Bill C-28 (Historical)

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act

This enactment amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to, among other things,
(a) recognize that every individual in Canada has a right to a healthy environment as provided under that Act;
(b) provide that the Government of Canada must protect that right as provided under that Act, and, in doing so, may balance that right with relevant factors;
(c) require the development of an implementation framework that sets out how that right will be considered in the administration of that Act, and require that research, studies or monitoring activities be conducted to support the Government of Canada in protecting that right;
(d) authorize the Minister of the Environment to add to the Domestic Substances List certain substances that were in commerce in Canada and subject to the Food and Drugs Act between January 1, 1987 and September 13, 2001, and provide that any substance may be deleted from the List when it is no longer in commerce in Canada;
(e) require that the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health develop a plan that specifies the substances to which those Ministers are satisfied priority should be given in assessing whether they are toxic or capable of becoming toxic;
(f) provide that any person may request that those Ministers assess a substance;
(g) require the Minister of the Environment to compile a list of substances that that Minister and the Minister of Health have reason to suspect are capable of becoming toxic or that have been determined to be capable of becoming toxic;
(h) require that, when those Ministers conduct or interpret the results of certain assessments — or conduct or interpret the results of a review of decisions of certain governments — in order to determine whether a substance is toxic or capable of becoming toxic, they consider available information on whether there is a vulnerable population in relation to the substance and on the cumulative effects that may result from exposure to the substance in combination with exposure to other substances;
(i) provide that certain substances be classified as substances that pose the highest risk based on, among other things, their properties or characteristics;
(j) require that those Ministers give priority to the total, partial or conditional prohibition of activities in relation to toxic substances that are specified in Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, or to the total, partial or conditional prohibition of releases of those substances into the environment, when regulations or instruments respecting preventive or control actions in relation to those substances are developed;
(k) expand certain regulation-making, information-gathering and pollution prevention powers under that Act, including by adding a reference to products that may release substances into the environment;
(l) allow the risks associated with certain toxic substances to be managed by preventive or control actions taken under any other Act of Parliament, and the obligations under sections 91 and 92 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to be the responsibility of whoever of the Minister of the Environment or the Minister of Health is best placed to fulfil them;
(m) expand the powers of the Minister of the Environment to vary either the contents of a significant new activity notice with respect to a substance not on the Domestic Substances List or the contents of the List itself with respect to a substance on the List that is subject to the significant new activities provisions of that Act;
(n) extend the requirement, to notify persons of the obligation to comply with the significant new activity provisions of that Act when a substance that is subject to those provisions is transferred to them, so that it applies with respect to substances on the Domestic Substances List, and authorize that Minister to limit by class the persons who are required to be notified of the obligation when a substance that is subject to those provisions is transferred to them; and
(o) require that confidentiality requests made under section 313 of the Act be accompanied by reasons, and to allow the Minister of the Environment to disclose the explicit chemical or biological name of a substance or the explicit biological name of a living organism in certain circumstances.
The enactment also makes related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act to enable the assessment and management of risks to the environment associated with foods, drugs, cosmetics and devices by, among other things,
(a) prohibiting persons from conducting certain activities in respect of a drug unless the Minister of Health has conducted an assessment of the risks to the environment presented by certain substances contained in that drug;
(b) enabling the Minister of Health to take measures in respect of the risks to the environment that a drug may present throughout its life cycle; and
(c) providing the Governor in Council with supporting regulation-making authorities.
Finally, the enactment repeals the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act.

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we learned a lot from the speech given by my colleague from Milton. There were some very interesting things in there, including the fact that he ate some portobello mushrooms. I want him to know that I too like mushrooms, oyster mushrooms.

I would like to be a little more serious, unlike this government. Speaking of serious, the environment does not seem to be a priority for the federal government. Why do I say that? When did we begin working on Bill S-5, which is currently before the House? It was in February 2016 in committee. Of course, committee work and reports have been done. Which party was in government at the time? It was the Liberal Party. Which government introduced the previous version, Bill C-28? This is the same government that introduced that bill and then called an election. It could have resolved the whole situation several years ago.

Today, Bill S-5 has very little depth. A quarter of the implementation will be done through regulations issued by the minister over the next two years. However, we are in a climate emergency.

Do the Liberals not understand this or are they just used to not moving quickly? Why this lack of will and courage? I would like my colleague to explain to me whether he is prepared to include in the charter the right to a healthy environment, as Quebec is so courageously doing right now?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy once again to rise and speak to Bill S-5, a bill that updates the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

I have spoken a couple of times on this bill at various stages, and I will repeat some of the messages I gave in those speeches. Here we are at third reading. We have responded to the committee report, which brought forward a few amendments, including one from the NDP that was voted on at report stage. At committee, Conservatives and Liberals took out a statement about tailings ponds in particular. The NDP proposed a report stage amendment that put those words back into Bill S-5 that were put there originally by the Senate, which dealt with this bill before us, and I was happy that amendment passed.

Now, I am a bit discouraged that Conservatives seem to be indicating they are withdrawing their support for this bill just because of those two words, “tailings ponds”, going back into it. I am not sure why they consider the words so toxic that they cannot support the bill, but we are very much of the opinion that it really needs to be highlighted as one of the points in protecting the Canadian environment. We have had so many issues around tailings ponds, not just in the last few months at the Kearl project in Alberta, but in British Columbia with the Mount Polley disaster, and various other situations. This bill, Bill S-5, and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act really deal with how we should deal with toxins that are put into the Canadian environment, and tailings ponds are one example of where, when we have disasters, an inordinate number of toxins are poured into the environment at once. I think that requires special mention, and I am glad we see that wording back in this version of the bill here at third reading.

Just to give some background, this bill was first introduced in the previous Parliament as Bill C-28. It was never brought to the floor of the House to debate, and, months later, the government called an election, so it died on the Order Paper. However, it gave Canadians and environmental law experts and scientists a chance to look at this long-overdue bill to update the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, as it has been over 20 years. Those people found a lot to be concerned about that was missing from the bill. The government had a year to answer those concerns, yet in this Parliament it introduced the bill exactly as it was in Bill C-28, so there was no attempt to fix things ahead of time, which has caused real problems.

I have even heard Liberals saying in debate at report stage that we need a new version of CEPA, so we need a new bill to update it as quickly as possible to fix those things, because they were found to be out of scope. We cannot expand the scope of bills here in this place once they come to us, and this bill requires some of that desperately, which I will talk about later.

Since CEPA was first introduced over 20 years ago, the number of chemicals that people in Canada are exposed to in their daily lives has grown exponentially. I think it has grown by over 50 times since 1950 and is expected to continue on that trajectory. All these chemicals are toxic in their own way. These are brand-new chemicals that natural environments have no experience with, and we are only discovering, year after year, the impacts of these chemicals on our environment, our health and the health of plants and animals in our environment, even at very small levels. Over the last two decades, science has discovered more about the cumulative effects of even small doses of these toxic chemicals, and without this modernized legislation, Canadians would continue to be exposed to unregulated and harmful chemicals.

This is long overdue. Environmental scientists and environmental legal experts have long recognized that. Some of the changes that Bill S-5 would make to CEPA that are significant are the recognition of the right to a healthy environment, and I will talk more about that later; the commitment to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, under the act; strengthening the chemicals management plan, including to take into consideration vulnerable populations, cumulative effects, reproductive and endocrine toxicity, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity and neurotoxicity; alternatives and class-based assessments to avoid harmful substitutions; and labelling and other-risk communication.

I would like to back up now and just say how Canadians are so proud of this country, and one of the great sources of that pride is our environment. We are blessed to live in a vast country, and our relatively small population, concentrated at the southern border, has given us the impression that our environment will remain clean, healthy and sustainable, no matter what we do to it and no matter what we throw at it. That attitude has, obviously, gradually changed over the last 50 years or so, and now over 90% of Canadians believe that it is important that we have the explicit right to live in a clean and healthy environment. It is very timely that this bill finally recognizes that right.

Last year, on July 28, 2022, the UN General Assembly passed a unanimous resolution that recognized the right to a healthy environment around the world. One hundred and fifty-nine countries already have legal obligations to protect the human right to a healthy environment, but Canada does not. There are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but there is no federal law that explicitly recognizes the right to live in a healthy environment. Bill S-5 would change that, so it is a positive step forward, but it is important to back up declarations of rights with legislation that enforces those rights.

Unfortunately, the previous version of CEPA was considered unenforceable, and this one is no better. In fact, the Senate committee studying Bill S-5 wanted to fix this enforceability and, quite remarkably, the senators attached this note to the bill when they sent it forward to the House. After they had passed it with the amendments that they could make, they attached this message. I have read this message in each of the speeches I have given, but it is so remarkable that it bears repeating. This is what the Senate committee said:

This committee would like to state their concern that the right to a healthy environment cannot be protected unless it is made truly enforceable. This enforceability would come by removing the barriers that exist to the current remedy authority within Section 22 of CEPA, entitled “Environmental Protection Action.” There is concern that Section 22 of CEPA contains too many procedural barriers and technical requirements that must be met to be of practical use. As Bill S-5 does not propose the removal or re-evaluation of these barriers, this Committee is concerned that the right to a healthy environment may remain unenforceable.

As I said before, the reason the Senate did not amend this bill to make it enforceable is that it was considered out of scope. The real disappointment here, of course, is that the government had a year to fix this. It knew that this enforceability was one of the main concerns people had about Bill C-28 in the previous Parliament, but the government did not fix it. I don't know whether that was just out of incompetence or whether it really did not want to fix it.

This relates directly to the welcome new declaration in Bill S-5 that Canadians have a right to live in this healthy and clean environment, but we need a transparent and open process to hold the government to account with respect to that declaration and to that right.

As I have said, CEPA is primarily concerned with protecting Canadians and their environment from the toxic chemicals we are so good at inventing, producing and pumping into our environment. There has been a fiftyfold increase in those chemicals over the past number of decades. However, CEPA does not concern itself in general with other matters of federal legislation around the environment, such as environmental impact assessments, fish habitat, migratory birds, species at risk, etc., so this declaration of the right to live in a clean, healthy environment has rather narrow coverage. It covers only matters within the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

I have a private member's bill, Bill C-219, that is called the Canadian environmental bill of rights. It was first written and presented by Linda Duncan, the former NDP MP for Edmonton Strathcona. Ms. Duncan is an expert environmental lawyer who produced this environmental bill of rights and introduced it over three Parliaments during her time here. It passed second reading in 2009 or 2010 and went to committee, but each time she presented it, it did not make it through the full Senate procedure, so it never became law. I was very honoured and happy to present it again as Bill C-219 in this Parliament.

Among other things, it basically takes that right to live in a clean, healthy environment that Bill S-5 talks about and expands it to the other Canadian federal legislation that we have that deals with the environment. It is not a broad-brush approach, but specifically attached to those pieces of legislation. In fact, when the House of Commons legal team was asked whether it was constitutional, the answer was that of course it is constitutional because it is not really an environmental bill; it is a human rights bill. It holds the government to account for doing what it should be doing under those different environmental pieces of legislation that we have at the federal level.

I would like to make it clear that the NDP will be voting in favour of Bill S-5. We are happy that the government has ceded to some of the amendments that we wanted bring in to improve Bill S-5. We did not get all that we wanted, but we think this is an important step forward, and we are certainly happy that there is language about the right to live in a clean and healthy environment that is finally recognized within federal legislation. We are happy that this bill confirms the government's commitment to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples under the act.

This bill has many shortcomings, some of which I have listed, but one that I have not mentioned is the total lack of anything around air pollution, toxins in the air. This is something that we really have to get into federal legislation, because it is just as important, if not more so, than some of the other forms of pollution we have to deal with.

I am heartened to hear comments from Liberal members that they would welcome a new version of Bill S-5, a brand new update to CEPA that would bring in some of the problems that have been considered out of scope here, especially around enforceability.

As I say, most Canadians, including myself, would be happy to see this bill pass. I know that most parties will be voting for this bill, albeit some reluctantly. I am disappointed to hear that the Conservatives seem to be pulling their support over the tailings ponds issue. I hope that the Senate will deal with it promptly, so that we can enjoy its benefits and quickly start the process of crafting that new bill that will make CEPA even stronger. That act would truly protect Canadians and ensure that we, along with our children and grandchildren, can continue to live in the clean and healthy environment that is our right.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, again, we had 22 years before Bill C-28 to fix this. We have had two years since then. This should have been a much better bill. We now have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment within the scope of CEPA, not within the scope of the rest of the federal mandate, so it is a tiny step. We should be doing better. We could have done so much better if the government had done so.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I totally agree with the member. This bill is one of the steps in the right direction. It is something we feel we should support because we want to make a step in the right direction. We just wish there were several steps or bigger steps. At least with the right to a clean and healthy environment, for instance, we now have that enshrined within legislation. However, we do not have a good method of enforcing it. That is one thing we should do next, one of several things I outlined.

A lot of these issues could have been fixed if the government had listened to what people were saying, after Bill C-28 was introduced, about ways to fix it. It should have made Bill S-5 a much better bill from the start.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, Canadians care about the health of their environment. According to polling, 92% of Canadians believe the government should recognize the right to live in a healthy environment. Canada has several major pieces of legislation on environmental protection, but the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is the centrepiece of that commitment.

