Madam Speaker, I will begin by correcting my colleague opposite. We refer to the abundant natural resources in our country, to which she is referring, as the oil sands, not the tar sands. I encourage her to talk to the hundreds of thousands of people who are employed in this energy sector and do not believe in denigrating our country and our energy sector. I also encourage her to speak to her constituents, who are the beneficiaries of social programs and supported by Canada's energy sector. Those are two points for her to follow up on.
I am most interested in the core of her question that she originally posed in the House when she referred to a strategy that hurts everyone. I am here tonight with a small glimmer of hope that she just might think about when she continues to denigrate our energy sector and our country and not recognize that we are world leaders in environmental protection and clean energy production in Canada.
Let us talk about that. The NDP has been advocating that our country stay part of the Kyoto protocol. When our country signed onto the Kyoto protocol, it only included 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. . It did not include large global emitters. Now it only includes less than 13%. Clearly, this is not an agreement that will see real action in global greenhouse gas reductions. I find it quite disappointing that my colleague opposite continues to support an agreement without looking at what our government is saying. We are saying that we want to see real action in greenhouse gas reductions and that is why we need to continue on the good work that is happening in Copenhagen and Cancun and have a global agreement where all major emitters come to the table.
It kind of shocked me. I was speaking with my colleague opposite on a television program in late December and she suggested that China was a benchmark to be held up with regard to some of its comments at Durban about staying on in the Kyoto protocol. We believe we need to enter into a new agreement that has all major emitting countries committing to binding targets. The Kyoto protocol's second commitment period would not see that happen. I am quite proud of our government's stance in saying that we need an agreement where emissions are managed and monitored, as our country does right now.
The other thing that alarms me is I continually hear rhetoric from my colleague opposite, the environment critic and the NDP party in general about our country not being a world leader in our energy sector and in our environmental protection programs. With regard to domestic action at home, we have entered into a very bold sector-by-sector regulatory approach that will see real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to meet a target of 17% reductions from 2005 levels by 2020. This is real action. New Democrats continually oppose this. What is even worse, is that they have no plan. All we hear is rhetoric. We never hear a plan from them. We hear some vague things about a green economy, et cetera, but they do not have plans. They talk about jobs in a green economy and yet they vote against our budgetary measures that support investment in the development of clean energy technology and climate change adaptation.
I am very tired, as a proud Canadian, hearing our energy sector denigrated and hearing the opposition parties talk about awards that would denigrate our country's name.
Tonight I would ask my colleague opposite to stop spouting her party's talking points over and over again. Her environment critic lobbied against 500,000 Canadian jobs in the U.S. I would encourage her, for once, to support our government's action-focused plan with regard to environmental protection so that we can move forward and see some action done.