An Act to amend the Auditor General Act and the Federal Sustainable Development Act (port authorities)

This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.

Sponsor

Raymond Côté  NDP

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of June 10, 2014
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment amends the Auditor General Act and the Federal Sustainable Development Act to make port authorities subject to the sustainable development provisions of those Acts.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

The EnvironmentAdjournment Proceedings

October 27th, 2014 / 6:45 p.m.
See context

NDP

Annick Papillon NDP Québec, QC

Mr. Speaker, to continue with this special Quebec edition in Parliament this evening, after the Quebec Bridge, I am pleased to speak to you about the Port of Québec, which is another rather embarrassing situation under the circumstances. Let me put things into context.

In October 2012, the first cloud of dust escaped the Port of Québec and came down mostly on the Limoilou neighbourhood. The incident triggered a strong public response and resulted in increased monitoring of the port's activities ever since. This led to the finding that an unusually high rate of nickel dust settles onto Limoilou. A watchdog committee was set up thanks to the exceptional work of a remarkable person, Véronique Lalande, and her spouse, Louis Duchesne.

In April 2013, Quebec's ministry for sustainable development, the environment and the fight against climate change, found that the nickel dust was definitely coming from the Port of Québec. The activities surrounding shipping nickel in bulk, particularly by St. Lawrence Stevedoring, are the main cause.

Studies showed that the concentration of nickel in the air was five times higher than Quebec standards. After measuring the concentration, the Direction régionale de santé publique de la Capitale-Nationale established that the nickel dust in the air affected people's health, primarily by causing allergies and asthma, and had the potential to become carcinogenic with very long-term exposure.

The Port of Quebec is part of the Canada Port Authorities, and falls under Transport Canada, which owns and manages Canadian ports. The department is also responsible for supervising the environmental management of leased facilities, for example, by a company such as St. Lawrence Stevedoring, which is under federal jurisdiction.

However, there is a problem and it is a legislative problem. This is not just about health and public safety. First of all, the legislation is not effective. That is why we are here this evening. As federal MPs, we are primarily legislators, and that is why we must fix the law, which has many gaps at this time.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is leaving it up to the Port of Québec to use its own criteria in conducting environmental assessments of projects such as the expansion, which is a hot topic in Quebec City nowadays. This means the Port of Québec is in charge of assessing the environmental impact of its own infrastructure projects.

We are at this point because provisions that threaten the objectivity of environmental impact assessments of major federal projects were introduced in the Conservatives' mammoth bills, sometimes known as Trojan horse bills. These bills included many provisions. Often, a single law changed many bills, meaning that lots of little pieces of legislation could be eliminated with a single vote. Unfortunately, that is how these provisions were changed, and that is how we got to this point.

My colleague from Beauport—Limoilou is doing exceptional work on this file. In June, he introduced Bill C-612 to subject Canadian port authorities to audits by the Auditor General of Canada and the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

What we are asking is simple. We just want the government to look closely at this issue and make the necessary legislative changes. Will the government stop treating the port like a state within a state? It is absurd.

Auditor General ActRoutine Proceedings

June 10th, 2014 / 10:05 a.m.
See context

NDP

Raymond Côté NDP Beauport—Limoilou, QC

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-612, An Act to amend the Auditor General Act and the Federal Sustainable Development Act (port authorities).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to sincerely thank the hon. member for Québec for seconding this bill.

I will keep my speech short. Currently, neither the Auditor General nor the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development oversees the country's 18 port authorities. My bill simply aims to correct that situation because although port authorities function independently, they manage crown property, which is therefore public property. That is the purpose of this bill.

Again, I would like to thank the hon. member for Québec for seconding this bill, and I would ask that all of my colleagues examine it very closely in the coming months.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)