House of Commons Hansard #32 of the 37th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was kyoto.

Topics

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11:35 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Chuck Strahl Canadian Alliance Fraser Valley, BC

Challenge them to a debate anytime, anywhere.

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11:35 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Madam Speaker, I would be happy to go to any of their communities as their guest speaker to speak on Kyoto. I know the Liberal members would like it. They are so tired of hearing the rhetoric. It is interesting that another party has united with the Liberal Party in the rhetoric. I guess they make good bedfellows, the NDP and Liberals. We used to have another quote, but I guess we will find one for that as well.

While I am on this, it is a little off topic, but it is interesting that the NDP should support this. It is very interesting that the unions support this, provided that they get a $1 billion fund so that if people lose their jobs, they will get paid. That is real commitment to the environment; they care. Maybe they should put their hands over their hearts as well and say, “We care about the environment, but we care about the money first”.

I have heard other members accuse us of that but maybe they should not call the kettle black. I think they may have a little problem. Let us go on because time is running short and today I think the House ends at 6:30 p.m..

Let us talk about the U.S., why it pulled out and what it is doing. This is not pro-American or anything. It has answered the fourth question that I started out with this morning: Is there a better way? It has come up with the conclusion that, yes, Kyoto is a Eurocentric, bureaucratic nightmare and it does not want to be any part of it.

In February Christine Whitman said that the U.S. would try to stay in and work with the world but then the world decided on all these penalties and everything. The Americans are doing something. They have what is called the clean skies initiative. I will give a few examples of what they are doing.

The statement that kind of leads this off is important. It says that our economic growth is the key to environmental progress. If we have a thriving economy we will much more likely be able to carry out environmental projects, do new research and development and come up with new initiatives if we have the money. If we bankrupt ourselves by sending money to Russia or those kind of countries, that money is gone forever. The money does not come back in jobs for young Canadians or in research and development.

What the Americans are basically saying is that we must keep the money at home, invest the $4.6 billion in fuel cells, invest in the future, let us become world leaders in the area of environmental biology and let us sell it to the world. Let us thrive economically because we developed it.

What are we saying? We say no, we will sign onto a European policy that will handcuff us, make us achieve 30% cuts in CO

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. We will be hard pressed if we implement that. We must remember that there will be penalities associated with Kyoto once it is ratified. If we do that we will handcuff ourselves. We will not have a pot to--well, we get the idea. We will not have the money. All the other environmental projects that we might get involved in we will not because we will have spent the money on Kyoto.

What are the Americans doing? I will not go through the whole clean skies initiative. Anyone can call my office and get the website address for the clean skies initiative. I see some members are writing that down because that is something they want to get as well. They will see exactly what happens there.

The U.S. is dramatically cutting emissions from its power plants of three of the worst air pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide and mercury. It has a program in place to remove those from all power generating plants. It has forced the plants to put in scrubbers and to do all kinds of environmentally sensitive projects to make sure to keep those pollutants out of the air.

What are we doing? Downtown Toronto had 45 smog days. It is concerned about it. The people in Windsor are concerned about their air. The people in the Fraser Valley are concerned about their air. What are we doing? We are signing Kyoto to reduce CO

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. What are we doing about nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury and all the particulate matter? We are doing nothing. We are frigging around with an international agreement that will not work to do anything, and we are doing nothing about little Johnny's asthma. If we want to fix little Johnny's asthma we need to go after these particulate matters and other chemicals in the air. That would be an honest policy.

What the U.S. is also doing is cutting greenhouse gas intensities. It has a program to reduce its emissions by 18% over the next 10 years. A reduction of 18% in greenhouse gas emissions would almost take us to our target. The Americans are doing that voluntarily and it is working.

What does our government not understand? If we get the provinces, industry and Canadians onside, we could have something that will work. Instead, we are ramming through this Kyoto thing that will not do a darned thing for our environment. It does not do anything about pollution and it will not solve a single problem.

The next thing the Americans are doing is they are giving credits to companies that show reductions. What does our government not understand about that? If it is to my advantage as a company to reduce my emissions, and I have a set target and set number of credits, I will do it. It is good for the bottom line, and what is wrong with that? The Americans also have a five year commitment to $4.6 billion tax credits for renewable energy use.

Let us think about that. I want to put a solar collector on my garage. If I were in the U.S. I would get credit for doing that. That will sure make a lot more people do that.

The Americans are expanding research and development into climate related science and technology and they are doing all kinds of other things to perfect the science to understand climate change better. They have all kinds of fellowships within the U.S. universities to allow people to develop this science better.

As I said earlier, the scientists at the IPCC, the ones the government believes in and who are the gospel, say that they are 10 years away from getting the science correct. When I get into the IPCC's modelling, I will get into that more and be able to demonstrate some of the problems.

I want to move on to the Canadian position. Where are we at? It is a little hard because we only started coming up with a Canadian position within the last year.

This whole thing started in 1992. We agreed to it and signed on to it because we sign every international agreement. We have a fast pen. Bring out an agreement and we will sign it. We will read it later and decide what it means later but we will sign it. Just put it in front of us and we will sign it. We must remember that the government members are Liberals and they stand for good. Canadians are led to believe what the Liberals think. This kind of misleading, hand over the heart and do nothing, is what they do all the time.

I will give another example. If we had a few more days we could get into the other examples of where the government has done this. Let us talk about the three part approach. This was developed in March 2002. I guess it was what led up to that powder-puff PowerPoint presentation. Actually, some people in communications did not think I could keep saying that without getting tongue-tied. One of these times I am going to but I will keep saying it because that is exactly what it is.

In March we had the beginning of what this was going to be. As far as emissions trading, they said that if companies could not reduce greenhouse emissions sufficiently, they could buy emission reduction permits from other companies. I guess that means that if the member over there had a company that was dirty and I happened to be cleaner than what my target area was I could then sell that person credits. The company could keep producing the same amount of CO

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and I could keep doing what I was doing, but it could buy the credits.

I do not know what is wrong but I do not understand how that helps the environment. All I can understand is that if I am clean enough and can sell enough credits I will probably get rich while the other company will go bankrupt. That is about all I can understand. Then I will have a monopoly that will probably work as well as Air Canada and some of the other monopolies, like the Wheat Board in this country. It is a real example of something that really works well. The Wheat Board is a perfect example. Will we start throwing Canadians in jail perhaps for CO

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emissions? We will have companies that will be trading permits between companies.

The second thing they say is that companies could buy credits in the international marketplace. Now we would have companies out shopping around to buy credits from some other country.

Kyoto ProtocolGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

An hon. member

Europe.

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11:50 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Europe would probably like that. Certainly Russia is keen on this idea. Again, how does it help the environment by allowing some other country with dirty technology, way dirtier than ours, produce that CO

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and then we buy credits from them and transfer money? What is that? We must remember that this is only the beginning of the plan. We will see how it is perfected later on, but that is the start.

Then we say that there will be credits and penalties for emissions. The plan has not really evolved much since March. The first thing I would do if I were a businessman is to ask what the credits are and what the penalties are? They are not spelled out anywhere. There is no implementation plan. I do not know what it is going to cost. Am I going to invest money into a country where I do not know what the rules of the game are? Obviously, what the government does not understand is the investment freeze that results from this kind of activity.

The most important thing that Canada recognized in March 2002 is that there will be no credit for the export of clean fuel to the U.S. We are going to be penalized for producing energy in Canada that we sell to the U.S. Why did the Canadian government not realize that back in 1992? Why did the Canadian government not say, when it signed Kyoto in 1997, that it would not sign on unless it was given clean energy credits for what it sells to the U.S.?

I want to explain those clean energy credits. We extract the gas and oil out of the ground and that takes a lot of energy. It represents 17% of our emissions. When we take the tar sands, which are a bigger reserve of oil than Saudi Arabia, it is not small potatoes. It will be the future of this country's GDP for a long time. When we take that oil out of the tar sands or out of the ground that costs energy. We then ship it in a pipeline down to the U.S. where it is burned as a clean fuel, particularly in the case of natural gas.

We want credit for that. How did we blow that? We only started talking about that in 2002. We did not think of it before then. The Europeans and the Russians did but we did not. The government totally blew it if it had ever hoped to get that.

Now, as I explained earlier, there is no way the Europeans will agree to that. If they gave Canada clean energy credits, they would have to give Russia clean energy credits for natural gas. What the Liberals do not seem to understand as well, when they argue this point, is that the U.S. is not part of Kyoto. How are we going to get credits from a country that is not even in the game?

