Bill C-219

Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights

An Act to enact the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights and to make related amendments to other Acts

This enactment enacts the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights , which provides that every person residing in Canada has the following rights:
(a) the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment;
(b) the right to reasonable, timely and affordable access to information regarding the environment;
(c) the right to effective, informed and timely public participation in decision-making regarding the environment, including in relation to any Act of Parliament respecting the environment and any environmental policy of the Government of Canada;
(d) the right to bring a matter regarding the protection of the environment before courts or tribunals; and
(e) the right to request a review of any Act of Parliament respecting the environment, any instrument made under such an Act or any environmental policy of the Government of Canada.
The enactment also provides for an application by a person residing in Canada for an investigation by the responsible Minister of an offence under any Act of Parliament respecting the environment other than the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 . In addition, it provides for an environmental protection action to be brought by a person in respect of such an investigation as well as an environmental protection action to be brought by a person against a person who has contravened or is likely to contravene an Act of Parliament respecting the environment if certain conditions are met.
The enactment amends the Auditor General Act to allow petitions for the review of any Act of Parliament to be made respecting the environment, any instrument made under such an Act or any environmental policy of the Government of Canada.
The enactment amends the Federal Courts Act to allow an application for judicial review to be made by a person not directly affected by the matter in respect of which relief is sought if certain conditions are met, including the condition that the matter relate to the protection of the environment.
Finally, this enactment also amends the Canadian Bill of Rights to provide that the right of the individual to life, liberty and security of the person includes the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.

Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C‑219 under Private Members' Business.

The House resumed from December 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C‑219, An Act to enact the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights and to make related amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Madam Speaker, it is once again a real honour and a pleasure to rise here to speak to my private member's bill, Bill C-219, the Canadian environmental bill of rights.

I would like to thank, once again, Linda Duncan, the former MP for Edmonton Strathcona, for drafting the bill and tabling it in, I think, four successive Parliaments, starting in 2009. She is such a real champion for environmental justice in Canada, and an environmental lawyer who knows how to draft bills, despite some of the aspersions we have heard tonight. This is a good bill and a really necessary bill. Her bill, the same bill, basically, passed second reading in 2010. The Liberals and the Bloc Québécois joined the NDP in supporting the bill, so it was passed at second reading. Unfortunately, it died when the election was called in 2011. I am hoping that the Liberals will join the Bloc and the NDP in voting for the bill tomorrow when it goes to a vote.

I would also like to thank everyone else who has supported the bill over the years, especially by helping me understand the legal ramifications of it. I know a lot about ecology, but environmental law is not my specialty. I would like to thank people like Lisa Gue from the David Suzuki Foundation, Stephen Hazell from Nature Canada, Josh Ginsberg and Melanie Snow from Ecojustice, Joseph Castrilli from the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and many others.

Canadians are rightfully proud of their beautiful landscapes and clean environment. They do not want to have it degraded in any way. We have, of course, a number of pieces of federal legislation that protect the environment, including the Canada Environmental Protection Act, CEPA, which deals mainly with toxins. We have heard a lot about it tonight. There is the Fisheries Act, which speaks to aquatic ecosystems, the Pest Control Products Act and others that deal with biodiversity and other aspects of environmental health.

The revised CEPA, through Bill S-5, says that Canadians have the right to live in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, but that right in CEPA is restricted to the protections within that act. It applies only to CEPA and not to other federal pieces of legislation. Bill C-219 would not add any obligations to the federal government with regard to environmental health. It would merely broaden what is said in CEPA, in terms of the right to a clean and healthy environment, to cover the rest of federal government legislation.

The bill is long overdue. Canada voted in support of a motion at the UN General Assembly last year, which said exactly that, that a right to live in a clean and healthy environment is a human right. The motion passed unanimously. Canadians provinces, Ontario and Quebec, have very similar legislation. The courts are not clogged, despite the concerns I hear from the Conservatives, and the sky has not fallen, although I hope the sky is perhaps a little clearer in Ontario and Quebec because of the rights that are in their pieces of legislation.

I have had discussions with the minister of environment about the bill, and he had some concerns about its constitutionality when we first talked. Therefore, I asked the House of Commons legal team for an opinion, and they were clear in their opinion that this is basically a human rights bill that would add no obligations on the government regarding the environment, other than living up to the obligations set out in other federal pieces of legislation. Because it is based solely on federal legislation, it would not in any way infringe on provincial jurisdiction. It is clearly constitutional. I would like to thank the Bloc Québécois for standing with me on that. It would carve out CEPA, so there would be no conflict with the powers set out in that act, despite what I have heard from members of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party this evening.

I will close simply by saying that the vast majority of Canadians believe they should have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment. The government has international obligations to make this a reality, and my bill, the Canadian environmental bill of rights, would do just that. Let us get this to committee to make sure it works to ensure a clean environment for all Canadians.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, a Canadian environmental bill of rights sounds like a great idea. Who could possibly think a healthy environment, especially with clean air and water, is a bad idea? Certainly not me.

That said, Bill C-219, an act to enact the Canadian environmental bill of rights and to make related amendments to other acts, falls far short of what we as a country need. It is my hope that, working together, we can make amendments to this legislation to make it something Canadians can be proud of.

None of us in this House lives in a vacuum. When we consider legislation, we know what we are doing is not an academic exercise in political science. What we say here and what we do here have implications that go beyond this room. That is why we debate proposed legislation and policies. We need to try, within the best of our abilities, to get things right, and there is probably no issue on which there is a greater need to get things right than when we are dealing with the environment.

As a father, l want to do what is right and to set an example for my two sons. I want them to be able to look back on my time in Parliament and feel their father spent his time doing good, that he was working for their future and for the future of Canada.

Of course, there are sometimes things over which we have little or no control. Climate change, for example, is a global issue. The parties in this House, though we may differ on our approach to the issue, are in agreement that Canada is a very small player when it comes to dealing with climate change. That does not mean we should not do our part. Rather, we need to understand that our best will only produce positive results on a global scale if we can convince other nations of the seriousness of the need for immediate action.

Let us take a look at Bill C-219, what it would do and what it would not do and consider how we can improve it.

Bill C-219 would enact the Canadian environmental bill of rights, which provides that all residents have the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment; the right to reasonable, timely and affordable access to information regarding the environment; the right to effective, informed and timely public participation in decision-making regarding the environment; the right to bring a matter regarding the protection of the environment before courts or tribunals; and the right to request a review of any act of Parliament respecting the environment, any instrument made under such an act or any environmental policy of the Government of Canada.

Bill C-219 would also amend the Canadian Bill of Rights to provide that “the right of the individual to life, liberty and security of the person includes the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment”. It is important that we safeguard the right of present and future generations of Canadians to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. We also need to confirm the Government of Canada's duty to protect the environment so as to protect the collective interests of Canadians in the quality of the environment for the benefit of present and future generations.

It is also important to ensure that all Canadians have access to adequate information regarding the environment, justice in an environmental context and effective mechanisms for participating in environmental decision-making. This is to enhance public confidence in the administration and enforcement of environmental laws, including by allowing individuals to request reviews of laws, to apply for investigations of offences and to bring environmental protection actions.

Protection of our natural environment has long been a core Conservative principle. We want to conserve and strengthen what is good. As we know, it was a Conservative prime minister, the right hon. Brian Mulroney, who took strong action to stop the acid rain problem. When confronted with a climate problem, Conservatives know how to get the job done.

I am encouraged that Bill C-219 calls for increased transparency in information relating to environmental matters. Conservatives have long called for government transparency and access to information.

However, I am concerned that, under this bill, decision-making power on environmental matters would be transferred from the legislature to the courts. This seems unwise, as I am not convinced that the judiciary has the necessary expertise to delve into policy issues.

To my friend opposite, who I am sure is about to suggest that many in this House are also not policy experts, I say that the responsibility still resides with us. I would suggest that we spend more time considering policy than most judges. Policy debates should happen through representative institutions and electoral politics. Courts are not well equipped to examine policy instruments, nor do they have the expertise to evaluate the consequences of various policy options. Not only do they not have the expertise to do so, but they are not elected officials either, and it is not within the purview of the court to make such decisions.

We have a very recent example of the problems that can ensue when the House delegates its responsibility to someone else. The Liberal government, in its wisdom, or more accurately, in its lack of wisdom, has tasked the CRTC with implementing provisions of the Online Streaming Act. As a result, streaming companies are restricting what Canadians can access online, and the government does not know what to do as it tries to force them to pay what amounts to a tax.

