Kyoto
Bill Passed by Committee Despite Conservative Tactics
OTTAWA
- Despite Conservative attempts to de-rail Canada’s Kyoto
commitments, Liberal Members of the Senate Environment Committee passed
the Kyoto implementation legislation last night without amendments,
Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell said today.
“This
government continues to resist any real action to fight climate change,”
said Sen. Mitchell. “This
government has shown once again that it will do anything it can to prevent
Parliament from passing a bill that will obligate Canada to meet its Kyoto
targets.”
Under
the rules of the Senate, committees can’t sit while the Senate as a
whole is in session. Last
night the Conservatives tried to artificially extend the Senate session
until midnight to prevent the committee from voting on the implementation
legislation, known as Bill C-288. The
Conservative stalling tactic failed, enabling Liberal Senators to pass the
bill in Committee. It now
returns to the Senate today for third reading which will begin Thursday.
“The
Conservatives pulled out all of the stops to keep Canada from reaffirming
our Kyoto obligations and putting in real accountability measures,” said
Sen. Mitchell. “We saw it
when Environment Minister John Baird used scare tactics to make outrageous
claims about the costs of complying with Kyoto.
We saw it when he refused to put hard caps on emissions of
greenhouse gases. And we saw it again and again in their procedural wrangling
in the House and Senate.
“If
they want to oppose Kyoto and real action on climate change, they should
just say so, and let Canadians have a real debate.”
The
Conservative plan for climate change has been panned by critics, including
such leading environmentalists as Al Gore and David Suzuki.
In fact, most economists and environmentalists have said that there
will be no way that Minister Baird’s plan will accomplish what he
suggests.
“If the government were truly interested in real debate on the issues, it would stop playing games with Senate and House committees and honestly debate the issues,” said Sen. Mitchell.
