Joe Comartin

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, April 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we are in the process in my area of the country of considering whether we need a third crossing for vehicles between the province of Ontario and the state of Michigan, between Canada and the United States. It is the busiest crossing area in the country and in fact in the world in terms of commercial traffic. The proposal is tentative but this crossing would involve four jurisdictions, which are Canada, the United States, Michigan and Ontario, and would have a significant impact, whether a bridge or a tunnel, on the environment.

My question to the member for Fundy—Royal, the environment critic for the Progressive Conservative Party, is this. We are probably talking something in the range of $5 billion to $15 billion in terms of construction for all aspects of this development. Would that project automatically get a panel review?

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, April 30th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on third reading of Bill C-9 which is a bill to amend the existing environmental assessment act.

In terms of understanding the context we need to have a bit of a review of the history of environmental assessment in Canada. That really began in the early 1970s by way of orders in council.

In 1973 the initial stage had no statutory authority, but over a period of the next 10 to 11 years we evolved into various pieces of legislation that ultimately resulted in the issuance of what were called environmental assessment and review guidelines and an order was issued pursuant to the Department of the Environment Act in 1984. The initial stages of the process were in fact, interestingly, given the sequence of what we see afterwards, determined by the government. These guidelines were not enforceable under any statute by the federal government.

Interestingly, the guidelines were being applied mostly in a voluntary manner, but then in 1989, with the Rafferty-Alameda Dam project in Saskatchewan, which was ultimately taken through the Federal Court system by environmental groups who were opposed to that project, it was determined by the court that those guidelines were enforceable.

Therefore, for the first time the government had to confront the reality that the Federal Court and ultimately the Supreme Court in a separate decision were determining that the federal government did have the legislative authority and had enforcement mechanisms available to it to apply environmental assessments in a meaningful way. It was a major step forward in the environmental assessment process in Canada.

In that period of time legislation was brought forward and ultimately passed. While that was working its way through the legislative process, the Supreme Court of Canada made a further pronouncement in this area on environmental assessments which was quite surprising to the federal government and certainly to the provinces. It was that those guidelines were, in fact, applicable to provincial projects so long as they affected federal interests. That decision was in 1992. In 1992 under the Conservative government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney legislation was passed. We had an election in 1993 and the legislation was not proclaimed by this government until 1995.

Contained in that legislation was a provision in section 72 that required a review after five years. As we heard from the minister today, the review was initiated in 1999 but did not get underway until well into 2000. Part of the process of the review was a requirement that a regulatory advisory committee be appointed.

If I can digress for a moment, it is interesting to look at what our experience was and what the regulatory advisory committee and the minister were confronted with. I pulled out a 12 month period of assessments for 2000-01. During that period of time there were 6,147 projects initiated that would have required an assessment.

Under the legislation there are various forms of assessments. The basic ones that we have referred to are screenings, comprehensive studies, and panel reviews.

The screenings are a summary process from within the department that is responsible for the project. Of those 6,147 that year, only one panel review was ordered. There were eight comprehensive studies. That leaves 6,138 that were done by the summary screening, a very small percentage.

The eight comprehensive studies require a more detailed review of the project. When that review is completed it is submitted to the minister, who then causes it to be published and gives interested parts of the community an opportunity to respond. Then ultimately the minister makes the decision. I should point out that there is no need for the minister to give any reasons or explanations for the decision made.

The members of the panel review on the other hand are appointed by the minister and conduct what everybody would see as an administrative tribunal type of process resulting in recommendations with explanations and reasoning supplied to the minister, who again ultimately makes the decision. That was the process. As I indicated, in that period of time there were few panel reviews and few comprehensive studies.

Over the entire period of the legislation, up to the time the review got to the environment committee, there were slightly less than 40,000 projects reviewed. Of that number there were nine panel reviews, less than 100 comprehensive studies, and there are three panel reviews still in progress.

