Sheila Copps

[Income Security For Fishermen, February 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that the program ends in May. We are already working on a few possibilities. Today, the Minister for Human Resources is meeting with his provincial counterparts in order to determine what direction the renewal of social programs will take. It is also a fact that the minister is working in co-operation with his colleague the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans so that fishermen of the Magdalen Islands and Newfoundland are consulted before the program's expiration on May 15.

The member should know that the implementation plan is not for Newfoundland alone; it concerns fishermen of the Magdalen Islands, Newfoundland and other parts of the Maritimes. We are trying to have adequate consultation before any decision is made.

[Income Security For Fishermen, February 14th, 1994]

No, Mr. Speaker.

[Regional Development, February 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, obviously, even the Liberal government cannot change the calendar; it is true that the results are expected not by February 30 but by the end of February.

That being said, I do not know if the hon. member knows that three Quebec cities have applied, namely Montreal, Kirkland and Hull. I am sure that members of the Bloc Quebecois do not want to deny a process open to all Canadian cities interested in applying, including the three Quebec cities wanting to be considered in an open and transparent manner to become, in effect, a centre for Canada.

[Regional Development, February 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, of course, the Liberal government's promise is the same one we made in the red book. Our government is transparent and open to the public. And I am very happy to inform all members that the applications to host

NAFTA's environmental centre were filed on February 4. Three of the 22 applications came from Quebec cities. The process, that will be conducted in a very open manner, will close on February 30. We will pick the Canadian city which is the most open with respect to the environment and all other infrastructures.

[supply, February 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, without commenting on what the gentlemen opposite are wearing, I would like to point out that the hon. member was himself a Tory and that, since Tory blue has gone out of style in this House, I now feel more comfortable wearing blue.

That being said, if the government he was a member of did not take good care of public accounts, why did he not do something about it when he was a government member? When we are preparing estimates-not just public accounts, because there is a process that includes public accounts-of course, the opposition can chair the Public Accounts Committee, but there is also the budgetary process where you can call any minister on any expenditure on any committee. I for one have just signed our estimates for the year to come and we must be held publicly accountable for these expenditures. So, there are not only public accounts but also estimates and I am sure that in this new era of liberalism in government much closer attention will be paid to constructive criticism from the opposition regarding government spending.

[supply, February 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, maybe I was not at the same meeting but I did have a meeting with the member in the anteroom which is as good a meeting room as any. In that particular room I said the panel was struck.

The fact is that if the EARP guidelines had been met in the past there is no forum to strike a second panel. A proper panel was not struck in the past and it has not been subject to environmental review. The review panel has now been struck. In very short order the membership will be published and the hearings will begin.

I think the member for Wild Rose will also admit that in talking about the issue in question which is a major ski development, the developer not being able to receive proper environmental approvals for the whole project, basically cut the project in half and tried to get approval for the parking lot separate from the lifts. We think it has to be looked upon as an integrated package.

We have called for a panel to be struck and the panel will have to do its job. Obviously it has to be done in the context of the environmental implications. We would be remiss if we basically said that this particular person has invested a significant amount

of money and therefore it has to go ahead without any consideration of the environmental implications.

The hon. member will recognize that if the environmental concerns had been met obviously we would have no authority to strike an EARP panel. The fact one is being struck is because there has not been a proper environmental assessment.

We are doing what we have done in the past. We did it most recently with the federal-Saskatchewan panel on uranium mining. We are doing it with BAPE wherever possible. We are trying to facilitate the process where federal and provincial interests intersect. We are trying to run joint panels to make sure we do not put the developer and interested parties through the same process twice.

That has certainly been the practice I have established and want to continue. From that perspective we only want one stop shopping for environmental hearings. We do not want to put a project through a provincial hearing and then a federal hearing and have a number of hearings.

That being said we certainly are not about to give up our right to require an environmental assessment on an issue as significant as a major ski development in our national Rockies. The member points out that this is on the parking lot but the parking lot is going to be there for something. If the parking lot is being built to park cars, obviously there has to be a ski hill to go along with it.

