Bill C-33 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

This enactment amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to provide for the efficient regulation of fuels.
It also provides for a periodic and comprehensive review of the environmental and economic aspects of biofuel production in Canada by a committee of Parliament.

Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board]

moved that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell the House what a pleasure and an honour it is to stand and speak to the third reading phase of Bill C-33.

As everyone knows, there has been quite a bit of controversy around this bill in the days leading up to this particular juncture in the passage of Bill C-33. And it will pass. I would like to thank my colleagues from the Liberal Party and the Bloc for taking this legislation under consideration and moving it ahead. It shows real leadership by a government that in the face of a lot of adverse media and so on moved ahead with the right thing at the right time. I give those members a lot of credit for that. Of course the fourth party is leading a different parade, and I welcome it to that, because that is what it does best.

This is a tremendous opportunity. It has been a long road to get here. No one thought when we brought it in that this type of bill would face this kind of adversity, because all of us aggressively campaigned on this issue throughout past elections. Elections come around more quickly in minority situations, but in 2004 and 2006 every party campaigned aggressively on a biofuel strategy. Since we are in government now, Canadians obviously judged our strategy to be the most practical.

The other parties, including the NDP, said they wanted 10% ethanol. We are at 5% ethanol and 2% biodiesel, and I think that in this time and place that is the right quantity. We are moving ahead fairly aggressively on this. Ethanol and biodiesel plants have come into being across the country. This is a great opportunity for farmers to move ahead and to have a different warehouse door to deliver to. More than that, this is great for rural communities that are looking for some sort of renewal after many years of seeing urbanization across this country, whatever was driving it. However, I will not get into that today.

Addressing the environment is at the forefront of everybody's mind. As I said, all parties called for a renewable fuel mandate and based it on two things: ethanol is a clean-burning fuel and fossil fuels are not going to last forever. It is time to get serious, especially here in Canada, where we have the capacity to make these changes. It is time to get serious about moving to greener technology. It is all part of what is best for the environment as well.

This legislation is probably one of the best policies to come forward in the last decade. It is actually a bedrock principle: it is good for the Canadian economy, good for Canadian farmers, and of course it is great news for the environment.

There are a lot of studies at cross purposes out there. Most of them are based on a global model, which we are not talking about here today. We are talking about Canadian production and Canadian policy and that is what this government has to answer to. We cannot begin to analyze and ascertain the directions other countries are taking, but we have to speak to the Canadian electorate, the Canadian people, about why we are doing what we are doing.

There is good news out there. Due to the innovation and industriousness of Canadian agriculture and Canadian forestry, we have the capacity to do this and in no way affect our food lines.

A lot of people say that we cannot do both. They say we cannot grow food for energy and for consumption. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Anyone who has analyzed food production in this country knows that we are growing more, that it is better quality, and that it is safer. It is time that we started using that great renewable resource to create energy that is great for the environment and also starts to backstop a lot of what farmers were not able to get out of the food line fully to address their bank lines. This legislation is going to do that. We have already seen some effect of that positive side. Again, as I said, it is due to the innovation and so on that is out there.

Things are changing as we speak. Going to our 5% mandate, which is three billion litres of ethanol over the next few years, is the equivalent of taking a million cars off the road, which is a fantastic story in and of itself, but it also takes less than 5% of our capacity to grow these products.

Anyone who is familiar with farm production will tell us that in any given year the weather is a far bigger factor than 5%. There have been instances of floods or droughts, or it just plain does not rain at the right time, and that can cut a crop in half. That is 50%. That is another zero in there.

We are talking about 5% of our land mass being used for this production. With the industry and the innovation that we have out there, we can probably go further than the three billion litres on that type of land mass. We have new types and new varieties coming in with higher starch values in corn and wheat.

We are also spending a lot of money on moving ahead to the next generation of biofuels. For that next generation, the common phrase is cellulosic. What this entails is that we slip into the forestry side. We start to make use of logs and lumber not suitable for building. We start putting them into the ethanol system using a catalyst and using the innovation that is out there now.

A company called Iogen is actually using this. The member for Ottawa South is making muscles here, not very big ones, but he says that Iogen is in his riding and he is quite proud of it. I would imagine that he has had some great discussions with Jeff Passmore, the president of Iogen. Jeff is actually getting the final go-ahead to build a huge facility that will produce in the neighbourhood of 400 to 500 million litres of ethanol in my home province of Saskatchewan. The member for Ottawa South and I will have something in common, finally, and it will be Iogen.

We are looking forward to that. Iogen is going to use straw, wood chips from the Prince Albert pulp mill and different things like that to create that quantity of ethanol. That is a good news story. In the days to come, we will develop that technology, get it to a commercial status and move forward.

I had a discussion with Jeff Passmore a couple of weeks ago now. I ran into him at a function and we talked about it. He is very excited about the move to Saskatchewan. He is very excited about the potential and the capacity of Saskatchewan farmers to deliver the feedstocks to his plant.

So am I, because the majority of Canadians, some 74% or 75% in the latest poll, are very much behind this government in moving ahead on ethanol and biodiesel. Those are big numbers. What they are asking for, and there is no pun intended, is a homegrown solution to our energy situation, to our preponderance of fossil fuels, and they are asking for our exciting new developments to get hold of the environment and start turning things around. That is what they are driving for.

As I said, our mandate is 5% ethanol and 2% biodiesel, which is coming in the next years. The auto sector has taken up the challenge. That sector is now building vehicles that will burn up to 85% ethanol. That little conversion on the assembly lines means a one hundred dollar bill: that can almost be made back in the first month of driving that an average Canadian does. It will actually pay for that $100 plus take charge of the environment.

For the life of me I cannot understand why certain parties and certain groups would not recognize the overall benefit this is going to create for Canadians and of course around the globe. They seem to be stuck in their ideology and cannot get past it. What is required in times like these, when there is adversity and almost media hysteria, as we see in the headlines, is leadership. Leadership is what is required, from people who will forge ahead, who will continue to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons and who will not bend to that kind of pressure coming from the ignorant masses and the people out there who do not understand the benefit of what this can do. I see a lot of head-shaking and nodding over there from the Liberal side, and they totally agree with me on that statement.

As a government we are concerned about poverty. We are concerned about hunger in the world. We had some great announcements the other day from my colleague, the minister in charge of CIDA. She made a great announcement that Canada continues to be number two in the world on getting those foodstuffs out globally to the poor and the hungry. We have tremendous domestic programs here that address this type of thing.

People from the United Nations are spearheading a lot of this. A lot of what they say I do not agree with, because it is not based on anything that I would call sound thinking, but they also say that there is enough food produced in the world to feed everybody. The problem is that we cannot get it to where we need it in a timely way, because it is all “best before” products. There is not the processing on the ground in some of these communities to make use of and keep fresh the wheat or meat that is delivered.

We have to be more thoughtful in our approach. I think the minister really batted it out of the park by untying our food aid. It has been talked about for a number of years. She finally got the job done. I am proud to stand with her in moving ahead on that issue.

That comes to grips with the timeliness of delivery. It comes to grips with the transportation costs to get that product there. In most instances, there is no port or infrastructure system capable of handling those boatloads of food aid when they arrive. A lot of it spoils on the dock, some of it because of infrastructure and some of it because of a governance system in the affected country that would trade that food for guns rather than distribute it to the people. People who are poor and hungry are much easier to lead when they are kept out there in the boondocks away from the real action where the changes can be made.

There is a lot work to be done to feed the poor, the hungry, and those in poverty situations in the world, but a lot of it comes as a result of good governance and infrastructure, as well as the delivery of that. I think that Canada has proven that we always punch above our weight on those issues.

When we did make the announcement of another $50 million into that food aid program, a lot of people stood up, screamed and hollered that it was not enough. The UN was calling for a 26% increase from all of the contributing nations and we actually came in at 28%, plus we are giving money to the non-governmental organizations like the Foodgrains Bank. It does a tremendous amount of work around the world with donations from farmers. We pay the transportation as the government. There is some processing involved and they get it to where it should go.

We have the Mennonite system working around the world with their different relief programs, whether it is flood, famine, plague or pestilence, whatever happens. The Mennonites are there helping out.

Our tax system also builds in aid that is not considered under the UN envelope in the same way. We want a homegrown solution and we are a resource rich country. Nobody can deny that, whether we are talking about fresh water stocks, oil and gas or the tar sands in Alberta that are taking a bad rap right now, some of it justified, a lot of it not, but at the same time we have to start moving away from our dependence on fossil fuels. Even the big petroleum companies say that.

One of the largest ethanol producers in western Canada at this point is a company called Husky Oil. It is basically owned by a gentleman from Hong Kong, but he has a facility tied to the upgrader in my riding at Lloydminster that is producing several hundred million litres of ethanol. Husky Oil is having trouble getting product because farmers are growing what they can but the weather last year around the Lloydminster area did not let us get those crops off like we should have. That was more of a problem than it should have been. With technology and innovation we are starting to move to crops that are a little more easy to farm and will give farmers better results.

I know the Minister of Natural Resources was out to make an announcement in Minnedosa the other day, talking about our regulations and how that would help to start the blending of that product. Husky has bought a company called Mohawk. I remember as a young guy when gas was two bits, 30¢ and 40¢ a gallon, not a litre. That was before the former prime minister decided to make things metric. At those kind of prices per gallon it sounds really cheap but at the time I was making 90¢ an hour, so it is all relative.

They used to put an ethanol blend into their products some 25 or 30 years ago and I am giving away my age when I say that but that is the reality. This type of product has been around for a long time. It is finally coming to the fore, that with these regulations passed in Bill C-33 we will see, mixed right at the refinery and brought to the pump, that minimum 5% blend.

I have seen pumps, Mr. Speaker, in your home town when I was coming back the other day. I stopped in Kingston to have a great meal downtown on the waterfront. I asked how well you were doing. They all said they loved the guy but he should come home more. We also stopped for fuel. I note that the Liberals over there are saying, “Mr. Speaker, you should not go home because you might not get elected”, but I am not sure about that one.

We fuelled up. I cannot remember the name of the station but it was a 10% blend. That is good news. Kingston is on the leading edge of ethanol and I praise you for that, Mr. Speaker. I know you have made that issue one of your own.

When we see the price of oil over that same timeframe jump from $20 a barrel to approaching $120 a barrel, it makes this type of economic activity more viable. We have a lot of work being done on new ways to produce ethanol. We have lots of work being done on biodiesel which is another huge success story. We as a government have taken on pilot projects to use rendered products from animals, the byproducts from restaurants, the leftover oils and greases and so on that of course we do not want in our food anymore. We are running them back through biodiesel. It is a tremendous opportunity to build environmental products around that.

There are a number of situations that have arisen that have driven up the cost in the food chain and a lot of those can be based strictly on transportation because our product does not move from the farm right to the processor. It goes through middlemen. There are a lot of different things that go on and when we seen increases in transportation costs that are doubling, tripling and so forth, because of fossil fuel and our addiction to it, the problems begin to arise where everyone takes a chunk of the pie. I will use round numbers.

When we see a $3.00 loaf of bread, and I hear the bread processors saying they have to raise the price again because the cost of wheat is going up, it is ridiculous to the extreme because the farmer on that $3.00 loaf of bread is getting 15¢. That is the cheapest part of that loaf of bread. The damn wrapper with the labelling on it is worth more; or the darn wrapper, sorry.

That is the reality. That is the situation that farmers have always faced. So, if the price of bread went to 20%, that is a 33% increase, if my math is still good. That is a huge increase for farmers. Is that nickel going to affect that $3.00 loaf of bread? It should not. I would think it should not, but the costs of transportation of course are exaggerating the reality of what is going on out there. This is another good reason to move ahead with biofuels where we can start to have a renewable resource that is friendly to the environment and of course much easier to maintain the costs.

We should be looking at ways to make our agricultural processes even more innovative. We are doing that with a little thing called the removal of KVD in western Canada. Saskatchewan alone has 47 million acres of arable land. That is a big number. We run big operations and run big equipment to do it, and of course the overhead costs are all commensurate with the price, so we have seen the price of wheat going up.

We have also seen huge increases in fossil-based fertilizer fuel chemicals. All those types of things are also ramping up as well, so we are pushing a bubble where farmers are starting to make a little more money, but it is also costing a lot more money to make that, so we have to start addressing that and I think biofuels are a great way to do that.

There are opportunities out there now where people can buy a unit that they can actually put on their farms and make their own biodiesel. I talked to a neighbour of mine the other day and he was getting ready to start seeding, and then of course global warming kicked in and we got another 15 inches of snow. That slowed him down a little, but he had gone to town to fuel up his tractor because the roads were too muddy to have the truck come out, so he drove his tractor and it cost him $1,000 to fill it up. The way we farm out there, that lasted about 12 hours, less than a day's shift.

When we look at the young fellow who seeds my ground now, who farms 24,000 acres, he will run 14 or 15 hard days like that with four and five outfits, so he has $5,000 in fuel per day, plus the seed, plus the chemical, plus the fertilizer, plus the manpower, plus the overhead of the equipment and taxes on the land, and all that kind of stuff. Those are the economies of scale we are looking at.

Farmers start to look at the skid units that will actually produce biofuel out of their own canola. There are models like that out there now and it is a great opportunity for these guys to take some canola from their own production, run it through and create their own biofuel, but it does make more sense to do it on economies of scale at larger facilities.

I have always been a proponent of a number of smaller capacity units scattered throughout a province as opposed to one or two big ones. The problem with one or two big ones is the product has to move. The trucking beats up the road and it starts to defeat the whole process, so smaller and locally owned is the right way to go.

I am very fortunate to have in my riding, almost in the centre of my riding, a little town called Unity. There is a North West Terminal there that is owned by farmers. It is a huge success story. It is relatively new on the scene, but in the time that it has been around, some 10 or 15 years since the drawing board, it has doubled in capacity in the grain it has handled. It is now building a 25 million litre ethanol facility next door to the terminal, so as the grain is delivered in, it can slide some of it off to make ethanol right there.

As well there is another innovation. A fellow named Mervin Slater has been the push behind this, and I give a lot of credit to Jason Skinner and the crew out there at North West Terminal for their foresight and their vision, and the guys that were on that committee. Merv dropped in to see me when he was in Ottawa. He was on his way to Germany to look at technology that brings about 10% or 15% chaff in with the wheat.

Chaff cannot be hauled. It is like hauling potato chips or ping-pong balls. There is no weight and one cannot get enough on a truck, but when 10% or 15% chaff is brought in with the grain product, it virtually costs nothing. They are using that as the feed stock to fire the turbines to create the ethanol, then they recapture the heat and use it. It is a tremendously integrated system and I give them a lot of credit for that.

They have not put out a litre of ethanol. They are already looking at the potential and saying it is time to think about expanding the plant already, and that is great news for the farmers of Unity, great news for Canadians, and great news for the environment.

However, we have so many other potentials out there to make great quality ethanol. We have just a tremendous opportunity to show the world this can be done and not affect the food line. There are just any number of ways to point to this and say this is the right thing as we advance forward.

As I said in my speech, it is basic economics. There are so many things that we will gain from these different lines that will be created. There are offshoots from ethanol: the distiller's grain that goes back into livestock feed, the slurry, and the water. Everything that is used is captured and used as protein base for livestock feed.

It is not a zero sum gain. There are benefits from all the differing aspects of ethanol and biodiesel as it goes back into livestock feed. There is a loss of 20% or so but we will make that up. It will be good for the communities, good for the farmers, and good for the environment.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying that I am not opposed to biofuel. I understood his remarks but there has been a growing concern, which maybe the minister could address. The concern raised by the public, both in relation to the higher food costs around the world that many have argued has to do with the demand for biofuels but also the incredible cost that it takes to make biofuel and diesel, deals in particular with the fact that biofuel needs fossil fuels in order to be produced. There is also a cost to the environment.

Like I said to the minister, I am not opposed to it and I certainly am in favour of the fact that we are proposing this amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, but there are inefficiencies as well in our society that we have to deal with. The bigger issue may have to do with our high demand for energy consumption. Nothing is being put forward to address these concerns.

We have many products in our homes that are not very efficient. We have to look at other mechanisms to deal with the issues of energy within our homes, our society and our workplace. These things also need to be addressed so that consumption can be lowered. If we continue with the high demand for energy consumption, there is going to be more and more demand for energy and it will all have an impact on the environment and our lives.

I am not opposed to the issue of biofuel and I see that there is a need for it. I understand the increase to the 5% blend, but at the same time I have serious concerns and reservations which have been raised by a number of people and I would like to have the minister address those concerns.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Davenport for his intervention and for seeking knowledge as to why this is the right thing at the right time. I give him credit for that. I will cover off a couple of things.

He talked about energy and our addiction to it, which I guess is the best way to describe it. I do not think we can push people away from having a light switch that flips on rather than lighting a coal oil lamp. We have lived through that and moved ahead, but there are new and innovative ways coming to the marketplace. There are new light bulbs available that will address energy consumption. Even turning our TVs off still takes power. There are new ways to do that and those will be driven by a different way.

We cannot combine all of our energy needs and the misuse of energy under the biofuels banner. A lot of people are using that as the lightning rod and we have to disconnect some of it. There is good news with biofuels but there are costs as well. He mentioned the point that it takes energy to create energy but that is typical of anything. Even if we go back to hydro, it still takes energy to build the dam, so we have to look at the downstream costs in a lot of cases.

I see comparisons now that say, “The cost of fossil fuel is $1.20 at the pump for gas“, and then, “Here is ethanol”, but we still have to combine it and plant it. The downstream costs of that gas at the pump are not taken into consideration but they are for biofuels. That is not a true comparison. When comparing apples to apples in the studies that have been done, the real ones, there is a huge benefit to ethanol and a bigger benefit to biodiesel.

We have to start building better technology, there is no doubt about it. There is innovation out there that will let us grow the crop in a more fulsome and cheaper way with zero till, less fertilizer and all those types of things. As we develop new innovative varieties, we will get 80 bushels an acre on dryland farming, which is unheard of now, but we have not been able to do that because of kernel visual distinguishability in western Canada. That is gone. We will move ahead on that front as well. It is a major gain. There are several thrusts, not just biofuel. It becomes the lightning rod and the whipping boy.

When he talks about food costs, yes, we are all looking at that. In the latest study in Canada, Statistics Canada said the food basket in Canada actually dropped .2% in February. Our higher dollar is letting us buy better but it is also hurting our trade capacity.

We are also seeing emerging countries, and I will list a couple, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, where there is a huge middle class starting to grow. They are moving away from a rice-based diet and saying, “We want meat and potatoes”. We are seeing fast food chains moving there and so on. Whether it is good or bad, they are doing that because this middle class with money is asking for new and innovative foodstuffs. They are tired of a bland rice diet and they need protein, not starch.

I was in Cuba last week on a trade mission. People there are bemoaning the fact that rice has gone from $400 a tonne to $800 a tonne. Now it is approaching $1,200 a tonne and it is still over in the Pacific Rim and has to be transported. I asked why they are not thinking outside the box. I said there are beans, potatoes and meat available in Canada for half those quantity prices and they should start re-jigging their diet to be more healthy. Therefore, there are a lot of changes in the food basket that just cannot be blamed on ethanol.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to hear the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food speak again to this subject. The last time he spoke I asked him a question about the relative merits of what he was saying about the greenhouse gas reductions that are engaged with biofuels. He was talking about four megatonnes of reduction that would come from his 5% program in fuel with the $2.2 billion investment.

A careful scientific analysis by the BIOCAP Canada Foundation shows that with corn ethanol we would get a 21% reduction in CO₂ emissions, which is what we would normally get with gasoline if it were bought in Canada. If we buy it from U.S. producers we will have a negative greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

With the 21% Canadian, what would happen if we were to make all the corn in Canada and feed it into our ethanol system to produce the 5%? The vehicle fleet in Canada produces 100 megatonnes of CO₂ emissions; 5% of 100 megatonnes is 5 megatonnes and 20% of 5 megatonnes is much less than 4 megatonnes.

Why does the minister keep using these figures when he obviously has the same kinds of studies that we are working from? If he has some study that shows that he is getting 4 megatonnes of reduction from his program, costing Canadian taxpayers $2.2 billion, he should put it on the line.

The minister keeps referring to the idealistic opposition to not simply blindly moving ahead but carefully considering what we are doing with biofuels, that includes such idealistic lefties as Terence Corcoran, Don Martin and Gwyn Morgan who are all part of the NDP and are idealistic soulmates. How does the minister see these people as our idealistic compatriots?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, for years I have listened to the NDP members rant on. They have two basic philosophies: the sky is falling or nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.

I really get tired of their intransigence on every issue. I guess that is why they always end up in the corner as the fourth party. They will never get any further than that. Provincially they are getting turfed out one by one because people are looking with an appetite to move forward and not to take the issues of the forties and fifties and try to somehow apply them to the future. It does not work.

I invite the member to join the 75% of Canadians who say that this is the right thing at the right time. I invite him to get on board with producers in rural Canada who say that this is the right thing for them to do. I invite him to get on board with up to date scientific studies from Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada that show that biofuels are the right thing for Canadians.

I also welcome him to the debate on biofuels. Whether it is negative or not, it helps us prove our point.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I have a further question on why the NDP voted against Bill C-33 yesterday. It was the only party that voted against Bill C-33. It voted against Nahanni, against the Great Bear rain forest and against the $9 billion environmental dollars.

I would ask the minister why members of the NDP are opposed to good environmental practices but on the other side they talk like they are green but in fact are climate change deniers. Why is that?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I think the parliamentary secretary raises a good point. I agree that there are times when the NDP members are green, green with envy that they will never get a chance to put any of their policies in place and we are moving ahead.

They voted against the cleanup of the Sydney tar ponds. We are getting the job done. They voted against the cleanup of Lake Simcoe. We are getting the job done. They voted against the cleanup of Lake Winnipeg in NDP central. We are getting the job done.

They have their agricultural propaganda arm, the NFU, going across Canada decrying biofuels and how terrible they are, which is absolutely ridiculous when we talk about a farm group basically dumping in their own nest. It is great for rural Canada. It is good producers. I wish they would get on board with the program.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the minister's remarks this morning and I thank him for speaking extemporaneously without notes, which is good to hear. I will try to imitate his style and respond directly to some of the issues that he raised.

I do not think the minister should take too much comfort in the support that he received from this party yesterday in allowing Bill C-33 to proceed because we treat this bill merely as a technical amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act which would allow the existing minister or any future minister to regulate the content of ethanol in fuels for consumption in Canada and for fuels to be exported abroad.

However, let me assure the minister and the government that there are very profound questions that they have not even begun to answer.

Chief among those questions is why, in the first instance, was this bill put to the House by the Minister of Agriculture when it is an Environment Canada bill? It is the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, separated and driven by the Minister of the Environment. I understand the government's intention here, which is to strategically place this as a farm receipts issue, which it, of course, partly is, but overarching the farm receipts issue, in fact overarching so many issues in Canadian society, are more profound issues and concerns about where we are going with our environmental policy. My remarks today will be cast with that chiefly in mind. How is the government proceeding here with this bill? How is it proceeding in the ethanol field when it comes to environmental perspectives?

However, I first want to talk about the very recent about-face taken by the NDP, which I will not descend to in terms of the remarks made by the Minister of Agriculture, but I do want to express my disappointment in the NDP in its attempts to politicize food prices, in its attempts to try to, in my view, frighten Canadians with its food for fuel campaign. It is much more constructive if we actually pursue a rational debate about the drivers, the factors that are at play not just in Canada but globally. Factors, for example, like oil prices have jumped by nearly 100% over the past year; that in 2007 food prices increased by about 4% overall; that 80% of the cost of food today are food marketing costs. The marketing costs are the difference between the farm value and consumer spending for food at grocery stores and restaurants.

The price of rice is now up 77% since October. Rice is not used in the production of biofuels. As a whole, fish prices are up, not just in Canada but worldwide. Why? In part it is because we are seeing five of the six major oceans fisheries in a state of collapse today. We hear nothing from the government about that. Why is this important? It is important because the government's ethanol policy appears to be completely disconnected from its environmental policy. That is a shame because the two are inextricably linked. They need to be presented as such and they need to be defended as such.

I will turn for a moment to two amendments put forward by the NDP that the Canadian public is not aware of and that were ruled out of order by this House. This speaks volumes to the tone and the approach the NDP members are taking to this debate, which is simply not helpful. Two other amendments they have put to this House include the prohibition of the use of genetically modified organisms for biofuel production.

My understanding of this sector is that if we were to rule out the use of GMO crops, we might as well shut down the entire industry as we speak. For that matter, as an agricultural graduate, I can assure Canadians that most of the foods and the grains that we are eating are and have been improved through the use of science over the past decades.

Second, the NDP wanted to establish restrictions on the use of arable land. I put to the environment critic of the NDP some time ago whether the leader of the NDP would soon announce his intention to nationalize Canadian farms. We have seen that around the world and, as a person who has had the privilege of working around the world, I do not think there are any remaining jurisdictions that seriously believe that such nationalization will help us with our food production patterns.

