Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 Committee on May 17th, 2012

[Coleen Volk]

I'm glad you asked the question.

Our oil spill response capacity has not been shut down. What was eliminated—what is in the process of being streamlined—is our notification and coordination of routine incidents. That is not the centre that would respond in the event of a major spill. A major spill would most likely be led by the Canadian Coast Guard, by other departments. It would not be Environment Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you, Mr. Julian. Sorry, your seven minutes are up.

Ms. Duncan.

At the expiry of your time, Ms. Duncan, this portion of the meeting will be over. I will suspend the meeting and we will go straight to committee business. I would ask that we wrap up here as efficiently as possible at the end of your full seven minutes.

Thank you, Ms. Duncan.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to know the evidence, in the government's position, indicating that the repeal of CEAA and its new replacement will contribute to “better environmental outcomes”. That was reported in Budget 2012.

[Jay Khosla]

I'll start, and then, Helen, maybe you can pick it up.

There are several measures as part of the package, including the changes in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, that help with environmental protection. The most important of that is, of course, focusing resources on the projects that are the largest and that matter the most to the environment—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Sorry, I'm looking for a very specific—I'm looking for the evidence.

[Jay Khosla]

I'm going to go through some other elements that speak to environmental protection and that really matter for this package.

Certainly the idea of bringing forward a certificate process for proponents to manage the environmental assessment process and ensure that we're taking a life-cycle approach leads into the evidence.

Many of the changes we're talking about here have been requested through various stakeholder communities for a long time, so some of the evidence has led to the crafting of that. The certificate process is another key problem.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Can I just ask a question on that?

You said earlier that this was a request of the province. Jean Charest was in the papers a week or two ago saying he was quite surprised, because in Quebec they do this very well.

[Jay Khosla]

For sure, and I was referring to the substitution and equivalency provisions. Provinces that do those well will be able to engage in that process. We think we'll be able to work well with the Province of Quebec in terms of harmonizing our processes a little bit better.

Coming back to the environmental protection aspect, there are a whole host of other measures that are packaged with this bill, including greater inspections, greater pipeline inspections, marine safety inspections, and so on and so forth. A considerable amount of evidence has been brought to bear on these actions.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I would ask that we table with the committee the specifics of the evidence that this will improve environmental outcomes.

You mentioned pipelines. Is there going to be money in this bill to strengthen pipeline safety by monitoring whether regulated companies have prepared their emergency procedures manuals according to established legislation, standards, and expectations? This was a real concern of the environment commissioner.

[Jay Khosla]

The package brings forward a number of measures on pipeline and marine safety. In the budget document, $13.5 million has been allocated for greater inspection capacity.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

No—I've asked very specifically if there is funding to monitor whether regulated companies have prepared their emergency procedure manuals.

[Jay Khosla]

Yes. Part of that package includes annual sort of audits of their capacity to do that. Comprehensive audits will be doubled as part of the package.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

That's good to hear, because in the past this was not done well. The environment commissioner brought that forward.

Will the money in this package be used to communicate any deficiencies to the regulated companies?

[Jay Khosla]

I can come back with answers. It's fairly technical. I would assume the answer is yes, but I don't want to mislead the committee.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Will this package be used to ensure any deficiencies are corrected?

[Jay Khosla]

Again, I'll come back, but I would assume the answer is yes. As part of an auditing function and an inspection function it usually is, but you're asking very technical questions, so we'll come back on those.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

So you'll come back with those answers. I thank you for that.

Can you provide evidence in the government's possession indicating that the repeal of CEAA and the new environmental assessment process will “improve consultations with Aboriginal peoples”? Again, that's from Budget 2012.

[Jay Khosla]

That's speaking to the fourth pillar. I'm going to ask my colleague to speak on that, but certainly as part of this package, enhanced consultation with aboriginal peoples is paramount.

[Jean-François Tremblay, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Treaties and Aboriginal Government, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and Canadian Polar Commission]

The duty to consult is a constitutional obligation, as you know. We have been taking a lot of measures since 2004, since the decision from the Supreme Court on the duty to consult. The duty to consult happens when you have activities from the crown and rights that could potentially be affected. In that case, you need to think about what the consultation in place should be and also potentially about accommodation.

We have been hearing from aboriginal groups. We've consulted with them. We consulted with—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Could I interrupt? Could we table with the committee exactly which aboriginal groups have been consulted? When we brought this up at committee of the whole and we asked the minister, we didn't get an answer.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

I can look at it, but it's also consultation on a day-to-day basis. We have relationships with AFN—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Could we table the specific consultations with this committee, please?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Yes. We developed guidelines that are available, and they are on the Internet. You can look at them too. We have learned that there is consultation fatigue. There's an issue also of duplication of consultation. There is also an issue of making sure the consultation is meaningful, which means providing funding.

If you look at the measures that are in the deal, there is the idea of really going with a single window, which is that one organization of the federal government should be responsible for the consultation.

You also have the issue of working with provinces to address—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'm going to interrupt there for a second, and I apologize—

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Ms. Duncan, sorry, your time is up.