Mr. Speaker, it has been fascinating to listen to some of the comments, questions and answers, especially from the Conservatives opposite when they talked about their leader's flip-flop on this budget. What was very interesting was their talk about the $5 billion for day care, when they said that the CAW predicted it would be $6 billion and then said that the Liberals are wrong by 10 times our projection, or in other words, $5 billion is really going to cost $6 billion and we are 10 times out. And with that kind of math, people expect that party to run the government? It would be very interesting.
I want to pick up in my speech on where the parliamentary secretary started to set the groundwork for this budget, where it is coming in and why we are able to make this type of investment in Canadians, in their education, health care and environment, in agriculture, in equalization and in all the areas where we are able to invest. Of course that is because of the tremendous work we have done over the years to cut down the very large deficit we had, which has put us in the situation where we can make these types of investments.
That confidence of the financial sectors in Canada continues today. I want to quote from today's London Free Press . Sherry Cooper, chief economist for BMO Nesbitt Burns, is one of the key economists in Canada and said today:
--Canada has no recession in sight over the next few years and will be a growth leader among Group of Seven countries.
And next year, Canada will lead the pack, tied for first place with the United States, Cooper said.
"Unlike the U.S., Canada has not had an economic recession in 14 years and no recession is in sight for the remainder of the decade," Cooper said.
Next year, Canada will be neck-and-neck with the U.S. with a three-per-cent growth pace....
The Quebec economy is expected to grow at annual rates of 2.6 per cent this year and 2.9 per cent in 2006....
Growth in the developing world will provide strong support for commodity prices, driven by China's huge demand for pulp, cement, coal, iron ore, steel and aluminum.
"This will translate into higher prices. Quebec and Canada's top export to China is pulp--and prices there are likely to edge upward from already high levels," Cooper told Montreal-area business officials.
Cooper noted Canada will be the only country among the G7 industrial powers--which include the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain and Italy--to have current account and budget surpluses in the coming years.
This management of the economy is why it gives me great pride today to be able to express support for this budget that builds so strongly on supporting the priorities of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
In fact, I have been greatly anticipating today's debate, because I believe it will bring to light the shocking degree to which the priorities of the official opposition are out of step with those of Canadians.
After all, we are talking today about measures that reinforce and complement a budget that Canadians want to see passed as soon as possible.
They want to see it passed because it delivers on their priorities without compromising the extraordinary fiscal progress that has underpinned Canada's remarkable economic turnaround. They want it passed because it will create wealth, expand economic opportunities and strengthen our social foundations so that Canadians can share in the promise of our society. They want it passed because they are justifiably baffled by the daily dithering and flip-flopping as to where the official opposition actually stands with respect to this budget.
So without further ado, I would like to proceed with today's debate in the hope that the members of the official opposition will gain some insight into the importance of the issues at hand and maybe even come to some sort of conclusion they would be willing to share with the Canadian public about whether or not they support the measures in question.
As my colleagues have so eloquently explained, this bill provides increased support for a number of measures for which there is a great deal of public support, such as affordable housing construction and post-secondary education. However, I would like to dedicate my time today specifically to the provisions of this bill that provide for environmental initiatives such as public transit and the creation of a low income housing energy retrofit program.
As hon. members are no doubt aware, budget 2005 confirmed our commitment to transfer $5 billion to cities and communities. The bill before us today would provide $900 million for environmental initiatives, the bulk of which will be aimed at public transit in our cities and communities. It is money that can be used to invest in public transit systems that reduce pollution and gridlock and, in doing so, will help achieve our Kyoto targets and reduce the health care costs associated with pollution.
As I just mentioned, the bill would also dedicate a portion of the funding to support a new low income housing energy retrofit program that will benefit low income families and communities in a number of ways. First, these retrofits will greatly reduce the heating fuel requirements for thousands of low income Canadians across Canada. In doing so, it will leave these families with more disposable income that can be dedicated to other priorities.
At the same time, these retrofits will reduce emissions at the community level, again helping us reach our Kyoto targets and reducing the health costs associated with air pollution.
