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.

Report Stage

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate in this late hour on Bill C-57, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act. Of course, as other members have said, including the member for Abbotsford, we will be supporting this piece of legislation.

In preparing for the debate, I went through past commentary by other members, including the member for Abbotsford, and really, what else is there to add? He went over every single point and report that rebutted many of the talking points the Liberal government has put forward in defending its environmental record and so-called achievements. They are achievements in name, mostly. He went through it very well, so there is really nothing more I can contribute in illuminating the debate in that sense.

However, there is one part of it that I do want to delve into and spend more time on. It is the part where the member for Abbotsford referenced a report, which, in his words, “is supposed to marry the environment and the economy”. He questioned why the government had completely forgotten about the economic component. He said it was unbelievable, and I agree with him.

We have heard time and time again in the House this metaphor alluding to the economy and the environment going hand in hand. All I have seen so far is posturing by the Liberals when it comes to the environment, and very little focus on the economy. We have seen over the past two and a half years one thing happen, and one thing only, which is this two-handed concept. Why are both of those hands in my pockets? Both hands are in the pockets of taxpayers.

On one side are carbon taxes. On one side is a higher cost of living, so-called, to pay for environmental reasons and environmental targets, so-called. At the end of the day, it is always about more revenue. On the other side are higher small business taxes, higher payroll taxes, or higher taxes period, across the board, with a higher cost of living for most Canadians today. Think tanks have said this. Independent reports have said this, and I am sure every single member of the House could attest to the fact that they have received emails, letters, and phone calls from constituents who are saying that the cost of living has gone up significantly.

Why are both of those hands, supposedly the economy and the environment, when managed by the federal government, the Ottawa Liberals, in the pockets of taxpayers? They are in our pockets. Everyone in Canada is paying more because of the government's decision-making. There are job losses in the energy sector.

I know that members hear all the time that Statistics Canada is saying that the job numbers are better. However, the comparison is being made between the loss of an engineering job paying maybe $150,000 to $200,000 in Calgary and then maybe a job working in retail for $50,000.

What about underemployment? It is something that Statistics Canada and stats in general have a very difficult time catching. I can give example after example in my own riding in Calgary, and even wider than the Calgary area, of individuals who have been impacted by the drastic slowdown in the energy sector, which was initially caused by lower prices, and then prolonged by bad government policy, both provincially and federally, making things far worse for far longer than they needed to be.

I have heard the debate in the House thus far on Bill C-57, including an exchange earlier today. Members know that I like Yiddish proverbs. One of them is “What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your tongue”. I see this happening on that side of the House all the time. They make it up as they go along.

This brings me to the next point, which I will spend some more time on. The Trans Mountain pipeline is the perfect example of this. Supposedly, in the name of getting it right and finding the right balance between the economy and the environment, the only way the Liberals can do this is by expropriating Kinder Morgan and forcing the company. It would have been one of the most profitable portions of the energy sector to transport the goods to the market. The Liberals made it unprofitable by getting in the way at every single junction, and by undermining the legitimate process by which a company, shareholders, and members of the public can arrive at a reasonable decision. They can disagree without being disagreeable through a regulator, define approval, and move the project forward.

Instead, with the encouragement of the federal government, the Liberals on that side, protesters, third-party groups, many foreign-funded, then went out and undermined the rule of law and the legal process by which the pipeline was approved. Now we have a situation.

The economy and the environment supposedly go hand in hand. However, both of the government's federal hands are now taking Kinder Morgan's pipeline. The Liberals are saying that in the name of getting it built, the only thing they can do, the only way we can get it done is by taking on 100% of the risk for $4.5 billion, and that is just to buy the old pipeline. Now we are talking about building the actual pipeline expansion itself.

However, the court proceedings will still go ahead. The obstruction of a provincial government will still continue. The obstruction of a legally-approved pipeline will continue to go ahead, because nothing has changed. We have seen it in the media, with quote after quote from protester leaders, from certain but not all indigenous groups, and from civic leaders who say they will continue to oppose it, that it makes no difference. However, now every one of us is on the hook for cost overruns, for cost failures, for potential strikes, for workers' health and safety, and for the extra spending to ensure they can work in a safe environment while they build this pipeline, even if it goes ahead.

This $4.5 billion that the Canadian taxpayer is giving to the shareholders of Kinder Morgan Canada is going to do what? It is going to go and finance competitor pipelines. The state of Texas will become the largest producer of oil in the world. I always joke about the state of Texas. I call it “Alberta Junior”. That is what it is to me in my heart. Texas calls us in the reverse. So many Canadians who worked in the energy sector in Calgary, Edmonton, and Fort McMurray are working there today.

Where was that focus on getting the environment and the economy right? Did that involve the brain drain, the escape, the exile, of tens of thousands of Canadian energy workers to Dallas and Houston? Was that the purpose? Is that how we get the balance right? The Liberals failed miserably, despite this legislation, which we will support.

