Debates of Oct. 30th, 2017

The House resumed from September 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Department of Health Act

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be speaking today on an act to amend the Department of Health Act drinking water guidelines. Before getting into the sobering debate that is under way, I wish to quickly highlight the village of Zeballos in my riding, as it was voted best tap water in B.C. this year, according to the BC Water & Waste Association.

In principle, the NDP supports the bill's mandated guideline reviews since it has long called for a national water policy to secure the principles of water as a human right and a public trust. We need to have a discussion about more stringent national objectives and standards, in line with the European Union, United States, Australia, and the World Health Organization.

According to a 2014 report commissioned by the environmental litigation organization Ecojustice, drinking water standards in Canada continue to lag behind international benchmarks. With a country as rich as ours, and with so much freshwater resource at our disposal, it is quite shameful to be in this position, having to debate drinking water guidelines in the House in 2017.

There are two-thirds of all first nations communities in Canada that have been under at least one drinking water advisory at some time in the last decade, and people in many municipalities face repeated drinking water advisories. According to the latest figures from Health Canada, 85 first nations communities across Canada are facing a total of 130 drinking water advisories, 98 of them long term, and 32 short term. That does not include communities in B.C. where a separate first nations health authority tracks water quality.

It was a major promise in the last election to end drinking advisories in indigenous communities within five years. However, according to a recent report from the David Suzuki Foundation, the Liberal government is not on track to fulfill its promise and has no plan to get there. That is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and frustrating.

There is no regulatory framework holding the federal government accountable for safe drinking water in indigenous communities. This is largely because provincial laws and regulations that apply for municipalities do not apply to reserves, which are considered federal lands under federal jurisdiction. Enabling legislation passed in 2013 gave the government the authority to develop water and waste water regulations for first nations communities under the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act, but it does not compel the government to do so. This means that no level of government is currently held accountable to ensure that drinking water is clean and safe on reserves.

Engineers working in the field apply provincial standards as guidance for their operations. However, because of this informal approach, it does not empower communities in their efforts to hold the federal government accountable when underfunding, equipment breakdown, and other issues prevent them from maintaining these standards. Without these standards, there are victims in the path of this neglect.

Dorothy Firstrider of the Blood band said, “A lot of our community members are suffering from stomach infections that are due to unsafe drinking water.... A lot of our infants are constantly being treated for a lot of infections that are due to unhealthy drinking water.” That is not okay in our country. We will never achieve true reconciliation without addressing the inequality, and indeed the injustice, that has existed throughout this country for far too long with respect to drinking water.

It is completely unacceptable that successive federal governments have failed to honour the fundamental human right to clean drinking water in so many indigenous communities. There needs to be an expedited infrastructure development process. There needs to be more indigenous decision-making in the process, and there needs to be greater transparency in how the federal government is working towards upholding its promise to end drinking water advisories within five years.

The Liberals will claim they are spending money, but the additional funds allocated for first nations water systems in the 2016 budget represent less than half the amount that engineering firm Neegan Burnside estimated was necessary in 2011. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada's funding pressures will likely worsen as it finances new plants that tend to be more expensive to operate than their predecessors.

In my riding of North Island—Powell River, we have seen some progress in some areas. The clean water and wastewater fund joint initiative between the B.C. provincial government and the Government of Canada has awarded additional infrastructure dollars in the riding over the past few years. However, there are still some important challenges ahead. We still have highly coloured water or “cedar water” in some areas. Saline intrusion is an issue for wells on islands and near the coast, where groundwater is often a reservoir of fresh water on top of the more dense saline water. Kingcome first nation is concerned about its water supply. Comox has had significant problems with turbidity, causing extended boil water advisories fairly regularly over the last few years. It has just settled on a proposal for a new filtration system and is now working on funding, for which it will have a very large federal ask. It is so important that it be addressed. Like Comox, too many municipalities continue to face repeated drinking water advisories. The federal government needs to step up to ensure that every Canadian community has access to clean drinking water.

I see the bill before us today as a conversation starter, because experts have clearly demonstrated that Canada is lagging on many fronts when it comes to drinking water. Here are a few examples that the Liberals need to take in consideration.

Canadian drinking water objectives and standards should incorporate health based, long-term objectives for drinking water quality similar to the maximum contaminant level goals established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These long-term objectives would provide a vision for the future and clarify the distinction between purely health-based objectives and standards based on other considerations.

