Mr. Speaker, today marks six months from September 11, the day the world was changed and where the protection of human security emerged as a central motif in budgetary planning and process which was finally expressed in Bill C-49.
The protection of human security, as I have said in the House, includes not only funding the components of a counterterrorism law and policy. It includes investing in people, in securing and sustaining a healthy and holistic environment, and in improving the health of Canadians by investing in the environment.
Indeed investment in a healthy environment, as in Bill C-49, can confer an economic benefit in job creation and the promotion of technological innovation, a resource and energy benefit in the conservation of energy and increasing the security of energy supplies, and a health benefit in improving the quality of our air and water and in reducing the toxicity of our environment.
For example, it is estimated that air pollution is responsible for 16,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of incidents of illness. There are at least 10,000 abandoned toxic sites across Canada, including some 5,000 within federal jurisdiction.
It can confer a heritage benefit in the protection and conservation of our natural heritage and a political and juridical benefit in permitting us to undertake our responsibilities as global citizens.
One can only welcome, therefore, the investment in tax initiatives in Bill C-49 intended to promote and protect a cleaner and healthier environment, including a partenariat with communities to help the environment and support for communities both urban and rural that actively contribute toward a healthier environment.
Launched last year and administered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, part of this partenariat, the green municipal enabling fund and the green municipal investment fund have been effective in stimulating community based feasibility work and investments in more than 100 projects to improve the environment in diverse areas such as energy and water savings, community energy systems, urban transit, waste diversion and renewable energy.
The budget doubles the green municipal enabling fund and the green municipal investment fund at a cost of $25 million and $100 million respectively in the current fiscal year. These funds in addition to the new strategic infrastructure fund and the existing infrastructure fund will help protect our natural heritage while creating jobs, promoting technological information and providing affordable housing.
It will protect air quality and promote energy efficiency through incentives for clean energy and energy efficiency. Renewable energy and reducing energy consumption are essential components of the government's strategy to address climate change and improve air quality.
Budget 2001 supports this objective by investing $260 million in a 15 year program that will offer production incentives for electricity that is produced from qualifying wind energy projects and will encourage investment in these wind energy projects.
Budget 2001 also invests $5 million a year to broaden eligibility for the income tax incentives that apply to renewable energy and certain energy efficiency projects.
It will promote sustainable woodlot management. The budget sets aside $10 million a year to eliminate a provision related to the intergenerational tax deferred rollover for farm property that sometimes led to the premature harvest of woodlots. This will ensure better management of the resource.
The next area is the toxicity of contaminated land. Across Canada as in most countries in the world contaminated land lies unused and unproductive. Such sites known as brownfields may have the potential for rejuvenation, bringing both health and economic benefits to communities.
Therefore a little noticed but very important item in the budget is that in response to the government the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy has agreed to develop a national brownfield redevelopment strategy to ensure that Canada is a global leader in remediation.
There is a recent series of federal initiatives in support of the environment such as an initial $100 million for the sustainable development technology fund to stimulate the development and demonstration of promising new environmental technology, a contribution of $60 million to the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences to support academic research on climate change and air pollution, $150 million to renew the climate change action fund, $60 million for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs to lay the foundation for future greenhouse gas emission reductions in accordance with the Kyoto protocol by facilitating the development of technology and supporting energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, and $90 million allocated for the national strategy on species at risk to support habitat stewardship programs and other species protection activities.
This leads me to address three important initiatives regarding the promotion and protection of a healthy environment by way of conclusion. The first relates to the Kyoto protocol. As we can appreciate the world's climate is changing at an unprecedented rate. Without government action the long term consequence will be dramatic. In the north of Canada, as the Minister of the Environment has demonstrated, permafrost and sea ice are in retreat or melting. As a result Hudson Bay polar bears are at an increased risk of starvation because of a shorter seal hunting season.
The cost of moving supplies to communities on resource development projects is increasing because the ice road season is shorter and the traditional lifestyle of aboriginal peoples is threatened. We also feel its effects in the south with droughts affecting the agriculture and forestry sectors and the lower water levels of the Great Lakes disrupting our inland shipping routes.
In a word, both domestically and globally climate change is a major environmental problem that has an impact on the quality of life of all. Fortunately this past summer 178 countries finally reached agreement on the primary rules to implement the Kyoto protocol. In Marrakesh, Morocco in November we reached a final agreement on the crucial legal and technical details for the implementation of the protocol.
Canada played a key role in the four years it took to conclude the international rules to implement the Kyoto protocol. We now have a solid agreement that is good for Canada, that is good for the economy, that is good for the environment. We have a deal that will allow Canada and other developed countries to achieve the greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments they made in the Kyoto protocol in ways that are environmentally and economically sound in both the short and long term.
Admittedly there are challenges to overcome in reducing our emissions but there are also opportunities. Canadians have considerable expertise in clean energy and energy efficiency and there will be vast new markets for our know how.
Like the industrial revolution and the information technology revolution we are now in the cusp of the clean energy revolution. Clean sustainable energy can do much more than just reduce the risk of climate change and ensure cleaner air. It can also bring jobs, investment income and a competitive edge.
Similarly we recognize that the actions that need to be taken to achieve our climate change commitments will have costs, but there are also significant benefits such as lower health care costs resulting from cleaner air; job creation through, for example, cost effective building retrofit projects; lower costs for the forestry and agricultural sectors through the adoption of sustainable production methods; lower operating and production costs from energy efficiency; and revenue sources for municipalities from, for example, using landfill gases to generate electricity and the potential for exporting our technology and expertise.
When we hear the fears expressed with regard to the economic costs we should look at it in its total context, not only in terms of the economic costs but the economic benefits and the benefits to the environment, the benefits to health and the benefits to job creation and the like.
This brings me to my second major initiative: the species at risk bill. I support the amendments from the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development that were put forward in three respects. The first is strengthening habitat protection in areas of federal jurisdiction. This addresses the most contentious issue of witnesses with Bill C-5, that it does not make the protection of critical habitat mandatory even in areas of federal jurisdiction.
While the committee amended the bill to make habitat protection mandatory in areas of federal jurisdiction, protection is delayed for at least two years after listing until the action plan stage. This will allow ample time for input from provinces, territories, stakeholders and negotiating voluntary stewardship agreements with landowners or companies.
The second amendment I support is ensuring that the decision to list a species is science based and accountable. Bill C-5 allows cabinet complete discretion to decide which species to list at risk. There is no requirement to act based on science, no time limit and no obligation to provide reasons for not listing a species. It is important to note that a decision not to list a species can result in a species extinction.
The committee made three changes to the process for listing species. Cabinet will have six months to decide whether to accept a recommendation by the scientific committee. The recommendation then takes effect if it is not varied or rejected by cabinet and the minister must give reasons if the recommendations are not followed.
These changes were themselves a compromise.
The third recommendation that I would--
