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.

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

Very clearly, then, your expectation would be to be consulted not just before a project moves forward but also before policies are put in place that will block projects. If I'm understanding correctly what you're saying, your view is that there is an absolute requirement to do that consultation not only before you say yes but also before you put in place those barriers like we're seeing in Bill C-48 and Bill C-69.

[Wallace Fox, Chairman, Indian Resource Council]

Good afternoon.

[Witness spoke in Cree]

[English]

I was taught this way to address people no matter where I travel. In our language, I am acknowledging everyone here in the name of the Creator.

Good afternoon, and thank you, chairpersons and members of the committee, for inviting us to appear before you today. I understand you want us to share some best practices from the energy sector that could be helpful to other indigenous people internationally. We are happy to do so.

I am here on behalf of the Indian Resource Council, along with our president and CEO, Mr. Stephen Buffalo; and our vice-chair, Delbert Wapass. All of us come from first nation territories that have been involved in the oil and gas business for a long, long time.

In my case, I come from Onion Lake, Treaty No. 6 first nation, in central Saskatchewan, on the Alberta border. I've been in leadership for 30 years. I have since retired, last summer in June, as chief. I did not seek re-election to pursue other interests.

Our community is north of Lloydminster. It's probably the biggest heavy oil producer on Indian land in western Canada. We're producing about 12,000 barrels of heavy oil a day, of heavy crude in the middle of the oil formations.

I've been in council leadership since I was 21 years old. I became chief when I was 25. As I've said, I've retired to pursue other interests.

During my tenure as chief we were able to pursue significant benefits from the oil and gas by creating our own energy company, Onion Lake Energy. I don't know if you're familiar with Indian Oil and Gas Canada, an arm of Indian and Northern Affairs. The status quo is that they negotiate on behalf of first nations people. After they negotiate with the oil companies surface rights, exploration rights, royalty payments, etc., they come to first nations. Then they tell us to sign here. Well, I'm not one of those people who you tell what to do, especially government, Indian Affairs.

We created our own company back in 1990. Then we farmed out all the energy exploration rights to our energy company on our land, which is about 150,000 acres of land. It straddles the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta, north of Lloydminster. Then we told Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, through IOGC, here's the permit. We need the permit now. We've negotiated an oil deal, which is a joint venture in the working interests of first nations, our community. We basically run everything midstream, downstream and upstream in our community. We've entered into negotiations in a partnership with BlackPearl Resources out of Calgary. CNRL was producing on our land for many years.

We've since created many other business opportunities as a result of our joint venture in our community within the oil and gas sector. We have pressure trucks, service rigs, vacuum fluid haulers. We have different companies that basically provide service on a competitive rate with industry, with our partners.

Stephen Buffalo, the president, is from Maskwacis, which has also been a long-standing oil producer for many years, since the mid-seventies and eighties.

The Indian Resource Council is a national advocacy association that represents approximately 130 oil- and gas-producing first nations, mostly in western Canada. There are representatives from Ontario and within B.C. About 60 of these first nations have active production on their lands. The rest have either shut in production or have the potential to produce when the oil industry picks up.

Our main mandate is to ensure that our members are actively involved in this important industry and that they receive a fair return on oil and gas resources.

We have come a long way since that era, back in the seventies and eighties, of government paternalism, with indigenous people only being seen and not heard. I believe that in our community we've broken that pattern and blazed a trail in many of the different sectors...of what the government has told us.

As I said, I've been here since 1982, in leadership. I've seen the change in government and the paternalistic “policies” regarding indigenous people. I've always taken the position that we can do just the same as what mainstream industry is doing.

As a result, today in our administration and community we have more than 800 employees. Many of the senior management in all of our sectors are from our own membership. We've shipped them off to university, and they come back and work for us. My job at the time as chief was to create that opportunity for them, through the sector and industry. We reinvested our own resources back into our human resources and our community. If that's not a success story, then I don't know what is.

Our population is 6,500. Almost 4,000 live on first nations—in our community it's about 3,800.

IRC's mandate, again, is to assist and to be the vocal centre representing the industry and advocating, through IOGC—Indian Oil and Gas Canada, the sub-arm of the department—to ensure that the royalties are there, that the lease agreements are intact and that they support first nations. Many of our communities don't have that support system. Fortunately for us, we've been able to do that in our community. Many other communities have done that, also.

IRC has been instrumental in changing this mindset over the course of the last 30-plus years that it's been in operation. We've worked hard in succeeding and building very good relationships with industry over the years. We now consider industry as our partners and allies, and not adversaries. We have made many gains through joint ventures, equity ownership and capacity and employment programs, as I mentioned earlier.

We are constantly reminded by governments that partnerships with private industry are the key to the growth of our economies. We agree and have worked hard to achieve this goal. We have many success stories, such as the Blood Tribe, our community of Onion Lake, Frog Lake Energy, Fort MacKay and many others.

There is no first nation today that will agree to a lease arrangement that does not provide benefits over and above royalties, such as equity ownership, joint ventures, employment and so on. We have been successful in asserting our rights to resource ownership based on our aboriginal and treaty rights. Our modus operandi is based on a notion that economic and financial sovereignty of our nations go hand in hand with resource development, which is an important component of this equation.

The key to success is building our capacity, so training and education is an absolute requirement. Today, as I said earlier, many young people are completing college, university and technical programs. They did not have that opportunity a few years ago.

