Sheila Copps

[Communications Security Establishment, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, many books are circulating this week. One is by Claude Morin, one by Joe Clark, and there are others. Are we here to say that all that Claude Morin writes is true? We in the government want to deal in facts.

We want to deal in facts. If the member is interested in slinging the mud, if he believes every word that is written in every book that is flying around town-

[Communications Security Establishment, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have said it many times and I will repeat it for those who did not understand. The CSE is subject to the Criminal Code of Canada. It does not spy on Canadians or on those who are involved in politics, whether they belong to the Parti Quebecois, the Liberal Party or any other political party. Is that clear enough?

[Communications Security Establishment, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in no way was I evasive. What I said and I repeat, in French and in English, if the hon. member cannot understand, is that the CSE is subject to Canadian law, including the Criminal Code, and to all Canadian laws. They do not take any action against people in Canada who are in politics.

[Communications Security Establishment, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I repeat, the activities of the CSE are in no way directed against Canadians, including people involved in politics.

[Communications Security Establishment, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of the House to what the Prime Minister said yesterday, that the activities of the CSE are totally subject to Canadian laws, including the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Privacy Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and they obey the law.

[The Environment, October 19th, 1994]

Please drop by my office.

[The Environment, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in only a few short days we will celebrate the first anniversary of the Liberal government.

Over the course of that year the red book has become a guiding light of government policy. Today I am proud to announce that once again we are delivering on another red book promise.

I am proud to announce that we are going to follow up on the recommendations of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. We are following up on our promise not only to appoint an environmental auditor general, but to go even further.

Today, our government has decided to make profound changes in the way we operate in order to ensure that Canada's environmental agenda is integrated with Canada's economic agenda.

We have heard the members on the opposite side of the House say spend money. What the members of the third party do not understand is that a government that incorporates the principles of sustainable development into all of its actions will be a government that will save taxpayers money.

We promised in the red book that we would appoint an environmental auditor general. Many people thought the government would never follow through on that promise because it opens the government up to the potential for criticism. It could subject us to the same kind of hard nosed analysis and criticism that we are currently open to as a result of the Auditor General's current level of activity on our financial behaviour.

I wish to tell members of Parliament that not only are we fulfilling our red book promise today, we want to go further. We think it makes good environmental sense and it delivers better government. We are serious about promoting sustainable development and we are delivering today. We are serious about the greening of government.

This place alone saved over $750,000 when the former Speaker decided to make the practices of the House of Commons sustainable. It does not cost more money because we are spending money smarter. We are serious about getting the federal government's act together on environmental issues and we are serious about being held accountable for our environmental actions and our environmental planning.

The cabinet has reviewed the extremely thoughtful work of the parliamentary committee chaired by the hon. member for Davenport.

The committee felt that while it is vitally important to audit past actions of the government, it is even more important to ensure that environmental considerations be a fundamental component of planning in all government departments.

We have decided upon a package of initiatives which meet all the objectives of the committee's report and does so in a manner consistent with the fiscal framework of the government. Members of Parliament from all parties and a wide range of individual witnesses indicated the importantce of moving from the concept of sustainable development to the practice of sustainable development.

I want to repeat that in English because I think it is an important underlying principle. We have to stop talking about sustainable development and start delivering. We have to move from the theory to the practice, and that starts right here in this place with the actions of the single biggest employer in the land, the Government of Canada.

The Committee called for enhanced environmental auditing of the government's policies, programs and laws.

The committee believed that individual government departments must improve their practices to achieve consistency with sustainable development and the greening of government. The committee called for the review of existing policies and independent and internal evaluation of all new policies and laws.

The committee also felt that the government must be held accountable to Parliament and to the public for demonstrating real progress in meeting these objectives.

The committee advocated that the government go beyond the idea of just an Environmental Auditor and, instead, establish a Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

The government will amend the Auditor General Act to establish a Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

To guarantee the absolute impartiality of this person, she or he will be appointed by the Auditor General of Canada and report through the Auditor General to Parliament. The government will include a definition of sustainable development in the Auditor General Act and ensure that environmental considerations are taken into account in all Auditor General reports to the House of Commons.

All cabinet ministers will be required to table sustainable development strategies in Parliament. The act will make the commissioner responsible for monitoring and reporting, not to cabinet, not behind closed doors, but to Parliament to monitor and report on the performance of government departments in meeting our sustainable development goals and objectives.

The Auditor General Act will also be amended to allow the commissioner to receive from the public and to forward to appropriate ministers petitions on environmental concerns. The commissioner will have the authority to monitor and report on government responses to petitions from the public.

I want to be crystal clear. The commissioner, through the Auditor General, will issue a separate report annually to Parliament on the extent to which departments are or are not meeting the goals and objectives of their stated sustainable development strategies.

In addition to this separate report, the Auditor General's report will include considerations of economy, efficiency, effectiveness and environment.

These changes go well beyond the red book commitment and we intend to do even more. The parliamentary committee indicated the importance of an open, inclusive process to really get people involved.

We must get people involved in the greening and sustainable development process.

Government departments will be required to prepare their sustainable development strategies in an open and transparent manner which includes review by public stakeholders in receiving the advice of independent, objective experts, including the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

We want to guarantee that members of Parliament have a key stake in ensuring that we meet our objectives. All ministers, therefore, will be required to report on their progress toward sustainable development in preparing and presenting their annual estimates for consideration by Parliament.

The environment is not just a job for the Minister of the Environment. The environment is a job for every minister, every member and every department of government. The government, through the red book, devoted a chapter to the importance of sustainable development in building a strong economy by linking a healthy economy and a healthy environment. We are committed to this integrated approach.

Economic, social and environmental policy must go hand in hand. We are committed to ensuring the promotion of thinking green and delivering on our actions. It must be a central component of decision making, not just from the Ministry of the Environment but in the decision making of all departments of government and at all levels of society. That is the role Harlem Brundtland was talking about when she said that you think globally and you act locally. What you flush down your toilet is part of what affects the environment. What we flush down the sewers, sometimes unaccounted for, affects the drinking water and the ecosystems and the gifts that we can give to our children.

In the Government of Canada, decisions of government departments must reflect a sustainable approach to building on our economic strength by recognizing that the world is going green.

We have announced already our intention to proclaim and strengthen the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I was pleased that we received the support of the opposition in this particular initiative.

We have already announced a comprehensive proposal for the management of toxins which put the onus not on people to prove that chemicals kill, but on companies to prove that they are safe. Reverse onus is a very important principle.

We have followed up on our promise to establish an environmental industry strategy at a time when everyone knows that government dollars are tight. We are spending new dollars from a reoriented budget to ensure that we have our fair share of an emerging world market that has the potential to create thousands of Canadian jobs over the next decade.

In less than one year we have also delivered on our promise to put in place an independent task force. The Minister of Finance and I spent a number of months working on the membership of that task force. That task force is going to report in one month on where the government is developing tax policies that help the environment and where perhaps some of our policies might be disincentives to sound environmental practices. The information from that report will help the Minister of Finance as he has to make the tough decisions that come up in the next budget. That work will also lay the groundwork for a comprehensive review of federal policies and programs again as promised in the red book.

We are determined to see the greening of the federal government. Looking around, this is a green chamber, but we want to make sure it is more than in name only. We are prepared to put our government on the line, to hold ourselves accountable for meeting our objectives and obligations.

Today's announcement means the beginning, just the beginning, but it is the beginning of a fundamental change in the operation and practices of government. Environmental and economic thinking must converge. They are not disparate; they are not fighting against each other. They are coming together because environmental health is essential for long term economic and human health.

Who would have thought 10 years ago that a whole industry would be wiped out because we did not develop sustainable practices? Just look at the fisheries, the cod stocks in Atlantic Canada to see a living example of the lack of a sustainable development policy.

Today's initiatives will be funded within existing resources. I believe in the long run today's announcement will pay off major dividends, environmental and economic, to the taxpayers of Canada, because thinking green does not cost money, it saves.

