Bill S-5

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act

This enactment amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to, among other things,
(a) recognize that every individual in Canada has a right to a healthy environment as provided under that Act;
(b) provide that the Government of Canada must protect that right as provided under that Act, and, in doing so, may balance that right with relevant factors;
(c) require the development of an implementation framework that sets out how that right will be considered in the administration of that Act, and require that research, studies or monitoring activities be conducted to support the Government of Canada in protecting that right;
(d) authorize the Minister of the Environment to add to the Domestic Substances List certain substances that were in commerce in Canada and subject to the Food and Drugs Act between January 1, 1987 and September 13, 2001, and provide that any substance may be deleted from the List when it is no longer in commerce in Canada;
(e) require that the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health develop a plan that specifies the substances to which those Ministers are satisfied priority should be given in assessing whether they are toxic or capable of becoming toxic;
(f) provide that any person may request that those Ministers assess a substance;
(g) require the Minister of the Environment to compile a list of substances that that Minister and the Minister of Health have reason to suspect are capable of becoming toxic or that have been determined to be capable of becoming toxic;
(h) require that, when those Ministers conduct or interpret the results of certain assessments — or conduct or interpret the results of a review of decisions of certain governments — in order to determine whether a substance is toxic or capable of becoming toxic, they consider available information on whether there is a vulnerable population in relation to the substance and on the cumulative effects that may result from exposure to the substance in combination with exposure to other substances;
(i) provide that certain substances be classified as substances that pose the highest risk based on, among other things, their properties or characteristics;
(j) require that those Ministers give priority to the total, partial or conditional prohibition of activities in relation to toxic substances that are specified in Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 , or to the total, partial or conditional prohibition of releases of those substances into the environment, when regulations or instruments respecting preventive or control actions in relation to those substances are developed;
(k) expand certain regulation-making, information-gathering and pollution prevention powers under that Act, including by adding a reference to products that may release substances into the environment;
(l) allow the risks associated with certain toxic substances to be managed by preventive or control actions taken under any other Act of Parliament, and the obligations under sections 91 and 92 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to be the responsibility of whoever of the Minister of the Environment or the Minister of Health is best placed to fulfil them;
(m) expand the powers of the Minister of the Environment to vary either the contents of a significant new activity notice with respect to a substance not on the Domestic Substances List or the contents of the List itself with respect to a substance on the List that is subject to the significant new activities provisions of that Act;
(n) extend the requirement, to notify persons of the obligation to comply with the significant new activity provisions of that Act when a substance that is subject to those provisions is transferred to them, so that it applies with respect to substances on the Domestic Substances List, and authorize that Minister to limit by class the persons who are required to be notified of the obligation when a substance that is subject to those provisions is transferred to them; and
(o) require that confidentiality requests made under section 313 of the Act be accompanied by reasons, and to allow the Minister of the Environment to disclose the explicit chemical or biological name of a substance or the explicit biological name of a living organism in certain circumstances.
The enactment also makes related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act to enable the assessment and management of risks to the environment associated with foods, drugs, cosmetics and devices by, among other things,
(a) prohibiting persons from conducting certain activities in respect of a drug unless the Minister of Health has conducted an assessment of the risks to the environment presented by certain substances contained in that drug;
(b) enabling the Minister of Health to take measures in respect of the risks to the environment that a drug may present throughout its life cycle; and
(c) providing the Governor in Council with supporting regulation-making authorities.
Finally, the enactment repeals the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act .

Northern Affairs

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, my questions are timely, given the debate earlier today on Bill S-5, the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act.

When I originally asked about the Kivalliq hydro-fibre link project back in February, it was before the budget was announced. Since then, budget 2023 has mentioned the Kivalliq hydro-fibre link. This is now the second time this major Nunavut clean energy project is mentioned in a federal budget.

Unfortunately, this is also the second time a budget failed to give this transformative project the direct funding it needs to proceed to its next stage of development. By failing a direct and immediate funding commitment, the government is not addressing Inuit self-determination and is disregarding the almost decade-long efforts invested in the project.

By avoiding the funding of this project, the government is failing to meet its international obligations to combat climate change. Communities will continue to rely on diesel, rather than transition to the use of renewable resources to power Nunavut communities.

The Kivalliq hydro-fibre link project would meet the whole territory’s greenhouse gas emissions target for 2030. It would create generational socio-economic opportunities for Nunavummiut, and it would secure the Arctic in very tangible ways.

Inuit were led to believe that the government would walk the talk. Promises keep being made, yet Inuit see nothing. Inuit are treated under a one-size-fits-all approach of tax credits and Natural Resources Canada’s funding. Being mentioned within the tax credits section of the budget announcement does not meet the promises made by the government. These tools are great for big corporations and Crown corporations with extensive balance sheets. Outside of these tax credits and small funds, what is the government’s plan for the Kivalliq hydro-fibre link project?

