Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of the Environment tell us what the government has done to safeguard the environment since the Speech from the Throne?
House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 53% of the vote.
The Environment December 13th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of the Environment tell us what the government has done to safeguard the environment since the Speech from the Throne?
Kyoto Protocol December 3rd, 2002
Mr. Speaker, what if the hon. member is wrong? What are the consequences of his being wrong? They are far more catastrophic than the consequences of our being wrong. The hon. member being wrong is an attack on the future viability of the planet. The consequence of our being wrong is a more efficient economy.
Kyoto Protocol December 3rd, 2002
In 1939 there was no plan. None. In six years the country mobilized its economic and industrial resources in a way no one could have imagined in 1939. We did it because we recognized the nature of the challenge and we got on with it. The plan developed as we fought the war.
Kyoto Protocol December 3rd, 2002
Neither, Mr. Speaker, does delay, delay, delay.
In 1939 members debated a wartime budget in the House. That was the way they expressed their views on the outbreak of the second world war and the decision of the Government of Canada to enter it. Did they know in 1939 that it would work? No. Did they know that they had to do it? Yes. We face from time to time extraordinary historical choices. Either we believe that there is a problem, in which case we have to set the goals and get on with it, or we cannot get on with it until we set the goals and agree that we have a problem.
Kyoto Protocol December 3rd, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I shall be sharing my time with my friend, the member for Toronto--Danforth.
I rise today to support the immediate ratification of the Kyoto protocol. I do so in the belief that humanity is facing an unprecedented crisis of historical proportions. For our generation of parliamentarians it is hard to imagine a choice, a decision, that carries with it such monumental consequences. Nothing less than the future of the planet and the fate of humankind is at stake in this debate.
For us to rise to the challenge, we must summon up within us, within ourselves, qualities of courage, of imagination, of empathy with our brothers and sisters around the world, and of intergenerational moral obligation to our children and grandchildren.
What sort of world will we leave those children? Will it be a world fit for human habitation? Will it be a world where droughts continually worsen here in Canada's prairies or in the Sahel region of Africa? Will it be a world where the great oceans themselves inexorably rise, drowning ocean states like Nauru and coastal states like Bangladesh and threatening our own coastal villages and cities with flooding and storm surges?
Will this be a world where heat induced diseases like malaria, dengue fever and Lyme disease advance to overwhelm poor and vulnerable people around the world and indeed threaten even us in our seemingly safe bastion of North America?
Will this be a world in which increased temperatures combine with increased pollution to produce a toxic cloud to hasten the deaths around the world of young and elderly alike? And all this because we in North America failed to grow up, because we insisted on the acquisition and proliferation of sports utility vehicles as our birthright, indeed, the very definition of our moral worth as human beings?
When I recall the notorious Cheney energy plan of a year and a half ago in which the Vice President of the United States insisted that any restriction on the manufacture and sale of SUVs would be a constraint, indeed, an attack on the American way of life, I am sickened. What a paltry definition of American greatness. What pathetic, self-indulgent infantilism. What moral bankruptcy. What a failure of the human spirit.
Yet Canada has its own Dick Cheneys, its own self-absorbed, careless, short term, small minded critics of the Kyoto protocol, all equally bereft of scientific analytical capacity and moral imagination. What a monumental gamble they are asking us to take. What an extraordinary risk they are willing to run, not only for themselves but for their children. And all for short term gain, all for today and nothing for tomorrow, all for shallow political and economic ideology and nothing for science, nothing for moral decency.
When 2,000 of the world's leading scientists gathered together at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and agreed so clearly on the impact of human activity over the past three centuries in hastening the speed of climate change, reasonable non-expert people like parliamentarians have to take them at their word. Probability analysis historically suggests that the consensus view of scientists has about nine out of ten chances of being right and the minority position has no more than a one in ten chance of being right.
Do we make public policy on the basis of a 10% chance of a minority view of scientists being right? More important, do we gamble with the future of our planet, the future of mankind, the future of our children, the future of our grandchildren, by failing to take action against a global risk that has a 90% chance of being right? What derogation from our duties as legislators, as global citizens, indeed as sentient moral human beings, would that be?
Supposing we followed the precautionary principle, took the 90% risk seriously, and ratified and implemented Kyoto, what is the worst that could happen to us? What is the downside?
Imagine our world in 2020 if we implement Kyoto. In 2020, we have stabilized our greenhouse gas emissions. True, fewer new jobs have been created in the fossil fuel industry, but new jobs have been created in the renewable energy sector. Natural gas prices have risen slightly, as have the costs of oil. Canada is a world leader in green technology. We are a more efficient country. The vehicles we drive have higher fuel efficiency standards and are fueled by ethanol blend gasoline. The next generation of cars powered by fuel cells is making its way onto our roads thanks to incentives and the existence of a domestic and international market for them. We have significantly reduced our dependence on fossil fuels, with dramatic implications for the health of Canadians, national security and the geopolitics of the Middle East.
