Debates of May 29th, 2018

Bill C-75—Time Allocation Motion

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think one of the problems in this Parliament is what is happening in committees.

The minister has said that she wants this to go to committee. That is why there is unending debate in this House. The debate that should happen in this House is now going to be sent to the committee. However, the committees are dysfunctional. The Prime Minister's Office has instructed the committees to not permit productive debate within the committees.

The question to the minister is whether this will change. Will she ask the Prime Minister to now let the committees do their democratic work and allow the good discussion to happen in committees, as it should? Will the minister advocate for democracy within the committees?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the comments from the member across the way, and I would have to, with great respect, disagree. Committees are not dysfunctional. Committees are filled with members of Parliament who work incredibly hard to hear from witnesses, to write reports about very important matters, to consider legislation that has been put forward, and to consider private member's bills. This is an incredibly important part of the parliamentary process. I have taken great heed of the recommendations in terms of amendments that have come forward from committees that have considered legislation I have put forward, as have all members of this government.

Therefore, I think it is a very misplaced characterization of what our committee members do. They are not dysfunctional. They are a fundamental part of the parliamentary process.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The time for question period having expired, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings at this time and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House.

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #680

Criminal Code

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-57, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motion in Group No. 1.

Federal Sustainable Development Act

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable has nine minutes remaining to finish his speech.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since this is my first opportunity to rise in the House since the announcement of a rail bypass in Lac-Mégantic, I think my colleagues will allow me to say a few words about this very important project that was recently announced by the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Quebec. This project was highly anticipated by the people of Lac-Mégantic.

On the Lac-Mégantic bypass file, I saw parliamentarians come together to work for a cause, to help the local population of Lac-Mégantic, which truly needed parliamentarians to send a message to the government and for that message to be heard by the government.

It was a long haul. We had to ensure that every parliamentarian from all the parties agreed because we were creating a precedent in Lac-Mégantic. This is something that had never been seen before anywhere. To all those who ask why we created a precedent in Lac-Mégantic, I say that something unprecedented happened in Lac-Mégantic. There was an absolutely disastrous tragedy that is still being felt today by the local population.

I must say that the people of Lac-Mégantic, who have been waiting for this announcement for quite some time, are obviously very pleased. I want to acknowledge the support of parliamentarians, especially the members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, who travelled to Lac-Mégantic to hear from residents. That is where we began discussing this very important file among us, among parliamentarians from the various political parties. After that, the leaders of all the parties came out in favour of the bypass.

I must say that every time I had an opportunity to speak with a colleague, whether on the government side, from the second opposition party, or one of the independent members, I always sensed a great deal of compassion and openness with respect to this project.

I really want to thank everyone who opened their eyes, their ears, and their hearts to the people of Lac-Mégantic, for now we can finally start to look to the future. Now we can finally make sure that everyone in Lac-Mégantic who was directly or indirectly affected by this tragedy, whether it was themselves, their family, a friend, a parent, or a loved one, they can now start saying that they are finally rebuilding for the future.

The last few years have been spent demolishing and cleaning up the old downtown core. The rebuilding process has begun, but the whistling trains that roll through several times a day were a constant reminder of the tragedy.

Again, I want to thank all the parliamentarians who helped make this announcement possible. I want to thank former mayor Colette Roy Laroche, the mayor who was in office during the first years of my term, Jean-Guy Cloutier, and the current mayor, the very energetic Julie Morin, who knew just how to seize her opportunities and pick the right time to speak to the Minister of Transport and the Prime Minister, for making this announcement possible. There are many residents I also want to thank, like the reeve, Marielle Fecteau, who also worked very hard on this.

Again, this project was only made possible because all parliamentarians came together and co-operated to finally give some meaning to this tragedy and help the people of Lac-Mégantic get closure.

However, the real work is just beginning. This is where Bill C-57 comes in. Now, it is time to work on compensation, the environment, and the best way forward to minimize possible consequences for the people who will be getting this bypass. I am certain that we will again be able to do this work in a fair and prudent manner so that this project goes as smoothly as the other one did. Again, I thank all parliamentarians. This really showed the good side of our Parliament.

Now I want to come back to Bill C-57 and to everything that happened today with this bill. That is the not-so-good side of Parliament. Obviously, I do not just have praise to offer. There are some things that are good and some that are less good.

I was quite surprised today when the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said one thing and did exactly the opposite not once, not twice, but three times.