It is one thing for Russia to ask for credits from European Union countries that are part of the same game, but it is like saying that I am going to buy this company from this guy over here but I am going to talk to that person over there who does not even know the name of the company. That is about the same thing. That is a total mishandling of this file. This file has been mishandled since 1992. How it has been handled is a total disaster.

Most Canadians are starting to realize that. Companies have been telling us that for months. We just have to listen to the provinces on every TV station today telling us how the government has mishandled the whole negotiations around Kyoto. They are not part of it. They have been excluded. The meeting on Friday has been cancelled, which should tell us enough about the cooperation between the provinces.

We are going to get to review the government's plan later on. The first words say, “cooperation, consultation are the key to making this work”. This powder-puff PowerPoint presentation, which is not a plan, just will not work.

The next point in the government's plan of March 2002 is a scary one. It says “we are going to have targeted measures”. We are going to explore that a little bit further, but these targeted emissions are going to be on residential buildings, on commercial buildings, on transportation, on forestry and on agriculture. The Liberals singled those out as early as March.

If I were to read into that, I would be pretty concerned if I were a contractor building new homes. I would be pretty concerned if I owned commercial buildings. I would be pretty concerned if I were in the transportation industry, in forestry or in agriculture. They have been targeted to try to achieve the 240 megatonnes that are the gap of what we cannot go to.

We are going to follow up on each one of those industries. If we were to go industry by industry across the country, we could show that each industry will be targeted a little differently. We are assuming that is the case because the government has not told them yet how they are going to be targeted. However the government does say in its first discussion of this that is what it is going to target. We should keep that in mind and, for the Liberals taking notes, they should highlight it with a star.

Mr. Speaker, to bring you up to date, I could go back to yesterday so you will feel part of this, but I will just carry on from where I was and not start from the beginning.

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Noon

Canadian Alliance

Howard Hilstrom Canadian Alliance Selkirk—Interlake, MB

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. My concern is that since Kyoto is such a large issue there should be a quorum in the House and I am not sure that there is a quorum.

And the count having been taken:

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Noon

The Deputy Speaker

There being quorum debate will resume.

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Noon

Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Mr. Speaker, I want to ensure that anybody who might want to be Prime Minister knows that there are penalties when one signs on to Kyoto. Those penalties would be severe for any Prime Minister or future Prime Minister who might want to sign on to Kyoto.

There were a number of early plans. In March 2002 we were talking about emissions trading. We were talking about the fact that we could trade domestically and internationally, and that dirty companies could buy credits from clean companies. No one can explain how that would help the environment.

We would have targeted measures which are a little scary for certain industries. This initial beginning of the plan talked about residential and commercial buildings, transportation, forestry and agriculture. It stands to reason that if the government was thinking that way in March how is it thinking now in November about these targets? It is not telling anyone. It is keeping it secret as to what the costs would be to Canadians. It is not telling industry what the costs would be. It is not telling anybody this.

I guess that is part of the plan. I have maintained all along that if Canadians were to find out exactly what the costs would be and what the implementation plan would be, they would oppose Kyoto. When Canadians find out that it is not little Johnny's asthma and that it is not a health problem, they would reject it. It is just obvious. I cannot understand how more people do not seem to get that connection.

The government would invest in international credits. It would buy emissions credits from other countries and then sell those within the country. Why would we want to set up a bureaucracy where the federal government would buy credits and then sell them within the country? Or maybe it would give them to Liberal supporting companies. But members should recall that we must hit those targets. If we do not hit those targets there are penalties.

I will always take the opportunity to point out those penalties when the opportune time comes in the House. It is important because there are members in the House who have made public speeches and said that we can ratify this, and then go slow on implementation. They said that if we were unable to hit it because it would hurt our economy, we would just not do it.

That is not possible. The rules were set in Marrakesh. Anybody who says that across this country is misleading the Canadian public. We must ensure that any Prime Minister or future Prime Minister does not do that.

Let us to move on to the chronology of what happened, what the Canadian government's position is, and look at key dates, key time periods.

September was important because a lot of the oil and gas industry, the manufacturers, the chambers of commerce and the provinces thought the government would never be so foolish as to ratify this agreement. It would not ratify until it had the full understanding and cooperation, the costs and implementation plan. It would not ratify until it could tell Canadians what it would cost them, the people who work so hard for all of us, and get us elected to represent them. Those are the people who need to understand what it would cost them. All of us and all of them, myself included, thought we would never ratify this without having those things answered.

I was in Johannesburg when the Prime Minister, on September 2, stood among an international community of 190 countries and said that Canada would ratify Kyoto by the end of the year. He said that he would take it to Parliament, not to get its approval but just to let it be discussed in the House of Commons.

I was shocked that anyone who cares about this country, looking at all the history of what other countries have done, would say that we would ratify it even if he had to ram it through. Since then he has said that if we do not ram it through, it would be a vote of confidence and we would have an election. Is that not blackmail and a threat?

The government has not told us what the costs and implementation plan would be, and how it would be done. We do not know that. I will review point by point the so called plan because it does not tell us those things.

Some other bureaucrats there were also shocked. Industry was totally shocked. The provinces could not believe that this had happened. I had talked to a lot of them before that and they said it was just all talk, that he would never do it. But on that day they realized that the Prime Minister was looking for a legacy. The Prime Minister wanted to have on his credentials that he cared about the environment of the world, about his children and grandchildren, and so he would ratify Kyoto. That is the most misleading thing that he could ever do, because it is not about little Johnny's asthma. It is not about cleaning up pollution. It is about CO

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and climate change.

Should we deal with it? Yes, we should. Should we have a plan? Yes, we should. I will present what that plan should be, the plan that Canadians can buy into, understand, be part of and cooperate with. Possibly Canadians would drive smaller vehicles and put triple pane windows in their houses, but they would do so because they wanted to, because there was a plan and they would know what it would cost. They would know it would make a difference. Kyoto is not that plan and is not going to make that difference.

What did the Canadian manufacturers say? Ontario is the biggest manufacturing market in Canada. There are more manufacturing jobs here than anywhere else in Canada. This should have the biggest impact on Canadians in Ontario.

When I was in Hamilton on Sunday, speaking to a group, a man in the crowd said to me that he had no idea it was going to affect him. Those people driving down the 401 had no idea how it might affect them. I will talk about some of the effects it will have on those people, but as of today, most of them do not know. The environment minister from Ontario said that most people in Ontario think it is a car. It is not a car. It is the most serious international agreement that Canada will ever sign.

There are penalties within the Kyoto agreement. If we do not live up to it, we will have the WTO on our case. Members can ask some of the people in the softwood lumber industry what happens when we depend on that. Members should ask them if the solution to the problem happens overnight.

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12:10 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Chuck Strahl Canadian Alliance Fraser Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On page 530 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice , Edition 2000, edited by Robert Marleau and Camille Montpetit, under rules of order and decorum, it talks about the rules of relevance. It refers to an example where in 1882 Bourinot felt the need to add the comment that:

A just regard to the privileges and dignity of Parliament demands that its time should not be wasted in idle and fruitless discussion; and consequently every member, who addresses the house, should endeavour to confine himself as closely as possible to the question under consideration.

This speaker continues to do a tremendous job of adhering to the rule of relevance and I wanted to bring that up. It is a proper--

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12:10 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

With the greatest of respect to the hon. member for Fraser Valley, I do not believe that is a point of order. There is certainly a great deal of relevance coming from the member for Red Deer. I will agree to that.

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12:10 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Mr. Speaker, I thank my fellow members and all of the members who gave themselves a break because they were taking notes of this presentation. Even though I said I would provide them with a hard copy, they are still continuing to take notes and listen observantly to what I have to say. Their constituents are the ones who would be impacted by the signing of Kyoto. They are the ones who would pay the costs of increased transportation and power bills. The fact that there is no way around it is what I hope to develop in my remarks this.

As far as relevance, I do not believe I have said anything that does not refer directly to Kyoto and what Kyoto's impacts would be. That is what makes this subject so important and provides all of us with so much energy to continue this battle.

The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters are but one group that has examined this. I want to quote that organization as an example because it is a good example of what it feels the impacts would be. It says that Canada would be 40% above Kyoto greenhouse gas targets by 2010 with the expected growth of this country.

Let us go back to Australia for a moment. Why did the Australians say initially that they must have 8% above 1990 levels and in fact they could not sign on to Kyoto? How could they say that? They have now opted out of Kyoto. They argued that they were a big country with a growing population and do not have the transportation infrastructure of Europe. Obviously, that fits Canada too, yet Canada was naive enough to think that it could sign Kyoto with all those targets and achieve them. It is impossible to achieve those targets.