As I mentioned, what our eyes do not see, do not invent with our tongues, but they are inventing. The Liberals are inventing a narrative that simply does not exist, because they do not have the balance right. They did not get it right with the economy and the environment. If they did, they would not be getting into the business of owning and operating a pipeline.

Seven thousand kilometres of pipeline has been cancelled under the Liberals' watch, not our watch. They are the ones who failed to achieve it. They are the ones who did not get it to move forward. However, now they will be able to build their own pipeline. The future health of the Alberta government's finances now rest in the hands of the federal government, which is a position I guarantee 90% of Albertans will be against.

We are adamantly against it, because we have seen this type of behaviour before, 40 years ago with the national energy plan. This is the second version of it, getting it wrong again. The Liberals do not know where to find the balance between the two. They will continue to back their allies in the environmental movement, the activists, and those who they continuously back in illegal activities because they need their help to win elections.

We will support this proposed legislation. However, on the continuous use of the environment and the economy go hand in hand, the Liberals actually have to live it and they have to do it. Buying pipelines, expropriating pipelines, is not the way to achieve it. We should never have been in the position where the taxpayer of Canada would have to be on the hook for up to $12 billion of new spending.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that we in the NDP do have different views on why this is a bad idea.

What I will say to workers in Alberta, my brother being one of them involved in the industry, is that stopping the Kinder Morgan expansion will not stop the oil sands from working right now, and no one in the House wants that.

Furthermore, Kinder Morgan was devised at a time when oil prices were around $100 a barrel. It is exporting diluted bitumen, which is the rawest form of the product, and we are not getting any value for this. If we want our oil industry to be sustainable, then we should sell it for the most value possible, not bargain basement prices.

If we are going to talk about Canada's energy security as a country, it does not involve building a pipeline that will direct exports to China. This will not in any way lead to Canada's energy security. That makes a mockery of the government's sustainable development goals, especially in light of Bill C-57.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to be joining the debate on Bill C-57, although I must agree with my Conservative colleagues that it is unfortunate to be doing it under the yoke of time allocation.

It is a strategy that the federal government seems to be employing quite a bit this week. I was having an exchange with the member for Perth—Wellington earlier today about this resembling a student who has missed the due date for his homework and has suddenly realized it is coming up and he had better rush things. We have been wasting time over February, March, April, and May, and now we are almost into June. If we look at the parliamentary calendar, we see that time is suddenly short, so the Liberals are feeling the need to engage in these draconian tactics to limit the ability of members to be here on behalf of their constituents. Every single one of these seats represents a unique geographic area of Canada, and the people of Canada deserve to have their voices and concerns raised in this House by the members who represent them.

That said, let us now turn to the bill before us, Bill C-57.

I want to compliment my friend and colleague, the member for the riding of Edmonton Strathcona. She has decades of experience in the field of environmental sustainability. When she speaks to our caucus or delivers speeches in this House or at committee, people listen, because they realize this member has the experience and the knowledge. Very rarely have I seen people contradict her, because they know that she is usually right. She has the experience to back it up.

I want to walk the House through a bit of the history of how we got to Bill C-57. We would have to go back to the spring of 2016, when the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development reviewed the current act. There is a mandate in the act that it has to be reviewed every certain number of years. I believe it is every three years. That is just to make sure that it is staying up to date with the changing nature of Canada, to see if we are meeting our goals or if anything needs to be tweaked, and to see if the government has been doing a good job in following the existing act. That is why it is important.

As a part of this review, the committee, as committees usually do, brought forth witnesses to testify with respect to the current act and present some recommendations for ideas for reform. Witnesses at the committee found the current act lacking in two important ways. First, unlike the definition of “sustainable development”, it focuses on environmental decision-making and ignores the social and economic pillars of sustainable development; second, the purpose is about transparency and accountability for environmental decision-making, rather than about advancing sustainable development. The committee agreed with those significant shortcomings and recommended that the act be amended to require the development of an effective federal strategy that will inspire, in equal measure, environmental, social, and economic advancement toward a better future, something I think that all members in this House can very much agree to.

The unfortunate thing with the bill before us, Bill C-57, is that it only partially addresses these deficiencies and recommendations. It is important to note that the updated law should reflect the broader UN sustainable development goals, which have been endorsed by Canada.

I want to list some key things that came about after that study, because when Bill C-57 made it to the committee, the Liberal government did not even listen to its own members of Parliament on that committee. It did not even listen to the recommendations that had come from the environment committee. That is a real shame, because suddenly we have Liberals recommending something, only to see their government completely ignore it. That action shows that the government is not committed to delivering on its commitments under the broad UN sustainable development goal to ensure the whole of government ensures that its laws and policies reflect environmental, social, and economic needs.

I want to drill down on that, because the member for Edmonton Strathcona really was faced with a Herculean task. Many of my colleagues who sit on committees know this. Since the NDP has just one spot on a 10-member committee, that one member does not have the luxury of teamwork with other MPs. The work often falls upon us, so when it comes to the amending stage of a bill, the clause-by-clause part of a bill, it is a pretty big task.

