Bill C-23

Historic Places of Canada Act

An Act respecting places, persons and events of national historic significance or national interest, archaeological resources and cultural and natural heritage

This enactment enacts the Historic Places of Canada Act , which provides for the designation of places, persons and events that are of national historic significance or national interest and fosters the protection and conservation of the heritage value of the designated places.
The Act, among other things,
(a) sets out the powers, duties and functions of the federal minister responsible for the Act respecting, among other things,
(i) the designation of places, persons and events that are of national historic significance or national interest,
(ii) the protection and conservation of the heritage value of certain places that are of national historic significance or national interest,
(iii) the protection and conservation of certain archaeological resources,
(iv) the implementation of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and
(v) the establishment of a program for the commemoration of deceased prime ministers of Canada at their grave sites or other appropriate places;
(b) continues the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada and modifies its composition, including to provide for the appointment of representatives for First Nations, Inuit and Métis;
(c) requires the establishment and maintenance of a public register that includes certain information about designated places, persons and events and permits the exclusion of information from the register in certain circumstances;
(d) imposes obligations for the protection and conservation of the heritage value of certain designated places that are under the administration of federal ministers or certain Crown corporations, including
(i) the obligation to ensure that the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada is taken into account before an action is carried out that may result in a physical change to one of those designated places that may affect its heritage value, and
(ii) the obligation to consult with the Parks Canada Agency before that action is carried out and before the disposition of one of those designated places;
(e) contains provisions respecting navigation on certain canals that are designated places;
(f) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting certain designated places; and
(g) contains provisions respecting the enforcement of the Act.
The Act also contains transitional provisions, makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts and repeals the Historic Sites and Monuments Act .

Historic Places of Canada Act

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

Mr. Speaker, yes, as I was remarking near the end of my speech, providing adequate resources is such a key component. It is not enough to simply alter the composition of the board or provide direction to Parks Canada; we also need to ensure that the federal government is providing adequate resources to protect our built history and ensure the designated sites have what they need to manage the history in perpetuity. I think that is a real shortcoming in the conversation around national historic sites.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his rather extraordinary speech. It made me want to go straight to British Columbia. In fact, I think the B.C. tourism board should hire him or should send his speech to people to encourage them to go there and see how interesting the historic sites really are. It really makes you want to go there.

Quite apart from Bill C‑23 currently before the House, I think everyone pretty much agrees today on the issues of truth and reconciliation. We have talked about housing, murdered women, homelessness, and the reserves in northern Ontario and Manitoba that still do not have clean water. Many challenges remain when it comes to reaching out to indigenous nations.

What does my colleague think is the priority issue that should be dealt with immediately other than Bill C‑23?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I will try. My French is a very early work in progress, but I heard the member's remarks about how much he values the effort, so I will do my best.

He was talking about reconciliation, the need for us to do better and to do more and the opportunity that national historic sites represent in that regard. I do not believe that the bill would go far enough toward realizing the potential of that, ensuring that we are portraying history and recognizing the sovereignty of these nations and the relationship we have as we should. This relationship is in its very early days, and I would have hoped that the bill would go further when it comes to national historic sites.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will follow up on the comments we heard just now. In terms of the funding that needs to be available for the upkeep of these sites, a lot of sites commemorating the indigenous history of our country really do not have a built environment. I think it is important to create the interpretive centres that would tell us, finally, about the indigenous history of Canada and to provide funding for that necessary part of our national historic sites.

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

Mr. Speaker, that is one of the really important aspects of this work. We often fixate on the built environment, built history, artifacts and these types of things for interpretation. However, when it comes to indigenous history, so much of it is contextual and part of oral history. As such, having indigenous-led interpretation to help understand the context of places that are significant to indigenous people is very important. This deserves investment and attention from the federal government.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise to speak in the House. Today, we are talking about Bill C-23, an act respecting places, persons and events of national historic significance or national interest, archaeological resources and cultural and natural heritage. Fortunately, it also has a short title: the historic places of Canada act.

This bill is an attempt to follow up on one of the recommendations from the truth and reconciliation report. Members will recall that the Right Hon. Stephen Harper made an official apology to first nations people for the residential school situations. He then commissioned this truth and reconciliation report, which came with over 90 recommendations. Recommendation number 79 is the one that this act is trying to address. Conservatives absolutely support this. Stephen Harper started it, and so we definitely want to see this come to pass and to send it to committee.

