44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 24, 2021 02:00PM
- Nov/24/21 8:00:36 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you on your re-election to the chair.
Since this is the first time that I am rising in this 44th Parliament, I want to take the opportunity to thank the people of Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia who placed their continued trust in me. I really appreciate it.
I also want to thank my Green Party colleagues for requesting this evening's emergency debate. I really appreciate the presence of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I want to express my solidarity with everyone affected by the current catastrophe. I want them to know that we are prepared to work with all parliamentarians to ensure that British Columbians get the appropriate support.
As we know, torrential rains have caused flooding in the Fraser Valley region, and it has cost four people their lives. The flooding has also had a major impact on infrastructure. This atmospheric river dumped 300 millimetres of rain on the region in two days, November 14 and 15, and the region is still experiencing bad weather.
We know that the soil can no longer absorb any water. The water is running off instead of being absorbed and it is destroying everything in its path. This is a natural consequence of an imbalance in nature, which stems from the forest fires that ripped through British Columbia a few months ago. On top of that, according to Environment Canada, a new storm is set to hit the region this evening with another 40 to 80 millimetres of rainfall in the forecast.
The flooding in British Columbia could become the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history. I want to reiterate that our hearts go out to the people of British Columbia. We are far away, but we have seen the extent of the damage and know how much it hurts. I have seen videos of farmers on personal watercraft on what is left of their fields trying to save their livestock. Thousands of animals were left behind and the huge dairy and poultry operations have been hard hit.
The highway system linking southern British Columbia to the rest of Canada has been cut off. The city of Vancouver is cut off from the rest of the country. It is absolutely incredible. A hundred or so indigenous communities have been affected and several are waiting for supplies to arrive via helicopter. I want to commend the teams who are on the ground day and night to provide humanitarian support to the communities affected.
The Deputy Prime Minister announced that the federal government will provide financial support for future reconstruction efforts, and we support that decision.
It is in times like these that we understand the importance of pulling together, of prevention, of reconstruction and of building resilience.
This evening's debate is not about whether this disaster is directly or indirectly related to climate change. The fact is that climate change will lead to more frequent extreme climate phenomena and increase their impact on our way of life and our societies. Sadly, this particular disaster in British Columbia is just a taste of the challenges to come. To address increasingly common extreme weather events, governments have to boost the scale and speed of actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming. That is the mitigation piece. The same goes for the adaptation piece, which includes things like upgrading infrastructure to withstand the effects of climate change.
We need to direct more money and more effort to mitigation and adaptation right away. We should have done it sooner. Right now, we have to focus on cleaning up the mess and standing by British Columbians, but we also need to look to the future and prepare for more situations like this one. We cannot afford not to.
As I said earlier, at this point, it is difficult to say for certain whether these events are directly related to the climate crisis. However, it is clear that the major droughts that caused the forest fires just a few months ago and the current floods are, unfortunately, probably not merely a coincidence.
That said, what should we do now? What can we do to prevent future disasters? That is the question, and the government needs to address this.
I have just returned from COP26, held in Glasgow, Scotland, where everyone was full of good intentions and acting in good faith. We even had a day when the theme was adaptation and mitigation. Although some good things did come out of it and some ambitious promises were made, there was certainly nothing to prepare us in the short term for situations like this. That is why we in the Bloc Québécois want to emphasize the importance of an energy transition.
We know it will cost a lot of money, but doing nothing will cost even more, from a financial and human perspective. We must take advantage of the economic recovery to seek out this more-than-necessary energy transition and build a society that is more resilient to the consequences of climate change, including the frequency of extreme weather events.
In summer 2020, the Bloc Québécois developed a green recovery plan. During the last election, we proposed creating a fund dedicated to protecting shorelines and fighting erosion. We cannot help but be frustrated when the government claims to be a leader in the fight against climate change, but does not in fact apply the changes that are needed to engage in the energy transition and move away from fossil fuels.