In 2020, despite the population increase in urban areas, we have less congestion and fewer smog warnings because our public transportation infrastructure has been rejuvenated. Canadians and industry use fewer resources to accomplish the same tasks. Appliances are more energy efficient. Homes and industrial processes waste less energy.
In 2020, we are a world leader in renewable energy. We are a world leader in energy efficiency, in energy demand management, in forestry research, in waste management, and in materials research. We are a leader in disseminating that knowledge and technology to the rest of the world. We are spending less on our diminished energy needs. Canada has transitioned to a low carbon economy.
As columnist Andrew Coyne has pointed out:
The chances that many distinguished scientists who predict an impending climatological catastrophe will prove to be right...are greater than zero. In which case, would it not be prudent to take out some insurance against the event?
Kyoto is our insurance. It is clear that the risks of inaction are much higher than the risks of action.
To move forward decisively will require courage, commitment and contribution by all Canadians, but above all it will require leadership. In the real world, people do not undertake great tasks in a mood of cold, ironic realism. People need to have their passions engaged.
Hegel said:
We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.
It is the necessary fire that defeats the human inertia that is part of man.
The great French philosopher Blaise Pascal spoke of the essence of human life as a gamble, “un pari”, and so it is in political life. All the great decisions of state are essentially a gamble about the future.
Because we are not divine, we must always decide from a position of imperfect knowledge. We can never have all the facts. We can never be absolutely certain, but when we imperfect, frail mortals make this decision in this month of December, the year of our Lord 2002, surely it is not a lot to ask that we play the odds, that we not go against the 90% probability of the consensus of scientists being right, and that we think not only of ourselves but of our fellow human beings around the world who are far more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than we are.
Above all, as we vote on the Kyoto protocol, let us think of posterity, of our children and their children, and let us imagine ourselves sometime in the future feeling proud that at a moment of supreme, existential choice in our time and in our day we had the vision and the courage to do the right thing.
The Environment November 28th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present the top five myths perpetrated by the member for Red Deer during his misleading monologue over the past week.
Myth No. 5: He says that the Kyoto protocol will not reduce air pollution. Fact: It will.
Myth No. 4: He says that the Kyoto protocol is only about CO
2.
Fact: It identifies six greenhouse gases.
Myth No. 3: He says that the Kyoto protocol does not address nitrous oxide. Fact: One of the six greenhouse gases it addresses is nitrous oxide.
Myth No. 2: He says that the IPCC is a group of 200 scientists. Fact: It is a group of 2,000 scientists. He has repeated it seven times and every time he drops the zero.
Myth No. 1: He says that none of the IPCC scientists say people will be dying from the heat and the Prime Minister is wrong to suggest it. Fact: The PM is right. It says exactly that on page 12 of its report. He repeated this misstatement yesterday even after I corrected him.
Thankfully, Canadians can now hear from better informed MPs.
Protection of Children November 27th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, because they care about their children's well-being, Canadians want to know what the government is doing to better protect them.
In the Speech from the Throne, the Government of Canada pledged to better protect children from exploitation, and to provide a legal system that is more receptive to their needs, whether children are victims or witnesses.
Could the Minister of Justice tell us about his timeframes for fulfilling these commitments?
The Environment November 27th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, two days ago in the House, the member for Red Deer said something inconsistent with the facts. He said:
The Prime Minister even said in the House that in 30 years our children and grandchildren will be dying from the heat. There is not a scientist in the world who would agree with that. None of the people in the IPCC, in those models, say that in 30 years people are going to be dying from heat.
Now if the member for Red Deer had bothered to do some research, he would have found that the Prime Minister was completely correct. The IPCC “Summary for Policy Makers Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” on page 12 states:
Projected climate change will be accompanied by an increase in heat waves, often exacerbated by increased humidity and urban air pollution, which would cause an increase in heat-related deaths and illness episodes.
The hon. member owes the Prime Minister and the House an apology.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier November 20th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, on this, the birthday of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the first since we passed the Macdonald-Laurier bill, we are reminded in this morning's Globe and Mail by J.D.M. Stewart of Sir Wilfrid's eloquence. Quoting him on the subject of a railway bill, I kept thinking that we could use Sir Wilfrid for Kyoto. This is what he had to say:
To those who urge upon us the policy of tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow, to those who tell us, wait, wait, wait; to those who advise us to pause, to consider, to reflect, to calculate and to inquire, our answer is: No, this is not a time for deliberation, this is a time for action. The flood-tide is upon us that leads on to fortune; if we let it pass it may never recur again. If we let it pass, the voyage of our national life, bright as it is today, will be bound in shallows.
Supply October 24th, 2002
Madam Speaker, indeed, I met with same union yesterday. I entirely agree with it and with the previous member. However it is an important and appropriate function of government to be there for transitions caused by innovation, in whatever form, just as we had to be there for transition caused by the free trade agreement. That is the role of government.