44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 23, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for bringing forward this important area of discussion with respect to this debate. It always merits taking time on the floor of the House of Commons to discuss these issues.
Unfortunately, my time is very brief. I believe that any child, born on or off reserve, deserves an equal opportunity to be successful in this country. It is my commitment to do that. I have the great privilege of having two first nations within the constituency of Northumberland—Peterborough South, and I am very proud to represent them here in the House of Commons.
101 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, my biggest concern with the legislation, as the member brought up, is about the overreaching powers the government is giving itself. We do not know much about what it will be doing with that power or how it can implement that.
Can the member give his opinion on how overreaching these powers are?
55 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, there are a series of provisions talking about frameworks and giving the government powers to put itself within the private sectors to direct them without providing specific delineation of how that would happen. Like I said, it is difficult to get this type of legislation through in expedient ways without the government fully explaining what it wants to accomplish in this legislation.
64 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise in this place, and it is nice to join the debate on the topic at hand.
When we talk about cybersecurity, there are so many different factors that go into it. I recognize that the bill before us largely has to do with telecommunications companies, bigger companies, and perhaps with government institutions as a whole. However, as we are having this conversation, we need to recognize and address the fact that the risk presented through cybersecurity extends much beyond that. With the current generation of kids being raised, kids are heavily involved in using cellphones, video game systems and computer consoles, for example, and are curious by nature. They are more at risk of clicking on a link that they do not know or realize is harmful. We know that is quite often how a lot of bad actors exploit weaknesses in computer systems in businesses or in homes. It is important to have that context out there early as we start the debate on this bill.
I want to get into a few specific parts of the bill at the start. First, it proposes to amend the Telecommunications Act to make sure the security of our Canadian telecommunications system is an official objective of our public policy, which is not a bad idea in and of itself. Second, it would create a new critical cyber systems protection act. The stated goal is to have a framework in place that would allow for better protection of critical cyber-services and cyber systems, which impact national security and public safety.
Some of the proposals include the designation of services or systems deemed to be “vital” for the purposes of this new act, along with designating classes of operators for these services or systems. The designated operators in question could be required to perform certain duties or activities, including the implementation of security programs, the mitigation of risks, reporting security incidents and complying with cybersecurity directions. Most significantly, Bill C-26 would authorize the enforcement of these measures through financial penalties or even imprisonment.
Anybody hearing these few examples listed in the preamble probably thinks this sounds like common sense, and I would generally agree with them. However, there is a problem, especially with the last one, which has to do with directions, because it is quite vague. These points should raise some obvious questions. How are we defining each of them? What are the limits and the accountability for using these new powers? It is fair to have these general concerns when we consider any government, but Canadians have reason to be especially wary with the one currently in power based on the Liberal record itself.
Unfortunately, the most recent and disturbing revelations related to foreign interference in two federal elections, which allegedly included working with an elected official, are not the only things we need to talk about. Here is another example. For a number of years, the Conservatives were demanding that the Liberals ban Huawei from our cellular networks. Despite all the warnings and security concerns, they delayed the decision and left us out of step with our closest partners in the Five Eyes. We had been calling it out for years before they finally decided to make the right decision thanks to pressure from Canadians, experts, our allies and the official opposition.
It was not very long ago, almost a year, when the announcement to ban Huawei came along. As much as it was the right decision, it should have been made much sooner. To say that is not a complaint about some missed opportunity in the past. The delay caused real problems with upfront costs for our telcos, and it created extra uncertainty for consumers.
Prior to becoming a member of Parliament, I worked for a telecommunications company in Saskatchewan. When we look at how big and vast our country is, we start thinking about how much equipment is required for one single telecommunications provider in one province, like SaskTel, the company I worked for. We can think about how much equipment it would have ordered or pre-ordered and potentially would have had to replace based on the government taking so long to make up its mind on whether or not to ban Huawei. If we look at some of the bigger companies out there, it is the same thing. There are the upfront costs they would have had to incur, and then the new costs if they had to replace all their equipment on top of that. This was simply because the government dragged its feet on such a big decision.
We have learned a lot of other things about foreign interference since then that need to be properly addressed and independently investigated. We need a public inquiry, at the very least, into some of these issues. However, once again, the Liberals are refusing to do the right thing for as long as they possibly can. It is clearer than ever before that we need to get a lot more serious about our cybersecurity, because what we are really talking about is our national security as a whole. These two things are closely intertwined, and having this conversation is long overdue.
