Debates of May 29th, 2023

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Although I want to hear the member for Peace River—Westlock speak to this issue, I move, seconded by the member for Foothills, that:

The member for Battle River—Crowfoot be now heard.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the Chamber wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think we need to let the members decide. I request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Call in the members.

Before the Clerk announced the results of the vote:

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies has a point of order.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is in regard to my vote. I was torn, as I wanted to vote for both members, and in my ignorance I voted for both members. I felt loyal to both of them, but when push comes to shove, I will vote for the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke is rising.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was equally torn, but in the situation, I was voting for the member for Peace River—Westlock.

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

Vote #336

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I declare the motion defeated.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Peace River—Westlock.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for allowing me to speak in this place once again. The competition was fierce, but I know that cooler heads have prevailed, and I want to thank everybody who voted to allow me to continue to speak and be recognized by the Speaker. It is not often that it happens that I am asked to continue to speak.

I want to jump into the debate around Bill S-5. It is a bill that has been before the House before and is now coming back after being at committee. This is a bill around toxic substances and how Canada deals with things that enter into our environment, such as commercial products and these kinds of things. I want to start by talking about Alberta's record on a clean environment and the Conservatives' record on tackling some of these issues that have appeared in our history. We heard, and I have spoken about this before, how Conservatives tend to tackle problems as kind of a one-off issue, particularly around acid rain. Conservatives tackled it as a global phenomenon and a global problem, and it is something that I am proud to say that Conservatives did.

Another thing that Alberta tackled and kind of led the country and the world on is the disposal of PCBs. I do not know if members know this, but Alberta leads the world in the disposal of PCBs. There is a waste treatment plant in my riding, near Swan Hills, Alberta and it has mastered the disposal of PCBs. In fact, today, in Alberta, we are PCB-free. They have all been disposed of and dealt with. This is something I am proud of, but I know that many other parts of the country have not dealt with PCBs. In fact, there are warehouses full of PCBs, because it has been cheaper to just house them for the last 50 years, or 30 years, rather than dispose of them.

Alberta has kind of led the way in the disposal of PCBs, and I am excited to say that it was a Conservative initiative. Alberta stands ready. The disposal plant still exists, although, because there are no more PCBs in Alberta, it is lacking business. However, other provinces are welcome to ship their PCBs to Alberta for us to dispose of them, because we know how to do it. We have done it for well over the last 30 years and stand ready to do it for other provinces. However, it is sometimes cheaper to just continue to store them than to ship them across the country, so provinces can just defer the cost of disposal by continuing to store them. The issue of PCBs and PCB disposal is something that I am proud of as an Albertan. Albertans, and particularly the town of Swan Hills, have done an amazing job of figuring that out.

Another area where Alberta has led the way is in used tire recycling. Used tires have been a challenge for the western world since the introduction of the automobile. In Legal, Alberta there is a tire recycling facility. All the tires in Alberta are taxed with a levy on the day they are sold, and that goes into tire recycling. Those tires that are recycled are built into products that we use in our everyday lives. I do not know if members have ever been to a playground that has rubber matting underneath the playground—

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

It is called your backyard.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thanks, Caputo.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. I want to remind the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo that, if he wishes to make comments, he should wait until questions and comments. If he wants to have conversations, he should take them out into the lobby so as not to disturb the House.

The hon. member for Peace River—Westlock should not be calling members by their first or last names. We do have to have order in the House. If people do not think that this is a serious enough matter to discuss, then I would ask them to step out.

The hon. member for Peace River—Westlock.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I was talking about how Alberta has tackled the used tire problem. Just outside of my riding, in Legal, Alberta, there is a tire recycling facility. It uses used tires to build things such as playground matting, access matting for the oil fields and curb stops. Members may have seen rubber curb stops in parking lots, where, instead of there being a concrete curb stop, it is rubber. That is being manufactured there. Fence panels are being manufactured out of used tires. The facility is finding all of these innovative ways to make used tires into other products that we can use in our everyday lives. That was championed and organized in Alberta about 30 years ago, and I am fairly excited about that as well.

