Joe Comartin

[Kyoto Protocol, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg North Centre.

We have made it clear as a party that we are in favour of ratifying Kyoto and that the government should do so as quickly as possible, and by that I mean about a year ago.

The real issue is not about ratifying. It is a given that we should do that. We committed internationally five years ago to ratify Kyoto. Our international reputation is being affected by the fact that we are moving so slowly on this, when we were the very first country in the world in 1997 to signal that we were in favour of the protocol and that we would carry through on our responsibilities under that protocol. The history since then has not been very good and our reputation has been badly affected by the meanderings that we have seen from the government.

We need to do this and we need to get on with the job. We need to move as rapidly as we can to finalize what in fact is the implementation process and then put it into place.

We have had a great deal of argument in the House, I would say particularly from the members of the Alliance Party, about the risks and the costs. It is interesting that they never talk about the costs of not doing it. Equally, the government has never done an assessment of what it will cost us if we do not proceed to implement Kyoto and meet our targets within the timeframes. I have never seen those from the Alliance or the government.

It was interesting to hear the member from LaSalle speaking the other day about Kyoto and raising certain concerns around the costs and that everyone be treated fairly as we implement it. It is interesting to compare that with his own position as he made very severe cutbacks in the budget in the mid-1990s. The effect of those cutbacks was to reduce the GDP in this country by a full 4%. By the government's own estimates, at the very worst, Kyoto might have the impact of reducing our GDP by 2% over a very extended period of time, probably 10 years minimum. That 4% cut that he caused in the mid-1990s was over a two year period.

He also argued, and we heard it from other government members, that we could not have any Kyoto costs applied disproportionately. Alberta, for instance, even though it is the heaviest polluter and creator of greenhouse gases, should not be treated unfairly or unequally. They use those types of terms.

However, in the same period of time, 1995 to 1997, as he slashed the budget, which had the impact of reducing the GDP by about 4%, that 4% reduction was much more greatly served against the Maritime provinces and the province of Quebec.

When we are looking at what the impact will be of Kyoto, we have to keep that in mind. We recognize that there will be a significant shift in the way we plan the economy and in the way the economy develops but from everything we do know, particularly from the European experience, we can offset those costs by new development.

I always use the example of Denmark. It moved into alternative energy and now leads in the world, with Germany close behind. Denmark has a small population of roughly 3.5 million people but it has created, in a very short period of time, in two to three years, 12,500 new jobs building the windmills and turbines that are now being exported to countries all over the world. Canada is one of the recipients of that technology because we did not develop it here. We have fallen behind. It is another reason that we need to ratify now to get on with it. As the years go by, other countries are outpacing us quite dramatically in that technology. The Japanese have taken over the lead quite significantly with regard to solar power. We need to catch up. We actually need to get into the race. When we are talking about the need to ratify within a certain timeframe, we need to keep technological development in mind.

With regard to some of the other reasons that we should be moving ahead, I would draw to the attention of the House the argument that we hear so often from the Alliance, that Kyoto is not a health issue. We have heard from any number of sources that of course that is not accurate.

I want to address the ignorance in the comments that I am hearing from the Alliance members once again. The reality is that there is a solution. I probably live, in terms of the metropolitan area, in the most heavily polluted area in the country from the perspective of air pollution. The solution that we will find to that is to reduce the use of coal-fired plants in both Ontario and, more specifically, in some of the states in the U.S. If we do not move ahead with Kyoto, if the U.S. states, which are much further ahead than the U.S. federal government, do not move ahead, those emissions, the greenhouse gases and things like mercury and benzine, which come from the burning of coal, will continue to float into my constituency and we will continue to have, as various medical associations have documented, a significant increase in premature deaths and all the other health factors.

The implementation of Kyoto and the reduction of the greenhouse gases will coincide, as we reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, coal in particular, but not alone, with the reduction in a number of toxins, mercury and benzine, just to name a couple of them.

It is interesting as well to listen to the members of the Alliance and Premier Klein in Alberta talk about a made in Canada solution. It is nothing of the kind, of course. It is simply that party and the Conservative government in Alberta toeing the American line. It is a made in America solution and it is no solution at all, because that solution, as we have seen from the model that the vice-president enunciated a year and a half ago, is simply to do less and to do it over a longer period of time. We know by those models that greenhouse gas emissions will continue to go up, not be reduced.

Just last week the Bush administration watered down the environmental protection act and the protection it gave or was about to give requiring the clean up of coal-fired plants in the United States. That is the kind of policy and plan that the Alliance would have us follow as opposed to implementing Kyoto, a plan, I would add, that was heavily opposed, including lawsuits, by a number of the northeastern states opposing the watering down of those provisions, those provisions that would have done something about the health of my constituents by reducing the emissions that were coming from those plants all over the mid-western United States that eventually flowed into my riding.