Furthermore, the CRTC, which has no expertise in these matters, has announced that it is putting all new radio licence applications and any complaints relating to radio on hold for two years. Meanwhile, it is trying to figure out how it is supposed to regulate what Canadians can and cannot see online. It is abandoning its core functions to take on this task, because this government had no idea of the effects of its legislation or what it is doing. Given that experience, is it any wonder that I have concerns about transferring decision-making functions on environmental matters to the judiciary? We have judges to enforce our laws. This bill, it seems to me, transforms them into a legislative authority. That is going too far.

I think everyone in the House agrees on the need for a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. We also agree on the need for more transparency and public input. Where we disagree is on how to combat climate change. The Liberals believe that they can tax Canadians until they can no longer afford to heat their houses or drive their cars. They think that will solve Canada's emissions problem. In Canada, with our cold weather climate, our options are not as varied as they are in some other countries. It is important that we focus on the development of new technologies and Canadian ingenuity as the key to lessening, then eliminating, our dependence on fossil fuels.

Conservatives believe that, in order to have a strong economy and maintain good health, Canada must have strong, coordinated and achievable environmental policies. The Conservative Party believes that responsible exploration, development, conservation and renewal of our environment are vital to our continued well-being as a nation and as individuals. An environmental bill of rights is a nice idea in theory. This bill, though, needs a lot of work to make it acceptable.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am so glad to rise today to speak in support of the MP for South Okanagan—West Kootenay's Bill C-219, the Canadian environmental bill of rights.

Before I speak to the bill, I want to acknowledge that I am grateful to the Algonquin Anishinabe people and that we are here on their unceded territory. I am grateful for their environmental stewardship and the leadership of many first nations, Inuit and Métis communities and individuals who continue to advocate for stronger environmental protections for present and future generations. I also want to acknowledge the work that a fellow New Democrat and former MP, Linda Duncan, has done to make the bill a reality.

I am so glad to be speaking to a Canadian environmental bill of rights. While I was thrilled to be able to push for, strengthen and pass a right to a healthy environment, under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, unfortunately, the government rejected many of our amendments and actually ended up limiting the scope of Bill S-5 so we could not tackle the enforcement. CEPA lacks the force and scope to fully protect Canadians' right to a healthy environment.

However, Bill C-219, the environmental bill of rights, would ensure that the right to a healthy environment is applied across Canadian legislation. It would give Canadians legal tools so that, first, they would have the power to hold the government accountable on effective environmental protection, including ensuring that they have standing before the courts and tribunals. Second, it would give them a voice in decisions impacting their health and the environment. Third, it would affirm the duty of the government to protect the environment for present and future generations. I want to touch on each of these three elements.

First, the ability to hold the government accountable is critical, because while the Liberals are willing to say the right things, more often than not they refuse to do the right thing. People are tired of and disappointed with broken Liberal promises. The bill would provide concrete mechanisms for accountability, which would enhance public confidence in the administration and enforcement of environmental laws, including by allowing individuals to request reviews of laws, to apply for investigations of offences and to bring environmental protection actions.

Second, the environmental bill of rights takes a more comprehensive approach to safeguarding our right to a healthy environment and would make sure that people have a voice in decision-making, which is critical. The bill would ensure that all Canadians have access to adequate information regarding the environment, to justice in an environmental context and to effective mechanisms for participating in environmental decision-making.

Third, the bill would address the government's responsibility to protect the environment for present and future generations of Canadians. The right to a healthy environment for future generations was something that the Liberals and the Conservatives teamed up to vote against. Despite the advocacy of environmental organizations, first nations leaders and many Canadians, the government refuses to acknowledge its duty to future generations. Ensuring a healthy environment for present and future generations requires hard work. Ensuring a healthy environment means taking proactive measures to tackle the effects of our warming planet and to reduce our emissions.

I want to take a moment to talk about a related New Democrat proposal, which is to establish a youth climate corps. Like President Biden's American Climate Corps, a youth climate corps in Canada would engage young people, create jobs, support conservation and address climate change. Bill C-219 states that “Canadians have an individual and collective responsibility to protect the environment for the benefit of present and future generations”. Young people, whose futures are most impacted by the climate crisis, feel this intensely. They have marched in the streets and have staged climate strikes, and they want to be part of the solution. A youth climate corps would be a way to harness the passion and the power that young people have to protect and uphold Canadians' right to a healthy environment.

The New Democrats' vision of this would create jobs in three sectors. First, there would be jobs in emergency response during extreme weather events like wildfires, heat domes and flooding. Second, it would create jobs in strengthening community resilience, with things like making forests more resilient to fires, enhancing natural ecosystems, and wetland protection. Third, it would also create jobs in greenhouse gas reduction, including things like apprenticeships in renewable energy, installing solar and wind power and heat pumps, doing building retrofits and building public transit systems.

This past summer was devastating. It was the worst wildfire season on record. We are seeing not only enormous forest fires every summer now but also floods, hurricanes and heat domes, which have killed hundreds in British Columbia. If we want a healthy environment for all, we need to take our responsibility to future generations seriously. We need to take strong actions. We need to meet this moment with actions that match the scale and the urgency of the crisis we face.

Therefore, I urge the Prime Minister to implement a youth climate corps and I urge my colleagues in the House to pass the environmental bill of rights. The House of Commons legislative team has confirmed that it is constitutional since it would simply build in tools for accountability to pre-existing federal legislation. We need to give Canadians the mechanisms for individuals to request investigations of unlawful activity that harms the environment and to ask the courts to enforce federal environmental laws.

The Liberal members who have spoken to this claim they cannot support it because the Canadian Bill of Rights is not the appropriate place for the right to a healthy environment and that their approach is better because it only applies to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. However, legal experts, environmentalists and citizens from coast to coast to coast are calling on the government to apply the right to a healthy environment more broadly and, critically, to build in accountability. We cannot allow government members to keep throwing up their hands when it is time to roll up our sleeves.

Establishing a youth climate corps goes hand in hand with an environmental bill of rights. To guarantee a healthy and safe environment for all, we have to respond to the changing climate and extreme weather events, lower greenhouse gas emissions, mobilize climate action, strengthen community and environmental resilience, invest significantly in renewable energy and have strong regulations that protect the right to a healthy environment. This must be done in partnership with indigenous peoples, frontline and vulnerable communities, labour unions, worker co-operatives, civil society groups, academia and business, and it must include a whole-of-government approach.

Earlier this year, we won a huge victory in establishing the right to a healthy environment in CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Bill C-219 would extend this right beyond CEPA to apply more broadly. Even more important, it would give people in Canada the ability to hold polluters to account when environmental laws are violated.

We know that the corporate-controlled Conservatives will not vote for it. Their national executive is mostly lobbyists for industries such as oil and gas. What we have seen from the Liberals is equally disappointing. Despite saying that they believe in climate change and the right to a healthy environment, when it comes down to it, they put the needs of rich CEOs over people and the planet. They water down, greenwash and delay real action. They invited oil and gas executives to help write their climate policy, and they do not have the courage to stand up to big oil. Only New Democrats are willing to take on wealthy CEOs, who are gouging Canadians while raking in record profits and destroying our planet.

The Prime Minister himself voted for this bill when the NDP put it forward in 2010. Now that he is in power, what is he going to do? I urge my colleagues to vote in favour of this bill, give Canadians access to the legal tools to protect the environment, give young people hope for their future and give future generations a chance at a livable planet.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill C-219, which was introduced by the NDP member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, British Columbia. We want to examine the bill in committee.

At first glance, this bill appears to be well thought out and well drafted, in stark contrast to the far too many bills, including some from the NDP, that all too often amount to mere statements of principle and contain no provisions that are likely to truly benefit the public. We believe that this bill about the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment will have just such an effect. We cannot say it often enough: It is high time we took meaningful action on environmental issues. We are lagging behind in many respects. Today's COP28 report is a grim reminder of this, with its assessment of the failure of the Paris Agreement.

Since 2006, the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms has established that “[e]very person has a right to live in a healthful environment in which biodiversity is preserved, to the extent and according to the standards provided by law”. The Bloc Québécois is therefore in favour of recognizing the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment as a universal human right. It is better late than never. It was not until July 2022 that the United Nations General Assembly adopted an historic resolution declaring access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment to be a universal human right.

Obviously, Bill C‑219 will not make the right to a healthy environment a fundamental right like the rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Ultimately, its scope might be less powerful than that of Quebec's charter of human rights. That said, the bill will amend the Canadian Bill of Rights to provide that the right of the individual to life, liberty and security of the person includes the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, which could make this right quasi-constitutional in scope.

In any event, this bill creates a true right under Canadian environmental laws. It is a right that citizens could avail themselves of in order to require the government to investigate potential violations of environmental laws, to bring an environmental protection action against a person who has allegedly violated federal environmental laws, to file a petition for the review of any federal environmental law, and to file an application for judicial review, even if the applicant is a person not directly affected by the matter in respect of which relief is sought, if the matter relates to the protection of the environment.

