Bryon Wilfert

[Nowruz Day Act, March 23rd, 2009]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-342, An Act respecting Nowruz Day.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this bill, an act to respect Nowruz Day.

This past weekend, many families in Canada and in many countries around the world celebrated Nowruz, which marks the astronomical beginning of the new year and represents the exact moment of the vernal equinox commencing the start of spring.

Yesterday I was given the honour to celebrate Nowruz with 300 of my constituents and the mayor of Richmond Hill for a Nowruz celebration dinner where we shared great food, music and dance performances.

Nowruz is a time of great joy and celebration. Its non-ethnic and non-religious characteristics have allowed Nowruz to remain a prominent day for many people in the Middle East, central Asian countries and in fact many countries around the world, including Canada.

I will be distributing copies of the bill to the House leaders later today and it is my hope that all parties will be united to expedite this bill to officially recognize this significant day for many Canadians.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Petitions, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present a petition on behalf of my constituents and constituents throughout the country dealing with the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare. The petitioners call upon the government to look at the issue of scientific consensus and public acknowledgement that animals can feel pain and suffer. All efforts should be made to prevent animal cruelty.

About a billion people around the world rely on animals for their livelihood and they acknowledge that. There are animals that are significantly affected by natural disasters, et cetera. They are asking that the government undertake to sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare, support it and put it into effect as soon as possible for the sake of animals both here and around the world.

[March 4th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I do not know whether the member believes the speech that was written for him by the department, but what he has said is clearly fiction.

There is no baseline to say 20% over by 2020. The fact is 11 independent analyses have concluded that the government's plan will not work. The government always says that we have not read the plan, but if there was a plan I would read it.

Has the member read Project Green? In 2005 it was the most aggressive plan of the G8. It was a plan that was actually going to do something, but unfortunately we had an election and now that do nothing group that came in said climate change is really not a priority.

The government says that emissions went up during our time. It is very interesting to note that the economy expanded like crazy. A lot of people were going to work, unlike now, where we have significant contraction in the economy.

We need to be dealing with the issue of the oil sands.The government has not done very much about this in terms of aggressive decisions.

The fact that President Obama has come up with a plan does not mean that what the U.S. is going to do is going to be the same as what we are going to do and the government should come clean and say that it is not.

[March 4th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I stand tonight with regard to the issue of the environment and the fact that the government continues to say that it found religion and suddenly now they are concerned about climate change and that they have a plan. Clearly, they have not found religion and they have no plan.

In the three years that the Conservatives have been in office, they have not brought in one regulation to deal with the issue of climate change. In fact, when President Obama was here, we thought we heard from the third environment minister that somehow they were being tough on the environment, that they would have caps. They say that they will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by the year 2020 but they have no baseline.

The Conservatives ask what the Liberals did. In November, Environment Canada said that between 2003-08 emissions were actually down by 2.8%. The government does not mention that during our time we had the greenest budget in history, $10 billion in 2005, the most aggressive plan of the G8. The fact is that the government has not been serious on climate change. I do not even know if its members can even spell the word. It concerns me when the government talks about caps when it does not come clean on the baseline, on what it intends to do and on how it will achieve it.

It is all well and good to say that we want to have an agreement with the United States, but during the time when the United States had not signed Kyoto, 43 American states were very aggressive on the issue of climate change. The Conservatives, however, and the science deniers on that side of the House said that they did not even think that climate change was a real issue. They thought it was a socialist plot, as we all remember.

There really is a hard cap and trade system. In his very first budget, President Obama was very clear on caps and on what he would do in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, something the Conservative government has failed to enunciate. President Obama clearly indicated that his government might bring in $3 billion in revenue in dealing with the cap and trade.

As a member of GLOBE International G8+5, we have made a series of recommendations each year to the leaders of the G8. In response, the Prime Minister has not been very forthcoming in support, but suddenly he hears President Obama's footsteps and decides that maybe this could be an issue. Over 57% of Canadians said that even if we had to go into deeper debt, they would support strong action when it came to climate change.

However, again we have the failure of a real plan. The Conservatives announced cutbacks dealing with retrofits. The first thing they did was to cut back. They cut back with people doing energy work on their houses and environmental audits. People who were in the system were cut out simply because an announcement was made in the middle of the night saying that they were sorry but that they were not going to go ahead with that. That is not leadership.

It is not leadership to say that we will follow what everyone else does. Leadership is standing and saying that we will do this because it is the right thing to do for Canadians. It is good for health and it is good for our children and our grandchildren.

