Clean Air Act

March 07, 2008

Mr. Speaker,

The Motion presented by the Member from Toronto -Danforth calls into question this House’s confidence in this Government on the environment.

Mr. Speaker, let me reassure this House that this Government is committed to delivering real solutions to protect the health of Canadians and the environment.

Climate change is one of the biggest threats to our environment, to our people and to our future. This reality is clearer today than it has ever been. And it is a threat that this Government takes very seriously.

Here at home, unlike previous governments, we have taken action, real action.

With our Turning the Corner Plan, we will, for the first time ever, require industry to reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution by implementing the toughest mandatory targets in Canadian history.

The end result is that our national strategy will reduce in absolute terms Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and 60 to 70 percent by 2050.
And what is significant to note, is that our plan is not only effective, it is responsible. Our plan marks a new era in Canadian environmental responsibility.

Our approach takes our economy in account.

It goes to great lengths to protect the standard of living Canadians have come to expect. And it goes beyond any other plan to ensure it takes real action to protect our environment.

Our government also recognizes that Canada’s North is one of the areas that will most quickly bear the burden of climate change.

We have committed more than $80 million for science research on adaptation that will help the North deal with climate change.

And this will be of great help to the rest of the world in understanding how to adjust to the new reality we are all facing.

But, it has been an uphill battle to move Canada forward. In the two years of Government, we have had our work cut out for us…

13 years of complacency and mismanagement by successive Liberal governments crippled our environment and it crippled our international environmental standing.

We inherited a huge mess. We had inherited a landscape of patchwork environmental programs that did little to minimize Canada’s carbon foot print in the world. In fact, by the end of 2005, emissions had climbed to 33% above the target levels set in the Kyoto protocol.

So one of the toughest issues we have faced is how to meet the 2012 targets given the situation Canada was in. Had the previous government not left us in such a precarious position, perhaps we would have been able to do that by the 2012 deadline.

But we have had to deal with 10 years that had been lost due to inaction. And Mr. Speaker, this fact has already been debated repeatedly in this House.

In fact our position on this subject was clearly stated in the Speech from the Throne and that speech was put before this House for a vote.

And I'm glad to see the Liberal Party supports our environmental policies!
They supported the Speech from the Throne, the mini-budget, and now this budget, all which contain great things to clean up the environment. It is clear that the Liberals support our Government’s responsible and realistic approach to environmental protection.

I would also like to address the issue of Bill C30, which is also mentioned in today’s motion.

The Conservative Party worked in good faith on the C-30 committee to try and improve the Clean Air Act. I know that for a fact, because I sat on that Committee.

Our Government is committed to improving the environment on behalf of all Canadians. This includes bringing forward concrete and realistic industrial targets to reduce greenhouse gases and improve the air we breathe.

In Committee last year, the government supported amendments brought forward by every party to improve and strengthen Canada’s Clean Air Act and brought forward others of our own.

Sadly, in most cases, we were opposed by the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois.

We brought forward a reasonable amendment to achieve tough vehicle emission standards based on the North American market – standards that would be supported by labour.

What did the Liberals do? – they voted it down and knowingly imposed standards that would have been impossible for industry to meet without shutting down the Ontario auto industry.

The Liberals also played politics by writing Kyoto targets into the bill – with no conceivable plan to achieve them.

It was hard for Canadians to believe the Liberals had a plan to achieve Kyoto five years ago – today, it’s even harder. The Liberal member from Halton said so, and I quote, "I heard the Prime Minister yesterday in a speech say, in one breath, that action must be taken, while in the next he added that reaching Kyoto targets would be "fantasy." Is he right? Technically, yeah. We're so far behind now that catch-up is impossible, without shutting the country down."

Even when the Liberals were in government, it was easy for them to offer the moon, with no hope of ever delivering it.

Now that they are no longer in government, clearly it’s even easier for the Liberals to tell Canadians they want to achieve Kyoto emission targets.

The Opposition also gutted the Clean Air part of C-30. We told them – don’t mess with the health of Canadian children, the elderly and those suffering from respiratory illness.

And what did they do? They gutted those important sections of the Clean Air Act.

What did Canadians lose in the rush to gut the Clean Air Act, led by the Liberals and their environment critic, the Member from Ottawa South?

Canadians should know that the opposition removed many new regulations that would have helped to better protect the health of Canadians and their environment.

We Lost:

• mandatory national air quality standards
• mandatory annual public reporting on air quality and actions to achieve national air quality standards
• increased research and monitoring of air pollutants
• tougher enforcement rules for compliance to air quality regulations
  

The government put forward 15 pages of concise new regulation making authority to protect Canadians health and their environment, and the opposition just ripped them up.

What did the Liberals add instead?

Inserted clauses to delay action by requiring 6 months of consultation around a new investment Bank before we could move forward on tough new regulations for industry.

The Liberals inserted complex and unworkable requirements that made it harder not easier for the government to act on air pollution

Even worse, the Liberals inserted a clause that would have allowed political interference into air quality standards – the Liberals wanted the Minister of the Environment to exempt “economically depressed areas” from air quality standards for three years!

Would this allow the Liberals to buy votes by exempting certain Liberal-rich voting areas of the country from air quality regulations, while punishing those areas that are not Liberal?

The Liberals imposed the Liberal Leader’s Carbon Tax plan into the bill, a plan that will lead to ZERO greenhouse gas reductions.

The health and prosperity of Canadians’ depends on the quality of the air we breathe and the integrity of our environment. It’s very clear that only the government members were prepared to put the environment before politics.

But all is not lost. Our government committed to bringing back the parts of C-30 that had all party support.

We started with our bio-fuels legislation which has now passed through committee; and there will be more to come.

Mr. Speaker, unlike the Liberals, this Government is serious about tackling climate change and protecting the air we breathe.

Our actions speak louder than our words, and we will take no lessons from a Liberal Party that just didn’t get it done.

Thank you.