Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on March 27th, 2007

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Thank you.

With any luck, Mr. Moffet, your wife is not watching TV today.

The friendly amendment was accepted, so the vote is on G-1 as amended, by adding to the end of proposed subsection 53.1(3) “under sections 48, 49, 50, 51, 52 and 53”.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 9 agreed to)

(On clause 10)

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We will start with NDP-14 on page 28. It is the first amendment for consideration.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

We're in the process of making these. We're going to allow amendments NDP-14 and NDP-15 to not be addressed and take our concerns in NDP-15.1, which is a more comprehensive version of the two.

We wanted to have several options available to us as we moved through the process, so we'll allow those to go. We can deal with the Bloc motion first and then go to NDP-15.1.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

So you're just not moving them at this point.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

That is correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We will move to BQ-9 on page 29.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Chairman, with amendment BQ-9, we wish that Bill C-30 in clause 10, be amended by adding after line 18 on page 6 the following:

(1.1) The minister may not publish the notice referred to in subsection (1) if the notice is directed at a person or class of persons in a province in respect of which a notice referred in subsection 10.1(1) is issued dealing with the same substances as the notice referred to in subsection (1).

The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that when a notice of equivalency has been issued to a province, the Minister of the Environment not be constrained to publish this notice because a notice of equivalency has already been accepted and I emphasize that term. This is simply a matter of consistency and concordance with the territorial approach.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We'll point out that proposed subsection 10.1(1) is actually referred to in BQ-6, so there are some consequences there between BQ-6 and BQ-9.

Mr. Moffet, do you have any advice on the wording of this one?

[John Moffet]

No, except that as you say, this turns on BQ-6. I will explain it to members.

BQ-6 would provide a mechanism for identifying a province that has legislation in place designed to attain the 2008-2012 Kyoto targets, and it would then enable the Governor in Council to make an order declaring that the provisions of an act or regulations don't apply in that province. Where such an order has been made, BQ-9 would say that the minister may not use the authority given in part IV of CEPA to issue a pollution prevention planning order against a facility or a person in such a province. The two are directly linked. Essentially where you have excluded the application of federal law, generally under BQ-6 this makes it clear that that includes an exclusion of the right to issue a pollution prevention planning requirement.

The only other point I'd bring to your attention is that to my recollection the committee hasn't voted on BQ-6 yet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Monsieur Bigras, you're next.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

That being the case, we can delay amendment BQ-9 until we see what happens to BQ-6.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

That will have the effect of standing clause 10.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

There are two things I want to understand. First of all, we've already stood BQ-6. Are we standing BQ-9 until we return back to BQ-6? Is that the idea? Okay.

In terms of standing clause 10, are we standing all of clause 10? There are other amendments that come forward here that we're eager to talk to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We would be standing clause 10, but that doesn't preclude us from dealing with clause 10.1.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Are we agreed to stand clause 10? Hearing no disagreement, let's stand clause 10.

(Clause 10 allowed to stand)

We'll move on to new clause 10.1.

Now we're back to NDP-15.1 on page 30.1.

Mr. Cullen, you may take it away.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Take it away, indeed, Chair. This is where we're getting to the heart of the matter in terms of the ability.

One of the first things that came forward out of Bill C-30 and what we noticed most immediately was this lack of firm targets, greenhouse gas targets, for the country that set us forward in the coming years. The challenges that Canada as a nation has faced when meeting our international obligations are the accountability, to be blunt, and the ability to set out a target, hold that target firm, and do the necessary things to meet the target that we believe is achievable.

There's been constant debate around the targets that were set in the Kyoto process and there's been constant debate as to whether the targets were appropriate or not or whether Canada should be in or out. What that has actually led to is a certain amount of seizure of actually getting the thing done. As a result, we don't know what this year's reporting will be, but so far we rank absolutely at the bottom of the pile when it comes to industrialized nations and dealing with greenhouse gas emissions.

I can recall, not so fondly for committee, being at the Nairobi meetings at the last UN gathering and Canada consistently winning what was called the fossil award. This was the award given out every day to only one country at the United Nations meetings that was performing the worst in the negotiations, and the worst by record. I don't raise this issue in a partisan nature to say it was one government or another. It was the collective of the two, in fact, and what the world body was seeing in terms of the results of Canada's intentions, put in Canada's words, “our promises and commitments”, in comparison to what was actually getting done.

