Evidence of meeting #95 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pfas.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
No, it was before he started speaking, but I'm going to check on that. Just a second.
Apparently it's at my discretion.
I did see you. I saw him before I saw you, Mr. van Koeverden.
We'll go with Mr. Leslie, and then Mr. Mazier.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
Are you saying that Mr. Mazier spoke before him, and then he's going to...?
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
No. What happened was that Mr. Mazier raised his hand right away and said he wanted to speak when his turn came up, basically. It was a bit of a strange formulation of the issue, but—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
The convention is not that you can say, “On the rare occasion there might be a motion, hypothetically, I'd like to speak to it first.” I turned my mic on as Mr. Leslie said that he's running a motion, as they have been doing at every meeting.
That was prior to Mr. Mazier saying he would like to speak on it, and subsequent to Mr. Leslie, so I'm challenging you, and that should go to a vote.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay.
Can we do the vote, Madam Clerk?
(Ruling of the chair overturned: nays 7; yeas 4)
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay, so we'll go to Mr. Leslie, then Mr. van Koeverden, and then Mr. Mazier, I guess.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to start by moving the motion that I put on notice on Friday to immediately invite Minister Guilbeault to this committee to determine if there was a breach of our parliamentary privilege. Before my Liberal colleagues bemoan the fact that Conservatives raise issues they don't like, let me state that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Minister of Environment either misled this committee or is hiding the names of senators whom he personally lobbied to gut Bill C-234.
Regardless of your partisan stripe, it is incumbent on us as MPs to safeguard our privileges, which have been fought for and must be defended as part of our Westminster tradition. It is essential that we have proper functioning of this institution and that we be given timely access to and accurate information from ministers when requested by a committee.
As an aside, Bill C-234 is a critical piece of legislation that any member of Parliament who has farmers in their riding, such as the rural MP for Milton, should be supportive of, just as members from across party lines were, because it is an important piece of legislation not just for farmers but for all Canadians, to help alleviate the continually rising price of food.
The legislation would exempt grain farmers from paying the carbon tax on propane and natural gas to dry their grain, and livestock farmers from the same carbon tax to heat or cool their livestock barns. It would amount to $1 billion by 2030. That would mean immediate savings for Canadian producers and for buying food, as well as a meaningful impact for our farmers, who would be able to reinvest that money back into their operation to provide environmental outcomes for Canadians.
This legislation is supported by all national agriculture groups, and it made its way through Parliament, through the House of Commons, in a rather judicious manner for a private member's bill, with the support of members from the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, some Liberals and even the Green Party. They recognized that it is a good piece of legislation to fix a flaw in the fact that farmers simply cannot transition to a different fuel source when it comes to those specific activities. It is simply punishing farmers for something they have no choice but to do, and it is encouraging higher prices at the grocery store for Canadians.
Following the rather swift passage through the House of Commons, when it got to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, there was clearly some political gamesmanship that began being played. There were a number of amendments intended to gut the bill there and to delay the bill. Thankfully, they were voted down by the larger chamber of sober second thought, the Senate, later on. However, over time, for unknown reasons, that vote count chipped away as senators procedurally brought forward the exact amendments over and over again to try to disrupt and destroy this legislation, which would save farmers $1 billion.
Those incremental vote losses ultimately led to changes, and they sent it back to the House of Commons. That has led to no-man's land, meaning that this legislation, without government support, may never get passed, because there is simply no precedent for it.
It has been an extreme frustration to Canadian farmers. It became political when this government decided that certain Canadians deserved a break on the carbon tax on their home heating oil at the same time as farmers were being denied what was a clear, good policy to prevent $1 billion leaving their pockets.
Specifically to the motion I'm moving now, when Minister Guilbeault appeared before this committee on December 14, he was asC-234ked by my Conservative colleague Dan Mazier if he had spoken to any senators about Bill . In response, the minister said, “I had conversations with five or six senators, yes.”
The reason we knew to ask this was that he had publicly declared previously that he had spoken to senators about this. In a CTV article from November 14, 2023, he was quoted as saying that he had had discussions with “half a dozen” senators in the past couple of weeks to express the federal government's opposition to the legislation.
A CBC article from November 28 of that year said, “The minister said he had spoken with about six senators to explain the government's position, but did not tell them how to vote.”
On three separate occasions, he has said “five or six senators”, including when he spoke before this very committee in this very room. It took 49 days from that appearance of the minister, who had promised to get back to my colleague with the names of the senators he had called up about Bill C-234, to our receiving them.
It took 49 days. It seems like an awfully long time to remember somewhere between, apparently, three and six names.
The thing is, you'd expect him to have come forward with those five or six names of the people he'd said previously in the media and to our committee he had spoken with. However, for some reason, there were only three names on that list. It seems awfully odd that he guessed up and then came back and realized, “Oh, I only talked to half of those senators.” Something seems amiss. From this, we can only conclude that he either provided false testimony when he appeared as a witness before this committee, or he provided false information when providing the names of the senators who lobbied to gut Bill C-234.
In either event, the minister misled this committee, and I believe we must invite him to appear immediately before the committee for one hour to sort out the discrepancy of the information that he provided and decide if it must be reported back to the House. Without the minister's appearance to answer questions, it is impossible for the committee to determine whether he showed contempt before this committee. On the face of it, it clearly appears that he did, which should trouble every member here, regardless of their political stripe.
Successive Speakers have clearly set out three conditions that must be demonstrated in order to arrive at a finding of contempt through misleading statements or information. First, the statement needs to be misleading. Second, the member making the statement has to know that it was incorrect when made. Third, and finally, it needs to be proven that the member intended to mislead the House by making the statement.