The government is getting its act together on sustainable development. We are beginning to make the links between the environment and the economy. We are turning the sentiments of Canadians into concrete action. We are delivering on the spirit of the red book. We are taking measures to seek out independent advice because we are not afraid to have our mettle tested. We are not afraid to put our feet in the fire and say we will be accountable not only to cabinet, not only to the government but to the people of Canada through the Parliament of Canada.

That is what is happening with the creation of the commissioner who reports to Parliament. The government wants to hold Parliament accountable and the people want to hold the government accountable.

With this announcement, the government is fulfilling, in less than a year, yet another primary election commitment of the Prime Minister. One chapter was devoted to sustainable development in the red book. This is much more than words. It is a set of specific initiatives to ensure all government departments develop, announce and publicize our sustainable development programs.

I want to thank, first of all, the members of the standing committee and the witnesses who appeared before the committee for their invaluable advice and insight. Today's initiatives are much stronger because all members of the committee undertook their responsibilities with the utmost seriousness and dedication.

I want to acknowledge the work of all the committee members, some of whom actually along with the chair are currently on the road on another task of reviewing the five year plan of CEPA. One former member is in the House today. I know he and his colleagues contributed very constructively to the outcome of today's announcement. As I said, it is only the beginning. We want to look to him and his party and to all parliamentarians for that kind of constructive co-operation in the future.

I can say from a personal point of view that I have spent a lot of time in opposition and not much time in government. Sometimes it is hard for governments to open themselves up to public scrutiny. It was not easy to move this through all the levels behind closed doors. However I can say that the commitment of the cabinet to open this to transparency and in particular the commitment of the Prime Minister to live up to the promise of the red book is what has made today's announcement a reality.

We came into government and some of the people in the bureaucracy said that the red book was politics. Now it is government and now they are starting to understand that the politics and the policies of the election form the basis of what it is we want to achieve.

We were successful in actually moving forward on the creation of a commissioner for sustainable development who will report directly to Parliament through an agency outside of cabinet and outside of government departments. I had the full support of all my colleagues because they understand that to really make government work we have to incorporate the principles of sustainable development not only in the Ministry of the Environment, not only in the agencies involved in environmental protection, but most particularly in how we do business in the future.

May I conclude by saying that I believe today's announcement is the beginning of a future when the commissioner for sustainable development will provide the kind of ammunition opposition parties need to get up and hold the government to account.

I am confident the mandate we have accorded to the new commissioner for sustainable development with the political teeth of the Office of the Auditor General and with the personal commitment of the current Auditor General will make this process work. Just as today when the Auditor General comes down on government departments, we may not always like it but we change, we move and we respond to the analyses of the Auditor General. In the same way future Parliaments will be waving around reports of the commissioner for sustainable development to make government accountable, to work for the people, of the people and in particular to be accountable to the Parliament of Canada.

I am thrilled. This is a small step in the right direction, but it is a step that could yield fantastic dividends for the greening of Canada in the next decade.

[Environment And Sustainable Development, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, the government's response to the first report of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development.

I have the honour to present, in both official languages, our response to the first report of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development.

[The Environment, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this happens to be an issue that affects the health of literally hundreds of thousands of people in southwestern Ontario.

As a result of the initiatives of not only the member for Bruce-Grey but also the southwestern caucus and the minister from Windsor, we have been in touch with the EPA directly. The Department of Foreign Affairs has spoken directly to the State Department of the United States.

We are not satisfied with the EPA's proposal to move forward with the lowering of the standards that could potentially negatively affect the health of Canada. This is why I am very pleased to tell the House that on July 26, along with my counterpart in the United States, Carol Browner, I entered a dialogue to start looking at the issue of joint airsheds from a shared point of view.

Airborne problems do not carry passports. We are going to tackle the problem together and we are going to find a solution that respects the health of Canadians.

[The Environment, October 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for the question and point out that the latest report of Statistics Canada said that 9 per cent of Canada's land was set aside as wilderness. It is short of our goal but certainly moving in the right direction.

We intend in the next few weeks to enact the Canadian biodiversity strategy. We will use this strategy, along with our strategy on expanding wilderness areas, to make sure that Canada is among the first signatories not only to the biodiversity strategy but also among the countries that actually put the strategy in place, working together with the provinces as we will do at the CCME meeting in November.