I will now turn to some of the key issues around the bill. First, as we have said repeatedly, we are in favour of ethanol as a part of our energy mix now and into the future.

There is an industry that exists today. Ethanol is a transition fuel, one of the transition fuels to our carbon constrained future. Why is it a choice transition fuel right now, in the right amounts? It is partly because the infrastructure for ethanol distribution already exists. We have all of the sunk capital costs spent in the way in which we dispense gasoline and other fuels, and ethanol fits into that distribution system.

For example, when we talk about the eventual quantum leap, perhaps to a hydrogen based economy, our challenge will be how we distribute the hydrogen and safely. However, right now, as a transition fuel, ethanol can be used and blended. Every car on the road today with an owner's manual can burn up to 10% ethanol, as we speak.

As I say, it is a technical amendment bill and, in that sense, it is important. We need to give a minister the powers necessary to regulate fuel content.

However, more important, there remains a plethora of questions that the government has not even begun to address. Having just heard the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, I was waiting with anticipation to hear him speak to the connection between the Conservatives' fiscal policies on this issue, their agricultural policies on this issue and their environmental policies on this issue. Lo and behold, I waited too long because he never addressed them. He did not address the environmental implications of this issue at all, which is unfortunate.

We think it is important, as we agreed in committee when the bill was debated, that one year after the bill comes into full force and effect and becomes a law, it will go back to a parliamentary committee and then and there it will be the subject of a major detailed analysis.

The ethanol industry should be examined much more fulsomely. We need to address questions like energy inputs, chemical inputs and meaningful greenhouse gas reductions and whether we are achieving these. We need to address the impacts on food pricing, trade considerations, agricultural land use patterns both here and abroad, freshwater impacts, agricultural run-offs, farm receipts and soil impacts. The most precious resource that most farmers possess is the top three inches of their soil. There are so many other issues.

One year after the bill becomes law, we will hold the government to account and we will be asking for a detailed analysis.

The government has not developed the metrics necessary. In that sense, I commend the NDP for raising this issue, as well as the Bloc. The government has not developed the metrics necessary to tell Canadians clearly why we are choosing ethanol over other transition fuels or, for that matter, why one form of ethanol is more beneficial than others.

It is true that cellulosic ethanol allows us to make a quantum leap, to take us to a second or even third generation form of ethanol, which burns more cleanly and, for that matter, puts more marginal lands into production.

Thirty years ago, as a young agricultural student I remember surveying all of eastern Ontario for a potential project to plant all kinds of new varieties and species of poplar. Poplar, which grows very quickly, could be grown on very marginal lands and can be put into cellulosic ethanol form over time.

Now that we do have the engineering and the chemistry to produce the enzymes required to convert such feed stocks into cellulosic ethanol, we can have a very meaningful debate in a year's time in terms of more details.

Many factors are at play, and the minister has pointed to a few but has omitted others, to create this perfect global storm right now that is wreaking havoc in developing countries, emerging economies when it comes to food pricing and food access.

Yes, it is true that ethanol production in northern jurisdictions is having an impact. The question is, to what extent is it having an impact? So many other forces are at play, forces like decertification, climate change, weather patterns, energy costs, trade rules, subsidies. Forty per cent of the European Union's budget is the common agricultural policy to subsidize the production of agricultural products. This is a question that is affecting food prices.

Food distribution systems, corruption levels, the rule of law, the extent to which we are seeing rising Asian incomes and a propensity to consume more protein, the Australian drought, which is lingering as a result of climate change, all affect food prices.

I was quite shocked to hear the Minister of Agriculture make light of climate change, suggesting that cold weather recently in Saskatchewan clearly indicated that the planet was not warming, but must be cooling. This is tantamount to what we heard from the Minister of Public Safety, before he erased it from his website, when he made light of the fact that B.C.'s climate was warming so he was suggesting buying vast amounts of land in northern B.C. and flipping it for profit. That is not funny. It portrays the government's profound non-commitment to the climate change crisis facing Canada and the planet.

Many factors are at play, creating the perfect storm. Unfortunately now we are seeing nation states moving to nationalize and to hoard food stocks. This is very problematic. This is having a direct bearing on global food prices and global food distribution.

In short, when it comes to the question of where the government goes with its ethanol policy, we have a profound responsibility on this side of the House, as the official opposition, to hold the government to account, and we intend to do so. The government has announced it is spending $2.2 billion in this field. We will watch closely as to how it invests this $2.2 billion.

It is very strange also because the government's Minister of Finance stands up in public fora after public fora and announces to the world that he does not pick winners and losers. It is this neo-con, laissez-faire, “I don't care” voodoo economics that he professes to practice.

The government now is taking $2.2 billion and ploughing it into a sector. This really raises questions about the government's commitment to this post-post-Conservative approach to economics that I have not seen another country in the world practice.

There are a number of important questions to raise about the science around ethanol and greenhouse gas reductions.

What is the net environmental impact of ethanol use? It depends very much on the raw materials used and the production process used. Has the government spoken to this? Not at all. Is it in the bill? Not at all. Have any studies been tabled? Nothing. Has any evidence been put forward to suggest that the government is meaningfully going to take us to second, third and fourth generation technologies? We have not seen it, but we will be watching for it. In a year, when we perform a detailed analysis on this question, we will be looking for answers to this question.

We hear a lot about corn ethanol. There are mixed studies. Berkley's studies find that corn ethanol reduces GHG emissions by about 13%. We are hearing contrary studies. Has the government actually reconciled the competing science, peer reviewed it and put it to the Canadian people? We have not seen it.

We see other studies that show that cellulosic ethanol would produce about 85% fewer greenhouse gases than gasoline. There are now emerging studies and emerging science. How much is the government investing in science? How much of it is evidence based? How much of it is ideologically based? We remain to be convinced. We are looking for that evidence.

It is true that new demand for corn to produce ethanol is inflating corn prices. There are distributive impacts that we have to be aware of not just in Canada, but throughout the United States, Mexico, Central America and beyond. The government has to address this question, and we will look for that question to be answered in due course.

Yet again, we know that even marginal increases in grain costs harm poor people the most. They could exacerbate world hunger. Again, I am disappointed in some of the tone, maybe even some of the histrionics coming from the NDP recently on this question. It is important to look at the oft-cited example of the price of tortillas in Mexico, which doubled in 2006, a year of record U.S. corn prices. We know we need to get off corn, because it is such an energy and water intensive, highly polluting crop. Plus, the minister knows the impact of mono-cropping of corn on soil friability on organic matter content. He knows the destructive nature of corn production.

Some are concerned that, for example, the use of E85, 85% ethanol as a motor fuel may lead to increased smog and health effects. Has this been addressed? No. We are waiting to see the analysis put by the government, and we will be holding it to account as it begins to allocate the $2.2 billion into the field.

There is a fear that conversion of forests or wilderness to farmland will not only harm biodiversity, but may negatively affect the net greenhouse gas production because of the role that forests and wilderness play when it comes to sequestering carbon. The government, again, picked another winner. It does not pick winners and losers, but it picked another winner by investing over $200 million in carbon capture and sequestration recently in the home riding of one of the government members, to be able to try to pilot through an important and promising technology. However, is it speaking about the role of nature in sequestering carbon? Not a peep. I do not believe the Conservatives take climate change seriously. I do not think they have reconciled their economic, agricultural and environmental policies.

Those are some of the questions that we want to see answered.

Here is another question. At the environmental centre of why nations first began using ethanol, it was to deal with the replacement of lead, as well as reducing the use of benzene, which is the number one petro-carcinogen. The government says that it has a national cancer strategy. We know that the number petro-carcinogen is benzene. If we Google benzene, here is what pops up, “No known safe level”.

Then remember that some 400 million litres or 1% of gasoline is benzene. It is present with toluene and xylene, which are also dubious, according to Health Canada's anti-smoking group, and they are in there only for octane purposes. Ethanol has a 113 octane rating, the highest of any fuel. It could be used to replace at least the 1% benzene portion if oil refiners so desired. That is really important when the Canadian Cancer Society now predicts that one in two Canadians will get cancer. One in three Ontarians today will get cancer.

Is the government linking its three core policies together? We see no evidence of it, and we are looking for it.

Finally, I want to raise the question of the government's fiscal choice on April 1 of this year to repeal the excise tax exemption for biodiesel and ethanol fuels. This is at a time when the ethanol industry is just getting on its feet, and it is let down with the government deciding to remove the excise tax exemption for biodiesel and ethanol fuels. We know that on low level blends, the effect of the repeal on prices in the retail sector is minimum. It is about 0.5¢ per litre on E5 ethanol blends.

However, for higher blends, the additional burden is substantial, 2¢ a litre for E50 and 8.5¢ a litre for E85. How does this reconcile with the government's stated purpose to try to increase the ethanol industry in Canada? We have two or three stations in Canada against the 1,200 in the United States.

We will hold the government to account. I suggest the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Finance sit down and share a cup of coffee and actually try to bring their policies together.

I cannot understand for the life of me why the government is not placing this and connecting this to a national climate change response. The only thing I conclude, along with the seven objective and third party groups that have looked at the government's climate change plan, is that no one believes it. Nobody believes it will achieve what it sets out to. As a result, I think they are incapable of actually linking these together.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When debate resumes after question period, there will be 10 minutes for questions and comments to the hon. member for Ottawa South, but we will now move to statements by members.

The hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Before question period, the hon. member for Ottawa South had the floor and had concluded the time allotted for his remarks, but there are 10 minutes for questions and comments consequent on his speech. I therefore call for questions and comments.

There being none, resuming debate, the hon. member for Western Arctic.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to talk about biofuels because, unlike what has been projected about the New Democratic position, we support a properly managed biofuel programs in this country. What we are trying to do in the House of Commons is to get to a point where we have policies that we can present to the Canadian public and that industry can understand where we are going. We want to be assured that what we are doing is correct and is working in the best interests of Canadians on all the fronts that have been purported to be useful in terms of the development of a biofuel industry in Canada.

The comments of the Liberals and Conservatives today and yesterday about our participation in this debate remind me of the old saying: A half truth is like half a brick; one can throw it twice as far and it hurts just as much. That is what they are doing. They are presenting half-truths again. That is not what we want in Parliament. We want to have an honest and structured debate about the relative merits of what we are doing as a Parliament. That is what we are after. That is what we are focused on.

This is not an ideological debate. The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food claimed in his speech that somehow the ideological forces of the left were driving this debate on biofuels, creating opposition to the Conservatives' implementation of a program in exactly the way they want through a bill that has no conditions attached to it, much as what was indicated by my colleague from Ottawa South. After he got over the need to bash away at us, he spoke quite eloquently about all the things that we have been bringing forward in Parliament, all the issues that have not been resolved around biofuels.

When we talk about an ideological bent, we can refer to all the different people who have spoken lately of their concerns about the direction biofuels are taking not only in Canada but around the world. And yes, we do have what we might call a fellow traveller in the Prime Minister of Great Britain whose government over many years promoted biofuels, but who has now said, “We have to go back and look at what we are doing”.

New Democrats are always willing to examine what we have proposed to see the merits within it. If we have policies that are not perfect, we adjust them. I can see that too with the Conservatives. They had a policy which was clearly articulated by the Prime Minister during the election. He said that the Conservatives were not going to touch income trusts. What did he do when he came to the realization, that we already supported, that these were hurting the economy? He changed his position. We saw the result.

This is a forum. The government must be flexible. We must look at the situation in front of us and do the very best possible for Canadians. The New Democrats are standing up again trying to ensure that the debate is useful and relevant and that we get the consideration we want of the bills in front of us.

The biofuels bill is an empty box which the Conservatives can fill with goodies for their friends. They can fill it with policies that will help large corporations. They can fill it with policies that will bring products from other countries that are going to compete with our Canadian farmers. This will create more dislocation and will not give us the kind of environmental return we could get from our own farmers. New Democrats do not trust the Conservative government to do the right thing.

In committee, we were consistent. We brought up conditions that we wanted to see in the bill that would ensure we did the right thing with biofuels. Those were opposed by both the Liberals and the Conservatives. They did, however, give the NDP an amendment to have a review on a two year basis. It is a good idea and it is almost all we needed, but not quite.

A two year review will already assume that the industry is up and running, that it is investing, that farmers are changing their production of different types of agriculture products to match up to the legislation in place. This was not quite enough. With this empty box, we needed to have a review of what the Conservatives would fill the box with before it went out to the public. How is this opposing biofuels?

This is giving some surety to Canadians that where the economy is going is correct. How can this be interpreted except in terms of this half truth? Once again, one can throw it further to try to hurt the others just as much. That is the truth of what has gone on in Parliament to date.

When I heard the member for Ottawa South talk eloquently about the problems with the biofuel policy in front of us, when he mentioned all the studies that had not been done, when he mentioned all the things that were not in place, why was he then so insistent that we flash forward with this policy when he had all those unanswered questions? Did it have anything to do with the investment that would go to his riding from the $2.2 billion, which are on the table right now as part of the public funds that will be invested in the biofuels industry? I ask the member for Ottawa South to look into his heart and see whether this is part of his motivation.

Right now across northern Canada, and it is not just in the Northwest Territories, it is in Yukon, Nunavut, northern Quebec, Labrador, we are experiencing a massive increase in heating costs and costs of generation with fossil fuels, fuel oil. Fuel oil prices affect hundreds of thousands of people across northern Canada and many rural people in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. It affects rural people in Ontario, the Maritimes and Quebec who are not attached to a natural gas distribution system and use fuel oil. These costs are going through the roof.

Are there any solutions? There are solutions and we are putting those solutions to work in Yellowknife right now. We are buying biomass products from Alberta and running our larger buildings and many homes on wood pellets. It is easily transportable, cellulosic material that is simply pelletized and provides that opportunity.

This can spread right across northern Canada. This could have been available to everybody in the country if there had been one thing, and that was parity in the bioenergy market where the greenhouse gas reductions were compared with biofuels and bioenergy, where values and incentives were based on how much we could return to the different types of objectives that were set into the policy. If that were the case, we could do so much more to reduce the cost of living for people across country who are not attached to a natural gas delivery system.

Personally, as a northern resident, although I use biomass myself, I have full sympathy for us in building our bioenergy industry across the country. Yet there is no parity and no discussion of this. Nor is there any discussion of the way to use different forms of energy. We are on a biofuel path that may or may not be appropriate. This does not mean we should preclude the other forms of bioenergy available to us.

We are investing $500 million in a cellulosic ethanol pilot plant. The BIOCAP study prepared by REAP-Canada, which was presented in the agriculture committee, speaks to cellulosic ethanol quite well. Cellulosic product that could easily be used in thermal capacities has a 39% efficiency in conversion of that energy. In other words, when the bioenergy product is converted into biofuel in a cellulosic ethanol plant, 60% of the energy is lost off the top. Huge capital costs are attached to this as well.

A typical commercial cellulosic plant, as the one proposed in Idaho, would have an estimated cost of $250 million U.S. to process approximately 68 million litres of cellulosic ethanol each year. That works out to about $175 a gigajoule in investment to return one gigajoule of energy. When we look at other forms of using cellulosic product, for instance, in replacing thermal energy in people's homes, in power generation, we are looking at about $5 a gigajoule investment in the plant. We are creating an industry that stretches right across the country and works for everyone.

These are the types of examples we need to talk about in Parliament. We need legislation that will create a level playing field for bioenergy and biofuels and will ensure that we are putting money into the best things possible for Canadians.

I am not trying to be a Luddite. I am speaking to the real concerns of Canadians. We are running out of natural gas in our country. National Energy Board projections indicate that we will be a net importer of natural gas by 2020 with all supplies in. This is a crisis, and one perhaps not well articulated by the government because it does not want to go in that direction. It wants us to purchase liquefied natural gas from other countries at exorbitant prices, with no particular economic benefit to our whole economy.

The opportunities for bioenergy everywhere are great and for biofuel equally great. We need to move ahead with policy that works. I do not see that here. The legislation does not address the issues in front of us. It does not provide significant return to Canadians in terms of greenhouse gas reductions. We invest $2.2 billion to get a couple of megatonnes of reduction. That is $1 billion a megatonne.

Where is the comparative analysis that should have taken place about the kinds of investments the government should make in different forms of subsidies that would go to different things and provide better analysis? These analyses are available. BIOCAP Canada did a complete assessment of that.

The greenhouse gas reduction cost for corn ethanol is some $375 per kilogram. Using biomass in pelletized form for either heating or for electrical generation would be a $50 a kilogram cost reduction.

The numbers are just staggering when we think of what we are doing. Why are we doing it? Because a number of people in the other parties have specific interests in the ridings. They see this as an investment to be made right away so they can move this forward in a way that really does not make good policy. It may make good sense in the next election for these people, but in the long term is it really the sense of what we want to do as a responsible member of the international community? I do not think so.

Having recognized the inadequacies of the legislation, as solidly supported by my Liberal colleagues in their speeches, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after “That”, and replacing them with the following:

Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be not now read a third time, but referred back to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for the purpose of reconsidering clause 2 with a view to making sure that both economic and environmental effects of introducing these regulations do not cause a negative impact on the environment or unduly influence commodity markets.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I find the amendment acceptable.

The hon. government House leader on a point of order.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, motions of this type are generally in order at third reading, however, there is a caveat to that. A motion of this type, other than the obvious transparent effort to obstruct and delay, in which we know members are engaging, is not in order if it is a motion that has the impact of providing instructions to the committee on how it should deal with the matter. It is one thing to refer a matter such as this back to the committee for reconsideration, however, the motion goes far beyond that because it says, “to making sure that both economic and environmental effects of introducing these regulations do not cause a negative impact on the environment or unduly influence commodity markets”.

I would argue that, in so doing, members have overstepped the bounds of what can be done in a motion of this type by providing instructions to the committee on how it should dispose of a bill. That is beyond the scope of what the House can do at this stage.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I thank the hon. government House leader for his advice and it will be taken into consideration. For the moment, we will resume debate.

Although the member for Richmond—Arthabaska probably has a question or comment to make, I will first go to questions and comments addressed to the member for Western Arctic.

The member for Burlington.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from the New Democrats. I absolutely disagree with his speech, however, and his approach to the legislation, which is much needed. I am the member for the riding of Burlington, a completely urban area, and I am very much in support of what we are doing, for a couple of reasons.

This program will be part of the whole process that is required for our country to meet its obligations to reduce greenhouse gases. As a member of the auto caucus, over and over again, companies that produce vehicles in our country tell us there needs to be a mix, alternative fuel vehicles, hybrids, bio-diesel, to make it happen.

Ford, for example, in St. Thomas makes a vehicle that is E85 compatible, and there is a number of vehicles around the Hill that are E85, and 85% ethanol is coming to town. In Woodstock in the next week an E85 pump at an independent gas station will bring that to the marketplace. It is going to happen in Burlington. It is going to happen in all urban areas across the country. We need to be on board to be able to produce ethanol domestically to meet the demand of consumers who will want to be more environmentally sensitive in their automobile choices.

Does the member not think the NDP's approach on this bill is like putting its head in the sand and not dealing with the issue? The use of biofuels is coming. We can either be a part of it and make a difference and take advantage of it as a Canadian economy, or we can let some other country get ahead of us and do it. Why are the NDP members not embracing the biofuel approach, which the bill would enhance?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the question really fits very well with what I have been proposing. I wanted to see conditions that would have linked themselves to greenhouse gas emissions for the development of the biofuels industry.

In other words, we would have some condition that would give a priority to those biofuel production lines, those uses of biological energy, to produce fuel so that the incentives would be tailored to the greenhouse gas reductions.

To move to 5% ethanol in our gasoline we are going to have to grow about 4.5 million tonnes of corn or else we are going to buy it from the United States. The studies that are done by BIOCAP Canada, a very respectable study, suggest that corn ethanol from the United States or corn products from the United States actually have a negative greenhouse gas life cycle production. In Canada it is slightly better at 21%.

Biodiesel on the other hand from canola is probably the most attractive option when we are talking about the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through the use of a particular product. So when we talk about canola, we are talking about a product that actually does have some of the characteristics that we are looking for in a product. We can see a net offset of CO₂ of 57%. That is reasonable but it is still not as good as perhaps using bioenergy simply as a heating product where we are going to get a greenhouse gas reduction closer to 90% to 95%. Those are good numbers. Those are really solid numbers.

Therefore, when we think of the bioenergy industry, yes, we should think of it in terms of greenhouse gas reductions and we should be very careful about what we are doing with it so that we do achieve the goals that we have, and we do move ourselves toward Kyoto compliance.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know that a point of order was raised just a few minutes ago by the government House leader. You said that you would take it under consideration and make a ruling. So before you do, I would like to make a comment on that same point of order.

I think if you look at the amendment that has been proposed, the motion that is before us, it is quite clear that what is being instructed here from the House is not mandatory. It is a permissive motion for the purpose of reconsidering one clause of the bill, clause 2. It quite clearly says in our motion “with a view”. It is something that would be considered and reviewed by the committee. It is permissive; it is not mandatory. Therefore, I believe that this amendment is in order and would urge you to take that into consideration before you make a ruling.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I thank the hon. member for Vancouver East for her point of order.

Is the hon. government House leader rising again on the same point?

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

Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to add a little to that because of course I only received this at 12:24 p.m. by email which would have been just a moment or two before the motion was made, so I did not obviously have time to prepare a response.

However, in that short time I have been able to avail myself of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms which at section 733 states that on amendments at third reading there are limitations on the type of amendments that can be moved and one of those limitations is that they should not seek to give a mandatory instruction to a committee. Similarly, Marleau and Montpetit at page 673 indicates the same. It states:

--an amendment to recommit a bill should not seek to give a mandatory instruction to a committee.

This amendment does have such an instruction to a committee. It instructs it to amend it with regard to certain substantive questions. In that regard, it is absolutely an amendment that is beyond the scope permitted at this stage.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I do not wish to entertain a debate, but I will hear the hon. member for Vancouver East one more time.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, maybe the government House leader has not had an opportunity to read the amendment carefully, but it is quite clear that it is not mandatory. The wording clearly says “for the purpose of reconsidering clause 2 with a view”. This is not something that is mandatory. It leaves it open to the committee. I think it is well within the rules of the House to allow this amendment to stand.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It appears to me that the hon. member for Vancouver East is repeating a point that she has already made. I am afraid that if I recognize the hon. government House leader, he is also going to repeat something he has already said. Therefore, I will hear him one more time but I am looking forward to new information.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver East said “with a view to” and then she did not bother to read the next words, which are, “making sure that”, and then there are the instructions on what the committee is supposed to substantively achieve. That is a mandatory instruction. The phrase “a view to” is optional but “making sure” is quite mandatory in anybody's understanding of the English language.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I now thank both hon. members for their points of order. All hon. members have heard me before commend them for their courtesy to each other. I would hope that this kind of commendation will inspire more courtesy, including advance notice of motions. As a chair occupant, I certainly do not like to be ambushed. I would like to make sure that all members are aware of what is to be expected before it happens.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Ottawa South.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, how much time is left in this 10 minute session?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The clock did stop while we were dealing with this issue and there is now five minutes remaining.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the member and thank him for his remarks, but I want to respond directly to this issue of basically delaying the empowering of the Minister of the Environment and any subsequent minister of the environment to be able to regulate fuel content.

I want to point out to Canadians that, yes, it is true that the member has raised some important points. I would say, however, that he is overstating the analysis. He certainly is overstating the evidentiary analysis he is putting forward. I am glad to see that he was quoting from a research program that the previous government set up, but I do not think it is as conclusive as he put it and that troubles me.

Second, I want to understand whether he intends to continue to drive the NDP view that we should be prohibiting the use of genetically modified organisms for biofuel production and also whether he intends to lobby for the establishment of restrictions on the use of arable land. I guess flowing from that, is he now telling us that the NDP is moving toward the notion of perhaps even fettering the rights of farmers or maybe, even worse, nationalizing their lands? I do not quite understand what kind of conditionality the NDP wants to oppose because it is not authorized to do so on farm growers.

Finally, I do not understand his position because the urgency of climate change compels us to act and the onus is on the government within a year, and we will hold it to account, to tell us exactly what is the state of the industry.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member over there and the Liberal Party for doing the work with BIOCAP because it is a very respected organization. Unfortunately, its funding is not going to continue.

Having said that, the numbers are far apart. If the numbers were closer together, if there was some kind of fudge factor in the numbers, we could say they were at least close, but these numbers put the greenhouse gas emission reductions way different. They put the cost per kilogram of CO₂ reduction to the government at very different levels. Some of them are at factors of 10.

When I talk about scientific studies that show factors of 10 on the scale and when we are talking about what is logically good for the economy, I do not think I have to worry so much about the veracity of the precise numbers. These are very large differences.

When we talk about agricultural issues, I defer to the agricultural committee. These were raised in the agricultural committee. They were raised on very important issues that talk about what kind of land is used. Are we going to deforest land to increase the yield of agricultural production in order to make this change?

We see what has happened in the United States where the increased corn production has led to less soy bean production which has led to increased soy bean production in third world countries where the environmental conditions are not very good, where there is a lot of displacement of people off the land. We see the interconnection between land and the resources as the changes are made.

