Madam Speaker, I should point out that I always enjoy the questions from the member for Yukon. They are very well thought out.
On the questions about any benefits or cost savings from Kyoto, the fact of the matter is that with the lack of a credible plan by the federal government, that is very hard to answer.
Part of the issue, and I want to raise this in response to the question, is that many companies such as Suncor, have already made some dramatic reductions in their emissions intensity. They have already done so because it is in their economic interest to try to release as little as energy as possible in their economic process.
I toured the oil sands this summer and they said over and over again that they are working to reduce their emissions intensity. The problem is that the emissions are up overall because production is up so much. If they want to cut their emissions as a gross total, they will have to ramp down their production by 20% to 30%. We could allow them time to reduce their emissions, particularly Suncor, whose SO
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emissions have been reduced dramatically over the past five years. We have that happening through economic growth. We do not impoverish our way to a clean environment; we do it through innovation and growth which allows that technological change to occur.
In terms of answering any e-mails from people who support Kyoto, I am very honest about the fact that I oppose Kyoto. I do what I tried to do in the first part of my speech which is to lay out what the accord is and what are some of the details of the accord but then I state very clearly that I oppose it and I give the reason. My responsibility as a parliamentarian is to be as honest with people as possible. I also refer them to government websites and the climate change website and others so they can get that perspective.
In terms of the farm issue, my family's farm is in Wainwright. It is very unfortunate for members on the other side to tell western farmers that the drought situation is caused by not implementing Kyoto. That is really dangerous and demagogic. There has been no linkage in all the research that I have done to prove that human action on greenhouse gases caused the drought that happened last summer in western Canada. Why did the drought happen in the 1930s in western Canada? Was that a cause of human action on the climate?
For the people who say that, I talk about people's livelihoods out west, and they should really prove some linkage before they start throwing out statements like that.