Debates of Sept. 26th, 2014

Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join the report stage debate in support of Bill C-36, the protection of communities and exploited persons act.

Bill C-36 was studied by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in July 2014, and pre-studied by the Senate committee on legal and constitutional affairs in September.

The bill is well on its way toward enactment before the expiry of the Supreme Court of Canada's one-year suspension of its December 20, 2013 Bedford decision, which would otherwise result in decriminalization of most adult prostitution-related activities in Canada.

Bill C-36 places Canada among other like-minded jurisdictions that have taken, or are considering taking, an approach that treats prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation that targets the victims, primarily women and girls, including those disadvantaged by socio-economic factors, such as youth, poverty, drug addiction or a history of abuse. Such an approach aspires to abolish prostitution as a harmful gendered practice. It has been garnering widespread international support, and not just in those countries that have implemented it.

For example, in March 2014, an all-party parliamentary report in the United Kingdom recommended implementation of a version of this approach. Both the Council of Europe and the European parliament have endorsed it. This is not just because the approach has been effective in achieving its objectives, it is also because it avoids the negative effects of the alternative: decriminalization or legalization.

Research shows that decriminalization and legalization lead to growth of the sex industry. Demand increases in a decriminalized or legalized regime, as does the supply required to meet that demand, which is disproportionately drawn from vulnerable populations. The result is an increase in the exploitation of vulnerable groups.

Facilitating prostitution for those who claim to freely choose it results in a greater number of those who do not freely choose it being subjected to prostitution. This is what would happen in Canada if we failed to respond to the Bedford decision.

Research also shows that decriminalization and legalization are linked to higher rates of human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

There is significant profit to be made from prostituting the disempowered who are so often unable to enforce their rights, and the unscrupulous stop at nothing to maximize their profits. They may tout themselves as a helper or legitimate bodyguard, but it is in their interest to encourage and even coerce the prostitution of those they claim to protect. This is another reason why a regime that treats sex work as a legitimate profession results in higher rates of exploitative conducts. Exploiters can hide behind a veneer of legitimacy.

Some who disagree with the approach of Bill C-36 have said that it is bad policy to work toward abolishing prostitution when some freely choose to sell their own sexual services and are content with that choice. The two committees that studied Bill C-36 heard from some individuals who said that they chose sex work as their profession and that they should not be prevented from earning a living in the manner of their choosing.

I accept that some support decriminalization and condone the trade in sexual services between consenting adults, but I do not accept that such a policy choice is better for everyone implicated in the prostitution industry, including the communities in which it is practised and society as large.

All agree that those subjected to prostitution disproportionately come from marginalized backgrounds, and all agree that high levels of violence and trauma are associated with involvement in prostitution. The disagreement lies in how the law should address these serious concerns.

Why does Bill C-36 reject decriminalization in favour of an approach that treats prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation? The research on jurisdictions that have decriminalized or legalized prostitution provides one answer to this question.

As I have already outlined, research shows that decriminalization is linked to growth in the sex industry and higher rates of human trafficking for sexual exploitation. That means an increase in vulnerable people being drawn into prostitution, an increase in abuse of those in positions of vulnerability, an increase in use of coercive practices to draw the vulnerable in and keep them in, and at the end of that continuum of exploitative conduct, an increase in human trafficking. Bill C-36 would prevent the harmful effects of decriminalization.

Those individuals who claim to freely choose prostitution also say that they do not need its proposed prostitution offences. They say that offences such as human trafficking, forcible confinement, assault and sexual assault provide them with sufficient protection against abuse while involved in a trade that is well known for that abuse. That may be so for those who have some control over the sale of their own sexual services, but what about those who do not?

We know from the committee hearings that many do not choose prostitution. Many are subjected to it by force meted out by those who would profit from this trade or because of seriously constrained options from which to choose. Should we afford this group the law's protection only once someone has committed a violent offence against them and how do we ensure they are sufficiently empowered to report such abuse when it occurs?

It has been well recognized, including by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 1992 Downey decision, that the fear of reprisal from exploitative third parties too often keeps the exploited silent. They are afraid, and understandably so. Exploiters have an obvious incentive to keep the vulnerable in prostitution and many do so through horrific forms of abuse.

How do we stop this trajectory? The answer is simple. We say “no” to prostitution by targeting those who fuel the demand for it and those who profit from the trade. Bill C-36 would do that. It prioritizes those who do not choose prostitution.