Should we do something about pollution? Yes. Should we do something about global warming? Yes. But there is a better way.

The manufacturers said that Kyoto would result in 450,000 lost jobs in this country by 2010 and it would cost at least $3 billion per year in international credits. That is $3 billion that could be used in research and development to develop a clean environmental industry. That is $3 billion that could be used in advanced education to train experts. We lose 22,000 graduates per year from this country.

I am pretty proud of my own family members. Let me tell the House their history. My son was a Rhodes Scholar who went to Oxford for four years and ended up teaching there for half a year. He then came looking for a job in Canada. He could not find one. He was offered jobs at Harvard, Yale and Princeton. He is now at Princeton and has tenure there. He is lost to Canada; he cannot come back. Canada did not offer him that opportunity. When we send that $3 billion or $5 billion to another country, we will never have the money to put into advanced education, and research and development.

I have a daughter who was just here as a guest speaker at a conference. She is a statistician and develops computer models. She got her Ph.D. in Holland. There were 19 countries that offered her a job, but not Canada. We do not have the money for those kinds of people and that is pretty sad.

The manufacturers state that it would cost Canadians $30,000 per household to retrofit their homes. David Suzuki says it would only cost $12,000 per home.

The point is that it does not really matter whether it is $12,000 or $30,000. When we are talking about that single mother, that family with two kids or that senior on a fixed income, whether it is $12,000 or $30,000 really does not matter much, because they do not have that expendable income to put into retrofitting their houses. The government is counting on 20% of its emissions credits coming from retrofitting of houses. How will that happen? Who will pay for that? Will the government send out a cheque to everybody who wants to retrofit their house? We know what happened in the seventies when they encouraged people to buy more insulation. There were fly by night operations, companies doubled their price for insulating houses, and it was a big rip-off. It ended with a huge bureaucracy trying to chase down all the offenders. Is that what the government has planned? Is that how we will retrofit the houses? It is fine to say that, but how do we achieve it?

The manufacturers, which I am still quoting, say that the cost of electricity will go up by 100%. Our power bills will double. They say that our natural gas bills will go up by 60% and gasoline for cars will go up by 80%. Let us remember what the Europeans said about what should happen to our gas prices. They said that we in North America have no right to charge 70 cents for a litre of gas, that we have no right to do that because it is environmentally unsound and that the price of gas should be in the $2-plus range. That is how we stop consumption. That is how we fix the environment. That is what the Europeans are telling us. That is what Kyoto is all about.

How will people in the second coldest country in the world, with no transportation infrastructure other than roads, achieve those kinds of targets when the price of fuel goes up? When we have electricity prices and natural gas prices increasing, how will we handle that? Do we not at least have a duty in the House to tell the Canadian public what it will cost, how we will implement it and what it will mean to them? How will it affect their jobs? How will it affect the way they live in this country?

Again we come back to the fact that we have signed 200 agreements since 1992. The Auditor General in her report, of which the House has a copy, said to the government that it has signed 200 agreements on the environment since 1992 and she has just audited 60 of them. That was a month ago.

The quote that we must keep using is this statement:

The federal government is not investing enough--enough of its human and financial resources; its legislative, regulatory and economic powers; or its political leadership--to fulfill its sustainable development commitment. The result is a growing environmental, health and financial burden that our children will have to bear.

That is a pretty harsh condemnation of a country, but we hear that same argument being used: “We will sign on to Kyoto. We probably cannot hit those targets, but do not worry about it because no one will hit their targets”. That is sure real commitment, real honesty with Canadians, and again, there are penalties associated with signing on to Kyoto.

The Alberta government has the name for being the big fighter in this whole thing, but I want to remind hon. members that there are a lot more provinces fighting a lot harder. We can touch on a few of them. The Alberta government has done a fair amount of research and I am sure other governments have. I am surprised that the Ontario government has not committed more to research into what it will cost the average person in Ontario, but let us take up some of the Alberta figures, which talk about a $23 billion to $40 billion cut in GDP.

That sort of reduction in GDP is a major figure in our standard of living. That means we would not have money for health care, for interest payments, or for our military. All of these things would be impacted because we signed on to this international agreement, if it costs us that much.

Their research and their econometric models show there would be a loss of about 70,000-plus jobs. The government started off by saying that 60,000 jobs would be lost. That figure is now up to 200,000. The Department of Industry just did a report that said the government underestimated the cost by 30%. What are Canadians to believe? How do they know what to believe when they get those messages, when the figures do not jive? How do they know what to believe when they are not being told what it is going to cost and what the impact would be? Government studies also say that as well.

It is important at this point in time to talk about the provinces because we now have eight out of ten provinces saying that we should not ratify Kyoto today until we know exactly what it means to us. Eight out of ten provinces is a lot.

I was on a talk show this morning. The number one question was, why can Manitoba sign on? Manitoba can sign on because it wants the federal government to help it develop the hydroelectric potential in northern Manitoba. It wants to send that power to Sault Ste. Marie and get into the Ontario power grid. That province is doing it for money. What a shock. That environment minister who stands up and sounds just so righteous is doing it for money. Manitoba is doing it not for the environment but for money.

What about Quebec? I think Quebec is going to change its position when it sees the grab of provincial authority and agriculture and forestry. I think Quebec as well will see that this power grab by the federal government is a darn good reason to oppose this. Quebec also hopes, of course, to attract a lot of industry because of the clean energy credits for hydroelectricity. That is obvious. Quebec has every right to do that.

What about Atlantic Canada? I quoted a cab driver earlier. I think he probably put it into the best language possible when he said that Halifax finally had an industry bringing revenue to the province, one that is going to last for quite a long time into the future, and the Government of Canada is going to shut it down. The province will be shut down at the very time that it is about to gain self-sufficiency and about to be proud of where it is going.

The provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick also have an opportunity to achieve. Yes, we can improve technology. Yes, we can do a lot better. Yes, we should do something, but we should not shut them down at the very time they are about to get on their feet again. The government is mismanaging this about as well as it mismanaged the cod industry. People out there are starting to draw those comparisons. Again, I know that Canadians across the country are going to oppose this plan simply because of that. B.C. is in much the same situation. It is not going to get credits for its agriculture and forestry. Neither is Saskatchewan. Neither is Alberta, and neither is Manitoba if the government would tell the truth.

So we then come to October 2002. At this point we have to refer to the so-called plan, which, just for reference, is called the climate change draft plan. It is being kind to call it a plan. It leaves out some very important things. What would it cost? How would we implement it? What industries would be impacted? How would they be impacted? How would it affect jobs?

The draft plan is something. It is fatter than what we received in March and it looks a little nicer. Somebody put a little more time putting it together. This is the so-called plan. What does this so-called plan say? Let us analyze it. I do not think the Speaker wants me to read the whole plan into the record. I remember the Speaker once reading a lot of Latin names for a few hours. That was enjoyed. That might be about the same as reading this into the record. It is about as clear and at about the same level of understanding, whether it is in Latin or in English.

Let us talk about some of the main premises in this plan. First, it starts by saying that the science is very clear. That is a profound statement. It is a profound statement particularly when there is one group of 17,000 scientists saying that it is not clear, that they have major doubts about Kyoto and its ability to fix anything. When the plan says the science is clear, I wonder what that means. In what way is it clear? The IPCC, the scientific gurus of this whole issue, say it is not clear. I will quote some of them later on and let members know what the experts say about the clarity of Kyoto.

The plan then goes to say that our economy will grow while we reduce emissions, yes, that our economy will grow. If economists or investment brokers were asked about what is going to happen to our economy next year, 2003, they would tell us that they expect a very sluggish market. They expect a very up and down kind of market, but this plan says that our economy is going to continue to grow by 3% to 4%. I hope that is right. I hope the government can say that our economy will continue to grow by 3% or 4% for the next 10 years. That is just great news.

Mr. Speaker, I know that you know a little bit about investments and a little bit about investment brokers and that system, and you tell me if you can find anybody who will guarantee that the economy will grow by 4% for the next 10 years. In fact, we probably cannot get anyone to tell us that it will grow in the next month. That is just the nature of the markets, of the bull and the bear markets that go on. They cannot be predicted, but this plan says that the government can predict that our economy will continue to grow for the next 10 years. That is really amazing.