I can remember doing that last year at the justice committee when I was the justice critic for our party, especially when it came to Bill C-46. That was a gargantuan justice bill, and my staff and I were pretty busy on that.

Going back to the matter at hand, Bill C-57, almost all of the amendments by the member for Edmonton Strathcona at committee were based on three things: recommendations from the Commissioner of the Environment, recommendations from expert witness testimony at the committee, and recommendations from the committee itself.

She had three very good arguments behind her recommendations. What did the Liberal-dominated committee do? It voted down those amendments, flying in the face of the evidence. The government likes to pride itself on evidence-based decision-making. I have yet to hear a coherent answer from the government side as to why the Liberals did that to the amendments of the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona, when they knew she has years of experience and that her amendments were based on solid evidence. We have still not received any good reasons on that.

The House voted today, historically I might add, for Bill C-262, which was moved by my hon. colleague, the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. It was a historic moment for the House of Commons, because that private member's bill passed third reading and commits the federal government to ensuring that all laws are in compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

One of the amendments by the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona was to ensure that Bill C-57 actually included a reference to UNDRIP. However, that was voted down. Then the Liberals decided they would vote in favour of the bill that is now going to mandate adherence to UNDRIP. Canadians should try to work their way through the reasoning behind that. I am still having some problems doing it.

That said, UNDRIP has passed this House. It is going to the other place now. I wish senators well. I certainly hope they will look at the hard work we did here in the House of Commons that recognize that in 2018, we are at a place in this great country where we can no longer afford to play the role of a colonizer. We have to make sure that first nations in Canada are the full and equal partners they very much deserve to be. It is only when we make sure that all of our federal laws recognize that implicitly that we will be able to move beyond our past—never forgetting it, but moving beyond it—to a place where most people would like us to be.

I know that my time on this bill is short, so I just want to end with this. The day that the Minister of Environment moved time allocation on this bill was Tuesday, the very day the Liberal government announced it was purchasing the Kinder Morgan pipeline for $4.5 billion. That is just the price tag for the existing infrastructure. There is no word on the cost of expanding the pipeline. I just think that when the environment minister is moving to shut down debate on a bill that seeks to bring federal departments in compliance with sustainable development goals and yet buys a pipeline, which is infrastructure that rightly belongs in the 20th century, it makes a mockery of the government's real commitment to addressing climate change.

I would dearly like to know what federal department is going to be in control of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, and how it can possibly justify its sustainable development when it is going to be operating something that makes a mockery of our climate change commitments.

This being 2018, with all of the evidence of climate change all around us, we certainly need this country to be taking a firm and strong direction in addressing climate change. I think everyone who looks to future generations knows that we owe them that at this moment in time.

I will conclude there. I have appreciated this opportunity to speak to Bill C-57. I welcome questions and comments from my colleagues and friends.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting debate in that there are rare occasions when I agree with the government. There are elements of Bill C-57 I am in agreement with, but I am going to talk about some concerns about the ideological creep of the Liberal Party into the legislation of Canada. By “ideological creep”, I do not refer to any hon. members. I refer to a creeping barrage of ideology that is actually not rooted in science. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change is seemingly unaware of global concerns with respect to some of the things being put in legislation.

Why I agree with elements of Bill C-57 is that they are rooted in the work of the last Conservative government. In 2008, as my colleague from Perth—Wellington mentioned, the Conservative government passed it. There was a lot of good work done by John Baird at that time, and it has been continued. That is the basis of the Federal Sustainable Development Act. It is based on the sustainable development goals the United Nations started with the Rio declaration, right through to the UN agenda 2030. We certainly see a benefit to many social and economic considerations going into the sustainable development goals of a country.

When looking at an environmental plan, considering economic aspects of that plan, the impact on communities, and social development is prudent as one is planning. There are many departments within the federal government planning to meet the sustainable development goals articulated by the UN, and they are coming up with plans to do that.

I would note that the government has appointed a commissioner, who I wish well in her role, Ms. Julie Gelfand. We all wish her well in terms of working with federal government departments, particularly the Department of National Defence, which has large tracts of green space and lands in Canada, to make sure that we minimize the impact on the environment, make our operations sustainable, and operate with the future in mind of handing over the country we inherited to our children. There is a lot of agreement on that, and I will agree with those goals in this legislation.

I have three areas of concern I am going to keep my remarks to, because I do not like spending too much time on agreement with Liberals in this place. My friends will start questioning my loyalty.

The first area is the typical Liberal approach. There has been concern expressed by my colleague, the member for Abbotsford, and others that it seems the minister is going to continue to expand the paid advisory councils the government will rely upon. We know, going back to the days explored by Justice Gomery, that when there are gatherings of advisers, on a range of issues, being paid and being dependent on contracts and the goodwill of the government, it actually breeds a lack of accountability. We have already seen that, with the Prime Minister being the first sitting prime minister in Canada to have been found to have violated ethics legislation that governs this case. The finance minister has two pending investigations.

