Environment Committee on Dec. 7th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Godfrey.

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

I'm not a lawyer. Is Mr. Calkins a lawyer? I'm just asking, because I'm not. I'm just trying to establish the fact that neither he nor I is a lawyer.

The lawyers who are in the room tell me that for this kind of act it is not normally necessary to specify the agency of the law enforcement. It is understood to be the government itself. It is not laid out that it shall be X, Y, or Z. This is standard legal phraseology, but neither Mr. Calkins nor I can comment with any degree of professionalism on this, because we're not lawyers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

My only experience with this has been that in the regulations quite often that is covered in terms of where the fines go, who enforces, and so on. That's just from experience with past bills.

Are there any other comments? Mr. Calkins, did you have a comment? No.

Mr. Harvey, I believe, had a comment.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I have information from Mr. Godfrey. My colleague, Blaine Calkins, may not be a lawyer, but he was an inspector, and he knows what kind of tools he needs to do his job properly. Neither Blaine nor I need a lawyer to see that there are things that just don't work with what is being proposed here.

I understand that you may feel uncomfortable about this proposal, because I am also rather embarrassed about it. But what can we do? This happens to be a place where there are some big holes, just like there are elsewhere in Bill C-288. You are trying to turn this into something political so that you can justify your inaction over the past several years. The fact is we're at +35 per cent now, when we should be at -6 per cent.

So, the answer is yes, but there is nothing right about this clause. I will rely on the experience of Inspector Blaine. He knows what he needs to enforce a regulation, and it isn't there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Are there any other comments on clause 11?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I would like a recorded vote, please.

(Clause 11 agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

(On clause 1--Short title)

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Is there debate on clause 1?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Are we on the preamble or the short title? I believe the preamble would be the first, would it not?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

No. Clause 1 is the first, I'm advised, Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Then after that, the preamble.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Then the preamble is next. Then we'll go to the title, and of course the bill, and reporting of the bill.

Anyway, we're at clause 1.

Mr. Rodriguez, did you want to start this off, or did you want Mr. Warawa to speak?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I'll let Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be speaking on the preamble. As far as the short title goes, it's—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We do clause 1 first, and then—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Well, clause 1 is the short title, as I just said. I will be speaking on the preamble after we deal with this.

On the short title, it says:

This Act may be cited as the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.

That's what we're talking about.

The only point I would make is that it's unfortunate the previous government didn't do what it should have done when it had the opportunity. So this Bill C-288 is mischief. It's trying to make the Liberals appear to care now about the environment, with the support of Bloc members and, unfortunately, the NDP.

Mr. Chair, it's all about optics; it has nothing to do with reality. We heard from the witnesses. Every one of the witnesses, except for one, said this bill is unachievable. We had a scathing report by the commissioner on the previous government for lacking leadership and lacking a plan. We had a scathing report from the witnesses. Yet we're forging ahead with a bill that is not enforceable. Their plan is to spend billions of dollars to buy targets, and there are not enough targets out there—credits they can buy—as we heard as recently as two days ago. So the plan, which has been amended on the fly, is a bad bill.

The Government of Canada has a good bill and will definitely will not be supporting their plan to disrupt and sabotage the plans of the government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Warawa.

Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I have nothing further to add.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Are there any other comments on clause 1? Yes, Mr. Vellacott.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I would say, in summary and in support of what my colleague said, it's pretty obvious to those who heard testimony here over a number of weeks that this dog won't hunt, and I think Mr. Dion, the Liberal leader, knows that as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Are there any other comments on the short title in clause 1?

Yes, Mr. Harvey.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Chairman, in recent weeks, we have heard at least 30 witnesses. Almost as a general rule, the Parliamentary Secretary asked them whether Kyoto targets were achievable or not. I asked them whether we had the technology needed to meet those targets and in what timeframes. We brought experts in the field in from all across Canada. They all told us that it would take four years to make any kind of change.

The results of what the Liberals did is that we now find ourselves at +35 per cent. Our Liberal friends have therefore introduced Bill C-288 to try and detract attention from the bill tabled by my government, the Clean Air Act. Either they want my government's bill to be put on a shelf somewhere or they just are interested in politicking. That's the term we use in Quebec to describe someone who puts his own personal interests ahead of the interests that are supposed to be paramount. Unless we brought all those people here for nothing, we should be able to recognize the fact that the Kyoto targets set by the Liberal government were not only unrealistic and poorly evaluated, but they were also developed on the fly.