We are happy to see the issue get more of the attention it deserves. Canadians have a lot of questions and concerns about it that should not be ignored. That is why it is a priority for Conservatives on our side of the House, and we are not going to let it go.
While we work to carefully review Bill C-26 in this place, we want to make sure that it will be effective and accomplish what it is supposed to do. It needs to protect Canadians living in a digital world. At the same time, it should not create any new openings for government to interfere with people's lives or abuse power.
After all, we are waiting for Bill C-11 to return to the House with all the problems it has, including the risk of online censorship. The problem is that whether it is about Huawei or the latest scandal about foreign interference, the Liberal government has failed to act, and it has undermined trust in our institutions. Therefore, it is hard to take it seriously when a bill like this one comes forward. The government's failure in this area is even more frustrating because we should all agree that there is a real need to strengthen cybersecurity. That is what experts and stakeholders have been telling us over many years. Canadians have had to wait for far too long for the government to bring something forward.
Make no mistake: This bill is flawed, and it will require more work to make sure that we get it right. However, the fact that we are talking about the issue right now is a small and necessary step in the right direction.
There are a few points I would like to mention.
Part 1 of this bill will allow the federal government to compel service providers to remove all products provided by a specified person from its networks or facilities. First of all, that puts a lot of companies at risk of having adversarial agreements signed in the future. If I were a company trying to sign an agreement, I would be doing everything I could to make sure that someone is not going to put a clause in there that if the government forces its removal, there is going to be an extra fine levied on the company. The problem with this bill is that it exposes companies to having these bad contracts negotiated, signed and forced on them by bad actors.
Under the new critical cyber systems protection act, the minister would be able to direct and impose any number of things on a service provider without giving them compensation for complying with the orders. Earlier, I was talking about the upfront costs paid by telcos trying to advance their networks to provide the products and services that their clients and customers want and need, especially as the world moves forward in a more digital fashion. The government is going to force them to do something without any compensation or without the ability to have help dealing with these changes. I think this is something that needs to be reconsidered in this bill.
That leaves service providers in a position where they have to pay for complying with potentially arbitrary orders or face legal penalties, such as the ones I mentioned earlier: fines or even imprisonment.
Again, we do have a desperate need to improve our cybersecurity regime, but these problems show that the bill is poorly written. By seeking to implement personal liability for breaches of the act, it will incentivize skilled Canadian cybersecurity professionals to leave Canada to find jobs elsewhere. This phenomenon, commonly known as the brain drain, is emerging as a severe issue for our economy, in some part thanks to the policies of the government.
Thousands of skilled, highly employable Canadians move to the United States thanks to the larger market, higher salaries and lower taxes, while very few Americans move to Canada to do the same. This issue is bigger than just the cybersecurity sector. Thanks to this government, we are losing nurses, doctors and tech workers to the United States. All the while, professionals who immigrate to Canada are being denied the paperwork they need to work in the field they are trained for because of the ridiculous red tape that plagues our immigration. Given that we are already short 25,000 cybersecurity professionals in Canada, is it wise to keep incentivizing them to go to the States?
Another massive problem with this bill is that it opens the door for some extreme violations of individual privacy. It also expands the state's power to use a secret government order to bar individuals or companies from accessing essential services. While we must improve our framework against cybersecurity attacks, drastically expanding what cabinet can do outside the public eye is always a bad idea. Accountability to the people and Parliament has always been an essential part of how we are supposed to do things in Canada. It is, however, not surprising that the current government would advocate for more unaccountable power. After all, government members have been anything but transparent. They have hidden information from Canadians to protect their partisan interests.
Canadians deserve to know what the government is doing. We must always uphold the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Giving cabinet the right to secretly cut Canadians off from essential services could threaten to erode this fundamental right.
1793 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member seems to be concerned about the enforcement powers in this legislation. However, without those enforcement powers, it would be kind of a useless piece of legislation.
If I am sending an email to him to go over there, somehow or another, his entity may be the weak link. If, in fact, he is concerned about his piece of the infrastructure, the problem is: How would he propose changing that without some sort of significant power on the government's part to make sure that his piece of the cyber-infrastructure is not the weak link in the entire system?
