David McGuinty

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak this morning to the motion put forward by our colleagues.

I am pleased to rise in this House today to express my views on an issue as critical as the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

First, I would like to thank all the Bloc and NDP members for supporting the motion tabled in the House last week by the leader of the official opposition. Through their votes, the vast majority of hon. members confirmed their support for Kyoto and their commitment to fight climate change.

We know that the government is now all alone in its approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This shows that it is headed in the wrong direction. The motion that enjoyed the support of the three opposition parties recognized that human activities are largely responsible for the disruptions affecting the climate, and demanded that the government respect its Kyoto commitments.

The motion directed the Prime Minister to develop a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to use the existing means provided in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to take necessary initiatives. The motion was adopted a week ago and the government is still not acting on it.

The Kyoto protocol is a cooperation tool that unites nations willing to address the international issue that global warming represents. It is not just a set of targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is not just a step forward, it is also, and more importantly, the right path that will lead us to results. The Kyoto protocol is dealing with the issue before it is too late, because the alarm is already sounding.

Last week, the intergovernmental panel on climate change, a group established by the United Nations, released a shocking report. It concluded that human activities are almost without a doubt responsible for global warming and are, consequently, also responsible for the major socio-economic disruptions that this warming trend could trigger in the years to come.

Despite the international panel's shocking statements last Friday, the Prime Minister cannot yet answer a question that I and many others have been asking him for over a year now. Where is his plan to fight climate change?

The only conclusion we are left with is that the Conservative government does not have a plan. The Prime Minister is trying to fool Canadians who are now more than ever concerned with the future of our planet. We cannot trust a Prime Minister who was leader of the opposition and called the Kyoto treaty a socialist scheme. He promised to battle its ratification, “whatever the cost”.

We know that if the Prime Minister were serious about climate change, he would have mentioned it in his last fiscal update, just last fall. If climate change were a priority at all for the Conservatives, it would at least have been mentioned perhaps in their Speech from the Throne or perhaps in their so-called list of five priorities during the campaign. It was absent from all those documents, from all those speeches and from all that rhetoric.

The Conservatives' record in the fight against greenhouse gas emissions is just pathetic. The Conservative government axed federal programs that promoted the reduction of greenhouse gases.

The proof? Here it is: $395 million cut from the EnerGuide program for home renovations; $500 million cut from the EnerGuide program for low-income homeowners; and $250 million cut from the partnership fund for climate change projects that the Liberals concluded with the provinces and municipalities.

Almost $600 million was cut from wind power production and renewable power production programs. The Conservatives did away with the One Tonne Challenge. They cut a billion dollars from the Climate Fund to reduce greenhouse gases. They cut $2 billion of general climate-change program funding.

The most recent victim of the Conservatives' cuts to environmental programs is the Commercial Building Incentive Program, which provided a financial incentive for the design and construction of new energy efficient buildings.

This was not a useless program; it produced results. Since its inception, this program supported no less than 541 projects in Canada that improved the energy performance of new buildings. These new buildings perform on average almost 35% better than similar buildings.

This program proved that it helped reduce greenhouse gases; every residential building, for example, built through the program emitted 182 fewer tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. For commercial buildings, the average reduction of greenhouse gases was 291 tonnes a year.

A government that eliminates such a program cannot say that it is taking care of the climate change problem. And similar announcements keep on coming.

Yesterday we learned that the government is shutting down the Northern Climate ExChange in the Yukon, which excels in climate change research in northern Canada and in the world. Since the Conservatives are cutting off their annual funding of $320,000, the researchers and scientists at Northern Climate ExChange have to end their studies.

If we do a quick calculation of all of the cuts, we get over $5.5 billion that has been eliminated from initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases—$5.5 billion in cuts. Is this how the government shows that it is serious about fighting climate change?

If the government is serious about action on climate change, it certainly has not shown it with its widely penned and so-called clean air act.

The Bill C-30 legislative committee has resurrected a bill that was dead on arrival in the House of Commons and only resurrected it with a promise to completely and utterly rewrite it.

Experts agree that there are no significant powers, not a single significant power to regulate in the new Bill C-30, that the government does not already possess under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. In short, the bill does nothing. I think we know that if the government were serious, it would have acted rather than punting the whole issue into Parliament.

Just half an hour ago, the Minister of the Environment refused to promise that the amended Bill C-30, once sent back to this chamber on March 30, would be acted on quickly by the government. He refused to guarantee and promise Canadian people that the hard work of the legislative committee would be implemented by the government. What kind of game is this when we are talking about such a serious issue for the future of the country?