The other initiative that I am surprised to discover does not exist in other parts of the country is the Alberta ditch cleanup program, involving charitable organizations. My daughter has participated in it as part of a fundraiser for her school. The 4-H programs across Alberta work on this as well. The Alberta government donates to charity the cost of the labour that is put into cleaning up the ditches. Teams go out, gather all of the garbage from ditches, put it in orange plastic bags and set the bags at the side of the road to be picked up. This is a program that happens every spring after the snow melts. It has made Alberta a clean and tidy place. All the garbage in ditches gets cleaned up, and I am excited about that. What I was surprised to find is that other provinces do not have these kinds of programs. I was surprised that ditches are not necessarily cleaned up in other parts of the country.

The other thing that I was surprised to find out Ottawa does not have, for example, is the drink container recycling program that Alberta has. For my entire life, there has been a drink container recycling program. When I was a teenager, something that supplemented my income was collecting bottles and cans. I know that many a time in high school, there were fundraisers through bottle drives. We would collect used drink containers and bring them back to get the deposit money. Recycling drink containers to keep them out of the landfill and the environment has been in place in Alberta for a very long time. I was surprised that other parts of the country do not have the same program. I know the drink container program in Alberta has been very successful. It has broad support. It is kind of a circular economy idea and seems to work fairly well.

I also want to note that Edmonton has kind of led the way in terms of waste disposal. It creates power from all of the garbage that comes out of Edmonton. It grinds up the waste, separates out the metals, recycles the metals and makes power out of the rest of the garbage. It has a composting division as well. Edmonton has been recognized around the world as one of the leaders in waste disposal. These are some of the programs and projects that have happened in Alberta that I am really excited about.

Another, more local, initiative that I am pretty excited about as well is the take-it-or-leave-it programs at a lot of Alberta's transfer stations. For those who live in the country, like I do, nobody comes by to pick up garbage, so we have to bring it to the transfer stations ourselves. At many of these places, there are what are called “take it or leave it” sections. If people have things that are not garbage per se, and they do not know what to do with them but want to dispose of them, they can place them in the take-it-or-leave-it section. It is kind of like a garage sale, except that people do not have to pay for the things. If people have items that still have value, but they do not want them anymore, they place them there, and people come and go through that.

Around Grande Prairie, there is a company that is leading the country in styrofoam recycling. I am really excited about that program as well. Styrofoam recycling is something that needs to happen, and a company in Alberta is leading the way on that.

These are all initiatives that come out of Alberta that I am really excited about. They keep our communities cleaner and ensure that our waterways stay clean. Speaking of our waterways, I do not know if members know this, but Alberta waterways are all monitored extensively. If there is a hydrocarbon spill anywhere in the province, if a hydrocarbon gets into a creek somewhere, it will set off a sensor within minutes.

I know that when an ATV tipped over, it set off sensors in the waterways. It was just a bit of fuel that spilled out of an ATV and set off the sensors. There are sensors in all of the waterways around Alberta, and they notify the Alberta government that there may have been a spill in a certain area and to investigate it. That happens within minutes.

I have experienced it. I have watched this kind of thing happen in my own neighbourhood when there has been a spill, and immediately people showed up to jump on the source of that spill and clean up the mess quickly. In one case, a fuel truck tipped over on the highway, and months were spent cleaning that up. That was caught because all the waterways in Alberta are monitored very closely for hydrocarbons. It is something that is unique to the province. I do not think that this happens in other parts of the country.

These are some of the initiatives I wanted to highlight. Albertans are taking care of the place we live, taking care of our environment and ensuring that we live in one of the most pristine parts of the country. The natural beauty of Alberta is unparalleled in the whole country.

As well, there are a variety of natural landscapes in Alberta, from far in the south where we have nearly desert conditions, to the Foothills, the Rocky Mountains, the Prairies, the boreal forest and the wetlands dotted across Alberta. These are places where we play, work and raise our families.