Yesterday, we heard the Speech from the Throne. After an election that did not seem necessary, we wondered about the urgency of opening a new Parliament that is not much different from the last Parliament and is facing the same problems it was facing before the election. In the end, we wasted time and in a climate crisis, we cannot say this enough, time is of the essence.
Island nations, developing countries, the poorest countries, those that produce the least amount of greenhouse gases but are ironically the most affected by the effects of climate change, they are all afraid that we are running out of time. The eternal optimists are afraid that we are running out of time, and scientists know that we are almost out of time. We will be out of time if we do not make changes. We will be out of time if we continue in the same direction. We are dreaming if we think that we will be able to cap greenhouse gas emissions, when the Canadian oil industry has announced that it will increase production in the coming years. We are headed straight for a wall and are not doing what needs to be done. There is so much to do, and we were expecting at least something, anything. The generic, empty rhetoric in the throne speech chapter on climate action is not reassuring in the slightest.
I would remind members that Quebec is a leader on combatting climate change. Quebec has what it takes to make the green transition and build a real and resilient green economy. The rest of Canada should take note. Continuing to invest in fossil fuels will not be good for the Canadian economy in the long term. We need to change our ways now.
We cannot talk about adaptation and mitigation without talking about infrastructure. The last few months have proven that the regions of Quebec, like everywhere else, particularly British Columbia, need help adapting to climate change. Shoreline erosion and receding shorelines are one example. Our regions are also not immune to the devastating effects of natural disasters. The fight against climate change must focus on mitigating the effects of these changes and adapting to them.
For years, the Bloc Québécois has been taking ongoing action to prevent shorelines from receding and eroding. I would like to take this opportunity to remind members that there used to be a federal program that provided funding for shoreline protection. It was abolished and never reinstated. During the last election, we proposed the creation of a fund to fight erosion with an annual funding of $250 million. The funding must be recurrent and predictable.
In Saint‑Maxime‑du‑Mont‑Louis in the Gaspé, Highway 132 collapsed and was washed away by the ocean. That is the kind of thing that is likely to happen again.
Do not even bother trying to buy a house along the river in Sainte‑Luce‑sur‑Mer in my riding. No insurance company on earth will insure it. They all know it is just a matter of time until the house gets completely flooded. That is what happened in 2010. In Sainte‑Luce and in Saint‑Flavie, which is also in my riding, dozens of houses were flooded and dozens of families displaced. That is what is going on right now in British Columbia. Thousands of people have been affected by these floods.
That is why merely fixing the damage caused by weather events is not enough. We have to prevent that damage in the first place. Unfortunately, the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund, $3 billion over 10 years, is not up to the task of building the kind of infrastructure we need to counteract the negative effects of climate change.
The throne speech talked about investing in preventing and preparing for some of the negative impacts of climate change and about a national adaptation strategy. We need to make sure the government works with the provinces and Quebec, not against them. We have to work together.
That brings me to mitigation. People have long criticized the fact that Canada has never met its greenhouse gas reduction targets and continues to hand over massive subsidies to Canada's oil and gas industry rather than investing in renewable energy and developing the green economy.
Unfortunately, the great strength of this government when it comes to climate is its incredible ability to announce targets and make promises to give the appearance of doing something other than funding fossil fuels and other high-carbon industries through our taxes.
It takes more than just using the words “fight against climate change” or “green growth” or “green jobs” to have a policy and a solid action plan to truly help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the transition. The Liberal government needs to find the courage to turn its back on oil and gas.
Annoucing targets without any supporting evidence and indicating intentions does not have any real value. We need measures, action and a credible and transparent plan. We have the promises, but we are still waiting for the plan.
I feel like asking the government whether it is prepared to state that we must no longer authorize any new oil development project throughout the land and we must gradually reduce oil production, whether it believes that all of Canada should follow the lead of the Government of Quebec, which announced the real end of oil and gas?
