Bill C-57 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act

This enactment amends the Federal Sustainable Development Act to make decision making related to sustainable development more transparent and subject to accountability to Parliament.

Federal Sustainable Development Act

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, such a decision is disheartening. We know that this is not the first time that the Liberal government has failed since it was elected. It is not the first time that the Liberal government has failed to keep its promise. In this case, all it had to do was let Kinder Morgan expand its network to export more oil. Unfortunately, the government's failure was such that the pipeline was opposed by just about everyone. The only solution that the Liberal government could come up with to resolve the situation was to take taxpayers' money and buy a pipeline, without knowing how much the expansion will cost. It is disheartening to see that it will be Canadians' hard-earned money that will be used to fix the Prime Minister's mistakes.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I believe that it is important to debate the sustainable development bill. However, it is very disappointing that even though we support this bill, not all the committee's recommendations will be implemented. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages and when we prepare reports we are disappointed by the response from the government after making our recommendations. It is the same old story with Bill C-57. The committee agreed on several recommendations and the government came up with a bill that does not respect the spirit of all those recommendations.

For example, witnesses mentioned that despite the definition of sustainable development, this bill only refers to the environmental decision-making process and there is no vision for the environmental and social aspects that are the main pillars of sustainable development.

Does my colleague believe, as I do, that the government should pay careful attention to committee reports, including the one on this bill?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, the government obviously has no intention of looking at the committees' reports, because these reports sometimes contain recommendations from the opposition. Actually, no, there are not often recommendations from the opposition, because these recommendations do not make it into the committee reports. The government does not let the opposition include recommendations in these reports because the Liberal majority on the committees is stopping the opposition's good recommendations from getting here, to the House. This is a problem. For a week now, it has looked as though the Liberal majority plans to use its power more and more to silence any criticism. The Liberals do not like being criticized.

Before I conclude, I want to thank my colleague from Drummond and his entire team for all of their support on the Lac-Mégantic file. I could feel their party's support from the beginning, and it was truly appreciated and noted by the people of Lac-Mégantic.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to talk about the environment in the House of Commons. That is why I ran for politics, to defend the environment, to promote sustainable development. I remember it well. My wife Liliana and I were watching television and there were reports on the shale gas scandal at the time. My wife said that something needed to be done. I told her that she was right. We got involved and now I am in the House of Commons in the process of defending the environment and promoting sustainable development.

Bill C-57 before us now seeks to improve the sustainable development strategy; it is an act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act. We support this bill in principle, but we feel that the committee's recommendations should have been followed more closely. The government did not see the committee's recommendations through.

The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development studied the legislation currently in effect. Many of the witnesses who spoke at the committee mentioned the gaps in the law. First, contrary to the definition of sustainable development, the legislation talks about the decision-making process with regard to the environment, but not the economic and social dimensions of sustainable development. That was a problem we needed to correct and that was not done. Second, it targets transparency and accountability instead of progress on sustainable development and those are also aspects that were not corrected in the legislation. The committee acknowledged the existence of these major flaws, then recommended amending the legislation accordingly. Unfortunately, Bill C-57 does not correct these flaws and considers only some of the recommendations. It does not consider the entirety of the recommendations made by the members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

Once again, the Liberal Party unfortunately did not listen to its own members and refused to implement the recommendations received from the standing committee. Clearly, the government is not committed to honouring its commitments regarding the UN's general sustainable development goals, which include making sure that the government as a whole ensures that its laws and policies reflect environmental, social, and economic needs.

