John Godfrey

[Privilege, June 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, our view is that it is not the role of parliamentary committees to determine which minister shall survive and which minister shall go. It is the role of parliamentary committees to have a principled, serious look at the work of the government and, through that, judge the competence of the ministry and the minister.

That is what we were doing yesterday afternoon. We were reviewing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, an incredibly important piece of legislation that we have to look at. It is not our job to indulge in end of term gimmickry. Our job is to be there to do the work. If the chamber wishes to pronounce on the government, if the House wishes to do that, there should be a motion to that effect.

We think that is the role of committees, not this end of term stuff.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, there is no appeal to you on this because there is no report to you from the committee on this. You have nothing to judge. Had you had a report from the committee, you might have something to judge, but I maintain that the committee is master of its own affairs and its own business. A ruling of the chair was appealed and the appeal was upheld. End of story. We have no business discussing this matter further.

[Privilege, June 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the content of the motion, we certainly had no argument with it. We would not defend the competence of the Minister of the Environment to any degree. However, there is nothing special about the Minister of the Environment when it comes to the incompetence of ministers of the government. We would be spending all our time in committee dealing with those sorts of issues if that was what committees were designed to do.

Nor are we convinced that replacing this particular incompetent minister with another incompetent minister--

[Phthalate Control Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will be using the parliamentary secretary's speech as a structure for my remarks.

The first thing to be noted is that the addition of toxic substances such as the three phthalates proposed by the bill is not something that requires us to wait for the CEPA review. If the member would look at the Canadian Environmental Protection Act itself and at schedule 1, he would see that since CEPA 1999, on a fairly regular basis, we have added various substances, until these that would be added would be numbered 80, 81 and 82. Therefore, there is a process that does not require us to wait for that.

Second, the crucial part of his argument, and he appealed to scientific research to guide our efforts, according to him, is that the last scientific studies were concluded in the period from 1994 to the year 2000. What has happened since then is that we have learned a great deal more about phthalates.

In fact, there have been several reviews by the national toxicological program referred to by the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. The first one to examine phthalates was in October 2000. In other words, it was outside the period that Health Canada was reviewing. There we are talking about DBP. This is the one that finds itself in children's toys and that sort of thing.

What they concluded after that first panel was that DBP can cause reproductive toxicity in adult rats and developmental toxicity in rats and mice, and it does so by oral routes, through the mouth. It induces structural malformation. These data are assumed to be relevant to humans. That is from a study which was concluded outside the scientific period.

Since then, and the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley also referred to this, there was another panel on phthalates in October 2005. There was quite a controversy about phthalates in August 2005. That panel has even more scientific evidence to point out the dangers of phthalates in general and some of those mentioned in the bill very specifically.

The idea is not to circumvent the CEPA review or science, but to incorporate science at a faster rate than we have been doing. The hon. member will know from sitting on the CEPA review that one of the most painful parts of this process is how long it takes us to recognize dangers and to act on them.

The other thing he will know from this review is that if we do not put these substances on now as dangerous, they tend to get ignored by the officials, who turn to things that are mandated. If we mandate the Department of Health and the Department of the Environment to do something, they are more likely to do it. That is what the bill would have the effect of doing.

This is not in the least inconsistent with peer review. This is simply a way of incorporating what we have been learning all through this process and, like the proposer of the bill, I think this is exactly what we ought to be doing. We ought to be finding ways of expediting our inclusion on toxic lists of things for which new evidence is emerging.

I would also point out that in his remarks one of the things he seems to have ignored is the specific limitations that the bill would place on the use of these three phthalates. It does not say they cannot be used for vinyl flooring or linoleum, which is one of the things that phthalates are used for. It excludes the blood bags that he refers to. Presumably when it gets to committee we can refine further some of these exclusions.

It is very specific. It is not going to be a disruptor of the economy to say that this should be done in very specific instances where there is stronger evidence since the last time Health Canada looked at it and where the international response has been far more vigorous than it has been in Canada.

