David McGuinty

[Easter Seals Ontario, March 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, over 20,000 children in Ontario today live with a physical disability. That is why I take great pride in rising today to honour Easter Seals Ontario, a remarkable charity that has been operating for over 85 years.

The sole mission of Easter Seals Ontario is to create a better, more independent life for kids, youth and young adults living with a physical disability. Easter Seals outreach work also helps educate Ontarians and all levels of government.

The charity's principle purpose, however, is to help provide vital funding to the families of kids with physical disabilities for costly equipment such as wheelchairs, home and vehicle retrofits, and communication devices. Average families often face high costs of between $10,000 and $40,000 a year, particularly as a child grows. It also delivers one of North America's most highly regarded camping and recreational programs for the physically disabled.

I hope the House will join me today in wishing Easter Seals a very successful fundraising campaign during its “March is Easter Seals Month” campaign, and in recognizing the thousands of volunteers and donors who make the work of Easter Seals possible every day.

[International Conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, March 26th, 2009]

Madam Chair, I have watched and listened carefully to all the government speeches this evening in this important debate and one cannot help but be struck by the core of the message, which is, yes, we are making progress. I do not think we would deny that on this side of the House.

However, we are more worried about what appears to be an absence of leadership on behalf of this country. We hear that all appears to be the same and that nothing can really be improved here. I think Canadians can be forgiven for being confused. Just a year ago, the Prime Minister was using unfortunate language saying that we would never cut and run, to more recently saying that we cannot win.

The resolution was passed a year ago. Another huge change was the difference in tone, approach and, I would argue, sophistication coming from a democratic administration in Washington under President Obama.

As Canada moves to The Hague for these meetings, could the parliamentary secretary tells us what are we bringing to the table as a sovereign nation that is different from the resolution crafted by the official opposition a year and some months ago? Are we talking now more thoroughly about conflict resolution systems? What are we seeking to achieve as an outcome at The Hague? We know the 2011 timeline. Parliament has ratified the resolution. Where is the Canadian leadership as we move now to deal with changed circumstances at home, where the Prime Minister has announced that we cannot win, to the arrival of President Obama and changes there?

[International Conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, March 26th, 2009]

Madam Chair, to answer my colleague directly, it was the Liberal government that dispatched our troops to Afghanistan in the first instance. When we did so, we were perfectly clear about the notion of the three Ds: defence, development and diplomacy.

In the 21st century, we have begun to understand that as we prosecute a war on Afghanistan territory, it is not to be prosecuted in isolation. It is fundamental to ensure that we have institutional strength there and that government officers understand how to run government departments, collect revenues, receive foreign aid and ensure it is coherent between bilateral and multilateral donors. We need to get some semblance of a free market up and off the ground to receive direct investment.

This is not to be taken in isolation. No one is trying to justify a war being prosecuted on Afghan soil by claiming that it is for institutional strengthening by itself. On the contrary, these three are intertwined. They are indispensable, each to the other. It is much more about helping to get that nation state on its feet.

However, I am proudest of all of the fact that while we were in government I worked very hard with our former CIDA minister, who is now a minister in the Ontario cabinet, to ensure that $5.2 million of Canadian support from CIDA was invested in the Afghan judicial system.

I spent many years of my life building capacity in developing countries like Afghanistan to ensure that they could come up to speed in the 21st century with the rest of the world and participate fulsomely and fully in the world. That is the process that we are trying to accomplish here.

I just do not understand, in anticipation of The Hague, where it is we are going, which is why we keep calling for a special envoy to be able to bring those three D approaches to this mission in Afghanistan.

[International Conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, March 26th, 2009]

Good evening, Madam Chair, and good evening to my colleagues and Canadians who are watching this debate tonight.

I would like to begin by making it perfectly clear that it is a great privilege to participate in this debate. I have never personally served in our armed forces, nor had the privilege of wearing the uniform.

I would also like to remind all of my colleagues, Canadians and folks who are watching, that this is an issue that transcends all parties. It is certainly a non-partisan issue of the highest order.

The debate tonight touches obviously thousands of our troops and our civilians who are serving in Afghanistan, and thousands of our troops and their families who are stationed across this country and across the world.

In my own riding of Ottawa South, for example, Canadian Forces Base Uplands houses hundreds of families, many of whom are in active service. I have met with them on repeated occasions to thank them for their tremendous service in Canada and abroad. I would like to extend those thanks once again this evening.

I would like to extend as well a direct message to those soldiers who are serving overseas and to their families.

We are debating here tonight the approach to this mission, and to the upcoming discussions and negotiations in The Hague, which will bring to bear new approaches and improvements. In no way can this debate be interpreted as undermining our commitments and our confidence in the soldiers, and the family members of soldiers and civilians who are serving at this important time.

