, which was a waste of $635 million with zero reduction in GHGs, or the Eco-Fund, which is a $1.5 billion boondoggle. There is no accountability, no help in reducing GHGs and nobody knows whether any of the provinces or territories have drawn down the money or have done anything to assist with the greenhouse gas reductions.

The government still does not have a plan. Its Clean Air Act, which was introduced in the last Parliament, was a disaster. The U.S., on the other hand, under President Obama, is moving forward with an aggressive climate change policy because they realize that the science of climate change is real.

We should just look at the desertification in the Sub-Sahara. In many parts of the world, the impact of climate change has led to a lack of water and lack of arable land which has led to conflict and human tragedies.

Therefore, my question is, where is the government's plan on climate change?

With the evaporation of the clean air act from the last Parliament and its being rewritten and greatly strengthened, the government did not like it and therefore, it censored debate. Now the government is waiting for the U.S., but Canada is a sovereign state. Is there an envoy or timeline?

If we are desperately in need of environmental enforcement, we are desperately in need of a climate change plan. What will we do when the temperature increases? What are the crises that will occur?

The line of questioning that I hope will be pursued when the bill is sent to committee is: what about climate change? Where is the government's plan? What has motivated the government to move in the direction of environmental enforcement without moving to put in a proper climate change plan?

The government has put in an aggressive agenda. We would like to ensure that all parties send the bill to committee for better study.

There are 38,000 to 40,000 contaminated sites at the moment. How will environmental enforcement deal with the pre-existing liabilities for the municipalities, cities, towns and regions across the country that have these toxic sites? Who will clean up those toxic sites? How will they clean up brownfields, blackfields, et cetera? It is a troubling issue and therefore it is important that the government work with the provinces, territories and municipalities to come up with a strategy on how to compensate and restore these sites. Those questions have to be answered.

The registry of environmental offenders, which was referred to previously, is a good idea, but how will the government move forward with it? I hope the government takes its time to do a deeper study.

This bill, which relates to environmental enforcement, will bring in specific improvements to the previous legislation. A new structure of fines will be added, and nine acts will be brought under one act. The bill will bring in minimum sentences. Those are some of the positive things about the bill.

It will consolidate nine acts, bring in new enforcement regimes, new sentencing regimes. We need those regimes, but the root question which still remains is, what are we going to do about the climate change crisis? How is the government going to address these issues in the environmental enforcement bill? How will it ensure that we have in place the proper regimes, compensation and methods to clean up our contaminated sites?

With that, I would suggest that the bill be sent to committee for review and sober second thought so that people can have a proper look at it.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, before I do that, it is my sincere hope that the discussion on Bill C-16 and its Antarctic provisions and the recent announcement of research and cooperation with the United Kingdom will help all members of the House keep in mind that Arctic issues and Arctic sovereignty are about more than sensational press releases, such as those sharing the details of Russian bomber flights that did not even come into Canadian airspace.

The best way for Canadians to defend the north is to support and feel kinship to the people of the north and to seek and understand our Arctic through many possible means.

As the member said, living in the north, I mentioned years before it became a hot issue that it was accelerating faster than anyone believed. Those of us who live in the north see the permafrost melting, the species moving, new species coming up, the ice melting a lot quicker and the terribly expensive effects on our infrastructure with ice bridges melting, sewers crumbling and roads crumbling that are not frozen. We are depending on winter ice roads. As an example, we had to rent the biggest helicopter in Russia for one of our diamond mines at a huge expense because the ice bridge melted too quickly.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss Bill C-16, an omnibus bill we are referring to as the environmental enforcement act. I need not tell members in the House that omnibus bills are sweeping in scope. This bill touches on almost any legislation dealing with environmental protection that has a regime for enforcement and levying fines.

The announcement of this bill seemed to be more about re-announcing old funding commitments from budgets 2007 and 2008, including $22 million for hiring 106 new enforcement officers and $21 million to implement environmental enforcement measures, than about the legislation itself.

As I mentioned earlier, I have concerns with the government's commitment to making sure these new enforcement officers will have the capacity to find infractions and enforce environmental regulations. However, I know these will be brought up by fellow members in this debate.

I am here to discuss the provisions of this bill that alter the Antarctic Environmental Protection Act. I am certain that some Canadians will wonder why legislation originating in Ottawa features any mention of the Antarctic. The reason is our commitment to international law.

Since December 2003, people visiting the Antarctic through Canadian expeditions or tours and those operating Canadian aircraft and vessels are required to apply for a permit from the Government of Canada except when granted permission by another country that is party to the Madrid protocol.

The Madrid protocol came into force in 1998, designating the Antarctic as a natural reserve devoted to science and peace. It is also known as the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty and its purpose is to ensure that countries regulate the activities of their nationals in the Antarctic. The protocol has been ratified by 30 countries. The amendments proposed in this bill update, clarify and strengthen regulations put in place six years ago when the Liberals were on the other side of the House.

This is truly international legislation. One can review the equivalent Antarctic environmental protection legislation of other Madrid protocol countries, including the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, and note they share many similarities. Much can be learned about Canada's own Arctic through the study of the Antarctic. Recent discoveries indicate there are species that inhabit both northern and southern polar regions. Arctic seas share at least 235 species in common. These include migrating birds and grey whales, but more commonly small and elusive sea life including crustaceans, snails and worms.

In order to learn all we must learn about the effects of climate change on polar regions. We must study both poles and as legislators do all we can to facilitate scientific cooperation between the people who have a passion to carry out this research. Last month, I was pleased to see the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development announce a memorandum of understanding between Canada and the United Kingdom that will see Canadian researchers gain access to British research stations in the Antarctic in exchange for our granting access to British researchers to our stations in the far North.

These opportunities for international cooperation through science provide our researchers with venues to share their knowledge and learn from their colleagues while gaining critical data needed to understand climate change. The Antarctic blocks up about 90% of the world's freshwater. We continue to learn of studies indicating that Antarctic ice sheets are even more sensitive to subtle elevations in greenhouse gases and temperatures than we originally thought they were. We have all seen the maps and models illustrating the dramatic effects that higher sea levels will have on the coastlines and even on the earth's rotational axis.

That is one of the reasons for my private member's bill. The government should look at providing a provision in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow for environmental refugees because the predictions are that there will be over 50 million refugees coming as a result of climate change. This is all to say that going to the Antarctic to research is not about romantic adventure. It is about the research that humanity's future depends on.

I would also like to note at this time that a Yukon company won a world contract put out by the British to build an airport in the Antarctic and did an excellent job if anyone is looking for further work in the Antarctic. I hope this will serve as an incentive to the government to follow through with its commitments to building research capacity in the Arctic and to do all it can to expedite the creation of the much-discussed new high Arctic research centre.

I noticed that the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was in Iqaluit last month and that he announced that the federal government will spend $2 million on a feasibility study to help the government figure out where to build the research station: Pond Inlet, Cambridge Bay or Resolute Bay. I understand the study will take a year and a half to complete.

All I can say is that I hope the three communities, along with all the other northern communities, will receive their share of attention and support from the government regardless of which is selected for the research centre.

I also appreciate the money to upgrade existing northern research infrastructure, which I and my colleagues pushed very hard in the House for the government to come up with.

What the government has been harshly criticized for are the dramatic cutbacks in funds for the researchers themselves. As has been stated in the House, we will have a bunch of research facilities in the north that will be empty because they do not have access to sufficient government funds to continue their research.

As I have already noted in this House, the PEARL research centre in Eureka is in jeopardy. The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences received no new funding from the Government of Canada in the last budget. Without new funding, CFCAS will be shut down by this time next year taking 24 research networks that are focused on climate change with it. This is insanity.

Does the government not see money spent on climate change research as money well spent? Do we want the opposite of what common sense says we should do? Does the government believe that drought is an important issue facing Canada?

If so, how can the government cut the funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences that funds the only comprehensive drought study ever conducted in Canada? The drought research initiative, DRI, is focusing on drought in Canada, on the prairies, and, in particular, is contributing to the better prediction and adaptation to this crisis.

