Bill C-288 (Historical)

Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act

An Act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol

The purpose of this enactment is to ensure that Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. It requires the Minister of the Environment to establish an annual Climate Change Plan and to make regulations respecting climate change. It also requires the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy to advise the Minister — to the extent that it is within its purpose — on the effectiveness of the plans, and requires the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to submit to the Speaker of the House of Commons a report of the progress in the implementation of the plans.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'd like to switch now to Bill C-30 and ask whether there has been any economic analysis done on the effects of Bill C-30. We know that the government commissioned a report on a private member's bill, Bill C-288.

[Cécile Cléroux]

We have done the economic analysis for Bill C-288. We have done the economic analysis for the regulatory framework. We have not done the economic analysis for the revised Bill C-30.

The Environment

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, this agreement will immediately reduce atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gases. By the end of this agreement, in 2010, energy efficiency will be improved by 44% compared to 1990.

However, our constructive approach is in contrast to the Liberal approach. Yesterday, as we have heard, they passed Bill C-288 in 43 seconds, and they did that without calling a single witness. Our approach saves thousands of jobs compared to theirs.

The Senate

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it rammed through its environmental plan in 43 seconds flat.

Canada's leading economist said this bill would cause a massive recession, including dramatic increases in the cost of gasoline, yet the Liberals passed it through the committee without one second of debate. Once again the Liberal Party has shown itself to be anti-democratic and dictatorial in its pursuit of power.

Could the Minister of the Environment tell this House how ramming through Bill C-288 in 43 seconds is undemocratic--

Senate Tenure Legislation

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-4, an important government bill on Senate term limits, has been languishing in the Senate for almost a year as the Liberals play procedural games to delay true Senate reform.

Compare that to what happened in the Senate last night. The Liberals rammed their environmental plan, Bill C-288, through a Senate committee in, and wait for it, 43 seconds. This is the same bill that independent analysts Don Drummond, Mark Jaccard and Carl Sonnen said would cause a massive recession with little or no benefit to the environment. This is the same bill that the Liberal leader in the Senate promised Canadians would not be fast-tracked.

That is the Liberal Party for you, Mr. Speaker. It says one thing and does exactly the opposite. In its pursuit of power, the Liberal Party will stoop to the lowest anti-democratic methods it can get away with. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Gasoline Prices

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, everyone in this House knows that the opposition parties would allow the price of gas to increase by 60% under Bill C-288. Canadians would have to pay almost $2 a litre if it were up to the Bloc Québécois.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the Competition Bureau is an independent agency and if the Bloc Québécois wants to bring this matter before the Competition Bureau I invite it to go there and file a complaint.

That said, it is important for Quebeckers to realize that the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party are in favour of Bill C-288, which will increase the price of gas for Canadians and Quebeckers. That is the position of the Bloc Québécois. It is a position that does not respect market forces and goes against the interests of Quebeckers and Canadians.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, if my friend wants to give the Competition Bureau more power, I invite him to vote for Bill C-41, which gives the Competition Bureau greater power to conduct investigations. The Bloc Québécois has been blocking Bill C-41 for some time.

That said, the Bloc Québécois should also know that gas prices are due to a shortage of inventory in the United States, a breakdown in the production chain. Oil inventories are being built up, and you will see that market forces will soon drive down gas prices again, if Bill C-288 is not adopted.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer my opposition colleague, because he is being a bit inconsistent in this House today. He is calling for lower gas prices for Canadians and Quebeckers, yet the Bloc Québécois is supporting Bill C-288, which will drive up gas prices in Quebec by $1.50 to $2.00 a litre. That is the Bloc Québécois for you: inconsistent and incompetent.

Opposition motion--Gas Prices

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the speeches from the Bloc and there are so many inaccuracies that I had to rise and speak.

Just like the Liberal members and the NDP members who did not read the budget before they voted against it, obviously the Bloc did not read the Competition Act because in the amendment it is proposing, it is trying to give the Competition Bureau a power that it already has.

I want to clarify this. The members repeatedly have said that the Competition Bureau cannot initiate price fixing inquiries. As a matter of fact it can and it does, and it does so regularly. The bureau has secured numerous convictions for price fixing under the act. Over the last 15 years it has secured over $400 million in fines for price fixing.

The real issue here is about consumers and the Bloc cannot run from its record. Let us talk about the price of gasoline. Again, I would like to read from its own platform. It wants to increase corporate income taxes paid by oil companies to over $500 million. That is half a billion dollars. Who is going to pay for that? I say it is the consumers.

In the Bloc's own platform for the environment, it is supporting Bill C-288. We know that if the Bloc's plan were implemented today, the price of gasoline would be $1.60 to $2.00 per litre.

I think this is the ninth time I have asked this question. Will the Bloc come clean and let the people of Quebec and the people of Canada know that it is in favour of higher prices for gasoline, yes or no?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out to the hon. member that the Bloc in fact did vote for Bill C-288, the Liberal environment plan, and the record will show that.