I wonder who put this thing together. It is interesting that we had a supply day on October 24 and this showed up on the morning of October 24. It is pretty interesting that a plan would come up that fast and on the same day. Maybe it is coincidence, but I think what it is, and this is terrible to say, is that the bureaucrats worked all night coming up with this and they had to get this all photocopied and put together by 8:30 that morning. Because if it was not that way, how could they make these kinds of stupid statements? How could they say these kinds of things? Almost every single word in there can be analyzed and we can say that it cannot be predicted, that it is just pie in the sky stuff, just Chicken Little running across the country with the disasters. That is where this came from. This is not anything based on fact.

The report then states that “extensive consultations” have occurred. All the provinces and territories are saying that there are 12 things they want and that they do not think they were consulted adequately. All of the provinces are saying that, including Manitoba and Quebec. They do not think they were consulted properly. They are all speaking out today.

Industry definitely says it was not consulted. It has not even been given targets yet. It does not even know what targets mean or how it will be targeted.

Canadians certainly have not been consulted. There were meetings across the country in June. Those meetings were by invitation only. No media were allowed, no public was involved and then Chicken Little said that Canadians had been consulted. I was not allowed to go. Finally when I was allowed to go, I was not allowed to talk. Is that consultation? Is that public involvement? One can go but cannot talk? Give me a break.

It says “extensive consultations have occurred”. Yes, the government consulted with the special interest groups it funds. It consulted with its public. I doubt if it consulted with its backbench because I do not think they know any different themselves.

I have heard the statement, “no undue burden on any region or sector”, so many times that I just cannot believe the government continues to say it. The automotive manufacturing business is the first target. The oil and gas business is the first target. They are bound to be targets. When they are targeted what does that do to those jobs?

We know it will affect some areas more than others. The province to be hit the hardest by Kyoto will be Ontario. The next provinces to be hit will be Saskatchewan and Alberta and it will go down from there. It will impact some regions more than others. Canadians have a right to know. They have a right to know the costs. They have the right to know which regions will be targeted. We must give them that opportunity.

Because time is short and there is a lot to be said on this subject, I will move on. We have these three steps to an overall plan. I really like this one because it has three segments to it. Step one are actions underway, representing 80 megatonnes. Step two are actions we are thinking about taking, which represents 100 megatonnes. Step three are options for the remainder, which is 60 megatonnes. We do not have a clue how we will do that but maybe we can get clean energy credits from someone. Who knows who might give them to us. Maybe we can con some Europeans into agreeing to something.

Let us look at what these categories might mean. This will be difficult as we go through this because there are varying points of view.

First, let me talk about the predicted implications of this whole thing if we do not do this. If we are to do those three steps, it is pretty important that we know what will happen to us if we do not.

The government says that by the year 2100 we will have a 1.4° to 5.8° increase in temperature. It says that we will have droughts, insect infestations, increased heatwaves, reduced air quality and health problems. It says that we will not develop any new technologies to deal with any of this and that we cannot adapt at all. Even though man has always adapted, we cannot adapt. That is about the worst scenario we could possibly get.

The 40 models that the IPCC has ranges like that, except it forgot to include that one of the groups of models of the 40 says that we might have a problem of the earth cooling. Why would that happen? The biggest reason is alternate energy is reducing its cost by 50% every 10 years. By the years 2030 to 2040 it will become competitive and will not produce any CO

2

. Guess what? The IPCC is saying that perhaps we will not have enough CO

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by the year 2060. Is that right?

The government selectively chooses which pieces of which model it wants to use. There are 40 models. How can it deceive the Canadian public by cherry-picking the models and using what it wants to scare people so it can do something and have a legacy? What is that all about? Canadians across the country ask us all the time why we are ratifying Kyoto. The only answer I can come up with is that it is to make us feel good, to be part of the international club and to give the Prime Minister a legacy. That is a pretty lousy reason for Canadians.

Remember that our target is 6% below 1990 levels by the year 2012. Remember that the megatonne gap is 240 megatonnes. I talked about that already. Remember as well that Canada is the second coldest country with large distances. We have a poor transportation infrastructure and a growing population.

What else does this powder-puff PowerPoint presentation say? It says that for us to do this it will dependent upon collaboration and partnership. The provinces are not onside. Industry is not onside. The chambers of commerce are not onside. Canadians do not know what is about to hit them. Collaboration and partnership?

The only ones that are in partnership are the David Suzukis of this world or the Pembina Institute. All have their hands out to the government. All receive tax reductions for their fundraising. Sure they are onside. That is on what they live. They exist because they have their hands out to the government. They are buddies. They are in bed together. There is no question as to why they would be on side.

Does anyone think they will come out against the government? If they did, their money would be cut off the next day. It is their bread and butter to agree with the government. They are there to let the government con people into some agreement like this. I do not think Canadians are not that foolish. Collaboration and partnership? Let us examine who is onside, who is not and why.

With respect to fairness and balance across the country, I do not think that every province will agree that they are being treated fairly and equally in terms of these negotiations. I do not think many business leaders, certainly not the ones that I have talked to, and I have talked to a lot of them, feel they are being treated fairly. Certainly those people on Sunday in Hamilton did not think they were being treated fairly because they did not even know what Kyoto was. Those are the working people of the country. Those are the people who do not read the newspaper everyday and do not know what Kyoto is.

The government has minimized the costs of this whole thing. It has no details. It has talked about more federal funds for initiatives, for innovation and for research and development. This is one question I would ask and I think most members here should ask. If we are to have more funds for initiatives, innovation and research and development, from where will the money come? What will cut out to come up with the money for that? From where will it come?

In answering that question, since I do not think anyone will agree to reduce health care or many other government programs, the only solution I can come up with is a tax. What are we aiming at? We will aim at carbon. What will we do? We will tax carbon. What does that mean? That means we will tax anything that utilizes carbon, which is transportation, fuel, energy. All those things are carbon dioxide producers, so we have to tax them. It does not say that anywhere, but what else can it mean?

The government talks about some of the options that we can use in this country. What are some of the things we can do? It talks about targeted measures. It suggests road tolls on major highways and enforcement of the current speed limits. That would save us 4.1 megatonnes.

I was driving to the Toronto airport on Highway 401 on a Sunday afternoon. I will not say what speed I was driving but everyone passed me. They were going 120 kph, 130 kph and 140 kph. We will reduce their speed and we will enforce it. How will we do that? Obviously we will have to double, triple or quadruple the police force. We will have to put in technology on our highways.

Does every Canadian know that we will be putting tolls on major highways, that we will be enforcing the speed limit and that there has even been talk about reducing the speed limit to 80 kph. How will that impact Canadians? It will impact them a lot. Should we do that? Show us the figures. Get our commitment. Show us why we need to do it. We will not do it through this kind of a presentation.

We will get 3.4 megatonnes from the expansion of public transit. That is really good. I think we should do that. That is a great idea, but who will pay for it? How much does it cost? Where will it go? I would love to see a train that went every 15 minutes between Calgary and Edmonton that I could jump on in Red Deer. I would sure do that rather than drive and have the hassle of that. I am not like the cabinet ministers here who leave their cars running all day to keep warm. I would have to leave mine running all week at the Calgary airport. I would have to have a fuel truck go by every few days. I would love to have increased transit, but we are a big country. It is tough to deliver on that one.

We will retrofit 20% of the existing housing stock and commercial buildings. That will save 2.7 megatonnes. That is great, but remember David Suzuki has said, and Greenpeace agrees, that to retrofit a house is about $12,000. The manufacturers have said that it is $30,000. Again, I come to the point, that $12,000 or $30,000 for a senior on a fixed income, or for a family of four, or for a single mom does not much matter. They cannot afford it.

We will retrofit these houses. What does that mean then? The government puts that in its so-called plan. Will it give credits for that? Will it send out a cheque to those people to do that? Where will the money come from to do that?

It is fine to say that we will have road tolls, that we will make the speed limit whatever, that we will have more public transit and that we will retrofit all the houses, but the government is counting on that as things already done to give us credits. That is a long way to go. Here are the big unknowns.

What are the costs of these targeted measures? What is the effectiveness and feasibility of doing them? There are questions after questions. The government is giving no answers, none at all.

What is the willingness of people to cooperate in all of these things? Do those people driving on Highway 401 want to drive 80 kph? Will they be happy if the technology is used and every one of them pays a traffic ticket? I saw the fines posted on the sign. Literally they will be sending their month's income on charges and probably lose their drivers' licences. That should help the productivity of the country.

