Alberta Hansard — 26 June 1990, Evening sitting (20:00) (Legislature 22, Session 2)

19900626

Alberta — Debates (Hansard)

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2235 Legislative Assembly of Alberta Title: Tuesday, June 26, 1990 8:00 p.m. Date: 90/06/26 [The Committee of the Whole met at 8 p.m.] head: Government Bills and Orders Committee of the Whole [Mr. Jonson in the Chair] MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Would the committee come to order, please. Bill 29 Public Utilities Board Amendment Act, 1990 MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Are there any comments, questions, or amendments to be offered with respect to the Bill? MR. HAWKESWORTH: Just a couple of comments, Mr. Chairman. It's basically a change in the funding of the expenses of the Public Utilities Board.

As I understand it, at the present time the expenses of the board are paid through the General Revenue Fund, so there's going to be a shift to some extent in terms of the board being able to prescribe fees to be paid by local authorities or persons interested in matters that come before the board. I'm just not speaking against that particular change.

I just would note that in the past the regulatory board being funded out of the General Revenue Fund provides, I guess, a little more of an impartiality to the board by shifting more of the cost recovery to persons that have an involvement or an interest in matters brought before the board: makes it more of a user pay. I hope that in the future the board isn't going to be seeing its mandate as sort of accommodating itself to the group that is paying the bill.

I hope that the shift that may occur in the years to come is not going to make that sort of a shift in the thinking of the board or in its understanding of what its mandate is. Its mandate in all cases has been to act as a referee on behalf of the public, on behalf of the public interest. It's done that, generally speaking, quite well over the history of the board, and it would be something that I wouldn't want to see changed simply because the funding arrangements for the PUB change as a result of this Bill.

What I would see occurring in this legislation is an indirect way by which the Provincial Treasurer can, in essence, raise more money by putting less of a call on the General Revenue Fund for the operations of the Public Utilities Board and by shifting some of the expenses to those groups being regulated. I can see some of the thinking there and certainly can under stand why the Provincial Treasurer would want to be doing that in the context of the fiscal problems that he's grappling with.

But again the point I'd like to raise and ensure, as best we can ensure these things: with a change in the operating costs being met perhaps more directly from the costs of assessments placed on people or organizations bringing matters before the board, it may be that a very subtle shift would take place whereby the interests of those people and those organizations would start to be seen as being paramount to the PUB. After all, they're the ones that would be paying the freight. With those comments, Mr.

Chairman, I just would like to place my reservations on the record that it's an area I think we'll be monitoring over the years.

I would hope that this new arrangement is going to be fairer in the long run by making people more directly involved pay the bill, but let's hope that in the future members of the board see their mandate shifting and that they become more interested in reviewing matters brought before them as being the interests of the public as a whole; that the organization coming before the board launching an applica tion is seen as being the primary body or group that the board is serving, because they're the ones paying the bills.

So with those reservations, I wish the PUB well in its new change here, but I just make that reservation as I review the Bill. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Calgary-Buffalo. MR. CHUMIR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member for Calgary-Mountain View has been extremely gentle on the legislation, I would say. I find it to be somewhat of a, shall we say, crummy piece of legislation. I find it substantively bad and procedurally worse. From a substantive point of view it allows two-thirds of the cost of running the Public Utilities Board to be passed on to consumers.

The reality is that the fees that are going to be charged to the utility companies which appear before the Public Utilities Board will in fact be passed on in rate increases and therefore ultimately end up in the hands of consumers. This is on top of the impact on consumers through the ending of the rebate of provincial income taxes on utilities, and it comes on top of the federal freeze on the rebate of their taxes.

Now, taxes on utilities are regressive because they impact most heavily on low-income individuals, and all of these things taken together we consider to be a move very much in the wrong direction, particularly when we look at the fact that over the past four years lower income Albertans have been hit dramatically heavily because this regressive use of fees and other types of charges which impact on low-income people has been the main modus operandi of raising revenue for the government. That's the substantive aspect of it. However, procedurally the objections are even more spec tacular.

I might say that unless the minister has some explana tion . . . I would like to get some explanation from him as to whether my perception of what's going on here is correct or whether I've missed something, because if my perception is correct, I'm wondering how this legislation could withstand a challenge under the Charter of Rights. As I understand it, the board is given absolute carte blanche, total arbitrary power as to whom it can levy fees against pursuant to this legislation. You don't have to appear before the board; all you have to do is be subject to its jurisdiction in some year.

From what I can see, there's no regulation that stipulates a fair formula. It's going to vary with the taste and predilection of the board. Now, presum ably they'll try and work out something that's fair, but in terms of the substantive structure for a taxing statute, to not have any measure or basis of taxation is really a highly spectacular thing to be asking the members of this Legislature to approve. We're approving a pig in a poke. We're approving a system which will allow the Public Utilities Board to tax in whatever way it wishes to do so.

And then if one of the taxed entities should choose to object and wishes to appeal, to whom is it that they appeal? They can appeal back to the board itself. This body with unfettered discretion, with no basis, no objective mechanism or touchstone with respect to a basis for appeal: that is the entity to which the appeal relates. As I say, I find it very difficult to understand how this would withstand a challenge under the Charter of Rights.

2236 Alberta Hansard June 26, 1990 I find it even more difficult to understand why it is that a piece of legislation that is so lacking in procedural safeguards would be hustled through. It's certainly not a piece of legislation that the Alberta Liberal Party can support. So I would ask the minister – I'd be very appreciative if he might comment on the aspects I raise. Firstly, are we correct in our perceptions that the fee increases will be passed through to consumers?

Number two, are we correct that the assessment is to be by the board without any standard or objective touchstone by which one can judge fairness? Are we correct that the appeal is limited to an appeal back to the board, and if so, why do we have such an arbitrary process in this instance? MR. ORMAN: Mr. Chairman, I should point out to the hon. Member for Calgary-Buffalo that, I guess, it's you pay me now or you pay me later. Consumers or taxpayers are going to pay, and generally they're one and the same. The mill rate that we're talking about here, Mr.

Chairman, is one-tenth of 1 cent, so there will be no visible impact on utility rates by rolling it in the rate base. This principle, the user-pay principle, is consistent with the CRTC and the National Energy Board. We've been doing it with the Energy Resources Conservation Board for years, Mr. Chairman, and that's a 50- 50 split. Now, the reason it's a 50-50 split at the ERCB is because they do a lot of reporting and a lot of evaluations and reports for government, so it wouldn't be fair to charge the user for the portion that we use the ERCB for government purposes.

But with regard to the PUB, it's in fact going to be levied against the users, and it's deemed that a two-thirds, one-third split is the split. This legislation basically sets the criteria by which the board must act, and it is no different than what occurs essentially with regard to the Energy Resources Conservation Board. So I quite frankly recognize the concern the member has, but in fact, it's not inconsistent with other bodies that are charging back to the user the cost of doing business with those bodies. MR. HAWKESWORTH: I appreciate what the hon. minister is saying, Mr. Chairman.

I can see why the government would want to move in this direction given the financial situation that the Provincial Treasurer is presently grappling with. We just had a Bill go through the Assembly not too many weeks ago asking for an increase in the ceiling of debt for the province of Alberta of something like 11 and a half billion dollars, so I can see why the Provincial Treasurer is looking here, there, and everywhere to save a few dollars. It is, I guess in some ways, about time that he started to do that.

My only concern is that in doing this he understood that the mandate of the Public Utilities Board is not to be changed, in that because the source of funding for the board and the source of income for the board is from the groups launching appeals or launching applications and bringing them forward the board then doesn't shift its attitude towards those bodies and see them more as groups to be facilitated as opposed to the present mandate, which is that they be groups and applications that are reviewed on behalf of the public interest, because after all, the public, through the General Revenue Fund, is paying the freight.

So it's a subtle shift that may occur. I can't say at the moment that it would or that it will or that's happened in other jurisdic tions. I can just see that that's a possibility as more and more of the costs of running the board, administering the board, are borne by those applicants stepping forward, and without the applicants stepping forward, there's not the income for the board. They may see them as a bit of – not a milk cow but the source of income by which the board operates and meets its day-to-day expenditures.

So that could colour the attitude and the mandate and the posture that the board takes with these organizations and these applicants. I just want to put on the record that the board should not shift in its attitude and its mandate and its priorities. Again, there's a course for appeals of the assessments, and I think all those technical routes are placed in the Bill or placed in the legislation. So I don't have any concerns with ensuring that the assessments are fair. I just think the overall policy direction for the board ought not to shift because the source of funding for the board has shifted. MR. ORMAN: Mr.

Chairman, to reply to the Member for Calgary-Buffalo. First, another point that he raised. I should point out that he asked about the discretionary powers of the PUB in terms of how this assessment will be passed through. Before the utilities pass it through to the customers, they must have a hearing before the board to determine that the assess ment is fair and reasonable and that it will impact on consumer rates. It is something that the board has to do whenever there's a proposed rate increase.

Whether it's this rate increase or whether it's a general rate increase, there must be a hearing before the board to consider the matter. The Member for Calgary-Mountain View brings up an issue that I guess on the surface would have a concern. I guess from a theoretical point of view you could say that because the industry is paying the lion's share of the support to the agency, somehow that's going to influence the decisions of the board. I don't think so; I know it won't, Mr. Chairman. That will not occur, because there are regulations that the industry must live by.

If they don't like the decisions and somehow complain because they're paying two-thirds of the regulatory cost, it has no impact on the board members. They respond to the legisla tion and are not parochial enough to somehow be influenced by who pays their particular costs. I just don't see that as an issue. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Member for Calgary- Buffalo. MR. CHUMIR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The minister indicated, if I understood him correctly in his last comment directed to myself, that any increase in rates has to go through a hearing, and accordingly whatever is levied on a utility, if it were to be put into the rate base, would then have to be the subject of a hearing? MR. ORMAN: Right. MR. CHUMIR: Yeah. But the costs, if I understand it correctly, are automatically passed through; they automatically pass into the rate base. So the hearing would presumably be a mere formality in respect of this particular cost, because it would be indisputable.

But perhaps the minister may care to comment on that. I assume he's not saying that there has to be a hearing before the board levies a tax or any portion of . . . MR. ORMAN: Just before they pass it on. MR. CHUMIR: Pardon me? Just before the passing on. Right. That was correct. Well, I don't quite understand how that vitiates my concern,

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2237 because the fact is it would inevitably be passed on right through. It's a valid cost. The only issues would be whether or not the cost is a valid or a reasonable one, and I presume – I might get in there and argue that it's unreasonable, but I don't think any board would buy that, and I probably wouldn't buy it if I were sitting on a board, from their perspective. But what I wanted to get down to was the comment of the minister that this is merely one-tenth of a cent on the mill rate, the implication being that this is a trivial sum.

