Jeff Watson

[Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, February 9th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that Canadians are very concerned about their environment and about climate change.

Accepting the science of climate change and the growing need for action after a decade of Liberal inaction, Canada's new Conservative government is taking real, effective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address these concerns.

Unlike the Liberal sponsor, we have carefully considered Bill C-288. Our conclusion is that Bill C-288 is seriously flawed and must be opposed. We need to draw some important distinctions between this flawed Bill C-288 and this government's clean air act.

First, Bill C-288 is far too little, far too late. It is a desperate Liberal attempt to unwisely force us to make their targets and timeline. What did the former environment commissioner say about these Kyoto timelines? She said that even if the Liberals were still in power they would not have made the Kyoto targets and timeline.

Opinion leaders across Canada agree that we cannot make the Kyoto targets and timeline. Even the new leader of the official opposition admits that he cannot make the Kyoto targets and timeline.

I know the sponsor of the bill supported the deputy leader of the Liberal Party and not the current leader at their recent convention. The Liberal deputy leader said that the Liberals did not get it done. Bill C-288 still does not get it done. Bill C-288 is also a recognition of the Liberals' 13 years of inaction on the environment.

Claude Villeneuve, from the University of Quebec, said this about Bill C-288, “This bill would have been excellent if it had been introduced in 1998”.

When Mark Jaccard testified before the environment committee he said, “I would say, no, it still doesn't give you enough timeframe”. It is too little, too late.

If the Liberals were serious about climate change and the Kyoto targets they signed us on to, why did they not act when they had a chance? They had 8 years, 10 budgets, 7 surplus budgets, 7 years of solid majority government, 5 years with the current tools under CEPA and they took no action. There is not excuse for Liberal inaction on climate change. The leader of the Liberal Party knows no shame on this issue.

Not only is Bill C-288 too little, too late, it is incomplete. Where is the medium term plan? What about the long term? Where are the costs?

The sponsor of the bill, the Liberal member for Honoré-Mercier, said at committee that he did not even care about a plan or the costs to implement Bill C-288. The Liberals do not care about having plans. They do not care about those things. We care about them.

How can they be taken seriously on climate change? How can Bill C-288 be seriously taken as a plan on climate change? Its focus is short term. In fact, there is only one short term timeline on the Liberal horizon now and that is the next election. It seems to be the only thing they care about any more. By contrast, we have one approach, reductions in GHGs and pollution in the short, medium and long term.

Kyoto was only a first step toward a serious approach to the problem. We have always been clear that Canada will work with other countries, including the major nations that are polluting but are not in Kyoto. The Liberals would not work with them. They left them out when they negotiated the agreement to advance a more transformative and long term approach to tackling climate change.

Our action at home is laying a foundation for cooperative international efforts to conquer climate change. Our commitment in the short term is GHG targets that will yield a better outcome than what was proposed by the Liberals in 2005. On air pollutants, we have proposed fixed emission caps at minimum as rigorous as jurisdictions that are leaders in environmental performance. This is a major step that no previous federal Liberal government has taken.

We are looking at the best way for industry to comply with these targets. We will ensure that we have a regulatory system that will allow industry to choose the most cost effective way to meet its emissions targets while meeting our environmental and health objectives.

We are also supporting the development of transformative technologies, especially for GHGs, technologies that will be needed to achieve the deep reductions required if we are to prevent irreversible climate change.

Not only is Bill C-288 too little, too late, not only is Bill C-288 not a real plan for climate change, but Bill C-288 has no penalties. How about that? Where is the enforcement? Clearly the Liberals do not believe that the polluter pays for damaging our health and our environment. Without enforcement, Bill C-288 is not much of a bill. It might as well have been a motion, or how about a preamble to a real bill on climate change.

Bill C-288 is therefore useless. I think the Liberals know a lot about being useless, but that is fine. I guess that makes Liberals feel better when they put their heads down on their pillows at night.

In order to protect Canadians' health and our environment, legislation must be strictly enforced or it will not be effective. We know the Liberals were not effective. Stiff enforcement acts as a deterrence to future damage to human health and the environment.

Enforcement means that parties subject to the requirements under environmental laws or regulations will comply with those requirements or pay real consequences.

Enforcement is a pivotal part of achieving this government's goals to clean up our environment and protect the health of Canadians. Enforcement of an act must be fair, predictable and consistent for government, industry, organized labour and individuals.

