44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 1, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/1/24 10:19:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise here today on the traditional territories of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation. To them, we say “meegwetch”.
I am presenting a petition that speaks to an issue that has seized this House in a number of different ways in terms of pending legislation. The petitioners are asking the government to take account of the degradation of Canada's waterways and watersheds. The current laws do not adequately protect Canada's waterways and watersheds from irresponsible industrial practice. The petitioners call on Canada to update our water laws to ensure that no industry or single corporation can take precedence over the health of Canada's waterways and watersheds and, by extension, over the health of the people of Canada and the very species that also rely on the health of these waterways. We must ensure that Canada's water laws are updated under the guidance of professionals and specialists in the field of water conservation.
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- Feb/1/24 11:03:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is my first opportunity to rise today to explain the many reasons why the Green Party will be voting against today's opposition motion, but I would like to ask my friend from Kingston and the Islands to comment on this. We had an earlier exchange about whether enforcing the carbon tax or raising the carbon tax could stop fires and floods. The answer from science is clear that it cannot.
We cannot turn back what has happened to the atmosphere with respect to atmospheric chemistry and physics, but we can avoid runaway global warming, the kind that self-accelerates and becomes unstoppable. We must not stoke the furnace further on future warming to destroy the lives of our children, which is why we need carbon pricing, and we need more to reduce emissions much more quickly.
Does my my hon. colleague have any comments on that?
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- Feb/1/24 12:51:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I care about the price of butter. I am a cook, and I admit that I tend to go the Julia Child route: If there is more butter in the recipe, it never hurt anybody.
I know the price of butter has gone really sky-high, but I just googled to check. The price of butter in both Canada and the U.S., in both countries, has increased dramatically.
There is a reason, which I have dug into a bit because I was prompted.
I wish Emily Mae's Cookies the very best. I double-checked, and we are not related. Her name is spelled “Mae” and I am “May”. Anyway, I wish her the best, but the price of butter in Canada and the U.S., where they do not have a carbon price, has gone sky-high.
The explanation, when we look for it, is that the heat waves through the summer meant that cows produced less milk at the same time that consumer demand for dairy products like ice cream, because it was hot, went sky-high, so we ended up having a double whammy for dairy producers.
I am meeting with dairy producers next week. I can ask them about it, but the price of butter in the U.S. ranges in U.S. dollars from $2.92 a pound to $8.76 a pound, which converts to Canadian dollars from $3.92 a pound to $11.57—
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- Feb/1/24 3:34:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one debate we have never had in this place is on whether any of the claims about nuclear energy are remotely true; they are not. Nuclear energy is expensive. It is not a solution to the climate crisis. Solar and wind costs have plummeted from 2009 to 2021. Solar has dropped by 90% and onshore wind has dropped by 72%, but nuclear energy has increased by 36%. It is in the way of replacing carbon electricity. It is not helping us. I would like to have that debate in this place.
Would he be prepared to ensure that the government put forward a reasonable debate on the evidence to assess whether nuclear is an asset or in the way of climate action?
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- Feb/1/24 4:39:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciated the parliamentary secretary's focus on the question of what former Progressive Conservative prime ministers and leaders have said about the current state of the Conservative Party. They are obviously two very different parties.
My focus is on lamenting that only in Canada, and now in the United States, do we have a division over how to respond to the climate crisis that falls along left-right lines in politics. That is really a shame, and it is not necessary.
If we look back, who were the leaders in addressing the climate crisis in the 1980s? There was Margaret Thatcher. No one would suggest she was a leftist. The Iron Lady was pretty darn right wing, but she was trained in science and chemistry. She set up the Hadley Centre in England to take on climate change and be serious about it.
Brian Mulroney was an early leader on climate change globally. He still calls on his successors, in what still calls itself a Conservative Party, to do the right thing and address the climate crisis.
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- Feb/1/24 7:24:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight in Adjournment Proceedings to pursue a question that I asked in question period back in October 2023.
On October 6, I asked about the delays on the Trans Mountain pipeline and the decision of our Crown corporation, us, our government and all Canadians to violate a sacred commitment that we had made to the first nations at the Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwépemc Nation. It often goes by the initials SSN. It is near Kamloops, and the people have a sacred area of their territory that they call “Pípsell”. I know this area well because I worked with that first nation when it conducted its own independent environmental assessment of a proposed open mine called the Ajax mine that was to be raised. The reason the first nation turned down the Ajax mine was that it would violate the sacred nature of the Pípsell, and it must be protected.
When that same first nation negotiated with our Crown corporation, Trans Mountain expansion, TMX, about bringing a pipeline through its territory, the members of the first nation agreed but on a strong condition that if, and only if, the Pípsell was protected. TMX operators said they had engineers. They could do microtunnelling. They could drill around the Pípsell. They would not disturb the Pípsell. That was just up until this fall when TMX discovered its engineering was not so good.
TMX operators discovered they could not do microtunnelling. They went back to the Canada Energy Regulator and said that they could not keep their word to the first nation; they would have to drill right through the Pípsell. The first nation went to the Canada Energy Regulator and made the case that it should not be allowed. The Canada Energy Regulator said that it was so sad, but if it did not violate its commitments to the first nation, in other words, if it did not violate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that free, prior and informed consent means something, then the cost of the pipeline would go up again, and there would be further delays again and that the pipeline must be built. Why? It is now an article of faith for the Liberal government that the pipeline must be built. It does not need evidence, and there is not evidence in favour of building that pipeline. There has never been a cost-benefit analysis on building that pipeline, and I know because I went through the National Energy Board hearings at the initial process.
It gets worse because the Canada Energy Regulator gave TMX permission to proceed. As I pointed out in my question in October 2023, the Canada Energy Regulator did not give reasons for its decision, so the first nation was unable to put together a case to go to court to get an injunction against the construction, and TMX operators decided to start building on the very day that was the statutory holiday in Canada to mark reconciliation: the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
The answer I got from the parliamentary secretary at the time was that the decision was made by an independent regulator. I knew that. I did not ask the Government of Canada why it made the decision to ignore the sacred nature of the commitment. I asked why the government did not tell TMX, which we own, to stop construction until its operators gave the first nation the legal reasons on which they could base an appeal.
It has continued to get bad. Predictably, the pipeline is delayed again. The costs are now $35 billion. When will we stop the madness, and cancel the pipeline?
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- Feb/1/24 7:31:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, to say that was an inadequate response would be a massive understatement.
The parliamentary secretary just told us we have to reduce emissions while defending building a $35-billion pipeline that will increase emissions. It is a climate disaster. He completely ignored, as the government did before, that the pipeline violating the Pípsell is the equivalent, as I said on October 6, of a decision to destroy the Garden of Eden, if we knew where it was, for people from the Judeo-Christian tradition.
This is the origin story of the peoples of this territory, and there are not enough beads and trinkets to throw into the mix to make up for the violation and the absolute obscenity of doing it on the statutory holiday for reconciliation.
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