François Choquette

[Business of Supply, October 9th, 2014]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the proposed Port of Gros-Cacouna oil terminal, which will be used for the sole purpose of exporting unprocessed Canadian oil, will have a negative impact on the Canadian economy through the loss of well-paid jobs, will constitute an unacceptable environmental threat to the St. Lawrence ecosystem, including the beluga whale population, and therefore, is not consistent with the principle of sustainable development, and must be rejected.

Mr. Speaker, to begin, I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, who will be giving an excellent speech once I have finished.

This debate and this motion are very important. They will showcase the foundation of the NDP's sustainable development plan when it forms the government in 2015. It is very important that we get back to basics and define sustainable development. It is built on three pillars. The first is economic. Of course, development is first economic. We need to determine how a project can benefit the Canadian economy. The Port of Gros-Cacouna project is not economically beneficial. In fact, the economy in this region already relies on ecotourism, fishing and marine resources. An oil spill would be catastrophic for all of those jobs. In addition, this project focuses solely on exporting. There is no opportunity to process the raw material; therefore, there is no possibility to add value or create jobs. That is why this project makes no sense economically.

The second pillar is environmental. The beluga whale, a symbol of Quebec, lives there. The beluga is a symbol not just of Quebec, but of Canada. The beluga is also a threatened species. In 2010, there were about 1,000 belugas, but the latest figures show that in 2012, there were only 880. Protecting the ecosystem and the environment is a very important aspect of sustainable development, but that protection will be impossible in this case.

The third pillar is social acceptance. I will explain why later, but I travelled around the Lower St. Lawrence and across Quebec twice, and there is no social acceptance.

The Conservatives have made a real mess of this file, and my colleagues who have been working on it can talk about that later on. For one thing, the Maurice Lamontagne Institute is in the region, and in 2012, the Conservatives made draconian cuts there. Some two-thirds of the scientists who worked at the institute, in fields such as ecotoxicology, lost their jobs. Environmental science was absolutely eviscerated there.

In addition, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act has been completely watered down. It has been hacked to bits. Right now, this act is a problem because environmental assessments and public consultations are no longer reliable.

That is what prompted my colleagues and me to move motions in committee. We have been concerned about belugas for a long time. As I said, belugas are a threatened species. They fall under the federal government's Species at Risk Act. That means the federal government is required, under its own act, to protect this species and come up with a recovery strategy, but that has not happened. The species is not recovering. On the contrary, from 2010 to 2012, the number of belugas dropped. As we approach 2015, the species is probably even more threatened. In the past few years, many young belugas have washed up on the beach and died. Protecting young belugas is critically important to the recovery of this species.

That is why, in June, I moved a motion in the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup moved a motion in the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. We were very concerned about the work that was going on then and we wanted to know if the seismic survey and exploratory drilling work was happening with no regard for species like the beluga and the ecosystem in general off the coast of Cacouna.

We moved this motion in our respective committees. Unfortunately, the Conservatives decided to proceed in camera. I therefore cannot tell you what was discussed during those in camera meetings, but I can tell you that the motions are no longer on the order paper. Members can figure out what happened.

Then, there was a request to conduct exploratory drilling. I went to the Quebec Superior Court to hear the injunction application filed by the Centre québécois du droit de l'environnement and other environmentalists who are very concerned about the environment in that area. I listened to the arguments made by the lawyers for the Centre québécois de droit de l'environnement. The Conservatives' actions on this issue are truly shameful.

First, the Government of Quebec asked for clarification so that it could respond to the concerns about the protection of the ecosystem raised in response to TransCanada's request for authorization to conduct exploratory drilling off the coast of Gros-Cacouna. The Conservatives did not bother to respond through Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Then, rather than answering the questions they were asked, they said that they would send a letter. They did not send a scientific opinion. In the letter, they said that everything was going well, that people should trust them and that the project could go forward. We know what happened next: the Quebec Superior Court granted the injunction. Right now, no exploratory drilling can be done because of the injunction. TransCanada can no longer move forward with that request.