In my talk today, I am going to reflect on some of the concerns that I have with the bill, and as usual, some recommendations on how to fix them.

I will start with subclause 43(3). What happens in the parks part of this bill is that the park rangers would be given new authorities. They would be given similar authorities to what peace officers have. They would then carry out their work. Basically, I want to read subclause 43(3) because it is very concerning. It states:

A park warden or enforcement officer may exercise any powers under [search and seizure] without a warrant if the conditions for obtaining a warrant exist, but by reason of exigent circumstances it would not be practical to obtain one.

It would obviously be a violation of section 8 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms to search and seize without a warrant, so the important part of that phrasing is “exigent circumstances”. However, I do not know that a park ranger would necessarily understand that they would normally get a warrant, but if someone were going to be injured or some building were going to be destroyed or something, there may be some urgent circumstance. Moreover, there is no indication of a requirement for training on that. Therefore, there needs to be some training.

The second concern I have with this bill is that it would give additional powers to the minister and to the Governor in Council, which is essentially cabinet, to designate places or to prevent a place from being designated. That is way too much power to give to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. I say that because he has a history of doing things to influence the outcomes that he likes or does not like.

For example, in 2022, he decided to put in regulations about migratory birds, which caused a delay in the Trans Mountain pipeline project. He has already said he never wants to see that project built. I would not want a situation where there is some kind of project or natural resources thing that is in the national public interest and the minister has the sole power to decide to designate a heritage place that would become a barrier to that project. We do not need to put that kind of power in his hands. We have to keep in mind that this is the minister who, in his former life, was arrested for his environmental activism. For example, in my riding, I have a heritage site that is where oil was first discovered in North America. I do not ever want to see the minister have the power to decide that is not going to be a designated site anymore. That sole-power thing is a problem, and there need to be checks in place.

Under clause 34, another thing the Governor in Council, which is really cabinet, could do is to make regulations on about 18 different circumstances. This is becoming a chronic problem with bills that the Liberal government brings forward. The Liberals have no detail in the bill and leave it to the regulations later. Sometimes, thinking about Bill C-11, the government knows what the criteria are that it is going to bring forward to the CRTC on what content should be promoted or buried. Even though the opposition has been asking the government to share that for more than a year, it will not do so.

If we look at Bill C-22, the bill about disabilities, it does not say who is eligible, how much they get and when they are going to get it. Those are details that are actually very important in order to approve bills in more than just principle.

We are at the stage where we are approving this one in principle, but the ability for cabinet to make regulations after the fact needs to be much more limited than it is. There needs to be some driver of why it could not be foreseen.

There is also a part of this bill that would increase indigenous representation on the board from first nations, Inuit and Métis, and that is a great addition. There are some occasions when they do not all agree on something. We have seen instances before, like with the Coastal gas project, for example, with the Wet'suwet'en, where 85% thought one thing and 15% thought another. Again, there does not seem to be a mechanism to resolve when the board cannot agree about something, so that would be very important.

Another protection I would like to see in this bill has to do with the issue of cancel culture. We have seen in our country, over the last few years, quite a number of historic monuments that were vandalized, destroyed or forced to be taken down. I think about the Queen Victoria statue. I would not want to get into a situation where somebody is not a monarchist and they become the minister and have the sole power to designate something as “not a site”, for example.

I remember when I was at university in Kingston, there used to be a pub there called Sir John A. Macdonald, and they made them take that away. I do not know if it was officially a historic site, but it was certainly historic in my life. I definitely do not want to see that.

Another thing is that 15 Christian churches have been burned, some of which were historical sites, and the government has not taken any action. How we are going to address the protection of things that are already heritage sites and not try to rewrite history, as it were? That will be an important question.

I also want to make sure the board members who are chosen have the best interests of the country and the people they are representing at heart. In my riding, there are people who are paid environmental activists who chain themselves to the employees' pipelines, etc. It could cause a lot of trouble if those people were on the board of this particular committee. Who is vetting the board members? It says the government is going to choose. If “government” means the Minister of the Environment, who was previously an environmental activist, then I do have a concern there as well.

Let us talk about navigable waters. There is a lot of red tape already in the area of navigable waters. There are federal regulations, there are provincial regulations and there is always a long delay in getting any resolution. Now we would have the Minister of Environment and Climate Change having powers, but what if the Minister of Fisheries or the Minister of Tourism do not agree? I have raised this point in the questions a few times, but there has not really been a good answer. There needs to be some mechanism to sort out who is on first and who has the prime responsibility. I personally do not think it should be the Minister of the Environment, when it comes to navigable waters. That is clearly something that is a concern of Fisheries and Oceans, unless it is for tourism.

