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

[Jim Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the opposition, both inside and outside the House, and others too, like to talk about a group of political decisions. We are going to hear a budget speech in a number of hours and there will be many provisions within that speech, and all will be political decisions. The thing about political decisions is that politicians are accountable for the decisions they make.

The Canadian people will evaluate our record in its entirety at the end of the mandate and decide whether or not they want to give us another one, or give it someone else. There is nothing inherently wrong with the decision being political if the word “political” means the people who make the decisions are accountable for them. If the members opposite think that is a bad system, I would like to hear about a better one.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my good friend and colleague, the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

I can bring everything back to relevance, but the House will have to bear with me for one little indulgence. I should explain to the House why I was unable to be here for the last parliamentary sitting week, and that was because my household welcomed a new eight pound, 10 ounce little girl, Helena Esu Trost. I was not away at some costume party in India or something like that. I was actually celebrating the birth of my daughter, and doing some constituency work at the same time. These things always need relevance and, like every piece of legislation we are talking about, it always impacts our children's future.

This legislation is of particular interest to me. The members who have been here for quite a few years will understand why. Prior to my election to the House of Commons, I worked as a mining exploration geophysicist. Geophysics was my education. It was my primary degree at the University of Saskatchewan. I actually worked in the field on mining and mineral exploration projects.

For me, when I read bills that talk about regulation, about impact of natural resources, it is not an academic question. Nowadays, increasingly, we have more and more Canadians who are removed from the production of primary goods. We see more and more people, as the joke goes, who think milk comes from a box in the store, not from a cow. They think that houses magically appear, and they are not made out of lumber and wood.

The same thing happens with oil and gas and mineral resources. People often do not have a fundamentally good understanding of where these products come from or the impact or what needs to be done. Rather than going through some of the technical elements of the bill, which my colleagues are going to do very well here today, I want to talk a little about what this actually means to people on the ground.

One of the things that needs to be understood by Canadians who are watching this, by people who do not live in primary natural resource communities, is what this actually means for the people in these areas, for their social well-being and health, and other things. Every time we make it more difficult to produce natural resource wealth from rural and remote areas, we completely and deeply impact the lives of the people who live in those areas. For people who live in downtown Toronto, downtown Vancouver, or even in my city, downtown Saskatoon, this is a remote issue for them. It does not actually impact their day-to-day life. Let me give an example of what things can actually change if mining and oil and gas projects get through.

In the year 2000, I was an exploration geophysicist up in Baker Lake, Nunavut, a great community. The geographical centre of Canada is just outside of town. In that community at that point, there was a high unemployment rate. Naturally, there were issues, and not all issues go away with economic development.

What happened in the following years after we were up there and working on the Meadowbank and the Meliadine project is that Cumberland Resources turned it into a mine. Today there is a gold mine not too far away from the community. People can drive there. They take out the ore deposits. Baker Lake has less than a 0% unemployment rate. They have full employment there. I had the privilege of sitting in at a committee hearing where representatives of Baker Lake actually came. They talked about what this means to their communities.

When we talk about this legislation here, we are not just talking about things in the abstract. We are talking about a change in standard of living, a change in communities, particularly for our remote and rural areas. This has more impact on the social well-being of many of these communities than all the government projects combined.

That is why I think it should be, in many ways, a prejudice, not a negative prejudice but a positive prejudice, toward development in these smaller communities in particular. When in doubt, we should give extra weight to people who will get economic benefit from these projects.

That is what concerns me about this legislation that the government is bringing forward today. The government has taken away one very important element in this legislation that previously existed, and that was the concept of standing.

Before someone would go before the National Energy Board or talk to regulators, etc., one had to have relevance to the matter, had to be involved or connected. It could be technical expertise, financial interest, or community interest. However, as we begin to take away that legitimate and democratic connection to a project, we water down the voices of the people who have standing.

