Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House to debate Motion No. 295 from the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville on renewable energy and Canada's participation, or rather lack of it, in the International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA.
The motion divides into two specific points, First, that the government should increase its support of Canada’s renewable energy sector. Second, that the government should allow Canada to participate in the worldwide effort to develop renewable energy sources and enlist Canada as a full member of the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The Bloc Québécois is in favour of this motion. Indeed, any measure or initiative that would enable Quebec to reduce its oil dependency will be encouraged by the Bloc Québécois, no matter whom it comes from.
Because our nation is so greatly concerned by the issue of climate change, in large part because of our dependency on non-renewable fossil fuels.
Because the Quebec nation is highly attuned to sustainable economic development issues and committed to protecting the environment by every means possible.
And as long as Quebec is not a nation free to make its own economic and environmental choices, we must support federal measures which will provide better support to the Quebec renewable energy sector.
And as long as Quebec cannot determine all its own economic and environmental policies, we will have to suffer because of Canada's poor record in the fight against climate change, a Liberal as well as Conservative legacy.
And until we are a sovereign state that can make good use of its ecological advantage compared to the rest of Canada, we will support motions such as the one introduced by our colleague from Saint-Laurent—Cartierville.
Canada's environmental record gets worse by the day. Instead of decreasing, fossil fuel consumption is rising steadily, and production is going up as well. The Conservative government takes pride in that. We are concerned, though.
With the Liberals, we had a government that did promote the Kyoto protocol, but did absolutely nothing to comply with it. Greenhouse gas emissions rose by nearly 22% between 1990 and 2006, even though the Kyoto target was a 6% reduction compared to 1990 levels.
My colleague from Saint-Laurent—Cartierville was even the environment minister when the Liberals were in power. His record speaks for itself: fine words and good intentions, but in practical terms, we are very far from the targets Canada supported.
The current situation cannot go on indefinitely without having a serious impact not only on our energy future, but on our future, period. We need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Quebec is part of the solution. Forty per cent of all the energy used in Quebec, which includes transportation, is electric and hydroelectric energy, which is clean and renewable. In Ontario, 40% of electricity is generated using nuclear power.
In Quebec, 0.9% of electricity is produced from coal. In Ontario, the figure is 23%.
Quebec has a vested interest in taking an active role in developing renewable energy, because we have expertise in this area and a desire to excel.
For example, when the electric car becomes the norm, Quebec will be richer, because every dollar spent on gas in Quebec is a dollar exported.
We have no interest in seeing the current situation continue.
In the end, Alberta will find itself with an economy based on the most environmentally destructive form of energy production in the world: oil sands development.
California, a market of over 30 million people, is about to ban this source of oil.
With the oil sands development in Alberta, Canada has become a major player in the oil market.
Its natural resources minister has become the head lobbyist for this industry, going so far as to threaten to retaliate against our trading partners if they ban this dirty oil from their countries. That episode says a lot about how interested the Conservative government really is in the environment.
The Bloc Québécois has suggested several ways to reduce our dependency on oil and shift the emphasis to renewable energy.
First, we need to move quickly to give Hydro-Québec some leeway by increasing the energy efficiency of homes by 18% and reducing consumption by 15% over 10 years.
Second, we should continue to abandon the use of fuel oil in homes, businesses and industries by cutting the number of homes heating with it by half over 10 years and reducing the amount industry uses by 45%.
Third, we should stop the increases in the amount of fuel used for the long distance transportation of goods by freezing the volume of trucking at its current level and relying on technological improvements to obtain a 9% reduction in the amount of fuel used for transportation of this kind.
Fourth, we should reduce the amount of fuel used to transport people by stopping the increases in the number of automobiles on the roads and encouraging a 40% increase in the use of public transit, a 20% decrease in the amount of fuel used by private vehicles, and a 30% decrease in the amount used by commercial and institutional fleets.
Fifth, we should reduce the oil content of the fuels we use. We have almost no bio-fuels, despite their potential. The amount consumed in Quebec as a whole should be reduced by 5%.
Sixth, Quebec is in the vanguard of certain energy and clean transportation technologies and we should make it an energy and clean transportation hub by increasing our investments in research and development and encouraging the emergency of technology centres.
Quebec is certainly contributing its fair share to the development of clean, renewable energies. Until we are a sovereign country, the federal government has a role to play, especially in regard to federal expenditures on research and development to meet our needs and build up a critical mass of knowledge in cutting-edge fields.
The first point raised in my colleague’s motion M-295 is that the government should increase its support for the renewable energy sector in Canada. However, the Conservatives do the opposite and confine themselves to a vision straight out of the last century by lending unwavering support to the oil and nuclear industries. In the view of this government, oil has become a clean energy because, according to its plans, we will soon be able to bury the fantastic amounts of carbon produced by the big oil companies under the ground.
This carbon capture and storage technology is basically funded by the taxpayers of Quebec and Canada. In its last budget, the government boasted it had provided more than $375 million in 2006 for the development of this technology. This taxpayer money is being sent directly to the biggest polluters on the continent.
The government’s arrogance does not stop there. On page 179 of the budget, the government says it wants to further support Canada’s leadership in clean energy by providing $1 billion over five years to support clean energy technologies. This claim is a total farce. Of the $1 billion, $650 million will go straight to funding concrete applications of big carbon capture and storage projects.
We could continue at length on the problems with the ecoENERGY program and the lack of much effort by the federal government to help reduce greenhouse gases, but we will stop there. This is a debate that is only beginning.
I want to congratulate my colleague from Saint-Laurent—Cartierville for giving us this opportunity to debate together.