In buying permits, if I am a dirty company and he is a clean company, I will have to buy credits from him. Who will handle all this? What kind of bureaucracy do we need to monitor the selling, buying and trading of credits? Who will do that?

The Europeans are putting a bureaucracy in place. They are big on bureaucracy. They love it. We have to do that here. Our biggest trading partner does not have to do any of this, so what effect does that have on jobs? The sensitivity of costs and policy mix; just think about it. Our biggest trading partner's companies do not operate under any of these rules. How are we going to stay competitive? Will our dollar have to drop to 30¢ so we can sell our products in the U.S.?

Is that what Canadians want? Is that what the government wants? It is fine for the Prime Minister to say, “Well, this will be my legacy and let the next guy worry about it”. He might dislike the next guy enough just to make this happen to fix the next guy. Is that fair to Canadians? I do not think so.

The final unknown I pulled out of this is the modelling. I cannot believe the deceit in the modelling. Mr. Speaker, if you would like me to I could read into the record about 800 pages of modelling, but I do not know if you want it all. I summarized it last night. I have it tabbed and I will get to it. There was a member yesterday who really wanted to know all of this. I told him I could summarize it and I will get to that.

The government has picked and chosen what it wants from the models. That is not how modelling works. What is put in is what we get out; that is how modelling works. We have to look at these models and look at what was put in.

The government put in figures like 3¢ for a barrel of oil. It put in figures like $10 for a carbon credit. Those figures were put in, even though some people say carbon credits might sell for $500, even though some of the oil and gas companies say the cost of production could increase by many dollars, not 3¢. When numbers like that are put in, sure the models will tell us what we want them to tell us. That is just to be expected.

This is not in the plan, but it has been suggested that these are the kinds of things we could do to achieve our goals. I want to think about these because they are actual suggestions that some bureaucrats came up with. These are some of the ones that did not make it but they were thinking about them.

We could resurface 6,500 kilometres of highways with cement. That does not take into account our weather conditions. It does not take into account slippery roads. Most important, it does not take into account what it would cost to pave 6,500 kilometres of road with cement. We cannot even pave them or fill the potholes, let alone put in cement.

The bureaucrats said we could retrain 250,000 truck drivers. I tried to find out what that retraining would involve. Largely it would involve that they would not brake and accelerate as fast which uses more fuel, and they would drive at the speed limit. Those 250,000 truck drivers would be retrained to drive the speed limit, to not accelerate. I guess they run over a few cars or whatever when they do not stop very fast. We would soon learn whether they had been retrained if there was a big semi coming down on us.

We are going to retrofit 20% of our houses. We talked about the problems with that. We are going to upgrade the heating and other equipment throughout the country. That sounds really good too. We will turn everything to natural gas and get rid of anything else. We will probably use water heat, maybe some solar panels. What will it cost? Who will pay for that, especially when it gets dark as early as it does in December?

We are going to organize and implement permit markets. Bureaucracy, bureaucracy and bureaucracy is what that says to me.

We are going to buy 20,000 alternate fuel vehicles for the government. That sounds like a pretty good idea. It is similar to when the Minister of the Environment sent out his letter to the cabinet ministers and said he thought they would be setting a good example if they all went to energy efficient cars or to alternate fuel vehicles. If we were to go outside right now and check the cars, there is only one.

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Liberal

Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

Two.

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Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

There are two now. That is excellent. The leader of the official opposition, even before the present one, asked to have one of those and he is still waiting. Of the 33 or so vehicles out there, two of them, I am told, are energy efficient. None of the others responded. The others leave their cars running all day. That is leadership. That is what it is about. That is commitment to the Kyoto targets.

I like this one. Eliminate all speeding on roads. On the highway between Edmonton and Calgary, which I drive on every week, there would be a lot of fines. From my experience on Sunday on the 401, there would be a lot of fines.

I am not sure how we would do that, but that is a tax. There is a tax on fuel. There is going to be a tax on energy, a tax on electricity. Those are all taxes.

Do Canadians not have a right to know that? Do they not have a right to know that is what this means? Do not get me wrong. If they say after knowing all this that they want it, that they want to pay 30% more for everything, then fine, so be it. But to have this thing implemented without even knowing is literally a crime against Canadians. It would be the worst thing that had ever been done to Canadians and they would not even see it coming. It is like that semi rolling down the road with the retrained driver who does not put the brakes on too hard. A lot of retraining needs to be done here, starting at the top.

I could go on and on about the disgust people would have if they were ever to read this. How many Canadians will read this? I would expect not very many. Can we do those things? Will they really make a difference? Would it not be better to come up with a made in Canada plan that deals with two subjects, pollution and climate change? Separate them, because they are separate. Kyoto separates them already.

Time is running short. Question period will soon be upon us and there is so much more to be reviewed. I want to come back to analyze further the document from last week. That document really needs further analysis. It is described as the future plan, and really all they have done is they have gone from a coloured plan in a binder to a stapled, photocopied plan. That was the revision to get ready for the meeting on Friday which has now been cancelled. The new and improved version is a stapled, photocopied retrofit of the same plan. We will analyze it to see the differences.

Let us talk about the plan. I want to time this so I can talk about it and then summarize some of the details. I do not know how we are ever going to get to some of these other features and modelling. I know that members have been asking for information on the modelling because they trust the government's position so much.

I will introduce this subject before we get back to the analysis. It will give me a little break to talk about something exciting and something in which I really believe, which is the future of technology. Technology is where it is at. The government does not understand that at all. It does not have a clue about innovation, about technology and about the future.

There are three areas we need to talk about in a plan. This would be a plan the Canadian Alliance would develop when we are the government. Remember, the problem is that we would be stuck with this Kyoto thing. We would have to have a pretty good plan to achieve those targets. How would we do it?

There are three areas I want to explore. The first one is conservation. The second one is transitional fuels. The third one is alternate energy. Those are the areas upon which I want to expand and try to develop an understanding for members of what they are about.

First, we must have consultation with everyone. We must have people on side. We must let Canadians know the costs, the benefits, and why we should do this. One might say that if our health is being affected it is obvious we should do something. Kyoto does not deal with health. People do not know that yet. We would make sure that people understood that our plan was two pronged, to deal with pollution and to deal with climate change.

With climate change of course the science has to be worked out. We have to have reasonable targets in reasonable timeframes and let science lead the way. We do not take 40 models and cherry-pick only those things we want. That is what the government has done but that is not the way we should approach it.

We consult. We consult with industry. We consult with the provinces. Most important, this needs to be a bottom-up process. This needs to start inevery single chamber of commerce, town council and municipal council across this country so they understand what we are trying to accomplish. They need to know that. They need to know what the costs are and they need to be sure that they are committed to doing it. We need that cooperation. I cannot emphasize that enough. That has to be there before we go any further.

Then we have to have accurate modelling and accurate details of what we will do. We cannot commit to an international agreement where there are penalties. We should only work on doing things that we can accomplish and still keep the economy going. We have to do that or we will not have any money to fix the things that are wrong.

I know we cannot use props in the House, but in talking about conservation I would like to read from this package. It is not a prop. I cannot memorize all of this, but what I have here are light bulbs. Out of a normal type of light bulb we get approximately 1,000 hours of usage.

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Some hon. members

Oh, oh.

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Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

I am reading from this. I need to read it. I am sorry, it is my notes. I did not want to destroy the packaging. I need to look at this and I am sure all members would agree.

They are energy efficient light bulbs that can be purchased across the world. They last 10,000 hours. Just to read from my notes here, they conserve our natural resources by using 75% less electricity than standard bulbs. They are suitable for indoor or outdoor use. They provide soft white, pleasant light. They have electronic flicker-free starting technology. They are silent in operation. They are compact in size. They fit most fixtures. They have a long life, meaning the bulbs do not have to be changed frequently. They are guaranteed to last 10,000 hours. They cost more but when we look at how much longer they last, that is conservation.

How could it hurt Canadians to change their light bulbs? Calculations done by an economist in Ontario show that if every light bulb were changed in Canada we would never have to build another power plant ever again in this country. This 100 watt bulb uses 75% less power and gives the same amount of light.

That is the kind of solution Canadians are looking for. That is what Canadians want. They would buy into that. They would agree with that. They would say that it is a constructive way to achieve our goal.

That is a simple example. I wanted it to be as simple as it could be because that is what Canadians want from the government. They want realistic solutions, not emissions credits and the buying of billions of dollars in international trade credits. They want something that will work.

It is fine to say that people will retrofit their houses at a cost of $12,000 to $30,000 per house, but what percentage of constituents do members think will go into a massive retrofitting of their houses? Would it be 20% or 30%? I do not think so.