In fact, it is the international community that started this task 10 years ago and started reducing greenhouse gases. When the Liberals were in power, all we saw was hot air. They did nothing. The member would acknowledge that. Those are the facts.

As far as clean energy goes, I thank the member for that comment. That is exactly what we are doing. We have invested $1.5 billion in our ecoenergy renewable initiative for small hydro, biomass, tidal, wind and solar power. This is something that has never been done before by Parliament: bringing all of this renewable energy under one initiative to create incentives to put more on the grid. We are going to put 4,000 megawatts of electricity on the grid, 4,000 megawatts of absolutely clean renewable energy. That is the equivalent of eight coal-fired electricity generation units. That is something that has been done by this government since we have taken office, so it is exactly one of our priorities.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak on this subject. It is something that is obviously on the minds of Canadians.

We all recognize that with the recent spike in gasoline prices at the pumps Canadians are feeling the pinch. Naturally, when prices rise, Canadians are concerned. There is no question that it impacts people's daily lives and affects their cost of living, and we are concerned with that as well.

That is why we brought in a number of initiatives where we think we can make a difference, such as providing rebates of up to $2,000 for the purchase of fuel efficient vehicles and tax rebates on transit passes to encourage more public transit use.

However, at the end of the day our actions have to be balanced and that is exactly what we have done. We have balanced our actions to ensure that the economy remains strong and that there is growth in the job creation sector to ensure Canadians can enjoy our standard of living, as well as protecting the environment.

I have heard the concerns of many opposition members. I know members across will acknowledge that when the Liberals were in power the Competition Bureau in the last six years conducted an investigation six times. Each and every time it found there was no collusion. If in fact there is information that should be brought forward for a seventh investigation, so be it. That is what the Competition Bureau is for.

If the Bloc is proposing under its original motion in fact to investigate this, the Competition Act and the Commissioner of Competition have all of the powers. Therefore, the hon. member across would also agree that in fact this can be investigated.

It is also important, though, that we do not just focus the whole discussion on the price of gasoline. It is also important that we look at other sources of energy as well, especially in the transportation sector.

We are investing heavily in the fuel cell industry. In fact, we have hydrogen buses running on Parliament Hill. That has happened under this government, something we are very proud of. These are opportunities that not only help the environment but obviously decrease our dependency on oil.

I would like to change the focus of this discussion now to Bill C-288. For those who may not be aware, it is a private member's bill by a Liberal member of Parliament on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada to impose the Kyoto targets on the Canadian people and economy over the next five years after it was in office for 10 years and did absolutely nothing on this file.

Maybe that is not accurate. I should not say the Liberals did nothing. In fact, they actually made it worse. If they had done nothing, that might have been helpful or at least put us in a position where we would have a fighting chance. Greenhouse gases have risen dramatically under the Liberal government for 10 years to 35%. The Liberals acknowledge that, they know that is a fact and that is the number.

When the Liberals were in government, they did absolutely nothing. That is a fact and they cannot dispute that greenhouse gases skyrocketed. Now they propose a reckless plan. There is no other description for this plan. It is reckless. If they were being truthful with themselves, the constituents and this country, they would acknowledge it. They know it is reckless. There is no other word to describe it. This plan has been looked at by various economists and I will get into more specifics about that in a minute.

Even worse, because members from all of the opposition parties are thinking of purely crass politics and unfortunately it is not working for them, it is not going to work. They are all supporting this Liberal plan and, without question, the price of gasoline will skyrocket.

There is an independent analysis that has been done on this which shows that the price of gasoline will rise by 60%. We can do the math. That is somewhere between $1.60, depending upon which part of the country, up to as high as $2.00.

I am going to read specifically from this report where this analysis was done. I will read from page 21 of “The Cost of Bill C-288 to Canadian Families and Business”. This is an independent economic analysis. I think it is very important that this debate stays factual, that we do not try to torque it, and we just put the facts on the table and let the Canadian people judge it. It states:

Prices for transportation fuels would also rise by a large margin--roughly 60% higher relative to BAU. At today's gasoline prices of approximately 90 cents a litre, this would translate into an average price of over $1.40 per litre as a result of the policy.

Those are the facts and the Liberals do not like to hear it. Whether it is in question period or whether it is in the foyer of the House of Commons, they do not like those facts.

We can argue that maybe it is $1.55, $1.65 or $2.05, but there is no question that there would be drastic economic costs to the current direction taken by the Liberal Party of Canada. It is not a balanced approach. It is a reckless approach. Even worse, the NDP and the Bloc are supporting this reckless approach and it must be said.