Bill S-5, which we are debating here today, is the long-awaited update to that act. It has been 24 years since the last update, and there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Some of that water likely contained some of the many new toxins we have invented in the last two decades, and that is one thing that needed to be updated with this bill. We have also learned a great deal about the cumulative effects of even tiny doses of these toxins. We literally have to run to keep up with the ways we are damaging the environment here in Canada and around the world.

People concerned about the environment welcomed the effort to update the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, as it known for short, and the NDP welcomed that too. It is long overdue.

I want to spend a bit of time talking about the history of this particular bill, as I think it puts some of the efforts to fix CEPA in a better context.

The bill was first introduced in the previous Parliament as Bill C-28, tabled in April 2021, two years ago. However, the government did not bring it to the floor of the House for debate that spring and then called an election in the summer, so that ended that version of the bill.

Environmental law experts across the country analyzed that bill and began to drop ideas to make it better when it came back to Parliament. There was some hope that the government would take some of those ideas and amend the new version before reintroducing it so that things would not be considered out of scope. Instead, it tabled the exact same version of the bill, the same as Bill C-28, in the Senate in February 2022, where it took on its life as Bill S-5, the bill we are debating today. The Senate took a long, serious look at the bill in committee, improved it in several ways and sent it to the House at the end of June last year, and the House took it up last fall. It has since been through second reading debate and committee, and we see it here at report stage.

This bill, at its heart, is about allowing Canadians to live in a clean, healthy environment. Much of its detail is in regulations around toxic chemicals, chemicals we have invented and continue to invent and chemicals released into the environment, whether knowingly or not, that can directly affect our health and degrade the ecosystems we all depend on.

One new and very important part of this bill is the long-overdue inclusion of language that declares that Canadians have the right to live in a healthy environment. Last year, on July 28, 2022, the UN General Assembly passed a unanimous resolution that recognized the right to a healthy environment around the world. A hundred and fifty-nine countries around the world have legal obligations to protect the human right to a healthy environment, but Canada does not.

There are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but there is no federal law that explicitly recognizes the right to a healthy environment in Canada. Bill S-5 could change that, so it is a positive step forward, but it is important to back up declarations of rights with legislation that enforces those rights. Unfortunately, the previous version of CEPA was considered unenforceable, and this one is no better.

The Senate committee studying Bill S-5 sent the bill to the House with the following message:

This committee would like to state their concern that the right to a healthy environment cannot be protected unless it is made truly enforceable. This enforceability would come by removing the barriers that exist to the current remedy authority within Section 22 of CEPA, entitled “Environmental Protection Action.” There is concern that Section 22 of CEPA contains too many procedural barriers and technical requirements that must be met to be of practical use. As Bill S-5 does not propose the removal or re-evaluation of these barriers, this Committee is concerned that the right to a healthy environment may remain unenforceable.

The reason the Senate did not fix this enforceability issue with amendments is that apparently it would have been considered out of scope, so I would say the government should table separate legislation as soon as possible to remedy this. Again, the government could have missed all of this if it had fixed this problem with CEPA and Bill S-5 before tabling the new version of the bill.

Similarly, there were other major shortcomings in Bill S-5 that were out of scope for amendments, including a lack of legally binding and enforceable air quality standards. It is really quite surprising that the first draft of Bill S-5 made no attempts to address air quality at all. It also lacks a more open, inclusive and transparent risk assessment process for the evaluation of genetically engineered animals in the environment, especially wild salmon. Salmon are a critical part of our aquatic ecosystems and are sacred to first nations that have relied on healthy salmon populations for millennia. The risk of introducing genetically engineered salmon into the wild environment should set off alarm bells on all sorts of fronts.

I would like to mention here that I have a private member's bill, Bill C-219, the Canadian environmental bill of rights, that would extend the right to a clean environment across the federal mandate, not just for toxins and other aspects covered under CEPA, but for all aspects of the environment covered by federal legislation. The heart of Bill C-219 is a transparent accountability process that would allow Canadians to ensure their government is actually upholding the right to a clean environment. That accountability process is missing from Bill S-5 and CEPA. It could have and should have been included. I am hoping that the government and all parties will support my bill and use that part of it as a model to strengthen the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

In conclusion, I would like to make it clear that the NDP will be voting in favour of Bill S-5 at this stage. We are happy that the right to live in a clean and healthy environment has finally been recognized within federal legislation, and we are happy the bill confirms the government's commitment to implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples under the act. However, the bill has many shortcomings, only some of which I have listed above.

I was heartened to hear the speech from the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, in which he admitted these shortcomings and called for a new bill amending CEPA to fix them as soon as possible. Why they were not included in the bill before us, which has been 24 years in the making, is beyond my comprehension, but I would certainly welcome such a bill.

Most Canadians will be happy to see the bill pass, and I know that most parties will be voting for the bill, albeit some reluctantly. I hope the Senate will deal with it promptly so we can enjoy its benefits and quickly start the process of crafting a new bill that will once again make CEPA a stronger act, an act that will truly protect Canadians and ensure that we and our grandchildren can live in the clean and healthy environment that is our right.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in favour of Bill S-5, one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation to come before the House of Commons.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, is a vital piece of legislation that regulates the products we use every day in Canada. From food packaging to the personal care products we put on our bodies to our children's toys, CEPA has provided the regulations to further protect Canadians from exposure to toxic substances and keep all of us and our collective environment healthy since it came into force in 1999.

We received submissions from all across the country with regard to the modernization of this act. That is why I want to thank so many people for participating in the drafting of the bill that is now before us. In particular, I would like to thank Lisa Gue from the David Suzuki Foundation, Cassie Barker from Environmental Defence Canada, Jennifer Beeman from Breast Cancer Action Quebec, Jane McArthur from the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Aaron Freeman, the members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte‑Marie and Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the hon. members for Winnipeg South, Lac-Saint-Louis, Repentigny, Victoria and Saanich—Gulf Islands, and the senators who worked so hard to ensure that Bill S-5 came before the House.

Bill S‑5 strengthens Canada's environmental protection measures for individuals, families and communities across the country. It helps to better preserve the measures that we all need to live a healthy life. It protects the water we drink and better regulates the products that we use every day as Canadians. Bill S‑5 is a necessary and long-awaited update of CEPA that guarantees that the act can continue to do in 2023 what it was implemented to do in 1999, and that is to protect the environment and the health and safety of Canadians.

As the former parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, I consider it an honour to have worked on the modernization of CEPA with the current Minister of Natural Resources and member for North Vancouver when he was minister of environment and climate change. This bill began as Bill C‑28. Most of the elements that we worked on at the time, not to mention the amazing work of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, including the right to a healthy environment, the assessment of the combined effects of substances and the improvement of transparency about consumer goods, are still included and even reinforced in Bill S‑5.

It has been a quarter of a century since CEPA was last updated. As such, many improvements and modifications were necessary. We need only think of the changes in our society we have experienced over the last 25 years, too many to reference, unfortunately, in the short time allotted to me today, to better understand the need for the many key improvements to CEPA included in Bill S-5. I would like to share a select few in my remarks, beginning with an acknowledgement in the preamble of the bill that all Canadians have a right to live in a healthy environment.

Countries around the world, in fact, are acknowledging the relationship between a healthy environment and our human rights. In fact, on June 28 of last year, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution declaring that access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a universal human right. For the first time in our federal law, Bill S-5 would recognize the right to a healthy environment in Canada, and our country will join 156 fellow members of the United Nations who have done the same in some way, shape or form.

While including the right to a healthy environment represents a historic step for Canada, our government will work hard to secure these rights through a robust evaluation framework and regulations, which we have committed to creating with input from Canadians over the next couple of years. Everything that follows in this newly strengthened CEPA flows from this acknowledgement, including the second aspect of the bill that I would like to speak to, that being the better management of chemicals in Canada, aimed at reducing exposure to hazardous chemicals for all Canadians.

Currently, CEPA uses a science-based approach to evaluate over 4,300 chemicals and reduces the number of harmful chemicals that Canadians encounter in their everyday lives. Canadians have benefited from our strong leadership on the risk assessment and risk management for chemicals.

For example, there are chemicals like BPA, which is a known hormone disruptor that used to be found in bottles for infants. High exposure to BPA can adversely affect the liver, the kidneys, fertility and the brain development of newborn infants. A risk assessment through the chemicals management plan led to a change in the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act that made it illegal to manufacture, import, advertise or sell bottles that contained this product in Canada. Canada has worked with industry to successfully phase out the use of BPA-containing packaging for liquid infant formula products available for sale in Canada. Since then, Canadian parents have worried less, knowing that the feeding bottles they are using to nurse their newborn child are free from this dangerous chemical.

Working with Canadians to publish an updated chemicals management priorities plan in Bill S-5 is critical to protecting Canadians against the exponential increase in the volume and concentration of chemicals entering our environment.

In addition to an updated chemicals management priorities plan, proposed subsection 75.1(1) of Bill S-5 requires the Minister of Health and the Minister of Environment to list substances capable of becoming toxic. The inclusion of this clause in CEPA would help address the problem of regrettable substitutions and deter manufacturers from replacing the use of one equally hazardous chemical for another. These updates to this bill, among others, would weed out toxins in our products at the source, so that Canadians do not have to at their local grocery or hardware store.

Another key improvement to CEPA in Bill S-5 is the incorporation of cumulative effects assessments. Why is this important? It is quite simple. The pace and scale at which new chemicals are being produced and added to our products and environment are astounding. Since 1950, chemical production has increased fiftyfold, and today there are approximately 90,000 chemicals used domestically in Canada and the United States. The largest concentrations of toxic substances are often found in the cheapest products. The reality is that with the sheer quantity of chemicals now present in our everyday lives, it has become an ever so daunting task to fully appreciate and identify hazards. Most Canadians do not have the time or expertise to determine which products, combined with other products, could be dangerous and more and more are counting on us, as their federally elected representatives, to ensure that we are doing this imperative work for them and that the laws and regulations in place are strong enough to protect them and their loved ones.

In the current version of CEPA, assessments are conducted on the singular impacts of each chemical individually. The significant change included in Bill S-5 would address the cumulative effects on human health and the environment that may result from exposure to the substance in combination with exposure to other substances and would require cumulative effects to be considered in the risk assessment through CEPA when information is available.

Another important aspect of this bill is the improvements to CEPA that address social justice when it comes to our health and our environment and recognize it is intrinsic to environmental protection. Bill S-5 explicitly requires that the federal government consider vulnerable populations in the assessment of toxic substances. Social challenges in indigenous, low-income and racialized communities are further exacerbated by environmental ones when a landfill, a water treatment facility or a chemical plant is located in their backyards. This change to CEPA would help ensure that the health of vulnerable communities is considered through the implementation of CEPA regulation.

As I mentioned in committee and in the House, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is the most important piece of legislation that most Canadians know very little about, yet it has been protecting the environment every day for decades. With the changes proposed in Bill S‑5, it will continue to protect the environment and all Canadians for decades to come. By passing this bill, we parliamentarians are clearly affirming that their health and safety will always be our priority.

I look forward to joining all members in this House in voting in favour of Bill S-5, moving it to the next level of our parliamentary process and, finally, ushering in a new era of environmental protection in Canada.

Motions in Amendment

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to take part in this debate on Bill S‑5, dealing with the important issues of the environment and climate change. As hon. members know, I have the pleasure and privilege of being the official opposition critic on the environment and climate change. I was named such by the leader of the official opposition and member for Carleton, and so I take the lead on these matters.

We all recognize that climate change is real, that humans played a role in climate change and that humans therefore have a role to play in addressing climate change and mitigating it as much as possible. I also want to remind members that this bill is at its final stage. We will support the spirit of the bill. We believe it represents significant progress in dealing with environmental challenges.

We have been waiting for such a bill, and rightly so, since the first version of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act was passed in 1999. It has been nearly a quarter century, or exactly 24 years, since there has been an update to this environmental protection legislation. It needed to be done, it has been done and we are happy about that.

I would like to draw my colleagues' attention to the fact that this bill is not new. It was introduced two years ago as a House of Commons bill, Bill C‑28. The work was under way, good progress was being made and, all of a sudden, it had to be abandoned. Why? Because the Liberal government, or rather the Prime Minister — I was told that many in the government and in that party did not entirely agree — in the middle of a pandemic, at the start of the fourth wave of COVID‑19, decided to trigger an election that cost Canadian taxpayers over $600 million, only to end up with about the same result.

Consequently, we lost over a year on this bill, which found its way back on the agenda through a side door, let us say. I am not saying that there is a main door and a side door. Let us say that the two doors are equally important: the door of the House of Commons and the door of the Senate. Oddly, the government decided to introduce this new bill by knocking on the Senate door. That is their right, but it is still surprising.

We are now at the last stage after having heard 80 witnesses and studied about 100 briefs. The bill, with its 60-or-so pages and dozens and dozens of clauses, received very little consideration in committee, in the Senate and here. As I said earlier, these are steps forward that are welcomed by environmental groups and by industry.

Before I go any further, I just want to make a small observation. Earlier, I heard the leader of the Green Party rightly point out that she finds it regrettable that, in our parliamentary system, independent members cannot bring forward amendments or take part each day in parliamentary committees to improve the rules. That may indeed be a bit troubling to see, as we are all elected, but the rules are the rules and they must be respected. We know the rules.

