Debates of Dec. 2nd, 2002

Kyoto Protocol

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Sherbrooke. A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to visit the University of Sherbrooke. Over 50 students came to listen to a conference I gave on Kyoto. I noticed that many individuals and groups in the area wholeheartedly support the Kyoto protocol.

I would like him to tell me more about the groups in his area that have decided to support the Kyoto protocol. Since he is an accountant, I would also like him to explain to me the theory of marginal costs and the implications of this theory for the federal plan.

I have a chart showing the change in greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2010 for various economic sectors in Canada. For fossil fuels, the increase is 131%. For tar sands development, it is 310%. I mention with a special emphasis, because it is the economic base in Quebec, that the manufacturing sector has an increase of 3%.

Could the hon. member explain the marginal cost theory and tell us how the marginal cost in Quebec and its manufacturing industries is greater because the initial costs have already been incurred? In other sectors in the Canadian economy like the tar sands, the increase can be as high as 310%. In these sectors, marginal costs will certainly be much lower in the short term than in the manufacturing industry in Quebec, which is responsible for just 3% of emissions. I am talking here about the changes between now and 2010.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie would like me to name everyone in my area who agrees with Kyoto. I fear I might forget someone, and there are so many that I would use up all my time.

Of course, when there is one target for everyone, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reduction, in Quebec and the other provinces, there are a few basic elements we need to keep in mind. As I said earlier, initially, Ottawa invested $66 billion in the oil industry while Quebec invested on its own $43 billion in hydroelectric plants.

I also mentioned that hydroelectricity could also lead to a reduction of some 100 million tonnes of CO

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in the atmosphere. There would be less and less room for other industries that create greenhouse gas emissions. We know that transportation accounts for 37%. We also know that applying energy efficiency measures to these important sectors would allow Quebec to easily meet the targets.

However, for the provinces still relying on technologies almost so old that they burn coal, it is important to invest in new technology in order to become world leaders in the development of energy-producing technologies that would be greenhouse gas emission-free.

Right now, there is a double standard. We have to come back to the polluter pay principle.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join in the debate today. I will be sharing my time with the member for Davenport.

I am pleased to speak as the member of Parliament for York West in Toronto, an area that is dealing with a lot of serious pollution problems. I am very interested in where we are going with this debate and look forward to ratifying the Kyoto protocol, hopefully in the next short while.

It has been an interesting debate in many ways. For my part I want to comment on two elements. First, I want to get back to basics, the basics of climate change, what it could mean and what is often ignored in many of these discussions. Second, I want to comment on the ongoing work between the Government of Canada, the provinces, territories and municipalities, a record of practical discussion and action that is also too often overlooked.

Let me start with the basics of climate change. Those basics have been set out by a lot of research over a long period of time. The assessments by experts in climate change issues and related fields point to a worrisome future unless we take serious action, the kind of action that would be needed to meet our Kyoto targets.

Scientists have developed clear projections of increasing changes to our climate. They have set out clear conclusions as to what must be done to reverse the trends.

At its heart the greenhouse effect is a natural process. Our atmosphere, the mix of gases it contains and the way it deals with radiation from the sun keeps the Earth at a temperature that makes it a livable planet.

We have experienced increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases over the past two centuries, that is to say, since the start of the industrial revolution. At the same time as the concentration of greenhouse gases has risen, we have also seen changes in the climate itself, such as increased temperatures. Scientists have drawn on a constantly expanding body of knowledge and data to develop assessments of what would happen given current trends.

The issue is not only a question of a few more degrees in global temperatures; it is the impacts of those changes on our environment and on people. The larger the changes and the faster the rate of change in the climate, the more we are told we can expect negative effects. The impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and poor people in all nations, worsening existing inequalities in health and access to adequate food, clean water and other resources.

Yes, it is possible to adapt and yes, there could be some advantage for some people and places, but the best evidence says we cannot prevent all the damage from occurring. There is reason to act. There is every reason to build on the work to date in Canada and to increase it as our government has been doing steadily year after year, budget after budget.

It is not work that one order of government can do on its own. The Government of Canada has been working with its partners in provincial, municipal and territorial capitals in many ways.

Ministers of energy and the environment have been meeting regularly since 1993. They have supported the collaborative work of economists to develop the most reliable estimates of how acting to meet our Kyoto commitments would affect our economy. Their work has been matched by the work of the first ministers. Canada's first ministers and the ministers of energy and the environment agreed back in 1997 that Canada needed a Kyoto response that would enable Canada's economy to flourish and grow while at the same time reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of that, all governments have always agreed that no region should be asked to bear an unreasonable burden. The economic analysis that has been undertaken demonstrates that it is possible to design climate change policy for Canada that fully meets this commitment. This is what the plan tabled in the House on November 20 does.

Over the past five years federal, provincial and territorial government officials have met with industry and stakeholders in hundreds of working sessions to look at every aspect of the economy and a huge range of proposals on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This has been an extraordinary team effort by all.

As the level of government closest to Canadians, municipalities are directly involved with many of the daily activities that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Canada's action plan on climate change is based on a vision of competitive cities and livable communities that feature a vibrant community, culture, green space, affordable housing, social interaction, human health, water and air quality, local economic opportunities, mobility and proximity to work and recreation.

Municipal governments are already encouraging alternative forms of transportation, developing urban green space, using renewable forms of energy and performing energy-efficient building retrofits. They recognize that the action taken on climate change supports many of their objectives for sustainable community development, cleaner air and economic growth. The Government of Canada shares that recognition. That is why it established the $250 million green enabling fund, together with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Municipalities also have an important role to play in urban development and planning. Reducing urban congestion and urban sprawl is central to addressing climate change and ensuring that Canada continues to enjoy competitive cities and livable communities.

With nearly half of Canadians living in Canada's six largest cities, municipalities need to do more to address climate change, air pollution and congestion. By taking action now, our municipalities can preserve the quality of life in their communities, remain economically competitive and protect the health of their citizens while working with their partners in government.

As Canada moves forward on implementation on the next step of the plan, there will be much more consultation and collaboration. Indeed, I ask anyone to name me a federal government that has worked more closely and more often with its provincial, state and local partners than Canada.

There are those who say the federal government should work more cooperatively with the provinces and the territories. There are those who say the government should take a closer look at science. I have this to say. This government has done both. It has done that consistently and has been clear that it stands ready to keep doing that. The ratification of the Kyoto protocol is just the beginning.

It has taken us a very long time to get to the point where we are actually facing climate change. All the industrial societies over many generations have had a hand in that. Now it is up to all of us to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not just slowing things down over a period of some decades but actually reducing those emissions and protecting our country and our future for our children and our grandchildren.

The Kyoto protocol is the first step but not the last one on a long journey. By building on the action that Canada has already undertaken and by building on the collaboration for results, Canada can do its part to address the impacts that we face now.

[Ted White, Canadian Alliance, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to another canned speech from upstairs, lecturing us on science but it is not even scientific. Does the member know, for example, that approximately 10,000 years ago there was a period called the optimal medieval period when the temperatures were significantly higher than they are today? In fact, they were warm enough for Greenland to be colonized. How would the member explain the global warming that occurred at that time? It was not humans emitting greenhouse gases then.

Does the member know, for example, since she wants to talk about science, of the solar magnetic cycles from the year 1750? There are plenty of studies out there which she can access on the EPA website to see for herself.