Does the government support greater resiliency to natural disasters in Canada? How can the government cut funding for CFCAS projects that examine a range of extreme events, such as storms, floods and droughts, over many parts of the country? These projects include DRI and the storm studies in the Arctic, STAR, research networks. DRI was discussed above and STAR is the first ever research project to examine eastern Canadian storms.

Both STAR and DRI are working closely with those affected by natural disasters to increase their resiliency. This includes farmers, water managers, Arctic communities, et cetera. I implore the government to reinstate this critical funding for Arctic and other climate change research.

I find the government all too willing to announce initiatives in support of the north through highly visible events that capture the attention of the media for a day or two and raise the hopes of the people in the north only to go silent for months with no news of progress. We can take our pick, whether it is the deep-sea port at Nanisivik, three icebreakers or supply ships with reinforced hulls or enacting a respectable climate change policy, members of the government are experts at staging photo ops but it is too slow to deliver.

For the benefit of my colleagues and those Canadians with direct interests in Antarctic research, I would like to take some time to outline a few of the changes this bill would bring.

The provisions would ensure that any polluter, whether the person is Canadian or the person is in the Antarctic under a Canadian licence, would be held responsible under Canadian law. This demonstrates that Canada is capable of meeting its international treaty commitments.

Of course, it is not only Canadian scientists who travel to the Antarctic but increasingly large tour groups organized in Canada and elsewhere.

The reasons for the legislation and amendments are summed up well in clause 50.9, which states:

The fundamental purpose of sentencing for offences under this Act is to contribute to respect for the law protecting the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems in light of the global significance of the Antarctic and the Treaty....

The section goes on to state that the sentencing measures within the act exist to deter the offender, denounce unlawful conduct that puts the environment at risk and to reinforce the “polluter pays” principle by ensuring the offenders are held responsible for effective cleanup and restoration. These were always the objective of the legislation but they are now spelled out in their own section.

I also would point out that sections 30, 32 and 37 would now offer enforcement officers more discretionary powers to compel potentially offending vessels to follow instruction and allow the officer to seize a vessel, regardless of whether or not it is Canadian, if there are reasonable grounds to believe an offence has been committed.

Section 37 states that a foreign state must be notified that a detention order against a vessel registered in that state was made.

Section 44 states that the offending party shall be held liable for the costs of the seizure, so no need to worry our friends at Treasury Board.

Finally, the last amendment of note is clause 51(2), which states:

If a Canadian vessel or other vessel commits an offence under this Act, every director or officer of a corporation that is an owner or an operator of the vessel who directed or influenced the corporation’s policies or activities...is a party to and guilty of the offence.....

I am pleased to see the legislation take a strong stand on corporate responsibility.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Yukon.

A former Conservative premier addressed a crowd of reporters and residents in Walkerton, Ontario, where hundreds of people suffered from drinking E. coli. contaminated water and seven people died. He said, “We have a terrible tragedy here”.

Unfortunately, all could have been prevented. Dr. Murray McQuigge, the local medical officer of health, revealed that the Walkerton Public Utilities Commission knew there was a problem with the water several days before it told the public. Illnesses could have been prevented, in part, if cuts to the environment ministry and deregulation of water testing had not occurred.

The environment minister reported that, “If there is something positive that can ever come out of an event like this, it is that changes be made to ensure that it doesn't ever happen again”.

Bill C-16 is an important step to improving the health of Canada's environment. Specifically, it would help enhance and protect environmental health and human health by standardizing and strengthening penalties across all of the federal government's environmental laws and by requiring that violators pay to repair environmental damage beyond paying fines, ensuring that polluting was not just part of the cost of doing business.

The Conservative Minister of the Environment proudly reports:

In the election campaign, our government committed to bolster the protection of our water, air and land through tougher environmental enforcement that holds polluters accountable. Today we delivered...the new measures will provide a comprehensive, modern and effective enforcement regime for Canada.

What assurances can the government provide regarding its ability to implement the provisions? Also, will the newly hired and trained offers be sufficient to do the work that is required to enforce Canada's environmental laws? What accountability measures will be put in place to ensure enforcement? How truly comprehensive is the proposed bill if it fails to address our most pressing environmental issue, namely climate change?

Global warming will in fact impact the very items that Bill C-16 aims to safeguard. As a result of climate change, we are already seeing changes in caribou, polar bear and seal populations, changes in permafrost and impacts on traditional ways of life. In the future, climate change will potentially impact migratory birds, their flyways and possibly the spread of avian influenza.

Our country's current climate policies are widely criticized in Canada by external research bodies, parliamentarians, the public and the scientific community.

In contrast, President Obama is recognized for taking global warming seriously and is listening to scientists who tell us that the situation is outdistancing our efforts to confront it. The President said:

We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be dealt with in a serious way.

President Obama has since called for hard caps on global warming, cleared the way for tougher clean car standards, declared an intention to play a constructive role in international climate negotiations and introduced a serious green stimulus package.

The Prime Minister, however, believes that the differences between the American and Canadian regimes are not near as stark as some would suggest. He said:

When I look at the President's platform the kind of targets that his administration has laid out for the reduction of greenhouse gases are very similar to ours.

Climate Action Network Canada and US Climate Action Network, representing 100 leading organizations in Canada and the United States that are working together to prevent catastrophic climate change and promote sustainable and equitable solutions, argue that Canada needs to overhaul its current approach and raise its level of ambition to have a credible climate change policy.

Today the issue of climate change is more pressing than ever as considerable time lags in the climate system mean that many impacts of climate change are already locked in over the coming decades. Today's buildings, power plants and transportation systems continue to produce increased emissions, meaning an even greater delay and increased warming in the future. Moreover, as some of the climate risks materialize, the economic costs will be much steeper than those from the current financial crisis.

Canadians want action on climate change, as recognized by a former Conservative environment minister who said back in 2007, “Canadians want action, they want it now”.

As testament to this fact, during earth hour 2008, Canada had almost 10 million people participating in 150 cities from coast to coast to coast. People in cities across Canada held candlelight dinners, enjoyed time with family and friends, and went on neighbourhood walks. In Toronto, electricity demand dropped by almost 9%, the equivalent of taking 260 megawatts off the grid or approximately 5.8 million light bulbs.

This hear earth hour falls on Saturday, March 28, with more than 1,500 cities across 80 countries committing to reduce electrical consumption, with more coming onboard every day. Canada currently ranks second for the most city sign ups at 258.

Canadians understand that earth hour will not reverse or reduce climate change but, rather, will raise awareness about the climate challenges the world is facing. Earth hour presents a good opportunity for people to show their federally elected representatives that they support actions to fight climate change.

However, it is worth noting that most Canadian provinces have emission reduction targets that are much more ambitious than that of the federal government. Canada's largest province, Ontario, is moving ahead with the cap and trade system based on absolute caps aimed at meeting its reduction target of 15% below 1990 levels by 2020, with an implementation date of January 1, 2010.

The Conservative government must protect our atmosphere. It must build partnerships with business, consumers, local authorities and the energy sector. It must find abatement solutions and reduce fossil fuel subsidies that currently put a premium rather than a penalty on CO₂ emissions.

Many policy instruments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have significant implications for government revenues and expenditures. An OECD analysis provides examples of ambitious emission reductions that can be achieved through auctioned tradable emission permits, with estimates of fiscal revenues reaching over 5% of world GDP by 2050. Although we are talking about domestic policy, it is important to note that tackling climate change requires strong collective action worldwide.

Indications of climate change must be treated with the utmost seriousness and with the precautionary principle uppermost in parliamentarians' minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of humankind. They may lead to greater competition for the earth's resources and induce large-scale migration. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries.

In closing, my appeal to the government would be to please listen and reflect on the voices of science and Canadians regarding climate change and, most importantly, to act with determination and a sense of urgency.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise in the House to speak in support of Bill C-16, but with serious reservations. I look forward to the opportunity to review the bill with the appropriate officials in committee so some of those reservations might be addressed and so I can fully support the bill.

