Madam Speaker, I am proud to stand up today to support the set of amendments to Bill C-9 brought forward by my colleague from Hamilton Mountain.
I would like to reiterate that we in the NDP find it disheartening that the government would include so many policies in its budget document that would never be passed had they been introduced as stand-alone legislation. If the government were serious about its desire to be more transparent and accountable, it would not have attached these policies to the budget.
One of the most objectionable policies hidden in this budget relates to the current environmental assessment process. In keeping with our party's concerns about the oil sands, the measures contained within Bill C-9 are very worrisome. If passed, the bill would exempt certain federally funded infrastructure projects from environmental assessment, which goes well beyond efforts by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment to streamline the environmental assessment process.
It also allows the Minister of the Environment to dictate the scope of environmental assessments. It weakens public participation, and it enables the removal of assessments of energy projects from the Environmental Assessment Agency and moves them to the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
The notion of saddling our children and our grandchildren with debt is regrettable. That we should also bequeath them an environmental liability on their natural heritage through this process is reprehensible.
That our Conservative minority government should, with the complicity of the Liberal Party, seek to make environmental protection a matter of ministerial discretion is a demonstration of the worst sort of shortsightedness. The notion that to help make building projects shovel ready we should make the application of environmental law optional is something that no elected official will ever be able to justify.
Eighteen months ago, the Conservatives came out with their now infamous economic and fiscal update. Within this update they gutted the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which had been in place for 100 years, and our Liberal colleagues supported them.
Now the Conservatives are trying to finish what they started by doing away with environmental assessments for most projects that receive federal funding. Several provinces have rather weak legislation and no way to conduct real inspections and/or assessments. The Navigable Waters Protection Act was the only way some provinces could have assessments done.
Last Friday we debated a motion brought forward by the member for Edmonton—Strathcona that called for a review of all laws, regulations, and policies related to deepwater oil and gas drilling. It followed the disaster that is currently ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico. This disaster shows exactly why environmental assessment is so vitally important.
All too often it is impossible to stop permanent or long-lasting environmental degradation once spills or other events have taken place. What this means is very simple. As difficult as it is to stop all environmental disasters, it is much easier to fight these causes than it is to try to rectify the catastrophic consequences.
Sometimes the consequences of environmental damage are not as visible as those images we are currently seeing from the Gulf of Mexico. In many ways, these consequences are even more dangerous. They are slowly poisoning our environment without the global calls for action that we see today. If we do not have a thorough environmental assessment system in place, we have no way to stop these disasters from taking place.
We live in a democratic society, but these provisions erode any notion of accountable government. Environmental assessments will exist only at the whim of the Minister of the Environment.
As the Minister of the Environment is able to dictate the scope of any environmental assessment, the minister can effectively kill any assessment by narrowing, broadening, or changing the scope of the assessment to such a degree as to make the assessment meaningless. The view of anyone who stands opposed to a project can be ruled out of scope, meaning that the government can simply silence the critics of any development.
There is also the worrying provision to move the assessment of energy projects from the Environmental Assessment Agency to the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The mandate of the Environmental Assessment Agency is, according to its website, and I quote:
To provide Canadians with high-quality federal environmental assessments that contribute to informed decision making in support of sustainable development.
Why would the government want to move environmental assessments away from an agency whose sole purpose is to carry them out? If the government is worried about duplicating work between agencies and departments, surely it should have the Environmental Assessment Agency, with all the skills, tools, and resources it has, carry out the assessments for the National Energy Board and the Nuclear Safety Commission. Where is the efficiency in trying to duplicate these roles at the National Energy Board and the Nuclear Safety Commission? The only possible explanation I can see for moving these assessments is to weaken them by passing them on to agencies whose mandates are not so explicitly related to environmental assessment.
Looking forward, people can count on Canada's New Democrats to continue working against the false dichotomy that claims that we cannot stimulate the economy while we also protect the environment. After all, $1 billion invested in Obama-style green infrastructure creates twice as many jobs as $1 billion spent on tax cuts and injects $2 billion into the broader economy.
The NDP has long called for investment in renewable energy and support for public transport, policies that would add value to our communities, protect the environment, and create new jobs. However, the government simply is not interested. This is the same shortsighted view of the economy that left the government cutting the eco-energy retrofit program. This program encouraged people to increase the energy efficiency of their homes while it sustained and created new jobs. When we think about the whole economic cycle, these jobs increased the tax base and lowered the amount the government had to pay in social welfare, so the program had a positive effect on the economy as a whole. Yet the program was quietly cancelled just before Easter weekend. The government was clearly hoping that the cancellation would be missed by the media and the Canadian public.
Environmental protection is a duty we owe to future generations. I have two young daughters, Trinity, who is six, and Thea, who is two, and I certainly do not want to have to tell them or their children that I stood by and watched as the government decimated Canada's environmental assessment procedures.
If parliamentarians do not stand up to ensure that this measure does not sneak through in the budget, who will? Rest assured, the New Democrats will continue to do so.