Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on Feb. 8th, 2007

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Could we have an emissions trading market under CEPA?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Not as effectively.

If CEPA was the great answer, we wouldn't see this chart going the wrong way because the government could have acted. But the government didn't act. We have a different approach, and the approach is that instead of that number going up, it's to go down.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

So should Bill C-30 fail, God forbid, the government would not use CEPA to regulate, to put forward what many have suggested?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I am not coming here to press for passage of this important piece of legislation and to talk about failure in my opening statement. I don't think failure is an option. I think Canadians want us to act.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

My final question is this. By the nature of your answers on international mechanisms, I'm not sure you fully understand what I understand to be the United Nations clean development mechanism, which is entirely different from what you've been describing. The clean development mechanism deals with additionality. If you don't make the investment that produces the reduction, you don't get credit for it.

If I have misunderstood this, would you give us a critique of the government's understanding of the clean development mechanism or the verification mechanism of the clean development mechanism? Perhaps there's something I have failed to understand in your continual references to something that isn't in there.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Our bottom line is very simple. We're not going to take $5 billion or $10 billion of Canadian taxpayers' money and spend it on credits abroad. We want to make investments here.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Even if they're verifiable credits and they would save Canadian industry the money that would otherwise be spent?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

If we're going to spend $5 billion, I'd rather see us get the benefits of clean air as well. You can hit two birds with one stone.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

So you reject that part of the Kyoto Protocol that allows for this to occur on a verifiable additionality basis.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

It's a voluntary option, not a mandatory requirement. We don't believe in spending billions of dollars of Canadians' hard-earned tax dollars. The people I work for in Ottawa West—Nepean work hard for their money, and I'm not going to take it and spend it on hot air credits in Russia. Those credits are for past actions that—

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

What do hot air credits in Russia have to do with the clean development mechanism?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

That's one form of compliance. Clean development mechanisms are one and the credits are another. We'd like to make the investments—

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Let's talk about the clean development mechanism. What is the problem with it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I'm sorry, but Mr. Godfrey's time is up.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I'd like to answer it.

My problem with the clean development mechanism is that, for taxpayers' dollars, I would rather take the money, spend it in Canada, and also make our air cleaner. I use the example of the coal-fired generating station. We could take money and spend it abroad and then we'd get no benefit for clean air. But if we make the investment here in Canada, we get the twin benefit of clean air. Clearly, we see clean air as a priority and the official opposition doesn't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Mr. Paradis, please.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

The last time you said I made it up, and I gave you specific quotes for all my statements.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Mr. Baird, we've moved on.

Mr. McGuinty, Mr. Paradis has the floor, please.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I also understand, Mr. McGuinty, that Mr. Dion was elected right there, and you became the adviser to the Liberal government on climate change.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Mr. Paradis.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you for being here, Minister.

First of all, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this week we saw Quebec expert Claude Villeneuve, who said that, as things are, it would be impossible to attain the first stage of Kyoto targets, given that the previous government had done nothing. So, one way of phasing out would be to buy carbon credits outside the country. I have noted your position on this issue and I'm glad to see you're opposed to it.

Now, I would like to congratulate you on your ecoENERGY initiative, launched with your colleague Minister Lunn recently. I think we should talk about it a little bit.

If I understand correctly, the ecoENERGY program comprises three components. The first component is research and I see that you have targeted a series of projects. So, instead of trying to do two things at the same time, we are targeting projects to complete them properly. The second component of the ecoENERGY program, renewable energy, makes way for new forms of energy like biomass and solar energy. Both are very important to Quebec, particularly solar energy, on which a great deal of research is underway. The third component is retrofit, focusing on homes and small businesses. In addition, we should point out that more money would be returned to consumers—90 cents instead of 50 cents. I would like to congratulate you wholeheartedly on this initiative.

First of all, I would like to hear any additional comments you may have on the initiative.

Secondly, I would like to know how you see Canada's future role at the international level, with regard to Kyoto, now that we are so close to the post-2012 era?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

First of all, I would say that my efforts as minister and the efforts of this government consist in taking more action in a short period. It is very important for Canadians to see that tangible action is being taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so that we have real results in improving air quality.

It's also very important to look at what the world will look like post-Kyoto. That is our second goal. Canadians do not want new studies about what we have to do in the future. We want to prepare for tangible action, today and this year, and Bill C-30 will give us that opportunity for tangible action. We are working on this very hard and making every effort.

In my view, it is very important for Canada to take on a more important role in the international effort. I know that G-8 countries and the five other major countries have worked a great deal on the issue. In my view, this is a good opportunity for Canada to speak up and demonstrate leadership. This week, I heard former US Vice-President Al Gore say that he could see what was going on in Canada and he was very happy about it. That is good news, but it will only be good news if we take tangible action. And that is what the rest of the world wants us to do.

Our commitment for the future is all very well, it is indeed very important, but we want tangible action here in Canada. In the future, we will make every effort in order to arouse interest in countries like China, India, the US and some parts of Europe in making efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In my view, as soon as we implement our action plan in Canada, we will achieve a better leadership position worldwide in the short term, because over the past ten years our voice has not been heard. All we have to do is look at the figures.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

If I understand your meaning, Minister, today it would be important to encourage Canadians to use the programs I mentioned earlier. And for the first time in Canada's history, mandatory measures will be imposed on both industry and individuals if Bill C-30 is passed. Is this correct?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

The provisions in Bill C-30 that follow through with concrete short-term targets in the industrial sector are tremendously important.

About 30 Canadian scientists worked on the international report that was released last weekend. By the way, half of them are federal public servants working in the Canadian government in departments such as mine, Fisheries and Oceans, or Natural Resources.

I had the opportunity to meet with two of them, who are the lead authors, and I asked, what would you do? Their first report was advice to policymakers. I read it and asked them, what would you do? What do you think is called for? They said, two things: one is science and the other is cultural change. As Canadians, we all have to accept different attitudes.

We had very different attitudes when it came to smoking in public or on airplanes 30 or 40 years ago. We also had very different attitudes with respect to drinking and driving. It was socially acceptable. As Canadians, we have to take different attitudes in terms of how we use energy and conduct ourselves.