Debates of April 13th, 2005

Petitions

[John Cummins, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have a petition today from people in British Columbia requesting a judicial inquiry into the disappearance of 1.3 million sockeye in the Fraser River.

The original request for this judicial inquiry was rejected by the government. It appointed former chief justice Bryan Williams of the B.C. Supreme Court to conduct that investigation. He submitted the first of what were to be two reports and the government pulled the plug on him. It seems that it shut him down because some of the information that was coming out was a little too hot to handle. In particular, one of the reports suggested that some of the poachers were armed and the government was concerned about that issue, yet it did nothing about it.

The petitioners are again calling on the government to establish a judicial inquiry so that all the information relating to the disappearance of these sockeye can be addressed and brought forward.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have another of many petitions that we get from our ridings where the petitioners are concerned about the outcome of Bill C-38. They insist that marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman. These are people from St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Warwick Settlement, New Brunswick.

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary South Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of constituents of Calgary Centre. They are concerned about the delay in tabling in the House a plan to tell Canadians the full costs and benefits of implementing the Kyoto protocol. Although a plan was tabled by the Minister of the Environment today, the petition insists that we have a clearer understanding of the full costs and benefits of Kyoto to Canadians.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted today to stand in the House and present a petition from approximately 200 people from my riding on the definition of marriage. They feel the definition should not be changed by the courts and that it is the exclusive jurisdiction of Parliament to define marriage. Therefore they request Parliament to define marriage in federal law as being a lifelong union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Madam Speaker, today I have the honour of presenting two petitions, the first with over 250 names from my riding of Simcoe--Grey. The petitioners are calling on the government to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16 years of age.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Madam Speaker, the second petition has close to 200 names and calls on the government to maintain the traditional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have three petitions to present today. The first one is on the definition of marriage.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that marriage is the best foundation for families and for raising children, and that the institution of marriage as being between a man and a woman is being challenged. They also point out that the definition of marriage is the exclusive jurisdiction of Parliament. Therefore they call upon Parliament to pass legislation to recognize the institution of marriage in federal law as being the lifelong union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the second petition is on a health issue and has to do with health warning labels. The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that the Food and Drugs Act is designed to protect Canadians from potentially harmful effects related to food and drug consumption, and also that consumption of alcoholic beverages may cause health problems.

Therefore the petitioners call upon Parliament to require health warning labels on the containers of beverage alcohol to caution expectant mothers and others from certain dangers associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the final petition has to do with the use of the notwithstanding clause, again in reference to the issue of marriage. The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that fundamental matters of social policy should be decided by elected members of Parliament and not by the unelected judiciary, and also that it is the duty of Parliament to ensure that marriage is defined as Canadians wish it to be defined.

Therefore they call upon Parliament to use all legislative and administrative measures possible, including the invocation of section 33 of the charter, commonly referred to as the notwithstanding clause, to preserve and protect the current definition of marriage as being the legal union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions for Papers

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all Notices for Motions for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Edmonton—Leduc, Citizenship and Immigration; the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Forces.

The House resumed from April 12 consideration of the motion that Bill C-43, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 23, 2005, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Budget Implementation Act, 2005

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-43, the government's budget bill, which contains many flaws and recycled promises. I would like to address a number of different areas in the bill that I think are problems for Canadians and for the country.

The first area that I want to focus on is the gas tax commitment that the government delivered in its budget. To give the government some credit, it is going to deliver $600 million for the next fiscal year, which is about 1.5¢ per litre. It also announced a commitment to Ontario specifically of about $1.85 billion over the next five years. On that front, that is good news. However, there are absolutely no details on how that money would be distributed once the province receives the transfer.

Mayors and councillors from many municipalities have indicated to me that there are no details as to whether or not the money would be transferred to the upper tier of municipal government or to the lower tier of municipal government. Furthermore, there are absolutely no details as to whether or not the money would be given to more densely populated areas or be given out on a per capita basis, equitably distributed throughout the entire province. Those are serious concerns, especially for ridings like Wellington--Halton Hills.

The township of Centre Wellington with a population of over 22,000 has over 100 bridges. That township alone currently faces a bridge work backlog of close to $15 million, a huge number for a township that only has an annual operating budget of about $15 million.

In Halton Hills, which includes Acton and Georgetown, I have been told that there is a backlog in road work of $57 million, an equally big number for a community with only about 50,000 residents and an annual operating budget of only about $20 million.

Many municipalities are wondering if and when they will see this money. The budget and the bill, and its lack of details on how this gas tax would be distributed among municipalities and whether or not less densely populated areas would get their fair share leaves much to be desired.

The second area I am going to focus on is the budget's approach to child care. I think it falls short in this area. Excellent child care is important to me and to my community. It is also important to my party. I am very much in favour of working with families to obtain excellent child care, but the government's current plan for child care is seriously flawed.

First, the plan is far too vague and contains few concrete and workable details. It contains few details on how flexible the system can be and how to hold the provinces accountable. It also contains few details on exactly how many child care spaces would be created.

Second, the plan calls for the child care program to be a joint federal-provincial program. Programs based on that model have had a history of cross-jurisdictional difficulties that are hard to overcome and hard to manage.

Third, the plan would take too long to implement. For over a decade Canadians have been promised access to affordable child care: in 1993 in the red book; in 1997 in the red book; in 2000 in the red book; and in 2004. Canadians still do not have access to reasonably priced and accessible child care.

In the last election we proposed to provide families with a $2,000 year tax deduction per child under the age of 16. That is the solution to the child care issue in this country. The taxes refunded could be spent as deemed appropriate by parents. In the case of a dual income family, the money could be spent on child care either locally provided by for profit centres or not for profit centres. In other cases the money could be spent on clothes, education or other sundries.

Our proposal would avoid the difficulties of federal-provincial programs, would provide flexibility in meeting both rural and urban needs, and would allow for profit and not for profit involvement. Most important, our proposal would let parents decide what was best for their own children.

I believe our proposal is a better proposal and is more straightforward to implement. This is the best way to allow parents accessible child care. The budget does not address this problem.

The third area where the budget falls far short is on Kyoto. Conservative governments in the 1980s and early 1990s brought in environmental protection. It was a Conservative government in the 1980s that negotiated the acid rain treaty with the United States. We invested in and created organizations like the Ontario Centre for Environmental Excellence located in Elora.

We are often accused, as a party, of being anti-environmental. Nothing could be further from the truth. We believe strongly in environmental protection and share Canadians' concerns about a healthy environment for future generations.

However, the government's approach to Kyoto has been nothing short of a complete disaster. It took the government until today to deliver a plan for Kyoto even though it became the law of the land on February 16. It has announced billions in new spending on Kyoto without having a plan to implement them. This is simply risky and foolish public policy. Spending billions on a program without having a plan to implement it is simply foolish.

Our current Kyoto targets are entirely unrealistic and unattainable. In 1990 our emissions were about 28% below what they are today in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

I believe that Canada should negotiate and work with other signatories to set real targets and then develop real plans to implement those targets. We need to do far more as a country to encourage energy and resource conservation. The use of fuels such as propane, natural gas, ethanol, and other biofuels should be encouraged. There should be greater funding for the development of alternative energies such as wind power and solar power.

All these steps that I have proposed here and that we as a party have proposed would address the real environmental problem we have in this country which is suffocating summer smog.

As a resident of Wellington--Halton Hills I know about smog. We have many residents who are subjected to issues around smog in the summer. We have issues around smog days that not only apply to the GTA but apply to places like Grand Bend in as far north as the Muskokas. It has terrible health implications. The government's Kyoto plan does nothing to address the cause of that smog, which contains nitrous oxides and sulphur oxides. On that count, this budget once again falls short.

Madam Speaker, before I go on, I want to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member from Saskatchewan.

As I go on to the fourth area of concern about the budget, it is about the budget surplus. The government has consistently underestimated the budget surplus over the last number of years. We have had surpluses in the last seven budgets. This year, for the budget that was just presented, we were told that we would have a $1.9 billion surplus. It turned out into a $9.1 billion surplus.

This is unacceptable because Canadians, when they are told that we do not have surpluses, are being robbed of an opportunity to have a real debate about what should be done with our hard-earned tax dollars, whether we should spend it on tax cuts or whether we should spend it on debt reduction or whether we should use it toward new program spending.

That debate does not happen in this country, and has not happened, because the government has consistently underestimated the size of the surplus. That is unacceptable.

Our party proposed in the last election, and we do now, that Parliament needs to implement an independent budget office that reports to Parliament, so we do not get into situations where the surplus is of a magnitude five to six times larger than what was originally forecasted.

The final area where this budget fails to address the real concerns of Canadians is in its inability to address one fundamental problem we have in our economy which is a lack of productivity growth.

Incomes across the border are growing more rapidly or are higher on a per capita basis than they are in this country. As a result, we are losing our ability to pay for the wonderful social programs that Canadians coast to coast to coast have come to enjoy.

Productivity is the single most important factor in long term prosperity. That is why the government needs to address the issue by taking a look at reforming capital cost allowances and by taking a look at real personal tax relief.

This budget fails to do both. This budget proposes a personal income tax cut of $19 this year. That is completely unacceptable. Let me finish by saying that the government's budget falls far short of what the residents of Wellington—Halton Hills expect, what my party expects, and what this country expects.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments for the member.

With regard to the gas tax rebate and the details of how the provinces will distribute the money among the various communities, we can speculate all we want but the one thing we do know, and I am sure the member will agree, is that no matter how it is done the provinces will be in control because we cannot give the rebate directly to the municipalities.

The provinces constantly play this game of offsetting. If they receive a bit of money there, they will deal with communities. The communities will have an important role to play in the negotiations with the provinces. The federal government will not really be able to drive that resolution very easily.

However the equitable starting point would be on the basis of the gas utilization per community. Those statistics are available.

I found it interesting that the member was referring to bridge and road work, et cetera. That is infrastructure and there is infrastructure money.

I want to ask him a question about Kyoto which is certainly an important issue. Canadians have already told us that they agree with the objectives of reducing greenhouse gases and the attendant health impacts. In the last election the Conservative Party ran on a platform which opposed the Kyoto protocol and I think it is important to get an update.

Does the Conservative Party support the Kyoto protocol to meet our emission targets, along with the other partners around the world, or does it feel we simply have to do some other things ourselves and not make any commitments by any year?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will address the first part of the member's question which had to do with the way the gas tax will be distributed among municipalities in Ontario. The government had an opportunity to negotiate with the provinces to get them to commit to an equitable distribution of this gas tax.

As it currently stands, the government had the money. It did not have to give away the store without any strings attached. It could have sat down with the provinces and told them what strings would be attached to the money before it was given and that it wanted to see an equitable distribution of the money. To date, I have not heard anything about how the money will be distributed. I think that just to give away the store to the provinces without getting some conditions back on this is not acceptable.

Furthermore, I would say that gas utilization is not the way to go on this. I think it should be done on a per capita or population basis because gas utilization is very difficult to ascertain. With the gasoline alley in Muskoka along highway 11 and other gasoline alleys in different parts of Ontario, it would mean that those municipalities would get a disproportionate amount of the gas tax even though they do not have the infrastructure that more heavily populated areas have.

The way to distribute the gas tax should be based on a per capita basis, which is what the mayors and councillors in Wellington—Halton Hills and surrounding areas have told me.

It is the government's position, its approach to Kyoto and its plan that we are opposed to. We in the Conservative Party are in favour of a strong, clean environmental policy and strong environmental initiatives, and our critic has done a lot of work in this regard.

The problem with what we have opposed, and what we will oppose in an upcoming election, are the lack of plans as to how we are going to address the issues around emissions. We are very much in support of environmental initiatives but we oppose the government's lack of an approach and lack of a plan to Kyoto.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for my colleague. I find he is given to contesting the content of this budget implementation bill, but, as we know, the Conservatives will support it. I therefore have a bit of a hard time with his message, especially with regard to the infrastructure program and the sharing of the gasoline tax, when, in the budget speech, which I have in my hands, the minister said, and I quote:

—5¢ per litre, or $2 billion, in 2009-10, and continuing thereafter indefinitely.

So the principle was that the cities would have an indefinite deal. Bill C-43 before us, however, provides:

For the fiscal year 2005-2006, pursuant to the Government of Canada’s five-year initiative commonly known as “A New Deal for Cities and Communities”—

The budget speech referred to an indefinite deal, which would continue on, and I repeat the quote, “—continuing thereafter indefinitely—” but the bill refers to a five-year plan, that is a plan for five years.

Does my colleague still agree with what C-43 is proposing compared with what the budget speech proposed?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, what I will say is that this party will not be supporting any initiative by the Bloc to take down the government on a vote of confidence vis-à-vis the budget or any other motion of confidence. We will be the party that decides whether or not Canadians want an election when Canadians tell us that they want an election.

In response to my hon. colleague, I will say that my criticism of the government's bill, Bill C-43, regarding the gas tax, stands. If he wishes to examine it further he may examine the blues tonight or Hansard later on.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, this is the first time I have spoken since the birth of my new son Thomas, the newest constituent in Regina—Qu'Appelle. I have to be honest and say that this new constituent might receive a little bit more attention than other constituents in my riding. However I am sure the other inhabitants of Regina—Qu'Appelle will understand.

I would like to address a few aspects of Bill C-43. I think all members of the House will agree, and I think the members of the Liberal Party would agree if they had the boldness to be straightforward, that this bill should be divided into three separate bills.

