May 15, 2002
Ottawa, Ontario

Today, following up on its commitment to consult with Canadians, the provinces, the territories and other stakeholders, our Government made public a discussion paper detailing options available to Canada in order to meet its Kyoto targets.

The vast majority of Canadians believe that addressing climate change is something that must be done. Because clean air and water are essential to our health and our quality of life. They are part of the heritage we must leave for future generations.

The discussion paper looks at four different scenarios to meet our climate change objectives. The paper will be an important tool to focus discussions and help our government come up with a comprehensive plan – a plan that we intend to present and discuss with the provinces, territories and the Canadian public next Fall.

Our goal is to come up with the best blend of actions that will achieve our target, minimize costs and maximize benefits to our economy as well as the environment, improve competitiveness, ensure no unreasonable burden to a region of the country and provide flexibility to deal with uncertainties.

There is no doubt that achieving our target will be a challenge. But the task is manageable. In fact, we will be able to meet our objective while ensuring robust economic growth.

Recent estimates by the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Analysis and Modelling Group place the impact of reaching our target at between 0 and 2 percent of expected 2010 growth. Assuming 30% economic growth between 1990 and 2010, reaching our targets would mean that our growth would be between 28 and 30 percent.

And Canada already has a solid foundation to build on, with investments of over $2 billion in climate change initiatives, including those announced in Budget 2000, Action Plan 2000 and Budget 2001.

We have stated many times that we would like to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. But we must complete important work with provinces, territories, stakeholders and the Canadian public before we make a final decision.

However, we will be in a much better position to make a decision on ratification when the element of clean energy exports is clarified. We will do everything we can to have our Kyoto Protocol Partners recognize the value of substituting cleaner energy sources such as natural gas and hydroelectricity for more greenhouse-gas-intensive fuels.