Bob Mills

[Government of Canada, November 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this past week in the riding has been a new experience for me, even though I have been an MP since 1993.

I attended five remembrance services at which both young and old paid tribute to those men and women who paid the maximum price for our freedom.

The level of true appreciation for their sacrifices has never been stronger, but at every event I attended, the message I received was the same. My constituents are embarrassed and ashamed at the Liberal arrogance and disrespect they see. The fact that the Liberal government of the present Prime Minister takes no responsibility for the ad scam deception and scandal has shocked them. They are frustrated that the man who has bragged about being second in command, budget balancer, senior member from Quebec, vice-chair of the Treasury Board, and finance minister can say with a straight face that he knew nothing, saw nothing and heard nothing.

They find it inconceivable that this is possible and as a result want him removed immediately from power. My constituents, to the last person, say it is time the Prime Minister should go.

[The Environment, November 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is not a matter of our party not understanding that climate change is a problem, the Kyoto strategy is totally in shambles.

The environment minister is fighting with his counterparts in Quebec and Alberta about compliance. Mr. Tony Blair this week told him to his face that in fact he is very uneasy about the hard targets that have been set. Now he is going to host the world while our CO

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emissions skyrocket and he fiddles without a workable plan.

When will the minister admit to Canadians that in fact it is impossible for Canada--

[The Environment, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, after 12 years at the top and 30 years in total, Gwyn Morgan has announced he will be stepping down as chief executive officer of EnCana Corporation.

Gwyn took Alberta Energy, merged it with Pan-Canadian and made EnCana the second largest capitalized company in Canada. On this, Alberta's 100th birthday, Gwyn represents the true Alberta entrepreneurial spirit.

As the environment critic, one would probably wonder why I would be paying tribute to this industry leader. Let me tell the House that I have had the opportunity to consult with Gwyn and the opportunity to work with him and learn from him regarding an environmental vision for the country.

Gwyn knows caring for the environment is good, not only for the environment but for business too. Today's business leaders could learn a lot from a guy like Gwyn Morgan.

Good luck to Gwyn in his retirement. I am sure Canadians will be hearing more from him in the future.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question gives me an opportunity to explain to him and this House again why supporting Kyoto is just a pipe dream, why it is not going to achieve any of the things that he supposes it might.

I should remind him as well that it was the Liberal government that last week decided not to close the coal fired power plants. I would like to explain to him again as simply as I can that Kyoto is about greenhouse gases, largely CO

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. CO

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is not part of pollution. It is not part of smog days. Smog is caused by sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide, particulate matter and surface ozone. That is what smog is. If every country in the world signed on to Kyoto and lived up to Kyoto, it would not change the smog issue very much because it is not targeting the right thing.

The bureaucracy of the whole Kyoto protocol is what the problem is. The problem as well is that the U.S., China and India are not part of this whole program.

I am glad he brought up coal because coal is pretty interesting. What would we do? We would promote the gasification of coal, technology that is 60 years old that is being used in other places and that is being really promoted in the U.S. Think if we developed that technology and became world leaders. We have enough coal in Canada to last us several hundred years. The Americans have approximately 1,500 years' supply of coal. Think about gasifying that.

Right now, if we developed that technology and could promote that technology, think of what we would do. Some 81% of China's electricity comes from coal; 78% of India's electricity comes from coal; 57% of the United States' energy comes from coal; 25% of Ontario's energy comes from coal; 70% of Alberta's energy comes from coal. Think if we developed the technology how much better it would be to market that technology around the world than it would be to send money to foreign countries so that they can develop the technology and compete with us.

How does that make any sense at all, sending money offshore when we could develop it and use a made in Canada development of technology? That is why we oppose it, because it is not going to accomplish the targets. We will not hit our targets and neither will most other countries signing on to Kyoto.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I was certainly pleased to hear the member's speech. I would like to bring the member up to date on some other facts, because he gave us many facts. I will start with 12 or 14 years ago when we became involved in what are real problems for this country. That of course was the serious debt that the country was getting into.

I remind him that in 1969 we had zero debt. Under Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Chrétien, who were then the prime minister and the finance minister, it went to $18 billion by 1971. By 1984 it was up to $170 billion to $180 billion. From there it went up to $480 billion by 1993. Of course today it is at $530 billion. Basically, some $40 billion a year is spent simply on interest payments.

