Linda Duncan

[Export and Import Permits Act, May 28th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for taking the stand that she did and for presenting it on behalf of our party.

The Liberal government has a propensity to say one thing and do another. The Liberals say that Canada is back internationally. They say that we are acceding to the Arms Trade Treaty like they say they will put UNDRIP into Canadian law, but they drag their heels.

Would it not be nice if the Liberals genuinely acceded to the treaty and we set an example for the world in the treatment and sale of arms?

[National Local Food Day Act, May 28th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I too am rising to support my colleague, the MP for Kootenay—Columbia, on declaring the Friday before Thanksgiving national local food day. That would be very celebrated in my province of Alberta.

Among those I count as heroes of the planet are the agricultural producers of Alberta, who have fought valiantly to protect agricultural land. They have battled urban sprawl, industrial projects, and the paving over of prime agricultural land, including my city's most frost-free, productive market garden land.

For many decades, I have been honoured to provide legal representation and advocacy support to many of these farmers trying to protect their productive lands. I wish to single out just a few of the names of the Alberta farmers who I honoured some years back for their personal dedication in protecting Alberta's prime agricultural land.

There was the Bocock family, which donated their leading-edge dairy farm to the University of Alberta for research; and George Friesen and Jim Hainsworth, who founded the Preserve Agricultural Land Foundation. George put a covenant on his own productive land to say that he only had the right to grow and produce on his land, not profit from putting a pipeline through. Jim Visser, the Kuhlmanns, the Vriens, and Wayne Groot, the potato farmer, fought valiantly to protect the northeast market gardeners. Doug Visser has mounted a major campaign to protect Lady Flower Gardens, run by and benefiting the homeless and the disadvantaged in Edmonton, who go out and grow the vegetables and take them back for their sustenance. Many hundreds of Edmontonians attended hearings on calls to preserve our northeast market gardens to produce healthy local foods for Edmontonians.

Many Edmonton restaurants now feature locally produced food. Many bakeries produce baked goods using local grain, including my favourite, and very popular, neighbourhood bakery, the Boulangerie Bonjour.

Among the greatest tributes I have received in my life is a lifetime membership to the Preserve Agricultural Land Foundation. Since childhood, I have accompanied parents, grandparents, and now friends and constituents to the downtown market, and now the Strathcona market in Old Strathcona and at La Cité Francophone, the quartier francophone of Edmonton, the only one in Canada.

I not only try to visit my market each Saturday, I regularly buy local organic carrots, parsnips, and berries and put them in my carry-on luggage, which really throws off the security officers every week.

A growing number of community gardens across my riding and the city are growing local produce for Edmontonians. The Green & Gold Community Garden, at the University of Alberta south campus, for 10 years has been producing local produce, and the funds go to global benefit, with the profits going to a women's collective in Rwanda.

Another garden close to the University of Alberta provides fresh produce to the food bank. Last year, Danielle Munroe worked with Youth Empowerment and Support Services, persuading the city to let them plant vegetables on a large empty lot across from the project, and it became a popular drop-in centre for everyone in the city to come to.

Now the Edmonton Food Council has created support for urban beekeeping and hens, promoting local plot cultivation, including across the street from me in an empty lot. There is now competition for who can grow the most local vegetables. That is not to mention provincial support for local craft breweries and distilleries, many of which are in my riding and that people are enjoying, particularly the locally crafted gin.

We must also recognize the importance and acknowledge the treaty rights of indigenous peoples to harvest their local foods. I work closely with first nations adjacent to the lake where I spent my summers, where they are concerned that they are losing the ability to harvest their local medicines. It is very important to consider that in projects being proposed.

The Province of Alberta has actually taken new steps to raise the profile of local food production, supported with one billion dollars toward local food industries. It tabled the supporting Alberta's local food sector act to raise the profile of the local food industry, strengthen consumer confidence in local foods, identify solutions and challenges faced by local producers and processors, and support sustainable growth in agriculture and food processing. It would establish a local food council and declare a new Alberta local food week, during the third week in August, which could lead into the Friday before Thanksgiving. It would provide a level playing field for certified local organic farmers and processors and build trust in the purchase of local food.

Local food sales in Alberta from farmers' markets and through direct-to-consumer channels have more than doubled since 2008, exceeding $1 billion last year alone. Now we have several companies in Edmonton that are delivering this local produce to my constituents' doors.

It is important to recognize that what is considered local food is now very diverse. There are many in my constituency who have actually established community gardens for new immigrants so they can grow the vegetables and produce they are used to.

With that, I will close so that there is plenty of time for my colleague to give his final comments on this very important bill.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, yes, the standing committee did review this matter twice. In fact, the committee heard from experts, including the commissioner twice.

The commissioner then came to comment on this bill. She said she was happy that there were some additional factors to be considered, but she was deeply disappointed that although this is a sustainable development bill, it failed to reference the 2030 sustainable development goals Canada supposedly has signed on to. It also failed in reference to the Paris Agreement, although she reports on all the actions.

The commissioner just this year, this spring, issued a castigating report against the government for abjectly failing to have any measures in place to genuinely deliver sustainable development assessments. Let us remember that there is also a cabinet directive, which she had recommended should be incorporated into the act. The government decided not to, and she has given abject failures to every agency for failing to obey that.

Given that the commissioner is still failing the government on action, we did not need a new bill to tell us that it is taking it seriously. What is there about this bill, compared to the former one, that is going to finally make the government take seriously its responsibilities under the agreement it signed with the United Nations?

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear the member speak and it is fun to work with him.

The problem is that we have a bit of a reality check here, as I mentioned in response to the Liberal members. The truth of the matter is that when the commissioner responsible for auditing whether both governments had delivered on the sustainable development obligations audited them, both governments abjectly failed.

For the entire 10 years of the Harper government, the commissioner failed that government on delivering on what it had promised to do: balancing the environment and economic development. We hear that over and over again. What his previous government did was to promise oil and gas regulations. Did it ever deliver those? The Conservatives thought regulations were the answer, but gosh darn, they did not do it. Perhaps the member could speak to that. The Conservatives are saying they have a plan. Are they still going to promise the same measures they did not implement when they were in power?

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, the concerns remain and, indeed, have been raised by the Liberals' very own Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development .

She made some strong recommendations backed up by global organizations that deal with sustainable development and a number of world experts. Their recommendations were based on Canada's abject failure, under both Liberal and Conservative governments, over the decades to deliver on what it has promised to do, and not just under this law but under a cabinet directive that was issued in 1995.

The strong recommendation was that instead of having a low-level official buried within the Department of Environment providing the oversight, to appoint a senior central authority so that all ministries deliver on these commitments. Why has the minister not delivered on this, but is leaving to a junior official the responsibility to tell the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Defence, the Department of Natural Resources that they should start delivering on their legal obligations?

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank—

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, that is where the rubber hits the road. Sustainability means that we are actually delivering on all of the commitments we made, including on climate. As I mentioned, the government also failed to reference the Paris Agreement in this, which kind of tells us how committed the Liberals really are to it and that we cannot, therefore, hold them accountable.

We need to point out that the law says what the law says, but what the commissioner is saying clearly is that the government has failed abjectly over decades to deliver on its obligations to do an assessment of all programs, policies, and decisions, including decisions on major resource projects such as dams, pipelines, and mines.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, what my colleague did not mention is that the Conservative government also got rid of the Law Reform Commission. I was advising it on environmental laws at the time the government struck it off, too. It would be nice to bring back all of those entities.

It is a vacuous opportunity to advise on a bill that is not a strong bill. It would be important that UNDRIP, the right to a clean, healthy environment, and the right to environmental justice be principles in the legislation and that UNDRIP be made binding. Those who sit on the advisory council could then hold the government's feet to the fire on the fact that it was not delivering on those binding obligations.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 24th, 2018]

I am sorry, Madam Speaker, but to appoint indigenous representatives to an advisory council to ensure delivery of a bill, when the government refuses to incorporate and entrench its obligations under the UNDRIP, is a vacuous measure.

Of course, it is terrific that we are adding indigenous members to advise the government. This should be happening across the board, but the government is refusing in this legislation, and refusing in its omnibus environment bill, to specifically make the UNDRIP binding on the government. Indigenous members will be there, but they will not have a law to hold the government accountable.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the chance to speak to this bill. It is very important that we strengthen sustainability legislation in this country. We have taken a few baby steps forward, but regrettably, this bill has not gone far enough. It is not enough for the government to simply say the word “indigenous”, say it cares about indigenous people, and then not take the step it promised, which is to actually incorporate that declaration into the law of the land.

It is important at the outset to recall that the Federal Sustainable Development Act was initiated in 2008 as a private member's bill with, frankly, much stronger measures. It was transformed by the then Liberal government into the law as it exists today. Second, it is important to recognize the earlier decision in 1995 to create of the office of the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development within the Office of the Auditor General. A requirement was also imposed on departments to prepare and table sustainable development strategies. The commissioner was mandated to audit and publicly report on the government's delivery on these responsibilities. During the 1990s, a cabinet directive was also issued requiring ministers to provide an environmental assessment of any policies, plans, or proposals submitted to cabinet. As my colleague mentioned, that would include pipeline approvals.

In 2015, Canada joined other nations in signing a United Nations resolution, “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. This agreement committed the signatories to take bold and transformative steps that are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. Two months later, Canada also committed, in Paris, to deeper actions to address climate change.

Finally, Canada has declared its commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which I will refer to as the UNDRIP from now on, much of which deals with the indigenous right to self-determination, including on resource development, environmental protection, and sustainability.

