Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to the motion today and to clarify something for the NDP critic.
I appreciate the motion today but I have one problem with the word “mandatory”. I do not feel that mandatory demonstrates a cooperative approach, the approach we have to use if we want to achieve this kind of work with our industries and with Canadians. What we are lacking is a long term plan and a vision.
Members on the other side have talked about how much the government has done and what a wonderful record it has in terms of the environment. We need to continually remind them what the environment commissioner said in her last six reports, that the government talks a lot but accomplishes very little.
We need to remind them that when the OECD looked at 24 of the top industrialized countries it said that Canada rated at the very bottom, that it was 24 out of 24.
We need to remind them that there are over 300 boil water warnings at any given time in Canada. Who would have thought that Canada, that pristine, clean place that many of our international friends think we have, would have 300 boil water warnings? One might attribute that to some poorly developed countries, but not to Canada.
Cities are dumping raw sewage into the oceans. Landfills are spewing waste which is entering into aquafirs and spreading into our waters. We have brownfields in every city and about 50,000 contaminated sites in Canada.
We have a Kyoto plan to which we have committed to 6% below 1990 levels. The member mentioned that we have committed $3.7 billion. Let us examine that $3.7 billion. Canada committed to 6% below 1990 levels. By 2000 we were 20% above 1990 levels and today we are 30% above. That $3.7 billion went down the drain with nothing to show for it. If that is accomplishment in the eyes of the Liberals, then they are the only ones thinking that way.
The big problem with this whole environmental issue is that the government does not have a plan nor does it have a vision. It does not know how to deal with water or the whole issue of air pollution. A major battle is going on between NRCan and environment. They are more interested in protecting their turf and fighting with each other than they are with accomplishing anything. I hope that will change soon and that we will be the ones to do that.
An important point to mention to our NDP friends is that cooperation rather than confrontation will get them a lot further. Industry knows it is good to be green. Industry understands what that means. It is good for business. All of the ads for Ford, DaimlerChrysler, GM and Toyota talk about being green. It should not be a big stretch to sit down and work with them and show them a vision.
As my colleague mentioned, had this been done in 1992 when climate change was first identified as a problem, we would be a lot further down the track than we are here in the last weeks of Kyoto trying to accomplish something. Those guys just do not know where they are going, and that is the most important point.
What has been mentioned in today's debate is that this is a global market. No longer are we isolated into planning for one country. We cannot isolate ourselves from our number one trading partner. There are $1.4 billion a day crossing the border. Like it or not, that is the reality of Canada. One in four jobs, and in some places higher than that, depend on that. We work in a cooperative manner to accomplish something, and that is what this is all about.
I was working on the Sumas 2 project in the Fraser Valley, looking at the building of a power plant right on the B.C.-Washington border. After spending time in that community I realized just how bad the pollution was. That is the second most polluted smog belt in Canada. The first is in southern Ontario, which I have visited as well. We realize that Canadians want us to deal with the smog and pollution problem. It is only common sense.
We have higher incidences of asthma and other health problems associated with pollution. Industry understands that. People understand that. The only ones who do not seem to understand are the government members across the way. Instead, they sign an international agreement with targets that they have no idea how they might achieve. Their solution will be to send the money offshore, buy that hot air wherever they can find it, instead of dealing with the technological solutions that we could find here in Canada.
I really believe Canadians want us to deal with the smog problem, the smog days in Toronto, in Ottawa and in the Fraser Valley, which is caused by sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide, particulate matter and surface ozone.
What is the government doing? The government is attacking carbon dioxide. The government is thinking about, believe it or not, making CO
2
a toxic substance and regulating it under CEPA.
CO
2
is a plant food. CO
2
is what we give off as animals. CO
2
is what one pumps into a greenhouse to get more plant growth.
Technology is moving quickly. There is the sequestering of CO
2
. I saw a situation where a plant in Denmark was capturing the CO
2
, gasifying the CO
2
and selling it in tanks to greenhouses to pump into the greenhouses. It was also being sent to Norway to pump down oil wells to increase the removal of oil and gas by 30%.
What are we doing in Canada? We are using water, pure clean water and pumping it down wells.
There are so many things that the government could show some leadership in and yet it is basically doing nothing. We are signing an international agreement and we have no plan. We are going to send the money off and companies that would have liked to have cooperated on a plan will not be able to. They will be deprived of that money for research and development and all of those good things on which we could become leaders.
What is the government occupied with now? Again, we have the players of Environment Canada and NRCan having a battle over whether it is a poison or not. I do not know, but I know my background in biology would certainly have a difficult time finding CO
2
to be classified as a poison by anyone. Anyone who understands photosynthesis would know how important CO
2
is to life.
We need to move forward technologically. We need to look at hybrid vehicles. We need to look at fleet vehicles, using natural gas, using various forms of hybrids or using propane.
The government could be doing so many things but what is it preoccupied with? It is going to force the auto industry into some kind of regulations that in fact will handicap them. The end result will be auto jobs here in Ontario will be lost. There is no other answer to that.
If the government had sat down with the auto industry 10 years ago and told the industry what had to be done, told the industry what happened in Rio and what was in the Kyoto accord, then maybe together they could have come up with a solution. Instead, it holds a hammer over the industry's head, the hammer of mandatory regulations, with no help and no other solutions. That is just not the way to go. We have learned that and we have seen that.
Companies do have an option. They have the option to leave Canada, to leave Ontario where those jobs are.
I could take a lot longer to elaborate on the environmental hazards of what the government is doing.