My friend cited Dr. James Hansen, renowned climate scientist, who is now urging environmentalists to accept nuclear power.
However, that is because he is so dreadfully concerned that the climate crisis is going unaddressed. He specifically refers to the oil sands as “game over for the climate” if we continue to exploit them and he would only be interested in Canada’s position on nuclear energy if we had a climate policy.

We now stand at a point where, according to Environment Canada, we will completely, totally, and utterly miss the target that the Prime Minister chose in 2009 at Copenhagen. We were supposed to go from 737 megatonnes to 609 megatonnes. Instead, by 2020, when the due date falls, we will be at 734 megatonnes—a meagre three-megatonne reduction.

Does the hon. member not think it is too rich for the Conservative side of this House to invoke Dr. James Hansen on some issues while studiously
and resolutely avoiding his advice on others?

Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Speaker, our government has set real goals for cutting pollution, and cutting pollution will ensure a more hospitable atmosphere.

In terms of environmentalists, environmentalists who are truly concerned about Canada’s air, water, and land are recognizing that nuclear energy is a clean, sustainable, and economically advantaged form of producing energy, as opposed to wind turbines and some of the costs involved in the manufacture of solar cells. Far more emissions occur as a consequence of the manufacture of those than are contained in all the emissions that occur when building a nuclear power plant.

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There is no statement anywhere in this document that gives us a complete statement of revenues against expenses. There is no bottom line. There is no statement of what the total budget will be for any government department. There are random announcements of spending, but no rationalization of whether that spending is new money or old money, or whether, for instance, the $319 million Parks Canada would get in new money to repair the roads that are crumbling because of previous budget cuts would mean the budget would go up or down.

This has attracted the interest, of all things, of The Economist magazine, which has made note that Canada has departed from our time-worn tradition of ensuring that Parliament controls the public purse. I ask my hon. colleague if, in good conscience, he can call this a budget.

Corneliu Chisu: Mr. Speaker, in answer to my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, I would like to point out that this is a real budget. I understand the budget very well. I am a technical person, not a lawyer. Lawyers put spins on words and so on, but I am a practical person and I know that if we are spending $7.5 million on something, we are spending it for that purpose.

We have a lot of good things in this budget. If the hon. member would provide some advice on how to do better, I would accept it, but if she is saying that it is not a budget and it does not contain anything, I am sorry, but that is not the case.

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I thought the language used here was unusual. This had to do with having to dispose of breeding stock “…due to drought or excess moisture conditions”. It is on page 149. By that I think it means floods.

This budget, throughout, has many measures dealing with increased levels of natural disasters. There is a whole section on residential floods and having to deal with the insurance industry to try to get better protection.

There is an acknowledgement through this document, including at page 149 on help for farmers who have increased droughts and increased floods. Yet the document, despite spending money addressing the costs hitting Canadians and hitting our economy due to climate change, refuses to acknowledge that the climate crisis must be addressed.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary has any comments on that.

James Bezan: Mr. Speaker, definitely things are difficult, as always in western agriculture. My grandparents lived through the dirty thirties, trying to farm. We adapt and we change.

Talking about excess moisture, sometimes excess moisture is not just overland flooding. Sometimes it is just heavy rainfalls at the wrong time, and crops do not mature properly. In the case of bees, they cannot get to the flowers and pollinate because of all the moisture, or the alfalfa field will just not even go into bloom.

Excess moisture covers flooding, yes. It also covers excess rainfall, and other conditions will occur from time to time, which seems to be more of a norm.

Growing up, we always dealt with extremes. As a former farmer-rancher still living on the farm today, I can tell the House that we have to deal with the climate. As farmers, we understand and appreciate that, and we really appreciate it when the government steps forward and helps us to deal with those difficulties.

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I will start with this quote, “…perhaps the greatest threat to confront the future of humanity today”, describing climate change. That is a quote from the Prime Minister, in 2007.

Another quote is from the Secretary General to the World Commission on Environment and Development, Jim MacNeill, a Canadian, a global diplomat, who said the single “most important environmental…statement” from any government is its budget.

Here we are in 2014. The Prime Minister said it was the single biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today. He said that seven years ago. Environment Canada now reports that, against the Copenhagen target—a commitment to reduce by 130 megatonnes of greenhouse gases by 2020—we will reduce by three megatons. This target was not taken on by a previous Liberal government, but taken on by the Prime Minister in Copenhagen in 2009. That is a complete failure.

Would the parliamentary secretary explain how the government can put forward a document, in 2014, that does not use the words “climate change”, “carbon”, or “greenhouse gases” and has no measures to reduce them?

Deepak Obhrai: Mr. Speaker, I will not agree with the Green Party to say that we are going to put a carbon tax out here. No, we are not.

However, the Minister of the Environment has stated quite clearly on many occasions that, yes, we are addressing the issue of climate change. We always attend all the conferences where climate change is on the agenda.

However, it is a global issue that everybody should be part and parcel of it, not just Canada. So, we will continue working with our allies, the rest of the countries, to address the issue of climate change.

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One of the consequences of these deep cuts across Canada has been that Parks Canada’s infrastructure is crumbling. The money in the budget for Parks Canada, which I am glad to see, it is not to protect national parks but to protect Canadians who are trying to drive through national parks. It is to repair the roads, the bridges, and existing dams. There is nothing new in the budget to repair the damage done to Parks Canada in previous budgets.

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Would the Prime Minister tell us why he chose to go after live retirees instead of dead money?

Stephen Harper: Mr. Speaker, of course, we maintain tax rates for corporations. We expect them to pay their taxes and we go after them when they do not pay their taxes. However, the question that was asked here concerns the voluntary supplemental health benefits for retirees.

What we are saying is that we believe it is still a subject of discussion at a bargaining table. We have been very clear that we believe that when it is a voluntary plan like that, a Cadillac plan, retirees should pay their own fair share, which would be 50% of the plan. It would still make it one of the best plans one could get in this country.

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