House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 51% of the vote.
The Environment June 15th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, not only are the Conservatives abandoning our environmental commitments, they are also abandoning the provinces.
Without the help of the Conservatives, the Quebec government today announced its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and we have learned that the Conservative government is not discussing anything with Quebec.
Why not officially communicate with Quebec and the other provinces? Can the minister explain why this government is abandoning Quebeckers?
Mr. Speaker, what an opportunity to address again the untruth in the reading of numbers. The Deputy Minister of Natural Resources has shown it to be otherwise. This 50¢ on the $1 in audits has been shown to be 12¢ in fact.
For a party and a government that is looking for accountability, what other way than to do a proper assessment and audit on the way the government is spending money than to audit the very improvements that Canadians are making to their homes, to audit the very decisions that Canadians are making in order to lower their energy costs.
Part of this program was delivered with the unanimous consent of the House. The parliamentary secretary was with me when that passed in the House not six months ago. To turn around less than two months after the election and cancel a program for the lowest income and most vulnerable Canadians, a program that had received all-party support is atrocious. I would like to ask him why the switch, why so quick, and to get the numbers right.
Mr. Speaker, I was very much looking forward to the chance to address the House on what has become a critical issue for many Canadians and I hope a growing and critical issue for the government.
I hope a number of members will be offering their opinions on this issue, because the New Democrats have been extremely critical of the government's choice to cut the EnerGuide program. It is certainly not something the Conservatives talked about during the last campaign, unless one of the members here tonight will enlighten me as to why a party would make such a silly commitment during a campaign. Certainly it was not talked about prior to the cancellation of the program. There was no consultation with the key stakeholders. There was no engagement of Canadians in any sense of the word. It was simply a drastic cut to a program that by all measures was working very effectively for Canadians.
Two main components were in play. One was an EnerGuide program to help Canadians at large. It was a program that had been in place well before the turn of the millennium, but had increased exponentially once the government had started to make contributions to allow homeowners to engage in the process of lowering their energy costs.
There are a number of charts, and I will table them in the House, that show Canadians were engaging in the program in an exceptional way, a way in which we would hope Canadians would engage in other environment programs. This program was proving to be successful. It was making the investments that governments talk about but had finally begun to make.
Bill C-48, the so-called NDP budget, was a huge push forward in putting real dollars on the table so Canadians could actually lower their energy costs.
A lot of people will ask what the point of this was and did the program really meet the means and measures it was meant to. Certainly it did. The ratio was that for every dollar the government was putting in, Canadians, private individuals, were putting in a little more than $3.50 to make the adjustments and improvements to their homes that would lower their dependence on energy by almost 30% on average.
If we told average homeowners in Canada that there was a program that would offer a 30% reduction in their home heating bills, a lot of Canadians would say it was an excellent thing and that finally after so many years the government was doing something real and tangible that their families could appreciate. They could spend the money they saved in other places and thereby improve the value of their homes.
The NDP supported this. We supported it so much that when we had the government to the wall, we insisted that these types of programs happen. This program lowered our energy dependency. It lowered greenhouse gas emissions across the nation. It leveraged funds. It resulted in almost four tonnes of greenhouse gas reductions per house per year.
The minister's response to the question was absolutely atrocious. Rather than take up the issue and debate the merits of the program as to whether or not it was good, the minister chose instead to make personal attacks. This is becoming the norm in this place.
The minister did not attend Bonn in a serious way, other than to say that Canada was backing out of Kyoto. She ducked out on the smog summit and attended a blue chip luncheon instead. She has not attended the committee at this point, but there is a standing invitation. She ducked out of a meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, an opportunity to address Canadian mayors. They were so interested in this program that they passed a unanimous resolution at that forum calling on the government to reintroduce the program and for fundamentally not being responsible about climate change.
We are wondering when the minister will actually show up on this file, start to defend the interests that an environment minister is meant to do and bring this--
The Environment June 13th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the environment minister has had 89 opportunities to unveil her plan in this House, yet we have seen nothing. The minister has instead ignored environmental groups, deserted the cities and abandoned the provinces, who want to reach their targets.
The NDP presented solutions for greener homes and greener communities.
This country has ideas for cleaning up the environment, but when will it have a government willing to put them into action?
The Environment June 13th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment has had 88 chances in the House to come clean on her government's plan for climate change, 88 questions and still no answers.
So far the minister has skipped out on a smog summit, snubbed environmental groups, bailed on Canadian mayors and questioned the very science of climate change.
