Debates of May 15th, 2023

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, once again, I thank my colleague, the member for Repentigny, for her exceptional work on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I was fortunate to work with her. We worked well together and collaborated closely with the community and environmental groups that came to share their ideas.

I think that all of the parties and the Government of Canada did a great job of including most of these groups' recommendations in Bill S‑5. I believe that extremely positive changes will follow for all Canadians.

Of course, there are other things we could do, but I think that we have made a lot of progress in terms of protecting the environment for the good of Canadians. I am very proud of the work we did.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I find it really interesting that the government deliberately excluded the tailings ponds in the Athabasca from review, because we know that just prior to the illegal tailings pond leak at Imperial Oil, the environment minister was scheduled to allow a massive release of the toxic chemicals that are in that contaminated water into the Athabasca River system.

We know from speaking with Fort Chipewyan and the Mikisew Cree that they suffer high levels of cancer. We are dealing with ammonia, lead, mercury, benzene and other contaminants, and yet the environment minister was more than willing to let this be released into the Athabasca River. These are tailings ponds that are 2.6 times the size of the city of Vancouver and are growing every day. When is the government going to actually deal with the massive level of water contamination coming out of the oil sands projects?

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his advocacy. I know he works very hard on environmental protection.

The one thing I would say, and I think my hon. colleague knows this very well, is that the reason those references were removed for those specific activities is that they were already captured under subsection 46(1) as activities that may contribute to pollution. The reality is that information on tailings ponds is already collected and reported under CEPA and Canada's public inventory of releases, known as the national pollutant release inventory. This is already being done, so the committee decided not to single out one particular industry because this information is already being collected and shared with Canadians.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am sure the member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges would agree with me that the right to a healthy environment needs to be more than a bumper sticker. I wonder if he would share to what extent he is similarly disappointed that reasonable amendments from many parties, including from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, which would have ensured that the right to a healthy environment is not just considered but protected, were not accepted?

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, I know my hon. colleague is a strong advocate, and I very much enjoy working with him and having discussions about how we can improve environmental protection in Canada.

I would be honest to say that I would like to have seen more robust inclusion of a right to a healthy environment in this piece of legislation. I would be lying if I said anything different, but this is a huge improvement. Every time we put forward a piece of legislation in this House, we need to be doing right by Canadians by moving the needle forward and always advancing. That is what we have done here. Hopefully, by working with the hon. member and other members in this House as this moves forward and is reviewed every couple of years, we will be able to do that in the years to come.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the people of Laurentides—Labelle to speak to Bill S‑5, the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act.

I want to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois is in favour in principle of the bill. However, a word of caution: Agreeing in principle does not mean signing a blank cheque.

As my colleagues know, our party is highly allergic to anything to do with jurisdictions and the federal government's intrusion into matters that are the responsibility of the Government of Quebec. It is in our DNA. We know that the current government will use any excuse to interfere in provincial jurisdictions.

I would say to my colleagues across the way to not think they can take us in. That seems to be a clear pattern in the government's legislative agenda. I want to remind the federal government that the elected members of the National Assembly of Quebec are against any federal government intervention in environmental matters, except where the current legal framework makes the Government of Canada responsible for certain provisions. That is why the Bloc Québécois will keep a close watch. We will ensure that the federal government takes care of its responsibilities properly before taking on more.

Bill S-5 is, first and foremost, a technical bill, which is a shame. This bill is not ambitious enough to address the current climate crisis. It is unbelievable. Bold action is needed. It is important to act to ensure that the right to live in a healthy environment is enshrined in law, as it is in Quebec. In 2006, the Quebec National Assembly passed legislation that states, “Every person has a right to live in a healthful environment in which biodiversity is preserved, to the extent and according to the standards provided by law”.

That is not yet the case in Canada.

The United Nations passed a resolution on July 26, 2022. In the resolution the UN said that:

...climate change and environmental degradation were some of the most pressing threats to humanity's future. It called on states to step up efforts to ensure their people have access to a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment”.

That is not yet the case in Canada.

In 2021, the New York State Assembly passed a constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to a healthy environment in the state constitution.

That is not yet the case in Canada.

