Environment Committee on Nov. 29th, 2022

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

I tend to focus on those issues where I obviously see tension and where perhaps we need to address issues that are coming up.

One of them is timelines. I've heard from folks on the industry side and from the environmental side that things take too long.

One issue that has been addressed by both of those communities is resourcing. I think that you would be in support of providing the resources needed to do those assessments in a timely manner so that we get to the bottom of whether a chemical is safe sooner rather than later.

[Gary LeRoux]

Yes, we would support it, for sure. We have assessments now that drag on for a long period of time. That creates uncertainty for industry. Having more certainty would be better.

We know that there are resource constraints imposed on government. If you look at our sector alone, we've had 23 chemical risk assessments and chemical risk management instruments already published. We're looking at 24 draft environment screening assessment reports now, and we have dozens more being looked at under—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll have to stop there and go to Madame Pauzé.

[Gary LeRoux]

That's a lot of work.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We spoke earlier about the fact that paper copies of opening statements won't be distributed because of the difficult situation at the translation bureau, due to an excessively high workload.

I remind you yet again that the deadlines for the committee's decision on the study of Bill S‑5, which passed by a vote of 5 to 4, means that we are hearing from fewer witnesses. We voted in favour of four witnesses per hour, one selected by each party. However, several times now, we've only heard from three witnesses. At this point, we should have heard 24 witnesses, but we have only heard 20.

And yet, everyone tells us that it is very important to properly review Bill S‑5. I just wanted to make the point while our meeting is public.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Ms. Brown, I'm interested in the right to a healthy environment. During an information session on Bill S‑5, high-level officials confirmed that the bill did not create such a right. It's a principle intended to guide the Canada Environmental Protection Act's implementation, and would be defined only in two years' time.

Does your community think that this provision in the preamble of the bill will lead to increased understanding and participation in decisions that impact your communities' health and that of the environment?

[Joan Brown]

Through you, Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes.

[Joan Brown]

—can the question be repeated? I didn't understand the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Very well.

Go ahead, Ms. Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

My question is on the right to a healthy environment, which can be found in the preamble of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. In our view, this provision does not actually create a right.

How do you see this provision? Do you think that this provision in the preamble of the bill will actually lead to better understanding and participation in decisions?

[Joan Brown]

Thank you.

Yes, from our perspective, it is really understanding and bringing our indigenous voice forward. That deeper understanding, that connectivity to the land, are really key in terms of understanding what these issues are for the land itself. That's where we've misstepped by being focused on a scientific approach. That's what we mean by being involved.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

You are entirely right.

I'd like to come back to what we heard from a witness last week, Mr. Castrilli. We were discussing the troubling spread of chemical pollution. In his opinion, transmitting a known carcinogen through environmental pathways like air, then to another, like soil, doesn't lead to progress in terms of protecting human health or the environment.

What are your concerns about this sad state of affairs?

[Joan Brown]

Thank you.

That's really exactly what's in our hearts and our minds—we don't have that deeper understanding. We don't know if it's airborne, if it's coming from the land, or if it's in the water. It's really true that it's impacting our health beyond a way that we can even identify possible solutions. For us that's what's really frightening, and I hope people really understand that this inaction is literally taking the lives of our smallest communities. Our lived communities or residencies are divided into four areas. Soon one of those villages will be a ghost town. That's how fast these toxins are moving. We can't keep up, and that's when we think—and highlight—that if we don't move now and make some immediate responses and have immediate screening to take care of our community, we may lose a whole generation.

That's how we think about things back here in Snuneymuxw.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much for your testimony, Ms. Brown. You said in your opening statement that we have to work together. I do think that is indeed very important if we want to move forward.

Mr. LeRoux, you said earlier that countries were looking to Canada or considered Canada to be an example to follow. I'm worried for those countries. Indeed, we know that here in Canada, products go to market before the end of their assessment, meaning before we know whether they are toxic or not. We therefore have products in the environment that can be dangerous for health and the environment.

What do you think about that, exactly?

[Gary LeRoux]

All of the products that are being assessed are in commerce now. There are a whole bunch that are prioritized for assessment under CEPA—under the CMP—so they're presumed to be of concern. That's what we're doing in the CMP. We're engaging with the government on literally hundreds of products for our industry alone.