I am not an agricultural specialist. I come from a place in this country where there is not much agricultural activity. My grandfather was a farmer but I do not have that practical experience on the land. I defer to, in terms of what should happen with land, to the agricultural committee. I would expect that the committee members have reams of studies that suggest what should be done with land in Canada. If they do not, if they are just making this up as they go along, that is wrong.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Ottawa Centre will want to have a very short question. There is one minute left. That will include both the question and the answer.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Duly noted, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask my colleague from Western Arctic if he could explain why we need to have the amendment he just put forward embraced by the House and what the benefits of the amendment would be in terms of this legislation?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, really and truly the report that we received from the agricultural committee was that the bill moved along much too fast. It did not take into consideration all the types of things that needed to be looked at. The purpose of the motion is to get a stronger scientific policy position from the agriculture committee and--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I must interrupt the hon. member.

I thank the member for Richmond—Arthabaska for his patience and courtesy. He now has the floor.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand. Things like that can happen in the House; it is called democracy. I was waiting patiently.

I am pleased to participate once again in the debate on Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. I have already made two or three speeches on this subject. To avoid repeating what I have said, I will focus in this speech on the need to reduce our dependency on oil, which obviously also has to do with the use of biofuels.

The bill itself does not contain any standards. It authorizes the government to adopt regulations, which is basically how biofuels would be monitored, with respect to standards and their impact. In the medium term, this bill can help us reduce our dependency on oil and significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, depending on the type of biofuel used and, of course, the type of transportation used with these biofuels.

The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions are produced when petroleum products are burned. To reduce these emissions and fight climate change, naturally, we also have to reduce our oil consumption.

Of course, Bill C-33 is not a binding instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; it is a measure to promote the development of alternative fuels. The best instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the only binding one, is the Kyoto protocol, which the Conservative government unfortunately rejected out of hand. Instead, this government is helping the oil companies, which have responded with a price at the pump that is close to $1.40 in the Montreal area. The other day, I saw $1.37. A litre of regular gasoline is selling for nearly $1.50.

In Canada, the oil companies, which recently again announced profits in the billions of dollars, pay less tax than in Texas. When we see that, we wonder what this government's real intentions and real priorities are.

Between 1970 and 2000, the hydrocarbon industry received $66 billion in direct subsidies from the federal government. For your information, Quebec developed hydroelectricity all on its own, without the federal government's help.

The Bloc Québécois suggests that the government stop giving special treatment to the oil industry, which has no need of government tax breaks. It is not a matter of shutting down the oil industry. We all understand that we need oil, but the idea behind this sort of policy or concern is to stop giving tax breaks to companies that do not need them in the least.

I have a few figures that prove this. Petro-Canada's net profit for the first quarter of this year was $1.1 billion, an 82% increase over the same period last year. This is no laughing matter. In 2007, Shell, the second-largest oil company in the world, had a net profit of over $30 billion. A net profit of more than $30 billion for a single oil company, even one that operates all over the world, is quite something.

Instead of helping the oil industry, the federal government needs to levy a surtax on oil extraction and production industry profits. The revenues from this surtax should go toward measures to promote reduced consumption of petroleum products. This would be a smart policy if we really want to reduce our oil use.

One of the ways we could be less dependent on oil is by improving energy efficiency and using cleaner modes of transportation to move goods. Take trains and ships for example—these two types of transportation account for 8% of oil consumption, compared to trucks, which account for 92%. This is an absolutely incredible difference.

The benefits of increasing our use of trains and ships include reducing our consumption of oil products and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which we will come back to. What is more, when we take greater advantage of our seaways and rail system, we scale down traffic by reducing the number of trucks. We have all been stuck in traffic. I am not saying that the problem will be fixed immediately, but cutting down on the use of trucks will certainly improve the situation.

We must also move away from fuel oil and favour cleaner energy sources, for individuals as well as businesses. We have been looking at all kinds of alternative fuels and alternative energy sources. Now we must promote the use of these products in order to keep reducing our use of fuel oil, a serious pollutant.

In Parliament, the Bloc Québécois is actively trying to minimize the impact of the rising price of gasoline. This is not the first time we have done so. We are once again on the attack. For instance, this week, we moved forward with deliberations at second reading of Bill C-454, introduced by my colleague from Montcalm. The bill made its way to second reading this week and was the topic of debate. The bill aims to give greater powers to the Competition Bureau.

I would also like to touch briefly on the objective of Bill C-454. It is absolutely crucial that the government strengthen the Competition Act in order to better combat the exorbitant increases in gas prices that average Canadians must face every time they fill up. To achieve this, the government must give greater powers to the Competition Bureau so that it may conduct a real investigation, particularly of the refining sector.

At present, the Competition Bureau does not have the power to launch an investigation on its own initiative. The legislation must therefore be changed. When it does conduct a review, its mandate does not allow it to discipline the industry, but simply to determine how it generally operates. Furthermore, it cannot force the disclosure of documents or protect witnesses during such a review. Thus, clearly, it is very broad and above all very fluid. This does not impose many restrictions.

In short, the Competition Bureau has its hands tied and is in no position to fight the oil companies, which are unscrupulously fleecing consumers. I have more examples. Profit margins in refining can reach 20¢ per litre of gas, which represents $10 for an average fill-up of 50 litres. And 50 litres is exactly the capacity of my car's gas tank. That is definitely excessive—not my gas tank, but the profit margins in refining as high as 20¢ per litre of gas. I would like to reiterate that this means as much as $10 for the average fill-up.

Generally, it is businesses, taxi drivers, farmers—since we are talking about the bill studied by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food—and consumers who pay the price. Oil companies already benefit from preferential tax treatment.

Obviously, in light of all this, oil company executives are laughing merrily. In fact, the Competition Bureau does not have the tools to ensure that prices are not artificially inflated. When a very few companies almost completely control a market as large as the gasoline market, someone has to keep an eye on them. You see the same signs when travelling through cities, villages, or almost anywhere. There are only so many oil companies. We are referring primarily to the major oil companies that control the market.

Oil refining comes under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Thus, it is up to the House of Commons to ensure that the Bloc Québécois' Bill C-454 is passed as quickly as possible in order for the Commissioner of Competition to take the necessary steps to prevent excessive gas price increases and oil company practices that are contrary to the public interest.

With the approach of summer it is possible that consumers will once again suffer because of the inordinate price of gas. Our bill must proceed quickly and unimpeded if we want it to be in force before the summer holidays. Not that we are in a hurry for them to arrive—but they are coming. We know that gas prices escalate suddenly and mysteriously in the summer.

Our dependence on oil is also a contributing factor to Quebec's trade deficit. Between 2003 and 2007, Quebec exports rose from $64 billion to $70 billion compared to imports, which rose from $64 billion to $81 billion. We therefore have a trade deficit of $11 billion.

What is Quebec's largest import? Of course, it is oil. In 1998, Quebec imported $2.5 billion worth of oil and last year it imported $14 billion worth, which is an increase of 457%. The price per barrel of oil explains the astronomical increase. Last year, in 2007, not long ago, the price per barrel was roughly $70 and now it is over $100. It was $119 last time I checked. Unfortunately the price goes up more often than it goes down.

Quebec has a policy goal that all fuel sold will include 5% ethanol by 2012. It has already invested $6.5 million in building two cellulosic ethanol production plants in the Eastern Townships, one in Westbury and the other in Sherbrooke. That is not so far from my riding. Cellulosic ethanol is the way of the future. I have already talked about this, as have a number of my colleagues in this House. The process promotes the use of agricultural residues, such as straw, and forestry residues, such as wood chips, along with trees and fast growing grasses, such as switchgrass. Bill C-33 will allow the emergence of this new generation of biofuels.

Biodiesel is another type of preferred biofuels. There is a biodiesel plant in Sainte-Catherine, Quebec.

Beef producers currently have to dispose of their specified risk materials. That is a Canadian standard beef producers have to comply with. We are not against it, but we would like to see reciprocity with U.S. standards. But that is for another debate. One thing is certain for now, producers have to get rid of these materials, which end up in the landfill. Often, unfortunately, producers have to pay out of their own pockets to get rid of these animal materials that can no longer be used, not even to make feed for other animals.

If we gave these materials added value by turning them into biodiesel, we could kill two birds with one stone. We could turn these materials into fuel. That is what sustainable development is all about. Instead of throwing out the material, burying it or paying to have it removed, we could pay for it once it has value and turn it into biodiesel. The technology already exists and this is already being done. Biodiesel is currently being made out of animal fats.

The Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec has studied the feasibility of setting up a plant to process animal carcasses and slaughterhouse byproducts into biofuel. Strategic partnerships and help from the government are needed to get that kind of project of the ground.

We have Bill C-33, but we will have to go much farther than that in developing a policy to promote biofuels that have few negative environmental impacts, or at least far fewer than petroleum and fewer than the foods we could use to make biofuels.

According to the Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec, we have to ensure that the life cycle of renewable fuels offers true environmental and energy benefits compared to oil products. That is why we should support the federation's project.

I have also talked about the training and recycling centre, CFER, in Victoriaville in my riding. In cooperation with 10 restaurants, this organization recycles used oil, the kind used for french fries, among other things. They are recycling it to make fuel. A pharmacy in Victoriaville even uses this kind of fuel in its delivery vehicle. Here in the House, I joked about how when one is driving behind the delivery vehicle, one does not necessarily get a smell of french fries.

Obviously, that is an important way to use it, a way that will not necessarily consume more energy in transportation. If the vehicle that collects this used oil goes to each of the restaurants and runs on used oil, itself, and if they manage to sell that oil at the pumps one day, that will be a huge energy gain. They are not yet at that point. It is still experimental, but the vehicle works very well.

Let us take this one step further. For example, sludge from sewage treatment plants can also be transformed into ethanol. Quebec's national scientific research institute came—once again—to Victoriaville.

I do not know if they did a very exhaustive study, but one thing is sure: the institute said that sludge from the Victoriaville sewage treatment plant could be transformed into ethanol. This is the kind of project we should be encouraging if we really want to reduce our oil dependency.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today we heard a comprehensive speech from the member for Ottawa Centre, another one from the member for Western Arctic and now we have the addition of our good friend from the Bloc with his comments around Bill C-33. A common thread that appears to be travelling through the remarks I am hearing in the House today is that we should err on the side of caution.

I would refer back to a quote I have here:

Biofuels have many advantages, but we have to look at all our options and make sure we make the best choices to ensure a more sustainable future.

...attempting to save the planet by wholesale switching to biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel may unintentionally have the opposite effect.

That quote was from David Suzuki. In this country we all know that he is very highly regarded when it comes to environmental matters.

I would add one thing. Yesterday, in the Toronto Star, there was an editorial which read:

And while biofuels may be doing little for the environment, they are doing the world a great deal of harm by diverting food from hungry people to the feeding of automobiles.

In the final closing remark, it states:

Parliament should heed NDP Leader...and take more time to consider the implications of Bill C-33 before passing it.

Some of these folks are non-traditional supporters of the NDP, I would go so far as to say, but would the Bloc not agree that we should err on the side of caution and take our time to ensure that when we set this up that we do it properly?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is why in committee we introduced amendments to make sure there are environmental studies, or studies on the environmental impacts as well as the social impacts related to the use of biofuels.

It is important to note that there are many kinds of biofuels. That is why I focused on biofuels made from cellulosic ethanol. There is biodiesel made from canola, which the NDP member for Western Arctic spoke about earlier, but as I was saying, there are also animal oils, animal carcasses and other waste materials that can be used to produce biodiesel.

We have a simple choice to make. We can continue to use oil and deal with steeply rising oil prices. Many people, for example those in the agricultural sector and those affected by the food crisis, will suffer huge consequences. We can keep going as we are and hope that one day oil prices will drop. Except that oil is a non-renewable resource.

Do we decide to develop new fuel sources made from renewable materials—and I agree with the member here—materials that will not be worse than oil in their effects on the environment? It is clear. One day, we will have to get with the times and find an alternative to decrease our dependence on oil.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is a concern that I raised yesterday in the report stage debate in the sense that too often when we debate these kinds of issues here in the House it becomes very polarized. Again today we heard the statement about a wholesale change to biofuels.

The government is not proposing a wholesale change to biofuel. We are talking about a very minimal biofuel content in our fuel. We also recognize that only about 5% of our land is used to produce crops that will be used for biofuel.

Does my hon. colleague think that, as our minister pointed out not too long ago, the weather pattern changes can actually have a greater impact than just the 5% of land use that is used for ethanol production?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, to answer my colleague's question, the Government of Quebec has established a policy on the use of biofuels. It is quite similar, since Quebec hopes to increase the use of ethanol in fuel to 5% by 2012. Once again, Quebec has made a choice. The government, and probably a vast majority of the population, decided that this ethanol should be cellulosic ethanol.

There are pilot plants, as I mentioned earlier. We must therefore encourage the development of this new ethanol production. If we simply say that this is how it is, that it is in the works, nothing will get done. I therefore hope that the Conservative government, which has established its own policy for the use of ethanol in fuel, will allocate the funds needed to ensure that these new alternatives can be developed and that it does not simply say that it will change the crops in our fields, as is the case in some countries, to make fuel. That is where the danger lies.

The current food crisis was not brought about exclusively by the use of biofuels, or agrofuels as some people are now calling them, for there are many other factors involved. Consider the stock market speculation concerning food, the droughts there have been, especially in Australia, which is a major wheat producer and has been suffering drought conditions for years, which cause productivity problems. Consider also China and India, where there are more and more people who now have the means to feed themselves a little better.

Another thing that concerns me is the rising price of food products. We cannot blame biofuels alone, given that rice is the product that has risen the most in cost in recent months. It has gone up nearly 100%. To my knowledge, there is not a single grain of rice fueling any vehicles. The price of milk has also gone up rather outrageously and I am pretty sure that no one is putting milk in their gas tanks.

I am not saying that biofuels have no impact. They do. We must be extremely vigilant about this, but many other factors are also at play.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak to the bill and to the amendments that our party has put forward.

I will begin by assuring those who are concerned about our party's position on biofuels in general that this is something that needs to be part of the mix to deal with the catastrophic climate change that is in front of us. However, we also need to be cautious. The do no harm principle should be invoked, the precautionary principle, which is why our party has taken the stand it has.

As we have noted recently, both in the House and in the debate that has occurred in Canadian society and, indeed, globally on the issue, if we look at the advantages of ethanol and biofuels, ethanol being part of the biofuel mix, we have to ascertain what the cost benefits are.

When we take a look at ethanol as an example, which seems to be the one that is the most popular, and certainly the supports are fairly strong within the government, we need to look at the costs in terms of the production of the corn for the ethanol as part of the mix for gas.

I recall years ago, when ethanol first became an option, that many said that we should be careful in what we were doing and that we should look at it both in terms of the cost of transporting the goods to production, in other words, the corn from the farmer's field that goes to the plant to mix the ethanol, and the effects on the environment there. We were also told to drill down deeper and look at the actual costs in terms of the production costs.

It has emerged, if we use ethanol as an example because that is the one that has the most production, focus and support, that there is a huge amount of investment in fertilizer, for instance.

There is an important aspect to fertilizer that we should be dealing with. Fertilizer, as we know, comes from natural gas. If we are disproportionately using things like fertilizer, which is a fuel and one that is not renewable, and we are using that to help with the production of corn for ethanol, it should be part of the cost benefit analysis.

I would also add that when we are looking at the other resources that are required for growing corn, certainly for ethanol purposes, there is a fairly substantive use of water as a resource. Again, if we look at the whole mix and what is required in the recipe for ethanol, that is something that should be taken into account.

The use of fertilizer is not something that has been fully analyzed, in other words, the degree to which it will be using the fuel that is required to make fertilizer. Many have pointed to this as a concern, notwithstanding the use of water.

When we look at the tar sands as an example and the science around the tar sands, what was contemplated first in the science that was pushed was how to get oil out of the sands. That is fair enough and innovative. Some work was done on that. What I do not think was contemplated was what happens with the waste.

We have seen this not just with the tar sands but also with nuclear energy. What I think most of us want to see is a very genuine, thorough analysis of the effects and costs in the production of any new energy source.

In the case of the tar sands, Alberta is about to become a have not province, not in terms of fiscal capacity but in water capacity. Australia was mentioned earlier regarding some of the problems it is having with drought. Water is a resource we take for granted but we should be very careful in how we use it, especially in relation to agricultural production.

We have new technologies such as ethanol. I mentioned nuclear power. We still have not figured out what to do with spent nuclear waste in a safe way into which everyone can buy. I mentioned the tar sands. However, when we deal with ethanol, we have to ensure we have done the proper analysis and due diligence. That is the thrust of our amendments and our concerns about the bill.

A member of Liberal Party, in statements to the press, was trying to convince his colleagues to slow down on the bill and not support it to the degree that we see with the official opposition, and that perhaps it would make sense to amend the bill with some of the amendments we brought forward, to have the oversight and to send it back to committee to do the cost benefit analysis, as I just made. He said that we should admit that things have changed, that since we made assumptions when we looked to ethanol as the way to deal with catastrophic climate change, new evidence had appeared. I suggest that would be the right notion and probably good advice for his caucus colleagues.

I do not assume the governing party will change its direction. It has been noted for going ahead regardless. However, I would plead with the opposition, and certainly with the Bloc, to take a reasoned and sensible analysis of the bill and the concerns we have with it.

The question is, why rush into it? Why not have amendments put forward, as we have done, to do due diligence? If we find 10 years hence that we have in fact gone in the wrong direction, the question will be, why were we in a rush to do this?

It will be difficult for government members and other members of Parliament to get a satisfactory answer when we put amendments forward at committee to have due diligence done. We put forward amendments at report stage. We put forward an amendment today to ensure we were careful with this and due diligence was done. That is important to note.

As my colleagues have said, we are not talking about an ideological view. We are talking about scientists saying that we should be very careful in how we go forward with our biofuel policy. Many have suggested that this is the wrong way to go without the proper oversight, as I mentioned.

I find it interesting that in his comments this morning, the minister suggested that this was not about the global map right now, that we were only talking about Canada. That is fair enough. We are in the Parliament of Canada and we are discussing the Government of Canada's policy on biofuels.

The problem with that statement or that analysis by the minister is it denies we are in a global economy. I find it intriguing that I am making this statement for members of the party who suggest that they are the ones who understand the global economy. What we do with our biofuels policy matters to the rest of the world, as does our policy on the tar sands. I share that with the House because if the minister's suggestion is that our policy on biofuels in Canada does not affect the global economy or that we do not have a role to play, I would fundamentally disagree with him on that.

At one point, he said that we needed to deal with an issue because of climate change. He then mentioned that recently there was snow in his province and that the farmers were in the fields. He made a passing remark about it being global warming. It suggests to me that the Conservatives do not have a consensus yet in their caucus about whether global warming exists. I hope that is not the case. This has been a long learning curve for the governing party. I know at one point it denied climate change and the science of it. I hope it was a lightened remark as opposed to an unenlightened analysis.

It is about good policy, and the policy we form here does affect the global view and what happens in the world. The government has been very clear about Canada's role. I think the Prime Minister coined the phrase that he wanted Canada to be an energy superpower. If we are going to be, on the one hand, an energy superpower and, on the other hand, making policy on biofuels and suggesting this is only for Canada and it does not really affect the rest of the world, there is incongruity. What he is saying is that what we do here will not affect what happens around the world, and I could not disagree with him more.

Let us look at the analyses and studies that have been brought forward. The chief economist for the U.S. agriculture department is very critical of what is happening with biofuel policy. Gwyn Morgan, no close cousin of the NDP, has said that this is not the way to go. People have genuine questions about what the effects of this policy will be and we need to listen to them.

All our party is asking for is some reason, due diligence and to ensure when we are formulate our policy, we do not do it in a hurry or be too hasty. If we do that, there are unintended consequences and, some would say, irreversible effects that will occur. Once we build into our mix of energy supply, put in certain supports and have legislative underpinnings to it, it is very difficult to undo.

What that means for not only the environment but our economy is that we will then have our eggs distributed in the wrong basket. I will not say they would all be in one basket with this legislation, but it gives the nod to the economy and says, “This is where you should be investing”.

It was noted by the minister in his comments this morning that perhaps weather could have more of an effect on the supply of fuel, the cost of fuel, et cetera. Granted, I would concur with him on that. However, the same can be said about the supply, in terms of ethanol, that will be built in if there is a bad crop. What happens if there is a drought? What will happen then is we might have to look far afield, pardon the pun, to supply the mix that has been built into the system.

I would like to see the analysis on that. What is the last decade's analysis for the supply of some of these crops that we will be dependent upon, even with the minimum that we have established presently? Those kinds of things need to be understood.

The other thing I find interesting is the people who are lobbying for ethanol in particular. We know the person at the top of the association, who was running the lobby effort for this, was lobbying one day for the industry and the next day was working for the government. I find it that interesting.

We need to be absolutely clear as to the premise for which these policies are brought in. Is it the best direction for our country in terms of the economy, climate change and to ensure we have the right mix? Many people would be surprised that someone who lobbied for this policy one day, ended up the next day in the Conservative government, directing where that policy would go. Again, that is important to note.

If we look at what the legislation purports to do, and certainly the government will say it will do, and look at some of the concerns brought forward by scientists, there is no clarity. There is not enough clarity for my party and I think opposition members, because we have heard from some who are concerned about their party's position, to say that we should rush ahead and do this.

There has not been sufficient argument to say that we cannot hold back, that we have to go ahead immediately because the sky will fall. When we look at some of the arguments that have been made about concerns of bringing this policy forward, we can still slow down, take a look at the cost benefit and have this kind of policy put in place. It is a false premise for those who say we have to rush this through now. Those who have taken a look at the direction of ethanol and biofuels mix have argued the opposite, that we can still go in the right direction on this, but it is important we get the balance right.

We do not take this lightly. We have seen what happens once we start down this direction. We see the concerns in the United States. As I referenced, the chief economist for the Department of Agriculture in the United States has thrown up the cautionary flag and said that they have a problem, that have done too much in one area and that it is undermining the capacity for the United Stated in terms of agriculture. I do not want to be put a corner like the Americans.

As my colleague from Hamilton said, this is something we should rethink and be cautious about. It was interesting to note the editorial he referenced from The Toronto Star the other day. It states:

But in their rush to biofuels, the politicians have overlooked the drawbacks of turning food into fuel.

Although biofuels do emit less greenhouse gas than regular gasoline, environmentalists point out that this comparison does not take into account the emissions coming from the farm machinery and fertilizer required to “grow” these new fuels and the trucks for transporting them.

This is a reasonable question, and it should be put back to the committee to answer it. What is unreasonable about that question? If we are to do due diligence, if in fact this whole policy is to deal with the catastrophic climate change that is in front of us, then why would we not do our homework on this? Why would we not look at an impact, not just of when the fuel comes out the tailpipe, but look at the production of that fuel? We can do that. In fact scientists have done this, working with farmers.

There is a suggestion that if we are critical of this policy, that somehow we do not support farmers. It is unfortunate that some are using this argument to create a wedge between society in general, which wants to deal with that catastrophic climate change, and the challenges that confront farmers. Our party has been clear for decades about the way to support farmers. We believe in the Wheat Board and other institutions that have been built by farmers. We are not going to undermine them. I think this is something where the government is trying to create a wedge. I have talked to farmers locally and they do not buy that. They are as concerned as the rest of us on this rush to put in legislation that would tip the hat one way in terms of where agricultural direction is going.

I hope that reason will carry the day, that the government will take a second look at this and that the opposition will support our amendments. I hope we can look back 10 years from now and say that we did the right thing, that we did due diligence and we made sure that we did not rush into something that we had not thought through thoroughly.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, I hardly know where to begin after listening to that, but let me start with a phrase that I heard the NDP member use repeatedly throughout his dissertation: why rush into this?

I do not know how long the NDP would like to study this issue, but as a former farmer and someone who is proud to represent a large rural riding with a large agricultural component, which is unlike the riding the member represents, I have to tell him that a lot of farmers have been waiting a long, long time already for this type of option. They have been waiting for this option to see it impact favourably on commodity prices, even in a small way, so they can receive a better return from the marketplace, as opposed to taxpayers being forced to assist them in order to keep them afloat.

They are looking forward to this. I hope they are watching this debate today. I hope they are watching the NDP members stand in their places and vote against giving farmers this option, this alternative for which they already have been waiting years. They have been waiting for years for governments to catch up to the technology that farmers have known was out there.

What do we see now? Farmers are looking forward to this legislation. They would argue strenuously with the hon. member and would say that we are not rushing into this at all. They have already waited some time for this.

Never mind the environmental benefits, this change in policy could be of great advantage to the struggling forestry sector in my riding and the riding of my colleague from Cariboo—Prince George. We could start utilizing more of the wood waste from trees to produce biofuel. Never mind that advantage. Never mind the environmental advantage in reducing CO₂ emissions, which the member himself admitted.

These are all positive things, yet the NDP wants to vote against this legislation. They want to kill it. They want to stop. They want to wait for another 5, 10, 15 or 20 years while they study this some more. Rather than taking a positive step and moving forward, those members want to send the bill back to committee.

