Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here today as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment and to participate in this debate.
I begin by thanking the environment minister for the hard work and the great achievements he has made. The government, under the leadership of our Prime Minister and our minister, is making headway. It is a shock to the former Liberal government that progress can be made on this file. It is ironic and hypocritical that the Liberals present this motion to us today.
The motion presented by the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville calls into question the government's commitment to the environment. That contention is just plain wrong. The government is committed to delivering real solutions to protect the health of Canadians and the environment. The government is about action and real change.
Canada's new government has said before that it accepts the science of climate change. We understand that it is real and we know that it is here. That is why we are taking real action to preserve our environment and to protect the health of every Canadian.
Canadians demand leadership from the federal government, and that is precisely what they are getting now.
We understand that to make real progress on the environment, we need real cooperation on all fronts, between all parties and all stakeholders. If the member opposite really cared about the environment the way he says he does, he would be looking to cooperate. Instead, we are mired in the minutiae when we should be pushing the agenda forward, making a real difference for Canadians.
The motion brought forward today says, “the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is available immediately to launch the necessary action” Canadians covet on the environment. I can assure members it simply does not do enough.
The fact is that Bill C-30, Canada's clean air act, is a necessary addition to CEPA. It would set in motion Canada's first comprehensive, integrated approach to tackle air pollution and greenhouse gases. In doing so, it would deliver better air quality for Canadians and it would take substantial aim at the issue of climate change.
Our proposed clean air act would create a new clean air part in CEPA that would provide a tailor-made approach to enable integrated regulatory approaches for the reduction of indoor and outdoor air pollutants as well as reduce greenhouse gases.
The proposed amendments to CEPA will require the ministers of environment and health to establish national air quality standards and to monitor and report annually on the status and effectiveness of the actions taken by all governments in Canada to improve air quality.
Finally, proposed amendments to CEPA will also strengthen the government's ability to enter into equivalency agreements with the provinces and their territories. This will prevent regulatory duplication by more clearly allowing for recognition of provincial permitting and licensing regimes for industrial facilities as equivalent, in effect, to federal regulations so long as they meet the same environmental objectives.
The hon. member's motion states, “our government must reconfirm Canada's commitment to honour the principles and targets of the Kyoto Protocol in their entirety”. Had the previous government not left us in such a precarious position, perhaps we would have been able to do that by the 2012 deadline.
The debate is not on the merits of Kyoto; it is on the time required to achieve the objectives. The government must deal with the fact that we have lost 10 years due to Liberal inaction.
When Canada's new government took office a year ago, it quickly became apparent that our Kyoto commitments would be impossible to meet. Because of the previous government's inaction, today Canada stands at 35% above the Kyoto target, with only five years remaining to meet the imposed deadline.
Some critics, including the member opposite, have said that we should simply push harder and make our mission to meet the 2012 reduction targets, no matter what the cost. They are wrong.
Yes, we must act to put Canada on the path to achieving sustainable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, but in reality, years of inaction between 1997 and 2006 have left Canada in no position to do so.
Canadians can be certain, however, that this government is committed to reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but we intend to do so prudently while promoting sustainable economic growth and prosperity.
Canada's new government knows that Canadians are concerned about poor air quality so we have made it a priority to clean the air that Canadians breathe. By introducing Bill C-30 we have put forward a number of tools that will help Canada address its air quality by reducing greenhouse gas and smog emissions simultaneously.
Soon we will announce aggressive short term targets for industrial greenhouse gas emissions with sector by sector regulations, all coming into effect between 2010 and 2015. This is the first time that Canada has regulated reductions in both air pollution and greenhouse gases. Internationally, we are the first country to regulate all sectors in an integrated and cohesive manner.
Using existing authorities, we will regulate emissions from all major industrial sources: electricity generation, smelters, iron and steel, cement, forest products, chemical production, and oil and gas.
By giving clear direction we are providing industry with the incentive and regulatory certainty it needs to invest in greener technologies and to deliver early reductions in their emissions. While we have been listening to industrial concerns, we have also made it clear that the days for soft rhetoric are over. Making progress on the environment requires hard work and tough decisions.
We realize that the best way to reduce our global emissions is to address the issue here at home. Using taxpayer money to buy credits halfway around the world is not a solution. It is barely even a band-aid. So we have taken a number of steps and we have taken a number of approaches to be a constructive player in the international efforts to address climate change. We know it can be done because we have done it before.
In 1987 the Conservative government was instrumental in pushing for the Montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. Twenty years later, with 191 nations now signed on to the treaty, atmospheric CFC concentrations have either levelled off or decreased considerably. The Montreal protocol is widely viewed as an example of exceptional international cooperation. Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has even called it perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date.
Our challenge has broadened since then. So too has our commitment.
That is why in addition to the proposed clean air act, we introduced a clean air regulatory agenda which supports effective regulations on both indoor and outdoor pollutants as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
Under this agenda, we are providing stronger energy efficiency standards on consumer and commercial products. We have already established new emission standards for on-road motorcycles. We are paving the way for setting mandatory fuel consumption standards on vehicles that Canadians buy. We will also regulate 5% average renewable content in gasoline and 2% average renewable content in diesel fuel and heating oil.
To help individual Canadians and communities do their part, we have already taken action by providing a tax credit to those who use public transit and by increasing the funding for public transit infrastructure.
We also announced a number of other initiatives that will help to reduce emissions at home, at work and even in our communities.
In the last two weeks alone, we invested $230 million in the research, development and demonstration of clean energy technologies. We announced more than $1.5 billion in funding for the ecoenergy renewable initiative to boost Canada's renewable energy supplies. We unveiled our plan to invest approximately $300 million over four years to promote smarter energy use and to reduce the amount of harmful emissions that affect the health of Canadians. Without a doubt, action by our government on the environment has been driven by our goal to protect the health of Canadians.
We took action to help ensure that mercury switches are dealt with safely before cars are recycled and scrapped. This alone will prevent the release of as much as 10 tonnes of mercury being admitted into the atmosphere.
It is obvious that Canada's new government is committed to the environment by our action alone. It is clear that we are taking concrete action to address climate change. Quite frankly, by any standard of comparison we are moving quickly with action and not the hollow promises that we saw from the former government.
We have a plan, we intend to stick to it and we will achieve the plan.
