Bill S-5

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

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

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

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, as an MP from Alberta and as an Albertan, I would say that we have environmental regulations governing the largest industrial companies operating the biggest projects in our province. When it comes to legislating and regulating our province's biggest corporations, we are leading the way.

The rest of Canada could follow our lead on things like ethane and methane. For large industrial projects, we have very strict rules governing gas emissions. We have also had a price on greenhouse gas production for a very long time for our province's major oil industry producers.

Anyone can come to our province and ask us questions. Our public servants are excellent; their excellence is world-renowned. All this information is available online, and I encourage the member to come to Alberta and see it for herself if she wants.

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

Madam Speaker, it is somewhat disappointing the way the Conservatives are looking at this legislation, legislation to protect and provide support to Canadians, that deals with the environment. Stakeholders from coast to coast to coast are quite anxious to see the legislation move forward. The Conservatives are using the excuse of wanting more time to debate it. They will say that about anything in order to filibuster.

We are constantly having to look for partners to get bills through. We are not trying to say that debate should absolutely and completely end today. If the Conservatives are in support of the legislation, why not allow it to go to committee stage? Why do they have to talk out every bill in order to frustrate the legislative process?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a rich argument from the member for Winnipeg North, who has probably spoken more words in the House than any other member. I dare say that perhaps he has spoken more than his entire caucus combined possibly. Maybe we should add the member for Kingston and the Islands.

This is the place where consultation happens with the citizens of our country. The House of Commons, through its members of Parliament, are representatives of the people. We will do our job.

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

Madam Speaker, that was an interesting speech by the member from Calgary, as always. I will have to add the word “consultocracy” to my vocabulary.

He mentioned how unenforceable the law would be. The CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, has been on the books since 1999, and it has never been enforced in any way.

Could he perhaps give us some ideas on how we should make it enforceable? Canadians deserve to live in a clean and healthy environment and we need to be able to enforce that.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, just to be clear with the member, I said that the right to a healthy environment, as it is embedded and updated in the legislation, is unenforceable because it is in the preamble. It gives no force of law, essentially. Someone cannot go to court and make a claim before a judge that this is somehow an enforceable right. It is not in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is not a right that someone can make a claim against.

In terms of enforceability, this is already enforced in the industry. The industry in Canada is already trying to meet these expectations. This legislation will impact hundreds of thousands of people who work across the different sectors. All of them are trying to do the right thing by the environment and also by their community members. Nobody is out there with the goal of polluting unnecessarily or of dropping toxic chemicals into the environment. They know this legislation exists and they are trying to meet its expectations, but inserting it into the preamble is what makes it unenforceable.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, it has been interesting to hear the debate here so far today. Part of that is addressing an important new bill before Parliament, Bill S-5, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act.

These are important environmental considerations for Parliament to consider. It would be updating a bill that was initially passed, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, back in 1999 and it is well past due. I understand from my colleague, although I did not know this before he spoke in the House today, that it has been five years since this bill has been under review. Five years is a long time.

The past five years were interrupted by two elections, one of which was completely unnecessary and changed the entire legislative agenda so that we could not address these things in ample time here in this place. We are supposed to be looking at legislation in Canada and how we can do better at what is on the agenda.

This bill, as my colleague pointed out, came over to us initially after it was passed at the Senate with many amendments. In this case, we seem to be the chamber of sober second thought on what has been brought to us as an amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

All Canadians want a strong Canadian Environmental Protection Act to make sure that the substances that are transmitted in society have some very clear guidelines around how they are going to be approved by the regulatory process.

Make no mistake: There are good things about this bill that I support. I hope to get into some committee work and go through the detail here on some changes that are required. Some of the changes would be undoing some of the amendments that were put in place in the Senate, which actually served to move this legislation backward as opposed to forward.

What does work in this bill is getting rid of some of the redundancy in regulations. In the House, I have spoken many times about the weight of government and the weight of regulations. There is overlap not only between different levels of government, as in provinces, municipalities and the federal government, but also within the government itself. We have a combination of looking at the same regulations through various departments.

It is a waste of time, a waste of money and a waste of effort for the companies that have to go through that process. Dealing with those in one fell swoop, as this legislation seems to propose, is a better way of getting past regulations that industry has to go through in order to move things forward.

I will point out that I have been involved in bills in the House of Commons where we did expedite things very clearly. I remember my work with the previous minister of natural resources in the 43rd Parliament when we moved forward on the regulatory advancements required for offshore work to regulate workers and make sure they stayed safe.

This was work that had been delayed for years. As a result, for the offshore workers in Canada, primarily in Newfoundland but also Nova Scotia, the regulations were not on top of each other anymore, and there was a legal void as to what would happen in an accident.

