Bill S-3 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act

This enactment amends the Energy Efficiency Act to
(a) clarify that classes of energy-using products may be established based on their common energy-consuming characteristics, the intended use of the products or the conditions under which the products are normally used;
(b) require that all interprovincial shipments of energy-using products meet the requirements of that Act;
(c) require dealers to provide the Minister of Natural Resources with prescribed information respecting the shipment or importation of energy-using products;
(d) provide for the authority to prescribe as energy-using products manufactured products, or classes of manufactured products, that affect or control energy consumption;
(e) broaden the scope of the labelling provisions; and
(f) broaden the scope of the Minister’s report.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Natural Resources

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have two reports from the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.

I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources in relation to the main estimates for the fiscal period ending March 31, 2010.

As well, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. In accordance with the order of reference of Thursday, April 2, your committee has considered Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act, and agreed on Tuesday, April 28 to report it without amendment.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for coming out this afternoon.

We'll be studying Bill S-3 next week. I understand that the bill is to amend the current Energy Efficiency Act. For my benefit and the benefit of my friends on the opposite side, what exactly is the Energy Efficiency Act, and why do we need to change it?

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

First, to the Stephensons I'd like to sincerely say that I am truly very sorry for your loss.

Speaking to the reason we're here today, my perspective is that we have to develop a system that is as strong as possible, taking fairness and privacy issues into account, but unfortunately, we're here seven months after amendments were passed. I think most of the members of this committee would agree that when Bill S-3 was proposed and passed under the leadership of the Conservatives, they left a number of problems unsolved. What I'd like to discuss is those problems and how we best can develop a system that focuses more on prevention.

We have discussed mandatory inclusion, automatic registration, the use of the system proactively, so that they can try to find people who have been abducted, as one example.

Concerrning identifying people, I find it quite amazing that under the amendments they didn't allow for warrants to be issued or for publicizing people who have not registered, as they are supposed to do. Failure to use licence plates on vehicles I can't understand either.

What I'm looking at is something that tries to fix these problems that were left unresolved when the Conservatives passed these amendments seven months ago.

I will address the Stephensons first. You say the Ontario system is state of the art, and I know it is much better than the federal system, so my first question is whether you think there are any ways that the Ontario system should be improved, so that we would take that into account when trying to do something else now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much to both of you, Mr. Foster and Mr. Meier, for being here by video conference with us. We do appreciate very much the information you've given us, and we're looking forward, Mr. Foster, to the information you'll be sending us.

We will continue with the meeting very briefly. We only have about five minutes left.

I just want to run this by the committee to see if it seems to make sense. On Thursday morning, we have the meeting by video conference. Can we take the last half hour or so of that meeting to deal with future business?

In the meantime, can we set up for Tuesday of next week? We should be setting something up. Can we set up where we would start by dealing with Bill S-3, which is the bill that's been sent to this committee from the Senate? Then, if we need more discussion on future business in the last part of that meeting, we could discuss future business again, possibly the draft report that we hope will be available by the fifth.

Next Thursday, if we can plan something to change it, that is strictly up to you. We could fall back on Bill S-3 for next Thursday, but we would start on Tuesday with the officials on Bill S-3, which is the traditional way of starting with reviewing legislation.

That is my thought. I'd appreciate your input so we know where to go.

Mr. Cullen.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, today, Bill S-3, the energy efficiency bill, was read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.

Just before question period, we were debating Bill C-13, the Canada Grain Act, but it appears the coalition of the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc has been revived and it is supporting a motion that, if adopted, will defeat that bill. It is proposing to kill the bill before it even gets to committee. It is unfortunate that the coalition's first act is to abdicate its role as legislators by denying close scrutiny and study of a bill at a committee.

After my statement, the government will be calling Bill C-5, Indian oil and gas, followed by Bill C-18, the bill respecting RCMP pensions, which is at second reading.

Tomorrow, we will continue with the business that I just laid out for the remainder of today.

When the House returns on April 20, after two weeks of constituency work, we will continue with any unfinished business from this week, with the addition of Bill C-25, the truth in sentencing bill, Bill C-24, the Canada-Peru free trade agreement, Bill C-11, human pathogens and toxins and Bill C-6, consumer products safety. We can see we have a lot of work to do yet. All of these bills are at second reading, with the exception of Bill C-11, which will be at report stage.

During the first week the House returns from the constituency weeks, we expect that Bill C-3, the Arctic waters bill will be reported back from committee. We also anticipate that the Senate will send a message respecting Bill S-2, the customs act. If and when that happens, I will be adding those two bills to the list of business for that week.

Thursday, April 23, shall be an allotted day.

Energy Efficiency Act

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with sincere pleasure that I rise to speak to this bill, not so much for the contents of the bill, which are thin gruel in some respects, but to the actual challenge put in front of this country and the world.

Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act, seeks to give government further powers and restrictions on certain products that Canadians use every day, such as, washers, dryers, and the like. It is a disappointment in the sense that it is such a small measure in overall goal that Canada must set for itself. Canada must take a leadership role globally.

It is a small measure with respect to the serious issue of rising energy costs. Canadians have seen those costs grow year after year, although there have been some dips along the road when energy prices have fallen. We always notice that as prices go up on the world market, prices correspondingly rise here. However, when the prices on the world market fall, the price at the pump or the electricity prices do not fall correspondingly. The overall trend continues to be bad for consumers.

The bill attempts in some small way to address what are the government's powers. The response from industry has been best described as tepid. It does not seem to be excited one way or another about this, which is usually an indication that not all that much is going on. When the government comes forward with bold and strong measures, there is often a response from industry asking for less to happen or asking for it to happen in a different way. If government comes forward with something that is lukewarm, much more subtle and non-intrusive to the industry's own plans, then we see things such as this bill, which is not much.

The response from the groups concerned with these issues specifically on the environmental side has been mildly positive, in that it is seen as a small step forward. However, the government consistently has failed to come forward with anything comprehensive. That will be the focus of my comments today, because efforts outside of any comprehensive cognitive strategy, anything that people can understand as a cohesive plan, are just efforts in the dark. They are one-offs and do not do enough to bring us to where we need to be and where I sincerely believe Canadians want to be.

