Hon. Stéphane
Dion P.C., M.P., Minister of the Environment
Check against delivery
Thank you so much David, thank you so much
for yourself and Madam Ligetty to have invited
me to this sixth Toronto Smog Summit. It
is a pleasure and it is an honour. I also
would like to recognize my colleague the
Honourable John Godfrey. I heard a lot about
your New Deal, John, before you came with
this roundtable.
It is great to see all these counselors
and Mayor John Grey arguing about how they
will share the investments in the New Deal
that you are making. It is really interesting
to see that because in many other countries,
as you know, they argue about how to cut.
Here in Canada we argue about how to add.
This is thanks to the fiscal policies that
we have had for a decade now.
Let me take this opportunity to congratulate
Minister Godfrey for his New Deal for Cities
and Communities. Prime Minister Paul Martin
has been very clear that every penny of
this New Deal, the gas tax, the transfer
of the gas tax to municipalities, will go
towards environmental purposes. Not a penny
will go to urban sprawl. We have programs
for bridges and roads.
Gas is a polluting substance, and this
gas tax transfer to the municipalities must
try to correct the problem. This is why
everything should go to either urban transit
or environmental infrastructures.
I was looking for a title for my speech
today, and in the video a little girl gave
it to me, Birds Fly Through It. The title
of my speech is Birds Fly Through It.
To the sponsors and the organizers let
me say merci, mille fois, tout le monde.
And now I will go right to the point.
I would like to talk to you about our focus
today - clean air, smog, transportation
as a source of smog, and the problems and
solutions that we’re all pushing ahead.
Let me first focus on the problem. Ontario
has a large population. It is very close
to the United States’ most populated regions.
Ontario is large industrial engine surrounded
at the south of its border by other industrial
engines of North America. These conditions
make this province very vulnerable to smog,
acid rain, air pollutants and climate change.
These problems share a main common source,
fossil fuel combustion. Health Canada has
reacted. The mortality level associated
with air pollution is a concern. We will
die from it if we do nothing. Health Canada
estimates that the number of deaths that
can be attributed to air pollution in Canada
is 5,900 deaths per year.
Just this Monday, we were reminded of the
severity of the problem in the Montreal-
Windsor corridor. Toronto Public Health,
in collaboration with Environment Canada
and Health Canada, released a study on the
combined health effects of air pollution
in extreme hot weather in the cities of
Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Windsor.
The study estimates that smog causes 822
deaths per year in Toronto, 818 in Montreal,
368 in Ottawa, and 258 in Windsor. The study
predicts that if the trend continues, health
related deaths will double by the year 2050
and triple by the year 2080 because of climate
change. We risk facing more heat, more smog,
and more death.
So far in 2005, Toronto has had fourteen
days under an air quality advisory already
and it is still early June. Fourteen is
usually as many as we get in a year. I have
been told that there is no smog alert today
in Toronto, but there is one in London,
in Sarnia and in Windsor. Advisories are
only issued for Ontario, not for the rest
of the country.
There are many sources of air contaminants
such as industrial, electric power, and
residential wood burning. But transportation
is the theme of today’s Smog Summit. Transportation
is indeed the major source of air contaminants.
The transportation sector accounts for almost
one-third of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions
which trap heat and contribute to climate
change and hot days which create more smog.
I invite you to read the declaration that
we will sign before leaving. It is very
interesting to see the numbers in the declaration
that we are giving to Canadians for their
information. In Ontario, the transportation
sector is responsible for 20 percent of
smog causing particulate matter, 85 percent
of carbon monoxide emissions, 29 percent
of VOC’s and 63 percent of NOX. Transportation
is also responsible for 30 percent of Ontario’s
carbon dioxide emissions which trap heat
and contribute to climate change. In the
greater Toronto area, transportation accounts
for up to two-thirds of smog forming pollutants.
This is the problem.
I would like to take this opportunity now
to address the solutions that we need to
continue in order to move forward together.
What have we done since the first Smog Summit
in 2000? The Government of Canada launched
our conferences and the Ten Year Clean Air
Agenda in the year 2000. I was at the table
supporting my courageous predecessor, David
Anderson when he announced the Ten Year
Clean Air Agenda at the 2000 Smog Summit..
We have committed $210 million to deliver
on key elements of the Clean Air Agenda.
But our financial commitment is not all
that is important. The path forward created
by this very important policy is equally
significant. We have put forward ways to
minimize pollution, reduce transportation
sector emissions, lower emissions from major
industrial sources, advance clean air science,
and engage the public in finding solutions
to clean air issues.
Since I cannot speak about all of this,
I will focus on transportation, the topic
of today. One of the key elements of the
Ten Year Clean Air Agenda for transportation
is a strict regulatory action plan for vehicles,
engines and fuels. This is already paying
significant dividends. These regulations
will reduce smog forming emissions from
new vehicles by 90 percent by 2010 compared
to 2000. This is good, it is too bad that
these regulations only impact new vehicles.
We are making progress with stricter vehicle
and fuel regulations for both diesel and
gasoline. Taken together, Canada and the
United States have the strictest vehicle
engine and fuel regulations in the world
for air pollutants. Our transportation regulatory
plan will also ensure that starting in 2007,
bus standards will require a reduction of
85 percent from current allowable levels
of emissions of NOX and of hydrocarbons
and 95 percent for particulate matter.
I have listened to the debate about the
use of public buses and changes that need
to be made in the greater Toronto area.