Let us turn our attention to a subject that fascinates government members, the Liberal record on the environment. Project green was introduced as the centrepiece of the greenest budget in Canadian history. To paraphrase the Minister of the Environment, who said that? Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party of Canada.

With several key platforms for action, six greenhouse gases were added to the list of toxins under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. A proposed large final emitter system was published and draft regulations were nearly released before the unexpected 2006 election. We released a proposed set of rules for an offset credit system to award credits to large and small industries, technology companies, municipalities, farmers, foresters and individual Canadians, achieving greenhouse gas emission reductions. That system would have also created a market, allowing these individuals, industries and organizations to sell their credits, which is one of the most efficient ways to get the maximum emissions reductions at the lowest cost.

Our climate fund was set to start operations in early 2006, acting as a kind of investment bank. It would have purchased reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, resulting from tangible projects. For Canadians, opportunities would have been available in every sector of the economy. Many different groups would have benefited from the fund: forestry companies that engaged in state of the art forest management practices; farmers who adopted low-till practices; property developers who included district heating and renewable energy elements in their plans for their new subdivisions; businesses that developed innovative ways to reduce emissions through recycling and energy efficiency; companies and municipalities that invested in their communities to encourage alternative transportation modes; municipalities that went further and captured landfill gas and used it to generate electricity; or courier companies that retrofitted their fleets.

We have lost a key year, 12 months of silence, 12 months of blame game. In the 12th month, what does the government do? It goes back into our green plan. It cherry-picks three core programs and re-gifts them for Canadians. Not only does it re-gift the programs, but seriously weakens all three.

In other words, at some point Canada's new government will have to deliver a plan. We will have to see a plan. The Canadian people are desirous of a plan.

Another major part of project green was the $250 million partnership fund. This fund was expected to grow to $2 billion to $3 billion as projects were expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55 to 85 megatonnes by 2012.

The first project announced under the partnership fund was a three-way federal-provincial-private plan in Prince Edward Island to upgrade the province's electricity transmission system and to allow P.E.I. to take advantage of wind energy. This is exactly the kind of investment we need to leverage industry to fight climate change. It is a program that was stillborn with the Conservative government a year ago.

Our climate change plan was in fact a business strategy for Canada that generated beneficial investments across the economy. Where did that plan go?

We do not only denounce the lack of vision on the part of the government. The Liberal approach is quite different from what the Bloc Québécois is advocating. Today, the Bloc is calling for $328 million to be transferred from Ottawa's coffers, merely a transfer of money. We would prefer a partnership between the two levels of government.

When Canada ratified the Kyoto protocol in 1997, it joined its efforts in a cooperation agreement entered into by a number of countries to achieve a single goal. Climate change is a global problem that Canada cannot solve on its own, in isolation. We took the lead, we agreed to live up to our responsibilities and we committed ourselves to working to improve the situation.

Because we cannot ignore our allies in the fight against climate change, we must also seize the opportunity to work in close collaboration with each of the provinces, each of the territories, all of the cities and villages and aboriginal communities. We are talking here about a collective effort in which every level of government must do its part. The federal government should extend its hand to them and demonstrate its intention of collaborating. Cooperation is one of the keys to success. That is how we can be sure that our efforts are not in vain and that we are advancing toward our common goal.

Just as for all of the childcare agreements that the government had entered into with the 13 provinces and territories, just as for the Kelowna accord, the first comprehensive federal agreement with all of the major aboriginal and Métis communities, the objective of the Kyoto protocol Partnership Fund was to secure agreements between Ottawa and all of the provincial and territorial governments for fighting climate change.

We had a memorandum of agreement, with Quebec, which involved $328 million and possibly more. Similar agreements had been signed with Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. But after the 2006 election, Quebec found itself alone in its efforts to achieve the Kyoto protocol objectives. The federal government made a big mistake when it took away the $328 million we had set aside for Quebec to fight climate change.

In my closing remarks, I am going to ask the government again to table a plan for the people of Canada to honour our obligations under the international treaty called the Kyoto protocol.

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. That is why 168 countries, including Canada, have signed the treaty. The government instead would like us to leave the treaty but will not tell Canadians the truth about it.

To conclude, I would like to move an amendment to the motion by the Bloc Québécois that is before us today.

I move that the motion be amended by replacing the words “the sum of” with the words “a sum of not less than” and by adding after the words “Kyoto Protocol targets” the following: “in accordance with the commitment made to all of the provinces and territories by the Partnership Fund established in Project Green”.