It seems there might be one small glimmer of hope contained in the bill, but one has to read into it and dig into it to find whether this is a real potential. That is the possibility that the government could restrict the water usage of some appliances. For example, there are clothes washers and dishwashers that use a third, a quarter, a fifth of what the standard models use. These types of measures are needed.

There are cities that need to invest billions upon billions of dollars on infrastructure. There are water shortage issues in certain parts of our country. This has been a crisis in Alberta in the past. This most likely will continue to be a problem for consumers and for industry. The government should clamp down on products that are wasteful for no good reason. They do not deliver a better service to Canadians. They do not deliver at a better price. They just use more water and more energy for no good reason other than that we have had it too good for too long.

We have had so much in the way of natural resources in countries like Canada. The notion was that there would always be more. There would always be more water, more trees, more energy and that we could simply design our industries and our entire economy based on the principle of waste, based on the fundamental principle that if prices drop, we just do more, that it is okay to waste a bunch, the volumes are so great it will not be a problem.

We are starting to bump up against the natural limits of the environment, the natural limits of what our resources can actually sustain. This is happening globally. We are seeing more and more conflicts around the world on issues involving water and energy. We are still experiencing the war in Iraq, which the American administration has finally admitted was an energy war. We are seeing it happen at a national level with a government that claimed it was going to map the water basins throughout Canada and failed to do so. We consistently hear of boil water advisories in our poorer communities. We also see it at the local level, where people are struggling to find ways to use less water and energy, to turn off the tap, to turn off the lights. Folks are unaware that a lot of the products they buy are vulture electronics. They are called that because they draw power all the time.

With the old televisions and stereos we used to have, we would turn them on, it would take a couple of seconds for them to warm up, and then we would see the screen or hear the music. Now we hit a button and our computers, televisions, or stereos are on in an instant. The reason they are able to do that is because they are constantly drawing power from the grid, anticipating that split second when we might need to see them, use them, or have them available to us. All that power is being used over time.

When we look at the need for new power in this country, in this province of Ontario and my own province of British Columbia, all sorts of money is being spent by government and industry to create new sources of power, when the easiest way to create that new power is not to use it in the first place, to actually conserve, which fits the interests of all our voters, the people who put us here, to lower their energy bills.

The only people who have an interest in keeping more power on the grid or producing more power for our cars and vehicles are the people who produce that power, so they can make more money.

There is a strong and deep interest and we are finally starting to see it from some of the more enlightened energy companies. Investing more in energy efficiency and understanding more about the need to make a more efficient, more productive, more competitive economy is fundamentally based within questions of energy, whether it is human energy or the energy that we typically talk about in this place, which is electricity, oil and gas, and the like.

Canadians need to know that this bill, for all its small merits, takes place within a policy vacuum of the government.

I had a term turned back on me just yesterday while meeting with some energy consultants. They mentioned the Turning the Corner plan. It had been so long since I had heard it. It had been so long since I had heard the government mention it.

The government brought out this plan in 2007, for those who will remember, and there was the promise of regulations and rules by which this plan would actually be achieved. There was the promise, and nothing was delivered.

What does industry do when there is a policy vacuum? What does industry do when there are no actual rules in place? They continue on with business as usual.

Some of the investments we are talking about, particularly in higher stakes energy, such as the oil and gas and the electricity producers, require billions of dollars to switch from one to another. I recall a meeting I had with some folks who were involved in the mining industry, both in extraction and in the refining or smelting side of operations. They were furious with the government and the previous governments.

One would assume they would be natural allies of the government. They no longer were because they had seen the government issue statement after statement about requiring energy efficiency, requiring fewer greenhouse gases in the operation, yet time and time again, industry had made those investments assuming the rules would follow and nothing followed.

They are still waiting for the Turning the Corner regulations and rules. Not one has been issued of any substance.

In the policy vacuum that has been created, we see Canada, under the Minister of the Environment and others, trying to enter the slipstream of what is happening in Washington, waiting, delaying, not setting any price on carbon, not setting any regulatory limits on what happens with pollution, waiting for the Obama administration to make the effort for them.

As we have seen just this past week, the Obama administration came out with its climate change plans, a document of some 600 pages, and the response from the Canadian government is that everything is fine with us, using measurements that will simply not coincide with what our American partners are suggesting and will do, from all prescriptions.

We are seeing in Congress, both from the House of Representatives side and the Senate side, bills coming forward that are absolutely counter to what the Conservatives have proposed. On one specific issue, how we measure greenhouse gases, which would be one of the most fundamental issues if we are trying to control greenhouse gases, the government here insists on using intensity-based targets, which nobody in the world uses. Certainly nobody who hopes to participate in a carbon market is proposing the use of those targets. It is just simply not done because it is not possible. It is apples and oranges.

One measures the amount of greenhouse gases going out per unit of energy or per unit of economy, which is this intensity fiction that the Conservatives promote. The other one just says, “Here is a hard cap. Here is your limit. Below it, you can trade. Above it, you have to buy”. That is how the market works.

When I was recently in Washington talking with some of our congressional allies, I asked them what kinds of conversations they have had with Canada about integrating our market systems. These were the principal movers of these bills, the folks whose signatures are now going on these pieces of legislation in Washington.

They said their conversation me was the first one they have had with a Canadian legislator, impossible for me to believe when we have this great and glorious embassy in Washington with all sorts of staff and very bright, smart people walking around. We have an entire bank of ministers heading down to Washington every so often, yet the conversation about integrating one of the most important and fundamental markets, which will be upon us within a year, had not started, thereby not allowing Canadian industry access to one of the most important markets they need to access.

Further to that, and this speaks to the energy efficiency of this, the Americans have been talking about a low-carbon standard for fuels for some time. The initiative started out of Maine, New York, California, and Washington state, and is now being picked up by Washington, D.C. The Canadian response to this is that we hope they don't do it, because Canada produces some of the highest carbon fuels in the world. The Americans are saying they are going to put a limit on the amount of those fuels they allow into the country. They are actually putting a limit on the amount of carbon that is emitted by the fuels that American consumers and industries are meant to consume, which is produced in Canada, which is apparently the Conservative government's preoccupation on a daily basis and it has not made any efforts to understand the absolute train wreck that is coming our way if we do not react to this and start to produce fuels of a lower carbon standard.

Canada's response, to this point, is simply to say that it won't happen, that the Americans will blink and simply won't have a low-carbon fuel standard. I have news for the Conservatives. The folks who are drawing up this legislation, within the White House and on the Senate and the House of Representatives sides, have all said and have written in black and white for the Canadian government to finally see, “This is happening”. This is what is on the table, and the Canadian government refuses to take any real recognition of the scope and scale of the challenge that is put before us.

It is absolutely fine for the government to give itself some more powers with respect to the efficiency of electronics and the efficiency of appliances that Canadians use on a daily basis, but it does not ban the most inefficient ones. It simply says we will allow a few more of these to come forward in a more efficient way. However, the real culprits, the ones that consume the most power, the most water, and waste the most, are still not available to the government to stop outright. Why that would be, I have no idea.

It is not as if the administration of other countries around the world have not gone down that path with no serious detriment to consumers or industry. We have seen the Europeans and Japanese go forward on this for more than two decades, and the Australians, New Zealanders and others. The path is laid, which may be the only advantage Canada actually has at this point when it comes to dealing with climate change or energy efficiency. Because of the delay of the Conservative government and previous Liberal regimes, the path forward has been paved with respect to certain basic elements of how to make a more efficient and less polluting economy.

It is not as if Canada has to reinvent the wheel at this point. So many administrations have gone before us with sincere and genuine leadership. We see this now taking place even at the G20. Today, our Prime Minister and leaders from around the world are there.

It is actually 22 countries. They are going to have to change the name at some point, I suppose, but we will call it the G20 because all do.

At this summit with the European leaders and the American administration, in the talks about the stimulus packages that are needed, there is talk about what level, if Canada is below the 2% commitment it made six months ago in Washington at the G20. In the recovery packages that the administrations are talking about in Europe and the United States, they are talking about a green recovery. They are saying that if they are going to spend this much public money into the private markets, as the Canadian government and other governments are doing, for heaven's sake, should they not put some other public interests in place as well?

The public interest has been consistent and strong over the last number of years that we want less polluting cars, less polluting industry and greater efficiency with what we do, because Canadians do not like the idea. Where it may have been a historical reality for those who built this country that there was just such a wealth of resources that waste was not a deep consideration, it now is and Canadians concern themselves with this. It is why they recycle. It is why they attempt to do things such as carpooling and buying better electronics and equipment for their homes.

It seems to me, though, at this time, when the world is talking about putting in place a green recovery, our administration here is still seized with some ancient ideas. I cannot count how many times I have heard the so-called Minister of the Environment say that we have to choose between the environment and the economy, that we cannot threaten the economy by dealing with the environment at this point in time.

When times are good it is not time to deal with the environment, and when times are bad it is not time to deal with the environment, according to that type of thinking. The conclusion is always the same from the Conservative and Liberal leadership, that it is not time to deal with the environment.

The current Liberal leader, for goodness' sake, called the tar sands a national unity issue. I have heard it called many things by those who promote it and by those who decry it, but I have never heard it spoken of as a thing that bonds all Canadians together, that somehow folks sitting in Halifax, Montreal and Vancouver are on bended knee every day, praying for the health and welfare of the tar sands.

Of course, it is important to hone in on something that is going on, but for goodness' sake, we have to have some sort of measure of balance.

When bills moved previously through this House, spending bills from the government talking about energy efficiency, talking about the need to do better on climate change, the first one that came forward was a bus transit pass allotment. The government put in place the idea of making it easier for folks to get on transit. All the transit authorities across Canada said it was a wonderful idea but to give them more buses because they knew their users, they knew the people who use transit, and what they needed was greater efficiency and greater allowance onto the transit system, that this was the problem.

The government said, no, it was not going to listen to that advice. It was going to go its own way and offer people a tax break so that they could submit their monthly transit receipt and get money back on their taxes.

There is not a problem the government sees that cannot be solved by a tax credit of some kind or another. Lo and behold, that type of neo-conservative economic policy has put us into a certain situation and it still will not be reconsidered by the government, for reasons that are beyond me.

We said not to do this because it would not actually solve the problem the government was going after. It would not get more people onto transit. It would only affect early adopters, the people who are already use transit. As well, the amount of greenhouse reductions would come at an exorbitant price. It would be very expensive per tonne reduced, per car removed from the road.

The Auditor General unfortunately proved us right. That program ended up costing Canada between $5,000 and $6,000 a tonne. It is impossible to imagine that the government has the capacity and the intelligence within it to actually achieve any of the targets that it proposes. It puts out things like this bus transit pass that, if we actually ran the numbers at $5,000 or $6,000 a tonne, would make it impossible for Canada to achieve its goals under the current government's thinking.

A second bill that came forward is absolutely mystifying to me. The government brought forward a biofuels initiative about 18 months ago. We gave it a good look and allowed it to go to committee. At the committee stage, we moved two amendments. This was some $2 billion, a significant chunk of taxpayer money, going towards biofuels. We said that if we were going to subsidize biofuels--the ethanols, the corn ethanols, and the fuels of the world, maybe sugar or beet, we did not know what--there must be two filters applied over top.

One would be how many jobs we could possibly create with the expenditure of $2 billion. That should be a factor. At that time, we were not in a recession, but certainly there were some very shaky elements of our economy that we saw, the government ignored, and we all landed in. We said to at least put in a job component, a metric that says how many jobs we will create for the $2 billion invested. The government said, no, it did not need to do that; it would just simply spend the money.

The second thing we said was that if we were trying to reduce the greenhouse gases emitted by Canada, should that not be a filter on the greenhouse gas program? Could we not put that down as a measure, as a marker to say that we were going to achieve the most greenhouse gas reductions possible? The government said, no, why would it do that, and it did not. As a result, the $2 billion went out the door. It was a farm subsidy. Fine, if the government wants to do a farm subsidy, it can. However, $2 billion goes out the door and greenhouse reductions from that subsidy are negligible, according to every study that has been done on it.

So in this policy vacuum, when bills such as Bill S-3 come along and the government waves them around and says it is fixing climate change and not to worry about it, it happens within the context of nothing else.