I should mention another situation that may seem a bit unfortunate for Canadian democracy, but those are the rules. In 2019, the Liberal Party obtained fewer votes than the Conservative Party. Who formed government? The Liberal Party, because they had more members. In 2021, the Liberal Party obtained fewer votes than the Conservative Party, but the Liberal Party formed government. Why? Because they had more members.

People who observe democracy in the true sense of the word will wonder how those who obtained the most votes do not form government. It is because our rules are established in that way. We, the Conservatives, are a party of law and order, and we respect the rules. Are we happy with the situation? Of course not. Do we follow the rules? Yes. We do our work properly. The same goes for all independent members.

Let us now go to the issue and substance of this bill.

As I said earlier, this bill is not brand new. It was tabled two years ago, but we had an election. This bill would refresh an old bill from 1999 that was debated and adopted by the House of Commons. That is why we have to refresh it.

I would like to mention three fundamental aspects. The bill is so thick I could talk about this for hours.

Essentially, the bill stipulates that everyone has a right to a healthy environment. This is a major breakthrough. At the same time, the concept of what constitutes a healthy environment is open to debate and interpretation, and needs to be defined. The bill proposes a 2-year period for developing a legal framework that establishes exactly what constitutes a healthy environment.

The first stage is a step in the right direction, and we welcome this progress.

The bill acknowledges the importance of vulnerable populations. These vulnerable populations must be taken into account when it comes time to develop or approve new projects with environmental impacts or to assess the potential toxicity of certain projects.

The bill also provides for the creation of a mechanism for regulating chemical substances. Some might call them toxic substances, but we prefer to speak of chemical substances that can be assessed in some way or another, but that must be effectively regulated by this bill.

This is why I think the bill is going in a good direction. It is not the end of the road, but it is a good direction.

We have to recognize that some green activists are very positive about it, and recognize that we can do something more and that this is not enough. We also have to recognize that industry people sometimes see things as tough but think this a good way to address the issue.

That is why this is a step in the right direction. It was eagerly awaited by environmental groups and industry folks who managed to work together at times and against one another at other times. That is democracy for you. This is the bill we ended up with.

This bill is another great reminder that this government is heavy on rhetoric but pretty light on concrete results.

Let us not forget that not so long ago, on April 20, 2023, the commissioner of the environment tabled five reports in the House that were not very positive. The reports were specifically about the government's concrete achievements. The commissioner, Jerry V. DeMarco, made a rather stinging mention of the Prime Minister's very ambitious goal of planting two billion trees by 2031. What a laudable commitment. How beautiful and exciting, emotional even, since he made it in the company of the person who was attracting the most attention worldwide on the environment. The Prime Minister actually used that individual to make an announcement that he considered historic, important and sensible for the future of the entire planet. He promised to plant two billion trees.

Once again, we see a lot of rhetoric and a lot of images, but very few results. We, the Conservatives, are not the ones saying it, it is the environment commissioner who has said that the tree planting program will not reach the objectives set by the government.

This same commissioner also stated that a good number of the regulations made and implemented by the government cannot measure actual effectiveness. It is fine to announce regulations that are supposed to be ambitious, rigorous and demanding, but the ability to assess results is lacking. There is a lot of talk and few concrete results.

The environment commissioner also stated that the government was not doing enough for species at risk. A COP15 conference was held in Montreal. I want to salute the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who, as we know, was an ardent environmental activist. He hosted the entire world in his backyard, because his riding is very close to where the conference was held. Protecting certain environments was one of the topics addressed at this conference. That was a good thing, so I say bravo. That said, the environment commission said that this government is not doing enough for species at risk.

I also could have talked about the report released by the UN at COP27, which found that, under this government, Canada is ranked 58th out of 63 countries. Canada, after eight years of Liberal governance, is ranked 58th out of 63 countries for environmental protection.

As my time has expired, I will happily and resolutely answer any questions.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to all of our excellent witnesses today.

I have two questions, one for Mr. Masterson and Ms. Morrison, and the other for the Manitoba Eco-Network, Ms. Fast. If you could just keep to a couple of minutes, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to get to my Manitoba colleagues. I have a little bit of a bias there.

Mr. Kurek mentioned that you had a joint submission with some of the environmental groups, which, frankly, was very heartening to see. I'm aware of some of the behind-the-scenes activities on Bill C-28, which, for the most part, I think everyone involved in the debate was pretty happy with. We're dealing right now with amendments that have come from the Senate.

I wonder if you have made the same kinds of efforts, and environmental groups have made the same kinds of efforts, to come together on issues like confidential business information to see what might be possible. There's obviously a confidence gap. On the other hand, we want innovation. We want to protect IP. We want those goals. We want public confidence. We want innovation.

Is there a third way, as I was suggesting the other day, or full stop are you...?

[Joseph F. Castrilli]

Mr. McLean, thank you very much for the question.

As you may know, there are already two challenges in the federal courts against the plastic manufactured items designation that's in effect pending the results of federal court cases. They were brought by an industry coalition concerned about that designation. The first of those two cases was actually brought a month after Bill C-28—which is the predecessor to Bill S-5—was tabled in Parliament. There's not necessarily a connection between the two, although the timing is...as I've suggested.

The basis for their concern, as I understand it from reading the notice of application, is that the constitutional foundation for CEPA is subsection 91(27) of the Constitution Act of 1867, the criminal law power. In order for federal legislation to be designated as valid based on the criminal law power, it has to have a valid criminal law purpose. The courts have said, essentially, that the problem has to be an evil or something that is injurious to the public.

I take it from the claims in the documents that were filed in federal court that the industry coalitions are suggesting that plastic manufactured items are not injurious to the public. That's their claim. How that will play out is for the federal courts to sort.

What I'm concerned about is—

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad my Conservative colleague shared that reminder about what led up to this bill, about how we got from Bill C‑28 to Bill S‑5, and about how so much time was wasted on what was really a totally pointless election.

As I see it, Bill S‑5 has three elements at its core. They are laid out in clause 2. These three elements are as follows: considering the exposure of vulnerable populations to toxic substances, considering the cumulative effects of toxic substances, and requiring labelling to indicate the risks posed by all products containing toxic substances.

These three elements are worded differently in the current version of this bill.

Does my colleague agree with these elements?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by wishing you a belated happy birthday.

I am pleased to rise on Bill S-5. I have not spoken in the House for a while. I have been too busy covering committees. It is nice to be back.

Of all the hundreds of bills I have debated, this one has to have the sexiest title: an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act, and to repeal a couple of words that I cannot pronounce Virtual Elimination Act. This bill basically replaces Bill C-28, which the government brought in during a previous Parliament.

When introducing this bill, the environment minister talked up the usual propaganda. He talked about Canadians knowing the urgency of the need for this bill and said that the government is responding to this urgency. I have to laugh, because, again, this bill existed in the previous Parliament, but the environment minister was part of the government that called an early election and effectively killed the bill, using crass political opportunism to take advantage of what were favourable polls at the time and also to kill the Winnipeg lab inquiry. Basically, it killed the bill, the same one that is so urgent that the government was seized with it but decided to waste a year by killing it with a cynical election.

Generally, as my colleague from Oshawa commented before me, we support Bill S-5. Our chemical management plan is probably the best in the world, along with our chemical engineers, especially in Alberta at DuPont. I used to work in Fort Saskatchewan, at a chemical plant there, with lots of great jobs, lots of very strong investment and high-paying jobs, which is very good for Canada.

This bill will also modernize the CEPA and ensure it sticks with a risk-based approach to management, as opposed to the more burdensome red tape and growing hazards-based approach.

The bill also recognizes a right to a healthy environment, which I generally support. I mean, who would not support a right to a healthy environment? However, I have to say I have great concerns that it does not define what that is in this bill, and it gives the government two years to do this. The failure to define this issue can have great implications in the future. I am very wary of a bill from the Liberal government that says, “Just trust us on this issue and we will get back to you.” There were five years of consultations on this specific issue, and the government is asking for two more.

Of course, I have to say that five years late from this government is not bad. The government is seven years behind on icebreakers; seven years behind on joint supply ships; seven years behind on fighter plane replacements; seven years behind on the offshore patrol ships; six or seven years behind on fixing the Phoenix pay fiasco; years late on buying handguns for our armed forces; years late on the frigate program, which has gone from $92 billion to $306 billion; years late on introducing whistle-blower protection; years late in getting ATIPs processed. I actually have some ATIPs that are so late and so old that they could have gone through a graduate program at university in the time it has taken for them still not to have been brought before this House. That is just to give colleagues the idea.

Those are just the examples that I am dealing with out of the operations and estimates committee. I imagine every single person in this House has further examples. While I fear outright malfeasance from the Liberals in leaving this issue open, I generally accept it, knowing that given the incompetence of the government, it will never get done.

Speaking of not getting stuff done on the environment, we have had lots of big announcements from the government. As I mentioned, the environment minister, when introducing Bill S-5, talked about the urgency of getting it done. He said Canadians have an urgency; the government has an urgency.

The Liberal government talks a lot but delivers very little. At the same time, we have the same environment minister in the paper this week, with a headline saying something about the environment minister slamming oil companies for sitting idle on the climate. That is from the government that killed Bill C-28, this bill, the urgent bill that was before the last Parliament, yet it is blaming the oil companies for not taking action.

We have some Alberta oil companies and transmission companies that are working on the environment, not sitting idle.

TransCanada PipeLines is investing in solar and wind for both its customers and to power its ops. Enbridge is building green energy to power its products. It is investing in 24 wind farms, five waste-heat recovery facilities and hydrogen facilities as well. These are companies that are investing in green technology, despite the government planning to phase them out and despite getting slammed by the environment minister for doing nothing. Both these companies, as well, have committed to zero carbon emissions by 2050, or neutral anyway. Suncor, CNRL and others, since 2012, have spent $10 billion on green energy R and D. Suncor, CNRL and Synovus have spent over a billion dollars in 2020 alone in green R and D.

If members remember, in 2020, during the worst of COVID, oil had a negative price. Oil companies and people had to pay to store the oil. CNRL lost a quarter of a billion dollars in 2020, Imperial Oil lost $1.3 billion and Suncor lost $3.2 billion, yet they were still investing in green energy R and D. Those are the same people the environment minister is slamming for sitting on the sidelines. They are actually getting stuff done while the government is not. That was $5 billion in losses just for those three companies, yet they still invested a billion dollars. It was $10 billion alone in the last decade.

This is from an industry that has had to weather the downturn in 2014 in oil, the 2020 crash and the Alberta provincial NDP trying to block the pipeline. The former NDP premier actually went on TV and said that she would block northern gateway. Of course, we also had the Liberal government with Bill C-69, which was the “no more pipelines” bill; Bill C-48; and everything else it has been trying to do to destroy that industry, which is investing in green R and D.

The environment minister attacks the companies for not doing enough, but they are doing their part for Canada. I would suggest to the environment minister, when he attacks these people for not doing enough, that people in glass houses should not be throwing rocks, or in his case people in glass greenhouses should not be throwing rocks.

I am going to look at the minister's own department results. These are numbers from the Treasury Board. These are not my numbers. These are not made-up numbers. This is from GC InfoBase, from the departmental results. In 2021, the environment minister achieved, with his department, 14% of its targets. That is one out of every seven. In 2020, it was 27%. In 2019, it was 23%. In the department's best year in the last three years, it barely got to 25% or one-quarter of its targets.

The minister has the gall to attack Alberta's oil industry for not doing its part. He attacks Canada's largest exporter of goods. The minister attacks the largest industrial employer in Canada of indigenous people. The largest investor in green R and D in the private sector, he attacks for not doing enough, yet he presides over the abysmal failure in his own department of just 14%. I am wondering if the environment minister would have stopped at scaling just 14% of the stairs at the CN Tower when he was illegally doing his protest and consider 14% a success.

There are other failures from the current government. The Auditor General reports in the “Greening Government Strategy” report that the government has failed on its results. Those are the exact words from the Auditor General. The report states:

...government decision makers, parliamentarians, and Canadians do not...know...whether the government will meet its...target.

It actually gets worse. The Treasury Board requires, as part of the greening government strategy, that assistant deputy ministers sign off on the integrity of the government's emissions reduction reports. Seventy-four per cent of the bureaucrats have refused to sign off on their mission targets.

We will support Bill S-5, but we actually need action and not just talk from the government.

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

Madam Speaker, it is always a good day to join my colleagues in the House of Commons for an important debate on Bill S-5, which was known in the last Parliament as Bill C-28. In the last Parliament, I served as opposition critic for the environment and had the chance to work with many members in the chamber who are quite concerned about the environment.

Since the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, was first put in place in 1999, we have not seen a redo or significant amendment to it. As we all know, life is becoming increasingly more complex. What I do realize is that there are voices on both sides of the House of Commons who care deeply about the environment. Some may have concerns about its impact on industry. We have also those who have concerns about how it impacts everyday Canadians. That is particularly important for when we have these debates.

The parliamentary secretary from Winnipeg has jumped onto his feet so many times today, accusing the opposition, and in this case the Conservatives, although we just heard from a Bloc Québécois member as well as from an NDP member, of essentially filibustering. Another member from Manitoba also just did that. Let us just put that to rest right now in my comments.

