Madam Speaker, I am more than happy to be here this evening to participate in this very important debate about this very important bill.
I would like to commend the member of the NDP caucus for bringing the bill forward. I would also like to congratulate Ecojustice, one of Canada's more prominent legal non-governmental organizations with a focus on ecological issues, which has been essential in helping to draft this early model legislation for a Canadian environmental bill of rights for two of its own clients.
It is interesting to follow on the heels of the member for Wetaskiwin because I am little surprised. After all, he is a member of the party of Mr. Diefenbaker who in 1960 brought in a bill of rights.
I was heartened, however, to hear him refer to a number of initiatives, from the sustainable development indicators initiative, which is now under way, to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development, all of which are either legislation or offices created under the watch of a succession of Liberal governments.
I think this legislation is timely and here is why. Canada has fallen behind other nations in terms of environmental policy and, more importantly, in terms of environmental performance.
We are now ranked 15th of 17 nations by our own Conference Board of Canada. We are 28th out of 30 OECD nations ranked by Simon Fraser University researchers. We have dropped from 8th place to 46th place on the Yale-Columbia Environmental Performance Index between 2005 and 2010, tellingly, since the arrival of the Conservatives in government.
Here is what we know about jurisdictions. There are now dozens that have a bill of rights or some kind of constitutional right enshrining the right to a healthy environment. We heard from our colleague from the NDP that no fewer than 130 countries around the world today already recognize the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions, something that was debated feverishly when our Constitution was being repatriated and the Charter of Rights was being brought forward by Prime Minister Trudeau and his administration.
It is also timely because important new research indicates that in countries where there are not constitutional provisions that force them to require environmental protection, including the right to live in a healthy environment, the absence of those provisions is associated with inferior environmental performance.
I am again troubled by references raised by the Conservatives asking for costing of the bill, for example, asking whether the bill has been referred to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. This would be the same Parliamentary Budget Officer whose budget was cut by the Conservative government and is hardly in a position to conduct the work should it be referred to him anyway.
It is richer still because the government, having no climate change plan, for example, or any iteration of what it claims to be a plan, has sent nothing to the Parliamentary Budget Officer for costing of its own measures.
Therefore it is a continuing ruse put forward by the Conservatives to try to hold up the accountability, the value-for-money proposition, instead of dealing with the important merits of a Canadian environmental bill of rights, in this case.
A couple of things have been going on. Among some of the most significant reforms worldwide have been, as I was saying earlier, the rewriting of national constitutions in 140 countries, 132 of which now provide for a government duty to protect the environment. That is not 2, not 32, but 132. There is a substantive individual right to live in a healthy environment in 86 countries, an individual duty to protect the environment in 78 countries and new procedural environmental rights such as access to information in yet another 28 countries.
I will quote Dr. David Boyd from Simon Fraser University, one of Canada's leading authorities in research in this area. He said that the presence of these constitutional provisions demonstrates a vital commitment to environmental protection, given that constitutions are the supreme law of nations and represent citizens' most cherished, deeply held values.
Another 115 countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East have signed legally binding regional treaties that explicitly recognize the right to a healthy environment. It turns out that Canada is now 1 of fewer than 50 nations on this planet whose constitutions remain silent regarding this fundamental matter.
We look at the evidence, the evidence that we hope Parliament will be focusing on in examining the merits of this bill, not ideology here, not false claims of value for money or costing, but the evidence, the environmental legislation and jurisprudence and the relative performance of countries that do have constitutional environmental provisions.
We know that the evidence tells us that in these countries we have, one, stronger environmental laws and policies. Surely no one in Canada today would be opposed to stronger environmental laws and policies.
Two, we see an improved implementation and enforcement of existing laws. The government itself brought in some progressive and positive changes to environmental enforcement in this country. I cannot imagine it would be opposed to seeing progress there.
Three, we see increased public participation in environmental decision-making, something we are already doing with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation through NAFTA in Montreal. It is also something we are doing with our Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development trying to enhance the role of our citizenry in making sure, as a legacy question, as a quality-of-life question, as a natural wealth question, that we are actually protecting the natural wonders that surround us.
Four, we know that in those jurisdictions where this exists, there is a more prominent role for the courts in environmental governance. This is a far cry from the federal Conservative Party and the government here, constantly running to the Federal Court to challenge calls for the implementation of their own legislation and binding laws.
Finally, we know that in those countries that have constitutional environmental provisions, there is increased accountability. Everybody in this House wants to see progress when it comes to accountability on so many different fronts.
Most importantly we know that in those jurisdictions, and there are hundreds as I mentioned, constitutional provisions are making a substantial contribution to improving people's lives and their well-being, through clean drinking water, cleaner air, better sanitation, better waste management practices, recycling and healthier eco-systems.
There is a reason why this country is reporting on sustainable development indicators. It is previous prime minister Paul Martin who, as minister of finance, asked me in my capacity as president of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy a decade ago to produce these so we could tell Canadians, truly, what the state of our wealth was, what the state of our health was.
It is not just a question of GDP; it is a question of functioning ecosystems, whose worth we have not yet been able to figure out in terms of monetizing it, but we know these systems are worth a lot more than zero.
This bill is timely because Canada is slipping, because we are falling, as I said earlier, from 8th place to 46th place on the Yale-Columbia Environmental Performance Index. Imagine. The Yale-Columbia group is hardly an ideological group, hardly a group with an axe to grind in Canada. I am very concerned when I see this kind of empirical data showing that we are falling behind.
It is timely. I am looking forward to seeing this matter, hopefully, end up in the environment and sustainable development committee. I commend my colleague from Edmonton once again for bringing this bill forward.