Thousands of scientists feel with confidence that there is a much closer correlation between solar magnetic cycles of the sun than there is between CO

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and fluctuations in global climate, whether it is cooling or warming. For example, 3,000 years ago we had a mini ice age. It is normal for our atmosphere and our climate to vary in that way. We may be having an impact but it is completely irrelevant if the major contributor is out of our control. We should then start making an intelligent approach like talking about pollution instead of CO

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. Let us talk about cleaning up pollution. We do not need Kyoto to do that.

Does the member know, for example, that last year in Indonesia a peat bog fire that burned for the whole year emitted more CO

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in one year than Canada's man-made emissions?

To stand there and try to give us a science lesson in 10 minutes is almost insulting. There is tonnes of information out there with reputable scientists who completely disagree with what she has just said.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure what the hon. member was trying to raise in his question.

Science is often something that is debated by a variety of people. Clearly on climate change, we see problems in our environment and in our large urban cities and urban regions. I have meet with people who are suffering with everything from emphysema to an awful lot of other varying ailments.

Frankly I am not prepared to wait to see if the sciences I listen to are wrong and scientists that the member listens to are right. I have heard from far more people who are immensely knowledgeable and who have been studying this issue for a long time. I am not prepared to jeopardize my country and the world while we try to find out if our scientists are right or if his scientists are right.

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is significant in the exchanges that have taken place over the last few days is the division into two camps of believers. One camp puts its confidence into the scientific evidence provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which I will refer from now on as the IPCC. It consists of a large number of scientists who have concluded that the climate is changing because of the burning of fossil fuels. The work of the scientists was subjected to three rounds of peer reviews. That is it has been subjected to the scrutiny of other scientists and thus it bears a high level of credibility.

Then there are the parliamentarians who instead put their faith in the findings of a small group of scientists whose activities are believed to be supported by the petroleum industry. A scientist named Bjorn Lundberg, mentioned in the debate last week, belongs to this group. It must be emphasized that his work is not peer reviewed.

Against this background the question that arises is this. What should an elected representative do in the public interest and should he or she act on the conclusions by scientists whose work is not peer reviewed or choose the conclusions by those whose work is peer reviewed and, therefore, likely to be accurate?

In addition to the choice of one scientific conclusion over another, there are also other factors that come into play in deciding whether to support ratification of the Kyoto protocol or not.

We have in the past 10 years evidence of changes in weather patterns, more frequent weather extremes resulting in damage to the insurance industry, to agriculture and to the shipping industry. The occurrence of more frequent hurricanes, floods, droughts and hot summers has reinforced at the non-scientific level the notion that something is wrong with the weather.

Have we caused harm to the weather, as noted by Arctic scientist Fred Roots as he contends in a recent paper? Why do the Kyoto opponents pay so little importance to recent weather extremes and to the views of specialists in Arctic methods?

Unless these questions are fully answered, democratically elected governments and representatives have little choice: ratify the only international document, called the Kyoto protocol, which aims at making an initial very modest step toward the goal of repairing the damage human activities continue to cause to weather.

Much has been said about the cost of action, but not much about the cost of inaction. For instance, severe droughts damage agriculture and lead to more forest fires. In the Arctic we hear reports on the negative impact of climate change on permafrost.

Therefore we have every reason to believe that the cost of inaction is likely to overtake the cost of ratifying Kyoto. On this issue alone a debate is badly needed.

Moving on, in a recent study the Department of Industry reports that more than $7 billion in economic activities can be generated by the ratification of Kyoto. Evidently opposition members did not find the time to read that report. The same can be said for those philanthropic organizations such as the Canadian Council of the Chief Executives, formerly the BCNI, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Petroleum Producers Association to name a few.

Contrary to what opponents of the Kyoto accord are saying, its ratification offers Canada several advantages and opportunities. First, it would become more energy efficient and less energy wasteful. Second, it would make Canada more competitive. Third, it would make non-renewable fuel reserves last longer. Fourth, it would develop the use of natural gas, of which we have plenty, and of renewable sources of energy at a faster pace.

Fifth, it would remove perverse tax subsidies to the tar sands oil. Sixth, it would improve air quality. Seventh, it would protect polar ice caps and the permafrost. Eighth, it would reduce the rise in sea levels. Ninth, it would moderate weather extremes, frequent droughts and forest fires. Tenth, on the international scene, it would make Canada a responsible player in striving for global security.

At this point a brief comment is necessary on the litany of false claims that were made by the member for Red Deer. They were unfortunate because they weakened his credibility as the Alliance Party's environment critic.

The other day the hon. member still laboured under the illusion that there was no link between climate change and smog, and we heard it also today. Toronto residents remember what happened last summer with the highest number of smog alerts. The member for Red Deer is blissfully unaware of the fact that the main sources of smog are pollutants from vehicles, coal burning power plants and certain industries. When we have higher temperatures we use more electricity and therefore we increase the production of coal produced electricity. When we reduce these pollutants and the electricity producing activities then we reduce smog.

The member for Red Deer criticized the government because he felt public consultations held with the provinces, territories, business and the public were inadequate. Where has he been? Over the past seven years intensive consultations were held with the business sector. There were 14 round tables. In addition, the government of Alberta co-chaired with the Government of Canada the federal-provincial consultations.

Responsible governments of developed countries the world over are now signing and ratifying the Kyoto protocol. We have a choice, we could imitate the Bush administration and not ratify, or ratify. By not ratifying we would say to the global community we are not prepared to share the responsibility of resolving the climate change problem and prefer to leave its solution to other nations, hide our head in the sand, and hope for the best. This is the message that seems to be emerging from the Alliance Party, and from the Progressive Conservative Party as well.

What the official opposition does not seem to mind is to offer Canadians the option of isolation from the rest of the world with the exception of the United States. It does not seem to mind Canada becoming a carbon copy of the Bush administration, but we do. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that there are three preconditions necessary for the successful implementation of the Kyoto agreement.

It will have to come from three sources; government, industry and most importantly, citizens. From the government it is most vital that the finance minister remove obstacles to achieving our Kyoto target, such as preferred subsidies to industries which are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, and to introduce incentives for the accelerated development of renewable energy. With the finance minister, the role of the Minister of Industry cannot be emphasized enough because that minister is to provide the framework for innovation and technological advancement.

From Canadian industry we need a change in mindset and attitude, from being reluctantly dragged into the age of clean energy and efficiency, to become leaders, as industry does in other countries and in other jurisdictions.

There needs to be acceptance by each Canadian of the innovative challenge by the government to reduce individual greenhouse gas contributions by one tonne through simple changes in daily activities.

These are three preconditions which, if put into place soon, could lead to a successful implementation of the Kyoto agreement. They could give Canada a leading edge role in the economy of this planet and demonstrate that we are on the right track because we alerted the public to a problem that needed to be resolved, not only in the interest of the Canadian public, but also in the interest of the global community.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have always admired the previous speaker's dedication to the environment, but I am disturbed by his distortion of not only our position but the positions of many others.

It seems strange to me that any scientists supporting the Kyoto accord are valid no matter where they come from and no matter what they say, even if for whatever reason the scientists on the IPCC completely distorted the conclusion of the scientific study.

The study said that science could not conclude that man had any discernible effect on climate on this globe and yet, in the member's view, any scientist who speaks against the science of Kyoto is somehow a bag man for the oil industry and does not speak the truth. Some 17,000 scientists signed the Oregon petition saying the science of Kyoto was not valid and should not be followed to the economic disaster where we seem to be heading.