We have been very vocal in supporting the oil and gas industry in matters such as its opposition to Bill C-69, which threatens to take away the benefits and gains we have made.

Turning to the honourable committee, on the one hand we have no recourse but to constantly fight the paternalistic, outdated policies of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. That's one challenge. On the other side, we've had to work and earn the right to sit in the boardrooms and create that opportunity with the oil and gas industry. We have done that in the last 30 to 40 years, but this legislation is now going to impede in some of those aspects and go backward instead of forward.

We also speak strongly in support of building pipelines such as TMX and others, so that we can get our products to the proper market and stop relying on just one customer, who is taking advantage of us.

We need and must take Canada back to the days when we were respected and seen as one of the best places to invest in business. That's why we've chosen to speak out in support of the oil and gas industry. When this industry hurts, as it does now, Alberta hurts, Canada hurts and indigenous people hurt even more.

If you can step into our shoes in that sector, you would see that we had nothing until 1979-80 when we started entering into oil and gas. In using that resource, on the one hand over here, the funding regime based on the policies of the government is never ever adequate for the populations and needs of first nations. What we've done is taken 60% of how we operate in our community and reinvested back from the resource sector into our own people, for roads, jobs, housing, education, while the Government of Canada is over here. As you may or may not be aware, we're the only community that stood up against Bill C-27, the transparency legislation. We won that in Federal Court.

It was not a matter—

Canada–Madagascar Tax Convention Implementation Act, 2018

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place to speak on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, as well as to bring forward some of my concerns.

Obviously these tax treaties have existed for a long time. In fact, two of the tax treaties I looked at earlier were dated back before I was born in the late 1970s. These tax treaties have existed for a long time. They have developed over the years. It is important to note that double taxation should be addressed.

Canada, as an open economy where we try to attract foreign direct investment, should do all it can to provide certainty so that monies from other countries can come here to make many of the important projects go forward in places like Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. In my riding of Princeton, we have the Copper Mountain mine development. It is a very popular mine because it is one of the larger private employers in the area. That mine was the beneficiary of foreign direct investment.

When I did door-knocking in the 2015 election and introduced myself to the good people of Princeton, because the riding had changed, people pointed out that when the mine had originally closed for an extended period of time, the economy in Princeton had suffered greatly. The people benefited greatly from that mine both in terms of taxation, because now the community gets a share of the taxes that go to the provincial government, and from the employment and the services that the community is now able to have.

The same goes for the Highland Valley Copper mine just outside of the great town of Logan Lake. On a per capita level, Logan Lake and Princeton are some of the largest contributors to the net GDP of the area.

Before I go any further, I plan on sharing my time with the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill and l am sure she will be giving a much more informed view on things.

However, when we talk about foreign direct investment building certainty through international tax agreements, it is important we talk about the benefits we have.

A new flotation facility was put in Highland Valley Copper about four or five years ago, easily half a billion dollars worth of investment. Those kinds of investments do not happen in countries unless there is a stable framework and the rule of law, including tax treaties. Again, the Nicola Valley has prospered as has the Similkameen Valley prospered because of these large developments. The amount of capital it takes is not always possible to be raised here.

Sometimes Canadians ask me why we have foreign direct investment, why can Canadians not simply invest in our own projects. The answer is that there is so much opportunity in the country that we cannot on our own resources alone expect reasonably to see many of these projects go forward. Having that foreign direct investment, having that stable presence in terms of the rule of law is incredibly important.

Bill S-6 is an act to implement the convention between Canada and the Republic of Madagascar for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income. To be very clear, these are not new. Under the previous government, led by former prime minister Stephen Harper, we saw the renewal of the New Zealand agreement and also the agreement between Canada and France was updated.

Consecutive governments of different political stripes have sought to put these things in place. Not only does it relate to double taxation, it also makes life a little easier. For example, students are covered and it defines what a student is. If those students are drawing income from the other country that is part of the agreement, they will not have to pay taxes in the country where they are studying. These things are important and they eliminate a lot of red tape for individuals. I think we can find some common ground on that.

I have talked about two things: first, the importance of certainty, because business, development and investment cannot happen without that certainty; and second, opportunity, meaning people have to feel if they put a dollar in, they can expect that money to come back with even a return on that investment.

I am fearful that while the framework of Bill S-6 is here, the government has eroded some of those areas of certainty and opportunity.

For example, we had an opportunity today. We had Kim Moody talk about the changes the government had made to the Income Tax Act, specifically around small businesses and Canadian controlled private corporations. I asked the Canadian Federation of Independent Business about this. The government likes to talk about lowering taxes for small business, but when I spoke to the CFIB, when I heard some of the testimony of Mr. Moody today, I found that the government had made it so difficult for many families to utilize a legitimate tax regime that was available to them in previous years. Because there is such a grey zone by the layering of rules, they do not have any certainty.

If we ask Canadians or people from other countries to invest in this country and if they find there is not the same certainty or opportunity they once had, they may choose not to invest. They may choose to not grow their business because they do not see the opportunity there.

Bill S-6 does add a little more certainty for people to come from Madagascar to invest in Canada, knowing the rules that would be applied to them under law. There would be a tax treaty to share information between jurisdictions to ensure they would not double taxed. However, when someone sees the absolute mess the government has placed our country in on responsible resource development, there is no certainty.

Look at the visiting convoy we had the other day. Those people want certainty. They want opportunity. They do not want bills like Bill C-69. They do not want to see foreign investment chased away.