Yes, we're trying to do the right thing, because they have identified some substances and ingredients used in our products that are of concern, and we're helping them with the data, because we have lots of data under section 71. We provide the data that they need. Our industries spend hundreds of millions of dollars on R and D and provide all that data to them. They're required by law to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Collins.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first questions are for Ms. Brown.

Thank you so much for coming to speak about the impacts on the Snuneymuxw community and about the impacts on the land.

You mentioned in your letter to the committee that it's a Snuneymuxw teaching to care for all, starting with the most vulnerable. I appreciate your advocacy in supporting Senator Mary Jane McCallum's amendment to include the term “vulnerable environment”.

Can you speak a bit more about the impact of resource extraction and development—whether that's from the port, logging and milling, historical mines or waste management—both on the members of your community and on the land that your community has been stewarding for generations?

[Joan Brown]

Thank you.

For us, vulnerability is really critical. It's understanding that there's no separation between the land and the people.

Initially, from the beginning of time, our people understood how to thrive and prosper, when there were no toxins and no man-made harms in the community, but what we've lost along the way is how to interpret them. What's going on for the land? That's really been key.

The old people used to manage and steward the land in a way that you would never be harmed. They used to live in a delicate reciprocal relationship of give-and-take, but now we're at a place where we have to give more than we take. That level of harm is literally.... I've said it once and I'll say it a million times: She's on her last breath. She'll give until there's no more to give. Her vulnerability is those harms that we've caused.

It's the same with our people. We're trying to endure, but we've lost those coping skills—our medicines, our culture, our language and that access to things that we need for ceremony. She's really very hollow right now, and it's reflected in our way of being.

For us, we have to look at two approaches. One is going to reclaim and restore our way of being, but in the same steps, it's making that scientific, so that we can take a deeper dive so that we all understand our role and our responsibility.

That's the whole notion of a multi-jurisdictional approach. We can't blame. Otherwise, what have we solved? We're only continually perpetuating that cycle.

It's hard for people to understand what it means to work together the way that the old people did. Our vulnerability begins with how we approach this, but we need to work together so that we can all move together in a good way.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you so much.

Madame Pauzé asked you a question about the right to a healthy environment and about some of the concerns that this right might not be enforceable, because it's in the preamble.

I wanted to ask a question about expanding the right. I would really like to see this right applied to future generations. I'm curious for your thoughts about expanding the right to a healthy environment to include future generations as well.

[Joan Brown]

I think that's key. Thank you for restating that question, because from a multi-generational approach, we realize that our responsibility is to make sure that the future generations begin to understand and embrace this way of being, so enforcing and impacting are, in our hearts and minds, moving from a sense of entitlement to a sense of responsibility. That's critical from that enforcement lens. It's understanding that the role and responsibility of each and every one of us.... That's especially for the younger generations, because we've lost things.

The generation before me was the last of fluent speakers, but now it's even more critical that the younger generations begin to understand how to steward the land in a really meaningful way and that the land has to walk first in everything that we do. She has her rights and responsibilities to thrive and get back to a place where she's our first teacher and our first healer.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you so much.

One of the other witnesses mentioned part 6. This section opens up the possibility of tackling some of the concerns that people have around genetically modified organisms. This can have a really big impact on salmon.

I've heard from a number of first nations leaders in British Columbia about concerns that they have around genetically modified salmon and about companies patenting the DNA of salmon.

I'm curious, Ms. Brown, if you have any concerns if you've heard about this, or if your community is at all concerned about what has been happening with genetically modified salmon.

[Joan Brown]

Yes, for sure we have the same concerns. To us, it's really that the salmon people are our most sacred relatives, so to alter their natural way of being is no different from altering our way of being. We really try to promote and protect the natural environment and especially her own being. That's her strength and her resiliency, and we want to maintain and protect that with every strength, every fibre, of our being.

Just like every other first nation, it's going to cause harm to us. People don't understand that salmon is more than sustenance; it's really part of our overall wellness. An example is that in terms of ceremony, they're the ones that break a fast. It's really critical to ceremony, so without a doubt—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 45 seconds.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

To Ms. Mitchell, do you have anything, any follow-ups, on genetically modified salmon?