We do not think there should be that approach, with these friends of the Liberals being paid advisers. That should be arm's length, and we should rely upon Ms. Gelfand and her department to provide that advice. We have exceptional civil servants, so I do not like the approach we see the Liberals resorting to too often.

I commented that there are elements I said I agree with in Bill C-57. They are certainly rooted in the work done by the Conservative government, such as instilling the polluters pay principle and a number of tangible things that will have benefits. They will show that everyone in our country, including corporations, will need to be good and responsible stewards, and those principles enshrine that.

However, there has been a lot of window dressing from the government when it comes to the environment. We almost groan when we hear the minister say that the environment and the economy go together. It has just become rote language. However, I want to show how it is now also window dressing.

The minister herself said, in debate on Bill C-57, that the bill “would shift focus in the Federal Sustainable Development Act from planning” to reporting results. If we are looking at reporting results when it comes to our environmental goals and sustainable development, what were the comments of Julie Gelfand in her first appearance at committee on Bill C-57, and later, her comments with respect to the government's environmental plan?

If we are trying to say reporting results is what the government wants through this legislation, what did the Commissioner for Sustainable Development report on the government's progress on the environment? Here is her report on results:

We concluded that Environment and Climate Change Canada...measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions contained in this plan had yet to be implemented.

She went on to confirm that the government “did not make progress” with respect to any of its greenhouse gas emission targets. This is another case of the Liberals talking a very good game—whether in legislation, whether in debate outside of the chamber—but if we look at results, which is what the minister wants the bill to do for all departments of the federal government, we see they are failing. The commissioner actually reported a failing grade to the government.

If we combine that with the Auditor General's most recent report, which says that under this government there is basically no ability to implement projects, it should concern all Canadians. I know it concerns many of the civil servants who have had trouble getting paid and families having to help out their children, but it is a fundamental thing when the Auditor General in such strong language calls out the Liberals' inability to actually implement projects.

I hope the minister moves beyond the rhetoric of “the environment and the economy go together”, because we want to see results. Rhetoric we get enough of. We want to actually see some tangible results, and if Bill C-57 can do that, I am very happy that it will be part of our sustainable development discussion for the next number of years.

My final concern is the ideological creep that I see with the government, because in a similar fashion to Bill C-55 on the oceans act, this bill also creeps the precautionary principle into federal legislation. The old approach of the Conservative government enshrined the polluter pay model, and it is very obvious what that is: if there is an impact on our environment that is negative and it is clear who the polluter is, the polluter will pay to remediate that impact on our environment. The polluter pay principle is in this legislation, but Liberals are inserting the precautionary principle, and that is troubling because it is pseudoscience. The precautionary principle actually says, “Let us not wait until we have final scientific evidence to make public policy; let us just make it if we feel good.”

I will illustrate this with a quote. I know the front bench of the Liberal Party enjoyed their trip to see President Obama. They were downright giddy. What did Obama's chief scientific adviser say about the precautionary principle? He said that the precautionary principle, for all its rhetorical appeal, is deeply incoherent.

If we are talking about sustainable development and goals, we should be talking about science-based evidence. That was something the Liberals used to say in opposition a lot, but now in several pieces of federal legislation they are enshrining a policy principle that is not rooted in science. It is rooted in rhetorical appeal. It is rooted in feeling good. It is virtue-signalling, something we see every day from the government.

We should see a science-based approach. Whether it comes to sustainable development, our oceans, or marijuana, we should not be legislating and regulating because of an ideological view. While I support the goals of Bill C-57, it is this creeping barrage of Liberal ideology that they are secretly inserting into things. They have a condescension of the left that is troubling to people who have worked in the private sector, people who rely on science and evidence, as I do. Their attitude is that if we do not agree with them, we are somehow un-Canadian, or wrong, or as the Prime Minister says, we are being partisan. Is it partisan to ask for science before making decisions?

I would say in overall support that I am happy that there are elements to work together on, but I would like to alert Canadians to this ideological creep of the Liberal Party, which will set Canada back in the long term.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the encouragement. I know hon. members may want to hear what I have to say on this matter.

We are into the last week of May and the final four weeks of our sitting. However, the Liberal government has wasted and squandered its parliamentary session. Now, as the deadline of the summer recess approaches, the Liberals are trying to ram through bills on the threat and guillotine of time allocation and closure, and that is wrong. Canadians expect us to come to this place and have a fulsome debate on things that matter to them, yet we have time allocation and closure time and after time.

We are sitting until midnight, and I am happy to do so. I think all members here are willing to put in their time and do that work. However, I have to question how the Liberal government, which claims to be a family-friendly government and wants to see Parliament be a little more family friendly, thinks that having a vote at 7:45 at night is family friendly. Granted, as the father of an 11 day old, I am certainly used to being awake at all hours of the night, so it is not so bad. I would be happy to debate anyone at three o'clock in the morning if anyone is awake at that time.

