House of Commons Hansard #163 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was cbc.

Topics

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

An hon. member

Can I respond to that point?

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

No, I am afraid not. That would be debate. We already have one debate going on, thank you.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope the member will be sensitive to the limited audience for this particular bill because it is mostly administrative for this riding.

However, the member made a good point related to the Peel case. I think the parallel is the obligation in the treaty, taking the honour of the crown and living up to the treaties. The treaty in the Peel case, which is just before the Supreme Court now, is that there is a process let out for land use planning, for the land use planning in the Peel area. The claim in the court, and I cannot really comment on the courts, is that the process of the land claim was not followed with the honour of the crown.

As I said, it is timely that I mention that the crown does apply for the territorial government, that it has that responsibility as well.

I think the member's colleague mentioned a good case when he talked about section 35 again; that is the Little Salmon Carmacks trapping case. I do not know if the member remembers that one. Once again, the crown had an obligation to protect the rights of the first nations, and this was not on their settlement land, but because it would affect their settlement land. That was very important.

The point I tried to make in my debate is that it does not really matter what those four clauses are because they are there illegally; they are there improperly. So, however good they are, they just have to go for that reason, and for the same reason as the Peel controversy over the fair implementation of the Umbrella Final Agreement.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Mr. Speaker, in the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs' speech, she said that Canada, Yukon, self-government of Yukon first nations, and industry have agreed to continue to work in collaboration through the regulatory process to establish practical timelines.

I ask if, once the Yukon government, the federal government, and the first nations have concluded their agreements on a new process for reassessment and timelines, how it will integrate into YESAB. Does it require amendments to the act, what is the process for such, and how long will it take?

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. That process is in place through the rules of the board. There are three levels of timelines. There are timelines for the local offices, the district offices, for the smaller projects; then there are timelines for the ones that get bumped up to the executive board; and then the very highest level is a panel. We have never actually had a panel yet. I think there should be one coming shortly, but we have never had a panel yet. Therefore, for those three, the rules of the board determine that. That is already established through the regulations. They have to be gazetted. Therefore, the system the member is asking about is now in place so that the local people, the local governments, in consultation with the mining industry, the environmental industry, and every one the three levels of government talked to, will have those timelines to work under.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Labrador Newfoundland & Labrador

Liberal

Yvonne Jones LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Yukon has worked hard on bringing this bill forward to Parliament to ensure that we have an approach that ensures trust among the Government of Canada and the people of Yukon and Yukon first nations in deciding on projects that are important in their area. I have never seen a bill come to the House that has really outlined the difference between two governments more than this bill today.

I was in Yukon with my colleague when first nations and mining companies both were at the microphone saying, “We do not want to see these changes in Bill S-6”, but the government of the day, the opposition now, was adamant that these changes would go through. The Conservatives were imposing their government's views on the people of Yukon.

I am happy to say that the people have spoken and their rights will be respected under this government. I would like to ask my colleague to comment on what that means to the people of Yukon today.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to dwell on the past; I want to go into the future. We have a lot of new members in the House, people who are being sensitized to this bill. I know the minister, who made a promise a couple of years ago, and the parliamentary secretary, who spoke so passionately about this in Whitehorse, understand. I think that other members in the House are now getting a sense of the importance of this bill for developing the relationship. Only when the three governments are on side can development go ahead.

I can say that the people who were outraged were so excited and asking constantly for this bill to go forward. Gone is the unilateral imposition of those four clauses by Ottawa at the eleventh hour which took away their confidence that it was their YESA legislation, their environmental assessment act. It gives the first nations the confidence that they are being treated as equal partners and have an equal say in the assessments. The changes to the regime that were guaranteed were developed through their umbrella final agreement, through their modern treaty that is recognized around the world and across Canada and is constitutionally protected so we cannot really change it. They are very proud of their agreement. It is a unique assessment procedure that only Yukon handles.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, with all due respect to my colleagues, there is clarity in the rules that there needs to be a quorum of 20 members in the House of Commons. I ask again for a count to be taken, because there are fewer than 20 members in the House of Commons during this debate.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

I count as a member as well, so we have our 20 members.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Mr. Speaker, we have the House falling below the quorum repeatedly because members have left. Then we have members flooding into the chamber in the middle of your conducting a count and members know this is happening—

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

I am afraid this is turning into a debate. I am going to have to shut the member down. We did conduct a count and we are now at 20 members.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Schiefke Liberal Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC

Mr. Speaker, I just wonder if the people I am meeting with outside can also be counted as quorum in here. It is an important meeting that a lot of us are having outside .

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

I am afraid that sounds more like debate than anything else. I am going to let that drop. One of the things the rules state is that we cannot mention or allude to another member not being in the House, but if there is a lack of quorum, we have to take a count. I believe there are 20 members now. We can continue.

