Bernard Bigras

[Export Development Act, October 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am inclined to think that my colleague opposite did not listen to my speech, as eloquent as it was.

I believe this is one of the most important aspects of this bill. My colleague made a passionate statement that had absolutely nothing to do with my speech.

Is it normal that a Canadian economic development project would be subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, whereas an export development project outside Canada would not be subject to the CEAA?

That is what is important. We are not against helping small and medium size businesses find new export markets, but we are saying that these projects must comply with the laws that we have passed here in the House.

[Export Development Act, October 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-31. As its title indicates, this is a bill to amend the Export Development Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Obviously we can assume that from the moment this bill becomes law it will probably be the last time we discuss what went under the name of Export Development Corporation for many years. This bill proposes a new name, export development Canada.

As my colleagues, the members for Mercier and Joliette, clearly indicated, we will oppose the bill for reasons that are becoming more and more obvious as the debate progresses.

I should remind members that the Bloc Quebecois proposed in committee a number of amendments which, unfortunately, were defeated. We would have liked to see the bill improved or at least to see a number of environmental protection measures included in this bill. We would also have liked the bill to provide for more transparency with regard to the disclosure of information.

Parliamentarians study the way the corporation has had to work and develop in recent years but we are not alone. A number of NGOs, those belonging to the NGO working group on the Export Development Corporation, repeatedly looked at the work the corporation had done in recent years to expand exports and the extent to which funds and aid were given to projects carried out in developing countries.

I can list some of the organizations involved. They include the Canadian Lawyers Association for International Human Rights, the Social Justice Commission of Montreal, the Canadian Council on International Co-operation, the Canadian Labour Congress, Democracy Watch, Development and Peace, Falls Brook Centre, Canadian Friends of Burma, Mining Watch Canada. Many others also considered the potential impact of this bill on aspects of our lives today.

We could debate a number of aspects of the bill, the whole issue of disclosure of information, the place of democracy and human rights, which certain specific organizations in the working group and the standing committee on foreign affairs and human rights considered.

However, my intervention will focus primarily on the environmental framework of the EDC and its involvement, on support for certain projects which the EDC set up or supported in the past, but which also—no point hiding it—violate to some extent a number of environmental parameters Canada and Quebec have debated frequently. These debates naturally concern the funding of projects in developing countries, some aspects of which should have been included in the bill.

The bill is, to say the least, vague, soft and lacking in environmental terms. It is vague as concerns its environmental framework, which, in many ways, is nebulous and inadequate with respect to the need for disclosure of information. I think this should be pointed out.

As for EDC's environmental framework, the objective is far from clear. It is to “implement a simple, clear, and efficient process for reviewing on a timely basis the best available environmental information on projects for which the Corporation's support is sought”.

Through this objective, the EDC is not saying that the purpose of an environmental assessment is to ensure that the projects approved respect the environment and encourage sustainable development. The EDC prefers to qualify its approach in order to give itself some leeway.

Furthermore, the framework is based on two guiding principles. The first is that environmental reviews undertaken by financial institutions to mitigate project risk can help encourage sustainable development by promoting consideration of the environmental benefits and costs of projects in host country jurisdictions.

The end of my sentence, which is included in the bill, is important.

The meaning of this guiding principle from the framework is that consideration will be given to the context in which a project would be carried out and therefore also to the context in which the project is funded.

In certain developing countries, the corporation could be called upon to fund projects which did not respect all the laws, the environmental consensuses, the rules, regulations and environmental values which Canadians and Quebecers have decided are important.

In this regard, I would like to mention one project, although several come to mind. I am thinking of a project funded by the Export Development Corporation. It was criticized for funding and giving $135 million U.S. in support to a mine in Peru. In this particular case, the compensation to the communities affected was clearly inadequate.

The Candu reactors are another very eloquent example. Is it right that while environmentally based social consensuses must be enforced within Canada's borders and prove acceptable, they would not be enforced for certain other projects which, because of less stringent environmental rules, could be implemented?

