House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2011, with 36% of the vote.
Gasoline Prices May 18th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, everybody here knows that the price of gasoline is dictated by market forces, but the real question is how all three opposition parties can be such hypocrites.
They stand and ask these questions when they know darn well that Bill C-288 would drive the price of gasoline in the member's own riding to over $2 a litre. Those are the facts. They are confirmed by independent economists such as Don Drummond, Mark Jaccard and others.
Those members do not like the truth.
Gasoline Prices May 18th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the real question is how all three opposition parties in this House can support gasoline prices of $2 a litre. That is exactly what they are advocating.
They make a lot of noise and they deny it, but those are the facts. Under the Liberal environment plan, Bill C-288, the price of gasoline will rise by 60%.
They may want to go back and talk to their own constituents and see if they would support paying up to $2 a litre as the price of gasoline.
Softwood Lumber May 16th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, there is not one log that is exported from Canada unless it has been given first to the Canadian operators and is deemed an excess log. Every time there is a hearing.
More important, this government has committed $400 million to help restructure the forest industry. It is very well received according to the president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, Avrim Lazar. The association is applauding our efforts and so is the industry.
Softwood Lumber May 16th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, in fact the Minister of International Trade backed the softwood lumber industry in every corner of this country. We saw $5 billion returned to the industry in this country.
There is a clause with respect to whole log exports to the U.S. that allows for ongoing discussions with our counterparts in the U.S. This is something that the Minister of International Trade is pursuing.
We are providing certainties to this industry so it can move forward.
Business of Supply May 8th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I would point out to the hon. member that the Bloc in fact did vote for Bill C-288, the Liberal environment plan, and the record will show that.
In fact, it is the international community that started this task 10 years ago and started reducing greenhouse gases. When the Liberals were in power, all we saw was hot air. They did nothing. The member would acknowledge that. Those are the facts.
As far as clean energy goes, I thank the member for that comment. That is exactly what we are doing. We have invested $1.5 billion in our ecoenergy renewable initiative for small hydro, biomass, tidal, wind and solar power. This is something that has never been done before by Parliament: bringing all of this renewable energy under one initiative to create incentives to put more on the grid. We are going to put 4,000 megawatts of electricity on the grid, 4,000 megawatts of absolutely clean renewable energy. That is the equivalent of eight coal-fired electricity generation units. That is something that has been done by this government since we have taken office, so it is exactly one of our priorities.
Business of Supply May 8th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, CO2 sequestration obviously is showing extraordinary promise. The technology is there. It is expensive. That is why we have asked this task force to come back and report to government on what is the role of industry, what needs to be done and how we make it happen. It can have a significant impact on the environment.
There are other technologies being developed to reduce CO2 emissions. Members will see a lot of investment by our government in this fund. On technology alone, we are investing $1.5 billion in technology development over the next four years.
This is important. We all like our energy and there is one thing that we should never forget. We are quick to point this out, and members have done it all day today on the oil industry, but we must never forget that we use every single drop that is produced to drive our cars and to power our homes. We have to do better.
Yes, to answer the member's question, a lot of things are coming forward that actually will reduce not only CO2 gases but also pollutants going into the atmosphere. Our government is very proud to partner and support those initiatives.
Business of Supply May 8th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I should point out that the member for Pickering—Scarborough East is the one who not two minutes ago said that he would actually ask the opposition for respect so he could ask his question and then launched into that tirade of who knows what.
Those members launched into this tirade because the truth hurts. They used these same economists to evaluate the Liberal plans when they were in power. They used these same economists to evaluate their budgets. Now these same people, who are very independent and who used to validate their work, are saying that these are the absolute facts and the Liberals do not like it because the truth hurts.
That is what Canadians need to realize. They need a balanced approach on this file--
Business of Supply May 8th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the one thing I do know for sure is that the price of gasoline in my province under that member's plan would be over $1.70 a litre today. Those are the facts. That is what would happen in British Columbia. We have a very strong economy--
Business of Supply May 8th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I want it to be clear that what the member is asking for is a gas monitoring agency, which is just more government bureaucracy that will solve nothing. In fact, the previous government had such agencies but it did not change anything.