In 2004, the French government incorporated an environmental charter into the French constitution. I would like to share part of the preamble:

Natural resources and equilibriums have conditioned the emergence of mankind;

The future and very existence of mankind are inextricably linked with its natural environment;

The environment is the common heritage of all mankind;

Mankind exerts ever-increasing influence over the conditions for life and its own evolution;

Biological diversity, the fulfilment of the person and the progress of human societies are affected by certain types of consumption or production and by excessive exploitation of natural resources;

Care must be taken to safeguard the environment along with the other fundamental interests of the Nation;

In order to ensure sustainable development, choices designed to meet the needs of the present generation should not jeopardise the ability of future generations and other peoples to meet their own needs,

...

This is not yet the case in Canada.

In Laurentides—Labelle, nature is a way of life. I am sure that everyone listening to me would agree. It has a national park, the oldest one in Quebec, by the way, along with two wildlife reserves, regional parks scattered across the riding, and countless lakes and rivers. Laurentides—Labelle alone has over 10,000. Nature surrounds us, but it is also a major economic driver for the northern Laurentians.

Early in my career, I worked in the forest industry for seven years. I am very proud of the industry personally, but also on behalf of the Antoine-Labelle regional county municipality, where it still plays an important role to this day.

Let us look back into the past. In the 2000s, the forestry industry was seen as harmful in many ways. Fortunately, science has come to the rescue of this industry. We now know, and I hope everyone does, that forest management is imperative if we want healthy forests. Our forests are key to our health and to our environment. They capture CO2. We could talk about the two billion trees that will probably never get planted by 2030 despite the government's promise to do so. Sometimes I have to make people aware that a fully mature tree releases all of the CO2 that it captured. Nature takes its course. We can see the forest fires and epidemics that are happening now. If we use our forests wisely and we use the raw material with secondary and tertiary processing products to construct new builds, we are helping to preserve the environment.

I will fight until the end, as I have been doing since I was 20 years old, to make people aware of how important the forestry industry is to both our environmental and economic ecosystems. I cannot emphasize it enough. It is the very definition of sustainable development, and our region is on the front lines.

Two weeks ago to the day, I was really worried about the images I was seeing from Laurentides—Labelle. In Sainte‑Agathe‑des‑Monts, the Demontigny Street bridge and the Château-Bleu Road bridge were closed. The water level, the highest it has ever been, made the roads impassable, and they are still impassable today. The same situation is playing out in Val‑Morin, where the 7th Avenue bridge is badly damaged. In Sainte‑Adèle, several roads have also been closed because they are too dangerous to use. Lac Raymond, the Rivière du Nord and the Rivière aux Mulets were overflowing. Homes flooded and infrastructure needs to be rebuilt.

This is unusual in southern Laurentides—Labelle, just as it is in many other parts of Quebec. I am of course thinking of the people of Baie‑Saint‑Paul, in Charlevoix. Extreme weather events are now frequent. It is outrageous.

There was the derecho in May 2022, the rock slides in Mont‑Tremblant last summer and the ice storm in early April. We must act. This bill is called the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act. It is time for the government to have the courage to act. People ask me if enough is being done. People know that not enough is being done. In fact, they actually feel as though nothing is being done. Let us have the courage to act, because healthy citizens are the ones who have a healthy environment and who benefit from a healthy economy focused on sustainable development.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Laurentides—Labelle for her commitment to her community and to the environment. I also want to give a shout-out to the member for Repentigny. I enjoyed working with her very much. It was a very collaborative committee, and I think Parliament needs to see more of that.

I would ask the hon. member for a comment. I have been hearing from the Bloc that we did not adopt this or that Senate amendment. We adopted 70% of the Senate amendments, and by all accounts, from environmental groups to industry to everyone else, this bill is a great improvement over CEPA, 1999.

The issue of air quality standards has come up. That is a very sensitive issue delving into provincial jurisdiction. Does the hon. member agree that this should be done together with the federal government? I would expect the Bloc to be very sensitive to that issue.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, how can they say that they listened to the proposals, took action, accepted the changes to the legislation, when they ignored the individuals themselves, for example from the forestry industry, who were consulted and who provided recommendations? The proposals presented by the Bloc Québécois came from the forestry industry.

I am having a hard time understanding why the recommendations made in committee were completely dismissed and are not included in the bill.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, we just had a question about some of the amendments that were not considered. Some of the amendments that people wanted to put forward were considered out of scope. We even heard one of the Liberal speakers today say that he hoped we would go back to this bill as soon as possible, as soon as we passed it, and create another bill that would fix the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

After 24 years, the government did not include these important provisions in this new bill. They include things like the enforceability of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, something obvious that should have been done. Can the member comment on why these things were not included in Bill S-5?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I told the people of Laurentides—Labelle that we had an example in the promise to plant two billion trees by 2030. People are wondering. Are they really going to change the law to try to have a healthy environment when they are so behind in everything I just outlined in the past few minutes?

People need to have more confidence and to hear from all parliamentarians. This is not about telling them that we are going to adopt this bill and make amendments later.

I was saying that they need to have the courage to take action and now is the time to do it. As long as we do not see a modicum of effort and energy, we will continue to fight because we do not believe them.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, the right to a healthy environment is set out in the bill's preamble. Therefore, it does not apply to other laws.

Does my colleague believe that the government lacked the courage to establish a real right to a healthy environment in its modernization of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, when the government implements small measures, it often does so to ease its conscience. Had it had the courage to act, it would have overhauled the environmental law. We are among the laggards. It is embarrassing when we go abroad and are told about the state of our law. I believe that answers my colleague's question

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate tonight to talk about amendments that have been proposed to Bill S-5, which is an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act of 1999.

I have now had a chance to review many of the amendments that are before the House right now. I want to focus my comments on one particular area, and perhaps express some concern over the lack of clarity with regard to this area, coming into the report stage of the bill, as well as to provide some suggestions should the bill progress further. I want to do so as a representative from the province of Alberta.

I will start by echoing the statement by my colleague from the Bloc earlier. There is a lot in the bill to agree on in principle, but there is concern in terms of how the bill's current format could actually affect things like provincial jurisdiction. My colleague who just finished debate spoke a little bit about it in the context of her province, and I want to talk about it in the context of mine.

The area I want to focus on is how the government has approached the concept within the bill of the right to a healthy environment. I would like to think that every Canadian certainly supports the right to a healthy environment. On behalf of my province, I would say that so many Albertans, sometimes undeservedly and politically, get cast as not caring about the environment. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are so many Albertans who utterly respect our natural heritage and also want to ensure that we have a strong, sound approach to addressing climate change that actually reduces greenhouse gas emissions, ensures economic growth and addresses the fact that we are in an affordability crisis.

The government, to date, in spite of having spent billions of dollars, has really failed to provide Canadians with a lot of affordable, readily available substitute goods for high-carbon consumer products and practices. At the same time, it has also has failed to address the issue of energy security in Canada.

Going back to the principle of a right to a healthy environment, how the government has approached it and where the bill is at right now with regard to the amendment phase, in terms of how Canada has approached legislating a right to a healthy environment, I do not think it is fair to say that, collectively, across political stripes of various forms of government, Canada has not done that in the past. I would argue, hopefully from a non-partisan perspective, that Canada has some of the strictest environmental protection laws in the world, across a collection of legislation, including the Transportation Act, CEPA, and, at the provincial level, through our environmental assessment review processes of major natural resource projects.

I could go on, but the reality is that we do have a legislative framework that reflects those principles of how we use land and how we assess projects in terms of their impact on the environment. The bill that we are discussing tonight, on CEPA, would also do that. However, my concern is that the government, in this phase of the bill, has actually not defined how it is planning on looking at this term within the context of the bill. Also, with the current status of the bill, it is going to take that process behind closed doors in some sort of framework development process that is not outlined in the bill.

I really am concerned about several things. First of all, we do not know the sufficiency of what this measure is supposed to do. We really do not have any way of evaluating that, number one, and other colleagues of all political stripes have actually raised that as a concern in the House. So that is a big deficiency with the bill right now. Second, because that is not defined, there are very significant concerns that have already been raised in debate, and that I want to echo on behalf of my province, about how this could infringe upon provincial jurisdiction.

If this bill does proceed to the next phase, the onus is on the government, rather than to just take this process behind closed doors with a very narrow set of stakeholders who might have the minister's ear or the department's ear, to really open that up and particularly lean on provinces to have input into this process. There also need to be stakeholders from civil society, from industry and also, importantly, from first nations groups, indigenous persons who have traditional knowledge that needs to be imported into this process. I am very uncomfortable with how the government has attempted to address this issue. It feels like it is just checking a box without actually putting any meat in here for us to debate. We might have different opinions on that, but I hope that all my colleagues would agree that how this term is laid out in the bill right now is not sufficient.

