Debates of June 5th, 1996

Taxation

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows full well that in an era of scarce, indeed shrinking financial resources, it is crucial to focus help on those who need it most. That is what we have done in this instance.

The hon. member will also know that it is important to ensure that there will be a pension system available for young Canadians comparable to the one which the country now enjoys. That also is what we have done.

What we have done is far preferable to the position advocated by the Reform Party, which would lead to the complete evisceration of the Canada pension plan and government support for retired seniors.

Goods And Services Tax

[Nelson Riis, NDP, Kamloops, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance.

He will be aware that in yesterday's byelection in Nova Scotia the GST harmonization was an issue that was front and centre and that the Liberals came in a humiliating third place.

[An hon. member]

Who came in first?

[Nelson Riis, NDP, Kamloops, BC]

The NDP came first. He will also be aware that the premiers of the western provinces have asked that he withdraw from the GST harmonization scheme.

Will he now recognize that this is the wrong course to take, follow the advice of the western premiers and pull out of that GST harmonization scheme?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I should quote from Robert Shepherd, a columnist for the Globe and Mail referring to what has been done. I do not often quote from the Globe and Mail : ``Sure the feds are using other provinces' tax revenues to ease the harmonization clause for New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, just as they did to top up Ontario's coffers when the floor dropped out of its tax base during the 1991 recession or Alberta's when energy prices fell suddenly''.

He could have gone to talk about the support the federal government provided western grain farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba when they required help.

Let me simply say national unity is not helped with provincial premiers engaged in empty fed bashing or attacking other provinces. National unity is helped when the country recognizes the regions come together to help each other.

Presence In Gallery

[The Speaker]

I draw to the attention of the House the presence in the gallery of the Canadian Healthy Environment National Award winners and finalists.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

Report Of The Chief Electoral Officer

[The Speaker]

I have the honour to lay upon the table the report of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada entitled "The March 1996 Byelections-Technological Innovations: Reaping the Rewards".

This document is deemed permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

[English]

Government Response To Petitions

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table in both official languages the government's response to 21 petitions.

Environment Week

[Sergio Marchi, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, this week Canada is celebrating Environment Week. While we take this time every year to acknowledge the importance of a healthy environment to Canadians, this year we also take pride in celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Department of the Environment. Therefore it is both a time to reflect on our successes as a nation and take stock of the challenges that still confront communities across Canada.

There is a very simple equation we must understand. A healthy environment will add to the health of our families and communities, while an unhealthy environment will hurt us all.

Pollution Probe states that 6 per cent of all respiratory admissions to Canadian hospitals are smog related. Doctors and health practitioners in urban areas tell us smog and air pollution cause increased health problems to heart and respiratory disease sufferers.

Yesterday in the air summit organized by the government of metropolitan Toronto this was very clear. It also costs our health care system over a billion dollars a year, conservatively, for these respiratory ailments. Polluted drinking water has an even more noticeable cause and effect.

So is it not time we all started making healthy choices for our environment and for ourselves? All Canadians and all levels of government need to subscribe to strong national standards of environmental quality for all Canadians in all regions of this great country.

After all, what we are really talking about is making a choice for healthy neighbourhoods; a choice for clean water to drink; a choice for beaches where our children can swim; and a choice for clean air.

This is a choice we have to work for. It is a choice in lifestyle, a choice in how we recycle and reuse. It involves how we get to work as well as how we work, and of course how we use our resources to promote our economy without sacrificing a renewable resource and source of jobs and wealth for our citizens.

Everyday Canadians are making those choices and there are a great many individuals among us who are working to promote a healthier Canadian environment. A few of those individuals are with us today in the public gallery who moments ago the House and the Chair recognized.

Today, I have the pleasure of announcing the winners of Canada's Healthy Environment Awards. We had over 200 nominees this year, all of whom have shown a dedication to the environment which is quite remarkable.

Of course I cannot mention them all by name, but they range in age from their teens to their seventies. They are both municipal and corporate leaders as well as students and teachers. To give an idea of the kinds of achievements we are celebrating here today, let me point briefly to the youth leadership winners.

