Good Sunday Morning!
And what a week! Parliament opened on Monday with the Liberals dropping a monster bill – C-39. It is another omnibus bill – 232 pages – changing the Canada Labour Code to reduce Labour’s right to strike and amending the Species at Risk Act, Navigable Waters Protection Act, CEPA, the Fisheries Act… I will not list them all – TWENTY bills amended. In June 2025 they forced through C-5, the Build Canada Act. That law is still in place allowing any and all environmental laws to be ignored if a project is deemed to be in the “national interest”. Now this bill, the “Build Canada Strong Act”, keeps all those dreadful exemptions and fast-tracking from the 2025 Build Canada Act, and adding “Regions of National Interest” or as some environmental groups are terming them “sacrifice zones”, where again the laws will not apply.
For a solid summary of C-39, I recommend this press release from West Coast Environmental Law.
As you probably know, I read every word of every bill brought to Parliament. I’m pretty sure I’m the only MP who does – all the others have party people who look at such things and tell their MPs what the bill means and how good (government) or bad (opposition) it is. So, few MPs notice authoritarian practices sneaking in, and if they do, they’re instructed how to react.
Hardly anyone noticed how the new “Build Canada Strong” Act (C-39) amends the (presumably weaker?) “Build Canada Act” (C-5), presumably, then, to make it stronger.
What makes Build Canada Act into Build Canada Strong? It eliminates the one limitation on unbridled power – the “sunset clause”. The powers granted to Cabinet would end after five years. The sunset clause was a tacit admission that Cabinet’s power to order that a project was “in the national interest” and could therefore get past all sorts of environmental and economic assessments and restrictions was a risky allocation of executive power and might need an exit option.
So now it’s gone. It makes me so angry John heard me shout from the other room. This substantive power grab is not even mentioned in the summary of changes in the legislation, as if it were of no significance at all. I am getting weary and angry at the continuous erosion of the powers of Parliament and the anti-Trump rationale for taking on the same sort of executive powers we see every day in the US – we hear about the US changes in Canadian media, next to nothing about corresponding trends here.
While Liberal MP after Liberal MP gets up to dutifully repeat talking points about how this is all just to remove duplicative procedures, it is far more than that. One MP even had the gall to state in his speech that the Species at Risk Act (SARA) is not touched in C-39, ignoring all the sections that amend SARA! Many acts are now changed so that wherever conditions were added to a project approval, now those conditions cannot be added unless “economic” and “feasible”.
This is a Trumpian power grab and now permanent.
I will have my chance to speak on the bill when Parliament resumes Monday October 5. We are shut this week due to the stat holiday for the national observance of the Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Three cheers for AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak for pointing out that bulldozing approvals in under a year looks like bulldozing over Indigenous rights, as does pushing the bill through without adequate consultation.
That was Monday, and then as we all know on Tuesday, BC Premier David Eby called a snap election two whole years early. And unlike Horgan when he pulled the same trick, Eby already has a majority. As I wrote in last week’s missive, the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) had urged Eby NOT to call a provincial election during the time before BC local elections take place on October 17. Hopes are high for Green candidate Pete Fry to be the next mayor of Vancouver. He is in the lead right now, but we cannot take anything for granted! I really thought the pressure from the UBCM would be a sufficient caution for the BC NDP to wait, and even if calling a snap election years early, at least wait until November. No dice. Eby is breaking new records for cynical, opportunistic behaviour. At this rate, he is going to give politicians a bad name!
Local BC Green candidates are creating real excitement. Here in Saanich-Gulf Islands, I have mixed emotions. Rob Botterell, my own MLA, announced he will not run again. He always said he was in it for one term. Thanks to Eby that term was too short! But the great news is that our local Green candidate is BC Green leader Emily Lowan! If you live in SGI, please help out any way you can! If you are willing to join me and knock on doors, make some calls, help deliver signs, or help in the office, please fill out BC Greens Volunteer Request form. And great news, Emily Lowan’s campaign office is the same one we used for my re-election campaign last year; 9776 Fourth Street in Sidney!.
Please Donate to Emily’s Campaign
Lawn signs are on order. If you want a lawn sign, here’s the link to Request a Lawn Sign. https://bcgreens.ca/request-a-lawn-sign/
For any other questions, email [email protected]
And if you know someone willing to step up and run anywhere in BC, please have them email [email protected]. I am very excited about the candidates who are offering to run — one of whom is not yet ready to announce — one of BC’s most inspiring Indigenous leaders. BC Greens want to have a full slate, so it is a scramble, but the progress is amazing!
This Sunday I am off to Galiano for my regular non-partisan community meeting. Emily Lowan will be at the Salt Spring Island Apple Festival at Fulford from 10-11.
And in case you want to see my opening salvo from Monday’s press conference, here you go:
All for now! Sending you love and thanks for your support through these exhausting times!
Elizabeth