Bill C-16 (Historical)

Environmental Enforcement Act

An Act to amend certain Acts that relate to the environment and to enact provisions respecting the enforcement of certain Acts that relate to the environment

This enactment amends certain enforcement, offence, penalty and sentencing provisions of the following Acts:
(a) the Antarctic Environmental Protection Act;
(b) the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act;
(c) the Canada National Parks Act;
(d) the Canada Wildlife Act;
(e) the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999;
(f) the International River Improvements Act;
(g) the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994;
(h) the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park Act; and
(i) the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act.
It adds enforcement officer immunity to the Acts that did not expressly provide any. It also adds the power to designate analysts for the purposes of the Canada Wildlife Act and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act. It also adds inspection and search and seizure powers to the International River Improvements Act.
It amends the penalty provisions of the Acts by establishing distinct ranges of fines for different offences, by creating minimum fines for the most serious offences, by increasing maximum fines, by specifying ranges of fines for individuals, other persons, small revenue corporations and ships of different sizes and by doubling the fine amounts for second and subsequent offenders.
It amends the Acts to make the liability and duty provisions of directors, officers, agents and mandataries of corporations, and those of ship masters, chief engineers, owners and operators, consistent between the Acts.
The enactment amends the sentencing provisions of the Acts by adding a purpose clause, by specifying aggravating factors that, if associated with an offence, must contribute to higher fines, by requiring courts to add profits gained or benefits realized from the commission of an offence to fine amounts, by requiring courts to order corporate offenders to disclose details of convictions to their shareholders and by expanding the power of the courts to make additional orders having regard to the nature of the offence and the circumstances surrounding its commission.
The enactment adds to each of the Acts a requirement that details of convictions of corporations be made available to the public and that all fines collected be credited to the Environmental Damages Fund and be available for environmental projects or the administration of that Fund.
This enactment also creates the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act which establishes an administrative monetary penalty scheme applicable to the Acts listed above as well as to the Canada Water Act.

Environmental Enforcement Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it would be a shame to let the member get off without having a full opportunity to elaborate on some of the important issues of the day. Canadians are probably still a little confused about where we are going now. We know what the problem was in the past. It was the government. However, the member did refer to cap and trade and he knows that is an approach that the Americans have favoured. I think it would be important to advise the House and Canadians exactly how this approach would help us to address the climate change issue, specifically clarifying what base one would be using to determine the progress of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our leader has been perfectly clear about how to proceed forward now given the three years and seven months, roughly, that we have lost through three plans and three ministers in three years. The only thing we hear on the climate change file is, “We are talking about it” and, “We are waiting for instructions from Washington”.

The cap and trade system is a system whereby we put a price on the right to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Our 760 large polluters are asked to pay for that privilege, to emit into the atmosphere. It is a market mechanism. It is a very efficient tool to use to price carbon emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce them over time.

It is what the Americans will be doing and it is what a number of other jurisdictions are examining. However, we need to ensure, using 1990 as the baseline year, unlike 2005 or 2006, as proposed by the government, that it is in line with the international community of 174 countries that have ratified the Kyoto treaty and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We are all using 1990 as the baseline year. The only two or three exceptions would be the Canadian government and, because of the lost eight years under the republican administration of Mr. Bush, now, I believe, President Obama is using 2005, but that is also under negotiation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-16. The least that can be said is that this bill is a lengthy one. It amends a number of environmental statutes and it has been anticipated for a very long time. When it comes to environmental protection, be it the Migratory Birds Act, the Fisheries Act or the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, we have too often seen Canadian legislation that gives polluters a break.

Canada does have environmental legislation, but when we look more specifically at the regulatory regime associated with each act, in terms of fines and penalties, we realize that for some companies it may unfortunately be to their advantage to pollute. The penalties and fines are so low that it is worth it to break the laws enacted by Parliament. That is what was perverse in the regulatory regimes that we were presented with up to now.

