Debates of Sept. 22nd, 2003

Parliament of Canada Act

[Lynne Yelich, Canadian Alliance, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have any confidence whatsoever, and after I heard a couple of comments from the other side, I have even less confidence than I had when the debate began. I really do not have any confidence, in answer to my colleague's question.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last week I asked a question of the Secretary of State for the Status of Women. She did not answer, but her colleague, the Minister of Human Resources Development did, and, as usual, praised the current employment insurance system. According to her, it allows more women to be eligible for employment insurance. She even had the gall to tell the House, and I quote:

We also find that more women are working and, in fact, as a result of the increased jobs in our strong economy, women are working and bringing home employment wages to help support themselves and their families.

This summer, a report from the Canadian Labour Congress informed us that women are among those most heavily penalized by employment insurance policies.

Furthermore, a report from Status of Women Canada last March confirmed that restrictions in the employment insurance program affecting people returning to the work force had a disproportionate impact on women, in particular, on those who wished to take advantage of parental benefits, and self-employed women, whose numbers are increasing but who are still excluded from the program.

That is why I am asking my question of the Secretary of State for the Status of Women again, this evening, in the hope that this time she will answer it herself, for one thing, and for another, that she will tell us clearly what she has done so far to improve the gloomy situation revealed by her department's report.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to answer the question on behalf of the hon. Secretary of State.

Overall the EI system is working and it is there for whom it is intended. My remarks will give a good indication of the extent to which it is working.

The 2002 monitoring and assessment report found that 88% of paid employees would have been eligible to collect EI if they had lost their jobs or quit with just cause.

EI coverage for women is high. Coverage for men, which is 96%, and for women, which is 95%, working full time is nearly identical. Among part time workers, coverage for women, which is 55%, is actually higher than for men, which is 41%.

Almost 900,000 women accessed the EI program in 2001. About 72% of special benefit claimants were women. Over two-thirds of family supplement recipients were women.

Switching to an hours based system in 1996, changes to the re-entrance provision and the clawback, and doubling maternity and parental benefits from six months to one year have particularly benefited women.

In December 2000 entrance requirements for special benefits were reduced from 700 hours to 600 hours benefiting again many more women. This resulted in approximately 18,000 new special benefit claims in 2001-02 as compared to the preceding year.

Since January 2001 parents have the flexibility they need to stay home with their babies for up to one year. Early evidence shows that Canadians are taking advantage of this enhanced support.

We are pleased that our efforts to improve support to working Canadian parents are making a difference. More than 200,000 Canadians accessed maternity and parental benefits in 2001-02, an increase of 17.7% for parental benefits and 9.9% for maternity benefits.

The best way to help women is to provide them with opportunities to participate in a positive manner in the Canadian economy and it is working. More and more women are finding and keeping jobs. In fact the hon. member may need only look at the economic record of the government to see that conditions have improved for Canadian workers, both men and women.

Since 1996 we have created 2.2 million new jobs, an increase of 16.1%. Six hundred and sixty-two thousand jobs have been created for women since 1996, an increase of 14.2%.

The unemployment rate for adult women was 6.4% in August, lower than the national average which was 8%.

According to StatsCan, labour force attachment is now 67.5%, close to the highest level in 12 years. Labour force attachment for adult women is now 60.7%.

These figures show that the system is working and is in fact promoting a higher economic confidence among Canadians.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague who is answering on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Status of Women—I said at the outset that she still is not here to answer me—I would point out that it was a matter of women returning to the workforce and women who are self-employed.

Coverage for women who work full time may be higher than for men, but most women work part time. What happens to them and to women who are self-employed? My question remains unanswered.

Furthermore, I do not think any gender equality analysis has been done on this issue.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with great respect, the member may look to the Prime Minister's task force on women entrepreneurs.

If the member is concerned with respect to the number and the statistics related to those women who are embarking on their own employment in an entrepreneurial way, those statistics may mirror the statistics I have given, that women in fact are above the norm, even those returning to the workforce. They are helped and supplemented by the improvements that have been made to the EI benefits that I have outlined in my remarks.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, last week I asked a question of the Minister of the Environment concerning an incinerator in the Belledune area of northeastern New Brunswick. His answer was as follows:

Mr. Speaker, for the federal government to intervene under the environmental assessment legislation there has to be federal involvement, which is called a trigger, for the legislation to take effect. As I understand it, in this particular instance there is no such trigger. Therefore, it will be left to the province of New Brunswick to handle this particular instance.

Since then, I have looked into the various laws and authority is given to the minister under section 48(1) of the Canada Environmental Protection Act.

I also looked at the Canada Port Authority Environmental Assessment Regulations, which read:

Every screening of a project shall include a consideration of the following factors:

(a) the environmental effects of the project that have been or will be carried out,including the environmental effects of malfunctions or accidents that may occur in connection with the project and any cumulative environmental effects that are likely to result from the project in combination with other projects or activities

The regulations go on to say, if public concerns warrant.

