Hon. Grant Mitchell:

Honourable senators, it is a great privilege for me to be able to initiate debate in the Senate on this bill and to move its second reading. I take this responsibility to be the sponsor of the bill in the Senate with a great deal of humility, and I sense that it is a great responsibility.

I think and I hope that we are in this Parliament and in this country beyond the point where there is some question about whether or not climate change is occurring, and I hope as well that we are beyond the point where some believe, given any credibility whatsoever, that climate change is not driven by man-made or person-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The debate must simply progress past that. I do not want to spend a lot of time, therefore, listing the consequences of a policy or a lack of policy that would see us fall short of what we need to do on climate change, specifically to fall short of what we need to do as responsible signatories to the Kyoto Protocol.

The fact is that our country, as are countries across the world, is in a great deal of jeopardy over what might occur or what will occur if we do not take concerted national and international action to stop this climate change evolution.

I note that even the Prime Minister — who as recently as several months ago, just before Christmas, was still using the dismissive term "so-called" when he referred to climate change or greenhouse gases — has been quoted, as recently as last week, in fact February 16, as saying ". . . the science is clear that these changes are occurring, they're serious and we must act."

That statement might indicate two things — and one is less certain than the other. The statement may indicate that the Prime Minister actually believes that climate change is occurring, that he actually believes the science and is prepared to act. However, we have seen no evidence that he is prepared to act — quite the contrary, in fact. His predisposition from the moment he took over government was to — if I could coin the word — "disact." Prime Minister Harper actually dismissed Kyoto, dismissed the work completed by the previous government and cancelled program after program established by his own Treasury Board to be extremely cost-effective and extremely efficient and generally effective.

The second thing we know for sure that his statement underlines — this is a certainty — that climate change has become a political issue in this country. If for no other reason, the Prime Minister has jumped on this issue of climate change and Kyoto because it has become a political issue. It is clear now, over the last number of months, that the environment, climate change in particular, has risen to the number one issue in Canadians' minds.

Polls can be questionable at times, but I believe the polls are clear on this issue. Canadians are concerned about climate change, are concerned about Kyoto and Canada's role, in a way that they have not often, if ever, been concerned about an issue facing this country and the globe. I know that is the case because many Canadians have told me that; and I know doubly for sure because the Prime Minister is now saying that he thinks climate change is a problem and that he will act.

The Harper government was so wrong on this important political and substantive issue. In fact, climate change may be one of the most important issues, if not the most important issue, to face this country in the last 50 years, and the Harper government missed it. Having to come so far from behind, the government begins to create a political debate — and I will address this, to some extent, to dispel some of the many myths levelled by this government and spun in various ways through various media.

First is the idea that the Liberals had 13 years to do something but did nothing. Quite the contrary, honourable senators. As usual, the Harper government has its facts wrong. Liberals had about eight years. Kyoto was not approved until 1997 and was not finally ratified until 2005.

Stéphane Dion, the leader of the Liberal Party, was the Minister of the Environment for only the last year and a half of our government being in place. Two things are interesting. First of all, Mr. Dion brought out Project Green not eight months after he became Minister of the Environment. That plan was built upon a great deal of work by his predecessor, who consulted with businesses and the provinces, so that when the plan materialized, it would have some fundamental credibility. Stéphane Dion broadly consulted Canadians for a number of years to get to the point where the green plan could be put in place and be effective.

Those actions are in contrast to recent events by this government, where not only did the Prime Minister not consult Canadians, but he did not even consult his own caucus in a number of cases.

It was not as though those first six years, just about seven, — 1997 to 2004 — prior to Stéphane Dion becoming the Minister of the Environment, were wasted years; they were not. The Liberal green plan was a huge public policy initiative and it took great effort and concentration to ensure that it was structured properly. Stéphane Dion in eight months brought in Project Green. Was that green plan nothing, as this government would say? No.

What would lead this government to saying that the plan was nothing? The Harper government cancelled the Project Green initiatives, which were determined to be very efficient, far more efficient than the famous transit bus pass initiative. The new government had no basis upon which to make its assessment of these plans and to conclude that nothing was done. I had the opportunity to question in committee the former Minister of the Environment in the Harper government, Ms. Ambrose. She stated that the green plan was cancelled because it was inefficient. Any reasonable person would assume that there would be supporting data if a program were assessed as being inefficient. One would expect to have a study for that, but the only information received was gained under the Access to Privacy and Information Act and it was exactly the opposite — in other words, the programs were very efficient.

Ms. Ambrose's answer to me in a public forum was revealing. She began her answer in the standard Conservative way, that is, to attack, and one of her conclusions was that the Liberals had done nothing. She then finished her statements, and this probably contributed to the finishing of her career in that portfolio, by saying that "I have to tell you that there has not been a single review, not a single study, of any environmental program in this government ever." There was a huge thud.

How then would one conclude that those programs were inefficient? It is absolutely true that Ms. Ambrose said that. My response was as follows: "Thank you, my question is answered. You did not study it. You ideologically assumed you did not like these programs and cancelled them. Please tell me that do not run the rest of your public policy initiatives in this way, although there is plenty of evidence that in fact you do."

Let me give you the other side of the argument.

Project Green was put into place with a strong understanding and analysis that it would meet the 270 megatons of reductions of greenhouse gases that were required of Canada under the Kyoto Protocol by 2012. That plan has been subject to a great deal of discussion, debate and scrutiny, unlike the Conservative environmental policy, and what was the conclusion? Even one of the toughest-nosed analysts in this area, Mark Jaccard — who is well known for believing that we are not going to solve green-house gases by doing away with fossil fuels — has a huge degree of credibility and who has probably been an adviser to the Conservative government because he is so good, concluded that Project Green, brought out in April 2005, would result in about 175 megatons in reductions of greenhouse gases. That goes a long way towards 270 megatons. Jaccard is a harsh critic of these programs and he discounts, almost entirely, subsidies for conservation because he believes they somehow do not work. He took subsidies out of the equation.

The Pembina Institute, based originally in my province of Alberta and which has huge credibility in both the business and environmental communities, said that it is likely that this program, as structured, would have achieved between 175 and 270 megatons in greenhouse gas reductions that were required.

Remember, this was just 2005. We still had three years to implement further programs, to make sure we got to 270 megatons, by the time the actual period of time started, 2008-2012. I do not want to hear ideologically based assessments by a government stating that these programs did not work — because it is absolutely misleading. Rona Ambrose, when she was Minister of the Environment, made that very clear in a very public environment.

Because this was such an important political issue and because the Liberals, under Stéphane Dion, were way out in front, the Harper government had to do something about discrediting it.

The new government also argues that somehow Bill C-288 is strategically a mistake for the Liberals. The press likes to spin this too, and somehow tries to put us into some kind of corner. This issue was going to be an issue in the next election whether or not Bill C-288 was promoted and passed. The fact is that the Conservatives are on this very sharp fence. On the one hand, they do not believe that climate change is taking place, but they do not see a way they could possibly address climate change without their policy hurting an economy; on the other hand, there is a strong body of evidence that we have to do something about it and that it does not have to be an economic drain.

Climate change will be an issue. The new government will have to fight this idea that it is all economy. In fact, the environment and the economy can converge in this particular place.

Let me put this bill into context; it was presented in March 2006 by Pablo Rodriquez in the other place. The new Harper government had cancelled the Liberal greenhouse gas programs. The Harper government had been very clear that they were not convinced that Kyoto was even a necessary initiative, let alone an achievable one. In fact, as recently as three months ago, the Prime Minister was still referring to "so-called greenhouse gases."

They had proposed absolutely nothing of relevance to replace our climate change programs. Nothing was happening. Worse than nothing, they had dismissed these initiatives. Somehow, the people of Canada, the Liberals, all three opposition parties, had to get the government's attention. They had to elevate this to a level where the Prime Minister and his cohorts would finally accept that this was an issue, not only substantively but an issue that Canadians understood deeply had to be dealt with.

We developed that bill within that context. It has culminated in a clear statement. This government has to do something about Kyoto. They have to establish a plan, and they better get started because the Parliament of Canada is directing them to do so.

