Bill C-4 (Historical)

Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act

An Act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology

Supply

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should cease and desist its sustained legislative and political attacks on the lives and livelihoods of rural Canadians and the communities where they live.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Medicine Hat.

The topic for today's official opposition motion does not come from us as MPs but from Canadians. We are a vast country and the vast majority of the people who live beyond the glare of the big city lights are fed up. They feel neglected by the Liberal government and they are telling us so. I imagine that Liberal backbench MPs have been told the same thing by their constituents for the last eight years, but sadly these common sense appeals from rural voters have fallen on the deaf ears of the Liberals.

As evidence of this I will cite that over the last couple of weeks a fear of being dethroned during the next election has been spreading among the Liberal backbenchers. Some of them have even been brave enough to speak up against the Prime Minister's dictatorial ways. These Liberal MPs will again accept minor word changes by the government and consider that a victory. The Liberal elite laughs at how easily duped they are: A few grants and handouts later, they are back barking like trained seals.

If the constituents in those Liberal ridings want to see real change, they should elect Canadian Alliance MPs. We have been in the lead in championing these issues important to ordinary Canadians for the last eight years. The government implements our policies, but much too slowly to make the dramatic changes that are needed to turn our economic engines into economic dynamos. The Liberals would rather use taxes and red tape until the industries are hurting so bad that they need to subsidize them.

Only when the Liberals are subsidizing things do they consider their programs and policies a success. Slush funds and political patronage they understand; economic development they do not. Slush funds, by the way, are used mainly to buy votes. If the government had implemented Reform Party agricultural policies in 1994, many thousands of farmers would not be facing the crisis they are today. Unfortunately in eight years the Liberals have learned nothing. In fact they have become more arrogant, anti-democratic and corrupt. They look for new ideas among the bureaucrats and Liberal backroomers when the best ideas are right in front of their noses. All they have do is listen to the people who are on the long-suffering end of their failed policies and programs.

The Liberals are experts at pitting one group of Canadians against the other and nowhere is this more evident than in the way they have pitted urban voters against rural voters, the very essence of what we are bringing forward today. The Liberals play up to animal rights groups at the expense of farmers, hunters and fishermen. They try to ram animal cruelty legislation through parliament and make farmers out to be the bad guys when the opposite is true. No one cares more about animals than farmers do. The Liberals play up to the environmental lobby groups by trying to ram endangered species legislation through the House, but they are dishonest with both environmentalists and farmers because the laws they wish to enact will not protect endangered species and will force farmers to abandon their land without being paid fair market value for their land.

The Liberals play up to urban voters by telling them they are doing something to fight violent crime in the city by forcing millions of law-abiding citizens to register their guns, this despite data from Statistics Canada and insurance company actuaries that prove that responsible gun owners are no threat to themselves, their families, neighbours or communities. Anyone listening today must be starting to see a trend developing here. Last week the backbencher from Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey acknowledged this serious problem in a letter to his caucus colleagues. He stated:

I believe that unless [the bill] is amended, there will be a perception in rural Canada that once again a law tailored to urban interests is being thrust upon the rural community. Those of us representing rural ridings know all too well the divisiveness and distrust that remains from our government's passage of C-68, the gun registration law.

That strikes to the very heart of what we are talking about today.

Our speakers will outline failure after failure of Liberal policies and programs. Today we will describe Liberal legislation and programs that have failed rural Canadians: legislation like Bill C-5, Bill C-15B, Bill C-68 and Bill C-4 from 1998, which perpetuated the fiftieth year of the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board. We will describe programs like useless regional economic development funds and corporate handouts that are really slimy Liberal slush funds buying votes instead of creating real development opportunities.

We will describe today how rural Canadians have been ignored and neglected by the Liberal ruling elite while the Liberal backbenchers sit on their duffs in the House, scared they will lose their perks and access to their slush funds if they start to really represent the true needs and wishes of their constituents. We will describe Liberal neglect and mismanagement of trade issues to the detriment of the softwood lumber producers and the communities where they live and work, and Liberal neglect and mismanagement of the foreign trade and subsidy issues to the detriment of Canadian farmers and their communities.

Not only will the House hear a dry, statistical and economic argument today, it will hear about real people in real communities who are hurting because of Liberal laws and Liberal neglect.

My own province of Saskatchewan lost 15,000 jobs in the last year alone. Report Newsmagazine recently reported that the population of Saskatchewan has dropped by 26% in the last three decades. Saskatchewan should not be a have not province. Liberal policies and programs perpetuate Saskatchewan's have not status and it has to stop now. The Liberal failure to allow Canadian wheat producers to sell their wheat directly to value added processing like pasta plants is just one glaring example of Liberal neglect and stupidity.

The one area of economic opportunity in Saskatchewan is guiding and outfitting, but what do the Liberals do? They force every American hunter to pay a tax of $50 to come into Canada. Many of them stayed home last year, and it will get worse. Who are the Liberals hurting with this new tax? They are hurting farmers who are forced into getting into outfitting to help finance the losses they were suffering on the farm. Again they are at the receiving end of failed Liberal policies and programs. The Liberals are hurting aboriginal guiding and outfitting companies, one of the few economic opportunities for aboriginals living on remote reserves. Liberals would rather pay welfare than get out of the way and let aboriginal entrepreneurs prove that they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

What if a farmer needs to go out and buy a new rifle to shoot the coyotes that are attacking his cattle? The Department of Justice documents put the regulatory cost of buying a rifle at $279. That is before even buying the rifle and bullets. That is absolutely ridiculous and the government has the nerve to say it is not doing anything to negatively impact on law-abiding citizens who use firearms for their own livelihood.

Before my time is up I want to leave everyone with one last message for our friends in urban Canada. The Canadian Alliance is not playing the Liberal game of pitting one group of Canadians against another. We believe that sound rural and resource development policies create jobs, opportunities and wealth in urban centres. It is no secret that all the mines are in the north but most of the money from those mines flows through Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal to benefit all of the citizens of these cities.

When farmers succeed, the Canadian economy grows and jobs are created in urban centres. Development of Canada is a team effort. Unfortunately, for the last eight years the Liberals have been neglecting half of the team.

I predict that in the next election campaign the Liberals will again try to use labels to smear their opponents rather than discuss the issues important to Canadians. Today's motion is a key part of the debate that needs to take place.

Today the Canadian Alliance is saying to rural and northern Canadians “We know you are fed up and we are not going to let the Liberals get away with it any more. Like a friend of mine once said “To light a fire you start at the bottom, and it will spread upwards”. If we want the economy to start burning we need to get out of the way of our basic resource sectors; we need to stop pouring cold water all over them and instead get them back on track, be it the fisheries on our east and west coasts, the farms all across Canada, the forestry sector, the mining, oil and gas sector, or the tourism industry for hunting and shooting sports. All these rural based industries are being held back by destructive Liberal policies or neglect.

The message I have for our city cousins is this: “Please help us, for it is the economic health of urban Canada and your own jobs that are affected too”.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, those are very good questions and the member guessed my answers before he asked them.

I do not have any confidence the government will bring out a report that is at all accountable.

Bill C-4, the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act, which most opposition parties voted against, was passed in the House by the government. It was supposed to reduce greenhouse gases. The sum of $100 million was put into an open-ended piece of legislation and the government is allowed to put more money in at any time. It is not accountable to the auditor general's office and the Access to Information Act is not applicable. The government talks about spending money, but we have no idea how it is doing it. There is no accountability in the legislation and there is no accountability from government ministers.

Points of Order

[The Speaker]

I am now ready to rule on a point of order raised by the hon. member for St. Albert on Thursday, November 1, 2001, relating to two items in the supplementary estimates: vote 10 for $50 million for the sustainable development technology fund under Environment Canada and vote 10 also for $50 million for the sustainable development technology fund under Natural Resources Canada.

In his submission the hon. member for St. Albert argued that these votes should be ruled out of order for two reasons. First, in his view, the government expenditures of $100 million funding related to the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology constituted a multi-year appropriation. Second, he contended that there had already been a transfer of money for these purposes without parliamentary approval.

In support of his position the member referred to the auditor general's observations in the Public Accounts of Canada 2000-01 tabled in the House on September 27, 2001, in which she expressed serious concerns with the events surrounding these grants.

I wish to thank the hon. member for St. Albert for raising this matter and I also want to acknowledge the contribution of the hon. government House leader on this subject.

At the outset, I want to draw the attention of the House not only to the seriousness of this question but also to its complexity. I ask the House to bear with me as I review the events which have led us to the current situation.

Let me begin with a chronology of events that may be helpful.

The initial announcement of funds to support sustainable development technology was made in the budget statement presented by the hon. Minister of Finance on February 28, 2000. The enabling legislation for that initiative, Bill C-46, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development, died on the order paper at the dissolution of the 36th parliament.

At the beginning of this parliament on February 2, a new bill, Bill C-4 was introduced and given first reading.

Bill C-4 provides, in addition to the provisions of the original Bill C-46, that the government may designate a corporation already incorporated under part two of the Canada Corporations Act to continue as the Canadian Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology. A not for profit corporation of this type was established in March of this year. In early April, Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada each granted $25 million to this not for profit corporation using funds transferred from the treasury board contingencies vote for this year.

On June 14 Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, received royal assent. Thus Bill C-4 became law prior to the tabling of the supplementary estimates (A) so there need be no concern that an attempt is being made here to legislate through an appropriation.

The Chair can find no specific request under our supply process for authority to make the two payments for the corporation. In other words, neither the main estimates 2001-02 nor interim supply mention these particular grants. This is a significant fact and we will return to it later.

That being said, and this is a technical point but one of key importance, the money transferred to Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada to make these payments was taken from the treasury board contingencies vote for this year, so there is no question of a multi-year appropriation in the case before us. That answers the hon. member for St. Albert's first concern.

However, we are still left to deal with the allegation that no approval has been given for the original expenditures in this case. I said a moment ago that I could find no authority for the original grants totalling $50 million in either the main estimates 2001-02 or in interim supply. Let us then return to what is being requested in the supplementary estimates (A) 2001-02 tabled in the House on November 1.

At page 58 of the supplementary estimates, vote 10 under the environment department requests $50 million for the sustainable development technology fund. A note indicates that funds in the amount of $25 million were advanced from the treasury board contingencies vote to provide temporary funding for this program. A similar entry for the same program is listed at page 115 under vote 10 of the natural resources department. A total of $100 million is therefore being sought for the sustainable development technology fund.

Two questions arise.

The first question is the confusion between the “Fund” as referred to in Supplementary Estimates and the “foundation” created by Bill C-4.

Neither Bill C-4 nor its predecessor, Bill C-46, mentions “Sustainable Development Technology Fund.” Indeed, in speaking on second reading of Bill C-4, the hon. Minister of National Resources and Minister responsible for the Canada Wheat Board stated, and I quote the Debates of February 19th 2001, page 852, said:

In Budget 2000, we first announced the government's intention to establish a foundation with initial funding of $100 million to stimulate the development and demonstration of new environmental technologies, in particular climate change and clean air technologies. Bill C-4 delivers on that commitment from Budget 2000. It creates the organizational structure, the legal status and the modus operandi of the foundation.

On the basis of the minister's statement, I am led to conclude that what is being sought in the Supplementary Estimates (A) is funding for the Canada Sustainable Development Technology Foundation, established pursuant to Bill C-4. From a procedural point of view, such a request poses no difficulty.

However, the Supplementary Estimates do not identify the foundation as the recipient. Instead, the estimates refer only to a Sustainable Development Technology Fund.

The second question is the crux of the matter: what is the link, if any, between the $100 million requested in supplementary estimates (A) for the foundation/fund and the $50 million already paid to the not for profit corporation in April of this year?

As I have already mentioned in the chronology, notes in the supplementary estimates list the sustainable development technology fund as the recipient of a total of $50 million in interim funding through the treasury board contingencies vote. However, these funds were paid to the pre-existing not-for-profit corporation, established under an altogether different legal authority, namely, the Canada Corporations Act, and not under Bill C-4 creating the foundation.

The Chair cannot see that the request for $100 million funding relates in any way to the original grants made to the corporation using the legal authority of the Energy Efficiency Act and the Department of the Environment Act. Simply put, the $100 million now being sought cannot be used both to fund the foundation and to refund the treasury board contingencies vote for $50 million paid out earlier to the corporation.

Bourinot 4th edition at page 416 has this to say on the subject of supplementary estimates: “All these estimates are divided into votes or resolutions, which appropriate specified sums for services specially defined. They are arranged under separate heads of expenditure, so as to give the full information upon all matters contained therein”.

The lack of clarity and transparency in this case must be of considerable concern to the Chair. Requests for funds in the estimates are tied to particular programs, previously approved by parliament. I have noted, of course, the auditor general's comment that she is satisfied that legal authority existed for these grants under the Energy Efficiency Act and the Department of the Environment Act. However, the concomitant authority under the supply process to make these payments has never been sought from parliament. That is the crux of the procedural difficulty raised by the hon. member for St. Albert and I must conclude that he is correct in his assessment of the situation, if not perhaps in the remedy he suggests.

In summary, then, the Chair has concluded that no authority has ever been sought from parliament for grants totalling $50 million made to the corporation in April of this year and does not consider that the notes in the supplementary estimates (A) concerning the disbursement of these earlier monies are sufficient to be considered as a request for approval of those grants. In other words, the approval that is being sought in supplementary estimates (A) cannot be deemed to include tacit approval for the earlier $50 million grant.

However, as there remains ample time for the government to take corrective action by making the appropriate request of parliament through the supplementary estimates process, the Chair need not comment further at this time. The supplementary estimates (A) for 2001-2002 can therefore proceed.

I wish to thank the hon. member for St. Albert for having drawn this matter to the attention of the House. I commend him for his vigilance in matters of supply. I especially appreciate his having raised it early enough to allow the Chair to examine closely a very complex issue and I hope my ruling has not confused hon. members.

Canadian Wheat Board Act

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

In fact there was one. It was a lot similar to the referendum held in 1995.

An honest question should be asked so that producers could decide if they want the option of a choice. That is what we are saying now.

I agree with the member for Yorkton--Melville. I think producers, given the proper information and the proper opportunity, would go for a dual market system with the wheat board being able to provide some of the necessary services which some people would like to accept.

This is a rather simple issue. When the Canadian Wheat Board appeared before the committee recently we were talking about another issue which I will not get involved in right now to any degree: genetically modified wheat. I asked a question of the Canadian Wheat Board which said specifically that it could not market that wheat because there was no market available.

If in fact it was genetically modified wheat and because it had already said it could not market it, I then asked if it would allow it to be marketed outside the wheat board. The board's answer was no. Even though it cannot sell it, cannot market it, does not want to try to market it and cannot in its own words develop markets, it will not allow anyone to produce wheat outside the Canadian Wheat Board. That is totally ridiculous.

If people want to develop alternate products like GM wheat, organic wheat or products that are now encompassed under the board's domain which cannot be sold through the board, it is ridiculous to maintain that control. We are saying the Canadian Wheat Board should let them loose and allow producers another choice with respect to their own wishes.

I thank the member for bringing the issue back. It is not finished. It will be back on the floor of the House. I said that Bill C-4 would not last, and it will not. Bill C-4 will be back in another form. Even when the government does not understand there are producers out there who want some choice, eventually that choice will be given. I am sorry it will not be done by this government, but a government in the future will allow that to happen.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand in the House to speak to the private member's motion of the member for Yorkton--Melville. I congratulate him for bringing the issue forward once again.

The issue is not new to the House. It has been brought forward time and time again. Eventually there will be a resolution either in the House or by producers themselves and we will no longer need to debate the rights and freedoms of producers to market their own product the way they see fit. Until that time we must make sure the issue is identified on a regular basis so it does not lose its priority in the House.

I am disappointed that the private member's motion could not be votable. I believe strongly that not only this private member's piece of business but all private members' business should be votable in the House. We should let members stand in this place, put their positions forward, have them identified as democratic issues and decide whether or not they should be votable.

Since I was elected to the House in 1997, and certainly for many years prior to that, producers have been questioning the ability of the Canadian Wheat Board to market their product the way they would see fit.

I have an awful lot of respect for the member for Palliser. He sits on the agriculture committee. He and I perhaps differ a bit on how the issue should be dealt with. However in his speech he indicated there is a choice and that the producer should make the choice. That will ultimately be the final resolution.

Canadians, members of the House and the government must recognize that all of us have a democratic right to produce and sell products the way we see fit. That right has been taken away from the producers of western Canada. Some of them seem quite content to have it continue in that fashion but the majority, and there are more and more, wants freedom of choice.

The motion does not talk anywhere about the total demise of the Canadian Wheat Board. Nor do we espouse the total demise of the Canadian Wheat Board. I believe, as do some producers, that in some cases the wheat board provides a satisfactory sales group that can sell its product. However not all producers believe that. They would like to attempt on their own to achieve something better for themselves outside the Canadian Wheat Board.

The Canadian Wheat Board should remain. Let us make no mistake about that. However it should remain a voluntary organization, as the motion says. Producers entering into agreements with the Canadian Wheat Board should be able to continue with their current sales mechanisms and pooling accounts while having the wheat board sell their product on their behalf.

Many producers are able to sell their product outside the Canadian Wheat Board. Canola is a prime example. Canola producers can sell their product to the marketing group they want to sell to. They can make that choice themselves. However they cannot do it with wheat.

Oats were taken away from the Canadian Wheat Board not that long ago. The same comments were made that oats taken outside the board would not be sold to the benefit of the producer. That is not true. Oats have gained quite a dramatic increase because producers now have the opportunity to sell them on the open market.

The Canadian Wheat Board was incorporated by the government in 1935. That was a long time ago. Times change. Producers have become much more sophisticated in the way they can produce and sell their product. All we are suggesting is that the government open its mind and allow producers the right to market their product the way they wish. That is all the member for Yorkton--Melville is saying. He is not asking that we destroy the board. He is asking that we give producers a choice.

There have been a lot of changes to the Canadian Wheat Board over the past number of years. It was originally intended by the Progressive Conservative government of Mr. R. B. Bennett that the Canadian Wheat Board be a voluntary institution with a mandate to operate in the best interests of producers.

It is unfortunate that the wheat board no longer operates in the fashion for which it was originally intended. It eventually became a monopoly and a means of controlling wheat prices for the federal government during World War II.

That was a long time ago and many things have changed. We should therefore be able to take off the blinders, open our minds and allow producers some of the freedom they are looking for now.

The member for Palliser mentioned Bill C-4 which was introduced in 1997. A substantial number of people appeared before the committee at that time who suggested there should be an opening up of the Canadian Wheat Board operations. Those suggestions were not taken into consideration when Bill C-4 finally passed. The government said that it had an elected board of directors that could make decisions on behalf of producers.

I believe that decisions based in the Canadian Wheat Board should be made by producers themselves. For example, it should be put to producers whether they want a one tier monopoly system. The Progressive Conservative Party is suggesting that producers should be allowed to make that decision themselves. They should be given the right to vote. They should be asked an honest, specific question and allowed to have the opportunity to make the choice themselves. They should be allowed out of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly situation they are currently in. As a matter of fact the Progressive Conservative Party is stating:

A Progressive Conservative government would make membership in the Canadian Wheat Board a matter of discretion of the producer subject to the conduct of a free vote of all current members of the CWB to determine the powers of the CWB for the ensuing five years.

The development of the question or questions to be posed to members of the Canadian Wheat Board would be carried out by an independent party. We heard the member for Palliser say that when it was anticipated that barley would be taken away from the board 63% of producers wanted to retain it. The question was a bit ambiguous. There were no options with respect to having the board remain and having the opportunity of a free market and a board market.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to make a few remarks about the private member's motion presented by the member for Yorkton--Melville. The New Democratic Party has always been a supporter of orderly marketing so it will come as no surprise to anyone in the House that we would be opposed to the motion before us today regarding the Canadian Wheat Board.

The board has been operating for more than 60 years, as the member for Yorkton--Melville pointed out. Currently it is the marketing agency for wheat and certain barley.

The mover of the motion mentioned that the board exists only in three provinces. He is factually incorrect. The wheat board operates in parts of the province of British Columbia together with the three prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The hon. member said the way the board is structured it would not be allowed in any other jurisdiction. He mentioned the legal community. While I would not associate myself with all the remarks of the parliamentary secretary who just spoke, there have been votes in the last few years on the board of directors of which the results are pretty clear. The individuals being elected to the Canadian Wheat Board are supporters of the board. They do not favour a provision for dual marketing or a voluntary board.

We heard a lot of these arguments in 1997 and 1998 when Bill C-4 was before the House. The bill led to the election of 10 of the 15 members of the board of directors. We heard about maximizing returns for producers.

I will take a moment to share with the House a conversation I had several years ago with a person in Chile who was an adviser to the minister of agriculture in that country. I asked him about his views on the Canadian Wheat Board. At the time I was a newly elected member of parliament and Bill C-4 was before the House and the standing committee.

He made two comments I thought were interesting. First, he said he disagreed fundamentally that people who defied the board should end up in jail. We heard the member for Yorkton--Melville talk about that today.

Second, he said that in his travels as an adviser to the minister in and around Santiago he would meet with millers in Chile and ask them why they continued to buy their product from the Canadian Wheat Board when they could buy it more cheaply from Archer Daniels Midland Co., Cargill Inc., Louis Dreyfus Canada or some of the other big grain companies of the world.

The comment he heard most frequently from the millers was that it was reliable to buy through the Canadian Wheat Board. They said they could sleep well at night knowing the product they were getting would be as advertised in terms of protein, nutrition and other things that are important to millers for the different kinds of flour, bread, pastries and other items they produce.

The millers were prepared to pay a premium to buy Canadian grain because it was reliable. They said Canada was known for being a good marketer and delivering what it said it would deliver.

There are plenty of these kinds of examples around. Virtually every analysis that has been done shows that while the wheat board has not always achieved the best returns it has been ahead of the market most of the time in terms of maximizing returns to producers. As an aside I would draw attention to the KPMG study that was done several years ago which we debated when Bill C-4 was before the House.

The second part of the motion says there should be an opting out mechanism that would allow producers to remove themselves and the grain they produce from the board's jurisdiction for a period of two years. We in the NDP think that would weaken the ability of Canadian farmers to compete in the international market.

The wheat board has introduced mechanisms for farmers to manage risks and undertake pricing options beyond the well established pool accounts. Fixed price and basis contracts off the Minneapolis grain exchange provide flexibility to farmers in managing business risks. For these and other reasons we continue to support the board.

We note in passing what Justice Muldoon said in Alberta a few years ago regarding the Alberta charter challenge against the board's authority as a single desk marketer of barley. He said a dual marketing system would do away with the wheat board and simply be a transition to an open market.

As I tried to indicate earlier, farmers have shown what they think of the board and single desk selling. In 1997, 63% of barley growers voted to have the board continue to market their crop.

In conclusion, it is not up to members of parliament to decide if some producers should be allowed to remove themselves from the board's jurisdiction. That is up to farmers to decide. They do that through regular elections to the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board.

We in my party fundamentally believe that the future of the wheat board is a debate for farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and parts of British Columbia.

[Ben Serré, Liberal, Timiskaming—Cochrane, ON]

I would appreciate it if I could finish my speech.

The hon. member will recall that all aspects of this same issue were debated only three years ago, during the debate on Bill C-4, and that parliament rejected it at that time. In fact, it was the hon. member from the party opposite who proposed a similar motion in 1997.

I will reiterate once again why the Government of Canada and the majority of the members of the House do not support these amendments.

First, the objective of the Canadian Wheat Board Act was purposely left unchanged three years ago to allow the board of directors to carry out its duties. When changes were made to the CWB act we modernized its corporate governance to make it more democratic and to give producers more direct control. We strengthened the CWB's accountability to farmers and provided it with greater operational flexibility to respond to changing producer needs in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Central to all of this was the creation of a brand new board of directors to direct the operation and determine the strategic direction of the Canadian Wheat Board. The existing objective of the Canadian Wheat Board Act to market in an orderly manner provides the board of directors with sufficient scope to perform this role.

Members will recall that the Canadian Wheat Board was previously governed by a small group of appointed commissioners. As a result of reforms to the CWB act in 1998, the Canadian Wheat Board now operates under a 15 member board of directors, 10 of whom, that is a two-thirds majority, are directly elected by CWB permit holders. These directors are accountable to producers. If they do not act in the best interests of producers, producers can vote them out.

Second, the board of directors has determined the CWB's mission is to market quality product and service to maximize returns to western Canadian grain producers. In other words, grain producers, through their elected directors, have already determined that the CWB is to maximize returns to producers. They have gone further in specifying that the CWB's mission is also to market quality product and service. This is precisely what parliament had in mind when it amended the CWB act. Producers, not politicians, are determining the Canadian Wheat Board's marketing role.

As for providing an opting out mechanism that will allow producers to remove themselves and the grain they produce from the board's jurisdiction for a minimum period of two years, the government cannot support the amendment because farmers do not want it. In fact, a solid majority of farmers have clearly said they want to retain the strengths of the Canadian Wheat Board. Farmers also made it clear they wanted more flexibility.

Points of Order

[John Williams, Canadian Alliance, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to the supplementary estimates, which were tabled in the House of Commons just a few minutes ago, and vote 10 of Environment Canada and vote 10 of Natural Resources Canada.

I am rising at this time because of a reference of Marleau and Montpetit, at page 734, which states:

--members raise questions about the procedural acceptability of Estimates as early as possible so that the Chair has time to give “intelligent” consideration to these questions.

There is no doubt that the issue I am about to raise is quite serious and deserves the appropriate consideration.

Speaker Jerome also said in a ruling on December 7, 1977, at page 184 of Debates :

--supply ought to be confined strictly to the process for which it was intended, that is to say, for the purpose of putting forward by the government the estimate of money it needs, and then in turn voting by the House of that money to the government...legislation and legislated changes in substances are not intended to be part of supply, but rather ought to be part of the legislative process in a regular way...

Mr. Speaker, I also refer you to the remarks of Madam Speaker Sauvé on June 12, 1981 at page 10546 of Hansard when she said that it did not matter whether the amount spent was a large sum or simply one dollar.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, I maintain an interest in the estimates and the financial procedures of the House and I continue to be concerned that parliament has lost control of the public purse. Parliament must remain supreme, and when the government undertakes actions that I will now explain, it causes me a great deal of concern.

I also want to refer you to a motion tabled in the other place on June 14, 2001 at page 1192 of the Debates of the Senate of which I am sure you are no doubt aware. It states:

The actions of the Government of Canada in creating a private sector corporation as a stand-in for the Foundation now proposed in Bill C-4, and the depositing of $100 million of taxpayer's money with that corporation, without the prior approval of Parliament, is an affront to the members of both Houses of Parliament.

The Committee requests that the Speaker of the Senate notify the Speaker of the House of Commons of the dismay and concern of the Senate with this circumvention of parliamentary process

The Auditor General of Canada has expressed serious concerns with the events surrounding a $100 million grant to the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology of which $50 million has actually been paid out. These concerns were contained in her observations on page 1.34 to 1.38 of the Public Accounts of Canada for 2000-01, which were tabled in the House on September 27.

In March 2001 a not for profit corporation named the Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology in Canada was established by four Canadian citizens under part 2 of the Canada Corporations Act. Later the same month a funding agreement was signed between the Government of Canada and this corporation.