In that regard, it is rather ironic, in a negative sense, that we are debating sustainable development today, the same day that the Liberal government announced that it is buying the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. That company purchased the pipeline for $550 million, and the federal government is going to use $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money to buy it. That is outrageous. It is going to give that money to a company in Texas, so that money will be leaving Canada, not to mention that the government also gives $1.3 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies to oil and gas companies. The Liberal government said that it would respect its commitment to Canada to eliminate those subsidies, but it did not do that. We in the NDP have been saying for quite some time that we will eliminate those subsidies. Those subsidies must be eliminated and that money must be invested instead in a just transition to a low-carbon economy, an economy based on renewable energy sources. That $4.5 billion would have been incredibly useful for developing renewable energy companies. As we know, the renewable energy sector is creating 10 times as many jobs as the fossil fuel sector.

Had the government done the right thing and invested that $4.5 billion in renewable energy, we would have created many more long-term jobs for now as well as for our children and grandchildren. That is another reason I am in politics. I want to leave our children and grandchildren a better world. Unfortunately, the Liberal government is making a mistake.

Buying a pipeline is not a step toward sustainable development; it is a step back. This is definitely not the right thing to do. It is a terrible idea, and I am certain Canadians will not accept it. The people will be very vocal in their opposition to buying the pipeline with taxpayer dollars. The Liberals certainly did not talk about this issue during the campaign.

Since we are talking about sustainable development, I would like to say a few words about what is going on in the Drummond region on that front. We have businesses in the renewable energy sector, in heat recovery, and in energy efficiency. Drummondville itself is fortunate to have a diversified economy and future-oriented businesses working in renewable energy and energy conservation. That is an important point to make. There are plenty of great businesses doing that in Drummond.

The City of Drummondville recently announced that it was going to establish a plan for sustainable mobility. I would like to thank John Husk, the municipal councillor for District 5 and chair of the Chantier sur le développement d’un plan de mobilité durable et le transport actif et collectif. That is a very good thing for Drummond because 85% of its citizens do not carpool. We have to fix that. Therefore it is a very good thing to have a plan for sustainable mobility.

What is meant by “sustainable mobility” in the vision that people want to develop for Drummondville? First, there is the economic component. Mobility must be efficient and foster economic vitality in trade corridors. Next, from the social point of view, it must be accessible to be good for the community, equitable, safe, and compatible with health. In terms of the environment, sustainable mobility limits the use of space and resources, is integrated into the environment, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. What I have just mentioned is the complete opposite of what the Liberal government is currently doing.

I now want to repeat an important point. Today is a sad day for Canada. The Liberal government announced that it will be diverting $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money to buy a pipeline that is worth just $550 million. The Liberals blindly spent this money on an obsolete energy source when we could have embraced the future and sustainable development. It just so happens that Bill C-57 is about sustainable development.

The government should have a vision and invest the $4.5 billion in the companies, like those in Drummond, working to improve energy efficiency, recover heat, and develop renewable energy, such as solar, wind and other energy. That is the Canada that we we want to leave our children and grandchildren.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his speech.

I too am extremely shocked at the decision to buy the Burnaby pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion. Even worse, that only includes the existing pipeline, which is now over 60 years old. The government also promised to expand the pipeline, a highly controversial move, since it will infringe indigenous rights and go against British Columbia's interests.

What does my colleague think of the fact that we are debating a bill on sustainable development on the very day the government made a decision that violates every principle of sustainable development?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. Green Party colleague for her very relevant question.

My colleague mentioned other broken promises. The failure with Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline is just one in a long string of promises broken by the Liberal government. The Liberals said that once they took office, they would review the environmental process that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives trashed. Instead of fulfilling their promise, the Liberals dragged their feet. They did not table the review of the bill on environmental assessment until today, in June, three years into their term. They cannot say they have not been dragging their feet. That is how they ended up approving this terrible pipeline project based on inaccurate environmental assessments from a process that had been completely butchered by the Harper government and the Conservatives. The Liberals are responsible for their own failure on this file.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House to ask my colleague a question. I did appreciate his comments. He and I were both shocked at the decision the federal government made to purchase the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Our reasons are different, but they both go to the root of sustainability. Sustainability is about finding the appropriate balance between our social objectives, our economic objectives, and our environment objectives.