Let us be mindful that CEPA actually has Criminal Code implications. When someone is charged under CEPA legislation, ultimately the mechanism is through the courts through the Criminal Code. It is extremely important for us to understand, especially considering as life has become more complicated and as different levels of government are trying to see a more environmentally friendly place for their citizens, that there are going to be more complex trade-offs.

I am a former parliamentary secretary, and I know there are two types of parliamentary secretaries. There are those who burn shoe leather trying to build consensus in the House of Commons for their government's legislation or those who burn the shoe leather of their ministers by shining their shoes. Any parliamentary secretary who is trying to say that having debate in this chamber equates to filibustering is just wrong.

I am going to get on to the actual legislation, but I think I made the point that when we have this once-in-a-legislative-lifetime ability to have conversations about critical legislation that has Criminal Code impacts, it should be taken on, and we should be celebrating those members who feel strongly about these issues.

I would like to talk a bit about some of the concerns I have.

First, I take some issue with the government's approach when it comes to the regulation of plastics. It is no surprise that in the last Parliament we went through this at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development at length. What we found was essentially that the industry and the province, by the way, Alberta, was most affected by the changes to plastic regulation. What we have is the government trying to pivot desperately from a bad decision. That bad decision was to list manufactured plastic as a toxic substance under schedule 1. We were coming out of the pandemic.

We all know the same molecules that are used in a medical application are the same plastic molecules in a plastic straw. They are the same molecules that are used in a part for an electric vehicle, as electric vehicles are being made out of plastic more and more because it is strong and also lighter.

For the government, this created quite a conundrum, because the industry obviously resented the fact. Actually, some industry players have taken the government to court over this, and I believe the Government of Alberta has done the same. To solve this, the government has now created two schedules: the highest risk and the lowest risk. Again, it has not actually fixed the problem, which is putting in manufactured plastics that are used in our everyday lives. I could not be speaking to the House of Commons today without the use of some plastics in the computer I use or the mouse I use. Many of the members would not be able to get there without the transportation for which those plastics allow.

This is an area the government has complete hypocrisy and really should be held to account. It is not necessarily removing industry concerns when it comes to the new schedule, because they are still labelled as toxic. This will create a problem for the government as it tries to say plastic straws are bad and banned, but electric vehicles are good and it wants to see more investment in them. The government will have to deal with this issue at some point.

When it comes to the chemical management plan, this plan was first adopted by the Harper government when the Hon. Rona Ambrose was the environment minister. I am going to start with the good, and then I am going to get to the bad and the ugly.

The good is that the government has seen the wisdom in it and has decided to take the chemical management plan, which will allow for hazardous chemicals that have been shown conclusively can be risk managed, which means that there are plants in place and these companies are very good at it, to be utilized to make important substances we use in our everyday lives and in their chemical processes. This is important in an industrial economy. Yes, we still have an industrial economy. The Liberal government and the NDP's costly coalition has not done away with that just yet. That is an important part of it, so I am glad to see it maintained.

However, the Senate has created a number of changes to the legislation that could cause some considerable consternation, because oftentimes as legislators we will hear from different groups and try to placate some groups in how it is used by creating uncertain language.

For example, amendment 9 and 15 by the Senate would replace the schedule 1 substances that pose the ”highest risk” language, in reference to schedule 1 part 1, with more prescriptive language. We would prefer the “highest risk” language, because it includes the term “risk”. As I said, this is a risk management process, and the removal of the words “highest risk” would make the provision's enforcement unclear. This could lead to all sorts of litigation down the road. As I said, if someone violates CEPA, it would not be just a simple slap on the wrist or issuing a fine to industry that gets passed on to consumers; it would be serious business. We need to be very careful about this.

I would like to focus on something, because a lot has been said. The NDP has been really trying to balance its rhetoric during election cycles and to its constituents with what the Liberals have put forward with the so-called “right to a healthy environment”. Essentially, the New Democrats say they are going to take the legislation to committee and make it better, because they want to ensure it is a right.

I had the opportunity in the last Parliament to have an official from Environment and Climate Change Canada come and discuss specifically another piece of legislation. I asked about Bill C-28, and I said this, on April 14, 2021, at the environment committee's 25th meeting:

I'll be as quick as I can.

When people think of rights, they think of the charter, for example, that the government cannot do this to you, those kinds of civil rights, etc. There are multiple ones, yet the right to a healthy environment, what does that mean, and are they at the same level?

Ms. Laura Farquharson said, “Bill C-28 recognizes a right to a healthy environment under CEPA, and it's set out that there will be an implementation framework to delineate how that lens will be used in the administration of the act.”

My response was, “Will the right to a healthy environment under CEPA only solely apply to the regulatory enforcement of CEPA?”

She replied, “It not only applies to regulatory enforcement; it would apply also to how policies are developed under that act, but the point is, it only applies to that act.”

I replied, “It's a limited right, or not even technically that.”

She replied, “Right.”

Again, the NDP has basically sided with the government. Its members will say they are looking for further amendments, but it is clear this is just a factor, not a right, to be taken when a bureaucrat is looking through a lens of social economic responses, either for a policy or enforcement under CEPA alone. This is not a clear cut right, like we would see in the Charter of Rights or the Bill of Rights.

Those are a few of my concerns. I hope I have brought a few concerns to the floor that others have not. I also hope that the parliamentary secretaries can understand we are here to talk about CEPA, because this is the once-in-a-generation opportunity, as parliamentarians, for us to be able to discuss this important legislation.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am rather excited to rise today. It is always a pleasure to talk about the environment in the House, especially since I was a member of an ECOSPHERE fair on the environment for more than 10 years.

I ended up there when I was working for Christian Ouellet, whose work inspired me. I tip my hat to him. As an MP, he was the Bloc Québécois deputy critic for the environment and natural resources. I did a lot of research for him for studies on all sorts of environmental aspects when I was working on Parliament Hill. Whenever we talk about the environment, the diversity of what we might find always strikes us. It affects so many aspects of our lives.

When I agreed to be an administrator for the ECOSPHERE fair at the time, I found it really interesting how that helped me see the impact that common household items and personal use items have on the environment. There is a lot of talk about microplastics, construction and renovation materials, what we use for transportation, as well as all the new technology for green vehicles. This touches a very large area of activity. It also gave me the opportunity, over many years, to have many conversations and to attend many conferences on the topic.

That said, today I rise to speak to Bill S-5 on behalf of the Bloc Québécois. I will start by saying that we are in favour of the principle of this bill. However, the Bloc Québécois deems that the Quebec nation has sole jurisdiction over public decisions concerning the environment and our Quebec territory. That was brought up earlier during questions and comments, and my colleague from La Pointe-de-l’Île also said it, rather eloquently: On April 13, 2022, parliamentarians from all parties in Quebec’s National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion asserting the primacy of Quebec’s jurisdiction over the environment. Elected representatives in Quebec unanimously oppose any federal government intervention in environmental matters in Quebec.

The Bloc Québécois fully endorses that position and strongly advocates for the interests and values of Quebec in the federal political arena. For us, that is really crucial, particularly as we have nothing to learn from the federal government when it comes to the environment. Quebec really has a great reputation, as I said. I realized that when working for the former member for Brome—Missisquoi, a great environmentalist who travelled internationally to represent Quebec in green architecture. We even have an international reputation when it comes to environmental matters.

That said, under our current laws, the federal government has certain environmental protection responsibilities. The Bloc Québécois will do everything in its power to ensure that the federal government properly carries out its duties. That obviously involves updating the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA. This is a necessary legislative modernization, and we will give it all the attention it deserves.

We want to point out that Bill S-5 does not constitute a comprehensive review of the CEPA. In fact, not all parts of the act are covered by Bill S-5. The bill includes many elements that are particularly technical, but I will not go there today. Those elements merit serious study by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and I think that my colleague from Repentigny, who is on that committee, will do excellent work, supported by my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia. Together, I am sure they will do a great job on this file. We really want those members to do this work as part of the committee to ensure that the modernized law will truly allow the federal government to fulfill its environmental protection responsibilities, while respecting Quebec’s environmental sovereignty.

The Bloc Québécois has been critical of some of the partisan claims inserted into Bill S-5. We are not fooled by the Liberal government's claim that modernizing the act creates the right to a healthy environment. That is absolutely not the case, even according to the senior public servants who presented Bill S-5 to parliamentarians when it was tabled. First, it should be noted that all the sections pertaining to the right to a healthy environment and to vulnerable populations are found in CEPA's preamble. Their scope is that of the act itself. They have no impact on other Canadian laws. While the bill would add the protection of this right to the federal government's mission, the proposed amendments would not necessarily create a true fundamental right to live in a healthy environment, although that is the crucial point and what more and more people are calling for.

If the government were serious about creating a new right and had any political courage at all, it would propose that the federation partners hold a round of constitutional negotiations to include this right in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Since 2006, Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms has stated: “Every person has a right to live in a healthful environment in which biodiversity is preserved”. Once again, Quebec is a trailblazer.

Unlike CEPA, the Quebec charter, in Quebec's political context, is quasi-constitutional in scope. This is not insignificant. Clearly, Quebec does not need Canada's help to promote and protect the fundamental rights of Quebeckers.

When it comes to advancing environmental justice or strengthening environmental protection in Quebec, it is futile to pin our hopes on the Canadian government. Just look at Bay du Nord, for one thing. Look at all the money the federal government is putting into the oil sands. Look at any number of issues. While Quebec is trying move away from oil, put money into a green transition, and support workers, the federal government continues to invest in all these fossil fuels.

Nevertheless, the Bloc Québécois does want to work with all parliamentarians on chemicals management, the list of toxic substances, improved risk management accountability, comprehensive assessment of the cumulative effects of substances, and mandatory labelling requirements to ensure that the repealed act reflects, to the greatest possible extent, the recommendations of stakeholders such as environmental health protection groups and chemical industry partners.

For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois will be absolutely vigilant in its study of the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act. Bill S‑5, which amends the 1999 Canadian act, makes related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and repeals the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Marc Gold and went through first reading on February 9, 2022. It is now at second reading, which began on March 1, 2022.

Perhaps the bill does seek to strengthen environmental protection for a healthier Canada, but as I said, it lacks teeth. It lacks something that Quebec has already. The bill is identical to Bill C-28, which was introduced by the environment minister and received first reading on April 13, 2021, before dying on the Order Paper on August 15, 2021, when the 43rd Parliament was dissolved. That brings us back to the impacts of the 2021 election. How many bills died on the Order Paper just for vote-seeking reasons? This bill did, but many others did too. I have risen in the House often to speak out against that election, which traded four quarters for a dollar at a great cost to taxpayers.

If the government were serious about its desire to get things done, it would not always be holding up the work. In August 2020, when it decided to prorogue the House, many reports were shelved, including the report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected women. The 2021 election also resulted in a lot of reports being shelved. We see that there have been delays in far too many areas.

The bill is identical to Bill C‑28, as I said. This bill, which amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, is divided into 12 parts. We could come back to it in a much more precise way, but it is also important to mention that in 2017, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development published a report containing 87 recommendations, including the following: recognize and enforce the right to a healthy environment, address exposures of vulnerable populations to toxic substances, and recognize the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The government dragged its feet on this UN declaration for far too long. Canada was one of the last countries to sign on. It is really sad.

My time is running out. I had so much more to say, but I will just add that on the weekend, I met with Thibault Rehn, from Vigilance OGM. He was proud of the work the Bloc Québécois is doing in denouncing all this and calling for better traceability.

He also told me how proud it makes him to hear us talk about what we eat, what we put in our bodies, the work of the member for Berthier—Maskinongé at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, and the work of the Bloc Québécois in general when it comes to the environment. I realize that I get fired up when I talk about the environment, I could have said a lot more—

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am quite pleased to take part this evening in the debate on Bill S‑5 on the environment, especially since it has been nearly three weeks since I was named the official opposition critic on the environment and climate change. I want to thank my leader, the member for Carleton, for trusting me with this exceptional mandate.

It is also exceptional to all Canadians, especially to our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren because they are the ones we need to think about when we consider taking action regarding the environment and climate change.

I am weighing my words. I am the climate change critic because climate change is real. Humankind, men and women, have contributed to it and humankind, men and women, have to participate in mitigating climate change and the impact it has on humanity as a whole and on the planet.

I also want to commend my colleague from Dufferin—Caledon. I have had the honour of working with him for nearly two years. He used to be the environment and climate change critic. He was very helpful and instrumental in the entirely acceptable and honourable transition between my previous duties regarding industry and the ones I am tasked with now regarding the environment and climate change.

The debate today is about Bill S-5, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act.

Bill S‑5 is a technical bill that also provides a vision for the environment for the next 50 years. The bill also updates the regulations that have been in force since 1999. It goes without saying that we needed to make some major changes. We should also remember that this bill is more or less the same bill that was introduced as Bill C‑28 in the previous Parliament.

Speaking of the previous Parliament, more than a year ago, the current Prime Minister called an election one fine summer day when he decided that it would be a good idea to spend $630 million of taxpayers' money on an election that resulted in a House of Commons that was essentially the same. In the middle of a pandemic, when he said that we had to focus on the fourth wave, $630 million was spent. When we were in the midst of a fourth wave, the Prime Minister called an election, with the result that today, one year later, we are debating exactly, or just about, the same bill that had already been debated in the House of Commons. If it seems today that the government is not acting quickly enough on the environment, this is proof. The Prime Minister called a $630-million election so that the House of Commons would end up in about the same position, and now we need to start Bill C‑28 all over again.