On March 22, the treasury board approved a temporary transfer of $25 million to vote 10 of Environment Canada and $25 million to vote 10 of Natural Resources Canada. The funds were to come from the government contingency vote, which is vote 5 under the treasury board's vote 5.

On April 5 the treasury board advised Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada that they each had the authority to transfer $25 million to vote 10 from the treasury board's vote 5. On April 9, $25 million was paid to the corporation and charged to Natural Resources Canada vote 10. On April 11, $25 million was paid to the corporation and charged Environment Canada vote 10.

While the Appropriation Act No. 2, Bill C-29, received royal assent on June 14 providing Environment Canada for 2001-02 spending authority for vote 10 in the amount of $2.85 million for the grants listed in the estimates and Bill C-29 provided Natural Resources Canada with 2001-02 spending authority in the amount of $0.6 million for the grants listed in the estimates, these amounts did not include the two amounts of $25 million each since they were transferred from vote 5.

Today the President of the Treasury Board has tabled supplementary estimates which provide supplementary spending authority of $50 million to vote 10 for each of Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada. The full amount for the foundation, I believe, is listed separately in the grants section of these two departments. When the bill receives royal assent, I expect that treasury board vote 5 will be replenished for the $25 million advanced to the two departmental votes in April 2001. I also understand that $25 million is expected to be paid by each of Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada in January 2002 and charged to their respective vote 10.

Essentially, the government is appropriating money in one fiscal year, placing it into a separate account and spending it in future years. This is unacceptable. I refer you, Mr. Speaker, to Marleau and Montpetit at page 741 which says:

The Chair has cautioned that an Appropriation Act gives authority only for a single year and is therefore not appropriate for expenditure which is meant to continue for a longer period, or indefinitely.

That is what we have here. A foundation has been created with money appropriated by parliament which is meant to continue indefinitely.

The auditor general states in her observation at page 1.37 of the Public Accounts of Canada for 2000-01:

However, I question whether it was appropriate for the Government to use a general contingency vote to provide $50 million in temporary authority so the departments could make the grant payments to the Corporation, all before Bill C-4 received royal assent

Bill C-4 was given first reading in the House on February 2, 2001. The bill proposed the creation of the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology and proposed that any corporation proposed under part II of the Canada Corporations Act continue as the foundation.

Bill C-4 did not receive royal assent as the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Act until June 14. Prior to the House voting on supply, with specific funds for the corporation, which subsequently became a foundation, the government and the corporation signed a funding agreement on March 26. The government then transferred $25 million to the corporation on April 9 and $25 million on April 11, yet the request for supply has just been tabled in the House today, November 1, which is almost nine months later.

Members of the House as far back as 1971 have repeatedly objected to the government's use of estimates and appropriation acts as vehicles to spend money on programs that have not received legislative authority. Your predecessors, Mr. Speaker, have struck votes from the estimates several times: March 10, 1971; March 22, 1977; December 7, 1977; March 25, 1981; June 12, 1981; June 21, 1981; March 21, 1983; and March 21, 1984.

I refer you to the ruling of Mr. Speaker Jerome on March 22, 1977 at page 4221 of the Debates which states:

--the government receives from parliament the authority to act through the passage of legislation and receives the money to finance such authorized action through the passage by parliament of an appropriation act.

The auditor general continues in her observation to state on page 1.37 of the Public Accounts of Canada:

I also question Government statements that the Corporation had to be established and the funds transferred to it quickly or the spending...would lapse. Parliament had not granted any spending authority for 2000-2001; therefore, there was no spending authority to lapse.

This is a typical way in which this government appropriates and spends money without parliamentary approval. Let us not forget that parliament is supreme. The Prime Minister and his cabinet have no authority to spend the tax dollars of Canadians without prior approval of the House.

Standing Order 80(1) of the House is clear: It states:

All aids and supplies granted to the Sovereign by the Parliament of Canada are the sole gift of the House of Commons,...

That is the reason why the Magna Carta was signed away back in 1215, to remove the arbitrary power of the monarch and to replace it with the representatives of the people, who either approve or reject the government's spending proposal. As the saying goes, no taxation without representation.

The auditor general states in her opinion that it is likely parliament will approve the supplementary estimates, but that is no reason or excuse for the government to assume that the House will respond to its beck and call. If we are to be a rubber stamp where whatever the government proposes, it assumes we will approve, and whenever the government acts without our authority it assumes it will get it, then we might as well all go home.

I have stood in the House before and said that you have the title of Speaker because you speak for all of us. If this place matters to anyone, then in my opinion you must rule these votes out of order.

I concur with the auditor general who stated:

Finally, should Parliament not approve the Supplementary Estimates and thereby not give retroactive approval of the spending authority for the $50 million already paid to the Corporation, my reading of Vote 10 for both Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada leads me to conclude that these two $25 million payments could not be charged to that Vote. This is because the grants to the Corporation do not fit within any of the classes of grants currently described in the Estimates of those departments.

Again, I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the auditor general's conclusion that there has been no authority granted by parliament for this expenditure, which already has taken place.

If the House does not approve the supplementary estimates, the government would be required to obtain the return of the $50 million from the corporation, since no money may be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund without the authority of parliament. Yet the government is bound by its funding agreement with the corporation, and any action to recover funds would put the government in breach of the agreement. Quite simply, parliament has lost control of the public purse and $50 million of taxpayer money. Fifty million dollars is now outside the scope of the Financial Administration Act. This is completely unacceptable.

The auditor general concludes with strong language. She says:

I certainly hope that in the rest of my tenure...I will not see another such series of events carried out to achieve a desired accounting result.

I would also point out that the auditor general who was appointed this spring has almost 10 years left in her mandate. I am glad to see that the auditor general, an officer of parliament, is standing up for due process and proper control of the public purse in the country.

It is clear that the government has used smoke and mirrors to achieve its goal. In anticipation that the House would approve Bill C-4, it set up a private corporation with four shareholders, thinking that it could subsequently legitimize the foundation by having Bill C-4 approved and that this corporation, under the Canada Corporations Act, would be swallowed up by the foundation created under Bill C-4.

The government could not wait for parliament to speak and approve the legislation. It could not wait for parliament to speak and vote supply. Its arrogant, presumptuous attitude says that it will take this place for granted and whatever it wants, the members will do.

I ask you today, Mr. Speaker, to speak on behalf of all parliamentarians and state clearly and unequivocally that this place matters and that before the Government of Canada spends the money, we approve the request in the House.

Therefore I am asking that you rule both vote 10 of Environment Canada and vote 10 of Natural Resources Canada out of order and demonstrate once and for all that parliament is the guardian of the public purse.

Privilege

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege to charge the Minister of Transport with contempt. The minister has brought the authority and dignity of the House into question and has breached the new procedure that was established by the adoption of the first report of the modernization committee.

On Thursday, October 25, while the House was in session, the minister held a press conference to announce a $75 million bailout for Canada 3000. While this brand of disrespect is not uncommon for the Liberal government, I believe that this is the first time that such an act has occurred since the adoption of the first report of the modernization committee. At page 4 of that report the committee states:

Concerns have been expressed that government announcements, regarding legislation or policies, are increasingly made outside the House of Commons. While this is by no means a recent phenomenon, it continues to be a source of concern. The Committee is recommending two initiatives to address it.

First, it is important that more ministerial statements and announcements be made in the House of Commons. In particular, topical developments, or foreseeable policy decisions, should be made first—or, at least, concurrently—in the chamber. Ministers, and their departments, need to be encouraged to make use of the forum provided by the House of Commons. Not only will this enhance the pre-eminence of Parliament, but it will also reiterate the legislative underpinning for governmental decisions.

The committee recommended that the government make greater use of ministerial statements in the Chamber and that the House leaders be advised in advance of these statements.

I was not advised of this announcement. When I stood in the House on Thursday and asked the Thursday question, the government House leader had the opportunity right there and then, but failed to do so.

There was no reason why the Minister of Transport could not have advised the opposition and there were no procedural difficulties preventing the Minister of Transport from making his announcement in the House. I am certain that all parties would have extended every courtesy to the minister if he had chosen to respect the House and make his announcement here.

It is important to know that the House adjourned early on that day for lack of business. It adjourned early last Monday and Friday and it adjourned early on Friday, October 19, and on Monday, October 22, so wherein lies the problem with debating these issues on the floor of the House? A $75 million bailout is no small change. Where does the minister think the authority to spend the $75 million comes from?

The government and its departments are continuously making a habit of mocking the parliamentary system in this manner. We have had the deliberate leaking to the media of contents of Bill C-15 and, more recently, of the anti-terrorism bill, Bill C-36.

One of the reasons the modernization committee felt it necessary to address the issue was that in the last two parliaments the government got away with mocking the legislative process at every turn, belittling the role of members of parliament. I will cite a few of the more serious examples.

On Thursday, October 23, 1997, the government announced that provincial and federal governments had constituted a nominating committee to nominate candidates for the new Canada pension plan investment board. The nominating committee was provided for under subclause 10(2) of Bill C-2. The House had not yet adopted Bill C-2.

On January 21, 1998, the minister responsible for the wheat board met in Regina to discuss the rules for the election of directors to the Canadian Wheat Board's board of directors, as proposed in Bill C-4, an act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act. Substantial amendments to Bill C-4 tabled at report stage by opposition members were scheduled for debate in the House. While the House debated how many directors should be farmer elected versus being government appointees, the minister was holding meetings as though the bill was already law.

When the Canadian millennium scholarship fund was being established, a published article in the Toronto Star announced that Yves Landry had been named as the head of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. Mr. Landry was quoted as saying “I am only one member of the board and my job is to be a facilitator”. There was no legislation before the House setting up the foundation, nor had the budget announcement allocating $2.5 billion in revenue to the foundation been adopted.

The Minister for International Trade announced on March 30, 1998, the establishment of a Canada-China interparliamentary group. At that time, the House had not set up a Canada-China interparliamentary group.

Finally, the date of the last budget that was delivered in the House, so long ago we have probably forgotten, was announced by the Prime Minister outside the House.

Each disrespectful act we allow to stand unchallenged becomes a precedent that serves afterwards to justify more acts of disrespect. The modernization committee recognized this and felt it necessary to make a statement.

The adoption of this report outlined what standard the House expected from ministers in this regard.

On page 119 of Erskine May there is a reference regarding a select committee that was appointed to inquire into the conduct and activities of members and to consider whether any such conduct or activities amounted to a contempt of the House and whether any such activities were:

--conduct...inconsistent with the standards the House was entitled to expect from its Members.

The minister cannot claim ignorance because the House pronounced itself on this issue through the adoption of the modernization committee report. When the Minister of Transport made his announcement outside the House on Thursday, October 25 while there was still an opportunity to make it inside, his conduct was clearly inconsistent with the standards the House was entitled to expect from him. As a consequence the minister is in contempt of the House.

The other related parliamentary tradition that the government likes to forget about is the issue of and respect for the doctrine of ministerial responsibility.

The Minister of Transport and the rest of his colleagues, and particularly the Minister of Justice, should review the definition of ministerial responsibility from page 63 of the 22nd edition of Erskine May. It states:

—ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments...it is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament—

Where can we find the truthful and accurate information regarding the decision to hand out $75 million to Canada 3000? Not in Hansard of Thursday, October 25. Where it was found was in the Globe and Mail of October 26.

I am beginning to think that being held in contempt in the House is of little concern to the government. Let us look at the example of the Minister of Justice who was held in contempt for leaking to the media the contents of Bill C-15.

When I appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to review another charge of contempt involving the minister, I pointed out that we no longer respect, to the same degree as in the past, the principle that ministers have a duty to parliament to account and to be held to account for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments.

I cited the example from 1976 involving the Hon. André Ouellet, the then minister of consumer and corporate affairs. Mr. Ouellet made a comment on the acquittal by Mr. Justice Mackay of the sugar companies accused of forming cartels and combines. As a result, Mr. Justice Mackay cited him for contempt of court. He was found guilty of the charge and resigned his cabinet post over the incident.

A charge of contempt by the House should be considered just as serious, if not more serious, as a contempt charge in a court. Unfortunately the Minister of Justice chose not to take responsibility in the time honoured tradition of ministerial accountability, as did Mr. Ouellet.

Getting back to this case, I will conclude my remarks by saying that had I had an opportunity to respond to this announcement by the Minister of Transport I might have asked the minister why he can justify giving Canada 3000 $75 million but cannot spend one dime on the softwood lumber industry that lost millions of dollars over a trade dispute with the United States. Thousands of people are out of work as a result and thousands more are expected to lose their jobs.

Also, what about the farmers who suffered through this summer's drought?

These are some of the questions we might have asked if the minister had given us an opportunity, but we did not. The minister might want to talk about timing, about how the House was not sitting. It was not sitting because the government chose not to have it sitting. It adjourned early. We have adjourned early too many days over the last little while.

Certainly I saw the minister on television that night at 7 p.m. The House adjourned early,and I cannot remember if it was 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., but surely he must have made the decision earlier in the day. He could have spoken to the government House leader and made sure it was put on the agenda so that we could have done it in the House and it could have been done properly.

Mr. Speaker, if you find that we have a case of privilege, I am prepared to move the proper motion.

Message From The Senate

[The Deputy Speaker]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate chamber the Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

Bill C-12, an act to amend the Judges Act and to amend another act in consequence—Chapter No. 7.

Bill S-24, an act to implement an agreement between the Mohawks of Kanesatake and Her Majesty in right of Canada respecting governance of certain lands by the Mohawks of Kanesatake and to amend an act in consequence—Chapter No. 8.

Bill C-8, an act to establish the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada and to amend certain acts in relation to financial institutions—Chapter No. 9.

Bill S-17, an act to amend the Patent Act—Chapter No. 10.

Bill C-17, an act to amend the Budget Implementation Act, 1997 and the Financial Administration Act—Chapter No. 11.

Bill S-16, an act to amend the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act—Chapter No. 12.

Bill S-3, an act to amend the Motor Vehicle Transport Act, 1987 and to make consequential amendments to other acts—Chapter No. 13.

Bill S-11, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and the Canada Cooperatives Act and to amend other acts in consequence—Chapter No. 14.

Bill C-13, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act—Chapter No. 15.

Bill C-26, an act to amend the Customs Act, the Customs Tariff, the Excise Act, the Excise Tax Act and the Income Tax Act in respect of tobacco—Chapter No. 16.

Bill C-22, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Income Tax Application Rules, certain acts related to the Income Tax Act, the Canada Pension Plan, the Customs Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act and another act related to the Excise Tax Act—Chapter No. 17.

Bill C-3, an act to amend the Eldorado Nuclear Limited Reorganization and Divestiture Act and the Petro-Canada Public Participation Act—Chapter No. 18.

Bill C-18, an act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act—Chapter No. 19.

Bill C-28, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act, the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act and the Salaries Act—Chapter No. 20.

Bill C-9, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act—Chapter No. 21.

Bill C-25, an act to amend the Farm Credit Corporation Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts—Chapter No. 22.

Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology—Chapter No. 23.

Bill C-29, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 2002—Chapter No. 24.

Bill S-25, an act to amend the Act of Incorporation of the Conference of Mennonites in Canada.

Bill S-27, an act to authorize The Imperial Life Assurance Company of Canada to apply to be continued as a company under the laws of the Province of Quebec.

Bill S-28, an act to authorize Certas Direct Insurance Company to apply to be continued as a company under the laws of the Province of Quebec.

Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, June 13, the House stands adjourned until Monday, September 17, at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Orders 28 and 24.

(The House adjourned at 5.26 p.m.)

Natural Resources

[John Williams, Canadian Alliance, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I rose on a point of order to indicate that the government was spending about $4 million or $5 million without the appropriate authority of the House of Commons. Now we find that the auditor general said on Bill C-4 in the Senate committee:

I am concerned about the transfer of large amounts of public money to foundations long before it will be spent on delivering services.

Why does the Minister of Natural Resources, who is responsible for Bill C-4, insist on engaging in shady accounting practices that will not stand up to the light of day?

Sustainable Development

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the government had $100 million in the 2000 budget for the sustainable development technology fund, Bill C-46. The government reintroduced the bill as Bill C-4 in the current session.

Part of this money was transferred in April 2001 in direct violation of section 2 of the Financial Administration Act which designates the end of the fiscal year as March 31. Why do the minister and the government continue to circumvent parliament?

Canadian Wheat Board

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, what I pointed out in the House last week was that when the original legislation to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act was put forward in the predecessor to Bill C-4, we attempted to include a specific procedure for dealing with the jurisdiction of the board, either the expansion or the diminution of that jurisdiction.

It was at the insistence of the opposition that explicit procedure was removed from the draft legislation.

Income Tax Act

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find consent to apply the vote just taken on Bill C-17 to Bill C-22 and to Bill C-4.

Access To Information Act

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, on the first day back after the Easter break it is a pleasure to speak in the House on this private member's motion, which requests that there be a new definition of government institution to open up financial administration and which includes the Canadian Wheat Board.

Although I have not been here for a long time, this is for me a bit of déja vu because we debated this issue in 1997 and 1998 when we were dealing with Bill C-4, the act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board. Certainly the New Democratic Party had a lot of difficulty with parts of that bill at that time and we subsequently voted against it.

However, we think there is some justification for lack of disclosure on this particular piece of legislation and in this particular area. The reason I say this is that the Canadian Wheat Board goes head to head with some of the largest multinational corporations in the world and we certainly do not see companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill making available in minute detail all of the access to information that would be required should this motion ever be adopted.

At first blush, obviously, when we think of transparency and access to information we might wonder why anyone would be opposed to this. However, if we think beyond this a little bit and realize that we are dealing with some very large multinationals that the Canadian Wheat Board is in direct competition with, we can understand why the board has not made this available at this time. I find myself in support of that rationale.

It goes without saying that all directors will be entitled to the complete disclosure of all Canadian Wheat Board facts and figures, including but not limited to fully audited financial statements, so they will be able to examine the price at which grain is sold, the price premiums achieved, the operating costs, and whether or not the Canadian Wheat Board is being run efficiently. That is a result of one of the changes in the 1997-98 legislation, which opened up the Canadian Wheat Board by allowing an elected board of directors of farmers. It is a 15 member board, 10 of whom are elected and 5 of whom are appointed by the government. With the full knowledge these 15 directors have of the Canadian Wheat Board and its global competition, the directors would be, will be, and are in the best position to assess what information should be made public and what, for commercial reasons, should remain confidential.

Therefore, the New Democratic Party finds itself in opposition to the motion before the House. It is important to point out at the same time that not only the Canadian Wheat Board but the Export Development Corporation and Canada Post do not fall under the Access to Information Act. There are reasons for that situation and, as I have tried to point out, they are logical and well founded.

I will note as an aside that at the moment under chapter 11 of NAFTA there is currently a very major dispute going on behind closed doors involving United Parcel Service and whether or not the Canadian government is going to be required to pay several hundreds of millions of dollars. UPS is arguing that Canada Post-Purolator is competing unfairly against it.

This is exactly the point that the Canadian Wheat Board finds itself at: by publishing that data we would put ourselves at a commercial disadvantage to the Cargills, the ADMs and the other multinational giants engaged in the wheat industry.

I know there are others who wish to take part in the debate and there is time allocation, so I will conclude by making three brief points. First, the Canadian Wheat Board is a commercial organization and information pertaining to sales and prices is restricted, as it would be in any private organization.

Second, a board of directors heads the Canadian Wheat Board. Ten of those fifteen directors, the majority on the board, are elected farmers. They and they alone are responsible for the performance of the organization and the information it releases to its farmer constituents.

Third, the Canadian Wheat Board is not responsible to the public at large as it is not a government department. It is paid for by the producers in western Canada. The corporation submits its annual report to parliament each year and, may I add, they do have an auditor. I believe Deloitte and Touche is the company that audits the books every year and presents those facts. I an also given to understand that the Auditor General of Canada, as part of the wheat board bill of 1997-98, the old Bill C-4, will be examining the books of the Canadian Wheat Board.

I hope I have satisfied the House as to why the New Democratic Party would not be in support of this motion.

Canada Foundation For Sustainable Development Technology Act

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-4, the Canada foundation for sustainable development technology act.

The premise of the legislation is that it will establish a foundation to fund innovative projects, primarily within the areas of climate change and air quality. This is a premise that the PC Party supports.

We all know that Canada made a strong commitment at Kyoto to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and put into place measures to help reduce the impact of climate change.

In fact it was the Conservative government, in 1992 at Rio, which first established a strong position respecting the environment, one that the current government has allowed to lapse.

The legislation before us fails in its effort to improve the environment and to bring forward new sustainable development technology. The fault is not with the premise of the bill but with the specifics or lack thereof.

The bill clearly states that the foundation would be established with an initial fund of $100 million. Although the fund may be increased over time, it is unlikely that it is the government's intention to do this. That would be determined based on the success of the foundation to meet its objectives. However I question how the foundation would determine whether its objectives are being met.

The amendment put forward in committee whereby the foundation would be required to submit detailed reports on specific projects, namely the extent to which they were successful in meeting their goals, was denied. At most steps in the process the government has refused to accept amendments from any of the opposition parties.

It has been a very trying job in committee listening to government deliberations and listening to it defending its position on particular aspects of the bill. If all parties had gone to committee with an open mind, the bill could have been improved. The Conservative Party would have supported it along with the NDP, the Bloc and the Canadian Alliance.

We are left with legislation that promotes sustainable development but without guidelines in place to allow the foundation to determine whether those objectives are being met. There are some air quality issues that are difficult to accurately measure, but that does not mean there should be no standard in place to do it.

The government has been widely criticized by the auditor general for its lack of accountability on various projects or programs. Too little information is being made available regarding the spending of public funds. Yet the government will continue the tradition with the legislation.

Another amendment that would have improved the legislation proposed that access to information be applied to the foundation. That amendment as well as the one I just mentioned would have improved the accountability and openness of the foundation and would have allowed an unbiased view of the projects. It would have enabled the foundation to better determine whether it was meeting its objectives. Without such requirements in place, the foundation becomes yet another institution which allows the government to give out money as it pleases.

We all recognize that some projects would fail. Not every project, in particular those that promote new technology and innovative ideas, would be able to overcome obstacles and setbacks. That is understood and it is not the objective of accountability and quantitative reviews to restrict projects or call into question their ability to succeed.

Furthermore, if it is impossible to quantify the ways in which a project could reduce greenhouse gases to improve air quality, it is not to say that such a project is not good. There should be overall guidelines in place, at least general guidelines, to allow the foundation to achieve some level of accountability for public funds.

Speaking of funds brings me to another problem with the legislation, another area where a lack of detail prevents me from supporting the bill. It is one more example of inconsistency between what the minister said about the legislation when it was introduced in the House and what is actually entailed in the legislation.

As I mentioned, the foundation would be funded with $100 million of taxpayer money. When the minister appeared in committee he continually stated that it would be the intention of the foundation to leverage projects on a 1:4 basis. In other words, the foundation would provide 25% of the total funding required to bring a project to fruition and other private or public sources could be accessed to supply the remaining 75%. In no way is that an inconceivable or unnecessarily restrictive objective.

There are many other government programs available to help fund projects such as the ones that would be considered by the foundation.

I have a list of other public programs. There is the annual allocation of $58 million for the energy research and development program. On March 8 the Minister of Industry announced $62 million in scholarship and fellowship funding to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. On March 12 there was an announcement of funding of $73 million for four new networks of centres of excellence.

The budget of the Canada foundation for innovation is $2.4 billion, plus a recent addition of $750 million announced by the government on March 6. Technology partnerships annual allocation is $300 million. The industrial research assistance program annual allocation is $7 million. Technology early action measures allocation is $57 million. What the list shows is that there are other avenues available for funding for sustainable development projects.

It does not mean that the legislation is redundant. It means that there was ample opportunity for the government to set out specific limits on funding flowing from the foundation. With other options available, the government did not have to worry about funding a project at 100%. The minister said that the object would be to fund projects at 25%, and yet nowhere in the legislation is there any mention of any sort of limits.

I proposed an amendment at committee stage that would have established a limit of 50% funding although the minister had been indicating at the time that the $100 million would be leveraged into $400 million. The amendment proposed a 50% limit so that the board of directors of the foundation would not be unduly restricted or bound by unnecessary limitations. The amendment would have established a guideline for the board, one that was consistent with the intent of the bill as the minister outlined. The amendment was voted down.

The lack of detail within the legislation may be dismissed. The government may say that the legislation should not needlessly restrict the board of the foundation. It is an example of sloppy legislation, one that is loosely worded and open to misuse.

I also proposed in committee an amendment which was successfully adopted with the support of Liberal members of the committee. The amendment changed the date on which the legislation would take effect. As it was worded, the provisions of the act could come into force on a day or days to be fixed by order of the governor in council. It meant that the government could choose to implement certain sections of the act while allowing other sections to be implemented at later dates or not at all.

It also meant that the government could choose not to have the Official Languages Act apply or maybe it would not require annual reports by the foundation to parliament. Such a provision opened the process to abuse. It is one more example of the original looseness of the legislation. While the clause has been amended, other clauses have not.

I do not wish to give the impression that the PC Party does not support the objectives of the bill. Improving air quality and reducing the impact of climate change are objectives that all Canadians support. There are numerous alternative sources for fuel that need to be advanced, particularly as the world continues to deplete its oil and gas reserves. These fuel sources are not only slowly disappearing, but their environmental impact is causing undesirable consequences.

Canada has been a world leader in such areas as fuel cells and solar energy. These are areas that need to be developed so that the ideas and technologies can be applied in the marketplace, even at national and international levels. The Ballard fuel cell is one of the more recognized examples of Canada's innovative leading edge in this area.

One of the parts of the legislation that I appreciate is that the ideas generated with the assistance of funding from the foundation are to be widely applied in the interest of improving air quality for all Canadians. It means that if there can be broad application of the technology or other uses of the idea then it should be promoted since the overall goal is to improve air quality across the country. That is one reason the foundation would assist with the development of projects.

While it is admirable and something that the PC Party supports, I refer back to the way the legislation has been crafted. The legislation states that at the time of dissolution of the foundation any money remaining would be divided among the projects currently being funded.

While it may sound reasonable at first glance, it is really saying that a project may receive unneeded money simply because it is still considered an active file at the time the foundation ceases to exist, when and if that ever occurs. Understanding that there is no sunset clause in the legislation, the legislation could conceivably go on forever. A project that has received funding may at a latter part of its development no longer require money, but because it is still one of the foundation's projects it would receive a portion of the unused funds.

I am not suggesting it will happen but it could happen. The foundation could literally have tens of millions of dollars on its books and 12 or 50 projects. The money by law would be legally divided among those projects, whether or not they required additional funds. As long as they are open files they would get a portion of those funds.

I proposed an amendment in committee to the clause that would have seen the money revert to the government at the termination of the foundation. Canadian taxpayers would get back any money that had not been allocated at the time the foundation terminated. It would make sense since taxpayers would have contributed to the original funding of the foundation. Therefore any leftover funds should revert to the government. Again the amendment was voted down.

It is important to understand that it is not inconceivable to be dealing with tens of millions of dollars, perhaps even $100 million. There is no limit on the amount that has to be in the foundation, if and when it is dissolved.

There is nothing in the legislation that would prevent the government from providing new funds at any time to the foundation. There is an unrestricted ability for the government to increase the moneys available to the foundation without any guideline in the legislation covering such actions.

It is another example of how little control the legislation would have on how the government manipulates the foundation. The PC Party would tend to support legislation aimed at improving air quality, promoting sustainable energy and developing new technologies. It is the sloppiness of the legislation that prevents me from supporting the bill.

