Linda Duncan

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would have thought the member would have liked to have expressed similar concern to the fact that our committee is not proceeding with the CEAA review, rather than it being done through a budget with little discussion.

It is good news if the greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 2.1%, but I find that rather pathetic, given the fact that they have gone up 35%. I do not know if that is 2.1% of intensity or if it is absolute. What was it?

The thing that I found most noteworthy was that yesterday in the House the parliamentary secretary informed the House that it was no doubt due to the fact that we are reducing coal-fired power. I would like the member to be aware, as he is from the same province as I am, that as we sit here, coal-fired power is expanding in Alberta and various companies are asking to ratchet back their requirements to reduce the greenhouse gases. I do not see the jolly forecast that the member sees.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Yukon for his ongoing support for environmental measures in the House.

With regard to the silencing of scientists, I share the member's concern but I share it in a much broader avenue. We have heard a lot about the concern, for example, that government employed scientists have not had the freedom to share the results that they may have in their own research, or issues of concern that they have raised that should be brought to the attention of the government.

My sense of the concern is even much broader. We have an entire agency, with appropriately skilled people who will conduct the independent review or at least oversee the review by proponents of projects, being completely removed. We can guess that the appropriate officials are probably not vested in the other two agencies that will conduct those reviews.

We need to start looking even deeper into the problems with science. Not only are the scientists not allowed to speak but now they will not be allowed to do the work as well.

On the important matter that he raised about the cutting of funds to adaptation, I share his concern, but I am more deeply concerned that the adaptation costs will escalate due to the fact that the government insists on not taking action and not setting those binding targets.

It should not cost taxpayers the money to respond to climate change. If we simply impose those legally binding targets and reductions on the major emitters, they will incur those costs rather than taxpayers, and then we can put our money toward helping the lesser developed countries that are bearing the brunt of the impact of our industry.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

No, I can't say that? I am very sorry. I was not aware I could not say his name. That is fine. I will not mention his name again.

The current government is holding fast to its long-held and false assumptions that protecting the environment always comes with a significant impact on the economy. If this trade-off ever existed, it has long been replaced, at least in informed circles, by the need to move into the new economy.

The International Energy Agency weighed in this week by saying that Canada's record to date in addressing greenhouse gases suggests meeting even the meagre targets committed by Canada at Copenhagen “will present policymakers across the country with an immense test. It remains unclear how national targets are to be co-ordinated, divided and enforced among the provinces and territories.”

The IEA recommended that Canada produce a more coordinated national energy efficiency policy. Counted among many others who have recommended federal action on national energy efficiency are the former Conservative trade minister and chair of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, David Emerson, and the right-of-centre Alberta-based Canada West Foundation.

Yet, what the government delivers in this budget is cuts to the very programs that were enabling more efficient energy use, including the highly popular eco-energy home retrofit program.

While the current government argues that it is in sync with the United States, nothing could be further from the truth. The United States government is proceeding with bills and expenditures focused on U.S. energy security and sustainability, encompassing actions on climate and energy efficiency and investments in renewables. The U.S. clearly gets it. When will the current government get on board?

However, I wish to focus particularly on part 20 of this bill. There is clear intent in this part to erase environmental considerations from all federal stimulus spending and to emasculate the remainder of federal reviews. The proposed legal reforms directly contradict the legal mandate of the environment minister.

The Department of the Environment grants the minister his powers, duties and responsibilities. And contrary to the minister's assertions that his responsibility is to balance economy and environment, nowhere in that act, which mandates his power, is there any mention of that need to balance.

The intent of part 20 directly contradicts one of the minister's duties; that is, to require the assessment of any new federal projects. The minister's duty to assess impacts was first abrogated in last year's budget when the Navigable Waters Protection Act was eviscerated.

If Bill C-9 is passed, the majority of federally funded projects will be exempted.

First, part 20 of the bill exempts a large swath of federally funded projects from a key regulatory trigger: federal financing. This is done despite the fact the majority of projects merely undergo an initial screening.

Second, the government is responding to recent court rulings confirming federal responsibilities to assess project impacts, by simply empowering the minister to narrow the scope of any assessment.

The most obvious question is: Why are these significant amendments to the federal law included in a budget implementation bill?