While we are talking about chasing away investment, the government, through its failure to create a stable regulatory state, has allowed the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to languish. Private dollars were going to build opportunity for the people of Merritt. I am not sure I mentioned this before, but the community of Merritt was promised, under a community development agreement, that it would get certain funds to use for flood mitigation. However, because the company did not have that certainty and did not feel there was an opportunity, it decided to use its money to fund pipeline development in the United States. That is a real shame.

It is not just having the framework like Bill S-6 in place. There also has to be a sense that the rule of law will always be followed, that we are bound by the rules that have been put in place, that our word is our word, that there is no political interference once the Governor General has given the nod to a piece of legislation and it is the law of the land.

Mr. Speaker, earlier you raised the issue of you wanting all of us to talk about Bill S-6. However, the elephant in the room is we find out that cabinet confidences have been broken. We find out that caucus confidences have been broken on the Liberal side. It is all over the papers. When people find out that someone is allegedly trying to interfere in an independent prosecution case, they start to ask themselves if this is a country that follows the rule of law. That erodes confidence. That makes people say that perhaps they will not invest in Canada, that they instead will go to Australia, or the United States, where they have certainty and opportunity.

As a Canadian, this is so important for us. We have bills, like Bill S-6, that put forward proper frameworks. However, even if those frameworks are in place, if people do not feel that officials will follow those laws, both elected and bureaucratic officials, that dissolves or erodes the sense of rule of law. May we never find ourselves in such a state where people question the Canadian government or the Canadian people on our commitment to the rule of law.

I call upon the government to have that public inquiry. I call specifically for the Prime Minister to waive client-solicitor privilege for the former attorney general. Why? Because I am all about certainty, opportunity and feeling proud of our country and telling people that I am a proud Canadian. I am sure the people on the street are saying the same thing. It does not look good. It does not make us feel good. That needs to change.

[Tim McEwan, Senior Vice-President, Policy and Stakeholder Engagement, Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of British Columbia]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and committee members. It's a pleasure to be here today.

By way of background, the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of British Columbia has been the leading voice for British Columbia's construction industry for 43 years. We represent more than 2,100 members and clients who collectively employ over 50,000 people.

We advocate for our members in support of a vibrant construction industry, responsible resource development and a growing economy for the benefit of all British Columbians.

For the benefit of the committee, some of my remarks today will be informed by previous roles I had as a senior public servant in British Columbia where, among other things, I had responsibility for red tape reduction, regulatory reform, and small business and major investment delivery.

For the purpose of staying within the time limits that I have been given, my brief will serve as a broader version of the remarks that I give today.

We appreciate the opportunity to provide our suggestions on the critically important topic of Canada's regulatory structure and its impacts on small business. This study is very timely for addressing the silent and underpriced costs that small businesses face with the myriad of laws, regulations, policies and guidelines imposed by all orders of government.

The effects of government regulatory activity are disproportionately felt by smaller businesses of zero to 20 employees, where the majority of Canada's jobs can be found. We hear every day from our members that the cumulative effect of government regulation can be crushing as they work to deliver construction services on time and on budget, as they develop their workforce in a rapidly changing business environment, and as they simply struggle to meet their regular payroll.

When government enacts new regulatory measures, the cost to a small business often manifests as lost or forgone business that would otherwise have generated additional income, created more jobs and provided incremental tax revenue to government. These opportunity costs are often hard to quantify but they are nonetheless very real as small businesses cope to fill out one more form or as they make one more call to determine what government is asking of them in existing or new regulation.

Deployment of information technology in online government is always worthy of consideration in any effort to improve regulatory compliance and service delivery, but it is not a panacea nor is it a substitute for addressing the general architecture of regulation, processes and continuous improvement.

As the standing committee has heard recently from a couple of other witnesses, in 2001 British Columbia embarked on a comprehensive program to reduce the quantum of regulation on its books. Those efforts now span 18 years and are recognized as best practice by many jurisdictions throughout North America.

Initial efforts saw a reduction of 36% in unnecessary regulations between 2001 and 2004, increasing to 49% by 2018. This was accomplished without compromising compliance or health, safety and environmental protection objectives. Between 2015 and 2017, B.C. broadened the scope of its red tape reduction efforts to include service delivery improvements within government.

Both initiatives have built a lasting architecture and have entrenched a cross-government culture and commitment to continuous regulatory review, monitoring, improvement and accountability.

The B.C. experience also offers a number of lessons that could be of benefit to the standing committee to identify pathways to improvement and in the improvement of the overall architecture for regulatory reform. A number of the key elements are listed more comprehensively in the submission you have before you. I'll run through them sequentially, but briefly.

The first is ministry mandate letters. In British Columbia in 2015, ministry mandate letters included red tape reduction as a core corporate goal of government, and that was included within each and every minister's mandate letter. That provided the impetus to drive a culture of regulatory reform into the system. It had quite a bit of effect as government moved beyond the efforts to reduce the quantum of regulation and into the service improvement side of red tape reduction.

As I mentioned earlier, British Columbia has actually measured the quantum of regulation on the books and has had a one-for-one rule—one regulation in and one regulation out—for some time. I understand that that commitment has been extended through to 2021.

Stakeholder engagement, and also public servant engagement, is critically important. On the stakeholder engagement side, it is always important to engage with a variety of sectors on an ongoing basis. Another innovation in British Columbia in the 2015-17 period was harnessing the power of social media to bring in ideas from the public, ideas that we then drove into the system as efforts continued to improve upon our regulatory agenda.

