Bill C-30 (Historical)

Canada's Clean Air Act

An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Energy Efficiency Act and the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act (Canada's Clean Air Act)

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to promote the reduction of air pollution and the quality of outdoor and indoor air. It enables the Government of Canada to regulate air pollutants and greenhouse gases, including establishing emission-trading programs, and expands its authority to collect information about substances that contribute or are capable of contributing to air pollution. Part 1 also enacts requirements that the Ministers of the Environment and Health establish air quality objectives and publicly report on the attainment of those objectives and on the effectiveness of the measures taken to achieve them.
Part 2 of this enactment amends the Energy Efficiency Act to
(a) clarify that classes of energy-using products may be established based on their common energy-consuming characteristics, the intended use of the products or the conditions under which the products are normally used;
(b) require that all interprovincial shipments of energy-using products meet the requirements of that Act;
(c) require dealers to provide prescribed information respecting the shipment or importation of energy-using products to the Minister responsible for that Act;
(d) provide for the authority to prescribe as energy-using products manufactured products, or classes of manufactured products, that affect or control energy consumption; and
(e) broaden the scope of the labelling provisions.
Part 3 of this enactment amends the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act to clarify its regulation-making powers with respect to the establishment of standards for the fuel consumption of new motor vehicles sold in Canada and to modernize certain aspects of that Act.

Business of the House

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the government House leader would describe for us his plan for the business of the House for the balance of this week and to the end of next week. Specifically, during that timeframe, could he indicate the fate of Bill C-16, dealing with fixed election dates? Will the minister confirm that he has no intention of recalling Bill C-16 for further action in the House during the life of this Parliament.

With respect to Bill C-30, the clean air act, when will that legislation come back to the House of Commons for further consideration? When the Prime Minister announces his new plan with respect to emission targets, will the Prime Minister be acting under the auspices of Bill C-30 or under the existing Canadian Environmental Protection Act?

The Environment

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has to stop hiding behind bogus, irresponsible and incomplete reports that purport to suggest it is either jobs and the economy on the one hand or the environment on the other. That is simply wrong.

The greatest threat to our economy is the climate change crisis and it is time the Prime Minister understood it. Has he got the guts to bring Bill C-30, which was built by all parties of the House, before the House, and when will he do it?

If he has targets, let him bring them to the House so we can debate them and adopt them or change them. Will he have the courage to--

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, six months ago I called upon the Prime Minister to send his doomed clean air act to a special committee where all parties could participate and where every party could put forward its best ideas on how we could address the crisis of climate change. He agreed to do so.

Now that committee has finished its work. Every party has some of their ideas contained in that legislation.

My question is very simple. The future of this issue is in the hands of the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister table the bill before the House? When will he do it so we can debate, amend and vote on the clean air act, Bill C-30? When will he do it?

Climate Change Accountability Act

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to debate Bill C-377, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change.

This is a big issue. For most of us, sometimes we get sidetracked by other issues but the damage that continues to be inflicted on our planet is a warning to all of us to do something to make a difference and to work together in developing strategies that will make a difference so that we can tackle the issue of climate change. We can no longer afford to be complacent and merely speak about the subject.

A number of things put this issue in perspective for me. I spend a lot of time in schools in my riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, in high schools, junior high schools and elementary schools. While Canadians are focused on a number of different issues, the environment has always been a major issue for young Canadians.

As a parent of two young children I am very concerned about our environment. I want my children and all young Canadians to grow up in a world that places a priority on a clean environment, a world where new technologies are employed to combat climate change. I want them to grow up in a world where Canada honours its commitments, leads the world in tackling the effects of climate change and is prepared to take our responsibility to the planet seriously.

Every day we read about or witness on television or in our own communities the effects of climate change. It is our behaviour as humans that has brought us to the brink. Far too often we put more value on the present than on the future.

As parliamentarians we have no greater obligation than to do what is right. There is no longer any debate on what is causing climate change; it is us. There is no longer a debate as to the validity of the science, and those who dispute the science are often the same people who believe the world has only been in existence for a few thousand years.

Last year, as I suspect all members of the House did, I watched the movie by Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth. This movie did not have as its goal to entertain the world, though it did. It was not meant to generate box office revenues, though it did. It was meant to alert us, to wake up the world to the crisis that exists with respect to climate change, and it did that as well.

Today we debate Bill C-377. This bill in many ways mimics an earlier bill introduced by my Liberal colleague from Honoré-Mercier. Bill C-288 recently passed with the support of all opposition parties, including the NDP. It seeks to have Canada meet its global obligations to the Kyoto accord. That bill is now before the Senate.

