Bill C-469 (Historical)

Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights

An Act to establish a Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights

This enactment establishes the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights whose provisions apply to all decisions emanating from a federal source or related to federal land or a federal work or undertaking. The purpose of this enactment is to
(a) safeguard the right of present and future generations of Canadians to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment;
(b) confirm the Government of Canada’s public trust duty to protect the environment under its jurisdiction;
(c) ensure all Canadians have access to adequate environmental information, justice in an environmental context and effective mechanisms for participating in environmental decision-making;
(d) provide adequate legal protection against reprisals for employees who take action for the purpose of protecting the environment; and
(e) enhance the public confidence in the implementation of environmental law.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

All I'm going to do is read it into the record and call for the vote. I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 97.1(1), and after concluding hearings, the Committee recommends that the House of Commons do not proceed further with Bill C-469, an act to establish a Canadian Bill of Rights, because the Bill: will enable any resident of Canada to challenge any regulatory standard, at any time, thereby trumping the existing regulatory process, creating regulatory and investment unpredictability; will encroach on areas of provincial environmental jurisdiction; does not allow for the balance of the Social, Economic and Environmental pillars of Sustainable Development; overlaps with aspects of existing Federal legislation and policies which give rise to redundancy or conflict; removes numerous safeguards which ensure that environmental rights do not overwhelm government capacity and judicial resources.

My hope is that we move right to the vote and that we have a recorded vote.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

It was the Conservative government that actually made the decision and provided the funding that the Liberals only talked about. This is a government of action that gets things done. There are no more dark years where nothing is happening.

We need to hear from witnesses. The motion is appropriate. Let's call the witnesses. Let's not rush Bill C-469 through. Anything that is this bad, where Ms. Duncan herself.... In spite of all the tactics going on and trying to rush this through, Canadians want a good discussion on Bill C-469.

This side is committed to making sure those witnesses have an opportunity. No more gagging from the coalition.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard Ms. Duncan say that she supports hearing from more witnesses--I think....

She's shaking her head no. That's unfortunate. I thought I heard her say that if more people are presenting testimony in written form, then...and referred to the hearing from first nations. So I'm disappointed. I thought there was consensus or agreement to hear from witnesses.

I think it's very important to hear from more witnesses. I was quite shocked that there was a procedural manoeuvre used by members across the way. It was well organized. They had their meeting on the side, and they came here prepared to gag and stifle healthy debate as soon as they got a chance.

They used the word “filibuster” when we are sharing what Canadians, what business, and what industry have shared. There are huge concerns across this country, including in Quebec.

I'm glad that we have Mr. Blaney here, standing up for Quebec. What would happen if the Bloc had its way? I shudder to think.

Do we need to hear from more witnesses? Absolutely. Canadians have now heard of what Bill C-469 would do.

Chair, we heard from Michael Broad of the Shipping Federation of Canada. What did he say in November? Well, he said that they can easily foresee clause--

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Chair, thank you.

The letter continues:

The Federal Court, in turn, would have access to a range of remedies. Legal advisers inform us that the sweeping scope of this provision could end up impinging on provincial authority in respect of the environment, thus setting the stage for intergovernmental conflict and discord.

That applies directly to one of the points in the motion that it would encroach on areas of provincial environmental jurisdiction.

It goes on:

Because the Bill in its present form puts environmental protection above all other public policy goals, there is no room for the weighing and balancing of interests and the exercise of careful judgment that are the essence of policy-making in our democratic legislative system. While environmental protection is a very important consideration, policy-makers have a responsibility to take other goals and factors into account, including economic development, jobs, energy security, and the need for predictable rules governing business activity. Bill C-469 basically treats all public policy goals, apart from environmental protection as illegitimate or, at a minimum, decisively subordinate. The Courts, instead of democratically accountable public policy-makers, would be empowered and indeed encouraged to continuously challenge the decisions made by Government agencies or even Parliament.

That is a huge concern that we heard over and over again. Should Parliament be making the decisions or should that be usurped and given over to the courts? That's not what Canadians want, Mr. Chair.

Section 22 of the Bill envisages that any “plaintiff,” even someone far removed or completely unaffected by a specific matter (such as issuance of an individual permit), may apply for judicial review of a Government decision. This provision, if implemented, would be certain to lead to a marked increase in litigation around environmental assessments, approvals and permits issued by responsible Federal Ministries and regulatory bodies.