I will now review what is lacking in the legislation. First, there are no controls on spending. Nowhere in the legislation is there a limit on the amount of money the government plans to put into the foundation over the long term. More important, there is a limit on the amount of money that would be provided for specific projects. Even though the minister stated that the foundation would likely provide one-quarter of the necessary funding, nothing was mentioned in the legislation to provide guidelines to the directors.

Second, the foundation is not open to access to information inquiries or to review by the auditor general. Third, the bill lacks clearly defined terms for directors, something that I tried to address through amendments. These are all problems that could easily have been addressed by the government in the legislation.

It is disappointing not to be able to speak in favour of the legislation. Sustainable energy is something that we all need to strive to achieve, particularly given the fact that fossil fuel supplies are decreasing. Moving to fuel cells or using existing fuel sources and more environmentally friendly ways are goals that we should all support if we want to improve air quality.

It is the job of the opposition parties to improve legislation where necessary. In this case the legislation needs to be amended. We have tried to do that. Unfortunately we were unable to improve the legislation to the point where the PC Party could support it.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I think I have about 30 seconds left to add a few comments today. It would certainly be a mistake if I did not take full advantage of the minute and 30 seconds or so that I have today to speak at least briefly to the bill being debated.

I appreciate the fact that we will be able to come back to the bill at another time, shorten our speaking points a bit and be able to get another kick at the proverbial can.

We in the Conservative Party would applaud a number of things in Bill C-4. The whole idea of sustainable development and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are commendable projects that everyone in parliament would tend to support.

Unfortunately, it is the legislation itself. It is how it is worded. It is how it is crafted. It is the fact that there is not a sunset clause in it. It is the fact that there is no accountability. It is the fact that the auditor general is not able to look at the books.

There are a number of things wrong with this particular piece of legislation that could have been corrected at committee and report stage. Government members failed to do that. We have a better piece of legislation than we had to begin with. It did a slightly better job but it did not go all the way. For that reason, we certainly cannot support this piece of legislation. It is my understanding that the rest of the opposition parties cannot support it either.

I will be more than happy to continue and debate this on another day at another time.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Madam Speaker, the people of Surrey Central are pleased to have me participate in the debate today concerning the establishment of a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

In the 2000 federal budget the Liberals announced that they would be creating a sustainable development technology fund. They earmarked $100 million as the amount of initial funding. They are proposing a foundation to administer these funds. In the debate today we are disappointed that the committee hearings on the bill did not result in the Auditor General of Canada overseeing the books of the foundation.

I will quickly review what the foundation is supposed to do. The sustainable development technology foundation is allegedly to operate at arm's length from the government. It is to be operated as a not for profit organization. It will administer funding primarily to projects related to greenhouse gas reduction and improving air quality.

The foundation will dole out funds on a project by project basis. The foundation will accept proposals from existing and new collaborative arrangements among technology developers, suppliers, users, universities, not for profit organizations, and organizations such as industrial associations and research institutes. The government originally expected that the foundation would be in place by March 2001.

The people of Surrey Central support this initiative. We believe that this is the kind of thing where our government should be taking the lead. I would venture to say that members on all sides of the House want to protect Canada's environment and work on projects related to greenhouse gas reduction and improving air quality. Our children certainly want that. We want our children and grandchildren to have that.

Canadian Alliance policy supports these kinds of sustainable development initiatives. I want to make that absolutely clear by stating our policy. We are committed to protecting and preserving Canada's natural environment and endangered species and to the sustainable development of our abundant natural resources for the use of current and future generations.

Therefore we will strike a balance between environmental preservation and economic development. This includes creating partnerships with provincial governments, private industry, educational institutions and the public to promote meaningful progress in the area of environmental protection. That is the policy we have pledged to follow when we form the next government.

As a government the Liberals have mismanaged our environment and failed to provide sustainable development. This weak Liberal government has signed international treaties including Kyoto, Beijing and Rio, with no intention whatsoever of carrying out those commitments.

The government has made political decisions about matters that require scientific decisions. The conservation of fish species was based on political decisions, not on scientific evidence or scientific research. The safety of the bovine growth hormone was influenced by political pressure and political interference rather than by scientific evidence and research.

The government is too busy trying to garner votes and counter Canadian Alliance policy rather than allowing scientific principles and evidence to drive the efforts to protect our environment and meet our international commitments.

Since 1993 the Liberals have been promising Canadians that they were going to pass endangered species legislation, which of course died twice on the order paper. After seven or eight years, what do we have? We have another bill they are promising to pass.

The endangered species bill they are proposing is an assault on property owners in Canada. It is confiscation without compensation. It is hard to imagine. It is so undemocratic that it is anti-democratic, but that is another story for another day.

This weak Liberal government that lacks vision really has done nothing in terms of initiatives for our environment and sustainable development since 1993. Other countries have passed legislation and are way ahead. Even the United Nations itself has a sustainable development office, but the Liberals allow Canada to once again be left behind.

The bill was originally introduced as part of budget 2000, delivered almost a year ago. Now, after a year of doing nothing, the government wants the bill to pass through the House and the Senate as soon as possible and receive royal assent so it can dole out $100 million. Is this simple mismanagement or is it indicative of the usual way the government operates? It could not care less about debate in the House. It does not hesitate to use closure or time allocation to ram any bill through.

At any rate, it is important to note that the official opposition wants to support the bill today, but we wanted to see some amendments as well. We would have supported the bill one year ago, but the government did not allow it to go forward until this month, at least one year late if we use the Liberal government budget 2000 agenda, and seven or eight years late according to the red book one promise.

Let me talk about suggestions we have for the Liberals concerning the bill. Our suggestions really do not have anything to do with the sustainable development aspect of the bill. The amendments needed do not have anything to do with the projects related to greenhouse gas reductions or improving air quality.

Our amendments have to do with the Liberal Party's arrogance. Canadians are very uncomfortable with patronage, which denies them transparency and accountability.

Let me read a simple paragraph from Canadian Alliance policy:

We believe that a non-partisan civil service, an independent judiciary and competent leadership of government agencies, boards and commissions are vital in a democracy. We will therefore ensure appointments to these positions are made through an open and accountable process based on merit.

The Liberals are proposing to turn the sustainable development foundation into a Liberal patronage pork barrel. The people of Surrey Central and I are dismayed. We are disappointed that the government would take such a wonderful initiative of supporting projects related to greenhouse gas reductions and improving air quality and turn the efforts into some kind of Liberal Party payoff.

The Liberals are trying to arrange it so that the chairperson and a minority number of directors and members are appointed by the governor in council. They then appoint the remaining members to complete the 15 person board of directors. Obviously the foundation will become another Liberal patronage plum. When will the Liberals evolve in the new millennium and put a stop to these kinds of 17th century old boys' club practices? When will they abandon the politics of exclusion? When will they stop implementing their systems of disenfranchisement?

The patronage practices of the government are virtually fascist by strict political definition. The Canadian Alliance will put a stop to this sort of thing when it forms the next government.

The creation of a sustainable development foundation is something all Canadians have wanted for years. The Liberals are turning it into some kind of arena for political payoffs. What a shame.

Let me talk about the auditing of the foundation. Again, while the foundation would provide an annual report to parliament, the foundation would appoint its own auditors and have final approval on the financial reports before they are made public. While the legislation does not set out rules as to who would be eligible to be the auditor, the government refuses to allow the Auditor General of Canada access to the foundation's books.

It is no wonder that the government does not want the office of the Auditor General of Canada involved. It knows that the auditor general has been very critical of its practices. The Liberals have had a difficult ride with the outgoing auditor general. His most recent report was probably his most scathing indictment yet of the government. Each auditor general's report on the mismanagement of the Liberal government is worse than the previous one.

The official opposition wants these issues, the question of who will audit the foundation and the question of how appointments will be made to the foundation, dealt with. We ask the government to look at these issues seriously. These are non-partisan, good suggestions. We will not allow these two concerns to be swept under the carpet by the Liberals. Based on these two things, we have to oppose the bill and we do not want to have to do that.

Another issue, our environment, is the most important thing that the House of Commons could be dealing with. Debates on the environment speak to the very future of the human race on this planet. All else really pales in comparison when we view what other subjects we could be debating in the House of Commons. Bill C-4 is a good example of the weaknesses of the government when it comes to the issue of sustainable development.

I would also point out that in regard to the idea of creating a new foundation of this sort the government does not really talk about where it would be based and what centre it would be working out of. It actually puts into question the future of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, located in Winnipeg. We already have one institute for sustainable development and its future is in jeopardy.

I participated in the second reading debate of the bill and was very interested in the remarks of my colleague from Winnipeg Centre. He has some serious concerns about the hidden agenda of the Liberal government when it comes to the future of the sustainable development centre in his riding. I share his concerns.

The institute was created years ago and has had its funding reduced year after year, to the point where it is really a shadow of its former self. There was a time when it had a staff of 140 people and its own building. It now occupies a very small office, with maybe a handful of people, on the third floor of a nondescript office building in the centre of downtown Winnipeg. We wonder if the government has completely forgotten it already has an institute for sustainable development. Maybe the Liberals are threatening to axe what is left of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

We have to compare the $100 million figure that the Liberals have given us in Bill C-4 to cover the issue of sustainable development with the government putting $1.3 billion into a very narrow and fixed program, a one time payment to offset energy costs for Canadians. The government missed the target with that one as well, sending cheques to students, prisoners, MPs and deceased Canadians but not to those who pay the heating bills.

Getting back to the institute in Winnipeg, if there is $100 million to spend, why would the government not restore the institute to its former stature, that of a world leader, research centre and resource library for anyone interested in the whole concept of energy conservation or sustainable development? Why not enhance the Winnipeg facility as a centre of excellence right in the centre of Canada and become world leaders so we can export the technology?

In conclusion, once again we have the Liberals taking an initiative, one that everyone would want to support, the creation of a sustainable development foundation, but what do they do? They turn it into a venue for patronage payoffs and they close the books to the auditor general. They want to control the $100 million they are giving to the foundation without anyone else finding out which Liberal Party donors receive the bulk of the $100 million.

It would be amazing if it were not so sad. The people of Surrey Central, who want to support the creation of the sustainable development foundation, do not want to support the bill because of the way the Liberals are playing politics with it. If the Liberals are prepared to fix the flaws and the corruption they have written into the bill, then we would be more than happy to support it.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Surrey Central. I thank my colleague across the floor for the heartfelt presentation he just gave. It moved me deeply.

I am pleased to rise once again on Bill C-4. I will begin my presentation, as I have at every stage of the bill, by expressing support for the concept of bringing a group of experts together in green technologies. Our party supports the concept of creating a foundation and leveraging a fairly significant amount of dollars in the big scheme of things many times over in the private sector through partnerships to help in the development of new technologies.

It is a concept worthy of support. Our party was ready to support the bill if we could have had a simple amendment to it, just one amendment to provide some transparency and accountability. It was denied unfortunately at report stage when the government decided not to allow it. It makes me wonder why it would do that. It makes me fear that the concerns I have expressed about the bill are true and there is a reason the government does not want transparency.

The bill is a simple continuation of a process started three years ago in December 1997 when the Kyoto protocol was signed and Canada agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels for the period 2008 to 2012.

There are many experts who feel that such a dramatic reduction is not possible or feasible as the goal of a 6% reduction represents about a 25% reduction from projected 2008 to 2012 emission levels, using a business as usual trend of rising greenhouse gas emissions as the basis.

To further complicate these projections Canada's levels of greenhouse gas emissions have risen steadily in the last few years to a much higher level than was previously projected.

Despite these complications the government continues to attempt to meet the Kyoto commitments with a variety of actions. For example, one such action was the government's action plan 2000 which proposed what strategic actions the government would take to meet our Kyoto commitments.

The problem is that the plan only aims to reduce the emissions by 65 million tonnes per year during the commitment period of 2008 to 2012. That is only one-third of the way toward the Kyoto commitment.

We had a good discussion this morning in committee with the climate change secretariat. It was obvious that the government would have great difficulty even reaching the one-third milepost toward the Kyoto commitment. There was also increasing evidence that climate change however much it was influenced by man's activities was inevitable. The government should move to some degree toward helping Canadians to adapt to climate change rather than perpetuating the myths that somehow the Kyoto commitment would prevent it, would reverse the trend and would save the world.

In September 2000 Environment Canada reported that the United Nations revealed that Canada's greenhouse gas emissions were 13% above 1990 levels in 1998. These levels have risen consistently due to factors such as the greater use of coal to produce electricity. If natural gas prices remain high, and we have seen evidence of that in Alberta, coal could be used even more than it is now. If Canada continues its business as usual, it is quite possible that the gap between projected emissions and the Kyoto target would be 26% or significantly higher.

Government documents regarding the bill state that Canada is a world leader in many climate change and energy efficiency technologies with emerging strengths in other areas. That is a term that the minister uses often in committee and in the House. I have to question why, if what he says is the case, Canada is relying so heavily on sinks and tradable credits in its Kyoto strategy? If we combine the increase in emission levels with the fact that the Kyoto protocol has virtually fallen apart over the issue of carbon sinks, it is clear that much needs to be done before Canada can consider itself well on the way to a significant reduction in emissions.

Canada is in serious trouble and serious trouble calls for serious solutions. If Bill C-4 lays out the groundwork for a key part of the government's climate change plan then we are all in trouble. The government should be providing a solid, accountable, transparent and responsible plan that would translate into a foundation. That plan should be producing real benefits to Canadians rather than the current legislation that plants the seeds to grow an enormous patronage plum, and I do not mean a tree.

There are a number of problems with the bill that I hoped to see addressed either in committee or at report stage in the House. For example, the issue regarding the accountability of the foundation and its reporting practices. I would like to see the auditor general have access to the foundation's books. The auditor general should bring forward regular audits to ensure that the foundation is being run in a reasonable and responsible manner.

As things stand now, rather than having the auditor general perform an audit of the foundation's books, perhaps the foundation could use the government's demonstrated standards of bookkeeping. Members must forgive me if I do not find that a particularly comforting thought. After all, for the last 10 years the auditor general has given his opinion on the financial statements of the Government of Canada.

During that period the government has flunked the exam seven times. Only three times has the auditor general been able to give a passing grade to the government's bookkeeping. That is a terrible average. It gets even worse if we look back further than just 10 years. The former auditor general could give only one clear opinion during his entire 10 year term.

If the government is to hold the foundation to those standards we are in for more mismanagement and bungling, for we know how fond those Liberal members are of spending money without requiring any sort of framework, authorization or even paperwork. I had hoped they had learned their lesson.

No one doubts the intention of the bill. It is sound. I would have supported an organization that exists to promote the development of new technologies to assist in sustainable development, including those technologies that address climate change and air quality issues.

Canada has some serious climate change issues that need to be addressed. Since the government is already committed to a certain course of action, we had better start producing rather than just talking about it.

Descriptions of the bill contain all sorts of glorious sounding intentions. For example, the fund will encourage innovation by helping companies develop new technologies and bring them to market. The fund will complement other federal programs, build on efforts to engage external partners, and promote the efficient use of resources and technologies.

According to the government new technologies developed by this fund will provide the opportunity for Canadians to access the opportunity side of the climate change equation. Again I have to question the bill. The government is making taxpayer dollars available on extremely vague criteria. Is that what it means by opportunities being created?

My impression is that the opportunities being created were supposed to be for the development of new technologies that would benefit all Canadians, not for the friends of the government to benefit simply from the receipt of Canadian tax dollars.

The foundation will be composed of fifteen members. The fifteen members of the foundation are assembled first and seven are appointed by the governor in council who then appoints eight other members. The chair and six members of the board are then appointed by the governor in council, and those seven people appoint eight other members for the board. Both the foundation and the board have fifteen members and fourteen of the total thirty members are handpicked by cabinet.

The chair and directors of the board are eligible for five year terms. Directors and members can be reappointed for one or more terms. It all sounds rather cushy to me. If someone has a friend in the right place, he or she could be appointed to the foundation.

There are two rather frightening aspects to this process. Just as the chairperson, directors and members are appointed by the governor in council, they can also be removed for cause by the governor in council. Notice that reads cause, not just cause.

If members of the foundation are to be kept on at the whim of cabinet or the Prime Minister, what are the chances that they will ever make a decision independently? For example, what if the chairperson makes a reasonable but unpopular decision and turns down a grant to a friend of the Prime Minister? Will that person then be removed from the board?

What if a director recommends that a project be denied but the chairperson is a Liberal crony? Would that be considered cause? What if a member is doing a terrible job but is a close friend of the Prime Minister or the privy council? Does the member then get to keep the job and the money and cannot be removed by anybody but the Prime Minister?

We have certainly heard many examples in the House recently about the Prime Minister and how he can assert his influence over those he personally appoints.

I do not think I have to tell anybody about the issue of the governor of the Business Development Bank and about the billion dollar boondoggle in Human Resources Development Canada where ministerial interference directed money to constituencies and to organizations that did not meet the criteria of the program. Those issues are fairly well known by everyone in the House and I would expect fairly well known by everyone across the country.

We had hoped that at least there would be some safeguards against this practice in the bill, but unfortunately those safeguards are sadly lacking.

Another concern regarding the way the foundation will be staffed relates to the provisions for expertise in its chairperson. The bill states that the appointment of directors is supposed to ensure expertise of its directors and that the board should be representative of persons engaged in the development and demonstration of technologies to promote sustainable development. Curiously, though, the bill makes no such provision for the appointment of the chairperson.

It seems to me that the bill is just leaving the door wide open for patronage and just waiting for some friend of the Prime Minister to walk through.

I also have some concerns regarding how members of the foundation will be compensated for their contributions. The bill states that the directors may be paid remuneration that is fixed by the foundation's bylaws and that they are entitled to be paid reasonable travel and living expenses incurred by them in the performance of their duties.

If the board is setting their own bylaws, where are the checks against unreasonable salaries? It sounds like a great opportunity for these appointed cronies to find themselves a tidy, new source of cash.

The House will remember Ted Weatherhill and his expense account. He is the bureaucrat who charged Canadian taxpayers $21,000 in three years for his travelling expenses. Certainly he was entitled to collect reasonable expenses for the job he was doing for the government. Perhaps the possibility of that happening exists under this foundation. Those could hardly be considered by anyone to be reasonable expenses. Even the Liberals who fired him over the issue did not think his expenses were reasonable.

At least there is some mention of the salaries of directors in the bill. Bill C-4 makes no mention of the chairperson's salary and how it will be determined. Quite frankly with the way the government likes to throw money at its friends, I would just as soon not leave this sort of thing up to chance.

At the beginning of my comments I made mention of my concerns regarding the financial operations of the foundation. I would like to take some time to expand somewhat on those concerns. The bill is terribly vague on how its financial operations will work. I have to question exactly how the foundation intends to sustain its financial viability without an ongoing infusion of taxpayer dollars?

The bill states that the board shall establish investment policies, standards and procedures that a reasonably prudent person would apply with respect to a portfolio of investment to avoid an undue risk of loss and obtain a reasonable return. I wonder if the same standards of investment will be used as those that guide Canada pension plan investments. If so, the financial stability of the foundation is doomed.

On February 15, 2001, the CPP fund, made up of $41.6 billion in assets invested mostly in bonds, reported a $453 million loss on stock investments in its fiscal third quarter.

In the bill currently before the House the government is trying to prevent public scrutiny of how the Canada pension plan fund is performing. It seems to me that this fund made up of billions of taxpayer dollars is just a bit too large to sweep under the carpet. At the very least it would make a large lump in the carpet that would be pretty tough to ignore.

If this is the pattern that the foundation will follow, we might as well go ahead and buy ourselves some gas masks because there will be little progress on the development of climate change science and technology.

There are many serious problems with the legislation. I would like to know why we need this new Liberal friendly and expensive bureaucracy when there are many other funding vehicles already in place that could accomplish the same goals.

There are regional development groups that receive federal funding and have local boards which approve high risk investments and give loans. There is also the Federal Business Development Bank. All these groups are under the purview of the Auditor General of Canada. They could cover the responsibilities of the foundation and prevent establishing another expensive bureaucratic mess.

While I am sure the Prime Minister would like to ensure that his friends retire comfortably, when it comes to taxpayer dollars I would like to see a better guarantee of an open, accountable, transparent and responsible organization than what this confusing legislation would suggest.

Before my colleagues across the floor accuse me of being anti-environment, I should like to quote from the Canadian Alliance policy which states:

We are committed to protecting and preserving Canada's natural environment and endangered species, and to sustainable development of our abundant natural resources for the use of current and future generations. Therefore we will strike a balance between environmental preservation and economic development. This includes creating partnerships to promote meaningful progress in the area of environmental protection.

Clearly the Canadian Alliance is in favour of taking steps to ensure cleaner air through new technologies. However, as I have already mentioned, this foundation has the potential to be so riddled with patronage that little if anything meaningful will be accomplished.

The Canadian Alliance believes, as the auditor general indicated in his latest report to parliament, that government agencies, boards and commissions must be staffed with competent, experienced people who are appointed through an open and accountable process based on merit. Quite frankly there is sadly little merit present in either this bill or the foundation it will create.

It is because of the lack of merit shown in the many ways I have mentioned that I will be voting against the legislation. I urge other members of the House to do the same.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate on third reading of Bill C-4, which would establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

Sustainable development involves balanced development, an approach that avoids either/or outcomes, that does not sacrifice one essential value for another. The goals are complex, not simple, for example, not just electric power, but power without pollution, not just industrial growth and busy factories, but these without environmental damage.

We know from the history of the last 30 years that these balancing acts are achievable. We need only think of the reduction of automotive emissions, the abatement of air pollution, improvements in energy efficiency, and technologies of enhanced oil recovery that squeezed new oil from old wells and at the same time reduced the environmental footprint.

The common factor in every case has been innovation: new thinking and new technologies that transform the equation, effective technologies, affordable technologies and sustainable development technologies. Innovation has helped us progress as a society and it will continue to do so in the future.

Innovation of this order is what Bill C-4 is about. The legislation is straightforward. It would authorize the establishment of the Canada foundation for sustainable development. The foundation would administer the sustainable development technology fund of $100 million announced in budget 2000.

The initial focus of the foundation would be on climate change and clean air because these are two major environmental challenges of our time, particularly as recent events in the U.S. have dictated. Under the climate change heading, it would concentrate on the development of new technologies to slow down, arrest and eventually roll back the threat of climate change, for example, technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to make carbon energy systems less carbon intensive, to increase energy efficiency, and to capture, use and store carbon dioxide.

In the clean air part of its mandate the foundation would focus on the development of technologies to reduce the level of contaminants in the air we breathe: volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and others.

Technological innovation is by nature adventurous, pioneering work that will always involve some form of risk. That makes it particularly important that we achieve the best possible ratio of inputs to outputs, of investments to results.

First, the bill would require that the foundation concentrate its funding support on collaborative efforts rather than on projects by single entities. This requirement reflects a strong emphasis throughout the legislation on teamwork. It would also help ensure that funding goes to projects that receive technical review and peer support.

Second, the foundation would plan its activities to complement and to dovetail with those of other federal and provincial government programs on climate change and clean air.

In addition, the terms and conditions in the funding agreements would require the foundation to use the fund to lever investment from other sources to get the ball rolling, not to play the whole game. The foundation would fund up to 50% of eligible costs of any project but never more than 33% of eligible costs on average across the program. This requirement too is consistent with the promotion of teamwork. It is also a consistent maxim that a good predictor of a project's success is the willingness of proponents to put up some of their own money.

Let me now turn to another aspect of the proposed foundation: the arrangements for governance as visualized in the bill. Ultimately the extent to which the fund advances the cause of sustainable development depends on good targeting, good management and good administration. The machinery of government for the foundation that the bill proposes meets this requirement.

The legislation would require the foundation to operate at arm's length from the government and hon. members will see that the governance structure matches that requirement. Essentially it has two components.

One component would be a board of directors, an executive body that would be responsible for the management and services of the foundation and would exercise all its powers subject to the foundation's bylaws.

The second component would be a committee of stakeholders, potential clients of the foundation and other entrusted parties or members of the foundation as we call them. Their role would be analogous to those of shareholders in a private corporation in the sense that they would scrutinize and comment on the activities of the foundation.

Of the 15 directors of the board, 7 would be government appointees. Members of the foundation would appoint the 8 other directors. None of the directors or the members of the foundation would be from the government.

It is an accepted principle of sound design that form should follow function and it does in this case. The ultimate function is sustainable development, a process in which the trajectory is away from narrow perspectives to broad vision. That applies with full force to the development of sustainable development technology. It must be effective, environmentally benign and affordable. The form of the governance machinery proposed by the bill supports that breadth and balance.

Together, the members of the board of directors and of the foundation represent the experience and expertise of every sector linked to the development and implementation of sustainable development technology: the public sector, the private sector, academic institutions and non-profit organizations.

In order to have balance in the geographic sense, members will be drawn from all regions of Canada.

The bill also prescribes measures to ensure due diligence and accountability, requiring the foundation to establish sound financial and management controls and to appoint an independent auditor to verify the effectiveness of these controls. The foundation must submit an annual report to the Minister of Natural Resources, to members of the foundation and to the public. The report must include an evaluation of results achieved through the funding of projects and must be tabled in parliament.

The detailed terms and conditions associated with the management of the fund will be set forth in a funding agreement between the Government of Canada and the foundation. The Auditor General of Canada will scrutinize the funding agreement.

In order to begin implementation of the mandate of the sustainable development technology fund as soon as possible, Bill C-4 also contains conditional clauses that provide for the governor in council to designate a private sector foundation to serve as the foundation in accordance with the requirements of the legislation.

The legislation stipulates that in this eventuality the assets and liabilities of the private sector foundation would be transferred to the foundation and its board of directors and corporate membership would dissolve, thus triggering the appointment of the board and members of the foundation as stipulated in the legislation.

These conditional clauses are also contingency clauses, insurance against unnecessary slippage of schedule in the start up phase. In the event of administrative or other delays of process, they would allow the government to fulfil its promises to establish the fund.

I would like to bring hon. members up to date on the history of the bill. The legislation is based upon more than two years of the most open, transparent and comprehensive consultation that involved the provinces, municipalities, the private sector, academic institutions and non-governmental organizations.

Every aspect of Canadian life was consulted in that two year process and the sustainable development technology foundation is a product of that process. However we did not stop there. The consultation process continued even after the bill was tabled in the House on February 2. We have had the opportunity to discuss the bill in detail with directors of private sector foundations. We agreed that one or two issues related to the roles of members and the timing of their meetings could use clarification. We therefore prepared amendments to the bill to achieve those clarifications.

We presented the bill and the amendments to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources. After vigorous and constructive discussion the legislation and clarifying amendments received approval. During report stage we debated a further seven motions in amendment. One consequential technical amendment was adopted to ensure consistency of all amendments throughout the bill.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all members from the various parties represented in this House for their support. Bill C-4 was much enhanced because of the positive debate that was held.

In conclusion I repeat what the Minister of Natural Resources has said to the House on other occasions. He said that we could not rely on technology alone to meet the challenges of climate change and clean air or to achieve the balancing act of sustainable development but that a constant flow of new technology, effective technology, affordable technology and sustainable development technology were indispensable to our success.

As we know from experience, this is an area in which the right investment of dollars, effort and expertise directed at the right target at the right time could cut the largest problems down to size. It is the right legislation directed at the right targets at the right time. I urge hon. members to speed the legislation on its way.