The other thing I wanted to note is the Alberta air monitoring that happens in my riding around the town of Peace River. There is a lot of air monitoring that happens there. I do not think the air monitoring that happens in northern Alberta is something that happens in many places across the country. These are some of the things that Alberta has put in place to ensure that we continue to live in a clean environment.

That brings us to Bill S-5. This has been a challenging bill. There was a particular amendment placed into the bill. We were generally in favour of the bill until there was an amendment placed in the bill by the NDP. It undermines provincial jurisdiction. This is around tailings ponds. It is targeting a particular disposal method, and it really feels like Alberta is being targeted with this particular amendment. It also completely undermines the idea of provincial jurisdiction.

The provinces, in many cases, are responsible for the monitoring and administration of these tailings ponds. These are not things the federal government generally gets involved in. The federal government is now placing itself in the middle and sticking its fingers where they do not belong, in provincial jurisdiction. That has been a thorn in the side of Albertans for a very long time.

Canada is happy to take the resource revenues and it is happy to take income tax revenue from the entire country, but when it comes to allowing us to do the things that we do to build wealth, create value or manage our own resources, the federal government is often sticking its fingers in and saying we cannot do something or we are not doing a good enough job or generally just disrespecting Alberta.

I imagine most Canadians are unaware that Alberta leads the way on all of those things that I talked about before, including the disposal of PCBs, our used tire program, our ditch cleanup program, our drink container recycling programs, the Edmonton waste disposal and styrofoam recycling. I can tell members what Alberta does not do for sure: It does not dump millions of litres of unprocessed sewage into the rivers and streams. That is something that definitely does not happen in Alberta. That is something we have to ensure.

Now we see this repeated trend of the Liberal government: It inserts itself into places of provincial jurisdiction. While I note that this is an NDP amendment and that the Liberals had signalled that they were opposed to that amendment initially, they voted for it at the last minute, which is why we can no longer support Bill S-5.

This is a bill that now places the federal government in competition for regulating tailings ponds. This is entirely a provincial jurisdiction. It is something that Alberta has done very well for a very long time. This is something that Alberta, in terms of keeping our waterways clean, our air clean and our soil clean, is capable of, and it is something that is not the jurisdiction of the federal government. For this amendment to be placed in there at the eleventh hour is extremely frustrating.

There are some other parts of Bill S-5 that we are excited and happy about. There is the repeal of a whole section that is no longer needed. We think that this is an important piece to pull out.

We want to ensure that assessments for new substances that may be toxic are developed within 24 months. We think it is important that there be a decision within 24 months. This allows people to get an understanding that if they propose something, they would get an answer within 24 months. That allows for some stability in this whole system.

It also removes duplicated monitoring that had been happening. There were two separate licensing bodies or monitoring bodies, and because of jurisdictional squabbles, sometimes things would either fall through the cracks or substances would be brought to the wrong authority. This bill would remove the duplicated monitoring that has happened in the past, and hopefully will streamline the process and ensure that substances that are brought forward to be assessed will be assessed properly, in a timely fashion and by the right regulator. We want to make sure of that.

There is the issue of the right to a clean environment. That comes up regularly in this bill as well. There are a whole host of things to be said about it. Conservatives believe that in the environment where we live, the air should be clean and the soil should be clean, and we should not be at risk of being in contact with toxic chemicals that might cause cancer. We should not be in contact with toxic substances. We believe we should have an environment that encourages human health, that ensures that we do not get sick from the places that we live or the air that we breathe or the water that we drink. These are basic principles.

The idea of the right to a clean environment is kind of mentioned in this bill, but it is not fleshed out in a way that is clear. This may lead to some frustrations in terms of the court action happening over these kinds of things. We hope that this right to a clean environment would, over time, be clarified to ensure that people could not take the government to court over it, saying that they feel their environment is not clean enough. That is not what we want to see happening with this right to a clean environment; we want it to ensure that the government works to ensure that wherever one lives in Canada, the air is clean, the soil is clean and the water is clean.

With that, I will wrap up my comments. I look forward to questions and comments.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the commentary from my colleague opposite.