I think the reference to the ban in the European Union for all toys and child care articles tells us that we are too slow. Why should we wait on these prohibitions when the evidence from larger markets on the precautionary principle shows that we would not want to take a chance on this stuff? Why would we not want to act now?

Why is it that we must wait until the CEPA review is finished? The CEPA review may not be finished for another year, and yet the accumulating evidence, including last month's toxicological study from the National Institutes of Health in the United States, tells us that we know enough under the precautionary principle to say that these three substances ought not to be used in this very particular way, not the generalized way described by the hon. member.

In conclusion, I am going to urge my colleagues to support this bill. I do so because there is the scientific weight of evidence in terms of risk to human health. I do not think we need to know more than that. We can refine this if we send the bill to committee. I think this is exactly what parliamentarians should do. It is not something that is inconsistent with the spirit of CEPA, which allows itself to have these toxic substances added from time to time as the scientific evidence becomes stronger.

[Phthalate Control Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, when the member says in his bill that phthalates will be banned from certain products, what products are we talking about here? Could he give us a brief outline of the three phthalates?

[The Environment, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the question is quite simple: who gave the order to remove the word Kyoto from the Government of Canada's current Internet sites? Which one of these ministers made this decision?

[The Environment, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the government is turning federal websites into Conservative Party propaganda, thanks to the NDP. The Conservatives are now banning the use of certain words on these sites.

Natural Resources Canada has not only erased all references to Kyoto from its website, it has also entirely eliminated natural resources climate change sites. Environment Canada's only surviving reference to Kyoto links to a site that has not been updated in over a year.

Why did the Minister of the Environment give the order to censor the word “Kyoto” from current Government of Canada websites?

[The Environment, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in her recent speech to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, the Minister of the Environment—and not the parliamentary secretary—stated that it was ridiculous to think that her government was abandoning the Kyoto protocol. According to the minister, the problem was not the Kyoto protocol but the fact that Canada's objectives were unattainable.

Can the Minister of the Environment tell this House what attainable objectives the government will set for Canada?

[The Environment, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the report card is in and the government has failed Canadians on the environment. The Sierra Club of Canada has issued its annual assessment and the Conservative government has been given a great big fat F: F for having failed Canadians on environmental responsibility; F for having forgotten that the environment is a priority for Canadians; and F for foolishly abandoning Kyoto because it was afraid to do the heavy lifting.

Giving this stinging condemnation of the government's inaction on the environment, will the Prime Minister apologize to Canadians for abandoning the fight against global warming?

[Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, June 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, for his very kind remarks at the end of his address.

As we move into the season of angry weather associated with climate change and global warning, I am here to support Bill C-288, an act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto protocol.

I must also recognize the vital role played by my colleague, the member for Honoré—Mercier, in preparing this bill. It is truly very important.

I suggest that the current Minister of the Environment should also be advocating for this bill as it seems consistent and supportive of her views as recently expressed in a speech to the Canadian Club of Ottawa. The remarks of the parliamentary secretary suggest that he too should support Bill C-288.

Bill C-288 in its preamble begins with the proposition that “global climate change is one of the most serious threats facing humanity and Canada” and then in turn it refers to the national science academies of Canada, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States and states, “The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action”.

Happily, the Minister of the Environment has publicly accepted the science of climate change, unlike several of her backbench and cabinet colleagues.

Some unkind souls have suggested that the Minister of the Environment, despite the fact that she is the current president of the Kyoto process, is against Kyoto. How heartening it was therefore to hear her say, and I will quote what the minister said when she was speaking of the onerous targets of Kyoto, “Some environmental groups stated this was akin to a complete abandonment of Kyoto, which is ludicrous. It doesn't mean that all is lost or that we've given up the fight”. That is a relief. The minister is sticking to Kyoto. Who knew?

In her recent speech the minister asked several useful questions: What has worked and not worked in the first phase of Kyoto? What can we do to broaden our efforts? Those are her questions. The minister's objective will be greatly aided by the passage of Bill C-288, whose purpose “is to ensure that Canada takes effective and timely action to meet its obligations under the Kyoto protocol and help address the problem of global climate change”. This view was reinforced by the parliamentary secretary himself in his own speech.