Thirteen-year old Jean-Dominic Lévesque-René of Quebec has worked hard to promote awareness about the link between pesticides and cancer, while secondary student Sara McEachern from British Columbia helped produce a video about what children can do to save planet earth. These are but two examples of the choices young Canadians have made to improve Canada's environment.

The environmental citizens we honour today, the environmental patriots really, have proven that irrespective of their walks of life all Canadians are empowered to make an individual contribution to a healthier and more sustainable environment.

We talk in the House about all the things government should do for the environment but we tend to forget that it is the individual who often makes the critical difference. Without great fanfare or publicity they do it quietly, powerfully and effectively. They are people who take responsibility for their neighbourhoods and ultimately their country.

Governments must therefore do their part to promote this brand of environmental citizenship. The House will be dealing with a number of important environmental concerns in the coming days and months, not the least of which will be a revitalized Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the main tool box Canada has at its disposition in terms of controlling what goes in our air and in our water.

There is also endangered species legislation which Canadians tell us constantly at all levels is important to preserve because of the animals and plants we care about. If we do not take care of them we are not taking care of ourselves.

We are also maintaining the international leadership Canada has been able to forge worldwide, which means honouring our commitments and taking leadership roles on issues such as climate change.

We will also continue our environmental partnership with the United States and Mexico in a meeting of the Commission for Environmental Co-operation in Toronto at the end of June.

In many ways our environment goes straight to the heart of what makes us a nation. Our respect and love for the land and sea is part of our national and natural heritage. It is a source of national pride and it continues to attract people from all corners of the globe. Consequently we must plan for the future in order to protect this irreplaceable resource.

The Prime Minister said the environment must become one of the major priorities for this government as we prepare for the 21st century.

Please join me in congratulating some of the Canadians with us here today who are helping to make that pledge a reality.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to rise in this House today to recognize Environment Week.

I agree with the Minister of the Environment that it is important to draw attention to the success stories of individuals and corporations that have understood how vital it is for our common future that we protect and enhance our biophysical environment.

Like the minister, the Globe and Mail noted yesterday the outstanding contribution to the cause of the environment of individuals like David Suzuki, NGOs like Greenpeace and Pollution Probe, and corporations like Cascade.

For my part, I would like to recognize the contribution made by all those who, while they may not win a prize for it, make sure, on a daily basis, to reduce their energy consumption, to recycle and to buy fewer overpackaged products, in a word, to act in a way that respects the integrity of the natural environment they feel responsible for.

I am confident that, in the near future, these Canadians and Quebecers will succeed in imposing their wishes and values on the government as well as on those corporations still refusing to make the environment a priority.

On the one hand, I share the minister's hopes to see environmental citizenship develop among Canadians and Quebecers of all ages. On the other hand, I must dissociate myself from him, when he talks about the most effective means to achieve our common goal.

In his speech, the minister referred to the 25th anniversary of Environment Canada. While it is true that, since it was established, this department has contributed to the protection of the environment, we must nevertheless recognize that what it has done mainly is cause a great deal of duplication and overlap, much as the minister stubbornly denies it. But interference by the federal government has been condemned time and time again by successive Quebec governments, along with the inefficiencies it causes and, more importantly, the lack of respect for regional uniqueness it reflects.

Documents, such as the environmental framework entitled Cadre de référence sur le partage des rôles et responsabilités entre Québec et le gouvernement fédéral en matière d'environnement et de faune published by a certain Liberal government in August of 1994, show the negative impact of overlap on the management of government responsibilities with regard to the environment.

In his speech, the minister referred to the future Canadian Environmental Protection Act and to the endangered species legislation he intends to introduce in this House by next year.

I hope that the minister has learned from past mistakes and that, in an effort to better protect our health and our natural heritage, he will consider the comments humbly submitted to him by the official opposition as well as by provincial governments, including that of Quebec, which fear another federal attempt to unilaterally impose its will on the provinces, which already play a credible role in this area.

The recent conference of federal and provincial environment ministers gives us some hope that Ottawa may adopt a new, more flexible approach.

The Bloc Quebecois is happy to see the positive results of that conference, including an action plan on climatic change.

Yet, the minister's recent comments before the standing committee on the environment suggested that the CCME was no longer a useful working tool for the federal government.