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I like to think that Bill S-5 is a piece of legislation that really demonstrates the government's commitment to bringing forward good, solid legislation with the co-operation of both the House and the Senate. We have seen amendments proposed by all political parties, and different amendments were accepted. I think we have good, sound legislation, and we can all take some pride in its passage.

I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to how ultimately this legislation is in fact advancing something worthwhile by giving Canadians the right to a healthy environment.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I totally agree with the member. This bill is one of the steps in the right direction. It is something we feel we should support because we want to make a step in the right direction. We just wish there were several steps or bigger steps. At least with the right to a clean and healthy environment, for instance, we now have that enshrined within legislation. However, we do not have a good method of enforcing it. That is one thing we should do next, one of several things I outlined.

A lot of these issues could have been fixed if the government had listened to what people were saying, after Bill C-28 was introduced, about ways to fix it. It should have made Bill S-5 a much better bill from the start.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, indeed, one of the major problems with Bill S-5 is that the enforceability of the right to live in a clean and healthy environment is left up to the minister. It is not up to the residents of Canada, who should be able to bring forward concerns to the minister and then follow a transparent and timely path so we can make sure this right is upheld in a proper manner. It should not be left entirely up to the minister, as it is now.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are discussing a bill to establish the right to a healthy environment. However, this bill does not actually give Canadians such a right. In its current form, Bill S‑5 does not really give citizens a way to assert this right.

Does my colleague acknowledge that this would depend on the government's goodwill or lack thereof? At the moment, it seems reasonable to question whether certain government actions show that it really wants to move in the direction of a meaningful right to a healthy environment.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, Canadians care about the health of their environment. According to polling, 92% of Canadians believe the government should recognize the right to live in a healthy environment. Canada has several major pieces of legislation on environmental protection, but the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is the centrepiece of that commitment.

Bill S-5, which we are debating here today, is the long-awaited update to that act. It has been 24 years since the last update, and there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Some of that water likely contained some of the many new toxins we have invented in the last two decades, and that is one thing that needed to be updated with this bill. We have also learned a great deal about the cumulative effects of even tiny doses of these toxins. We literally have to run to keep up with the ways we are damaging the environment here in Canada and around the world.

People concerned about the environment welcomed the effort to update the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, as it known for short, and the NDP welcomed that too. It is long overdue.

I want to spend a bit of time talking about the history of this particular bill, as I think it puts some of the efforts to fix CEPA in a better context.

The bill was first introduced in the previous Parliament as Bill C-28, tabled in April 2021, two years ago. However, the government did not bring it to the floor of the House for debate that spring and then called an election in the summer, so that ended that version of the bill.

Environmental law experts across the country analyzed that bill and began to drop ideas to make it better when it came back to Parliament. There was some hope that the government would take some of those ideas and amend the new version before reintroducing it so that things would not be considered out of scope. Instead, it tabled the exact same version of the bill, the same as Bill C-28, in the Senate in February 2022, where it took on its life as Bill S-5, the bill we are debating today. The Senate took a long, serious look at the bill in committee, improved it in several ways and sent it to the House at the end of June last year, and the House took it up last fall. It has since been through second reading debate and committee, and we see it here at report stage.

This bill, at its heart, is about allowing Canadians to live in a clean, healthy environment. Much of its detail is in regulations around toxic chemicals, chemicals we have invented and continue to invent and chemicals released into the environment, whether knowingly or not, that can directly affect our health and degrade the ecosystems we all depend on.

One new and very important part of this bill is the long-overdue inclusion of language that declares that Canadians have the right to live in a healthy environment. Last year, on July 28, 2022, the UN General Assembly passed a unanimous resolution that recognized the right to a healthy environment around the world. A hundred and fifty-nine countries around the world have legal obligations to protect the human right to a healthy environment, but Canada does not.

There are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but there is no federal law that explicitly recognizes the right to a healthy environment in Canada. Bill S-5 could change that, so it is a positive step forward, but it is important to back up declarations of rights with legislation that enforces those rights. Unfortunately, the previous version of CEPA was considered unenforceable, and this one is no better.

The Senate committee studying Bill S-5 sent the bill to the House with the following message:

This committee would like to state their concern that the right to a healthy environment cannot be protected unless it is made truly enforceable. This enforceability would come by removing the barriers that exist to the current remedy authority within Section 22 of CEPA, entitled “Environmental Protection Action.” There is concern that Section 22 of CEPA contains too many procedural barriers and technical requirements that must be met to be of practical use. As Bill S-5 does not propose the removal or re-evaluation of these barriers, this Committee is concerned that the right to a healthy environment may remain unenforceable.