I want that member to stand up and express why he believes that farmers should not view the NDP as being against them when it wants to kill this bill that will help them so much.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I would like to advise the hon. member for Ottawa Centre that there are seven minutes left in the period for questions and comments, but only one of those minutes is today.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no coincidence between the member's comments and the time remaining for my response. That is an old parlour trick, I suppose.

I will simply note for the member that there is farmland in my riding. He should know that very well. In fact, I am very proud to have the Experimental Farm in my riding, and it does research for farmers. He should know that it is part of where we are finding that there are concerns.

I will simply say that the member is actually helping me with my argument when he is trying to establish that there is a wedge between farmers and other Canadians. It is unfortunate that he is trying to drive a wedge between farmers on the one hand and everyday Canadians on the other. I do not think most Canadians would put up with that. I am happy that they will see through this as just wedge politics, not really about caring for farmers--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I regret that I must interrupt the hon. member for Ottawa Centre. It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

When we return to the study of Bill C-33, there will be six minutes left for the hon. member for Ottawa Centre for questions and comments.

The House resumed from May 2 consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to speak to Bill C-33 and the amendment, and I offer my support for the bill but not for the amendment.

I might say that it is important in this debate, regarding the amendment, because everything relates to the bill, so I will be fairly broad in my remarks.

It is interesting to see the reactions of some of the party leaders in this House since this bill was first debated at first reading and at committee.

At one point in time, all parties seemed to be in favour of increasing biofuel production for several reasons: one, to develop greater economic opportunities for rural Canada; two, to offer alternative crop opportunities and better returns for farmers in rural Canada; and three, to provide for a move away from fossil fuels, which would mean reduced greenhouse gas impacts on Canadian society. This is at a time when the environment is a huge issue.

However, now, because of changing circumstances in the global food supply and a few other issues, in an almost knee-jerk reaction, we are getting some saying that ethanol is almost solely responsible for the global food shortage and therefore some party positions are switching.

I will put it to members this way. Whether we pass or reject Bill C-33, it will, in neither case, impact the global food shortage or surplus to any great extent. Let us be realistic here. Regarding ethanol in Canada, in terms of this bill, will we be in the modern world or will we stay behind the times? It is time we get up to speed.

However, I can say that if we reject this bill we will send a very negative message to those investors who took all parties' words and who based their investment decisions on plants that are already being built and on farmers who will put crops in the ground on the basis of those initial discussions at committee which had basically all parties supporting Bill C-33.

If this bill is defeated, somebody had better take responsibility for that lost investment opportunity and that lost investment out there for those people who actually took the word of the various representatives of the parties that this bill would actually go through Parliament. They took our word that we would implement regulations and increase the content of ethanol and biodiesels in fuel by regulations.

Simply put, investments have been made both on the farm in terms of the production of alternative crops and in plant capacity to build plants for the current feedstocks and, in their minds as well, for future feedstocks for ethanol production from more cellulosic feedstock, et cetera.

If we reject this bill, we will have killed an economic opportunity for great numbers of Canadian and international investors and we will have certainly killed an economic opportunity for a great number of Canadian farmers.

For those who say that we will be using good quality wheat and other crops for fuels, that is not necessarily so. Yes, sometimes they will be but not always.

Sometimes there is frost. There is always a frost in some area. Sometimes there is too much rain and the quality of the grain goes down. Sometimes there is drought, which affects the quality. Sometimes there are surpluses.

It is those products, which are not always top quality bread wheat or top quality cereal grade corn, that are going into the production of these particular fuels. There are these other lower quality crops that are often used as well.

I say, especially to the leader of the NDP, who seems to have a knee-jerk reaction against ethanol now although he had it in his policy platform for the last election, for heaven's sake, that he must not kill that gleam and that spark in the eyes of those farmers out there. I ask him to allow economic opportunities to develop in rural Canada. I ask him not to hamper this investment in economic opportunities by the farm community.

This 5% really will not take a whole lot of crop, but it will make a huge difference in terms of price returns for primary producers. The interesting thing about farm production is that if we have a 2% or 3% surplus, especially in the potato industry, it is not just that 2% or 3% surplus for which we get paid low returns: it kills the price of the whole 102% and 103%. This will assist in terms of that economic development and economic opportunity for the farm community as well.

The Canadian Renewable Fuels Association has some information on this, and I will quote the association a little later, but I can say that by being a player, by having the production base taking place right now with the current feedstock, it will encourage research and development in the newer feedstocks that are not so much food for our consumers as others. That is where we have to get to.

We cannot jump over this step. We are not ready to go there yet in terms of the cellulosic and the research and development required in that area. This step cannot be jumped over. We have to go to this step with that production and fuel stock base right now.

Oh yes, there is a number out there, and this debate is rather interesting, but there is quite a debate by some who would blame the world's food shortage on the production of ethanol. Nothing could be further from the truth. Is there some impact? Yes, there is a marginal impact, but ethanol is not the cause. The real cause, in my view, is the speculation in the commodities market, which has no relationship to costs or real crises on the ground.

As well, certainly, global trade has an impact on the food shortage. The food for which there is greatest shortage at the moment is rice. Rice is not used in the production of ethanol. However, some countries that have become dependent on rice imports have seen the exports from some other countries frozen. We are seeing speculation, hoarding and all these kinds of things.

That is the real reason there is a problem in terms of global food supply. It is due more to market exploitation, market manipulation and market speculation than it is to the production of ethanol itself.

I have what I think is a very good paper that certainly opens up a good debate. It is a policy brief by the Oakland Institute and I believe it was written in April although it does not have the date on it. It has this to say at one point:

In fact, it is the traders and middlemen who stand to gain most. Speculation in world commodities is driving prices upward, from global futures commodity trading to traders and hoarders in West Africa, Thailand and the Philippines.

The institute goes on to say:

The payments made by the Canadian Wheat Board show--

And we know that the Canadian Wheat Board maximizes returns to primary producers.

--that the farmers were paid between $260-$284 a ton for various qualities of non-durum wheat, while the global price for wheat peaked to over $520 a ton. In India, farmers were paid Rs.850 [their currency] a quintal while wheat was imported at Rs.1,650 [their currency] a quintal.

What this is showing is that prices on the ground are one thing, but it is the market speculation and the middlemen that are really causing those prices to go through the roof. The farmers are not feeling the benefit of those prices on the ground to anywhere near the extent of what prices are in the marketplace.

The Oakland Institute paper goes on. I do not necessarily agree with everything that is said, but I think they are interesting points. It states:

Various causes for the current food price crisis are being cited by policy makers and the media--most common among them being the increased demand from China, India, and other emerging economies, whose increasing per capita growth has whetted appetites, as well as the oft-cited rising fuel and fertilizer costs, climate change, and impact of biofuels production. What is missing in the discourse is analysis of the failure of the free market, which made countries vulnerable in the first place; ironically, it is being promoted as a solution to the current crisis.

The Oakland Institute is saying that there are a lot of causes of the food crisis, and it is certainly not just the production of ethanol and biodiesel causing it, as some would portray.

I want to turn to a comment that I think is right on the mark. Larry Hill, now chair of the Canadian Wheat Board, stated in an article:

Commodity prices have risen dramatically in the last two years. There are many factors that have contributed to these increases. Supply-side issues have been the most dramatic, with...production problems plaguing all five of the world's top wheat-producing exporting regions over the past two years.

This ranged from drought in Australia to the heavy rains at harvest in Europe, poor winter wheat conditions in Kansas, frost in Argentina, and heat damage in western Canada.

He continued:

On the demand side, the world population continues to grow. In some of the world's most populous nations, improvements to living standards have created more demand for a wheat-based diet and for livestock fed with grain.

He went on to say:

Until this year, grain prices in real dollars were so low that they were on par with what farmers received in the Dirty Thirties. Not surprisingly, these values caused many farmers to rethink their future in agriculture. Some walked away, others tried to diversify into other types of enterprises, while still others were forced to subsidize their farms with one if not two off-farm jobs.

The fact of the matter is that if we bring it into real terms the price of the wheat in a loaf of bread now is about 16¢ for a 16-ounce loaf of bread. That is not a great deal when the price of a loaf of bread is $2 or thereabouts.

My point is that the farmer's share is still not really any more than what it should be. When we hear Mr. Hill's comments, we have to recognize, as I am certain this House does, the kinds of difficulties that producers have faced over the last eight years in Canada, when farm incomes were at record lows in this country.

This ethanol and biodiesel industry is creating a spark in the eye for many. It is creating economic opportunity.

Yes, we know there is price pressure on the livestock and hog industries, but we have to find a way of making one agricultural commodity complementary to the other. We cannot have one industry such as the hog and beef industry built on cheap feed grains, because those producers have to survive too. We must have policy done in a complementary fashion such that farmers can make a living off the land in this country regardless of the commodity produced.

If I may turn to the bill for a moment, I want to come to the fact that the protection is already in the bill in terms of what I think is being asked by the amendment. The bill allows the government to regulate renewable content in fuels. It allows the federal government to implement regulations requiring 5% average renewable content in gasoline by 2010.

Subsequent regulations will also require 2% average renewable content in diesel and heating oil by 2012 on successful demonstration of renewable diesel fuel use under the range of Canadian environmental conditions, meaning fuels made from renewable sources such as agriculture crops and other organic matter.

This gives the government the authority to make regulations. I believe that the government will be sensible in that. Perhaps the government will be sensible on this particular issue and make reasonable regulations. We cannot say the same for the government on all issues.

New subclause 2(8) amends the bill to add a provision for periodic and comprehensive reviews by a parliamentary committee of the environmental and economic aspects of biofuel production in Canada. That is important. The committee put that in there. Parliament is not going to be hamstrung, but this is sensible.

The amendment that we are talking about now is not sensible. It basically stops the ethanol and biodiesel proposal in its tracks.

This review allows us to monitor the situation, to determine the environmental and economic impacts of biofuel production in Canada, and to do it in a sensible way. It is extremely important.

I think the amendment that the members are calling for is already covered by the work of the committee itself.

I would encourage Parliament to pass this bill. Investments are already being made. Primary producers are looking to the future with the current crop regime, yes, but they are also looking for and hoping that the government will put in place the research and development.

I know that research and development is taking place south of the border into other alternative crops such as wheat and barley, straw, stalks and cobs from corn in Ontario and Quebec, and vegetable and fruit residues from across Canada. In Prince Edward Island, there is a very small cold press biodiesel operation in place using canola.

There is the possibility of using forest and wood waste and also municipal solid waste. There are other alternatives down the road, but we have to get there. In order to get there, I ask Parliament to support this bill and let this economic opportunity succeed.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, knowing my hon. colleague over many years, I know his heart and soul are with Canadian farmers, and I agree with him totally.

The whole perception of biofuels being bad and causing a world of food shortage has been blown out of proportion. I really think it is essential for Canadian farmers to have the bill passed, that it be carried by all members in the House of Commons.

We have to look at the shortage of food in the world for many different reasons. There have been drought and frost. Western Canada has gone through years of drought. There have been storms, and we only need to look at China and Burma lately. There are many factors.

I would like to give the hon. member a few more minutes to state his case because he has done it very well so far.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to be in agreement with the member opposite. We not always are, but I think our objective is to have policies to benefit the farm community and society in general. We may not agree on the road to get there, but we do want to get to the same place.

In answer to the member's question, I would turn to what the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture had to say recently because it hits the mark with respect to food prices and ethanol. I will quote what the president of the CFA said in a recent press release. He said:

Biofuels have been unfairly implicated as a primary cause of dwindling food stocks and high grain prices. Other market forces have a strong influence on grain prices, such as market speculation, changing dietary trends in emerging economies, and recent global weather patterns. Furthermore, it should be noted that only a small amount of Canadian grain is produced for biofuels, about 5 percent.

Growing for the biofuel industry has been an excellent option for farmers looking to diversify, and they shouldn’t be disparaged for making a smart move. These farmers have been lauded by the public and politicians alike for being leaders in the development of alternatives to fossil fuels.

Many farmers invested heavily to meet surging demand. What is often left out of discussion is the risk that a large-scale disaster (such as drought or a major hail storm) could leave them on-the-hook for escalating expenses.

Looking at the international scope of this issue, we've long known that inadequate food distribution and accessibility is hurting the world’s poor. This problem is not new. As an active member of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, CFA is joining the call for governments to develop policies that address food insecurity.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has a lot of experience in this House in terms of agriculture. But, I am taken aback to hear him say that Canadian farmers have already invested heavily to meet the demand. I do not believe that the plants are ready yet.

However, I will ask him a question, a question that very capable people in the field have also asked. Why would we not sell the surplus corn to the United States, given that they have ethanol projects that require much more corn than they are able to produce? That is my first question.

Next, many people who are very knowledgeable about these matters have come to Ottawa and said that it may be true that ethanol is no longer the main cause of rising prices. Rather, it is more our past reserves that drove up prices.

Darrin Qualman, from the National Farmer's Union in Saskatoon, told us that five years ago there were 115 million tonnes of various grain reserves around the world, but now there are 54 million tonnes, and that it was industry that lowered this quantity in order to be able to force prices to go up.

My second question is this: why could we not sell the corn produced here in Canada to rebuild the food stocks around the world?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the reason why I do not think we would want to grow corn here and ship it to the United States is we need that plant capacity in Canada. We need those jobs created in Canada. The part that people do not often relate to is the need for R and D in this area. The byproduct that comes out after the corn goes through ethanol production, is feed for livestock there. As of yet it is not a good feed for hogs, but it is, under the right characteristics, a decent feed for beef. Therefore, more R and D needs to be done into that feedstock development. However, the bottom line is we need that plant capacity and that investment in this country, not south of the border. We want to create jobs and opportunities for Canadians, not for Americans.

Regarding the second part of the question, it is true that ethanol has not had a huge impact on prices, but it has had some. It is true with the feedstock we use, there is not a tremendous positive benefit in terms of reduction in greenhouse gases. It is nothing near where it is in Brazil, where one unit of input and maybe seven units of production out. We are about 1 unit to 1.2 units. There is greater greenhouse gas reductions with sugar cane in Brazil.

However, as we move to new feedstocks, we may be able to get those better productions and we have to go through this step. The Canadian Renewable Fuels Association has said that the passage of Bill C-33 is critical to the development of the next generation biofuels in Canada. Its members would know because they are at the pinnacle of the industry.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague say that he agreed with the member opposite. That means he will not agree with me; I will tell him that right off the bat.

The cost of basic foods has gone up 48% since the end of 2006. I am not the one saying this. According to the director of the World Food Programme, a “silent tsunami” is threatening to plunge 100 million people into hunger. The IMF estimates that the use of biofuels and the rather considerable subsidies granted to producers account for 70% of the increase in corn prices.

What does the bill we are debating today do? It requires gasoline to contain 5% ethanol. Where is the logic in setting this requirement, when we consider the international assistance that needs to be provided, the fact that people should feed themselves, the fact that we should respect our environment, and the fact that this bill would require a 5% biofuel content?

In fact, I do not agree with this term. It could perhaps be called “agro” but it is far from being “bio”.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, if the member goes back to my remarks, she will note that for one to believe ethanol is responsible for the food shortage is absolutely wrong. It may have a marginal impact, no question about that, but the land base is there to feed a hungry world.

The problem in terms of the hungry world, as I said earlier in my remarks, is more so markets commodity speculation where there is huge profit taking in some of the trade relationships and the power of some of the multinational corporations around the world. Some countries that were exporting rice, for instance, have frozen those exports in order to hoard supplies in their own countries. Is it market speculation or food security for their own people? I do not know, but it is other factors more than ethanol in the food difficulties around the world.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak today on Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.

Let us make it clear right at the start that the purpose of this government bill, which in itself contains no standards whatsoever, is to authorize the government to enact regulations governing the Canadian production of biofuels. In other words, the bill would allow the federal government to regulate renewable content in fuels in order to require, for example, a certain percentage of biofuel in gasoline.

In order to have a better understanding of legislative developments in the biofuels file, let us begin by reminding hon. members that the proposed measures, except for a few key details, were included in Bill C-30 from the previous session. I would remind the House that this bill, known as the clean air act, was amended by the opposition parties in committee and that the measures concerning biofuels still appeared in the amended version of the bill.

It would be a good thing to remind hon. members at this point that the government had already announced that an amended Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 would allow the government to implement regulations to require an average of 5% renewable content in gasoline by 2010. Subsequent regulations would also require an average of 2% renewable content in diesel and heating oil by 2012 upon successful demonstration of renewable diesel fuel use under the range of Canadian environmental conditions.

I would point out that the Bloc Québécois has been concerned since the beginning about the environmental and social consequences of the use of corn ethanol. It therefore submitted amendments in the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food specifically intended to better monitor biofuel regulation. These amendments would, for instance, have enabled committee members to keep abreast of technological advances in the field of renewable biofuels and also to evaluate the appropriateness of the measures proposed by the government.

Renewable fuels are one way for us to reduce greenhouse gases, but not the only way. Such fuels can also help us reduce our dependence on oil. However, not all renewable fuels are equal. That is very important to realize. A study by the committee of the federal government's regulations could have looked further into biofuels, their sources and their potential consequences. Unfortunately, the amendments proposed by the Bloc Québécois were all rejected by the Liberals and the Conservatives.

In light of this, the Bloc Québécois then moved, in the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, a motion that asked:

That the Committee recommend that the government ensure that the implementation of regulations resulting from the eventual adoption of Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, not result in an increase in the proportion of Canadian corn production currently used to produce ethanol and that it be reported to the House at the earliest opportunity.

The adoption of this motion would have kept the current proportion of land seeded with corn for use in ethanol production. For example, if 15% of Canadian corn production is currently being used to produce ethanol, the motion would have ensured that 15% of that production continued to be used to produce ethanol.

Unfortunately, by rejecting the motion, the Conservatives have sent a clear message: they have no intention of developing the biofuel industry in a balanced manner. The regulation that will result from Bill C-33 may be conducive to excess. I cannot stress that enough.

We are in favour of renewable fuels but, in our opinion, this bill, which allows the federal government to regulate the level of biofuel in gasoline, diesel and fuel oil, must be passed in order to ensure sustainable development.

The federal government cannot try to find a measure that reduces both greenhouse gas emissions and our dependency on oil while at the same time it risks bringing about social and environmental consequences by increasing the proportion of corn production currently dedicated to ethanol production. If it adopts this contradictory approach, it risks completely eliminating any of the benefits it is trying to create through this bill. The Bloc Québécois cannot endorse such action.

This is one of the reasons that we are in favour of the amendment we are debating today, which asks that Bill C-33 be sent back to committee to be further studied in the context of the most recent scientific, environmental, agricultural and international developments.

For us, in terms of a biofuel substitute for oil, the most interesting prospect at present is ethanol made from cellulose. This technique, still in its experimental stage, uses an inexpensive raw material and, more importantly, would recycle vegetable matter that is currently unusable. It would also provide new markets for the forestry and agriculture industries.

Given the environmental and economic problems posed by the production of ethanol from certain crops, support for raw materials that could be produced more readily is gaining ground.

Research is being increasingly focused on the production of ethanol from non-food crops and materials rich in cellulose, that is, fibres. The development of an efficient process for converting cellulose to ethanol could promote the use of raw materials such as agricultural residues and straw as well as forestry residues, primarily wood chips, and even trees and fast-growing grasses.

Iogen Corporation has built a pilot plant and has been producing ethanol from cellulosic materials for a few years.

A pilot plant in Sweden, for example, is producing ethanol from wood chips. The process produces three co-products that can be burned directly or dried and sold as fuel, carbon dioxide gas and ethanol.

The Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec has already asked the federal government for assistance to conduct a market study to determine whether constructing a biodiesel plant would be feasible. A very profitable market could be developed in which animal oils and animal product residues could eventually be turned into biofuel.

We think that ethanol made from cellulosic materials such as agricultural and wood waste, and other types of fuels still in the experimental stage look like a very interesting possibility.

In addition, the Government of Quebec has announced that it will not promote corn ethanol further because of the environmental impact of intensive corn production. It seems that the Varennes corn-based ethanol plant will be the only such plant in Quebec. In fact, during my tour of the Varennes facilities over six months ago, the CEO, a particularly visionary leader, told me that future development of his plant would be based on second generation ethanol production using household waste.

Before the regulations are implemented, the Bloc Québécois wants to see some thoughtful deliberation concerning the environmental record of the alternative fuels the federal government will propose. We must not lose sight of the fact that the original intention of this bill was to try to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our oil dependency.

If the Conservative government really wanted to make a difference in this area, it would choose the path proposed by the Bloc Québécois, including a plan to reduce dependency on oil, among other things, rather than trying to go against the current and scuttling Quebec's efforts with its inaction in the fight against greenhouse gases.

It could also, as proposed by the Bloc Québécois, require automakers to substantially reduce the fuel consumption of all road vehicles sold in Quebec and Canada, like the reduction proposed by California, which has been adopted by 19 other American states and the Government of Quebec.

However, we know the Conservative government's position on this matter: rather than adopting a standard supported by those who have shown leadership in the fight against greenhouse gases, it chose to go with that of the Bush administration, which is less stringent and seems to be designed specifically to spare American auto manufacturers.

However, although there is no consensus on the environmental record of an alternate fuel, it is definitely responsible to have some reservations about it. Thus, in a letter last May about Bill C-33, the Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec wrote:

The federation agrees with the objective of the bill. However, this objective cannot be attained unless certain conditions are fulfilled. On the one hand, the industry cannot develop fully without adequate government support in terms of human and financial resources. On the other hand, we have to ensure that the life cycle of the renewable fuels chosen offers true environmental and energy benefits compared to oil products.

Furthermore, if it potentially worsens troubling social and environmental problems, elected members must make the responsible and appropriate decision, must refuse to continue in that direction and must attempt to propose alternative solutions.

That is exactly what the Bloc Québécois is doing. Although we initially supported the principle of the bill, we proposed significant amendments, which sought, among other things, to shed light on the environmental record and to ensure oversight of the potential negative effects of choosing one type of replacement fuel over another. I would remind members that these amendments and motions were defeated in two separate committees by the Conservative government with the support of the Liberal Party. This point is central to our position.

When the government commits more than $2 billion of Quebec and Canadian taxpayers' money to a bill of this scope, it is important to ensure that all the objectives of this bill will be reached and that the medium- and long-term negative effects are balanced and reasonable.

In closing, I would like to say that this is a complex bill. As an MP, I have had a number of calls and letters from producers urging my colleagues and I to vote in favour of this bill, while a number of citizens have called on us to vote against it. This bill concerns me ethically, personally and emotionally, since I represent an agricultural riding. I am very familiar with the situation facing many farmers who are trying to make ends meet, who are fighting to develop new markets, who are trying to build a better life and who want to keep doing their share to protect the environment.

After our discussions, a vast majority of the people I spoke with understand our position and admit that it is balanced, reasonable and responsible, and that it is important to make the right choices and reach one's objectives as well as possible. I will conclude by saying that it is important to pursue ethanol development from a variety of sources. In this sense, the Bloc Québécois motion, which was rejected by the Conservatives, and from which the Liberals abstained, was a step in the right direction. It is important to make informed decisions that take different parameters into account and that meet the environmental, social and economic objectives.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her comments, but I have to say that I am a little confused. I know that the Bloc has been powerless for 18 years here in the House, but I thought that the Bloc supported farmers.

My confusion stems from the fact that Bloc members all seem to have different ideas. The member and her colleague suggested sending our corn to be processed in the United States. I do not understand why we would want to give our jobs to the United States. I would like the member to comment on that suggestion.

I am confused about something else as well. Her two colleagues, who are members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, the members for Richmond—Arthabaska and Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, supported this bill while the committee was studying it. Now they have changed their minds.

I would like to ask the member why the Bloc has reversed its position and no longer supports Quebec producers.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to hear that the member opposite is confused. I think my presentation was quite clear. I think the purpose was just as clear.

Decisions have been made in Quebec. Perhaps the member is not aware of the Government of Quebec's decision to build only one ethanol producing facility as part of its energy strategy. The Varennes plant uses surplus product from Quebec producers. It works very well and we are very proud of it.

However, taking into account all of the information available—from UN experts and even American states—questioning the United States' energy policy and the intensive production of corn to make ethanol, there is no reason to think that the Bloc Québécois is against ethanol production, as the member opposite suggested in his comments. On the contrary, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of ethanol from diversified sources. I believe that it would be more responsible to develop some of the other sources currently being used for ethanol production.

In closing, I want to point out that the Bloc tabled a motion indicating that we did not want the current proportion to increase, and that we did not want intensive corn production. I would like to remind my colleague that the Conservatives voted against the motion and that the Liberals abstained.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the previous speaker, the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, is naturally rather confused. I believe there would be a pretty strong consensus on that, although I will not ask for a show of hands.

