Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 10, Evidence - March 25, 2003
OTTAWA, Tuesday, March 25, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 5:21 p.m. to examine and report on emerging issues related to its mandate (implementation of Kyoto); and to give consideration to Bill S-10, concerning personal watercraft in navigable waters.
Senator Lorna Milne (Acting Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Acting Chairman: Our first witness today is our honourable deputy chair, Senator Spivak.
The Honourable Mira Spivak, Senator, Sponsor of the bill: This is not a short presentation, but I will try to be as expeditious as I can. If you have questions and want to interrupt me, that will be fine. It will break the monotony.
This personal watercraft bill, which is now Bill S-10, was first introduced in May of 2001 as Bill S-26. It was referred to the transport committee and it died. Bill S-10 is almost identical to that bill. It is a housekeeping bill to correct an oversight. In this case, the oversight is a lack of a legal tool that communities can use to restrict personal watercraft, as they can use boating restriction regulations to set speed limits on the water or restrict water-skiing.
Bill S-10 would not be needed at all if the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans would make a regulatory change and direct officials to help cottagers' associations and municipalities through the regulatory quagmire.
I met with the former minister and the Coast Guard commissioner. I have also maintained contact with department officials, thanks to my assistant Barbara Robson, who has done a spectacular job on this. Alas, it has been to no avail.
Elsewhere, the bill has received a surprising level of interesting support. There are now 77 organizations across the country that want us to pass the bill. They include municipalities and umbrella organizations for municipalities. For Senator Buchanan's benefit, the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities was an early supporter.
Senator Buchanan: If they were, I am.
Senator Spivak: They include organizations representing people who spend time on our lakes and river, including the Canadian Recreational Canoeing Association and the Canadian Coalition of Provincial Cottage Associations. They include environmental organizations, as you would expect, such as the Canadian Nature Federation, the Sierra Club and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists. The full list is at tab 7 of your briefing books, which I assume everyone has.
We also received hundreds of individual messages from more than 500 Canadians, who have said that passage of this bill is important to them. Some 3,300 people have signed petitions to the Senate and 2,000 to the House of Commons. The binders in front of you are full of the letters and petitions, most of which I have already tabled in the other committee.
There are letters here that have been sent, completely unsolicited, since last June. I would like to quote from one of them:
On the large lake next to New Denver, B.C., a few of these machines ruin it for everyone else. Like many other lakes in this country, people come here for peace, quiet and beauty. Our community has tried to get jet-skis off our lake and been unable to do so because of the lack of a law such as the one that would follow passage of...[the bill.] Our lives are affected and so is our substantial tourist trade...
"Dangerous,'' "polluting'' and "noisy'' are the adjectives Canadians use to describe the thrill craft buzzing around their lakes.
I would like to table all the media reports. There have been about 125 reports, columns, editorials and broadcasts.
Why is there such interest in and support for this bill? It is because it solves a problem that has been 15 years in the making. It solves it in the same way we have solved other problems on the water, whether the problem is caused by water-skiers, by boaters that speed thoughtlessly, or by owners of gas-powered boats that discharge inordinate amounts of oil and gas into the lakes.
Under the Canada Shipping Act, there is a way for local communities to reduce risks to safety or environmental damage. They can apply for a boating restriction regulation that applies to only one lake, a portion of a river or a distinct area of a large lake. The community can decide to set speed limits, hours of the day when people can water-ski or, if pollution or noise is the issue, to allow only electric-powered boats or no boats with any type of motor.
They must consult locally, they must have approval of the law enforcement officials and, in most cases, they must get municipal and provincial agreement. Their request that the lake be listed under a schedule of boating restriction regulations goes to the Canadian Coast Guard. It is published in the Canada Gazette. The Coast Guard, on behalf of the minister, receives comments and almost always adds the lake or portion of river.
It is a democratic process that trusts local knowledge and respects local decision making. There are literally thousands of these boating restrictions now in place in every province.
If I could, I would simply change the boating restriction regulation, in the unlikely eventuality that I would be minister, by adding two schedules that restrict the use of personal watercraft. Not like the Swiss have; I am not, at this point, advocating an automatic or widespread ban on personal watercraft, no matter what my personal feelings may be. That is not what this bill is advocating.
Passage of this bill will afford communities choices and give them local control. In some communities, restricted hours of use may be the reasonable solution. In others, restrictions on wake jumping near other boats may solve the problem. On small lakes or near beaches where people swim, prohibitions may be required.
In fairness, there is no single solution that will let people continue to use personal watercraft — including as water toys — and protect other people on the water as well as protect the environment. What may be appropriate in coastal waters could be inappropriate on a small lake or on the portions of the Red River that run through Lake Winnipeg. What is appropriate in the middle of the St. Lawrence River might be inappropriate near public beaches or a Parks Canada dock.
Parliamentarians cannot change regulations; we can only introduce bills. This bill would put in place a process for personal watercraft that is very similar to the current process for other boating restriction regulations, but hopefully it will not be as obstructionist or cumbersome. Boaters themselves complain that it takes a great effort to get through those regulations.
The preamble of the bill recognizes that safe use of our lakes and other waterways is a matter of national importance, that there is public concern about safety and environmental problems created by personal watercraft use, and that the current regulations under the Canada Shipping Act are not sufficient.
Clause 2 of the bill gives the necessary definitions.
Clause 3, the purpose of which I have outlined, gives local authorities a legal means to impose restrictions while respecting federal authority.
Clause 4 outlines the method, public consultations, consultation with law officials, and requires the community to determine for health, safety or environmental reasons what restriction is required or whether a ban is needed. It requires passage of a resolution by that local authority, and it requires that evidence of consultation and the resolution be sent to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. It requires the minister to publish any proposed restriction in the Canada Gazette and sets a 90-day comment period. It provides a mechanism for the community to amend their resolutions based on those comments.
The public consultation requirements are extensive. In fact, they go beyond what the government requires for other boating restriction regulations. The reason for that is found in the following clauses that reduce but do not eliminate ministerial discretion. Several of the clauses state that the minister "shall.'' Most importantly, he shall publish the communities' proposed restrictions in the gazette and he shall order them into law, subject to clause 6.
Clause 6 gives the minister limited discretion to refuse to order a restriction or a ban if navigation would be obstructed, impeded or rendered more difficult or dangerous. This was on the advice of our legal counsel, and "navigation'' here means navigation in general, not the navigation of personal watercraft.
Clause 7 deals with the ministerial order to add or remove a designated area from a schedule as the local authority has requested.
Clause 8 requires the minister to keep records of all resolutions and their disposition.