The reason the Senate did not fix this enforceability issue with amendments is that apparently it would have been considered out of scope, so I would say the government should table separate legislation as soon as possible to remedy this. Again, the government could have missed all of this if it had fixed this problem with CEPA and Bill S-5 before tabling the new version of the bill.

Similarly, there were other major shortcomings in Bill S-5 that were out of scope for amendments, including a lack of legally binding and enforceable air quality standards. It is really quite surprising that the first draft of Bill S-5 made no attempts to address air quality at all. It also lacks a more open, inclusive and transparent risk assessment process for the evaluation of genetically engineered animals in the environment, especially wild salmon. Salmon are a critical part of our aquatic ecosystems and are sacred to first nations that have relied on healthy salmon populations for millennia. The risk of introducing genetically engineered salmon into the wild environment should set off alarm bells on all sorts of fronts.

I would like to mention here that I have a private member's bill, Bill C-219, the Canadian environmental bill of rights, that would extend the right to a clean environment across the federal mandate, not just for toxins and other aspects covered under CEPA, but for all aspects of the environment covered by federal legislation. The heart of Bill C-219 is a transparent accountability process that would allow Canadians to ensure their government is actually upholding the right to a clean environment. That accountability process is missing from Bill S-5 and CEPA. It could have and should have been included. I am hoping that the government and all parties will support my bill and use that part of it as a model to strengthen the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

In conclusion, I would like to make it clear that the NDP will be voting in favour of Bill S-5 at this stage. We are happy that the right to live in a clean and healthy environment has finally been recognized within federal legislation, and we are happy the bill confirms the government's commitment to implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples under the act. However, the bill has many shortcomings, only some of which I have listed above.

I was heartened to hear the speech from the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, in which he admitted these shortcomings and called for a new bill amending CEPA to fix them as soon as possible. Why they were not included in the bill before us, which has been 24 years in the making, is beyond my comprehension, but I would certainly welcome such a bill.

Most Canadians will be happy to see the bill pass, and I know that most parties will be voting for the bill, albeit some reluctantly. I hope the Senate will deal with it promptly so we can enjoy its benefits and quickly start the process of crafting a new bill that will once again make CEPA a stronger act, an act that will truly protect Canadians and ensure that we and our grandchildren can live in the clean and healthy environment that is our right.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just want to bring up the business of enforcement, which the member talked about at the end of her speech.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is widely held as unenforceable. It has not ever been enforced in any reasonable way by the public. Bill S-5 would not change that. Ontario has had an environmental bill of rights for many years now, with an enforcement mechanism. Again, under that bill, it has not had anybody complaining about backyard bonfires.

I am wondering if the member could comment on the fact that this is really not going to happen, but that we really need this. If we have an environmental bill of rights, we have to have some way to enforce it.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate tonight to talk about amendments that have been proposed to Bill S-5, which is an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act of 1999.

I have now had a chance to review many of the amendments that are before the House right now. I want to focus my comments on one particular area, and perhaps express some concern over the lack of clarity with regard to this area, coming into the report stage of the bill, as well as to provide some suggestions should the bill progress further. I want to do so as a representative from the province of Alberta.

I will start by echoing the statement by my colleague from the Bloc earlier. There is a lot in the bill to agree on in principle, but there is concern in terms of how the bill's current format could actually affect things like provincial jurisdiction. My colleague who just finished debate spoke a little bit about it in the context of her province, and I want to talk about it in the context of mine.

The area I want to focus on is how the government has approached the concept within the bill of the right to a healthy environment. I would like to think that every Canadian certainly supports the right to a healthy environment. On behalf of my province, I would say that so many Albertans, sometimes undeservedly and politically, get cast as not caring about the environment. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are so many Albertans who utterly respect our natural heritage and also want to ensure that we have a strong, sound approach to addressing climate change that actually reduces greenhouse gas emissions, ensures economic growth and addresses the fact that we are in an affordability crisis.

The government, to date, in spite of having spent billions of dollars, has really failed to provide Canadians with a lot of affordable, readily available substitute goods for high-carbon consumer products and practices. At the same time, it has also has failed to address the issue of energy security in Canada.

Going back to the principle of a right to a healthy environment, how the government has approached it and where the bill is at right now with regard to the amendment phase, in terms of how Canada has approached legislating a right to a healthy environment, I do not think it is fair to say that, collectively, across political stripes of various forms of government, Canada has not done that in the past. I would argue, hopefully from a non-partisan perspective, that Canada has some of the strictest environmental protection laws in the world, across a collection of legislation, including the Transportation Act, CEPA, and, at the provincial level, through our environmental assessment review processes of major natural resource projects.

