Mr. Speaker, the truth is that in the Americas, Canada is the only industrialized country to sign on to the Kyoto protocol, or is about to ratify it.
As most members in the House know, or should know, some 85% of our trade--the figure is debatable, plus or minus a per cent or two--is with our neighbours to the south. Billions of dollars a day go across the border in two way trade with the United States. We cannot seem to get it through the Liberals' thick skulls that this will have a huge, disastrous impact on our economy.
Other industrialized countries, such as Australia, negotiated the Kyoto protocol at more than 8% of 1990 levels. Our negotiators' only mandate was to try to one up the Americans and they did not even do that. They negotiated 6% below 1990 levels. The worse thing is that it will not clean up the environment. It will create an economic disaster with our largest trading partner and it will cost Canadians in the magnitude of half a billion jobs.
The member is absolutely right. The alarm bells should be going off for businesses in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada. They should be panicking to throw the government as far as they can.
We have a Prime Minister who is more interested in demonstrating to the world that he is Mr. Green than any single worker in this country. We have a Minister of the Environment who is trying to get this Kyoto ratification through at any cost. He wants us to trust that his government will be able to do it. The last thing we should do is trust them.
Canadians should fire the government as far as they can. Taking $1 billion and blowing it into the wind like it has a printing press back there is unacceptable. How can the government talk about trust when it hides this from Parliament? It is bloody disgrace.