Bill C-311 (Historical)

Climate Change Accountability Act

An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change

Energy Efficiency Act

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. Unfortunately, we are no longer even looking at a made-in-USA/copied-by-Canada plan in response to greenhouse gas emissions. We are looking at even less than that when we look at the minimal energy efficient provisions that have come forward today in this bill. We are not even copying the United States of America any more. We are even taking a minimalist approach at the provisions that it is bringing forward.

I think it is absolutely incumbent upon the Government of Canada to set the stage. Right now, as I understand, in Bonn, the governments around the world are talking about what they are going to bring forward to Copenhagen at the end of the year. I would strongly recommend that the House consider approving Bill C-311 when it comes up for a vote on Wednesday. That would provide at least a made-in-Canada target for the next 40 years.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-311, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Climate Change Accountability Act

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-311, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, or as it is known, the climate change accountability act.

This is issue is very important to me as a Nova Scotian, as a Canadian and as a citizen of the world. A desire to see meaningful action on climate change is one of the reasons I decided to run for election, and it is one of the reasons I decided to run for the New Democratic Party, the party that first raised this issue in the House over 20 years ago.

That spirited advocacy on behalf of our planet continues today with the bill. I am pleased to see the bill returning to the House, after the endurance test that it faced in the last Parliament.

In my work with the Halifax Ecology Action Centre, we watched from a distance as Conservative filibustering at committee kept the first version, Bill C-377, in limbo, from December 11, 2007 to April 28, 2008. When that bill finally passed, I joined with thousands of other Canadians to celebrate in this world first, a victory for climate change and for Canada.

Bill C-311 would mandate the government to live up to Canada's obligations under international climate change agreements. These agreements are not merely suggestions, and governments are expected to have policies in place to bring them into compliance.

While the failures of governments for the last 15 years to deal with climate change are well documented, it must not be used as an excuse to do the minimum when faced with a crisis of this magnitude.

At this point in our nation's history, we are past the debate about whether climate change is real. We are past the debate about what causes it. We are nearly past the point of debate about how we should address it. There is consensus among the world's leading scientists, environmentalists and ordinary Canadians. We know we need targets for reducing greenhouse gases. We know those targets need to be science based and enforced by binding caps. We also know these measures need to be organized through a national emission trading regime.

The government has failed to act on each of these areas, but I am happy to say the bill would provide some real direction on climate change policy in Canada. The reduction targets in the bill are specified for the short, medium and long term, but with built in flexibility to adjust over time. Most important, as others have pointed out during the course of this debate, the bill would introduce legal certainty, as well as government accountability, something we have heard the government aspire to on so many occasions.

With targets set into law, Canada can finally make progress on an international obligation and our already germinating green economy can flourish and bloom.

Our country is filled with great minds who have already been tackling the climate change issue with innovative solutions, many of which I have had the opportunity to see first-hand in Nova Scotia. Industry recognizes that it must adapt or it will vanish, and it is taking steps to get where it should be. All it lacks is a partner in the federal government and some certainty that emission regulations will be predictable and stable.

The climate change accountability act does just that. It sets out these regulations in five year increments until 2050. It is legislation that is the first of its kind in our country and it deserves the support of the House.

Opposition to the bill from the government side has unfortunately relied on that tired argument that we can choose either the environment or the economy, but not both. Previous governments have been trying that one for quite some time and the result is a world that is even closer to catastrophic climate change and an economy that are both in shambles.

Now is the time when we should be taking stock of where we have been and where we want to go. Our twin crises, economic and environmental, can both be addressed with smart public policy that measures sustainability and prosperity with the same yardstick.

Therefore, why the same rhetoric about the economic cost of a bill that would finally take on climate change? There is really no excuse. The economic costs are significantly greater if we do not act now. For every moment that we waste, the greater cost will pass on to our children and our neighbours' children.

It calls to mind a novelty mug that my partner was given as a gift. It has this map of the world on it. When hot water is added, the shorelines change based on rising sea levels, thanks to a warming earth. Suddenly, Brazil is gone. It is bye-bye Bangladesh and so long Indonesia. By the time my tea is cold enough to drink, Nova Scotia has all but disappeared. This mug can get a chuckle out of our guests, but the sad fact is it is an accurate description of what we can expect to happen if emissions are allowed to grow unchecked. It is not a joke. We are only a few years away from a projected 2° temperature rise, after which we may be too late to halt some of the worst effects of the crisis.

In a column in the Halifax ChronicleHerald, Professor Sheila Zurbrigg describes the realities in much more compelling terms. I will quote from her article. She says:

The ultimate irony is that those least responsible for global warming will bear by far the most catastrophic consequences. Most [greenhouse gas] emissions (over 80 per cent) added to the atmosphere are ours, not theirs, and continue to come from the rich industrialized countries.