I could go on, but the reality is that we do have a legislative framework that reflects those principles of how we use land and how we assess projects in terms of their impact on the environment. The bill that we are discussing tonight, on CEPA, would also do that. However, my concern is that the government, in this phase of the bill, has actually not defined how it is planning on looking at this term within the context of the bill. Also, with the current status of the bill, it is going to take that process behind closed doors in some sort of framework development process that is not outlined in the bill.

I really am concerned about several things. First of all, we do not know the sufficiency of what this measure is supposed to do. We really do not have any way of evaluating that, number one, and other colleagues of all political stripes have actually raised that as a concern in the House. So that is a big deficiency with the bill right now. Second, because that is not defined, there are very significant concerns that have already been raised in debate, and that I want to echo on behalf of my province, about how this could infringe upon provincial jurisdiction.

If this bill does proceed to the next phase, the onus is on the government, rather than to just take this process behind closed doors with a very narrow set of stakeholders who might have the minister's ear or the department's ear, to really open that up and particularly lean on provinces to have input into this process. There also need to be stakeholders from civil society, from industry and also, importantly, from first nations groups, indigenous persons who have traditional knowledge that needs to be imported into this process. I am very uncomfortable with how the government has attempted to address this issue. It feels like it is just checking a box without actually putting any meat in here for us to debate. We might have different opinions on that, but I hope that all my colleagues would agree that how this term is laid out in the bill right now is not sufficient.

Third or fourth, I am not sure where I am at as there are so many concerns on this provision, I am also concerned that, because the government has not provided clarity on this, we are adding essentially another barrier to either investment or environmental mitigation measures by not providing that clarity. The government should have put some sort of principle in here about whether it foresaw the enforcement of a right to a healthy environment, in the context of the bill, as an administrative function or as a function of the judiciary. What I mean is that it should have given some sort of hint about whether this framework it was providing could have included, for example, a privative clause. That is something that we should have been debating in the House, and now what the government is saying is “No, no, we are just going to put that behind closed doors.”

Some of my colleagues might disagree with me on whether enforcement should be administrative or whether it should be in the judiciary, but, again, because we do not have that clarity, I want to just put on the record what I think, on behalf of my province, about how this should be administered. I really think that, without clarity on how this is going to be enforced, we now are opening ourselves up, as a country, to what could be vexatious complaints on the enforcement of this right. Just as a colloquial example, and it might not be exactly in this context, but let us say that someone has a bonfire in their backyard and neighbours get a little cheesed at them. They complain, saying that they have a right to a healthy environment. Now they are suing the municipality on the bylaws.

What I am trying to say is that the way it is written, with the lack of clarity, could have major impacts on housing strategies. I could see this being used to protest, like NIMBY. People might say that they have a right to a healthy environment, so they do not want a certain tree cut down or they do not want a backyard filled in with a multiplex. The same goes for roads or, also, carbon-mitigating infrastructure, such as public transit projects, which, just for the record, I would like to have more of in my riding as well.

I am very concerned that the government has not put more details and more meat in here on the context, on how it plans to enforce this and also on its consultation process. What we have seen with the government is that things like this just sort of disappear into the bureaucracy, where people and stakeholder groups that have privileged access end up pulling this out of a democratic process. What that does is disenfranchise the provinces, and it also disenfranchises, I think, first nations persons as well. We cannot be talking about the right to a healthy environment without enshrining that principle of first nations knowledge in this particular principle. Should the bill proceed, these are principles that have to be embedded in the consultation process, and the government has an onus to report back to Parliament on how it is doing this. It can certainly rest assured that we will be holding it to account on that.

I will close my time with this, just to emphasize and bookend what I said at the front end: My province cares deeply about the environment. She is coming to the end of her term in public service, but I would like to congratulate Alberta's environment minister, Sonya Savage, who, I think, has cross-partisan support. She has a storied and long history of understanding the nuances between natural resource development and environmental protection. She delivered a very strong net-zero commitment for climate change in Alberta and also recognizes the Alberta context in which that was built out, which is that we are industry-heavy with our emissions, and that industry has to be brought to the table in a stage-gated approach, so that we are not just looking at hope on targets but actually putting a plan together to achieve those targets. I want to congratulate her as I close my speech tonight.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, we just had a question about some of the amendments that were not considered. Some of the amendments that people wanted to put forward were considered out of scope. We even heard one of the Liberal speakers today say that he hoped we would go back to this bill as soon as possible, as soon as we passed it, and create another bill that would fix the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

After 24 years, the government did not include these important provisions in this new bill. They include things like the enforceability of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, something obvious that should have been done. Can the member comment on why these things were not included in Bill S-5?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the people of Laurentides—Labelle to speak to Bill S‑5, the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act.

