House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 53% of the vote.
The Environment October 6th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, in her efforts to destroy the Kyoto protocol, the Minister of the Environment is simply denying the facts.
Yesterday, she did not properly convey Daphne Wysham's remarks. She allowed her department to post on its web site misleading information regarding global warming. She also repeatedly fails to attend international meetings on Kyoto.
When will she finally admit that her real goal is to sabotage the Kyoto protocol? When will she apologize to Daphne Wysham?
The Environment October 6th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of the Environment attempted to undermine Kyoto's clean development mechanism by misrepresenting the views of Daphne Wysham from the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.
In a communication to Elizabeth May, Ms. Wysham said that she was a staunch supporter of the clean development mechanism. Ms. Wysham said that she was horrified that the minister represented her opinion of the mechanism so badly.
Will the Minister of Fisheries ask his colleague to withdraw her remarks and apologize to Ms. Wysham whom she so badly misrepresented?
Trent-Severn Waterway October 4th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I really would invite those who are fleeing to return because this is a pretty exciting motion.
I do not think the member for Simcoe North will be accused of being overly assertive in the framing of his motion. I would not say he was being aggressive. I would say he was being quite tentative. In fact the motion reads:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should consider the advisability of evaluating the future of the historic Trent-Severn Waterway,--
Presumably nothing would have prevented the government from doing so on its own if it had not been prompted to so by the member for Simcoe North. There is nothing here that we would wish to oppose, although we might want to add a few things to the list of suggestions which the member puts forward tentatively in terms of what the government should consider.
He does mention a number of factors that the government should look at considering its potential to become a premier recreational asset; a world-class destination for recreational boaters; a greater source of clean, renewable electric power; a facilitator of economic opportunity and renewal; and a model of environmental sustainability.
What seems to have been left out of the equation is an element which was central to the management plan that was put forward by the National Historic Sites of Canada tabled in the House on June 7, 2001. The missing element in the member's proposal refers to historical heritage.
In fact, if one considers the vision which was laid out by the historic site folks in 2001, there are four pillars to the vision. The first one is the protection of the cultural and natural heritage, followed by the management of water levels and navigation, and presentation of waterway heritage to the public. It also mentions things like heritage destination and the provision of excellent facility services and programs, and providing strength to the local economy.
It does so in a spirit which suggests that we need to have a greater cooperative effort of all stakeholders and clearly a defined leadership. There is also the importance of public private partnerships, the creation of new services, programs and businesses, and reinvestment by Parks Canada.
The thrust on community involvement is important. That is what the hon. member wishes to occur perhaps even more. There is an obligation for reports to be made on a periodic basis by Parks Canada on how this is working out. However, the one deficiency in the member's motion is the non-reference to heritage matters.
Yet, in the management plan, if one turns to page 97, there really is quite a lot of reference to that. I would hope that if the government were to follow the advice of the hon. member that these things would be taken into account.
The sorts of issues that are raised in the report are the history of the construction and operations of the Trent-Severn Waterway for example. The people who built it, the contribution of technology developed due to the waterway, and the architectural presence and evolution since 1833 of the waterway. Then it follows through on the historical evolution of the waterway since 1833, but it also returns to an earlier period.
It suggests that we need to take into account the aboriginal use of the waterway which goes back no less than 11,000 years. It was during all the major periods of Ontario native history. The Trent-Severn Waterway was central to communication. There was a dynamic and diverse nature of aboriginal cultures as they evolved and adapted to environmental circumstance, and they interacted, of course, and respected the rich natural resources of the area which contributed to the special development of the region.
This is something that we do not want to lose sight of in any consideration by the government of the waterway. This would include as well, and the hon. member's motion picks this up in his last point, the natural heritage component of this, the landscapes, the interaction between human beings and natural resources, and the importance of the wetlands in maintaining environmental quality. So we are dealing here with fish and wildlife populations, erosion control, flood regulation, and water quality.
As we look forward to supporting the motion, I would simply urge both the member and the government, as they move forward in taking into account this motion should it pass, that the heritage component be explicitly enunciated by the member and understood by the government.
Mr. Speaker, I suppose the question is this. How accurate were the words of the minister in her response to my question?
She said that no website had ever been turned off with regard to Kyoto. I then read out what is on the Government of Canada website, which announces that it has been turned off. I do not see how the parliamentary secretary can deny that the words “turned off” were totally appropriate to the situation we find ourselves in, and that the minister misled the House by saying that no climate change website had been turned off when the website itself says that it has been turned off.
Mr. Speaker, on June 20 I asked the Minister of the Environment which minister gave the order to remove the word “Kyoto” from the Government of Canada's current Internet websites. First she answered, “no website has ever been turned off”. Then she said that the subject of my question, the suppression of references to the Kyoto protocol on government websites was not substantive enough to be discussed further. Perhaps not for her.
This really was not a surprise, because we already knew that the minister was not interested in hearing about Kyoto.
As I pointed out last week, in raising another matter on June 15, the minister misled the House and Canadians. Five days later on June 20 she did it again. She said that no website had been turned off, no links had been taken down and that the Environment Canada website was “very dynamic”. It was so dynamic that we found on Environment Canada's website a link to a Kyoto site that has not been updated in over a year.
Also, Natural Resources Canada, the minister's partner in suppression, has not only erased all references to Kyoto, but it has also entirely eliminated Natural Resources climate change sites. In other words, websites have been altered, turned off and links taken down.
