David Anderson

[The Environment, June 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, once again we do not intend to remove our signature from the Kyoto agreement. The Kyoto agreement is the best international effort to deal with a very serious issue.

The very committee appointed by President Bush of the United States, which has 11 scientists including Nobel laureates, has said we should continue to regard global warming as a major threat. It essentially endorsed the findings of the international panel on climate change.

Canada will continue to deal with this problem which is showing its effects in the Canadian north ahead of virtually every other country.

[The Environment, June 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. The response is certainly not. We have signed the Kyoto protocol. We intend to work under the Kyoto system and we intend to meet our Kyoto targets.

We certainly want to see changes in the American position. We also have differences with the Europeans, but bargaining hard for Canadian interests is what we intend to do. We intend to meet our targets and do it the Canadian way.

[Water Exports, June 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I make absolutely clear that there is no change whatsoever in the stated policy of the Government of Canada not to export water. I would go further and say our policy is not to have transfers from one water basin to another and that also remains the policy of the Government of Canada.

At the same time we have a data gathering project to which the member referred which is one of scores and in fact hundreds that take place every year. It is done for other areas of the environment such as waterfowl and wildlife. These studies have proved to be very valuable for conservation measures.

[The Environment, June 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the only industrialized country to have ratified Kyoto today is Romania. The reason none of the other industrialized countries have ratified it, and up to this point not a single country in the European Union, is that we have not concluded the negotiations on what will be part of the Kyoto agreement; what will count for those figures of minus 6% of the 1990 figure.

We are obviously going to continue. I would appreciate if maybe my hon. friend could come to Bonn so he too could learn more about the negotiations.

[The Environment, June 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is clearly unaware of the negotiations that took place in the Hague. We will be having these negotiations resume in Bonn. I would invite him to come with the Canadian delegation so he can learn something about what takes place.

The fact is the Hague meeting collapsed because of a very rigid position taken by the Europeans which was not matched by the Americans, and therefore we had a division.

That said, the Canadian position is clear. We have signed the Kyoto agreement, we wish to continue under the Kyoto process and we will meet our Kyoto targets.

[The Environment, June 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the position of the Canadian government is clear. It has been repeated time after time by a number of ministers, including the Minister of Natural Resources, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, myself and of course the Prime Minister.

We disagree with the United States on the decision that was taken with respect to the withdrawal from the Kyoto process. We think it was the wrong decision. We have said that time after time. We think the grounds given, namely the economic grounds and the grounds with respect to developing countries, are both incorrect. We would prefer to have the United States come back, but under the circumstances we also point out that there are certain problems with the European Union position as well.

[The Environment, June 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I can see why, when the newspapers and the media stop wondering about the splits in the official opposition, they start talking about the splits in the NDP. I can see why their members believe their party should be scrapped and thrown aside.

As the hon. member knows, the Prime Minister has committed the government again to meeting the Kyoto targets and he said that subsequent to the energy paper put out by President Bush and the United States cabinet.

We signed Kyoto, we stand by Kyoto and we will achieve the Kyoto targets.

[The Environment, June 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps we could start with the $1.1 billion that was put aside in the last fiscal year for climate change.

We could add to that the $2 billion that we put in place for an infrastructure program to be matched so that it will be a $6 billion program for green infrastructure. That is the second thing.

We could talk about the tens of millions of dollars that are being put aside for research into the impact of toxins on health and on the environment.

We could talk about the fact that we have negotiated and signed the Cartagena protocol and, in addition, the Stockholm protocol where Canada was not only the first nation to ratify but also the first nation to put up money.

We could talk about the agreement with the United States.

[The Environment, June 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for allowing us to recognize environment day. He correctly points out that it is today. It was an initiative, I might add, of a Liberal backbench MP back in 1971.

I point out that we are making absolutely no changes to our Kyoto target. We fully expect to meet our Kyoto target. We have a number of programs that will achieve that end. I would point out to him specifically with respect to the two articles in Nature that neither refers to the Canadian position nor in any way supports the contention that our position is not the sound approach on sinks.

[The Environment, June 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the announcement I made earlier this year covers gasoline, diesel and fuel oils outside road fuels. It will reduce the amount of sulphur in gasoline from its average now of 360 parts per million to 30 parts per million. In on road diesel, the figure will go from 500 parts per million to 15. The dates for this are the end of 2004 for gasoline and June 1, 2006, for diesel.