[supply, February 11th, 1994]

It is not easy, but it is worth it, and do you know why it is worth it? Because when I see my brother living in French, in Montreal, with his wife and their daughter, who speaks French, the daughter of a man born in Hamilton, I think to myself our country works.

It is worth it because for someone like myself, who never heard a word of French before the age of 13, to be able to come here and voice the wishes of the Saguenay people, is fantastic. Likewise for my colleague opposite, the leader of the New Democratic Party. When we get to know each other, as we are in this House, then we realize how great this country is. It is really worth it.

We do have a problem though, and that is that our country is so big that people do not know each other. But should you come to Hamilton, I can guarantee that you will be greeted by friendly and welcoming people.

It is the same thing for people from the west. One of the biggest problems in understanding government and in understanding Canada is that we do not know each other. Maybe one of the benefits of this rather unusual configuration in the House of Commons is going to be that as Canadians we will start to understand the things that bring us together.

I can say that the people who work in the steel mill in Hamilton who are concerned about their jobs, who are concerned about their children's future share the same hopes and dreams and the same concerns about a balanced economic and environmental approach as the people in the riding of the Minister of Finance or those in the riding of Lévis.

They are waiting for jobs at MIL Davie.

We share the same wishes, the same hopes, but at the same time we recognize that governing a country is not an easy job. I think that all we can do is our very best to try and harmonize our efforts, when we can, and when we cannot, to try to be honest with each other. That is all people are expecting of us. I think that the Auditor General's report leads us in the right direction.

It is good that you are here to keep us on the right track.

[supply, February 11th, 1994]

It is not easy, but it is worth it.

[supply, February 11th, 1994]

I think Canadians want to know that we are doing our level best to acquit ourselves of our responsibilities and at the same time meet the test the taxpayer is putting us through. An awful lot is said about public servants, that public servants waste money and do this and do that.

In my department I have had nothing but absolute co-operation from the people who are there to discharge the government's mandate. Public servants are not the people who create the policy. They are there to implement it. They work nights and weekends. They do not close the door at 4.30 p.m. because the public phone lines are not open. They are there working on everyone's behalf to try and move the process forward.

I spent a couple of days in Saskatoon at my very first meeting of Canadian ministers of the environment in November. I spent about an hour on the phone yesterday with the chairman of the CCME, Jane Barry, the new Minister of the Environment from New Brunswick, who is getting ready for the next meeting. I expect I will be meeting with my provincial counterparts in March to pave the way for further harmonization and further consultation on the process of making our regulatory system work.

While we are in this House there are bureaucrats who are dealing with air issues. There are public servants who are dealing with the very complicated issues of who controls the waterways. It seems very simple. One goes to Saguenay.

Look at the Saguenay, which is definitely part of the province of Quebec. I would like to digress at this stage and say I would have liked to see the environment critic here, because yesterday, Mr. Chrétien referred to the Irving Oil case, and said that if that had happened in Hamilton, the matter would have been settled. I can tell him it will be settled, and just because it was not settled before does not mean they were right.

If I throw something into the Bay in Hamilton, it goes through Lake Ontario and into the St. Lawrence, and then into the Atlantic and international waters. If we look at the cod shortage, we may have a good conservation program. We even went so far as to prohibit all cod fishing in Canada. But if the French, the Spanish and the Portuguese catch our cod, what is the use? So, although it would be very easy to say that the Saguenay is in Quebec and that is final, if we do not harmonize regulations at the federal, provincial and international levels, part of the river may be clean as a whistle, but toxic waste can still get in from other areas.

That is one of the reasons why I believe the environment unites us as a people.

Whatever language we speak, when it comes to the environment we are inextricably linked. What I throw into the water of Hamilton harbour ends up in the drinking water of the lower St. Lawrence. What happens to the belugas? It is not just a function of how they are dealt with at that particular point of the river, but it is a function of the cumulative effect of toxins which could start all the way up in Lake Superior and find their way through the system.

On the one hand it is very simple to say: "Get out of my jurisdiction. It is my ball of wax. You should not be in there". On the other hand when it comes to the environment, when it comes to the air we breathe, when it comes to the water we swim in and when it comes to the land we live on, we are our neighbour's keeper. As much as we try, we will continue to have irritants and areas of discussion and disagreement.