As much as the government wants to take credit for Kyoto, I wish to say to it and to the Canadian people that we just cannot watch the ratification become the end of the process. We very much have to keep after it to see that the implementation is done properly, to the terms of the protocol that we are now committing ourselves to, finally, at the international level.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my friend across the way would agree that the implementation plan put out by the government so far, which limits the use of ethanol as a target in that plan to only 35% of all the fuel we consume in the country, should be increased to a full 100%; that is 10% of the full 100% of the fuel that is consumed in the country should be mandated. Should we have a mandated program that would require all fuel in the country, a full 100% of it, to have at least 10% ethanol in it as opposed to what his government is proposing, that only 35% should have ethanol in it?

[Privilege, November 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as you are aware this question of privilege was raised by the whip for the NDP, the member for Acadie--Bathurst, and responded to by the member for Nickel Belt, who is the chair of the aboriginal affairs and natural resources committee.

This question of privilege is a result of a process that the chair kicked into place at a meeting last week, as a result of a motion brought by myself asking the committee to pass a resolution which would have had the effect of compelling a witness to attend before the committee to testify on a bill which the committee was considering.

I was speaking to the motion seeking resolution for the summons to be issued and was interrupted by the chair. He indicated that he would cut off any further right on my part to speak. I continued to speak and he then allowed a point of order from the parliamentary secretary to put the question on the resolution.

The precedent that I would like to draw to your attention that governs this type of situation is that of the meeting of the industry committee on Tuesday, March 23, 1999.

The Bloc member for Mercier moved a motion. There was a very brief discussion. The chair I think stepped out of the chair and was replaced by the member for Essex who suspended the meeting, which is in accordance with Marleau and Montpetit. I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to page 857 if you wish to consider that. It was in accordance with the statements in that part of the text.

In a subsequent meeting, I believe the following day, the government member for Hamilton West moved a motion setting time limits on debate on any motions or discussion pertaining to that bill. After debate the question was put and it was passed.

That is not the procedure that was followed here. The chairman of the committee simply allowed, improperly I would submit, the request for a point of order which then turned into the question being put on the main motion, the motion I had brought forward. It is important to appreciate that at that point I had spoken less than 10 minutes. I would estimate that I spoke somewhere between five and seven minutes, and I still had a number of points that I wanted to make.

The other thing I would ask you to take into account, Mr. Speaker, is that it had been indicated in previous meetings that this witness would attend. If the blues are considered, the chairman indicated he agreed with me that this individual might be the most important witness that the committee needed to hear with regard to the bill under consideration. In spite of that and in effect by allowing the procedure to go ahead, he cut off any further debate on my part to convince the rest of the committee of the importance of that party coming before the committee and in spite of the fact that it was crucial for that party to give testimony before the committee. I believe he agrees with me.

I want to again draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, that at that point on the motion in that committee we were not faced with any time limits. The committee had not agreed to any time limits and had not imposed any time limits on members of the committee.

I quote from page 857 of Montpetit and Marleau:

On occasion, committees place strict limits on the amount of time during which a given item will be considered.

That did not occur here. It is my position that anyone speaking to that motion would have had unlimited time to speak to it.

As I said, this was not a situation where I had used an unreasonable amount of time. It was not a question where the committee was being thwarted in its actions. I had spoken less than 10 minutes on what was a very important motion with regard to the issue of this witness appearing before us, who, it had been understood, was in fact going to appear before us.

On that basis, Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to consider the privilege motion and make a ruling that the procedure followed both by the chair and, in effect, by the committee was improper and not in keeping with the procedures of committees or of the House.

[The Environment, November 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment has burned many bridges in the handling of the Kyoto file. His provincial counterparts have postponed and cancelled meetings, clearly signifying the minister has lost all credibility with them.

In order to preserve our international reputation, protect our environment and our health, will the Prime Minister show true leadership by taking upon himself the Kyoto file?

[Canada Pension Plan, November 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.

In the last six months we lost $4 billion in the equity markets through the Canada pension plan. Despite this loss the CEO of the pension board says he still believes stocks will yield the best returns.

Will the government come to its senses, amend the CPP act to direct the investment board to get out of the private equity markets, and begin investing in security instruments in the municipal sector?

[Border Security, November 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, those assurances clearly are not enough. We want some concrete action. What we have here is that Canadians are being harassed and abused because of their country of origin and the colour of their skin.

Windsor is the busiest crossing point in the country. There are thousands of people going across every day. Students, workers and families are suffering because of these discriminatory measures of U.S. authorities.

When will the government stand up and protect Canadians and demand that the U.S. cease this discriminatory conduct?

[Border Security, November 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as we have heard, the Canadian government rescinded its advisory for Canadian travellers to the United States. We know now that was premature since Canadians continue to be humiliated at the border.