Here we are in an evening sitting debating bills that clearly the government could have called and worked on. The bill before us has had relatively limited debate here at report stage. However, we, as the opposition, will be supporting Bill C-57, both at report stage and as it goes forward. I do want to commend our shadow minister, the member for Abbotsford, for his hard work on the bill. He was exceptionally eloquent when he spoke to the bill earlier in the session.

As Conservatives, we certainly believe in increased accountability. We are supporting the bill because it would provide a measure of increased accountability and increased reporting to Parliament. At the end of the day, Parliament is the ultimate arbiter. Therefore, providing that additional information and analysis to Parliament is important. The bill, with the amendment, would have a mandatory reporting requirement on a variety of matters, including environmental, economic, and social decision-making, and have that reported to Parliament.

As well, there are new enforcements. As Conservatives, we have always supported sustainable development. Many of our colleagues have been passionate about this matter and have spoken in and out of the House on it. Many of our colleagues have worked on this issue in the private sector and in their private lives for a number of years.

However, we do have some concerns with the bill. We have challenges with the increased number of paid advisory positions. These positions could be done on a voluntary basis. Unfortunately the bill would put paid advisory positions in the act. It is unfortunate, but at the same time it is something we will manage to deal with in supporting the bill.

It is a great opportunity as well to highlight that the amendment to the bill would be amending a bill that was first introduced in this place in 2008. At that time, it was introduced by our former colleague, the Hon. John Baird. This is an opportunity to highlight the good work that was done by Mr. Baird in his time as minister of the environment and the good work done by other Conservative environment ministers, including the member for Thornhill, who did an exceptional job during his time as minister of the environment.

As I said, we will be supporting Bill C-57. We are willing to see it move forward through report stage and third reading. If we look at our Conservative record on this bill, we supported the recommendations of the committee report that looked at the amendments to the legislation. We supported the committee report entitled “Federal Sustainability for Future Generations – A Report Following an Assessment of the Federal Sustainable development Act”. Sometimes we have reports with exciting titles, and this one rolls off the tip of the tongue and provides an exceptional basis from which to work.

I want to say a little about this committee report, and committee reports in general. Committees work best when they do so on a consensus basis. This was one of those reports that was achieved with a degree of consensus and reported back to the House with multi-partisan support. It is important that we, as the opposition, are able to do that. The challenge, however, is that so many committees are not working that way. We see that right now in the procedure and House affairs committee. We see the Liberal government trying to ram through changes to Canada's Elections Act without debate, without analysis, and without the time to fully hear from witnesses and to introduce amendments based on deliberations on the information from those witnesses. We should be hearing from Canadians on that matter. We should be hearing what they think is important when it comes to Canada's elections. We should be hearing how this issue will affect them on the ground, in their communities, at polling booths.

There will be an election in Ontario next Thursday. We should at least, as parliamentarians, be able to hear some of the stories and some of the options that have come out of that provincial election and the impact they may have on our federal legislation. We should be able to hear lessons learned and how they could benefit and improve that piece of legislation. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Liberals are intent on ramming through legislation, ramming it through committee, and enforcing it with limited debate on this important matter.

That was not the case with Bill C-57. There was a previous committee report that analyzed this issue. However, now, when we have the opportunity to debate this at report stage, we have the guillotine. We have forced time allocation. Indeed, tonight we can only debate this issue for another 40 minutes. I have already used up eight or nine minutes of that time. There are only about 32 minutes left for members of the House to debate this piece of legislation. That is unfortunate, because I know that many of my colleagues could speak on this issue at great length, for the full 10 minutes of their time, or perhaps longer if they were given that time. However, unfortunately, we are being constrained to about 31 minutes to debate this issue. That is wrong.

I see I am down to one minute now to finish my comments. I am reminded of a famous writer who said that he did not have time to write a short letter, so he wrote a long letter instead. I feel like I am in the middle of a long speech, and I am being cut off early. I am so disappointed that the Liberals are cutting off debate on Bill C-57.

To conclude, the Conservative opposition will be supporting the bill at report stage, but under great duress, because we have been forced to debate this within the confines of time allocation, which is truly unfortunate. I look forward to questions from hon. members on this important matter.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know all members are excited and intrigued to hear my commentary on Bill C-57. Why should we not be excited about debating in the House of Commons?

However, what is disappointing is that we are debating C-57, once again, under the guillotine of time allocation. In the last 48 hours, the Liberal government has used time allocation or closure on four separate bills or motions. Indeed one parliamentary expert on Twitter has referred to this fiasco as the closure supercluster of 2018. How many more closure or time allocation motions will it take before the Liberal government has a super-duper closure cluster of 2018? It is certainly well on its way to doing so.

