Charles Caccia

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, May 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the frustration of the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. We have good news for him because the committee has made a change to the act by including crown corporations.

It is an improvement. In three years, all crown corporations, including Canadian Pacific, will have to prepare their environmental impact assessments or be subjected to the law, as approved by Parliament now. However, in the next three years, we will have to continue to put pressure on Canadian Pacific because the legislation will come into force only in three years, but progress is being made.

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, May 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, in this brief intervention I will put forward some of the major improvements that were made to Bill C-9 on environmental assessment. I will also outline some of the major shortcomings. If time permits I will make brief comments on interventions made by my colleagues during the debate so far.

The improvements are the following. It would be desirable to bring to the attention of the House that the bill, as amended in committee, would now remove the blanket exemptions for crown corporations. Crown corporations would now have three years within which to develop their own regulations on environmental impact assessment or to come automatically under the act. Considering there are 43 crown corporations, whose projects would, as of now, be subject to environmental assessment, this is a significant step.

The next area is public participation. Here the amendments made by the committee will provide for greater public participation in the environmental assessment process. For example, along with a newly established government wide Internet site of project information, it would include a notice at the start of each assessment, and the committee has ensured the retention of the current system of project files that provide convenient public assess to all documents associated with environmental assessment. The committee also made changes to ensure public consultations with respect to the scope of a project when it is on the comprehensive study list.

Once the bill is proclaimed no action can be taken by a responsible authority until 15 days after the notice of the beginning of an environmental assessment has been posted on the Internet. The decisions on whether to require a follow up program for a proposed project would have to be posted and decisions on the scope of the project would have to be included from now on.

The last area has to do with the seven year review. The committee passed an amendment that would ensure a comprehensive review of the act by a House or Senate committee within seven years of royal assent. A review by the committee should ensure a thorough overhaul of the act and would avoid the narrow scope that was somehow put to the committee under the Bill C-9 review.

The committee has also written a report to be tabled soon which offers recommendations beyond the scope of Bill C-9 for the consideration of those who would carry out the seven year review when the time comes.

I will now say a a few words on Red Hill Creek. The committee has, hopefully, closed a potential loophole created by the federal court decision in the Red Hill Creek expressway case that would have been used in the future by project proponents to avoid the requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act.

To most committee members, the Red Hill case demonstrated an area in which the current act has failed. It was important therefore to use the Red Hill Creek example to make changes to Bill C-9 so as to avoid similar occurrences in future.

By way of background, Environment Canada determined that the construction of the Red Hill Creek expressway would result in the loss of migratory bird habitat through the removal of some 40,000 trees and that the significance of the impact of this loss of migratory birds was unknown.

In addition, the Ministers of Fisheries and Oceans and the Environment have received many letters expressing concern about the expressway project.

Based on the potential for significant adverse environmental effects and public concerns, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, in accordance with section 25 of the act, asked the Minister of the Environment in May 1999 to refer the project to a review panel immediately.

However, without awaiting the outcome of the screening, the Minister of the Environment agreed. Shortly thereafter the original municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth applied to the federal court for a judicial review of a number of issues, most important, the federal government decision that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, as well as the Fisheries Act, applied to the project.

The federal court decided that the act did not apply to that project because the project was “grandfathered under section 74 of the act”, and second, because it would be a retroactive application of the act to a project in respect of which “irrevocable decisions” were made by the City of Hamilton prior to the enactment of the act.

One might ask how a major project involving the removal of 40,000 trees and causing the destruction of migratory bird habitat could not be subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Instead of appealing the federal court's decision to the Supreme Court, the federal government decided to make amendments to Bill C-9 so that a situation like Red Hill Creek could never happen again. It is the sincere hope of our committee that the amendment to section 2 of the act would have that effect.

Briefly I will say a few words about the major shortcomings of Bill C-9 for future reference of course. There is the issue of panel review which is often considered the core strength of the act, yet, out of 30,000 screenings, only one has been referred to a panel on the basis that significant adverse environmental effects were identified.

The testimony of Mr. Normand de la Chevrotière highlighting the problems at the Bruce nuclear facility still rings in my ears, namely that the world's largest nuclear waste storage facility was approved without a panel review. That was a very stunning statement which really surprised us. Because it was outside of the scope of the bill, the committee was unable, through amendments, to address the lack of panel reviews which the minister has referred to as the core strength of the act and quite rightly so.

