44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 3, 2024 10:00AM
- May/3/24 1:49:55 p.m.
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Pursuant to an order made on Wednesday, February 28, the minister's request to extend the sitting is deemed adopted.
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Mr. Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-64, an act respecting pharmacare.
Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to this bill.
The issue of impact assessments and environmental studies is significant, given that Quebec, Canada and the entire world are going through an extremely intense environmental crisis, biodiversity crisis and climate crisis.
I was a bit surprised by the speech by the member for Repentigny, who is a Bloc Québécois member. I would like to remind her that, unfortunately, pollution and greenhouse gases do not recognize provincial borders. What is happening in the Prairies, out west or up north has consequences on the lives of Quebeckers.
I would also like to take this opportunity to give a bit of background, because an important report was released by Environment and Climate Change Canada this week. The report indicated that Canada's greenhouse gas emissions increased by 10 megatonnes between 2021 and 2022. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change was very pleased about that. To quote a well-known film, I could say, “and he is happy”. That is mind-boggling, because he is saying that at least the numbers are better than they were in 2019. They are better than they were in 2019 because something happened in 2020 that had a pretty major impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. It was the pandemic. COVID-19 is saving the current environment minister's statistics. Had it not been for the pandemic, there would be no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Let me put things in context. What we have also learned is that, from 2005 to 2022, Canada's overall emissions decreased by a measly 7%. That decrease is mainly attributable to the pandemic, which all but wiped out economic development, trade, travel and so on. The economy had to be put on pause for there to be a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions. If we factor out the pandemic, the Liberals' plan is not working.
The Liberal government's current target is a 45% drop in emissions by 2030. Emissions have dropped 7% in 19 years. There are five and a half years left to do the rest, that is, to reduce emissions by 38%. We have barely managed to reduce emissions by 7% between 2005 and 2022, and that included the pandemic period. Now they would have us believe that we are going to cut emissions by 38% in five and a half years. This makes no sense, unless we have a pandemic every year. It is our choice. It has to be one or the other.
All this is happening while the Liberals are running hot and cold. They are incapable of really taking on the big polluters and big oil companies who are largely responsible for the current situation. That is because of all their projects, including the Trans Mountain project, the pipeline they bought with our money to the tune of $34 billion.
What we found out through the work of journalists at The Globe and Mail was that the Liberals were about to impose a special tax, a special tax on the excessive profits of oil and gas companies, but at the last minute, under lobbyist pressure, they backed down. It disappeared from the budget. That is what The Globe and Mail is reporting. It just goes to show how much sway the oil lobby has over the Conservatives or the Liberals.
Before I tackle the bill specifically, I would like to point out that the oil and gas sector has the highest share of GHG emissions, at 31%. It is the fastest-growing sector, the sector with the fastest-rising environmental impact and the heaviest polluter. We all know that the best way to stop this insanity is to cap oil and gas sector emissions.
The Liberals and the Minister of Environment, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, keep promising that they will do this, but we are still waiting. Today, during question period, we found out that they have promised to publish draft regulations. Wow, we are going to get draft regulations. We are going to get the beginnings of an outline for some regulations that may or may not materialize someday. If that is not the government dragging its feet and straining people's credulity, I do not know what is.
The issue is urgent. We need a cap on oil and gas emissions, but the environment minister thinks it can wait a while longer.
This cannot wait. The Alberta government said a few weeks ago that the forest fire season had already started. It is expected to be even worse this year than it was last year. My NDP colleague from Victoria said she never thought she would ever see forest fires start in British Columbia before winter was over. That is the new reality.
If people breathed in smoke last summer, they had better brace themselves, because this summer will be even worse. It is possible that last summer will be the best summer we will have for the next 10 years. I take no pleasure in saying that. People are getting sick and dying from air pollution, from forest fires and from fine particles in the air. That is the reality.
We need legislation on the impact assessment process for major projects to ensure that we meet our Paris Agreement targets, uphold our commitments on biodiversity and our treaties with indigenous peoples in the spirit of reconciliation, and show respect for local communities through proper consultations.
