Debates of May 28th, 2001

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act

[Paul Forseth, Canadian Alliance, New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, certainly environmental protection and pollution of the air and lands of the commons knows no boundaries, but the Bloc always brings up the jurisdictional argument repeatedly.

What do we have specifically in the bill? On page 2, it states very clearly:

to promote cooperation and coordinated action between federal and provincial governments with respect to environmental assessment processes for projects;

The Bloc always cites duplication in jurisdiction, but it never admits that Quebec creates the administrative duplication, then with its extra costs wants equalization payments to pay for it.

Does the Bloc think Quebec is the only province that assesses projects environmentally? It certainly is not. Why is the Bloc so divisive and introspective? Should it not instead be trying to improve the protection of the environment for the whole world, for all of Canada and, by definition, for a safer Quebec?

Why is the Bloc out of step with the whole world? Nations of the world, rather than indulging in separatism, parochialism and small-mindedness, are coming together to recognize that broader national and international agreements and efforts are needed because pollution knows no boundaries. We need a broader perspective, not a narrower perspective. The Bloc needs to justify its direction.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it takes some nerve to say such things in the House. I would say to the member from western Canada that the western provinces contribute and are preparing to provide to the United States all the fossil fuels, the oil, the natural gas and the tar sands.

We have nothing to learn from western Canada as far as the protection of the environment goes. I believe that if in fact western Canada were to use Quebec as a model in the area of acid rain, of environmental protection and of the production of greenhouse gases, the environmental picture would be quite different.

On the contrary, western Canada has decided to provide fossil fuels to the Americans. We need no lessons from the hon. member on this score.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie.

There is nothing better than real striking examples to show those watching, and those in Quebec in particular, under what conditions this legislation is being received.

It is not for nothing that in 1992 the government of Robert Bourassa decided, with the unanimous support of the national assembly, to oppose any federal intrusion in provincial jurisdictions.

Here in the Outaouais region we have and still are witnessing the construction in the city of Hull of a highway called axe McConnell-Laramée. Concerning this construction project, which has been announced and will of course be carried out under a federal-provincial cost sharing agreement, I would like to ask my colleague to explain what could be the cause of the delay following that announcement. The Quebec transport minister had already asked his federal counterpart to co-ordinate his environmental intervention with that of the province of Quebec.

My question to my colleague for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie is this: What would be the impact of this bill on the McConnell-Laramée project in the Outaouais region?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the impact of this bill and of the federal legislation more broadly passed in 1995 arises precisely from the concerns of the government of Quebec of the day.

I quote documents of the Quebec minister of the environment from 1992:

Bill C-13, if passed as it stands, will mean submitting to federal evaluation many environmental projects that have already gone through the Quebec environmental impact examination and assessment procedure. This situation will therefore create a serious duplication problem in Quebec.

Once Quebec has a guarantee that the environmental assessment process is solid, rigorous and includes public participation, I see no reason to support the one that comes under a federal law, that would simply, in the end, delay viable economic projects that are important to the infrastructure of the Outaouais region, for example.

I think therefore that, in this case, the Quebec environment assessment process should be the only one to apply in the case before us.

[Rob Anders, Canadian Alliance, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague across the way has some interesting points regarding federal-provincial relations with respect to the bill.

I will start with the name: Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Why do we not call it the confederal environmental assessment act? The federal government is really the creation of the provinces. It came into existence at the will of the provinces. When they came together in 1867 to create Confederation, it was an instrument of the provincial governments, the colonial governments.

Would my colleague across the way support the idea of renaming the bill the confederal environmental assessment act? Does he think that would be an improvement over the word Canadian?

Proposed subsection 2(1) makes reference to the territories. We know the territories are under the thumb of the federal government, that they are oppressed and that the federal government regularly comes in to scavenge their resources at will. How would my hon. colleague from the Bloc feel about provincializing the territories and allowing them a greater share of resources? How would he feel about allowing them to get out from under the evil thumb of the federal government as we all want to do?

Proposed paragraph 2(1)(a) talks about the federal government's powers over waters and airspace. How might my hon. colleague respond to that in terms of provincial rights in those areas or in terms of property rights for individuals?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in a few words it must be understood, and we acknowledged the fact, that environment is a shared jurisdiction. We recognize that fact and we are ready to admit that the federal government has a right to intervene in environmental matters.

However, the Supreme Court of Canada and especially Justice La Forest ruled in the Oldman case that the federal government cannot use a decree or any other measure to intervene in areas which are not in a federal jurisdiction.