The Liberals will probably want to respond to that question by repeating their promise to cap emissions in the oil and gas sector. However, their promise does not contain a plan to phase out coal, oil and gas. The Liberals claim that these industries can be environmentally viable by making their production less carbon-intensive. They will surely tell us that this is not within their jurisdiction, but they still bought a pipeline.
That makes me think about the outcome of the Glasgow climate pact. Ten days of negotiations resulted in a pact that does not even mention fossil fuels. Nothing. Not one word or phrase that acknowledges that fossil-fuel development is one of the main contributing factors to the climate crisis. There were, of course, protests, from civil society as well. The words were finally included in the pact, in a nice, long sentence that ultimately does not say much. At the end of the day, the countries committed to “accelerating the phaseout of...inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”.
The phrase “accelerating efforts” does not even compel us to make an actual effort, and the word “inefficient” implies that efficient subsidies exist. That makes no sense. It is discouraging.
Quite honestly, I have to wonder where Canada was when it was time to oppose the last-minute amendments from China and India. I also wonder, as my leader so aptly put it, why the Government of Canada representatives did not show some backbone and stand up and oppose that kind of watered-down statement that legitimizes government aid to the most polluting industries in the midst of a climate crisis. That text essentially tells the governments of nearly 200 countries that that is okay and that we can continue to finance the climate crisis.
That is what came out of a global climate conference, whose goal was to do everything possible to limit global warming to 1.5°C. We will not achieve this if we continue to subsidize oil, gas and coal.
While we are on the subject of the government's climate action, the Liberals have finally committed to eliminating fossil fuel subsidies after giving the fossil fuel industry $10.7 billion a year, and that does not include the staggering cost of Trans Mountain.
There is always a catch, however. Unfortunately, we have good reason to be concerned about the new forms these subsidies will take. The Office of the Auditor General asked the government back in 2019 to define what it meant by the term “inefficient subsidy”. The Department of Finance still refuses to provide a definition.
This new Liberal promise therefore gives us reason to fear that the new fossil fuel subsidies will now be camouflaged subsidies. What is worse, taxpayers will be giving their money to Canadian oil and gas companies in the name of fighting climate change. How much money will Canada waste helping polluters pollute less when it could be helping innovative companies to create the economy of the future?
Canada's grey-hydrogen strategy and the dubious promises regarding carbon capture, use and storage technologies have already made it clear that the government's inaction is going to come with a hefty price tag.
We are already paying millions of dollars to develop untested technology that will be implemented years from now when it is too late to help Canada meets its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target. All of that to produce so-called greener oil and gas rather than making the real ecological and energy transition.
If that is what fighting climate change means to this government, then we need to learn, starting today, to see these costly quick-fix proposals that the government is spending money on in the name of fighting climate change for what they really are. These investments are just new camouflaged subsidies for the Canadian oil and gas industry.
Are they ready to make a real energy transition? If so, can they commit, right here in the House, to ending Canada's gas, coal and oil industry for good? Are they willing to say that green oil does not exist? That is the kind of thing we would like to hear.
As I said, we need to show solidarity with British Columbia now more than ever. The federal government hopefully knows what it needs to do to help that region in the short term, but it also needs to implement a plan now to prevent extreme weather events like this one, which will become more and more frequent in the future.
I reiterate the Bloc Québécois's willingness to work with parliamentarians to immediately provide the support needed and to come up with the solutions that must be implemented in the future.
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- Nov/24/21 8:17:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. I appreciate what he said. Surprisingly, we do actually agree on many points.
When the Liberal government announced its plan to plant two billion trees, it was written down somewhere. There was not much written in the throne speech, so it is a little difficult to read between the lines and see any indication of what this plan and this adaptation strategy will look like. How effective are the subsidies that help polluters pollute less? Unfortunately, they are not very effective. I think we need to invest today in green industries, renewable industries, that will help us reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. I do not think we can lower our emissions if we continue investing taxpayer dollars in these technologies. We do not yet know whether that will work or be effective. We do have some solutions. Quebec is a great example given the electricity it produces, especially with water and wind. We have solutions, and we could certainly put them to good use while supporting the workers in these industries.