Prostitution targets the vulnerable, so Bill C-36 targets those who buy their sexual services and those who capitalize on the sale of those services. This means that law enforcement has the tools required to intervene before any member of that vulnerable group is assaulted, sexually assaulted, forcibly confined or trafficked and can prevent the more serious crimes associated with prostitution from happening in the first place.

These are the reasons why Bill C-36 says “no” to decriminalization. These are the reasons why Bill C-36 says “no” to prostitution. Put simply, there are too many risks associated with this practice. A burgeoning sex industry means: an increase in vulnerable persons selling their own sexual services because of lack of meaningful options, or through force; a corresponding increase in the violence and trauma caused by subjection to prostitution; an increase in associated crime, such as drug related offences and human trafficking; and the normalization of a gendered practice that implicates the equality rights of those vulnerable groups so at risk of subjection to it.

I stand with those survivors, some of whom courageously testified before both committees and detailed the horrific abuse they suffered in prostitution. They have told their stories again and again to ensure that this type of abuse stops. They also told the committee that Bill C-36 would send a message. The message is that we are all deserving of dignity, equality and respect. The law should not allow the powerful to use and abuse the less powerful.

I ask my colleagues to stand with me and the brave women who shared their stories of pain and suffering to improve Canadian society. I ask my colleagues to join me in support of Bill C-36.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. Of course, we have rather different views on the approach, but there is one thing we might agree on, and that is the support that could be given to the women who want to get out of this industry.

Does my colleague not believe that the proposal to allocate $20 million, which would have to be shared among 10 provinces and three territories, is completely ridiculous? That could well have been the cornerstone for a bill that would bring about real change.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the $20 million in new funding to assist sellers of sexual services is in addition to other related federal initiatives, including the national action plan to combat human trafficking, the national crime prevention strategy, the victims' fund, the aboriginal justice strategy and funding to address the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women.

The provinces and territories, which are primarily responsible for the delivery of many of the services needed by persons seeking to exit prostitution, such as housing, social and medical services, occupational training and victim services, also provide significant resources.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP highlighted that it wanted regulations and harm reduction regarding prostitution. It sounds to me that those members want legalization with harm reduction.

What has my colleague heard from her constituents and from Canadians, particularly with respect to consultation that went on prior to Bill C-36? I heard that Canadians do not want prostitution to be legalized. They want to follow the Nordic model. What has my colleague heard? What does she think of the NDP's position of legalization?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the debate about the harmful effects of prostitution has been long-standing, long before the Bedford decision was handed down and the one-year suspension. I have heard from community organizations, individuals and communities. They are calling for a change to our prostitution laws as the awareness of their harmful effects continues to grow.

Bill C-36 would put Canada squarely among other jurisdictions that have taken, or are considering taking, an approach that would treat prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation that targets the victims, primarily women and girls, including those disadvantaged by socio-economic factors such as youth, poverty, drug addiction or a history of abuse. This approach aspires to abolish prostitution as a harmful gendered practice and avoids the negative effects of decriminalization or legalization.

I call upon all members of the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party to support this important piece of legislation.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the parliamentary secretary's views and concerns for those who are affected by prostitution. I take her on her word that she is concerned about these things. One would assume then that the bill that the government has brought forward would be a charter-proof bill, a bill that would pass a charter challenge, in order to come into law and then affect those that she is concerned about. We have sought evidence that the government knows and has good confidence that the bill would pass through a Supreme Court challenge. Otherwise, this is all for naught. All her words, all the gestures within the act are meaningless if the bill can never be enacted into law and maintained in law.

Would the member be able to provide the House with some evidence, some advice given to her by the justice department and counsel, that the bill is constitutional and thereby will change the lives of the people we are talking about today?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember that Bill C-36 is a made-in-Canada approach that has two essential parts. The first part is criminal law reform. The second part addresses support for vulnerable persons to help them leave prostitution. This two-pronged approach aims to criminalize those who fuel and perpetuate the demand for prostitution through the purchase of sexual services and to protect those who sell their own sexual services, vulnerable persons and communities from the harm associated with prostitution.

The legislation is our government's comprehensive approach toward addressing prostitution. I encourage that member to support it.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak against Bill C-36 at report stage. I am really glad to have an opportunity to do so despite the Conservatives' use of time allocation once again.