Over the past decades, consecutive audits by the commissioner have reported abject failure by departments and ministers alike in incorporating credible environmental or sustainable development assessments for decision-making. It is similarly noteworthy that as recently as this past spring, after the tabling of Bill C-57, the commissioner delivered a highly critical audit on the government's commitment to implementing the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals, finding no federal governance structure, a narrow interpretation of sustainable development, limited national consultation and engagement, no national implementation plan, few national targets, and no system to measure, monitor, and report on national targets. It was a very scathing review.

It is important, then, in assessing Bill C-57, to determine if these proposed reforms to the act brought before us today are sufficient to update Canadian law to ensure delivery of our international and domestic commitment to ensuring sustainability.

A year before the bill was introduced, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development led a study of a draft federal sustainable development strategy, as required by law. The result was a series of recommendations presented to Parliament to strengthen this very law and the process of applying it. Last fall, the Minister of Environment tabled Bill C-57 to amend the act. The bill was debated and then referred back to the committee, which again undertook a study and reported back a number of recommended amendments. On behalf of my party, I proposed a series of recommended amendments, for the most part based on recommendations from the commissioner, experts heard at committee in both of its reviews, and the committee itself. Regrettably, almost all of them were refused, despite having been put forward by the committee itself in its earlier study.

Among my proposed amendments was that the bill provide specific reference to a commitment to the UNDRIP. Why did I propose this? The Prime Minister has committed to deliver on all 94 of the calls for action issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including calls 43 and 44, which call on the federal government, in fact all orders of government, to fully adopt and implement the UNDRIP as the framework for reconciliation and to develop a national action plan, strategies, and other concrete measures to achieve those goals. Clearly, one of those measures would be to include the UNDRIP in this law.

In her address to a conference on implementing the UN declaration, in November of last year, the Minister of Justice stated:

With the direction and leadership of [the Prime Minister], our government will support Bill C-262. The bill acknowledges the application of the UN declaration in Canada and calls for the alignment of the laws of Canada with the UN declaration.

It could not be clearer. This address was made to the Assembly of First Nations, and it interprets that as meaning that the UN declaration will now be incorporated into every federal law going forward.

The government has publicly stated its support for Bill C-262, tabled by my colleague, the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, which calls on the government to enact the UNDRIP in Canadian law.

This directive by the Prime Minister is clear: all Canadian laws must be written and applied to align with the UN declaration. The federal commissioner of the environment and sustainable development recommended to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development that it seek amendments to Bill C-57 to specifically include the UNDRIP. Again, it came from our federal commissioner.

Any reasonable person would conclude, therefore, that failing to reference the UNDRIP in the bill was just an oversight. Perhaps no one advised the minister that her Prime Minister, her justice minister, and the commissioner had recommended exactly this action. Therefore, it appears well-founded that I table this exact amendment. After all, the government's intent was clear.

What was the response by the majority Liberal-led committee? It voted down this amendment. One wonders, of course, why the Minister of Environment had not made this reference herself in the bill, but there we are: no support for inclusion of the UNDRIP in our nation's sustainable development law, which is supposed to guide all decisions on policy, programs, and law going forward.

There is no commitment to entrenching indigenous rights, but what about the other recommended measures to strengthen the bill? In testifying before the committee, the commissioner expressed appreciation that the minister had heeded the advice of the committee to incorporate into the law at least some of the recommended guiding principles, such as intergenerational equity, the precautionary principle, and polluter pays. Other recommended principles, including environmental justice and the right to a healthy environment, were not included.

The commissioner expressed concern that additional international commitments critical to sustainability remain missing from the bill. These include, for logical reasons, the United Nations agenda 2030 on sustainable development goals and the Paris climate convention.

During its review in advance of Bill C-57, the standing committee sought advice from a number of leading Canadian and international experts on sustainable development on ways to strengthen the federal resolve to deliver on sustainable development. These included, as mentioned, the current commissioner of the environment and sustainable development and the head of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, who was also the former commissioner. It also included Welsh and German experts on sustainable development, Global International, and the World Future Council. Clearly, the committee heard advice from a wide array of expertise on sustainable development.

A widely supported recommendation was to shift to a whole of government approach in instituting sustainability considerations in government decision-making by incorporating into law measures to improve enforceability and accountability on the sustainable development targets, appointing more senior-level authorities to provide oversight, and entrenching the cabinet directive in the statute. The minister chose not to follow this sage advice

These recommendations were repeated by the federal commissioner when testifying before the committee. She reiterated her call to shift the oversight role from a junior-level officer in the environment department to a central agency. It is no surprise why she came to this conclusion. As mentioned earlier, audits delivered over the past several decades reported abject failure across authorities, including the departments of environment and Public Safety, to comply with the law. Her fall 2017 report found a mere 20% compliance rate by the five departments audited.

As recently as this spring, the commissioner reported that the government has no federal government structure, a limited interpretation of sustainable development, and no system to measure or monitor sustainable development.

I would welcome questions and just share that I am deeply disappointed. This was an opportunity to strengthen the resolve of the federal government--