On the contrary, the question of debating here at home what we are fighting to facilitate in Afghanistan and around the world is of paramount importance. We are debating here at home, we are exercising here at home in this House of Commons, precisely that which we are trying to bring to bear in the Afghanistan situation: the right to vote, for example; the right to assemble and to debate, as we are doing here this evening; to challenge; and, as a member of the official opposition, to keep the government in check, the appropriate role of a good opposition.

Asking questions about the mission going forward does not constitute, in the unfortunate words of several cabinet ministers in past debates, demonstrating sympathy for the Taliban. On the contrary, this is about making sure that we are not undermining here at home through this debate process precisely the things we are fighting for in Afghanistan and around the world.

The debate this evening is also a question of sovereignty, our independence as a country, the independence of our forces, and the independence of our government and our people. Are we waiting for the United States? Are we taking instructions from Washington? Are we acting as independent actors on the international stage when it comes to the question of Afghanistan, and it is very reminiscent, for example, of the climate change debate, which is still raging in this place, where apparently we are waiting again for President Obama to make the first moves.

I am not convinced this is the way for Canada to exercise its sovereignty, nor show the highest respect for our soldiers who are indeed serving abroad.

Some time ago the Prime Minister said that our position, as indicated in the Afghanistan motion of March 2008, was that we would fight until the Taliban was effectively brought to heel, if not crushed. That has changed. Just recently, the Prime Minister, on national American television news, announced that in fact it was an unwinnable situation.

I do not fault the Prime Minister for changing his view. I may fault him for announcing it on prime time American television and not speaking to Canadians here in the House of Commons.

We were pleased, as the official opposition at the time, to effectively write the resolution, the motion that governs this mission until 2011.

It was not the government. It was the good work of our critic for foreign affairs and our leader who, together, worked to write a prescriptive document, a precise document, a circumscribed mission, a beginning, a middle, clarity.

We also wrote the oversight committee motion in this House of Commons to make sure that the government was following the good advice of Mr. Manley, who was asked to strike a high-level committee to review the Afghanistan situation and the mission there. That oversight committee motion was passed.

Unfortunately, in all this time, we have only had two meetings of the oversight committee, the most recent of which was this morning, to hear more about how well we are doing. This is not about undermining. Canadians have deep conviction that this is an important mission for our sovereign country.

Things have changed in other ways, as well. Not only has the Prime Minister changed his view, but this resolution was struck at the time of a Republican administration in the United States. What a difference an election has made in Washington. We have a “new” new normal now; that is, of course, the arrival of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, who are bringing a refreshing new start to conflict resolution and working together to bring about, ultimately, peace.

Certainly, I think that the resolution that was passed in March 2008 deserves much more than the passing reference only made several times tonight by government members. Our troops deserve better.

That motion, that resolution crafted by the official opposition and passed in March 2008, was very clear. It was also endorsed by the government. It called for a special envoy, not an eminent person's panel as the NDP would have Canadians believe but a single and experienced and influential special envoy. This individual would carry with him or her the charge of the Canadian people, the responsibility of this House of Commons, to ensure that the best outcomes could be had for Canadians, for Afghans and for people everywhere.

I do not think it is random that it took a prominent Liberal, in Mr. Manley, to bring the balance and the coherence to the mission which was lacking. I recall reading his report where he indicated clearly the government was not doing as well as it could be doing, should be doing, in informing Canadians on the status of the mission, how things were progressing, the challenges we were facing, in no way, once again, to undermine the mission, but to do precisely here in this chamber what our troops are fighting for, for the Afghanistan people there.

Other questions remain, questions like linkages to events, emerging events in parts of Pakistan where we know that in areas there are no governments, there is no rule of law. This is a tribal situation. There is a linkage between some of these areas and Taliban soldiers, Taliban supplies, Taliban foodstuffs, and so on and so forth. How do we reconcile this new and emerging challenge with the original mission mandate in our resolution of March 2008? Yet again, there are questions around new forms of conflict resolution, how might we improve so we can ultimately find peace.

Finally, I think there are many outstanding questions on our real work on the development side, particularly enhancing the rule of law, legal aid and court systems, prosecutors and defenders, the things we take for granted here that emerged over hundreds of years in Canada. How do we institutionally strengthen the government of Afghanistan, minimizing corruption, including enhancing accounting practices, and participating in the free economy and free market worldwide? These questions have to be addressed. We are looking forward to seeing more from the government as it approaches these negotiations in The Hague in a short while.

