Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on the opposition motion which I would like to read again into the record. It states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, or bind Canada to its emissions reduction quotas, since:
(a) Canada’s principal economic competitor, the United States, together with most of the world’s developing countries, would not be bound by the Protocol’s emission reduction quotas;
(b) ratification of the Protocol would impose massive costs on the Canadian economy and result in severe job loss; and
(c) the Kyoto Protocol would do little or nothing to benefit the environment.
Colleagues of mine have already addressed various aspects of this. I, as finance critic, have a particular concern about the enormous devastating, not potential but very real, and concrete economic consequences of this utopian scheme should it be imposed on our economy.
Sources, including the Government of Canada's own Department of Industry, the government of Alberta, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and various private sector and non-partisan think tanks have all made assessments of the cost to our economy at reducing emission targets as outlined in the Kyoto protocol. All agreed the cost would be massive to our economy. It could be as much as 5% of our gross domestic product, could result in as many as 400,000 jobs lost across the country, 70,000 alone in my province of Alberta, and would deal a crippling blow to our economy's efforts to become more productive and competitive.
In the past 10 years Canada has seen its relative ranking as a productive and competitive economy slide against those of other developed countries. If we were to ratify we would be giving a free pass to countries, including Mexico, our NAFTA partner, including the People's Republic of China, the largest major developing economy in the world, to continue emitting enormous pollutants through carbon emissions where they would not be bound to the targets included in this agreement.
Colleagues of mine have already addressed these issues and others will throughout the course of the day. I must say that I turn with some great interest to my friends in the Progressive Conservative Party. I understand that they intend to vote in support of this motion. I will be interested to see if they do so. If they do it will be totally contradictory to everything they have stated on the record as a matter of policy in this place and in federal politics since the Kyoto deal became an issue in 1997.
It is shocking of the environment critic of the Tory Party, and I hear one of the Tory members who was elected as an Alliance MP heckling. I hope she is uncomfortable with the fact that she now belongs to a party which has consistently for five years supported the economy destroying policy of Kyoto.
I do not invent this position. I have looked at all of the statements of that party's critic for the environment, and in fact its leader, and its previous leader. I will ask the Tory member for South Surrey--White Rock--Langley to listen to what her own environment critic has to say. At an environment committee meeting in 1997 he said “we need drastic initiatives or policy changes in order for us to get any hope for civilization by the year 2010”.
If there is to be any hope for civilization eight years from now we need drastic initiatives or policy changes. The member for Surrey South--White Rock--Langley, the environment critic, said that five years ago. The same member also said that Canada should still proceed with its own initiatives with respect to developing its own implementation program to meet the Kyoto objectives if the deal did not go through. What he said five years ago was that if Kyoto was not agreed to, which is still a possibility that 59 countries do not ratify it, Canada ought to proceed to getting to the 1990 targets by the year 2010 anyway.
His party signed on to the recommendations, of the environment committee in that year, whereas the official opposition at that time issued a dissenting report drawing on the excellent presentation before the House at that time by the then member for Calgary Southwest.
The Tory Party signed on to recommendations, including that the Prime Minister assume responsibility of implementing Canada's climate change commitment in Kyoto. It was very clear, in black and white. It included that Quebec tax expenditures and other subsidies to the fossil fuel industry be gradually eliminated. What was meant by that? Finally, the committee recommended that the federal government initiate a discussion and consultative process to ensure efficient and full implementation of the Canadian commitment at Kyoto.
That is the record. I turn to remarks the member made in 1998 in the House. Usually when he is expostulating his environmental scaremongering he does so in the relative obscurity of committee where he does not think that sensible people like those involved in the energy industry will see where his party stands. He said that he believed categorically in the science of climate change. Well, there is enormous evidence that there is no categorical, conclusive evidence on that front.