Bill C-311 (Historical)

Climate Change Accountability Act

An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

To be honest, Mr. Chair, it's probably going to be more like 12 minutes.

Thanks for inviting me here today. I'm sure you all know that I am Bruce Hyer. I'm a biologist, I'm a terrestrial ecologist, I'm a forester, I'm a businessperson with three companies, and I'm a conservationist. We're all here for the same reason, and that is to foster a better Canada and a fairer and more sustainable planet.

I tabled Bill C-311, the Copenhagen bill, in the House in early February. It received the support of a majority of members in the House of Commons, not just once but three times, because as you know, it's the same bill as was passed by this committee and the House last year, when it was called Bill C-377. Because it's the only legislation currently being considered that tackles climate change by setting firm targets to reduce our greenhouse gas pollutants, many believe it's the most important legislation we are tasked with passing in this session.

Bill C-377 passed three readings, but then the 2008 election was called. That meant another year was lost when we could have been taking action.

Developments in the past year make it even more urgent that we take immediate steps to deal with the greenhouse gas emissions. In March of this year, IPCC scientists in Copenhagen, in the lead-up to the global climate change talks there this December, declared that the targets we have in Bill C-311 are the minimum we can do to prevent dangerous climate change.

This bill is meant to stop such global average temperatures from rising more than 2° Celsius in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. To achieve this, the bill targets an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050, versus the IPCC recommendations of 80% to 95% reductions by 2050.

But we can't get there without a plan, so the bill mandates some interim target plans at five-year intervals, leading up to 2050. To have a hope of success and survival, we have to get started immediately. The environment minister will have to present a plan within six months of the adoption of this bill.

This bill will set firm targets to reduce Canadian emissions. It will set clear objectives to meet on fixed dates. It will help safeguard future generations from the dangerous effects of climate change. And it will make Canada credible again in the eyes of the world.

Last month, in a joint statement called “The Copenhagen Call”, global business leaders at the World Business Summit on Climate Change called on political leaders to limit the global average temperature increase to a maximum of 2° Celsius and asked for firm emissions reduction targets for 2020 and 2050.

They also noted that “a predictable framework for companies to plan and invest” would “provide a stimulus for renewed prosperity and a more secure climate system.” They stated, “Economic recovery and urgent action to tackle climate change are complementary--boosting the economy and jobs through investment in the new infrastructure needed to reduce emissions.”

I know that in the past we have worked in a cooperative way with others on this legislation. We have supported the good ideas of other parties, and amendments proposed by both the Liberals and the Bloc are already incorporated into this bill. I hope to continue to use a constructive and non-partisan approach to see this bill through again. I hope we can work together to ensure it's done quickly when the House resumes in the autumn.

There is no time to waste. Dangerous climate change is not some distant prospect that won't affect us in our lifetimes. It is already happening.

In Canada, the Maritimes have experienced more intense storms. There are more frequent and extreme floods. The prairies are drying, and that means our farmers will have their crops and their livelihoods threatened. Spreading pine beetle infestations have devastated our western forests and provided fuel for more intense and frequent fires.

Northern Canada has seen dramatic changes. The summer of 2007 was the summer that the Arctic melted. Sea ice was 22% less than ever recorded previously. This was 30 years ahead of predictions, redefining the phrase “glacial pace”. Polar bears and traditional Inuit culture are threatened now and might both be headed for extinction. Last year, Pangnirtung on Baffin Island was nearly swept away by a wall of melt water. Melting permafrost has destroyed many homes and forestry locations.

We are in danger of helping to create our own humanitarian crisis in this country, but melting permafrost also holds another danger. It holds frozen a great deal of dead plant and animal matter, all carbon rich, in frozen stasis where bacteria cannot work on it. When it melts, billions of tonnes of carbon will be released by bacteria into the atmosphere, creating a global greenhouse feedback loop.

But it's even worse for the least advantaged elsewhere. Developing countries bear the brunt of the climate change burden. They suffer 99% of all deaths from weather-related disasters now, and more than 90% of global economic losses--all this when the 50 least-developed countries contribute less than 1% to global carbon emissions. This is a looming international humanitarian disaster.