Yet the gravest outcomes the IPCC scientists warn about are to a considerable extent preventable. The necessary technology and energy-efficiency methods already exist that would allow us to make major GHG reductions right away. But only if we act immediately, intelligently, and together.

Professor Zurbrigg is a medical historian whose area of expertise is the history of famines. The last time she and I spoke, we talked about climate change. She looked me in the eye with such fear in her eyes. She said that a 2° increase would mean widespread, devastating famines unlike we had ever seen in the course of human history. She told me that we needed to act now or we would be unable the world's citizens.

Another signal that the time is right for this bill is the change of administration in the United States. The new President was elected, in part, because of his dramatically different vision for environmental policy. This shift represents a unique opportunity for Canada to act in concert with our largest trading partner.

I acknowledge my hon. colleague from Wetaskiwin who earlier commented about our partnership with the United States. Let us go further. While some states and provinces have gone forward with emission trading markets between themselves, Canada as a country has not acted to promote this sector. It is just one of the ways the bill could help steer our country in the right direction.

We must, as parliamentarians, as Canadians and as global citizens, support the bill. We need to be visionary, bold and innovative and we must act now before it is too late.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would like to thank the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North for bringing forward this bill.

I have had an opportunity very briefly to talk to the member. I know that he is serious, sincere, and committed in mobilizing every resource possible to deal with the serious issue of climate change. I know that he believes that in this bill, as his party does, that they are putting forward the mechanism that will challenge the government to in fact enunciate by setting targets a strategy that conforms with the Kyoto protocol, and that in fact will serve as a legacy for future generations.

In that statement of mission, I think that the member and his colleagues are to be congratulated because in that mission we should all very emphatically state that we support the objective. In fact, we can see that the science tells us irrefutably that climate change is going to be probably the most significant threat to civil society globally in the near future.

Even this morning, we were reminded of the juxtaposition of the towns and villages in Nova Scotia that would be affected with just a small temperature change. That cataclysmic effect will be felt around the globe. Therefore, the seriousness of the bill and its relevance to climate change cannot be denied.

However, there are other issues at this particular point we also should keep in mind. The government, through its members, has spoken very eloquently with respect to the most recent action plan statement as a stimulus menu of those areas through research, commercialization and technology and is starting to seriously confront climate change with a template for action.

I appreciate that there are those who doubt what the impact is going to be. In fact, as we look at the very near past many have said that the government de facto had said that we have withdrawn from the Kyoto commitment and others have said that we are the only country in the world to have signed on to the treaty to have unilaterally declared we will not use, for example, the 1990 baseline, or at worst, we will not even try to meet our targets.

That has been suggested and it will be for the government to have the opportunity to illustrate very clearly that it is not true. On this side, we hope it is not.

I just came from the natural resources committee where in a non-partisan way the committee is looking at part of a strategy to deal with climate change across the country from sea to sea to sea with what is called a comprehensive investment in technologies that will be integrated and that will seriously reduce the threat of climate change and contribution to the targets that Canada implicitly at least has said that it is dedicated to.

The members of the committee have been, I think, tremendously impressed with the engineering and practical implications that this has on the future economy in terms of creating jobs, in terms of creating high value added investments, and at the same time dealing with climate change. In other words, we are combining the most important ingredients of sustainable development, economic growth on the one hand, and meeting our environmental challenges together, and not one to sacrifice the other, but both together marching down and meeting our climate change targets.

The reason we are having a bit of difficulty with this bill is we have already been on record, through two acts that were designed as a template to deal with climate change.

Prior to Bill C-311, in its last sitting, this Parliament approved the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act and the Federal Sustainable Development Act, which are superior to this private member's bill. If they were seriously used as the template for the mission that has been the subject of Bill C-311, those two acts have within them the mechanisms to deal with the issues and to measure the accomplishments that we discussed at our natural resources committee.

The worst thing in any organization is to have a goal that is very complex in a very large country like ours, which is to achieve sustainable development in our climate change objectives, but never get the feedback and measure what we have accomplished. If we do not stand back every so often and take account of what is happening, then we have this doubting Thomas approach that nothing is being accomplished, which is not altogether true.

A careful reading of those two acts would show us that the opportunity for measurement is encompassed with them. This private member's bill has suggested that we should have periodic reports, with the baseline targets of 1990 and the target of 2050, from either through the Auditor General or through the round table on the economy and development. In fact, those mechanisms are being used under Federal Sustainable Development Act and the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.

I have sat on the environment committee when the Auditor General, for example, has reported department by department. She has reported on how the department has met its sustainable development objectives. The committee has an opportunity to suggest what remedial action is required.