An important and interesting debate emerges out of this political issue, one that has percolated for a long time in the environmental policy area, and that is the relationship between the environment and the economy. One of the great frustrations I feel is that we have a government that is simply and utterly without imagination. They are stuck firmly in the past. They do not want to be pushed out of their comfort zone. They see the economy through 19th century and 20th century eyes, and we are now in the 21st century. We have to find a way to do the economy and the environment at the same time — to walk and chew gum at the same time.

In spite of the fact that the Prime Minister has made the statement that we need to act, the refrain from his own environment minister, Minister Baird, is that if we act in accordance with Kyoto, if we do what needs to be done to address climate change, our economy will collapse like Russia's economy. Again, are there any studies that would support that statement? Is there any evidence that Russia's economy collapsed because of environmental issues? It might actually, because they have a poor environmental record, but why are they driven to this conclusion, the right wing in particular, that somehow the environment, if done properly, needs to be a drain on the economy? I simply do not accept it.

Going back to World War II, in 1939, if the people could have imagined what it would take to win that war in Canada, and Canadians probably would not have imagined they could have done it, but they did it. It did not damage the economy. For the wrong reasons, unfortunately, it actually stimulated the economy and established a strong economy for decades to come.

Why can we not view environmental policy as a way of creating an economy of the future and stimulating an economy of the future? Yes, perhaps inappropriate environmental policy could damage an economy, but so can inappropriate economic policy. The trick is to figure out how to do it properly and to ensure that it not only does what needs to be done to meet environmental objectives and our role in the world and our responsibilities, but also to what needs to be done to stimulate the economy. There is plenty of evidence that there is not an inconsistency between strong environmental policy and strong economies.

Look at California, which has some of the strongest, toughest environmental standards in the North America and in the Western world. Is their economy damaged? Not particularly, I would say. In fact, California's Republican, right-wing governor is actually embracing even stronger environmental goals.

Look at Great Britain. Great Britain is a case in point of how a country does not have to hurt its economy and do more in achieving Kyoto than anybody imagined. Britain's objective under Kyoto is 12.5 per cent reduction of 1990 levels by 2010. As of last year about this time, they were already at 12.5 per cent. Today, they are at 15 per cent, and they are on for 23 per cent to 25 per cent below 1990 standards. Britain has past its environmental Kyoto goals. There are those who will immediately say yes, but they have a different economy than Canada. In the Canadian economy, of the greenhouse gases that are produced now, about 17 per cent are from coal-fired, electrical generation, and about 18 per cent are from upstream oil and gas. That is about 35 per cent. Do you know what portion of the British total greenhouse gas emissions are from the same areas of the economy? The answer to that question is 30 per cent. It is not as though Britain has a fundamentally different economy to the Canadian economy. In fact, Britain has some of the same challenges we do, but Britain did not cancel programs a year ago. Britain kept upping its own standards and objectives and has gone past Kyoto and will continue to go past Kyoto. Its economy has not been damaged. Its economy, in 2006, had a 2.6 per cent growth rate, which is not bad under any circumstances.

Senator Stratton: What happened here in Canada?

Senator Mitchell: We have a Conservative government. That will really hurt. I am reminded that Tory times are hard times. I was about to say that the fact that bad economic policy leads to bad economics and bad economies is captured in that truism: Tory times are tough times. I tried to rise above it for a moment.

Business is also way ahead. I was in Calgary with other Liberal senators and Stéphane Dion, our leader, meeting several weeks ago with the Young Presidents' Organization's members. It was compelling to be in that room of 40 or 50 Calgary CEOs and senior executives. They are so far past Stephen Harper on Kyoto and climate change that it makes Stephen Harper not even near to the 19th century. He looks like he is in the 18th century.

Sir Nicholas Stern, who was here yesterday, makes a powerful statement:

It is very clear to me now that you can be green and grow. I do not think it is a horse race between growth and being responsible on climate change-good policy can give us both.

There is a reason he has been knighted, and that is because he is very good and well recognized.

In Canada, in our own backyard, we have senior business person after senior business person saying that we can achieve this goal. Let us get on with it.

