David McGuinty

[The Environment, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister told us that he did not care about judicial independence and that he was seeking to appoint judges who would follow his ideology. Now we understand the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and his Minister of the Environment when they say that the government will not be bound by the bill by the hon. member for Honoré-Mercier, which was passed in this very place yesterday.

Is the Prime Minister sweeping aside the will of Parliament because of his ideology, in refusing to respect a law that requires a plan for the Kyoto protocol?

[National Mental Health Strategy, February 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, how can the government explain that, in 2007, Canada is the only G-8 country still without a national mental health strategy?

On June 7, 2005, this House passed a motion calling for the implementation of such a strategy. Nearly one year later, a Senate committee made the same request.

There is no lack of evidence of the devastating effects that mental health problems have on individuals, families and businesses across the country.

Canadians with mental health problems have to wait too long for appropriate care and services. More importantly, these Canadians living with mental illness have been waiting for their condition to be recognized and to be shown that we understand what they are going through.

The government must act now. They have waited long enough.

[The Environment, February 12th, 2007]

There they go again, Mr. Speaker, instead of demonstrating that they can actually absorb basic facts about this file. The Minister of the Environment just last week repeated his misleading rhetoric about hot air credits.

Foreign investment in Canada will be devastated if Canada locks itself out of international emissions trading projected to be worth $60 billion U.S. annually under Kyoto. Canadians will be dependent on imported technology. Does the international trade minister, then, who once endorsed participating in carbon markets, agree with this new-found position of this new government?

[The Environment, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is turning his back on Kyoto and billions and billions of dollars in economic opportunities in spite of the legally binding word of the people of Canada.

Last Thursday, shares of Climate Exchange PLC, the owner of emissions trading exchanges in Amsterdam and Chicago, climbed to a record high, but our new environment minister confirmed that Canada would not pursue international carbon trading. Is it the government's position that the Chicago Board of Trade is wrong when it comes to the future of international carbon trading?

[Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, February 9th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, It is my pleasure to rise in this House this afternoon and speak on Bill C-288, an act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

For Canadians who are watching, let me read that again: “an act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol”.

I would like to commend my colleague, the hon. member for Honoré-Mercier, who introduced the bill and it was passionately driven through the House of Commons.

The bill has captured the attention of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. In fact, even the National Post has half of its front page today dedicated to the merits of the bill.

Canadians are concerned about the Conservative government's disregard for climate change. If there is one thing that has become clear to me hearing the debate on the bill thus far it is this: On the most important issue of the early 21st century, the Conservatives have decided to surrender without even trying to fight.

Last week in this chamber the three opposition parties united behind a Liberal motion calling upon the government to use the existing means provided in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to take necessary steps to meet our obligations under the Kyoto protocol. The vast majority of Canadians are with us but the government is lagging far behind.

The Conservative decision not to try is incredibly unfortunate. I hardly need to remind the House that, according to the best experts today, if the average temperature of the Earth's surface increases by 2° above what it was during the pre-industrial era, by the year 2080, hundreds of millions of people, our children's families, are likely to be confronted with flooding along coasts and widespread famines. Hundreds of millions of people risk coming down with malaria and billions of others may run short of fresh water.

It is necessary to recognize that the effects of climate change have already been felt, especially in the north, and that the situation will worsen if we do not take concrete action in Canada, as well as elsewhere in the world. This is, therefore, at its heart, a collective and global effort.

Climate change deniers and Kyoto resisters are fond of painting scenes of economic ruin to keep us from working together to improve our environment. The Prime Minister has called Kyoto “a socialist scheme”. I am only led to conclude, as a result of those comments, that he was not able to distinguish between Japan and China.

The Minister of the Environment, the former minister of energy in the province of Ontario, for three years led the province-wide campaign against the global response to climate change. In fact, he fundraised, along with the Prime Minister when the Prime Minister was the Leader of the Opposition, to lead the anti-Kyoto movement across Canada.

On his watch, the Minister of the Environment, while in Ontario, oversaw a 127% increase in the use of coal fired plants. On his watch, the Minister of the Environment oversaw a 124% increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the province of Ontario, 114% increase in emissions of sulphur dioxide and a 22% increase in the emissions of nitric oxide.

