SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 121 - Oct/31/22

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Oct/31/22 5:08:21 p.m.
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The hon. member has a point. We have four minutes left for this speech. The hon. member should get to the object of the debate, please.

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Mr. Ted Falk

Oct/31/22 5:08:32 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, we want to offer a careful assessment of the government's plans and policies and how they are going to affect Canadian families, and to protect Canadians from government overreach and bad legislation that ends up costing them their money, for which there is no return. When it comes to the government and the environment, we have a track record of fear and a track record of failure. When it comes to this particular piece of legislation, I want to tell the House that I will be supportive, at least to move it to committee. Hopefully some of the real issues can be discussed there and can be given proper consideration, although I am cautiously skeptical. The Conservatives are willing to work with the government on this legislation because it is important. We all agree that we want a healthier environment. We all care about this planet and we want to not only preserve it for our children but leave it in a better condition than we found it in. I think those are things we agree on. As Conservatives, we have a long track record of accomplishment and enacting strong and tangible environmental protections, with no pie-in-the-sky promises and without policies based on fearmongering and ever-moving but never-reached targets. They are real, down-to-earth, common-sense efforts with clear, achievable metrics and realistic goals that are proportionate to Canada's share of the problem. It is that last point that I think is at the crux of the issue. The difference or, perhaps better put, potential difference between Bill S-5 and so much of what the government has put forward is that with this bill we are actually focused on Canada. That is a good thing. I like the fact that the bill seeks to reduce red tape. That is definitely one of its redeeming factors. That is a common-sense fix that Conservatives can get behind. However, even here the government misses the mark, rather than dealing with, for example, a real, tangible health and environmental issue like the dumping of raw sewage into our rivers, which, by the way, was one of the first things the Liberal government did. It gave the City of Montreal licence to do that. The next time we hear a Liberal minister stand in the House and tout that their government's first action in office was to lower taxes for the middle class, we should think of sewage. The specific word choice is up to members, but it will point them in the right direction. Rather than deal with that, plant the trees or, my goodness, find a way to finally provide all Canadians with safe, clean drinking water, the bill does not actually do much. It ignores the environment committee's recommendations on national standards for clean air and clean water. It has a vague reference to the right to a healthy environment. This is not an actual right, like a charter right, but it is not as though vague or undefined rights have ever caused the government a problem. We can think of MAID, vaccine mandates or indigenous issues. There is no metric for implementing or, for that matter, adjudicating an ill-defined right that is not really a right. This point has been raised by numerous members across party lines. The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle put it succinctly: “[W]hen legislation is ambiguous, it really sets us up for litigation.” Why? Well, to play off what the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands said earlier this month, one cannot back up platitudes with legal action. Again, here I refer to our Conservative record: clearly defined and reasonable goals, with clear metrics leading to real results for Canadians. I am all for updating and slashing red tape, provided that there is clear, unambiguous and effective legislation in place to protect our water, our air and, by extension, our citizens.

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Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)

Oct/31/22 5:12:29 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, the hon. member represents the riding next to mine, Provencher. I am from Winnipeg South. I just want to know if the hon. member recalls that it was Stephen Harper who added CO2 to schedule 1 of CEPA, the gas that is primarily responsible for climate change. Given that his riding is next to mine, I know that the Red River flooded this year and half of his riding was underwater. It had the worst drought in 70 years last year and had the wettest year on record this year. Does the member believe climate change is real, that it should be a major focus of the House and that we need to use all the tools in our tool box to combat it?

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Mr. Ted Falk

Oct/31/22 5:13:20 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, it is true what my colleague said. His riding is adjacent to mine. When he needs good employees he knows where to cherry-pick them. That is not lost on me either. With regard to his question, he did note that half of my riding flooded. I would say that is a gross exaggeration of what actually happened. The Red River did flood again last year, but I am surprised how often these one-in-100-year floods actually happen. Do we recognize that there is climate change? There has always been climate change and there will always continue to be climate change. However, I think there are questions we do not address in the House: What part of climate change do we as humans impact? Do we impact it at all, or is it because of forces outside of our control?

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Oct/31/22 5:14:19 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, one of the things Bill S‑5 sets out to amend and improve is the list of toxic substances. I think that is important. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that, especially since the goal, at the end of the day, is to ensure a healthier environment in which people, and especially businesses, stop polluting the air, as is the case in Rouyn‑Noranda and in my riding. That will reduce the number of lawsuits against these companies, as well as against the government if it turns a blind eye.

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Mr. Ted Falk

Oct/31/22 5:15:06 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I think an important part of this bill looks at the list of toxins that need to be examined. These things are very important. However, we need to make sure the toxins on the list of banned substances are there for a reason. The study needs to be done and the science needs to be researched. I am troubled a bit by the part of the bill that says any person at any time can demand that the Government of Canada examine any substance for toxicity. That is one thing that is too ambiguous. We are going to end up with a whole bunch of lawsuits, as the member alluded to. It is probably frivolous work for the government, and I think it needs to be more pointed and more direct. Are we against toxins polluting our environment? Absolutely, we are.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Oct/31/22 5:16:07 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, everybody ran on a platform to put a price on carbon in the last election. My colleague asked a very clear question: Does the member believe that humans are exacerbating the warming of the planet and causing climate change and the impacts of climate change? We know his party voted that climate change is not real and is not caused by human impacts. I am hoping we can get a really clear answer from my colleague on that question and where the Conservatives truly are.

