Evidence of meeting #27 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clauses.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Jasraj Singh Hallan Conservative Calgary East, AB
This is to amend clause 422 to amend section 35 of the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
The proposed subamendment for proposed subsection 35.1(2) is as follows:
(2) An exemption ceases to have effect on the earliest of the following days:
(a) the day that is specified by the Minister in the exemption;
(b) the day on which the Minister revokes the exemption; or
(c) the day that is one year after the day on which the exemption takes effect.
This has been submitted to the clerk.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Okay. Thank you.
We'll just briefly suspend while the clerk circulates it to the committee.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you, colleagues.
We will now go to the subamendment for CPC-6. Shall the subamendment carry?
(Subamendment agreed to)
(Amendment as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Clause 422 as amended agreed to)
There are no amendments proposed for clauses 423 to 595. Is there UC to group them for the vote?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Shall clauses 423 to 595 carry?
(Clauses 423 to 595 agreed to on division)
Go ahead, Mr. Hallan.
Conservative
Jasraj Singh Hallan Conservative Calgary East, AB
Since we're getting close to the end, I was wondering if I could try to get UC one more time. I'll just read this out: “That the committee rescind its earlier votes on clauses 191 and 192 of Bill C-15 and the chair be instructed to immediately retake the recorded division on those clauses.”
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Okay. We will return immediately to those votes.
(Clauses 191 and 192 agreed to on division)
(On clause 596)
We are now at division 42, “Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999”, clause 596.
Ms. May, would you like to move your amendment? Would you like to speak to it?
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Yes, I would. It's deemed moved already, so I appreciate that, Madam Chair.
These equivalency notions were added to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act back in 1988. They're already a compromise to try to ensure protections of public health and safety in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, originally combining sections of the Oceans Act, the water protection act and commercial chemicals.... They're primarily about toxic substances, or what are now considered CEPA-toxic substances, which the Supreme Court has ruled don't have to fall under the common-sense understanding of the word “toxic”.
The equivalency agreements are important, and the environmental law community has been very clear. I know they've tabled many briefs with this committee advocating that the equivalency agreements should be automatically terminated at five years. The amendments to CEPA in Bill C-15 would mean there would be no sunset provision at all.
My amendment is a compromise, extending it from the existing five years to seven years, as opposed to what's proposed in Bill C-15, which is no sunset provision at all. I hope this compromise will be acceptable to committee members.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you, Ms. May.
Shall PV‑3 carry?
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Clause 596 agreed to on division)
(On clause 597)
Go ahead, Mr. Weiler.
Liberal
Patrick Weiler Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thanks for allowing me to speak to this. I think another one was going to be discussed.
I want to speak very briefly to subclause 597(2), which is the private right of action for litigants to bring forward cases to the Competition Bureau under the greenwashing provisions.
A couple of years ago, these provisions were brought in unanimously through the House, through Bill C-59, with an understanding that private enforcement would complement what the Competition Bureau could do and just add capacity where the bureau doesn't have capacity. That's because they have a very large mandate across the entire economy, including merger review, cartels, wage-fixing, abuse of dominance and deceptive marketing. They do great work, but they don't have limitless resources.
Since this provision has come into force, there hasn't been a single deceptive marketing case brought forward in this way. There was some argument that this would lead to floodgates, but this very much has not materialized, and it's not hard to understand why: It is because there are actually no damages or financial rewards for private litigants to bring forward cases. They would have to raise funds and commit resources up front to bring forward a case that has to be deemed in the public interest.
Importantly, since this was tabled last fall, the Competition Bureau has come out with further safeguards in a decision that was announced last month in Martin v. Alphabet, which made it clear that leave for private litigants would be granted only when they can demonstrate that it's genuinely in the public interest, there's a serious issue grounded in competition law, there's a real and continuing interest, there's a coherent theory of the case, including how evidence could be obtained, and there's a concrete litigation plan. In other words, the tribunal has established very significant guardrails that would effectively screen out any vexatious or strategic claims.
I just wanted to put that to the attention of the committee before voting on these provisions.
Thank you.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
This will be my last intervention, and before I continue, I just want to thank the chair and all of my colleagues for your generosity in allowing me as an independent to get some thoughts on the record. It's very collegial of all of you, and I appreciate it.
I will do one intervention to speak to the point that Mr. Weiler just made on clause 597, but I'll also comment on clause 598. Then I don't need to do any more interventions.
Clauses 597 and 598 would amend the Competition Act to remove the requirement that the substantiation of representations about the environmental benefits of businesses or business activities must be done in accordance with internationally recognized methodology. That's what the act says now, and it's what we passed in the last Parliament. As Mr. Weiler just eloquently pointed out, the act would also be amended to exclude the application of the provision respecting those representations from proceedings before the Competition Tribunal that are initiated by a member of the public. In other words, you can't have a complaint initiated by a member of the public rather than the commissioner of competition.
Both of these clauses contain two amendments to anti-greenwashing provisions that were added to the Competition Act in 2024 as a collaborative effort by Liberal MP Patrick Weiler, me and Bloc MP Gabriel Ste-Marie. The first change removes the requirement....
I've talked about the changes, but I think the important point is that together these changes will weaken the anti-greenwashing protections that Parliament put in place less than two years ago. Also, removing the requirement for internationally recognized methodology and shutting out third party complaints will predictably make it easier for companies to continue to make unverified environmental claims and harder for Canadians to hold them accountable.
I would urge all of my colleagues to vote against clauses 597 and 598 for those reasons.
Liberal
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Weiler for proposing this amendment. It kind of fell under our radar, and I think it's an excellent amendment.
Under the current version of the Competition Act, to counter greenwashing, when you want to promote something as being beneficial for the environment, you're required to use internationally recognized scientific methods. It's already an excellent piece of legislation. If it were up to me, we wouldn't change it; we'd keep it as is. We started with an excellent piece of legislation, and Bill C‑15 proposes to turn it into something completely inadequate.
I do think that our colleague has tried to land somewhere in the middle. I think this amendment is, in itself, a kind of compromise: it asks that the scientific methods used be credible, rigorous and suited to the claims being made. If we don't adopt it and leave Bill C‑15 as is, we're removing all the teeth from the Competition Act.
Obviously, to support the amendment as I do, you have to believe in science. You have to believe in the scientific method. For example, when an oil company tells us that it's going to capture carbon and that its oil has suddenly become green, we have to believe that there are people in the world who can corroborate that. In fact, the prosperity we have today comes from scientific advances. Those scientific advances exist because a method exists, because there is a scientific community, and you can't just publish anything. The scientific community has to be able to corroborate those claims.
If we don't adopt this amendment, what we're essentially telling Quebeckers and Canadians is that we're allowing companies to lie to people. Worse still, we'd be allowing companies to lie under the guise of pseudoscience and, on top of that, we'd be endorsing it as elected officials. There is absolutely no way I will endorse that, so I will be supporting the amendment.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you, Mr. Garon.
To clarify, Mr. Weiler wasn't proposing an amendment. I think he was speaking to a specific clause. The LIB-1 amendment was actually withdrawn. Anyway, I think everyone is on the same page.
Are there any other points of view on this? No.
Shall clause 597 carry?
(Clauses 597 to 599 agreed to on division)
There are no further amendments proposed for clauses 600 to 606. Do we have UC to group these together?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Shall clauses 600 to 606 carry?
(Clauses 600 to 606 agreed to on division)
That was all the clauses, guys. I can say “guys” because it's actually only men right now.
Going through this, we have the schedules.
(Schedules 1 to 6 agreed to)
Shall the short title carry?