The minister at that time, who was a very good minister, worked together with me behind the scenes and made sure that we advanced that as quickly as possible. We got it through the House and over to the other place. I stand corrected; it actually came from the other place. We got it through the House as quickly as possible, through committee, because we had addressed everything that needed to be addressed in that legislation. Not having that legislation available at that time was putting workers at risk.

When things need to move quickly in the House, we move them quickly. Our job is to make sure we look at what is best for Canadians and address what needs to be changed in legislation brought before us.

I am going to talk about this legislation a bit because there are some clear deficiencies. There are some good things, as I have noted, in this bill, and we do need an updated Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This also brings changes to other legislation. There are some things I have questions about. I question a lot of the bureaucratese that we address here in the House of Commons.

The language in the bill identifies certain things that I know are going to require further definition down the road. Those are things like “vulnerable populations”. Can we define what a vulnerable population is? I have not seen it prescribed anywhere in legalese.

It talks about “the principle of non-regression and the principle of intergenerational equity”. All of these things are nice concepts on paper. As yet, they have no standing in any court of law, because they have not been in front of any court of law. That is one of the problems here.

We can put these things on paper and then, all of a sudden, somebody will actually challenge them and they will be in front of a judge. As my colleague said earlier, a judge does not get to look at the preamble of a bill. He only looks at the bill. He says, “This intergenerational equity thing is something profound, and here is the ruling I have.”

That, of course, will layer its way up to every court in Canada. Then we will have a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada on what is meant by intergenerational equity, to say nothing of the intergenerational inequity that the current government has visited upon Canadians repeatedly over the last seven years. The amount of deficit that we have incurred with the government foisting taxes upon future generations of Canadians is the definition of intergenerational inequity. Our kids, our grandkids and our great-grandkids are going to be looking after bills that the government refuses to pay today.

Those are things that are going to have to find their way through in the wash. It is better that we find those things in the wash here than 10 years later after several court iterations and several millions of dollars through our court system. We would have to reverse everything that has been done over that time.

We talked about toxicity in this bill. I recall, not so long ago, that they talked about plastics being toxic. I know that the plastics industry was very upset about that. I used Tupperware last night. I used a baggy this morning.

Is that toxic? Am I using toxic goods? I think that we really have to get toward what toxicity actually means for the communities that we are acting on behalf of. A watch-list for these substances becomes capable of being overused and misunderstood by the bureaucrats and the legalists who might get involved with it.

There are other definitions in here, like “the right to a healthy environment”. I am all for a healthy environment. Everyone knows that. How we put that into a right, as far as Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is a mystery to me.

I know that a lot of my colleagues think a healthy environment looks like a golf course and that is not at all the case. A healthy environment is actually something where we have a whole bunch of bugs, if we will. We start at the very basic level here, and things move their way through the ecosystem. Sometimes nature, in its healthy environment phase, is not pretty.

If we take a look at the agriculture we produce in Canada, that agriculture, quite frankly, is a manipulation of nature. If we look at this, somebody could challenge it and could say that is making the environment unhealthy. We are plowing fields and that is killing a whole bunch of moles, voles, insects, birds, nests and everything else in order to feed the world, which Canada does very well.

I am challenged by some of the terminology that is in here. We need to balance all of this against social and economic factors. We need to make sure that we have risk assessments and risk management profiles that show exactly what we are trying to accomplish and balance it with what is good for all of society.

One of the other issues in here that we have seen in regulatory overreach, which we have seen in many government bills in their regulatory approach, is the ability for anybody to request that a minister look to see if a substance is toxic.

There are all kinds of nuances going on in our court system currently in Canada where that is being abused by many organizations that are trying to stall developments in Canada. This opens the door to more of the same.

Once we start opening the door to more of the same in every measure of society, we are going to have nothing but litigation from self-interested entities all the way through our legal system. That is what has to stop. That is what has to move forward a little better here to make sure that we get better legislation for all Canadians. Those are my main points.

I am looking forward to the government considering how we can make some good recommendations and good amendments so that this bill, the terms around it and the definitions that we are talking about are addressed clearly, so that we can address good legislation for Canadians going forward.

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

Madam Speaker, it is interesting. The Conservatives are criticizing the government because the Senate is assisting us on some very important legislation. However, Stephen Harper had no problem doing the same thing. In fact, he even brought forward environmental legislation through the Senate. When Conservatives talk about the use of the Senate being incorporated into our legislative agenda, they need to reflect while looking in the mirror.

The legislation we have before us has been here since February, through the Senate. It passed through the Senate in June. We introduced it long ago. If every member speaks on the legislation, it would never pass. When would the Conservative Party want to see legislation such as this pass? Why not allow it to pass into committee where stakeholders and other MPs could contribute to the debate and discussion?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I do not recall criticizing the government for moving this agenda through the Senate.