In fact, without any embarrassment whatsoever, Liberal members admitted that they had drafted their Kyoto targets on the back of a napkin. But we're talking here about the economy of the whole country. Rather than thinking about getting re-elected and trying to achieve goals that are purely personal, we should be thinking of the interests of all Canadians. Those interests have to come before our personal interests, because we have obligations towards our parents, our grandparents, our children and our grandchildren.

What we are doing here through Bill C-288 is totally unacceptable, not only in my own opinion, but in the opinion of the experts who testified before us. We brought witnesses in from all across the country, which costs thousands of dollars, and the Liberals didn't listen to a single word they said and didn't act on any of their conclusions.

I am a little disappointed, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Are there any other comments on clause 1?

(Clause 1 agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

There is debate on the preamble.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As we now approach the preamble, I sincerely wish I could commend the honourable member for his concerns about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but Bill C-288 doesn't take us in that direction. That being said, the essence of his private member's bill is seriously flawed. We heard that from all the witnesses, except one.

I'd like to take the opportunity to speak on three specific points of the preamble that illustrate the concerns the government has on Bill C-288.

First, the focus of Bill C-288, which is the achievement of Canada's short-term Kyoto target, needs to be examined. Our government has initiated a discussion about what it would mean for Canada to achieve its first commitment period of the Kyoto target. This target can only be achieved within the short period of time remaining by spending over $20 billion of Canadian taxpayers' dollars.

As we heard from a diverse group of witnesses at this committee, it may not even be feasible to buy all the needed credits to reach the short-term target set by the Liberals under the Kyoto Protocol and copied again into Bill C-288.

In the opinion of the government, it would be more appropriate to focus on the economic transformation needed to transform our economy in a way that would lead to more significant and sustained reductions in emissions by investing in improving Canadian energy and urban infrastructure. That's what we need to do.

As Bill C-288 states, Canada's target under Kyoto was 6% below 1990 emission levels. When we took office in early 2006, not that many months ago, domestic greenhouse gas emissions in 2004 were nearly 35% above the Kyoto target for Canada set by the Liberals, according to the latest available figure provided by the officials of Environment Canada.

Our government was forthright that the 2008 to 2012 Kyoto short-term targets cannot be met without spending over $20 billion of Canadian tax dollars to purchase international credits.

One of the witnesses, Jayson Myers, chief economist for the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, calculated that the technological process in reducing emission intensity would have to accelerate by 700% during the next five years to meet Canada's Kyoto target by 2012. Mr. Myers based his estimate on the international price of $20 per tonne, an assumption that he noted may even be low. The actual cost of meeting our short-term target under the Kyoto Protocol would cost considerably more than the $20 billion.

We also heard from Professor Mark Jaccard, head of the Energy and Materials Research Group in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. In a recent C.D. Howe report, he wrote that the previous climate change plan, project green, the Liberal answer to meeting the Kyoto short-term target, would have cost Canadians $12 billion by 2012, with much of that money being spent outside Canada. Professor Jaccard concluded that if Canada were to implement and continue with the previous Liberal plan, Canada would spend at least $80 billion over the next 35 years without reducing greenhouse gas emissions from current levels.

Obviously, Bill C-288 is not a good plan.

This is the crux of the issue. Do we spend billions of Canadian tax dollars internationally to buy international credits, or do we spend Canadian taxpayers' money on improving Canadian energy and Canadian urban infrastructure to reduce both air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions right here in Canada?

Canada's new government is taking a new approach by integrating action on air pollution and climate change to protect the health of Canadians and the global environment. Emissions of smog and acid rain pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions come from many of the same industrial and transportation sources. To be more effective, action needs to be integrated. Regulations that address climate change in isolation could effectively force industries to invest in technologies and processes that address greenhouse gases, while locking in capital stock that continues to emit air pollutants that endanger the health of Canadians--not the best government environmental and economic policy, obviously, Mr. Chairman. This is what Bill C-288 suggests that we do.

