Mr. Speaker, tonight I am rising to follow up on a question I asked in the House a little while ago on the very topical environmental issue of fracking, or natural gas fracturing, as they call it. It is a very topical issue, an environmental issue, but the answer we get to any question we ask about fracking is that it is entirely a provincial jurisdiction and the federal government does not really have anything to do with it. I find that is a very narrow interpretation of the role of the federal government in environmental policy in this country. I also find that this is part of a trend on behalf of the government to move away from involvement in environmental policy in many areas. One gets the sense that, if it can, the government will unload responsibilities for the environment to the provincial authorities at any chance.
I would remind the House that this is a contradictory position because the federal government claims, for example, to be working on regulations for emissions in the oil sands sector or in the oil sector generally, which is a natural resource sector, of course. When it comes to GHG emissions in the oil sector, it has no problem getting involved. Similarly, the federal government has brought in regulations on sulphur emissions that result from the exploitation of oil resources and so on.
I would remind the House that the federal government has a constitutional role in environmental management in this country, and that role is not given by virtue of the Constitution, by virtue of the British North America Act, but through jurisprudence. We have the famous 1997 Hydro-Québec decision, which gives the federal government the power to regulate in matters affecting the environment, not only to prohibit under criminal law, but to regulate under criminal law. So there is a role for the federal government.
When we talk about fracking, we are talking about potential impacts on ground water. Some would say that is under the ground so it is a provincial matter. Yes, it is under the ground, but any expert would say aquifers cross boundaries. They cross provincial boundaries and they cross international boundaries. Right there, even though we are talking about ground water, we are talking about an area that could potentially interest the federal government and require some kind of intervention on the part of the federal government. Again, this is another reason why one could say there is a role for the federal government.
Also, when we talk about fracking, we talk about waste water, because fracking produces waste water. Then the issue becomes what the rules are that would govern effluents of the waste water or the treatment of the waste water. I am not sure if they are true, but there have been reports of waste water from fracking being brought to municipal waste water treatment plants; yet the government regulates in this area of waste water effluents.
Again, I have trouble seeing that the federal government does not have any role whatsoever in the issue of fracking, and I would like to hear the government's response.