David Anderson

[Porcupine Caribou, September 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Senator Murkowski's reaction to my remarks on the 1002 lands indicate very clearly why it is important not to allow recent events to be used to stampede governments into ill-considered decisions in other unrelated areas.

Canada will continue to urge the United States to honour the 1987 agreement on the conservation of the Porcupine caribou herd and its habitat. Canada will continue to emphasize that protection of the Porcupine caribou calving grounds is critical to the health of the herd and to the culture and way of life of the Gwich'in first nation people, both in Yukon and in Alaska.

[The Environment, September 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite correct. Last summer we saw an unprecedented number of bad air quality days. Sadly, it is also true that many thousands of Canadians die because of respiratory diseases exacerbated by bad air quality.

The measures in the ozone annex that I signed last December in the United States and in the domestic package which was introduced in the House and explained in the House I believe in February earlier this year will result in an overall reduction of some 40% to 45% in air quality problems.

In addition, in response to the hon. member's specific question, next summer, in June-July, the first reductions in sulphur and gasoline will--

[Supply, June 12th, 2001]

Don't embarrass yourself.

[The Environment, June 12th, 2001]

No, Mr. Speaker.

[The Environment, June 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the same thing is preventing Canada from ratification as it is every other one of the industrialized countries in the European Union and many others.

The reason is that while we have accepted and agreed to targets for various countries for Kyoto, there is no agreement on how those targets will be reached. We are having further negotiations in Bonn in July and I trust they will be successful.

[Harbours, June 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in no way is it the policy of the government to sneak out of any responsibilities whatsoever.

What I would like to know is what is the policy of the hon. member's party. Does he or does he not agree that we should have local control where people locally manage things, or does he think that Ottawa always knows best?

[Harbours, June 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment is right here and the Minister of Transport is right there. Other ministers who are responsible are present. I think the question is perhaps a little badly based in terms of who is where and where is where.

However, in terms of the harbour bottoms, if the hon. member is concerned over harbour bottoms, he has not given a single example of which harbour bottom he is talking about. Until he does, we will have to take the question on notice.

[The Environment, June 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, members of the NDP are once again bragging about the $42 billion deficit of the Conservative government, the one that we had to inherit and do something about.

They never pay any attention to the fact that it is quite easy to spend more money if we ignore that the taxpayer has to produce it and that if we continue to run deficits ultimately the country will go broke and there will be no environmental programs whatsoever. That is their approach.

I only suggest that the hon. member listen to the many statements that come up day after day from myself and other members of the government and which list what we are doing on the environment.

[The Environment, June 8th, 2001]

I am sorry, there seems to be some disorder down there in the splitting ranks of the NDP. One of their major political splits seems to be occurring at this time.

They cannot have it both ways. They cannot on the one hand complain when we list what we do and on the other hand complain we have not done anything.

[The Environment, June 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we have a contradiction here. On the one hand, he does not like the statements that are made, where we specify one by one the very large number of things that are being undertaken by the government on the environmental front. On the other hand he does not like it—