Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 Committee on May 28th, 2012

[Denise Carpenter]

Thank you for the question.

I don't have an exact percentage, but I can maybe paint a picture. If we have a limited amount of resources from a corporate point of view, from a government point of view, and from an NGO point of view, and those resources are deployed doing environmental assessments over and over again, to the same outcomes—what could we do with that resource if we weren't doing repetitive work? We could reassign that resource to do things that really mattered for the environment, whether it be compliance or monitoring in the future.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

In short, do you believe that the approach in part 3 of the budget we're talking about tonight is a good balance of environmental assessment of projects going forward?

[Denise Carpenter]

Sure. I ultimately believe that if we have one project and one review in a clearly defined time period and in a clearly defined process, it's going to be better for the environment because we can deploy resources to do other work.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Smillie, will this new approach help your industry and specifically the workers on the ground who are training today for those jobs of tomorrow?

[Christopher Smillie]

In order to be a construction apprentice or in order to learn a trade, you have to be employed. You can't sit in a classroom and learn how to be a steamfitter. Eighty percent of your learning is on the job. Anytime we're able to increase the number of apprentices, or people who are training apprentices, is a good thing.

The employers we work for, I'll be frank, sit around and wait for environmental reviews before they put shovels in the ground. That means our hiring halls, through the unionized system, are responsible for finding employment for those folks. If it's not on a large energy project or a natural resources-specific project, then we have to find them work in the industrial ICI sector, building apartment buildings.

I would submit that the backbone of the construction industry—and I think the CCA, who represents all the companies, is speaking to you later—would be in the energy sector, related by volume.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

In other words, are you saying that it's really not even a matter of jobs lost, it's a matter of never having had them because we're not creating those opportunities?

[Christopher Smillie]

Sure. If you have a regulatory system or people bogging projects down just for the sake of bogging them down, and those projects never see the light of day, with either a yes or a no, then the skilled trades folks in the construction companies never go to bid on those jobs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you very much, Ms. Ambler. Your time has expired.

Mr. Julian, for up to five minutes, please.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses for coming here this evening.

I'd like to start with Mr. Meisenheimer and Mr. Rees. Mr. Meisenheimer, please thank your wife for your presence here tonight. It's very important.

Mr. Rees, you spoke about an unprecedented omnibus bill, and this is certainly extremely controversial. We've seen public meetings with standing-room-only crowds across the country. We saw just this morning in the National Post that Conservatives would lose 50 seats if there were an election today, in part because of their reaction to Bill C-38. There was even a Conservative MP a few days ago who said he'd be voting against Mr. Wilks from Kootenay–Columbia.

So there is a lot of controversy around how everything has been brought together in this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Julian, I have to recognize a point of order.

Mr. Storseth, go ahead.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Part of Mr. Julian's comments are not correct, and he knows they're not correct. I'd ask him to withdraw those, if not now, then later in the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I don't know if that's necessarily a point of order, Mr. Storseth.

Mr. Julian, please continue.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It was a waste of time, unfortunately. I'd like to get to my questions.

Mr. Rees and Mr. Meisenheimer, one of the controversial aspects of this very controversial bill is the concept of direct involvement. Individuals, those Canadians who aren't defined as directly impacted by a particular project, could be excluded from hearings, either on a geographical basis—though we asked the minister a week and a half ago and he wasn't able to define whether it was one kilometre or three kilometres—or on a subject basis, which is more disturbing. The minister said that issues the government doesn't feel are appropriate are issues on which they can exclude potential witnesses from coming forward to a hearing.

I want to know, in both of your cases, if your organizations are concerned about this arbitrary definition now of who's excluded, who can't come through the door to testify on these important hearings that have a direct or indirect impact on their livelihood as a fisher or perhaps on their community, whether they're cottagers, vacationers, or rural Ontarians.

[Terry Rees]

Thank you for the question.

I think the notion is of some concern for sure, and frankly, I don't share the unbridled enthusiasm for how the process will work out in the absence of knowing what the regulations are going to look like. The fact that this bill is being put together so hastily means that all of those kinds of questions are of great concern to a lot of Canadians, certainly to all of our members. We don't know what that will mean.

We think notionally it can be an exclusionary part of the budget implementation act, and we'd certainly have some concerns as to whether it would be our community or others who would be excluded from the important public process. Frankly, we're already feeling excluded given the fact that this bill is being jammed down our throats.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Rees.

Mr. Meisenheimer, I'd like you to answer that question, and if you could go a step further, you talked very clearly about a proper process with stakeholders for revisions, for example, to the Fisheries Act. Do you feel that four nights of hearings during which this is being rammed through, as Mr. Rees so eloquently said, is appropriate consultation with stakeholders over such important changes to environmental legislation, the Fisheries Act, and the whole host of other legislation?

