Bill C-69 (Historical)

An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Part 1 enacts the Impact Assessment Act and repeals the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012. Among other things, the Impact Assessment Act
(a) names the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada as the authority responsible for impact assessments;
(b) provides for a process for assessing the environmental, health, social and economic effects of designated projects with a view to preventing certain adverse effects and fostering sustainability;
(c) prohibits proponents, subject to certain conditions, from carrying out a designated project if the designated project is likely to cause certain environmental, health, social or economic effects, unless the Minister of the Environment or Governor in Council determines that those effects are in the public interest, taking into account the impacts on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada, all effects that may be caused by the carrying out of the project, the extent to which the project contributes to sustainability and other factors;
(d) establishes a planning phase for a possible impact assessment of a designated project, which includes requirements to cooperate with and consult certain persons and entities and requirements with respect to public participation;
(e) authorizes the Minister to refer an impact assessment of a designated project to a review panel if he or she considers it in the public interest to do so, and requires that an impact assessment be referred to a review panel if the designated project includes physical activities that are regulated under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act;
(f) establishes time limits with respect to the planning phase, to impact assessments and to certain decisions, in order to ensure that impact assessments are conducted in a timely manner;
(g) provides for public participation and for funding to allow the public to participate in a meaningful manner;
(h) sets out the factors to be taken into account in conducting an impact assessment, including the impacts on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada;
(i) provides for cooperation with certain jurisdictions, including Indigenous governing bodies, through the delegation of any part of an impact assessment, the joint establishment of a review panel or the substitution of another process for the impact assessment;
(j) provides for transparency in decision-making by requiring that the scientific and other information taken into account in an impact assessment, as well as the reasons for decisions, be made available to the public through a registry that is accessible via the Internet;
(k) provides that the Minister may set conditions, including with respect to mitigation measures, that must be implemented by the proponent of a designated project;
(l) provides for the assessment of cumulative effects of existing or future activities in a specific region through regional assessments and of federal policies, plans and programs, and of issues, that are relevant to the impact assessment of designated projects through strategic assessments; and
(m) sets out requirements for an assessment of environmental effects of non-designated projects that are on federal lands or that are to be carried out outside Canada.
Part 2 enacts the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, which establishes the Canadian Energy Regulator and sets out its composition, mandate and powers. The role of the Regulator is to regulate the exploitation, development and transportation of energy within Parliament’s jurisdiction.
The Canadian Energy Regulator Act, among other things,
(a) provides for the establishment of a Commission that is responsible for the adjudicative functions of the Regulator;
(b) ensures the safety and security of persons, energy facilities and abandoned facilities and the protection of property and the environment;
(c) provides for the regulation of pipelines, abandoned pipelines, and traffic, tolls and tariffs relating to the transmission of oil or gas through pipelines;
(d) provides for the regulation of international power lines and certain interprovincial power lines;
(e) provides for the regulation of renewable energy projects and power lines in Canada’s offshore;
(f) provides for the regulation of access to lands;
(g) provides for the regulation of the exportation of oil, gas and electricity and the interprovincial oil and gas trade; and
(h) sets out the process the Commission must follow before making, amending or revoking a declaration of a significant discovery or a commercial discovery under the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act and the process for appealing a decision made by the Chief Conservation Officer or the Chief Safety Officer under that Act.
Part 2 also repeals the National Energy Board Act.
Part 3 amends the Navigation Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) rename it the Canadian Navigable Waters Act;
(b) provide a comprehensive definition of navigable water;
(c) require that, when making a decision under that Act, the Minister must consider any adverse effects that the decision may have on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada;
(d) require that an owner apply for an approval for a major work in any navigable water if the work may interfere with navigation;
(e)  set out the factors that the Minister must consider when deciding whether to issue an approval;
(f) provide a process for addressing navigation-related concerns when an owner proposes to carry out a work in navigable waters that are not listed in the schedule;
(g) provide the Minister with powers to address obstructions in any navigable water;
(h) amend the criteria and process for adding a reference to a navigable water to the schedule;
(i) require that the Minister establish a registry; and
(j) provide for new measures for the administration and enforcement of the Act.
Part 4 makes consequential amendments to Acts of Parliament and regulations.