I understand where the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent is coming from when he says that we need to avoid redundancy. One process is better than two. I am just saying that we need to be careful. The federal government has specific responsibilities, particularly when it comes to biodiversity and wildlife. I think that it is important to have a process for ensuring that projects comply with our international treaty obligations, particularly the Paris Agreement, and that we meet our specific responsibilities toward indigenous peoples and species at risk, in terms of biodiversity. If the government steps back from the process as this bill suggests, it will give some provinces the opportunity to unilaterally approve projects that will have a major impact on all Canadians. The NDP is worried provinces may rubber-stamp projects, speeding up the approval process to say yes to everything, which will increase the negative impacts on our environment and ecosystems. This is an important issue for us. We voted against Bill C-69 because we did not think that it went far enough, because it did not have enough teeth and because we were concerned that it gave the minister far too much discretion.
However, it has already been used. This law was used to delay an expansion of the Vista coal mine in central Alberta after civil society groups and activists fought hard for an environmental assessment of the project and for a number of their concerns to be addressed.
Given the ongoing environmental and climate crisis, the NDP is very reluctant to give up a tool that can effect change. We cannot simply say that if the province is doing it, everything is okay, without taking a look. As we see it, this would mean certain Conservative provincial governments could approve some projects that will have a major impact on everyone and that will not comply with our international agreements. We believe in strong, firm measures. The federal government needs to be present, watchful, and capable of shouldering its environmental protection role and going after big polluters like the oil and gas sector.
The Impact Assessment Act is an important tool for keeping our air and water clean and ensuring a healthy environment and healthy surroundings for everyone.
In closing, I would say that we cannot overlook the fact that, as far as greenhouse gas emissions and pollution are concerned, borders, provinces and countries do not exist. We believe in taking responsibility and keeping watch for the sake of our future and our children's future.
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Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to support my dear friend, the Conservative MP for Louis-Saint-Laurent. His private member's bill is timely and would inject some badly needed common sense into how we conduct environmental impact assessments in this country.
The goal of this legislation is rather straightforward. It would allow for a single environmental impact assessment for each project, to avoid unnecessary duplication. It would make the system more efficient, more co-operative and more predictable, all things that no one in Canada could ever possibly say about the current environmental assessment process.
The legislation proposes the creation of a mechanism of agreement between the federal and provincial governments to reduce duplication of federal and provincial environmental assessments. It speaks volumes that a prairie boy from Manitoba and a distinguished parliamentarian from Quebec can see eye to eye on such an important issue facing our country.
In our Conservative caucus, we work together on ways to bring our country together rather than tear us apart. We understand that a rising tide lifts all boats. We do not go looking for fights with premiers or infringe on provincial jurisdiction. Now, under the Liberal government, of course, that has not always been the case. We have seen ministers, and even the Prime Minister, pit east versus west and rural versus urban. It should not be this way. It is dangerous and it is short-sighted. No wonder there is more division and anger than at any moment in my life in this country.
I view this legislation as a first step in rebuilding that trust and respect among our regions and our provinces. It would provide a pathway for all levels of government to sit down and work together to actually get projects off the ground. As the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent so eloquently said during his speech, the bill strives for “collaboration, not confrontation”.
The “Ottawa knows best” approach is what is dividing our country. We only have to look at the Supreme Court's decision on Bill C-69, which found certain elements to be unconstitutional. It was a naked federal power grab that infringed on provincial jurisdiction. While it was unfortunate that it took the Supreme Court to determine this once and for all, it provides all of us a reminder that even the federal government can be humbled. Even the most powerful and sanctimonious are not exempt from the Constitution.
There was once a time in this country when we got things built: the railway, which forged a nation together and connected east and west; the St. Lawrence Seaway, which opened the country to the Atlantic Ocean; the TransCanada pipeline, where western energy fuelled the major cities of eastern Canada. These projects provided the foundation of our economy, and without them, we could not get our products to market. I simply cannot imagine what our economy would look like today without them, and they are still contributing. They are still contributing wealth and prosperity to our country. They create countless jobs and contribute the taxes that pay for our schools, our health care and our highways.
This brings us to the bill we have in front of us today.