We can say, “Okay, let us not do that to old houses. Let us just have new houses with triple pane glass, double insulation, solar collectors, water heat and so on”. What does that do to the average Canadian?

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An hon. member

It drives up the cost of the house.

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Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Obviously. We do not have to be a rocket scientist to know it will make that house cost more. Who does that affect? It affects young Canadians. It affects the family where both parents are working, trying to make a go of it and get a house of their own. That is going to put the price of those houses out of their reach. That single mom is not going to be there. It would affect jobs right across the whole country.

What does the government not understand about this? It says it is going to retrofit 20% of the houses and that is how it will get its credits. If it does that sort of thing, it is going to shut down the housing industry. People will not be rushing out to retrofit their homes.

Should we do something? Yes. We should change our light bulbs. Let us start there. Let us encourage people who can afford it to put in triple pane glass. Yes, we should do it. Yes, we should reinsulate our houses as we have the money to do it. Should we be forced by international law to do it? There are penalties when we sign on to Kyoto and we had better not forget it.

We need to target cooperation. I drive from Red Deer to Calgary and I see all those oil wells flaring. I do not like those flaring oil wells and oil companies do not like me telling them that. They could put a baby cogeneration plant on top of that well, turn that heat into electricity and put it into the power grid. They do not have to flare those emissions into the air. They do not have to release that CO

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What do we need to do to fix that? The government needs to say, “Look guys. This is bad for your image. It is bad for business. It is bad for the environment. Little Johnny's health could be affected by this. Fix it”.

Should government have no role? No, it should have a role. It should show leadership. It should show a vision, that it wants to fix things. There are examples of how to do that.

When we talk about conservation, our party would be into that. We would be into encouraging adaptation. We would be into encouraging industry to come up with new and better ways to deal with the problems. We certainly would be actively involved in the Fraser Valley saying, “There is no way that you will run your power lines down the centre of Abbotsford. There is no way that you will use our aquifer. There is no way that you will dump your sewage into the Sumas River and if you do, you will pay big time.”

That is not being a bad neighbour. That is just saying that we protect our environment, that we have a health problem and we will fix it. We should be sitting down with the U.S. to deal with this problem. We cannot have these transborder problems the way they exist in terms of pollution. We need solutions to that. Government needs to show leadership there. All Canadians want that. To say that an Alliance government would buy into industry's idea of just pollute or do whatever is totally wrong.

Industry knows that is not smart. Industry knows it is good to be green and it is good to show it cares about the people who work for it and for its neighbourhood. That is why it gives money to all kinds of charities and why it does all kinds of things. If the government provides companies with leadership, then I know those companies will be on side. I know we can encourage that and do a lot for that.

In terms of the three planks of a plan that the Alliance Party would have, yes, we would have conservation there. We would have sensible, common sense conservation. We would have conservation based on working with the provincial governments, with industry and with citizens to improve things.

I was really surprised when I came to Ontario 10 years ago and found out that it did not have things like recycling and that it did not have nearly the programs that I took for granted and that I thought everybody did. Now these programs are coming into effect but they were not there when I first came here. I am really surprised at the amount of salt that is used, salt that runs down the drain and into our rivers. I am really surprised about that. I am really surprised that we do not use alternatives to that.

This country has a lot of environmental problems. I am shocked that we do not know about the water, about our aquifers. That is shocking. I am shocked that we do not have any kind of plan to clean up contaminated sites. I am shocked that we are simply talking about those poor people in northern Saskatchewan with their uranium mines. I am shocked that we are just ignoring them. It is shocking that the Liberals, who supposedly care so much about our native people, have done nothing about the fact that most native reserves have boil water warnings.

It is amazing that the Liberals have such a lousy environmental record. It is amazing that the environmental Auditor General can find so many flaws in what the government has done. The fact is that it has signed 200 agreements. She has audited 60 of them and the government has not lived up to them. It is shocking that it does not deal with contaminated sites.

The government keeps talking about its environmental record and the environment Auditor General said that it is leaving a horrible environmental legacy to our children and our grandchildren.

A member in the House said “Probably the member for Red Deer does not care about his children and his grandchildren”. Anybody who knows me would know that I probably care about them more than anything else in this whole world. That is what this is about. We need to do something. We need to have a plan for dealing with pollution and greenhouse gases, which is why conservation is the way to go.

It is great that the government can talk about it so much, that the whole front row over there can talk about it and leave their cars running all day out front. Just think about that image. If we go out there right now, those cars will be running. Some of them have been there since seven this morning and they are still running. The only reason that the chauffeur leaves is to get a gas refill. Canadians need to have that image of the government and its conservation. That is what it means.

The Liberals would choose not to see that. They may all go out the back door today so they do not have to see that what I am saying is true, but that is conservation.

I heard a member across say that those cars sit there for five or six minutes. Did he help write this report? It sounds like it, because that is the same kind of fictitious statement that is in the report. It is not true that they sit there for five or six minutes. They are sitting there hour after hour. That is the image for Canadians. That is the image that will cause Canadians to say, “Defeat Kyoto”. That is the image that Canadians will have to say, “You guys are not telling us the facts about Kyoto”. That is the image that Canadians will have of the government when it comes to Kyoto.

Do we need a plan on conservation? Yes, we need a definite plan. We need to change our light bulbs. We need to look at efficiencies of energy. That is a major plank in how we go about doing that. We cannot just talk about it. We must do it. That has to be the main thing.

What about transitional fuels? We could spend a lot of hours talking about transitional fuels, and a lot is being done there. Toronto is looking at various types of bio-diesel and at using soy oil and canola oil in our gas. We have to remember, though, that energy is consumed in manufacturing those things, too, turning them into oil that is mixed in with gas. It is not as cut and dried as it sounds. However there are all kinds of possibilities with hybrid vehicles, with bio-diesel, with the use of ethanol and methane, and some interesting technology, which I think TransAlta is probably one of the Canadian leaders in this area, and that is the sequestration of CO

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The Alberta Research Council has developed a project, which I visited and I think I understand. It pumps CO

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down into deep coal beds. There are coal beds underneath most of this country. These coal beds have a lot of methane in them. They are deep and not economical to mine but they have methane in them. By pumping CO

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into these coal seams it forces out methane which is then collected on the other end. Methane burns much cleaner than natural gas. The methane can then be used in power plants in all kinds of ways. The emissions have to be watched at the other end but that can be handled by scrubbers if the company is committed to clean burning energy.

The point is that there is technology that will help us bridge the gap between today and the future. It is not about doing nothing. It is not about status quo.

I am an environmentalist, Mr. Speaker. I could review my past for you but I know you can check the Hansard for that. I care about the environment.

These environmental groups often come up with statements that members of the Alliance Party are flat earth people. That is anything but the truth. The truth is that we are saying the status quo is not good enough. Canadians are saying that the status quo is not good enough. Canadians are saying that they want the environment fixed. They not only want us to fix the air environment but they also want us to fix the water.

Time will be a real problem here but if people really want to read about water, I have an excellent, award winning book that talks about the water around the world. If people really care about the environment, they will take much of what is in the book and realize what the problems are when we do not have our aquifers mapped and when we do not understand about the charge and recharge of those aquifers.

In Canada we do not know whether we are in a positive or negative charge in our various aquifers. We do not even know where most of our aquifers are. We take it for granted that we all have clean water but we do not. We have all kinds of water problems. If we put half the energy that Kyoto will cost us into water, we could purify the water of the world with what will be expended. We have to remember that the government has spent $1.6 billion already on Kyoto and what do we have to show for it?

I will quote some more from this book on water but I will get to that in a bit.

As far as clean coal technology is concerned, a pilot project is scheduled to start in 2008. It is an interesting project. It will clean up the coal that we burn. Most Canadians do not know this, but over 50% of our power comes from the burning of coal. Most people would probably say that hydro was the biggest and that nuclear power was pretty big in Ontario. It is not. Coal is what we use in Canada and it produces a lot of CO

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We are going to have to start using clean coal technology. One might say that the technology is not there yet, but the only place that it is not available is in Canada. Europe has been using clean coal technology for a long time. Parts of the U.S. are using clean coal technology. Canada is starting to use clean coal technology but we have a long way to go. We have to stop approving conventional coal power plants. We are still approving those. I know some provinces will not like to hear us say that but that is common sense and it shows that we will deal with the problem.