This government's clean air act, Bill C-30, builds on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, among other things, by strengthening enforcement authorities to ensure compliance with all requirements of our bill; not so with Bill C-288 before us today. This is a neutered bill.

Our clean air act by contrast is a strong bill. Enforcement officers will carry out inspections to verify compliance with the law and direct corrective measures to be taken. Where there is danger to the environment, human life or health, the government would be able to act; not so with Bill C-288.

Under our clean air act, enforcement officers will be able to conduct investigations of suspected transportation violations by controlling the movement of cars, trucks, trains or other modes of transport. Officers can stop them or move them to locations suitable for inspection.

Enforcement officers have the power of peace officers as well. Maximum penalties can include fines of up to $1 million for each day an offence continues, imprisonment of up to three years, or both. That is a bill with real teeth, not like Bill C-288.

How about this? Where an offence continues for more than one day, the person may be convicted for a separate offence for each day the illegal activity lasts.

Canada's clean air act has real muscle. Bill C-288 sadly gets sand kicked in its face. Our Bill C-30 will strengthen this government's ability to establish tradable unit programs for air pollutants and GHGs by proposing amendments to CEPA's current penalty provisions to make them work better with emissions trading systems. There is no such improvement in Bill C-288.

Canada's clean air act also provides all fines for violations be paid into an environmental damages fund, a special account created to assist in managing financial compensation granted to Environment Canada for restoration of damages sustained by the environment. There is no such improvement in Bill C-288.

Where there is danger to the environment, human life or health, we will take action and we will have the tools to act. Bill C-288, sad to say, cannot be enforced and the Liberals know it and they do not care about that. That is a danger where the environment, human life or health is in jeopardy. Bill C-288 is not a plan for climate change; it is a recipe for the type of inaction the Liberals became infamous for.

Bill C-288 is too little, too late, no plan, no muscle, not worth supporting. Canadians deserve better. Canadians are demanding better than Bill C-288. I ask all colleagues in the House to vote against Bill C-288 and put their efforts instead into passing Canada's clean air act.

[Black History Month, February 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Elijah McCoy was born in Colchester township to runaway slaves who fled Kentucky via the underground railroad. He studied mechanical engineering in Scotland, but racial discrimination denied him the opportunity to be a railroad engineer. Instead, he became a fireman-oiler with the Michigan Central Railway. Here he set about to remedy the poor on-time performance of railways from the need to stop to oil joints.

At his home machine shop, Elijah invented an automatic lubricator, receiving a US patent in 1872. His “Improvement for Steam Engines” allowed trains to run faster with less maintenance, allowing for the first time reliable scheduling and paving the way for our modern economy, a feat which changed the world as they knew it.

His genius for the automatic lubricator was most imitated but never equalled, leading businesses in search of his authentic article to ask for “the real McCoy”.

Today, during Black History Month, we not only celebrate a gifted African Canadian inventor, but I call upon the House to support me in having Elijah McCoy named a national historic figure.

[Member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, February 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, recently the Liberal deputy leader admitted, “People are prisoners of their past beliefs.” This must give his new Liberal leader fits.

Unable to change Liberal spots, let us look at the verbal crime spree that has landed the Liberal deputy leader in the political slammer for life.

The Liberal deputy leader supports the Afghan mission while accusing his Liberal boss of running away for, “political convenience”. The deputy leader also accused first nations governments of lacking, “the capacity to deliver rights, justice and equality.” Can the Liberal leader let him out of jail free? I hope not.

Unlike his boss, he also supports the U.S. in Iraq. “I've done so ever since 1992,” he said. He is a Liberal serial offender.

On his Liberal leader's environment record, he correctly said his leader, “didn't get it done”.

The Liberal deputy leader is caught in a prison of his own past beliefs. Now he is doing hard time behind the man he thought he would be. Talk about not getting the job done.

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Just nationalize it.

[Income Tax Act, December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a very good day for seniors today. I want to start by thanking hon. members in the chamber for their unanimous support in getting the bill to committee.

I want to point out a few honourable mentions. Of course my colleague, the hon. member for Chatham-Kent—Essex, is the seconder of the bill. I want to commend the hard work especially by the New Democrat members for Windsor—Tecumseh and Windsor West. Before I came to the House, they took up this battle from the member for Calgary Southeast, who was one of the original sponsors of the bill in a couple of forms before that. The official opposition today has seen fit to ensure that this at least gets to committee for some study.