First, I said that this time we in the House of Commons are the body of sober second thought. I know that, for my colleague on that side, it might be second thought. We are trying to be sober here and to make sure we actually put some analysis into this, and not just ram it through like my colleague on the other side would like us to do.

I am a member of the environment committee. I know where this is going to end up. It is going to be on my desk. I have already put some effort into looking at this bill and how we could address the changes that would be required going forward. We are going to make sure that we get this bill. I would challenge the member: If it took five years to get here, why does he think jamming it through here in 10 minutes would be appropriate? I think we need to address these things.

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

Madam Speaker, I just want to add some comments to the member's concerns around how this idea of the right for Canadians to live in a healthy and clean environment would be approached.

In this bill that we are debating today, Bill S-5, the new Canadian Environmental Protection Act would only extend those rights as far as the bill goes. It would basically be around toxins, air pollution and water pollution. The federal government has a wider mandate than that. We have a lot of environmental legislation on the books, including the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act.

Would the member agree that we need to extend that right to the entire federal mandate?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the question from my colleague with whom I sat on committee in the last Parliament. He always has some excellent input into the manner in which we need to move legislation forward.

Let me say that this whole issue around a clean and healthy environment is a great concept, and I fully subscribe to it. At the same time, I look at this nonsense that I hear in the House from members in the House, and not the member in question here, and I need to make sure that we have clarity on what we are trying to accomplish. I have heard many times, at committee and in the House, about how emissions from oil and gas, for instance, are actually limiting people's lifespans. However, when we look at the increasing lifespan of Canadians, it is significant.

We have actually done very well with the lower cost of energy and lower emissions in this country. I want to make sure we continue on that, and that as Canadians' lifespans continue to increase we get better and expect more from our legislation around how we treat Canadians. That is what I am after here.

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

Madam Speaker, I am certainly very concerned that this bill not be rushed through. I agree with him insofar as that comment. This is a very complex bill. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a very long act in six parts. The government has chosen not to review or update part 6 at all, which deals with marine dumping and genetically modified organisms. That section needs attention but will be outside the scope of the act for parliamentarians to review, unless the government steps up and says we need to modernize this section as well.

I am also concerned about protecting this bill from court challenges. We need to put back in the list of toxic substances, schedule 1.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I share my colleague's concerns about how we get things done in the House and about making sure we address legislation quickly.

One of the issues in this bill of course is that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a criminal act, so we are moving a lot of redresses here toward a criminal approach to things, with a lower bar, a more civil law bar, for how those are approached, so we are impacting two sets of laws here that might not serve Canadian society well. These are some of the things we have to consider in this, and I am open to everything my colleague has to say about how we can make this better.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure to rise on Bill S-5.

Five years ago, at the environment committee, as a parliamentary staffer, I took part in the extensive review that took place, I believe, in 2017. Indeed, the committee members at the time looked at the whole scope of this legislation, and I hope to provide some insight from my time on that committee during my remarks today.

While I am in support of Bill S-5 in the fact that it deals with the right to a healthy environment and some of the critical issues included in CEPA 1999, I would be remiss if I did not mention a juxtaposition of things happening in British Columbia at the moment.

Right now, we have a government that is purportedly concerned about the impacts of toxic substances on our lives, on our health and on the health of infants most importantly. Just yesterday I went to IKEA with my family and bought some new furniture. I know that furniture is subject to many of the schedule 1 toxic substances list, and those toxic chemicals are applied in the production and manufacturing of almost all consumer goods that we use in Canada. At the same time, though, the government has decided this year to decriminalize the use of fentanyl, which is killing hundreds, if not thousands of people every single year in my province.

Why do we care so much, on the one hand, about the application of CEPA 1999 and amending it to keep our communities safe from toxic substances, when at the same time the Government of Canada is effectively legalizing the use of a toxic substance that is killing people every day on the streets of Vancouver and throughout British Columbia?

Earlier in the debate today, a number of people spoke to the fact that the bill before us today does not address the full scope of changes that are needed to modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I would generally agree with this assumption and the concern put forward by members on all sides of the House. For example, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which is complicated legislation, overlaps and works in conjunction with other pieces of legislation that determine how we use products and substances in our day-to-day life, one example being the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. In the last number of years, we have seen a huge influx of electric vehicles coming into the marketplace. I think it would benefit consumers in Canada if we had updated standards on the use of the batteries, for example, that are used in these cars, and the impact it could have on the environment when they reach the end of their life cycle and have to be recycled.

Another example of things we could have been discussing is living organisms or biotechnology. I know many of my constituents are concerned about genetically modified organisms. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is the law that deals with such substances. We have not seen a major update despite major advancements in the technology regarding the products, food and even vaccines that we might ingest into our bodies that could be impacted by such provisions.

