Wayne Stetski

[Cranbrook Farmer's Market, April 27th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise today to recognize the Cranbrook Farmer's Market in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, which earlier this month was named Non-Profit of the Year at the local chamber of commerce's annual Business Excellence Awards.

Now in its 10th season, the Cranbrook Farmer's Market has a mission to host a vibrant market event for local food growers, artisans, and their customers. Its indoor and outdoor markets make it the place to be on a Saturday in Cranbrook.

I congratulate Livia Lara and her team for this achievement. It is well-deserved.

Food matters, from farm to factory to fork. I am proud that my private member's bill, Bill C-281, which will designate the Friday before Thanksgiving of each year as national local food day, will have its first hour of debate next Tuesday. I urge all members of Parliament to support a national local food day and to celebrate the diversity of what local food means to each of them and to all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[The Environment, April 26th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I was the manager of provincial parks for southeastern British Columbia for many years, so I have a lot of respect for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and her parliamentary secretary. They deal with a lot of very difficult issues, and those are growing in their complexity going forward.

However, this one is really quite easy. We have a bid committee looking at its options potentially. Putting together a bid is a very complex matter. It is expensive and time consuming. Parks Canada would be doing not only itself and the people who care about national parks a favour, but also the Olympic bid committee, by making it very clear that the law is clear on this matter, that ecological integrity must come first. The minister's mandate letter is very clear on this matter.

It is so simple to make the decision right now, upfront and say no to development in Lake Louise and Banff National Park. Let the committee know and let it get on with its work without considering Lake Louise.

[The Environment, April 26th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, last December I rose in this House to ask the government to take immediate action to reject any proposal from the Calgary Olympic bid committee to host ski events at Lake Louise in Banff National Park during the 2026 Olympic Games. As recently as last week, a retired Banff park warden who lives in my riding asked me to do all I can to stop this bad idea from happening.

Last December, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change said that the government had not received a formal proposal and that no decisions had been made, but now we know that a proposal has been made. In March, the Minister of Sport announced that the federal government will provide financial support for an Olympic bid corporation. Earlier this month, the International Olympic Committee confirmed that Calgary is one of seven cities still pursuing a bid for the 2026 Winter Games. Just last week, Calgary City Council voted to keep the Olympic bid process alive. Therefore, it is confirmed. A bid for Calgary to host the 2026 Olympic Games is happening. Now the question remains as to whether the government will firmly reject any proposal to host Olympic events at Lake Louise before discussions go any further.

Banff National Park is Canada's oldest national park, and one of our most cherished places. However, according to Parks Canada's most recent state of the parks report, Banff's ecosystems are only in fair condition. The suggestion from the Olympic bid committee that events be held at Lake Louise drew swift criticism from environmentalists.

Harvey Locke, a well-known expert on national parks, wilderness and wildlife, called the Lake Louise proposal a “bad idea” and said, “The problem we have in Banff park is that we already have a park that's bursting at the seams. We need to be moving [in] the other direction, taking pressure off Banff park.”

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society agrees. According to the southern Alberta chapter president Anne-Marie Syslak, “We need to be conscious of putting any more stress on that ecosystem.... We know it is an incredibly valuable and rich area for wildlife. We do not want to see massive infrastructure and commercial development in areas already maxed out....”

Allowing further development and the hosting of Olympic events at Lake Louise Ski Resort could result in irreparable long-term harm to Banff National Park.

It is also worth noting that there are other options to host the ski events. The Nakiska Ski Area in Kananaskis Country was the site of alpine events during the 1988 Calgary Winter Games. It has already been slated to host six Olympic events should Calgary host those games in 2026. The head of the Calgary Olympic bid committee, Kyle Ripley, told reporters back in January, “If we determine that it is not [appropriate to host events at Lake Louise], we have an alternate opportunity to host these same events at Nakiska.”

Whistler, B.C., the site of ski events during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, has also been suggested as an alternative. Mr. Ripley also said that we need to engage in a “philosophical conversation” about whether Olympic events should be allowed in one of our national parks. The answer to that is quite easy. The Minister of Environment needs to follow the law. The Canada National Parks Act states, “Maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity...shall be the first priority of the Minister when considering all aspects of the management of parks.”

Furthermore, the minister's mandate letter from the Prime Minister was clear on this issue. It stated that the minister should “Protect our National Parks by limiting development within them....”