Well, you know, it may be trivial in that sense, but it tends to add up, and if it's trivial in respect of utility rates, it's certainly equally trivial in respect of income taxes, and income taxes are levied at progres sive rates – perhaps not as progressive as they might be, but they are progressive and they exact more from higher income people. That's the thrust of what we're saying should be, and in isolation I must say I can't be too hard on the minister because he's only doing something very, very small and in one little corner.

But I put my comments in the context of what I've seen going on by the actions of the heavy-handed Provincial Treasurer there for four years. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back, and we're concerned with the principle of how this government is going about raising money which hits lower income individuals very, very heavily. Now, I also don't recall having heard the minister address the questions that I raised with respect to process, as to whether there is any standard for raising money or taxation. By what measure does a utility know how much it's supposed to pay? Or if there's an appeal –

section 20.4(1) states that "a person assessed . . . may appeal to the Board on the grounds and in the manner set out in the regulations made under subsection (2)," and then it says, "the Board may make regulations respecting appeals." So here's the board levying taxes on any basis that it wants without standards and then being the appellant body and setting out its own standards and grounds. I find it very bizarre. It's Kafkaesque; this is pre Václav Havel Czechoslovakia, Mr. Chairman. So I would be interested to hear the minister's comments on those. He might be interested to hear his comments too. MR.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Would the committee entertain the introduction of guests? Unanimous consent required. HON. MEMBERS: Agreed. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Opposed? The Member for Athabasca-Lac La Biche. head: Introduction of Special Guests MR. CARDINAL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure for me to introduce to you and through you to the Assembly 10 members from the Buffalo Lake Metis settlement in my constituency.

These members have traveled here tonight to witness third reading of Bill 34 and Bill 35, the Bills these Metis people designed with us, facilitating the process where these Bills will see the Metis achieve self-determination and self-sufficiency in the near future. I have in the public gallery Horace Patenaude, chairman of Buffalo Lake settlement; Ernest House, junior councillor of the settlement; Glen Auger, councillor; Dorothy Ladouceur, councillor; Susan Heron, councillor assistant; Marvin Pichon, member; Dennis Reid, a Buffalo Lake councillor; Tina Reid, Viola Bourque, and Terry Bourque.

If they'd stand, I'd like the Assembly to give them the usual warm welcome. head: Government Bills and Orders Committee of the Whole Bill 29 Public Utilities Board Amendment Act, 1990 (continued) MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? HON. MEMBERS: Question. [Title and

preamble agreed to] [The sections of Bill 29 agreed to] MR. ORMAN: Mr. Chairman, I move that the Bill be reported. [Motion carried] Bill 43 Oil and Gas Conservation Amendment Act, 1990 MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Are there any comments, questions, or amendments to be offered with respect to this Bill? HON. MEMBERS: Question. [Title and

preamble agreed to] [The sections of Bill 43 agreed to] MR. ORMAN: Mr. Chairman, I move that the Bill be reported. [Motion carried] Bill 51 Gas Utilities Statutes Amendment Act, 1990 MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: There is the government amendment there. MR. ORMAN: Mr. Chairman, I should confirm that there is an amendment that was circulated to hon. members, I believe on June 11. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman, this amendment has a couple of reasons for it. First, in the current provision of

section 3(2) we found that with this amended Act, the Gas Utilities Statutes Amendment Act, 1990, Bill 51, we had left a loophole for direct sales to go into a franchise area and escape the franchise tax that was levied by the municipality on the utility. Therefore, direct sales gas was escaping this tax. We now have an amend ment that really provides for the calculation of the direct sales to be done in a way that provides for a deemed value. The manner in which the natural gas is taxed by the franchise will not change.

This Bill provides for the Public Utilities Board to deem a value for direct sales gas to be included in the franchise. They will do a weighted average of all direct sales gas, and it will be deemed to be part of the flow of gas in the system that Canadian Western, in the example of Calgary, sends into the municipality. In that there may be a number of direct deals, it would be too cumbersome to use the actual value, so what the Public Utilities Board will do is take into account all of the reported direct sales, do a weighted average value, and that will

2238 Alberta Hansard June 26, 1990 be included as deemed as part of the utilities' share, and the tax will be levied apportionately. So that is the purpose of the amendment, to plug that particular loophole, Mr. Chairman. [Motion on amendment carried] [Title and

preamble agreed to] [The sections of Bill 51 as amended agreed to] MR. ORMAN: Mr. Chairman, I move that the Bill as amended be reported. [Motion carried] Bill 52 Natural Resources Conservation Board Act MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: There are a number of proposed amendments to Bill 52. Dealing first of all with government amendments to Bill 52, the hon. Minister of Energy. MR. ORMAN: Mr. Chairman, I circulated earlier this evening the government amendments to Bill 52, the Natural Resources Conservation Board Act. Mr. Chairman, by way of a

preamble, as we've indicated in the past, as speakers on the government side who have spoken in the past have indicated, we have no precedent that deals with the adjudication of natural resources and with the balance of economic development and protection of the environment to try and model this particular board after. I say that, Mr. Chairman, as a

preamble to the amendments that you have before you. Basically, these amendments will accomplish the following. First, in

section 1(

f) we have deleted the words "that normally occur in a natural state." It has been determined that those words mean nothing and basically are redundant in the defini tion that it occurs, Mr. Chairman.

Section 2 is struck out, and we have included a new

section 2. Mr. Chairman, this is to allow the board to have a very well- defined job that they must dispatch in the legislation, and that is as I've indicated: balance economic development with environmental protection. I believe that this wording does a far better job than in the current provisions in the legislation and will allow the board to have a clear understanding as to what exactly their raison d'être is. In

section 9(1), Mr. Chairman, we have done some word changes. It's just improvement on the wording. In

section 10 in both subsections (2) and (6), we struck out "hearing" and included "proceeding." Mr. Chairman, our intention was to always allow for validated funded intervenors to be able to access intervenor funding ahead of hearings. So let me say that if it was determined by the board that a hearing was not necessary, that both the proponent and the intervenor felt that they could deal with the issues that were at the table based on the public announcement that there was going to be a review, there would be consideration given to intervenor funding for a proceeding, not strictly for the hearing process.

So we have broadened that. It's our hope that in many cases we'll be able to prevent the necessity for a full hearing if we can't have both intervenor and proponent come to terms without the necessity of a full hearing: both the cost and the protracted nature of the hearing process.

Section 16(2) is amended to strengthen a concern that has been expressed with regard to conflict of interest. So those are the House amendments, Mr. Chairman, that the government proposes for the Natural Resources Conservation Board Act, Bill 52. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Member for Edmonton- Jasper Place. MR. McINNIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to address a few remarks to the amendments put forward by the Minister of Energy.

This is a Bill that we should spend a lot of time discussing, because for all anybody knows, this is going to be the legislation under which environmental impact assessments are conducted, certainly until such time as this Legislative Assembly or a future Legislative Assembly decides otherwise. So I think we'd be remiss in our duties if we simply gave it the once-over if we thought of it as being an interim measure, if we put a great deal of faith in promises of legislation which may come to pass in future sessions but also may not come to pass in future sessions.

As far as environmental impact assessment in Alberta is concerned, this is it. I think we have to make our determination and our judgment of the Bill and do our work on the Bill accordingly, and I hope we will spend a great deal of time, at least enough time, on each and every

section of this Bill so that we can try to make this a Bill that Albertans can truly be proud of and that this Legislative Assembly can be proud of. It is correct to say that the first amendment, government amendment A, eliminates words that mean virtually nothing, but it's also correct in my judgment to say that the entire amend ment means nothing. It doesn't make a great deal of difference in terms of the object and the exercise and the practical reality of the Bill.

I think probably that reflects the fact that this Bill arises from a bureaucratic perspective rather than a public interest or indeed an environmental perspective. I believe the minister made that more than clear in his introductory remarks on second reading when he identified the following persons as having crafted the legislation. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we're not returning to second reading debate. We're dealing with amendments. I'm sure you have debate on the amendments. Please proceed. MR.

McINNIS: I'm debating the government amendment, the one that's before the House at the moment, and I'm pointing out that – this is going to be a long night; I can tell – the government amendment reflects a bureaucratic perspective and not a public interest perspective, not an environmental perspec tive. I believe that this point is very central to the deficiencies that exist in the Bill, and that's what we're going to be debating here in this committee. It was mentioned that four individuals had done the drafting of the Bill.

Three of them are former Chairs of the Energy Resources Conservation Board, one is the former Deputy Minister of the Department of Energy, and I think the fourth is Dr. Barry Mellon, the Deputy Minister of Executive Council. These are government officials. These are bureaucrats, and the scope of the background and the interest and the thinking of people who are involved in bureaucracy is bureaucratic thinking. It's not necessarily thinking that reflects the concerns that people have in the community. But indeed, that's what the stated purpose of Bill 52 is. The Natural Resources Conservation

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2239 Board Act is to be a device whereby the public can become involved in decisions which are made on projects and, I would suggest, a lot of other matters which affect the environment, because we lack in the province of Alberta at the present time a mechanism whereby the public can become, first of all, informed as to what's happening in environmental matters. By that I mean the actual facts of industrial, bureaucratic, and corporate activity as it affects the environment.

They can become informed of the effects of those activities on the environment and projected effects of those activities on the environment in the future. Because this is not a static situation at all. You can't describe environmental matters . . . Could we have some order in the committee, Mr. Chairman? [interje ctions] MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Does the speaker wish to proceed? MR. McINNIS: It would be my great pleasure to proceed. So this legislation is a device whereby the public can, first of all, become informed as to the state of the environment and the projected state of various activities therein.

Secondly, it's a device whereby people with expertise in the community can evaluate the proposed consequences of any particular legislation, any particular proposed activity, whether that's an industrial project, a government project, or an existing industrial activity, and to have that advice publicly available so that people can comprehend the best that science has to tell us about the future.

Because there are no sure things when it comes to predicting the future, and that certainly goes in the environment as well as the economy and political trends and any of the rest of it: someth ing perhaps the government should keep in mind. Thirdly, it provides an avenue whereby the public can become involved. In what, Mr. Chairman? Involved in making sure that all of these activities, projects, and programs are compatible with our need for a healthy future in our province.

Now, it so happens that we're fortunate in one respect, that many parts of our province remain undespoiled, that there are many wilderness experiences that are much worth having. There are areas where we have relatively clean water. We have relatively clean air in most of the province. So we have some options, but having some options does not mean we can afford to be lax in our regard for environmental matters. It certainly does not mean that we can afford to be lax in regard to legislation.

For that reason I remain concerned that the amendments put before the Assembly today by the government are an inadequate response to the deficiencies in this legislation, which have been drawn to the attention of the government, certainly by the Official Opposition but by a number of qualified people who have been active in environmental issues.

