Environment Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

Evidence of meeting #8 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was targets.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Bill C-377, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Aldyen Donnelly President, Greenhouse Emissions Management Consortium

Matthew Bramley Director, Climate Change, Pembina Institute

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Jack Layton NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

I believe it will be a very difficult world.

It's perhaps evident from what has been happening in some of our cities. I live in Toronto. The heat waves we've been experiencing over the last number of years are becoming killer heat waves. We've had to institute heat alerts—something we never would have thought of years ago—not just for people who are homeless, but for seniors in their little rooms who can't afford an air conditioner. We're facing the consequences of the temperature change that also produces accelerated smog, so there are more diseases that people are going to experience.

Mostly, though, I worry about when the big changes start to happen: when the sea level really does start to rise. I know some of you may have looked at the computer projections. There are some Canadian scientists who have the best acknowledged projections in the world.

In a way, of course, the sea is the last part of the earth to warm. The sea is three kilometres deep, on average, and covers 77% of the planet's surface. Once it starts to heat up there are going to be very big changes, not the least of which is the increasing level of the sea. It won't be a few inches or a few centimetres; it's going to be quite a bit more significant. That's going to mean that a lot of people around the world--including many Canadians who are on the shoreline--in those low-lying deltas of the great rivers of the world, where the civilizations have assembled, are going to experience a dramatically reduced capacity to produce food as those sea levels rise. Those people are going to look at the way others are living around the world and they're going to start asking some pretty serious questions.

I represent a community that has a lot of the Bengalis who have come to Canada. About 40,000 Bengalis live right near my riding. They've just had one of the most devastating cyclones ever, and most of their country is in one of those low-lying areas.

If we get beyond the tipping point with some of the predictions that are out there, these are the kinds of countries that will simply not be livable anymore. And where are those people going to go? They're going to ask questions, and we could be in line for some very serious social and political instability, the likes of which we really haven't seen before.

On the other hand, I believe that if we take dramatic and strong action—it has to be dramatic and it has to be strong—we can avoid much or maybe all of this. This is what we have an obligation to do, especially those of us who are in the richest, most successful country in the world.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Thank you.

There are many, particularly government members, who suggest that the economic costs are so tremendous that at this point in time--and I'm paraphrasing--it would be economically crippling to this generation to take the steps necessary to save future generations. What do you say about that choice, that it's either the environment or the economy but not both?

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Jack Layton NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

I guess it was Robert Kennedy who said the economy is a subset of the environment. You can't have a functioning economy if there's big trouble in the environment.

My dad, who was a Conservative member of this Parliament many years ago, put up solar systems in the late sixties. He was involved in putting up some of the first wind turbines in P.E.I. and the Gaspé. He and my brother invented a hybrid car, imagine that, something he tried to convince Ford to pick up on in the seventies after the big oil crisis. Unfortunately, the price of gas had fallen back, and nobody was interested any more. Instead, the Japanese got the idea, and now everybody is buying their cars.

If we'd been out ahead of it.... We've got the Canadian minds that can be in front. There's a company now in Ontario that has one of the best solar photovoltaic-cell-producing technologies in the world. Guess where they're going to build their first big plant? They're going to build it in East Germany. Why? Because the Germans have a policy to purchase solar electricity and to have it installed on buildings and to have utilities be required, in renewable portfolio standard regulations, to purchase it, and that creates a sufficient market. They decided to put it in a high unemployment area in East Germany because they thought they could help a struggling economy.

To me, that's an example of how, if we took a different view of the economy and the new energy futures that are in front of us that we could build together, we could build a much stronger economy.

I'll close with one example. For six years I had the privilege of being the vice-chair of the fourth or fifth largest utility business in Canada. Our most profitable sector per dollar of capital invested was helping people buy less of our electricity. We made far more money helping them renovate their homes and their buildings through the Better Buildings Partnership my firm helped design. We made far more money doing that and created a lot more work in Toronto than we did by selling electrons.

I think the possibilities are enormous. Why is it that all our kids and our technical workers are having to get on planes and fly out to Fort McMurray to work in the energy sector? So much so that there aren't enough of them and we're having to fly them in from all around the world. Why not work on energy down at Mrs. Smith's house by helping her renovate her home so she doesn't have to pay the heating bills and create some construction work and create a revolving fund like we had the opportunity to be involved in at the FCM and other places? There are solutions. This is something that can help the economy.

The last fundamental principle: inefficiency is bad for business. What we're doing right now with energy is unbelievably inefficient.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Further, as we speak, in Bali the government is suggesting the large emitters, the polluters, India, China, Brazil, and they've even said the Americans, have to be on board. Unless all these big entities are on board, they're not interested in your bill or the committee bill or anything else. They're not prepared to do anything, arguing why should we do something in isolation and hurt ourselves economically while those who are doing all the polluting aren't doing anything? Why would we do that to ourselves? Their argument would be, we ignore this bill until that gets straightened out and everybody else jumps on board.