I worked in the field of environmental enforcement for 35 years and had the opportunity to be the first chief of enforcement for Environment Canada. As a result of that work, I count as some of my best friends and most revered colleagues the former chiefs of investigation for each of the regions of Environment Canada, who deserve to be lauded as heroes of the planet. They often go unheralded in our move to protect the environment.

When I taught at Dalhousie Law School, I simultaneously did my master of law. The topic of it, which I would like to donate to the library for everybody's use, was “Effective Environmental Enforcement: the Missing Link to Sustainable Development”. What does that mean? It essentially means there is no point of having laws and policies in place unless there is the political will of the government to actually abide by and enforce those laws and policies. The bill is supposed to be about that.

The bill provides for a much welcomed array of expanded tools for enforcement officers, long overdue tools, many of which I recommended to the Government of Canada in 1988. I applaud the government for finally bringing forward this massive bill of almost 200 pages, which is a compendium of amendments of eight bills and the addition of a new bill. However, I have some serious reservations on some of the provisions and the rationale for why those changes are being made, which I wish to address.

When the original Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA as it is called in short form, was first tabled by the then Hon. Tom McMillan, minister of the environment, he took very profound action and that set a change in environmental enforcement right across this country.

When Minister McMillan tabled the first CEPA, he also tabled in the House an enforcement and compliance policy. This was an historic step. When the minister tabled that policy, he stated to the House:

As strong as the Act is, it is not good enough to have only a sound piece of legislation; it must be enforced. To that end, I am releasing today, as a companion to the legislation itself, an Enforcement and Compliance Policy designed to prevent pollution, to encourage co-operation and to deal harshly with those who would violate the Act.

That simple action of the minister tabling the policy in the House set in motion a change across the country and necessitated all provincial jurisdictions and all provincial departments of the environment to do the same. In order for the provinces to claim equivalency under CEPA, which would mean that they could enforce their laws instead of the federal law, they also had to put in place an equivalent enforcement and compliance policy.

What did that do for Canadians, what did that do for Canadian industry and what did that do for enforcement officers? It basically made a clear statement saying: first, they were obligated to obey environmental law; and, second, if they violated this environmental law, then a number of things could happen. It set forth very clearly what the various enforcement measures were available in the legislation and in addition to the legislation so any violator would know what to anticipate. It also set out clearly the criteria for when each of those measures would be used.

There is one thing that I find missing, very sadly, in the hon. minister's tabling of this legislation. Even though it may include a lot of important measures, he has provided the House absolutely no clarity on how those various new tools will be used. When are we going to go to court? When are we going to use administrative penalties? When are we going to recommend that permits be withdrawn? I encourage the minister to come back to the House, before we finally deal with this bill, and bring forward a strategic document. What guidance will be provided to his officials and how they will exercise the various new powers under that law?

In general, I am rising in support of Bill C-16. There is no one more important in Canada right now for the protection of our environment than our enforcement officers. They are often forgotten and they are often at the bottom of the list for additional funds and tools. It is long overdue that they be lauded for the role they play in protecting the health of Canadians and the environment. I rise in the House as well to commend and honour them and the good work they have done for Canadians.

I have some reservations and I look forward to the opportunity in committee, as I have mentioned to my fellow members of the parliamentary committee, to bring forth the appropriate officials from the Department of the Environment, from Parks Canada, and from the Department of Justice, as well as independent environmental enforcement experts, to talk to us about what the implications are of the various measures in the bill, so that we can fully understand the bill before us.

If we deem it appropriate, we can rise and support the bill and it can be expeditiously put forward and made available to the enforcement officers.

First, as did the hon. member from the Bloc who spoke earlier, I want to speak to the irony of the minister tabling this bill claiming commitment to the enforcement of federal environmental laws.

The irony is that the government has issued a full frontal attack on environmental protection ever since it came to power. There are still no enforceable regulations for greenhouse gases or for the countless toxins or pollutants awaiting regulation under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act or the federal Fisheries Act. Therefore, while it is nice to have these enforcement powers, there is not much to enforce.

The government has opposed Kyoto as a socialist plot. When will it come forward with binding regulations, as my colleague said previously, so that the enforcement officers can actually inspect, validate and enforce those laws, even if they are emissions trading rules?

In the fall 2008 Speech from the Throne, the government brought forward basically the same principles it put forward in its Turning the Corner report. Those principles were that environmental laws are simply red tape.

We witnessed just last week the action by the Minister of the Environment to unilaterally change significant regulations that have been in place following in-depth consultation with regulated industry, members of the public, and provincial and territorial governments, to unilaterally amend regulations without even providing a Canada Gazette notice in advance, essentially violating its own regulation-making power.

This removal of red tape is going to have a profound effect on the people who live downwind or downstream of these projects that the government is fast-tracking without any environmental impact assessment.

The concerns have been raised over and over in the House. The sad thing is that just when we finally get some strong environmental laws in place, including the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which has been in place for many decades, the federal Fisheries Act, which has been updated over time, and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the government moves forward and simply erases most of the laws that are in place to protect the public. Essentially the government is saying it has no interest in enforcing those important measures. Where is the real commitment of the federal government to enforce environmental law?

In its own Turning the Corner report, in its throne speech and in its budget, which has passed, there is absolutely no mention of support for clean energy or renewable power in its proposals for clean electricity. So where are the strong measures that in fact we will put in place to protect people's health and environment?

The 2009 budget was an assault on environmental protection, an assault on renewable power, an assault on scientific research, which was very critical to determining environmental cases, and an assault on the precautionary principle, which is exactly what the Navigable Waters Protection Act is all about and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

What is even more important is that in bringing forward those measures, those changes to our critical environmental laws without providing the opportunity for advance notice and comment by either regulated industry or the public, the very government that says it is getting serious about environment enforcement has abrogated international agreements.

It has abrogated the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. That is the sidebar agreement to NAFTA, between Canada, the United States and Mexico. Provisions of that agreement require, under article 2, that the government has committed not to downgrade any environmental law for an economic benefit.

In article 3, the government commits to advance notice and comment to any concerned party on any proposed environmental policy.

So the government, by doing that action without even gazetting its regulation, by passing it without any opportunity of advance notice or comment, has also abrogated an international agreement with the United States of America, which it claims to be in co-operation with.

What is in the bill? There are a number of good measures in the bill, and there are also a number of significant measures that are not in the bill. I took the time to look at previous reports of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, which of course includes members from all parties.

The report from 1998 is very instructive. It provided almost 30 recommendations to improve the environmental enforcement system in Canada. There is something very profound and different about that particular parliamentary committee review. For the first time in history they actually brought in the regionally based enforcement officers to testify and to talk about what the real barriers were to effective enforcement of environmental law. Those recommendations are very instructive and I encourage members to reference that report by the parliamentary committee.

Some of those recommendations, to the credit of the government, have been acted on, some long overdue. The government has expanded the powers of enforcement officers, which is very appreciated by them. There is partial response to the recommendation to publish all enforcement data and to table that information in the House.

Provinces such as British Columbia have been doing that for quite some time. It regularly reports to the public online and provides written reports and tabling in the House so that all can know who is violating the law and what kind of action the government has been taking.

Unfortunately the government has chosen to implement only a very small part of that recommendation—the recommendation, by the way, that has been endorsed by many of the 100 member countries of the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, which Canada participates in.

The government has agreed to table with the public and inform them of parties who are convicted. That is not really a great measure, because anyone can find out who is convicted, by looking at the court proceedings.

The measures it has not included are all violations, all warnings issued, all orders issued, all tickets issued, all agreements and all charges. Those are matters that the committee recommended and has not had action taken on.

The government has strengthened penalties, although there is no rationale for the minimum and maximum penalties, and I look forward to that description being provided in committee. I have yet to see the government table any kind of specific rationale from any kind of independent authority, or even its own government, explaining why it is that we have to shanghai the courts' powers to tell them what the minimum penalty and maximum penalty might be.