In light of that, I want to move this debate away from the issue of tax fairness, of which we have heard an awful lot, to what this issue really is about, and that is tax justice. In committee we have an opportunity to finally move the debate to this issue. It needs to be started by first acknowledging that an injustice was committed January 1, 1996, when the tax rules changed for a number of Canadian seniors who collected the U.S. social security pension after retirement. That changed their entire retirement assumptions, the money they had available for living out their years.

Many wound up extremely bitter. To this day, those who survive, fewer in number and many stricken with ailments, are still very bitter about this. They long for the day when all parties acknowledge in the House that an injustice was committed with respect to taxation. Those who retired after the rule changed have not experienced the same injustice.

I know the bill asks for an across the board lowering of the inclusion rate. I hope the committee will come up with a real solution which would achieve a grandfathering for seniors who were originally affected after retirement. The bill hopes to address that. Perhaps the committee could hear testimony and attain the desired wording for the change to achieve that. This will send a clear signal if we can achieve a result like this in committee and beyond, and that being the fact that the House is concerned with tax justice for seniors.

I will conclude with a very humble thanks to all hon. members in the House for their support for the bill. This is indeed, as I stated in my opening comments, a great day for Canadian seniors. It will be a better day when the change is finally passed, whether as a budget item, or by this bill or by whatever means, to address the tax injustice. That will indeed be the greatest day for seniors in Canada.

[Liberal Party of Canada, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, recently Liberal Tom Axworthy, the man charged with leading Liberal Party renewal, revealed that the Liberals have been hiding a dirty little secret--get this everyone--that Liberals could not keep their promises to Canadians. That is like a flasher admitting to his victims that he is not wearing any briefs. No shock here.

Canadians figured out the Liberals back on January 23. It only took Mr. Axworthy 10 months and an impending Liberal convention to finally admit that Liberals are promise breakers. What does he propose the Liberal Party do? Make more promises of course.

Before they get caught up in their self-congratulatory lovefest and collective amnesia at their convention, let us remember what the Liberals will try desperately to forget this week. The Liberals promised to fix health care for a generation, and then did not. The Liberals promised to scrap the GST, and then did not. The Liberals promised to tear up NAFTA, and then did not. The Liberals promised a new era of ethics, Gomery. Then Canadians told them they did not.

It is no secret why Canadians kicked the Liberals to the opposition curb.

[Petitions, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to present another petition with about 1,000 signatures of citizens from across Canada. The petitioners want to give our courts and the police the tools to protect our young adolescents, as parents both demand and expect, by raising the age of protection from 14 to 16.

[Petitions, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured today to present two petitions representing the signatures of dozens and dozens of residents of Ontario. The petitioners call on the House to reopen the issue of marriage in this Parliament and to repeal or amend the Marriage for Civil Purposes Act in order to promote and defend marriage as the lawful union of one man and one woman.

[The Environment, November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, only a month ago, the Liberal member for Honoré-Mercier partly fell in line behind his Liberal leadership wannabe by finally admitting that the Liberals did not do enough on Kyoto.

Now the member wants his Liberals to do even less with his private member's bill recklessly committing the new government to the failed Liberal approach on climate change.

His colleague from Kings—Hants said that the Liberals' Kyoto position was “written on the back of an airplane vomit bag on the way to Kyoto”. That being the case, the Liberal member for Honoré-Mercier should have been able to figure out what his Kyoto bill is.

It gets worse, though. At committee last week, that Liberal admitted that he did not care about having an action plan or the cost for his bill. It sounds like when the Liberals were in government: three so-called action plans that lacked climate change action for 13 years, no plan to reduce pollution and billions proposed to clean up Kazakhstan rather than downtown Toronto.

Canadians deserve and expect better. Rather than the Liberals' bill on a failed Kyoto approach, the Liberals need to clear up their act, work with us and pass the clean air act now.

[Income Tax Act, October 30th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, this measure is designed to do one thing and one thing only, which is to lower the amount of income that is included for the taxation of a benefit. Let us take a number like $15,000. If that were my benefit, instead of having 85% of it eligible to be taxed, we are now only talking about having 50% of it eligible to be taxed.

If we were to apply this to Americans who collect the Canada pension plan, they are taxed as if they were receiving a U.S. social security benefit over there. What this means in their law is that most seniors would not even be paying tax.

The current rate is 85%. In the United States only 6% of seniors would be taxed at the highest level. More than half would not even pay a cent of tax and the rest would be somewhere in between that. If it were 50%, the way it was before, virtually no seniors would be paying tax.