Thank you, Mr. Chair.
That Bill C-10, in clause 328, be amended by replacing line 17 on page 298 to line 4 on page 299 with the following:
328. Section 13 of the Act is repealed.
Let's look at proposed clause 13 in the bill:
The Minister may, by order, [...] (a) establish classes of works or navigable waters; and (b) impose any terms and conditions with respect to the placement, construction, maintenance, operation, safety, use and removal of those classes of works or works that are built or placed in, on, over, under, through or across those classes of navigable waters. (2) An order under subsection (1)(a) is not a statutory instrument within the meaning of the Statutory Instruments Act; and (b) shall be published in the Canada Gazette within 23 days after the day on which it is made.
We are talking about a ministerial order. Without getting into too much detail there is a difference between a regulation from cabinet, which at least requires colleagues to give it their rubber stamp, and allowing a minister to act through an order.
Mr. Chair, this clause contains something of significance. Even if they have no principles, the Conservatives at this table should at least listen.
In the second paragraph, it says that the order is not a statutory instrument. A statutory instrument must be published and the public must be given some time in which to be consulted and to react to it. Here, it says that it will be "published in the Canada Gazette within 23 days of the day on which it is made." I don't know why they are using the terminology "in the Canada Gazette". It is obviously published in the official journals. It's strange that legislative drafters have returned to a mistake that Alexander Kovacs corrected in Ottawa 25 years ago.
Let's look at what they are doing. Not only, underhandedly, will they be giving the minister, through a simple order, the power to continue to undermine the protection of navigable waters, but they will decree that the minister's order does not have the same status as a statutory instrument within the meaning of the Statutory Instruments Act. So, the public won't know what the minister is doing for 23 days after the minister determines the regulation in question. It's quite scandalous.
Mr. Chairman, we're into the details of this series of dirty tricks that the Conservatives are trying to foist upon Parliament. Not only have they taken it upon themselves to provide order in council powers--so regulatory instruments that will actually have to go through cabinet and are subject to the Statutory Instruments Act--here they have gone a step further, and it's reprehensible. The minister will have the power under proposed section 13 to establish, by order, classes of works or navigable waters. He could exclude vast categories of rivers that are right now covered and protected by the Navigable Waters Protection Act.
What's even more shocking--it's unbelievable what they're up to here--it says in proposed section 13:
(2) An order under subsection (1)
(a) is not a statutory instrument within the meaning of the Statutory Instruments Act;
That means, in clear language—so the people following us can understand, Mr. Chairman—that the public will not even be allowed to know what's in the order.
I heard the brilliant and talented Mr. McKay say that nobody is listening to us. He's mistaken. Nobody is listening when they're speaking, Mr. Chairman.
Actually, it was quite interesting last night. There were several hundred people here. What I learned is this. A lot of these people in Ontario are left-leaning. They have an ecological vision of the world. They're socially open. What a lot of them told me last night is that until last night they used to vote Liberal. They used to see the Liberal Party as being slightly left-leaning, even though they have a right-wing guy now who they've gone and hired away from this. He spent, what, twenty years in the States pretending he was British and twenty years in Britain pretending he was American, right? So for the Liberals that makes him a great Canadian Prime Minister. That's quite something.
Now that people are starting to see that the masks are falling, that the Liberal Party doesn't even carry the word “liberty” in its name anymore, because on things like women's rights, on things like union and social rights, they're just not there.
Here, Mr. Chairman, we're looking at the ability of the government to take out everything that is essential in the Navigable Waters Protection Act and allow the minister, by order, an order that will not even be published.... Under the Statutory Instruments Act there used to be a rule that you had to publish and allow public consultation. People could react to the rule that you were thinking of putting in place. Here the public won't even get to see that rule until 23 days after the date on which it is made. Can you imagine? This is the pure stuff of banana republics. The Liberals, once again, are going to vote with the Conservatives to remove the right of future generations to know the same level of environmental protection that we've known over the years.
That's the scandal of proposed section 13, and that's why the NDP is proposing its removal from the statute, Mr. Chairman.