It is terrible and it is sad.
One cannot run a 10 year marathon in 70-odd days, especially when one has been running in the wrong direction for 10 years, as the previous Liberal government did.
The science out there is very strong. It gets stronger each and every day. The report put out by the international panel in February is to a great extent almost out of date, because the science is even stronger than it was just 10 months ago. The fortunate part, the good news, is that we now have a realistic, achievable plan to accomplish real reductions in greenhouse gases.
We can look at the devastation caused by the pine beetle. We can look at schools coming off their foundations up in the Northwest Territories. There is one diamond mine up in the Northwest Territories that had to fly in diesel fuel by Hercules, at an extra expense of $25 million, because the snow roads just do not operate. The weather just does not support them for as many weeks as it used to. We do not have to look any farther than our own country to see some of the devastation of global warming and the beginning of the real challenges.
The goal of our plan is an absolute reduction of 20% of GHGs by 2020. It is not an intensity based reduction, and it also is not just an ambition but an absolute reduction of 20%. The centrepiece of that is a plan to require the big polluters to begin to reduce their emissions by 6% a year in the first three years and then by a constant 2% improvement in the years to come.
That is not the whole program, but it is one of the centrepieces of the program and we are going to work tremendously hard to get this apparatus in place. A good number of the folks in the industry, academia and the environmental movement have been very free with their advice and suggestions as we put the details into the framework. Thus, we began this year by serving notice that the big polluters would have to clean up their act.
We also have come forward with a plan to combat smog and pollution. It is absolutely essential that we begin to tackle this. There is a great quote from the member for St. Paul's that I have used before in the House. She talked about there being only one smog day in Toronto in 1993, whereas in recent years we have seen upwards of 45 to 48 smog days.