Environment Committee on March 3rd, 2008

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

My understanding is that Mr. Bigras is removing his amendment, and he was going to be....

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

He's concluding with a slightly different wording.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

My understanding, though, is that he is asking for a friendly amendment to Mr.—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

No, this is his amendment.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

So it isn't amending. He's just changing the wording.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

He's just changing—

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

He's being friendly to himself, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

So he's not removing it; he's amending his amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

He's amending his amendment. He's friendly amending his amendment.

Go ahead, Mr. Vellacott.

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

So then paragraph (b) still reads, at the end of that: “with meeting the commitment made under section 5 and the interim Canadian greenhouse gas”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That stays, yes.

We're coming back to that, because now we'll deal with the NDP. But right now we're just talking about Mr. Bigras' amendment, and his amendment adds to subclause 9(c).

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

It would then read: “making, amending or repealing the necessary regulations under this or any other Act” in conformity--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

It would be in conformity with clause 7.

Mr. Vellacott.

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

Again, I just wanted to make the point that in our Turning the Corner plan, we, I think, have set the tone for developing a global framework for climate change and for positioning Canada to be a leader, actually, in respect of that by achieving that 20% reduction from 2006 levels by 2020 and a 60% to 70% reduction by 2050.

So I think again, for the sake of the record, we need to make plain where our party has stood. Well in advance of this bill or any other coming forward, we have been moving on these things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Vellacott.

Are there any other comments?

So we're voting, then, on the amended BQ-3.

(Amendment agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We're now, then, on NDP-3, which is on page 14.

I will ask Mr. Cullen to speak to that, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

This clause refers back quite a bit to clause 7 in general. In terms of laying out those targets, this is the clause that now talks about how it is that government goes about achieving these targets. We wanted to tighten up a couple of pieces in the legislation on this. One is with respect to the timelines. Well in advance of where the government is headed, it has to report back to the Canadian public as to what achievements have been made and then declare itself with respect to its next target.

This is an accountability measure, again, as we've seen in other amendments we've made, that's been lacking. A lot of these changes are going to flow from the now adopted changes we've made in clause 7, and committee members can look through the rest.

There's one shorter timeline for the first target date. That's because we're now into 2008. But subsequent to that, there's a healthy amount of notice for the Canadian public to see--whatever the government of the day, whatever its political stripe--that this is what the law requires them to publish and to then conform their actions to. We think this type of accountability measure is long overdue when it comes to dealing with climate change in this country.

That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

As you can see, then, we are adding a section to this, as you read it, which has been explained by Mr. Cullen.

Go ahead, Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Chair, regarding this amendment from Mr. Cullen, as was already pointed out by Mr. Vellacott, the government, in its Turning the Corner plan, has historically the toughest targets in Canadian history. We provide international leadership. Those targets are a 20% reduction of 2006 levels by 2020. That's only 12 years from now, Mr. Chairman. Those are dramatic: 150 megatonnes. On the long-term targets, the 2050 targets, they're reductions of 60% to 70%. Again, these are some of the toughest in Canadian history.

Our government is committed to meaningful consultations with its partners. It'll take the appropriate time to gather the best information available, working with other levels of government—that's already happening—as well as with industry and individuals, to develop regulations. So it's already happening in a very realistic way.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Warawa.

Mr. Godfrey is next.

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

I have two very picky points. I notice that we now list this amendment as (2), so I assume that we would have to go back into the text and put a (1) beside (a) because--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

There's an editorial problem there, and that would be fixed during--

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

Then the other slight picky thing--I'm trying to be like Mr. Watson--is that I'm not sure you could just lead off with “regulations” from a grammatical point of view, because the paragraph that leads into this says “fully meets the interim Canadian greenhouse gas emissions targets referred to in section 6 by”, and then you've got subclause (1), and then I'm not sure if you can have “by regulations”? Maybe you could have “by passing regulations” or “creating regulations”, some form of word that is appropriately legislative. Maybe you can have “by regulations”. I don't know.

What do you think? Does it matter? It's a very small grammatical point, but I just wanted to make sure that--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

So we would have subclause 9(1) for what's there, and then we start subclause 9(2) with “Regulations to ensure”. I think that's where the (2) would fit in. We would insert the (1).