I certainly believe that the Kinder Morgan pipeline purchase is symptomatic of a government that does not understand what sustainability means. It does not understand what that balance means. It has completely neglected the economic component.

My colleague, of course, is more concerned about the environment and has a different approach. He believes that the environment has been neglected. I would ask him to comment more broadly, beyond just the Kinder Morgan pipeline. To what degree does he believe that the Liberal government, which has been in power now for two and a half years, actually understands sustainability and the appropriate balance between the economy and the environment?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, the bill before us does indeed deal with sustainable development and is based on three pillars: the environment, the economy, and the social aspect. The problem with this government is that it made promises. To approve the pipelines, it had to overturn the environmental assessment bill introduced by the Conservatives that had eliminated a large number of responsibilities.

This government dragged its feet for two and a half years. It approved a project, even though it had said that it would not approve a project based on old environmental assessments. It broke its promise. It was the author of its own misfortune. Now, it wants to push through a pipeline and force it down Canadian taxpayers' throats. On top of that, it wants to make them pay $4.5 billion of their own money, when this money could be redistributed in a much more sensible and appropriate way.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be speaking to this important piece of legislation about the environment and sustainability.

There is a saying in politics that 24 hours is a long time. In the last day, we have had some seminal events with respect to the way the government is operating in terms of the economy and the environment, and also, by the way, in terms of this chamber. We have had closure brought forward three times in one day. That has to be a record. Certainly, if the government continues at this pace, it will far surpass the record of any previous administration with respect to closure. Three times in one day is quite something. It shows that it has no interest in meaningful dialogue on the legislation it has put forward. In many cases, it is doing this on omnibus bills, very long pieces of legislation that include many varied and different elements. For instance, it just brought forward closure on a bill dealing with criminal justice, with many different elements in it. It includes, as my colleagues have pointed out, reducing sentences, yet it tries to justify it by saying that there is something over here in the bill we might like. That is precisely the point when we have this omnibus legislation. That is part of the context. We are at close to 11 o'clock tonight debating Bill C-57, having had three different instances of closure brought forward today.

Speaking of the environment and sustainability, which is the core theme of this legislation, we also had the government announce today that the only way it can get a pipeline built is if it first buys a pipeline that is over 60 years old, and if it is able to work out all the legal wrangling through the courts and with the B.C. government, it will then go ahead and spend billions more of taxpayers' money to build that pipeline. That is not fiscally sustainable. If the government wants to establish a precedent that any time major economic development projects happen they will only happen if it is spending enormous amounts of taxpayers' money, that is not a fiscally sustainable model of economic growth.

Our approach, in the Conservative Party, is to establish the conditions that allow for private sector economic development. Under the previous government, there were four pipelines built. A fifth pipeline was approved. We hear the bizarre criticism from the government that the Conservatives did not build any pipelines to tidewater. Let us be clear. Up until now, at least, it has not been the government that has built pipelines. The government has evaluated and approved pipelines, or had the option of not approving them. However, in our case, we approved pipelines that had been proposed by the private sector. That included approving a pipeline to tidewater as well as approving and overseeing the construction of four pipelines.

From an environmental perspective, I think we should be very supportive of the development of pipelines, because transporting our energy resources through pipelines is a more environmentally sustainable way of proceeding. It is less costly, actually, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, to be transporting our energy resources by pipeline. Therefore, it is a win-win. It is a win economically and a win for the environment.

We often hear from the government that the economy and the environment go hand in hand. Sometimes they go hand in hand in the wrong direction, and sometimes they move hand in hand in the right direction. Under the current government, they are both moving in the wrong direction, I think. Under the previous government, we got pipelines built by creating conditions for the private sector to get that work done. That allowed for economic advancement for our country and also environmental improvements.

