Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on March 29th, 2007

[John Moffet]

The short answer is yes, it has.

A slightly longer answer is that in fact Alberta is the only province to get as far as saying we would like an equivalency agreement. We haven't entered into negotiations with other provinces and then had them fall apart, but other provinces have said, in response to our queries when we've asked why they aren't interested, that among other reasons the five years is a deterrent to their even coming to the table—including your own province.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Mr. Cullen.

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

There are many reasons why provinces haven't established equivalency agreements with the feds. The fear of this five-year termination point.... Agreements get renegotiated all the time, extensions, if you will. I think what we're trying to establish here is that in the bad cases, when circumstances have changed, you want a trigger at the end that gives the federal government an easy way to say that conditions, technology, international agreements have changed, and we are entering into a new agreement. If the agreement is perfect and fine, and both parties are happy with it, an extension of that agreement for another five years is completely in order.

But I think it might mischaracterize the situation a little bit to say that the reason that there's only one equivalency agreement on this, between Alberta and the feds, and there have been no others, is because the provinces are worried about this five-year window that comes when the agreement might be terminated. If they seek to extend, and parties are happy, they'll extend a perfectly good agreement. I want us to be careful. The original drafters of CEPA, brought in in 1998, envisioned this as a positive step, not as a detriment to people entering into equivalency agreements.

Again, on the issues we're talking about, things change, and it seems foolhardy to have built into our act here something open-ended in terms of the time specified in the agreement, potentially forever. That just doesn't make sense in the world we live in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I think we're obviously bogging down here. Can I suggest, at your option, that if you want to have somebody draft an alternate amendment--

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

Provide some text for the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

And do you want to withdraw 12.1? Do you want to stand 12.1?

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

It will look substantially different, so we'll withdraw it and reintroduce another piece.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

So you're withdrawing 12.1.

Mr. Godfrey.

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

I support the proposed original amendment for a couple of reasons.

First, in the light of what we've just done to tighten up the equivalency agreements, we've just said we're going to have the quantifiable effects of regulation on human health and the environment; so we've already said that we're going to be measuring that, that they're quite high standards. It seems to me you've also got the safety valve that with three months' notice, at any point, if it's not going well, you can end the agreement. If something is working well, why would you not have an open-ended agreement, given those constraints, the ones we've just put in plus the fact that you can get out if it's not working for you? It seems to me a kind of artificial exercise to say every five years we've got to end this thing. Why fix it if it ain't broke would be my view.

I think we would support the original proposal under Bill C-30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We have not had consent to withdraw 12.1 yet, so let me be clear from my seat here. Are you proposing that you would support 12.1--

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

I support the original.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

What's originally in Bill C-30.

Mr. Cullen has offered to withdraw--

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

If I'm getting the sense, and I'm seeing that from the Conservative side as well, that people are unsupportive of putting that five-year condition in, then we'll withdraw it and we can move on to other things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Is it agreed to withdraw 12.1?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Mr. Jean and then Mr. Bigras.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I think the key is, from our perspective, and from a drafter's perspective, that there's no difficulty--and I hate to say this at this stage--with a termination date as long as it has the ability to renew if it's not broken, as Mr. Godfrey said, and it has some ability for a termination date. Contractually, it has to have some option for that, and it would make sense that if it's not broken, let's not fix it. If it's not working, there are other mechanisms within Bill C-30 and CEPA to deal with that if it's not working. Certainly I don't think we'd have a problem with the termination date as long as there was the ability to renew it automatically, and indeed a notice period for parties to terminate, which seems to be fair in any contractual agreement, which there is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Mr. Bigras.

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

I do not want to drag this out, because I find that we are somewhat going around in circles. The content of Bill C-30 is acceptable, in our opinion, unless some other amendment is tabled. I believe that we should be facilitating the establishment of these equivalency agreements. Thanks to the amendments that we have passed, we are providing a good and rigorous framework. Unless there are other amendments, I agree with what is provided for in Bill C-30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Okay. Are we ready for the question on clause 5 as amended?

(Clause 5 as amended agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Thank you.

It's 10:40. Clearly we're not going to be done by 11. We're stealing the environment committee's lunch. It is being added to, and that will be here in due course. If we are going to finish, we perhaps need to pick up the pace a bit. But we want to make sure everything is covered thoroughly and nothing gets left out. So just keep that in mind.

We will move on now to clause 5.1, a new clause. We're at BQ-6.1, which was actually incorporated in clause 18.

Monsieur Bigras.

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

We are not going to move this amendment. This issue has been resolved through the Liberals' amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Okay. That's not moved, so clause 5.1 disappears.

(On clause 10)

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Moving right along to clause 10, which is referenced by BQ-9 on page 29, there's a suggestion that this has also been dealt with through clause 18. So BQ-9 is not moved.

Is there any further discussion on clause 10?

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

I think it's not necessary, Chair. We've eliminated the parallel systems for air pollutants and GHGs in clause18 as amended by L-21.1.1. Therefore, we don't need this.

I might ask Mr. Moffet whether we need this. Surely we don't. It's a leading question.