PUT UP OR SHUT UP - CANADIAN OPPOSITION CHALLENGED TO FORCE ELECTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

CanWest News Service, 22 June 2006
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Ambrose dares opposition to force election on climate change   
 
Mike De Souza, CanWest News Service

OTTAWA - Environment Minister Rona Ambrose is daring opposition parties to bring down the minority Conservative government and fight an election campaign on the issue of climate change.

"I say, 'Bring it on,'" Ambrose said Thursday in the House of Commons, responding to a question from the Bloc Quebecois. "Our government, in four months, is miles better than the 13-year Liberal record and the non-record of the Bloc."

While the New Democrats have accused her of ducking her responsibilities and giving up on the international Kyoto protocol on climate change, Ambrose said her government is working on reducing greenhouse emissions.

"This government has never rejected Kyoto. We have never pulled out of Kyoto. We are working within the Kyoto protocol," she said before the House rose for its summer break. "What we are doing is putting a reasonable, achievable, affordable domestic plan in place that will ensure that the mess that the Liberals made out of Kyoto over the last 13 years will be addressed and we will make a success out of our made-in-Canada plan."

Minutes later, Prime Minister Stephen Harper pointed out that the Kyoto protocol had an important shortcoming.

"If Kyoto were fully implemented by all the countries of the world tomorrow, it would do absolutely nothing to control smog which is one of the reasons why this government and this environment minister have been working hard to develop a plan to deal with just that," Harper said.

The New Democrats and the Bloc attempted to table a motion calling for Ambrose's resignation in the Commons environment committee, earlier this week, but the Liberals blocked it from going through after the Conservatives threatened to make it a confidence vote that could trigger a fall election.

The government has been criticized by environmentalists and opposition parties for saying Canada cannot honour its commitment under Kyoto to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. The NDP said it will spend the summer touring Canada explaining its own strategy to meet the targets through new energy efficient policies for homes, communities, transportation, industry, government operations and international co-operation.

"This is a set of realistic proposals," said NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen at a news conference. "This is a set of proposals that demands finally that the government step up to the plate, join with industry leader, join with every day Canadians to make the environment a better place." 

The latest proposals from the NDP call for a retrofit of 75 per cent of federal government and crown corporation facilities, and new directives forcing them to use renewable sources of energy and more efficient goods and equipment. Overall the five-point plan would permanently reduce greenhouse gases by 209 megatonnes per year at an annual cost of $940 million, NDP energy critic Dennis Bevington said. 

Harper said he was pleased to see the new NDP ideas on the table and would look at them carefully.

Ambrose is expected to deliver her own plan on climate change and clean air in the fall.

© CanWest News Service 2006