Certainly when the governments of the day were looking at developing the tar sands in the first go-round, they did not just do one-offs. They had a comprehensive strategy. They put every measure of government forward--money, research, support, and expertise--to develop that project, and lo and behold, it was successful. They are doing a lot of tar sands right now.

When it comes to the environment, there is not that same intelligence or that same authenticity and sincerity. That is what has been failing Canadians, and that is why this bill, while a small measure, is certainly not going to get the job done.

The House resumed from April 1 consideration of the motion that Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill S-3 and take part in this debate.

It is always instructive to see the Liberal member for Malpeque grilling the Conservatives for having plunged Canada into a deficit when the Liberal Party of Canada supported them no less than 62 times in this descent into hell with the creation of a Canadian deficit. I find it hard to understand, although that is not the only incongruity in this Parliament. This kind of thing is why politicians are always second last on the list of people Canadians trust. I will not say who is last. Members take positions in the House that are totally contrary to what they say in their speeches. That is the Liberal reality and it is why they have almost no credibility in Quebec.

Bill S-3 was introduced yesterday and is an act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act. I want to say right away that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of this bill. Environmental groups and people who take some interest in the environment are not easily fooled, but when the Conservative government introduces a bill on energy efficiency, it is at least a step. We should study it therefore in committee, improve it, and see how open-minded the Conservatives are about analyzing it. This bill is not a panacea for all our energy problems, far from it, but my colleague from Trois-Rivières did a good job of presenting the Bloc’s position. When the government takes a little step, we should all go along, while remaining very realistic about the likely results.

There are eight clauses in Bill S-3. I will summarize them for the benefit of the men and women watching.

Clause 1 creates section 2.1 in the definitions in the Energy Efficiency Act. Its purpose is to specify the meaning of the word “class”. A class of energy-using products can be defined according to common energy-consuming characteristics of the products, their intended use, or the conditions under which the products are normally used.

Clause 2 is about interprovincial trade and importation. In the current act, paragraph 4.1(b) forbids dealers from shipping an energy-using product that does not comply with certain requirements from the province in which it was manufactured to another province for the purpose of sale or lease. Clause 2 changes this provision by replacing the last part with the following: “from one province to another province” for the purpose of sale or lease. In addition, paragraph 4.1(b) in the current English version requiring that a label be attached to the product or package is changed to require a label “in accordance with the regulations”. This is a welcome clarification because they are talking about appliances in this bill and all energy-using household equipment is included.

As we know, many of our citizens still have appliances that consume a lot of energy. In Quebec, Hydro-Québec is paying $60 to anyone who gets a new fridge. Hydro-Québec will even come and take away the old one. That is one way of getting rid of appliances that consume too much energy. If we want to use a bill to prohibit interprovincial transportation of equipment, we are talking about importers, retailers and suppliers. The equipment is not always new. There is business in second hand equipment. We do not want such equipment to be transported between the provinces, or even sold in any province.

Clause 3 adds a clarification to the information that a dealer must communicate to the minister.

From now on, prescribed information must include information about the shipping or importation of the material in question.

Clause 3 amends section 5 of the Energy Efficiency Act, which requires that dealers who ship or import energy-using products shall file a report with the prescribed information. Under the current subsection 5(1), the “dealer...shall file with the Minister...a report setting out prescribed information respecting the energy efficiency of those products.” The bill changes the wording to require the dealer to “provide the Minister...with” the prescribed information, so it is not a matter of merely filing a report, but rather being obliged to provide the information concerning those products, including their energy efficiency, their shipment or their importation.

This is important because, at the end of the day, this bill attacks the very foundation of the distribution chain. This affects dealers and importers. This is unfortunate because we have heard members, both Liberals and Conservatives, pointing out whose record was worst or best. But one thing is certain: we must target importers, because there is almost no more manufacturing of such products here, simply because these sectors have been abandoned and left to emerging countries.

So now that we have virtually stopped manufacturing these products, we must ensure that the products we are sold respect the environment, and that is where the problem often lies.

During the holiday season, there is the issue of all the toys that contain lead and all the problems Canada has because it has not passed strict enough regulations and has allowed countries to produce goods that we would never dare produce here. We let them produce such goods, then we buy them. We also let these people distribute equipment produced in other countries that is no longer in keeping with how we see the environment and how we consume goods and services.

Similar technical changes—still with reference to clause 3—are proposed for subsections 5(2)(a) and 5(2)(b) and subsection 5(1). In addition, this clause allows in certain circumstances for an exemption from the requirement to provide information related to the energy efficiency of energy-using products, while leaving in place the requirement for shipment and importation information.

It is a bit complicated, and I would say that that is unintentional, at least I hope so. In any case, I have confidence in my colleague from Trois-Rivières, who, in committee, will be able to ask the witnesses the necessary questions to ensure that these requirements are really intended to facilitate information sharing.

So once we know that all or nearly all consumer products and equipment come from other countries and we realize that some products and equipment do not comply with our energy efficiency standards, we need to make sure with this bill that there are no loopholes. The Conservatives like to try to introduce a bill and allow, say, the oil industry to get off scot-free. It is a bit like when they talk about their carbon exchange and use 2010 as the reference year.

Members will recall that the Kyoto protocol sets 1992 as the reference year. This means that all the industries in Quebec—the aluminum smelters and paper plants—that reduced their greenhouse gas emissions in relation to 1992 levels and succeeded in meeting the Kyoto targets will have to do so all over again in relation to the Conservative government's proposed new reference year of 2010 or 2012, even though they had achieved what no company in Canada had managed to do.

That is why, day in and day out, week after week, we in the Bloc Québécois rise in this House to make it loud and clear to all the other parties that they must not forget that the effort has already been made in Quebec. In Quebec, the large manufacturing companies have made efforts and are prepared to comply with Kyoto, but it is a different story in the other Canadian provinces, especially with oil companies and tar sands. In a way, it is sad to always have to stand up for the people of Quebec.

We too would like all the members of this House to understand what manufacturing industries and other industries in Quebec—the logging, aluminum and paper manufacturing companies that have made efforts to achieve the Kyoto objectives—are going through. If an international carbon exchange was established, they would be ready to sell their credits because they have exceeded the objectives of the Kyoto protocol. They could be making money as we speak. The environment is no longer only costing money; it has become a source of income, an area of economic interest. Now, the environment is a money maker, provided one puts in the necessary effort.