Canadians know the record. It is unfortunate that the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health and the Minister of the Environment are not prepared to admit their roles when it comes to the undermining of a climate change response in one province, the province of Ontario, just as they are very anxious to run away from their record in their contributions, as Justice O'Connor reminded us, their direct contributions to the Walkerton crisis where seven Canadians died and 2,300 Canadians were seriously sickened. They do not want to tell this to Canadians. They do not want Canadians to know that they now form part of the new government led by the leader of climate change denying in Canada.

Whatever the case, for over one year, I and my colleagues and many other Canadians have been asking a simple question of the Prime Minister: “Tell us what your plan is. Please deliver a plan to us. Where are we going on climate change”. A plan is necessary to take meaningful action.

There is no evidence of any plan, only ad hoc announcements, a big green tie and photo ops in Paris. However, we do have evidence of where this government is going.

The only Conservative track record on the environment is one of drastic cuts. The list is a long one: cuts totalling close to $900 million affecting the EnerGuide program for house renovations and the initiative for low income households; cuts of close to $600 million in the wind power production incentive program and the renewable energy production incentive program; cuts of $2 billion to the climate change programs; cuts of $1 billion for the climate change fund and the list keeps getting longer all the time.

This government is putting an end to the funding of a program promoting the design and construction of new energy efficient buildings. This is a program with over 500 design and construction projects for buildings that are, on average, 35% more energy efficient than other new buildings. The financial support provided under this program has helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 182 tonnes annually for each multiple unit residential building, and, in the case of commercial buildings, by almost 300 tonnes annually.

This government did not evaluate the effectiveness of these programs at all. It abolished them because they were Liberal initiatives and because it is a far-right government that is influenced by the Republican Party in the United States.

Yesterday in committee, the Minister of the Environment was asked repeatedly to give the Canadian people a single, solitary number. When he was ask how much the government spent on climate change in its first 12 months, he was unable to answer. He was asked the question six times, until we suggested that perhaps the Minister of Finance should come and do his job at committee.

It is flabbergasting that we have had to table legislation to call on the government to come up with a plan to fight climate change. Should we be surprised, given the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Environment , the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health and even the Minister of Public Safety who described climate change as a joke on his website until he was caught in what has become known as a Flintstone's moment? The moment this was discovered, the Minister of Public Safety removed all reference to it from his website.

The Kyoto protocol is more than numbers and targets. It is not just a step in the right direction, it is the right direction that will lead to the right results. To go it alone with a so-called made in Canada plan, which, apparently, is somewhere in France, is to misunderstand the very basis of the challenges we face.

I am sorry that we had to legislate this but the government was unprepared to move with Canadians, unprepared to continue our fine work under the Liberal green plan to work with industry in the provinces and the territories. It cut funding to Ontario by $557 million to shut down coal plants. It cut funding to Quebec by $328 million for the Kyoto projects.

As a nation and as a people, we committed to lead the world in a global response to a global problem. The government refuses to accept that although there are over 180 nation states, there is only one atmosphere, and there must be a global response, which is why 168 countries joined Canada in signing the treaty. The government would like us to leave the treaty but will not tell Canadians the truth about it.

It is time for the government to hear Canadians, to act to implement the Kyoto protocol and to work toward saving our solitary atmosphere.

[The Environment, February 9th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, should we be surprised? This is the Minister of the Environment who oversaw a 125% increase in CO₂ emissions in Ontario in his time as Ontario energy minister.

It is clear we have a second Conservative environment minister who is not only a defeatist but who also sees environmental concerns as an economic nuisance. Should we be surprised again? The government slashed $5.6 billion in climate change programs.

The environment minister got caught cheating at committee yesterday, but he could not answer dozens and dozens of questions on the basics of his file. When will the Prime Minister appoint an environment minister who does his basic homework and gets on with the job?

[The Environment, February 9th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the environment minister's uninformed testimony before committee yesterday suggests that the government believes that over the next five years making our businesses and homes more efficient will apparently cause economic collapse; that substantially increasing renewable energy power production in this country will cause economic collapse; and that investing in exciting new technologies and rapidly expanding international carbon markets will apparently cause economic collapse.

Can the government confirm to Canadians that this is indeed its position?