It is rather surprising that the government decided to go through the other chamber. We know that we have a bicameral system, which means that there are two chambers, the House of Commons and the Senate. Both have the same legislative power. They both have the same power to tax citizens. The government decided to bring back Bill C‑28 but through the Senate this time. Then, the House of Commons needs to examine it. All of this is normal and above board, and I am not in any way trying to call into question the legitimacy of the upper chamber. On the contrary, I greatly appreciate the serious and rigorous work that senators do. They are able to work in a less partisan manner because they do not need to get re-elected. We therefore understand that it is exactly the same thing, but we are still rather surprised to see such an important bill originate in the Senate where there are no ministers, rather than in the House of Commons like normal. I guess I should say “as usual” because there is nothing abnormal about a bill originating in the Senate. I would not say that.

This bill was amended 24 times. The initial bill, Bill C‑28, was introduced again almost word for word in the Senate. The Senate examined it and made 24 amendments. We will have the opportunity to come back to that later, but in our system, it is important to understand that when the Senate makes amendments, the House of Commons must approve them.

If the House does not agree, the bill has to go back to the Senate so that the Senate can say whether it does or does not agree. If it does not, then the bill returns to the House. That can happen many times. Generally speaking, according to parliamentary tradition, a bill is passed in the House of Commons and then it goes to the Senate, which can make amendments. If the Senate does make amendments, then the bill returns to the House of Commons. If the House rejects the Senate's amendments, then the version of the bill passed by the House of Commons returns to the Senate. Usually, the Senate passes the same version, otherwise we can be playing ping-pong for a rather long time, and that may not necessarily be for the good of Canadians. We will see how things go with this 65-page bill.

Basically, as members were saying, this bill is an update of the Environmental Protection Act, 1999, which sets out general priority areas of action for the environment. We are wondering whether we should continue in that direction or whether things should be done differently. The bill talks about how everyone has the right to a healthy environment and about considering vulnerable populations.

When speaking of vulnerable populations, the first words that come to mind are “first nations”. The Conservatives' vision is that first nations must be and are partners in prosperity. When we undertake environmental projects, projects to develop our natural resources, projects that develop what we have on our land for the benefit of all Canadians and humanity through the intelligent use that we must make of it, we have to ensure that first nations are partners in prosperity.

In that regard, I would like to cite the example of natural resources in Quebec, which is a part of the country that I know well, to say the least. I am going to share a secret that I want everyone to keep under wraps. In my seven years in the Quebec National Assembly, I have always had a keen interest in natural resources, which I liked to call “natural riches”. Our resources are clearly riches when they are developed intelligently and respectfully.

Earlier I was listening to my colleagues and friends from the Bloc Québécois rightly talk about Quebec's expertise in green energy and renewable energy. Look at the hydroelectric projects. Let us not forget that Hydro-Québec was founded in 1944 under the leadership of the government of Joseph-Adélard Godbout. Then, in the 1950s, there was a lot of development involving this natural wealth that was the natural resources and the power of hydroelectricity. In 1949, the Beauharnois plant, which was managed by Hydro-Québec, doubled in size. In 1951, work began on the first major dams in the middle of the forest, the Bersimis-1 and Bersimis-2 dams, inaugurated in 1953 and in 1956.

In 1954-55, very serious work began and studies were conducted on the two major rivers in Quebec for their extraordinary potential for hydroelectricity, the Outardes and Manicouagan rivers. In 1958, the Government of Quebec gave the green light for the major development of the seven main hydroelectric power plants that we have on the Ottawa river and the Manicouagan river. Everyone remembers Manic-5. Work there began in 1958.

The was also true for Carillon in 1959-60. The Carillon plant is an interesting example because, as early as 1959, the government had indicated to Hydro-Québec that the plant was to be run by French Canadians, as they were called at the time, in other words, Quebeckers. It was the first time that Quebeckers were responsible for the development of a power plant, and it was inaugurated in 1962, if I am not mistaken.

In short, a great deal of potential was developed in the 1950s and 1960s with the work that was done. I mention this because, in 1965, there was an agreement between the Quebec government and the first nations where the Manicouagan-Outardes project was located. A financial agreement was reached in 1965. It was worth barely $50,000. Six years later, when the Quebec government, under Robert Bourassa, launched the massive project in James Bay, the first nations there were not happy and held large demonstrations to ensure that they would be included as partners in those projects. After years of good faith negotiations between the first nations and the government of Premier Robert Bourassa, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was established.

I may be wrong about that, which is fine because it will give me a chance to learn more about our national history in Canada, but, to my knowledge, that was the first time there was such a lucrative agreement between equals, a partnership for prosperity between a government and first nations.

That agreement set the bar. In just 10 years, the parties moved from a $50,000 agreement to a permanent agreement for prosperity with positive economic outcomes for first nations and for the Quebec nation in the hundreds of millions of dollars. To us, it is clear that first nations are partners for prosperity in natural resource and environmental project development. I hope my colleagues will forgive me for going off on a bit of a tangent, but I do think it was somewhat interesting.

Getting back to Bill S‑5, let us talk about the toxic substances list. This is the central element of this bill, which addresses the rules for assessment, ministerial powers and products that can become toxic. We all need to realize that science has made incredibly rapid progress, which is a good thing. What was being done 10 years ago is obsolete; it is already outdated. We have to constantly adapt and update our techniques for properly developing and identifying products that are now toxic. Used one way, they may not necessarily be toxic, but if they are toxic, we have to be sure of it and know exactly where they will end up. That is what this bill takes on while at the same time cutting red tape and redundancy.

There was a lot of environmental work happening as well, and some environmental rules overlapped. I would like to mention that responsibility for environmental issues is shared between the provinces and the federal government, and everyone must act in good faith. The federal or provincial governments must not duplicate one another's work or do something twice in order to say they did it while the other did not. We must be effective and we must be partners. Our leader and our party have been very clear on this.

We know that the Quebec government, through its premier, announced about a month ago that it wants to revive major hydroelectric projects. However, that does not necessarily mean building a new power plant in the middle of the forest on a river that is not currently developed. It could also mean refurbishing current facilities or taking a river with an existing dam and building a second one next to it. That is exactly what happened with Manic-5 in the 1970s. Another outlet was created on the west side, and it was named Manic-5-PA. A second power plant could be built off an existing dam to produce energy, not as much as the first, but still quite a bit.

These are projects that we believe in. If the government has the will to forge ahead, we have full confidence in the province's environmental assessors. There is no need for federal assessments in this case in order to accelerate access to this green energy, this hydroelectric energy.

That is why it is also important to update all the products related to the environment and human activity, especially chemicals. We fully support this update. It needs to be updated.

Where we do have concerns, however, is regarding how to go about updating it. This could lead to agreements that might undermine future efforts. It is important to understand that decisions in this field must be based on science as much as possible. They must be as rigorous as possible, and they need to take into account all the technological and scientific advances that are being made to identify a particular product. A particular product may be toxic initially, but when better treated, when properly treated and placed in the right location, perhaps it can be a creative source. We need to be careful in how this is defined. Nevertheless, the industry also needs to be aware of this situation and think about how to remove a product that is toxic today but could be made non-toxic later on with proper and effective treatment. This needs to be proven.

I am going to talk about risk management, but first I want to talk about the general principles that we agree on.

We agree with the principle of the right to a healthy environment. That goes without saying, although I might add that this is nothing new. I learned that this morning by doing some research and talking to some people who are a lot more familiar with this file than I am. The state of Michigan enshrined this fundamental principle in law in 1970. They did that over 50 years ago in Michigan, a very industrial state in the heart of the United States. That description of Michigan is a bit of an understatement since Michigan is home to so many industries, including the auto industry. That state enshrined in law the principle of the right to a healthy environment in 1970. To my knowledge, it has not gone bankrupt yet. Yes, we can live like that.

The same is true of Yukon, which enshrined this principle in its legislation in 2002.

As I said earlier, Bill S-5 seeks to reduce the red tape and the duplication of work for the shared provincial and federal jurisdiction. As long as everyone agrees, as long as work is not duplicated and, most importantly, as long as neither government steps on the other's toes, I am sure everything will go well.

That is why, as I stated earlier and mentioned in a question to my Bloc colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue, we have confidence in the provinces, whether for Hydro‑Québec projects or the third link project.

Let us come back to the issue of risk management.

It is a very delicate situation that deserves to be well known. Canada has laws concerning risk management that are among the best in the world. We are known and renowned for that. It is nothing new because the chemical and petrochemical industry has existed in Canada since Confederation. We have always been a leader in development, but also in risk assessment, especially over the past 50 years.

Canada is a world leader in risk management in several areas. I had the pleasure of describing the development of Quebec's hydroelectric sector in detail and the major projects that were implemented in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and on James Bay. Our expertise in hydroelectricity is world renowned.

The same goes for carbon capture. Here in Canada, we have developed techniques and made some cutting-edge technological and scientific breakthroughs. We should be proud of this knowledge, which we can export, because pollution is a global problem. Other places in the world do not have the same stringent standards as Canada, and unfortunately, pollution travels.

In Canada, we have champions in the areas of green, solar, wind and hydroelectric energy and carbon capture. Let us be proud of our accomplishments and our national success stories. Let us also be proud of what we are capable of doing to export them. This creates wealth for our country, but above all, it creates wealth when we share our expertise with the rest of the world so the entire planet recognizes and agrees that Canada is a leader in many fields and that its leadership will benefit all of humanity.

When a pollutant like CO2 arrives at the border, it does not bother with the ArriveCAN. It wastes no time crossing the border and coming straight into our country.

Canada is not the only country facing major problems because of climate change. Canada has valuable expertise, and we need to spread the word. We need to champion that expertise.

I want to come back to Bill S‑5. I have one minute left and just enough time to say that 24 amendments have been proposed and we have concerns about nine of them. They are the ones we think create more problems and more red tape, so we should be more wary of that.

In closing, for us as Conservatives, climate change is real, humans are partly responsible for it and they must make the necessary efforts to correct the situation. Since this government came to power and implemented the Liberal carbon tax, pollution in Canada has not decreased. On the contrary, it has emptied the public's wallets and people are not getting their money's worth, contrary to what the Liberals say. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said as much.

For us, the environment is first and foremost about reducing greenhouse gas emissions through research and development and access to green energy. We want to accelerate the implementation of projects and promote Canadian expertise.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his passion for his province and for fresh water, which I share.

As the hon. member will know, Bill S-5 was first introduced as Bill C-28 in this House, which was then Bill S-5 in the other place. I am going to preface my question with a shout-out to Senator McCallum from northern Manitoba, an indigenous senator who really made a big impact through amendments to the bill, those related to indigenous communities and peoples in Canada, by recognizing, as the hon. member has said, the importance of consistency with UNDRIP and recognizing traditional knowledge.

I wonder if the hon. member would add some further reflections on the indigenous content and whether the bill has been improved. Will he work with the government to further improve the bill?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for her thoughtful remarks and her good work on the environment committee. The hon. member will remember that CEPA reform was first introduced as Bill C-28 in this House in the last session and is Bill S-5 in this session.

I wonder if the hon. member can reflect on whether the Senate strengthened Bill S-5 and improved it. Will she support getting it to committee quickly so we can thoroughly discuss the issues she has raised on the floor today?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, the current bill is the same as Bill C-28, which was introduced in the previous Parliament.

Does my colleague know why the government chose to call an election before passing the bill? Was it because, for the government, getting a majority was more important than this environmental legislation, or does he think it was because the government needed to get the hon. member re-elected to make it easier to pass the bill?

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the debate on the Speech from the Throne so many months from when it was delivered.

I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Kitchener Centre. What a pleasure it is to work with him in the House, and I wish I could be there in person. I will be soon, I hope.

I was in the House the day the Speech from the Throne was delivered, back on November 23. It was a wonderful thing that our Governor General delivered, for the first time, a throne speech not only in our two official languages but also in Inuktitut. I had the great honour of knowing Her Excellency from many of her previous incarnations, including when we once served on the board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development together. She will be a fantastic Governor General, and I was very pleased to be here in Ottawa to hear her Speech from the Throne.

As the Governor General noted at the time, on November 23, we were still in the throws of the devastating events that hit British Columbia. The hon. member for Abbotsford was just speaking of the devastation from the flooding and the landslides in the Fraser Valley. This extended into my own riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands, but the most devastating and catastrophic impacts were clearly more in Abbotsford and up through the Fraser Valley. Every land route to reach the Lower Mainland was cut off by these extreme weather events.

When the Speech from the Throne was delivered, we were only 10 days from the end of COP26, the global climate negotiations, which were not a dismal failure but they certainly failed to succeed. COP26 did not do what was required in this desperately pressing moment.

When I read the Speech from the Throne now, as two months have passed, I am struck by how the words are wonderful, but the actions promised are inadequate to meet the spirit behind the words. I will address several elements, and my other colleague from the Green Party, the member for Kitchener Centre, will address other critical issues we are very concerned about.

I want to address the reconciliation theme within the Speech from the Throne, the vaccination questions and of course the climate crisis. In no area have the promised actions lived up to the strong words that speak to the multiple crises that face us.