That is what concerned us. That is why we came here. Our philosophy was to leave money in people's pockets, let them spend it with less government, less bureaucracy. That was the philosophical reason behind why we came here.

Of course, we came to a tax and spend Liberal government and that has not changed. The fiscal recklessness of that party is only demonstrated by Bill C-48, the Buzz Hargrove budget, where $4.6 billion was spent to buy 19 votes in a hotel room in Toronto.

My constituents are seniors and low income single moms who have to pay their income tax. They are farmers who have the lowest grain prices they have had for many years. They are young farmers who are losing their farms because they cannot make their mortgage payments because of the cattle crisis. Imagine what they think about this hotel room budget drawn up on a serviette. Really it is a blank cheque.

I remind the NDP and the Liberals that is the way to get sponsorship, to get ad scam, the way to get Shawinigate, the HRDC boondoggle and the gun registry, the nine foundations where money has been socked away unaccounted for and not audited. That is how to get a blank cheque which is what we have received from this. There are few details. There is no accountability. Certainly from my perspective and from my constituents' perspective, this is a disgrace.

As far as the environment is concerned, there is $900 million budgeted and $800 million for rapid transit. Obviously we think that is a worthwhile project. We would like to see some details, however. We would like to know how that is going to be invested, how it is going to be accounted for, and how we are not going to lose it all in bureaucracy. As far as the $100 million that environment gets, again I am sure that the Liberals will find a way to dispose of that with no business plan, no vision and really no long term planning.

What else has the government done? The last speaker talked about how great we are and how we are leaders in so many areas. Let me mention a few examples, and I hope the member has his pen in hand so he can take notes on this. As the critic for the environment, I feel it is my job to read into the record some of the statistics for the member's benefit. He and I have been here quite a while now, he for much longer than I have, but he would be interested in this.

In terms of sulphur dioxide, the OECD rates us 27th in terms of our release per capita out of 28 countries. For nitrous oxide, we are 25th out of 28. For volatile organic compounds, we are 25th out of 26 analyzed. Does that possibly let the member know why we have a record number of smog days in Toronto, Ottawa and many other cities? If he looked at those figures, he would see that we are at the bottom or within one position of the bottom. For carbon monoxide, we are 26th out of 27. For greenhouse gas emissions, we are 27th out of 29. For water consumption, we are 28th out of 29.

I will try to go a little slower so the member can get all of this down. In terms of energy consumption, Canada is 27th out of 29. For energy efficiency, we are 28th out of 29. In terms of recycling glass and paper, we are 23rd out of 27. For hazardous waste production, we are 24th out of 27. For nuclear waste and storage, we are 28th out of 28. For consumption of ozone and ozone depleting substances, we are 13th out of 16 analyzed. For fertilizer use, we are 25th out of 28. For the volume of fish caught, kilogram per capita, we are 20th out of 28. For forest consumption in cubic metres per capita, we are 27th out of 29.

Members can see that this country is at the bottom in terms of environmental rating. That is not the kind of stewardship that I think the member would like to brag about. Obviously he decided to ignore some of those figures in his comments when he was bragging about where we were at.

Again I come back to the taxpayers who are asking, “What is happening? What is the government doing? How can it come up with a budget of $4.6 billion after it has already come out with a budget of $170 billion plus? How can it do that?” It is strictly politics. The Liberals are playing politics with our country.

Members who have travelled very much can see that when they go to other countries. They see how our influence is declining. We are not able to maintain the status we used to have largely because the government has lacked vision. It has lacked a vision of where we are going. There is no plan. There are no details. The government has no direction.

As a result, while the last speaker said that our country is a great success story, I would put forward from an environmental perspective that it is anything but that. Actually, we have a long way to go. When we talk about it, we should put some options forward.

What would the Conservatives do? I have elaborated a number of times in the House on some of the things we would deal with. We would deal with a clean air plan. That would deal with all of the products that are producing the pollution and smog that is infecting our cities and causing health problems for so many of our seniors and young people.

We would deal with the water. We would map our aquifers and deal with how our water exchange is occurring. We would plan with the provinces just how to deal with that. We would deal with the cross-border issues. Whether it is the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, Devils Lake or the Fraser Valley and the Sumas River, we would deal with those as issues and we would have a plan. The environment takes long term planning.

In terms of soil, we have contaminated sites. Just about every municipality has brownfields, such as a street corner where a service station used to be but which closed long ago. Services pass and the municipality gets no taxes from that area. If we really want to help municipalities, we can help them find solutions to clean up those brownfields.