We also believe that this bill, as drafted, will apply to federal environmental laws without prejudice to Quebec laws or Quebec's environmental sovereignty. With regard to environmental protection, respecting our sovereignty is the one condition that must be fulfilled in order for the Bloc Québécois to support a bill.

On April 13, 2022, Quebec, which was once again ahead of its time, saw parliamentarians from all the parties represented in the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopt a motion affirming the primacy of Quebec's jurisdiction in environmental matters. Quebec's elected representatives unanimously opposed “any intervention by the federal government in matters of the environment on Quebec territory”.

The Bloc Québécois fully endorses that position and strongly advocates for the interests and values of Quebec in the federal political arena. In fact, the Bloc Québécois believes that the Quebec nation has sole jurisdiction over public decisions concerning the environment and Quebec's territory. We must not bury our heads in the sand. Quebeckers are not fools. Canada is far from being the best country in the world when it comes to the environment. We know that for certain.

That said, in the existing legal framework, the federal government has certain environmental protection responsibilities, including controlling toxic substances. The Bloc Québécois intends to do everything in its power to ensure that the federal government carries out its duties properly.

Strengthening the right to a clean and balanced environment, by establishing measures and recourse that apply to federal environmental laws, fits into the federal government's responsibilities within the bounds of its jurisdiction with respect to environmental protection.

Although we want to carefully review Bill C‑219 in parliamentary committee to ensure that there is no way it will allow Quebec's environmental laws to be violated, we can already state that the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay was clearly guided by a concern for respecting the jurisdictions of Quebec, the provinces and the territories on environmental protection, and we appreciate that so, so much. We believe the people of Quebec need to be able to control their own environment, protect it and protest against or even challenge the federal government when necessary, if it does not meet its environmental obligations.

When we discuss and pass laws here, we must always keep in mind that they must benefit the generations that come after us. A healthy environment is a critical issue for future generations and, as elected members in the House, we must guarantee the future well-being of this bountiful and generous planet. As we mentioned the other day, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have to be able to rely on our support and leadership when it comes to environmental protection.

Some elected officials in the House still question the climate crisis, and yet it certainly is a crisis. Sure, there is the fisheries crisis, the housing crisis or the financial crisis, but on top of all of those crises sits the absolute worst crisis of all: the climate crisis. One has to wonder what planet these people are living on when they do not believe in the urgency of taking action.

I can say that, for my part, I saw first-hand what the climate crisis could do to a community when the floods hit the town of Baie-Saint-Paul, in my riding, on May 1. People there were in distress, feeling anguish and uncertainty because they did not know whether their homes would be salvaged. Not to mention the fact that two people died. An entire village was hit by climate change, by a deadly current of water that swept away hundreds of homes. Never before have we witnessed a climate event like that in Charlevoix. An entire community suffered the horrors of the climate crisis and its radical, dramatic changes. I d not want anyone telling the people of Baie-Saint-Paul that the climate crisis is a sham, an invention or a hoax. I challenge anyone to try.

This bill needs to be studied further in committee to make it the best possible bill to the benefit of future populations. However, again, it all needs to be done in accordance with provincial jurisdictions. Quebec has come too far for the federal government to bypass all of the efforts made by Quebeckers. The lucidity of the Quebec people is a significant advantage when it comes to talking about solutions for the environment.

We have wasted too much time. We need to have the political courage to deal with the oil lobby. We need more money for the green transition and much less for fossil fuels until we achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions. We do not have the right to abandon our future generations on this issue. We must instead open a path for them to be able to live safe and healthy lives in the world that will belong to them.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, today we address Bill C-219. This legislation, regarding environmental rights and protections, is an important topic for discussion. It reflects a commitment to the environment that Conservatives share and strongly advocate for. Our party has consistently supported effective environmental measures, recognizing the crucial role of a healthy environment in the well-being of Canadians and for the future.

However, while we stand in agreement with the underlying goal of protecting our environment, we have reservations about certain aspects of Bill C-219. Our philosophy toward environmental legislation is to find a balance between safeguarding our environment and implementing practical policies. It is essential that our efforts to protect the environment are matched with a realistic understanding of economics and policy. Our concerns with this bill lie particularly in its approach to environmental governance and the legal implications it may entail. It is crucial that any environmental policy not only achieves its intended goals, but also aligns with our principles of democratic decision-making.

In addressing Bill C-219, it is crucial to discuss the implications this bill has on the judicial system and its role in environmental governance. The bill proposes a significant shift in decision-making power from elected representatives to the judiciary. This approach, while intended to strengthen environmental protection, raises substantial concerns regarding the balance of powers and the appropriateness of the judiciary in policy-making roles. The foundation of our democracy is built upon the separation of powers among the legislative, executive and judicial branches. This structure ensures that no single branch overextends its authority, maintaining a balance that is vital for a functioning democracy.

Bill C-219 's proposal to transfer environmental decision-making to the judiciary disrupts this balance. It places judges, who are not elected and therefore not directly accountable to the public, in the position of making key policy decisions. This shift risks undermining the role of the legislative branch, where such decisions are traditionally debated and made.

Moreover, the judiciary' s primary function is to interpret and apply the law, not to engage in policy-making. Judges are legal experts, but they may not have the specialized environmental knowledge. Decisions on complex environmental issues require a nuanced understanding of scientific, economic and social factors, which are typically outside the judiciary's expertise. Relying on the courts to make these decisions could lead to outcomes that are legally sound but may not be the most effective or practical from an environmental or policy standpoint.

Furthermore, involving the judiciary in policy-making can lead to increased legal disputes and litigations, potentially clogging our court systems and delaying environmental action. Environmental policy decisions are often complex, involving various stakeholders with differing interests. Addressing these through the legislative process allows for more comprehensive consideration and debate.

Another aspect to consider is the precedent this sets for other policy areas. Extending the judiciary's role into policy-making in the environmental sector could open the door for similar shifts in other areas, further blurring the lines between the branches of government.

While the goal of enhancing environmental protection is one we share, the approach taken by Bill C-219 raises significant concerns. It is imperative that we maintain the integrity of our democratic system and ensure that environmental policy-making remains in the hands of those elected to represent public interests. Effective environmental legislation should balance the need for protection with practicality and respect for our democratic institutions.

In considering Bill C-219, it is also important to reflect on Bill S-5, the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act. Bill S-5 shares several objectives with Bill C-219, particularly on environmental protection and sustainable development. Both bills seek to modernize our approach to environmental governance, but they do so in a way that may infringe on different jurisdictions and that leaves too much of the decision-making power to the courts. Furthermore, this overlap between the two bills raises questions about the necessity and redundancy of Bill C-219.

Bill S-5, which has already received royal assent, makes amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. Although it addresses many of the same environmental concerns outlined in Bill C-219, it also contains the same deficiencies, such as its overreach in the way of jurisdiction and leaving much to be decided in the courts.

In terms of redundancy, it is not just a matter of legislative efficiency; it also pertains to the clarity and effectiveness of our environmental laws. Having overlapping legislation could lead to confusion, complicating the implementation and enforcement of environmental protections.

As we aim to strengthen our environmental framework, it is essential that we do so in a manner that is clear, coherent and efficient, avoiding duplication of efforts and ensuring that our laws are as effective as possible in protecting our natural heritage. The Conservative Party firmly believes in adopting common-sense policies that effectively address environmental concerns while fostering economic growth.

A key component of our environmental strategy involves supporting innovative industries in Canada, particularly those developing clean technologies. By investing in these sectors, we aim to lead the way in sustainable development, demonstrating that economic prosperity and environmental stewardship can go hand in hand.

Our approach is grounded in the principle that innovation, rather than heavy-handed regulation, is the key to achieving long-term environmental goals. We advocate for policies that incentivize research and development in the clean energy, sustainable agriculture and green technology sectors. This not only helps in reducing environmental impacts but also positions Canada as a global leader in the emerging green economy. It is about creating jobs and opportunities in fields that will define the future of both our economy and our environment.

In contrast, the Liberal government's approach to environmental policy has often been marked by inefficiency and red tape. A prime example is the carbon tax; not only is this policy ineffective in reducing carbon emissions, but it also imposes an undue economic burden on Canadian families and businesses. This tax affects every aspect of Canadians' lives, from heating their homes to fuelling their vehicles, without offering a viable solution to environmental challenges. It is a policy that penalizes rather than incentivizing, hindering economic growth without delivering the promised environmental benefits.

Furthermore, the Liberals' environmental policies often fail to strike a balance between environmental protection and economic realities. This one-size-fits-all approach overlooks the diverse needs and circumstances of different regions and sectors, leading to policies that can be more harmful than helpful.

