The Environment  The government has kept Canadians in the dark with respect to how good its intentions are in putting forward the Kyoto accord. It has sent up a trial balloon on a carbon tax. Would the Minister of Natural Resources please tell the House and Canadians today what it is that he has planned for the Kyoto accord, how he will pick the pockets of Canadians and what kind of taxes will be involved in that pocket picking?

The Environment  If such a meeting is convened, would the agenda include the discussion of any federal proposal for a carbon tax?

The Environment  They are meeting at the end of May. Once again the hon. member knows this government has never looked at a carbon tax in the past, nor will it now or in the future. He should not continue to raise this issue again and again. He should look at what work has been done. He should congratulate and commend the good work that has been done by the federal and provincial governments jointly on a very important issue for Canadians.

Supply  If so, how does it plan to do it? Is a carbon tax at the pumps one of the suggestions that his party is backing?

Taxation  Speaker, since the question involves the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Justice, perhaps I can answer. When the Reform Party has nothing to talk about it dreams about the carbon tax. There is no budget planned for between now and February and there is no plan for a carbon tax, but I am informing the Speaker that whenever the Reform Party is short of questions it will ask about the carbon tax.

Resource Industries  We must make decisions about tradeoffs that we will have to make. The worst way to handle this would be for a government on high to come down with a carbon tax or with some kind of oppressive decision against energy in order to try and force conservation on people. People will buy into it. People will co-operate. The people of Calgary are buying into wind energy.

Taxation  My question is fundamental. If the government is not interested in a carbon tax, why is a 25 member panel examining a fuel tax?

The Environment  Economic instruments in the area of the environment embrace a broad range of tools, including carbon taxes to which we are opposed. We are opposed to the use of carbon taxes. Let me take a second to explain why. We already use energy in our country for the purposes of taxation. We hear our American neighbours talk about carbon taxes and they compare them to Canada and forget one essential element.

Gasoline  The Liberal chair of the gas pricing committee, however, pegs the increase at a whopping 15 cents per litre. That is not even close. The sulphur tax is a carbon tax by any other name. When the Prime Minister assured Canadians last year that there would be no carbon tax, his backbenchers believed him. Canadians wanted to believe him. They have all been deceived again.

The Environment  If the government has ruled out a carbon tax, as the Prime Minister has said, if it has ruled out a fuel tax, what other taxes does it have in mind? The federal government has a moral and fiscal obligation to come clean on the subject with the public, and it has singularly failed to do so.

The Environment  Nobody talks about that, but for the last two months all we have heard is this carbon tax issue. They finally recognize that there is an environmental problem. Maybe some common sense person deep down in their ranks had written that there is environmental consciousness in the Reform ranks.

The Environment  All we have heard is that the minister will either throw Canadians out of their cars with a gas tax or out of their jobs with a carbon tax. Will the minister end the mystery today and table the government's proposal to meet the Kyoto emission targets?

The Environment  Further to what he said with respect the issue of taxation, all members of the government have made perfectly clear that we do not believe a broad based carbon tax would be an appropriate way to go. There are however many other other measures, including incentives whereby we can work together to achieve the Kyoto targets. These targets are very important for us to achieve.

The Environment  I said there would be no carbon tax. Should we have an income tax increase—

Speech From The Throne  What was mentioned in the throne speech were two things that could very much threaten agriculture and add more burden to our farmers. One was to implement the Kyoto protocol, the proposed carbon tax and the increased input costs that would result for farmers. The other was endangered species protection legislation, something everybody believes we should have, but the approach the new environment minister has taken is a heavy handed approach that will not work and does not include the co-operation of all people.