Mr. Speaker, when I was entering university, it was a time of some real life environmental disasters. It was actually quite depressing. Some northern rivers were so full of mercury that they did not freeze in the wintertime. Eagles, ospreys, peregrines were becoming extinct. Loggers were cutting to the river's edge, the water's edge. The town stank from the smell of bad eggs. Some called it the smell of prosperity.
All those factors and many others helped me decide that I wanted to be part of the solution, so I went to graduate studies and got my master's in environmental studies in practice and intervention.
I became an environmental planner and, given my professional, public and private commitments, I started up and helped fund raise and continued to belong to numerous environmental organizations. I put my money up and I donate extensively to a wide variety of these groups that are dedicated to making the planet a cleaner, safer and greener place. We have to walk the walk. We have to talk the talk.
As a councillor and mayor later on, I supported many of these environmental plans. Indeed, Thunder Bay became a community known for starting recycling and all sorts of other innovative programs. That is why the $6.5 billion in cuts by the Conservative government to the environmental programs, which were essentially community based, were so devastating to not only the 27 communities in Thunder Bay—Rainy River, but to each and every community across Canada.
The previous government had built a broad based set of community involvement. In my area a group called EcoSuperior was more than just the wheels. It was actually the engine for delivering quality and better environmental programs and community activist activities. We saw small neighbourhood groups and larger regional based organizations commence with some serious momentum to address the environmental issues and to see what people themselves could do as individuals and as communities.
Even over the past recent months as new issues arise, we see these community groups take up the cause. Whether it is redressing the disposal of mercury in lamps and those kinds of things, we always ask ourselves this. What can a group of individuals do?
I believe the environmental programs, the type that are community based, the kinds that generate the letter writing and petition writing campaigns, actually make a difference. They motivate people and they inspire them to do what they can.
The success of those exercises was evidenced by the repackaging and the reintroduction of many former Liberal programs. That is fine, except for one thing, and that is the loss of the momentum and the destruction or collapse of many of those local environmental activist groups. Basically, over all of that, we also lost two years of achieving Kyoto targets. The guilty culprits are clear, the coalition of the NDP and the Conservatives.
In 1993 the Liberal government inherited the largest debt in the history of Canada, which was the legacy of Conservative spending. That was wrestled down to the point where our country was no longer an economic basket case. I believe the Liberal plan, which was derailed by the recent alliance, would have seen us two years closer to meeting our goals. Now, we are two years behind.
When the world gathered in Montreal in December 2005, it was the leader of the NDP who was against the conference and told the delegates they would never get anywhere. However, the chair of that conference, the present Leader of the Opposition, did achieve a remarkable consensus. We remember when the world had gathered 20 years earlier in Montreal to address the issue of CFCs. We saw the remarkable progress that had been made when the world pulls together. We tackled the issue of how to protect the ozone layer and we were successful.
Indeed, when we see the results and the dramatic changes that have been made in just that timeframe, it tells us that we can do it. When we were faced with a rather spineless clean air act, the opposition parties gave it strength.
I was at committee on the concluding marathon day of the final amendments, for choosing the title, the definitions and the preamble. I watched, with considerable dismay, as the minority government demonstrated its contempt for having to really do something to save our country and the planet. The Conservatives started voting against the amendments, the definitions and even the title. I found that extraordinarily hypocritical and shameful.
The fraud continues with the release of the new, perhaps secret, greenhouse emission plan, which was used last year as its starting point. It is kind of like saying we should start the 100 yard dash at the 50 yard line and make it a 50 yard dash.
Those kinds of examples give a pretty dramatic clue that if we care and we are sincere, then the concerns that we represent for Canadians and for the environment must be justified. They demand sincerity in their action.
Many people have watched the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth. There is also one on the dilemma of oil. These have raised the level of awareness of people who perhaps were not technically astute, but it puts them into a space where they can understand the ramifications of doing nothing. Indeed, the book, The Weather Makers, effectively refutes all Conservative claims that there is no global warming.
The newest short film, AHEAD OF THE CURVE: business responds to climate change, confirms that by reducing greenhouse gases, there is a way for countries and their businesses to profit in a very positive way.
We see the number of skeptics who perhaps never believed there was global warning or some kind of climate change occurring. The film alludes to Johnson & Johnson, Duke Energy, Wal-Mart and Dupont, all recognizing that indeed there is a problem that has to be addressed. When they start recounting the savings in their production costs, improving the bottom line and helping to protect the planet, I believe that success is its own standard of measurement.
There is a big gap between just thinking of it and doing it. When we talk about energy conservation and what the bill could do we ask ourselves this. What can one person, one community, one province and one nation do? The sum totality is when people add these, we end up not only saving all nations but we save the planet.
I believe the expression is that this planet is not ours, we are borrowing it from our future generations. That tells us that the role of government is to provide those incentives and facilitative devices so we can be part of the solution.
We can look at the articles published in various Canadian newspapers. The St. John's Telegram, for example, identifies that $150 billion in new investment for coal-fired plants is not only necessary, but we will also end up with near zero emissions. It states:
The potential benefits flowing from an ambitious and realistic clean air plan that reduces greenhouse gases are enormous.
I am here tonight to ask this minority Parliament to pull together and get the kind of legislation through that will actually do the job.
