44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 1, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/1/24 11:23:17 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my hon. colleague, but I was a little frustrated this morning because in trying to use logic on a party leader who bases everything on a bumper sticker slogan, my colleague is wasting his efforts.
The issue at hand here is that the Leader of the Opposition is accusing the Liberals of not having an environmental plan, which I might agree with on most days, but there is no Conservative environmental plan other than letting the planet burn. What are the Conservatives willing to throw under the bus to let the planet burn right now in Alberta? Not a single member of the Alberta or Saskatchewan MPs have stood up about the climate disaster that is unfolding. Thirteen counties have declared environmental disasters from the drought. This is four years into a drought. There is no snow in Edmonton. The climate crisis and a burning planet are affecting farmers and not a single one of them would ever stand up and defend farmers from climate change. They would rather throw them under the bus so that Rich Kruger and Suncor can make more money. That is the Conservatives' environmental plan.
197 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured, as always, to rise in this House. I have been here 20 years, and I have never seen a time when I feel that our country and our planet are at risk as much as they are now. This is a time when people should be looking to parliamentarians to come together to deal with solutions. Instead, we are dealing with yet another Conservative motion, which shows that the Conservative Party leader's entire economic plan could fit on a lapel button.
I think what is missing in the discussion today is the fact that we are in the midst of a global crisis. Europe is worried that it could be dealing with a massive expansion of a potential war with Putin. There is the need for Canada to be a strong ally. Contrary to what the member who lives at Stornoway says, Ukraine is not some faraway land, as he quotes Neville Chamberlain, but it is the front line in the fight for democracy. This is something we should be coming together on.
We are seeing a mass humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza, with Canada cutting off supplies at a time when people are facing starvation. This is a humanitarian disaster that Canadians could step up for. Instead, we are siding with Benjamin Netanyahu. We are dealing with the fact that every hour 30 million tonnes of ice melt from the Greenland ice floes; that is 30 million tonnes an hour. Last year, 200,000 Canadians were forced out of their homes because of climate fires, yet the Conservative leader flew into the fire zones to brag that he would make burning fossil fuels free.
The Liberals do not really have an environmental plan. That is something we should be arguing; they do not. However, the Conservatives refuse to put forward a climate plan, other than to let the planet burn. That is the sum total of what I have heard from the Conservatives for the last three years: let the planet burn. At a time when our young people are facing a future that is increasingly unstable, we are left with yet another dismal debate in the House of Commons on slogans and bumper-sticker excuses.
When Kelowna was facing a potential catastrophic disaster with fires, the member for Kelowna—Lake Country was bragging that if her party formed the government, it would make fossil fuel burning free. In Alberta, when I was there last week, there was just a little powder of snow on the ground in January. It is above freezing now. It is now coming into the fourth year of a serious drought.
There are 13 counties in Alberta that have declared environmental disasters because they cannot get their crops out. In 2021, the cattle farmers were talking about how only 36% of their crops were in good condition; that was in 2021. They made it through that year by getting the holdover pay from 2020.
Now, coming into 2024 with no snow on the ground, we are seeing rivers drying up, and not a single Conservative from Alberta or Saskatchewan has ever bothered to stand up to defend their farmers in the face of the biggest climate crisis since the dirty thirties. They would throw them under the bus to satisfy their leader, who lives in a 19-room mansion, because it is about letting the planet burn.
The Conservatives from British Columbia will get up and falsely try to mislead their own citizens that they are paying a federal carbon tax when there is not one. Not a single Conservative from British Columbia has dared to stand up in the House to talk about the fact that the rising hydro prices in B.C. are from the depleted reservoirs from the droughts. British Columbia, a hydro superpower, had to import 20% of its energy capacity last year because it could not keep the lights on because of the droughts and the low reservoirs. That is the effect of the climate crisis.
We are dealing with real-time planetary breakdown of the disappearance of the ice shelves and of unprecedented fires, where much of last summer, across from Chicago and across North America, children could not go outside without getting sick. What did we hear from the Conservatives? Let the planet burn.
In all my years, there were times we came together on simple things, like jobs. However, that is not in the Conservative agenda because the Conservatives tell people that Canada is broken, even though we were voted number one in the world. If Canada is not broken, the Conservatives will make it broken.
Bill C-49 is a bill so that Canada could get in the game with the clean energy projects that are taking off in the United States, right now. Since 2021, under the Biden administration, $360 billion in clean energy projects got off the ground, and they are not getting off the ground here for two reasons. While the Liberals are trying to get their tax credits and work it all out, Biden is getting that money out the door. We are also seeing the Conservatives blocking sustainable jobs legislation and doing every kind of monkey-wrenching, idiotic stunt to stop workers from having a seat at the table.
