Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Mount Royal.
The government has repeatedly abused Parliament by ramming through outrageous omnibus bills. For example, two years ago the government introduced an 880-page omnibus bill, a grab-bag of bills that the government wanted to pass quickly. In fact, it was half of the entire workload of Parliament from the previous year. As a result, the government was severely condemned for turning the legislative process into a farce.
Most recently, the government introduced Bill C-38, the 400-plus page omnibus budget implementation bill. Through the bill, the government sprung sweeping changes on our country, affecting everything from employment insurance, environmental protection, immigration and old age security to even the oversight that charities receive. None of these changes were in the Conservative platform. They were rushed into law by “an arrogant majority government that’s in a hurry to impose its agenda on the country”.
The government's actions reek of hypocrisy. In 1994, the right hon. member for Calgary Southwest criticized omnibus legislation, suggesting that the subject matter of such bills is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles and that dividing the bill into several components would allow members to represent the views of their constituents on each part of the bill.
The right hon. member is now using the very tactics he once denounced. It is a shame that he changed his tune when he was elected to the highest office in the land. Last spring's 400-page omnibus budget implementation bill contained over 60 unrelated matters, amended or abolished 74 pieces of legislation and devoted an astonishing 150 pages to destroying 50 years of environmental oversight. I quote:
This is political sleight-of-hand and message control, and it appears to be an accelerating trend. These shabby tactics keep Parliament in the dark, swamp MPs with so much legislation that they can’t absorb it all, and hobble scrutiny. This is not good, accountable, transparent government.
Real democracy would have allowed for the environment sections to be separated out from the omnibus bill and sent to the environment committee for clause-by-clause scrutiny. Bill C-38 repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, meaning that the assessment agency would be able to exempt a designated project from even going through the assessment process and that when environmental assessments do happen they will be narrower, less rigorous and have reduced public participation. Canada's environment commissioner says that “there will be a significant narrowing of public participation”.
We have since learned that hundreds of federal environmental assessments have been dropped. Canadians should know that after a mere 16 hours of study the finance subcommittee was left with many questions regarding the legislation. What types of projects will be included or excluded under the proposed changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act? What proportion and types of current assessments will no longer receive federal oversight? How will the government define whether a provincial process is equivalent to the federal process? How will the assessment of cumulative impacts be undertaken?
During the finance subcommittee's review, Ms. Rachel Forbes, staff counsel of West Coast Environmental Law, said she did not believe the new legislation would accomplish any of the government's four pillars: more predictable and timely reviews, less duplication in reviewing projects, strong environmental protection and enhanced consultation with aboriginal peoples. In fact, she suggested the amendments may hinder them.
Bill C-38 also repealed the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, which addressed our most pressing environmental problem, namely climate change. The law required the Minister of the Environment to publish a climate change plan each year, a forecast for emissions reductions and a discussion of how the government performed the previous year and how shortcomings would be addressed. Repealing the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act will result in a loss of domestic climate accountability measures. Repealing the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy will result in the loss of a unique independent, unbiased organization, that's only fault was publishing evidence-based reports that did not agree with Conservative ideology.
Canadians should be deeply concerned by the repeal of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act as the threat of climate change is serious, urgent and growing. Nine of the ten warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000. The extent and thickness of summer sea ice in the Arctic have shown a dramatic decline over the past 30 years, with the six lowest extents having all occurred in the last six years. More disturbing still, a 2011 article in the prestigious journal Nature showed that the duration and magnitude of the decline may be unprecedented in the last 1,450 years.
However, this summer, the amount of ice in the Arctic shrank to an all-time low, destroying previous records. While scientists are enormously concerned that these changes represent a fundamental change and very little is known about the consequences of drastic sea ice reductions, the Minister of the Environment was perturbed mainly about how navigation patterns might be affected.
Bill C-38 also weakened several environmental laws, including protection for species at risk and water, and nearly eliminated fish habitat in the Fisheries Act, putting species from coast to coast to coast at risk.
Tom Siddon, the former Conservative minister responsible for the current Fisheries Act, was extremely concerned by the amendments and stated:
This is a covert attempt to gut the Fisheries Act, and it’s appalling that they should be attempting to do this under the radar.
He also said:
They are totally watering down and emasculating the Fisheries Act...they are making a Swiss cheese out of [it].
At the finance committee, he reported:
The bottom line...take your time and do it right. To bundle all of this into a budget bill, with all its other facets, is not becoming of a Conservative government, period.
Equally astounding is the fact that Bill C-38 gave the federal cabinet the authority to overrule a decision by the National Energy Board.
The Conservatives have also cut $29 million from Parks Canada and in doing so are undermining the health and integrity of Canada's world-renowned parks, risking some of our world heritage sites, significantly reducing the number of scientists and technical staff, hurting relationships with aboriginal peoples and attacking rural economies.
It is important to remember that when the Conservatives came to power, they inherited a legacy of balanced budgets from the previous Liberal government but soon plunged the country into a deficit before the recession ever hit. It is absolutely negligent and shameful that the government gutted environmental safeguards in order to fast-track development and balance its books.
The government did not campaign in the last election on gutting environmental protection. As a result, Canadians rose up in the hope of stopping the Prime Minister's destruction of laws that protect the environment, the health and safety of Canadians, our communities, our economy and our livelihoods. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute are just some of Canada's prominent environmental organizations that called upon Canadians to speak out in defence of Canada's values of democracy and the environment.
The Black Out Speak Out campaign stated:
Our land, water and climate are all threatened by the latest federal budget. Proposed changes in the budget bill will weaken environmental laws and silence the voices of those who seek to defend them.
Silence is not an option.
We simply cannot afford economic development with reduced environmental consideration. We risk environmental disaster and cleanup costs, which we may pass on to our children. We must remember that we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Canadians are entitled to expect much more than what they are witnessing today both in the protection of our environment and the protection of our democratic values, which our beautiful country was built on.