My colleague gave a very clear presentation. I am going to ask her questions that will give her an opportunity to make some of the essential distinctions in this debate. The debate cannot be between those for and against the use of ethanol; that is not the debate. I would ask my colleague, who is also the Bloc Québécois natural resources critic—and I want to congratulate her on the great job she is doing—to explain why the Bloc Québécois takes a less rigid position and why we believe that ethanol should come from a variety of sources. Perhaps she could even make the connection with other issues.

This morning I saw that a number of our constituents had taken the time to write us. Some people may have written to my colleague to ask that we vote against Bill C-33. In fact, under the circumstances, there is no guarantee that this bill will not add to the food crisis and reduce corn supplies.

I would therefore ask her to explain the nuances of the Bloc's position.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Hochelaga. I have a great deal of admiration for his parliamentary experience.

It is important to remind everyone that the Bloc Québécois has never said it is against ethanol. Again, this is important to note because some people seem to be taking great delight in repeating this.

In Quebec, it is quite clear that our position is not to take the corn ethanol route, but to encourage other sources instead. We have heard a lot about using biomass and wood chips or biodiesel obtained from animal fat and agricultural waste. This could also be a very good prospect for other producers. For example, in the riding I represent, we are currently working very hard to reopen the only steer slaughterhouse in Quebec. If this slaughterhouse is reopened it could also stimulate the launch of a biodiesel plant that would use the carcasses and animal fat to make biofuel.

The Bloc Québécois is a rigorous party that examines the issue carefully at every stage of studying a bill. I can say that in this case, although this was not an easy situation, we believe our decision is respectful both to the environment and to our agricultural producers.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to put on the record that biofuels are not the only reason why world food prices are rising. I think it is important for people to understand that it is only one of a number of factors.

The World Food Programme, which is run by the United Nations, has recently said that food prices are rising, first, because of rising energy costs; second, because of growing demand from developing economies; and, third, because of increased climate and weather-related events. The fourth reason it gives is biofuels, yet, it is only one of four reasons.

It is important, if we are going to have this debate, to acknowledge that there are significant other reasons why food prices are rising around the world and to lay the blame exclusively at the feet of biofuels is not the entire picture.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to reassure the member opposite. Obviously the production of ethanol from corn is not the only cause behind rising grain prices. I do not believe that I said that in my speech. There are many factors and speculation is one. However, we cannot forget, as he said so well, that it is one of the factors that also contributed to the rise in grain prices.

Perhaps I could add some information. In fact, let us take a look at what would happen if we met our goal of 5% fuel consumption in 2010. According to research by the Library of Parliament, producing 2.74 billion litres of ethanol and 36 billion litres of biodiesel would require 4.6 million tonnes of corn, 2.3 million tonnes of wheat and 0.56 tonnes of canola. If all of the raw materials were produced in Canada, these figures would represent, in current terms, 48% to 52% of corn acreage, approximately 12% of wheat acreage and approximately 8% of canola acreage in the country.

We can see that finding other raw materials will remain very important in order to meet our objectives. I believe that the current situation still needs to be studied. That explains why we have asked that the bill be sent back to committee to be re-examined in light of interesting new information.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-33.

There has been some criticism that this bill is being held up for no reason, and let us get on with it and push it through. This is not the case.

We are debating a motion put forward by my hon. colleague from Western Arctic to refer it back to the agriculture committee to make sure that both economic and environmental effects of introducing these regulations do not cause a negative impact on the environment or unduly influence commodity markets. In other words, what we are saying is, if we are going to do this let us do it right.

We know worldwide that we have seen so far that there is a cycle that starts, for example, in the United States where more land is taken out of production. Soybeans are taken away, more corn is produced and then soybean production is expanded in Brazil, for example, which then forces ranchers off their land, which then forces them to cut down the rainforest to bring in more grazing pasture, and the net effect of all of this is very negative on the environment.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the rising demand for ethanol derived from corn is the main reason for the decline in world grain stocks during the first half of 2006. In Canada we know that to meet the 5% target by 2010 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada estimates that 4.6 million tonnes of corn, 2.3 million tonnes of wheat and .56 million tonnes of canola will be required.

All of this is grown domestically which will equal roughly 48% to 52% of total corn seeded area, 11% to 12% wheat seeded area, and approximately 8% of the total canola seeded area in Canada, which in itself is not alarming. However, a danger exists that if the need for fuel stocks increases due to a demand for biofuels, there is concern about then allocating more farmland to energy production rather than food production.

We have already seen that food stocks are diminishing in the world and we have seen the rise in food prices. Therefore, I would submit that it would not be in our best interests.

This is not about making life more difficult for farmers. What we are asking for is that a biofuel strategy be well thought out that takes into account the potential impact on the environment.

When the bill goes back to the agriculture committee, and I sincerely hope that it does, what is to stop us from taking another look at the amendments that I initially proposed and were rejected? I would like to review them very briefly.

The first amendment was to prohibit the use of genetically modified grains, oilseeds or trees for biofuel production except for those genetically modified grains, oilseeds or trees that were used prior to 2008.

The second amendment that was rejected was prohibiting the use of lands protected by federal legislation and other sensitive biodiverse lands for biofuel production.

The third amendment was preserving the biodiversity of lands used in biofuel production.

The fourth amendment was establishing criteria in relation to the environmental sustainability of biofuel production to ensure compliance with internationally recognized best practices that promote the biodiversity and sustainability of land, air and water, and to establish restrictions on the use of arable land in Canada for biofuel production to ensure that biofuel production does not have a detrimental impact on the food supply in Canada and foreign countries.

I do not see why we cannot, as a Parliament, adopt a policy that takes this into account. These are very basic ideas that the world is talking about, that we should be looking at if we put forward a new policy, that has proven in other countries to have a devastating effect.

This government must not be given carte blanche as far as biofuels are concerned. Our goal should be to amend this bill so that it will have a sustainable and effective impact on the battle against climate change, while ensuring that this is done safely and kept out of the hands of big business, which benefits from increasing sales of genetically modified crops and pesticides.

A good biofuel strategy must be a responsible strategy.

Finally, biofuels can be part of the solution, but they can also be part of the problem, if not properly handled. Bill C-33 opens the door to a number of environmentally harmful consequences, particularly an increased dependency on big agribusiness that produces genetically modified crops by using enormous quantities of water and pesticides.

According to Darrin Qualman, director of research for the National Farmers Union, the headlong rush toward industrially produced biofuels must be stopped, because the world is faced with serious problems relating to the sustainable development of food systems: erosion of arable land, overuse of water for irrigation, excessive dependency on fossil fuels, deforestation, and lack of preparation for climate change. He feels that these problems must be solved before we try to use our food to fuel our vehicles.

As we debate Bill C-33, we often neglect to mention the effect of biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report presented by Resource Efficient Agricultural Production Canada, REAP, entitled “Analysing Ontario Biofuel Options: Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Efficiency and Costs”, it is estimated that U.S. corn ethanol will double greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years by increasing the carbon debt from land conversion.

REAP, in another report, analyzed Ontario biofuel options. The report concluded that solid biofuels offer the least expensive biofuel strategy for government incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario. The report's major discovery is that government incentives applied to large scale solid biofuels would surpass even the most effective existing subsidies, those for wind power, at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. The findings suggest that a solid biofuels policy would be an effective and sustainable means to develop the Ontario and Canadian economies. Such a program would support market opportunities for the forest industry and for farmers with marginal farmland.

In volume 319 of the journal Science, dated February 29, there is a study entitled “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change”. The article stated:

By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.

Another study in the same journal found that converting rainforests, peat lands, savannahs or grasslands to produce food crops-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia and the U.S. created a biofuel carbon debt by releasing from 17 to 420 times more CO₂ than the annual greenhouse gas reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. The study goes on to say that biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained greenhouse gas advantages.

The point I would like to make today is that we need to re-examine Bill C-33 at committee in light of the most recent research taking place throughout the world. Let us not cave into demands by big agribusiness to push this bill through.

I would like to say a few words as well about genetically modified trees. Unlike conventional reproduction and hybridization, the process of genetic engineering makes direct gene transfer possible between organisms in completely different species or kingdoms which do not cross in nature.

With respect to biofuels and genetic engineering, it is a matter of reducing lignin so that the trees can be converted to ethanol and paper more economically; increasing cellulose so that the trees can yield more ethanol and paper.

Given the explosion of the biofuel market and the desire to move on to a second generation of biofuels, the companies are calling for the use of genetically engineered trees as a potential source of cellulose from which to manufacture ethanol.

What, then, are the risks?

First of all, irreversible contamination. Contamination of forests by the pollen or seeds of genetically engineered trees could devastate ecosystems and biodiversity. Genetically engineered trees will contaminate the forests, which will themselves then become contaminants, in an endless cycle of living pollution.

Then there are other risks: toxic waste, invasive species, increased herbicide use, weakened trees, the contribution to climate change.

Bonn, Germany is the site of the major meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. On May 20 of this year, representatives of Canadian civil society released an open letter signed by 47 Canadian groups to the Canadian Minister of the Environment demanding that Canada support the global moratorium on GE trees to be decided in negotiations during May 19 to 30.

As I mentioned, contamination from GE trees would be irreversible. Research scientists at Duke University have found in their models that pollen from trees in the southeast U.S. can travel for more than 1,200 kilometres into eastern Canada. Last Thursday at this convention, Canada intervened to directly eliminate an African request for a UN moratorium on GE trees.

It appears that Canada is not supporting a ban on GE trees and is in fact speaking out against this important concern. I might add as an aside that this is similar to what I have experienced in doing research on terminator seed technology, where Canada is saying it wants to proceed on a case by case basis not realizing the ramifications of this technology on agriculture and biodiversity.

As we move forward in this very necessary debate, I wish to emphasize that in spite of the fact that biofuels are one of the reasons for the rise in food prices, it is not farmers who are to blame. They are doing their very best to survive and are finally getting some good prices for their commodities.

I would like to close with a couple of other points in regard to the environment. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone, the destruction of the rainforest and other forest ecologies, increased pesticide and herbicide use from growing monocropped agrifuels, the depletion of water tables, genetically engineered monocrops and the host of negative impacts, the loss of biological diversity wherever monocropping has taken hold, invasive species of GM crops resistant to Roundup are some of the dangers. However, by going forward with a planned, measured approach, we can certainly ensure that these dangers do not face us here in Canada if we look at this bill once again in committee.

There are a couple of other points I would like to make. For example, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said:

While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs and it is getting more and more difficult every day. In just two months, rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75% globally....

It is the same story for other grains. That is why the UN has called for a five year moratorium on biofuel production. I repeat that it is only one part of the reason for the increase in food prices and it is not our farmers who are struggling to make a living who are responsible for this.

In closing, we have a chance today, in the history of our country, to look at a policy that will give us direction in the future in regard to alternate energy. We have a chance to do this right, not to move along quickly under pressure from big agribusiness and those who would like us to institute this policy tomorrow, but to ensure that we have a sustainable policy, that the environment is protected, that we guarantee there will be no further genetically modified organisms in the environment, and that if we use crops grown in Canada, they should be crops grown in Canada.

It is not right to have a biofuel industry supported by, for example, Husky in Lloydminster or Minnedosa that will rely on American corn as feedstock. There is something not right there. All we are doing, then, with our government aid is supporting the industry at the expense of farmers and other programs that we could be doing.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to speak on this subject. I am anxious to get to the questions.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Western Arctic will not be sorry to hear that I am recognizing the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make two points. The first point is that I agree with the member from the New Democratic Party when he said in his speech that biofuels are not the only reason for the rise in world food prices. I think it is important to acknowledge that. There have been significant droughts around the world in the last number of years that have seriously curtailed some of major wheat exporting countries' ability to produce wheat.

The ever changing diets and ever growing populations in the developing world are causing a much increased demand for wheat, soybeans and corn. For example, every pound of meat requires seven pounds of input, such as corn, wheat or soybeans. As the diets in the third world and the developing world change and an ever increasing demand for meat takes place, the demand for these crops increases as well.

The third reason that needs to be taken into account is that energy prices have been increasing in general. Energy costs are a significant portion of the agricultural inputs.

It is commendable that the member mentioned these three other major factors which have contributed to the rising price of food.

The second point I want to make is to address the concern of many who say that biofuels require more energy than they produce. That may very well be the case, but so do solar power and wind energy. One can make the case that solar power and wind energy in past years required more energy than they produced.

The reason that incentives and subsidies have been put in place is to do two things: first of all, to ramp up the economies of scale, so that the cost per unit of production goes down; and second, to provide for greater research and development so that we can get cheaper products, cheaper energy out of these various sources of energy.

While today certain biofuels may in fact require more energy than they produce, the whole idea here is to provide the incentives and the subsidies so that at some future date research and development along with economies of scale will drive down the price and also the carbon footprints so that these in fact will become carbon positive.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the exact question is, but I will comment on the two points that my colleague raised.

The first point is self-explanatory and I certainly agree with his statements.

One of the criticisms many people make about biofuels is that they have more input than the actual energy output. We have to look at liquid biofuels and the devastation that they have caused, not here so much, but in poorer countries in the world. My hon. colleague from Western Arctic and I were at a meeting a few weeks ago here in Ottawa where people from Paraguay and Asia talked about the devastation by this industry on their land and the amount of energy that was required to produce the biofuels, while at the same time displacing farmers.

We have to look at input costs, the energy for inputs, for transportation, and the emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation. I would submit that the comparison with wind energy and solar energy is not the same.

I would like to end my reply with some questions. Would the hon. member, if given a chance to answer, think that the amendments that I have proposed in my initial submission to the committee cover all of these concerns? Does he believe that we could still move forward, but not give the government a green light to do whatever it wants in the area of biofuels?

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the speech by the member for British Columbia Southern Interior. I have come to know the hon. member because we sit on the agriculture and agri-food committee.

The comments by the member opposite are typically thoughtful and he is typically prepared, but like all of us, he is occasionally wrong. Let me say that this is one of those occasions.

It is commendable that the member recognizes that corn producers are now able to earn a living. After many years of record low prices, thankfully prices have rebounded and corn farmers are now able to earn a living. The member opposite has recognized that.

I have two questions for the member. First, he surely recognizes that farming practices in Canada are not commensurate to farming practices in some other countries. There is no suggestion, for instance, as I know it, that land in Canada is being ravaged as it is being described as being ravaged in some other countries. Second, would he also concede that it is only a small amount, a fraction of arable land in Canada, which in his phrasing is being used for purposes other than the consumption of food? Would the member comment on both of those questions?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior might take note that there are two other MPs who would like to ask him questions, including one from his own party, and there are four minutes left.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will not limit my answer to a no or a yes.

I would like to thank my hon. colleague across the way for his comments and his sympathy for me being wrong today. I would like to think I am on the right track, as, I guess, most of us do.

Once again I will refer back to the amendments that we had in committee which were debated and defeated. I believe those amendments would have covered us in a policy that would have taken into account the biodiversity and the environment and would have ensured that we did not devote large tracts of land to biofuel production.

Even though we have a very small portion of land devoted to this area now, there is a danger, because of increased pressure, of more good land being taken out of farming for food. That would be my concern.

However, I submit that by bringing this back to committee, discussing it and putting some of those assurances in, it could be a win-win situation for all of us.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The member for Brome—Missisquoi for a brief question.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like my colleague to tell us—since he has an agriculture background and growers have apparently already been promised that they will have corn to grow—what the chances are that corn production for animal feed or ethanol will change to corn production for human consumption?

I said earlier that world dry food reserves have decreased by more than half in five years. I added that surpluses could be exported. The members opposite immediately said that we wanted to export Canadian jobs. I never said that.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

The price is already high. The issue is not that growers will suffer if there are no more biofuel policies. There is a possibility. Corn can be transferred, planted and grown for human consumption. There is an international shortage. In my opinion, it would make more sense to feed people, give a little money to our growers and, at the same time, help farming in our country.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned the solid fuel aspect of biofuel. Quite clearly, in my territory, the Northwest Territories, right now, because of the enormous cost of fuel oil, we are moving toward using solid fuel, biological fuel, in many applications.

If this policy were broad enough and had the correct kinds of conditions attached, there would be some incentives for this type of proposal as well.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the time is right to explore other areas of biofuels, and solid biofuels is one of them. Research has shown that it is efficient and that it can be the state of the art for the future.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate today. I am not a member of the agricultural committee but some day I may have that opportunity. Coming from an urban region, I am sure it would be quite a learning experience.

When I first came here eight years ago there was a lot of talk about ethanol and about our farmers. Farmers were demonstrating because they could not get a proper dollar for a day's work. That was my first introduction to the struggles of our farmers and the difficulties they were facing. They needed an alternative for what they were growing that would provide them with a reasonable day's wages and ethanol was exactly what they needed.

We have now found out that there are a whole lot of other issues that need to be addressed if we are going to really help our farmers and ensure they get adequate reimbursement for a hard day's work. Until those of us in urban regions spend a whole day on a farm, we cannot appreciate just how hard and difficult a farmer's job really is. We need to appreciate the fact that people still want to farm in Canada so we need to find ways of ensuring they get a decent day's pay for their work. These are the people who provide the food on our tables but we do not pay enough attention to that fact.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-33 today which seeks to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act with respect to the provisions for the regulation of fuels. It would establish minimum levels of biofuel content in gasoline, diesel fuel and heating oil and would be implemented within the next three to five years.

I support the bill in principle, as does my party. I look forward to discussing the parameters of any new regulations that will come from committee. We look forward to ensuring the regulations reflect the desires of most Canadians.

Although I support the bill, it does raise significant questions about the government's policy on renewable fuels and climate change, questions that we have been hearing from our colleagues across the way. Those are areas on which we must all come together in a much stronger way so we can be ready for the future years that will be very challenging.

The government claims that the bill is part of its overall strategy to increase the use of ethanol and yet it refuses to set the minimum standard for ethanol use in fuel above 5%. Clearly there is a difference. The committee will look at all of these things and ensure the bill respects and achieves its intended goals. Meanwhile, all cars sold in Canada already use up to 10% ethanol. The Ontario government is setting that as the minimum standard in the province.

Despite the fact that cellulose ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 64%, the government has not been aggressively doing everything it can to mandate the expansion of that ethanol specifically so that it would clean up our environment and make our air better to breathe.

The government's perversion to this issue is also manifested on the taxation front where it removed the excise tax exemption on biodiesel and ethanol fuels and thereby heavily taxing the cleanest versions of ethanol. One really needs to question that policy if that is the government's direction. It just does not make sense. I would hope that when these regulations are scrutinized, we get a better understanding of the reason that it should be increased to 10%, if that is what we are doing, especially in the province of Ontario.

Bill C-33 is really just a technical amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. It would provide the government with useful additional authority so that it can look at various regulations and start making changes to those regulations in a faster and clearer way.

The Liberal opposition is in favour of ethanol as part of our energy mix now and in the future. Many people are looking at ethanol as being one of the tools needed in the toolbox to help us when we are dealing with climate change, particularly second generation ethanol which uses agricultural waste and non-food crops. We have clearly gone a long way from the growing of corn to looking at where we go in the future by using agricultural waste and non-food crops so that it would not hinder the production of food and the providing of food for the world that we all need. It would have the twofold effect of being a winner on both sides of that issue.

The Liberal opposition supported an amendment at committee that would compel the government to perform a detailed analysis of the economic, social, environmental and additional implications of Canada's ethanol industry exactly one year after it comes into force. That is a very important motion passed at committee that would ensure an analysis would be done of all the impacts of Bill C-33.

The government has committed $2 billion to ethanol but it has been deliberately vague on the details. That is not the first time and not the first issue. Vagueness is one of the tributes that the government seems to have when it comes to announcing all kinds of things but not giving a whole lot of information on the details. However, our job is to ensure those details are clear and those regulations will be what Canadians want.

The government must tell Canadians what form of ethanol will be primarily promoted and it must explain how ethanol fits into its environmental, agricultural, international development and fiscal policies. We cannot have a policy on ethanol that does not take into account all the different impacts that these little things, as somebody might want to call them, these different tools will have on climate change and on the environment.

The way I understood it, the government's former highly criticized ethanol plan was supposed to support investments by farmers in ethanol production facilities. I was out west some years back and had a tour of what was to be the next great ethanol facility. Everybody was excited because it would provide an opportunity for farmers as well as focus on climate change. It was to be the future. Now people are having second thoughts and are second guessing some of those decisions.

However, funding would be directly tied to investments by farmers, which means that before any government funding flows toward developing Canadian ethanol production, Canadian farmers would need to first shell out their own money. Any of the Canadian farmers who I have spoken with are not rich people. They are all looking for assistance in order to look after their families and produce the various products in which they have an interest. Coming upfront with that money, I think, would be an extremely big challenge for a farming industry that is under threat pretty much all of the time. If no upfront government money is provided, it would be very difficult for many of those farmers who are looking to the government for leadership.

I would remind members how many rallies have been held in front of the House of Commons by farmers who have driven on tractors thousands of miles to come here to protest and to ask us to be fair. It did not matter whether it was the Liberals in government or the Conservatives in government, the issue was that farming is an important industry for Canada and our farmers need assistance.

By comparison, the Liberal governments made direct investments of over $117 million of upfront support for the construction of production facilities across Canada. As a result of those investments by the Liberal government, the production of ethanol was expanding at a higher rate than anyone had expected.

By not making direct investments, I am very concerned that ethanol expansion will not grow nearly quickly enough. Therefore, for it to be a tool in the toolbox, in addition to the many other things that are needed to deal with climate change, we are actually shooting ourselves in the foot rather than moving forward and clearly helping the farmers and helping Canadians overall.

The Liberals will continue to drive the need to promote biofuels that have been proven to yield high environmental net benefits such as cellulosic ethanol.

For the benefit of those who are watching at home and who may not know quite what that is, it is a particular type of biofuel produced from a structural material that comprises much of the mass of plants. We can see there is a lot for all of us to learn as we move forward to try to find alternatives to the fuel issues and the challenges that our farmers face. Corn stover, switchgrass and wood chips are some of the more popular materials being used for ethanol production.

Cellulosic ethanol is chemically identical to ethanol from other sources such as cornstarch or sugar, but has the advantage that the raw materials are highly abundant and diverse. We hear that from different spots around the world. There are many alternatives. This type of ethanol has lower greenhouse gas emissions than other forms and may help us to use crop lands more efficiently than is currently being done.

However, the NDP are deliberately misleading Canadians about the complexity of the worldwide food shortage, something that all of us in the House are concerned about and it is something that we all will have to work to overcome the problems and to contribute to providing food throughout the world. However, the NDP ignores a dozen or more identified factors at play.

For example, the desertification in Africa has severely diminished the agricultural output on that continent. What are those people going to do for food? We know of the struggles. We know all the other issues that thousands of people living in Africa are facing. These are going to add to those problems.

Rising energy costs has to be on the minds of everybody in the House, as it is with Canadians. Every time we turn around, the bills keep going up higher and higher. Rising energy costs have made farming much more expensive.

Trade rules and subsidies in the developed world have created market distortions. Many parts of the world suffer from the collapse of food distribution networks, widespread corruption and the refusal of governments to impose the rule of law.

Going back to the details of the bill currently before us, the new measures are administrative in nature and appear to give the government more control on regulations. For example, the government would enhance its ability to regulate fuel produced in Canada to be exported. Regulations may be made regarding the blending of fuels. The bill would also expand the bases upon which the government might distinguish among different kinds of fuels.

We will support Bill C-33 as we are in favour of the increased use of biofuels, such as ethanol, biodiesel, and other renewable fuel sources. We will move forward on a variety of bills that will help to deal with climate change and other opportunities for us to ensure that all of us do our jobs as we move forward.

This is fundamentally a housekeeping bill. There is nothing in the bill that will immediately affect any commercial interests or immediately require any fuel producer or vendor to do anything. It is a preliminary step that will allow the government to regulate all kinds of fuel within the same regulatory regime. From that perspective, the bill is an improvement over the current wording of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

It has been a great opportunity to speak to the issue. As a member who comes from the city of Toronto, I do not have a lot of opportunity to visit the farming industry, but I clearly recognize how we have to work together to ensure we protect the environment. We also need to move forward to ensure we do not add to the problems of the world shortage, which we clearly are addressing worldwide.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member of the Liberal caucus from Toronto is to be commended for her support for this legislation.

I want to provide a couple of comments.

First, I want to correct a misconception out there in the public that somehow Canadian farmers are making record profits. Today Statistics Canada reported that last year Canadian agriculture made a net income of $1.7 billion.

Before we all think this is a tremendous amount of money, I would point out that this is about the profit of one company in one quarter among the big five banks. In other words, last year Canadian chartered banks in each of the last quarters made about that much money in one quarter.

I do not say that to begrudge the banks for being successful. The financial services industry is incredibly important to Toronto, Montreal and a number of large Canadian centres. I used to work in that industry and it is incredibly important we have a vibrant financial services industry, but I quote those numbers to put this in perspective.

There are 220,000 Canadian farms. If we divide a net profit of $1.7 billion among those 220,000 farmers, we end up with a net profit, per farm, of about $7,700 per year. I do not know very many Canadians who would invest hundreds of thousands of their own dollars, hundreds of hours of labour and stress to produce $7,700 a year in income.