To follow the advice of the Auditor General, our objective must be to be as efficient and effective as possible, bearing in mind that in a world as complex as the one in which we live there really are no easy solutions. For every point there is a counterpoint.

Every position has its opposite, and it is up to the government to try to find a reasonable solution that is fair to everyone. I think that so far, even if there have been problems, we have done a pretty good job. We want to go on doing that, but I think all members of this House must realize that living in a country like Canada is not always easy.

We live in a country that is very large and diffuse.

[supply, February 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate today in particular because the motion put by the member for St. Albert does deal with specific initiatives of the Ministry of the Environment. Also, what we are seeing as a result of the analysis of this motion is that the Reform Party members are starting to understand after the first 100 days in Parliament that governing a country as diverse and as multilayered as Canada is not as easy as it looks from the outside.

I refer in particular to the motion which of course calls upon all ministries to justify the issue of overexpenditures and duplication. Indeed, with regard to the Auditor General's report to the Ministry of the Environment on pulp and paper regulations, we were not only cognizant of his criticism but we had already responded very specifically by working on harmonization agreements with various provinces.

One thing I learned very quickly. I spent a lot of years in opposition and not too many days in government, but I think the Canadian public wants to know that politicians are doing their level best keep costs down and to deliver a service that is going to make sense to all Canadians.

If we look at environment, there was no such thing as environment when the original Constitution was written back in 1867. We took it for granted. In fact public attention and carriage of and concern for the environment has really been a phenomenon of the last two decades.

Ironically, later on today I am going to be meeting with a person from this particular Chamber who was at the forefront of environmental concerns. He is now the Canadian ambassador on sustainable development. As the Speaker of this place he introduced a list of measures for the House of Commons which made the House of Commons assess and analyse our environmental behaviour.

Mr. Fraser, the former member for Vancouver South, started before it was particularly fashionable to analyse how it is that our own behaviour is affecting our environment. He took styrofoam cups out of the House of Commons and replaced them with recyclable china. He made us look at how we were separating waste in this place. It is the wish of the Ministry of the Environment to take the signal that was put out by Mr. Fraser in this place, the House of Commons, and make it serve as a model for government.

The House of Commons is a very complex labyrinth which not only includes services to members but employs about 4,000 people. In the overall work of the government it is one small player. In fact, from my department I know that there are people across the country who are driving vehicles that are not environmentally friendly. If we are saying to the private sector "We want you to go green", then clearly the impetus and the direction for that has to start from within.

A legitimate question can be asked. Why is it that on the issue of pulp and paper we have more than one government dealing with regulations? In the evolution of business, federal and provincial governments have each taken responsibility in a number of areas. Water quality is not just a federal issue. In fact I think the member would be raising objections, one could say raising Cain, if we as a national government decided that there was no more role for provincial governments to play in terms of the purity of our waters.

Not only do we have a provincial role to play but we have an international role. Only two days ago I was speaking with the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States on exactly what we were going to do in terms of bilateral decisions to clean up areas like the Great Lakes, to look at the whole question of what is dumped into the St. Lawrence River, and to examine the question of transborder movement of waste.

We have local initiatives, provincial initiatives, national initiatives and international initiatives. That is why to the taxpayer it may look like we are sometimes running around doing each other's jobs but I think everyone would recognize that no one government can bear the total responsibility for the environment.

Look at the question of air. Probably one of the most poignant moments that I have experienced as a member of Parliament was a trip I took several years ago to Broughton Island which is part of the vast Arctic. On that trip I had an opportunity to meet with aboriginal women who had been advised at that time by the federal department of health that tests had shown that their breast milk was tainted with PCBs. Members cannot imagine, flying into a more pristine virgin untouched area of the world and on arriving there have a meeting with town council to deal with the issue that the mothers' milk in that part of the country

was tainted with PCBs. You had to ask yourself the question: Was that a local issue?