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the Government of Canada, first through its first Minister of the Environment, dispatched senior officials to a conference of the parties meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, to openly undermine the Kyoto treaty, this at a time when our country in the international community was actually chairing the entire international negotiation process. It was revealed to us through leaked documents from the Minister of the Environment's department that officials were dispatched to sabotage the process from the inside. Now we learn that it gets worse.

In answer to the member's question, I do not recollect, in my knowledge of international environmental treaty law, an occasion when a government has deliberately misled the international community in its reports. Now we learn that in the report sent by the government last November to the office that oversees the commitments of Canada and the 167 other countries under Kyoto, we learn that the only thing, after its first year in government, that the Conservatives have sent forward as a plan for Canada is the plan put forward by the hon. leader of the official opposition.

The 10 year, multi-billion dollar deal, the green plan that the Conservatives are so ready to reject, is the one they put forward to the international community.

It is interesting that in that report to the international community the government did not come clean and tell the international community that it had just eviscerated the very report that it put forward to actually substantiate that it might be doing something on climate change, cutting the funding of that plan by 50% and misleading the international community. I have never seen that before.

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is a wonderful opportunity again for me to put questions to the government that were put to the Minister of the Environment an hour ago.

Every question I will now put to the government remains unanswered because the minister refused to answer or could not answer them. For example, I asked the minister and the government members whether they were prepared to monetize carbon. I and all Canadians would like an answer to that question.

Which is the most efficient way to move forward? Should we move using a domestic emissions trading system, an international emissions trading system or a carbon tax? Could they please explain to the Canadian people what it is they intend to do in this regard.

I also asked the minister if he could tell us what the price of a tonne of carbon was today in the European and Chicago markets. He could not answer. I asked the minister what the projected value was of the international carbon market by 2020 or 2050? He could not answer. I asked him on what scale his department estimated that the monetization of carbon would affect the Canadian economy, say, by 2017. He did not even understand what the quantization of carbon meant.

I asked him again whether he would introduce a cap and trade system for Canada. He could not or would not answer. On and on it went.

The point is that we are waiting for some indication from the government as to what it is it actually intends to do, other than master the blame game, which is precisely what we have been seeing for a year. When the polls struck, it desperately sought to put a green face on what is clearly an anti-climate change party.

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me a wonderful opportunity to remind Canadians that it was not our party that guaranteed wait times within its first term of office and has now backed off publicly. It was not our party that promised not to undermine all those who held income trusts. The Prime Minister of Canada gave three separate speeches when he promised Canadians that he would not wreck their savings. Let us be honest about this issue.

The issue here is about partnership and whether or not the government even has a plan. Just moments ago in the committee the Minister of the Environment had several questions put to him by me and other members of all parties. After $5.6 billion in cuts in the last budget, $5.6 billion in cuts for climate change responses in this country, I asked the minister if he could please reveal to Canadians in dollar terms how much has been spent by the government in its first year of office. The minister was completely incapable of answering the question.

This is deserving of a national response. This is deserving of a plan from a government whose leader for 12 years before becoming Prime Minister was the leader of the anti-climate change movement in the country, who raised funds to undermine the ratification of the Kyoto protocol. This is a matter of record. This is not a matter of embellishment. What does the Prime Minister have to hide? Was he misleading Canadians then, or is he misleading them now? We do not know the answer to that question.

It is important for us now to move forward and find a plan for the country. We had a plan. It was disembowelled by the government. Some $5.6 billion was slashed, so now we are looking to see where the government is taking us.

Apparently we are not going to participate in the international emissions trading system, which is news to Canadian industry, particularly the oil and gas companies that are counting on the mechanism to reduce their greenhouse gases efficiently. We are not going to emulate the U.S. Clean Air Act which actually inspired the Kyoto protocol because it was there whence we derived the whole concept of a domestic emissions trading system.

We do not know where the government is going but we know there is Bill C-30, the so-called clean air act, which has been tossed to a legislative committee. When I asked the Minister of the Environment an hour ago whether he would agree to promise to Canadians that when that work came back to the chamber on March 30 he would move immediately to implement it, he said no.

My point is it is time for a plan from the government. There is no plan. The government is making it up as it goes along. What the Conservatives are really doing are jumping from ice floe to ice floe, handing out cheques across the country and re-gifting Liberal programs.