[Claudette Bradshaw, Liberal, Minister of Labour]

moved that Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, be read the third time and passed.

Business Of The House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer what is undoubtedly the most thoughtful question asked thus far today.

This afternoon we will continue with Bill C-22, the Income Tax Act amendments proposed by the very excellent Minister of Finance. Then we will deal with Bill C-4, the sustainable development foundation legislation. Tomorrow we will do report stage and third reading, hopefully, of Bill C-12, the Judges Act.

On Monday, April 23, we shall call Bill C-13, the GST technical amendments. We will then follow this with the organized crime bill, introduced earlier today.

Tuesday, April 24, will be an allotted day at which time members could raise such issues as softwood lumber, as they perhaps should have last Tuesday when it was an opposition day and other less significant issues were raised.

On Wednesday, April 25, we will begin with third reading of Bill C-9, the Canada Elections Act legislation.

Budget Implementation Act, 1997

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the people of Surrey Central to participate in the second reading debate on this bill. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for St. Albert, and I am sure the House will look forward to his comments as well.

Bill C-17, an act to amend the Budget Implementation Act, 1997 and the Financial Administration Act, has two components. The first is to add additional funding of $750 million for the Canada foundation for innovation to the economic statement and budget update of October 18, 2000.

The second component involves amending the Financial Administration Act to clarify that parliament must provide explicit authority for any voting by or on behalf of the crown. I will deal with that later.

I will now turn to the first part of the bill, the Budget Implementation Act. The bill seeks to extend funding for the Canada foundation for innovation by $750 million to include operation and maintenance costs for research infrastructure. The bill also proposes to extend funding for the foundation to include the purchase access to international research facilities and research projects. The new funding will be spent over an undefined period of 10 years or more but will be booked in the current fiscal year.

The foundation's purpose is to combine government and private sector funding to enhance education and research infrastructure at post-secondary education institutions and research hospitals. The government stated that the foundation would be funded by an upfront investment of $800 million.

In 1997 funding of the Canada foundation for innovation was included in the deficit as if it were a liability at that time, even though the foundation did not exist by the end of the year. The foundation did not exist but the $800 million funding was included as a liability. This made the government depart from its own accounting policies, practices and principles for the third year in a row in contrast to the Public Sector Accounting and Auditing Board, PSAAB, guidelines. The auditor general called it inappropriate accounting and a parliamentary oversight.

The foundation is not obliged to report the results it achieves with $800 million, and parliament may consequently have difficulty obtaining the information it needs on expenditures.

I will quote from the Canadian Alliance policy. It states:

We will bring the best ideas in business, government and universities together to facilitate the transition to the new economy and position Canada as a global leader. We will also increase support to Canada's research granting councils, and appoint a Chief Scientist of Canada to coordinate science activities in all government departments and ensure that science, not politics, prevails.

Let me make it very clear that the Canadian Alliance supports research and development. We regret that the government has overseen and caused our economy to perform so poorly that it is now necessary for the federal government to step in and apply massive doses, hundreds of millions of dollars, to R and D.

The private sector is not encouraged to do R and D by the government because taxes are high. The government is not only arrogant but weak as well. It lacks vision and we cannot trust it. It is unclear what criteria the Liberals would use in granting decisions made by the foundation, which is to be administered by the Minister of Industry.

During the election campaign, the Canadian Alliance proposed an additional $500 million in R and D funding. We support increased funding for research and development. While we support the objectives of the Canada foundation for innovation, technical innovation would be more likely to happen in an environment of lower taxes and less regulation rather than increased bureaucratic spending with ill-defined funding criteria.

The second component involves amending the Financial Administration Act to clarify that parliament must provide explicit authority for any borrowing on behalf of the crown. The bill would also define regulations surrounding what is considered to be borrowing of money.

The bill would require the Minister of Finance to authorize money borrowing transactions. It would give the finance minister the power to authorize money borrowing transactions under any terms and conditions he considers appropriate.

Finally, the bill would amend an oversight in which the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board was removed from the list of crown corporations that are exempt from aspects of the Income Tax Act, reducing the possibility of ministerial intervention in the pension board.

The Canadian Alliance policy on financial administration states:

To ensure transparency, accuracy, and confidence in the government's finances, we will authorize the Auditor General to examine all federal government documents, including those from government agencies and crown corporations. The government will be required to report to the House within one year on how it has dealt with issues raised by the Auditor General. We will apply generally accepted accounting principles to government finances.

We will apply them not in the way that suits the government, but will use generally accepted accounting principles.

The bill would correct a legislative error made two years ago which opened the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to interference by the finance minister in various areas such as cash stripping, appointments, and corporate business plan debt.

The government is again wasting parliamentary time with amendments to correct legislative mistakes it has made. The other day I was debating Bill C-4 and was surprised that the government had to amend its own bill six times. That is how poorly designed it was. The government has to recognize that it must draft bills carefully.

Time and again the official opposition finds that we are holding the flashlight for a weak Liberal government that lacks vision. The problem is that when the government passed the Canadian Wheat Board legislation, it took the CPP investment board out of the Financial Administration Act along with the wheat board.

The fact remains that rather than having excuses from the government, the minister responsible for legislation should be responsible for errors. There should be no mistakes because the minister should be carefully scrutinizing the work the government does.

In conclusion, we support the part of the legislation that corrects the government's mistake of two years ago. We support putting a stop to the finance minister's ability to intervene in the affairs of the pension board.

We have seen the government engage in cash stripping when it comes to the EI account. It stripped $30 billion from that account. We are pleased to put a stop to that.

Business Of The House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue consideration of Bill C-2, the employment insurance bill. We will then return to the second reading of Bill C-18, the equalization bill. That will be followed by Bill C-17 respecting the innovation foundation.

On Friday we will consider third reading of Bill C-8, the financial institution, and if necessary we will return to Bill C-18.

On Monday, we will return to Bill C-2. If it is completed at report stage, we will return to Bill C-18, C-17 or C-22 on the Income Tax Act, depending on which of these bills requires further consideration.

Tuesday shall be an allotted day, and I believe it is the Canadian Alliance's turn. On Wednesday, we will return to Bill C-2. We will also try to complete third reading of Bill C-12, the Judges Act amendments, and Bill C-9, the elections bill. If we have the time, I will also suggest completing Bill C-4, respecting the Sustainable Development Foundation, before adjourning for Easter.

Canada Foundation For Sustainable Development Technology Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions on the report stage of Bill C-4.

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 6.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to explain what Motion No. 8 standing in my name is all about with respect to Bill C-4.

It is a consequential and technical amendment. The clause was amended when the bill was before committee. The clause allows members of the foundation to select an auditor at the annual meeting of the members, thereby alleviating the need to hold a separate meeting to appoint the auditor.

The new language of clause 26(1), as amended in committee, is as follows:

At the first meeting of the members, and in any subsequent fiscal year at the annual meeting, the members shall appoint an auditor for.

Upon reviewing the bill and after the committee had finished its work, it became apparent that a consequential amendment was required in subclause 26(3) to make subclause 26(3) consistent with the change made in committee to subclause 26(1).

Accordingly Motion No. 8 now before the House dealing with subclause 26(3) is that consequential amendment to make sure subclause 26(3) at report stage is consistent with the change made during committee hearings to subclause 26(1). It is not a substantive amendment but obviously the two subclauses have to be consistent.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-4 be amended by adding after line 7 on page 16 the following new clause:

“28.1 (1) The accounts and financial transactions of the Foundation shall be audited by the Auditor General of Canada at such time as the Auditor General considers appropriate, and a report of the audit shall be laid before Parliament.

(2) The Auditor General of Canada has, in connection with any audit made under subsection (1), all the powers that the Auditor General has under the Auditor General Act in connection with the examination of the accounts of Canada.”

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

moved:

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-4, in Clause 26, be amended by replacing, in the English version, lines 10 and 11 on page 15 with the following:

“(3) If an auditor is not appointed at the annual general meeting in any fiscal year, the”

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased once again to take part in the debate on Bill C-4, which was of course Bill C-46 in the previous parliament.

There is no doubt that the objectives of the bill, which establishes a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, are noble. They are very noble indeed. Sustainable development is very much a concern among the public. Today, at noon, I was watching a television program and the topic happened to be the environment. People are very concerned about the environment, sustainable development and the reduction of greenhouse gases. They are also concerned about air quality.

Today's program also dealt with other environmental issues, but we know them. We can identify them because they are a permanent concern among the public. The objectives of the foundation are noble.

Personally, and this should be kept under wrap, I have my pink side, with a dash of blue, which pleases my spouse and my children. I also have a considerable green side, though. The environment is one of my major concerns. In the case of the foundation for sustainable technology, however, one cannot help but draw a parallel with the millennium scholarship foundation.

There were already policies in place in Quebec and this was an area under Quebec jurisdiction. Still, they doggedly insisted on creating a federal level foundation. The same thing goes for this one, the foundation in Bill C-4.

There is considerable expertise in Quebec, yet in the same broadcast today at noon it was said that Quebec has half the greenhouse gas emissions most of the others have. There is therefore expertise in Quebec. There are technicians. Technology is being developed. As the minister has said, he considers this new foundation a kind of fund. He also said that everyone expressed a need for more money.

Thus, the foundation could to all intents and purposes exist with its most noble objectives. After the consultation, which dealt mainly with the technical aspects of sustainable development, everyone was in agreement. When the time came to talk money, however, Quebec wanted the funding to be transferred so that it could carry out implementation or expansion of the foundation already in place in Quebec, which moreover constitutes a fund of some $45 million.

If Quebec had its fair share, it could advance still further in the area of technological development and make of itself an international showcase of cutting edge technologies, therefore stepping up its promotion of technology for sustainable development.

In the group we are currently studying, Group No. 2, there are two motions the Bloc Quebecois will support. If we look at the bill, it provides at subclause 10(4):

(4) A director is eligible to be reappointed for one or more terms not exceeding five years each.

To all intents and purposes this could go past the time limit for senators. This is another place the Prime Minister and his group will appoint a chairperson and members, who will then appoint other members. It is also up to the Prime Minister to choose to revoke certain positions. There may be lifetime appointments.

They talk of new technologies for the environment. They are running the risk that some who are there just about forever will lose the spark of the imagination and that the spark of renewal may not exist as long as one might like in these technologies.

Obviously, in view of the Liberal majority, the government will proceed with this bill. I am convinced of that. We cannot say enough that there is overlap again. The bill still gives the appearance of giving people, friends, contributors, positions that may last their lifetime. We will therefore support the two motions in Group No. 2.

We must not let a motion provided for periodic change go unmentioned. The bill would have done well to provide for a change of members on a rotational basis in order to ensure continuous renewal. Thus, limiting a term to five years is a good thing. If at some point some do not suit the other levels, they may be removed. At that point they will be in the middle or at the end of a term, even at the start of it. Motions provided that, in addition, at the end of a term, a person could remain another five years.

In fact, because the foundation will be created and will duplicate what the provinces, including Quebec, are doing and because we will have to endure that, such an amendment is very relevant. The Bloc Quebecois will support them, but we will never lose sight of the fact that we will always oppose the bill so long as it cannot be improved throughout.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is the time to move on. The people of Surrey Central are pleased to have me participate in the report stage debate on Motions Nos. 3 and 4 in Group No. 2 concerning the establishment of a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

The government has earmarked $100 million as the amount of initial funding to be doled out. The sustainable development technology foundation is to operate at arm's length from the government, or at least it is supposed to be.

We on this side of the House want to support Bill C-4. However we want to see some more amendments in the bill. We had suggestions for the Liberals concerning the bill. Our suggestions do not have anything to do with the sustainable development aspects of the bill. The amendments needed do not have anything to do with the projects related to greenhouse gas reductions and improving air quality.

Our amendments have to do with Liberal Party arrogance. The Liberals are proposing to turn the sustainable development foundation into a Liberal patronage pork barrel. That is what we are up against. The Liberals are trying to make it so that the chairperson along with a minority number of directors and members are appointed by governor in council, which then appoints the remaining members to complete the 15 person board of directors.

Let me read for the Liberals a simple paragraph from the Canadian Alliance policy which is dictated by grassroots members. It states:

We believe that a non-partisan civil service, and independent judiciary and competent leadership of government agencies, boards and commissions are vital in a democracy. We will therefore ensure appointments to these positions are made through an open and accountable process based on merit.

When will the government stop implementing its system of disenfranchisement? The patronage practices of the government are virtually fascist by strict political definition.

How could there be this foundation at arm's length from the government while the weak Liberal government appoints its board directly and indirectly? The Canadian Alliance will put a stop to this sort of thing when we form the government.

There are two motions in Group No. 2, Motions Nos. 3 and 4. I will not read the motions, but we would like to support them because both of them aim to limit the terms of appointment of the chairperson and the board of directors appointed by the governor in council and the staggering of appointments to ensure continuity on the board. The amendments may not accomplish exactly what the official opposition wants the government to do, but it is a step in the right direction.

The amendments moved by the hon. member for South Shore will tighten the bill and limit the number of terms of the board of directors. It is a step in the right direction. On behalf of my constituents and my colleagues I will be willing to support the two motions.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the House is once again considering Bill C-4 at report stage. A number of amendments were suggested subsequent to the work on the bill in committee.

We are dealing with motions that the Chair has designated as Group No. 2, specifically Motions Nos. 3 and 4 moved by the member for South Shore, in an effort to provide more restrictions in the bill to the terms of office of the directors.

I will deal with those specific points in just a moment, but I wish to make a couple of observations in response to the hon. member from the Bloc who has just spoken. Her criticisms of Bill C-4 were not in terms of what the bill is trying to achieve with respect to sustainable development.

As I understood them, they were twofold: first, there had not been ample consultation with all other players and stakeholders, particularly the provinces and, second, the foundation being proposed in some way duplicates that which is already in place in some provinces, most especially the province of Quebec. With the greatest of respect, neither of those criticisms is valid.

I say this for these reasons. First, Bill C-4 and all other measures included in Government of Canada action plan 2000 and identified in the budget of February 2000 with respect to climate change flow from over two years of the most comprehensive, open, transparent and inclusive consultation there has ever been on an environmental and developmental topic.

Members will recall that the Kyoto conference occurred in December 1997. In a meeting with the Prime Minister not more than 48 hours after the conclusion of the Kyoto protocol, the provinces insisted that there be a very thorough process of consultation. It would specifically include the provinces, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, the scientific community, the municipalities, and virtually all Canadians to fully scope out what the climate change issue was and what the implications of the Kyoto accord would be.

The Government of Canada agreed with that initiative and in the spring 1998 the consultation process began. It involved at least 16 different issue tables. It involved over 400 Canadians from every province and territory. It involved all municipalities that wanted to be involved, as well as scientific and non-governmental organizations. It included every dimension of Canadian life from coast to coast to coast. It was open, transparent, inclusive and comprehensive.

The idea for the sustainable development technology fund flowed from that process, which went on for the better part of two years. It cannot be said that there was not ample consultation. There was fulsome and very strong consultation which most definitely included the Government of Quebec and a whole range of non-governmental interest in the province of Quebec.

The proposed sustainable development technology foundation does not duplicate work that is already being undertaken by somebody else in some other jurisdiction. We have been very careful in defining the role of the new foundation. It is filling a gap in the innovation chain. It is not duplicating or overlapping with something that is already there. It is filling a gap that is problematic at the present time. There is common agreement among our private sector stakeholders that the gap needs to be filled and the foundation is the preferred method of filling that gap.

We have continuity from the very early stages of abstract and pure science through all the intermediate stages where that science becomes more defined and more applied, to the final end of the process where it is commercialized and put to work in the economy. This new fund and the new foundation will not cause an overlap or a duplication with something that somebody else is already doing in some other jurisdiction.

What it does is that it adds new funding to help us all meet the challenge of sustainable development. All federal, provincial and territorial ministers of energy and the environment, all those in the private sector that we consulted, the environmental organizations and the scientific community, would all agree that if there is one thing we need from all sources, federal, provincial and territorial with the private sector, is more money into the equation to help us find those sustainable development solutions.

We are not overlapping. We are not duplicating. We are acting on the basis of ample consultation, bringing another $100 million to the equation to help solve the challenges of sustainable development for the future.

When we have an absolute shortage of funding, adding another $100 million to the overall pot does not constitute overlap or duplication. It represents a very solid investment toward a larger solution.

Specifically on the points raised by the member for South Shore in Motions Nos. 3 and 4, Motion No. 3 is essentially aimed at staggering terms of office and Motion No. 4 is aimed at limiting the time in office that any particular director can serve.

While I recognize what the hon. gentleman is trying to accomplish, I respectfully suggest that the language already in Bill C-4 provides flexibility for the ongoing board of directors to function in a most appropriate way and that the restrictions and the meaning proposed by the member for South Shore would really be counterproductive.

We cannot determine the value of directors in advance by arbitrarily saying that they will only have good ideas, that they will only serve in a proper fashion for one term and that then they will be burned out and we should cast them aside and get somebody else.

While it is desirable to have turnover, new blood and new ideas brought into the equation, it is better to leave Bill C-4 in the form as it presently stands, which provides flexibility in dealing with the terms of directors rather than trying to precisely describe when a particular director must leave office.

Directors who serve well, that bring energy, ideas, vitality and enthusiasm to their task, ought to continue, and perhaps indefinitely. They do not run out of ideas because they serve a certain number of terms or reach a certain age. These people may want to leave after one term. They may want to continue for three or four. We need to retain the flexibility to capture their maximum vitality rather than try to prescribe and limit in advance.

I simply do not accept the notion that we necessarily have to say in the legislation that they should be turfed out at a certain point. The legislation provides flexibility. It provides for appointment and then the possibility of reappointment.

Obviously at the time of reappointment an assessment would be made as to whether the person wants to continue and whether in the view of the responsible government of the day the person is making a valuable contribution that ought to be continued. It is proper to leave it flexible on that basis so that there can be rejuvenation from time to time and that those who are making valuable contributions can continue for the long term.

On the point about staggering, I certainly agree with the objective that we do not want all the directors coming and going at the same time. Obviously we would have to reinvent the wheel with each new board of directors every time.

That is a reasonable proposition. My only comment would be that the staggering of terms is already possible under Bill C-4 as it is currently drafted. Therefore specifically Motion No. 3 is unnecessary because the foundation already has the flexibility that is required to stagger the terms.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak once again to Bill C-4 and to speak to Motions Nos. 3 and 4. I will start by repeating my position that the bill has real merit. If the government sees fit to support my amendment in Group No. 3, we may yet have a chance as a party to support the bill at third reading.

Motions Nos. 3 and 4 are a credible effort by the member for South Shore to tighten up the bill, at least to some degree. Even if he were to achieve what he is suggesting in the motions, the bill would still leave a lot to be desired, but at least it would be a step in the right direction. We would be willing to support those two motions.

The whole bill has been created like a sieve, and I suspect that was deliberate on the part of the minister and the government. When the minister was before committee he suggested that some of the vagueness and loose wording in the bill was put there to allow maximum flexibility in the application of the principles of the bill.

That was admirable, but I think it is incumbent upon us, as an opposition to the government and in representing the concerns of Canadians, to demand some checks and balances in the bill that would protect value for money when we are spending taxpayer dollars. The issue of this particular group around the membership of the foundation and the directors of the foundation is one of the areas of concern.

The government refers to reasonable expenses and reasonable costs. To some degree it addresses the issue of remuneration for directors. It specifically leaves out any mention of remuneration for the chairman who is appointed by the governor in council or by the Prime Minister. This is reason to be concerned.

When we last visited the bill some days ago some members presented a number of examples of extravagant or ridiculous use of taxpayer dollars in government operations, boards, foundations and departments. Some of those examples were a bit extreme but they did point out why we should be concerned.

The example I would use concerns Mr. Ted Weatherill who was a government bureaucrat. He was under the same guidelines of reasonable expenses and reasonable remuneration. He turned in a bill to taxpayers for $21,000 in three years for his travel expenses. These things actually happen. It is not a figment of anybody's imagination. The concern is legitimate when we are dealing with this matter.

We could fix the bill. We could make it a bill that we could support in the interests of cleaner air and a cleaner environment. However we cannot support it because it is custom made for the abuse of tax dollars. It would not take an awful lot to fix it.

When we were last debating the bill the minister said that the criteria and the funding agreement would be tabled in due course and that if we or other members of the House had a problem with it we would have an opportunity to bring it forward and discuss it.

That is quite true, but if there is one thing I have learned in the seven years I have been here, it is that a member can bring things to the House and discuss them until he suffers from premature failure of his vocal chords and nothing will happen. The fact that we can discuss issues in the House does not mean that the concerns are ever addressed.

It would be much more prudent to fix the bill before we passed it and to address our concerns so that we could then support the bill.

We support this group of motions. They are well intended and move in the right direction, although they fall far short of fixing the bill. At least it is an honest effort in the right direction. When it comes time to vote we will be supporting the motions.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

moved:

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-4, in Clause 10, be amended by replacing line 22 on page 6 with the following:

“viour for terms that do not exceed five years and that are staggered so that not more than four terms will expire in any year.”

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-4, in Clause 10, be amended by replacing lines 34 and 35 on page 6 with the following:

“for one term not exceeding five years.”

Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 3 is an amendment to clause 10 which amends the terms held by the directors of the foundation.

As the legislation exists now, directors are appointed to terms of five years. The motion would ensure that terms are staggered in such a way that there would be a turnover of directors to bring in new ideas and prevent stagnation at the director level. In short, directors would serve staggered terms so we could bring in new directors. The directors would appoint new directors. We would continually bring in new ideas from professionals, university professors and many different segments in Canadian society.

At the same time, we would state that no more than four terms would expire in any year. That would mean continuity and that directors would never be left completely in a void. They would have some institutional memory of the board and would understand and have some knowledge of the history of the board. If we did not do that there would be a risk that they would lose that institutional memory. That is the reason for this amendment.

I would hope that the House and the members of the Liberal caucus and the government would support that amendment.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak at report stage to Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

In other words, the federal government wants to get involved in one area so that the concept of sustainable development can be applied in several areas of our society and so that we can gradually eliminate any development that does not take environmental issues into account.

We all agree with this objective. I think we all want any future development to be sustainable and to comply with sustainability requirements. However this bill needs to be strengthened and expanded. It requires some additional elements.

The first group of amendments deals exactly with that. These amendments are designed to strengthen the rules for choosing the evaluation mechanisms and the criteria for the projects funded by the Canada foundation for sustainable development technology.

The proposed structure of the foundation leaves ample room for laxity. Members of the board of directors will be appointed in part by the government and those chosen by the government will then appoint the others. With such a structure, we could very well see projects being funded that do not necessarily meet the objectives of the foundation but rather those of the government's friends. This needs to be clarified.

Let us not forget that the auditor general has denounced the government's custom of creating more and more foundations that are not really accountable to the House since the cabinet ministers in charge of them do not in effect control their activities nor do they have criteria to ensure that projects were accepted correctly.

In the present case we would have expected firmer assurances from the government that the money would be spent appropriately. In fact, that is the main problem with this bill.

This bill does not take into account the fact that a fund has already been created in Quebec for the same purpose and that it would have been much simpler to give the money to Quebec in order to increase the effectiveness of the Fonds québécois pour le développement durable.

It is quite surprising to note that the bill defines the concept of sustainable development but does not quite define the objectives of the approved projects.

I even predict that one, two or three years down the road projects will be denounced in the House as being absurd because they would not correspond to the objectives of a foundation such as the one considered for the sustainable development technology.

I am therefore inviting the government to pay attention, to listen, to study and to analyze the amendments proposed in this first grouping.

They will provide us with precise criteria for the awarding of contracts. We will have mechanisms for measuring completed projects to see whether their bottom line has changed society, ensured that the development was indeed sustainable, and saved us from situations such as we have seen in the past, for example the catastrophic groundfish strategy. That is one development in which long term sustainable development was not taken into account.

Then there are far more subtle points relating to the whole greenhouse gas issue. The foundation also needs to be looked at in terms of its objectives. Will it give an equal opportunity to provinces that already have measures and programs in place to deal with the greenhouse gas issue?

I know that Quebec has already done its part, while other provinces have not. There is often a connection with their energy production. They might turn to this foundation for more funds. This does not mean, however, that people in all parts of Canada ought not to be entitled to their share of the funds set aside. I feel that the bill as it stands is too vague, too imprecise on these points.

We do not have sufficient guarantees that the effectiveness of the program will be assessed. That is why we want the criteria to be tightened up so as to ensure that by the time third reading is reached the bill will have integrated the amendments required to give it some teeth. It will then be possible, if ever the foundation made a poor choice of projects, for funding to be taken back and a warning issued to project managers to change their way of doing things and to make sure the money goes to the right places.

As for the appointment process, we really have no guarantee that three, five or ten years down the road the criteria will have been applied properly as far as sustainable development is concerned.

In short, Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, is a good and desirable idea. However, it does not suit the Canadian situation because it does not respect provincial jurisdictions. It does not reflect the fact that Quebec is ahead because it already has its Fonds pour le développement durable.

The bill must be amended and refined to include many more of the elements that would make it an effective tool to stimulate initiatives in sustainable development so that, 10 years from now, we can say that Canada has in fact made the shift to sustainable development and that the foundation responsible for this has reached its objectives by respecting the specific characteristics of each region of Canada.

These things are missing from the bill. This is why we find the bill unacceptable in its present form. We ask the government to support the first series of amendments we proposed. Others will follow.

We hope that the government will accept our suggestions to avoid having to come back to the House in one, two or three years to completely rework the legislation or, worse, being faced with scandals or outrageous situations.

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-4. I support the remarks made by my colleague, the member for Sherbrooke, who is a member of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources, and who reported what he heard to us. We could almost say that he reported what he did not hear since, except for the minister and departmental officials, there were no other witnesses.

The Minister of Natural Resources told us before oral question period that there would be a consultation process. I would like to know if the bill is so perfect why there is a need for further consultation once it is passed.

It does not make any sense. Usually, when the government wants to introduce a bill, there is a consultation process which often takes place at the committee stage.

There is something else, something important. If the government really thought this bill was important, we know it would have passed it a long time ago. We also know that this bill replaces a bill—I think it was Bill C-46—that was introduced in the previous parliament.

I deplore the fact that once again the government is bringing back a bill that died on the order paper. Why did we have an election last fall? I know what it did to me. I was about to introduce a private member's bill that could have been passed and implemented before the election, but the Prime Minister decided to call an election before I had a chance to do that.

Now this bill is coming back to us as Bill C-4 to do what? To establish a new foundation. We could say yet another one.

Each time we in the Bloc Quebecois have questioned the relevancy of a new foundation. Generally speaking why is a new foundation needed? I took part in the debate on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, another government agency.

Let us remind members about the millennium scholarships foundation. It was used by the federal government to interfere in provincial jurisdictions and hand out scholarships, and yet education is an exclusive provincial jurisdiction.

Now we have a new foundation to fund sustainable development and studies on new technologies. It is hard to be against a definition of sustainable development like the one we have in this bill, because it states the obvious.

The bill reads:

“sustainable development” means development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

I am told that the budget of the foundation will be about $110 million. That is not very much for the kind of work it will have to do, which is almost the equivalent of the program of the whole government.

Going through a foundation is a different approach than the one the government normally uses, either through its departments or through agencies over which there is some control by cabinet, and therefore parliament, because we can ask the ministers questions in the House every day, ask questions and try to get answers to understand the way things are done, why money was spent, and so on.

