Mr. Speaker, on November 28 I asked the Minister of the Environment about the then upcoming climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa. I asked why the Conservatives were misleading Canadians and the international community by trying to hide the fact that they are actually negotiating in bad faith. The minister responded that in Durban Canada would continue to work to encourage the international community to embrace a new international climate change agreement that includes all major emitters. On the same day, the environment minister repeatedly refused to confirm or deny whether Canada planned to formally withdraw from the Kyoto protocol. Specifically, the minister said, “I won't comment on a speculative report”. He further said, “I am neither confirming nor denying. This is not the day. This not the time to make an announcement”.
Why is there a lack of transparency and accountability to Canadians and the world? In stark contrast, South Africa's High Commissioner to Canada said that there had been speculation for weeks about the Conservative government's planned withdrawal and about it wanting other countries to follow suit.
We all know what happened. Canada pulled out of Kyoto after the minister returned from South Africa.
I will now address some of the climate change comments by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment on February 7 as they are relevant to the discussion at hand.
First, I want to make it very clear that the Kyoto protocol is a seminal agreement in modern environmental diplomacy and is the only legally binding framework for greenhouse gas emissions. I am enormously proud that my party signed it. Even the environment minister recently admitted, “Kyoto was a good idea for its time”.
Second, while the government is quick to point out that the original agreement did not include major emitters, it fails to recognize that the accord struck in Copenhagen in 2009 and confirmed in Cancun in 2010 created a system for registering commitments from all major emitting nations. The government should stop trying to pull the wool over Canadians' eyes regarding major emitters.
Third, the parliamentary secretary's claims that Liberals had no plan to implement the Kyoto protocol is patently false, and she should stop repeating such claims. The Liberal government was up against the Conservative-Reform alliance that did not even believe in the science of climate change and threw up every conceivable roadblock. The Liberals attempted to hold a debate in the House of Commons to discuss the merits of the Kyoto protocol but the party of the members opposite, many of whom are now ministers, filibustered and slowed down progress considerably.
While Kyoto was signed in 1997, it was not ratified until 2002. In 2005 the Liberal government introduced project green, a comprehensive plan developed with stakeholders across the country to put Canada on the right track to meet commitments. The Conservatives killed the plan when they became government. The Conservatives are trying to rewrite history by calling the Kyoto protocol a blunder. The only purpose is to mask their own inaction.
Fourth, if the parliamentary secretary believes, and I quote, “In order to see real action in global greenhouse gas reductions we need to have a global agreement which includes all major emitters”, why did her government walk away from Kyoto, the only legally binding agreement for greenhouse gas emissions?
Last, how can she be “proud of this approach” and claim to look forward to “continuing the good work that was started in Copenhagen, Cancun and in Durban”?
Let us unpack the spin. What good work: negotiating in bad faith, obstructing climate negotiations, or failing to take action on climate change?