The truth of this can be seen in the fact that in February 2009 a company like Syncrude in Alberta could discharge toxic substances into the tailings ponds used in oil sands production, with the result that nearly 500 ducks were killed. What was the consequence for Syncrude? It was sentenced to a maximum fine of $800,000 or a maximum of six months’ imprisonment.

We know these companies that make profits that might be described as colossal. An $800,000 fine is not much to pay to keep exploiting the oil sands. And so we saw companies polluting our environment with impunity, telling themselves it was better to keep going and pay the fines than to lose some of their profits. This is not acceptable in a regulatory regime when we want to send business a message. The polluter-pay principle must be applied, not the polluter-paid principle.

For that reason, we supported Bill C-16 in principle when it was introduced. We worked with all of the opposition parties and with the government to make some improvements, and we listened to the witnesses. When the bill was considered in committee, we realized that some witnesses had not been consulted by the government. We can agree or disagree with certain industries. I am thinking, for example, of people in the shipping industry, who told us they had not been consulted before Bill C-16 was introduced. That is totally unacceptable.

The government has a number of consultation mechanisms. It has advisory committees. This is a bill that the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development is asking for. This change in the regulatory regime has been called for by the environment committee since 1998. For over 11 years, parliamentarians, in committee, have been asking the government to amend the penalty and fine regimes because they were unacceptable. For 11 years, the government could have consulted industry, and it did not so. That is somewhat disappointing.

That is why the parliamentary committee decided to invite both the Shipping Federation of Canada and the workers affected by the legislative changes. As I said, these were essential changes requested by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development back in 1998 in a report called “Enforcing Canada’s Pollution Laws: the Public Interest Must Come First”. Back in 1998, as I remember, during the 36th Parliament, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development made 24 recommendations to the government, including four that I will repeat: first, that the minister should develop and publish a comprehensive enforcement and compliance policy with the act; second, that the minister should undertake a comprehensive review of the regulations—and revise them if necessary—to ensure that they are adequate, up-to-date and enforceable; third, that the minister should take the necessary steps to have certain offences designated for the purposes of the ticketing provisions under the Contraventions Act; and fourth, that more resources should be assigned to the proper enforcement of environmental legislation.

These four groups of recommendations were at the heart of the 24 recommendations of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development regarding the enforcement of the law. That is the reality in Canada.

I was first elected in 1997 and have seen a number of pieces of legislation passed in this House, including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and all the rest of the environmental legislation. In actual fact, though, this legislation is not enforced. As a result, one of the committee’s recommendations in 1999 was that more resources be assigned to the proper enforcement of environmental legislation.

It is no use having the best environmental legislation, the best Canadian Environmental Protection Act, if there are no authorities with the power to enforce it, nor the resources to do so. Despite the existing legislation, the result is a complete mess on the environmental level.

That is why our regulatory regime had to be modernized. Penalties had to be increased considerably to avoid tragedies like the one I described with Syncrude, which had charges laid against it in February 2009. We should also remember the Exxon Valdez catastrophe that happened 20 years ago in the north. That kind of thing must never happen again because the people responsible got off very lightly, not only to the detriment of the ecosystem but also of the economic development of these regions. In order to avoid situations like that, we need to be very strict and increase the penalties. However, our environment cannot be protected with just a law and order approach.

We cannot simply increase our fines and prison terms. We also have to change our ways of doing things. We have to be able to say to companies like Syncrude that if they do not install nets to protect ducks, they will be subject to increased fines of something like $4 million, as provided under the new regime in Bill C-16.

We must make people realize that the decisions we make with respect to production and consumption have enormous consequences.

Let us look at the oil sands development. It is a good example. It is not only a contravention of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, but also a contravention of the legislation we have passed here in this House.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has demonstrated this to us today. Bill C-288, which was introduced in this Parliament by the hon. member for Honoré-Mercier, was passed at first and second reading and amended in parliamentary committee. Then it received royal assent. It requires the government to report annually in compliance with its obligations under the Kyoto protocol. But the government has not honoured its commitments.