This member continually takes that position. He takes the position that the Canadian Alliance wants to sit and do nothing, and burn in hell because the climate is getting hot and causing disruption around the world. It has never been our party's position to do nothing.

When U.S. politicians looked at the issue through joint congressional and senate hearings they decided that was not the way to go and they would take action outside the Kyoto accord. Many states in the United States will exceed the Kyoto targets without being part of the Kyoto accord.

Why could we as a country not proceed and achieve all of these things without being wrapped into the Kyoto accord, facing timelines and targets that the Kyoto accord imposes on us which, in my view, we cannot possibly meet?

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Athabasca has raised an important point and has asked a good question which because of limited time, boils down to whether or not we should be engaged in the Kyoto accord global effort.

That is an important decision in terms of foreign policy. If the official opposition chooses a role for Canada outside the global community in resolving the problem of climate change, that is its prerogative. There is no doubt about that. We on this side of the House believe that we should proceed with the rest of the global community and not stay outside.

If the Democrats had been re-elected in the United States, this probably would not have happened south of the border. The decision by the United States is a decision made by the White House. I would imagine that the vast majority of Americans would want to be part of the Kyoto exercise given the opportunity.

We have the opportunity as a country to play the role of willing participants in global initiatives and therefore it is consistent with our history and tradition in foreign affairs. Otherwise, we would be giving the global community the signal that we were washing our hands of the issue and an international agreement which was extremely difficult to arrive at and which took several years to finalize was something that Canada preferred not to take part in. We have a great record in the United Nations in peacekeeping, in the creation of the International Criminal Court, and Kyoto is part of that overall tradition.

[John M. Cummins, Canadian Alliance, Delta—South Richmond, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Kyoto accord deals primarily with emissions of carbon dioxide. The hon. member talked about smog in Toronto. The Kyoto accord does not deal with environmental contamination in general and air pollution in particular. Why the reference to smog in Toronto?

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I gave an elaborate explanation earlier, but I am glad to repeat it because the Canadian Alliance members seem to have difficulty in linking the question of climate change, such as hot summers, and the necessity of increased electricity consumption to enjoy air conditioning and other industrial necessities that require colder temperatures. That leads to a greater demand on electricity. That, in turn with climate change, leads to the creation of more intensive smog formation. The link is caused by the change in climate and the change in temperature.

As for greenhouse gases per se, the hon. member ought to be reminded of the fact that we are not talking of CO

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, but we are also talking of methane and other chemical substances that are a part of the greenhouse gas family.

I wish that we could reach a plateau of understanding of the issue whereby we would stop delinking climate change from the creation of smog because there is a link between the two.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is truly an interesting debate on which the nation needs to get as much information as it possibly can as we proceed further. The only thing that is clear about the national debate on Kyoto is that day by day Canadians are losing confidence in a government that has no ability at all to educate itself on the important issues and no capacity to make good policy decisions.

I would like to thank the member for Red Deer, because last week he spent over 11 hours in the House trying to explain this to all hon. colleagues and members in this chamber in a very thoughtful and thorough way as he analyzed what the Prime Minister's Kyoto commitment will mean to the economy and how the Prime Minister has sold out the protection of the environment for the sake of an international photo op.

In the Prime Minister's haste to commit Canada to an international agreement, he set out CO

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targets that we do not know if we can ever even meet, or even if we can afford them. He has missed one very important thing, which is that if Canada is to make any real gains in protecting the environment, it will take every province and every Canadian to buy into the strategy. We will have to do much more in the whole area of reducing pollutants in this country.

Herein lies the root problem, because the Liberal government has no plan for Canadians to buy into. They are being asked to buy into this Kyoto accord, an international agreement, but there are no targets there. They cannot grab hold of something and say that this is the plan, this is what it will cost, these are the timelines and this is what will happen. All we know is that there is a vague number, a percentage by the year 2012. Canadians do not know how it will impact them. They do not know if the targets are there and they do not know if this will ever have any impact on the environment. In fact, most scientists are saying it will not.

Since the Prime Minister first pulled the targets out of thin air in 1997, the government has done virtually nothing. It has missed an opportunity to inform Canadians about what the agreement really means and what it really means to them. It has failed to educate Canadians on what they can do to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. All that the Liberal government has achieved is to create one more battle with the provinces and send a chill of uncertainty throughout this country and throughout the economy.

I appreciate the valuable information and the feedback that I have received from my constituents in Yellowhead, who have expressed to me a broad spectrum of concerns on this issue over the last number of weeks and months.

There are a couple of things that have become very clear. First, we are all in agreement that something should be done to protect the environment. That is a motherhood statement. None of us want to leave our land, our air or our water in worse shape than we found it. We know that we have problems there and we know that something needs to be done. Second, there are many unanswered questions about how to implement Kyoto. What will it cost to implement? What is the government's implementation plan? Is this the most effective way to reduce energy consumption and pollution?

I am proud to represent the constituents of Yellowhead. I can say without reservation that ours is the most beautiful constituency and riding in Canada. We are known for our clean air, our rolling hills, our abundant wildlife, our breathtaking mountain scenery and our breathtaking mountains. We are also a major source of energy for the nation's cars and for our homes. Many of our communities are dependent on the energy sector for their existence. It would be irresponsible for me to support any legislation or motion without first knowing the effect it would have on those communities. That is why I am here this evening.

For five years the Canadian Alliance has been asking the government to table a Kyoto implementation plan so that Canadians could review it. Five years and 2,000 other dust-gathering international environmental agreements later, we have nothing to show for it. First we were told not to worry, that the Canadian economy would not suffer because of Kyoto. Now we have received a hastily prepared PowerPoint presentation, glossy documents and $10 million worth of slick, taxpayer funded ad campaigns proclaiming that Kyoto is the only way.

For Canadians, the absence of figures on the effect on the economy should raise all kinds of alarms. How it will affect our jobs should also raise many alarms for us, and the absence of any effort in an environmental plan to deal with the 45 smog warning days in Toronto should be absolutely alarming to us.

Right now the Prime Minister is asking Parliament for a blank cheque to implement the Kyoto accord. Since signing the original accord in 1997, the Prime Minister has had five years to inform Canadians and Parliament on how the government would implement a plan to reduce 6% of the CO

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emissions from 1990 levels. We are actually currently 26% over the target that the Prime Minister has committed us to.

I cannot support Kyoto unless there is a plan to ensure that the interests of Canadians are protected, and there should be no one in the House who is prepared to do that. While the intentions of Kyoto are good, we cannot afford to sign a blank cheque without knowing the costs to the economy and the benefits to the environment. That does not mean that we should just sit back and do nothing. Canada has an opportunity to re-establish its role as an international leader by offering the world a plan to reduce humans' negative impact on the environment.

I support a made in Canada plan, a plan that addresses not only CO

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but other pollutants such as smog and acid rain. I support the investment for research and development in alternative fuels and the cleaner use of existing energy sources. I support the educating of Canadians on how to reduce the energy that we use, on how to be much more effective and efficient in how we do that.

A made in Canada plan must include consultation with the provinces and discussion with our trading partners. That is sadly lacking in the Kyoto accord. I am sorry to have to tell the Prime Minister that trading carbon credits, as Kyoto calls for, is not the answer. That would do nothing to help the environment.