Third or fourth, I am not sure where I am at as there are so many concerns on this provision, I am also concerned that, because the government has not provided clarity on this, we are adding essentially another barrier to either investment or environmental mitigation measures by not providing that clarity. The government should have put some sort of principle in here about whether it foresaw the enforcement of a right to a healthy environment, in the context of the bill, as an administrative function or as a function of the judiciary. What I mean is that it should have given some sort of hint about whether this framework it was providing could have included, for example, a privative clause. That is something that we should have been debating in the House, and now what the government is saying is “No, no, we are just going to put that behind closed doors.”

Some of my colleagues might disagree with me on whether enforcement should be administrative or whether it should be in the judiciary, but, again, because we do not have that clarity, I want to just put on the record what I think, on behalf of my province, about how this should be administered. I really think that, without clarity on how this is going to be enforced, we now are opening ourselves up, as a country, to what could be vexatious complaints on the enforcement of this right. Just as a colloquial example, and it might not be exactly in this context, but let us say that someone has a bonfire in their backyard and neighbours get a little cheesed at them. They complain, saying that they have a right to a healthy environment. Now they are suing the municipality on the bylaws.

What I am trying to say is that the way it is written, with the lack of clarity, could have major impacts on housing strategies. I could see this being used to protest, like NIMBY. People might say that they have a right to a healthy environment, so they do not want a certain tree cut down or they do not want a backyard filled in with a multiplex. The same goes for roads or, also, carbon-mitigating infrastructure, such as public transit projects, which, just for the record, I would like to have more of in my riding as well.

I am very concerned that the government has not put more details and more meat in here on the context, on how it plans to enforce this and also on its consultation process. What we have seen with the government is that things like this just sort of disappear into the bureaucracy, where people and stakeholder groups that have privileged access end up pulling this out of a democratic process. What that does is disenfranchise the provinces, and it also disenfranchises, I think, first nations persons as well. We cannot be talking about the right to a healthy environment without enshrining that principle of first nations knowledge in this particular principle. Should the bill proceed, these are principles that have to be embedded in the consultation process, and the government has an onus to report back to Parliament on how it is doing this. It can certainly rest assured that we will be holding it to account on that.

I will close my time with this, just to emphasize and bookend what I said at the front end: My province cares deeply about the environment. She is coming to the end of her term in public service, but I would like to congratulate Alberta's environment minister, Sonya Savage, who, I think, has cross-partisan support. She has a storied and long history of understanding the nuances between natural resource development and environmental protection. She delivered a very strong net-zero commitment for climate change in Alberta and also recognizes the Alberta context in which that was built out, which is that we are industry-heavy with our emissions, and that industry has to be brought to the table in a stage-gated approach, so that we are not just looking at hope on targets but actually putting a plan together to achieve those targets. I want to congratulate her as I close my speech tonight.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader. Sorry, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. It is so automatic to call the other one.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Madam Speaker, some people think the deputy House leader and I look alike, but I beg to differ; he is much better-looking.

I want to thank the hon. member for raising the issue of a right to a healthy environment. We had 50 hours of deliberations in committee. I sat through most of them. I just want to assure the hon. member that no one from industry raised a concern. There were some concerns raised by environmental groups. I would just assure the hon. member that the implementation framework would last about 24 months. There would be deep consultation and there would be transparency. We will get back to the member with the plan. There would be deep consultation with the provinces, indigenous governments and stakeholders. This is to answer that very question she asked about how a right to a healthy environment would be implemented, and to provide clarity.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's response. I also think he would understand that, when I hear from the government “Do not worry; just trust us”, I am not so sure about that.

Also, the reality is that we do have a very important issue facing our country, which is climate change. The Liberal government has failed to meet its targets. It has failed to provide the type of infrastructure, for example, for my riding that could get cars off the road, provide those substitute goods for high-carbon consumer products and practices, and actually have a productive working relationship with provinces and understand that fighting on this constantly is not building a collaborative relationship. All I ask is that, if the bill proceeds, the government really enshrine that principle of working with the provinces, respecting jurisdiction and ensuring that there is transparency, particularly in the enforcement mechanism.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees with some points, especially with regard to territorial sovereignty. Quebec already has its own law, the Environment Quality Act.

The smooth-talking Liberals are in government. I will remind members of their track record. Canada has the worst record of any G7 country for the average per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Since the arrival of the Liberals in 2015, Canada is the only G7 country whose greenhouse gas emissions have increased. That is quite the record.

