The federal government appears to be caving to auto industry demands and has lost the political will to enact promised stiff greenhouse-gas-emission targets on new vehicles, says Quebec Environment Minister Line Beauchamp.
According to Ms. Beauchamp, there is no other way to explain comments made by her federal counterpart, Jim Prentice, who on Monday attacked Quebec's decision to "go it alone" by imposing tough vehicle emission regulations. Mr. Prentice called it "folly." In his criticism of Quebec, he added that it would be "counterproductive and utterly pointless" for the province to penalize manufacturers who failed to comply by imposing levies of up to $5,000 a vehicle.
Ms. Beauchamp said Mr. Prentice's assumptions were wrong. "It is false to say that manufacturers will be fined $5,000 per vehicle," Ms. Beauchamp said yesterday.
She also said that Ottawa was distorting reality when claiming that Quebec was acting alone. She argued that Quebec was part of a group that includes 15 American states representing 40 per cent of the North American auto market that have adopted what's known as the "California standard" to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions on new vehicles.
Manufacturers who fail to comply will be fined a levy based on the percentage of greenhouse gases their total fleet of vehicles sold in a year exceed the standard. For instance, if the emissions for the total fleet sold are 1 per cent above the standard, a manufacturer will be fined a levy of $50 a vehicle. Quebec intends to introduce the levy based on the standard in five years.
Quebec announced in December, 2007, that it would adopt the California standard. Last June, U.S. President Barrack Obama dropped the legal battles launched by his predecessor George W. Bush and granted a waiver to 15 states, including California and New York, to allow them to enforce the new standard. Quebec announced in December, 2009, that it would follow suit.
Since then, the auto industry has mounted a campaign to discourage other provinces and the federal government from doing the same, according to Ms. Beauchamp.
"It is clear that Mr. Prentice was using the same arguments made by the automobile manufacturers to criticize our position ... when in fact Ottawa had already announced it was going to adopt measures similar to ours as early as next year," Ms. Beauchamp said. "That can only mean one thing. I hope that Mr. Prentice wasn't telling us that the Canadian federal government was about to renege on its decision to enforce these same standards across Canada as of 2011."
Ms. Beauchamp said her ministry will be contacting federal officials to determine where Ottawa is headed on this issue.
Opposition parties in Ottawa were unanimous in condemning Mr. Prentice's "unfounded" attacks against Quebec. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said it was "ridiculous" to be criticizing Quebec for maintaining a position of leadership across the country in the fight against greenhouse-gas emissions.
"This is a bad way to manage a federation" Mr. Ignatieff said, calling for federal-provincial dialogue rather than confrontation. He said Mr. Prentice was attempting to hide his own failure to act on an issue that requires close co-operation with the provinces.
