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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 138

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 30, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 138 - Nov/30/22
Mrs. Caroline Desbiens (Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, BQ)
Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the member for Winnipeg South Centre for the quality of work he did in moving his bill through the House of Commons. He put his heart and soul into it. It is with reluctance that I have to say that the Bloc Québécois will not be supporting the member for Winnipeg South Centre's bill. Of course, preparing an action plan to promote the transition to a greener economy in the Prairies is certainly necessary. It is a timely move, and we support any initiatives that promote and power such a transition. However, we are against the federal government interfering in the jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec with regard to their economic and environmental choices and directions, which are their own. We are worried that this will set a precedent, which is why we will not be supporting it. I do not want to point fingers, but I think it is important to mention that, currently, one Albertan emits as much greenhouse gas as six Quebeckers; one Saskatchewanian emits as much as seven Quebeckers. This is an enormous challenge, and the Bloc Québécois agrees 100% with the member for Winnipeg South Centre's statement that the central provinces absolutely have to go green. Even so, it is wholly inappropriate for the House to force the government's hand to legislate any directive whatsoever, because it is up to the provinces to choose when and how they begin that shift. Are these provinces truly on board with switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy? I am not so sure. One thing we do know is that the prairie provinces will need a lot of help to achieve that. That is what the government is for. Without encroaching on provincial jurisdiction, the government should provide financial and organizational support as well as incentives. Above all, it should give them the means to undertake this transition, which can be highly destabilizing if not underpinned by support measures commensurate with the challenges these provinces are facing. That is key to making any radical change socio-economically palatable. It is 2022. It is high time a plan was developed to accelerate the shift to a green economy in the Prairies, and the member for Winnipeg South Centre, who was the natural resources minister from 2015 to 2018, knows that this is an enormous undertaking and that he would have to mobilize a massive amount of resources. He also knows that an economy based on oil and gas development is not sustainable in the long term and that these provinces are facing decline unless they diversify their economies and begin the energy shift. The sooner they start, the less painful it will be. It is up to the government and its institutions to support the Prairies in that regard but not by imposing a law that will have the stifling effect of centralizing federal powers. The fact that the member for Winnipeg South Centre and former natural resources minister introduced this bill says a lot. If he wants to force his government to develop an action plan to promote the transition to a greener economy in the Prairies, it is because he knows that the government currently has no such plan. He feels obligated to propose a bill to force the government to do so. We understand that and we commend him for it. We admire him because we share his concerns; however, we want to prevent government interference and that is the most important factor in our position. That being said, the extent of the challenges our friends in the Prairies are facing is enormous. In economics and regional development there is a concept called intrusive rentier syndrome. That is what a region experiences when a major employer that pays high wages is operating in a sector in decline. It drags the entire community into that decline and prevents it from being competitive. That is the story of oil because it governs all the rules and levers, hence the scope of the challenge and the insecurity around change. The approach in the bill is interesting. It proposes sitting down with everyone, which I like, and determining the economic strengths outside fossil fuels and creating favourable conditions for their development. Whether it is infrastructure, training or regulations, a development plan calls for coordination. It calls for the public's participation because the economy has to serve the people. Getting everyone on the same page from the get-go is hardly a waste of time. Doing so saves the proponent from constantly going back to the drawing board because the initial proposal lacks social licence. We save time by getting everyone around the same table from day one. That is truly one of the strong points of the bill. My colleague's reasons and arguments are interesting. It is a good premise, but it clearly represents interference in provincial jurisdictions. I would like to remind members that over the years, it was the decisions of both Conservative and Liberal governments that made it possible to develop the oil sands. Let us look back. There was Pearson's energy policy. Then budgetary policy fostered the development of oil. In 2009, under the Harper government, Canada made a commitment at the G20 to eliminate its inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. However, there has been no progress since then. The Auditor General and the commissioner of the environment indicated in three reports that 13 years after the G20 commitment, the government is still unable to define what it considers to be an inefficient subsidy. Therefore, it it not getting rid of those subsidies. The Bloc Québécois has long called for an end to support for fossil fuels. We would be very pleased if the money and subsidies that are currently being spent on fossil fuels were instead redirected to the western provinces' transition to renewable energy. Given the magnitude of the challenges they will face, we think that is a good idea. We believe that the energy revolution we face will be on the same scale as the industrial revolution. That is quite significant. The revolution would never have happened if it had to rely solely on government legislation. It happened because all the actors in the economy, in particular the financial sector that enables investments, contributed to it. The same holds true for the renewable energy revolution and the green economy. Developing this sector of the future will mean relying on the strength of the financial sector and the experts in the field. In 2021, Greenpeace published a study on investments in fossil fuels. Since late 2015, when the Paris Agreement was signed, Canada's five big banks have pumped nearly $700 billion into fossil fuels. That makes no sense. To this day, even though several banks say they are committed to the 2050 net-zero goal, there is no indication that the banking community is looking to shift away from fossil fuels: Investments have increased from $122 billion in 2016 to $160 billion in 2019, and the trend keeps going strong. Canada's five big banks are all on the list of the world's top 25 investors in fossil fuels. I find that disturbing. The oil and gas sector is set to decline, for both environmental and fiscal reasons, both here and abroad, and stock market trends are also following the green trend in finance. Unfortunately, this trend has not had much influence on Canadian banks. The hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre seems to be aware of that. It is up to the House to send a clear message to the financial sector, where something could be done. This is more likely to increase the chances of a successful transition to a green economy in the western provinces, which is what the member for Winnipeg South Centre is calling for. Given the magnitude of the challenges faced by those provinces, they will need help and motivation, not a framework imposed through legislation that interferes with provincial jurisdictions. I was recently fortunate enough to connect with economists and actuaries in California, where incentives for green investment are already well established. These same experts are actively moving forward and giving speeches to financial organizations around the modern world. I wonder if Canada is doing anything like this. I am simply asking the question. I would be happy to put the government in touch with these proactive firms, which have already helped implement a financial system that is firmly committed to responsible investments that will save the world. It is up to us in the House to support the redirection of funding and fossil fuel subsidies towards green financing to help the provinces that need it most. We all know it. We all see it. The evidence is clear. Fossil fuels are killing the planet and all the life upon it. Many are suffering the terrible consequences of our cowardice in the face of deteriorating planetary ecology. The maritime provinces and the Magdalen Islands just went through hurricane Fiona. That was right here at home, not halfway around the world. The Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans is currently studying how hurricane Fiona affected the Maritimes. We all know there is no escaping this. It is real. It is happening, yet investments are still being made in Bay du Nord. Investment in natural gas is being tolerated and even promoted, but there is no move toward creating incentives to direct funding toward sustainable development. In closing—
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