The example of oil sands development is not just a violation of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, which is being amended today, it is also a violation of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, for which we are still awaiting a regulatory framework from the government.

When this bill was introduced, we expected the government to announce something about Canada’s environmental compliance with respect to climate change. We expected the government to move from a regulatory framework on climate change to actual legislation on climate change, as Quebec has announced today.

Quebec has introduced a bill to comply with its climate change obligations by setting a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, and to fall in line with what U.S. President Obama is about to do by setting an environmental cap and trade, capping greenhouse gas emissions and creating the structure and framework for a carbon market that can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, today in this House, we are debating whether we are going to increase the fines from $800,000 to $4 million for those who decide not to install a net near a settling pond at the oil sands sites.

Eleven years after the report of the environment committee was submitted, we are still thinking about what we should do under existing environmental legislation, whereas in Quebec and the United States they are debating laws on climate change.

Quebec and other provinces like Manitoba, which produced one of the first plans for fighting climate change, the American states and the American administration have understood that when we fight climate change, we are tackling a number of environmental issues; we are tackling the importance of adopting renewable energy; we are making sure that we have greater energy efficiency in our homes and in industry; we are protecting ecosystems; and we are protecting our water resources.

If Canada adopted climate change legislation, our energy production would very probably no longer be the same. We would no longer have to count on oil sands production and exploitation as an energy source in Canada. If we did not have to do that, we would not be talking today about whether we should increase fines under the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, to $4 million from $800,000.

We would not be asking how we can protect our water quality in Canada, because we would have decided to use renewable energy. We would be using that resource to produce energy rather than using it to extract oil in the west. We would be using wind to produce energy. We would be using our natural resources intelligently, not just to produce energy, but also to create an economic force in North America. That is what the American administration has understood and what the Conservative government has failed to understand.

Our energy policy and economic policy are still in the stone age. We still believe that fossil fuel is where the energy revolution in Canada lies, when it really lies somewhere else altogether. We have moved from a coal revolution to an oil revolution, and tomorrow it will be a renewable energy revolution. That is where we are going, but the government is instead deciding to invest in the oil industry and provide billions of dollars in tax incentives to an industry that is exploiting a resource that does nothing but create environmental externalities and that puts Canada in the stone age of economic development.

That is totally unacceptable. It is not the path that Quebec has decided to follow. Quebec has decided to invest in renewable energy and focus on energy efficiency. If we are not capable of connecting the east and west to fight climate change, Quebec will make the connection between north and south, if need be. If Canada does not understand that energy for the future means developing renewable energy, if Canada does not understand that this calls for a cap and trade system, if Canada is not prepared to understand that we need a carbon exchange, we will do business with the American states, because they will understand that in budgetary terms and in fiscal terms, that is the direction the future is taking us.

When we compare the Prime Minister’s budget to the budget presented by the Obama administration, we realize that Canada is investing only one sixth as much per capita in energy efficiency and renewable energy as our neighbours to the south. Is this acceptable, when we know that every dollar invested in fighting climate change creates jobs? This is so well known that the UN has invited United Nations member countries to adopt what is called a Green New Deal. If we are to have an economic recovery, we have to inject massive amounts of money into our economy to create green jobs. And all this time, the government is bringing in budgets that give the oil industry tax incentives and help to increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Today, we are debating a bill that increases environmental penalties when we should be debating legislation and a bill on climate change. That is what we expect and we hope to have it before the climate change conference to be held in Copenhagen next December.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's very thoughtful and excellent presentation. I like his comments about an east-west power grid, something that we would sure like to have out of Manitoba and our hydro system.

Bill C-16 deals with strengthening the penalties, but there is no rationale for the minimum and maximum penalties that are indicated in the bill. In fact, what it does is it usurps the authority of the courts by prescribing the minimum penalty and the maximum penalty.

We should have a situation where the courts have some leeway to make higher penalties. For example, the maximum penalty is increased to $6 million, but that seems very minimal if we look at a case like the Exxon Valdez or other situations like that. Clearly, this would be a very small and a very limited penalty to have in a case of a huge spill like that. There should not be a maximum. It should be left to the courts to make a decision.