Clause 9 establishes the prohibition against operating a personal watercraft except in accordance with the restrictions and sets a maximum fine. Here Bill S-10 differs from the previous bill, Bill S-26, in that the maximum fine here is $500, which a boater towing water skiers would face if convicted of a breach of a boating restriction regulation.
Clause 10 gives the minister the authority to make regulations.
Clause 11 is a requirement that the minister report to Parliament, which would allow parliamentarians to keep watch on how the act is being used by local authorities and what resolutions are refused by the minister.
That is the bill, drafted with current process and penalties for boating restriction regulations in mind. It is similar to what the Coast Guard itself proposed in 1994. The Coast Guard did publish a new schedule to restrict personal watercraft in Part I of the Canada Gazette on June 4, 1994. You can find it and the Coast Guard's response to comments it received and mention of the many supporters in the minutes of the meeting held in August of that year in Tab 1 in your briefing brook. In that year, Coast Guard officials received thousands of complaints from waterfront property owners, from other boaters and from officials in Parks Canada. They had the support of RCMP officers, who were armed with accident figures. They had their own statistics, which showed that personal watercraft had a higher rate of collisions than any other smaller vessels. Parks Canada staff was also in support. They wanted a restriction off Pacific Rim National Park. Officials from Ontario and Quebec also wanted the new schedule, as did provincial officials in Saskatchewan and communities in British Columbia.
Two groups were opposed. They were the marine manufacturers and the trade unions whose members build boats, the two groups that also oppose Bill S-10. The upshot in 1994 was that the government listened to those opponents, and the new schedule was not approved and published in Part II of the Canada Gazette. Instead, the Coast Guard was directed to find another way to deal with the problems.
That other way was age restriction. No one under age 16 can now operate a personal watercraft. Another way of dealing with the problem was through education and, for a time, through voluntary programs that the manufacturers sponsored. Then, last September, there was a requirement that anyone driving a personal watercraft or a 12-foot runabout with a small motor have a boat operators' card. To get one, you do not have to show you can handle a 100- horse power machine on the water or even that you have attended classes on boating safety. You need only write a simple test.
Frankly, the boating community is beside itself. It thought it was getting a boating safety program that would mean something. Instead, it got a program full of loopholes.
At a meeting of the Canadian Marine Advisory Council last fall, representatives said they were concerned about the courses, the tests and the database. Coast Guard officials admitted that they did not know how many cards had been issued, but suggested that the number was minimal. I am certainly in favour of education, but boater education without any on-water training or testing can only go so far.
Instead of a regulation that could be tailored by communities to fit the real world, we imposed very broad regulations on age and education, ineffectively, as it turns out. That is the history; that is where we are today. Fifteen years after personal watercraft became popular and almost 10 years after the Coast Guard proposed a solution, the problems still persist.
What are those problems? What is a personal watercraft? In popular terms, they are jet-skis or sea-doos, names adopted from their trade names. They look and often sound like snowmobiles on water, without skis, a rudder or a propeller, which leads to one of the safety problems. Until recently, most personal watercraft were powered by two- stroke gasoline engines, although manufacturers are beginning to produce several models with less-polluting and quieter engines. The first commercially available jet-ski introduced by Kawasaki in 1974 had a 32-horse-power engine. Today, racing models have up to 160-horse-power engines. Even the smaller models have 85-horse-power engines.
They were not very popular until the late 1980s, because not many people had the confidence to handle a small, powerful machine on the water while standing up and holding on. Bombardier designed the first sit-down model, and their popularity soared. In the United States, they increased 10 fold, to 900,000. In Canada, the estimates ranged around 80,000. Today, manufacturers estimate that about 50,000 are in use in Canada.
The problems that people have put up with fall into several categories: Safety, environment, and noise. Tab 3 in the briefing book gives you some information on the safety concerns, and I have included three comprehensive popular articles on the subject, one from the U.S. and two from Canada.
I would like to read from the third paragraph in the first article that puts in lay terms one of the chief safety problems. With regard to the U.S. it states:
In 1998 the National Transportation Safety Board criticized the basic design of all personal watercraft. "Personal watercraft have no braking mechanism. They coast to a stop, and while coasting, there is no turning ability.''
As the writer put it:
...when the throttle is off, a speeding jet ski is like a car on ice. It can't stop. It can't turn, and the driver has no control.
Consider some of the most horrendous accidents, like the one where a mother took her little boy for a ride, returned to the dock but could not control the jet ski and it killed her little girl.
Manufacturers are beginning to address the problem in some new models. However, the advances in the model year 2003 do not solve the problems in communities where people bought more dangerous models a year or five years ago. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Division, the American Medical Association's journal and the Transportation Safety Board have been trying to quantify and correct the off-throttle problem since 1995. More recently, as the third article shows, the courts have been imposing their own solution.
I hope that the collision expert from Calgary quoted in the second article will be available to appear as a witness before this committee.
U.S. Coast Guard statistics show the trend in personal watercraft use in accidents, in injuries and in fatalities. Unfortunately, those statistics only go to 1997, but the ratio of injuries to accidents is significant. There is one injury for every 2.3 accidents, and there are almost 24 injuries for every death.
My office has detailed U.S. Coast Guard statistics for the year 2000. Here we see that accidents involving personal watercrafts accounted for more than 1,500 injuries and 68 deaths. According to statistics from the U.S. Coast Guard, personal watercrafts account for 42 per cent of the 5,400 collisions between vessels, although they account for less than 10 per cent of all registered boats. They were involved in almost 30 per cent of all accidents.
The best Canadian data, as the Canadian Coast Guard does not keep statistics, comes from Health Canada's program that gathers emergency room information. Data from the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program tells us that personal watercraft use results in a disproportionate number of injuries in this country. If they were designed and used as other powerboats, personal watercraft should account for between 3 to 5 per cent of injuries treated in emergency rooms. In fact, they account for more than 20 per cent of them.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has looked at death and injury rates and the accident characteristics. In June 1998, it wrote to manufacturers telling them to evaluate personal watercraft designs and make changes to improve operator control and to help prevent personal injuries, and to consider items such as off-throttle steering, braking, padded handlebars, and operator equipment such as personal flotation devices and helmets. Some new models have some of these features. The vast majority of the 50,000 personal watercraft now in use has few of them; and riders are not required to wear helmets.
Finally, in this particular section is information that quantifies the massive recalls of personal watercrafts for production or design problems that could lead to fires or explosions. That information led to a search for other recalls and a finding that more than 500,000 units in a 10-year period have been recalled for significant safety defects. That is somewhere between one half and one third of all personal watercrafts manufactured.
It is laudable that manufacturers are catching the defects. It is worrisome that such a low percentage is being repaired. Thirty-eight per cent of the 126,000 units that Bombardier recalled for defective fuel tank filler necks on its models for three years. It is also worrisome that the Coast Guard has never warned Canadians about the recalls.
