Bill C-30 (Historical)

Canada's Clean Air Act

An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Energy Efficiency Act and the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act (Canada's Clean Air Act)

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to promote the reduction of air pollution and the quality of outdoor and indoor air. It enables the Government of Canada to regulate air pollutants and greenhouse gases, including establishing emission-trading programs, and expands its authority to collect information about substances that contribute or are capable of contributing to air pollution. Part 1 also enacts requirements that the Ministers of the Environment and Health establish air quality objectives and publicly report on the attainment of those objectives and on the effectiveness of the measures taken to achieve them.
Part 2 of this enactment amends the Energy Efficiency Act to
(a) clarify that classes of energy-using products may be established based on their common energy-consuming characteristics, the intended use of the products or the conditions under which the products are normally used;
(b) require that all interprovincial shipments of energy-using products meet the requirements of that Act;
(c) require dealers to provide prescribed information respecting the shipment or importation of energy-using products to the Minister responsible for that Act;
(d) provide for the authority to prescribe as energy-using products manufactured products, or classes of manufactured products, that affect or control energy consumption; and
(e) broaden the scope of the labelling provisions.
Part 3 of this enactment amends the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act to clarify its regulation-making powers with respect to the establishment of standards for the fuel consumption of new motor vehicles sold in Canada and to modernize certain aspects of that Act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Now BQ-18, Monsieur Bigras, I gather, is not going to be moved. C'est correct? Oui.

(Clause 1 as amended agreed to)

Moving on to the long title, which is everything just under “Bill C-30”, shall the title carry?

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We are to the question on L-1, which would now read that Bill C-30, in clause 1, be amended by replacing lines 4 and 5 on page 1 with the following: “This Act may be cited as Canada's Clean Air and Climate Change Act.”

(Amendment agreed to)

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We would have been happy to support that amendment if Bill C-30 had been left as it was introduced by the government. But in fact now it doesn't do what is being proposed. It's also surprising that the Bloc and NDP members would be supporting a Liberal motion that presented Canada with 35% off target and is now presenting billions of dollars of proposed new taxes to Canada and industry. How could any Canadian support that?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We are on page 36 and 37 of Bill C-30. It's the schedule to the bill. It's votable, like a clause. It lists excluded volatile organic compounds, and so on.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

We basically are against the schedule, because it doesn't make sense, given the changes we've made to clause 18 of Bill C-30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

NDP-38 is not moved. Thank you.

Let's move to the schedule of Bill C-30 on page 36. Is there any debate?

Go ahead, Mr. Godfrey.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

This is again going back to the reason for having definitive clauses. It's to make sure that we are very specific about the substances listed in Bill C-30 as GHGs and that they appear on the toxics list in CEPA. We heard there were some concerns about this when we had witnesses before the committee, and about making sure we had definitive clauses on it. That's the intent of this motion.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief because I would like to speed things up. However, I wanted to say a few words in this debate.

The amendment before us is excellent and summarizes what we expect from this bill, the spirit of the bill, which is a recognition that greenhouse gases and air pollution are a hazard for the environment and for biodiversity. This recognition is important.

I came here in 1997. I remember very well that members of the Conservative Party — then the Canadian Alliance — whenever we held those discussions in 1997-1998 on climate change, refused to recognize the negative impact of greenhouse gases. Today, if the government votes against this preamble, it will be clear that there has been during these 10 years no evolution in the position of the party in power. We have been hearing from this committee week after week the same empty speeches that we have been hearing for 10 years in the House of Commons from the party that is now the government. The government should realize that voting against this amendment and this preamble, which would ensure that we implement our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, would reflect an unacceptable lack of action and respect for an international commitment made by Canada and that was ratified by the House of Commons in a significant vote that we must respect. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, we will support this amendment which reflects the spirit of what we tried to do in Bill C-30, which is to proceed with a real implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and to respect our international commitments. Thank you very much.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to make a few comments on the preamble of Bill C-30, if I could.

Certainly for a rookie here, it's been quite the experience since we began this process some weeks ago. Our main goal as a committee, I think, was to ensure that Canadians had clean air, and in order to address the concerns we have in Canada--and I believe that Canada wants a clean, healthy environment--in order to achieve that goal, we need a strong economy.

I have some concerns with what has transpired over the past couple of weeks, and certainly in the preamble we're talking about at the present time. We can call it what we like; we've had many adjectives used. We have, without a doubt, put forward a carbon tax on industry in this country, and from my point of view that's a backward step. I think we've created a problem here for the advancement of what we all believed was the purpose of our coming together here--to enshrine in legislation the meeting of Kyoto targets when we have several witnesses who have come before us over the past number of weeks who said that in order to meet the Kyoto targets, we have two options: we spend an enormous amount of taxpayers' dollars overseas to buy credits, or we have a situation where we try to pressure industries into meeting those targets here in Canada.