When the government tries to justify the creation of a new foundation, it tells us “It is important for this to be done by an organization operating at arm's length from the government”. At first glance, this looks interesting, particularly since we wonder sometimes, every day in fact, how certain departments operate.

It would be great if everything were at arm's length, but we need only look at the nomination process. The chair is appointed by the governor in council, or the cabinet. Six members out of 15 are appointed by the cabinet and the others are chosen by the ones appointed by the cabinet. That is not very reassuring. Then the members choose the officials who will be in charge of operations. All this is done in a very independent fashion, far from the usual rules for hiring public servants.

Nobody is against sustainable development. Like all the other parties the Bloc Quebecois supports sustainable development. The provinces also support sustainable development. Quebec has created a foundation, a special fund to finance projects on new technologies that do not impact on the environment.

Everything should be clear and all levels of government should agree. According to information I got, the consultations dealt with sustainable development and the objects and purposes, but not with ways of proceeding, not with the structure. This is a new structure will operate at arm's length from the government but be controlled by the government, the cabinet, not by the department. We know who is the boss in the cabinet right now; it is the Prime Minister.

It is somewhat like the ethics counsellor appointed by the Prime Minister and responsible for watching over him. Here we have a process that turns itself around and could be fairly dangerous, even though it has noble objects.

Quebec has had for several years a foundation dealing with the same kind of projects. It would be normal that the federal foundation operate in co-operation with the provinces.

This is not so sure, since admissibility criteria are not defined in the bill or their definition is so vague and so unclear that anything or nothing can be done at the same time, notably things that are already being done by provinces.

Those are the main reasons why I feel we cannot vote for this bill. The bill itself, even taking into account the motions put forward, raises so many questions that we cannot vote for it because the bill is really vague and unclear. On the contrary, legislation should be clear, applicable and applied.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this detailed discussion about some of the aspects of Bill C-4.

I note that when the bill was debated at second reading and, for the most part, when the bill was before the committee, there was a great deal of positive commentary, not only from government members but also from members of the opposition, about what the legislation is intending to accomplish.

While some of the remarks made today have been critical and some, quite frankly, entirely off the mark, there has been, at least with most members, an undertone of support for what is being attempted here, the objectives of the legislation.

Specifically, with respect to Motions No. 1, 6, and 10 that we now have before us, Motions No. 1 and 6 are an effort to identify in the internal operations of the proposed fund and foundation a specific role for provincial ministers of the environment.

Quite frankly, I tend to agree with the remarks made by members of the Canadian Alliance and for the Conservative Party that such a technique would lend itself to the possibility of fragmentation, to potential confusion and perhaps even inconsistency as to what the foundation is attempting to accomplish. Therefore, I do not support Motions Nos. 1 and 6.

However, there are other reasons why I would not recommend Motions Nos. 1 and 6 to the House. First, this legislation is based upon more than two years of the most open, transparent and comprehensive consultation that has probably been undertaken with respect to any legislation. The provinces were thoroughly involved in that process, the municipalities were involved, the private sector was involved, academic institutions were involved and non-governmental organizations were involved. Every aspect of Canadian life was consulted in that two year process and the sustainable development technology foundation is the product of that process in which all of those players participated. The consultation was very thorough and included all of the provinces as well as Quebec.

When we announced the Canadian action plan with respect to climate change last fall, which included the concept of the sustainable development technology fund and foundation, the Minister of the Environment and I immediately took that concept to a joint meeting of ministers of energy and the environment that involved all of our colleagues, federally, provincially and territorially. At that meeting where all of this was discussed, the chair, who was the minister from the province of Quebec, was exceedingly supportive of what was being proposed in relation to our action plan and all of the other various elements of the approach that we are taking with respect to climate change.

Therefore, I can say with full confidence that the provinces have been engaged with respect to this process and have been very supportive with respect to the concept of a sustainable development technology fund and foundation.

I would also add that the process of consultation is not yet over. We have established a national implementation strategy. We have established a process of rolling three year business plans to continue the work with respect to all of the initiatives we would undertake with respect to climate change so the provinces and all other stakeholders would have further ample, ongoing opportunities to have input and be a part of this whole process.

Therefore, again I would say, based on that consultation which has taken place, based on the fact that consultations will continue through the national implementation strategy process, based on the need for national consistency, which I mentioned at the outset, and based on the very practical fact that this is a foundation at arm's length from government, meaning not only the Government of Canada but the governments of the provinces too, it seems to me that Motions Nos. 1 and 6 should not be accepted by the House and that the structure that has been described in the legislation itself should be proceeded with.

On Motion No. 10, I would simply make the point that the gist of the motion is already covered in the legislation itself. In other words, Motion No. 10 is redundant. Bill C-4 requires annual reporting on the foundation's activities. That reporting must include, among other things: the foundation's audited financial statements; detailed statements on the foundation's investment portfolio and its funding activities; a statement of the foundation's plans for fulfilling the objectives of the fund for future years; and an evaluation of the overall results achieved by the funding of projects year by year and accumulatively since the very start of the foundation.

If we read what is actually proposed in Motion No. 10 with a proposed change to clause 30(1)(c), it seems to me that in the language of the legislation every point that has been suggested and the amendment is already covered in the bill itself.

The reporting that would be required of the foundation would be made public. It would be tabled in parliament so that members of parliament would have access to it. If members wished to discuss that report in detail before any standing committee of the House, they would be at liberty to do that.

The funding agreement that is contemplated by this legislation would spell out the requirements of the annual report in detail. In addition, the funding agreement would call for an independent interim and final evaluation to ascertain the results that are achieved, including measurable results against the funds' objectives and, of course, the funding agreement would be available to the auditor general.

I simply make the point that while I understand what the Conservative amendment is trying to accomplish, all of the things that are contemplated in the amendment are already embedded in the legislation itself. Therefore, the proposed amendment is redundant.

For all of those reasons, I would recommend to members of the House that Motion Nos. 1, 6 and 10 should be defeated because they do not add anything that is material or new in terms of this legislation.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-4 this morning. This bill seeks to establish a foundation to fund technological support for sustainable environment. We are currently at report stage and we are debating Motions Nos. 1, 6 and 10.

Before telling the House how the government should have dealt with these amendments, let me say that sustainable development is an issue about which I care a great deal. It is important to provide sound development and a sound environment, for ourselves and for future generations.

However, we must recognize that the federal government is putting this priority behind its visibility. The bill creates new duplication and intrudes on provincial jurisdictions. This will have a negative impact on the protection of the environment and on sustainable development.

Once again, the federal government is opting for confrontation instead of co-operation with the provinces. Unfortunately, this cavalier attitude has become a trademark of the Liberals. The creation of the foundation is yet another example, after the millennium scholarships and the legislation on endangered species. Do not get me wrong: I support sustainable development.

What I am objecting to today is this unacceptable duplication by the federal government. Let us take the case of the endangered species. We all know that habitat protection is a provincial jurisdiction. The Minister of the Environment has introduced a bill, now in committee, that protects habitats but not species on federal crown lands. There is an inconsistency here.

Someone suggested this analogy earlier. The federal government is behaving like a parent who tells his neighbour how to raise his kids but is incapable of parenting his own properly. It is not surprising that groups such as the Sierra Club have given the federal government a failing grade as far as environmental protection is concerned.

In short, the federal government is only concerned about visibility, not about funding sustainable development technology. This dear government is so proud of waving its beautiful red and white flag in every part of the country but what it is really involved in is nation building, desperately trying to create a Canadian identity.

To take another example of development, this time one related to the economic development of the regions of Quebec, at the present time the federal government is financing the CFDCs, the Community Futures Development Corporations, to the tune of more than $100 million yearly. Yet the government of Quebec already has regional development mechanisms of its own.

Then there are the CLDs. Instead of following the Quebec trend of allowing considerable leeway for concerted efforts at the regional level, the federal government is focusing everything on the centre, that is Ottawa, while disguising this operation by a series of initiatives targeting specific groups.

The most indecent thing is that the federal government imposes criteria of visibility in its contracts. Of the four economic development agencies in Canada, only the one for Quebec is under the responsibility of the Minister of National Revenue. It requires the Canadian flag to be raised in exchange for funding. This is what makes me say that the federal government is more concerned with its visibility than with regional development and the examples of this keep on increasing.

It is clear that the funds allocated to the foundation responsible for funding sustainable development will be tied to the same mandate: acting as a foil to the foundation that already exists in Quebec.

I point out that the Quebec Fonds d'action pour le développement durable has a budget of $45 million to integrate and promote sustainable development and establish ecological infrastructures and biodiversity, that it is experimenting with technology which has an environmental impact, and that it provides fellowships and internships.

Having seen the success of the Quebec model, the federal government is trying to duplicate it from scratch at the federal level. If the Liberals were really serious in their desire to promote sustainable development, they would have acted together with Quebec. But no. Once again the story is confrontation, as in the case of the millennium scholarships. Instead of creating a foundation the federal government should send money to the provincial organizations working toward the same goal as foreseen at the issue table and having the expertise.

The members of this foundation would practically all be appointed by the governor in council. The bill provides that the governor in council, on the recommendation by the minister, shall appoint 7 of the 15 directors of the foundation. However, the other eight are appointed by them, by those appointed by the governor in council. How ridiculous. Finally, the chairperson and all the directors can be removed for cause by the governor in council.

This method of appointment seems to be a roundabout way for the federal government to hang on to the reins in an area of provincial jurisdiction and to maintain control over an organization that would not be accountable to parliament. As I said earlier, I am in no way opposed to sustainable development.

Through the very able member for Sherbrooke, the Bloc Quebecois is moving various amendments, the purpose of which is to improve the bill and to allow the Quebec fund to continue to operate independently of the federal government.

We are asking that those provinces that so request, or Quebec anyway, should be able to opt out with full compensation, i.e. 25% of the fund, so as to prevent amounts being paid to an eligible recipient when a similar project already exists in the province concerned. In this case, the amount should go to the already existing projects, first, if the province concerned so requests and, second, if it justifies its need for additional funding in terms of objectives set at the beginning of the project.

In addition, through the voice of our very able colleague, the member for Sherbrooke, we wish to include a clause requiring that the members and directors of the Canadian foundation be bilingual and, finally, that documents produced by the organization be accessible in both French and English.

I will stop here. The bill, as drafted, does not require the organization to be bilingual, which is unacceptable. We all know that the Liberals are completely incapable of ensuring the survival of French outside Quebec. Furthermore, the official languages commissioner observes year after year that the Liberals are not taking corrective action. They have a wonderful opportunity here to do something about this state of affairs by supporting our amendment.

In short, I will conclude by saying that, through this bill, the government is trying to raise its visibility in exchange for protecting the environment. All the federal government is doing is hurting Canadians: millennium scholarships, regional development. Once again, it has failed, as it did so monumentally in the case of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate today on behalf of the people of Surrey Central to debate, at report stage, Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

Just to remind members, as well as the people who are watching the debate today, in the 2000 federal budget the Liberals announced that they would be creating a sustainable development technology fund and that they had earmarked $100 million in initial funding to the sustainable development technology fund. It was a very good initiative that should have been taken a long time ago, but they took eight or nine years to implement their own red book one promise.

For the benefit of those who are watching, 10 amendments have been put forward at report stage. They are grouped into three different groups. In the first group we are debating Motions Nos. 1, 6 and 10.

Members of the Canadian Alliance support the intent of Bill C-4 but we have a few reservations and some amendments to suggest dealing with the non-involvement of the auditor general in the whole process. We are also concerned with the patronage appointments to the board of directors. We feel that the government is using this bill for patronage appointments of failed candidates.

With respect to Motions Nos. 1, 6 and 10, Motions Nos. 1 and 6 are very similar in nature. They would bring provincial ministers of environment into all discussions regarding the criteria of eligibility for receiving funds. Being so, it would introduce different criteria of acceptance into every province, The 10 different provinces may have 10 different criteria, that is the potential.

The bill desperately needs uniformity. It is so poorly worded and poorly drafted that even the minister has had to put forward amendments at this late stage in the debate. We believe that the uniformity, which is desperately needed in the bill, may be lost when different criteria for funding are applied to different provinces and territories. By allowing these amendments to pass, it would make already cumbersome legislation much more clumsy and difficult to deliver. Therefore, the Canadian Alliance will be voting against Motions Nos. 1 and 6.

We will be supporting Motion No. 10, which was moved by the Progressive Conservative Party member, because it attempts to curtail some of the vagueness in the bill by including the eligibility criteria for receiving funds.

On behalf of the people of Surrey Central, I will be pleased to support Motion No. 10 and oppose Motions No. 1 and 6. I will keep the rest of my comments in reserve until the bill comes back to the House for third reading.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first off, let us say that Bill C-4 provides for the establishment of a foundation, so we should oppose it right from the start.

Why should we oppose it? Because the Bloc Quebecois has certain concerns about the creation of foundations. We have already had experience with the millennium scholarships foundation, which involves an area under the jurisdiction of a province, Quebec.

Obviously the points of concern and the Bloc's position relate primarily to the division of jurisdictions. Quebec already has foundations for environmental action.

The matter of concentration of power in a foundation is also of some concern. There will be an opportunity to develop this a little more later.

The definition of the expressions is also another matter. The bill refers to “eligible project” and “criteria of eligibility”. There was a national issue table on the environment and there are fairly substantial inequalities in this regard.

As concerns Motion No. 1, subclause 18(1) talks of meeting the eligibility criteria it sets out. As I was saying earlier, subclause 18(1) is not necessarily very clear about work or criteria.

Even though the government's intentions in establishing a foundation are noble, Quebec already has foundations for the environment, so it is understandable that our intention is to avoid a duplication of efforts.

When it comes to the environment intentions are always noble, but we wonder about the process. Right now we can see that there will again be duplication. We have no details on eligible projects and on criteria of eligibility. At this point we are still in the dark, which means that there will certainly be an abuse of power, given the provisions of the bill.

For all intents and purposes, the Prime Minister will appoint seven members to the foundation who in turn will appoint eight other members. The Prime Minister will again be able to appoint people. As the auditor general often pointed out in his reports and recommendations, those appointed to various foundations and organizations should first have the required qualifications, instead of being close friends.

Let us look at Motion No. 6, which deals with subclause 18(1). It proposes the following wording for that clause:

18(1) The Foundation, the Governor in Council and a provincial minister responsible for the environment may, by unanimous consent, establish criteria of eligibility to be met by the eligible recipients who carry on or will carry on eligible projects primarily in the province of that minister.

This was one of the first concerns that I expressed to the House: duplication and up to a point interference.

Things should be clear. Even though the foundation's ultimate goal is a noble one, provincial foundations including those in Quebec also have major environmental concerns. In order to avoid duplication it is obvious that ideally the provinces should have the right to opt out with full compensation so that they can decide on fundamental measures regarding the environment.

I submitted a number of motions to the committee in that regard. Some members of the committee told me that such changes would be too substantial. These changes would not have substantially affected the noble objectives relating to the environment. However, from an operational point of view, these changes were obviously major ones. The changes proposed in the amendments did respect jurisdictions and sought to avoid duplication.

When a government reaches the point where it collects way too much tax, given its mandates and responsibilities it always ends up intruding on something. The foundations are a prime example of that.

Under the bill the government is prepared to invest over $110 million. Again, this is not enough. At one point during the consultation process it was said that an investment of close to $1.3 billion was required for new technologies and sustainable development so as to fight greenhouse gases.

I believe, therefore, that the amendment contained in Motion No. 6 concerning subclause 18(1) is relevant, helps respect jurisdictions, and will enable us to prevent duplication so that the priorities of the provinces and of Quebec will be better served. The foundation's objectives, I repeat and will continue to repeat, are noble ones. There is money available, but people are already working hard in these areas. They have the expertise and the know-how to identify their priorities.

Obviously we agree with the motions in Group No. 1, that is Motions Nos. 1, 6 and 10. Motion No. 10 moved by the member for South Shore also meets with our approval because during a meeting of the committee we moved a similar motion telling the government that the foundation would have to put in place screening mechanisms.

If the federal government puts large amounts into intentions—obviously there is even applied research—and only into intentions, there is a strong risk that money will be spent in sectors or on studies that will go nowhere.

What is needed is some screening within the foundation with respect to eligible projects, criteria and results. It goes without saying that this is important and we also support this motion.

The Bloc Quebecois will oppose the establishment of this foundation because it does not respect jurisdictions. It does not prevent duplication and it perhaps does not respect other priorities. It is very vague in terms of eligible projects and criteria, with the result that directions are not clear. In addition, people will be appointed to this foundation who also do not know what direction they will head in, but who will know very soon when the Prime Minister has had a word with them.

We will therefore be supporting Motions Nos. 1, 6 and 10.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-4, in Clause 30, be amended by replacing lines 41 and 42 on page 16 with the following: c ) a detailed statement of eligible projects for which funding was provided and of the extent to which those projects may lead to measurable gains in respect to air quality and sustainable development;”

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my colleague, the member for South Shore, who has been very instrumental in the clause by clause consideration of this piece of legislation, Bill C-4, in committee. The member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, and I on his behalf, put forward an amendment that did not go to the committee. I thank the Speaker for his ruling that the amendment should, and well could be, placed on the floor.

As I indicated earlier this morning to the Minister of Natural Resources, there are some good amendments that come forward from the opposition side, and this is one of those amendments.

As the member for South Shore has indicated, there should be a detailed statement of eligible projects for which funding was provided. This speaks to the issue of the funding that has been put forward in the legislation. It has a tendency not to allow projects to have a closed portion of the funding. Also, there is a section which speaks to access to information where there should be transparency.

We have talked quite frequently in the House about the openness and transparency of the government. Certainly the foundation being proposed under the legislation should also fall under the rules where there should be openness. Public money will be expended and certainly those funds should be identified by the projects themselves and come back so that members of parliament recognize exactly how the funds are expended.

I put Motion No. 10 forward on behalf of my colleague. I suspect the government will look very seriously at passing the amendment.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-4, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing lines 26 to 29 on page 1 and lines 1 and 2 on page 2 with the following: b ) meets any criteria of eligibility established under section 18.1; and”

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-4 be amended by adding after line 15 on page 11 the following new clause:

“18.1 The Foundation, the Governor in Council and a provincial minister responsible for the environment may, by unanimous consent, establish criteria of eligibility to be met by the eligible recipients who carry on or will carry on eligible projects primarily in the province of that minister.”

[The Deputy Speaker]

This is the ruling concerning the groups at report stage of Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

There are 12 motions on the notice paper relating to the report stage of Bill C-4.

As I mentioned in my statement of March 21, the Chair does not intend to provide justification for the selection of amendments, or reasons for the non-selection of amendments, except where this is deemed necessary or appropriate.

Since this is the first report stage ruling since my statement, I feel that it would be appropriate to briefly outline my approach to this bill.

The Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources considered this bill at clause by clause on March 15. This was prior to the statement that I made in the House outlining the guidelines that I will be following for the selection of motions at report stage. Since members could not have known about the new application of these guidelines at that time, I intend to be more generous in exercising my discretionary powers of selection.

Therefore motions which could have been proposed in committee stage but were not will be entertained on this occasion. However, in keeping with the note to Standing Order 76.1(5), motions which were defeated in committee will not be entertained once again at report stage. Consequently five of the motions submitted by the hon. member for South Shore at report stage, namely Motions Nos. 2, 5, 7, 11 and 12, will not be selected for debate because they were defeated in committee.

Seven motions will be selected for debate in three separate groups. The voting patterns for the motions within each group are available at the Table. The Chair will remind the House of each pattern at the time of voting.

Business Of The House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make the weekly business statement and to indicate to the House that I intend to do my utmost to have order paper questions answered as rapidly as possible.

This afternoon we will resume debate on Bill C-12 respecting compensation for judges. We will then continue with Bill C-18, the equalization bill, which we started this morning. That will be followed, if there is time, with Bill C-17 respecting the innovation foundation.

On Friday we will consider report stage of Bill C-4 respecting the sustainable development foundation, and any time left will be used on second reading of Bill C-7, the youth justice bill.

In an effort to complete consideration of the youth justice bill, we will continue discussing that bill on Monday next.

Next Tuesday we will commence report stage of Bill C-8 respecting the financial institutions legislation. Should that be completed, we would then continue with Bill C-22, the income tax amendment. As previously announced and as adopted by the House, in the evening there will be a special take note debate on the summit of the Americas.

Next Wednesday, March 28, we will debate Bill C-2, the employment insurance amendments, at report stage and hopefully have third reading on next Thursday, March 29.

That is the agenda of the House for next week.

Committees Of The House

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources relating to Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology. It was agreed on Thursday, March 15, 2001 to report it with amendments.

Privilege

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I commend you for listening to the representations that were made in the House. I also commend you on your fairness and your integrity. I believe that when members of the House voted for you to take the chair, these are the kinds of fair and well thought out decisions that members were expecting from you.

This decision certainly does not disappoint me. You in fact are upholding the integrity, not only of the rights of individual members but of the House with respect of your ruling. I think in the past the government has got away with some of these issues.

I understand, Mr. Speaker, you want me to move the motion, but I want to say that the steps you took were important to stop this slide. Therefore I move:

That the matter of the question of privilege raised on March 14, 2001, by the Member for Provencher regarding the Department of Justice briefing the media on Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to amend other Acts, prior to it being tabled in the House of Commons and at the exclusion of members of parliament, be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Again I commend you, Mr. Speaker, on your fairness and your integrity with respect to your ruling. I will make a few comments before concluding this matter in the House.

Over the past number of years there has been a gradual slide in terms of the respect to which parliament is entitled. This ruling by you today does much to ensure that the integrity of the House and the process here is continued.

I challenge the Liberal majority in the House and on the committee to put aside its partisan issues, come to the aid of parliament and preserve its dignity, its authority and that of its members.

What you are doing today, Mr. Speaker, gives us an opportunity to take meaningful steps to deal with this very contentious and difficult issue.

I would like to put a few other situations on the record which I think may form part of the discussions that we will have in committee concerning the prima facie contempt that you have found that has occurred in respect of parliament.

I refer, to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board matter dated October 23 of last year. A government news release announced that provincial and federal governments had constituted a nominating committee to nominate candidates for the new Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The nominating committee was to have been set up under a clause that had not yet been adopted by the House.

Similarly, on January 21, 1998, the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board met in Regina to discuss the rules for the election of the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board as proposed in Bill C-4, an act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act. Substantial amendments to Bill C-4, tabled at report stage by opposition members, had not been debated, and while the House was still in the process of debating how many directors should be elected, the minister was in fact holding meetings as though the bill were already law.

We recognize that the Liberal government has a majority in the House and in committees but, for the integrity of the process, it is essential that members of the opposition, who were also elected by the people of Canada to represent their views, be given that opportunity.

While we have witnessed a gradual slide in the respect that the government has shown to the institution of parliament, your ruling today, Mr. Speaker, will, if the Liberal members opposite co-operate, bring about rules that will perhaps govern this kind of situation in the future.

This is not simply a matter that I, as an opposition critic, have been embarrassed or that my colleagues, who received phone calls asking for their comments, have been embarrassed, it is for the integrity of the House and for the voters who sent us here.

With those few brief words, Mr. Speaker, I again thank you. We appreciate the fairness that you have demonstrated. We look forward to working on a co-operative basis with all opposition members and Liberal members of the House whom I believe your ruling will also benefit.

If we follow the matter to its appropriate and proper conclusion, it will once again put parliament in the hands of the individual elected members. It will remind the members of the executive that even though they are appointed by the Prime Minister they must serve each and every member of the House in the same manner that we as individual members serve the people of Canada.

Business Of The House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, immediately after this statement I will be seeking consent of the House to revert to introduction of bills for the purpose of introducing a bill on shipping conferences. I discussed it with other House leaders on Tuesday.

This afternoon we will continue with the allotted day. Tomorrow we will debate Bill C-13, the GST technical amendments.

On return from the break, we will debate the Canada Shipping Act amendments to be introduced later this afternoon if the House gives its consent. This would be followed by Bill C-12, the Judges Act amendments.

I am consulting widely with a view to finding a suitable time in the immediate future to complete second reading of Bill C-5, the species at risk bill. Hopefully that will get done very quickly.

Tuesday, March 13, and Thursday, March 15, shall be allotted days.

As I said, although we are still negotiating, my intention at this point would be on the March 16 to commence the debate on Bill C-4, the sustainable development foundation bill.

Canada Foundation For Sustainable Development Technology Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the second reading stage of Bill C-4. The question is on the motion.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak on the sustainable development technology foundation legislation Bill C-4.

Like so many initiatives of the government, this initiative represents a baby step in the right direction, a glossing over of a very major issue with what some would describe as a cosmetic approach in order that the government can say that it has in fact done something to address the issue of sustainable development and climate change. However, it is very much a baby step.

The Liberals have had an abysmal record on environmental policy.

I have in front of me a quotation from David Boyd, a senior associate with the eco-research chair of environmental policy at the University of Victoria, in the riding of the Minister of the Environment. Mr. Boyd, who is an expert on the environment, has said that “ in two terms the Liberals have yet to pass a single significant new piece of environmental legislation. Many green promises from the Liberal red book remain unfulfilled”.

That is a damning description, to have seen this level of demise, of two terms of Liberal government, a party that has historically had strong principles relative to environmental issues. The principles and values of environmental policy in the Liberal Party is indeed unfortunate.

The notion of a sustainable development technology foundation should have been addressed and developed before Kyoto. Instead the government's plan in terms of the Kyoto agreement was basically written on the back of an airplane napkin on the way to Kyoto. There was no long term planning. There was no real negotiation with the provinces or with industry sectors. In fact it was a last minute, hastily drafted agreement.

The federal government was not responsible for developing, in advance, a long term strategy on how to meet the terms of the Kyoto agreement. It was left scrambling after the Kyoto agreement. This legislation is a band-aid approach to make up for lost time years later. That is highly unfortunate.

[Ghislain Fournier, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too want to congratulate my colleague for Rosemont for his splendid work. He acts in a competent and eloquent way.

I do not have to tell any member of the House that we need air and water to live, hence, the importance of environmental protection. It just so happens that there has been contamination of the water table by the Department of Transport in a residential area of the town of Sept-Îles. On three occasions, that is February 1, 2 and 5, I raised the issue. As a matter of fact, I have been speaking about this issue for three and a half years. The Minister of Transport admitted to the fact and recognized his responsibility.

On February 14, that is quite recent, I received a document which I hope to be able to table tonight. In this document, the department of public health recommends not drinking the water in the Des Plages area, and this recommendation comes from Dr. Raynald Cloutier.

How are we to believe in the government's credibility? Even if Bill C-4 contained the best clauses, does the government think that, as it included in its policy statements a clause based on the “polluter pays” principle while it was itself polluting and contaminating the Des Plages area—a woman says she is desperate because she is without water and sewer systems—we are going to give it credibility? According to Le Soleil “People are Desperate”. There was also action taken by the town of Sept-Îles on February 12, which is also fairly recent. But I was not satisfied with the answer the Minister gave me in the House.

I ask my colleague for Rosemont if he sees a way to solve the problem of the Des Plages area of Sept-Îles so that the Department of Transport will finally act responsibly. Does he see in Bill C-4 any means to avoid such situations in the future?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak today to Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

One would think this is truly environment day here in the House, after considering the motion by my hon. colleague from Davenport, in which he specifically asks the government to conduct studies in order to get a clear idea of the impact on the environment of fish-farming and its industry.