The other shortcoming has to do with self-assessment. Because of the narrow scope of the bill, the committee was unable to address the issue of self-assessment by the federal government of its own project. Of the 5,500 or more federal environmental assessments per year, the vast majority are being done by departments responsible for the project and not by the agency responsible for the act.

Witnesses told us that an effective regime could not exist where federal departments conducted assessments of their own projects. We tended to agree with them. Because of the narrow scope of Bill C-9, the committee was unable to deal with the issue.

The third shortcoming is the enforcement. There is no provision in the legislation requiring either enforcement or compliance. Even though there were a number of proposed amendments to the issue, the motions introduced at report stage would remove any power to the agency to make enforceable decisions and impose penalties for non-compliance with the act.

The fact that the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development criticized federal departments for failing to implement the environmental assessment of policies and programs, as required by a 1990 and a follow-up in 1999 cabinet directive, highlights the necessity of introducing a compliance mechanism into the act.

The next issue has to do with national parks. The member for Fundy—Royal proposed, through an amendment in committee, that if there were a possibility a project might cause a significant adverse environmental effect on a park, a park reserve or on wildlife that frequent such areas, it should be reviewed by a panel review. The amendment was not carried.

The final issue is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans trigger, as it is referred to. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans does not trigger an environmental assessment of a project until after it has: first, received complete information on possible measures to prevent or mitigate the effects on fish habitat; and second, it has concluded that prevention and mitigation will not work.

The witnesses before the committee pointed out that the departmental practice has been inefficient, as it makes no sense to assess mitigation options internally in order to determine that mitigation will not work, and then undertake an environmental assessment process to review and study those same mitigation options. The bill does not address this triggering program under the Fisheries Act.

In connection with the debate so far, I read with keen interest the intervention made by my colleague, the member for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, in which he expounded the view that Quebec wanted all projects in its territory to be subjected to its own environmental assessment process. This statement and this kind of policy as proposed flies in the face of our Constitution.

The Constitution sets out very clearly that there is federal jurisdiction across the country in every province when it comes to matters that impinge upon water particularly, namely the Fisheries Act, the Navigation Act and other acts, and therefore Quebec cannot be exempt from the application of federal laws under the Constitution of Canada as if it were an island by itself.

Therefore the argument put forward by the member claiming an exclusive provincial jurisdiction does not hold water.

I also found it quite intriguing to hear the intervention by my distinguished colleague from Windsor—St. Clair. I read his remarks very carefully. I agree with many of his points, particularly with regard to the three criteria that the NDP has applied to test the legislation. They are printed in Hansard on page 5655.

While one has to agree with the second criteria to some extent, I would argue to the contrary, namely that these amendments have not weakened but have strengthened the legislation for the reasons I just gave a few moments ago: by introducing the element of the seven year review and by bringing the crown corporation under the act and so forth.

It seems to me that if I were to apply the three criteria, I would say that two out of three would be positive. I am referring now to the third criterion which refers to the necessity of strengthening the ability for people, community members, NGOs and sectoral interests to deal with the process, namely the general concept of transparency.

I would say that the amendments related to the registry and the time limitations given, that actually the act has been strengthened and has been given transparency.

We must keep in mind that in committee it was possible, by way of very close cooperation, to make some 70 more amendments.

Moving on to the member for Fundy—Royal's intervention, he makes a very important point about the necessity for a panel review of projects of a certain magnitude. He also refers to the testimony given by Monsieur de la Chevrotière in connection with the Bruce Peninsula nuclear waste products issue. I agree with the member for Fundy—Royal that this kind of review should have taken place and that the act therefore requires an amendment to permit such a review to be carried out in future. It would improve the accountability of the government and it would improve the confidence on the part of the public in the environmental impact assessment, and it would be desirable for those reasons alone.

The question that the member for Fundy—Royal raised at the end of his intervention is also quite important because he asks whether the federal environmental assessment is making a significant contribution to sustainable development and a healthy environment. I suppose that is the key question that we need to address. The bill is a measure of limited scope and impact, as indicated earlier. Definitely what is needed here is to have a piece of legislation that will improve and strengthen the sustainable development goals of the Government of Canada, because it is through the properly conducted, efficient, open and successful environmental impact assessment process that we can reinforce the implementation of sustainable development in this country.

Of course the case that comes to mind again is the construction of that expressway in Hamilton, which was approved because of a loophole in the act. Thank God that has been closed. In the meantime, though, 40,000 trees have been cut and considerable damage has been done to the survival of migratory birds.

