1988-04-26

Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 106 on behalf of a number of constituents. The petitioners are very concerned that the trade deal negotiated with the United States will have a fundamental impact on our ability as a country to pursue economic, cultural and political independence. The petitioners believe that the agreement will result in the loss of many, many jobs in various sectors of the economy as well as various regions of Canada. Therefore, they ask the Parliament of Canada to obtain a clear mandate from the Canadian people through a national debate on this issue during a national general election.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I too have a petition that has been certified correct as to form pursuant to Standing Order 106. The petitioners are residents of the riding of Thunder Bay-Atikokan, particularly in the Westport area. They believe the trade deal would deny Canada the policy freedom to determine its own economic future and would undermine our ability to build a society distinct from that of the United States. The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to dissolve, and allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed trade agreement during a national general election.


Mr. Jim Jepson (London East):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition from hundreds of Londoners in the ridings of London East and London West, as well as London-Middlesex, who are calling upon Parliament to ensure that Canada has a strict abortion law that recognizes foetuses from conception as Canadian citizens, entitled to the same legal protection as all other Canadian citizens.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Mr. Speaker, as a result of a public rally the other evening in Regina, I was presented with the following petitions from citizens of that city and other communities in Saskatchewan. It states that whereas the Government of Canada's willingness to enter into a trade agreement with the United States, and whereas the proposed trade agreement will have significant negative impacts upon Canada, and whereas the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) will soon be meeting with the President of the United States, the undersigned petition the Parliament of Canada to express opposition to the proposed trade agreement, and that the Government of Canada inform the President of the United States that further action on this agreement will be discontinued immediately.
I have three further petitions on the same subject but which are worded differently in which, as usual, the undersigned petitioners from the City of Regina and from other such places as Shaunavan and Eastend, Saskatchewan, petition that whereas the proposed trade agreement denies Canadians secure access to the U.S. market, which was a key objective in these negotiations, and threatens the loss of hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs, the undersigned, your petitioners, pray and call upon Parliament to dissolve and allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed trade agreement during a national general election.
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QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of State and Minister of State (Treasury Board)):: Mr. Speaker, question No. 276 will be answered today.


Mr. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton): 1.	What is the government's estimate of the (a) direct financial benefits of the Calgary Olympics to the Calgary area (6) indirect benefits to (i) the rest of Alberta (if) each of the other provinces?
2.	What are the corresponding figures for the Montreal Olympics?
3.	What was the cost of the (a) Calgary (/>) Montreal Olympics to each taxpayer?

April 26, 1988
Canada Labour Code


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1.	(a) (b) (i) and (ii) The Economic Impact Study of the XV Olympic Winter Games dated July 31, 1986, prepared by the Bureau of Management Consulting of Supply and Services for the Federal Olympic Office states the following:
"The economic stimulus due to the direct expenditure of about $875 million on the Games generated an appreciable amount of economic activity in Canada; the most important aspects of which were:
(1)	the contribution of about $1.3 billion to Canada's Gross Domestic Product (GDP); fully 68 per cent of which is comprised of direct spending on facilities, operations and tourism.
(2)	the creation of approximately 27,400 person-years (PY) of employment in Canada during the 1980s.
In the neighbourhood of 70 per cent of the above employment and GDP estimates accrued to Alberta. The study did not differentiate as between Calgary and the rest of Alberta.
Economic benefits to the rest of Canada, representing approximately 30 per cent of the total impact, occurred principally through the "leakages" from Alberta that occur from the induced economic effects of the Games; the most important of which are the sourcing of materials and services for construction, operations and visitor catering services."
2.	The Government of Canada did not undertake an economic impact study for the Montreal Games.
3.	(a) The Government of Canada contributed $200 million (1982-83 non-taxable dollars) to the Calgary Games. This contribution was broken down as follows:
These moneys were attributed to payment from the provinces to the federal Government for getting out of the lottery field, sales of Olympic commemorative coins and incremental seignorage on the $1 circulating coin.
It is still too early to quote a dollar figure for essential services required at the Calgary Games. Security, customs, etc. costs have not yet been tabulated by the respective departments.
(b) It is quoted in the Malouf Report of the Montreal Games that the Government of Canada's total contribution to the Summer Games for services was $142 million. Revenues of
$115 million were derived from the sale of Olympic coins and stamps and $235 million was attributed to the Olympic lottery.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: I ask, Mr.Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: The question enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary has been answered. Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Minister of Labour) moved: that Bill C-124, an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the House concerning the Bill which I recently introduced which would make necessary changes to legislation dealing with the all important subject of occupational safety and health. These changes, while minor in themselves, will help make the Canada Labour Code a more flexible and efficient instrument for the protection of Canadian workers.
The first of these changes is a series of amendments to Part IV of the Code which have general application. The second relates only to the federally regulated coal mines in Cape Breton.

Mr. Speaker, as Minister of Labour I have always considered the promotion of occupational safety and health to be one of the most important tasks in my department's mandate. Mr. Speaker, I would ask Hon. Members on both sides of this House to co-operate in giving expeditious approval to the proposed amendments, for the sake of the working men and women whose lives and well-being depend to a large extent on the quality of the legislation we provide.

The over-all objective of this Bill is to ensure consistency between the recently amended Part IV of the Canada Labour Code and the regulations made pursuant to the Code.
[ Translation]
One major intent of the 1984 Code amendments had been to clarify the prime responsibility of the employer for employees' occupational safety and health. Mr. Speaker, the regulationmaking authorities of the Code in this respect were therefore limited to precise standards which could be rigidly prescribed.
April 26, 1988



This new approach has generally worked well, but some serious concerns regarding situations and environments in which some flexibility is required were raised during the drafting of the regulations. These concerns are again arising in the regulation revision process. The proposed amendments to the Code will resolve those concerns by providing new or clearer authorities.
For the sake of clarity I shall present the changes in logical order rather than in a clause-by-clause succession. First, I will deal with the amendments of general application.
Clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill will provide authority pursuant to the proposed Subsections 105(7), 106(1.1) and (1.2), to make regulations for circumstances or situations in which it is not possible to prescribe rigid standards.

For example, Mr. Speaker, it is sometimes impossible to make regulations that cover every aspect of an engineering work or structure. Such situations may best be covered by a requirement that the work or structure be constructed "in accordance with good engineering practice". A professional engineer can certify that good engineering practice has been used, but this is not a prescribed standard and such a requirement would not be permitted by the current authorities in the Code. The proposed amendment will permit such a requirement, but only where the Governor in Council deems it appropriate.

Authority is also required to permit regulations to be made applicable generally to all workplaces, or all classes of employment, or particularly to one or more workplaces or one or more classes of employment as may be specified in the regulations.

For example, it would be appropriate to require a higher level of lighting in a warehouse where explosives or toxic substances are being handled, compared to a similar warehouse in which no hazards are presented by the materials being handled.

To ensure that employees enjoy the protection offered by the most recent updated standards, authority is required to reference standards as amended from time to time. Authority is also required to use the words: "to the extent that it is practicable or reasonably practicable." This would cover situations where it was found that it would be unreasonable to prescribe one precise standard for all situations.

It would be unreasonable, for example, to expect that buildings built before 1985 would meet all the requirements of the 1985 Building Code. It would be more appropriate to write
Canada Labour Code
a regulation requiring that all buildings will comply with the most recent building code to the extent that it is reasonably praticable.
Referring to Clause 2 of the Bill, the proposed amendement would authorize the provision in the regulations that requires an annual report on each safety and health committee's activities to be made in the prescribed form to a person designated by the regulation. This would permit Fabour Canada to know whether the safety health committees are performing their prescribed functions effectively, or whether they might need assistance.

I will now address the proposed amendments that only refer to federally regulated coal mining in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Because of the special risks involved in working in the Cape Breton Development Corporation's coal mines in Nova Scotia, it is proposed to establish a tripartite Coal Mining Safety Commission. The Commission would have the authority to review and approve plans, procedures, methods and equipment in order to ensure that they will be safe in the ever-changing mining environment.
The Commission would also have the authority to vary or exempt the application of regulations, or to substitute a different standard where such actions will provide equal or better safety protection for the coal miners.

Referring to Clause 3 of the Bill, the proposed Sections 94.1 and 94.2 of the Code would set out the manner of establishment, selection, and remuneration of Commission members and the powers and duties of the Commission.
Referring to Clause 1 of the Bill, the proposed Section 82.3 requires that the employer, the Cape Breton Development Corporation, shall comply with the conditions and provisions imposed by the Commission under the authority of proposed Section 94.1.
In addition, it is proposed that pursuant to Section 82.3 the Code provide authority for two long-standing practices. The first is the practice permitting persons selected by the coal mining employees to inspect all workplaces in a mine to ensure that they are safe in all respects; the second practice is that of searching persons going underground to ensure that none carry cigarettes, lighters, alcohol, or drugs into the hazardous and potentially explosive mine atmosphere.
Referring to Clause 6 of the Bill, finally, to ensure continuity of safe operation of the coal mines, it is proposed that preexisting exemptions and approvals issued in the interests of safety remain in force.

April 26, 1988
Canada Labour Code

Referring to Clause 7 of the Bill, Mr. Speaker, it is proposed that the sections of this Act to amend the Canada Labour Code come into force at different times, particularly to permit time for the establishment of the Coal Mining Safety Commission and avoid having to make certain provisions of the regulations again under the amended Act.

I should mention, Mr. Speaker, that these amendments have the support of the Cape Breton Development Corporation and its employees.
I would urge Members of the House to grant speedy passage to this Bill at all stages, which will make a significant contribution to the occupational safety and health of working men and women in the federal jurisdiction.

Mir. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier): Mr. Speaker, I am speaking on Bill C-124, an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, on behalf of my colleague and friend, the Liberal critic, the Hon. Member for Saint-Jacques (Mr. Guilbault), who is now away from the House on an emergency.
Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to make health and safety standards for work in coal mines more flexible and effective, if I understood correctly, while at the same time protecting workers in the coal mines.
We support this amendment and we can tell the Minister and the Government that they will receive the usual cooperation from the Opposition to give this Bill speedy passage.
I would still like to tell the House that there are two Members who are very interested in this Bill, namely the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall), who will want to speak to it because it affects him very closely in his riding, and also the Hon. Member for Cape Breton- The Sydneys (Mr. MacLellan), who asked me to say a few words on the Bill in order to explain and properly understand the initiative that the Government is proposing to us.
One of the main objectives of the amendments made to the Code in 1986 was to establish the employer's primary responsibility for employees' health and safety on the job. In this regard, the regulatory authorities have confined themselves to specifying the standards that must be rigorously prescribed.
In general, this has worked well. This new procedure has been well received. However, the relationship of the regulations has given rise to serious questions in situations and environments that require some flexibility.
The following amendments to this Bill deal adequately with these concerns.
I shall deal with this Bill C-124 in terms of principles, Mr. Speaker, and leave it to the legislative committee to study the amendments more closely and in detail.
Clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill give the power to make regulations under Subsections 105(7), 106(1.1) and 106(1.2) in circumstances or situations where it is not possible to prescribe
rigid standards. Under Subsection 106(4), the regulations may be applicable: (a) generally, to all workplaces and all classes of employment; (b) specifically, to one or more workplaces or one or more classes of employment, as will be specified in the regulations.
Furthermore, under Subsection 106(5) of the Canada Labour Code, a standard may be incorporated by reference to other standards and may be amended as these are amended from time to time. Under this provision, employees will be able to enjoy the protection afforded by the latest updated health and safety standards, while it also obviates the need for amending the regulations.
Under new Subsection 106(6), the terms "practicable" and "reasonably practicable" may be incorporated.
Mr. Speaker, it is generally recognized, and I think everyone in the industry will agree, that it is unreasonable to prescribe a single specific standard in every case. There are exceptions where one must be flexible, and, as the Minister remarked, we must be flexible in applying these regulations. The Committee will have to examine these conditions and further clarify the purpose of this provision.
Clause 2 of this Bill concerns the authority under paragraph 92(1 l)(f) to require safety and health committees to submit an annual report. I think this provision is reasonable and acceptable, if we want Labour Canada to know exactly what is going on, whether the safety and health committees are effective in performing their prescribed duties and whether they need assistance.
The amendments in Bill C-124 concerning the coal mines of the Cape Breton Development Corporation are quite straightforward, and 1 think the Minister has explained quite clearly why, in these specific situations where the federal Government is practically the sole authority with respect to management and health and safety concerns, the Bill proposes to establish a tripartite Coal Mining Safety Commission that will have the authority to examine and approve plans, procedures, methods and equipment, to ensure they do not present any hazards in this fast developing mining industry.
The Commission will also have the authority to amend the regulations, to suspend their application and to substitute certain standards for other standards, provided they offer the same or better safeguards for coal miners.
Clause 3, which is new, will establish a new agency, Mr. Speaker, the Coal Mining Safety Commission, responsible mainly for approving, as appropriate, plans and procedures to be followed in coal mines and mining methods, machinery and equipment for use in coal mines, and they also exempt coal mines from certain regulations of general application.
We welcome this provision as well, but the "notwithstanding" provisions that follow are somewhat puzzling. Take, for instance, Subsection 94.2 (2). I will read it to you, Mr. Speaker.
April 26, 1988

On the application of an employer, the Commission or a person designated
by the Commission for the purposes of this subsection may, where, in the
opinion of the Commission or that person, protection of the safety and health
of employees would not thereby be diminished,
(>a) approve in writing the use by the employer in coal mines of mining methods, machinery or equipment in respect of which no prescribed safety standards are applicable;
We would like to ask the Minister for explanations, maybe in committee, on these provisions granting exemptions in order to clarify their scope and perhaps better understand the objective sought.
Mr. Speaker, as I was just saying, we intend to support this Bill and to make it conform as soon as possible to the desire to make the regulation somewhat more flexible while keeping in mind our responsibilities for health and safety.
The comments I have to make on that, I think, are fairly supportive, I would say, of this Bill, and as I was just saying, we will give it our approval as soon as possible on second reading so that in committee, my colleagues from the House, and especially those in my Caucus from the Cape Breton region, can certainly make amendments, if necessary.


Mr. Jack Harris (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak on the motion for the second reading of Bill C-124, an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code. The provisions of Bill C-124 represent an important step forward in terms of health and safety in the workplace generally, and in the coal mining industry in particular. I wish to commend the Minister of Labour (Mr. Cadieux) for the extensive consultation he undertook in the preparation of this Bill. I understand that he put in place an elaborate ongoing consultative process with the coal mining industry, with the officials of the Cape Breton Development Corporation, with the United Mine Workers, and with the Canadian Labour Congress. His efforts in that regard represent a remarkable precedent in terms of government and labour and industry working together to bring about improvements to the Canada Labour Code in respect of health and safety in the workplace.
Unions throughout this country and internationally have been vociferous in bringing forth their proposals to increase the level of health and safety in industry generally, and in the mining sector in particular. We in Canada have experienced a number of great disasters associated with the mining industry. We all recall only too well the Springhill mine disaster, where an underground explosion led to a number of fatalities.
The mining industry, by its very nature, presents a number of dangers, not the least of which is the lack of access to immediate escape and immediate emergency equipment. Certainly, it is a sector which presents a unique set of circumstances.
It is appropriate that Bill C-124 is before the House this week for debate, given that April 28 has been designated a day of mourning for all those killed or injured in the workplace. This day of commemoration is sponsored by the Canadian
Canada Labour Code
Labour Congress, the idea being to bring to the attention of the public the need for increased health and safety in the workplace. A number of district labour councils throughout the country, along with a number of municipalities, have joined in proclaiming April 28 as a day of mourning, in recognition of those killed or injured in the course of their employment.
There are far too many accidents in the workplace, leading to serious injury and death. We are always, we hope, moving forward in the area of health and safety in the workplace, and those involved in promoting health and safety in the workplace deserve the commendation of this House for their efforts in keeping before the public and lawmakers the need for increased health and safety in the workplace.
As a labour lawyer and one who has been involved in a number of cases involving health and safety aspects in the workplace, I can tell you that it is an area that presents the employee with some very difficult decisions. Often, an employee is required, as part of his contract of employment, to undertake dangerous work, and if at any time the employee chooses not to undertake the work requested, that employee risks being the subject of disciplinary action on the part of the employer, including the potential loss of employment. As a result, the employee generally has little if any control over working conditions.
Bill C-124 goes some distance in correcting that situation in so far as the mining sector is concerned, in as much as employees would have an important role, through the Coal Mining Safety Commission, in ensuring control over the health and safety standards to be followed. To my mind, this is an important forward step, and one which gives the employee important input in terms of the health and safety standards to be followed.
Given the level of technology and equipment utilized in the mining sector, one could not expect the miners to be totally familiar with its dangers. Through the Coal Mining Safety Commission, the employees will now have access to the kind of expertise and knowledge necessary to ensure that the new equipment is not introduced into the mine without assurances that the equipment is in fact safe for use, with the necessary safety practices and regulations already in place.
In the event that a given piece of equipment is not deemed to be dangerous in and of itself, or involved in a dangerous aspect of mining, it may be that there will be no necessity for having standards and regulations in place in respect of its use. 1 commend the Minister for the extensive consultations that have taken place in bringing this Commission forward. We have had accidents in Cape Breton. We had a recent most serious fire in a Cape Breton coal mine which caused a close down. Safety in the mining industry is something that ought to be and is, I am sure, foremost in the minds of those working in the mines and in the minds of their families. It is a dangerous occupation, and concern for safety is always uppermost in the minds of the families.

April 26, 1988
Canada Labour Code
I support the Bill in principle at second reading stage. It moves forward in bringing into line some of the technical regulations with the new changes to the Canada Labour Code, and it is important that this Bill be given speedy passage in the House.
I do, however, want to speak about a reservation I have concerning the provisions in Clause 1 of the Bill which will add a section following Section 82.2 of the Canada Labour Code. It will put into law a provision requiring a search of those entering a mining area who are not employed there. Every person will be searched, and a proportion of employees working in the underground portion of the mine will have to submit to personal searches conducted in a manner to be prescribed by the regulations.
I understand from discussions with the Minister and his staff that this provision in the Bill, even though it is written as a law of general application, refers only to coal miners. Under the Constitution, of course, the only coal mining activity undertaken under federal jurisdiction is that of the federal Crown corporation, DEVCO. I understand it is still a federal Crown corporation but I do not know what plans the Government may have for the future. The only coal mining activity affected by this particular provision will be the coal mines in Cape Breton.
I do understand, as the Minister indicated in his speech, that there was consultation with representatives of the employees. There is a proposal to search to make sure that matches, cigarette lighters and these types of things are not brought into the mine even accidentally by an employee who is perhaps forgetful or puts on different clothing which happens to have matches, cigarette lighters or whatever in the pockets. This employee may, without thinking while in the mine, "flick his Bic", I think it is said sometimes. I have seen people do that without thinking. It does not sound like a very diabolical provision if it is designed to prevent an accident from occurring. However, I do have a grave reservation about including in a law of general application the requirement to search. This may establish a precedent for all sorts of other types of search and seizure provisions which may well be opposed by many segments of the society for reasons of invasion of privacy, civil liberties and for a further moving of the state in the direction of denying individual liberties.
I would, of course, underline the importance of safety in coal mines. An explosion would be devastating. We all know of the famous Davey lamps and other lamps that have been devised to provide light underground in coal mines without causing explosions. I have grave reservations about including this particular phraseology in a law which appears to be of general application, although we heard today that it only has application to the Cape Breton coal mine because that is the only coal mine under federal jurisdiction. Having said that, I will be having further discussions with the Minister as to what the consequences of this search provision are.
I wanted to express those reservations at second reading stage but at the same time support in principle the legislation contained in Bill C-124 together with the various provisions which provide for a major improvement in access to employees, access to inspection procedures underground, access that employees will now have through the Coal Mining Safety Commission to information, technical knowledge and understanding of exactly what is going on concerning health and safety and the opportunity to examine and to put in place safe work practices with respect to new equipment which may be brought into mining activity. All of those things are very progressive actions and put the employees in a position of being able to have control over their workplace where they daily take great risks.
The other provision in Clause 2 of requiring health and safety committees to submit annual reports of their activities appears to be a minor clause in the Bill before us today, but it is a very important one. It allows the monitoring of the activities of these committees and allows health and safety committees to bring to the attention of officialdom, if you will, activities which they have undertaken during the year and to point out any serious problems encountered. These can be put on the record so they will not be forgotten and action can be taken. If not, someone can point to the very serious problems in the current annual report or the following one. A watch-dog can be provided, as it were, to make sure that the committee reports are part of the public record and will be acted upon.
1 commend and thank the Minister for bringing this legislation forward. I reiterate the support of our Party in the House for Bill C-124 in principle with the reservations that I have expressed.