In the bigger picture, could the member comment on the long-promised strengthening standards and regulations for air pollutants, toxins and greenhouse gases? Then I will proceed with another question.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is still possible to have recourse to the courts. That possibility is included in Bill C-16. There is the concept of strict liability, which is not the same as presumption of guilt.

The company must demonstrate that it took all reasonable care and attempted to take corrective steps before the offence was committed. There have been a number of Supreme Court rulings in this area to which we can refer. I am thinking, for instance, of the Wholesale Travel Group case which demonstrated that, in the case of strict liability, the burden of proof was different for the prosecution and for the accused. The company always has that leeway if it can prove due diligence.

That is one of the provisions of this bill.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to have strong penalties in the legislation, and there has to be a commitment by the government to enforce the legislation. We have to see what the regulations will be behind the bill and how strong they will be to support it.

We, in our Party, have agreed that the bill is a step in the right direction, but it has its flaws. It will only be as strong as the political will shown by the government to implement it.

As member knows, we have suspicions that the Conservative government is not overly committed to strong enforcement of environmental laws, consumer laws or any other type of laws that protect Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is right.

Moreover, this was stated in the report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, which I encourage the hon. member to read. It was tabled in May 1998 and comprised 24 recommendations. It stated that environmental legislation had been enacted. That legislation, however, was created under the Liberal government of the day. At that time, according to the committee, there was legislation in place but it was rarely enforced, in part because of a lack of resources.

In the committee report at that time, one of the recommendations called for more resources to be allocated to proper enforcement of the environmental legislation. So it is not merely a matter of having such legislation as the 1994 Migratory Birds Convention Act or the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. They must also be enforced. One might wonder if there are enough enforcement officers to apply the amendments being proposed today. I think we will need to wait for the next budget to find the answer to that.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie's presentation. I was interested in what he had to say about, among other things, the fact that when it comes to the fight against greenhouse gas emissions, Quebec is being penalized by this government's laissez-faire policy, which was also the previous government's policy. They all forget about Quebec. From an environmental standpoint, nothing is happening, and from an economic standpoint, that is a problem for Quebec.

Like me, my colleague is a sovereignist, and I would like to know if he thinks that a sovereign Quebec could come up with a policy that meets its own needs. The Conservatives are protecting Alberta for economic reasons, so could a sovereign Quebec do the same by promoting its own economic interests and helping the planet at the same time?

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

Mr. Speaker, right now, as a member of a federation, Quebec cannot express its point of view, especially not on the international stage. Consider what happened at the Nairobi and Bali conferences. Quebec was isolated along with environmental groups within the Canadian delegation. In Nairobi, Minister Béchard did not feel that the then-minister of the Environment was representing his interests at all.

In Copenhagen next December, a sovereign Quebec could stand up for 1990 as the base year, absolute greenhouse gas reduction targets, a carbon exchange, and real greenhouse gas reductions, not reductions that, like those proposed by the Conservative government, would benefit Canada's oil industry tremendously.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken at length with my hon. colleague about the links between the government's changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I would like to hear what he thinks of those changes. Are they in line with what is being proposed in the bill before us here today?

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

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to environmental assessment, the rest of Canada must assume its responsibilities. The Quebec Environment Quality Act created the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement, a thorough consultation process for environmental assessments. Environmental groups, including Sierra Club Canada, have told us that Quebec's actions have been exemplary in the area of environmental assessment.

I invite the member to try to convince his colleagues from the rest of Canada to adopt Quebec's model. Then, we could do more to protect our ecosystem. However, there is no way Quebec would abandon a system that is working well. Quebec cannot be asked to harmonize its legislation with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which is less effective than its own.