The Kyoto accord is bad for Canada because it will kill jobs and it will have a devastating effect on the economy. It is damaging to Canada's international competitiveness. It is divisive. It is useless for the environment and diverts Canada from the right strategy to address climate change.

The Kyoto accord will affect between 250,000 and 450,000 manufacturing jobs. They will be lost by the year 2010. The accord will cost $3 billion a year in international credits. Even taking into account the benefits to the conservation and renewable energy sectors, the cost would be well over $1,000 per man, woman and child in the country. These are not just simple numbers; they are actual lives of real Canadians that the Prime Minister is playing with. We are not talking just simple dollars and cents. The effect will be devastating.

Europe and the third world countries know that we will be legally bound to pay them billions to buy the credits to meet our emission targets. No wonder they are pressuring Canada to ratify the accord. Five billion of the world's six billion people are not subject to the Kyoto accord at all. Some of the world's worst polluters, such as Mexico, China and India, will not be bound at all by the Kyoto accord or the targets.

Recent studies done by Canadian manufacturers and exporters indicate that Canadians would have to pay up to 100% more for their electricity, 60% more for their natural gas and up to 80% more for gasoline if we were to implement the accord. We can imagine the devastating effects on a nation as large as ours. Let us take just one of those figures and say it is right, with a 100% price increase for gasoline. Or let us say that is stretched a little bit. Maybe it would be only a 50% increase. We can imagine, with the size of our nation, how that would impact air traffic, travel and the transportation of goods across the country. We can imagine how it would affect individual Canadians as they move across the country. Just this impact alone would be devastating, but we are talking about all of those other impacts and more.

The average Canadian household could face costs of up to $30,000 just to refurbish their house to meet Kyoto's stringent restrictions. Even the Kyoto-friendly figures from the David Suzuki Foundation show that the average Canadian family would have to pay $12,000 to retrofit their house to be able to conserve the amount of energy required to meet the efficiency standards set out by the Kyoto accord. Twelve thousand dollars may not be much to the Prime Minister and it may not be much to the environment minister, but to the hardworking, overtaxed people of Yellowhead it is a significant amount of money. They are seniors on fixed incomes in Mayerthorpe, struggling farmers in Evansburg and hospitality workers in Jasper who hold down three jobs. Retrofitting their houses or having to pay increased rents will push more Canadians into Liberal government imposed poverty.

Leading economists say that Kyoto could lead to a recession in Canada and, as in every recession, existing environmental programs would be seriously compromised. Efforts to protect our rivers, our lakes, our soil, our air and our endangered species would have to all be put on the back burner because of the effect of Kyoto and the devastation of the nation's finances. Kyoto would have a devastating effect on the entire Canadian economy. Manufacturing in Ontario would be scaled back or would move overseas or to a more competitive nation such as the United States. Oil and gas exploration in the Maritimes would likely dry up.

While I am concerned about the national economy, I am fearful of what effects my riding of Yellowhead would see. Meeting with constituents this past weekend, I noted that the uncertainty has already set in. Energy based projects have been put on hold in my riding. That is the reality. Jobs are being lost because of the reckless handling of this file by the Prime Minister and the environment minister.

The constituents of Yellowhead have seen this before, in the bundle of energy laws in the 1980s designed to nationalize the energy industry, artificially fix the price of oil and raise billions of dollars for the Liberals to spend on programs.

A key component of Prime Minister Trudeau's grand legacy, the national energy policy, devastated industries, communities and families throughout Yellowhead riding. New bureaucracies sprouted up and managed another resounding failure of state controlled involvement in the economy.

As parliamentarians, we know that Kyoto and the national energy policy are very different, but to the constituents of Yellowhead and to thousands of business leaders who lost everything when the current Prime Minister was the energy minister in the 1980s and was tasked with implementing the national energy policy, this is the only thing that they have to compare with what we are going through at this present time. They remember all too clearly losing their businesses and their homes.

During debate earlier this afternoon, the government side attempted to accuse the official opposition of fearmongering. In its fantasy world, it blames the economic uncertainty we currently are facing on our questions about how any plan would be implemented and what it would mean for investment in Canada.

I think that those kinds of remarks took debate in this place to an all time low. We are still asking these questions because we have not received any answers from the government. These are the questions we are hearing in the coffee shops in our ridings and in boardrooms across the country. It is a ridiculous line of logic: Do not ask the government about its blatant non-compliance because it might bring attention to its blatant non-compliance and lead to an economic slowdown.

Getting back to the lives of the people in Yellowhead, the member for Red Deer gave a list last week of the industries that would be the first casualties of the Prime Minister's faulty environmental policy. He might as well have been describing the entire economy of the Yellowhead riding. He talked about coal, oil, gas, mining, forestry, pulp and paper.

When the environment minister talked about the slowing economy, he was really pointing his finger at my constituency. For hundreds of bureaucrats and tax credit funded environmentalists fighting the possibility of implementing such a grand government scheme must make them just salivate. I can imagine it now: an army of hundreds of Kyoto-crats scurrying around the federal bureaucracy and around the country implementing Chrétien's Kyoto cutbacks.

Yellowhead was fortunate--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Order, please. You cannot refer to the Prime Minister by his name. You are a veteran in this House and I think you would know that.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry about that. I was referring to a title that would be put on this but it is my mistake.

Yellowhead was fortunate in that the member for Red Deer came to the riding in the spring to speak to the whole issue of Kyoto. He has a wealth of knowledge that the government would be wise to tap into. We asked him to come to the riding to discuss this issue.

The municipalities in my riding had been asked to give their endorsement and to sign on to the Kyoto accord. I asked those municipalities to come to listen to the member in order to be a little more informed before they made their decision. That is exactly what they did and thank goodness they did. They went away much more informed. I do not believe there is one of them that endorsed the accord.

We would be so fortunate to have a Minister of the Environment come to Yellowhead to explain the government side. I would love to see that happen so we could enter into a discussion with the hon. member for Red Deer at the same time. I know the Minister of the Environment would not be able to look the resource workers in the eye and explain why the economic uncertainties were good for the environment.

The Minister of the Environment has not told Canadians that 50% of electricity comes from coal burning. Yellowhead has some of the finest and cleanest coal burning companies in the world. Power plants in my riding have made great gains in the reduction of CO

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and are currently working in the clean coal technologies that will provide safe, reliable energy until alternative fuel sources are found. We need to find those as soon as possible because that is where the answers really lie.

Implementing new technologies takes time. Whether we are looking for cleaner coal technology projects that have been in the plans for 10 years now or more or hydro wind power or other technologies, large scale solar and so on, these take time to develop. That is where we will find the answers for the present dilemma we are in, and how into the 21st century we will be able to clean up our land, water and air.

Advancements in these new technologies are happening as we speak. It alarms me that the Liberal government would rather spend billions of dollars buying international credits than it would investing in Canadian solutions.

The energy sector has been one of the most vocal in expressing its concerns. It has experienced the pains of the Liberal government's economic meddling. This will affect every Canadian consumer and every sector in the country. The agricultural industry will see higher fuel costs. Kyoto tax measures will tax them as well. The cost of driving to destinations such as Jasper will be out of reach for many people. There is no question that Kyoto will have an absolutely devastating effect on many places, not only in my constituency or in the province of Alberta, but right across the country.