I would like to note some of the reviews that were conducted. One of them, and the minister mentioned it today, was the Voisey's Bay project. The Sable Gas projects were reviewed. The Sunshine Ski Development in Alberta and the Canadian Millennium Pipeline project in Ontario were reviewed as were a number of other ones, all quite significant projects. However, what that list does not say is that there were also a large number of other significant projects that either did not get a comprehensive study, certainly did not get a panel review, and almost all of which went through the basic screening.

The one that I always point to in terms of its magnitude is the one project that would allow for the storage of radioactive waste on the Bruce Peninsula. When completed, this will be the biggest site in the world for storage of radioactive waste. That project did not require a panel review or a comprehensive study review. It simply went through one of those basic screenings.

The other project that I tend to mention was in Manitoba and actually crosses over into Saskatchewan. It was a forestry project that required a number of bridges and dams to be built that would have allowed the project proponent to develop the forestry industry in that region. Geographically that was a land surface that was to be significantly impacted from an environmental standpoint and was equal to almost 25% of the province of Manitoba. That project did not require, under the discretionary clause of the minister, a panel review or a comprehensive study review. There are lists that are much longer than the two that I have mentioned.

Where we are at when this legislation got to the regulatory advisory committee, or RAC, is that type of setting: 40,000 projects; 12 panel reviews, only 9 of which had been conducted; and less than 100 comprehensive studies. The proposed legislation, however, that they were given at that point was extremely narrow. It really did very little to allow them to make strong, comprehensive recommendations.

In addition to the framework within which it was forced to work, the committee did make a number of recommendations within that framework and a number of those were not even accepted by the department when the bill finally got to the House at first and second reading. It then worked its way through committee, but in confronting it, we in the NDP had three tests that we applied to it.

We asked whether it went far enough to protect our environment, and whether it strengthened or weakened the legislation. We concluded that overall, in spite of some improvements, it weakened the legislation.

The second criteria we applied was the process itself. Bill C-9 is designed to streamline and speed up the environmental assessment process. There are some good arguments as to why that should occur, but the process which would be instituted by this bill is designed entirely to benefit the proponents and developers of these projects, and not to protect the environment and the public.

The third assessment that we applied to the bill was whether it strengthened the ability--and we are talking here of transparency--for people, community members, NGOs, and sectoral interests to deal with the process. Was it more transparent and accountable? Was it more accessible for groups who may wish to know about the project and oppose it if they could get sufficient information as to its scope?

On the basis of all three criteria, this bill failed. As a result we will be opposing the bill when it comes for a vote at third reading.

The other point I would like to make is that there were a good number of attempts at amendments in committee. For example, the NDP proposed 50-some amendments and all the opposition parties proposed amendments, very few of which got through. The point I would make in this regard is that the bill is extremely limited. It does not deal with the basic problem that our environmental assessment process in this country is inadequate. The bill is about tinkering and a little fine-tuning.

One of the major amendments we wanted to deal with dealt with the issue of transparency and accountability. The law in the bill as it stands now would have no enforcement provisions in it. Bill C-9 would not have any changes in the law in that regard.

There were a number of amendments from the various opposition parties with regard to that issue. It was not just about enforcement. Let me use one example. One of the problems we often run into is that a proponent will actually begin work on a project. There is little that the government agency can do to stop that. It can issue some orders in the extreme, but it has no ability to enforce those orders.

We had made a number of proposals in that regard because it is a serious issue. Often, if the work is initiated before approval is given under the assessment process, it becomes a fait accompli. There is nothing that the agency can do but allow the project to go ahead because the trees have been cut down and damage already has been done to the environment, as well as any number of other consequences over which we have no way of penalizing the proponent who has broken the legislation. There is no way of enforcing the provisions of the legislation.

The other point though and again there were a number of amendments on this, was also requiring the government departments to comply with the legislation. We had repeated examples of the legislation being skirted, not being fully applied. Access to documentation was not given in compliance with either the letter or the spirit of the legislation. Again, there is no provision in the legislation to deal with that. The law in effect at this point does not require either enforcement or compliance and the amendments proposed to Bill C-9 will not require that enforcement in compliance. It is just one example of where the bill is so lacking.