I want to congratulate my colleague from Honoré-Mercier, along with the member for Ottawa South, both of whom have been leaders on the issue of the environment, calling for the government to take serious action to combat climate change. It is our hope that the current government, whose members continue to play politics with this issue, would respect Bill C-288 and honour the Kyoto accord.

We have also had significant successes with another bill that is before the House, Bill C-30, the clean air act. Shortly after the introduction of this bill, it was recognized by most members of the House that it fell short of accomplishing any real measures to combat the crisis of climate change. Shortly thereafter, the government agreed to strike a special legislative committee. At the end of March, after a week of intense negotiations and late night sittings, opposition parties rallied around Liberal amendments to the bill and passed a comprehensive plan.

Having served on a special legislative committee on civil marriage a couple of years ago, I can appreciate the time and effort that all parties put in to rewriting the government's bill. I thank each of them for the hard work that they did on this very difficult issue.

To the surprise of many, the renamed clean air and climate change act was reported back to the House on time. When the clean air act was proposed by the government in the fall, many of us on this side of the House were very disappointed because it offered nothing new in our fight against climate change. The bill appeared to distract us from the fact that the government was not using its tools to negotiate with large industrial emitters, as the Liberal government had done. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act as amended in 1999 is already a very robust toolbox to confront large emitters.

Draft regulations to limit emissions were in place in the fall of 2005, but the Conservatives threw them out of the window when they came into office. When the government referred the clean air act to the special legislative committee, we had hoped the Minister of the Environment would propose improvements to the legislation. In the end, the government did not come up with one single substantive improvement.

Further, when it became obvious that the government was not serious and had no intention of taking substantive measures, our leader proposed a white paper called “Balancing Our Carbon Budget”. It is an aggressive and innovative plan to meet the challenge of real and substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Balancing our carbon budget would work in the following way.

A hard cap on greenhouse gas emissions would come into effect on January 1, 2008, for the three largest industrial emitting sectors: electricity generation, upstream oil and gas, and energy intensive industries. The cap would be set at the Kyoto standard of 1990 emissions levels less 6% and would establish an effective carbon budget that companies within these sectors could be expected to meet.

Those companies that do not meet their carbon budget would deposit $20, growing to $30, per excess tonne of CO₂ equivalent into a green investment account. At a rate of $10 per tonne every year, companies could freely access the funds in the GIA to invest in green projects and initiatives that would contribute to tangible reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

GIA funds would be held in trust by an independent operating agency governed with participation from the private, public and not for profit sectors. Funds not allocated to a project within two years would be administered by an independent operating agency to be invested in other green projects and initiatives.

At least 80% of the funds would be invested in the province where the facility of the depositing firm is located.

Companies that surpass the reductions called for in their carbon budget would be able to trade their unused allotments to other Canadian firms. Large industrial emitters would also be able to buy international emission credits, certified under the Kyoto protocol, to offset up to 25% of the amount they are required to deposit into GIAs.

Opposition MPs from all parties supported the solutions outlined in that plan and incorporated much of it into the new clean air and climate change act.

The bill now endorses a national carbon budget based on our Kyoto targets and reaches out to 60% to 80% reductions from 1990 levels by 2050. It requires the government to put in place the hard cap for large emitters and uses this hard cap to create market incentives for deep emission reductions.

For years businesses have been looking for the guidance and certainty that this law would provide. When the bill passes Parliament, it will allow companies to plan their investments and green technologies, reward early action and help us avoid the most dramatic climate change scenarios.

I am proud of that work and I am proud of my colleagues. There is more to be done. The next step is to ensure that the government does not ignore the special legislative committee's amendments. In line with that work, I am pleased to support Bill C-377.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to take part in the debate this evening on Bill C-377, Climate Change Accountability Act.

At the onset, let me acknowledge that we are all aware of climate change. Responding to climate change is a major concern for this government and no doubt will remain so in the foreseeable future. I suppose the only thing we could say for sure about the weather is that whatever it used to be, it is not likely to be.

In my own riding on the west coast, we are surrounded by temperate rainforest. Tourists flock to the west coast of Vancouver Island to visit Pacific Rim National Park to enjoy the surf, sun, beach, boating and outdoor adventures. Yet, for the first time in memory, this past summer, Tofino, a popular tourist destination, experienced water shortages. This past winter vicious storms lashed the coast causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to our famous West Coast Trail. In fact, we recently provided $500,000 in funding to help clean up the damage in the park and restore the trail, and a further $2 million to help restore Vancouver's famous Stanley Park. Meanwhile right here in Ottawa, Christmas was one of the mildest in recent history and there were concerns about whether Ottawa's famous Rideau Canal, the world's largest skating rink, would open.

