Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Many of my colleagues have already spoken to this motion. At the risk of repeating, I'll try to do my best to focus on what I think the concerns are.
I'd like to, first of all, just congratulate my colleague from Alberta for tabling this bill and for trying to move this agenda forward. It's a laudable goal, to be sure. You know, she and I have both spent a large portion of our lives working in the environmental field protecting and defending the environment. So I don't doubt, in my own heart, her motives for trying to do what she thinks is in the best interests of the environment.
But I also understand reality. And the reality is that not everything is about the environment. There are social factors. There are economic factors that need to be brought into play. We've heard from witness after witness after witness, other than environmental groups, which stand to benefit the most from this legislation, that it's not the environment that stands to benefit the most from this legislation; it's environmental lawyers and judicial activists who stand to benefit from this legislation.
This bill is so fraught with problems in its original drafting that I'm concerned about the number of amendments we've seen. It's quite unusual to see a private member's bill of this size and scope actually brought forward. I actually don't recall, in the years I've been here as a member, a private member's bill quite this large, quite this broad, and quite this comprehensive even getting this far. I'm not sure that it's even within the rules, but I assume that it is, because it has gotten this far.
I just wanted to speak for a few minutes and hopefully change the minds of some of my colleagues across the way. I'd first of all like to set the stage by saying that I would actually welcome this bill coming back again in the future, after any member of this committee or any member of the House of Commons has had an opportunity to look at the testimony, look at the original drafting of the bill, and look at the various amendments.
Mr. Chair, I don't know how many there are now. I guess more are coming in all the time. Is that right? I think we have 30 or 40 proposed amendments. That's not even counting the ones that may come from the floor.
I think all members of this committee would actually like to come out of here and go back to our constituencies and say, “You know what? We've done something good. We have an environmental bill of rights.” That's an easy thing to say in front of a microphone, and most Canadians would think it's a great thing. Of course, the devil's always in the details.
Due to the way the bill is structured, clause 16 relates to clauses 19 and 20 and so on. Given the intertwining of the various clauses of the bill, if we were to try to go down the road of trying to amend this bill 30 different times, not to mention all the suggested friendly amendments that would come from the floor, and we make an amendment here and we don't make the following amendment in the following clauses of the bill, we could end up with--I think somebody else coined the term--a “Frankenbill”. I think somebody said that. I don't think that would do any justice to anyone.
We've had a good, healthy, wholesome debate about this. I think there is probably room for discussion on a bill that would circumscribe some of the limitations we see in provincial legislation, such as the environmental bills of rights in Quebec or Ontario or the various territories.
There is no circumscription to the limits of this bill. It's so broad and comprehensive and allows so many opportunities for other interests to intervene in Canada--using the environment as smoke and mirrors--and to basically attack us economically through this environmental bill that I think we really need to proceed cautiously and really, really think this through.
I'll give you some examples of some of the problems I see. I'm quoting from the Conseil patronal de l'environnement du Québec.
I hope I said that right. I'm doing the best I can with my French. I'm better in Polish.
We've seen the reverse onus in legislation in Canada before, in human rights legislation. Somebody can have, however frivolous or vexatious the accusation may be, all of the resources provided to them, while all of the onus is then put on the defendant to prove a negative, which is a virtually impossible thing to do. My friend Ezra Levant would probably speak to that.
We've had some issues there, where these reverse onus...in this particular case, it would give all of the weight.
There is a clause in the bill that would actually allow compensation, I believe, to anybody who is actually filing a complaint.
Subclause 21(2) reads as follows:A plaintiff bringing an action under subsection 16(1) may be entitled to (a) counsel fees regardless of whether or not they were represented by counsel
Well, that sounds like money for nothing. There was a song about that back in the eighties, but I don't want to go down that road.(b) an advanced cost awarded upon application to the court
Basically, the court and the taxpayers of Canada are now funding environmentalists who want to bring action, whether or not they're represented by counsel.
The clause of the bill is quite rightly called “Entitlement”. Well, taxpayers are I think getting a little bit tired of entitlements. I'd like to know when the taxpayers get some entitlements. They're entitled to getting their tax dollars used in good order.
So when I see these reverse onus clauses and I see clauses like this as far as entitlement is concerned, it starts to concern me that we're basically creating or expanding the legal industry to take over the environmental management of our country, which I think completely undermines the democratic process.
We have a government that's elected, we have policies brought forward, we discuss and debate these things at length, and to have all of that basically become redundant in the hands of a judge who may or may not get it right....
We've seen lots of decisions in the history of our country that, looking back, some members would say, I wish that was a different decision. But once you have that decision, you're stuck with it.
I would just like to say, you know what? We need to seriously look at this. I think it's so broken that I don't know if we can actually save it.
On that particular point, I would just urge members to basically consider setting this bill aside and have a future member at a future date take this bill, go back through the testimony, take a look at the amendments that were proposed, and come up with something a little more accurate at a starting point. We're just too far off on the starting point.
I would also like to talk about the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association's submission.
I have the submissions here. There seems to be a case here where we're trying to move to clause-by-clause so quickly to...in order to block it, I think the rest of Canada is just catching up to what the environmental movement is doing here. We're starting to get some fairly coherent and knowledgeable submissions.
