Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join this important debate on Kyoto. I thank the official opposition for choosing this as the subject matter today. It gives many of us the opportunity to voice our concerns with Kyoto and to voice our concerns with its position on Kyoto. That is what it boils down to.
I also thank the hon. member for Windsor--St. Clair for sharing his time with me and for using the first 10 minutes of our 20-minute spot to dispel some of the myths that seem to be clouding the debate around Kyoto.
I have said in previous speeches that I think the hon. member for Red Deer must have the toughest job in Canada right now because he is the guy who is trying to explain to Canadians what the Canadian Alliance position is on Kyoto. A couple of years ago the Alliance started out in complete denial. It was the flat earth society saying there was no global warming. It moved on from that position to agree that perhaps there was some global warming but the science surrounding the conclusions was flawed so it still could not accept it. Frankly it has been a moving target ever since. It is difficult for some of us who are interested in the issue to follow where the Alliance is on a day to day basis but I do admire the dance that the member does.
I am here to bring another perspective to the debate. One of the most prevalent myths about Kyoto is that it is going to kill Canadian jobs. Ironically, the third largest private sector union in the country, which is in fact the union dealing with energy workers, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, at its convention recently very publicly passed a resolution calling upon the federal government to ratify Kyoto. It called for a just transition in case there are jobs affected.
The union itself, as the union representing the very workers who could stand to be affected, is not afraid of Kyoto. In fact it is looking at opportunities stemming from ratifying Kyoto and meeting our commitments under Kyoto. Perhaps that is one more sacred cow to the flat earth people's argument gourd, to mix metaphors.
The just transition movement is gaining momentum. I myself in a previous incarnation as a union leader did some research regarding the members whom I represented in the carpenters union. At one time it was heresy to speak against building more generating stations or more power plants because we wanted those jobs. We were compelled to do some research to separate the myth from the reality.
We found that if we commit ourselves to demand side management instead of supply side management of our energy resources, there is three to seven times the number of person years of employment, in other words, if we could embrace the idea that a unit of energy harvested from the existing system is exactly the same as a unit of energy generated at a generating plant except for a number of important things. For one thing, it creates three to seven times the number of jobs to generate. Also it is available and online immediately instead of borrowing billions of dollars on the open market to build a new nuclear power plant and then waiting seven years for the plant to be built before we get our first unit of energy. The very minute I undertake a conservation measure, that unit of energy is online and available on sale to someone else. Plus, and this is a big plus, if we consider demand side management, we actually reduce the operating costs for the user by 30% to 50%.
Government is a prime consumer of energy. If we embrace energy efficiency, we can reduce our operating costs by 40% thus further mitigating any financial impact we may have appreciated by this change in lifestyle. That is what we are selling here, a change in lifestyle.
The last and most important thing, if we embrace demand side management and energy efficiency, it reduces hundreds of thousands of tonnes, megatonnes of harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
That is the difference between harvesting a unit of energy from the existing system through demand side management measures and generating a new unit of energy, whether it be in the tar sands, the coal mines, the oil wells or even a hydroelectric unit of energy which is cleaner but still has an environmental impact.
We have to get our minds around those things as we move from the most consumptive energy users in the world to efficiency. Canada uses more energy per capita than any other country in the world. I think Kyoto is doing us a favour because it is driving us toward efficiency.
How many people in the House of Commons have an energy efficient shower head in their bathroom? For $12 we can buy an energy efficient shower head and it will save $190 a year. That is the figure the hon. member for Windsor West cited; I have heard $75 a year in energy costs for a $12 purchase. We all know that if we put $12 down, we save $75 a year. Not every Canadian has one of those shower units in their washrooms yet. They should have. Maybe by our debating this in the House of Commons today, more will.
Something as simple as a computerized thermostat on the wall of our home will automatically turn down the temperature at night to a comfortable 18 or 19 degrees. In case we forget to turn down the thermostat at night when we go to bed, it does it automatically. It can save $300 a year and it costs $30 to install.
We can extrapolate that logic in the whole public works and government services regime in view of the fact that we own 68,000 buildings in this country. I hope this debate today and our ratifying Kyoto will finally motivate the government to seriously undertake an energy retrofit of all the federally owned buildings as a pilot project. It could be a demonstration project to show the private sector what can be done and to dispel even further the fearmongering that exists around Kyoto.
We should embrace Kyoto. We are being pushed in a direction we should be going in voluntarily. We have waited a little too long and now we have to do it. For a while it was a good idea. Now it is an essential idea.
We have already heard in today's speeches and we will probably hear again later today about the thousands of jobs lost, et cetera. The very workers who stand to be affected are members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union. I was at the convention in Toronto when it passed a resolution. I can even read the resolution if time permits. It calls on government to ratify Kyoto and calls upon government to meet the Kyoto targets. Those workers are not afraid of this, so why should we be afraid?
I represented the carpenters union. Those workers are no longer afraid of the idea of greening. They recognize there is more job creation potential in green technology than there is in the old smokestack industries of building more and more generating stations. That is not even taking into consideration the valid point made by the member for Windsor--St. Clair.
There is also the idea that we could be developing the technology here and marketing it around the world. We could be a centre of excellence for energy efficiency. What more appropriate country in the world to become a centre of excellence for energy efficiency than the most energy consumptive country in the world in a cold northern climate?
We can meet our Kyoto targets without freezing in the dark. We can meet our Kyoto targets without costing thousands of jobs. We believe that if we do embrace Kyoto, we are opening a new door to a whole new era for Canadian workers, because we are only just beginning to explore the wonderful energy efficient ideas that are out there.
Already Canada produces the best windows in the world. We export triple pane windows with argon gas sealed units that are state of the art, the best in the world. We have only scratched the surface of those industries. We also have some of the best thermostat control units in the world. We export them around the world. Those are just the very beginning. I repeat that there is as many as seven times the person years of employment in demand side management and energy efficiency as there is in supply side management or the generating of units of energy through generating stations.
The workers involved and their unions and representatives are not afraid of Kyoto. Why are we hearing from the Canadian Alliance and some of the opponents to Kyoto that they are afraid we will lose thousands of jobs. If we were progressive and looking forward, we would embrace this opportunity to move into a whole new era of energy efficiency in the country.