We are into night sittings. We are here debating until midnight. We just had a time allocation vote at about 7:45 at night.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and privilege it is to rise in the House today to debate Bill C-57. I might begin by saying that—

The House resumed from May 29 consideration of Bill C-57, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motion in Group No. 1.

Federal Sustainable Development Act

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-57. We are going to support this bill, but there are a lot of “buts”.

Let me explain. I have to say that what the Prime Minister did today with the Trans Mountain pipeline really bothered me. He is alienating all of the provinces. Everyone objected to the way he handled Kinder Morgan. The provinces are all realizing that they elected a prime minister who is all about appearances. He never takes any real action. He is someone who does things too quickly without ever listening to anyone. Canada is a democratic country, and ever since the Liberals took office the Prime Minister has been saying that he wants to hear our suggestions, but as soon as someone says something or disagrees with him, he throws a bit of a tantrum and stops being sensible. It is rather odd. He had allies in many of the provinces, but he is losing them because of his uninformed decisions.

That is too bad because we could have worked as a team here in the House.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak to Bill C-57.

I want to begin by addressing some comments made recently by a Liberal colleague about climate change. Statements that the previous government did not consider climate change a serious problem are absolutely false. The fact is that the targets we set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are the targets that the Liberals are using. The position of the previous government was that every country has to be part of the solution. That is what science tells us. If it is just Canada and a few select countries that are doing their fair share, we cannot address the issue of growing greenhouse gas emissions. The targets that the previous government set are the targets that are being used by the Liberal government.

In speaking to Bill C-57, my concern is not about the bill and the text of the bill. It is whether the government will act on the bill, and whether change is necessary.

Bill C-57 came about exactly 10 years ago. I was parliamentary secretary to the minister of the environment. The minister was John Baird. The Liberal member who was retiring and leaving this place was John Godfrey. As the parliamentary secretary in that structure, I was tasked with meeting with John. We talked. There was work with the David Suzuki Foundation and others. What was proposed was considered, and there was give-and-take. We ended up with a bill, Bill C-474, and the government, under the minister of the environment, John Baird, supported that. We ended up with a good piece of legislation that everyone could support, and we moved it forward as a Parliament in 2008.

That gives us a glimpse into what happened under a previous Conservative government. In the committee structures, how did things work back then? There was work between the government in power and the opposition members. Unfortunately, we do not see that in the current government. It is sad. That is one of the reasons why there is a lack of trust. The government says that it will work with the opposition, but that is not what happens.

In the committee, members are not even permitted to ask questions. It was last week that the ministers came to answer questions about how they were going to spend the $7 billion of discretionary funds in the main estimates. The ministers came and made their speeches, and then down came the gavel to end the meeting so that the opposition members could not ask any questions. It was so undemocratic and so shocking.

That is how the Liberal government runs the House. In one day, it brought closure three times, and in the committees it does not permit the opposition members to do their work, representing Canadians and keeping the government accountable. The government refuses to let that happen in committees. It is very sad.

That did not happen in 2008, when we worked with a Liberal member, John Godfrey, and permitted him to introduce his bill. There was give-and-take, and we came up with what we could both agree on. The David Suzuki Foundation was part of that consultation.

We ended up with a good bill, the Sustainable Development Act. There are three parts to it. What we said, and what the current government is saying, is that we can have a healthy environment and we can have a healthy economy. We can do it, but there has to be social buy-in. Canadians have to buy in. The key to that is having all three. There has to be trust. Unfortunately, what is missing in Bill C-57 is trust.

There is a third body. There is the Commissioner of the Environment, who will do an assessment of what is happening. Is the government doing what it needs to? The Commissioner of the Environment gives us a report card. How is Parliament doing? How is the government doing?

As was noted previously, the spring 2018 audit by the commissioner stated:

...we found that the federal government is not ready to implement its commitments on sustainable development....

First, the federal government does not regularly balance the three pillars of sustainable development.

That is one of the reasons why it is failing. It then states:

Second, there is a lack of leadership for many sustainable development activities.

With respect to the lack of leadership, where is that source? What is the commissioner talking about? It is the government. It is the Prime Minister. It is the minister. There is no leadership. If the problem with the lack of sustainable development is that lens, why is it not happening? The commissioner is saying it is because of a lack of leadership. The government is not using the tools it has. That is the third reason he cites as follows:

the federal government has not implemented the tools it already has to assess the impacts of policy decisions on sustainable development.

The minister and the Prime Minister need to do their job. The government needs to work with members of the opposition and all parties. There needs to be respect and trust. Then what we already have in place would be working.

Under Liberal governments, we have seen a legacy of disrespect for Parliament and not getting it done. I am looking at reports by the Commissioner of the Environment done year after year. I do not have the time to go through all of them.

The 2002 report stated, “The Liberal government's sustainable development deficiency continues to grow.”

The 2003 report noted, “There is a gap between what the Liberal government said it would do and what it is actually doing. Good intentions and great announcements are not enough.”

