Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Victoria.
What a remarkable turn of events. Come election time or in watching the House proceedings, Canadians often find themselves trying to distinguish between the various parties and their positions on key issues. Sometimes voters will lament that there is very little distinction these days, that political parties merely clamour for attention, that they are all in the middle and there is no difference between them.
Today we have the opportunity to speak about climate change, and I am very glad the member from the Bloc was able to bring the issue forward. I know the government of the day would not like to speak about it and the official opposition would prefer not to do so based upon its record. The government has various other reasons, but mostly because it does not have a plan.
We have the chance for the entire opposition day to discuss what most in the industry and most within environmental groups cite as the single greatest challenge and threat faced by us, our communities and our economy. We must speak primarily of the international commitments that Canada has made.
The government has talked vaguely but somewhat pointedly about the need to continue on and honour the commitments made by previous governments. The government has obviously thrown that away with respect to Kyoto and also now with respect to Kelowna, which is sad. Over many decades and sometimes not deservedly, Canada has earned itself a reputation as a country that engages the international community in a positive way, whether it was through former prime minister Pearson's work in the UN or eventually through such treaties as Kyoto.
The Liberal Party of Canada as early as 1993 made commitments, Liberal promises, if you will, to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but once in power, the Liberals quickly went about doing the absolute opposite. For many who do not watch the Liberal Party closely, it might come as a surprise that someone could campaign year in and year out in election after election to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and then do the opposite. Anyone who works in the child care industry will know that is just endemic of a party only looking to seek power. Emissions rose 25 % to 30%.
It is important to recognize that investment is the critical issue when it comes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It is like someone starting to save for retirement at age 60. I know the Speaker is a much wiser man than that and would never recommend that to any of his constituents or friends. It is an extremely expensive way to go about making the investment that is needed for those retirement years.
Successive Liberal governments have not made the investments to improve the productivity and efficiency of the Canadian economy and to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that it promised to do. There was a deathbed conversion as the Liberals were starting to sink in the polls and a plan finally came forward.
I can remember day after day the then minister of the environment saying that they had a plan, that it was coming, to just hang on and have a little patience. It took years, from the signing of it in 1997 to 2005, and what did we end up with? A discussion paper about climate change. There were no targets, no timelines and no strategy whatsoever. It was a vague and wandering report on the need to do something eventually and then the burden of making most of the reductions was put on the consumers rather than the large final emitters who made enough of a stink in the lobbies of this place to push them back. It was voluntary, nothing restrictive.
When the federal government along with Ontario was handing over some $400 million to General Motors, we said that the investment should be contingent on the automaker actually making more efficient cars. Here was an opportunity for public investment for the public good. The deal was signed, but there was nothing in it.
There was another moment when the previous government was faced with the opportunity to simply follow in the wake of California, New York and other progressive states in the United States to demand mandatory fuel efficiency and emissions requirements in cars. Instead, we got something voluntary, toothless and ineffective, a continuation of that pattern.
The Conservatives are very interesting. It appears they have finally come to what most of the world has known for many years, that climate change caused by humans is in fact happening and it is in fact a threat to both our society and economy. For more than a year the Conservatives have stood in this place saying that they have a plan and not to worry. The reason the Conservatives would not release it, as the NDP did for discussion and debate in this place, as we were meant to do, is because, and I quote: “the other parties would steal our good ideas”. How noble.
The Conservatives have now arrived in government. Here is the great moment and the most effective tool that any government has is the release of the budget. It is the direction of the use of the tax system to direct Canada's economy, the use of the $180 billion plus every year that is collected on behalf of Canadians. It is the time for the government to do well for Canadians.
It is a perfect opportunity to enact this plan that is somewhere out there, but never been seen or heard from other than in this place. However, there is nothing. There is less than nothing. It is a stepping backwards in time, as if climate change was not a growing problem for Canadians, as if it was not a pressing problem for the entire world. Canadians have received nothing.
For a government that likes to speak of its business interests I say this to the government. Last year, when the committee studied Kyoto and the impacts of climate change on our economy, business group after business group came before the committee and said that making the efficiency requirements across the board will make Canada a more productive and competitive economy, particularly when looking to our partner south of the border. We look at Washington and President Bush in power, who has more interest in Texas than in trees, and there were so few moves on climate change.
There are groups such as the Mining Association of Canada, one of the large final emitters that the previous government would do nothing with and the present government will do less with, which came to us and said, “lo and behold, we thought Canada was serious when it signed on to this agreement in 1997. We thought the government was serious, so we went about making some of those reductions that we thought would eventually be enacted in law and nothing happened”. Well and good, it took the entire burden on and, lo and behold, it became more productive, more efficient and more profitable.
Certainly, to invest in our economy, to make it a more intelligent, efficient and greener economy, and to create the jobs that the NDP talked about in its plan released more than a year ago seemed to be the wise environmental and economic choice. Now we have members in the House suggesting that to make environmental decisions is to threaten and hurt our economy.
What do we have? We have a Conservative Party that says it is always wrong to associate money without actually having a spending plan in place. The government's answer in the budget to climate change and the growing and pressing need from Canadians is to assign $2 billion with no plan in place. This is bad fiscal management. It allows the industry and Canadians no certainty as to what they can invest in.
There is no greater example for now. We know there are other cuts coming and the government has to make a number of them for all their little populous tax plans. The EnerGuide program has been cut. We have provinces and homeowners wondering what the plans will be. What should homeowners do about the retrofit that they wanted to do to lower the cost and the burden for their household with the dramatically increasing cost of energy? What should they do? Should they press ahead? Homeowners say that they cannot afford it. There are seniors on fixed incomes and they simply cannot afford it. The government was playing a small role. The NDP suggested that the government play a larger role. Instead, the government ripped the whole program out and left people high and dry.
The NDP is calling upon the government, and within the context of this debate we hope to be joined by all members in the House, that this small incentive that had been put in place to encourage wind power in this country which has been receiving some strong accolades from both Ontario and Quebec and other places needs to be set. Wind power was not mentioned in the budget and it needs to be there.
The NDP fully costed its plan. We looked through all the costs, the facts and figures. The party brought in economists and spent the money and time to ensure that it added up. The government was unwilling to do so. We wanted sound investments with good return on the public dollar.
I have great sympathy and empathy for the current environment minister because she now has to go to Bonn, Germany and meet with our international partners, and defend the one government in the world that is making reductions when it comes to environmental spending.
She has to defend this approach, somehow chairing the process that is meant to accelerate and push. We know Kyoto and climate change plans are not enough right now. We have a government in power in Canada, however temporarily, that does not fundamentally believe in making those investments. It has said as much by not producing a plan when it promised it for more than a year by misleading Canadians, and presenting a budget that from all walks of the environmental circle was an absolute disaster.
The NDP will continue to push for progressive and intelligent use of our tax dollars, and the fiscal framework that we have to finally achieve the economy that so many Canadians are demanding: a greener and more sustainable one.