Tab 4 in the briefing book deals with the environmental problems and has two excellent papers by the Library of Parliament Research Branch. There you will find Environment Canada's description of the pollution problems. In just one hour, the hydrocarbon emissions from a 70 horsepower two-stroke engine equalled the emissions of a new car driven 8,000 kilometres. Many personal watercrafts are higher horsepower and are used hour after hour on small lakes. Until recently, most personal watercrafts were manufactured with two-stroke engines. We found that California is banning all two-stroke engines on everything, not just on personal watercraft.
The same type of engine found on most outboard motors is the same type that Environment Canada says exhausts up to 40 per cent of its fuel and gas mix into the water as raw, unburned fuel. In a typical two-hour ride, between three and four gallons goes right into the water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the typical personal watercraft discharges 50 to 60 gallons per year of this unburned fuel.
Environment Canada says that the exhaust contains hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oil, grease, fuel additives, and what it calls "BTEX,'' that is, trace amounts of carcinogenic and mutagenic aromatic hydrocarbons formed in combustion — the Saddam Hussein of boats. No wonder people on lakes are concerned about drinking-water quality and personal watercraft use.
The reason these dirty, two-stroke engines are so polluting is that their designs have remained unchanged since the 1940s. Exhaust ports and cylinders stay open for a short period of time while fuel and oil enter them. In four-stroke engines, the exhaust valve closes before the fuel mix enters the cylinder and, like a car, lubricating oil is contained in a separate reservoir.
In recent years, manufacturers have redesigned the two-stroke engine. Now we have the direct-injection two-stroke engine with high pressure pumps that blast fuel into the cylinders after the exhaust ports have closed. Manufacturers claim a 75 per cent reduction in hydrocarbon emissions. A recent U.S. National Research Council report found that four-stroke and direct-injection two-stroke engines discharge five to ten times less fuel than the standard two-stroke. Technology can address a good deal of the problem.
In the real world, consumers have bought tens of thousands of these dirty two-stroke engines and they will not replace them overnight. Last year in Canada the major manufacturer offered only one four-stroke personal watercraft and three direct-injection models. The remaining seven models were two-stroke engines. This year it is the reverse. Four models are four-stroke, five are direct injection, and only one is a conventional two-stroke; but the two-stroke is about half the price of the top of the line four-stroke.
In 1996 the U.S. EPA passed regulations requiring manufacturers to gradually reduce emissions from personal watercraft, jet boat and outboard engines. By 2006, the agency requires a 75 per cent reduction in hydrocarbon emissions and, quite sensibly, it gave them time and flexibility to get there. It also predicted that the real world impact would not be felt until 2030, when all the old engines had been replaced.
In this country, we do not have such regulations. We have a memorandum of understanding with manufacturers, which sounds good but, as always, the devil is in the details. Our manufacturers have not committed to reduce the emissions of engines sold in Canada by 75 per cent. Instead, they promise that engines available for sale in Canada will have a certificate of conformity with the EPA regulations and a permanent label.
The subtle and important difference is that the EPA program allows for corporate averaging of emissions. Companies can keep producing dirty two-strokes as long as engines are offset by more and bigger clean technology engines. Part of the formula includes sales in the U.S. Only engines produced for export are exempt.
The Canadian voluntary program makes no mention of corporate averaging and is not based on actual sales. Manufacturers agreed, starting in 2001, to sell only engines that had a certificate of conformity with EPA rules. It does not matter whether the conforming engines are more polluting two-strokes. They argued that corporate averaging would not work in Canada. Here is the reasoning. In the outboard engine market, for example, Canadians tend to buy engines about half the size of those purchased in the U.S. It is much easier to build a cleaner, bigger engine and to get offset credits for it than to build a powerful lightweight and clean small engine.
Our government, understandably, did not want to drive our manufacturers out of business with regulations they could not meet. It agreed to a voluntary program that takes no account of the emissions created by the engines sold to Canadians. It is a huge hole in the Canadian program. The Sierra Club and the Federation of Ontario Cottages Association warned about three years ago that consumers could be misled by the EPA label, mistakenly thinking they were buying an eco-friendly product. They also warned that we could be the dumping ground for dirty engines produced in the United States. There is some evidence to support that.
In 1998, when the EPA rules came into effect in the United States, personal watercraft imports into Canada rose sharply and continued to rise. They jumped to $14 million by 2000. These statistics do not tell us whether the imports were powered by conventional two-strokes or cleaner technologies. I hope that, when the Manufacturers Association appears here, they will give us the data that will show exactly how many engines of the various types have been sold in the last seven years.
The agreement with our manufacturers does not include regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The government said in the spring of 2000 that Canada would model our regulations on EPA standards. In fact, under the Canada-U.S. agreement, the government made that commitment to the U.S., but the target date for these regulations is for 2005.
In the face of federal inaction, many provinces and municipalities are acting. In New Brunswick, in the interests of protecting 30 watersheds, all two-stroke engines are banned, and all boats with engines greater than 10 horsepower are prohibited. That eliminates all personal watercraft.
Quebec is proposing to ban all gas-powered motors on lakes smaller than one square kilometre and four square kilometres if the lake is used for drinking water. Ontario has unilaterally banned boats from provincial parks, and even Parks Canada has said no to personal watercraft inside the parks.
As for the municipalities, some of them have quietly allowed bans to go ahead. One municipality, the District of Saanich on Vancouver Island, was not so quiet and stood up to threats of legal action that were apparently hollow.
However, there is an important constitutional question here: The federal government has sole constitutional authority over navigation and any restriction that may be placed on it. It has not defended that authority on either coast, nor has it provided communities with an alternative to protecting its environment. The boating restriction regulation process could provide the solution. Bill S-10 provides a solution within the constitutional division of powers. Therefore, if for no other reason than to give the provinces and municipalities the solution they have grown tired of waiting for, we should pass this bill.
I will not dwell on the other environmental impact, that is, the adverse effect on wildlife. The section in the briefing book by the American Canoe Association speaks to that. The director of the North American Loon Fund believes that personal watercraft present the greatest threat to breeding loon populations.
In tab 5 is a summary of an excellent paper on the matter of noise, written by another of our proposed witnesses. You will also see what one manufacturer has been doing to reduce noise emissions. You will see the chart that puts the quieter Sea-doo in a decibel range between a vacuum cleaner and city traffic.
One of the bill's supporters wrote that she lives on the Rideau Canal where the noise of PWCs reaches disturbing levels and compared it to living alongside the 401. Intuitively, she was not far off.