Impact Assessment Act

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I love my colleague's enthusiasm and I am happy he asked that question. In fact, we built four major pipelines. In fact, we built 17 different pipeline projects. In fact, we built 8,000 kilometres of additional pipeline. How many have the Liberals built? Absolutely zero. They keep talking about their purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which, all of a sudden, has new markets to Asia. That is absolutely false. They have not built one single centimetre of new pipeline, and the Trans Mountain expansion would not get us to those Asia markets because it does not get us to deepwater ports. The oil and energy from that pipeline will be going to Washington and Oregon, the same places it has always been going. I hope Liberals will clarify the record on the misinformation they continue to share with Canadians.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I have enough time to tackle every part of this loosely put together bill, but I am going to attempt to target as much as I can.

Right off the bat, one of the things that would happen under the bill is that the Liberals would change the National Energy Board, which was created in 1959 by Prime Minister Diefenbaker. It was totally made a fool by Pierre Trudeau. He wrecked the energy industry in Alberta and the west for a generation, and Junior is about to do it for three generations. It would change the name of it to the Canadian energy regulator act as well, just to try to get rid of that family's connection to it. No inches or miles of pipeline are going to be built because of this bill. It is, “Let us wash it down, get a new face, and pretend that none of the other ever happened.”

I am going to get into the navigable waters act in a bit, but everything the government does has everything to do with virtue-signalling and nothing to do with reality or getting things done. I can give all kinds of examples.

On the Firearms Act, what did the Liberals do? They bragged during the election, and every chance they have had since, that they were going to tackle gang crime and illegal firearms. What did they do? They brought out a bill that sends a virtue signal to all Canadians who hate firearms and want to get rid of them totally, and they pretend that they are tackling gang crime and illegal firearms. It would do nothing. It would tackle law-abiding firearms owners.

Another example is that they want to send signals to environmentalists, tree squeezers. They lied to the veterans and said that they would give them everything they wanted, and then all of a sudden, they said that they were asking too much and that the government could not do that.

The reason I am mentioning this is that there is a trend here. It is all about virtue. It is not about actually doing anything.

We have to go back in history. When the environmental approval process was changed by the previous government, one of the worst examples was the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. For some 25 to 30 years, we kept leading companies along, saying we would do this or that. It was set up to basically fail. Why would any government, why would any person, want to take our companies, which want to invest in industry, whether it is the oil industry or whatever, and tie them up in a process that is made for the objector and tie them up for years?

The previous government made a process that was still a thorough approval process, but there were timelines. Do not drag companies along for years and years. Give them a timeline. If we have to tell them no, tell them no, but do not lead them along for 25 to 30 years, as happened with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, because that is not good for anything. Aboriginal communities up there were banking on money that would have flowed to them from that job. Their hopes that were built up for 25 years or more went totally gone down the drain, and I do not mean that as a pun.

There was a 180-day planning phase. Ministerial discretion was put in and also veto power. Again, that was put in after going through the process that basically said it was done. Say yes or say no, but do not lead them along.

Why should Canadians trust this new system? It is obviously catering to different groups. It goes back to that virtue signal. There is always a process where intervenors can get in and have their say. Of course, that is a good thing. However, what the government has done with the changes it has put in is that we now have to accept all foreign intervenors. Why in the world would any government want to add that? This is about a Canadian project, not a pan-world project. To allow foreign intervenors or foreign money is totally unacceptable.

If anyone has any doubt about why this is not going to work or whether it will make things worse than they already are, all we have to do is look at the recent Kinder Morgan decision. The government created a climate so bad that Kinder Morgan basically said, “Why in the world would we take our shareholders' money and invest it in this project?” I totally get that. Why would it? It never asked any government for one red cent. However, to save face, or to tie this thing up for many more years, what did the government do? It reached into my pocket, and my kids' and grandkids' and all the members' pockets as well, to pull out $4.5 billion to give to a company that paid $550 million for that pipeline. I have to mention that it is a 65-year-old pipeline. Now that $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money is going to be spent somewhere in the United States, where it will be able to create some industry and generate some income on that investment. That is all taxpayers' money.