Does the minister even believe there is a climate change crisis or does she agree with the flat earth society of the Conservative Party that dinosaurs walked the earth with humans? Which is it, the world consensus on climate change or the Flintstone theory?
Committees of the House June 13th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I will avoid the questions of process and privilege that are going on and speak to the member's obvious commitment and passion for CBC Radio-Canada, its performance in this country and the role that it plays.
However, I have a fundamental question. As someone who represents a rural constituency and having watched, over the last 10 or 15 years, the complete erosion of services and the ability of rural communities to have their own news sources and for small town Canada to generate their own stories and reflect back to Canadians what is happening in their communities, that was under the Liberal government. Year after year we saw budget restraints that caused the CBC to hit a point where in one of the communities in my riding, Prince Rupert, for example, it went from a staff of 17 to a staff of 3 within a four year period.
The CBC was meant to be one of the crown jewels that the government supported year in and year out but when it got to the budget stage and the rubber hit the road, the member's government consistently undermined the ability of the CBC to do its essential job, which is to hold the fabric of this country together.
With this obvious passion, what did his government do when it was in power for all those long, dark years with respect to the CBC other than to consistently undermine its ability to perform its central function, which is to talk to Canadians about their realities and the realities outside of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal?
Rural Communities June 12th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, in the process of the renewal of northwestern British Columbia, we are learning important lessons on how diverse groups can come together with common interests to achieve incredible things. The good news is we are turning a corner in northwestern British Columbia.
Here are a few examples. First, the expansion of the Prince Rupert container port could only have happened because government, workers, community groups and investors took the time to work together for a common purpose.
A few months ago, the sinking of the Queen of the North, a tragedy on all accounts, also delivered incredible results with a unifying spirit from the people of Hartley Bay and Prince Rupert who went out to save all those passengers.
Most recently, there was the phenomenon called Hockeyville in which my community placed in the top five across this nation. It brought together groups that never sat together at tables before. I would like to offer my congratulations on behalf of the people of Smithers to Salmon River, Nova Scotia for being named Hockeyville Canada.
We all know that rural communities contribute in a vital way to Canada. It seems that we also have a lot to teach our urban cousins on how to get things done.
Criminal Code June 6th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I would like to give the member for Etobicoke North a moment to perhaps correct a comment he made in one of his speeches. It has been recently noted that the Liberal Party of Canada has started to look more like the Liberal Party of Toronto. We saw it no more than in both the leadership race and the former prime minister's announcement. In the middle of the campaign he announced, on the fly, that he would do something he knew was outright impossible. That was the banning of handguns.
The member made a comment at mid-point in his speech. He said that in rural Canada, a place that I represent proudly as a New Democrat, guns were a religion. Is this a registered religion or is there some kind of undertone within his speech to denigrate or put down Canadians who live in rural Canada?
A study was done last year in my region. Ten to one are the dollars that we send to Ottawa versus what we get back. This research was done by the Parliamentary Library. There is incredible support for his city and other cities across this region. I find it both offensive and absolutely wrong when I hear that guns are somehow a religion in a place I represent. This must be corrected with haste.
My primary question is with respect to first nations. A lot of commentary has been made about minimum mandatory sentencing and the impact it will have on the population in our prisons. Has the member seen anything from the government or from his own party to help alleviate the overburdening of prisons with first nations populations?
The Environment June 5th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the minister might be a little confused about how question period actually works.
I spent three days at the Bonn conference and for three days I was embarrassed by the position taken by Canada. It was a defeatist attitude and negated all our international commitments.
While the minister refused to show enough respect to Canada's mayors by simply engaging them in Montreal this weekend, she has to realize that the mayors and councillors of this country have committed, not only to the Kyoto targets, but to push beyond a position opposite to her government.
Since the minister does not believe in the necessity or even the possibility of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, will she simply provide the mayors with the funding to do it themselves?
The Environment June 5th, 2006
For two minutes, Mr. Speaker, what cheap pandering to the crowds.
This weekend, at a conference representing over 1,300 cities and communities from across Canada, the Minister of the Environment may have made her best speech yet by not showing up at all. It was bad enough that she only spent 24 hours at a two week international climate change conference on which she was the president, now we see that she could not even bother to take the two hour train trip to Montreal and address Canada's mayors.
Did she get cold feet from being protested, as she was in her home town of Edmonton two weeks ago, or did she simply have nothing to say on the topic? Which is it?