Allow me to quote something the government House leader said: “There are a lot of bills to debate and, since we know that the opposition members want to participate in those debates, we are going to extend the sitting hours so that everyone can participate and work harder for Canadians.”

A little later, while answering questions, she said: “...we see that the hon. members across the way want to play games in the House and in committee. It is their choice, but we want to work very hard for Canadians. That is our way of doing things.”

What is their way of doing things? Today, they imposed three time allocation motions. Those three motions will limit parliamentarians' participation in the very important work of the House. How can anyone say something so many times yet do the opposite? Here is another quote from the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons:

“We know at this of the year most governments have extended hours so that we can do more work to ensure that we are representing Canadians and advancing good bills. This will provide an opportunity for more members to be part of an important debate to ensure that the voices of their constituents are heard right here as it is the House of the people.”

Then, they moved three motions to prevent opposition members from speaking. They did it three times. Here is another quote:

“This will provide an opportunity for more members to be part of an important debate...”

The government did the complete opposite today. We have been called in here three times to vote on the government's time allocation motions. This goes against the spirit of mutual understanding that the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons repeated as often as she could during the period for questions on Motion No. 22. Bill C-57 is one of the victims of this government's desire to limit speeches by opposition members.

The government is extending the sitting hours, but at the same time it is allocating fewer hours of debate. It says one thing, but ultimately, it will not be giving opposition members more opportunities to speak. I have another fine quote from the Leader of the government in the House of Commons. She said, “This is an opportunity to have more hours of debate in order to allow a greater number of hon. members to participate.” She continued as follows:

“Let us extend the hour, let us have more time to debate, so more members can have their voices heard. We can advance more legislation. It sounds like a win-win-win situation.”

Limiting the number of speeches and hours of debate, deciding how many members opposite will be allowed to speak, telling those who do not have time to speak that they must remain seated, and then moving on to another bill is not what I would call a win-win situation.

In summary, when parliamentarians are able to work together on a project like the one in Lac-Mégantic, that is good. Canadians want to see a lot more of that. However, when the government says one thing and does the opposite, as it did today, unfortunately, it is judged harshly by Canadians.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would also like to commend my colleague for the work that he has done on the rail bypass project in Lac-Mégantic. That is extremely important, and the Liberal government should have come up with a plan sooner instead of dragging its feet on this file. However, in the end, it is good news.

This bill talks about sustainable development. Of course, we learned today that the Liberal government is going to spend $4.5 billion to buy a pipeline because it failed to manage that file properly. I know that my colleague and I do not agree on that pipeline, but investing $4.5 billion to buy a pipeline is not anyone's idea of sustainable development from either an economic, social, or environmental perspective.

What does my colleague think about that?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, such a decision is disheartening. We know that this is not the first time that the Liberal government has failed since it was elected. It is not the first time that the Liberal government has failed to keep its promise. In this case, all it had to do was let Kinder Morgan expand its network to export more oil. Unfortunately, the government's failure was such that the pipeline was opposed by just about everyone. The only solution that the Liberal government could come up with to resolve the situation was to take taxpayers' money and buy a pipeline, without knowing how much the expansion will cost. It is disheartening to see that it will be Canadians' hard-earned money that will be used to fix the Prime Minister's mistakes.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I believe that it is important to debate the sustainable development bill. However, it is very disappointing that even though we support this bill, not all the committee's recommendations will be implemented. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages and when we prepare reports we are disappointed by the response from the government after making our recommendations. It is the same old story with Bill C-57. The committee agreed on several recommendations and the government came up with a bill that does not respect the spirit of all those recommendations.

For example, witnesses mentioned that despite the definition of sustainable development, this bill only refers to the environmental decision-making process and there is no vision for the environmental and social aspects that are the main pillars of sustainable development.

Does my colleague believe, as I do, that the government should pay careful attention to committee reports, including the one on this bill?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, the government obviously has no intention of looking at the committees' reports, because these reports sometimes contain recommendations from the opposition. Actually, no, there are not often recommendations from the opposition, because these recommendations do not make it into the committee reports. The government does not let the opposition include recommendations in these reports because the Liberal majority on the committees is stopping the opposition's good recommendations from getting here, to the House. This is a problem. For a week now, it has looked as though the Liberal majority plans to use its power more and more to silence any criticism. The Liberals do not like being criticized.