The legally required review of the federal law, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, is slated to come before the parliamentary committee within weeks. Unlike the process for this bill, reviews before the parliamentary committee allow detailed consideration and hearing from all the affected stakeholders.

Is this simply another example of the failed promises on transparency and participation in governance?

Next, is this emasculation of federal impact assessment simply being done to save money. And if so, is it money for the government or for industrial proponents?

Where is the evidence of this alleged unnecessary duplication and overlap? The government has yet to table a single example.

The key to considering the appropriateness of this reform is the recognition of federal jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of Canada has, in a series of decisions, clearly upheld federal jurisdiction and responsibility for the environment, including environmental impact assessment.

One of the most frequently cited Supreme Court cases is the decision on Friends of the Oldman River Society vs Canada.

As the court held:

Local projects will generally fall within the provincial responsibility...federal participation will be required if...the project impinges on an area of federal jurisdiction.

The federal law specifies three triggers for federal assessment. One of those is federal finance. The second is any areas of federal responsibility. Both are eviscerated by this bill.

Is the rationale to ensure more coordinated federal and provincial cooperation in environmental assessment? This was recognized and responded to years back. Measures taken included the harmonization accord; federal-provincial bilateral agreements; coordination in the field; and joint panels. By these provisions, the government has slung an axe to its duties where only a scalpel slice may have been necessary.

Of equal concern is the decision to grant the Minister of the Environment the complete discretion to decide to narrow the scope of any federal assessment. Again, the sense is that this change was simply to limit future judicial scrutiny of the government's decisions.

Separate and apart from that concern is the potential for conflict of interest. Surely the decision on the scope or extent of a federal assessment should be removed from any potential political considerations. For example, any assessment of a pipeline or export power line that the government has endorsed surely should not be made based on the decision of a minister who may well have endorsed those projects. Again, that is the case of the Mackenzie pipeline.

Contrary to what the minister has suggested, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, in his 2009 audit, did not in fact recommend that this role be assigned to the minister. The commissioner merely recommended that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency propose options to the minister, and the agency in reply said that it looked forward to putting forward options to the parliamentary committee in the very hearings that will commence in a few weeks.

A bigger question is whether this law change represents an underhanded attempt at a constitutional amendment. This is a long-standing request by the Alberta government and perhaps other governments to get the federal government out of the environment business on their turf. This is certainly the case on fisheries, a unilateral area of federal jurisdiction. What of the duty to assess impacts to first nation peoples, their lands and waters? What of the federal power over transboundary impacts? Are these, too, being ceded to the provinces? Is this a case of illegal sub-delegation?

In considering this bill, members must consider the duties under federal law to regulate, manage, prevent or mitigate environmental impacts. The very purpose of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is to implement the government's duty under the precautionary principle to identify and prevent unnecessary environmental impacts. Where the effort is not made to assess these potential impacts, how can the government credibly claim to be exercising those powers effectively?

Finally, to the matter of the transfer of environmental impact assessment duties to the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Indeed, this is already allowed under law. What is of grave concern is the broad brush policy decision to completely transfer the environmental assessment function for the majority of these reviews to these agencies out of the very agency set up at arm's length to review environmental impacts.

Contrary to what the minister has asserted, impacted communities and families have not been satisfied with the way those agencies have delivered environmental reviews. A non-government report on the New Brunswick facility did not give it the glowing review the minister professes. In the case of the National Energy Board review of the first export power line out of Alberta, dissatisfaction in the assessment of impacts resulted in court action. Central to the case was the failed consideration of impacts on farmers by the Energy Board.

In summary, I am absolutely opposed to the passage of Bill C-9, particularly part 20.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

I am sorry, Madam Speaker.

This government, led by Prime Minister Harper—

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the title says it all: Bill C-9, jobs and economic growth act. On the face of it, this critical bill ignores an important federal mandate, the legislative and constitutional duty to protect the environment. Part 20 represents a clear abrogation of federal duty. It appears to contradict the government's stated mantra of the need to balance the economy with the environment.

In the 2010 budget, the government declares Canada to be a clean energy superpower. Then in its budget implementation act, the environment component is completely exorcized in both the name and the measures.