Consequently, it seems clear to me that this bill represents, in terms of environmental assessment, a scandalous federal encroachment on Quebec's jurisdiction, all the more so if one considers that the environmental process put in place by Quebec is working very well.

I remind the House that councils of environment ministers have in the past directly denounced the federal strategy concerning environmental evaluation assessment. Therefore this is not something new. Since 1992 Canadian environment ministers have been asking the federal government not to intervene in that area.

Nevertheless, through this initiative the federal government is obviously continuing to encroach upon provincial jurisdiction in the area of environmental assessment and to create undue duplication.

This will not necessarily mean improved efficiency but will rather slow down certain economic projects which could improve the quality of life of our fellow citizens.

[Rob Anders, Canadian Alliance, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue along the vein of questions I had for my hon. colleague from the Bloc.

In proposed paragraph 4(b.2) it says:

to promote cooperation and coordinated action between federal and provincial governments with respect to environmental assessment processes for projects;

One of the hon. members in the House said the proposed change would extend a welcome hand. Surely, I ask my hon. colleague from the Bloc, are there not examples in the past where the federal government has slapped the face of the provinces? Should we really trust these milquetoast resolutions from the federal Liberals?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is one of the reasons why Quebec did not sign the harmonization accord on environmental assessment.

Back then, successive Quebec environment ministers, whatever government they were part of, agreed on one thing: There will be no harmonization agreement on environmental assessment as long as bills, legislative amendments and the legislation itself do not recognize the right of provinces to get involved in this area.

Business Of The House

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions with the parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following. I move:

That Motion No. 1 of Mr. Bellehumeur (Berthier—Montcalm), seconded by Mr. Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes), to amend Bill C-7, an act in respect of criminal justice for young persons and to amend and repeal other acts, as reported by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights with amendments, be amended by replacing the word “ten” with the word “twelve”.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Does the hon. member have unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-68, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-19, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

It is rather interesting that the federal government should introduce such a bill when we are clearly under the impression that the Minister of the Environment adopted the wait and see approach to know exactly what Mr. Bush would say, what he would do, how he would proceed, how he would retract and where he would stand on the environmental issue.

This basic legislation passed in 1995 provided for a review after five years. When we debated this legislation in 1995, we probably told the government all the improvements that ought to have been made to it but being a majority government, it completely ignored these recommendations.

I wish the government could understand that a majority of seats and a minority of votes do not mean it can rule the roost. It is high time it started listening to the opposition parties to know what the interesting points are. The more people have a say, the more ideas will be brought up, and debate is the key to enlightenment.

In my view it is important that the government consider the views expressed by the opposition and try to amend the bill in a way that would allow us to improve it even more.

My colleague from Calgary Southeast—I hope I am not giving the wrong riding—reminded us that the government had added two amendements to clause 2 of Bill C-19 dealing with the purposes.

It is amending clause 2 of Bill C-19, section 4 of the old act, by adding the following: b .2) to promote cooperation and coordinated action between federal and provincial governments with respect to environmental assessment processes for projects;

If it wants to promote co-operation, the federal government should show good faith and stop saying “I am the biggest; I am the strongest; I am the country; I am right and you are necessarily wrong”.

Co-operation with others requires mechanisms of consensus, consultation and co-operation to be created if there is to be successful co-operation between the federal and provincial governments.

There is something else: b .3) to promote communication and cooperation between responsible authorities and Aboriginal peoples with respect to environmental assessment;

There is one other salient point in this bill. The Canadian International Development Agency is to be subject to this legislation, to the environmental assessment process.

This is good news that CIDA can also be subjected to this process. We in the biggest and most beautiful country in the world can stop being ashamed by our involvement in certain countries that have been soundly criticized because environmental measures have not been taken into consideration and we are polluting elsewhere when we would not do it here.

There is another important point: the bill creates the position of federal environmental assessment co-ordinator for projects that involve several federal or provincial authorities.

I trust that they will take the trouble to select a bilingual co-ordinator who will be able to understand what goes on in Quebec and be capable of truly ensuring co-ordination and not the interventionism of which this government is so fond.

It also authorizes the use, as an assessment criterion, of local knowledge, aboriginal knowledge and traditions.

In this respect, we have an extremely important point to make. Sometimes I think the federal government does a reasonably good job at drafting documents but when we watch it in action afterward we find that there is a dichotomy between what it says and what it does.

If it is true that the government intends to take into account local knowledge and aboriginal traditional knowledge, we could end up with better results those that we are getting now.

