2009-09-28 1440 QP - The Environment

Mr. David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in New York last week President Obama, Prime Ministers Brown and Rudd, President Sarkozy and Hu Jintao all stood up to represent their countries on the world stage in preparation for Copenhagen. When the chips were down, Canada's isolationist Prime Minister turned tail, jumped back on his private jet for a $60,000 getaway flight to Toronto, leaving in his wake bewildered world partners struggling to deal with the climate change crisis. That is an expensive cup of coffee. Why did the Prime Minister shirk his responsibilities?

Hon. Lawrence Cannon (Minister of Foreign Affairs, CPC): Mr. Speaker, contrary to what my hon. colleague says, the Prime Minister did not shirk his responsibilities. The Prime Minister assumed his responsibilities, and we worked as a team. In talking about a team, one thing I can say, coming from Quebec, is that there is no team there. There are two teams over there. That is why today they do not have a member for Bourassa.

Mr. David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, after almost four years of sabotaging the efforts in Bonn, Bali and Poznan to fight climate change, where do we stand? There is no national plan, no regulation, and no exchange system. No one believes their bogus intensity targets can be reached. Why do these Canadian republicans prefer to attack China and India rather than fostering an international agreement? Are they simply trying to ruin the Copenhagen summit?

Hon. Jim Prentice (Minister of the Environment, CPC): Mr. Speaker, we will certainly continue to work with the United Nations process. Just over the course of the last week I participated in the UN process, as did the Prime Minister, and in addition to that in the major economy forum struck by the President of the United States and the Greenland dialogue struck by the chairman of the Copenhagen conference. We will continue to work with our national program. We will continue as well to work with our international allies in terms of developing something at Copenhagen that is going to find an international treaty that works, something the Liberals never did.

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