What's happening to the 12,000 people of the island nation of Tuvalu is an indication of what will happen to coastal peoples everywhere. People have lived on those islands for over 2,000 years, but they must abandon their country soon and forever because it will soon cease to exist. Citizens of the Maldives and Kiribati know that their countries will soon disappear beneath the rising seas as well. These people are among the first of the environmental refugees, but many will be following.

The Red Cross now says there are millions more environmental refugees than people displaced by wars, and their ranks are likely to double within 20 years, as seas inundate fertile farming deltas and desertification dries up entire nations. This will be the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time.

The human impact report on climate change is a document that was launched by Kofi Annan at the Global Humanitarian Forum in London last month. It reports that every year dangerous climate change effects already kill 300,000 people and cause at least $125 billion U.S. in economic losses. Global losses from extreme weather have increased tenfold. Insurance companies in Canada and abroad are facing fiscal and management crises. Just over the past five years, the annual global cost of weather-related disasters has gone as high as $230 billion.

I am not here to argue the evidence, which now seems unequivocal. This committee heard from many experts on this bill last year, including experts on the science behind it. It was considered in this committee for 15 meetings and has already been agreed to. I am asking you to move to pass Bill C-311 quickly, because there are compelling scientific and moral reasons to do so. Science can give us the facts, but people don't usually act on science alone. Most of us do what we think is ethical, and we take responsibility seriously. We do what we think is right whenever we can. You can't find the answers to a moral question in an ice core.

Canada can take action on climate change right now. We have the room to make deep reductions, the technological know-how, and the economic capacity to get it done. All we need is the leadership. I'm very confident that despite our late start we can achieve these targets and, in the process, provide the world with green solutions and green jobs if we start soon. But more than that, we have the capacity to do something about climate change effects that cause untold human suffering. If doing nothing is wrong, particularly when one is well placed to help, then we are doing something wrong by delaying action, especially given our capacity to do the right thing.

Canada has fallen far in our reputation on the environment. We used to be a leader. We have descended from being the nation that helped tackle acid rain and ozone-depleting CFCs a generation ago to being the second worst country on the climate change performance index this year. Only Saudi Arabia performs worse. We get fossil of the year awards at international conferences. We now rank in the top 10 of world emitters, but we have only 0.5% of the world's population.

Most Canadians know this and they're not happy. Polls consistently show that a clear majority of people we represent want action and solid targets like those in this bill. But there are also important business reasons for moving right away.

Speaking at the World Business Summit on Climate Change this May, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called climate change “the defining challenge of our time”. He told the world's business leaders that if we tackle climate change early and effectively, we could look forward to “sustained growth and prosperity”. If we don't, “we face catastrophic damage to people, to the planet--and to the global marketplace”.

He's right. Taking action now makes good business sense, because we know that the cost of delaying will be much more in the future.

Jim Rogers is the CEO of Duke Energy in the United States. His company has one of the largest carbon footprints in North America. He has called for the same targets as are in this bill. In fact, he's expanding his business while implementing these same targets in his own company. He said that “the probability that we'll get good solutions to climate change--solutions that benefit both the planet and industry--is higher if we face the problem now”, and if you're constantly trying to define the problem or dispute it, “it gets increasingly difficult and costly to develop a good solution”.

Former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern has become even more concerned about our collective economic future since his famous Stern Review. He recently noted that climate change effects are occurring faster than predicted, and he re-emphasized that strong early action on climate change far outweighs the costs. He has clearly stated that the economic costs of inaction will be far greater than the more modest costs of achieving targeted reductions.

The climate crisis is also an economic opportunity. C.D. Howe represented my riding years ago. During World War II, he transformed the Canadian economy from Depression to one making armaments and ammunition in months. It resulted in the greatest economic expansion in the history of Canada.

It seems to me that we again face a crisis worthy of the most promising stimulus for our limping economy. It has to be done right here at home. No one is going to put your house on a boat to China to get insulated. Solar panels mean guys with hammers on our roofs. Carbon sequestration means implementing it right here.

