Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to thank all the members of Parliament who have participated in the debate of this bill. It has been a good debate and an important debate.
I know that members of Parliament increasingly are becoming aware of the crisis of climate change and want to get something done about it. We think this is something that the Canadian people believe we should be doing in this chamber.
I would particularly like to thank the member for Victoria for her kind words earlier this evening in the debate.
I am thinking back to my father who used to sit in this place, albeit in a different political party, but what can one do when a family member falls in with the wrong crowd? In any event, he taught us years ago that the environment was an important issue. He got his kids to start thinking about putting solar hot water systems in our houses 40 years ago.
I know that he would be very concerned about the issue here today and would be hoping that Parliament could get something done. He was that sort of man.
He always taught me that if we want to get somewhere we absolutely have to mark out a destination. That is what this bill attempts to do and I believe succeeds in achieving.
If we are hoping to get to a target, we have to name it and name it very clearly. We need to make sure well in advance that we have the right destination in mind.
As we begin to set a course for where this country needs to go with respect to the crisis of climate change, we have to set a destination based on the best knowledge available on the planet. That is what this bill has done.
We turned to what global science was suggesting. Global science, with a level of consensus never before achieved by global science on any topic, suggested that we must avoid a 2° centigrade average increase in global temperatures. In order to do that, we had to set a trajectory that would take us to greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels. We had to set that target if we were to have any hope of avoiding what was predicted by these same scientists as catastrophic change.
That means that we must set a difficult target, but a target nonetheless, to help us develop the plans and initiatives that are absolutely essential if we are to stay within 2oC of global warming. This bill starts with that proposal.
We took this recommendation directly from global science and from the David Suzuki Foundation, and from the Pembina Institute. We set a target of 80% reduction by 2050. In addition, we required, through this law, that all targets established between now and then be locked in legislation. We also set in motion a process to require that there be immediate action by any government to achieve those targets.
At the time when we presented this bill, of course, we had the clean air act beginning to come forward from the government. We believe that it was fundamentally inadequate. We are not alone in that assessment. We proposed this alternative.
At the same time we realized that we were at a standoff here in this Parliament on the issue of climate change and that nothing seemed likely to be produced, no action was going to be taken because everyone was holding to their positions.
I asked the leaders of all the political parties and asked the Prime Minister, would he be willing to sit down in a special committee to consider how we could bring every party's best ideas forwar? I am glad that the committee was given the opportunity to meet.
There was lots of skepticism of course, but now that those meetings have concluded, all parties have submitted their ideas. No one received every measure they wanted to see in the legislation adopted, but virtually all parties have elements in that legislation they can call their own. It is coming back to the House of Commons if the Prime Minister authorizes that legislation and all that good work to come here for a vote.
I believe it is essential that this piece of legislation come here because otherwise Canadians are going to ask us what we are doing about the most important issue facing the climate.
In closing, if the Prime Minister chooses not to bring that legislation forward, at least we will have this bill, in order to continue the work, if it is sent on to committee as I hope it will be by these hon. members.