The maximum penalty has been increased to $6 million, but who is to say that is sufficient if an entire watershed is destroyed, or perhaps in a situation such as the Valdez, if that should occur in the Arctic? Where the entire food source of people in the Arctic or their ability to continue activities would be completely annihilated, it could be more in the order of billions of dollars lost. So I look forward to elaboration of that in committee and later in the House.

There is a broader array of enforcement tools, and orders are a welcome tool. However, the suspension of licences and permits is a complete mystery to me, because that is generally understood as being a provincial-level power. Perhaps that is what the Liberal critic was speaking to, that his party questions some of the constitutionality of the measures. I suppose the minister and the officials will come and defend that in committee.

The one really critical issue is fettering the discretion of the court. One of the measures in the bill actually fetters the discretion of the court. The court currently in the law has the power when it convicts a party to order that the convicted party actually compensate an affected community, or to actually award moneys to people who have been working to protect the environment and can further that cause. Regrettably, the government has decided that the court may only recommend to the minister those people it may compensate, which introduces some level of ministerial and political interference. It is basically recognized in the environmental enforcement profession as a completely inappropriate interference in the discretion of officers in enforcement. I look forward to the rationale for that provision.

What is not in the bill? A number of critical federal environmental laws are not mentioned, for some reason. The government has decided to consolidate and improve and provide a broader array of powers to a number of acts, but not the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, not the federal Fisheries Act, not the endangered species legislation, and not the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. It is a mystery to me why on earth those acts are not included. In particular, the federal Fisheries Act is known to be the strongest federal law in existence for the protection of the environment. I look forward to an explanation as to why that is not included.

Among the significant enforcement measures not included as well is a provision that is in the federal Fisheries Act, and that is the right of anyone who initiates a private prosecution or brings forward the charges to receive half of any penalty imposed.

The parliamentary committee had actually recommended that as far back as 1998. I look forward to an explanation as to why they did not carry forward that long overdue amendment.

Again, where is the compliance enforcement policy for all these acts that are included in the bill? We need to understand how these new, innovative tools will be used, in particular the proposed new Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, which has never been used. There is actually no explanation of how that will work in the array of tools.

Where are the long-promised strengthened standards and regulations for air pollutants, toxins and greenhouse gases? Without having regulations in place, frankly there is nothing to enforce. While the Canadian Environmental Protection Act has been on the books now for almost three decades, very little action has been taken by any of the governments in power to actually promulgate the regulations so we have binding standards that can be enforced.

Where, finally, is the tool to require an assessment of the efficacy of the array of tools? The Government of Canada has participated for the last 15 years in the coming together of the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement. One of the most important discussions that the enforcement agencies across the world have discussed is the need for clear indicators of effective enforcement action.

Article 5 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation under NAFTA obligates Canada to effectively enforce its environmental laws. It has yet to come forward with the clear criteria so that Canadians can determine whether we are effectively enforcing the environmental laws.

Those are essentially the comments I wish to make. I laud the government for bringing forward these improved measures, but I have also raised a number of serious questions that I look forward to having addressed either by the minister in the House on future readings of the bill or in committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today on Bill C-16.

This bill was introduced by the government on March 4, 2009. It is what I would term an omnibus bill, because it amends a number of environmental statutes. It runs to close to 190 pages and beefs up the enforcement, fines, penalty and sentencing provisions relating to offences against an environmental act. Nine pieces of legislation are amended, including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (1999), the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act, the Antarctic Environmental Protection Act, the International River Improvements Act, the Canada National Parks Act and the National Marine Conservation Areas Act.

We were somewhat surprised when the government introduced this omnibus bill on March 4. What we were expecting from them was not an omnibus bill beefing up the enforcement, penalties and fines relating to offences against the environmental acts, but rather a regulatory framework such as the government had announced with great pomp and circumstance in 1997. Here on Parliament Hill, people were expecting an announcement from the government about regulations and legislation on climate change, an act that would make Canada a contributor to the international efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, particularly as we are leading up to the important conference on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009. Everyone was expecting the government to come up with a response to this regulatory framework that has been promised since 2007, particularly with a new administration in place south of the border, one that has made a commitment to come to the conference on climate change with legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Also, given the rumours that were circulating in recent weeks, we would have expected the government to announce changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in order to exempt certain projects from Canadian environmental assessment. However, no climate change bill was introduced. The regulations that were presented to us were hastily introduced last Friday, in a document that was not even published in the Canada Gazette for consultation for 30 days, which is normally what happens. No, instead the government used the fast tracking approach to pass regulations directly by cabinet order.

All this at a time when this government prides itself on balancing economic and environmental concerns. It is extremely disappointing to see that the government refuses to honour the formal commitment made by the Minister of the Environment just a few months ago in Poznan, Poland. There, in front of the entire international community, this government said that an economic crisis should not hamper Canadian and international efforts to protect the environment. Furthermore, I would remind this House what the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, said. He told the international community that one crisis is not an excuse for failing to take action on another crisis. The fact is, measures to fight climate change, or the absence thereof, demonstrate that this government has chosen to favour accelerated economic development, to the detriment of protecting the environment.

This flies in the face of an international principle recognized in Rio in the early 1990s: sustainable development. What has this government done instead? It has decided to go the old “law and order” route by upping the penalties for those who commit environmental offences and bringing in tougher sentences for those who violate the nine environmental acts.

How? A thorough study of the bill reveals that the government has decided to create a new fine structure and add it to each of the nine acts to set different fines for individuals, corporations, and ships.

Under the new structure, minimum fines would be stipulated for serious offences, and maximum fines would be increased. Fines would be doubled for subsequent offences. The bill would also direct all fines to the environmental damages fund so they may be used to repair the harm done by offences.

Can environmental catastrophes be avoided by increasing fines, sanctions and penalties? Wealthy companies will just end up buying pollution rights because of the government's new structure.

For example, in one particular sector, the oil sands in the west, as recently as February 2009—not so very long ago—Syncrude was charged under the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act and subject to a $300,000 fine or a maximum prison term of six months for dumping toxic substances into tailing ponds used in oil sands exploitation north of Fort McMurray.

This practice is common in Canada's oil industry, particularly in oil sands operations. As a result, 500 ducks died, and the company was formally charged under federal legislation and provincial legislation in Alberta.

Even if the government increases fines for super-rich companies that make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, what is to stop them from buying pollution rights thanks to the new structure?

The government needs to understand that increasing fines and penalties will not fix the problem. Structural changes to the industry are needed. We have to stop giving tax breaks that help polluting industries.

On the one hand, tax advantages are being given to the tar sands industry via a system of accelerated capital cost allowances. Our tax dollars—we cannot call these subsidies because they are clearly the tax dollars of the people of Quebec and Canada—are subsidizing the operations of a polluting industry. On the other hand, fines are being increased.

Penalties need not necessarily be increased; what is needed instead is to engage in an industrial repositioning so that Canada will be responding to the call by the United Nations to be part of the “green new deal”, which recommends that nations reinvest in sectors of activity that will contribute to repositioning the global economy at a time when an economic stimulus is needed. Rather than continuing to subsidize the oil and gas industry and to provide it with tax incentives, what we need is to follow the example of the economic stimulus program presented by our neighbours to the south. The incentive plan that President Obama has presented includes six times more investment per capita in energy efficiency and renewable energies. That is the example to follow.

But the approach the federal government has chosen instead is to increase fines for major polluters, while at the same time continuing to fund them. Basically, the big winner in the end is that industry, which Canada is helping out. The big losers are Canada's ecosystems and its taxpayers.

It is somewhat distressing as well that we are holding this debate today, 20 years after an event that led to a real human drama: the wreck of the Exxon Valdez. Twenty years ago, in 1989, a ship whose hull was breached spilled more than 80,000 barrels of oil into the northern waters off Alaska.

We realize today that penalties and fines are not the way to avoid this kind of environmental damage. We are also aware that environmental damage also creates human dramas, from the experience of the northern communities around Alaska after that oil spill 20 years ago.