I want to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois is in favour in principle of the bill. However, a word of caution: Agreeing in principle does not mean signing a blank cheque.

As my colleagues know, our party is highly allergic to anything to do with jurisdictions and the federal government's intrusion into matters that are the responsibility of the Government of Quebec. It is in our DNA. We know that the current government will use any excuse to interfere in provincial jurisdictions.

I would say to my colleagues across the way to not think they can take us in. That seems to be a clear pattern in the government's legislative agenda. I want to remind the federal government that the elected members of the National Assembly of Quebec are against any federal government intervention in environmental matters, except where the current legal framework makes the Government of Canada responsible for certain provisions. That is why the Bloc Québécois will keep a close watch. We will ensure that the federal government takes care of its responsibilities properly before taking on more.

Bill S-5 is, first and foremost, a technical bill, which is a shame. This bill is not ambitious enough to address the current climate crisis. It is unbelievable. Bold action is needed. It is important to act to ensure that the right to live in a healthy environment is enshrined in law, as it is in Quebec. In 2006, the Quebec National Assembly passed legislation that states, “Every person has a right to live in a healthful environment in which biodiversity is preserved, to the extent and according to the standards provided by law”.

That is not yet the case in Canada.

The United Nations passed a resolution on July 26, 2022. In the resolution the UN said that:

...climate change and environmental degradation were some of the most pressing threats to humanity's future. It called on states to step up efforts to ensure their people have access to a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment”.

That is not yet the case in Canada.

In 2021, the New York State Assembly passed a constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to a healthy environment in the state constitution.

That is not yet the case in Canada.

In 2004, the French government incorporated an environmental charter into the French constitution. I would like to share part of the preamble:

Natural resources and equilibriums have conditioned the emergence of mankind;

The future and very existence of mankind are inextricably linked with its natural environment;

The environment is the common heritage of all mankind;

Mankind exerts ever-increasing influence over the conditions for life and its own evolution;

Biological diversity, the fulfilment of the person and the progress of human societies are affected by certain types of consumption or production and by excessive exploitation of natural resources;

Care must be taken to safeguard the environment along with the other fundamental interests of the Nation;

In order to ensure sustainable development, choices designed to meet the needs of the present generation should not jeopardise the ability of future generations and other peoples to meet their own needs,

...

This is not yet the case in Canada.

In Laurentides—Labelle, nature is a way of life. I am sure that everyone listening to me would agree. It has a national park, the oldest one in Quebec, by the way, along with two wildlife reserves, regional parks scattered across the riding, and countless lakes and rivers. Laurentides—Labelle alone has over 10,000. Nature surrounds us, but it is also a major economic driver for the northern Laurentians.

Early in my career, I worked in the forest industry for seven years. I am very proud of the industry personally, but also on behalf of the Antoine-Labelle regional county municipality, where it still plays an important role to this day.

Let us look back into the past. In the 2000s, the forestry industry was seen as harmful in many ways. Fortunately, science has come to the rescue of this industry. We now know, and I hope everyone does, that forest management is imperative if we want healthy forests. Our forests are key to our health and to our environment. They capture CO2. We could talk about the two billion trees that will probably never get planted by 2030 despite the government's promise to do so. Sometimes I have to make people aware that a fully mature tree releases all of the CO2 that it captured. Nature takes its course. We can see the forest fires and epidemics that are happening now. If we use our forests wisely and we use the raw material with secondary and tertiary processing products to construct new builds, we are helping to preserve the environment.

I will fight until the end, as I have been doing since I was 20 years old, to make people aware of how important the forestry industry is to both our environmental and economic ecosystems. I cannot emphasize it enough. It is the very definition of sustainable development, and our region is on the front lines.

Two weeks ago to the day, I was really worried about the images I was seeing from Laurentides—Labelle. In Sainte‑Agathe‑des‑Monts, the Demontigny Street bridge and the Château-Bleu Road bridge were closed. The water level, the highest it has ever been, made the roads impassable, and they are still impassable today. The same situation is playing out in Val‑Morin, where the 7th Avenue bridge is badly damaged. In Sainte‑Adèle, several roads have also been closed because they are too dangerous to use. Lac Raymond, the Rivière du Nord and the Rivière aux Mulets were overflowing. Homes flooded and infrastructure needs to be rebuilt.

This is unusual in southern Laurentides—Labelle, just as it is in many other parts of Quebec. I am of course thinking of the people of Baie‑Saint‑Paul, in Charlevoix. Extreme weather events are now frequent. It is outrageous.

