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Context: House Hansard - 245 - Nov/2/23

Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity, Lib.)

Nov/2/23 6:50:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see my friend and colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands on the screen, but it would be nicer to see her in the House. I hope she is feeling better soon and will be able to rejoin us, because I know she loves it here and does such great work. It is extremely refreshing, after a couple of days in the House of arguing about whether climate change is real with the Conservative Party, and great to get a push in the opposite direction. I say this with all sincerity. Would it not be great if what we debated in this House of Commons was how to fight climate change and not whether to fight it? In the last couple of years, the member for Carleton took over the reins of the Conservative Party; when it ditched Erin O'Toole, it ditched all progressive values and the word “climate change” from its vernacular, despite having run on a promise to price carbon. Conservatives deny that now. They say they never said that and that they do not believe in climate change. Today, when we were having a debate about carbon pricing, I heard some things from the other side that I prefer not to repeat and will keep off the record. Their climate change denialist rhetoric is not worthy of debate in this House. I would like to thank the member for her questions, for her strong work and advocacy on climate action and for mentioning the climate emergency over and over in this House, because it needs repeating. We are not just in a climate emergency in Canada, but around the world. I can assure the House that the Government of Canada is taking this very seriously. As the member said, our government is the Canadian government that has done the most to advance our country on climate action. It is also important to share some facts about the global energy future that we are advancing toward. The International Energy Agency projects that, by 2030, almost half of the world's electricity supply will come from renewables, and 80% of new electricity capacity from now until 2030 will be renewable. That is great news: Canada's electricity grid is already 80% renewable. Despite efforts from Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta, to put a moratorium on all new renewable energy projects, we will continue on that path. In addition to all that, 50% of all new U.S. car registrations will be electric. Heat pumps and other electric heating systems will outsell fossil fuel boilers. We will continue to work in that direction; in order to ensure that Canada is able to seize the economic opportunity in front of us and stave off the climate emergency, we have invested in job-creating measures, such as renewable power development. In budget 2023, we announced a wave of strategic investments to continue our work to catalyze job creation and to attract international investors. Let me provide a couple of examples of that progress. In Nova Scotia, EverWind Fuels recently received approval from our government to build North America's first facility to produce hydrogen from renewables. In Ontario, Volkswagen, Umicore, Stellantis, Marathon Palladium and others have decided to invest in our battery ecosystem, and we are supporting those investments. These are great examples of getting projects built, whether by responsibly developing critical minerals in a manner that unlocks economic opportunities for rural and indigenous communities or by helping the next generation of steel and auto workers build the electric cars, buses and trucks that the world needs to displace fossil fuel vehicles. I will highlight MTB in Milton, a truck company that is doing Canada's first ever diesel-to-electric city bus conversion. I am very proud of that. Out west, we see big things happening in Saskatchewan. We are seeing BHP construct the largest potash mines in the world, to have among the lowest emissions. Cowessess First Nation has built one of the largest wind farms in the country. Sadly, Premier Smith's moratorium on renewable energy approvals is ongoing, but this has not stopped Alberta's renewable energy industry from pushing forward, and it will continue to do so. I will be back in a moment with a soft rebuttal to my hon. friend and colleague.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Nov/2/23 6:55:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that we need to have a sensible discussion in this place. The climate emergency is not going away; it is galloping on and threatening lives. When we talk about affordability, we need to recognize that climate emergency events make life less affordable for everyone. In fact, they threaten our very lives, livelihoods and communities. We need to take the climate crisis far more seriously than we do. This means that the Liberals cannot continue to do one thing for climate and another for fossil fuels at the same time, all the time, and think that amounts to climate leadership. It does not. We need to cancel the Trans Mountain pipeline. We are building it with public money. We are violating indigenous rights while building it. If it is finished and starts shipping diluted bitumen out in tankers in larger numbers, it is not a question of if but when there will be a major spill, despoiling the Salish Sea in ways that can never be cleaned up. Please, for the love of God, we must take this seriously.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden

Nov/2/23 6:56:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will just reiterate what a refreshing debate this has been to participate in. I sincerely wish we could be having conversations in this House about how to fight climate change, not about whether to fight climate change, as with the Conservatives. Climate change is an existential threat. We are in an emergency, and the debate from the Conservatives over whether we should do the bare minimum is beyond the pale. Fighting climate change is about creating good, sustainable jobs for generations to come and is not beyond our government, but it is so disappointing to see the Conservative Party of Canada filibustering the sustainable jobs act. Earlier today, the Canadian Labour Congress, which represents three million workers, called on Conservatives to end that debate. The Conservatives are also against Bill C-49. It is astonishing what we have to tolerate in this House with respect to the level of debate when it comes to climate change. I once again thank my friend and colleague for her extraordinary leadership on this. I appreciate everything she does. I hope we can debate and have a conversation in person sometime very soon.