At some point we try to separate the politics of environmental sustainability and our strategies to deal with climate change and accurately position us in a non-partisan way with respect to what our mission is and how we have been dedicated to it.

In bringing this bill forward, I know it was not the intent of the member to detract or add a political dimension to it. When we do not use the acts we have passed, which are affirmations of what we believe, then we place ourselves in the position where we may marginalize the issue because of the politics.

I know this is not what has been intended, but if the alternative course had been taken that there are shortcomings to the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act and the Federal Sustainable Development Act, they should have been the subject of the bill, not one that appears to transplant them.

At this point we will be observing very closely what is happening in Copenhagen with respect to establishing those targets and we will support those. However, this bill marginalizes the two acts that are already affirmations of the mission we have to deal with climate change.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to resume this debate, rise again here in this chamber, continue on with the good news that the Government of Canada has in regard to our environment, and obviously address Bill C-311. I will just be picking up where I left off last.

Through the ecoEnergy for renewable power program, the Government of Canada is investing $1.5 billion to provide incentives to increase Canada's supply of clean electricity from renewable sources such as wind, biomass, low impact hydro, geothermal, solar and ocean energy.

Through budget 2007, we established the trust fund for clean air and climate change which provided $1.5 billion to Canada's provinces and territories for projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their respective jurisdictions.

The Government of Canada knows that provincial and territorial governments are committed to taking action on climate change and that they control many of the important levers for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Our government continues to believe that it is legitimate and necessary to work with our partners in this and other ways to achieve our shared and common goals.

The government has already begun to catalyze investment in critical clean technologies in Canada. We began in budget 2007 by providing $500 million to Sustainable Development Technology Canada to enable projects that will spur the development of next generation renewable fuels.

More recently, through Canada's economic action plan, we are investing $1 billion in the research into and development and demonstration of promising technologies including large scale carbon capture and sequestration projects. These funds, under the clean energy fund, build on the $250 million invested to build the same technology through budget 2008.

I could not imagine resuming debate on a more profound day. Members will be delighted to know that March 26 is the day that my minister of energy in the province of Alberta, the hon. Mel Knight, is in Aspen, Colorado receiving the Aspen environment award on behalf of the Province of Alberta for the insightful and, shall I say, inspiring work that the Government of Alberta is doing through its $2 billion commitment in its previous budgets to move ahead on carbon capture and storage. This is a tremendous opportunity for Albertans. It is a tremendous opportunity for our country and I just want to congratulate my province and my minister on that.

Also, through Canada's economic action plan, we established the green infrastructure fund through which it will invest $1 billion in the construction of infrastructure across Canada that will both create jobs and growth in the short-term, and help us transform to a green economy through the long-term.

Canada's economic action plan also announced an investment of $300 million in the ecoEnergy for home retrofit program, which will support an additional 200,000 energy-saving home retrofits.

Our government has a great deal to be proud of in terms of the actions it has taken to address climate change since taking office in 2006, and with President Obama's recent visit to our country, we have opened a new and exciting chapter in those efforts.

It is not at all surprising that Canada would want to work closely with our greatest allies and trading partners on our southern border. Not only do our two countries share similar objectives in addressing climate change, but we are working from similar principles. In fact, our emission targets for 2020 are very closely aligned, though Canada's proposed reductions are in fact slightly deeper.

The Prime Minister and President Obama recently agreed to begin a clean energy dialogue that will see our two countries co-operate on several critical energy, science and technology issues. First, we will work to expand clean energy research and development by expanding collaboration on energy research related to advanced biofuels, clean engine technologies, energy efficiency, and a multitude of other areas.

The clean energy dialogue will also help us to develop and deploy clean energy technology. Carbon capture and sequestration technology holds enormous potential to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as we use our own energy resources to power our economy.

Canada and the United States will co-ordinate research and demonstrations of the technology at coal-fired plants, building on our experience with the North Dakota-Weyburn project. This will help accelerate private sector investment in commercial scale, near-zero-carbon coal facilities to promote climate and energy security.

Last, we will seek to build a more efficient electricity grid based on clean and renewable generation. Our countries have significant expertise to share with one another on things like smart grid technologies. By investing in new transmission options, we will make electricity delivery more reliable, help avoid blackouts, promote energy efficiency, and increase the supply of renewable power.

In conclusion, this government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment, understands the critical nature of the needs to address climate change. We are implementing a number of responsible domestic initiatives to help reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions, while acknowledging that climate change is a problem that does not respect national boundaries. To this end, we are working with our partners in the United States, as well as within the broader international community, on solutions that will benefit us all.