Having a secretariat with a central agency function is also important and linked to the mandate letters in terms of having that tracking function of regulation, but also pushing out to ministries the ideas that come in from the public and from industry sectors and monitoring.

The next thing I'd say is transparently reporting on an annual basis what the quantum of regulation is on the books and where service delivery improvements can and have taken place.

Before I conclude, I want to highlight three items of considerable concern to our members from a red tape perspective and that are currently under consideration or within the realm of federal regulatory policy. One is Bill C-69. Our members are very concerned about the impact of this legislation. It is now before the Senate. We made representations to the House of Commons committee last year, but we're very concerned about the impact this will have on a go-forward basis for major project delivery. Simply put, the approvals process there has a number of additional barriers that will make things much more difficult.

The steel tariffs that have been imposed in response to section 232 in the U.S., while understandable as a response to the measure that President Trump took, are having a detrimental impact on the construction industry in British Columbia via cost escalation. We're keeping a very watchful eye on the supply side because we simply can't source steel at a competitive price from eastern Canada; it has to come from the United States or offshore.

Finally, I want to flag for the committee the question of community benefit agreements, which many of you may have heard about from the Building Trades Unions. We flag this as an issue from the perspective that it can lead to cost escalation in publicly tendered contracts. We want to ensure that for those projects within provincial jurisdiction, for example the SkyTrain extensions that are forthcoming in British Columbia, federal dollars not be given to the province if the precondition is building trades will only do the construction. In British Columbia there is a projected labour agreement framework that is to be put in place by the new government that will freeze out non-union and non-affiliated contractors, or about 85% of the B.C. construction industry.

In closing, I'd like to highlight one key metric. The World Economic Forum has placed Canada's overall competitiveness at twelfth out of 140 countries, but for regulation, we are disconcerting 53rd out of 140 countries. The work you're doing today is critically important in that overall competitiveness context, which serves to underscore the urgency of your committee's work.

Thank you again for the opportunity to present today, and I look forward to the question and answer period.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities support the committee's report, which was just tabled. Transportation corridors are integral to the safe and efficient flow of goods in and out of Canada. However, we have supplied a supplementary report, as we felt that the main report did not adequately address a number of important issues that were raised, which I will briefly outline.

Over the course of the many meetings held during this study, we heard from numerous stakeholders regarding the detrimental impact certain government actions and policies are having and will continue to have on Canada's transportation system, and more specifically, on our transportation corridors.

Specifically, the government policies we must highlight are Bill C-48, the Liberals' oil tanker moratorium act; Bill C-69, the Liberals' attempt to rewrite the law and regulations to make it even harder for pipelines to get built; and the Liberal government's carbon tax. From being unnecessarily restrictive, to creating investment uncertainty, to increasing costs for transportation companies and shippers alike, the actions of the Liberal government need to be reversed.

To that end, we have included three simple recommendations in our supplementary report: to withdraw Bill C-48, to withdraw Bill C-69 and to eliminate the carbon tax.

I encourage the government members to read our supplementary report, but if they do not have time for that, I hope they will simply adopt our recommendations. We believe that doing this would greatly support Canada's transportation systems and our vitally important trade corridors.

Government Programs

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, life is becoming more unaffordable for Canadians under the current Liberal government. In Edmonton Centre, a Liberal-held riding, people are finding it harder to get by. Data released earlier this month by Statistics Canada showed that unemployment is still above pre-recession levels in Edmonton. People in Edmonton and across the country are also finding it harder to buy homes due to higher interest rates and more stringent regulation.

As people in Glenora, Westmount, Inglewood and Laurier Heights see their disposable income drop, the government is adding more taxes and introducing legislation such as Bill C-69. If this bill comes into effect, the unemployment rate in Edmonton Centre will increase.

The Prime Minister and his team will raise taxes and make life more expensive for Canadians. We cannot afford another four years of these disastrous policies. The people of Edmonton Centre have not been heard by their member of Parliament or the government. Under a Conservative government, Edmonton Centre residents will be heard.

[Ian Thomson]

I take the president's point that as legislative change is under way expectations will be raised. We're hopeful that Bill C-69 will pass the Senate and that this will become the new norm in Canada. I think all agencies, CNSC and the impact assessment agency, will have to develop their own internal expertise around this and more capacity-building is needed within these federal institutions.

I think equally important is looking at the organizations at the grassroots, like you were just referring to. Do women's organizations that are close to the community concerns, that understand the local context, that sort of baseline what I was talking about, that understand of where you're starting from and what some of the existing gender gaps might be.... If we're not resourcing them, then it doesn't matter how much the federal agencies do. We do need them to do more, but we also have to ensure that the affected people and their organizations are resourced to be able to participate fully in these processes.

[Rumina Velshi]

It's new territory for us. I, too, have had staff who've gone through the training, and certainly when it comes to the development of our regulatory documents and requirements, we're now using gender-based analysis plus for doing so.

Going forward, with Bill C-69 and impact assessments it will be a requirement that gender-based analysis get done then.

As far as our licensing decisions right now are concerned, we don't specifically do gender-based analysis in that systematic way, but one of my personal priorities is around gender representation. As a commission we very much pursue that and explore the impact of our licensing decisions and ask our applicants and licensees how they're addressing that.

