Debates of Dec. 11th, 2007

National Sustainable Development Act

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate today on Bill C-474, the National Sustainable Development Act, introduced by the member for Don Valley West.

I see two objectives in Bill C-474. The first is to develop a sustainable development strategy based on the precautionary principle. The second is to create a position of commissioner of the environment and sustainable development that would be independent of the Office of the Auditor General. The bill also provides for the appointment of a sustainable development advisory council to advise the government on the national sustainable development strategy that will be developed.

I would like to talk about sustainable development and the precautionary principle. It should be noted that sustainable development has not been the credo of the successive federal governments in Ottawa. On the contrary, the federal government, both the Liberals and Conservatives, encouraged the development of the oil sands, a very polluting industry, instead of relying on clean energies or strategies that allow for sustainable development.

Although it is in the news now, the concept of sustainable development is nothing new. The expression “sustainable development” was popularized in 1987 after the publication of a report from the World Commission on Environment and Development entitled, “Our Common Future”. This report defined sustainable development.

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

However, people seem to forget that two concepts are inherent to the notion of sustainable development: the concept of needs and, particularly, the essential needs of the most vulnerable, to whom it is agreed the greatest priority must be given; and secondly, the idea that our technology and social organization can impose limits on the environment’s ability to meet current and future needs.

Thus, sustainable development has more than just one objective, since it has to do with social and environmental equity, not only between citizens, but also between generations. Thus, when we talk about our children, we are talking about our future.

The concept of sustainable development was revisited in 1992 at the famous United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At the conference, a clear message was sent regarding the urgency of reconciling economic and social development, and environmental protection for the simple reason that sustainable development is essential to ensuring the well being of human communities and the preservation of life sustaining ecosystems.

I would now like to discuss the precautionary principle. In the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development that closed the United Nations Conference on the Environment, the precautionary principle was recommended as the best approach to environmental management. Essentially it involves the application of prudent foresight, the recognition of uncertainty and error on the side of caution when decisions must be taken in a domain where knowledge is incomplete.

Further, the approach recognizes that the burden and standard of proof should be commensurate with the potential risks to sustainable use of resources and to the environment. Participants emphasized that a precautionary approach should consider subtle, sublethal effects and not rely only on population impacts.

The precautionary approach has been followed in other areas, in particular for specific resources such as the fisheries and for general issues pertaining to the integrity of the environment. Observing the precautionary principle can translate into environmental assessments, pilot projects, close monitoring of impacts, careful interpretation of data and management tailored to needs.

Once again, be it Liberal or Conservative, the federal government refuses to take a precautionary approach. The most basic approach is often rejected out of hand, and short-term gain takes precedence over future problems. This is true of the Conservative government, which is doing everything it can to reject the Kyoto protocol, even though economists as credible as Britain's Nicholas Stern are saying that it would cost far more to respond to the destructive effects of climate change than to attack the root of the problem now.

GMOs are another perfect example, because the medium- and long-term effects of genetically modified organisms on health and the environment are not yet known. In light of this, the Bloc Québécois has criticized the federal government for refusing to demonstrate transparency with regard to genetically modified organisms, by neglecting to make it mandatory to label foods that are genetically modified or contain genetically modified ingredients so that people are informed and can choose the foods they eat.

Even worse, the federal government still has not adopted the precautionary principle when it comes to GMOs. Given the lack of information about the medium- and long-term effects of GMOs, it is only natural to have concerns. In order to approve a transgenic product, the federal government relies on studies made by companies and merely reviews them. It does not conduct a systematic second assessment of all the plants and foods that are put on the market. Consequently, there is very little public or independent expertise in the evaluation of transgenic foods.

The objective of the Cartagena protocol is to help regulate the transboundary movement, transfer, handling and use of any GMO that may have adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and pose risks to human health. The precautionary principle is an integral part of the Cartagena protocol and a condition of its application, as stipulated in principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development adopted in 1992 at the earth summit in Rio. In the protocol, the precautionary approach is described as follows:

Lack of scientific certainty due to insufficient relevant scientific information and knowledge regarding the extent of the potential adverse effects of a living modified organism on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in the Party of import, taking also into account risks to human health, shall not prevent that Party from taking a decision, as appropriate, with regard to the import of the living modified organism in question...in order to avoid or minimize such potential adverse effects.

Nevertheless, the federal government refuses to ratify the Cartagena protocol, ignoring what, to the common sense of Quebeckers, is the most fundamental prudence.

