[All] Fw: Split up the budget: Environmental and border policy changes need a full debate

Tue May 15 21:03:23 EDT 2012

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Elizabeth.May at parl.gc.ca" <Elizabeth.May at parl.gc.ca>
To: butterflybluelu at rogers.com 
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 5:44:45 PM
Subject: RE: Split up the budget: Environmental and border policy changes need a full debate

Thank you for voicing your concerns regarding Bill C-38, the omnibus budget implementation bill proposed by the Harper Conservatives. If passed, this Bill will wipe out decades of Canadian environmental law and policy. I share your concerns and am committed to addressing them in the House of Commons. It is an abuse of the democratic process to make sweeping changes in the context of an omnibus budget bill.

Close to half of the enormous 425 page Bill C-38 is a direct attack on nature, repealing many Canadian environmental protections. But the Harper Conservatives insist that the Bill is strictly a budget bill. This means that Bill C-38, while undermining the environment, will only be reviewed by the Finance Committee, leaving environmental experts well out of the process.  The Harper Conservatives have further placed time allocation on Bill C-38 to limit debate, so I will likely not be able to speak, and the Bill may be passed by late June. Yet the Bill includes amendments to seventy separate bills, meaning that the opportunity for accountability is being thrown out. The thorough study of each separate amended legislation will be completely foreclosed.  

Under Bill C-38, the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act is repealed. The National Round Table on Environment and Economy Act (NRTEE) is also repealed, even though this fundamental process promotes decisions through a wide multi-stakeholder consensus. Environment Minister Peter Kent claims that the NRTEE is no longer necessary because we can use the internet as a substitute. It is absurd to suggest the internet replaces the Round Table.

The proposed changes to the Fisheries Act under Bill C-38 represent another devastating decision by the Harper Conservatives that will reverse decades of policy and law. Section 35 (habitat protection) of the Fisheries Act was passed by Parliament in 1976 and is the strongest provision in Canadian environmental law. This provision has been critical to protecting our waterways, forests, and other ecosystems crucial to fish habitat for the past 36 years. Yet Bill C-38 will eliminate legislated protection of fish habitat under Section 35, and completely undermine the Act in favour of industrial development. Only habitat for commercial, recreational, or Aboriginal fisheries will be protected, and even then, habitat can be destroyed by permits. This means that industrial development will go unchecked, enabling the expansion of the tar-sands, and undoubtedly resulting in major destruction to fish habitat throughout Canada. 

The Bill includes an agreement in which fisheries management could be moved to the province. Again, this allows the federal government to retreat from environmental protection responsibilities. 

In terms of substitution, Bill C-38 repeals the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) and replaces it with a new Act. While the Conservative Ministers led people to think the repeal of CEAA was to bring in time limits to reviews, in fact, that is the least of the changes. This new Act guts the environmental assessment process itself. It has replaced a clear process with a muddled and confused regime in which environmental assessment will be severely restricted to narrow studies. This new Act limits the “environmental effects” to be studied to only address the impacts on fish, migratory birds, and marine plants. This means that destroying habitat or killing endangered species outright, in the completion of a project, appears to only be an “environmental effect” if the species is a fish, migratory bird, or marine plant. 

Moreover, Bill C-38 increases ministerial control in environmental assessment even more heavily. This means that the Minister will now be able to stop the review panel at any time, if the Minister believes the panel is taking too long to complete their work. Plus the detailed rights for public participation have been replaced, simply stating that the public must have an opportunity to participate. This will leave room to exclude the public from important process environmental assessment, especially since the Minister will be granted control to decide when panels should even continue. 

The new CEAA will allow the National Energy Board (NEB) to emerge as an environmental super agency, with full power to approve the construction of pipelines in navigable waters (amending the Navigable Waters Protection Act), jurisdiction over endangered species in the way of pipelines (amending the Species at Risk Act), and ability to destroy habitat of endangered species (Section 111, p. 120; Section 165, p. 181).  

I am committed to preserving effective environmental assessment and protection of sensitive habitats and wild salmon in Canada and will fight to propose amendments to Bill C-38 in the House of Commons to maintain environmental accountability in Canada. I encourage you to continue voicing your concerns over Bill C-38 by speaking with your family, friends and neighbours, by writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper, and contacting your Member of Parliament. As well, I invite you to print and sign my petition against Bill C-38 at http://budgetdevastation.ca. You can also watch my speech on my MP website at http://elizabethmaymp.ca/parliament/speeches/2012/05/11/jobs-growth-and-long-term-prosperity-act-bill-c-38-20/. 

I applaud your interest and concern, and hope you continue to speak out for the issues that matter to you. 

Sincerely,

Elizabeth May, O.C., M.P.
Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands
Leader of the Green Party of Canada
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