That is why this government has been very clear that in the coming weeks we are going to bring clear targets and regulations that are aimed at specific sources of air pollutants and greenhouse gases.

However, rather than the mechanism proposed by Bill C-377, I believe that we have a more effective way of reaching our goals by setting realistic and achievable goals, targets that will strengthen Canada's long term competitiveness, targets that will still represent significant and positive progress in our fight to reduce harmful air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. I believe this government is already on the right path to achieving those objectives.

We have made it clear that we are committed to delivering solutions that will protect the health of Canadians and their environment. It is a commitment that we take seriously. That is why we are taking concrete actions that will improve and protect our environment and our health. We are proactively working with Canadians to take action toward those targets. We are providing financial and tax incentives to encourage Canadians to drive eco-friendly vehicles. We are supporting the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and tidal powers. We are providing incentives to Canadians to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

Through budget 2007 we are investing $4.5 billion to clean our air and water, to manage chemical substances, to protect our natural environment and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This investment when combined with over $4.7 billion in environmental investments since 2006 adds up to over $9 billion. That is a significant investment in a cleaner and greener environment right here in Canada.

Canadians care deeply about their environment. They want and they expect their government to take real action. They have told us that they are particularly concerned with the quality of the air that we all breathe.

The notice of intent to regulate that this government issued last October represents real action that Canadians are demanding, a significant, aggressive and positive step in the right direction.

In the coming weeks Canadians will soon see more details expounded as the Minister of the Environment announces the regulatory framework for all industrial sectors. This framework will set short term emissions reduction targets. It will provide real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and in doing so, it will also position Canada among the international leaders in the global fight against climate change.

Permit me to say a few words in the process about Bill C-30, the clean air act, because it is indeed related to many of the issues dealt with in Bill C-377.

Canadians are, as I said, concerned about the quality of the air they breathe and their changing environment. Harmful air emissions continue to affect our health, our environment and our economy, as well as our quality of life. That is why I found some of the changes to Bill C-30 recently pushed through committee by the opposition to be hypocritical.

Through the opposition's amendments to Bill C-30, we have now lost mandatory national air quality standards, mandatory annual public reporting on air quality, and actions to achieve national air quality standards. What are the opposition members thinking? We have lost increased research and monitoring of air pollutants and tougher environmental enforcement rules for compliance to air quality regulations.

Probably in the most shocking move, the Liberals inserted a clause that would allow political interference into air quality standards. The Liberals, supported by the NDP, have changed the bill to allow the Minister of the Environment to exempt economically depressed areas from air quality standards for two years. This would allow them to buy votes by exempting certain Liberal-rich voting areas of the country from air quality regulations that protect the health of those voters, while punishing other areas of the country that are economically strong but do not vote Liberal.

For all of the rhetoric from the opposition parties on strengthening Bill C-30, they now have to explain to Canadians why they played personal partisan politics with air quality standards.

Improving and protecting the air we breathe is an objective that all of us in government must work toward regardless of our political stripes. Taking action on climate change and air pollution is everyone's responsibility. Unfortunately, this bill just does not do it. That is why I cannot support Bill C-377. It does not get it done.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak to this climate change bill crafted by the member for Toronto—Danforth. He knows this issue back and front and, more importantly, he walks the talk. He has retrofitted his home to be a net producer of energy. As a Toronto city councillor, he proposed solutions, followed through and made them reality, such as the Toronto atmospheric fund, one of the most ambitious and effective building retrofit programs in the country.

Now, as MP and leader of the NDP, he has proposed practical solutions and has followed through on that, for example, with the cooperative initiative, bringing all parties together to bring their best ideas to re-craft the flawed Bill C-30. Now it is up to the House to make that a reality.

At the start of the year, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its fourth assessment report, which provides the most sobering and scientifically precise overview to date.

It is expected that sea levels will rise, species will become extinct and natural catastrophes will increase throughout the world. In North America, we can expect an increase in hurricanes, flooding, forest fires and drought. Our cities will have to cope with heat waves that will be more frequent and intense and that will last longer, as well as their effects on health, particularly in the elderly and children.

In my province of B.C., drinking water will become more scarce and threats to water quality will become more frequent and serious. Researchers at the University of Victoria have examined 70 to 80 glacier fronts over the past five years and have consistently found glaciers in rapid decline and already at their lowest ebb in 8,000 years.

Last year's boil water advisory in greater Vancouver was the largest in Canadian history, but it will not be the largest for long.

Given the irrefutable scientific evidence before us, what possible reason could any responsible government have for not acting with more urgency?

