Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-32, especially to motions in Group No. 6. It is for me a great privilege to be able to discuss the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
I wish, at the outset, to add my voice to those of my colleagues of the Bloc Quebecois in congratulating our critic, the member for Jonquière who has worked so hard on this bill since October. She has listened patiently and attentively to the many witnesses and lobby groups who came before the committee to express their views on the legislation.
Indeed the environmental protection act is constantly undergoing revisions since changes in ways of production, technological progress and the evolution of all that surrounds us warrant a constant review of the legislation.
That is why I wish to pay tribute to the member for Jonquière for the work she has accomplished on this bill.
As my colleagues clearly explained, we cannot support the government's proposals in Bill C-32 because the federal government's approach of environmental issues, which are eminently contentious due to the jurisdiction the federal and the provinces share in this area, and the basic idea of this bill introduced by our friends across the way show that for them provinces are negligible players when it comes to taking decisions about the environment.
I have had the opportunity of sitting on the environment and sustainable development committee. Almost every day during the hearings, the federal government seemed to say: “You know, environment is so important that it transcends boundaries. So, we cannot let the provinces manage environmental issues, because they are too important”.
What the government is saying in a roundabout way is: we can let the provinces deal with the unimportant stuff, but it is up to the federal government to take care of important matters.
We find the Liberal government's idea of leaving the less important issues to the provinces and of taking care of the environment itself, since this is important, totally acceptable.
True, the environment is important. However, the provinces—and I will prove it to the House a little later on—are quite capable of promoting environmental standards and sustainable development initiatives involving the use of non-renewable and renewable resources.
If we follow the Liberal government's idea to its logical conclusion, when it says that the environment transcends boundaries, which means that the provinces are unable to assume their duties in their areas of jurisdiction, why would the federal government want to get involved?
If environmental issues transcend boundaries, and we only have to think about acid rain, we should let the Americans set our environmental standards. If the environment transcends boundaries, let us urge some other government or international agency to address them.
Yes, the environment transcends boundaries, but national governments like the provincial government of Quebec must play their role to defend and protect future generations and provide them with a healthy and sustainable environment.
In Bill C-32, Canadians are told that the federal government should legislate more for all jurisdictions because it knows best. It is often said that what goes around comes around. Let us look at the federal government's record, in particular what it did in Kyoto. It came up with a half-baked position at the very last minute. My colleague for Rosemont who was our party's critic for the environment at the time urged the minister to make her position known before she left. We got an answer just the day before she left for Kyoto. That was blatant improvisation.
We should also consider what happened after the Rio de Janeiro summit. We had a PC government then, followed by a Liberal government. For most of the commitments signed in Rio de Janeiro, at the notorious earth summit, neither the timetable nor the agenda have been respected.
The committee reviewed the role of all federal departments as far as the protection of the environment was concerned. It was concluded that the federal government should first clean up its own house. We are being told that the provinces are not up to their task of protecting the environment. However, at the federal level, oftentimes the environment department does not even know what the natural resources department is doing.
If one looks at what goes on in the Department of Industry or even in the Department of Transport, for example what goes on in airports with the use of toxic substances that are then discarded, if one looks at what goes on in the Department of Agriculture where there is virtually no legislation with regard to pesticides, each department has its own string to pull. But these strings are all entangled, and the Minister of the Environment cannot even find the beginning of a solution to environmental problems.
On one hand, the rhetoric is good, but on the other hand, we see actions that are totally inconsistent. To prove what I just said, I will give the example of an international conference on mercury where the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment publicly contradicted each other on this subject in front of experts and other people who were in attendance.
The Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment went to an international conference without developing a common position. Can we think that the idea of giving the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over environmental matters because they are important is justified when we see this kind of behaviour at an international conference?
According to the report from the environment commissioner, Brian Emmett, federal officials have said, after examining the reports submitted by businesses pursuant to the protocol on the reduction and elimination of toxic substances, that they believe more than 75% of reported reductions are false or misleading. Seventy-five per cent of the information contained in the reports on the elimination of toxic substances is false. And the federal government wants us to trust it. It wants us to believe it will pass definitive legislation on the environment.
Now, looking at what this same commissioner of the environment, Mr. Emmett, told the federal government about protection from toxic substances, how he accused it of shirking its responsibilities on toxic substances, we can see how we are entitled to question turning some elements of provincial jurisdiction over the environment over to the federal government.
The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a huge piece of legislation encompassing everything to do with environmental protection and sustainable development in Canada.
This bill needs intelligent amendment and improvement, so as to respect provincial jurisdictions and not to give the federal government more power, broader jurisdiction.
In order to address some of the inconsistencies in the federal and provincial legislation on the environment, I would like to quote an environmental expert, Pierre Béland, if I recall his name correctly. He sat on the Great Lakes Commission until very recently. He told us this “If a whale gets into problems in the middle of the St. Lawrence, it is under federal jurisdiction. If the same injured whale beaches itself, then it is under provincial jurisdiction, because the shores are provincial. But, if this injured beached whale dies, then it falls back under federal jurisdiction because it then comes under the federal legislation on endangered species”.
How can anyone make informed decisions on the environment when everything depends on the time of day, the wind direction, the temperature, and what not?
I believe that the party in power must do its homework, take into consideration the amendments presented by the opposition parties, the Bloc Quebecois included, and improve Bill C-32. Otherwise, as we have said, we are going to have to vote against it.