The previous Conservative government was the first government in Canadian history to oversee a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Our friends across the way are always very skeptical of this. They want to find reasons they cannot really credit it to us, and here are the arguments they use. They will try to say that the Conservatives cannot really take credit for the reduction in greenhouse emissions, because the reductions were the result of policies undertaken by the provinces. The response to that is that if we compare the record of the previous Conservative government to the Liberal government before it, we either had reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, or there was an increase that was lower than the increase in the previous period. In other words, there were improvements in terms of environmental performance in every jurisdiction, which suggests that it was not merely about things happening in individual jurisdictions, although there is obviously a role to be played there, but was a result of federal policy. That was the record of the previous government.

The current government will then say that it was only because of the recession. It is true that the Conservatives governed during a period when there was a global recession, yet at a time when global emissions went up, Canadian emissions went down, even though Canada was relatively less impacted by the global economic recession than many other countries. We were able to achieve environmental improvements at a time when the rest of the world did not, even though the rest of the world was more affected by the recession and therefore saw more constriction in terms of economic activity compared to what was happening in Canada.

If one puts those facts together and recognizes that the Conservatives undertook thoughtful, managed policies on environmental improvements, a regulatory sector-by-sector approach, one can see that we achieved real, substantial, and meaningful progress.

Here is the difference. We do not use the environment as an excuse to impose new taxes on low- and middle-income Canadians. We see the environment as an objective that can be pursued in concert with economic improvement. We can have a sustainable federal budget that does not involve massive deficits at the same time as concerning ourselves with sustainable environmental performance, in environmental terms.

If we look at the record of the previous Conservative government, we can see a strong economy as well as improvements in terms of the environment. I hate to be accused of plagiarism, but if we look at the record of the previous government, it does look like the environment and the economy were going hand in hand.

Under the current government, we see something quite different. We see a government totally unable to establish the conditions that allow for private sector investments in pipelines. In fact, what it is doing is buying out assets, which leads companies to then move that money and make those investments elsewhere. Kinder Morgan is going to spend the money it received from the Canadian government, but it is not going to spend it here in Canada. Very likely, it is going to spend it in other parts of the world.

The energy sector in other countries is doing very well, but we face continuing, significant challenges here in Canada as a result of the government's total inability to get these issues right. It is imposing more taxes on low- and middle-income Canadians through its carbon tax, and by the way, it is not telling people how much it will cost. We are still asking the government to come clean, end the carbon tax cover-up, and share with us the cost to individual Canadians of the carbon tax. It will not come clean with respect to that. It will not reveal the information and has only released severely redacted, blacked-out documents that prevent Canadians from actually seeing what the impact of that carbon tax will be.

The government thinks that imposing these new taxes on Canadians is somehow going to lead to solutions to our environmental challenges. If we want to see what sustainable development really looks like, we should look specifically at what happened in terms of economic performance and greenhouse gas reductions during the period of the previous government.

When we have this kind of big government intervention, the economy model the government has, it is not fiscally sustainable. It means leaving massive debt and deficits to the next generation, and it does not do much good for our environment, either.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I found that the hon. member's speech included some contradictions, and it certainly abstracted from certain realities.

The member mentioned at the beginning of his speech that the issue of the Trans Mountain pipeline is wrapped up in legal wrangling. Does the member believe that a Conservative government would eliminate legal wrangling? How would it do that? Would it eliminate the court system?

We have a court system in this country that environmentalists, provincial governments, and all kinds of intervenors and stakeholders can access. That is what has happened with the Trans Mountain pipeline project. It has become caught up in legal wrangling, and the government had to act in that context.

The member seems to think that somehow, with the wave of a magic wand, a Conservative government would eliminate all legal wrangling. I would like the hon. member to respond to that notion.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is with great sympathy and understanding that I acknowledge that for a Liberal, it would look like magic to do what I just described, which is establish the conditions that allow for private sector growth. It is not a thought experiment. Look at where we were in October 2015. Four pipelines had been built, the northern gateway project had been approved, and Trans Mountain and energy east were pipelines being proposed by private sector investors.