It is proof that the government does not believe in Kyoto and does not believe in climate change. But that is not all. Ten days after I asked my question in the House, that is to say on June 30, 2006, the government, which is trying to convince the population that it takes the responsibility of climate change and the environment seriously, turned off the central climate change website of the Government of Canada, note turned off. Now when one tries to reach the www.climatechange.gc.ca, one can read, “The Government of Canada Climate Change site is currently unavailable” which is more proof that this minority government does not believe in the science of climate change.
Yes, the link to present to all Canadians the plan to honour our Kyoto commitment to reduce greenhouse gases has been completely erased.
Also, as recently as two weeks ago, we realized that the government had once again made some changes to the Environment Canada website. We actually noted the addition of a paragraph that deliberately let on that global warming was a controversial subject within the scientific community.
We could read the following there:
There is a great deal of uncertainty associated with climate predictions and, although temperature changes during this century are consistent with global warming predictions, they remain within the range of natural variability.
The government finally withdrew this paragraph following a public complaint by a representative of the scientific community.
The government is in denial about climate change. It does not like the science and now it wants to censor it. We have not forgotten that the current Prime Minister has, in the past, questioned the science of climate change and has called it a controversial hypothesis.
I ask the parliamentary secretary to set aside the answer that has been prepared for him and simply acknowledge that his minister misled the House when she said that no website has ever been turned off.
The Environment September 21st, 2006
Mr. Speaker, in January 2006, the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources were told by our officials that 6 million Canadians had reduced their energy consumption under the One Tonne Challenge program, that 125,000 homes had been renovated under the EnerGuide program and that these two programs were among the most effective we had for addressing climate change.
Why then did these two ministers decide to cut these two programs considered to be effective by their own officials?
The Environment September 21st, 2006
Mr. Speaker, last February the Minister of the Environment skipped out of a two week Kyoto meeting, which she was supposed to chair in Bonn, after a single day. Then a few weeks later she failed to appear at all at a conference on smog in Toronto. Now we find out that when the ministers of the environment for all Kyoto signatories met last week in Switzerland, she could not be bothered to show up at all.
She was the chair of the meeting and again her chair sat empty. What is more, Canada did not file its progress reports for the meeting that were due September 1.
Why did the minister not show up at the meeting and, as importantly, why did the minister not table the program--
Adjournment Proceedings September 18th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the question I raised in the House on June 15 was not about what happened last week. It was not about what happened recently. It was trying to reconcile a statement the minister made in the House on May 2 indicating that there were plans and documents in place which showed serious negotiation with the provinces.
The period covered by the access to information request was from January 23 to June 2. There is no trace of any written document with the Government of Quebec in any fashion, electronic, messengers, whatever. There is no document showing that there was any recorded discussion or negotiation between the province of Quebec and the Government of Canada.
I do not think the answer we just received refers to that period and that was the purpose of the question. That is why I repeat that the minister misled the House in giving the answer she did on May 2.
Adjournment Proceedings September 18th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, this evening, we are revisiting a question from June of this year that still remains unanswered by the Minister of the Environment, although of utmost importance, regarding the relationship between this government and the provinces that believe in the Kyoto protocol and that are prepared to make an effort to reach its targets.
Let me briefly remind the House of the facts. Thanks to an access to information request, we learned that no one at the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council or the office of the Minister of the Environment had communicated in writing with the Quebec government regarding the implementation of Kyoto. However, on May 2, 2006, the Minister of the Environment stated right here, and I quote:
The provinces will be very much a part of our made in Canada solution; Canadians will come first, and Quebec is a part of that plan.
With that statement, the minister misled this House on June 15, 2006, because she never officially communicated in writing with the Quebec government on this issue. We have the proof.
Furthermore, the very day that I questioned the minister, the Quebec government tabled its own plan to reach the Kyoto targets. That plan, I would point out, was very well received by various environmental groups. While Quebec was taking responsibility to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, this government did nothing and led the public to believe that the provinces were going to be part of its plan.
What is even more alarming is that the minister does not seem to take this seriously. Instead of explaining to the public the reasons for her inaction, she chose to say that all this was nothing but blah blah blah. As if Canadians did not have the right to know. As if, to her, relations with the Government of Quebec on the issue of the Kyoto protocol were not important. Is it because Quebeckers believe in the Kyoto protocol and its objectives that the minister decided to ignore them? This type of response from the minister is disrespectful to the House of Commons and especially to Quebeckers. This attitude is not worthy of a minister of the Crown, because a serious question deserves a serious answer. Since we have a bit more time today than in question period, I hope the government's response will be more substantive than the minister's response was in June.
I will repeat my questions: why did the minister mislead this House by saying that Quebec was part of her plan when we have written proof that this was not the case at the time? Furthermore, how could this government say that the provinces would be directly involved in their so-called “made in Canada” solution when they were not even consulted in the process?
You cannot just start listening and working with the provinces when there is a dip in the polls, which is currently the case for Conservatives in Quebec. The environment and the future of our children demand a lot more respect.
Petitions June 22nd, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from over 500 citizens of the Ottawa area calling upon Parliament to make climate change one of the top priorities of the government, to renew Canadian legal obligations under the Kyoto protocol, and to take action to reduce emissions, reinstate climate change programs and let the Canadian people know immediately the made in Canada plan.