Madam Chairman, it is certainly an opportunity to speak at a take note debate. This is the largest audience that I have ever seen at this type of a debate. I recall my first take note debate when we were talking on Bosnia. It was probably the second week I was here. There were two members in the House for that debate. This is a huge turnout. Obviously this method is working better.
I have a lot of industry and natural resources in my constituency. A $7 billion expansion was just completed to our petrochemical industry. We have a pork plant capable of processing something like 20,000 hogs per day, most of it shipped to Japan.
About 70% of my constituency is urban high tech. The future of our community is very dependent on industry and on natural resources. There are 11 quarter sections of land under housing development. There is massive growth and we can just barely keep up. There is zero unemployment. This is a good news story from our area. We of course have the Alberta advantage with low taxes and that which goes with that.
I want to put a little emphasis tonight on an issue that I am most concerned with and that is the environmental implications of so much that we do, whether we talk about urban or rural development or whether we talk about industry and natural resources.
A speaker a long time ago talked about Syncrude. I worked on the Syncrude project before there was a Syncrude and was part of an environmental study which was done when it was just a pristine environment. One of the earlier speakers implied that there was no environmental concern, but I for one know because I worked there for about three years doing an environmental impact. It was done and that was a long time ago.
I want to talk about three things. I would like to talk about Kyoto, air and air pollution and water. Those are three resources that we should be particularly concerned about and that we should have a lot to say about.
I will speak briefly on Kyoto because it is a huge issue and obviously we would need a number of nights to really get into the Kyoto deal. I think it was doomed from the beginning. I do not think anybody really disagrees that climate change is occurring. The impact that humans are having on that is scientifically debatable. That again is another issue.
The process was doomed because of lack of consultation and a lack of planning. The government did not do its job properly. I am talking about this government and a number of others. Kyoto one was doomed from the beginning. It could not possibly work.
All of us should learn a lesson when we talk about natural resource development or concerns about consultation and communication with the people, industry and the provinces. That is what we have to do but I feel we have not done that.
What is the good news about Kyoto? The good news is that at least now we are aware that there is a problem. Canada now has the opportunity to show some leadership to the world to move on and involve China, India and Brazil, those industrialized countries that were not part of Kyoto one. Let us let them leapfrog in terms of technology. Let us sell them technology that would not allow them to have air pollution if they went through all the steps we did.
There is a lot we can do and encourage. We can encourage alternate energy. We can do all those things. We must make decisions about tradeoffs that we will have to make. The worst way to handle this would be for a government on high to come down with a carbon tax or with some kind of oppressive decision against energy in order to try and force conservation on people. People will buy into it. People will co-operate. The people of Calgary are buying into wind energy. It costs more but they are buying it and are proud of it. There is any number of new office towers in Calgary, most of them are heated with solar energy. They have solar collectors on the roof. That is the kind of thing government can encourage by tax breaks, by research and development. There is so much we can do, so let us not lament about Kyoto.
I really believe the Canadian government is doing a reasonable job of saying that we have to have sinks and that we have to have all of these or we cannot agree. When I was with the minister at the G-8 environment minister's conference it was obvious to me that the government understood the next step that we had to take. Now we need to communicate that to the people and to the people in the House, and we need to discuss it openly. Maybe we need to have another take note debate on Kyoto and what we do about that.
Second, all Canadians are concerned about air quality. The people of southern Ontario and of the Fraser Valley are concerned. Let me tell the House something that is happening with resource development and it is that we should think about because it has happened in Ontario and now it is happening in B.C.
There is a power shortage in California but California does not want to have energy plants there because they pollute. God knows, it has to protect the air in California because there are problems. It now has legislation because it had referenda which said it had to take care of its air.
Washington state wants to get the profit by selling energy to California but it does not allow high tension power lines over places where people live.
What is the good idea? It is to build Sumas 2, 3, 4 and 5 or actually 12 power plants within 500 yards of the British Columbia-Washington border. Why is that such a good idea? They would take Alberta gas. They would have wind blows north. They could run the power lines down the centre of Abbotsford and the high tension power lines could be taken out to the coast and run down to California. It would be the perfect situation. California would get the energy without having to have the power plants. Washington would get the profit without having to have the pollution. Of course we would get the high tension power lines, the pollution and we would make the Fraser Valley the number one most polluted place in Canada instead of southern Ontario. Southern Ontario would become second and Fraser Valley would become number one.
Those are the kinds of things that we cannot let happen. We cannot let energy development go that way. I phoned our consul in Seattle, a former Liberal member from Newfoundland who is a good friend and a good guy. He said that they could not interfere with what foreign governments did. However, we can damn right interfere with what foreign governments do if it is going to blow that air into our area.
We need to work together. If we are talking global energy, then let us talk global energy. I say the government is not standing up for those people in the Fraser Valley. I am really concerned about that, so are the people of Abbotsford and the people of that area. The people of Ontario should be concerned as well because the same thing could happen there. We could literally put power plants right along the whole border as long as the winds were blowing the right way. Let us be concerned about that. Let us talk about that. No matter what we are doing, whether it is agriculture, energy or natural resources, we have to think about the environment.
I started out as an environmentalist. I trained as a biologist and now I am back full circle talking about the environment again. We need to talk about the environment in this place.
Third, water will be our most important nature resource of the future and again the government needs to take leadership. What do we need to do? We need to know what we have as a resource. We have never mapped our aquifers. We do not know how much water we really have. We do not know if we are on a positive or negative input for that water. We do not know whether we are draining our aquifers, whether they are being replaced or whether they are positive or negative. That is easy. The science is there. We know how to do that. Many parts of the world have done that.
We need to do an inventory of our lakes and streams. We need to consider the ecological impacts when we change or divert water from one place to another. We need to talk about that openly. The government needs to communicate that openly. Then we need to make decisions. That is how we handle water. I encourage the government to consider that and to communicate that to people as an important resource.