One must be consistent in politics. A project that would be unacceptable in Canada for environmental reasons should not be acceptable in some developing countries because their environmental rules are not as strict as ours. That is why we, as well as several environmental groups in Canada, have asked that these projects be assessed under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. If that were the case, the values and principles that are agreed upon in Canada could be applied to those projects and not only to Canadian projects.

We must realize that the framework used is not the Canadian framework but could be that of a country where environmental rules are not as strict.

The other aspect, which is the second guiding principle, is that the EDC should decline support for projects which, after taking into account the implementation of mitigation measures, are in its opinion likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects that cannot be justified in the circumstances.

We think the first guiding principle clearly illustrates a watering down of the environmental standards that the EDC intends to apply. As I was saying earlier, why is it necessary to specify that it has to be done in the context of the host country? Several EDC projects are in developing countries where environmental standards are not as strict as they are in Quebec and in Canada.

Moreover, need I remind members of this rather eloquent report from the Auditor General of Canada, a special report dealing with its evaluation of the Export Development Corporation, which pointed out that the EDC did not respect its own environmental framework. According to an evaluation by the Auditor General of Canada, and not by opposition members in this House, the environmental effects had not been assessed properly or not at all in 23 out of 25 projects funded by the EDC. The situation is clear. In some cases, the environmental framework is respected but, in other cases, it is not respected at all. I think we must act quickly to correct this problem.

It is wrong to say that the bill we are looking at will remedy the situation. It creates, in a way, a kind of loophole for the government, a dispensation from even having to respect the environmental consensus that has been reached in Canada.

There is another important aspect: the whole matter of preselecting projects. How does the EDC environmental assessment operate?

The first step is to select the projects that will undergo environmental analysis. Right at the start, the corporation eliminates two-thirds of these projects because it does not submit the short term assurance aspect to any type of environmental review whatsoever. This includes short term client account insurance. It protects exporters from any risk of non-payment by purchasers.

For us it is clear that environmental viability is not related to whether or not a project is carried out on the short or the long term.

Then the project is linked to a risk sector. Whether the mining sector, hydroelectric energy, oil or gas, forestry or pulp and paper, the EDC does an influence test. With it, it determines whether it can bring any influence to bear in order to reduce the risks posed by a project. It carries out a detailed environmental review of a project only when it determines that risk and influence constitute factors.

It can be seen that the Export Development Corporation, soon to become export development Canada, possesses by virtue of what I have just stated, a certain discretionary power in determining whether risk and influence constitute factors to be considered. Rather than subjecting every project to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the corporation gives itself the power to conduct this screening.

The decision ought instead to be based solely on potential environmental risk. A number of other institutions classify their environmental assessment requirements according to potential impact on the environment. This is the case in particular with the world export and corporation bank in Australia. The greater the repercussions, the more stringent the examination.

I said that this bill leaves much to be desired. It is vague as regards its environmental framework and inadequate as regards its screening and self-assessment processes.

If the EDC feels that it has some influence, it carries out an environmental assessment based on the promoter's information. A guiding principle of the corporation's frame of reference provides that it will not support a project if it feels that the anticipated positive effects do not justify the potential harmful risks to the environment, in spite of the implementation of mitigation measures.

In her May report, the Auditor General of Canada found that there is no methodology to determine if adverse environmental risks can be justified. This means that a project that would have a negative environmental impact could be approved, based on the interpretation of the assessor and on the information provided by the promoter.

No scientific criteria are used. Therefore, it is no surprise that the auditor general found that, for 23 out of 25 projects that were funded by the EDC, the assessment of the impact on the environment had either not been done properly or not been done at all.

We would have liked to see amendments adopted by the committee. We would have liked to see improvements to this bill, including to subsection 10.1(2), which leaves the corporation totally free to determine its own environmental criteria. This clause says that “The Board shall issue a directive respecting the determination referred to in subsection (1)”.

As we can see, these projects are not governed by Canadian laws. How could we accept that the arguments, proposals and representations of some promoters be taken into consideration and that a kind of discretionary power be granted to the board of directors of a corporation such as the Export Development Corporation, when the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is, to some extent, a requirement under other bills?