[Environmental Enforcement Act, March 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we need good environmental enforcement. We need proper fiscal signals being sent to the marketplace. We need new creative approaches like eco-covenants. We need to reward good voluntary behaviour. We need to provide the demand pull that only a federal government can with procurement systems. There is a whole suite of measures that will actually drive up environment performance. As of now, we do not see a coherent approach.

[Environmental Enforcement Act, March 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, far be it for me to apply a divining rod to the government or to find the water. I do not know. It might be that the government is embarrassed by the fact that twice in a row it announced that by now it would already have a national water strategy for our country.

There is no national water strategy, which is why the Minister of the Environment, having cut the funding for the GEMS project with the University of Waterloo in water testing, reinstated it the day before World Water Day, Saturday past, to perhaps pick up the slack there.

I do not know why the Fisheries Act was an omission. It certainly would be interesting to hear from the minister himself. Given the powers the Fisheries Act officers have and the impact on fresh water, it will be very important to see whether this omission can be addressed and whether the bill can be amended.

[Environmental Enforcement Act, March 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, quite simply, nobody knows. Nobody knows if this bill will have a real impact on everyday decisions made by companies large and small or by Canadians. Nobody knows. However, we know that, by itself, a law and order approach to the environment has never worked in either the United States or the European Union. But there is a spectrum.

For example, why is the government not tying law and order and environmental enforcement to intelligent use of fiscal choices? It costs $2,500 a tonne to reduce greenhouse gases. The government brings in a tax deductible transit pass, which has zero impact on driving up ridership.

Instead of investing in silly games like that, why is the government not using fiscal policy to achieve higher environmental performance? They are linked. My colleague is right.

In Europe, for example, the European Union has excelled in a concept of eco-covenants, where industry, government, NGOs and communities sign contracts together. Over five years, they are implementable, one against the other. It is a very interesting tool that is absent in this debate. It is simply and apparently still all about law and order.

[Environmental Enforcement Act, March 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here tonight to speak to Bill C-16, the government's environmental enforcement act.

I would like to, first, congratulate the legislative drafting team at Justice Canada, through the legal services division of Environment Canada, for their hard work on putting together this very large bill.

I would like to thank all the Environment Canada officials who have worked on this feverishly now for several years, many of whom of course were originally involved in the drafting of the architecture of environmental enforcement in this country, 80% to 90% of which was accomplished over three successive Liberal governments. Many of those individuals I know personally. I know they have been working feverishly on this bill for many years and it is the culmination of so much of their investment in serving Canadians on this front. I would like to congratulate those officials on behalf of all parliamentarians for their good service.

This is really quite a sweeping bill. It is a 225-page document, with far-reaching consequences. Subject to study at committee, the official opposition intends to support the bill going forward. We do, however, have an awful lot of questions about the motivation behind the bill, questions around the constitutionality of the bill, and questions around the evidence that might or might not backstop this bill.

As I said, it moves to strengthen and standardize penalties that polluters across all of the federal government's environmental laws would face and it builds on the substantial architecture set in place by successive Liberal governments.

We know that requiring violators to pay to repair, for example, environmental damage on top of paying fines is an important step. It is a step in the right direction in ensuring that pollution is not just part of the cost of doing business.

We are also pleased the government is building on the 1995 environmental damages fund created by the former Liberal government. We wish only that the government was this aggressive and forward-looking, and prepared to build on the good work of the previous government on climate change. It is too bad it was not as aggressive and forward-looking on its climate change work.

In that regard, I would like to share with Canadians a few impressions of the official opposition about the state of climate change and the degree to which Bill C-16 might apply to the climate change crisis.

The parliamentary secretary rightly pointed out that the Species at Risk Act is being examined now by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, a mandated five-year review, which the former Liberal government brought to bear for Canada.

We have heard from the critic from the NDP that there is an obvious and gaping omission with the absence of the Fisheries Act. For the parliamentary secretary to suggest that it is because it does not fall within the purview of the Minister of the Environment, I am not sure if that washes with Canadians. There are probably improvements to be made under the Fisheries Act and it is a mystery, still, as to why it has not been woven into these series of acts that are all being amended under this one bill.

However, the real elephant in the room for Canadians is climate change. How is this environmental enforcement act going to apply to the climate change crisis?

I feel for my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, because he is in a very difficult situation. I think the government is now in a very difficult situation because it has no climate change plan. The plan that it put forward under the last Parliament has been withdrawn. We have no regulatory framework. Eleven independent groups, from the C.D. Howe Institute to the Pembina Institute to RBC Dominion Securities to a series of third-party groups, have examined the government's claim that it would, for example, reduce greenhouse gases by 20% from 2005 levels by 2020. Every single group, including Deutsche Bank, and every group that has examined the government's plan has simply said it will not work.