I wish to amplify the voice of a northern Alberta indigenous leader who has accused Imperial Oil of a nine-month cover-up over a massive release of toxic oil sands tailings on land near where his band members harvest foods. That is Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. He said, “During that nine-month period, ACFN had many meetings with [the oil company], including a sit-down, face-to-face between myself and the vice-president.... We have land users in the area that hunt and fish animals that could have been exposed to these deadly toxins....”

The article states that 5.3 million litres of water escaped from a dam that was meant to capture tailings. No public notification was made about that. This bill would change those types of obligations. Almost 19% of the population in the member's constituency is indigenous. Does the member not believe that indigenous people in Peace River—Westlock deserve a healthy environment?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have 14 first nations and four Métis settlements in my constituency and I am well aware of the living conditions in northern Alberta. What I would say is that this bill would do nothing to rectify the situation that is happening in northern Alberta. This is a situation that continues to be under investigation, and I know that the Alberta government has shown concern about the lack of disclosure. This bill would do nothing to rectify the lack of disclosure. While the tailings pond piece was added into it, this bill would do nothing to address that issue.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, congratulations to my colleague from Peace River—Westlock on the results of the previous vote.

One of the most disappointing elements of this debate that is taking place is that at the environment committee, which I am sure this member follows closely, there was a lot of work across the aisle. Whether on the tailings pond issue at a different study or specifically on Bill S-5, there was a ton of work across the aisle to try to take the politics out of an issue that every party found was important. That did not mean that every party got what it wanted, but there was a true and, I believe, genuine effort to see a bill that would result in something that Conservatives could have been happy with and that Liberals leaving the committee process were happy with, and yet when it comes to the process that we are in here today, at report stage the Liberals flip-flopped and voted for an amendment that they voted against at committee.

On this and so many other issues, we see that the Liberals are intentionally politicizing things, with the result of poor public policy outcomes that end up hurting Canadians. These are the very people whom they purport to try to help, yet the actual result is that they are politicizing a whole host of issues, including in this case specifically the environment and toxic chemicals, and they end up taking away from the good work that we should be doing here in Parliament.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, again, I want to just point out that it was not a Conservative government that gave the City of Montreal a licence to dump raw sewage into the St. Lawrence Seaway. While the situation in northern Alberta regarding tailings ponds is fraught, there is no doubt that no government gave a licence to do that. That is unlike the current Liberal government, which gave the City of Montreal a licence to dump raw sewage into the St. Lawrence Seaway. That is unconscionable.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, if former prime minister Stephen Harper had provided dollars for the infrastructure necessary, municipalities like Montreal would not necessarily have had to dump raw sewage into the water. It takes time to build the infrastructure.

Quite frankly, it is disappointing to see that the Conservative Party has changed its position on this legislation. Does the member feel any sense of remorse in voting against a bill that the Conservatives were going to vote in favour of just two weeks ago, given the principles of toxic chemicals and the right to have a healthy environment, which is something that would be established in this legislation in a substantial way?

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sure that the hon. member wishes that it was his turn to answer the question, but it is not. Therefore, I will ask the hon. member for Peace River—Westlock if he wants to answer the question.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have been forthright in that our opposition to this bill is because of the amendment that was brought in, which the Liberals voted against at committee and then voted for at report stage. As Conservatives, we have not changed our position; it is the Liberals that changed their position. We were assured that they were going to vote against the amendment, but they voted for it. That amendment makes all the difference, and that is why we will not be supporting this bill.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, my friend and colleague from Peace River—Westlock talked a lot about some of the innovations taking place in the province of Alberta. I know there is currently a provincial election going on there. Certainly, I am sure that he will be following the results closely, as will I.

I would ask him this: Is there anything further he would like to add in terms of how it is technology, not imposing punishment on Canadians, that is truly a way we can move forward as a country? In this way, we can better the environment but not punish the chequebooks and pocketbooks of Canadians.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to go back to how I started my speech. The history and legacy of Conservative governments across the country is this: When we see a definitive problem, we tackle it head on. The acid rain problem and the smelting pots in Newfoundland and Labrador were places where there were significant issues right in front of us, and we dealt with them, which is great.