The additional point I would like to make and I want to note this, is there are some positives in this but they have not been carried far enough. Again the minister in addressing third reading today mentioned extending the provisions of the bill to crown corporations. Unfortunately, that is not going to occur right away. Crown corporations are going to continue to be exempt for another three years once the legislation is passed.

The coordination that is being planned under this legislation in light of first nations environmental assessments is not clear enough. It was an attempt but it is not clear enough to really make that a coordinated effort between this level of government and first nations.

In summary, we have gone through almost exactly 30 years of environmental assessment at the federal level in this country. We were beginning to develop through guidelines in almost precedents the ability to begin to deal realistically and effectively with environmental assessments. The legislation in 1992 which finally became proclaimed in 1995, was actually a step backward when we look at what happened.

I want to digress for a moment in my summary. One of the things we have to appreciate is that the legislation because it had so few panel reviews was not able to develop a body of law. I do not mean rigid precedents as we have in some of our court systems but a general body of law that would have had experts in the area making decisions and recommendations to the minister but have those in writing as guidelines for the various departments which apply this legislation.

We do not have that. We have had nine reports and we are waiting for three more. We badly need to develop those guidelines so that individual members of the bureaucracy across this country will have a much clearer picture of what they are supposed to do when they are doing those basic screenings. We do not have that. I have to say we are not going to get this in this legislation, Bill C-9.

This is going to require, as Bill C-9 does, a further review. One can only hope that at that time the review will be more meaningful, that it will in fact encompass the whole of the legislation. I can forecast that we will see very few changes from the process that we have seen under the existing law. In three and five years from now, we will have to go back and do this properly and do a full review and get much more meaningful legislation.

In the interim we will obviously as a party be monitoring this but we will be voting against this legislation when it comes to third reading.

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, April 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to make similar points, perhaps with greater emphasis on what we just heard from the member for Lac-Saint-Louis. I wish to echo some of the comments he made and perhaps add some.

In the course of reviewing the environmental assessment legislation, and even more so than what we see before the House in the way of amendments, in some of the discussion we had in committee there was a great deal of concern about the lack of enforcement provisions in the bill. In what is in effect the existing section 62 of the act, there was a variety of amendments proposed by all parties, I believe, certainly by most of the parties represented on that committee.

It was clear that when one stood back and took an objective overview of it, part of what we were trying to do was get at that issue of how we at least could be sure that in the legislation, which as I have already said in the House on a number of occasions is inadequate and relatively weak, what is there would be carried out and enforced, so that as much protection as possible that could be garnered for the environment would in fact be garnered by this legislation.

Various proposals were put forward specifically around monitoring and enforcing, making sure that both the act and the regulations, and I think that is an important point, were in fact carried out, both in the wording that is there and in the spirit that is intended by the act and the regulations.

Most of the amendments, the more strongly worded ones in particular, were voted down by the Liberal majority on the committee. We did end up with what we now find as Motion No. 25, which is a compromise, I would say. It is better than what we have in the law now. The amendment will be an improvement.

I have to say, perhaps as a warning to the government, that this is being monitored by the opposition parties, by the environmental community and by other people who have followed the course of environmental assessment legislation. They are going to be watching very closely, because this compromise was in effect a statement by the government, which was saying, “Trust us. This wording is strong enough. There is enough direction in this wording in these amendments that in fact we will see to it that the law, limited though it may be, at least will be carried out”.

I suppose what I am saying to the government today is that it should be aware that the environmental community is watching this part of it very closely to see if the government is going to be true to its word and is in fact going to enforce and carry out the terms and the spirit of the law.

With regard to Motion No. 27, there are a couple of points. The committee was very clear, I think, that it was concerned about the length of time before the next review of the legislation would be done. There was a good deal of evidence, which we took from a number of witnesses, that the amendments were not going to be sufficient to deal with the problems that accrued since the act was originally passed seven years ago.