Those are my remarks. On this extraordinarily important time in Canadian history, we support the efforts of the Bloc Québécois; we support the efforts of all provinces and we are desperately looking forward to plan which engages Canadians, provinces, municipalities, towns and villages in what is the challenge of the 21st century: to reduce our greenhouse gases and protect the only atmosphere we have.

[Climate Change Accountability Act, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to the merits of Bill C-377, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change. This bill clearly deserves a careful examination on its merits. As I said moments ago, the sincerity of the member who is putting it forward I believe is beyond reproach. But the introduction of Bill C-377 is timely.

On Friday you will recall, Mr. Speaker, that the House considered Bill C-288 put forward by my good friend the member for Honoré-Mercier. Of course, Bill C-288 is an act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto treaty. Bill C-288 reflects our party's hope that Canada will choose the right path while listening to climate experts, playing a leadership role with the international community and transforming our economy to meet the challenge of the 21st century.

As we all know there is a legislative committee currently at work rewriting the government's failed clean air act. With the ongoing work of the environment committee, Parliament is seized with environmental issues these days. This should not come as much of a surprise.

Where are we now? The environment emerged as the number one issue for Canadians after the government cancelled successful programs like EnerGuide, halted initiatives to increase renewable energies such as wind power, and effectively killed a national plan to regulate large final emitters and worked to establish a carbon trading market in Canada, all in the first year of the Conservative new government.

In total, $5.6 billion worth of environmental programs were scrapped. The government has stumbled in particular when it comes to the question of climate change.

I have a simple question for the government, which has now been in power for a full year: will it table its plan to fight climate change? I have asked this question repeatedly, and I am still waiting for an answer.

Unless the government can prove otherwise to Canadians, 12 months into its mandate, Canadians can draw only one conclusion: there is no plan.

The government is making things up as it goes along. It is jumping from ice floe to ice floe, announcing programs here, handing out cheques there and holding photo ops. What is even worse, last week, the Prime Minister was asked 18 times to clarify his position on climate change—which he denied for 10 years before becoming Prime Minister, including while he was leader of the opposition—and to tell us whether he was right then or whether he is right now. He consistently refused to answer.

This is worse than having no plan. Clearly, the government and the Prime Minister have no vision.

Climate change was not one of the government's top five priorities. It was barely mentioned in the throne speech, absent in the economic update and, worse, the only attention paid to the environment was to be found in the 2006 budget, which demonstrated massive cutting.

The first year was spent aggressively discrediting our government's 2005 green plan. The new Minister of the Environment, the one sent to rescue a sinking ship, was not that long ago the minister of energy in a provincial government who led the fight to stop the ratification of the Kyoto treaty and to stop action on climate change. Since his appointment, the government has taken to regifting parts of our 2005 action plan.

The hypocrisy of this is so bad that the government regifted our government's report on our obligations under Kyoto for the calendar year 2006, imagine. It may have knowingly misled the international community by reporting programs it was cutting as actually being in place.

The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the government intends to withdraw from the Kyoto treaty and is doing so by subterfuge, by stealth, and by a thousand cuts.

Its spurious misleading of the House with regard to what it describes as “useless Russian hot air purchases” deliberately misleads Canadians and undermines the hard-fought clean development mechanism and the joint implementation mechanism, both in the treaty, that leveraged the power of the free market to meet our goals. It relies on, for example, the use of an international trading system to reduce greenhouse gases internationally at a lower cost.

That is why my leader, the hon. member, said:

I call on the Prime Minister to implement a comprehensive plan to honour Canada's Kyoto commitment, including a cap-and-trade carbon market, with more demanding targets than that proposed in 2005.

I call on the Prime Minister to implement environmental tax reform and fiscal measures to reward good environmental behaviour, and provide disincentives for behaviour that harms the environment and human health—all in a way that enables every region and province to succeed in the sustainable economy.

He also said:

I call on the Prime Minister to better support greener energy production and other forms of renewable energy, starting with a minimum target of 12,000 megawatts of wind power production.

I call on the Prime Minister to better support the research, development and commercialization of resource-efficient and environment-friendly technologies.

Most importantly, I call on the Prime Minister to do all this in a way that strengthens the Canadian economy, providing better jobs and a higher standard of living for our children.

If the government is serious about a global response to a global challenge, which reflects the fact that there may be 190 countries in the world but there is only one atmosphere, I challenge it further. I challenge all members of the House, including the government's caucus, to vote for our motion tabled in the House on Thursday.