In conclusion, might I say that it was for all of us a very worthwhile experience to have this bill sent to committee. We have done as much as could be done, politically speaking, to improve it.

May I take this opportunity to recognize the fine work that was carried out as vice-chair of the committee by the member for York North, whose dedication and commitment made it possible to give the bill a considerable boost. She is no longer the vice-chair of our committee and we regret it very much. Had it not been for her work, we would not be able today to list the positive features of this bill and I am glad to do that in recognition of a colleague who has done so well in the promotion of sustainable development.

[Cod Fishery, April 29th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, Dr. Rosenberg went on to say:

You can't fix this problem one fishery at a time, because the boats just move around; the effort simply shifts to somewhere else and makes the problems worse.

At the same convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Charles Birkeland, a fisheries researcher at the University of Hawaii was quoted as saying:

For most of human history, fish and other marine species had naturally protected areas; places too remote, too deep or too dangerous to fish, but technology is ensuring there are no havens.

We are pushing fisheries off the edge of viability, and species to the edge of extinction.

In my estimate these are very revealing and important observations. They indicate to us that the scientific community has been giving signals to the political sector at many levels and in many instances. The debate today is part of a continuum that started decades ago.

My third point has to do briefly with an item that has already been touched upon by many who have spoken here tonight. There have been major federal initiatives in the fishing industry in the past decade. In 1990 there was the Atlantic fisheries adjustment program, AFAP. In 1992 there was the northern cod adjustment and recovery program, NCARP. Shortly after there was the Atlantic groundfish adjustment program, AGAP. After that there was another program which has been mentioned here tonight; the TAGS program was introduced in May 1994 and was a five year comprehensive program. In June 1998 there was the fishery restructuring and adjustment measures for the Atlantic groundfish industry, also known as the Canadian fisheries adjustment and restructuring plan, amounting to $730 million.

I agree with my colleagues who spoke earlier about the outcome of these particular investments. There seems to be a short term capacity to make plans but not a long term capacity to develop a coherent system of policies whereby the problem is tackled for the long term in a manner that would give desirable results.

I am not so sure whether my comment is fair because it is natural that governments want to be re-elected. The term at the most is five years. Governments by nature politically tend to make decisions from one term to the next. This may explain why we have this series of programs every three or four years. It is probably why we are having this debate today. We have been told there will be an election this year in the province of Newfoundland. Political pressures come and go and do not contribute much to a coherent discussion of the problem at hand. Everyone agrees that the fisheries does not lend itself to short term solutions. There is no doubt about that.

My fourth point is, this being a typical, classical issue of sustainable development, one has to examine it in terms of the long term and in terms of a capital, being the fishery, that can be exploited only to the extent at which it can produce interest. The harvest is the interest. When more fish are caught than the capacity of the resource to produce, namely more than the interest, then the capital is attacked, the resource is eroded and gradually it is whittled away.

This is what is evidently happening with an increasing global population which is now supposed to go from six billion to nine billion in the next four years. Obviously the pressure on this resource becomes stronger and stronger. The technology of the fleet is skyrocketing. The capacity of governments to regulate the catch is not there yet evidently. We have not ratified the law of the sea which will be my next point.

There is a convergence of negative factors which makes the management of this issue particularly difficult. This brings me to my fifth point which is the ecological approach to fisheries management.

A very thoughtful study was produced by the Conservation Council of New Brunswick a couple of years ago. It is authored by Janice Harvey and David Coon. They examined fisheries management and proposed an approach that would be a departure from the present one, which is a fisheries management that relies on numbers for targeted species and can often lead to a wrong conclusion and wrong recommendations.

I will quote briefly the main guideline for this particular approach as put forward by resource economist James Wilson together with biologist Lloyd Dickie. They describe an ecological management approach to fisheries.

[An] ecological management approach puts emphasis on the relationship between management rules and the parameters that control the level of production of the system. In “assessments” of fisheries, the parameters of a system are generally those factors that are considered as constants. They are the basic fertility of the system, the competitors, predators and prey resources in the fish community, and the physical environment in which it operates. If the parameters change, the whole dynamic system has to be reinterpreted.

There is a lot of truth in that observation. It is not something that can be examined in this context in this chamber tonight. However, it is an observation that we should take seriously, together with that of wildlife biologists Reed Noss and Allen Cooperrider who said the following about natural resource management:

Management is positive if it serves to protect biodiversity from harm or helps restore an ecosystem previously damaged. It is neutral if it essentially mimics or substitutes for natural disturbance-recovery processes (a theoretical possibility, though not yet convincingly demonstrated anywhere). But management is negative if it contributes directly or indirectly to biotic impoverishment. A proper philosophy for management.

