Mr. Speaker, on October 22, I asked the environment minister this question:
Today a meeting was held with people from the Gaspé and northwestern New Brunswick. The Liberal MPs for Gaspé Peninsula, Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Madawaska all agree on the need for an independent environmental assessment.
Will there or will there not be such an independent assessment for the benefit of the people of the Chaleur Bay area?
The minister's answer was as follows:
Mr. Speaker, as I have explained several times in the House, this problem falls under provincial jurisdiction.
Yesterday, officials of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency received a document from some of the stakeholders, and we are examining it at this time. The hon. member needs to realize, however, that provincial jurisdiction must be respected.
Even if this is the third time the Minister of the Environment has said the same thing in this House, the people of Chaleur Bay do not agree with him and neither do the people from the Gaspé Peninsula and northwestern New Brunswick. He has a responsibility to request an independent environmental impact assessment for the well-being of the people of Chaleur Bay and the well-being of the bay itself. The bay provides a livelihood for workers in the fish plants. It provides a livelihood for Chaleur Bay area farmers and fishers living in the Gaspé Peninsula or in New Brunswick. These people are worried and it is the government's responsibility to reassure them.
People are neither for nor against the bill; they simply want to have an independent assessment. A certain number of things appear in internal provincial government documents that come from the Hazardous Waste Officer Approvals Branch.
Even they are worried about it. They received an internal document that was released through access to information advising the Government of New Brunswick about the problem that could happen. I want to take the opportunity to read one phrase that should scare the people of New Brunswick and the Gaspé coast, especially when the document comes from the hazardous waste officers. It states:
Since we have no specific hazardous waste regulations in NB [New Brunswick], we are particularly vulnerable and should be suspicious of the motivation that is bringing this company to our province.
We have all the reasons in the world to be worried about this.
There is no excuse for the federal government not to get involved in the project and request an assessment. Under sections 34 and 35 of the fisheries legislation, the federal government has the authority to request this independent assessment. We now know that even the federal government—unless it can prove otherwise—and Bennett clients have contaminated lands belonging to the Canadian Forces in Canada's far north.
I would like the minister to prove me wrong. I am asking the minister, or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, what the department intends to do. Will it give them this assessment or not?