The hon. member should therefore take the legislation that was introduced and passed when the Liberal Party was in power and model it after Quebec's legislation. Thus, Canada would have a more effective environmental assessment system than it does at this time.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, Arts and Culture; the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, Aboriginal Affairs; the hon. member for Charlottetown, Health.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is of great interest to be entering this afternoon's debate. I think it is precipitous also for the timing. Just this afternoon, Canadians saw the Auditor General of this country and the Commissioner of the Environment release their extensive report, which turns into a condemnation of the government's own ability and willingness to enforce the laws, their own laws, that are on the books.

Here in Bill C-16, which is substantial in size, one must be given over to the question of whether this is actually going to take place. These rules and regulations, this set of fines and penalties that the government has little or no intention of actually enforcing, are no laws at all.

There are number of themes that are recurrent in Bill C-16, which is, in a sense, a housekeeping bill that tries to gather together a number of environmental penalties and set minimums and maximums for those infringements on the environment.

I myself represent Skeena—Bulkley Valley, which is the northwest quarter of British Columbia. It is absolutely rich in resources but also a conduit for some of the most volatile and dangerous goods in Canada and a place where some of the most dangerous projects are being pushed by the government, and hopefully the former government in British Columbia, such projects as coal bed methane and offshore oil and gas.

While the government promotes these projects, what is relevant to Bill C-16 is that they say Canadians should rest assured that if we are going to roll the dice on this oil and gas project in a sensitive ecosystem, in the Hecate Strait, which is the windiest, waviest place in Canada, it is okay to put the rigs up because we have strong environmental laws.

That is what has been proposed and Canadians can sleep well and rest assured, but lo and behold, when the auditor of the country comes forward and takes a look at the enforcement of those laws, the measurement of the pollution, the accountability and transparency of government, the laws do not become worth the paper they are written on. This is what calls into question the efforts of the government in Bill C-16.

There was good work done by my colleague, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, on the bill at committee in trying to augment the penalties, because we see a rise in penalties to individuals who pollute the environment but we do not see the same concurrent rise in penalties for corporations.

We see that businesses, in a sense, are meant to keep the status quo, while individual Canadians, heaven forbid if they were to do the same thing, would see an increase of four times and more in the penalties.

The enforcement of any of these rules is absolutely essential and critical, because again, the government could give a wink and a nod to industry in saying it will put out a bunch of regulations.

I do not know if members of the House or the public remember when the minister announced the bill. It was quite a flashy display. He spent tens of thousands of Canadians' hard-earned dollars, taxpayers' dollars, to walk down the street some several hundred metres to a five-star hotel to announce that this bill was coming up.

He could not do it here in Parliament, which was sitting that day. We have many nice rooms in which to announce bills. The minister thought it was very important to show the seriousness of the government's intention. He actually had enforcement officers. I always feel sorry for these men and women of the force, because they have to do it. They have to stand there as props for the government, to show how tough the minister was going to be on environmental polluters, meanwhile in full knowledge of the audit going on in his own department showing that there was no enforcement intention from the government. It was not going to bring these penalties or any such penalties.

Whether it is straight out pollution we are talking about, oil spills, toxic spills, leaks, sewage and all the rest, we see the government stripping environmental regulation after regulation. It includes the loopholes for assessments, saying more and more projects of greater size and potential impact are going to be exempt from assessments.

We saw the absolute travesty that was in the budget. There were many, but there was one in particular with respect to the environment. The government used the budget as a Trojan horse. It wheeled the thing in here saying it was all about the economy, and it slipped inside it a little piece about the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

In the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the government stripped out a whole lot of regulations. Conservation groups have been coming to me and other members of the House with serious and deep concerns, not only about the effect that this stripping of the Navigable Waters Protection Act will have on our environment and the conservation of our environment but the fact that there was no debate and discourse whatsoever.

This is a government claiming transparency and accountability, and it slides into a bill about the budget a piece about the environment and navigable waters and the protection of our streams and rivers in this country. Conservation groups such as the B.C. Wildlife Federation got involved, and Mountain Equipment Co-op, for goodness sake. All these groups raised a concern in a coalition scrambled together at the last minute, because they never thought a government would do this kind of thing and strip out a 100-year-old act.

