44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 26, 2022 11:00AM
- Sep/26/22 3:25:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from a number of constituents. This petition deals with the subject matter of what is generally called “just transition”. The petitioners note that Canada has a commitment to the Paris Agreement, which includes in its preamble the concept of making sure workers and communities in the fossil fuel sector receive transitional support so that they can be transitioned to renewable energy. It is one that protects individuals and communities.
They call on the House to work alongside oil and gas workers to create such a plan and to include in it the 10 recommendations that were initially put forward by the special task force commissioned under former environment minister Catherine McKenna on a just transition for Canadian coal power workers and communities.
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Madam Speaker, the statement of the hon. member that any more government spending leads to inflation is not borne out by many periods of time in this country and around the world.
Certainly some kinds of spending can fuel inflation. This is a very strange inflation we are experiencing. There are some real increases in price due to supply chain disruptions. There are real increases in price based on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There are distortions based on the usual kind of inflation, which is generalized through the economy, where the Bank of Canada is raising its rates in order to slow it. There is a minuscule proportion of the overall inflation pressure from carbon pricing, and in any province where the federal backstop is at work, the money is returned to the citizens of that area.
To get a broader sense of that, some government spending is essential to help lower-income Canadians be able to cope with various pricing pressures.
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- Sep/26/22 7:07:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as someone who has been a Cape Bretoner much of my life and is now a British Columbian, I have seen the climate crisis hit communities I know and love really hard. It is heartbreaking.
I want to extend thanks to all in this House for the solidarity in supporting Atlantic Canadians at this critical time and for continuing to support them, because the people of Lytton, whose town burned down last summer, have still seen nothing. Some of those people are still paying the bank for the mortgage on the house they no longer have. A lot of people need help and they need it because of the climate emergency.
My colleague is speaking on behalf of the government, and I do appreciate the advance work that the Minister of Public Safety tried to do to get provinces to act early. In Atlantic Canada, it worked and people were warned. It did not work in B.C. People were not warned of the heat dome.
Right now on the Environment Canada website is a completely inadequate consultation document that calls on Canadians to help the government put in place adaptation strategies by the year 2030. Will the hon. parliamentary secretary agree with me that we needed those adaptation plans yesterday and not in eight years?
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- Sep/26/22 8:19:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia for her speech. I could not agree with her more: It is impossible to speak about this terrible hurricane without mentioning its cause, that is to say climate change and our dependence on fossil fuels.
The waves that swept houses into the sea were like something out of a sci-fi movie. It is almost unbelievable, but that is today's reality. Climate change is less intense today than it will be tomorrow and in the coming years. Sea surface temperatures south of Nova Scotia have risen continuously because of climate change. It is the warm water that made the hurricanes stronger and more destructive.
I would like to ask the member if she agrees with me that we need to end our dependence on fossil fuels as soon as possible and, at the same time, set up a system to help people adapt. As she said, the government lacks the courage to do that.
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- Sep/26/22 9:22:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really grateful to the Conservative Party that the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets got a whole 20 minutes, because that means the time for questions and answers lasts for 10 minutes.
The hon. member is a friend and we have been texting each other all day because I am both a British Columbia MP and a Cape Bretoner. I remember hurricanes that we used to have in Atlantic Canada, and the hon. member and I have been back and forth on the question of this storm being supercharged by climate change.
I will never forget hurricane Juan in 2003, because my mom had died in late August of that year. The hurricane was so soon thereafter, I always relate them in my head. I was in Cape Breton. The storm was off the charts, which I do not need to tell my colleague or anyone in this place. Because I am a climate activist, I went digging in to see what happened with Juan. It was the first time we had had a full-fledged tropical hurricane-force, full-force category 2 hit our shores. We have had hurricanes, just as the hon. member has said, but they tend to have weakened. With hurricane Juan, the forecasters, as I recall, thought the hurricane would lose force because it would come over the cold water south of Nova Scotia and slow down. We would have a bad storm for sure, with high winds and lots of rain, but hurricane Juan was different, as was Dorian and now, boy, Fiona. Fiona hit Canada with the lowest barometric pressure of any storm ever.