I know the Leader of the Opposition has characterized the bill as disgraceful, at least the week after he said that he was supporting it, so he clearly has not changed his mind about the importance of increased funding for the important public services provided by municipalities.
Where do other Canadians stand on this issue? Unlike the official opposition, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was unequivocal in its analysis. It said:
This money will go directly toward meeting the needs of communities: fixing our streets and bridges, upgrading water treatment plants, improving and expanding public transit, and providing much needed services to people. We applaud the Government for recognizing the challenges Canadian cities and communities face and for taking action to help us meet these challenges.
Canadians and their representatives in the government understand first and foremost that their quality of life is not a means to an end. It is an end in itself. Canadians also understand very clearly that the bill represents an opportunity to improve our quality of life that cannot and must not be passed by.
Because the bill is a bill that addresses some of the highest priorities of Canadians, priorities like affordable housing, post-secondary education, the environment and foreign aid, make no mistake that these are the priorities of Canadians. I therefore urge hon. members to vote in favour of the bill.
I would like to talk about a number of other areas related to the environment that we have been promoting because it has not been talked about in great detail in the debate and it certainly is one of the priorities for Canadians.
We have put forward innovative initiatives in cooperation with business, the environment sector and individual Canadians to deal with the critical challenges facing us related to greenhouse gases, smog and the environment. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in my riding in the north where we see dramatic effects already of greenhouse gases and global warming.
I was at a conference speaking to some of the many initiatives that Canada has already taken. We had already committed $3.5 billion to global warming and the environment before the budget was introduced. The member who spoke before me suggested that it was still a philosophy. I had to set him right and I invited him to come to the northern part of Canada where it has a much greater and quicker effect so that he could see where the ice roads were melting at the detriment of our economy. That is the only way to get major shipments into many areas of the north. He will see where ice bridges are coming in much later and leaving much earlier. He will see where some of our first nation administration buildings were collapsing or shifting and had to be rebuilt or moved because of the melting of the permafrost. He will see the changes in our species and the critical effects on species that some northerners who still live a traditional lifestyle depend on.
That is why it was so important in the budget and through other mechanisms to support the environment. We put forth a climate fund. The climate fund is not just a direction that we should do this, this and this. It is not a rules based, punitive type of action. It is a fund where people and organizations can come forward with creative solutions.
Many Canadian environmental organizations and businesses have been very creative and they came forward with ways to save energy and thus reduce greenhouse gases. Energy consumption, of course, is the biggest producer of greenhouse gases. This is very innovative approach and will be a key part of our plan.
Another section of the plan is the partnership fund. Some of the provinces have some very innovative ideas and they want to work in partnership with us. Under the partnership fund the provinces and the territories can come together with us and move forward on some mega projects that will help the environment.
Another major section of this strategy is the auto emissions agreement, a tremendous agreement that we spent years negotiating with the auto industry. California, which is the only other area in the world that has done anything major, its auto emissions strategy is now up for possible court challenges and may never come fully into play. However, in our system, because it is voluntary and has been agreed to, it will be a major assistance to reducing smog, increasing the health of Canadians, reducing greenhouse gases and improving our climate.
Because of the government's, and in particular the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment, very effective negotiations and partnership with industry, we have the large emitters regulations. As members know, the large final emitters produce the biggest chunk of greenhouse gases in Canada and the attendant smog that has an effect on the health of Canadians.
We have worked for years to understand them individually and to come up with the types of regulations that will not harm them but will, because of the increased energy efficiency, allow them, as some of them have already done, to become more effective and more productive. Some would have suggested, although not those in the official opposition, that we just have one size fits all. However, economically, that could force some of those companies out of business because some have different processes, different indices and different ways of creating greenhouse gases, some which can be controlled. That is why this is a very sophisticated, realistic and competitive part of our plan.
Another part of our plan, which, I have to admit, we have done a terrible job in this House of promoting, is the many energy efficiency programs that we already have in place.
