Debates of Oct. 26th, 2017

Business of the House

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to table the petition not in the usual form?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Religious Freedom

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I present a petition on behalf of people in riding of Haldimand—Norfolk. They are deeply concerned with clause 14 of Bill C-51. As it stands, clause 14 would remove the only provision in the Criminal Code that would directly protect the rights of individuals to freely practice their religion, whatever that religion may be.

The petitioners call on the government to remove clause 14 from the legislation and protect the religious freedoms of all Canadians.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

There being no motions at report stage the House will now proceed, without debate, to the putting of the question of the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

moved the bill be concurred in.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

On division.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

(Motion agreed to)

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

moved that the bill be read a third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Yukon, who we would like to recognize for the exemplary and effective representation of Yukoners in the House.

Today we begin third reading debate—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The hon. member has asked to split her time, but in this situation she would have to have unanimous consent to do that.

Is there unanimous consent of the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today we begin third reading debate on Bill C-17, an act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, or YESAA.

I want to acknowledge that we are gathered on traditional Algonquin territory.

We know that a sustainably developed resource sector is essential to the economic success of Yukon. A prosperous resource sector will serve as an important foundation for Yukon's future economic and job growth.

Yukoners have also made it clear that unlocking this economic potential must be contingent on environmental sustainability and on impacted indigenous communities being engaged as equal partners. They understand that this is not only essential to support reconciliation, but a legal obligation as well.

This is even more significant in regions like the Yukon, which are subject to comprehensive land claim agreements and self-government agreements. The original 2003 YESAA stems from the umbrella final agreement between Canada, Yukon first nations, and the Government of Yukon, which required a five-year review of the YESAA. This was carried out by the previous government and resulted in a number of mutually agreed upon recommendations.

Bill S-6, the Yukon and Nunavut Regulatory Improvement Act, was introduced in the Senate in June 2014 and received royal assent in June 2015.

A large part of the bill implemented the consensus provisions based on the recommendations from the five-year review.

Unfortunately, despite spending years working with Yukon first nations on the comprehensive review, the previous government added four further controversial changes outside that process and pushed them through absent meaningful consultation. As members are now aware, these controversial changes included legislated time limits on the review process; exempting a project from reassessment when a authorization was renewed or amended, unless there had been a significant change to the project; the ability for the federal minister to provide binding policy direction to the Yukon environmental assessment board; and the ability to delegate the federal minister's powers, duties, or functions under the act to the territorial government.

This disregard for meaningful consultation reflected the previous government's unfortunate and misguided paternalistic approach regarding indigenous people in Canada. Rather than working in partnership with indigenous communities to find common ground and mutually beneficial solutions to issues, it forced indigenous peoples to resort to the courts to assert their rights. This not only led to unnecessary costs for all parties, but often caused unnecessary delay, legal uncertainty, and undermined reconciliation.

It also positioned the federal government to lose court case after court case.

In response to the passage of these four contentious provisions, three Yukon first nations launched a court challenge in the fall of 2015. The court petition claimed that the amendments were in violation of the Yukon umbrella final agreement and that there was inadequate consultation. Despite their court action, Yukon first nations entered into subsequent discussions with the governments of Yukon and Canada about how to resolve this situation outside of court. These discussions led to the signing of a memorandum of understanding in April 2016, which clearly outlines the steps required to resolve the first nations' concerns with Bill S-6.

As a direct result of that collaborative process, the Yukon first nations pursuing legal action have adjourned their hearing dates while this bill proceeds.

This bill would re-establish trust with Yukon first nations and restore legal certainty for responsible resource development. It would also remove a key impediment to increased investment, development, and jobs in Yukon.

The vast majority of Yukoners support this bill.

In fact, a unanimous motion supporting Bill C-17 was passed by the Yukon legislature last spring. In addition, the Council of Yukon First Nations, Yukon government, and the Yukon Chamber of Mines issued a joint letter last March, urging the passage of Bill C-17, without change, as soon as possible.