I have also heard what Mayor Bill has said
about what needs to be done for the TTC.
I am very pleased that the Government of
Canada has recently announced its expansion
of the National Urban Transit Bus Retrofit
Program. The program expansion consists
of retrofitting an additional 101 urban
transit buses with diesel oxidation catalysts
with the TTC upgrading an additional twenty
buses.
These are some of our actions, but the
Government of Canada cannot act alone, we
need to act with the provinces, territories,
municipalities and our American friends,
along with everyone, all the stakeholders,
and all Canadians. According to the Constitution
of Canada, many of the sources of air pollution
and smog fall within provincial jurisdiction.
The Federal Government is working very closely
with the provinces and territories to implement
the Canada-wide standards for particulate
matter and ozone, the two main precursors
to smog. We are moving forward through the
Canadian Council of Ministers for the Environment.
The federal provincial and territorial
governments, led by Ontario, are also finalizing
Canada-wide standards to substantially reduce
mercury emissions from the coal fire electric
power generation sector by 2010. The goal
is to capture mercury from coal burned in
the range of 60 to 90 percent. If I have
time, I would also like to address later
the local air quality initiatives that we
are undertaking with many of you including
the activities of the greater Toronto area,
clean air council and of course today’s
summit. But you know that very well.
I would like to turn now to what we are
doing with the United States. In January
of 2003 we pledged to build on the success
of the 1991 US-Canada Air Quality Agreement
to combat transboundary air pollution in
the Great Lakes Basin airshed and elsewhere
in Canada and announced a Border Air Quality
Strategy five months later.
In August 2004, together with my counterpart
at the Environmental Protection Agency of
the United States I made a commitment to
negotiate a particulate matter annex to
the Canada-US Air Quality Agreement to bring
about reductions in both countries. We have
now completed the science background and
are moving forward.
Canada and the United States now have strong
policies to reduce emissions of air pollutants.
But the fact is that progress is difficult
to assess because indicators are difficult
to reconcile. They change over the years.
In my assessment, we have been able to keep
the problem stable. But we must consider
the impacts of population growth, economic
growth, the increasing number of vehicles
on the road and so on. If we not have done
that, the solution will be substantially
worse today. And certainly we could be at
the range where Houston and Tokyo are or
even worse. But we have been able to stabilize.
It is not enough. I have been told, and
Mr. Mayor will tell me it is a good number,
that before 2020 about two million people
may be added to the greater Toronto area.
So that means that we need to do what we
are doing to move forward with the Ten Year
Clean Air Agenda. We must try to do as much
as possible to decrease the pollution we
have., We must make process or we risk ensuring
that the prediction that deaths will go
up will come true. We must move forward
and we must do more. The number of air quality
advisory days that we now have must decrease.
In addition to our actions to address smog,
we are implementing other policies that
are delivering co-benefits. The most important
of all of them is the improved climate change
plan which we recently released called Moving
Forward on Climate Change. With this plan
the Federal Government has committed $10
billion towards honouring our Kyoto commitment.
And in this plan you will find a lot of
ways to improve our capacity to work with
municipalities.
One key point of the plan, for instance,
asks the auto industry to decrease their
emissions by 5.3 megatonnes. Another key
aspect of the plan is the Climate Fund which
will operate as a Canada environmental bank.
If you provide reductions of greenhouse
gas emissions, then you will receive credits
for them. You can sell your credits to the
market and make money with it. I would be
pleased to discuss with all of you the way
it will work. But certainly if you come
with initiatives for transportation it is
something that we can discuss further.
Our climate plan also includes a Partnership
Fund. The Partnership Fund helps us to work
on joint priorities with the provinces and
territories. It will be important that your
priorities are reflected in this Partnership
Agreement that I hope to sign soon with
my colleagues at the Government of Ontario.
My colleague, John, will be talking further
about the New Deal as this is also a key
point of the revised climate change plan.
Let me conclude by announcing the launch
of the National Clean Air Online Website.
This Website is designed to provide Canadians
with timely, locally relevant and action
oriented information. I’m very proud of
that. It will be a tool and a resource to
help Canadians take action to improve local
air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and help Canada meet its Kyoto commitments.
I would also like to say that the declaration
that we are signing today is very important
for Toronto. One of the commitments of the
declaration that I am particularly interested
in is to explore the possibility of expanding
the Toronto Atmospheric Fund Model so that
it will apply across the entire greater
Toronto area.
I am also interested in exploring the benefits
of hosting a cross-border Canada-US Smog
Summit to engage in transboundary air quality
discussions and identify issues and strategies
with municipal, state and federal representatives
in the Great Lakes Basin Region.
To conclude very shortly, we are now only
halfway through on delivering on our federal
Clean Air Agenda. It gives us the strictest
vehicle engine regulations and regulations
for air pollutants in the world. It will
give us cleaner buses, cleaner cars, and
cleaner snowmobiles.
With Canada-wide standards for mercury
emissions from electric power generation,
the numerous local air quality initiatives
we are supporting, the particulate matter
annex we are negotiating with the United
States, the climate change plan we just
announced as part of the government’s broader
vision, Project Green, and with the New
Deal for Cities and Communities we have
so many things to do.
Next year when we meet again for the GTA
Smog Summit 2006 I am sure we will have
much more progress to discuss. We owe this
to Canadians, and quite frankly to human
kind. Merci beaucoup, thank you.
