Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, honourable committee members, thank you very much for inviting us to speak to you today.
The Green Budget Coalition brings together 19 of Canada's leading and most respected environmental and conservationist organizations, including groups such as Ducks Unlimited, Nature Canada, Pollution Probe, and the Pembina Institute.
Our primary role is to develop and promote strategic budgetary recommendations on behalf of the environmental community and to advance the integration of environmental values into federal fiscal policy.
We were very pleased that the 2007 budget made progress in all five of our priority recommendations and also on five of our nine ongoing recommendations, so we do want to thank each of you and your committee for the role you've played in helping make that happen.
I want to make four key points today. First is to emphasize the importance of harnessing the power of Canada's tax system to support Canada's environmental objective, and beyond that, to outline the Green Budget Coalition's three priority recommendations for the 2008 budget. One is on carbon pricing, one is on conserving Canada's treasured oceans and lands, and one is on renewing the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region, which is so important to us.
All of these are detailed in the document we sent to each of you a couple of weeks ago.
To answer the committee's question, the Green Budget Coalition believes the guiding criteria for designing Canada's tax system, beyond funding government programs, should be to harness the power of the incentives and disincentives created by the tax system to serve the federal government's environmental and human health objectives.
We have long depended upon environmental policy to clean up the environmental damage created by our economy, but this damage is exacerbated because market prices do not reflect the full costs of pollution and of depletion of our non-renewable resources.
To make both our economy and our tax system truly work for Canada and for Canadians, fiscal policy, such as taxes and other levies, should be progressively amended to ensure that market prices of goods and services tell the environmental truth. This should be done in two key ways: through greater levies on the extraction and production of non-renewable resources to reflect their true value; and through levies on pollution to reflect the damage caused to human and ecosystem health.
The first step in this direction, and the coalition's first recommendation for Budget 2008, would be to institute a carbon pricing system with a substantive and increasing price level, as Amy Taylor will be describing later.
The Green Budget Coalition also recommends the 2008 budget make two further key investments: take action to conserve Canada's treasured oceans and lands by implementing three existing strategies--establishing Canada's national system of marine protected areas by 2012 and implementing integrated oceans management plans for Canada's oceans; completing Canada's systems in national parks, national wildlife areas, and migratory bird sanctuaries, and ensuring their long-term protection; and improving incentives under the federal agricultural policy framework for protecting ecological goods and services and agricultural lands.
These plans together have been well developed and could collectively be implemented for about $1 billion over five years and $200 million a year after that.
We recommend building upon the government's efforts in the Great Lakes by investing in a comprehensive, long-term sustainability strategy to restore, protect, and enhance the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River region. This region includes one-quarter of Canada's population, creates one-third of Canada's economic output, and also releases 45% of Canada's air pollution.
Our priorities for investment include developing a shared basin-wide vision, upgrading water and waste water infrastructure, and cleaning up and delisting areas of concern and zone d'intervention prioritaire.
The federal funding for this could come substantially from the funding that has already been allocated to the Building Canada Fund and should be matched by provincial and municipal governments.
To conclude, I want to encourage you to focus your committee recommendations on shifting the tax system to provide further incentives to support Canada's environmental and human health objectives. And I urge you to recommend action on carbon pricing, on the conservation of oceans and lands, and in renewing the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region to build upon your actions in Budget 2007.
Thank you.