The Liberal leader visited the Lower St. Lawrence region and said that drilling and seismic testing could be done and that he supported the oil port project in Gros-Cacouna, without knowing what was happening and that the project was not backed by scientific evidence.

[The Environment, October 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, under the Conservatives, environmental assessment has become a real joke.

Many industrial sites that are likely to be major polluters have undergone no environmental assessment whatsoever. Either the government is deliberately not assessing these sites in order to please industry or the selection criteria are inappropriate.

Either way, will the government heed the recommendations made by the environment commissioner and commit to greater transparency and clarity when it comes to identifying projects to be assessed?

[Parks Canada, October 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, from 2012 to 2013, Parks Canada cut more than 1,000 permanent positions. That is almost one third of its employees laid off. Under the Conservatives, Parks Canada no longer has any money to hire staff, but it does have money to produce videos, such as its shocking recent wolverine video. This makes no sense. Parks Canada generates $3.3 billion for our economy.

How can the Conservatives claim to act in the interest of Canadians when it makes cuts to the development of our parks?

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his excellent question.

All of the major environmental groups that are concerned about Rouge Park are saying that the focus should be on ecological integrity, or something along those lines, because recent cuts are a major source of concern.

The Conservatives have opened the door to commercializing our parks. We do not want that. We want parks to be open and accessible to everyone. National urban parks should be created so that as many people as possible can access them. This park should not be exclusively for the elite, nor should it be commercialized so that it becomes very expensive.

I hope that the Conservatives on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development will be open to considering amendments that will improve the Rouge Park legislation.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, from the outset I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with someone yet to be determined.

Before I begin my speech, I would like to say something about this debate. I listened to all the speeches today, and some members have done an excellent job. I would like to say that I met with a number of environmental groups who spoke to me about the problem of ecological integrity in Rouge Park. They told me that it is very important to keep the concept of ecological integrity and to make exceptions that will make it possible to adapt the national park to urban realities. This would help maintain very high standards.

I would like to come back to the importance of parks and nature in Canada. The marvellous WWF Living Planet Report 2014 contains a truly important proverb that really puts everything in context: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”. That is really important. That concept must be part of our actions and our sustainable development. The future of my children and my grandchildren is one of the reasons why I entered politics. The report continues:

Yet...we are not proving good stewards of our only planet....The way we meet our needs today is compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs...

We must understand that if everyone on earth consumed resources like Canadians do at present, it would take more than three planets to meet our needs. We are mortgaging our children's future, which is really not a good thing. The report makes that clear.

I have met often with representatives from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. They said some key things about the importance of parks in Canada.

According to a federal government study from 2011, Canada's national parks support 33,000 jobs across the country, providing a stable, long-term economic base for rural and remote communities. The study also found that, for every federal dollar invested in national parks, more than $6 goes back into the national GDP. Parks are therefore very important for our economy.

That brings us to the much talked about Rouge Park. A number of my colleagues expressed their concerns about the federal government's ability to ensure the ecological integrity and health of the park and the natural environment. Nature in this part of our country is actually very important.

I would like to come back to a report by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and a report by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, which said that the federal government made major cuts in 2012, thereby reducing our scientific capacity to only one-third of what it was. If we have only one-third of our scientific capacity, we will have a hard time meeting the needs. In fact, according to the report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, “ecological integrity is a characteristic of healthy ecosystems”.

That is very important and indeed it is set out in the National Parks Act. If we want Rouge Park to become a national park, it must have ecological integrity. It says so in the legislation.

The commissioner's 2013 fall report says:

...the Agency's governing legislation and policies specify that the “maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity, through the protection of natural resources and natural processes, shall be the first priority of the Minister when considering all aspects of the management of parks.”

That is the law. The priority in the management of national parks is the maintenance and restoration of ecological integrity.

