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I’d also like to thank the Board of Trade for hosting us, and Jason (McLean) for your
introduction.
I started my working life out at UBC and I love this place. Every time Zsuzsanna and I
come back we feel the excitement of a great world city.
Now the Olympics will spread the excitement of Vancouver to the whole country. When
the torch relay starts, Canadians from coast to coast to coast will be lining the streets to
watch them pass.
We owe British Columbians a debt of gratitude for what you’ve given our country.
You’ve brought us together.
Yesterday I came in on the Canada Line. Did the same thing last time I was here.
You’ll allow me a little partisan pride here. The federal partner that invested in the
Canada Line was the Liberal government of Paul Martin and Jean Chretien.
According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, it’s impossible to say how
many jobs their stimulus program is actually creating.
Nos propres chiffres indiquent que seulement douze pourcent des sommes prévues
pour les infrastructures ont véritablement atteint nos communautés; et trop souvent, ce
sont pour des projets électoralistes dans des comtés conservateurs.
Eleven years ago, Paul Martin came to this Board of Trade and stopped the National
Debt Clock.
The Conservatives spent us into deficit before the recession began. When the crisis hit,
the Canadian cupboard was bare. And they still haven’t told us where our finances are
headed.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has been right when the Conservatives have been
wrong. A Liberal government would make his office fully independent, with the
resources necessary to do his job.
Because no government should ever get between Canadians and the truth we deserve.
Employment is rising in the public sector, but it is stalled in the private sector.
Ocean shipping rates are the lowest they’ve been in a quarter of a century.
No one yet knows whether recovery will take hold, or how strong it will be next year.
Smart investments now—like the Canada Line—will sustain growth in this city and this
province for decades to come.
Now is the time to invest more, not less, in Canadian know-how, innovation and
discovery.
Our universities, our colleges, our institutes of research: these are the incubators of our
future. The federal government needs to sustain them, not cut them.
Now is the time to go where the growth is. The U.S. consumer is not likely to dig us out
of recession. We need to boost Canadian market share in India and China.
In B.C., you know that Canada is a Pacific power. I don’t think they understand that in
Ottawa.
Now is the time for Canada to lead at the G-20 in proposing new global financial
regulations—to provide stability for Canadian pensions and investments in a turbulent
global market place.
We’ve got a great central banker, Mark Carney. Our banking and financial system
enjoys global prestige. Let’s leverage those assets at the Huntsville G-8 to lead the way
to a more stable, secure and reliable financial system.
Now is the time, above all, for Canada to get serious about clean energy. That’s my
core message today.
We’ve just seen an entire Fraser River sockeye run evaporate. Millions of salmon just
didn’t show up.
Ask upstream communities about the consequences. Ask Aboriginal communities. Ask
fishers. Experts are already talking about a connection with climate change.
We need an urgent, independent public inquiry, using the best ocean and climate
scientists to figure out what happened, and how we can to keep it from happening
again.
We’ve also seen B.C.’s forest landscape scarred by the Mountain Pine Beetle. We
aren’t getting the cold snaps up in the Interior that we’ve had for thousands of years,
and it’s killing our forests, leaving us more vulnerable to fires in the summer.
So for British Columbians, climate change is not a distant abstraction. It’s here, and it’s
hurting, right now.
Under the Conservative government, we’ve had three plans on climate change, and no
action. We’ve wasted nearly four years of vital time.
L’énergie propre, c’est un moyen pour développer notre économie et pour que nos
enfants et nos petits-enfants grandissent dans un Canada meilleur, plus fort et plus
prospère.
Global investment in clean energy technologies was a hundred and fifty billion last year.
Germany has created more than two-hundred-and-fifty thousand clean energy jobs.
They’ve cornered sixteen percent of the global market.
Denmark gets a fifth of its electricity from wind. In Spain, it’s thirteen percent.
Just one percent of our power comes from renewables like wind and solar.
We’re not partnering with Canadian innovators and entrepreneurs—some of whom are
in this room—to take our best clean energy ideas global.
We can do better.
In the U.S., President Obama is putting six times more per capita into clean energy and
research than Stephen Harper.
Canada is investing less in renewables per capita than the State of Alaska.
So when it comes to clean energy, Stephen Harper isn’t just behind Barack Obama.
He’s behind Sarah Palin.
Clean energy changes everything. Not getting into the game now is like taking a pass
on the internet back in 1995, and investing in transistor radios.
The jobs of tomorrow are being created elsewhere as we speak. Either we act now, or
we spend the next decade wishing we had.
Pendant que notre gouvernement ignore les possibilités de l’énergie propre, le Canada
est devenu l’un des dix pires pollueurs de la planète.
For more than two decades, Canadian leadership on the environment didn’t belong to
one party.
But today, when the whole world is coming together to fight climate change, Canada is
nowhere to be found.
A few weeks ago, the U.N. Secretary-General hosted a global summit on climate
change. Mr. Harper didn’t even show up.
I’ve talked recently about restoring Canada’s place in the world. It’s very simple: we
won’t be taken seriously until we are serious about the environment.