104 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, we need the government to talk to businesses, to be transparent in the process, to work with industry and to make sure there is a good process of approval so that equipment or the companies people are buying from are not already compromised. Let us work with them to make sure they know there are good actors out there that provide good equipment. There are many companies out there besides Huawei that provide good equipment. The government could work with those companies, rather than threatening them with fines and imprisonment, to make sure we have the proper equipment in our networks and make sure Canadians have not only the best services, but also the highest level of security they can possibly get.
124 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I sit on the national defence committee, and we are discussing a lot about cybersecurity, which relates to the debate today. Obviously, the armed forces are having quite a recruitment retention issue, but across the board we are seeing this with the labour shortage. One of the questions we were talking about regarding cybersecurity as it relates to national defence was around security clearances and what the government needs to do to attract people to the cybersecurity industry, potentially trying to ensure that people from outside Canada are attracted to this industry. Maybe the member of Parliament could address that a bit. I know it is a little outside our scope, but it certainly gets into how we start to address a lot of the problems we have been discussing all day.
134 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question because it is an important one, whether in this debate or any other debate, that gets into credential recognition. Many other countries around the world are further along than us in prioritizing the digital environment.
There are lots of Asian countries and Pacific countries that are further along in their advancement of that, so if workers want to come to Canada, we should be working with them to make sure their credentials match up with the standards we have here in Canada, while removing red tape so we can get those people into jobs right away. Rather than having them come here and work in other jobs for a number of years without working in their professions, they should be able to come here and do the things they are able to do. We should have the credentialing system in place now so they can get the jobs they are here to do right off the bat.
166 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, earlier today, some of my colleagues, particularly the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, indicated the pillars involved in the bill. The member mentioned them as well in his presentation. There are so many different areas that need to be looking at the cybersecurity issues in Canada. As other colleagues indicated, some countries around the world are ahead of us in some of those areas.
I wonder if the member could expand a bit on that. I will give him an opportunity to look at the number of pillars that might be in place and the reasons he thinks it so important to deal with the cybersecurity issues that each one of those would have.
116 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, we can look at some of the issues we are facing. The CRA has been subjected to relentless cyber-attacks over the last number of years. Even CERB fraud was committed by cyber-attackers. Somewhere between 1,200 and 1,800 individual accounts were exploited for fraud because the lack of cybersecurity was able to help them out. Eventually we got that under control, but it just shows how many attacks we have. Having a framework in place is good, and the government is trying to go in the right direction here, but there are things we need to do with this bill. Hopefully at committee we can help to establish some stronger pillars to make sure Canadians are protected.
122 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill C-26, an act respecting cybersecurity, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other acts. Cybersecurity is of the utmost importance to Canadians, and I am glad to see the topic debated in the House today.
Bill C-26 would amend the Telecommunications Act. I should note that any time the Telecommunications Act is changed, I am very interested. Not only am I the shadow minister for rural economic development and connectivity, but I also have a bill before Parliament, Bill C-288, that would amend the Telecommunications Act to provide Canadians better information when it comes to the service and quality they pay for.
The dependence on telecommunications throughout our society continues to grow. The uses of Internet and cellular services are foundational to both the social and economic success of Canada, so I appreciate seeing the government move forward with a bill to secure our telecommunications network through Bill C-26. However, I must ask this: What took so long?
It was over two years ago when this House of Commons passed a Conservative motion that called on the Liberal government to ban Huawei from our 5G network. Despite this motion passing in the House of Commons and the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service warning the government in 2018, it took years to ban Huawei from Canada's 5G network. Therefore, is Bill C-26 important? It absolutely is. Did it take too long to get here? It absolutely did.
I should note that I recently asked if the University of British Columbia continues to work with Huawei in any form. The response was, “Yes, we do”. The government has been warned about the risks to our national security over and over again, yet we fail to see concrete action.
Analyzing Bill C-26, I have a few questions and concerns.
In its current form, Bill C-26 allows the Minister of Industry to obtain and disclose information without any checks and balances. If passed, Bill C-26 would grant the minister the power to obtain information from the Canadian telecom companies. It could, “by order, direct a telecommunications service provider to do anything or refrain from doing anything...that is, in the Minister’s opinion, necessary to secure the Canadian telecommunications system, including against the threat of interference, manipulation or disruption.”
There are no specific details on what information can be collected when it comes to personal consumer data, nor is there any clarity on who the minister could share this personal information with. Could the minister share it with other ministers or other departments? As of now, it does not say the minister could not do so.
A recent research report entitled “Cybersecurity Will Not Thrive in Darkness: A Critical Analysis of Proposed Amendments in Bill C-26 to the Telecommunications Act” stated the following on this matter:
The legislation would authorize the Minister to compel providers to disclose confidential information and then enable the Minister to circulate it widely within the federal government; this information could potentially include either identifiable or de-identified personal information. Moreover, the Minister could share non-confidential information internationally even when doing so could result in regulatory processes or private right of actions against an individual or organization. Should the Minister or [any] other party to whom the Minister shares information unintentionally lose control of the information, there would be no liability attached to the government for the accident.
I think an accident by the current government happens quite a bit.
If Parliament is going to give the minister such powers, it is imperative that checks and balances exist. It is very important that, when we discuss the ability of a government to obtain personal information from Canadians, we ensure that Canadians are protected from the unauthorized use of such information.
I should also add to this conversation the impact Bill C-26 could have on smaller Internet service providers. Small Internet companies are foundational to improving competition within Canada's telecom industry, but they are sometimes left out of the conversation.
Bill C-26 would empower the minister to “prohibit a telecommunications service provider from using any specified product or service in, or in relation to, its telecommunications network or telecommunications facilities, or any part of those networks or facilities” or “direct a telecommunications service provider to remove any specified product from its telecommunications networks or telecommunications facilities, or any part of those networks or facilities”.
We do not know what types of telecom infrastructure and equipment will be deemed a risk to our national security in the coming decades, so imagine that a local Internet service company builds a network using a specific brand of equipment. At the time, no one raises security concerns with the equipment or the manufacturer. The local Internet company is just beginning its operations, investing heavily in equipment to build a network and to compete with larger telecom companies.
Imagine that, five years later, the government deems the equipment the company invested in to be a national security threat, forcing it to remove and dispose of such equipment. The small Internet company trying to compete, which acted in good faith, has just lost a significant amount of capital because of a government decision. There is a strong possibility that this local Internet provider can no longer afford to operate.
I am hopeful this conversation can be had at committee to ensure the government is not unfairly impacting small, local and independent Internet companies. As I said, I am glad the House is debating the issue of cybersecurity, as the discussion is long overdue, but it is imperative that the issues I raised be addressed at committee, it is imperative that the issues my colleagues have raised be addressed at committee and it is imperative that the issues experts have raised be addressed at committee. That is why I will be voting to send Bill C-26 to committee in hopes that these concerns can be addressed.
1017 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see there is general agreement in the House on the principle of this bill and on the fact that, obviously, work is needed.
I know the member has a lot of experience in the agricultural field and brings that experience to Parliament. I want to ask him about the part of this bill that would allow the Governor in Council to designate any service or system as a vital service or vital system. I would ask him for his thoughts.
Obviously, our transportation sector can be considered a vital service, especially our railway lines, but what does he think about our supply chains, especially involving our agricultural products, and how those might be targeted? As he knows very well, many of Canada's farmers, producers and processors are really starting to move into more digital ways of doing business, and much of their equipment is linked to computer systems.
I would like to ask whether he has any thoughts to share on how those could be classified as vital systems and services.
178 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, it is very important. The key takeaway is that this type of legislation is long overdue. That is why it is so important to get the amendments right and get this bill to committee as quickly as possible so we can all work on it. Let the experts review it and let the members get at it, but also let the industry get at it so we can come up with really good legislation to benefit all Canadians, especially farmers.
82 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 6:10:23 p.m.
- Watch
Is the House ready for the question?
Some hon. members: Question.
The Deputy Speaker: The question is on the motion.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
60 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 6:11:03 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
7 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the division stands deferred until Monday, March 27, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
36 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 6:11:22 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent to advance to Private Members' Business.
19 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 6:11:30 p.m.
- Watch
Is it agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
7 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
, seconded by the member for York Centre, moved that Bill C-226, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice, be read the third time and passed.
She said: Mr. Speaker, there are not really words to describe the joy, pleasure and deep sense of gratitude when a private member's bill gets to third reading, and the member who has proposed it gets to stand before colleagues, to both ask for further support and express gratitude for the support the bill has received.
I want to begin by acknowledging that we are here on the territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. To them, I express a deep meegwetch every single day that we stand on their territory. Part and parcel of what we are addressing in the piece of legislation today is the impacts of the history of settler culture on Turtle Island and the impacts of policies of exploitation, of amassing fortunes, of capital raised and capital in bank accounts based on taking natural capital, taking it from what is alive to what is dead, at which point we see profit.