[Peter Meisenheimer]

Speaking from the perspective of someone who is in a fishery, no. There's an enormous amount that needs to be discussed about these issues, and much of it has actually been hanging about in the wings for quite a while. There's a lot of grist for the mill when it comes to revising the Fisheries Act out there, and there's some stuff that's not here that probably should be part of the process. That this is happening now in such an incomplete form is part of the cause of the unease. There's no understanding on our part as to the motivation for this at all. When people don't have answers, they don't have regulations that would fill in some of the gaps, so suspicions are raised and people start asking questions.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you.

I have one more question I'd like to direct to both of you.

You mentioned, Mr. Meisenheimer, that people don't do inconvenient things unless they have to. We now have a gutting of the environmental assessment process that excludes many Canadians on the basis of the issues they're raising or where they live. We have a process that allows the government to monkey with the NEB process, and we also have a process that ultimately is decided by a minister with cabinet secrecy.

Do both of you feel that this is an appropriate way of approaching environmental assessment, and do you think it leads to the kind of legislation that forces people to do things they might not want to do, but that it's important for public policy and the future of our country and our economy and our environment to do?

[Peter Meisenheimer]

The short answer is no. Again, that's an answer given partially in ignorance. I don't know why this is being done the way it's being done. Maybe somebody has a reason for it, but we don't know what that is. I would say that the issue of excluding people, which I didn't get to in the first go-round, is actually a real problem for us. We fish for the people of Ontario and for broader markets. We are the only means of access that most people have to the crown's resource in Ontario. Most people don't fish and they don't want to. We do it for them. They have a right to an opinion about these fish, and yet they would not be deemed to be affected, as I understand the law as it's currently cast, and that's a problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you, Mr. Meisenheimer.

Mr. Julian, your time has expired.

Mr. Rees, perhaps in a future round of questioning you will have an opportunity to answer this.

Mr. Kamp, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, lady and gentlemen, for appearing before us. I appreciate the opportunity.

Let me ask a question or two of Mr. Rees to begin. Would it surprise you, Mr. Rees, to know that cottage owners regularly contact DFO when they want to build a dock or repair a retaining wall or to in fact express to their members of Parliament, in some cases, their thoughts on the lack of clarity at times regarding the indiscriminate approaches that DFO takes to these things?

[Terry Rees]

Thank you for the question.

It's not something I'm unfamiliar with. I frankly take a great deal of umbrage at the argument that it's waterfront property owners who want the rules to be softened. I think in fact that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has simplified their de minimis type of activities on the shoreline through their operational statements. They did that a number of years ago. So there's quite clear direction for smaller undertakings at the water's edge.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

I'm sorry to interrupt. My time is limited.

In fact, it's those same people who are telling us the system needs to change. These are some of the 7,500-plus reviews that DFO is asked to be engaged in every year. Fewer than 10% of those actually lead to the need for an authorization.

In the meantime, DFO employees are asked to look at that project and make a decision on it, while some would argue—I think we would argue—that those resources need to be more clearly focused on the high-risk projects. Many of those projects are very low-risk or no-risk, and we have DFO employees spending their lives assessing these programs when they need to be more focused. That, I think, is where this legislation is going. I hope you would agree that we do need that.

You mentioned in your comments that we're looking only at commercial—

[Terry Rees]

I might speak to that, if there's a question in there. I wasn't sure.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

I don't know if there was a question there, so let me just ask you one.

You said in your comments that we're interested in only commercially viable fisheries, or something like that. That's not what the act says. It says we're going to focus on protecting fisheries of aboriginal.... You could argue whether food, social, or ceremonial fishery has any commercial.... And there's recreational fishery—I'm not sure how you define that one—and commercial fisheries as well. That's our focus.

There is a little bit of a lack of clarity on this. I think some of that came from comments on a leaked document that wasn't anything close to what we have here before us. Would you agree with that?

[Terry Rees]

I think you can't protect fish without protecting their habitat. As I understand it, we're going to be limiting the protections in the proposed act to limited and specific fisheries and fish species. I think my comments stand that the limits in the new act will weaken the protection for our aquatic resources. If you don't have clarity and consistency of the application of law, whether for the smaller undertakings...or certainly, when there's discretion applied to larger undertakings, where ordinary Canadians see that bigger enterprises get to flout the Fisheries Act and important regulations related to fisheries, that sends a really terrible message. It's going to lead to an eventual decline in the state of the resource.