Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-4 this morning. This bill seeks to establish a foundation to fund technological support for sustainable environment. We are currently at report stage and we are debating Motions Nos. 1, 6 and 10.
Before telling the House how the government should have dealt with these amendments, let me say that sustainable development is an issue about which I care a great deal. It is important to provide sound development and a sound environment, for ourselves and for future generations.
However, we must recognize that the federal government is putting this priority behind its visibility. The bill creates new duplication and intrudes on provincial jurisdictions. This will have a negative impact on the protection of the environment and on sustainable development.
Once again, the federal government is opting for confrontation instead of co-operation with the provinces. Unfortunately, this cavalier attitude has become a trademark of the Liberals. The creation of the foundation is yet another example, after the millennium scholarships and the legislation on endangered species. Do not get me wrong: I support sustainable development.
What I am objecting to today is this unacceptable duplication by the federal government. Let us take the case of the endangered species. We all know that habitat protection is a provincial jurisdiction. The Minister of the Environment has introduced a bill, now in committee, that protects habitats but not species on federal crown lands. There is an inconsistency here.
Someone suggested this analogy earlier. The federal government is behaving like a parent who tells his neighbour how to raise his kids but is incapable of parenting his own properly. It is not surprising that groups such as the Sierra Club have given the federal government a failing grade as far as environmental protection is concerned.
In short, the federal government is only concerned about visibility, not about funding sustainable development technology. This dear government is so proud of waving its beautiful red and white flag in every part of the country but what it is really involved in is nation building, desperately trying to create a Canadian identity.
To take another example of development, this time one related to the economic development of the regions of Quebec, at the present time the federal government is financing the CFDCs, the Community Futures Development Corporations, to the tune of more than $100 million yearly. Yet the government of Quebec already has regional development mechanisms of its own.
Then there are the CLDs. Instead of following the Quebec trend of allowing considerable leeway for concerted efforts at the regional level, the federal government is focusing everything on the centre, that is Ottawa, while disguising this operation by a series of initiatives targeting specific groups.
The most indecent thing is that the federal government imposes criteria of visibility in its contracts. Of the four economic development agencies in Canada, only the one for Quebec is under the responsibility of the Minister of National Revenue. It requires the Canadian flag to be raised in exchange for funding. This is what makes me say that the federal government is more concerned with its visibility than with regional development and the examples of this keep on increasing.
It is clear that the funds allocated to the foundation responsible for funding sustainable development will be tied to the same mandate: acting as a foil to the foundation that already exists in Quebec.
I point out that the Quebec Fonds d'action pour le développement durable has a budget of $45 million to integrate and promote sustainable development and establish ecological infrastructures and biodiversity, that it is experimenting with technology which has an environmental impact, and that it provides fellowships and internships.
Having seen the success of the Quebec model, the federal government is trying to duplicate it from scratch at the federal level. If the Liberals were really serious in their desire to promote sustainable development, they would have acted together with Quebec. But no. Once again the story is confrontation, as in the case of the millennium scholarships. Instead of creating a foundation the federal government should send money to the provincial organizations working toward the same goal as foreseen at the issue table and having the expertise.
The members of this foundation would practically all be appointed by the governor in council. The bill provides that the governor in council, on the recommendation by the minister, shall appoint 7 of the 15 directors of the foundation. However, the other eight are appointed by them, by those appointed by the governor in council. How ridiculous. Finally, the chairperson and all the directors can be removed for cause by the governor in council.
This method of appointment seems to be a roundabout way for the federal government to hang on to the reins in an area of provincial jurisdiction and to maintain control over an organization that would not be accountable to parliament. As I said earlier, I am in no way opposed to sustainable development.
Through the very able member for Sherbrooke, the Bloc Quebecois is moving various amendments, the purpose of which is to improve the bill and to allow the Quebec fund to continue to operate independently of the federal government.
We are asking that those provinces that so request, or Quebec anyway, should be able to opt out with full compensation, i.e. 25% of the fund, so as to prevent amounts being paid to an eligible recipient when a similar project already exists in the province concerned. In this case, the amount should go to the already existing projects, first, if the province concerned so requests and, second, if it justifies its need for additional funding in terms of objectives set at the beginning of the project.
In addition, through the voice of our very able colleague, the member for Sherbrooke, we wish to include a clause requiring that the members and directors of the Canadian foundation be bilingual and, finally, that documents produced by the organization be accessible in both French and English.
I will stop here. The bill, as drafted, does not require the organization to be bilingual, which is unacceptable. We all know that the Liberals are completely incapable of ensuring the survival of French outside Quebec. Furthermore, the official languages commissioner observes year after year that the Liberals are not taking corrective action. They have a wonderful opportunity here to do something about this state of affairs by supporting our amendment.
In short, I will conclude by saying that, through this bill, the government is trying to raise its visibility in exchange for protecting the environment. All the federal government is doing is hurting Canadians: millennium scholarships, regional development. Once again, it has failed, as it did so monumentally in the case of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.