[Ian Thomson]

Yes, as I was alluding to earlier, there are moves under way to bring more systematic approaches to doing federal impact assessments. At the moment, it's done on occasion, depending on the project, but Bill C-69 would have it as a factor in impact assessments. Looking at the gender-differentiated economic, social and health impacts would be part of any federal study of a project. The approval process and the mitigation strategies that would be attached to a project, if approved, would take into account those gender-differentiated impacts.

Now, that would necessarily involve the participation of men and women in expressing how they understand what those impacts would be. The fact that it's participatory, I think, would also open up avenues for people to express their views on the project and to have that sort of analysis brought to bear. It's our hope also that the analysis will actually develop within regulators and federal institutions, so that the more gender-based analysis is applied to understanding and evaluating projects and developing mitigation strategies, the more expertise there would be, both within our regulators and in our approval processes. It is also our hope that project proponents would come forward having done more of this analysis from the outset. Increasingly, it would just be expected that industry would take into account and mitigate gender impacts.

[Ian Thomson, Policy Specialist, Extractive Industries, Oxfam Canada]

Good afternoon, committee members. Thank you for inviting Oxfam Canada to be part of this study today.

I'd like to join my fellow witness in acknowledging the Algonquin territory on which we're meeting.

My name is Ian Thomson. I'm a policy specialist with Oxfam Canada focused on the extractive industries.

Oxfam in an international NGO. We're active in more than 90 countries, working through humanitarian relief, long-term development programs and advocacy to end global poverty.

At Oxfam, we firmly believe that ending poverty and reducing inequality begins with gender justice and women's rights. Oxfam works with indigenous people's organizations in many parts of the world to support their struggles, to defend their rights and to protect their lands, territories and resources.

In 2015, Oxfam surveyed 40 leading oil, gas and mining companies to assess their commitments around indigenous engagement and community consent. Our community consent index revealed that extractive sector companies are increasingly adopting policies with commitments to seek and obtain community consent prior to developing major projects. It has become a recognized and accepted industry norm. It's good development and good business all at the same time.

Further research, however, has identified major gaps in the ways these commitments are being implemented. In several countries our indigenous partners have found that women face systemic barriers in participating fully and equally in decision-making by governments or companies around major resource development projects.

We have two recommendations for the committee to consider today.

First, indigenous engagement processes, whether by the Crown or by private sector actors in the energy sector, should become more gender-responsive and conducted in accordance with international human rights standards, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Second, the Canadian government should be proactive in promoting gender-responsive and rights-based engagement internationally through our trade, aid and diplomatic relations.

I would like to share some research and findings from two indigenous partners in Peru and Kenya that illustrate both the real challenges and opportunities in this area.

A decade ago, social conflicts over energy projects in Peru boiled over into violent confrontations. The conflicts revealed deep failures on the part of both governments and companies to engage indigenous peoples in a meaningful way in decisions around major projects.

In 2011, Peru adopted a new law on indigenous consultation or consulta previa. To date, 43 consultation processes have been recorded by the Peruvian government, 30 of them related to energy or natural resource projects. The Ministry of Energy and Mines reports that only 29% of the participants were women.

In December, with the support of Oxfam, ONAMIAP, the indigenous women's federation of Peru, published a study examining women's participation in these consultation processes over the past seven years. The study was aptly named “Without Indigenous Women, No Way!”. ONAMIAP had conducted surveys with indigenous women in different parts of the country to identify barriers to their participation. Women's participation was hindered by their limited experience of participating in public spaces, the domestic care work that was not taken into account by those organizing when and where consultations were held, the very technical content presented without adequate time or support for people to make sense of projects, lower literacy rates and language barriers, failure to recognize women's rights with respect to communal lands and forests, consultation methods that did not address gender needs, and a lack of genuine dialogue with processes directed at convincing communities to accept projects and conditions.

ONAMIAP recommends that governments and project proponents should be explicit about the differentiated impacts of projects on women and men. Women must be included fully and equally at all stages of decision making processes. Finally, public policy reforms are needed to recognize women's rights and access to communal lands and forests, which would facilitate their participation in these processes.

Last April, Oxfam invited the president of ONAMIAP to an indigenous women's gathering in Montreal, spearheaded by Quebec Native Women. Indigenous women leaders from a dozen countries gathered together to share their experiences, and they quickly learned that their experiences shared striking similarities. Everywhere they recognized that they were tackling an entrenched gender bias in how decisions are made around energy and natural resources.

Turning now to Kenya, where Oxfam is also researching indigenous rights, and in particular the free, prior and informed consent standard, our 2017 study called “Testing community consent” focused on Turkana County, one of the poorest and most remote regions of the country, where significant oil and gas deposits have been discovered.

While most people noted that company engagement practices though initially poor were steadily improving, many key ingredients of free, prior and informed consent were not present. In particular, we noted that pastoralist women who engaged in traditional livelihoods of nomadic herding had been unable to participate in community meetings over oil and gas development projects. Their livelihoods would be affected by the well pads and pipelines and roads being built in the area, but they were least likely to participate due to how the engagement process had been conducted. This year, Oxfam is planning to do follow-up research to look more closely into how those gender justice gaps can be addressed.

Our first recommendation to this committee would be to ensure that indigenous engagement is conducted in a manner that is gender responsive, advances gender equality, and that is consistent with international human rights standards, including the UN declaration. We believe that energy projects must go beyond “do no harm” and actually be transformative and positive changes to advance gender equality where they're being developed. This also means listening to and respecting indigenous people when they say no to certain projects. Project reviews that listen to women and men and take into account the differentiated impacts will result in better-designed projects and share benefits more equitably.