Today, we are studying Bill C-4. We do not know when but perhaps in a few days we will study the bill on threatened species.

Quite honestly, when I read the bill, I rather supported it. The bill advocated a number of principles, which one cannot oppose.

In Quebec, it is often said that it is impossible to oppose virtue and apple pie. This is where we are at with this bill at first reading. In other words, it permits the creation of a foundation which has basic funding, which would permit the funding of research on sustainable development, but more specifically, in order to work on the development of energy to fight climactic change and atmospheric pollution.

When I read the bill, I said “Finally the government is doing something to respond properly, by allocating the necessary resources to meet international objectives on greenhouse gases”. I said “This is a way for the government to meet its international commitments, especially those pertaining to climatic change and the Kyoto conference”.

This foundation provides financial assistance for the development and demonstration of new technologies to promote sustainable development, including technologies to address climate change and air quality issues. It is a foundation which would operate like a non profit organization, with a chairperson, 14 directors and 15 members, all appointed by the government.

Quebecers remember what happened in the case of the millennium scholarship fund, an endowment fund or a foundation with a chairperson and a number of directors that was supposedly set up to achieve the laudable objective of helping students pursue their studies.

When we took a closer look, we discovered that this foundation was not necessarily there to meet the needs of students. The millennium scholarship fund was not established to meet the essential and critical needs of students and help them achieve their educational goals but, rather, to award scholarships based on merit. The fund had been set up so that the maple leaf could appear on the cheques.

Today, a similar foundation is proposed. Its members will be appointed by the government and, more often than not, for the government. Under the bill, the foundation would receive an initial endowment of $100 million per year. Is this a realistic figure to achieve the objectives agreed to before the public and before the heads of states at the Kyoto summit? One hundred million dollars per year to achieve the Kyoto objectives is not acceptable.

If the government had really wanted to adequately meet these objectives, it would not have created a foundation which, in a way, is a bogus foundation.

Clauses 11 and 15 deal with the appointment and selection of directors and members. Clause 11 reads:

1. The appointment of directors shall be made having regard to the following considerations: a ) the need to ensure, as far as possible—

Remember these words “as far as possible”. At any time, about half of the directors will represent persons engaged in research, while the other half will represent people involved in the business community and not for profit corporations.

In selecting the directors we must “as far as possible” ensure that half of the appointees are from the research sector. There is no obligation to ensure that these people have the required knowledge, expertise and experience to make a major contribution that would give Canada the means of production to achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gases.

Also, clauses 11 and 15 stipulate that the appointment of members shall be made having regard to the following considerations: a ) the need to ensure, as far as possible—

Therefore, at all times, the membership must be representative of persons engaged in the development and demonstration of technologies to promote sustainable development. There is a need to ensure “as far as possible” that the members of the foundation are experts.

If the government were truly honest and really wanted to make a serious commitment to the environment and renewable energies, would it have included in its bill clauses to ensure that experts would be appointed as far as possible? The answer is no.

If the government were truly sincere, it would have ensured that experts would be appointed to this foundation, not friends of the Liberal Party. What we want is more transparency. I am not sure the foundation will have all the transparency needed to ensure that its goals will be reached.

I want to come back to the $100 million initial funding for the foundation. Will it be enough? One could put that question to all the experts, not to the environmental groups, not to the so-called green organizations. One could ask the experts in the field of technology and renewable energies. They would say that $100 million, that is peanuts.

I want to remind the House of the Bloc Quebecois' commitment to sustainable development. The Bloc Quebecois suggests that the federal government invest a further $1.5 billion over five years to better meet sustainable development requirements. We are not opposed to a fund, we are in favour of a real fund with real resources to ensure that the real goals are met. On this side of the House we are not convinced that this fund will make it possible to meet these goals.

Why do we have reservations concerning the resources available to the fund? I will say honestly that I would rather be on this side of the House today, I would rather not be on the other side of the House and have to introduce a bill such as this one which is providing $100 million a year to deal with a fundamental issue requiring a major shift in terms of energy, namely renewable energy. We have doubts as to the government's goodwill when we look at the results concerning its international commitments.

I remind members that in 1992 the federal government signed the Rio framework convention on climate change and the ensuing Kyoto protocol containing more definite commitments, namely, for Canada, a 6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. Are we anywhere near achieving the Kyoto objectives? The answer is no. To meet these objectives we need real resources, not $100 million a year.

Far from dropping, greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 13% in Canada. They have not dropped. We are not on our way to meeting the targets set by the federal government in Kyoto, far from it. In Canada, there has been a 13% increase in greenhouse gas emissions and, according to the figures put out by the federal government and the Royal Society, we are far from meeting our targets.

A report was tabled at the end of May by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, who was quite critical of the federal government. He faulted the government for its failure in the fight against smog. On a more global level, he underlined the importance of reducing air pollution, which causes disease and death. Even though the government and the Minister of the Environment announced, yesterday and last Friday, a policy to help us reach that goal, we must realize that we are still very far from it.

Even worse, in terms of the financial means available to us to meet our targets at the international level, the insignificant amounts included by the federal government in its 2000 budget show the Liberals' lack of vision with regard to the environment. Just for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the federal government should be spending $1.5 billion over five years, not $100 million.

The urgency of the situation requires a $1.5 billion investment, but instead, the government is planning to spend a total $700 million over the next four years on all environmental issues.

A $100 million investment will not be enough to help us face these environmental changes, and neither will the $700 million included in the last budget. We need $1.5 billion. Here is the situation: in 1997, Canada's emissions were 13% higher than in 1990.

With regard to the issue of climate change, I reviewed Quebec's position, its performance and how we fare compared to the other provinces and to Canada itself. That review shows that Quebec is clearly performing better in that area than the federal government and the other provinces.

Why do we have a better performance? Because we made the green revolution several years ago. When we look at the energy policy of Canada, of western Canada, with due respect to my colleagues, we realize the energy policy is still based on fossil fuel energy sources. There are three fossil fuel industries: natural gas, coal and oil.

Western Canada is a major producer of greenhouse gas, an oil producer and an oil user, which mainly produces greenhouse gas. However, since the 1960s, Quebec has had a totally different energy policy.

We have been using an energy that is called renewable. Hydro-electricity has contributed concretely and totally to Quebec's economic growth. Besides, it has allowed to stop the production of greenhouse gas.

This is a practical application in a country, the country of Quebec, of the sustainable development concept. We do not put the sustainable development concept in a bill such as Bill C-6. It does not belong in a bill such as the one the minister has introduced today. Sustainable development calls for a practical application. This means economic growth and the use of our resources with consideration for environmental protection.

Mrs. Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway, had defined this sustainable development concept that we are now applying in practical terms in Quebec. We have given ourselves all the tools required to achieve these environmental objectives without necessarily neglecting economic growth. This is what is different.

Often, people think that a change in energy policy leads to reduced economic activity. Quebec is a prime example. A few years ago, how many homes used coal, natural gas or petroleum? How many businesses and industries used them in order to produce consumer goods? How many houses were heated with oil? A very heavy majority.

Yet today, we use another source of energy, what is termed renewable energy. In the case of Quebec, it is hydroelectric power, electricity. Yet the economic activity of Quebec has not been affected by this pro-ecology and pro-environmental move.

On the contrary, Quebec's government corporation has been able to export energy, to the U.S. for one. This goes to show that a change in energy use does not necessarily mean job losses, as some would have us believe.

How often we hear the comment “The petroleum industry is so important to Canada, and jobs connected to that industry must be preserved”. I say there is a way of making a logical and balanced change of direction toward Canada's use of a sustainable energy source.

I am referring to hydroelectric energy. It is not the only type of renewable energy there is; there are other kinds. Among other things, there is solar energy, which works fairly well in certain countries. Proper investments would ensure that this technology could be developed.

There is wind energy as well. This energy has been tried out in many countries, including Quebec and Canada. Wind energy is used in Europe, among other things, as a primary source of energy, and not just as a secondary energy.

I will conclude by talking about the principle underlying the bill. As I was saying, I agree with the principle of the bill. It is impossible to oppose investment in technology that will mean the achievement of the objectives of sustainable development.

However, I have some doubt as to the vehicle for achieving these objectives, namely a foundation appointed by the government, with, in my opinion, insufficient funding.

My final remark is to the effect that the foundation would not permit the achievement of the objectives and the environmental green shift. I fear instead that it will manage to sprinkle a few thousand or tens of thousands of dollars about without really achieving its target objective, that of producing while respecting and protecting the environment at the same time.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think we are looking at a jurisdictional dispute in this matter. The International Institute of Sustainable Development in my riding is in fact a federal program, a federally funded institute.

I will certainly raise the alarm in my riding that we, in the riding of Winnipeg Centre, stand to lose an important contribution to our community and a well respected international institute that has a reputation far and wide for doing wonderful work in this field.

We do feel threatened by Bill C-4 in that it could further diminish the important role that the institute plays in the riding of Winnipeg Centre.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was explaining to us that there was already an institute for sustainable development in his riding. He seemed to be a little bit disappointed that the federal government wanted to propose a foundation. If I understood correctly, he seemed to say that it would have been better to put the funds allocated for the establishment of the foundation into the institute for sustainable development in his riding.

My question to the hon. member is twofold. First, does the hon. member think that this is unacceptable interference by the federal government in a provincial jurisdiction, which seems to be the objective of the Bill C-4? Second, is the hon. member going to take the time to explain to the people of his riding the federal government's actions?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have the opportunity to join in the debate on Bill C-4. As I mentioned earlier, I believe it is probably the most timely and topical thing that the House of Commons could be dealing with. It speaks to the very future of the human race on this planet. All else really pales in comparison when we view what other subjects we could be debating in the House of Commons.

Bill C-4 is a disappointing reference to the very pressing, timely and topical issue of sustainable development. The NDP opposes the bill in its current format in that we believe, as I pointed out earlier, its mandate is vague and its funding has no real specifics attached to it. We consider it a gesture to the subject, but it has no real and specific plan.

I would also point out that in regard to the idea of creating a new foundation of this sort, the government does not really talk about where it would be based or what centre it would work out of. It actually puts in question the future of an institution in my own riding, the International Institute for Sustainable Development. This institute was created years ago and has had its funding reduced year after year, to where it is really a shadow of its former self. There was a time when it had a staff of 140 people and its own building. Art Hanson was the CEO. It now occupies a very small office, with maybe a handful of people, on the third floor of an nondescript office building in the centre of downtown Winnipeg.

I wonder about the logic and the sense of it. It makes me wonder if the government has completely forgotten it already has an institute of sustainable development in my riding. Maybe the government members do not get outside the city limits of Ottawa often enough to remember that such a place exists. There is a growing feeling in Winnipeg that there is a real reluctance to decentralize the activities of Ottawa to any real degree. There was a possible exception to that when the government could not find any other place to put a level 4 virology lab and plunked it down in the middle of Winnipeg. It took away the CF-18 contract and gave it to Montreal and then gave us the virology lab so that the Ebola virus and every unsavoury thing that comes into the country is going to wind up in our backyard.

I really do resent any steps that might threaten the viability of what is left of the International Institute for Sustainable Development in my riding. I am certainly not entirely thrilled about the idea of the creation of a new foundation which might put the institute in jeopardy.

One of the reasons this whole subject is so timely and so topical is that it is a top of mind issue with most Canadians given the soaring and skyrocketing energy costs that we are all witnessing. That has brought the issue home to the kitchen tables of the nation instead of it being an academic exercise.

Again, look at the funding of $100 million to try to change the very way we live on this planet in terms of challenging the very foundation of our economy, which is the burning of fossil fuels, and compare that with the $1.3 billion the government threw into a wasteful program to try to mitigate the impact of the rising costs of fuel.

Surely that $1.3 billion would take us a lot further down the road of sustainable development and would address in a permanent way the problem we have with access to fossil fuels.

We have come to a day of reckoning in terms of energy. We have come to the growing realization that we simply cannot run an economy based on oil any longer. A number of things will not tolerate it anymore, not the least of which is the fact that we cannot continue to soil our own nest to this degree and continue to move forward and prosper.

Everyone on the planet cannot use the amount of energy that Canadians use. It simply is not possible. If the 1.3 billion people in China had two vehicles in the garage, an SUV and an outboard motor, and if all people in the world consumed the same level of energy as Canadians, we would need six more planets. There simply is not enough fossil fuel in the world for that kind of energy use.

There could not be a more pressing and more topical issue than to revisit the way we view our precious natural resources. We must try to wean human beings away from burning hydrocarbons because it will not work.

What are we faced with? The one upside of skyrocketing energy costs is that it has forced people to revisit energy conservation. When we are hit in the pocketbook we get motivated to do something.

The oil crisis of 1973 was the reason people switched from V-8 to four cylinder engines. They realized a four cylinder engine could push a car almost as well. The fact that oil prices went through the ceiling is what pushed the new technology. It had the shock effect of forcing people to find solutions.

We are at a point now where we must to conserve energy or find alternative energy sources. The $1.3 billion that was thrown in a scattergun approach toward energy rebates should have perhaps gone toward the research of hydrogen as a fuel. We are very close to a breakthrough where cars will burn hydrogen and not gasoline. The only byproduct would be water dripping from the exhaust pipe. That, frankly, would do the country and the world an enormous favour.

The $1.3 billion could be spent in any number of positive ways. Instead, the government essentially rolled down the window and threw it out, hoping some of it would fall on people who would benefit. That was wasteful.

Now we are hearing a figure of $100 million to cover the huge pluralistic issue of sustainable development, and yet the government put $1.3 billion into a very narrow and fixed program, a one time payment to offset energy costs for Canadians. It really does make one wonder.

It also makes one wonder why, if the government was serious about sustainable development, it would not follow through on one of its own programs, the federal building initiative. The federal government owns 68,000 buildings, most of which are absolute energy pigs. They were built in an era when energy was not expensive. It was cheap and plentiful.

The government did undertake a token effort to energy retrofit those buildings, to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce operating costs and to make indoor ambient air quality better so that federal public servants did not turn green when they tried to work eight hours at their desks. They are being slowly poisoned in many ways in a bunch of sick buildings.

All those things are now possible. The empirical evidence now shows we can reduce operating costs by as much as 40%. It would be such a positive measure. It would be revenue generating. However the federal building initiative, under the auspices of the Minister of Natural Resources, has renovated only a couple of hundred buildings. At that rate it will be 150 years before all federal buildings are energy retrofitted.

It makes one wonder what the government is waiting for. The energy savings from its buildings alone could pay for the development of new technologies that would allow Canada to become a world leader. We would be a centre of excellence in energy conservation and sustainable development technology with just the energy savings from the 68,000 federal buildings.

I have been riding this hobby horse for years and to no avail. In 1993 I came to Ottawa, long before I was a member of parliament, to appeal to the Minister of the Environment at the time. I was given an energy innovator's award by NRCan, the federal department of energy, for the innovative idea of retrofitting publicly owned buildings as a pilot project, as an example to the private sector of what could be done. However eight or nine years later in its own federal building initiative program the government has only done a couple of hundred buildings.

I question its commitment. It is willing to throw $100 million at a new foundation that should blah, blah, blah, but it has a unique opportunity to show the world how it can be done. We live in a harsh northern climate. We have massive geographical challenges. We could show the world how to use energy in the smartest possible way. We could show the world how to live comfortably and in a healthy environment without being the largest consumers of energy in the world, which Canadians find themselves being today.

I am the first to admit that Canadians and people all around the globe need to embrace the concept of energy conservation and sustainable development in everything they do. It should be the common thread through any program the government undertakes. I do not believe the creation of a new foundation, which may jeopardize the institute that is already in existence in my riding, will in any way move us closer to that admirable goal.

If there were $100 million to spend, why would the government not restore the institute to its former stature, that of a world leader, research centre and source library for anyone interested in the whole concept of energy conservation or sustainable development? Why not start a centre of excellence right in the centre of Canada and become world leaders so we can export the technology?

It does not have to be jobs versus the environment any more. To speak this way does not mean we have to shut down industries and put people out of work. We now know that it is jobs and the environment: jobs with the environment, jobs for the environment.

There are unbelievable entrepreneurial opportunities in the field of energy retrofitting or sustainable development. There are now smart thermostats or boiler systems or heat pumps that harvest units of energy even if it is 20 below. There is a difference between 20 below and 30 below. The other 10 degrees of air can be harvested. There is warmth and energy in there and that energy can be used.

We have not been thinking outside the box. It is far too easy to start another oil well in Alberta than it is to set up an institute and research alternatives that will give our children a future.

I sometimes think the worst thing that happened in western Canada was Leduc No. 1 in 1947 when they struck oil in Leduc, Alberta. It was regressive. I almost wish the world would run out of oil more quickly so that we still have some air left to breathe by the time we find alternative fuel and energy sources. That would be my first wish.

Ban the internal combustion engine is a radical idea, but we could still move around if were burning hydrogen. The Ballard fuel cell, which is being developed in B.C., is close to marketability. It needs one little nudge before it replaces forever the internal combustion engine. The $1.3 billion the government flushed down the toilet in the failed energy rebate program may have moved us one step closer to finding a true alternative and a true solution for the planet.

The jig is up in terms of our wasteful energy use. We can no longer carry on as we are carrying on. As I said, for all people on the planet to live as Canadians do, we would need six more planets. There are not enough resources in the world for everyone to be as wasteful as Canadians.

We can go one of two roads. We can be head in the sand ostriches and carry on until it is an absolute crisis, or we can change direction. We can voluntarily simplify and use less energy and, I argue, without a reduction in the quality of life. People do not have to freeze in the dark to use less energy if they are smart.

We have done a great deal of research in this regard. The best example and most graphic illustration the federal government could point to is its own buildings.

The most beautiful thing about the concept, to expand on the federal building initiative and its potential windfall for demonstrating the whole concept, is that all of the above could be done at no cost to the taxpayer. There are private sector companies willing to pay upfront for renovation of federal government buildings and be paid back slowly out of the energy savings. They are called ESCOs, energy services contractors.

Why not do that? What if such a company offered to renovate a big federal government building with operating costs of $1 million a year by putting in state of the art mechanical equipment, insulating the exterior and putting in new windows and doors at no cost? What if it were paid out of the energy savings and after over four years when the total renovation costs were paid the government could keep the energy savings from there on ever after? Would that not be smart?

It would stimulate a whole industry and put thousands of trades people to work. It could use materials and mechanical equipment, smart thermostats and boilers that could be produced locally. Then we would be able to point to our federally owned buildings as a showcase to the world. We could show the world how it could be done. We would have the smartest, best run and best operated buildings in the world.

They could be shown to the private sector too. Many property owners and building managers face increased fuel costs but cannot raise rents to their tenants. The only way they can show a profit is by reducing their operating costs. They would be very interested in such a concept. If the government were a little more progressive or a little more action oriented instead of being academic about its commitment to sustainable development, we would see it moving on that front. It is absolutely natural.

We have reservations about Bill C-4. We believe the government's mandate is far too soft and fuzzy. We do not know what it is being challenged to do or what responsibilities it is being charged with. The government talks about promoting technologies to address climate change. Frankly we would like to know more. There are also air quality issues.

As is often the case, members of the NDP are frustrated at the composition of the board. We are not comfortable with the way the foundation's board will be struck, who will be appointed and how, and for what terms. The specifics of how the board will be structured will be the success or failure of it. We do not want it to be another dumping or patronage ground for failed Liberal candidates. We do not want it to be a patronage holding pattern type of place. We were always frustrated by that in the past and would certainly speak out against any move in that direction again.

It is very much an open ended funding arrangement. The government is saying it will be $100 million to start. What is it for? How will it apply for further funding? Will it be part of an annual report to parliament? All these are unknown commodities and things that make the NDP very uncomfortable.

If there is $100 million to be spent on sustainable development, a very worthy subject, it should be put into the International Institute for Sustainable Development on Portage Avenue in the riding of Winnipeg Centre in my province of Manitoba. Let us rebuild the institute for sustainable development to what it once was. That is where Canada could be proud.

I have a feeling the newly struck foundation will be located somewhere within the capital region of Ottawa. Instead of decentralizing this innovative technology, we have every reason to believe the architects of the bill could not find the province of Manitoba with both hands and a flashlight.

We are always frustrated, in terms of western alienation, that the government does not consider such things. We feel we often get the raw end of the deal. Instead of the CF-18 contract we get a virology lab. Instead of getting an institute of sustainable development with reasonable funding, we get an announcement that there will be a new foundation to study sustainable development. Does that mean the lights will be turned off once and for all in what was once a well respected international institution in the riding of Winnipeg Centre?

We are very critical of that. At this point we will oppose Bill C-4 and will be voting against it.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the people of Surrey Central are pleased to have me participate in the debate today on Bill C-4 concerning the establishment of a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

For the benefit of the folks who are watching, sustainable development means development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

In the 2000 federal budget, the Liberals announced that they would be creating a sustainable development technology foundation to administer these funds at arm's length from the government. Later on when we look at the bill we will find out that the length of the arm is too short. Perhaps their hands are in their pockets.

In that budget they earmarked $100 million as the amount of initial funding. It is to be operated as a not for profit organization. It will administer funding primarily to projects that will bring innovation and technology. The foundation will accept proposals from existing and new collaborative arrangements among technology developers, suppliers and users, universities, not for profit organizations, and other organizations, such as industrial associations and research institutes.

Clause 5 of Bill C-4 provides that the objects and purposes of the foundation are to provide funding to eligible recipients for eligible projects. That is a very vague definition. The foundation will dole out funds on a project by project basis. Clause 19 of the bill talks about eligible projects in a very vague way. It states:

The Foundation may provide funding to eligible recipients to be used by them solely for the purposes of eligible projects in accordance with any terms and conditions specified by the Foundation—

The minister mentioned that those who qualify for funding will be mentioned in specific funding agreements. What are those specific funding agreements? We will never see them.

Being the past co-chair of the scrutiny of regulations committee, I can share with the House that most bills give very little information about subject matter, the modus operandi or various other things that cover the whole bill or the scope of the bill. Most of the stuff comes through the back door in the form of regulations. We will never debate those regulations nor the terms and conditions of the stipulations. That is what will happen with the bill.

Where are the principles that will guide the allocation of funds? Will they be coming through the back door? We do not see transparency in the allocation of funds. I would like to see the regulations before the House in black and white so that we can debate them in the House.

The people of Surrey Central support the kind of initiatives that will create synergy and teamwork where people will work together to respond to new challenges by way of innovation. We appreciate the initiative to enhance innovation in technology and sustainable development as well as a clean and healthy environment, but we do not agree with the modus operandi as suggested in the bill. The bill is poorly worded. It lacks clarity, transparency, accountability and effectiveness.

I would venture to say that members of the official opposition would like Canada to create a balance of economic, social and environmental goals and challenges and thereafter reap the rewards from them. We want excellence in exploring efficient fuel sources. We want to explore various ways of harnessing energy, such as solar and wind power. We want to enhance oil and natural gas recovery technology and mobilize partners in industry, universities, research institutes and in businesses everywhere.

We want to protect the environment and work on projects related to greenhouse gas reduction and improving air and water quality. Our children certainly want that and we want our children and our grandchildren to have that.

Therefore, the Canadian Alliance policy supports sustainable development initiatives. Our policy states:

We are committed to protecting and preserving Canada's natural environment and endangered species, and to the sustainable development of our abundant natural resources for the use of current and future generations.

I heard someone from the Liberal side, perhaps the environmental minister, saying no. The Alliance policy goes on to state:

Therefore, we will strike a balance between environmental preservation and economic development. This includes creating partnerships with provincial governments, private industry, educational institutions and the public to promote meaningful progress in the area of environmental protection.

As a government, the Liberals have mismanaged our environment and failed to provide sustainable development. They have signed international treaties, including Kyoto, Beijing and Rio, with no intention whatsoever of carrying out these commitments.

They have made those commitments without consulting Canadians, parliament and the provinces. They have failed to provide commitments with the required scientific support. Rather, they have made political decisions about matters that require scientific decisions. These political decisions have amounted to nothing more than interference into scientific matters.

That in a word explains the fact that the government cannot meet the international commitments that it makes when it comes to protecting our environment. Perhaps it is too busy trying to garner votes and counter Canadian Alliance policies rather than allow scientific principles and evidence to drive the efforts to protect our environment.

This weak and arrogant Liberal government has allowed the endangered species legislation to die twice on the order paper. Since 1993 it has been promising Canadians that it will pass endangered species legislation. What do we have after seven or eight years? Another bill that it is promising to pass. The government is proposing an endangered species bill without consulting Canadians and the scientific community. In any event that is another story for another day.

This weak Liberal government lacks vision. It has done nothing since 1993 in terms of initiatives on our environment and sustainable development. Other countries have passed legislation and are way ahead. Even the United Nations has a sustainable development office. There is a worldwide race to reap the rewards of innovation and state of the art technology, but the Liberals allow Canada to be left behind.

The government expects the foundation to be in place by March 2001. The bill was originally introduced as a part of budget 2000, delivered almost a year ago today. It has been one year and the Liberals have still not passed the legislation. That goes to show Canadians just how serious the government is about sustainable development.

After a year of doing nothing following the Liberal government budget 2000 agenda and seven or eight years since red book one, the government would like the bill to be passed by the House, the Senate and receive royal assent by March 2001. That is when it would like the foundation to exist with $100 million to hand out.

After doing nothing for a year the government is giving us only a couple of weeks to work on the legislation. There will be no opportunity to have a fair debate in the House because there will be undemocratic time allocation to limit the debate. The committee hearings will be a farce. The witnesses before the committee will be set up and the opposition amendments virtually ignored. The half-baked bill will be rammed through because of the government's parliamentary majority and its arrogant attitude. It is unbelievable.

We on this side of the House want to make some amendments before we could support the bill. The amendments will not deal so much with the sustainable development aspects of the bill but with efficiency, accountability and transparency; in other words with the modus operandi of the bill.

According to the bill the Liberal government would appoint six directors and a chairman of the board of directors. These appointees would appoint another eight directors and the appointed board of directors would appoint the auditors.

The intent of the bill is to create and enhance innovation in technology and not patronage. The Liberals are developing innovations in how to make the best use of patronage. They are proposing to turn the sustainable development foundation into a Liberal patronage pork barrel for the friends of Liberals and defeated Liberal candidates. I see a hidden agenda. If the modus operandi is not corrected, that is what the bill would do.

Rather than creating and encouraging new and private funding for technology and innovation, taxpayers' money will go to the friends of the government and ultimately to a black hole, and we will one day see another boondoggle. We want this to be corrected. Let me again read for the Liberals a simple paragraph from Canadian Alliance policies:

We believe that a non-partisan civil service, an independent judiciary and competent leadership of government agencies, boards and commissions are vital in a democracy. We will therefore ensure appointments to these positions are made through an open and accountable process based on merit.

The appointments should not be based on patronage or defeated Liberal candidates or friends of Liberals or any Liberal connection. We want these appointments to be made based on merit.

The people of Surrey Central and I are dismayed. We are so disappointed that the government would take such a wonderful initiative of supporting projects related to greenhouse gas reductions and improving air quality and turn the effort into some kind of Liberal Party payoff.

When will the government stop behaving this way and doing these things? When will it evolve into the new millennium and put a stop to these kinds of 17th century old boys' club practices? When will it abandon the politics of exclusion? When will it stop implementing the systems of disenfranchisement? The patronage practices of the government are virtually fascist, in the strict political definition. The Canadian Alliance will put a stop to this sort of thing when it forms the next government.

