Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the great people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford on beautiful Vancouver Island: seniors, families, fishers, workers, youth, business owners and Cowichan Tribes, the largest first nation in British Columbia.
Before I turn to Bill C-37, I would like to take a moment to pay my respects to Mr. Bob Saunders, who, sadly, passed away just a few days ago at the age of 91. Across Vancouver Island and beyond, Bob gave without counting, to health care, veterans, mental health education, youth, and community services. As a runner for the Wounded Warrior Run BC team, I personally saw his generosity as he supported our fundraising efforts for those who carried the weight of service. He gave not just in dollars but also with hope, dignity and leadership. Bob inspired me and so many others across British Columbia. Through his generosity, his kindness and his philanthropy, he showed the very best of what it means to be Canadian.
Not long ago, I had the honour of joining Bob and his beloved wife, Norma, at the Victoria Shamrocks' season opener as Bob and Norma celebrated 70 years of marriage. His son Dave has closely followed in his father's footsteps with the same kindness, generosity and commitment to our communities. What Dave gives to Vancouver Island is not a copy of his father's work; it is a continuation of it. My and Angel's thoughts and prayers are with Dave and the entire Saunders family today, and to the late Bob Saunders I wish fair winds and following seas.
I now turn to the business at hand of Bill C-37, the first nations clean water act. Clean water is a necessity of life, not a privilege and not a favour. Let me start with this: Conservatives have always supported clean, safe, reliable water for first nations, and we support sending the bill to committee for key amendments to make it stronger. Support is not a blank cheque but a promise to do the work of making the bill better.
Let me begin with what the bill would do. It would affirm first nation jurisdiction over water on first nation lands. It would set minimum standards for water quality, quantity and waste water, and it would create a first nation-led water commission.
However, let us look closely at what this commission could actually do. It could advise. It could support capacity building. It could help first nations develop their own water laws. What it could not do is order a cleanup. It could not compel a polluter. It could not force a federal department to act, even when contamination is already creeping towards first nations' water that families rely on. A commission with no enforcement power is a resource, not a remedy.
Bill C-37 would also rely again and again on two words: best efforts. With a binding obligation, says the government, it must take action, but with best efforts, says the government, it only has to try. Families cannot drink best efforts.
Let me show the House what the difference looks like on Vancouver Island. The Cowichan River begins at Cowichan Lake, winds lazily through the town of Lake Cowichan, through the forests over Skutz Falls and into the fertile farmland of the Cowichan Valley, then through Duncan and the Cowichan Tribes reserve lands, past the Cowichan River hatchery before it empties into the ocean at Cowichan Bay. It is not one community's river. It is the backbone of a whole valley. It is drinking water. It is fisheries. It is farms. It is identity.
For Cowichan Tribes, the river and its salmon are also central to food, culture and ceremony. Since 1978, Cowichan Tribes and Fisheries and Oceans Canada have successfully partnered on a hatchery to rebuild the river's salmon. In a statement, Cowichan Tribes called pollution and contamination of reserve land and water a “national problem.” They said the tools to address it are “primarily under federal jurisdiction” and that “the Government of Canada [has been] reluctant to prosecute polluters.”
Let us explore that statement. On reserve land, along that same river, on Indian Road, sits what looks like, at first glance, a pile of waste. It is not the only illegal dump site in the Cowichan Valley, and it will not be the only one I raise in the House, but this site is unambiguously on federal land and is federal responsibility, and that is why I am turning my efforts to it first. However, it is not a pile. A 2023 consultant's report put its volume at more than 290,000 cubic metres accumulated over two decades. It is not a dump; it is a mountain. Government and consultant reports list what is in it: heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium, lead and zinc; hydrocarbons; volatile organic compounds; small amounts of asbestos; and lead-based paint. The list goes on.
The reports found that the site is producing leachate that is moving through the groundwater, creeping toward the river. Testing continues. Separately it has been reported that contamination may now also be present in the Cowichan River itself. Though this has only been reported, a river this important should not have to wait for proof of harm before the government takes action. Cowichan Tribes says it has asked for action since 2010.
The site sits on reserve land but, importantly, outside the nation's land code. Under law, that makes this a clear federal responsibility. It is not a grey area, not a shared file and not a matter for another order of government to resolve. It is Ottawa's duty and Ottawa's duty alone. In April, I wrote to the Minister of Indigenous Services, but despite years of warning, meaningful federal enforcement and remediation of this water travesty have not materialized.
Many people bear responsibility for how this site came to be: those who illegally dumped, those who profited and those who turned a blind eye. I am not here to point fingers today. I am here to have the illegal garbage dump and the contaminants that are impacting the river and the groundwater remediated and cleaned up, and to compel the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to take action. I will always fight for the people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
A consultant's 2023 estimate was $5.3 million to move the waste or $2 million to cap it, and those costs have only risen since. Turning back to Bill C-37, let us consider the money behind this bill. The 2021 settlement agreement promised a one-time, $6-billion amount to achieve safe drinking water access by March 2030. That is construction money with a deadline.
However, the bill would not replenish that. It would not guarantee what comes after. There is no statutory commitment to the ongoing operating funding that keeps a treatment plant running or cleanup of an illegal garbage dump moving once the announcements are made and the cameras leave. Best efforts, as is repeatedly said, will not clean up this site. The people of Cowichan Tribes and the Cowichan Valley deserve better.
Let me now look at what the bill would offer for a case like this. It mentions cleanup of source water in one place, as some regulations may address. Protection zones beside the reserve would not be defined until those regulations are made, and they would require the province and Canada to agree. The minister's duty on environmental protection is to consult, to co-operate and to achieve results. The bill would not come into force until one year after royal assent, and the minister would only have to make best efforts to begin consulting on the regulations six months after that. The Assembly of First Nations has raised weak source-water protection, lack of sustainable funding and other challenges with the bill.
It is my duty, as a member of the House, to hold the government to account, but that duty is not an end in itself. It means to make a bill better, one worthy of the people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford and every community the bill is meant to serve.
With that duty in mind, I offer the following. First, replace best efforts with binding, measurable duties. Second, have a public federal plan with timelines to remediate issues such as the illegal garbage dump and its pollution into the groundwater and other similar sites. Third, provide not only stable operating funding that is set up but construction funding as well. Fourth, there should be regulations that come back to the House so Parliament can see the details and not just the promises.
I offer these in the spirit of working with government, with Cowichan Tribes and with every community on Vancouver Island that depends on clean water. This matters on the island, it matters across B.C. and it matters across Canada. The Cowichan River, Cowichan Valley, Cowichan hatchery rebuilding the salmon stocks, and Cowichan Tribes all deserve a federal government that acts.
I support sending the bill to committee. Let us collaborate and work to make it worthy of the people it serves.
