Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Motion No. 7 which is an important part of Bill C-43. I am fortunate to sit on the finance committee which examined Bill C-43 in its entirety.
The Conservative Party of Canada has agreed to and supports Bill C-43, although I am here today to make an important amendment to the main spending bill of the government.
The main purpose of Motion No. 7 is to establish legislation for the formation of a greenhouse gas technology investment fund. We on this side of the House have long advocated for a made in Canada solution to the environmental problems of our times.
In the Standing Committee on Finance we introduced many helpful amendments to improve clause 14 which is the greenhouse gas technology fund. We wanted to bring more transparency and accountability to the fund and how the proposed advisory board would operate. We successfully passed an amendment in which the minister must publish advice within 30 days and make that advice public. We are glad to see that it was supported by the other opposition parties as well.
We are still concerned about the unaccountable 12 member advisory board which does not necessarily bring back much needed trust that Canadians should have in their government.
With these various amendments in committee we wanted to depoliticize this process, so that it would not be so open ended. We are glad that we were able to bring some accountability and transparency to the greenhouse gas technology fund process. We want to see more flexibility put into the process of the greenhouse technology fund and how it is administered.
Having said that, I wish to introduce an amendment that we believe will substantially improve the greenhouse gas technology investment fund. I move:
That motion 7 be amended in section 8 by replacing the words “Canada for any of the purposes referred to in” with “Canada or to any fund designated by the Minister, for the purposes of this subsection, for any of the purposes referred to in”