The letter also stated that they looked forward passing the bill so, “the Yukon economy can benefit from the certainty established by the final and self-government agreements in Yukon.” My office spoke with the Yukon Chamber of Mines earlier this week and it confirmed its support for passing the bill on an expedited basis, with the understanding that issues, including reassessments and reasonable timelines, would be dealt with through other policy mechanisms shortly thereafter.

First nations and the Governments of Canada and Yukon agree that issues, including reassessments of projects and reasonable time limits for assessments, require a strong policy framework. Canada, Yukon, self-governing Yukon first nations, industry, and the board are all committed to working in collaboration through the regulatory process to establish practical timelines for the assessment processes and clear and sensible rules for when reassessments may be required.

The Conservative opposition told the committee that the bill should be set aside not just until the process moved forward, but until it was finalized.

The members claim that this is in response to concerns expressed by some industry representatives about delays in moving forward with the regulatory discussions I referenced above. Yukon first nations have been clear. Passing Bill C-17 is an important show of good faith and a first step in moving forward with these important discussions.

It is disingenuous of the Conservatives to cite delays they caused by filibustering this bill last spring as justification for further delaying moving the legislation forward and the subsequent needed regulatory discussions. By trying to further delay, or even derail the bill, the Conservatives risk driving this matter back into litigation and undermining the very certainty for industry for which they claim to be advocating.

Bill C-17 clearly demonstrates our intent to work closely with all partners, including Yukon first nations, the Yukon industry, and the Yukon government, to re-establish trust with Yukon first nations and restore legal certainty for responsible resource development.

I hope all members will support this bill.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in her comments the minister clearly identified the fact that the timelines in the reassessment process are critical to the industry, as the industry has expressed. Indeed, officials from industry came to committee and expressed significant concerns. They said that the government could not walk and chew gum at the same time. Industry had anticipated replacement language in this legislation, or at least that the conversation would have started around what the proper timelines in the legislation would be. What would the policy criteria be? The minister and her department have left industry hanging. There is no reason not to have those conversations as the bill moves through the process.

Could the minister explain when and how the government will ensure that there will be reasonable timelines and good policy language around reassessment?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is important that we clarify that the chamber of mines wants this legislation passed expeditiously, as do Yukon first nations and the Yukon government, as demonstrated by the unanimous vote in the Yukon legislature.

As we discussed with the chamber of mines this week, the chamber is very comfortable with having ongoing conversations about reasonable timelines and reassessments. It wants us to get on with it and pass the bill. That is what the House needs to do.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speech, and I applaud the government's commitment to fixing what the old Conservative government broke. While this is a step in the right direction, there is still room for improvement, and the government can do even more.

I have a quote here from someone who is concerned about the new fiscal approach that was imposed by the Conservative government:

The fiscal approach contradicts and violates our final agreements. In several fundamental ways Canada cannot implement its fiscal approach and meet the modern treaty agreement commitments under self-governing Yukon first nations.

That was from the chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, who appeared before the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development in February 2016. I would like to know the minister's plan for addressing his concerns.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Fiscal agreements with first nations are crucial, and we have to have good conversations with them about their self-government and their ability to provide their people with the programs and institutions they need.

I am very comfortable with the excellent conversations going on now with the self-governing first nations on a new fiscal relationship that will give, as we promised, stable, predictable, and adequate funding.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that the minister and her office reached out last week. I am sure that was after they heard very troubling testimony at committee.

I want to go back to the reassessment process. We heard that since that legislation was passed, that particular feature was used over a hundred times with no detrimental environmental effects. It just saved industry enormous amounts of money and time.

Given that it was used over a hundred times, why has the government not reached out with new policy and regulatory language that would address these issues, because these are absolutely critical for industry?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, we received a letter on March 13 of this year signed by the premier and Grand Chief Peter Johnston, as well as the president of the Yukon Council of Mines. In that letter, they urged the government of Yukon self-governing first nations, the Council of Yukon First Nations, and Yukon Chamber of Mines to look forward to Bill C-17 being passed without change as soon as possible. In the final paragraph, they said that they looked forward to the support of the House in moving the bill through, so that “the Yukon economy can benefit from the certainty established by the Final and Self-Government Agreements in Yukon.”