Those who have the best knowledge of things are those who live close to them. The government will also have to show that it truly intends to do that. However since the past is an indication of what the future holds, I am very skeptical as to what the outcome might be.

The bill broadens the minister's discretionary power to get involved in projects on the Quebec territory. I find it extremely dangerous whenever the discretionary powers of a minister are broadened. It is always very dangerous because it depends on how that minister will want to use his discretion, to be discretionary or not.

Earlier this afternoon it was mentioned, in another debate and also during oral question period, that when ministers want to do something they put it in writing in the act. The Minister of the Environment wants to have the right to use his discretionary power so he puts it in the act to make sure he will be able to use that power. Therefore this should not come as a surprise.

This suggests that, with respect to the other bill, we were right to contend that the minister, who does not want to include certain provisions in the legislation, is very likely to want to implement the Young Offenders Act in the same fashion all across Canada.

What is at stake for us in this bill? You will be surprised, Mr. Speaker, but you will not fall off your chair because you are well settled. Bill C-19, as it stands, is not a bad bill. It is a considerable improvement on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, particularly by extending its application to CIDA and certain crown agencies.

Participant funding and the consultation of aboriginals are other very interesting features of this bill but, and there is always a but, I paid the government a compliment and I hope it will be well received—the problem lies with the very principle of the bill.

The act represents interference in Quebec's fundamental jurisdictions. This is the problem. The government could have stuck to improving its bill without interfering in our fundamental jurisdictions.

When it was introduced in 1992, the legislation was interpreted as an attempt by the federal government to reintroduce some discretionary leeway in its environmental assessment process. An interesting discussion of this can be found in the M.A. thesis of Luc Juillet, who studied this issue in 1992 at the University of Ottawa. This was a student at the University of Ottawa, not at UQAM or a Quebec university. He studied this discretionary leeway the government wanted to introduce in its bill.

In this regard, clause 22 of the bill clearly broadens the federal government's authority to interfere in one of Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. The minister reserves discretionary power for himself by adding “the Minister is of the opinion”. The minister's opinion will not be up for discussion. There will always be a possibility for him to say “This is my opinion and it must be taken into account since I am authorized by law to change things according to my opinion”. This type of discretionary power on issues as important as the environment is cause for concern.

46.(1) Where no power, duty or function referred to in section 5 is to be exercised or performed by a federal authority in relation to a project that is to be carried out in a province and the Minister is of the opinion that the project may cause significant adverse environmental effects in another province, the Minister may refer the project to a mediator or a review panel in accordance with section 29 for an assessment of the environmental effects of the project in that other province.

Members will realize that this is the infamous section 46. The government only slightly modified the French version by adding the words “et peut, à son avis, entraîner des effets”. Therefore, the minister will really take that as a basis. He will look at that and of course, he will call on his advisers, but he may not feel like taking their advice.

We see how, in other departments, the ministers do not consider the collective well-being of our great country but rather their electoral map and the adversaries they have in their own riding. We can see clearly how the presence of the Canadian Alliance in western Canada has affected the Liberal Party, so much so that it is now beyond all recognition and the Liberal Party of Quebec is trying to shift to the left to see what it feels like to be Liberal these days.

Because of the federal Liberals, we no longer have a model of what it means to be a Liberal in Canada. With the NDP, those members were the ones with the so-called progressive ideas. Today, they are so afraid of the Canadian Alliance that the Liberals cannot even recognize one another. We do not know what a Liberal is supposed to look like either.

It is rather worrisome to see that the government does not manage this country for the public good, that it does not have a great vision for the development of this country called Canada, so that it can still be an interesting country to live in during the 21st century. What counts for the government is watching what the Canadian Alliance says and does, finding out what will bring in votes so that Liberals can stay in power as long as possible and go on using public funds to do whatever they like.

Let met tell my good friend, the Minister for International Trade, that I would like the bill to apply to his Export Development Corporation, but that is not the case. Things have been taken care of. The minister did not stand in cabinet to ask that the bill apply to the corporation as it does to CIDA.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

It is too twisted.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Those are your words. I do not dare say that.

We have had many problems with this corporation and we will have more because the minister does not have enough courage to bring it under this bill. He did not speak to his colleague to say how important it was to introduce this concept in the bill. No, he preferred to say nothing. If nothing is said, the matter is not discussed. However we must look at all the problems that occurred abroad and that brought us shame in Canada.

Companies have embarrassed us by exploiting and polluting other countries. They are not satisfied with polluting here, they go and pollute elsewhere. We have to ask ourselves where all of this is headed.