New Canadian drinking water objectives and standards should establish outcome-based treatment standards to ensure effective protection from microbiological organisms through advanced filtration, or an equally effective treatment process such as UV, for all communities in which drinking water supply is provided by surface water sources or groundwater that is directly influenced by surface water. This step is needed to address the threat to public health posed by microbiological contaminants, particularly protozoa and viruses. The U.S. has already taken this important step.

The last is establishing national standards for maximum allowable concentrations for microbiological, physical, chemical, and radiological contaminants. The U.S. and the EU have legally binding standards for maximum allowable concentrations in drinking water. Canadians should enjoy the same level of protection. One approach would be to create a federal safety net, so that the national standards would only apply on federal lands and in provinces and territories that did not provide the same level of health protection as the national standards.

In principle, the NDP will support this bill's mandated guideline reviews since it has long called for a national water policy to secure the principles of water as a human right and a public trust. I hope the government will respond to our call for more stringent national objectives and standards in line with the European Union, United States, Australia, and the World Health Organization.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to have an opportunity to speak this morning.

I trust that members had a good weekend, perhaps putting their final Halloween preparations together and getting their costumers ready. I hear the Minister of Defence has a good architect costume ready to go, the Minister of Finance is going to dress himself up as a champion of the middle class, and the Prime Minister is going to work as hard as possible to look like a feminist. I am sure we will be seeing good costumes on display this week, and I wish members well in the celebrations. If the costumes do not go well, do not worry, nothing is going to scare our children more than the deficit projections.

Now, Bill C-326 is an act to amend the Department of Health Act, establishing drinking water guidelines. For those who are just joining the debate, the bill would amend the Department of Health Act to require the Minister of Health to conduct a review of drinking water standards in other OECD countries. It is a requirement to conduct that review. If appropriate after conducting that review, though it is not required of the minister, it would empower the minister to make recommendations for amendments to the national guidelines respecting drinking water.

I know what members might be thinking, but the bill is not as controversial as it might sound at first. The bill would give the minister the added encouragement to conduct this review and gather this information based on best practices in other countries within the OECD. On that basis, we think it is a reasonable bill. It is something we in the opposition are pleased to support. I think the bill will find support throughout the House as a way of moving forward and bringing more information into the assessment in terms of what we are doing with respect to drinking water.

With that explained in terms of the context of the bill, I will make a few points with respect to it in terms of water quality, the federal role, and the question of ministerial discretion. Then, finally, I will talk about how we incorporate the best science and information into the policy decisions we make.

First of all, of course, in the Conservative caucus, we strongly support high-quality drinking water. We think that governments at all levels should do as much as they possibly can to ensure that water is safe to drink. We recognize, especially for indigenous communities, that there is a great deal of work that still needs to be done in that respect. However, it is a basic principle that all people should be able to access this fundamental necessity of life. They should be able to access water in a clean and safe way.

We live in a country that is geographically dispersed. It is very large. That can potentially create some additional challenges, but it is fundamental that people be able to access clean water. I do not think that is a point on which any member would disagree.

One of the things that the bill invites us to consider is the federal role in establishing standards. Certainly under the previous government, we believed in a federal role for establishing clean water standards. At the same time, the practical implementation of those guidelines, for most Canadians, happens through other levels of government, at the provincial and municipal level. Of course, the federal government has more direct involvement with respect to indigenous communities. There is still a role for the federal government to be reviewing this information and working to establish guidelines, even though the implementation happens at other levels. The way we can think about this balance is under the principle of subsidiarity, which is something I believe in, and that we in the Conservative caucus believe in.

Subsidiarity is the idea that services should be delivered at the level closest to the people affected that is practical for the service delivery to happen. It means we should be concerned about legislation or policy that involves the federal government taking over responsibility that can be done more effectively and competently at the community or provincial level. We should trust local communities. However, where there is a certain scale and efficiency, then it makes sense for the federal government to be engaged.

There is not the scale or effectiveness in having every individual community, without the support of overarching guidelines, come up with its own guidelines independent of that federal support.

This case is an example of where the federal government can play to its strength, which is to gather information from different jurisdictions around the world, where it can conduct the legality of information, and make that information available to other levels of government, while at the same time seek to empower them and not take away their ability to make decisions on their own and across areas of government.