That has to be the priority for the Rouge national urban park. There can be adaptations in the future with exceptions for an urban park as needed. However, the basic principle of ecological integrity must be maintained.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and several of my Conservative colleagues have said that they would never touch the ecological integrity of national parks. If that is so, then they should not start doing it here. This should be the priority, and new terms can be added to adapt later. I am very concerned about the federal government's approach to ecological integrity because the commissioner's report states:

We found that overall spending on Heritage Resources Conservation decreased by 15 percent in the 2012-13 fiscal year, compared with the average of the preceding six years, with further reductions planned [after that...]. The planned staffing numbers in Heritage Resources Conservation were reduced by 23 percent.... More specifically, staffing in the science work stream [those involved in ecological integrity] was reduced by 33 percent during this period, as 60 of 179 positions were eliminated.

The federal government has everything it needs to protect the ecological integrity of the Rouge national urban park. That is why we completely disagree. We are very concerned about that possibility.

According to the Rouge national urban park bill, the minister is not required to consider ecosystem and wildlife health. He is not required to rehabilitate ecosystem health, just to consider it. What a joke. They cannot simply consider it; they have to implement strict rules.

In conclusion, we will support this bill because it is important to move forward with the Rouge national urban park. People have been working on it for a long time, and it is really important. As a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, I will ensure that this bill is amended to make ecological integrity the priority.

I think it is a real shame that the Conservatives have started blaming the Ontario Liberal government for future inappropriate use of the park. On the contrary, they should be reaching out to the Government of Ontario and provincial governments. The Conservatives tend to be high and mighty with the provincial governments, telling them things will be done their way, period. What they should do is sit down and negotiate with them.

I find it unfortunate that a provincial government has come under attack in the House. Instead, the Conservative government should be working in partnership with the provincial governments and Rouge River advocacy groups. That is a real shame. That is why it will be much harder to work with the Government of Ontario, given the way it has been attacked here.

An NDP government will provide all of the necessary support to ensure that this park is protected so that we can preserve its biodiversity and help surrounding communities tap into the full economic and tourism potential that our national parks have to offer.

There is absolutely no doubt that creating parks will be one of our priorities when we form the government in 2015. At that time, we will ensure that ecological integrity is a priority, just as most environmental groups are calling for. Of course, there may be exceptions when it comes to urban parks such as the Rouge national urban park, for example.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, given that I am short on time.

What concerns me is the dangerous precedent that the Conservatives could set by creating this park. Since it will be the first urban national park, it is essential that ecological integrity be the priority. My Conservative colleague just said that ecological integrity is important to her. Therefore, she should push her Conservative colleagues to make sure that this priority is in the bill, because it is not.

Does my colleague not believe that a dangerous precedent could be set by creating this park without making ecological integrity a priority?

[Natural Resources, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there is something I want to say right off the bat. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources said that the projects approved are safe. However, she did not say how she knows that, since no one knows.

We do not know how many environmental experts the National Energy Board has, or how much time and effort these experts put into their environmental assessments. We do not know. If she knew, she would say so. She does not know because she did not tell me.

A number of experts have criticized this new idea of transferring environmental assessments and approvals to the National Energy Board. Biologists at the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society have been critical, as have others.

The risk of spills is very high with pipelines. The number of incidents involving pipelines has doubled in Canada over the past 10 years.

Where are the environmental assessment experts at the National Energy Board? Who are they and what are their names? Why do we not have this information?

[Natural Resources, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to come back to a question I asked about the National Energy Board and the new role that the Conservatives gave it. By that I mean responsibility for the environmental safety of pipelines and major projects.

When I asked the question on June 16, we were rather concerned about the fact that the National Energy Board had decided to spend $21 million to move a few blocks, since that was almost double the amount of funding announced for pipeline safety. The Conservatives claim to be good at managing federal money, but this is a striking example to the contrary.

In June, there were some inconsistencies in my hon. colleague's response. He said that he was proud of the work done by the National Energy Board and that its decisions were driven by scientific data, contrary to our ideological approach.

