Christian Ouellet

[Criminal Code, May 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, what I have just heard is scandalous. The member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles is telling us that the crime rate today is higher than in the past. He uses very old statistics and applies them to the present overall population and that of Quebec. To say that there was less crime 34 years ago is a complete misinterpretation of the facts. He is not comparing apples to apples, but tomatoes to apples. He is not comparing the same things. He is not comparing the number of inhabitants. He is not taking into consideration that, over the past 15 years, the crime rate has declined in Canada and even more so in Quebec.

The member has given us a course in law, but he has not taken a look at where he lives, that is Quebec. He has not studied the people with whom he lives. He does not live in the same society. We live in Quebec. We have made progress every year. I do not understand his attitude.

My question is the following. How can he sell his soul so quickly in the name of the Conservative agenda? That is what I think. This individual takes no heed of how Quebeckers around him live.

[Criminal Code, May 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas this question:

When he talks about the kind of society that the government wants to create, is he talking only about American justice and American society? I would like him to explain, if he can, why he does not consider this way of changing society as worthwhile. Why would it not necessarily be worthwhile to change society when we greatly admire the Americans in a number of areas?

I would like the hon. member to tell us why we should not move toward American-style justice.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, May 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Yukon why he is congratulating the Liberal members from Quebec, when they did so poorly in the recent election.

I was elected in a riding that had been Liberal, where they discovered that the Liberal Party really did not have significant and worthwhile solutions to propose to Quebec. We are wondering now how is it he feels that the Bloc Québécois is acting irresponsibly by supporting the minority government's budget.

Had we not voted in favour of this budget, an election would have been called, to the distress of the member for Yukon.

[International Compost Awareness Week, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, since this is International Compost Awareness Week, I want to remind hon. members that composting is a transformation process suitable for all biodegradable residue, whether food, agricultural, industrial or sewage. All these products cannot be easily recycled any other way. These organic materials should not end up in landfill sites because they can cause pollution in the groundwater and also produce methane, which is difficult to control in small landfill sites.

Methane produced this way is 22 times more harmful to the ozone layer than CO₂. Therefore it is best to compost on a large scale in composters that fully control greenhouse gases.

In 2002, there were only 35 centralized organic waste composting facilities in Canada. These facilities treat only 10% of all these materials.

If we want to reduce our dependence on landfills, then we must support composting on a very broad scale.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP member is in no position to be lecturing us. Last year, what the NDP got was money on paper. The NDP never had the money it traded for getting an agreement.

In my opinion, it is important that the $2 billion was kept in so that it can eventually be invested in renewable energy, if that is what the government wants to do, just as it is important to keep the $800 million for social housing in. Those are not words; that is real. That is why we voted for the budget.

We also really have to tackle the fiscal imbalance. For the first time in this House a government has admitted that it exists.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would not want to make this a partisan issue. It is already painful enough to see the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party constantly arguing back and forth. Let us be progressive, and move forward, toward the future, toward renewable energy. That is the only real way to save the planet.

It is also important to keep the Kyoto protocol targets. If we abandon those targets, we will never be able to move on to a second Kyoto, which would be much more important than the first. The Kyoto protocol is the only way to save the North.

What would be dangerous is for the present government to keep the targets but decide to spread them over 25 years. That would amount to saying that we will not be aiming for those targets.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

Quebec has made choices, that is plain. It is no accident that almost all our energy, a majority of our energy, and the heritage pool we have, come from hydro power. Those are choices that were made a long time ago. We also chose not to go with nuclear. France chose to do that, but Quebec did not. Quebec resisted, because of the nuclear waste, the lifespan of which we do not know.

The Bloc is proposing that the rest of Canada look to renewable energy. It has to be done. Renewable energy, particularly geothermal energy, is available everywhere in Canada. There may be less of it in Vancouver, but it is available in the rest of Canada. Cold climates and very hot climates provide extraordinary opportunities for geothermal energy.

Another possibility is to look to passive and active solar energy. There is also the possibility of using photovoltaic systems. There are many, many other types of energy that the rest of Canada can use to reduce the quantity of greenhouse gases, as Quebec has done.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2006]

I take due note of it, Mr. Speaker.

This Kyoto protocol contains measures in fields of jurisdiction that are truly effective in combating climate change, such as: strict regulations on manufacturing standards for all vehicles, with stiff penalties in cases of non-compliance that will be enforceable in the short term; elimination of the GST on the purchase of new cars that consume less than 6 litres of gasoline every 100 km, and incentives for efficient trucks; research and development grants for organizations working to combat climate change, such as the Centre d'expérimentation des véhicules électriques du Québec in Saint-Jérôme; creation of a tax deduction for public transit passes; and mandatory energy-efficiency labelling on all new and used vehicles sold in Canada.