Under section 23, we note that compliance with the terms of a permit or license is not a defence to a civil action that may be brought under this provision--and the current language appears to contemplate that it would apply even to matters falling within provincial/territorial jurisdiction. Needless to say, this would cause a high degree of uncertainty for many business operators while also setting the stage for conflict between levels of government. In our view it is wrong in principle for a piece of Federal legislation to openly encroach on provincial jurisdiction or purport to limit the exercise of legitimate provincial powers in this way.

Section 10 is intended to ensure effective access for the public to “environmental information,” but there is no reference to protecting confidential commercial information. While we are not opposed to measures that increase public access to environmental information, we believe that safeguards are needed so that confidential business information is protected from disclosure.

Section 13 contemplates that any entity or resident of Canada could ask for a review by the Minister in respect of any policy, Act or regulation relating to or having an impact on protection of the environment. This far-reaching provision would be sure to result in a significant increase in the administrative burden on Federal departments and agencies and cause a slowdown in governmental decision-making processes affecting a wide range of projects and investments.

Then there are the closing comments saying that Bill C-469 should be set aside.

Again, that's another example: it should be set aside. And that is the motion before us today.

I believe, Chair, the question before us is this: does the committee support, as I believe it should, setting aside Bill C-469?

There are two other options. We could call for more witnesses. We've heard from this side repeatedly on the importance of hearing from witnesses. There is this deluge now of new testimony that we're receiving from the clerk, with the vast majority raising concerns about how bad Bill C-469 is. Should we hear from those witnesses? That is an option that we could consider.

What about first nations? We've heard that first nations have not been consulted. I'm actually quite surprised that first nations have not been consulted, when in fact this could affect them. It could affect treaties right across this great country and destabilize the good relations we have. I'm quite surprised that we're moving forward so quickly without hearing from witnesses.

Basically the third option, Chair, is that we quickly get this out of here, and through the House, and get it through Parliament so nobody will really notice what is being proposed. Hopefully that is not what is going to happen in this committee.

At this time, I think we need to be very careful. The prudent and logical thing is to set it aside.

I think it was one of my colleagues here, maybe Mr. Woodworth or Mr. Calkins, who suggested that maybe we start again. This bill is so badly flawed that we need to set it aside and start again.

I'm done. Thank you.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I've been very careful to make sure that what I'm presenting today has not yet been presented by any of the witnesses to this committee or from any of my colleagues on this side or that side. This is all new information. The message continues to be that Bill C-469 is a bad bill. I will continue to make sure it's all relevant and not repetitive.

Mr. Speaker, may I continue?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Chair, I wanted to come back to the question that I asked the witness from the Shipping Federation of Canada. This is what he said, “I don't see the reason for this law.”

Mr. Chair, is it really the committee's job to play the sorcerer's apprentice with Canada's environmental laws? That is what we need to ask ourselves when considering Mr. Warawa's motion. That is the question I put to you, Mr. Chair, and to myself. My answer is “no”. I have no intention of wreaking havoc on Canada's environmental regime with a bill that would create regulatory unpredictability, according to all the stakeholders. Mr. Chair, we heard from a number of witnesses that this bill would make life very unstable for them.

Obviously, I want to start by talking about a witness who, in my view, is extremely important, Mr. Irving, the president of the Canadian Hydropower Association. As we all know, Hydro-Québec is a member of that association, Mr. Chair. These people ran out of adjectives to describe just how disastrous this bill would be for the hydroelectric industry, Mr. Chair. This is a bill they described as “harmful” and “destructive”, Mr. Chair. This is a bill that would have extremely detrimental and disastrous ramifications for the country's hydroelectric development, a jewel in Canada's renewable energy crown. This is a bill that would harm the development of green energy sources, Mr. Chair. And that is nothing to scoff at.

Not only did we hear about the redundancies the bill would create, Mr. Chair, but we also heard a lot about the uncertainty this bill would create, particularly in terms of the legal actions it would expose developers to. We know that this kind of legislation would totally discourage investors from undertaking any sustainable development projects, Mr. Chair—the people who have plans, the people who truly want to pursue sustainable development initiatives—because they would have to operate within a process that would open them up to legal action. Their position is clear. This is a bill that would hinder sustainable development by creating a climate of uncertainty. I think the Canadian Hydropower Association made its view abundantly clear.

But theirs was not the only evidence we heard. We received a legal analysis covering five points, which, to my mind, are extremely relevant, and that analysis is even more reason to support Mr. Warawa's motion, especially if members care about respecting federal and provincial jurisdiction.

Mr. Chair, you know that we are committed to the principle of open federalism. That means that we accept that the environment is an area of shared jurisdiction. So we must ensure that the federal government's legislative agenda respects areas of provincial jurisdiction. Bill C-469 clearly infringes upon provinces' jurisdictional authority over the environment, as I just mentioned. As we all know, under the Constitution Act, 1867, the environment is an area of shared jurisdiction. We also know that since that time, environmental law has come a long way. And that has been possible because we have been able to maintain a balance, Mr. Chair. Under this bill, anyone would be able to challenge a bill at any time, but only after it had gone through all the legal, administrative and environmental channels.

We know, for instance, that Quebec has instruments such as the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE) in place. We also know that the Canadian government works alongside the BAPE. When a situation arises requiring intervention under the law, Canadian legislation stipulates that an assessment be done, and that assessment is carried out jointly, Mr. Chair. That brings to mind a project that was subject to a joint assessment by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the BAPE—the LNG terminal project, to name just one.

So, as you can see, there are already mechanisms in place. Once the process has been completed, once a decision has been reached, Mr. Chair, and reasonable and necessary adjustments have been made, we have to live with those consequences.

Under this bill, anyone could turn everything upside down and create a climate of legal uncertainty. That is totally unacceptable. That infringes upon the provincial domain.

For that reason alone, the bill should be withdrawn, reviewed and reworked to make sure that it respects jurisdictional authority, one of the tenets of Canadian federalism.

As I mentioned, by jeopardizing the future of hydroelectric projects, the bill creates an imbalance in terms of sustainable development, an area that seeks to align the interests of the environment, the economy and society. At the end of the day, this bill throws that balance out of whack. It duplicates existing legislation, as we saw, Mr. Chair.

Of course, one of the most important points was raised by the officials from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. They told the committee that we could not move forward with this bill because it did not make any sense. It does not take into account decades of work on the part of parliamentarians to set up national environmental protection agencies.

Mr. Chair, we have clearly seen that this bill truly creates considerable legal uncertainty, for all sorts of reasons. That is why we absolutely must take the time to discuss Mr. Warawa's motion at length and to carefully consider our role as parliamentarians. And as such, we have a duty. We must do the responsible thing and defeat the bill.

In conclusion, I would remind you of what the Canadian Hydropower Association said. Stakeholders in other industries shared those same concerns with us.

For those reasons, Mr. Chair, I intend to support Mr. Warawa's motion. And through you, as always, Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues across the way and my Quebec colleagues to stand up for sustainable development in Quebec and to put a stop to this bill.

Thank you.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Right off the bat, I want to say, Mr. Chair, that I intend to support the motion moved by the parliamentary secretary, Mark Warawa. It is an extremely important motion.

It is true, Mr. Chair, that I am looking at the bill with new eyes, because I had the opportunity to be present when the bill was introduced and when the witnesses had their say. And that involvement has led me to throw my full support behind Mr. Warawa's motion. I am now genuinely and deeply convinced that this bill goes against Quebec's best interests and threatens one of the cornerstones of its energy sector: hydroelectric development.

Mr. Chair, we have heard from a number of witnesses. I do not mean to harp on what my colleagues have already made very clear, but we have heard that this bill could have extremely serious economic ramifications for the maritime provinces. My colleague, Blaine Calkins, who has been on the environment committee since 2006, if I am not mistaken, also took an objective look at the bill with the noble intention of getting it through.

But the fact of the matter is that amendments are not what is in order. Instead, this bill should be scrapped for the sake of Canada's environmental regime.

Mr. Chair, the House of Commons document that was given to us at the very beginning talks about Bill C-469, An Act to establish a Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights. It also talks about the bill's two key elements, one of which is the substantive right stipulating that every Canadian resident has the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. That, in itself, is a commendable principle.

However, various Supreme Court of Canada decisions also refer to the substantive right to a healthy environment, which may mean that certain aspects of the substantive right to environmental quality have already made their way into Canadian law.

So the bill and its substantive right component are, to a certain extent, redundant, if you take Canada's existing body of environmental authority into account.

But where things really get complicated is in terms of procedural rights. And, in fact, we heard from a number of witnesses who were most opposed to that aspect of the bill. I have here an excerpt from the brief submitted by the Shipping Federation of Canada regarding Bill C-469, which was submitted to the committee on October 21:

[...] we are concerned that Bill C-469 would enable anyone to challenge any regulatory standard at any time, thereby trumping the existing regulatory process and creating regulatory unpredictability.

So I would ask the honourable members of this committee, through you, of course, Mr. Chair, the following question: Are we here to create unpredictability—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Many of my colleagues have already spoken to this motion. At the risk of repeating, I'll try to do my best to focus on what I think the concerns are.

I'd like to, first of all, just congratulate my colleague from Alberta for tabling this bill and for trying to move this agenda forward. It's a laudable goal, to be sure. You know, she and I have both spent a large portion of our lives working in the environmental field protecting and defending the environment. So I don't doubt, in my own heart, her motives for trying to do what she thinks is in the best interests of the environment.

But I also understand reality. And the reality is that not everything is about the environment. There are social factors. There are economic factors that need to be brought into play. We've heard from witness after witness after witness, other than environmental groups, which stand to benefit the most from this legislation, that it's not the environment that stands to benefit the most from this legislation; it's environmental lawyers and judicial activists who stand to benefit from this legislation.

This bill is so fraught with problems in its original drafting that I'm concerned about the number of amendments we've seen. It's quite unusual to see a private member's bill of this size and scope actually brought forward. I actually don't recall, in the years I've been here as a member, a private member's bill quite this large, quite this broad, and quite this comprehensive even getting this far. I'm not sure that it's even within the rules, but I assume that it is, because it has gotten this far.

I just wanted to speak for a few minutes and hopefully change the minds of some of my colleagues across the way. I'd first of all like to set the stage by saying that I would actually welcome this bill coming back again in the future, after any member of this committee or any member of the House of Commons has had an opportunity to look at the testimony, look at the original drafting of the bill, and look at the various amendments.

Mr. Chair, I don't know how many there are now. I guess more are coming in all the time. Is that right? I think we have 30 or 40 proposed amendments. That's not even counting the ones that may come from the floor.

I think all members of this committee would actually like to come out of here and go back to our constituencies and say, “You know what? We've done something good. We have an environmental bill of rights.” That's an easy thing to say in front of a microphone, and most Canadians would think it's a great thing. Of course, the devil's always in the details.

Due to the way the bill is structured, clause 16 relates to clauses 19 and 20 and so on. Given the intertwining of the various clauses of the bill, if we were to try to go down the road of trying to amend this bill 30 different times, not to mention all the suggested friendly amendments that would come from the floor, and we make an amendment here and we don't make the following amendment in the following clauses of the bill, we could end up with--I think somebody else coined the term--a “Frankenbill”. I think somebody said that. I don't think that would do any justice to anyone.

We've had a good, healthy, wholesome debate about this. I think there is probably room for discussion on a bill that would circumscribe some of the limitations we see in provincial legislation, such as the environmental bills of rights in Quebec or Ontario or the various territories.

There is no circumscription to the limits of this bill. It's so broad and comprehensive and allows so many opportunities for other interests to intervene in Canada--using the environment as smoke and mirrors--and to basically attack us economically through this environmental bill that I think we really need to proceed cautiously and really, really think this through.

I'll give you some examples of some of the problems I see. I'm quoting from the Conseil patronal de l'environnement du Québec.

I hope I said that right. I'm doing the best I can with my French. I'm better in Polish.

We've seen the reverse onus in legislation in Canada before, in human rights legislation. Somebody can have, however frivolous or vexatious the accusation may be, all of the resources provided to them, while all of the onus is then put on the defendant to prove a negative, which is a virtually impossible thing to do. My friend Ezra Levant would probably speak to that.

We've had some issues there, where these reverse onus...in this particular case, it would give all of the weight.

There is a clause in the bill that would actually allow compensation, I believe, to anybody who is actually filing a complaint.

Subclause 21(2) reads as follows:A plaintiff bringing an action under subsection 16(1) may be entitled to (a) counsel fees regardless of whether or not they were represented by counsel

Well, that sounds like money for nothing. There was a song about that back in the eighties, but I don't want to go down that road.(b) an advanced cost awarded upon application to the court

Basically, the court and the taxpayers of Canada are now funding environmentalists who want to bring action, whether or not they're represented by counsel.