In closing, I would like to add that, in 1996, no government, department, business leader or other decision maker should ignore his or her responsibilities or, even worse, hurt the cause of the environment.

Each decision must therefore be made in light of its impact on the delicate balance of our global environment. The health of our children and of all future generations is at stake.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to respond today to the environment minister's statement on Environment Week.

Our environment is very important. It continues to top opinion polls as one of the most important subjects to British Columbians and I think to all Canadians who are very proud of our environment in Canada. We want to make sure that our healthy environment is maintained.

As has been pointed out, a healthy environment also leads to a healthy economy. Certainly anything we can do to enhance our economy, look after our economy, as well as look after our environment is a tremendous tag team approach. That is important to our whole country.

Canadians from coast to coast are very proud of their land. They have a very close association with the land. Canadians are proud when visitors to our country comment on our clean streets, our clean water, our clean surroundings. Our visitors are envious of our environment and we have a tremendous responsibility to make sure it is maintained.

Living very close to the Canada-U.S. border as I do, I often hear comments from our American visitors who come up to admire Cultus Lake and other clean bodies of water in my riding. They are very pleased to visit Canada. It is a tremendous tourist attraction to have a clean environmental record.

Canadians themselves are to be congratulated on maintaining a high level of environmental awareness and environmental excellence. This has been achieved through hard work on behalf of most Canadians who share that concern.

The minister mentioned that his department received over 200 nominees for the Canadian Healthy Environment Awards. I was exceptionally proud to see a group from my own riding as one of those nominees. Student representatives as well as the kitchen crew from Kent Elementary School in Agassiz, B.C. were nominated. With only 23 candidates from the entire province, they can be very proud to have been nominated for this award.

Perhaps the minister forgot to mention that there was a little contest on the Hill today for the greenest, most environmentally aware parliamentary office. I was very pleased that he gave the Reform whip's office the award for the cleanest and most environmentally sensitive office on the Hill. I know the minister will try harder next year in order to achieve that award for his own office.

The minister said in his speech that the significance of this week is to reflect on our successes. If he was referring to the successes of Canadians who have gone the extra mile to make improvements to the environment, then he is very correct. The evidence is in the environment awards presented to the 200 nominees. However, if he was referring just to the successes of his own department, then I would argue it was not so obvious. Since assuming power, former environment minister Sheila Copps and the present minister have talked a good talk about the environment but have not always been able to follow through.

Sheila Copps, who today is fighting for re-election in Hamilton, is clearly embarrassed by her record in her own riding. Whenever the issue of the Taro dump comes up, Ms. Copps refuses to comment on it. Again last night there was a debate on that subject. I think the reason is that for over two years she had a chance as the environment minister to do an environmental assessment on the Taro dump site and she refused. Today the residents of Hamilton are judging her byelection campaign in part on her lack of action in that area.

As mentioned by the member for Fraser Valley West, in Sydney, Nova Scotia the tar ponds are a real problem. They are laden with PCBs. Is the minister going to move to clean that up soon? He knows the site. He has been there. The talk is right but we need some action on the Nova Scotia tar ponds problem. Although we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Department of the Environment today, I hope it does not take another 25 years to clean up the tar ponds. We have to get moving on it rather than just talking about it.

Another problem the minister is aware of is off the coast of Prince Edward Island. On the ocean floor is the Irving Whale oil barge with its 4,000 tonnes of heavy bunker sea fuel oil. Last summer the government spent more than $12 million in an attempt to lift that barge only to discover that the barge also contained 6,800 litres of PCBs.

Again, not the current minister but the minister at the time, Ms. Sheila Copps, said she did not know that PCBs were on board but the operation had to be stopped halfway through. As the member for New Westminster-Burnaby and the Reform Party pointed out, Ms. Copps had actually tabled a brief in the House of Commons that she did know about this but had not taken it into account before

she started the lifting project. It was really a $12 million failed experiment to lift the barge.

Today the minister said that a healthy environment will add to the health of our families and our communities. I would hope on the projects I specifically mentioned the minister will realize that those specific sites are making people in that area nervous about their health and their communities as well. I hope he will take action on those sooner rather than later.

