As legal experts emphasize a sense of “urgency” in parliamentarians considering a private member’s bill aiming to enshrine the right to a healthy environment into federal law, NDP MP Richard Cannings is optimistic he will get cross-party buy-in.
Speaking to Parliament Today about his Bill C-219, An Act to enact the Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights, Cannings noted there have long been calls to ink the right into the charter, but a constitutional change “is beyond what you can do in a private member's bill.”
The Liberals took up the Dippers’ calls to move toward aligning federal laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, an effort spearheaded by then-NDP MP Romeo Saganash in 2016.
Much like that blueprint, Cannings, the party’s emergency preparedness critic who focuses on climate change resilience, said his bill is a “high level” one that has been gaining momentum in recent years.
“It’s a right in 170-odd countries around the world. Why isn't it a right in Canada? We have a bill of rights that, for some reason, is silent on that,” he said.
While the recent blueprint was tabled on December 16, the same day the House rose for the holiday break, its origins stretch back more than a decade.
Cannings credited former NDP MP Linda Duncan for her efforts, which kicked off in 2009, to usher a previous edition through the committee stage in the subsequent years, before it died on the order paper upon the spring 2011 election.
Records show the environment committee held more than a dozen meetings on the matter during that Parliament, which Cannings said he is now combing through as he prepares to make his pitch.
