Statement made on 10 June 2010 by Senator Tommy Banks (retired)
Hon. Tommy Banks:
Honourable senators, I call your attention to the report that is before us at this time. I do not think I would not be far wrong in saying that all members of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources attended the GLOBE 2010 Conference in Vancouver. This conference occurs every second year. It is one that attracts leading government officials, heads of state, and important scientists from all over the world. It is a place where people go to see the latest in industrial developments, because an interesting industrial show is attached too wherein one can find cutting-edge developments — and, some are experimental — with respect to environmental matters involving insulation, alternative energy generation, and so on.
The industrial show, however, is only attached to the conference; the main conference is comprised of plenary sessions in which world-leading ecological experts and, as I said, sometimes heads of state, make quite groundbreaking commitments in respect of their approach to the environment. Then the conference proceeds to breakout sessions in which people can pursue their respective interests.
In addition to the members of the committee who attended this conference, all of whom found it useful, analysts from the Library of Parliament attended. There are so many breakout sessions going on that it would be impossible for members of the committee to attend all of them. Senator Brown attended the conference this year, and he found it very useful and interesting.
The main thing we found — and Senator Mitchell mentioned this when he spoke about the report — is that in many respects industry and other governments, but mainly industry, has advanced way beyond the questions with which we in this place, and those across the hall, are wrestling from day to day with regard to whether substantial action ought to be taken. In that respect, the issues that Senator Mitchell has spoken about, and which I mentioned the other day in my remarks on Bill C-311, for example, are behind the curve, if I can put it that way, because industry is way ahead of us. They have accepted the incontrovertible facts, the facts upon which every credible scientific body in the world agrees.
I think it is safe to say that the attitudes of all of us who attended those breakout sessions, as well as the plenary sessions, were changed in that respect because we found ourselves in many respects making considerations here that were following and were behind developments that were already being done by people who are involved in making light bulbs, developing new ways of producing energy and, most important, new ways of saving energy.
Honourable senators, I commend your attention to this valuable report. I hope we will all read the report. If we do all read the report, it will inform our deliberations on questions that come before us having to do with energy in all aspects — conservation and production of energy, and the good of the Earth on which we live.