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to join with my colleagues in opposition expressing my gratitude, if you will, to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Cadieux) who has obviously, and I say so with respect, taken a great interest in the subject matter before us. We are aware of many of the activities of his predecessors who have also had as their goal the improvement of occupational safety and health as it affects employees and businesses across Canada.
Since the Bill does zero in on a particular Crown corporation which is of great interest to me and the people I represent, I would also like to pay due respect to the union representatives of the United Mine Workers of America, and in particular, their safety co-ordinator in the person of Mr. Paul MacNeil, and of course representatives of the Cape Breton Development Corporation who represented the employer in the consultation process. Regarding the substantive parts of the Bill, I say to the Minister that I understand, appreciate and concur with the intent of Bill C-124. However, I have a number of reservations and qualifications that I will want to pursue at another time with the Minister as well as with representatives of the union and with management.
April 26, 1988

I do wish to say now at second reading stage that safety in the coal mining industry in Cape Breton has been of primary concern not only to me but indeed to my own predecessors who have served in this Chamber on previous occasions. It was through our efforts that many good things have come about for safety and occupational health in the coal mines.
Some of these amendments may appear at first instance to be rather minor in their substantive effect on coal mining in Cape Breton. However, they are certainly substantial in the effect they will have on the industry. To be fair to the Minister, I think he is very much aware of that and has responded to the representations of union and management. I wish to compliment him for responding so quickly and so efficiently on their behalf.
The legislation contains provision for a tripartite commission. The Minister will know that in setting up this commission, much of the discretionary authority still remains with the Governor in Council. Although I can understand and appreciate the need for flexibility in the implementation of agreed upon standards, we must be cognizant of the need to make certain that the agreement on a standard and the implementation of a standard may be two different things.
Let me make the point that standards have to be very clear to management and to union representatives as well as to the working person. Everyone must understand beyond a shadow of a doubt what is being talked about. There can, however, be some grey areas, as I think the Minister has indicated in his remarks, for which their must be flexibility in the implementation of a particular standard. I can appreciate the Minister's comments on that as well as those of my colleague from the New Democratic Party.
With the intent of the Bill being the improvement of occupational health and safety in the coal mines, I would hope that the upgrading of a standard would be the over-all objective rather than the relaxation of a standard. I would hope that there would always be a desire, both directly and indirectly, to try to improve upon that standard so that we can ensure the employees, their supervisors, the management, family members and the community at large that safety is the number one objective in this process.
That leads me to the issue of regulations. I will be discussing with the Minister and I am discussing with members of the union regulations for coal dust levels. I believe the Minister is aware that union representatives would prefer to have a level of four as opposed to the regulated level of six. It is my understanding from the representatives that there is a clear desire and intention to move to the level of four. I just bring that to the attention of Hon. Members opposite to underline the significance and importance of the intent of this aspect of the Bill.
Under the Bill, much of the discretionary authority still lies with the Governor in Council. The Commission is to consist of five individuals. The Minister said that he would appoint the chairman, and four other individuals would be appointed, being equally representative of non-supervisory employees and
Canada Labour Code
employers at DEVCO. I would hope that the union will have a real say in the determination of who those appointees will be and not simply be used, and I am certain the union will not simply be used by this Minister.
I give the Minister notice now that I will be asking him at a subsequent time what the prescribed budget of the particular Commission will be and what sort of actual assistance will be made available to the Commission. I will ask specific questions about the rules of natural justice and how they will be applicable. I will also ask questions about further developments in the coal mining industry of Cape Breton and what role he envisages this Commission to play and how it will interact with other agencies of both federal and provincial Governments. Those are questions which are rather fundamental to these amendments which, at the outset, may appear to be minor. However, in many instances, they would have a substantive impact on the coal mining industry of Cape Breton.
In addition to the number of individuals on the Commission, and I hope the Minister will provide detail on that at a later time, the regulations the Commission will be making are extremely important. It is extremely important that the Commission have broad consultation among the representatives of the union and that it continuously try to improve upon the standards in order to try to optimize as best as humanly possible the occupational health and safety of the workers who are employed at the Cape Breton Development Corporation.
In the Minister's speech, he said that it is proposed that pursuant to Section 82(3) the Code will provide authority for two long-standing practices. It is the second practice that I wish to draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker. He said that the second practice is that of searching persons going underground to ensure that none carry cigarettes, lighters, alcohol or drugs into the hazardous, potentially explosive mine atmosphere.
If one were to read those sentences in isolation, I think one could argue that that is search and seizure. 1 will want the Minister to qualify that on the record at a later date. I wish to know what the intent of that really is. I also wish to review very carefully the wording of that practice.
1 am sure that the Minister is not suggesting that there be a pre-test for everyone and anyone who works at a particular mine site. I think he is suggesting something much less than that. However, the intent is very important when achieving the particular objective.
There are a number of concerns I have that I am sure can be dealt with in a semi-private atmosphere along with my NDP colleagues to the left. I am sure that we can resolve these and some of the other points that I have raised with the Minister. However, 1 would like to have some further explanation of some of the interpretation of the wording given by the Department and the Minister. My colleague from Cape Breton-The Sydneys also wants that information because he has coal mines in his constituency as well and has been following the subject of occupational health and safety as much as I have over the last number of years.

April 26, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
Finally, I wish to reiterate that I think the Minister has accepted the challenge made by representatives of the United Mine Workers of America, in particular Mr. Paul MacNeil. I am sure he would have been in Ottawa today to answer any questions any Member had but he has been ill for a number of weeks, like I have, and I thank you for the flowers you sent, Mr. Speaker.
I will conclude by saying that we want to have another look at some of the questions I have raised before giving swift passage to this Bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.

Hon. Monique Vezina (for the Minister of the Environment) moved: that Bill C-74, an Act respecting the protection of the environment and of human life and health, be read the third time and passed.


Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to speak on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, before you today for third reading. I am proud that we are meeting the commitment of the October, 1986, Throne Speech. And I am proud because this is the first piece of comprehensive, federal environmental protection legislation in the history of our country.
I wish, at this time, to echo the words of the chairman of the legislative committee that tabled its amendments on Bill C-74 in this House on March 23, 1988. The work of the committee was indeed a superb non-partisan exercise, where all worked together without regard to political affiliation to make this the best possible legislation for Canada.
I wish to spend the next few minutes describing the amendments brought by the committee that are among the highlights of Bill C-74.
The definition of "substance" in Clause 3 has been adjusted, so that it now clearly applies not only to matter that is capable of being dispersed in the environment, or of being transformed and then dispersed in the environment, but also to matter capable of causing such transformation. This will enable us to
regulate substances strictly based on their ability to transform other matter and to cause its dispersal.
For the first time in a federal statute, "biotechnology" is defined, and the revamped definition of the term "release" in Clause 3 now specifically covers discharge, spray, injection, inoculation and abandonment of any substance governed by the Act.
We have not forgotten that the provinces are partners in the fight to protect Canada's environment. Clause 6 of the new statute forges new links to make that effort more effective and productive. Under that part, a federal-provincial committee will be created to advise on regulations on the release or disposal of substances, as well as their storage, display, handling and transport. The committee may also advise on any other matter related to the administration of the Act.
These links will be further enhanced by the concept of "equivalency" now contained in the statute. We recognize provincial strength and expertise in such areas as control of emissions, effluents, and waste disposal. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act will enable the Governor in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of the Environment to recognize provincial regulations as equivalent to those under the federal Act.
This will ensure that both jurisdictions co-operate in the management of toxic substances from cradle to grave, without duplication or overlap. The same concept of "equivalency" through an Order in Council is provided in Part V of the statute covering international air pollution. However, there will still be accountability. The Minister of the Environment must report annually to this House on the administration and enforcement of the Act, including an accounting of the enforcement of equivalent provincial measures.
The clauses of Bill C-74 dealing with disclosure of information have been totally overhauled, and are now in harmony with the federal Access to Information and Workplace Hazardous Materials Information Review Acts.
We have also dealt with two concerns expressed during the development of the legislation. First, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act now automatically bans the export of substances prohibited for use in Canada, except for disposal purposes. Second, there must now be notification, by the polluter, to members of the public who may be adversely affected by the unauthorized release, spill, leak, et cetera, of a substance. This requirement exists in Part IV of Bill C-74 as obligating federal departments, agencies, boards, and Crown corporations to provide the same notification.



y
April 26, 1988

I am pleased that the concern of the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) that federal departments, agencies, board and Crown corporations must not be above the law when the environment is at stake, did not go unheeded by the legislative committee in its clause-by-clause review of Bill C-74. Amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act now ensure that there will be no doubt on this matter.
The federal Government and its agencies intend to be exemplary in complying with the new legislation. Clause 4 of the Bill states that the statute is "binding on Her Majesty in Right of Canada". However, the amended clauses of the Bill dealing with federal works, undertakings, lands, departments, boards, and agencies now go still farther. They now empower the Governor in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of the Environment, to make regulations setting limits for the release of emissions and effluents by federal departments, boards and agencies, as well as by Crown corporations. Waste handling and disposal can also be regulated.
These clauses further require that if a harmful substance has been released into the environment, the responsible federal body must report the unauthorized release to an inspector or other designated person. The body or agency must then take all reasonable emergency measures to prevent danger to the environment, human life or health, and, as I mentioned previously, notify members of the public who may be adversely affected. It is specifically stated that inspectors have the right of access and entry to federal property, and may take emergency measures themselves if the relevant department, board, agency or Crown corporation does not do so.
One particularly significant aspect of the new statute is the extent of public participation assured by the legislation. The Act invites Canadians to participate in its administration. They can request the Minister to include a substance on the priority substances list for immediate assessment and investigation to determine its toxicity. They can register their objection to non-inclusion of a substance on the toxic substances list, and request a board of review. They can comment on regulations upon their publication in Part I of The Canada Gazette, or protest the Minister's decision not to regulate, again requesting a board of review. This opportunity for comment and objection extends equally to provisions of the statute that allow the granting, revocation, suspension or alteration of permits for disposal at sea.
One aspect of public involvement is already at work. The Priority Substances Advisory Panel, chaired by Dr. Ross Hume Hall of McMaster University and including provincial Government, industry, academic and environmental group representatives, is completing its rigorous analysis of candidate substances, leading to a short list of 50 substances for priority assessment and investigation of their environmental and health effects.
The authority of a board of review to award costs to interveners has been expanded. Now the board may grant interim travel, and other administrative costs to interveners
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
during the course of hearings and deliberations rather than solely at the conclusion of the board's work.
Also, for the first time in a federal environmental protection statute, two adult residents of Canada as individuals can petition the Minister to investigate a suspected violation. The Minister is then obliged to report his findings. In addition, private citizens who suffer, or may potentially suffer, loss or damage due to an offence committed under the Act can seek an injunction to prevent or stop the unlawful activity. Upon conviction of an offender they can seek a court order compensating them for their loss. They may also seek restitution through a civil suit.
It is in these ways that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act allows ordinary Canadians to become partners with the Government in the administration and enforcement of this statute which is designed to achieve the level of environmental protection, on a nation-wide basis, that they demand and deserve.
The Bill now before you is not solely the creation of lawyers, officials, and politicians working in isolation. This legislation is perhaps the most democratically devised statute to be considered by a federal Government in Canada. The process leading to the new Act really began in 1982 with the Environment Canada-Industry Workshop on New Chemicals.
The next vital steps were the reports of the Environmental Contaminants Act Amendments Consultative Committee, the Multi-Stakeholder Task Force on Management of Chemicals, and the government-industry study group that examined the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster and recommended how to avoid such an occurrence in Canada. These formed the basis of the draft Environmental Protection Act that the Minister of the Environment tabled in this House for discussion and consultation 16 months ago.
That tabling launched further consultations which actually lasted until late spring, 1987. When, as required by a new provision of the Act, Parliament reviews this statute in five years time, consultation may well begin again. It may seem to some that the consultation process is endless, but we are the better for it. Every sector of Canadian society was able to have its say. We received numerous letters and briefs and heard oral presentations.
We are fortunate that all the members of the legislative committee appointed to carry out clause-by-clause review were conscientious and zealous in their task. We took to heart the invitation by the Minister of the Environment to improve the Canadian Environmental Protection Act where we saw deficiencies. We, as well as the Minister, want the best, most comprehensive federal environmental protection legislation possible. I wish to thank my colleagues for their excellent work over these past weeks. We heard 36 witnesses and considered over 260 amendments, of which 142 were approved.

April 26, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
In conclusion, the Government has responded to the concern of Canadians for the protection of their environment. We have received their letters and read and heeded their representations. The Environmental Monitor report of last September further confirms results of surveys done over the past four years and tells us that 65 per cent of Canadians believe that environmental pollution has increased over the last five years. Seven in 10 Canadians believe that governments usually side with the industries that pollute rather than the affected public.
Passage of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act by this House will lay to rest that statement. It will show Canadians that we are committed to legislation that will protect our environment today and will serve us into the 21st century.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, it would be quite in order at this stage to thank the Hon. Member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers) for reading his prepared speech so well. In less than 10 minutes he has dealt with the subject matter, the complexity of which is mind-boggling, which has been before this House and in committee for over a year and a half. As he said, it has been the subject of public consultations, albeit very partial and very limited.
He has spoken at third reading without any indication of where the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister himself are at this very important stage. We have not heard a speech by the Minister on Bill C-74 at second reading, at report stage, or today when it is customary for a Minister to launch the Bill in its final stage with an analysis of it which one would hope would bring out the positive features as well as the negative ones, the difficulties encountered, and the points which may still have to be resolved as experience is gathered.
The only political point made by the Member for Red Deer was at the end of his remarks when he proclaimed that this Bill will demonstrate that the Government does not side with industry. What a negative way of putting it, as if there would be a preoccupation with disclaiming that potential accusation. He was obviously motivated either by a guilt feeling or some other reason to say: "Don't you worry, the Government, contrary to impressions perhaps, does not side with industry".
The history of this Bill is rather peculiar. It had a tremendously flashy beginning and a weak finish, arriving at the finish line with barely any strength left in the system as demonstrated by the pathetic exchanges which took place last Tuesday and Wednesday at report stage.
I submit that the history of this Bill is one of retreats and reversals. It is very unfortunate that the Member for Red Deer could not find the time to dwell on that, let alone to put up a defence for the reversals, or possibly a defence for the retreats. However, that is the history of this Bill. It was proclaimed as the greatest invention since sliced bread. However, the ending of that particular initiative is pretty weak, to say the least. That applies not only to the substance of the Bill but also to the process, and I will elaborate on that in due course.
This Bill was proclaimed by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) as the greatest legislation in the western
hemisphere. When we came to the end of the process the same Minister, descending to earth, admitted that it was one small step. Somehow I was sympathetic when he said that because it was a realistic and honest way to put it. It is one small step. In that sense, it is a step that can only be welcomed. However, I submit that despite the claim made at the conclusion of the speech of the Hon. Member for Red Deer this Bill could have been much stronger, as it was conceived in its original form when the consultations to which the Hon. Member referred were launched. The fact is that as time went on, the Bill was the object of erosion and attack, and in the end the Minister himself had to admit that it turned out to be a small step. But it could have been a stronger piece of legislation, and I will take the necessary time to elaborate on that.
The Minister claimed that this Bill would clean up the environment. The Hon. Member must have heard the Minister saying that in the House in Question Period. The Minister said the St. Clair River blob would be cleaned up. When visiting Halifax, the Minister claimed this Bill might be used to clean the Halifax Harbour and other trouble spots across the nation. Unfortunately, that is not to be the case. The measure now before us offers only a modest step with very little teeth, and those were gradually pulled out as the process advanced. I will touch on that later.
The Hon. Member for Red Deer made reference to consultations. Consultations did take place with the public, and that process of consultation on the draft Bill was completed. Then it came to the provinces and as a result of changes that were made which profoundly affected the thrust and impact of the Bill, the public was no longer the interlocutory of negotiations, nor were the non-governmental groups, the NGOs. As time progressed, we had a selective and restrictive consultation that became narrower and narrower in scope. I must say that in reply to the speech of the Hon. Member for Red Deer, for whom I have the highest esteem, because it has to be put on record.
As this Bill progressed there were some very interesting claims. There was the claim that the federal Government would not wait for the provinces to take action on the environment. "We are going to do it", said the Minister. In June 1987, the obligation was recognized to consult with the provinces before making regulations. In November of 1987, it was no longer an obligation. Then in March of this year the obligation was back. Each time the change was eloquently defended by the Government so that with respect to the obligation to consult we had a flip, a flop and a flip.
The progress of this Bill has been followed quite closely, as it should, by the media. It is interesting to note that on Sunday, August 16 of last year, The Toronto Star devoted a lead editorial to this Bill under the heading of "Meech Lake Blight Hits the Pollution Bill". It is worth reading. I will not read it into the record because it would take too long.
April 26, 1988

It begins by making the point that since the Progressive Conservative Party took office there have been worrisome signs that Ottawa may be ceding more turf to the provinces. Those were prophetic words. It was worrisome because the fight against pollution has to be nation-wide and, therefore, requires uniform leadership and standards that only Ottawa can establish. This delicate balance between Ottawa and the provinces was already put in danger, or at least upset, when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) in November of 1984 chopped $46 million from the budget of Environment Canada. People must be reminded of what happened and that it was done by the great defenders of the environment on the government side. Two months in office and the Government chopped $46 million from Environment Canada and then proceeded with consultations on this Bill.
In the end we have a consultative process that is mandatory, which means the Minister of the Environment must consult with all the provinces before regulations are drafted or emergency orders are issued to control toxic chemicals. It must be said in all fairness that Ottawa would retain the right to act on its own after consultations. The provisions in this Bill invite Ottawa to take the weakest possible action in order that everyone will agree, and that is usually the outcome of such consultations.
In order to understand this Bill we have to examine it, to begin with, from a constitutional point of view. How does the Constitution relate to the environment and vice versa? That aspect at third reading of this Bill is essential because it gives us an insight into the federal role in the environment. As a result of the consultation process with the provinces, the Bill has been weakened and it need not have been weakened. It is important, therefore, to put on record which constitutional experts came to speak on Bill C-74, and what they said.
I refer, first of all, to a lawyer in Calgary, Alastair Lucas. He wrote in the fall, 1987, issue of Resources, when commenting on the question of equivalency, to which the Hon. Member for Red Deer made reference in his speech, that an acceptable definition of equivalency may prove elusive in any event. Yet equivalency has become the main concept which finds its own way through this Bill as it relates to the federal role in applying this Bill.
He states also that the federal Government does not wish to see its environmental protection Act initiative end with an Act that has only patchwork effects nationally and then may be of little or no significance in some provinces. Unfortunately, that is exactly what this Bill has achieved.
What Alastair Lucas was urging should not happen from a constitutional point of view has happened. We have equivalency in the Bill, and we are heading for a patchwork Canada in the implementation of environmental protection.
It might be said, incidentally, that Alastair Lucas is the Acting Executive Director of the Canadian Institute of
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
Resources Law. He cannot be accused of being a supporter of the Liberal Party or a committed rabid environmentalist.
Is he alone in that viewpoint? Maybe it is just some might say a western aberration, something that comes out of a lonely guy in Calgary, someone who perhaps is frustrated because he does not get the recognition that he would like to receive. He is not alone. He is in some interesting company, I must say.
For instance, I bring to the attention of the House what was said on behalf of the Environmental Law Centre which is located in Edmonton by Elizabeth Swanson in her appearance before our committee which examined this Bill on December 10 of last year. She said: "I think the federal Government can consult its heart out with the provinces if it would like to do so". She stated that she really objected to this being a mandatory requirement to ministerial action, which she considers to be well within the competency of the federal Minister. She stated: "It seems to me in a way to be a political agreement taking the form of legislation". She was dead on in that. It was not a technical constitutional decision, it was a political decision. It was the emanation of the Meech Lake virus that found its way into Bill C-74.
She concluded by stating, as her colleague mentioned: "We do not object to the concept of the notion of co-operative federalism". Nobody does, of course not. It is the essence of our country. However, she stated, she has a little bit of difficulty when it starts popping up in our legislation.
It may be worth while to quote a voice from Toronto, the voice of Toby Vigod of the Canadian Environmental Law Association. She stated: "It has been our contention that the Minister of the Environment has been getting extremely conservative advice from the Department of Justice on federal constitutional authority to protect the environment". This is what she said in committee on January 19, 1988. She went on to urge the committee to obtain a written opinion from the Department of Justice on this issue. We tried. She said that such an opinion would then be subject to scrutiny by the committee, constitutional experts and the national legal environmental community at large. She said that in their opinion there is clear authority for the federal Government to take a strong role in environmental protection. There is, something which we argued in committee.
"Key constitutional heads of power are criminal law, trade and commerce and peace, order and good government," Professor Paul Emond wrote 15 years ago on the case for a strong federal role in environmental protection. He said that the constitutionality of a strong federal role in the environmental protection field is indisputable. Similarly, the arguments in favour of immediate federal action in this area are compelling. He said that what is needed now is for the federal Government to recognize this fact and to take the initiative in designing and implementing a comprehensive pollution control plan that will make a real contribution to improving our national environment.

April 26, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
Toby Vigod of CELA went on to say that the Environmental Protection Act as currently worded does not take the initiative. She pointed out that the Minister has brought forward new amendments that will provide that federal regulations may not apply if equivalent provisions are enforced in a province. She states that they have reviewed the submissions filed by the Alberta Environmental Law Centre and share their concerns regarding these new amendments. Thus there is a viewpoint in the West and a viewpoint in the East.
"Besides being rather unwieldy in terms of determining what constitutes equivalency," she said, "we are concerned that, again, there appears to be a deliberate attempt by the Government not to regulate in the area of toxic chemicals." She went on to point out that federal law should not be applied in a patchwork fashion. As well, there is a real constitutional argument that federal facilities operating in provinces with only so-called provincial equivalent regulations will totally be exempt from regulations. That is a big sore point that will come up later in my intervention.
She concluded by giving an example to which 1 would like to refer. She said that a federal facility in Ontario emitting a toxic chemical in excess of Ontario's equivalent regulations could argue, if charged with a breach of such regulations, that it is immune from the application of provincial laws because it is a federal facility. A much better course is to have strong minimum national standards and to then let the provinces enact stricter regulations where they feel it is appropriate. She went on to make specific suggestions.
It is a matter of great concern in the environmental community, and I suppose that this community embraces everybody who is concerned about our health, our natural resources, and the long-term interest of our economy, that here the Government made the wrong turn, the wrong decision.
Miss Vigod concluded by saying: "I think that in the area of environment public opinion is behind a strong national role". These are prophetic words of four months ago, because a few days ago we saw a poll confirming that.
Miss Vigod went on to say: "I think we should see it tested in the courts. We have seen the other happen: the provinces have tested their law and seen federal entities have charges dismissed on the basis of Crown immunity". That is the danger. She urged: "Let us try having strong federal law and take that challenge in the courts. I think it is time to put our money where our mouth is and I think the public and the courts are slowly becoming more attuned to environmental issues", which is another very sound political observation.
Miss Vigod, on behalf of CELA, further said: "Certainly when we appear in court now we get a far better hearing than we did 10 or 15 years ago. I think those issues are of national concern. In the area of toxic chemical law we have these other
features. Air pollutants and water pollutants do not respect provincial boundaries, and they are causing significant economic and environmental damage in this country".
She concluded by saying: "I say let us take that challenge. If it is struck down, then either we will be able to redefine how we will enact the role or the pressure really will come to bear on the provinces. There has always been a bit of jurisdictional buck passing. I think the time for federal standards is now. This is why we have also recommended that the power to enact standards be put specifically in this legislation". Several of us tried in the subsequent committee hearings, without succeeding.
Let me quote what was stated by another constitutional lawyer, lan Blue from Toronto, and what he told us a few days later. On January 20 Mr. Blue started by asking: "How does this Canadian Environmental Protection Act impinge upon those powers? Provinces too can make environmental laws and they do it under their power to legislate with respect to property and civil rights, their licensing power, and their power with respect to provincial works and undertakings. You do not have a case where one jurisdiction has the authority and the other does not". That is a very important point that he made. "You have a situation where each has jurisdiction. Each can legislate over the subject of the environment, but from a different aspect. There the legal rules are fairly clear. The rules say that unless there is an operational conflict, both laws can prevail".
Mr. Blue said: "What is an operational conflict?" Mr. Blue further stated: "Recently, I was involved in a case in the Ontario Divisional Court where we were talking about the construction of a liquid natural gas storage facility in Cobourg, Ontario. The Ontario Energy Board was hearing it and there was a National Energy Board Act and regulations. Both sets of provisions covered it. The argument was that there was an operational conflict. However, the judges said nothing conflicted. Therefore, unless the provincial law says one thing and the federal law says another so that you create an antinomy or a place where a person is in an impossible position between two valid laws, then both can stand. I believe I am correct that this is the law".
He also said: "Now if there is a conflict then the law is pretty clear too". What does it say, Mr. Speaker? "The federal legislation prevails, the provincial legislation must give way". That is the conclusion of Ian Blue.
Mr. Blue also had something interesting to say on overlapping jurisdiction. He said:
It is a well known principle that where Parliament can legislate over a topic under s.91 from one aspect, and the provinces can legislate over the same topic on another aspect that both pieces of legislation are valid. If, however, the two pieces of legislation have an operational conflict and create an antinomy then the provincial legislation is rendered inoperative and the federal legislation must prevail.
April 26, 1988

How does that now apply to Bill C-74? Mr. Blue further remarked:
If, therefore, Bill C-74 conflicts with existing provincial legislation, it is my opinion that existing provincial legislation must be inoperative to the extent of the conflict and Bill C-74 must prevail. I hasten to add that this is a legal opinion and not a political opinion ...
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the politicians in power, the so-called Progressive Conservative Government, did not heed this legal advice, and did not see the opportunity being offered to them by the Constitution, and by the experts. They simply put it aside and chose to go for this equivalency route, on which 1 will dwell for a little while later on.
Perhaps in a lighter vein it is interesting to note that the worries were not only on the side of the provinces, and that there were also worries on the side of the federal position. In the case of Conseil du Patronat du Quebec, the view from industry there expressed by Mr. Magnant was a search for a federal protection from the apparently very effective policies of the provincial Minister of the Environment in Quebec. This is what Mr. Magnant said to us in committee on December 16:

That protects us from the Government of Quebec.