It also makes sense from a competitiveness standpoint. Setting out a path to spark green solutions now is more profitable than spending more later to try to catch up with our foreign competitors. Most of them are already pulling ahead of us. We cannot lose any more time.

We certainly can't lose more time if we're to have credibility when we go to Copenhagen for global climate change treaty negotiations this December. Some have said that we should wait even more than we have already, until Copenhagen is actually signed. Others have said we shouldn't do anything until China, and India, and other developing countries adopt similar targets. Still others say we can't do anything until the U.S. does.

None of this is leadership. We have already waited too long. We don't need Washington to write our climate change targets for us. If we don't step up and adopt our own firm targets, how can we have any credibility to ask other developing countries to do the same?

This act will help to re-establish our credibility at the bargaining tables and, just as important, increase the chances of persuading major developing countries to take on commitments too.

We only have six months left before Copenhagen. We must work across party lines, in a non-partisan way, to pass this bill through Parliament in time.

I look forward to working with you individually and collectively to make sure this important bill gets passed as quickly as possible.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

It's on the record.

Moving right along, Mr. Hyer, welcome to the committee.

We will start our study on Bill C-311, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, pursuant to the order of reference that was given to this committee on April 1.

Mr. Hyer, please begin your opening comments and keep them under 10 minutes. We'd appreciate that.

[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.

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

Mr. Chair, I will support the NDP's motion. I think there is a clear desire that is usually expressed by committees and the House. And that is to ensure that bills take precedence over all other issues, especially when those bills have been endorsed by the House at second reading. It seems to me that Bill C-311 should be a priority for us. That is what the NDP's amendment is trying to do. That is what committees have always tried to do when studying various bills and issues. So, we will wholeheartedly support this amendment by the NDP, which aims to make Bill C-311 a priority.

Environmental Enforcement Act

[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.

[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?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up precisely where we just left off. This is an important debate about the environmental regime in the country.

I would like first though, to go back and congratulate all of those hundreds of Canadian government officials, the lawyers at Justice Canada, all the witnesses who appeared and brought their wisdom and their experience to bear on this bill, a new environmental enforcement bill for the country.

I would like to pick up on something else I just mentioned to the parliamentary secretary. In response to his claim that the government is not whittling down environmental assessment standards, he said that it is all about the need to streamline. Maybe I could paraphrase for government members who are listening. Maybe what the parliamentary secretary meant to say is that it is all about eliminating red tape, or worse, maybe it is about eliminating green tape.

That is very interesting because that is the typical ideological spin that comes from far-right regimes that claim to be in favour of the free action of the free market. They believe their job is to remove impediments from the free market. That has been the mantra and the spin of successive far-right governments.

It certainly was the mantra of the previous Ontario government that led Ontario into almost economic ruin. It would not be surprising for Canadians to conclude that that mantra still resonates inside the current government's cabinet, given that five key ministers in the government were part of the Harris regime which set my home province of Ontario on fire. It was the same mantra we heard then, but here is the problem. There is not a single shred of evidence to substantiate the government's claim that there is a need to whittle down environmental assessment, which is linked to environmental enforcement whether the government likes it or not. There is not a single shred of evidence to link that whittling down of standards to its need and our collective need to invest in stimulus projects across the country. Nothing has been put forward by the government.

The real problem with this is that we have a Minister of the Environment who is trying to put drapes in the window by saying that the Conservatives are going to get tough on environmental crime, which again is part of the ideological spin of a typical far-right regime, while at the same, with his left hand, in the dead of night, without consultation, without parliamentary debate, without it coming to committee, he is actually issuing backgrounders and he is whittling the regulations on environmental assessment that are here for all Canadians to read and know.

It is really important to link these environmental assessment changes to the environmental enforcement bill because the two intersect and they are critical to drive up our environmental standards.

Let us take a look at what the Conservatives are doing here on environmental assessment.