Along with that, of course, there is conservation. There is preservation of our watersheds. That becomes most pertinent when we look at some of the flooding and so on that is occurring today.

Finally, we need to deal with energy. We need to deal with how we are going to protect our present fossil fuel industries in the long term, how we are going to develop conservation, transitional fuels, alternate energy and all those exciting areas we can get into.

Above all, it takes vision. It takes a plan. I say that Bill C-48 is an example of no plan, no direction and is considered to be totally despicable by the constituents in my riding.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I am just repeating what I hear in my constituency about this kind of deal. I represent my constituents. That is in fact what they call those people.

I will just give an example of malt barley, if I may, and of what the hon. member across the way and our agriculture critic were talking about. Today, malt barley in Alberta, where I come from, is $2.45 a bushel. In Ontario, it is $4.50 a bushel if it is low grade and $5.50 for the top grade. It cannot be found in Ontario.

It would cost about $1 to ship a bushel of barley from Alberta to Ontario to fill that market, but we cannot do that. When asked why we cannot do that and why the price is so low, the answer from the barley buyers down here is that we have such a socialist system in the Canadian Wheat Board. It does not apply to the Ontario farmer, but it does to the prairie farmer. I wonder what the minister or rather the member thinks of that; she should be the minister.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting to listen to the NDP blackmailers talk about their concern for agriculture, because they did not negotiate anything for agriculture in their NDP budget. Let me give an example from my constituency--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, regarding the plan, yes, we have an extremely detailed plan and it will be part of our policy, but we do not trust the Liberals as the NDP do.

The Liberals will steal whatever they can and they will trash whatever they decide to trash. It is much better to hold on to our cards and wait until we can nail them with the policy. That is something we have learned from being around this place. The NDP members will learn that as well, not to trust the devil who will ultimately nail them. They will find out exactly what that will be like come fall.

I will be touring through B.C. in a couple of weeks time and I would love to visit the member's riding if he would invite me.

With respect to Devils Lake, the problem really comes down to the IJC not really being a very functional board and not really dealing with the issues of the day, whether it is the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, the Columbia River, the Sumas River in British Columbia or the whole Devils Lake issue. I just do not believe the problem has been dealt with very well. I do not believe the government has dealt with it very well.

The government did have the opportunity in 2002 to interact and get the IJC involved but it chose not to. I believe that should be brought to everyone's attention. I think ultimately we will win that case because we will work together on it. It is something we must work together on and base it on science. There should be no inter-basin transfer without having the science in place as to the cause and effect of what is going to happen environmentally.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to join the debate on Bill C-43.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Vegreville--Wainwright.

We should start from the beginning of why most of us came to Ottawa. We came here because we were extremely concerned about the debt which was being built up in the country.

If we go back in history to 1969, there was no debt. By 1972, we had about $18 billion of debt. By 1984, we had about $180 billion of debt. By 1993, we were up over $400 billion. Today we are now $530 billion in debt. A lot of that is because of the way government is run, the way budgets are done and the way money is spent in this place. When we came here, the budget was about $140 billion. Now we are close to $200 billion. Obviously, the government is out of control.

However, what I really want to concentrate on are the environmental aspects of this budget and what they include.

First, regarding the record of the government, we are now 28th out of 29 OECD countries in 25 areas of evaluating the environment. We still have three cities dumping raw sewage into the ocean. We have over 300 boil water warnings. We have Toronto with a record 20 smog days, which is the highest it has ever had, and this is only June. We have brownfields in every municipality across the country. We have identified some 50,000 contaminated sites.

I do not think I need to go on. The environment commissioner probably sums it up best. In her sixth report she said that the government had a lot of talk. In every budget it talked a lot about the environment, but it has accomplished nothing. As a result, we are 28th out of 29. That is why we have the dismal record.

What about this budget? In this budget there are three main areas that are covered under the guise of climate change and the famous Kyoto accord that the government signed onto. Let me look at those three sections specifically because I do not have a lot of time. I would like to show members how the government plans its environmental agenda.

First, let us look at section 13 which is the climate fund. The government will put $10 million into a climate fund this year. Next year it will be $50 million. By 2008-09, it will be $300 million. By 2009-10, it will be $340 million. After five years, there will be $1 billion in this fund.

