moved:
Motion No. 130
That Bill C-32, in Clause 100, be amended a ) by replacing line 15 on page 74 with the following: c ) for the purposes of implementing international agreements, add to Part 3 of the Export Control List” b ) by replacing line 17 on page 74 with the following:
“which is severely restricted in Canada by or under an”
Motion No. 132
That Bill C-32, in Clause 101, be amended by replacing line 2 on page 75 with the following:
“specified in Parts 1 and 2 of the Export Control List in Sched-”
Motion No. 135
That Bill C-32, in Clause 102, be amended by replacing line 32 on page 75 with the following:
“specified in Parts 1 and 2 of the Export Control List in Sched-”
Motion No. 206
That Bill C-32, in Clause 199, be amended by replacing lines 43 to 46 on page 139 and lines 1 to 11 on page 140 with the following:
“an environmental emergency in respect of a substance or group of substances specified on the List of Toxic Substances in Schedule I.”
Mr. Speaker, we are debating the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I will take a few moments to describe for the people who are watching what we are debating.
This is legislation that was brought forward in 1988 and in the legislation it stipulated that it would come back to the House in five years for review. It came back in the last parliament; however, the bill that was proposed did not gain support and died on the order paper. In this parliament Bill C-32 is the result of the new bringing together of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
It is a large bill. It is comprehensive. It is technical and it contains over 230 pages. What is significant is that there were over 400 amendments introduced at committee stage. Now there are 236 amendments at report stage. There are more amendments than the House has seen to any bill in a number of years according to the clerks.
We will be discussing in the first group of amendments the management of toxic substances, the application of virtual elimination, inherent toxicity and prior informed consent. This is a fairly technical bill and we will be dealing with some of these issues.
I would like to talk about the application of virtual elimination. Virtual elimination means pretty well what it says, that a chemical would be virtually eliminated. However, the difficulty with this bill concerns the ability to measure. I will be showing my age, but if we go back 20 or 30 years most of us will remember that the ability to measure was in parts per million, then it went to parts per billion, then to parts per trillion, and perhaps now to parts per quadrillion.
Industry requires goal posts. For instance, when building a plant, if there is a nasty chemical such as dioxin, which occurs naturally in forest fires or wood smoke, if that is to be virtually eliminated, industry requires goal posts to be set. If industry knows that it is one part per billion, it can deal with that. Industry will know what it will be dealing with down the road. However, the bill does not say that with respect to virtual elimination. Therefore, we have proposed, along with a number of other people, changes to clarify the issue. Unless changes are made to the application of virtual elimination in the bill, Canada will be out of step with internationally accepted approaches. For example, Germany has numbers.
A witness appeared before the committee who made a very pointed remark. If there is a point of one part per billion and industry steps over it, it can be taken to court. It is very clean cut. However, if there is a very fuzzy goal post of the ability to measure, that could be in litigation for over 10 years. In fact, technology could supersede the ability to measure and it would just muddy the waters.
An enormous disincentive will result when companies are forced to plan for unrealistic results. There are really no environmental or health benefits from this approach. It simply ties the hands of investment in this country.
The Reform Party has put forward 10 motions which deal with the application of virtual elimination. It is interesting, as well, that the government and the Progressive Conservatives have put together 13 amendments to bring the application of virtual elimination into a scope that we can all deal with.
There are a number of amendments put forward by the Reform Party and the government which ensure that specific reference to implementation of subsection 65(3) is maintained in the act when dealing with the application of virtual elimination. Many of the motions accomplish virtually the same thing as our motions. In fact, the reason they are grouped is because they are very similar.
The intent of the amendments put forward by the Reform Party is to eliminate ministerial discretion when determining whether circumstances have been taken into consideration and to emphasize the role of science in decision making.
In 10 minutes one cannot really deal with many of these subjects in depth because of their complexity, but I would also like to deal with prior informed consent, which is addressed by our Motions Nos. 130, 132 and 135. Our amendments would ensure that Canada prohibits the export of substances placed on a list which, by international agreement, are banned or severely restricted substances, rather than allowing the government to prohibit the export of any substance regulated in Canada.
I was really quite surprised that the government did not propose amendments with respect to sections 100, 101 and 102 of the act concerning the implementation of the prior informed consent convention that Canada has entered into. When the government introduced these sections to the committee it was explained that the purpose of these sections was to allow Canada to fulfil its obligations under the prior informed consent convention, which is also known as the Rotterdam convention, which was finalized last fall.
The sections which the government proposed, while they enable Canada to fulfil its obligations under that convention, are far broader than what is necessary for the purpose. I believe that is the crux of the matter. The main point is: How broad do we need this act to be? The act should fulfil the convention. However, it goes far beyond that and gives far broader powers than we feel are necessary. The legislation should not go beyond what the government initially said was necessary.
In Reform Motion No. 90 we suggest that the purpose should be, as was explained to the committee by government officials, for the implementation of international agreements. We agree with that.
Since the international agreement that we are talking about is the prior informed consent convention, we need to look at the scope of that convention. The negotiating process resulted in the PIC convention being applied to banned and severely restrict substances. The term severely restricted is clearly defined in the convention.
We feel that powers should not be created for the government to ban the export of substances without their being sound reasons in the bill. At present there are no sound reasons shown in the bill. Powers such as these, which can be exercised arbitrarily without any guidance from parliament, will create significant investment uncertainty in Canada in the business world.
This uncertainty is particularly important and worrisome for the increasing numbers of companies which have as their primary focus of business in Canada export opportunities. We are well aware that the world is shrinking and that Canada is an exporting country. Therefore, this portion of the bill is very worrisome for many industries in Canada.
Another reason this issue is important is that if Canada is to take a leadership role on environmental issues internationally, which the Reform Party and I am sure most members of the House support, it is important that we are responsible domestically to implement what we negotiate and agree to. To implement something that goes beyond what we agree to in an international convention I do not believe is wise and will be seen by our negotiating partners as irresponsible. We would put at risk Canada's status as an international leader.
We do not want to create unnecessary powers for the government for no apparent reason which go beyond PIC powers and create investment uncertainty. We hope that other parties will agree to this approach and vote favourably to the proposed amendments to sections 100, 101 and 102.
I will conclude at this point. My colleague will continue to speak about inherent toxicity and toxic substances which are also in this group. As I said earlier, it is very difficult to capsulate in 10 minutes what is a 232 page bill.