moved:
That, in the opinion of this House:
(a) there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the world's climate is changing as a result of human activity and this poses the most serious ecological threat of our time;
(b) the government must reconfirm Canada’s commitment to honour the principles and targets of the Kyoto Protocol in their entirety;
(c) the government must create and publish a credible plan to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions to meet Canada's Kyoto commitments;
(d) the government must establish a 'cap and trade' emission reductions system and regulations for industry; and
(e) the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is available immediately to launch the necessary action.
Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international panel of some 2,000 leading scientists, is due to release its latest report. According to yesterday’s Globe and Mail, that report will conclude that the evidence on climate change is “unequivocal,” and that human activity is the cause of that change. The report finds that due to climate change, extreme weather will increase; sea levels will rise; and the effects will be felt for more than a thousand years.
The magnitude of this challenge is clear, economically as well as ecologically. The recent Stern report, prepared for the UK government by Sir Nicholas Stern, highlighted the risk of climate change to the global economy.
The Stern report found that if countries do not address this challenge, the cost of climate change could be equivalent to the cost of both world wars and the Great Depression.
According to the report, climate change could shrink the global economy by a staggering 20%—yes, 20%. Canada must not shrink from this challenge. In a country so blessed with immense natural resources, technological ability, and creative ingenuity, we have the ability to be a leader. Moreover, as one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, we have the responsibility to be a leader.
The environmental achievements of the Liberal government extend well beyond climate change. The previous Liberal government took tangible, methodical and concrete steps to fight climate change.
Over the constant opposition of the Conservatives, the Liberal government renewed the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, passed the Species at Risk Act, amended the Migratory Birds Convention Act, established new national parks, ratified the Kyoto protocol, and played a prominent environment role on the global stage.
In 1998 the Liberal government signed Kyoto.
In 2000 we invested $625 million on climate change research and emission reduction.
In 2003 we announced $2 billion in new climate change funding.
These steps laid the foundation for Canada's fight against climate change.
In February 2005 the Liberal government passed a budget that Elizabeth May called the greenest in Canadian history.
The Clean Air Renewable Energy Coalition said, “This budget is so green it should have been announced on St. Patrick's Day”.
In April 2005 the Liberal government introduced project green, a comprehensive plan to fight climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Sierra Club of Canada called project green, “probably the most innovative approach anywhere in the world for a government to actually reduce emissions”.
The National Environmental Trust said that, “With this first good step, Canada is proving that we can protect our environment and grow our economy”.
In November 2005 the Liberal government added greenhouse gases to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This crucial step allows the federal government to regulate the chemicals that cause climate change right now.
The Canadian Environmental Law Association applauded this move, saying, “We are united in our support for the use of CEPA by the federal government as an appropriate regulatory authority”.
In November 2005, in Montreal, the Liberal government used the United Nations Conference on Climate Change for what it was meant for—to fight climate change, not deny it, as the Conservatives did one year later.
Steven Guilbault of Greenpeace Quebec called the conference “a turning point” in the fight against climate change. The conference was praised internationally.
Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner for the Environment, added that not only was the Kyoto protocol adopted and successfully improved, but more importantly, it was also given a future.
Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister came to office, he found a government and a country poised and ready to take on the challenge of climate change.
Thanks to the previous Liberal government, he had the legal framework to take action. He had a full set of programs already in operation and, by sheer coincidence, his environment minister had the chairmanship of the UN conference on climate change, the perfect vehicle for Canada to play a positive role in the world.
In short, the Prime Minister had the perfect opportunity to continue the work of the previous Liberal government on climate change.
Canadians know what happened instead. Under this Prime Minister Canada went from being a leader on climate change to a laggard, a lead weight pulling down our national policies and the Kyoto process at the same time.
At home the Prime Minister set about dismantling Canada's programs to fight climate change as deliberately and methodically as the previous government had implemented those programs.
He cut $395 million from our EnerGuide for houses retrofit incentive.
He cut $500 million from the EnerGuide low income households program.
He cut $250 million from our partnership fund for climate change projects with provinces and municipalities.
He cut $593 million from our wind power production incentive and renewable power production incentive.
He cut $584.5 million from environmental programs at Natural Resources Canada.
He cut $120 million from our one tonne challenge.
He cut $1 billion from our climate fund to reduce greenhouse gases and he cut $2 billion of general climate change program funding.
In total, the Prime Minister cut $5.6 billion from climate change investments.
The significance of these cuts goes well beyond a dollar figure. Taken together, these programs represented the superstructure of Canada's plan to fight climate change. The evisceration of these programs can only be the act of a climate change denier.
Not only did the Prime Minister cut funding for these programs; he set about disarming Canada of the tools and expertise needed to address climate change.
The Prime Minister eliminated the position of Ambassador for the Environment—a position created by a former Conservative government. He dismantled two key units within Environment Canada, the climate change group and the offsets group. He eliminated the government website, ClimateChange.gc.ca, which had helped inform Canadians about climate change and what they could do about it.
Finally, not content simply to cut Project Green, the Prime Minister removed every trace of that plan from the websites of both Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada. Project Green has even been removed from the archives of those two websites.
And then, adding insult to injury, this Prime Minister encouraged all the other climate-change deniers across the planet to do the same, by actively and deliberately undermining the Kyoto protocol—the only international process that is significantly tackling global warming.
