THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, June 6, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 6 p.m. to give clause-by-clause consideration to Bill C-238, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy for the safe and environmentally sound disposal of lamps containing mercury.
Senator Richard Neufeld (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Good evening, colleagues, and welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources.
My name is Richard Neufeld, and I am honoured to be chair of this committee. I’m a senator for British Columbia.
I wish to welcome all those who are with us in the room and everyone across the country who may be listening online. As a reminder to those listening, these committee hearings are open to the public and also available online at the new Senate website at sencanada.ca. All other committee-related business can also be found online, including past reports, bills studied and lists of witnesses.
I would now ask senators around the table to introduce themselves, and I will introduce the deputy chair, Senator Paul Massicotte from Quebec.
Senator Dean: Tony Dean, Ontario.
Senator Galvez: Rosa Galvez, Quebec.
Senator Black: Doug Black, Alberta.
Senator Fraser: Joan Fraser, Quebec.
Senator Wetston: Howard Wetston, Ontario.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas, Alberta.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman, Quebec.
Senator Griffin: Diane Griffin, Prince Edward Island.
Senator Raine: Nancy Greene Raine from B.C.
Senator Patterson: Dennis Patterson from Nunavut.
The Chair: Thank you. I’d also like to introduce our staff, beginning with the clerk on my left, Maxime Fortin, and our Library of Parliament analysts, Sam Banks and Jesse Good.
Colleagues, on March 28, the Senate mandated our committee to study Bill C-238, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy for the safe and environmentally sound disposal of lamps containing mercury.
We are now at a stage where we will be going through Bill C-238 clause by clause. There are four clauses in total.
Before we do this, I would like to remind all members around the table that if, at any point, a senator is not clear where we are in the process, please ask for clarification.
As chair, I will do my utmost to ensure that all senators wishing to speak have the opportunity to do so. For this, however, I will depend on your cooperation. I will ask that all of you keep your remarks to the point and as brief as possible.
I wish to remind honourable senators that, if there is ever any uncertainty as to the result of a voice vote or a show of hands, the cleanest route is to request a roll-call vote, which provides clear results.
Any questions?
Senator Massicotte: I know we can do the formal process clause by clause, but it may be useful, at least personally, to allow me to fix an opinion about this matter, if we had a discussion amongst ourselves, saying, “Here is what we see; here is what we don’t see,” to make sure that at least we have the same information about the proposed bill.
The Chair: Before we go to clause by clause?
Senator Massicotte: Yes, if I could.
The Chair: I’m fine with that.
Senator Massicotte: Is that okay? Let me throw out my thoughts. I don’t have any conclusion. There is nothing wrong with the bill per se, but I am kind of surprised that we see a need for a bill to incite somebody to basically move on it, especially when, within four or five years, the technology is such that it won’t be relevant any more. That’s my issue.I have nothing wrong with doing this, and I don’t object if you want to proceed. I would vote in favour of it. I’m just surprised that a body such as the Senate would get involved in this process to get some type of government to finally do their traditional leadership. That’s my only issue.
The Chair: Any other comments?
Senator Galvez: Following the same line, the preoccupation is that, if we do this for mercury, I think we will need to do it for other substances, like Senator Lang mentioned, for PCBs, HAPs and other metals. Are we going to, in the future, see other similar legislation coming to this committee?
The Chair: Good points. Anybody else?
To both of you, I kind of feel the same. But we do have a bill in front of us, and we do have to deal with it. I guess there are options. If you wanted to somehow scrub the bill, there is that option. I don’t think that would be very satisfactory. I think, to be perfectly honest, although I agree with what you say, that we should just continue on, approve the bill and send it back.
Senator Massicotte: I’m okay with that too.
The Chair: It came to us out of the House this way. For us to make that big of a change, not even amend but somehow say, “No, we don’t like this at all,” would really be sending a message that I don’t think the Senate would like to send. That's just my opinion.
Senator Wetston: It’s hard to disagree with the point, but I think mercury is a special case. The reason I say it’s a special case is because it’s so evident in society in its use, and, while we’re transitioning away from mercury-based lighting products, we still have 40 million fluorescent tubes in commercial buildings across Canada. I think that was the number. It’s going to take years to address that issue, and I think we’re well aware of the incredible health impact that mercury has.
