Rona Ambrose

[Points of Order, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member raised this. What I said was that we said we would help clean up the Saint John harbour and we are.

As Minister of the Environment, I can assure him one of the things I was most concerned about when I went to take what the locals call the “toilet tour” and saw the 65 raw sewage outlets pouring into Saint John harbour was the fact that when I returned to my department I found out that there was never a plan put in place by the former Liberal government. No plan was ever put in place, no money allocated, no plan designed to clean up the harbour.

[The Environment, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, first, that was the lowest blow he has ever dealt me.

Let me go further and say that after 13 years of the agriculture industry and industry looking for a biofuel strategy, it took four months for this government to get every province and territory at the table to set a national target. We are not afraid to set targets and when we set targets we will meet them.

[The Environment, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about commitments, and let us talk about commitments that this government has already kept in the first four months in office. We said we would help clean up the polluted harbour in Saint John and we have. We said we would clean up the polluted drinking water for first nations and the Minister of Indian Affairs took action and is fixing the problem.

We said we would develop a biofuel strategy and we are. We said we would invest in clean public transportation and we went even farther and made the largest investment in clean public transportation in Canadian history, followed by the first ever incentive for two months of free public transit for people who take the bus.

We said we would clean up the air Canadians breathe and we passed two new pollution laws in four months.

[Kyoto Protocol, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said repeatedly and have said to the minister of the environment in Quebec, who agreed with me when we met, the largest cause of pollution and greenhouse gases in Quebec is transportation.

I am excited to see that the province of Quebec is moving to curb its pollution and greenhouse gases in that area. We have done it at the federal level by making the largest investment in clean public transportation in Canadian history, and a great deal of that money goes to Quebec. We also offered incentives to make sure Quebeckers get out of their cars and take public transportation.

[Kyoto Protocol, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, let us just examine where the Bloc has been on this issue. The Bloc members first said they were against any hike in gas prices. This week they are saying they are in favour of increasing the prices at the pumps because they want to see taxation on the oil and gas industry.

They do not know what they believe, but I can tell the House what we believe. I can assure the House that the federal government will not increase taxes on gasoline that will result in Canadians paying more at the pumps. We have no problem targeting those who pollute. We will not make commuters pay. We will make polluters pay.

[The Environment, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, let me remind the House, we said we would clean up the polluted harbour in Saint John and we have. We said we would clean up the polluted drinking water on first nations and the Minister of Indian Affairs took action and is fixing the problem.

We said we would develop a biofuel strategy and we are. We said we would invest in clean public transportation and we went even further by making the largest investment in clean public transportation in Canadian history, followed by the first ever incentive for two months of free public transit for people who take the bus.

We said we would clean up the air Canadians breathe and we have reduced--

[The Environment, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, more blah, blah, blah.

We said we would help clean up the polluted harbour in Saint John's and we have. We said would clean up the polluted drinking water of first nations and the--

[The Environment, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, the Liberals failed Canadians when it came to the environment. They are all show and no action. They chose rhetoric over performance. They left us with a legacy of failure.

Like the aspiring Liberal leadership candidate from Etobicoke—Lakeshore said this past weekend about his party, “We've done all the blah blah blah on the environment”.

Canadians can rest assured that the government is not afraid to act.

[The Environment, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, again the member is all talk and no action, by working with the Liberals and the Bloc. He continues to do that.

The Liberals have put the health of Canadians at risk for years. Mercury causes blindness and infant death, and the Liberals sat on the issue of banning mercury for years.

While the Liberals failed and the NDP supported their failure, our new government has brought in a new pollution law, within four months, that will protect the health of Canadians. We are banning 10 tonnes of mercury out of the environment in the next 10 years.

That is protecting the health of Canadians.

[The Environment, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his apparently 89th question on this issue, but he is still going down the wrong path. As usual, his alarmist and negative tone is only adding, unfortunately, to the good work that our environment committee is trying to do.

What the member is doing is disrupting the opportunity of the government and environmental groups to amend the most important piece of Canadian environmental legislation at the environment committee by working with the Bloc and the Liberals to disrupt any good amendments coming forward to ban pollution.