Ed Fast

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 6th, 2016]

With regard to Canada's delegation at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21): (a) what is the first and last name of each delegate; (b) which organization did each delegate represent; (c) what is the total cost for using government aircraft to transport delegates to and from Paris; and (d) broken down by each delegate who stayed in Paris, for how many days and on which dates did the government cover costs?

[Infrastructure, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to engage in this debate. For viewers of this debate and other MPs in this House, I want to begin my comments by framing what the motion is all about .

The motion does two things. First, it calls upon the federal government to impose a full greenhouse gas emission impact study for every single federally funded infrastructure project over the value of $500,000. Second, it calls upon the federal government to give priority to infrastructure proposals which specifically mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, notwithstanding the clearly expressed preferences of municipalities or provincial governments.

I do not question the motive behind this motion. It has to do with ensuring governments at all levels exercise wise environmental stewardship. We can all agree on that.

Sadly, the wording of this motion is reflective of how Liberal governments cannot resist the urge to overreach and increase red tape by interfering in the affairs of cash-strapped local and provincial governments, and in the lives of ordinary Canadians.

What this motion is about is essentially a big government solution for a perceived local government challenge. Essentially, when we talk about big government, we are talking about big costs. Who bears the cost of this? That is where my criticisms are focused.

First, these additional costs for municipalities will be imposed without guaranteeing any value for the money that is spent.

Second, the decisions on local infrastructure priorities will no longer be made exclusively on the merits of the projects and the needs of local communities.

Third, what the motion really does, if the government follows through on it, is it indirectly intrudes on provincial and municipal jurisdiction. Why do I say that? Most of these projects will be cost-shared, either fifty-fifty between the federal government and the municipality or the provincial government, or a tripartite funding agreement, one-third, one-third, one-third.

Most of these projects will actually be funded one-third, one-third, one-third, with the federal government only contributing one-third of the cost and yet imposing upon municipalities the requirement to embark upon a very expensive greenhouse gas emission assessment process.

The large majority of these projects, of course, are going to take place in the 4,000 municipalities across this country. I asked a question earlier of the sponsor of this bill, whether he had actually consulted with those municipalities and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. He did not actually give me a straight answer, but it was pretty clear that the answer was a big resounding no. It was the same thing with the provinces and territories. Were they consulted? It appears they were not.

Who bears the expense and cost of this? It is going to be the provinces, territories, and the municipalities across Canada.

We talked about partnerships. I will talk a little about Abbotsford, the city I represent.

We have a recently completed project, funded under our previous Conservative government, the Mill Lake Spray Park. It was a small project. It does not have serious greenhouse gas emission impacts, but that project would be captured by this motion and would have to go through the expensive review process. We are talking about not only upstream, but downstream greenhouse gas emission impacts as well. This is horrifically expensive. We are talking about a significant amount of research that has to be done. We are talking about a lot of time spent putting together the information to make this assessment, and tremendous costs to local communities.

We have to understand that the priority setting that takes place for these projects, the design and engineering, the costing, and all of the other fundamental work on these projects is done at the local level. They will be the ones who will have to pay the cost for this ill-advised motion. These requirements capture most of the infrastructure projects that will be built by municipalities across Canada.

I am a former city councillor. I spent nine years as a city councillor, as well as five years on a local school board. I have become keenly sensitive to the pressures that municipalities face. They are stretched to the max. Many of them no longer have any ability to raise tax revenues to meet the demands of their residents.

In fact, this all goes back to the 13 long dark years of the former Liberal government under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. What did they do? After years of accumulating national debt they realized there was a problem. However, instead of making the tough decisions, controlling spending, as we in the Conservative government did, and controlling the growth of government, they looked for an easy target. That easy target was the provinces and territories. They downloaded billions of dollars. It was somewhere around $20 billion a year of federal government transfers, which were intended to support the provinces in providing health care, social services, and education. The provinces were left with this crater in their budgets. What did they in turn do? They looked for the next target, which was municipalities.