What we are facing here obviously is a biotic impoverishment in very compressed and condensed terms. It seems to me that the crisis in the fishery which has been with us for some time, requires a new approach. It might be possible that the ecological approach proposed by the New Brunswick Conservation Council is one that should be given attention.

Let me make a brief pitch for Canada's ratification of the law of the sea. If we were to ratify the law of the sea, article 61(2) of the convention would help us considerably in being active in the protection of our resources in the exclusive international economic zone out there which has been the object of some heated debate here tonight as well.

[Cod Fishery, April 29th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if we could have some order on the backbenches over there.

[Cod Fishery, April 29th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, may I remind my colleagues as to what happened for instance to the exploitation of the herring in the North Sea or to the exploitation of the Peruvian anchoveta which has completely disappeared. Human exploitation tends to be overdone over time to the point of eliminating some species from the face of the Earth.

It is important to recall what was reported in the Canadian media a year and a half ago on the occasion of a convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science which was held in Boston in February 2002. Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia said that over the past 50 years the catch of popular species such as cod, haddock, flounder, tuna and hake has halved although the fishing fleet has tripled. There is evidently a problem being identified by Dr. Pauly, namely that the fishing fleets are increasing the potential considerably.

Having made the observation that we need fish to make fish, he noted that the only way to save the east coast fishery was to introduce a number of sweeping measures including a substantial reduction of fishing fleets, the abolition of subsidies to industrial fisheries and the establishment of a network of large no take marine reserves.

Reg Watson, another UBC researcher, was quoted as saying that the collapse of the North Atlantic fishery is having a ripple effect around the world. He noted that the large fish now found in markets in Canada and the United States come from West Africa and Southeast Asia and they will soon be facing problems similar to those of the east coast. Dr. Watson is quoted as saying that we are paying other fishers in other oceans to grind down their marine ecosystems for our consumption. This is a serious concern for global food security. This is another important observation.

An intervention by a Dr. Peter Tyedmers of Dalhousie University in Halifax also must be of interest to my colleague across the aisle. He said that an economic analysis conducted as part of a project revealed that almost $2.5 billion U.S. in taxpayers' money is spent each year subsidizing north Atlantic fishing fleets. Of that, Canada spends something like $520 million.

Dr. Rosenberg, the dean of fisheries science at the University of New Hampshire said that the study he conducted demonstrated “a fishery by fishery approach does not work and that such government policies have probably exacerbated the crisis”. The solution does not seem to be at least according to this scientist a fishery by fishery approach. He went on to say “You can't fix this problem one fishery at a time because--

[Cod Fishery, April 29th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, it is relevant to raise the issue of the Icelandic cod fishery and to ask ourselves these questions. If other jurisdictions manage their cod fishery on a sustainable basis as the Icelandic community seems to be able to do it, then it is legitimate to ask ourselves why can we not achieve the same. I do not know the answer but I think that in the course of my presentation I may come across some partial answers at least.

This leads me to my second point which has to do with the predictions.This debate takes place in an understandable political milieu, in an understandable political atmosphere, but the predictions that have been made have been with us for decades actually. The history of human exploitation of the fishery over the decades and over the centuries is not a very happy one.

[Cod Fishery, April 29th, 2003]

There is no point of order, Madam Speaker. This is debate.

[Cod Fishery, April 29th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, the member for Bonavista—Trinity—Conception deserves to be congratulated for putting forward this motion. In his concluding remarks, he made the observation that all we have to do is to manage the fish right. I think that is what this is all about. The question is this. How do we find the way of managing the fish right? I suppose that is what this debate is all about.

I would like to devote a few minutes to a few different items, the first one being the Icelandic cod fish.

Why is the Icelandic cod fishery is doing well? Why is it that, according to Icelandic statistics, the catch for the year 2002 is expected to amount to 215,000 tonnes and the catch for the current year is expected to be 212,000 tonnes? This is a remarkable achievement.

Yet Iceland is, as we know, in the middle of the Atlantic. It is surrounded by international waters. It has problems therefore of the exclusive economic zone. It has everything against it in the management of its resources because of its geographic location. The question we could ask ourselves is, why is the Icelandic cod fishery doing so well and why are we now reduced to the situation as announced by the minister?

