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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 213

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 14, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 213 - Jun/14/23
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member bringing forward Bill C-219. As he is indicated on several occasions, this is legislation that, with a different bill number, has been before the House in the past. The timing is really interesting. Just yesterday, we had royal assent on Bill S-5. I was encouraged by the way many members of the House spoke to Bill S-5. I thought that maybe I would pick up on a couple of points, if I may, the first one being something that I think, far too often, does get overlooked, something that we should be talking about more whenever we talk about the environment. It is a shared responsibility, as we know. If one were to do a radar scan of one's constituents, we would find that it is typically in the top three or four issues. For me, in Winnipeg North, health care might be number one or in the top two, but the environment and concerns related to the environment are consistently among the top issues that want to be talked about. They also want to see action on the issue of the environment. The member talks about shared responsibility. Often, when we talk about shared responsibility, we do not highlight the importance of indigenous people. When we talk about reconciliation, I think it is absolutely critical that indigenous people, governments, first governments and so forth be recognized and appreciated in terms of their important role traditionally, today and going into the future. I like to think that Bill S-5, in good part, reinforces that. We talk about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and its adoption. We need to apply that lens to the different types of legislation that come through the House. That is the reason I had posed the question to the member. I am concerned about the issue of jurisdictional responsibility, recognizing that the environment does not recognize borders, interprovincially or internationally. We just saw a very good example of that with the forest fires. I am thinking of Quebec, Nova Scotia and Alberta. We had responses across Canada, in trying to assist in dealing with these fires. We also had direct contact with the President of the United States, who was concerned about the quality of air that is going south of the Canada-U.S. border. I would like to emphasize that when one talks about the environment, one has jurisdictional responsibility but, even more importantly, many would argue that there is a moral responsibility that is tagged to that jurisdictional responsibility, because air knows no boundaries; water knows no boundaries. When we take a look at what the member also emphasized, it is the issue of environmental rights, the idea of having a right to a healthy environment. That is why, at the beginning, I tied Bill S-5 in. When I spoke on Bill S-5, I like to think that I amplified the issue of the right to a healthy environment and the expectations that Canadians have regarding it. Bill S-5 dealt with the assessment and management of substances and ensured that Canadians and residents from coast to coast to coast have a direct link to ensure that they have that right to a healthy environment. I understand that the legislation that is being proposed, Bill C-219, wants to expand on that. I think it is worth looking at. The right to a healthy environment means more than just the air we breathe. We can and should be expanding on that. I do not want to say that I know all the details of the legislation, nor have I been around to hear the discussions that have taken place at the committee level. What I do know is that there is, as an issue, a desire of the people of Canada to see the government be proactive at dealing with our environment. I also recognize that there are not only the legislative measures that I referred to in relation to Bill S-5, but there are also budgetary measures and measures that would be incorporated through regulations that also deal with the concerns that we have with respect to the population as a whole. I would like to highlight a few of those measures. When we talk about our environment, we need to try to put it in a way most people, including myself, can understand the issues. When I think of a right to a healthy environment, I would like to think there is a tangible recourse dealing with an issue that is affecting me. When I say “me”, I am not talking about me as a member of Parliament. I am talking about me as a resident and anyone in the communities we represent. If they witness or have a concern about something that is taking place in our environment, they need a vehicle to express that concern with an expectation that someone is actually listening. Hopefully, some form of action can be taken where it is, in fact, warranted. I remember many years ago one of the first issues that I ever had to deal with in 1989 or 1990 was the issue of PCBs and how PCBs were impacting a playground at a school. There were concerns, at that time, about Manitoba was going to be able to do. There are issues of that nature and issues people want to directly get involved in themselves. There are issues like when the government, through a regulation, said that it wanted to ban single-use plastics or it wanted to provide financial assistance to those who are prepared to look at alternatives to fossil fuels. These are the types of initiatives the government can look at and deliver on. The idea of how we can enhance those environmental rights is something I am very interested in. I would look for specific examples that we could, in essence, put into a brochure. I think it is important—
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