I remember, in one year alone we had approximately $3 million of cutbacks of provincial transfers dumped on us in the municipality in Abbotsford. The impact was so significant. Many municipalities across the country have yet to recover from that. In fact, our former Conservative government tried to address that. We actually went out of our way to double the amount of gas tax funding for municipalities. On top of that, we made that gas tax program permanent to try to help our municipalities grapple with these demands for services but a declining tax base.

We can see where this all comes down. I asked whether the motion's sponsor had actually consulted with our municipalities across the country. It is pretty clear he did not. The reason I wanted him to advise us of that is that our municipalities across the country have made it very clear. In fact the 2015 Federation of Canadian Municipalities' report on local climate action across Canada highlighted the disparity between municipalities with capacity to undertake detailed environmental analyses and those that lack the human resources, scientific, and planning expertise to afford to do that.

That is the case here. The motion is imposing additional burdens on our municipalities, and many of the projects that are captured under the motion should never actually require these assessments to be done.

This is an example of top-down government, a failure to respect the knowledge and wisdom of local communities. It is all being done in the absence of the long promised pan-Canadian framework on climate change, which the Prime Minister promised in Paris he would deliver within 90 days in Vancouver. I was in Vancouver. Was it delivered? No, it was not.

We have these ad hoc environmental initiatives and greenhouse gas emission reduction initiatives being implemented by the Liberal government willy-nilly without an overarching national climate change plan. In fact, they are spending $2.65 billion in foreign countries, without us even having a national climate change plan in place.

Therefore, the bottom line is this. All Canadians expect their government to take action on protecting our environment and meeting our environmental challenges. However, those efforts should never displace investment in critical infrastructure driven by the priorities of the municipalities, the provinces, and the territories. As governments address those environmental commitments, we need to be selective in determining which projects merit greenhouse gas emission assessments and which do not. Otherwise, we are wasting taxpayers' dollars. Of course, the motion does not in any way contain those safeguards.

I will conclude. It is very simple. Of the many effective tools government has available to address greenhouse gas emissions, this motion is not and should not be one of those tools.

[Infrastructure, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member's motives are pure here, however, I did want to highlight the fact that his Prime Minister has made a clear commitment to a new era of co-operative federalism.

As the member will know, there is somewhere in the order of 4,000 municipalities across the country that would be implicated with this decision. There are 13 provinces and territories across the country. Before one would embark upon a motion like this, which would have significant implications for municipalities and the provinces, one would think the member would have consulted with all of those organizations.

There is a pre-eminent association across Canada that reflects and represents most of Canada's municipalities: the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Has the member consulted with the FCM? Does he have its written support for his motion, given how significant the impact would be on municipalities? Has he also consulted with the provinces and territories and secured their support for the motion?

[The Environment, May 4th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, they are still misleading Canadians.

On the one hand, the Liberal Party's fundraising material claims that the government does have a national climate change plan in place. On the other hand, when asked to show Canadians that long-promised plan, the Prime Minister has steadfastly refused to do so.

Will he acknowledge that the Liberals have no plan?

[The Environment, May 4th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it appears that our boxing Prime Minister is playing rope-a-dope with Canadians.

He recently sent out a fundraising letter praising his new Canada-wide climate change plan. However, Canadians are asking, what plan is that? Is it the one that was promised in Paris within 90 days, which he failed to deliver in Vancouver?

If there is a climate change plan that only Liberal insiders know about, will the Prime Minister now table it, so that all Canadians can see how painful it will be and who will pay the costs?

[Criminal Code, May 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to be very sensitive to the hon. member's comments about not using the children of Attawapiskat as an unnecessary element in this debate, but I think it bears noting that this is a critical issue across Canada when our first nations are struggling with an epidemic of suicide. I look at this legislation in all earnestness and I see how it flies in the face of what we are trying to do, which is not only to protect and defend human life but to create an environment within Canada where life can be lived in a way that is not only happy but productive and contributes to building a better society.

With respect to his specific question, how do we approach this ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada? The government well knows it does have remedies available to address the ruling of the court. It has tools within the charter itself to respond to this decision.

When legislation is so fundamentally flawed, as is Bill C-14, as a person of conscience, as a person of faith, as a person who loves this country dearly, it is my duty to speak up against this kind of legislation and to say, no, there are better ways of addressing this.