The government will then establish a bureaucracy and that bureaucracy will then buy credits. Ideally, it makes reference to domestic credits, but any expert in this area will tell us that we will end up having to buy foreign credits. We should really look at what that means.

We have a lot of bragging going on. The government will buy credits on only green projects. It will fix the Ukrainian pipeline so it will not leak and that will save so many problems. It will go to Zimbabwe and set up some environmental projects because it will be cheaper to buy credits from there.

In reality we are going to have the government off buying foreign credits with no real monitoring and with no ability to tell whether it is a green project or what is involved. We will be giving money to companies that will end up competing with our Canadian companies and our government will be funding that. We will build layers of bureaucracy and they will have to be good Liberals. We then have the basis for another sponsorship scandal, Shawinigate, whatever we want to call it, for which the Liberals are so famous.

There will be costs to our corporations and to taxpayers that others will not have. Our major competitors, the U.S. and China, will not have those costs. That will be a problem.

When buying hot air, it is fine to ask what good that will do but it is also fine to ask what it would do. Those are questions that quite often get asked so I will give a couple of examples.

Let us suppose we give tax credits to corporations that do a good job on an environmental innovative technology made in Canada. What would that mean?

Let us talk about clean coal technology. Do members know that in China 81% of its electricity is from coal; in India 79% comes from coal; in the U.S. 57% comes from coal; in Alberta 70% comes from coal; and, in Ontario 25% comes from coal?

If we became world leaders in clean coal technology and we gave tax credits for corporations that developed that technology and then we transferred that technology to the Indias, to the Chinas, to the U.S., I am sure members can imagine what that would do for the environment if we were to deal with the CO

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problem. That would be a made in Canada solution. We would do it through credits as opposed to the method of shipping money off.

I have often said that instead of buying these foreign credits, we should just get the numbers for these Swiss bank accounts for these green projects and send it directly to the Swiss bank.

I could talk about CO

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sequestering. Obviously it is being done. If we sequester CO

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in a place like Fort McMurray, we would eliminate 60% of the CO

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being released in Canada.

Now, if we gasify it and put it in the pipeline, put it down an oil well, we increase our recovery by 30%. They are doing it in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. They are doing it in Germany and they are doing it in eight states in the U.S. If we lead in that technology, think of what we could do for the environment when we transfer that CO

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sequestration around the world. We would fix the environment and we would give tax credits to those companies that develop it. It is made in Canada and we become world leaders.

I think members get the point of the sorts of ideas that we would implement as opposed to this shipping money off to the Swiss bank accounts.

Let us look at section 14, the greenhouse gas technology investment fund. This basically is where large final heavy emitters can buy credits and put them into this tech fund and in exchange they would get emission credits. That all sounds really good and so our large final heavy emitters will buy those credits from the government.

Let us think about this. This would be administered through a 12 member board. We know what the credentials for the board will be: “What have you done for the Liberal Party lately? How many times have you run for the party? What ridings will receive this tech fund? What companies will get it?” We know it will not be places where some of us come from because obviously that would not help get any vote, so let us not try and hide this.

We are telling corporations that they can buy credits and contribute to the tech fund or we will fine them. We will set up a carbon tax and we will fine them.

What we tried to do and what our finance committee did was to move amendments to this section, and we were pretty successful in getting some of those amendments. What kind of amendments were we looking for? We wanted accountability and transparency. Is that not a unique concept? My goodness, they would now have to open up their books.

We wanted to get the $15 cap extended beyond 2012 because obviously long term planning is what companies need.

We wanted to get input from the environment committee. What a unique concept that would be, getting input from the people working in that area . We wanted the reports of the advisory board made public. We also wanted the LFEs to be able to transfer credits.

Finally, in the third section, using CEPA. What is CEPA? CEPA is the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. What is that all about? Well CEPA handles arsenic and those kinds of toxic substances. CO

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is plant food, juice for photosynthesis. The government wanted to use the regulations under CEPA to put a carbon tax on companies releasing carbon. Mark my words, the government will bring that back.

[The Environment, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the minister does not even know the bill number. There is no Bill C-49. That is how much he knows and is doing about the environment. Just ask the parents who have just had their child diagnosed with chronic asthma what they think of answers like that.

Greenhouse gases are increasing every year. The OECD now ranks us 28th out of 29 in terms of environmental integrity. The minister sets up a website in order to accomplish this.

When will the minister put the health of Canadians ahead of his own environmental drivel?