Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to hear the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food speak again to this subject. The last time he spoke I asked him a question about the relative merits of what he was saying about the greenhouse gas reductions that are engaged with biofuels. He was talking about four megatonnes of reduction that would come from his 5% program in fuel with the $2.2 billion investment.
A careful scientific analysis by the BIOCAP Canada Foundation shows that with corn ethanol we would get a 21% reduction in CO2 emissions, which is what we would normally get with gasoline if it were bought in Canada. If we buy it from U.S. producers we will have a negative greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
With the 21% Canadian, what would happen if we were to make all the corn in Canada and feed it into our ethanol system to produce the 5%? The vehicle fleet in Canada produces 100 megatonnes of CO2 emissions; 5% of 100 megatonnes is 5 megatonnes and 20% of 5 megatonnes is much less than 4 megatonnes.
Why does the minister keep using these figures when he obviously has the same kinds of studies that we are working from? If he has some study that shows that he is getting 4 megatonnes of reduction from his program, costing Canadian taxpayers $2.2 billion, he should put it on the line.
The minister keeps referring to the idealistic opposition to not simply blindly moving ahead but carefully considering what we are doing with biofuels, that includes such idealistic lefties as Terence Corcoran, Don Martin and Gwyn Morgan who are all part of the NDP and are idealistic soulmates. How does the minister see these people as our idealistic compatriots?