Before I conclude, I want to thank my colleague from Drummond and his entire team for all of their support on the Lac-Mégantic file. I could feel their party's support from the beginning, and it was truly appreciated and noted by the people of Lac-Mégantic.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to talk about the environment in the House of Commons. That is why I ran for politics, to defend the environment, to promote sustainable development. I remember it well. My wife Liliana and I were watching television and there were reports on the shale gas scandal at the time. My wife said that something needed to be done. I told her that she was right. We got involved and now I am in the House of Commons in the process of defending the environment and promoting sustainable development.

Bill C-57 before us now seeks to improve the sustainable development strategy; it is an act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act. We support this bill in principle, but we feel that the committee's recommendations should have been followed more closely. The government did not see the committee's recommendations through.

The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development studied the legislation currently in effect. Many of the witnesses who spoke at the committee mentioned the gaps in the law. First, contrary to the definition of sustainable development, the legislation talks about the decision-making process with regard to the environment, but not the economic and social dimensions of sustainable development. That was a problem we needed to correct and that was not done. Second, it targets transparency and accountability instead of progress on sustainable development and those are also aspects that were not corrected in the legislation. The committee acknowledged the existence of these major flaws, then recommended amending the legislation accordingly. Unfortunately, Bill C-57 does not correct these flaws and considers only some of the recommendations. It does not consider the entirety of the recommendations made by the members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

Once again, the Liberal Party unfortunately did not listen to its own members and refused to implement the recommendations received from the standing committee. Clearly, the government is not committed to honouring its commitments regarding the UN's general sustainable development goals, which include making sure that the government as a whole ensures that its laws and policies reflect environmental, social, and economic needs.

In that regard, it is rather ironic, in a negative sense, that we are debating sustainable development today, the same day that the Liberal government announced that it is buying the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. That company purchased the pipeline for $550 million, and the federal government is going to use $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money to buy it. That is outrageous. It is going to give that money to a company in Texas, so that money will be leaving Canada, not to mention that the government also gives $1.3 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies to oil and gas companies. The Liberal government said that it would respect its commitment to Canada to eliminate those subsidies, but it did not do that. We in the NDP have been saying for quite some time that we will eliminate those subsidies. Those subsidies must be eliminated and that money must be invested instead in a just transition to a low-carbon economy, an economy based on renewable energy sources. That $4.5 billion would have been incredibly useful for developing renewable energy companies. As we know, the renewable energy sector is creating 10 times as many jobs as the fossil fuel sector.

Had the government done the right thing and invested that $4.5 billion in renewable energy, we would have created many more long-term jobs for now as well as for our children and grandchildren. That is another reason I am in politics. I want to leave our children and grandchildren a better world. Unfortunately, the Liberal government is making a mistake.

Buying a pipeline is not a step toward sustainable development; it is a step back. This is definitely not the right thing to do. It is a terrible idea, and I am certain Canadians will not accept it. The people will be very vocal in their opposition to buying the pipeline with taxpayer dollars. The Liberals certainly did not talk about this issue during the campaign.

Since we are talking about sustainable development, I would like to say a few words about what is going on in the Drummond region on that front. We have businesses in the renewable energy sector, in heat recovery, and in energy efficiency. Drummondville itself is fortunate to have a diversified economy and future-oriented businesses working in renewable energy and energy conservation. That is an important point to make. There are plenty of great businesses doing that in Drummond.

The City of Drummondville recently announced that it was going to establish a plan for sustainable mobility. I would like to thank John Husk, the municipal councillor for District 5 and chair of the Chantier sur le développement d’un plan de mobilité durable et le transport actif et collectif. That is a very good thing for Drummond because 85% of its citizens do not carpool. We have to fix that. Therefore it is a very good thing to have a plan for sustainable mobility.

What is meant by “sustainable mobility” in the vision that people want to develop for Drummondville? First, there is the economic component. Mobility must be efficient and foster economic vitality in trade corridors. Next, from the social point of view, it must be accessible to be good for the community, equitable, safe, and compatible with health. In terms of the environment, sustainable mobility limits the use of space and resources, is integrated into the environment, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. What I have just mentioned is the complete opposite of what the Liberal government is currently doing.

I now want to repeat an important point. Today is a sad day for Canada. The Liberal government announced that it will be diverting $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money to buy a pipeline that is worth just $550 million. The Liberals blindly spent this money on an obsolete energy source when we could have embraced the future and sustainable development. It just so happens that Bill C-57 is about sustainable development.

