Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to talk about biofuels because, unlike what has been projected about the New Democratic position, we support a properly managed biofuel programs in this country. What we are trying to do in the House of Commons is to get to a point where we have policies that we can present to the Canadian public and that industry can understand where we are going. We want to be assured that what we are doing is correct and is working in the best interests of Canadians on all the fronts that have been purported to be useful in terms of the development of a biofuel industry in Canada.
The comments of the Liberals and Conservatives today and yesterday about our participation in this debate remind me of the old saying: A half truth is like half a brick; one can throw it twice as far and it hurts just as much. That is what they are doing. They are presenting half-truths again. That is not what we want in Parliament. We want to have an honest and structured debate about the relative merits of what we are doing as a Parliament. That is what we are after. That is what we are focused on.
This is not an ideological debate. The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food claimed in his speech that somehow the ideological forces of the left were driving this debate on biofuels, creating opposition to the Conservatives' implementation of a program in exactly the way they want through a bill that has no conditions attached to it, much as what was indicated by my colleague from Ottawa South. After he got over the need to bash away at us, he spoke quite eloquently about all the things that we have been bringing forward in Parliament, all the issues that have not been resolved around biofuels.
When we talk about an ideological bent, we can refer to all the different people who have spoken lately of their concerns about the direction biofuels are taking not only in Canada but around the world. And yes, we do have what we might call a fellow traveller in the Prime Minister of Great Britain whose government over many years promoted biofuels, but who has now said, “We have to go back and look at what we are doing”.
New Democrats are always willing to examine what we have proposed to see the merits within it. If we have policies that are not perfect, we adjust them. I can see that too with the Conservatives. They had a policy which was clearly articulated by the Prime Minister during the election. He said that the Conservatives were not going to touch income trusts. What did he do when he came to the realization, that we already supported, that these were hurting the economy? He changed his position. We saw the result.
This is a forum. The government must be flexible. We must look at the situation in front of us and do the very best possible for Canadians. The New Democrats are standing up again trying to ensure that the debate is useful and relevant and that we get the consideration we want of the bills in front of us.
The biofuels bill is an empty box which the Conservatives can fill with goodies for their friends. They can fill it with policies that will help large corporations. They can fill it with policies that will bring products from other countries that are going to compete with our Canadian farmers. This will create more dislocation and will not give us the kind of environmental return we could get from our own farmers. New Democrats do not trust the Conservative government to do the right thing.
In committee, we were consistent. We brought up conditions that we wanted to see in the bill that would ensure we did the right thing with biofuels. Those were opposed by both the Liberals and the Conservatives. They did, however, give the NDP an amendment to have a review on a two year basis. It is a good idea and it is almost all we needed, but not quite.
A two year review will already assume that the industry is up and running, that it is investing, that farmers are changing their production of different types of agriculture products to match up to the legislation in place. This was not quite enough. With this empty box, we needed to have a review of what the Conservatives would fill the box with before it went out to the public. How is this opposing biofuels?
This is giving some surety to Canadians that where the economy is going is correct. How can this be interpreted except in terms of this half truth? Once again, one can throw it further to try to hurt the others just as much. That is the truth of what has gone on in Parliament to date.
When I heard the member for Ottawa South talk eloquently about the problems with the biofuel policy in front of us, when he mentioned all the studies that had not been done, when he mentioned all the things that were not in place, why was he then so insistent that we flash forward with this policy when he had all those unanswered questions? Did it have anything to do with the investment that would go to his riding from the $2.2 billion, which are on the table right now as part of the public funds that will be invested in the biofuels industry? I ask the member for Ottawa South to look into his heart and see whether this is part of his motivation.
Right now across northern Canada, and it is not just in the Northwest Territories, it is in Yukon, Nunavut, northern Quebec, Labrador, we are experiencing a massive increase in heating costs and costs of generation with fossil fuels, fuel oil. Fuel oil prices affect hundreds of thousands of people across northern Canada and many rural people in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. It affects rural people in Ontario, the Maritimes and Quebec who are not attached to a natural gas distribution system and use fuel oil. These costs are going through the roof.
