Debates of Sept. 25th, 2014

Bill C-36--Time Allocation Motion

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #233

Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I declare the motion carried.

Bill C-22--Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-22, An Act respecting Canada's offshore oil and gas operations, enacting the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, repealing the Nuclear Liability Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill; and

That 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government orders on the day allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite all hon. members who wish to ask questions to please rise in their places so that I can determine how many questions we may have.

The hon. member for Hamilton Mountain.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is now the 77th time in this Parliament that the Conservative government is shutting down debate on one of the most important pieces of legislation for Canadian taxpayers, for Canadian citizens, in the House.

Bill C-22 is a bill that deals with nuclear liability and liability in the case of offshore oil and gas accidents. At stake here is whether Canadian citizens ought to be on the hook for the cleanup of accidents, either in the offshore oil and gas industry or with respect to nuclear accidents. We know that in Fukushima it will cost $250 billion to $500 billion to clean up after that nuclear accident. However, here in this bill, the government is proposing that companies be on the hook for only $1 billion, meaning that taxpayers would be on the hook for the rest.

This is a fundamentally important bill that goes to the very heart of the polluter pays principle. However, we find that the Conservatives, clearly not very proud of their approach on this, want to shut down debate and want to make it impossible for us to take those views into account to produce a piece of legislation that actually protects Canadian citizens and our environment.

The irony here is that in no other bill has it ever been this apparent that the Conservatives only shut down debate when people disagree with them. There was no closure motion and there was no time allocation at second reading when we indicated that we would support the bill being sent to committee so that we could improve it and bring it up to international standards. At that point, they were fine with the debate, as long as we all said we were supportive of the bill. However, at third reading, we made it very clear that the bill, even after being amended in committee, fell far short of what Canadians deserve, and now the Conservatives are trying to shut down debate.

It is absolutely outrageous. I want the minister to stand up and agree today to give us the debate that Canadians deserve so that we can enact the polluter pays principle effectively.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity and the question from the member, who is the critic for Natural Resources. It is nice to be debating something in Natural Resources with her.

In the spirit of consensus, we have some agreement on a couple of key points. The government agrees that this is a critical and very important piece of legislation with respect to offshore safety and liability, as well with respect to nuclear liability. Furthermore, time allocation has given us an opportunity and in fact it is in place to ensure that adequate time is allocated for further debate and consideration of the bill. Therefore, we are moving toward some agreement on this.

I would make the observation that all of our regimes with respect to nuclear, offshore, rail, pipeline, and marine safety have some important alignments, particularly with respect to the principle of polluter pays.

On the more specific point of nuclear liability, I would just point out to my colleague that the current stage of the legislation is unacceptable. It is time for change. This was set in 1976 and has never changed. This piece of legislation and its amendments take into consideration, among other things, an amount that is sufficient to deal with the consequences of controlled release, and for a reasonable and fair assessment of insurers' capacities in this regard.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, once again I rise, and I have done so on dozens of occasions, in regard to time allocation. The Prime Minister and the majority Reform-Conservative government have been very abusive in terms of the way in which they pass legislation through the House of Commons.

There are a couple of things I think Canadians should note about this majority mentality that the current government seems to have, and that is that it does not necessarily support debate inside the House of Commons. This is now the 75th time allocation motion, which is as bad as these massive budget bills where the Conservatives pack a bunch of other pieces of legislation within a budget bill, which is somewhat allocated in terms of time in and of itself in terms of its passage.

From those massive budget bills to time allocation, the lack of respect the Prime Minister has for due process, for allowing members of Parliament to thoroughly debate all of the legislative and budget measures that happen here in Canada, is truly amazing. It is disrespectful.

My question is for the government House leader as he is the one who has brought forward the motion that we are debating today.

Why does the government feel that the only way it can pass its legislative agenda, unlike any other government in the history of our country, is to continue to rely on time allocation, preventing members of Parliament from fully engaging on what are important issues to all Canadians?

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's question and his important exercise in word count in this place. I would also point out that it is quite likely he is standing in a glass house when he talks about omnibus bills, but we will debate that at another time.

I think what is important here is to understand that the purpose of time allocation is to ensure that adequate time is allocated for further debate and the consideration of a bill. It is a tool that creates certainty. The benefits include greater certainty for all members in organizing their affairs and business to accommodate votes. It also helps folks interested in this, from the media to citizens, to improve their ability to inform and be informed as the general public. Therefore, time allocation in this sense is really a scheduling device.