The Prime Minister promotes seeking for Canada to be a clean energy superpower. His government committed in the fall, 2008, throne speech to support technologies that will not emit greenhouse gases. His government also committed to a 90% national target for non-emitting electricity sources. How is the government going to do this? It is going to do this by deep-sixing renewable power and giving further subsidies to the dirtiest source of power, coal.

While Canadians thought the 2009 federal budget set a new high-water mark for perverse economic policies, this year exceeds that backward slide. The government is leaving our country mired in 19th century fossil fuel economy. The Harper government's failures can be found not just in the specifics but in the very principles that guide its regulatory and fiscal policies. The Harper government is holding fast to its long-held and—

[Business of Supply, April 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I had hoped to share my time today with the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North. As time will be tight, I would like to at least thank him for his tireless work on behalf of Canadians to finally seek action on climate change around the globe.

I wish to voice my support for the motion presented by the member for Ottawa South and hope that all members in the House see fit to support these measures, which are necessary and long overdue. Although I do concur with the hon. member who spoke previously that it would have been useful to include the short and medium term targets, those are fortunately included in my colleague's bill, Bill C-311.

I concur with the member that the government has the full constitutional authority to take expeditious action to fulfill our country's responsibilities and undertakings to address climate change. Action on addressing climate change has been delayed, first by the suggestion that we needed a new law, which was then amended, brought forward, enacted and ignored. Then, the government dragged on endless consultations, which had been going on for the previous 15 years.

The next excuse was the need to await action by all nations of the world at Copenhagen. The latest excuse is the need to wait for the United States to dictate our targets and actions on climate change. Yet, while the government claims to be waiting for U.S. actions, the Obama administration is leaving us in the dust. President Obama's 2009 budget invested 14 times per capita what this country invested in its budget. This year, Obama's budget is 18 times per capita the investment of Canada. So much for synchronicity in North America.

Obama's budget also set aside $85 million for green job training for about 14,000 workers and $75 million in the re-energize education effort. Now that is what I call an education investment for the future. What did the government invest? It invested nothing. The government has set aside nothing for green jobs and training, and it would have been welcomed as a constructive addition to this member's motion.

New Democrats believe that green jobs, training and just transition programs for workers are all vital to a strong, sustainable economic recovery. The U.S. law specifies improved energy efficiency for government buildings as a way to jump start job creation and long-term growth. There is a commitment to retrofit 75% of government buildings in two years, saving billions for taxpayers in the United States.

In Canada, in response to a request for information that I submitted last year, we were told by the federal government that only six out of 26,000 federal buildings were so much as in the process of beginning retrofitting. Where is the synchronicity? I concur that the legislative and fiscal authorities have long been in place to enable action by the government. Many of those laws have been intentionally ignored. This despite international obligations under the Kyoto accord and, most recently, the Copenhagen agreement.

The government continues to ignore the pleas of Canadians from across the country to take action on climate change. Even the government's own studies show the impacts on the Canadian Prairies, the Canadian Arctic, the pine beetle expansion and record flooding. Yet still, it fails to act.

Many are suffering the economic toll already. Canadians are now having to turn to the courts to make the government comply with legal duties to reduce greenhouse gases.

I will be looking to the member for Ottawa South and his colleagues to support Bill C-311, which prescribes science-based reduction targets and requires accountability to Parliament for actions taken to meet the targets. In his 2009 audit, the federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development reported serious flaws with the government's initiatives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including the transit tax credit and the climate trust fund.

I concur fully with the assertion that while the government has the necessary fiscal tools at its disposal, it has also failed miserably on their application. The 2010 government budget entitled “Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth” says it all. Gone is any semblance of adherence to the government's mantra of balancing economy and the environment.

The selfsame budget, where the government proclaims Canada to be a clean energy superpower, kills the only main programs to incent development and deployment of our once burgeoning renewable energy sector. It kills the eco-energy home retrofit program. It deals a severe blow to environmental impact assessments of major energy and infrastructure projects. The North American Insulation Manufacturers Association calls it “shortsighted” to cancel the energy retrofit program, which brought benefits to homeowners, the economy and the environment. So much for its affiliation with business in Canada.