The 2004 report asked, “Why is progress so slow after all the mandates and commitments were there? I am left to conclude that the reason is that there is a lack of leadership, a lack of priority and a lack of will.” It sounds like what was announced just weeks ago.

The 2005 report stated, “When it comes to protecting the environment bold announcements are made and then forgotten as soon as the confetti hits the ground.”

We have a problem. Because of lack of leadership, we are missing a sustainable development lens that includes a healthy environment; a strong, growing economy; and social buy-in. That is what the Commissioner of the Environment is saying. Can members imagine for a moment what the economy, the environment, and the social buy-in for a healthy economy and environment would look like if we had a Conservative government or a minister of the environment like the member for Abbotsford? I can only imagine how good it would be.

We became government in 2006. In 2011, we had efficiencies, appliances, and vehicles in place that helped reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The fact is it was in 2008, 2009, and 2010 that emissions were going down because of efficiencies resulting from policies brought in by the previous Conservative government. I can only imagine that emissions would continue to go down when we get a change of government, when we get a Conservative government that respects Canadians, that works with Canadians, and uses common sense to create a growing environment and a growing economy. It is achievable and it will happen from 2019 onwards. I am excited because I know that with a Conservative government, we are going to get it done.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here at 11:15 at night to talk about Bill C-57, a bill that seeks to make amendments to the Federal Sustainable Development Act.

Someone else was commenting about time allocation today, and there is something about the Gordie Howe hat trick, like a goal, an assist, and a fight. We almost had a government House leader hat trick here today with the closure motion and two time allocation motions.

The Federal Sustainable Development Act has been in place since 2008. It was introduced during the previous Conservative government. I am pleased to see steps are being taken to ensure that it remains relevant in our current landscape.

Jim Prentice, our colleague whom we sadly lost in an aviation accident, said it best: “We must balance environmental issues with economic and social considerations. By doing so, we can make long-term sustainable progress on the environment that is integrated with progress on the economic and social agenda for Canadians.” Most of us in this place, if not all of us, will agree with that.

The bigger point here, though, is making sure we have both environmental protection and economic success. Our previous government did that, which is why the current government kept our environmental plans. The biggest difference, arguably, is that it just slapped a new name on the department.

Suffice it to say that we agree that sustainability is a fiscally responsible decision, especially in a country where natural resources play such a substantial role in our economy. That is why this side of the House has been pushing so hard on Trans Mountain, on ensuring that the government takes action to ensure that this pipeline gets built.

Now we find ourselves in a bind, because apparently the only way the government could make this happen was to throw a bunch of money at Kinder Morgan. Perhaps this could be an indication that the Liberal approach to attracting and maintaining business partnerships is not working.

There was a story yesterday in Bloomberg entitled—and I will adjust the title so as not to name anyone—“[The Prime Minister]'s Hipster Economics Looked Great Until Trump Cut Taxes”. Many may think this judgment is a bit harsh, but I think the criticism is warranted, and here is why.

Canada needs Kinder Morgan and other energy investment. We have been saying this for months and years. Energy investment means thousands of jobs for Albertans and workers across Canada. It means growth for our provinces and increased revenues for the economy.

What has happened with Trans Mountain, a project that has been so ineptly handled by the government that taxpayers are now owners of a pipeline, is not surprising, given the attitude of the government toward business growth, and it will certainly not be the last time it happens.

As the Bloomberg article says:

Around the country, business owners and corporate executives are grumbling. Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia are also boosting minimum wages. The federal government is requiring provinces to put a price on carbon emissions to help fight climate change in a program that could push power bills up further. Railroad bottlenecks threaten Canada's standing as a major commodities exporter. There's insufficient pipeline capacity for the oil-sands boom.

On a continent where our neighbour is cutting corporate taxes, pumping the brakes on regulatory policy, and undoing much of the tangles of red tape, Canada has become the regulation-happy, carbon-tax-wielding, under-investment monster that businesses fear, and the ones we had managed to keep at least for a while are now fleeing the country.

What incentive is there for businesses like Kinder Morgan to stay? There is next to none, basically.

In the case of Trans Mountain, the government's response is not to address the problems stemming from the beast it has created but instead to dip a little more into the public purse and throw out more money borrowed from our kids, our grandkids, and our great-grandkids.

While I and my colleagues understand that the environment is important in considering federal policy, it must be done responsibly, not just to fight climate change but to protect economic prosperity as well, and that is something we have yet to see from the government.

The trend we have been seeing is that the government loves to say it is doing something, with absolutely zero follow-through. It is almost as if we see more apologies in the House than bills passed.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development tabled a report outlining how the government has fallen short in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change, something we have been saying would happen for years.

The Liberal government has pie-in-the-sky ideas with absolutely no ability to get anything done. It aims for the headline and walks back the actual policy when it comes time to get something done. The Liberals cannot even follow their own plan, and the environment commissioner agrees. Here is an example from the report.