It was one of the first acts put forward and brought to full comprehension in this country to protect navigable waters, the waterways that Canadians relied on for trade and commerce and now rely on for a whole assortment of reasons. The government chose a budget, in which to fundamentally change the act.

The government claims, and it goes to Bill C-16 again, that there was too much red tape and it was holding up all those shovel-ready projects that we now know the government has hardly spent $1 on. I asked the government, if this was so important and there were so many projects being held up, to provide Canadians and members of Parliament with a list of all the projects, of all the jobs that were not being created because of the terrible Navigable Waters Protection Act, to show us the proof and evidence as to why it had to strip out this bill.

Of course, the government provided nothing, not a single project anywhere in the country that condoned this. Then one begins to question the philosophy and to suspect what the government is truly about when it comes to protecting our environment.

This bill has a whole series of thoughtful comments and amendments to eight other acts in Canada. As I said, it is quite a hefty tome and quite complicated, but is it worth the paper it is written on if the government does not actually intend to enforce it?

We see this again in the auditor's report. A private member's bill was brought forward by the official opposition and was worked on by all members of the House in the last Parliament. The government is just choosing not to abide by a Canadian law.

It is here, in the government's own words and text, where Environment Canada says it does not need to actually monitor greenhouse gas emissions, but here is the irony. It can measure the emissions that it is going to count on in the government's own plan in the future, but it cannot take account of anything that has happened in the past. How are Canadians meant to have confidence in the government's ability to negotiate anything, what to order for lunch, never mind a serious agreement like what will happen in Copenhagen?

According to the Auditor General, and I will quote in order to get it right, “In the plans prepared to date, the department has not explained why expected emissions reductions can be estimated”, so those are the estimated reductions in the government's own plans, “in advance but actual reductions”, meaning what is actually happening in the environment, “cannot be measured after the fact”.

The government feels totally confident in saying to Canadians that it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by such-and-such by such-and-such a date. It can measure that and get that accurate, but it cannot measure the things that have already happened because it is too complicated and not cost-effective to measure.

Going back to the idea of enforcement and penalties, this comes from a party that has prided itself on being tough on crime and on pushing every criminal to the letter of the law. It campaigns on it every time, but it only means it for certain types of criminals, not ones who pollute our environment. Those ones get off the hook. For those ones, it will not press the letter of the law. It has been shown time and time again.

This is a government that picks what criminals it will go after. Some are truly criminal, while there are others who, say, tip over a railcar and dump it into a lake and pollute the rivers or put out greenhouse gases that endanger future generations, who break the government's own regulations and laws, and the government may or may not enforce those penalties. Those criminals, the government is not planning to get tough on.

One cannot help but wonder about the collusion at the moment of the crime, when the government puts forward Bill C-16 and other such bills and says it will quadruple the fines for individuals but it will leave the fines for corporations the same. Then the Auditor General says, with regard to the few regulations that exist for pollutants under the greenhouse gas emission acts that exist as law in this place, the government is unable to enforce them, unable to account and does not provide the penalties. How can Canadians have confidence in the government when it cannot follow through on such simple measures?

The very industries that are doing this polluting, or those that are suspected to, have asked the present government and the previous government for certainty. They want to know what the rules are.

Industry wants to know what the actual carbon emissions limits and pollution costs will be, because it can put that into its actual budgets. Industry can figure out what the cost of doing business will be.

Instead, the government slipstreams in behind the United States and is just waiting, forming a talk shop with the Obama administration.

The actual regulations are two years late in terms of the government's own promised commitments to bring them forward to industry and to Canadians. They are two years late by the government's own fault and admission. Nobody here is holding them up. These regulations are done in-house. They do not even have to be brought to Parliament.

For two years, industry and Canadians have been waiting and have received nothing. There is no excuse for the government. There is no logistical problem. There is no problem with the data. There is no problem with knowing what regulations to put in place, because all the other industrialized nations in the world have gone ahead of Canada and put the rules in place.