Liberals and Conservatives seem to agree: both tell us that the economy comes first.

Under the Liberals, greenhouse gas emissions rose by 24% instead of going down, but the economy was booming, they told us, and they could not very well slow it down.

The Conservatives use emergency closure measures to act immediately to impose unfair labour settlements, but not on climate change. For that, we are still waiting.

Pitting the environment against the economy is disingenuous and just irresponsible. Last October's report by former World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern makes this very clear.

Societies always need energy. However, we must change our collective mentality by turning from policies of productivity and excessive consumerism to policies that promote efficiency and conservation.

By practising conservation, we can reduce the gap between our energy needs and the supply of clean, renewable energy. The government can help promote the energy efficiency of our homes, buildings and businesses by providing incentives that will lead us to change our means of transportation and the way of ordering our communities and our daily lives.

As a city councillor, I saw the determination of some municipalities to use every tool at their disposal to take up the challenge, while the federal government's response remained weak and unfocused. Canada now ranks 28th out of 29 OECD countries in energy efficiency. We have a lot of room for improvement.

In Victoria, we are working very hard to do our part.

Recently in Victoria there have been several public forums on climate change, with hundreds of people attending, and I dedicated my fall newsletter to the issue of climate change. I commended my constituents for the small and large actions they take every day and I challenged them to do more.

As a result, I received an overwhelming number of feedback forms coming from that newsletter, all with actions that Victorians are taking, such as retrofitting their homes, choosing energy efficient appliances and choosing alternative modes of transportation.

As inspiring as these simple actions are, they are betrayed by continued government inaction or halfway measures, which make it harder, not easier, for ordinary Canadians to make these choices.

It is still easier to buy polluting products that have travelled for miles to get to big box stores than it is to buy local products.

The federal government has failed to correct what Sir Nicholas Stern has called the biggest market failure. When it has acted, it has been with half measures or even quarter measures.

The government's so-called recent ecoenergy home retrofit program is an example of this kind of half-hearted measure. It does not meet the needs of low income Canadians or those with rental properties, whereas what we need is a program that would systematically facilitate the retrofit of millions of homes and buildings in Canada on a yearly basis.

This bill has been introduced precisely because of the inadequate effort of the federal government now and for the past 14 years.

This bill would end the federal government's voluntary delay and would legislate action, action that is rooted in where science tells us we need to go.

It would be based on action that would begin to tilt the market away from polluting industries and would level the playing field between polluting and non-polluting ones.

This bill enshrines the 80% target in law. Furthermore, it requires a 25% reduction by 2020, on par with the commitments of the Kyoto protocol and the 2050 target.

These targets are based on the important report The Case for Deep Reductions, prepared by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, and supported by all major environmental organizations in Canada. Thus, it stands to reason that the starting point for this bill is meeting our Kyoto protocol commitments. We are joining other countries that have set ambitious targets to comply with the Kyoto protocol.

To arrive at our destination, we must map out a route. That is why the targets are essential.

Since this bill was introduced, some of these measures, notably the medium and long term targets, have been successfully incorporated into Bill C-30 by the special legislative committee. We look forward to Bill C-30 coming back to the House for a vote. However, we know there is no guarantee in politics.

That is why I am urging members of the House to support Bill C-377 in principle and vote for it to proceed to committee. We expect that the committee can be just as constructive in exchanging views and propositions for this legislation.

To close, I would like to relay a thought from an IPCC scientist who attended Victoria's recent forums. He said that no matter what we do, short term temperatures will rise as a result of the past decades of inaction, but our actions today are necessary because they will determine the long term impacts that our grandchildren will feel.

It is said that politicians always look for short term electoral gain and I wonder if in this House today we have politicians who are willing to act, not just talk, but act with their vote for the long term.

Do we cherish our environment and our children's future enough to make the fundamental changes that are needed to protect them? Because what we do in this House today is for the next generation.

The Environment

[John Baird, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

What a great question, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, we are seeking to build upon the work that has been done in the past on the Canada-U.S. air quality agreement. We want to reopen the agreement and strengthen the provisions for particulate matter to help ensure that the air Canadians breathe is free from pollution, particularly particulate matter.

The Liberal Party, in committee on Bill C-30, stripped the important clean air parts of Bill C-30 and replaced them with its carbon tax, something that will do nothing for young children with asthma and the elderly who have to stay in on smog days caused by Liberal inaction.

Budget Implementation Act, 2007

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy today to have an opportunity to speak briefly on the budget debate. I want to indicate at the outset that I am planning to share my time with the hard-working member and NDP finance critic from Winnipeg North.