In conclusion, we would have liked to see major changes to this legislation. We would have liked to see some amendments accepted. This would have prevented giving a discretionary power to the EDC's board of directors and letting it determine what is good, what environmental guidelines and what frame of reference are acceptable. We would have liked to see the provisions of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act implemented.

We deeply regret the fact that even though amendments were presented in committee, the government refused to accept them. Again, I want to thank the NGOs working group on the Export Development Corporation, which I thanked earlier.

[The Environment, October 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is well aware that the national assembly has passed a unanimous motion calling on the federal government to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

The fact is that the minister set four conditions in Bonn and these four conditions have been met.

Today Canadians and Quebecers have just one question: What new conditions will Canada set on the eve of the conference of the parties to open in Marrakesh next week?

[The Environment, October 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, throughout the negotiations on climate change at the Bonn conference last July, Canada made its four conditions abundantly clear through the press.

At the end of the conference, all four of its conditions for ratifying the Kyoto protocol were met. They were: market mechanisms, carbon sinks, clean development mechanisms, and a compliance regime.

If the minister got everything he wanted in Bonn, why has the Kyoto protocol still not been ratified?

[International Actions Against Terrorism, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, it is with great pleasure that I take part in this take note debate tonight at such a late time. I will point out that it is 11.10 p.m.

I arrived on Parliament Hill hardly an hour ago and I said to myself I could not refrain from taking part in this debate. Why? Every single one of us here has just spent a week or more in our riding, talking to our fellow citizens, our constituents, about an issue that has captivated the whole world, all of Quebec and Canada, in order to try to find out what our fellow citizens were thinking of this utterly incredible and as yet unexplained event.

There is one thing everybody agrees upon, namely that the events of September 11 are totally unacceptable, horrific and must assuredly be denounced.

They must be denounced because some groups in our society, terrorist groups, have decided to do grievous harm to our society and democratic societies as a whole, in directly attacking a democratic society which has fostered development throughout the world, a fact we should not forget. To a great extent the west has contributed to the development of a number of continents.

This is deplorable. We also heard a lot of reactions in our ridings regarding the military response.

We make no bones about it, they are justified, because they are based on a decision by the UN Security Council and because, once and for all, we had to send a message to the world saying that these atrocious crimes are totally unacceptable in our democratic societies. However, Quebecers are in favour of a civilized, humane and responsible response.

Public opinion polls show that in Quebec there is less support for military action that anywhere else in Canada. Yes, we want a military response, but many Quebecers do not want any future military response to be aimed directly at civil societies, civilians, men, women and even children who, as a number of parliamentarians told us, are first and foremost victims of poverty and despair.

Although right now we are in favour of a response and wish the best of luck to all the soldiers who will be taking part in the military action, we are not giving this government carte blanche to take action in future against countries other than Afghanistan.

We do not know where this war will take us. Where are we headed in this unprecedented fight? It is a non traditional war, one which citizens face as they go about their daily business. Caution is therefore required with respect to future military actions. Regular consultation of the House of Commons and of parliament is therefore now essential.

There are also diplomatic considerations. We must think about the future, which will be hard. We are already having to think about making the transition from a mechanism of war to a mechanism of peace. Diplomacy is still the best avenue. It is better than any weapon of war. We must leave the way clear for diplomacy and know when to make the transition from a mechanism of war to a mechanism of peace.

We must also remember that we must attack the very sources of terrorism. We must attack the terrorists themselves, not peaceful groups which, at a given moment in time, decide to defend a certain number of causes and, because they do not support certain views, certain responses, could be the targets of a witch hunt. The anti-terrorist strategy adopted by Canada in the coming months must be a prudent one.

There is also the whole issue of immigration. Better controls at the borders and greater control over immigration and the entry of refugees and immigrants should not lead to a form of exclusion. Canada and Quebec must continue to be a land of welcome with respect for freedoms and for those who wish to come to Quebec and to Canada to build a future for their family and their children.

Prudence is essential. The new immigration controls must not lead to exclusion and the creation of second class citizens.