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- Nov/24/21 8:22:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the Bloc Québécois will always want the Liberal government to do more when it comes to climate change. Given the choice between the Conservatives and the Liberals, I think we can be optimistic about the appointment of the current Minister of Environment and Climate Change because of his past experience. He knows exactly what needs to be done to cap and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
I do not agree with everything my colleague said. I think there remains a lot to be done. David Suzuki has said a lot of things, including at COP26, about what has been done in Canada.
In 2015, after his election, the current Prime Minister said that Canada was back on the world stage to fight against climate change. A few years later, he bought a pipeline. Canada's actions on climate change are questionable. However, I think that despite the past, we can be optimistic about what is next.
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- Nov/24/21 8:25:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Mirabel, who I believe is speaking in the House for the second time. He is doing a great job and is very familiar with this issue. I want to thank him for sharing his knowledge with our caucus. We are really lucky to have him.
When I saw the word “inefficient” preceding the words “fossil fuel subsidies” in the Glasgow Climate Pact, I wondered what it was doing there. It is like saying that there are some fossil fuel subsidies that are efficient. I will repeat what I said earlier. We cannot continue to help polluters pollute. We need to invest taxpayers' money in the energy transition, renewable energy and solutions that will help us in the future.
We cannot eliminate the use of fossil fuels overnight. We are aware that we need to start by putting a declining cap on production and that we need to do it in co-operation with workers in that industry. The Bloc Québécois stands in solidarity with them and wants to help them make that transition. We will be there for them.
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- Nov/24/21 8:26:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.
We asked different stakeholders that very question at COP26, a few days ago.
A number of announcements were made during the conference, a number were made by Canada during the previous Parliament, and a number were made by the Liberal Party during the election campaign.
They made announcements, they made commitments and they promised millions of dollars. Now we are wondering where the plan is or how it will be implemented. How are we going to achieve this?
We want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we want net zero, but where and how do we start?
We need to know. The industry also wants to know. Workers' unions want to know so that they can, we hope, help workers through the potential transition.
We need a meaningful and transparent plan to help us be more resilient and launch that much-talked-about transition.
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- Nov/24/21 9:20:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
Earlier, my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands did a great job explaining what happened in British Columbia. Because of the fires that happened a few months ago, the ground had a hard time absorbing water. As a result, the water flowed across the land, destroying things in its path. That is an example of the kind of self-destruct sequence that can be triggered when nature is out of balance. It is the kind of surprise we can expect once we hit the famous tipping point if we do not keep the temperature increase in check.
Does my colleague think his government has done enough to keep the temperature increase in check?
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- Nov/24/21 10:43:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. The information that he provides is always very precise and well thought out.
He talked about how he spoke with a mayor and about how high the costs will be. Even if the federal government covers 90% of the cost, small communities still may not be able to cover the remaining 10%.
Should the federal government cover 100% of the costs? That is a valid question. Earlier, I was saying that it will cost a lot of money to make the transition but that it will cost more in the long run if we do not make it. Does my colleague agree that we need to start changing the way we invest and that we need to invest taxpayers' money in forward-looking solutions that work? I would like to know whether he agrees with those solutions.
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- Nov/24/21 8:20:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his question.
I am aware of all of these investments that have been made in recent months and years, and I commend them. I think that Canada has a good international reputation. It even announced that it would stop spending Canadian taxpayers' money on foreign oil and gas projects. We would like the government to do the same here, in Canada. We are worried about these hidden subsidies. It means that the government plans to continue favouring the “polluter paid” principle instead of the polluter pays principle.
We want to stop helping the polluters pollute. Our only focus should be the net-zero strategy. We need to rethink production methods and put a cap on production. That is what we must focus on, in spite of everything that was announced. We are in a climate crisis.
What the government announces is never enough. We must do more.
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