Hon. Scott Brison (Kings—Hants, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the hon. member for St. Paul's.

I would like to begin today by thanking my constituents from Kings--Hants who have given me the honour and privilege of being their representative now through four elections.

[Translation]

I was elected for the first time in 1997. It has always been a great pleasure for me to represent the electors of Kings—Hants.

[English]

Coming from Kings--Hants, which is, by the way, one of the most beautiful ridings anywhere in this beautiful country, gives me a special concern particularly for environmental issues. I live in a little community called Cheverie on the shores of the Minas basin, where we have the highest tides in the world. Climate change is not an esoteric concern when one lives on the shores of the Bay of Fundy or the Minas basin in Nova Scotia.

The people of Kings--Hants and the people of Canada are justifiably concerned about the environment. What are Canadians to make of what has been the most environmentally unambitious throne speech in the history of Canada?

At a time when Canadians are united in their concern for action on the environment, this is a government that is silent, that lacks ambition and that lacks vision to build a cleaner, greener Canada. At a time when Canada's Minister of the Environment takes over as president of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the government has no plan to meet its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At a time when accountability and transparency are supposedly the hallmarks of the government's modus operandi, more than 100 federally funded climate change programs have been secretly eliminated.

[Translation]

Protecting the environment is a top priority for Canadians—usually one of their top three priorities. Our government responded to the priorities of Canadians by taking action to ensure a better future. Since 1999, the Liberal government had invested over $10 billion to address the environmental priorities of Canadians.

[English]

What was among the first actions of the new government? It was to cut and destroy many of those actions, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from climate change programs. Included in this radical amputation was the community-based one tonne challenge, a program which supported communities in their efforts to identify and address local climate challenges.

Less than a month ago, the environment minister said in a CBC interview that the one tonne challenge was a “really good example of the kinds of things that we want to focus on”. However one week ago, on the day that the Sierra Club is now calling “Black Friday”, she ended funding for groups across Canada that were engaged in the one tonne challenge. Three weeks ago she said that the one tonne challenge was the kind of idea that the government believed in and a week ago she cancelled the funding. There is no consistency with the government's efforts on the environment.

[Translation]

Our government adopted strategic measure to meet these objectives in the short and long terms. By balancing the need to protect the environment and the need to increase our productivity, we created a vision focussed on sustainable development. We consulted every level of government and our strategy for the future is reflected in the programs we developed.

[English]

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and provincial governments have been important partners with us. We worked with municipalities across Canada building green infrastructure through the $675 million green municipal fund, a program created by the Liberal government in 2000. To date more than 450 projects have been approved with an investment of $275 million leveraged to an additional $1.8 billion.

Climate change is a major challenge. It requires all governments to work cooperatively with the private sector. The fact is that the Liberal government understood that the impact of global climate change would have significant impacts, not only on issues of the environment but in terms of issues of health care, in terms of issues of quality of life and on an ongoing basis the very principles that we value in Canada in terms of being in a country with one of the most pristine and beautiful environments anywhere in the world. Citizens who have made a difference in Canada and engaged with their governments could be making more of a difference. The one tonne challenge was important because we were engaging Canadians from coast to coast to coast with the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Our government demonstrated leadership by greening government operations. As minister of public works, I reformed our federal fleet management to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Today 40% of the federal vehicle fleet operates on alternative fuels. This is not only important in terms of a reduction in greenhouse gases from a direct perspective, it is a strategic step in helping to stimulate demand for alternative fuel vehicles, alternative fuel infrastructure and associated green technologies, such as biofuels.

In taking a leadership role, our government was not only reducing its own emissions but actually helping to increase the options available to Canadians for making sustainable development part of their ongoing life, part of their purchasing pattern and providing a solid platform for emissions reductions across the transportation sector, in fact building a market for these kinds of products.

Our record on greening government extends beyond fleet management to how we manage our buildings, how we use our purchasing power to actually create demand to actually go to market on an ongoing basis. In fact, in our building management we reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 24% and saved, at the same time, Canadians $16 million. This was not only good economic policy in terms of what we were saving the taxpayer, it was good environmental policy. Environmental policy has to be integrated into economic policy on an ongoing basis.

[Translation]

As far as energy is concerned, our government expanded the potential market for renewable energy.

We proposed a minimum standard by which 5% of the energy used by the federal government must come from renewable sources.

[English]

We took action in the budget of 2005, a budget that the Sierra Club called the greenest budget in the history of Canada, to ensure that our government operations would be greened and we would play a leadership role with the private sector and other levels of government within Canada on that.

[Translation]

I believe that environmental policies must be used to create economic opportunities.

Canada could be the world leader in environmental technologies such as green energy. To do so, the government must invest in research and development. Generous tax credits must be implemented for investment in this area. With that approach we could attract the capital and the talent. This would give young people the opportunity to earn a living while being innovative.

In this vision, Canada would play a more important role in making the world greener.

[English]

Our leadership, internationally, is important. Canada has a history of respecting her international treaties. We have signed on to and support the principles of Kyoto. The fact is that it represents not only an environmental responsibility or an important leadership role in terms of multilateralism, it also represents an economic opportunity for us not only to respect our international treaties, to respect the Kyoto accord, to maintain within Canada the kinds of policies that we had implemented as a government previously, which could help us meet those targets, but to create economic opportunities within Canada in what will be the fastest growing area of the 21st century, and that is the area of environmental technologies, particularly on renewable and clean energy.

We have an opportunity to move ahead as a country, to embrace environmental technologies, to embrace the economic opportunities inherent in environmental technologies and renewable energy and to create economic opportunity out of environmental policy.

I would propose that the government needs to see environmental policy for what it is, not only in terms of its imperative and of building a cleaner, greener Canada, but also in terms of its opportunity of building the kind of economic opportunities where young Canadians can not only have an opportunity to make a living in Canada but can make a difference in the world.

I would propose: that the Minister of the Environment issue a clear and unequivocal statement regarding its priorities on sustainable development; that funding be restored to all climate change programs that have been cut by the government, including the one tonne challenge; that the government pledge to conduct an open and transparent decision making process when sustainable development programs are under review as opposed to cutting them by stealth; that the Minister of the Environment move forward on climate change by implementing strategies and programs announced in the April 2005 project green; that the government commit to maintaining and expanding sustainable development research capacity which enables Canadians, communities, public and private sector decision makers to make informed decisions; and that the government continues funding research and development and in fact expands it for clean technologies that can help create economic opportunity and build a cleaner, greener Canada.