Much has been said about what is and is not in the budget. I think there is a pretty broad consensus that it is a budget born out of political cynicism and that it is simply an array of broken promises and spectacular betrayals. One hears many comments about the many aspects of those broken promises and disappointments. I want to run through a couple of them in the time available.

I think every member of the House can appreciate that it takes a pretty major force to bring every member of the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats alike, together with every member of the Nova Scotia legislature, Conservatives, New Democrats and Liberals alike, to stand together in opposition to the broken promise and spectacular betrayal with respect to the government's treatment of the Atlantic accord and offshore revenue resources.

I am not going to go into all the ins and outs, but let me say very clearly that it is no secret to anybody that what inspired this budget in general, the many choices made by the government and the betrayal with respect to the treatment of offshore resource revenues is the crassest of political objectives. It is the idea that the Conservative minority government can throw overboard anybody in any community, any constituency and any province where it does not think it can make gains to elevate itself to a majority government in the election that it wants to call at the earliest possible opportunity when it calculates that is achievable.

I do not think that this is going to stand up in history as one of the most inspirational visions for a nation. It will be up to the people of Canada to decide, but I think it is absolutely transparent that this was the driving force behind the budget.

Let us be clear that for starters, going into the budget, the government was sitting on and dealing with a surplus of $14.1 billion. Yet when we go through the things that are not even touched or addressed in the budget, it is clear that there is a complete disregard and insensitivity. One cannot even give the government members the benefit of the doubt and say that it is just out of total ignorance that they do not know of the depth and breadth of the unmet needs ignored by the budget.

There is no national housing strategy, this after the previous Liberals destroyed the best national housing program in the world over a decade ago. Nothing has been done to replace it.

There is no national transit strategy. Never has it been more important to have a public transit strategy with our Kyoto challenges and the climate change fiasco that is unfolding.

If it were not for Bill C-30 and, frankly, the leadership of my leader, the member for Toronto—Danforth, we would have no strategy, no timetables and targets. It is my leader who provided tremendous leadership in saying that we cannot face the nation or the world without a strategy, without timetables and targets, and without something meaningful to begin address climate change, the devastating impact on our country and our commitment to try to work with the other countries of the world to minimize that impact and start to rebuild alternative energy plans.

There is also nothing to repair what remains with us as outstanding damage to the employment insurance system. Again, those damages were so fantastic in areas of high unemployment that to this day people are still angry at the smashing of that unemployment insurance system by the Liberals in the mid-1990s. We still have not seen it repaired and there is nothing in the budget to address it.

There is nothing to reduce student debt or the continuing crisis of escalating tuitions.

I could go through the many omissions, but I want to dwell on two in particular.

There is absolutely nothing meaningful in the way of a national anti-poverty strategy. That is despite the fact that what we had in this budget was the opportunity to take a significant portion of this $14.1 billion surplus and ensure that we begin to reduce the gap between the haves and the have nots, to reduce that growing prosperity gap, which is growing in part because this government saw fit to continue on through and implement further corporate tax cuts contained in the past budget. It is an absolute tragedy when we look at the impact on the lives of individuals and families and literally whole regions.

Finally, I want to speak briefly about the complete failure to deal with our disgraceful record with respect to meeting our international obligations for official development assistance. I know that Conservative members are fond of jumping up and down and saying that the budget honours the commitment made by the Liberals to increase by 8% our ODA budget. Our level of ODA is such a humiliation and such a disgrace in the world today that anything short of beginning to make a major leap forward to make up for the foot dragging and the lagging by the Liberals over a 10 year period is simply inadequate.

As a matter of fact, with this budget, to the best of anyone's ability to calculate, we will be at the lowest level of international development assistance since the beginning of really tracking the OECD countries' development assistance levels. Just very briefly historically, that of course was actually making some progress under the Mulroney government and had reached 0.52%. A former finance minister's budgets dragged it down to less than half of that.

As a result of this budget kicking in, we are now going to rank 14th of the OECD countries, moving lower to 15th, and falling so short of those obligations that we do not even begin to contribute to meeting the millennium development goals. Today was a day of teachers in this country coming together to plead for the government to deliver on 0.7% or we will not even begin to make progress toward ensuring universal education for the children of the world.

This budget is a spectacular betrayal. It is a humiliation. One hopes that the government understands that the people of Canada are not prepared to reward the Conservatives with votes of applause until they mend their ways and get on a more progressive track.

Bill C-30

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the duty to present, in both official languages, the first report of the legislative committee on Bill C-30.