The minister also stated that governments must do their part to promote the idea of environmental citizenship. He is right. They must take part and it must be very much a leadership role. I know he is working with the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment to try to reduce the duplication to make sure that while the environment is protected, the regulatory mess does not become an impediment to environmental clean-ups and to find ways to work with the provinces to make sure it happens efficiently.

I know he has spoken the right words. I hope he will take that lead and make sure the agreement between the environment ministers actually results in a cleaner environment for all of Canada.

In closing, let me again congratulate all those who received the achievement awards as well as all those who were nominated. Through these people we see that actions speak much louder than words. I extend my congratulations to them and to the minister for initiating and handing out those awards. I wish the best of luck to the minister on next year's office award.

[Len Taylor, NDP, The Battlefords—Meadow Lake, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As the New Democratic Party environment critic, I would like an opportunity to respond today as well. I wonder if you would seek unanimous consent from the Chamber.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am pleased to do so. Is there unanimous consent to allow the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake to respond?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Len Taylor, NDP, The Battlefords—Meadow Lake, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the will of the House to allow me to say a few words today on Environment Week. I congratulate the Minister of the Environment for his strong words in support of the environment and I congratulate those who this week have been recognized for their environmental achievements.

There certainly are a great number of people across Canada who are actively engaged in environmental projects, activities and educational matters. They are doing a great deal to further the interests of this planet. I congratulate each and every one of them.

A great number of people are concerned about the future of the environment, about the future of the habitat on Earth and indeed about the planet itself. They may not have been able to participate in local projects or to initiate them, but they want to see those who are able to work on environmental matters have the resources to do so. They want to see the federal government take the necessary action to ensure there is a good strong federal presence on environmental issues.

I noticed a slight change today in some of the language the minister is using. I simply want to take a minute to point out a couple of things. Recently the minister has talked about the need for a strong federal role on the environment. The other day in question period I took the opportunity to congratulate him on his stand on a strong federal role. Following the meeting of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, the minister is now talking about strong national standards instead of the need for a strong federal role. The ministers have begun to talk about national standards rather than the presence of the federal government in the field.

Members of the public will recognize there is a big difference between the need for strong national standards, which we all adhere to, and the need for a strong federal role, a governmental presence in environmental issues. I can stress that by pointing to a couple of specific areas that need some attention, particularly when we look at what will be happening in the near future.

The Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development recently issued a report on the review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The government response to the CEPA review fell short of expectations.

The amendments to CEPA that the government must put forward should be coming forward in the very near future. It is very important to people concerned about the environment across Canada that the message which was sent to the government by the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development be fulfilled. That message was about the need for a strong federal role in dealing with toxic chemicals and other regulations under CEPA.

On the biotechnology chapter, to actually consider moving biotechnology to agriculture from the environment so that those who are promoting the business of biotechnology will also be charged with enforcing regulatory compliance makes absolutely no sense. We have to keep these matters within the context of the environment.

I do not want to abuse the time the House has given me today because I appreciate it very much. I mentioned the Fisheries Act in a question the other day. I want to reiterate that to the minister.

At the Canadian Environmental Network meeting in Hamilton on the weekend, the minister received a strong statement about the federal role in the environment which was signed by 100 organizations across Canada. I would ask the minister to review, support and act on that statement from CEN.

Committees Of The House

[David Walker, Liberal, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages the first report of the Standing Committee on Industry. In accordance with its order of reference of Monday, May 22, 1996, your committee has considered Bill C-4, an act to amend the Standards Council of Canada Act and agrees to report it without amendment.

Business Of The House

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Minister of Labour and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 27 and to special order, I move:

That, during the 10 sitting days before June 23, 1996, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays the ordinary time of daily adjournment shall be 9.30 p.m.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It is a debatable motion. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

On division.

(Motion agreed to.)

Committees Of The House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion. I move:

That four members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and two staff persons of the committee be authorized to travel to Victoria, British Columbia to attend the annual conference of the Canada Council of Public Accounts Committees from September 8 to September 10, 1996.

Mr. Speaker, the parties have been consulted, and I think you will find unanimous consent for this motion.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?