Exploring the area of transitional fuels of various hybrid vehicles using propane or natural gas will help us get through the next 10, 15 or 20 years until we have the real answer. The real answer and the most exciting answer is in the area of alternate energy.

There are a lot of skeptics of alternate energy. I call them that because some of them have a vested interest and some of them do not want this technology to develop too quickly. We should recognize that. It will be a major change in the way we do business when we go to alternate energy.

Let us explore the kind of alternate energy we might have and what we might use. The fastest growing alternate energy source is wind power. No matter what we know or do not know about wind power, it does have its limitations at present, but it is one of many solutions. It is part of the mix. If we went to a country like Germany, for example, we would see three or four windmills in a quarter section of land. Those windmills generate a lot of power into its grid. In countries like Denmark, windmills make up 20% of its power grid today. Ireland is building major wind farms.

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Liberal

Sarkis Assadourian Liberal Brampton Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like the hon. member and the House to know that he has now surpassed the time of the greatest socialist speaker in the world, Fidel Castro. I wish him all the best.

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The Deputy Speaker

Clearly that was not a point of order.

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Canadian Alliance

Chuck Strahl Canadian Alliance Fraser Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Not only do speeches have to be relevant but points of order have to be relevant as well. More important, the member opposite has just compared a speaker in the House of Commons to a Communist dictator in a foreign country. If he wants to use a word like moron, it is probably acceptable--

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The Deputy Speaker

That was definitely not a point of order. I think the House would rather hear from the hon. member for Red Deer.

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Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for giving me a moment's break. That was certainly considerate of him. I appreciate that very much. I should tell the member--

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The Deputy Speaker

The hon. member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands.

Kyoto ProtocolGovernment Orders

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Canadian Alliance

David Anderson Canadian Alliance Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Members seemed so eager to hear the member speak and they made a point of interrupting his speech so that they could point that out. I would like to call for quorum at this time.

And the count having been taken:

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The Deputy Speaker

There is quorum. The hon. member for Red Deer.

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Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the exciting field of alternate energy. That is the future that the government should be looking into. That is the future that the government should be putting out front, the made in Canada plan that involves conservation, transitional fuels and above all alternate energy. That is where we are going. That is where the excitement should be, instead of this negative, sky is falling, Chicken Little minister running across the country saying that everything is going to hell in a handcart not knowing what we are going to do. The government is asking us to implement Kyoto with no understanding, no plan, no cost, no implementation, and no targets; nothing but a blank cheque.

On behalf of our party I am putting forward an alternative. It is a vision that Canadians and provinces can buy into. Industry would love to be part of it. It would be exciting because it would be new. We could lead in something. We could sell that technology to countries like China and India that we talked about earlier. That is the vision I have for my children and my grandchildren, not this plan that is going nowhere.

We talk about wind energy and where it is at. We talk about how Germany is so dependent upon it and how Denmark is the leading country in wind energy. It works on a simple premise. The technology is evolving very quickly. We must remember that the price of wind and alternate energy is reducing 50% every 10 years and that by 2030 to 2040 it would become equal to carbon based energy. That figure has not been lost on Shell, BP, or Suncor. They understand that and they are investing in that whole area of alternate energy.

This is the way wind works. It works on a grade three principle of science. This is something that all of us probably remember back in grade three or four. I am sure most of the hon. members over there got that far. It works on the principle that the earth will heat during the day and cool at night. The ocean stays constant. Because of that, we have the wind blowing back and forth. It is not a big wind always, but always wind.

If a windmill were to be placed far enough out, with the smallest amount of resistance, the most advanced technology, no moving gears inside, it would turn even with the whisper of a wind 24 hours a day generating electricity.

The German wind farm of 600 windmills, 50 kilometres out in the ocean, the Irish one that is being built somewhat the same, the Danish windmills, that have developed the technology so that those windmills have so little resistance they literally could turn a huge windmill without any kind of power being put to it, are now producing 5 megawatts. That is enough for a thousand homes. The new ones are 15 megawatts and would probably produce enough electricity for 3,000, 4,000 or 5,000 homes. That wind farm would produce enough power for several million homes and that is just one project.

There is no CO

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given off from that. I mentioned a few hours earlier that maybe we will be short of CO

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in the year 2060 or 2070. Wind power would become so efficient that every country would use this alternate energy. Who knows what that might bring. It is exciting because that is how we solve these problems.

Wind energy maybe only 10% or 20%. The only two provinces that are using it at this point are Alberta and Quebec. Those are the two Canadian provinces leading in wind energy, but not leading in wind energy technology. They are leading in the construction of windmills. I visited the one in Pincher Creek, Alberta. Windmills are being put up at about one every three months. There is a major wind farm being developed there. All of Calgary's transit system works on wind energy. That is not publicized very much but that is the future.

Let us move on to solar power. Solar power has its limitations on earth but members should think about it this way. There are about six billion people in the world and just under five billion who do not have a regular source of power. I was in Tibet this past May. On Tibetan houses there were solar collectors being used to cook food and to power one light bulb per day. Every house had a photovoltaic cell for storing the energy. That is pretty interesting because five years ago the source of fuel was yak dung which was dried on the side of a wall and then burned. The problem with yak dung was the bad smell and it affected people's eyesight. Some 20% of the people have impaired eyesight, right down to blindness.

The developing world would be able to use tiny solar collectors to store energy which it never had before. China is using solar collectors. It used to burn soft coal briquets. I have been in Beijing in every month of the year. I have been there in December and January when I could literally chew the air. I started coughing after being there for a couple of days because the pollution was so bad. It is not that way anymore. Part of it is because China is leapfrogging technology and utilizing some of these innovations.

What application does this have for us? The most interesting solar project I found was one developed by NASA. The project would build the same kind of solar cell as used on a space station but would be a mile square. It would be up in space and rotated by computers toward the sun. There would be no clouds and anything affecting the solar cell. The sun's energy would be available 24 hours a day. The solar energy would be turned into a microwave and beamed down to a generating station on earth to drive a generator.

It would be perfectly clean and cost nothing. It would be there forever as long as the sun shines and there would be no CO

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being released. That potentially could provide all the electricity that we might need. Is it economical today? No. Will it be economical in the future? Yes, particularly if it gets a buy in from governments.

What governments are promoting it the most? They are Denmark, Germany, the United States and Japan. Those countries are part of these kinds of projects. If our government were to have any commitment to the environment, to cleaning up the environment, to providing Canadians with a guaranteed energy future, it would be into these kind of projects.

Instead it has Kyoto where we do not know the costs. We know the government would have a tax. It is saying we must cut our energy use by 20%. It would ensure we do by having a tax to make us do it. That is the future that it sees for the country but that is not the future that this party sees for the country.

This party sees a future that is much greater and has much more. We talk about the environment minister and the Viagara ad, except he is in reverse. We could come out of that white fence pretty excited about things, if we got into alternate energy.

What about biomass? What is one of the biggest problems with the large agricultural feedlots and so on? We all know what that is, it is the smell. The smell is the rotting manure that is produced by large farms. Humans also produce that and we call it sewage, but there are solutions.

I hate to keep using one country as an example, but I visited Berlin, Germany. I have made a habit over the last 30 years of asking people wherever I go what they do with their garbage. I find the answers very interesting. In Canada we still have landfill sites, we are still building them, but most places do not have landfill sites any more.

I have short side story. I was in Vienna sitting next to the mayor at a banquet. I asked him what he did with his garbage. He said, “Are you interested in garbage?”. I said, “Yes, I am really interested in garbage”. At eleven o'clock at night I was with the mayor of Vienna driving down a street downtown. We stopped in front of what looked like an apartment building. It was all lit up with curtains and everything. It was only six feet deep. In behind was an incinerator and recycling plant.

Let me come back to Berlin. What does Berlin do with its garbage and sewage? A private company runs their sewage disposal. Sewage is deposited into six large vessels where it is fermented. Bacteria is added and it is fermented big time. Methane is produced and the solid matter is dried. That methane is used to incinerate the garbage, with collectors on top of the stacks so nothing goes into the air or water. What happens to the water in the sewage? The water in the sewage is heated and that heat is then sold in pipes all through Berlin which is how all the buildings are heated.

The pipes are right on top of the ground going into every building. Buildings are heated by fermenting the sewage and burning the garbage. It is a totally closed system. How long has Berlin being doing that? Forty years. That is technology; that is the future.

Our government does not have any vision for biomass, solar power or wind power. It does not even talk about it. Chicken Little never talks about that. He talks about the sky falling.