However, I can say what the government is good at. Canada is second among the G20 countries for public investment in fossil fuels. Trans Mountain now has a $30-billion price tag. That is a significant sum.

Yes, we agree with respecting environmental laws. However, how can this government, which boasts about being a green government, justify this type of bill today?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would never defend the Liberal government, just to be very clear to my colleague. We agree that there has to be some change there.

The reality is that Canada is a large country that is natural-resource-intensive in terms of its economic output. It is cold here. We do not have the substitute goods that we need, in the Canadian context, to lower the price elasticity of carbon. The government could tax carbon all it wants and it could set targets, picked out of the air, but until it actually, fundamentally solves the question of price elasticity in the Canadian economic and social context, while keeping affordability sound, we are not going to achieve those targets. That is what the government should be focusing on.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just want to bring up the business of enforcement, which the member talked about at the end of her speech.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is widely held as unenforceable. It has not ever been enforced in any reasonable way by the public. Bill S-5 would not change that. Ontario has had an environmental bill of rights for many years now, with an enforcement mechanism. Again, under that bill, it has not had anybody complaining about backyard bonfires.

I am wondering if the member could comment on the fact that this is really not going to happen, but that we really need this. If we have an environmental bill of rights, we have to have some way to enforce it.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, just to re-emphasize the point I tried to make in my speech, the government has not included any sort of clarity with this provision, either on scope or on enforceability. It is really unfortunate. It is a missed opportunity, particularly now that we are in report stage. The government needs to fix that.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise on behalf of my constituents in Canada's number one riding, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. In preparation for my remarks this evening, I began to think about all the challenges my riding faced in 2021.

Just shy of two years ago, the village of Lytton burned to the ground. Forest fires consumed the province of B.C. Lives were lost, animals were lost and homes were lost. We are still recovering from the devastation, especially in the Okanagan, the Similkameen Valley and the Fraser Canyon.

To fast forward a few months, things got even worse. A new term, “atmospheric river”, was coined. Basically, we had such a deluge of rain that I have never seen the like in my life. The fields of Sumas Prairie and Matsqui Prairie were flooded. Critical infrastructure and dikes were wiped out. The roads that had saved people in the village of Lytton were washed away. At Jackass Summit, a large portion of the road the size of a CFL football field was completely washed away into the Fraser River. My communities are still recovering and waiting for help.

Help does not always come in the form of a flashy announcement or with another consultative meeting. In many respects, help is solely related to good governance, to the laws we put in place to deal with any challenging environmental issues we face in our country.

In 2016, before I was elected and when I was still a political staffer, I read with great interest a paper put forward by some very competent people at Environment and Climate Change Canada. It is called “Discussion Paper: Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999: Issues & Possible Approaches”. I will note in my review of this paper and the bill before us this evening that a number of issues, such as improving information-gathering provisions and acts on new substances and activities, risk management and living organisms, were covered in that report. However, many areas that were already identified by the Government of Canada almost eight years ago were not included in this legislation today. I am dismayed by that.

I remember fondly how the member for Kingston and the Islands; the former member of Parliament for Pontiac; Hugs Bossio, who was here at the time; and many Liberal members criticized the Conservatives for not taking action on the environment. How dare we not do more for the environment? A comprehensive report was tabled, but many of the recommendations have not been put in place, even today. This includes recommendations put forward by the Liberals.

What makes matters even worse is that the current government did not prioritize the modernization of Canada's foremost environmental laws as a matter for this chamber to debate and deliberate. Instead, it punted this matter to the Senate. While I admit some improvements have been made, as a British Columbian, I will always stand up when a Senate government bill comes before this House. I mention that because British Columbia only has five senators out of 108 right now, so every senator in B.C. represents approximately one million people.

B.C. is the economic future of our country. British Columbia is home to many mining companies; the Vancouver Stock Exchange is full of mining companies and start-ups. This morning, I met with a team of leading scientists at the University of British Columbia who said that these companies are doing a lot of good things that are essential to protecting the environment and will be essential to Canada's economic development in the years ahead.

British Columbia is home to some of the most diverse and ecologically sensitive marine areas in Canada in our temperate rain forests. It is home to a growing port. In my riding of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, it is home to where the CP and CN rail lines meet.