One thing I want to say to my hon. friend is a cautionary tale from a British Columbian: It has been more than a year since the fires and the heat domes and the floods of last year. People in B.C. are still waiting for help, so we will hear good words now but we are going to have to stay on it. Therefore, I want to give the member my word that I will do anything I can for all of our colleagues and friends and cousins and my brother and sister-in-law who are in Cape Breton. We have to get help to everybody, as we do to his friend, the member of Parliament for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. The people from Lytton are still waiting.
How do we seize this moment of commonality to actually sit down and dissect the science that says this is just going to get worse and worse until we turn off the tap on fossil fuels?
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- Sep/26/22 9:52:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would say to my hon. friend from Sydney—Victoria a huge wela'lin. I do not know that I have ever been more proud to stand here as someone who still considers herself a Cape Bretoner as well as a British Columbian. I think the words of the hon. member for Sydney—Victoria have been the most profound of this whole evening's debate.
I would like to ask if he would agree with me that our chances of giving our children a livable world are hanging in the balance in the very near term and that we need to listen to science, but we need to be guided by indigenous leadership and wisdom.
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- Sep/26/22 10:05:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to follow up on the question from my friend from Victoria.
I do not disagree with him that, if the Liberals were serious, they would actually do the right thing on climate change, but I equally do not quite understand, as I am not quite certain that his caucus would support the government if it did the right things.
We immediately need to, for instance, cancel Bay du Nord, cancel the Trans Mountain pipeline, and make sure that we follow the advice to stop adding greenhouse gases and start subtracting them. That is the first step, and we need to take it before 2025, according to the world scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We need to support those moves.
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- Sep/26/22 10:21:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I did not miss church on Sunday, but I am still glad I heard that.
If we think about the kinds of investments we will need for the storms of the future, my friend from South Okanagan—West Kootenay pointed out where we are headed. We are at 1.2°C global average temperature increase right now, versus what it was before the beginning of the industrial revolution. With every fraction of a degree of warming, we face worse storms. We are really looking at trying to save lives because, at every fraction of a degree, millions more people are going to be at risk. There is going to be a level of climate change that we can adapt to, but we are getting really close to a level of climate change to which we cannot adapt anymore.
Does my hon. colleague think we can step back and have a hard look at this? What can we adapt to? What kinds of wharves, bridges and infrastructure can withstand what we can see coming at 1.2°C and 1.4°C, but not 1.5°C and certainly not 2°C? How do we hang on to a livable climate, the one God made for us?
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- Sep/26/22 11:23:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have had similar concerns in the past about the matching programs. I wonder how the member might suggest that in the short term, in the next few days, we make an impact in how we would access the best and most effective charities on the ground.
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- Sep/26/22 11:40:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is in fact a late hour, but it is a good metaphor for where we are on the climate crisis, because at the moment, we are standing on the very edge of too late regarding the advice we have been given by the international scientific process, the largest peer-review process in the history of human civilization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
I want to start by acknowledging that we are standing on the traditional territory of the Algonquin nation. I say meegwetch. I also want to begin by saying how deeply moved, concerned and committed I think all of us are in this place as we assist the people of Atlantic Canada.
We are also thinking of the people of Quebec, because the Magdalen Islands were impacted by the hurricane.
I am also concerned for the people of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
I have heard nothing of what has happened to the French protectorate south of Newfoundland and Labrador. I have searched the news to see. That is a place I have visited and find intriguing and charming. Saint Pierre and Miquelon was pretty darned exposed to Fiona as she ran through eastern Canada, Quebec and every single one of our Atlantic provinces.