Even more astounding is Bill C-49 where the Newfoundland and Labrador premier and the Nova Scotia premier have called for Ottawa to come to the table because the United States is moving ahead so rapidly on offshore wind development that would set up projects for construction and long-term jobs in the hundreds of thousands of homes that are getting clean energy. However, the Conservatives from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are determined to block jobs because that is what their leaders said: Make Canada broken. If it is not broken, they are going to break it. Their plan is to let the planet burn.
Here is the thing. The Premier of Nova Scotia said that Bill C-49 is the necessary first step in unlocking our energy potential, yet the member for Cumberland—Colchester, a guy who has just been elected for two or three years, is announcing that he is going to oppose offshore development and jobs in Nova Scotia. The member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame said that he thought the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador had been hoodwinked and that the premier was not bright enough to negotiate good construction and permanent jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador. There was a time when we all would have worked to get those jobs off the ground because we know sustainability in every part of Canada is important. However, these are clean-energy jobs, and that is something that the leader of the Conservative Party does not want to have happen, because his environmental plan is to let the planet burn.
The Conservatives talk about affordability. It was the Conservatives who led the fight against taking the HST off home heating. This is not about making it easier for people; it is about making people angrier. That is his one plan.
However, what really concerns me now is that we are in the midst of a climate catastrophe that is unfolding in real time, and we need to bring our plans to the table. We need to debate them. We need to find out how Canada can, number one, get in the clean-energy market that is taking off in China, in Europe and in the United States while we are sitting at the side of the road. Even more, there is the need to reassure this young generation that we will have their backs in trying to address the catastrophic collapse of the ice shelves and the unimaginable burning that we saw last year. We still have fires burning in northern Alberta today. That is unprecedented. The northern boreal forest burned at an unprecedented rate. What do we hear from the Conservatives? They do not have an environmental plan. They have a bumper-sticker slogan and if people push them hard, it is “let the planet burn”.
I did not come here to tell my kids and their next generation of kids, “Guess what. We let the planet burn because it was easy.” Yes, it is easy to let the planet burn and, yes, it is going to be hard to make sure that we stand up for our kids. Yes, it is going to be hard to stand up to Putin. Yes, it is going to be hard to come together, but we need to do that as a nation right now. This is a nation that will be judged on the absolute failure to put forward a plan in the midst of the biggest existential crisis the human race has faced, and it needs something better than a bumper sticker and a toxic lapel-pin slogan.
1497 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/1/24 12:18:12 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, we finally see someone from British Columbia stand up and actually speak for his community that is facing a climate disaster.
What have we heard? We have heard “get that tax off”, “let us burn the planet” and “all the people in British Columbia who are not paying a federal carbon tax, we have to get them all stoked”.
I would like to say to the member that, yes, he is ground zero in the climate catastrophe, and his leader's response is to let them burn. He has done nothing. Does that member have a climate plan? No, he does not. He has a bumper-sticker slogan and some toxic little lapel pin that says, “Let them burn”. That is their only response. They are leaving their people behind. We will stand up.
144 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/1/24 12:19:53 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I would interpret it slightly differently. What we have seen online is the far right is a Putin troll machine. We see that Tucker Carlson, a white supremacist who is a Putin propaganda puppet, was vetted and treated by the great leader, the great visionary of the Conservative movement, Danielle Smith. Then, the leader of the Conservative Party gets up and quotes Neville Chamberlain, of all people, about Ukraine.
As for the leader of the Conservative Party, his defence critic and his foreign affairs critic, I watched them stand up and vote against Operation Unifier.
They are sending a message to Putin and to Europe that the Conservative Party is against us standing the gaff with Ukraine. They are willing to let President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people fall to Putin, because they said they do not like the carbon tax. How on God's earth can one go into the—
154 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/1/24 12:21:47 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it was very important to set up a plan to address the climate crisis in the Far North. The massive fires were an unprecedented disaster in our region. In the James Bay area, many huge fires affected indigenous communities. The federal government did not have a plan and provided no support. Canadians and Quebeckers need us to address the climate crisis to protect the future of our region.
70 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/1/24 1:36:12 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, there are thousands of jobs being created offshore in the United States because of Biden's investments into clean energy.
The member said that the Premier of Newfoundland is just not very bright and has somehow been hoodwinked by the nasty Liberals because he wanted to create clean energy jobs in Newfoundland. He also said that the Premier of Nova Scotia got the wool pulled over his eyes. My family is from Nova Scotia, and they are not dummies there. However, when they want to create thousands of offshore jobs, Conservatives, including the member, have to vote against it because their only plan is to burn the planet. He is outraged that the leaders of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are pushing for a clean energy Atlantic accord. He is going to vote against it. He is going to tell his people he is going to vote against those jobs and that his own premier is some kind of dummy for supporting jobs. I think he should look in the mirror because he has it all flipped.
178 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