A number of specific amendments were proposed for a shorter review period. It is now seven years from the time of royal assent. There were proposals for as brief as one year all the way up to five years. Ultimately, the amendment now before the House is the one that was sent forward from the committee, again under a vote from the majority party.

The comment I would make to the government is one I heard the member for Lac-Saint-Louis make. We do not have to necessarily wait those seven years. The minister responsible at any given time and his or her department have to monitor this on an ongoing basis to see whether the proposed amendments, most of which we expect will ultimately pass, are sufficient to deal with the problems that have accrued. If they are not, I urge the minister not to wait out the seven years and to use this period of time wisely. If problems continue to be pointed out that we have already experienced, we should review the law and pass the necessary amendments so that the environment is protected by way of a valid environmental assessment process.

[Finance, April 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.

Yesterday we asked about a court ruling in the United States that ordered Visa and MasterCard to repay their cardholders $800 million U.S. because they were gouging them with hidden foreign exchange charges. The size of that surcharge is 1.8%. Its value to MasterCard: priceless.

Yesterday the minister said he did not know about the details. Hopefully he now does. What will he do to protect Canadian cardholders from these hidden charges?

[Foreign Affairs, April 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister can stay on his feet because my question is for him.

As he is aware, the Japanese foreign minister is in Europe today seeking support for a UN resolution on reconstruction. The resolution could put reconstruction under UN auspices, which is where it should be.

Does the government have a position on the Japanese resolution, and will Canada take a clear stand that reconstruction must be done under the UN, not under George Bush?

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, April 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the first group of amendments that we have before us at report stage reflect the essential problem the New Democrats have with the legislation.

The bill, as we heard from the member for Dartmouth, has had a lengthy history in terms of trying to improve the environmental assessment process in this country. There has been a great deal of criticism of it since it was actually incorporated into legislation following a series of what were, in effect, cabinet and ministerial directions on environmental assessment dating back to the 1970s, if we go back far enough, but certainly through the 1980s and 1990s until it became law.

The primary concern has been the lack of detailed hearings, if I can put it that way, which has resulted in us not having a body of law grow up under this legislation because we have had so few of the hearings. I think we were up to 12 as of the time the amendments were before the committee. That would be in the context of thousands and thousands of proposals that came before the government for assessments, but were dealt with by way of what, in most cases, were very summary screenings of the projects.

I will use one example of what did not receive a hearing and a panel review. We have developing now the largest depository of nuclear waste in the country and probably in the world. The expansion of this depository here in Ontario, up in the Bruce Peninsula, was screened and a decision was made that there would be no panel review, in spite of very strong demands by the environmental community and, I suppose, even more important, by the residents in the Bruce Peninsula for that type of review. It simply did not occur, nor will it at this time. There were several more examples given to us at the time that the committee reviewed these amendments.

I think there is another major problem with the proposed amendments by the government. We have to appreciate that we were working within a very limited confine of the amendments that were proposed. Because of that, we were not able to address a number of the issues. One of the major issues that should have been addressed was that of the enforcement of the legislation because there really is, in effect, no enforcement within the existing law and certainly not within the amendments that are being proposed.

To come specifically to the group of amendments that we have proposed before us in Group No. 1, they reflect the government's approach on this. I have to say that some of these amendments are purely technical and are an improvement to the bill as it went through the committee. There are a couple of amendments in this group that, and I am not quite sure what happened here, I believe, are in a bit of a different form. They are amendments that were proposed at the committee stage, were voted down by the majority of the Liberals on the committee and are now showing up in a somewhat different form, but they are improvements over the original part of the bill. Several of them, although not very many, are improvements for which we would be supportive.

Unfortunately, several of them, and I would address my comments specifically to the proposed Motions Nos. 12, 15, 17 and 21, are retrograde over the work that the committee did and will make environmental assessments less meaningful, less effective and less protective of the environment.