There was the derecho in May 2022, the rock slides in Mont‑Tremblant last summer and the ice storm in early April. We must act. This bill is called the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act. It is time for the government to have the courage to act. People ask me if enough is being done. People know that not enough is being done. In fact, they actually feel as though nothing is being done. Let us have the courage to act, because healthy citizens are the ones who have a healthy environment and who benefit from a healthy economy focused on sustainable development.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, once again, I thank my colleague, the member for Repentigny, for her exceptional work on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I was fortunate to work with her. We worked well together and collaborated closely with the community and environmental groups that came to share their ideas.

I think that all of the parties and the Government of Canada did a great job of including most of these groups' recommendations in Bill S‑5. I believe that extremely positive changes will follow for all Canadians.

Of course, there are other things we could do, but I think that we have made a lot of progress in terms of protecting the environment for the good of Canadians. I am very proud of the work we did.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in favour of Bill S-5, one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation to come before the House of Commons.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, is a vital piece of legislation that regulates the products we use every day in Canada. From food packaging to the personal care products we put on our bodies to our children's toys, CEPA has provided the regulations to further protect Canadians from exposure to toxic substances and keep all of us and our collective environment healthy since it came into force in 1999.

We received submissions from all across the country with regard to the modernization of this act. That is why I want to thank so many people for participating in the drafting of the bill that is now before us. In particular, I would like to thank Lisa Gue from the David Suzuki Foundation, Cassie Barker from Environmental Defence Canada, Jennifer Beeman from Breast Cancer Action Quebec, Jane McArthur from the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Aaron Freeman, the members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte‑Marie and Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the hon. members for Winnipeg South, Lac-Saint-Louis, Repentigny, Victoria and Saanich—Gulf Islands, and the senators who worked so hard to ensure that Bill S-5 came before the House.

Bill S‑5 strengthens Canada's environmental protection measures for individuals, families and communities across the country. It helps to better preserve the measures that we all need to live a healthy life. It protects the water we drink and better regulates the products that we use every day as Canadians. Bill S‑5 is a necessary and long-awaited update of CEPA that guarantees that the act can continue to do in 2023 what it was implemented to do in 1999, and that is to protect the environment and the health and safety of Canadians.

As the former parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, I consider it an honour to have worked on the modernization of CEPA with the current Minister of Natural Resources and member for North Vancouver when he was minister of environment and climate change. This bill began as Bill C‑28. Most of the elements that we worked on at the time, not to mention the amazing work of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, including the right to a healthy environment, the assessment of the combined effects of substances and the improvement of transparency about consumer goods, are still included and even reinforced in Bill S‑5.

It has been a quarter of a century since CEPA was last updated. As such, many improvements and modifications were necessary. We need only think of the changes in our society we have experienced over the last 25 years, too many to reference, unfortunately, in the short time allotted to me today, to better understand the need for the many key improvements to CEPA included in Bill S-5. I would like to share a select few in my remarks, beginning with an acknowledgement in the preamble of the bill that all Canadians have a right to live in a healthy environment.

Countries around the world, in fact, are acknowledging the relationship between a healthy environment and our human rights. In fact, on June 28 of last year, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution declaring that access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a universal human right. For the first time in our federal law, Bill S-5 would recognize the right to a healthy environment in Canada, and our country will join 156 fellow members of the United Nations who have done the same in some way, shape or form.

While including the right to a healthy environment represents a historic step for Canada, our government will work hard to secure these rights through a robust evaluation framework and regulations, which we have committed to creating with input from Canadians over the next couple of years. Everything that follows in this newly strengthened CEPA flows from this acknowledgement, including the second aspect of the bill that I would like to speak to, that being the better management of chemicals in Canada, aimed at reducing exposure to hazardous chemicals for all Canadians.

Currently, CEPA uses a science-based approach to evaluate over 4,300 chemicals and reduces the number of harmful chemicals that Canadians encounter in their everyday lives. Canadians have benefited from our strong leadership on the risk assessment and risk management for chemicals.

For example, there are chemicals like BPA, which is a known hormone disruptor that used to be found in bottles for infants. High exposure to BPA can adversely affect the liver, the kidneys, fertility and the brain development of newborn infants. A risk assessment through the chemicals management plan led to a change in the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act that made it illegal to manufacture, import, advertise or sell bottles that contained this product in Canada. Canada has worked with industry to successfully phase out the use of BPA-containing packaging for liquid infant formula products available for sale in Canada. Since then, Canadian parents have worried less, knowing that the feeding bottles they are using to nurse their newborn child are free from this dangerous chemical.

Working with Canadians to publish an updated chemicals management priorities plan in Bill S-5 is critical to protecting Canadians against the exponential increase in the volume and concentration of chemicals entering our environment.

