Lost his last election, in 2004, with 35% of the vote.
Kyoto Protocol November 7th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, it is now clear that the government intends to introduce a bill on the implementation of the Kyoto protocol next spring. However, the Prime Minister is still insisting that the House must adopt a meaningless motion before the end of the year.
What is the point of such a motion if the government is already expecting to introduce a bill? Why not just go ahead and introduce it?
Aboriginal Affairs November 5th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, the government's record for protecting drinking water is poor, especially on native lands.
Last spring the minister stated to the House that the government was dealing with 22 out of a total of 140 inefficient water plants on reserves, yet Health Canada's own internal audit confirms the number to be 103 plants that pose serious health risks. The internal report also says that the government has committed only $215 million out of the $790 million needed.
Why does the minister think it is acceptable to have third world drinking water conditions that put the lives of natives at risk?
Student Loans October 28th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, over the past eight years student debt levels have quadrupled indenturing an entire generation of students. Worse still, the Canada student loan program in inaccessible and insufficient to meet their needs.
The amount that can be borrowed has not increased since 1995, yet tuition rates have increased 130% during the same time period. Students who are unable to access enough loan money are forced to take fewer courses per year, delay studies and worse still, drop out.
When will the government address the funding crisis created by an insufficient Canada student loans program?
Kyoto Protocol October 24th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, the government's draft document to implement the Kyoto protocol falls far short of even reasonable expectations. This pathetic, paltry excuse for a plan is absent of any costs and falls 60 megatonnes short of our commitment under Kyoto.
If the provinces reject the plan when they meet next week, is it the federal government's intention to go ahead without them, without their support and without their consent?
Supply October 24th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I share the sentiment of the Canadian Alliance critic for the environment on the aspect of the words of the member for LaSalle--Émard and whether he has the political courage to be in the chamber for Tuesday's vote. We should see what kind of respect he actually has for Parliament, which breeds the very next point as well. That is, there is indeed a disrespect for Parliament which has been exhibited time and time again by the Liberal Party of Canada and which has wreaked havoc with respect to parliamentary traditions, beyond any other particular government.
The fact that the e-mail went out last night, barely giving opposition members and maybe even government members the opportunity to have access to the plan, to have any kind of scrutiny before this debate, is shallow. It is disrespectful to Parliament. It really is an embarrassment to the institution that we should hold so dear, the Parliament of Canada, our principal institution.
I know why we were not given too much of a heads-up about the document before this debate. The reason is that there is very little detail in the document itself. There is no costing. The plan itself falls 70 megatonnes short. There is no reference as to whether the provinces even think that any of these initiatives are doable, meaning that they are amenable to implementing them, because a number of these initiatives are regulatory aspects that are in provincial jurisdiction. I think that the photocopiers here in Ottawa were running rapidly last night, with the government trying to at least show that it had the remnants of a framework of a plan.
Supply October 24th, 2002
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to join my colleagues in the House in debating the motion before us today. I would like to use the motion itself as a framework for the remarks I will be making. It states:
That, before the Kyoto Protocol is ratified by the House, there should be an implementation plan that Canadians understand...
I would have said with which they are fully engaged. It goes on:
--that sets out the benefits, how the targets are to be reached and its costs.
It seems to be a very measured motion. That is a minimum that we owe Canadians. The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada has full intention of supporting this motion. It is incredibly measured, but the words of this motion are the words of the member of Parliament for LaSalle—Émard. It will be very curious how members of Parliament on the other side of this chamber proceed on this and whether they will support what I consider to be a very reasonable approach.
It also reflects the Progressive Conservative position on climate change, and that is we categorically do not support the blind ratification of a legally binding accord. The minimum we owe Canadians is a comprehensive plan that has a sector by sector analysis, broken down province by province, that ultimately evolves with the provincial consensus in the agreement and that Canadians really understand what behavioural expectations their national government has for them. That is a reasonable approach. This is a legally binding accord.
Reference was made a little earlier to Rex Murphy, a political commentator. He wondered why the provinces were not on board?” The analogy was that the provinces could not find the ship. The Liberal government has been bungling this file more than half a decade.
Illustration of that very issue is that our Kyoto target of minus 6% below 1990 level between 2008-2012 is a reduction of 240 megatonnes. We also know that the Minister of the Environment on the front end of September stated that the target was to make it 170 megatonnes, then try to renegotiate it at the eleventh hour. That type of Anderson accounting is the type of initiative that means we plan to ratify an accord as a nation, then not keep our word. Blind ratification is irresponsible. It sullies our reputation as a nation if we go forward with what I would deem to be disingenuous ratification in that regard.
I want to highlight a couple of illustrations about how ad hoc the government's approach has been in this calendar year on developing the implementation plan with respect the Kyoto accord itself. We all know less than a month ago cabinet was supposed to meet to see this so-called peekaboo plan so it could endorse it. Then there was no plan. In fact the Prime Minister, when he spoke to an audience in Calgary the week before, said that we would have a plan. Then he said that we would have a plan sometime between now and 2008-12.