Let us start with the challenge of reconciliation. Many members in this place have quite appropriately mentioned that we are still in the throes of the discovery of the missing children. These are children taken forcibly from their homes and their families over a period of more than 150 years and forced into situations that were unimaginably horrible for those little children, many of whom did not return home. We have to face this. We have to continue to support first nations communities in a national program, which was required of us by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission years ago, to find out what happened to every single indigenous child taken from their home who did not return, to find out what happened, how they died and where they are. Every family needs to get a report, and that continues to be a priority.

With the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry, we were told very clearly that many things must be done to protect indigenous women, who are at greater risk of being murdered. We have not done those things. One ties in very closely to the climate crisis and to many other aspects of the things this modern, industrialized country fails to do well, and that is ground transportation. The missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry stated that people are more vulnerable when they are low income and there is no public transit where they live. Their choices are basically to hitchhike, which is not a choice. We need to restore Via Rail and bus service across this country.

We also need to ensure the settlement announced in January between the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and the wonderful, heroic Cindy Blackstock be real, be made real and to stay on top on that. We applaud the $40 billion set aside, but as Cindy Blackstock has said, it needs to be monitored closely to really deliver.

On international vaccines, I want to again raise, as I have before in the House, that we understand now from this pandemic that we will not end it. We know what comes after omicron. Someone mentioned what comes after omicron. It is pi. That is the next letter in the Greek alphabet. That is the next variant we are going to get. We must vaccinate everyone on the planet, make this place our home as a human family and stop being a living petri dish to see how many new variants we can get. We should be vaccinating around the world, but Canada has avoided and not answered the question: Will we support South Africa and India in asking for an exemption from the patent protection of the World Trade Organization? Under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS, we can get an exemption so that vaccines are more available around the world.

Turning to climate, one would think that a person in the Green Party could not be unhappy with a Speech from the Throne that says, “Our Earth is in danger” and “This is the moment for bolder climate action.” Again, they are great words, but in the pages devoted to talking about the climate crisis, there is no mention of what our Paris commitment is, nor that we should hold global average temperature as far below 2°C as possible and attempt to hold to 1.5°C.

These numbers in themselves I think cause people's eyes to glaze over: 1.5°C does not feel like a real number; it sounds small. I want to remind members that in this last year, nearly 600 British Columbians died, according to the science, in the heat dome in four days. My own stepdaughter nearly died and she is in her early thirties. She nearly died because the temperature in Ashcroft hit 50°C. These are killer extreme weather events.

As I said, 600 people died in British Columbia in four days. This was an extreme event, and the same day that the temperature kept going higher and higher, in Lytton the town centre virtually burnt to the ground in minutes. The fire truck did not even get out of the fire station. That town, by the way, has still not been helped and is still not being rebuilt. We know that wildfires have spread over hundreds of thousands of hectares in British Columbia. Then, of course, in November we had atmospheric rivers that knocked out much of our infrastructure, again killing people and hundreds of thousands of livestock and animals. The heat dome in late June and early July was estimated to have killed one billion sea creatures along our shorelines.

These events happened at a 1.1°C global average temperature above what it was before the industrial revolution, so 1.5°C is not some safe place that only dreamers can hope we hold to. It is where we need to be to hope human civilization hangs on. We are on track after COP26 to be much closer to 3°C than 1.5°C. Canada's target remains the weakest in the industrialized world, and we seem to have substituted what we need to do and what we must do to ensure our children have a livable world, which is 1.5°C to stay alive, with net zero by 2050. That creates the false impression that getting to net zero by 2050 holds to 1.5°C. It does not. It only holds to 1.5°C if the pathway to net zero by 2050 goes through 2030 with emission cuts that go down dramatically. They must go down. Canada's target range of a 40% to 45% cut is completely inadequate to meet the global demands on us to pull our fair share of the weight to reduce emissions to hold to a livable planet.

Likewise, in the Speech from the Throne, there is no mention of banning the export of thermal coal. There is no mention of the just transition act. There is no mention of the right to a healthy environment, nor of bringing back the Canadian Environmental Protection Act amendments that were in Bill C-28, which died on the Order Paper when the unnecessary election was called.

With the 30 seconds I have remaining, I say to all members in this place that I cannot vote for the Speech from the Throne for all of its wonderful words if the future of my grandchildren is not protected. We have to say it loudly. We have to be honest. We have to be clear. Maybe we have to tell everyone to just look up because we do not have much time. We must ensure the current government takes heroic action to save this planet and all humanity.

[Lisa Gue]

Mr. Bachrach, thanks for your long history of advocacy on environmental rights at the municipal level, as well as in Parliament.

We too are encouraged that the government has introduced Bill C-28, and at the same time, we are discouraged that it has yet to be debated. I hope to have the opportunity in the not-too-distant future to return to your committee to discuss those important measures related to environmental rights and other really critical updates to CEPA that are an important complement to Bill C-230.

In terms of your specific question about how the two relate, as Elaine already said, they are complementary. I would note that, of course, Bill C-28 is primarily amending the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the provisions related to environmental rights and environmental justice that are specific to the authorities of CEPA, whereas Bill C-230 takes a broader view of federal actions.

There are other legislative authorities relating, for example, to the management of nuclear power, nuclear waste, federal environmental assessment and pesticide regulation, just to name a few that could have implications. I think it's a strength of Bill C-230 and, again, an important complement to what's being proposed in Bill C-28, that the proposed national strategy would take a holistic, whole-of-government view to redressing environmental racism.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Ms. Gue, as you know, the NDP has long fought for environmental rights to be recognized in legislation, and we're very pleased to see a reference to the right to a healthy environment embedded in Bill C-28. Unfortunately, that bill has been stalled. It hasn't been debated in the House yet and we're disappointed that it hasn't moved along any further.

How does this bill that we're talking about today, Bill C-230, relate to the concept of environmental rights?

[Dr. Elaine MacDonald, Program Director, Healthy Communities, Ecojustice Canada]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the invitation to appear today to speak to this critically important bill to develop a national strategy to address environmental racism. As Lisa already said, the horrific occurrences of the last few weeks have made it even more apparent how desperately we as a society need to address all forms of systemic racism within our country.

I'm joining you from the traditional territories of several first nations, including the Huron-Wendat, the Anishinabe, the Haudenosaunee, the Chippewas and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

Ecojustice is Canada's largest environmental law charity. We work with and on behalf of individuals, communities and first nations, and other non-governmental organizations to advocate for stronger environmental laws in Canada. Ecojustice is committed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action towards reconciliation with all indigenous communities, and we are embedding a focus on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our organization.

I will start by building on Mrs. Gue's remarks about the U.S. executive order on environmental justice. Following the executive order, the U.S. EPA developed an environmental justice screening and mapping tool, or EJSCREEN. Similar to the analysis mandated in Bill C-230, EJSCREEN exposes the substantive inequalities of environmental hazards and risk impacting racialized communities across the United States. EJSCREEN combines demographics with environmental data to calculate environmental justice indices at the census block level. Data such as concentrations of air pollutants, proximity to hazardous waste sites, proximity to waste-water pollution discharges, cancer risk from exposure to hazardous air pollutants and more are mapped and available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Communities, industries and regulators all use EJSCREEN for various purposes. For example, regulators use it to assess environmental and human health impacts at the community level; and communities access the analysis to redress environmental racism, to push back against environmental racism.

To demonstrate this point, I've pulled some information from EJSCREEN on an area near New Orleans that is infamously known as “Cancer Alley”, near a cluster of refineries and chemical plants. EJSCREEN shows that this community is almost entirely low-income people of colour. They are at the 99th percentile, among the highest in the U.S., for cancer risk from inhalation of air toxins, and similarly high for proximity of waste-water pollution discharges. That is just some of the information compiled and analyzed on the risk and hazards from pollution and toxic substances. Other hazards, such as coastal flooding from climate change, are also available through EJSCREEN.

Finding similar information on impacted communities in Canada is nearly impossible. For example, in the area known as “Chemical Valley” near Sarnia, Ontario, a cluster of refineries and petrochemical plants surround the Aamjiwnaang First Nation Reserve. While visiting homes within the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, I have seen how close industry is. I have smelled, tasted and felt the pollution in my throat and in my eyes. I recognized my privilege when I returned to my home in Toronto.

The only federal environmental database on pollution in Canada is the very limited national pollutant release inventory, or NPRI. As the title indicates, all the NPRI provides is information on pollution releases from industrial sources and other facilities. There is no demographic information and no assessment of impacts on communities. Therefore, in its present form, it is not a tool that can be used to assess and work towards substantive equality.

The data analysis mandated by Bill C-230, particularly in paragraphs 3(3)(a) and 3(3)(b), could start to fill this urgent need in Canada. That is why Ecojustice fully supports the bill and recommends that it be passed by all parties and that the data analysis be publicly available so that everyone, including other governments, may use it to inform decisions that impact racialized and indigenous peoples.

However, if there is an interest in strengthening the bill, Ecojustice has some recommendations for additional provisions. We recommend an amendment to set out an obligation for the Government of Canada to take all necessary measures to ensure that environmental assessments and risk assessments under federal laws identify potential impacts on indigenous and racialized peoples and ensure that approvals, permits, licences and other federal decisions do not perpetuate, intensify or exacerbate environmental racism. In addition, we recommend that the bill include a low-risk, low-barrier legal mechanism for individuals and communities to enforce an alleged failure of that obligation.

The last point I want to make is that I'm very familiar with Bill C-28 to amend CEPA, and I can reassure the committee members that Bill C-230 is entirely complementary to Bill C-28. Bill C-28 lays out the foundations for recognizing the right to a healthy environment in the administration of CEPA and requires consideration of vulnerable populations, but it does not mandate the collection and analysis of data on environmental racism as prescribed by Bill C-230, nor does Bill C-28 contain a specific focus on environmental racism. Both bills are needed and are long overdue.

I wish to thank the committee for its time. I'm happy to try to answer any questions you may have.

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

Minister, it seems strange to me that you're okay with a balance in your Canadian Environmental Protection Act bill, but not this one. Do you not agree that striking a balance is important?

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

Minister, Bill C-28, the CEPA bill, refers to the right to a healthy environment that “may be balanced with relevant factors, including social, economic, health and scientific factors”.

Would you support adding similar language to this bill to ensure that, when setting targets and creating plans, reductions are balanced with social and economic factors in mind?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

I'm pleased to be with you today to discuss the 2021-22 main estimates for Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Parks Canada Agency and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

I am joining you today from beautiful north Vancouver, which is on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam first nations.

As the chair noted, I am accompanied by a number of officials who will assist me as required.

Since we last met, the government has remained focused on safeguarding the health of Canadians. We've also been focused on laying the groundwork to build a healthier environment and a healthier economy.

The economic recovery that will follow this pandemic will be defined by the global transition to a low-carbon economy. This is an opportunity that Canada cannot miss.

Over the course of the last number of weeks and months, our government has delivered on key commitments to address the twin threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. We unveiled an ambitious but achievable target to reduce our emissions by 40% to 45% by 2030. Our target is supported by a detailed, strengthened climate plan containing over 64 new measures and billions of dollars in new investments.

To ensure that this government and future governments are held to account on climate action, we have put forward Bill C-12, the Canadian Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act. I look forward to this committee’s consideration of the Bill and remain open to constructive amendments that will strengthen the legislation.

Further, through Budget 2021 we are investing an historic $4 billion to ensure we protect 25% of our land and water by 2025 and 30% of each by 2030, and that we protect species at risk.

We are moving forward with a comprehensive agenda to eliminate plastic pollution, including a ban on harmful single-use plastics, making producers responsible for their plastic waste and developing minimum recycled content standards for products. These measures will drive a circular economy for plastics, representing a significant environmental and economic opportunity that will reduce greenhouse gases and create thousands of new jobs.

We've also introduced the first substantive update to Canada's cornerstone environmental protection legislation, CEPA, in over 20 years. Bill C-28 will recognize, for the first time in federal law, Canadians' right to a healthy environment. It will better protect Canadians and the environment from toxic substances.

With regard to the main estimates, total authorities for Environment and Climate Change Canada in 2021-22 amount to just under $1.7 billion. While this appears to be a decrease relative to 2020-21, this difference is, in part, due to delays in the rollout of the low-carbon economy fund as a result of COVID-19, as well as delays in submitting proposals by provinces and territories. This funding will be re-profiled into future years to ensure provinces and territories can access all funds that have been committed and approved.

Additionally, the climate incentive fund and the chemicals management plan both had fixed start and end dates by design. These programs came to their scheduled end dates. However, the CMP was renewed in budget 2021 and other investments were also announced in the budget. Subject to parliamentary approval, these decisions will be reflected in future estimates.

It is expected that funding for Environment and Climate Change Canada will increase in subsequent estimates due to budget 2021 investments.

For Parks Canada, the Agency’s Main Estimates for 2021-22 are approximately $1.129 billion, which represents an increase of $26.1 million when compared to the previous year. This increase is primarily due to the ratification of collective agreements.

For new funding, the largest item is $222.1 million to support capital assets in Canada’s national parks, conservation areas and historic sites.

For the Impact Assessment Agency, the main estimates total $79 million, which represents a $2.5-million increase compared to the 2020-21 main estimates. That difference is primarily due to an increase in the agency's grants and contributions to support public and indigenous participation.