As members have heard me mention a few times in this place, I am both a Cape Bretoner and British Columbian. I have family in both places and experienced the climate events that walloped British Columbia last summer, the summer of 2017 and many other occasions. I have also experienced previous hurricanes going through Atlantic Canada. My thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted.
If the Minister of Emergency Preparedness happens to be watching, I also want to send him our good thoughts. I know he is recovering from knee surgery, as I did recently, and it is no picnic. I am sure he is working really hard from wherever he is to deal with emergency preparedness now.
Tonight's debate raised a lot of commonalities. I want to speak to those because I think it is important when we find things in common.
So often we hear people speaking of the impacts of hurricane Fiona: no phones, no cellphones, no electricity and a real sense of isolation. I can say those very same things run through a lot of climate events that have happened in the last few years.
In my own riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands, we had entirely bracketed the week of Christmas 2018. Many people within the riding had no land lines, no cellphones and no electricity, particularly in the Gulf Islands, an experience very much like the one we have heard of, with people running out with their chainsaws clearing trees out of the way, trying to help neighbours, reaching elderly neighbours who were alone at Christmas and getting help to people because no other help was coming.
The same thing was true in Ashcroft. I talked to the fire chief there about the summer of 2017 when they were on evacuation warnings. This is the interior of B.C., not far from Lytton in the riding of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. The fire chief said they did not know what to do. They had no phones, no cellphones and no power and were told they were on evacuation alert. They did not know how they were going to let their citizens know if they had to evaluate. They now think the technology we need is a really big bell at the fire station so they can warn the town. Our technology is running up against some fairly grim limits that are set by extreme weather events that knock out all our technology. We need to really pay attention to this.
The same thing was said of what happened during the floods that occurred in November. Everybody was there with no phones, no cellphones and no electricity, so we have some commonalities.
We say Atlantic Canadians are resilient, neighbour helps neighbour, but I would like to say Canadians are resilient, neighbour helps neighbour, whether one is as person on the Gulf Islands of my riding or the interior of B.C., a farmer on the Prairies who needs help or an Atlantic Canadian. I do not even think there is a rural-urban divide to the extent that it is possible to help in an urban centre. I think rural Canadians have more skills to handle the collapse of things all around them, but I think the heart and soul of every Canadian is to help everybody who is a neighbour, to get out there and pitch in when a community is in trouble.
I think that Atlantic Canada's provincial governments, every single one of them, and the federal government, did a remarkable job in warning people. The number of lives lost is tragic in this storm, but we lost 800 or 900 people in B.C. last summer because of the heat dome, which was completely predictable right down to the hour yet the provincial government ignored it, never called for an emergency and never warned communities.
There is a difference when governments respond appropriately. I want to give credit where credit is due here. The governments of Nova Scotia, P.E.I., New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the federal government identified early that this was going to be really bad and did their best to tell people to stay home and not take chances. That saved lives. Forgive me for being angry about it, but the provincial government of British Columbia cost lives last year when it decided not to call for a state of emergency, not to warn communities and not to open cooling centres.
I hope we have learned, by these comparing the two kinds of disasters, that provincial governments play a big role here. They have to step up early and say it is an emergency and that they need help. When they do that, the federal partner has to reach out as well.
There are two parts to this debate that we have had tonight. What we do immediately to help people and help people rebuild has been raised. Quite a few members have noted that we cannot necessarily rebuild exactly where we were. We have to have a resilience. We have to adapt to a changed circumstance of extreme weather events that have not yet finished doing their worst. They will continue to worsen. That is baked into the climate science. However, we do know that, as we rebuild and help people, that help must be real and tangible and not just empty words. I have mentioned, more than a few times tonight, that the people of Lytton are still waiting to see a town. People are still waiting to be rebuilt where they are.