Putting together an Olympic bid is a massive undertaking, and it is unfair to the bid committee to waste its time and resources going down a road that is actually not open. The law is clear on this matter. The minister's mandate letter is clear. Therefore, I will ask again: Will the minister reject outright any proposal to host Olympic events in Banff National Park?

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I was born in Churchill, Manitoba, and I lived in Chesterfield Inlet. I started kindergarten—grade 1, actually—in Chesterfield Inlet, about 500 kilometres north of Churchill, and I attended a residential school.

The residential school was on one side of the bay in Chesterfield Inlet and my home was on the other. Remember, I was in kindergarten and grade 1, and I got to home every night. None of my classmates did. All of the teachers were nuns. The head of the residential school was a father, a priest from the Catholic Church.

I have been following the conversation with a great deal of interest, but I am really struggling with the reluctance of the bishops in the various dioceses to actually get the Pope involved in making an apology for what was one of the darkest periods of our history in Canada.

I would like to ask the member a question. What do you think would be some of the benefits to the Pope, to the Catholic Church, and to the survivors of residential schools to actually hear an apology from the Pope?

[Oceans Act, April 25th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, if there is time, I will be sharing it with my colleague, the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

Last year, I had the fortune to work with the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development during its study of protected areas across Canada.

Our committee heard from 81 witnesses and received briefs from another 27 individuals and organizations. We also travelled to areas where national parks and marine protected areas are already in place, including the west coast, to meet with communities affected by these areas. The outcome of that study was the committee's fifth report, entitled “Taking Action Today: Establishing Protected Areas For Canada's Future”, which was presented to the House just a year and one day ago, on March 24, 2017.

I would like to speak today to Bill C-55, legislation which would expand the power of the Ministry of Fisheries to speed up the creation of new protected areas, in the context of what our committee saw and heard and the recommendations we made in our report.

The purpose of the bill is to expand the power of the minister to speed up the creation of new marine protected areas by making amendments to the Oceans Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act. It would increase ministerial powers to terminate private resource interests in MPAs, and create stronger penalties for those found violating the rules of MPAs.

The bill does not, however, define minimum protection standards for marine protected areas or legislate timelines or targets. Thus, the new powers would not have the teeth necessary to protect ocean biodiversity. The bill would provide some new legal tools to speed up the creation of it, but falls far short of Canada's international commitments to protect our marine biodiversity. It fails to set minimum protection standards and targets for zoning in marine protected areas, which renders the designation inconsistent at best. It gives the minister far too much latitude to decide what activities are permissible in an MPA. If oil and gas exploration can take place in an MPA, what is the point of the designation?

As many parliamentarians know, Canada has fallen far behind in meeting our international commitments to preserve important wild areas across our country. In our environment committee's 2017 report, it states that Canada committed to a set of 20 targets known as the Aichi targets, established under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Target 11 commits parties to an aspirational goal of protecting at least 17% of terrestrial and inland waters and 10% of coastal waters by 2020. As of today, we have protected only 10.57% of terrestrial areas and 1.5% of marine areas, 3.5% once Lancaster Sound MPA is approved, which is a far cry from the targets we have set for 2020.

Bill C-55 does introduce a framework that could improve the number of marine protected areas in Canada, and that is good. However, the environment committee heard that quality is just as important as quantity. The World Wildlife Fund told the committee:

While large MPAs are important, we must not simply designate vast expanses of the ocean that are not at risk from human use or that provide unproven or questionable ecological benefits at the expense of developing proper MPA networks. Canada's progress on MPA networks has to go further than developing a collection of sites without meaningful consideration of how they connect and complement each other, and without including representative coastal and offshore sites within all three oceans.

Arising from that testimony and the testimony of other witnesses, the committee recommended that the Government of Canada focus the expansion of protected areas not only on the quantity to meet the targets, but also to protect terrestrial and marine areas with the highest ecological value in the country.

Even more important than the issue of quality over quantity is the question of what uses may take place in a marine protected area. Bill C-55 fails to restrict the activities within MPAs, nor does it provide minimum protection standards. The rules are inconsistent and broadly permissive, allowing, for example, environmentally damaging bottom trawling, and allowing oil and gas exploration within MPAs.

Two key witnesses attended the fisheries committee discussion on this matter. One of them said:

The law is currently very inconsistent. As you've heard and will probably continue to hear, people are astonished to learn that oil and gas exploration, undersea mining, and damaging fishing activities are all possible in the tiny fraction of the sea that we call marine protected areas. That's why an unprecedented 70,000 Canadians, members of the public, spoke out about one of the proposed new MPAs, Laurentian Channel, and said that we need to keep harmful activities out of these areas.