We also see a disproportionate impact for those people who are racialized, low-income or indigenous and the distance between those people and the large profits that are amassed quite far from where they have been exploited.
The concept of environmental racism may be new to some people in this House, but it certainly was not a new concept to the first member to bring this bill forward. Although Bill C-226 came to this House what feels like a long time ago, in terms of Private Members' Business it was not that long ago. This bill came to this Parliament on February 2, 2022 at first reading.
However, that was not its first incarnation. Its first incarnation was as Bill C-230. It was a private member's bill of a Liberal member of Parliament, who was at that time the member for Cumberland—Colchester. I can say her name out loud here. That is one of the sad things about this. When one of our friends and colleagues is not re-elected, their name is speakable. I thank Lenore Zann, who brought this bill forward. She is still rooting for it. We are still working together. In the previous Parliament, she did me the honour of asking me, a Green Party member of Parliament, to be her official seconder, even though she is a Liberal. It is quite unusual to ask someone from another party to second a bill, and I was honoured to do so.
We worked together on this, and it got all the way through second reading and all the way through the environment committee. It had amendments made to it in the last Parliament, and then, as we all know, there was an election that intervened, and the bill died on the Order Paper.
Since that time, in bringing it back, I have had so much support from so many members whose names I cannot say here because they are still members and working hard to help. I want to start, of course, by thanking the Minister of Environment, who, as minister, has this in the mandate letter, but in discussions that were enormously collaborative he decided that perhaps it might advance more quickly as my private member's bill.
We really have a sense of urgency about getting the bill passed. As we know, the House calendar can get clogged with government bills. This one was ready to go, and I drew a low number in the lottery, so we moved forward.
From the very beginning, I had the support of my friend, the member for Victoria, who also laid hands on this bill. One could describe this bill as having many midwives. This is a process and we are not done yet. There is the hon. member for Nunavut and the hon. member for York Centre, who is seconding the bill here tonight. We had hon. members from many parties, including the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, the hon. parliamentary secretary from Winnipeg South and the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth. I know I am going to leave people out if I keep going.
I have many friends in the other parties, and I wish I had been able to convince my Bloc Québécois friends to support Bill C-226.
Unfortunately, right now, they are not on my side when it comes to this private member's bill, but perhaps they will change their minds before the final vote. I hope so. Right now, the Conservatives are opposing this environmental justice effort.
I would have loved to have every member of Parliament in this place support the legislation, but thank heaven, and thank all the members who have seen it in their hearts to support the bill, we have the votes for third reading support, please. Today is the last moment of debate at third reading.
I have another 10 minutes, and I do want to speak to the issues that this bill addresses.
We can name the places and think of them, and they conjure much longer stories, such as Grassy Narrows. What does environmental racism mean when we would allow Reed Paper to contaminate the community of Grassy Narrows with mercury, decade after decade?
The Sydney tar ponds are now cleaned up. However, for decades it was a racialized community with a Black population who came from the Caribbean to work in the steel mill. The land where the steel mill and the tar ponds were located was a toxic mess of carcinogenic toxic waste. It was the fishing grounds of the Mi'kmaq First Nation.
Pictou Landing, more recently, is still at threat from Paper Excellence, which bought the mill that was shuttered.
There is the illegal dumping of toxic waste in the Kanesatake First Nation, there is the Wet'suwet'en territory, and we can add Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, where Imperial Oil's Kearl mine leaked toxic waste for nine months. Not the regulator, not the province and not the company ever thought to warn the community.
In those cases, if members wonder what environmental racism is, they can just ask themselves this question: Can they imagine that happening in Westmount, the south end of Halifax, or any of the settler-culture neighbourhoods, which are the wealthy neighbourhoods, the white neighbourhoods? Would Imperial Oil have dared to poison a neighbourhood of their wealthy shareholders with the toxic waste seeping from the tar, from the tailings, from bitumen production in the oil sands? The answer that presents itself is obviously no. That is the difference.
There is a lot of academic work that has been done on this, so I do want to start by giving an enormous vote of thanks to Dr. Ingrid Waldron, who is the champion of environmental racism and promotion of environmental justice in Canada. Her book There's Something in the Water was turned into a film documentary. If members want more information on this, they can find it on Netflix. On Netflix, there is a film documentary made by Canadian actor Elliot Page. He based the documentary on Dr. Waldron's book.
Dr. Waldron founded the ENRICH project, which stands for environmental noxiousness, racial inequities and community health project.
Dr. Waldron's work has been central to this. Dr. Waldron worked in a collaborative fashion with Lenore Zann in developing this bill in the first place.
What does it look like? What kind of definitions does one bring to bear? Dr. Waldron's definition is more, but it includes this: “the disproportionate location or siting of polluting industries in communities of colour, indigenous communities, Black communities and the working poor.” It is pretty comprehensive. We know what that means.
However, it is more than that. Dr. Waldron has also said it is “how racist environmental policies...have enabled the cultural genocide of Indigenous, Black and other racialized peoples”.
Having looked at environmental racism, the question is this: What is it that Bill C-226 would do about it? It would demand of government to develop a strategy to promote environmental justice.
What does environmental justice look like? We do not have to look too far. Tomorrow, in this place, U.S. President Joe Biden will be speaking to us.
I hate comparisons where Canada does not look good compared to the United States of America, as I like the smugness of knowing that we set a good example, but unfortunately, we do not look good on environmental racism or climate. In 1994, the U.S. President acknowledged and created a program, by executive order, in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to promote environmental justice.
The environmental justice program and the U.S. EPA this year will spend $100 million on programs at the community level to assist communities to have the tools they need to fight the polluters back; get cleanups; prove that the cleanups are needed; prove the health information; get access to epidemiologists, toxicologists and lawyers; and get the chance to beat back the polluters. The polluters will always say, “There is not enough here to poison anyone. That would be quite far-fetched.” Environmental justice programs make the difference by empowering communities so that the polluters do not get away with murder, and I do not mean that purely rhetorically.
The U.S. EPA defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, culture, national origin, income, and educational levels with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of protective environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”
We have a long way to go in this country, but we are not without a road map. We know what can be done. If we get this bill through third reading today and send it to the other place, it will then need to have the support from the government of the day and the support of the finance minister to fund the programs, so that communities of colour, indigenous communities and poor communities are not left without access to environmental justice.
We have made some changes in Bill S-5, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, thanks to the Senate. There is more recognition in that bill of aspects of environmental justice and environmental racism.
We are making progress. We are inching along, but we need to be bolder. We need to move fast. It is my deep hope that, if this bill passes, it will go through the Senate relatively swiftly. We will then be able to say to every Canadian that justice includes the right to a healthy environment, that justice includes climate justice, that justice includes the indigenous peoples who live in Saanich—Gulf Islands, that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans no longer can say, “Sir, one cannot harvest any shellfish from one's traditional waters because we have decided, without doing any testing, that that shellfish is probably not safe to consume.” It is safe to consume, all right. It is just that it is an indigenous community and taking away their right to fish is perfectly okay with DFO, with no testing.
These are issues that can be solved. As someone who stands before us as a woman of privilege, by the colour of my skin, I am deeply honoured to work with the communities for whom this legislation will make an enormous difference, for all of the babies, the sons and daughters, of the peoples in those communities.
I ask members to please assist this bill to be more than a strategy, to be more than a private member's bill, but to be the law of the land to create new rights and bring environmental justice to every Canadian.
2002 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my comments with respect to Bill C-226 and acknowledge that we are here today on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people. The land acknowledgement is really important in understanding why we are talking about this bill. It is because what we are discussing really impacts the marginalized, racialized and indigenous communities of this country, which have struggled with environmental injustice for decades.
I am honoured to rise this evening to speak to Bill C-226 because, as mentioned, this bill has been sponsored by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. I will note, as she did, that it was first introduced in the 43rd Parliament by a friend and colleague, Lenore Zann, who is the former member of Parliament for Cumberland—Colchester. I had the honour and privilege of working on that bill in the 43rd Parliament with my colleague from Victoria. As the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands noted, bringing the bill to this point really does feel like a mothering process in many ways. We are getting to see this day come for what we knew, as women, was so important for so many vulnerable communities across this country from coast to coast to coast, and we are getting the bill to where it is today in the chamber.
Until its introduction in the previous Parliament, environmental racism had been recognized as a problem for quite a long time, particularly in the United States, but it was still a fairly new concept here. We were not sure how to address it or discuss it. With its passage, this legislation would require for the first time a national strategy to address environmental racism. This whole process, whether it was in the 43rd Parliament or where we are now, has encouraged us to finally have this important conversation because many women and many leaders across this country have been having this conversation and pushing this issue for decades.