If we think about some of the balancing of priorities, we know that when it comes to designating heritage sites, they are expensive to maintain. In my previous questions, I talked about, in my riding, Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie's grave, which was falling into disrepair and it took a really long time to get fixed. We need to make sure there is a plan in place to afford the things we are designating.

I do like the idea of a registry for those locations that are heritage locations. That will be helpful. I think it will also help prevent people from removing things that were at heritage sites, because the reasoning for them being chosen in the first place will be a part of that.

The final concern I have about this is that the government has brought this bill and again is giving more power to the government. Its track record is not great on this. We have seen numerous times that the government has used its powers and it was not in the interest of the people. I think that is why people are losing trust in the democracy and in the current government.

There need to be some protections put into this bill that would allow us to expand and recognize heritage sites, to afford to fix them, to make sure that we are not going to cancel them later and to make sure that it is clear how we sort out conflict.

Those are the main concerns that I have with the bill. I would be happy to answer any questions people have.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting listening to the debate on what I would have thought was fairly straightforward legislation or definitely the principles of it. I do not necessarily agree with the official opposition, but I understand what it is saying. The legislation also has a very significant contribution toward reconciliation with call to action 79. From what I can tell, many of the discussions that have been coming forward could easily be dealt with at committee stage. My concern is to what degree the Conservative Party would like to see the bill passed. Is there an interest on its part to see it passed? As I said, it would be nice to see it passed before the end of the year.

Could the hon. member just provide her perspective, given the importance of the principles of the legislation, on when it could go to committee?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely would like to see this bill passed, but the reason we have to raise our concerns in the House at second reading is that my experience at committee has been that the Liberal government pays no attention to comments raised at committee.

Many committees are not televised, so the public will never know what the concerns are with the bill. We need to get them on the record today, and then the government has time to think about what the solutions are, to take my great suggestions, to put them in place and to get ready for committee.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in her speech, my colleague talked a lot about resource development. I would like to remind members of something interesting that my colleague from Terrebonne said when she spoke to this bill earlier.

She reminded the House that there is a wonderful agreement between the Government of Quebec and indigenous peoples when it comes to the development of resources in Quebec, and that is the peace of the braves. That was made possible through nation-to-nation dialogue. We need to be careful. Not all indigenous people are in favour of every development project. They are also concerned about the environment and the impact that these projects will have on future generations of their people.

Above all else, the message that I want to send is the importance of nation-to-nation dialogue to ensure that we hear their opinions and concerns regarding the environment. It is important to not necessarily invest only in resources that will further damage their planet, which is also that of their children.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, it is very important to have discussions with the first nations, between nations. It is very good that Quebec has an agreement that allows for these discussions, but the other provinces and territories do not have such agreements.

I do not think it is a win if the government announces that we can designate historic sites, but there is no money to put measures in place. I worry that this will exacerbate the situation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to remark that this is the second speech I have heard today on national historic sites that mentioned the Trans Mountain pipeline. I know there are a lot of people out there who cannot wait for this project to be history. What really got me going was when the member brought up the gatekeeper aspect and mentioned that birds were the gatekeepers. It is the first time I have heard people blame birds for these things.

I am just wondering, similarly to the previous question, if the member would rather get rid of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, get rid of the Fisheries Act and let these developments happen willy-nilly. Is this what she really wants?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely, I care about the species. I care about the environment.

What I do not like is those who are in power using excuses, such as designating a heritage site that may be just conveniently a heritage site because it is in the way of a natural resources project that is going to be built. Perhaps those in power pick that one bird that could only be in that one place in order to prevent something from going forward. That is the kind of abuse of power we do not want to see. That is why we need protections in this bill to prevent it.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a comment to get on the record, and I would like to see if the hon. member agrees.

I have the Old Durham Road Black pioneer cemetery located in my riding. It is near the terminus of the Underground Railroad. It has been recognized by Ontario, for over 30 years now, as an important historic site for the Province of Ontario. However, it has been rejected in getting national historic recognition, partly because of unique things under the act tied to cemeteries.

I am hoping that during this debate, we would be able to get it amended and have this important Black history site in my riding recognized in the future. Would the member agree?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker.