Mr. Speaker, I am deeply saddened to have missed the beginning of the parliamentary secretary's speech. I was on a call-in show in Victoria and another one in Vancouver. Canadians are deeply impressed with this motion and the concept of finally bringing forward mandatory regulations. I am glad to see the Liberals applauding it.
The question, the premise or the philosophy of this motion is between mandatory and voluntary regulations. The Liberals are asking us to trust them after these many years of promises and budget after budget showing that emissions have gone up in Canada, popping us to the back of the OECD and making us an international pariah with respect to Kyoto. Who else shows up on the day of the exam without a plan or any concept of how to get there?
My question is with respect to the voluntary requirement. I will take the Americans as a quick example. In 1975 the American Environmental Protection Agency was requiring that the big three automakers make public the mileage their vehicles were getting. They said, “No, we cannot do that. It is going to expose us to unfair practices and unfair competition.”
The EPA threatened with regulations and said it would make this mandatory. Of course then the big three automakers started to disclose their mileage rates and now the rates are part of purchasing a car. Canadians and Americans clearly understand that when they purchase a car they find out what mileage they will get from the vehicle.
Why is the parliamentary secretary so resistant to the idea of increasing the strength of the government's hand in the negotiations with automakers? We say that it has been a long time and there has been a lot of waiting. This government has not had the foresight to just enforce mandatory regulations and then bring about actual change rather than just rhetoric.