Now, I've noticed lately that a number of people in the government, some you would expect but some you would not expect, have been sneering at the word "environmentalist," in particular the Minister of the Environment, as if there were something wrong with being called an environmentalist or as if that were a pejorative term, as if that term applies to somebody who is extreme in their outlook and has no particular right to speak on environmental issues.

Well, to me an environmentalist is somebody who has a demonstrated interest, a demonstrated record of concern, and a demonstrated ability to pursue some worthwhile activity on behalf of an environmental issue.

There are very many people in the province of Alberta who have been doing that for a long period of time and have developed some expertise, some of them in the area of public involvement – and clearly, that's central to the amendment that's before the committee at the moment and to the purpose of the Bill itself – and others who have developed expertise in particular issue areas, whether in the field of biology, in the various natural sciences and the ecological sciences. I daresay the humanities and social sciences have an environ mental flavour these days as well.

The new Chair of the Environment Council of Alberta appointed by the Minister of the Environment is, for example, an environmental psychologist. So there is expertise dealing with environmental issues that go much beyond the traditional hard scientific issues, and those people are environmentalists, and I believe that their experience in these matters should be valued.

In many ways the public opinion of the province is catching up to the activities of some of those people over a long period of time, and I believe for that reason and because of the good sense they're making that some of the people who have made concerns known about this Bill deserve to be listened to. Unfortunately, the amendments before us by and large are not substantive at all. Amendment A on the account of the minister removes words that mean nothing at all. Amendment C essentially says the same thing in slightly different words.

Section D does not deal with the absolute vagueness of the criteria for intervenor funding. There is a brand new substantive concept in law introduced in this legislation. That is the idea of a direct interest in relation to an environmental proceeding, and of course, that concept is in turn related to the idea of intervenor funding. Now, if you introduce a new substantive concept into law, I submit, Mr. Chairman, that the government has an obligation to define what that concept means. Otherwise, how do the people who administer that concept operationalize it?

How do they make day-to-day decisions based on this new concept in the absence of a definition? Well, it leaves them in a very difficult position. They would have to presumably dream up a definition. Why is it that the government would find it desirable or even necessary to force upon a board of appointed officials the responsibility of defining a key term in a statute? I'd hoped beyond hope that the government would in some fashion deal with that, clarify the language, but they haven't. Instead, the amendment to

section 10 is I think perhaps a good one, but it doesn't deal with the central problem of that section. What it does is expand the period in time in which it's possible for an intervenor to receive funding. It expands it to the prehearing phase rather than simply the hearing phase, but it doesn't make it any clearer who qualifies to be on that list. That's a very important question, and it's a problem for the legislation because in the absence of a definition people who contemplate an appearance before the board will have to evaluate their financial position in the absence of any firm criteria.

They'll be guessing as to whether the board may choose to define the term "direct interest" in a way that includes them or not, unless of course the board makes a series of interpreta tions and provides some guidance in advance. But then you have, in effect, statute law being made by an unelected board, and as I said, Mr. Chairman, I think that's an unhappy state of affairs. The final amendment, E, to

section 16(2) simply is a cross- reference. It's, again, not really a substantive amendment. So the only item among this group of five amendments which might be considered substantive is the amendment to

section 2. Now,

section 2 is certainly the

section of the Bill which I have criticized most heavily and which, I think, a great many others have. For example, the Calgary Herald editorial, June 8,

2240 Alberta Hansard June 26, 1990 suggested that there is an onus upon the government right now "to prove that [the NRCB] is more than mere paper work." They suggested that the way that could be done would be to have the NRCB review the new Al-Pac project, and I believe that would be a good thing from the perspective of giving the board some profile, giving it a positive relationship of trust with Albertans right off the bat.

With a situation in which it's possible for a major project like that to go through without appearing before the board, they suggested that the board will be seen as little more than fancy wallpaper for a provincial government playing a hypocritical double game; a government which permits huge developments while stalling public objections. Further on: Only belatedly has the province responded to public environmental concerns with something more solid than closed- door negotiations, after-the-fact public reviews and bitter court wrangles. Well, I think

section 2, whether it passed in its original form or whether it passed on amendment, would certainly be the subject of protracted court wrangles. Now, court wrangles on environmental issues have become commonplace of late, but that wasn't the case even a year ago, even at the time that I was elected to this Legislative Assembly. It was very rare for an environmental group to consider taking the government to court. It did happen from time to time, but now it happens to the point where you have three, four, and five lawsuits stacked deep on each particular project.

I know of at least two lawsuits which are in preparation on account of the statement by the Environ ment minister that a decision on the Al-Pac project was expected before this NRCB goes through and that, in fact, that project is likely to be approved without any full public review. In the amendment that is before us right now, the government has basically done one and only one thing. It's added the words "in the public interest," and that's supposed to give some substance to the type of review that the NRCB is suppose to accomplish. Otherwise that

section as rewritten is essentially the same as it was in the first place, save with the addition of the words to ensure that "the projects are in the public interest." Now, the public interest is an interesting concept. It certainly doesn't have a very precise legal meaning, in any clear sense. In fact, the public interest is what people who are elected to public office are elected to determine. Yes, I mean, when we all go to the electors, we talk with our electors about what is in the public interest, and we talk about our commitment to the public interest. We talk about the values that we place.

We put our values forward, and we ask the endorsement of our electors so that we can during our term of office determine what the public interest is. There are, you know, political science

definitions of politics that revolve around who it is who gets to determine what the public interest is. So here the government is, again, giving to an unelected board the job of attempting to determine what the public interest is. Now, the public interest could, according to the draft that's currently before us, include an unspecified mix of social, economic, and environmental effects.

Well, surely one of the questions that you would have to determine in deciding the public interest is what weight do you put on social concerns, what weight do you put on economic concerns, and thirdly, what weight do you put on environmental concerns? That mixture is anything but clear. It's like all of these broad areas of concern are thrown into a great big pot, and the pot is presided over by three to five Albertans chosen by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. There's no indication of what sort of qualifications they would need to have other than that

section of the Bill which refers to conflict of interest. They're prohibited from having a conflict of interest in respect of a particular project that's in front of them. Which is fair enough, but it doesn't require that any of them have any particular expertise related to social matters, to economic matters, and indeed to environmen tal matters, nor does it instruct them in any sense on what weight to put on each of them or give them any criteria for determining what it is they have to determine under this legislation, which is essentially a go or a no-go decision.

I'll leave aside for the moment the fact that under the legislation the government can dictate terms and conditions which must be imposed on a project by the board in the event that it makes a decision to allow the project to go ahead. Nonetheless, the decision-making authority is in a general sense placed with the board, but they're not given any instruc tions as to how they are to exercise that authority except that they must in their opinion feel that the project is in the public interest, and that's not a test. That's not an objective test.

It would be very difficult, it would be impossible for anyone to tell externally on reviewing a decision whether that test has been met, because it's a subjective test. It's a test which is entirely normative. You know, one person, the Member for Calgary- McCall, could say, "This in the public interest," and I would be hard pressed to challenge that it's his opinion something is in the public interest. I might disagree with his opinion. I might have my own opinion, and I might be able to argue it, but I can't prove to anybody that it's not his opinion that it's in the public interest, because it is.

We've seen over the years in this Assembly that people have all kinds of weird and wonderful ideas of what's in the public interest. The Member for Athabasca-Lac La Biche, for example, believes that the Al-Pac project is in the public interest, and I don't believe that it would be possible for me or anybody else to convince him otherwise, nor could I convince a third party that it's not his honestly held opinion that it's in the public interest. It is his honestly held opinion, and he's been very capable of expressing his opinions here in the Legislative Assembly.

Indeed, when he speaks, he speaks, I'm sure, with the full knowledge is his heart that he's speaking on behalf of the public interest of his constituents, but that does not necessarily mean that it's in the interest of our right to a healthy future in the environment in the province of Alberta.

In fact, we can have successive groups of three to five individuals make all kinds of rulings on projects, each one believing that they're acting in the public interest and therefore acting in accordance with this legislation, and we could end up in a situation in which all of our rivers are polluted and dead, in which the air is unbreathable, in which the great and beautiful province of Alberta has become more like the ugly, the despoiled areas of eastern Europe. I would say all of the environmental degradation that's ever happened in industrial society has happened at least in the name of the public interest.

I mean, it's not for us to look into the hearts of every person who ever made a decision on an environ mental matter, but it is for us to say that some mistakes were made and the mistakes were made in the name of the public interest. But I think we've gone beyond the point where we can afford to make mistakes on environmental questions in the name of the public interest, in the name of economic development, in the name of jobs, in the name of any other value. Because nobody comes along, Mr. Chairman, and says: "I've got a great idea for you.

It's going to mean that your fish are contaminated with dioxin, and you're going to get cancer, and you're going to get heart disease." Nobody does that. They come along and say, "No, we've got a state-of-the-art mill here, and we believe that

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2241 the social benefits are tremendous, the economic benefits are out of this world, and environmentally it's state of the art." They all say the same thing. Irrespective of those claims which they believe to be true, in fact, when it comes to such nondescriptive terms as state of the art, it may even objectively be true that it's state of the art, but that still doesn't make it right. It still doesn't make it good for the environment, and it still doesn't get us toward any type of goal in respect of our environment. I come back to the point, Mr.

Chairman, that this is environ mental impact assessment legislation. This is the way in which two-thirds of the environmental impact assessment process will take place. The first third of it is still within the hands of the Minister of the Environment, and were this legislation to pass in its present form, that first third would still take place under

section 8 of the Land Surface Conservation and Reclamation Act. So phase one is still with the Minister of the Environment, but phase two, which is independent scientific review, and phase three, which is the public participation process, take place entirely within this legislation. So it's absolutely, plainly not good enough where you have environmental impact assessment legislation under which two-thirds of the process takes place and there is no commitment to any environmental value whatsoever in here.

There is merely a cauldron into which all of the environmental concerns are poured, into which this legislation provides no framework for analysis, provides no waiting system, and the outcome of which is not informed by any goal what soever. It's that lack of vision, it's that lack of a guiding concept which is the major deficiency of the Bill, and that deficiency is plainly expressed within

section 2 which contains the purpose of the Act. If you don't have a purpose like that, then phase 2 and phase 3 could simply be a process of filling in time until such time as a decision is to be made. That's the thing that we most have to guard against in this type of legislation in which scientific review and public involvement is seen as simply another time-consuming step that the government has to go through in order to bring a project to fruition, just like the government regards this Legislative Assembly: it's just a time- consuming process that they have to go through in order to get legislation through.

They obviously look upon the NRCB as a process which will take time, which would not ultimately influence the decision that has to be made. Therefore, I think the Calgary Herald editorial writers are bang on the money. What we have in this legislation is, in effect, the same old cycle of backroom negotiation and deal-making, and there's no question whatever that the structure of

section 9 makes it clear who negotiates with project propo nents. It's not the NRCB; it's the government that does the negotiation, followed by after-the-fact reviews as in: "Here we have a project. This is what the government has come up with, you lucky people. This is what you're going to get." And the process that's involved is simply something that will take place, and the initial terms and conditions as outlined by the govern ment will be the ones that would be incorporated in the final analysis. I think of the story of Al-Pac, which admittedly is an experi ment on the part of the provincial government.

