David McGuinty

[Justice, April 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to table the audit performed by the University of Calgary audit services, which I referred to in my question during question period today, and which clearly demonstrates the kind of fraud that was ongoing in the last election campaign.

I seek unanimous consent so Canadians can know the truth.

[Federal Election, April 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, a research trust at the University of Calgary was misused to fund illegal advertising during the last federal election campaign. The group involved, Friends of Science, is now advising the minister on his climate change policy.

We have the likes of Flanagan, Cooper and Paulsen involved in yet another scheme to break election advertising rules. They ran climate change denier ads in five markets in Ontario. Does the House know who oversaw that? It was the environment minister.

Who is responsible for yet another attempt to cheat the electorate and buy the election?

[Federal Election, April 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Barry Cooper is a good friend of the Prime Minister and Tom Flanagan. Mr. Cooper was the head of Friends of Science, a group being investigated for defrauding the University of Calgary by circulating anti-Kyoto ads during the last election campaign. Worse yet, it seems that Mr. Cooper's lobbyists were working for the Conservative Party and they were the ones deciding where those ads would be circulated.

What did the government offer in exchange for Barry Cooper's help during the last election campaign?

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague. I would like to ask him a very simple question. He says that he is in favour of the motion by the member for Western Arctic that refers to a review of the progress made in the preparation and implementation of the regulations referred to in subsection 140(1). I do not understand his reasoning. I do not understand the difference between what is proposed here in the motion and what is already provided for in the bill, which says:

—every two years thereafter, a comprehensive review of the environmental and economic aspects of biofuel production in Canada should be undertaken by such committee of the Senate, of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament as may be designated or established by the Senate or the House of Commons, or by both Houses of Parliament, as the case may be, for that purpose.

I do not understand exactly how this motion would change what is already provided for in clause 8 on page 3 of the bill. In my opinion, it is clear that this is already covered. Every two years, there will be a review of exactly what should be reviewed.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I do not agree that it is a distribution problem. I do not believe that it is strictly a distribution problem. I think there are a few things that the government should keep in mind.

First, why is it that Ontario, that represents 47% of the Canadian economy, has made the quantum leap to 10% by 2010? Why is it that Ontario can do it but the federal government cannot?

Perhaps the government could bring in a coherent policy that did not, on the one hand, remove the excise tax exemptions to actually help kickstart the sector while bringing in an inferior standard of 5%. Perhaps we could actually have more coherence between fiscal, agricultural and environmental policy. After all, it is the government that has, I am told, some kind of cabinet committee that is trying to reconcile energy, environmental and financial considerations.

Clearly, I do not think that this policy has been put through that gauntlet. I do not think that we have seen, here, this kind of baby given birth to really reflect the need, in the way that our leader of the opposition speaks about all the time, to really integrate environmental, social and economic considerations.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about a review, I do not see any material difference between what we are contemplating here and, for example, the five-year mandatory review that is built into the Canadian Environmental Protection Act as a whole. That is something that was just completed at committee, which delivered up I think profound recommendations for change and improvements and enhancements to improve CEPA and how it is, for example, operationalized in the Canadian context. That is my first response.

Second, it is true that choices will be made. Investment decisions will be made. I have every confidence in the free market in Canada. I have every confidence in farmers. I have every confidence in investors and in companies that are going to be following this emerging market very carefully.

They know that investing in cellulosic ethanol, for example, and making a quantum leap into those kinds of feedstocks to generate the cellulosic ethanol is probably going to be a wiser and more intelligent investment than not.

It may take some transition time in some parts of the country. We know that cellulosic ethanol has much less impact in terms of GHGs and on the atmosphere as a whole.

I do have confidence that people will begin by beginning. They will start by starting and they will invest and they will build this sector. In 24 months, I think, we will be able to make a mid-course correction shot. We will examine it and we will make improvements.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate this afternoon on Bill C-33. For Canadians who are watching or who might read Hansard at some point in the future, this bill is a technical amendment to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to simply allow a government, the present government or any subsequent government, to regulate, for example, the ethanol content in our fuels, to help in setting standards for the export of Canadian fuels that are blended, and so on and so forth. At first blush, it is a technical amendment.

I would like to respond to the member for Western Arctic's proposed amendment and pick up on some of the comments he made in his speech. He said that the testimony at committee was, in his own words, in vain, that many experts had testified in vain. I disagree. I disagree because the text of the bill already embraces the need for a review of the language of the bill every two years, a “comprehensive review of the environmental and economic aspects of biofuel production in Canada” that would be undertaken by the Senate, the House or a combination thereof.

What he is now calling for is something entirely different, but it appears as if the review that is already going to be performed under this act, once it becomes law, would embrace much of what he is seeking to get in, to a certain extent, through the back door today, that which was not presented at committee some time ago. I would say it is a moot point. I would say that the amendment he put forward today is not necessary because I believe the regulatory standards will be reviewed as a function of the comprehensive review of the environmental and economic aspects of biofuel production at some later date.

That is my opening statement on the merits of this particular amendment put forward by the NDP and the member who is speaking on the NDP's behalf.

I would like to now make a couple of more generalized remarks about the bill, which is about expanding the scope of the Minister of the Environment, not the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food but the Minister of the Environment, to regulate fuels in Canada.

I would like to talk about the government's 5% ethanol standard. I would like to talk about the government's excise tax exemption changes brought in on April 1, which have a direct bearing on this question, and about how this does not quite fit in to the government's climate change plan, a plan which is supported by no third party in Canada today.