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Mr. Ted Falk

Oct/31/22 5:16:46 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, what I can say is actual fact. We believe there is climate change. We have always stood behind climate change. We need to do what we can, whatever our areas of responsibility are, to meet any negative impacts that the climate may be experiencing as a result of our activities. What I am against is the dumping of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River. I am against making a promise to plant two billion trees and not delivering on that, leaving it up to the forestry industry. For every tree they harvest they plant three. Why is it up to industry to fulfill government promises? That is more of a concern to me.

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge, CPC)

Oct/31/22 5:17:36 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, the bill we have in front of us today, Bill S-5, has to do with environmental protection. It has to do with updating important documentation having to do with how we define toxins, which is long overdue. We know that; it has been mentioned here in the House before. It has been true since the 1990s. Unfortunately, though, the government across the way will claim that it wants to get the bill through quickly and that the Conservatives are stalling it, when the fact of the matter is that the Liberals have had five years to work on legislation and get it through the House. They have not taken that seriously. They have been slow. Further to that, in the middle of those five years there were several elections, one of them called completely unnecessarily. Of course, that was in the fall of 2021 in the middle of a pandemic, when individuals were concerned for their health, safety and well-being. Interestingly enough, part of the bill has to do with health, which I will get to in just a moment, yet the Liberals decided that would be a good time to call an election. Of course, elections have a way of stalling things. They have a way of putting aside legislation and making it so that it is no longer standing. It has to be called back once Parliament resumes, so here we are talking about Bill S-5. Again, it is something that has been in process for about five years. It did not need to be that way, but it was. Nevertheless, let us jump into the bill and discuss it. There are a couple of things I want to draw attention to. Certainly there would be some new definitions brought about through this legislation, and I think overall my colleagues and I can agree to that. We see where there is some simplification achieved and we can get behind it. That said, there were many amendments made in the Senate before the bill came this way, which is the opposite of how things normally work, and we have some issues with those amendments. We will be looking to create some change around them to make sure Canadians are better advocated for going forward, but of course that will come at a later stage. For today, I wish to speak to a part in the preamble of the bill. The preamble of the bill says that it is committed to prioritizing a healthy environment and that this is a right Canadians should have guaranteed for them. Here is the thing. First off, instead of putting this in the preamble, it should have been in the body of the legislation if it is going to have teeth, because we know that when it comes to courts of law, a judge does not make a decision based on a preamble; a judge makes a decision based on what is in the actual bill. If the current government is looking to truly be held accountable in making sure Canadians enjoy a healthy environment, it should have the courage to put this into the main component of the bill rather than in the preamble. Putting it in the preamble is simply another nicety, another platitude. Speaking of that, we already have many examples. Let us look at the carbon tax, for example. With the carbon tax, there is a lot of fluffy language with regard to how the it is somehow making a difference or will make a difference, yet when we look at the actual facts, we see carbon emissions have not been reduced in our country. Actually, they have increased, so we have to ask this question: Why is there a carbon tax? We do not know, yet it continues to be in place. In fact, it is not just to be maintained but is actually increasing year over year every single April 1. That is April Fool's Day, but no one is really laughing because it is expensive to pay the carbon tax. Canadians are reasonable people, and I think they can get behind something, even if it penalizes them a bit, if they know it is going to make a measurable or meaningful difference for them. However, the fact of the matter is that we have a report from the commissioner of the environment that says the current government has been given a failing grade on its environmental goals or objectives. It has not met any of them. This is coming out of reports that are at arm's length. I did not make this up. Here is the government using platitudes, niceties and language that appears to do something but actually does nothing. Therefore, here we are again. We have this piece of legislation and in the preamble is this commitment to a healthy environment. However, the courage is lacking to give it teeth and to ensure that it happens. Let us talk about that. If we were to truly define this vague term “healthy environment”, what might that look like in Canada? What might Canadians be able to anticipate if we were to create a healthy environment? Perhaps it would mean that we take a look not only at the thing but also at the context. For example, with plastics, those opposite me would like to put out language, and have put out language, that demonizes plastics. However, to consider plastics in context, let us look at plastics in the way that they were used during the pandemic. During the pandemic, they were used to cover instruments in hospitals. Today they are used to cover instruments in hospitals. They are used for equipment in hospitals. They are used in daily practice to ensure that people are kept healthy. In a hospital are they toxic? Further, during the pandemic when people were given plastic forks or plastic spoons because they could not eat in a restaurant but still needed to consume food, was that toxic? Perhaps it is, but maybe there needs to be a further conversation around context. Perhaps it is not adequate to demonize something altogether without considering time and place. Furthermore, let us talk about a healthy environment and LNG or liquefied natural gas. Let us talk about, if we were to move entirely over to LNG and off of coal, the incredible difference it would make in terms of creating a healthy, vibrant Canada. However, the members opposite do not want to talk about that because to them oil and gas is bad. We would rather turn a blind eye to the truth that we continue to use coal because to talk about that is inconvenient. We do not want to talk about that. We want to talk about all this greenism over here, all these plans over here and all this nice language that we have over here. Look over here at the shiny item. However, we do not actually want to acknowledge the truth, which is to say we have something incredible called LNG. We could use it to get off coal, clean up the environment and contribute to health. Here is another one. The government wants to impose a carbon tax and it is tripling by 2030. That will have a huge impact on Canadians. The government has said that this is going to make a meaningful difference. We have already discovered that it has not and it will not. Meanwhile, if we were to develop oil and gas in our country, to get pipelines into the ground and to get product to market, that would be a huge help in creating a healthy environment. Do members want to know how? The growing demand would then be met domestically, rather than having to bring it in from Saudi Arabia or Russia. Let us talk about Saudi Arabia or Russia for a moment. There are no environmental standards. There are no human rights standards. Instead, the current government is deciding to ship in blood oil because the demand for fossil fuels is not going anywhere. It only continues to grow. Is that contributing to a healthy environment? We will just bring all the blood oil over from Saudi Arabia. Let us continue to fund Putin and his war machine against Ukraine. Is that a healthy environment? I look forward to the government giving a definition to what it means by the right to a healthy environment. It certainly should be a lot broader than the niceties or the platitudes that it uses to describe its carbon tax.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport, Lib.)