The most perverse of all, though, is the budget grants a further tax reduction to the already profitable yet under regulated major energy corporations, while gifting hundreds of millions of dollars to those industries merely to test a technology. Why cut the very initiatives that are bringing reductions and, instead, putting the money into something we do not know will work?

This contradicts Canada's commitment made at the 2009 G20 in Pittsburgh to end subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. cut subsidies for oil and gas industry by 2020 to restore almost $37 billion U.S. to its government coffers.

Where is the action on the promised aid to address climate adaptation faced by many developing nations? Canada is disgraced by being the only G8 nation that has not committed a dollar figure, despite commitments at Copenhagen. Canadians are expressing grave concern that with the coming cutbacks to foreign aid next year, the new commitment will fall by the wayside.

Finance for action to address climate change must be new and additional to existing ODA commitments and it must be predictable. Funding must be substantial and adequate and meet the scale of needs identified for developing nations.

Financing and technology support for developing country mitigation and adaptations is the lynchpin to achieving a global agreement on climate change.

Overcoming past failures on both fronts will be essential to a strong climate agreement and must be at the table at the G8 meeting in June. If we are to put the world on a path to avoiding dangerous climate change, we need the assurance Canada will meet those commitments.

Finally, it has been the custom at all previous G8 meetings to host a meeting of environment ministers. Why is this expected—

[Business of Supply, April 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member referenced the Copenhagen agreement, as did the parliamentary secretary. While that framework does not do much, it does do one thing. Canada commits in it specific dollars for foreign aid. I would like to ask the member why we are the only G8 country that has failed to live up to that commitment and commit a specified dollar amount.

Second, both the hon. member and the parliamentary secretary are alluding to this North American form of government. Last I noticed, the European Union has a continental form of government and it has the power to issue directives to the European Commission.

Last I noticed, under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, the Conservative government cannot even bring itself, a year later, to appoint the next executive director, who is supposed to come from Canada. So much for its commitment under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation.

That agreement also specifies that all the parties, including Canada and the United States, will honour the sovereignty of each respective nation to establish its own standards. I ask the hon. member to address that. What is it that the government keeps talking about, as if there is a North American form of government? We are a sovereign nation and the government has a constitutional obligation to protect the environment for Canadians. When is it going to step up to the plate and actually establish binding targets for all sectors?

[Government Programs, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps we could try this a third time. The government announced in its budget 80 million new dollars to continue the popular ecoEnergy home energy retrofit program. Yet today, day one of the budget year, we learn that the government is set to pull the plug on billions of dollars worth of job creation, retrofit expenditures and energy savings for home retrofits. The result: higher energy costs, increased pollution and greenhouse gases.

Billions of dollars have been given to subsidize coal-fired power and tar sands but nothing for homeowners. Is this the government's concept of a green energy future?

[Universities and Colleges, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Edmonton—Strathcona, I am privileged to have three university campuses in my constituency: the University of Alberta main campus, Campus Saint-Jean, and King's University.

Faculty, students and their families have shared their concerns that advanced education is becoming increasingly unaffordable.

At the U of A, on top of rising tuition fees, students must pay new fees, and faculty must take 8 to 13 days of unpaid leave.

Market modifiers, or higher tuition fees, have been imposed for professional faculties, assuming they will earn more after graduation. This hurts those least able to pay, and increases an already high debt burden. Few law graduates can consider a public interest career.

This week, I met with U of A medical students concerned that as medical fees increase, access will be denied to many at a time when we have a need for more doctors.

There is no better investment than the education of young Canadians and to ensure accessibility for more than the privileged few. I am sure members will agree with Dr. Paul Capon, that education and learning are at the heart of a democratic society.

Should our federal government not be contributing more?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the reply by the hon. member. I am wondering if he is aware of the work by an organization called NESCAUM, the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. Based on its empirical studies, it has shown that the one key trigger for investment in clean technology is not lower taxes. It is not voluntary initiatives or market measures. It is regulation.

I would question the member on whether he has actual analysis that lowering corporate taxes actually causes greater investment. In fact, the Economic Council of Canada is telling us that is not the result. I would like to hear his comment on that. Surely if we are going to be giving increasingly lower tax rates to corporations, they should have to give something in return. Why not ante up reducing the greenhouse gases?