Madam Speaker, if one thing has saddened me in this debate, it certainly was not the filibuster of the member for Red Deer, but the position of somebody that I respect very highly. To think that the leader of the Conservative Party has taken this tack.
I was minister of the environment of Quebec during the debate on CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, where the provinces opposed clauses in the act which infringed on provincial jurisdiction. I remember the minister of the federal government fighting very hard to impose the act because he had the right to do it. The record will show that at that time I proposed an equivalency clause to exempt provinces if their legislation was equivalent to CEPA.
The federal minister at that time, the government's ex-minister of foreign affairs, was ready to impose CEPA on the provinces. I know because I was part of the debate day in and day out. Let us not hear the Conservative members saying that they are full of purity and that we are the people to blame. Sometimes in our daily lives we have to take action. The action on Kyoto is now. We cannot wait forever to ratify the Kyoto protocol.
Many years ago we were the brand new continent, the new world. We were the continent of innovation, of Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller, Wassily Leontiev of economics, Salk and Flemming in medicine. Meanwhile, the old world was mired in wars over the first half of the last century, one war more brutal than the other, causing damage and devastation beyond imagination, while this new world thrived.
After the war was over, suddenly there was a great change in mentalities. The victor and the vanquished in Europe came together and formed, against all expectations, an amazing union, which is now thriving, and which now has one of the most stable currencies, one of the prime currencies of the world with the American dollar. Who would ever have imagined it?
Meanwhile, we of the new world have become mentally the old world, shrinking unto ourselves, led by the super power to the south of us, which is so proud to call itself the one super power in the world. Is that super power teaching us the example of collectivity, of multilateral action, of joining with others to cure the ills of the world so there will not be a rich world and a poor world, and something for the haves and something else for the have nots? No.
What does it do? It retrenches unto itself, negates all treaties that are collective in action and then wants to drag us into its dragnet, saying, “You, Canada, because you are a neighbour, do the same, otherwise you are going to be affected, because we have decided not to ratify Kyoto, the landmines agreement, the biodiversity convention and what else”.
I am proud that we have decided to join with those who believe that Kyoto is not only a matter of facts, figures and profits for this one or that one, or this province or that province, but that Kyoto is a matter of fairness and equity in the world. We, along with the United States, who pollute more than anyone else in the world and who are the champions of energy consumption in the world by far, per capita, should live differently, should manufacture differently and should think about those places, the small island states, Bangladesh, the have not countries that are polluted because of our actions as industrialized countries.
I look at what has been happening in the old world, the world of past wars. I look at the French rail system. I look at the windmill miracle of the Danes. I look at the fact that Sweden and Germany have decided, with great courage, to renounce nuclear power. I look at the fact that one can go to any airport in the smallest country, like Finland or Norway, and have fast transit to their airports. They have wonderful fast transit and we do not even have one major city linked by fast transit to our airports.
We are still debating Kyoto. We are still saying that we cannot do it, that we will suffer all the ills of the world if we ratify Kyoto. Where is our resolve? Where is our collective will with those wonderful universities that we have and those wonderful skills?
We have shown courage in so many instances in the world and that is what it is about. All that we have shown by taking the leadership in the landmines treaty, at the biodiversity convention in Rio, within the framework for climate change at Rio, have we lost that resolve that we can do it?
Kyoto is just a small baby step, the 6% that Premier Klein says will cause catastrophe in his land, or the premier of Ontario who says, “Oh, no”. I heard the Ontario minister say “It's like putting lipstick on a pig”, a great lofty debate.
Kyoto is a collective agreement that will force us to do things differently. I agree with the members of the Bloc who argued that the ratification of Kyoto is one thing that we must put behind us. The implementation plan must come afterwards and that has to be where our mission must start.
It will not only be 6%, we need to look to 2050 where we will have to reduce our energy consumption by not 6%, 12% or 25%, but by as much as 50% if we want to live differently, if we want to live in a world where those who waste and consume too much have to waste and consume less so that there is an equalization in the world.
The argument that China, Russia and Brazil are exempted from Kyoto is false. In 2005 they will have to join the treaty as well. They will have to be subjected to timelines and percentage targets.