William Andrew, CEO of Penn West Energy Trust, a major actor in the energy industry based in Calgary, says, "The reality is the more modern business models will tell you any operation that is good for the environment is good for the pocket book in the long run." He goes on to give an example of what we can do, and I will speak about Alberta because I am an Albertan.

We are sensitive in Alberta and we need to be because we have a government that is starting to take Albertans for credit because they own all 28 seats. I want to emphasize what Mr. Andrew said. For $1.5 billion dollars, a pipeline could be built around the Edmonton area and ultimately up to Fort McMurray that could capture the carbon dioxide that is now being produced in the various refineries and processing plants around Edmonton. One and one half billion dollars is not an insignificant amount of money, but it is not overwhelmingly difficult to do either. That carbon dioxide could be taken to the Pembina field southwest of Edmonton and pumped back into the ground to enhance recovery. It would be much less expensive than actually having to find new oil and to drill new wells. His estimation is that it could result in 35,000 barrels a day of enhanced recovered oil. At today's prices, I think that comes to about $700 million a year. Tell me how that costs money. You recover the capital cost of that in a little over two years. You will actually be able to sell the carbon dioxide for enhanced recovery because those oil companies will see the economics of it. They already are; they are looking for that carbon dioxide. It is very much like acid rain. It was going to be impossible to achieve that, but we did, and now some of the products that have come out of that achievement are exceptionally marketable.

Bill Andrew is a classic case of a Calgary, Alberta, oil-based business person who understands that this is not an insurmountable problem but that it is manageable and achievable and that we have to get ahead of the curve or we will be left behind.

The President of Shell said that they want to be part of tradable credits. What will the government do to ensure that will happen, to give us the infrastructure?

BIOCAP is a network of researchers, university institutions and businesses across the country that is looking for ways to develop tradable credits. One of the major focuses of Biomass, as the name would suggest, is how to use the agriculture and forest industries to develop tradable credits and add to the economics of agriculture and forestry, both of which are in duress in our economy today.

What companies are behind BIOCAP? Shell is behind BIOCAP, as well as TransAlta, Suncor, Lafarge, Dofasco, Ontario Power Generation and the list goes on. It is not as though there has to be a tradeoff between the economy, business and the environment.

What are the costs? There is much discussion about costs. Whatever the cost, it is also an investment and the companies will be investing, whether there or somewhere else. What is remarkable about environmental investment is that it is productive investment. It increases productivity in an economy that needs increased productivity. It lowers costs, enhances efficiency and makes businesses better because they are better.

The estimates to achieve our 270-mega-tonne reduction target by 2012 range between $10 billion and $20 billion. I have explored those figures and they seemed light to me. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence to support them. As an aside, those figures would translate to as little as 75 cents per barrel of oil or as much as $1.16 per barrel. When oil costs $60 per barrel, one questions whether that should be the tipping point for not taking action.

Compare that to the $5 billion per year over the next five years that we will lose in GST revenue because the government cut that rate by one percent, which translates as $25 billion in GST revenue. Is anyone in this chamber truly aware personally of the cut in the GST? Has it made a big difference in anyone's wallet? Does anyone go to the store and think about how much money they are saving? Not one bit; but the cut has reduced GST revenue by $25 billion. When one walks through Stanley Park today and sees the trees that have fallen down, one realizes that this $25 billion might have been used to do something for climate change. When we look at farmers having droughts that they never should have had, we begin to think about climate change. When we look at water flows, which are 50 per cent over what they were decades ago, we begin to think that this $25 billion could be worth something and that it could change our lives in a far more significant way.

In the debate on costs, it is interesting to note that when businesses and Conservatives argue against something, they always elevate the costs; they go to the top costs. When they have to get serious about doing something, they do it in the least expensive way that they possibly can do it. There are all kinds of examples and much evidence of when initiatives such as the reduction of acid rain were confronted, the costs end up being much less than originally anticipated.