In accordance with its order of reference on Monday, December 4, 2006, your committee has considered Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Energy Efficiency Act and the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act (Canada's Clean Air Act) and agreed, on Thursday, March 29, to report it with amendments.

I do that today with thanks to members, especially support staff, who allowed us to do what the media and many others said could not be done, and that was to get it here on time.

The Environment

[John Baird, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the hard work of all members of the committee who considered Bill C-30 at this stage, before it even had been debated in the House.

We are moving forward with a comprehensive climate change action plan. We have come forward with initiatives for the first time to provide funding for the provinces in our ecotrust announcement. That is something the Liberals voted against. We came forward with some strong initiatives on eco-transportation. The Liberals voted against it.

We came forward with substantial investments in our budget, with $4.5 billion of new funding for the first time for a comprehensive plan to fight climate change, and the Liberal Party has voted against it again.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, for weeks the Prime Minister has been saying that he will soon announce his so-called made in Canada plan for greenhouse gas emissions, including all of the targets, but Canadians are still waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Even more disturbing is the fact that the government kept its plan secret and refused to include it as part of the rewrite of Bill C-30. Why has the Prime Minister shown Parliament so much contempt? Does he think the work of the committee is beneath him?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment has now seen the amended version of Bill C-30, which passed in legislative committee just yesterday.

Bill C-30 will be reported to the House later today. My question is simple and straightforward. Will the minister abide by the will of the committee, the will of this House, and move to adopt the clean air and climate change act as soon as possible?

Budget Implementation Act, 2007

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate today on the government's second budget released on March 19. On behalf of the constituents of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing in northern Ontario, I would like to offer a few opinions.

First, I would like to point out that among the various instruments that governments have to tell voters, tell the public what it is they are about, what it is they plan to do for a country, the two main instruments are throne speeches, which we see typically every two years, and budgets, which we see every year usually in February or March.

In the span of 100 years, we would see 100 budgets from different governments. That underlines how important budgets are. Not only do they set a course, or they are supposed to set a course, but they are also supposed to provide the government's vision for the months and years ahead. They are supposed to tell Canadians how the current government of the day wishes to continue building the nation.

Quite frankly, as important as budgets are, I believe the government has missed a very serious opportunity to add its piece to the grand and important puzzle which is the building of this nation. I am not going to say that it lacks an agenda but indeed, it lacks a vision.

What I find most interesting in the budget is what the budget does to fulfill what I consider to be the hidden agenda of the government, which is to actually weaken the central government of this country. In so doing, it limits the capacity of the central government to create programs of national concern, whether they are in the economic domain, the social domain or the environmental domain. When one weakens the central government's ability to lead, to draw in the provinces and territories on national initiatives, one in fact weakens Canada.

There have been numerous surveys over the years which have indicated over and over again that of all levels of government, the public trusts most the federal government, its national government. The public sees in its national government the best tools, the best ability, the strength to keep our country together for all citizens from coast to coast to coast, regardless of where they live, whether they live in rural areas like my area in northern Ontario or in urban areas like downtown Winnipeg, Vancouver, Toronto and so on. Fundamentally Canadians are generous. They want to share this nation with each other and with those who come from foreign shores to join us and to live in Canada. That generosity means that Canadians want, as much as is reasonable, that programs and initiatives be for everybody.

Let me give an example of the government's attempts to weaken the central government. I have to reach back to last year's budget. This budget is a continuation, in my view, of that central theme of a hidden agenda to weaken a central government. There was an announcement last year, and we were expecting to hear more about it but for some hidden reason we did not hear part two, but last year there was an announcement that the government would cut the GST by 1% and eventually by another 1%. This was against the advice of virtually every economist in the country. We have to trust our professionals. They said that giving away between $5 billion and $6 billion on a 1% GST cut would only weaken forever the central government, because we cannot get that percentage back.

Think back to governments that tried to increase taxes. We cannot get that percentage back. That $5.5 billion that was lost in the first 1% GST cut is $5.5 billion that is not available for the government to invest in health care, in municipal infrastructure, in the Kelowna accord which, incidentally, would have cost about $5 billion. One year of that 1% GST cut would have funded the Kelowna accord. We are talking about 1% every year ongoing, every year indefinitely.

It is interesting that the government in this budget did not mention what was going to happen to the second 1%. It may be that the government finally listened to the advice it received last year, or it just felt that it would prefer to do that in a majority government.

I do not think Canadians are going to be easily fooled. Frankly, I do not recall meeting any constituents in my large riding who said, “Wow, that 1% GST cut really was a great benefit to me and my family”. In fact, the opposite is the case. When I asked them, virtually every one of them said that they did not notice that 1%. I pointed out that a wealthy person who bought a $100,000 boat would receive $1,000 in GST relief and that wealthy person would notice it. My constituents replied, “Of course they would notice it, but I am an average Canadian and I am not buying a $100,000 boat”.