Let us now discuss the second objective of the bill, which deals with the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. In the past, the latter played a useful role in evaluating the government's policies with respect to environmental protection and hence the importance of ensuring complete autonomy in carrying out his responsibilities. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development played an important role in revealing the extent of federal assistance to the oil industry.

In his report tabled in 2000, he brought to the forefront the issue of subsidies to the oil industry.

I simply wish to outline the Bloc's position. We support the principle of Bill C-474; however, amendments will have to be made in future discussions.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

I apologize for not giving the member the one-minute notice, but I was discussing a situation which seems to have cleared up. The noise that has been bothering everybody has finally ceased.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Western Arctic.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I do not claim any credit for standing up and improving the noise level in the building, but I am glad to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-474. The bill deals with sustainable development within the government system and the necessity for a national process for promoting sustainable development.

I am glad to see that our Liberal colleagues have woken up to the requirement for promoting sustainable development. During their many years in government, they did not promote this. The Liberal government's promotion of development throughout its 13 year course was simply to allow the market to make all the decisions, to allow others to take away any sense of industrial strategy, energy, security, any of those things. It simply was not part of their demeanour. They simply acquiesced to the direction that others took. In that process, they put Canada in a very precarious situation, perhaps not for today, but as we move ahead in the future.

The Conservatives have come into power since then and they have proven to be unable to move any further along this road than the Liberals did. That is partly due to their ideological commitment to the marketplace and to the understanding that decisions on complex issues such as sustainable development can be made in a context of profit and return to investors. Over the last while there has been an unsustainable development process.

My area of expertise is energy. At one point in time Canada kept a 25 year reserve of natural gas for our own protection and to ensure that Canadians would be well equipped to handle future changes. The reserve is now down to nine years. Through the 1990s and the early part of this decade, there was a massive sell-off of natural gas. The alliance pipeline gave the industry the ability to virtually strip whatever resources we had in the western Canadian sedimentary basin. The need to reach out to other forms, such as coal bed methane or farther north supplies, has proven to be difficult and expensive.

The National Energy Board's November 2007 report regarding Canada’s energy future clearly states that by 2020 Canada will be a net importer of natural gas. We will have no exports. This situation just boggles the mind. It should be of great interest to this Parliament.

In the development of the tar sands and the massive tax giveaways and royalty breaks set up by the Chrétien and Klein governments in the mid-1990s, we saw the unfettered movement and development of this resource base in a fashion that serves hardly anyone in this country. Things are moving much too fast in the tar sands. Even Albertans are finding that this kind of development is simply not working for them.

The Liberals, after supporting Kyoto, continue to support unsustainable development. They ignored their Kyoto commitments and preferred to let the market make its own way.

When we look at tar sands development, probably each barrel of oil is making over 125 kilograms of CO₂ in its production in comparison to conventional oil at 29 kilograms. This situation is simply going to get worse. We have set ourselves on a course of unsustainability in this country that we are going to have a very difficult time turning around.

The Liberals failed as well to provide adequate funding for research and development of renewable energy. Canada was probably the lowest in the western world in investing in solar energy. The new government has made a slight improvement, but nowhere near the investment we should be making.

It is the same with wind power. The Liberal effort in wind power was half the value of the United States' effort and the credit that was given.

We certainly do not want to discourage the sustainable development strategy that is being proposed by the Liberals, but we have to ask what is really important about it. To me, what is important right now in sustainable development in the world is energy. Without a comprehensive energy strategy for this country, a Canada first energy strategy, we will never find our way down the road to sustainable development.

The Liberals and Conservatives, bless their hearts, bought in with the Americans and established a continental energy plan through the North American Energy Working Group and the SPP. They have basically taken the responsibility out of the House and given it to Washington. That is troublesome. In order for us to move toward a sustainable future, it is something they have to recant. They have to give up what they did with our southern neighbour. Without recognizing the inherent problems they have created by linking our energy future with that of the United States, we will not move toward sustainable development in energy.

Looking at this bill from an energy perspective, there are only a few references to energy in the bill. Clause 5 calls for the efficient and effective use of energy. That is a statement that could apply to many things. It could apply to the expansion of existing fossil fuel resources as we quickly deplete them. Clause 5(2)(b) talks about Canada being at the forefront of the clean energy revolution.

To the Minister of Natural Resources clean energy seems to mean nuclear energy. In a sustainable development strategy, one might question whether the production of nuclear energy is the direction in which to go. It is clean but it has inherent problems in many other respects. It is clean in terms of CO₂ emissions, but certainly in many other ways it has a limited ability.