The target for Quebec industries has to take into account the efforts they have made in the past. To determine the targets assigned to each industrial sector, the federal government must use 1990 as the reference year. Quebec’s industries have already managed to reduce their emissions by almost 10% since 1990. The latest efforts being asked of them are the most difficult to realize and the most expensive. The next federal plan must not penalize Quebec’s industries, which have been responsible and forward-looking.

The federal government claims that to achieve the Kyoto objectives we would have to stifle the Canadian economy and send billions of dollars abroad. This is false. Just take the example of the companies that have made their investments in greenhouse gas reduction cost-effective precisely by becoming more energy efficient. I will only cite three types of plants that have adopted this principle to achieve greater cost-effectiveness: the flat glass plants throughout the world, concrete makers, and aluminum smelters.

We prefer the territorial approach, in the context of a bilateral agreement with Quebec, as Quebec has requested. This approach is the most equitable toward Quebec and will permit it to acquire a better instrument for quickly attaining the objectives of the Kyoto protocol.

On the eve of the Bonn conference on climate change, the Bloc Québécois feels that the federal government must encourage developed countries to renew their commitment to reducing greenhouse gases after 2012, and must persuade developing countries—and this responds to the question of the hon. member on the other side of the House—that presently benefit from a reduction leave to make quantified, binding commitments for the sequel to Kyoto 1.

Will the only task of the Minister of the Environment be to cut the ribbon at the Kyoto 2 conference in Bonn?

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I was talking about a series of measures that would respect provincial jurisdictions.

I will respond to the member for Louis-Hébert who was asking earlier about some of the concrete measures that we would like to see. We want to see the elimination of tax breaks for oil companies. We want to see grants to organizations that contribute to the effort towards our Kyoto targets. We want stricter standards for all vehicles to make them more energy efficient. We want rebates for those who buy environmentally-friendly vehicles. We want financial support for the development of renewable sources of energy such as wind energy, which has made enormous progress over the last 15 years, but there is still a lot of work to be done in that area. We are at the point where researchers are looking to produce wind energy strictly electronically, without friction. It would be extraordinary, and we must support these kinds of initiatives.

With regard to solar energy, we know how to produce passive solar energy, but that technology has not been applied. Therefore we need to develop it further so it can be applied universally in Canada and in Quebec.

Photovoltaic systems which provide solar energy are about fifteen years behind compared to wind generators. So there is a lot of development work to be done in that area. We could even sell that product abroad.

Those are concrete measures that I am suggesting in response to the member for Louis-Hébert. I am thinking about geothermy in particular. Canada's underground energy potential is enormous. I was talking with the deputy minister and we were saying that our country is extraordinary for that. It is one of the countries most capable of harnessing geothermal energy and also of putting the cold back into the ground. Geothermy used to be very expensive and worked almost exclusively with prototypes. Its price has just dropped by 50%. We need to develop that potential. There is as much energy in geothermy as there is in all the other sources of energy currently used in Canada.

The Bloc Québécois is asking the Harper government to make public, by October 15—

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion by the member for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie. I would also like to thank the hon. member for Papineau for splitting her time with me, so that I have a chance to speak.

The Bloc Québécois believes that combatting climate change will be one of the most important global issues in the decades to come.

For weeks, the Harper government has been trying to make the question of climate change and of saving the planet go away. Canada, after years of foot-dragging and a lack of political will, is already lagging behind, supposedly because the previous government fell down on the job, the targets would cost too much and the Kyoto protocol was not a made-in-Canada solution.

The present government is using all of this in its effort to have us believe that climate change is not important and that not all climate change is Canadian, when the old saying tells us to clean up our own backyard first before looking to see whether the neighbour’s yard needs cleaning.

The Kyoto protocol is the result of many years of work and cooperation in the international community. I myself was a Canadian delegate to the Rio Conference, for solar energy. That was when greenhouse gases first started to get talked about, under Mr. Mulroney, in fact.

The targets and objectives are in fact modest if we are going to effectively solve the climate problems created by man. The government must commit itself to honouring the Kyoto protocol.

How does the minister think that she is going to persuade people to reduce their GHG emissions if she gives the very clear impression that she does not know what she is going to do?

At present, 90% of Quebecers support the Kyoto protocol. People are finding it hard to believe that Kyoto is so bad that the targets have to be thrown out with the implementation plan, because the plan was not adequate for the task. That amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The fundamental principles on which the Bloc Québécois position on the question of climate change is based are that we honour international commitments, that we be fair, and that Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction be respected.

The Bloc Québécois is asking that the Harper government put forward a plan for implementing the Kyoto protocol that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions--