John Baird

[The Environment, October 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to correct my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. That is not the case at all. Our program will ensure an absolute reduction of greenhouse gases. In the 10 long years that the member was critic for his party, there was a 33% increase in greenhouse gases.

This government is getting a lot more done than the previous government did.

[The Environment, June 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very interesting to note that the Liberals are doing everything they possibly can rather than talk about their record. Why do they not quote Professor Mark Jaccard?

Professor Mark Jaccard last year wrote a report on the Liberals' record on climate change. The report was entitled, “Burning Our Money to Warm the Planet: Canada's Ineffective Efforts to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions”. It said that the leader of the Liberal Party's promise would lead to an increase of 50% in harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

We will cut greenhouse gas emissions by an absolute 20%. That is our commitment. That is our promise.

[The Environment, June 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have never seen so many Liberal and Bloc members stand up for corporate polluters

I would like to thank my colleague for his good question. Our super government has a real plan to reduce greenhouse gases and fight air pollution. It is scandalous to find that the Bloc Québécois and the NDP are ready to back a major industrial polluter.

If the Bloc wants to stand behind big polluters, that is its choice. Our choice is to protect our environment and to regulate against these industrial polluters.

[The Environment, June 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we strongly believe that absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are essential to combat global warming. That is why a central part of our plan is to see an absolute 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

We are coming forward with regulation on industry and we are going to take a very different approach than the talk of the Liberal Party. We believe in the fundamental principle that the polluter pays, something that the member's own leader abandoned when he was the minister of the environment.

[The Environment, June 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I read with great interest the reports produced by Marc Jaccard on climate change.

Here is what he had to say about the former Liberal government: “For 15 years” Liberal governments “have layered one greenhouse gas policy over another”, including the 1995 action plan, action plan 2000, the 2002 climate change plan, and project green. He said of the Liberal plan that “it consisted primarily of offering information and subsidies to encourage voluntary reductions in emissions”.

That is the member of Parliament who went right across this country saying that his own leader did not get the job done.

[Government Policies, June 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, something that is divided is the Liberal Party. We can see it in the recent book by Toronto Star journalist Linda Diebel, who talks about the ongoing divisions in the Liberal Party.

Let me tell members what we are going to do. We actually are going to do something remarkable in this country. We have a plan for an absolute 20% reduction in harmful greenhouse gas emissions. We have a plan to help clean up our Great Lakes. We are taking initiatives to clean up Lake Simcoe and Lake Winnipeg.

This government is getting things done when it comes to the environment, something the Liberals opposite failed to do for 13 long years.

[Government Policies, June 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we did not see a lot of truth in the Liberal leadership, particularly in the televised debates. We did not hear truth from the member for York Centre. We did not hear truth from the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore.

We have heard a lot of truth from people like Sheila Copps and people like Christine Stewart and other former Liberal environment ministers. Eddie Goldenberg said the truth, but no more have we heard the truth than what we heard yesterday from the Ottawa Sun, where one of the members opposite said, “We deserved to lose in the last election because of our arrogance”.

Do members know who said that? The member for Bourassa.

[Natural Resources, June 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Premier of Manitoba, Gary Doer, and this government learned about the decision by the government of North Dakota to turn this tap on shortly after it happened. We have been working incredibly closely with Premier Doer. We have raised this at the highest levels, whether it is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, whether it is the Prime Minister, or whether it is me.

We are tremendously concerned about this. We are concerned about the sensitive ecosystem in the Red River and Lake Winnipeg. We will continue to work in partnership with the Manitoba government to try to get this issue turned around.

[The Budget, June 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have sat here day after day while a few members opposite have said that we should listen to their premier.

I want to implore the Liberal caucus to listen to my premier. Here is what my premier had to say, “I hope the people in the Senate, the Liberals, are going to pass the budget because the people of Ontario are counting on that”.

I beg and implore the Liberals opposite to adopt a senator, to go down the hall and lobby them on behalf of my premier, Dalton McGuinty.

[The Environment, June 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there has been any effort to ensure that we do not have a good debate on the environment. What we did see in this past two weeks is the Prime Minister working with G-8 leaders and getting praise for the work they accomplished from the Secretary-General of the United Nations and from Inuit leaders here in Canada.

Canada, for the first time, showed up at the G-8 summit with a plan to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are harmful and are having a terrible effect on the government and I hope the member for Ottawa South will listen to his kid brother and pass the budget right away.