At the heart of our next platform will be the most significant national investment
in clean energy jobs this country has ever seen.
Right now, in the middle of a recession, oil is trading at about seventy dollars a barrel. A
year ago, it was twice that. And as the global economy recovers and demand picks up,
we’ll face a fresh round of high energy costs.
In one respect, this is good for Canada and good for British Columbia. We are a
resource economy with a strong energy sector. Natural gas in B.C. and the Maritimes.
Oil in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
But high energy costs hurt Canadian families—and every other sector of our economy.
This morning I was at the Day4 Energy plant in Burnaby, where they’re re-inventing the
solar panel. The engineering that’s going on there, and the innovations in electrode
design, are world-leading.
There’s work like this happening all over Canada. But our scientists and our
entrepreneurs need the backing and the incentives only a strong federal government
can provide.
We also need to work with the provinces and territories to be a catalyst for promising
new technologies. By encouraging expanded feed-in tariffs for wave, tidal, geothermal,
biomass, and other renewables, we can make Canada a clean energy leader.
The Conservatives are cancelling the flagship federal renewable power program,
ecoENERGY. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the comparable program was extended until
2012.
But we’d do more than develop new renewable power sources. We want Canada to
become the most efficient user of energy in the world.
Smart grids are the kind of strategic infrastructure we should be building now, as we
look beyond the recession, to kick-start our economy and get us growing again.
Forward-looking clean energy investments will give us real credibility in the global fight
against climate change. We should back that up with Canadian proposals for a
continental cap-and-trade system, with hard caps.
We need to work with Washington, but we can’t just wait for Washington. If we keep
refusing to drive the agenda, our vital interests, our cross-border trade, and our future
competitiveness will all be put at risk.
En investissant massivement et à long terme dans les énergies propres, nous allons
restaurer la crédibilité du Canada dans la lutte contre les changements climatiques.
We can do this. Right here, right now, at the Clean Energy Research Centre at UBC,
researchers are working on clean-burning engines, biomass storage techniques, fuel
cell and hydrogen systems, and carbon capture.
We can thank B.C.’s technology pioneers—firms like McDonald Dettweiler and Ballard
Power—for setting the stage for Canada’s “CleanTech” innovators.
But these firms are being courted by governments all over the world. We need to give
them reasons to keep building in Canada.
We have the talent. We have the know-how. What we need is real commitment to
supporting Canadian research and innovation. A Liberal government will provide it.
The next challenge is getting Canadian clean energy and environmental technologies to
market.
China and India are investing billions in technology development and clean energy
infrastructure. This is a colossal opportunity for Canada—one we can’t afford to sleep
through.
But our market share in both China and India has fallen since the Conservatives took
office. We’ve run our first trade deficits in thirty years.
A Liberal government would learn from our success under Jean Chrétien and Paul
Martin—and bring back the Team Canada trade missions.
We’d enhance our commitment to our Pacific Gateway, and harness the power of our
own population—the incredible diversity that makes Vancouver what it is—to build
bridges to new markets and new opportunities.
We can reduce demand for imported energy by investing in clean energy at home.
Investing in clean energy at home means we can create technologies that we can
export to emerging markets overseas.
Our trade deficit stood at two billion dollars in August. Investing in clean energy is
central to digging ourselves out.
But there’s an even more direct role that government can play.
The federal government is Canada’s biggest employer, biggest landlord, and biggest
consumer of goods and services. A Liberal government will use our capacity to “test
bed” new technologies. We would set mandatory clean-energy procurement standards.
These are the three steps a Liberal government will take, to power Canada on clean
energy:
We’ll build our “smart grid” infrastructure and help businesses and families
become more energy efficient.
Nous allons brancher le Canada sur l’énergie propre. Nous allons créer les emplois
verts de demain. Nous allons faire mieux que nous relever de la crise. Nous allons
restaurer ce leadership mondial qui a fait la réputation du Canada.
In the last few years, the provinces, territories, and municipalities have done an
admirable job filling the void left by Ottawa.
And just a week ago, the B.C. government, B.C. Hydro, and the City of Vancouver
announced a new agreement with Nissan to bring its new electric car to B.C. in 2011—a
year before it arrives elsewhere.
Canadians are embracing the clean-energy revolution that’s coming right at us. It’s time
the federal government did the same.
What this all comes down to is a sharp contrast in visions of what government can and
must do.
The Conservatives are waiting for recovery, waiting for the private economy to pick up
the slack when the public investment winds down. We Liberals believe in a more active
vision. We must invest now to make recovery sustainable and enduring.
Think of the Canada Line: investments begun a decade ago will help Vancouver’s
economy for a generation.
It’s the same with clean energy investment. If we do this now, we will be in the game a
decade from now. If we don’t, the world will pass us by, and our children will pay the
price.
That’s what we have government for. To anticipate. To plan. To look beyond the
immediate horizon to grasp the unseen challenge and turn it into an opportunity.
This is the kind of government Canadians are looking for. Responsible in the deepest
sense. Responsible to Canadians. Responsible for Canadians. And responsible for the
future we want to leave our children.
Thank you.
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