This information on the price of gasoline is widely available today from a number of sources. The last thing we need to do is create another large bureaucracy to monitor the price of gasoline and spend tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to monitor the price of gasoline. That will change nothing.
I must note that the member also talked about how the economy was strong in the west and not so strong in other parts of Canada. Is he suggesting that Quebec's economy is not doing that well? I think the economy is very strong right across Canada and we should be proud of the work that people are doing in every corner and region of the country.
Business of Supply May 8th, 2007
I know they do not like the truth. I can hear the Liberals making all kinds of noise on the other side. The previous government failed in so many ways.
Since we are talking about gasoline I will talk about energy, something that is very important to this government. We recognize how important it is that we change our dependency on oil. Right now, globally, we burn about 1,000 barrels of oil a second. If we translate that, we burn globally about 86 million barrels of oil each and every day. That is an enormous amount of oil.
Our government recognizes that we must invest in other forms of energy. We have invested $1.5 billion into renewable energy to bring more energy such as wind, biomass and tidal. Our government installed for the first time a tidal turbine in North America off the coast of Victoria near where I live and it is now producing electricity. The energy is absolutely clean and emission free. There is no pollution. We have invested in small scale hydro.
Those are the types of actions that we taking. Everything our government does is focused on results. We have invested $230 million on a targeted initiative to do research into technology to clean up our conventional energy. These are tangible things that we believe can make a difference, everything from technology for clean coal to taking all the emissions out of coal-fired electricity generation to doing carbon sequestration.
We have launched the Canada-Alberta ecoenergy carbon sequestration task force that will report back to myself before Parliament rises at the end of June on what we need to do to put CO2 gases back into the ground and what we need to do to construct a CO2 pipeline.
Those are all initiatives brought in by the Conservative government that will get real results on the environment. I know the Liberals keep talking and complaining but they were in government for 10 years and did not get the job done. In their dying days in office, all of a sudden they had this deathbed conversion that they somehow cared. Quite frankly, that was a little late. Canadians were tired of it and we saw the results in the last election.
All of our initiatives are focused on delivering results. The worst part of of this is that after the Liberal Party did nothing for so long they are coming back with a very reckless approach. There is no other way to describe it. There is no balanced approach. It is important to this government that we recognize the importance to the economy and the importance of jobs to Canadian in every corner of the country, while at the same time delivering strong action on the environment.
The opposition members have brought forward a motion calling for changes to the Competition Act but what they are asking for is completely within the powers of the Competition Act today, and I know the member opposite is well aware of that. In fact, when the Liberals were in office they brought this forward six times and we know the results of that. They do not like the results but those are the results.
I would be the first one to line-up, where we have evidence that suggests that this is being violated, to call for an investigation and ask that it be done aggressively to ensure the violations are pursued with vigour. It is not acceptable.
Our government will continue to work with Canadians by lowering the GST and taxes in general to ensure Canadians have more money but the solution is not to bring in regulations and not to fix the price of gasoline. It must to be market-driven. For anyone to suggest otherwise would actually result in higher gasoline prices.
For those who are following this debate, I would ask that they really look at what all three opposition parties are calling for because this motion is a bit of a smokescreen. They brought in a motion showing that they would like some changes made to the price of gasoline when in fact every opposition party, the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals, support a policy that would, without question, cause the price of gasoline to rise by at least 60%.
They do not like it. I can hear the moans and groans. Why do they not like it? It is because this number has been put out by some of the country's leading independent economists. Those are the facts. This was not just one economist, this was by some of the leading professors of various departments at universities from right across the country.
It is important for Canadians to realize what all the other parties are pushing for. If they had their way, gasoline prices would rise to $1.60, $1.70 and then up to $2 a litre. That is unacceptable because that would cause serious harm to our economy, something that the Conservative government will not contemplate. We will use a balanced approach where we can ensure we have a strong economy and deliver real reductions for the environment, something that we are doing each and every day.