I did a little research to find out whether the National Energy Board's work was really based on science. Given the changes made to the environmental approval process for pipelines, I submitted an access to information request to find out how many National Energy Board employees have training or a specialization in environmental impact studies; I also wanted to see what percentage of the National Energy Board's efforts are focused on environmental protection—since the organization was given responsibility for all that—versus energy development and resource exploitation.

I was completely blown away by the answer. The National Energy Board said that it did not keep track of the number of employees who had studied or specialized in environmental matters and that no information was available on the efforts made in the area of environmental assessments.

I was absolutely astounded to find out that all of this responsibility had been transferred to the National Energy Board in 2013 and that the organization does not have any information on the number of employees with a specialization in environmental science or on the percentage of the work done on environmental assessments. I was shocked to find that out.

Before Christmas last year, in December 2013, Ottawa further streamlined the environmental approval process for pipelines. The government transferred to the National Energy Board all the environmental responsibilities that once belonged to Fisheries and Oceans Canada—where we know how many environmental specialists there are and how much effort goes into environmental assessments. Now, it is up to the National Energy Board to do that work.

Even after I submitted an access to information request—I have a copy of it here—I was not able to get the information I was seeking on environmental specialists. The same thing happened to my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, who was looking into beluga whales and the lack of scientific evidence to back up the action being taken in that area.

How many experts are there and what efforts is the National Energy Board making to protect the environment?

[The Environment, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that Conservative governments have done a lot of work recently. That is why they took home fossil awards at all of the UN climate conferences. If they were that good, they would not be getting fossil awards—booby prizes. They would be getting congratulations from environmentalists and climate change groups. No, they got booby prizes, but they continue to think that they are doing great.

As for the new announcement that the Conservatives have made in New York, that is a two-year-old announcement that they recycled because they had no new solution to propose, even though that was what Ban Ki-moon had requested. They therefore made the same announcement twice. Announcing something twice does not mean that there is twice as much action. It is the same thing.

The sector-by-sector approach does not work. They were already told that by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, among others. It is time to take action.

When will the government abolish subsidies to the oil and gas companies and truly invest in green and sustainable energies?

[The Environment, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure once again of rising in the House to talk about climate change. As everyone knows, this is the hot topic this week. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Climate Summit 2014 was held last Tuesday in New York.

Barack Obama welcomed all heads of state. In fact, 120 heads of states from around the world were present, except for our Prime Minister. That was truly disappointing.

In the last session of Parliament, I pointed out that for the Conservative government, unfortunately, the environment and job creation are mutually exclusive. I asked the following question: When will the Conservatives take the steps necessary to live up to their Copenhagen commitment?

To make a long story short, I would say that when they withdrew from the Kyoto protocol the Conservatives set a low greenhouse gas reduction target of 17% below the 2005 level by 2020. Under the Conservatives, Canada is the only country in the world that decided to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol and to abandon its commitments under that protocol. People are really disappointed with the government's attitude. Canada gave itself lower targets, minuscule targets.

Everyone is up in arms. The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and even Environment Canada officials themselves have said in all the reports to the Conservative members over the past few years and this year that we will not reach the feeble targets of 17%. Of course, the Conservatives keep saying that all is well, but that is not the case. Everyone has sounded the alarm. However, the Conservatives are turning a deaf ear. They do not seem to understand what people are telling them.

Had the Prime Minister of Canada gone to New York for the Climate Summit 2014, he would have known that the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate released a report at the UN a few days before the summit. The report said that we must not pit the economy against the environment anymore, because it is a false dichotomy. The independent commission that released the report is co-chaired by former Mexican president Felipe Caldéron, who himself said, “The new climate economy report refutes the idea that we must choose between fighting climate change or growing the world's economy. That is a false dilemma.”

Actually, if we do not deal with climate change, the opposite will be true: we will have to spend billions of dollars to be able to respond to the disasters caused by climate change.

What are the Conservatives waiting for? When will they make regulations for Canada's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the oil and gas industry?