Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today at third reading of Bill C-5.
I would first like to thank my colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères for all the work he has done, despite the challenges posed by situation resulting from the gag order. He has worked with the Bloc Québécois as our constituents expect us to work in the House, that is, with the thoroughness and transparency.
Transparency is precisely one of the issues I would like to address today with regard to Bill C-5. In fact, there are two issues I would like to address: the fact that this bill would exempt proponents of major projects from laws and an ethical issue, which I will address in the second part of my speech.
Clearly, the Bloc Québécois does not support Bill C-5. I am going to repeat what some of my colleagues have said, because it is important. Imposing this gag order is one of the most serious attacks on democracy since the Emergency Measures Act, which replaced the War Measures Act. The government has decided to circumvent democracy.
No matter who was elected here, I do not believe that voters want to see their MP support a bill that seeks to circumvent the democratic process. I am not talking about the gag order here, but rather about the bill itself, which allows the democratic process to be circumvented and its means, powers and possibilities to be stripped. As I said already, once a project is designated in the national interest, its developer will be able to circumvent any federal statute or regulation. That is huge. The decision of what is in the national interest lies in the hands of one individual. However, I note in passing that “national interest” has not been defined yet. What does national interest mean? What falls in that murky category? This is, indeed, also a matter of murkiness.
Of course, now, we are trying to protect various statutes by proposing amendments to the bill. I myself tabled an amendment to exclude the Canada Labour Code from the list of statutes and regulations. I must say the list seemed infinite. It includes the Fisheries Act, the International River Improvements Act, the Impact Assessment Act, the migratory bird sanctuary regulations, the wildlife area regulations, the marine mammal regulations, the port authorities operations regulations and more.
These are all statutes that we will be able to circumvent. Of course, "we" excludes the person speaking. However, these laws protect the population as a whole, be they Quebeckers or Canadians, by guaranteeing that projects respect the principle of the common good. Bill C-5 actually does away with those guarantees. These laws were duly voted on, considered and debated, yet we are being told that they basically have no purpose, because Bill C‑5 is above those laws. In fact, the expression I just used, "to be above the law", summarizes exactly, perhaps even to my surprise, what Bill C‑5 is proposing.
I would also like to point out that clause 21 remains, despite the Bloc Québécois's request to remove the schedule from the bill, which was rejected. Clause 21 allows the government, by a simple order in council, to exempt proponents from the application of any law, no matter which one. That is also very concerning. Federally regulated businesses have just been protected under the Official Languages Act. Just imagine the Income Tax Act or the Criminal Code. The entire text of the bill, including the schedules, allows for exempting major proponents from laws that have been duly passed by the House of Commons.
That is the first item I wanted to talk about. In my opinion, a law that supercedes all other laws leads to opaque and arbitrary decisions, which is unacceptable. That brings up the subject of ethics. What is opaque and arbitrary is the opposite of what is ethical and of what our constituents expect. What they want is transparency. What they want is accountability. What they want is to have a say. That is what democracy is all about.
That is not what is happening with Bill C‑5, however. In its present form, the bill allows the government to consider and evaluate the projects according to five evaluation criteria. One criterion is whether the project could “strengthen Canada's autonomy, resilience and security”. The criterion of whether the project could “provide economic or other benefits to Canada” is very broad. Being feasible is also very broad. The criterion of whether the project considers “the interests of Indigenous peoples” theoretically protects the Indian Act, but what about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples? Considering interests is not at all prescriptive; it sounds optional. As for projects that “contribute to clean growth” and to meeting Canada's climate change objectives, it is very clear that the stated criteria or objectives are not necessarily the ones the government wants to apply. We all see how much backpedalling our theoretically new government is doing in that regard.
The minister can actually ignore those criteria entirely. It is like they are trying to convince us that we will be protected by guardrails of some kind, but the fact is, they do not even have to pay attention to those guardrails and that, too, is unacceptable. Once a project is designated as being in the national interest, the minister can issue approvals at every stage, and no one will be privy to the nature of the projects or the conditions they have to satisfy. After that, there is no turning back, which is unbelievable. Projects will be approved in advance behind closed doors, and the public will not know a thing. The decision will already be final. The government says that there can be consultations or discussions afterward, but the fact is, the decision will have already been made. I know this will not be the first time the government has held consultations after making decisions, but this is still a very big deal. The text of the bill is very clear. Consultation may happen, but whatever the government wants to do will be done. We will just have to live with the consequences of decisions made behind closed doors.
Closed doors, stupidity, selfishness and personal interests are things that humans are familiar with. When people make hasty decisions or buy shares in a company, for example, they tend to forget that, in fact, they we should be serving is the common interest, not their personal interests. I am not saying that that is necessarily what is happening, but it is a strong possibility. Everything is hidden. How can we know whether everything is being done properly and in accordance with the will of the people?
I will give one last example: the Brookfield issue. We know that the Prime Minister has a stake in Brookfield. I would like to point out that Brookfield owns railway lines, which are covered by Bill C‑5. Brookfield owns natural gas processing plants, which are covered by Bill C‑5. Pipelines are covered by Bill C‑5. Companies that design, build and operate nuclear power plants are covered by Bill C‑5. The oil sands are covered by Bill C‑5. Port facilities are covered by Bill C‑5. In my opinion, while I am not saying that there is a conflict of interest, there is at the very least an appearance of a potential ethical breach. Bill C‑5 opens the door wide to this type of situation, which the Bloc Québécois strongly opposes.
I touched on only two things in my speech, but they are two things that I am sure the people in my riding and the people of Quebec would disagree with. The government's lack of transparency and decision to grant itself all the powers without an informed debate and vote are unacceptable.
