Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's truly an honour to appear on this first panel on Bill S-5. This bill has been a long time coming. I was on maternity leave when this committee initiated the review of CEPA, and we just celebrated my son’s seventh birthday.

ENVI made 87 recommendations for strengthening CEPA. The bill in front of you doesn’t address nearly all of them. However, it does propose long-overdue updates to Canada’s legislative framework for assessing and controlling toxic substances, and it would recognize the right to a healthy environment for the first time in federal law.

I will focus my remarks on the latter, but I would be happy to answer questions about any of the recommendations in our joint brief.

There are only a handful of countries in the world that do not recognize the right to a healthy environment in law, and, sadly, Canada is one of them. Bill S-5 would change this, creating a duty for the government to protect the right of every individual in Canada to a healthy environment, within the scope of CEPA, and laying the groundwork for a framework to implement that right.

This will help align CEPA with the UN resolution recognizing the right to a healthy environment, which passed unanimously at the most recent General Assembly, and the COP27 cover text calling on parties to “respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights...when taking action to address climate change”.

Incorporating the right to a healthy environment in CEPA will be a historic development in Canadian law, so it’s important to get it right.

A crucial Senate amendment fixed problematic language in the formulation of the right in the original bill, but there is a corresponding change that needs to be made to the requirements for the implementation framework. The legislation should not presuppose that consideration of social, health, scientific and economic factors will always justify limiting the right.

Second, we recommend an explicit requirement for the implementation framework to specify how the right to a healthy environment will be upheld in relation to substance assessments and enforcing ambient air quality standards. This would provide a measure of certainty in the law that the framework will address these two critical CEPA responsibilities where we see real opportunity for the right to a healthy environment to drive results on the ground and save lives.

Third, we recommend incorporating key principles related to the right to a healthy environment into section 2 of CEPA as administrative duties. Bill S-5 sets out the principles of environmental justice, non-regression and intergenerational equity in relation to the right to a healthy environment implementation framework, but it does not require these principles to be upheld, only considered. Reinforcing these principles as duties in section 2 would give them greater force and ensure that they are applied consistently throughout the act.

Before I close, I want to recognize the many individuals who have passionately and persistently called for Canada to recognize the right to a healthy environment in law. Some of them are your constituents, and you've probably heard from them.

We hope you will rise to the occasion and pass a CEPA modernization bill that all Canadians can be proud of.

Thank you.

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