Environment Committee on April 14th, 2016

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

These have been the standing committee's policies for a long time. I would say, as a western MP, there are times when there's a disadvantage for witnesses to be here, and it's much easier to be a witness coming from Montreal, Toronto, or Ottawa to testify for us. We tend to, if you look through the committee's witness list, recycle a lot of the same people from the region.

As an environmentalist, I appreciate it and I am concerned about taxpayer money, I never think committees should ever preclude it. There is an advantage to have that contact as Will was talking about and the other things that come along with coming to Ottawa to testify in front of committees.

I'll stand as a westerner on that one. We spend a lot of money to get us western folks here. It's more than we do to bring an MP from across the river or wherever. It's something to bear in mind. We should always push for the environmental and taxpayer-friendly thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We wouldn't benefit from having you on video conference, right?

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

We could put the whole Parliament on video conference if we were really sincere about it, but we don't for a reason. It's because there are other ancillary benefits when we're able to bring people from the west or the north.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I get where Nate's coming from on this. The only thing that I would add is that if we're going to do that—actually to develop a point on what Jim was saying—let's try to make sure that we maximize the environmental aspect of it and make sure they have a number of meetings set up. While they're in town they can share the cost. If they share, they kill many birds with one stone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay.

What I'm hearing around the table is that there's a balance, that we'll try to set a balance, and that we won't preclude anybody coming over. But if they can do it by video conference, then we would prefer to do that. Okay. How about we do it just like that.

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

I've seen one committee that went into a doctrinaire stance and then suddenly there was nobody brought in. Then the witnesses tend to come from the greater Ottawa area, Toronto, and Montreal, which is nice and they're all nice people, but sometimes you want to talk to somebody from....

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay.

The last comment on this goes to Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I'm glad that Mr. Cullen made that comment because I much prefer to have the witness here in person. I can tell a lot more. I get a lot more off of them. There are other ways to offset the environmental impact if you really wanted to do that, such as purchasing the offsets or whatever it might be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay, guys, we're way off schedule here.

Can I have approval for the budget, please? Who is going to move it?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay, thank you very much. We got that done.

Now we're going to the subcommittee report where we're going to try to talk about the work plan.

Just before we get into discussion, what I am hearing is that we already have next week laid out for the minister and we were going to start into the protected areas. I was concerned and I think I've said it many times that we're trying to push the directions to staff on the report too fast and that we need time to do it, but we all thought in the subcommittee we may be able to do it.

I spent some time last night trying to draft it. I think it needs a lot more discussion. I believe we may not need a whole meeting, but we will need some time to have a discussion around the table on what direction. The better we give direction, the better the report, and the less time we will need on the back end and the less time and aggravation that we create in the wider environment of people who may get their hands on it and want to start to get concerned about things that we weren't necessarily intending because we didn't have clarity on our drafting instructions.

I think drafting instructions are incredibly important. It's our first one. Many of us are brand new and we haven't done it before. I would like to have consideration as we discuss this for at least one meeting to get us off the ground on how we do it, and have really good drafting instructions going forward on the strategy and the act. We really have not discussed the strategy and I think we just began to hear today the difficulties with it. That's one thing, and then obviously the rest of it is open for discussion.

I'll open the floor, Mr. Bossio.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I agree, Chair. Maybe I'm naive but we started down this path on the Federal Sustainable Development Act and I just see such an incredible opportunity here to have a huge impact on the future direction of this country around sustainability and the SDGs and really trying to make the effort to get it right. We could pass on something here to Parliament and to the minister and advocate and lobby on behalf of it, do whatever is necessary, to bring this about. It's something that I think would be an incredible legacy and would be something that we could be proud of for generations to come. I am really concerned about a long-term sustainable society, as I said in the blue-sky speech that we had, the second day we had it.

Also, I would really like to point out that with this directive from Parliament around CEPA, we do have to make time for this. This is legislation. This is passed to us from the House. We said in our initial discussions that protected lands in CEPA were going to be the priority. Unfortunately, the Federal Sustainable Development Act has consumed us I think more than was initially expected, but we have to get back on track with CEPA and start moving forward on that because it is also an important area that we need to deal with. I'd like to put that out there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay.

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you.

You're correct, Madam Chair. Virtually all of our witnesses and the discussion around the table have focused on process rather than the 2016-19 strategy itself.

I'm not going to suggest that we bring in further witnesses on this study. I think if it's very clear that the recommendations we are making are based on improving the process, I believe that in the future we may have an opportunity to do a study on the strategies more specifically. Right now we have no material before us. Quite frankly, if we were going to review the proposed strategy, the draft strategy itself, we would require quite a number of additional meetings, because it's a document that has so many elements attached to it.