My husband's farm is a family place but his daughter had been living there and nearly died in the heat dome. Literally, the temperature at my husband's farm last summer hit 50°C and my step-daughter Julia nearly died. They are not there anymore but the house has been pretty steadily occupied by people who have no place to go. Last summer there was a wave, first, of people who had lost their homes in the fires and then of people who had lost their homes in the floods, so the house has proven to be very helpful for lots of people who have no place to live. This is the reality of the climate emergency, the bleeding edge of it, which is in places like Lytton, Ashcroft and now Atlantic Canada.
The second part of how we respond is this. What do we learn about climate science? How was this hurricane affected by climate events such as the warming ocean?
We know that the heating of our atmosphere dumps itself into our oceans. I find this astonishing. Every single second of every minute of every hour of every day the oceans absorb, due to the climate crisis, the energy equivalent of seven Hiroshima bombs. No wonder the ocean south of Nova Scotia has been heating. It has been heating for some time. The hurricanes come up the eastern seaboard, tracking along the gulf stream, and the water does not cool down the way it used to.
The average temperature for the water south of Nova Scotia, pre-climate change, used to be about 15°C in September at this time of year. If we were to look at the temperature records for last week, it was 20°C, then 18°C and had dropped to 17°C the day that Fiona hit Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and all of the adjacent areas, but it was accompanied by extraordinary low barometric pressure. Several members have mentioned this. In fact, it was the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded from any storm in Canada. As well, we had a wind shear event, which, as the hon. member for Charlottetown mentioned, was the big surprise for P.E.I. The wind storm was not really like any hurricane they had ever seen before.
We need to pay attention to the climate advice. That means the Government of Canada, as hard as it is for the Liberals to do, must recognize that the IPCC has warned us that if we do not stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, if we do not ensure that they peak and begin to drop before 2025, it will be too late to hold to 1.5°C or even 2°C. That is why it really matters that we get this right, because the window will close on 1.5°C or 2°C before the next election.
That means the government has to turn itself inside out. The Liberal caucus has to be the crucible of decision-making for whether we want our children to survive in a livable world with a functioning civilization.
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- Sep/26/22 11:51:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Green Party did submit a very long piece of advice to the consultation the government is running on how we adapt and what changes we could make. We went through what we could do for farmers and the forest industry.
We have to put saving lives up front. We have to make sure that if there is a heat dome we actually get people to safety. One of the more chilling things I heard in preparing that report on adaptation, which could be found on my non-partisan website, elizabethmaymp.ca, was from Professor Blair Feltmate from the University of Waterloo, who said that 700 British Columbians died in the heat dome, but if we had had a power failure at the same time, which is not far-fetched, thousands would have died.
We have to think about each one of these major kinds of events, whether it is a hurricane, a flood, a fire or a wind event, and figure out how we keep people safe. There are many ways, and they come from the practicality of members like the member for Peace River—Westlock.
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- Sep/26/22 11:54:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my friend from South Okanagan—West Kootenay, but I would add that we need to make sure that we have distributed energy systems, such as solar panels to run generators to make sure that people who are relying on a heat pump do not have it conk out because their power grid has gone down at the same time.
When we are looking at Fiona, right now people are running generators to keep themselves going. The ice storm event was another climate event that affected an urban area. Those people who had generators were able to help their neighbours that did not have generators.
There is a lot the government could do, but I think the number one thing is to make sure our electricity grid works east, west, north and south, and continually recharges itself with renewable energy so that the grid itself is the big battery we need.
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- Sep/26/22 11:55:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is apropos given the last debate we were having about the fixed link. I was actually in the minister of the environment's office when we signed off on that being the first piece of infrastructure that adapted to climate change, because it was built for a one-metre sea level rise.
We need to stop taking our attention off an issue once it is no longer in the front pages, and we need to find a place where we get the money. I respectfully suggest that given the profiteering by big oil right now from the profits they get from the war in Ukraine, we should double their tax for one year, from 15% to 30%. That would generate $8 billion that we could dedicate to making sure we protect communities and help them rebuild.
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