House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2004, with 35% of the vote.
Kyoto Protocol November 4th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, Canada did choose its own target just as other countries have done. Furthermore, Canada has developed a made in Canada plan with the cooperation of the provinces and territories. All 14 governments have been working on this for the last five years.
Kyoto Protocol October 25th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Quebec National Assembly voted in favour of a resolution, which provides in part that the province intends “to do its fair share under a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases in Canada”.
I fully agree that we must have a plan under which each province will do its fair share.
Kyoto Protocol October 25th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I answered this question two, three or four times. The polluter pay principle is very important. However, there are a number of other principles that are also very important, including setting the lowest possible price. Now, this is something important, as is not to disadvantage any region of the country with a plan.
Yes, I take the polluter pay principle seriously, but we must not forget the other issues that are important for other Canadians.
Kyoto Protocol October 25th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, in South Africa, in Johannesburg, the Prime Minister clearly stated that before the end of the year we will have a debate in this House, as well as in the Senate, on the ratification of the Kyoto protocol.
Since then, he has talked about the vote and said that it would happen before the end of the year. For my part, as a minister, I welcome both things the Prime Minister wants to do.
Kyoto Protocol October 25th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It is very important to know that there will be a vote in this House, following a debate during which all members will have the opportunity to express their point of view. It will happen in the year 2002.
Kyoto Protocol October 25th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, this is an example of the scare tactics that the hon. member so often uses.
The fact is that the figures he asked for, which I mentioned in my response to the earlier question, indicate that the extra cost for conventional crude is in the neighbourhood of 3¢ a barrel. There are 200 litres in a barrel of oil, work it out. For the non-conventional, for the synthetic crude, the figures are about 14¢ a barrel. Even if these figures are out by some margin, say it is double, that is 30¢ a barrel of 200 litres and the price of oil at the present time is $30 a barrel.
Kyoto Protocol October 25th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, the document we tabled yesterday does in fact indicate what the economic effects are of implementing the Kyoto protocol, as prepared through the modelling we have done. Of course we say, quite correctly I think, that we cannot anticipate every cost because we do not know the interest rates in the future and we do not know other factors in the economy in the future.
As far as we can, we have the best figures that are available and we have done that in cooperation with the private sector.
Kyoto Protocol October 25th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's preamble to the question is not correct.
The fact is that we are striving to get cooperation with all the provinces and territories. The hon. member fails to point out that 14 first ministers, every first minister in the country, in 1997 after the Kyoto agreement instructed their ministers of environment and their ministers of energy to work together to come up with an implementation plan.
These are facts which he conveniently ignores in coming to the inaccurate conclusion that he does.
Supply October 24th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, may I correct the hon. member's memory of what the Prime Minister said in June of last year in Italy at the G-8 leaders meeting. He said that 2002 was the target year.
It is true we have delayed the meeting that is taking place next Monday, one week from last Monday, but that is the only delay there has been. We did it for a very legitimate reason, to get more comments, advice and involvement of the business sector.
There is no change in this. If I adopted her suggestion that we should play on the times to try and avoid a full debate, she is wrong. We are winning that debate because the Canadian people are with us. Overwhelmingly Canadians support ratification of Kyoto.
I fail to see why we have these nervous Nellies in the NDP who say that only if we rig the system could we possibly win. We will win this argument hands down because we are doing the right thing for future generations.
Supply October 24th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I had a meeting with the president of the union in question only yesterday. We had an extensive discussion. I am quite sure if he wanted a billion dollars from the Government of Canada he would have suggested it at that time. He made no such request. In fact, from that meeting, it was proposed, and I cannot say whether it was him or me, that we have a joint approach of his union and the Government of Canada, and any other union that wants to join forces, so that we could anticipate any potential problems.
The difficulty we have now is that we really do not see where job losses will occur. In the modelling it does not show up. Therefore, we will have an ongoing approach with him to ensure we follow this in case there could be some way where labour is affected.
With respect to the company in question, I have to say to industry that the time is over for this type of alarmist talk. What they are doing is driving down the value of Canadian companies and impacting upon the investment climate for Canadian companies overseas. I asked them not to do this because this type of extreme statement is simply wrong.
Today we put out figures which show very minor costs for certain industries under the most likely scenario. For industry to keep talking about this being a killer of jobs, only suggests to investors overseas that the Canadian industry is not a good place to invest. I wish they would stop.