The Conservative Party's vision for Canada's environmental policy is one that values practical, innovative solutions. We support fostering industries that contribute to a cleaner, more sustainable future, emphasizing the role of technological advancement and market-driven solutions. Our approach stands in contrast to the Liberals' reliance on taxation and regulation, highlighting our commitment to policies that are both environmentally responsible and economically sensible.

In summary, the Conservative Party champions a balanced approach to environmental policy, prioritizing innovation and economic viability. We stand for practical, effective solutions over burdensome regulations, striving to protect our environment while ensuring prosperity for Canadians.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak to a private member's bill, Bill C-219, the Canadian environmental bill of rights, brought forward by the member of Parliament for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

Before I speak to the bill, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize former MP Linda Duncan for her important work on this bill in previous Parliaments.

I would also like to acknowledge that, much like the bill's former sponsor, the bill's current sponsor, the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, has dedicated much of his career to being an educator and proponent of conservation and environmental protection. I thank him for his important work in these areas.

Returning to Bill C-219, the bill proposes to recognize the right of every person residing in Canada to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment and to amend the Canadian Bill of Rights to include this right as part of the right to life, liberty and security of the person. The bill also sets out a number of procedural rights. These include the rights to access information and participate in environmental decision-making, request reviews of federal environmental laws and policies, and access courts and tribunals for matters regarding the protection of the environment.

While the purpose of Bill C-219 and its proposals are intuitively appealing at first glance, upon deeper reflection and examination, they raise a number of significant legal, practical and policy concerns.

The government recognizes that environmental stewardship is essential for the well-being and prosperity of Canadians, and it is devoted to working with the sponsor and all members of Parliament to secure a healthy environment.

The Minister of Environment and Climate Change has been mandated by the Prime Minister to follow the clear direction given by Canadians, to take bold, concrete action to build a healthier and more resilient future. More specifically, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change was tasked with recognizing the right to a healthy environment in federal law and introducing legislation to require the development of an environmental justice strategy.

We have taken action to meet these commitments. On June 13, a right to a healthy environment was recognized under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, known as the CEPA. With the passage of Bill S-5, work is under way to begin developing an implementation framework, which must be completed within two years of royal assent. It would set out how the right must be considered in the administration of the CEPA and, thus, bring the lens of a right to a healthy environment to the programs that the CEPA enables.

The government has also committed to making an environmental justice strategy a reality by supporting a private member's bill, Bill C-226, an act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice. Instead of introducing its own bill, and in line with the government's support of Bill C-230, the government reaffirmed support for Bill C-226.

If Bill C-226 passes, the national strategy would provide an opportunity to examine the link between race, socio-economic status and exposure to environmental risk, as well as to discuss how best to address environmental risks faced by historically marginalized communities.

It would help structure discussions on addressing these inequalities and discrimination, which are the root causes of many vulnerabilities. It would also complement other efforts that contribute to advancing environmental justice in Canada, even where the cause of environmental injustice or environmental racism may not have been directly identified or acknowledged. Supporting and advancing these initiatives is where our focus should be now, especially given the flaws in Bill C-219.

I will now turn to outlining a few specific issues with Bill C-219. Although both bills recognize a right to a healthy environment, the approach in Bill C-219 is at odds with the approach that was taken with Bill S-5, which is now in the amended CEPA.

I will first talk about the path we are currently on following the passage of Bill S-5 and then address how Bill C-219 clearly departs from it. As we know, Bill S-5 recognized that every individual in Canada has a right to a healthy environment under CEPA, the cornerstone of federal environmental protection laws. The right to a healthy environment is a new concept in federal law. Given this, Bill S-5 included clear and robust provisions on the process to describe how this right would apply under CEPA and how it would be reported upon annually.

Bill S-5 proposed that the meaning of the right under CEPA be developed in consultation with Canadians and elaborated upon through a concrete implementation framework to ensure that the right is meaningful and tailored to the regime at hand. That framework, which is now under development, will set out how the right will be considered in decision-making. It will also describe how related principles, such as environmental justice, nonregression and intergenerational equity, will be considered. I believe these additional details are very important.

Bill S-5 provided a concrete path for clarity and greater certainty over time on what adding a right to a healthy environment to CEPA will mean. It also included related amendments that would support the protection of that right, built from established procedural rights and specific provisions for public participation, including public comment and notice periods and the right to request investigations into alleged offences.

While we are already on this well-considered path, which has been carefully studied here and the other place, Bill C-219 proposes a very different path. The approach in Bill C-219 is unclear. It would likely lead to uncertainty in its application and we would have to resort to the courts to resolve the issues. The bill recognizes the right to a healthy environment, which is still a novel and undefined concept, but it does not set out its meaning or provide a process, such as the implementation framework in Bill S-5, to work out the definition and how it applies. That very likely means it is the courts that will determine what it means in the course of litigation.

The right to a healthy environment in Bill C-219 is broad and applies to all federal laws, and it is difficult to predict how it would be interpreted by the courts. We must avoid environmental rights being so unclear that timeliness and certainty in federal decision-making are compromised and the right becomes a burden falling on litigants to operationalize.

The approach already adopted via Bill S-5 is different, and I will remind the House that it is also better. Our approach is centred on public consultations and proposing a concrete way to elaborate on the meaning and the content of the right through an implementation framework. It applies only to CEPA, the pillar of federal environmental protection laws. This is what an issue of this novelty and complexity demands.

If Bill C-219 goes ahead, we would end up with two different versions of the right to a healthy environment in federal statutes, one set out in CEPA through Bill S-5 and another set out in Bill C-219. This would result in two different framings of the right and two ways to implement it. The misalignment between the two approaches could hamper progress on this important and complex issue and slow down decision-making across government. If the main objective is to truly secure a healthy environment for Canadians, moving forward with the approach that is now set out in the amended CEPA is the only prudent approach. We cannot just suddenly endorse and bring in the new and uncertain elements of Bill C-219.

Bill C-219 would also make changes to the Federal Courts Act and the Canadian Bill of Rights. The Canadian Bill of Rights is not an appropriate statute for a new environmental right. As I said earlier, our government is committed to taking bold, concrete action to build a healthier and more resilient future with measures that are clear and effective. The proposed Canadian Bill of Rights amendment could provide neither clear nor effective guidance on this front.

The Canadian Bill of Rights only codifies pre-existing rights as they were understood in 1960. For more than 60 years, that has been its sole purpose. Its interpretation always refers back to those historical origins. With the proposed amendment, Parliament would recognize and declare, through section 1 of the Canadian Bill of Rights, that there “have existed” historical rights that have already included a right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.

It is uncertain how courts would attempt to interpret this new but backward-looking right, what pre-existing content they would find in it and where they would look for it. Not only would the amendment be wholly unclear, but it would introduce significant uncertainty into the interpretation of the Canadian Bill of Rights itself.

The House resumed from June 14 consideration of the motion that Bill C-219, An Act to enact the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights and to make related amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Environmental Bill of Rights

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

Mr. Speaker, the vast majority of Canadians believe they should have the right to live in a clean, healthy environment.

The government believes that, too, as it voted in favour of a United Nations motion that enshrined that right around the world. However, we do not have that right in law throughout Canada. Some provinces have enshrined that right in legislation. The federal government put it in the new Canada Environmental Protection Act, but there, it is restricted to the narrow confines of the act.

I have introduced Bill C-219, the Canadian environmental bill of rights, which would extend the right to live in a clean and ecologically sustainable environment to all federal legislation. It would improve on existing laws by providing accountability measures to make sure governments live up to their legal promises. It is constitutional because it only acts through existing federal legislation.

I call on all members to support all Canadians and enshrine the right to live in a clean environment by voting for Bill C-219.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to pose this question to Mr. Carreau.

This spring we passed the new Canadian Environmental Protection Act here, which included, for the first time, the right for Canadians to live in a clean and healthy environment, but that only extended to the confines of CEPA.

I have a private member's bill, Bill C-219, on the Canadian environmental bill of rights, which would extend that to all other federal pieces of legislation that deal with a clean environment.

I'm just wondering if you could comment on those other pieces of legislation that Health Canada or others might deal with and help regulate clean water in Canada. What other pieces of legislation, besides CEPA, would that encompass, and why is it important to extend that right to those pieces of legislation?

Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights

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

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of the people of Skeena—Bulkley Valley in northwest B.C. to speak to Bill C-219, which is before us today.

I will start by paying tribute to my colleague from South Okanagan—West Kootenay. It has been, and continues to be, such a pleasure to work with him in the House. My colleague is an ardent defender of the environment and, in addition to being an excellent parliamentarian, many people do not know that he is one of Canada's foremost bird experts. I think he probably holds the record for the most question period interventions related to birds. I had the opportunity last year to go birdwatching with him, which was a real treat.