I remain opposed to the government's rush to recriminalize sex work in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision in the Bedford case. Once again with Bill C-36, the government has refused to listen to the Supreme Court, which sent a clear message in the Bedford decision that sex workers have the right to safety and should not have their situation made more dangerous by having new prescriptions put in the Criminal Code.

Like most Canadians, I could not tune in to all this summer's justice committee hearings, but I did hear and see a great deal of testimony, and I read much more of it. I was struck by two things. The first was the selective nature of the government's witnesses, most of whom had experienced a great tragedy concerning a family member who had been involved in sex work or who themselves had been victims of crime while involved in sex work.

Each of these stories, for me, had a common theme. I do not in any way wish to diminish the extent of the harm suffered by those individuals who testified. In each of these cases, the harm done was the result of a criminal act that was and would remain a criminal act whether or not there are restrictions placed on sex work in the Criminal Code. Murder remains illegal. Assault remains illegal. Human trafficking and coercion remain illegal.

I draw a different conclusion from these tragic stories than members of the government side. What these stories tell me is that we ought to do everything we can to make sure that sex work is safer. That is the theme of the Bedford decision from the Supreme Court.

The second theme I noticed coming from both government witnesses and from government members themselves was the tendency to label all sex workers as victims, to see them as poor, unfortunate people who need to be saved.

Most of the sex workers, themselves, who testified rejected this label of victim. Many asserted that they chose sex work, some entirely freely and some as a result of the limited choices they had in front of them, but the vast majority of sex workers emphasized their own choice, their own autonomy, their own control over their lives, and they have been very clear that they wish to retain or enhance that freedom to choose for themselves.

Just this week, we had an important research study released, which had been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Researchers interviewed 218 sex workers in six communities across the country, plus 1,252 clients and 80 police officers. This is actual evidence with regard to sex work. The researchers found that sex workers, in general, overwhelmingly rejected this characterization as victims, with more than 80% of both sex workers and clients saying that sex workers control the terms of these transactions.

There was one other thing I noted in these hearings, though perhaps even more in the Senate pre-study hearings. I must say at times I felt that sex workers who appeared were shown an astonishing lack of respect by Conservative committee members. This has been communicated back to me as a member of Parliament directly by more than one witness who appeared.

As I said in debate at second reading, I have long had contact with sex workers in my riding, stretching back to my days as a city councillor. In my community, we are fortunate to have a sex worker-run self-help organization called PEERS. PEERS is an acronym that probably still means something formal but in our community it has simply come to mean an organization that cares for and helps those involved in sex work.

PEERS has offered everything from bad date lists to a drop-in centre to education and housing assistance. Unfortunately, like many valuable organizations in the community, PEERS is now struggling with severe funding issues. The amount the government has allocated, $20 million, will do little to help out these organizations in their very important work.

As a result of my contact with PEERS, I have had several opportunities to meet with sex workers to discuss the Bedford decision, both before it came out and then after it came down, as well as this legislation before it came to second reading. Before speaking today, I was fortunate to be able to participate, last Friday, in a community forum organized by PEERS, called “Decriminalizing the Sex Industry: Beyond the Myths and Misconceptions”. The format was a diverse panel of eight members responding to audience questions after some brief opening statements. The panel was moderated by Jody Paterson, one of the founding sisters of PEERS, and someone I much admire for taking her journalism and turning it into advocacy for sex workers.

I have to say I was surprised to find more than 120 people in attendance at a panel on a very sunny Friday afternoon. I was privileged to be one of the panel members as it gave me a chance to interact with seven real experts on sex work, and to learn from their experience. There were three sex workers, or former sex workers, on the panel: Catherine Healy, the national coordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective; Natasha Potvin, a PEERS board member; and Lisa Ordell, a Métis woman and registered massage therapist. The panel also included Staff Sergeant Todd Wellman, head of the Victoria Police Department's special victims unit; and Gillian Calder, a professor of family and constitutional law at the University of Victoria.

It also included two scientific researchers on sex work: Dr. Sarah Hunt, a Kwagiulth researcher who has done work with first nations women involved in sex work for more than 20 years; and Chris Atchison from the University of Victoria Department of Sociology, one of the researchers on the study that was published this week.

I spent a lot of time describing this panel in the House today because this panel, and indeed virtually every person attending the forum, agreed on some common themes and a common conclusion. Their conclusion was that Bill C-36 would make the lives of sex workers even more dangerous.

