Environment Committee on Nov. 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Ross.

I don't think that Ms. Gabriel has been able to join us. We will now start a round of questions.

I will reduce everyone's speaking time by 20% so that we can finish on time. We will have a first round of five minutes, starting with Mr. Kurek.

Mr. Kurek, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I would just add that witnesses are welcome to send further comments to the committee in writing.

Mr. Ross, I noticed that you talked about existing provisions in the Constitution and whatnot to ensure that first nations are consulted and ultimately empowered, which is a big part of it. Certainly, that seems to be some of the underlying conversation surrounding this bill.

Could you expand on that and on why that is so critical in our country? How is first nations being used as a shield, to use your words, problematic in terms of empowering our first nations across Canada?

[Ellis Ross]

I'll give you a direct example.

There's a big argument about old-growth forestry in B.C. right now. The B.C. government took back some of the volume that was being cut, but at the same time they transferred a lot of that volume for old-growth logging over to first nations. That's a shield.

What also happens a lot is what happened here in B.C. with my band, where NGOs and third parties came in under the guise of helping first nations address their interests. As soon as some sort of economic development project was shut down, that NGO left town. Some of these NGOs put in millions of dollars and have hundreds of staff. They're not associated with poverty. That's what we experienced.

In fact, one idea behind LNG was to kick out all those NGOs and third parties and think about the region alone and about first nations people. If you want an example of what this means for a first nations community and the region, come visit Kitimat. Come and visit the $40-billion LNG Canada. Think about the council being independent, single moms being independent and those people who are getting out of prison being independent.

Guess what. We have no help lines for suicide. In my village, we used to be soaked in alcohol, but house parties are out of the question now. It doesn't exist. This is not because of any council directive or government program. It was the simple matter of including first nations in the economy. It turned our band around a hundred per cent. A lot of first nations in our area did the same thing.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you for that.

Now specifically with LNG and Kitimat, certainly I hear a lot, especially from activists, who suggest that first nations don't have buy-in on that project. What you're saying today is very different from that.

I want to give you an opportunity to expand on how critical it is that first nations are not treated simply as stakeholders, but treated as shareholders in Canada's present and future prosperity. I know you highlighted that, but feel free...if you have other examples across B.C., or if there are other examples across Canada.

[Ellis Ross]

In 2004, it was my band that started exploring LNG exports to the world, and it took seven years for the provincial government to agree with us. We imposed LNG exports on B.C. and Canada. We forced the Canadian government to understand this, in terms of imposing duties on goods coming into Canada for the export industry for LNG. We're the ones who went to government and said that we had to sign the agreement for forestry.

We're the ones who are imposing this now. I'm talking about the processes in terms of environmental assessments, and a bilateral process that could be there within the environmental assessment process or parallel to it.

You're addressing rights and title as dictated by case law, which was decided most notably in the 2004 Haida court case, which my band participated in. This fully explains not only the Crown's duty to address rights and title, including an economic component, which a lot of people forget, but it also includes the duty of first nations to respond. There is a role for a third party to play, especially the proponent.

This is what brought success to my people. This is why in northwest B.C., you don't hear many first nations complaining anymore about the Indian Act. You don't hear them complaining about poverty. I think this is the model that Canada should be looking at, because it's first nations driving the energy sector in B.C. We're the ones driving the forestry sector. We're bumping up mining as much as we can. The problem is the politics and the narrative in Canada. They refuse to listen to the story.

This has to be highlighted, because this includes no government money and no government policy.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much.

To finish, Mr. Ross, do you support Bill C-226?

[Ellis Ross]

No, I don't. I see that as a wide open, general bill that can be interpreted many different ways. The worst part of it is that first nations will be stuck in poverty and stuck in the middle. They will not have a chance to uplift themselves, which is what independence really means.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We now have Mr. Weiler for five minutes.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome the witnesses. It's great to see Mr. Ross again this week. I also want to welcome Lenore Zann.

I want to congratulate you on the work you did on this bill in the past Parliament, and I'm really excited that we're here talking about it again today.

My first question I'd like to ask is for Ms. Zann.

Many of the examples of environmental racism in Canada are the consequences of overlapping jurisdiction between the federal government, provinces and municipalities. Do you believe that the strategy that will come out of this bill will be able to address this issue? If not, what other work needs to be done to ensure that environmental racism is going to be considered in community planning, which, as you know, lies outside of federal jurisdiction?

[Lenore Zann]

Thank you very much for the question. It's great to see you as well.

First of all, this is a strategy that will need to gather information, statistics, from across the country. Unfortunately, due to racism, these kinds of statistical data have not been available for governments to take a look at. Part of why I introduced this bill was so that we could gather that data in order to figure out where the problem lies and to address it.

One thing that the strategy will include is an examination of the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk. In fact, we know that there are many first nations and Black communities that have been placed in danger because they're close to either toxic waste sites or toxic corporate polluters, and it has affected their health disproportionately. We have to work together with the federal government, the provinces and also with communities, with municipal governments. That's what this bill is trying to do.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

If this bill passes, there's going to be an action plan, of course, that's going to be put together, in addition to the collection of that type of disaggregated data.