Our approach to federal government activity in general is to look for those competencies of it where the scale makes sense for it to play that coordinating role but not to have it take authority away in areas which can be better done at the provincial or the municipal levels.

Unfortunately, right now we have a federal government that does not trust sub-national governments to make decisions in certain policy areas and seeks to dictate in areas outside of its jurisdiction. I could bring up many examples of that, such as its approach to the carbon tax, where it has told provinces that if they do not do exactly what it wants them to do, it will impose a jurisdiction-specific tax on them. That is very much out of step with the principles of the Constitution and the principles of subsidiarity.

When we see legislation that might seem to involve the federal government interfering in provincial and other sub-national governmental jurisdictions, we are inclined to ask additional questions. Nonetheless, in this case, the bill gets the balance right. The federal government can play a study and coordination role, while still respecting the decision-making role of other levels of government. This is the balance our caucus looks for in legislation, and that is exactly right in the bill.

The next point I want to talk about is the way in which certain legislation fetters the discretion of a minister.

This bill would marginally fetter the minister's discretion but in an appropriate and reasonable way. It is worth noting that the existing framework allows the minister to do these kinds of activities already. Perhaps the government member who has proposed the bill is concerned that the minister will not do these things otherwise and needs legislation to have that direction. Nonetheless, it is legitimate for legislation in this case to identify specific areas where this study is important and beneficial with respect to what happens around the world and drawing that information in.

In general, our caucus takes the view that it is legitimate and important for there to be certain actions of the legislature to limit the discretion of ministers when it sees it as important to do so.

The government is more philosophically inclined to try to give the maximum discretion to ministers and really minimize that tie-in of legislative accountability. There is a balance to be struck there, that when there is something important like studying different systems around the world for maximizing health through drinking water, there is a legitimate role for the legislature to establish those guidelines and to put those things in place.

The final point I want to make is that the bill asks us to incorporate the best science and information possible in the decisions we make, and we in the opposition strongly support that. We hear the terms many times of evidence-based policy, of science-based policy bandied back and forth. It is a real slogan that the government likes to use, but there are many examples where we do not see the government actually drawing on the best science at all. The whole debacle over electoral reform showed how the government was willing to completely ignore the science around public opinion research tools when it suited its purpose. However, in this case, the bill incorporates the best scientific knowledge as part of the framework to be established, and we can support that.

With respect to the issues I have raised of subsidiarity, how to fetter ministerial discretion, and the incorporation of science and policy, the bill strikes the right balance. Again, it will hopefully help us take some further steps toward ensuring high quality drinking water in Canada.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I invite the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis for his right of reply. He has up to five minutes to comment.

The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, during the first hour of debate on this bill, members raised the issue of drinking water in indigenous communities, which is a problem we need to solve as quickly as possible.

Although this bill does not address the issue directly, I hope that all communities in Canada, including rural and indigenous communities, will benefit from its expected outcome.

This bill is designed to ensure that Canada's drinking water standards are the best in the world. It calls on the government to regularly assess Canadian standards against those of the highest standards in the most economically and technologically advanced countries, countries like our own.

With respect to the situation in indigenous communities, we recognize how complex this issue is. A number of factors have made it difficult for this problem to be resolved properly so far. For instance, there is some competition between indigenous and non-indigenous communities when it comes to hiring trained operators. We hope that the funds set aside in budget 2017 to resolve the matter will give indigenous communities the resources they need to attract trained operators, or ensure that the operators are not attracted by other jurisdictions.

Investments are certainly needed, and the funding allocated in budget 2017 should help improve the situation as well as help maintain existing systems. Some communities actually have decent systems, but they have not been able to maintain them because there was not enough money.

Some people would have liked to see the bill go even further by creating a rigorous national legal framework to regulate all the emerging contaminants that are becoming increasingly common in our drinking water. However, that is not the approach I wanted to take in drafting this bill. Rather, the bill seeks to trigger a process for the development of standards. Improving the process will lead to standards as high as the highest standards in technologically and economically advanced countries like Canada.

This is somewhat like the Senate reform undertaken by the government. Sometimes, very small actions can have a much larger impact by changing the dynamic of a particular process. That is what is happening with the Senate. The small action we took is changing the character of the Senate.