We need an approach to energy which sees the sharing of renewable energy across the country through an east-west energy grid. That is one of the key elements in the development. We need to invest in infrastructure to promote sustainability. Investing in the equipment that can lead to a renewable energy future is the direction that we should take. Investing in liquefied natural gas terminals to bring greater amounts of imported fossil fuels to this country is not part of a sustainable development strategy, yet it is something that the Liberals and Conservatives continue to support.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order. I am sorry, but the hon. member's time has expired.

On a point of order, the government House leader.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the House leaders, and I believe if you seek it, you shall find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of the House, the House revert to Introduction of Government Bills; the bill on notice entitled “An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the generation of the national Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River” be introduced now; and that the title in the English text be amended by replacing the word “generation” with the word “operation”.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The House has heard the request of the hon. the government House leader. Is there unanimous consent to proceed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

(Motion agreed to)

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-38, An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, again, there have been discussions among the parties and I believe you shall find agreement for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practices of the House, the House shall sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of considering C-38, An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River and shall not be adjourned before such proceedings have been completed except pursuant to a motion to adjourn proposed by a Minister of the Crown; the said bill may be read twice or thrice in one sitting; when the House convenes this evening on C-38, C-38 be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole; and the Committee of the Whole shall be authorized to hear the following witnesses: Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, Catherine Doyle; Deputy Minister of Health, Morris Rosenberg; Assistant Deputy Minister of Health, Meena Ballantyne; Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and President AECL Candu division, Ken Petrunik; Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer and President for the Research and Technology Division AECL, David F. Torgerson; former Chief Engineer of AECL, Daniel Meneley; former manager of Pickering and Site VP of Darlington, Robert Strickert; President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Linda Keen.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, just for the sake of clarity, the motion speaks of “when the House convenes this evening”. I wonder if the government House leader could give some indication of the time when the House will reconvene this evening for the purposes of dealing with this bill.

Could he also confirm that all of the witnesses mentioned in the motion have indicated that they will in fact attend this evening?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that at the conclusion of private members' hour the House will, subject to a recess as may be necessary to facilitate the physical setup, immediately proceed to the consideration of Bill C-38.

I can also advise that it has been indicated to me that all of the witnesses we have listed in the motion are intending to be here to testify before the committee of the whole and provide evidence.

I would additionally add that the Minister of Health and the Minister of Natural Resources will also be available, but are not listed in the motion because of course of their status as members of the House.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like our Conservative colleague to tell us whether there will be any witnesses to address the potential risk of a nuclear disaster. Given the fact that we have to give the government an immediate answer on this bill, we need experts who can provide some reassurance as to the potential for nuclear risk.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will avoid the temptation to enter into debate but I think one can see from the qualifications and titles of the individuals concerned that they do have considerable expertise in the areas being discussed.

I might add that these are suggestions of the official opposition as to whom it would like to hear from as witnesses to deal with this matter on exactly the concerns I think raised by the member for Québec.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

I think it is good that the government House leader has cleared up when the House expects to deal with this matter, when the House will reconvene this evening. May I also add that I assume this means that the adjournment debate will not happen tonight, that we will proceed after the short recess after private members' business to deal with the bill and that whatever was slated for the adjournment debate will not happen this evening.

With that understanding, does the hon. minister have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

(Motion agreed to, Bill C-38 deemed read the second time and referred to a committee of the whole)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-474, An Act to require the development and implementation of a National Sustainable Development Strategy, the reporting of progress against a standard set of environmental indicators and the appointment of an independent Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development accountable to Parliament, and to adopt specific goals with respect to sustainable development in Canada, and to make consequential amendments to another Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

National Sustainable Development Act

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour to rise on Bill C-474 sponsored by my colleague from Don Valley West.

I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Don Valley West on the new opportunities which will be opening to him next summer and into next fall. The gain for the Toronto educational system will be a great loss for this House. The hon. member has served here for a number of years and has gained immeasurable experience on environmental issues as well as experience in the administration of government and the structure of government not only as a parliamentary secretary and a committee chair, but also as a minister of the Crown. There is no better member than the hon. member for Don Valley West to bring forth a bill like this one which deals with government administration.

This initiative is quite timely. It connects with the root notion of sustainable development and the seminal gathering of nations that occurred in Rio in the mid-1980s. It connects with one of the chapters of the Brundtland report which came out of the Rio conference.