Professor Calder made it clear that the Supreme Court sent us in the House a clear message that it was our responsibility not to re-criminalize sex work, but to legislate it in a way that makes sex work safer and provides greater protection for the rights of sex workers.

I have already spoken of Chris Atchison's study and its rejection of the argument that sex workers are ipso facto victims. He also spoke eloquently of the direct connection between sex workers being able to communicate openly with their clients and the safety of their work. His research shows how criminalizing johns would make that communication inevitably more furtive, more hurried and therefore make sex work more dangerous.

Staff Sergeant Wellman spoke eloquently from his perspective as a 27-year veteran police officer and his five years as the head of a special victims unit. He identified the importance of sex workers feeling able to communicate freely with police. If that is not the case, he stressed, investigating things like violence and exploitation of sex workers becomes even more difficult for the police; and preventing the kinds of tragedies that many government witnesses spoke about becomes nearly impossible. Clearly those provisions in Bill C-36 that criminalize sex workers would make police work harder.

Dr. Sarah Hunt challenged us to ask those national first nations organizations that have expressed support for this bill to demonstrate that they have actually spoken to first nations women involved in sex work or in sex work research and support roles. She challenged their right to speak for first nations without doing this work. The very presence of two first nations women on this panel spoke volumes about whether those claims to speak for all first nations women should be accepted.

Catherine Healy, in turn, challenged us to ask those who cite New Zealand as a negative example of the impacts of legalizing sex work to present their evidence. She clearly showed that the evidence in fact shows a reduction in violence against women in the sex industry in New Zealand. She challenged the assertions made before us in this House that there has been an increase in underage women in sex work in New Zealand or an increase in trafficking of women to New Zealand as entirely without foundation, as simply false.

Let me begin to close by citing just two more things from the forum. One was the importance of a safe space it created for sex workers, like Natasha Potvin and Lisa Ordell and members of the audience, to tell their stories. There was moving testimony in the form of Lisa Ordell's mother simply showing up and identifying herself as “Lisa's mother” in order to support her daughter. There was moving testimony from audience members about the stigma attached to being a sex worker, and the resulting social isolation, making their struggles to escape alcoholism, addiction and violence even more difficult.

My conclusion is that our decision on Bill C-36 should not be about whether any of us like or do not like sex work. Instead, it should be based on what would make these women, men and transgendered Canadians who are already involved in sex work safer, whatever their story, however they arrived there.

I want to close with some questions we must ask ourselves as members of Parliament before we vote on this bill.

As a result of Bill C-36, would sex workers be able to conduct negotiations with potential clients in ways that allow them to be sure of who they are dealing with and in ways that help them avoid bad dates? This would help keep them safe.

As a result of Bill C-36, would sex workers be able to communicate openly with police when they need protection against violence, coercion and exploitation? This would help keep them safe.

As a result of Bill C-36, would sex workers be able to participate in society without the stigma attached to their work denying them access to services and rights that the rest of us enjoy without a thought? This would help keep them safe.

As a result of Bill C-36, would there be less violence against women in Canada?

For me, Bill C-36 clearly fails on all these counts. I am sorry that this bill will pass this Parliament. I am even sorrier for the harm that will result in the time it will take to challenge it in court, and the time it will take for the Supreme Court to rule it unconstitutional, just as the Criminal Code provisions that preceded it were invalidated in the Bedford decision.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It being 1:15 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Thursday, September 25, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings, and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 1, and a vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 52.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the recorded division on the motion stands deferred until Monday, September 29 at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 2 to 52.

The hon. parliamentary secretary is rising on a point of order.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am looking at my watch. If you look at your watch, I think that the time is now 1:30 p.m., if you agree.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The parliamentary secretary moves that the clock be seen as 1:30 p.m. Does he have unanimous consent for this?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Agreed.

Reducing the effects of urban heat islands Act

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

moved that Bill C-579, An Act to reduce the effects of urban heat islands on the health of Canadians, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to my bill, Bill C-579, An Act to reduce the effects of urban heat islands on the health of Canadians. To begin, let me explain what a heat island is.

The term “heat island” refers to an urban area that is hotter than the surrounding areas. In urban environments, the infrastructure tends to absorb large amounts of solar radiation during summer heat waves and release it in the form of heat, thus creating heat islands. In the most serious cases, temperature differences can reach 12 degrees Celsius at night.