"CELA" being the federal legislation.

We think that the federal Government is a little less strict than the Government of Quebec.
That is the opinion of Quebec businessmen.

I think it was a rather solitary viewpoint, but nevertheless it provided a touch of diversion from what most of us believe, and quite rightly so, because of the experience we have made with social and economic legislation and now emerging with environmental legislation, that really it is only the federal Government that can provide the national standards that are strong enough to protect this enormous natural resource that nature has given us, namely, the environment as a whole.
Inevitably, Mr. Speaker, I have to bring to your attention what this equivalency business is all about. It has now become a current word, at least in this legislation, and in present times in Ottawa, and it is not a concept that one can easily come to grips with. One has to wrestle with it before becoming comfortable with that concept. It is a notion we reject, but it is important to understand it. I will commence by quoting Miss Elizabeth Swanson of the Environmental Law Centre for Alberta. Last December Miss Swanson said to the committee the following:
The first matter we would like to discuss is the failure of this bill to create a strong federal presence in the area of environmental protection. Throughout the legislative history of this bill, the federal government, through its Minister
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
of Environment, promised Canadians a strong federal presence in the area of environmental protection. This came as good news to those of us who had long awaited a government response to many pressing environmental issues which appear to require a national if not a global resolution. Regrettably the provisions of this legislation as it now stands fail to achieve this objective.
The tone of this bill is apologetic rather than assertive. A conciliatory rather than a leadership approach appears to have been adopted. Consider by way of example subclause 37(4) which says that, pursuant to this provision, the Minister can only recommend regulations if, firstly, he has offered to consult with the provinces, secondly, he has consulted or the time for doing so has elapsed and, finally, he is satisfied that the provinces themselves are not going to enact similar legislation.
She goes on to say that Bill C-74 "prohibits the making of an emergency order until, among other things, the provinces have been consulted and the Minister is satisfied that appropriate provincial action is not forthcoming." She went on to say:
-the failure of the federal government to assume responsibility for the enactment and enforcement of comprehensive environmental legislation cannot be attributed to a lack of constitutional competency.
Evidently referring to Lucas and Bloom. Ms. Swanson continued:
With exclusive jurisdiction over criminal law, the federal government has always had the power to create offences and impose sanctions to enforce its own legislation. In our view, the amendments very recently put forward by the Environment Minister further erode the federal presence in this area.
The consultation approach of subclauses 37(4) and 38(2) have now been replaced by the concept of equivalency. If these amendments go forward, Cabinet will have the authority to pass an order declaring that particular and valid federal regulations do not apply in a province which has enacted and agreed to enforce equivalent provisions.
And I emphasize, Mr. Speaker, "equivalent" provisions.
This concept of equivalency surfaces again in the proposed amendments to clause 57, which concerns international air pollution. Beyond the obvious questions, such as the meaning of equivalency and the criteria by which this quality will be assessed, is a fundamental concern.
By entrenching this notion of equivalent provincial legislation, is the federal government not implicitly recognizing the competency of the provinces to legislate in an area of federal jurisdiction-
What an indictment this statement is. What far-reaching consequences this proposal, if passed, will have. Ms. Swanson continued:
-and given this recognition, what is to stop the provinces from challenging the constitutional competency of the federal government to enact legislation where the provinces' own is not recognized as being equivalent?
Just imagine what the consequences would be. She continued:
It does not appear to us either that equivalency reduces or eliminates duplication of legislative effort. To determine whether one legislation is equivalent to another, both must be in existence in one form or another. Delegation of enforcement is one thing. Abrogation of legislative competency is quite another.
There then followed some suggestions, all of which were ignored by the Government.
We also had the viewpoint of Toby Vigod, of the Environmental Law Association, who asked:

April 26, 1988
For example, does "equivalent" mean that the province also has equivalent enforcement provisions, or that the sections are very close in wording, or how close is equivalent?
That is the question. She went on to say:
1 think the other fundamental issue is the constitutional issue-that if we have a patchwork of laws where in some cases federal regulation applies and in other cases so-called provincial-equivalent regulations apply, then I have suggested federal industries charged under the provincial-equivalent regulations may bring forward an argument of Crown immunity, as they have brought forward under our existing situation.
Again, the same preoccupation we heard from the individuals from Alberta. She concluded as follows:
I think there is a danger in enacting these amendments, both for the word "equivalent" and what it may mean, and this potential constitutional problem.
On behalf of Toxic Watch Project, we heard from the Project Director, Mr. Brad Wylynko. Again, his major concern had to do with the question of "equivalency".
One might think that undue time was devoted to the question of equivalency, and that would be a justified impression were it not for the fact that the concept of "equivalency" is of paramount importance in terms of the implementation of Bill C-74, as I am sure that the Hon. Member for Red Deer will agree.
Mr. Wylynko had the following to say on the question of "equivalency":
We feel this is a very dangerous concept. I am not a constitutional lawyer, but one of the dangers we see here is that the federal government may in fact be giving up its role in environmental protection through this concept in future. If the provinces are allowed to start to legislate in replacing the federal rule, down the road will it be possible for the federal government to then come back and say they have responsibilities and obligations here they must fulfil?
I feel very strongly about this. We feel there needs to be a strong federal presence in the environment. When I look out the window of where I work, I see the North Saskatchewan River, and of course it flows from the Rocky Mountains right into Hudson Bay.
Any toxic chemical pollutant that might be in that river flows similarly, right across three prairie provinces.
I believe there needs to be a strong federal presence and, in fact, a strong international presence as well, which this bill will reduce.
Mr. Speaker, I see that we are approaching one o'clock. May I call it one o'clock?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being 1 p.m., I do now leave the chair until 2 p.m. this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, over the week-end, in my riding I had the opportunity to meet several young students who expressed their great disappointment with the decision of the Tory Government to cut by nearly 40 per cent the funds earmarked for the Chal-lenge'88 program for all students living in the Greater Montreal area and the City of Laval ridings.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, 1 urged Tory Members representing these ridings to pressure the Minister into changing his mind and treat fairly these young men and women who are attending school. Unfortunately there has been no response, and I am afraid the student population will remember the lack of interest shown by Tory Members representing such ridings as Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Duvernay, and Laval.


NUCLEAR ENERGY
Mr. Andrew Witer (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, two years ago today, on April 26, 1986, the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine exploded, sending out a cloud of radiation which spread throughout the world. To this day, we do not know the full impact of the disaster.
For 48 hours the Soviet Government lowered a veil of secrecy over the tragedy even though other lives were endangered by its silence. For those with family in eastern Europe and Ukraine it was a frightening experience, as weeks passed before they were able to confirm the safety of their loved ones.
The possibility of a design flaw which might have caused the disaster has never been addressed, yet the Soviets proceed with plans to build more reactors in Ukraine. In the meantime, families who were exposed to radiation wait in fear, worrying about the long-term effects of their exposure, uncertain of their future, with no guarantee that it might not happen again.
I urge all Members of this House to join with me in commemoration of this tragic occasion, remembering those who have died, and those who must live with the uncertainty of tomorrow.
April 26, 1988


INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION CANADA-SOVIET SKI EXPEDITION REACHES NORTH POLE
Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that all Members of the House today would like to join me in acknowledging the great feat of the Canada-Soviet ski expedition on reaching the North Pole.
At 3.20 a.m. eastern daylight time, this group of four Canadians and nine Soviets achieved what until now was simply their dream. This is the story of ability to overcome numerous obstacles in the pursuit of a goal. The members of this expedition not only have had to deal with a cold, harsh climate, but also they have had to overcome the obstacles of different languages and different cultures.
As a Parliamentarian I am impressed with the co-operation and good will shown by these trekkers. This "Polar Bridge" expedition will help us to understand the importance of Canada-Soviet co-operation and is symbolic of the kind of international good will of which Canada can be a part.
About 40 Canadian and Soviet government representatives were planning to be at ceremonies at the North Pole. This group included superstar hockey player, Vladislav Tretiak, and our Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Masse). While flying conditions did not allow the dignitaries to witness the expedition's arrival at the North Pole, the spirit of Canada-Soviet peaceful co-operation has already been enhanced.
I, with other Members, congratulate the members of the Canadian team: Laurie Dexter, Richard Weber, Max Buxton, and Chris Holloway for their part in this historic occasion.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


NATIONAL ORGAN DONOR AWARENESS WEEK
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, Members of the House and the general public are reminded that this week is National Organ Donor Awareness Week.
The Department of National Health and Welfare is collaborating with others in special efforts to inform the public and health professionals of the benefits of transplantation and the need for donor organs and tissues.
All Canadians should take a moment to consider organ donation through which each of us can make the most generous gift, the gift of life.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I want to deal with a problem that arises fairly frequently, regrettably, where a Government makes an overpayment to an individual under a social program.
Where the individual has had no complicity in this payment being made, it is a very unfair thing for a Government to demand repayment and to deduct sums from future payments to reclaim the amount. Individuals do not have a computer when they get a payment. They tend to assume the amount correct, and live on it.
My colleague, the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker), raised an example of veterans' payments where overpayments occur, but the situation often occurs with other social payments.
The Government should have a policy that when an overpayment is made through no complicity by the individual who receives it, the Government should not reclaim repayment for excess amounts that are paid.


FINANCE
Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, investors have been extremely cautious, especially since the October 19 Crash. Several years ago, flow through shares were created as an investment incentive in mining exploration in Canada.
Flow through shares have been a success story in Abitibi-Temiscamingue and elsewhere in Canada and so far in the 1980's, rich gold deposits have been found in greater number than during all the past gold rushes put together.
The Crash of last October and the tax reform have severely affected the value of natural resources shares especially those involving small businesses.
Twice a year, tax shelters are selling well: at the end of the year and in May. Without these flow through shares, we could certainly not have found so many gold mines so quickly.
Mr. Speaker, we certainly have an excellent Minister of Finance in Canada, but I would suggest to him to review his position by the end of April concerning flow through shares, failing which I would have to use a more vociferous tone in May on behalf of our prospectors and my Abitibi riding.

April 26, 1988
[English]	NUCLEAR ENERGY


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) prepares to go to Washington, I thought it appropriate to pass on to him words spoken more than a century ago and repeated this week by Anthony Ketchum in a letter to The Globe and Mail.
Before selling his native lands to the U.S. Government in 1854, Chief Seattle made a speech which included the following:
The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath-the beast, the tree, the man. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days he is numb to the stench ...
If we sell you our land you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition. The white man must treat the beast (and fish, birds) of this land as his brothers.
Teach your children what we have taught our children: that the earth is our mother. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.


NUCLEAR REACTORS SURROUNDING GREAT LAKES
Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, two years ago today the Chernobyl disaster occurred, although Soviet officials had said very smugly after Three Mile Island that a Three Mile Island could not happen at Chernobyl. Now Canadian officials are saying that there could not be a Chernobyl at Pickering.
If that is the case, then why is the nuclear industry so concerned about keeping nuclear liability down to $75 million, a paltry sum given the possibility of disaster? Even if there is no accident, do we not all realize that we have no safe means of disposal of either high-level of low-level radioactive wastes?
It is time that we began to look at safe renewable sources of energy. We cannot risk the future. We cannot risk the health of Canadians.
There are 50 nuclear reactors around the Great Lakes, and 24 million people depend for their drinking water on the Great Lakes. This is too much of an experiment. Let us have faith in the future by turning to safe means for energy sources, and admit that nuclear was a mistake.


NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS
Mr. John Oostrom (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, recently France shifted its underground nuclear tests from the South Pacific atoll of Mururoa to the island of Fangataufa, just 32 kilometres away. This move was made after 90 underground tests were conducted, and the island's structural integrity began to be questioned.
I believe that conducting underground nuclear testing on South Pacific islands which are mostly extinct volcanoes, is like playing Russian roulette with the environment. This region of the world has been fortunate that the atoll of Mururoa did not break up and release its deadly radiation into the ocean, creating an environmental disaster of epic proportions.
Canada must make its concerns known to France that testing in this area of the world could have severe repercussions on life.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, on April 13, I had the honour and the privilege of speaking to members of the Canadian Credit Institute on a topic of current interest that is extremely important to Canadians, and I am referring to the impact of free trade on business credit. As a result of this talk, we were able to draw certain conclusions. First of all, the free trade agreement will strengthen our economy and make us more competitive on world markets and even more confident about our own identity and our unique social and cultural environment.
Furthermore, the agreement will provide for new jobs and economic growth in the regions, both today and beyond the year 2000, and above all it will guarantee better access to our main export market.
Mr. Speaker, I sincerely believe that only people with a positive mind-set are able to meet this challenge successfully.
It is a matter of attitude, not just aptitude, and if we understand that, the rest will take care of itself.
Canadians believe in an enterprising and innovative Canada.
April 26, 1988


POLITICAL PARTIES
Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, a few days from now, on May 6, an Ottawa business will lay off 25 per cent of its employees without notice and without any assistance or adjustment programs for those who are laid off.
Because it was unable to manage its own affairs, the Liberal Party of Canada is broke, and its staff is paying the price. This Party is no longer in power. It can no longer raise taxes or get deeper into debt as it did before.
We will soon see whether the banks will declare this Party bankrupt. How could the Liberals run the country and administer the public purse, when they would rather maintain a vacant luxury apartment in Toronto for their Leader than save these jobs in Ottawa.
Their policy is: Never mind the staff-save the furniture!


GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS
Mr. Alan Redway (York East):: Mr. Speaker, have you ever heard of Sylvia Gold, Hamilton Southam, Bud Drury, Roch Bolduc, Denis de Belleval, Pierre Fortin, Jean-Roch Boivin, Claude Castonguay, Bernard Lamarre, Antoine Turmel, Harrison McCain, Ken Danby, Catherine McKinnon, Bob White, Wally Majesky, Saul Cherniak, Gerry Caplan, Favian Sauvageau, Lloyd Francis, or Geoffrey Pearson?
They are just a few of the hundreds of persons who either belong to the Liberal Party or the NDP, or who have no known political affiliation, and who have been given a so-called patronage appointment by the present Government.


ROAD SAFETY
Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, to improve road safety, the Quebec Government has declared 1988 the Quebec Year for Road Safety.
According to a recent survey, 74 per cent of Canadians buckle up. The Province of Quebec ranks first in Canada, with 85.8 per cent in 1987, compared with 67.7 per cent the year before. This is an increase of 18.1 per cent in one year.
Many road accidents are now avoided, Mr. Speaker, thanks to the new safety awareness of Canadians and Quebecers.
However, much remains to be done in this area. Many laws and regulations should be reconsidered. We could, for instance, question driving at the age of 16. We could also consider reducing the maximum number of demerit points to four, in the case of 16 and 17-year old drivers. Furthermore, trucks and buses should be treated the same as cars.
I would ask the new Minister of Transport (Mr. Bouchard) to look into the highway safety issue and urge him to take the appropriate corrective action as soon as possible.


HOSPITALS
Mr. Claude Lanthier (LaSalle):: Mr. Speaker, this week in my riding has been designated to celebrate the founding of La Salle General Hospital.
There will be a host of community activities to generate much needed funds that will be used to purchase specialized hospital equipment adapted to local health needs.
Our La Salle Foundation takes pride in collecting about $125,000 annually, through its dedicated volunteers, from our local merchants, business people and professionals, as well as various donations from generous benefactors.
The organizers of these festivities, headed by Mr. Andre Langelier, deserve our admiration for their endless dedication and their compassion for their fellow citizens suffering from diseases that require special health care.
Bravo and many thanks to the La Salle General Hospital Fondation!


MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, last Saturday morning in South Burnaby a near disaster occurred in which some 20 people were injured, two of them seriously. The roof of the Save-on-Foods store collapsed during the opening day ceremonies to which senior citizens from the community were invited.
I am deeply concerned that a number of important questions be answered with respect to this tragedy. There must be a full public inquiry to determine, for example, whether in the rush to complete this project safety standards were not fully met. There must be a full inquiry to determine whether the fact that non-union labour was used in the latter stages of construction was an element in this tragedy.

April 26, 1988
Oral Questions


WORK GUARANTEE
[Stage Direction]
Certainly those seniors who attended that opening ceremony on Saturday morning hoped to attend a festive event. Instead, there could have been hundreds of people killed had it not been for the courage of the Mayor of Burnaby, Bill Copeland, in warning of impending disaster.
We must get to the bottom of this matter. We hope that the slogan posted at the store, "I saved big at Station Square", was not the slogan of those who built this store, possibly at the expense of human life.


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Deputy Prime Minister on the subject of Air Canada. He keeps saying that he has answered a straightforward question but, unfortunately, no one in Manitoba yet understands his answer.
I have heard his 57 varieties of assurances to Winnipeg, but none of those assurances can be accepted if he will not give a simple answer to this question. Will the fleet of aircraft which replaces the current 727s have its maintenance done in Winnipeg?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I answered that question using the information which was provided to me by Air Canada. If the hon. gentleman does not want to take my word for it, surely he should take the word of Air Canada.
The press release went on to say:
Air Canada is very pleased with the work being done here and we fully
intend to keep using these facilities, whether to maintain the B-727
replacement fleet or one of the other aircraft types we already own.
The Hon. Member knows very well that under the provisions of the Air Canada Act, 1977, a mandate was given to the management to operate the airline in a manner consistent with commercial principles and in contemplation of profit. Surely he understands that that decision-making authority is within their hands.
I have indicated that, in the course of the public participation offering, the Winnipeg maintenance base and the Dorval and Toronto centres will be dealt with as part of the conditions of the privatization process. I thought I made myself very clear yesterday.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister remains pathetically opaque. That is what the people of Winnipeg think.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, you will notice that the press release to which the hon. gentleman referred gave an Air Canada guarantee, which it will not be able to fulfil under privatization, in favour of its present fleet of 727s or aircraft it already owns. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister just said.
He knows that the 727 is being phased out. He also knows, therefore, that that particular maintenance work will no longer be done in Winnipeg. He says that he cannot say whether the replacement aircraft will be maintained in Winnipeg, and the guarantee which Air Canada has given refers only to current aircraft, 727s or other aircraft currently owned.
Exactly what is the nature of the work guarantee the Minister is giving to the maintenance workers in Winnipeg? Will he please tell the people of Manitoba which aircraft will have its maintenance done at the facility in Winnipeg?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, 1 have already answered that question. I note that today Bernard Gillies, the airline's vice president for maintenance, said in an interview in Montreal that the airline is leaning toward a new airplane being serviced in Winnipeg.
Since a decision has not yet been made with regard to the type of aircraft that will be purchased, I am sure that, as has been said time and again, the Winnipeg maintenance base will remain as an integral and vital part of the airline operation.
I should point out that in addition to maintaining its own aircraft, the Air Canada Winnipeg maintenance base also performs a lot of maintenance work on other aircraft. It is a profit-making venture. Why would Air Canada want to downgrade a profit-making venture which provides good service and has become a source of pride to the airline and to the workers? Why would it want to degrade it? I know that the Hon. Member may want to, but we on this side certainly do not want to, and neither does Air Canada.


MINISTER'S POSITION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I read the statement of Bernard Gillies, Air Canada's vice-president for maintenance in Winnipeg, as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press. Mr. Gillies went on to say: "The recommendations I've got so far from my people lean toward Winnipeg", but he is still hedging on a commitment because Montreal has more advance technology and a larger facility. That is some guarantee from Air Canada.
April 26, 1988

Two weeks ago when the Deputy Prime Minister got up in this House, he did not give a legislative guarantee to the maintenance base. Yesterday, prodded by his errant travelling Minister of National Health and Welfare, his colleague, he said there will be a legislative guarantee. How can he give that guarantee if he does not know, or will not say, what the aircraft to replace the 727 fleet is going to be? How can he give that guarantee with any assurance? How can he give the guarantee if he privatizes the aircraft line and knows that the 45 per cent shares, privately owned, are going to govern his own shares held in his hands? How can he do that?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the right hon. gentleman referred to me as being opaque. I can only say in return that he is pretty dense because, if he had anything between his two ears, he would read and understand what I said as reported at page 14363 of Hansard, and I repeat again for about the fifteenth time:
While full details of this initiative will be contained in the legislation-
And then I went on to list them, and included in that was the major operational and overhaul centres.
I am sorry the right hon. gentleman cannot understand simple English.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior.


An Hon. Member:: You said the same thing about Moncton.


Ms. Copps:: That's what you said about the CN shops, Maz.


An Hon. Member:: We can't trust you, Don.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I will put my trust up against yours and his any day.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I will put my reputation up against yours any day-and yours, too.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: Order!


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Are you going to ask the same question tomorrow?


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior has the floor.


