Madam Speaker, I am so delighted to be standing here today speaking to the bill from the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

I want to start by saying how proud I am to be his colleague in the House. He is one of the nicest parliamentarians in this place, if not the nicest. I think if we asked members from any party, they would agree with me on that statement. He is also such an unbelievable champion for the environment. He has been his entire parliamentary career, and even before then.

I was at a bird sanctuary just outside my riding, the Beaverhill Bird Observatory. The member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay is like the Wayne Gretzky of birds. The people there were very excited that I actually know him in person.

He has also been a very big environmental mentor for me. I brought forward a bill earlier on in this Parliament that would stop coal mining in the Rocky Mountains, something that is very important to the vast majority of Albertans. In fact, it was his advice that helped me draft that legislation.

I also have to say I am now succeeding the amazing and incredible Linda Duncan, who was the member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona, the seat I now hold. She brought forward this bill many times. The first time was in 2009. Before Linda was elected as a member of this House, she was an environmental lawyer.

Since she left the House, she has continued to be an absolutely incredible advocate for the environment. Her dedication and her commitment to environmental conservation, and the absolute tenacity she brings to her work, is nothing short of remarkable. I am deeply proud to be her successor in this place.

This bill does three things. It confirms the duty of the Government of Canada to uphold its public trust duty to protect the environment. It creates a new human right for Canada, which would be the right to a clean and healthy environment. It also gives legal tools to all residents of Canada.

I am going to talk as an Albertan. The reason we need an environmental bill of rights could not be more clear right now. Right now, in the province of Alberta, the provincial regulation of our polluting industries has been completely inadequate. We have a regulator that works directly with polluters to cover up the seepage of toxins into the environment downstream of indigenous communities.

Right now, Imperial Oil's Kearl site seepage and spill is the latest example of how this is happening. The Alberta regulator has approved a massive oil sands development on the McClelland Wetlands. These are wetlands, which are very important environmental sites, and it has approved putting a wall in the middle of the wetlands. That is how it is intending on protecting our water from the tailings ponds. What could go wrong?

In addition to that, we have Danielle Smith from the UCP, a Conservative premier, who is putting coal mining back on the table. Every Albertan thought that this was behind us. We thought we had won this battle. We thought that we had made it very clear to our government that we did not want to rip down our Rocky Mountains so that we could mine coal to ship to China to make a whole bunch of Australians really wealthy, all while undercutting our steel industry. We thought we made that clear. Clearly, we did not because that is back on the table. It is another reason we need to have this environmental bill of rights.

In northern Alberta, where much of this industry is happening, that is where the indigenous communities need to have more tools. They need more tools to protect their communities from toxic pollution. They are counting on the federal government to protect their treaty rights.

We had chiefs from the Mikisew Cree First Nation. Chief Tuccaro came to committee and he said, during the hearings on the Kearl site seepage and spill, “One of the clearest lessons from this crisis that grew is that it has reconfirmed the AER is a captured regulator that is simply not a trusted partner in protecting federal interests in our community.”

I am only speaking of the province in which I live. In Alberta, there are so many gaps where people are not being protected and where industry is not being held responsible for the pollution that it is putting into our environment. The legislation that the member has brought forward is long overdue. I am delighted to support this piece of legislation. I strongly urge all members to stand with the NDP to fight for the human right to a clean environment for all people, now and into the future.

Heather McPherson

$561,484.00