I would like to make my colleagues aware of the public health risk that this represents. To do that I will simply tell my colleagues how I became interested in this growing problem. I will explain how health professionals in my riding, Honoré-Mercier, brought this to my attention; how we drafted the bill in response to the needs expressed by the community; how the work was done in collaboration with organizations that are already committed to finding tangible solutions in urban communities; and how for the past few months, we have been receiving a wave of support for this bill, which everyone sees as a simple, yet fundamental contribution by the federal government.

I sincerely believe that when members of the House find out about the impact of heat islands on Canadians' health, they will not hesitate to support my bill. That is what I hope.

I would like to give hon. members a bit of background. On May 7, 2011, in the days following the May 2 election, I attended an event in Pointe-de-l'Île. It was a meeting with the mayor of Rivière-des-Prairies and public health officers from the health and social services centres, better known as the CSSS. This issue spoke to me. They started talking about heat islands. I learned that Honoré-Mercier has one of the largest heat islands in Quebec during heatwaves. I want to emphasize that point.

At home in eastern Montreal, it was the worrisome number of asthmatic children that first alerted the public health authority. In searching for the cause of these health problems the health authority discovered the scope of the adverse effect of high temperatures on people who live in areas that become heat islands during heat waves. This phenomenon's adverse effect on health has an impact on all Canadians who live in cities because high temperatures increase pollution. We know that more than 80% of Canadians live in urban centres. That is reason enough to address the problem. We might also say that dealing with health problems will result in significant savings for the provinces.

We can add to that list those who live in the most densely populated urban areas, areas filled with concrete buildings and paved parking lots. It is often seniors or the poorest and least mobile individuals who cluster around local services. The most vulnerable Canadians are therefore the first to feel the negative impacts of heat islands. We are talking about seniors, children and pregnant women. Members will therefore understand my haste in asking the government to take stronger action on this issue.

I would like to give my colleagues a brief overview of the research that my team and I have done since I became aware of this issue in order to help them understand the symptoms associated with the urban heat island effect. As I said, a heat island is an urban area where the air and ground temperatures are higher than in surrounding areas. This is usually a difference of about 5°C or 6°C, but it can reach up to 12°C at its worst. If we think about a summer day in Montreal when it is 35°C, the humidity can bring this up to 37°C; an extra five degrees can therefore make a big difference.

I am thinking here about neighbourhoods where residents experience sweltering heat. Imagine the effect on their health. Heat islands occur in densely populated urban areas—as I already mentioned—and in areas where the ground is covered in concrete. The asphalt absorbs the heat and prevents any water from infiltrating the soil. It is therefore useless to water the asphalt. As I already mentioned, this promotes smog. More smog is produced because of the heat, and so, in the end, everyone is affected.

Let me now give you a specific scenario. Imagine we are in the middle of a heat wave. Your car is not working, and people are saying, on the radio, that you should go to a shopping centre, where you can cool off thanks to the air conditioning. So you end up walking to the shopping centre and you cross the parking lot, all the while pushing the baby's stroller. It is hot. You feel terrible. You finally get there, but you are tired. The baby is even more tired because he cannot express his discomfort. You finally step into the cool, comfortable shopping centre. Imagine now that you have taken off your shoes and are walking barefoot on the asphalt. How many seconds could you stand the heat without crying out?

As I said earlier, this material soaks up heat during the day, then releases it at night. Indeed, if you open a window, the air will still be warm. This adds to the continuous impact of the phenomenon. Furthermore, people living in these urban areas tend to use more air conditioning, which in turn makes the surrounding air warmer. This makes things worse for their neighbours without air conditioning. As is often the case, this vicious circle affects the most vulnerable—seniors, children, those who are sick— who cannot escape this oppressive heat and are left to suffer.

During the day, the only refuges are shopping malls, since they offer a cool environment. However, once the malls close, people return to their apartments, which are so hot that they can make people sick. It is even worse for small children or anyone with heart problems or blood pressure issues.

I truly believe that this is definitely a health issue. Montreal's public health department said that on hot days, the mortality rate was on average 20% higher for people living in heat islands.

Health Canada has found that 8,000 deaths between 1979 and 2003 were caused exclusively by exposure to high or extreme heat. In Europe, 70,000 people died during the 2003 heat wave. We all saw this on TV.