Let me quote from other parts of this analysis on the Liberal environment plan, Bill C-288. It states on page 18:

The analysis indicates that GDP would decline by more than 6.5% relative to current projections in 2008 as a result of the policy, falling to a level about 4.2% below that of 2007. This would imply a deep recession in 2008, with a one-year net loss of national economic activity in the range of $51 billion relative to 2007 levels. By way of comparison, the most severe recession in the post World War II period for Canada, as measured by the fall in real GDP, was in 1981-1982.

There is a lot more. We have economists such as Don Drummond who is the senior vice-president and chief economist at the Toronto-Dominion Bank Financial Group. We have people like Jean-Thomas Bernard, professor, department of economics, Laval University; Christopher Green, professor, department of economics, McGill University; Mark Jaccard, professor, school of resource and environment management at Simon Fraser University; and Carl Sonnen, president of Informetrica Limited.

I stress that this is not the Conservative analysis. This analysis was done by some of the most respected economists in the country. They are saying what would happen. Don Drummond stated:

I believe the economic cost would be at least as deep as the recession in the early 1980s and indeed that is the result your department's analysis shows. Relative to the base case, the level of output declines around 7 per cent.

Christopher Green, professor, department of economics at McGill, said:

I have read the draft on the potential economic costs of meeting the provisions of Bill C-288. I agree with the draft’s main finding, that attempting to meet the provisions of Bill C-288 would be economically costly. Indeed, if anything, that the GDP reductions (costs) would be larger than are estimated by the modeling framework you employed.

These are some of the facts. They cannot be disputed.

I am sure members are fully away that some of the costs that drive up the price of gasoline are market forces. The Liberals had many investigations when they were in power on everything up to the price on the world markets. These are obviously links. We know there are municipal and federal taxes and refinery costs.

It is important to note that what we are really hearing from the opposition members is that they want to regulate the price of gasoline. Where that has been done in the past--

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, again I would like to say how amazed I am by the Bloc putting up a member who is saying that the Bloc supports consumers. If I could read for members from the Bloc's platform, in the Bloc's own words, what the Bloc Québécois would like to do is levy a surtax on oil company profits and increase the corporate income tax paid by oil companies by $500 million. In other words, the Bloc wants to add half a billion dollars to this. Who do those members think is going to pay for this?

It is the same with the Bloc's environmental program. It is supporting the Liberals, or what Buzz Hargrove would call a radical environmental program, on Bill C-288. We have leading economists in Canada who have said that if the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP got their way gas prices today would be at $1.60 to $2 per litre. That is what the Bloc would do for the Québécois and for Canadians if those members had their way.

Here we have the member standing up and saying that he is supportive of Canadian consumers, but he will not come clean on whether those members agree with higher prices for gas or not. I am going to ask the question again, for what I think is the eighth time.

Once again, the Liberal Party supports an increase in the price of gas. The leader of the official opposition said that an increase in the price of gas would benefit Canada in the medium and long terms. Does the Bloc support an increase in the price of gas? The Bloc must answer today: yes or no?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I have been trying to get a straight position from the Liberals all day.

I think this will be the sixth or seventh time that the following question has been asked. The leader of the Liberal Party is on the record as numerous times as saying that “high gas prices are actually good for Canada in the medium and long term”. We have been trying to get a straight answer from the Liberals all day.

Now that member is standing up, a member who comes from a party that brought in Kyoto with no plan. The Liberals are favouring Bill C-288. Economists are saying that if the Liberals had their way today Canadians would be paying $1.60 to $2 per litre for gas.

Does the member support his leader with higher gas prices? Does he believe that is the right thing? Could I have a straight answer, please?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the speech by the hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche. I want to take this opportunity to say hello to the people of New Brunswick and tell them that, fortunately, with a Conservative government, gas prices are twice as low as they would be if our Liberal friends opposite were in power, because with Bill C-288 and its draconian reductions of greenhouse gases, and after 13 years of their inaction, our gas prices would be twice as high. This is a major concern.

I was in Lévis Monday morning before coming here and the price of gas was $1.17. I think about all the workers from Bellechasse who go to work and sometimes have to make wage concessions. This is a worrisome situation and that is why our government is concerned about this situation and is putting more money back into the taxpayers' pockets, by reducing the GST, for example, to help workers better cope with these price increases.

There is one thing the previous government did not do. Why did it do absolutely nothing in 13 years to reduce greenhouse gases, while our government has invested several billion dollars in the past 15 months to encourage people to buy fuel efficient vehicles? We are even putting surcharges on vehicles that consume a lot of energy. We have implemented tax credits for public transit and we want to ensure that our economy is no longer dependent on hydrocarbons with the ecoenergy and ecotrust programs.

My question for the hon. opposition member is the following. Why is his leader, who is in support of gas prices being twice as high with Bill C-288, pleased—it was in the Calgary Herald on August 24, 2005—that the price of gas in Canada is high for the short, medium and long terms when that is detrimental to the country's workers?