Last June, the Coast Guard proposed new regulations that require mufflers on small vessels. However, officials say they will not apply to personal watercraft or any other vessel that has its exhaust below water. This does not take into consideration that, during wake jumping, personal watercraft become airborne and emit a distinct whine.
Other countries have dealt with the same problems. In the U.S., boating restrictions are a state, not a federal matter. The Swiss have banned personal watercraft outright. However, the U.S. example is the one most comparable to our own because we share waterways and have similar statistics.
When we look to U.S. regulations, we see that 51 states set a minimum age for personal watercraft drivers, and Canada's minimum age of 16 compares favourably to age limits elsewhere. Forty-four states have put limits on wake jumping, and 38 states have bans in specific areas and 12 states have set specific speed limits. We do not have any of these limits anywhere for personal watercraft.
In the U.S., the Personal Watercraft Industry Association has developed model legislation. Many states have adopted the measures that the U.S. manufacturers recommend. Others have gone further. New York State has adopted an approach similar to this bill. In the U.S. it is called "home rule.''
I started work on this five years ago. One reason was that a young man was killed on my lake in a PWC accident. When you see he strong vocal support, there is often a history of a tragic death. People in British Columbia, in Ontario, on Lake Magog in Quebec all have first-hand knowledge of such tragedies.
Work on this bill began about five years ago, but last month some members of the boating community who have opposed this bill began work on an alternative that, frankly, is not very different. They too want the minister to use the boating restriction regulation process. They want him to fix the process to make it more user-friendly. Rather than looking at personal watercraft specifically, they want to look at the behaviour of the drivers of these craft and other craft in the future that require restrictions in the interests of safety, the environment and everyone's enjoyment of the waterways. Maybe our witnesses will tell us how that concept is developing.
I welcome any action by the minister that would make this bill redundant.
Bill S-10 is a housekeeping bill. It addresses the serious problems caused by personal watercrafts, and it recognizes that the federal government has the constitutional authority over navigation to deal with these problems rationally. It also recognizes that turning a blind eye to the problems has not, and will not, solve them.
I think the most important thing to have some local control, to allow local communities to impose whatever restrictions they feel are required and justified for their own lakes, whether it be limits on wake jumping, restricted hours of use, no-go zones where people swim or there are loons' nests, more stringent restrictions on small lakes and sources of drinking water, and a ban wherever they think that is necessary, but not necessarily a ban.
That is what passage of this bill will accomplish.
Senator Cochrane: At the beginning you mentioned that there might be just one thing that the minister could do. Could you elaborate?
Senator Spivak: He could put in a schedule designated to deal with PWCs. That is what this bill is asking him to do. If he did that, as well as what other people are proposing, it would make applying for boating restrictions easier. It takes about 20 steps for anybody to try to impose a restriction on boats, and at any stage in that process some bureaucrat can say, "No, it will not work. It is finished.''
For example on a small lake next to mine, people wanted to consider personal watercraft restrictions, but they were discouraged to do so by the RCMP.
If the minister were to put in this schedule, it would be easier for someone to get access to the powers that be and to apply for a restriction.
Senator Cochrane: Is there a provision here for the federal government to give jurisdiction to the provinces or the municipalities?
Senator Spivak: No.
Senator Cochrane: Do they not need to be involved?
Senator Spivak: You cannot do that. Yes, the municipalities and the provinces police the problem. However, all waterways are under federal jurisdiction. For example, on the Red River in Winnipeg, somebody wanted to licence sea- doos for rental, and city council got up in arms because all the residents living on the waterway were up in arms, so they did not allow that. However, it is not really within their jurisdiction. It is the federal government's jurisdiction. At this point, no one has challenged it. None of the manufacturers want to challenge any of the municipalities that are putting in these restrictions. However, all the court cases on other matters have shown that, even if it is for a good reason, they cannot allow the municipalities to do that. I believe there was such a case concerning noise. It is a federal government jurisdiction.
Senator Cochrane: I realize waterways are under federal jurisdiction.
What age must a person be before he or she can operate one of these watercraft in Canada?
Senator Spivak: No one under 16 can operate one these.
Senator Cochrane: Must the person have a licence?
Senator Spivak: I think so. As I explained, they have to write a test and have a boating card.
Senator Cochrane: Do we have the number of injuries or deaths caused each year by these personal watercrafts?
Senator Spivak: Only from the hospital, because the Coast Guard does not keep those statistics. The hospital keeps data on emergency injuries.
Senator Cochrane: Do we have that?
Senator Spivak: Yes, you have that information in your briefing book. Although our Coast Guard does not keep statistics, when you look at the U.S. Coast Guard's numbers, they are horrendous — plus the number of recalls. I could not believe that figure; it is astounding.
Senator Cochrane: Could you elaborate about the threats in Vancouver? Did you say they were hollow threats?
Senator Spivak: In Saanich, there were threats of legal action because of the ban of all watercraft. In the end, that did not materialize. They were not subjected to a court case.
It is interesting to note however that, although PWCs were banned in Saanich, personal watercraft are operated at a nearby lake and no one has complained. The people in Saanich put up signs saying, "No PWCs,'' and that has worked. If the local community is persistent, I think people respond to whatever the local community wants in the end.
Senator Christensen: You were saying that there is a restriction process that people can go through now.
Senator Spivak: There is a process that allows for the banning of all boats.
Senator Christensen: Is it all or nothing?
Senator Spivak: Yes, that is the problem. There are all kinds of schedules all over Canada. Some specify that all boats cannot go so many metres from the shore, and that would probably include personal watercraft. However, there is nothing to allow a community that wants to just deal with the PWC problem, and not bring into that net all other boats. Even when they try to do that, they are discouraged.
Senator Christensen: Are there provisions for municipalities to ban either all or specific boats on waterways that are not navigable waterways, say a closed lake without inlets or outlets?
Senator Spivak: I think the process applies to all lakes. They are all considered navigable.
The boating regulations are in the briefing book. You have to go through many steps.
Senator Christensen: Are those communities that are putting up banning notices doing it without any legislation behind them other than, perhaps, a bylaw?
Senator Spivak: Yes, that is the case for communities that are banning PWCs. They are just tired. They do not want these watercraft on their waterway. I do not know if they are banning. In some cases, they are just imposing restrictions on the speed. If this bill does not pass and the minister does not put it in the schedule, that is what they will continue to do.
There is a lot of awareness about this question, and I would like to think some of it is because of the introduction of these proposed measures. However, people also are very much aware of what they want or do not want on their lakes. They should be able to do it easily, without too much hassle, and with the community in accord.
You have to pass a resolution. The minister could designate what is the local community. The debate about whether to restrict water skiing or do whatever, has been going on for years.
Senator Christensen: From an environmental point of view, you said that Canada does not have any requirements that we to go from two-stroke engines to four-stroke engines.
