Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on private member's Bill C-339, the intervenor funding act, sponsored by my hon. colleague, the member for Oxford.
The purpose of the bill is to require any person proposing a project that would affect the public interest or the environment, and that is required by law to be reviewed by a public process before being approved by government or an agency of the government, to provide funding to assist organizations that represent a relevant public interest and that wish to intervene in the review process to represent that interest.
Intervenor funding is certainly not a new concept in our country. The province of Ontario currently has the intervenor funding project act and serves as a model for Bill C-339. The Ontario act was in turn modelled upon the funding provided for intervenors before the Mackenzie Valley pipeline inquiry known as the Berger commission in the mid-1970s.
The commission charged with the duty of investigating the appropriateness of a pipeline through the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories determined that the many diverse interests in the region should be represented in the hearings. In order to level the playing field to compete with the finances available to the proponents of the pipeline, it was deemed necessary to provide money for citizens' groups so that they could properly research their intervention.
While funding for the Berger commission was provided by the federal government, Bill C-339 does not call upon the Canadian
taxpayer to provide funding for intervenors. Instead the proponent of the project would have to provide the funding.
This is an interesting and unique proposal. It is based upon the contention that if the proponent is required to bear the cost of intervention, it would motivate the sponsor of the project to work with the potential intervenors in finding solutions before submitting the proposal before the relevant board or agency. The Ontario experience has already shown the effectiveness of the funding.
After witnessing the recent proceedings of the National Energy Board hearing that involved a bid to convert an unused oil pipeline running from Sarnia through my riding of Lambton-Middlesex to Milton, Ontario, I am more convinced than ever that a system of intervenor funding should also be available when federal boards or agencies are involved.
Since this converted pipeline would have run through prime agricultural land in southwestern Ontario the landowners of the region were understandably concerned with the proposal. After several months of hearings the National Energy Board sided with the landowners, clearly taking the interest of the public safety to heart. While happy with the decision, the landowners also spent over $300,000 of their own money participating in the hearings process which had come under the jurisdiction of the National Energy Board.
Had the companies involved in the proposal been registered as Ontario businesses, the hearings would have fallen under the provincial jurisdiction of the Ontario Energy Board and the legal costs associated with participating in the hearings would have been covered by the applicant company. Unfortunately for the intervening land owners the applicant company was from Alberta. Therefore the intervenors did not qualify under the Ontario act.
I certainly agree with the landowners' spokesman who correctly stated that the state of affairs was prohibitive for landowners or anyone else to defend their rights and interests in an application that falls under federal jurisdiction.
On a number of occasions over the past year my southwestern Ontario colleagues and I have been in touch with the particular landowners association. Collectively we have searched for solutions and we have all come to the same conclusion, that there must be changes to the National Energy Board Act whereby landowners or other parties intervening in NEB hearings and acting in the public interest should be granted intervenor funding prior to NEB hearings.
We have also concluded that the granting by the proponents of intervenor funding at the federal level would yield at least three favourable results. Intervenor funding would, first, allow for equal treatment of all interested parties; second, ensure greater public safety by opening up the process to the public; and, third, save public money in the long run.
The more than $300,000 spent by the landowners' association would be minimal compared to the current practice of maintaining a much larger government agency to scrutinize pipeline proposals.
While the National Energy Board Act presently allows for limited intervenor funding for detailed route hearings, certain technicalities in the act preclude intervenors from receiving funding for natural gas pipeline matters. Unfortunately for the landowners in southwestern Ontario, the Alberta company had proposed a conversion of the unused oil pipeline to natural gas. Therefore the landowners were out of luck under the terms of the NEB act.
In communications with the Minister of Natural Resources I have been informed that the department is currently engaged in an exercise with the NEB to review a variety of NEB functions and to address a number of deficiencies in the NEB act. I have been assured by the minister that the issue of intervenor funding has been included in the exercise. At the same time I have been informed by the Minister of Natural Resources that the government's fiscal situation strongly suggests that any intervenor funding would likely be on a proponent pay system.
This is precisely where Bill C-330 could fill a void in federal policy. It would dovetail nicely with the current review of the National Energy Board.
The bill is designed to assist those with bona fide concerns. It is certainly not meant to provide funding for special interest groups. The bottom line is that it would improve the way in which the federal government and its agencies and boards make decisions that affect all of us. Perhaps best of all, by calling for the proponent of a particular project to provide funding for the intervenor it would take the onus off the government to empty its pockets every time there is a hearing. Instead the government board or agency would devote 100 per cent of its efforts into judging the soundness of the proposal at hand.
Bill C-339 calls for the relevant authority to appoint a funding panel to determine who will benefit from the project. It would hear applications for funding from intervenors and the panel would determine who should be funded. Before receiving funding the intervenor would have to satisfy a number of important criteria.
The intervenor would have to represent a clearly ascertainable interest that is relevant to the issue before the review authority and that should be represented at the hearing. It would have to be established that the intervenor does not have sufficient financial resources to make the representation without funding. There would have to be reasonable efforts to obtain funding from other sources. The intervenor would have an established record of concern for and commitment to the interest in question. Reasonable efforts would have to be made to co-operate with other intervenors that represent similar interests. It would be incumbent upon the intervenor to demonstrate the existence of a proposal that specifies the use to which funding would be put and to submit to an examination of all records by the panel to verify the intervenor's accounting.
These are more than ample safeguards to ensure that no application for intervenor status would be made on frivolous grounds.
I am deeply impressed with the bill. Not only would it allow for a responsible means by which intervenors could put forward their perspective in a way that would allow the board or agency to make a decision with the best information available, but it would do so without making onerous financial claims on the government.
I can certainly understand why the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs decided to make this private member's bill a votable item. It is because it fills a void in federal government policy and offers a unique means to address a pressing public interest issue without extending a hand for more government dollars.
I urge all members of this House to give this bill the support it deserves.