moved that Bill C-56, an Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker, today we begin the last stage of the debate on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. This debate has now been going on for ten years, a decade, and we are finally at its conclusion.
During this decade, several eminent persons were involved in the debate on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, including the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment, Jean Charest, and the former Minister of the Environment, Lucien Bouchard.
I would like to do a thumbnail sketch of how we got from where we were in 1984 to where we are in 1994 on environmental assessment.
Ten years ago the federal government of the day introduced guidelines to be followed in the environmental assessment of all projects which in one way or another involved the Government of Canada. The intention of those guidelines was undoubtedly good, but the result was chaos.
The guidelines were vague and subjective. On the one hand they were incredibly complicated and on the other hand they were incomplete. The result unfortunately was arbitrary and haphazard decision making. That led to over 40 significant court challenges, probably the most famous of which would be characterized as the Rafferty-Alameda and the Oldman dam decisions.
Business people were frustrated because they could not get a straight answer on whether their projects were environmentally acceptable or not. Environmentalists were frustrated because the cause of protecting the environment was lost under the weight of hundreds of thousands of pages of legal documents.
The federal and provincial governments were bogged down in legal battles on obscure points of interpretation. The people of Canada felt excluded from the environmental assessment process because, as individuals, they did not have the millions needed to become involved in such battles, even if these fights had a direct impact on their daily life, their immediate environment and their economic prosperity.
All political parties in Parliament soon realized the need for a law clearly defining what constitutes federal responsibility in environmental assessment. After a number of years beginning with the then Minister of the Environment, Mr. Tom McMillan, through to Minister Bouchard through to Mr. Charest, Parliament passed that law with the support of every single party. Unfortunately, once the law passed for a number of reasons it sat on the shelf and was never actually brought into force by the previous government.
During the last election, the Prime Minister promised that if elected a Liberal government would proclaim the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. It would then introduce amendments to simplify, open up and strengthen federal environmental assessments.
Two months ago I was pleased to announce in this House that we would keep the Prime Minister's red book promise and proclaim the act. At the same time I was happy to introduce amendments to make the act fairer, more open, more straightforward and indeed to make the decision making more public.
With the passage of Bill C-56 the government will keep its red book promise. With the passage of this legislation Parliament, we the parliamentarians of Canada, will put our country at the forefront of nations in the world in approaching the extremely important issue of environmental assessment.
As our Prime Minister leaves for Miami today for the hemispheric summit, one of the issues that underpins economic development around the world is the necessity for open, transparent and public environmental assessment. Certainly this legislation will indeed underline Canada's pre-eminent position as a country that respects the open public and transparent process before projects are begun.
Environmental assessment must be a powerful tool for the future in which economic health, environmental health and human health are integrated. Indeed, that is one of the functions of the summit.
With that understanding in mind my colleagues and I have spent the last year listening carefully to environmentalists, academics, community representatives, business, labour and other levels of government and indeed most important, individual Canadians. We want to make sure the amendments we are proposing will advance the cause of sustainable development in the best possible sense. There are three simple but key amendments.
First, the federal government is implementing the principle of one project, one assessment for federal endeavours. We do not want a complicated process where there is a big assessment at the planning stage of a project, a second assessment at the implementation stage and then another assessment every time somebody decides to make a change. What is more, we do not want a whole group of federal departments and agencies conducting individual assessments on the same project. We want environmental assessments to be tough and fair. One comprehensive assessment of a project serves everyone's interest much better than several half-baked separate assessments.
Secondly, this bill guarantees the general public the right to participate in major environmental assessments by providing funding for their participation. This idea of involving the public was first proposed in 1987 by the former Minister of the Environment, the Hon. Lucien Bouchard, but was set aside in the bill passed in 1992.
We always believed that it was a mistake to set the issue of popular financing aside. Today, we are pleased to be able to repair this deficiency in the legislation. It is all very well to say that everyone has a right to participate, but we must ensure that they have the resources required to really be able to do so.
It is one thing to say that people have a say. It is another thing to give them the tools to exercise that right.
This amendment entrenches the public's right to really participate. It is the most basic common sense that those who have to live with a project have their say.
Third, Bill C-56 will take away the power of any individual cabinet minister to ignore or overrule environmental assessments produced by an independent panel.
Recommendations of an individual panel can only be modified by a decision of the entire cabinet. Any changes to an independent assessment will require a written, detailed public explanation for those changes.
This amendment ends the era of backroom deals made at the expense of the environment.
I am proud that our government has the honour of giving Canada a progressive, fair, practical, sensible environmental assessment system. It introduces a new way of thinking. From now on, we will make decisions with due consideration for their environmental impact. The environment completely disregards man-made geographical boundaries.
The Prime Minister constantly repeats how important Canadians consider the environment to be and we must find answers together. Canada is working actively to harmonize environmental assessments throughout the world and will be pleased to sign agreements on this. I know that every one of us here in this House wants to protect the environment and that no one wants to act against the environment for short-term gain.
I hope that our efforts to achieve positive results throughout the world will have the same results here in Canada. We must work together to avoid duplication and overlap.
We have demonstrated our willingness to co-operate on environmental assessment by signing harmonization agreements with two provinces already. We are a few months away from signing harmonization agreements with two other provinces. We are actively negotiating comparable comprehensive agreements across the country.
We want to show that Canada's federalism can be flexible. We want to show that at the federal level we are doing everything we can to make Canada work better for the environment, for individual Canadians, for the protection of the heritage of our children.
Unfortunately, one government recently decided to boycott the harmonization discussions: the Quebec government.
All those interested in protecting the environment must ask the Quebec government if it really wants to avoid duplication and overlap. Come back to the negotiation table; come back to talk to us. We are not only prepared to speed up the harmonization process, but also to meet Quebec's officials to improve our environment. When it comes to the environment, no one must act alone.
Sustainable development is a common goal for all; it is everyone's responsibility and it knows no frontier. It is important not to get involved in jurisdiction battles, so as to ensure the best possible environment for our children.
The amendments before Parliament will not create environmental paradise on earth overnight. They will, however, produce a solid, thoughtful and democratic foundation for environmental assessments and for making sure that environmental thinking is a central component of planning. That is what sustainable development is all about, making the right decisions before the fact instead of cleaning up after the fact.
Future decision makers, the young people of today and their children, will have to think differently than the way we thought in the past. Thanks to this legislation we believe they will have the tools necessary to translate environmental goodwill into every day decision making.
The new Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is extraordinary in that it changes our way of thinking. We must think before we act. We must think about sustainable development and we must think about the fact that the environment knows no borders.
One project-one assessment, public involvement, government accountability are three simple principles translated into reality by today's amendments.
We are ready to translate into reality the principles stated by the former Minister of the Environment.
With these three measures we will finally be ready to move forward in January with the proclamation of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the agency. We can finally move forward to a new and wiser generation of environmental assessment.
It has taken us 10 years to reach the point where finally we are ready to move ahead. I want to thank the thousands of people who participated in that process.
In absentia, I would like to thank the Leader of the Opposition who was one of the first thinkers of how we could remake environmental assessment. I want to thank the former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of the Environment. He supported this new process of environmental assessment.
I want to thank the thousands of Canadians and Quebecers who understand so well that the environmental assessment process affects everyone's life, and that we not only have a right but a duty to participate in it. We hope that the three simple amendments which we propose-one project, one assessment; public financing, and participation of every minister in the decision-making process-will improve the process set in place by the Hon. Lucien Bouchard.