The clause of the bill is quite rightly called “Entitlement”. Well, taxpayers are I think getting a little bit tired of entitlements. I'd like to know when the taxpayers get some entitlements. They're entitled to getting their tax dollars used in good order.

So when I see these reverse onus clauses and I see clauses like this as far as entitlement is concerned, it starts to concern me that we're basically creating or expanding the legal industry to take over the environmental management of our country, which I think completely undermines the democratic process.

We have a government that's elected, we have policies brought forward, we discuss and debate these things at length, and to have all of that basically become redundant in the hands of a judge who may or may not get it right....

We've seen lots of decisions in the history of our country that, looking back, some members would say, I wish that was a different decision. But once you have that decision, you're stuck with it.

I would just like to say, you know what? We need to seriously look at this. I think it's so broken that I don't know if we can actually save it.

On that particular point, I would just urge members to basically consider setting this bill aside and have a future member at a future date take this bill, go back through the testimony, take a look at the amendments that were proposed, and come up with something a little more accurate at a starting point. We're just too far off on the starting point.

I would also like to talk about the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association's submission.

I have the submissions here. There seems to be a case here where we're trying to move to clause-by-clause so quickly to...in order to block it, I think the rest of Canada is just catching up to what the environmental movement is doing here. We're starting to get some fairly coherent and knowledgeable submissions.

The Seafarers' International Union of Canada states:...we believe some clauses of C-469 could be revised in order to clearly state that Canadian seafarers cannot and will not be held responsible if an incident occurs when applying the actual international and national standards of the current legislation. In our over-regulated industry we have to be able to rely on the framework provided by regulations to know what actions we are or are not authorized to perform.

We've heard in testimony after testimony—this one included—that basically everything that a government agency does, whether it's Environment Canada or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or whoever authorizes a permit, can be second-guessed by any entity. Just imagine the potential opportunities for outside interests to use this legislation to beat us about the head for any reason that they deem necessary—economic, social, whatever the case may be.

I kind of like the approach they've taken in their last part, saying we have enough legislation, we have enough rules, we have enough information out there, but “considering there are actually very stringent regulations to be met by the crewmembers I strongly believe that we will all gain in choosing education and information” instead of basically criminalizing people for carrying out their duties as authorized under a permit.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association says, “We see no gap in the current regulatory and environmental framework that requires a far-reaching bill such as C-469.”

Chair, our committee just went through the exercise a little while ago of taking a look at water and the oil sands. We looked at that for months. It has spanned two parliaments now—under the 39th Parliament and into the 40th Parliament. We heard from numerous witnesses that every regulatory permit, every project, takes upwards of seven years and millions and millions of dollars in engineering and research and mitigations, plans for reclamation, and all of that now can be second-guessed by Bill C-469.

CEPA also said this:

As proposed, Bill C-469 would change many fundamental principles and relationships that currently underpin Canada's legal and governmental system--a system that has functioned for nearly 145 years on the sound foundation of “peace, order, and good government”. Well, there's a group here in Canada that seems to think that this bill will upset that peace, order, and good government. I happen to agree with them.

They went on to say:

This is not the way to improve and protect our environment. Adversarial action destroys trust and increases costs and process burden to all sectors of society, including the federal government and indirectly tax payers.

We hear this constantly in the House of Commons. For example, I believe there's a mine closure in northern Manitoba or Ontario. I think the whole case behind the mine closure is that regulatory burden is so severe it give the mine an economic disadvantage. Of course, those regulations have been put in place for reasons being pushed by watchdogs. But the same members who push for these regulations also push for aid to bail these same companies out, propping them up with government subsidies. This is the kind of situation that we're getting ourselves into, and it just doesn't make any sense to me.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association went on to say that, “Civil actions brought so easily under Bill 469 could be used inappropriately to delay projects or to leverage positions in negotiations with proponents.”

Imagine if you were applying for a federal grant, going through this whole process that clause 16 would apply to. Say you were going to produce some type of energy. Your company, Company X, goes and bids. My company, Company Y, makes a bid for the same project. Your company wins the bid. My company loses. I immediately file an action under Bill C-469, delaying your project, not because it's not good for the environment, but simply because I don't want to give you, as one of my competitors, the financial advantage of the grant that you rightfully applied for and won.

These are the kinds of short-sighted things that just haven't been thought through in this piece of legislation, and they cause me no end of concern.

