Evidence of meeting #25 for Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:50 a.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
It does create another class of substances and list of substances. I've just understood.
Thank you.
10:50 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Let's just be clear here, what we're seeking is a substitution analysis. What Mr. Moffet has referred to is the toxicity analysis of the 23,000 chemicals. There was no substitution analysis done at that point. It's not creating a new list of substances; it's saying “of the ones known”. We took the friendly amendment from government to narrow the focus, to talk about substitution options.
This is important. We're not looking for some new analysis of toxicity or the airborne quality of one or another. That work has been done on most of these substances, if not all of them. What we're looking for is that substitution analysis. That's the critical point of this whole amendment. It bears relevance. The IARC list is not a comprehensive list that deals with airborne only, but some of them are airborne--hence, relevance--and it allows Canada to get on track with what Europe is doing under REACH, which is trying to find substitutions prior to the use or emittance of.
Let's not mix apples and oranges here.
10:50 a.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Mr. Chairman, I have been a member of Parliament for 10 years, and over the course of this period of time, I have seen that laws are often changed and that deadlines are rarely respected.
My question is a simple one. Is the five year window provided for in amendment NDP-15.3 realistic? Do you believe it will be respected? This is what it says:[...] the Minister shall require an assessment of the following substances and an action plan for achieving their substitution [...]
Is it realistic to expect that these two requirements will be fulfilled within a five year window?
10:50 a.m.
Acting Director General, Legislation and Regulatory Affairs, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
We have no resources to do this at the moment and we have no experience doing this work so far.
10:50 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
There is much evidence to show that the concept of substitution is one of the highest orders of pollution prevention you can do. The number of substances we're talking about with the government's current friendly amendment is to remove schedule 1 substances, is to look at IRARC, which has, as Mr. Moffet said, 415 on the list, only some of which are airborne, and then it's up to the discretion of the minister as to which other ones come beyond that. We're not talking about going through a substitution analysis of some 23,000 chemicals.
If it's a resource question, we've identified through the literature and our understanding that substitution is one of the better ways to go to prevent pollution in the first place, and my goodness, the excuse of resources simply cannot be applied in this case. We don't have the money to do it, but what we're going to do is go out and spend more money on health care, on fixing people's asthma and respiratory illnesses caused by pollution, which we could have prevented by substituting in the first place. That's the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard.
So let's be clear. We have severely limited the scope of this initial amendment to allow Canada to start to do this in an intelligent way. Clearly the logic bears out that this is a good expenditure of moneys and this is not an extensive list and does not create any new bureaucratic mess for the government. It's the courage of our conviction, folks. Let's just get on with this.
10:55 a.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Chair, given the resourcing questions raised by Mr. Moffet, I take it there are no resources to do this.
I will take it through you then, Mr. Chair. Perhaps I could put a friendly question, of course, to the government MPs and to the parliamentary secretary in particular. Would the government, given that it's supporting this amendment, make the resources available to do this job?
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Chair, I can assure the member that this government is committed to cleaning the environment and providing resources to clean the environment, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and provide a healthy environment for Canadians.
10:55 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
On that last comment on government willingness and resources, we've just gone through this act and fundamentally reassessed some of the priorities that we believe government should be enacting--the equivalency agreements, the hot zone designation within Canada, retrofit programs, hard caps on emitters.
My goodness, if we believe this is a good thing, and government is saying they believe it's a good thing, then clearly in the opposition ranks we can also see it as a good thing, and not for the want of some potentially less than 400 chemicals and the assessment of looking for substitutions that would be better and that industry could actually apply and not make the pollution in the first place. It just seems incredible that the argument is being posed.
I again encourage committee members to seek some courage on this, to know that substitution is one of the highest orders of pollution prevention we have available to us and that we haven't been doing it to this point. Let's get on with it.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
Seeing no further debate, we're ready for the question on NDP-15.3, as amended. Is it necessary to reread it? Is everybody happy with that?
(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]
(On clause 14)
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
We move now to clause 14.
As we're coming up to eleven o'clock, I will suggest to the committee that we suspend for about ten minutes. The food is ready to be brought in. We can have it brought in and take a bit of a break.
We have to thank the environment committee for the food.
Thank you, Mr. Mills.
We will suspend the meeting.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll call the meeting back to order. Continue to graze as you need.
We're going to pick up at clause 14, which had been previously stood. Clause 14 is referenced by NDP-16.1, on page 31.1. So we'll turn it over to Monsieur Cullen.
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Chair.
When we changed certain parts of the Clean Air Act as it was, we eliminated some sections that we found problematic. There is one section, though, that we felt could be brought back, because what it did was it allowed the minister to report on the monitoring of substances. This is the connection between health and the environment that many people have spoken about, but this is a practical application. So you'll see in NDP-16.1--this was deleted out of clause 18--that we are, in a sense, reintroducing the one aspect that we thought was positive out of this.
I believe committee members all have NDP-16.1, but I'll read it.
(3) Subsection 93(1) of the Act is amended by striking out the word “and” at the end of paragraph (x) and by adding the following after paragraph (x): (x.1) the monitoring of the substance and the reporting to either Minister of the effects on the environment and human health from releases into the air of the substances; and
This is the reporting back to Canadians by the minister of substances that are being released that are known to have effects on human health. This was something that the government suggested in their original act. We thought that one part was actually quite progressive. It got deleted just because of the way the committee went through the process, but we want to introduce it back. This will go into section 93.(1) of CEPA, which is a section of CEPA that has a whole lot of powers that are given to the minister, so it makes sense in the way that it fits.
We look for support from other committee members.
March 29th, 2007 / 11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Thank you, Chair.
We will support NDP 16.1. I appreciate the comments made by Mr. Cullen. We indeed do support a healthy environment for the health of Canadians. We've been consistent all along, and that's what Bill C-30 would have provided. It's unfortunate that under clause 18 the Liberals made major changes and changed the focus on the greenhouse gas emissions, which is very important. But when you eliminate addressing air quality, pollutants, air quality indoors and outdoors, it is a concern not only to the government but to Canadians. So we will be supporting this amendment.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I do see Mr. Moffet with his hand up and I would like to hear from the department beforehand.
Before that, Mr. Chair, obviously the NDP has had a reconsideration of the government's bill. Maybe if we had a couple of more days, they would reconsider the other amendments that they've made and see the light of the government's great initiative. Maybe that would be the opportunity.
If you had a little more time to think about it, would that be possible, Mr. Cullen?
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