It is interesting that the Prime Minister is entering the discussion with the provinces on increasing the funding for health care. He just went into the dollars that probably will be put into health care. Because of the self-imposed deadline that is approaching and the debate we are having right now, it will be interesting to see whether closure will be used on the debate or whether we will truly have an open and wide debate on this very important issue.

We have a narrow window of opportunity to protect Canada's economy from the effects of ratifying this accord before Christmas. We need to take advantage of that right now. We need to think seriously about where the House is going, about what we are about to vote on and about the repercussions it will have on the nation from coast to coast.

[Lynne Yelich, Canadian Alliance, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening intently to the hon. member for Yellowhead. I was wondering if he thinks that ratifying the Kyoto accord would further widen the gap in the standard of living between Canada and the United States and if the investment freeze would only intensify. I would like to hear his comments on what he thinks of the standard of living and where it will go with ratifying the Kyoto accord.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question is a very good one. It is one thing that I did not mention in my address, but it is absolutely true.

We trade 80% to 90%, depending on the numbers one uses, with our largest trading partner which happens to be the United States. It is not signing the accord. It is not that it is not for the environment; many of the states are doing much more aggressive things than where the Kyoto accord will actually go, but they are doing them in their own way. It is a made in the United States approach.

We are suggesting that we need a made in Canada approach so that we do not unduly destroy certain industries and opportunities that we have as a nation as we move forward. For us to sign on to an accord where the repercussions are so devastating puts us in a trading deficit and disadvantage with the United States, our largest trading partner, in a significant way that we may never come out of. It may spin us into a much different recession than that of the United States. If that were to happen, we may lose our currency. We as a nation are already upset about our 64¢ dollar. It was 63¢ and 62¢ less than a year ago and it could go down to 52¢ or 42¢. It could destroy the economy to that degree.

It is something we should look at very soberly. When we see the repercussions of signing on to an accord, the costs become unbelievable, but maybe that would not be all that bad. Maybe Canadians would say it is worth the price if we could really clean up the air. But when 95% of the CO

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in Canada is emitted naturally and we are talking about only 2% to 3% that is human made and we are going to reduce that by only 6%, even if we eliminated all our CO

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, it would have no effect on the world's climate.

Is that really going to achieve the goal? I would suggest the answer is no. That is why the cost does not match the gain.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of points I would like the hon. member to respond to.

I may be a bit of a slow thinker, but the hon. member for Davenport in the question and comment period could not understand why we could not understand that if the summers are that much hotter and there is such a great demand for electricity to run our air conditioners, that creates more smog. On the surface, one would have to think that was a logical conclusion, but then one would also have to conclude that if the temperature has risen to the degree that it is going to make that much difference to the smog conditions in Toronto, then in the winter, because it is so much warmer, we would not have to run our furnaces nearly as much. Therefore we would have much less CO

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produced in the winter which would perhaps more than offset using the air conditioners in the summer.

Maybe the hon. member for Davenport should run his scenario through to its conclusion. Perhaps the member could comment on that.

Also the hon. member for Davenport and other members on the Liberal side in the last few days in this debate, when they can no longer argue their case on the science or the economics, they fall back to the position that Canada as a member of the world community has a responsibility to set an example as a leading nation in the world. There is some question as to whether or not Canada is a leading nation anymore, but if it is, then we have a moral responsibility to lead by example for the rest of the world and sign this accord whether or not our CO

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emissions are significant in terms of world emissions.

I would ask you to comment a bit on how you see our responsibility as a member of the world community.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Just as a warning, I would ask members to please address their comments to the Chair. It is much easier to manage that way.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the smog in downtown Toronto was mentioned. I think a lot of Torontonians actually feel that if the Kyoto accord is signed, it is going to solve that problem. Forty-five days of smog alerts this year is significant and the city absolutely has a problem. The problem with the Kyoto accord is it is not the CO

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that is causing the damage, it is all of the other pollutants that come along with it. Even if we sign the Kyoto accord and implement it, reducing it not by 6% but let us say 100%, still would not eliminate the smog. That is one of the problems and misconceptions.

The longer we have this debate, the clearer it becomes to Canadians. When it comes to our international agreements, for a lot of the countries who signed them, it is more about wealth changing hands than it is about the environment. In fact, we even see provinces that are sort of on side with it. It is not so much because they are environmentalists, but because they see the dollars and cents that could be gained from signing the accord. That is the unfortunate part about it.

We have to look soberly at why we are signing this thing and whether we are going to get any benefits from signing it at all. We certainly know there will be devastating effects on the economy from it.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I rise to represent the people of St. Paul's in this very important debate.

St. Paul's is a pretty wonderful riding. It may not have the rocks and trees of other ridings but it has, without a doubt, the most educated population in Canada. Most important, when we talk about this debate, 50% of my riding is under the age of 35. These people have seriously thought about the future. It may be that 100 Nobel Laureates have decided that it is extraordinarily important that we ratify the Kyoto agreement but 80% of the people of St. Paul's have made it very clear that this is what they want us to do.

Democracy between elections in St. Paul's is a very special thing to me. We have everything from town hall meetings to neighbourhood checkups, online polling and the contact desk section on the website. The people of St. Paul's have thought a great deal about the issue of Kyoto.

I remember in 1997, my first time out on the street as a federal candidate, being accosted by many young people asking me what we were going to do about Kyoto and whether we were going to actually act on climate change.

In the year 2000 and even in the summer before the election, I remember being stopped by English tourists asking why our gas was so cheap in Canada and why were we not worried that people should be taking the bus.

I also remember a constituent coming to see me and showing me a lot of newspaper clippings about the new hybrid cars. He wanted to know if I thought that any company buying fleets of cars should have to be persuaded to buy fleets of hybrid cars. That goes to what we have seen here on the Hill, in terms of those fabulous little RCMP vehicles actually being hybrids. We also have our exemplary Minister of the Environment with his fantastic hybrid car.

I am proud to say that during the last election in 2000, for which we had to rent a car for the campaign, I was persuaded to drive one of the impressive hybrid vehicles. I have to say that I do not know quite why we would not convince Canadians to do so.

The next piece in this equation has to be what it means for Canada to take a leadership on this in the world. With our magnificent north, Canadians must understand what it means, and for those of us who were in Cambridge Bay last summer, to see all of a sudden a boat tied up at the dock in Cambridge Bay, a place where the Northwest Passage has always been frozen. For the first year, all of a sudden there was a yacht from Seattle there and then a 53 foot tin sailing ship from Ireland just tying up at the dock. What does this change in the country mean to our sovereignty and to our protection in terms of the way we see ourselves as a country in terms of sea to sea to sea? I think we want the third sea to be frozen as much as it used to be and we do not want to see palm trees.

It is extraordinarily important. It is like having a debate with the flat earth society. This is happening. The Inuit people know this is happening. We need to talk to them to understand what it means when the polar bears have no place to cross over, when their land has changed in a way that they could never have expected and for which we, as a society, have to take a huge responsibility on what we have done to date. We have to make sure that the damage we have done to date does not go forward for our children and their grandchildren.

Last spring I had a fantastic town hall meeting in my riding. We had the Toronto Renewable Energy Coalition as well as a past executive of Imperial Oil. We ended up having an amazing debate about our responsibilities as Canadians in Kyoto. Virtually everyone at that town hall meeting thought we should get on and ratify the accord.

What has been very interesting to me in this last little chapter, when the debate has become much more visible, is how even the letters coming from constituents have become very persuasive in terms of what they see as Canada's role in the world, where they want Canada to be in terms of leadership on this file and how impressed they are.