They're breaking some new ground. They broke some new ground a year ago when they agreed to set up a joint federal/provincial panel to review that project. I think the experience has been very instructive. Unfortunately, only one of the people involved in that process had anything to do with the drafting of this legislation, and that, of course, is Mr. DeSorcy, who chaired the Al-Pac review panel. What people have noticed, aside from the initial expressions of concern for the environment – oh, yes, they're always concerned for the environment, Mr.

Chairman – is that the government has essentially shelved that report. All of the key recommendations have been ignored or passed over to another review process. MR. GESELL: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Order please. Point of order, the Member for Clover Bar. MR. GESELL: I've been listening . . . MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Citation, please. MR. GESELL: Well, Mr. Chairman, I would cite 640(3) in Beauchesne. I would cite 62(2) of the Standing Orders, and I would cite 20(

b) in the Standing Orders. I've been listening to the hon. member speak. I feel the hon. member is not only not speaking on the amendment; he's still back on second reading. Now, if I deal with 640(3), The purpose of each stage . . . in referring to the stages of a Bill,

(3) In Committee – In committee the details of a measure are the primary objects of consideration with alterations in its provisions being proposed. Amendments must be compatible with the principle . . . Now, we're on an amendment here, Mr. Chairman, and Standing Order 62(2), which I've cited, indicates:

(2) Speeches in committees of the whole Assembly must be strictly relevant to the item or

section under consideration. Standing Order 20(b): 20 In the matter of a member taking

part in a debate on an amendment to a motion: (

b) except when an amendment is a substitute motion, a member speaking to the amendment, other than the mover, must confine debate to the subject of the amendment. Now, I've looked at the amendment. The hon. member is straying. I know, Mr. Chairman, that you provide some latitude, but the hon. member is straying pretty far and wide from that particular amendment. As I mentioned at the beginning, he is debating the principles of this particular Bill. He's not even in committee; he's not dealing with the amendment. MR. McINNIS: On the point of order, Mr. Chairman. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Yes, Edmonton-Jasper Place. MR.

McINNIS: I reject categorically the allegation that I am debating the principle of the Bill. I am debating the purposes of the Act, which is

section 2 of the Bill. If the member will pay attention to the paper in front of him, he will see that we're dealing with an amendment to

section 2, the purpose of the Act. I don't believe it will be possible for me to debate an amend ment which is in fact a rewriting of the purpose of the Act without debating the purpose of the Act, which is quite different than the principle of the Art. I'm sure if the member reflected on it, he would appreciate that that's exactly what I'm doing. I have a very quick example to give, and that's about the extent of it. MR. FOX: On the point of order, Mr. Chairman. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Member for Vegreville.

2242 Alberta Hansard June 26, 1990 MR. FOX: Well, I'd just like to concur with my colleague for Edmonton-Jasper Place and signal my intention to get involved in the debate on this as well. The amendment proposed by the hon. Minister of Energy, amendment B here to

section 2, striking out

section 2 and replacing it with another one, deals with the purpose of the Act and describes that in the broadest possible sense. If we can't discuss the purpose of the Act, which is "to provide for an impartial process to review projects that will or may affect the natural resources," et cetera, et cetera, then what the heck can we discuss? I mean, the fact is that this is a very broad amend ment that deals with, you know, the purpose of the Bill, and we need to be able to examine that in a thorough sort of way to determine whether or not we want to vote in favour of this amendment. It's got to be contrasted to the impact of the originally proposed

section 2 in the Act, and I submit that if the Member for Clover Bar wishes to involve himself in the debate, there are more straightforward ways of doing that. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Chair has been listening quite carefully and, while appreciating the points raised by the hon. members on this particular point, would just reflect that certainly

section 2 deals with the purpose of the Bill and therefore has quite a possible breadth of discussion available to it. There is no need here, though, to go into past history and repeat the actual debate of second reading. However, I would only at this point ask the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place to proceed, please. MR. McINNIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was attempting to apply the very important example of the Alberta-Pacific EIA Review Board to the amendment to

section 2, because I think it's very instructive in crystalizing the problems with the

section as it's been rewritten by the government. We had a comprehensive series of public hearings that were held, a tremendous amount of input by Albertans who, on their own time and their own money for the most part, prepared incredibly detailed submissions, and a lot of evidence was produced. Now, one of the key problems that emerged early on was the lack of available information about the state of the environment on the Athabasca River within the reach of the project and the impact of this particular project.

That was a major sticking point, and the board struggled heroically to try to gather the available information from whatever source. They took all of the information the company provided. They took all of the information provided them by the various intervenors, including the two Environment departments, federal and provincial, and the various groups that appeared. They went beyond that. They canvassed available literature. They sought out all of the world-renowned experts in the field of organic chemistry, especially dioxin and furan organic chloride chemistry.

They brought them to Alberta, and at one point I did table a list of who all those scientific people were. They questioned the proponent very closely about all of those things, and in the end of it they came out with a report that indicated that the information just wasn't there upon which a decision could be made. That was the recommendation that was put to the government, that this information has to be gathered before a decision can be made. That was the substance of their recommendation.

Unfortunately, the government took the report and put it to one side and said: "Well, that's interesting, but we're going to forget about that project and we're going to hold new discus sions with the developer on a new project. We're going to hire a new group of scientists over here to review the project." So all of the information that came out of the hearings was, in effect, declared by the government to be irrelevant to the decision. That's the key point. There is nothing in

section 2 as rewritten that relates the information gathered by the panel to the decision that's ultimately made. There's no cause and no effect, so it's quite possible for the board to do as the government did with the Al-Pac process: set it to one side and go for a com pletely different process. That's a very serious problem. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Member for Edmonton- Meadowlark, on the government amendment. MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to address the government's amendments as well.

I guess on one level they seem and appear to be quite administrative, and because they seem to be benign for that reason, it's difficult to oppose them. But I should point out that we are opposed in principle to this Bill because of its many weaknesses, and administrative changes to an already weak Bill add up to weakening weaknesses, perhaps. I would like to be a little more specific in stating some concerns.

My feeling is that amendment A, striking out "that normally occur in a natural state" – it's true that these words mean virtually nothing, and for the sake of some kind of tidiness I suppose that would be acceptable. But in B I am concerned, because B addresses the purpose of the Bill. At one level I suppose it makes it a little tidier and the wording is a little cleaner, given the intent or the level of commitment that this government has to environmental protec tion, a very weak level of commitment. I guess that rewording this

section to make it cleaner, to make it more tidy, really begs a broader question, and the broader question is that this Act nowhere, in its purpose

section or anywhere else, gives this board a mandate to protect and to conserve the environment. One would think that if the purpose of this NRCB is anything other than protecting and conserving the environment, it would not be doing what logically and obviously an NRCB should be structured to do. I guess I question why the government would be reluctant to state that this board's mandate is to protect and conserve the environment, why it wants to skirt that issue at some level.

I know the minister talks about the need to find a balance, and that's important and nobody's disagreeing with that, but then why doesn't he state that it is the purpose of this board, on the one hand, to protect and conserve the environment and, on the other hand, to find a balance between that objective and that initiative and some kind of sustainable economic enterprise. I believe it is very, very important among other things that this

section should be amended, yes, but should be amended to specify environmental protection and conservation as an important feature of the mandate, the purpose of this board, and that among other things it should certainly specify that it isn't there just to review the potential environmental impact on subsurface or land surface or water, fauna, and flora resources.

In fact, it should also specify air, and it should be very, very careful how it uses that word "resources," because of course this government's bias is that a resource is something you can turn into money, and I think it is very important for us to note, to appreciate, to understand that there are many places and many cases where environmental resources should have quite a different end use or quite a different purpose, quite a different level of respect, on the part of the legislators and all Albertans. In D I would say that on the one hand these look quite benign.

"Hearing" is to be replaced by "proceeding." Now,

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2243 admittedly this gives the board somewhat more flexibility. I think anybody who's reasonable would understand that there will be reviews that the board would undertake of a relatively minor nature, of a noncontentious nature, where there is no public interest, where there isn't, therefore, the need to have a hearing perhaps. I caution people in assessing my comments in this regard, in that there must be at least a public appeal process to ensure that when a decision not to have a public hearing is undertaken, there is recourse to the public.

There may well be many cases, in fact, when the nature of the issue, the lack of confrontation, the lack of contentiousness, a general consensus in society that a public hearing isn't necessary – it would be important – but a review is still necessary, that the word "hearing" should properly be replaced by "proceeding." The problem I have with that is that to move one step away from "hearing" without ever defining that the board has an obligation to undertake public hearings or public proceedings – and I emphasize the word "public" – is, I think, to erode further that important feature, what should be an important specification of this Bill: that the board in fact should be inclined to do whatever it is to do in the public eye.

Therefore, there should be at least public proceedings, and if it is ever to be private, the onus is on the board to specify why that might be the case. I have an amendment to that effect that I will be raising later. I would argue that on the one level we can't support these amendments because they do little to strengthen an already weakened Bill. As the House knows, we voted against this.

My caucus was the only caucus in this Legislature to vote against this Bill in principle, because we have some very serious concerns that there are many principles in this Bill which are extremely weak and to support those principles would be to deny, in fact, that a board of this nature should be structured in certain proper ways. In addition, these amendments are a slippery slope, Mr. Chairman.

They beg questions that should be addressed in this legislation, and they begin to erode even further certain very important principles upon which a Bill such as this should be based, such as, for example, the need to have public hearings or public proceedings, as the case may be. MR. McINNIS: Perhaps I'll just conclude my remarks on the amendment to

section 2. With the Al-Pac project, as I said, the proponent came back with a second proposal. Now, here's where it gets interesting. The government is toying with the idea of not having a full review of the second project. In fact, the Minister of the Environment said today that a decision on the Al-Pac project will be made by the end of this week or early next week without a full review of the type which would be held under the Natural Resources Conservation Board Act. Why, Mr. Chairman? Because he's declared himself satisfied that the problems are solved.

Now, here you have a case in which a minister and a govern ment are deciding to avoid a full-scale review on a new project on what, in effect, amounts to political grounds; you know, when he says that it's not fair to require a new review of the new Al- Pac proposal because they already had a review. That was of a different project. Some of the details of the new proposal were discussed at the Al-Pac hearings.

It was discussed that the technology was not available for commercial application in the new project, and it was discussed that there was no data that could be applied to evaluation of the new technology; therefore, it wasn't evaluated. So a government is deciding, perhaps, if the minister is correct, that there will not be a review of the project. Why? Well, I think the why is for some economic or social reason. There's an economic or social imperative that leads the govern ment to the conclusion that there should not be a full-scale review of the new Alberta-Pacific project.