Many people suffer in silence. The symptoms are weakness; fatigue; cramps; heart failure; breathing difficulties; and aggravation of chronic, cardiovascular, neurological or renal diseases.

There are some solutions. If people who are already sick or on medication are not careful to keep themselves hydrated on hot days, they are putting their lives at risk. When I learned that most seniors living alone suffered more than they had to, since they didn't know how the environment could affect their health, I decided that this was unacceptable. People all over suffer as well.

What happens in the riding of Honoré-Mercier also goes on in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and many other Canadian cities. That is why I gave specific documents to some of my colleagues. I was pleased to be able to share with them information on heat islands.

I introduced this bill because I am calling on Health Canada to establish a national strategy to reduce the effects of urban heat islands, in consultation with the Minister of the Environment, provincial ministers, health representatives and municipal representatives.

I believe it is important to draw from the experiences of communities and the private industry, which have already committed to fighting the effects of heat islands by tackling the sources of the problem.

There are companies in Canada that have figured out how to make white roads. On a plane to Edmonton, I met a company president who told me that he had imported technology from Europe to do it here in Canada, which would create jobs. The best argument I can offer the House in favour of this bill is that solutions exist.

The purpose of this bill is to raise awareness among decision-makers and individuals, but it also offers hope. My hope is that this bill will help harmonize measures at the national level. Some provinces and municipalities have made a little progress, but if we all work together to solve the problem, I believe the health care savings will be huge, we will create jobs, and we will have the quality of life we deserve.

We have to carry out positive experiments in a community so that they can benefit all Canadians. Inspiring solutions exist, and all community stakeholders can get involved, including companies that are thinking more about the impact of their infrastructure on air quality, municipalities that are trying to green their urban environments and regulate the use of certain materials in building construction and renovation, provincial governments that are figuring out how to locate and measure heat islands, and, of course, organizations involved in raising public awareness and greening problematic urban areas. Everyone needs to get involved in combating the negative effects of heat islands. The federal government must do its part too.

The bill does not provide all the solutions. I propose that we go looking for those solutions together. I need the help of all the members from all parties represented in the House. I need to raise awareness. I can provide some information to help my colleagues who represent ridings dealing with the issue of heat islands. I believe that nationwide collaboration on this type of strategy would maximize the efforts of the communities fighting the harm caused by heat islands on the health of Canadians.

We need to remember one thing: other countries are looking to Canada. We can play a leadership role. Canada can be a country like those that are already addressing the issue, including Germany. Many other countries and large cities in the world have already developed strategies to prevent the problem. Germany's building code and federal nature conservation legislation require municipalities to support sustainable development and protect natural landscapes. In the United States, the federal government provides the states with financial and technical assistance to implement urban forestry plans and encourage research on the role of the canopy as a means of mitigating the effects of urban heat islands. Chicago, Illinois, is a leader in the United States for its green roofing projects. Over the past century, the temperature in Tokyo has increased five times faster than the global average. To fight the effects of urban heat islands, Tokyo requires all new buildings to cover at least 20% of the roof area with vegetation.

We have good reason to take action to protect the health of Canadians. We can do more. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Together, we can do better.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Honoré-Mercier not only for her edifying speech but also for having introduced such a pertinent bill. As we all know, environmental legislation certainly does not emanate from the other side. Thankfully, the NDP is here to ensure that future generations will be able to live in an environment as healthy as ours, or even healthier if possible.

My colleague's bill certainly fits with the environmental vision that compels us to act locally but think globally and come up with global solutions. By local, we mean within a riding, a municipality, a province and, of course, Canada.

I am apprehensive of the answer, but will Canada once again be the only OECD country without a policy on this?

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, but we can still catch up. I certainly hope we will be able to do more. We will reach the same level as other countries and worry about the health of Canadians. We must always remain hopeful.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague for her wonderful speech.

I lived in the riding of Honoré—Mercier for several years and so I know that heat islands cause real problems near refineries and highways.

Does my colleague think that it would be a good idea for the federal government, the provinces and the municipalities to work together to resolve this problem as set out in her bill?

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

That is precisely the purpose of the bill: for the federal government, the provinces and the municipalities to work together. This would save money and improve people's quality of life.

We all need to work together because we are all part of the same country.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as hon. members can see, this is something that is very important to me.

Can the hon. member for Honoré-Mercier tell us whether addressing the problem of heat islands would also help the provinces save money on health care?