The fact of the matter is that the government is still stuck in a place where it is either the environment or the economy; it has to be one or the other. This is where the government is going to have to give itself a shake and wake up.

These are the same characters who would look at a GDP result and say it is the only measurement and number they need in order to know how the economy is doing.We in northwestern British Columbia know that after the Exxon Valdez spill, which occurred just north of where I live, the GDP went through the roof. It did fantastic that year for Alaska. Business was booming. According to the government's systemic failure to manage the economy, that was seen as successful.

The regulations that the government proposes in Bill C-16, which is now before the House on its third and final reading, take small steps. However, at the basis of the philosophy of whether Canadians can feel confident about the government's sincerity and ability to actually enforce its own laws, it is found wanting time and again.

When the government sets the limits and the penalties so low, as it did in Bill C-16, it allows business to slide them in as a cost of doing business. I do not see the government proposing such penalties in other areas of criminal law. With a $5 fine for a break and enter, a criminal could sit back and say, “Well, if that is the penalty to break into a house, that seems worth it.” The government understands in that case that it must present a penalty that is a deterrent, so that perhaps the criminal will not break into Canadians' homes and will not steal things.

Yet when it comes to the environment, the government provides paltry fines that a lot of the biggest and most profitable companies will look at as a cost of doing business. If the cost of making their production safe is x, as opposed y, which is the cost, maybe, of a fine, then if y is smaller than x, they will just not do it and will let the pollution run forth.

Industry knows that fines are not coming from the government, that enforcement is not coming. How do they know this? It is evidenced by the Auditor General of Canada, a non-partisan and unbiased officer of Parliament who looked at the government's own laws. It applied the test of those laws to the government and found it wanting yet again.

The only reason the government thinks it can get away with this is because it thinks there is no political consequence. The government thinks that presenting these laws with press announcements at the five-star hotel down the road will somehow replace actual effect, spending thousands of Canadian taxpayers' dollars to rent the place and send the whole press corps down the road so the minister can look tough standing in front of a bunch of enforcement officers, for what? Could it not have done the same thing 50 feet down the hall?

This reminds me of the previous environment minister who spent $85,000 to announce a plan in Toronto that he could have announced right here. He held three different press conferences: one for business in one part of the city, one for the media in another part of the city, and another one for the environmental groups. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent on this little charade. What was announced? It was the Turning the Corner plan.

What a fantastic plan, which was actually talked about in the auditor's report today, which the government cannot account for. The government has had three plans, three ministers, three years, and all have failed to get the job done.

So the government comes forward with Bill C-16, an amalgamation of old acts and old bills that it wants to combine. It tells us to rest assured that it is going to get serious about the environment, finally. It is going to go after the polluters. The Conservatives shake their heads and rattle their sabres, but unfortunately, nothing changes.

I will go back to the point around certainty because it is important for Canadians to understand that this is the actual intersect between business and the environment.

Businesses consistently said to us that they were frustrated with the Liberal Party and the Liberal government because it announced Kyoto. The Liberals went to Kyoto, signed onto Kyoto, ratified Kyoto and promised rules. A great number of businesses, in good faith and good intention, went forward and made some of the changes that would be required under a carbon-constrained economy, which is in Kyoto and which other countries have actually done. They would make the change and the government would come up with another plan and say that it would get to the regulations later. They would make more changes, spend more money, make their businesses less polluting, hoping to get some credit for it and the government would say “later”.

Then the Conservatives came in and the same movie started again. They said that they would get serious, that this was their climate change plan. Because the first two failed, now they would turn the corner, and they called the document “Turning the Corner“. The Conservatives are turning the corner so many times they are walking in circles.

The fact is when we look for regulations, when we look for the hard evidence of what businesses can count on and account for in their own ledgers as to where they spend the money, what the price of carbon will be, how they trade on the carbon markets with the U.S. and the international community, there are none. There are promises that are now two years old, and industry is still waiting.