That unfortunate decision which apparently has been made by the government is entirely compatible with

section 2 as it's presently written. If you put economic and social factors somewhere in the same broad category as environmental factors, then, yeah, maybe you would compromise on environmental issues. Maybe you would even decide that it would be unfair to a developer economically to subject a new proposal – it's in the nature of the terms of reference of the EIA review board that they could really only evaluate the proposal before them.

Even though they did attempt to find out about the possibility of this new technology and they were told in evidence that the new technology was not available and therefore it could not be evaluated, it's in the nature of that that they had to deal only with this proposal. A new proposal comes along, and it's entirely possible under

section 2 that this idea of waiving an environmental review altogether, just waiving it, would be possible because of the social and economic effects, the social effects perhaps being a lobby by pro development forces within the community, the economic impact clearly being a financial penalty on the part of a developer not to proceed with a project.

It's in the nature of the development industry that if a project is not environmentally sound – if it does not contribute in some fashion to preserving, protecting, enhancing the environment, if it does not contribute to sustaining functioning ecosystems, then it cannot be con sidered environmentally sound. I would argue that legislation of this kind must take as its guiding light and principle that the project must be environmentally sound before it can be ap proved.

We're still stuck in a position where that is anything but clear in the legislation, and if you couple that with the fact that within the balance of the Bill it's quite possible for the NRCB to waive a public hearing, it's quite possible that we could end up with the Al-Pac scenario repeated over and over again. A developer comes forward with a project; no approval is granted by the NRCB. The developer comes back with a new project, and for whatever reason a deal is made and the project is potentially approved without even having the claims of the new project evaluated.

I would remind the Chair and members of the Assembly that Dr. David Schindler, a member of the panel, has stated publicly, based on research he conducted recently in Finland, that it is not possible for Al-Pac to meet the claims that they're making about the new project. Yet . . . MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Order, hon. member. I do feel you're getting very much into the details of the Al-Pac situation, and these last few words I cannot relate to the clauses. But perhaps proceed, please. MR. McINNIS: Perhaps the Chair would instruct me how it's possible to give an example without citing facts. How can you do this thing?

MR. HYLAND: Figure it out, John. MR. McINNIS: Figure out how to give an example without facts? See, you are the guys who made decisions without facts. You can't hang that on us. I'm saying that the facts of the matter are what must lead to a decision. You can't allow legislation to pass this Assembly which allows decisions to be made without reference to the facts. That's the point that's being made here. When you can take all of the facts and set

2244 Alberta Hansard June 26, 1990 them to one side and say, "Well, that's interesting, EIA review board, but we're going to have a secret meeting in the Premier's office, and we're going to design a new project, and we're going to design a plan on how we're going to get the thing through," this NRCB could very well turn out to be nothing more than the willing handmaiden of that type of process. Believe me, this type of thing happens all the time, whether we're talking about a property development, whether it's a subdivision, whether it's an industrial development.

Whatever type of development activity there is, it's in the nature of it that if a developer is refused, they come back with changes. They do it every time, and that's exactly what's happened in the case of the Al-Pac proposal. There is no guarantee in the final analysis that any one of these projects will be subject to a public review, with the exception of a pulp, paper, newsprint, or recycled fibre operation. Aside from that, there is no guarantee that there will be a public review at all, but more importantly there is no guarantee that the relevant facts will result in a decision being made.

That's the point: that somehow all of those who have read this legislation, with concern that in many cases goes beyond concern into alarm and apprehension, have been saying to the government that the decision-making criteria, which could only be found in the structure of this Act in

section 2, are completely and totally deficient. For that reason, this amendment just simply fails to grasp the situation. It has to be underscored that every developer will make a claim. Every developer will state that a project has economic, social benefits, and every developer will attempt to minimize the importance of the environmental impacts. That's generally the way these things go. But if these things are in the legislation, all one category, and there's no basis on which to favour one over the other, there's no basis for essentially, you know, tipping the scale.

The way it's set up in the legislation, you've got social and economic benefit over here, environmental cost over there, and somehow these two are to be weighed and a balance struck, and they call that balance the public interest. Well, that's political language, Mr. Chairman; it's not the legal language. It doesn't provide any assurance to present and future generations of Albertans that in fact these developments will take place in a way that's compatible with our right to a healthy future.

We could in fact end up with some real turkeys from an environmental point of view, not in this Legislative Assembly but in the province of Alberta, if this legislation were to pass in the present form. [Motion on amendment carried] MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: A number of amendments have been presented. I recognize the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place. MR. McINNIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make just a few comments on the Bill in committee prior to the introduction of my first amendment.

I think that so much has been expected of this legislation because of the extreme importance that environmental matters have assumed in people's minds, and this is not an abstract phenomenon. It's not in any sense a fad or a trend. It's not something that will pass. It's something that is in my opinion built very deeply into the commitment that people have, not just in their political views, not just in how they might vote, what actions in the government they support or don't support, but in their own personal life style and their own personal approach to family living.

Now, the environmental impact assessment process, of which this is a part, is nothing more nor less than how we try to avoid making serious environmental mistakes. I think we can do a great deal more than that, and I think I look to a government which has the courage to consider the environmental impact of a great many things, certainly major project development, because one of the ways that we influence our future in the province is to consider, evaluate, pass judgment on proposals.

But it's fundamentally important in terms of the overall scope of this legislation that we look to existing activities, that we look to government programs and policies and legislation such as, for example, the outrageous proposal to allow the commercial slaughter of elk in the absence of any type of environmental assessment. All of these things should be part of the scope of environmental impact assessment legislation. What we're dealing with here is two-thirds of the environmental impact assessment process on projects alone, on a narrow range of projects.

Now, I will be addressing the question of the scope of the Bill, but I think the place to start is to try to determine what are the values that should inform and direct and guide the operations of this legislation. Much has been written about environmental impact assessment; in fact, there is a very serious and a very highly respected academic study of environmental impact assessment. Alberta is fortunate enough to have one of the leading experts on the environmental impact assessment process in the person of Dr.

Bill Ross from the University of Calgary, who also served as a member of the environmental impact assessment review board on the Al-Pac project. So his contribu tion has certainly been noted, and there are a great many comments within the EIA review board report on the process and a number of process recommendations.

I think we would be in much better shape if the government spent more than two minutes reviewing this report, more than the time it took them to realize that they weren't going to get their blessed Al-Pac project through and then to proceed to concoct a political strategy to in effect deep-six this report, and that's exactly what's happened to this report since it was presented in early March.

But indeed there are very substantial recommendations and commentary dealing with the public input process coming from the experts, coming from the people who've actually gone out there and done it, and to go out there and do it is a much different thing than to study it and dream about it and manipulate it and, indeed, sit down and write rules about it. I feel badly that the government did not apparently spend a great deal of time studying the concerns and recommendations just on the process that came forward in this report. Subsequent to that and following in fairly short order, we had another report tabled.

Actually, perhaps my memory is wrong. I think this one may have come first. The Alberta Environmen tal Impact Assessment Task Force, a task force which consisted of representation from within the provincial government, reported on March 2. The bureaucratic sector was represented, so they had their input into this report. Also represented was industry on the part of representatives from the forest industry and the petroleum industry, and further represented were the environmental activists, the people who have a demonstrated commitment, concern, and ability to deal effectively with environmental issues.

All those people were there, and they presented a very elaborate model, a lot of detail in terms of how environmental impact assessment processes should be done. Now, I did hear the minister say at one time that he had read that report before he reviewed the draft legislation. Unfor tunately, he either chose not to accept what he read or else didn't understand it, because this legislation before us in

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2245 committee today does not reflect the EIA Task Force report, nor does it reflect the EIA review board report dealing with the Al-Pac project. It is, as I said, Mr. Chairman, an almost entirely bureaucratic document. It has process, procedure, but not substance. It doesn't breathe with the lifeblood of what we're trying to do here. What is it that we're trying to do here? Well, perhaps to focus this debate, I would like to bring forward an amendment. It's marked amendment 1, and it strikes out the second clause in

section 2 and substitutes: to provide for those reviews to be conducted in public with the assistance of independent expertise to determine whether the projects and activities are compatible with maintaining and preserving the natural ecological diversity of the Province of Alberta in order to perpetuate or restore the integrity of functional ecosystems. That's the amendment I'd like to put before the committee, and if I may, I'd like to speak to it briefly. The amendment gives the board a job basically.

This is a board which has a structure, a procedure, but it doesn't have a very strong mandate under the current draft legislation. So this amendment will give it a job to do. It says, first of all, that the reviews they are conducting should be done in public, because it's the nature of this agency that they involve the public in the process. Up to now every environmental impact assessment in Alberta, save for one, which was the Al-Pac EIA, has been done entirely within the Department of the Environment. I call it the paper blizzard.

The developer submits usually a six-inch tall stack of documents prepared at great expense by their consul tants. By the way, have you ever wondered why none of the consultants ever recommend against building a project? I have, and I haven't been able to find an answer to that. Anyway, they choose their consultants, prepare the six-inch tall stack of documents, and it goes to the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy takes the six inches of documents and passes them out among the various people there. They all read through and mark with their pens where they think information is missing.

They write notes based on the marks they've made. They put all the notes together in a document and call that a deficiency review. The deficiency review is sent to the developer, and essentially it's like a group of short-answer essay questions. It says, "Describe, please, this phenomenon; answer this question." The consultants for the developers go through the short-answer essay exam presented to them by the Environment department and prepare a supplementary EIA document, which is usually about a one- to two-inch thick document. Then the officials in the department pass it out again.

They go through it with their pens and mark all of what they think are still missing answers. They send another – this time it's down to a memo usually, 10 pages or so, which is then answered in a rather longer memo. This essentially goes on until such time as the government wants a decision. The paper blizzard ends and a decision is made. Up to a year ago, that has been the entire scope and substance of environmental impact assessments in Alberta. As I said, we went a different route on the Al-Pac project.

Unfortunately, that's been shelved and an entirely different procedure is being developed in respect of the new Al-Pac project. So I guess we've gone to a third model in terms of dealing with that, and now the fourth model is before us today. In the fourth model that document comes out of the department into the hands of the NRCB, and here's where they kick in. Now, in the literature of environmental impact assessment theory at least, it's clear that process is very, very important.

I mean, we are dealing with a process that involves the public, and people have a right to expect that certain things will happen when the process is triggered. That's essentially the way most of the Bill is laid out. But then when the process is over, you can talk process all you like, but sooner or later somebody's going to have to make a decision. That's where the provisions of

section 2 become absolutely crucial. A decision can be challenged under this legislation only on a point of law. You know, there is no appeal. Over the course of the past year I've done a lot of thinking about who should ultimately make the decisions.

