Mr. Speaker, on May 11 I asked the environment minister to explain why the Canadian Environment Protection Act amendments proposed by the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development were being stripped.
I asked the minister to explain why the strong CEPA was being rejected by the Liberal cabinet after one of the lengthiest parliamentary reviews in history, a review that provided a rare opportunity to improve the environmental standards that protect the Canadian public and our environment.
The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Bill C-32, provides the cornerstone for environmental protection in Canada. The legislation covers toxic substances, air and water pollution, biotechnology, ocean dumping, hazardous wastes, fuel standards, public participation, regulatory enforcement and other environmental matters.
The link between the environment and human health are well proven. The chemical contamination of our air, water and lands are the legacy from the past century. This parliamentary review was a chance to learn from the mistakes of this century and begin the next century with an improved protection law for Canadians.
Throughout the committee proceedings, environment and health groups presented irrefutable evidence and testimony that the legislation offered little, if any, protection for the environment and health of the country.
Point by point and clause by clause, improvements were made to the legislation. Committee members from the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Quebecois, the Progressive Conservatives and some Liberal members initiated a comprehensive non-partisan effort to strengthen the environmental standards in Canada.
The bill, as amended by committee, presented an improvement in standards for our children and future generations. It is unfortunate that these democratic recommendations have been rejected by the Liberal cabinet and the Reform Party.
Under intense pressure from the industry lobbyists many improvements made to improve the Canadian Environmental Protection Act were reversed. A series of motions endorsed by industry lobbyists and proposed by the Liberal Party and the Reform Party removed virtually every committee improvement to the original legislation, including the following points that could have ensured environmental protection for this and future generations.
The first point was the loss of the phase-out consideration. A motion endorsed by the committee called for the phase out, the total elimination of the most persistent and bioaccumulative substances known to man. As of today, the total elimination of these chemicals will not be required in Canada. Only the virtual elimination of toxics substances is offered.
On Monday, I asked the Prime Minister why he, like environmental protection, was becoming a virtual Prime Minister. Virtual is not appreciated.
The second point was that Canadians had lost the basic essence of the precautionary principle. Before measures to protect the environment or human health can be taken, they must be proven to be cost effective. Strings are attached. For example, it was not cost effective to move sick children from living beside a toxic site in Sydney, Nova Scotia until toxic ooze entered their homes. It is not cost effective to clean up millions of tonnes of radioactive waste from leaking into Canada's fourth largest freshwater lake, the Great Bear Lake.
As the Liberal government promises Canadians that water quality is important, its actions say otherwise. It has watered down the environmental standards in Canada.
At a time when Canadians are increasingly concerned about biotechnology and asking for more information and transparency, the Liberal government has passed into law that decisions on biotechnology environment and health risks must be decided by the Liberal cabinet behind closed doors.
As I asked the environment minister, why does the industry wish list come first before children's health?