Why not establish specific, legal standards for all contaminants? We do not want to start a jurisdictional war between the federal and provincial governments. We know that management is a provincial responsibility. Furthermore, although such an approach sounds good, it could lead to some unintended consequences. The problem right now is not that there are not enough standards regarding bacteria. The problem has to do with management.

Management across Canada is very decentralized. If we can improve how drinking water is treated, we will be better able to fix the problems in rural regions and indigenous communities.

On the weekend, I saw that indigenous communities in the Atlantic provinces want to create some sort of regional agency to manage drinking water in those provinces. That is a good idea. That is the direction we should go if we want to fix this problem in the long term.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Accordingly, I declare the motion carried. The bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Health.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee.)

Sitting Suspended

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It being 11:32 a.m., the sitting is suspended until noon.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 11:32 a.m.)

(The House resumed at 12 p.m.)

Bill C-49—Time Allocation Motion

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

moved:

That in relation to Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and other Acts respecting transportation and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the report stage and one sitting day shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the said bill; and

That fifteen minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration of the report stage and on the day allotted to the third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period. As usual, I ask that all hon. members who wish to participate in it now rise so that I may determine the time permitted for each.

Accordingly, I will ask hon. members to restrict their interventions to approximately one minute in the course of the 30-minute question period. That will apply both to the member posing the question and the minister responding, and we will do our very best to make sure that all of those who wish to participate in the question period will have an opportunity to do so.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is the second time we have seen closure on this particular bill. The last time we had this question and answer period, the minister said that the reason he moved closure is that he did not think the arguments being advanced by the opposition were substantive enough. We were talking too much about the carbon tax to his liking. It is a unique line of reasoning for a minister to say that the government will shut down debate because it does not like the opposition's arguments, that if the opposition members had given better speeches, it would have let the debate continue. I wonder if that is again the minister's reasoning.

I am still opposed to the carbon tax, but I also have lots of other problems with this bill. To name one, for example, in the spirit of the season, the airline passenger bill of rights is extremely skeletal. It is opposed by all sides for not providing anything more than some oblique references to what the minister might like to do in the future. Why is the minister shutting down debate on such a bad bill and why will he not allow opposition members to give the kinds of speeches we want to make, whether or not he agrees with them?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the point that I made at the time of the previous closure motion about the opposition only talking about the carbon tax must have had a profound effect. I am very glad that the committee that studied this matter returned to Parliament four days early this fall and heard a large of number of witnesses on all of the issues surrounding this bill. As a result, I think we have ended up with a very good bill at this point, and I can talk more about that as we go along.

With respect to the passenger rights bill, we took the deliberate approach of mandating that that Canadian Transportation Agency produce the regulations that would govern this passenger bill of rights. We feel that a regulatory approach is a superior approach to enshrining it in the legislation of Bill C-49, because it will give us more flexibility to make changes later on.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed to see this happening again today. We are sitting here with Bill C-49, another omnibus bill that would amend 13 acts. We are not being given the time to discuss it. There are many proposals being put forward and still no concrete support for the government to move forward in a way that Canadians expect.

I appreciate my former colleague's comments about the passenger bill of rights. Again, it is very weak and really an example of the government downloading responsibilities again. In my riding of North Island—Powell River, there are a lot of concerns about regional airports and the direct impacts this bill would have on economic development and their keeping connected to the rest of the world. Here we are, not able to have the substantive discussion that we need to have. We are being closed down again.

Why does the minister think this is an appropriate movement forward when so many Canadians expect so much more?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are very happy with where this bill is at at this point. My colleague made reference to an omnibus bill. I might have to remind the member, and probably the House for the 10th time, that 90% of what is in the bill deals with one act, the Canada Transportation Act. This is not an omnibus bill. This is a very responsible transportation bill that addresses a number of issues that come under the Canada Transportation Act.

As for the member's reference to the passenger bill of rights, the opposition members seem to be fixated that the whole bill would contain every measure related to the passenger bill of rights. No, that is not the case. As I have explained many times before, we feel it is a better approach to give that job to the Canadian Transportation Agency, the organization responsible in the past for ensuring that passenger rights are addressed, as it will in the future. The agency will be doing that job, and at that point my hon. colleagues will see the full impact of the passenger bill of rights.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, of course I do have comments on and concerns about Bill C-49, but this is a debate on time allocation. I want to put a proposition to the hon. minister. The more the Liberals use time allocation, the more we normalize a practice that was offensive to this place under the Harper administration. Avoiding time allocation, treating bills thoroughly, and organizing the schedule of this place is the job of the House leaders. My concern is that by having time allocation time and again on many bills that proper management of the House calendar would have avoided means there are now very few opportunities to speak to bills in debate because the speaking rosters are shrunk to accommodate time allocation.