I began with my democratic value structure saying that of course an elected government has to decide these things, but I'm persuaded on the basis of a lot of detailed argument and thought that in fact when it comes to the question of whether the environment is going to be destroyed by a project or not, it's not really a political decision, not in the same sense as whether we should tax cigarettes at a buck a pack or a buck and a half a pack.

You know, whether a smoker should pay an extra half a buck in taxation every time they smoke a pack of cigarettes is fundamen tally a political decision, but dealing with the environment, either a project is compatible with functioning ecosystems or it's not. If it's destructive of functioning ecosystems, if it destroys the natural ecological diversity of the province, that's not a deter mination that can be made in a political fashion. It's a deter mination that has to be made on the basis of scientific evidence and on the basis of an informed

interpretation of scientific evidence. An equally important point but perhaps not germane to the scope of the amendment – I think the scope of the amendment has more to do with the substantive criteria – is that it's important that the people who make that judgment know what they're talking about and know what they're hearing and know how to separate a true claim from a false claim.

I would guess that if any member of this Legislative Assembly were told by somebody from Al-Pac that this technology will reduce organic chloride emissions to .2 kilograms per air-dried tonne of pulp, most of us would say, "Well, that's interesting, but what does it mean?" Even if you did know what it meant, how would you know whether it was true or not? Well, a scientist like, for example, Dr.

David Schindler – this is only an example – says, "I've checked it out and .4 is the most that's possible given this technology." Now, somehow or other somebody has to be able to make a decision on that, and you have to know something about it in order to make the decision. Ultimately that informa tion has to be fed into some type of criteria in order to reach a decision. I recall that the board was extremely frustrated with the lack of data and also the lack of criteria upon which to make a decision, because the criteria is also crucial.

We have to have a standard of what we want to achieve, and much of the discussion on that project, for example, revolved around oxygen. Oxygen is a very important issue in every river system in the province of Alberta. It's an issue in the North Saskatchewan. Very clearly it's an issue in the Athabasca River, because without oxygen fish die, especially young fish, who need oxygen in order to grow and live. So any board making a decision on that project will in effect be deciding how many milligrams per litre of dissolved oxygen will be in that river.

You know, you can't say to anybody, "Well, you've got to make a decision about that" unless you give them some criteria. Now, the government doesn't have any criteria. They don't have any standards for dissolved oxygen. There's no number you can go to on a sheet of paper in order to make that decision. There are some objectives, which have no force of law whatsoever. So

2246 Alberta Hansard June 26, 1990 it's left to somebody, in this case the natural resources conserva tion board, to determine whether the correct amount of oxygen is there or not. Well, how do you value oxygen? Oxygen is sold in bottles to the public, but you can't use the price of oxygen over the counter, because our problem in this case is that we have to get oxygen delivered to the fish in the river and the fish are not going to show up every day at a given checkpoint and receive their daily dose of oxygen. They're not going to do that.

So we've got to give this board some criteria which transcend the numbers, which transcend all the gobbledygook and the mumbo jumbo in the currently drafted

section which in effect throws all these factors into a pot and says, "You figure it out." We have to say to them, "There's something we want you to achieve." I submit that if we really think about it, what we want out of this environmental issue, what we want out of this process is natural ecological diversity in the province of Alberta which perpetuates and restores the integrity of functional ecosystems. You know, there is no engineer in all of creation who's capable of designing a functioning ecosystem. They can't do it. Science is based on reductionism.

You take complex interrelated systems and get PhDs by tearing them down into smaller and smaller pieces. You don't get a PhD for understanding how a broad ecosystem works or understanding what it takes to make an ecosystem function. No, you don't. You get a PhD for breaking it down to the molecular level. If you can determine how a tsetse fly will behave under some outrageous, extreme circumstances involving selective breeding, radiation, and all kinds of stress and so forth, you probably could become a full professor. But science can't design an ecosystem.

What we can do as legislators is say to the NRCB, "It's your job to make sure the ecology of the province of Alberta continues to function." How do you do that? Well, obviously you look at making sure the ecosystems out there continue to function. That may not be good enough either, Mr.

Chairman, and that's why there is a second part to this amendment, which suggests that the board also has a role in restoring the integrity of ecosystems which may have been destroyed by past industrial activity, careless recreational activity, thoughtless legislation and policy on the part of government, the dumping of sewage, all the various things that we have found convenient or previous generations of Albertans have found convenient to do under the name of social benefit, under the name of economic progress, in the name of jobs or what have you.

You know, it also turns out that some of the claims on the economic and social end of things are also difficult to evaluate, because developers in their nature inflate the job prospects of particular projects. In fact, Mr. Chairman, I daresay that governments occasionally inflate the economic and social benefits of given projects. Not that this government should be singled out unfairly, but it was only last year that 11,000 jobs were promised from all this forestry development. I think the government would be hard pressed to show very much more than 2,000 jobs to date, if that much at all.

So we're in a situation where throwing all these values into a cauldron, stirring quickly, and asking for a decision is simply not good enough from the point of view of the right of Albertans to secure a healthy future. You know, I think how better to do that than to value and honour the earth, because it's the nature of ecosystems that we're not capable and developers are not capable and governments are not capable of modifying ecosys tems. We're not capable of designing ecosystems and not capable of necessarily restoring the damage if an ecosystem is destroyed.

So it turns out that we've had three major reviews of environ mental impact assessment legislation in the past year. We've had one done by a joint federal/provincial review panel, one done by a representative panel of government, industry, and the environmental community, and a third one done by a bureau cratic in-house committee under the tutelage of the Deputy Minister of Executive Council in a cabinet committee chaired by the Minister of Energy. Now, which one of those three does the government choose to bring forward its model environmental impact assessment legislation?

Not the federal/provincial panel, not the tripartite review board, but the bureaucratic in-house panel of the provincial government. I think that's bureaucratic thinking, and that's what makes

section 2 what it is today. That's how it got to be what it is today, because it was designed by bureaucrats for bureaucrats to serve their political masters. I suggest that we serve the interest of maintaining and preserv ing the natural ecological diversity of the province rather than political or bureaucratic needs and we put forward the goal of perpetuating and restoring the integrity of functional ecosystems rather than serving the needs of the government of the day. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Member for Edmonton- Belmont on the amendment. MR. SIGURDSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm pleased to rise and support the amendment that's been put forward by my colleague the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place. In fact, I think it's one of those amendments that is well thought out and for which the member ought to be congratulated, because obviously it takes in a rather wide area of consideration. You know, for a long time we've looked at our province, our country, even our world as this vast, endless supply of whatever we need; we can do anything we want to it and it's always going to bounce back. That's not the case.

I think finally we've come to a point in time when we realize that we live on a very fragile planet that has to be properly cared for. Mr. Chairman, what we're trying to do with this amendment is show that we've got to give due regard for that sensitive ecosystem that's out there. We can't continue starting off with the premise that we're going to try and achieve point A without looking at the consequences of what the development or what point A or goal A is going to do to the lakes and the rivers and the air. What we've got to start looking at is the end those rivers flow to.

We've got to make sure that those bodies of water, for instance, are going to be able to be sustained over the course of time if we're going to have an economic policy that purports to help the area. Well, if it purports to help the area, then surely to goodness in helping a certain geographical area, it ought not at the same time it's trying to help something destroy something. That's not the balance, the equation, that we need.

We can no longer throw effluent into streams and garbage into the air thinking that if it's out of sight, it's gone; if it's away from us and somewhat removed downstream, it's no longer the problem of one particular community. Mr. Chairman, we've arrived at a point where I think hopefully we're going to give a little more care and attention to the community in which we live. That community doesn't just mean those folk that live im mediately in the area. It means those people that live down stream, people that survive on the ecosystem that's somewhat away from the area of damage, the area of development.

It means that people that are removed from that area are also going to be able to survive. It's time for that change. You know, I've seen political campaigns that always talk about change or renewal. Goodness,

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2247 in the early '80s there was the Conservative campaign out there that talked about renewal, regrowth. Maybe what it was was more regrouping. But if that change is really going to take place, Mr. Chairman, perhaps that change has to be that we're going to have to restore back to the ecosystem, back to the earth, and make sure we're going to be taking some of the corrective measures necessary to enhance that which we've damaged. It means something more than just covering up landfill. It means something more that just having a golf course where we used to have a garbage dump.

It means something more than just having strip mine reclamations. It's means that we're going to have to have more regard for the entire system around us. What we're trying to do with this amendment is to make sure that the so-called enhancement, so-called reforestation programs that some areas have adopted – they're not necessarily going to return the area to a natural state, what it once was. What we're doing is proposing to go in and make some significant geological, geographical, geophysical changes and put on our stamp of approval and call it finished and complete. Well, that's not the case.

It doesn't necessarily return to a natural state of being. Once we as human beings have gone in and tampered with the system, the state, the area has changed forever. So we've got to make sure we have the ability to ensure that certain projects that should be proposed for certain areas are going to be in harmony with the natural ability of the area. How do we do that? This amendment, Mr. Chairman, proposes exactly how it should be done. It talks about having the necessary public review, with public assistance, for projects for any particular area.

Now, obviously if we're going to go through an exercise, there's got to be some credibility that's associated with that exercise, and that's why you've got to have the independent expertise that's mentioned in this amendment. It's not much good, say, for an individual that has an PhD in inorganic chemistry and another individual that may have a PhD in physics to go out and take a look at something that requires a biological scientist and call that committee a scientific commit tee studying the matter at hand.

That's why this amendment is so important, because it calls for independent expertise to determine the ability of the projects. Now, in order to do that, there has to be a wide resource base of intellectual talent, and that can be drawn from any of the university communities, if not in our province then certainly outside our province. We've had a number of scientists that have come into Alberta to look at our environmental plans. We've had criticism out of the state of Oregon about our environmental laws, and perhaps that's fair.

We've often boasted about being number one, and then when somebody comes along to critique the statutes we have on our books, to look at our laws, we feel a little embarrassed by some of the effort we've put into certain areas. This is one of them. So what we've got to do is make sure that that independent expertise is there and available. That's exactly what this amendment calls for. Now, why do you have to have it? It's rather simple.

There's going to be that community of interest that's going to respond to any proposal, to any project, and that community of interest is going to talk about a variety of issues that are of importance to their concerns. They want to address those matters that are important, whether it's their livelihood, whether it's fishing for food, whether it's hunting for food, whether it's harvesting of timber for economic development, or whether it's harvesting of land for agricultural purposes.

There are going to be those communities of interest that put forward certain proposals to this independent committee that's going to examine things. The problem with all of that is that we get into the concern of process, and too often, all too often I would submit, we have decisions that are made after the fact. We hear of plans that are going ahead and we haven't had sufficient opportunity to speak to that. If we do, if we are made aware of it, there's the attitude out there amongst Albertans, Mr.