On the first point, it was clearly a misleading statement or a misleading written response. It was one of those two. There's no denying that. On the second point, if the minister intentionally misled the committee, he would have known that his statement was incorrect when he made it on December 14. At no time did he try to reconcile his written response with the testimony he provided to this committee. On the third point, we do not know if he intended to mislead the committee, so we must investigate. Only Minister Guilbeault, not his legion across the way, can provide any clarity on this issue.
We know he has faced considerable pressure to gut Bill C-234. He even put his own reputation on the line by stating, “As long as I’m the environment minister, there will be no more exemptions to carbon pricing”. This was, of course, in the aftermath of a decision to lift the carbon tax on home heating oil for 3% of Canadians.
He had the motive to do everything in his power to stop our Conservative-led bill, which was supported across partisan lines in the duly elected House of Commons, to exempt farmers from the carbon tax. There is no question, to me, that Minister Guilbeault has misled this committee. The question is whether he intended to do so.
While I know certain members across the way enjoy running, I implore them not to run away from this matter, because if they do, it will speak volumes to how deep the rot has gotten in this government.
It is time for an investigation, Mr. Chair. I encourage all of my colleagues of all political stripes to support the motion to bring the minister to clarify whether or not he misled this committee.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I'd like to apologize to our witnesses. This has become a trend, unfortunately. This happens at almost every meeting. Experts travel here or appear on their own time via Zoom to help us study how we can better protect fresh water in Canada, and the Conservatives obstruct it, using this committee as their personal soapbox.
You guys have phones. You guys have the ability to make a video. Do it on your own time. This is pathetic. It's a pathetic waste of the time of people who are generous enough to come to this committee for these meetings.
We'll have time for another study after the freshwater study is concluded. It will be a democratic process. This committee will determine what to study next.
On the issue of this scandal that Mr. Leslie is trying to drum up, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a conversation with a senator. The Conservatives on the other side have conversations with senators every Wednesday at their caucus meeting, because the only senators who are partisan are Conservative ones.
I'd like to very briefly speak to one such Conservative senator, who is Conservative leader Don Plett. Having a conversation over a coffee with a senator about how they intend to vote on a bill is totally normal. That's politics. We've all done that, and it's normal. You guys do it every single Wednesday. We don't have senators in our caucus meetings, but the Conservatives do, so they have an opportunity to liaise with them to discuss and talk about legislation that's coming to the Senate every single week.
When the minister met with senators, I guarantee there was no bullying or harassment, but when Don Plett met with senators he disagreed with—
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Maybe you'll let me know if this is a point of order or not.
I just want to make sure that my Liberal colleagues know that if they want my vote to adjourn debate, they should probably adjourn debate.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Ms. Collins.
Senator Don Plett has been accused of bullying members of the Independent Senators Group, which is very different from meeting for coffee. I'd ask the members of the Conservative Party to look in the mirror and ask their Conservative Senate colleague on Wednesday if he thinks it's appropriate to bully people, because those senators felt, as this article here indicates, afraid for their safety.
Coffees are okay. Bullying each other is not.
I move to adjourn debate on this ridiculous motion.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We'll do the vote.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)
Thank you.
We'll go now to Ms. Chatel for six minutes.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Famiglietti, you said earlier in your opening address that food security was important. This is an issue that is particularly important to me. Many farmers in my riding tell me that even water, despite what was believed, is not an inexhaustible resource. We therefore have to prioritize it, protect it and avoid wasting it. That is why this study is so important.
Our water resources, such as groundwater, which you talked about, are used by farmers and a number of other users. For example, several witnesses have told us about the consequences of using water for oil and gas exploration in Canada.
At some point, we are going to have to decide our priorities when it comes to water use. On the one hand, it is used by oil and gas companies, and we have to get them to manage water much more efficiently and sustainably. On the other hand, water is used by our farmers, who are responsible for putting food on our tables and ensuring our food security.
I was looking at the figures. Approximately 75% of the shares of oil and gas companies in Canada are held by individuals who live outside Canada. As well, 4.7 million barrels of oil were exported to the United States in 2022.
Given this, how can we decide our priorities for using water between farmers and oil companies? Is this a problem?
February 6th, 2024 / 4:25 p.m.
Prof. James Famiglietti
Thank you for the question. I really appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts on this with you.
When I think of water security, I think of having enough water to do all the things that we want to do. That could be a city. It could be a province. It could be the whole country. Those are things that you just talked about: water for people, water for the environment, water to produce food, water for economic growth and water to produce energy. These are priorities that must be decided nationally and must be decided by province and, again, town by town and city by city.
It's not the kind of thing that I can weigh in on. What I can do is show you—and we can follow up after this meeting with even more detail—what's happening across Canada and share that information with you, as decision-makers.
My experience in looking at the disappearance of groundwater around the world is one that really points to a need for joint surface and groundwater management and for using groundwater far more efficiently. I think that within Canada we will see increasing demand for groundwater because of climate change, because of the increasing variability and, as one of the other witnesses said, because of the very likely need to probably have to expand irrigation infrastructure to maintain sustainable food production.
There's no one solution. I'll just close by saying that I always think in terms of a portfolio of agricultural efficiency, water use efficiency, industry efficiency and accounting of water use by industry—all industries, not just agriculture and not just oil production.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Given this, Mr. Famiglietti, could the Canada Water Agency, which will be starting up in the near future, help in prioritizing and managing water use? As you say, surface water and groundwater have to be managed coherently. That agency can also exercise leadership.