The other day I quoted from a speech that I heard at the United Nations. I will now quote some details from it. It was given by the President of the Republic of Maldives. He said:
Geographically, the MaIdive Islands lie in the equatorial calm of the northern Indian Ocean, away from cyclone paths. The brief annual monsoonal turbulences and the occasional high tidal swells hardly ever endangered the 195,000 inhabitants of the islands.
This year, the frequency and magnitude of unusual tidal wave action has risen alarmingly. The period from the 10th to the 12th of April recorded the highest sea level evidenced in the country, during which unusual high waves at high tide struck the islands with a ferocity that inflicted extensive and unprecedented damage throughout the country.
The rich and developed nations clearly have the wealth and the land to defend themselves from a rise in sea level even if they wait for it to occur, yet they are already preparing. Because small states are more vulnerable, we have to prepare sooner. But the Maldives lacks the economic, technical and technological capability to deal with the formidable prospects of a significant rise in sea level.
We did not contribute to the impending catastrophe to our nation; and alone, we cannot save ourselves.
The day before yesterday there was an article in the paper about the tropical glaciers in the Andes that are melting at a much faster rate than the glaciers in the northern hemisphere. The people rely on these glaciers for drinking water, water for irrigation and water for industry. They say that the glaciers are melting so fast that they will disappear much faster than scientists ever believed.
Even today there was an article in the Globe and Mail about NASA taking photographs of the Arctic region which show that melting is occurring at a much faster pace than scientists ever believed.
I heard Dr. Robert Corell from the United States, who is now doing a special study on climate change in the Arctic, pronounce that in the year 2075 at the outside the Arctic Ocean will be an open sea.
The other day I was at a press conference where my colleague from Nunavut was speaking along with me. She said something that struck me very deeply. She said that their land was treeless and that they liked it that way. She said that they did not want it to change. She said that they liked their way of life but that it was being threatened by climate change.
That is really what Kyoto is about. Kyoto is not about us, the rich guys, whether we are in Quebec, Ontario or Alberta, spoiled as we are in our nice homes, with our nice SUVs and our vast parking lots. It is about us doing things differently so that people in the Arctic region and people in Bolivia and Peru will not suffer because glaciers will be melting faster than they ever thought possible. We must do things differently so that people in the small island states and others are given a chance. We, a rich nation, rich beyond compare, must be an example to others by showing them that we can do things differently. This is what Kyoto is about.
I was saddened when I heard that representatives of our mighty, historical, national party, the Progressive Conservative Party, would be joining, of all things, in a filibuster against Kyoto. How does that party appear to the rest of the world, the 93 countries that have ratified Kyoto? What does that party say to all of the European nations? What does it say to Japan? What does it say to all the countries that believe Kyoto is far more than just an instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3%, 4% or 6%?
Kyoto is just the start of a plan that must make us change our way of living and manufacturing and our way of doing things. This is what it is about.
I urge all my colleagues to show the way by ratifying Kyoto overwhelmingly. I know the Conservative leader said that it does not matter because the executive has the power to ratify it anyway. Of course it has the power to ratify but it will be far more important and symbolic if it obtains, as it will, the backing of a great number of MPs here in this House of Parliament.
I will close by reciting these words by Mahatma Gandhi that I heard a long time ago. He said, “Nature has something for everybody's needs but not enough for the greed of even some”.
That is what this is all about. We need to use the benefits of nature, as far as we can in human terms, so that everybody's needs are taken care of rather than catering to the greed of even some.
I ask the people who are against Kyoto today, whether they are from Alberta, Ontario or elsewhere, what it is that motivates them. Is it their own parish, their own economy or their own bailiwick for the common weal?
Today the common weal is far more than Alberta, Ontario and even Canada. It stretches beyond our borders because we are part of an international community where we contribute to the common weal of not just this part of the world, but the whole world. The planet is finite. There is only one and it cannot last forever at this pace. We have to change our ways. We have to change our lives. We have to change the way we produce and we have to change the way we consume energy.
This is why I will be among the great backers of Kyoto. I will vote for it and I hope the House will vote for it overwhelmingly. In closing I would like to say that I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Durham.