We need to ensure there is no misconception out there that somehow Canadian agriculture is making a windfall profit from the new structure of pricing in the agricultural sector.

The second point I would make is if we are to point the finger at the reason why the third world is struggling to feed itself, one of the areas we need to look at is the European Union's common agricultural policy, which dumps 40 billion to 50 billion euros a year into subsidizing European farmers.

Subsidizing European farmers itself is not the problem. The problem is when they overproduce certain commodities, which they then dump on to the third world market, undercutting local producers in the developing world and putting them out of business. In my view that is the heart of the problem with respect to the developing world feeding itself.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, clearly we all acknowledge that Canadian farmers are having to live on an average of $7,700 a year or whatever.

Eight years ago, when I first came to Parliament, farmers were marching to Ottawa, looking for help and assistance. Clearly, they were struggling, but they were not getting paid enough for the crops they were producing. We say that we all love them, but that will not put food on the table.

I certainly agree with my colleague on the whole issue of how we can help the farming industry stay viable in Canada. Ethanol is one of those options. We cannot ask people to live in a country as rich as Canada and to stay in the business when they only earn $10,000 or $20,000 a year. They cannot cope with that. They cannot even pay their taxes.

The cost of fuel is going up every day and that has a big impact on urban regions like Toronto and Montreal, but it has a bigger impact on the farming industry. Farmers need to fuel their tractors and the rest of their equipment and they travel a farther distance to get from point A to point B.

We need to be supportive of all the opportunities for different ways of doing things. At the same time, as I said earlier, the second generation will have more opportunities, by the sound of it, when we get into the ethanol. However, we have to continually find that balance to help all those in the farming industry. We are grateful they are still committed to growing a variety of things, whether they do it for the ethanol or to at least continue to provide the food and the produce that all Canadians need.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the member for York West that l also support farmers. Our agriculture industry must become more profitable than it has been. We all agree on this.

My question is the following. In order to support agriculture, is it absolutely necessary to grow animal-grade corn for the production of ethanol? Could other types of crops not be used to support agriculture, such as the fruits and vegetables we need to eat? That is my question for the member for York West. Is the current government not just promoting ethanol to avoid developing agriculture legislation to help farmers? Is this not a way to avoid helping farmers have a better life, without getting directly involved?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it has always been a struggle. From all the reports I have read, farmers have been struggling for a long time. If they happen to be in a particular crop that is highly desirable, they will get a bigger dollar for it. Other than that they get far more competition today from other countries when it comes to what they get for the dollar. It is not just other materials. It is also in the produce.

I have an annual chestnut roast in my riding. We are used to paying a fair amount for those sacks of chestnuts. When went to order them for the next event, they were half the money. I said to them that there must be something wrong with them and asked them where they would come from. They were not coming from where we usually got them. They were coming from China. They would be brought into Canada and delivered to me at half the price.

No way can things move forward if we look at those kinds of differences between what some countries are able to produce and expect our farmers to be able to compete in any way, shape or form.

Ethanol is another way of helping them, but we need to look at other ways we can help them by producing other opportunities.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member in her speech referred to the NDP as opposing the biofuel bill, but we are speaking to an amendment that would send the bill back to the agriculture committee for more work on these very complex issues surrounding the production of ethanol, the type of feedstock and the type of direction.

Does my hon. colleague have no sense of the need for debate about the direction we take with this policy, when right across the world the United Nations and some of the European Union leaders are saying they need to change policy? Why do you think this policy—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Unfortunately, I must tell the hon. member for Western Arctic that I never have any opinion on anything. I am sure he was not addressing his question to me, but if he was addressing the question to the hon. member for York West, he should have done it in the third person. The member has a short period of time to respond.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think all of us are concerned with these issues and looking for answers that will help us deal with the food shortage. However, I do not believe Bill C-33 would in any way, shape or form hamper that opportunity for us to move forward.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is before us today is a proposed amendment. It states that:

Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be not now read a third time but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for the purpose of reconsidering Clause 2 with a view to making sure that both economic and environmental effects of introducing these regulations do not cause a negative impact on the environment or unduly influence commodity markets.

This bill has had relatively limited debate in committee. It probably has had more debate in the House around the various amendments that have been moved and now this amendment to send it back to committee.

What I believe this debate in the House reflects is a real concern by us in the New Democratic Party, by members of the Bloc to some significant degree, I believe, and even by some members of the Liberal Party, that this bill is being rushed through at a speed that does not take into account some very new realities that have taken place globally around the issue of the use of biofuels. It does not take into account “both economic and environmental effects” of the bill and its consequences if implemented.

I want to be very clear on behalf of my party that we have supported and will continue to support the use of biofuels. That is not really what this debate is or should be about. If properly managed, a biofuels program in Canada can have a positive effect on climate change while also helping farmers.

Members were in their ridings last week. I had the opportunity on a couple of occasions to spend time with producers in the rural part of my riding. The debate is raging there.

The National Farmers Union has come out as very strongly opposed to this legislation. We see that the Federation of Agriculture is generally supporting it, but I can say that within both of those groups, and there are members of both of those associations in my riding, the debate is very real.

The farming community producers very much see the opportunity to increase their production and increase their incomes. Oftentimes it is the same producers who tell me the problem they have is that they are seeing this drive up other costs, such as the cost of feed for a number of fairly substantial poultry operations in the riding. The dairy and pork producers are saying the same thing. They are seeing their costs being driven up just for feed.

Of course, all of them are very concerned about the impact this will have on the cost of fuel, whether it is gasoline produced from biofuels or other parts of the market, particularly carbon based fuels.

That debate is going on. What I think has happened is that the reality, not only in Canada but across the globe, has not been taken into account anywhere near fully enough in the debate that took place in committee. We are very concerned as a party that the government is running roughshod over members and using some bullying tactics to try to force this legislation through, both in committee and now in the House. The full debate that should have taken place has not.

We hear from Conservative members of the House who say that we in the NDP do not really care about the producers or the farming community, and that is absolutely false. Again, when I talk to the members of my farming community in my riding, they are expressing similar reservations. How far do we take the biofuels issue? How much production do we put into it? Do we have absolute quotas that are being suggested and will be phased in under this legislation relatively quickly? Do we have the numbers right? Do we have the amount that we should be putting into other gasolines and other diesel fuels? Do we have the percentages right?

They are not convinced that we have the right answers. They are not necessarily saying that the numbers that are in this bill or that we believe will flow from this government are wrong, but they are certainly not convinced that we know for sure. That is the reason for the motion to send it back to committee and hear more from the producers, hear from the industry generally, and also look at what is happening in experiments going on elsewhere in the world.

In that regard, we have heard from various parts of the globe. There are sincere concerns about biofuels being part of the mechanism that is driving up the price of food dramatically. We are seeing that now. The price of rice in parts of Asia has gone up 73% in less than a few months, in some cases even doubling in a very short period of time. We have seen markets in Asia, again for rice specifically, being closed off.

Countries that had been net exporters are no longer able to do it and are shutting the borders, thus tightening up the markets internationally in countries that do not produce sufficient rice to feed their own populations and that now are not finding access to the markets for rice that is affordable for those communities and countries. We are seeing that.

We have seen the United Nations pass a resolution expressing very real caution about the use of biofuels and how extensively we use them.

If I could digress for a moment, the other part of this legislation that is really troublesome is that other alternatives in terms of creating energy for use generally in the market and also on farms right across this country, perhaps even internationally, have been pushed to the side and backed up. We can point to solar or wind, where the government has done little or nothing to allow those markets to develop and perhaps provide an alternative to the greater use of biofuels.

I know that some of this discussion took place, but I do not believe that it was anywhere near adequate in committee. We can go to the very basics. How much food, if any, do we convert to fuel? That question is still hanging out there.

Again going back to those farmers I spoke to in my community, this very much weighs on their minds. They got into farming to produce food. Their parents and grandparents were in farming to produce food, not to produce fuel. This is a very real new development for them. They are approaching it with an open mind, but they are also approaching it realistically. I cannot say that the government has done the same.

Farmers are very concerned about how much food, if any, we move into the fuel side of the equation. They do not believe that this legislation has had sufficient debate, sufficient analysis and sufficient research to answer those questions at this time. They are not prepared to say that holus-bolus we should just plunge ahead.

We hear from the government that it is time to move ahead, to move forward. That is a simplistic analysis. It is a simplistic approach to what is a very, very complex problem.

I want to be very clear that we understand the other issues that are going on, the other causes that are driving up the cost of fuel. Let me mention those quickly. We know there is some significant speculation going on. It is immoral what is going on in that regard. That is one part of it.

We know that the whole issue of global warming and climate change is contributing to the shortage of foods in certain parts of the world. That is driving up the price.

We know that in areas where before we could continue to expect growth in productivity, we are not seeing any, because we have maxed out the effect of using fertilizers and pesticides, although they are still being used. We are not seeing any further growth. There are those problems.

However, we know as well that the use of biofuels in certain countries in particular has had a negative impact. That impact has resulted in a diversion of crops. We see it in the United States. I am going to use the states as an example because I know, from the area that I come from and how close we are to states like Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, that the amount of production moved from producing food to producing the same crop but producing fuel has been quite phenomenal.

There are areas in those states where as much as 35% of the corn crop now is being used for biofuels. In fact, I can speak very specifically about that, because a good deal of that production is coming into my area. There is an ethanol plant just the next county over. A good deal of the corn that is the source for that biofuel comes out of the United States. We are producing some in our area, both in Essex County and in Kent County, but a good deal of it is coming from the United States. It is part of that huge increase in production.

Up to this point in the United States, the Americans have been able to justify that, but again it begs the question. How much more they can allow it to go to or should they in fact be ramping it back down somewhat and producing more food and less fuel?

We are on the edge of making this decision, but we are not there yet. It does require further debate. It requires us to take a close look at what we are doing.

As well, I want to draw to the House's attention some of the other individuals and organizations that have expressed concern about this legislation and generally about the use of biofuels.

A little less than a year ago, David Suzuki made these comments:

Biofuels have many advantages, but we have to look at all our options and make sure we make the best choices to ensure a more sustainable future.

--attempting to save the planet by wholesale switching to biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel may unintentionally have the opposite effect.

This is the kind of risk that we are faced with. In that regard, I want to draw the House's attention to what we have seen happen in the last two years in Brazil.

After the second world war, Brazil made a very conscious decision to convert a significant proportion of its sugar cane crop to biofuels. Brazil started to do this way back in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In some cases, as much as 50% of the fuel for its vehicles, mostly automobiles and trucks, comes from biofuel sources.

That has worked reasonably well for the Brazilians because of the vast quantity of sugar cane they were able to produce but, starting two years ago in that country, the amount they wanted to produce or allocate to sugar production, if I can put it that way, had to be reduced because of the demand. Their economy had grown so large, so many of their people were driving vehicles and the demand for fuel had gone up so dramatically that they decided they would begin to shift a greater proportion for it.

That has had a very negative impact on their food costs related to the production of sugar. It is a big part of their market and a big part of their food staples. In the last two years, this has had a significant impact on the cost of sugar in their country and therefore on the cost of a number of foods that contain sugar as a staple.

Again, it was an experience that worked quite well. I have looked to the Brazilians in the past and have said that Brazil is a country that thought it through and planned it out. For the better part of four or five decades, it worked very well for the Brazilians. Now it does not.

They are very concerned about what they are going to do. They are looking for alternatives to much of their sugar cane production going into biofuels so that they can shift that balance back more in favour of producing food products rather than fuel. That is just one example.

We can look elsewhere in the world where attempts have been made, and this is one of the other problems that we have with the legislation, in that when we look at what we are trying to do, can we say that we have gotten ahead of ourselves from a technological standpoint? In that regard we know that there are alternatives in food growth to actually using the food product. I am going to use corn again as an example. We know that we are close but we are not quite there in being able to use the cornstalk and perhaps the corncob as opposed to the corn kernel in biofuel production. We know there are other products where we can use chaff, straw and those kinds of items, but we are just not quite there.

I saw a program on one of the national TV networks last week when I was home in my riding. A company, which I believe is based in Quebec, is just beginning to put into production two or three plants and in fact is not using any food product at all. It is using chaff, leftover wood products, a number of products. We could be using those without having to be concerned about using any food products at all, but again, we are not there.

What this bill does is it leaves it wide open for the government to follow what was done in the United States and move huge percentages of production. There are no limits here. Under government regulations, it can simply authorize and in some respects when we look at Bill C-33 closely, can compel the use of biofuels. At the very least it is obvious that by way of financial incentives, it can encourage producers to use food products, when in fact there may be this much better alternative if we do not have to use any food product at all. We would use the corncob and the cornstalk right down to the roots.

We must be careful. I know, having grown up on a farm, that farmers put back the chaff, the roots, the leftover once the crop has been harvested as a way of rejuvenating the soil. Can we safely take 50% of the stalk, grind the rest up and let it go back into the soil and biodegrade and rejuvenate the soil, or can we only put 25% into fuel production and put 75% back into the soil? We do not know the answers to those questions.

This is the reason we brought the motion before the House to send this bill back to the committee to allow us to further pursue these questions. There are all sorts of experiments going on around the globe. This House needs more time and this country needs more time to properly assess it so that we do not make a major mistake.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's speech. He made a lot of valid points. To be quite frank, his speech was not confusing, but his party's position is terribly confusing. I have two questions for the member.

I want to make the point that the NDP government in Saskatchewan was the first government in Canada to initiate a biofuel mandate. Its mandate of 7.5% required 131 million litres of ethanol to be used in the year 2006. This is in sharp contrast to its federal cousin which has turned its back now on rural Canada and apparently no longer supports biofuels. I would like to ask the hon. member who he thinks got it wrong, was it the NDP government in Saskatchewan, or was it his current New Democratic Party?

My other question for him is with regard to the NDP government in Manitoba. It now requires that 8.5% of all gasoline sold in the province must contain ethanol. This is in sharp contrast to its federal cousin which has turned its back on rural Canada and apparently no longer supports biofuels.

I would like to ask the hon. member a very similar question. Who does he think got it wrong? Was it the NDP government in Manitoba, or was it his New Democratic Party that is wrong?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I think it is the same question, Mr. Speaker, just two different provinces.

The NDP provincial critic has suggested that the figure in Saskatchewan may be too high for producers in that province to take on. The official opposition is also calling for a review as to whether the province should have gone as far as it did, which is exactly our position.

The same is true with Manitoba. Manitoba Premier Doer has made it very clear that he and his government are concerned about how far we go with biofuels. The government in Manitoba is monitoring it very closely at this point. The reality is that it may back down somewhat from it. On the other hand, as new technologies come on stream, the province may back down in terms of the use of food and move to stalk, chaff and other goods that at this point are part of the product of growth.

There really is no inconsistency between ourselves and both of those provinces. We at the federal level are learning from the experience they have had and, as I pointed out, other countries have had. We cannot go holus-bolus into this without thinking it through. Should we be giving much greater incentives to producers who are using the byproducts, if I can put it that way, of their farm fields as opposed to using food? Should we be building that into the legislation at this time? Those are the kinds of programs and policies that we need to be looking at. The federal NDP position is not at all inconsistent with that of our provincial counterparts.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask my hon. colleague first what he thinks of the vocabulary used. Personally, I am somewhat flabbergasted that, from the beginning, we have been using the term “biofuel”—and its French equivalent—since it would seem to suggest that there is something good about using food, that we have the capacity to feed the population, to produce fuel, although we also know that biofuel itself is often highly polluting.

Of course, our colleague talked about the whole issue of research and production using residues left to us by nature. And that would appear much more responsible. However, at present, when we talk about making ethanol using corn ethanol, for example, we also know how much water is needed for that process. This really makes me think about oil sands production and processing, which I find truly irresponsible.

I would like to hear my colleague's comments. Rather than encouraging innovation and energy efficiency, it seems that this government has decided to focus on an irresponsible course of action, to encourage those forms of energy production that pollute the most and are most harmful, for example—as I mentioned—“thanks to” the oil sands and the production of grains that will ultimately be used as fuel, which I think is absurd.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her question.

The member is absolutely right about the fear we all have, including most of the farmers I speak with, about using food to produce fuel. In that regard, she used the example of an experiment where too much water would be used or a substantial amount of water would be used in one of these processes. That is a concern.

In terms of a byproduct on the side, the use of manure, there is an engineer just down the road from my office in the city of Windsor who has developed and has patented this process, but he could not deploy it in Canada. We look at that and ask why there were not government resources there. It is phenomenal what this process can do.

We have a large number of greenhouses in Essex County, perhaps the largest coverage on a per capita basis of any place in the world. Most of them are no longer glass houses. They are plastic covered. He developed this process, which he has patented. As the plastic wore out and was no longer functional, the plastic would be thrown into the mix along with the leftover greenery from the greenhouse growth. That would be combined with some enzymes. It would produce heat which would actually heat the greenhouse and produce compost as the end result. Absolutely nothing would be wasted from that greenhouse, including the plastic that was covering it. It would produce that energy and as well, produce compost which could be used to rejuvenate the soil in the greenhouse.

He could not get any coverage for that process in Canada in terms of incentives and ended up having to go to the state of Massachusetts. A very similar process is being used for a huge dairy farm operation there. Several million dollars have been put into the same process, using manure to generate the heat, and again chaff and other leftover product from the fields. It is generating both energy and substantial compost that can be put back into the farm. He is creating that closed circuit. I always say that the key part of any environmental test, sustainability, is that there is a closed circuit. Nothing escapes, everything is used, and it is sustainable on an ongoing permanent basis.

The member is very correct in being concerned about using food at all. This bill does not take into account well enough, we believe, at this point in time, what the realities are in the marketplace. The bill should be sent back to committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, a short question.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member made the comment a little earlier about the concern about the soil when we take the whole plant. Those in agriculture know what the organic matter content of the soil is. They test it; they know. I would hope that we would never get to the stage in this House where we would start to tell farmers what they can and cannot take off their farms.

I think the direction in which the member is going is to say to the agriculture industry and community that we want to limit, and in fact we are going to limit, the potential of agriculture to diversify the market. If he is saying that we cannot use food for fuel, that is not just ethanol, it is biofuels, and there is an incredible amount of research done. Does he support the fact that we would start to limit agriculture in its diversification for markets because of the food for fuel?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member has run out the clock, but I will give equal time for the answer.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be quick.

The answer to his question is basically no. What we are much more concerned about, and we have seen this on other occasions, is that we will give incentives to encourage the producers to use food when in fact that is not really what they want to do. That is the concern we have about this legislation.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Yukon. The hon. member for Yukon has 20 minutes, but only 10 minutes today.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I will not be able to get in all the points I wanted to make on Bill C-33, but I will make a couple of salient points that I hope will be helpful today and get them on the record about one urgent crisis in the world that is related to this food shortage.

First, the main concerns about the bill throughout the debate have been related to using agricultural land for fuel and taking away land that could be used for food products, especially at a time when we have a food crisis in the world and prices are dramatically rising.

I would like to explain to people a little about what the bill is and what it is not. This bill in itself is not going to change anything. It is not going to mean that our gas tanks are going to be full of ethanol or that it will be taking farms away and so on. This bill is more of a housekeeping bill which allows the government to regulate what is in fuels, the percentage for export and these types of rules.

Until the government does that the people who have concerns about this do not really have to have those concerns. The concerns come from what type of regulations the government makes once this bill is in place and a number of members have spoken about wanting to be involved in that debate.

The mix of these types of fuels and the mix of what is in gasoline comes after in regulations that this bill will allow governments under which to operate. In general, it makes government more efficient in a sense that it does not have to come to Parliament for every little change in the regulations. It can alter the construct of the fuels. Members have mentioned the elements of that construct which will come when those regulations are made.

People do not totally understand that the bill is simply giving the government the power to make regulations, and the regulations themselves are not being made when the bill is passed.

As has been said by all the other members who have spoken, I share their concerns about taking good farm land and using it for fuel when there are rising prices, although there are many causes for that. Those concerns have been sent to me by a number of people, although I do not have enough time to read all of them, which I will perhaps in my last 10 minutes in a future debate.

Other than items that can be used for food, there are other ways of making ethanol and biodiesels presently available or under development. We will be able to make them from straw, chaff, animal waste, and things like corn husks. Cellulose ethanol can be made from tree waste, bark, sawdust, and switch grass. In fact, even some of the food products, after they are used for ethanol, can be used for feed stocks by putting them back into the agriculture industry.

Therefore, there are ways of reducing greenhouse gases by simply using waste products and not using good food products in the future. I think that is the direction most people are supporting, particularly those who are talking about ethanol in this debate.

As I said earlier, the cost of food is skyrocketing in the world and I will talk about the many causes of that, ethanol only being one. There is also speculation, droughts, a huge increase in world demand, increases in oil prices and so on. I will go through those later if there is time left.

Another member mentioned earlier the problem with rice. There is a huge increase in the price of rice which has risen three times. It has caused a crisis in the refugee camps in Burma and for the Burmese people in Thailand.

Due to the cost of rice having gone up three times, the Thai-Burma Border Consortium executive director Jack Dunford, who deals with this and provides the money from 14 countries, of which Canada is one, is $7.5 million short.

In about two weeks there will be a crisis. The people who normally get 2,100 calories a day from various foods, which is the internationally accepted standard for survival, will only get 944 calories if something is not done, and they will not get five or six types of food. All they will be receiving is rice. We can imagine getting rice every day for every meal and only getting half enough. This will be a disastrous crisis for 150,000 people. It has unfortunately been overlooked. We have asked a number of times that the Canadian government increase its aid by $1 million a year.

That will not cover the $7.5 million, but with Canada's credibility those other 14 countries may increase their amounts and save 150,000 people who are trapped in refugee camps in Thailand.

When Dr. Sein Win, the prime minister in exile, was here a couple of weeks ago he mentioned this to Mr. Harper and Inter Pares, the Canadian NGO that delivers this money--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Yukon is experienced in this House and knows not to refer to other members by their names.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, Dr. Sein Win, the prime minister of Burma in exile, has talked to the Prime Minister of Canada and also Inter Pares, the NGO that delivers this aid to TBBC, and he has talked to CIDA about this.

I am imploring the government to make this money available so that children, women who are pregnant and lactating, and elderly people are not cut down to half a day's rice ration when all their other foods are cut off.

Canada has been supporting this since 1997. This could mean starvation for these people, especially when we hear that some of Burma's rice basket has been destroyed by the storms. However, instead of feeding the people on the verge of starvation, there are rumours that Burma could be exporting rice. No other country in the world now, except Thailand, is exporting rice.

The scarcity of food means that food prices go up. Ethanol from food production, not the other types I talked about, is therefore only one of the problems.

Certain parts of the world are having problems. Biofuel critics from as far away as Ethiopia, Mali, the Philippines and Paraguay warn Canadian lawmakers that western thirst for green fuels is costing human lives and that indigenous people in northern Argentina are dying of malnutrition as they lose their land to agriculture expansion.

In the United States oil prices have also contributed to the high cost of food. International speculation and drought in various parts of the world, including India and China, with their huge demand for both meat and grain products, all cause these huge price increases that are causing the world crisis.

In the United States there is a record amount of ethanol produced from corn, but there is also a record amount of corn being produced, so the production of both the food and the ethanol is going up.

All the bill would do is give the government the authority to make regulations. We have to be very careful to take into consideration the concerns of constituents who have written to all of us, not at this particular stage but at the stage where regulations are made.

The regulations have to go through the Canada Gazette twice. Our party will certainly be vigilant to ensure that when regulations are put in, they make sense, and cutting down greenhouse gases and providing sufficient agricultural production for the world are kept in a safe and fair balance.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

When we return to the study of Bill C-33, there will be 10 minutes left for the hon. member for Yukon.

The House resumed from May 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak about Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 and about our amendment, which proposes that the bill not be read a third time but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for the purpose of reconsidering Clause 2 with a view to making sure that both economic and environmental effects of introducing these regulations do not cause a negative impact on the environment or unduly influence commodity markets.

The New Democrats support the use of biofuels and will continue to do so. A well-managed biofuel program in Canada could have a positive effect on climate change while also helping farmers. We refuse to simply give the Conservatives a blank cheque on this. We have asked that the bill be referred back to committee so that the members of the House can take a second look at it.

I have many constituents who have written to me about the bill, none of whom were supportive of the bill in its present form, which just does not have the controls to limit the reach of the bill. Here is an example. A constituent said:

I worked in Tropical Agricultural Research for 25 years in Asia and Africa. I find this new bill that gives a $2 billion subsidy to biofuel a crime. Following in George Bush's path will lead to a whole range of second and third generation problems. Once big business gets on this technology integrated in its system it will change the market so even more hunger and death will ensue.

I want to give members an idea of the range of comments that I have received. Another constituent said:

I was very disappointed to learn that Canada is now joining the 'food for fuel' club with its vote to mandate ethanol content in gasoline. Never mind the dubious environmental merits of such a move, with food prices spiraling out of reach of the world's poor, such a decision seems morally repugnant at best.

I'm not sure if there is an opportunity for this bill to be revisited.

However, there is an opportunity.

I will not go on, but the emails and the letters I have received are all of this type.