We also know that even last evening after many of our hard-working staff had finally gone home, in this instance my staff had gone home, a notice of a briefing was sent out at 7:35 p.m. The government had finally developed some form of a plan, put the work together in a PowerPoint presentation and members of Parliament were informed that there would be a briefing this morning at 9:30. Anybody can understand that kind of last minute planning really does not show a lot of good faith.
This is not just recent history. The Government of Canada went to Kyoto without a plan, without a target or a timeline to speak of. It was one of the most ill-prepared governments at the summit. I had the privilege of attending that summit, however I was very saddened by how ill-prepared our government was as compared to the rest of the industrialized nations which are members of this particular accord itself.
We all understand where things started to unravel. On November 12, 1997, the provinces finally met and handed the government a consensus. They agreed to stabilization levels of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by a certain target; it was heading toward 2010. The very next morning the then minister of natural resources said that might or might not be our target.
It really broke faith with the provinces from that point on, so much so that the provinces and parliamentarians began to assault the then minister of environment, the hon. Christine Stewart, on the fact that her government had not provided her with a comprehensive approach in terms of what it was doing. I do not blame her individually in that regard. The government said that Minister Stewart would be empowered to negotiate the international aspects of climate change in the Kyoto protocol and the Minister of Natural Resources would be responsible for domestic implementation.
That so-called strategy has gone by the wayside because we have not even heard from the Minister of Natural Resources on this file and it has been usurped by the Minister of the Environment who has been Canada's lone spokesperson, although he does have a multiple level of positions in terms of what our target is, whether it is 240 megatonnes or 170. This depends on who one is speaking to on any particular day.
I would like to make one clear comment though. A progressive country like Canada must have a progressive climate change strategy. Canadians produce the highest amount of greenhouse gases, on a per capita basis, of all industrialized nations. We contribute 2% of the problem in this world of in excess of 6 billion persons. With 30 million persons, we contribute 2% of the world's greenhouse gases.
The objective of reducing greenhouse gases is not being challenged. Canada must ensure that it does its share to achieve net and constant reductions, because it produces more greenhouse gases per capita than any other OECD country, 2% of world's greenhouse gas emissions.
As an illustration of how other countries were more prepared than Canada was in that regard, the Swedes, for instance, went to the European Union and said that it was a cold climate country with an export driven, energy intensive economy and a large land mass relative to a small population. It added that with an export driven, energy intensive economy, it was tougher for it to make the target.
Sweden only has a 20% reduction of what the rest of the EU is doing. It had done its homework. It was a tougher role for the Swedes to fulfil than the rest of the European nations. Sweden's circumstances were taken into account. Canada, in contrast, had no plan, no modelling to that effect, the same way the Swedes and the Aussies had done in that regard.
The science is clear. Climate change is happening. The world community must put its shoulder to the wheel to ensure that it reverses this particular trend. We must also ensure that we have a plan we can live up to and that we honour our word. If we merely ratify an accord that we do not implement, we dishonour our nation, and it becomes a disingenuous ratification in that regard.
We get nowhere challenging the science. An argument can be made, and I have made it in the past, that one of the reasons the Government of Canada is ill-prepared is that it has taken a similar position as that of the leader of the opposition in 1997, Mr. Manning, when he took the approach of fighting the science of climate change. This has been, in more recent days, replicated by some members of the Canadian Alliance but not all. If we go down that track it irradicates our capacity to ask those heartfelt questions to keep the government accountable, and to assist with a plan if we do not believe that there is even a problem.
On the science issue I would like to add this aspect. Carbon dioxide itself may not be a pollutant that can cause an effect on human health on its own. However every activity of an industrial nature that produces CO
2
also produces other gases which are greenhouse gases and, in particular, contribute to smog and pollution, such as nitrogen oxide. Therefore, investing in public transportation does prevent pollution, such as nitrogen oxide, and also reduces carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
This reflects the essence of what the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada has advocated all along. Our members have advocated what we term as a no regret strategy of initiatives we should be doing anyway: massive tax incentives for the research and development of renewable sources of energy; tax incentives and R and D on energy efficiency initiatives; and similar incentives of that nature with respect to the utilization of renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency itself.
We advocated in our platform of 2000, and it was highlighted by the member from Winnipeg Centre as well, that the Government of Canada implement a program to retrofit federal government buildings within its own capital budget. Not only would that have an immense payback to the taxpayer, it would also show that the federal government is willing to lead by example.
We have also called for the Government of Canada to adopt a higher emphasis on blended fuels.
These are elements that the Government of Canada is now talking about. However, every one of these initiatives could have been put in place in January of 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 or 2002. The Government of Canada has been asleep at the switch. None of these initiatives were put in place. Most of these are financial instruments, tax incentives. It would not cost the Government of Canada anything to speak of, given that there is so little industry in those sectors right now and we are not foregoing any revenues that the treasury is now taking in. Almost every one of these initiatives was in the purview of the then Minister of Finance, the member of Parliament for LaSalle—Émard.
If the Government of Canada was asleep at the switch on climate change and not adopting a no regret strategy it was because of the lack of leadership that we had, not only from the Prime Minister, but more in particular from the then finance minister. More and more Canadians are now recognizing that particular deficiency.