For that reason, Canada's new government will establish short-, medium-, and long-term reduction targets for both air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. Our plan will achieve concrete results through mandatory enforceable regulations with short-term, medium-term, and long-term targets. The short-term targets will be announced by spring 2007. Regulations establishing mandatory standards will replace the voluntary approaches that failed in the past. We will ensure that regulations are enforced and their objectives are achieved.

An integrated and coordinated approach for air pollutants and greenhouse gases makes sense because most sources of air pollutants are also the sources of greenhouse gas emissions. By taking action on both, our government will maximize the benefits to Canadians and allow industry to find ways to reduce both air pollutants and greenhouse gases in a way that helps industry maintain its economic competitiveness.

To recap, our opposition to Bill C-288 is related to its unrealistic short-term focus and the massive, ineffective costs that will come with that focus. In our view, it's important to approach the issue in a way that will ensure reductions in the short term, but that will also set the foundation for continued and more significant reductions over the long term.

It's even more important that these funds be spent here at home. Our second fundamental concern with Bill C-288 is that countries with targets now under the Kyoto Protocol account for less than 30% of global emissions—72% of global emissions are not included under the Kyoto Protocol. That's 72%.

For future international cooperation on climate change to be effective, all emitting countries need to do their part to reduce emissions. The emissions target of the Kyoto Protocol, as noted above, cover only 23 countries, plus the 15 members of the European Union taken together. By 2010, developing countries are expected to contribute 45% of global greenhouse emissions, and China and India, together, will experience greater growth in emissions than all OECD countries combined. China alone, in 1996, accounted for over 13% of carbon emissions, second to the United States, and on plausible projections for the two economies, China is expected to reach U.S. emissions levels by 2013. That's not that far away. Effective action cannot be taken by a relatively small group of countries alone.

Finally, the lack of a comprehensive coverage creates only potential problems within the Kyoto Protocol. Economic activities might relocate from countries with greenhouse gas emission ceilings to countries without those ceilings. Through such leakage, even the impact of greenhouse gas concentrations of effective action by the Annex B countries would be reduced. Apart from weakening the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol, such leakage would also involve costly adjustments by workers, firms, and towns that were brought about not by changes in economic efficiency but by a regulatory system with incomplete coverage.

Proponents of the Kyoto Protocol would not deny the fundamental point that key developing countries must eventually participate. They would argue, however, that someone must start the process, and it is natural that the world's richest and most heavily emitting countries do so.

Kyoto is only a first step toward solving the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. We must anticipate what the next step must be. We need to anticipate that. For those covered in Annex B, the natural next step is to lower the emission ceilings now set for 2012, to achieve, for example, 80% of 1990 emissions by 2022. If the Kyoto targets are reached, developing countries, as a group, will have CO₂ emissions equal to those of the Annex B countries by 2013--and growing.

How are these companies to be brought into the Kyoto framework, as they must be, if further impact on a global climate change is to be mitigated? That is why Canada is a major player in the United Nations-led climate change negotiations for longer-term reductions well after the end of the first Kyoto Protocol reporting period of 2012. We've also been clear that Canada will work with other countries to help advance the long-term approach to tackling climate change. Our government's actions at home will be the basis for future international cooperative efforts to address climate change.

Mr. Chair, as I've said before, we've heard from the witnesses that Bill C-288 is not the bill that will adequately address the issue of climate change. We've heard time and time again that it's the government's plan with Bill C-30, the Clean Air Act. Mr. Chair, we need to listen to what the witnesses said. We dare not forge ahead with a bill that has as its sole purpose trying to sabotage what the government is trying to do to clean up the air.

Mr. Chair, we are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Bill C-288 will not do that. The experts have told us it won't work. Bill C-288 will not work, yet we see the Liberals forging ahead and planning on the fly.

Mr. Chair, I think I've made it very clear--I think each of us has--and I think the witnesses have made it very clear that we dare not forge ahead with Bill C-288. I'd ask the members of the Liberal Party, the members of the Bloc Party, and the NDP, please, do not play games. Work together with the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Stop the games, and let's vote against Bill C-288.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Rodriguez.