Despite these legitimate concerns, the NDP's proposed amendments to the bill were defeated. Therefore, I urge the members of the opposition in particular to reconsider and to think about our responsibility as parliamentarians to do no harm.

Our amendments would have served to introduce accountability and sustainability into the bill: two essential elements that are clearly lacking in Bill C-33 in its current state.

As it reads now, it will have several impacts. I would like to list some of them.

One of them was raised in one of the emails on food security. A number of governments, in conjunction with large multinational corporations, are pushing farmers to grow crops not for food but for fuel. That has had devastating effects. The Convention on Biological Diversity Alliance states in a recent media advisory:

Agrofuel plantations are already destroying the remaining rainforest reserves in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia pushing farming communities to abandon food production. Agrofuel production is irreversibly displacing agricultural biodiversity.

On this subject I would also like to quote Darrin Qualman of the National Farmers Union. He stated recently:

“There's a misconception that the world has a surplus of food--that we have food to burn. But the truth is, in seven of the last eight years, humans have consumed more food than farmers have produced”.

In that short time, the international supply of food has dropped from 115 days worth of food down to just 54 days worth. If we continue this trend for even one more year...food prices will skyrocket and incidents of food riots and rationing will become commonplace.

We have already seen the beginning of this.

Mr. Qualman goes on to say:

It's irresponsible and unrealistic to call for increased agricultural production from a system that is already unable to produce enough food for people, never mind cars. According to the experts, we need to concentrate on fixing what's broken rather than adding more stresses to an already overburdened system. It's critical that we halt the drop in food stocks and begin to reverse the hunger trend....

Mr. Qualman's words highlight the NDP's concerns about pushing ahead with this legislation without having thought it through.

It is impossible to speak to the bill without talking about the effects of agrifuels on biodiversity, because this bill as it stands ignores this potential problem.

Today, experts estimate that biodiversity is being lost at a rate estimated to be 100 times the rate of natural loss, and this despite the fact that in 2004 some 192 signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to reduce the rate of biological diversity loss by 2010.

Governments like ours have failed to act decisively to counter this loss. They continue to commit to biofuel quotas without regard for that diversity and the global food supply.

It is clear that increasing energy use, climate change and CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low carbon fuels a high priority. According to Science magazine of February 2008, biofuels are indeed “a potential low-carbon energy source”. This is why we do support the concept of biofuels, but the magazine article continues, saying, “but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced”.

I would like to quote from one of the articles, which says:

Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a “biofuel carbon debt” by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels.

This is why my colleagues proposed amendments to consider the impact on land changes, as well as the amendment that we are now proposing to refer the bill back to committee for a second look.

Scientists are calling on the international community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% over the next 40 to 50 years to reverse climate change.

Substituting biofuels for gasoline would indeed reduce greenhouse gas emissions because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of feedstocks, but they also say that these analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forests and grasslands to new cropland to replace the grain diverted to biofuels.

Using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land use change, they found that corn based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% saving, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for many years to come.

The government's strategy to limit the effects of climate change is more than inadequate. In fact, with this bill it could cause new damage. As the Science magazine article described, if we allow centres of biodiversity such as rainforests, grasslands and other agricultural systems to be cleared to grow biofuels, biofuel production actually increases the global greenhouse gas emissions it is supposed to reduce.

Clearly, all biofuels are not equal. The way this is done is key. In an analysis of the Ontario biofuel options, a report recently concluded that solid biofuels offer the least expensive biofuel strategy for government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario. The report's major discovery is that government incentives applied to large scale solid biofuels would surpass even the most effective existing subsidies, such as those for wind power, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

These findings suggest that a solid biofuels policy would be an effective and sustainable means to develop the Ontario and Canadian economies in that area. Such a program would support market opportunities for the forest industry and for farmers with marginal farmland.

It is clear that these are the areas that we think the government and members of committee should explore in giving the bill a second look, and they also should impose some restrictions to move away from the food for fuel approach.

There is another element that I wanted to speak to as well. That element is the increasing corporate control of the agrifuels industry. It is alarming to note that small scale food producers and harvesters are being eliminated through the centralization and control of the food chain, from seed to sewer, by large multinationals, including Monsanto, Cargill and others.

This has happened in the United States. It has been demonstrated through the use of commercial contracts, seed laws, patents and intellectual property rights, not to mention proprietary genetically modified seeds. These corporations are rapidly gaining a stranglehold on agricultural biodiversity and in the process are removing the livelihoods of food producers worldwide.

Therefore, it is important to move ahead with this kind of legislation, being attentive to meeting the needs of farmers but also protecting some of the key issues that I have raised.

I also want to raise an issue that has not been much discussed in this process. That is the government's mediocre program with respect to energy efficiency. This is an area where the government, if it were serious about really taking action to reduce the impacts of climate change, it would put in place more solid programs to help Canadians reduce their consumption of fossil fuels.

With the recent announcement by the B.C. government of its energy program, I was comparing it with what the federal government is offering at the moment to Canadians who use fossil fuels to heat their homes, for water and/or with all the electrical appliances we use. The incentives are so minimal.

This is where the federal government really could set some objectives to help Canadians retrofit their homes and actually make savings. At the moment, the potential for low income Canadians, for example, to retrofit their homes is so limited. This is precisely the group of Canadians that should receive some help.

I want to give a couple of comparisons that I noted in regard to the difference in the subsidies. In British Columbia, for example, on an air pump B.C. is offering something like $1,450, while the federal government is offering something like $400. It gives us an idea of the difference in the magnitude of interest that the federal government is putting into energy efficiency.

Indeed, one of the most important sources of potential energy savings is in the energy that is being wasted at the moment. A serious energy efficiency program would have multiple positive effects.

Let us consider the amount of energy that is being used. Recently British Columbia provided a breakdown of the way we use energy in our homes: 46% goes toward heating and 30% goes toward water. Let us think about these two sources we use in our homes and consider the kinds of programs. If, for example, the government decided that each year hundreds of thousands of homes would be retrofitted, ensuring that Canadians had the support they needed at all income levels, this would be a beginning to actually reduce the use of fossil fuels before jumping into programs that may or may not be effective. As an example, an efficient clothes washing machine or dishwasher uses less power and less water. Efficiency also provides a higher level of comfort, so it is not a question of sacrificing quality of life.

In conclusion, I would like to speak to a couple of issues which, in my opinion, are important to consider in this bill. The government has undermined and indeed has reversed the efforts of individuals and groups on environmental issues. The government's track record on environmental issues is shameful. That is the only way to put it. How then can we simply give it free rein on the question of biofuels? That is the question all opposition members should be asking themselves.

With the kind of record the government has, can we give it free rein on this question? Canadians have made it clear that we simply cannot. Any solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss must be complementary, not mutually exclusive and must not undermine each other. Above all, our guiding principle must be, as I said earlier, to do no harm because, as decision makers, we are responsible for the harm that we cause through actions, as well as the harm that we fail to prevent.

With this in mind, I urge all of my colleagues to reconsider the harm this bill could cause if we do not apply some provisions to control its reach.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Victoria raised many points. I listened to her closely, and I congratulate her for having touched on so many of the issues. However, there is one that I did not hear her mention. She most likely did not have the time to discuss it. It affects my region in particular, and many others in Quebec.

I am talking about the large number of farmers increasingly deciding to move toward what we call food sovereignty. I do not want my colleagues to worry—we are not talking about Quebec's sovereignty, but food sovereignty. This concept aims to make us increasingly independent in terms of food, to allow us to create our own supply and to have a safe supply at a better price. Obviously, in terms of the environment, this system aims to pollute as little as possible. If we buy products that come from closer to home, there is no transportation and so on.

If she would, I would like my colleague to talk about this difficult choice that producers may face—go along with the market economy, that is, choose to use their land in a way that keeps cars on the roads and adds to pollution, or focus on an economy of proximity by taking into account sustainability and feeding the people around them.

I would like to hear her ideas on this issue.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question. It is an important point.

I believe that I tried very quickly to make the point that it is possible to develop a biofuel program while also helping farmers. But my colleague has raised another point, which relates to the issue of food security and sustainable farming.

In that regard, the government could help even more. Earlier, I alluded to the energy programs that the government could set up to help ordinary Canadians who are trying to reduce their fuel consumption. However, I did not have time to discuss what we could call sustainable farming. I know that in my community, Victoria, more and more farmers are growing organic produce and increasingly selling it in smaller markets. This is becoming more profitable.

In my opinion, the government could help. It could offer concrete support that would promote local markets and regional development instead of continuing to help multinationals to the detriment of small farmers who make every effort possible. It must be repeated that this is not about blaming small-scale farmers who want to earn a living. Basically, that is the problem. They are being offered subsidies to make a lot more money instead of incentives for sustainable farming. That is what is inconsistent about the bill.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Victoria for pointing out in the context of her speech about biofuels and the valuable debate we need to have about demand side management generally. I was taken by some of her comments regarding the efficiency of demand side management versus the generation of new units of energy.

I believe I heard her say that a unit of energy harvested from the existing system by demand side management measures is exactly the same as one produced at a generating station or taken out of the ground as a unit of energy from fossil fuels, except for a number of important differences. One is that unit of energy harvested from the existing system is available at approximately one-third the cost of digging it out of the ground or producing it at a generating station. It is also available and online immediately. In other words, if we turn off a light switch as we leave a room, that unit of energy we have saved can be resold to another customer in the same instant instead of the seven year lag period it might take to build a new generating station or to dig another oil well.

Also, the demand side management measures that my colleague is recommending create as much as seven times the person years of job opportunities as those created by the harvesting of natural resources such as in the oil fields or building hydroelectric dams.

These points are rarely raised in the debate about alternate fuels. In the context of biofuels we should be looking at a holistic approach toward how we are going to answer our energy demand needs in the future with dwindling energy supplies.

I do not believe any province in this country or certainly the national government has done nearly enough to investigate the enormous potential in demand side management of our precious energy stocks and resources. I think it would be helpful to those MPs listening today if my colleague expanded on the need and importance of demand side management and energy retrofitting.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the largest pools of potential energy is that which is wasted through inefficient use. My colleague raised an excellent point, which I did not get an opportunity to cover, about the number of jobs that could be created from an advanced, solid energy retrofit program for homes and buildings, both government and commercial buildings. If we set a target of 200,000 homes per year, and it could be any number, we would begin to see some real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

On the issue of wasting energy, I heard about standby power or vampire power. The growing number of appliances contributes to this phenomenon. Today's average home contains more than 20 appliances, including computers, stereos and other equipment. Even in standby mode these appliances use more than 10% of the electricity in our homes. The government could take action to prevent this kind of waste, as could Canadians themselves. The government could set higher standards, which would be a good start. It could also provide greater incentives and greater help to Canadians to buy higher efficiency appliances.

The Prime Minister recently said that nothing could be done to help Canadians with soaring gas and heating oil prices, but he is wrong. Not only could the government take action to help Canadians reduce their consumption, but jobs would be created which would help our flagging economy.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I will support this NDP amendment, which I feel is very important. Moreover, I invite my colleagues to support this amendment so that the committee can examine this whole issue in greater detail.

Since the debate began, we have heard numerous opinions that have been more or less well documented, more or less scientific, more or less emotional. I myself have a number of opinions. I believe that for the sake of the people we represent, it is important that each and every one of us in this House consider the advisability of using a natural resource, a raw material as precious as our most beautiful farmland.

I am thinking of Quebec, among other places. I am familiar with the Montérégie area, for example, where corn grows perfectly and in huge quantities. Even in my region, the Lower St. Lawrence, we have corn. We can think about wheat in the west.

We are using our beautiful land to produce something that we call a biofuel or agrofuel to ease our consciences. It will give us a clear conscience, because with 5% or 2% in our tank, we will feel as though we are helping to save the environment. In my opinion, we should not kid ourselves.

First, as I just said, we are using a precious resource, precious materials, namely our land. I will digress for a moment. Yesterday, I listened as a Conservative member who had gotten upset said he hoped we would never get to the stage in this House where we would tell farmers what they can and cannot do. I believe that in 2008, we should be telling them what they can and cannot do, because the land belongs to all of us. More importantly, it belongs to future generations, and we have to be responsible stewards. When we look at agriculture regulations—I will talk about Quebec, because I know the regulations in Quebec—we see that more and more, they are being imposed with good reason on our farmers so that they will keep environmental sustainability in mind as they farm. In my opinion, we are giving them a responsibility.

They have been landowners for decades, perhaps centuries, but they are responsible for this wonderful piece of land. They have been given something very valuable on behalf of a community. Just because they are landowners does not mean that they can do whatever they want, just as a city dweller, an owner of the smallest piece of land with the smallest home, cannot do whatever he or she wants on land in the middle of a city. We have a responsibility in both rural and urban areas. To get back to the point, this greatly concerns me, along with a number of my constituents, because it is important to also consider the process used.

This is evident in the case of the oil sands. All of the contaminated water must be stored somewhere, while it waits to be decontaminated. We hope that it will not contaminate our streams, our lakes, our rivers, and that there will not be any human errors that could lead to spills in some areas, which would be a concern. That would be an environmental nightmare. We should remember that this has happened in the oceans, on the shores and the coasts. These things can happen.

The water needed for this process is another very precious natural resource which is ultimately being used so that we can have a clear conscience and produce biofuels, so-called because they come from a biological source. Most people think that because of this name, the product must be good, since it is bio. I think we need to go beyond that.

There is some irony in using some of our most precious natural resources literally to run our cars and to ease our consciences.

All of us, as citizens, elected members of this House and representatives of the public, have the responsibility to dig deeper and ask questions. What does a government, of any political stripe, have to do to ensure that the environment is truly taken into account? What does a government have to do to help us reduce our dependence on oil sooner rather than later? There is no miraculous solution, but if we all do our part, what methods could we use to run our vehicles on sources of energy that produce less and less pollution? We will definitely continue to drive, but we have to become far less dependent on petroleum, whether it has ethanol additives or not. This is very important.

Earlier, when I asked the hon. member for Victoria a question, I raised a point that is important to me; that is, how farmers use their resources and the painful choice our producers are faced with. On one hand, they are being told they will be encouraged and even subsidized, so that they can contribute to this economy. The epitome of a market economy has to be asking farmers to produce additives for our gasoline instead of food for human consumption. In fact, why would environmentally conscious farmers simply continue to produce food for human consumption, and punish themselves financially by choosing not to produce biofuels?

That is the difficult choice they are faced with. On one hand, they are told what they can do to produce “natural” additives for gasoline, in order to allow us to drive more and to ease our conscience, as I was saying earlier. On the other hand, a number of producers are currently taking this a step further and are taking action to achieve food sovereignty. It is increasingly clear that this is the best route for the environment and for food security.

Of course I always talk about what I know best: Quebec. As everyone knows, we have extraordinary measures in effect for food crops. We have a traceability system for our animals as well as codes for our produce, for example. Similar systems likely exist elsewhere, as well. When people buy their food from local producers, they know that for the most part they are getting quality products at a reasonable price.

We are faced, however, with a difficult decision. Would producers rather produce biofuels, because they are more lucrative, or provide good food for people? If they do the latter, will the population return the favour? As we say where I come from, in the Lower St. Lawrence, we are real happy to be able to buy potatoes, carrots and other summer produce. We can stock up on them when buying in our own region, just a few kilometres from home. Many people do it. The same is true for berries. People preserve them, make jam out of them and so on. It is very ecological and, by doing so, we allow our producers to live well and meet their needs. Like everyone else, they have every right to live well and provide for their families.

On the other hand, producers must make a difficult decision. Should they not bother because their motto, like everyone else's today, would be to make money when we can? Should they convert a portion of their land to biofuel production?

This issue is of great interest to us all, and for good reason. We have to keep talking about it. We cannot simply dismiss this person as being completely unrealistic. People say that that is what things have come to with the global economy, and that is what has to be done. But I do not think that we need to get carried away with wild imaginings and accusations against everyone. We have to be responsible. We have to look at the consequences of this.

When it comes to biofuels, there is no doubt that in addition to speculation, it has become profitable for many people around the world to use their agricultural land for purposes other than growing food, for the least environmentally friendly purposes possible to meet a need and, as I was saying earlier, to make things, such as our cars, go.

Somebody was talking about China yesterday. People who visit China can see that, unfortunately, the Chinese are making all the same mistakes we made decades ago. Instead of using new technologies, they are doing exactly as we have done. Why not use fossil fuels as long as they are available? Why not pollute for as long as possible?

They are planning to shield the city for the Olympic Games so that the athletes can perform. After that, pollution will resume once again. Unfortunately, they are making the same mistakes we did as though they had inherited our ways. That is a real shame.

In Quebec, we have other ways of doing things that do not involve doing what big Canadian and multi-national corporations want us to do. I think the government has a responsibility. I will always think that. It is responsible for the common good and for redistributing wealth. In this case, as in others, it must play its part. The population expects nothing less from a government of any political stripe that calls itself accountable.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her participation in the debate. I know she has been paying close attention to it over a number of days. I know it is something that is very important to her and to her constituents.

I think she was very correct in stressing the whole understanding of food sovereignty. I think it is something that Canadians and the people of Quebec are becoming much more aware of. For a number of us who are city dwellers and who do not have much of a relationship to the production of food in Canada, it seems to be something that miraculously appears at our supermarkets.

I think through issues related to food sovereignty and certainly the growing debate around biofuels that all Canadians are developing a new appreciation for the production of food and what that really means in the grand scheme of things. I think it is very important.

I remember a few years ago when farmers were demonstrating on the Hill about the income crisis that they were suffering through and one of their slogans was “farmers feed cities”. That is certainly a concept we do not want to lose track of in this whole debate on biofuels.

I wonder if she might expand a little more about how that appreciation of food sovereignty, of the importance of locally grown food is part of this debate, but also the larger debate about the need to have a greater appreciation for what is produced locally by our farmers.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and comments.

Not just rural residents but city dwellers also are gaining a greater appreciation of this fact. Furthermore, there are many ways to learn about this issue and a multitude of articles are written on the subject every week.

One concept in particular has led to much greater awareness among citizens. I am referring to our environmental footprint. There are sites, especially on the Internet, where we can calculate our environmental footprint and determine the amount of pollution created by our daily individual activities and our work. We are responsible for the pollution we create. Obviously this encourages us to make changes.

City dwellers are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that food does not miraculously appear on the table. The member used the right expression. More and more, people read the labels when grocery shopping to determine where the strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, parsnips and other food comes from. That is a growing trend where I come from.

There are cities in eastern Quebec and not just small, very rural municipalities. People are asking whether the food is local or if it comes from very far away, from abroad. They know that the produce leaves an environmental footprint because transportation and other factors cause pollution.

In my opinion, it is our responsibility to continue to raise awareness so that citizens have a better understanding of the issue. That is done through their representatives. It is one of our responsibilities to continue this work and to do it well. I have no doubt that the hon. member who asked the question does this very well.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue on the same train of thought. Food security is an issue that is very important to me.

I wonder if the hon. member could explain what measures the government could take to provide additional help to farmers to better meet this emerging yet recognized need, namely, food security. That is, crops must be grown in a sustainable manner, instead of encouraging the large multinationals.

I would like to hear the member's comments on this.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Victoria. I think the answer can be found in her question.

The government must take action to really promote food security. This is done through regulations. Of course, my colleagues in this House will not be surprised to hear me say that this must be done while respecting provincial jurisdictions, since Quebec already has regulations in place. We have a department, the ministry of agriculture, fisheries and agri-food, as well as an agricultural producers union, which is made up of several branches and covers various types of products.

We must have regulations at a level that is as close as possible to the farmer. We must work together, in partnership, to make our products as safe as possible and to encourage new methods, something that is done regularly.

When it is within its prerogative and its jurisdiction, the federal government must take action through subsidies and other means in order to allow our producers to innovate, to use the best methods that are the least polluting and as safe and secure as possible.

As I said earlier, when food is produced and harvested as close as possible to the people who consume it, people can ask the producer directly, at the market, for example, what kind of pesticides, insecticides or other products were used on the food. Thus, people know what is in the food they eat. It is all right in front of them. The closer it is to them, the more responsible people become and the more likely they are to ask questions, and rightfully so.

To begin with, encouraging people to assume more responsibility will ensure food security. Of course, government regulations must also be obeyed and all jurisdictions must be respected.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments. Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

Accordingly, the vote stands deferred until 3 p.m. this day.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Order. It being 3:04 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-33.

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #113

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the amendment lost.

The Chair has a number of points of order to hear from members. I will start with the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margaret's.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to stand today and to speak to this bill. I move:

That this question be now put.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to this bill once more in what is probably the last speech today.

As we know, the amendments to the bill that I put forward in committee were rejected. The checks and balances that we tried to introduced here in the House were rejected. Obviously I have no alternative but to vote against this bill, nor does my party.

I would like to review the process and give members a bit of a resumé of what has happened in regard to this bill. Our amendments, which could have put some checks and balances in this bill, were rejected in committee before this bill came back to the House.

One amendment would have prohibited the use of genetically modified grains, oilseeds or trees for biofuel production, except for those genetically modified grains, oilseeds or trees that were used for biofuel production in Canada before 2008.

A second amendment would have prohibited the use of lands protected by federal legislation and other sensitive biodiverse lands for biofuel production.

A third amendment would have preserved the biodiversity of lands used in biofuel production.

Other amendments would have: prohibited the importation of grains or oils for use in biofuel production; established criteria in relation to the environmental sustainability of biofuel production to ensure compliance with internationally recognized best practices that promote the biodiversity and sustainability of land, air and water; and, established restrictions on the use of arable land in Canada for biofuel production to ensure that biofuel production does not have a detrimental impact on the food supply in Canada and foreign countries.

As I mentioned earlier in debate on this bill, these amendments could have given us some checks and balances as we move forward with a sustainable biofuel policy. They were voted down in committee.

Here in the House, in the last motion that was defeated, we tried to ensure that this bill would go back to the committee so that the economic and environmental effects of introducing these regulations would not cause a negative impact on the environment or unduly influence commodity markets.

Yesterday when I spoke on this bill, I talked about the rising demand for ethanol from corn and the fact that this has been the main reason for the decline in world grain stocks during the first half of 2006. I noted, and I note again today, the need for a well thought-out biofuels strategy.

I would just like to say that it is important for someone in this Parliament to go on the record as stating that at least someone stood up to talk about the folly of blindly going forward into the whole area of biofuels, so that in two, five or ten years from now when people look at the record, they can say that at least there was someone in the House of Commons who wanted to look at this from a sustainable point of view and who was not part of how others were blindly moving forward in this direction.

We have before us what I would call a bizarre state of affairs. When government or the minister of agriculture should be moving quickly, government often drags its heels. For example, in 2006, when I was first elected, it took a long time for government to react with some kind of disaster relief in the Porcupine Plain area of Saskatchewan. As well, we saw almost a reluctance in a final reaction in regard to the pork crisis. Also, we still have not had a resolution in the crisis facing tobacco farmers.

However, when more planning and impact studies are needed, it appears that the government wants to move forward at a faster pace, as if it had blinders on. In other words, when the idea is to move forward with an idea regardless of the impact on the future or on the environment, communities or farmers, there is no concern for going a bit more slowly and looking at all of the ramifications.

For example, over the last couple of years we have had the government's rush to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board, a move based on ideology. No socio-economic studies have been done to look at the effects of this move, not only for today but in the long run. As we have seen, this has been an undemocratic process. There has been a gag order on the Wheat Board, which is still there. There have been discussions, but only with those who support government policy. There has been tampering with board of director elections. There have been a vague plebiscite and a vow to throw barley on the open market this year.

In regard to the Canadian Grain Commission, in spite of recommendations from stakeholders in the field that we should wait until 2010 before removing kernel visual distinguishability, KVD, the government and the minister decided to move ahead as of August 1 even though there is no adequate system to replace this.

Recently there was an announcement by the Prime Minister in regard to product of Canada labelling, which is a good announcement going in the right direction. However, in the announcement, he chose to ignore the work that the agriculture committee has been doing on this for the last month and a half or so and also to ignore all of the witnesses who took time to appear before the committee. It is almost as if committee work is irrelevant and the government will move ahead regardless of what happens or what recommendations we make.

Now we have a new biofuel policy unfolding before us in Canada. I again would like to repeat that I and my party are not against the concept of biofuels. However, we are against giving the government a green light with no checks and balances.

I would submit that we have to be very careful before trusting the current government to move in the direction of biofuels without looking at possible negative effects, for example on farmers, and there is also the fact that if this bill goes through there are no restrictions on importing feedstocks to fuel the biofuel companies or factories.

There are no criteria in the bill that say we have to put Canadian farmers first when looking at extra feedstocks. There is nothing that says we are going to stop further development of genetically modified organisms, specifically wheat, which, as we know, can contaminate and endanger the wheat industry in Canada.

It is understood, as we have seen already, that the biofuel industry does not offer top prices to farmers for grain. In fact, the industry would not be able to survive if it had to pay the high prices that farmers are receiving for grain on the world market. In the future, if there were no Wheat Board to protect farmers and stand up on their behalf in regard to multinational companies, we could have the possible scenario of prices controlled by the multinationals not only for food grain but also for those involved in biofuels.