Some might say it is time to forget something that happened 20 years ago. But we must not forget it. Why not? Because if there was a very slim chance of such a thing happening 20 years ago, and yet it did, the risk will be greater in a few years, particularly with the development of this northwestern corridor. This northwest passage from Europe to Asia will see far more traffic, given the climate changes that are opening up a new passage to the north. As a result, the fragile ecosystems of the Arctic, pristine as they are today, will be at increasing risk in the years to come.

Some people believe that the Exxon Valdez disaster that took place 20 years ago could not happen again. But the truth is that the risk of such a disaster is greater than ever. The Government of Canada wants to extend its sovereignty in the north by extending the 200-mile limit, with these navigable waters and environmental legislation enforcement zones. I have nothing against that, but at the same time, what does this government really want? It wants to make sure that Canadian companies that want to can develop the huge global reserves of natural resources in that extended area. What does that mean for the north? It means that there will be more and more marine activity, more and more oil exploration and development and greater risks to our northern ecosystems.

Will heavier sentences and fines reduce these risks? Penalties are not a bad thing, but we have to work on prevention. We have to make sure that this area of the north can be protected. We have to make sure that the wildlife in our ecosystems can be protected.

That brings us to the sort of enforcement we want to see put in place here in Canada. It is all well and good to want to change the fine structure, but the current laws must be enforced.

I have been a member of this House since 1997, and I have seen a number of environmental laws enacted in Canada, including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Species at Risk Act. But the fact is that we lack the resources to enforce these acts. We can give officers more power, but there are very few officers on the ground to enforce the law.

Let us look at the enforcement record in Canada. Officials with the Department of the Environment admitted that, on average, they had laid three to 14 charges and obtained one to five convictions a year since 2000 and that the maximum fine of $1 million provided by law had been imposed only once in 20 years. We are not the ones saying that.

What does that mean? We can increase fines, but if the maximum fine has been imposed only once in 20 years, there is a good chance the system and the new structure will not be enforced in Canada.

Naturally we support the bill and are not opposed to it. However, it does not provide a structural solution to environmental issues here in Canada. What was required, as I mentioned earlier, was the tabling of long overdue regulations on climate change. We must establish greenhouse gas emissions ceilings that will make it possible to set up a true carbon market that we hope to have in future. Canada must go to Copenhagen in a few months with climate change legislation that establishes 1990 as the reference year for green house gas emissions reductions. This country must acknowledge that we must limit the temperature increase to 2^oC above pre-industrial levels. That is what scientists are telling us.

To reach this objective, we must put in place absolute targets resulting in a reduction of between 25% and 40% of green house gas emissions from 1990 levels, by 2020. But wait. The government has decided to use 2005 as the reference year instead, ignoring all efforts made since 1990 and setting the counter to zero in Canada. In 2006, Quebec firms had managed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 10% from 1990 levels.

What does that mean? It means that we are establishing a system that will ignore all past efforts and the increase in greenhouse gases in Canada generated by the Canadian oil industry. We must not adopt a polluter-paid approach; we must have a polluter-pay approach.

Therefore, we will support the bill before us even though it is clearly inadequate. We would really have liked a climate change bill that introduced structural changes for industrial commitments. That is how we will truly protect our ecosystems.

The House resumed from March 23 consideration of the motion that Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[John Baird, Conservative, Minister of Transport]

Thank you very much, Chairman Tweed. I am very pleased to be here today to discuss Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. As a northern country, Canada's Arctic is central to our national identity. It's an expression of our deepest aspirations, our sense of exploration, and our limitless potential.

Over the last three years this government has demonstrated its commitment to Canada's Arctic by introducing measures to help the north realize its vast potential. We have pressed Canada's Arctic sovereignty to the world, protected our environmental heritage for the benefit of all Canadians, and promoted economic and social development throughout this important region of Canada.

On a personal note, my time as Minister of the Environment and particularly as Minister responsible for Parks Canada offered me the opportunity to help protect our northern region. I'm particularly proud of significant land conservation measures we undertook in the Northwest Territories, proud of the progress we made toward expanding Nahanni, and proud of the efforts we undertook around Slave Lake, to name a few successes.

The bill before us today, the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, allows Canada to carry out its responsibility to preserve the fragile ecological balance in the water, ice, and land areas of the Canadian Arctic by prohibiting the dumping of waste in Arctic waters. This act also requires that Arctic waters adjacent to the mainland and islands of the Canadian Arctic be navigated in a way that respects the residents of Canada's northern communities. Bill C-3 seeks to replace the definition of Arctic waters in the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. It extends the geographical application from 100 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles, which is the maximum area Canada is allowed under international law. The doubling of the application allows us to strengthen our pollution protection regime, not just now but particularly in the years and decades to come as the Northwest Passage and the Arctic waters become more traversable.

Bill C-3 proposes a relatively simple amendment, yet it demonstrates to the world that Canada is serious about protecting the Arctic marine environment and more. The potential growth of international shipping, while key to the economic development of our Arctic, may also bring challenges. It raises the potential of environmental threats like oil spills, poaching, and contamination, which would be particularly acute in the sensitive Arctic ecosystem. The extension from 100 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles will ensure an appropriate basis for managing risks of pollution from vessels. For Canada to truly exercise effective management in the Arctic, we need to put in place a strong and proactive regulatory framework for marine transportation and we need to back that up with real action. We're very much being proactive in this regard, not waiting for next year, or 10 years, or 25 years from now for an accident to happen and for us to regret not taking more proactive measures.

Transport Canada is already planning to assess the transportation infrastructure needs in the north for the next 20 to 30 years. Over the next five years Transport Canada is dedicating $1 million, under the gateways and border crossings fund, to support a northern transportation research program. We are increasing support for the coast guard, and in the coming years we will welcome a new icebreaker, the John George Diefenbaker, which will play an important role in enforcing our Arctic sovereignty. I know all members of the committee share my enthusiasm not just because it's a new coast guard vessel but particularly because it's so aptly named. The Prime Minister made this announcement in Inuvik, where Prime Minister Diefenbaker officially opened the community some 50 years ago.

We've seen an increased number of environmental enforcement officers, many of whom were trained at Algonquin College in my own riding of Ottawa West--Nepean. It should be noted that my colleague the Minister of the Environment, has also introduced Bill C-16, the Environmental Enforcement Act, which addresses the important issue of enforcement of our environmental protection and wildlife conservation laws. I had the opportunity to work on that before the last cabinet shuffle.

While Bill C-3 helps to provide an appropriate basis for managing the environmental risks of the intensification of marine activities in the Arctic, it is only the beginning. Further amendments are also needed to protect the environment, increase the security of our waterways, establish the framework for future economic development, and to strengthen the exercise of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. We have done that through many ways, whether it's through our military, through science, through research, through the coast guard, through economic development, but we can also do it environmentally.

This government is committed to introducing regulations under the Canada Shipping Act to require vessels entering Canada's Arctic waters to report to the Canadian Coast Guard's NORDREG reporting system. We are working toward having these regulations in place for the 2010 shipping season.

Under the current regime, reporting is voluntary. Our changes will make reporting mandatory and will apply to all Canadian waters north of sixty, including the increased area of application of the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act that will result if and when Bill C-3 is passed.

These measures will send a clear message to the world that Canada takes responsibility for environmental protection and enforcement in our Arctic waters. Extending the application of the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act will demonstrate the government's commitment to the Arctic and to managing the environmental tasks associated with marine transport in the Arctic.

Canada's future is tied to an Arctic that is vibrant and thriving. With this legislation we're protecting our sovereignty over the Arctic and we're developing our northern resources. Together we are protecting this precious and sensitive ecosystem for future generations of this planet.

Thank you very much.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this is another example of the government introducing a huge omnibus bill with a whole bunch of different items in it. Bill C-16 is 216 pages long.

The member red-flagged the Fisheries Act. Why does the member think the Fisheries Act was not included in the bill? It seems to have everything else.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his speech on Bill C-16. I would like to focus on the real changes that will result from this bill. As my colleague said, it is sort of a “law and order” approach. The question is whether this approach will really bring about significant changes and improvements in the environment. Here is an example.