As I noted at the beginning of my remarks, our government's top priority remains supporting Canadians through the pandemic, but we recognize that we need to look toward the future and lay the groundwork for a sustainable recovery. We have made significant progress, and many of these initiatives are captured in these main estimates.

I look forward to discussing them with you today.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the committee for welcoming me today. This has been a very interesting discussion already.

I want to note my appreciation for MP Turnbull and MP Duncan, whose learned and helpful comments I think are advancing the conversation around this amendment.

I'd like to start from a place that will lead into my comments around the pandemic and prorogation and the importance of this amendment. I want to start with the land recognition for the Algonquin nation on whose territory I sit here in the small town of Chelsea, Quebec.

It's a well-known fact across the country that Parliament, of which the House of Commons is a part, in the National Capital Region, is situated on unceded traditional land of the Algonquin people. Of course, all of us acknowledge the importance of the indigenous peoples, with whom we have a very special relationship. In the context of this pandemic, it's very important for me to greet the Algonquin people and rightly to recognize it, if only because we have learned a great deal from that people during this pandemic.

When we discuss prorogation as we discuss the amendment brought by MP Turnbull, which contemplates the bringing forward of two exceptionally important witnesses to help the public understand the relevance of a parliamentary reset at this critical juncture of Canadian history, it's important to understand how each of our communities is experiencing this moment.

MP Duncan did a fabulous job, I thought, of bringing the voice of her constituents forward to this committee to help us appreciate the importance of the amendment in relation to our constituents.

I would like to do the same, starting with the experiences I learned from with the Algonquin communities of Kitigan Zibi and Rapid Lake. These communities, along with so many, have been turned upside down and had to fundamentally reconsider what it is to be in a community, to provide security, safety and adequate health services to their people. That is what we're doing across the country. That's what we have been challenged with since day one, on that fateful day the pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization back in March 2020.

I think it is germane to the conversation of prorogation and to our government's desire to take a step back, assess the broader needs of the country, be accountable and step forward with a Speech from the Throne that would be reflective of that particular moment.

As we, as members of Parliament, have reflected on our constituents and their experiences, we've had the opportunity to bring this information back to the government. Certainly in the context of the communities of Kitigan Zibi and Rapid Lake, it has been very helpful to our government to understand the distinct experience they have had.

I'd like to underscore how particular it is on many first nations reserves across Canada. It is so particular because quite often the provision of health care services is a partnership between the community, health care professionals and the Government of Canada.

This is certainly the case in the Algonquin communities that I represent—whether it's in relation to the procurement of vaccines and the distribution of vaccines to these communities, whether it's in relation to the procurement and distribution of rapid testing in these communities, whether it's in the procurement and distribution of personal protective equipment. On all of these health care fronts, there have been distinct conversations that have been very challenging at times, because the communities recognize that the danger they face is a distinct one.

There are many elders whose knowledge of the culture and the language and whose health circumstances are so threatened. It doesn't just threaten human individuals and family members, which is tremendously serious, but it literally affects the nation. One can count the number of fluent Algonquin speakers—not on two hands, of course, but they do not number in the thousands, and many of them are older and most vulnerable.

These are the circumstances in which the conversations have come up around what the next steps are, what the needs are, and how we are going to move forward as a nation, as a Canadian nation, as an Algonquin nation. These are the kinds of conversations that have come up.

I have been particularly blessed to have the learning opportunities with my colleagues Chief Whiteduck in Kitigan Zibi and Chief Ratt in Rapid Lake as they have, themselves, struggled and wrestled with the implications of this pandemic.

There have been outbreaks, and those outbreaks have caused great consternation among the members of the nation, far and wide, and in communities that may not have been suffering an outbreak, because there are so many families that are connected in the language tradition, which is so linked.

I think we can all appreciate, as distinct members of Parliament representing different regions, that the lived experience of every Canadian through this pandemic has been one that is unique and distinct. Each one of us has a particular voice that is so important to bring forward, whether in the context of this standing committee or in relation to the government's broader performance.

Therein lies the relevance of the prorogation process, of that reset, that stock-taking—the ability to come together, assess, and project a vision forward that satisfies and maintains the confidence of the Canadian people. That, to my mind, was the fundamental significance and importance of prorogation.

I think the witnesses whom MP Turnbull prioritizes for this motion are altogether the appropriate witnesses. I'm not going to get into the partisan dimensions of it. At the end of the day, this committee is the master of its undertakings. It can determine at a later point if further witnesses may be needed, but I think it would be a great start to hear from the Deputy Prime Minister and finance minister and from Minister Chagger. They can shed important light on what was going on in the run-up to prorogation, and certainly we now have the benefit of hindsight. MP Turnbull spoke to this in the latter stages of his commentary. We are all well aware now of the chain of events that started with prorogation and then went through the Speech from the Throne, into late November and a financial update, and then through the budget process, culminating recently in the federal budget.

All of these critical elements ensure that Canadian views are incorporated into a governance plan that makes clear what the government's priorities are and are not, which I think leads Canadians to an appreciation of how their values are or are not being reflected in the government's priorities. I think we saw some very important things in the Speech from the Throne pursuant to that prorogation, which made it very clear that the government did want to take a series of significant steps forward in a series of significant new directions that Canadians needed to understand clearly, that they needed to appreciate and assess in relation to their own priorities.

I know that my constituents in the fabulous and vast riding of Pontiac wanted to have their say. They wanted to convey their preoccupations, because they had lived, as we all had, through six months of pandemic—a lifetime of pandemic, it felt like, at the time—and they wanted to know where our next priorities were.

I can think of no better witnesses than those proposed by MP Turnbull. I look to the Speech from the Throne. I look back with hindsight and I see so many distinct priorities that did require elucidation through that Speech from the Throne to ensure that Canadians were being brought along in understanding where our government was going. For example, I don't take it as a given that every constituent of mine in the Pontiac was aware of our government's priority of reforming the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I don't take that as a given at all. It was important to indicate clearly that this was a direction our government was going to go in.

If I take a further step back, because I would like to return to that theme of clearly identifying to the Canadian public priority areas where our government was going to move forward, I think it's important to recognize that the government was in a situation where there was a pandemic to manage as the number one priority, and everything else was going to be secondary. That's what the Canadian people expected.

The economic challenges associated with the pandemic were to be another top priority—understood—but Canadians such as my constituents in the Pontiac, whether they're from small towns in the upper Pontiac like Chichester, L'Isle-aux-Allumettes and Sheenboro—tiny places, some of them, of 200, 300 or 400 souls—or whether they're in the suburbs of Gatineau, which I also represent, also sought assurances.

They sought assurance from our government, and clarity in direction from our government, around our ability to not fall victim to what Mark Carney referred to as the “tragedy of the horizon”. In my riding, we sometimes like to say it's being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Some people like to text at the same time as they do those two things.

The point is that they wanted to know that we would be able to manage a pandemic and cope with the economic struggles that so many are facing, whether it's small businesses, workers, distinct sectors or family units. They wanted to know that we could cope with the immediate crisis related to health and the economy while still being able to focus on the future and while maintaining our gaze on those issues that are top priorities for the country at any point in time—issues such as climate change. We all know the climate change crisis is not going away. We all know it's real. We all know we need to bring measures forward to deal with it.

The whole purpose of the prorogation process was to ensure that focus, that clarity of direction, and that ability to indicate exactly how we were going to deal with the pandemic. The fundamental approach that the Prime Minister adopted since day one was to stand behind all Canadians and to have their backs. It was also to be able to progress on files of significance that have a relationship with the pandemic but may not be strictly the pandemic and the economic recovery.

To go back to that logical sequencing of prorogation—the Speech from the Throne, the fall economic update, and through to the budget—we now have that hindsight, of course. We can see clearly the purpose of prorogation being to clearly outline these priorities.

MP Turnbull was very kind to point out a passion that he and I share, and that I know so many of us collectively share, around environmental protection. The Speech from the Throne was abundantly clear. In fact, there was an entire section dedicated to the new and stronger directions our government would be taking on a fact-first basis, on an evidence-based basis, to address climate change and to tackle toxic regulation.

I'd like to continue along the same lines and discuss the prorogation issue and its impact because I consider this discussion very important.

One of the impacts of the prorogation was the new plan to address climate change. That plan had been promised in the Speech from the Throne. Late in the fall of 2020, two months later, we delivered the most detailed plan in the history of Canada, one that outlines historic investments and combines industrial policy and economic transformation with environmental protection.

A few days later, we introduced Bill C‑12, which is designed to create an accountability framework for the implementation of the federal plan and the objectives to which we have committed internationally.

There followed a budget detailing historic investments and planning by milestone years. There is the net zero accelerator of the strategic innovation fund, but several other things as well. However, now isn't the time to discuss the budget because I don't want to stray from the subject covered by our amendment. What I'm trying to do, however, is demonstrate the unifying theme of Bill C‑12, from the prorogation process and Speech from the Throne to the climate change plan and fiscal investments to ensure climate change accountability.

International targets were recently revealed in an announcement that our Prime Minister made together with President Biden. We can see how the prorogation helped clarify the direction in which we as a government want to take Canada. It's essential that we show where we're headed, how we'll get there and through which processes and consultations. All that was revealed thanks to the prorogation.

I think it would be of vital interest for this committee to have an opportunity to hear the observations of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in particular and to ask her questions. The prorogation has obviously helped more clearly shape the direction in which the government would like to take Canada in a pandemic context.

I appreciate that we are now in a third wave and Canadians are looking to today, looking to tomorrow, and they want to know when they will be able to get back to normal. If they haven't had their first vaccine already, they're looking forward to it. These are the conversations, which are future-oriented, that Canadians want us to have, because they know we prorogued Parliament at the end of the summer so we could reset, get ourselves aligned, project forward our priorities, not fall victim to the tragedy of the horizon, be able to focus on the here and now, on the medium term, the long term, and that's exactly what has happened.

Canadians are now past that moment of the Speech from the Throne. They have absorbed it, and by and large I believe they have appreciated it. Certainly in the riding of Pontiac I've heard some very positive feedback. They have absorbed the fall economic statement. They are aware of how our government has gone through the process of procuring vaccines and distributing them to the provinces, and they are now witnessing before their very eyes the great lift, the massive acceleration. They're optimistic and wanting to focus on the future. I think we're all wanting to focus on the future.

I think that Canadians are also recognizing that the prorogation process ultimately, as MP Duncan so rightly pointed out, is fact-oriented, evidence-driven and, above all, science-focused. I tip my cap to MP Duncan for her incredible leadership, not just during the pandemic but well prior, putting in place the building blocks of scientific institutions in our Canadian governance system that have greatly assisted this government.

We need only look at the significant contributions of our chief science adviser, Dr. Mona Nemer, whose consistent advice, both to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, is there because of MP Duncan's solid work as Minister of Science in our previous mandate.

I take the opportunity to recognize that, as prorogation was being contemplated, our government was in a state of constant review of advice that the chief science adviser was providing, which is ongoing today. Most recently—and this is available for the public and for MPs to review—I would commend to you the March 31 report by the chief science adviser related to scientific considerations for using COVID‑19 vaccination certificates, an important discussion that many of our constituents bring forward. I see correspondence on this issue regularly. This issue has been canvassed by our chief science adviser and by the network of Canadian scientists across so many institutions—academic, research and otherwise—who are bringing forward the best possible evidence and considerations as our government evaluates next steps.

Let's step backwards in time a bit to look at some of the important considerations at a scientific level. These all fit into a context of the importance of stock-taking, pressing pause on parliamentary proceedings and restarting in a timely manner, which was done through prorogation.

Back in September 2020, there was a report—again, available on the chief science adviser's website—on the role of bioaerosols and indoor ventilation in COVID‑19 transmission. We read about these issues in the news now, but we can't be blasé about the fact that so many Canadian experts in the field of bioaerosols and indoor ventilation came together to work with the chief science adviser to deliver pertinent information that has helped our government in the context of the Speech from the Throne, in the context of the measures identified in the fall economic statement and so on, which have helped define the path forward that our government has chosen.

Back in the summer of 2020, the chief science adviser issued a report on long-term care in COVID‑19. It was a report of a special task force that brought forward considerations around the improvement of long-term care. Having been beset by this pandemic for over a year, I think all Canadians will agree that we need our best and brightest non-partisan scientists, researchers, long-term care providers and medical experts. We need them bringing their most clear assessments and their recommended course of action to our government. We needed it then. We received that in the summer of 2020. Through the process of prorogation and subsequent Speech from the Throne, great clarity has been provided in relation to what our government's commitments are to improve care for our most vulnerable seniors.

Prorogation has enabled the consolidation of our best expert thinking and of external scientific expertise being brought to bear in a non-partisan, even-handed way, and of course for discussion with our colleagues and partners at the provincial, territorial, municipal, Métis, first nations and Inuit governance levels.

I think it's fundamentally important that we appreciate what MP Turnbull's amendment is all about. It recognizes that it's a good thing to discuss prorogation. It's a good thing to be accountable to Canadians for decisions related to prorogation and the subsequent pivot into a Speech from the Throne, which was a renewed direction being made clear to all Canadians.

