Mr. Speaker, I will let the Liberals and the Conservatives squabble about their respective records, because it seems to be a case of “my dad is stronger than yours”.
What really stood out for me was that the parliamentary secretary said that the Kyoto protocol is just symbolic, and that is why Canada withdrew. If she is implying that that we would not solve the problem even if all the signatories achieved their targets, I agree with that.
However, the problem of climate change has to be tackled at home and abroad. We withdrew from the protocol on the grounds that not all emitters were on board. We need to understand the differences between the countries that were directly responsible for this situation and those that will be responsible for carrying on. We cannot say that everyone should do the same thing at the same time. There have to be negotiations.
Had Canada been a real leader, I think that, after it withdrew, a number of countries would have followed suit and withdrawn from the Kyoto protocol at the same time because that was the right thing to do. We are the only country that withdrew from the Kyoto protocol, and that attitude does not encourage people to work together.
Perhaps reconsidering our international stature in the approach to the problem is in order.