The Liberals are playing games here with the budget bill by placing unrelated provisions into one single omnibus bill. This is not terribly surprising. We have seen this movie before. We have seen Liberals do this as part of the games they play in this House, but by all rights we should have a separate bill for the Atlantic accord, a separate bill for the traditional budget implementation measures and a separate bill for the Kyoto implementation measures.

I find it abominable that this government would sneak in, through the back door, Kyoto provisions when there has been no comprehensive plan laid out for Canadians. Canadians do not know what the government's intentions are nor do they know what it is going to do and how this will affect their actual quality of life, their economies and their jobs.

No plan has been outlined for Canadians about how the government is going to reduce greenhouse gases. We also have seen no plan to outline the Liberal Party's hidden agenda on buying hot air credits from other countries, including China, Russia and perhaps France.

What impact will Kyoto have on Canadians? Major economic and public policy groups are predicting the following: major increases in fuel taxes, a major increase in fuel prices, major increases in home heating costs and dramatic increases in home electricity costs.

For example, in the first few years it is predicted by many groups that there will be up to a 19% spike in gasoline prices, up to a 21% spike in home heating costs and up to a 35% spike in electricity costs. What this means for the average Canadian is a dramatic decrease in their disposable income. To drive their cars to work, to keep their homes warm in the winter and to power their homes and appliances it will cost more of their hard-earned dollars. More of their paycheques will be going toward utilities.

For my rural constituents it will be even more dramatic. They have seen the cost of diesel fuel almost double already and this is before any Kyoto implementation schemes. How much more will their fuel bills rise under the Kyoto plan?

I also want to mention that it is very disappointing to see the NDP position on Bill C-43. What the NDP is saying about the Kyoto implementation measures is that they do not go far enough. Can anyone imagine the New Democrats thinking that farmers in Saskatchewan should pay even more for their diesel fuel? I challenge any one of those members to come to my riding and look a group of farmers in the eye and say that their diesel fuel bills will increase and we are happy about it.

The farmers in my riding cannot afford the potential heavy costs of a Kyoto scheme that will see more of their tax dollars go to buy pollution credits, which will mean no actual reduction in greenhouse gases. It will simply mean a transfer of wealth from Canadian taxpayers to countries such as China, France and Russia.

China, by the way, has the world's largest military and an aggressive space program, and we are going to transfer our tax dollars to buy credits in China. This would not reduce greenhouses gases one bit.

The Liberal plan will have a particularly devastating impact on Saskatchewan in particular. We have seen Saskatchewan go from a have not province to a have province. This is not because of any good management on the part of the provincial NDP government. It is because of a huge boom in oil prices.

The extra revenues that come from the oil prices will keep our hospitals open, pave the roads in rural Saskatchewan and keep the utility costs where they should be for Saskatchewan residents. What impact will Kyoto have on Saskatchewan's oil and gas industry? If we lose just 10% of our revenues from these industries due to the hidden Kyoto taxes of the Liberal government, I think I can safely say that we will see more hospital beds closed as the revenues from that industry plummet.

I do not know why the federal NDP would want more hospitals to close. I know that the provincial NDP has a habit of closing hospitals. We all remember the closing of the Plains Hospital in Regina and the swath of beds closed just recently in rural Saskatchewan. This part of the bill really troubles me.

I would like to turn to the Atlantic accord very briefly and outline the duplicity of the Liberals in lumping that agreement in with this bill. Let us consider that the Liberals did not need to bring in an omnibus bill for the health accord. They did not have to wait for the budget to bring that in. I believe it took only 11 days for them to bring in the health accord in a stand-alone bill. Why can the government not do that for the Atlantic accord right now?

The finance minister is attempting to dither his way out of his obligations by lumping this in with the rest of the budget. The Liberals are holding the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia hostage by linking that accord with this bill. We could pass that bill right now. We could have passed it the other day when my leader got up and challenged the government to bring it in. We would have given it unanimous consent at all stages and the people of Atlantic Canada would have seen the benefits immediately. The Conservative Party would do that.

We have seen a few other interesting facts come out of the proposed budget. We know that the Liberals misled Canadians when they attacked our campaign platform. They said our platform was fiscally irresponsible and then came in with pretty much the same level of spending we proposed, but without the substantial tax relief, which we knew we could afford because we knew the true size of the surplus and we were not playing games with Canadians by trying to underestimate the surplus.

It seems that the finance minister and the Prime Minister have numerical dyslexia, because they now have had the surplus wrong for seven years in a row, is it not? They have consistently given Canadians the wrong figures on the surplus and attacked our numbers based on their misinformation.