Oct/31/22 5:27:13 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of numbers for my colleague opposite and the other members who continue to debate this bill past the number of hours typically spent on a budget implementation act. The first number is zero. That is the number of people in the House or really anywhere who have talked about banning single-use plastics from the health care sector. The number is zero because that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about things where there is a viable alternative, such as when something can be made out of paper instead. Somebody earlier said that paper straws are worse for the environment than plastic straws. We all know that is not correct. Zero people are talking about banning single-use plastics in the health care sector. The other number that I have for my colleague is 338. That is how many members in the House of Commons went door to door in the last election and ran on a platform including carbon pricing. We should get over the fact that pricing carbon is one of the foundations for an important environmental platform because we all ran on it in the last election.

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas

Oct/31/22 5:28:20 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I do love the number zero. Let us talk about the accomplishments in terms of protecting the environment in Canada. It is zero. Let us talk about the units of carbon that have been reduced in terms of emissions because of the Liberals' carbon tax. Wait, that number is zero as well. Shall I continue? I like the number zero as well. The point is that the current policies that are being implemented by the government do not help to create a healthy environment for Canadians. Instead, they are punitive in nature. Canadians are paying through the roof. They are struggling. They deserve better.

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Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP)

Oct/31/22 5:29:03 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, the member spoke about emissions reductions. However, I am still reeling from the fact that the Conservative colleague who spoke before her called into question whether humans are responsible for climate change. The science on the human contribution to modern global warming is clear. According to the world's top scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, human emissions and activities have caused the vast majority of the warming observed since 1950. Does the member stand with her Conservative colleague who questions whether human-caused climate change is real, or will she clearly condemn the anti-science rhetoric from her colleague?

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas

Oct/31/22 5:29:45 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, the conversation in the House today has to do with what the government is doing concerning the environment— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Oct/31/22 5:29:55 p.m.
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Could we give the hon. member the opportunity to answer the question that was asked? The hon. member for Lethbridge.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Oct/31/22 5:30:07 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, today, I feel there is a degree of consensus around adopting this bill and referring it to a committee to make some amendments. We all understand the importance of modernizing this act, which is the same age as my daughter, 23 years old. It is not old, but it has not been updated in 23 years. Can my colleague give us one example of an amendment that she would make to improve the bill, not tie it up in committee?

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas

Oct/31/22 5:30:07 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

I am good.

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas

Oct/31/22 5:30:53 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, basically, the entirety of my speech talked about the provision in the preamble around guaranteeing Canadians the right to a healthy environment. It is in the preamble, which indicates that the government lacks the courage to put it in the bill and be held accountable for that. Perhaps we could start there when it comes to amending this bill.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Oct/31/22 5:31:20 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I noted that the hon. member did address an important point with which I agree, which is that the right to a healthy environment must be a real right, an enforceable right, which would mean that the government has to open up section 22 of the existing Canadian Environmental Protection Act. However, I noted her reference to blood oil. The Green Party agrees that we should cancel all imports of oil from any foreign countries and only use Canadian oil, but there is a surprisingly small component of Saudi Arabian oil coming to Canada. All of it goes to the Irving refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. I wonder if the hon. member might want to comment on what could be done to get the worst and most human rights violating nations out of Canada's energy streams.

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas

Oct/31/22 5:32:08 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, I believe that if we are serious about wanting to make sure that we are taking care of our health as Canadians but also the health of world, which should be at least, in part, our endeavour, then we do need to consider our sources pertaining to oil and gas. When we bring in, from countries that do not have high environmental standards or do not treat people with the utmost respect for human rights, then we are actually functioning in an unethical manner ourselves. We have an opportunity to correct that by—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Oct/31/22 5:32:45 p.m.
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Resuming date, the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

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