Environment Committee on Dec. 11th, 2006

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

No, no, no.

Government is responsible for setting up the regulations and identifying the allocation of trading permits, but no government needs to purchase those permits on behalf of the private sector, which is—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

That's not what's being suggested.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

No. There's no need for taxpayer money to be involved. That's what was suggested by the last government.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

They were wrong on many counts on this file. There's no argument there.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

The Canada Reduction Emissions Agency was exactly that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We are going to go on to Mr. Warawa, please.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

I'll be sharing my ten minutes, with Mr. Vellacott first and then with Mr. Watson. I'll take the first three or four minutes.

I want to congratulate you first of all for your announcement last week regarding the chemical management plan and also the hydrogen buses—further evidence that the government is actively doing things—and also the past announcements on enhancing and encouraging the use of public transit, on prevention of release of over ten tonnes of mercury, and also encouraging the promotion of renewable ethanol and biodiesel fuels, and also reducing the sulphur content in fuels.

I want to ask you some questions about your visit to Kenya, to Nairobi. I heard a number of wonderful things that resulted from that.

Minister, can you share with the committee your views on why working with the UN process, such as your recent conference in Nairobi, was so important?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Absolutely.

As you know, there are two separate groups with which we work, one within the conference of the parties, and there's also the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

We've said a number of times that the number of members within the Kyoto Protocol has to expand, because as you know at this point, the number of countries with targets for emissions reductions only account for 30%. As you know, emissions in countries such as India, China, and the developing world are rising, so countries such as Canada will have even less impact, in terms of reducing global warming.

There were a number of things that happened—I spoke to a few of them today—that allowed Canada to secure success and consensus, as a group moving forward, that allowed Canada to feel confident about staying within the Kyoto Protocol. And we saw that there is going to be movement towards expanding this discussion and learning from mistakes made.

There was a consensus on a full review of the Kyoto Protocol for 2008. There was also a consensus that we move forward with looking at how we can get more countries to participate. This was a proposal put forward by Russia, which I and the Canadian delegation took forward, and we were able to secure the support of the EU, Russian, and South African delegation to make sure that we are able to discuss this formally.

This is very important for Canada, because we have said over and over again that these countries can't do it alone. We need to have broader participation, particularly from countries such as the United States, China, and India that do not have targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

Of course, a review is important, because we need to recognize that there are some things that haven't worked, and to recognize the good things that are happening within the United Nations framework, so that we can build on these and move to a more effective global approach.

There were obviously a lot of successes and a consensus reached by all the parties involved.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Minister, Mr. Cullen spoke about intellectual dishonesty. There were a lot of false statements made that Canada was shunned. In fact, we were very well received. You stayed an extra couple of days and signed an MOU regarding conservation.

Kenya was very happy to have you there. Thank you for being a good example.

Regarding the comments that Canada was shunned, in fact those were not true.

As the head of the delegation, you carried out a number of bilateral meetings. Could you tell us about those?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

You are up to about four minutes, just to let you know.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Sure.

For obvious reasons, Canada wants to work with our international partners on a lot of the initiatives they're working on. We had meetings with the EU, the U.K., China, India, Korea, the U.S., and New Zealand, and more than anything explained where Canada is at and how we're moving forward, because there was a lot of concern when countries heard that we were 35% above our target. They were concerned about how we were going to move forward.

They were very assured and happy to see that Canada was putting targets in place. When they found out that we had already put a long-term target in place, Sir Nicholas Stern, in particular, with whom I met about his report, was pleased, because his recommendation was that all countries at the conference take on a mid-century target immediately, so that industry and governments can start thinking very long term about where they're going—that the 2012 targets are not sufficient and we have to move way beyond that.

Canada has obviously set a target that was recommended by the national round table. It was very widely researched, which was obviously important to our government, because it had the science to back it up. Over the coming months, we're setting the short- and medium-term targets, and a framework to be able to help industry comply with those targets.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Vellacott, we have four and a half minutes.

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

Minister, you've been very clear—abundantly plain, actually—that Canada's new government will not be spending taxpayer dollars overseas on projects that really don't result in environmental gains or improvements for Canada.