I think the most poignant letter that I received was from a young resident of St. Paul's. It states:

I am writing to encourage the Canadian government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and to stand up to the pressures to do otherwise. The Canadian government should not be influenced by the oil industries, Ralph Klein, the U.S. government and big business interests.

The claims that abiding by the Kyoto Protocol would hurt the economy are false. The claim that the deal with cost the economy $30-$40 billion is grossly exaggerated but is likely to cost closer to $300 million to $3.3 billion. Also, large amounts of taxpayers' money would be saved because lowering the level of pollution in the air would reduce illness and deaths. If Canada does not ratify the agreement, the economy could suffer because agricultural production and fisheries are affected and harmed by rising temperatures. These two areas could cost our country more money than the losses associated with committing to the agreement.

As a former doctor I hope you will understand the impact global warming will have on people's health and its cost to society. Once again, I am requesting that the Canadian government ratify the Kyoto Protocol for the well being of us all.

Sincerely,

Moe Luksenberg.

P.S. You delivered me in 1986 and three years later your office diagnosed me with asthma.

I think we have to understand from Moe' s point of view and all of the children his age that the effects of air pollution and climate change and the measures to reduce them both are not unrelated.

When I graduated from medical school the incidence of childhood asthma was at 2.5%. The incidence of childhood asthma is now at 12%. My young Moe is one of those people. We must understand that the things that we would do to reduce climate change will also have an extraordinarily positive effect on the quality of air in our lives and particularly for those of us who live in Toronto.

In the last householder in our riding we asked a question that, as everyone will see from some of the responses, perhaps was not the best worded question. It asked, “Do you think we should ratify Kyoto regardless of the economic impact?” It was an interesting question that we thought would separate the wheat from the chaff. I think it mainly created some concerns about the wording of the question. Nonetheless, even with that wording, 80% of the people of St. Paul's who responded to this poll were in favour of the ratification regardless of economic impacts.

I will give some examples of some of the answers. One person said:

Dear Dr. Bennett:

I am writing to express my complete support and appreciation for your position on ratifying the Kyoto protocol. The reality of global warming is the single most important issue--environmentally, politically and economically--confronting us today. The consequences of further inaction will almost certainly be catastrophic and certainly outweigh any short-term sacrifices that might be required.

Another person said:

As a resident of your constituency, I just wanted to express my satisfaction in your commitment to ratify the Kyoto Accord... From what I understand, there is nothing but positive environmental impacts coming from the Kyoto accord.

Another person said:

I am writing to support the ratification in Canada of the Kyoto Protocol before the end of the year.

Another person said:

My family and I truly feel that Canada should implement the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, there will be costs, but there will be greater costs if we do nothing, like the U.S. is doing.

One of the answers made me most uncomfortable. It read:

Hi, Carolyn. If you are concerned about Kyoto, I would be interested to know whether you have bought shares in the Windmill project that was discussed at your community meeting about the environment earlier this year.

I have to confess that I had thought many times that I was about to do that and have still not yet done that. Maybe it will be a Christmas gift for everyone I know.

There have been some concerns and I cannot say that there cannot be an 80:20 vote in the riding without understanding that some people do have some concerns.

One constituent wrote:

I am sorry but I happen not to agree with you on ratifying the Kyoto agreement. This requires a lot more study on what the impact will be on all Canadians, particularly those like me who are retired and depend on investment income from resource companies which will be impacted by the effects of this agreement.

Another constituent said:

It would have been a better idea to poll the constituents in your riding on this issue before jumping on the bandwagon with your 95 other Liberal colleagues.

I have to say to that constituent that there are some issues in which I feel obligated to lead and I am now thrilled that I am in the good company of 80% of the people who have talked to me.

Another person said:

We absolutely have to ratify Kyoto and go beyond it. We must look at the entire picture, which includes the health costs of bad air, the impact of global warming, the destruction of natural environment, etc. I am often embarrassed by our track record on environmental issues when talking to Europeans.

One of the things that was clear to some of the people who were unsure was that they did want to know the estimated costs of ratifying Kyoto and the impact on the Canadian economy. It was this constituent who wanted to know what the economic impact would be and would not support ratifying the accord.

One of the most articulate responses was again a criticism of the question that we posed on the householder. The constituent wrote:

I didn't feel entirely comfortable with the question you posed. Obviously if the economic impacts are too great, we will not ratify. But the point seems to be that we will not know what the impacts may be, although the odds are that they will not be very great. I became convinced about Kyoto when I read the hysterical nonsense generated by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, an utterly disgraceful position, bankrupt intellectually as well as morally. It seems to me that the arguments advanced by the opponents of Kyoto closely resemble those produced by the friends of Big Tobacco in the 1960s and 1970s. However, Carolyn,as a historian of our external policy, I have to say that the shadows of the Columbia River treaty affair of 1961-3 are ominous. Because of the bifurcated nature of jurisdiction over aspects of foreign relations, I have my doubts as to when this particular effort is going to make it to the statute books, or stay there if it does make it. I'm not happy about this, but I don't think we should kid ourselves about the ability of provincial governments, however misguided and dim-witted, to frustrate good public policy. I suspect you will agree with that proposition.

One of the others said:

As our MP, we urge you and the Government to support the Kyoto Protocol and put the planet's ecosystem on which we all depend ahead of short term economic goals.

It is without a doubt that these were the inflow of reports from the constituents like the one who wrote:

I urge the federal government to enforce fully the Kyoto agreement and environment protocols, and not to capitulate to industry pressure and right-wing reactionaries like Ralph Klein...It is the role of government to protect its citizens--it's time people realized that pollution costs everyone; through spiralling health care costs; through lost productivity due to pollution-induced illnesses, and so on.

Another constituent writes:

Ratify it already! The naysayers have known about it, as we all have, since 1997. To complain about the need for more consultation at this point is just silly.

It is impressive to hear the kind of thoughtful dialogue in terms of what we should be doing with the Toronto Transit Commission and what we should be doing on SUVs. It was in the year 2000, when we did our green householder, when we actually polled constituents on what they themselves were prepared to do in order to help us make our environment better.

In our green newsletter of 2000 it was interesting to see the number of constituents who agreed that they would be prepared to understand incentives that would affect their lifestyles, such as requiring an annual $25 licence to operate a gasoline powered lawnmower, or a separate fee for two stroke engines, or no licence for electric mowers.

In my riding last month the people in Wells Hill had a rake and bake sale where they were proposing to get rid of leaf blowers in their neighbourhood.

It leads to an important point. The Canadian government needs to show leadership by encouraging environmentally responsible activities through proper incentives. Brenda Zimmerman, a professor of management at the Schulich School says when she quotes an old paper, “The folly of rewarding A while hoping for B”. That is what we hope to see now. We need to align Canada's fiscal policies with our social, health and environmental policies. We should lower taxes on things that we agree we want and increase taxes on things we have decided we do not want to support.

Some new initiatives that we need to consider would include the elimination of taxes on renewable energy sources and lowering taxes on cleaner fuels such as natural gas and premium unleaded gasoline. Conversely we would raise taxes on the dirtier fuels such as coal and diesel fuel. It would be interesting for people to go to the gas pump and make a decision based on the cleaner fuel being cheaper in a revenue neutral way than the dirtier fuel. Even the provincial governments could help by perhaps putting the annual licence fee on an SUV at $1,000 a year and the fee on a hybrid at zero.