Canada is now a place where undertaking a project has become so risky that companies would rather take their money elsewhere, anywhere for that matter, and the proof is in the pudding. The number of natural resource projects completed between 2015 and 2024 has declined by 36.4%. According to the government's own numbers in its annual inventory, it shows a steep decline in major projects that are under construction or planned in the next 10 years. In 2015, the inventory held $711 billion in major projects, but by 2023, that had dropped to just $572 billion.
The reality is that, over the years, governments have made it so incredibly complicated, layered with various departments and agencies, that navigating the environmental assessment process is simply too daunting for people and companies to want to do. Now, I would be remiss not to point out that various politicians, such as the current Minister of Environment and Climate Change, view this regulatory nightmare as a success, because it stops certain projects from ever getting off the ground in our country. However, do not take my word for it. In a previous lifetime as an environmental activist, with a bit of a penchant for getting arrested every now and then, our Minister of Environment was quite proud of his efforts to derail the energy east pipeline.
The reality is that activists will never agree to certain projects, regardless of the process, the conditions or even their purpose. There is no lithium mine that could be used to build electric batteries in this country that would good enough for these activists. They will move on from one argument to the next until something sticks. They believe that if they could bog down the entire process, inevitably it will scare off the proponent of that project.
It is disingenuous, as almost all of these activist organizations, many of them, if not most of them, being foreign-funded, have no intention of trying to make sure certain projects are built in the most environmentally conscious way. They want them stopped, no matter what and at all costs.
Now, unfortunately, the fox is in the henhouse, running the Department of Environment and Climate Change Canada. It is no wonder Canada cannot get anything built any more.
The truth is that these activists will use every tool at their disposal, including hijacking the environmental assessment process, to advance their own ideological goals. That is their right. We do live in a democracy. People are entitled to their opinions, and they are entitled to speak out as they see fit.
What people are not allowed to do is to violently attack pipeline workers, like what has happened in British Columbia. The fact that radicals, armed with axes, attacked their fellow citizens just because they were working on an approved pipeline speaks volumes to how radicalized some people have become in this country, with no thanks to the Prime Minister and to the current government.
How did we end up in a place where extremists threatened fellow Canadians, vandalized and destroyed property and defied court orders? How did we become a place where activists can just barge into a room and violently disrupt an energy board hearing?
The reality is that even when governments think they are creating the conditions to get a social license, it will never appease these activists. They are not interested in the facts. They do not care about the evidence. They just want to stop projects from being built in this country.
I challenge any one of my fellow MPs to ponder these questions: In the year 2024, could we have built the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Rocky Mountains? Let us think about it. Does anybody believe that we could have actually built that railway in this current process? Could we have built the TransCanada pipeline through the Canadian Shield if this project started in 2024?
It is a frightening thought experiment, but it underscores how precarious our situation is, currently. Whoever would have thought that the federal government would have spent billions of dollars to nationalize a pipeline just to get it built in this country?
As we look to the future and to the incredible deposits and the wealth of natural resources and critical minerals that our nation has been blessed with, will Canada seize the moment, or will it just be yet another wasted opportunity?
Sadly, under the current Liberal government, it has not only failed to capitalize on that opportunity, but it has made it that much more difficult to get a mine up and running. In fact, under its watch, we have seen a decline of 36.4% of completed mines and a 55% drop in total value of proposed mining projects. At the time when these critical minerals are needed to build our electronics, our batteries and our solar panels, do we have an impact assessment process that will get these mines operational?
At a time when the Beijing regime has cornered the critical minerals market, which puts our manufacturers and our entire supply chains at risk, do we have an impact assessment process to free ourselves from the whims of a dictatorial country and to become a reliable supplier to our allies in an increasingly volatile world? At a time when our European allies are desperate to rid themselves of Russian energy, do we have an assessment process to build infrastructure to get our LNG to port?
These are the questions that we need to be asking ourselves. Do we want to be a nation that not only upholds stringent environmental standards but also excels in actually getting things built, or do we want to be a nation that stifles every opportunity at every turn while our adversaries and other nations around the world take advantage of their wealth of natural resources?