Senator Spivak: There is a memorandum of understanding between the manufacturer and the government. It is voluntary, but the minister will bring in emissions regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, although we do not know exactly when that will be done. Clean air is at the forefront of his mind now, so there will be progress on that issue.
Senator Christensen: Are we are dealing with a serious environmental issue, as well as the nuisance issue?
Senator Spivak: There are 50,000 dirty, two-stroke engines out there. It will take a long time to get all of them off the water.
Senator Christensen: Is damage to wildlife occurring?
Senator Spivak: Yes, there has been terrible damage to nesting birds and fish.
The Acting Chairman: You did say the minister has the power to designate what a municipality or an area is. Since municipalities in Canada are the creatures of the provinces, I do not think that any federal minister could possibly do that.
Senator Spivak: I misspoke. The question the minister would recognize is what constitutes the local community. He will not say that a certain area is not a municipality.
The Acting Chairman: He is going to say it is a municipality, and I do not believe he has the power to do so.
Senator Spivak: You might be correct.
Ms. Barbara Robson, Assistant to Senator Spivak: Under this legislation, the term is "local authority,'' and that was understood in most cases to be a municipality. However, in some cases, it would be a cottage association and the minister would have the power to designate who is a local authority.
The Acting Chairman: Our witness for part one of our meeting this evening, Dr. Nyboer, is here. I will vacate the chair and turn it back over to Senator Spivak.
Senator Mira Spivak (Deputy Chairman) in the Chair.
The Deputy Chairman: Dr. Nyboer, from Simon Fraser University, is an ecological economist, and one of the authors of The Cost of Climate Policy. We are examining the emerging issues related to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.
Dr. John Nyboer, Ecological Economist, Simon Fraser University, as an individual: I am honoured to be called to speak with you about issues arising from the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and our corporate response to it. This marks a peak in the expression of my own conviction that our stewardship of this earth — our care and concern for the environment — is crucially important to the sustainable well-being of human kind and all the creatures and living things that God placed on this earth under our responsibility. I have believed this since my youth; I taught this when I was a high school teacher; I extol this in my lectures; and I proclaim it internationally in my overseas speaking engagements. I am pleased to come before the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources to do the same.
Rather than repeat what I have already provided in my notices to you, I would like to speak to you about what I see as a necessary component to realizing sustainability and, in this case the ultimate goal of the Koyoto Protocol, a resolution to the threat of climate change.
While I will make reference to what I have written in my brief submission, this component that I speak of reflects, in my opinion, our society's view of itself with respect to our environment, and how this view must now change out of necessity.
I wish to address what must happen for this societal view to change. Part of this "happening'' is reflected in that noble goal of placing upon each Canadian a responsibility to face the issue of possible climate change in his or her personal life — "the one-tonne challenge.'' While I do not want to suggest that this one-tonne challenge is the epitome of policies, it could be a singularly powerful approach to a change that I feel must occur.
I would like to approach this topic by reviewing how we got into this position; suggest how we might get out of it; and, finally, what must happen for this to occur. This final point is addressed in more detail in my written submission to the committee.
How did we get here? The explanation is fairly simple. We never consider all the possible outcomes to our various actions; we only consider the good ones. Historically, it has never been a problem because the capacity of our environment to absorb the "bads'' from our actions has always exceeded our ability to generate them. However, now, when an increasing population with increasing demand multiplies the cumulative set of bad outcomes, the threat of them outweighing the good and pleasant outcomes appears menacingly on the horizon.
It is fundamentally a philosophical, dare I say religious, outlook that is the problem. Whether you think this is the result of a cyclical reincarnates view of life, common among the eastern religions, that results in you attaining some ethereal nothingness, or nirvana; or if you are a tribal herdsman whose prowess is established by the size of your herds; or if you are a western economist, who sees these externalities in an economic system that suggests there are only two major players — those who produce and those who consume — forget the earth which is the provider of the resources and the receptacle for that discarded wealth; or if you believe that free enterprise capitalism and the fundamentalist Christian belief in God Bless America are inextricably tied, you come to the same problematic conclusion: We wind up abusing our supporting environment and making it unsustainable.
In my international travel, it is surprising how such a comment, "this fundamentally religious issue,'' is regularly met with nods of agreement. Thus, it appears we are now facing a moral and an ethical dilemma. By our current actions, we have an effect on future generations of humans and all other living things and we must face a responsibility in spite of our history to practice principled stewardship. To keep that religious theme, we need a conversion experience.
As it pertains to this planet and to this universe, we need to see our function here differently, from a new and perhaps cleaner perspective. That has already begun to happen. Let me quote you various views on the issues, which will clarify this and will lead to the point at hand.
Lynn White, in 1967, wrote in a publication called Science, an article called "The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis.'' He stated that what people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to the things around them. That is an important point because it can be viewed in many different ways. Here is one of them.
In 1991, Dave Foreman wrote, in Wild Earth, an extreme environmental magazine, the following:
...the extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean the survival for millions, if not billions, of earth-dwelling species. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.
I think that he is right but I am not sure that I would go to that measure.
On the other side, we have one from May 8, 2001 by Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, who stated George W. Bush's position on whether Americans need to change their lifestyles to reduce energy consumption. He said:
That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, that it should be the goal of policy- makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one.
In 1970, Francis Schaeffer, a philosopher from the same Judeo-Christian cultural background, wrote in a treatise called "Pollution and the Death of Man'':
It is the biblical view of nature that gives nature a value in itself...all things are equally created by God... All things, including man, are equal in their origin, as far as their creation is concerned.
This leads us to another point of view. This is a quote from Wendell Barry in his 1990 book called, Out of Your Car and Off Your Horse wrote that the real work of planet saving would be small, humble and humbling and that, insofar as it involves love, pleasing and rewarding, the jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, and too small to make anyone rich or famous.
Wendell Barry provides the theme of our one-tonne challenge. Canada has ratified the Koyoto Protocol — one of 104 countries that has done so. If we all follow through, we may bring our collective emissions down to levels about 5 per cent below those of 1990. By the time the commitment period arrives, 2008-12, such a shift will only have a minor impact on the condition known as global warming. If we look beyond Kyoto, the targets will have to be significantly greater.
Thus, my first conclusion is that by ratifying the protocol, we begin to take a path that leads us to a different way of thinking about our consumer actions and about how we utilize resources, even though this first step may not have any noticeable impact on this perceived problem.
This issue is global. Cleaning up our own backyard is not enough. Everyone must clean up. Some of our yards are fairly neat. If the issue is global, those of us with means and with neat backyards should not be afraid to help those whose yards are not so neat and who cannot easily afford to clean their yards. If we look carefully at our neat backyards, materially encumbered backyards, perhaps we need to carefully consider the state of the backyards from which we obtained those materials. Perhaps we have some stewardly responsibility there.