A big one is preventing water pollution from nutrients. One of the things the Department of Environment and Climate Change wanted to see addressed in 2016, when we went through the review, was the labelling of products such as bleach or other household goods that we use on a regular basis. We need to know the impact those products have when we put them down the drain, and what might happen off the coast of Victoria, for example, when they are dumped directly into the ocean. We need our Canadian Environmental Protection Act to be updated to know what we are putting into the ocean and the impact it has on marine life, especially in British Columbia.

As other members have mentioned, Bill S-5 does nothing to address marine pollution. I would be remiss if I did not ask why the government would not address that, because it is in the process of hiring hundreds of new people to work at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Transport Canada on a marine protection plan for the Pacific coast. How in the world could it not update CEPA to work in conjunction with the billions of dollars it is purportedly spending on protecting B.C.'s coasts? It has the opportunity right here in the House of Commons.

Another big thing we could have done to address the environment is related to preventing pollution from the transboundary movement of hazardous waste and hazardous recyclable material. One of my colleagues from Simcoe, the secondary breadbasket of Canada, put forward a bill to try to update some aspects of CEPA as it relates to recycled goods. We have so many goods on which we could a better job of making sure they are dealt with in a respectful way.

We also need to be very careful, and CEPA could be doing this, to look at the importation of goods and whether they meet Canadian standards. An updated CEPA could give consumers more confidence in the products they are using if the government had the courage to do the hard work of updating the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.

Another key aspect of CEPA that could have been addressed is preventing and responding to emergencies. This is particularly important to the people of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. One of the provisions that Environment and Climate Change Canada asked for in the last review in 2017 was to allow for field research related to environmental emergencies, and for exemptions for urgent, time-sensitive issues of national security and remedial provisions. This was really relevant to my riding when it had to replace so many culverts as it related to fish-bearing streams. There were so many applications to our environmental laws in the context of an emergency that could have been addressed if the government wanted to do the hard work.

Another area the government could have addressed, which is probably the fifth or sixth already, is environmental protection related to federal activities on aboriginal lands. Aboriginal lands and reserves, in many cases, are not subject to provincial environmental laws, and we do not know about the application of federal laws or the overlay of the two jurisdictions. We could have used this opportunity in respect of UNDRIP. Instead of just talking about UNDRIP, we could have taken the concrete administrative step of improving the application of environmental laws or their administration in the context of aboriginal lands.

Another area we could have looked at is strengthening the enforcement of CEPA. Since the review that took place in 2017, the Government of Canada went through a major process with Volkswagen Canada. Volkswagen was not following the laws in Canada related to the Motor Vehicle Safety Act and was not reporting on the emissions from certain vehicles. In the United States, there were billions of dollars in lawsuits after this. In Canada, our enforcement of environmental laws is much weaker. We could have used this opportunity to strengthen the enforcement of environmental protection in Canada.

Another area we could have looked at that I briefly touched upon is facilitating intergovernmental co-operation. We have a large bureaucracy in Canada. There is lots of red tape. There is overlapping jurisdiction and there are overlapping laws. Updating CEPA could have clarified how federal, provincial and territorial laws work in the context of equivalency in the administration of environmental protection in Canada.

We could have looked very closely at encouraging public participation, moving administrative barriers to allow more citizens to participate and bring petitions forward to the minister of environment, which is a very key aspect of the bill on issues of concern. We could have clarified how that would work in the Canadian context.

Finally, the preamble in Bill S-5 talks extensively about protecting the right to a healthy environment. Unfortunately, the government seems to punt all the hard work down the road. Why did it not clarify the legal definition of “a right to a healthy environment” instead of giving our public servants two years to determine the definition? We have a responsibility in committee and in this chamber to do that hard work now, not leave it for down the road. It is a failure of the government not to define “a right to a healthy environment” instead of just punting it down the road.

I could go on. I am quite dismayed that the Government of Canada did not do the hard work that many of its members put forward in recommendations. Unfortunately, it is too afraid to do that hard work.

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

Madam Speaker, within the legislation there is a significant move forward in recognizing that Canadians have rights with respect to the environment. In good part, I think the legislation is seen as a very strong, positive foot forward.

Does the member have any sense of when he would like to see the legislation go to committee, where we can have more direct input from stakeholders and others and get into some of the things the member talked about in his speech? When can we start having that dialogue at the committee stage?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is the government's prerogative to determine what we debate and how long we debate matters in the House of Commons. I will note that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is very complicated legislation that touches upon most aspects of our day-to-day lives. That requires significant debate and study of the very challenging and difficult issues that are brought forward in this legislation, which affect everything from imports and exports and consumer product awareness to the cumulative impacts of toxic substances on our lives. That requires a lot of time in the chamber.