Let us work with our provincial counterparts to make government efficiency the standard practice rather than the occasional experience. Let us respect the Constitution and provincial jurisdiction. Let us stop the adversarial legal and political battles preferred by the high-priced lobbyists and lawyers. Let us transform Canada into a place where the foremost talent in environmental sciences, engineering, biology and scientific research actually works together, rather than at odds.
Let us get Canada working again.
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- May/3/24 2:09:55 p.m.
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The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent for his right of reply.
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- May/3/24 2:10:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all my colleagues who took part in this debate. When legislation is introduced to move things forward for the country, it is quite moving to see so many people working together. I am very honoured.
I would like to briefly address some of the comments made by my colleagues from the other parties. First, my colleagues in the Liberal Party oppose this. That is unfortunate. This bill is about collaboration, not confrontation, and is meant to speed up the process, because we need green energy now more than ever. Unfortunately, the current process slows things down by requiring two studies to be done for every project. There should be only one study per project. My Liberal colleague pointed out that there was no mention of first nations in the bill. My understanding is that, since it falls under federal jurisdiction, the legislation included first nations when it was drafted. If, by some mistake, that is not the case, I would welcome an amendment from anyone, whether from the Liberal government or another party, to ensure that first nations are treated fairly in this bill. That is how I understood the bill when it was drafted. If that is not the case, we will gladly correct it.
Now, I also want to thank my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois for their support. I want to thank the member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia for the speech she delivered a few weeks ago, as well as the member for Repentigny who spoke earlier. In my haste, I did not properly identify a colleague for whom I have a great deal of respect, the member for Rivière-du-Nord. I quoted a statement made at a committee meeting. He said that amendment G-4 seemed like something the Bloc Québécois would write.
I have a great deal of respect for the member for Rivière-du-Nord. In this specific case, however, he made a mistake and we all know what happened next. I also want to say that the members of the Bloc Québécois had concerns about who would ultimately make the decision. Let us not forget that an environmental assessment is a scientific assessment and that science has no political affiliation. Science relies on facts and realities. However, jurisdictions apply, but then again, jurisdictions would have to be respected, and environmental assessments would have to be done.
Why am I bringing that up? My friends at the Bloc Québécois will be mad at me, but what can I say, facts are stubborn. The most polluting project in the history of Quebec, McInnis Cement, was authorized by the most polluting environment minister in the history of Quebec, the current member for Beloeil—Chambly. He did not even get an environmental assessment for that project. He went around the BAPE, the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement. Those are the facts.
By the way, I want to thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his comment. Unfortunately, the NDP has politicized and branded science. Again, environmental studies are scientific studies and should not be politicized. When my colleague says that he is almost afraid that a Conservative government will move quickly on this, I disagree. Edmonton's scientists are just as good under Ms. Smith as they were under Ms. Notley. Scientists in Quebec City are just as good under the current premier as they were under previous ones. Ottawa scientists are as good under the current Prime Minister as they will be under the next prime minister, which will be very soon, we hope.
Science is science. It has no political affiliation and is partisanship-free. Ultimately, it is the government that gives the green light or not. Ultimately, it is a government that will decide whether to go ahead or not, but all matters that fall under federal jurisdiction will be analyzed in the process as planned. That is why I want to reiterate that we want to give green energy the green light, as our leader so eloquently put it in his speech in Quebec City last September. To meet the challenges of climate change, as he so eloquently put it, we need to speed up the process. We need to give green energy the green light. If we really want to tackle climate change, that means, among other things, acting pragmatically, not dogmatically, with concrete solutions.
Yes, we need to conduct environmental assessments. Yes, science needs to do its job. Yes, we must assess all situations, whether they fall under federal or provincial jurisdiction. However, there should be just one assessment for each project. The world needs Canadian energy and Canada's natural resources now more than ever. We cannot start delaying green energy projects by requiring two environmental assessments that may contradict each other. We want to work together, and this bill proposes a collaborative approach rather than a confrontational one. Let us hope that this bill is passed.
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- May/3/24 2:15:02 p.m.
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The question is on the motion.
If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- May/3/24 2:15:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote.
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- May/3/24 2:15:58 p.m.
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Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, May 8, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
It being 2:16 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday, May 6, at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 2:16 p.m.)
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