Dennis Bevington

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this debate back a little to the procedure that we have followed so far in the House with the bill. The billions of dollars that the government would spend on this was portrayed as an environmental concern directly related to greenhouse gas emissions, but the bill went to the agricultural committee. It only had that scrutiny.

The scrutiny it had was with the interest groups that were most likely to benefit monetarily from the process that was to be put in place. What the bill needs is the scrutiny of those who are concerned about the environment.

When we have a bill in front of us that could allow corn ethanol imported from the United States with a higher greenhouse gas emission characteristic than if we left the doggone gas in the vehicle, does the government not think this is important enough to have a debate about in the House of Commons?

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for that good presentation on the nature of our concerns. Our concerns lie with the enabling nature of this bill on this very important topic. We tried very diligently in the agriculture committee to put forward conditions that should be attached to the kinds of directions we are to take. If we are trying to do something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country, then the bill should make that part of the solution.

This particular work on biofuels was also part of Bill C-30. Within the larger bill there were opportunities to set the conditions within the industry for the direction that we are taking. This bill, without Bill C-30, has none of that. This is a piece of work that was stripped bare and rammed through the committee against the good advice of many people who support the biofuel industry, and now we are ramming it through Parliament and we do not have a chance to take a look at the meat, the regulations.

I can support this bill if we have the opportunity to make sure that we do a good job for Canadians. I would ask my colleague to give me some of the reasons why the Liberals and the Conservatives might not want to support this simple effort to make sure that we do the right thing here.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone can underestimate the food crisis. Our dollar has gone up considerably over the last number of years and that has sheltered Canadians a bit, but with the high cost of everything we have in this country, our consumer price index, for instance, keeps out energy and food costs so that Canadians do not even get the message about what is happening in this country.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise again on this particular issue. I put forward the amendments to this legislation and one amendment has been accepted. The amendment would provide more oversight to the process that my colleague on the agricultural committee put forward as an amendment. The amendment would provide a two year review and would enhance the bill by providing more review over the actual regulations as put forward by the government. As I have pointed out before, that is a very significant thing.

Some great work has been done in Quebec. The REAP institution, located in Quebec City, demonstrated at committee that even the move toward cellulosic ethanol would really not be cost effective or as potentially greenhouse gas useful by simply converting cellulosic material, whether it be wood or waste from agricultural processes, to thermal energy. Thermal energy can be used in homes and commercial businesses to replace other fossil fuel products, and in the case of Quebec, for instance, replacing liquefied natural gas, a product we are now looking at importing from Russia or Qatar.

My colleague said her party is supporting the bill, but you really are not. You are supporting a bill that would enable the government to do exactly what it wants with the regulations right now. It would enable the government to reward whoever it wants, with Canadian tax dollars, to go ahead with biofuels rather than having some conditions attached which would give the real winners in the biofuel industry the leg up they need.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, quite specifically, the amendment we are debating right now is an oversight amendment, which would give us more control over the process of the development of the biofuels approach in Canada, the bioenergy approach. Why will her party not support the amendment? It will give us the time to deal with the issues as they come up and ensure that the government acts correctly?

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I found my hon. colleague's presentation to be thoughtful and it focused on what is happening on the ground.

I was pleased to hear about all the different initiatives that are going on in Quebec with respect to the use of biofuels. This is very positive, but it also poses the important question, how can we determine the winners and losers in the biofuel industry as we move forward?

What we are trying to do with the amendment is to give us some flexibility in the approach we take. We in this party do not think that there is trust and confidence in the government to put forward regulations that are going to apply in a very good fashion to all the different types of initiatives that are available under biofuels, or as I like to call them, bioenergy.

In my constituency in the far north we are rapidly transforming the fuel used to heat major institutional buildings to wood pellets. Right across northern Canada including northern Quebec many communities are strictly on diesel fuel or fuel oil for their buildings. Fuel oil is $1.30 a litre. The wood pellets that are imported from Alberta are half that cost.

There is still much work to be done in this field to understand the nature of the incentives and programs, and the conditions we should be attaching to the biofuels industry. Does the member agree there is a need to have that oversight?

[Questions on the Order Paper, April 18th, 2008]

With regard to the Northern Residents Tax Deduction: (a) what is the rationale for changing the way the travel portion of the deduction is calculated; (b) how will this change affect the amount of money paid out through this deduction; (c) what is the estimated difference between what will be paid out following this change compared to what would have been paid out if this change had not been made; (d) what is the estimated amount that would have been paid out had this change not been made; and (e) what is the estimated number of tax filers who are affected by this change?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, April 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, today it is my turn to speak on Bill C-26, a bill introduced quite a while ago by the Conservative Party that has now come forward for more debate.

If we look at the history of the concern over the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in this country, we will see that the pattern has been in a fashion that is different from what we are dealing with here today. Many people of my generation and the generation that grew up in the 1960s looked to the leadership of the government. In the early 1970s, the government came out with the Le Dain commission report, which made certain recommendations about the use of controlled substances at that time.

It went on from there. In the late 1970s in Parliament, many of the politicians of the day were more open-minded about questions of drug use in Canada, especially those who dealt with what was probably the largest single illegal drug used in Canada, cannabis. At that time, they were moving toward a different point of view on that particular controlled substance.

Then, of course, we had the introduction of the Reagan era in the 1980s. Through many of the international law enforcement agencies, the United Nations and many of the protocols at that time, we saw much hardening of attitudes toward the illegal use of drugs from the United States, which filtered through to the rest of the world. In this Parliament, that led, I am sure, to in some ways kowtowing to the United States and to going away from any semblance that we would go in the direction of the probably 20% to 25% of Canadians who use certain drugs at certain times. We made that conscious decision.

