Evidence of meeting #11 for Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was climate.
A recording is available from Parliament.
7:05 p.m.
Conservative
7:05 p.m.
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria
I would like to take a stab at your earlier comment, now that you've given me the floor.
I'm not trying to say the Conservatives are any better than the Liberals, because the fact of the matter is that nothing has been done under any government. The fact of the matter is that the Conservatives, in opposition until very recently, were not helping the Liberals try to do anything.
I don't care about the politics. We need action. We need action down the road. We need action along the lines of this environmentally sustainable economy. Perhaps we should start talking about things like a carbon tax and replacement of things like the GST by things like a carbon tax, rethinking the way we do our taxation. You'd have to involve economists in that, but we need to at least talk about these things.
7:05 p.m.
Conservative
7:05 p.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
On the importance of science in building political consensus and political will, the fourth report is certainly stronger than your third report. Are we at a stage where we can expect China, India, and the United States to take on the kinds of tough targets that you talked about for the mid-21st century? Can we expect them to go from the U.S. being out of Kyoto and China and others from simply being signatories without targets? Is the science compelling enough for them now that we can expect them to take on the kinds of significant targets that are necessary?
7:05 p.m.
Department of Physics, University of Toronto
Maybe I could step in here to try to comment on that.
Most of you here will understand that at the level of the states in the United States today, California's Pavley bill has now been passed into law and is looking for a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over a fairly short time scale. At the level of the states, both on the west coast of the United States and in the northeast, individual states are taking strong action, just as individual provinces in Canada are attempting to take strong action.
I think it's about time that in the United States at the federal level and in Canada at the federal level we begin to follow where the grassroots are taking us. There are major steps being taken in the United States and equivalent major steps attempted here in Canada. What we need to have happen is for the federal level to follow the grassroots in this country, as is beginning to happen in others.
7:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
Okay, our time is up.
Mr. Watson, thank you very much.
We've gone through the normal rounds. We have a little less than 25 minutes left, but we have a couple of items to deal with.
Is it the consensus of the committee that we finish there? Okay. I appreciate that.
I want to thank the witnesses.
Professor Stone, Professor Peltier, and, Professor Weaver, thank you very much for the time you spent with us and the dialogue back and forth. I'm sure it's been helpful to the committee.
I hope you enjoyed dinner, and, Dr. Weaver, I hope you enjoy yours, wherever it is.
7:10 p.m.
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria
Thank you very much.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
The briefs that we received will be translated and distributed to committee members.
Thank you all, again.
We have a motion to deal with.
Mr. Cullen, I believe the motion is yours.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thanks, Chair.
I'll wait until our other committee members are aware. That's all right, we'll just pass the motion while they're busy.
7:10 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
The main thing concerns the February 26 meeting. If committee members will look at it, we have FCM. From the clerk, I believe Équiterre is almost certain, but we can't get a hold of Camco. Then on March 1 we have only two witnesses again.
The motion essentially puts the March 1 meeting up to the February 26 meeting. Similar to tonight, I suspect that we'll be able to get through both of those, but even faster.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
Okay. I'll just point out that for the March 1 meeting, there are two confirmed and three unconfirmed—
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
—but there's a good possibility that we will have at least one or more of those.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
The underlying intention is that as we've been asking witnesses to bring their clause-by-clause recommendations—I'm not sure how many the committee members have been seeing, but I haven't seen tons—I'm quite eager to move to the amendments of this issue, rather than discussing it further.
As valuable as tonight's testimony was, I want to get to the solutions. I want to get to changing this bill.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes, I move the motion:
That the witnesses scheduled to be heard on Thursday, March 1, 2007 be heard from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Monday, February 26, 2007.
7:10 p.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
First of all, I'm not opposed to the motion, except that you have to consider the fact that some witnesses haven't yet been confirmed for the 26th. Is that in fact the case? Are we to understand that at least two witnesses haven't confirmed?
February 19th, 2007 / 7:10 p.m.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Chad Mariage
Yes, that's the case, Mr. Bigras.
For the moment, Équiterre has more or less confirmed that it's coming. As I explained earlier, only the confirmation form remains to be completed.
We had trouble contacting the Camco people. We tried to get an answer; we contacted them, but they didn't answer us. That makes things a bit more difficult.
Right now, we're missing confirmation for one witness; the other witness has more or less confirmed. Confirmation only has to be made official.
7:10 p.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
So that would mean that, if we agreed to Mr. Cullen's motion, we might have more than five witnesses around the table.
7:10 p.m.
The Clerk
I believe Mr. Cullen's motion will result in two separate meetings being held. We'll have one meeting from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. to hear the witnesses whose names are on the list. Then we'll hear the witnesses on tax initiatives from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
7:10 p.m.
The Clerk
I believe that's the gist of the motion.