The House resumed from March 4 consideration of the motion that Bill C-311, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Environmental Enforcement Act

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the comments by the hon. member for Yukon and I share his love of the north. I had the pleasure of living and working in Yukon for three years. I share his concern with what will happen to the way of life up there because of the lack of action in addressing climate change.

I, therefore, put the same question for the hon. member. Will he be supporting the private member's bill, Bill C-311, so that we may actually hold the government accountable for the next actions necessary to address climate change?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is really important to look at Bill C-311. It is important that Canada gets this right, that we look at the reductions in emissions. Do we go back to Kyoto? Do we get ahead of what is being done internationally? It is an incredibly important bill and it has to be looked at very carefully.

We as a country have to get this right. We have to get it right for our people. We have to get it right for our various sectors. We have to get it right for agriculture, for forestry.

We are already seeing tremendous changes here in Canada. For example, our Great Lakes levels are going down. We have increasing drought on the Prairies. We have shifting migration in fish. We are seeing an increase in heat waves, for example. Currently, about 200 people die each summer as a result of heat waves. By 2050, 1,200 people may die as a result of a heat in Toronto alone.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the question again. If the hon. member firmly believes in the need for binding regulations and binding laws, so that we can actually have laws enforced, will she stand and vote in favour of Bill C-311, which actually provides for accountability of the government in delivering a prescribed agenda for climate change?

Climate Change Accountability Act

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, the government's many concerns about the economic implications and potential unconstitutionality of Bill C-311 have already been brought to the attention of the House.

I would now like to comment on the action that the government is taking to reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions, including working with the United States on a clean energy dialogue. Canada is also committed to working within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change towards a post-2012 implementation on global emission reductions, but it is Canada's domestic and continental efforts on which I will focus my comments.

Unlike the Liberals, who had 13 or so years to work on this issue and did virtually nothing, our government is committed to stopping the increase in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and then dramatically reducing them. We have established a national target of an absolute reduction of 20% in greenhouse gases, relative to 2006 levels, by the year 2020. By 2050, Canada's emissions will be 60% to 70% below 2006 levels. This government has also established a target that, by 2020, 90% of our electricity will come from non-emitting sources.

While Bill C-311 would impose a long-term emissions reduction target that goes far deeper than anything proposed by the global community, our target would bring Canada in line with the accepted requirement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while striking the necessary balance between environmental and economic progress, as opposed to the economic evisceration of the Canadian economy, which is what the NDP is proposing to do through this bill.

Our government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial sector through regulations and is continuing to develop the regulatory regime. It will be the product of significant consultation, including the provinces, territories, industry stakeholders, and environmental non-governmental organizations. These industrial regulations will require mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and will also create the incentives for development and deployment of new technologies such as carbon capture and storage, which will result in significant emissions reductions over time.

In addition, this government is using its regulatory authorities to increase renewable fuel content in gasoline and to strengthen the energy efficiency of a wide variety of products.

Through this government's suite of eco-action programs, we will drive emissions reductions beyond the industrial sectors of our economy. Eco-action investments cover a range of sectors and activities, including renewable power, home retrofitting, and commercial transportation.

For example, through the eco-energy for renewable power program, the government is investing $1.5 billion to provide incentives to increase Canada's supply of clean electricity from renewable sources such as wind, biomass, low-impact hydro, geothermal, solar—

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today in support of Bill C-311 introduced by my hon. colleague. I wish to thank the hon. member who spoke before me for his very cogent and knowledgeable comments. Obviously, he has been working on the file a long time, and we appreciate his support.

Canada ratified the Kyoto protocol in December 2002 and it came into legal effect in February 2005. As a consequence, Canada is now legally obligated to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 6% below 1990 levels by 2012. The next targets are being negotiated as we speak here in the House. We are into a countdown to Copenhagen. It is necessary for the members in this House to wake up and realize that we must develop a position that Canadians will support taking to Copenhagen. We are informed by leading scientists that these targets may now be overly conservative, that more substantial reductions, and sooner, may be necessary to prevent, or at least mitigate, catastrophic climate change impacts.

In Canada international obligations must be implemented through domestic law. Regrettably, to date the government has rejected science-based reduction targets, failed to establish legally binding caps, failed to enact any national emission trading regime, and relied on and invested dollars in unproven and costly technology of minimal practical worth to actually reduce greenhouse gases.

In addition, at the past two international conferences of the parties, Canada chose to block progress toward urgent action on science-based targets. But it is not too late to change course, as my previous leader was wont to say, to join forces with progressive nations committed to serious credible action and to do our part to address climate change.

