Chair, I appreciate the patience of the committee and I will try to conclude as quickly as I can.
A point of privilege is very important, and I want to share a couple more quotes before I conclude. James Hughes said:
We think there needs to be an international agreement that includes all countries, including all the major emitters as well.
We heard, Chair, how important it is that we have all the major emitters involved, and we heard that right now under the Kyoto agreement we have 30% of the emitters who are part of the solution. We were told how important it is to have everybody involved, and particularly with the G-8 plus five--remember that?--the idea was, if we had the G-8 plus five committing to accept those reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we'd have 80% of the major emitters involved with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Without having a commitment from all the major emitters, we will not have a solution of reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
We advocate an important role for municipalities, provincial governments, and the federal government. We do our work in that way because different scales of effort matter in different issues. This is certainly one of those areas where that is true, where efforts by some of Canada's big municipalities are important, as well as the efforts of provincial and federal governments.
Chair, I want to take this opportunity to share with the committee what's happening in my riding. I've tried to share that before, but it's very important. In my riding of Langley we have two local governments--the Langley city and the Langley township. The township bought a new building, and it was a building that was only half or three-quarters completed. They put geothermal heating into it. The operational cost for heating and lighting this beautiful new municipal building is incredible.
Each of us can do that. I've made that commitment personally, Chair, to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases our riding office uses, and it's quite interesting. We have fluorescent lighting that we see in this office here, but these are 40-watt light bulbs. You can reduce energy dramatically by changing four light bulbs into the 32-watt--the new technology. And it's been a wonderful privilege to reduce my carbon footprint. Also, the electricity bill for my riding office has dropped dramatically; it costs fewer taxpayers' dollars to heat and light that office. So it's exciting.
We also heard the constitutional problem with Bill C-377 is that it leaves the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions solely to the regulation-making power vested in the executive. That is a big concern. The only direction given to the Governor in Council as to the nature of the regulations is that they must be to carry out the purpose and provisions of this act and to ensure that Canada fully meets its commitment under section 5 targets for 2020, and there are later targets as well.
This extraordinarily broad and sweeping regulation-making power purports to authorize any regulation that would have the effect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Such regulations could potentially reach into every area of Canadian economic and social life. The bill enacts no restrictions as to the kinds of laws that are contemplated or the kinds of activities that can be regulated. Such a sweeping grant of authority to the executive is unprecedented outside of wartime and should be a matter of political concern quite apart from the constitutional issues. Who said that? That was Professor Peter Hogg. I was very, very surprised that this privilege of sharing with the committee, how concerned I was that the Bloc--