Mr. Speaker, the first group of amendments that we have before us at report stage reflect the essential problem the New Democrats have with the legislation.
The bill, as we heard from the member for Dartmouth, has had a lengthy history in terms of trying to improve the environmental assessment process in this country. There has been a great deal of criticism of it since it was actually incorporated into legislation following a series of what were, in effect, cabinet and ministerial directions on environmental assessment dating back to the 1970s, if we go back far enough, but certainly through the 1980s and 1990s until it became law.
The primary concern has been the lack of detailed hearings, if I can put it that way, which has resulted in us not having a body of law grow up under this legislation because we have had so few of the hearings. I think we were up to 12 as of the time the amendments were before the committee. That would be in the context of thousands and thousands of proposals that came before the government for assessments, but were dealt with by way of what, in most cases, were very summary screenings of the projects.
I will use one example of what did not receive a hearing and a panel review. We have developing now the largest depository of nuclear waste in the country and probably in the world. The expansion of this depository here in Ontario, up in the Bruce Peninsula, was screened and a decision was made that there would be no panel review, in spite of very strong demands by the environmental community and, I suppose, even more important, by the residents in the Bruce Peninsula for that type of review. It simply did not occur, nor will it at this time. There were several more examples given to us at the time that the committee reviewed these amendments.
I think there is another major problem with the proposed amendments by the government. We have to appreciate that we were working within a very limited confine of the amendments that were proposed. Because of that, we were not able to address a number of the issues. One of the major issues that should have been addressed was that of the enforcement of the legislation because there really is, in effect, no enforcement within the existing law and certainly not within the amendments that are being proposed.
To come specifically to the group of amendments that we have proposed before us in Group No. 1, they reflect the government's approach on this. I have to say that some of these amendments are purely technical and are an improvement to the bill as it went through the committee. There are a couple of amendments in this group that, and I am not quite sure what happened here, I believe, are in a bit of a different form. They are amendments that were proposed at the committee stage, were voted down by the majority of the Liberals on the committee and are now showing up in a somewhat different form, but they are improvements over the original part of the bill. Several of them, although not very many, are improvements for which we would be supportive.
Unfortunately, several of them, and I would address my comments specifically to the proposed Motions Nos. 12, 15, 17 and 21, are retrograde over the work that the committee did and will make environmental assessments less meaningful, less effective and less protective of the environment.
In a summary if I can encapsulate what the amendments do, is they limit the ability of people in local communities, or municipalities or environmentalists who have reservations about the proposed development to respond. In some cases the four amendments place fairly restrictive time frames on the ability of people who are opposing proposals to get information and to respond.
What the committee did, and I believe it was astute on its part, was to say that in some cases there should be no specific time limits within which the minister could give final approval to a proposal. There would be guidelines for when he or she would do that based on providing sufficient information, either through the department or by the proponents themselves, to the people who were concerned about the development.
What some of these amendments do is put a 15 day time limit within which this information can be dispersed to the opponents and then the minister can proceed. The minister in effect only has to wait 15 days.
We have to appreciate, and I am perhaps wearing my lawyer's hat for a moment, what that does to opponents. We had one example of one group that came before us to give testimony. It was being faced with a very short time frame, I think it was 30 days, and had access to thousands of pages of material, scientific study in particular, some of it very technical. It was required to respond and to put forth its position within that 15 or 30 day period. It was literally impossible for it do that in that time frame.
What the committee recommended in some of these sections, the government is now proposing to change through the amendments in Group No. 1 with very specific time limits being placed on them again. This is in spite of what we had proposed based on the experience we had under this legislation and experiences prior to that in Canada, as well as the experiences internationally.
It is simply not possible, given the scope of some of these proposed developments, for concerned citizens to respond in a timely fashion when they have a 15, 20 or 30 day time frame. Oftentimes the concerned citizens are required to retain lawyers, which some may already have, or other experts, and that is usually where the problem is, to do a meaningful assessment of the reams of material so they can respond in some type of informed way.
I go back to environmental assessments. If we are to have an effective and meaningful system for environmental assessments, the concerned citizens of the country, the citizens who will be directly impacted by these proposed developments, need to have meaningful input. That oftentimes means reasonable notice, an opportunity to involve themselves in the process by retaining experts and the framework of the legislation to do that.
Unfortunately, in many respects it is going in the opposite direction, particularly with the four amendments I mentioned. They are limiting in very significant degrees the rights and capabilities of concerned citizens to be involved in this process.