The government should have a vision and invest the $4.5 billion in the companies, like those in Drummond, working to improve energy efficiency, recover heat, and develop renewable energy, such as solar, wind and other energy. That is the Canada that we we want to leave our children and grandchildren.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his speech.

I too am extremely shocked at the decision to buy the Burnaby pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion. Even worse, that only includes the existing pipeline, which is now over 60 years old. The government also promised to expand the pipeline, a highly controversial move, since it will infringe indigenous rights and go against British Columbia's interests.

What does my colleague think of the fact that we are debating a bill on sustainable development on the very day the government made a decision that violates every principle of sustainable development?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. Green Party colleague for her very relevant question.

My colleague mentioned other broken promises. The failure with Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline is just one in a long string of promises broken by the Liberal government. The Liberals said that once they took office, they would review the environmental process that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives trashed. Instead of fulfilling their promise, the Liberals dragged their feet. They did not table the review of the bill on environmental assessment until today, in June, three years into their term. They cannot say they have not been dragging their feet. That is how they ended up approving this terrible pipeline project based on inaccurate environmental assessments from a process that had been completely butchered by the Harper government and the Conservatives. The Liberals are responsible for their own failure on this file.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House to ask my colleague a question. I did appreciate his comments. He and I were both shocked at the decision the federal government made to purchase the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Our reasons are different, but they both go to the root of sustainability. Sustainability is about finding the appropriate balance between our social objectives, our economic objectives, and our environment objectives.

I certainly believe that the Kinder Morgan pipeline purchase is symptomatic of a government that does not understand what sustainability means. It does not understand what that balance means. It has completely neglected the economic component.

My colleague, of course, is more concerned about the environment and has a different approach. He believes that the environment has been neglected. I would ask him to comment more broadly, beyond just the Kinder Morgan pipeline. To what degree does he believe that the Liberal government, which has been in power now for two and a half years, actually understands sustainability and the appropriate balance between the economy and the environment?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, the bill before us does indeed deal with sustainable development and is based on three pillars: the environment, the economy, and the social aspect. The problem with this government is that it made promises. To approve the pipelines, it had to overturn the environmental assessment bill introduced by the Conservatives that had eliminated a large number of responsibilities.

This government dragged its feet for two and a half years. It approved a project, even though it had said that it would not approve a project based on old environmental assessments. It broke its promise. It was the author of its own misfortune. Now, it wants to push through a pipeline and force it down Canadian taxpayers' throats. On top of that, it wants to make them pay $4.5 billion of their own money, when this money could be redistributed in a much more sensible and appropriate way.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be speaking to this important piece of legislation about the environment and sustainability.

There is a saying in politics that 24 hours is a long time. In the last day, we have had some seminal events with respect to the way the government is operating in terms of the economy and the environment, and also, by the way, in terms of this chamber. We have had closure brought forward three times in one day. That has to be a record. Certainly, if the government continues at this pace, it will far surpass the record of any previous administration with respect to closure. Three times in one day is quite something. It shows that it has no interest in meaningful dialogue on the legislation it has put forward. In many cases, it is doing this on omnibus bills, very long pieces of legislation that include many varied and different elements. For instance, it just brought forward closure on a bill dealing with criminal justice, with many different elements in it. It includes, as my colleagues have pointed out, reducing sentences, yet it tries to justify it by saying that there is something over here in the bill we might like. That is precisely the point when we have this omnibus legislation. That is part of the context. We are at close to 11 o'clock tonight debating Bill C-57, having had three different instances of closure brought forward today.

Speaking of the environment and sustainability, which is the core theme of this legislation, we also had the government announce today that the only way it can get a pipeline built is if it first buys a pipeline that is over 60 years old, and if it is able to work out all the legal wrangling through the courts and with the B.C. government, it will then go ahead and spend billions more of taxpayers' money to build that pipeline. That is not fiscally sustainable. If the government wants to establish a precedent that any time major economic development projects happen they will only happen if it is spending enormous amounts of taxpayers' money, that is not a fiscally sustainable model of economic growth.

Our approach, in the Conservative Party, is to establish the conditions that allow for private sector economic development. Under the previous government, there were four pipelines built. A fifth pipeline was approved. We hear the bizarre criticism from the government that the Conservatives did not build any pipelines to tidewater. Let us be clear. Up until now, at least, it has not been the government that has built pipelines. The government has evaluated and approved pipelines, or had the option of not approving them. However, in our case, we approved pipelines that had been proposed by the private sector. That included approving a pipeline to tidewater as well as approving and overseeing the construction of four pipelines.