I am so pleased with my colleague who has raised the issue of palliative care consistently in this House. That should be the first focus of the work we are doing to help people who find themselves in these circumstances.

[Criminal Code, May 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member that we actually did take an active role in addressing the Carter decision. However, our government at the time was taking its time to get this right. Broad consultations across the country is the least that we could do with something this important, this critical to our foundational values.

Since when is the taking of a life defined as health care? That is my struggle. This country was founded upon values that respected the value of human life and protecting human lives. This is a huge step in the wrong direction, one that I am committed to resisting, as a parliamentarian and someone who deeply loves this country.

This legislation is a very dangerous step on a slippery slope of which we do not know where it will lead, but it is very clear it will lead to much greater liberalization and cast a much greater net in the future.

[Criminal Code, May 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to add my voice to those who have expressed serious concerns about this legislation. Bill C-14 would, for the first time ever in Canada, establish a national right to die and the right to seek assistance in the act of committing suicide.

I acknowledge that the issue of assisted suicide is highly complex and of course deeply sensitive. Like it or not, the issue has been dropped in our laps by the Supreme Court of Canada and each one of us has been elected to wrestle with this very tough issue. I hope that, at the very least, we will have the courage to reject solutions that, on their face, may, by some, be characterized as progress, but in reality degrade rather than elevate the intrinsic value of each and every human life.

I believe that every human life is God given and is deserving of dignity, value, and protection. Indeed, from my earliest years as a public official in the community of Abbotsford, I have made it clear that my constituents can and should always expect me to defend human life against all threats. Today is no different. The legislation we are debating today represents a watershed moment in the life of this country, one in which our fundamental values are being re-examined and tested.

I believe Bruce Clemenger said it best when he stated:

With the introduction of Bill C-14, Canada has crossed a significant threshold.... The decriminalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide constitutes a fundamental shift in how we as a society value and understand life and the duty of care we owe one another. Never before have we as a nation said that intentional killing is an appropriate response to suffering, or that we should take the life of the one who suffers rather than finding ways to alleviate their suffering.

Let me begin by commenting on the role that the Supreme Court should or should not play in articulating a right to die. As a lawyer and lawmaker, I have the greatest of respect for the rule of law, for the courts which sustain it, and for the individuals who occupy the bench. It is the rule of law and our court system that are intended to act as a bulwark against oppression and discrimination and defend our prevailing national values, including our personal freedom and our democratic institutions.

That said, it is eminently within our prerogative as MPs to also respectfully question and challenge the very decisions that our courts make and to suggest what particular issues should more appropriately be left for Parliament to decide. It is my view that matters of protecting life and the taking of life should remain the sole domain and prerogative of the duly elected representatives of the people of Canada, namely, the members of the House.

More to the point, many Canadians are having great difficulty grasping how the court would presume to specifically direct Parliament to implement legislation that effectively creates a right to die and a state-sanctioned role in the taking of a life, all under the threat of the court doing so on its own. Therefore, let me be very clear. I am deeply sympathetic to the suffering of so many whose conditions are terminal, who have concluded that there is no medical hope for healing, who suffer from unbearable pain, whose quality of life has been eroded beyond measure, or who consider themselves an undue burden upon family, friends, and their caregivers. That is exactly why our first and primary focus should be to improve and extend 21st-century palliative care to all Canadians whose lives could be measurably improved by it.

Is it not ironic that at the same time that we are debating the state-sanctioned taking of a human life for compassionate reasons, the Liberal government has failed to follow through on its solemn promise to expand the availability of palliative care. The promised $3 billion would have gone a long way to ensuring that palliative care becomes an essential part of the end-of-life decision-making process.

Instead of barrelling ahead with active euthanasia legislation, is it not incumbent upon us as lawmakers to first explore every opportunity to provide compassionate and effective palliative care to those who are in the terminal stages of disease and health? We owe Canadians so much more than simply an ill-considered rush to implement a directive from Canada's Supreme Court.