After all the efforts that have been made in Quebec, the Conservatives are suggesting that the clock be reset, proposing a new reference date of 2010 or 2012. We will start over, and the industries with emissions lower than at the reference date will be allowed to issue emission credits. We can imagine what this means for the logging, aluminum and manufacturing companies which have already made the necessary efforts. They are being asked to make an additional effort. That is why we are saying that the government has to provide compensation to those who have done better than everyone else and are being penalized.

As I mentioned earlier, when the Conservatives introduce a bill, they once again cater to polluters. They are going to warn oil companies that the year 2010 or 2012 will be the starting point, and that they will have to reduce their emissions. If the companies do that, they will be eligible for those credits. They will not even have to buy them, because they will be in a position to sell them. For those who are following this issue, it just does not make any sense.

However, this is not funny for aluminum plants, for paper mills and for all the companies that anticipated this move. The companies that wanted to sell a product abroad told themselves that they would make an effort and be conscientious. They had decided to comply with the world target set in the Kyoto protocol, with 1992 as the reference date. However, because of a decision made by the Conservative government, these people will forever pay a price, this in an already difficult economic context. Once again, the Bloc Québécois has no choice but to rise day in and day out in this House to condemn the Conservatives' way of doing things.

So, this bill seeks to amend the Energy Efficiency Act, and it is meant to be an environmental act. The Conservative Party even claims that it is part of its green plan. The nice Tory green plan that will save the environment. Still, it is a first step and it means that the government is doing something. Indeed, there are problems with electric household appliances. We import a lot of those appliances. We buy them from countries that do not have the same environmental standards, and it is only normal to impose labelling provisions. Things must be clear when these appliances arrive in Canada. We must know about their energy consumption. If they do not comply with the standards, they should simply be sent back, or they should not be bought. This is more or less what this bill seeks to do. If it does not do so in its present form, we can trust the hon. member for Trois-Rivières that it will once the committee will have dealt with it. That is the objective. This legislation will help us make progress regarding the environment. Hon. members can trust the Bloc Québécois to achieve the objective set in this bill. We are going to make sure that the process is free of “Conservative” diversion or secrecy.

Clause 4 makes several technical wording changes dealing with the records and documents that dealers must keep. In the current section 7, the documents and records must enable the minister to verify the accuracy and completeness of the information. Under this bill, they must be sufficient for the Minister to do the verification.

I agree with my colleagues who spoke before me about this bill or asked questions. This bill ought to have been amended and there should be adjustments to the legislation every five years. Industrial changes happen very quickly. The government therefore needs to be sure it can monitor the situation in order to have the legislation tailored to technological developments in the industry.

This should be done automatically. The minister wants to change the definition through clause 4 by adding the term “sufficient” relating to the documents and records the industry needs to provide. He has noticed that he was not getting what he needed to support an informed decision. So, as I said earlier, clause 4 targets the dealers, all the importing dealers who purchase products or have them manufactured offshore, very often in developing countries not required to respect the environmental standards we have set for ourselves. So if we do not have all the details we need about the manufacturing process, content or energy efficiency, it becomes rather difficult to know if the product complies with our standards and conditions.

It is therefore normal to want to cast some light on this clause. It is a matter of semantics, but does add a bit more rigour to this legislation, which probably ought to have been amended very promptly five years ago and so is likely to be totally out of date. Once again, I rely on my colleague from Trois-Rivières and my fellow members of the Bloc Québécois who will sit on the committee to ensure that this bill develops along the right lines and is adjusted as developments in the industry take place.

Clause 5 broadens regulatory powers, one of the main amendments that Bill S-3 would make to the Energy Efficiency Act. This clause amends the Governor in Council's regulatory power. The Governor in Council will now be able to implement regulations that target categories of products, not just individual products; products that control energy consumption; and products that affect energy consumption. It also amends the English version of the Act.

With respect to labelling, Part III will give the Governor in Council broader, stronger regulatory powers over all of the information included with energy-using products. Previously, the Governor in Council could regulate only information about energy efficiency. Once again, the definition has to be broadened to make it stronger. Labels will now include all of the details.

These measures were deemed necessary because it is clear that the industry, importers and dealers have done everything in their power to not reveal true energy consumption numbers so that they can sell products that cost less to produce. They did everything they could to claim that their products complied with the law even though they did not. That is one of the advantages of this bill.

However, the Conservative government must not try to use distractions to pull a fast one on us. Once again, I am counting on my colleague from Trois-Rivières and other Bloc Québécois members who will ensure that the right questions get asked in committee. Clause 5 will also make some changes.

Clause 6 is about the report to Parliament. The second major amendment relates to the minister's responsibility to report to the House of Commons. Usually, the minister has to report on the implementation and enforcement of the bill once a year. Clause 6 adds a provision requiring the minister to compare Canada's energy efficiency standards to those of the United States and Mexico every three years. The purpose of the comparison is to demonstrate the extent to which the stringency of Canadian standards matches that of the other jurisdictions. I think that is a good idea. As I said earlier, things are changing quickly in the industry.

Since I see that I have only a minute left, I will close by saying that people can count on the Bloc Québécois members, who will work hard in committee to promote the idea of a potential obligation to review the legislation every five years. This situation is very important, and it is being submitted to our colleagues so that we can guarantee our citizens that what happened in the past will never happen again. People are trying once again to conceal information and use labels that do not meet standards, in order to achieve their own goals. I can assure you, Madam Speaker, of our full support for Bill S-3, but with the improvements that the Bloc Québécois will propose in committee.

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

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague has just given a long speech about Bill S-3. I would like to remind him that energy efficiency is changing at such a pace that the law will have to be revised every five years. That is not currently happening. When the Liberals were in power, they never changed it. This law has not changed since 1992.