Oxfam is pleased that gender responsiveness could soon be added to federal impact assessment processes through Bill C-69, currently under review in the Senate. Oxfam supports this bill and hopes that gender-based analysis in project reviews will establish this norm across all industries and unlock even more systemic change. Likewise, we welcome Bill C-262, which would ensure that Canadian law is consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Interestingly, our stories from Peru and Kenya also have a direct connection with the Canadian energy sector. Peru's largest oil concession, known as Block 192, is operated by a Toronto-based company, Frontera Energy. In Kenya, the oil project in Turkana County that we studied is a joint venture that involves a Vancouver-based company, Africa Oil Corporation. Both of these companies, within the past two years, have had to temporarily suspend their operations due to indigenous protests over unresolved community grievances. Canadian companies operating internationally risk losing their social licence to operate if they can't foster positive and respectful relationships with indigenous peoples.

Our second recommendation is for the Canadian government to take action and raise the bar for Canadian companies operating internationally. The long-awaited Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise, announced by the international trade minister over a year ago, should be appointed without delay and granted the necessary powers to investigate corporate practices internationally.

Canadian embassies should provide more support to women human rights defenders who are working to defend their rights and participate in major decisions around energy projects.

Export Development Canada should have a statutory requirement to respect human rights and gender equality in all of its business transactions.

Finally, Canada's international assistance should support indigenous peoples organizations to engage in and transform natural resource governance, particularly indigenous women's organizations like ONAMIAP in Peru, which have identified many of the solutions but are sorely under-resourced.

I would like to conclude by saying that we believe major energy projects in the future will look very different when they genuinely engage indigenous peoples and respect their inherent rights and title. An energy transition is under way, and Canada can position itself as a leader in the new energy economy.

I'd like to thank the committee for engaging in this study and would welcome any questions you may have.

Opposition Motion—Transparency and Accountability

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to speak to this matter, which I consider it to be very important, both as a member of Parliament and also because of my background as an environmental enforcer.

I take very seriously that when we are dealing with the enforcement of a federal or provincial law, whether it is the Criminal Code or regulatory statute, we have clear procedures that are open and transparent in how we apply those statutes. Many across the country are deeply disturbed right now that there is no clarity on what is going on with this new unique provision.

I am pleased to stand in support of the motion by my colleague from Victoria, calling on the Prime Minister to waive the solicitor-client privilege for the former attorney general with respect to the allegations of interference in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin and to urge the government to launch a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act.

Very serious questions are being raised by Canadians about recent decisions and actions by the government. Any intervention by any elected member of this place or the Prime Minister's Office is a serious matter involving a matter before a prosecutor. They are concerned about the amendments to the Criminal Code to create alternative processes to respond to white collar crimes with the result of avoiding a criminal prosecution and the direct result to take away the bar to further federal contracts. They are concerned about the tabling of these measures within an omnibus budget bill.

Canadians are also concerned about the limited review only to the finance committee and not to the justice committee. They are concerned about possible interference in the exercise of discretion by the Attorney General in the decision to prosecute or utilize the new deferred prosecution agreement. They are concerned about whether that interference resulted in the resignation of a cabinet minister, the former minister of justice and attorney general.

Finally, they are concerned about the denial by Liberal members of Parliament to allow thorough consideration of these matters before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Through yet another omnibus budget bill, the government chose to amend the Criminal Code of Canada. As many have said in this place, this is despite its stated position while in opposition to oppose omnibus budget bills and changes to law and policy unrelated to economic measures made through budget bills. These Criminal Code amendments, these significant reforms, were made through an omnibus budget bill tabled by the finance minister, not the justice minister.

I wish to concentrate my remarks on the second aspect of the motion, which is the call for a public inquiry.

The process of the application of a deferred prosecution agreement mechanism in the case of criminal charges brought against the company SNC-Lavalin and any involvement of government parties outside of the Attorney General and the public prosecutor merit open and transparent review.

The government's defence of the use of the budget bill to reform criminal law procedures is a pretty clear indicator of the fact it was of the belief that economic advantage could be gained and prevail over rule of law and justice. In the case currently at hand, the charges are brought under a law that actually prohibits any consideration of economic benefits. Some elected officials, particularly at the provincial level, and others are saying that we should not be convicting this company because there may be a loss of jobs, yet the law itself forbids that to be considered at all in the decision by the Attorney General or public prosecutor.

The intended effect of this provision is to enable justice officials to treat a specified list of economic crimes, such as obstructing justice, money laundering, tax evasion, forgery, bribery of officers, fraud, including frauds on the government, through an alternative legal process that avoids criminal charges or convictions. As well, it is on condition of admission of a violation of the law and specified undertakings being given by the person potentially charged to take remediation measures and self-reporting by the parties at fault. It has been suggested in the media that these are exactly the circumstances that have not occurred in this case. Therefore, questions are being raised as to why consideration is being given to this deferred prosecution agreement, when the criteria have not even met the criteria the government has chosen to put in law.

These DPAs have been used in the United Kingdom and the United States, but in quite different ways.