My point is that there are good opportunities for joint implementation and clean development mechanisms that we, as responsible stewardly benefactors of the world's resources, should address.
For example, given that most greenhouse gases arise from fossil fuel consumption, improving Third World energy efficiency significantly is far cheaper and far more helpful than improving our energy efficiency only marginally.
Given that we believe the gravity of the situation — and I do not think that that is always true because views are strongly different — it is unlikely that non-compulsory actions would suffice unless we undergo this conversion experience. While I strongly support, and would enhance, voluntary initiatives, it is unlikely that such initiatives alone would allow us to reach our Kyoto target. In suggesting that it is cheap and can be done in a voluntary way, we ignore actual costs that may not be monetary, such as the choice between public transit and cars, risks of investment in new technologies and consumers' preferences.
If these actions were cheaper, consumers with extra money may consume still more energy-consuming goods, such as decorative patio lighting or heaters. The incentive signals for producers and consumers must be immediate and substantial in order to move people in the right direction.
This then becomes the tricky goal of the policy-maker. One must provide the right incentives to reshape thinking and choices without the chooser feeling it was not his or her decision.
We have a number of policy option available, including voluntarism, command and control regulations, economic instruments such as subsidies and taxes, tax shifting, economy-wide tradable permits and sector-specific market- oriented regulations. These tools are valuable. They typically undergo a standard policy evaluation criteria set including administrative feasibility, effectiveness, economic efficiency and political acceptability.
Given our train of thought on compulsion to act, I provided a graphic in my submission on the degree of compulsoriness. In our book we construct a detailed policy package on what would approximate the reductions and cost estimates of our analysis on a national reduction target. This policy mix includes an enthusiastic but sober response to voluntarism, selected command and control regulations in the housing construction areas, for example, subsidies to support technologies, buildings and infrastructure especially by tax credits, sector-specific market-oriented regulations to drive some fundamental change, and a modest economy-wide cap and a trade system that operates mostly like a tax.
What about the one-tonne challenge? It is clearly a voluntary, no-compulsion, no-checking-on-compliance type of policy. It is not equitable in that there is great countrywide variation in the implications for people given their social and geographic position. It will require substantial support, both in terms of supporting programs and policies, as well as what I would call "shaping.'' That is, the policy will need to invoke enthusiasm for the goal, and it will need to provide opportunity for that enthusiasm to be expressed and rewarded.
Perhaps the biggest plus is that it places on each of us a responsibility to act morally and ethically. These strengths should be the focus of the program. This is not to say that those who do not follow the program are immoral or unethical. However, those that follow the program show a greater sense of both.
One must provide opportunity to exercise and encourage choice for acting. Supporting programs do play an important role. One can use something people hate as a tool for encouragement. For example making green car, greenhouses or green power GST free would have an impact on people because they do not like the GST, as long as this is coupled with the idea that this choice is more than just economically beneficial.
Labelling programs and active participation by other sectors would be helpful. Industry should advertise their efforts in terms of what they have done so that the people do not feel they are doing this alone. Raising expectations regarding the quality of construction of commercial and residential buildings, government-house-in-order type programs, celebrity support for efficiency vehicles and the like would make this conversion much more likely.
Our act to ratify is only the first step in a long but doable road to positive change in society's new theme of sustainability. The one-tonne challenge will play a much-needed role in that change.
Senator Buchanan: "God bless America and the American way of life.'' Interesting. What about God bless Canada and the Canadian way of life? As much as some people do not like to admit it, the Canadian way of life is equal to the American way of life.
I have heard it said many times that Americans love their cars. Canadians love our cars too. I suspect, without seeing the statistics, that Canadians drive as many cars on a per capita basis as they drive in the United States. We drive the big ones, the suburban vehicles. I see them everywhere.
I really do not know exactly what you mean when you say "God bless America and the American way of life.'' Do you relate that same saying to Canada?
Mr. Nyboer: I was quoting Ari Fleischer there. While there are many similarities, there are also some differences.
I quoted some poll statistics. From the polls it appears that Canadians tend to be more sensitive to those things than Americans. I am not sure why. I do not trust polls, and I do not think that they are terribly reliable.
Senator Buchanan: The only ones I trusted were the ones that I ran during eight provincial elections that I won.
Mr. Nyboer: We are very much like the Americans in that we fall under the same rubric with the material propensity that we have. That conversion experience of which I was speaking and the desire to see an important criterion for choice would include energy efficiency becoming a fundamental component of purchasing anything. When you go to an automobile salesman, he does not have to find out what the efficiency of the car is because no one ever asks the question. It should be the first question to which he has the answer because everyone should ask that question. It should be the same for the efficiency in the construction of housing.
A huge dilemma lies with this one-tonne challenge. It is an avenue on which we can approach this now, as we approached second-hand smoke as being a dilemma. When I was young, no one considered second-hand smoke at all. Suddenly it has had a significant effect on many things, including the law. That could happen here also if we approach this by pointing out that if people are not considering these things, they are not "in.''
Senator Buchanan: I agree with you. We had a witness here a few weeks ago who made much sense as far as house efficiency was concerned. I took him to heart. I actually called 1-800-O Canada to find out how I could make my house more efficient and to save money. That is the big sale — to save money.
As soon as people hear that, by being more efficient in their homes, that is, cutting the draughts and being more conscious of heat loss, they will save money, they will react much quicker. I did.
You mentioned public transportation. In our area, use of public transportation is going down, not up. The Halifax metro area transportation system is losing money because people are driving more cars than ever before. They are not using the buses. They still have a love affair with automobiles. For some reason, efficiency in their homes makes sense to people, because they will save money and they will burn fewer fossil fuels or oil. They do not react to cars in the same way. Why is that?
Mr. Nyboer: That is a good question and there have been many people who tried to search for an answer for that. Much of that deals with those things we call externalities. There is some benefit derived from privacy: you can smoke, drink your coffee, listen to music and not sit beside somebody who smells funny. Those things encourage people to take their cars, even though they lose time by doing so.
When I take the transit to Simon Fraser from my home, I have the opportunity to read, which I enjoy. It is my only time to read the newspaper. When I am sitting in my car, I cannot do that.
Senator Buchanan: You will do that, but most people will not.
Mr. Nyboer: I have here a an EnerGuide T-shirt. It says that I am 74 per cent efficient. I challenge each one of you in this room to beat that. The point here is that, by making this an encouragement thing, we can get people on to transit.