In February, the federal government charged Syncrude Canada with violating the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, by releasing toxic material into tailing ponds in northern Alberta, which led to the death of 500 ducks.

Under this act, this company is liable to a $300,000 fine or six months in prison. Does my colleague believe that Bill C-16 will really change the behaviour of corporate polluters?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here tonight to speak to Bill C-16, the government's environmental enforcement act.

I would like to, first, congratulate the legislative drafting team at Justice Canada, through the legal services division of Environment Canada, for their hard work on putting together this very large bill.

I would like to thank all the Environment Canada officials who have worked on this feverishly now for several years, many of whom of course were originally involved in the drafting of the architecture of environmental enforcement in this country, 80% to 90% of which was accomplished over three successive Liberal governments. Many of those individuals I know personally. I know they have been working feverishly on this bill for many years and it is the culmination of so much of their investment in serving Canadians on this front. I would like to congratulate those officials on behalf of all parliamentarians for their good service.

This is really quite a sweeping bill. It is a 225-page document, with far-reaching consequences. Subject to study at committee, the official opposition intends to support the bill going forward. We do, however, have an awful lot of questions about the motivation behind the bill, questions around the constitutionality of the bill, and questions around the evidence that might or might not backstop this bill.

As I said, it moves to strengthen and standardize penalties that polluters across all of the federal government's environmental laws would face and it builds on the substantial architecture set in place by successive Liberal governments.

We know that requiring violators to pay to repair, for example, environmental damage on top of paying fines is an important step. It is a step in the right direction in ensuring that pollution is not just part of the cost of doing business.

We are also pleased the government is building on the 1995 environmental damages fund created by the former Liberal government. We wish only that the government was this aggressive and forward-looking, and prepared to build on the good work of the previous government on climate change. It is too bad it was not as aggressive and forward-looking on its climate change work.

In that regard, I would like to share with Canadians a few impressions of the official opposition about the state of climate change and the degree to which Bill C-16 might apply to the climate change crisis.

The parliamentary secretary rightly pointed out that the Species at Risk Act is being examined now by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, a mandated five-year review, which the former Liberal government brought to bear for Canada.

We have heard from the critic from the NDP that there is an obvious and gaping omission with the absence of the Fisheries Act. For the parliamentary secretary to suggest that it is because it does not fall within the purview of the Minister of the Environment, I am not sure if that washes with Canadians. There are probably improvements to be made under the Fisheries Act and it is a mystery, still, as to why it has not been woven into these series of acts that are all being amended under this one bill.

However, the real elephant in the room for Canadians is climate change. How is this environmental enforcement act going to apply to the climate change crisis?

I feel for my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, because he is in a very difficult situation. I think the government is now in a very difficult situation because it has no climate change plan. The plan that it put forward under the last Parliament has been withdrawn. We have no regulatory framework. Eleven independent groups, from the C.D. Howe Institute to the Pembina Institute to RBC Dominion Securities to a series of third-party groups, have examined the government's claim that it would, for example, reduce greenhouse gases by 20% from 2005 levels by 2020. Every single group, including Deutsche Bank, and every group that has examined the government's plan has simply said it will not work.

We have no plan and now we are waiting for the United States, where 535 Congress people are trying to craft a single cap and trade scheme for delivery to the president, and a renewable energy plan, but we have no matching plan to bring to the table.

We have a dialogue of the deaf because we have a government that purports to be in conversations, no “negotiations”, with the new Obama administration, but we see no independence being manifested by the government on behalf of this country. We are not acting like a sovereign state on climate change. There are no negotiations. There is no special envoy. The Minister of Finance does not know what the price of carbon is in the international markets. There are no timelines.

For that matter, we are not even sure what the government will do with the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, a legislative tool that was brought to bear by members of the opposition and forced on to the government after, of course, it withdrew its Clean Air Act from the last parliament because it was re-written and greatly strengthened by all opposition parties. However, the government did not like the bill, did not like the new improved Clean Air Act, so it did what it does best, it censured debate and it prorogued Parliament.

As a result, the new and improved Clean Air Act evaporated into thin air and the government is now without a climate change plan, waiting for the United States and not acting like an independent country. There are no negotiations. There is no envoy. There are no timelines. The Department of Finance has not crafted a tradeable permit scheme for this country, so we are now in a situation where, when we look at environmental enforcement, we are led to ask the question: why this and why now? If we are in desperate need of enhanced environmental enforcement, how will it apply to the single, greatest crisis civilization has ever known, and that is the climate change crisis and temperature increases? That is a line of questioning that we hope to pursue at committee with the government when we do see the bill there.

What has motivated the government? I believe it is motivated by good faith, but I also believe that it is part and parcel of the government's recent quarterly law and order communication agenda. That is okay because most Canadians know, as tens of thousands of them lose their jobs, that the government is not performing, when it comes to the economy, the way they expect.

The government has pursued an aggressive agenda, what I call a shock and awe law and order communications agenda. I hope, as one parliamentarian, that this does not fall prey to the government's penchant for Republican style law and order communication tactics. I hope this will survive that kind of approach and get to committee and be debated in a meaningful way.

If it is to be debated, then we need to see from the government some evidence. In so many of the law and order measures brought forward by the government, there is just so little evidence to backstop the proposed measures. There has been an awful lot of ideology, but there is not often a lot of evidence. Where is the evidence of the need for such sweeping reform on environmental enforcement, on fines, on penalties, on mandatory disclosure of corporate pollution, for example, and prosecutions? Where is the evidence that these changes will actually have an effect on pollution levels? We are not saying that it will not, but as a government, it has an obligation to bring forward the evidence to substantiate its claims.

The parliamentary secretary said fines are too low to be an effective deterrent. How many fines have there been in the last three and a half years of Conservative government? How high have those fines been? If the fines will be used for restorative purposes, what about pre-existing liabilities?

There are 38,000 to 40,000 contaminated sites in existence in our country as we speak. How will this environmental enforcement deal with pre-existing liabilities for the municipalities, cities, towns and regions across the country that are inheriting toxic sites, brownfields, blackfields, contaminated sites? Will this deal with that troubling issue?

The court may indeed order compensation and restoration payments. I believe there will be questions about constitutionality. There will be questions about the federal-provincial division of responsibilities. Courts can suspend or cancel permits for those who commit environmental offences. This is a good thing, a provision which did not exist before.

The registry of environmental offenders was referenced by the parliamentary secretary, so we get to publish names of corporate environmental offenders. What about the preponderance of Canadian companies that are not incorporated? Eighty per cent of all jobs in Canada today hail from small and medium-sized enterprises with less than 100 employees. How will they be brought into the fold? That outstanding question has to be answered as well.

Will the government inspire itself from the decade-old experience in the United States, where publicly-traded corporations have to reveal not only how much they are spending on corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, fines and prosecutions, but also have to disclose, for example, to what extent they are involved in litigation?

There is an agreement between the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission that compels the sharing of information so institutional and retail investors in our capital markets can make better and more informed choices about where to place their investments. How will the bill deal with capital flows in capital markets so we can encourage investments in those companies and organizations with better environmental performance? That remains to be answered. That is the kind of evidence we need brought to bear with respect to the bill.

All offenders must now pay a fine equal to the benefit received as a result of committing the offence, in addition to paying the fine for the offence itself. What does that mean? How will that be monetized? How will that be quantified?

What if another Exxon Valdese were to occur or an on-land Exxon Valdese equivalent were to occur and Canada were to lose significant wetlands? Canada has 26% of the planet's wetlands. They are millions of years old and are perfect and free water and air filtration systems. If we were to have a significant tailings pond spill and lose, for example, pre-eminent wetlands in a sensitive region in the country, how is the court expected to monetize and calculate that loss of eco-service? The notion of natural capital is not something about which the government has ever talked.