If we are truly to be in sync with the Obama administration's groundbreaking environmental agenda, if we are going to ensure our industries a competitive edge in producing and exporting clean energy, if we are going to provide a level playing field for all generators of energy, both fossil fuel and renewable sectors, if we want Canadian industries to benefit from a continental emission trading regime, then this Parliament must support the passage of Bill C-311. The substance of the bill already received the support of the majority of votes in the last Parliament, which incidentally included the Liberal Party.

The definition of a democracy is straightforward. To qualify as a democracy, the nation must agree to abide by the rule of law. The rule of law means that those who make the rules are democratically elected. They enact laws to govern the affairs of the nation. Those laws are committed to and enforced, which is a refreshing concept in this House.

Why is this important to climate change? The Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, which the Liberals are proud of, was enacted by Parliament in 2007 and prescribes in law the requirement to comply with the Kyoto targets by 2012. To date the government has refused to enforce that law despite its purported support of and strong commitment to enforcement of environmental laws. That is a law on the books. So much for its commitment.

Bill C-311 imposes a positive legal obligation on the Government of Canada to take action to meet specified reduction targets in the mid and long term, targets which can be revised over time based on science. It removes the current unlimited discretion to delay action. The bill introduces both legal certainty and government accountability, something the government professes to stand by.

At the same time it allows for flexibility in measures used by industry and government alike to meet the targets. It requires reports on compliance by the minister and the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

Why is this important? Legislative or regulatory measures have been proven empirically to be the most effective mechanism to trigger new investment in environmental technologies. Twenty years of reliance on voluntary measures, as my hon. colleague mentioned earlier, and subsidies to fossil fuels have given us monumental increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Binding targets with prescribed compliance dates provide advance notice and clear price signals to the current and future cost of carbon. It prescribes directions for Canada's position in international and bilateral climate negotiations and dialogues, including the dialogue going on now with the United States of America.

The economic crisis has fostered economic uncertainty. Legal certainty is needed to give industry a secure footing for recovery and to attract investment. This is backed by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who stated at the United Nations' COP 14:

We also urgently need a deal on climate change to provide the political, legal, and economic framework to unleash a sustained wave of investment. In short, our response to the economic crisis must advance climate goals, and our response to the climate crisis will advance economic and social goals.

The United States has announced its intent to move forward on a hard cap and a North American emission trading system. They have committed $76 billion to renewable technologies, close to 100 times more than the investment by the government. The government's 2007 plan provides less stringent intensity-based targets, and budgets no new funds to incent renewable energy sources, despite an oversubscribed, successful program from an enthusiastic and burgeoning Canadian clean energy sector.

Billions of Canadian tax dollars will be redirected to subsidize experiments by the fossil fuel industry, with a vague promise to consider regulatory caps post-2020.

The government has refused to support the International Renewable Energy Agency, the recognized global forum for advancing technology for renewable energy. Bill C-311 gives the government a credible backbone for our role in the Canada-U.S. energy and climate change dialogue. It provides a credible action plan that Canadians support.

Current polls tell us that the majority of Canadians still want action on the environment. Canadians know that our environmental and economic crises are best addressed in tandem. In fact, 57% of Canadians support federal action on climate change even if it means a higher deficit.

By supporting Bill C-311, Parliament can finally show leadership. It provides the clear signal to our trading partners that we are committed to genuine engagement in global and bilateral action. It sends a new, positive message to the world that we are finally taking action to deliver on our international obligations to address climate change and forge a greener economy.

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

Madam Speaker, I am very happy to speak today about Bill C-311. I have to say that I am very surprised at the Liberal Party's position this evening.

It will be interesting to reread the speech given by my colleague, the Liberal environment critic. It is quite a change from past Liberal positions on the fight against climate change. I remember debates on the Liberal bill, Bill C-288, when the opposition was in agreement that greenhouse gas reduction targets should be established. I remember debates on air quality when we also agreed on setting targets.

Basically, that is the goal of Bill C-311, which is before us today. The preamble to the bill clearly states that temperatures must not be allowed to increase more than two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period. That is the key part of this bill. The scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change propose and recommend that the increase in temperatures be limited to two degrees over the pre-industrial period.

It is the only way to avoid major climate change. It is the only way to avoid the worst case scenario. How do we translate this scientific objective into tangible results? By adopting short-, medium- and long-term reduction targets, as proposed by Bill C-311. Experts say that to limit the increase to two degrees, we have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 25% to 40% below the 1990 lby 2020. The following is found on page 3 of Bill C-311:

—25% below the 1990 level by the year 2020—

Some members of this house have said that targets are not important. On the contrary, this flows directly from a recommendation made by recipients of the Nobel Prize. It is the only way to reduce emissions and to avoid the worst case scenario in future.