We heard from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, and we have the National Energy Board. In Alberta, we have the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. We have all of these experts and knowledgeable people making decisions. They're appointed to make these decisions in the best interests of Canadians, the best interests, in my case, of Albertans. To have them second-guessed constantly at every stage by somebody who may not even be a resident of the province, may not be directly affected by the proposed undertaking, is simply going too far.

We've heard from numerous witnesses. I think Johan van't Hof was here, and he said that he has no end of trouble already, under the existing environmental legislation, securing funding for projects. The banks are so risk-averse these days. To throw any added uncertainty into the process, particularly when the risks are as large as those proposed by Bill C-469, would simply put a freeze on the entire thing.

We heard from the environmentalists who testified that they were looking for that very hammer. They said that very few actions would be brought forward through this legislation, but that all they wanted was the hammer hanging high over the head. Well, that hammer would result in an investment freeze. It would create a paralysis within a bureaucracy that is already taking too long to make some of its decisions. We're just paralyzing the decision-makers, creating a system where everybody is covering his tracks and nobody is willing to make a decision. When that happens, we get arguments for more government, more involvement, and less and less gets done. So I'm very concerned.

Also, I think the world is moving back towards the model of sustainable development, the three pillars of sustainable development. I think that this bill, at this time, is heading in the wrong direction.

The timing of this bill was probably about 20 years ago, when it should have been brought forward to Parliament when conditions weren't so well. I worked for years in the wintertime—I was a park warden in summertime--as an oil patch worker in Alberta. I loved it. It was great for my family. It provided an economic environment that was important for my family. Talking to my colleagues, I heard stories about how dirty the oil patch used to be in the 1960s and 1970s and so on, and how much it's matured to this point today. This legislation is 20 years too late, in my estimation.

However, Mr. Chair, I see I've already used 15 minutes of the committee's time. I thank my colleagues. It looks like they might be listening through the earpiece. Bernie listened to me anyway.

Thanks, Bernard, I appreciate that.

Colleagues, just to sum up, again, there is no harm in putting this aside, taking a look at it in the future. Let's have this bill brought back. If we already have 30 proposed amendments, let's take a look at this legislation. Obviously there are concerns from around the table, if there are that many amendments that are already tabled. Let's just put it aside. The bill can be brought back forward, re-authored based on those amendments and brought back forward. We'll have a much cleaner starting place to work from, and I think that's a smarter course of action.

From that perspective, Mr. Chair, I'll be voting in favour of the motion.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I said:

Did the witness say that he represents people in Hydro-Québec?

Mr. Ouellet said “Yes”.

Now, Chair, we heard from Mr. Jacob Irving, and this was your question to him:

I just want one clarification as chair. In your presentation and in your responses you definitely have reservations about the bill. Would the Canadian Hydropower Association prefer that the bill be set aside or be amended?

Mr. Jacob Irving said:

There is probably opportunity for amendment, but it depends. Ideally one would like to see the amendments come through that deal with all of our issues, and then that's fine. But if those amendments don't come to the fore, then being set aside would have to be the logical choice.

So the concern we heard from the witnesses is this: will the bill be adequately amended or will there be unintended consequences? The concern I've heard is that Bill C-469, entitled the “environmental bill of rights”, in actuality is anything but. It's a Trojan horse that would attack the rights of business, of Canadians. It would attack the rights of the foundation of fairness, of law. It would attack permits. It would attack the confidence within Canadian business and facilities in that everything could be up for an action against them, against appeal. Uncertainty would reign, and that would mean the loss of investment.

So the consequences of this Trojan horse...called Bill C-469. The fact is that every witness, other than the ENGOs, do not support this bill. Their number one recommendation is that it be set aside.

That's what the motion is. As I said before, the points that are in the motion are points that are provided by a legal counsel for the witnesses, and were incorporated into it. I believe they got those points right. I believe they are accurate.

Now, some may not disagree. Some may be willing to take a chance and think they can amend Bill C-469 adequately.

Chair, we momentarily will be looking at a lot of amendments. Some of those amendments came in at 2:13 today. In the spirit of fairness, I don't think amendments should be coming moments before this committee starts. How can we properly prepare when we have amendments from the Liberal Party arrive by e-mail at 2:13 today?

Chair, we have....

Is there a point of order?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Again, I do not want to cut down any of my colleagues across the way. I'm very concerned...and that's why I've used the word “coalition”, which is what I believe it is. Not to individually demean anybody here, but it's a coalition that's voted--all the opposition members have voted--in favour of Bill C-469 and have defended the text of Bill C-469, which includes a text that could very seriously jeopardize Quebec's hydroelectric. It could jeopardize the oil sands.