As I mentioned, the Conservatives are bringing in regulatory changes, not through a House of Commons debate and not through a committee debate, but surreptitiously, in the dead of night, they are issuing new regulatory standards which will do the following. Effectively, from now until March 31, 2011, virtually every single project in this country that is subject to a federal environmental assessment that is worth $10 million or less, and $10 million is a very big project in the majority of Canadian municipalities, townships and towns, will no longer be subject to federal environmental assessment.

I understand that Mr. Mulroney is testifying down the hall on another matter. However, I suspect that if he found out that this new regime, this far-right Reform, Republican, Conservative regime was undermining the very environmental assessment that Brian Mulroney brought into this country in 1992, he would be displeased, I am sure. At best, he would be displeased.

The Conservatives are saying that where the sensitive area is protected by the federal government, the total cost for the project must be less than $10 million and measures must be in place to protect the area in order to be excluded. What measures? Set out by whom? By what department? By the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency? By the proponents? By a waste management company? By a municipality? By whom? What measures?

Then the Conservatives proudly herald in their news release that on as many as 2,000 infrastructure projects over two years, that is, 1,000 projects a year, as if they are going to move 1,000 stimulus projects a year through this Parliament, through the government, will no longer need an environmental assessment. They herald this proudly. Ninety per cent of environmental assessments for these types of projects will no longer have to be completed. Two thousand projects over two years will be exempted from the requirement for federal environmental assessment as a result of the government's regulation. Are the Conservatives serious?

It is unbelievable. It is actually more unbelievable because they are heralding this as progress. I am sure Mr. Mulroney, Mr. McMillan and real Progressive Conservative governments would have a lot to say about this.

It goes much further. They actually say that the federal environmental assessment process can be substituted by provincial environmental assessment regimes and processes.

Well, I checked into that too. It turns out that not a single province has an agreement with the federal government to allow for its EA processes to take the place of a federal one. Furthermore, evidence provided by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency tells us that if we substitute a provincial environmental assessment for a federal one, it is not actually catching all of the requirements under a federal EA regime.

Number one, provinces do not agree with this. Number two, it does not catch all the federal environmental assessment requirements. Number three, there is no agreement with any province anywhere. In fact, in the federal-provincial meeting where this was tangentially mentioned, there was not even a reference to this in the news release. It did not form part of any kind of communiqué. It was nowhere to be seen.

There was no discussion, no agreement, no substitutability and no identical substitutability. Then it goes further. The minister and his government say that the public have to have access to documents and they have to be able to participate if it is a provincial regime. If the provincial environmental assessment regime is kicking in and is substitutable for the federal one, the public must have access to documents and members of the public must be able to participate.

There is a problem with that. First, the Minister of the Environment allowed amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act to be inserted into a budget implementation bill as one of nine poison bills because he knew he could not get them through the front door of Parliament. What is really going on here is under the Navigable Waters Protection Act the minister is given unfettered discretion to decide whether environmental assessments should or should not occur. There is no conditionality attached around the public having to have access to documents. There is no conditionality here about the public having to participate. What is it going to be? There is absolutely no coherence in these changes that are being brought here for the environmental assessment regime in Canada, and it links directly to this question of environmental enforcement.

What the government gives with its right hand, it is taking away with its left. It is taking away with a left hand that is incoherent in between the EA changes and the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

The Conservatives say that they are going to consider a comprehensive reform of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act by 2011. I am not sure what that means. They go on to say, as I said earlier, it is 2,000 infrastructure projects that will no longer be caught. That could apply to all kinds of wonderful projects. Let me give Canadians an opportunity to understand exactly what kinds of projects will no longer be environmentally assessed by these federal Reform Conservatives.

For example, on modifying a municipal or community building for energy efficiency, an environmental assessment is not required. On modifying a municipal or community building, an EA is not required. On putting in public transit under $10 million, and supporting structures, an environmental assessment not required. On modifying a municipal or community facility for collecting, processing, diverting, treating or disposing of solid waste, an environmental assessment is not required. Imagine that, for the vast majority of landfills in Canada worth $10 million or less as projects, no more environmental assessments are required.