We like this bill because, unlike the government's proposal, it establishes 1990 as the reference year, as provided by the Kyoto protocol. We are pleased that this reference year is mentioned in the definitions on page 3 of the bill and in the undertakings because, among other things, it acknowledges the efforts made by Quebec companies in the past. In recent years, they have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by almost 10% compared to 1990. With 1990 as the reference year, we can take into consideration reductions made by Quebec companies. That would allow us to apply the polluter-pays principle rather than the polluter-paid principle. The government prefers to use 2006 as the reference year simply because it wants to reset the clock.

They would not want to take into consideration the greenhouse gas emissions over the past 16 years, that is from 1990 to 2006. It is not true that Quebec will accept that, for it has made efforts, some of its industries have made efforts to change their industrial procedures, because Quebec—along with others, such as Manitoba—has decided to put in place greenhouse gas reduction measures, because it has made efforts already. We hope that these efforts will be recognized by the government, and that is exactly what Bill C-311 does.

What is more, the bill proposes absolute greenhouse gas reduction targets, not intensity targets as the Conservative government recently proposed in its plan. When I compare the plans presented by the Conservatives with those presented by the Liberals in recent years, it is nothing more than cut and paste. One can see that since the Liberal party changed leaders, there has been a blurring of the lines between the Liberals and the Conservatives. This is a problem, and a very fundamental one, since it is going to weaken Canada's position internationally when the time comes for the post-Kyoto agreement to be negotiated in December 2009 in Copenhagen. We will have a government trying to water down the international agreements on the fight against climate change, with the backing of the official opposition. That is absolutely unacceptable.

Steps must be taken, therefore, to keep that opposition party from backing up the party in power. This is what we have been seeing in recent weeks, and it is a source of concern.

What is more, one of the interesting points in the bill we have before us is subsection 7(2), which reads:

—each province may take any measure that it considers appropriate to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

That means that the bill supports the idea of provinces implementing their own greenhouse gas emissions reduction plans, agreeing among themselves about how to apportion the targets and using different approaches to meet those targets. That is the European model.

I was in Kyoto in 1997. I was there when Europe proposed an 8% greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to the international community. Europe reached agreements with its partners, with sovereign nations, about how much each EU member nation would have to contribute. The model is an interesting one, one that is the basis of the bill before us, and it would enable Canada to go back to the international community with a better greenhouse gas reduction record than it has had up to now. Why? Because it would recognize that Quebec's energy policy is not the same as the rest of Canada's. By bringing in a territorial approach, we could optimize every dollar invested in the fight against climate change. It seems to me that the government should be able to understand an approach that involves optimizing public investments.

We will support this bill. However, I have to say that I am disappointed. Of course, the Liberal Party will support the bill, but we need firmer resolve on the part of the official opposition to make sure that, when we go to Copenhagen next December, we will have a bill that represents a broad consensus here in the House. I hope that the Liberal Party will be firmer and more determined when this bill goes to committee.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate tonight on Bill C-311. The bill has been reintroduced under a new MP, a bill that was put forward in the last Parliament by the leader of the NDP. As such, it really has no material changes compared to its predecessor bill.

Before pronouncing on the bill, I want to take a few minutes to talk a bit about where we are now nationally with respect to this climate change crisis.

In the last three and a half years, I think it would be fair and objective to describe the government's performance as varied, at best. We really do not know any more where the government stands on the climate change challenge.

Just a year and a half ago the predecessor minister of the environment announced to the country and all the industries that operated their businesses that there would be, for example, no international trading. Yet the new Minister of the Environment says that apparently we will join the United States in a cap and trade system, as if the United States has even invited us to join.

The Government of Canada has said, de facto, that we have withdrawn from the Kyoto protocol. We are the only country in the world to have signed this treaty to have unilaterally declared we will not use, for example, 1990 as the baseline year or, worse, we will not even try to meet our targets.

In 2007 we saw a new plan emerge, the so-called made in Canada plan, called “Turning the Corner”. We have seen no regulatory text in the country yet. It is apparently supposed to come on January 1, 2010. The problem is the 11 independent groups, not political parties, but third-party groups, left-wing groups like the C.D. Howe Institute, that have looked at the government's plan have said that its plan cannot possibly achieve the reductions it claims it will achieve.

Right now I think we are in a situation of great flux. There are some, for example, in the NGO movement that declare the bill is the right text, or it is reaffirming the science of climate change and the need to take an evidentiary approach to setting targets. I agree with that claim.

Others in the NGO sector are telling the official opposition that, on the contrary, we do not need to be fixated any more on targets. What we need to do is develop a robust plan in Parliament like we tried to do with the government's failed clean air act when it was rewritten in a special parliamentary committee, a clean air act that was inspired completely by the clean air act efforts of the former Republican administration in Washington.

