Environment committee  In the place of this, we are seeking in this bill to establish national targets based upon scientific measures in order to mitigate the effects to our society and our environment of dangerous climate change. I've not yet heard testimony today saying that the attempt through this bill is a deed that Parliament shouldn't perform. I get a suggestion--there are very different tones and approaches to how this bill is being considered--of the question of whether the witnesses were seeking ways to improve this bill or whether witnesses were seeking ways to prove themselves right and defeat this bill on constitutional grounds.

Environment committee  The biggest test the court uses in measuring whether something is single is whether or not the failure of one province to address that subject effectively would impact other provinces or other countries. Certainly in the case of climate change, the failure of any province to address a subject effectively would have far-reaching effects on other provinces and other nations. We could say a lot more, but let me jump to what is the more important point, which is what the things are that one might think of doing that would move this up the scale of constitutionality and make it likely to be upheld.

Environment committee  Turmel is the secretary of that section, and as a lawyer from Montreal, he specializes in energy and climate change law. You have received a copy of our letter analyzing the bill, and I'm going to ask Mr. Turmel to address that in greater detail.

Environment committee  Bill C-377 is meant to be a stand-alone law and is silent on any relationship that might exist between it and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, relating to substances causing or contributing to climate change. However, whereas CEPA 1999 lists in schedule 1 of that act--that list is known as “List of toxic substances”--the six greenhouse gases that are identified in the Kyoto Protocol, Bill C-377 is silent on which greenhouse gases it might apply to and how these substances are to be characterized.

Environment committee  Pollard made earlier on, she talked about the policy lag. I think the experience we've had in the U.K. has been that we came out with our climate change program originally in 2000, reviewed it in 2006, and found that the emissions reductions we had predicted in 2000 weren't actually being realized to the extent that we hoped they would be, and therefore introduced new measures in 2006, again to help us towards our 2010 targets.

Environment committee  Why was that so critical? Why was it not important to get it completely right, before you moved at all, on climate change?

Environment committee  Why has that not inhibited you from moving forward? Why do you not see it as a competitive disadvantage to do things about climate change, as our government has proposed at even the most recent talks in Bali?

Environment committee  Are these links that exist between certain American states and certain Canadian provinces — I am thinking of Quebec and of Ontario — viable, if both federal administrations are deciding to keep their distance as far as the fight against climate change is concerned?

Environment committee  But it's based on voluntary targets they have taken on that may or may not be deep enough to actually deal with the problem of climate change. Rather than extending those kinds of voluntary targets, we really think you need more ambitious national targets. Possibly some of the infrastructure that has been set up is something we should take a hard look at when we create an emissions trading program at the federal level here.

Environment committee  Last week we had witnesses here on a science panel, including members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who argued to us that we need to stabilize emissions worldwide by 2015. What's your view on when we need to stabilize emissions and how urgent this is?

Environment committee  I guess what I'm saying is that we don't have a complete road map. We do know the direction. We want to win the war on climate change just as much as we wanted to win the war last time. Don't we really need a plan that covers the whole economy and all parts of the emissions spectrum but that also is far more ambitious, far more urgent than anything we've seen to date?

Environment committee  What assessment has your organization or any business organization in Canada done on the economic impacts to the Canadian economy of any degree rise in temperature due to climate change?

Environment committee  Just to quickly establish some finer points on this, Mr. d'Aquino, I will assume that you believe in the science of climate change.

Environment committee  I get no sense from any of the panellists that there is a dispute about the science. Anyone can disagree about the science of climate change if they wish. I would then ask if anyone disagrees with the notion of setting our national targets based upon that science—I'm seeing no disagreement—or do we choose to use another metric, another measure, by which we set national targets, a measure not based on science?

Environment committee  I would simply say that the targets we're talking about are global targets. We don't deal with climate change successfully unless we meet global targets.