Okay.
Evidence of meeting #17 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was renewable.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #17 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was renewable.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:55 a.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Even if we come back to this later, my position will be the same.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Okay; let's deal with it.
Go ahead, Mr. Moffet.
Amendment BQ-1 is on the floor.
February 26th, 2008 / 10:55 a.m.
John Moffet Director General, Legislation and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
Actually, Mr. Chair, I was going to respectfully request that for a different reason it may be appropriate to defer consideration of clause 2. It has nothing to do with the amendments that have been proposed, but the final provision in clause 2 would actually delete a provision that exists in CEPA.
The bill proposes to take that provision and consolidate it into another provision at the end of the act, and we do that in clause 5. We don't want to delete a provision that exists in CEPA until we know that we're going to move it somewhere else, and we won't know that until we deal with clause 5, so I was going to respectfully request that the committee consider staying the discussion on clause 2 until we deal with clause 5. That way we'll know the fate of this particular provision. Then we can come back to clause 2 and not delete a provision when we don't know what its fate is going to be.
Again, this has nothing to do with the various amendments.
11 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
We have to be cognizant of the fact that Bill C-33 is amending the Environmental Protection Act, and we have to look at the act as a whole.
Mr. Easter.
11 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Mr. Moffet, what specific section of amendment BQ-1 are you talking about? Is it where it says “subsection 140(3) of the act is replaced”? Is that the specific section you're saying would be problematic?
It's just a simple question. What part of that...?
11 a.m.
Director General, Legislation and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
It's the part that refers to subsection 140(3). That is amended in the government's bill as well as in the Bloc's amendment.
11 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
We do go all the way down to that, but it doesn't change subsection 140(3). If you look at subclause 2(7), the amendment moved by the Bloc only goes as far as.... It ends after “replaced”, so that “by the following” actually stays in, I believe, in the Bloc motion.
11 a.m.
Director General, Legislation and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
Yes, but.... I'm sorry, let me.... Subclause 2(7) would actually replace existing subsection 140(3) in CEPA. It takes an entire subsection out of CEPA. In order to understand this, you actually have to look at CEPA itself. We've included the relevant provisions in the binder we circulated to members. It would eliminate that entire subsection. Both the government's bill and the Bloc amendment would eliminate that subsection and replace it with some entirely different text relating to an entirely different issue.
The reason we're eliminating it, again, is that we want to move that provision—the existing subsection 140(3)—and put it at the back of CEPA, so that we consolidate all of the similar administrative discrimination authorities in section 330. It's a drafting technique. There's no substantive policy issue concerning where it goes in the act.
The point I'm getting at is that both the government bill and the Bloc amendment would eliminate that subsection entirely. I would suggest to the committee that you don't want to do that until you have looked at the proposed amendments to section 330 of CEPA and determined whether you agree with those. Otherwise, you may inadvertently lose something out of CEPA.
11 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I think you've explained it. Basically, the government bill itself is eliminating subsection 140(3) and replacing it with a regulation that may distinguish among fuels. Would that be the explanation?
11 a.m.
Director General, Legislation and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
Yes, sir.
11 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
All right.
Just on the point, though, Mr. Chair, about whether to deal with it now or later, I'd say that I'm concerned more about the principle of the Bloc amendment than the wording. The principle takes the authority away from the Governor in Council basically to make regulations, as is the normal business of the Governor in Council.
I may disagree with much of what the Governor in Council does sometimes, but the fact of the matter is that the Governor in Council needs the authority to regulate in changing times. If we hamstring the government as a whole in its regulation-making authority and force it to come back to legislation, we create huge problems down the road. We've seen that in some previous legislation when as MPs we thought we were doing the right thing in preventing government from making wild and woolly regulations, but then it became cumbersome.
I would just say that regardless of that subsection 140(3) and its elimination, I'm opposed in principle to taking the regulatory authority away from the government in this instance, regardless of some of the good points made in the amendment.
11:05 a.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
I understand that my motion will be defeated.
The purpose of this amendment is to give committee members the opportunity to examine regulations prior to their adoption. It would be very interesting to have the authority to do that. We want to be kept apprised of any technological advances in this relatively new field. It is important that we be able to review regulations and evaluate the relevance of the measures being proposed by the government. It is a matter of submitting each government request to the committee for review. Equally important is the environmental impact.
I will discuss the other amendments later, but I would like us to vote on the Bloc's amendment.
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Before we go to the vote, I wonder whether the legislative counsel or the people who are here would explain how, from their perspective, this amendment.... Can they give us examples of how it complicates? I know examples in my own mind of where. I like the idea that committee would be involved, but I think it encumbers the ability of government to do its work, so I wonder whether some of the witnesses could explain what actually happens on the ground, so to speak, in terms of regulation-making authority.
11:05 a.m.
Director General, Legislation and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
Mr. Easter, the issue you raise goes to the heart of a fairly long-standing and fundamental constitutional principle regarding the separation of powers as between Parliament and the Governor in Council.
Essentially, a statute can, within the scope of the statute and within the constitution, provide authority to the Governor in Council to regulate; it can instruct the Governor in Council to issue regulations on a particular topic. However, the Bloc amendment would go well beyond that type of statutory authority and would explicitly limit the Governor in Council's discretion and actually start to stipulate the content of the regulation.
There we have a blurring of the distinction between the role of Parliament and the role of the Governor in Council and we have no precedent that we are aware of, in terms of statutory authority, that goes this far. Indeed, this issue has arisen in previous committee discussions, where there was more notice provided to government officials, and various Department of Justice officials from constitutional law have spoken about the nature of this constitutional provision.
Fundamentally, it speaks to the very issue you address, and the practical reason for that is the one you described. Parliament may want to provide authority and may want to say we must address this particular issue, but the details of how we address the issue are more appropriately dealt with by the authorities and discretion provided to the Governor in Council rather than being stipulated through statutory authority.
11:10 a.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
For the record, I disagree with what Mr. Moffet just said. When we discussed the Tobacco Act, we used the example of Health Canada as inspiration for moving this amendment, which called for the committee to examine the measures. This falls within the committee's purview.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
11:10 a.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Is the discussion we're having now on a part of the amendment?
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
No, it's on the Bloc motion now. André put the whole of amendment BQ-1 on the floor, so we are discussing the Bloc—
11:10 a.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
So when we vote, we will be voting on...?