Tax freedom day for Canadians does not happen until sometime in July. It is unacceptable to think that every single hard-working Canadian working today is working for the government. Right now, for anybody off laying highway in rural Saskatchewan, about to get ready to start seeding or working any number of jobs, their paycheque is going to the government. The government does not let them keep any of their own money until the year is already half over. That is unacceptable.

I would like to touch just briefly on the issue of airport rents, which are having a direct impact on constituents in Regina. A major airline had to pull out of Regina, cutting back on its main line services because the airline industry is in trouble. It is in trouble because of excessive taxation on ticket prices through the air travel security charge. It is in trouble because of the various fees that are lumped in there. As a result, and we have seen this with Jetsgo, there are turbulent times in the airline industry. The airline industry employs thousands of Canadians.

I sit on the transport committee. The Minister of Transport came to our committee and said he is doing everything he can to get issues like airport rents addressed. Airport rents are costs that are passed on directly to air travellers. The cost of landing at an airport is directly related to the cost of the ticket. This means that travellers in and out of Regina, starting in 2006, will likely pay more for their tickets because those costs will go up. As well, we have seen airport workers in Regina laid off, essentially, and then hired back at half the wages.

This issue of airport rents is having a direct impact, not on the big corporations but on the individual people in Regina who are trying to travel in and out of the city on business or to visit family, and it is having a direct impact on those workers at the airports, who will now see a 50% reduction in their salaries.

Of course we know that the budget bill does very little for farmers. Most of my riding was hit by a devastating frost last August, which wiped out what was promising to be one of the best crops that the Regina--Qu'Appelle area had ever seen. Where is the aid? Where is the disaster relief?

The Minister of Agriculture came to Regina and outlined some spending which to date has not even been delivered. It took the government months to get out the forms from the last round of spending, and it took months to deliver them. I would like to see how much money was delivered from that.

Farmers in my riding need a direct assistance package that is meaningful. The latest one announced by the minister works out to about $4.80 per acre, I think, which will be just enough to pay the property tax increase that the NDP provincial government brought in for rural Saskatchewan.

We have a lot of work to do. Thankfully, there are enough Conservatives in the House that we can do some of this good work at committee. We will address these issues that I have outlined. We are going to try to do what the Liberals should have done and make this a better budget bill, because that is what Canadians need.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed the member's speech. I do not get a chance to hear everybody speak, but it is important to get to know people and see where they are coming from. I think his strong representation of his own constituency is laudable, but we are still members of the federal Parliament and it is important that we look at the national picture as well.

I do not share his views with regard to Kyoto simply because the issue of Kyoto is not just one of greenhouse gases. It is not just what the impact is on individual consumption of various things like the use of automobiles or large emitters, those being hydro or petroleum.

It is also very much linked to the health of Canadians. The major emitters, those being the hydro, the coal fired power plants and the petroleum producing facilities, create more than half of the greenhouse gas emissions as well as the most substantial component of particulate matter in the air of Canada, which is directly related to the health of Canadians.

Thus, we have to temper these things with a plan that is spread over a period of time. The member will know that today the Kyoto plan was tabled. The member also knows that there was a voluntary agreement reached with the auto sector to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of automobiles by 5.3 megatonnes by the year 2010. That is very important. That was the target.

Would the member not concede that we have to look a little beyond our own ridings and make sure that the national interest is also properly balanced?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Absolutely, Madam Speaker. I certainly agree that when we come to this place we have to act on what is best for all of Canada.

Let me address what Kyoto will do for all Canadians. All Canadians will pay for increased home heating costs, increased fuel costs and increased costs of doing business. All Canadians will face a devastating impact on their jobs in this economy. Whether it is the auto workers in Ontario, the oil and gas workers in Alberta or the thousands of jobs we eagerly anticipate being created in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia if the Atlantic accord ever gets passed by this government, these are all jobs across Canada that will be affected.

Let us talk about the national implications of airport rents. Regina, Edmonton, Halifax, Victoria and cities all across Canada are seeing their rents go up every single year, with new rents coming in. These are air travellers and workers in the airline industry all across the country, not just Regina.

Let us talk about how Kyoto does not even address particulate matter. It does not address pollution. This is a red herring that the Liberals always talk about. They say, “We must do something to clean up the air”. This is something and therefore we must do it, they say, but Kyoto does not actually even address particulate matter. It does not address smog. It is not going to clean up the smog days in Toronto or Vancouver or other large cities. It addresses only greenhouse gases. It does not have a plan for acid rain. It does not have a plan to clean up our waterways, our lakes and our rivers.

Kyoto is only about greenhouse gases and it will not even address that, because the government is going to buy pollution credits, greenhouse gas credits offshore, meaning that globally there will not be a reduction in greenhouse gases but our tax dollars will go to purchase those credits.