Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-32, an act respecting pollution and the protection of the environment and human health in order to contribute to sustainable development.
On behalf of my colleague, the member for Churchill River, my constituents of Sackville—Eastern Shore and the New Democratic Party, we are opposed to Bill C-32. The New Democratic Party is not opposed to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. We are opposed to Bill C-32 which continues the Liberal policy of devolution and the removal of federal responsibilities for environmental protection.
Bill C-32 is a reintroduction of Bill C-74 which died with the election call last year. I will not speak today on it section by section, clause by clause, point by point. The legislation spans 200 plus pages and contains 356 clauses. I wish to address the reasons for and the basic principles behind the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, also known as CEPA.
CEPA was developed in the mid-1980s when there was growing concern about the presence of toxic substances in the environment and the adverse impacts on the environment from a variety of pollution sources and industries contributing thereto.
This consciousness was not an oversight revelation that something was suddenly wrong with the environment. The move toward and calls for improved environmental protection came from a heightened awareness that man can damage the environment, that man can poison the air we breathe, that man can contaminate the waters we drink and that man can destroy the soil we walk upon.
A key turning point was the publication of a book written by a very brave woman ahead of the times, a book of revelations and thoughts so contrary to the industrial complex and the misguided beliefs that the earth is an endless supply house for our personal use and pillage.
The book provoked controversy. The very idea that someone could espouse such views was considered an outlandish travesty. The book was Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. I urge my colleagues to read it as we embark upon the review and restructuring of CEPA. It paints the picture I believe we are revisiting in the current Bill C-32.
Environmental protection is a requirement. Environmental protection is not an option. The Brundtland statement on sustainable development is not words. It is a practice few countries embrace by deed or implement by actions. It is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The founding principles for sustainable development can include some compromise adaptation for different regions or socioeconomic concerns. However there are lines we cannot cross if we are to avoid the mistakes of the past, the environmental degradation we must acknowledge if we are to move forward as a society and protect the environment for future generations.
Bill C-32 states “the protection of the environment and human health in order to contribute to sustainable development”. The environment and human health cannot be considered as separate entities. They are tied together as one. A healthy environment provides healthy living. Rachel Carson identified the link in the basic process through language easily understood by individuals.
Several events contributed to the original CEPA: beyond Silent Spring , the travesty at Love Canal, the accident at Bhopal, the poisoned Beluga whales washing ashore along the St. Lawrence, the acid rain carried between countries and the near loss of North America's Great Lakes ecosystem.
The original CEPA provided the first steps toward recovery, a check and balance between dangerous environmental practices and sustainable policies.
Why do we need the legislation? We were being poisoned. Our children's future was being compromised. Legislation to ensure the protection of the environment which supports us as a species was required. The polluters polluted; the victims suffered and died. By victims we cannot consider man as the sole reason for action. All species suffered: the wildlife, the flora and the fauna.
The original CEPA provided an ability to act to protect the environment, to levy fines, to expose polluters and to support sustainable development beyond the generation.
Bill C-32 has strayed from the original principles to protect and to provide recourse. As science and technology evolved in the past decade, the ability and capacity for corporations and people to act responsibly toward the environment and to demonstrate environmental stewardship also evolved.
The industrial complex has discovered that clean operations equal efficiency and increased profits. The majority of former polluters practise environmental stewardship. This is a fact. It is recognized internationally that environmental protection and sustainable development can flourish together.
Going green does not cost jobs or decrease productivity, a principle the New Democratic Party has stated time and again in the House and across the country. The original CEPA followed a command and control regulatory framework to be reviewed for its adequacy every five years. A decade has passed and we are revisiting our responsibility as a federal government and as members representing Canadians from all regions and provinces.
Bill C-32 is straying from that original regulatory structure and visiting the very policy that required CEPA in the 1980s: voluntary measures and limited federal intervention.
The Liberal government has demonstrated a consistent approach to environmental policy: ignore until an issue climate change and global warming; finances first before the environment or, as my colleagues have described, Environment Canada decimated by resource and staff cuts; economic concerns first and environmental consideration second, an example is Cheviot mine in Alberta; unit politicking and devolution to the provinces, the harmonization accord; international embarrassment for failed targets, Rio and in a few years Kyoto; and global competitiveness as a moral marker.
The Liberal government has demonstrated time and time again that the environment is not important. “Let the provinces handle the problem, similar to what they are doing with hepatitis C. We can wash our hands clean of the responsibility. The next Plastimet will be someone else's travesty. The Swan Hills plant will continue to spew poisons. The Sydney tar ponds, the United States abandoned military sites, the Lachine canal, northern contamination through the Arctic and poisons in mothers' milk, not our problems”.
What is wrong with this Liberal picture? It is not protection by design and legislation: sign an accord, cry co-operation and put the Canadian public at the mercy of economics and global competitive policy.
It took a year for the House Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to complete the last review of CEPA. Its report entitled “It's About our Health: Pollution Prevention” echoes Ms. Carson's Silent Spring . This massive report contained 141 recommendations to improve Bill C-32's predecessor, Bill C-74.
The Liberals refused the majority of the recommendations and the majority of the 400 responses received by the government during the public review. They ignored the consensus and followed a detrimental path: devolution, voluntary programs and voluntary participation. In most cases this practice works and the New Democratic Party recognizes this fact. There are however bad apples.
The rules and regulations are necessary to ensure that when damage occurs, when environmental degradation occurs, when protection is required, there is a mechanism for redress, a legal course of action.
We do not believe that Canada's environment requires a command and control regulatory framework as the sole parameter or measure of environmental protection. There should be co-operative measures including sharing of responsibilities between provinces and territorial governments, indeed at all government levels, to ensure environmental protection of the highest possible standard.
On a more personal note, my family and I firmly believe that the bill does nothing to protect my children's future or my children's children's future. I encourage the government to revisit Bill C-32 and to listen to the voices out there to improve these regulations.