To clarify and confirm, could you please state your position on international emissions trading again for the record?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

I'll state again that there are international programs Canada participates in that we think are very valuable. But we do believe that if taxpayer money is at play and is being invested, we'd like to see third-party verification of the projects we're investing in. Also, if they are projects that are supposed to show emissions reductions, we want to see that they're verifiable emissions reductions and that they actually help towards us reaching our Kyoto target.

As I said, so far what we've seen to date is 1%, 2.6 million tonnes, of reductions, which is 1% of our Kyoto target achieved. There are programs like adaptation programs, which we work with other countries on, that may not see direct emissions reductions. But we have verification that these projects are achieving their intended goal, and we support those, and we'll continue to support those. But we will not use taxpayer money to purchase credits in a way that's not showing any verifiable emissions reductions for Canada or helping us get any closer to reaching our Kyoto target.

The Canada Emission Reduction Incentives Agency that was set up by the former government, which in the last budget was a $1 billion undertaking solely for the purchasing of credits--this was not an investment vehicle, it was a purchasing vehicle--is not something that we will undertake to use.

To speak to Mr. Cullen's point, it was the intention of the previous government to set up an artificial market for trading by using taxpayer dollars to facilitate the buying and selling of credits both on the international market and the domestic market. We think we can create a viable trading system that's market based, and industry can participate in it obviously, but the government's role is to regulate and identify tradeable units. But we have no reason to be involved in subsidizing a market like that with taxpayers' money. We wouldn't take those kinds of risks with taxpayers' dollars.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Minister. I've enjoyed listening to your testimony today. Some of our colleagues probably haven't; they've been conducting some media interviews in the committee room while you've been talking, but I found your testimony quite interesting, actually.

When the public is listening about Kyoto, there are essentially two things we're talking about. First, there's the looming target and timeline, which the environment commissioner herself has rejected. Many witnesses at this table have rejected it as unattainable, set without analysis, and yet the opposition wants to foolishly handcuff us to it, notwithstanding the fact that we've only achieved 1% of our target.

The second thing we talk about with Kyoto is the international dialogue through the United Nations. So it's entirely consistent to be against the first and yet participate vigorously in the latter. You've told us about working within the UN process. Can you tell us a little bit about why it's important to work through other international fora beyond the Kyoto framework?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

As you know, there are a number of different dialogues that are happening around the world. Canada participates with the G-8. Our chair went to that meeting, the Gleneagles dialogue on climate change. There's also the Asia-Pacific Partnership. One of the interesting things about the Asia-Pacific Partnership is that there are members in the partnership that have taken on, whether they be voluntary or not, some targets for reductions of both air pollution and greenhouse gases, or have shown promise to do that. Those are countries like China, whose environmental record obviously many people around the world are increasingly concerned about.

What we're seeing from countries like China under the Asia-Pacific Partnership is there's a willingness to come to the table as an equal, which is not the case in the Kyoto Protocol. I think the important thing for Canada to do is to leave the door open and to participate in as many international dialogues as we can so that we can obviously show Canadians that we're actively pursuing the promotion of these kinds of dialogues, but also encouraging our international partners to take on more effective action. Canada has a very onerous target. We know that. It would cost us billions and billions of dollars and international credits to meet that target. But we clearly stated to the international community that we're on-board, that we are working towards getting in place a framework that will show clear domestic action, which will align us with our international partners, and align us with our international policy so that we aren't where we were when we took over, which is at 1% closer to our Kyoto target. After thirteen years, and years after signing the Kyoto Protocol, that's unacceptable to Canadians.

I hope this committee and Canadians start to focus on the debate that needs to be had in this country, which is what is achievable for Canada, put in place a new Kyoto framework, set emissions reduction targets pronto, as soon as we can, and have that honest dialogue with industry about the important reductions they need to make. I think they're ready for that. They're willing to be at the table to do that. We need to work as a Parliament to make sure we show that we have unity on this issue; otherwise industry will get the best of us, and they will divide and conquer us, and we will end up in the same place we were for the last however many years, without any new targets and without any action to reduce greenhouse gases.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you very much, Minister, for being here.

I know some of the members have indicated that they have further questions. If they could send those through the chair, we will get them to you. I'm sure you'd be happy to answer, through the chair, any other questions that might be asked.

Thank you very much.

We'll see you at 3:30.

The meeting is adjourned.