It's so important to appreciate a very appropriate offer of key members of the government's executive—Minister Chagger and Minister Freeland—to be available. I think it would be a good thing for this committee to move forward on the basis as proposed by MP Turnbull. I think it could help bring us to a place where there is perhaps a greater appreciation of some of the items that were incorporated into the Speech from the Throne. These may not have been part of the public dialogue or the set of issues that were being debated through the spring and summer of 2020, when the focus was just so entirely on COVID and the economic ramifications. I think these witnesses are entirely well positioned to discuss this.

Having regard to the way the Speech from the Throne clearly identified.... I referenced this earlier in my remarks and I do want to allude back to this, because it's a matter of current interest and a matter of personal and Pontiac priority. The Speech from the Throne clearly indicated that our government was going to reform the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which is a law that ensures Canadians and their environment are protected from toxic substances. It ensures that such substances are properly regulated and stringently assessed for their impacts on humans and the environment.

This law has not been amended in 20 years. The Speech from the Throne clearly indicated to Canada that this is where our government is going. We are going to improve it. We're going to strengthen it. We're going to have regard for the experts, and we're going to have regard for the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, which came forward with a committee report in 2017 that incorporated 87 recommendations.

The government said it was moving forward with this, and now here we are, in late April 2021. A couple of short weeks ago, I had the distinct privilege of announcing with Minister Wilkinson the tabling of Bill C-28. It is another instance of our government delivering, in a forthright and very clear fashion, on commitments made in the Speech from the Throne.

Bill C-28 would bring toxics regulation in Canada back to the cutting edge, where it needs to be to protect humans. Again, I'll bring up the metaphor of the “tragedy of the horizon”. It's so important that our government demonstrates its vision to look beyond the pandemic and demonstrates to Canadians that we're capable of focusing on matters that ultimately go to our children and grandchildren and to all living organisms in the future. So many toxic substances are persistent and bioaccumulative and have long-term generational impacts.

Bill C-28 was tabled just as promised in the Speech from the Throne and just as enabled by prorogation. I'm sure the two witnesses whom MP Turnbull has proposed would be able to comment on the importance of that moment in helping bring us to the tabling of Bill C-28.

Let me see if I've forgotten anything.

In conclusion, I'd like to note that we've included in Bill C‑28 a very important partial reform of environmental rights in Canada. We propose to add the legal concept that every individual in Canada has a right to a healthy environment. Perhaps my colleagues from Quebec, Mme DeBellefeuille, in particular—I don't know whether she's still here—know that section 46.1 of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms grants Quebeckers that same right to a healthful environment. It isn't provided at the federal level, however, and that's a significant deficiency. We've just included it in Bill C‑28.

I know that the citizens of Quebec, more particularly my fellow citizens of Pontiac, Vallée-de-la-Gatineau and Collines-de-l'Outaouais, expect us to guarantee increased environmental protection. They expect us to manage simultaneously the pandemic and resulting economic turmoil, the problems associated with contaminants and climate change and privacy in this digital era. They expect us to be able to juggle these various public policy issues.

And that's what the prorogation has enabled us to do. It has helped us set the record straight and rely once again on various scientific views and evidence that lead us to take action and step up efforts in certain directions. It has enabled us to be accountable to Canadians by telling them where we now stand, what we've done to date and where we're headed.

I would conclude on a note of appreciation. It's rare to have an opportunity before colleagues to share an understanding of the importance of one particular moment, a moment of prorogation, as a matter of parliamentary procedure. It's rare to have the opportunity to consider a particular moment that of course has important consequences. It stops the business of Parliament and requires a restart.

It's so important to be able to reflect back on that moment and understand the why, and to then be able to shift our focus towards what happened thereafter, why that prorogation was so relevant, and how it enabled where we are now. It's fundamentally important, because where we are now is in a much stronger place, with an economy that is rebounding faster than the vast majority of economists ever expected. We still have work to do. We still have jobs to recover. But month by month, quarter by quarter, the acceleration of our GDP growth is nothing short of remarkable. Don't take my word for it. You just have to listen to the latest pronouncements from the Bank of Canada or any of our major banks.

We're on the right path. We're getting vaccinated. Canadians are optimistic about this summer. They're appreciative of the fact that we laid out a clear path through prorogation and through the Speech from the Throne to deliver on commitments that go beyond health and the economy, to link in matters of environment, to link in matters of indigenous reconciliation, and to link in matters of the transformation of Canadian society towards one that is much more appreciative of the important contributions to our future productivity that bringing in more workers can provide, whether that's through immigration or through a child care plan that can benefit so many people. We have the benefit of hindsight to see what prorogation was all about. It's so much easier to understand why we're in a strong posture now.

Once again, I thank my colleague MP Turnbull for making me feel so welcome, occasionally making me laugh, and making me feel as though we are in this process together. I think we can all recognize that not everyone on this committee is going to share the same views and that we're going to have sharp debates. That is good and appropriate, so long as we all treat each other with common decency and respect, which on occasion has lacked. We know that we are all in this together. Our constituents expect us to work hard together.

Thank you for the opportunity, Madam Chair, and thank you to my colleagues for their patience.

[Sonya Savage]

To start with, we're concerned with the overreach—the overextension of the federal government's reach into provincial jurisdiction, which is in the area of waste management—by designating plastics as a toxic substance. It really goes right to the heart of what is provincial jurisdiction.

The recently introduced Bill C-28 changes don't change the position that the provinces have. I think this position is shared by a number of other provinces. My colleague, Minister Nixon, our environment minister, has signed a joint letter with his colleagues from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, addressing some of those concerns.

Fundamentally, provinces are the main jurisdiction, the main actors, in any sort of plastics product management. It's within provincial jurisdiction that each of our provinces is taking action to reduce plastic waste. We all are taking this seriously and taking steps to reduce the waste. We don't want to see the federal government duplicating the outcomes of provincial programs. We want to continue working with the federal government, but the current proposed approach to plastic products interferes with the outcomes in our programs here in our provinces.

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

Thank you very much.

Madame Boudreault from Bosk, it sounds like your products are very innovative. Are you going to be affected adversely by the designation of some of your products? Are your products going to be on the schedule, whether the current schedule or a future schedule as featured in Bill C-28?

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

Mr. Burt, you've mentioned Bill C-28. Obviously, the Liberal members here are likely going to say that Bill C-28 removes the word “toxic” from the regulated schedule; however, the rest of the bill still refers to the substances as toxic, so that doesn't really do anything.

Why is the word “toxic” so harmful to your industry?

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Yes. In essence, it's similar to the question of my colleague Mr. Bittle, who asked whether Bill C-28 could address concerns about Bill C-230. If Bill C-28 is well thought out, it should in principle address discrimination.

[Laura Farquharson]

If the amendments to CEPA that were introduced in Bill C-28 pass, then the Minister of Environment and Climate Change will be required to undertake research and studies, and the Minister of Health will be required to undertake research and studies, including biomonitoring surveys which could focus on vulnerable populations. That gathering of data and the requirement to gather that data, as I think your previous witnesses talked about too, are really crucial to understanding what the issues are and being able to come up with solutions that will work.

I think, as well, we have the right to a healthy environment. That's been recognized under the act, and in that, an implementation framework will be developed.

To the point of how important it is to have people involved in that, it has to be developed in two years. There will be consultation on that, so that we understand what's important to people in developing what a right to a healthy environment means under CEPA.

An implementation framework must address principles of environmental justice, which is obviously a broader term than environmental racism, but I think captures the intersectionality—

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much.

I know officials from ECCC briefly discussed it, but yesterday the government introduced legislation to strengthen the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, delivering on an important commitment. I was wondering if you could help the committee understand, or perhaps explain—I know you got cut off at the end—the linkages between Bill C-230 and Bill C-28, and how Bill C-28 could help address issues identified in Bill C-230.

[Laura Farquharson]

Bill C-28 recognizes a right to a healthy environment under CEPA, and it's set out that there will be an implementation framework to delineate how that lens will be used in the administration of the act.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I come back to Bill C-28, which states the right to a healthy environment and the protection of vulnerable populations. Do we not have tools there to deal with injustices?

[Laura Farquharson]

Was the question how does Bill C-28 address the siting of industry?

Sorry, it did break up a little bit. Was that the essence of the question?

[Laura Farquharson]

Bill C-28 recognizes a right to a healthy environment for every individual, as provided under CEPA, and then requires the development of an implementation framework to elaborate on the way that right will affect the administration of the act. There's no requirement to create a vulnerable populations panel, but perhaps it was that implementation framework that you're referring to.

At the same time, though, there are a number of specific references to vulnerable populations in the bill, and there are probably two ways in which Bill C-28 addresses the issue underlying this bill.

The first is in the research requirements. Amendments would require the Minister of Health to conduct biomonitoring surveys, and the bill specifically says that those could be in relation to vulnerable populations.

Also, there's explicit recognition that the government's duty to exercise its powers must be undertaken in a way that protects the environment and human health, including the health of vulnerable populations.

Both ministers must consider available information regarding vulnerable populations and cumulative effects when conducting and interpreting the results of certain risk assessments and in developing the plan of chemicals management priorities.

Maybe I'll stop there. That's probably enough. Those are all ways that, I think, get at some of the issues that underlie this bill as well.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Okay. Let me repeat the question.

Bill C-28 would establish a vulnerable populations panel to help better understand and address the effects of toxic chemicals on vulnerable populations.

Would that panel help to address some of the concerns raised in this bill, and do you see that as a step towards ending environmental racism in Canada?

[Laura Farquharson, Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment]

Good afternoon. I am Laura Farquharson. I am director general of the legislative and regulatory affairs directorate of the environmental protection branch at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

I'm accompanied by my colleagues from ECCC: Pascal Roberge, director of the program integration division for the national pollutant release inventory at the science and technology branch; and Silke Neve, director of the information and indicators division of the strategic policy branch. As well, David Morin is here from Health Canada. He is the director general of the safe environments directorate at the healthy environments and consumer safety branch.

We are pleased to appear today to participate in your study of Bill C-230.

As you know, this bill requires the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to develop a national strategy to redress the harm caused by environmental racism, in consultation with provincial, territorial and municipal governments and indigenous and other affected communities, persons and bodies.

This bill comes at a time when, as public servants, we are seized with issues around diversity, equity and inclusion and with combatting systemic racism, and when Canadian citizens are becoming increasingly seized as well.

In my remarks, I'll focus on some of the proposed or existing legislative or policy frameworks that, to some extent, address the subject matter of this bill. Then I will turn to David, who will speak about Health Canada's role in protecting the health of Canadians from environmental risks.

You discussed the definition of environmental racism.

While there is no commonly accepted definition of environmental racism, it generally refers to racial discrimination in environmental polices, practices and actions, and includes the way in which minority groups may bear a disproportionate burden of adverse health and environmental impacts from environmental pollution. Think, for instance, of landfills or polluted air.

Existing federal legislation and recent amendments ensure the government seeks to protect the environment and health of all Canadians, including vulnerable populations.

Yesterday, as you know, the government tabled Bill C-28, which aims to strengthen the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, with a particular focus on recognizing a right to a healthy environment as provided under that act.

If passed, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Health will be required to develop an implementation framework to set out how a healthy environment will be considered in the administration of the act. Among other things, the implementation framework will elaborate on principles such as environmental justice and non-regression. Interested persons, such as stakeholders and partners, will have an opportunity to participate in the development of the implementation framework.

In addition, the ministers are required to conduct research, studies or monitoring activities to support the government in the protection of a right to a healthy environment. This requirement could, for instance, assist in addressing environmental justice issues. For example, it could include the collection and analysis of data to identify and monitor populations and communities that are particularly vulnerable to environmental and health risks.

Additional amendments proposed in the bill tabled yesterday would recognize in the preamble the importance of considering vulnerable populations and cumulative effects. They would codify a number of new elements, including defining “vulnerable population”; requiring the Minister of Health to conduct biomonitoring surveys, which may include vulnerable populations; ensuring that vulnerable populations and cumulative effects are taken into account when developing and implementing the new plan of chemicals management priorities; and requiring that the ministers consider available information on vulnerable populations and cumulative effects when conducting and interpreting risk assessments.

To turn to another area of work, ECCC has been working closely with Indigenous Services Canada—

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you.

You'll understand that because of the Quebec exception, Bill C-230 and Bill C-28 are of less interest to Quebec than to the rest of Canada.

I'll ask you another question. One of the fundamental principles guiding the action of my political party is the defence of Quebec's environmental sovereignty. This isn't just the position of the Bloc Québécois, but also the position taken by the governments of Quebec throughout history.

Bascially, it's Quebec laws that protect the environment in Quebec. We think these laws take precedence over Canadian laws because our territory belongs to us and because the federal government doesn't have to encroach upon Quebec's environmental responsibilities. I'm thinking of the drinking water in particular.

Bill C-230 directly challenges the enforcement of environmental laws in the provinces and even purports to assess their enforcement and monitoring. Did you think about this crucial aspect when drafting this bill? Are you sensitive to the constitutional reality of Canada and the official position of the state of Quebec?

If so, how do you reconcile this understanding of the division of powers in Canada with the provisions in your bill?

The Environment

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians need a stronger environmental protection law that confronts 21st century issues with 21st century science. Every Canadian should be able to live their lives free from harmful effects of chemicals.

Today we tabled Bill C-28, the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act. Our proposal to strengthen CEPA will help us to better protect the environment, recognize a right to a healthy environment and provide industry with certainty and predictability. Today we will ensure a healthier environment for Canada and for everyone.

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-28, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)