Charles Caccia

[Pesticides, November 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the World Wildlife Fund has compiled a list of 60 pesticides that are banned in several countries because of concerns related to birth defects, toxicity hazards and the danger they pose to people, water quality and wildlife.

Canada's pesticide regulatory agency confirms that 59 of those pesticides are still in use, leaving Canadians exposed to chemicals that certain other countries deem to be too dangerous.

Approximately 500 pesticides are allowed for use in Canada, nearly three times the number some European countries such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark allow. Many of these pesticides were approved before 1960 and therefore a prompt re-evaluation of these pesticides is urgently needed.

Canada's 30 year old Pest Control Products Act is badly inadequate for the protection of the health of Canadians and children in particular. I urge the Minister of Health to introduce new pesticide legislation.

[The Environment, October 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, sulphur dioxide pollution from the shipping industry is a major contributor to acidification of waters and rain. In the waters around Denmark it is estimated that emissions from ships are twice those of the country's land based sources.

Many European countries are putting in place a system of dues at ports, differentiated according to the ship's environmental performance. For example, ships entering Hamburg harbour are granted a 12% rebate on dues if they meet pre-established environmental requirements such as using low sulphur bunker oil, showing they produce lower sulphur emissions or using paints free of poisonous tributyl tin.

These port dues rebates are significant. They are an incentive for the shipping industry to clean up its act. I urge the Minister of Transport to adopt such incentives and thus reduce pollution from cruise, cargo and other types of ships.

[Genetically Modified Foods, October 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the need for a mandatory labelling system of genetically modified foods was made evident by the events of last summer. For example, we had the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors ordering major grocery chains to remove from the shelves labelled products or cover labels identifying products that are GM free.

One wonders whether it is fair to leave an issue as basic as the consumers' right to know what they eat to the whim of food retailers. Why are consumers denied the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions with regard to genetically modified foods?

I invite my colleagues in the House to give serious consideration to these questions and to support Bill C-287 when voting on it tomorrow.

[Interparliamentary Delegations, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34, I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, held in Strasbourg, France, from June 25 to 29, 2001.

[International Boundary Waters Treaty Act, September 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could. This is a subject of intense discussions and different interpretations of the NAFTA agreement.

As I understand it from having read the sections in the NAFTA agreement dealing with water, the agreement only contemplates the trade of water in bottled form. Therefore, my interpretation would be that water is not in the agreement.

There are people, however, who like to raise this issue and interpret it in a different way, but I would like to think that we would stick to the written agreement and make sure that water never becomes a traded commodity.

[International Boundary Waters Treaty Act, September 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for Souris--Moose Mountain for his intervention and for what he said about rivers which originate in Canada.

Let me first deal with his last point. We certainly are not at odds with the United States on this matter. On the contrary, we are interdependent. We have a classic example just looking at water. We would be wise though to pursue legislative reciprocity so that we are not the only ones to pass legislation and that our legislation is reinforced by American legislation that has, hopefully, exactly the same objectives as the Canadian.

As to rivers that flow into the U.S. and then come back into Canada, this is a very complex issue on which I am not really competent to comment.

[International Boundary Waters Treaty Act, September 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate the federal environment minister for taking a watershed approach with the bill. Such an approach would ban the removal of water from its natural basin. Hopefully, this will be a more comprehensive approach than a simple export ban, and we will agree that it makes good ecological sense to stop the bulk water removal at the source, not only at the border.

However, the Minister of the Environment relies on a federal-provincial voluntary agreement to ban water removal from major drainage basins. This approach, I suggest, ought to be broadened and expanded to include all Canadian water bodies and not limited only to boundary waters.

I say this for three reasons. First, the proposed voluntary accord would be just that; it would be voluntary. It would not legally bind any province to protect our water resources. We recently had some ideas ventilated in Newfoundland, which have to be taken very seriously.

Second, the proposed accord would not prohibit export initiatives undertaken by municipalities, crown agencies, corporations or even private parties. Even if the provinces wanted to ban water removals and exports, the federal government has the constitutional authority to regulate trade.