The government continues to pretend that carrying capacity out there is limitless, that we can continue to put as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as we wish because it will keep assimilating it. We know that is not the case. This is an interesting measure. How exactly is the court going to order fining equal to the benefit received as a result of committing the offence in addition to paying the fine for the offence itself? Surely the government is not going to be instructing courts to ignore carrying capacity and eco-services in Canadian natural settings.

The good news about the bill is it began well before the last election in 2008. Officials have confirmed its drafting began some two and a half to three years ago. I hope sincerely that the bill has been inspired largely by the terrible example of what can happen when a jurisdiction begins to ignore environmental standards such as the example in the province of Ontario under a previous Conservative government, where four front line cabinet ministers of the present government served, as well as the Prime Minister's chief of staff, and fired half of the province's water inspectors, leading to the terrible disgrace and tragedy of Walkerton.

I hope the government is going to deeply study the O'Connor report and insist that the learnings that were derived are implemented fully in the bill. It is extremely important to learn from past mistakes, but I am glad to see the previous minister of the environment, who was a minister in that unfortunate Michael Harris government that gave rise to that Walkerton crisis and tragedy, appears to be learning from that past and unfortunate experience.

Those are some of my first comments, but I want to pick up on a theme raised by my colleague from Yukon. It is passing strange that just last week, on a break week, the Minister of the Environment was in Calgary announcing to Canadians that he was single-handedly going to decide how environmental assessment was going to be conducted in Canada going forward. It is interesting because the first environmental assessment brought into the country was in 1992 by the former Mulroney government. It was a fine and important step for Canada.

In the last Bill C-10 budget bill, the government laced it with nine poison bills, not the least of which was the Navigable Waters Protection Act changes. There again was zero evidence presented to suggest that it was necessary to give a minister of transport and infrastructure unfettered discretion to decide when and when not an environmental assessment ought to occur in a bill which is over 115 years old, an act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, set out originally to protect natural waterways in Canada forever.

However, it is worse because last week the Minister of the Environment stood up in Calgary and gave a speech announcing that he was going to go further. Without parliamentary notice, without public consultation, without engaging the committee, without anything apparently now under the guise of getting money out the door as quickly as possible for stimulus purposes, the Minister of the Environment was facilitating the undermining of environmental assessment. That is rich.

The Minister of the Environment has now announced that he will change the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, change the function of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to weaken EAs as they go forward. This is something that the opposition, as the official opposition, will not tolerate.

We will be watching and asking questions about how the government intends to reconcile so-called tough on environmental crime measures in the bill, while speaking out of the other side of its mouth and announcing that it is either poison building its budget bill by forcing changes to environmental assessment or the Minister of the Environment freelancing in Canadian society, saying that he knows best and he will decide how 20 years of environmental assessment practice ought to be changed without notice.

Those are the kinds of changes we will be protecting against. Those are the kinds of issues that we intend to raise. It will be very important now for the government to come to committee and explain to Canadians, to go back to what I was saying a moment ago, how the bill will take us one metre farther, one yard farther down the field in dealing with the elephant in the room, which it is unprepared to admit exists in the room. That is the climate change crisis.

Environmental enforcement is all for naught if we see a 3° to 4° centigrade temperature increase on this planet in the next 50 to 100 years. It is all for naught. The government now has to stop the window dressing and come to ground on the climate change crisis.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for his great work on this file. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to work with him on the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. Bill C-16 seems quite heavy with respect to fines, but fines do not achieve anything if there is no political will to enforce them. I want to ask the parliamentary secretary, how does the government plan to ensure that our environmental laws will be enforced?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if there were any additional statutes that are under the responsibility of the minister, for example, SARA, Species at Risk Act, those could be made at the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development.

As I shared in my comments, the minister is respecting the committee because of the review. If there are any other statutes that are under the responsibility of the minister, that would be the place to make those suggested amendments to Bill C-16. I look forward to the member's work and her help to get this through quickly.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-16 is there to enhance enforcement, to provide direction to the courts with minimum and maximum sentences. This will also give tools to the enforcement officers.

As the member knows, we have increased by 50% the number of enforcement officers from just under 200 to over 300 officers. We need to have those officers, but we also need to have the legislation and Bill C-16 does that. It provides much stiffer penalties and consequences which will act as a deterrent. However, we believe it needs to pass quickly through the House and I look forward to the member's support.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment has the authority to deal with these nine statutes. We could also deal with SARA but the Fisheries Act would be a different minister. These are acts for which the amendments in Bill C-16 would apply.

If the other ministers would like to see these kinds of amendments, that could be done but it would be up to that minister in another bill. However, Bill C-16 deals with specific statutes for which the Minister of the Environment is responsible.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc and I look forward to continuing our hard work in the Standing Committee on the Environment. I hope he will support Bill C-16 as it is well needed.

I want to share with the member that there have been over 500 convictions under the laws amended by this bill in the past five years. A conviction on indictment is only one type of conviction. A prosecution can proceed on indictment or on summary conviction. In fact, most prosecutions under the statutes amended by this bill proceed by way of summary conviction.

It is accurate to say that we have not often proceeded with prosecutions on indictment. The decision to proceed by indictment or summary conviction is a complex decision made by prosecutors and is dependent on the specific facts and circumstances of a particular case.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions for my hon. colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, including this one in particular.

As we know, Bill C-16 identifies a number of aggravating factors for the purposes of sentencing. A number of those aggravating factors are listed in the bill, including the following: the offender failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the offence, despite having the financial means to do so.

Why did the government decide to list a number of factors for the purposes of sentencing? Why did the government insist on defining what it considers aggravating factors?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the second reading of Bill C-16, the environmental enforcement act, which addresses the important issue of enforcement of our environment and wildlife protection and conservation laws. I would like to compliment the work of the Minister of the Environment for making this bill a priority.

Our government has taken a number of steps since coming into office three years ago to protect our water, air and land through stricter enforcement measures.

The environment enforcement act will complement the $22 million commitment that we made in budget 2007 to increase the number of enforcement officers by 50%, a commitment that has led to the hiring of 100 new enforcement officers, the last recruits of which will be trained by this August.

Among these new officers, nearly two-thirds will concentrate on the legislative and regulatory requirements of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, known as CEPA, 1999, and the Fisheries Act, while the rest will be assigned to commitments under wildlife legislation.

The work they do will be further enhanced by this government's commitment in budget 2008 of $12 million over two years to Parks Canada for the implementation of an enhanced law enforcement program within Canada's national parks and $21 million over two years to enhance Environment Canada's enforcement operations by improving scientific and technical support during enforcement operations, including forensic analysis, expert witness participation and improved laboratory capacity, establishing two major case units dedicated to investigations requiring highly specialized skills and enhancing compliance and intelligence monitoring systems.

These budget commitments will increase the effectiveness of Environment Canada and Parks Canada enforcement officers and help them do their jobs. These commitments will also ensure enforcement activities are able to more effectively support prosecutions.

However, both enforcement activities and support for prosecutions will only lead to long-term results if prosecutions of enforcement offenders result in stringent sentences that act as strong deterrents, that denounce unlawful activity that threatens the environment and that contribute to the restoration and remediation of environmental harm resulting from environmental offences.

Bill C-16, the environmental enforcement act, proposes to introduce sweeping changes to the offence, penalty and enforcement provisions of nine environmental protection and wildlife conservation statutes to ensure they achieve all of these goals.

The application of the bill's amendments to nine different statutes ensures its impact will be far-reaching. Six of the statutes that would be amended by the bill are the responsibility of the Minister of the Environment. These include CEPA, 1999, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, one of Canada's most important environmental protection laws. This act addresses the prevention and management of risks posed by toxic and other harmful substances and the environmental and human health impacts related to biotechnology, marine pollution, disposal at sea, vehicle, engine and equipment emissions, fuels, hazardous wastes and environmental emergencies.

The statutes that would be amended by the bill also include the Migratory Birds Convention Act of 1994, a key tool for protecting migratory birds in Canada.

The bill would also strengthen the enforcement, fines and sentencing provisions of Canada's trade and endangered species legislation, which forbids the unlawful import, export and interprovincial transport of species on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora control list and of foreign species whose capture, possession and export are prohibited or regulated by the laws of another country.