In a summary if I can encapsulate what the amendments do, is they limit the ability of people in local communities, or municipalities or environmentalists who have reservations about the proposed development to respond. In some cases the four amendments place fairly restrictive time frames on the ability of people who are opposing proposals to get information and to respond.

What the committee did, and I believe it was astute on its part, was to say that in some cases there should be no specific time limits within which the minister could give final approval to a proposal. There would be guidelines for when he or she would do that based on providing sufficient information, either through the department or by the proponents themselves, to the people who were concerned about the development.

What some of these amendments do is put a 15 day time limit within which this information can be dispersed to the opponents and then the minister can proceed. The minister in effect only has to wait 15 days.

We have to appreciate, and I am perhaps wearing my lawyer's hat for a moment, what that does to opponents. We had one example of one group that came before us to give testimony. It was being faced with a very short time frame, I think it was 30 days, and had access to thousands of pages of material, scientific study in particular, some of it very technical. It was required to respond and to put forth its position within that 15 or 30 day period. It was literally impossible for it do that in that time frame.

What the committee recommended in some of these sections, the government is now proposing to change through the amendments in Group No. 1 with very specific time limits being placed on them again. This is in spite of what we had proposed based on the experience we had under this legislation and experiences prior to that in Canada, as well as the experiences internationally.

It is simply not possible, given the scope of some of these proposed developments, for concerned citizens to respond in a timely fashion when they have a 15, 20 or 30 day time frame. Oftentimes the concerned citizens are required to retain lawyers, which some may already have, or other experts, and that is usually where the problem is, to do a meaningful assessment of the reams of material so they can respond in some type of informed way.

I go back to environmental assessments. If we are to have an effective and meaningful system for environmental assessments, the concerned citizens of the country, the citizens who will be directly impacted by these proposed developments, need to have meaningful input. That oftentimes means reasonable notice, an opportunity to involve themselves in the process by retaining experts and the framework of the legislation to do that.

Unfortunately, in many respects it is going in the opposite direction, particularly with the four amendments I mentioned. They are limiting in very significant degrees the rights and capabilities of concerned citizens to be involved in this process.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, as a lawyer, if that was in a courtroom, it would be ruled out because I would have to try to put myself in the Prime Minister's mind.

The question is well taken that there has been this vacillation. I do not think his support of regime change is quite as strong as the member suggests, but the issue is still there. How solid is the Liberal government with regard to its role in this?

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I was not in the House for the comment by the Prime Minister but I watched it on television, so I did hear it. My response has to be, if the government is serious, why is it not in the resolution in the final point? I say that in light of the history of this governing party over the last six or eight months as we watched it vacillate back and forth.

Initially the government said that it would only support any activity in Iraq if the UN sponsored it. Then we heard comments from some of the ministers, and even the Prime Minister on one occasion, that maybe we could go in without UN sponsorship. Ultimately, it decided not to and I again give it full credit for that.

The member will have to appreciate my reluctance to be totally convinced by the simple statement we had from the Prime Minister this morning.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I guess there are two parts to the question. Let me deal with the principle of pre-emptive strikes that underlie the doctrine that has been enunciated by the Bush administration.

The real hope I have is that at some point in the next administration in the United States that principle or right to pre-emptive strikes will be repudiated by a subsequent administration. If it is not and this becomes its doctrine, not only for this continent but for the whole of the planet, that does not bode well for peace and security in the world.

On the second issue of the role of the United Nations, I very much would have liked to address that. I just ran out of time. There is no question the final part of the motion dealing with the whole issue of reconstruction is glaringly blank about mentioning the United Nations.

As a party, it is our position that the United Nations should be involved, not only in the humanitarian effort that will be required to assist Iraq to get back on its feet, but also to assist, given what at this point seems the inevitability of the government collapsing, and play a key role in assisting the Iraqi people to take control of their government for themselves, by themselves.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion and to again reaffirm the position of the party that we will not be supporting it.