Several of my colleagues and others have mentioned the fact that we could do major damage to many of the industries, whether it's the auto industry, or the oil sands industry in Alberta, or wherever the case may be, Mr. Chair.

To think that we're going to be able to clean up our environment to create good, clean air for Canadians and do it without the proper funding put in place.... In order to have that type of funding we need to have a very strong economy.

I'll go back to a comment Mr. Cullen made a few moments ago that I found interesting. He looked across the floor to us and said “Take your loss, accept your loss.” My conclusion of what has happened here over the past number of days now is that it is not us who have lost, it's Canadians who have lost, Mr. Chair.

Without continuing on with the plan that was in place and the right objectives to come forward, to be able to do what Canadians wanted us to do here, which was to create clean air, to put all our efforts into creating clean air, there's no doubt in my mind that once again, it's not us who have lost; it's Canadians who have lost this battle.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

It is a pleasure to take the floor in this committee as it considers Bill C-30. I am replacing one of my colleagues who was unable to be here today.

I must say that with all those changes, I no longer recognize the bill that was introduced by my colleagues at the beginning of your study, and this concerns me greatly. We had a very good bill that aimed at improving air quality and the health of Canadians.

Just thinking that Liberals again want to implement a carbon tax... This would not be very helpful. It would be just one more tax imposed on Canadians. A tax has never improved our environment and even less the air we breathe. What can improve our environment are the combined efforts of all members of this committee and of all Canadians in order to consume less energy, less fuel.

We can reduce our fuel consumption by using more fuel- efficient cars and using public transit as much as possible. When I travel between my riding and Ottawa, I see 90 percent of people riding alone in their cars and all going into the same direction. We could promote car pooling. These are all actions that will bring about changes.

Our first task is to improve air quality and this should be our major concern. We should make use of new sources of energy, especially renewable energy. In Quebec, we have hydro power but we must also develop wind energy and biofuels. Every time we replace 1 percent of the fossil energy we consume by a less polluting renewable energy, we will improve our quality of life and our environment. We will have to get there 1 percent at a time but each step will bring us closer to our goal. I believe all members of this committee have the same goal, that of improving our environment.

This is why, Mr. Chairman, I have a problem with all these amendments. From the beginning, the ultimate goal of Bill C-30 has always been to improve the health of Canadians. In order to achieve this, we need cleaner air. I am very concerned and I would like the cooperation of the members opposite in order to pass our Bill C-30.

Thank you very much.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First let me start for a moment by reminding Mr. Cullen that debate is our privilege as MPs. If perhaps some day he finds himself on the short end of a majority government, he'll be fighting very fiercely for his privilege to debate as much as he would like to or as much as his constituents would like him to be able to debate. I think it's an important point for everyone around the table to understand.

Mr. Chair, the preamble's important, of course, because it establishes what the Government of Canada is committed to or what the Government of Canada does.

I think it's important to be reminded that, as a point of law, the members opposite are the opposition, not the Government of Canada. Our debate on the specifics of each of these preamble statements is in fact very important. They are attempts to put words in the mouth of the Government of Canada.

The Government of Canada, as far as I can tell, is not committed to a national carbon budget. We don't want a carbon tax. The largest tax on corporations is not the proper direction in which to go.

Mr. Chair, I want to start with something else, before I get into the specifics of this.

We've reached a stage here, as we talk about Canada honouring its obligation to meet the Kyoto target and the timeline. When the Liberals were the government, they had the time to act, they had the dollars to act, and they say they had the tools to act. It's clear that they lacked the will to act.

The opposition and the other parties that are not the Government of Canada now want to commit the Government of Canada to what many witnesses before this committee testified is a reckless course of action.

In fact, Buzz Hargrove from the CAW said it would be suicidal to our economy to try to meet the Kyoto target and timeline. I don't think most people would consider Mr. Hargrove to be a card-carrying Conservative member. I think his statement should certainly be reflected on and taken into account on this one.

It's easy to make a commitment from the opposition when you don't have to actually fulfill the commitment. It's what happened with Mr. Dion as Minister of the Environment. He didn't keep the commitment when he was in government, and he says he can't keep it beyond this government. Then the only time he says he can meet it is in fact when we are the Government of Canada. It is weak leadership. It is not leadership.

I'm opposed to opposition attempts to not only foist the carbon tax on us, but to kick the auto industry when it's struggling right now with an extreme auto emissions standard. They've put politics into Bill C-30 rather than practicality.

