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Astonishingly Pallister Tories vote against a made in Manitoba climate change plan while Liberals vote for one.

On the evening of Tuesday November 6th, we voted on a series of government and Liberal amendments to Bill 16 The Climate and Green Plan Implementation Act.


When Bill 16 was originally brought in the Pallister government focused the bill on a series of measures that were designed to give a made in Manitoba climate change plan.   This included putting a price on carbon and using the money from the price on carbon to increase the personal income tax exemption for all Manitobans.  It also included a made in Manitoba approach to large industrial emitters of carbon dioxide.  These were the signature parts of what Mr. Pallister called his "made in Manitoba" climate and green plan.   On Tuesday, all of Mr. Pallister's Conservative MLA's voted on report stage amendments to cut out these "made in Manitoba" parts of the Climate and Green Plan Implementation Act.  Manitoba Liberals, in contrast, voted for this "made in Manitoba plan".  Even though we felt it could be improved we decided we should have a "made-in-Manitoba" component to the Climate and Green Plan.  The original bill, with appendices was 59 pages.   After the government passed its own report stage amendments, what was left of the original bill was only 15 pages, about one quarter of the original bill.


In order to give some increased strength to the "remnant bill", we then brought forward our own report stage amendments.   Our Liberal amendments would provide for


1) targets and time lines for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for removing greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and for increasing the storage of greenhouse gas in Manitoba.


2) a research plan for improved monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions, the removal of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and greenhouse gas storage


3) programs, policies and measures to make electric vehicle charging stations available across Manitoba


4) Quarterly and annual reports on the programs, policies and measures used to implement the climate and green plan during that quarter of year and with the quarterly and annual reports including an update on greenhouse gas emissions, reduction and storage during the quarter and a forecast for the next annual report of greenhouse gas emissions, reduction and storage.


Sadly, the Pallister Conservatives voted against and defeated all these improvements to the remnant bill that was left. The remnant bill that was left from the Pallister attacks on its own bill, and their rejection of our amendments then moved on to third reading.

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