Once again, in the intervening years, the war on drugs went on and on. We saw the results in many third world countries. We saw the results in the United States.

Certainly we do not want Canada to follow the U.S. on its drug policy. Many people in the U.S. do not want us to follow them on the path the U.S. took through the 1980s and 1990s with highly restrictive legislation that led to incredible hardship and incredible increases in incarceration in the United States. The situation grew to where the United States as a population ranks first in the world in per capita incarceration, with roughly 5% of the earth's population but 25% of the total incarcerated population in the world.

Of the 2.2 million people in the United States behind bars today, roughly half a million are locked up for drug law violations and hundreds of thousands more for related drug offences. The war on drugs in the United States costs the U.S. government $40 billion a year in direct costs and tens of billions of dollars more in indirect costs. That is useful information for all Canadians to think about when we approach the question of controlled substances.

We have a bill here that we in the NDP are opposed to and I am glad we are, because it is a hodgepodge of various types of efforts to bring to Canada what is in many respects a very harsh regime in regard to many of the controlled substances that are present in our society. They are used by people in our society and are there as a result of that use. When we speak to the direction that we should take on drugs now, in 2008, we find this bill to be absolutely the wrong direction.

As well, it flies in the face of previous Parliaments in the new millennium, where we had much more direction, such that we actually would move in some ways to lessen the sentences for possession of drugs. We had a greater understanding of the need for harm reduction in dealing with many of the other drugs.

We can see that today with some of the facilities across Canada that deal with drugs such as heroin, such as Insite, the injection site in Vancouver. I went to a presentation the other morning that was given by a woman who had worked at Insite for many years, including getting it established and working through the politics involved for many years. I wish every member of Parliament could have heard her heartfelt talk.

I wish they could have heard about the good that has come out of that kind of work in turning to harm reduction in a sensible and practical fashion for the many people in our society who, for one reason or another, do not make it. They fall off the path of righteousness and good grace and end up living on the streets.

These people are chronic drug users. They are the most victimized people in our society. This safe injection site in Vancouver has saved many lives, each one of them important. The life of every single Canadian should be important to us, should be meaningful to us and should get our attention.

I felt so strongly about it when I heard that speech. I would recommend that all members consider the good that comes from having tolerance and from understanding other people's situations and making our way toward that.

Instead, we are dealing with a bill today that is going the other way. Recent statistics have pointed out that over 24% of Canadians have used cannabis in the last year. Some 1% or 2% have used cocaine. Another 1% or 2% have used other substances. The crime industry in this country makes about $10 billion a year from illegal drugs, of which the vast majority is cannabis.

We have a situation in Canada in which we have a lot of users. A lot of people do this and we are not going to change that with Bill C-26. However, what we will do with this bill is create a situation whereby more and more people will be targeted by this legislation for what they are doing. They will be directly targeted for any infractions of the Criminal Code, any of the things that go on in their daily lives.

That is what this bill does, and this bill is not what Canadians want. The majority of Canadians favour decriminalizing cannabis. They favour the medical use of cannabis. Our society is tolerant. We are not like this bill. This bill is different from what the vast majority of Canadians want.

The Conservative government has lumped many things into this legislation. It has included some things that it thinks might be attractive to its political base. The Conservatives have taken a stand that should guarantee the support of many of the people who support them already.

However, Bill C-26 is draconian in its approach to the problem. It is approaching the problem in a way that is the exact opposite of what we were doing a few years ago in this very House. That really is unfortunate. It is unfortunate that we have moved in this direction. It is unfortunate that the minority Conservative government feels it has the right and direction to do the things it is doing with respect to this legislation.

I am glad our party is standing up against it. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to it.

When we talk about mandatory minimum sentences and increased minimums for drug related crimes, this is a particularly flawed piece of legislation. In all cases, these types of crimes need the discretion of the judge. They need the judge, in these particular types of crimes, to have the ability to say whether granny with her pot plant in the corner is going to be put in jail for six months because it is the mandatory minimum that the bill proposes. The judge should really have a say and should have a way to deal with this in a correct fashion.

I know this is only the bottom of the heap in terms of where we are going with the bill. As it moves through other phases, we are seeing even greater sentences that would be given to people who--

[The Environment, April 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, more and more people in the north are concerned that review boards meant to protect the environment are becoming make work projects for Conservatives.

The most recent example of this patronage was the eleventh hour appointment of the failed Conservative candidate from the last election to the chair of the most important of these environmental protection boards, replacing the longstanding nominated incumbent.

Why is the minister ignoring the spirit and intent of these boards, which is to bring an independent northern voice to environmental assessments, by deciding that the only important qualification for the position is one's history with the Conservative Party?

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on my colleague's speech because he touched on the issue that there are many uses for biomass product. In fact, a paper that was presented to the agricultural committee showed that if one wanted to get a better greenhouse gas reduction at a lower cost, it would be much simpler to make up straw pellets or wood pellets and put them into existing thermal situations than it is to create either cellulosic ethanol or just corn ethanol. The return is much greater.

There are a lot of unanswered questions even about the nature of biomass energy within this country. I would recommend that hon. members take a look at the study that was done by a Canadian company. Samson was the primary researcher on it from Quebec. It lays out very clearly what the issues are around the use of wood products or any other organic product in reducing CO₂ emissions.

When you talk about the nature of the interaction between wood pellet development in northern Ontario and the use of pulp in the industry, could you elaborate on that issue a bit more?