Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Churchill. It is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-19, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, at second reading. For the record, the New Democratic Party will be opposing the bill and will be voting against it at second reading.
Currently the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act does not go far enough to protect our environment. The changes proposed in Bill C-19, unfortunately, would only further weaken the legislation. The bill is an attempt to streamline and speed up the environmental assessment and review process to benefit developers and industry instead of protecting the environment.
This enactment would implement the results of the statutory review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act conducted by the Minister of the Environment. It would establish a federal environmental assessment co-ordinator for projects that undergo screening or comprehensive study level assessments. It would modify the comprehensive study process to prevent a second environmental assessment of a project by a review panel while extending the participant funding program to comprehensive studies.
This enactment would expand existing regulations, making authority for projects on federal lands, provide the new use for class screening reports as a replacement for project specific assessments and makes follow up programs mandatory for projects after a comprehensive study or review panel. These amendments would provide Canadians with access to information about the environmental assessment of a specific project.
This enactment would create the Canadian environmental assessment registry. It would require that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency establish and lead a quality assurance program, promote and monitor compliance and assist relevant parties in building consensus and resolving disputes.
New Democrats believe that we need measures to strengthen and improve safeguards to protect the environment and this bill unfortunately does not go nearly far enough.
Canadians are increasingly concerned about the state of the environment in their communities and around the globe. They worry about the quality of the air they breathe and the safety of the water they drink. They are deeply concerned about the kind of ecological legacy they will be leaving their children.
The question is: What kind of measures are we talking about? At the present time outside the House of Commons we have a demonstrator from the Sierra Club, Elizabeth May, who is on her 14th day of a hunger strike. She is trying to force the federal government into taking action on the environmental travesty at the Sydney tar ponds. She wants to force the government to permanently relocate the many people who are living in the area directly around the tar ponds who have experienced colossal health problems for decades because of the pollution in their environment. This is a very concrete example of a measure that the government could take right now to ensure the environmental and health safety of many Canadian citizens.
Another very important measure in my mind is the Halifax harbour clean up. I come from a community that has been dumping raw sewage into the harbour for many decades. The only benefit is that we have ocean currents that continue to move the sewage around at quite a pace, but we have a huge job ahead of us.
The Halifax regional municipality has worked very hard to get both the provincial and the federal government on side to work on that essential infrastructure project. Something of that size has to be done on a three way split. Each level of government has to be involved because of the cost and the scope of the project. At this point in time the federal government is nowhere near offering the kind of money that is required from its side of the equation. That is another measure the government could take right now.
Clearly it is time that Canada implement comprehensive, enforceable and understandable standards for water and air quality and food safety. The government should be investing in services that clean up the water and the air, stimulate green investment and expand public transit. It should also take action to make work places safer. The government's record on the environment is a litany of neglect, delay and broken promises.
The NDP believes that we should protect the environment in some very specific ways. I will put forward suggestions for the government to take into account when it is doing further work on the act. We need to assert a strong federal presence in both environmental monitoring and regulatory enforcement. We need to implement comprehensive, enforceable and understandable standards for water and air quality and food safety. We need to develop and implement a national water strategy including development of national safe drinking water standards and a ban on bulk water exports.
It is time we institute agreements that give environmental protection precedence over trade agreements in transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and other environmentally dangerous goods. We need to ensure that a green screen integrates environmental criteria into all federal government decision making.
It is time we implement endangered species and habitat protection legislation developed in co-operation with other governments, affected communities and labour, making use of traditional aboriginal knowledge and vesting identification of species at risk with independent scientists.
We need to expand marine protected areas and the national parks system and protect the parks system from commercial development that threatens its integrity. We need to introduce tough punishment for polluters including criminal charges for corporate owners, directors and managers that break the law. We need to develop the environmental bill of rights to ensure the legally enforceable right of all Canadians to a safe and healthy environment.
In conclusion, I repeat that we will be opposing the bill. We will be voting against it at second reading. We believe that the environmental assessment act does not go nearly far enough. It needs to be strengthened. We need the federal government to invest and commit immediately and generously to an environmental cleanup that will protect our children for generations to come.