Understandably, the federal government hopes that a province by province voluntary ban would keep water protection strictly as an environment issue and that trade lawyers perhaps would not notice this disguise. However, water removals and exports seem already to be a trade issue since there is a challenge under NAFTA brought by a water export company against the Government of Canada for compensation because of British Columbia's decision to ban water exports.

Through the proposed accord, the federal government is thus asking the provinces to take their own action on banning water exports, and we may hear more from that.

Before I go into the third reason, Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my esteemed and distinguished colleague, the member for Toronto--Danforth.

Third, the current proposal would only prohibit removals of water from major basins but would allow the export of water as long as it stayed in the same basin. The government's definition of basins as Canadian leaves a lot to be desired because basin describes a geographical feature without regard to political boundaries.

The concept of basin is problematic and we understand it. However, for an accord or legislation intended to secure resources management for political institutions, it is a very key central issue. It is also an essential concept for any legislation that intends to withstand trade challenges that are exactly intended to transcend political boundaries.

The proposed accord will lead to some kind of a patchwork of provincial initiatives, thus possibly making Canada more vulnerable to trade challenges. I regretfully conclude that the legislation tabled today is too limited in scope to provide protection to most of our water bodies.

It seems quite clear that any meaningful protection of our water resources requires the federal government to face the reality of international trade agreements. This is the point that I would like to make as clearly as I can.

In search of the most effective strategy to protect our water resources from exports, I would recommend first, that we enact federal legislation designed specifically for the purpose of banning bulk transboundary water removals from Canada.

Second, I would recommend that we renegotiate international trade agreements to seek an exclusion or waiver of water from such agreements, which would perhaps be the easier route at the present time.

This debate is an extremely important one and has long term significance. The Great Lakes are a tremendously important water body as we all know. We are passing this legislation hoping that it will work, but we have no assurances at the present time that a mirror legislative initiative is not being launched and completed by our neighbours to the south.

Therefore, I will conclude by urging the government to see to it that in Washington an initiative that would mirror the Canadian initiative, as contained in the bill as a minimum, would be launched so that we would have reciprocity in this very delicate field, which is of great significance for many generations to come.

[The Environment, September 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, given the trends and impacts of climate change, could the Minister of Natural Resources indicate why in Winnipeg federal-provincial energy and environment ministers were not able to reach a substantive agreement on the Kyoto Protocol?

[Pesticide Awareness Day, September 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in June the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of municipalities and their powers to ban the spraying of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. To celebrate this landmark decision a pesticide awareness day will take place tomorrow in room 200 of the West Block.

Citizens' groups, environmental and public health organizations and interested parliamentarians will discuss their experiences of pesticide use reduction. Displays and exhibits are part of the program. Organic food will be served. Speeches starting at 6 p.m. will include an award ceremony in honour of the town of Hudson's pioneer role in banning pesticides. Tomorrow's event aims also at reminding the government of the urgent need for a bill to amend the Pest Control Products Act, now over 30 years old.

All parliamentarians and the public are invited to participate in tomorrow's day of celebration on the Hill.

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, no, definitely not. That is why I emphasized the fact that this will be a slow and long term process of the kind that was advocated by the Prime Minister in the debate today.

Obviously there is no panacea but we must remember, and it seems quite clear to me, that in the pursuit of terrorism we have to deal with the root causes that feed terrorism and make it so devastating and active on the world scene. In order to do that we have to deal with the hatred on which they base their support. We have to find ways of reducing the tensions in all those countries in those parts of the world, beginning with the Middle East where violence and hatred have been so dominant and which probably do give the terrorist movement additional strength and additional raison d'être.

I have no illusions. It is not a solution that is a quick one. It will not be a pursuit that will happen overnight. We have to ask ourselves how we are going to uproot and remove the sources that lead to violence and hatred, vendetta and revenge rather than just believing that by killing the terrorists involved that we have resolved the problem. We have to bring them to justice. We have to strengthen our security system. We have to engage in very sophisticated diplomatic activities. We have to attempt to do our best in building a better world on what is emerging from the ruins in downtown New York.

The way of doing that is to empower the United Nations with a task that has the purpose of resolving the tensions that have led to the spread and the intensity of these horrific activities on the part of the terrorist movement.