Although the Liberals did nothing when in power, are they now prepared to accept that the law include a clause providing for its statutory review every five years? This bill requires reports every three years and requires the minister to report to the House every four years. But there is nothing about revising the law every five years. I would like to hear my colleague's opinion about that.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act. Earlier, my colleague from Halifax West spoke extensively on the bill and made a number of valid points on energy efficiency. I would refer people to those comments. He talked especially about wasted energy. When politicians are out on a political campaign, we walk into houses and see little lights flashing here and there, on VCRs, computers and telephones that are not in use. All those units are using energy unnecessarily. It is a lot of wasted energy.

The bill makes a series of changes to the Energy Efficiency Act to broaden the scope of the government's ability to regulate consumer products that use energy. We can certainly go the regulatory way with encouragement in that area, but as citizens of the country, we also need to do a lot of individual things to save energy in terms of shutting down computers and so on when we may be gone for more than a day. There are all kinds of things we could do.

The bill is rooted in old Bill C-30 from a former Parliament, which was a plan to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Bill S-3 goes back to some of those points that were made in Bill C-30. After the House committee made wholesale amendments to the climate change provisions in Bill C-30, the government chose not to bring the bill back to the House for further debate. When the first session of the 39th Parliament prorogued, Bill C-30 died. Instead of bringing back the bill in its entirety, the government decided instead to carve off the Energy Efficiency Act provisions and introduce them as a separate bill in the Senate. The bill did not receive second reading in the Senate before the election was called in August, 2008.

The provisions of the bill are not controversial. In fact, it is widely expected that most MPs and most parties will support the bill in the House of Commons because the spirit and the intent of former Bill C-30, what opposition parties mainly drove for, is encompassed in this bill.

An effective regulation of energy-using products is one of a suite of tools the government will have to fight global warming. As my colleague said earlier, there are a lot of global warming deniers on the government side of the House. A lot of points have been raised by previous speakers as to that being the fact. Through this bill we hope the Conservatives will take, not a big challenge, but a small challenge to do a number of small things that can make a difference in terms of energy use itself.

On this point, Canadians know what we should be doing each and every day to improve energy efficiency in many small ways, but sometimes it takes a little encouragement. Although none of us really likes regulations, sometimes it takes a little push with regulations to encourage us to do the right thing on the environment.

Another important area for us to do the right things on the environment and to increase our energy efficiency is a stronger education process. Sometimes we do not realize how the small points on energy efficiency can add up in the global context to big savings on energy.

Let us look at what little things can do. We can go back to Christmastime, when many people light up their houses with Christmas light bulbs and so on. In my province, Christmas was the peak energy period of the year because of the lights on Christmas trees, houses, floodlights and so on. When the LED lights came in, they created such energy efficiencies that the energy use at that time went down substantially.

Therefore, it shows what can be done by both an education campaign and any regulatory campaign. It is one example of many.

It is unbelievable the gains in energy efficiency that have been made in the agricultural industry over the last 15 to 20 years, and there is a lot more we can do. There is a lot more the government can do to assist us in getting there.

It would be really helpful if the government, in its programming, used some of its available resources. We know it has clearly failed the agricultural industry to date, especially the primary producers, but it is not that difficult for it to develop the programs. Whether it is through tax incentives, grants, regional development agencies, Industry Canada or Environment Canada could come up with funding programs that would assist primary producers in purchasing equipment and technology that would reduce the amount of energy used on primary production units on our farms.

Although the government fails to admit it, we know that the agriculture, fisheries, mining and forestry sectors in rural Canada are the generators of economic wealth in the country. Anything that can be done to assist those hard pressed industries in this time of recession would be valuable in moving our country forward.

There is an opportunity, at a time when a so-called economic stimulus is being made available, if the Government of Canada would develop the programming to assist all those industries in reducing their energy use and improving their bottom line. The government seems to have failed to seize that opportunity.

I want to provide some examples in the farming sector. On the equipment side, the tractors we use today are much more energy efficient. Cultivators do a better job with less use of energy on a per acre basis. One of the big areas is the use of GPS equipment, whether it is on equipment used for cultivating potatoes and row crops or whether it is on sprayers where one can do a better job of going over the ground just once. Instead of going over a field or a crop two or three times, one can go over it with a single pass, saving a tremendous amount of energy and greater efficiency. Therefore, less greenhouse gases are put into air for each production unit that is produced on farms.

Many Canadians, especially people who live in urban centres who do not understand the farm community that well, have a strange picture or perception of farmers. Primary producers, farmers, have always been at the cutting edge of technological change. Whether it is energy efficiency, more production per acre, whatever it may be, they have always been at that edge of technological change. This is a great opportunity where we could assist the farm community in making its operations more efficient.

Another example that I could give would be dairy operations. I was a dairy producer, and I have been on many of these operations. More people should see this efficient use of energy. It is an area where expenditures could be made to get more producers on those kinds of efficient uses of energy systems.

To draw a picture, when milk is produced, it is a warm product that has to be cooled by what almost looks like the old type of radiators. The milk is produced by the cows, comes out of the milking system and goes through that radiator unit. The heat is taken out and used to heat water for sanitizing and cleaning up the system and, in some cases, for heating barns. There is great efficiency.

Instead of losing the heat and putting it into a cooler that expends energy to cool the milk so it keeps and can be trucked to the processing plant in a high quality state, the new systems are used to take the heat out of the milk and use it for other purposes, whether it is heating water for sanitizing or whatever. The temperature of that milk is reduced and then when it gets into the cooler, it is already partially cooled. Therefore, it takes less energy to cool the milk product to the proper temperature so it stores safely until it can be shipped to a processing plant for bottling, or for cheese or for whatever its use may be.

From my own experience in the past, I know that originally there were grants from provincial governments at that time to encourage people to move into the earlier concept of bulk milk coolers. This is an area that the government could be assisting the production sector, with stimulus packages and creating energy efficiency as well. I know that goes beyond the concept of this bill, but it is an example of where government action, beyond the regulatory regime, could be a huge help to the farming community.

The same applies in the design of farms. Rather than using the fans, which are used in so many places, there are new concepts where we use natural movement of air.

As another example, this morning I had a great meeting with the greenhouse industry. The Canadian greenhouse industry is one of the most innovative industries in our country. In Ontario alone there are about 1,800 acres under glass. In B.C. there are about 700 acres. I believe it is something like 60 acres or 80 acres in Quebec.

