Petitions  The petitioners call upon Parliament to honour our legal commitment to the Kyoto treaty; to further pledge to reduce Canada's greenhouse emissions by 30% below the 1990 level by 2020 and to 80% by 2050, as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the State of California have done; to institute a revenue neutral carbon tax to increase prices of fossil fuels; and, finally, to enforce increasing fuel efficiency standards on all motor vehicles.

Finance committee  Ms. Taylor—you seem to be quite popular today—if you utter the phrase “carbon tax” around here, Pavlov's dogs go into full howl mode. Yet you can't continue to treat the atmosphere as a free waste disposal unit. We've come to that conclusion with respect to water, that somehow or other there has to be a cost attributed to what heretofore had been a free good.

Finance committee  Tax incentives for renewable energy are needed, combined with an end to subsidies for oil and gas. There should be carbon taxes on oil and gas production and consumption. Public transit within and between northern communities also needs federal support. Energy conservation through energy efficient buildings and renewable energy sources must also be encouraged through education and financial incentives.

The Budget  For us in western Canada that would be the national energy program too. That would be a carbon tax. There is no other word for it. On Thursday the minister gave me his verbal commitment that there will be no carbon tax. I say that here because I want that on the record. I could go on for a long time, as members know, but let me conclude by saying that there is no plan.

Budget Implementation Act, 2005  CO 2 is plant food, juice for photosynthesis. The government wanted to use the regulations under CEPA to put a carbon tax on companies releasing carbon. Mark my words, the government will bring that back.

The Environment  For example, the hon. member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, an aspirant to the Liberal leadership on the weekend, says that we need some form of carbon tax, I guess some kind of new national energy program. That is something this government will never do.

The Environment  Instead of focusing on domestic reductions, this plan encourages the purchase of billions of offshore credits that will not improve our environment. Finally, it paves the way for a backdoor carbon tax by using CEPA, which is a toxic reductions bill. All of this betrays the Liberals' ignorance of the economic and energy realities of our country. Canada's emissions reduction targets under the Kyoto accord are clearly unattainable and the Liberal government's plan comes nowhere close to reaching them.

Budget Implementation Act, 2005  They are going to give us a win. Where does it appear? They are going to administer this new plan using CEPA, a carbon tax on Canadians. That is what it will be. That is how it will end up. It is a blank cheque for them so now they have snuck it into that plan out of the budget. In conclusion, we do have a better way.

Budget Implementation Act, 2005  One of the things that some members of the opposition have suggested, particularly in the official opposition, is that somehow this is a carbon tax. There is no carbon, climate or green tax. There is no tax at all. In fact, if we were to have a tax we would have to bring in new legislation. As the parliamentary secretary I want to point out to all hon. members in the House that they can put that rumour aside.

The Environment  Speaker, the following is what three senior Liberals are saying about the environment minister's hidden Kyoto agenda to use CEPA to push a carbon tax. The environment committee chair said, “CO 2 is not a toxic risk to human health”. The finance chair said that he had a hard time understanding taking CO 2 out of the atmosphere.

The Environment  Is it the environment committee chair, the finance committee chair, the former environment minister, all of whom are opposed to using CEPA as a back door to push a carbon tax, or is it the present environment minister?

The Environment  Speaker, even a student in economics 101 would know the difference between a regulatory regime and a carbon tax. I am sure it is only because they want to fight Kyoto at any cost that they are so blinded and using this kind of argument. I want to quote what the Canadian Fertilizer Institute had to say.

Committees of the House  The government should not take an environment bill and sneak it in the back door under a budget and ultimately plan it to be a carbon tax. That is just not advisable. If the government had someone who understood the issue it would certainly have given that advice. I asked Mr. Murray a few questions. I asked him what he thought about mapping our aquifers and how important he thought that was.

Forestry  With the kind of technology we have in Canada, through either a tax credit program or some kind of encouragement, instead of shipping the money for these crazy carbon tax credits, why do we not use that money to help Canadian industry develop an alternative for countries like China or India so that they will no longer be dependent on burning fossil fuels and creating the CO 2 ?

Supply  Then industries could produce so many tonnes of CO 2 and if they went above the cap they would either have to reduce the emissions or buy credits to cover them. Carbon caps amount to a carbon tax. We can couch it in all kinds of terms and use smoke, mirrors and rhetoric to hide it. However it is a carbon tax by another name. In 1997 the former natural resources minister promised no unreasonable share of the burden would be placed on any region or sector in Canada.