Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the motion of the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. It reads:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should increase its support of Canada's renewable energy sector, allow our country to participate in the worldwide effort to develop renewable energy sources and enlist Canada as a full member of the International Renewable Energy Agency.
I am pleased that in this corner of the House we are supporting the motion, but I am doubly pleased, I suppose, because I had also tabled a motion on the order paper, dealing with the establishment of the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA. I know that the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville is very interested in that particular organization and its establishment.
My motion is a little bit different. It focuses more on IRENA itself. I will just read it into the record. The motion I had proposed says:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) consider that the promotion of renewable energy sources requires new institutional measures in the field of international cooperation; (b) welcome the initiative by the International Parliamentary Forum on Renewable Energy and the German, Danish, and Spanish governments for the establishment and work of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA); and (c) support the establishment and work of the IRENA by becoming a member of that Agency.
In my motion I chose to focus specifically on the development of this new renewable energy agency, which would work to ensure that renewable energy was at the forefront of international co-operation and international work around energy issues.
The International Renewable Energy Agency was officially established in Bonn, Germany, on January 26 of this year. The mandate of IRENA is that it aspires to become the main driving force for promoting a rapid transition towards the widespread and sustainable use of renewable energy on a global scale. So there is a sense of urgency and speed in the mandate of this new agency.
It looks to provide practical advice and support for both industrialized and developing countries, thereby helping to improve frameworks and build capacity. It also intends to facilitate access to all relevant information on renewable energy issues.
When looking at the establishment of IRENA, the background issues that the organizers and the promoters of this agency elucidate in their materials are that they note we face monumental challenges, challenges of global warming, of the waning of natural resources, of explosions in population growth, of increasing energy demand, rising energy prices and unequal distribution of energy sources. All those factors, they note, contribute to the urgent need to transform the energy sector, which primarily relies on fossil fuels, to one that uses renewable energy and energy-efficient measures.
That is where they see the need for this new international agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency, and they would see that a major task of the agency is to develop comprehensive solutions to the challenges that I just noted, such as fostering all types of renewable energy and considering various renewable energy policies at the local, regional and national levels. They believe that IRENA, in fulfilling its work, should consider specific environmental, economic and socio-cultural conditions of its members.
The active involvement of stakeholders from the energy industry, academia, civil society and other institutions is very important to the success of this new agency to make sure that it is able to implement policies, and policies that are enduring and provide solutions.
The agency would intend to regularly consult and co-operate with organizations and networks already engaged in the field of renewable energy, in order to complement and pool their work resources, creating added value in that way.
So it is an ambitious agenda, but one that is certainly timely. I think in most corners of the House we appreciate the need to move away from fossil fuels, the fact that we have to and that needs to be done in an urgent way, and that looking more carefully at and implementing renewable energy alternatives is very important.
I heard about IRENA and the move to establish IRENA through the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, or PNND. An active member of PNND is a German member of Parliament, and he has taken a very serious interest in promoting this alternative.
His name is Dr. Hermann Scheer. He is a member of the German parliament. He came to his concern about renewable energy through concerns that he had about the nuclear energy industry. Not all members of PNND are concerned about nuclear energy. Some members of that organization believe that nuclear energy has a place as one of our energy sources.
However, Dr. Scheer is someone who believed that promoting a renewable energy agency would have a positive effect in the world and have an effect that is related to the use of nuclear energy and the commitments to nuclear non-proliferation. So he became one of the key promoters of this idea.
The Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament was also involved in promoting and at least advertising his efforts in that regard. So that is where my interest in this as a member of the Canadian section of PNND began.
As I said, this organization had its founding meeting in January 2009, and a number of nations signed on at that time. If we look at its website today, we will see that 96 nations have signed on to IRENA, this International Renewable Energy Agency. I think when we first began debate on this motion, there were 78 nations. So that number has gone up since then.
Unfortunately, Canada is not one of the nations that has been involved. Canada did not become involved in any of the preparatory meetings. Canada was not at the founding meeting, and Canada has not become a signatory to the development of this new agency. I think that is rather tragic when we see the importance of promoting renewable energy and when we see the continuing failure of the government to appreciate the need for renewable energy and the need to ensure that renewable energy is developed here in Canada and around the world.
Canada should be part of this international effort. Canadians have something to contribute to this agency and to the goal of ensuring that renewable energy replaces fossil fuel as the source of our energy here in Canada and around the world. We do need to be part of that organization. It would be good for Canada to be in at the ground, at the beginnings of that organization, although that opportunity is quickly disappearing.
I think it is very important that Canada reconsider its position. I hope the government will do that and ensure that Canada signs on soon to this proposal and becomes one of the countries that helps chart the course of this new agency.
We have seen other international energy agencies. We know there is the International Atomic Energy Agency. We know there is the International Energy Agency, composed mainly of OECD countries, that has had a major interest in fossil fuels. But even there, the International Energy Agency is moving to consider renewable energy as an important feature of the current discussion.
Those agencies have been set up and functioning for many years, but there is, I think, an important space in that discussion in international co-operation to have an agency that looks to renewable energy specifically and has that as its particular mandate, and it certainly is a very timely issue.
We know the renewable energy sources of wind energy, solar energy, and geothermal energy have great potential here in Canada and around the world. We know retrofit programs have great potential here in Canada and around the world. We know renewable energy and retrofitting have immediate effects. We know they have been tested, they are effective and proven, and they have known results. This direction is certainly one that would be important for us to undertake and for our government to undertake.
We are concerned when we see the redirection of moneys away from wind energy and towards tar sands and old fossil fuel solutions and believe this is exactly the wrong direction to be taking.
Again, I am glad to be part of this discussion. I am glad to be able to support the motion before us and to say very clearly that support for renewable energy and for this new International Renewable Energy Agency is something that Canada should be involved in, and I look forward to voting in favour of this motion.