Clause 8 provides for the creation of the position of federal environmental assessment co-ordinator. This shows clearly that the federal government decides and wants to insinuate itself into the Quebec environmental assessment process. It is because the federal government intends to act in Quebec's area of jurisdiction that it has to create the position of co-ordinator.

With whom does it intend to coordinate? With itself? We have seen in many other bills how it overlaps with itself: fisheries and oceans overlaps with heritage and with environment in the creation of areas of protection for this and that.

The government is creating a co-ordinator, and therefore co-ordination, position, because it will have something to coordinate and it will have to co-ordinate with the provinces. The government will present itself as the big brother, the all powerful, the one with the billions, money coming out of its ears, the one wanting to impose the law of money, of power, of the many on the little provinces, which will have to comply. It will say to them “If you do not comply, you will not get this. If you do not do this, you will not have that”. This will be a position that could be dangerous for bargaining.

If the federal government stuck to its own areas of jurisdiction, co-ordination would not be required, but because it wants to create a system that will enable it to tramp over other jurisdictions, it needs a co-ordinator position to ensure that if it spies some way in which it can meddle in the affairs of others, it will do so at will and with pleasure.

Initially the provincial governments, including Quebec and Alberta, were the leaders. They criticized the Canadian legislation and demanded major changes that would have made it possible for provincial processes to be used in place of federal assessments but there were few federal concessions.

The bill appears to introduce discrimination between the promoters of projects associated with federal authorities and those that are not. For example, a partially federally funded project would be covered by the law but as soon as the federal level is not involved, another system kicks in.

My colleague was very eloquent in his treatment of this. We saw earlier in this House someone from the province of Quebec, the hon. member for Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies to be precise, who was president of the BAPE in Quebec—at least I believe he was. Our colleague, the chair of the standing committee on heritage, used to be minister of environment in the Bourassa government. A number of Liberal members in this House are former Quebec MLAs, for instance the hon. member for Westmount—Ville-Marie. The member for Papineau—Saint-Denis was not a member of the national assembly but he was very close to the government and worked for Mr. Ryan, so he was very much up to date on everything that was going on within that magnificent government that did something very significant for the environment. These are not innocents; they are very much up to date on events.

I can tell the House that I will go to bed even sadder tonight knowing that they are not capable of knowledge transfer. What they learned in Quebec they cannot make use of here for the benefit of Canada, and that I profoundly regret.

[Rob Anders, Canadian Alliance, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the Bloc raised questions about federal government violations in provincial jurisdictions. That is a good angle from which to view the bill. Clause 8(b) states:

the Crown corporation or corporation controlled by it makes or authorizes payments or provides a guarantee for a loan or any other form of financial assistance to the proponent for the purpose of enabling the project to be carried out in whole or in part;

The key operating phrase is that these are crown corporations which would provide loan guarantees. It talks about using taxpayer dollars to extend the long arm of the federal government to exert influence on the provinces, whether it be Alberta, or Quebec in this case.

What does the member think of the whole idea of crown corporations being able to use taxpayer dollars to influence business practices in the provinces? It has been rightfully pointed out that it would be a violation of jurisdiction.

The other part that I would like the member to comment on is the reference in clause 9 to the Hamilton harbour commissioners. In the act that we are amending there is a reference to the Toronto harbour commissioners. If we are able to make reference to both the Hamilton harbour and the Toronto harbour, might the member postulate for us why there is no specific reference made to the province of Quebec?

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned the confusion with respect to clauses earlier. I want to be careful to refer to the same clause as the hon. member. It is clause 6 which amends sections 9 and 10 of the existing legislation referring to the Hamilton and Toronto harbours, and so forth.

It always comes back to the same principle. We are legislators. We therefore make bills, debate them and look at how they are drafted. When something is written down, we can understand what it means. Evidently there are commissioners appointed under the Hamilton Harbour Commissioners' Act because there is a specific reference to Hamilton harbour.

There is no specific reference to Quebec but there is a tiny clause, which I mentioned it earlier, that says “the Minister is of the opinion—”. If the minister is of the opinion that he should interfere in Quebec, he will go right ahead and do so. The bill specifies nothing specifically—this is a pleonasm, forgive me—but it is so vague.

I am worried about this aspect of the bill. There is a danger of federal interference in provincial jurisdiction. The member for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie quite rightly said that we accept the fact that it is a shared jurisdiction.