Chairman – that quite frankly is rather upsetting to me as a member of the Assembly – that they think they can't take on the government; they're not going to have the opportunity to have any input into the decision making process. That's a rather sad situation. We need to be able to make sure that what we're doing is providing some form of assistance, whether the assistance is through a financial arrangement that's made by the Treasury Department or whether it's made through offering and lending the expertise of certain scientists to those groups that express an interest.

We have to make sure those people are able to access the funding and the information they need in order to go before a committee of experts to make a reasonable presentation, to make a presentation that's going to be heard and hopefully have some effect. Mr. Chairman, that clearly hasn't been the case to date. We talk about Albertans feeling left out of situations. I was at an event today when people were talking about the process of Meech Lake, and you'd think people would have learned, that politicians in this Assembly would have learned about process, about how to include people.

We should have learned from that argument. What we're talking about here is something that is going to talk about environmental impact. We're going to talk about the necessity of speaking to natural changes of our environment. Mr. Chairman, certainly if we're going to be able to have people come forward and present their opinions, they ought to be able to have the assistance of the government, and that means making studies available. We don't do that, or seemingly we don't do that.

My goodness, every time we have motions for returns on the Order Paper asking certain questions of the government, we get all kinds of incredible excuses, that we can't have this study because it's an internal memoranda. It's something that is shared between this department and that department of government, and you can't access that informa tion. You would think that there ought to be the ability to gain that information, to have that assistance, but it's not there. Perhaps a companion resolution to this, Mr.

Chairman, ought to be a freedom-of-information Act for the province of Alberta to make sure that when the government conducts a study into economic diversifications in certain areas, there's going to be a study of environmental damage or environmental assessment. When we talk about environmental assessment, it's that those studies ought to be shared with the public, and that's just not the case. So what this one would do, Mr.

Chairman, in light of the fact that we haven't a freedom-of-information Act, this amendment here would call for the ability of the public to get some assis tance so that they would be able to go out, take a look at the information, have the input, maybe go out and get other expert opinion on what was being offered and on the millions of dollars that we spend on certain studies. Perhaps there are those folk out there that would offer free their opinion, willingly offer free their opinion that may be contrary to the studies that we've paid millions of dollars for.

I don't think that's too much to ask, surely to goodness, if we're going to start to look at cleaning up, cleaning up the mess that we've made, cleaning up the mess that

2248 Alberta Hansard June 26, 1990 we've been left with, not because there's been necessarily some nasty individuals out there who purposely go out and damage the environment, but because what we had was the opinion for such a long period of time that there was an endless supply of water, of clean water, an endless supply of clean air, an endless supply of everything that we need without having proper consideration of the damage that we're creating down the road. Mr. Chairman, we need that information. We've got to make sure that that information gets out to people.

Otherwise, all we're going to be doing is spinning our wheels and going – we're not spinning our wheels; we're throwing the whole exercise into reverse and going the wrong way. If we're going to go forward, Mr. Chairman, we're going to have to start providing the kind of information that's contained in this amendment. I would certainly support the amendment, encourage other members to support the amendment, and I congratulate the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place for moving it. It's very well. MR.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: There seems to be some confusion among members, and I must admit that all the material was not in front of the Chair that I guess I should have had here. We're dealing with what is labeled amendment 1, submitted by the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place. It deals with

section 2. However, I would like to just re-establish – we will continue to deal with that amendment, but I would like to remind hon. members that there is a procedure which should normally be adhered to. That is, we should go with amendments as they appear in the legislation, in which case, for another time, we should have been dealing initially with the amendment which deals first with

section 1. But we're dealing with the one that is labeled number 1 and deals with

section 2, if that's understan dable. MR. SIGURDSON: Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I can't hear you. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: It was not pertaining to you, hon. member. I'm sorry. [interjection] We are, because it's being discussed. We're dealing with amendment 1 as submitted by the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place, but it is not in order in terms of the Act. That's all I'm pointing out right now. The Member for Edmonton-Meadowlark. MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say that I am sympathetic to the reasoning behind and the intention for this amendment.

One of the real weaknesses in this Bill is that it doesn't specify that the hearings or the proceedings should be, can be, in fact must be in public. But to say that they must always be held in public is an extreme statement and an extreme position to take. I believe that perhaps only in one-half of 1 percent of the cases or in one-half of 1 percent of all the time that hearings are undertaken, there may be some reasons why the board would want to retire to a nonpublic process.

For example, they may be discussing a new technology for which there is some proprietary consideration, for which there is a patent process pending. There may be informa tion of commercial importance, of comparisons and competitive significance. In very rare cases it might be justifiable, therefore, not to have this directly in public. There must be a process whereby the board would have to justify, and whereby members of the public could have an appeal to ensure, that that particular exception was invoked properly and acceptably.

But to say that it must always be conducted in public, without any regard for some of those albeit rare but nevertheless significant cases, I believe simply demonstrates a certain extremeness, a certain naivety to this particular amendment, which would mean that while I am very sympathetic and while I will be suggesting a number of amendments to address the issue of the publicness of these processes, I simply feel that it wouldn't be responsible for me and for my caucus to support this amendment.

I say that with some regret because I certainly appreciate what the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place is attempting to undertake. I will say to him that we have an amendment which will address this issue in what I believe to be a slightly better way, and I would ask for his support at that time. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Member for Edmonton- Beverly. MR. EWASIUK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to rise in support of amendment 1, submitted by my colleague from Edmonton-Jasper Place. I'm a little surprised that amendments of this nature weren't forthcoming from the government.

During debate on second reading I was left with the impression that the minister had received communications from the Environmental Law Centre and that he was seriously going to consider their suggestion, recommendation, and indeed he was going to discuss it with them. I thought: well, great; that's going to occur. I thought maybe the recommendations would be brought forward in amendments when we were dealing with it in Committee of the Whole. Unfortunately, that hasn't occurred, and I'm rather disappointed that that is the case. Insomuch as the amendment before us, Mr.

Chairman, no doubt my good friend from Edmonton-Belmont has addressed the need for the kind of process that's going to make informa tion during hearings available to the public, and I believe that these kinds of meetings must be conducted in public if you're going to have fair and proper hearings. Now, certainly if the panel requires that they must discuss something that perhaps should not be discussed in a public forum, then indeed they have the option of adjourning to an in camera session to deal with those kinds of items.

But certainly it seems to me that if we're talking about our environment, the hearings must be in public in all cases to ensure that the relevance of any of the informa tion that has been made available at those hearings is available to everyone concerned. The assistance of independent expertise to determine the projects' and activities' compatibility I think is a very important component in this particular amendment, Mr. Chairman.

When we spoke to this Bill in second reading, it was identified at that time that three or five members on the panel is a rather small number of people who will require a great deal of expertise. It was conceded, at least it was believed by this side of the House, that that wasn't sufficient, that indeed there should be provisions made available to bring in expertise to supplement the people on the panel to ensure that the hearings are given a proper and adequate hearing. So this amendment addresses that particular issue.

The other problem that I see and that I'm surprised the minister has not addressed and brought before us is the funding for the intervenors. It would be quite difficult for an intervenor unless he has some direct interest, as the Bill states. He doesn't know if he's going to get paid or not. So it becomes incumbent on the government to ensure that independent expertise is available at the expense of the government to ensure that all the relevant information and concerns are raised. Now, we're dealing here, I think, with a very important Bill. I think it has a great deal of importance. I think it could go a

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2249 long way in making this province a healthier and better place to live. Again my colleague from Edmonton-Belmont raised the event we were at this morning where we had the Governor General present. All the schools in the area were there, and they had the opportunity to bring a message to the Governor General. Without exception all of the students who were present at the function spoke about the environment to the Governor General.

So I think it's very important that when we are talking about a Bill as important as Bill 52, if we're going to ram it through this session – and again I think there's an objection that that should be done. I think there should be an opportunity for the . . . MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we do have an amendment before us. I realize the Bill is important, but the amendment, please. MR.

EWASIUK: Well, again, I think the importance of the hearings that are being suggested in this amendment – they must be done in public, and the process must be such that there is expertise available to enhance the presentations, to ensure that all the important components of the presentation are addressed and are presented to the panel. It is quite clear that if the government is serious and wants to endorse that they are going to adhere to the protection of the environment, then I think without doubt they must consider amendments of this nature.

I would support and I would hope that the members in the House would consider giving support to this amendment, because I think it goes a long way to removing any fears that the public has – the people that have vested interests, have a direct interest in appearing before this board – that the process is not such that every opportunity will be given to them to make their comments in a manner that is going to be well understood, so that the panel making the decision on the project will be able to ascertain that the concerns raised by the intervenors is such that it's relevant and should be addressed in their decision-making.

So I would urge all members to support this amendment. I think it's going to go a long way in making sure that the young children that were speaking about the environment today will also have security in the future if we at this time in this House make the necessary changes and bring in Bills that are going to protect the environment for us down the road and for our children down the road. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Member for Vegreville, on the amendment. MR. FOX: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to support the amendment as proposed by my colleague the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place because . . . MR.

TAYLOR: Surprise, surprise. MR. FOX: Well, I'd just like to remind the Member for Westlock-Sturgeon that it's not a surprise that it's a good amendment. It's drafted by a member who has researched the Bill thoroughly and put a considerable amount of thought into ways that it could be improved, because we support the Bill in principle. We did that in second reading. We support the idea that there needs to be a process. Now, what we need to do is make sure that that process is given purpose, that it is going to be effective, and that it will indeed accomplish the objectives that we want it to.

The amendment adding this clause to the new

section 2 is to provide for reviews that would be conducted in public with the assistance of independent expertise to determine whether the projects and activities are compatible with maintaining and preserving the natural ecological diversity of the Province et cetera, et cetera, Mr. Chairman. I think the words as written are very important, because what we're trying to do is say, "Yes, we agree that as described in

section 2, the purpose of the Act would be to provide for an impartial process." But if you read the

section provided by the hon. minister's amendment, it goes on to say: provide for an impartial process to review projects that will or may affect the natural resources of [the province] in order to determine whether, in the Board's opinion, the projects are in the public interest having regard to the social, economic and environ mental effects of the projects. Well, as an Albertan I want more out of this Act than a determination from the board whether or not the projects . . . MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Excuse me, hon. member. Order, Calgary-Buffalo. Calgary-Buffalo, order please. Please proceed. MR.

FOX: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As an Albertan, a citizen of the province, I want more out of this process. I believe the NRCB can accomplish more than just a determina tion of whether or not in the board's opinion a particular project is in the public interest. I mean, big deal. If it's in the public interest, who cares? There has to be some mandate provided the board, some definition given to their purpose included in

section 2, and that's exactly what I believe is provided for in amendment 1 proposed by the Member for Edmonton-Jasper Place, because it insists that these reviews "be conducted in public with the assistance of independent expertise." If I might speak briefly to that, I guess I have to relate that to my own experience, Mr. Chairman, in order to examine the import of that. We're living in a time when every politician, regardless of political stripe, acknowledges that public interest in the environment is very strong.