From an environmental perspective, I think we should be very supportive of the development of pipelines, because transporting our energy resources through pipelines is a more environmentally sustainable way of proceeding. It is less costly, actually, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, to be transporting our energy resources by pipeline. Therefore, it is a win-win. It is a win economically and a win for the environment.

We often hear from the government that the economy and the environment go hand in hand. Sometimes they go hand in hand in the wrong direction, and sometimes they move hand in hand in the right direction. Under the current government, they are both moving in the wrong direction, I think. Under the previous government, we got pipelines built by creating conditions for the private sector to get that work done. That allowed for economic advancement for our country and also environmental improvements.

The previous Conservative government was the first government in Canadian history to oversee a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Our friends across the way are always very skeptical of this. They want to find reasons they cannot really credit it to us, and here are the arguments they use. They will try to say that the Conservatives cannot really take credit for the reduction in greenhouse emissions, because the reductions were the result of policies undertaken by the provinces. The response to that is that if we compare the record of the previous Conservative government to the Liberal government before it, we either had reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, or there was an increase that was lower than the increase in the previous period. In other words, there were improvements in terms of environmental performance in every jurisdiction, which suggests that it was not merely about things happening in individual jurisdictions, although there is obviously a role to be played there, but was a result of federal policy. That was the record of the previous government.

The current government will then say that it was only because of the recession. It is true that the Conservatives governed during a period when there was a global recession, yet at a time when global emissions went up, Canadian emissions went down, even though Canada was relatively less impacted by the global economic recession than many other countries. We were able to achieve environmental improvements at a time when the rest of the world did not, even though the rest of the world was more affected by the recession and therefore saw more constriction in terms of economic activity compared to what was happening in Canada.

If one puts those facts together and recognizes that the Conservatives undertook thoughtful, managed policies on environmental improvements, a regulatory sector-by-sector approach, one can see that we achieved real, substantial, and meaningful progress.

Here is the difference. We do not use the environment as an excuse to impose new taxes on low- and middle-income Canadians. We see the environment as an objective that can be pursued in concert with economic improvement. We can have a sustainable federal budget that does not involve massive deficits at the same time as concerning ourselves with sustainable environmental performance, in environmental terms.

If we look at the record of the previous Conservative government, we can see a strong economy as well as improvements in terms of the environment. I hate to be accused of plagiarism, but if we look at the record of the previous government, it does look like the environment and the economy were going hand in hand.

Under the current government, we see something quite different. We see a government totally unable to establish the conditions that allow for private sector investments in pipelines. In fact, what it is doing is buying out assets, which leads companies to then move that money and make those investments elsewhere. Kinder Morgan is going to spend the money it received from the Canadian government, but it is not going to spend it here in Canada. Very likely, it is going to spend it in other parts of the world.

The energy sector in other countries is doing very well, but we face continuing, significant challenges here in Canada as a result of the government's total inability to get these issues right. It is imposing more taxes on low- and middle-income Canadians through its carbon tax, and by the way, it is not telling people how much it will cost. We are still asking the government to come clean, end the carbon tax cover-up, and share with us the cost to individual Canadians of the carbon tax. It will not come clean with respect to that. It will not reveal the information and has only released severely redacted, blacked-out documents that prevent Canadians from actually seeing what the impact of that carbon tax will be.

The government thinks that imposing these new taxes on Canadians is somehow going to lead to solutions to our environmental challenges. If we want to see what sustainable development really looks like, we should look specifically at what happened in terms of economic performance and greenhouse gas reductions during the period of the previous government.

When we have this kind of big government intervention, the economy model the government has, it is not fiscally sustainable. It means leaving massive debt and deficits to the next generation, and it does not do much good for our environment, either.

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

Madam Speaker, I found that the hon. member's speech included some contradictions, and it certainly abstracted from certain realities.

The member mentioned at the beginning of his speech that the issue of the Trans Mountain pipeline is wrapped up in legal wrangling. Does the member believe that a Conservative government would eliminate legal wrangling? How would it do that? Would it eliminate the court system?

We have a court system in this country that environmentalists, provincial governments, and all kinds of intervenors and stakeholders can access. That is what has happened with the Trans Mountain pipeline project. It has become caught up in legal wrangling, and the government had to act in that context.

The member seems to think that somehow, with the wave of a magic wand, a Conservative government would eliminate all legal wrangling. I would like the hon. member to respond to that notion.