Let me turn now to the merits of Bill C-377.

Like the clean air act, Bill C-377 is not necessary. It is important for Canadians to know that the bill was introduced in October, prior to his requested secret meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss the clean air act. It is unclear to Canadians and to us, as an opposition, whether the NDP has cut a deal with the government on the so-called clean air act. If so, it is legitimate to ask whether the bill ought still to be put forward by the leader of the NDP.

Upon re-reading the bill, I was astonished to learn that the leader of the NDP has dropped any reference to respecting the Kyoto accord in its entirety. Just like the so-called clean air act, Bill C-377 sets no short term targets to curb global warming. Only two are defined: one in 2020 the other in 2050. Perhaps the member could explain why his bill sets no short term targets.

Perhaps the leader of the NDP could explain why he has called on Canada to unilaterally vary the targets for emissions in Canada without any mention of the penalties that would accrue to Canada and Canadians under the Kyoto protocol. Has he forgotten we are a party to the protocol? Is he proposing to facilitate a government skirting the essential issue of near term targets? Why would he suggest that we delay action?

Let me reiterate that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is available now, this week, for immediate action. There is no excuse for avoiding short term.

What is the NDP's intention with respect to our motion on Kyoto? Will the leader of the NDP be fully supportive at the vote this afternoon? Will the government?

It appears as if the member's bill, by giving discretion to the environment minister to set targets starting in 2015, facilitates a further removal from Kyoto. I remind the government and all members that targets were negotiated internationally. I am convinced the member would not knowingly facilitate the government treating Canada like an island or under the guise of splinter groups, and have us withdraw from our 167 partners that support the Kyoto treaty. It is fundamental that Canada participate, globally, to fight a global threat.

Finally, I welcome the attempt in Bill C-377 to leverage the role of the environment commissioner to meet our targets. Given our proposal as the official opposition to make the environment commissioner fully independent, I also welcome his support of our motion to hive off the commissioner's position and make it a stand-alone one with a strengthened mandate.

I look forward to hearing answers from the leader of the NDP. I congratulate him for his positive contribution to this debate.

[Climate Change Accountability Act, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will open by sharing the kind, gracious and gentle words that the member brought forward at the opening of his remarks with respect to the death of two senior captains, two firefighters who perished in Winnipeg. Our thoughts and prayers on this side of the House are also with their families and with those who were injured and their families.

I have no doubt that the member offers his comments and proposals in Bill C-377 with complete sincerity. I have known him to be a man of strong integrity. We have worked together in the past in other lives on a national climate change response and I commend him for contributing to the debate. I welcome the opportunity to put questions to him about the merits of his proposal.

Perhaps the leader of the NDP could help Canadians understand the position the new government is pursuing, which speaks directly to the question of what the government describes as hot air credits and hot air purchases offshore.

Could the leader of the NDP help us to understand how his bill would reinforce our international emissions trading obligations under the Kyoto treaty which would give access to Canadian companies and to the government as a whole to a wonderful and marvellous market mechanism that could help us to reduce our greenhouse gases at a lower cost? Could he help us to understand how his bill would reinforce those mechanisms in the Kyoto treaty?

[Business of Supply, February 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it states:

He also cited the [new] government's repudiation of the Kyoto climate control treaty, signed by the previous Liberal administration.

Former Prime Minister Joe Clark says:

There is no question that it injured our international reputation.

Can the minister please explain to Canadians why a former prime minister and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada would make such a statement?

[Business of Supply, February 1st, 2007]

I will start again, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the correction.

Let me ask the minister directly, quoting from the Montreal Gazette today. This is a comment that is attributed to the former prime minister of Canada, Joe Clark. It states:

He also cited the Harper government's repudiation of the Kyoto--

[Business of Supply, February 1st, 2007]

No.

[Business of Supply, February 1st, 2007]

Do you mean the former prime minister, Joe Clark?

[Business of Supply, February 1st, 2007]

I did not refer to another member.

[Business of Supply, February 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick series of questions for the minister, and I thank him for his remarks although I disagree with them wholeheartedly.

First, can the minister comment on former Prime Minister Joe Clark's comments as reported in the Montreal Gazette today? The report states explicitly that:

He also cited the Harper government's repudiation of the Kyoto climate control treaty, signed by the previous Liberal administration--

[Business of Supply, February 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, to answer this question simply, I will quote former Prime Minister Joe Clark, who said just yesterday I believe:

“There is no question that it injured our international reputation”, he said, when referring to the new minority government's repudiation of the Kyoto climate control treaty.