His work in the House is a service not only to his constituents, but also to all Canadians. The bill before us is just one example of that work, so I want to thank the member for bringing it forward. I am excited it has gotten to this point and will be put to a vote because this is an issue of interest and concern to so many Canadians.

I also want to acknowledge Linda Duncan, the former member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona, who brought forward a very similar bill during her time in the House. I am sure she is pleased to see these ideas advancing in Parliament.

Sometimes when I sit in this place, I remind myself, particularly on days when we feel stuck in the weeds of the minutiae of different issues, to reflect on our purpose as parliamentarians, the reason we are here, why we are elected and what our constituents want us to focus on. I can think of nothing more central to our mission, more core to our purpose as a Parliament and as a country, than ensuring our citizens are able to live healthy, fulfilling lives. The security and vitality that could be afforded to every Canadian are so important for us to come back to in all of our work. I cannot think of anything more important in this bill than its articulating in Canadian law the right to a healthy environment, which is very central and relevant to the idea of facilitating healthy, fulfilling lives for all Canadians.

I was thinking of another person in preparing for this speech, who was 10 years old when I met him. In 2014, I was a small-town mayor in Vancouver for a conference. Going into the Vancouver Convention Centre, I was approached by a 10-year-old boy named Rupert. He is still out there. I looked at the date, did the math and realized that he is now almost 20. Rupert was approaching all the municipal politicians at this convention and advocating for the very concept that we are talking about today in the House of Commons.

To him, the most important thing we could be doing was ensuring a healthy environment for his generation and generations to come. He looked around at the world that he was inheriting. He was there with his sister Franny, and both were involved in this advocacy. He wanted us, as local politicians, to understand how vitally important it was to protect the environment and pass on an environment that would not put his generation in jeopardy.

I think sometimes 10-year-olds and young people can see complex issues with such moral clarity. One of the reasons I wanted to amend the Canada Elections Act to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in our elections is that I believe they have so much to contribute to the conversation. Even at 10 years old, Rupert was contributing back in 2014, and I am thinking about him today as we debate this bill in the House.

We know that the environment is us. We are the environment. We are inextricably linked to our surroundings, the ecosystems and other systems that support life on this beautiful planet. I was reminded of a quote from David Suzuki that speaks to this very well. He said, “We are of the Earth, every cell in our bodies formed by molecules derived from plants and animals, inflated by water, energized by sunlight captured through photosynthesis and ignited by atmospheric oxygen.”

Rupert was quoted as saying, “If humans are harming the environment, we're directly harming ourselves”. This is something that for so long we have been oblivious to. It is something I believe as humans we once understood much more intuitively and paid more respect to, this concept of being inextricably linked to our environment, but somehow we have forgotten and have moved away from that.

I grew up in a remote community out in the bush. When I think about a clean environment, the image that sticks in my mind is that of drinking right out of the river. My parents had a homestead, and we had a log house on the bank of this swift flowing creek, Kiwa Creek. We had a log that went out onto the creek. My father had flattened the top of the log, and we walk out on to that log with a bucket, scoop water right from the river and drink it without any treatment.

I cannot think of an image that sticks in my mind more when I think of a clean and healthy environment than that of drinking clean water coming from our rivers and streams, yet in so many parts of Canada, that is no longer a safe proposition for people.

How many among us would disagree that Canadians deserve these things, that they deserve to breathe clean air, drink clean water, eat safe food, live lives free of dangerous toxins, receive the many benefits of healthy functioning ecosystems, and most importantly in this day and age, enjoy the benefits of a stable climate and pass a stable climate on to future generations? As well, as this bill speaks to, who would disagree that they deserve to participate in the decisions that affect the environment and, thereby, affect them?

For people raising children in this day and age, the right to a healthy environment has a particularly poignant and meaningful relevance. My children are now 18 and 16 and going off into the world, and I think about the future they are inheriting. There is nothing I want more for them than for them to experience the environment in the way I enjoyed and have all of these things I have spoken of to live lives that are healthy and free from environmental harm.

When thinking about this bill, I also think about all of the people in northwest B.C. who have been fighting for a healthier environment, for a cleaner environment and for the various environmental harms to be dealt with by the government and other governments. I think of the Chicago Creek environmental group near Hazelton, which was responding to a coal spill into Mission Creek, a creek near its community. I heard from indigenous folks in the area, members of the Gitxsan Nation, who are deeply concerned about the impact of that coal spill on the creek itself and on the vegetation surrounding it, vegetation they rely on for a number of purposes.

I think of CN rail, of course, which runs right through the riding I represent. A couple of years ago, CN rail was found guilty of spraying herbicides right into the waterways that flow into the Skeena River, British Columbia's second-largest wild salmon river.

I think of community groups in Smithers and in Kitimat that have been working for years to address air quality concerns. I think of one particular citizen of our community, who was deeply concerned about a government practice of spraying arsenic on pine trees to kill the mountain pine beetle, who eventually succeeded in forcing an end to that practice.

For those people who are watching tonight, and I am sure they are watching on CPAC as all Canadians do, I hope they see some promise in this bill before us.

I want to again thank my colleague for bringing it forward, and I look forward to the vote in the House of Commons.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, my goodness, I have so much to say to my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent. It is going to take a glass of wine or a beer to talk about it.

The Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill C‑219. We believe that it really needs to be studied in committee. At first glance, the bill seems to be well thought out and drafted, with its preamble clearly setting the context for this desire to include real access to the courts as part of the enforcement of the right to a healthy environment.

In reading this bill from my colleague from South Okanagan—West Kootenay, I am pleased to see something other than statements of principle, and to see more legally binding and prescriptive provisions. I am especially pleased that its content has the potential to have a tangible impact on Canadians, the environment and society in general.

Bill C‑219 also stands in contrast to what the Liberal government has given us. I am talking about its claim to have literally created a right to a healthy environment. I do not know about anyone else, but I believe that the word “creation” implies the idea of accomplishing something bigger than oneself.

Still, the Liberal government believes that, with Bill S‑5, which modernizes the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, it has done exactly that. We do not think so, however. In fact, senior officials confirmed that this is merely an interpretation key for the implementation of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which does not apply to other legislation and is to be defined at a later date by the Minister of the Environment.

Let me describe this as a communication strategy. What is the point of having a right if it is unenforceable, and if in the event that this right is violated, remedies and penalties are essentially symbolic and serve as neither a deterrent nor a punishment? The answer is obvious. Sadly, there is a lack of accountability for organizations and individuals who think that they are above the law and who commit reprehensible acts that cause serious harm to the natural environment, to the people who have to deal with it, and to society as a whole.

Since 2006, the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms has established that “[e]very person has a right to live in a healthful environment in which biodiversity is preserved, to the extent and according to the standards provided by law.”

The Bloc Québécois believes that the Quebec nation has sole jurisdiction over public decisions concerning the environment and Quebec's territory. Therefore, it seems to us that Bill C‑219, as drafted, will be enforceable under federal environmental legislation without adversely affecting the laws of Quebec or Quebec's environmental sovereignty.

In April 2022, members of the National Assembly of Quebec unanimously adopted a motion affirming the primacy of Quebec's jurisdiction in matters of the environment. I would like to make it perfectly clear that in matters of environmental protection, this essential condition must be met before the Bloc Québécois will support any legislative proposal.

Elected members from Quebec also unanimously oppose any environmental intervention by the federal government on Quebec's territory. We view this position, which we will voice systematically on the federal political stage, to be a true reflection of the interests and values of Quebeckers. That is our mandate.

The Bloc Québécois definitely supports the recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a universal human right. It has almost been one year since the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a historic resolution declaring that access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a universal human right.

There were 161 countries that voted in favour of the resolution. According to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, if we want to make this right a reality, governments must recognize it and do what is required to make it a reality. Governments must also ratify and implement all existing multilateral agreements concerning environmental rights.

Obviously, Bill C‑219 will not make the right to a healthy environment a fundamental right like the rights that are guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, it is interesting to consider studying it in committee if only to examine and better interpret the legal, even constitutional, framework for a Canadian environmental bill of rights.

That said, the bill will amend “the Canadian Bill of Rights to provide that the right of the individual to life, liberty and security of the person includes the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.” In that context, it makes sense to think that this right would be quasi-constitutional in scope.

In support of this scope, I should mention that the preamble to the bill states the following:

Whereas action or inaction that results in significant harm to the environment could be regarded as compromising the life, liberty or security of the person and as contrary to section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;

Ultimately, my colleague's proposal creates a true right under Canadian environmental laws. It is a right that citizens could avail themselves of in order to require the government to investigate potential violations of environmental laws, to bring an environmental protection action against a person who has allegedly violated federal environmental laws, to file petitions on the review of any federal environmental law, and to file an application for judicial review, including by a person not directly affected by the subject matter of the application, if the matter concerns environmental protection. That is very interesting.