Where are we today? Energy east has been killed indirectly by the piling on of burdens. By the way, I would like to know what the Maritime Liberal MPs think about the total inaction on energy east in the midst of the government bailing out Trans Mountain, because we want to see energy east, as well. That pipeline is no longer being pursued by the private sector proponent. The northern gateway pipeline was killed directly and intentionally by government policy, and the only way the government thinks it can get Trans Mountain done is by buying it out.

That is not a question of magic. That is a question of the difference elections make. Elections have consequences, and in 2019, that election will have consequences as well.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to understand the Conservative position with regard to purchasing the pipeline and the intervention in market forces. Would they also consider that massive tax subsidization, through tax credits and subsidies, especially given the fact that a number of organizations and companies have paid very few taxes, also represents market intervention, since this reduces taxation amounts? Would they also consider subsidies, grants, and research credits advantages, where the public has subsidized the industry?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know, of course, that the NDP does not take a consistent position in terms of corporate welfare in general. We would have to have a more detailed discussion about how it is defining “subsidy” in this specific context.

My colleague lumped a few things together in a way that seems a little bit imprecise to me. In general, I am not supportive, for instance, of direct government grants to private business and a government buying a pipeline in the way the government has. There is a legitimate place for non-refundable tax credits, like SR&ED credits. There is a legitimate place for an accelerated capital cost writeoff as an incentive for companies to make investments in Canada.

In general, we want to be competitive and encourage investments in Canada. I think the best way to do it is not through the government picking winners and losers through direct subsidies, but rather by establishing conditions and providing incentives to encourage those kinds of capital investments. I would encourage the NDP, when it looks at the oil and gas sector compared to other sectors, to at least take a consistent position, because some of the things it is criticizing in terms of tax credits in the energy sector seem like the same kinds of things it advocates for in sectors like the auto sector. We are very supportive—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately the time is up. I tried to let the member know that his time was running very short.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to present my thoughts on Bill C-57. I regret very much that we have time allocation on this bill, and even more so the hour of 11 p.m. that is now approaching. This important legislation deserves to be heard in a normal fashion with full debate.

Let me go back to when this bill originated. The Federal Sustainable Development Act was actually passed in the era of a Conservative government, and was one of those rare pieces of legislation that originated with the opposition. It was brought forward by a former Liberal MP, John Godfrey. It was one of his last contributions as a very diligent and thoughtful member of Parliament. He went on to leave Parliament and go back to his old stomping grounds of education.

Sustainable development and aspects of sustainable development had been in Canadian law before. This bill managed to get through Parliament in 2008, and the successor bill that we have before us tonight does improve some elements of sustainable development as originally put forward with a lot of co-operation in this place back in 2008. I was not yet a member of Parliament in that year, but I followed very closely the development of the Federal Sustainable Development Act because it was really a high-water mark for the minority-government years of former Prime Minister Harper, because opposition parties were willing to work together. The opposition parties had a majority, but very rarely used it. In this case, the Federal Sustainable Development Act was brought in. This act could have been improved and strengthened, but there is very little that I would say is wrong with it. I am disappointed that we will repeal the definition of the precautionary principle, but overall the bill will strengthen the application of sustainable development principles to more parts of the federal government, and I do like the creation of a sustainable development advisory council. The bill has real potential, but I do not think the government plans to do with it what I hope it will do.

Going back to the early 1960s, for decades the Canadian government benefited from well-researched, strong public policy advice from institutions that we no longer have. We used to have, starting in 1963, the Economic Council of Canada. We had as well the Science Council of Canada. In the early 1970s, we had the creation of the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council. In 1993, all three of those agencies were wound up and repealed. That meant we lost the Economic Council of Canada, the Science Council of Canada, and the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council. They were wound up and repealed because in 1993 the federal government brought in the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. This was our first substantial sustainable development tool. To quote the late Jim MacNeill, a brilliant Canadian diplomat and former deputy minister who really challenged the ideas of sustainable development, one of the core ideas was that “If we change the way we make decisions, we'll change the kind of decisions we make.”