Now gold mines are not generally as politically controversial as oil pipelines. However, just think if Baker Lake would have had major opposition from places such as Norway or the United States to the development of their gold mine, and someone said they needed tourism or other things there more than a gold mine. Should the voices of the local people who would have benefited, whose lives would have changed, businesses would have been developed, and social structure added to and enhanced, be decreased? That is what happens when we take away standing. It is a fundamentally anti-democratic provision. It allows people to have a say who should not have a vote on the issue, by bringing in people who can influence it but have no actual connection. The analogy would be to letting people vote in my constituency who are not part of it.

In Canada, we have the principle that there has to be some relationship to the representative. The same thing needs to be held in regard to presentations on environmental projects on things of this nature. Of all the things in here, that is what concerns me the most: the undemocratic nature of eliminating standing to allow people who can use their wealth and influence to protect power, and not just inside Canada, but literally from outside Canada. That is not just an abstract point; it is a fundamental point that relates to democracy and how we let voices and people govern themselves, in this case in a very specific point of legislation.

The other thing that concerns me is the ability to take what appear to be set timelines and turn them into continuous extensions due to certain loopholes in the legislation. Now, the minister talked about how everything is political and if people do not like what the government does they can vote them out. Again, as the point has been made in this debate, some areas of the country do not have as direct a stake in this matter as do other areas of the country. For someone who lives in Saskatchewan, the north, or areas directly impacted, this is important. There should be much stricter legal guidelines given to eliminate loopholes of continuous delays that the minister and other actors under the act are allowed to give. Ultimately, if someone is going to be able to do a project that is substantive, there needs to be certainty.

When I was a young geophysicist working in northern Manitoba, I remember how many hours the senior geologists would work on developing environmental plans, getting things for provincial governments. I mean, we had to check out everything from ice thickness to what happens to garbage and so forth. One of the things people need to understand is that the industry takes this very seriously. In fact, when I worked in Yukon, we would have less environmental impact than many of the tourist groups and tourism parties who were there before us. We would pick up their trash.

That is why a lot of the general public's thinking of what a time delay is and bringing in the public impact is somewhat misplaced. That is why certainty needs to be there. With all the good work that the industry does in trying to be responsible, capital will start to move if it loses the certainty. The natural resource industry tends to be cyclical. Money will move forward in huge amounts, and then it will flow out again very quickly. One has to be ready to move to catch those peaks in resource prices in order to capitalize on them. With falling prices over the last few years, it has not been as good as it was in previous years.

As I conclude my remarks, I want to make a couple of points. During some of the debate, we talked about how pipelines were not built to tidewater under the previous Conservative government.

For the record, the Keystone pipeline and the Alberta Clipper line were approved and built under the previous government. As was noted, other pipelines were approved and then cancelled by the later government, and the Line 9 reversal also happened. These things happened. The job was getting done. It is important that we continue to understand how this impacts people all across Canada, particularly in rural and remote communities.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague brought up an interesting point about relevance and a question about who has standing. I think he is trying to make the argument that people who have direct economic benefit have more standing than others. I disagree with that.

How would an environmentalist, someone who has spent their life studying the impacts on the environment of a project, have no standing? How would a landowner who has had land confiscated for a pipeline running through it have no standing? How would an aboriginal community that is impacted by a project have no standing?

My overall question to the member is, can he explain how one group who economically benefits should have more standing than someone who has suffered from the impact but has no economic benefit?

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member needs to understand that what he is saying is not quite what I said.

I said that one needs to have some relevance to the project. One may have technical relevance or, as the member noted, one's land may be impacted. However, there needs to be some sort of a test. Is one's interest relevant to the project? People in Saskatchewan are not going to have the same sort of relevance to a project in New Brunswick as the people in New Brunswick. An environmentalist in New Brunswick who has technical expertise in a subject definitely has standing, ties, etc.

There are various tests we can use, but the problem with the proposed legislation is that it would eliminate the whole concept of tests for standing. We need some sort of test, be it technical, geographical, economic, tests on first nations' rights, and other legal tests. We cannot leave this completely open to anyone anywhere, because it would devalue the rights of the people who are involved, who have some reasoned and proper arguments to bring forward on how it would impact their lives.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a two-part question about transparency.