It is significant that the meaning of the word “environment” and the expression “healthy and ecologically balanced environment” is clarified under the “Interpretation“ heading.

I also appreciate that the bill includes the concept of the state as trustee of the public good. Protecting the environment means looking after society's collective interest, which is the role of the state, as much for those living now as for future generations. This principle, the fiduciary doctrine, is the very foundation of the progressive work leading to a better understanding and application of environmental rights around the world.

I must also applaud the Member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay for the attention he has given to an extremely valuable piece of legal content, a section entitled “Paramountcy of Principles of Environmental Law”.

In any legal context, it is vitally important to be able to rely on clear concepts and recognized definitions, if for no other reason than to allow the legislative branch to unambiguously express what the judiciary must have in mind when seized of a case.

I am referring to the polluter pays principle, the principle of sustainable development, the principle of generational equity and the principle of environmental justice. I could also talk about the principle of prudence, but it is not there. Instead, we have the precautionary principle. I want to reassure everyone that just because I was a professor in another life, that does not mean that I am going to flunk a member on their exam. I will just make the correction.

It is a typo. Looking at the English version of the Rio declaration of 1992, it clearly says “precautionary principle”. However, that was poorly translated. The French version refers to the “principe de prudence”, which has nothing to do with the environment. This flawed translation removed the very essence of this principle, which is central to the framework for implementing such a bill.

The Bloc Québécois succeeded in rallying the members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development around this correction during the study of Bill S‑5. The precautionary principle entails abstaining if there is a risk, whereas the idea of prudence instead suggests the authorization of an action and the management of its risk, which is very different. I know my colleague will be quick to make this change. Like the Bloc Québécois, I am sure he sees recognition of the precautionary principle as essential to the framework for implementing legislation to protect the environment.

In conclusion, I repeat that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C‑219.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member bringing forward Bill C-219. As he is indicated on several occasions, this is legislation that, with a different bill number, has been before the House in the past.

The timing is really interesting. Just yesterday, we had royal assent on Bill S-5. I was encouraged by the way many members of the House spoke to Bill S-5. I thought that maybe I would pick up on a couple of points, if I may, the first one being something that I think, far too often, does get overlooked, something that we should be talking about more whenever we talk about the environment.

It is a shared responsibility, as we know. If one were to do a radar scan of one's constituents, we would find that it is typically in the top three or four issues. For me, in Winnipeg North, health care might be number one or in the top two, but the environment and concerns related to the environment are consistently among the top issues that want to be talked about. They also want to see action on the issue of the environment.

The member talks about shared responsibility. Often, when we talk about shared responsibility, we do not highlight the importance of indigenous people. When we talk about reconciliation, I think it is absolutely critical that indigenous people, governments, first governments and so forth be recognized and appreciated in terms of their important role traditionally, today and going into the future.

I like to think that Bill S-5, in good part, reinforces that. We talk about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and its adoption. We need to apply that lens to the different types of legislation that come through the House.

That is the reason I had posed the question to the member. I am concerned about the issue of jurisdictional responsibility, recognizing that the environment does not recognize borders, interprovincially or internationally.

We just saw a very good example of that with the forest fires. I am thinking of Quebec, Nova Scotia and Alberta. We had responses across Canada, in trying to assist in dealing with these fires. We also had direct contact with the President of the United States, who was concerned about the quality of air that is going south of the Canada-U.S. border.

I would like to emphasize that when one talks about the environment, one has jurisdictional responsibility but, even more importantly, many would argue that there is a moral responsibility that is tagged to that jurisdictional responsibility, because air knows no boundaries; water knows no boundaries.

When we take a look at what the member also emphasized, it is the issue of environmental rights, the idea of having a right to a healthy environment. That is why, at the beginning, I tied Bill S-5 in. When I spoke on Bill S-5, I like to think that I amplified the issue of the right to a healthy environment and the expectations that Canadians have regarding it.

Bill S-5 dealt with the assessment and management of substances and ensured that Canadians and residents from coast to coast to coast have a direct link to ensure that they have that right to a healthy environment.

I understand that the legislation that is being proposed, Bill C-219, wants to expand on that. I think it is worth looking at. The right to a healthy environment means more than just the air we breathe. We can and should be expanding on that.

I do not want to say that I know all the details of the legislation, nor have I been around to hear the discussions that have taken place at the committee level. What I do know is that there is, as an issue, a desire of the people of Canada to see the government be proactive at dealing with our environment.

I also recognize that there are not only the legislative measures that I referred to in relation to Bill S-5, but there are also budgetary measures and measures that would be incorporated through regulations that also deal with the concerns that we have with respect to the population as a whole.

I would like to highlight a few of those measures. When we talk about our environment, we need to try to put it in a way most people, including myself, can understand the issues. When I think of a right to a healthy environment, I would like to think there is a tangible recourse dealing with an issue that is affecting me. When I say “me”, I am not talking about me as a member of Parliament. I am talking about me as a resident and anyone in the communities we represent.

If they witness or have a concern about something that is taking place in our environment, they need a vehicle to express that concern with an expectation that someone is actually listening. Hopefully, some form of action can be taken where it is, in fact, warranted.

I remember many years ago one of the first issues that I ever had to deal with in 1989 or 1990 was the issue of PCBs and how PCBs were impacting a playground at a school. There were concerns, at that time, about Manitoba was going to be able to do.

There are issues of that nature and issues people want to directly get involved in themselves. There are issues like when the government, through a regulation, said that it wanted to ban single-use plastics or it wanted to provide financial assistance to those who are prepared to look at alternatives to fossil fuels.

These are the types of initiatives the government can look at and deliver on. The idea of how we can enhance those environmental rights is something I am very interested in.

I would look for specific examples that we could, in essence, put into a brochure. I think it is important—

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

Madam Speaker, that question is very similar to the previous one.

With regard to development or anything like that that would have an impact on the environment, Bill C-219 operates through federal legislation. Any development that went through federal legislation, having gone through those regulations, got their permits and all that, would not be affected by this at all.

This only comes into effect when there are developments that contravene those regulations, those protections that we already have in place. It would not affect any development that is proceeding legally whatsoever.

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

moved that Bill C-219, An Act to enact the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights and to make related amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I stand in the chamber this evening to begin debate on my bill, Bill C-219, the Canadian environmental bill of rights. I first want to thank Linda Duncan, the author of this bill, who introduced it on four occasions over 11 years during her time as the member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona. On one of those occasions, it passed at second reading, but it unfortunately died when an election was called.

There are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but until last night, there was no federal law that explicitly recognized the right to a healthy environment in Canada. With the passing of Bill S-5, which updated the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, we now have a federal statement of rights to a healthy environment, but those rights are limited to the scope of CEPA, basically to toxins within our environment, and those rights have no accountability processes or powers associated with them. Bill C-219 would expand and strengthen those rights to the rest of the scope of federal jurisdiction.

Last summer, on July 28, 2022, the UN General Assembly passed a unanimous resolution that recognized the right to a healthy environment around the world. With Canada voting for that resolution to join the rest of the world and 92% of Canadians agreeing with it, it is certainly high time we had federal legislation that recognizes that right. We are behind the rest of the world in that regard. Over 80% of UN member states already legally recognize the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

International efforts to recognize this right go back to the 1972 Stockholm declaration, which recognized the right to an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being. After that came the United Nations Aarhus convention in 2001. This multilateral agreement, more fully known as the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, protects every person's right to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being. The Aarhus convention links environmental rights and human rights. It acknowledges that we owe an obligation to future generations. It establishes that sustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders. It links government accountability and environmental protection, and focuses on interactions between the public and public authorities in a democratic context. According to the Aarhus convention website, it is, at its heart, about government accountability, transparency and responsiveness. It grants the public rights, and it imposes on parties and public authorities obligations regarding access to information and public participation in and access to justice.

This is what this bill would do as well. Bill C-219 would extend the right to a healthy, ecologically balanced environment to all Canadian residents. It would do this by amending the Canadian Bill of Rights to add the right to a healthy environment; by providing a bundle of rights and legal tools to all residents of Canada, including accessing information around environmental issues and decisions, standing before courts and tribunals, transparent processes that will help hold the government accountable on effective environmental enforcement and on the review of law and policies through investigations and, if necessary, environmental protection actions; and by extending protections for government whistle-blowers who release information relevant to health and environmental impacts.

This bill would apply only to federal jurisdiction, and would not change provincial environmental law. The bill would not take away from the rights of Canadian indigenous peoples, as recognized and affirmed in section 35 of the Constitution. The bill would specifically exclude the Canadian Environmental Protection Act from its ambit, as that act, after the passage of Bill S-5 last night, provides rights to a healthy environment, although restricted to the scope of that bill. Bill C-219 would extend those rights to the rest of federal legislation.