There are all kinds of other ways that corporate Canada would look at the issue. How can we, sector by sector, do things like the Dutch government has done by creating agreements with sectors called covenants? The Dutch covenant says that it is better for a company's facility to produce in the most efficient way possible in the Netherlands than elsewhere. We want each sector to decide that it can be as good as it can be in its own sector. It is sort of like best in class, and those people can actually move in that way.

Now is Canada's moment to show world leadership in the movement toward a less carbon intensive economy. Tony Marcil, one of my most engaged citizens in St. Paul's, the former president and CEO of the World Environment Centre, reminds us of the important point that the Kyoto protocol is providing us. It is an opportunity for future economic growth as well as environmental sustainability. He states that the Kyoto protocol represents a huge opportunity to strengthen Canada's economic future. He adds that judiciously setting new greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for all Canadians, accompanied by rational fiscal and other incentives, would serve as new challenges to the ingenuity of Canadians in the areas of technology and management.

The fact is that Canada is up to the task. We are well positioned to build on our expertise and the results would be more energy efficient industries, cities and households.

Canada must not pass on this opportunity to gain ground in the field of international economic efficiency. Canada's industry leaders should be lobbying intensely for Kyoto because in the end it would keep them in the international trade race. Without it they would continue to lose ground to Asian and European firms that have lowered the energy intensity of their products due to higher energy costs and are now doing so, again due to Kyoto goals.

Ninety-five colleagues and I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister encouraging that we ratify Kyoto without the clean energy credits. We feel that there should not be any asterisk on the deal. Let us just do it. We cannot afford not to.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of comments and a question for the member. I must express my disappointment at the way the member shoots barbs about intellectual capacity at anybody who does not agree with her position or her party's position on Kyoto.

The whole issue of Kyoto is a scientific hypothesis and it does not diminish anyone's mental ability anymore to oppose the science than it does those who support it. Certainly if we are going to have a contest reading each other's constituents' letters into the record I can assure her that I have thousands I could read opposing it, but I do not see the purpose of that. Certainly one with such great mental capacity should be able to make a speech around the issue of Kyoto without reading a whole bunch of letters.

If the Liberal Party and the Liberal government are so concerned about the environment and the future of our children, why did the environmental watchdog, that the government appointed, when she released her report just recently after looking at some 200 environmental agreements that the government had signed over the last 10 years and auditing some 35 of them, give the government an absolute failing grade on all of those reports and agreements that it signed? If it cares so much about the environment, why is it not living up to the agreements it has already signed?

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Before I give the floor, it seems that we are embarking a little on the slippery slope here. Let us try to show some courtesy and respect for one another. The hon. member for St. Paul's.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. member understood what I was talking about in terms of intellectual capacity, although I do not think that this is a theoretical issue any longer. One just has to go to our north to see what is already happening. This is not theory. It is actually in practice. It is what the people in our north are living. It is so important to the future of this planet that the younger people in this country be united on this.

We cannot not act and hand this huge problem on to our children and to our grandchildren. It is not theoretical. It is happening. There is absolutely a real feeling in this country that we are speaking to the flat earth society. This is science. The hundred Nobel laureates are clear this is happening. For people to continue to question whether it is happening is dishonest. They can debate the economic impact with me, but whether climate change is happening, they cannot debate that any longer, they must accept that it is happening.

We have an environmental commissioner in this country to evaluate the performance and internationally we have a good reputation on all of these. We are leading the world on POPs. It is an extraordinarily important thing. However, there is a saying that goes, “If you measure, it gets noticed; if it gets noticed, it gets done”.

We are not afraid of having people come and talk to us about performance. It is the reason that there needs to be an objective audit of performance on all of our files, particularly the environment. It is a special office similar to the auditor general. What we need in government and Parliament is a learning culture where we are not afraid of having a report card and then figuring out what we could do better. That is a good thing.

We must get away from the “gotcha” style of politics, where people are afraid to measure and are afraid to have report cards because they think that the opposition will come. Canadians have matured way beyond that. They want us to be measuring, they want us to be learning, and they want us to be feeding back the changes. We know that climate change is happening and that we must act on it now because failing to act would cause a huge price to be paid by those who follow after.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Bras D'Or—Cape Breton, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I hold in high regard the ability to innovate and solve problems through industry, but history has told us time and again that sometimes industry comes as an unwilling partner and sometimes it comes kicking and screaming. We can look at examples of the early textile and cotton industries in America, where the owners felt that the abolishment of slavery would be the end of their industry. That was proved wrong and slavery was abolished for the greater good.

We can look at the taking of lead out of gasoline and how oil and gas industries fought that and felt that would have a terrible impact. However the profit margins still show that big oil and gas industries are doing fairly well. We can look at air bags in cars. These are changes for the betterment of society. Industry is looking at this glass as half empty. What we hear from this side is that there would be opportunities for industry.

I would like to ask the member whether she agrees with my opinion that we must look at the benefit and the opportunity and, yes, there would be some casualties, but where will the growth be through the signing of Kyoto?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has an excellent point. What we are talking about is setting some targets. Most of the corporations that I have talked to, even people in the chemical industry, like the idea of setting some goals because it is with our innovation and creativity that we would find the kind of innovations that we can export to the world. The whole world has decided to get on with this.

One of the examples that was given to me was the Avro Arrow. When we decided not to do that, the Americans immediately picked up right after. We thought that we could not afford it or that they were not going to doing it. We must ensure that we are leading. There are so many fantastic corporations in Canada, from Shell to TransAlta to Iogen, but also the Ballard fuel cells, and the neat things that are happening in our country that could be sold to the world.

When we think of wind power we have this fantastic opportunity to be able to move power right into the grid and help many people, whether they are farmers or people in Atlantic Canada, to find a new resource whereby they can actually find revenue.

I remember talking to somebody five years ago who said to just get on and do it, because then the incentives will come into place that we can explain to our shareholders, and we can get on with this and stop discussing “whether” but just “how”.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise again to take part in the debate on the ratification of the Kyoto protocol.

Let me say from the outset that I endorse the comments that the hon. member opposite just made regarding, among others, the doubt that some may have concerning certain scientific certainties relating to climate change.

I am prepared to recognize that, in the scientific community, there are a number of debates on climate change and its actual impact. In my opinion, the best thing for us to do is to refer to a group that has been examining the issue since 1988. Recently some scientists have reacted and questioned the impact of the use of fossil fuel on the environment. However, we cannot ignore the statements and findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has been studying this issue since 1988.

At this point, it is important to mention the findings and conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This panel is not accountable to some parliamentary committee or governmental group, but to the United Nations. The panel came to the conclusion that temperatures would rise from 1 to 4 degrees Celsius in Quebec, and from to 2 to 6 degrees Celsius in the north.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also came to the conclusion that the impact will be significant and that there will be, among other things, and I quote:

—floods, more frequent droughts—irreversible damage to natural areas, and a higher prevalence of several infectious diseases.

This is not in a 1988 report, but in a report released in 2001, which is last year.

The impact on Quebec will be more significant, particularly on our natural heritage. As we all know, the two worst weather disasters in Canada occurred in Quebec, namely the Saguenay floods and the ice storm, which affected mainly the greater Montreal region and the region located south of Montreal.