As the member noted, we were surprised by the testimony of the chamber of mines officials at committee. We sought clarification and it reaffirmed that it wants the bill passed through the House right now and looks forward to any conversations about appropriate timelines and the reassessment process.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be here today.

I am pleased to speak to Bill C-17 at third reading. I speak from the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe.

In 10 words or less, today is all about Bill C-17 removing four clauses illegally put into law. We are all legislators here, and we should be the first to unanimously agree to pass the bill for that reason. That is why, as the minister said, the Yukon legislature was unanimous in passing the bill, including the Yukon Party, which is the Conservatives. I should in theory be able to sit down now and we would vote unanimously to pass the bill, as the Yukon legislature did.

I would like to thank every member in the House today for their thoughtful debate and co-operation in going through report stage very quickly.

I would like to tell a story to give a sense of the feeling behind all of this. People at home can participate in this exercise too. Think about someone who retired and decided he wanted to get into business with a couple of partners or friends of his. They all got together, spent a couple of years working really hard to get a business set up, perhaps a resort in a wealthy country. He would sit and have piña coladas and enjoy himself. His kids were going to high class school. He mortgaged his house. Everything was on the line. It was pretty important to his family and their lives. Then one day when he went to work, he saw a sold sign. One or two of his other partners had sold his dream business, his life savings, and put it into a factory in a third world country with millions of people, in a dangerous slum, where he would have to try to get his kids into school. How would he feel under those circumstances? Obviously he would be very angry. He would feel betrayed. He would be apoplectic. Under those circumstances, what type of relationship would he have with those two partners? Would he ever do business with them again? He could never imagine that.

In the case we are talking about here, the three partners are the federal government, the Yukon government, and the first nations government. They cannot just walk away. From now onward, indeed forever, they have to work together on things for their people. Imagine the great rebuilding of trust that would have to be done with those partners because of this situation.

How did we get here? As the minister said, after 20 years, not just the two years in the scenario we set up, the modern treaty or UFA was signed. It is constitutionally protected, so even we in the House cannot change it. It prescribed that YESAA would be created for assessments in Yukon. That took 10 years and was approved in 2003.

Imagine, as in the case I just talked about, after negotiating for 30 years, all of a sudden one or two of the partners added four significant clauses without negotiation. This is what happened. The four clauses are probably illegal, if not technically, then in the spirit of the law or the honour of the crown. Anything done illegally, regardless of the content, whether good or bad, had to be undone and cancelled. That is basically the end of the story today.

Normally, for that reason, I refuse to talk about any of the content of those four items. Nevertheless, because I have four minutes left, there were some concerns raised that I might try to alleviate a bit. The minister and the opposition have already mentioned the reaching out that has been done. The process will start right away to deal with timelines and reassessments.

I thank the mining association and the mining companies, because in the years when the government was not really following the honour of the crown, individual mining companies made partners with first nations. The chamber of mines worked with the Council of Yukon First Nations and took a great leadership role, so kudos to the mining industry.

In the second reading debate on April 10, 2017, members commented about the removal of time limits. They said that the Liberals were taking out time limits, that we wanted to remove all time limits, that we put time limits on the review process, that we removed timelines, that time limits do matter, that we eliminated timelines, that we would repeal the time limits, that we would remove the time limits. One would think that people watching this and hearing all those comments would think there were no timelines, but timelines were put into the bill when it was established.

In 2003, the bill explained how timelines were created through the rules of the board. They were gazetted and have been in place ever since. My understanding is that they have not changed in all those years. Since the first project was approved in 2005, the timelines have been there and are still working. The opposition said in the second reading debate that it was important to leave decisions in the hands of Yukoners, and that is exactly what this bill would do, because those timelines are created by Yukoners. I am sure that the opposition would rather have people in their ridings setting deadlines for important things as opposed to the government setting them in Ottawa.