I can appreciate that the member for Bonavista—Trinity—Conception and the member for Burin—St. George's are opposed to the fishery. That is a natural political reaction. However it is obvious that the minister has no alternative to reduce the catch to 3,500 tonnes, as it has been suggested by the member for Burin—St. George's. It is just a short term solution but it does not go to the root of the question, namely, how do we rebuild the stock because this is what we all want to achieve.

It is therefore necessary to put the question as to why is the Icelandic cod fishery doing reasonably well and maintaining its level.

Keep in mind that throughout the 1970s the cod fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador, according to Statistics Canada, generated a catch in the range of some 600,000 tonnes per year, with a prevalence of foreign fleets. In the 1980s the catch declined and went down to 250,000 tonnes per year and the prevalent fleets became Canadian in the 1980s.

Iceland finds itself now slightly below the yearly catch that we had throughout the 1980s, until the moratorium of 1992.

Unfortunately this debate does not allow for questions but I would like to know the answer from the member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore. Why can we not manage the fisheries the same way the Icelandic community does? There must be an answer. The member has been around here since 1997 but in his speech tonight he did not provide one answer to that question. He gave us a tirade, he went after every minister under the sun, he congratulated the Newfoundland population but he did not come forward with any specific recommendation. He did not even--

[The Economy, April 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, employment figures released last Friday show full time employment in Canada increased by 23,000 jobs in March, a remarkable achievement considering the time of year and the war in Iraq. By contrast, the economy south of the border showed a loss of 108,000 jobs. Evidently the war is having an impact on the U.S. economy.

Canada's economy is healthy. The U.S. economy is on a slippery slope. The official opposition and its real allies, big business, do not seem to realize that acting in Canada's interest means resisting military conflict, working for peaceful solutions, reducing Canada's huge dependence on the U.S. economy, and building, expanding and strengthening economic ties with Europe, Asia and Latin America.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, in the limited time left it is very difficult to choose which argument to develop in this very important debate.

I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues to an editorial which appeared in none other than the New York Times . This newspaper has been frequently quoted today by the members who have spoken on behalf of the official opposition. The editorial appears under the title “War and the Ruins of Diplomacy”. It makes a number of worthwhile points. I will quote only one paragraph because of the absence of adequate time. It states:

--America's current isolation began long before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. From the administration's first days, it turned away from internationalism and the concerns of its European allies by abandoning the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdrawing America's signature from the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. Russia was bluntly told to accept America's withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into the territory of the former Soviet Union. In the Middle East, Washington shortsightedly stepped back from the worsening spiral of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, ignoring the pleas of Arab, Muslim and European countries. If other nations resist American leadership today, part of the reason lies in this unhappy history.

This is an interesting overall background painted by an editorial writer in the New York Times , who went on to state:

The American-sponsored Security Council resolution that was withdrawn...had firm support from only four of the council's 15 members and was opposed by major European powers, like France, Germany and Russia.

These elements somehow have a bearing in the evolution of events that we have witnessed in the last few weeks, namely, that there is a body of opinion in the United States that disagrees with the White House. There is also a criticism being levelled in relation to the handling of this whole issue at the Security Council on the part of the White House administration.

Last Friday I was struck by the fact that the employment figures released in Canada show a full time employment increase by some 23,000 jobs in March, which is a remarkable achievement considering the time of the year and the war in Iraq. By contrast, the economy south of the border showed a loss of 108,000 jobs. Evidently the war is beginning to have an impact on the U.S. economy.

If certain Alliance strategists on the opposition side and big business leaders had any good sense, instead of urging Canada to join in the war and further integrate with the U.S. economy, they would support Canada's position and urge a resumption of talks at the Security Council, for instance, to seek alternatives to Canada's huge dependence on one economy, as is the case now, by strengthening our economic bridges with Europe and Asia.

Today Canada's economy, by all accounts, is healthy. By contrast, the U.S. economy is not. Which is the model then that the official opposition and big business prefer? Canada has opted in favour of the United Nations Security Council and multilateralism. Does the official opposition want to replace the United Nations with the White House administration? This is a common question that I would dearly like to have answered by the official opposition spokespersons.

Last week at the council of Europe an important resolution was passed. I will relay to the House the comments made by that assembly in a resolution that was passed by a two-thirds majority. In one paragraph it states:

The Assembly notes that the great majority of the international community had opposed the military intervention at this stage, which was favoured by only four of the fifteen members of the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Speaker, may I call it 6 o'clock?