On the importance of the debate within either time allocation or on this important piece of legislation, as I said earlier, we agree. This is an important bill that has gone through its due process. It needed to be updated and would now reflect an appropriate and responsible legislative framework for offshore and nuclear liability regimes. As well, it is an exercise to make this area consistent with other areas of liability, as I mentioned, pipeline safety, marine safety and the like.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, in a previous answer, the minister talked about alignment when it comes to polluter pays. I wonder if he could speak to the proposed nuclear regime in Bill C-22 and how it aligns with that in other countries.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the very helpful and supportive parliamentary secretary, for her important work on this file in particular. She raised two points in her comments.

I mentioned in previous responses the importance for consistency across all of our liability regimes for the purpose of protecting Canadians. This piece with respect to nuclear liability would put Canada's liability limit among the highest internationally. There is a mix among countries with respect to nuclear civil liability limits. The United Kingdom, France, Spain and other European nations are moving to an operator threshold of $1 billion and some non-European nations, for example, South Korea, South Africa and Argentina have lesser amounts.

In addition to the alignment exercise here domestically, the $1 billion liability limit is consistent with countries around the world. They will be looking to Canada ultimately for its leadership on establishing, by legislation, a reasonable and acceptable threshold for liability that is anchored by the safety of Canadians and our communities.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what the minister said about the government shutting down debate on this incredibly important legislation would make George Orwell proud. We should be thankful that the government is shutting down debate because it brings certainty to the debate. We should be thankful that time allocation has been imposed for the 77th time by the government. Canadians should be thrilled by the democratic richness within the Conservative Party for giving them certainly over how little time we will talk about important legislation. We are not grateful, we are not thankful and it is not right.

To prove that this process is wrong and anti-democratic, I will reference the Conservatives when they were in opposition. When the Liberals did the exact same thing, the Conservatives made the exact same call that the Liberals were being bullies and abusing Parliament. That is on the process, so it is hypocritical for Conservatives to now say this is a great tactic on the actual substance of what we are talking about.

The New Democrats fully believe in the polluter-pay principle. By the government setting a limited liability, it says that all damages from a nuclear accident above that limited liability would be picked up by the public. Other businesses do not enjoy such limited liability. This would become a subsidy to certain industries. They would only have to carry so much insurance because the rest of the cost would be picked up by the public, and the cost could be extreme, into tens of billions of dollars, as we saw with Fukushima.

The minister is right in saying that this needed updating. That is absolutely true. However, why, when we only update this kind of legislation once in a generation, go to half measures? Why not bring in a bill that would establish a full polluter-pay principle so Canadians would not be left on the hook for somebody else's misconduct that could cost billions upon billions of dollars?

For the member to suggest that we should all be thankful that the government has shut down debate is bulldozer politics from the Conservatives. It does not work when it comes to this. It does not work when it comes to pipelines. Canadians will reject this come 2015.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is always at his best when he keeps some of the more aggressive words and tones out of the debate with me personally, but notwithstanding that, there is some substance to his question and it merits further discussion.

The liability regime has two important aspects. Fault and negligence still have an unlimited liability component, and that is important.

With respect to unlimited liability of the operator as is done in other countries, this has been done not necessarily with success. The practice of the capacity for operators to compensate for damages is somewhat limited.

We have gone to great lengths in crafting and establishing a threshold that reflects a modern reality and reasoned threshold. We all agree that Canada is in need of dramatic change in terms of its monetary value, maintain a fault to negligence regime for liability that is unlimited and move to a threshold that based on facts and experiences around the world would be reasonable and achievable.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, although the environment is a pressing issue, the government has not proven to be responsible in this area as it shirked its responsibilities at the UN climate summit.

When it comes to the environment, the government is shirking its responsibilities, and I would like to understand its logic.

This week, once again, the government did not take responsibility with regard to the moratorium on Cacouna and protecting the St. Lawrence River. It should at least be able to conduct scientific studies.

What is the logic of the government, which is shirking its environmental responsibilities and trying to change the rules this morning by putting an end to debate?

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that there is any logic to that question.

In addition, I am not sure there was anything in that question pertinent to either time allocation or the substantive dimensions of what is contained in the bill.

Notwithstanding that, it is important then to make the point that this is an opportunity for us all to move forward on legislation with respect to offshore nuclear liability that is modernized. We have some agreement there. It also reflects appropriate responsible thresholds for the offshore and nuclear sectors.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as has been underlined, this is the 77th time now that the government has moved time allocation, in effect limiting debate on incredibly important issues about which the public is very concerned.