Now we have a big change. The Democratic government in Washington and the new President are using 2005, so far, as the baseline year. They are saying that the Americans will reduce their emissions by 14% from 2005, effectively meaning we are going back to 1990 levels of U.S. emissions by 2020.

The government says that this is in line with its targets, that its targets are yet more advanced, more ambitious than the American targets. The problem is we are talking apples and oranges because the government is talking intensity targets and the United States is talking about absolute cuts.

Recently President Obama went to Congress, 535 members strong, and asked it to deliver a comprehensive cap and trade scheme, along with renewable energy strategies for the United States.

Right now in the 110th Congress, there are at least 10 different cap and trade schemes on the floor of Congress, not 1 or 2, but 10. The United States is proposing a massive auction of permits to raise up to $80 billion by 2012, $15 billion of which is go to renewable energy and $60 billion for tax credits for modest-income Americans.

The United States is warning its citizenry that the cap and trade system it intends to bring in will have a profound effect on energy pricing. It will, to use the words of the Conservative Party, increase the price of everything, that unfortunate and infantile advertising claim the government used in the last election campaign to the detriment of the understanding of the Canadian people on the need to act now on the climate change crisis.

We have a situation where everything appears to be in flux. We found that the vast majority of the powers and the reporting provisions in Bill C-311 were already law as a result of the two Liberal private members' bills passed by the last Parliament: first, the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act; and second, the Federal Sustainable Development Act.

We also know that medium and long-term targets will be set internationally at a United Nations conference culminating in Copenhagen this December.

What troubles the official opposition about this bill is it does prejudge the outcome of those negotiations. However, we have no idea in this Parliament where those negotiations are. Nothing has been disclosed at committee or in the House. We do not know if Canada is effectively still participating in the post-2012 world of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Having abandoned the Kyoto protocol, I am not even sure how Canada can come to the negotiating table with clean hands, as they say in international law, and purport to put forward a position to be received by 170-plus countries that have signed the deal.

What concerns us as well on this side is if the NDP were really serious about improving Canada's climate change laws, would it not be seeking to amend the existing Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, extending it beyond 2012, for example? All the regulatory standards that we would like to see and the powers that might or should accrue to a government to follow through on these commitments are there. I see in the bill so far nothing that is conferred to a government, which it needs in order to move forward on the climate change challenge.

Other than enunciating medium and long-term targets, Bill C-311 contains very few provisions, as I said, that are not already under the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act. For example, 90% of the wording in the bill is word for word the same as those already granted by the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.

Similarly, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy is already required, under the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, to review the programs undertaken by the federal government to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets and to report on the effectiveness of the measures and to report to Canadians on how well things are going, or are not going.

There is an awful lot of overlap. There is also an awful lot of factors in play.

However, in my view it is important to take this issue further. It is important to take the bill further. It is important to have a close examination of its amendability, for example. Because the situation is so much in flux, because we are waiting to a certain extent, unfortunately, for Washington, because we have no climate change plan from the Conservative government, it is our position that the bill requires more analysis and more examination as we go forward.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by summarizing the key elements of Bill C-311, then I will outline the reasons why the government opposes the bill.

Bill C-311 is clearly both bad law and bad policy. Its implementation would have significant negative implications on the Canadian economy, impose unrealistic and impractical timelines, and may in fact be unconstitutional.

Bill C-311 would create an obligation on the Government of Canada to ensure Canadian greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to 25% below the 1990 level by 2020 and to 80% below the 1990 level by 2050.

The bill would also oblige the Minister of the Environment to establish an emissions target plan for every five year period from 2015 to 2045, and to put in place regulations and other actions to ensure that these targets are achieved.

The bill calls on the government to have regulations in place as early as December of this year designed to meet the 2015 target. Members of the House who are familiar with the regulatory process know the problems associated with that unrealistic timeframe.

Quite simply, this is completely unrealistic and shows that the NDP is more interested in political grandstanding than in finding real solutions to deal with the fight against climate change.

Unlike the party opposite, our government has been clear on the need to strike a balance between environmental and economic progress. Our approach to addressing climate change will achieve that balance.

We are committed to stopping the increase in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and then dramatically reducing them. We established a national target of an absolute 20% reduction in greenhouse gases, relative to 2006 levels, by 2020. By 2050 Canada's emissions will be 60% to 70% below 2006 levels. The government has also established a target that by 2020, 90% of our electricity will come from non-emitting sources. These are the toughest targets in Canadian history and some of the toughest targets in the world.

At the same time we are helping Canadians reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through programs such as the ecoEnergy for renewable power program, the trust fund for clean air and climate change, and supporting investment into research, development and demonstration of promising technologies, including large scale projects like carbon capture and storage. In fact, we are one of the world leaders on that technology.