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Yukon arrived in Ottawa on the same flight with me, but I did not have to start in Yukon, getting in at 2:45 in the morning. Yes, we touched down.

I just want to say that I do not know why he feels that this is less important for all Canadians. I appreciate that it is only within the riding he represents, the riding of Yukon, but this was an egregious thing that happened, Bill S-6, for the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, for the Teslin Tlingit First Nation, and for the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation. They entered into good-faith negotiations with Canada. It is the honour of the crown that is at stake when one party to the negotiations unilaterally pushes through changes to something that was arrived at through good-faith negotiations with those particular first nations.

I welcome the fact that now, in the 42nd Parliament, with Bill C-17, we are redressing what was quite egregious under Bill S-6. At the time, I fought those changes as well, and they clearly went to court.

This should be a classic case of a lesson learned for a majority government in power, not to force through that which it wants when it knows the courts will overturn it. It wastes public resources. Frankly, Stephen Harper's administration did this all too often. I make no comment on most of my Conservative friends in the room at the moment, because they were not in the 41st Parliament. This is a classic case of wasting the public's time and insulting first nations, and now we are putting it right.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her constant support for this and for talking about the importance of it.

The minister is right here, and she made this very important point, that we would rather negotiate than litigate with first nations. I did not want to bring up the litigation, but the member did, and that's exactly what adds to the uncertainty that the Conservatives would like to get away from. Nothing would be going ahead. This would still be in the courts.

However, the Teslin Tlingit Council, the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, and the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation have put their case and held it off because this is going forward to fix this grievous situation that both the parliamentary secretary and the minister have guaranteed we would fix.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-17. The background leading to Bill C-17 is as follows. The federal government's role in the management of lands and resources in Yukon was devolved to the Government of Yukon in 2003. The Government of Canada maintains the responsibility for outlining the environmental regulations there. The Yukon Environmental Socio-economic Assessment Board was established under the final agreement.

Our Bill S-6 was intended to make, and did make, the northern regulatory regimes more consistent with those in the south to attract investment and develop economic opportunities. Bill S-6 was a very good bill. It put time limits on the review process. It exempted a project from reassessment when an authorization is renewed or amended, unless there was a significant change to the project. It gave the federal minister the ability to provide binding policy direction to the board, and very importantly, the ability to delegate the federal minister's powers, duties, or functions under the act to the territorial government.

I became a member of Parliament in 2010. For the first term of our government I was on both the fisheries committee and the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. For most of that time, I was the only member of Parliament of any political party who was on both of those committees. I was very privileged to get a view into our environmental policy-making and I participated fully in many of the changes that we made. Many of the changes that we made improved the environmental process, cleaned up a number of very bad pieces of environmental legislation, improved the potential for economic development, and had absolutely no negative effects on the environment. We amended the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to remove duplication.

We changed the Navigable Waters Protection Act into the Navigation Protection Act. The Navigable Waters Protection Act was a particularly egregious act. It was a good act when it was written back in the 1800s when Canada depended on water navigation to a very great extent, and blocking navigable waters simply was not an option for our growing economy. However, over the course of decades and years, judicial interpretation of what was a navigable water kept growing smaller until intermittent streams were considered navigable waters. There are those who have a strong interest in stopping economic development. My colleague opposite inadvertently used the phrase “environmental industry”. I think there is an industry that has been developed that is doing very well financially in stopping projects. The old Navigable Waters Protection Act was a particularly bad act because it forced municipalities to spend inordinate amounts of money to build bridges over tiny intermittent water bodies.

We also changed the Fisheries Act quite dramatically. As a fisheries biologist, I was very much involved with the changes to the Fisheries Act.

These examples that I am citing are germane to the topic of the Yukon situation because the regulatory regime of a country is critical to the economic development of that country. Modern projects must be environmentally sound, and indeed they are, and at the same time investment must be encouraged.

Revising the Fisheries Act, 2012, which was our Fisheries Act, was one of the current federal government's platform policies. The fisheries committee had extensive hearings. I am still on the fisheries committee as the vice-chair. We had weeks of hearings where people who were opposed to the changes we made to the act wanted the act to go back to the way it was, the old way, where basically the entire country was considered fish habitat, and the Fisheries Act was able to be used by the environmental industry and environmental lawyers to block, hold up, or otherwise stop economic development.

I have a strange view of the environment. I believe that when we talk about environmental policy, we should actually talk about ecology, nature, landscapes, and water, because presumably that is what it is all about. However, all I hear mostly from environmental advocates these days, especially those on the Liberal left, is process, process, process.