The Liberals got themselves elected because they promised transparency. They introduced a bill that is over 360 pages long. We debated the bill for about three hours, and now they are limiting the time we can spend debating it. They are not winning any points for transparency with this one.

This bill also gives the Minister of Environment and Climate Change the power to veto any environmental impact assessment. Those assessments are vital to assessing the climate impact of any project.

If this bill passes, then no matter what the environmental impact assessment agency recommends, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change will be able to veto that recommendation and vote for or against environmental assessments.

Does my colleague agree with that? How responsible and accountable is it for the minister to give herself that power?

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague brings up a very good point. This is not a simple piece of legislation.

Members may have noticed that, in my speech, I did not get into the details. Part of the reason is that to go through and comprehend a 370-page piece of legislation takes more than a few hours. The government is pushing through this proposed legislation quite rapidly.

I do not know why the Liberals are afraid of more public debate. This is not an issue that is going to go away any time in Canadian history.

I agree with my hon. colleague from the New Democrats. I am not sure what the Liberals are trying to hide. I am not sure why they are afraid to have more public input. I know they are going to get criticism from both the left and the right. It does not mean that the bill has balance; it means they have not thought about things such as environmental or economic impacts. That is why they are getting the criticism they so richly deserve on this proposed legislation.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise today to discuss Bill C-69. I would like to hold up a copy of it. This bill is so thick that the super staplers could not drill a hole through it. It had to be put into two packages to make it presentable to us.

The government has decided, after two hours of debate, that it is going to bring time allocation on this bill, that it needs to limit debate on it.

As my colleague just pointed out, it is not a simple bill. It is 400 pages. The index alone is 27 pages. The summary takes up two of them. We need to spend a little more time discussing it than the government is prepared to let us spend. This bill is going to have more impact on Canada, particularly on western Canada, my area in particular, than the budget today will have. It will take a little longer for the effects to show, but it is going to be very damaging to a large part of this country. My colleague just talked about some of the impacts that this bill will have on small communities.

I believe that as we do in small things, so we will do in large things. Therefore, I want to tell a story about the current government and the way it has approached an environmental issue in my riding. We can probably extrapolate from that how it is going to use this bill across the rest of the country.

A few years ago, our government made a decision that we were going to turn the PFRA pastures in western Canada back to the provinces, which previously had ownership of the land. The land had been turned over to the federal government in the 1930s when the provinces could not manage it, and the federal government had managed it since then. We made a decision to turn it back to either the local communities that wanted to buy it or the provincial government, and that process carried itself out.

There is a small pasture in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan called Govenlock. It has been federal land for 100 years. There was a discussion about how to handle this piece of property that was federal land. The decision was made that it was going to be transferred from Agriculture Canada to Environment Canada, and hopefully would be managed in a responsible fashion over the coming decades.

Our government made a decision that we were going to try something a bit different. We went to the local community. The minister's chief of staff went there to listen to the local community, to talk to the ranchers, and said, “You folks have been basically managing this property for the last 80 or 100 years. What would you like to see from the federal government in terms of being able to manage this pasture over the next few decades?”

The invitation was there, and she went. She sat down at a meeting with the community and talked about what they would like to see. There was an agreement that whatever happened, the community should benefit from the project. There was an agreement made, but this was not formalized at the time, unfortunately. There was an agreement that the committee would have some control over management of the pasture and the research money that was going to be spent in that pasture. They could bring people in, perhaps university students in the summertime, and assign them to do research. The community and the people living in the community would benefit from taking some of that money that was going to be spent on the project.

It was a unique pilot project, and that is probably the best way to label it. It was based around co-operation between the government and the local community. It would provide a benefit to the local community. There was going to be good long-term management. The government had decided it was going to trust the people who had managed that environment for so long that they could continue to do it in an effective way.

