13 March 2007

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you John, for that generous introduction, and thank you to Premier Campbell and Ministers, federal and provincial, for joining us for today's important announcement.

It's great to be back in British Columbia, not least because it gives me a taste of what spring will be like when it arrives in Ottawa … in another couple of months.

This is our latest stop on a national tour that Ministers Baird and Lunn and I have undertaken in support of our government's new Canada ecoTRUST for Clean Air and Climate Change.

These trusts are designed to help all the provinces and territories finance projects that will advance the development of clean energy and directly reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

At every stop on the tour, we have enjoyed tremendous cooperation with our provincial partners.

The relationship of openness between Ottawa and the provinces that we promised in the last election is being demonstrated once again by that excellent collaboration on climate change and clean air.

We all agree that achieving the right balance between environmental protection and a healthy economy is the fundamental public policy challenge of our time.

All Canadians are concerned about the environment.

For far too long there's been too much talk.

Too much posturing and empty rhetoric.

We are replacing that with practical action.

In Quebec, ecoTRUST Canada will help support various initiatives by the Government of Quebec to reduce greenhouse gas missions by some 14 million tonnes by 2012.

In Ontario, the Trust Fund will help the province phase out its dirty coal-fired electrical plants and import clean hydro power from Manitoba.

Last week in Alberta, we announced that it will help fund the development of carbon capture and storage, an exciting new technology that takes CO2 out of the air and buries it deep underground.

Today, I am very pleased to announce that the Government of British Columbia will dedicate its share of the Trust Fund to environmental initiatives that will make real, measurable contributions to reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

These include:

• getting clean electricity to remote rural areas now fuelled by dirty diesel, including electrification of Highway 37;
  
  
• support for new geothermal and bio-energy projects, including the capture of biogas from landfill sites;
  
  
• extracting energy from sawmill scrap and wood infested with pine beetles.

A fourth initiative is what brings us to this impressive National Research Council facility today.

Here at the NRC's Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation, federal government scientists are working closely with the province and industry partners on what could be the dominant energy form of the future.

Hydrogen fuel cells have the potential to produce energy much more efficiently than the conventional internal combustion engine.

They run almost silently.

Best of all, their only by-product is water vapour.

The technology has already moved beyond the prototype stage. 

Large fuel cells are powering entire buildings.

Small ones are energizing electronic gadgets.

Over the past decade, engineers based right here in Vancouver have made important contributions to the development of increasingly efficient and economically viable hydrogen fuel cells.

One of their dreams is of the day when we can wean our automobiles off gasoline.

But they've got a chicken-and-egg problem:

No automaker wants to build hydrogen-fuelled cars until there's a network of fuelling stations, and no fuel maker wants to build stations until there are cars that need them.

That's where we come in.

Today's Trust Fund announcement builds on our existing commitment to assist BC in the development of the “hydrogen highway” from Vancouver to Whistler in time for the 2010 winter Olympics.

This initiative will showcase the technology for the world.

And for the visionaries here at IFCI, it will be just the first stage of the world's first international hydrogen highway, stretching all the way from BC to California.

Obviously, this is a long-term project:  the global hydrocarbon economy will not be transformed overnight.

But the Stone Age did not end because the world ran out of stones, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.

Someday, historians may look back and conclude that it all started right here in British Columbia.

And on behalf of Canada's New Government, we are honoured, Premier, to play a part in it.

Thank you.