Madam Speaker, wow, I cannot believe that. The Conservatives have now rejected, not once but twice, my attempts to table their very own platforms.
Well, I guess I will just have to read it. Listen to Stephen Harper's commitment that the member for Abbotsford and all the members I referenced, including the member for Carleton, ran on in 2008. It said:
A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will implement our Turning the Corner action plan to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms by 20 per cent over 2006 levels by 2020. We will work with the provinces and territories and our NAFTA trading partners in the United States and Mexico, at both the national and state levels [here is the good part], to develop and implement a North America-wide cap and trade system for greenhouse gases and air pollution....
For those who do not know what a cap and trade system is, it is basically an alternative to the pricing mechanism that we have now. However, I cannot believe that we now have not only MPs who were hypocrites in 2021, but now we have hypocrites from 2021 and 2008 elections, including the member for Abbotsford, who I understand used to be the minister of the environment.
People will sometimes ask what the cap and trade system is, which I think is a very good question to ask, because there is a slight difference between that and our existing pricing mechanism.
The cap and trade system was actually brought about in North America a number of years ago. It was started by the Western Climate Initiative. In 2007, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington started what was known as the Western Climate Initiative. Later on, Montana and Utah joined. After that, Ontario, Quebec and B.C. got into the cap and trade program.
The cap and trade program is slightly different from pricing pollution, but it effectively does the same thing. It encourages companies within those jurisdictions to trade off their emissions and effectively lowers emissions. This is exactly what Stephen Harper was talking about in his 2008 platform commitment. He wanted to implement that system that had been developed by the Western Climate Initiative. He wanted to bring it in.
Now, guess what happened? Stephen Harper got elected, but do members think he delivered on that commitment?