The Fisheries Act, section 34(1), reads as follows:

“water frequented by fish” means Canadian fisheries waters.

“fish habitat" means spawning grounds and nursery, rearing, food supply and migration areas on which fish depend directly or indirectly in order to carry out their life processes;

"deposit" means any discharging, spraying, releasing, spilling, leaking, seeping, pouring, emitting, emptying, throwing, dumping or placing;

There are numerous laws under which the Minister of the Environment or the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans can intervene. Today, representatives of the New Brunswick Fishers Union issued a press release as follows:

“The maritime fishermen are only getting involved in the fight to stop the construction of a toxic waste incinerator in Belledune. They are worried because the Baie des Chaleur is in the waters of the federal responsibility. The fishermen are now worried about it. The community is worried about it. Today we had the leader of the Bloc Québécois raising the question of what was happening in the baie des Chaleurs in the northeast of New Brunswick and the Gaspé coast”.

We had questions on this raised today. The community is involved. Today as well I met with the provincial government and the only data they have looked at came from the company itself.

What I want to know this evening is whether the federal government is going to get involved in this matter, yes or no, or are they just going to wash their hands completely of their federal responsibilities for the federal waters of Chaleur Bay, and for the people of Gaspé and northwestern New Brunswick?

The only thing the public wants is an independent study, not rejection of the project but merely an independent study. They want to know whether the federal government is going intervene in this matter or not.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to explain to the House and to the hon. member why the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act does not provide the Minister of the Environment with the authority to intervene in the Bennett environmental incinerator application and project that is proposed for Belledune, New Brunswick.

The proposal, as members are aware, is to construct and operate on lands owned by the Belledune Port Authority, an incinerator for the destruction of soils and solid materials contaminated by creosote and hydrocarbons.

Bennett submitted an application under the New Brunswick environmental assessment process for environmental assessment approval. The Department of the Environment participated on the technical review committee and provided advice to New Brunswick during the provincial environmental assessment process.

Bennett next applied for an authorization to construct and on September 9, 2003, the Government of New Brunswick granted a conditional authorization. Prior to full commercial operation of the facility the company must obtain an authorization to operate the facility from the New Brunswick government. That is the process and that is the law.

The member opposite wishes the Minister of the Environment to intervene in this process and require an environmental assessment pursuant to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and its regulations.

The act applies to projects, as set out in section 5 of the act, which are subject to specific federal decisions. Officials in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency have investigated the applicability of the act in this case and advised the minister that there are no federal decisions required with respect to this project which would require an assessment under that act. Agency officials have also reviewed the applicability of the act in a transboundary context that the member has raised.

The legislation clearly states that when there is another federal act or regulation that applies to a project, the transboundary provision cannot be used. The Bennett incinerator project requires a permit from the Department of the Environment for the import of dangerous goods and hazardous waste under provisions of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

This permit is not listed in the law list regulations and thus is not a trigger for the act. As the permit is required under another federal act and regulation, the transboundary provisions under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act cannot be applied to this project. As a consequence, the Minister of the Environment does not have the authority under section 46 of the act to refer the project to a review panel or a mediator.

In summary, there are no Canadian Environmental Assessment Act section 5 decisions in relation to this project and furthermore, as there is a decision required under another act of Parliament, the Minister of the Environment has no jurisdiction under section 46. The Government of Canada, therefore, has no authority to require an environmental assessment of this project.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with my hon. colleague. The Fisheries Act stipulates that this constitutes emissions. The federal government is responsible for protecting waters and fish habitats. No member of this House can deny this. If they do, it would be in order to avoid accepting responsibility.

When Kirkland Lake fought the construction of an incinerator by Bennett Environmental, it did so under section 48(1) of the Environment Act.

In this case, it can build in three different locations, respect the fishery and not expect any problems or a disaster to occur. That is all the residents are asking for under this legislation. If the public intervenes and has concerns, the government cannot tell me that it is not able to take action and say, “There will be an assessment and an independent study”.

When I asked the provincial government this question this morning—

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time is up.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sensitivity that has been raised by the member, but I would like to say that, in addition to the comments that I have outlined, under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act anyone wanting to import hazardous waste into Canada is required to obtain a permit from Environment Canada. As such, the department can ensure that Canada is notified of any proposed shipment, prior informed consent is obtained, and the shipment is tracked to its destination.

It is under those provisions that, once the facility is operational, the operators must ensure potential discharges to the environment do not contravene federal statutes such as the Fisheries Act. Environment Canada takes a role in ensuring compliance promotion and enforcement of specific provisions of the Fisheries Act, for example. That is the manner in which the trigger, if it could be called a trigger, would work. That is the law.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24.

(The House adjourned at 6:47 p.m.)