Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on Feb. 5th, 2007

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Just to be clear, because I'm not sure it was entirely clear through the discussions, right now, at this point, there are not ascribed to that notice of intent any actual targets. The minister has yet to articulate those, correct? I mean in terms of long-, medium-, short-term targets for any industry. At this point, those are yet to be ascribed.

[John Moffet]

The notice of intent outlines a long-term national target of between 45% and 65% national reductions by the year 2050.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

But in terms of near-term targets, say within the Kyoto period or the medium-term period, those are yet to be articulated, correct?

[John Moffet]

Correct.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Okay.

I would just like to re-establish that on January 1, 2008, for large final emitters there were in fact regulations to come in place, and that now we do not have any reduction targets for that date. In other words, we did, and now we don't.

[John Moffet]

The previous government was in the process of developing regulations: is that the question?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Well, that they were to come into force on January 1, 2008.

[John Moffet]

They weren't yet law—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I appreciate that, because we're no longer in government.

[John Moffet]

—so they weren't coming into force. But that was the projection.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Right.

I also wanted to establish that Kyoto came into effect in 2004. Is that correct?

[John Moffet]

Internationally, yes.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

The international agreement came into force in 2004.

[John Moffet]

Yes.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

So certainly it would be unfair to characterize that there were 10 years of not acting on Kyoto, if it came into force in 2004. Again, that's a rhetorical question, I know.

[John Moffet]

I'll leave it to the members of the committee to make that characterization.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

The other point I would make is about indoor air quality. I come back to this, because I think this is an incredibly important point for the purposes of our process. Indoor air quality can already be regulated, and I don't disagree that it may be a nice augmentation. We talk about definitions and maybe increasing them. Greenhouse gases, by definition, are already listed as toxic substances. It would be fair to say that these augmentations will maybe slightly enhance our ability to meet targets should we choose to go after them, but really, in large part, those are already there.

You agree with that statement, I presume.

[John Moffet]

I'm not sure what the statement was; I'm sorry.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

It's that what is in front of us may slightly improve our ability to get whatever targets we were going to be able to achieve, but in actual fact, the vast majority of the tools we need to meet our targets are already in place in CEPA, in existing legislation.

[John Moffet]

I'd like to be very clear here. I appreciate that members are trying to characterize what the bill is. My colleagues and I are here to tell you what the bill does. I think it's up to you to characterize it.

Is it a slight improvement? Is it a worthwhile improvement? Is it a waste of time? Those are conclusions for you to draw. We can tell you what the bill does and what it doesn't do, and that's all we can tell you.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Manning.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just as a follow-up, we signed on to Kyoto in 1997. Is that correct?

[John Moffet]

I think that's right.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

So from 1997 until 2004, even though it didn't come into effect until 2004, we had seven years, pretty well, to start acting, as a government and a people, on the Kyoto Protocol.

Wouldn't it be a fair statement to say that somebody didn't grab the ball and run with it for seven years, so trying to straighten it all out in two years kind of makes this a bit more strange? We're throwing out a lot of “fair statements” here, so I'm just wondering if that would be one.