Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak at report stage to Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.
In other words, the federal government wants to get involved in one area so that the concept of sustainable development can be applied in several areas of our society and so that we can gradually eliminate any development that does not take environmental issues into account.
We all agree with this objective. I think we all want any future development to be sustainable and to comply with sustainability requirements. However this bill needs to be strengthened and expanded. It requires some additional elements.
The first group of amendments deals exactly with that. These amendments are designed to strengthen the rules for choosing the evaluation mechanisms and the criteria for the projects funded by the Canada foundation for sustainable development technology.
The proposed structure of the foundation leaves ample room for laxity. Members of the board of directors will be appointed in part by the government and those chosen by the government will then appoint the others. With such a structure, we could very well see projects being funded that do not necessarily meet the objectives of the foundation but rather those of the government's friends. This needs to be clarified.
Let us not forget that the auditor general has denounced the government's custom of creating more and more foundations that are not really accountable to the House since the cabinet ministers in charge of them do not in effect control their activities nor do they have criteria to ensure that projects were accepted correctly.
In the present case we would have expected firmer assurances from the government that the money would be spent appropriately. In fact, that is the main problem with this bill.
This bill does not take into account the fact that a fund has already been created in Quebec for the same purpose and that it would have been much simpler to give the money to Quebec in order to increase the effectiveness of the Fonds québécois pour le développement durable.
It is quite surprising to note that the bill defines the concept of sustainable development but does not quite define the objectives of the approved projects.
I even predict that one, two or three years down the road projects will be denounced in the House as being absurd because they would not correspond to the objectives of a foundation such as the one considered for the sustainable development technology.
I am therefore inviting the government to pay attention, to listen, to study and to analyze the amendments proposed in this first grouping.
They will provide us with precise criteria for the awarding of contracts. We will have mechanisms for measuring completed projects to see whether their bottom line has changed society, ensured that the development was indeed sustainable, and saved us from situations such as we have seen in the past, for example the catastrophic groundfish strategy. That is one development in which long term sustainable development was not taken into account.
Then there are far more subtle points relating to the whole greenhouse gas issue. The foundation also needs to be looked at in terms of its objectives. Will it give an equal opportunity to provinces that already have measures and programs in place to deal with the greenhouse gas issue?
I know that Quebec has already done its part, while other provinces have not. There is often a connection with their energy production. They might turn to this foundation for more funds. This does not mean, however, that people in all parts of Canada ought not to be entitled to their share of the funds set aside. I feel that the bill as it stands is too vague, too imprecise on these points.
We do not have sufficient guarantees that the effectiveness of the program will be assessed. That is why we want the criteria to be tightened up so as to ensure that by the time third reading is reached the bill will have integrated the amendments required to give it some teeth. It will then be possible, if ever the foundation made a poor choice of projects, for funding to be taken back and a warning issued to project managers to change their way of doing things and to make sure the money goes to the right places.
As for the appointment process, we really have no guarantee that three, five or ten years down the road the criteria will have been applied properly as far as sustainable development is concerned.
In short, Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, is a good and desirable idea. However, it does not suit the Canadian situation because it does not respect provincial jurisdictions. It does not reflect the fact that Quebec is ahead because it already has its Fonds pour le développement durable.
The bill must be amended and refined to include many more of the elements that would make it an effective tool to stimulate initiatives in sustainable development so that, 10 years from now, we can say that Canada has in fact made the shift to sustainable development and that the foundation responsible for this has reached its objectives by respecting the specific characteristics of each region of Canada.
These things are missing from the bill. This is why we find the bill unacceptable in its present form. We ask the government to support the first series of amendments we proposed. Others will follow.
We hope that the government will accept our suggestions to avoid having to come back to the House in one, two or three years to completely rework the legislation or, worse, being faced with scandals or outrageous situations.