Real people's lives hang in the balance. The idea of a just transition fund implies the exact opposite. The transition in the near term is in fact unjust, otherwise they wouldn't call it a “just transition fund”. They know real people are going to be hurt.

The Government of Canada respects the balance that needs to be achieved between environmental action and responsible environmental action. It's ambitious, yet realistic, taking into account the need to balance environmental achievement with real economic realities.

When auto jobs go under in the near term, it's tax dollars that support not only public health care in this country but many things. They support underwriting payment for the same environmental programs that we hope to clean up the environment with.

I oppose the opposition's efforts in this to kick the auto industry when it's struggling. Let it be noted that the NDP and the Liberals have turned their backs on the auto industry in Canada. That's the reality.

I oppose opposition efforts to ignore swaths of witness testimony from the CAW, industry, and academics about the dangers of reckless compliance in honouring the Kyoto obligation. They've put politics ahead of witness testimony. They do so at their own peril.

Mr. Chair, while there are measures in the preamble that the government agrees with, there are some very provocative ones that we simply cannot abide by.

I will be opposing this, Mr. Chair.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair, I appreciate that.

As Mr. Cullen knows, I have not spent a lot of time talking. I've listened carefully.

I thank you, Mr. Jean, for very clearly finding some errors to this point.

We've tried to create a bill that will deal with the issues of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution levels in Canada. Members have seen fit to dramatically change Bill C-30 as it was originally presented. But we still have continued in a spirt of being willing to work with all members of this committee, with the ultimate goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality in Canada.

Chair, speaking to the preamble in Bill C-30, the preamble reads as follows:

Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes that air pollutants and greenhouse gases constitute a risk to the environment and its biological diversity and to human health, and are matters of national and international concern which cannot be contained within geographic boundaries;

Mr. Chair, that's a good preamble. It shares the direction in which Canada needs to go. We need to have a preamble that's realistic, balanced, and clearly takes us in a direction.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Chair, this government has made it very clear that we have two choices, two directions in which we can head to clean up the environment, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—that is, to slow down the economy; or through technology created right here in Canada, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, through technologies like carbon capture and storage.

What was being proposed previously by the Liberal Party was carbon taxing, and as I started to say, there was praise from the Liberals to provide a new $100-billion carbon tax on Canadians and industry. Also, their proposal was to have billions of dollars leave Canada to buy carbon credits, hot air credits.

To build the technology, as I said previously, we either slow down the economy, which we're opposed to.... We need to have a healthy balance, a healthy economy and a healthy environment.

What they're proposing is this billions of dollars of tax, and having then, in turn, billions of dollars leaving Canada to buy these hot air credits. In a preamble sharing where the government needs to go in a clear, balanced approach, that does not achieve that. That's not what Canadians want. Having billions of dollars of investment leaving Canada definitely will not help the environment in Canada and it will not help build that technology that's needed. It will not help, ultimately, the issue of climate change.

The second “whereas”:

Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes that air pollutants and greenhouse gases constitute a risk to the environment and its biological diversity and to human health, and are matters of national and international concern which cannot be contained within geographic boundaries;

I wouldn't have difficulty with that, but what we've seen over this week particularly, the hours and hours that have been spent in removing the issue of how to clean up air pollution to improve air quality, both indoor and outdoor, what we've seen with the changes, the amendments that have come from the Liberal Party, is basically to gut out any mention of air pollution and indoor and outdoor air quality.

The preamble needs to represent what is being proposed in the bill. That is a good preamble, a good part of the preamble, but to have, now, the bill gutted and have the tools to deal with air quality, indoor and outdoor, taken out of Bill C-30, it doesn't seem to be logical. It should be in there, and unfortunately it was taken out.

Next:

Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes that climate change constitutes one of the most serious threats to humanity and to Canada, and poses major risks not only to the environment and the economy, but above all to the health and safety of all people;

I don't have problems with that. Climate change is an issue that, as the Government of Canada, we need to recognize and we need to work hard to achieve reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

I'd like to skip to the last “whereas” under subclause 2(1):

Whereas the Government of Canada signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which entered into force in 1994, and Parliament ratified in 2002 by majority vote in the House of Commons and the Senate the Kyoto Protocol which entered into force in 2005 and under which Canada must honour its obligation to reduce its average annual greenhouse gas emissions during the period from 2008 to 2012 to six percent below their level in 1990;

Mr. Chair, it's ironic that this L-3.1 comes from the Liberals. In 1994, when this came into force, Canada had a Liberal government. When they had an opportunity to do something to clean up the air they didn't. Greenhouse gas emissions under their leadership increased 35% above those Kyoto targets. So this “whereas” is insinuating that we're starting in a healthy position. Again, a preamble has to be realistic. It has to take us in an ambitious direction but also a realistic direction.