Why do we need this? For one thing, Canadians want it. As I mentioned, in a recent poll, 92% of Canadians agreed we should have the right to live in a healthy environment. However, the right to a clean and healthy environment is a hollow promise if it does not come with accountability measures. That is because, unfortunately, governments often simply do not live up to the legislation they pass. They do not take action to enforce that legislation, including legislation meant to protect our environment.

I will mention two quick examples of this, and I am sure everyone here in the chamber could add to that list. Ten years ago, in July 2013, a tanker truck rolled into Lemon Creek in the beautiful Slocan Valley, in my riding, and spilled its entire load of 33,000 litres of aviation fuel into this pristine water source. Although this clearly caused environmental harm, not only to the stream and the life within it but also to the residents of the Slocan Valley who relied on that water source, the government of the day refused to act. It was left to a courageous local resident, Marilyn Burgoon, to initiate court action against the trucking company under the federal Fisheries Act. Eventually, perhaps shamed by Marilyn's powerful example, the federal government did agree to step in to help fight this battle, which dragged on until January 2020, for seven years, before finally being resolved. Sadly, Marilyn passed away a few weeks before that case was concluded, but her legacy in the Slocan Valley lives on, and her memory is cherished by many.

If we declare that Canadians have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment, we must make sure the federal government is accountable for holding up its part of that all-important bargain. Bill C-219 would do that.

Another example is a more personal one to me. I used to work as a consulting ecologist, and much of my work involved species at risk. For eight years, I was one of the co-chairs of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, or COSEWIC. Under the Species at Risk Act, or SARA as it is called in the trade, COSEWIC has the task of assessing wild species in Canada and advising the government, through the Minister of Environment, of its decisions. Every year, COSEWIC writes a letter to the minister and lists the assessments it has made. Some species might be listed as endangered. Others may be listed as threatened, and still others may be listed as not at risk. Under SARA, the government has nine months to make a decision about listing a species after receiving the advice from COSEWIC. It can adopt the advice or not, but the decision is public and transparent. If a cabinet decision is not made, the decision defaults to the COSEWIC-assessed status.

All this sounds perfectly logical, but what happened under the Harper government was unexpected. It decided the clock started ticking when the minister told cabinet, so it came up with the cunning plan that the minister would not tell cabinet at all about COSEWIC assessments, even though they were on the public registry. Therefore, that government listed zero species for four years, despite having been advised to list over 80. It avoided the transparent decision part of the deal. I pressured the current Liberal government to at least change that in policy, though it was reluctant to support the bill I put forward to change it into law, so now it is public policy that listing cannot be put off indefinitely.

Bill C-219 could help in that situation too, since it covers all federal legislation, including SARA, the Fisheries Act and others. This would be for all legislation I mentioned except the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which is carved out because it has a similar promise when it comes to living in a clean and healthy environment.

Like most members with private members' bills, I have talked to each party about my bill and about why its so important and what it would and would not do. In one of those discussions, the issue of constitutionality came up, so I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about that issue. I will say right off the top that I am confident this bill is constitutional. For one thing, this is the fifth time the bill has been introduced, and as far as I know, this is the first time this concern has been raised. As I mentioned before, the bill passed second reading in a previous Parliament, and the bill is explicitly concerned with actions based on existing federal legislation.

None of the rights here apply to matters that are found only in provincial legislation, so I was confident this concern had no real foundation. However, to be sure, I asked the House of Commons legal department to provide an opinion on this matter. This is the conclusion of its opinion:

After having reviewed the bill carefully, we are of the opinion that the main subject of the bill is not the environment. Consider that the bill would not regulate any aspect of the environment, such as water quality, air quality, species at risk or toxic substances. Rather, the bill relates to civil liberties, which may be regulated by either level of government, depending on which level of government has legislative authority over the institutions and activities to which the civil liberties apply. In the case of Bill C-219, most provisions explicitly apply to federal matters only.

The opinion also explains why three provisions, while not explicitly applying to federal matters, would be considered by any court as applying to federal matters. Accordingly, the opinion states that no amendment to Bill C-219 is necessary.

In summary, the environment is a jurisdiction shared between the provinces and the federal government. Some people might therefore be concerned that this bill treads on provincial jurisdiction. However, since this bill deals with human rights and civil rights, and deals with them on matters of federal issues only, this bill is constitutional. I am confident of that and I do not think we need to amend it in any way to deal with that issue.

I am going to conclude with a plea. We are so proud of this country. We are proud of its size, its beauty and all the resources it provides for us in ways that keep us living in a healthy way in this clean environment. It gives us jobs and also keeps us healthy. I think everybody in the House would agree that we have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment. If we have that right, we need legislation to uphold that right. That is what Bill C-219 would do, and I hope that everyone here will support this bill and provide that right to all Canadians.

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[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.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay for his leadership in introducing a true right to a healthy environment through Bill C-219.

I think this is the third speech I have heard sharing an interest in introducing better legislation before we even get this bill passed. We know that the Conservative Party intends to support this legislation, but it does not even support a carbon tax as a starting point, the simplest environmental policy of any to begin with. What does he think this says about the quality of the legislation in front of us now?

[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.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, like many times in our history, we are at a crossroads in regard to choosing the well-being of people over profits.

Too many times, government legislators have turned a blind eye to doing better to protect the health of people. Too many times, they have chosen to protect the profits of polluters and toxic industries because they did not know better or could not see the results of their choices manifesting in harmful ways in their very own communities.

Today, we are once again at that crossroad of opportunity to do better, or to carry on with the status quo that is harming people in the name of corporate greed and profits.

Over the past 50 years, science has told us, and cancer has shown us, that there are toxins in our bodies that should not be there. This is the fact of the matter, and this is what needs to be corrected. It is not just pollution in our air, water and land, but pollutants in our bodies, blood and breast milk exist. Pollutants that were put there by unregulated industry.

While I was preparing for this speech, I was reminded of the choice of the 36th Parliament that made pollution prevention planning discretionary and not mandatory under CEPA in 1999. That was a mistake a past Parliament made, and after 23 years, after eight Parliaments, this is a decision that this 44th Parliament must finally correct.

In those 23 years, only 25 toxic substances listed in the initial act have been subject to pollution prevention planning requirements. That is a rate of about one toxic substance every year. It will take 150 years for the existing list of toxins in the act to get a pollution prevention plan. As the Canadian Environmental Law Association stated, “This is a leisurely pace to addressing chemicals the federal government regards as the worst of the worst substances in the Canadian environment.”

Looking at it in decade-long timelines, it makes me wonder why Canadian governments have not done more before now to protect human health from known cancer-causing toxins. Every day 641 Canadians are diagnosed with cancer, and here we are, 23 years later, looking at the inadequacy of CEPA.

Canadians deserve better than the CEPA of the past, and it is the expectation of the NDP that this window of opportunity to improve environmental protections for Canadians and to offer them a right to a healthy environment is imperative to the health of us and of our children. We want a world where toxins being introduced into our bodies and the bodies of our children is not inevitable.

The NDP will be supporting the bill at second reading with the hopes that it can be substantially strengthened to reach that goal.

Bill S-5 is largely concerned with protecting the environment and human health from toxins and maintaining air and water quality. This is good, but there is widespread agreement that CEPA is overdue for substantial improvements. For one thing, it is widely considered to be unenforceable as it now stands, as there are multiple obstacles to enforcing it and remedies cannot be used by citizens. That needs to be corrected.

There are 159 countries around the world with legal obligations to protect the human right to a healthy environment, but Canada does not have those legal obligations. There are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but there is no federal law that explicitly recognizes the right to live in a healthy environment in Canada.

While Bill S-5 seems to be a step forward in recognizing the right to live in a healthy environment, there are serious concerns that this right will not be backed up by measures that improve the enforceability of the act. In fact, the Senate committee studying the bill reported just that.

As my colleague from South Okanagan—West Kootenay previously pointed out, Canadians deserve more power to ensure that their right to live in a healthy environment is upheld. That is one of the things that my colleague’s private member's bill, Bill C-219, would do.

Bill C-219 is titled an act to enact the Canadian environmental bill of rights, and it offers umbrella coverage to all federal legislation outside of CEPA. Specifically, it would give residents of Canada the right to, among other things, access information about environmental concerns, have standing at hearings, access tribunals and courts to uphold environmental rights and request a review of laws. It would also provide protection to whistle-blowers.

I encourage all members of the House to support Bill C-219 when it comes before the House in this session, because while it is good to see Bill S-5 here, it is important to note that adding the right to a healthy environment in a limited way under CEPA is not the same thing as ensuring, broadly, that all people have the right to live in a healthy environment, as is the goal of Bill C-219.