Report 2 from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development's 2018 Spring Report states:

Overall, we found that the Government of Canada had not developed a formal approach to implement the 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals.

It went on:

[D]espite some specific action at the departmental level, there was still no federal governance structure based on clearly articulated departmental roles and responsibilities by November 2017. We found no communication plan and no engagement strategy on how to include other levels of government and Canadians in a national dialogue on the 2030 Agenda.

Here is the commissioner's statement on the government's outstanding record on the environment so far:

First, the federal government does not regularly balance the three pillars of sustainable development [economic, environmental, and social].

Second, there is a lack of leadership for many sustainable development activities.

Third, the federal government has not implemented the tools it already has to assess the impacts of policy decisions on sustainable development.

This, in itself, is why we need the Federal Sustainable Development Act. We need to ensure that we are balancing all aspects of sustainability, not just the things that get a headline in the Toronto Star, and that we are doing more than just talk.

I want to look at the environment and climate change departmental plan, the annual departmental plan that gets released when the estimates come out. In the plan's introduction, the minister says that she is pleased to present it. I would be very embarrassed to present the plan that she has.

The former parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page, said that departmental plans are mere communication devices, and this report is proof. The Treasury Board president, in his failed estimates reform, promised to address this but has not.

This is what the Treasury Board website says about the departmental plans:

The Policy on Results sets out the fundamental requirements for...departmental accountability for performance information...while highlighting the importance of results in management and expenditure decision making, as well as public reporting.

Basically, it is saying, “Here are our plans, and here is what the results are going to be. This is what we are going to spend, and this is what we are going to achieve.”

However, I want to look at the environment departmental plan. Yes, I have read them; I do not think many people have. I am going to read the planned results.

For departmental result indicators on GHG emissions from light-duty vehicles, the target is a 21% improvement, which is fair enough, “for manufacturer model year 2017 reporting relative to 2011 model year”. One would think that if we were going to reduce it from 2011 to 2017, this already being 2018, which is odd, we would have what the GHG emissions are right now. The target date to achieve it is 2018, but under “actual results” for last year and the years before to compare it against, the comment is “This is a new indicator. Results are not available from previous years.” Fair enough, we have nothing to compare it to.

The next is GHG emissions from heavy-duty vehicles: “Percentage improvement in GHG emissions performance for manufacturer model year 2018-2020 reporting relative to the 2010 model year”. The target is 13% lower by 2020. Again, if we are comparing it to previous years to see how we are doing, one would think that we would know what it is for 2016-17 and not just compared to eight years ago. What do they have? “This is a new indicator.” Results are not available from the previous year, or the year before that, oddly enough.

For HFC emissions, the target is a 10% reduction in consumption levels compared to 2017-18. The date to achieve this target is 2019. What did we do last year? We do not know: “This is a new indicator. Results are not available from previous years.” Fair enough.

The next goal is “Reduced methane emissions from the oil end gas sector”. The target is a 40% reduction relative to 2012, and we are going to achieve this by 2025. What is the base right now? “This is a new indicator. Results are not available from previous years.”

This goes back to what I have been saying about the current government. The Liberals talk a lot, but they are not getting anything done. In their own departmental plan, where the Treasury Board requires them to state reports and what they are trying to achieve, they have nothing.

The departmental result indicators go on with “Emissions reductions are being achieved under the Clean Fuel Standard building on the Renewable Fuels Regulations”. The target is “30 Mf annual GHG emissions reduction in 2030”. This is 30 Mf down from what? Well, it is down from previous years. What was it in previous year? “This is a new indicator. Results are not available from previous years.” Again, they are setting imaginary goals, almost aspirational goals, with nothing to actually compare them to. The departmental result indicators go on.

I have a lot of other stuff that I would love to go over, but I cannot. I would just say that we need to ensure that foreign investment and international business are attracted to Canada, and that Canadian businesses want to stay; that growth and responsibility happen together; and that innovation is championed across all sectors, not just the ones favourable to the government, but including oil and gas.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague quite rightly referred to the fact that the original sustainable development act was actually a collaboration within this very House, but in a previous Parliament. It was a minority government and it produced an act that all members in this House could support, one that reflected the appropriate balance between our social objectives, our environmental objectives, and our economic imperatives. Then that went on to result in a study that took place at the environment committee.

We studied the act as it had been implemented over a number of years. We found a number of shortcomings. We suggested improvements. Some of those improvements were actually incorporated into the bill we have before us, Bill C-57.

However, at the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. If a government does not want to apply the lens of sustainability, it will not, and quite frankly, I have serious reservations about the ability of the Liberal government to understand what sustainability means.

My colleague referenced that. She asked if the government actually understands sustainability. She referred to the Kinder Morgan sale, the purchase by the government of that pipeline, as a clear indicator that the government does not understand sustainability.

I would ask her if she has any other examples of the government failing to understand the true notion of sustainability.

[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?

[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.

[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.