44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 16, 2022 02:00PM
- Nov/16/22 2:17:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we need to be honest. Canada is a failure when it comes to tackling the climate crisis. Here at home, first nations like Peguis, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi, St. Theresa and others who are impacted disproportionately by climate change are already paying the price of Liberal inaction.
Yesterday, the Auditor General exposed the Liberals’ failures. There is some support for evacuations, but nothing for mitigation, adaptation and, frankly, survival, leaving 112 communities, including some in my riding, without the supports they need to stay safe.
Then there are Canada’s abject failures on the world stage. Canada is the only country in the G7 that has not lowered its emissions since the signing of the Paris accord. The Liberal government gives over $14 billion a year to its friends in big oil, and even builds them pipelines. For a Prime Minister and a government that is all style and no substance, we would think they would recognize how bringing along their buddies in big oil to COP27 would look.
The climate crisis is already having a major impact in Canada. First nations and people across our country cannot afford more greenwashing. We need action now. Our future depends on it.
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- Nov/16/22 2:37:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if we want to level with Canadians, we just have to point to the heat dome two summers ago in Alberta, or the atmospheric river that fell on British Columbia, or hurricane Fiona, the worst natural disaster in this country's history.
The best market mechanism to combat the existential threat of climate change is a price on pollution. The Conservatives do not like it. It is the responsible thing to do, and that is why we are doing it, to support Canadians and to support the planet.
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- Nov/16/22 2:38:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the other day I listened to the MP for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, who spoke so eloquently about his community, especially the community of Lytton, B.C., which we all know burned to the ground. The temperatures reached 50°C in the worst environmental disaster, the worst climate catastrophe in our history, yet the words “climate change” never come out of the hon. member's lips.
They should stop this triple, triple, triple schtick and do something positive about climate change.
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- Nov/16/22 2:52:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, people are worried about the climate crisis, especially since Canada just received embarrassingly low marks for climate action at COP27, scoring 58 out of 63 countries. Only Russia, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Iran ranked lower.
While people are losing their jobs, homes and lives during heat waves, flooding and forest fires, the Liberals keep handing out subsidies to big oil, breaking climate target after climate target.
When will the Liberals own up to their climate failure and stop giving away billions to big oil and gas?
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- Nov/16/22 3:09:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today there are a couple of things that are happening across the world that we have to be very mindful of: the existential crisis of climate change and the reality of inflation. Inflation is something that is making it very difficult for people across the world to pay their bills. Canada is below not only the EU but also the G7, with one of the lowest inflation rates that exist in the world. That is not good enough.
Mr. Mark Strahl: That is cold comfort to hungry families.
Hon. Mark Holland: Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite says, it is cold comfort.
What they expect are solutions, not raising anxiety, not raising fears and not pretending those issues do not exist. Climate change is real. Inflation is real. It demands maturity and real answers.
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- Nov/16/22 3:11:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have no doubt that the member's constituents, the people he was referring to, are facing a great deal of anxiety. They would want to know, as an example, that the money they are paying for the price on pollution they will actually get back. The member opposite knows that. They would also want to hear that they have a government that cares, if they have grandchildren, about the type of world they will be inheriting.
The costs that are involved with climate change are in the trillions upon trillions of dollars. Let us talk about the legacy the Conservatives are giving to their grandchildren by ignoring the climate crisis, pretending it is not real, pretending the facts are not facts, lying to them, frankly, about the reality of that circumstance—
Mr. Brad Vis: It's unparliamentary.
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Mr. Speaker, a really important question the House needs to start taking into account is the cost of not dealing with the climate crisis. What are the costs of dealing with the massive damage that was done in the Atlantic provinces through the climate crisis, the hurricane that just hit there? What are the economic costs of having a drought in British Columbia, or having wildfires and towns being incinerated, such as what happened in Lytton? The costs are in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
We better start accounting for that. If we do not deal with the climate crisis, if we continue to allow the untrammelled burning of carbon on this planet, as the Conservatives want, then economic activity is going to be ground to a halt in many cases. What we need in this country is to transition our economy to a sustainable one.
I, for one, believe that is a way our country could benefit the 21st century. I do not think dealing with the climate crisis is a cost. It is an essential transition that will position our economy to be even more profitable in the 21st century. Ignoring the climate crisis, allowing disasters to occur and having our natural environment degraded to the point where the planet is sending a strong message that we cannot keep burning carbon the way we do, as the Conservatives want us to, is no economic plan that I can get behind.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech, in which he talked about the economic consequences of the climate crisis. I wonder if he could comment on the fact that even today, in 2022, the government continues to give billions of dollars in subsidies to oil and gas companies.
Does he not think that we will pay for this later in terms of climate change adaptation?
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