SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 169

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 20, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23
Ms. Julie Dabrusin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)
  • Mar/20/23 6:39:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree fully that climate change is a matter of tremendous urgency right now. That is why, in fact, we are taking action. I really liked hearing some of the ideas that the member opposite had because we are working on many of those. I will talk a little about that. The member opposite mentioned the price on carbon pollution as one of the actions we have taken, and I do not think that we should actually undermine how important that is as a fundamental piece to action on climate change. It is a market-based solution, and it is effective. I see it in the decisions being made by industry, when I speak with people and they say that they look at the price on carbon pollution and they are deciding to change the way they heat their buildings or use energy in their districts, for example, in the university in my community. It is having a very real and tangible impact. The other thing we did is legislating that we would be net-zero by 2050. To go along with that, we put out an emissions reduction plan that covers all sectors of our economy as to how we are going to reduce emissions. This includes working toward the green building strategy and reducing emissions from transportation. In fact, the member opposite mentioned public transit as being important. I am very happy that, with federal support, my city has the largest number of electric buses in all of North America. Those are the types of things we are working on and supporting. It is about moving away from combustion and doing so quickly. That is our goal. We are working on that, as I have mentioned, looking across sectors of our economy. Not only that, but we are also investing in clean energy. It is important that we have a clean electrical grid to support all these different forms that I am talking about. When we are talking about that, Canada already has one of the cleanest electrical grids in the world. We are really quite proud of it. It is an 84% clean electrical grid. That is something to be proud of. This also attracts investments to our country. Let us talk for a second about that. We know that we need to get the other 16%, and that is something we are investing in. We are working with our provinces and territories to make sure that we do have that clean electrical grid to support a clean economy as we go forward. I will also talk quickly about investments that are coming to our country because of the fact that we have a clean electric grid. When people look at our country, they see that we are making that commitment to have a net-zero economy. One of the most recent ones that is very exciting is that Volkswagen decided to open a plant for battery cells here in Canada, the first one outside of Europe. It is being built here. That builds on other investments, such as Stellantis and LG, which are building a battery plant here in Canada. Once again, they are doing this to support the North American market. Those are signals from around the world that people are looking at what we are doing here in Canada, seeing the investments we are making towards a clean economy and saying that this is where they want to build their parts for a clean energy transition. Not only that, but it is also creating well-paying jobs right here in our country. Those are the jobs that we are attracting and that we should be very proud of. There are many parts to what we are talking about today. It is an urgent crisis, and we absolutely must take action. I also want to say that we are moving mountains in a lot of what we are doing, be it in reducing emissions from forums across all sectors or building a clean economy for the future with well-paying jobs.
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Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23
Ms. Julie Dabrusin
  • Mar/20/23 6:44:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have unequivocally stated that we will end fossil fuel subsidies. We are working on that, as the member knows. Beyond that, we need to focus not only on investments being made but also on legislated targets, like a sales target that we have put in place to have zero-emission vehicles by 2035, for all new vehicles sold. We are taking positive actions moving forward. I would hope that the member opposite also focuses on that.
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