The Seafarers' International Union of Canada states:...we believe some clauses of C-469 could be revised in order to clearly state that Canadian seafarers cannot and will not be held responsible if an incident occurs when applying the actual international and national standards of the current legislation. In our over-regulated industry we have to be able to rely on the framework provided by regulations to know what actions we are or are not authorized to perform.
We've heard in testimony after testimony—this one included—that basically everything that a government agency does, whether it's Environment Canada or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or whoever authorizes a permit, can be second-guessed by any entity. Just imagine the potential opportunities for outside interests to use this legislation to beat us about the head for any reason that they deem necessary—economic, social, whatever the case may be.
I kind of like the approach they've taken in their last part, saying we have enough legislation, we have enough rules, we have enough information out there, but “considering there are actually very stringent regulations to be met by the crewmembers I strongly believe that we will all gain in choosing education and information” instead of basically criminalizing people for carrying out their duties as authorized under a permit.
The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association says, “We see no gap in the current regulatory and environmental framework that requires a far-reaching bill such as C-469.”
Chair, our committee just went through the exercise a little while ago of taking a look at water and the oil sands. We looked at that for months. It has spanned two parliaments now—under the 39th Parliament and into the 40th Parliament. We heard from numerous witnesses that every regulatory permit, every project, takes upwards of seven years and millions and millions of dollars in engineering and research and mitigations, plans for reclamation, and all of that now can be second-guessed by Bill C-469.
CEPA also said this:
As proposed, Bill C-469 would change many fundamental principles and relationships that currently underpin Canada's legal and governmental system--a system that has functioned for nearly 145 years on the sound foundation of “peace, order, and good government”. Well, there's a group here in Canada that seems to think that this bill will upset that peace, order, and good government. I happen to agree with them.
They went on to say:
This is not the way to improve and protect our environment. Adversarial action destroys trust and increases costs and process burden to all sectors of society, including the federal government and indirectly tax payers.
We hear this constantly in the House of Commons. For example, I believe there's a mine closure in northern Manitoba or Ontario. I think the whole case behind the mine closure is that regulatory burden is so severe it give the mine an economic disadvantage. Of course, those regulations have been put in place for reasons being pushed by watchdogs. But the same members who push for these regulations also push for aid to bail these same companies out, propping them up with government subsidies. This is the kind of situation that we're getting ourselves into, and it just doesn't make any sense to me.
The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association went on to say that, “Civil actions brought so easily under Bill 469 could be used inappropriately to delay projects or to leverage positions in negotiations with proponents.”
Imagine if you were applying for a federal grant, going through this whole process that clause 16 would apply to. Say you were going to produce some type of energy. Your company, Company X, goes and bids. My company, Company Y, makes a bid for the same project. Your company wins the bid. My company loses. I immediately file an action under Bill C-469, delaying your project, not because it's not good for the environment, but simply because I don't want to give you, as one of my competitors, the financial advantage of the grant that you rightfully applied for and won.
These are the kinds of short-sighted things that just haven't been thought through in this piece of legislation, and they cause me no end of concern.
We heard from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, and we have the National Energy Board. In Alberta, we have the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. We have all of these experts and knowledgeable people making decisions. They're appointed to make these decisions in the best interests of Canadians, the best interests, in my case, of Albertans. To have them second-guessed constantly at every stage by somebody who may not even be a resident of the province, may not be directly affected by the proposed undertaking, is simply going too far.
We've heard from numerous witnesses. I think Johan van't Hof was here, and he said that he has no end of trouble already, under the existing environmental legislation, securing funding for projects. The banks are so risk-averse these days. To throw any added uncertainty into the process, particularly when the risks are as large as those proposed by Bill C-469, would simply put a freeze on the entire thing.
We heard from the environmentalists who testified that they were looking for that very hammer. They said that very few actions would be brought forward through this legislation, but that all they wanted was the hammer hanging high over the head. Well, that hammer would result in an investment freeze. It would create a paralysis within a bureaucracy that is already taking too long to make some of its decisions. We're just paralyzing the decision-makers, creating a system where everybody is covering his tracks and nobody is willing to make a decision. When that happens, we get arguments for more government, more involvement, and less and less gets done. So I'm very concerned.
Also, I think the world is moving back towards the model of sustainable development, the three pillars of sustainable development. I think that this bill, at this time, is heading in the wrong direction.
The timing of this bill was probably about 20 years ago, when it should have been brought forward to Parliament when conditions weren't so well. I worked for years in the wintertime—I was a park warden in summertime--as an oil patch worker in Alberta. I loved it. It was great for my family. It provided an economic environment that was important for my family. Talking to my colleagues, I heard stories about how dirty the oil patch used to be in the 1960s and 1970s and so on, and how much it's matured to this point today. This legislation is 20 years too late, in my estimation.
However, Mr. Chair, I see I've already used 15 minutes of the committee's time. I thank my colleagues. It looks like they might be listening through the earpiece. Bernie listened to me anyway.
Thanks, Bernard, I appreciate that.
Colleagues, just to sum up, again, there is no harm in putting this aside, taking a look at it in the future. Let's have this bill brought back. If we already have 30 proposed amendments, let's take a look at this legislation. Obviously there are concerns from around the table, if there are that many amendments that are already tabled. Let's just put it aside. The bill can be brought back forward, re-authored based on those amendments and brought back forward. We'll have a much cleaner starting place to work from, and I think that's a smarter course of action.
From that perspective, Mr. Chair, I'll be voting in favour of the motion.
