Finance Committee on April 30th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I am not disagreeing, but this is a bit unusual, so I just want to make sure I understand.

We have amended one section, but in order to make it consistent, we had to open up different sections in legislation in order to make this consistent. Is that correct? Yes.

My question, though, is for the clerk, because if the chair rules that something is out of scope, one of the things that can happen is that even if we override your decision—not that we ever would, Peter—the Speaker can then come back and say this is out of scope and throw it out, regardless.

I am just curious. Is there any chance that might happen with this piece of legislation, because we're opening up other pieces of legislation?

[The Clerk]

No. It's the same act that's being amended. It's just amending another section of the act. That's all. It's the same act.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

All right. Does everybody have the text? Yes, they do. Okay.

Now we're going to vote on new clause 233.1. Is that right?

Shall new clause 233.1 carry?

(Amendment agreed to on division [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We're going to suspend for a second.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We're back.

Everyone, shall clause 235 carry?

(Clause 235 agreed to on division)

(On clause 236)

We're on BQ-2.

MP Ste-Marie.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Chair, there have been many amendments, and I hope I can explain them clearly to you.

To replace amendment BQ‑2, I move the amendment that the clerk emailed to you at 3:40 p.m. This new amendment is in the same spirit as amendment BQ‑2.

I want to acknowledge my colleague Mr. Weiler's very thorough work on this. I also welcome the fact that the government is proposing measures to limit greenwashing. That said, the purpose of my amendment is to go further. After completing some working sessions, I came up with what I'm going to propose to you, which is largely inspired by what Mr. Weiler might have proposed, but I'm also adding something at the end.

I would remind you that it's not amendment BQ‑2, but rather the amendment sent by the clerk in mid-afternoon. This amendment proposes that clause 236 of Bill C‑59 be amended first by replacing lines 14 and 15 on page 428 with the following:

benefits for protecting or restoring the environment or mitigating the environmental, social and ecological causes or effects of climate

Second, the amendment proposes that the same clause of the bill be amended by adding after line 18 on page 428 the following:

(b.2) makes a representation to the public with respect to the benefits of a business or business activity for protecting or restoring the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological causes or effects of climate change that is not based on adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology, the proof of which lies on the person making the representation and the evidence for which must be made publicly available upon request;

The amendment aims to limit greenwashing. For example, companies that make claims about their products will have to be able to prove it. To add to the work done by my colleague Mr. Weiler, I inserted “and the evidence for which must be made publicly available upon request” at the end of the wording so that people can have access downstream to the evidence a company has used to trumpet the environmental benefits of its product.

I hope I've been clear.

I'd like to point out that Mr. Davies worked a great deal on this whole part as well, so I hope to get his support too.

That would be my suggestion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

I have MP Weiler to speak to this.

Members and MP Ste-Marie, it was sent through the clerk at 3:40.

MP Weiler.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also thank Mr. Ste‑Marie for his amendment. We worked on it together, and I know Mr. Davies worked on that part as well.

To be clear, the act originally made some changes to the Competition Act that would deal with greenwashing with respect to specific products, products that you could test, so you would have to prove that the product has the environmental claims you say it does. This amendment that Monsieur Ste-Marie has put forward would expand this further for claims that are made by a business, and this is incredibly important, because there are some things you can't fully prove through a test. What this new change will require is to provide evidence to substantiate this claim.

To give you an example, a company may say that they are on track to net zero emissions by a certain year but not have done that, and that can be a form of greenwashing. This will get at claims like that. I appreciate Monsieur Ste-Marie's bringing this forward.

I also want to say thanks for a lot of the testimony we've heard at this committee, including from the Quebec Environmental Law Centre and the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

To the last point that Monsieur Ste-Marie made that this evidence be made publicly available on request, this one does create some problems, and while there are other jurisdictions that have similar provisions, they're not done in the context of antitrust law. This would create some challenges in this regard.

Also, there isn't any guidance about how that information would be provided, in what form, in what time period and what the penalties would be for not complying with that, and it would put undue burden on small and medium enterprises and could have the negative effect of leading to a process called greenhushing, whereby companies would be deterred from speaking to some of the environmental attributes of their products.

I would oppose that last change that was put forward and would propose to amend the amendment Monsieur Ste-Marie has put forward at the end, after it says, “the proof of which lies on the person making the representation...” Delete the next part of that amendment, which reads “and the evidence for which must be made publicly available on request”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Members, do you need that to be repeated?

MP Weiler, do you have that in writing? Please send that to the clerk so we can distribute it.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I will get that in writing, but before I'm able to send that out, to be clear, this is an amendment to clause 236. Part (b) of the amendment would be “adding after line 18 on page 428 the following”, keeping that whole quotation but removing the last part that says, “and the evidence for which must be made publicly available on request”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I'll give everybody a minute or two.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We're back.

MP Ste-Marie, go ahead, please.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, I want to thank Mr. Weiler for his work. I would have preferred that the amendment be adopted as I had moved it without a subamendment, but obviously, in politics, it's important to make compromises while standing firm. I think the amendment as amended would be a great compromise. So I'm in favour of the subamendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

First, members, are we good on the subamendment?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

(Subamendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Now we are going to BQ-13048007. That's the reference number. You will find the reference number at the top of page 428, top left. Just so we are all on the same page, it's to that reference number. That was from the email that went out at 3:40 p.m. It's BQ-13048007. That's the amended version of BQ-2.

How are we voting on that, members?

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

(Amendment as amended agreed to on division)

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

We just voted on the subamendment. Now we have to vote on the amendment. No?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Ste-Marie, do you want to move BQ-3?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Chair, I see that amendment BQ‑3 is identical to amendment NDP‑6, unless it includes subtleties I didn't grasp. As a courtesy, I'll let Mr. Davies move his amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

The text is a bit different, I understand, MP Ste-Marie. Did you read both texts?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Yes. They're quite similar. As a courtesy, if Mr. Davies wants to move NDP‑6, I'm not going to move BQ‑3. However, if he doesn't move his, I will move mine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Davies, are you good to go with that? Okay.