Environment Minister John Baird says Canada's major industries will have until 2010 to prepare for new regulations aimed at cutting pollutants and greenhouse gases.
Baird told a Commons committee studying the government's proposed Clean Air Act that he will introduce regulations in the next few months to regulate pollutants coming from industry.
"We will announce ambitious, short-term targets for air pollutants and greenhouse gases from industrial sources, with sector-by-sector regulations coming into force starting in 2010," said Baird Thursday.
"For the first time ever, the federal government will regulate air pollution from major industry sectors. And as the prime minister said clearly on Tuesday, for the first time ever, we will regulate the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles beginning with the 2011 model year."
However, Baird said Canada will not try to meet greenhouse gas targets set out in the Kyoto protocol on climate change.
He said attempting to reach such targets would be near impossible and would risk Canada falling into economic collapse.
"To achieve that kind of target through domestic reductions would require a rate of emissions decline unmatched by any modern nation in the history of the world,'' Baird said.
"Except those who have suffered economic collapse, such as Russia.''
Under questioning from Liberal environment critic David McGuinty, Baird said Canada will not support a carbon tax on industry.
"Do you agree time has come for Canada to ensure that large industry pays to dump emissions into the air we breathe?" asked McGuinty.
"I would rather see them reduce emissions instead of putting them into the atmosphere," replied Baird.
"We don't sit around the cabinet dreaming up ways to increase taxes. That's certainly more common in the McGuinty family than the Harper cabinet," added Baird, in reference to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, David McGuinty's brother.
Baird also said Canada will not take part in emissions trading markets that have been started by some European countries to achieve pollution targets.
Under the Kyoto protocol, countries can use a trading system whereby they purchase emissions credits -- which Baird calls "hot air credits" -- in order to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 per cent by 2012, relative to 1990 levels.
"I certainly believe that Canadian families don't believe that it's in the best interests of Canadian taxpayers to ... buy credits, hot air credits in places like Russia, where we're only compensating for previous government actions," said Baird.
"It's almost like saying around the world we've signed a protocol to all go on a diet and lose weight and instead of losing weight, we gain 35 pounds. But we somehow get an out by paying someone in Russia to lose weight for us. And by the way, they don't lose weight. This just compensates them for weight they lost 20 years ago."
Baird was also challenged by Bloc Quebecois environment critic Bernard Bigras on how many cuts the Conservative government has made to climate change initiatives since taking office.
Baird denied his government has made any cuts. He said money was "realigned within the system" and that the Conservative government will "spend as much or more than the previous government in the budget" on climate change.
Reaction
Dale Marshall of the David Suzuki Foundation called Baird's economic collapse scenario "ridiculous."
"We can, of course, reduce emissions quite substantially and actually have it lead to economic gain," Marshall told CTV.ca.
"In the end, we want to move forward, innovate and be on the leading edge of environmental technologies that are the sunrise industries, and to put into place a system -- a cap and trade system -- that gives incentives to companies to innovate."
Many experts say to effectively reduce emissions, such a system is necessary whereby industrial emissions are capped by regulations -- and those companies who are successful can sell their emissions credits to those that are not.
Marshall said the Conservatives' claim that all international emissions credits amount to "hot air" is simply muddying the water.
He criticized Baird for focusing strictly on hot air credits and ignoring any other emission reductions that could happen under joint implementation between Kyoto parties, or the entire Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto protocol.
The CDM is an arrangement under Kyoto which allows industrialized countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment to invest in emission-reducing projects in developing countries.
Under such an arrangment, Marshall says many companies in many sectors would be able to "find very cost effective, even cost positive ways of reducing emissions."
He concedes, however, that we're now at a "very late date" in Kyoto for some companies to start finding such methods to reach targets under the protocol.
"Companies that have not acted and whose emissions have gone up are going to have to buy international credits in order to reach their targets," he said.
"So if one sector has grown, if emissions have grown quite substantially like in the oil and gas sector or the electricity sector, then they're responsible for those emissions. They've known since 1992 that Canada is on board with regulating greenhouse gases, ever since we signed the UN framework on climate change."