Are there any solutions? There are solutions and we are putting those solutions to work in Yellowknife right now. We are buying biomass products from Alberta and running our larger buildings and many homes on wood pellets. It is easily transportable, cellulosic material that is simply pelletized and provides that opportunity.
This can spread right across northern Canada. This could have been available to everybody in the country if there had been one thing, and that was parity in the bioenergy market where the greenhouse gas reductions were compared with biofuels and bioenergy, where values and incentives were based on how much we could return to the different types of objectives that were set into the policy. If that were the case, we could do so much more to reduce the cost of living for people across country who are not attached to a natural gas delivery system.
Personally, as a northern resident, although I use biomass myself, I have full sympathy for us in building our bioenergy industry across the country. Yet there is no parity and no discussion of this. Nor is there any discussion of the way to use different forms of energy. We are on a biofuel path that may or may not be appropriate. This does not mean we should preclude the other forms of bioenergy available to us.
We are investing $500 million in a cellulosic ethanol pilot plant. The BIOCAP study prepared by REAP-Canada, which was presented in the agriculture committee, speaks to cellulosic ethanol quite well. Cellulosic product that could easily be used in thermal capacities has a 39% efficiency in conversion of that energy. In other words, when the bioenergy product is converted into biofuel in a cellulosic ethanol plant, 60% of the energy is lost off the top. Huge capital costs are attached to this as well.
A typical commercial cellulosic plant, as the one proposed in Idaho, would have an estimated cost of $250 million U.S. to process approximately 68 million litres of cellulosic ethanol each year. That works out to about $175 a gigajoule in investment to return one gigajoule of energy. When we look at other forms of using cellulosic product, for instance, in replacing thermal energy in people's homes, in power generation, we are looking at about $5 a gigajoule investment in the plant. We are creating an industry that stretches right across the country and works for everyone.
These are the types of examples we need to talk about in Parliament. We need legislation that will create a level playing field for bioenergy and biofuels and will ensure that we are putting money into the best things possible for Canadians.
I am not trying to be a Luddite. I am speaking to the real concerns of Canadians. We are running out of natural gas in our country. National Energy Board projections indicate that we will be a net importer of natural gas by 2020 with all supplies in. This is a crisis, and one perhaps not well articulated by the government because it does not want to go in that direction. It wants us to purchase liquefied natural gas from other countries at exorbitant prices, with no particular economic benefit to our whole economy.
The opportunities for bioenergy everywhere are great and for biofuel equally great. We need to move ahead with policy that works. I do not see that here. The legislation does not address the issues in front of us. It does not provide significant return to Canadians in terms of greenhouse gas reductions. We invest $2.2 billion to get a couple of megatonnes of reduction. That is $1 billion a megatonne.
Where is the comparative analysis that should have taken place about the kinds of investments the government should make in different forms of subsidies that would go to different things and provide better analysis? These analyses are available. BIOCAP Canada did a complete assessment of that.
The greenhouse gas reduction cost for corn ethanol is some $375 per kilogram. Using biomass in pelletized form for either heating or for electrical generation would be a $50 a kilogram cost reduction.
The numbers are just staggering when we think of what we are doing. Why are we doing it? Because a number of people in the other parties have specific interests in the ridings. They see this as an investment to be made right away so they can move this forward in a way that really does not make good policy. It may make good sense in the next election for these people, but in the long term is it really the sense of what we want to do as a responsible member of the international community? I do not think so.
Having recognized the inadequacies of the legislation, as solidly supported by my Liberal colleagues in their speeches, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after “That”, and replacing them with the following:
Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be not now read a third time, but referred back to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for the purpose of reconsidering clause 2 with a view to making sure that both economic and environmental effects of introducing these regulations do not cause a negative impact on the environment or unduly influence commodity markets.
