Linda Duncan

[Holyrood Community League, October 5th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Edmonton's community leagues have long served our families and neighbourhoods, running children's sports programs and providing a voice for community concerns. Recently, the Edmonton—Strathcona leagues have been providing clear leadership in greening their parks, play spaces and facilities to reduce their environmental footprint.

One great example is the Holyrood community green space project, beginning with a small naturescape in their elementary school. Buoyed by their success, they launched a project to transform their neighbourhood park into a vibrant community hub. It includes a playground, naturalized landscape and picnic area. Coming soon will be a community garden, systems to capture rainwater and an energy retrofitted community hall.

Even more extraordinary is their effort to consider the health and wellness of senior and disabled residents. Holyrood has actively partnered with Extendicare Holyrood, the Greater Edmonton Foundation and the South East Edmonton Seniors Association to design and deliver recreation programs for seniors.

Hats off to Holyrood and its partners.

[Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act, October 5th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, obviously Canadians welcome greater measures in our laws, policies and programs to protect them from shysters, but one area the bill does not address is one of the largest categories of fraud, which impacts on the public market and the public, and that is environmental fraud.

When I worked in Bangladesh, I discovered that in Asia the government regularly brings fraud charges under its criminal code against major polluters. There have been recent serious cases in my own province of industry filing false reports on pollution. This is not a minor blip or technical matter. Our entire environmental regulatory system is based on self-reporting and if companies do not self-report, there can be significant harm to human health and the environment.

I am wondering if the member could speak to whether the bill should cover a much broader area, including environmental crimes, and in that case, who would speak on behalf of the community in the court.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, September 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise as well to speak in favour of the hoist motion, specifically because of the extremely inadequate side agreement on the environment.

We went through this whole dialogue on the free trade agreement with Colombia and yet again we are having the same inadequate documents tabled before this House. Since the serious issues raised about both the side agreements on labour and environment that were held in this House, there has been not one second of public dialogue or debate on what direction we want to go in our trade agreements with other countries.

Quite some time back, when Canada entered into the NAFTA, the three countries decided that they would not, at that time, incorporate labour and environmental considerations into the text of the binding trade agreement. Since that time, a number of governments, including the U.S. in the last U.S. election, and some Canadians have raised the bar and said that maybe it is time to revisit that, that if countries are going to claim that environment is as significant as development, maybe they better step up to the plate and actually put them on par in the balance.

I have taken the time to look at the side environmental agreement and I have to say that it is beyond shameful.

This place actually brought forward a trade agreement with the United States and Mexico but it has a lot of problems. The environmental provisions should have been incorporated into the NAFTA or at least within the side agreement, which is called the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. This was an effort to create a genuine independent body with a budget and with some senior leadership that y would further the dialogue with the trade partners to try to incorporate environment into trade.

We have seen in the trade agreements that the government has brought forward that it absolutely does not believe the words when it stands in the House and says, “We must balance environment and development”. Nothing is clearer to this House than this free trade agreement that the government has tabled before this House. It has told us clearly how significant it thinks environmental factors are in trade and development.

As I have mentioned, there is significant downgrading from the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, simply in the structure. Under the North American agreement, there is a council of the environment ministers of the three countries. In the Panama agreement, it is a committee of representatives. Who are they? Are they lower echelon bureaucrats? We do not know yet. We can guess who they will be because we have seen what has happened in Colombia. There is no full-time commission, no budget and no independent secretariat. Who is going to lead this so-called dialogue with the public? If the public requests that there be a dialogue on some of the environmental implications of this trade agreement, who will lead this topic?

We know that in our country it is a time of restraint. Are we to believe that Panama has surplus dollars, that its government can come up with the millions of dollars necessary to further these open dialogues on the environmental implications of trade and development?