It goes on. If it has to deal with, for example, setting up residential, institutional or other accommodations, no environmental assessment is required. For meeting rooms, hotels and related facilities, no environmental assessment is required. For hospitals and emergency facilities, no environmental assessment is needed. For schools, universities, colleges, banks, financial services and information facilities, no environmental assessment is needed. For cultural, heritage, artistic, tourism facilities and services, no environmental assessment is required. For setting up an ecotourism system or a waste management system worth less than $10 million, no environmental assessment is needed.

For municipal parking garages worth less than $10 million, no environmental assessment is required. No environmental assessment is required for artistic, cultural and sporting facilities, and the list goes on and on. But it gets worse. Public transit facilities are no longer subject to an environmental assessment, as long as the facility is more than 250 metres away from an environmentally sensitive area. No environmental assessment is needed for a $10 million public transit addition, for example, in a small city or municipality in Canada. If we are installing, operating, expanding or modifying a rapid transit bus system, as long as it is not closer than 250 metres to an environmentally sensitive area, no environmental assessment is required. If we are modifying or expanding a public transit or railway system, no environmental assessment is needed. It goes on and on.

It is very unfortunate. It is something that we intend to continue raising here on behalf of all Canadians and on behalf of all cities and municipalities, and all proponents of projects. We know there is a link between enhanced enforcement, and a link between environmental assessment and standards that will drive up our competitiveness in this international carbon constrained marketplace that we are hurtling toward at breakneck speed.

My second theme today has to deal with how the commissioner's report applies to the question of environmental enforcement. It is a very fascinating read. Canadians should read it on the website. They should examine it. They should take a look at what has been going on for three and a half years on environmental enforcement on the climate change side and on the fish habitat side.

Let us turn to climate change first. That is a fascinating read. It tells us exactly what we have been saying for three and a half years to the government with respect to its third, second and first climate change plans. First of all, the environment commissioner and the Auditor General of Canada said that Environment Canada could not demonstrate that the emission reductions expected were based on an adequate rationale. The climate change plans overstate the reductions deliberately. They overstate the reductions that can be expected from the government's own plan.

I am wondering if that means the government is ignorant of its own potential targets. Is it ignorant with respect to whether the plan can achieve those targets, or is it deliberately misleading Canadians by saying we are going to achieve more reductions than we actually can?

This is linked to environmental enforcement. If we are not going to be environmentally enforcing the most important and pressing concern of the century, if not the millennia, which is the climate change crisis, what would it apply to? The Conservatives cannot provide a rationale. They are overstating the reductions. The third point the Auditor General's office is making is that the Conservatives' plans are not transparent. They do not disclose how they expect reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to be affected by future economic conditions.

Why is that important? It is important because the government now, as we move to deal with the NDP's bill on climate change, Bill C-311, is demanding that it be costed. The Conservatives are saying that private members' bills now must be costed. The problem is that they have not costed their own plan. That is what the commissioner is telling us. How can we move to environmentally enforce a plan that the Conservatives themselves have not costed?

“It has no system”, the Auditor General goes on to say, “for reporting the actual emission reductions achieved from the measures in the annual climate change plan that this party, this official opposition, forced on the government to hold it accountable through the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act”.

The real kicker, and the really problematic part of the commissioner's report today is the following. I need to read this to be absolutely accurate. It states, “However, in the plans prepared to date”, the report says, “the department has not explained why expected emission reductions can be estimated in advance”--as the Conservatives keep telling us, for example, about 20% cuts by 2020, using intensity targets--“but the actual reductions cannot be measured after the fact for individual measures”. Something needs to give here in terms of environmental enforcement.

On the climate change front, we have heard enough now to conclude, Canadians must conclude, the commissioner is telling them to conclude and the Auditor General is telling them to conclude, that the climate change plan being put forward by the government is a fraud. Every time we raise questions about it, only one response is given by the ministers and the Prime Minister, which is that they are dialoguing with the American administration, as if it started in 2009.

