Mr. Speaker, in the context of Bill C-32, the motions in Group No. 6 contain major amendments to the original version of bill.
I do not want to reiterate all that my colleagues have said before me, especially my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois, inspired here by our environment critic, the member for Jonquière.
I would like to take a closer look at this government's lack of environmental responsibility since 1993 and discuss waste.
In 1993, when the Prime Minister, the member for Saint-Maurice, formed his cabinet, he appointed the member for Hamilton, at the time, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment. We agree that the environment is the most important department, especially in an election. Non-living and living elements must be respected.
A few months later, she was obliged to leave her post for failing to honour an election promise on the GST. We lost our Minister of the Environment, because she resigned. The Prime Minister appointed another Minister of the Environment, and, according to our evaluation and that of the public at large, quality continued to drop. Following the 1997 election, we were given a third Minister of the Environment. Clearly there is a lack of responsibility.
The good member for Davenport, an environmentalist and an ecologist of renown, served as Minister of the Environment under John Turner. He was, with Lucien Bouchard, one of the best Ministers of the Environment. I would like to salute him in this House. The member for Davenport, chairman of the standing committee on the environment, is surely not proud of his government.
First of all, as the member for Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans put it so well, there was a record number of amendments. A total of 580 amendments have been introduced. It took 60 sessions to study Bill C-32 clause by clause. Finally, the committee managed to pass some 160 amendments.
This morning in Le Devoir , there is an article by Manon Cornellier, under the heading “A Little Breathing Space”. She supports the rebellion among the Liberal Party backbenchers, in particular the six who dared to vote against their party line last week. The government, with its 156 members, does not enjoy a huge majority. So when six members form a separate group, it puts the good Liberal government we have before us at some risk.
I would like to quote a short paragraph about the dissident members:
Liberal members have also targeted a number of bills. The first one, Bill C-32, deals with the prevention of pollution by toxic substances. The Standing Committee on the Environment, including the Liberal members, has decided to provide real means of action. The ministers that are more responsive—
Listen to that. This is really not serious, and we do not have a very capable environment minister.
The ministers that are more responsive to the concerns of industry did not appreciate that. They have forced the environment minister to block the committee through a series of amendments. As a result, 233 amendments of all kinds have been introduced.
They have twisted the arm of the hon. member for Davenport, a former environment minister.
We cannot help but conclude that the environment is not a priority for the government of the hon. member for Saint-Maurice. Our environment has four non-living elements: air, water, soil, and light. When we speak about our children and their future, we should at least pass on to them clean water, uncontaminated soil, air that will not cause cancer to 5 or 6-year old children, something that does occur in certain areas of this country.
The soil is under provincial jurisdiction. With respect to the environment, Quebec is well ahead of even the federal government, and of course all the other provinces. Quebec is a leader on environmental matters.
In this regard the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, who headed the environment ministry under Robert Bourassa in the 70s did a pretty good job, I must admit, with the resources and the budget he was allocated. He did a good job, and it must be said that in Quebec we look after our land, not only sceptic tanks. We look after our environment.
When we talk about the air and the water, we know we all breathe the same air. We drink water. We also know water flows downhill, not uphill.
If we could have a responsible world government that would deal with water and air pollution, things might be better. Light comes from the sun. We will deal with smog later on.
With regard to water, let us take the most visible example, the St. Lawrence River. It is shared not only by two provinces, but by two countries. The United States are largely contributing to the pollution of the St. Lawrence River. It flows through Montreal and the Gaspé. The effects of pollution on the food chain are increasing visible as the member for Saint-Jean mentioned. The fish we eat might make us very sick because of the heavy metals, especially mercury, it contains.
We doubt the government is very serious about the environment. The federal government is trampling over this field as it did with the millennium scholarships. It was outside its jurisdiction, but it got in through its spending power. They even wanted to force our education minister to negotiate with Jean Monty.
We told Jean Monty “Look after your employees instead”. Look after you company, Bell Canada. If you have some spare time left, go play golf, engage in PR activities, but do not get involved in things in which you have no business, such as the scholarships”. As members know, this is a provincial jurisdiction.
Now, the government is duplicating structures in the environmental sector. When the Canadian Constitution was signed in 1867, the environment was not a priority. The 1867 Constitution is totally silent on jurisdictions, on the sharing of powers regarding the environment. An agreement was reached over the years.
Under that agreement, when specific issues concern more than one province, the federal government is in charge, such as in the case of hunting permits.
If a person wants to go duck hunting, he or she will need to get a permit from the post office. I know members are well aware of that since migrating birds come under federal jurisdiction. However, if a person wants to go partridge hunting, he or she will need a provincial permit, because partridges stick to a very small area.
Once again, the federal government is about to duplicate existing structures, and the taxpayer always ends up paying double. It is like the example I gave last week in the House, with two agriculture ministers being responsible for the same milk cow. If the milk is processed or consumed locally, there are two jurisdictions, but it is the same cow and the same producer. The situation is similar here.