In our Fisheries Act hearings, over and over again we asked this of the ones who were so excited about the changes we made to the act. Since the act was changed in 2012, we asked them if they could point to any fish populations that had been decimated or affected by the changes we had made. Not a person could come up with any examples, but they sure were mad at the process. Their metric for success of an act was how many investigations there were, how many charges there were, and how many processes there were. The fish and the environment actually became an afterthought.

The changes we made in the Yukon Act included putting in time limits, no reassessment unless the project was significantly changed, the federal minister binding policy direction, and delegate the federal minister's powers to the territorial government.

When I was an environmental director at a paper mill, I remember being involved with a change in the direction of our mill. Multiple bodies were regulating the environmental assessment we were doing. We never knew which level of government would step in since it was optional. They would sit in the weeds, we would do the environmental assessment, and we would ask what they thought. They would say that they were not sure, that we should keep doing what we were doing. This kind of uncertainty has a very direct and negative effect on investment. It is great for lawyers, the billable times just keep going up and up. However, with respect to communities, people, livelihoods, it is the worst thing that could happen.

When I was a young biologist in the seventies, and right out of university, one of my very first jobs was being part of the environmental assessment of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. It was dream job for a kid out of university. I was able to play around with fish, fly around in helicopters, and sample rivers and lakes in remote parts of the Mackenzie Valley. It was an absolutely marvellous experience. This was back in the days of the Berger commission. I remember the team of which I was a part. We sampled every waterway in the Mackenzie Valley, every tributary, all the lakes along the proposed pipeline route. We flew the pipeline route, wrote copious reports, and took a lot of water and fish samples, all the usual kinds of fun stuff that field biologists get to do.

The report was written and the Berger commission was held. At that point, oil and gas prices were not too bad. We had an oil embargo, so there was a certain urgency for Canada to develop our natural resources. The government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau of the day ultimately turned the project down after all that work.

Interestingly, the project was resurrected in the 1990s again. Gas prices were up. I think it was $15 a thousand cubic feet. It was a high price and they wanted to see if we could get the Mackenzie Valley pipeline going again. The proponents for that project in the 1990s had to do exactly the same environmental assessment that we did in the 1970s. Nothing had changed. The rivers and lakes were exactly the same. There had been no development, no economic expansion, nothing, yet what we did in the 1970s was redone all over again for a number of years.

As time went on, the price of natural gas declined dramatically and the project became uneconomical. Delay and uncertainty kill projects. Now we have no Mackenzie Valley pipeline and we have 15 or 20 communities that are in dire economic straits. We know how to build pipelines safely. They are all built in an environmentally sound way. It is because they are so good that when a spill actually occurs, then it is a big event because it is an extremely rare event.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding of modern economic development, especially resource projects. All projects are built with state-of-the-art environmental technology. The implication when one goes into an environmental review process is we either do this review process or the environment will be destroyed, which is complete and utter nonsense.

Again, in my own experience managing a waste water treatment plant at a paper mill, doing environmental assessments in the oil sands, and many years of experience doing environmental assessments across the country, working with companies, working with engineers and designers, I can absolutely guarantee that state-of-the-art environmental technology is built into every project before any shovel goes in the ground. Scrubbers are put on smokestacks, waste water treatment plants are designed for, and the technology for environmental improvement is increasing all the time.

One can look at the miracle of Inco. Thirty or 40 years ago there was a moonscape around that town because of acid rain emissions from the mill. The mill has been cleaned up and the landscape around Sudbury has come back. I have been there and seen it. This is what advanced industrial capitalist free market societies do. We get richer and we do a better job environmentally, and the process is ongoing and continuing.

The other thing about environmental policy is that it is very important to measure environmental results.

There was a great philosopher, Pythagoras, who said that all was math. What I see in environmental policy-making is that nobody measures anything. We have this faith, and I use the term advisedly, that what we want to do is good for the world because, “I am a good person and I want to save the world, therefore what I do is good”. We do not do the hard-nosed measurements to zero in on what the environmental problems may be, measuring the state of the earth, measuring fish populations, water quality, and so on, and then focusing our efforts on where environmental programs will actually make a difference. For example, wetland loss is very serious in the country, yet we only have halfhearted measures to preserve wetlands.

Again, I go back to the process and I go back to what we, as the previous government, did to streamline the process and remove duplication. Hearings and meetings by themselves rarely result in environmental improvement. Spending $25 million putting a waste water treatment plant at a paper mill will improve the environment. That is how I look at environmental policy, and that is how it should be looked at across the country.