There is no joint public advisory council. In the North American side agreement, it created a public advisory council and appointed people from industry, public interest groups and trade unions to the council of ministers. So much for participation and so much for the Conservative Party grassroots governance. There is no joint public advisory committee and no national advisory committee to our government on our relations with Panama under this agreement. Unlike the deal with the United States and Mexico, there is no duty to hold public meetings with the committee. Everything is behind closed doors.

The main argument for bringing forward the side agreement on environment in the NAFTA was that we needed to ensure that none of the partners in these trade agreements watered down their environmental laws to have an economic advantage. That is the whole purpose of incorporating environment and trade.

In this agreement, the word “enforcement” does not even exist. The government has taken out entire parts of the side agreement. Missing from this agreement is the obligation on the parties to ensure effective enforcement of their environmental laws. It is not in this side agreement.

In the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, there is an entire framework of how we deliver effective environmental enforcement. That framework has been endorsed by the World Bank , the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Circumpolar Institute on Environmental Law and the International Network on Environmental Compliance and Enforcement which our government belongs to.

In the Panama agreement, it has been replaced with two pathetic provisions. The government has pulled out of this framework at least 15 factors that are necessary for a country to have effective environmental enforcement and, instead, we have that the parties will encourage voluntary best practices of corporate social responsibility. It would be up to the corporations to decide if we are going to care about environment in Canada and Panama from now on.

Second, we have that the countries will promote voluntary-based measures. That is absolutely reprehensible. There are no investigative powers. One of the most important aspects of the North American agreement is the power of the secretariat to look into allegations of failed enforcement. There is no investigative power and no right of the citizens of either country to raise concerns and ask for an investigation.

There is also no article, which is in the North American side agreement, where the countries hold each of the signatories accountable for an ongoing pattern of failure to enforce environmental law. That is absolutely critical to the credibility of any fair trade agreement.

Perhaps it is understandable that the government would be fearful of committing to a process where it could be held accountable for effective environmental enforcement when, almost daily, it is being taken to court for the failure to enforce its laws. Just a few weeks ago, we had two first nations and two national organizations, for the fifth time, suing the Minister of the Environment for failure to comply with his own legislation on endangered species. I cannot even begin to count the number of cases brought by citizens against the federal government for failure to comply with the federal Environmental Assessment Act.

It is the same with public participation. All the strong measures in the North American side agreement are missing. We have the nice preamble but nothing is binding. The government has essentially eviscerated any kind of commitment to environmental protection in trade through this agreement. What is worse is that it has not taken a progressive forward-looking measure but has taken these measures and incorporated them into the body of the trade agreement.

I need say no more. The government has clearly stated its position. It does not believe that environment is part of trade and development.

[Oil and Gas Industry, September 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government clearly just does not get it.

The point of the review was also to study risks from the oil sands development. As compelling evidence reveals major risks to the water, to the fishery, and to aboriginal health, applications to expand the oil sands are proceeding.

When will the government assert its powers to address the serious risks posed by unconventional oil and gas?

[Oil and Gas Industry, September 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the National Energy Board just announced a limited Arctic-only review of offshore oil and gas drilling. It has also denied adequate public funding to ensure the promised effective participation.

On June 2, all parties, including the Conservative Party, agreed to our motion to have a comprehensive public review of environment and safety regulations for all unconventional sources of oil and gas. This NEB review falls pathetically short.

When will the Conservative government live up to its promises?

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 20th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would like to put the question to the hon. parliamentary secretary that I have put to a number of members in the House on speaking to the bill.

While the hon. member has spoken eloquently about the need to stand up and protect Canadians, so on and so forth, we need to stand back and take a look at the intent of the bill. We need to ensure that all Canadians are treated equally under the law and accorded equal rights according to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and according to the basic principles of the rule of law and democracy on which our country stands.

I have yet to hear the government define a terrorist or a terrorist activity. The bill, which has never been used and which has languished for four years, is supposedly an incredibly important law. There have been concerns with terrorism and security around the world for quite some time, including in our country. Therefore, I concur with my colleague who earlier asked why now. How would the bill ensure that the rights of all Canadians to be treated fairly before the law are protected, that they have a right to remain silent, that they have a right against self-incrimination, that they have the right to know the charges against them and the right to be charged before they are incarcerated?