Obviously it was not a local issue. The PCBs were being carried by air currents, not only from Canada but from parts of industrialized North America and because of wind vortexes with which I am not familiar they found themselves in a particular concentration in the Arctic. There were situations where in some cases these women were actually feeding their children Coffee-mate because the cost of milk at that time was $8 a litre. They did not have the money to buy a litre of milk and they were afraid to feed their babies with their own breast milk. That is why when one talks about environment issues it is not so easy to compartmentalize them as maybe one would like to think.

The world is a very complex place today. I think we have a responsibility as a national government to work internationally, provincially and locally to try to develop the cleanest environment possible.

A member of the Reform Party asked a question earlier today on the issue of the environmental assessment of a particular project on a ski hill. He asked about the business interests. That is a legitimate question. Obviously when we are talking about a virgin part of the country for which there is going to be significant development we have the interests of the business people who have invested in the project as well as the interests of the local residents who obviously have to balance the land use questions with larger questions of the whole question of biodiversity.

We have the provincial questions about how a province can maintain the integrity of the environment, deal with the issue of endangered species and provide significant terrain for wildlife. We also have the national and international issues.

If from time to time we trip over each other, as we will do, I think the message of the Auditor General has to be that it is not with malice or forethought and that we should be working as hard as we can to streamline the process to make it work for the taxpayer and also to underline our role as the guardian of the land, the sea and the air for future generations.

We are working very hard on this aspect, and based on negotiations that are taking place with my Quebec counterpart, Mr. Paradis, I expect we will soon be able to sign a one-stop agreement which could apply to pulp and paper regulations. This is very important, because I realize companies do not want two inspection teams on the same river at the same time. However, I think we should also realize that with our overriding responsibility to keep this earth for future generations, there will be differences of opinion from time to time.

Are megawatts better than negawatts? Are international issues involved?

Only a few days ago the premier of British Columbia was in Europe looking at our environmental record from the perspective of the European Community. There are international market forces which want to analyse whether we are doing our job in land use management. Do we have proper mechanisms for clear cutting? Are we in fact respecting the question of effluent discharge in pulp and paper mills? Do we have laws that are stringent enough and are we respecting those laws?

That is what politics are all about. It is the coming together of divergent views and the balance between the immediate needs of economic gain with the long-term needs of sustainable development. One of the great initiatives of the 1990s is going to be a recognition that environment and economy are not opposites, they are not enemies. In fact, they are inextricably linked.

Premier Harcourt is in Europe now, not because he is necessarily a great defender of the environment but because world forces are coming together to analyse the green record of every country. Premier Harcourt wants to make sure that the Europeans are apprised of all the facts before they make decisions which could have significant repercussions for the Canadian economy.

I think the same thing is happening in the case of the Quebec government's involvement in the Hydro-Québec contract with New York. It is not enough to work hard to have a clean environment. The international issues are there as well. Are we prepared to meet the immense challenges of the twenty-first century with sound and sustainable environmental technologies?

There is an economic consideration. In fact, as we speak we are following the advice of the Auditor General to meet, to consult, to get our act together and to ensure that business is not overburdened with overregulation but at the same time we meet our bottom line of being the stewards of the environment for future generations.

When I got into this job in my department I had no idea how on any given project, on any given decision, there is not only the question of seeking interdepartmental information but also the responsibility to ensure that you are not treading on somebody else's constitutional toes.

I think the members of the Reform Party and I know, having had the opportunity to meet and to dialogue with some of them in terms of our shared environmental objectives and hopefully being exposed to reality, that governing a country as vast as

Canada is not as simple as one would like to pretend. There are no hard and fast solutions. We will make mistakes. That is why we ask the Auditor General every year to review our record and to make recommendations.

The opposition motion by the member for St. Albert which calls upon the government to demonstrate its commitment to accountability is a process that is built into what we call the estimates. Every year in this Parliament every member of Parliament has the right to call the ministers of this government before their committees to call them into account on expenditures.

That is the function of the committee on estimates and that has to be done before June. That is part of the law of the land. Sure we screw up. Sure we make mistakes. I dare say I have made a few of them in my time and I will probably make a few more from time to time.