In addition to an updated chemicals management priorities plan, proposed subsection 75.1(1) of Bill S-5 requires the Minister of Health and the Minister of Environment to list substances capable of becoming toxic. The inclusion of this clause in CEPA would help address the problem of regrettable substitutions and deter manufacturers from replacing the use of one equally hazardous chemical for another. These updates to this bill, among others, would weed out toxins in our products at the source, so that Canadians do not have to at their local grocery or hardware store.

Another key improvement to CEPA in Bill S-5 is the incorporation of cumulative effects assessments. Why is this important? It is quite simple. The pace and scale at which new chemicals are being produced and added to our products and environment are astounding. Since 1950, chemical production has increased fiftyfold, and today there are approximately 90,000 chemicals used domestically in Canada and the United States. The largest concentrations of toxic substances are often found in the cheapest products. The reality is that with the sheer quantity of chemicals now present in our everyday lives, it has become an ever so daunting task to fully appreciate and identify hazards. Most Canadians do not have the time or expertise to determine which products, combined with other products, could be dangerous and more and more are counting on us, as their federally elected representatives, to ensure that we are doing this imperative work for them and that the laws and regulations in place are strong enough to protect them and their loved ones.

In the current version of CEPA, assessments are conducted on the singular impacts of each chemical individually. The significant change included in Bill S-5 would address the cumulative effects on human health and the environment that may result from exposure to the substance in combination with exposure to other substances and would require cumulative effects to be considered in the risk assessment through CEPA when information is available.

Another important aspect of this bill is the improvements to CEPA that address social justice when it comes to our health and our environment and recognize it is intrinsic to environmental protection. Bill S-5 explicitly requires that the federal government consider vulnerable populations in the assessment of toxic substances. Social challenges in indigenous, low-income and racialized communities are further exacerbated by environmental ones when a landfill, a water treatment facility or a chemical plant is located in their backyards. This change to CEPA would help ensure that the health of vulnerable communities is considered through the implementation of CEPA regulation.

As I mentioned in committee and in the House, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is the most important piece of legislation that most Canadians know very little about, yet it has been protecting the environment every day for decades. With the changes proposed in Bill S‑5, it will continue to protect the environment and all Canadians for decades to come. By passing this bill, we parliamentarians are clearly affirming that their health and safety will always be our priority.

I look forward to joining all members in this House in voting in favour of Bill S-5, moving it to the next level of our parliamentary process and, finally, ushering in a new era of environmental protection in Canada.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, because he touched on the fact that all the parties here have had sometimes similar and sometimes different positions on the environment. When we worked on Bill S-5, the Green Party, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois all had more or less similar amendments because we relied on experts from all the environmental groups. Unfortunately, the Liberals and the Conservatives voted against the suggestions we put forward based on the input of environmental groups. We feel that it was the industry's ideas that prevailed. Yes, it is important to listen to the industry because it has experts, but it is also important to have representatives from environmental groups who are also experts.

Was too much emphasis put on the industry's agenda in our analysis of Bill S-5?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to address the House this afternoon on Bill S-5, legislation that the government has put forward in the Senate and is now with us in the House. It is a bit of an environmental policy omnibus, as it brings together a number of different kinds of provisions updating various pieces of legislation.

Conservatives are prepared to support this legislation. We think, generally, that the direction of it is positive, that it improves on its absence. Therefore, we are going to be supporting it, but it is also an opportunity to reflect, more broadly, on the government's approach to environmental policy because I think we are seeing, at a macro level, a lot of failures from the government in environmental policy. These are failures in how it acts and how it thinks about the environmental challenges in front of us.

Before I get into particulars, I wanted to propose a framework for thinking about environmental policy. When we debate questions in the House, there are some questions we debate that deal in moral absolutes, questions of absolute right or absolute wrong about how we are acting or how the state might treat a person. In such cases, we do not apply a consequentialist filter to determinations about those things. We say that this sort of action is absolutely unacceptable, regardless of any sort of effort to interpret the consequences in a favourable way. There are issues we deal with that relate to questions of absolute right and wrong, absolute justice and injustice, etc.

There are also questions, though, that we evaluate on consequential grounds, where the thing being done in and of itself is not intrinsically impermissible, unjust or just. Rather, the thing being done, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, can be assessed in its consequences.

In moral reasoning, there are those who tend to want to apply absolute moral considerations to a broader range of areas, and there are those who want expand the space of areas in which we consider things on a purely consequentialist grounds. Those are important debates, and there are maybe cases at the margins where we ask if this is a scenario where we would apply absolute reasoning or consequentialist reasoning.

