House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 49% of the vote.
The Environment April 27th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we learned that the government has abandoned Kyoto.
Its plan is an illusion that will destroy Canada's potential to become a green energy superpower.
Quebec's environment minister said that this plan is too little, too late. The Pembina Institute said that the plan will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. David Suzuki said it is embarrassing.
Why will this government not take the future health of our planet seriously?
The Environment April 25th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, Canada has a Minister of the Environment who takes responsibility for careless PR leaks, but not for setting responsible environmental policy. The minister blows hot and cold. He is a climate change induced spinning weather vane.
If Kyoto is a socialist flop as the Prime Minister claims, then why did the government vote to uphold the objectives of the Kyoto protocol, including the targets and absolute reductions of greenhouse gases just yesterday?
Will Chicken Little finally end the doublespeak and bring back the plan that addresses air pollution and climate change known as Bill C-30?
The Environment April 25th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, Canada has a Minister of the Environment who takes responsibility--
The Environment April 25th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the government got caught trying to place its bogus environmental announcement at par with the federal budget and then the Conservatives set about scrambling to get their story straight once it leaked. At first they threatened parliamentarians saying it was a breach of securities law, then they denied it. First it had no targets, then it had weak ones.
Why did the minister provide three separate, distinct and false explanations of his incompetent behaviour within one hour last night?
Business of Supply April 24th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to the question that was raised by the member about the economic analysis performed last week. The interesting thing about it is that the economic analysis was based on a plan that no one in this country is proposing. It is a scenario that is pure science fiction.
The only thing missing from the scenario last week was the Conservative analysis omitting to tell us that there was a giant asteroid on a collision course with the planet.
There are two obscured assumptions that I want to put to the member if I could. First of all, anyone who is not tied to a table is proposing a carbon tax and a carbon tax of $195 a tonne. The only place this seems to have come from is the hon. minister's desk when he invented the number.
The second assumption is that Kyoto is not doable but excludes all the tools, like international emissions trading. That is like asking the founders of this city to dig the canal by using teaspoons.
Why does the member believe the Conservatives are trying to kill Kyoto by misleading Canadians on the costs and the opportunities inherent in our Kyoto obligations?
Business of Supply April 24th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up with the parliamentary secretary and talk about some of the steps that the government actually has taken and what the reaction has been to some of those steps. I would like to keep it focused for a moment on the actual responsibilities of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.
First, three particular announcements have been made, which I would like to bring to the attention of the parliamentary secretary and get his reaction to them. The first was the transit pass measure announced in a budget of the government. The government was forewarned by both finance officials and environment officials who told it explicitly that the cost per tonne of reduction of greenhouse gases using this transit pass gimmick would be in the range of $2,000 per tonne of greenhouse gases reduced. The government was given hard evidence and hard advice to suggest that it should be investing in infrastructure.
Second, the Minister of the Environment, here in the national capital region, killed the light rail project for this city.
Third, and more egregiously, is the fee bate. The entire Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association and the industry are vehemently opposed to the government's fee bate structure saying that it will create unacceptable competitive inequities. It is discriminating against--
Business of Supply April 24th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I can respond to that question directly because I am not sure how I am not citing Sir Nicholas Stern accurately, but I would suggest to my hon. friend and colleague that he ought to look at the latest McKinsey report.
It concludes that greenhouse gas reductions needed by 2030 to avoid a 2° average warming effect could be as low as 40 euros or roughly $60 Canadian per tonne. These are price points in the marketplace now in the European trading market and the emerging Chicago-based United States market and global markets and are very much in keeping with what is going on.
The study also concludes that the annual worldwide costs for making the needed emissions reductions to avoid worse climate change in 2030 is only 0.6% of that year's projected GDP.
I would perhaps place more credence in these numbers from the McKinsey firm than in those of the few economists selected last week by the government. These numbers are actually very much in keeping with Sir Nicholas Stern's report.
Business of Supply April 24th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the first comment I would make with respect to the location of any emissions trading market would be this. If the Conservative government holds this country to a mere domestic emissions trading system, that is, with a small number of traders, we are going to have a very illiquid market and a very small market. I can assure the House and all Canadians that no matter where it is located, in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto or elsewhere, this market would be so small as to be almost insignificant. If we are not participating more fulsomely in the international markets, then it is going to be difficult for us.
The second comment I would make is this. In Europe a number of markets have emerged. There is of course a primary trading market in London. There is a market emerging in Amsterdam. There are tertiary markets now that are coming up in Germany and elsewhere. Italy is now examining a small market in Rome. This is going to become, once it is up and fully running, the largest single market that the planet has ever seen: international carbon markets. There will be a lot of room in this country for perhaps a location in Montreal and perhaps another location in Toronto.
Finally, it is difficult for some Canadians to understand why we would situate such a market in the city of Montreal. If in fact the Bloc Québécois is still now pursuing a policy of independence, why would that market remain in Montreal if it is to serve all of Canada?
Business of Supply April 24th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, for years I have been calling for a national energy examination in this country, not a national energy policy program of the kind that is often referred to from the 1970s, and intelligent jurisdictions, wealthy, leading industrialized jurisdictions, have already performed these analyses. It was done by the United Kingdom. It was done by Germany. It was done by France. It has been done by Australia. It has even been done by the United States, but not by Canada.
The government is not coming clean with Canadians and talking about how we are going to have to reconcile, obviously, our need to continue to do good business in the fossil fuel sector and our need and our imperative to reduce our greenhouse gases.
One thing is for sure, though, in that it is astonishing for most Canadians to think that the Conservative Party of Canada, now forming this minority government, would rule out the use of market mechanisms. It is supposed to be the party of the free market.
It is now deliberately ruling out the use of international trading mechanisms, which were brought into the Kyoto protocol largely through the demand of American, Canadian and global multinationals that want to harness the use of a free market mechanism to reduce the costs of compliance. They want to take action. They want to move forward. They want to become more energy efficient. They want to sell their environmental technologies that are forthcoming.
The oil sands are filled with environmental technologies that we ought to be selling all over the planet, yet the government is telling the free market in this country that it is not prepared and will not allow them to join the ranks of the international community, 168 countries that signed on to participate, and use this tool more efficiently. It is astonishing for those of us who are trying to understand this. It makes no sense. It is seriously disadvantaging Canada.
Business of Supply April 24th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
It is important to have absolute targets because it is crucial for Canada to have clear and definite targets, especially for the 700 largest emitters in Canada. These emitters belong to three major industrial sectors and they are seeking targets they can work with.
It also helps, because judging by the U.S. experience with their system of domestic trading permits established further to their Clean Air Act, absolute targets ensure certainty regarding prices—for example, the price of a tonne of sulfuric dioxide—and they also provide certainty for the big emitters of chemicals that cause acid rain.
It is also important because science is now telling us, especially in the wake of the Paris and Brussels meetings, that if we see even a 2° increase in temperature, as Sir Nicholas Stern has warned us, absolute targets are indispensable or we may see a 10% cost in our collective international global GDP. This is very serious business. Unfortunately, these numbers were not factored in by the government in last week's analysis.