First, the official opposition leader has been calling for a 10% ethanol position since last January. In a speech to Saskatchewan farmers in Regina, he asked for an increase to 10%, but it had already been put forward in our own election documentation of 2006 calling for a 5% ethanol content. There is a significant difference here between 5% and 10%. The government is proposing 5%, but we are still supportive of 10%. Why is that?

First of all, for every car on the road today, car owners can use a 10% ethanol content in the engines of their vehicles. There is no need to retrofit the engine as it is presently built. We know that if we had a 10% mandate in Canada as opposed to the weaker 5% put forward by the government, it would double the amount required to some four billion litres a year. That is a figure that is already surpassed in terms of those plants that are presently operating, under construction and even those being financed.

When the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and his parliamentary secretary or members of the government talk about supporting our farming community, one has to ask the question, why is the government pursuing such an unambitious target of 5%?

In late June, in fact, the former minister of agriculture labelled the official opposition leader's call for 10% as overly aggressive, which the Canadian Report on Fuel Ethanol described as an excessive term in itself. Ontario, the largest provincial gasoline market in the country, is already moving from an existing annual average, E5, to 10% starting in 2010.

Why is the federal government lagging behind the province that consumes the largest amount of gasoline in the country? There is no explanation so far which is a question that I have raised before.

Speaking now quickly to some of the environmental implications and considerations that ought to be paramount with what we are trying to accomplish here, there are all kinds of important questions around the environmental impact, for that matter even social justice questions, when it comes to the expanded use of ethanol in Canadian and worldwide markets.

In this, I think, the member from the NDP is quite correct. Those are precisely the questions that we see and envisage being treated and dealt with by the Senate committee and/or the House of Commons committee that will review the performance of the country every two years as the bill contemplates.

However, here is another angle and I would like to conclude on this. That is the incoherence between the government's purported 5% ethanol content regulation and what it is actually doing when it comes to the taxation policy for these very fuels.

On April 1 the government repealed the excise tax exemption for biodiesel and ethanol fuels. We know the effect of the repeal on low level blends is small, maybe even minimal, but we know the additional taxes are substantial for higher blends. The price of what they call E50 for example will increase by 2¢, for E85 it will increase dramatically to 8.5¢ a litre higher than it is, hardly making the fuel competitive.

This is at a time when we are trying to kickstart the fuel market and lend the added hand to our farming community if it is done in an environmental and responsible way. We only have 31 vehicle models today on the road in the Canadian market that can use E85 as we speak, but there are only 2 E85 retail fuel stations in this country compared to 1,250 in the United States.

Therefore, we have incoherence here between the government's purported claim to support our agricultural farming communities, which is a very important initiative, with its own fiscal and tax policies. They are leading to higher costs for this fuel and do not necessarily reflect, as we heard in the original speeches here in the House and at committee from the government members, the profound environmental considerations that are inherent in making a shift to a wider use of a specific fuel.

I go back to where I began on why it is so important that we have built into the bill a two year review of the economic and environmental performance across the country as to how we are doing as a country.

We are not Brazil. We are not transforming vast amounts of tropical forests into for example eucalyptus plantations or sugar cane plantations where it is obviously having profound environmental impacts on ecological integrity of those regions and of course ultimately the lungs of the planet. We are not in that kind of situation. Our concerns are different, yet just as important.

As we go forward with this bill, I find it hard to understand why the NDP would at the very last moment seek to bring through I guess the back door of the House that which it did not bring to the committee. I also cannot reconcile at all the amendment put forward by the member with the call already inherent in the bill to have this two year review on the economic and environmental implications, not that his concerns are not important, not that they are not valid, not that they should not be treated and dealt with but I think they will be dealt with precisely at that period of time, 24 months after the bill becomes law.

Twenty-four months later we will have a much better idea of where we stand and I think that will allow us to make mid-course corrections as a country as we go forward and deal with this particular fuel source.

[Cancer Awareness Month, April 4th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, April is Cancer Awareness Month, a time to reflect on the devastating effect this disease has year after year.

Who unfortunately does not know someone, perhaps a loved one, who has suffered from this terrible disease?

The statistics are distressing. Nearly 159,000 people suffered from cancer in 2007 and 72,000 died of the disease. Men, women, children, seniors are all affected and, despite our efforts and scientific advancements, the disease is still with us.

However, we must not give up the fight against this terrible affliction. That is why we must take the opportunity presented by Cancer Awareness Month to appeal to the government to increase efforts to find a cure for cancer.

I therefore ask all my colleagues to join me in sending a message of hope to all those who suffer from this disease. One day, we will find a cure.

[The Environment, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment has known for more than one year that his so-called green plan will result in considerable, irreversible damage to our planet. He cannot deny it. His own science adviser warned him about it. Today, researchers, economists, environmentalists and even the department's own employees are sounding the alarm and the minister continues to ignore them.

When will the government abandon its strategy of denial, delay and trickery?

[The Environment, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the planet will suffer irreversible damage if we do not limit global warming to 2°. The UN knows it, scientists know it, economists know it, and the minister's own chief scientific adviser has been telling him that for over a year. But the only bright lights emanating from the government were the lights left on at 24 Sussex when the Prime Minister snubbed Earth Hour on Saturday.

After two years and no regulation, when will the government finally listen to the warnings and act with the determination shown by millions of Canadians on Saturday night?