I was in one operation that had 52 acres of tomato and cucumber plants under glass, growing year round. One of the highest costs is the use of hydro. Therefore, farmers have been moving to new concepts. Again, it is an area where the government could assist. In fact, I believe it costs close to $6 million to put the new system in for one of these operations.

Beyond the solar efforts of the sun, using natural gas to heat that generates a byproduct containing CO₂, which plants need to produce the cucumbers and tomatoes. A recycling effect is created and it will pay off over the long term tremendously. Again, it is another case of using greater energy efficiency to have greater economic and energy efficiencies in the operation and less greenhouse gases as a result at the end of the day.

There are so many opportunities available to us in terms of energy efficiency. This bill will move us a little farther along that line. It significantly broadens the government's ability to regulate products that affect the use of energy and we support that. It does not have to be an obtrusive regulation. As I mentioned in the very beginning, to a great extent, it can be more of an education campaign to have people understand what is available out there. The regulations can encourage better use of products, whether it is shutting down equipment or buying more efficient equipment or machinery on the industrial operations, on farms, on fishing boats, in the forestry industry or whatever.

We support these amendments, since they are substantially identical to the proposed amendments to the clean air act, Bill C-30, which the Liberal Party supported. For some reason the Government of Canada wanted to make that disappear. Maybe it was too forward-looking a bill for the current government to grasp, take hold of and put Canada in the lead in terms of environmental change.

If we had moved forward with that act, instead of being a follower, we would have been a leader. In this recession, we see more followers than leaders from the government side. Maybe that makes the point as to why the government abandoned the clean air act. Now we have to at least try to encourage it to move a little step forward with the Energy Efficiency Act.

We look forward to seeing regulations, but it will be necessary to ensure that the impact of these amendments are fully felt in Canadian society.

I want to make one quick point about my own province. One initiative of Premier Robert Ghiz and the Liberal government in P.E.I. is on energy. We are increasingly using wind energy to meet our energy needs. The province has laid out a master plan of how we can use the production of energy and hydro from windmills to meet a greater and greater share of the electricity needs of Prince Edward Island. The Canadian wind test site is on Prince Edward Island. I think it shows that a little province is leading the way in this country in terms of using wind energy to meet Canadians' needs and reduce greenhouse gases.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to discuss Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act, which is intended to expand the regulatory parameters of the present act.

The essence of this bill is laudable. The present act dates from 1992. With all the technological innovations, it is thus extremely urgent that we take another look at this act. I can see how often we are late to take action. My 15-year-old son is constantly reminding me that we have to pay attention to the environment, use recycling bins and save energy. So I will be pleased to be able to tell him on the weekend that we are working to make things better.

The amendments proposed in this energy efficiency bill are going in the right direction, for they target non-regulated products and raise the standards for other products. However, we have to determine whether this bill is not simply an update of the standards of the Office of Energy Efficiency. In this regard we must display a real will to improve the energy efficiency of certain energy-using products with the aim of improving our energy efficiency and not with the aim of permitting the federal government to say that it is looking after the environment. We must admit that this initiative offers very little in the face of the problems of climate change, our spiraling consumption of fossil fuels and this government’s lack of will to act to protect the environment. All the same, this bill is a start, and however little this government is doing for the environment, we must nonetheless consider the improvements being made to the present legislation.

The amendments made by this bill are thus intended to consider the advancement of knowledge about energy efficiency, to broaden the minister’s regulatory authority, to introduce the concept of classes instead of considering each product individually, to strengthen the minister’s powers over the labelling of energy-using products, to standardize procedures, and to increase responsibilities for reporting to the House of Commons. These objectives, I repeat, are entirely laudable. The extent to which they will be applied remains to be seen.

For example, the amendments proposed in this bill would permit the establishment of strict vehicle emission standards and improve the energy efficiency of vehicles, since they have an impact on energy consumption. The bill would also permit, as proposed many times by the Bloc Québécois, the standardization of energy efficiency regulations in classes of products, thereby introducing mandatory vehicle eco-labelling, a measure that has existed in Switzerland since 2002.

In this way we could send a clear message to consumers who wish to use energy more responsibly, by directing them to a class of vehicles classified as “green”, instead of certain very specific vehicles.

There are a number of worthwhile amendments in this bill, including the following. Classifying energy-using products as proposed will mean that they can be grouped based on a single, common energy-consuming characteristic and the intended use of the products. The second amendment is the power of the governor in council, which will cover a class of products and not just one product. Extending the regulatory power will mean that the act provides better coverage of a whole range of products in terms of energy efficiency. This bill also provides for new or additional standards to be established for industrial and consumer products and goods, such as commercial washing machines, dishwashers, fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs, battery chargers, and many others.

This bill means that standby mode can be taken into account, and that is a good proposal, because of the proliferation in recent years of energy-using products that consume energy even when they are turned off. The new types of televisions, DVD players, household appliances and a host of other products consume energy constantly even when they are not in use. These items are equipped with an internal memory that can be affected by simply unplugging them.

In this regard, the Office of Energy Efficiency estimates that if all of these products used minimum energy in standby mode, a typical household would save $35 a year in electricity. That does not seem like much, but an energy saving like that all across Canada amounts to the energy used by about 300,000 households in a year, and so it is a considerable amount. What this bill does in this regard is really very important. The number and variety of appliances that use standby mode will undoubtedly continue to grow in the years to come. That is why it is important to think about regulating energy use in sleep mode for these kinds of items.

Requiring that the minister table reports in the House of Commons is an important amendment, and one that I think is desirable. Once every three years, the Minister of Natural Resources will have to compare the standards here with those in the United States and Mexico, to determine whether they are in step. Because many household appliances come from those countries under free trade, standardization is important. This approach, by standardizing labelling and energy efficiency criteria, may eventually facilitate the creation of a carbon market in the future.

Obviously, that must be done willingly and competently. On these two points, allow me to question the Conservative government's intent to really protect the environment. The Conservative record does not lead us to believe that the environment is a priority for this government. I will explain. This bill has a number of qualities, including that of considering the standby mode, essential to the operation of a number of devices today, in setting energy efficiency standards.