That was from Linda Nowlan of West Coast Environmental Law.

Another quote was from the David Suzuki Foundation:

I think the other area of the act that needs strengthening is the area of indigenous protected areas. Many indigenous peoples have a long-standing interest in conserving resources and protecting areas of their traditional territory, and there's an opportunity to enable the government to accommodate indigenous protected areas, which are determined, managed, and governed by indigenous people. This amendment would not only facilitate additional conservation of natural resources, but would take Canada further down the path of reconciliation with indigenous communities.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, stated that in a marine protected area we need a “clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values”.

It goes on to name the essential characteristics that a marine protected area needs to have, including being nature conservation focused; having defined goals and objectives; having defined boundaries; be a suitable size, location, and design; having a management plan; and, of course, the resources and capacity to implement it.

It also specifies, “Any environmentally damaging industrial activities and infrastructural developments with the associated ecological impacts and effects are not compatible with MPAs.”

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, April 16th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-74 contains 556 pages and would amend 44 acts.

I looked at some of the things that would be impacted by this legislation, such as carbon pricing. Climate change is probably one of the most important environmental issues of our time. It is top of mind for people in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia.

Pensions are important. I held a telephone town hall and almost 4,000 people stayed on the line to talk about pensions. Veterans are another important issue to Canadians. Cannabis is a hot issue in my riding. Part of my riding traditionally gets a fair bit of its economy from cannabis; these are outdoor growers. The Canada Infrastructure Bank would privatize our infrastructure projects. Mineral exploration and mining are very important in my riding.

When I look at this list, I see that every one of the items on this list deserves individual debate and discussion. I am wondering if the member would agree that these items should be split out and debated separately because of their importance, not only to my constituents of Kootenay—Columbia but to all Canadians.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, April 16th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I met with a number of small businesses in my riding during the furor, I guess would be the best way to describe it, on the original Liberal government proposals. Absolutely we need to do better for small businesses. For example, I would like to see a limit to the credit card charges our businesses pay.

I am going to read the title of the budget to make sure I get it right. The Liberals claim that it is a gender and growth budget. I want to be a little more specific than my colleague across the floor. Would the Conservatives agree that we need pay equity now?

[Fisheries Act, March 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, in 2015, one of the reasons my riding of Kootenay—Columbia changed hands from being Conservative for 21 years to NDP was the Conservatives' attack on the environment, including removing the habitat section from the Fisheries Act.

I was a regional manager with the Ministry of Environment for southeastern B.C. for a number of years and we worked very closely with the federal fisheries department. I can tell the member that literally hundreds and thousands of actions by the federal department across Canada helped to protect fish habitat and fish.

I know that my colleagues in the Conservative Party like to talk about a ditch in Abbotsford and the flood in Manitoba. Absolutely, I think the officers who acted in those particular circumstances were not using their best discretion. However, would the member not agree that thousands of actions that protect habitat really should be the primary focus rather than the handful of perhaps poor decisions made by individual officers?

[Families of Members of Parliament, March 29th, 2018]

Two months ago, a reporter from The Hill Times stopped me outside the House of Commons and asked a question. She said, “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are getting married. Do you have any advice for them?” I said, “Yes. Learn to cut each other some slack.” “Is that what you do for your wife”, she asked. I said, “No. Just the opposite. I would not be here if she didn't cut me an incredible amount of slack.”

Being in Ottawa six months of the year and away from home much of the time when we are in our ridings requires incredible sacrifices by our families. We miss special occasions, day-to-day household crises, conversations, and hugs, to name just a few. We do it because we all want a better Canada and we all want to serve our constituents well. However, it does come with a personal cost.

Therefore, I thank my family, Audrey, Shawn, Kellie, Adrian and Lalita, for its love and support. I would also like to thank the families of all members for cutting their favourite MPs a lot of slack and for sharing them with us, with their constituents, and with all of Canada. It is very much appreciated.

[Health, March 1st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, when the parliamentary secretary says there is no political interference, sometimes by setting guidelines that will not work for small growers or outdoor growers, we are in essence providing political interference through a set of standards.

In terms of measuring what is in the crop, that is easily handled afterward before it goes to market. The potency can be checked absolutely after a crop is grown and before it is sold on a commercial basis.

I still am concerned. Of the 200 licences, I am wondering if the member knows how many are actually from small, rural farmers or growers and what the government intends to do to make sure there is still a future for these small, rural outdoor farmers who want to be a legal part of the future recreational use of marijuana.