It cost me quite a bit to replace my single-pane windows in Vancouver with double-glazing. I took off the siding and installed more insulation. I discovered that parts of the wall had no insulation. I added a new furnace. My mother-in- law said to me that I was nuts and would never get that money back. She may be right, but I was doing it for other reasons. I resolved some sound issues with the better windows, as well as comfort issues. Those are not advertised.
With transit, we have to do the same thing, so that it becomes more than just a way of getting to work. I have friends who live in Mission, which is not far from Simon Fraser, but far enough that you may not want to take the car. They take the train, which is wonderful. They can sit down, drink their coffee and work on their computers and they love it.
Senator Buchanan: Getting back to the Kyoto accord, I oppose it for various reasons. One of the reasons was that Canada decided to go to the Kyoto accord and agreed to it, even though in Nova Scotia, for instance, we burn all kinds of coal. Unfortunately, it is not our own, indigenous coal any more. We bring it from places like Hampton Roads, Virginia, Michigan, Colombia. We burn coal.
As well, over the last few years, we have been have been exporting half a million cubic feet of natural gas a day to the U.S. Yet, we are getting no credit for our coal burning, because we are using natural gas in export. The regulations of Kyoto will not allow the credits, which is ridiculous to my mind.
As I understand it, Canada is the only country in North America or South America to have agreed to the Kyoto accord. In other words, in all of this area of the Western world, we are the only one and we are only a small portion of the whole area. The rest of the area has not bothered with the Kyoto Protocol, yet we have. I am told that this, in an economic sense, will hurt us, vis-à-vis the United States.
Mr. Nyboer: We have done a lot of analysis on that aspect. I am not convinced as to how much it will hurt us. There are so many unknowns, including the degree to which we might exploit clean avenues and technologies. Even coal can be burned cleanly. Its use is not necessarily restricted to the way you are using it now on the east coast. It is true that we are the only ones and we are small. We account for two per cent. What is more important than Kyoto, per se, is the degree to which it forces people to recognize that what they are doing is more comprehensive than simply an economic decision. That was the focus of what I was trying to say here, too. If it does nothing but make people rethink how they purchase goods and make choices about things, then for the global issue we are better off.
Of all the people who have the ability to do something about it, we stand in good stead. We are both wealthy and high emitters. Under that rubric, I support it.
Senator Eyton: I will make an observation, and out of that will come a question. I think Canadians may be more pre-disposed than Senator Buchanan has intimated in his questions. It is a fact that Canadians drive smaller and, for that matter, cheaper cars than our American counterparts. There has been a great problem with the car manufacturers in Canada, because they are unable to increase the Canadian prices so that they are equivalent to the same model selling in the U.S. There has been an illicit trade between the Canada and the U.S.
I think Canadians do not want to spend as much money and should be looking not only at the cost of the car, but also at the operating cost of the car. That plays into what we are talking about here, which is the need for them to be aware of the economies that they can achieve and, with it, help us achieve Kyoto and other targets.
I do not think we do very much. My question is: Why do we not do more than we do? A number of us on this committee went to California last week. I suspect that California would be leading the pack, in terms of encouraging efficiency in all sorts of ways. Some of the testimony was truly impressive and it related not only to what they were doing, but also to the measured results of what they were doing. There was advertising and persuasion, but some of those initiatives included subsidy.
I had a new experience today. I was obliged to replace an air conditioning unit in my home in Florida. My wife phoned me this morning at 10 o'clock and said, "You have to give me the account number for our Florida electric and gas company.'' I asked her why, and she said "Because they just put in a unit and they gave me a range of units, but they said that if we put in this particular unit, because it is more efficient, we will get a 10 per cent discount on the price.'' I thought that sounded pretty good. The unit, we were also told, would perform as well or better than the competing units, and was more efficient. We signed up happily and got a 10 per cent discount on the unit, so that everyone wins. I have an air conditioning unit that works now.
I have never encountered that situation anywhere in Canada.
The surveys certainly indicate that Canadians support Kyoto and its objectives. That would apply to emissions of different sorts. I do not see active campaigns by the suppliers or by the service industry to say, "Here is a real incentive for you to go that way.'' Why are we so slow in picking up that ball, which no one can object to, and making it work?
Mr. Nyboer: It is not quite accurate to say that. I will give one example. As I mentioned, I put a new furnace in my house. It costs $1,200 more than the one that, I, perhaps, should have replaced it with. Not more than three months after I installed it, I got a nice note from B.C. Gas that informed me that if I had put in an efficient one, they would give me $300. Rats, I lost $300. If I had been just a little slower off my mark, then I would have been better off.
There are also a number of such programs run by B.C. Hydro. I am not familiar with the whole country, but I know there have been many B.C. Hydro programs that have long been promoting efficiency in equipment. The Energuide program in Canada has also done that. Houses, cars and appliances now have Energuide ratings, or they will have them shortly. There are also some incentives to replace old equipment. They will give you $50 and take away your old refrigerator if you buy a new, efficient one.
Senator Eyton: Is that in British Columbia?
Mr. Nyboer: Yes. Here in Ontario, I think they will start a similar program, because Mr. Eves has figured out that they may not have enough electricity for everyone. That is happening, but it is not happening dramatically enough. It could happen much more dramatically.
As I mentioned, the GST would be a wonderful driver to make that sort of thing happen. You are giving up 7 per cent. People will flock to take advantage of it because they do not like the GST. They will choose the green item. The most efficient would be GST free. If the producer makes one that is slightly more efficient, he can market it as being GST free. It can go on from there. The most efficient one will always get the benefit, and the producer who produces one that is not quite as efficient will make one that is more efficient.
You can be creative in that way, because you can induce people to do the right thing economically, and they will have the satisfaction of feeling good about doing so.
The other day, one of our research associates purchased a washing machine — a top loader. It consumes five times the electrical energy of a front loader. Not only that, the front loaders use five times less hot water and spin the clothes so dramatically that the dryer needs half the energy. She did not know about that. We should advertise that. It should be GST free.
Senator Buchanan: That is the kind of thing that should be advertised.
Another incentive that is available, and I did not know about it, but I do now, is that you can call an independent contractor, who does not do the work himself, to check every window in your house, as well as the doors and everything else. He will charge $350, but I will only pay $150.
Senator Milne: You have suggested several ways that governments can encourage people to do various things. Since people generally respond to positive feedback or stroking, what other ways can you think of that would perhaps get people out of their SUVs and into energy-efficient cars, for example? It seems to me that that is one of the major components of the carbon emissions.
The Deputy Chairman: Apparently in San Francisco they are driving a beautiful fuel cell SUV with liquid hydrogen. The only thing is that it costs $4 million.