FINANCE
Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. I want to return again to the issue of the flow through tax incentive which, as he knows, is so valuable in the exploration and
Oral Questions
development of non-renewable resources. It is acknowledged that this is one of the most useful tools for regional economic development devised by Government. It is helping northern Quebec, northern Ontario, and northern Manitoba. It is acknowledged that it has given us 30 new mines in the last two years.
The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada strongly supports it, as does the Mining Association of Canada. Why does the Minister of Finance continue to be so stubborn and insist that this useful tax measure be scaled down? It creates jobs and helps our resource regions. Why does the Minister not want to keep it?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I am not a stubborn man.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I think my colleagues and my Party understand that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: With Mike, it is "ask and ye shall receive''.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I am usually quite reasonable on matters that are raised by colleagues in this House. I am always willing to listen to points of view that are being expressed.
The Hon. Member made reference to the fact that these flow through shares are important in Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba. I also point out to him that I was in New Brunswick this past weekend and there are people there who are very supportive of the flow through share mechanism. That is why we have maintained the flow through share mechanism.
I have indicated in this House that when a mechanism does produce rates of return of 90 per cent and thereabouts, it is time to have a look at it and see whether some reassessment should be made. That is what we are in the process of doing.


MINISTER'S STATEMENT ON DRILLING ACTIVITIES
B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the Minister mentioned New Brunswick since it is reported by Canadian Press that the Minister said in New Brunswick on Saturday that, because of flow-throughs, "there was a lot of exploratory drilling that was not geologically warranted". That is a serious allegation to be made by a Minister of the Crown.
What proof does the Minister have for making that charge? Will he table in the House a list of all those projects that he regards as being unwarranted?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

April 26, 1988
Oral Questions


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the same newspaper report to which the Hon. Member has referred. That particular point has been made on a number of occasions. When there is a tax incentive that is quite rich it does tend to generate excessive amounts of funding. Any of the people whom we have talked to who are involved in flowthrough share financing have said that the levels of financing of $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion that were reached last year were too much, that it could not be handled properly, and that it was force-feeding the drilling exploration sector.
I will close with this remark. I said:
We now want a balance. We want to see a continuation of drilling activity, but not the situation of 1987 that saw drilling programs that did not deserve to be undertaken.
I stand by that statement.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Prime Minister I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. On Friday in the House the Minister asserted the Government's commitment to obtaining an accord with the United States on acid rain that would commit both Governments to specific levels of reductions in emissions. Regrettably, earlier in the week the Minister of the Environment publicly said, and I use his words, that the Government had no expectation of any progress at the summit.
Then, on the weekend, in interviews with a number of American journalists, the Prime Minister seemed to pin all his hopes on the potential successors to President Reagan. Once again he was implying that nothing could be expected from the summit.
My question to the Minister is simply this. If the Government is serious about obtaining some commitment in the meetings in Washington that are coming up, why in heaven's name is the Minister saying he does not expect anything? Why is the Prime Minister sending a message to the President in advance that he does not expect anything? Is that any way to negotiate?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, that may occur because we are under an obligation, which we respect, to answer questions in the House of Commons and elsewhere. We try to do that as frankly and forthrightly as we can.
We very much hope that we can make progress on acid rain at the summit and in other meetings. However, we do not expect that we are going to have the kind of progress that we seek. Consequently, we are continuing to seek progress across the range of the American system on the acid rain question
which is so crucial to us. I think that position, which is consistent and effective, has been understood by the Americans, and is understood by most Canadians.


CANADIAN POSITION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, it certainly does not say much for the special relationship that is supposed to have existed between the President and our Prime Minister for four years.
Since the Minister is evidently sincere about his commitment to obtaining such an accord, and since he is being frank with the House about his low expectations from the President, in non-inflammatory language why does the Government of Canada not say that as a bottom line what we will take as a minimum at this summit-after considering all the information on the seriousness of acid rain available to both countries-is that President Reagan should commit himself to specific levels of reductions in emissions? Why do we not say that in advance?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, that position has been made clear by the Government of Canada in a draft treaty or agreement that we prepared. It was prepared by Canada as a consequence of the undertaking that was given here on the floor of the House of Commons by President Reagan.
As was the case when I answered a very similar question on Friday in the House, I do not have the precise text of his speech here, but my recollection is quite clear that he then said that he was prepared to consider the Prime Minister's proposal for an accord. We followed that up and made some recommendations that included reference to specific targets.
That is the Canadian position, as, by the way, and the Hon. Member will recall this, it was the position of a preceding Canadian Government with respect to the Great Lakes Water Agreement on which the Americans wanted, at that time, to avoid establishing specific targets, and the Government of the day in 1972, to its credit, insisted on that type of standard and target. We are following the same type of approach with respect to acid rain.


TALKS BETWEEN PRIME MINISTER AND UNITED STATES PRESIDENT
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, if I understood the Minister correctly, he suggested that the U.S. Government refused to accept suggestions made by the Canadian Government not long ago. If the U.S. Government took this position, would the Minister confirm that our Prime Minister and the President intend to discuss this matter?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, it is quite clear the Prime Minister will raise the acid rain issue again in conversations with the
April 26, 1988

President of the United States. It is also quite clear that the Prime Minister will emphasize the importance of formulating certain specific standards in an agreement. The President himself, speaking here in the House, proposed to act on the Prime Minister's suggestion for an agreement. We have followed up on this suggestion with proposals in the form of a draft treaty, an agreement between two countries. This was not accepted by the U.S. administration, but in future we may be able to have something similar that is acceptable.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, today there are thousands of veterans and senior citizens from British Columbia to Newfoundland who are getting quite a shock when they open their mail and discover that their veterans allowance is being reduced anywhere from S400 to $600 a month.
1 want to ask whatever Minister is answering on behalf of the Minister of National Health and Welfare, was the Government aware, when the Minister of National Health and Welfare announced the new scheme for Canada Pension some two years ago whereby people could draw Canada Pension from 60 years of age and over, that if a person was a veteran, the spouse of a veteran, or a member of such a household, the veterans allowance would be reduced 16 months later by that same amount on April 26, 1988? If the Government knew about it at that time, why did it not inform the veterans?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of State (Youth) and Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: Mr. Speaker, in representing the Minister of National Health and Welfare today, I can inform the Hon. Member that the manner in which the Canadian Pension Plan scheme works is that it does provide that they assess the benefits and other benefits that come in.
The reason why it is done at this point in time is because the Department of Veterans Affairs forgives whatever overpayment is made in one fiscal year, and only applies whatever measures have to be applied as of April of the next year. That is why it is at this point in time precisely that the adjustments are being made.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, there are thousands and thousands of veterans from coast to coast who have been receiving this $600 now for one year and four months, along with their veterans allowance. Today it is
Oral Questions
being cut off. Perhaps the Government thought that there would be an election in the meantime.
Is the Minister aware that in Newfoundland alone there are some 1,000 cases of those veterans today, and tomorrow there will be thousands and thousands of other veterans and seniors across Canada as they open their mail who actually thought that that was going to be a part of their income for the rest of their lives, and so did the banks that loaned them money for cars and mortgages for homes.
Since they cannot now pay those bills, and it was government mismanagement that caused the problem, what is the Government going to do about it?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, 1 think that Members on all sides of the House can only regret that the Hon. Member would think that any partisan consideration would ever come into play when this Government has dealt with veterans.
If there is one thing that has been amply clear for this Government in terms of priorities, it has been the way that we have treated veterans from day one of our election.
That is why we have made some adjustments to permit veterans to benefit from certain pension plans. If there are any adjustments that have to be made, the Government, consistent with the attitude that we have had from the very beginning towards those very special citizens, the veterans of Canada, will make whatever adjustments we can to make things easier for them.


REQUEST FOR ADJUSTMENT MEASURE
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Hon. Minister who, in a sense, has now explained the errors that the Government has committed and the fact that serious adjustments need to be made for those men and women who were prepared to give their lives for this country.
Now that the problem has been identified and an adjustment is necessary, what steps does the Government plan to take to ease the pain, knowing that the pensions that veterans receive enable them to live at a very modest and meagre level in any part of the country? What new adjustment does the Minister plan to announce, and when does he plan to announce it?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I can only repeat to the Hon. Member for Kamloops- Shuswap that, from the very beginning, the Government has only had the very highest regard for the very special citizens of Canada who are veterans.


Mr. Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Lip-service.

April 26, 1988
Oral Questions


Jean J. Charest: The Hon. Member for Saint-Jacques would like to have us believe that it is only lip-service, but I think that any reasonable Member of this House would agree that the Minister of Veterans Affairs in this Government has done a great deal for veterans.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean J. Charest: Whatever adjustments have been put forward have always been put forward in the light of trying to help and do more for the veterans of Canada. The Government will pursue that course.


POLICY ON VETERANS DESIGNATED AWOL
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has indicated that the Government has the highest regard for veterans and it is proud of the manner in which it has treated veterans.
Thousands of young men, boys, really, when they returned from the last war, and who left the services before receiving their demobilization papers, were considered to be AWOL and consequently not eligible for benefits as veterans. These men and women served in the Pacific and in Europe, yet these veterans and their spouses have been denied benefits for years and years.
If the Minister, as he said, is concerned about veterans and concerned about providing equity and fairness not only to veterans but to their spouses and families, is the Minister prepared to look into the cases of these thousands of men and women who, at the end of the war, decided to go to jobs and to find employment, and consequently missed that final paper work? Would he commit the Government now to reviewing the Government's policy regarding those individuals to ensure that they receive just and fair treatment, because it has denied them on every occasion up to this point?


Hon. Paul Dick (Associate Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap will know that he has written me two letters on the case of one person out of the 14,000 people who were dealt with by Order in Council in 1946. The matter was reviewed once in 1972, and it was decided not to change the Order in Council of 1946.
If the Hon. Member wishes to bring the matter up for discussion before the Standing Committee on National Defence, I think it would be most appropriate. But, in the meantime, the decision at this stage has been that we will stay with the Order in Council that has been in force for the last 42 years.


THE CONSTITUTION
Hon. Donald J. Johnston (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald James Johnston: I hope the answer will merit as much applause, Mr. Speaker.
My question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. The Senate has now adopted a resolution authorizing the issuance of a proclamation to amend the Constitution as prescribed by Section 47 of the Constitution Act of 1982, as the Deputy Prime Minister knows. There is no requirement in that Section that the resolution be the same as the one adopted by this House.
I ask the Deputy Prime Minister, why has the Government today, as a matter of fact, given notice that it will introduce the same resolution as that passed in the House last October, instead of trying to work out a consensus resolution with the Senate?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Saint-Henri-Westmount will understand that, in the House of Commons, the resolution respecting the Meech Lake Accord met with overwhelming support. There was a unanimity on the floor of the House of Commons in respect of the Meech Lake Accord that was probably unparalleled in the history of constitutional amendments.
I do not wish to speculate in terms of what the Liberal Members of the Senate of Canada are up to. My only point is that we in this House ought to have the opportunity, at the earliest possible date, once again to stand in support of this historic Accord, so that we in Canada can again be united, with Quebec as part of our Confederation, and go on to a better Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST FOR SUPREME COURT REFERRAL
Donald James Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I was not asking for a political speech; I was asking for an opinion on the legality of the procedure.
If the Minister of Justice were to take the time to study the provisions involved in this particular procedure, he would recognize that some day the procedure will be challenged before the courts, and until that time we will not know whether the resolution has been validly adopted. The Minister of Justice could forestall that possibility by immediately referring the issue of the procedure to the Supreme Court of Canada on a reference case.
April 26, 1988


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, while I appreciate the suggestion made by the Hon. Member, 1 point out to him that we, as Parliamentarians, listened to the very best legal advice that we could receive with respect to the constitutionality of what we were proposing, and there was unanimous support for it.
After studying this matter in some detail, the committee was of the considered opinion that this proposal was fully within our abilities, and that in fact it was forward looking and consistent with the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
All the concerns raised were considered on the floor of the House, and there was unanimous support for the resolution. It is now time for us to move forward on this matter so that we can get on to annual constitutional conferences, where we can deal with the issues which have to be addressed. For the first time we will have the opportunity, on an annual basis, to discuss the evolution of our Constitution, with the outcome being a better Canada.


AEROSPACE
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Science and Technology. After a great deal of hesitation, the Government has finally decided to take part in the American space station. We in the Liberal Party, who were first to announce our support for locating the agency in Montreal, now believe that the Minister can no longer postpone announcing his decision.
Now that everybody knows the Liberals were first to announce their support for the space agency, could the Minister inform the House why he cannot announce right now that the space agency will be located in Montreal? Who in the Government is preventing this announcement from being made?


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of State (Science and Technology)):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps part of the reason is that we are getting so many conflicting reports from the Liberal Party as to where the agency should be located.


John Edward Broadbent: Is that where you get your advice?


Frank Oberle: The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier, for instance, has declared Ottawa as the proper place. The Leader
Oral Questions
of the New Democratic Party, yesterday, declared Montreal as the proper place for the agency.


An Hon. Member:: At least he didn't say it should be in Oshawa.


Frank Oberle: I am still looking at Prince George as a possible site.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Frank Oberle: 1 can assure the Hon. Member for Montreal- Sainte-Marie that the location will be announced in due course.


INSISTENCE ON ANNOUNCEMENT
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, Quebecers are fed up with the Minister's shelly-shallying. What we want to know is this: Is the Government going to stop lying to the people? Will the space agency be located in Montreal, yes or no?


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the Province of Quebec, the Montreal region in particular, is a very significant centre in terms of the Canadian aerospace industry.


An Hon. Member:: So is Ottawa!


Frank Oberle: The decision as to the location of the national space agency will be made with the national interest in mind, and it will be made in due course.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for Canada Post. The Minister will know that Canada Post officials have prevented postal union locals from mailing leaflets attacking the sharp decline in postal service, and have gone so far as illegally removing the leaflets in question from post office boxes in the city of Vancouver. In view of this violation-


An Hon. Member:: That is because they do not tell the truth.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member opposite says that the reason for this action on the part of Canada Post is that the leaflets do not tell the truth. Is Canada Post now starting to censor the mail?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: Shirley "Carrtel".

April 26, 1988
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member for Burnaby has the floor, and I would ask Hon. Members to show him the courtesy of allowing him to put his question.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, in view of this clear breach of the agreement with the postal unions, and in view of the fact that I learned just this morning, from speaking with the postmaster in St. Anthony, Newfoundland, that a first-class parcel of these leaflets delivered to his post office was not delivered, on the order of the Canada Post Corporation in Ottawa, what action is this Minister going to take to put a stop to this blatant abuse of power by Canada Post Corporation, in its attempt to censor the mail-and that is what it is, notwithstanding the view of some of the Canada Post management and some Tory back-benchers to the contrary?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, on April 14 last, Canada Post and the postal unions were before the courts, and an agreement was entered into pursuant to which CUPW, LCUC and the CLC undertook, from that day onward, not to attribute to Canada Post, the employees of Canada Post, or the unionized employees of Canada Post, any advertisement in respect of postal service.
In other words, from that day forward, the unions agreed that, in sending out advertisements, putting up billboards, or running advertisements on the radio, they would identify those advertisements as being sponsored by the CLC, CUPW, or the LCUC. To do otherwise would be misleading.


An Hon. Member:: Is that a court order?


Harvie Andre: The union is now saying that Canada Post must contribute to the distribution of this misleading leaflet, something which the unions agreed, in writing, they would not involve themselves in after April 14.
On April 28 next, Canada Post and the unions will again be before the courts, and the matter will be finally decided.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Burnaby, on a supplementary.


ACTIONS OF CORPORATION
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is selective in his reading. The agreement goes on to state: "Notwithstanding paragraph 2, it is understood by the parties that there are in existence at the present time certain leaflets. The respondents undertake that no further leaflets will be printed."
How can this Minister, responsible for Canada Post, defend the actions of Canada Post in going into private mailboxes, in interfering with first-class mail? When will this Minister show some leadership by putting an end to this attempt by Canada Post Corporation to muzzle the workers within that Corporation?
Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): There is no attempt to muzzle the workers. In fact
the workers object to the union leadership, the CLC, putting out brochures claiming that the content thereof is supported by the workers. In fact, it is not. It is the union leadership that is putting these leaflets out.
What would the Hon. Member say about Canada Post if it were to participate willingly and co-operatively in putting out brochures which are misleading and misrepresent the facts in terms of who sponsors them? Why doesn't the Hon. Member approach his union colleagues, the executives of this association, and ask them why they are afraid to identify themselves as the sponsors? Why are they afraid?


LABOUR RELATIONS
Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour and I wish to draw his attention and the Government's to the disastrous situation of labour relations in Eastern Canadian ports.
With all due respect to the Hon. Member for Beauce, the stevedores of the Great Lakes ports in Ontario, of Montreal and Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, of Saint John, New Brunswick, and of Halifax, Nova Scotia, are all without collective agreements, Mr. Speaker.
As for Montreal, after three months of effort, mediator Laurent Picard was able to bring forward only a few partial recommendations, for lack of resources, and the longshoremen claim today that these recommendations are inadequate as a basis for negotiating a collective agreement.
I would like to ask the Minister when he will personally get involved before this conflict degenerates into a general strike that will paralyse the economy of the country.


Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to point out to my colleague that it is quite normal for parties to negotiate a collective agreement that has expired. That is the situation that now exists in all the ports named by my hon. colleague.
Negotiations are indeed under way and I would hope that the people at the Port of Montreal will do as those at the Port of Quebec did and reach an agreement.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER MEET STEVEDORES ON PARLIAMENT
Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows very well that it is not so simple. Except for the stevedores in the Port of Quebec who are negotiating, negotiations have broken down in all the other ports throughout Eastern Canada, as the Minister knows very well.
April 26, 1988

Furthermore, the stevedores have asked several times over several months to meet the Minister personally in order to tell him the extent of the problem and he has always refused to meet them.
Mr. Speaker, today, while the stevedores are on Parliament Hill, I would like to ask the Minister to kindly get off his high horse and give them a few minutes of his precious time in order to avoid this conflict degenerating into a strike.


Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, to get off one's high horse, one first must be on one. That was the situation the Liberals were in when they formed the Government. But we, Mr. Speaker, are on the same level as the people of Canada.
As for the negotiations, it is indeed true that the union asked to meet. I will immediately correct my hon. colleague by reminding him and the union that 1 met them already in Montreal last year and as far as the present request is concerned, the president of the union told me, "We believe that we should meet you as soon as possible to give you a detailed report of the situation."
Mr. Speaker, I believe that the "detailed report of the situation" should be made by the president to the members of his union and not to the Minister of Labour.


QUERY WHAT MINISTER WILL DO TO IMPROVE LABOUR RELATIONS
Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa-Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Labour, who is ignoring the labour relations problems in the ports of eastern Canada and the St. Lawrence region.
Does the Minister realize that in Toronto, longshoremen have been sixteen months without an agreement with the Maritime Employers Association? In Montreal it has been 16 months, in Trois-Rivieres 28 months, in Halifax four months, in Saint John five months ...
Considering there is only one employer, the Maritime Employers' Association, how come not a single collective agreement has been signed in these five major ports? Isn't it because of the poor state of labour relations in these ports? And what does the Minister intend to do to improve labour relations in these centres?


Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, it is of course too bad that opposition Members always forget to mention the instance where a settlement was reached with the Employers' Association, and I am referring to the Port of Quebec City.
Mr. Speaker, in the case of the Port of Montreal, there were direct negotiations between the parties, followed by the appointment of a conciliation commissioner who worked with
Oral Questions
both parties for four months. All recommendations were rejected, not just a few but all.
Subsequently, a special mediator acceptable to the Union was appointed, in the person of Mr. Laurent Picard, and once again, the recommendations were rejected.


REQUEST THAT INDUSTRIAL INQUIRY COMMISSION BE APPOINTED
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister aware that in Montreal the longshoremen did not hold a single face-to-face meeting with the employer while the special mediator was working, because of the refusal of the Maritime Employers' Association to negotiate in good faith?
Will the Minister agree to set up a commission of industrial inquiry which will look into the poor state of labour relations in the ports of eastern Canada and make positive recommendations for improvements?


Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, as I have mentioned before, the same employer group has already settled one collective agreement in the Port of Quebec, a fact that is always ignored by the Opposition.
There was a special mediator appointed in the person of Dr. Laurent Picard, who is an expert on the subject matter. I believe that Dr. Picard did everything to bring the parties together. The union should go back to its members and have a vote on the proposals.


MEDICINE
Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In his absence, I will direct it to the Deputy Prime Minister.
Today, Canadians are disturbed at the news that in a confidential memo drafted by the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration, it is estimated that 1,300 babies were born with congenital defects because their mothers used an acne drug called Accutane.
I wish the Deputy Prime Minister would inform the House whether the Government plans to ban this drug from being prescribed in Canada?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, according to my information, the drug to which the Hon. Member from Outremont referred is being used in many countries. It seems it is the only drug of its kind that is effective in cases of severe acne.

April 26, 1988
Oral Questions
Since the drug was put on the market in Canada, a warning has been included on the wrapper, stating clearly that it should not be used by women who are pregnant or who intend to become pregnant.
Meanwhile, the Department of National Health and Welfare is keeping a close watch on the pattern of consumption of these drugs in this country.


REQUEST FOR INQUIRY
Lucie Pépin: Mr. Speaker, the problem is not whether pregnant women do or do not use this medication. The problem is that physicians prescribe this medication regardless.
We know for a fact that in many countries only dermatologists may prescribe this medication.
And until there is an investigation-will the Canadian Government undertake to conduct an investigation to find out whether claims that this medication has very serious side effects are true? And pending the results of this investigation, will the Government reserve the right to allow only dermatologists to prescribe this medication? I don't think it is up to pregnant women to make the decision. It is up to their physician.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat intrigued by the way the Hon. Member formulated her question when she referred to decisions that have to be made by individuals about taking medication or other substances-ultimately, a person-but this is somewhat beside the point.
The fact remains that a clear warning is included in the package, stating that women should be particularly careful because of the problem to which the Hon. Member referred.
The Department of National Health and Welfare is keeping a very close watch on this development. Furthermore, it is working on projects with other countries, including the United States.


AUDITOR GENERAL
Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the President of the Treasury Board.
Last Friday the Minister of State for the Treasury Board assured the House that if the Auditor General wanted to legalize his presently illegal international auditing activities, all the Public Accounts Committee would have to do was to ask. For a number of years the Auditor General, the Public
Accounts Committee and individual Members of this House asked the present Government and the former Government on numerous occasions to make changes to the Auditor General's Act, but each time the Government has taken no action. 1 wonder if the President of the Treasury Board will assure the House and give us the Government's undertaking that the same thing will not happen this time.


Hon. Pat Carney (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Hon. Member for York East for the care and attention he is giving to the activities of the Auditor General. As Hon. Members know, the Auditor General reports directly to Parliament and is independent. He himself has raised questions about who watches the watchdog. I think the scrutiny the Hon. Member for York East has given to his activities indicates that this particular Hon. Member can really get his teeth into the issue.
In terms of the point he has raised today, I have asked my officials for an update on this issue. It was last dealt with by the Public Accounts Committee in May of 1986, and, as the Hon. Member says, the committee did indicate that there should be more frequent reporting. I will respond when that update is completed.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for Canada Post.