Bill C-311 on the other hand does not endeavour to strike such a balance. When an identical bill, Bill C-377, was introduced in the last Parliament by the leader of the NDP, he admitted that he had made no attempt to calculate how much economic damage his bill would do to the Canadian economy. In fact, he called his bill the impossible dream.

Further, the massive costs would also have to be borne at a time when Canada's economy is under severe pressure as a result of the global economic downturn. Bill C-311 would impose a massive new burden on industries that are already facing very difficult and serious times.

It is clear that the NDP do not believe it is necessary to consider changing course slightly, despite the economic realities that we face. The NDP has learned nothing from its power in Ontario under the leadership of the member for Toronto Centre where the NDP policies led to record high levels of debt and unemployment.

Our assessment of Bill C-288, the Kyoto implementation act, an act with requirements that are quite similar to those in Bill C-311, suggest that an attempt to meet our Kyoto targets within the 2008 to 2012 period would result in a drop in GDP of 4%.

Given that the proposed 2020 target under Bill C-311 is significantly deeper than under the Kyoto protocol, of 25% below 1990 levels as opposed to the 6% below 1990 levels under the Kyoto protocol, the conclusion of massive, negative economic impacts reached under the KPIA analysis would also apply to Bill C-311.

Bill C-311 creates an economic uncertainty by suggesting that Canada should maintain a domestic policy and an international policy negotiating position based on the UNFCCC ultimate objectives immediately after royal assent of the bill.

There is uncertainty around the UNFCCC's ultimate objectives and the bill does not define what a responsible Canadian contribution is or indicate how it can be determined.

Bill C-311 compounds this uncertainty by asking Canada to take a radically different approach to climate change than our most important economic partner.

Do the sponsors of the bill really believe we can turn our back on the possibility of a coherent, co-operative North American climate change strategy in partnership with the President Obama administration? I think not.

The government must be able to fully represent Canada's economic interests and unique circumstances in international negotiations, including with the administration of President Obama.

I would now like to bring to the attention of the House the serious concerns we have over the constitutional aspects of the bill. Last year in discussion on Bill C-377, the predecessor of Bill C-311, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development heard testimony by respected lawyers as to their concern over the constitutionality of clauses that remain in Bill C-311. The primary concern remains whether the bill's authorities are soundly based on the peace, order and good government head of power.

Joseph Castrilli, counsel for Canadian Environmental Law Association said:

Peace, order, and good government would appear to be less likely to find favour with the Supreme Court as a basis for upholding the constitutionality of the regulatory limits authority of Bill C-377 under any circumstances because of the potential for major impact on provincial jurisdiction to act in a host of areas.

That remains in Bill C-311.

Mr. Castrilli went on to say that the bill was also unlikely to be upheld under the federal government's authority over criminal law because the law was not specific about the characteristics of the regimes contemplated or the actual substances to be addressed leaving this detail to the regulations.

Amendments of the bill were passed in the House of Commons to specify which substances the bill would consider, but there is much doubt as to whether these amendments were sufficient to address Mr. Castrilli's concerns, particularly against jurisdiction of the provinces.

Peter Hogg, professor emeritus and former dean of Osgoode Hall Law School of York University stated in his testimony that the bill would not be upheld under the federal government's peace order and good government authority or its jurisdiction under criminal law.

With respect to peace, order and government, Professor Hogg expressed concern over the lack of direction provided by the bill to the Governor-in-Council with respect to its regulation making power. Professor Hogg indicated the regulation making authority of the bill, as first introduced, was so broad as to potentially reach into every area of Canadian economic and social life.

I would like to reiterate the Government of Canada's opposition to Bill C-311.

We are working diligently to promote domestic, continental and international action to ensure lasting greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Our approach is a balanced approach, an approach that will see Canada's greenhouse gases decline, while protecting our economy and the standard of living of the Canadian people. Our plan includes billions of dollars for technology, technology like carbon capture and storage, working with the United States, and the world is counting on us to work together. We are doing that through the clean energy dialogue with President Obama and our Prime Minister.

Therefore, I encourage the member to remove the bill or vote against his own bill because the bill will take us in a direction that would be bad for Canada, it would be bad for Canadian jobs and it would be bad for the environment.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-311 is very straightforward. It sets science-based targets. It requires the government to publish a plan. It would ensure that the government has the tools to meet those targets and accomplish its plan. Therefore, the cost will depend on the measures chosen by the government in the plan.

This sets the direction we need to go and gives total flexibility on how we do it. For example, I hope that the Conservatives hope carbon capture technology will work. We do not know if it will work and it certainly cannot be the only tool in our toolkit, but if it works, more power to us. We must set the targets now so we know where we need to go by certain set dates between now and then or we are never going to get there.