Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure today that I am taking part in the budget debate. I waited a long time to be able to criticize the budget presented a few days or weeks ago by the finance minister, particularly with regards to investment, or, I should say, the lack of investment in the environment.
Concerning the implementation of the Kyoto protocol, this government is changing its approach and its vision in a way rarely seen in the recent past.
Those who thought that the throne speech contained all that what was needed for the Kyoto protocol to be implemented in the years 2008-2012 should have seen the writing on the wall, because there was a clear indication that the government would not be making significant investments, in fact hardly any at all, during the following weeks.
This is a quote from the throne speech, on page 22:
The Government of Canada will respect its commitments to the Kyoto accord on climate change in a way that produces long-term—
Consequently, the timeframe in the throne speech is different from the one in the Kyoto protocol, that is 2008-2012. The commitment is to be met, instead:
—in a way that produces long-term and enduring results while maintaining a strong and growing economy.
Reading these lines should have been an eye-opener for the people across the way: the forthcoming budget would presumably not contain any investment in that area. There are no results because, on the day of the budget, the environment minister himself admitted that there were no specific measures to achieve Kyoto goals.
There are few, if any, measures. The only thing provided for in the budget is the sale of Petro-Canada shares, which would theoretically generate $3.2 billion. Part of this amount could have been reinvested in the environment. But no. The finance minister announced that, out of this $3.2 billion, a mere $1 billion will be allocated to a foundation for sustainable development technology.
Let us not forget what the word “foundation” means in this House. The Auditor General was very clear about that a few years ago, when she said that it meant no accountability to Parliament; it means putting money into budgets and into an organization, without parliamentarians, and citizens in general, ever knowing where the money went.
Moreover, the government has announced that, out of the $1 billion, $200 million will go to that foundation over the next few years. If one looks at the foundation's current budget, which amounts to $550 million, and at where the money went, one can see that big oil companies such as Suncor received grants to put in place processes to capture carbon sinks, which is a far cry from reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the source.
Proceeds from the sale of Petro-Canada shares are going into a foundation which has no accountability to Parliament or to Canadians, and will help fund the oil industry, which has benefited from tax relief from the government on many occasions.
A case in point is Bill C-48, which was aimed at granting the oil industry $250 million worth of tax breaks a year. On the other hand, the budget brought down last week does not invest in the renewable energy sector in Canada.
On this side, we would have hoped at least that this $1 billion would have been used to give tax incentives to people who buy hybrid cars.
Last Friday, I bought such a car in Montreal. It cost me $10,000 more than a conventional car. In the meantime, the government has chosen to subsidize the oil industry, giving it tax breaks while, on Friday, the Minister of the Environment challenged Canadians to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by one ton. Those tax measures do not reflect the government's words. This is a concern with regard to the implementation of the Kyoto protocol.
The government announced it is putting money in a foundation in charge of developing long-term technologies. Long term does not mean in 15 or 20 years. Canada must meet these goals between 2008 and 2012. What was needed, to move ahead with Kyoto, was short-term tax incentives.
For example, in 1995, the government implemented a tax of 1.5¢ per litre of gasoline to fight the deficit. Why, since there are no more deficits and there is a budgetary surplus, does the government not commit to investing this 1.5¢ on public transportation? No, the government prefers to give funding and subsidies to the gas and oil industry as it did in the past.
Consequently, the federal government has given $66 billion to the oil and gas industry in the form of all kinds of tax breaks and tax reductions, while the green energy industry has received a few hundreds of millions of dollars, which is far less than it should be getting.
For example, why did the government not take advantage of this budget to announce improved wind energy subsidies? Currently the federal government invests 1¢ per kilowatt-hour from wind energy. This is a far cry from the American programs where subsidies reach 1.7¢ per kilowatt-hour from wind energy.
Why were the products of the sale of Petro-Canada not used to give this subsidy to developers wanting to produce wind energy instead of being transferred directly to the oil and gas industry?
We lack concrete measures, and the federal government has to understand that adopting an environmental tax policy is the only way to reach our goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6% between 2008 and 2012 under the Kyoto protocol.
It is not through advertising campaigns that government will succeed in reaching this objective. It is not by funding the oil and gas industry that the government will succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Instead it must encourage people to reduce their consumption by granting them tax incentives, thereby ensuring that they adopt alternative means of development that do not encourage greenhouse gas emissions. It is a matter of encouraging and transferring investments from the oil and gas industry to the renewable energy industry, including wind energy.
In my opinion, these are the kinds of measures that must be taken, but the government continues to turn a deaf ear.
In closing, I want to say that we must start working toward our Kyoto objectives but, unfortunately, this budget takes us away from Kyoto by funding instead those who have polluted in the past.