Harvie Andre: This is overtime, you know.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Member could put his question directly.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Yesterday the Minister misled the House, not deliberately, I am sure, when he said that no one in Canada had suffered a reduction in postal service under the Conservative Government. This will come as a big surprise to those thousands of rural Canadians whose postal service has been taken away since September of 1984.
Is the Minister prepared to admit that he was wrong yesterday and that Canadians have suffered from postal service reduction? Will he change the wrong-headed policy direction he is giving to Canada Post Corporation?


Harvie Andre: No, Mr. Speaker, Canada Post is under an active program of improvement of service. Just today, a report by Clarkson Gordon, the independent auditor, showed that its on-time deliveries have improved. Over the course of the next five years it will be opening 6,000 new postal outlets.
April 26, 1988

There are changes occurring because there are changes occurring in demography, the way people live and the way people conduct their personal affairs. Every change is not a diminution in service, although some people are upset by change, particularly New Democrats who are locked in the last century.


Mr. Speaker:: There will be one single question from the Hon. Member for Abitibi and that will close Question Period.


FINANCE
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance and concerns flow through shares. Last Thursday, the Minister said in the House, in answer to a question by my colleague and neighbour from Temiscamingue, and I quote:
We had meetings to discuss the situation in the industry now, the situation after the stock market crash, after October 19, 1987, and I wish to say today that it will be possible in a few weeks to have a decision to rectify the situation.
Could the Minister provide further clarification? Are we talking about a matter of weeks or days, because prospectors and the people in Abitibi-Temiscamingue, Quebec and the rest of Canada would like to see a decision very shortly on flow through shares?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I understand the Hon. Member's interest in the subject of flow through shares. My officials had several meetings with representatives from the industry, and last week, 1 met four people who also have an interest in this matter. I think it is feasible to reach a decision on this issue in a matter of weeks and perhaps very shortly. As I said at the end of last week, I realize it is important to communities in Abitibi to be able to increase the funds available for mining exploration.


POINT OF ORDER
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, my point of order arises out of the spectacle we witnessed in the House yesterday and today regarding allegations with respect to the Air Canada maintenance base in Winnipeg. I have just been
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
handed a document dated April 26 which is headlined: "Grits admit guessing on Air Canada". It goes on to say:
Unproven allegations were included in Liberal campaign literature distributed yesterday, admits party president Morris Kaufman.
Kaufman conceded that he had no evidence to back up claims that an Air Canada maintenance contract has already been awarded to Montreal instead of Winnipeg.
That is a quote from The Winnipeg Sun as of today, Mr. Speaker.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, it is totally out of order for the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) to attempt to smuggle on to the record of the House of Commons something that he was not able to bring forward during Question Period. If he had confidence in what he was talking about, he would have raised it during Question Period, and I want to say-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Government Orders. Ms. Copps: 1 rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Government Orders.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. McMillan that Bill C-74, an Act respecting the protection of the environment and of human life and health, be read the third time and passed.
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, just before the one o'clock break, you were patiently listening to an elaboration of Bill C-74, and I was taking you through the question of equivalency. At that time, I was drawing to your attention a statement made by Brad Wylynko of the Toxic Watch project when he tackled the matter of equivalency last December in committee. On this important development, the introduction of the concept of equivalency in a piece of federal legislation, he said the following:
-the term "equivalency" Is very ambiguous and vague. It is very difficult to pin down just what that term means. It is obviously not identical, or it should say that. I ask myself whether it could be equal in effect or equal in purpose.
If that is the case, then I might give you a scenario. Let us say the Province of Alberta decides that under its Provincial Transport of Dangerous Goods Legislation, its regulations of PCB transportation within the province are equivalent-as equal in effect or equal in purpose-to the federal regulations. If it is argued as such, and Cabinet sees it as such, then the provincial legislation will be the one that is used.
To what extent is it necessarily equal? Is it necessarily equal in all the standards, the standards of construction of the vehicles that are transporting the PCBs, the emergency equipment? To what level does this equality extend? To what degree of specificity does it extend?

April 26, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
Mr. Wylynko raises very important, fundamental questions. The third problem he raises with the term "equivalency" is the question of who then does the monitoring, assessment and enforcement under these equivalent provisions. That is a very important question.
One would assume, he argues, that if it is provincial legislation being used instead of federal legislation, then it would be provincial monitoring, enforcement and prosecution that would be used if there were a contravention of that legislation or regulation. Through this equivalency provision, the federal Government may be giving up the whole whereas under the federal legislation, there might be $1 million fines available for a breach of the legislation or regulation. Under the provincial legislation, again using the example of Alberta, it would be $25,000. You may be going against the entire intent of the Act by allowing the provincial legislation to be the legislation used in that case.
This morning I brought to your attention Dr. Alistair Lucas' statement on equivalency. He must be again brought back into this debate because he made the following statement to us on January 26:
If some provincial legislation is accepted as equivalent under these provisions but other provincial legislation is not so that Bill C-74 applies in those provinces, you then have a patchwork of federal and provincial environmental protection legislation.
That is what it will boil down to. If you want to hear an eminently responsible statement on this complex question then I urge you to listen to that made by Friends of the Earth who, in their brief to the committee, and it is just one paragraph but it says it all very well, said this:
Granted the government may wish to arrange for a province to carry out federal requirements and will appropriately consult with the relevant provincial Governments. However, the ultimate authority should flow from and rest with the federal government. As it stands, the amendments force the Minister to take an "after you" approach to environmental protection and effectively strip the Government of authority.
They recommend that the original section which required mandatory consultation with the provinces and the amendments which provide for exemption of the provinces from application of federal legislation be deleted. Unfortunately, that advice went by unheeded.
It is interesting again to note, as I brought to your attention this morning, the observation by Conseil du patronat du Quebec:

. .. le Conseil du patronat du Quebec, when it told the Committee: Finally, the federal-provincial agreements required for the implementation of this bill are not clearly defined. What standards will prevail? Federal or povincial? Will we have a homogeneous system all across Canada, or will there be important regional variants? A lot of questions have yet to be answered, in our opinion, in that respect,

These questions are still to be clarified.
Enough on equivalency. I have now to take you to the question of the Bill of Rights and a concept that is a good idea per se, that was in a way touched upon on a number of occasions by the Minister, but which has been left now without teeth, without muscle, unfortunately. It was very well put to us
by Paul Muldoon of Energy Probe when in committee he made the following points:
What is needed is a straightforward, unequivocal declaration. We can say ... that all people of Canada have a statutory right to a healthy environment, a right that can be enforced in the courts. Consequently, it would establish the government as a trustee of all public lands, waters, and resources of the province, and impose obligations on it to conserve and maintain the resources. It really identifies and clarifies that each person in Canada has a right to a healthy environment.
There are some clauses within this proposed bill which deal with what I would call an environmental bill of rights. As a lawyer, I am afraid they do not help me very much.
He then elaborated on a couple of cases and continued:
There are also other clauses which, if you wish, I can deal with, but that is the main thrust. An environment bill of rights therefore is accountability. It is accountability for everyone, individuals, industry and government, and it allows those people who need protection or those who want to enforce the act the opportunity to do so.
Right this minute, before the Ontario Legislature, second reading is being debated on a bill called An Environmental Bill of Rights for Ontario, a copy of which I have included in the package of material. I urge this committee to recommend certain reforms that parallel that... that bill does propose to give each person in Ontario an environmental bill of rights, which will be essentially the right to a healthy environment and the right to enforce that right.
On the same occasion he went on to say:
The way to do it, though, is that clause 128 would simply say anyone, not just those who have suffered a loss or damage, can seek relief in a court of competent jurisdiction who suspects another person, industry or government is breaching a standard of a provision of the act, period.
The first thing would be to remove, and this is a very important passage in the Bill before us, the words "who has suffered loss or damage". The suggestion was made that it should instead read "any person may go to a court of competent jurisdiction to sue and recover". In other words, the provision "who has suffered loss or damage" is a barrier to action by the individual citizen to protect the environment. If you represent a non-government organization, an environmental group, you cannot go to court to enforce the Act. You have to find someone who suffered damage from a breach of that Act. That is what it boils down to with respect to who has the right to take action to protect the environment.
The problem, he went on to say, is virtually that it is impossible in environmental litigation to connect the damage to the source, the damage to the act. A classic case is the Toronto lead smelters. For years a number of industries have been polluting the city with lead to the detriment of children and environmental health at large. However, to prove lead emissions from a company caused those precise injuries to those children is virtually impossible because lead comes from all types of sources, including automobiles. The molecule of lead that damaged the lungs and metabolism of a child, did it come from a certain industry? It is a standard which is impossible to prove and which would render Clause 128 of this Bill totally inoperative.
Therefore, Mr. Muldoon concluded that under this clause he could not proceed because he has not suffered injury or damage. Only a pollution victim, probably for many of the toxic chemicals, can do so. The latency period is anywhere from five to 20 years in some types of contamination. Lead contamination in Toronto is a perfect example. Why does one
April 26, 1988

want to wait until harm occurs, he asks? His recommendation was to remove the standing barrier. Let anyone enforce the law. What is everyone hiding? If someone is breaking the law, certainly they should be put in a position where they have to comply with the law.
This is not a revolutionary program. It is a simple, logical program where one says that here is an environmental group which is environmentally sensitive and active. It sees industry, an individual or a Government contravening the law. Why can they not go to court and enforce the law? It can be done in common law, Mr. Muldoon concluded.
It is interesting to note that the Minister himself, when he appeared before the committee on November 25 last year said:
I am more concerned, frankly, about lack of accountability. 1 think it is terribly important that some of the enforcement clout of a bill involve the citizen, the individual who is affected, when a given chemical violates the environment and perhaps human health.
I applaud the Minister for having said that. The only problem is that it is not in the Bill. Having preached the substance and the theory, the will is not in the Bill. That is what led me to say earlier that this legislation has a history of retreats, contradictions, and flip-flops. That is one example of that.
It is also important to put on the record what the Canadian Environmental Law Association in Toronto said through Toby Vigod in January of this year.
CELA since its inception in 1970, has been advocating the need for such a bill of rights at both the federal and provincial levels of government. It would seem essential that any comprehensive revision of federal environmental law be updated in its provision of public rights to protect the environment. "Key provisions would include the right to a healthy environment and the right of a member of the public to seek a declaration or injunction for actual or threatened environmental harm,-
Again reference is made to Clause 128 which, Ms. Vigod concluded, can in no way be called an environmental bill of rights and should be amended to provide for broader rights for citizens to protect their environment.
In an editorial in The Intervenor, the newsletter of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, in November, 1986, Toby Vigod wrote:
The EPA does not contain, or even come close to being, an Environmental Bill of Rights, even though the Minister has claimed it to be. While there is a lengthy preamble stressing the importance of environmental protection, preambles are not legally enforceable, and would only be used as an aid for interpreting otherwise ambiguous sections of the Act.
A real Environmental Bill of Rights would contain some of the following elements:
-the right of the Canadian public to a healthful, aesthetically and culturally viable environment; recognition of a public trust in Canada's lands, water and resources; the right of any member of the public to bring a lawsuit for actual or threatened environmental harm or breach of a federal law.
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
without the necessity of having to show personal injury or property interests of that individual; the right of the public to become involved in the federal environmental decision-making process, such rights to include input into the standard setting process and the right to financial assistance, where necessary, to ensure effective public participation.
In 1979 in a debate in this Chamber the present Minister of the Environment eloquently supported the need for an environmental bill of rights. The Bill at that time would have incorporated many of the proposals advanced by the Canadian Environmental Association in this editorial which concludes:
Unfortunately, these sentiments have not been transferred to the proposed EPA.
Another important chapter in the discussion of this Bill at third reading has to do with federal polluters. I must pay tribute to the Member for York East (Mr. Redway) for the fine role he played in committee, alas, without achieving the intent which he had in mind. However, he certainly put very forcefully a position which we in the Opposition shared and would have very much liked to have seen adopted as an amendment in the Bill itself. The issue was put quite lucidly by Pollution Probe through Kai Millyard on January 20 of this year when he appeared before the committee. He said:
Probably the most important is in Part IV of the bill-federal lands, works, undertakings and all of that. This concern really only crystalized for us about a week ago when we learned that a number of federal government agencies- Transport Canada and the National Research Council-over the last few years had been releasing some of the hazardous wastes they generate in the process of doing what they do, to an unlicensed trucking company that discharged those wastes into a sewer grate here in Ottawa going out to the Ottawa River.
I would like to pay a special compliment to my colleague, the Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) who has, on a number of occasions by himself in this House, raised the question of pollution by federal government agencies.
Mr. Millyard went on to say:
The provincial government, which does have standards and regulations about these matters, charged those agencies with violations of the Ontario Environmental Protection Act.
In court the Department of Justice argued federal immunity to provincial laws. Unfortunately, the judge agreed with that argument and the charges were quashed, although I gather the province is now preparing an appeal. This kind of federal immunity might not be such a problem except for the fact that Environment Canada does not regulate the polluters for which the federal government is responsible.
If it did, if there were regulations that applied to all of those companies-we mean corporations that are federally incorporated, such as banks, airlines, railways, shipping concerns and so on, as well as any activities that take place in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Of course, provincial laws do not apply there and Environment Canada is the only possible environmental regulator ... However, the simple message is that Crown immunity really is a concept that is not popular with the public. Pollution Probe certainly sees absolutely no reason why the federal government should not have to meet environmental laws.

April 26, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
Neither does the public, Mr. Speaker, and neither do, I am sure, the vast majority of Members in this House.
Mr. Millyard concluded as follows:
Whether they are the provincial laws in which the federal agencies operate or whether it is a new licensing regime set up by the federal government is less important. In our view the federal government must control its own polluters if it expects to have any credibility at all.
These are pretty clear and convincing words and they were backed up by the Canadian Environmental Law Association by Toby Vigod. On the preceding day in committee she said:
We are concerned about the federal Government's failure to exercise its clear authority to regulate federal works and undertakings under exclusive federal jurisdiction.
It is clear as a bell. She then elaborated on the 1981 prosecution by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment of Eldorado Nuclear for a spill into Lake Ontario. She said:
In that case, charges brought under the Ontario Water Resources Act were thrown out of court on the basis that Eldorado, as a federal Crown corporation, was immune from the application of provincial law, as the legislation did not expressly, or by implication, bind the Crown. More recently the National Research Council and council employees were charged under the Ontario Environmental Protection Act with illegal transfers of waste to an unauthorized waste hauler without completion of any waste manifests as required by the regulations. Again, the Provincial Court held that the Ontario legislation did not bind the federal Crown and the charges were dismissed. The unfortunate result is that federal agencies can continue to hide behind Crown immunity and act in an environmentally unsound manner.
Here we had a golden opportunity, because we cannot amend the legislation every second year and we cannot go frequently into an important exercise such as Bill C-74. We had a terrific opportunity to rectify what is definitely a scandal in the operation on the part of some federal Departments and agencies. That opportunity was missed, and I will explain in a moment why.
The spokesperson for the Environmental Law Centre in Edmonton, Linda Duncan, spoke on December 10 with respect to federal works and undertakings, and this is the explanation as to why the golden opportunity was missed:
... the Bill requires the concurrence of the federal Minister responsible for administering that particular work or undertaking or land before the Minister of the Environment may bring forward regulations for the protection of the environment.
Will the Minister of Transport of the day agree with the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) to correct the situation, or with the Minister in charge of Science and Technology as it affects the NRC? We know what the obvious answer is.
Miss Duncan went on to say:
Again, it is our assertion that this provision runs contrary to the stated political intent that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act be viewed as the vehicle to centralize and consolidate protection of the environment. To require the assent of the Ministry proposed to be regulated is to diminish the effect of Part IV of the Bill.
I think she used very mild words when she said "diminish". She said a political decision must be made, and quite rightly
so, whether to empower the Minister of the Environment to act to protect the environment. She went on to say:
A wise Minister will consult with the affected Ministry regardless of legislative requirements. The affected Ministry is also accorded the opportunity of raising objections at the cabinet level.
Many of us in committee fought to have at least this approach taken, but we did not succeed. It is interesting to hear what John McCallum of Ecology North had to say on January 19. He said:
In the North we paid a lot of attention to Part IV of the Bill, which deals with federal lands and waters. We have long felt that the northern environment is particularly poorly regulated and that we need a more comprehensive system with less discretionary power and greater public input to decisions. Environment Canada also has an environmental role in the North through its responsibility to administer Section 33 of the Fisheries Act. However, the overlap between this section and the Northern Inland Waters Act has never been cleared up.
The GNWT also has some environmental legislation. Although its constitutional basis is cloudy. It does have a clear mandate for management of forestry and wildlife which the Department of Indian and Northern Development has transferred to it.
The federal Government, with DIAND in the lead role, has continued to allow the situation to exist for years with no effort to clarify constitutional responsibility, fill legislative gaps or urge the to do so. For those of us who are environmentally conscious this has not only been frustrating, we feel it is negligence. So it was with great hope that we saw what was originally Part III of CEPA as the portent of someone who was prepared to take responsibility for setting up and enforcing comprehensive, systematic, strict environmental legislation in the NWT.
But a more careful analysis showed that Environment Canada was still nervous about stepping on toes in other jurisdictions-just as, in the original section of CEPA,
DOE worded the Bill so they could only act in consultation with the Minister responsible and only to enact regulations in areas where no other legislation existed or to set guidelines for departments.
So it seems that the Department of the Environment is continuing in the tradition of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development of avoiding the issue. He concluded by saying: "Mr. McMillan's words seem hollow".
Let me move on now to national standards, which is a very important subject as well. It is interesting to note that on November 25, 1987, when we were graced by the Minister's presence in committee, he said:
We are setting in place a Canada-wide regime for the management of certain forms of pollution, in this context, chemicals; it is a cradle-to-grave approach to management of toxic chemicals. We want to set a national standard below which no province would plunge.
You should read, Mr. Speaker, in the record the acrobatic elaborations through which the Minister's own Parliamentary Secretary went last week in order to avoid using the words national standards and replacement with national control standards, which means quite a different thing. The Minister said: "This does not mean that an individual province like Ontario, which might well have regulations specific to circumstances that are above our national standards, would be prevented from enforcing them". He set the foundation, the framework, for what some of us thought was going to be a pretty good and solid elaboration of the discussion leading to the setting of national standards.
April 26, 1988

I welcome the arrival of the Parliamentary Secretary to join in this debate because it is very important to her, considering the discussion we had last week at the report stage of this Bill.
When discussing the subject, it would take hours and hours to relay everything that was said on the question of standards, but it is worthwhile for a moment to report what was said by Richard Martin, the spokesperson for the Canadian Labour Congress when he took a crack at the subject of standards. He said:
On a philosophical basis I suppose we basically agree with a strong central Government establishing uniform controls across the country, because partially what they say is correct. The competition of allowing one polluter, if I can so speak, to have a larger area or more leeway to pollute than another jurisdiction may work against a province's interest to attract investment and development in the province, if it wants to have a clean environment, compared with another province that is lax on its particular laws.
Through various bodies, we have recommended national standards in terms of occupational health and safety matters and limits in terms of exposure to chemicals.
We have also recommended the same thing in terms of the environment. On the other hand, it is quite important to us that national recommended standards should be in place before provinces are allowed to give up or abrogate their responsibilities in terms of the environment, clean air, or any other matter. Otherwise, we are going to have a whole open period during which pretty well anybody can do anything to the environment.
That is the fear that Mr. Martin brought out in committee. He concluded by saying:
I would recommend that we try to establish those recommended national standards for introduction into the provinces, keeping in mind that the provinces do have many rights and should exercise those rights in terms of cleaning up the environment.
This was a pretty reasonable approach I thought. In a way it was reinforced by Barbara McElgunn when she appeared before the committee on January 19 and stated:
We know that Canadians deserve health and environmental protection via national standards for air and water quality. However, it appears that the federal government does not have this authority-
She is quite right. The Parliamentary Secretary confirmed it in the debate last week. We will go into that since I have studied the terminology that she used. I will prove to you, Mr. Speaker, that this notion has been abandoned, as well as why and how.
If the Parliamentary Secretary disagrees with me then she does not understand what she is saying in the House, which is even more serious.


Mrs. Browes:: You are misinterpreting the witnesses.


