Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in support of the bill now before the House.
Mr. Speaker, the bill to amend the Auditor General Act provides for the appointment of a Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, who will report to the auditor general and provide him with an overview of all federal government activities and operations related to the environment and to sustainable development.
Bill C-83 also requires all federal government departments to develop sustainable development strategies to be laid before the House of Commons.
The bill has particular relevance in light of a report that was released this past week by the World Bank regarding the wealth of nations. By this report, Canada is the second richest country in the world. This is not what we are used to hearing about our economy. We are used to being ranked well down in the teens by the old way
of looking at the wealth of a nation based on income, investment, and those things that can be measured in dollars moving about in the economy.
The ranking that was done by the World Bank last week was formulated using a system of measurement that derives wealth from the value of a country's natural resources as one of the components. Based on this measure, the majority of Canada's wealth lies in its natural resources. Therefore, our capacity to develop a healthy economy not only for our future but for future generations lies in how we use those resources. It lies in using those resources in a sustainable way.
The system used by the World Bank in this new methodology challenges conventional thinking by looking beyond the normal measures of wealth that have been used until now. It starts moving the assessment of the worth of nations to a process and a standard based on sustainability in the long term.
That is why the measures we take to husband our natural resources, to use them in a way that ensures that future generations also have resources on which to build their prosperity, are not only matters of economic well-being. They are matters of survival. Perhaps that gives this bill new relevance. We can begin to see it not only in the context of how much we have in land and the quality of that land, what we have in forests, what we have in subsoil resources and the quality of our water, but we can begin to see it in the context of the whole quality of life.
We had one horrendous reminder this year that if we do not husband those resources, if we do not regard those gifts the world has to give as something that has to sustain our country and the world for future generations, then we face tragedy. We have had the virtual elimination of the cod stock, which has been a source of income and an important part of our country and other countries around the world for generations. That source has now been virtually lost. We would be only guessing if we tried to estimate whether that resource will ever be restored.
The World Bank is starting to recognize that the wealth of nations has to be looked at in a different way, that the value of the resources we have and how we use them is an important component of our present and future prosperity and that depleting those resources in fact depletes our wealth.
I would like to give another example to make the point quite concretely about what was wrong with the old system and how we have to start changing how we look at things.
Under the old system the Exxon Valdez oil spill was a tremendous benefit to the economy. It put up our GDP quite significantly because it generated millions of dollars in lawyers' fees and millions of dollars in clean-up costs. It was good for the economy under the old system. I do not think any one of us wants to stand in the House to say that the spilling of oil into our oceans is a positive benefit for our country.
Let me now turn to this particular bill and how it is consistent with this concept of sustainable development. It requires government to look at every policy, program, spending decision, activity and operation of government to determine its impact on the environment. It requires every minister to look at every aspect of that minister's department and table a strategy to ensure that the operations, programs, and policies of the department are consistent with sustaining the environment of the world in which we depend not only for economic prosperity but for our very survival.
It requires the government to establish an environmental commissioner who will oversee the environmental impact and the impact on sustainable development not only of new policies, new legislation and new programs, but of all existing policies, legislation and programs.
The legislation sets up a new public accountability for the government. One thing that has been learned by the nations of the world over the years is that it is public oversight of our responsibility that determines how responsibly we act. One of the key messages coming out of the earth summit in Rio a couple of years ago was that transparency, public oversight, and accountability of governments is vital to achieving the plan of action that all nations agreed to at that very important world conference.
The World Bank report made it clear that Canada, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, based largely on its tremendously wonderful supply of natural resources, also has the most to lose if it does not act in a sustainable way. If we do not set up a society in which government, in our partnership with the private sector, informs and motivates individual Canadians to do their part as well to sustain the environment, then all of us lose. The country will lose. To the extent that any country in the world fails to exercise its responsibilities for sustainable development, the world itself and future generations lose.
Before closing this morning, I must say that I have a little trouble understanding the Bloc's position on this bill. Personally, I remember very clearly the time when the current leader of the Bloc Quebecois was minister of the Environment in this House and a member of the government. I remember very clearly his commitment to the environment and his belief in the government's responsibility to take action in order to protect the environment.
I also remember that the Bloc tabled in this House a minority report proposing exactly what is being proposed in this bill, namely that the government create the position of Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development as part of the Office of the Auditor General, instead of creating a new, separate office.
I find it difficult to understand today why the Bloc is opposing legislation which does exactly what it has proposed to the House of Commons and to the government.
I see this as a step back from their previous position and that of their leader, who is now Leader of the Official Opposition, as regards environmental protection, sustainable development and the government's responsibility to show leadership in these areas.
Canada has a right to be proud of the leadership role it has played globally on many of these important environmental issues, particularly in the area of global climate change.
It is easy to think of this as an administrative bill that relates to the Government of Canada and to how it conducts its business and to how ministries are administered on a day to day basis. I believe its impact is far greater than that. It demonstrates leadership on the part of government, just as Canada has traditionally played a leadership role in these very important issues for some time now. It demonstrates the kind of leadership that was there when the previous Parliament implemented the program of greening the Hill, believing that we as the Parliament of Canada first and foremost had to demonstrate we were taking our responsibilities both personally and seriously.
However, the bill does more than that. It addresses some of the key issues facing the world today. Those issues were again very much front and centre at the United Nations conference held in Beijing, which ended just last week. The concerns of women in developing countries about things we take for granted, like basic health needs, basic protection and a safe environment for them and their children, were very much at the forefront of the agenda.
We still face the situation where 14 million children around the globe die every year of diarrhoea. That is 40,000 children a day simply for lack of access to clean water. That is the importance of measures we take as a nation and measures we take as an important actor in the global community to ensure that preserving the wealth of this world, which we hold in trust for the next generation, is a priority for us as a Parliament, for us as individual parliamentarians and for our government.
Mr. Speaker, it is therefore a privilege to witness this bill being tabled in this House and to have the opportunity to support it.
I urge all members of the House to support the legislation, to let us get on with the important work of making sure that everything the government does is consistent with the preservation of the environment as part of our global responsibility.