Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on Bill C-377, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change. It is bill brought forward by the leader of the NDP, as a private member's bill. I congratulate the leader for his work and thank him for his continuing contribution to the debate about carbon pricing.
I especially want to thank him for keeping an open mind. I know he came out strongly against the notion of a carbon tax shift at first, but yesterday he came some way back in recognizing that a carbon tax shift would be considered an invaluable tool as we took on the challenge of bringing greenhouse gas emissions back down our country.
Why is a bill like this even necessary? We looked at some questions just last night in the committee of the whole that were directly related to this issue.
I asked the Minister of Finance directly, as did my colleague, the hon. member for Mississauga—Erindale, about the effects of energy prices on the forthcoming government cap and trade plan, its regulatory plan due for October. The minister appeared confused by the question, as he did for that matter for much of the evening. He could not give us an indication that he even knew he had a cap and trade plan. He did not know it would cost Canadians more at the pumps, more for natural gas, more for home heating and more every time they made a purchase, but this is indisputable.
Let me quote directly from the government's “Turning the Corner” plan. At page 14 of the so-called detailed report of the government, which let me assure Canadians is no detail, it says, “Our modelling suggests that Canadians can expect to bear real costs” under the government's plan. It goes on to say, “these costs will be most evident in the form of higher energy prices, particularly with respect to electricity and natural gas”. I am not saying that. That is the Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Finance and the government in their plan.
Here is the real irony. Today we had the Prime Minister in London flogging his plan in Europe. Last night the finance minister could not even answer basic questions about the design of the cap and trade system, for which he is responsible, about the economic analysis that underpins the price of carbon, for which he is responsible. Yet the Prime Minister is out vaunting to the world, in Europe, in London, Rome and Paris, that he has a plan that will take Canada so far in the future. It is quite remarkable. The minister could not even tell us the price of carbon today, much less what he anticipates it to be in the fall.
How can we have 2008-09 budget estimates and projections if the minister does not know what the price of carbon will be and what the distributive effects will be on energy prices in the Canadian economy? The minister could not answer that question. He was not asked once, not twice but four times by two separate members of Parliament.
We have the minister so busy pursuing the politics of fear, racing down around carbon pricing, that he has not bothered to do even his own homework about the plan for which he is responsible for delivering in six short months from now. He even had more difficulty explaining his ecotrust scheme. This is really rich. It is $1.5 billion put into a trust with no strings, no conditions, no verification and no accountability at all.
When we were in government, there was the partnership fund. Under ecotrust, there is no agreement with the provinces. There is no verification. I asked if he could tell how he expected the $1.5 billion to reduce a single tonne of greenhouse gases. Not only was he flustered, he did not even know what I was talking about. He is administering the $1.5 billion fund, not his colleague, the Minister of the Environment. It is really unbelievable that we are trying to reconcile all of this and the Minister of Finance simply does not know what he is doing.
Let us turn back to the provisions of Bill C-377 and the amendments.
Motion No. 1 is simple. It identifies the GHGs we are talking about, as listed in the list of toxins under CEPA. Listing these greenhouse gases was a Liberal government achievement in the last Parliament. Other amendments deal with the roles of the round table on the environment economy and the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development.
I continue to manifest grave concern about the government's unilateral decision to change the reporting structure of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy out of the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's office and seriously weakening its reach and impact by putting it under the Minister of the Environment, particularly the current Minister of the Environment, but certainly the Department of the Environment.
I hesitate to support the mandate that is being called for by the leader of the NDP in his bill because the round table has been so seriously weakened. How did the Conservatives do this? They did it by subterfuge. They did it with the stroke of a pen. They cut the legs out from underneath the agency. The government does not even understand what Brian Mulroney understood when he set up the agency to report directly to his office.
It is about PMO control. It speaks volumes about the fact that the Conservatives really want to control the Ministry of the Environment. They want to weaken what happens with civil society actors who come together in a place like the national round table. What really happens is that the advice gets buried and marginalized.
It is very interesting, because last night we also asked the Minister of Finance to explain to us just what is happening with the cap and trade system that he is talking about and how, for example, it might connect with other trading systems. Wow. That was really quite remarkable, because the government has no idea how its own cap and trade system will affect energy prices. It has prepared nothing in this fiscal year for the distributive economic effects, increases in costs for home heating fuel, natural gas, oil, and increases in gas prices at the pump. Let the Conservatives stand and deny it.
On the one hand the Minister of the Environment says, “We are in favour of pricing carbon”. On the other hand the Minister of Finance says, “I do not know what you are talking about. I cannot even tell you what the price of carbon will be. I have no idea what the price of carbon is today in the marketplace”.
It is unbelievable that we are four months away from the Conservatives' so-called cap and trade plan, but it is worse again, because they do not know how it will connect with the emerging provincial regimes. Whether they are carbon taxes in B.C. or whether they are trading systems in Quebec, they do not know. This is worse, because they do not even know how their national cap and trade program will connect to the international cap and trade program coming from Europe and elsewhere for those countries that were still signatories to Kyoto, Canada having abandoned it.
Yet again, there is no evidence from the government that it knows what it is doing on cap and trade when it comes to an emerging potential American system under a president McCain, or a president Obama, or a president Clinton.
It is really quite remarkable that the Conservatives do not know what they are doing; the left hand, the right hand. The irony cannot be lost on Canadians as the Prime Minister is over in London giving a grandiose speech about his climate change vision for Canada, and the plan, which nine independent groups in Canada, including such left leaning institutions as the C. D. Howe Institute, Deutsche Bank, CIBC World Markets and others have looked at and said, “It is not believable. There is no analysis. They will never achieve the greenhouse gas cuts they claim they will achieve”.
How can they, when the Minister of Finance does not even know what the price of carbon will be in four months when he is going to set up the economics of a trading regime for this country? It is unbelievable for Canadians when they see that kind of incompetence, in fact, negligence. The minister was scrambling, looking for documents, turning to the deputy minister and the ADMs, who apparently knew even less. Yet we are four months away from the government claiming it is announcing a major regulatory system.
Worse, the politics of fear compels the government to try to deliberately mislead Canadians about the fact that when it brings out its plan, it will have a massive impact on energy costs: “Do not tell the people this. No, do not tip your hat. We are the tax fighters”, the Conservatives say, “We are the tax cutters”.
There is no surprise there again, because we now have in government the arrival of the Harris quintuplets: the prospective chief of staff to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of the Environment, and now the House leader; the five man wrecking crew who just about ruined the province of Ontario, leaving it with a $28 billion increase in provincial debt and a $5.6 billion deficit.
Canadians should be very concerned indeed about the fact that the government does not have a climate change plan.
