The Tories seem to be doing an end run around the revamped clean air act. As of yesterday they were still denying that the act was dead but the continual dribs and dabs of policy suggest that the revamped act is stillborn. Many of the amendments are simply unacceptable to the Tories.
Tories launch revamped climate change targets
Last Updated: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 | 10:28 AM ET
CBC News
Canada will cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 150 million tonnes, or 20 per cent, by 2020, Environment Minister John Baird said Wednesday, in a speech launching the Conservatives' revamped climate change program.
Baird's highly anticipated announcement outlining the government's greenhouse gas targets for industry was expected in Toronto on Thursday.
But the minister was forced to release the speech in advance after it was mistakenly faxed Wednesday to Liberal environment critic David McGuinty.
Baird said the Tories intend to halt the rise of greenhouse gases in three to five years by forcing 700 of the largest industrial polluters in Canada to reduce their emissions.
"We need to do a U-turn," he said. "We don't want to replace 10 years of bad environmental policy with 10 years of bad economic policy.”
The plan, dubbed Turning the Corner, calls for industries to make in-house reductions, participate in domestic emissions trading, purchase energy offsets and invest in a technology fund.
It also pledges national fixed emissions caps for industrial pollutants to cut air pollution in half by 2015.
"If the Liberal government had instituted this plan in 1998 when they signed Kyoto, Canada would have achieved its emissions target," Baird said. "Canada would be at Kyoto today."
Inefficient bulbs banned by 2012
Baird's speech came as Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced the government would ban the sale of inefficient light bulbs by 2012
Lunn said the plan could see Canadians saving up to 4,000 megawatts of power a year, or up to $4 billion in energy costs.
The plan to phase out most incandescent bulbs follows a similar proposal announced recently by Ontario.
"We must have strong national standards to support provinces and territories that are making their own standards," Lunn said.
Compact fluorescent bulbs use around 75 per cent less electricity than standard incandescent bulbs, which will be banned in Europe beginning in 2009 and in 2010 in Australia.
Previous clean air bill in limbo
Baird's announcement comes after the Tories' previous emission targets bill — the clean air act introduced last fall and heavily reworked by opposition parties in committee — remains in limbo.
On Monday, Baird said the federal government was still weighing its response to the amendments and declined to say whether he will bring the altered bill before Parliament for a vote.
Last week, Baird warned a Senate environment committee of dire economic consequences if Canada were to meet its Kyoto promises on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A private member's bill, introduced by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez and passed by the Commons, calls for the federal government to honour Canada's commitment under the Kyoto treaty.
Baird said the Liberal bill was a "risky, reckless scheme" that would cost 275,000 Canadians their jobs by 2009
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