As mentioned earlier, while the law establishing the DPAs prescribes conditions, it does not include a number of matters that were actually recommended by Canadians during the consultation period before the matter came before the House. A condition that has not been included, as recommended by some, was that the decision be in the interest of justice as opposed to the public interest. This is an issue being raised in environmental impact assessments of major projects in that no matter what the criteria are, in the end, the government can just say that it is a matter of national significance or a matter of public interest, so therefore it is going to do it. The suggestion was that the decision be in the interest of justice, as we are dealing with the Criminal Code.

A question raised was whether it should be a condition that would actually serve as a deterrent, yet that is not in the conditions in the DPA. Another condition suggested was whether it would genuinely promote compliance, but this was not an included condition. I find this very odd, as a former law enforcer. Those are the obvious mechanisms we look to in framing prohibitions and framing our enforcement compliance process.

It is noteworthy that the law specifically prohibits consideration of national economic interests when the offence comes under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, yet in this case, that is precisely the statute the company is being prosecuted under.

I found it very interesting, and we found the same thing with Bill C-69, that the government entertained a period of consultation, in particular with business but also with some judicial officials and some NGOs, before it tabled the bill in the House to enact this provision on enforcement, yet when the bill came up for debate in the House, the government, in its wisdom, chose to add this significant amendment to our main criminal justice statute, the Criminal Code of Canada, at the tail end of an omnibus budget bill.

The Liberal government said that it would not follow what the Conservatives did before. Never would it include provisions that were not economically related. Of course, the bill was tabled by the finance minister, not by the former justice minister.

I want to share with the House what the finance minister said in the House in defence of the mechanism to opt out of being prosecuted:

Mr. Chair, we have put forward a budget, and of course in the budget there are things about how we can make our economy work well. That is the function of this budget. What we have said is that we believe that our approach to deferred prosecution agreements will enable us to pursue an approach that is functioning and doing well in other economies, one that will result in more effective continuation of business success by companies once they have paid their dues to society.

In one case, and the case before us now, one federal statute actually prohibits consideration of the economic impact on the Canadian economy or the economy of a foreign national, yet that is exactly the rationale the finance minister gave for bringing forward this provision. Apparently that was the rationale given, allegedly, to the former attorney general and the public prosecutor. It is very interesting.

The Liberal government, in its wisdom, even though it has brought forward a lot of amendments to the Criminal Code, and in one case actually in an omnibus Criminal Code amendment bill, chose not to bring this significant measure to ensure compliance under the Criminal Code. It decided to do it in a budget bill.

When the matter was referred to committee for review, that aspect of this omnibus budget bill was put before the finance committee. When we look at the proceedings of the finance committee, we see that many members raised concerns that it was not the place for the consideration of an amendment to the Criminal Code. It was the justice committee. The finance committee was not used to reviewing these laws and members said that the bill should be referred to the justice committee. Eventually, the justice committee did call for aspects to be looked at, but then the full review was cut back, because certain Liberal members did not want to consider it.

Why the government chose to bring forward this mechanism the way it did is completely puzzling. It is important for the public to find out exactly how the government is planning to apply this mechanism. We have heard concern after concern about the way this mechanism is opting out of the need for a prosecution and conviction for a serious criminal offence.

Why did the government go this way, and how is it actually applying it in practice? I think it is very important that we have an open and public inquiry so that there is openness and transparency in how the government of the day is intending to apply this mechanism under the Criminal Code.

Natural Resources

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is in chaos, which means it is not spending any time fixing the energy sector crisis it created.

Today, the United We Roll convoy arrived in Ottawa. Its purpose is principled and worthy as it creates awareness for the oil and gas industry and raises concerns about the carbon tax and repealing the “no more pipelines” Bill C-69, and Bill C-48.

Its members are concerned, like millions of Canadians, that the current Liberal government has not, and is not, supporting them, their families, their communities or the energy sector. They feel they have lost their voice to a government that no longer works for them and they will not be ignored any more.

Our Conservative leader said:

The #UnitedWeRoll convoy is a testament to the importance of Canada's energy sector and the crisis it's facing. Canadian energy workers deserve a government that supports their industry and champions it worldwide. Conservatives will fix the Liberal mess & get people back to work.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you.

I just want to address something. When you were talking to Mr. Morrissey, you mentioned how sometimes we need to be on the ground with constituents or stakeholders or that type of thing, and I would actually argue that we should be doing that all the time, every time we are in our riding.

I think if we did a lot more of that, or more members of Parliament did that, we would see how legislation like Bill C-69 is actually very detrimental to a lot of the ridings in Canada, coast to coast; it doesn't matter where. I think being able to see the work that is done and what Canadians are doing and how they're putting food on their table.... For example, the oil industry uses tons of different trades.

It's interesting for me...and we've discussed this before in this committee, when we studied youth employment. Being younger, I do fall in the millennial generation, and where I'm from, going into the trades is encouraged, because they are high-paying jobs. Kids are encouraged to get a job at a shop sweeping floors, which turns into something else, whether it's mechanics or welding or carpentry, whatever it is. That's encouraged where I am, in my part and region of Canada.

The second thing I want to touch on is that you made mention of destigmatizing the trades, and it's been talked about a couple of times. How do we change the perception and destigmatize the trades, when your leader, the Prime Minister, makes a comment about a gender-based analysis for rural construction workers? How does that help promote women, promote men, young boys, whoever it is, into those trades, when they hear comments like that from the top of the country, the leader of the country saying things like that? I've had many constituents contact me, very upset and offended by that statement, because that's not who they are. These are construction workers who are going into places like rural Saskatchewan or Manitoba and working on roads, or doing infrastructure on bridges or ferries or whatever it is.