When we talk about the nuclear liability component of the bill and the minister's claim that it is modernized, to a certain extent it is I suppose. When we start with a liability component that has not been updated in something like 40 years, anything is an improvement to that. However, does it hit the mark? Absolutely not.

In Toronto, for example, my riding has a nuclear fuel facility that most of the residents who live near it had no idea was there. The reason I bring this up is because it speaks to transparency and the openness and willingness to engage the public in these important public safety, public policy debates. That is what we are supposed to do in this place and that is why we reject the continual use of time allocation to limit debate on these incredibly important issues.

I would ask the minister to respond to the thousands of people in my community in Toronto who were shut out of the process around the Line 9 pipeline consultation. They did not know there was a nuclear fuel facility in their community. How does all that square with a government that does not want to fully debates these issues? There is a pattern here and I would like the minister to speak to that pattern.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to that pattern. It sounds like that party has a member of Parliament who is not engaged with its issues and, furthermore, that he may lack a basic understanding of provincial and federal jurisdictions with respect to these.

There are 19 commercial power reactors in Canada, some of them located in a higher concentration in Ontario. Part of his question would be well-suited for our provincial counterparts. I am sure they would be happy to respond to some of that awareness piece, and I am sure he could facilitate a round table with his constituents who are focused like a laser on these issues.

However, we do agree on something. Because I am a consensus builder, I look thematically from each and every question where we agree. We seem to share one prevailing important piece, and that is the profile, the exercise of building public confidence is tremendously important. It means, particularly where it is relevant to his particular riding, assuring Canadians that the government is taking the right steps forward with legislation that reflects a modern regime for liability and for safety, in the case of offshore nuclear, for the purposes of this debate, and a whole host of other legislation around pipeline safety, marine safety and the like. We see the alignment, see how it is world-leading in many element's and celebrate that.

If there are more focused group discussions from his region and they are relevant for a debate in the context of this chamber, being the federal government, I would be happy to talk about those.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to ask the minister a question.

I believe the opposition has left out a lot of facts and a lot of significant points in the debate today. We are talking about liability and risks, and one of the risks is nuclear.

There are some vast differences between Fukushima and the reactors we have in Canada. We have CANDU reactors here that are heavy water reactors. Japan was using light water reactors that used enriched uranium.

Then, if we look at the geography of the location of reactors, and let us talk about Ontario specifically, they are all on the Great Lakes, where there is no high risk for tsunamis or earthquakes. If we take a look at Fukushima, it is right on the ocean, right in a fault line.

Also, the design of the safety components for the reactors at Fukushima and the CANDU reactors are vastly different

When we talk about liability, we talk about insurance, and we have to face the facts and the risks. They have been working on this for years. They have it right. Would the minister expand on this?

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that sounds like a member of Parliament who is not just focused and disciplined on becoming a subject matter expert on key components of this, but who has also engaged his community, or his communities, with some deference to what that means to his constituents.

He was right to point out Fukushima as a template for some of the discussion in terms of the elements of this legislation.

A post-Fukushima review by a task force created by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission confirmed in October 2011 that Canadian plants were robust, had a strong design relying upon multiple layers of defence, safety measures were being augmented based upon the review to further reduce the likelihood of an incident from external events and to increase the effectiveness of emergency management measurements.

I agree with the member that the NDP is on a pretty consistent fact-free diet when we put these debates out on the floor. However, those important facts suggest to me that not only is this legislation important, responsible and reflects the modern reality of nuclear energy in Canada and around the world, but it has been done very thoughtfully in a scientific factual basis that respects and understands the state of nuclear energy in Canada.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a short while ago, the minister suggested that I did not quite have my facts right and he said that the NDP were on a fact-free diet. The fact is that nuclear fuel facilities are a federally regulated sector.

I would invite the minister to come to a town hall meeting in my riding. In fact, I did have a town hall meeting in my riding and I asked your predecessor to come and he chose not to. I welcome you. I think you have opened your arms—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The member has been here long enough to know to direct the questions and comments to the Chair and not to individual members in the House.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my apologies. I would just like to ask the minister if he will come to Toronto to a public meeting on nuclear fuel safety and pipeline safety. He would be most welcome, and he would probably meet a lot of people that he has not had the pleasure of encountering before.