The creation of a sustainable development foundation is something all Canadians have wanted for years and the Liberals are turning it into some kind of arena for political payoffs. It is a sham.

On the subject of auditing the foundation, while the foundation does provide an annual report each year to parliament, the foundation appoints its own auditor and has final approval on the financial reports before they are made public. Is that not convenient? While the legislation does set out rules as to who would be eligible to be the auditor, there is no mention of allowing the Auditor General of Canada access to the books of the foundation. Only those auditors appointed by the Liberals would have access to the auditing of the books. The Auditor General of Canada would be left aside. He would not have access to these audits.

It is no wonder that the government does not want the Office of the Auditor General of Canada involved. The Liberals have had a difficult ride with the outgoing auditor general. His report tabled early this month was probably the most scathing indictment yet of this government. Each auditor general's report on the mismanagement of the Liberal government is worse than the previous one.

The official opposition wants these issues, the questions of who will audit the foundation and how appointments will be made to the foundation, to be dealt with at the committee hearings on the bill, which will be held shortly. We will not allow these two concerns to be swept under the carpet by the Liberals. We want those issues to be addressed and properly addressed.

Unless there are amendments along these lines, we may have to oppose the bill and we do not want to have to do that. We want these amendments to be incorporated so that the official opposition members on this side of the House can support the bill.

Let me cite an example of sustainable development that I saw myself, an evolution of sustainable development taking place. I will cite the example of Taiwan as an example of strategic and sustainable development, where new and private money has been pouring into innovation and technology.

Taiwan is a small island the size of Vancouver Island, with a population of about 25 million people. Sometimes I wonder; if 25 million people lived on Vancouver Island it would probably sink. Taiwan is a small island with an unemployment rate of about 0.5%, not 5%, but half a percentage point. That is an admirable record. How did Taiwan do it? Taiwan has accomplished that in large part through their sustainable development strategy, with a special emphasis on technology and innovation that has led to business development, exports and economic growth while protecting their precious and rather limited resources.

In conclusion, once again we have the Liberals taking an initiative, one that everyone would want to support: the creation of a sustainable development foundation. However, what do they do? They leave so many terms undefined. The bill is vague. They turn it into a venue for patronage payoffs and they close the books to the auditor general. They want to control the $100 million they give to the foundation without anyone else finding out which Liberal Party donors receive the bulk of the $100 million.

It would be amazing if it were not so sad. The people of Surrey Central, who want to support the creation of a sustainable development foundation, do not want to support this bill. Rather, we do not have to support this bill, because of the way the Liberals are playing politics with it. If the Liberals are prepared to fix the flaws and the corruption they have written into the bill, then we would be glad to support it.

We are giving the government the opportunity to have a fair debate, to listen to the amendments, to consult Canadians through parliament and to incorporate those amendments so that all parties can support this wonderful initiative.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to address the House.

I am not sure whether I am pleased or displeased to do so, particularly since I have been watching the debates since 11 a.m. and I am under the impression that everything has already been said about this bill and I would not want to repeat the same comments.

I would like to ad lib, and I hope that I can accurately express the concerns of women. As the Chair knows, I take a great interest in this issue. In fact, I am the Bloc Quebecois critic for the status of women.

Women are very concerned about the environment and about health, education, family policies and poverty.

Looking at the bill before us, it is obvious that women cannot be opposed to it, since it is a small step in the right direction.

However, we feel that this bill is incomplete. Moreover, women do not trust it. This bill reflects a blatant lack of respect for the table. It lacks transparency, and duplication, including in Quebec, costs money.

I will discuss these issues so as to explain the position of Canadian and Quebec women on this bill.

First off, we would ask the minister to go and do his homework, very simply because the bill is incomplete. There is absolutely no reference to the requests made at the issue table. A person who belongs to a group of women knows all about an issue table is.

An issue table can be bodies or people each with their own attributes agreed on undertaking a project and giving their opinion. This is very special, because these people are qualified to give their opinion and because it costs money.

When it costs moneys, the group agrees to use the report prepared by the issue table and to implement it. People agreed on that. Women are very aware of the value of money, because they are poor and do not have their fair share of this product. Women do not necessarily enjoy equality.

This bill is incomplete. The groups working at the issue table on the bill came up with eight ideas. Eight elements were advocated. The government chose only two.

To the women's groups, this shows lack of respect for the individuals and the organizations working at this table. The women are very perplexed about what will happen next. When there is no respect for the remarks made at an issue table, for what it establishes, for what it advocates, how will people react later on in setting up this famous bill. Will it be respected?

Third, women think that the bill is lacking in transparency because of the process for appointing directors. If I read correctly, if I understand the bill correctly, the governor in council will appoint seven directors out of fifteen. That will leave eight directors to be appointed. These eight directors will be appointed by the other seven, who have been appointed by the governor in council.

I can presume, even though it does not mean that it is indeed what is going to happen, that the governor in council will appoint people it trusts. Maybe these people will in turn appoint people they know and trust. In fact, people will appoint each other. That means that the government has not set up a transparent process to appoint members to the board of directors.

Moreover, we have no guarantees with regard to the projects that will be favoured by this foundation because the directors who will appoint each other will most likely favour projects for which they have a personal preference. The bill does not provide for any mechanism for project selection. Again, the recommendation from the table was not followed. As for directors, there is no mechanism to ensure transparency with regard to their appointment and their eligibility.

Fourth, we have eligibility criteria for projects, but there are none in the bill. For women's groups, this bill certainly does not inspire confidence.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, this is something we could support, although it is a bit timid. What guarantees can the federal government give women that the money allocated to this foundation will be spent wisely and legally, in a transparent way, and how will the expenditures be accounted for?

At a time when one out of five children in Canada is poor and when a lot of single mothers in Quebec are having trouble making ends meet, the government is spending $100 million establishing this foundation, which leaves women wondering how these millions of dollars are going to be spent. As I said earlier, women are concerned about the environment, but also about poverty.

I know of a support group for women with AIDS. This Canadian group just had a grant application for $15,000 turned down by Health Canada, because it does not necessarily look out for all women. Yet this group only needed $15,000. The government scrutinizes the work of this support group, but introduces a bill with no mechanism to ensure the good management of public funds and the transparency of the appointments to the foundation board. I do not get it. I would also remind the House that in Quebec we already have a fund. Bill C-4 is promoting the same thing.

What I want to say is that it is upsetting, really upsetting, and for a woman it is even insulting. The Liberal government is going to use money to do the same thing in Quebec when we, in Quebec, have already allocated money and have our own bill. This is duplication. In this sense, I wish the federal government would take the money it wants to use and give it to Quebec, so that we can do what we want with it.

However, I believe that it is not only in Quebec that things happen this way. I think this happens also in the other provinces. In this respect, women are tired of seeing that for the sake of power and political visibility, our political leaders take money and use it for other things than what could help fight poverty, such as social housing, or to help children, and women with children, and to eliminate poverty.

To conclude, I would like to say that the environment, greenhouse gases and clean air are issues very dear to me personally. The future quality of life of Quebecers, Canadians and their children depends on it.

I can guarantee that, if there are no assurances that all the money allocated for the implementation of the bill will indeed be used to develop new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as requested by the technology issues table, women will continue to oppose this bill.

[Gary Lunn, Canadian Alliance, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of Saanich—Gulf Islands, I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill C-4.

We have heard a lot about global warming today in this debate. Global warming is an important issue. At this time of year in my riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands, which on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, we are usually counting flowers. I would like to advise the House that I took my little ones David and Victoria tobogganing in Victoria this weekend.

I agree with the concept of this bill. I look forward to it going to committee where it can be further flushed out and we can get into it in more detail. I agree that as we go into this millennium air quality is going to be an increasing concern for people globally. It is something that we should tackle head on.

This foundation will receive $100 million in funding from the government to look at everything in technology and to ensure that we can have increased air quality and reductions in greenhouse gases. That is a positive thing. I agree that is a good first step. It is going to becoming increasingly more important as time goes on.

Ten years ago people were talking about the importance of air quality. That debate of course is so much more significant today than it was 10 years ago and it will be increasingly so 10 years from now.

I alluded to my concerns with the board in my question to the member for Davenport. As I understand it, seven of the 15 members, including the chair, will be appointed by governor in council.

There are boards out there that work. I know David Strangway, the former President of UBC, is the Chairman for the Canada Foundation for Innovation. It does a lot of good work. If this is going to work though, it is so important that there is accountability to the taxpayers because it is essentially taxpayers' money. They want to see value as I do. Members across the way want to see that it is truly working toward this goal. This is a concern I have. We do not have to go very far. We know some of the other stories. There is the Federal Business Development Bank and we do not have to go too far into that.

We see that there are patronage appointments. I would urge anybody in the House who has influence in the debate that these appointments be based on the foundation being very functional and based on science. I know there are provisions in the bill that there be people from the scientific community, the business community and from the not for profit, so there is a strong balance. Again, I only have to go back to some of the things that have happened in the past. I see that the former Liberal candidate from Port Moody—Coquitlam, Mr. Lou Sekora, was recently named a citizenship court judge.

In earnest I question if these decisions are based on politics. I would argue that in appointments such as that they absolutely were. I would hate to see a foundation like those types of appointments. I know the member opposite would love to see it based on scientific communities, arm's length, with NGOs and a whole cross section of people who have the same ultimate goal in mind and that their decisions are based on science.

As this goes off to committee these ideas can be fleshed out and we can get into greater detail to ensure that these safeguards are put there.

I also agree with the member for Davenport that we should not just look at reducing greenhouse gases. This is critical. We have to reduce greenhouse gases and ensure better air quality in the future, but consumption is such a huge part of this equation. We not only have to, through technology, decrease consumption and deliver the same, but we have to look at the whole way we do things. I think we can. We have to start changing the mindset of people not to be wasteful. We see an energy crisis in California right now. These are very real problems and they are happening in our own backyard. I take our own backyard as being North America.

I have travelled all over North America as most members of the House have. We would all agree that we live in somewhat similar economies. Other parts of the world are much different. In North America things generally can be quite similar. They are having problems in California which is very heavily populated. It is a sign to all of us to say this could be a problem that could expand and grow if we do not take the issue head on.

I also agree with the member that consumption is a very real problem. At the same time, when we are looking at this foundation, we have to not put blinders on and recognize there has to be a balance between economic growth and industry. I would argue that we use the best available technology to ensure the reduction of greenhouse gases, that we ensure better air quality in the future and we start getting the continuum going the other way.

I look forward to the bill going to committee. I look forward to following the bill closely and seeing what recommendations they come up with.

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his kind words. My understanding from Bill C-4, in particular section 11, is that there is an elaborate system for the appointment of directors. This would make the foundation fairly independent and considerably at arm's length from the government.

The provision as written divides the directors into three categories. The first one deals with persons engaged in the development and demonstration of technologies to promote sustainable development, including technologies to address climate change and air quality issues. One could safely interpret this clause to mean that these would be scientists, technicians and researchers or engineers.

The second category would be from the business community on which I do not need to elaborate.

The third category is non-profit corporations. They would probably be NGOs and other agencies that are knowledgeable and competent in providing advice and direction to the foundation on technological innovation on the mandate of the foundation.

These three sectors put together would seem to indicate that this type of foundation would operate with a considerable degree of independence, if not entire independence. It should be able to achieve the goals, and we hope it will achieve them, that the hon. member and I have in mind.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

At the outset, I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, on your appointment, and the new Speaker on his election. I am sure you will show fairness and impartiality in your work.

This is my first time speaking in the 37th parliament. I would have liked to rise before, but I was unfortunately gagged during the debate on Bill C-2. I wanted to speak on behalf of my constituents from Sherbrooke, but unfortunately I was unable to do so.

I would also like to salute my constituents and to thank them for the trust they put in me last November. I know many members talked about their majority when they rose for the first time and I will limit my comments to the fact that I increased mine 11 times. Figures should be interpreted when they are most favourable.

The bill before us today had been introduced before parliament was dissolved. It was then know as Bill C-46. The new Bill C-4 aims at establishing a foundation to fund sustainable development technology. Incidentally, the word foundation is reminiscent of the sad chapter of the millennium fund.

At the beginning of this session, it is difficult to see in what direction the government is aiming. Of course, the throne speech and its promises could provide interesting leads. We realize that all that can be found in that document looks like déjà-vu.

In fact, the legislative program looks the same as what it was before the election was called. Just consider the legislation concerning young offenders and the employment insurance program. Even with regard to Bill C-3, a minister's assistant said only the cover page was changed. That is a nice program. Even the Cabinet remained unchanged. The old federal reflexes of interfering in everything and anything are likely to carry on.

Let us put things briefly in context. Bill C-4, formerly Bill C-46, sponsored by the Minister of Natural Resources, would create a corporation, the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology. The objects and purposes of that foundation would be to provide funding for projects to develop and demonstrate new technologies to promote sustainable development, including technologies to address climate change and air quality issues.

The establishment of the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology is one of the initiatives that the federal government announced in its February 2000 budget to promote environmentally desirable technologies and practices. The foundation would operate as a not for profit organization. It would consist of a chairperson, six directors and eight members, some of them appointed by the government.

The foundation would have to table in parliament an annual report of its activities. The foundation would also have to administer a sustainable development technology fund, which would be provided with an initial amount of $100 million.

According to the backgrounder entitled “Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology”, which was released by the government when the bill was introduced, the foundation would provide funding in two dominant areas: new climate-friendly technologies that hold the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and technologies to address clean air issues. This undertaking is not as clear in the bill, however.

The funding would be for specific projects. In order to benefit the maximum number of innovative sources, the foundation would accept proposals from existing and new collaborative arrangements among technology developers, suppliers and users, universities, not-for-profit organizations, and organizations such as industrial associations and research institutes. Small and medium size enterprises would be strongly encouraged to participate and lead projects supported by the foundation.

The foundation's activities would complement other government programs encouraging technological innovation, such as the Technology Early Action Measures component of the Climate Change Action Fund, and Technology Partnerships Canada in the case of environmental technologies.

The creation of a funding agency responsible for promoting the development of ecological technologies was recommended by the Technology Issues Table. In its December 10, 1999, report on the development of technological innovations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Technology Issues Table recommended the creation of a fund to develop climate change technologies in order to encourage the development of target technologies with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas effects and stimulate international sales.

The technology issues table called for an initial investment of $20 million annually, to be increased to $200 million annually starting in the fifth year. It also recommended that 50% of the funding come from federal sources, 25% from provincial sources and 25% from private sources, although it felt that this could vary from one project to another.

Noting that one of the major challenges of innovation is the initial introduction of new technologies and new services in the market, the issue table also recommended the creation of a climate change technology demonstration program that would offset some portion of the financial risks involved in early domestic commercialization of greenhouse gas mitigation technologies.

According to the issue, this option should ramp up from $60 million per annum for year one to $300 million per annum for year five. The federal government should provide, on a portfolio basis, up to 30% of the investment, with the remainder originating from provincial and industry sources. The federal component would be repayable.

In this context the government decided in its budget 2000 to create the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology, which would support both development and demonstration activities but would not limit itself to climate change technologies.

Instead, it would fund various projects aimed at promoting technologies that contribute to sustainable development. Thus, this is a category of much larger projects.

While the government said it intended to put the emphasis on the funding of new technologies relating to climate change and clean air, the bill does not reflect this priority. It simply deals with the funding of sustainable development technologies, particularly those that are aimed at bringing solutions to climate change and air pollution issues.

Under the definition of “eligible project” in clause 2, the bill does not give express priority to the latter type of projects. Therefore, it might be up to the foundation alone to determine, under clause 19, what types of projects relating to sustainable development it would be prepared to fund.

It is important to note that the definition of eligible recipient in clause 2 refers to an entity that meets the criteria of eligibility established in any agreement entered into between the government and the foundation. It is not clearly indicated if this power, whose concrete aspects are not defined anywhere in the bill, could be used by the government to restrict the definition of “eligible recipient” to those claimants that carry on specific types of projects, thus influencing or restricting the foundation's funding decisions.

In other words, could the government and the foundation agree on eligibility criteria that would impact on what is an eligible project? It would be appropriate to get some clarification on that point, particularly since the government said that the foundation will not be an agent of Her Majesty.

The round table on technologies recommended initial funding of $80 million for the two phases of the projects, that is $20 million for development and $60 million for demonstration. It also recommended that this amount be increased to $500 million after five years, or $200 million for development projects and $300 million for demonstration projects.

Under the bill, the foundation would get an initial amount of $100 million to support development and demonstration projects. Now, since the foundation's mandate goes beyond the financing of technologies linked to climate change, one could come to the conclusion that the financing provided is insufficient, at least for the initial period.

I would also like to talk about some Liberal commitments regarding the environment. I would like to remind the House of some promises made by the Liberals during the last election campaign and contained in the third edition of the red book. However, the events of last week have shown the real usefulness of such documents. They do not seem to stand the test of time, since the authors of the promises contained in the red book voted against a motion containing one of those promises word for word.

Here are some of those promises which are directly linked to the subject matter of today's debate. Again, these are promises made by the Liberal government. They are the following:

(1) A new Liberal government will help the private sector by maintaining R&D tax credits that are already among the most generous in the world, and by working to commercialise discoveries made in government and university labs.

(2) A new Liberal government will act to significantly improve air quality for all Canadians. We will make special efforts to clean-up the air of our cities, where the population and the pollutants are most highly concentrated.

(3) A new Liberal government will continue to support the development of cleaner engines and fuels, and we will strengthen emissions standards for vehicles. We will greatly reduce sulphur in diesel fuel.

(4) A new Liberal government will attack the problem on several fronts under our Action Plan on Climate Change. We will promote increase energy efficiency in industry and in the transportation system. We will fund the development of new energy technologies, such as fuel cells, and help farmers to reduce agricultural emissions through improved farming methods.

Those are promises still. I continue:

We will increase Canada's use of renewable energy, such as electricity from wind and ethanol from biomass. We will encourage consumers to buy more energy-efficient products by providing information and setting high product standards.

That makes a lot of promises. In the throne speech, the government essentially repeated the same things. It said, for instance.

As part of its efforts to promote global sustainable development, the Government will ensure that Canada does its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It will work with its provincial and territorial partners to implement the recently announced first national business plan on climate change.

I am not going to comment on these statements and promises one by one. A number of them, however, were already known. For instance, the action plan on climate change was announced last October 6.

In the 1997 and 1999 throne speeches, the Liberals announced that they would make the environment one of their priorities, that they would address the matter of climate changes and commit to promoting sustainable development on an international scale. Yet the budget allocated to the environment has done nothing but decrease since 1994-95.

How then can the Liberals be believed? We have no choice but to conclude that there is a lot of difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. For example, Environment Canada announced several months ago that it was going to call for tenders for the design of an import-export policy for PCB contaminated waste. This was made necessary by budget cuts at Environment Canada. As a result of these cuts, the private sector was entrusted with the mandate of designing policies on the import and export of hazardous waste. Really now.

I have, nonetheless, retained a few words from the vocabulary used in the promises and the throne speech: “on several fronts”, “provincial and territorial partners”.

Several fronts suggests a shotgun approach, in all directions and none at the same time. I presume that the government has good intentions and is acting in good faith. However, what does such concern hide? We saw the government move on several fronts in the case of the millennium scholarships and other initiatives in the education area, but its partners are given very little consideration. The federal government always acts as if it was the holder of absolute truth.

Let us now turn briefly to what the environment and sustainable development commissioner said. If the federal government really wants to take the path of sustainable development, it should start by examining its own operations to identify the areas it could improve before telling people that they should consume more ecological and energy efficient products. In his report for the year 2000, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development said:

Since 1990, the federal government has made commitments to Canadians that it would green its operations. Yet, a decade later, there is a lack of rudimentary information about government's vast operations, the costs of which are likely more than $400 million annually for water, energy and waste disposal. We found that the government does not have complete and accurate data on the annual cost of running its buildings and on the environmental impacts of its operations.

When compared to Liberal commitments, this statement by the commissioner reveals that what is probably lacking the most at the federal level is concerted action. After the fiasco of the heating bill visibility operation we see clearly that the government does not have a long term vision.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not underline the recent findings of the auditor general on various appointments. The establishment of a foundation necessarily implies the appointment of a board of directors. I hope that the ministers who will make the appointments will base their decision more on the competence of the candidates than on their political allegiance.

Another point is the fact that Canada clearly will not fulfil its Kyoto commitment. Not only does Canada not appear to be on the way to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, but it actually appears to be increasing them.

In the February edition of Le Monde diplomatique , it is reported that Canada is part of group of countries called the umbrella group. Reference is made to the November 2000 conference held in The Hague, which ended in failure due to these countries' intransigence.

These countries are attached to loopholes such as the unlimited emission rights instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and insist on taking forests into account in the determination of efforts made by each country. Organizations have already denounced the hypocrisy of Canada, which is hoping to boost its reactor sales by trying to include nuclear energy among clean tools of economic development.

At the Vancouver environment and natural resources ministers conference, Ottawa tried to address only public awareness measures and investment projects in less energy consuming technologies. And yet, if the trend holds, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada could be 35% above what they should be.

We must therefore conclude from these examples that what Canada is lacking is the firm political will to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Resorting to its age old strategy of invading provincial jurisdictions rather than developing a joint strategy, Canada will not be able to meet its international commitments.

The establishment of foundations and other similar initiatives will only ease the Canadian government's conscience without leading to any tangible result.

Would this be a new hobby aiming at shrinking the provincial role? Quebec does not need anybody's advice. As Mr. Pierre Elliott Trudeau used to say:

One way to offset the attraction of separatism is to put time, energy and huge amounts of money at the service of federal nationalism.

No doubt, the environment will be the next area to be invaded by the federal government to try and shrink Quebec's role even more. After the Canadian millennium scholarships, education, the health minister's plans for a family medicine program, the new federal hobby may well be the environment.

In this respect, the bill under consideration, which establishes a foundation to develop and demonstrate new technologies to promote sustainable development, appears to belong to the Canadian government's continued effort to have its way in many spheres of human action. What will the foundation do? How much money will it have at its disposal? The news release announcing the bill states:

The new Foundation will administer the Sustainable Development Technology Fund for the development and demonstration of new technologies, in particular, those aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality.

We are told as well that the foundation will have a budget of $100 million. How will the federal government reconcile the many efforts being made in the area of climate change and sustainable development? How will the money allocated for this foundation differ from the climate change action fund? Part of this fund is intended for cost effective technological projects promoting a reduction in greenhouse gases.

The Liberals have a long tradition of unfulfilled promises with respect to the environment. More specifically, in the area of greenhouse gases, not only is Canada not sufficiently reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, it is significantly increasing them. Rather than making a serious commitment to reduce them, Canada is now one of the group of countries that is looking more for loopholes in the Kyoto protocol than it is for sustainable ways to reduce emissions.

In this regard Quebec's energy choices are exemplary, and Quebec is resolutely committed to reducing greenhouse gases.

Will this foundation support initiatives in the nuclear sector? We could think so, since Canada has lobbied vigorously to have nuclear energy considered green.

In our election platform we noted that an investment of $1.5 billion was required for the environment. The federal government must attack this problem seriously. Had it not implemented the policy of $125 for heating oil, for example, it could have saved $1.3 billion. Will the foundation's $100 million be enough? Only the future will tell.

The Bloc Quebecois of course would support this bill because our party is concerned about the environment.

We would support the bill if it were amended on six factors giving rise to concern and opposition from the Bloc.

The first one is the division of powers. We see this as an underhanded way for the federal government to intrude once again in provincial jurisdiction.

The second one is that Quebec already has such a foundation. The creation of this foundation comes as a surprise, since a $45 million action fund for sustainable development already exists in Quebec.

Instead of creating this foundation, the federal government should transfer the money to Quebec's agencies, which are already working along the lines recommended by the table and which have a good understanding of the issue.

Concentration of powers is another factor. Practically all the directors of the foundation are appointed by the governor in council. Under the bill, the governor in council, on the recommendation of the minister, appoints seven of the fifteen directors. However, the eight other directors are appointed by the very members appointed by the governor in council.

Finally, the chairperson and all directors may be removed for cause by the governor in council. This method of appointment seems to be a roundabout way of allowing the federal government to interfere in an area under provincial jurisdiction and to have control over an organization that is not accountable to parliament.

The fact that the governor in council has the authority to enter into agreements with the foundation to set eligibility criteria regarding eligible recipients shows that this organization would not really operate at arm's length from the federal government. The latter would, in a roundabout way, have a say as to how funding is granted to eligible recipients.

Another factor is the dangerous definitions contained in the bill. For example, since the term “eligible project” deals with technologies that include, but are not restricted to, those to address climate change and air quality issues, this could allow funding for nuclear technology projects justified as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which would be contrary to the commitments made by the federal government in Kyoto.

The fifth factor to consider is the disparity between the recommendations from the table and the bill. The foundation would be responsible for managing funds to support technologies to promote sustainable development. It is certainly a lofty goal, but it is rather vague when used in a bill.

The establishment of such a foundation would not reflect the main recommendation of the table which was to allocate money for the development of technologies to reduce greenhouses gas emissions and to stimulate international sales.

The bill does not reflect the general direction of the recommendations of the technology table, mainly because it does not include a goal oriented implementation strategy. Also, the bill does not promote co-operation between the federal government, the provinces and industry and does not contain a qualitative definition of the benefits and factors contributing to our quality of live for each of the options.

The bill only focuses on two of the eight options brought forward by the technology table.

The last factor has to do with the level of funding. We are concerned about the small amount allocated to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In 1998, the Anderson strategy had a budget totalling $1.3 billion over a period of five years to fight this problem.

On December 10, 1998, the table released a report on the development of technological innovations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in which it recommended that a fund be set up, with an initial contribution of $80 million for both stages, development and demonstration, and that the funding be increased to $500 million after five years.

Since the terms of reference of the foundation are not limited to technologies addressing climate change, the funding for the initial phase is not enough.

In conclusion, I would say that, through its environmental policy, the Bloc Quebecois does support positive and proactive actions, provided they take into account the fact that Quebec is an important stakeholder.

Therefore, we will be moving amendments at committee stage.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-4. Certainly the minister paints a fine picture and I would not disagree with much of what he said.

However, as the critic for the Canadian Alliance Party, I begin the debate quite frankly undecided as to what position to take on the bill, because it is generally quite vague and lacks a lot of specific detail. Certainly in his presentation the minister did little to add any of that detail.

In the seven years I have been in the House, many as the critic for natural resources and for this particular minister, I have found that he has always been a master of words and is able to get around specifics while presenting a very encouraging picture. However, I need to understand some of the details around the bill and specifically why we need to create this new bureaucracy to achieve the goals the minister spoke about.

Since the Kyoto protocol in 1997 and Canada's commitment at that conference, the government seems to have been in a constant search for that silver bullet the minister referred to and seems to be shooting bullets in every direction rather than focusing on any particular strategy.

Certainly the billion dollars the minister referred to that has been put in place to help us to reach the objective has been scattered around in so many directions that it is quite frankly hard to keep track of. There have been a number of programs: the climate change early action fund, $150 million; the $60 million for renewable energy initiatives; $15 million for the procurement of green power; $125 million for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to support environmentally friendly technologies; $100 million for international capacity building; and the list goes on.