According to the Quebec Department of the Natural Resources, a 15% to 20% reduction is forecast in the flow of the St. Lawrence. This change will go along with a 30% or 40% decrease in its depth. This will have an inevitable impact on Quebec's natural heritage, its ecosystems to be more specific, and certain species already at risk will become more endangered still. The impact on the ecosystems of the St. Lawrence will be a very heavy one.

We also know that higher water levels in the oceans will mean that salt water will have a tendency to flow up into the St. Lawrence, and this will have an inevitable impact on river water quality and drinking water supplies.

These obvious facts are in addition to the forecasts by the specialists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of a major meltdown of Arctic ice. These are not only impacts on our natural heritage, on our environment, they also involve an economic impact.

It needs to be taken into consideration that these environmental impacts might also have economic impact on entire regions of Quebec. I am thinking of certain sectors of the tourist industry, which might be affected by climate change as it impacts on Quebec's heritage. Then there is the impact on health. At the present time, the impact of pollution on our health care system is assessed at $500 million annually. Major improvements would be made to the demand on Canada's public health system by combating climate change.

It is also important to remind hon. members that it is inevitable, and something there is a frequent tendency to forget during the debate on the pros and cons of application of the Kyoto protocol, for ratification to result in some definite benefits on the economic level. Still more important, it will be a sign of our willingness to change our production methods.

According to a recent report by the Department of the Environment, the environmental industry would benefit from ratification. Until 2010, we are talking of $450 million, compared to $7 billion afterward. Companies involved in environmental pursuits could not help but see their business grow.

So I think that it would be an illusion to believe that the impact would only be negative following the implementation of the Kyoto protocol. There are economic opportunities. Since when does efficiency, particularly energy efficiency, mean negative growth? On the contrary, energy efficiency means innovation and growth. Those who claim the opposite are inevitably living in the past.

In the past, we implemented many procedures. I am thinking of the ISO standards that, as one of my colleagues mentioned today in the House, added to the economic efficiency of some businesses. Thus, environmental standards create innovation. We must consider the ratification of the Kyoto protocol as a golden opportunity to change our production methods, but also to lead Quebec and Canada toward sustainable development.

The economic benefits are also obvious. Today, we could have discussions in this regard. My colleagues of the Canadian Alliance could provide me with as many studies showing the economic costs of the ratification of the Kyoto protocol as I could give them to show some opportunities related to its ratification.

In this context, I will present a study from the Tellus Institute, in Boston, which analyzed the costs and benefits of ratification of the Kyoto protocol for Canada. This is a recent study. It indicates that the net accumulated economic benefits will be $4 billion in the economy as a whole. They will reach $1.6 billion in 2012. There will be an estimated net gain of 52,000 jobs created because of the changes in consumption. We will realize a job-related net gain of $135 per household annually. There will be an increase of $2 billion in the GDP as opposed to the do-nothing scenario. Thus, there are obvious benefits to ratification of the Kyoto protocol.

However, we cannot continue to support a Canadian policy of greenhouse gas reduction that totally contradicts the will expressed today by the government. It cannot say today that it supports ratification of the Kyoto protocol while continuing its strategy of funding the oil and gas industry.

We cannot accept the fact that, between 1970 and 1999, grants to the oil industry totalled $66 billion, compared to a meagre $329 million for renewable energies.

This is totally unacceptable. From 1990 to today, the oil industry received $2.5 billion, compared to only $76 million for renewable energies.

We must change our consumption patterns. A few weeks before the end of the Johannesburg summit, the Europeans were proposing that 15% of our energy be renewable. Why would we not adopt this practice in Canada? Why would we not say that, in the near future, 15% of our energy will be green energy? It is feasible.

It is feasible because Canada's wind energy potential is huge. I have said that before. Over 60% of Canada's wind energy potential is in western Canada. There are businesses in the oil industry, such as TransAlta, and I am naming this one because it is really interesting. This oil company decided to buy a wind energy company. I think that it shows that the opportunities are there and that some businesses in the oil industry are becoming aware of Canada's wind energy potential and of the economic opportunities that green energy can create.

Over 40% of Canada's wind energy potential is in Quebec. Certain resource-based regions such as the Lower St. Lawrence, the North Shore and the Gaspé Peninsula could benefit greatly from development projects like the ones that already exist in Quebec. These projects create jobs. We cannot maintain a strategy like the one we have seen so far in Canada, where the oil industry receives 200 times more money than the renewable energy sector. This does not make sense.

Canada cannot ratify Kyoto today without changing its policy with regard to helping the renewable energy sector. It cannot continue to fund the oil and gas industry as it has been doing.

Within the European Union, Germany, for instance, was asked to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 21% below its 1990 levels. These countries were active in industries that were not environmentally friendly. But in a matter of a few years, they became world leaders in wind energy production. That is reason enough to doubt the good will of the government. Germany currently accounts for 36% of all the installed wind power capacity in the world. As surprising as it may seem, the United States account for 17.3%, China for 1.6%, and Canada for 0.8%.

In terms of investment in the wind energy sector, Canada is sitting on the sidelines, compared to the United States, and particularly some American states, like California, that have taken measures to financially support wind energy production by providing financial incentives for every kilowatt-hour produced through wind energy. It took a long time for Canada to implement a similar strategy.

We are far from the public funding provided in California. In the end, we have to reduce the cost per kilowatt-hour of wind energy power to be competitive. Instead, the government continues to financially support the oil industry 200 times more than the renewable energy sector.

We are not against ratification. I was the first to support it. At the instigation of the Bloc, a coalition made up of over a hundred partners was set up. However, I do have some reservations about the federal plan. It does not take past effort into consideration. It reflects the unfairness the federation is known for.

A couple of weeks ago, we suggested a proven approach, that was studied by the Canadian Climate Change Program. A 160-page report was submitted to the government where it is recommended to break down the Kyoto objectives in Canada based on the European model.

We suggested that the 6% reduction effort be distributed territorially among the provinces, the way Europe did. How is it that 15 sovereign states, the members of the European Union, managed to agree on a fair, transparent and just distribution of the 8% Kyoto objective, yet we cannot? Why do we not adopt a territorial approach instead of a sectoral approach, as the government is advocating, given the economic structure, demographics, the climate and energy efficiency and the possibility for economic development for certain provinces, such as the Atlantic provinces? Why would we not settle on a fair distribution. Europe did it, why could Canada not do it?

In Europe, there are reduction objectives. For example, Denmark must reduce its emissions by 21%, while Portugal can increase them by 27%. Why? Because the reality of the economy or climate is different in every area. The European Union saw fit, rightly, to take into account these regional differences when it distributed the effort, something that Canada refuses to do. Instead, we have a sectoral approach, which is in-line with the Canadian nation-building approach. Under this approach, “Canada is a whole. Let us distribute the Kyoto objective by sector”.

Is Quebec's energy sector the same as that of western Canada? The answer is no. Ninety-five percent of our electricity comes from hydroelectricity, whereas this is definitely not the case in western Canada.

Why would we not take into consideration these regional disparities in a fair manner? Is the climate the same in every part of Canada? The answer is no. Nor are demographics the same.

Today we are saying that we believe in ratification of the Kyoto protocol because we are able to meet these objectives. If Quebec were a sovereign state, the protocol would already be ratified. However, we find the federal government's approach and distribution of the objectives totally unfair. We belive the federal plan goes against the principles of Kyoto. These principles are a common, but differentiated approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is what the federal government refused to do in its plan.