Last November, exactly one year after Canada successfully hosted the world in Montreal, and secured the future of the Kyoto protocol, the Prime Minister celebrated the anniversary of that achievement in a most peculiar way.
He sent his environment minister to Nairobi to give the world a very clear message: when it comes to Kyoto, count Canada out. When it comes to honouring our commitments, count Canada out. When it comes to playing a leadership role on the environment, and in the world, count Canada out.
The Prime Minister's long pattern of climate change denial should come as no surprise to anyone who followed his positions before he took office.
In 2002 the Prime Minister, who was then leader of the Canadian Alliance, wrote a letter to supporters. That letter was intended to raise money, and to “block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord”.
In this letter the Prime Minister makes his views on Kyoto perfectly clear. He wrote, “Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations”.
On the science of climate change, the Prime Minister even went so far as to question the role of carbon dioxide as a contributing factor, insisting that carbon dioxide was essential to life. Water is also essential to life, but that information is no relief to a man who is drowning.
The Prime Minister's pattern of denying climate change did not end with the Canadian Alliance. In May 2004, as leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada, the Prime Minister subjected Canadians to a lesson in Climate-Change Denial 101, when he said that the climate is always changing. In 2005, when the Liberal government listed greenhouse gases as toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act—a crucial step toward fighting climate change—the Prime Minister said it was “clearly not in the national interest”.
Not in whose national interest, Mr. Speaker? The interest of those who deny climate change, who refute the science, cancel the programs, bury the reports, and abandon Kyoto.
Mr. Speaker, that’s not the national interest; that’s the Prime Minister's interest as a climate-change denier, and Canadians have made it clear that they will have none of it.
What a difference a few polls can make. In the past two weeks, the Prime Minister has engaged in the desperate game catch-up by partly reinstating some of the Liberal climate change programs he cut a year ago and only a pale imitation of these programs. He hopes to hide his beliefs on climate change. After a year of wasted time, these proposals now amount to baby steps on the road to a marathon.
Canadians are not fooled. They know that the Prime Minister has no commitment to fight climate change. His only motive is to prepare his party for an election.
The 2005 Liberal climate change plan was designed as a critical start for Canada along the road to a sustainable economy, one built on energy efficiency, resource productivity and conservation. This plan was designed to be revised and improved every year.
In the time that has past since that plan was introduced, time that the Prime Minister has wasted, the work that was begun has been frozen.
Today, I call on the Prime Minister, as I have since becoming Liberal leader, to live up to his government's responsibility on climate change, in particular, by implementing a cap-and-trade system of greenhouse gas emissions. Such a system was announced by the previous Liberal government in 2005 and its implementation cannot wait.
With the advances in technology, with the carbon market in place in Europe and ready to go in some U.S. states and with the time that has been wasted under the Conservative government, there is an opportunity and a necessity to go further than what was proposed in 2005 with more demanding targets. This is achievable in a way that strengthens our economy.
Just as corporate polluters cannot simply dump their garbage on our streets but instead must pay to manage their waste properly, we can no longer use our atmosphere as a free garbage dump.
We need a cap-and-trade system for industry that creates economic as well as environmental and health advantages in reducing emissions. We need to move to put a market price on emissions and we need to start transforming our economic markets to reflect the green reality. We need to revive Canada's leadership role and the economic opportunity that comes with it.
It is the job of the government to use every measure at our disposal: incentives, regulations, environmental tax reform, partnership with our governments and reaching out to Canadians. We need strong, fair rules requiring reduction of emissions in the short, medium and long term. The elements of the solution are clear.
I call upon the Prime Minister to implement a comprehensive plan to honour Canada's Kyoto commitment, including a cap-and-trade carbon market, with more demanding targets than that proposed in 2005.
I call upon the Prime Minister to implement environmental tax reform and fiscal measures to reward good environmental behaviour and provide disincentives for behaviour that harms the environment and human health all in a way that enables every region and province to succeed in the sustainable economy.
I call upon the Prime Minister to better support greener energy production and other forms of renewable energy starting with a minimum target of 12,000 megawatts of wind power production.
I call upon the Prime Minister to better support the research, development and commercialization of resource efficient and environment friendly technologies.
Most important, I call upon the Prime Minister to do all this in a way that strengthens the Canadian economy, providing better jobs and a higher standard of living for our children.
In conclusion, climate change is the single most pressing ecological threat facing our country and our planet. Beyond the walls of this chamber, Canadians are counting on us to get this right. Beyond our borders, people around the globe once looked to Canada as a leader, and I would like them to be able to do so once more.
It is clear that the Prime Minister has neither the courage nor the conviction to meet our Kyoto obligations. It is clear that we need a new government to do so.
In the meantime, I call on the Prime Minister to implement the initiatives I have called for today. This country cannot wait, this planet cannot wait, and this Leader of the Opposition will not wait.
The motion reads:
That, in the opinion of this House:
(a) there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the world's climate is changing as a result of human activity and this poses the most serious ecological threat of our time;
(b) the government must reconfirm Canada’s commitment to honour the principles and targets of the Kyoto Protocol in their entirety;
(c) the government must create and publish a credible plan to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions to meet Canada's Kyoto commitments;
(d) the government must establish a 'cap and trade' emission reductions system and regulations for industry; and
(e) the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is available immediately to launch the necessary action.