The Liberal government is once again attempting to have it both ways. After much urging from us, from the peace movement and from a whole cross-section of Canadians, it finally indicated a few weeks ago that it would not involve this country in any military action in Iraq. I wonder if it understood that it did that. However it did it based on the principle that the war being proposed by the U.S. administration and the Blair administration in the U.K. was one that was ill-founded under international law, ill-founded under the UN charter and ill-founded, quite frankly, on any kind of moral basis. We stood on that principle when the Prime Minister stood up in the House and made the announcement.

What we see now and what we have seen over the last few weeks is the government attempting to have it both ways. It is trying to move away from principle, to vacillate and to appease that part of the U.S. government that is so strongly against the position that we took. I suppose one might say, even to appease the Alliance Party, but I am not sure about that.

If we go back to the basic principle and look at the terms of the resolution we see repeatedly where the government is moving away from principle.

There is no issue about our relationship with the United States historically but we do have to keep it in the historical context. That relationship has been extremely friendly but it has also had its frictions.

When Prime Minister Pearson said back in the sixties “We are not going to be involved in the Vietnam War. You're wrong about that”, our relationship was very frosty for a while. In fact, it became quite physical when the president of the United States, Mr. Johnson at that time, literally assaulted our prime minister over that particular issue.

When I hear today just how bad the relationship has become, has it become that bad? I do not think so and we certainly hope it will not.

I come from a background where my father was an American. My oldest sister and youngest brother are Americans. They reside in the United States. The motion mentions negative comments and that we have to be careful as members of the House. I have some support in terms of sentiment for that and I have some questions on that part of the motion. My sister and brother would be very upset with me if I did not say how hurt we would be if comments were made about our legitimacy, whether our parents were married, and that comment that we heard.

I am also very concerned about other comments coming from the other side which I regard as anti-Canadian. When I hear, for instance, the Leader of the Opposition use the term “cowardly”, or the staff of the Premier of Ontario in a written press release use the term “coward” to address the government's position, I cannot support that either. I have to speak out against that. That type of language on either side is offensive, uncalled for and unwarranted.

To go to the very essence of this motion, it is about the U.S.-led coalition accomplishing its mission and we as a country expressing our hope that it is able to do so. Our party does not support that and we will, for that reason particularly, be opposed to the motion. The war is an illegal war. The coalition that is in Iraq now has no justification in being there.

We talk in part of the motion about casualties and wanting to limit them. The quickest way we could limit them is to impose, as Russia and a number of other countries have proposed, an immediate ceasefire. I have a very personal connection with regard to casualties. I was in Iraq about six months ago. I visited a school which was about two blocks from the market that was bombed in the first week. I do not know it but I live with the thought that some of the children I saw were some of those children who were killed in that bombing incident. How many other children may die or have died as a result of this incursion?

We needed to proceed with the UN sponsored inspections. It was working, as much as we will hear from some other elements that it was not, and for nothing else than it would not produce those civilian casualties we have seen.

We have been friends of the United States and we have been its ally in any number of other cases, as it has been with us in any number of other cases. Because it is our friend and ally we have the moral responsibility to say when it is wrong, as have a good number of its citizens. Its incursion into Iraq is wrong.

We have a similar responsibility to the United Kingdom. We told it in the Suez crisis back in the fifties that it was wrong, that we would not be there with it and that it was not justified under international law or under the charter of the UN. It is the same message. It is one of principle. It is a principle in which the country should have every pride. We should be able to say the citizens of Canada that in our foreign affairs we will look to multilateralism and the UN as methods of resolving these types of disputes. War, as the UN charter tells us, is always the last resort. We have to tell the administration in the U.S. that the principles it is enunciating of pre-emptive strike is one we cannot support; that we will never support.

There are a good number of elements in the motion that our party cannot support. It comes back to what we agreed to back in the middle part of March when the Prime Minister stood up and said that we would not be involved in the war. That is the principle on which we are standing.