44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I am grateful that the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo has reminded us that the last election, the one that brought us all to this House, was fought while B.C. was on fire. That may be why the member, and all the Conservative MPs, actually campaigned on a commitment to bring in a price on pollution.
In fact, the Conservative platform says, “Our plan will ensure that all Canadians can do their part to fight climate change, in the way that works best for them, and at a carbon price that is...increasing to $50/tonne”. It also says, “We will assess progress...[so] carbon prices [can be] on a path to $170/tonne”.
I believe the people of B.C. understand that climate change is real and that climate action is essential. I think they understood that when B.C. was on fire, and that is why the member opposite made that promise to the people who elected him.
I would call on the Conservatives to remember that they made that promise as so much of Canada is burning. Let us work together to fight climate change.
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- Jun/6/23 3:04:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I would like to read a weather alert on Environment Canada's website. A “special air quality statement” says that “smoke plumes from forest fires in Quebec and northeastern Ontario have resulted in deteriorated air quality.” Moreover, “High levels of air pollution [have developed] due to smog from forest fires”.
The air quality in our nation's capital is worse than it is in Mexico City, in Jakarta and in Kolkata. We have all this because of the forest fires. What is the response from the Conservative Party? Let us make pollution free again. It will not happen from this side of the House.
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- Jun/6/23 3:12:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are, in fact, battling climate change, and we have the strongest economic growth of all the G7 countries. We have put in place measures that will create thousands of jobs in Canada, boosting Canada's economy for the coming years and for the coming decades. We are doing that while we reduce climate pollution by 50 million tonnes, the equivalent of removing 11 million vehicles from our roads.
We can fight climate change and we can have a strong economy, while supporting Canadians. Unfortunately, the Conservatives want to do none of these things.
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Madam Speaker, the member is right. I am sure he has heard me speak about this many times before, but he is right, Quebec does not have a price on pollution, which many other provinces in the country do, exactly because of that cap-and-trade deal. Ontario was a partner in that cap-and-trade deal until Doug Ford was elected as premier and got out of it. That is the reality of the situation.
We can look at how, in those five or six short years, Quebec has advanced in terms of electrifying its grid, setting up EV charging stations and taking the electrification transition seriously, and compare it to Ontario. Ontario is lagging behind, yet only five or six years ago, both provinces had joined the western initiative with a number of states in the U.S. at the same time: California, Montana and a number of other states. Right now, Ontario, to its detriment, is not doing it.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to repeat a question that I posed a little bit earlier, which was artfully dodged by the respondent.
Yes, there is a price on pollution, and it has added to the price of gasoline at the pump. However, in spite of all that, the oil companies have racked up an impressive $38.3 billion in profits, all coming straight out of the pockets of Canadians, straight off their after-tax income.
Would the member not agree that if he is talking about inflation, and if we know that food and big oil are the largest contributors to inflation, their profits are really the issue here, not anything that the government has done?
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- Jun/7/23 12:14:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, thank you for being here this evening and into the wee hours of the morning. I would like to thank my friend and colleague, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for her question this evening, but not just for that. I want to thank her for her decades of service and her leadership. I would also like to thank her for being an incredible steward and spokesperson, a voice of reason in this House, an extraordinarily knowledge parliamentarian, and a great friend. I thank the member very much for engaging in the debate this evening.
Moving on to the substantive question, indeed, since 2015, our government has, as the member pointed out, invested a lot of money in climate action. We can be proud of this, collectively. We got elected, three times, on promises to take strong climate action, and since 2015, over $120 billion has been invested in over 100 various measures to support climate action and to address the climate emergency that we are all experiencing, highlighted today by many members in this House, who had noticeable differences in their voices. I cannot help but wonder if that is as a result of the smoke outside because of the nearby forest fires, which are not even really that nearby. They are just so big that the smoke has arrived here in Ottawa.
I saw some social media posts from people who have lived in Ottawa a lot longer than the time I have spent in Ottawa, some for over 50 years, saying they have never seen the sky look like it has today. It is really tragic that we find ourselves here.
We must continue to take bold action and be leaders on this issue for the world and for other countries to take note. We have a lot of common ground in the House. There are quite a few members, I would say the vast majority of the House believes in climate changes, believes it is an emergency and believes that we must take action.
It is still alarming to hear members, and I did today, say things such as, “It is weather. It is normal. There has always been climate change.” It is challenging, to be honest, to be in this place, to be a progressive politician and to care so much about climate action, and recognize that there are some of these very antiquated views that are persistent, primarily in the Conservative Party. I have never heard a member from another party in this House falsely describe climate change as “weather”.
We agree that oil and gas emissions must come down. To do that, we must introduce a cap on those emissions for the industry and for the sector. We have also taken action on the consumer side. It is well known and it is extremely well documented that pricing carbon and pricing pollution does result in lower emissions in the long run. It is shocking that we spend so much time in the House debating whether or not a price on pollution is effective, given that 338 members of the House, every single Conservative, NDP, Bloc Québécois, Liberal and Green member, campaigned on a promise to price carbon, yet we find ourselves, in 2023, debating the veracity and legitimacy of a price on pollution.
On this side of the House, including the Green side of the House, we agree that pricing pollution is one of the many ways that we can fight climate change, but we know that there is more that we must do. We have a bold price on pollution, but we also have to take more environmental action and more climate mitigation, as well as adaptation strategies.
I can see that I am nearing the end of my speech, and I will have time for a follow-up, so I will pass it back to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
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- Jun/7/23 12:29:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again, the member opposite just pulled numbers out of thin air, stating that 60% of somebody's paycheque is going to housing. Those are examples, not statistics. We are driven by evidence on this side of the House to make sure that we are investing where it is needed.
For example, recently the federal government and Ontario's provincial government came together to find an infill solution in Milton. I rushed home from Parliament in order to do a housing announcement with the minister, a former member of Parliament here in this House, who is now in Doug Ford's Conservative government, Parm Gill. I will give a quick little shout-out to my Conservative colleague down there.
We worked together to find solutions. Thirty-four new units were built for just under $5 million for residents. They are already occupied. They are already tenanted. We are finding solutions because, regardless of our parties' stripes, we are working together, not just making accusations across the way, or making up numbers and throwing wild figures around about doubling and tripling, and how a supposed cutting of the price on pollution is going to solve everybody's problems. That is not true—
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