In fact, the average Canadian family would have to consume taxable goods for years and years to achieve that $1,000 in GST relief that the wealthy person would enjoy when buying that expensive boat. To me, what the budget really does is it promotes further the hidden agenda.

Let me speak to some of the concerns in northern Ontario in my riding. I will start with forestry and I will continue with concerns for my aboriginal constituents and aboriginal Canadians from coast to coast.

In the forestry sector, communities such as White River, Smooth Rock Falls, Chapleau, Espanola, Nairn, Opasatika, Hearst, Kapuskasing, and the list is far too long, are experiencing tremendous layoffs and cutbacks. Much of the layoffs and cutbacks are in the softwood sector. There are key industries that have suffered in the pulp and paper sector in my area as well.

There is no mention in the budget of what should be done to deal with a sector of our economy which is extremely significant not only in direct jobs and what it does for our single resource communities, but the incredible spinoffs as well. A tremendous price is being paid by families in these communities and the communities themselves as well. Those communities see the loss of their capacity to keep their schools open and in fact, to maintain their basic infrastructure because people have to leave those communities if they can.

At the very least I would call on the government to bring together all stakeholders, community leaders, unions and companies, all those who have a stake in the forestry sector. The government should bring them together in a national forestry summit so that our best minds and our best efforts can be focused on that one issue to see if something can be done for the long term of this country.

Quite frankly, when we consider what the softwood lumber deal has done to communities in my riding, I looked for measures in this budget that would have assisted them. The day before the agreement went into effect, the import tax in the U.S. was some 10 point something per cent, roughly 10.5%, but the day after the agreement was signed, it shot up to something like 15% because the U.S. import tariff was replaced by an export tax.

It will take me a long time to understand how that is good for our industry. I understand it is the Canadian government that has had to advance the duties from the U.S. back to Canadian companies, because the U.S. actually has not repaid those funds, to the best of my knowledge.

I will move on to my aboriginal constituents on Manitoulin Island and on the north shore of Lake Huron and the Chapleau and Wawa areas and up at Constance Lake near Hearst.

When the aboriginal leadership in my region and all Canadians saw their premiers, the prime minister and the senior aboriginal leadership of this country sign the Kelowna accord in November 2005, they saw the parties come together to sign a historic agreement. Funding for that agreement was put in place immediately thereafter. The money was booked, as our then finance minister confirmed and has confirmed numerous times.

For some reason the Conservative government has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the validity of that agreement. As recently as last week the government voted at third reading not to support the private member's bill of my colleague the member for LaSalle—Émard, which further calls upon the government to honour the Kelowna accord.

Our aboriginal Canadians, our first nations leadership, have been severely disappointed by what they have seen from the government when it comes to measures to understand and appreciate the great heritage, the great history, the great culture that our first nations bring to this country. They are disappointed that as a nation we have still not adequately dealt with the needs of our first nations communities and people when it comes to education, health, water, and those supports that are necessary to live in a modern society. After all, it is our aboriginal youth we will count on considerably in the years ahead as the labour shortage in this country continues to increase.

I recall before the last election that our then leader and prime minister, the member for LaSalle--Émard, made a commitment to students to pay up to $3,000 per year toward tuition fees. That was a significant offer to Canadian families. Then the election came along and we can debate whether that should have happened. However, I look at this budget and there is nothing for undergraduate students. There is a bit of money for post-grads and that is great, but it only assists about 4,000 students.

I go back to my comment about the hidden agenda and the fact that this budget has no vision. There is no overarching view of what the future of this country will be like. It is a hodgepodge of small measures designed to attract individual demographic groups within the larger society. I do not begrudge that there are certain small measures that are important to some people in the budget, and that is great for them, but even they would agree that the government should have a vision with its budget. It should have an overarching idea of where the country is going.

When we were in office great progress was being made with respect to research and development and post-secondary education. We were making sure that our best minds could do research and network with the best minds around the world. It seems that we are now taking backward steps. We must take care of the fundamentals of education. If I could speak to each of my colleagues here one on one, I doubt anyone would disagree that education is the basis of all that we do not only in our personal lives, but as a nation.

I was very disappointed to see the lack of any grand vision when it came to education and productivity for this nation. We are competing in a world that is advancing rapidly. It is our duty to make sure every day that not only individual Canadians but our nation together keeps up and demonstrates the leadership that Canada has become known for around the world.

