Environment Minister John Baird has dismissed the idea of a carbon tax or international carbon trading market as ways of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

Sporting what has become his familiar green tie, Baird appeared Thursday before the House of Commons committee studying the government's proposed clean air act.

Environment Minister John Baird appeared before a Commons committee in Ottawa on Thursday.
CBC

Baird told the committee the federal government has set short-term targets to regulate air pollutants and greenhouse gases emissions in all industry by 2010.

Liberal environment critic David McGuinty challenged Baird on whether he supports a carbon tax on industry, asking whether he agrees "it's time to charge for the right to pollute into the atmosphere."

"I disagree with the notion of a carbon tax," Baird said. "Our approach will be to provide regulation for industry to ensure we reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and reduce air pollutants.

"We don't sit around the cabinet table dreaming up ways to increase taxes. That's certainly more common in the McGuinty family than it is in the Harper cabinet," Baird said, in a reference to McGuinty's brother Dalton, the premier of Ontario.

Baird also ruled out an international carbon trading market.

Trading system

The Kyoto Protocol allows countries to use a trading system to help meet the accord's goal of reducing the world's greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5.2 per cent relative to 1990 levels by 2012.

Any country struggling to meet its targets may buy credits — essentially the right to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide — from countries exceeding their reduction targets.

"I certainly believe that Canadian families don't believe … it's in the best interest of Canadian taxpayers to buy credits — hot air credits in places like Russia — where we are only compensating for previous government action," Baird said.

Baird said buying credits would be an easy approach, but that it would be a bad investment for Canada and that the government would rather spend the money at home.

But Baird said he is moving toward a carbon trading market in Canada. This would allow a company in one part of the country to invest in green projects somewhere else in Canada and be given credit for reducing its emissions.

Heated exchange

Baird also got into a heated exchange with McGuinty over how much the government has spent on the environment.

McGuinty hammered Baird over the question and accused the government of cutting $5.6 billion.

Baird would only say spending was "significantly more" than the previous government.

"We're not going to spend money on things that don't work," Baird said.

"You can't answer the question, minister," McGuinty responded.

"You're the minister of the environment, you can't tell Canadians how much money you spent in the last year. Should we call the minister of finance to tell us?"

Baird shot back that he was not "going to take advice" from McGuinty on the government.

"You were the chief adviser to the prime minister on the environment and that's the record," Baird said, pointing to a chart showing greenhouse gases rising during the time the Liberals were in power.

Fears for the economy

Earlier at the committee, Baird reaffirmed the government's position that it will not attempt to meet the greenhouse gas targets set out in the Kyoto treaty, saying there would be severe economic ramifications.

"To achieve that kind of target through domestic reductions would require a rate of emissions decline unmatched by any modern nation in the history of the world, except [by] those who have suffered economic collapse, such as Russia."

Earlier this week, members of Parliament voted in favour of a motion that reaffirms Canada's support for the Kyoto Protocol. The Tories voted against it.