We know that the energy dialogue was launched between Canada, the United States and Mexico in 2001. In 2006, when the government was elected, it wiped the slate clean because everything that came before was bad in Conservative speak and everything that came after was good. Therefore, it cancelled five years of dialogue and rebooted it in 2009 as an announcement when President Obama was here. However, Canadians will not be fooled. They know this is not a climate change plan.

I now turn to the question of environmental enforcement when it comes to protecting our fish habitat. Fish habitat, one might say, is not too important and maybe it is something that is tangential but not quite. The commercial fishing sector in 2005 generated $2.2 billion in economic activity and it employed more than 80,000 people in fishing and fish processing activities. More than 3.2 million Canadians participate in recreational fishing which contributed in 2005 some $7.5 billion to Canada's economy.

Now that we know the context in which we are talking here, the magnitude of the economic opportunities, let us talk about what is happening with environmental enforcement here.

First, the conclusion is that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is not cooperating in any meaningful way with Environment Canada.

Second, with respect to the state of fish habitat in our freshwaters, our lakes and our rivers, we have no idea whatsoever about the current state of Canada's fish habitat. We have no measurement and no data. We have nothing. Now one would assume, given the magnitude of that economic opportunity inherent in our freshwater fisheries and in recreational fishing, leaving aside the huge costs associated, for example, with a collapse like the cod fishery, that the government would be investing more in science, more in tracking and more in monitoring. However, not quite. We found out today that the government's budget is cutting scientific and monitoring support for the very habitats we should be looking to first, quantify, and second, move to manage because we cannot manage that which we do not measure.

On that note, I would conclude by imploring the government, now that it has delivered up an environmental enforcement bill that began under a previous Liberal regime and amends nine acts, which were brought in by previous Liberal governments, to make a decision on what it wants to do. It needs to make coherent the environmental assessment regime, which is weakening, the environmental enforcement regime, which we are working collectively on to strengthen, and decide whether we are going in one direction or in two directions. This dichotomy cannot stand and I ask the government to turn its attention to making the entire system more coherent.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madame Caron, not to ping-pong back and forth, but I want to go back to the economic viability and recruitment theme that you raised at the beginning. Serious comments were made about the impact of this proposed regime on the ability to attract investment, expand fleets, and recruit folks to work in this industry. The government recently called for full costing of another bill, Bill C-311, which we will get to here at some point--in June, we hope. Did you cost the implications of this new regime and what impact it might have in economic terms on investment in the country, or its affect on difficulty of recruiting new staff?

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading System for North America

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise here today to take part in this debate.

Basically, this debate about climate change is one that is vital to everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone.

For the members of the NDP, it is incredible that we are now having a debate on a greenhouse gas emissions trading system, while the rest of the world continues to make major investments and create a market that works.

The motion moved by my colleague from Beauharnois—Salaberry is an excellent motion, because, even though it is very short, it contains the basic principles needed to establish an absolute limit that respects targets and to finally have a goal for the country. It establishes a concrete goal and concrete targets with respect to climate change.

Under this Conservative government and the previous Liberal government, it has been a disaster. To this day it remains a political disaster for this country. A carbon exchange is crucial. First it should be integrated with the United States and eventually, with the rest of the world. Otherwise, it will be practically impossible for Canada to fight climate change on its own.

The motion fits well with what the NDP has proposed in a bill that now sits before the Standing Committee on the Environment, which says a target must be finally put into law.

The reason we have suggested this in law is because we have seen successive governments present targets and plans, after plans, after plans, that do not come to fruition. I do not essentially blame only the Conservatives because they have learned well from previous Liberal governments who presented so many plans we began to lose count. Nevertheless, greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise at an unprecedented level, faster than our neighbours to the south, and faster than virtually any other country on the planet.

There was this connection. I remember the former Liberal leader saying it and then repeated by the next Liberal leader that it was impossible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while having an economy grow so we had to choose one or the other. I have heard the current environment minister and the current Prime Minister misrepresent the issue time and again that these things are intertwined, that if greenhouse gas emissions rise, then our economy must rise.