We have no plan and now we are waiting for the United States, where 535 Congress people are trying to craft a single cap and trade scheme for delivery to the president, and a renewable energy plan, but we have no matching plan to bring to the table.

We have a dialogue of the deaf because we have a government that purports to be in conversations, no “negotiations”, with the new Obama administration, but we see no independence being manifested by the government on behalf of this country. We are not acting like a sovereign state on climate change. There are no negotiations. There is no special envoy. The Minister of Finance does not know what the price of carbon is in the international markets. There are no timelines.

For that matter, we are not even sure what the government will do with the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, a legislative tool that was brought to bear by members of the opposition and forced on to the government after, of course, it withdrew its Clean Air Act from the last parliament because it was re-written and greatly strengthened by all opposition parties. However, the government did not like the bill, did not like the new improved Clean Air Act, so it did what it does best, it censured debate and it prorogued Parliament.

As a result, the new and improved Clean Air Act evaporated into thin air and the government is now without a climate change plan, waiting for the United States and not acting like an independent country. There are no negotiations. There is no envoy. There are no timelines. The Department of Finance has not crafted a tradeable permit scheme for this country, so we are now in a situation where, when we look at environmental enforcement, we are led to ask the question: why this and why now? If we are in desperate need of enhanced environmental enforcement, how will it apply to the single, greatest crisis civilization has ever known, and that is the climate change crisis and temperature increases? That is a line of questioning that we hope to pursue at committee with the government when we do see the bill there.

What has motivated the government? I believe it is motivated by good faith, but I also believe that it is part and parcel of the government's recent quarterly law and order communication agenda. That is okay because most Canadians know, as tens of thousands of them lose their jobs, that the government is not performing, when it comes to the economy, the way they expect.

The government has pursued an aggressive agenda, what I call a shock and awe law and order communications agenda. I hope, as one parliamentarian, that this does not fall prey to the government's penchant for Republican style law and order communication tactics. I hope this will survive that kind of approach and get to committee and be debated in a meaningful way.

If it is to be debated, then we need to see from the government some evidence. In so many of the law and order measures brought forward by the government, there is just so little evidence to backstop the proposed measures. There has been an awful lot of ideology, but there is not often a lot of evidence. Where is the evidence of the need for such sweeping reform on environmental enforcement, on fines, on penalties, on mandatory disclosure of corporate pollution, for example, and prosecutions? Where is the evidence that these changes will actually have an effect on pollution levels? We are not saying that it will not, but as a government, it has an obligation to bring forward the evidence to substantiate its claims.

The parliamentary secretary said fines are too low to be an effective deterrent. How many fines have there been in the last three and a half years of Conservative government? How high have those fines been? If the fines will be used for restorative purposes, what about pre-existing liabilities?

There are 38,000 to 40,000 contaminated sites in existence in our country as we speak. How will this environmental enforcement deal with pre-existing liabilities for the municipalities, cities, towns and regions across the country that are inheriting toxic sites, brownfields, blackfields, contaminated sites? Will this deal with that troubling issue?

The court may indeed order compensation and restoration payments. I believe there will be questions about constitutionality. There will be questions about the federal-provincial division of responsibilities. Courts can suspend or cancel permits for those who commit environmental offences. This is a good thing, a provision which did not exist before.

The registry of environmental offenders was referenced by the parliamentary secretary, so we get to publish names of corporate environmental offenders. What about the preponderance of Canadian companies that are not incorporated? Eighty per cent of all jobs in Canada today hail from small and medium-sized enterprises with less than 100 employees. How will they be brought into the fold? That outstanding question has to be answered as well.

Will the government inspire itself from the decade-old experience in the United States, where publicly-traded corporations have to reveal not only how much they are spending on corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, fines and prosecutions, but also have to disclose, for example, to what extent they are involved in litigation?

There is an agreement between the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission that compels the sharing of information so institutional and retail investors in our capital markets can make better and more informed choices about where to place their investments. How will the bill deal with capital flows in capital markets so we can encourage investments in those companies and organizations with better environmental performance? That remains to be answered. That is the kind of evidence we need brought to bear with respect to the bill.

All offenders must now pay a fine equal to the benefit received as a result of committing the offence, in addition to paying the fine for the offence itself. What does that mean? How will that be monetized? How will that be quantified?

What if another Exxon Valdese were to occur or an on-land Exxon Valdese equivalent were to occur and Canada were to lose significant wetlands? Canada has 26% of the planet's wetlands. They are millions of years old and are perfect and free water and air filtration systems. If we were to have a significant tailings pond spill and lose, for example, pre-eminent wetlands in a sensitive region in the country, how is the court expected to monetize and calculate that loss of eco-service? The notion of natural capital is not something about which the government has ever talked.