I know what I am talking about because I was parliamentary secretary to the former minister of the environment. Under his leadership, the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, we were able to get the greenest budget in history because we had finance on board. We picked the allies around the cabinet table. I have not seen any allies supporting the current Minister of the Environment. Until the Conservatives do that, they cannot talk about caps when in fact they have no plan.

[Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce the official opening of the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts which will occur on February 28. The centre will be a home for Richmond Hill's diverse arts community and will present an array of artists from across Canada and around the world.

A strong economy must be strong in arts and culture, which is why I continuously supported this important endeavour.

Opening night will feature Canadian superstar, Louise Pitre, the debut of the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra and the 130 voice choir from the Bayview Secondary School.

Planning for the 2009-2010 season is already under way and will include touring Broadway productions, internationally renowned performers and the world premier of a new work from Modern Times Stage Company.

The centre will be a great addition to Richmond Hill and will also be the largest and the most technologically sophisticated performance venue in York region.

I would like to acknowledge the leadership of the mayor and council and Michael Grit, the theatre manager.

As Canada's former prima ballerina, Karen Kain, put it well.“Where the arts flourish, life flourishes, where the arts are ignored, life is impoverished”.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government fails to understand that the FCM put forward a notion that the gas tax is the best approach to take because it is the most efficient, and the money should go toward new projects, not into general revenue.

I heard the minister talk about the building Canada fund. The government is great on announcements but very short on delivery. It announced $8.8 billion in 2007 but how much was actually spent in that first year? Zero. The government spent nothing on infrastructure projects in that first year. Last January the FCM announced that less than $300 million of the $1.5 billion announced for the last two years had actually flowed from the building Canada fund.

If the minister is serious about having projects go forward in a short construction season, then he should not play politics and leave the infrastructure issue to the provinces. The government should be dealing directly with the municipalities. The way to do that is by way of the gas tax. They are going to advance their five or ten year capital forecast and move forward.

I would ask the minister to comment on that.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to engage in this discussion. As a former president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, I can tell the House of those dark days when the Conservatives ignored infrastructure, and it was nice to see the Chrétien government bring in the infrastructure program in 1994.

My colleague raises a very important issue, which is that if in fact we are going to have an economic stimulus package from the government and if the government is really serious about getting people to work and getting infrastructure programs going, one would wonder why it would have such a complicated approach. The gas tax is the most efficient and most effective way, and we know that many municipal budgets have already been set, so municipalities cannot necessarily find money out of thin air to match.

I ask my colleague that if in fact in this particular case the idea is economic stimulus, why would we ignore a program that even the government had supported in the past, which is the gas tax? How does the member see this as a more effective instrument in delivering the kinds of projects municipal governments require and would like to fund today? Could the member elaborate on that for us?

[Interparliamentary Delegations, February 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation of the Canada-Japan interparliamentary group respecting its participation in the annual visit by the co-chair, held in Tokyo, Japan, April 21-25, 2008.

Pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation of the Canada-Japan interparliamentary group respecting its participation in the 16th annual bilateral meeting with the Japan-Canada Diet Friendship League held in Tokyo and Hokkaido, Japan, July 16-23, 2008.

Pursuant to Standing Order 34(1 I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation of the Canada-Japan interparliamentary group respecting its participation in the 29th general assembly of the ASEAN Interparliamentary Assembly held in Singapore, August 18-22, 2008.

Finally, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation of the Canada-Japan interparliamentary group respecting its participation in the second parliamentarians' workshop at the Asia-Pacific Parliamentarians Conference on the Environment and Development held in Seoul, Korea, November 1-2, 2008.

[The Environment, February 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the greatest budget in Canadian history and the most aggressive plan of the G8, not 13 dark years. Unfortunately, that member does not read very well.

When President Obama says cap in trade, he means hard caps. The government's proposal does not cap emissions at all. Its intensity-based targets would see polluters profit by qualifying to trade credits as overall emissions go up and not down.

Will the minister simply admit that in order for Canada to participate alongside the U.S. cap in trade, his entire plan would need to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up?

[The Environment, February 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the environment minister's assertion about the similarities between his approach on climate change and the Obama administration is a farce.

Eleven independent analyses conclude that the government will not meet its reduction targets. In three years, not a single regulation has come into force and each of the three ministers on the file have failed to track federal efforts to cut greenhouse gases.

This is not President Obama's position. Why does the government pretend that it is?