I mention all this because, in that 2016 discussion paper, there were points on preventing marine pollution. If there is one thing British Columbians love, it is the run of the salmon. It is that moment as a young kid when we finally get one on our rod on the Fraser River and really feel a sense of jubilation. We need to protect that for future generations. We could have done more for salmon in this bill before us today. However, perhaps because there are only five senators from British Columbia, 24 from Quebec and 24 from Ontario, there was not enough emphasis put on my province and our unique environmental needs. I cannot fault the Senate; I have to fault the Constitution. However, it was irresponsible of the Senate not to do more to protect British Columbia in the bill that it received from the government.

Similarly, we could have done a lot more on preventing pollution from the transboundary movement of hazardous waste and hazardous recyclable material. Recently, at the industry committee, I asked officials about certificates and rules of origin regarding the exportation of garbage from Canada into the United States and subsequently into Asian countries, which buy our waste. We could have done a lot more in this bill to ensure that Canadians are not exporting their waste to third world countries. In fact, my colleague from Canada's breadbasket in Simcoe spoke at length about this and tried to pass a bill, only to have the environment minister say it was not relevant; the bill was defeated. Here, we again had an opportunity to do something to stop the exportation of plastic waste, but neither the government nor its Senate members took that opportunity.

In my riding, there have been many instances in which we did not have proper emergency alerts. Small communities were cut off. The port of metro Vancouver was cut off from the rest of Canada. There were over 30 washouts on the CN and CP rail lines. In November 2021, British Columbia was isolated from the rest of Canada.

The 2016 report from Environment and Climate Change Canada talked about improving CEPA in terms of preventing and responding to emergencies. None of those actions were taken, even though the government spent more on the disaster in my riding than on any other disaster in the history of Canada; it did not receive ample attention or consideration. Again, I point to the fact that there are only five senators from British Columbia, one for every million people or so.

Another part of the bill that was addressed in the 2016 paper and relates to my riding is supporting environmental protections related to federal activities on aboriginal lands. We are talking about reserves here. I represent over 31 bands. Many of them were wiped out by disasters as well. We had an opportunity here to improve emergency response management, give indigenous people the tools they need to be stewards of the land, put in place protocols, and allow resources from Ottawa to be used in areas of environmental significance where indigenous people live in greater proportion compared with other Canadian citizens. We had an opportunity to do something about that, but we did not. Again, I can point to the fact that B.C. only has five senators, with one million or so people for every senator representing our province. We needed to do more for indigenous communities, but the Senate and its government members did not listen.

Another area of the bill that I hear about often is strengthening the enforcement of CEPA, and I have heard this in the chamber this evening. In Nova Scotia, there was recently an issue with respect to baby eels, and I could go on to talk about salmon as well.

I could go on, but at this point, I am going to have to take questions.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned before, CEPA allows us to manage greenhouse gases by putting a price on pollution. The hon. member talked about climate disasters, such as what happened in Lytton, and our hearts go out to the people there.

There were 600 people who died under the heat dome. There was a $9-billion impact from the floods, fires and droughts. Tourism and agriculture were destroyed for an entire year. However, the hon. member and his party opposed every single measure that we tried to take on climate change to implement climate action.

Why does the hon. member continue to oppose the price on pollution, our climate actions and things that would prevent these kinds of disasters in the future?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, for the most part, what I am opposed to is an out-of-touch government that has spoken a lot about protecting the environment, but when it actually had the chance to act and make substantial improvements for the people of Lytton, it did not take those necessary steps. This is even though the government has politicized the people of Lytton from time to time.

People in Lytton do not have homes. People in Lytton are still living in hotels. People in Lytton want governance and to see the operationalization of announcements made in their community.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I would like to extend condolences to everyone in his riding who has experienced this disaster. It is important to recognize that they are victims of climate change.

My colleague talked a lot about the Senate, but I would like to remind him that the Liberals and the Conservatives did not listen to any environmental groups, unlike the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party, which made proposals based on information from environmental groups.

I completely understand that the people of his riding want to promote economic development, but I am tired of people pitting environmental protection against economic development. I look forward to a day when the two are finally reconciled. In this case, unfortunately, the Liberal-Conservative coalition rejected everything the environmental groups were calling for.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, the people of Lytton and the Fraser Canyon want the federal and provincial governments to take action to improve infrastructure so that they can live in their town. Investments are needed so that these people can continue living in their town. Nearly two years after the disaster, we are not there yet.