There remain troubling limitations in Bill S-5 on how the right to a healthy environment will be applied and how the right will be enforced. Without modernizing legislation to update chemicals management in Canada, and without the legal recognition of the right to a healthy environment, Canadians will continue to be exposed to unregulated and harmful chemicals.

Canadians are exposed to chemicals from polluting industries every day in the air, in the waters of our lakes, rivers and oceans, and even in the safety of our own homes in the products we use.

Canadians expect their government to take action to protect them and their families from toxic substances. They expect the government to ensure that all people have the right to live in a healthy environment. These are things New Democrats have been calling on the government to fix for years. While the government has chosen to do nothing, the number of chemicals that people in Canada are exposed to in their daily lives has grown exponentially.

There has been a 50-fold increase in the production of chemicals in the past 50 years, and that is expected to triple again by 2050. Personal care products are manufactured with over 10,000 unique chemical ingredients, some of which are either suspected or known to cause cancer, harm our reproductive systems or disrupt our endocrine systems. Even some disposable diapers have been shown to contain these harmful chemicals. Babies are being impacted.

Since CEPA was first enacted, Canada has also learned much more about the harmful cumulative effects of these toxic chemicals on our health. We now know that exposure to hazardous chemicals, even in small amounts, can be linked to chronic illnesses like asthma, cancer and diabetes. According to Health Canada, air pollution is a factor in over 15,000 premature deaths and millions of respiratory issues every year in Canada.

These toxins are impacting racialized communities even harder. Frontline workers, who are predominantly women or racialized, often have higher exposure to hazardous chemicals. Across Canada, indigenous, Black and racialized families are disproportionately negatively impacted by toxic dumps, polluting pipelines, tainted drinking water and other environmental hazards.

The former UN special rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes stated, “The invisible violence inflicted by toxics is an insidious burden disproportionately borne by Indigenous peoples in Canada.” This is exactly why there must be a better enforcement mechanism in this bill so that communities, families and individuals can achieve the protection outlined in law.

One of the most disappointing and concerning gaps in this bill is that it does not touch on the citizen enforcement mechanism. As the member for Victoria has said in the House, “The citizen enforcement mechanism is, frankly, broken. It has never been successfully used. The process is so onerous that it is essentially impossible for a citizen to bring an environmental enforcement action. Without a functioning citizen enforcement mechanism, there are serious questions about how the right to a healthy environment can be truly enforced.”

There are also other critical gaps in Bill S-5. It lacks clear accountability and timelines for how toxic substances are managed. It lacks mandatory labelling so Canadians can make informed choices about the products they use. It does not fix loopholes that allow corporations to hide which toxic substances are in their products.

If we want to protect our health and the environment, we have to ensure that we are following the advice of scientists and experts, not the interests of big corporations. These big corporations, made up of some of Canada's biggest polluting industries, have been attempting to stop amendments to Bill S-5—

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

Madam Speaker, this act is largely concerned with protecting the environment and human health from toxins and maintaining air and water quality, but there is widespread agreement that CEPA is overdue for a substantial improvement. For one thing, it is widely considered to be unenforceable as it now stands, as there are multiple obstacles to enforcing it and remedies cannot be used.

A lot has happened in 23 years. New chemicals have been invented that potentially impact our health, and the public has been increasingly concerned about the health of our environment and the impact of it on our health and on the populations of animals and plants that we share the world with and depend on for our well-being. A poll in 2017 found that nine in 10 Canadians are concerned about exposure to toxins from consumer products, 96% agreed that labels should disclose the presence of those toxins in consumer products and 92% agreed that Canada should recognize the right to live in a healthy environment.

I would like to concentrate my remarks today on that final point: the right to live in a healthy environment. There are 159 countries around the world with legal obligations to protect the human right to a healthy environment, but Canada does not have those legal obligations. There are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but there is no federal law that explicitly recognizes the right to live in a healthy environment in Canada.

International efforts to recognize that right go back to the 1972 Stockholm declaration, which recognizes the right to “an environment of equality that permits a life of dignity and well-being”. Fifty years later, this past summer, on July 28, the UN General Assembly passed a unanimous resolution that recognized the right to a healthy environment around the world. With Canada voting for that resolution to finally join the rest of the world and with the 92% of Canadians agreeing with it, it is certainly high time that we had federal legislation that recognized this right. I am happy to say that Bill S-5 provides a step in that direction.

The preamble of CEPA will now include the following statement: “Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes that every individual in Canada has a right to a healthy environment as provided under this Act”. That is a good step, but there are limitations to that statement. For one, as the member for Repentigny mentioned, it is in the preamble where it does not really carry much legal weight. Also, the right is clearly restricted to the provisions of the act. In other words, it is around the control of toxins, air quality and water quality.

This new act would also state that those rights are “subject to any reasonable limits” and that those limits will be elaborated on in the implementation framework through “the consideration of relevant factors, including social, health, scientific and economic factors”. It is therefore important to see how these rights will be upheld. The implementation framework of this bill will apparently also elaborate on mechanisms to support that right.

While Bill S-5 seems to be a step forward in recognizing the right to live in a healthy environment, there are serious concerns that the right will not be backed up by measures that improve the enforceability of the act. In fact, the Senate committee studying the bill reported:

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.

In discussions that I have had with top environmental lawyers about Bill S-5, I have heard more concerns that the implementation framework proposed in this bill would interpose the government between public rights and the remedies needed when those rights are violated.

My first suggestion would be that the bill be strengthened by giving the residents of Canada more power to ensure that their right to live in a healthy environment is upheld. That is one of the things that my private member's bill, Bill C-219, would do.

Bill C-219 is entitled the Canadian environmental bill of rights and will be debated later in this session. I would like to spend some time covering its provisions, because it suggests several ways Bill S-5 could and should be improved. I would like to mention here that Bill C-219 was drafted by my former colleague Linda Duncan, a brilliant environmental lawyer who was the MP for Edmonton Strathcona for many years. She introduced this same private member's bill four times during her career as an MP. It was never voted down but, unfortunately, died in each of those parliaments before becoming law.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the limitations of the right to a healthy environment proposed by Bill S-5 is that it is restricted to the provisions of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. It does not cover environmental protections outlined in other parts of the federal environmental mandate, such as the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Impact Assessment Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, and so on. Bill C-219 would provide umbrella coverage to all federal legislation outside of CEPA. CEPA was carved out of Bill C-219, apparently to avoid clashing legislation.

On top of that wider coverage, Bill C-219 would provide stronger protections of the right to a healthy environment. Specifically, it would give residents of Canada the right to, among other things, access information about environmental concerns, standing at hearings, access tribunals and courts to uphold environmental rights, and request a review of laws. It would also provide protection to whistle-blowers.

To conclude, I reiterate that I will be supporting Bill S-5 at second reading, but I hope the government will look carefully at my bill to see how it might inform efforts to improve Bill S-5 in committee amendments. I also hope that if the government is serious about extending the right to live in a healthy environment to all Canadians, that it will support my bill, the Canadian environmental bill of rights, to extend and strengthen that right to the entire federal mandate.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is a leader in the area of environmental protection. I look forward learning more about Bill C-219. We would consider it at that time.

I just want to assure the hon. member that we are going to have a very robust process at committee. The minister and I, and others, have indicated that we are certainly open to strengthening the bill. The Senate did some excellent work, which I think we can build on. I want to thank the hon. member for the question.

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

Madam Speaker, this is a bill that many of us have been waiting for for some time. It mentions, in its preamble, the right for Canadians to live in a healthy environment. I have a private member's bill, Bill C-219, which we will be hearing about later this fall, that talks about the environmental bill of rights, a right to live in a healthy environment, that would extend across the whole federal mandate, not just within CEPA, as this does.

Could the member comment on whether the government would consider amending Bill S-5 to take into account the stronger language from my bill about individual rights to live in a healthy environment, or even on whether the government would accept all the amendments that the Senate put forward? This bill needs to be fixed to be made more actionable when it comes to that right.

Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights

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

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-219, An Act to enact the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights and to make related amendments to other Acts.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to table this bill today. I would especially like to thank Linda Duncan, the former member for Edmonton Strathcona, for championing the bill over 11 years in four Parliaments. I thank the present member for Edmonton Strathcona for seconding the bill today.

The bill would amend the Canadian Bill of Rights to add the right to live in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. It enshrines that right in a new Canadian environmental bill of rights that would also provide, among other things, the right to access information about the environment and the right to public participation and decision-making regarding the environment. It brings Canada into line with more than 100 countries around the world that have rights to a healthy environment enshrined in their legal systems.

A healthy environment is an integral part of what makes Canadians proud of our country, and this bill would ensure that all of us have the right to live in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.

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