Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey North to speak in opposition to the government's impending ratification of the Kyoto protocol.
The government has mismanaged this issue from the beginning and it continues to do so. Since the Prime Minister announced that Canada would ratify the Kyoto protocol, the government has continued to proceed without information concerning what Canada will have to do as a signatory to this international agreement.
What is the plan for implementation? What will be the cost? What do we expect to achieve? Canadians do not have this information. In fact, there is a great deal of conflicting information flying around, yet soon, in fact tomorrow, we will be asked to vote on this matter.
We believe that Canada should reduce real pollution. We should also work on adapting to climate change, whether natural or man made, through advanced technology and social policies. The federal government should be helping Canadians to achieve these goals.
Instead, the Liberals have sold the country out. They would have us chase the requirements of an international agreement written by others and amounting to the transfer of wealth from richer nations to poorer ones. Countries like Canada, with developed economies and modern industries, are going to have to pay cash to poorer nations with developing economies and very little industry. We are going to actually pay these other countries so that they can have the opportunity to develop their industries and to pollute.
News broadcasts are misleading Canadians when they show dirty, belching smokestacks as a backdrop to a news reader talking about the Kyoto accord. The government itself is financing commercials of similar content.
Kyoto is not about reducing pollution. Scientists around the world are not unanimous that human activity is actually causing global climate change. There are arguments on both sides of the issue.
Yes, our climate is changing, as it always does. In fact, growing up not too far from this place, during the 1960s we experienced some extremely cold winters, -50°F for days on end. I recall that because I remember playing outside with no hat and catching a lot of flak from my mother for doing so. Many scientists in those days, the 1960s, predicted that we were heading for another ice age.
We have seen small increases in the planet's average temperature over the past century. However, no one knows definitively whether or not this is caused by our emission of greenhouse gases such as CO
2
. Other factors, such as variations in the sun's output, are considered by many climate specialists to be far more significant drivers of Earth's climate than the changes in human production of carbon dioxide.
Kyoto is primarily about reducing CO
2
, not air pollution.
A quick review of the scientific literature shows that only a small fraction of climate scientists are prepared to actually commit themselves to the idea that humans are causing significant climate change. The vast majority of specialists in the field admit they simply do not know and that it will be some time before they are able to competently predict just what influence human activities have on global climate.
In the meantime, these scientists do agree that they need to continue to conduct the necessary research to properly understand this complex field. Clearly today's climate change science does not provide a foundation strong enough on which to base a significant and costly international treaty such as the Kyoto protocol.
The Kyoto accord does not deal with environmental contamination in general or air pollution in particular. The Kyoto accord will not cover countries producing two-thirds of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore global production of carbon dioxide is extremely unlikely to fall under Kyoto as production and emissions simply shift to countries not subject to the targets.
The Kyoto accord does not even require Canada, or any other country for that matter, to actually make CO
2
reductions. Kyoto establishes an emissions trading credit scheme allowing countries to buy credits toward their targets by transferring money to other countries, in some cases countries with worse environmental records. In this way, a country can pay rather than make CO
2
reductions.
Canada's Kyoto target requires Canada to reduce CO
2
emissions by at least 30% below projected levels, or to buy emissions credits. This will impose enormous stresses on the Canadian economy, including the possible loss of thousands of jobs, a possible reduction in economic production by between $25 billion and $40 billion, and substantially higher energy costs for ordinary Canadians.
Of course, there are those who do not agree with some of these predictions and I respect that, but that is precisely what the problem is. The government has not worked with industry or the provinces to determine the impact. It has no implementation plan because it does not know what to plan for. Above all, as I said, there is no implementation plan.
At a minimum, the government should make it clear to Canadians which targets will be met. Is the government going to ratify and then rescind the Kyoto accord? The strategy to knowingly accept an investment chill and later renege on its own commitments would be even more irresponsible than ramming through the accord without knowing how to meet its targets.
The Canadian Alliance does not believe we should ratify a deal with the effects of the magnitude of Kyoto without being able to explain how it will be implemented.