I am thus not recommending that we extend this study any further. I believe we can go to drafting instructions.

The comment I would make on the drafting is this. I find that, certainly in the past, in those instances in which committees came out with unanimous reports, without dissenting opinions or dissenting reports, the reports had the greatest gravitas so to speak, the greatest impact, because the report was issued unanimously.

I hope this is what we seek to achieve here. Having heard a lot of the testimony here, I expect we'll likely be supporting many of the recommendations that are going to be proposed. I think this is a very healthy process to go through.

Clearly, within government itself there has been a breakdown of the rigour with which the act has been applied, whether it's through the strategy or through the cabinet directive. I think we have a real opportunity to do something meaningful in the long term for the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you for that.

I have a comment before we move to the next speaker. We were asked by the minister to respond on the strategy. As we started to look at it, we realized that there was an issue with the act. The strategy was great, but if it didn't have any real teeth or location where it could be embedded it wasn't really going to be worth its weight on paper. We therefore went off but we have an obligation to get back on the strategy. We thus have to think about how we're going to respond. We may say it's okay for now, but really we need to do this and then go back to it. Whatever we do, we're going to have to come up with some response. We can't completely forget about it, because we have to give back a response.

Who is next? We have Mr. Bossio.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I know you gave warning. You threw out the salvo when our witnesses were here. Although I agree, in that I hate to waste unnecessary resources and finances fighting things in the courts, let alone waste the time it takes to get through the courts, at the same time it is that last option that sometimes needs to be taken in order to hold government to account. That's why we tried to direct some of the questioning around that. We saw from the other witnesses that the enforcement and accountability piece is always the most difficult piece to get in place so that the citizens of our country can hold the government to account.

I like the position of David, saying you need to give the commissioner the teeth to come back to say that's not good enough and you need to do better. Finding the carrots and sticks and having the commissioner and the future generations advocate, all of these things are pieces of the puzzle that we can put in place to try to minimize the problem. At of the end of the day, however, if all of it fails.... I don't care what government it is. We can all be around this table and agree for the most part on everything, but there are times when we're not going to agree. Sometimes the government is not going to act, and the courts need to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mike, I think what we're discussing right now is what we might have in our drafting instructions. I'm actually just trying to get to the point of what our schedule is, so that we can get to that point. Could we just get to the schedule, if you don't mind?

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you. I didn't mean to cut you off, but we really don't have a lot of time.

We agreed that next Tuesday we have the minister. We had in our schedule for the following Thursday, which is April 21, that we're moving to protected areas. We were going to do that for five sessions, April 21, and May 3, 5, 10, and 12.

We are then going to move back to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act for May 17 and 19, and June 21 and 23.

We were supposed to consider the draft report. Perhaps it's obvious to everyone that we don't have drafting instructions time. One of these bits of time here on either the federally protected areas.... It needs to be sooner rather than later. I think we have to move the schedule at least one session. That would make sense to me.

Then we have the spring reports of the commissioner, which would be June 2.

Somebody has to give up some time. I believe at this point we probably need to give up federally protected areas. I think we'd like to stay current, while we're all cognizant of what we've heard. We have witnesses lined up, but they are mostly from departments here. We can move them and have them come on the 3rd. I'm just making suggestions and then we can have comments.

Let's make April 21, next Thursday, our drafting instructions day and discussion. I think we will have the discussions that Mike is trying to have and that Mr. Fast has tried to have about where we're really going to land to make sure that we are clean and clear when we go forward.

If that's the case, then we have May 3, 5, 10, and 12 on federally protected areas. We go back to CEPA for May 17 and 19, and June 21 and 23. We have consideration of a draft report, giving Penny and Tim the time to have something ready for us on May 31 to consider and discuss. Then we have the commissioner, potentially, coming to us to give us a chance to question her on her reports. I did find it helpful last time. It's up to the committee.

Then we have agreed at the subcommittee that we will move on to the fourth subject matter, which is a climate change study on June 7, 9, and 14. Then we go back to the federally protected areas to try to do a draft, the consideration of—no, sorry, my fault.

We were going to do drafting instructions for the federally protected areas on May 12. I'm not sure we're going to have enough time to do all this and get online for the federally protected areas, which means—

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Wasn't that the 16th?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

No. We had April 21, and May 3, 5, and 10.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Madam Chair, my apologies, could I just ask a question? Was the climate change study—June 7, 9, and 14—on our original work plan passed by this committee, or was it just the subcommittee that looked at that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

It was on the work plan, but it was to come after the CEPA and the protected lands. That's how the original motion was passed.

I think we're trying to be co-operative and help get things—

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I thought it was fall, for some reason.