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Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Nov/2/23 6:57:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today I rise in the House to ask a question I asked in this House just last week about the Impact Assessment Act and the Supreme Court's ruling that overturned the federal government's move on the Impact Assessment Act, Bill C-69. The government moved ahead despite everybody it could possibly consult with, including opposition parties, every provincial legislature, 100 first nation bands across Canada and many other parties, saying the Impact Assessment Act as written was unconstitutional and treaded on their rights. So many rights are expressed in legislation, yet this was ignored for so long. The Government of Alberta was backed by nine provincial governments at various points in time throughout the process. It took four years because the reference case took two years to go through the appeal court system and then almost another two years to get to the Supreme Court of Canada. It was four years of lost economic activity and, effectively, constitutional strife in Canada. That is a long time. How many projects were held up in Canada in that time? It was hundreds of billions of dollars in projects. Right now, 42 projects have not received an environmental assessment. About half of them are under the old regime, the one before the Impact Assessment Act, called the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which was passed by the previous government and effectively allowed a whole bunch of environmental assessments to be done. What amazed me was the response I got from the parliamentary secretary for housing when I asked a question about the federal government's involvement in this. He said at that point in time that the previous government's legislation got nothing done and had a gutted process. We cannot have it both ways. I cannot say how many times I hear from the other side of the House that they have their cake and eat it too and that the old legislation they tried to fix did not get anything done and yet was gutless. We cannot have both those things at the same time, but that is the continued narrative I hear on this all the time. It bewilders me to some degree, because it contradicts itself in so many ways, but he said that. This was supposed to deal with the fact that the Impact Assessment Act had to go back and get corrected as quickly as possible. Getting it corrected as quickly as possible would bring forward economic activity in Canada so we can get something done in this country again, including in all the provinces across Canada. This has to happen. I think about all the economic activity that has been held up because of the uncertainty created by the Impact Assessment Act and how it has affected so many project proponents across Canada. It is an embarrassment. It is an international embarrassment too that so much capital, including Canadian investments, is being deployed elsewhere and not here in Canada. That includes the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. This is a travesty. We need to get over it as quickly as possible. How do we do that? We could put forward legislation that is constitutional very quickly; stop sitting on our hands; take some lessons from some environmental advocates, environmental experts and constitutional experts; and listen to what they are saying: Stay in our lane, abide by our jurisdiction and get some proper legislation we can abide by in this country.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity, Lib.)

Nov/2/23 7:02:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by reminding the hon. member for Calgary Centre that the Supreme Court of Canada's opinion on the constitutionality of the Impact Assessment Act confirmed that there is no doubt that Parliament can enact impact assessment legislation, so this government will stay in its lane and continue the 50-year-long tradition of assessments to support the environment and the economy, while respecting the boundaries clarified in the Supreme Court's opinion. I would also remind my hon. colleague that the Impact Assessment Act was necessary to fix the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of 2012, which created uncertainty in timelines and lacked accountability. Canadians were calling for greater transparency, trust and confidence in the environmental assessment process after the introduction of CEAA 2012, a need which the current government responded to with the Impact Assessment Act. I have some local context to this. There is a local project that was assessed under the Environmental Assessment Act, and it had a tragic outcome, I will say. The Impact Assessment Act sought to create a better set of rules that respect the environment and indigenous rights, and that ensures that projects are assessed in a timely way. In fact, the government recently approved the Cedar LNG project under the Impact Assessment Act, working closely with the Government of British Columbia. Colleagues will not hear that from the member for Calgary Centre or any Conservative who continually says that the current government never gets anything done, which is false. We are approving sustainable and renewable projects that respect environmental considerations all the time. For this assessment in particular, the federal government relied on the provincial assessment process, meeting the goal of “one project, one assessment”. Final decisions have been made in seven other projects in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec after a thorough and public planning phase, that no further impact assessment was required, allowing those projects to proceed. Attracting investment and supporting the major job-creating projects of a cleaner, 21st-century economy requires regulatory certainty from the Government of Canada, and we will continue to deliver that. That is why the government is working quickly to introduce targeted and meaningful amendments to the act that would align with the opinion of the court. In the interim, we are providing guidance to businesses, provinces, indigenous groups and stakeholders to ensure that projects currently in the assessment process have an orderly and clear path forward. To this end, we have introduced a statement on the interim administration of the Impact Assessment Act. The guidance in that statement provides clarity and continuity for proposed projects in the system or entering the system, until amendments are brought into force. Protecting the environment while growing a sustainable economy, in line with international commitments for net-zero emissions, requires robust environmental legislation, something the previous Harper government was incapable of producing. As work is undertaken to amend the Impact Assessment Act, the principles to protect the environment, respect indigenous rights and maintain public confidence in the process will remain ever central to the impact assessment process.

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Mr. Greg McLean

Nov/2/23 7:05:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's input on the matter, although, again, he is picking and choosing where he gets to take his facts on this. Think about the greenhouse gas pricing act that happened at the Supreme Court just two years ago. In fact, at that point in time, the government did not consider that reference an opinion; it took it as if it were actually the law of the land. Now, the government is saying that it was just the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada, that it will work with it, and that it accepts that as confirmation, of course, that the federal government has the right to work in this realm. That is exactly what it said. However, the federal government can do that only in its lane. Effectively, 11 sections of the bill, out of 168 sections, are where the government actually has a lane. The Supreme Court does want the federal government to go back and refine that. That is what the government seems to be ignoring at this point in time. The best thing to do is to be surgical about this, amputate most of the bill, as people say, and go forward with making things capable of being built in Canada so we have an economy in this country again.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden

Nov/2/23 7:06:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court of Canada's opinion on the constitutionality of the Impact Assessment Act upheld the federal government's role in enacting federal environmental assessment legislation, while clarifying federal jurisdiction. The government will carefully and quickly work to introduce targeted and meaningful amendments that are in line with the court's opinion, while continuing existing work to respond to budget 2023 commitments to improve regulatory efficiency. There is one thing that people watching back home can be sure of: this government is focused on a balance, not just casting a quick “yes” over to any organization, agency or company that wants to explore an energy project. That is really important because the environment matters to the government, and it matters to most Canadians as well. The result of that process will be an improved one for assessing major projects which protects both the environment and the economy. In the meantime, the government will provide guidance to our many stakeholders and indigenous partners to ensure as much clarity as possible for projects currently in the system, as well as for those ready to enter it.

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The Speaker

Nov/2/23 7:07:15 p.m.
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The hon. member for Brantford—Brant not being present to raise the matter for which adjournment notice has been given, the notice is deemed withdrawn. The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 7:07 p.m.)

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