Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill today.
I must compliment the chair of the environmental committee, the hon. member for Davenport, who has an outstanding reputation of being fair and quite articulate on this issue. He did make a comment about serving the agenda of the Bloc. I do not know how one can get away from that agenda. I guess they are just going to call it the way they want and regardless of whether the issue is in the national interest of Canadians, we are going to get it from them as far as the separatist agenda is concerned.
I suppose what we have today is a party of good intentions here with the Liberals and a party of "what's in it for me" from the separatists. That is truly unfortunate when it comes to the environment.
The member for Comox-Alberni, who is our critic for the environment, raised some very good questions-they were addressed by the member for Davenport-about some precautions that should be taken in a bill such as this. Precautions such as, how do the aboriginal peoples fit into this? Do they come under this umbrella? I certainly hope they do. What kind of costs will be involved in assessments? I realize we are cost conscious. I am sure the government will keep that in mind and the idea of a single track, the division of responsibility.
In my previous job, doing a lot of construction in the hundreds of millions of dollars, our biggest problem was duplicity of roles with federal fisheries, for instance. It was really a nightmare when you are trying to develop projects in the $20 million range, trying to deal with federal and provincial fisheries and every other bureaucrat who can get involved in these things. They tend to just look at the words that are written down in black and white and overlook the fact that there are some very good projects out there. They tend to be, I think, overly protective and in some cases overly pushy.
Rather than just push one way, the environment is a two-way street. It is something we have to keep in mind.
We support Bill C-56 and I am glad to speak to that support. I do not often get to say this to the Liberal government, but it has come a fair distance to the way our party thinks. It is quite easy to stand here and talk about the failures in the criminal justice system, immigration and finance. However, you have to give credit where credit is due and it is due here today.
Why should we not support such an environmental bill? Canada's identity should be rooted in a fresh appreciation for our land. We have gone too long without a renewal of our appreciation for our land. A lot of things that happen today, the garbage that is strewn throughout our countryside, shows that we need a fresh appreciation of things. That applies to young people as much as to business people today. More often than not
a project must be developed and built and environmental impacts are overlooked. Our vision for the future is inspired by the importance of our well-being, of exploring, developing, renewing and conserving our environment. We have to leave our young people with something. We have to leave them with a good, clean environment and that is where this bill comes in. We also have to leave them with a little of their pay cheque, which the government has not got into its mind set yet but we will get it there eventually. Meanwhile the government is coming along on the environment so we will applaud it for that.
We strongly support ensuring that all Canadians and their descendants live in a clean and healthy environment. I suppose we all do that, notwithstanding political agendas, with the exception of this separatist body here from which I am hearing that there are almost two standards; a federal standard and a Quebec standard. If the federal standard is higher than the Quebec standard, this group seems to think that it is okay, we'll go to the lower standard, as long as it is in their best interests. That is not good enough today in Canada.
We must have the concept of public education programs, of environmentally conscious purchasing. The federal government should take a leadership role in environmentally conscious purchasing while encouraging the private sector to follow.
I do not know how easy this is going to be for the federal government. In the organization that I was in before I tried environmental purchasing. One of the biggest problems was getting suppliers to give you some environmentally sound products. They do not produce them in bulk. When the federal government goes-heaven only knows how much paper this place uses-to get environmentally conscious products it may be difficult. However the federal government has an obligation to push in that direction.
We must buy into the principle of sustainable development, which balances the need for a healthy environment with the continued growth and progress of Canada's economy.
Sustainable development can be defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising our ability to meet the needs of the future. "Environmental considerations must carry equal weight with the economic, social and technical considerations of a project". This is a big statement. The government should really look at this as one of the main principles of the environment. Because in most projects, regardless of whether they are a $30,000 project or a $10 million or $20 million project, what gets lost oftentimes because you are trying to cut costs is the environmental consideration. Somewhere along the line we have to look at it as having equal weight with the economic, social and technical considerations.
I would like the Liberal government to consider that very carefully.
We must see the integration of environmental and economic objectives in all areas of management in which the federal government has jurisdiction. We must support the integration of energy development and environmental conservation by ensuring that the cost of energy development includes the associated costs of environmental protection and by supporting conservation of energy and the development of alternative energy sources for the purposes of environmental protection.
We all know that we have to establish clear federal-provincial jurisdiction over environmental matters to reduce duplication, confusion and unnecessary regulations. We also have to promote partnerships with provincial governments, private industry and educational institutions and the public to promote environmental protection.
Our greatest resource today is sitting in high schools and elementary schools. I have been in that business at one time or another and very little of a sustainable, consistent curriculum on the environment is put forward. A lot of schools go out on field trips and they talk about it, but it is not really a consistent issue with our young people. That is where we have to start. Our young people will be the developers of tomorrow and they will be the ones who will come under the umbrella of these assessments that will be made under this act.
We support the development of environmental regulations through consultation of industry and the public. We must support the multi-partite round table approach as a means of finding common ground when developing environmental measures.
Multi-party round table approaches will work if the issue is important enough to all parties. We do try. We have seen the attempt to get the health round table discussions going. It is not working. The provinces are opting out. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the federal government is not offering enough to the provinces in the partnership. In the environment we all have an equal role. A lot of it is not necessarily money. It is articulation. It is experience.
We should make government sponsored research available to the private sector. I emphasize the private sector. Once we get it into the public sector we are back again to all of these grants on which governments, Liberal and Conservative, year after year have made mistakes. They tend to become patronage pots.
If we can just let the private sector lead, they will come up with better, higher quality environmental impact assessments than will governments. We sometimes fall into the pit and think that only governments can do a good job. That really is not so.