Evidence of meeting #7 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 targets.
A recording is available from Parliament.
February 12th, 2007 / 7:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Can you respond to that one, Mike?
Executive Vice-President, Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Yes, absolutely. It's a major concern in terms of the economic impact.
If you're looking at the kinds of targets we've had for the last number of years as a result of ratifying Kyoto, and I think there is a pretty good consensus that we can't meet those, those would really be punitive. Anything that looked like that would be really punitive to the economy, not only in Ontario but everywhere else.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
What would your direction be to this government, then, with respect to the short-term targets?
Executive Vice-President, Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
I like the idea of saying that as you phase through the process here, as is proposed, you start consulting with people--which has already occurred, it started to occur right after the bill was tabled--you start to understand what people can do in terms of their realities with respect to their own industries in terms of investments and the cycle they're in, and then you start thinking about intensity targets in the short term that you can then ramp up later.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Has the economy already experienced sort of a picking of the low-hanging fruit in industry, or is there still more to be had, and if so, in which sectors?
Executive Vice-President, Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Yes, that's an expression that a lot of people use, and I guess we've used it too. People haven't been doing nothing; people are conscious of the need to invest in their plants. And I think we need some more encouragement in that area, by the way, and there are some tools that are available to governments. But a lot of the easy stuff, quite frankly, has been done, so we're now into the tougher slogging in terms of what needs to be done in the future.
Executive Vice-President, Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Oh, there's no question.
Conservative
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
It's very short, Mr. Chair.
We have a lot of witnesses here, and I'm curious if we could have consensus from the other members that any witnesses who come forward in the future be notified in advance to prepare suggested amendments to the legislation. Because we have such a short timeframe, I'm worried about that, and I think a lot of the things that were mentioned today by the witnesses would be very helpful. So I think that would be good.
As well, I would like to ask if one particular document that was referred to before could be provided to the clerk and sent around.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I appreciate it.
And receiving possible amendments beforehand, as I am sure everybody else would....
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
Yes, and I'm informed the chair does provide that as part of the instructions when witnesses come, that if they have amendments, we'd appreciate those.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
But to ask for those amendments would be helpful.
Conservative
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I think it's a great idea to get witnesses to submit amendments beforehand, but recognizing the way we group the witnesses, it may not be appropriate to speak about those amendments because they may be on another subject.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
Yes, it's an option for the witnesses.
I believe that we have obtained a great deal of useful information.
I would like to thank all of the witnesses.
Mr. Jaccard, thank you very much for your long-distance testimony.
I will just say that for tomorrow, Ms. Vicki Arroyo of the PEW Center on Global Climate Change, her mother has had a serious heart attack, and she will not be with us tomorrow morning. So we wish her and her mother very well. Her remarks are going to come with Mr. John Drexhage, so we'll have the two tomorrow. We'll probably give both witnesses a bit more time for comments before we get to questioning.
Other than that, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much.