It connects with the chapter that talks about the need for new governance structures to deal with the challenge of sustainable development which was on the horizon as far back as 20 years ago. It is a lengthy chapter. I do not know if anyone in this House has had a chance to read it, but I read it recently and it led me to propose a change to the structure of the government to help bring environment closer to the centre of the government's agenda, not just the Conservative government's agenda, but the agendas of all future governments. That was the idea that we should create a minister of state for water who would report to the Minister of the Environment. The minister of state would link the 20 or so departments that have something to do with the water issue at the federal level. But I digress, Mr. Speaker, and I apologize for that.

We are at a watershed moment in the history of mankind and societies of the world. By that I mean we have had different watershed moments in history and the hon. member for Don Valley West will appreciate this because he is a historian by training. Having studied economic history myself, I know there were some big defining eras in economic history going back, for example, to the industrial revolution.

When societies started to industrialize and when economies became more sophisticated, academics and people in government began to develop measures for how these economies were progressing. Of course the most famous measure of how a society's economy is doing is gross national product. This is a measurement which has existed for centuries.

As societies progress they change and new methods of measurement are required. New milestones are required in order to ascertain in what direction a society, or in this case an economy, is headed and to what extent the quality of life of citizens is improving.

The whole concept of GNP has evolved as we have discovered that the capitalist system, albeit the greatest system of economic organization in the world, has negative consequences. We realize that just looking at GNP does not necessarily tell us what the quality of life of people living in capitalist economies is at a particular moment in time.

For example, we understand that just because the GNP is rising does not necessarily mean that the quality of life of citizens at a particular time and in a particular place is getting better. For example, if we look at the issue of crime, the more crime there is the more people buy alarm systems and the more they need to hire security guards. Therefore, the more money a person spends on services and products, the more the GNP goes up. We need to revisit certain key measurements from time to time.

We are at the very beginning of the environmental era where the environmental issue is a driving force and the organizing principle more and more of our society. It is actually quite timely that this bill is being debated at a moment when representatives from around the world are in Bali to discuss how important the environment has become and how crucial it is that we deal with it if we want to safeguard this planet going into the future.

We are in the environmental era and we need measurements to see how we are doing. We need measurements in order to track our progress toward dealing with those very pressing challenges that are knocking on our door and threatening our very existence on this planet.

Therefore, I think it is very timely that the hon. member for Don Valley West has introduced this bill that would not only lightly encourage the government to develop measurements on how we are doing in achieving sustainable development, but that would require the government to do so, that would have the force of law to push the government in this direction.

Even though governments have tried to affect organizational change in the public service toward better and more integrated environmental policies, we have seen that it is very difficult. We are talking here about a revolution. This is not a question of a discrete measure that will achieve a discrete objective. This is not cutting the GST by 1%, where all we need to do is press enter on the keyboard and everything cascades through the system and, lo and behold, people pay 1% less federal sales tax on their goods and services.

It is much more than that. We are talking about a revolution in the way our society is organized and in the way it moves forward. I think we are beyond voluntary measures and prodding and words. We need the force of law.

We had something called the environment and sustainable development coordinating committee, which was established in an effort to integrate sustainable development policies of various governments. However, the Commissioner of the Environment told us, over and over again, that the committee had no impetus, that it rarely met and that no one took it seriously.

The voluntary approach on this particular issue of restructuring government for sustainable development has had its time and it is time to move forward.

I am particularly interested in the issue of water. It is extremely important that we develop our goals and measurements for dealing with the action that is required to ensure we have an abundant supply of safe and clean freshwater in this country.

There is a rumour that the government is considering cutting the number of water monitoring stations across Canada. I believe there are 3,000 right now. If we had a national sustainable development act that spelled out that Canada needs to have a minimal number of water monitoring stations or that it should increase the number of water monitoring stations, then the government could not get away with that with impunity.

I have another example in the area of water. We need to map the aquifers, the groundwater in this country, to see how much we have left so that we do not overuse--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I am sorry but the hon. member's time has expired and so has the time for private members' business.

Suspension of Sitting

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

At this time, pursuant to the agreement earlier in the day, the chair now recesses the House and the House will resume at the call of the chair to go into committee of the whole on Bill C-38.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 6:35 p.m.)

[For continuation of proceedings see part B]

[ Continuation of proceedings from Part A ]

(The House resumed at 7:33 p.m.)

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Pursuant to order made earlier today, Bill C-38, An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, is deemed read the second time and referred to a committee of the whole.

I do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of the whole.

(House in committee of the whole on Bill C-38, An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, hon. Bill Blaikie in the chair.)