It has been a very different situation in the two years since the current government was elected. Basically, all elements of community control have been thrown out. It is interesting. There have been top Environment Canada officials come out to the community to tour around in a cavalcade of vehicles, yet they have refused to stop and talk to the local people. They came out, drove around, and took a look at the pasture land, but they would not stop to talk to the locals about what they might want to see or provisions for the future management of the pasture. They have basically come back to the community and said, “Here are the provisions we are laying out for you over the next few decades if you want to have access to this pasture.” They have told them the way they think the ground will be managed.

In my part of the world, every time that either an environmental organization or the government has come in to take over land that ranchers have managed, it has usually taken about 30 years to learn how to manage it. Interestingly, they typically end up managing it in the way the ranchers did in order to be successful. They removed any funding control from the local community. Basically, there is no commitment at all in any fashion to that. Certainly, any research that has taken place has been removed from the local community and will come out somewhere, maybe out of some environmental group that the government favours or a university somewhere, but the local community is not going to benefit.

The Liberals basically have set up a management system where the ranchers are the servants or slaves of government.

The only interest from Environment Canada seems to be in completely controlling the situation rather than co-operating. There has been a big loss to one small community, the small community of Consul in my riding. If that is how one small community has been approached, can we extrapolate that into how the bill will approach and deal with small communities across the country? I think we can.

Bill C-69 is 400 pages. As I mentioned, it is not so much concerned about improving the environment as it is about basically controlling the economy, controlling the environment, and trying to have the government tell people across the rest of the country how it is going to manage their affairs and the resources in their part of the world.

Now we have time allocation. That is the biggest insult in some time. We have a 400-page bill and now we are told we have two hours to debate it. The Liberals are rushing the bill through. Clearly, if people read this and see what the provisions are, the Liberals know they will get concerns. They are getting concerns from both ends of the spectrum. We know that. No one sees this as being adequate and the government, in its usual commitment to mediocrity, probably thinks that is okay.

In the past, we have had the highest standards in the world on energy development. When I drive through my riding and I see the energy development going on there, the wells that are being drilled, the environmental standards are extremely high. I would invite anybody to come out, walk onto one of those well sites and try to find any place where there has been any kind of a spill or pollution. People would have difficulty finding that because of our high standards. They have been high in the past as well. We are environmentally responsible. In the world in which I live, there is more wildlife now than there has ever been and the air is cleaner than it has ever been. We believe we did a good job of managing environmental issues around resource development, and that needs to be continued.

I want to talk specifically about the approval process around Bill C-69. I am trying to run through this quickly and it is only one part of the stream. People may get confused. If they do, it would not be the least bit surprising because it has taken a lot of people a lot of time to even try to figure out what the approval process looks like.

There is a preplanning section to the projects of 180 days. The minister would have the discretion to designate how that would proceed. We do not know how limited the minister's discretion will be because it is not in the bill. The minister can extend that process by 90 days before it goes to cabinet. The cabinet can extend that process indefinitely. Then it goes to an impact assessment of 300 days and two different streams, a short one and a long one. With both of them, we do not have any clarity right now about how that will be determined. With the short ones, the agency will handle it.

All major projects will end up in this long stream of a 450-day commitment. All life cycle regulatory projects will go through that one. That 450 days starts when a panel is appointed, not from the beginning of the application, and it will stop when the minister gets the report.

The short or long process can be extended 90 days and the cabinet can extend those timelines indefinitely. The minister will have the authority to ask for any information along this whole cycle and then the minister can come back and say that he or she needs new information, and a whole new process needs to happen. That is just one small part of one stream of the bill and the approval process that the Liberal will put in place.

As the minister pointed out to us, all of these decisions are political decisions. These decisions should be made based on science, based on whether it will impact the environment in the area. The government is clearly saying that it wants every one of those decisions to be political and it is happy to manage them. We know what will happen, and that is the economy in my part of the world, the economy in western Canada, will be severely impacted, It will do nothing to protect the environment beyond what has already been done.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I want to talk to him about Bill C-69. The government says it is putting this assessment process in place to rebuild public trust in environmental assessments. I would like to know what the member thinks about the consultation period being shortened. What impact will that have? He talked about small communities. The government says it wants to restore trust and transparency, but it is reducing the time spent on consultation. Reading the bill, we can plainly see that the goal is not establishing public trust.