Will the government agree to set up a border task force to report on racial profiling and report back to Parliament on what we need to do to protect our Canadian citizens?

[Iraq, November 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as we heard earlier this morning, the UN Security Council voted to adopt a U.S. sponsored resolution on Iraq.

The resolution calls upon Iraq to comply with earlier UN weapons inspection resolutions or face serious consequences. It does not, however, authorize the use of military force without further UN consultation. That is not the position that the U.S. government has taken saying that it does not prohibit the use of military force. That is its position.

Does the Canadian government share the view of the United States that this resolution permits the use of military force without further authority from the United Nations?

[Remembrance Day, November 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this coming Monday, November 11, as we gather to commemorate Remembrance Day in communities throughout Canada it is appropriate for us to remember the sacrifices of the thousands of Canadians who served our nation.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Dieppe Raid. Almost 5,000 Canadians took part in the raid. Over 900 were killed and hundreds more were wounded or captured. Many of those who gave their lives or were captured were members of the Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment, a regiment, as the name suggests, that comes from my area of Ontario. This summer the mayor of Windsor had a dinner commemorating this event and I was very impressed how those who had survived continued to contribute to Canada.

On Monday, and throughout the year, let us never forget those who have sacrificed their lives for the freedom of Canada. We will remember them.

[Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act, November 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to indicate, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, our pleasure in supporting this bill. It is work that needed to be done for some time. It is a significant step forward in governing the responsibilities we have to control the illicit use of diamonds.

The certification process, that is being developed and would become part of the Kimberley process, would go some distance in avoiding the use of diamonds for trade in armaments. Historically some of the civil wars in Angola, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo have been or are still being fuelled by the use of diamonds for the purchase of armaments.

I want to acknowledge the work that has been done by the member for Nepean—Carleton. He has done a lot of work in this regard. He has travelled to Sierra Leone and is a major reason why we are seeing this legislation come before the House now.

I also want to acknowledge the work that has been done by some of the NGOs, in particular Partnership Africa Canada. It has done an outstanding job of bringing this point up the political agenda and assisting in the actual drafting of the legislation in terms of some of the criteria that needed to be in it. The work it has done needs to be acknowledged in that regard.

It has worked extensively with Global Witness Limited, an international NGO. It has been monitoring the situation of the use of diamonds for illicit purposes around the globe and has brought the issue to the forefront internationally. It needs to be acknowledged and credited for all the work that it has done.

I have one final point in terms of acknowledgments and that is our former ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Fowler. Some of us have read some of the speeches that he gave at the UN and internationally. They were quite impassioned ones at times, and that is something we normally do not see from an ambassador, one of our international representatives. He felt strongly about the issue and was able to communicate that inside Canada but more important to the international community. His work needs to be acknowledged and commended.

The use of the certification process that has been established under the Kimberley round of negotiations is one that would benefit the diamond mining industry in Canada. We have never had a problem. Our diamonds have never been used to purchase armaments or in illicit trafficking. However, it will acknowledge that fact. It would allow Canadian diamonds to move forward as part of the international market. Our share of that market is growing and this process would only lend more credence to our industry and would allow us to expand even further. That has been a particular advantage to people from the western territories and would give them a much needed shot in the arm.

I want to address one of the weaknesses not so much in this legislation but in the process internationally. We must be clear that Bill C-14 is an internal law to regulate almost 100%, the use and trade of diamonds in this country. It only, in a rather small way, deals with the importing of diamonds; there are some provisions in the bill for that. What it does not deal with, and was not intended to but it will be the next step in the Kimberley process, is the major weakness that still exists at the international level, that is, an effective meaningful monitoring of the industry at the international level.

To date there are several countries in the world who are suspect in the trade of diamonds. They are shipping significant amounts of diamonds into the international market; however they have no mining industry for diamonds in their home country.

This process as it stands now does not deal with those countries, with how to monitor that and, more important, with how to enforce the Kimberley process to avoid this trade that has caused so much pain and suffering, particularly in Africa. That still needs to be done. I think the member for Nepean--Carleton is well aware of this, as is the foreign affairs department and a number of people at the international level.

The bill does have a provision for review in three years and then within six months of that a report to the House. Hopefully the government will not wait for that entire period of time to set in place our own monitoring to deal with other countries around the globe that are concerned about this, to deal with the NGOs like Partnership Africa Canada, Global Witness and Amnesty International, which are all monitoring this on their own at this point. Hopefully it will get information from them and perhaps move ahead with an international monitoring process that we would all contribute to and use and then have some type of enforcement mechanism against those countries that continue to trade in illicit diamonds.

I will conclude by again acknowledging the work of the member for Nepean--Carleton and those NGOs that have done so much to move this up the political agenda and get this law before us at this time.