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 20th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I had the privilege this past week of participating with one of my colleagues in a seminar sponsored by King's University College in Edmonton on fear-based government policy. The hon. member is making a very valid point. We need to make sure, as elected members of Parliament in a democratic nation, that we are making decisions on critical law and policy based on evidence and not on fear.

We have the responsibility, as elected officials, to make sure that we govern in a cogent, informed way. I would ask the member how members of her party can bring themselves to consider supporting the bill? It languished for four years. The government with its fighting-hard-against-crime agenda has simply not given prominence to the bill. There have been a number of actions brought against alleged terrorists in this country, and at no time was this law utilized. Where is the evidence? Where is the sound rationale for bringing this law forward?

I am concerned that surely, in a country that is run by the rule of law and democratic foundations, would the elected officials ever support a law that would take away the fundamental right to remain silent, the right to not self-incriminate, the right to know the charges, and the right not to be interrogated or imprisoned without knowing the charges.

I recognize that the previous Liberal government supported this law. It was at a time of fear of what was going on in the world. How then, given the member's very cogent argument, can she bring herself or her party to support this law?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 20th, 2010]

With regard to the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity: (a) what are the negotiating positions taken by Canada on the key actions currently being discussed by the parties under the above Convention, including (i) eliminating subsidies which undermine ecosystems, (ii) ending destructive fishing practices, (iii) reducing nutrient pollution from agriculture and industrial sources to below critical thresholds, (iv) reducing habitat destruction by half, (v) reducing natural resource exploitation to maintain ecological limits; (b) what existing or draft measures, strategies, plans, guidelines, regulations or legislation are in place or currently in discussion to implement obligations under articles 6 and 11 of the Convention to protect biodiversity, additional to the Species at Risk Act; (c) which persons or organizations has the government consulted in the past two years toward formulating the above, (i) whom does the government intend to consult in finalizing its measures and by what consultation process, (ii) has the government consulted First Nations, Inuit or Métis in these matters and, if so, what are the details of those consultations; and (d) did the government include in its delegations to the Nairobi negotiations on the global convention any representatives from First Nations, Inuit, Métis, environmental or conservation organizations, youth or scientists, (i) does the government intend to include in its delegation to the Conference of the Parties in Nagoya, Japan, this October representatives from any or all of the previously listed parties, (ii) who did the government include in its delegation to Nairobi, and who will be included in the delegation to Nagoya?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 20th, 2010]

With regard to the $1 billion over five years for the Green Infrastructure Fund to support green infrastructure projects on a cost-shared basis, included in the Economic Action Plan: (a) how much money has been allocated to date; (b) what, if any, specific criteria were used in determining whether or not a project received funding; (c) by project, what are the details of all applications received in each year for funding support; and (d) by project, what are the details of the projects approved each year under the fund, including (i) type of project, (ii) the proponents of the project, (iii) location of the project, (iv) the federal riding in which the project is located, (v) the proportion of federal funding and contributions by other partners, including the proponent for each approved project?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 20th, 2010]

With regard to the $1 billion over five years for the Clean Energy Fund to support research, development and demonstration of clean energy technologies, included in the Economic Action Plan: (a) for how much of the total Clean Energy Fund have contribution agreements been signed and with whom, (i) for research and development, (ii) for deployment of technology, (iii) for research; (b) which departments or agencies are administering each aspect of the fund; (c) what is the total amount allocated to date for carbon capture and sequestration projects and with whom are contribution agreements signed; (d) if the contribution agreements for the above projects do not include terms for intellectual property for any technologies developed or tested, are any separate agreements signed in that regard and what percentage is allocated to the government for any future sale of such; and (e) are there any other technologies receiving funding for development and deployment from the fund, and how much funding have they received, distributed by technology?