What is the state of biofuel production in the world? We have to look at this in regard to the broader picture. I submit that what often happens, as I have noticed with the present government, is that we do not look at what is happening in the world on various policies.

We have seen that this has had a devastating effect on farmers in the southern hemisphere. Farmers have been forced off their land as large monocultures take over. Those farmers have been forced to migrate to cities where there is no work and they have to put up with high food prices. We also have seen their production curtailed and the importing of subsidized rice and grain from wealthy countries such as the United States.

We have seen the cycle of an increase in corn production in the United States to fuel the biofuel and ethanol industries, which displaces soybean production. That then means an increase in acreage for soybeans in Brazil and forces ranchers off their grazing lands. The ranchers then become involved in deforestation and taking down trees in the rainforests. That effect has been occurring.

I remember when the agriculture committee visited Washington last year and we were told by those involved in the biofuel industry that the United States does not want to import more oil. However, it wishes that the increase in consumption would be taken over by the biofuels that it is going to produce.

In the United States, there does not seem to be a policy of trying to decrease consumption. The policy is that as consumption increases, biofuels will fill that void, and I think this is madness. It is a direction that we in this country should not be taking.

Today I would like to have us look at some of the articles on this issue. Last month or so, I believe, Time Magazine entitled an article “The Clean Energy Scam”. I would like to quote from this article. For example, it states, “Brazil now ranks fourth in the world in carbon emissions, and most of its emissions come from deforestation”.

I would like to add the fact that one of the reasons this deforestation is taking place is the expanding of lands for biofuel production. The article states, “This land rush is being accelerated by an unlikely source: biofuels”.

I will move on to many interesting aspects of this article. It states:

But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous.

What this article is saying is that now, after the years during which biofuel production has been taking place in the United States, scientists and people are questioning the direction in which they are going. Yesterday I quoted from a couple of studies in Science magazine that bring home that point.

I will continue to quote from the article:

Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year.

I understand that the rise in food prices is not only because of biofuels. It is but one area that has been responsible for the rise in food prices. Nevertheless, it is a factor. The article states:

Backed by billions in investment capital, this alarming phenomenon is replicating itself around the world. Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that its ranking among the world's top carbon emitters has surged from 21st to third, according to a report by Wetlands International. Malaysia is converting forests into palm oil farms so rapidly that it's running out of uncultivated land. But most of the damage created by biofuels will be less direct and less obvious. In Brazil, for instance, only a tiny portion of the Amazon is being torn down to grow the sugarcane that fuels most Brazilian cars.

The article goes on:

The environmental cost of this cropland creep is now becoming apparent. One groundbreaking new study in Science concluded that when this deforestation effect is taken into account, corn ethanol and soy biodiesel produce about twice the emissions of gasoline. Sugarcane ethanol is much cleaner, and biofuels created from waste products that do not gobble up land have real potential, but even cellulosic ethanol increases overall emissions when its plant source is grown on good cropland.

I would just like to share with the House a study that appeared in Science magazine on December 8, 2006. The caption summarizes the study and is talking about low-input, high-diversity grassland biomass:

Biofuels derived from low-input high-diversity (LIHD) mixtures of native grassland perennials can provide more usable energy, greater greenhouse gas reductions, and less agrichemical pollution per hectare than can corn grain ethanol or soybean biodiesel. High-diversity grasslands had increasingly higher bioenergy yields that were 238% greater than monoculture yields after a decade. LIHD biofuels are carbon negative because net ecosystem carbon dioxide sequestration...of carbon dioxide in soil and roots exceeds fossil carbon dioxide release during biofuel production.

We are seeing that there are alternatives. I understand that we talk about a second generation of biofuel production and that somehow if we bring this policy into place, we will shift into second generation. However, it is important for us to note that we should be looking at these alternatives now and not 10 years from now.

Yesterday I spoke a bit in regard to genetically modified trees.

I talked about genetic engineering. For example, in Canada, there have been field trials. There have been only one or two field trials since 1997. Since 2000, outdoor field trials have been conducted by government researchers with the Canadian Forest Service, not by private companies.

What happens is that the traits of trees are modified. For example, lignin is reduced so that the trees can be converted to ethanol and paper more economically. Given the explosion of the biofuel market and the desire to move on to a second generation of biofuels, the companies are calling for the use of genetically engineered trees as a potential source of cellulose from which to manufacture ethanol.

We have the possibility of introducing genetic modification not only in grains but in trees. What happens, of course, is that if this were to take place, there could be contamination, as I mentioned yesterday, as far as 1,200 kilometres from the source of use.

As a matter of fact, as we speak a conference is going on in Bonn, Germany, where countries are requesting that Canada support a moratorium on genetically modified trees, and so far the results have not been encouraging as Canada seems to have taken the position of looking at case by case. However, we will get the results I am sure very shortly.

I would like to conclude by quoting from a brief by REAP Canada presented at committee entitled “Analyzing Biofuel Options: Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Efficiency and Costs”. The brief stated:

This bill should be withdrawn for 3 reasons:

1. It won’t appreciably reduce GHG emissions.

2. It is not a “Made in Canada” solution. The legislation primarily will support markets for U.S. corn growers.

3. The legislation does not demonstrate fiscal responsibility.

The report gave some recommendations. I found in committee that this report was treated lightly. People did not take the time to really look at what is involved here. It went on to say:

To create effective GHG mitigation from biofuels that will support rural Canada the federal government should:

1. Implement results based management throughout its’ research and incentive programs to ensure the desired outcomes of GHG mitigation and rural development are achieved.

2. Embrace perennial energy crops and abandon the use of annual crops as biofuels.

3. Create parity in the bioenergy marketplace.

I and my party are not against the concept of biofuels. We still have an opportunity to put some checks and balances in place, so if we do this we do not make the same mistakes that have been made in other parts of the world, and we can support our farmers and have a sustainable and environmentally friendly industry.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I listened quite closely to my colleague's speech as I did yesterday. I was confused when he finished yesterday and I am even more confused today.

If I did not know better, I would think that he is making a case for big oil. I was under the impression that his party did not necessarily endorse big oil, but he is making quite a case for promoting the profits of big oil companies and supporting big oil companies. I question if that is where the NDP wants to go.

The reason I am confused is that at one stage of the game the NDP was for biofuels. Now, and as a matter of fact to quote the member, he said, “biofuels are madness”.

What has changed in the last month or so? What has changed since the NDP governments in Manitoba and Saskatchewan began promoting the use of biofuels? I really do not understand the NDP and this particular member.

I would like to ask the member why the NDP governments in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan were in support of biofuels and at one time as a matter of fact the federal NDP was in support of biofuels and now he is calling it madness? I would like the member to explain that. There is a dichotomy there that I do not understand.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it hurts to see that my hon. colleague is confused. That is not a nice way to be. It is always better not to be confused. I will try to enlighten him.

[An hon. member]

That might be hard to do.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

It might be difficult, but I will give it a try.

With regard to biofuels, the statements I made were quotations from articles that do say that it is madness. I said personally that I and my party support the concept of biofuels. There is a way of doing it correctly. I think Manitoba is on the right track. It is limiting 10% of its arable land for biofuel production.

There is nothing in this bill that puts any checks and balances on biofuel production. That is the problem. It gives a green light to the import of corn from the United States which does not support our farmers. It gives a green light to big oil, Husky Oil, to import this corn, and it certainly gives a green light to destroy the environment. I think we need to put some checks so we can move on with a policy that is good for all Canadians.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his interventions and for his stance on biofuels, and also his explanation. I hope my hon. colleague from the government party now understands our position. My colleague has explained very well that we do support the concept of biofuels, but we do not support the government's bill that is flawed.

My colleague said that there is a way of doing it and getting it right. I think we have an opportunity in this House to explore all the possibilities and get it right. It does not have to be a one off situation where we use grains for ethanol. We need to look at a whole host of things. We also need to make sure that we are not putting in jeopardy world food supplies and affecting the food markets in such a way that we are impacting people half way around the world. That is something that we definitely do not want to do.

I would like my colleague from British Columbia Southern Interior to perhaps speak some more about our vision of what can be done to make sure that this bill is done right and what we could support.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the main thing is that we have to ensure that any biofuel program or policy in Canada looks at the environment in a sustainable manner, that we do not have a program that displaces oil and yet increases greenhouse gas emissions.

Let us not forget that this bill, Bill C-33, is part of the environment bill. It is a bill that is supposed to mitigate the negative effects on the environment. That is the first thing we have to do. So if in fact ethanol and biodiesel are increasing greenhouse gas emissions, then we should be looking at perhaps other areas, such as pellets, as my colleague from Western Arctic mentioned. According to the REAP study, solid biofuels have a much better efficiency and almost no negative effect on the environment. So, that is one area.

I know of a company in British Columbia that collects used oil from restaurants and converts it into biofuel. What better way is there of disposing waste? There are other enterprises. I think there is one in Alberta and also one British Columbia that is using waste and biomass to create biodiesel.

I think from the point of view of the environment and new energy sources, if we look at some more efficient areas of production, then this will have a much better effect on the environment as we try to battle climate change.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-33 this afternoon as we are nearing the end of debate at third reading and final passage.

The bill has received fairly normal treatment through its early stages, through committee and then reported back to the House, but then something interesting happened. The spotlight of the world was turned on food commodity prices. It looked like we had a very significant spike in the pricing of many world food commodities.

Some of the people looking at those spikes in prices speculated that it was possible that the new market for biofuels, which requires the production of some agricultural commodities, was part of the reason that the prices of the commodities were being bid up.

It is certainly possible that is and was the case and it may be the case in the future, but, in my view, there is a very tenuous line between that circumstance and the need for passage of this legislation.

I will say right off the bat that while the bill deals with the regulation of biofuels in the sense that it defines them and purports to give over to the government, from Parliament, regulatory authority to manage and regulate biofuels as a new commodity in the marketplace, which needs some regulation, there are very few standards in the industry. I will note that ethanol has already found its way into our fuel supply. I can think of at least one gasoline refinery and retailer who have up to 10% of their fuel as ethanol. At the present time these standards are being managed by the fuel companies.

The bill indicates a need to have the regulatory tools and instruments to define and regulate the industry, where needed, in the public interest.

The real issue being raised by the hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior is the whole issue of a biofuels policy, not the regulation of whatever component of the industry may need regulation. At root is his suggestion, although he did not put it this way, and perhaps his party's position on the bill, that we have a clash in public policy terms between food for humanity or killing the planet with greenhouse gases, or something in between.

I suggest to the House that we are not there yet. I suggest that we can grow lots of food for humanity, while, at the same time, deal with our greenhouse gas challenges. We also may be able to use some biofuels to offset the need for fossil fuels in some sectors in some countries, as is already happening.

The real issue for the House and in the bill is the ability of the government to regulate biofuels policy, not necessarily to push biofuels nor to do it in a way that bids up the price of food commodities on world markets or even Canadian markets, but simply to regulate it as a consumer and industrial commodity in the public interest.

If we were to have half a dozen different types of ethanol and half a dozen different types of fuel, the consumers with a car or the truckers with a truck may not know what fuel that would be putting in the fuel tank. In order to get maximum efficiency, we need to match the fuel with the engine that is being used.

In the absence of regulatory tools, the government will not be able to refine what those things are. It may not be able to say that it is 5%, 7% or 10% or that it is called such and such and only goes into a certain type of engine.

I read last week that some truckers in some places were running around buying cooking grease from restaurants for their trucks. Maybe it works but I would not use it in my car. I can just imagine what it does to the truck engines or the environment when it is being burned. I am sure everyone will accept that there is a need for the government to have the tools it reasonably requires to regulate this particular market price.

I must say a few words about food commodity prices because it is that circumstance that has caused many environmentalists, observers around the world and people in this Parliament to pause, have a look at this bill and perhaps even reconsider positions. I do not know whether the party of the hon. member who spoke earlier is changing its position or not but it is clear that this globe that has six to seven billion people on it needs a lot of food every day.

The recent interest in food commodity pricing was not displaced. There were huge increases and still are increased pricing for rice, corn, wheat, barley, oats, vegetables, fruit, fish and pork. Somebody approached me last week looking for pork in Canada for a region of China that has a shortage of pork. The individual was interested in developing a supply chain for that purpose.

What is happening is that countries that we used to think of as lesser developed countries are now developing very rapidly in Asia. They are consumer nations. They are out there bidding on all commodities and they have every right to do that because they have billions of people to feed and they need to get food at the best prices. However, if there are too many bidders for a limited food supply, the price will go up. This is a concern around the world for people of limited means, poor people or people who might go hungry because they cannot afford food. We need to keep our eye on that.

It is probably a fact that there is absolutely nothing in this bill that would bid up the price of food or cause the price of food to be bid up. The bill does not mandate that there be any biofuels produced. It will, in a sense, follow the marketplace if biofuels are produced and if the market needs biofuels. If the government wishes to encourage biofuels, it will have the tools to regulate it but the bill itself does not encourage, promote or trigger biofuel production in any direct or visible way.

I will give the example of corn, which the hon. member mentioned earlier. It is a good one. Corn is a major crop in the western hemisphere. Our American neighbours produce a whole lot of corn. I think at some point the American government is or was paying its producers to not produce corn because there was so much of it. It is likely that a corn producer will not grow a crop if he or she cannot sell it. However, that may vary in the United States. If there is a subsidy to produce and it is produced because there is a subsidy, the country may end up with a whole supply of surplus corn. In Canada, however, I do not think a farmer will produce corn if he or she is not able to sell it. Right now, for the most part, it is sold for food in various ways or for components in food. However, there is a biofuel industry here now and some of our corn does go into that.

I could perhaps say it best this way. If we had a growing biofuel industry and a particular farmer wished to produce a corn crop for that, why would we want to do anything to prevent that? Surely nobody in here is saying that there is anything wrong with growing corn. If there were to be an additional corn supply grown here and put into the marketplace, at whatever price, including higher prices, induced by higher prices even, that would not be a bad thing.

What might be bad are two things. First, if the promotion of biofuels were to cause the diversion of human food into a biofuel production and take food off the marketplace that would otherwise have gone into somebody's mouth, that would not be a good thing.

The second thing that would be bad is if the biofuel manufacturing caused the food pricing for the food supply to increase and put it out of people's reach. We have seen the news reports of a number of countries that have had to take special measures to ensure a supply to its population. I suppose we must keep our eye on this.

Canada is a rich and well-fed country. I think we are even a bit overweight these days. However, we are a well-fed country and we have a moral obligation to ensure we do not do anything to impair food supplies for other countries. We must do what we can to assist in feeding them and to assist them in growing food on their own. Those are things I know all Canadians would want us to do.

I want to come back to the bill and point out a couple of things.

First, the government in this case has not taken any steps to deal with ethanol as a fuel component. At this point, I believe the government sets the fuel standard for ethanol at 5% or encourages it go to 5%, but some countries have gone beyond and gone to 10%. There may arguably be a need for government to become a leader in this, in consultation with industry and with automobile manufacturers, in pegging certain standards that involve the use of ethanol. This particular bill might open the door to that but it would not, as I say, actually make that happen.

The second thing I want to comment on relates to ethanol. For reasons that have not really been adequately explained in the House, the government decided that it would remove the excise tax exemption from ethanol that had previously existed to stimulate the production of ethanol. It removed that exemption in the last or the second last budget and it did it without really explaining why. I suppose it could say that it wanted to create a level playing field, but if we are in the business of stimulating alternate fuel sources or fuel supplies to offset the greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon reduction targets we have, then it seems illogical that the government would remove the exemption. However, that has been done. It seems rather contrarian but, as I say, I have not heard an adequate explanation.

However, now that the exemption is not there, it leaves room for the government to do something else to stimulate biofuel production. I have said many times that the government hates the policies of previous governments, particularly mine, which is why so many times it has terminated an existing program and then brought it back rebranded with a new name and perhaps with less money.

This rebranding has been going on since the Conservatives took power a couple of years ago. Maybe that is what will happen here, that the government has gotten rid of the exemption and in the next budget it will come forward and tell us that it has a brand new tax exemption, rebranded with their name on it, to stimulate ethanol production. I would not be shocked to see that at all.

Last, the government, with its apparent lack of interest in ethanol, has failed to note that cellulosic ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, currently measured, by up to 64%. That is a major reduction in greenhouse gas emissions if they can be attained by the use of the average automobile engine. I do not understand why the government is not pursuing that a bit more aggressively.

All of that having been said, Bill C-33 provides appropriate administrative tools to the government to regulate the biofuels field as it evolves in the marketplace. For that reason, and because we are very certain that what is in the bill does not cause the price of food commodities to go up around the world, at least not at this time it does not, my party is prepared to support the bill.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague and I must say, I do not share his optimism.

Today we are at the end of the debate on Bill C-33. I find this target—if it is not an obligation then to me it is a target—of 5% biofuels in the composition of gasoline to be rather disconcerting. To many people this will become a type of panacea. We are quickly getting caught up in this.

Earlier, when we were voting on the amendment by the New Democratic Party, I was talking to a colleague about canola oil, the use of our fine land, and our food products. To my great surprise, the colleague in question—who shall remain nameless—thought canola was not edible.

When we are on the verge of adopting a bill, the least we can do, despite our many and diverse activities, is to be well informed. Most of the time that is what we all try to do.

If this bill is passed, it will allow the government to regulate the composition of gasoline to achieve certain objectives. In energy and agriculture, in light of our recent experiences, we should recognize that the time has come to prepare for the future and that the future is now. The planet needs us to take care of it, not abuse it.

The government's target to include 5% ethanol in gasoline is not the best approach. Instead, the government could concern itself with funding research into new technologies that would allow us to use substances other than foodstuffs for this purpose.

Currently, as we know, grain based ethanol constitutes a major part of this production. Why? Because that is the simplest way to produce this ethanol and the other technologies are underdeveloped. These biofuels are raising vital questions that absolutely must be answered before we dive head first into mass production, blinded as we often are by this market economy instead of being driven by values that promote an economy of solidarity and respect for our environment.

In my humble opinion, this is not a viable option considering the world crisis. I have heard many colleagues in this House say that funding and encouraging the production of ethanol has nothing to do with rising food prices. I disagree. In fact, the International Monetary Fund estimates that the use of biofuels and the subsidies granted to producers account for 70% of the increase in corn prices. So I find it rather odd to hear members claim that there is no connection.

I see some other potential problems and I am not alone. For example, this morning when we were debating the amendment, I spoke about the massive use of water, a very important natural resource that is becoming scarcer. The massive use of water will considerably detract from the supposed environmental advantages of grain-based ethanol. As a resource, water is often referred to as blue gold. Wasting blue gold to produce black gold is a paradox created only by our commercial appetite and our very short-term environmental vision.

On the weekend, like many others who have read his writings, I suppose, I listened to Hubert Reeves speak. As members know, he is an authority on the matter, and he said that if we continue to use our planet this way, we will not need one planet Earth; we will need four or five.

We are talking about the not-too-distant future. This is not science fiction. This is not about something that will happen in 3,000 years. This is reality. Every time we encounter situations like the one we are talking about today, we should all take an interest.

The wholesale use of grains and other products—such as canola, which I mentioned earlier—in ethanol production will create other problems. Our producers will not work as hard to keep our grain crops safe because they will be destined not for human consumption but for processing and ultimately, for gas tanks. Crop safety will not be a priority because the crops will not be for human consumption.

Could this have an impact on the use of insecticides, pesticides and GMOs? People will want to produce as much as possible and achieve ever-increasing yields. Given the extraordinary yields that producers want to achieve to process corn into ethanol, I was trying to imagine what an ear of corn might look like a few years from now. Quite honestly, I would rather not contemplate it, but I did so anyway.

Soon, technical and technological efforts will no longer be directed at meeting human needs and producing better-quality foods with more nutrients that cause the least possible environmental damage. The Monsantos of the world will develop new genetically modified crop varieties not to do a better job of feeding people, but to produce more energy with each kernel of corn, for example.

Producers who want to be part of the system will benefit from this new application. Certainly, it will take less effort to earn more money. Who could blame producers for wanting to make money? These people go through crises regularly, and they have a hard time making a decent living because of the problems associated with their work. Who could blame them for looking to energy production?

What is shocking is that all this goes against a philosophy that is developing more and more, little by little, in Quebec. I am repeating myself, since I talked about it this morning, but I would like to mention it again. I am talking about food sovereignty.

The goal of food sovereignty is to feed our population using foods produced as close to home as possible by our own producers. This is done in an environmentally-friendly manner. It means less transportation, since we are buying our food at local markets. All the market garden production comes to mind, for example. Everyone knows how great it feels to find fresh fruits and vegetables available close to home.

We are working to develop this new social contract, especially in Quebec. The Pronovost commission comes to mind. Many people have already accepted paying a little more for food that has been grown and harvested close to home, the quality of which they do not have to question. We know that the production safety standards respect the environment and that this food comes from where we live.

Farmers are encouraged to produce for humans, on a human scale. In Quebec, all UPA members gladly advocate for this production on a human dimension. The men and women involved in this initiative have good reason to be proud.

When I think about this mass production for our cars, I think we are moving in the wrong direction. This bill really needs to be carefully defined and must incorporate certain elements. My NDP colleague alluded to this earlier when he talked about checks and balances. I think this is very important.

In conclusion, we do not need to reject biofuels. I think that innovation is the road to take when it comes to energy. We have to commit ourselves and use the smallest possible amount of arable land and environmental resources to meet our energy needs, which we know are sometimes excessive.

When we can convert waste and residues—be they food, vegetable or artificial—into energy without using food products that would feed humans or animals, when we have that guarantee, then things will change.

The government is currently encouraging pilot projects. That is excellent, but it is not enough. I think about my area, given that we are obviously affected by this forestry crisis, particularly in the Lower St. Lawrence region. We could be thinking about these future techniques that would use forestry residues. Obviously it is a promising idea.

As I just said, we know the state of our forestry industry, and it would be good to encourage the development and study of this type of energy. I would go so far as to say that it is urgent because it could help some of our businesses and forestry workers, including those in private woodlots whom we know have been completely ignored in the Conservative government's trust fund.

In conclusion, it is important to remember that this is not a good time to be aiming for that 5% target. Residual material technology is not ready yet, the world markets are fragile and, as we know, the world's population is starving. I think we need to be responsible and act accordingly.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques for her speech and for her concern about the environment. I could tell from her remarks that it is something she cares very deeply about.

I know there are many companies in Canada and around the world that are getting very innovative, creating new products out of fibres, out of grain, out of forest product waste. They are doing so because they are concerned about the environment. Unfortunately some of the things that we are using, such as food products for fibre, remove something from the food production market and thereby increase the value of that food. People who need to buy that food cannot afford it or have a hard time affording it and are put at risk because it brings up the price of food.

I am glad the member mentioned some of those things. I note she also understands that biofuels as a concept is a good idea, but the government's bill, in the way it has been put forward, is not supportable because of what it entails and what it will do to food prices. It does not stop anyone from introducing genetically modified grains and it does not limit the amount of arable land that can be used to produce food for ethanol and for fuel.

Did the member see anything in the bill that would lead to conservation or limit our use of fuel? What I see in the bill is that it allows us to continue a lifestyle based on the high use of fuel for our vehicles, our homes and so on. It does not teach us at all how to conserve and to change our lifestyle so that we use less. I wonder if the member could speak to that.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I am going to speak my mind. I am exceedingly worried that this bill is truly flawed. That is one of the reasons that led me to vote, earlier today, in favour of the amendment proposed by my colleague's party. That would have allowed us—there was nothing to fear because we could still support it—to return to committee and further study the issue.

It is quite normal to be worried when we are dealing with our environment, our food source, our nourishing earth. People often accuse us of not thinking about future generations.

That is exactly why we have parliamentary committees on such occasions. It is to improve things, to change them and to work together. Thus, I supported it.

I said that the bill is flawed. I am concerned about not imposing a limit on the percentage of our beautiful agricultural land that can be used solely for this purpose. Because at some point, someone will say that they want to be like their neighbour, that they want to make money and that is how they will do it. And why would we penalize that farmer?

Thus, we have to set limits. There must be a standard. We must be even more respectful of our environment because we know the price we will pay if we are not. We have to prepare for the future. We could wait for better methods rather than simply saying that we have discovered the grain corn that will be used to produce ethanol, or another product that serves as food,

In my opinion, crops that are as close as possible to the people and will nourish them should be set aside as a food source. We should also develop other means of satisfying our outrageous energy cravings. We should become less dependent on these things and help each other to become more responsible.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The question is on the motion that this question be now put. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 o'clock, after question period.

Order, please. Pursuant to Standing Order 38, it is my duty to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Mont-Royal, Justice; the hon. member for Welland, Government Policies.

The House resumed from May 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

It being 3 p.m. or so, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the third reading stage of the Bill C-33.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #114

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

Accordingly, the next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think if you were to seek it you would find unanimous consent to apply the results of the vote just taken to the motion currently before the House.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Is there agreement to proceed in this fashion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #115

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)