Mr. Speaker, while the government repeatedly claims that it stands up for the environment and the economy, when has it actually stood up for the environment in the last many months? Was it when it slashed the budget of the federal environmental watchdog, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, by 43%, when it recklessly planned to cut over 700 scientists from Environment Canada, when it announced devastating cuts to ozone monitoring, or when it shamefully pulled out of the Kyoto protocol?
To be fair, in the last few weeks the government did announce an investment in climate adaptation and monitoring of extreme weather events. Unfortunately, the government misses the point. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions would reduce both adaptation costs and extreme weather events.
Finally, after six years in government, the Minister of the Environment announced an oil sands monitoring implementation plan last Friday. Unfortunately, it comes with an additional three year phase-in period, an unclear structure, unclear funding, and a question regarding expanded private money and its potential influence.
The government's regulatory capacity and commitment to actually manage environmental impacts continues to lag behind the pace and scale of new oil sands development. New projects continue to be improved, even though we do not have information to understand the impacts. This is not responsible management and is sadly demonstrated by the government's failure to take necessary action to protect the woodland caribou.
However, the question before us today is about climate change, its impacts, its costs and the need for a credible comprehensive plan.
Canadians know about climate change. We have had our climate change wake-up calls, such as the 1998 ice storm, which cost $5.4 billion, and the 1996 Saguenay flood, which cost $1.7 billion. These are just two examples of extreme weather events and in fact pale in comparison to last year's extremes in the United States, as well as in southern Canada, with 14 separate weather events which caused losses of $1 billion or more each.
Today in the Canadian Arctic permafrost is melting. The annual thaw layer is deepening and damaging infrastructure. In British Columbia glaciers are retreating at rates not seen in 8,000 years. On the Prairies lake and river levels are lowering in summer and fall and are impacting agriculture. In Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland sea level rise and increased storminess are accelerating coastal and dune erosion.
Canadians should be highly critical of the government's abdication of leadership on climate change, specifically, its withdrawal from Kyoto and its performance in meeting international climate commitments, setting science-based emissions targets, developing incentives for low-carbon technologies, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, pricing carbon, and putting in place adaptation measures necessary to respond to the risks of climate change.
The Liberal government introduced project green in 2005, a comprehensive climate plan that would have got us 80% of the way to meeting our Kyoto targets. The Conservatives killed the plan when they became government and are now trying to rewrite history by calling the Kyoto protocol a blunder. Their only purpose is to mask their failure. While the government allocated $9.2 billion in funds, it actually reduced its greenhouse gas emissions target by 90%. Now the government can only get us 25% of the way to its drastically reduced target. How is it going to get us the remaining 75%?