NDP-15.1 is based upon what the witnesses have told us is necessary, not just here at the Bill C-30 committee, but also at previous committees, including the environment committee that wrote an extensive report in the previous Parliament. One of the things that the business community, the science community, and the non-profit sector told us was that we needed a level of certainty in order for business to make the investments and to do the planning. They needed to know what the actual goal was. I'm sure all committee members have met with, particularly on the industrial side, various lobbyists and representatives from business who have said, “The uncertainty question precludes us from actually making the investments required.” It creates an unlevel playing field, where some businesses are going ahead and making investments that they believe they're committed to by their national government and others don't. That's not a climate in which business can thrive.

NDP-15.1 has a number of important sections to it. It clearly points out science-based targets, targets that we know we need to achieve in order to both fall in line with our international agreements and prevent dangerous climate change from happening. There's no more an appropriate expression than an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to climate change. We've seen various communities across the country starting to appreciate what the actual costs are of mitigation. I will be clear again with committee members. Mitigation is when you pay for the thing that's already happened, as opposed to prevention.

This is an amendment to Bill C-30 that we think will give the bill a lot more credibility, frankly, in terms of a broader appeal. Canadians will understand this and will appreciate that there are firm and committed targets built into the legislation.

The current government is very enthused about the notions of accountability and transparency. This has been one of their alleged hallmarks. Proposed subsection 64.1(3) in this does exactly that. It demands this government, or whatever government in future political manifestations, to report back to Canadians and to consistently report back on the planning and also report back on the performance.

I can remember some of my Conservative colleagues struggling with an ability to actually grasp what the government had or had not done when the Liberals were in power. It was extremely frustrating, because you simply couldn't have the debate if you didn't know what the government had achieved or not achieved. It created, if I can share this with you, an element of a fear of failure within the government because they didn't want to report on anything, and they certainly didn't want to report on anything that hadn't worked.

When trying to address things like climate change, there must be an element of risk taking with government programs. There must be an ability to try certain initiatives without 100% certainty that all of them are going to work 100%. Some will work very well; some will exceed expectations and others will not.

We think this amendment is absolutely critical to give Canadians the assurance that the government is willing to act as a willing partner in the types of initiatives that we see Canadians going out and doing on a daily basis, making the changes in their lifestyles in the way they consume energy or don't consume energy, in the types of choices they make in consumer products, in the types of demands they make of their own companies. We've seen this as a powerful pull upon government.

Canadians are far ahead of the politicians on this issue, Mr. Chair. We think this amendment pushes us in the right direction to establish national targets that are verifiable, that are accountable, that allow Canadians to judge whatever government of the day on our actions, on our ability to perform, and be that willing partner and an effective partner, and then rejoin the world community in this effort. As we've seen over the last number of years, Canada has slowly slid into this very narrow box represented by only a very few countries, and those are countries that are not doing their fair share.

If there's any country that has a vested interest in dealing with climate change, certainly it must be Canada. With the extensive north that we have, the extensive forest cover, and our deep reliance on natural resource extraction, it's incumbent upon us to make these types of changes and to have the courage of our convictions, Mr. Chair. Oftentimes we dance in the margins on this issue, without bringing forward the real changes we want to see. I think this is one of those changes that is absolutely imperative for us to address, and we need to be able to present with a certain amount of pride back to Canadians a piece of legislation that we know is the right thing. At the end of the day, we have to do the right thing. That's why we were all sent here.

So I move amendment NDP-15.1. I open it up to debate or questions. I think we should vote for it because it makes sense and it's what we've been told to do by the very best in the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Before I get involved in debate on NDP-15.1, I want to question whether or not it's in order. The wording of NDP-15.1 is almost identical to a private member's bill, Bill C-377. Procedurally, my understanding is that you cannot have this bill and Bill C-377 saying the same thing. So I question, through you to the clerk, whether or not this is procedurally out of order or not. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We did discuss this prior to the meeting and the consensus was that this is not procedural grounds for not allowing an amendment, that measures can proceed in parallel fashion to the process.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Could you provide a reference for that decision, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I will try.

The debate can go on because I suspect there will be some debate in any event.

Who would like to debate this while we do some more background on this?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Chair, I would appreciate having the reference. If this is not procedurally correct, then debate should not continue, and the appropriate handling would be to stand this down until we can actually hear the reference.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We'll suspend for five minutes.