The government continues to pretend that carrying capacity out there is limitless, that we can continue to put as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as we wish because it will keep assimilating it. We know that is not the case. This is an interesting measure. How exactly is the court going to order fining equal to the benefit received as a result of committing the offence in addition to paying the fine for the offence itself? Surely the government is not going to be instructing courts to ignore carrying capacity and eco-services in Canadian natural settings.

The good news about the bill is it began well before the last election in 2008. Officials have confirmed its drafting began some two and a half to three years ago. I hope sincerely that the bill has been inspired largely by the terrible example of what can happen when a jurisdiction begins to ignore environmental standards such as the example in the province of Ontario under a previous Conservative government, where four front line cabinet ministers of the present government served, as well as the Prime Minister's chief of staff, and fired half of the province's water inspectors, leading to the terrible disgrace and tragedy of Walkerton.

I hope the government is going to deeply study the O'Connor report and insist that the learnings that were derived are implemented fully in the bill. It is extremely important to learn from past mistakes, but I am glad to see the previous minister of the environment, who was a minister in that unfortunate Michael Harris government that gave rise to that Walkerton crisis and tragedy, appears to be learning from that past and unfortunate experience.

Those are some of my first comments, but I want to pick up on a theme raised by my colleague from Yukon. It is passing strange that just last week, on a break week, the Minister of the Environment was in Calgary announcing to Canadians that he was single-handedly going to decide how environmental assessment was going to be conducted in Canada going forward. It is interesting because the first environmental assessment brought into the country was in 1992 by the former Mulroney government. It was a fine and important step for Canada.

In the last Bill C-10 budget bill, the government laced it with nine poison bills, not the least of which was the Navigable Waters Protection Act changes. There again was zero evidence presented to suggest that it was necessary to give a minister of transport and infrastructure unfettered discretion to decide when and when not an environmental assessment ought to occur in a bill which is over 115 years old, an act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, set out originally to protect natural waterways in Canada forever.

However, it is worse because last week the Minister of the Environment stood up in Calgary and gave a speech announcing that he was going to go further. Without parliamentary notice, without public consultation, without engaging the committee, without anything apparently now under the guise of getting money out the door as quickly as possible for stimulus purposes, the Minister of the Environment was facilitating the undermining of environmental assessment. That is rich.

The Minister of the Environment has now announced that he will change the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, change the function of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to weaken EAs as they go forward. This is something that the opposition, as the official opposition, will not tolerate.

We will be watching and asking questions about how the government intends to reconcile so-called tough on environmental crime measures in the bill, while speaking out of the other side of its mouth and announcing that it is either poison building its budget bill by forcing changes to environmental assessment or the Minister of the Environment freelancing in Canadian society, saying that he knows best and he will decide how 20 years of environmental assessment practice ought to be changed without notice.

Those are the kinds of changes we will be protecting against. Those are the kinds of issues that we intend to raise. It will be very important now for the government to come to committee and explain to Canadians, to go back to what I was saying a moment ago, how the bill will take us one metre farther, one yard farther down the field in dealing with the elephant in the room, which it is unprepared to admit exists in the room. That is the climate change crisis.

Environmental enforcement is all for naught if we see a 3° to 4° centigrade temperature increase on this planet in the next 50 to 100 years. It is all for naught. The government now has to stop the window dressing and come to ground on the climate change crisis.

[Infrastructure, March 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, across the country, sewage facilities are in a state of disrepair.

Here in Ottawa, raw sewage regularly leaks into the Ottawa River from an aging treatment plant in Arnprior, contaminating a body of water used daily by over a million residents in this region.

Arnprior's mayor, Terry Gibeau, applied to the building Canada fund to fix the plant. It met all the known criteria to gain access to funding, but the application was refused.

Why is the minister saying no to Arnprior and yes to raw sewage in the Ottawa River, while sitting on a pot of over $3 billion of unspent infrastructure money?

[Employment, March 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, here is what the government is doing. In four consecutive budgets, there has been no innovation strategy. On the venture capital front, on their watch, there was a drop in this region from $350 million in 2005 to $130 million last year. That is a 65% decline. There was only one venture capital deal last year in support of a new start-up.

Existing companies cannot raise money, they cannot commercialize and they cannot get any money in BDC's venture capital pools, because there is no new money. There are no new tax breaks for risk capital and no matching federal funds to match angel investments.

Once again, what are the minister and the government doing to support knowledge-based jobs?