More details re Conservative position on emissions trading

I've been looking over the unofficial transcripts of Environment Minister John Baird's presentation to the committee on the Clean Air Act (available by request from the Committee secretary - write to CC30@parl.gc.ca). There were a bit more information on the Conservative's plans for GHG emissions trading than was reported in the natonal media. Here's a summary - note that the transcript is unofficial, so the quotes are conceivably inaccurate.

emissions-intensity versus an absolute cap

on the one hand, Minister Baird says: "With respect to hard emission caps and with respect to pollution we've indicated in the notice of intent our desire to have hard emissions caps to deal with pollution"
but on the other hand, he goes on to say (in yet another partisan exchange between him and a Liberal committee member) "I can quote Mr. Godfrey again, if you like, talking about how intensity-based are good, because I agree with him"

Using the clean development mechanism
John Godfrey pressed Minister Baird in some detail on whether or not he would use the CDM. Basically, he appears to reject it: "My problem with the clean development mechanisms, for taxpayers' dollars I would rather take the money, spend it in Canada, and also make our air cleaner. I use the example of the coal-fired generating station. We could take money and spend it abroad and then we'd get no benefit for clean air. But if we make the investment here in Canada, we get the twin benefit of clean air."

Domestic Emissions Trading
Bernard Bigras of the Parti Quebecois, among others, asked Baird about emissions trading - would it happen. He wouldn't make any commitment on it but spoke very positively about the idea of creating a domestic emissions trading market.

My comments
I got a bit excited to see him talking a hard cap on emissions for industry - basically, my biggest hope is that the Liberals and Conseravatives one-up each other right into some kind of significant cap and trade system - but it looks like intensity-targets are here to stay. I was also disappointed by his comments on CDM - hopefully he is just ill-informed. If not, in my opinion Canada will be missing a fantastic opportunity to meet Kyoto cheaply while boosting our international development funding and supporting Canadian technology exports.