It comes at a time when Canadian society has a renewed focus on trying to understand the essential work of combatting both systemic racism and climate change. For many it was a question of how these things go hand in hand, but they do. Environmental racism really has to be part of the conversation when we talk about climate change. We cannot ignore what was really a blind spot for many in terms of addressing what environmental justice is.
We have talked about unconscious bias when it comes to racism and the potential unintended consequences, even in the House recently, of the many issues we are discussing that lead to racism in our society. Being Jewish, I see a rise in anti-Semitism now as well. We have to talk about these things, even when they are uncomfortable, and environmental justice is included in that.
We are in the process of updating the Canadian Environmental Protection Act at this time. It is a very good sign that here in this place, we are making sure that environmental racism and the right to a healthy environment are part of the debate and the discussion tonight, as well as in the environment committee and other spaces.
Environmental justice and the impacts of environmental racism are now an important part of the national conversation and not just here in this chamber but with the many folks we have met along the way. Whether we look back at Bill C-230 in the 43rd Parliament or we look at Bill C-226 today, the advocates across Canada have really been pushing us along and mothering this bill in many ways. It is important to define and frame the conversation so that we understand why it is so important.
Environmental racism happens when environmental policies or practices, like the placement of polluting industries, result in a disproportionately negative impact on groups or communities based on race or colour. Affected marginalized communities often lack the political power to influence decisions or advocate for stronger standards. That is why they rely on us, as parliamentarians and as these women's voices, to push this along.
It has become increasingly apparent that environmental benefits and harms are not shared equally. We talk about equity in many other aspects of Canadian life, but it is important that it is placed clearly here as well because environmental justice and environmental equity should be shared equally among all members of our society. This is not a new problem, but it is a new realization. Those in power have not discussed this in terms of addressing it with our marginalized groups, who have finally said it to us. Dr. Ingrid Waldron shared that for 70 years, communities in Nova Scotia have been waiting for us to have a substantive discussion on this. That time has come.
Indigenous and racialized communities, particularly those with lower socio-economic status, bear a disproportionate share of the environmental burdens and consequences when we deal with pollution, exposure to toxic substances, and land and water degradation. There is no magic bullet to fix this. I do not think anyone in good faith would suggest that the bill's purpose is to do that. I know that in previous debates, some of my Conservative colleagues said there is no point as we will never get it done. There is no magic way to fix systemic racism. There is no magic way to fix climate change. However, we have to start. We have to begin the process, and Bill C-226 clearly has the first steps.
At the end of the day, we want to make sure that no one's health is compromised and no one's quality of life is compromised because of where they live or, more importantly, because of who they are. This is about ensuring the health and dignity of all peoples regardless of their background. It is not a bill of one-off action. I know my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands has asked for us to consider a more robust approach than the national strategy, but I really want to applaud that we have gotten here to the first step.
Communities across the country have been affected, whether through higher rates of cancer and other diseases or through the destruction of local habitats and natural environments. At the end of the day, we have to address those environmental impacts so that the quality of life for these communities going forward, after years of disproportionate impacts, starts to change.
I know my time is coming to an end, so I want to circle back to the idea of women. I think there is a really important role for them to play. The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, the member for Victoria and I have been involved in this process, as have others. As women, we are the ones who notice things first. We are the observers, often in silence, of the damage being caused around us. We know when things are off. We know when someone is not okay. We know when someone's health has been compromised because we have watched it from generation to generation.
To each of the women who were part of the journey for Bill C-226, including Dr. Ingrid Waldron, we have heard the journey to get to this point. The passing of this legislation today is really about the work of the women of these communities who have been fighting for the health of their communities, the health of their families, the health of their children and the health of the future so they can promise their children and generations going forward a safer and cleaner environment. Frankly, there is no other option than to push forward and contemplate these things.
In answer to my colleague in an earlier debate who said we will not get this done, I will share something that comes from my own tradition. We say, “It is not upon you to build the kingdom, but it is your responsibility to begin the work.” Women have been doing the work on this, from our friend Lenore Zann to those who are here today to the women of the many indigenous and racialized communities across this country who care about the future and health of generations to come. By putting this into law, we are acknowledging their work and putting a process into place.
1406 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