That brings me to the spin argument being used, and the Conservatives are good at spinning when they do not have facts. They hardly ever have facts, so we get a lot of spin. Rona Ambrose was good at that, for a while. We hear the Russian hot air argument, and Minister Baird used it as recently as yesterday. First, we have never bought a credit from Russia; no Canadian company, that I am aware of, has ever bought a credit from Russia. Second, it is illegal to do so because Russia does not qualify under the clean development mechanism to be a creditable credit, if I can put it that way. Third, Russia is off the screen. However, a process is in place to assess and evaluate credits that can be purchased abroad under the clean development mechanism. It is highly regulated, strict and has tremendous credibility. At this time, there are about 350 projects with 12 Canadian companies involved.

The Conservatives would be happy, one would think, to promote international foreign investment. Canadian companies are strong enough, big enough and competitive enough to compete anywhere in the world and win. I am not saying that we have to buy credits abroad necessarily, but if they can be turned into economic investment opportunities abroad, why encourage foreign investment of our companies elsewhere on every other economic front but not on the home front?

The President of the Toronto Stock Exchange said yesterday that the government will hamper us if they do not allow us to get involved in international and Canadian tradable credits to create a market. I believe that one of the tremendous economic opportunities to arise out of this issue is for us to have tradable credit markets, and I believe that such a market should be based in Alberta, probably in Calgary. I would be looking for support one day from this house to do just that. BIOCAP is serious about finding ways to develop tradable credits to help the agricultural and forestry economies.

I will conclude this section of my remarks about costs and the environment versus the economy by saying that this is, perhaps, one of the most significant economic opportunities that this country has ever faced. The Honourable Stéphane Dion uses the phrase "the next industrial revolution," and he is exactly right. If we miss the next industrial revolution, it might be absolutely impossible for us to catch up. The economy of the 21st century will be based upon knowledge, technology, science and intellectual property.

This environmental feature of that economy will be central to the economy of the future. This government does not have the imagination to grasp that concept and to do something about it; in fact, they are absolutely fighting it. My profound concern is not if we do something about Kyoto but rather if we do not do something about Kyoto because we will have missed a huge economic opportunity. Our competitors around the world will have jumped past us, and one day our products will be in danger because their markets will not be amenable to our products that will not be up to environmental standards.

I would like to discuss Alberta and Kyoto because I am an Albertan. Greenhouse gas is a sensitive issue for Albertans. Senator Banks, Senator Tardif, Senator Hays and Senator Fairbairn certainly share that concern and are sensitive to the issue. It does not have to be contrary to the Canadian economy in general or to the Alberta economy in particular. Only 3.5 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from the oil sands. We will not solve the problem by picking on the oil sands. Only 17 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from upstream oil and gas, all of which together is not only in Alberta. Therefore, we will not solve the problem by picking only on that. As an Albertan, I am concerned about what this government is prepared to do for politics and for political imperative because they hold 28 seats in Alberta and there is evidence that they are beginning to take Alberta for granted. Having said that, it simply does not have to be and, if this is done properly, it will be done as a national exercise and a national challenge, as Canada has done historically in the past. I would go so far as to say that not only would it be great for the economy; it could also become a great unifying force. We could work together in our place in the world on this issue and contribute as Canadians have done so often in the past.

I also want to point out that it is not oil sands plants that are necessarily the largest of the large emitters. In fact, Syncrude emits about 10.6 megatons a year and the Nanticoke electrical power plant in Ontario emits approximately 17 megatons a year. When we address this issue, we have to address it fairly across the board, across the country, and we cannot pick on a given area. Albertans can have some consolation in knowing that if this is done properly, it does not have to damage our economy, and for that matter, damage the rest of the country's economy, because Alberta's economy has been the engine of Canada's economy for quite some time.

Those are my points. I want to emphasize that I believe that this is an historic piece of legislation; that Canada has not acquitted itself very well in the last year on this issue; and that the prospects are exceptionally good for us to do well, to meet our targets, to uphold our responsibility to an international law and to seize the moment.

What is required is something that we are not getting — and that is leadership. Yes, they talk of leadership; again, they spin it and we get leadership on mandatory minimums to solve a problem that does not exist. We get leadership on "fairness in taxation" that gives more tax money to the rich and cuts the poor; but we do not get leadership on something that is a huge, important and significant challenge to this country, to our children and grandchildren. We need that leadership. In closing, honourable senators, I will say that Bill C-288 is exactly what we do need. It is leadership and it needs to be supported by this house.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

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