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Motion 513 - Government Should Purchase Low Emmision Vehicles

Ms Blakeman:

Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister of Environment for the previous comments. I know that it may be a surprise to some that we’re debating Motion 513 today, but I do hope that there are more speakers on the government side than just the one because I think there is an opportunity here to talk about possibilities in other things that we could be doing as leaders to try and set an example of how we can make a better world and a better Alberta.

It’s possible that the motion is before its time, and that wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve seen that in my years in the House. I’m remembering the then Leader of the Official Opposition Ken Nicol, who introduced and campaigned long and hard for a stability fund, which I think is now called the sustainability fund after it was adopted by the government. I’m thinking of the legislation from the then Member for Edmonton-Highlands-Beverly, Alice Hanson, on violence against women and family violence prevention, which then came back under the Member for Calgary-Fish Creek and was accepted by the government, or, you know, even the idea of a savings plan and various endowments that we’re now hearing the government talk about.

So it’s not the first time that we’ve had members of the Liberal opposition introduce an idea that took a while to get traction with the hon. members opposite, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. I am an optimistic person, obviously, in that I’m still standing here in this House. But I think there’s a real opportunity here, and I don’t want to see the government miss that opportunity to lead by example.

I often cast back to some advice that I got from a very well-placed executive in the oil sector who said: well, you know, Laurie, we look to the government to kind of point the way, to show leadership where they think we should be going, and if we don’t see any movement from them, if we don’t see any examples set, well, we’re not going to put ourselves out there. So, you know, people do look to the government members, the front bench, the Assembly members as a whole to lead the way on issues like this. It’s okay; you can be a bit cutting edge. That’s all right. You could be a little zippy. You could add that to your resumé.

I think the other issue here is around – and this is a touchy subject, so I’m trying to come into this carefully. We are aware of a branding issue that we have in Alberta, particularly with our neighbours to the south. They’ve taken some very particular stands about environmental protection and taken some very deliberate moves there that are reflecting back on us. We had those municipalities that actually listed us as having dirty oil. We’re struggling with that. It’s a communications problem, but it’s also an action problem. It is not enough for us to just be paying for more glossy brochures of lovely mountain scenes, going: no, no; really, we’re very green. People are looking to us and scrutinizing us to see if we actually are taking action behind those words.

With mass communication, with the constant use of the Internet they can check up on us. It’s not as though we can sort of send out our brochure and hope nobody looks back. They can be checking on this debate in the House. They can check the published list that we got from the library of who was driving what kind of vehicle. I mean, it’s not hard to get this information. I think it is important that we move forward on this.

I’ll use a personal example, and I’ll say up front that I have an advantage in that this is my riding. I can walk to work, which I know most of the rest of you can’t if you’re coming from your constituencies.

An Hon. Member:

Long walk.

Ms Blakeman:

Very long walk. I also know that many, many of you, in fact, have purchased condominiums or rent apartments in my fabulous constituency of Edmonton-Centre, so I do encourage you to walk, and I think some of you do.

I made a commitment a couple of years ago to try to reduce my driving, you know, down to three days a week and then two days a week and down to one day a week. Just recently my partner and I decided to go down to one vehicle, share one vehicle as a move in having a smaller environmental footprint. Obviously, vehicles are a way that you can do that. We’ve taken the next step in that move, and we bought a hybrid. It’s working out pretty well.

Thankfully, I got winter tires put on it. I was in Lethbridge on the weekend and had to drive back. From Nanton to Balzac it was nothing but snow, but it served me very well. We can all take these steps. They don’t have to be huge and showy. They can be small and incremental. I think the opportunity to pass a motion like this signals that the government is interested and, you know, is interested in starting with itself. When we talk about the executive vehicle allowance, that is starting with ourselves. It could have been mischief-making, which was, I think, the point that the Minister of Environment was talking about, but knowing the member who sponsored this, he’s not as much a mischief-maker as some of my colleagues. So I’m going to take it that he was pretty straight ahead on that.

Indeed, you know, maybe we could have expanded it to talk about the larger government fleet. Knowing that we have 3,400 vehicles that are considered government fleet vehicles and a hundred that have now been purchased that are hybrids is great, but it’s 3 per cent of the whole fleet. I think we need to be a bit more muscular in how we approach this if we are going to try to lead by example. I think that the Minister of Environment also made some really good points.

You know: don’t narrow the box. Don’t try to shove everybody into driving around in a Toyota Prius because it just doesn’t work. The wonderful thing about Alberta is that we’ve got 83 different constituencies. Some of them are pretty far away, a lot of roads, a lot of miles between here and where you finally stop, at home or your constituency office.

Expecting someone to drive a Smart car to Slave Lake is just dumb, and it’s pretty unfair for the person that has to drive it. But for some of the people that are in urban centres, a Smart car might be a good idea or any of the other hybrids that are available. Frankly, Lexus has just come out with a really high-end, complete hybrid vehicle.

Well, you know, we’ve got some people over there: what they want is a nice vehicle. Fine. I’d be much happier if you chose the Lexus hybrid than if you chose something else, like my colleague’s V10 or whatever it was. There are different possibilities that are available to match a number of different driving requirements but also personal tastes. In this Assembly we still allow members of the executive branch and the deputy ministers and various other chairs of committees, et cetera, to choose the vehicles that they want to drive aside from the fleet cars that are made available for people that are driving on government business.

You know, if we’re going to do that, fine. But there’s a range of cars that you can look at that are low emission. I think that’s what my colleague was trying to capture. As I come to closing in support of Motion 513, the issue is whether this is binding. You know, there’s support for the motion from my hon. government colleagues if it’s voluntary.

Just a little reminder that our voluntary requirements have not had a lot of uptake on them. I would prefer if there was something, as I said, a bit more muscular, a bit more vigorous, a bit more committed to actually following this. I don’t necessarily see this as having that proviso added onto the end of the motion, but I don’t see that that’s a reason not to support it. I hope that we will get a great deal of support from a number of other members of the House today in support of my colleague from Calgary-McCall and his Motion 513.

Thank you very much. I do urge everyone to support the motion.