Mr. Caccia:: The Minister is expected to formulate guidelines and objectives with respect to the environment under this Bill. It is then doubtful, said Mrs. McElgunn, that there will be a federal authority to establish maximum intolerable concentrations for contaminants in air and drinking water in Canada for Canadians. She said that it is doubtful. She went on to say that it is noteworthy that the Decima report in December, 1987, placed drinking water quality at the top of Canadian environmental concerns. She concluded by saying
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
that standards have the force of regulations whereas guidelines and objectives do not.
We have said enough about that subject, except that, when he appeared before the committee on the same day, Mr. Millyard of Pollution Probe made these two very important and clear points. I quote:
In the 1970s, both under the Clean Air Act and under the Fisheries Act, there were programs the government had, which were systematically going through the industrial sectors that were thought or known to be major sources of pollution, and, along with those industries, were writing regulations and standards to gradually limit and clean up the emissions of those industries. Those programs are gone, both in the Fisheries Act and in the Clean Air Act.
This is another item about which we had lengthy discussions in committee to no avail. Mr. Millyard concluded by saying that there were standards written for four categories of industries under the Clean Air Act. He said that those are being rolled over into this law, and the ability actually to launch programs like that and write such standards is still in Bill C-74, but he is very concerned that there is no program to do these things. That is separate from the statute itself.
As I said, the question of national standards is one that one cannot stress forcefully enough and long enough. However, we have to move on. I could take Hon. Members through the whole question of enforcement of this legislation. It is important that we understand what the Government is offering Canadians here in the words of the Government and those who study the operations of Government. It is important to quote two paragraphs from a study prepared by the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council which reports to the Minister himself. I am quoting from its study of January, 1987 which states:
Our review of the EPS delegation scheme suggests that federal delegation of environmental enforcement authority amounts to a virtual abdication of responsibility for enforcement and has promoted discrepancies in the nature of enforcement responses across Canada ... Council is of the opinion that some current trends, such as the delegation of administrative powers to provincial authorities and excessive fears of federal-provincial conflicts, are having negative effects on the implementation of Environment Canada's legislative mandate, and undermine the confidence of Canadians in the Department.
This was not written by some fly-by-night operator, or by a critic of the environment. This was written by the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council under the title: "Enforcement Practices of Environment in Canada". This is a very serious observation that is made which has an important bearing on what will be the effect of this Bill, which in the way it is worded now negates the very spirit and substance of the observation made by the very Council which advises the Minister. So much for consultation and so much for listening to advice.
On the question of enforcement it is also important to have on record an observation made by Ross Hume Hall to which my distinguished colleague from Red Deer referred in his speech this morning. In an essay published in the spring of last year he wrote:

April 26, 1988
Adjournment Debate
The single-chemical approach breaks down under the sheer weight of the
60,000 existing industrial chemicals. To illustrate the absurdity of trying to
regulate industrial chemicals in this manner, let us do a simple calculation.
The 19 member bureaucratic team of the Contaminants Control Branch took
10 years to assess-
Guess how many, Mr. Speaker? Five chemicals. It took 10 years to assess five chemicals, that is, 190 bureaucrat-years to write five regulations, 38 bureaucrat years per chemical. Imagine that Environment Canada puts all its 10,000 employee-years from janitor to Deputy Minister, if you like, all of them, to this task. Actually, now, because of the transfer of the Canadian Forestry Service to Agriculture Canada and because of the cuts in November, 1984, and losses to inflation and the like, to an amount of well over $60 million in its purchasing power, its establishment of strength is now less than 7,000 individuals, I believe. Suppose that Environment Canada puts all its employees to work-the assumption here is 10,000, which is 50 per cent greater than today-to write the regulations. At that rate the Department could write 260 per year. The Department would not keep up with 1,000 new chemicals that enter commerce every year.
If this calculation is correct, and it comes from a person who has a very high standing, so much so that he was appointed to head this special group to which the Hon. Member referred this morning in his speech, to answer this type of emerging problem here as defined by Ross Hume Hall, what does the Government do to make funds available for enforcement? Over the next five years it makes available $37 million to be divided among three Departments. If my arithmetic is correct, $7.4 million a year, divided by three, is approximately $2.5 million per Department to enforce this type of monstrosity. Therefore, one has to conclude that the enforcement aspect, which there is no doubt is a very massive and difficult one, is not being given the administrative, bureaucratic muscle needed to carry out such a massive task, particularly in consideration of the point made by Ross Hume Hall that at the present time there are some 1,000 new chemicals that enter commerce every year.
What is omitted in this Bill is an important aspect that I will touch upon briefly. It deals with our native people and it deals with an international river. I am referring to the question of international riparian rights. I realize that this is a complex issue, but nevertheless it has to be put on the record. I am referring to the brief prepared by the Citizens' Coalition for Clean Water. It was sent to all Members of Parliament in Canada and to the media. It bears the date of April 14, 1988, so it is very recent. In four lines it sets out the problem very well by first quoting Mark Twain. I am sure that the Hon. Member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers) with a penchant for poetry will enjoy this. Mark Twain said, "The Mississippi is a very muddy river, too thick to drink, and too thin to plough".
The Coalition for Clean Water went on to say, "Mr. Twain could clearly see the state of his river, but people in Wal-laceburg, Ontario and Walpole Island Indian Reserve cannot".
In a very eloquent, touching, and short manner, the Citizens' Coalition for Clean Water describes to each one of us the situation along that river caused by upstream pollution. It places high hopes in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and it urges us to take certain action. It states, "You can reinstate the original preamble of January, 1986", and this is why earlier in my remarks I made a reference to this Bill as being a history of retreat and flip-flops. The Coalition urges us collectively that, "You can reinstate the original preamble of January, 1986, whose language was closely akin to extending environmental rights to all Canadians". This is where the recognition was in the original draft. I cannot understand for the life of me why we gave it up, because it was good stuff. It deserved to remain untouched. This is a point made by Don Laprise, the Chairman, and John Wilkinson, the Secretary-Treasurer in this brief. They go on to state:
You can reword Section 100 so that ordinary Canadians can gain, unhindered, full access to the law, and stand in court on an equal, legal and financial footing with corporate polluters.
I now ask you, Mr. Speaker, who would disagree with that stuff? I do not see anyone who would disagree with that type of approach. It makes eminent sense. I am sure that even members of the Progressive Conservative Party while campaigning in the next election might take a stand like this in their own ridings. They will sense the pressure of the public to take that type of stance and translate it into legislation.
The Coalition concluded by stating:
The Parliament of Canada has a trust responsibility to provide all Canadians with a pollution free environment. We strongly urge you as a lawmaker to bring the Canadian Environmental Protection out of the sky and down to the level of the ordinary person where it can be environmentally useful, where it can preserve, protect and eventually be celebrated.
These are beautiful words, Mr. Speaker, of substance and poetry. For the life of me, I cannot understand why collectively we were not able to master sufficient will to do exactly that. That is enough said, Mr. Speaker, on the subject of riparian rights, because time is going by.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: 1 know that time is going by, but at this stage may I interrupt the Hon. Member.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 66, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine)-Finance- Reform of legislation-Consequences for Mouvement Desjardins; the Hon. Member for York East (Mr. Redway)- Environmental Affairs-Applicability of provincial law to federal agencies; the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald)-Employment-Innovation program-Request for approval of project/ Request that project proceed.
April 26, 1988



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. McMillan that Bill C-74, an Act respecting the protection of the environment and of human life and health, be read the third time and passed.
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: I welcome your interruption, Mr. Speaker, and I will now move on to the subject of the discussion that took place here last week when, by way of our procedure, we debated a number of motions at the so-called report stage. We began with a ruling from the Speaker who gave us an indication of how to proceed.
It so happened that the motion in my name that came up for debate early that day dealt with the desirability to introduce in Clause 2, which is the preamble, a paragraph to the effect that the intent of this measure is to endeavour to establish national standards of environmental quality. Why did we do that, Mr. Speaker? Because the Bill as it is presently worded is weak and it does not reflect and contain the political will with which the same Bill was announced by the Minister himself. It has lost steam, it has lost fire, and it has lost muscle. With that motion, by at least putting an intent in the preamble, I was endeavouring to bring back some of that.
The Government did announce that the Bill was a great measure to clean up the environment, which it does not, unfortunately; and that it would open up a new era for the protection of the environment from damage, for which it does not provide the necessary funds in the enforcement of it.
It was interesting to note that in the draft Bill entitled "Proposed Environmental Protection Act", which goes back to 1986, on page 1 there was a subparagraph which stated: "Provide leadership in the establishment of nationally consistent standards of environmental quality". Would you believe, Mr. Speaker, it was there. It is now gone. We proposed it and we lost. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, why that retreat? That particular measure in the draft Bill, which was the object of consultations, received widespread public support across the country through those public consultations. It became almost a challenge to attempt to bring it back by way of a motion at the report stage. What we have in its stead is the phrase "endeavour to establish nationally consistent levels of environmental quality".
We have moved from providing leadership in the establishment of nationally consistent "standards" of environmental quality to endeavouring to establish nationally consistent "levels" of environmental quality. One is quite a far cry from the other.
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
In the Bill as it is currently drafted, the emphasis is on consistency. The Government went through an extensive public consultation process in respect of this legislation, and I imagine it did so with the best of intentions. In doing so, however, it created the impression that there was a genuine attempt to consult with the public, and having done so it then retreated from the strong wording of the Bill as introduced to "nationally consistent levels of environmental quality".
There is a world of difference between "levels" and "standards". What a shame!
When a Government retreats from the political will of wanting to establish "national standards" into the mushy world of endeavouring to establish "nationally consistent levels", one has to ask oneself what has happened to the political will of that Government.
What has caused the Government to make a 180 degree turn, backtracking from the strong language of the Bill as first introduced? No longer do we have "national standards"; rather, we have consistency.
I look forward to hearing the response of the Parliamentary Secretary, or perhaps that of the Minister himself on this particular point. An explanation ought to be put on the record, and I invite the Minister or his Parliamentary Secretary to put something of substance on the record in this respect.
The Parliamentary Secretary, in her reply, said that what I was proposing was a seemingly minor amendment to the "administrative duties" section of the Bill. She went on to say that the consequence of this seemingly innocent word change would be to impair the very goal that I was seeking, and she thereafter engaged in a number of points, all of which, to me, are simply sophistry of a kind that is the reflection of a muddled mind. Having reread the record of that debate, that is all I can say. To give you but one example, the Parliamentary Secretary went on to make the point that the word "levels" allows for a "range of regulatory possibilities, guidelines for industries to follow, objectives to be aimed at, codes of practice to be adhered to, standards to be achieved, and outright bans to be implemented, if required".
Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary is dreaming in Technicolor, to say the least. The fact that the existence of standards is important is demonstrated and reinforced through our experience with acid rain, in respect of which standards were established, with the abatement programs then following. Given the Canadian geology and climatology, we set a standard in respect of the deposition of wet sulphides, the standard being that the deposition of wet sulphides should not exceed 50 kilograms per hectare per year. That was a scientifically arrived at standard, and from that standard we then developed our policies.

April 26, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
That standard proved to be good for Canada, and it is one that has served us well since its implementation. Given that experience, I felt that there was sufficient ground to ensure the entrenching of the word "standards" in the legislation.
I am tempted to read to you some of the evidence in respect of Clause 8, namely that of Pollution Probe and Friends of the Earth; but to do so would be to infringe upon the territory of the Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald), and so I shall refrain from doing so. It was very good evidence, and I trust that the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood will find the time to highlight some of it during the course of this debate.
During the report stage, there was some discussion in respect of the representation of industry, labour and nongovernmental groups. We wanted to entrench that concept in the law. We wanted to ensure that the sectorial reality of Canada will be entrenched in the legislation. Having involved labour in the deliberations on the draft Bill in committee, we felt it only natural that the description of the advisory committee be such that the various sectors will be specifically spelled out, namely, industry, labour and non-governmental groups, or public interest groups.
Unfortunately, we did not succeed in that endeavour. And why did we not succeed? Here again we heard an interesting reply from the Parliamentary Secretary, who said that there is already an advisory board, the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, which advises the Minister, and that that should do.
In my view, this piece of legislation requires an advisory board of its own. It is unfortunate that that particular proposal was not accepted. In my view, it is one that had some merit.
We then moved on to a motion that endeavoured to delete the mandatory consultation between the federal Minister of the Environment and a committee which would be essentially federal-provincial in nature, and we did so for the reasons already outlined. In our view, such mandatory consultation would only slow down the process-an undesirable result, given that, in most instances, protection of the environment requires swift action. We also attempted to delete the equivalency policy. Finally, we attempted to remove the requirement that another federal Minister, other than the Minister of the Environment, would have to give concurrence or the green light when the Environment Minister of the day wants to proceed and lay charges against a specific Department or an agency of the Crown.
We did not go very far with these suggestions. We had to accept the will of the Minister through the Parliamentary Secretary and of the Government as a whole. That is where the
blame rests, Mr. Speaker, in having back-peddled and retreated furiously under pressure from some quarters, which I am not in a position to name but which I can guess.
We then come to the question of the national standards again. I made reference to it when the Parliamentary Secretary was here a short while ago. Here we have an intervention on behalf of the Government, and I quote the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Browes) who said, as reported at page 14658 of Hansard for April 20:
-this Bill does provide for national standards-
She has news for us. The Bill provides for national standards. Then she quickly added:
-national environmental control standards, and I emphasize the adjective
"control".
That is where the nice twist comes in. She went on to say:
These control standards provided for in Sections 33 and 53 will apply-
The notion of control standards is one that must be examined for a moment in debate on third reading. We have to understand what the Parliamentary Secretary means. If environmental protection is equivalent to emission controls, emission controls must be equalized to so much per polluter. That, in turn, must probably mean that each new polluter is permitted to add to pollution. In that sense the total pollution in the end increases. In other words, the controls that have been envisaged and transmitted to us by the Parliamentary Secretary are controls that apply to the totality of the environment, no matter how many polluters there will be between now and 50 years from now.
It is, in other words, not as I said before, the establishment of standards that are permissible as a total load of pollution that indicates the tolerance of the particular environment to a specific load produced by a certain emission, by a certain industry. Having established the tolerance, you work your way back and say that there shall not be more pollution than that which the environment can tolerate. If today there are 10 polluters, so much will be the total tolerance that the environment can take from those 10 polluters. If tomorrow there will be 15 and 10 years from now 25 and so on, that tolerance remains the same. Therefore, the pollution allowed to each individual polluter will have to be decreased accordingly.
This is not what the Bill says. The Bill says that there will be a control that will be applied to each polluter and if the polluters increase in numbers, the amount of total pollution will also increase accordingly and the environment will go to hell in the process. That is what the words control standards in essence mean. That is why national standards per se in the Bill were not accepted by the Government. We are taking the wrong tack with this Bill in its very essence as to what it endeavours to do.
April 26, 1988

The Bill endeavours to establish controls on what the emitters will be allowed to pollute, but it does not establish what the environment can tolerate, and having done that, work its way back to establish how much each polluter, be it five industries today and 59 twenty-five years from now, can pollute. This is from where the serious flaw and damage will arise.
We had enough exchanges on that. It is not an easy part of the Bill to deal with, I must admit, even at third reading without time limitation. But I felt this had to be put on the record.
I will move on now to the question of the cost of investigation from a polluter. In committee, we had in the Bill, almost until the last moment a clause which said that in certain circumstances the Minister may collect the cost of investigation from a polluter. There may be circumstances when the Crown may want to recover the cost from investigating a situation caused by a polluter.
That situation could arise. The clause was right there in the Bill. One day toward the conclusion of the debate we had a motion by the Hon. Member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Nicholson) which said that that clause should be removed. It read that "where an offender has been convicted of an offence under this Act, in addition to any other punishment that may be imposed under this Act, the court may, having regard to the nature of the offence and the circumstances surrounding its commission, make an order having any or all of the following effects"-and this is the item in question-"(g) direct the offender to compensate the Minister in whole or in part for the cost of any remedial or preventive action taken by or caused to be taken on behalf of the Minister as a result of the Act or emission that constituted the offence".
That was in the Bill almost until the last minute. In his greater wisdom, the Member from Niagara Falls, supported by the majority of the government Members, managed to pull it out. What were the reasons given, Mr. Speaker? If I remember correctly, the reason was that it was unprecedented. It is that mind-set which cannot understand that progress has to set a precedent. You cannot be a member of the Progressive Conservative Party and impede progress at the same time. You cannot say that you have to delete a clause in a Bill because it is unprecedented. "It cannot be there because it has never been done before". That is a contradiction in turn to anyone who, bless his heart, joins the Progressive Conservative Party. It is inconsistent, yet here it happened.
I am trying to find the passage in committee when the Member for Niagara Falls made the point, because it is a jewel. He said, "I do not know who the opposition is that you are referring to, but I will explain why I put this in"-which is the motion-"This Bill provides for fines and imprisonment and it allows the court to charge someone who has been found guilty with the cost of remedial action." He went on to say: "I think that is fair and I am certainly not making excuses for polluters or anyone else, but I would take the same stand if this
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
was a Criminal Code offence. Mr. Caccia says it is unprecedented within the Criminal Code which it is". Here we were drinking from each other's bath water in a way.
The Hon. Member for Niagara Falls went on to say: "I suggest that leaving this in adds an element of uncertainty in the sentencing of an individual. No matter how despicable a polluter is, and we all agree that people who pollute are in a terrible category, one that should be punished, that person has the right to appeal to a higher court to see if the penalty is commensurate with that which is given in other Canadian jurisdictions. It is a principle of our law that when someone receives a penalty or a sentence, he has the right to appellate review to make sure there is not too great a disparity between similar cases".
These were words of a Member from the Niagara Peninsula where there has been such a head of steam built up over the years over environmental pollution. First of all, he entirely missed the point and, second, he did not understand what was the real intent of leaving in that very same clause his own Minister put into the Bill in the first place. That is beyond my understanding and it is very unfortunate that, at this stage, there is very little that can be done about it unless the Bill is sent back to committee for review.
I am moving quickly along. This Bill requires a much greater in-depth analysis than that which I have done. 1 want to draw the attention of Hon. Members to another aspect of the Bill that has been troublesome, and that is that we discovered with dismay in committee that when it comes to international air pollution, the Minister would apply, through this piece of legislation we are debating today, the concept of equivalency that he applied to toxic chemicals. That, of course, is not a desirable route to take.
The equivalency provisions, when applied to international air pollution, are in my view a step backward. To put on record the statements made about that by a number of organizations would take too long. The fact is that although we tried to correct the situation, we did not succeed. In this new Environmental Protection Act, we have now lost a measure which existed under the Clean Air Act, a measure which should exist, and that is the ability of enforcing and setting regulations that are of an international nature.
An analysis of the Bill as a whole leads to some general conclusions. One is that Bill C-74 can be put under the general heading of the mouse that roared. The Bill was heralded as a great measure. Expectations were raised. The draft Bill contained parts that were good and promising, and some of those parts were deleted after the consultations, without consulting again with interested parties except for the provinces. That is something that smacks of a procedural tactic which I do not like and of which I do not approve. I think it is a bad practice. It leaves with people the notion that somehow the Government has not dealt with them in a fair and honest manner.

April 26, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
If the Government consults, and then after consultation makes changes weakening or changing the direction of the document on which the Government has consulted, the least it would want to do in all honesty and good conscience is to let those people know by consulting them about the changes made to the document as it first existed. On those two counts, the raising of expectations and the consultation process, unfortunately I must say that the Government did not do well.
Second, the notion of the clean-up of the existing mess was raised on a number of occasions, particularly by the Minister, and in retrospect, this Bill will not be able to deliver. It is a step in the right direction of regulating chemicals in the market-place, but as such, the Bill will not clean up the existing pollution in the air, the water and the soil. Other measures, legislative or by way of programs, accords and joint action, will be required to do that.
In essence, we have here for third reading a piece of legislation which was written in part by the provinces and which gives to the provinces a say in the environment. This from a constitutional point of view, is tantamount to an abdication by the federal Government in an area in which it has full and clear jurisdiction. I would like to see this challenged and have the courts have a say on that at the appropriate time.
In reviewing this Bill, I see that there has also been a federal retreat on the environment. The Bill requires the Minister, under the equivalency provisions, to consult with this federal-provincial advisory committee prior to the making of regulations. This consultation is mandatory for regulations in areas where federal and provincial powers do overlap and areas that deal with the quantity or concentration of a toxic chemical that can be released, the places or areas where toxic chemicals may be released, the industrial activities that release toxic chemicals, the manner and conditions of releasing of toxic chemicals, the manner and conditions of storage, display, handling and transportation of toxic chemicals, and the disposal of toxic chemicals. Thus, in the key areas of the regulation of toxic chemicals, the federal Government has given up the right to make regulations under federal statute. It simply boils down to that, a surrender.
If a province wishes, it may opt out of the federal regulation proposed for a toxic chemical as defined by the Bill by way of an existing provincial regulation or by creating a new one that is deemed to be equivalent to the federal regulation. The new one need not be the same as, equal to or stronger than the federal regulation but equivalent to it, and that I must say does not mean it would be identical. Whatever that means, the bottom line of the equivalency provision is that the federal Government is abrogating its constitutional right and responsibility to regulate in the area of pollution and the environment. The equivalency provisions have seriously weakened the constitutional rights and responsibilities of the federal Government.
I would like to invite Hon. Members to examine a situation which might occur in the Province of Saskatchewan, let us say, which may find that the province bordering it to the East has
an equivalency provision in environmental protection regulations. Let us say that three years from now, there are no regulations in the Province of Saskatchewan. What guidelines or standards will the Government of Canada look at for use by the Province of Saskatchewan which may at that time have no regulations? Will it look to the East and borrow from Manitoba, or will it look to the West and borrow from Alberta? In fact, will it look to the North and borrow the standards of the Northwest Territories?
Most likely, when the federal Government sees it is forced to intervene and apply environmental protection regulations in a province where those regulations do not exist, it will apply the lowest standards available from a neighbouring province. It will have to do that politically because there will be an uproar by the provincial Government concerned, unless there is an unusually difficult and complex environmental situation where public opinion is aroused. That is what is going to happen and that is why the equivalency provisions are for the birds. This is an invasion of federal responsibility and a way of reducing the burden on the budget of the Department of the Environment and other Departments which may be involved in implementing this measure if the equivalency provisions had not been introduced last November.
Another serious flaw is that federal polluters can escape Bill C-74. You have heard me at length about that and I will not repeat myself, but the fact is that, having in a way created the appearance of wanting to prevent pollution by federal Departments and agencies, the Bill still contains a requirement for approval by a Minister other than the Minister of the Environment before you can stop the Bank of Canada, the National Research Council, CN's diesel engines, or any utility which may come under the jurisdiction of the federal Government, from polluting. This is a real cop-out. The individual is powerless. The individual or organization which could have been given the power to take action in the environment without being personally affected is not given that opportunity, despite the great declarations of the desirability of an environmental bill of rights by the Minister. The individual is powerless.
Then we have what I call the triumph of the coward, namely the deletion of the Subclause (g) that I referred to earlier. When the Bill was introduced last June it had a provision giving the Minister of the Environment the power to direct the polluter to pay for the cost of the investigation of a certain offence. It was a good provision because it can be very expensive to investigate crimes against the environment. None of the witnesses before the committee complained about that provision. Not even industry complained about it. However, when it came to clause-by-clause examination, the Hon. Member for Niagara Falls chose to move deletion of that clause because it was too "progressive and unprecedented". The Government then caved in, I suppose, and did not support reintroduction of that clause when we had the debate at report stage.
April 26, 1988

Finally, we have the fact that there are no national standards. In the draft Act released for public discussion in December, 1986, there was a reference to the responsibility of the federal Government to set national standards of environmental protection. It was there, it was good, it was hailed and supported. Then when Bill C-74 was given first reading in June of last year the standard had turned into "nationally consistent levels". What mush. What a cop-out. What a retreat.


Mr. Shields:: What a windbag.


Charles L. Caccia: You see the difference in those weaklings on the front benches who call themselves the Government of Canada. What a sham. What a disgrace. It is the responsibility of the Government of Canada to set national standards. It has the responsibility to guarantee to all Canadians this same degree of environmental protection from coast to coast.
Because of the equivalency provisions these very Tories here in this Chamber cannot guarantee national standards in the environment. The result of this policy will be a patchwork of environmental protection dependent on the degree of commitment of a province. When a province will not come through with its own set of regulations, the lowest common denominator will prevail and win the day. That is the philosophy of the Conservative Party of Canada, the lowest common denominator, the triumph of mediocrity.