In addition, the environmental enforcement act would strengthen the enforcement provisions of the Antarctic Environmental Protection Act, which implements a protocol to the Antarctic treaty and the Canada Wildlife Act under which national wildlife areas are established and maintained for wildlife conservation and research activities.

The bill would significantly strengthens the International River Improvements Act, a statute that governs the construction, operation and maintenance of large projects such as dams on rivers flowing from Canada into the United States.

Bill C-16 would strengthen the enforcement, fines and sentencing provisions of three other statutes for which the Minister of the Environment is responsible as the Minister for Parks Canada. These include: the Canada National Parks Act, under which our national parks and reserves are created and managed; and the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act, which authorizes the creation and management of marine conservation areas that are representative of the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific Oceans, and the Great Lakes.

Bill C-16 would amend the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park Act which protects the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park for the benefit of this generation and generations to come.

Hon. members of this House may question why the provisions of Bill C-16 are not applied to the Species at Risk Act. As members know, the Species at Risk Act, known as SARA, was recently referred to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development for its required five year review. Out of respect for that process, amendments to the Species at Risk Act were not included in this bill.

The government recognizes that the Species at Risk Act may benefit from many of the provisions introduced in Bill C-16. I urge my colleagues on the environment committee, many of them here today, to consider the application of Bill C-16 on the Species at Risk Act as we review that act.

The need for the amendments proposed in the environmental enforcement act are clear. At the Global Judges Symposium held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002, where Canada's Supreme Court was represented, the Johannesburg Principles on the Role of Law and Sustainable Development were adopted.

The principles include the following statement:

We are strongly of the view that there is an urgent need to strengthen the capacity of judges, prosecutors, legislators and all persons who play a critical role...in the process of implementation, development and enforcement of environmental law...especially through the judicial process....

Current fines are too low to be effective deterrents. Furthermore, they do not adequately express society's strong disapproval of environmental offences. Finally, when fines are collected, they are currently most often directed toward the consolidated revenue fund. Our government has proposed amendments in Bill C-16 that would see those fines made available for remediation of the harm caused by that environmental offence.

On the issue of fines, although some of the statues amended by Bill C-16 already provide for up to $1 million in fines per day for an offence, imposed fines have never approached these amounts. In fact, the highest financial penalty imposed under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to date is $100,000. Given that most offenders convicted under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act are corporations operating in a regulated sphere, there is a risk that fines of this quantity may simply be seen as the cost of doing business.

This greatly reduces the deterrent value of fines, not to mention poorly represents society's disapproval of environmental offences. To put this in perspective, we need to consider that penalties for environmental offences in the United States often reach millions of dollars. Bill C-16 would address this issue by providing guidance to the courts in appropriate fines for introducing minimum fines, requiring courts to consider aggravating factors and increasing most of the minimum and maximum fines.

If the environmental enforcement act becomes law, fines for individuals who commit the most serious offences will range from a minimum of $5,000 to a maximum of $1 million per day. Large corporations that commit the most serious offences will be liable to fines ranging from $100,000 to $6 million per day of an offence.

Beyond increasing fines, the bill would also improve sentencing guidance by introducing purpose and principle clauses that recognize the sentencing objectives of deterrence, denunciation and restoration and the importance of taking into account the aggravating factors.

It would also ensure courts have access to a full suite of powers to order offenders to undertake certain activities, including remediating harm caused by their offences, compensating those who take remedial action or who lose property as a result of the offences, and contributing to communities harmed by the environmental offences.

The bill would further enhance the deterrent effect of convictions by improving public disclosure of environmental offences, especially with respect to corporate offenders. It would add a provision to each act obliging the minister responsible for the act to maintain, in a registry accessible to the public, information about convictions of corporations for offences under the act. The objective is to encourage compliance given the importance of public opinion on corporate success. Furthermore, the bill would oblige courts to order corporate offenders who have shareholders to inform their shareholders of the convictions.

Beyond its focus on the outcome of prosecutions, the bill would give enforcement officers better tools for addressing offences that require immediate attention by allowing officers to issue compliance orders.

The bill also sets out the legislative authority needed to establish an administrative monetary penalty scheme for responding to less serious environmental infractions that might otherwise go unaddressed because of the prohibitive cost and time associated with prosecution.

These administrative monetary penalties are relatively low financial penalties that are appropriate enforcement tools for responding to violations of law that are relatively minor in nature.

The new act would authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations needed to implement the administrative monetary penalty scheme, including regulations identifying for what offences administrative monetary penalties may be used and a method for calculating the fine amount. The new act would restrict the amount of these monetary penalties to $5,000 for an individual and $25,000 for any person or ship, creating a continuum of enforcement responses from warnings to compliance orders to administrative monetary penalties to charges.

Persons issued an administrative monetary penalty may have them reviewed by an administrative tribunal to ensure fairness that may determine whether the person committed the violation and, if the tribunal determines the penalty for the violation is not determined in accordance with regulations, it may correct the amount of the penalty.

Finally, as I have already alluded to, the bill would help address the harm resulting from environmental offences by directing all fines collected under the statutes amended to the environment damages fund. Currently, the fines collected under most environmental protection statutes are directed to the Receiver General, from which they are not necessarily available for environmental restoration and protection projects. Moneys in the environment damages fund, however, are available for individuals and organizations for the purpose of supporting restoration and protection projects.

Ineffectual enforcement of environment and wildlife conservation and protection laws make them ineffective. Canadians expect these laws to be enforced and that their enforcement will lead to meaningful sentences.

The budget commitments that this government has made, including the additional officers and now Bill C-16, combine to form a comprehensive, modern and effective enforcement regime for Canada, one that will protect the rich natural resources that define our nation and make us as Canadians so uniquely appreciative of the land that we cherish and so proudly call our home.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

moved that Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. House leader for the official opposition has many questions for the Thursday question and I will try to get to all of them.

Today we will continue debate on Bill C-14 on organized crime, which he mentioned. Following Bill C-14, we will consider Bill C-15, drug offences, and Bill C-16, the environmental enforcement act in that order.

Tonight we will complete the debate on the first report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Tomorrow we will begin debate at third reading of Bill C-2, the Canada-European free trade agreement and continue with any unfinished business that carried over from today.

When the House returns from the constituency week, we will continue with the business from this week, with the addition of Bill C-9, transportation of dangerous goods, which was reported back from committee.

You can add to the list for the week we return, Mr. Speaker, Bill C-7, marine liability, Bill S-3, energy efficiency, and Bill C-13, Canada grains, which are all at second reading and any bills that have been reported back from committee by then.

As to one of the questions that the member specifically mentioned, the last day in this supply period shall be on Tuesday, March 24, when the House will vote on supplementary estimates C, interim supply and the interim supply bill. As he noted, it is a very important day as these are the resources necessary to provide the stimulus to which we have all been looking forward and which Canadians are greatly anticipating.

Hopefully, the Senate will have passed the budget bill, Bill C-10 by then. In fact, as my colleague mentioned, my understanding is the opposition has suddenly discovered the parts of the budget bill that pertain specifically to the extension of employment insurance benefits, which will come into effect immediately upon royal assent of Bill C-10, the budget implementation act. Therefore, rather belatedly, the Liberal senators have decided to work with the Conservative senators in the other place and get the bill passed expeditiously. I hope that takes place this afternoon. It would be therefore my hope as well that royal assent could take place as early as this evening and we would see that bill enacted as quickly as possible.

As to the reiteration of my colleague's support for Bill C-14 and Bill C-15, our two latest justice bills, I welcome his support and I appreciate that. We are open to moving these bills through all stages as quickly as possible. Failing that, we would look to put up a minimum number of speakers, as we have done on many pieces of legislation already in this session, to move legislation through as quickly as possible. The problem, as my hon. colleague well knows, is not with the official opposition on or of the Conservative Party, the Conservative government, but with the other two parties, which are unwilling to do so.

Environmental Enforcement Act

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)