For those with a certain kind of view and a perspective on the environment, they take a very absolutist approach. They are the ones to say that one ought not to be producing greenhouse gas emissions, or one ought not to be engaging in certain kinds of industrial production, period, full stop. If it is hurting the planet, therefore it is an absolute wrong, regardless of the immediate consequences. There are those who take that perspective.

My view is, though, that an environmental policy consideration should be viewed through a consequentialist lens, that is whether emissions are justified in a particular case or not, whether emissions should be allowed and what kind of regulation or taxation policy should be applied in particular cases. Those should be evaluated, not through the lens of moral absolutes, but through the lens of consequences. Does allowing emissions in a particular case produce better consequences or not?

Those who take the opposite view and argue for absolutist evaluation on environmental policy, I think, have to explain why we should not consider consequences. Why should we not countenance that producing emissions in certain cases may have better consequences for humanity in general, or for the environment in particular, just because of an absolute opposition they have to producing emissions in a particular case? I do not see any text or basis for saying that there is an absolute moral prohibition on producing greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, I see this as being a space of consequentialist moral evaluation.

When one is looking at environmental policy through a consequentialist lens, when one is producing greenhouse emissions here, one always has to ask if it is displacing greenhouse gas emissions somewhere else. What are the net effects, in human security, human happiness, economic well-being and the environment? In general, the consequentialist reasoning Conservatives apply is why we are inclined to be very supportive, for instance, of energy development here in Canada, which we see as displacing less clean, and also potentially more negative, from a security perspective, energy being produced in other countries.

We say that expanding the Canadian oil and gas sector, even if it is within a certain narrow geographic band, might increase apparent emissions. However, if it is decreasing global emissions because it is displacing emissions in other cases, or if, in the production of that energy, we are generating new technology that could be used in other parts of the world to have positive effects overall, we are willing to say that, yes, that industrial activity is a net positive so we support it.

In other cases, they might say that Canada's producing more energy is bringing about security improvements in the world. If we are displacing Russian gas being exported to Europe by increasing our production and exporting it to Europe, the consequential impacts would be that Russia would not be able to fuel its war machine by selling gas to Europe so it would not able to continue this war. Russia's being less able to prosecute the war against Ukraine would be good for security, human life and well-being around the world. This is particularly true not only around Ukraine, but also more broadly. It is a positive overall.

Rather than taking an ideological, absolutist approach to environmental policy, we need to take a consequentialist approach to look at the full range of impacts, what the economic, well-being, security and environmental impacts are, and weigh the decision to develop versus the decision to not develop within that larger consequentialist framework.

As I try to understand where different parties are coming from in the House and why they come to different conclusions, I see a philosophical difference on environmental policy between the official opposition, for instance, and some of the other parties in this place. It is not that one group of people is concerned about the environment and the other is not. We are all concerned about the impact of policies on the environment. We all recognize the role that environmental policy plays in contributing to humans' flourishing or not and to human well-being, etc. However, we believe that those evaluations should be done in a consequentialist way, as opposed to this absolute opposition to certain kinds of development and resources, etc.

We hear things from even the government that suggest that it is buying in to this more absolutist way of looking at environmental policy when we have, for instance, repeatedly tried to push the government. We have said it is important to develop our oil and gas sector, for instance, to displace less environmentally friendly sources of energy in other parts of the world. The government members will say that, no, these particular kinds of fuels are the energy of the past and the solution to 20th century instead of the 21st century. Just factually, that is not true. Oil and gas continues to be a very significant part of the global energy mix. Moreover, it shows this kind of attachment to an absolutism with the effort to apply the kind of language of moral absolutes to an area in energy policy where more consequentialist considerations are more appropriate.

I just wanted to put this on the record as a way of thinking about what kinds of differences exist between parties on environmental policy because it is often convenient for us to paint with a broad brush to say that this group of political actors care and this group of political actors do not care. We can have better conversations and more substantive understandings of each other if we try to look behind that to say what is motivating different political actors to come to different conclusions.

Just to summarize, Bill S-5 is a bit of an omnibus bill that covers various kinds of environmental policy changes. It is a bill that most parties in the House support, although there are some with different quibbles. We have a shared concern in the House for the environment and a shared recognition that environmental policy has an impact on human life and human well-being. Moreover, we see the environment as a good in and of itself and not just as a means to other goods. Also, we make those environmental policy considerations through a more consequentialist moral framework, rather than an absolute one, which is more appropriate for the particulars in this case.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for going down memory land with CEPA 1999. He was there.

I think the hon. member eloquently described why Bill S-5 already covers the situation of tailings ponds and fracking. Like him, I am agnostic. I wonder if he would comment further on some of the measures the minister has introduced to deal with the current situation, with ongoing monitoring, restoring trust, and involving the first nations affected in decision-making and, particularly, long-term solutions.