I consider this not just to be removing a bunch of bulbs; it’s about health as well and the impact that mercury has on health. I’m not suggesting that some of the other products don’t. It’s hard to disagree with Senator Massicotte’s point of view, as well as Senator Galvez, that you can’t have legislation for each and every one of these, but I do think it sends a very strong signal nationally. It may also send a very strong signal to those other products with respect to the safe disposal of those because they’re also health related.
I’m not sure, except I was very impressed with the lack of really collecting these bulbs and the potential consumer apathy around dealing with them. Whether this will help address that issue or not, I think something is necessary. It may not be the right way to go, but I would be very supportive of going this way for the health reasons and the consumer behaviour.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Black: That was exactly my point as well, and I have one additional point.
Because I’m an optimist, I have assumed that government has concluded that they needed some additional push, at some level, to get this done. That’s my subtext. I thought, “There has to be a reason that they felt that this additional weight needed to be put on this issue.”
I think what Senator Wetston said is likely the reason, but I think, although I respect what Senator Massicotte suggested, that we push through and signal that this matters.
Senator Fraser: I’ve been building up a bit of concern about the increasing number of bills calling for strategies on one topic or another, and, one of these fine days, it will probably be a good committee study to look at all of the different strategies and come up with some recommendations about how to blend them. However, with that said, all of the strategies that we’re being asked to approve, and certainly this one, address real problems. At a minimum, such bills surely constitute a bit of a poke with a sharp stick to all of the people who have been not getting around to doing anything about it. It’s what now, 50 years since Grassy Narrows became a subject of major public concern? Here we are, half a century or so later, saying that we need a strategy and a strategy only for light bulbs. But at least that’s a step. If it pokes the appropriate people and gets them to think a little bit more actively, so much the better.
The Chair: Anybody else have anything they want to say?
Senator Patterson: Mr. Chair, the only thing that comes to my mind is, if we have these opinions, whether we should consider making some observations.
The Chair: I have an observation that we could probably make.
Senator Patterson: Okay.
The Chair: But we should talk about that when we get to the observation part. I don’t think we should talk about it before.If that’s everything, then, we’ll carry on.
Is it agreed that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-238, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy for the safe and environmentally sound disposal of lamps containing mercury?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall the title stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall clause 1, which contains the short title, stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall clause 2 carry?
Hon Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall clause 3 carry?
Hon Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall clause 4 carry?
Hon Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall clause 1, which contains the short title, carry?
Hon Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall the title carry?
Hon Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the bill carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Does the committee wish to consider appending observations to the report? We just had that discussion. I have one that came to mind, and what it would be is that — actually, I don’t have the wording, but that we recommend that the federal government lead by example in these cases. Maybe at the end of the day you don’t need a piece of legislation that tells you exactly to do, but it’s pretty hard for government to say this is what everybody else should be doing but I’m not going to do it. When you think across Canada how many light bulbs the federal government lights up, it’s probably pretty massive.
I’m just thinking of that as maybe an observation, that we think this is good but that the federal government should lead by example. We can maybe get a wordsmith here to —
Senator Wetston: Chair, if you don’t mind, may I add to that comment? Government has a lot of tools that it can utilize, and one of them, as you just mentioned, is leading by example. If they have the authority, and they certainly do, and if they have a national authority, they have the authority to achieve a lesser using other tools, which would be guidelines. We talk about building codes, but we’re not going to talk about building codes here, but there are other tools they have. The most important thing they do have is moral suasion, and they should rely on it when necessary to achieve outcomes that may be for the public good, and it doesn’t always have to be in legislation.
The Chair: Any other comments?
Senator Raine: I’m new to the committee and I’m just reading the notes, but it says February 2017, the federal government published a code of practice for the environmentally sound end of life lamps containing mercury. I gather that’s already out there and published.
The Chair: It has been for a while. This is a strategy of how to do it, so it's two separate things, senator.
Senator Raine: So we’re not reinventing the wheel.
The Chair: No, we’re not. It’s a separate issue, and we should deal with it separately.
Senator Fraser: I think we’re making the point in the observations that we’re aware of what’s been done.
The Chair: Okay. Can I have an idea — Sam, are you writing something out there for us?
Sam Banks, Analyst, Library of Parliament: I’m writing notes on what I'm supposed to be writing at some point.
The Chair: The clerk just informed me you could transfer that responsibility to the steering committee.
Senator Patterson: I so move.
The Chair: To word an observation. That’s okay?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: I need a motion to that effect.
Senator Patterson: So moved.
The Chair: Okay. Is it agreed that I report the bill, with observations, to the Senate?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
We will continue in camera to discuss the draft report.
(The committee continued in camera.)