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased finally to have a chance to rise to speak at third reading on the Bill before us today. The Bill is certainly not all that it is claimed to be by the Minister. I am sorry he has perhaps had some second thoughts about it himself and has been too embarrassed to debate it at second reading or so far on third reading. I hope he will be along to face the music for a little bit on this question.
It has been called cradle-to-grave protection against and regulation of toxic chemicals. In a sense that is true but it is cradle-to-grave regulation of a very limited nature. It still remains the case that the approach to environmental protection under this Act is thoroughly inadequate.
We are going to approve this Act because it has some aspects that we want and which the environmental community have been asking for for a long time. We cannot say no at this stage. However, I am going to argue that when we look to the future we are going to have to do better.
I am going to be a little bit critical of the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia), the Liberal environment critic, because he has gone to town on the Conservative Government on this question. However, there are many places where he could have acted himself when he was Minister of the Environment. Some of the flaws in the Act we have before us now are similar to what is in the current legislation passed by a Liberal Government. Many of the things he could have been doing
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
when he talks about the need for an environmental Bill of rights the Liberal Government could have done. The Liberals were in government for a long time.


Jack Wendele Shields: With the help of the NDP.


Lynn McDonald: The then Liberal Minister of the Environment, now the Liberal critic, could have instituted the very things of which he is criticizing the Conservatives. I will be critical of the Conservatives but I do not want anyone to think I am looking back to some golden past under a Liberal Government which was better than what we have with the Conservatives. That is simply not true either.
We have gone through report stage and extensive debate at third reading stage. Literally hundreds of amendments were proposed, but I am not going to go through them all. Simply by way of summary I will point out that some of the amendments brought forward to improve and strengthen the Act, the vast majority, were defeated by the Government. A number of amendments from myself and my NDP colleagues as well as the Liberal critic and other Conservative Members were accepted, but they tended to be relatively minor amendments. These did not change the thrust of the Bill. They did not really make it the tough Bill which Canadians are working for. They gave perhaps a little more to citizens' rights and a little more accountability in terms of what the Minister would do, but did not fundamentally change the thrust. I am sorry that I have to say that those defects still remain in the Bill.
This is essentially weak legislation. It is called the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, but Bill C-74 is much more modest in scope. It is really an update of the Environmental Contaminants Act, with some aspects of the Ocean Dumping Control Act and the Clean Air Act, and in some cases there has actually been a regression in protection, a weakening of the regulatory power. Not all of the changes have been in the direction of strengthening, although there has been some strengthening in the area of toxic chemicals.
Bill C-74 gives the Government the scope to identify toxic substances and the scope to regulate those toxic substances it had identified. It gives the Government the ability to screen new substances before they are used in the environment. Here we see the one fundamental improvement in the approach, the change in the onus of proof. Heretofore, industry could bring in anything it wanted and, in effect, after the fact people had to go to a great deal of trouble in order to prove that the substance was toxic and then some regulation would be brought in. In one scandalous case it took 10 years to get five toxic substances regulated, most of which were not being manufactured any more by that time in any event.

April 26, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
Industry will now have to convince regulators that the substance is safe to use. It will have to show the criteria used. Substances presently used can be put on to a priority list and tested. We have some means of redressing mistakes of the past. However, let us be very clear that this is a cumbersome and flawed process. It relies overwhelmingly on laboratory tests of various sorts. They deal with substances one at a time and do not take into effect the cumulative results of the different kinds of toxic contaminants. They do not consider what is happening in the environment.
These are lab tests in an unnatural environment, a controlled situation which does not exist in actual practice. They have completely separate regulations for pesticides and radioactive substances. The environment is being harmed by a variety of different sources which are regulated quite separately. It may be the cumulative effects of different components from various industrial, radioactive, and pesticide uses that will be really harmful. I do not think that we have adequate ways of investigating those kinds of effects yet.
Under the Environmental Protection Act Canadians will have the right to complain to the Government when substances are not identified or regulated to their satisfaction. In fact, we even had amendments in this case which reduced the number of people necessary to complain. We have facilitated the role of the public, which role we ought to be facilitating. Indeed, some of us would like to have this role extended because the public includes environmental groups, many of which are active in criticizing this Bill and in providing very helpful and constructive criticism and proposals for a different approach to this. There are concerned citizens with expertise who are a resource for the Government. We would want people to be extremely active in regulation and in alerting us to dangers. The more that can be done in this respect, the safer Canadians will be. The Government made some gestures in this direction and we are going in the right direction, but we could have gone further.
The Bill will ban the export of toxic substances, the use of which is banned in Canada. I was pleased that that amendment was accepted by the Government. If the substance is too toxic for us to be using, certainly we should not be exporting it to some other country which may have fewer resources to assess toxicity and which may be taken in by claims made and not in a strong position to carry out the tests which are, of course, enormously expensive, especially given the vast number of substances on the market.
The Bill will give the Government the right to regulate fuels on the basis of environmental quality. We were pleased to see that because emissions from motor vehicles are a prime source of pollution. They contribute to acid rain, among other things, and that is a significant improvement in the legislation. The Bill gives the Government regulatory authority over nutrients in water conditioners, another relatively minor matter but a step in the right direction.
The Bill will legislate federal authority over environmental matters with respect to federal lands and undertakings. I am sorry to say that further amendments to strengthen this aspect
of the Bill were rejected. Again, it is a question of moving in the right direction. It is an important and welcome move for the federal Government. One of the loopholes, curiously enough, was simply a lack of federal legislation on the environment, even in matters clearly under federal jurisdiction. This loophole is now being filled with the Environmental Protection Act.
Bill C-74 legislates governmental authority to make environmental regulations with respect to federal Departments and Crown agencies. This is, again, a very necessary step to take. One wonders why it has not been in place for a long time.
There is also a measure in this Bill to protect whistleblowers who report on breaches of government environmental regulations. I am very pleased to see this because we do have conscientious public servants who, from time to time, in a variety of Departments, find some practice which is weak and improper and may be flagrantly contrary to the laws and to regulations. We have had instances of public servants being fired for reporting on a practice which was quite wrong. The messenger of the bad news that the law was being broken was shot down instead of being welcomed and thanked for undertaking this public service and ensuring that the situation was remedied. There will now be protection for public servants who see breaches. I welcome this and hope that public servants will feel that they can be vigilant in carrying out their duties and not have to toe the line if someone is being slack in their Department.
The legislation gives the federal Government the authority to protect citizens of foreign countries from air pollution of Canadian origin. Most of our air pollution comes from the massive industry in the United States up to Canada. However, it can go the other way, and a small proportion does. It is quite right that Canadians provide adequate protection for the environment of our neighbours whom we may harm. I welcome these measures in the Bill.
The Bill establishes the possibility for boards of review to be created upon petition of individuals who are dissatisfied with regulations under the Act. This is another way in which people in voluntary organizations, academics, researchers, and other people involved in environmental work who see inadequacies in the regulations, can bring these inadequacies forward. There can be a form of petitioning and a board of review will be established in order to re-examine those regulations. We hope that the regulations would be strengthened accordingly if the case is made.
The Bill provides for very considerable fines, indeed up to SI million, for environmental crimes under the Act. In addition to fines, it provides for prison sentences of up to six months. The fines of up to $1 million are substantial, as they are intended to be. The prison sentences are quite modest, but they do exist. This is a clear sign to the Canadian public, to industry, to anyone who wishes to pollute, to anyone who can see that it will save them money to pollute by way of toxic chemicals, to people who are willing to sacrifice environmental health, the health of our people, and the health of our plant and animal life, that they will have to pay for it.
April 26, 1988

1 hope that these penalties will be an adequate dissuasion from pollution by way of toxic chemicals. This is a clear message that this kind of activity is extremely harmful. It can be more harmful than many crimes in the Criminal Code in terms of the impact. We do not know the full impact. We do not know the number of people who die from toxic contaminations of various sorts. We do not have this information. But we can be very sure that there are actual deaths and injuries, people are maimed, quality of life is disturbed, children are sickened. All of these kinds of things happen from industrial toxic chemicals that get into the environment and have a damaging effect either immediately or there are substances that are carcinogenic and which over time cause birth defects and impair people's enjoyment of life very substantially. These are crimes. They are profoundly wrong and harmful and need to be treated as such. Canadians have made the move. They want it to happen.
Bill C-74, however, does not do many things it ought to. It does not embrace many of the most destructive substances in use today. It excludes substances regulated by other Acts of Parliament despite the fact that the Minister has called this the most comprehensive piece of legislation. It is not a comprehensive piece of legislation. It excludes pesticides, no matter how toxic they are and, of course, it excludes nuclear contaminates no matter how toxic or dangerous they are. It is not comprehensive legislation. It is very narrowly focused.
It does not provide any standards of environmental quality. This is an issue which many of us made quite a bit of at committee stage and at report stage in the House. What we still have are guidelines. They are objectives. They are not as strong as standards that must be met. This is a serious deficiency in the Bill that remains.
The Government may, if it wishes, write guidelines or objectives or codes to suggest emission levels of substances in other aspect of environmental quality, but the Environmental Protection Act does not give Government the authority or the obligation to create the standards that would result in a cleaner environment. I would hope the Government would see the error of its ways and in the future would move to very clear standards.
The Bill does not incorporate a much demanded environmental bill of rights. We have instead merely a preamble at the front of the Bill which goes in that direction. We have a few provisions that allow for citizens to act at various stages, but it is not comprehensive. The Government has shied away from this. We are not entirely clear why. I want to make a few remarks about the jurisdictional question, which seems to be one reason the Government has failed to act. It wants to shove this matter off to the provinces and say that an environmental bill of rights could only be brought in by provincial Governments. That is extremely unfortunate. I am going to argue that we could be doing that at the federal level.
Canadians should have the right to healthy environment. There have been repeated demands to the Government to provide the clout, to give citizens the right to take polluters to
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
court, for example, citizens on behalf of future generations and on behalf of their children and their neighbours. That is not there. It is only if the person has a direct financial stake that he can take the polluter to court. In short, we still have a very narrow focus that pollution may cause some immediate harm that can be dealt with, but there is not the real understanding that pollution is harmful to everyone. We are all in this together. Pollution in one area will move to another. Underground rivers unite everyone. Toxic chemicals in one place will show up in another place by water or by air.
It is said that pesticides which are sprayed in a field in Alabama will turn up in the Great Lakes five days later. The winds carry toxic substances of various sorts. So it is extremely important that we have this more comprehensive approach, that we give citizens the right to act on behalf of the environment, to act on behalf of people who cannot speak, children, animals, the children of the future. We must see that environmental pollution is radically reduced and ultimately eliminated.
The Environmental Protection Act has not done anything on some of our major environmental issues. It is not addressing the issue of acid rain at all. It is not addressing the issue of the overuse of pesticides. It is not doing anything to replace polluting forms of energy with environmentally safe forms of energy. Of course, it does not address the issue of the nuclear industry at all. It does not address the issue of packaging and all the treatment of consumer products and the pollution which occurs there. This is a Bill that is really quite limited in scope, and when we look at the massive problems we have with the environment, we can see that this Bill is not taking us as far as it should.
The Bill does not put a time limit on how long Government can take to decide if a substance is toxic after being put on the priority list, to require Government to list a substance as toxic when its toxicity is established. This ought to be a requirement. We tried to get this built in, but the Government would not accept the amendments. Even when we have gone through the very cumbersome process of establishing the toxicity, the Government may be very slow to act. We do not have time limits to make it act more promptly.
There is no definition of equivalency in the Act or any criteria to describe carefully and precisely what would be required for the federal Government to relinquish the authority to regulate to the provinces. This is a matter about which many of us are extremely concerned. It means a weakening of federal authority, and we can have pollution ghettos as a result. The Government can relinquish the authority, or was planning to relinquish the authority to the provinces, under supposed equivalency provisions, but we do not know if the procedures, the processes or the standards brought in by the provinces will be truly equivalent because there is no firm definition, no criteria that says that established equivalency means precisely this and if it is not good enough then we will not accept it as equivalent. So we have the possibility of a serious weakening there.

April 26, 1988
Alternatives to Refrigerants
I think a very different approach to the environment is really needed. I want to point to some remarks made by a professor Ross Hume Hall in an article. Professor Hall has been extremely critical of this approach to the Act. I note the Liberal critic for the environment quoted Professor Hall as well. I want to point out that Professor Hall criticizes this Act, when he says that these are the same problems we have in the old Act, the Act of 1976. So here we have the irony of the Liberal critic quoting very favourably and seeming to agree with Professor Hall, yet the chief message of Professor Hall is that we are repeating the mistakes of the past. Whose mistakes? The mistakes made by the Liberal Government in its approach to environmental regulation.
What Professor Hall is saying is that things basically have not changed. We are not learning from our mistakes. The processes set up under the old Act were too cumbersome. They did not allow for adequate processing. We have the scandalous example of only five chemicals being banned in a period of ten years. This is a process under the old Act, under the Liberal Act. Now we have a new Act coming forward which even adds to the cumbersomeness of the process. It is not going to speed it up at all. It is still the same old Act.
Professor Hall says it is like having a bridge that is falling down and you hire the same architect and builder to rebuild the bridge. This is foolish. We would not do this if we were talking about bridges. But we are talking about the environment and somehow this Government has not got it through its head that the environment is at least as important as a bridge.
We have the Environment Contaminates Act of 1976. We have 60,000 industrial chemicals in Canada, 50,000 of which have never had any tests done as to their toxicity.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. The Hon. Member's time has expired. She will still have 10 minutes for questions and comments when we commence debate on this Bill again.

It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS   THE ENVIRONMENT ADVISABILITY OF INTENSIFYING RESEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVES TO REFRIGERANTS
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, March 8, consideration of the motion of Mr. Caccia:
That in the opinion of this House, the Government should consider the advisability of intensifying research for alternatives for refrigerants, such as
freon, which contain chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that erode the earth's ozone
layer.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When this motion was last before the House the Hon. Member for The Battlefords- Meadow Lake (Mr. Gormley) had the floor. Since he is not here, I will recognize the Hon. Member for Cowichan- Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) on debate.


Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak on this important motion put forward by the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia). I want to commend him for bringing this subject to the attention of the House. I urge all Hon. Members to familiarize themselves with the facts concerning chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs as they are known, and the depletion of the ozone layer. This is a matter of life and death for our planet.
I said before in this House that the crisis in the environment has created a crisis in our system of parliamentary democracy. Unless we can find some way of dealing with the crisis in the environment, then our system of parliamentary democracy is under threat by some sort of totalitarian government that might perhaps offer the promise of being able to deal with environmental crises. Today being the second anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, I think we should remind ourselves that totalitarian governments do not have any better track record in dealing with environmental questions than do parliamentary democracies.


Mr. Friesen:: Not as well.


James Douglas Manly: Not as well, perhaps. But the situation is that parliamentary democracies do not have a good track record. Unless we develop a better track record, we are under some threat because there will be the possibility, the appeal, that some other system might have that could manage the environment better. It is incumbent on Members on all sides of the House to deal with this situation, and with all environmental questions, in a much more serious and intelligent manner than we have done so far.
Like the crisis in the environment, the crisis in democracy is not something that can be seen immediately. However, it is insidious and the long-term effects are devastating. Simply put, the continuing degradation of the environment, the poisoning of our oceans, our lakes, our rivers, the destruction of the tropical forests and, indeed, forests in temperate regions of Canada, desertification, acid rain, the destruction of the ozone layer and the stratosphere constitute as much of a threat to human survival as nuclear war. Indeed, nuclear war itself threatens the form of environmental degradation that puts it into a different category from all previous kinds of war. It is the environmental threat of nuclear war that makes it qualitatively different from all other kinds of war because it threatens to destroy the basis on which human life is able to continue on this planet.
April 26, 1988

The crisis for democracy lies in the fact that we are so slow to recognize threats to our environment. When we do recognize these threats we seem even slower to act. While we wait to act, the silent destruction of our world continues.
If we are slow to move in this House, we are even more slow to move at the international level. Vested interests of large corporations and questions of national sovereignty seem to take precedence over our common future as members of a common family which wants to keep on living on this planet. On September 19, commenting on the Montreal Protocol, GWynne Dyer pointed out that it took 10 years to reach this Protocol which calls for a 50 per cent cut in CFCs by 1999, when scientists have said that what we need is a 85 per cent cut in CFC production and use immediately. Dyer pointed out that the total annual value of CFC production in industry is only about $1 billion, a comparatively small sum when we look at some of the vested interests in some other industries that are also polluting our world. If we have that much trouble regulating an industry that is worth $1 billion, how much more difficult is it to regulate international industries that mount up into the billions upon billions of dollars?
It is important that we understand the importance of the ozone layer to human life on this planet. The ozone layer and the stratosphere filter ultraviolet radiation B. The depletion of this ozone layer increases the risk of skin cancer in human beings. Scientists have estimated that a 1 per cent loss of ozone translates directly into a 4 per cent increase in the risk of skin cancer. Already, Canadians face a 15 per cent increase in skin cancer because of the loss of ozone that has already taken place.
We can also look at the effect of ozone on the protection that it gives to world food crops. Wheat, corn, rice and soybeans are all sensitive to ultraviolet radiation B. Again, a 1 per cent loss of ozone can translate into a 1 per cent loss in soy production. Phytoplankton, the base of the aquatic food chain, is also affected negatively by ultraviolet radiation. Therefore, it depends on the protection that is given it by the ozone layer.
Given the importance of the ozone layer to human life, and to all life on this planet, we need to recognize that anything that threatens the ozone layer has to be regarded as an enemy of human life. This is precisely what chlorofluorocarbons do.
CFCs are stable synthetics that were developed in the 1930s originally as refrigerants. They are now used as blowing agents in the production of rigid foams, as propellants in aerosols and as cleaners for microchips. When released, these fairly static elements are carried slowly up into the atmosphere and beyond into the stratosphere, taking as long as five years before they get up to the area where the ozone layer is. Then, they are broken down by the intense energy of the sun. A single chlorine atom released from the breakdown of these CFCs can break down 10,000 ozone molecules.
The stability of these compounds means that they last anywhere from 60 to 300 years before they break down. An
Alternatives to Refrigerants
average life would be around 100 years. In other words, there is a very long lead time before they come fully into effect. They constitute a ticking time bomb. Since there is an annual increase of about 6 per cent or 7 per cent of the amount of CFCs that are released into the stratosphere, and since they only break down at most at a rate of 1 per cent per year, there is a gradual cumulative build-up of these ticking time bombs that are eating away at the ozone layer.
It has been estimated that CFC production and use would have to be reduced by 85 per cent to bring our system back into balance. Even this 85 per cent reduction would not restore the ozone layer to its original condition.
The Montreal Protocol agreed to last fall was an important first step. If ratified, it would lead by a series of phased reductions to a 50 per cent reduction by June 30, 1999 in production and use of CFCs. It is a small step. We need to go further.
The motion that has been put forward by the Hon. Member for Davenport refers specifically to refrigerants, which, as he points out, is the largest of all CFC use in Canada. It calls for intensified research for alternatives.
I believe that this motion is politically realistic. Even though CFCs need to be identified as life threatening, it is not possible to ban them completely even in Canada let alone in other parts of the world. They are too damn convenient for us all. Thus there is a need to step up the search for alternatives.
I urge all Members to accept this motion. I urge the Government to pay attention to it.


Mr. Marc Ferland (Portneuf):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to this motion. The House now knows all the facts, and our conclusion must be that all groups in our society share a responsibility to protect the ozone layer. Government, industry and consumers share a common point: we are all individuals who live on this planet and who each have a definite interest in protecting a vital element of their environment.
The Government, Mr. Speaker, sets a very high priority on dealing with the problem of the destruction of the ozone layer and its impact on our climate. I may remind the House of the key role played by Canada in drafting two international agreements on protecting the ozone layer. In 1986, Canada became the first country to ratify the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. The Convention establishes a framework for international co-operation in research and information exchange. Today, 16 of the required number of ratifications, which is 20, have already been received by the United Nations Environment Program, and three more are expected shortly.

April 26, 1988
Alternatives to Refrigerants
Last September, Canada, together with 23 other countries and the European Economic Community, signed the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. Since then, six more countries have signed this agreement. I may remind the House that it was in recognition of Canada's efforts that the United Nations Environment Program accepted Canada's offer to host the diplomatic conference in Montreal.
Mr. Speaker, the Montreal Protocol is the first national agreement that is actually a tool for managing environmental problems, since it provides an international framework for responding to such problems before they reach the crisis stage. The parties must meet specific objectives for the consumption of control substances. Consumption, defined as production plus imports minus exports, is thus substituted for the term emissions. Every party to the Protocol will have to reduce its consumption of CFCs to that of 1986, and do so by 1990. It will have to do the same with respect to halon levels by 1992. This initial step will be followed by two more, and by 1999, consumption of CFCs must be half what it was in 1986. The Department of the Environment is developing a series of options for freezing and reducing consumption, in accordance with the requirements of the Protocol. A report describing these options will be released within the next few weeks to gauge public response.
Mr. Speaker, recent scientific discoveries show that the international community must speed up its efforts to reduce the emissions of substances that erode the ozone layer, even beyond what is required by the Montreal Protocol, if we are really to stop the destruction of ozone. For this purpose, Environment Canada is considering additional regulations that will take Canada beyond the reduction targets set in the Protocol. Such regulations can include a requirement to put in place codes of technical recommendations for some use sectors that need modern technology to reduce emissions through recycling. Similarly, a ban or other restriction on frivolous uses or on products containing regulated substances, a product labeling program or any other innovative idea that may come up during the regulatory development phase.
Internationally, the Government intends to continue promoting the early implementation of the Montreal Protocol. I remind the House that implementation requires ratification by 11 states representing two-thirds of total 1986 production of controlled substances. To date, only the United States and Mexico have ratified this agreement. The European Economic Community and Japan are expected to ratify it shortly. Canada, for its part, intends to ratify it as soon as the Canadian Environmental Protection Act receives Royal Assent.
Mr. Speaker, if all these nations ratify as soon as expected, the requirements for the Protocol to take effect will be met and the Montreal Protocol will come into force on January 1, 1989. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has made known his intention to put the subject of the ozone layer on the agenda at
the next economic summit in Toronto in June. I am confident that all Hon. Members will agree that this is appropriate.
Mr. Speaker, all the initiatives that I have just described to you are but a reflection of this Government's intention to find a solution to this world-wide ecological problem. Industry is somewhat more in agreement that the long-term solution lies in environmentally safe substitutes.
Excited with the idea of a multi-billion dollar market, industry has already committed itself to an aggressive research program to develop alternatives as quickly as possible. In many cases, companies have not hesitated to pool their resources to carry out toxicological studies or to accelerate production technology for the most promising substitutes.
I am very encouraged by the recent response from the world's largest CFC producer to the concerns raised by the scientific discoveries that I described a few minutes ago. Not only is the international giant Du Pont encouraging all nations to speed up the ratification of the Montreal Protocol, but it has also set itself the goal of completely discontinuing CFC production. I must applaud such a move since it is the first time that industry recognizes a direct link between the destruction of ozone and CFCs.
Mr. Speaker, obviously, a government publication on substitutes would not be appropriate at this time. We must leave funding for such research to those who will reap substantial rewards from marketing environmentally safe substitutes. Nevertheless, this position does not prevent the Government from following the issue of research very closely and acting if necessary.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would tell the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) that although the Government cannot support his motion, it nevertheless thanks him for bringing the matter to the attention of the House. I express the wish that all parties will show the same co-operation in future efforts to resolve the problem of the destruction of the ozone layer and thus ensure a healthy atmosphere for future generations.
Mr. Speaker, it is gratifying to see that already some companies like Provigo in Quebec have announced that they are trying to eliminate all chlorofluorocarbon-based products from their shelves as quickly as possible. That is encouraging. Some companies like Du Pont, corporations that are already distributing products, have followed the Government's lead and I think, Mr. Speaker, that it is very promising for the future of this country and especially of planet Earth.


Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the continuing debate on this motion. I am thankful that the debate is coming to a close. I think that all Hon. Members have the facts before them to be able to vote authoritatively on this subject.
April 26, 1988

Let me begin my brief intervention by quoting from one voice of concern, my 16-year-old son, Liam. When I told him last night that I would be participating in a debate on this most important subject, and asked him for his thoughts, Liam said: "If the ozone layer is ever destroyed, we'd all get fried". Then he added: "I can't believe people would ever ignore something which is so necessary for our very existence. But it's true, no one cares or even thinks about using aerosol cans. They don't care diddly-squat about the ozone layer".
There you have it, Mr. Speaker, that is what the present generation of young adults think about how we, the present rulers of industry, Government, and the country tend to regard this critical matter raised by my hon. friend.
Yet, using my son's words as a text, this debate pinpoints the responsibility that we all share as consumers, together with Government and industry, to protect the ozone layer for the future well-being of our planet, and for Liam's generation and beyond.
My son points out the responsibility that we all share as consumers. This Government is at present engaged in a number of activities to generate initiatives aimed at bringing about a solution to this problem as quickly as possible, both on the domestic front and the international front. In that connection, let me pay tribute to Canada's Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) and his very able Parliamentary Secretary, the Hon. Member for Scarborough Centre (Mrs. Browes). In my view, both the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary, along with Members on both sides of the House, are extremely concerned about this very critical threat to the future of this planet. We are working on all fronts to establish a solution to this global problem. We have heard about the activities and initiatives of Environment Canada in respect of the development and implementation of a domestic control program aimed at reducing the emission of ozone-depleting chemicals.
In October of 1986, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, the World Meteorological Organization, WMO, and the United Nations Environment Program, UNEP, formed an ozone trends panel that involved more than 100 scientists from around the world. This panel, which included scientists from the Atmospheric Environment Service of Environment Canada, was established to study the question of whether carefully re-evaluated ground-based data and satellite data would support the model predictions. The conclusions of that panel, reported in the spring of 1988, revealed that there is undisputed observational evidence of atmospheric concentrations of source gases important in controlling stratospheric ozone levels, including chlorofluorocarbons, halons, methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide, all of which continue to increase on a global scale as a result of the activities of humans. There has also been a large, sudden, unexpected decrease in the abundance of spring time Antarctic ozone over the last decade.
Alternatives to Refrigerants
The total column of ozone in the austral spring of 1987 at all latitudes south of 60 degrees south was the lowest since measurements began 30 years ago!
Many of these same scientists have reached the conclusion that global emissions of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, and halons, need to be reduced by in excess of 85 per cent in order to reduce the rate of depletion of the ozone layer.
Our scientists have warned us that increasing concentrations of CFCs and halons, both of which are very efficient infrared radiation absorbers, in the atmosphere will contribute significantly to increasing the earth's temperature over the coming years to a level which has not existed for millions of years! This is frightening stuff.
They tell us that we are already committed to a significant global warming, and they are calling the accelerated change in the climate of our planet "potentially catastrophic".
These effects are predicted to occur in a manner and at a rate that makes the future sound like some sort of long-running science fiction horror movie. We will face rising sea levels, with the consequent submergence of coastal communities such as Prince Edward Island; changes in the location of deserts; extremely high temperatures in cities during the summer months-as if they weren't high enough already; an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes; and the death of a significant quantity of the world's forests.
These recent scientific findings signal a warning to the world's political institutions: the continuing depletion of the ozone layer must be effectively arrested. We must hear about the response of this Government and industry to these findings.
This Government is committed to effective ozone layer protection, and it is prepared to back up that commitment with concrete action.
Let me turn for a moment to the role of the consumer in the resolution of this problem, because the power of the consumer is paramount. For some years I was the consumer affairs critic for our Party, and I know that if a consumer does not want to buy, the product will not survive in the market-place.
Regulations prohibiting the use of CFCs as propellants in certain aerosols, notably hairsprays, deodorants and antipers-pirants, were put in place in 1980 pursuant to the Environmental Contaminants Act, and that came about as a direct result of pressure from consumers.
Reduced Canadian consumption of CFCs dropped to about one-half of the 1974 peak level. But the success was temporary. Since that time, consumption levels have again reached the peak levels of 1974, all due to the substantial growth in unregulated uses. Once again, alarmed Canadian consumers are voicing their strong concerns about the continued production and use of ozone-depleting CFCs and halons. Many are calling for a variety of measures to control the problem, including a complete ban on the use of CFCs and halons, the mandatory labelling of products, and a boycott of some forms of plastic foam packaging made with CFCs.

April 26, 1988
Adjournment Debate
Last August, McDonald's announced its plans to phase out the use of plastic foam packaging made with CFCs. More recently, Provigo, a major chain food and convenience stores in the Province of Quebec, announced its intention to follow suit.
So, consumers' influence can be used to facilitate the switch to non-ozone-depleting consumer products. Driven by these express consumer preferences and the substantial market incentives emerging therefrom, industry has mounted a major research program to develop and market environmentally safe substitutes for all uses of CFCs. Environment Canada has developed, and will be implementing in the very near future, a control strategy to deal with the depletion of the ozone layer.
In conclusion, industry must begin now to plan for cutting back consumption of CFCs, regardless of whether they produce, use, import or export controlled chlorofluorocarbons. In order to provide an enhanced level of protection for the ozone layer, Canada will implement additional control measures. Toward that end, a report will be circulated for consultation and discussion later this summer.
As is apparent, this Government is clearly committed to the resolution of this problem. This Government is fully prepared to consider involvement in research, should areas be identified in the future where the Government can play a role.
Mr. Speaker, the facts bearing on this issue speak for themselves, and for generations to come.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is as follows: Mr. Caccia, seconded by Mr. Foster, moves that, in the opinion of this House, the Government should consider the advisability of intensifying research for alternatives to refrigerants, such as freon, which contain chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that erode the earth's ozone layer.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I hear no "nays". I declare the motion carried.


An Hon. Member:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On division.


Sheila Maureen Copps: You have to act on these votes, guys.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the motion carried, on division.


Mr. Hawkes:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If there are no objections in the House, I think we might proceed
to the normal Adjournment Debate at this time. I understand Members are present, for the most part, and others have been informed. We could save time by moving to the Adjournment Debate.


Mr. Rossi:: Mr. Speaker, if we check the "blues", we will see that the Speaker said "I declare the motion carried".


An Hon. Member:: On division.


Carlo Rossi: No, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It was carried on division.
Motion (Mr. Caccia) agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it agreed that we proceed to the Adjournment Debate?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 66 deemed to have been moved

Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, have you ever received a parking ticket? Don't feel badly, because virtually everyone in this country has had a parking ticket from time to time. I have had parking tickets myself and friends of mine have had parking tickets.
One of my friends whom I recall very vividly was an old law school classmate of mine, a fellow by the name of Jack Pinkofsky. Jack and I went to law school in Toronto. We attended Osgoode Hall Law School when Osgoode Hall was in downtown Toronto. Just to the north of it was a piece of property on which was located the old University Avenue Armouries. Jack used to park on the boulevard of that armoury property. You are right, Mr. Speaker, the University Avenue Armouries was torn down some years ago and the new Toronto court-house was built on that property. When the old University Avenue armouries was there, Jack Pinkofsky used to park his car every day on the boulevard of the University Avenue Armouries. As you can expect, Mr. Speaker, anyone who parks on such a boulevard gets a parking ticket, especially when parking all day and where there is a sign which quite clearly says that you cannot park there at any time. Jack got several parking tickets. The police got after him and he was taken to court on one ticket.
April 26, 1988

Jack was an ingenious sort of guy, and he still is. He decided to fight the ticket, and he fought it on some very interesting grounds. He argued that the ticket was based on a municipal by-law; that the municipal by-law was passed under the authority of a provincial law; and that, in fact, the armouries property stood on federal property, not an provincial property. Therefore, municipal by-laws authorized by provincial laws did not apply to federal property.
The courts found that Jack was right and that federal property was immune from any law passed by the Province of Ontario, or authorized and passed by a municipality. Jack did not have to pay his parking ticket. He got off not because he was not parking there illegally but because of a technicality.
The Jack Pinkofsky situation is the same sort of situation which the federal Government ran into recently when a federal polluter was charged under the Province of Ontario's environmental laws with breaking those laws, being in breach of them, and thus subject to all the harsh penalties for which the Ontario environmental laws provide.
What happened in that case? We find that in the federal Department of Justice there are some ingenious people like Jack Pinkofsky and that in fact they fought and defended that case, not on the grounds that this particular federal polluter had not broken provincial law, not on the grounds that this federal polluter was not a polluter, but on the technical grounds that in fact provincial laws did not apply to federal polluters. That is the sort of defence used not only by Jack Pinkofsky with parking tickets but now by the federal Justice Department with federal polluters.
I do not know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I do not think that a federal polluter should be able to get off on technical grounds like that. It is one thing for a parking ticket, but it is an entirely different thing for something severe like that.
Fortunately the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) agreed with us. In answer to a question I put to him in the House he said that he felt that the new Canadian Environmental Protection Act would apply to all federal polluters and that there would be no problem with that sort of situation. Unfortunately that is not really the case.
In fact the Minister realized that and said that he would be prepared to see the legislative committee dealing with this matter actually put forward some amendments to change the Bill and to ensure that any federal polluter who actually breached the law would be convicted and penalized as a result of that breach.
Of course the Parliamentary Secretary knows that the legislative committee dealing with the Environmental Protection Act went through a great process. Over 300 amendments were put and many were accepted. The Parliamentary Secretary who is here tonight played an outstanding role on
Adjournment Debate
that committee, as did the Minister, and I have nothing but praise for the process. Unfortunately it left something to be desired in the area of whether or not a federal polluter would be quite clearly subject to and penalized by this Act and by federal pollution laws.
Clauses 52 and 53 of the Bill leave something to be desired-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret, the Hon. Member's time-


Alan Redway: -and for that reason I hope that tonight, if you will give me a chance to put this sentence on the record, Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary will agree to amend the Bill so that we will ensure that federal polluters are subject to federal law and penalties.


Pauline Browes: Mr. Speaker, thank you for providing me an opportunity to respond to my colleague from the great riding of York East, my neighbour in Metro Toronto. I am pleased to respond to the Hon. Member's question on the matter of enforcement of environmental legislation concerning federal polluters. Indeed, just today, we have been debating Bill C-74, the Bill in question.
There has been concern expressed that Bill C-74 did not bind the Crown. That fear, in the Government's view, is groundless. Clause 4 of the Bill states that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is "binding on Her Majesty in right of Canada or of a province". This means that the statute is binding on the Government of Canada and on both provincial and territorial Governments.
The only circumstance in which it could be argued that the aforementioned might not be true is an offence by a federal Department, agency, board, or Crown corporation where a province or territory is enforcing its own regulation recognized through an Order in Council under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act as equivalent to requirements of the federal Act.
The Government is indebted to a lawyer for an environmental law group, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, for pointing out this deficiency. The Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) urged the legislative committee charged with the clause-by-clause review of Bill C-74 to make the necessary amendments to close the loophole, and the committee did so.
On repeated occasions the Minister has declared his concern that federal Departments, agencies, boards, and Crown corporations must not be above the law when the environment is at stake. The committee of which the Hon. Member himself was an outstanding member and contributed a great deal was of the same mind. It made further amendments to Bill C-74 to ensure that no longer will there be any doubt on the matter.

April 26, 1988
Adjournment Debate
The revamped Bill now empowers the Government, on recommendation of the Minister of the Environment, to make regulations setting limits for emissions and effluents released by federal Departments, agencies, boards, and Crown corporations. Waste handling and disposal can also be regulated. It further requires that if a harmful substance has been released into the environment, the federal body which had management, charge or control of the substance immediately prior to its unauthorized release must report to an inspector or other designated person. That body must then take all reasonable emergency measures to prevent danger to the environment, human life or health, and to notify members of the public who may be adversely affected.
Bill C-74 now specifically indicates that inspectors have the right of access and entry to federal property and may take emergency measures if the relevant federal Department, board, agency, or Crown corporation fails to do so.
With the amended provisions in place-and there were a number of them-the Minister can now set about developing regulations to ensure that activities of federal Departments, agencies, boards, and Crown corporations do not pollute what we recognize as Canada's most precious resource, its environment. The concerns of the Hon. Member have been met in the amended Bill C-74 now before the House.


EMPLOYMENT-INNOVATION PROGRAM-REQUEST FOR
[Stage Direction]
APPROVAL OF PROJECT/REQUEST THAT PROJECT PROCEED
Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address tonight the whole issue of household garbage collecting and recycling process. My question in the House to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) had to do with an application from a Quebec group from Lotbiniere, more specifically from Victoriaville, for support in a development of its household garbage collecting and recycling program. The Minister of Employment and Immigration wants to know whether it was a job creation or conservation project. Well, it is both. It is a household garbage collecting and recycling project for environmental purposes, which also aims at preserving jobs, because jobs have been created in Victoriaville, in Bois-Francs, for this recuperation demonstration program. There are about 25 people working there full-time, including a number of unskilled workers who, without these jobs, would be on welfare. So these are good, wholesome, permanent community jobs. Our purpose is not to send people to look for jobs in other regions, but to create jobs in our own area by using recoverable household garbage.
I have also visited "Cascades" in the Lotbiniere region, a private corporation which is using recycled paper. Now, in Canada, we are using only 20 per cent recycled paper. In Europe, they use as much as 60 per cent. They are much more advanced in Europe. It is much better for the environment to use recycled paper. Why? Because the pulp and paper making process results in the pollution of our rivers and lakes, because of the detrimental effects of chlorine on water and the
production of dioxins. Recycled paper avoid these negative effects on the environment by re-using paper.
There was a whole lot of correspondance on this subject. An application was sent to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) who referred it to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) but the Department of Environment could not provide funds for this Bois-Francs Recuperation et Recyclage project. So an application was sent to the Minister of Employment and Immigration who replied that it was not the responsibility of her Department. What we need is a collecting and recycling policy, because it would be better for the environment and for job creation. We need a policy which would take the environment, investment, the prices of recycled products into account, as well as the need to create full-time jobs within the community.
We now have those projects, but the problem exists. For example, Bois-Francs has experienced an increased demand for recycling from municipalities. Well, this means that more products and waste are carried to dumps. The price of recycled products has gone down because there is not enough demand from manufacturers for them. A fine national project is in financial trouble as a result of decreased demand. What should be done? We have to promote demand and tax non-recycled products. There is the possibility among others that a satisfactory policy to encourage recovery and recycling would be to make more costly the refusal to use those recycled products.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this is a very good enterprise. It is extremely encouraging and is employing people. It could expand its educational work, its work in the municipalities, to ensure that even more jobs are created. They would be good jobs in the community.
What response have we received?

As stated by the Minister of the Environment, in reply to Bois-Francs: "The recovery and recycling of waste contribute to the economic development of regions by creating jobs and reducing the use of natural resources". The activities of the industrial sector also contribute to reduce environmental problems affecting urban centres and to improve the management of domestic waste.
It is quite clear that those two objectives are aimed at and can be attained with a satisfactory financing of recovery and recycling. The Government should review that basic issue and promote a real policy for recovery, protection of the environment and creation of jobs.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer on behalf of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall). I would first like to point out that there are at least six streams in the Canadian Jobs Strategy and that it involves probably thousands of projects across Canada.
April 26, 1988

If the Hon. Member had really been interested in a fulsome explanation from the Minister on that day, it would have been helpful for her to have given notice to the Minister so that he could have been briefed on the details of this application. Even the Member, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Canada and of everything going on in Canada, would agree that the Minister cannot, on a day-to-day basis, be totally briefed on every project in Canada.


Lynn McDonald: You've had weeks now to respond.


Benno Friesen: And I will respond. I suggest that the Hon. Member may not have been searching for a fulsome answer, that there may have been some politics involved.
The Member has raised an environmental question and has praised the quality of this application. Neither I nor the Minister would quarrel with the quality of the project or the application. However, the Member is a well educated person; she has had extensive university training. If, during the course of her pursuit for her economics degree, she had applied for a scholarship toward economics in the fine arts department, she would have probably been told that it was a great application but that she was in the wrong department. Therefore I suggest to the Member that talking about quality of the project really is not the question before us.


Lynn McDonald: But it is creating jobs.


Benno Friesen: The question is: Does it follow the criteria? While we all agree that the project the Member has promoted is a good one, it does not fall within the criteria. It does not help for her to say that the Minister should stop sending it around. Actually, the project came to the attention of the Department in April, 1987. It responded to the proposal on April 16, 1987 and again in June, 1987. It is pretty hard for the Member to say that it has been simply sent around the Department. Actually the Member brought it to the attention of the House on March 8, 1988, whereas the Hon. Member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Tremblay) has been working on this project for a year and a half-


Lynn McDonald: Without success. Where is the funding?


Benno Friesen: -in the sense that he has tried in every employment department to see whether there was a program where the project would fit.


Lynn McDonald: But you have turned him down. Every department has turned him down.


Benno Friesen: This lady insists on talking from her seat. She did not say all this when she was speaking. The Hon. Member for Lotbiniere has gone to every office in the innovations department and the employment department and has looked for a way to help this particular project. It simply does not
Adjournment Debate
meet the criteria. To meet the criteria it must first be a new project. I think the Hon. Member knows that. In addition, proposals should clearly demonstrate that their effects would be widespread in improving the Canadian labour market.


Lynn McDonald: It does that.


Benno Friesen: The proposal by this group has already been tested in Laval, Quebec and in Alberta. It would not be a pilot or demonstration project.
Although the proposed activities would increase productivity in recycling businesses, they would not solve specific labour market problems through a systematic global approach. The Association de gestion wrote to CEIC officials in May, 1987 asking that the proposal be reconsidered. CEIC was very pleased to look again at this matter and responded in June, 1987 confirming that the decision did not meet the criteria.
As I said before it is not fair for the Member to say that we just sat on the proposal for a year. That is just not the way it is. It would be helpful if she would state the facts as they are.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary's time has expired.
[ Translation]


FINANCE-REFORM OF LEGISLATION-CONSEQUENCE FOR MOUVEMENT DESJARDINS
Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, on April 15, 1988, I briefly expressed to the Minister of State (Finance) (Mr. Hockin) my concern about this Government's legislation dealing with trust and loan companies.
As you certainly can imagine, Mr. Speaker, I put that question because of the possible implications for the Mouve-ment Desjardins.
As you know, Mouvement Desjardins alltogether is one of the most important, if not the single most important financial co-operative group in Canada.
Its assets are nearly $31 billion. This means it is very important to hear Desjardins's considerations in this process.
When I myself analyse the trust company legislation, I hardly see how Desjardins and its group of companies would be exempted from the new requirements that would be imposed upon trust and loan companies by the legislation.
Indeed, I believe that when administering the legislation, bureaucrats could view the Desjardins group as a corporation, although the Desjardins group is a huge financial co-op.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the legislation's intent is to prevent conflicts of interests within small groups of companies with business links, which conflicts could in some cases lead to some stockholders catering to their own needs at the expense of investors, consumers.

April 26, 1988
Adjournment Debate
That legislation is aimed at preventing inequities that could harm consumers and investors, which is both just and reasonable.
However, Desjardins is not a corporation. Under its structure, that institution is for all pratical purposes completely protected from conflicts of interests. Here is why, Mr. Speaker.
There are no small groups at Desjardins. Desjardins belongs to 4,200,000 shareholders. In Quebec, one out of five of every man, woman and child is a Desjardins shareholder.
The development strategy of Desjardins is determined by 18,330 volunteer directors, working together with a team of 28,500 Desjardins employees.
Mr. Speaker, if a conflict of interest were found in the growth of the Desjardins group, it would affect all Quebecers.
For all these reasons, speaking as the Member for the riding where Desjardins himself was born and where the headquarters are located, and considering the significance of this immense financial co-operative movement, of a tool whose continued growth is essential to Quebecers, I would ask you to further clarify this proposed legislation. I agree with the objective which is to protect Canadians who depend on trust and loan companies, but it should not, for want of definition and clarity-and that is what is important-be detrimental to the continued growth of the collective property of 20 per cent of the population of Quebec.
Sir, 1 thank you, and I trust your decision.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I would like to apologize to the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine). From time to time in the House we finish our business a little earlier than anticipated. The Hon. Member has good reason to expect a response from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Vincent). However, he is not with us today because of the change in time. If we had gone on to the "Late Show" at the normal time, 1 am sure he would have been here. However, 1
will do my best to provide a response on behalf of the Government to the Hon. Member.

In the House, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Levis has a reputation for being a good MP and he always represents his electors' interests passionately and also intelligently.
But regarding the Mouvement Desjardins, he has a reputation that perhaps goes beyond this House and into the community as well. He always defends the interests of the Mouvement Desjardins in this House, in committee and in his community too, I think.

It is that kind of intelligent and compassionate approach which ensures that any piece of legislation brought forward to the House is examined with thoroughness and skill to ensure that the legislation will do good things on behalf of the people in the movement and on behalf of the communities which are involved, as well as with the co-operative. I am sure interventions he has already made in this Chamber, as well as the interventions he has made directly to the Minister and the interventions which will come as the legislation is introduced and moved forward to committee, will be reason for the people connected to this movement to feel confident that nothing in the legislation will do them harm. Indeed, the legislation will facilitate the movement and will facilitate the strength and capacity of Canadians to dream and to care about their children, their communities, and their standard of living.
That is the best I can do on short notice, Mr. Speaker, but I feel it sincerely. This Member is one Member of the House who approaches things, does not forget, and keeps working on them in order that they come out right and are helpful.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.02 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Wednesday, April 27, 1988
[Stage Direction]
Prayers

[English\