I would like to hear the member's thoughts.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the hon. member, particularly with her final statement. We do not believe that this is about establishing trust.

We tried to put together a diagram on how this process, its impact assessment panel and processes would work. It is virtually impossible to work our way through that. Certainly, within that, the government is trying to limit time. At the same time, it is expanding standing, as mentioned earlier. It is expanding the standing to anyone who feels he or she has any sort of contribution to make. It will make it impossible.

I think the member for Lakeland said that if the government expanded it to everyone, it basically would make consultation meaningless. That is true. We have seen that in the past where people flooded the system. They do not have any intention of actually dealing honestly and fairly with the application process. They just want to try to stop it, so they try to bog it down so it cannot work.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative party as a whole has lost touch with Canadians. The Conservatives do not quite understand what we are proposing.

Today, if we want to advance the exportation of energy while being sensitive to the issues of our environment, we need to put in place a process that will allow us to build energy export markets abroad. When we look at the legislation, in good part it is building that social contract or whatever one might want to call it.

My question is based on this. This government has demonstrated it understands the indigenous factor, the environmental factor, and the importance of exporting our energy. We actually got agreements. Does the member believe that under our system we have been successful in getting a pipeline to tidewaters? The Conservatives, in their 10 years, failed miserably at doing that?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the hon. member continues to spew these falsehoods. He already addressed them earlier. It is just ridiculous. I do not know if he is delusional or is trying to mislead Canadians deliberately. The reality is that the Liberal government has failed at every point on this file.

He talks about the Conservatives losing touch with Canadians. We were not dancing and prancing across India last week. When we talk about building markets, the Liberals failed to do that. They managed to finish up the European free trade agreement because we had it 99.9% done. However, they almost lost it because of their mismanagement and incompetence. They turned around and divided everyone.

They divided indigenous communities across the country because they refused to hold the leaders accountable for the money they spent. We had put that transparency in place.

Everywhere the Liberals go they divide communities and do not keep their promises. Canadians are well aware of that. If anyone has lost touch with Canadians, it is the government.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what the federal Liberals are doing is replicating exactly what they did in Ontario, by making it a purely political decision on whether a project can go forward. They were using an element of their political fortune, or electoral fortune, in some cases, to determine whether a project would go through.

Given the fact that this entity is going to have the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission folded into it, what is the potential threat to the nuclear industry should this go ahead?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I talked a little about the kind of bureaucratic morass those people were putting in place to try to stop energy approvals. Nuclear needs to be an important part of that mix in the future. We do not hear much talk about it from the other benches. However, at every point that each of these agencies is involved, the government has made it more and more difficult for projects to move ahead.

My colleagues talked earlier about certainty, how investors needed to have certainty. I think it is deliberate that the government is creating uncertainty right through the process. It knows full well that investors will not invest in Canada, whether it is energy projects, nuclear projects, or other projects across the country.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg South.

It is my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to 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.

Canadians understand that protecting our environment and growing our economy is not an either/or proposition. With hundreds of major resource projects worth over $500 billion in investment planned across Canada over the next 10 years, we need to ensure that better rules are in place so good projects that balance the need for economic growth and environmental protection can go forward.

Bill C-69 would fulfill that objective. It would also fulfill our goal of one project, one review. The review process would be streamlined and would make the process more predictable, timely, and clear, while ensuring stakeholders would be engaged effectively and potential issues with project proposals would be identified up front. These better rules would increase regulatory certainty and clarity, encouraging investment in Canada's natural resources sector.

After a decade that saw the erosion of public trust in our regulatory bodies, Canadians can be assured that we are putting in place better rules to protect our environment, fish, and waterways, with the goal of rebuilding that public trust. I am proud to say that decisions will be guided by science, evidence, and indigenous traditional knowledge. Impact assessment will also consider how projects are consistent with our environmental obligations and climate change commitments, including the Paris agreement on climate change.