However, the government is bragging that, with these amendments proposed for the Energy Efficiency Act, it is implementing its nebulous green plan. This green plan is turning brown. I realize that strengthening laws on the energy efficiency of televisions, DVD players, household appliances and other energy-using consumer products is a good thing. However, strong and integrated measures are needed to achieve real results. We have waited too long.

The government's regulatory framework to fight greenhouse gases is biased at its source. It is based on reductions in emission intensity for individual product units instead of on an absolute greenhouse gas emission target. There is, however, a consensus in Quebec and elsewhere in the world advocating the absolute reduction approach, which will lead to the establishment of a carbon market and a carbon exchange in Montreal.

This government's approach is unfair to Quebec, which has made a huge effort since 1990 to genuinely and absolutely reduce its GHG emissions. However, businesses in Quebec cannot benefit from nearly 20 years' efforts. It is our duty to prevent these efforts from being swept under the carpet because of the neoconservative ideology that goes to any length to put the environment and the economy at odds.

For example, a Quebec aluminum company that has already reduced its GHG emissions by 15% in 1990 terms will have to agree to the same reduction in emission intensity as a company operating in the oil sands in Alberta, whose GHG emissions have doubled since 1990. Our manufacturing industry will be penalized once again because it will not benefit financially from its efforts as it could have under an absolute target reduction plan.

In Quebec, we reject this outdated view. The economy and the environment work in tandem, and our businesses are often among the most productive in the world in environmental terms. Quebec's economy is separate from Canada's. By applying this standard approach to all businesses, the government is leaving no room for a real territorial approach that would allow Quebec to act according to its own interests and peculiarities.

This is why we are saying that the government's green plan, which gave rise to this bill, is ineffective.

Climate change represents one of the biggest challenges we have to deal with.

As scientific evidence piles up and we see just how staggering the extent of the consequences is, it becomes imperative to act without delay, and in an efficient and fair manner.

This bill represents a step in the right direction, but there is still a very long way to go, and this government totally lacks the desire to go the rest of the way with Quebec. The Bloc Québécois is calling for a Kyoto implementation plan, namely an average greenhouse gas reduction of 6% below the 1990 level for the period 2008-12.

The inaction of the Liberals and the ideological pig-headedness of the Conservatives are doing nothing to help us deal with the problem.

The plan proposed by the Bloc Québécois is based on establishing reduction targets in the short and medium term, that is between 2012 and 2020, with 1990 as the reference year; the use of a territorial approach; establishing a carbon exchange in Montreal; and federal measures that the government can implement in its own areas of jurisdiction.

In closing, Bill S-3 is, as I have said, a step in the right direction but there is still a very long way to go. We are in favour of the essence of this bill, but with this government we have doubts about is sincerity as far as environmental protection and energy conservation are concerned.

The Conservative government ought to stop handing over millions of dollars to the oil industry and stop encouraging tar sands development. Instead it ought to be decreasing our oil dependency, and allowing the development of renewable energies, encouraging environmental research and the growth of the green economy, which is the economy of the future, rather than making this bill, which is limited though laudable, the foundation of its rather murky green plan.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, does the member think that Bill S-3 includes or should include autos, buses, planes, et cetera?

The House resumed from March 30 consideration of the motion that Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Madam Speaker, as I was saying, this bill replicates for all practical purposes the now defunct Bill C-30 on air quality introduced by the government. It caused considerable debate, especially at the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. The second part of Bill C-30 aimed to modernize and improve the Energy Efficiency Act. Of course, that legislation needed to be renewed, updated and improved. For that reason, among others, we will support Bill S-3.

However, the fact remains that it is clearly not enough and more needs to be done. It is clear from many of the comments made by stakeholders in the industrial and business sectors, as well as the environmental community, that the industry proposed these regulations with a shrug of their shoulders. That says it all. It is a step in the right direction, since the amendments presented in these regulations were necessary, but it is not nearly enough to address the problem and improve energy efficiency. We simply must go even further on this issue, because it constitutes one of the most important pillars in a real policy to fight climate change.

A climate change policy must have two basic components. The first is the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at their source and changing our industrial processes and lifestyles in order to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One way this can be accomplished is by changing how we produce energy. In the next few years, we must reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, whether coal, gas or oil. We must develop new sources of energy in order to reduce our dependency on oil, for instance, which strains the budgets of individuals as well as of businesses and government. When we reduce our dependency on oil, we create conditions conducive to protecting the environment and improving the economy of our society.

This bill amends regulations to reflect advances in energy efficiency, especially with respect to standby power. That is significant. We must encourage such changes, suited to each type of appliance, especially in our homes. For example, an energy-efficient television will use 1 watt compared to 12 watts for a conventional television set. That is the case for certain appliances. If we really want to eliminate consumption, we should just pull the plug However, quite often we cannot because some devices have a memory and we would lose all the information.

It is important to update these technologies, to introduce regulations and to force businesses to change the manufacture of appliances especially when the technology is available. It is estimated that the implementation of new technologies for standby power alone could save families $35 a year and result in electricity savings equivalent to consumption by 300,000 households.

That part of the bill is good for the economy and for people's budgets.

This bill would also give the minister more power when it comes to labelling products that consume energy, and it would standardize the process, broadening the range of products to which labelling applies. That is important, but we feel that the government should go much farther. This kind of energy use labelling should not be restricted to appliances, such as dishwashers and televisions, or to light bulbs. It should also bring in a vehicle energy use labelling system like the one in Switzerland and elsewhere. In 2002, the Swiss implemented mandatory energy use labelling for new vehicles. That is the kind of energy use labelling we need.

Our proposed measure would require those who make and sell cars to affix a label containing information about fuel consumption, CO₂ emissions and energy efficiency to all new and used vehicles for sale. We think that this information should also appear on brochures and all advertising material. Labelling would raise awareness among individuals and companies about vehicle efficiency by providing information about fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions. People need that information to make responsible, well-informed choices.

We think that the government should go further than this bill and implement mandatory energy use labelling for new vehicles offered for sale, something along the lines of the Swiss system. I really want to emphasize that because we believe that energy efficiency is about more than the environment and environmental protection. It is also about saving money and creating jobs. This is an opportunity for businesses, states, nations and countries to create jobs based on energy efficiency.