The idea of the national round table was that by bringing together people from different perspectives, including trade unions, large corporate enterprises, academics, environmentalists, indigenous people, as well as government ministers and agencies and so on, the resulting give and take and shared learning would create decisions that met the challenge of sustainability, because sustainability is not the environment by itself. Sustainability has at least three legs to the stool. They are the environment, and social and economic concerns, but those are within a very clear mandate to ensure that the decisions we take today do not compromise the ability of future generations to make their own decisions and to meet their own needs. In other words, sustainability requires that we think about intergenerational equity.

Here I have to confess that I was a member and vice-chair for quite a while of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. Its work was substantial. I do not want to blow my own horn, but a lot of work was done by a lot of people over many years, and I served for only a relatively brief period.

In 2012, under omnibus budget Bill C-38, the national round table was eliminated. No one at that point said that we had better bring back all those other advisory bodies that we had eliminated in 1993 when we created the national round table. There is no longer the Economic Council, no longer the Science Council, no longer the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, and there is no national round table.

This is the first time something has been created that could meet that need, namely a sustainable development advisory council. It is pretty thin gruel. It could do a lot. The Treasury Board within the act could establish policies or issue directives and could be adequately funding this new agency, which is quite modestly proposed in the act. That said, I certainly hope that the government will realize that we desperately need sound advice on what is sustainable and what is not.

Speaking of what is not sustainable, it includes today's announcement that the Government of Canada is going to form a crown corporation that will now be the management entity for a pipeline that the federal government proposes to buy with a closing date in August. I can only hope that something goes wrong with this sale because this is monstrous. We are proposing to spend $4.5 billion to buy the assets of what is called the Trans Mountain pipeline, but owned by Kinder Morgan of Houston, Texas.

The Trans Mountain pipeline was built in 1953 by a Canadian company with the goal of bring crude or synthetic crude to Burnaby, British Columbia, where over time they developed four refineries. The Trans Mountain pipeline was all about bringing Canadian crude from Alberta to Canadian refineries in the Lower Mainland for domestic use.

When Kinder Morgan bought the assets of Trans Mountain, which are now more than 60 years old, in its valuation to the National Energy Board, the company put the value of the Trans Mountain assets at $550 million. Those are the assets that today the Minister of Finance announced he would buy at a price of $4.5 billion. That is astonishing. Kinder Morgan has certainly achieved a very rich return on investment without having invested new infrastructure.

Kinder Morgan wanted to build a new pipeline, but I think it has lost interest in it. That is why it kidnapped its own project and said that if we did not have a solution by May 31, it would walk away. Clearly for political reasons, primarily for the impact in Alberta, the federal government decided that anything was preferable to having Kinder Morgan walk away, so it has done something astonishing. It is planning to spend $4.5 billion to buy the existing assets of the old pipeline and to take on, as yet undescribed by the Minister of Finance, but said by Kinder Morgan to be a $7.4 billion project to build the expansion. The government is taking on a project that has not yet cleared its conditions with the National Energy Board and is still before the courts in 15 different court cases for violation of indigenous rights, and is doing so with a completely scandalously inadequate environmental review before the National Energy Board within which evidence was put forward by Kinder Morgan and at which no intervenors were allowed to cross-examine.

We now find ourselves asking if the government understands sustainable development, because overarching all of this is the most fundamental and pressing question, what about the climate crisis? How can we possibly claim that Canada understands the pressing imperative of the transition away from fossil fuels, whether in 10, 20, or 30 years? We need to make plans. How can we understand the imperative of avoiding the kind of disaster that deprives not hypothetical future generations but our own children, children alive today that we tuck in at night? How can we possibly think we understand sustainability while building pipelines?