A single agency, the impact assessment agency of Canada, would lead all impact assessments for major projects, with the goal of ensuring the approach would be consistent and efficient. Canadians can expect that under our new framework, projects will be held to a high standard and we will protect our environment and build healthy communities.

I am sure all members of the House would agree and recognize that building new and efficient infrastructure systems is necessary in a modern economy. We need bridges and other works to travel, to get goods to market, and to grow our economy. However, these projects need to be built in a way that allows Canadians to continue to travel and enjoy our waterways, and to be safe while doing it.

Canadians travel through our country's vast network of oceans, lakes, rivers and canals for commercial and recreational purposes.

It is important to note that navigable waters also play a critical role for indigenous peoples in the exercise of their rights. The free and unobstructed passage over navigable waters has long been recognized in law and has been one of the foundations of our country.

In 2014, the Navigation Protection Act introduced by the previous government drastically cut back navigation protections by establishing a short list of waters in a schedule to the legislation to focus protection on waterways that were heavily used near large population centres and which had a significant commercial use.

New works on waters not on the legislative schedule, including large dams, do not require any approval under the existing Navigation Protection Act, even though they may create a significant interference to navigation.

Obstructions on navigable waters outside the schedule do not receive protection under the existing legislation. The only recourse for Canadians who have navigation concerns about projects on navigable waters outside of this list is to take the matter to the courts. The Navigation Protection Act reduces transparency and makes it harder to know about proposals for works before they were constructed.

We have heard loud and clear from Canadians that this is not enough protection for their right to navigate our lakes, rivers, and canals. This is why we spent over a year consulting on changes to the Navigation Protection Act to better understand the kinds of navigation protections that Canadians and indigenous peoples were seeking.

During this comprehensive and informative consultation, we heard that Canadians wanted further navigation protections on more waterways, more information about projects that could affect navigation, more opportunities for their navigation concerns to be heard and resolved without going to court, and more clarity on the definition of “navigable water”.

We also heard from indigenous peoples that they want a greater role in protecting navigation in their territories. We heard from industry and provincial representatives, who said they want clear and predictable regulations.

We have listened to these concerns and we have acted. This is why the Canadian navigable waters act would deliver on all of this. First, it would restore navigation protection on all navigable waters in Canada by using modern safeguards. Major works, like dams, would require an approval on any navigable water. Minor works, like small cottage docks, would need to meet the requirements set out by an order in the act on any navigable water. All other work on unscheduled waters would be subject to mandatory notification and consultation requirements, and a new dispute resolution process that could require approvals where concerns remain unresolved. Canadians would no longer have to turn to the courts to resolve these types of issues.

All other works on scheduled waters would also be subject to notification and consultation requirements, but would always require an approval. Owners would not have the choice of using the dispute resolution process because they are proposing to build on waters identified as being vulnerable to impacts on navigation and of the utmost importance to Canadians.

The government is committed to open, accessible, and transparent processes. For the first time, a comprehensive definition of a navigable water would be included in the act. This new, broader definition does not return to the canoe test, which is unworkable in today's context, but actually creates a modern definition to identify the navigable waters that require the protection of the new act.

A strengthened crown-indigenous relationship is at the heart of the proposed approach. The Canadian navigable waters act would require the consideration of indigenous rights and knowledge, and create new opportunities for indigenous peoples to partner with Canada in the administration of navigation protections in their territories and jurisdictions.

Through the Canadian navigable waters act, the government is proposing modern protections for the right of Canadians to navigate on every navigable water in Canada. This protection would be stronger than ever before.

Before building any work on any navigable water, owners of works would have to satisfy the requirements of the navigation legislation. Under the new Canadian navigable waters act, these requirements would be tailored to take into account the many types of works and the many types of navigation that exist in Canada today.

The new Canadian navigable waters act and Bill C-69 is smart legislation, designed to deliver navigation protections where they are needed, to give indigenous peoples and communities a say in what is built in their territories, and to make expectations clear for owners of works. Bill C-69 and the new Canadian navigable waters act gets it right. That is why I am proud to support its passage through the House.