Public survey after public survey identifies the fact that the environment is right at the top of everyone's list in terms of pressing issues, matters of public concern. Businesses recognize that. They're trying to appeal through advertising campaigns and, in some cases, through legitimate commercial development to that public concern about protection for the environment. What do we learn from that? As politicians we need to learn that the public has a need to express their views, in fact has the right to express their views.

We have to acknowledge that in the legislation we provide, and we have to empower people. We have to provide the opportunity for them and make sure that that right is legislated so that their views can be heard, their input can be considered, and so that they can be assured, regardless of the decisions that are made in the end – because once we fine-tune this Bill and make it accomplish what we want it to accomplish, we assume that the decisions are going to be good ones, based on the best information available.

But we want to be able to assure people, whether they are the decisions they wanted or not, that the process has been sound and that their input has indeed been considered. So we need to provide for those reviews to be conducted in public. It's not enough to do as we've done in the past and just say: "Your company wants to build an industrial project. We know it's going to pollute, but why don't you just go out and hire some scientists, write up a little report, and tell us how

2250 Alberta Hansard June 26, 1990 wonderful it's going to be? We'll flip through the report, table it in the Assembly a couple of years after you build the plant, and we'll call that public review." It wouldn't be unlike the Oldman dam process.

I think we need more than that, and the basic first principle is that these reviews must be conducted in public; further, that those reviews "be conducted in public with the assistance of independent expertise." We need to have scientific examination of the information provided, evaluation of that information, recommendations made about the impact of the development based on that scientific information done by people who have no particular axe to grind.

We don't want scientists hired by the company who draw their cheques at the end of every month from that company and who live in fear of offending their bosses when they conduct reviews. We all know about the supposedly independent laboratory in the United States that conducted a number of important reviews on behalf of the government of major pesticides and insecticides. Industrial Biotest Laboratories I believe it was called, IBT. Does that ring a bell? [interjection] What a memory, Edmon ton-Jasper Place. IBT conducted these reviews. They were paid handsomely for it.

We found out years later that their results were cooked, that there was false information in there, that they were basically confirming whatever the company who hired them wanted them to confirm, and as a result the public was jeopar dized. I as a farmer had to go to sleep at night knowing that I'd used products certified by this company as safe within the existing guidelines only to find out later that in fact they weren't safe and that these tests were skewed. So we need to get some assistance from independent expertise, people not tied to one cause or another.

I suggest it would be just as wrong for us to go to a scientist who may own property or who may have a home right beside the stream that is going to become the watercourse for the effluent of said plant. That person could be described as having some axe to grind or pecuniary interest in the outcome of the public review and assessment of the information. So I suggest that these are very important words. I haven't heard members opposite speak to this amendment, so I'm not sure what their assessment of it is. I know that the hon. minister will want to stand up and tell us what his views are.

But I can't imagine an hon. member in this Assembly who expresses concern for the environment, who has supported this Bill in principle, that we try and establish a process that will review projects and assess their impact and report to the public, that provides that process – if we support that in principle, then I think we must add this clause. Certainly I believe I've made some arguments the minister might want to respond to in terms of providing for these reviews to be conducted in public with the assistance of independent expertise.

The members are probably waiting for an example of how this might work so that they can be con vinced to vote in favour of this amendment. I'll just very briefly describe to them a concern raised today in the House with regards to the escape of some captive elk from a ranch near Lloydminster. Mr. Chairman, I don't intend to get into this in detail; I'm going to talk about a process here. Clearly it illustrates not that these vasectomized elk pose a risk to anybody but that escapes can occur.

No matter how good your regulations are, no matter how ironclad you think your assurances are, mistakes will be make and accidents will happen. It gives credence or validity to the concerns expressed by thousands of Albertans that raising these animals in captivity poses a risk to the wild populations of elk in the province. One at least has to acknowledge that that concern is valid. Well, what do you do with that concern? Do you ram a Bill through the Legislature and not pay attention to it and pretend that you have concern for the environment? No.

What you do is establish a natural resources conservation board, determine that game ranching shall be referred to the board for a thorough assessment of the impact of that, and you make sure that the reviews are conducted in public – we may perhaps have a debate later in the evening when I can discuss that in much greater length – so that people know what information's being assessed, they know that the process is valid, they know that they have the opportunity to participate and that as Albertans who share in the ownership of that resource, they will have an opportunity to effect the outcome.

As well, the assistance of independent expertise needs to be sought in a case like that. Using this example again briefly, some of the people I've met with – the director of the Calgary Zoo, a very thoughtful Albertan with considerable expertise whose opinions cannot be characterized as off the wall, has told me that he believes, based on his years of experience in dealing with animals, that there is a potential for genetic pollution when elk raised in captivity who aren't vasectomized escape into the wild. In fact, there is a risk even when the vasectomized ones escape because they don't lose their desire.

They may lose their ability but not their desire. They can interfere with the basic . . . MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Hon. member. MR. FOX: It's an example. I'm preparing the hon. Govern ment House Leader for what's to come, foreshadowing. And I can assure you I resisted the temptation in question period to talk about the sexual preference or potential of these vasec tomized animals. Anyway, the point is that there needs to be some independent expertise. [interjections] These members are causing me difficulty, Mr. Chairman. I'm trying to speak on this. The independent expertise is important.

There are people with considerable expertise in this case who express concern, and they're being told by a government who doesn't have a process in place, who does not have the benefits of a good, fine-tuned NRCB to submit this to, that: "We don't want to listen to your input. We're not going to consider it.

We're going to dis enfranchise you by ramming this Bill through the Legislature." That highlights the need to pass this amendment here, because we need to assure Albertans that we're treating their concerns and their resources – they're not our resources; they're the resources of the people of the province of Alberta – with the utmost of respect, that we're good stewards not just of the economy but of the province and all of its resources.

If I may go further with the words in this amendment: . . . to determine whether the projects and activities are com patible with maintaining and preserving the natural ecological diversity of the Province of Alberta. Mr. Chairman, who could argue with that? Again, that's like apple pie and motherhood. I mean, who could argue with something so basic? Surely we would want to determine whether projects and activities planned for various regions of the province are compatible with maintaining and preserving the natural ecological diversity of the province of Alberta.

This speaks to our rich heritage and vast potential, because Alberta does indeed have a vast ecological diversity. We have many regions in the province, many climates, many diverse geographic regions, a diversity of wildlife of various forms in the province. Surely we want to ensure that projects and activities that are approved as a result of reviews conducted by the NRCB must be

June 26, 1990 Alberta Hansard 2251 compatible with maintaining and preserving this natural ecologi cal diversity, understanding that every change, regardless of how insignificant on the surface it may appear, has a subtle and interconnecting impact on other parts of the environment.

The system that seems to be working in Mother Nature is designed by someone far greater than any of us, and if we intend to do things that influence the flow of nature or the interactions of species, then we better make sure that we're using all of the best resources and information at our disposal prior to making those interventions or those decisions. So we want to maintain and preserve "the natural ecological diversity of the Province of Alberta," and this doesn't preclude development.

I want to take my hat off to my colleague for Edmonton-Jasper Place, because he is a consistent protector of the environment and advocate of the environment, who under stands the need for the development of the economy in the province of Alberta, who, in caucus and in meetings wherever I have a chance to hear him talk on issues like this, is emphatic about the need to develop our province's resources but to do it in the most thoughtful, conscientious, responsible way possible.

We need to provide jobs for people, but we don't want to jeopardize opportunities of generations in the future for the sake of meager opportunities for people now. We want to do these while preserving: create jobs, build the economy by making sure projects we approve are subjected to reviews conducted in public with the assistance of independent expertise to determine whether these projects are compatible with maintaining and preserving the natural ecologic diversity of the province in order to perpetuate or restore the integrity of functional ecosystems.

We shouldn't assume that all systems are working well and that all of the systems are complete and that the relationships between everything in the province are positive and symbiotic. The fact is that we as humans have interfered over a number of years in a number of ways, so when we examine it, we've got to look not only at perpetuating the integrity of functional ecosys tems but in some cases restoring the integrity of functional ecosystems. I'm reminded of a very interesting debate that I heard when I was a guest speaker at the convention of the Christian Farmers Federation, Mr. Chairman.

There was an eminent authority from the state of California, I believe. I'd be hard pressed to think of his name off the top of my head, but anyway, this gentleman was talking about the need to think beyond sus tainable agriculture. That was the theme. Sustainable agricul ture was a concept that he had concerns with because he pointed out that even poor systems can be sustained. Even things that don't work particularly well can be sustained over time, and we need to think beyond that. He talked about regenerative agriculture.

In the case of crop management, looking after a part of the earth, the soil, for example. We need to develop cultural methods that would not just maintain the soil at whatever its productive capacity is but would hopefully regener ate, restore life in all its diversity to that soil so that it can serve us better. To the extent we treat that resource with respect we prosper as individuals and as a human family in the world. I think that's the concept that is proposed and embraced by my hon. colleague's amendment here, when he talks about per petuating or restoring the integrity of functional ecosystems.

I've tried to deal very briefly, Mr. Chairman, with the impact and import of the various words in these amendments, to roll it all together. I think we've got one heck of an improvement to Bill 52. I'm anxious to hear the comments of the Minister of Energy in case more convincing needs to be done. I'll await his comments. MR. HORSMAN: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise, report progress, and beg leave to sit again. [Motion carried] [Mr. Speaker in the Chair] MR. JONSON: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has had under consideration certain Bills and reports the following: Bills 29 and 43.

The committee reports the following with some amendments: Bill 51. The committee reports progress on the following: Bill 52. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table copies of all amendments considered by the Committee of the Whole on this date for the official records of the Assembly. MR. SPEAKER: Having heard the report, those in favour, please say aye. HON. MEMBERS: Aye. MR. SPEAKER: Opposed? Carried. Thank you. head: Government Bills and Orders Second Reading Bill 31 Livestock Industry Diversification Act Moved by Mr.

Fox: The motion for second reading be amended to read: That Bill 31, Livestock Industry Diversification Act, be not now read a second time but that the subject matter of the Bill be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Affairs to assess the need for an environmental impact assessment on the provisions contained therein. [Adjourned debate June 20: Mr. Hyland] MR. HORSMAN: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 21, I move that the debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 31, Livestock Industry Diversification Act, be not further adjourned. MR.

SPEAKER: Having heard the motion, those in favour, please say aye. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye. M

Document details

Collection	Alberta — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	19900626
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	L22 S2 19900626 2000 01 han.pdf
Language	en
Format	json
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	b351f88985350294685e8735ad6dd54b43c388df

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