A cursory study of assisted suicide regimes around the world quickly reveals that even the most stringent and well-meaning safeguards are never completely effective in ensuring that no wrongful deaths occur. Jurisdictions like Belgium have acknowledged that of the thousands of assisted suicides that have taken place, some have taken the lives of those who could not or did not provide an informed consent, or who otherwise should not have died.

In this country, here in Canada, we abolished capital punishment exactly because we could not guarantee that an innocent life would not be taken. Yet, today, we are being asked to take the morbidly contradictory position of saying that notwithstanding that some vulnerable or unwilling individuals would lose their lives, we are prepared to take that very risk. The hypocrisy is astounding.

I also note that Bill C-14 fails to properly address the right of physicians, nursing professionals, and health care institutions to refuse to participate in the taking of a human life. Leaving it to the provinces, territories, and professional associations to regulate is not the answer, and will simply result in a patchwork of directives that ultimately compromise the ability of doctors and nurses to refuse any direct or indirect participation in assisted suicide.

It is highly likely that a health care professional in one jurisdiction will find his or her right to conscientious objection protected, while a colleague in another province is left without such a fundamental right. That is unconscionable and a clear abdication of the government's obligation to protect the rights of all Canadians, irrespective of where they practice medicine.

The right of medical professionals to refuse direct or indirect participation in assisted suicide should never, ever, be subject to negotiation or compromise. On that measure alone, Bill C-14 fails the test.

Many Canadians have expressed a legitimate fear that Bill C-14 will become the precursor to much more radical right-to-die policies. They are right. I have no doubt that the legislation before us, if passed, will very quickly become the thin edge of the wedge to secure future liberalization of assisted suicide to include children, the mentally and physically disabled, the chronically ill, the elderly, and those no longer considered to be productive contributors to Canada. Is that really the Canada we were elected to build?

This debate exposes an astonishing irony. Today we are experiencing, to our national shame, an unprecedented epidemic of suicides of our youth on first nations reserves. In response, the federal government is undertaking extraordinary efforts to prevent such suicides from happening in the future.

Yet, at the same time, here we are, in this House, debating an assisted suicide bill that the special parliamentary committee recommended should in the future include extend the right to die to vulnerable children, the very group we are working so hard to save in first nations communities. Colleagues, what are we thinking?

Over the years, I have gotten to know many doctors and nurses, and have on numerous occasions dialogued with them on the issue of euthanasia. Our health care professionals are deeply compassionate, caring people who go to great lengths to ensure that patients who are terminal and suffering from great pain are made comfortable. They exercise a high level of discretion when they administer medications that alleviate pain, even where such medications may, on occasion, hasten the patient's death. The government's introduction of Bill C-14 failed to take that into account.

Let me close. More than a dozen times in the past this Parliament has considered and consistently rejected assisted suicide legislation. For whatever reason, our Supreme Court has now seen fit to insert itself into this debate by reversing itself on the Rodriguez decision. Its directive to the House to implement assisted suicide legislation calls upon us to act courageously and reject that directive.

Let us resist the urge to tread upon the steep and slippery slope of a policy whose implications are unclear, and whose trajectory represents a fundamental undermining of our foundational values.

We are faced with a monumental decision, one that challenges us to reaffirm the pre-eminence and inviolability of a human life. May we choose wisely and reject this deeply flawed bill.

[Natural Resources, April 21st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is not only about a carbon-tax grab.

Earlier this week in question period, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change was asked when she would make a decision on the $36 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project in B.C. She flippantly said, “We will make a decision when we are ready to make a decision”.

When will the minister abandon her plan for a harmful carbon-tax grab, get out of the way, and allow Canada's resources to be shipped to market?

[Natural Resources, April 21st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week at committee, I asked the Minister of Environment and Climate Change about Canada's competitive advantage in carbon pricing. The only response I could get was that China was considering a plan to price carbon and that this was a game changer.

Therefore, we are left with a minister who turns to China for inspiration on carbon taxes, and a Prime Minister who expresses admiration for the basic dictatorship that is China.

When will the Liberals abandon their plan for a carbon-tax grab and focus on supporting Canadians?