This is the most false concept that has been presented in the debate around climate change to this point. It must be brought out into the light to show that a carbon market, for example, is an enabler for new technologies and new growth industries that Canadians have been wanting.

This morning I had some heads of corporations in my office describing and listing off the number of Canadian companies that have either been bought by American firms and moved south, or have simply picked up shop and moved south. These are significant companies from Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec that have simply said that without a price on carbon, it is impossible for them to imagine a future in this country in order to develop their products. We are talking about wind, solar, and hydrogen economy. These companies have picked up and left, and are continuing to leave not because they want to but because they feel they must because they have seen where the action is and it is not here in Canada.

As a good example, in the last two federal budgets, both American and Canadian, when the support for renewable energies is pulled out, for example, and we look at what each of our countries is doing on a per capita basis, that is per person, for every $1 we are spending the Americans are spending $14. That is coming from the general accounting office in the United States. It is coming from the World Bank. It is establishing all the countries in the world and how much they are actually supporting, not through words, but through dollars.

A 14:1 ratio for Canada is an embarrassment. There is no doubt and it is with good conviction that these companies are leaving Canada because when they look south of the border and see the support levels for wind, solar, tidal, energies that do not pollute, they realize that the cap and trade system that the administration there is developing will be a concrete one.

We brought forward Bill C-311 that finally puts into law these targets because these governments will not be held to account themselves. They need it inscribed in law. It has to be put there firmly with an ability to adjust targets and plans as we go along. That will establish a firm market.

At the natural resource committee we heard from industrial groups, from all sectors, including those in the fossil fuel sector that have said we must have a price on carbon, we must be able to trade in that market, because without that we cannot compete. We have argued this with the present government and the one before that, that their inaction on climate change would eventually lead to a crippling of the Canadian economy and the energy economy, including projects like the tar sands because we knew a world market was coming.

The concept of putting a price on pollution, of having the polluter pay, is one that Canadians agree with. It is one that Canadians overwhelmingly support and over a number of years industry has quietly been saying “yes, in fact we need some certainty because we cannot do these large investments, these large projects, without knowing that one of our major cost line items which was, eventually and now must be, a price on carbon”. We have even moved the Conservatives to admit to that notion.

I am amazed by the parliamentary secretary's views on this and by extension the Conservatives' views. The notion that negotiating with the White House and that talking about a carbon market, mutually shared across our borders, would be an anathema to the government is spitting in the eye of the very industries that are going to need to trade on this market. These are the very industries that the Conservative government purports to support, such as the tar sands in Alberta and the electricity sector across the country. They will need access to a continent-wide market because the price, as has been mentioned before, of just a domestic-only Canadian market would be discouraging, difficult and harder than it needs to be for Canadian firms.

The government is very fond of talking about the costs of doing this for the environment or the costs of doing that. It has also been noted time and time again by Mr. Stern, formally from the World Bank, and others that the cost of inaction is extraordinary. In the very week that we see more of the Antarctic ice shelves peeling off, in the week that we see a further report by the IPCC, which has been monitoring the greenhouse gas emissions around the world and the intensity of greenhouse gas on the environment, we still see, in form if not in word, denial from the Government of Canada. It is offline with Canadians.

The enabling of the green economy can only happen if we establish a price on carbon. This needs to be noted time and time again for the government to see that it is not one or the other and to stop making the false posit for Canadians that they must choose between a clean environment and stable atmosphere or their jobs.

We have seen now the taking over of Chrysler. It sounds like Canada is going to have a member on that board. One of the key points in the restructuring of that part of the auto industry is to make more efficient cars, to make cars that pollute less. We have argued with previous Liberal administrations and the current Conservative administration that when we were handing money out to the big three automakers, which we have been doing for years for research and development, for technology and to support particular plants, to tie a little string to that. Ask them, as they are receiving public funds for this private enterprise, to include plans for more efficient cars and make more efficient cars.

New Democrats have been arguing this since 2000, saying that this only makes sense because that is where the puck is going to be. Do not pass it where it was, pass it where it will be.