Under this bill, it is only going to get worse. We have not seen the tip of the iceberg. It is a trend that is certainly not going to change with this bill.

I want to talk a bit about what stakeholders are saying about this legislation.

The Canadian Environmental Law Association stated:

...Bill C-69 perpetuates the much-criticized political decision-making model found in CEAA 2012.

Unless the proposed Impact Assessment Act is substantially revised as it proceeds through Parliament, [the association] concludes that the new EA process will not restore public trust or ensure credible, participatory and science-based decision-making.

That science-based decision-making is something we should think a lot about.

The Canadian Energy Association stated:

CEPA is very concerned with the scope of the proposed new Impact Assessment process. From the outset, CEPA has stated that individual project reviews are not the appropriate place to resolve broad policy issues, such as climate change, which should be part of a Pan-Canadian Framework. Including these policy issues adds a new element of subjectivity that could continue to politicize the assessment process.

The Mining Association of Canada stated:

At first glance, the draft legislation introduces a range of new concepts related to timelines and costs, which depending on how they are implemented, could adversely impact the industry’s competitiveness and growth prospects.

I have more, which I will not get into. However, I want to touch on the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

The changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act came about a number of years ago when the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, SARM, came to the rural caucus I happened to chair at the time. That in itself is not significant, other than that I know the history of this act. I thought navigable waters, and the way DFO's overzealous officials handled them, was just a rural Ontario problem. It turns out it was right across Canada. SARM is the one that deserves credit for initiating the changes to that act. I am very proud of it and how the changes went.

Waterways we can float our grandkids' or kids' little rubber duckies down maybe for a couple of days of the year in the spring were deemed to be something we could paddle a canoe down. We got rid of that in the changes.

I know I am running out of time. We fixed the process.

Now the cost is going to be unbelievable, and it is not going to be good for Canadians.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Youth)]

Mr. Speaker, while I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his remarks, I am dismayed. As much as I disagreed with Prime Minister Harper on several occasions, I always referred to him as Prime Minister Harper. I think it is a disgrace that the member just referred to our Prime Minister as junior. I hope he will take a moment to apologize for making those remarks in this House.

My hon. colleague spoke of how we are making it more difficult for companies to get resources to market, and so forth, because of the red tape we are putting in place. During the 10 years Stephen Harper was in government, when oil was $150 a barrel and there was lot less uncertainty and international markets were not pulling back their investments in oil like they are doing right now, why could his government, with supposedly less red tape than we are putting in place, not get one new pipeline to tidewater? I hope the hon. member can answer that question.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. I believe the gentleman was in the House when my hon. colleague, the member for Foothills, explained a lot better than I can the number of pipelines that were done. There were four major ones done, and I believe it was over 8,000 kilometres' worth of pipe that went in the ground. Sure, we would like to have done more. However, for anyone to be able to sit there without smirking and distort the truth like that member just did—well, that is about all I am going to say about it.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly cannot argue with the fact there is much distorting of the truth here. I really want to talk to the hon. member about the last Parliament, when the Conservative government did remove or gut the environmental assessment process. It also removed almost all of the protections of our waterways. That is a fact that can be looked up.

Then the Liberal government promised that it was going to restore those things. As we see with Bill C-69, it has really fallen short of the mark. Bill C-69 has done nothing. It does nothing to reverse these changes, which the Liberals promised they would do.

Do the Conservatives still believe that waterways and lakes do not need any protection? Is that what I am hearing—that we do not need any protections for water?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member is saying that in jest. Of course we do.

I find that some members, including the member who just spoke, still believe the theory that lakes and rivers were not protected. In that act, the only ones mentioned were ones where changes were made. Anything else in that act remains protected, as always. I think members know that, and she probably does as well.

I hope the hon. member quits repeating mistruths like that, because that is exactly what they are.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his presentation. I think it clearly outlines some of the positions and gave us a bit of insight into where we are and where we have come from. The member said that the previous government had put legislation in place and had done some significant things.

