Evidence of meeting #18 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pipeline.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Not in the legislative framework, no.
Conservative
President, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
No, but there is a maximum timeline within the legislation. Within that legislative timeline, we are establishing service standards of two years that will apply for all major projects.
Conservative
President, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
We are designing an engineering process.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay, but I'm talking about aboriginal rights and title consultation accommodation. However, you just said that there's a maximum timeline for aboriginal rights and title issues within that. Is there a time limit, a two-year time limit, for aboriginal issues under the fast-tracking proposal in the nation-building Bill C-5? Is there a time limit for aboriginal rights and title issues to be resolved?
President, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
The government is committed to a two-year service standard for reviewing all major projects, including consultation obligations.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I understand that, but the specific question is this: Is there a time limit for aboriginal rights and title consultation obligations?
President, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
There is a target, a service standard, yes, of two years.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
However, it's not a hard target. It can't be a hard target.
President, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
It's a service standard, right? So, that's not a legislative timeline.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I understand that, but it's not a hard target because you can't put an arbitrary time limit on rights and title interests. You can't do that. The case law is pretty clear on that.
President, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
We have a goal. It's a goal. Let's understand that.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I understand that. I get that. It's probably aspirational. I get all the political terms. However, there is no hard line on addressing and resolving aboriginal rights and title issues. Is there?
President, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
As I mentioned, we aim to carry out these consultations and deliver our process within two years. We will be aiming to fulfill our obligations within that two-year service standard, but there may be situations in which we would consider deviations.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you very much, Mr. Ross.
Thank you, Mr. Hubbard.
The floor is yours, Mrs. Miedema, for six minutes.
Liberal
Shannon Miedema Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you very much.
Thanks to all of you for coming today.
I would like to first talk about an issue that's had a huge impact on my community in Halifax and, of course, across Canada, and that's the rising rate of wildfires in our country that pose a real threat to the health and well-being of all Canadians.
One of the major threats to public health, particularly the health of our firefighters, is exposure to toxic flame retardants found in household products.
I think this might be a question for Ms. Johnson.
Can you describe what federal actions are being taken by the department in partnership with Health Canada to address this issue?
Mollie Johnson Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Thanks very much for the question. I actually will pass it over to my colleague, Megan Nichols, to speak a bit about our chemical management plan and some of the work that we're doing there.
Megan Nichols Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
Certainly.
Our chemical management plan has been in place for many years now, and it helps to ensure that we have a solid risk management framework in place for any substance that could have deleterious effects on human health or the environment. In conjunction with Health Canada, we have put in place tools for hundreds of substances over the years to make sure that we are protecting our human health and environment from these types of chemicals. It applies to a very wide range of things that are listed under our Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which then enables us to put in place measures—sometimes it's regulations, but sometimes it's voluntary agreements with industry—and a wide range of tools.
Liberal
Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
That's right. We actually just recently put in place a new state of the science report on what we call the PFAS, the forever chemicals. That will enable us to put in place a phased approach to dealing with PFAS over time. We already have some measures in place to deal with the most egregious firefighting foams, but we will be able, under the new regulations that we're bringing forward, to make sure that all firefighting foams are covered over time, and then we will continue to extend the approach to other substances where PFAS are found.
Liberal
Shannon Miedema Liberal Halifax, NS
Okay, that's excellent. Thank you.
In 2023, Parliament passed Bill C‑226, the National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Act. Work to address environmental racism in our country actually started with, or largely started with, detailed research and community engagement that was done by Dr. Ingrid Waldron in my province of Nova Scotia.
Bill C‑226 aims to correct historical injustices by addressing the disproportionate impacts of pollution on marginalized communities, which has happened in Nova Scotia and across the country. Despite the bill's passing into law, many Canadians don't understand exactly what environmental racism means. In fact, there's a report for Nova Scotia that hasn't yet been made public, that is with officials there now.
Can one of you please explain the value of this law in protecting the health of Canadians and explain what environmental racism means?
Alison McDermott Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and International Affairs Branch, Department of the Environment
At a really high level, the act is designed to help ensure that Canada avoids instances of environmental racism, works to prevent those from occurring and addresses instances or occurrences that are there.
You did ask for a bit of a definition of what environmental racism is. It's essentially the connection between instances of.... It's the intersection between sociological and other factors and instances of adverse environmental conditions.
Liberal
Shannon Miedema Liberal Halifax, NS
An example would be perpetually siting landfills adjacent to certain communities over other communities, which has happened in Nova Scotia.
Can you provide this committee with an update on the status of the federal implementation of the law?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and International Affairs Branch, Department of the Environment
Certainly. The government started some early engagement last fall, but some of that was suspended during the writ period. That has resumed, so engagement has been occurring since this fall. Studies are under way, because one of the components of the requirements under the law is to conduct a study. That work's under way, and some early engagement with interested parties has begun to discuss the methodology for that work.
The plan is to have some draft material to share so that we can have more formal consultation begin on the planned approach to addressing environmental racism. That will happen in the early months of the winter. The requirement is to table a strategy by the spring or summer. We're on track to do that.