I'm just wondering how we destigmatize that, when it's coming from the top of the top in Ottawa.

[Prof. Greg Poelzer]

Well, I'm sure the committee is aware.... I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Bill C-69?

Indigenous Languages Act

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand today in this place and add my voice to the discussion around Bill C-91.

The House may not be aware that today is End It Movement Day. It is a movement to end modern-day slavery in our country and around the world. The people who participate wear a red X on their hand. Many may not know that within Canada, human trafficking probably happens within 10 blocks of where they live if they live in the city and within 10 miles of where they live if they live in the country.

Modern-day slavery has many faces in Canada, but the vast majority of cases, about 50% of them, involve indigenous women and girls. That is why I am wearing a red X on my hand today.

Bill C-91 is about respect and about protecting indigenous languages here in Canada. Many bills have been brought up about this issue, and the government has spoken in length about it as well.

Back in December 2016, the government said it was seized with this issue and would table some legislation. Now, at the eleventh hour of this Parliament, the government has tabled a bill, and here we are, discussing it today.

I find it frustrating to see the government's approach to supporting something. Supply management is a good example. It says all the time that it supports supply management, but it has very narrowly cast that support. The support is purely for the two words, “supply management”. It is the same in this case as well. The government says it supports indigenous languages, but that is really just the two words, “indigenous languages”.

Many times when we support something, the actual thing that needs to be supported needs the entire surrounding infrastructure or the surrounding society to support it. Only supporting the end result does not necessarily help the actual goal we are trying to achieve.

Let us use the case of supply management as an example. It is really great for the government to say it supports supply management, but when it takes milk and dairy products and animal proteins out of the food guide, it is not supporting supply management whatsoever.

A couple of people who work in my office are coffee connoisseurs. They always ask me why I put cream in my coffee. They think I am ruining the coffee by doing so. I tell them I support supply management, so I put cream in my coffee. Supporting supply management means actually supporting supply management and targeting the actual issue.

We are seeing that again with this indigenous language bill. It says we are going to support indigenous language and we are going to have an ombudsman and all of these things, but if we do not support communities and do not support the culture of these languages, they will become dead languages.

I know a bit about dead languages. I know a bit of Latin. It is a language that is used all the time, but it is not a spoken language. There are records of languages that have been brought back. I understand Hebrew is one of those languages that has been brought back from being a dead language to a language that is now alive and well.

I failed to mention at the beginning of my comments that I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton West.

This is a great bill. I am sure that we will take the language, codify it and keep a record of it. Many organizations around this country are working on translating the Bible into all indigenous languages.

The House may be aware that both the German language and the English language were codified when the Bible was translated into those languages. There is a language known as High German. It was not really a language spoken by anybody, but it was the language that the Bible would have been translated into for a big swath of the world that spoke Germanic languages. It codified the whole language into a common language.

We are seeing work being done on that around the country. The funding that will be coming through this legislation will probably support many of those initiatives. I support that idea.

The point I am trying to make is that we would like these languages to be living languages, not dead languages, and in order to do that, we need to support communities. What does supporting communities look like? For one thing, we have a rich heritage in this country around the fur trade. Canada was built on the fur trade. I always say Canada was built on a number of things, such as the fur trade, the railway and other things, but the fur trade for indigenous peoples was a major part of the economy. It is a shame that today we do not champion the fur trade in this country.

Representatives of the fur trade association were in my office the other day, and they told me that fur will not even be on the winter Olympics uniforms. I do not know if anyone saw that Canada Goose recently came out with a new lineup of jackets designed by an Inuit designer. They are amazing jackets. They have nice fur on the hood. I am sure there are more fur products on the inside as well, though I could not see. The fur trade is what made these communities sustainable. Their languages were able to survive with or without government funding, and the Inuit are a prime example of that. Most them still have their languages because it is a vibrant community.

Where I am from, many of the Woodland Cree people still speak the language, and their communities are thriving. Why are they thriving? It is because the economy is thriving. No doubt a generation has lost the language due to the residential schools, but when communities come together and operate well, the language continues to thrive, so we see that bills like Bill C-69 do nothing. We say we want to support languages and indigenous communities, but then the government introduces a bill like Bill C-69, which hamstrings all of the northern Alberta communities that rely on the economy that pipelines, the oil patch and resource development bring to northern Alberta. The government says it supports indigenous languages, but it supports them in a very narrow way. We need to ensure these communities have a good economy; then the language will flourish.

Another area that is frustrating to me is the language around firearms that the Liberals in particular use all the time. They seem to be very suspicious of people who own and use firearms on a regular basis. It is our indigenous communities that use, own and work with firearms on a regular basis. The language and laws coming from the Liberal government, particularly Bill C-71, are onerous to all first nation communities for sure. Firearms are a big part of their culture. Firearms are a way of life for them, so to say we are going to support their languages and culture and then make it more onerous to own a firearm is not supportive of the culture whatsoever.

Lots of people say we already have languages and ask me why I think it is so important. We all have a world view, a narrative, a place that we belong in the world, and being part of a culture that has identifiable languages and creeds and those kinds of things gives us our sense of belonging in the world. A language does that to a large degree. Studies bear out the idea that when people feel they are tied to a language, a people, a land and a culture, they are much more successful in nation building and culture building.

For all of those reasons, I support this bill, but I find it ironic that we are here at the eleventh hour debating a bill to support indigenous languages.