Those timelines compare favourably with those in other jurisdictions. Some of the projects take half the time of British Columbia assessments. The timelines have not been lengthened in recent years. There are two categories of projects. For a district office, the average is only 70 days, and for small projects they are considerably shorter. The timeline put in Bill S-6 is 270 days. That is far longer than those projects' timelines. On the executive committee, the other category, the very serious projects, of which there have been only seven, the fault was in the other direction. There was just not enough time put in. What has happened is that first nations have not been able to do the appropriate analysis, nor have the territorial or federal technicians in various departments.

What happens if there is an assessment without the appropriate input or analysis? Two things probably happen. First, for purposes of integrity, the project is rejected. The mining industry or developers would not want that. Second, a chance could be taken and it could be approved, but it could be challenged, especially by first nations, because there are requirements in YESAA for their input.

The final point I would like to make is on reassessments. I have 10 quotes, but I will not read them. There are two things I will say in the limited time I have. First, technically there are no reassessments. If something is exactly the same, section 40 of the act does not allow a reassessment. In fact, what has happened in reality is that when a project comes up, quite often, on the ground, the decision body will say that it is exactly the same, that it is just renewing a licence and it will not go ahead. A lot of the 100 projects the opposition member quite rightly brought up would not be reassessed under the present system, so there would not be 100.

The second thing that happened in that five-year review is that one of the policies changed and they have gone to temporal scoping, which is a good thing. That means that instead of scoping like they used to according to the licence and causing the reassessments that were of concern, they can scope a lot longer in the life of the project, resulting in far fewer reassessments.

For all of those reason and reassurances, I would like to go back to what I said at the beginning. We have to remove four improper clauses. I hope we can do that quickly, because it will bring back certainty for the mining industry, developers, and first nations and, hopefully, start to rebuild the partnership that is so important for any development in Yukon.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, recently the finance committee went to Yellowknife and heard from a variety of people from the north; obviously not from his neck of the woods, but important voices. I hope he would agree.

One of the things that has been raised is that many of these groups we spoke about, whether we are talking about industry or indigenous people, do not always have the resources to meaningfully consult, particularly if we have an array of departments—environment, natural resources, indigenous services, or what not—all hosting different consultations on a whole host of items. They do not have the resources, staff time, or technical expertise to meaningful engage. Therefore, most of the time, they just simply do not engage. They do not do that.

The member's government is responsible for putting out a tremendous amount of uncertainty and, at the same time, making it seem impossible for these groups to be meaningfully consulted. How does the member propose that we work on this issue?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, first of all on the uncertainty, that is what we are doing today: returning the certainty.

The member made a very important point that, in this particular case, the Yukon is different from NWT or any other part of Canada, because for this assessment, the rest of Canada has to go through CEAA, but the Yukon does not. It has its own assessment and its own regime. However, talking about intervenor funding, each first nation gets a specific amount of money from the federal government for the exact purposes the member mentioned.

I will say that there is the possibility of a way to improve the allocation of those funds. For example, some projects may be heavier in mining, and those districts where there is a lot of development may have a lot of projects, whereas another first nation may not have any projects in a particular year, yet they both get the same amount of money from us. The member may have raised a point unintentionally, that we could do a better job of distributing the money, but we do distribute the money so that they can do some analysis of those projects.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member from both of his times here in this place. I know him particularly as the chair of PROC, and so I know him as a person who is not very partisan. I am sure that reflects both him and his territory. I say that because I would not ordinarily ask this kind of question in this kind of circumstance. However, because it is this hon. member, I am quite comfortable asking, and I know I am going to get a fulsome answer.

So far, it sounds as if most of the major players affected by Bill C-17, or that have an interest, are onside, with maybe a couple of questions and clarifications. However, I would ask the hon. member this. Are there any entities in Yukon, anyone affected, either entities or individuals, that are still offside, with still more work to be done, or would he answer me that, no, virtually all of the players who have a vested interest in Bill C-17 have had their issues addressed in the bill, or at least they know that any details are still going to be followed through?

If he could give me that assessment from his territory, I would appreciate it.