Where do we go? We know we do not have a comprehensive plan that has a sector by sector analysis where the provinces have a consensus and an agreement. If the accord is ratified without the active participation of the provinces the accord cannot be implemented.
What the PC Party is advocating is clearly what provincial governments are advocating and members of Parliament in the Chamber are as well. We are advocating to have not only a made in Canada plan, but we are also advocating to have a North American made regime. I call it a Kyoto annex, but a non-binding accord.
If we had the capacity to rope in the Americans who are the number one emitters of carbon dioxide we would bring in our largest trading partner, a country where we export one-third of our gross domestic product. That made in Canada plan would become a made in North America initiative and would replicate something we have done in the past.
This is exactly the same framework when we proposed the acid rain treaty in 1987 and had a comprehensive North American strategy on sulphur dioxide power generating plants that built upon an arrangement that we had made with the Europeans, known as the 35% club, where we had pledged to reduce SO
2
emissions by 35%.
The Americans initially fought us on the science, but because it made sense to their state governments such as, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont we were able to develop a North American regime.
Where is the indication that the Americans are interested in participating in a project of that sort? We do know that business hates uncertainty. Business likes to have established rules. We should engage the Americans and develop a North American plan to prevent the United States from having at its worst case 50 climate change regimes. Some 10 or 12 state governments are already going in that direction. If we were able to harness the interests of state governments and work with their national government toward a national strategy where the Americans and Mexicans would team up with us for a North American regime it would replicate something that we have had success with before. It does more for the climate, given that Canada has used its special relationship that was once stronger. We should use that special relationship to bring the Americans in who are the number one emitters of greenhouse gases as well.
I wish to emphasize what the motion actually says. I compliment the environment critic of the Canadian Alliance who I have worked with, although we have different objectives from time to time, for the wording of the motion itself. This is the minimum we owe Canadians, to provide a plan that is done sector by sector, province by province and that Canadians are fully engaged with and has a provincial consensus.
The minimum we owe this Chamber is that whatever plan has been tabled to the provinces come back to Parliament. We should strike a joint Senate and House committee, or perhaps just a House committee if some people have some objections with that, but I would rather have both Chambers involved which would express the special nature of the committee itself. That committee should have the right to tour the country and engage Canadians, health care professionals, environmentalists, the provinces, and hear from industry so that we have a comprehensive debate.
The Liberal government has been having this peekaboo plan, drawn up on the back of a napkin, that has no costing whatsoever, that falls 70 megatonnes short, and is so disingenuous.
We are advocating that all parliamentarians embrace our idea, which I know is supported by provincial governments in Alberta and New Brunswick and is resonating in the Province of Quebec as well. We would tour the country and see whether whatever plan we have is actually doable and manageable and that we know the costs, the impacts and the opportunities that are there. Why would we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to do that?
There is another thing I would like to add. The member of Parliament for LaSalle--Émard made a very aggressive speech the other day, which members may have heard, about the democratic deficit in Parliament. This is the largest public policy issue before the House at the moment. At the very minimum, he owes it to Parliament and this chamber to be in the House and vote on his own words, on whether he supports what he said earlier this week. I challenge the former minister of finance from LaSalle--Émard to be in the chamber when we vote on this on Tuesday.
Supply October 24th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I know that the hon. member who spoke is familiar with the wording of the amendment today but I would like to read it back to her. It says:
That, before the Kyoto Protocol is ratified by the House, there should be an implementation plan that Canadians understand, that sets out the benefits, how the targets are to be reached and its costs.
Those are the words of the now former finance minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard.
Does the member know whether the former minister of finance supports the rapid ratification of the Kyoto protocol, yes or no?
The Environment October 22nd, 2002
Mr. Speaker, the Commissioner of the Environment condemned the government's record on contaminated sites. Despite two superficial throne speech mentions the government does not even have a full inventory of contaminated sites, nor does it even know which ones pose a risk to human health. The government has no idea where to begin because there is not even a priority list. The only legacy the Prime Minister will leave future generations is his toxic legacy on the environment.
Will the Prime Minister commit to providing a long-term, stable funding program as outlined by Progressive Conservatives and demanded by the commissioner?
The Environment October 21st, 2002
Mr. Speaker, we have more mismanagement on the environment. Tomorrow the commissioner for the environment will table a damning report on the mismanagement of 1,200 contaminated sites under federal jurisdiction.
Oil products, heavy metals, carcinogens and other chemicals from abandoned mines, DND sites and toxic dumps are not only harmful to the environment but also to human health. The commissioner will highlight that the government has no plan or strategy to clean up these federal sites despite two passing mentions in throne speeches.
My question is for the environment minister. What will the environment minister do to clean up the toxic legacy of the Prime Minister?
Petitions October 9th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today on behalf of the constituents in my riding of Fundy--Royal. Both surround the issue related to the Sharpe case in British Columbia.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to make adjustments in the Criminal Code to ensure that our children are protected from any way, shape or form related to child pornography.
Both these petitions have been duly certified by the Clerk and they are on behalf of Pastor Stephen Little from Faith Bible Baptist Fellowship in Sussex and also led by Reverend Harold Bubar from the Wesleyan Church in Norton.