How would you respond to what's happening in Bali now with that position?

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Jack Layton NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

First, I would say it's not leadership. The old principle was to lead by example, and if what we're saying is that we're not going to follow, or respect, or adopt any real targets to reduce our emissions that are serious unless other people do, that doesn't give you the credibility on the world stage to call on others to bring these rules into place. That's number one.

Number two, I think, frankly, the position of the Chinese and these other countries is not being represented accurately. From what I know about what's happening in...just take China for example; they're already investing $10 billion in renewable energies. Are we doing anything close to that, even though we have a very large and successful economy? I'm given to understand that the eighth richest man in China has one basic business: manufacturing photovoltaic cells.

It looks to me as though we're in the process of missing a boat here. We may all need photovoltaics on the roofs of our houses, and I think we should do that as quickly as we possibly can, but I'd prefer they were manufactured here. But if we don't get started on the innovations that are required, we're going to miss out on that opportunity and we'll simply be importing them from China, and we'll be getting the heat for our houses and the electricity for our appliances from there, through the photovoltaic cells we buy.

I also think the principle of “differentiated” responsibilities has been adopted from day one. If I'm not mistaken, I heard our own Minister of the Environment using that exact word in an interview within the last 24 hours. So it looks to me like this was a straw man from the beginning and the finger was being pointed at the so-called big polluters.

Is there a lot of pollution emanating from China? Yes. There are 1.3 billion people there. Some of them would prefer to live with maybe an electric light bulb. I've visited many of the communities in the poor parts of China that don't have an electric light bulb; they're simply burning the wood they can gather on the floor of the little hut. Yes, they'd like to have a light bulb.

Here we are, wagging our finger at them, while we are polluting at a rate unsurpassed, pretty well, on the globe. On a per capita basis, we're in the top four. I've always believed the best way to convince people to do something you believe is right is to start doing it yourself.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Australia, with the change in government, signed Kyoto. Some critics have said, well, that was easy for them to do; they have only a couple of little toddler steps to take and then they'll be able to meet their targets.

Should Canada have signed Kyoto, and if so, how do we deal with the fact that, thanks to previous governments' inaction and the current government's inaction, we will not be able to physically meet Kyoto? Should we sign on anyway, and if so, why?

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Jack Layton NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

Actually, we have signed on. The question would be, are we taking out the whiteout and taking our name off the document, if I could rephrase your question? I don't think we should, because I think we did this in good faith with an enormous amount of support from Canadians. I believe Canadians want us to be part of this process.

Does it mean there will be some penalties because we didn't make the grade? Yes. Should we negotiate how those penalties are to be addressed with the other countries and show them how we'll take the next steps? Yes, we should.

Someone could correct me here, but it might well be that if we were to take out the whiteout, we'd be the only country to have actually walked away from the commitment. The Australians never actually signed but decided to sign in terms of Kyoto itself.

I think that would be a very sad day. I regard the 10th anniversary of Kyoto as an optimistic day, because I think more and more people want to see action taken. They're taking it in their own lives. People in communities all over the country are doing wonderful things. The question is, are we as a Parliament going to get behind them and encourage them with some goals and targets that can really allow people to reach a little higher? It's a little like you do if you're coaching a group of young people; you're always trying to get them to go a little higher.

I think of the people who thought about connecting one end of the country to the other with a railroad. Do you think they had it all figured out as to how they were going to pull it off? Do you think they had figured out how they were going to pay for it all? Did they do it perfectly? The answer to all those things would be no, but they had a dream about where they wanted our country to be, and they took on the impossible and they focused on it.

We do it at wartime. We've done it at different times in our history. We've done it when we've taken on certain kinds of projects, with a sense of Canadian pride and can-do attitude. I think we can do it here. I'm absolutely convinced we can.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Bob Mills

Mr. Warawa.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to be sharing my time with Mr. Watson.

Thank you, Mr. Layton, for being here. Your closing comments were that on the anniversary of Kyoto, Canadians and citizens globally want more action. We've had a decade of a lot of rhetoric, but the action has been dismal. We find ourselves 33% above the Kyoto target that Canada signed on to.

This government has taken that bull by the horns, so to speak. We have the toughest regulations and hard targets Canada has ever committed to: a 20% reduction by 2020 and a 60% to 70% reduction by 2050. They're some of the toughest targets in the world, but definitely the toughest in Canada.

You've repeatedly said that your plan is science-based. The last analogy used was the railway. They really didn't know how they were going to do it, but they had the heart and they made it happen. So that's my angle of questioning for you. You said it's science-based, but you've been very general. It sounds like, like the railway, you don't know how you're going to do it, but you're going to do it.

My first question is, have you costed your plan?