Evidence of meeting #112 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agency.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I am again adding in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a factor that she must take into account. It seems logical.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I'd like a recorded vote.
(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
This would add a line after line 34. It's adding a proposed subsection 9(9) to say, “The Minister may designate a physical activity where a federal authority is required to make a determination under sections 82, 83 or 84.”
That's making up for the fact that we don't have the law list anymore. It empowers the minister to designate a physical activity for impact assessment where the project is on federal land or federally financed. Currently where the projects are on federal lands, the federal agency has been sidestepping impact assessment, and I'm advised, from a CPAWS study done on decisions between 2012 and 2018, that 500 determinations were issued refusing to do an assessment, even an initial assessment.
I note that the minister made a commitment yesterday to maintaining integrity in the national parks and to ensuring that all impacts on our national parks, and presumably world heritage sites, will now be included. That means we need to put through this amendment, because we have to include things like the Olympics, with which there is some kind of an activity for which federal authority might be required.
The second aspect is that right now that provision, I believe, says that the agency can make that decision. I think the minister should be making that decision, not the agency.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I would like to have a recorded vote.
(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1)
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I am deeply concerned, as are probably the vast majority of witnesses we heard from as well as the more than 150 who submitted briefs, that public participation rates are given short shrift in this bill. It just isn't adequate to say that the public has a right to participate.
I looked at other federal legislation. I looked at the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which our committee looked at previously, and, lo and behold, there's a whole section right at the beginning with the heading “ Public Participation”. That act lists all the rights and opportunities of the public to participate, and the duties of the government to deliver those rights.
This bill as it stands right now is completely user-unfriendly to the ordinary person trying to determine their rights and opportunities to participate in these processes, to trigger a review, to gain access to information, to be able to present evidence, or to be able to cross-examine. Therefore, I have suggested that all the rights and opportunities listed throughout the act be moved forward to a proposed new section 9.1 under the heading “Public Participation”, and that is what I have listed in here.
I tried to be all-encompassing. I've tried to list right upfront everything from participating in the planning stage to being able to be consulted on development or the amending of schedule 3, to requests made by the agency for additional information that get notice, decisions as to whether an impact assessment is required or directing the agency not to conduct an impact assessment, to decisions by the minister, decisions made by the agency to conduct an impact assessment, decisions made by the minister not to conduct an impact assessment, the right to receive notice of a determination by the minister, and so on and so forth.
I've done my best to go through and, anywhere that a public right has been extended, to move that up front in the bill so that it becomes more user-friendly to the public.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
The whole purpose is that it's a bundle. They're not new rights. They're rights that are buried in the act.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
We'll have a recorded vote.
(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1)
Now we're on to amendment PV-14.
Ms. May.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Madam Chair, both PV-14 and PV-14.1 move into the sections about the proponent's obligation to describe the project in a certain way. That's found on page 14, subsection 10(1).
Again we've had expert advice, particularly from the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and we want to make sure that early in the planning stage there should also be a detailed description of the reasonable range of alternatives. My proposed amendment is based on the advice of the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
The new section would read:
The proponent of a designated project must provide the Agency with an initial description of the project that includes the information prescribed by regulations made under paragraph 112(a) as well as a description of the alternatives to the project considered by the proponent.
The other changes are consequential to that.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I am steadfastly opposed to this one. A private sector entity does the appropriate economic analysis and decides on a project. What this says is that bureaucrats are going to basically overrule a private sector proponent who has decided to invest their private money in a manner that will generate a return for shareholders and the country at large. This is the ultimate in bureaucratic interference, and this side is strongly opposed to it.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
A recorded vote.
(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Now we're at PV-14.1. It's an insert to another one.
Go ahead, Ms. May