Therefore, time allocation really does limit democratic debate in this place. It really is normalizing what Harper did, which the hon. minister and I railed against when he was with me on this side of the House. I urge the current government not to decide to set the bar no higher than the previous government did, but to go back a few prime ministers to see how often time allocation was used in those administrations and then to shoot at doing better than that.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we made a commitment as a government to work collaboratively with all parties to ensure that Parliament would work more efficiently, and it is important for us to make every effort to reach consensus about how much time is required for all parties to debate legislation in the House of Commons. In this particular case, I think we really did hit the sweet spot.

Our government wants to work co-operatively with all members of the House of Commons so that we have a Parliament that is productive and accountable and fosters strong debate. Time allocation is the only tool for a government to advance legislation when a stalemate exists, and we have a duty to ensure that the legislation is brought to a vote. We do have an agenda, and after a reasonable amount of time, we do have to move on.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one correct thing the minister said is that the Liberals have an agenda and they are going to ram it down our throats, as well as the throats of Canadians, regardless of whether they like it or not. We are debating another time allocation motion on a bill that will have far-reaching impacts on trade, on small communities' air services, on our rail industry, and on privacy with respect to our engineers and our rail systems. We have had everyone from unions to passenger rights advocacy groups, to carriers, to airports, to shippers all over Canada asking why we are rushing this bill. They say that we are not getting it right. They have deep concerns. The Privacy Commissioner sent a letter to the committee chair, dated September 12, 2017, raising concerns about Bill C-49 and the handling of data from locomotive voice recognition and recording devices and privacy issues arising from sharing of that information.

Why the rush? If this is such a fundamental piece of legislation, why are the Liberals rushing it through?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of reasons. A lot of measures must be put in place as soon as possible. For example, Canadians are waiting for the passenger bill of rights. I continually get reminded of that. We have modernized freight rail legislation, which is extremely important for the efficient commerce of trade through our railway system across this country, and the economy of the country.

All Canadians have had a chance to voice their side of the issue. I again thank the transportation committee for coming back five days early from the summer recess to meet a very large number of stakeholders, who had a chance to express themselves. May I say that the process by which we adopted amendments at committee was extremely collegial. There were nine amendments as a result of this, including six from my hon. colleague's party. If that was not a demonstration of our openness to making reasonable changes, I do not know what is.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister realize that Bill C-49 removes the power of the Commissioner of Competition to challenge mergers of airline operations? Is he aware that by eliminating the commissioner's power, the same minister can approve an arrangement that could quite possibly increase the costs of airline tickets? How on earth is that of any benefit? Why on earth would the Liberals limit the amount of time we have in the House to debate, discuss, and hopefully amend this ill-conceived legislation?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hate to correct my colleague, but the Commissioner of Competition will be involved at every stage of the process when we talk about a proposed change regarding joint ventures for airlines. It is clear, and perhaps my colleague has not had a chance to read the legislation, that when a joint venture is proposed, whilst the Minister of Transport will now be involved in the process because of the public interest, he or she will be consulting with the Commissioner of Competition, and if the Commissioner of Competition says that it will not be good for competition, the Minister of Transport will have to take that into account. Therefore, the continued co-operation with the Commissioner of Competition is still there with this new bill.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague across the way indicated that the transportation and infrastructure committee met over the summer and early into the fall and did a great job in putting a study together. One of the first recommendations in its unanimous report was that the 160 kilometre interswitching be maintained. The Liberals have ignored this recommendation by the committee. Would the minister like to comment on how time allocation further limits our debate on this and many other significant issues?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak about that.

We have, of course, replaced the 160-kilometre interchange with the long-haul interchange. The reason for that was explained on many occasions, and it has been very favourably received by captive shippers.

Captive shippers are some of our most important companies, whether in the mining, forestry, or farming sector, who have only one choice in terms of what railway they can access to move their goods to port. The long-haul interchange system applies to all commodities over a much greater distance in all of the provinces of Canada. We have arrived at a new system that allows more competition, and this is well viewed by the shippers in this country from all different sectors.