So I think the term “coalition” is deserved in that it's not derogatory, it's a fact, and it raises a lot of concerns not only on this side of the table, Chair, but also with Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I want to thank all of our witnesses for coming in today. I really appreciate your expertise and input as we wrap up our study on Bill C-469.

Mr. Melaschenko, Madam Roussel, and Mr. Nielsen, thank you very much.

Not all committee members have gotten their amendments in. I request that you get them in by first thing tomorrow morning so that we can circulate them to other committee members for due consideration and give our clerk and analyst time to put together the packages so we can have a fruitful debate as we go through the clause-by-clause study, which begins on Wednesday.

Is there a motion to adjourn, please?

Thank you, Mr. Woodworth.

We're out of here.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Joseph Melaschenko]

Thank you. It's a fair question.

Both Bill C-469 and the Canadian Bill of Rights would include this right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. My point was that there's some subject matter overlap there.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I call the meeting back to order.

We will continue with our second hour on Bill C-469, An Act to establish a Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights.

Joining us now from the Department of Justice we have Eric Nielsen, counsel with the public law policy section, and Kathleen Roussel, the senior general counsel and executive director of Environment Canada legal services. She is joined by Joseph Melaschenko, legal counsel of Environment Canada legal services.

Thank you all for coming.

Madame Roussel, could you kick us off with your opening comments?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Merci beaucoup.

We are at the bottom of the hour and we want to switch witnesses.

I want to thank Commissioner Vaughan and Ms. Smith from the Auditor General's office, and Commissioner Miller from the Ontario government, for coming in and sharing your points of view on Bill C-469.

We are suspended.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you to each of the witnesses for being here.

As we heard testimony this afternoon it became evident very clearly that the roles and responsibilities of the two offices, the Commissioner of the Environment federally and the office of Mr. Miller, have quite different mandates. I'm going to focus on the federal aspect. And thank you, Mr. Miller, for the comments that you've made.

The Auditor General of Canada and the Commissioner of the Environment provide parliamentarians with objective, independent analysis and recommendations on the federal government's efforts to protect the environment and foster sustainable development.

Mr. Vaughan, you talked about the FSDS. That is a very important piece of legislation. Everything federally now is looked at through the lens of sustainable development, and there are three legs to that stool. There are economic impacts, social impacts, and environmental impacts, and there's that balance that government tries to reach. So it's through that lens. My questions are going to focus on a new lens, and that's the environmental bill of rights.

Now, do we use the lens of sustainable development or do we use the lens that you do your audits through, the environmental bill of rights? Which lens do we look through? Which is the dominant lens? Will all legislation now be looked at through the environmental bill of rights?

We've heard testimony for the last couple of weeks. In the first couple of meetings we heard primarily from NGOs, non-governmental organizations, and the term “stick” was used a number of times. They wanted a piece of legislation, like Bill C-469, that would be a stick that could aggressively encourage the government to move in a certain direction. The issue of litigation has come up time and time again. The question was asked whether there would likely be an increase in litigation. Mr. Miller touched on that. I'd like to read what one of those witnesses, Jamie Kneen, said: “The entire point is that the threat of litigation is a very strong motivator.”

I think most of us interpreted that to mean it may not necessarily increase the number of actions against the government, but it would be a very strong motivator to move in a certain direction.

So my question then was whether it's the threat of legislation that is the stick, to which he said, “I believe so.”

After the NGOs we heard from industry--the Chamber of Commerce, business--and we heard about the chill that Bill C-469 could provide, again, through this threat of litigation. We also received a letter from the Quebec Business Council on the Environment, and they shared some concerns that there's no circumscription on Bill C-469, no restrictions. It's unlimited. We had also heard through the previous testimony that there was an unlimited uncertainty, that there was no end to appeal, that appeal could go on and on, and that any resident could take an action. So I think that has been a concern around this table.

Are there any limits or is it unlimited? If it is unlimited, then it would provide unlimited uncertainty and loss of investment.

This is what the Quebec Business Council shared in their conclusion:

This bill calls into question the power of the federal government to give legal authorization for projects or actions likely to have environmental impacts and grants the courts very broad ordering powers. It includes many vague concepts, such as a right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, which is not circumscribed, contrary to what is found in Quebec’s legislation, for example.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?