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Posted on  

December 11, 2002

PM says passing Kyoto is 'great day'

Speaking to reporters just before the vote, Chrétien continued his efforts to sell the controversial deal.

"It's a great day for Canada, a great day for the environment and a great day for the future of our kids," he said.

"It's not for us. It's for generations to come."

As expected, the Liberal majority in Parliament, backed by the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrats, voted in favour of ratifying the protocol.

The Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives voted against the deal.

The vote was 195 for, 77 against.

Alliance Leader Stephen Harper continued his attack on the government's arrangements to implement the accord. Chrétien "has a grand scheme. He has no plan," he said.

He earlier warned the Liberals that the vote is not the end of the issue.

The Alliance will continue to monitor the implementation program, and will hold the Liberals to account if the costs spiral out of control, or if the government fails to meet the greenhouse gas reduction targets it takes on by ratifying the accord.

"We will never achieve these targets," he said.

In his last major parliamentary speech against the bill on Monday, Harper said the government's implementation plan accounts for only about a third of the targeted reductions, and the plan could turn into another billion-dollar boondoggle.

"When we don't know what to expect, we should expect the worst," he said.

Harper has repeatedly raised the possibility that the lack of a clear implementation plan could lead to huge cost overruns, like the gun control registry, and become "another in the long list of multibillion-dollar boondoggles."

Government may cap costs

Environment Minister David Anderson confirmed that the government is talking to big companies about capping their costs from Kyoto. If the government forecasts about costs are wrong, it could expose taxpayers to huge liabilities.

Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal has said the government is willing to subsidize industry if the cost of cutting greenhouse gases goes over $15 a tonne.

"We are very confident the costs are going to be between $5 and $10 a tonne," he said.

While numerous greenhouse gas reduction strategies are covered as part of the Kyoto Agreement, renewable fuels are set to get a huge boost. The Agreement sets a goal for 35 per cent of gasoline on the market to contain 10 per cent ethanol by 2012 and to increase production of biodiesel during the same time period to 500 million litres


 

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