I'm curious about what you see as the next step with this action plan and some of the potential programs that could be addressed in this, Just before that, one of the things mentioned earlier by our colleague Ms. May here was capacity funding to participate in things like environmental assessments. Sometimes communities don't have access to the same types of expert opinion. I was hoping that you could elaborate on where you see this action plan going.

[Lenore Zann]

For one thing, it's interesting that Dr. Ingrid Waldron and her group are currently developing a map. It's called a “living map”, because more and more information can be added to it about the locations of specific instances of environmental racism. Now, this is a group that will obviously also need help to develop this further, but it includes people talking about their own instances in their communities. That will be added to the map. There will be documentaries and interviews with people that they can upload to this map.

Things like this are going to need some government attention and also some funding. For instance, in places such as Nova Scotia, where there have been terrible water situations because of dumps and waste sites placed beside Black communities, they have had very bad health outcomes because of this. It has been suggested by the local community that they put in new water treatment plants and also that they protect the groundwater, because these dumps and waste sites leak chemicals into the drinking water of all the people living in the community.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I'll cede my last 30 seconds to Ms. May.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you very much, Patrick.

I'm just struggling, having heard the testimony from our colleagues from British Columbia and first nations. I don't think any one person in British Columbia—I'm sure you'll agree with me—in any indigenous community could represent the views of all indigenous people of British Columbia, but I've been struggling to come up with any plausible scenario within which this bill would play any role at all in decisions relating to the development of natural resources of any kind, so—

What's that, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Unfortunately, your time has run out, Ms. May.

We go over Ms. Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I would like to thank all our witnesses for being here.

I will repeat what I said earlier.

We believe that if we truly want to have a solid bill on environmental justice, we have to take into account all vulnerability factors. We want to strengthen the bill by bringing an amendment to give it some teeth, so that the bill protects everyone and ensures the equality of all when it comes to health and environment.

Ms. Zann, I have some questions for you, because you know the bill inside and out. You were the sponsor of Bill C‑230 during a previous parliament, and you have worked in this field in your community. Let me give you some examples of situations in Quebec.

I will start with the Horne Smelter in Rouyn-Noranda. The people living around the smelter are mainly non-immigrants. I checked the sociodemographic data and I found that two thirds of the population, if not more, are not immigrants. However, since 1979, these people have been breathing in arsenic and cadmium, which greatly increases their risk of developing cancer.

Then there is the red dust that settles on Limoilou. In that case, it is the port of Quebec City that freely pollutes the Limoilou neighbourhood. There again, according to sociodemographic data, two thirds of the people living in that neighbourhood are not immigrants.

I could talk to you about air quality in the eastern part of Montreal. Again, the population is mainly non-immigrant. I could mention the Charl-Pol factory in La Baie, where toxic air is poisoning employees.

Given what I have just told you, do you believe that the bill could help improve the lives of people living in Rouyn-Noranda or in La Baie, or even the lives of those living in the Limoilou neighbourhood in Quebec City or in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood in Montreal?

These are a few examples of what is going on in Quebec.

[Lenore Zann]

Thank you for the question.

It's great to see you as well.

I have to say, to hear these different situations is heartbreaking. It shows us that for so long too many communities across Canada have been treated like second-class citizens. Perhaps some of these communities you've mentioned are lower economic status communities, where they were considered not as important as some of the wealthier populations. This is certainly something that has been going on, not just in Canada but around the world.

It is not the intent of this bill to leave those people out. In fact, I think they should definitely be included when it comes to protections against pollution of all sorts. If you look at a map of any given area, I believe it will show you that the majority of communities that have been profiled are going to be racialized communities because unfortunately they have been treated like the lowest of the low and they need to be given the exact same respect as white Canadians.

Unfortunately, racism does exist and there are many examples.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I have to stop you there, Ms. Zann.

I agree with you when you say that we have to talk about all the communities and include all of them. I think that businesses will set up in places where second-class citizens live, as you have said. It's mainly because of their economic status that these people have no political clout.

I would now like to ask you a question about the bill.

[Lenore Zann]

I agree.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

You agree.

I would like to know where in this bill it says that no one will be excluded.

I looked at Health Canada's maps, and they show that health problems are concentrated in the southern part of Canada. It's also in the southern part of the country that we find a lot of businesses. For these businesses, it's not about racism, but where you can turn a profit.

We will propose amendments that will aim to include everyone. You are telling us that it is already the case. Could you show me where in the bill it says that everyone is included?

[Lenore Zann]

First of all, I would be very interested to hear your amendments. I know you made some the last time, but I'd like to know what these new amendments are to see whether it would be a good idea to include them.

Again, this bill is specifically about racialized communities and the enormous amount of pollution and disregard they have received. It is specifically looking at that issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much.

Ms. Collins.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here. I want to particularly thank Ms. Zann for her incredible work on this. Thank you for bringing it forward provincially, for bringing it forward in the last Parliament and for being here to support the bill today.

Ms. May had asked a question and you didn't get a chance to answer, so maybe I'll give you a quick moment to respond to her question first.

[Lenore Zann]

I'm sorry. Who is the question for?

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

That was for you. Ms. May had asked about the role the bill would play in future resource development.

Ms. May, do you want to jump in quickly and repeat your question?