There are also economic considerations. We would expect this government to put structures in place, so that those Quebecers and Canadians who lost their jobs following the September 11 events can regain hope. How many people working for companies such as Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney and in other sectors directly related to the aviation industry were affected by the September 11 events?

I want to mention another issue in this take note debate, namely social considerations. The September 11 events should not result in the government putting all citizens in the same basket. It is not true that the measures to be implemented by the Canadian government and the stands taken by some opposition parties directly target a specific community. I am thinking of the Arab or Muslim community.

It should be pointed out that our actions are taken in full consideration of these citizens. They do not target those members of our community who live responsibly, in all freedom, and who are not at all targeted by the actions of certain terrorists in the United States on September 11.

Yes, we support the current military action, but with respect for freedoms. I think this had to be said. This is the main thing I discovered during the past week in my riding. I met hundreds of citizens, who said they expected their political leaders and their government to act responsibly in future military action.

Civilians, men, women and children, must not be sacrificed to the events of September 11.

When we think of some legislation, we think of legislation against terrorism and of legislation on immigration. We also think about future military action. The public must not be forgotten in this. It is time to think of the days following the events of September 11. Canada must be committed to making peace, not war.

[Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, October 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago this coming Tuesday, October 9, the curtain rose on opening night of Molière's L'Avare , the first play presented by the Théatre du Nouveau Monde.

The theatre was founded by a small group of theatre people, including Jean Gascon and Jean-Louis Roux, after their stay in Europe studying theatre. Since its inception, the TNM has produced and toured great works from the classic and contemporary repertoire, while promoting national creative talent.

Hundreds of actors and directors have produced works for Quebec audiences that have been milestones in our artistic history, attracting audiences of up to 123,000. These include Jeannine Sutto, Robert Gravel, Denise Boucher, Guy Hoffman, Monique Miller, Michel Tremblay, Michèle Rossignol, Gérard Poirier and Huguette Oligny, to name but a few of the people connected with TNM who have brightened up our spirits and our lives.

In the fall of 1972, the company moved to the magnificent quarters we are familiar with today. Under the masterful artistic direction of Lorraine Pintal for nearly 10 years now, the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde has a fine future stretching before it. To everyone connected with the TNM, we extend the traditional theatrical wish “Break a leg”.

[The Environment, October 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in her report, the Commissioner of the Environment says that since 1998, that is a few months after the Kyoto protocol was signed, no satisfactory progress has been made in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

How does the government explain this harsh finding by the environment commissioner, if not by its own inability to implement measures to reduce greenhouse gases?

[St. Lawrence River, September 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Environment Canada and the United States Environmental Protection Agency published their 2001 report on the state of the Great Lakes.

This report reveals that the water quality of the St. Lawrence River is improving. Cleanup efforts are starting to yield results.

However, as an ecosystem, the river is deteriorating. On this subject, the report is disturbing. It reveals that wetland habitat continues to deteriorate. Urban sprawl, farming activities and air pollution still threaten the ability of plants and wildlife to renew themselves.

While the state of the Great Lakes is stabilizing, the St. Lawrence River watershed is particularly threatened. Some shoreline wetlands have completely dried up as a result of human activity and numerous bird and aquatic species are becoming endangered.

On behalf of all those who earn their living from the St. Lawrence River, and particularly on behalf of future generations, I wish to remind the House of how important it is that we urgently take action in order to preserve one of our environmental treasures.

[The Environment, June 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment is inconsistent.

This morning, he criticized the position of the United States and considered the European position too rigid. In addition, he announced measures to reduce greenhouse gases, but, at the same time, his government continues to subsidize the tar sands.

Does this not prove that this government's policy on greenhouse gas reduction is a failure and that, without Quebec's performance, the situation would be even more catastrophic?

[The Environment, June 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment has finally stated that the Americans' refusal to endorse the Kyoto protocol was a major political mistake.

As we know, the Prime Minister refused to criticize the American President's decision.

Will the Prime Minister confirm that his government is now on the side of the international community and will he condemn the decision by the American President to not ratify the Kyoto protocol?