If it is shared and if we want it to work the parties must respect each other's jurisdiction. That is the only way it will work. If the government does not want it to work, it creates all sorts of mechanisms, as it has done in this bill. Provisions are included or, if not, there is some little all purpose phrase: “at the discretion”, “the minister's discretionary power”, or “where the minister is of the opinion” so that the minister will be able to do as he pleases.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for her speech. She has drawn my attention to an aspect of the bill that has not been covered and that I would have liked to have talked about earlier in my own speech but did not have the time.

This is quite ironic, since in principle the legislation is supposed to cover projects solely under Canadian jurisdiction, pursuant to section 5 of the law.

How is it that the Export Development Corporation is exempted from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act when about two weeks ago a group published a report demonstrating clearly that the Export Development Corporation gives a financial hand up to businesses that violate environmental legislation contaminates and threatens the environment in certain other countries?

How is it that this corporation is exempted from this legislation in spite of the fact that many organizations are demanding that it be subject to it? That is my question for the hon. member.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am really quite happy with this question because I raised it briefly when you motioned to me that I only had a little time left. I was only broaching the subject.

I was outraged to read that in the newspapers. We also read in international magazines that Canada is a polluter and that it pollutes with Canadian taxpayers' money. A federal crown corporation uses our money to encourage people and companies to open plants and to pollute abroad.

I think it is scandalous and I hope the minister will wake up in time and move an amendment that will ensure that this corporation is subject to this bill.

[Rob Anders, Canadian Alliance, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to follow up on a couple of points made by my hon. colleague from the Bloc. She mentioned that CIDA should be subject to an environmental review. She talked about how we should not be having taxpayer promoted pollution. I agree with the hon. member. I happen to think that there are a lot of CIDA projects where Canada is using taxpayer funds to promote questionable things overseas.

She also mentioned the whole idea of broadening ministerial discretion. The federal government almost always continues to expand its influence and give its ministers more jurisdictional ability to put their fingers in more pies. I congratulate her for bringing this issue forward. Would she be able to expound on that in some way?

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as important as it is that ministers be accountable for what happens in their areas of responsibility, it is also important that they be given as little discretionary powers as possible based solely on their opinion.

This is extremely dangerous because we do not know on what it is based. If, for example, the wording was: “Following the formation of a research group that will have demonstrated that the minister can use the results and make a decision other than”, it would be different.

The problem is the minister's opinion. No one knows on what a minister's opinion is based when such opinion can be used to justify the use of discretionary powers.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—St. Clair, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as other members have said, these amendments have arisen as a result of a review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act which was conducted over the last couple of years before Bill C-19 was tabled in the House.

It reflects an attempt on the part of that review committee to deal with some of the problems we have had under the act. The New Democratic Party has certain reservations as the bill does not adequately address some of the severe problems which have shown up under the act. In quick summary, we are very concerned about its ability to deal with those problems and that in fact it may be compounding them.

I hear in some of the questions and answers and comments that have been made that the interaction of the bill and the act that preceded it and the overlapping of jurisdiction with the provincial levels of government including municipalities and the first nations have become major problems.

It is a common ground of the proponents of development and those who might have problems with it or are outright opposed to it that it is extremely important for the process to be transparent, meaningful and efficient. The amendments to Bill C-19 would only address the issue of efficiency. Without total prejudgment it is our opinion they would probably not be effective or transparent.

It may speed up the process. The minister and a number of speakers on the government side stated that it would be a more efficient process, that the process would be harmonized to the extent that it would be more efficient. There is serious doubt on this side as to whether it would be more effective.

Another point that we raised in opposition to the bill as it stands now is the way that it looks at traditional land use and more specifically the involvement of the aboriginal population in the process. Paragraph 2(b.3) talks about promoting communication and co-operation with the first nations. It is obvious that there are very few provisions in the bill which make that a reality.

The issue of the establishment of co-operation between provincial and federal jurisdictions leaves very much to be desired. My friends from the Bloc have addressed this issue extensively, but it is clear, despite some of their other concerns, that it would not do anything to improve the relationship if there are to be assessments at the provincial and federal levels. The development of meaningful interaction is not contained in the bill.

We constantly hear the term harmonization, but we are concerned that it is an attempt to streamline the process, to make it less costly and to speed it up, which would be done at the expense of valid, accurate and meaningful environmental assessments. The end result raises serious doubts about its ability to act as a mechanism to protect the environment from inappropriate, unwanted and environmentally damaging proposals or developments.

We see no thrust in the bill to amend the current legislation to increase protection for the environment by building in more structures that would protect it rather than providing limitations.

The House resumed from May 18 consideration of the motion.