Does my hon. colleague believe that the current process is enough, that nothing more needs to be done, and that there is nothing in this bill that should actually move forward?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure of attending a few NATO meetings with the hon. member down the way, and I have a lot of respect for her. Maybe there is some minor stuff in here, but it is the whole target or aim of this bill. It is all about virtue-signalling and about reversing what a previous government did. That has happened so often that maybe I am a little thin-skinned about it. I will grant that. However, changing a bill because another government brought it in is not the way to govern. This thing just basically throws it wide open.

The member asked if there is nothing more left to do. I would say there is: Instead of driving investment away as happened with Kinder Morgan, her government and leadership should not buy companies out but encourage them to build, by at least having a fair and reasonable approval process.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

We are going to resume debate, and I will let the hon. member for Calgary Shepard know that there is not quite the full 10 minutes available to him at this point. He will have about eight minutes and then will have remaining time when the House next gets back to debate on the question.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Calgary Shepard.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add my voice to this debate, obviously in opposition to the bill before us.

I will begin as I always do, because I want to get it in early, with a Yiddish proverb: “Misfortune binds together.” That is how a lot of Calgarians feel, especially in my riding.

Bill C-69 is simply more misfortune piled on other ill-advised decisions by the government that have hurt constituents and energy workers in my riding. They have spent a lifetime getting experience, an education, and then pursuing a career they were hoping would last their entire lifetime. This is something they were passionate about, producing energy in a responsible and ethical way, which they will now not be able to do.

I have been told repeatedly by executives, industry, and energy workers, including a constituent of mine, Evan, a few days ago, that when Bill C-69 passes Parliament, it will put an end to all future major energy infrastructure projects. No company will put forward major projects again, because the process will be much too complex, involve too many criteria, and will be too complicated, with too much political risk associated with satisfying a minister in order to reach the completion date of just the permitting process. The CEO of Suncor has said publicly that this will put an end to investment in the energy industry. The CEO of Sierra Energy has said exactly the same thing. Therefore, misfortune binds together.

I will explain other things that bind together as a result of this particular piece of proposed legislation, which that would damage the opportunity of energy workers and their families to continue working in this very successful sector.

We should be very proud of this sector of the economy, because we have been exporting the R and D, innovation, commercialized products, and services from it for a long time, alongside the product that we export to our friends down south. Even though we have had difficulties negotiating a successful NAFTA renewal, they are still our friends, and we are still trying to make them understand that at the end of the day, our success is their success.

We often hear government members say that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. The Liberals are making it seem like it is a zero-sum game: one unit of the environment gained is one unit of the economy lost. It is zero-sum, and there are no two ways around it. When we look at Bill C-69, that is evident. The Liberals are trying to gain many more units of environment, and we are going to be losing out on the economic side, based on commentary by both energy workers and executives, who are simply saying that there is no way that they can invest in the Canadian economy, hire energy workers in Canada, in Calgary and Alberta, with these types of rules in place.

On the misfortunes I talked about, there is the carbon tax, for instance. Often in this chamber, I hear members say things like, “We should refine it and upgrade it where we mine it, where we extract it out of the ground.” Well, the highest carbon taxes are paid by refineries and upgraders. It is a GHG-intensive industry.

Do we say the same thing to farmers who produce wheat, that we should upgrade it and refine it here? Do we say that to the farmer who produces canola? Do we say that to the farmer who produces big lentils? Maybe we should force all farmers to produce soup. They should not be allowed to export lentils outside Canada. The same idea, the same drive that says we should never export any type of bitumen or oil out of the country until it is refined and upgraded to the highest level product, could be applied to our agricultural sector.

I have heard repeatedly from energy workers that the tanker ban off the B.C. coast is damaging, because it sends a signal that there is a tanker ban now. Actually, it is just a pretend ban because it just moves tankers 100 kilometres farther off the coast to an area where there already is tanker traffic, which is going to continue as long as it does not stop in a Canadian port. However, it sends a signal that those types of workers and that sector of the economy are not wanted anymore by the government.