When we were going through the process of the Fisheries Act, as I mentioned earlier, there were critics of what we did under the Fisheries Act. Their metric as to what the 2012 changes to the Fisheries Act did was how many authorizations, how many charges resulted from the 2012 act, whereas our main concern, obviously, was the health of the fish.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:10 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker. I rise on a point of order. I have been wrestling with myself on this point of order, but now that there are just five minutes remaining I wonder if the member plans to address the bill we are debating today, Bill C-17, the Yukon environmental and socio-economic assessment act. As nostalgic as we all are for the destruction of environmental laws under Bill C-38 back in 2012, I really wonder if the member has some views on the current bill.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

I will let the hon. member finish. I just want to remind the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands that I have seen a lot of debates happen in the House where we are really questioning where it is going and then suddenly it gets wrapped around. I have to give the hon. member that freedom to make his point

The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands gets all harried when we talk about math and numbers and so on. This is what is really important.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

We have another point of order, and I think it is quite right. I am not sure that accusing someone of being harried is—

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I asked the hon. member, on a point of order that was reasonable, what was the relevance. His response, which is an attack on something that is most outrageous, was the assumption that I did not understand numbers and that I was harried. I am sorry, I want to hear speeches that are relevant to the subject we are debating today, and to attack me personally is completely unacceptable.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

On the relevancy, again, I cannot rule on that one, but the hon. member does owe the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Island an apology for referring to the numbers issue.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Mr. Speaker, I apologize.

The relevance is that the investment climate in our country is critical and the environmental processes that govern the development and implementation of projects are very important. That is why we made changes to the act via Bill S-6. We put time limits on the review process. I know the environmental industry wants no time limits on the review process. I made the point. It is absolutely true that all projects these days are built with the finest environmental technology in place right now. Therefore, to spend an inordinate amount of time reviewing what we already knew was what our government changed in the act.

Regarding this act, we exempted a project from reassessment when an authorization was renewed or amended unless there had been a significant change to the project. Changes always are being made to resource projects. Plants are sometimes refurbished, boilers are changed, and these can be considered as routine maintenance or modifications. If these are subject to endless litigation or process, just when a company is modifying a plant in a manner that is not significant in terms of its environmental performance, that modification should be exempt from a review process. The federal minister still had a role to provide binding policy direction to the board, so the federal government was involved.

The last thing we did under Bill S-6, which was very important, was we gained the ability to delegate the federal minister's powers, duties, or functions under the act to the territorial government.

I spoke earlier, as a person who had actually worked in industry, how the investment climate could be negatively affected by different levels of government coming in and out of the process. We know there is a separation of powers in the environment. Migratory birds, for example, are clearly within the purview of the federal government. Wildlife is provincial, and so on. However, there is a very strong overlap between those, and often a proponent has to repeat exactly the same environmental assessment for two levels of government. That costs money, time, and that kind of regulatory uncertainty has the potential to thwart investment. Make no mistake, capital, in the modern world, is very mobile. Capital looks where it can best be spent, and investors look for regulatory certainty.

I am very pleased that in my home province of Manitoba we finally have a business-friendly, aggressive, Conservative government. The mining industry views Manitoba now as the place in North America to develop mines. Not only do we have high environmental standards, we have a business-friendly government. We have rich mineral resources. Unlike the Liberal government of Ontario and other governments across the country, Manitoba has some of the lowest hydro rates in North America. That is a recipe for success.

Going back to Bill C-17, what it would do is reverse the good work that was done under our government. I would like to move an amendment to the amendment. I move:

That the amendment be amended by adding the following: “and that the committee report back no later than June 19, 2017”.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

The amendment to the amendment is in order.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Yukon.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment ActGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Mr. Speaker, again the member's arguments, as well as other Conservatives' arguments, have, to a large extent, supported the bill.

First, he talked about there sometimes being assessments for two levels of government, which creates regulatory uncertainty. Of course we do not want that, but that is exactly what the YESA Act does. It has three levels of government that are all brought into one so that there is only one assessment, which avoids the duplications that might occur in other parts of the country. Kudos to the member for this act.

There are treaty duties delegated to the territory. The treaty does not allow that, and the treaty is constitutionally protected. Obviously, as legislators, we do not have the ability to change that. As for binding policy, maybe the member could give us an example of which independent boards get binding direction from the federal minister. I am sure members would be the first to complain if the minister started imposing policy on an independent board.

Another point the member brought up was that wetlands are important and have no protection. The YESA board, right now, is considering some cases related to wetlands, so once agin this act is working very well. Many projects have gone through successfully and smoothly and would be slowed down by these amendments.

Once again, the problem in the Mackenzie Valley was that the proponents did not get the first nations on side at the time, in the first case, and that is what YESAA has now. It has the first nation governments on side, and that is why so many projects go through.

I appreciate the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands courageously arguing for this bill, even though it is not in her riding. She made the good point that this would have national ramifications. We have abrogated treaties, on occasion, since before Confederation, and when there is a treaty, it is the honour of the crown to negotiate in good faith and live up to what the treaty says. On many occasions that has not happened. That is the national significance, as the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands said, of this particular case, because it has the ramification of not living up to treaties that Canada has signed.