What I was hoping to learn from the minister's presentation was why there is a need for the new bureaucracy and specifically what it would achieve in enhancing our chances of reaching the Kyoto protocol, the possible achievement of which seems to be quickly evaporating in regard to the government and Canada. In spite of how many times we read the government's action plan on climate change, which was introduced before the election, it just does not cut it in regard to the possibility of achieving the Kyoto protocol targets. By my calculations, at least, if all of the objectives under action plan 2000 were achieved we would only be one third of the way to the Kyoto commitment, so we are certainly not there.

The other concern I have is in regard to the minister speaking about how our survival depends on our ability to innovate. I suggest that there is some truth to that, but I certainly would also suggest that our survival depends very much on our ability to afford and to implement those innovations as they come along. Of course that has been part of the problem with this whole climate change initiative and where we are going.

The technologies that are emerging and will emerge and become available generally, at least in the timeframe of the Kyoto protocol, are totally unaffordable for the average Canadian who would use this technology. I refer to the Ballard power cell and the development of prototype power cell vehicles and electric cars and those kinds of things, and to the government's own initiative in investment in green power. These cars are three times the price of standard cars on the market today and are certainly far out of reach of the average citizen who drives to work every day.

Also, the government's investment in green power comes at a price at least double that of even today's marketplace electricity rates, so again it is a wonderful idea but unaffordable in general society.

Our challenge is not only to develop these innovative ideas and technologies but to make them affordable so that we can put them to work in society. If we cannot achieve that, the development of these things has little impact on or benefit for mainstream Canadians.

Having said that, I have to spend a little time on the bill itself because I have some real concerns with how it is put together and what it is advocating.

Again I ask why we need the bill. Why could these funds not be delivered through existing mechanisms that are already in place under the climate change envelope, through the Business Development Bank, through some regional development agencies that a lot of government dollars are funnelled through? As well, why could they not be delivered through some of the grassroots community development associations that fund the development of new technologies, new ideas and new projects? One has to wonder why the government is choosing to go with this format. I did not hear any indication as to why in the minister's speech. I am really concerned simply because it is the creation of another 30 bureaucratic positions, albeit 15 of them are not in a true sense paid bureaucrats and the establishment of the foundation is a good idea.

On the other hand, long ago the minister established all kinds of these bodies to help him understand his portfolio and to advise him on all kinds of issues that fall within that portfolio. They are called ministerial advisory committees. All kinds of very knowledgeable and pretty sharp people sit on these advisory committees at no cost to the people of Canada other than the cost of their expenses, as would be the case for this foundation. I do not think we need to create this foundation to get the services of these people from industry and from society at large in order to achieve what we want. Of course the board of directors is another story because the directors will be paid.

The foundation itself will set the terms and conditions, the salaries, the job descriptions and all of the rest of those things that do not exist in the bill. The bill gives broad powers to the foundation itself to set up all of those things. As the minister suggested in his speech, the specific funding agreement between the foundation and the government will come at some time after the creation of the bill. Based on the government's record of accountability and transparency and its record on the appointment of people favourable to the government for these kinds of positions, this is cause for concern for most Canadians. If the government is just going to use this as another source for patronage appointments to reward those loyal to the government, I do not think we need more of them. We have more than enough already. The government, or the governor in council as it is called, has abused that power in the past. We do not need to create more of those positions.

Having said that, we need only to look at other crown corporations that the government has created in the past to deliver funding in partnership with the private sector and for good causes.

The creation of the foundation generally sounds like a good idea, particularly when the minister presents it. Why will this be different from, for example, what happened to the president of the Business Development Bank when he chose to turn down a project in the Prime Minister's riding favourable to the Prime Minister? It did not take long for him to change his mind and it did not take long to find somebody else to replace the president of the Business Development Bank.

My concern is whether the foundation, its president and board of directors will be treated any differently by the government than those other organizations. That is totally unacceptable.

It is difficult to determine exactly what this arm's length organization, as the minister put it, will be. It appears to me that it is in fact a crown corporation created by the government to move the disbursement of funds away from the government, away from direct responsibility of the minister and to remove it from scrutiny by the Auditor General of Canada. That is one of my biggest concerns with this whole foundation.

The bill deals a fair bit with the creation of an auditor who would be hired and directed by the foundation itself. However, it would be accountable only through its financial statement once a year to parliament. I do not think that is sufficient scrutiny or sufficient transparency to satisfy most Canadians.

The auditor general must have access to this thing. It must be more than simply an effort to move the whole idea of funding the development of new technologies away from the government so that the government can deflect a lot of the criticism for the failure of these projects. Of course the government always accepts the accolades for the success of the projects. Essentially if it moves away from the department as it exists now to this crown corporation, then the crown corporation is a shield for the minister and for the government for any undesirable results that might in fact happen.

That has to be addressed and hopefully we can talk about that. I will be introducing some amendments in the process to hopefully achieve some of that transparency and some of that accountability for those things.

Essentially, it could be a good tool for the government to use to move and to help create this development of new technologies. However, it is very hard to determine just exactly how this foundation and its board of directors will achieve the goals that are laid out for them. Clause 19(1) of the bill states:

From its funds, the Foundation may provide funding to eligible recipients to be used by them solely for the purposes of eligible projects in accordance with any terms and conditions specified by the Foundation in respect of funding—

Again, this is okay expect that nobody knows what those terms and conditions will be or what the agreement between the government and the foundation will be. Hopefully we will have some clarification of that as we go through the process.

However, what concerns me is that it states:

—including terms and conditions as to repayment of the funding, intellectual property rights and the maximum amount and proportion of funding for eligible projects to be provided by the Foundation.

It is difficult to understand whether the foundation is simply seeking out projects that show potential and helping to provide funding in those projects or whether its role is to provide loans to these projects. It does not appear that the foundation has the ability to actually have any ownership in these projects. It says:

—the Foundation shall not acquire any interest, whether through the acquisition of share capital, a partnership interest or otherwise, in any research infrastructure acquired by the eligible recipient for the project.

It is a little hard to understand what the objective is, whether it is for the foundation simply to cast around and pick winners and losers and when it thinks it has a winner to heap money on to the project in the hopes that it will be successful or whether it is something else.

Both provincial and federal governments certainly do not have a good track record when it comes to picking winners and losers in business. I do not think that should really be the role of government. At any rate, the government's role is to provide an environment where business can flourish, be successful and develop these kinds of technologies. Government interference through the use of tax dollars into business and into the development of business can make winners if enough is invested. If we invest enough money we can grow bananas at the North Pole.

The reality is that it distorts the marketplace. It distorts market forces of competition and innovation. I do not know that that should be the government's role. In fact, I do not think it is. Say we have a promising private sector company in one part of the country and a similar private sector company in another part of the country, both with some interesting projects that show potential. We have this foundation of people generally appointed by the government and favourable to the government. Again, if we look at the history with the Business Development Bank, which is vulnerable to political pressure and political interference by the government, it is easy to see how choices can be made to influence the success or failure of a particular project. Depending on where the company is located in the country and how favourable that particular organization is, or perhaps even how large a donation it has made recently to a particular political party, could have an effect.

I hate to be so skeptical. However, after the years that I have been here it just seems to happen over and over again. I have no reason to expect that this particular venture will be any different from the ones in the past.

We have learned some things already from the government's efforts on greenhouse gas emission reduction. It is worthy to note that the government has already made some serious mistakes in this rush to reduce emissions, to clean up our environment and to create sustainable technologies.

Right from the very beginning of the conference of the parties in Buenos Aires, I believe it was, and as we move forward, the environmental side of the equation has always presented the theory that we had to force, either through taxation or through market forces, the cost of fossil fuel energy higher. It was too cheap in North America and we had to do something to force energy prices higher, much higher than those in Europe. We had to force energy conservation which would help us achieve our objective of reduced emissions because we have used less fossil fuel and less energy, thereby fewer emissions.

If there is anything to have been learned in the last year with the energy crisis that we are facing with spiralling energy costs in electricity, in natural gas in particular and gasoline, it is that higher energy prices are not the answer for conservation.

Fossil fuel intense projects like greenhouses, transportation, commercial and residential heating are switching back to technologies less favourable to the environment instead of simply using conservation measures to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.

With organizations like the Pembina Institute, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the others that had this idea, it is becoming clearer that there were other agendas at play other than just energy conservation through higher prices for energy.

We have to look at that, learn from it and understand that the development of new technologies will be the answer and will be our saviour. They will reduce emissions and use less energy. The fact is that the average citizens out there would love to be more environmentally conscious and would love to do their part in the reduction of emissions and saving the environment.

What has the government actually done to help them do that? To my knowledge the only thing under this climate change initiative the government presented was an offer of $100 to pay half the cost of an energy audit for one's home, so that a new industry, energy auditors, could be created and could go around telling people how they can be more efficient and save money on their energy costs.

It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that once the energy auditor presents recommendations, the real cost in that initiative is going to be the implementation of those recommendations. The upgrading of residential and commercial buildings and all of things that go with it can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At some point the government is going to have to look at a program to help Canadians take hold of the new technologies which have been developed and implement them. That would not only be in residential situations but also in transportation and all kinds of sectors. There are some terrific ideas that will come forward and that are already coming forward. However, the cost of implementing them cannot be borne by the individual or by the corporate sector that will be expected to use them.

Imagine what would happen to the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables if the cost of transportation continues to rise as it has done in the last year? We clearly have to find better and newer technologies to implement in the transportation sector. Because that sector operates on such a fine margin, there has to be some kind of program and thought put into just how that sector could implement those technologies and still be able to provide a service to Canadians that is affordable and reasonable.

I have not seen any indication from the government that it would do that. The only thing it has done so far is the recent energy rebate which has turned into the biggest boondoggle we have seen in a long time. People in penitentiaries, dead people and people who never paid an energy bill in their lives are receiving rebates, while those who are responsible for those costs are not getting anything.

Just this morning I had a call from a lady not too far from Ottawa. She was wondering what the longer term plan of the government might be and what we could suggest to the government that might help Canadians next winter and the winter after that. It is inevitable that energy costs will continue to rise, hopefully not at the rate they did this winter. It is a finite resource and the cost of energy will continue to rise either because of the depleting resource or because of the implementation of these new technologies of which the minister spoke.

I was hard-pressed to give the lady a lot of assurance that there was anything on the drawing board that would help her in particular. However I did suggest, as we have suggested to the government on a number of occasions, that by just simply designating home heating fuels as an essential commodity and removing excise tax and GST from those commodities would be a step in the right direction. Gas bills having now reached a point where in many cases they are higher than mortgage payments, I think the removal of those taxes would go a long way toward showing some compassion for the hardship created by those energy prices.

I look forward to the bill getting into committee so we can hear witnesses and hear an explanation of all these things. At that time we will make up our mind whether to support the bill at third reading stage. There needs to be a lot of discussion and a lot of answers from the government side on exactly what we are trying to achieve, how we will get there and how we will assure Canadian taxpayers that this foundation is a good use of their tax dollars. Canadians need assurance that their dollars are not being squandered and abused as so often is the case.

I look forward to the debate and discussion in committee. We will speak further to the bill at third reading stage and go from there.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

moved that Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to present for second reading Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology. I will begin with some context.

We live in an era in which the economic, social and environmental well-being of Canadians, and indeed of all the world's people and nations, hinges on our capacity to innovate, to respond to new challenges and new opportunities in new ways.

The bill is all about technological innovation in support of sustainable development, a clear and compelling priority that was identified in our Speech from the Throne.

Sustainable development is a complex balancing act among economic, social and environmental values and goals. Furthermore, it is a balance that constantly changes, influenced by such variables as science, population growth, economic circumstances and environmental requirements.

The optimism that we can stay on top of all the challenges, that is keep our balance, assumes that as we move down the road our ability to respond to those challenges will also evolve and develop, that we be refreshed and re-equipped with new knowledge, ideas and technologies to keep the equation balanced in our favour and that we redefine the limits of what is possible. All of that is fundamental to our future.

New technology by itself is not a silver bullet that will slay every dragon that we will face but it is indispensable to our success.

Leadership in developing and deploying new generations of sustainable development technology will bring economic, social and environmental rewards.

Canada is in a worldwide race to reap those rewards. The United States, the European Union, Japan and others are committing major amounts of money to support new technology for sustainable development, and Canada must keep pace.

That is why the principle of sustainable development is written right into the legislative mandate of my department, Natural Resources Canada. That is why our government tabled a whole series of departmental sustainable development strategies just last week. For the same reason, significant new dollars for sustainable development activities were committed in both last February's federal budget and in the economic statement last October; over $1 billion worth all together. That is why we have this new legislation before us today.

In budget 2000 we first announced the government's intention to establish a foundation with initial funding of $100 million to stimulate the development and demonstration of new environmental technologies, in particular climate change and clean air technologies. Bill C-4 delivers on that commitment from budget 2000. It creates the organizational structure, the legal status and the modus operandi of the foundation.

I will talk for a moment about goals and points of focus for this new foundation. The proposed foundation gives funding support for development and demonstration of new and promising sustainable development technologies. It will also support measures to get these new tools into use as quickly and as widely as possible. A bright new idea is only an idea as long as it remains in the laboratory or in some academic institution. We need to get it into the field where it can really make a difference.

The foundation will focus in particular on the funding of new and emerging climate change and clean air technologies, including some in which Canada has already established an early international lead and in which further investment is very likely to produce new breakthroughs and new benefits.

Many hon. members in the House will be familiar with certain projects of this kind in their own regions, provinces, some even in their own constituencies. They will be familiar with the environmental and economic benefits that these initiatives have brought to Canadians.

I think, for example, of technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions at source before they enter the atmosphere. I think of technologies, such as carbon sequestration, that allows us to capture and store greenhouse gases underground. I think of the development of new and alternative fuel sources, including ethanol, solar energy and wind power.

I think of energy efficiency technologies to conserve our resources and reduce emissions at the same time. I think of technologies in the field of enhanced oil recovery that reinforce our energy independence by squeezing new oil from old wells and, at the same time, reduce the environmental footprint. I think also of technologies that reduce particulate matter in the air.

Within these areas and others, the foundation will concentrate support by mobilizing collaboration among partners, partners in industry, government, the universities, academic institutions and not for profit organizations. Let me expand on that point for just a moment.

When we analyze various strategies for spurring technology innovation throughout the world, we find that a common characteristic of those that truly work is support for collaborative effort, people working together. The sum of these combined efforts is much more than their individual parts. Synergy succeeds.

In effect, the bill is about supporting synergy, about putting money into the pooling of skills, resources and expertise, bringing people and their talents together. It will help to finance projects that bring together Canadian experts from industry, from universities, from a variety of associations and many others.

It will pull together team members from the whole spectrum of technology innovation, each bringing a specific competence to the table. In doing these things, the legislation will fulfil another vital need. It will use the leverage of the foundation's funding to bring other money, new money, private sector money, into the development and demonstration of new technologies.

None of these objectives are unique, nor are the strategies for achieving them. They are similar to those of several other federal programs that occupy a specific niche in support of technology development. This foundation will complement and will reinforce these other efforts through its emphasis on collaboration and specifically its emphasis on sustainable development technologies, in particular climate change and clean air. It will also bring new money into the system.

The achievement of these goals requires attention to several complex issues: administrative, technical quality and otherwise. As hon. members will note, the legislation takes these issues very much into account, for example, the question of intellectual property rights: who owns and who can access the fruits of all of this co-operative, publicly funded labour.

There are issues related to funding. The bill requires recipients to conform to certain principles that the foundation would set on funding issues, for example, the question of who qualifies for funding. The legislation defines these qualifications and requires that they be addressed. Details on these matters will be spelled out in the specific funding agreement to be entered into between the government and the foundation.

Ultimately the benefit of this funding to the Canadian environment and to the Canadian economy depends on the quality of targeting and team building. This requires careful design of the machinery of governance for the foundation. The legislation outlines this machinery. It calls for the creation of a board of directors. The board would operate at arm's length from government. It would report annually to parliament.

The second component in the governance structure is a committee representing stakeholders and potential clients of the foundation. We call the people on this broader body the members of the foundation. The board would consist of 15 directors, all of them drawn from outside government. The first seven, that is six directors and the chairperson, would be appointed by the Government of Canada. The other eight would be appointed by that broader group known as the members of the foundation.

The board would be an executive group. It would supervise the management and services of the foundation and, subject to the foundation's bylaws, it would exercise all of its powers.

The board would need to be balanced in a number of ways. First, it would need to be balanced in terms of expertise. It would comprise directors who collectively represent the whole spectrum of sustainable technology development in Canada, public, private, academic and not for profit. Last but not least of course, the board would have balance in the geographic sense with members drawn from all regions of Canada.

The legislation requires the board to establish financial and management controls to ensure efficient execution of the foundation's business. It calls for the board to appoint an auditor and it outlines the qualifications for that role. It requires the annual report, that I mentioned earlier, to include an evaluation of results achieved by the funding of projects year by year and also cumulatively since the start of the foundation, so that we in the House, and Canadians generally, will be able to know and to track the progress that is being made. Here again the funding agreement between the government and the foundation will spell out these requirements in detail.

One last thought that I will leave with the House before I close is about the relationship between knowledge and technology on the one hand and our national well-being on the other.

In the knowledge based world in which we live, we are now well across the threshold of an era in which the winners are not only the swift and the strong but also the smart and the innovative. Nowhere is this more true than in Canada's natural resources sector, a sector in which economic and environmental imperatives converge, a sector in which the cause and effect relationship between innovation and success is clearly demonstrated.

In Canada today our resource companies are among the biggest of the big spenders on innovation. They account for 22% of all new capital investment in Canada. Of the ten most innovative Canadian industries, five are resource based. Collectively the companies in this sector are in the first ranks of being the creators and the consumers of new technology. The results are there for all to see.

The new Dow Jones sustainability group index, which was introduced about a year ago, rates major corporations around the world on their success at integrating economic, environmental and social performance. That Dow Jones sustainability group index ranks four Canadian companies at the very top of the index. Significantly, all four are resource based.

During the past two years, average productivity growth rates in our resource based industries have been two to three times higher than those of the Canadian economy overall. These are powerful facts, refuting the simplistic analysis of some, which tends to think that natural resources are only the mainstay of the so-called old economy, with a great past but little future in the new economy of tomorrow.

In Canada today, energy, mining, forestry and earth sciences account for more than 11% of our gross domestic product. That is close to $90 billion. Looking outward, they account for about $100 billion every year in Canadian exports, with a favourable trade surplus of $60 billion. Canadian resource knowledge and technology are being marketed and applied throughout the world.

In short, innovation is paying off for Canada. However, to meet challenges like climate change, to meet challenges like clean air, we must maintain and indeed accelerate our momentum in the field of science, knowledge and innovation. We must keep building our brain power and move rapidly to put new ideas into action. Our record of performance thus far is encouraging, but we need to do more, and that is what this bill is all about.

In the new millennium, Canada must become and must remain the world's smartest natural resources steward, developer, user and exporter. That means being the most high tech, the most environmentally friendly, the most socially responsible and the most productive and competitive, leading the world as a living model of sustainable development and successfully so. The legislation now before the House will help us to reach those goals, goals that I believe are worthy Canadian aspirations.

We have an enormous wealth and an enormous heritage of natural resources in our country. It is exceedingly important when it comes to developing and managing those resources, not just for the current generation but for generations of children and grandchildren yet to come, that we do so in a responsible manner, a manner that effectively balances our economic, social and environmental imperatives. The new fund proposed by the legislation will help us get there.

Fish Farming

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me first thank the members for Nanaimo—Alberni, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, South Shore, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, and Labrador for their interventions, for the input they have provided and for sharing their knowledge on this rather complex issue. I very much appreciate their interventions and what they said and I will comment briefly.

The member for Nanaimo—Alberni asked what I thought was a very relevant question: Why we are asking for funds to study something that is already being studied?

The member for Labrador just informed us that the process is in action. We will only be able to find the answer when we see the study publicly. The public has not yet seen the study, and neither have we. We are not in a position to determine whether the many interesting questions raised during the past hour are being dealt with in an appropriate manner in the departmental study.

With that kind of ignorance, so to say, we have to let the matter rest until the study is published. We sincerely hope the department and the government will publish it very soon.

As for the remarks by the hon. member for Rosemont—Petite-Prairie, he has raised as usual a deeply philosophical question. I agree with him that there is something of a paradox in fish farming, but the same could be said of government activities in all industries.

If we take for example government activity in the asbestos industry, in the lumber industry, or in agriculture, there is always a contradiction between activities on behalf of commercial interests and on behalf of those who want to protect the integrity of the environment.

Obviously, our task is to find solutions that protect all interests at the same time. This is not always feasible, but that is what is called sustainable development, and it is the subject matter of Bill C-4, which we will discuss in a few minutes.

The member for South Shore, who has displayed a tremendous amount of knowledge of the subject, recognizes the problem, and particularly with escapees. We are all happy to learn that in his experience and knowledge there is an inherent need to protect biodiversity.

I was struck by his conclusion, which was very apt, that the real culprit of the situation in which we may find ourselves with aquaculture is the overfishing of the wild stock to extinction.

The member from Sackville, in his usual incisive style, thinks there can be a co-existence between commercial fisheries and aquaculture provided of course that we take the necessary precautions for the long term, which is in essence the substance of this motion.

Business Of The House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer the Thursday question of the hon. opposition House leader.

This afternoon we will continue with the Bloc opposition day.

On Friday, tomorrow that is, we will debate second reading of Bill C-3 respecting Petro-Canada. Should that item conclude, I do not foresee calling any other business for tomorrow.

Next Monday we will debate Bill C-4 respecting the sustainable development foundation. This will be followed by Bill C-5, the species at risk bill.

Next Tuesday will be an allotted day.

Next Wednesday we will return to the species at risk bill that is to be started on Monday, or commence it if it was not begun at the earlier session I have just described.

On Thursday of next week at 10 a.m. there will be a special joint sitting of the Senate and House of Commons in the Commons Chamber to hear an address by the prime minister of Britain, the Right Hon. Tony Blair.

My present intention for Friday of next week is to call the marine liabilities bill.

Agriculture

[Howard Hilstrom, Canadian Alliance, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, tonight we are here, as was stated earlier, to talk about an agricultural policy. Actually what we are here talking about is the lack of any sensible agricultural policy on the part of the Liberal government.

Is there a crisis in agriculture in Canada? When we talk about the grains, oilseeds and corn producers and the Prince Edward Island potato producers, there is a darned serious crisis, a crisis that involves the very livelihood and social fabric of many communities in western Canada, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and in fact farmers in every province. Yes, this debate is necessary but it is not about agricultural policy, it is about a real crisis that is happening right now.

I would like to touch for a moment on the history of this crisis because this did not come up just tonight or last week. This came up five to ten years ago. The lack of policy from governments over the past 30 years, no long term strategy for agriculture and no willingness to change and evolve as agriculture needed to evolve and change over time, is what is missing and the reason we are in a crisis today.

In 1997 we had a bill called Bill C-4, the famous Canadian Wheat Board amendments bill. The Canadian Wheat Board was never changed to a voluntary wheat board the way it should have been so that farmers could go ahead and market their own grain and increase their incomes. Those who needed the services of the wheat board could still have availed themselves of it via a voluntary process. We would have had value added as the pasta producers were trying to do. It would not be obstructing the durum producers of southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba who want to form a durum cartel with their North Dakota neighbours.

The failure of this government is very evident in the bills that it has tried to put forward, which have continued the excessive regulation of the agriculture industry and have not freed it up. I will give a couple of examples in a few moments that will show that.

The other bill that really hurt farmers was Bill C-34. What did we get from that debacle and the two years of wasted time we spent on the Estey-Kroeger report bringing up all the good solutions on the rail transportation system and on how the transportation of our grain to the ports had to be a commercial contract based system? We got a whole bunch of regulations with no solution, big debates and disputes between the various entities on moving our grain to port.

We have tried over the course of the last two years to deal with agricultural issues. We have had emergency debates on agriculture income. We can look in Hansard . We have had supply days on agriculture income. We have had an emergency debate on the grain strike in Vancouver. A grain strike could happen again. It happened in Montreal. It hurts producers like the pulse producers who shift containers over.

The pulse industry is one of the bright spots on the prairies in that they are actually making money growing pulse crops. It is another example of what the government is not doing and certainly could be doing. Western farmers and Ontario farmers are producing pulse crops. The government is always talking about research, but it does very little in the way of pulse crop research. There is one researcher in Saskatoon who does a bit in this regard, but there are three full time researchers working on wheat.

The government is working with Monsanto to develop a GMO wheat and will still have wheat at the same value it is today. Wheat is sold right now for below the cost of production. Pulse producers could make a profit on what they produce, but they could use some federal government dollars to match up with their producer dollars to do research. Where is the government on that? It is not providing that matching dollar. It still wants to do research on canola and wheat. Its priorities are all wrong in that area.

I have just talked about the transportation issue briefly. They cannot guarantee their customers overseas in India and other places that they will have product delivered to them on time. That is another suggestion the government could work on. Final offer arbitration is good example that could be used to ensure that the containers are loaded on to the ships and shipped to the customers. The Estey-Kroeger report should have been implemented and it was not. That also hampers our reliability in delivering our products.

The government has let the crisis build and build. We have talked about solutions, but the only solution is to go with what farm groups are saying, that they need $1 billion over and above existing safety net programs. There has to be an immediate cash injection before spring seeding. That means right away. The government has agreed to the emergency debate and it has no choice but to implement an immediate cash injection.

The problem with the AIDA program and the new CFIP is that it leaves out the farmers in crisis: the grains, oilseed, corn and, as of late, soybean producers.

I know my colleagues in the farming business will certainly have heard, but did anyone else hear what happened to commodity prices yesterday? Did they go up or did they go down? We are talking of grain, wheat, canola and the other crops in crisis. The futures market is down on every blasted one of them. Very clearly that is the problem today.

Farmers need to get their crops in the ground. They need to be able to adjust to other crops. However, the problem is that when the government cut out all the subsidies, including the Crow rate, it never replaced them with a decent, predictable long term program that helped all farmers as opposed to just a few. AIDA seemed to help hog farmers, but it did not help farmers who were suffering from the longer term problem of low income over many years.

Let us talk about trade issues for a moment. The government seems intent on irritating the Americans at every turn. Lately North Dakota has seen fit to pass some legislation, or at least present it in the house, partly because of the agreement our government made with the United States two years ago when we were having problems with R-Calf, the cattle business issue that went back and forth in the west in particular. They had a 40 point agreement where they would sit down before trade disputes arose. Before a trade dispute arose, such as the Prince Edward Island potato issue, the government would get together with United States farmers and politicians and prevent trade action.

Now we see trade action happening with Brazil. Is that not an interesting little case? We have political debts being paid to Bombardier and the province of Quebec. In order to get back at Brazil in any sniping little way the governement could, the agriculture minister had to be involved because it involved an importation of beef from Brazil. That importation of beef was stopped because of political interference. It was not stopped because of any other issue. In the next couple of days we will see that ban lifted.

When our NAFTA neighbours, the United States and Mexico, see political interference on trade issues they will not be very happy with the government. I do not have the inside track on what they are telling the government, but I can say that the United States secretary of agriculture is no doubt phoning Ottawa to tell the Prime Minister to life the ban on beef because it is hurting trade between the Americas.

If the intent of the government is to irritate our trade partners, there is no hope for our farmers. It is too bad that the government was not thrown out in the election of November 27 because it has ruined agriculture and I see no solutions coming from over there.

Canada Foundation For Sustainable Development Technology Act

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)