On the misfortune, there is a close electoral alliance between radical environmentalists, their foreign financiers, and the future electoral prospects of the Liberal government. That is the case. We know it to be true. The Liberals' success in the 2015 election was closely linked to their making promises on the environment that they absolutely could not keep. They made those promises fully knowing they would never be able to keep them. The misfortune continues.

Twice already, the Prime Minister has said he would like to phase out the oil sands. Every single time the Prime Minister says that, the first thing I get by email and phone from Albertans in my riding is, “He has done it again. He said it again.” The last time he said it was at the Assemblee Nationale in Paris.

Many workers question the sincerity of the Prime Minister when he says that he wants this sector to succeed, which is supposedly why he expropriated Kinder Morgan and purchased its pipeline for $4.5 billion. Workers do not trust him. They do not believe him when he says it. They think he is speaking from both sides of his mouth. He is saying one thing to one crowd and something completely different to another crowd. They do not trust him. However, it is their misfortune that he is the Prime Minister right now.

Bill C-69 increases the number of criteria that will be considered during the regulatory process. What logically happens is that before a company even puts in an application to consider a major new energy infrastructure project, they will do their research and due diligence. That will add months and years to the pre-regulatory process. Before even applying, one has to have more information to prove to the regulator that one meets all of the new criteria. Embedded in Bill C-69 is the opportunity for the minister to say “no” at multiple stages of the process.

I have heard Liberal caucus members say how great the bill is and that shortened timelines give certainty. The bill does no such thing because it will increase the number of criteria and datasets that one needs to collect to prove one's case.

This is exactly where I am going to come to my last point of why energy east was cancelled. Energy east and the company's executives and energy workers said they had no way of meeting the new requirements of downstream and upstream emissions. To collect that vast sum of information and provide it to the government was impossible. The company made the only wise decision on behalf of its shareholders and abandoned the permitting regulatory process. There was no other choice. However, that was a political decision by the government. The government is responsible for that and nobody else. The business decision that drove driving Kinder Morgan out of the country, which led to the government expropriating the company and purchasing the pipeline, was the same type of decision-making process Trans Canada had to use on energy east. Those decisions are deeply connected.

Obviously, I will be voting against this bill. The last point of data I want to provide is that under the government, we have seen thousands of kilometres of pipeline cancelled, whereas under in the previous government, we had thousands of kilometres of pipeline finished.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member will have approximately two minutes and 10 seconds when we return to Bill C-69.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Calgary Shepard has two minutes and 10 seconds left.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that was a very unusual interruption for private members' business.

In the last two and a half minutes I have left, I will speak about the misfortune that I mentioned in the Yiddish proverb.

Misfortune is connected together. It comes in a series. It sticks together. Oftentimes I have heard government caucus members saying things like “The previous government never built any pipelines to tidewater.” I want to address that.

Four major pipelines were built in North America, all of which eventually led to a coastal market. To say otherwise is like saying, “There are no flights from Calgary to Ottawa, so there are no direct flights from Calgary to Ottawa.” I suppose I can fly from Calgary to Toronto, then Toronto to Ottawa. I will get there. It is like saying there is no highway in the community I live in, completely ignoring the fact that I can take Auburn Bay Drive to get onto the on-ramp to get onto the highway. The same principle applies here.

Every major pipeline project built in Canada, including toward the United States for export, follows the exact same principle, whether it is Keystone XL, the TMX Anchor Loop, or Enbridge's Line 3. All of them eventually lead to a coastal market, because most of North America's refineries are located on a coast, and a great deal of them are located in Texas.

Speaking of Texas, next year Texas is on track to become the largest producer of oil in the world. Next year Texas will also build more kilometres of pipeline than the rest of the United States and Canada combined. That is just one state, and it is about to achieve what I would call energy dominance in North America.

Those are the facts, and now we have this piece of legislation before us that will add more misfortune to Canada's energy industry.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have seen some histrionics before, but those could have given me whiplash.

The point is this, and I will ask the member to comment on it. Sending oil to the United States and the United States alone is costing our economy, conservatively, $15 billion a year. We are sending oil at a deep discount to a country that does not like to trade with us very much anymore.

Building something to tidewater in Canada is what the previous Conservative government failed to do, and that failure has cost us dearly. Could the member comment on that?