At 35% above target, the Liberals, after failing miserably on cleaning up the environment, are now saying we want the Government of Canada to clean up the mess that we left. We are already working hard.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Chair, the reason we always delay on the presentation of preamble is to reflect accurately, in describing what we're doing here, the changes that have been made. That's why we're now reverting to the preamble: to try to capture what we've been doing here. What L-3.1 does is pick up on points that the various parties have made, and it attempts to consolidate that in a coherent preamble.

The first item that is added reflects the Liberal proposal on having a national carbon budget.

The second paragraph actually uses the language of the government itself in the original preamble to Bill C-30, recognizing “that air pollutants and greenhouse gases constitute a risk to the environment and its biological diversity and to human health...”.

The third paragraph is a direct reference to concerns of the Bloc:

Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes that air pollution and greenhouse gases are matters within the jurisdiction of both the Government of Canada and governments of the provinces;

The fourth, fifth, and sixth paragraphs reflect the united concern of the three opposition parties—actually, I would say the united concern of all parties—both with the phenomenon of climate change and its risk to humanity and to Canada, while recognizing as well the duty of a country like Canada to take responsibility, given that it is one of the wealthiest countries in the world and that we are experiencing severe effects of climate change already in the Arctic. I think all of us would agree to that.

The sixth paragraph is a specific reference that brings together at least the three opposition parties in their commitment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; the Kyoto Protocol, which was ratified by Parliament in a majority vote; and the recognition that when Canada undertakes international obligations, it must do its best to meet them, with reference specifically to the 2008-2012 first Kyoto period and a reiteration of the commitment we made to getting to 6% below 1990 greenhouse gas emission levels.

Then, under subclause (2), the eighth paragraph, which is a particular reference to a concern of the NDP, as reflected earlier in our conversations, it's the principle of substitution, which they have made a particular cause of theirs, I think.

So what you have here, Chair, is an amalgam of various points of view raised around the table. We think it accurately reflects the changes we have actually finished making.

[John Moffet]

Sure.

There are two parts to this, new proposed subsection 330(3.1) and new proposed subsection 330(3.2). The first part, (3.1), reverts word for word to what's in CEPA now in terms of the authority to establish regulations that set different standards within different geographic parts of Canada, based on health and environmental considerations.

The rationale is that, as discussed in previous committees, in order to achieve consistent environmental or health quality across Canada, it may be appropriate to set different emissions standards or other regulations.

As an example, air quality in the Toronto-Windsor corridor is worse than air quality in the Yukon. So it may be appropriate--this doesn't require anything, but it may be appropriate--that an emitter in the Toronto-Windsor corridor be subject to a more stringent emission regulation than the same emitter in the Yukon in order to achieve the same outcome of environmental or health quality.

This amendment wouldn't change that at all; same wording, as I read it.

New proposed subsection 330(3.2) is a slight modification to the provisions in Bill C-30, going beyond the current authority to establish geographically differentiated regulations and allowing the government to differentiate among regulatees on other grounds, including, for example, the age of a facility.

As an example, it may be appropriate--again, not necessary, but may be appropriate--to say in a regulation that a new electricity generating plant shall be subject to standard A, whereas an existing electricity generating plant should be subject to a slightly less rigid standard, and be given x number of years to come up to the more stringent standard. That would simply be recognizing the economic reality that some of the investments required to improve air quality may be significant.

Again, there's no requirement to have that type of differentiation; it simply would authorize that type of differentiation. And CEPA does not currently authorize that type of regulation. That didn't cause us a problem when we were regulating, over the past 15 years, emissions of toxic substances. Now that we're entering the world of regulating criteria air contaminants in greenhouse gases, which in many cases involves regulating basic combustion processes, we're talking about affecting major pieces of capital equipment. Again, it may be appropriate to have some differentiation based on things like age or technology.

So that's the rationale for the Bill C-30 provision. The Liberal provision is simply a corrective to make sure that this new authority lines up with the new regulatory provisions that have been created as a result of the amendments passed in the previous couple of days.

That's my explanation of what's going on.

I would beg your indulgence, Mr. Chair, and point out three technical problems, simply drafting problems.

First, I believe the reference to subsection “94(1)” should be “94.1(1)”.

Second, halfway down the page, you refer to “in the opinion of the Governor in Council”. Some of the regulatory authority that has been established would be ministerial regulatory authority. Thus, it should say “in the opinion of the Governor in Council or ministers, as the case may be”.

Finally, to be consistent with the first line, which says “A regulation or instrument”, the fifth-last line should say “For the making of a regulation or instrument”.

Those corrections are just for consistency. They wouldn't substantively change anything.