In fact, here we are today with the big three in near meltdown status, all of them scrambling to keep themselves alive. Part of their revival plan is to actually do what New Democrats suggested back in 2000 and presented to the then Liberal government, a coalition among the unions, the environment and the auto sector itself saying, “We can come together on this. We can find ways that we can make the economy and the environment work together”.

Bill C-311 would allow Canada to finally get on track, stop the games with the intensity, and all the mess that the Conservatives have made of this file. Their plan has been supported by no one. Not in industry, not in the environment, not anywhere around the world is there a viable plan. We will have one in Bill C-311.

These motions put forward and put on the table again are about the need for a carbon market, to finally realize and understand the full potential of this country's green economy, a more sustainable economy, an economy that provides jobs that we feel more secure with and that are for the sustainable, long-term viability of our economy and environment.

[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 Environment

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Liberals voted for the NDP's Bill C-311 tiddlywink bill. It is a bill the Liberal member from Ottawa South suggests has targets that are fiscally irresponsible because there is no accompanying plan to accomplish them causing him to say, and I quote, “We might as well be sitting at a table with Monopoly money and Tidley Winks”.

Could the Minister of the Environment please explain to the House the right way forward on climate change?

Energy Efficiency Act

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

Mr. Speaker, the folks in Halifax have done this for a long time. In fact, in many respects, they have led the country, not only on energy efficiency but also on waste reduction. They have thought about these as comprehensive strategies.

Right now the natural resources committee, to which the bill will be sent, is looking at integrated energy systems. We have looked at whether communities and regions have integrated energy systems, and right most do not. A few communities such as Halifax, Okotoks, Guelph and Vancouver are trying to integrate their energy systems and are thinking about them in a comprehensive way.

These are very challenging questions in my area of northwestern British Columbia. We must always be consistent and thoughtful of folks who do not live in our big metropolises, of those smaller communities that make an effort to do the same thing, communities that are more car and truck dependent and are more reliant on the primary heat because they tend to be farther north.

These communities can also be brought in, with efficiencies that make sense at their level and in their circumstances. This is why the cookie cutter approach by the government has not worked. It is why its policies have not been adopted across the country. The Conservatives pretend that all Canadians live in the same circumstances and that is not true.

If we were more adaptable, folks in northwestern British Columbia, in Halifax and others would pick up this charge. It makes sense environmentally and makes sense on a financial and personal level. The ethics and economics work out in this scenario and we need to push that. We need to have something a lot more comprehensive than this.

Last night, we passed Bill C-311, by the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North. It is a good bill and it sets out the framework for this.

The House needs to be much more aggressive and progressive on this. Canadians are expecting it and demanding it.

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

That's a very specific question that I would like to answer, Mr. Chairman, so I will.

What I am struck by, sir, is the incongruity between statements your leader has made about workable, realistic climate change plans and the fact that yesterday in the House of Commons your party supported what I refer to as the “tiddlywink” bill. That's Bill C-311, the bill that was put forward by the NDP.

Frankly, the bill contains unworkable and impractical targets that are completely unachievable in the Canadian context. We know, from the economic analysis that was done, that even in a good economy, the minus 6% by 1990....

I'd like to carry on with my response, Mr. Chairman.

The Kyoto Protocol called for Canada to reduce its targets by 6% from a 1990 base. This legislation calls for a minus 25% reduction. It is completely impractical. It's so impractical that Mr. McGuinty actually suggested that it was fiscally irresponsible because there was no accompanying plan. As he put it, we might as well be sitting at a table with Monopoly money and tiddlywinks.

And so this is the tiddlywink bill. It is completely impractical. Your party has supported it in the House of Commons. You have no idea how this is going to be made. You have been critical of it yourselves.

I think that is something that Canadians will be interested in.

Climate Change Accountability Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Order. It being 3:02 p.m., pursuant to order made on Tuesday, March 31, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-311 under private members' business.

Call in the members.

The House resumed from March 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-311, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, be read the second time and referred to a committee.