Geothermal energy has become a favourite for me because it is being used in my constituency. A new recreation unit and swimming pool were being built in Sylvan Lake, Alberta because energy costs were going up. The town wanted to find another way to heat the building and the swimming pool. It found a company located in Calgary which had just moved a division from New Zealand to Canada. It had been using geothermal energy for a long time. The town of Sylvan Lake wanted to take a look at it.

Let me read this letter to the House:

Thank you for your kind letter of October 11th and attached certificate.

They had their opening and I had to be here, but I sent them a certificate.

As we discussed briefly in Innisfail, the geothermal system at the aquatic facility cost us an additional $200,000 over the cost of a natural gas system. We estimate at today's gas rates that we will save approximately $80,000 per year in operating costs. This will give us a two-and-a-half year payback, an enviable return on investment which reduces harmful emissions. If you find time for a tour, I would be pleased to make the arrangements. Again, thank you for your support and keep anti-Kyoto work going.

That is small-town Canada. It has a solution.

Does anyone know what happened in that plant? I visited that plant about two weeks ago. The exciting part is that it is now at $10,000 to $20,000 above the savings it thought it was going to have. It will have the whole system paid for in under two years and then it will have free energy forever. That is the vision for this country. That is where we are going, but the government does not talk about that. It is going to sign us up to these commitments in an international boondoggle called Kyoto. We will have penalties associated with that. We will be sending our money to Russia to be used there to develop whatever, not spent here to develop technology like that being used in small-town Canada.

It is important that we know and that Canadians know what they are getting into. There are exciting projects going on across the country. We can talk about bio-digesters. One is here in Ontario and now is up and working. There are feedlots in the U.S. that are now collecting methane and burning it as fuel. Are we doing that? Is the government encouraging that? No, it is not. Remember that the government is “feel good, talk about it, but do not do anything”. And when it finally does something, it is the wrong thing. Obviously we have a lot of examples of that.

There is also tidal research. I am afraid I do not know a lot about the future of tidal energy, but I do know that it is there. I know there are companies working on it and I know it has potential.

I have left the most exciting one for last and that is the whole hydrogen and fuel cell potential. The use of hydrogen as a fuel is exciting. It is exciting how fast that technology is developing. It is exciting because countries like the U.S. are putting major, major dollars into developing it. It is exciting, and it is sad in a way that Mr. Ballard from Ballard Power in Vancouver is saying that the worst thing this country could do is sign on to Kyoto because it will end the development of the fuel cell in this country. I will quote him later on when I have time to talk about some of these important quotes from Canadian citizens who are out there in this business.

What is hydrogen? There are various sources for hydrogen, but probably the major source is water. It is an interesting project. The technological problem today is splitting the water molecule to get the hydrogen and then storing the hydrogen and using it in the fuel cell, but those problems are being solved very quickly.

It is interesting. General Motors has talked about a project that it is doing in Idaho. It is building a solar factory. The solar factory will use solar energy to split the water molecule and store the hydrogen in titanium tanks. Those titanium tanks will then be put on half-ton trucks. It is building 42,000 half-ton trucks that will run on hydrogen in the year 2004. It is trying them out in Idaho because of the varying weather conditions and because there are enough people to drive half-ton trucks. The reason it is using half-ton trucks is that it works better for the titanium tank than putting it into a car.

The point is, it is being done. The point is, Los Angeles is implementing 1,000 buses that will run on hydrogen and fuel cells. As well, it is interesting that Beijing has ordered 10,000 natural gas fuel cell hybrids because it wants to clear up its air in time for the Olympics. It is interesting that countries like that are doing so much while we are signing on to Kyoto, which is going to send away money that should be used in developing these systems in this country. It makes no sense and I think members are now getting the picture as to why I can put so much into fighting this thing, because it is so wrong. It is just wrong, wrong, wrong. There is nothing in here that makes any sense.

What do we need to think about in alternate energy? What we have to remember is that we need government to set a vision. We need government to provide leadership. We need government to show that we have solutions, because every Canadian cares about the environment. We want to fix the problems that are there. We want to deal with climate change and we want to deal with pollution, but Kyoto is not the way. That is the message we must get out.

We have to remember that when it comes to alternate energy and the excitement of that, the costs are being reduced by 50% every 10 years. That is an important figure to remember. Today it is not economical, but it will be at some time in the future. With government initiative and support, it will happen sooner rather than later. We have to remember that it is estimated now that between 2040 and 2050 these alternatives will be equal to the carbon based fuels.

We will never use up our reserves of coal in this world. We probably will not use up our reserves of oil and gas either. In 1950 we were told that in 10 years we would have no more gas and oil. In 1960 we were told we would be out of oil and gas in 10 years. It has been 10 years, 10 years and 10 years. Today we have more reserves than we had in 1950 and they are increasing.

Should we do something? Yes, we should do something. What should we use the oil and gas for? We should use it for value added things like petrochemicals. We can preserve the oil and gas industry for thousands of years simply because that fuel should not be used in those cars sitting out front. It should not be used for that. We should be using other energy sources, which are of course more environmentally friendly. The 33 cars sitting out front is just an example. It comes back to the whole leadership issue.

I hope this gives people a feeling for where our party would go. Our party would deal with this issue. It would deal with the environmental problems today, but it would not bankrupt us in a phony, good for nothing Kyoto protocol that will not deal with the environment, that is a waste of money, that is a forced bureaucracy and that will lead to our standard of living decaying even further. It is no vision. It is no vision for anything.

As I have presented this across the country, I have not found many people who disagree. In fact in one place some of the people who were there said they thought I almost had the guy from the Sierra Club buying a membership in my party. He could see that we had some solutions, that we had some answers, and I think it is pretty important to demonstrate that.

Mr. Speaker, that is our vision of where we would go. I hope you have appreciated the opportunity to have it explained.

I want to now get back to the actual government plan and the Kyoto protocol. That was just a little introduction to what I have to say. I know that some members across the way will probably ask me to their ridings and have me do a presentation on Kyoto. I would be more than happy to do that and let them know. Of course, I trust that at their caucus meeting tomorrow they will be sure that any Prime Minister or future prime minister knows what the Kyoto protocol says about the penalties. Just in case any future prime minister does not understand the penalties, he should understand this, and if they need copies, I know that the pages would be glad to make them and distribute them to the members.

I would even go further. If they would like me to do a little session at their caucus meeting about Kyoto, I would certainly be more than happy to do that on behalf of the Canadian public.

Let us get back to the Kyoto protocol and some of the issues that I know the government wants to talk about and would like me to really get into.

As far as the polls are concerned, of course with every day that goes by we know that the support for Kyoto drops. We know that people are starting to say that they would prefer a made in Canada plan, one that involves alternate energy and vision for the future, and we know that they are starting to say that they probably do not understand Kyoto well enough but now they have their doubts. They now think it is going to affect their jobs and their standard of living. They now think they will have to pay more and it is going to affect their taxes. Call it a carbon tax or call it whatever we want, but the bottom line is that somebody has to pay for all this and that means a tax for Canadians.

Canadians are starting to realize this and I think the government of course is starting to panic a little bit. The very fact that it is not going to take the opportunity to send this to committee and have witnesses brought in to look at it I think is pretty indicative of how frightened it is. If it would send this to the environment committee and bring in witnesses on both sides of the issue, Canadians would really understand where it is at. There are as many witnesses saying “don't sign” as there are saying “sign”, and Canadians just do not know what those facts are.

We could talk about the polls, and Mr. Speaker, I have so much material here that I hope I can get it done by Christmas.

Let us carry on and get back to the plan, the powder-puff PowerPoint presentation that the government has put forward and faked as a plan. Let us see what the provinces think of this plan, because that is who it was done for. It was not done for the Canadian people. It was certainly not done for our benefit. It was done for the provinces.

The November 21 meeting of environment and energy ministers was postponed. Of course, we now know that the meeting on November 29 has been cancelled totally. Now the government is saying to forget the provinces, that it does not have to consult with them at all. It has told us in the House that it does not have to listen to the MPs at all, that it can ratify this without us.

This means that people elected to represent Canadians here do not matter. Nobody is going to listen anyway. We can talk all we want, but the government is not going to listen. It will not listen to parliamentarians. It will not listen to the Canadian premiers. It will not listen to Canadians. Why should it consult them? They are the ones who are going to be affected by this. It will not consult with the manufacturers. It will not consult with the chambers of commerce. It will not consult with those small businesses out there that are going to be affected.

Think about it, Mr. Speaker. When have we heard any government say that it would not ever talk to the people? What kind of government is it that would do this sort of thing?