Mr. Speaker, the bill under consitderation today is part of a continuum. Tirelessly, unrelentingly, this government pursues the same two objectives with each bill it introduces: first of all, nibbling away at the constitutional powers of the provinces, and second, making money.
Bill C-32 is a wonderful illustration and demonstration, as if one were needed, of this dual obsessive propensity of the Liberals to make political hay by centralizing within their hands as much power and money as possible, with an absolute disdain for the interests of the people.
I will start by speaking of the intrusion into the constitutional powers of the provinces.
Everyone knows that the environment is a shared federal and provincial jurisdiction. Starting right with the preamble to the bill, the division of powers relating to the environment is as follows: Ottawa has the power to decide, the provinces the power to implement. Am I exaggerating? Let the hon. members listen to the following. This is taken from the preamble:
Whereas the Government of Canada will continue to demonstrate national leadership in establishing environmental standards—
Here we go again with the same old Trojan Horse of national standards.
Members are still not convinced? Let us continue, with clause 2, which reads “the federal government must endeavour”—I repeat, endeavour—“to act in cooperation with governments to protect the environment”. Endeavour, not act, just try to act. We can trust the government not to go out of its way to endeavour to co-operate with the provinces. We want to get rid of this too convenient term, endeavour.
These two examples illustrate the federal government's firm resolve to confine the provinces to the humble role of carrying out its orders.
My second point is that the bill will be used to increase government revenues, at the expense of the public interest.
To illustrate my point, I will now read clause 185:
(1) No person shall import, export or convey in transit a hazardous waste or hazardous recyclable material, or prescribed non-hazardous waste for final disposal, except a ) after notifying the Minister and paying the prescribed fee;
Who will pay the prescribed fee? The Canadian company that imports the waste to process it.
Do not tell us that it is appropriate, for reasons of safety, to raise barriers against the transborder movement of hazardous waste in Canada, and that it is the reason for this provision. The industry that processes the waste is an important factor. It plays a critical role in the protection of the environment.
Obviously, the survival of the industry depends on the volume of waste it processes. The efficiency and performance of the Sablex plant, in Blainville, not to mention the attention it pays to safety, are recognized worldwide by those concerned. This company processes and must process waste from the United States to ensure its profitability. Its profitability will be jeopardized if it must add fees paid at the border to its other charges.
Increasing the financial burden borne by the hazardous waste industry will obviously lead to an increase in the rates the industry charges its customers. Higher rates mean a higher risk certain unscrupulous businesses that generate this kind of waste will avoid having them processed by dumping them God knows where.
Therefore fees on waste imported for processing is working against the environment. It is unconscionable and makes no sense to find such a provision in a bill on, precisely, environmental protection.
One could understand that fees be levied on waste bound, let us say, for a province where the movement of these substances is not governed by legislation—I do not even know if such a province exists—which would make it desirable to curtail their importation. But this is certainly not the case in Quebec where we have such legislation.
Our amendment to clause 185 therefore does not seek to eliminate these fees, but to exempt from them these substances bound for a province where such legislation exists. The amendment reads as follows:
(1.1) The Governor in Council shall, by order, exempt from the application of subsection (1)—
That is exempt from the fees.
—any person who imports into, exports to or conveys in transit to a province substances described in subsection (1) where an Act of the legislature of the province is in force that governs the movement of such substances—
I have no doubt my colleagues from every party recognize the advisability of the amendment introduced by my colleague for Jonquière, our party's environment critic.