To assist the minister in determining what has worked and not worked with the first phase of Kyoto, which was her question, Bill C-288 proposes that the minister prepare a climate change plan, as she said she shall, that sets out various measures, such as regulating emission limits and performance standards, market based mechanisms such as emissions trading or offsets, spending or fiscal measures or incentives, cooperative measures or agreements with the provinces, territories or other governments.

To help the minister even further, Bill C-288 proposes that for each measure outlined above, there be a careful accounting each year of the greenhouse gas emission reductions that result from the measure. In the words of the minister, what has worked and not worked?

All that, as proposed by the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, in accordance with the recommendations made last fall by the commissioner of the environment.

Some skeptics have suggested that the minister actually does not like Kyoto. She certainly has spent more time talking about what has not worked than about what has worked. In fact, some point to the fact that the government website seems to be scrubbed clean of any reference to the actual word “Kyoto”, which is curious.

But hearken to the words of the minister herself, “What many people miss is that what we do at home is Kyoto”. That is splendid. The minister also said, “By being transparent about the challenges Canada is facing we have the opportunity to put in place a domestic solution which will contribute to our international efforts”. How wisely the minister links our international obligations under Kyoto to our domestic plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We in the Liberal Party are here to help and support the Minister of the Environment every step of the way with Bill C-288.

A close reading of the minister's speech to the Canadian Club shows how badly misunderstood she has been. She accepts the science of climate change. She accepts Kyoto, but wishes to improve it. She links our international obligations under Kyoto with our domestic efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. We know how keen she is to have precise targets in her made in Canada plan.

By being so precise in her criticism of the previous government's failures to reach Kyoto emission targets, she has committed herself to be measured by the same precise, demanding, stringent, numerical standards. How many megatonnes of CO₂ are being emitted every year? Where precisely is Canada now in relation to its total emissions in 1990? By describing the previous government's targets as unreachable, the minister has clearly committed herself to targets which are both reachable and, by definition, measurable.

Finally, the minister, by her criticism of previous efforts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as being ineffective, has set herself the clear challenge of being more effective, of exceeding the anticipated results of the Liberal government's project green. Even the harshest critics of project green, such as Mark Jaccard in a recent C.D. Howe Institute study, recognized that the combined measures of project green would have reduced Canada's annual greenhouse gas emissions by 175 megatonnes annually by 2010, achieving 80% of Canada's Kyoto commitment for that year.

The Minister of the Environment must now exceed that target. To help her do so, we put forward, in the spirit of constructive support, Bill C-288. She wants a made in Canada plan. So do we. Bill C-288 calls for a climate change plan and outlines precise measures. She wants to know what works and what does not work. So do we. Bill C-288 calls for an annual accounting of the precise reduction of greenhouse gas emissions caused by each measure.

Clearly, for the minister to prove that her plan is working better than previous plans and previous programs, she will need to set for herself precise, hard, reachable, measurable targets and be willing to be judged by the results. Bill C-288 is here to support the minister in her ambition and Bill C-288 deserves the wholehearted support of the Minister of the Environment in return.

I would like to turn briefly to the remarks made by the parliamentary secretary. We agree with him on the importance of long term action and goals, which we call Kyoto II. We agree that climate change is a global problem that needs a global solution but we also think Kyoto is the only game in town. No alternative scheme will take us there. This is it. We can make it better and we can move to a second phase but it will be Kyoto. That is the plan which has within the UN framework 189 countries.

If the government has a better international plan, it had better show us where the 189 countries will join up for that better plan.

[The Environment, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am talking about Quebec. At the Privy Council Office, we were told that a thorough search had been done and that no document was found. At Environment Canada, no document exists on the relations between Ottawa and Quebec.

On the same day that Quebec tabled its own plan to achieve the objectives of the Kyoto protocol, how can Quebec be part of a Canadian plan to reduce greenhouse gases if there is no written communication between the two governments?