Mr. Speaker, at a Liberal fundraising dinner at $325 a plate, the Prime Minister emphasized that Ottawa would not be arriving in Kyoto empty-handed.
But what is going on, really? Canada is the only G-7 country without a specific target to propose at the Kyoto conference.
Has the Prime Minister forgotten that Canada made the commitment at the Rio Summit in 1992 to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000? His government has, moreover, maintained that commitment, particularly by inaugurating a set of voluntary measures in 1995. The outcome: the Royal Society of Canada estimates that, by the year 2000, greenhouse gas emissions will be 9.5% over the 1990 reference level.
This wait-and-see attitude, backed up with virtually no strategy whatsoever, contradicts the Prime Minister's statement that “If we are really concerned about the next century—”