Mr. Nyboer: That has always been a struggle. I have talked to people from GM, "To what degree do you think your advertising shapes the market?'' They say not at all. We are just encouraging what they are already doing. I am thinking that is not true. I do not buy that for a moment. They have incredible power to shape the market, and you need only to read an advertising manual in order to understand that.
We must encourage people to focus away from the advertising for SUVs. One way to do that is to encourage car salesmen to sell efficient cars by suggesting that, for every efficient car they sell, we will give them an extra $300 or $500 or whatever the going rate is. You will subsidize the salesman, because he is the primary motivator for the purchase of that vehicle. The people will come in looking at a SUV, and the salesman will say, "Here, I have something that is better. It is three times as efficient, and you are going to like this.'' Give the guy $300 for doing that. There is an option.
There are all sorts of incentive-type programs that you could conceive of where somebody in the stream would be rewarded. The golden refrigerator program was a program where the company that could develop the most efficient refrigerator would receive a $300,000 prize. All these people were competing to develop the most efficient refrigerator, and one got the prize. Now we have a market full of very efficient refrigerators. Creativity will spawn those sorts of things.
It is true that there are carrots out there. It is true that there are also sticks that will harm. "Fee-bate'' systems, which can be revenue neutral, could be: "If you buy that little car that is efficient for your commuting, and we will give you $500. If you buy the SUV, we will charge you $500.'' They would have to come up with some ratio.
The notion is that we want to develop your regime of thinking. We want to get to the point where you realize that, by doing a certain thing, you are not only saving money, which is a good motivator, but you are doing what is right.'' People like to do what is right. For now, what is right is being glorified because you drive up Mount Everest. I do not understand that. What is so right about being able to drive up Mount Everest?
Senator Milne: How many people are likely to do that?
Senator Eyton: You can do two bad things at the same time.
Mr. Nyboer: Exactly, but, for some reason, it is attractive. Creativity needs to be spawned. For example, in California they have a regulation that says, "The average of all cars must be this low. You guys figure it out. It is open to the market. We are warning you ahead of time that it will be that way. You cannot say you did not know. Get out there and figure it out. You guys are creative and smart. Figure it out.'' Let them do it. If you start imposing it as a government, if you start forcing them to do things, it is a good regime for hate. You do not want to do that. You want them to want to do it. That is the creative aspect.
The Deputy Chairman: In your notes, you talk about $150 per tonne to get to the Kyoto target. What is that? How do you arrive at that figure?
Mr. Nyboer: You are asking a complicated question. I would be willing to spend time with you on that, if you like, and give you some more detail.
We run a detailed end-use model. We look at technologies that are available to commit to a service, that is, transportation or the making of pulp or cement or something else. There are a number of options available in the production of those commodities. Some options, while cheaper, use more energy. If you start raising the price of carbon, that is, the cost they must then shell out for emitting a CO2 molecule, or a tonne of it, then they will begin to avoid the technologies that do that. When we start charging higher prices for technologies that generate all this crud, then eventually people will move away from those technologies. How many dollars do we have to charge per ton of CO2 to get them to move away far enough to reduce our emissions by the 200-megatons to meet Kyoto? Thirty of that, roughly, is in forestry.
The Deputy Chairman: Our government has said it will cap the price at $15 a tonne for the resource industries, or is for all of industries?
Mr. Nyboer: That is primarily for industry.
The Deputy Chairman: That is a big difference. Is that the wrong policy?
Mr. Nyboer: This curve that we concocted for the purpose of this exercise is flatter and rises more steeply as you approach the $150 margin, so $15 will get you more than half way.
The Deputy Chairman: I see.
Mr. Nyboer: It is not true that it will be exactly half. At 75, you get half. At 15 or so you get more than half. At about 10, you get half of what you need to get in-house. The suggestion is to aim for 15. That will put us at slightly more than half. If you are creative, you can resolve some of those issues and problems, and buy the rest from the market. I was talking about joint implementation program — somebody else's backyard. It is easier for us to go to China and get rid of their terrible stuff. It would be good for the world and good for the Chinese people. We will look like saviours of the world and not have it cost us an arm and a leg.
That analysis has to be modified. It is primarily demonstrative. We have done more since then. The idea is right.
The Deputy Chairman: Is that all in that book?
Mr. Nyboer: It is.
Senator Eyton: How much does the book cost?
Mr. Nyboer: I am an author, so I get a good deal. It is $29 in the store, and I can give it to you for $20 right now. I will even sign it for you if you like.
Senator Christensen: In trying to achieve our one-tonne goal, if a municipality or an area increases or makes its bus system more efficient and a person leaves his car at home and uses the bus system, how is that counted? Does the individual, the municipality or the jurisdiction get the credit. How is it counted?
Mr. Nyboer: That is a $6-million question. It is difficult to account for those things in that way. Therefore, there is no way to check up on whether you have achieved your tonne or not, and there is no way to allocate it to you if you have.
As I mentioned in the text, one guy conceived of this carbon credit card that has on it five tonnes, and then every time you go to the gas station, they take off whatever that tonnage would have been.
Your car, for example, releases about three or four times its own weight per year, if you drive a normal distance, in carbon emissions. Your car weighs a tonne and a half, so it would be four or five tonnes just for your car. Think about that. If your car is a big heavy one, like an SUV, you are worse off.
We could have you go through with two credit cards, one that is for payment and one that is a debit for CO2. It is administratively nuts, but an interesting concept. We have no way of measuring the degree to which you have complied. The only thing we can do is encourage you giving you a refund if you buy a certain item. You might not have to pay GST if you buy or, if you do not buy at all, you would be better off.
Materials flow is another important issue that I have not addressed at all. You will notice that my notes are produced on recycled paper. How many of your pages are two-sided? My congratulations to you if many of them are. The production of each piece of paper requires energy. If you multiply that energy consumption by the 30 copies that are here, times the 15 people who did not get one or use it, what is your answer?
Senator Milne: You use the back half for notes.
Mr. Nyboer: I have a huge vat of this stuff. My wife collects it. Our secretary is under explicit instructions: If we get paper that has only been used on one side, we use the other side. That is just one example. If you multiply that to take in all sorts of wrapping and packaging you will save a lot of energy. I do not know how we can capture all of that. I can tell you we would be better off were that to be done. Recycling programs must be strong. For example, recycling aluminum cans saves 95 per cent of the energy. Aluminum is an energy intense commodity. Paper is about 35 per cent and steel is about 70 per cent. It goes on and on. Materials flow is an important concept.
Senator Buchanan: I move that we ask Dr. Nyboer to appear on television.
Mr. Nyboer: I will be appearing on a B.C. television program on March 29.
The Deputy Chairman: I want to thank you. This has been a very interesting presentation. I will read the book.
The committee adjourned.