There are about 55 small communities in my large riding of 110,000 square kilometres. The leadership of these small communities, mayors, reeves, chiefs, are all struggling to maintain the basic infrastructure of their communities.

I know the budget mentioned a short term commitment to share the gas tax with municipalities, unlike the leader of my own party who said that commitment will be an indefinite commitment. Some off my colleagues who have been here since 1993 will remember that when the previous Liberal government brought out a municipal-provincial-federal infrastructure program there was tremendous resistance from the then Reform Party and later Alliance Party. In fact, MPs from those parties would not even participate in local ceremonies to launch infrastructure projects. They were dead set against infrastructure.

I know the Conservative Party is the current metamorphosis of the original Reform and Alliance Parties, but the genes of the Reform and Alliance Parties are still present and we still see a lack of real commitment to local governments.

When the Liberal government was first elected in 1993, one of the first commitments we made was to help local governments improve roads, sewer and water systems and so on because we understood that there was an infrastructure deficit in the country at the local level and that the federal government had to take its share.

It is not only local infrastructure. Where is the grand vision when it comes to those nation building projects that Canada needs to address? If there is one that stands out among others, it is the whole issue of climate change. If there is a national project, indeed, an international project, that requires our very best efforts, it is climate change.

I am very pleased that my colleagues in this party and the opposition parties have been able to craft a renewed Bill C-30 which I believe will move the standards quite considerably when it comes to Canada's responsibilities in the world with respect to climate change.

I will now talk about northern Ontario in general. Northern Ontario, like other regional rural parts of the country, is experiencing a population loss. It is not difficult to explain. Families are not as big as they used to be. Our population growth, and happily so, is made up of fine new Canadians who come from all parts of the world to our country. At the same time, it is important to remember that it is from the rural areas from which Canada was first built. If we forget where we came from, we will soon forget where we are going.

It is very important that the present government and any future government, whether it is my party or another, take measures to ensure the strength and vitality of rural Canada, whether it is through immigration measures or supporting programs like FedNor. As much as the government might say one thing about FedNor, one thing we know for sure is that there was a cut in the total funding for FedNor.

FedNor, by the way, for those who are not aware, is the federal economic development agency for northern Ontario, an agency which we were very happy, through the years 1993 to 2006, to support and to in fact increase and grow the funding and supports for.

FedNor needs to be further supported. We need to increase the funding for FedNor, as we need to do for the other regional economic development programs in the Atlantic, west Quebec and so on. I referred to the genetic predisposition against municipal infrastructure support from the federal government. That also exists when it comes to economic development. If anyone has old copies of the Reform and Alliance platform documents, it is explicit that they do not support regional economic development programs.

One cannot change one's genes. Some may try but they cannot do it. Either the government owns up to what it really believes about economic development or it can keep trying to fool the country for another little while.

I will conclude by saying that I still have constituents in my riding, some of the older ones, who refer to the Diefenbaker times and the fact that it has usually been Conservative governments that have put us into deficit.

When we came to office in 1993, we had to deal with a huge $42 billion deficit and, with the help of Canadians, that deficit was slain which put the country in the enviable position of having surpluses that could then be invested in health care, infrastructure, education and so on.

My constituents may not for the most part really think tax cuts are the most important thing that we should be doing. I am not against appropriate tax cuts targeted to the poor and middle income Canadians but these shotgun blast tax cuts, like we have with the GST, do not really do anything positive. With that kind of an attitude and the $10 billion in new spending in the last budget, which one of my colleagues mentioned, I am really worried that we will be going back into deficits. It will only take some kind of calamity to cause that unfortunate time to reappear. It would not be any surprise to see this happen under--

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Do you understand? This is similar to what has happened during the examination of Bill C-30, Mr. Chair. I believe that parliamentarians still have happy memories of that bill.

During the course of our proceedings, our inventive genius and our inspiration can suggest to us some amendments, including in the course of conversations that are uncensored and flowing freely.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When we arrived here in this committee, we made a commitment to work constructively both with the government and all opposition parties in order to ensure that Bill C-30 indeed deals with climate change as well as air quality.

Ultimately, we had four basic objectives: first, integrate Kyoto targets into Bill C-30; secondly, create a system for trading emissions credits; thirdly — and I know this has not been easy to accept for some opposition parties — integrate a territorial approach that will allow provinces to implement their own plan while respecting a number of criteria set by the federal government; fourth, ensure that targets the government was about to set would be hard caps and not intensity-based. I believe this mission is accomplished.

I want to thank all of my colleagues for the open mind with which they met our requests. I believe that with this legal framework we now have in hand all the means required to fulfil our international commitments.

Thank you.