Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Perhaps I could continue addressing the merits of the bill.
I'd like to turn now to arguably the most obvious omission, which the NDP, by the way, have been made aware of repeatedly, publicly and privately, and they have since come to committee here this morning and have failed to address it. That is the whole question, Mr. Chair, of the fact that this bill does not embrace the use of the CDM and joint implementation and international credit mechanisms.
Mr. Chair, since 1992, when the UNFCCC was crafted, there's been a worldwide acknowledgement that the use of market mechanisms to achieve environmental outcomes was going to be essential going forward. That is why, in the Kyoto Protocol, for example, Canada and the United States pushed hardest to see the inclusion of a tradeable permit scheme in that protocol, because the United States in particular and we as a country drew on the experience in the United States under the U.S. Clean Air Act, where it became clear that achieving reductions of smog precursors, chiefly from electrical utility generation stations, could be done so using market mechanisms more efficiently and at reduced cost.
Under the U.S. Clean Air Act, the notion of a tradeable permit scheme was devised and went on to considerable success. From that point forward, the planet--all those countries that have signed on to UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol--agreed that we would use market mechanisms to achieve those reductions. We would also use market mechanisms, like the clean development mechanism and joint implementation, to address the crucial problem of technology transfer between wealthy and developing countries. We would facilitate that transfer of technology. We would see flows of investments, which have been described by the Prime Minister as a socialist plot to transfer wealth from the north to the south, betraying, as an economist, his fundamental ignorance of the use of market mechanisms to achieve environmental improvement.
But everyone has agreed that we would need the use of these mechanisms to move forward and to harness the power of the market and to create, as Deutsche Bank has suggested, by 2020, if we have a fully fledged international trading system up and running, a carbon exchange market, which they project will be larger than every stock exchange in the world in existence today combined.
So why the NDP have omitted any reference to market mechanisms, any reference to the use of international credits and international offsets, is a great mystery. What the bill then implies is that we're going to have to achieve in this country interim reductions and longer-term reductions, with which we take less issue, but the interim reductions, that is, entirely domestically. Here, the NDP is in very good company, because they share this position with the Reform/Conservatives.
The Reform/Conservatives will tell us that Canada is going to achieve “their” feeble targets without the use of international trading, international credits, or international offsets. In fact, Mr. Chair, we're the only country in Copenhagen right now--the only country--first of all, without a plan, and secondly, the only country that's denying...until, I predict, next week when the minister will be reeled out of his corner on the use of international credits, just as he was reeled out of his corner last week on absolute reductions versus intensity reductions. We're the only country denying that we're going to be using international credits and offsets to achieve our domestic reductions. It is nonsensical beyond belief, Mr. Chair. In fact, it's reckless and irresponsible.
Every European country that achieved its Kyoto Protocol targets did so by purchasing a minimum of 20% of their reductions offshore, by using credits and using offsets.
The United States has as a central element of its entire plan the use of international credits. The government says we're going to be fungible, connectable, with the United States. We are not going to be fungible and connectable with the United States if we don't have absolute targets. They've already climbed down on that, Mr. Chair. And we certainly aren't going to be fungible or connectable with the United States if we don't use international credits and offsets on a continental and global basis. The use of international credits and the use of enhanced market mechanisms are among the top three areas of profound negotiation that will commence in Copenhagen right now, as we speak.
This bill has nothing. It is incomplete by virtue of the fact that it doesn't embrace market mechanisms and doesn't provide for the use of international credits. Worse, the NDP, having heard all this expert testimony, refuses to bring the amendments necessary to correct its own bill, which is, to our mind, its responsibility.
Finally, Mr. Chair, the bill speaks in clause 10 of a just transition fund. That's a noble call, again, for a just transition fund for industry. In principle, we support the notion, as described here, of “spending or fiscal incentives, including a just transition fund for industry”, but we have no idea what that means. It would be important for the NDP, in my mind, to go further and help describe what that means.
We've had many meetings with the Canadian Labour Congress and other groups that are calling for a just transition fund for industry. It may be about cushioning the blow for workers who are vulnerable because of the retrofitting and upgrading of manufacturing facilities in the country. We don't know. It would be important to clarify, through amendment, what that actually means.
All other parts of the bill are worthy of support. The official opposition strongly supports the preamble section that calls for Canada to respect the science of climate change, and, quoting the bill, “to stay within two degrees of global warming and thereby prevent dangerous climate change”. We believe strongly in the role of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development contemplated in the bill. It was our government that created the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development office, and our party continues to call for its full independence as an officer of Parliament.
We strongly support the role of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy in pronouncing itself on any eventual plan. However, the chair of the board of the NRTEE came here and told the NDP and this committee that the NRTEE, in his view, was not seized with this responsibility, was not resourced for this responsibility. Don't take that testimony at face value. But as a person who helped build the national round table for almost nine years, I think there is a role for the round table to help Canada move forward on climate change.
The offences and penalties are appropriate. The expected reductions, generally writ, are appropriate.
There is another problem with the bill. Under subclause 9(2) it says:
Regulations made under subsection (1) to ensure Canada meets the target referred to in paragraph 5(a) and each of the interim Canadian greenhouse gas emission targets referred to in section 6 shall be made, amended or repealed under paragraph 9(1)(c)
(a) on or before December 31, 2009, in the case of the target for 2015
We know that this is absolutely not achievable. It is December 8. It is not possible to get this bill through the House of Commons and the Senate by December 31 to receive royal assent. Again, there are no amendments forthcoming from the NDP to correct a very obvious and gaping hole in their own bill.
Finally, with respect to the call for a plan and the notion of laying out plans on a five-year basis, we strongly support holding the government to account and compelling them to deliver a plan.
The official opposition has concluded that the Reform/Conservatives don't want a plan. They don't want a plan before the next election, Mr. Chair, because they don't want to move to put a price on carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system. They have resisted every call to table a comprehensive plan for Canada. There is no bill, no regulations, no price on carbon, no emissions trading system. Provinces have completely overtaken the federal government.
So in the sense that this bill will call on the government and compel the government to come up with a plan, we're extraordinarily supportive, because it is the conclusion here on the official opposition side that they will not deliver a plan. They won't deliver it for a few reasons. One reason is, having mounted such a dishonest shock-and-awe campaign in the last election campaign about pricing energy by pricing carbon emissions, the government and the Reform/Conservative Party have backed themselves into a corner. And they won't tell Canadians the truth, which is that we have to put a price on carbon emissions; we will be dragged there by the American administration.
This is where it's very interesting, Mr. Chair, because the Reform/Conservatives have become Democrats by convenience. They will now blame their former brethren, the Republican Party, for apparently not being open to negotiation over the three years in which they had a direct line to the White House. Apparently there was no way of having negotiation.