Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to discuss Bill C-30. When this bill was first introduced, it was roundly condemned by all the environmental groups and all the parties in the House. That is why it has gone back to the drawing board after first reading. Even the Prime Minister has sent it there, basically so that a new bill can be built.
We Liberals will be supporting this effort to try to bring back some of the many advances that were made in this area by our previous government and to bring back some protection for Canadians.
I am not going to go through all the problems. They were very eloquently listed by the critic for the Liberals and I am sure others did so in their speeches today. There are problems with the lists in the new bill, the double lists that we do not need, and with the lack of equivalency in the new bill and the lack of reference in the bill to Kyoto. In the notice of intent to regulate, the fact is that there are no targets.
As the health minister said this morning, there are millions of people who are in trouble with bronchitis, respiratory diseases and heart disease, but this bill is leaving the problems alone for five years, and it will not be until 2012 that there even are targets. There is the three or four years of duplicate consultation that excellent government employees working in those departments have already done. There is the removing of greenhouse gases and pollutants from the list of toxins, needlessly calling into question the authority of the federal government to regulate, et cetera.
I am not going to talk about that. I am going to talk about some of the successes of the past, successes that we have to try to get back to in order to limit greenhouse gases in the way they were being cut back in the past. Canada's greenhouse gas intensity is already 13% below 1990 levels. The Liberal government was able to reduce greenhouse gas intensity in 9 of the last 10 years. The environment minister mentioned these past programs in the opening speech on this topic, so I am going to follow up in the rest of my speech by giving more details in that area.
I do not think it is any secret, and all scientists agree, that under the Liberal government Canada has cut thousands and thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases. During those years, as we know, Canada also had, under many parameters, the best economy in the world. This of course paid great dividends to Canadians and allowed us huge increases for students, for the biggest environmental budget in Canadian history and for seniors, health care, equalization and transfer payments, foreign aid increases, research and development increases, and increases in funds for the disabled.
Of course when the economy is so good, it also leads to huge increases in greenhouse gases if there is no action, and of course there were huge developments like the oil sands going on in that period. I am not sure what the exact figure was. It was perhaps 150% or 200% in greenhouse gases being produced by the country, but having this successful and expanding economy also gave us the largest challenge of any nation in the world in trying to reach our Kyoto targets.
That was why we developed a very aggressive plan. Today I am going to break down the plan into a series of plans. In spite of this increase of 150% or 200% or whatever it was in greenhouse gases at the time of the economy going so well, we still kept it down to roughly 135% of the previous amount. So far, the major and very complex programs that took so long to carefully put in place and negotiate are on the verge of reducing greenhouse gases more substantially toward our targets if they are kept in place, but we see that has not been the modus operandi of the present government. I will outline these plans quickly because if I do not I will be not be able to get them all in.
These plans are basically two-pronged. First, we have been dramatically cutting emissions in reducing the use of energy. There are a number of programs for that. Second, there is support for renewable technologies. The new technologies do not emit any or as much of the greenhouse gases.
Much of this was achieved by our new Liberal leader when he was environment minister. He got great credit from environmental groups and across the nation for being able to achieve this and overcoming the difficulty of working with finance ministers, which we know is always difficult to achieve. The member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville was able to achieve the largest environmental budget in the history of Canada. It was hailed by environmental groups in Canada as the greenest budget.
The environmental budget was composed of initiatives that I will break down into about 20 plans. The first one was a $1 billion green fund that would support green projects to reduce greenhouse gases. It was a catalyst for new technologies. We cannot compare that $1 billion to any other programs of that magnitude that have been announced today. Once again, under the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, it was a huge increase.
The second plan was up to $2 billion for partnerships, which would lever up to $4 billion. These numbers are huge in cutting greenhouse gases and reducing pollution. That involved partnerships with other levels of government. This problem is so big it cannot be done by just the federal government. Once again, there is nothing from the new government to match what the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville achieved in this area.
Plan three provided $200 million for quadrupling the wind power incentive Canada. That was enough for a million programs, which is another under the great stewardship of the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville.
Plan four involved $97 million for renewable power production. Some examples are support for small hydro, for biomass and landfill gases. What is happening in this area now? Nothing new.
Plan five was incentives for biomass. In that area there were a number of incentives. As members know, we have supported a number of new ethanol plants. Not only do they cut greenhouse gases but they offer big support for our farmers. This gives them another area in which to sell their products, again under the great stewardship of the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville.
Plan six was the quadrupling of the EnerGuide. Another $225 million were provided to improve the energy efficiency of houses. It allowed Canadians to participate. The government itself cannot deal with this huge challenge. Why would it have been recommended that the program be quadrupled if it was not working? There were 500,000 homes in Canada in the program. Some parliamentarians spoke about not hearing of Canadians cutting greenhouse gases, but 500,000 Canadians, half a million of them, were aware of it. In fact, the government has now cut that program, which is incomprehensible to all members in the House.
The Conservatives are saying that there is too much greenhouse gas emissions or too much pollution and then they cut the programs that are cutting them. That is like saying that we found starving children with not enough food and we will solve the problem by taking some of their food away.
Plan seven under the previous minister of the environment, the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, provided $200 million for sustainable energy, science and technology. When research and development are slashed for things such as this in this country, like the last budget did, it will be very critical to the future of our children.
Plan eight was the green municipal fund. It is a great success story, as everyone in the House knows from their own communities. For over a decade the leader of the NDP was very complimentary of this program. The former prime minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, was a real champion in funding this program for municipalities across the country, as was the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. Again, thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases were cut.
What I am most proud of, in the tough times when a number of areas had to be cut to put this country back in order, when there were huge deficits, the Liberal government did not cut the green municipal fund. In fact ,it doubled it.
Plan number nine had funds for brownfields. What has the new government planned to clean up the brownfields and to match the vision of the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville.
Plan 10, made in Canada, was to cut greenhouse gases with clean power generation. This has been inspired through tax cuts. Again, we put the capital cost allowance for clean power generation up from 30% to 50% under the inspired leadership of the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville.
I have seven more plans but I see that I will not have time to finish them so I will just mention what they are. Plan 11 was clean coal, plan 12 was biomass, plan 13 was carbon sequestration initiatives, plan 15 was landfill waste projects, plan 16 was east-west grid, plan 17 was EnerGuide for low income Canadians, plan 18 was for large final emitters supporting 5 megatonne cuts, plan 19 was auto emission reduction, plan 20 was the one tonne challenge, plan 21 was Biocap and plan 22 was solar.
Those are the reasons that we had the greenest plan in history. The environmental budget was the inspired leadership of the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville when he was the environment minister. We are nowhere near that but we will do everything we can to work, hopefully, with all parties in the House on this new act to achieve some reductions in pollution and emissions, which is what all Canadians have demonstrated they really want.