We have some of the leading scientists in the world related to different types of renewable energies and reducing energy efficiencies to our housing programs, to solar energy, to biodiesel, to ethanol and to wind energy. All these programs, including part of our $3.5 billion in investments, are in place and are moving along. They are being taken up at a faster rate by Canadians. They have been very successful and have removed thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas, even before this budget, which of course adds some huge increase and promotion to our effort.
Over and above all those existing programs, we are adding new renewable energy programs to enhance other renewable energies. As members know, we had already increased by four times our wind energy subsidy to enhance that but now we are also going to invest in other renewable energies in this new program.
Another area that we are looking at is Canadian carbon sinks. This is another opportunity waiting to happen, an opportunity to help Canada do its part in its leadership role. We will be having the world meeting in Montreal shortly. To increase that leadership role, there is potential with these carbon sinks.
Whether it is in agriculture and the methods of agriculture that will leave greenhouse gasses in the earth for a longer time just by improving our processes or whether it is in forestry where there is lots of innovative research, we have some of the leading researchers. Canadian government scientists are some of the leading scientists in the world and are respected around the world for some of the work they are doing in how to manage the forests and improve them as greenhouse gas sequestration.
How long can we manage the forests? How long can we keep the carbon there and how long can the forests provide economies for rural Canadians living near those areas?
A majority of first nations people live near the boreal forest. They can play an important part in managing that to improve their economies. Through the economic opportunities available through the sequestration of greenhouse gases, they can have revenues in times when it is hard to have revenues, especially in the very far north where the forests, on their own and unmanaged, are not overly productive.
We could look at ways of preserving forests and providing compensation to capture greenhouse gases as opposed to totally eliminating the forests, which sometimes takes hundreds of years to grow the farther north we go, and would not be economic from that perspective.
Another very dramatic contribution that we are making is to cut our emissions by one-third. For the Government of Canada to make a commitment like that to limit our greenhouse gases by one-third of what we now produce is a major commitment. Of course we cannot expect others to follow if we do not lead. We are asking far more of ourselves than of anyone else in the Kyoto plan.
The fact that we are asking of ourselves and of Canadians through the one tonne challenge is the reason we will have the moral authority to ask the rest of the world, the developing countries that have not yet gained as much from greenhouse gas emissions, such as China and India, to make huge contributions to them as developing countries in the first round. When we show our leadership then we will have the moral authority to ask them to come in on the second round with the major contributions that they can make.
It is not that we are not helping them already, as I am sure a few members of the House know. We are already dealing in clean coal technologies, another one of the areas in which we are performing a leadership function.
By helping China, which burns incredible amounts of coal and the greenhouse gases negatively affect Canadians, as they do everyone else in the world, with clean coal technologies to reduce it greenhouse gas reduction, helps us, and there is a lot more potential for that in the future.
With the investment in coal scrubbing, we can take out all the nitrous oxides, the sulphur dioxide and the mercury and we can sequester carbon dioxide, another project in which we are involved.
Another area where we have major investments of over $10 million is the sequestration of CO
2
in mining properties in Alberta where we produce oil and gas. I am sure some members of the opposition from that area of the country would be quite interested in these very successful projects that are providing leadership in the world. We take carbon dioxide and store it underground. It also helps the petroleum industry to extract more oil and gas from those areas.
In conclusion, over and above probably the best received budget in Canadian history, starting of course with the approval of the leader of the official opposition, I am also proud of the amendments we have made because they are all areas that are important to us.
Everyone will agree that we have invested in foreign aid, housing, education, environment and public transit in the past. In a minority government it is good that we have come to an agreement to accelerate these contributions, which are important to Canadians and important to us, a bit faster than we had expected. This was the task put upon us by the people of Canada when they asked us to join with at least one other party in putting together a budget. I am very proud to support the budget that is so well received in the public.
I call upon all the parties in the House to join me in supporting economic development, the poor, education, health care, foreign aid, and the cities of Canada and municipal infrastructure that will make Canada even more the best country in the world in which to live.