The minister pretended today, during the question and answer period, that he would somehow show up in Copenhagen with some ability to negotiate. How can the we negotiate without credibility? The other countries know Canada's record. They know the government's intensity-based plan is used by no one else. Not one country in the world uses intensity to measure its carbon emissions.

Does that not give Canadians pause? Have we stumbled upon some unique solution to climate change with which the other countries will jump on board? No one else uses it because it does not work. It is not effective. We cannot measure, we cannot manage, we cannot control under an intensity regime. We told the Conservatives, when they first came to government, that it was a farce.

Finally, two weeks ago the Minister of the Environment stood and said that maybe the intensity regime would not work, that maybe the government needed an actual hard limit. Two years were wasted again. Why? Because the government is interested in only taking policy, not making it.

When it comes to protecting our environment, when it comes to being responsible on greenhouse gas emissions, the Conservatives are found wanting, not simply by New Democrats, who proposed a comprehensive bill. The government asked for policy. We proposed Bill C-311, which passed through the last Parliament, which the government killed by proroguing Parliament again. The Conservatives are addicted to this. How democratic and accountable is it when the government of the day, because it does not like what is going on, Parliament, shuts Parliament down and locks the doors.

It is getting to be a habit of the Conservative government. Three times it has done that. Three times it has killed its own legislation. The members will scream out “coalition”. Twice the Conservatives did it with no threat of anything other than laws that were in this place, put forward by elected people meant to represent the people of Canada, not the will of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Time and time again, Canadians have sent parliamentarians forward to do something about climate change, to bring legitimate legislation forward. It is no longer good enough for the Conservatives to sit on their moral high ground talking about transparency and accountability when the auditor of the country says that it is a lie, that it is otherwise, that it is a mistruth.

This cannot continue. The government has to own up to its responsibilities. It is the Government of Canada, not the government of the Conservative Party of Canada. When the Conservatives get that through their heads, they will finally start to bring legislation forward that matters, that makes a difference and that Canadians can start to believe in this place again and know this place can fix a problem that we all created.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member's speech was electrifying. It certainly was a barnburner of a speech. I know the member for Saint Boniface and some of her colleagues listened to every word. He certainly got their attention.

If this is how the government acts in a minority situation, imagine what would happen if Canadians gave it a majority government. Imagine how lax enforcement would be in all sorts of areas.

I want to specifically ask the member for his observations on one of the clauses in the legislation, regarding the definition of a vessel. It is given in the changes to the Antarctic Environmental Protection Act, where it states that a vessel is a boat, ship or craft for use on water. It also mentions that fixed platforms are not included in the description. The amendment goes on to outline punishments and laws for vessels that break the environmental law under the act. Fixed platforms and oil rigs are never mentioned.

I see a potential huge liability for fixed platforms and oil rigs. Why would those not be included in the definition of vessel or not dealt with separately?

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

Mr. Speaker, I will assure my hon. colleague of that it was not a typo.

If the government came forward and said that specifically in the law it would exempt platforms, and this law deals with the unfortunate consequence of pollution, of a spill, Canadians would be left to inquire as to why.

The government does not create loopholes in its law for no reason at all. We have seen this time and again. It simply has exemptions. It is true in this place, as it is anywhere else, that the devil is in the details and there is a lot of devil in this place when the government draws up environmental regulation. It puts in details to exempt things which it does not want us to look at. We have seen consistently an exemption when it gets anywhere near the carbon economy, when it gets anywhere near the oil and gas producers in Canada, and I go back to this.

I met with the oil and gas producers of Canada two weeks ago. They said two things to me, which struck me. They said that they needed a hard cap and they needed it in law.

Lo and behold, who thought we would see the day where oil and gas companies were repeating back, almost word for word, a New Democrat mantra on how to deal with pollution and greenhouse gas emissions? They have decided a carbon price is coming. We have seen leadership in the Obama administration and for many years in the European Union. They know Canada's time has finally come, yet the government is moving slower than oil and gas companies.

Who could imagine this state of affairs? It needs to be corrected. My colleague is right. We need to check for the details in this thing. It is not solid.