Mr. Speaker, I prepared a little introduction, but I feel compelled to respond to the previous intervention, which was pretty pathetic, to say the least. It is very sad to see that we have a government that claims it is looking after the economy but clearly does not care about the environment.
This is an issue that affects me personally. I myself am quite young and I have always been concerned about this issue. Moreover, my spouse is pregnant and I will be a new dad in a few months. I am very concerned about the future we are creating for my children and the children of all our fellow citizens. That is why I cannot understand how anyone can treat such a serious issue so lightly, as our honourable colleague just did.
Since they came to power, the Conservatives have said over and over that there is no way they can reach the targets. The Conservatives are admitting that they are incompetent and powerless. How is it that European countries, such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, can reach the targets without destroying their economies? On the contrary, this has become a source of wealth for those countries and has given them more opportunities for economic development.
By failing to take advantage of the opportunity Kyoto presents to enrich our society and protect the environment, the government is showing to what extent it lacks a broad vision of the economy.
Kyoto could enrich our society because the new technology we would develop to reach the targets would create jobs here, especially in Quebec where businesses in the environmental sector are very dynamic. Furthermore, our oil dependence is costly because, in Quebec in particular, there is no oil production. That means that all of the money spent on energy is leaving our economy and is not creating jobs.
For businesses, the cost of burning oil to produce energy accounts for a large proportion of their expenses. If they could reduce those costs by developing new technologies that reduce consumption and increase energy efficiency, that would be a major advantage. It would also enable citizens to consume less energy.
Lastly, there is the carbon exchange. If we exceed our Kyoto targets, if we do our job well and get started now, without waiting to set targets, we can place a monetary value on those gains and even eventually sell credits to other countries. But in order to do that, we have to be on the market now. We cannot afford to wait and let the parade pass us by. When all the other industrialized countries in the world have carbon exchanges and technologies to sell and offer us, we cannot afford to still be watching our oil resources run out. We will have completely missed the boat.
The Conservatives' attitude is pathetic, and I am very concerned about the fate of my unborn child and all the children in Quebec.
The Bloc Québécois will support this bill, but I want to make it clear that we support the bill in principle only. The Bloc Québécois has always taken this attitude. When a bill is introduced, we do not ask ourselves whether it comes from the Tories, the Grits, the NDP or whomever. We judge each bill on its own merits.
We are going to support this bill, because we believe that Canada must implement the Kyoto protocol. Clearly, we are not supporting the Liberal Party, because the Liberal Party's record on the environment was rather dismal during the years it was in power. The Liberal government signed the Kyoto protocol, but did nothing tangible to implement it. Canada did not move forward, it moved backward. Canada's environmental record all those years was a disaster. Only at the very end of the Liberal reign, just before the election, did the current leader of the opposition—who was then the environment minister—hold a lovely little conference. Good for him, but it was rather late in the game to be taking action.
We must look beyond the disastrous record of the Liberals and the ideological stubbornness of the Conservatives and study the merits of this bill. The Kyoto protocol targets are the bare minimum to be achieved. Earlier today, we discussed a colleague's point of order pertaining to Al Gore's remarks.
I invite everyone to take a few moments to rent Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, which is available in both English and French. I believe that this documentary is the best thing to have been produced in the United States in the last 10 years. It is a powerful depiction of humanity's self-destruction. It is madness not to take action. I can understand that there is always partisanship in this House and I can understand that we all have different objectives. However, we live on the same planet and we share the same environment.
In this regard, I find it shocking that some members in this House question the reality of global warming, and that some claim it is not due to human activity. Fortunately, there are fewer and fewer of these people, but several dozens of MPs still think that we are not in a position to meet the Kyoto protocol targets.
Considering that man went to the moon, that we are developing drugs to cure all sorts of conditions and that we are often dealing with new technological challenges, I cannot believe that some members of this House would think that we do not have the intellectual or financial resources to achieve such a critical objective.
The only resource that we are lacking to meet these targets is easily within reach: it is the will of this government. This is the only resource that we are missing right now. That is why we will have to support this legislation to force the government to make up for its lack of will. This is what is lacking. Whether in Quebec or in the rest of Canada, we have the human and financial resources to meet these targets.
It is clear that the Canadian situation is special. In the western provinces of Canada there are extraordinary energy resources that produce a lot of wealth there, it is true. When the Standing Committee on Finance, of which I am a member, travelled in western Canada, I noticed that an increasing number of Canadians from those provinces were concerned about their future. They feel that we should not burn up these oil resources in a few years, in one generation, and not leave anything for the next generations.
Quebec does not have these resources, but it has a lot of people who are concerned about developing our economy and our renewable energy. For a little while now, we have been faced with a government that refuses to seriously consider the possibility of no longer encouraging polluting energies and energies that emit greenhouse gases, and instead focus on renewable energy. The best example is the motion I tabled earlier this week in the Standing Committee on Finance, which simply asked that we address this issue.
Should we drop the incentives and tax benefits for oil companies and invest in renewable energy instead?
The committee adopted the motion. The only ones who opposed it were the Conservatives. I find it sad that they do not even want to vote on this issue. I am convinced that the Kyoto protocol is the right path to take. It is the very least the country can do. To aim lower than that, not to have the courage to see this through, would be a pathetic failure and infinitely sad for our children.