SoVote

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/6/24 11:07:12 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, as we are debating this issue that has hit so many Canadians and has been a source of real concern across the country, and mentioning who should get credit for raising it first, it occurs to me that the hon. minister might have a comment. It seems to me that where we began to see some traction on the issue was not from a political party, but the investigative journalism of the CBC in finding that these car rings were taking vehicles from driveways in Canada and putting them on container ships. That is where I first saw this. Therefore, I thank the CBSA agents and the police, but I also want to thank the CBC for shining the light on this.

124 words

Context: House Hansard - 276 - Feb/6/24

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/6/24 1:22:41 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask the hon. parliamentary secretary about the logic behind mandatory minimums, which have been proven, on empirical evidence, not to hold the logic one would hope. They actually tend to work against reducing crime. One reason for this is that increasing the mandatory minimum would drive people toward cutting deals and plea bargains, instead of actually dealing with matters or giving judges the discretion to increase the sentencing where they think it is appropriate.

79 words

Context: House Hansard - 276 - Feb/6/24

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/6/24 5:04:31 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, in diving into the world of auto crime today, I found, of course, that the rate of theft of automobiles has also increased dramatically in the United States. I do not think our Prime Minister is responsible for that, but I am looking at it here in Canada. I will share an anecdote. One of the most shocking car thefts in my life was when I was in church and somebody went into the minister's office and figured they could open the desk. They picked a key up. They did not know what make her car was. They went outside, went beep, beep, and found and stole her car. I wonder if the hon. member knows, relatively speaking, and I think he knows more about car thefts and this issue of technological change than I do, how much the big increase in car thefts in Canada and the U.S. has to do with the ability to use technology, so that thieves can sit at the end of a driveway and actually scoop, remotely, the electronic signals to a computerized, on-off button kind of car. How much of our car theft increase is because it is just simpler to steal cars because of technological change?

209 words

Context: House Hansard - 276 - Feb/6/24

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/6/24 5:31:48 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-234

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise tonight and pursue the discussion of a very complex piece of legislation. It did not start out being complex, when our colleague initially put it forward as Bill C-234, but I appreciate the opportunity to speak to it. Of course, this is the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act as it relates to on-farm use of fossil fuels. It has now been amended in the Senate to exempt one of the larger uses of fossil fuels on farms. Of course, farm communities are not pleased; however, I wanted to step back. This piece that would now be exempted under the Senate amendments is the on-farm use of propane fuel for grain drying. In other words, activities that take place in buildings are now no longer exempt from the fossil fuel exemption that came through in the first version of Bill C-234. As the Green Party members and I voted for Bill C-234 in its first iteration, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity, if I may, to explain why we voted that way and what I think we should do for a fundamental reconsideration of the way we price carbon on farms so that it has some intellectual and scientific coherence. Let me first start with why we voted for Bill C-234 in its first iteration. I recall really clearly when carbon pricing came forward, which we favour, to be very clear. We think we have to monetize carbon. If we treat pollution as something free, nobody will pay attention to what it really costs society, what it really costs humanity to treat the atmosphere as if it were a large, free garbage dump for our pollution. That is clearly not acceptable. We moved forward, accepting that there would be, unfortunately, a patchwork, because some provinces had already moved forward. British Columbia brought in Canada's first carbon tax, a well-constructed and logical revenue-neutral approach to carbon pricing. There have been changes, and some provinces brought in their own versions. What the current Liberal government brought forward was essentially a backstop; for those provinces that did not have their own systems, the federal government brought in a carbon price that would apply everywhere to try to equalize the pricing among all the different provinces and have a system that remained revenue-neutral. British Columbia brought in the revenue-neutral carbon tax under the government of previous premier Gordon Campbell, who pretty much represented the right wing of B.C. politics. Nevertheless, it was a really well-designed carbon price. The revenue-neutral part of it was that, as British Columbians, we got tax cuts that were how we received what citizens now actually receive as a rebate check in those backstop provinces. This became a bit more complicated than it perhaps needed to be. When the Liberals brought this in, they said they were not going to apply it on farms; farmers would not have to pay the carbon tax. At least, that was how it was communicated. When farmers realized that they were not paying a carbon tax on the diesel they put in their tractors or the farm equipment they use, but they were paying a big one on grain drying, they became quite concerned. That is the source of Bill C-234. We felt, in principle, that once the farming community has been told that carbon tax will not apply to them, one should stick to that. It also happened that, because of the climate crisis, the need for grain drying increased. This is one of those things that may sound counterintuitive, of course, but we had what farmers in the Prairies referred to as “the harvest from hell” that winter. I am going to back up and say that I know it is not the first time we have ever had the need for grain drying. We have had wet harvests before. It was not a novelty, but it was particularly bad. They were still trying to get crops out of the fields when there was snow on them. Grain drying became much more intense, and the use of propane for grain drying actually increased. That is when farmers said, “Well, wait a minute. We were supposed to be exempt from carbon pricing.” Before diving into what has happened to Bill C-234 since then, I want to step back and ask this: If we wanted to monetize carbon and, preferably, keep farmers who are essentially land stewards on board with the need to respond to the climate crisis, how would we do that? I would say that the reason farmers should be particularly on board with measures to reduce greenhouse gases and avoid an ever-worsening climate crisis is that, if there is one economic sector that is a big loser and at risk in a world of climate crisis, it is agriculture. In the Prairies now, there is a multi-year drought. Some of my friends who are farmers on the Prairies say not to call it a drought. They say to call it “aridification”, because it is just going to keep getting drier as a result of climate trends and global warming. With respect to the impact on the cost of food, we talk about inflation in grocery prices, and a good chunk of that is the impact on certain agricultural products because of extreme climate events. Whether droughts or floods, extreme weather events wipe out certain kinds of food. The price of vanilla went sky-high because of the impact of storms hitting Madagascar, as but one example. Of course, grains all around the world started costing a lot more because of a combination of Putin declaring war on Ukraine and crop failures caused by extreme climatic events. As someone who wants to see us all pull together, it was distressing that one component of Canadian society would be alienated from efforts to act on climate by what felt like and, I have to say, looked like a betrayal on a promise. This component is severely impacted by the climate crisis and, therefore, should be onside with doing something to keep it from becoming ever worse; at the same time, it is a part of our society that plays a big role in how carbon is sequestered. If the Liberals say they are not going to apply carbon taxes on farms, then farmers are surprised to be paying a walloping carbon tax, how did that happen? I am sorry to say this to my Liberal friends, but it is because the Liberals do not really understand a lot about farming; when they made the promise, they did not realize that fossil fuels used on farms were largely used in buildings to dry grain. It is fine to exempt tractors and on-farm equipment, but here we come to the crux of what I wish we had done, which we could perhaps still do: We can enlist farmers as the creative land stewards they are, as farmers sequester carbon through their practices and on-farm activities, such as zero-tillage agriculture, getting rid of summer fallow, and making sure they are doing more perennial and fewer annual crops. Farmers are massively effective at sequestering carbon in soil, and guess what? We talk about planting forests as a way of sequestering carbon and carbon sinks in forests. Those things are real; that is true. However, right now, and largely because of climate change, our grasslands are better at sequestering carbon than our forests are. Why? The soils hold an enormous quantity of carbon. Climate conditions causing forest fires wipe out the carbon we were sequestering in forests, releasing it by the millions of tonnes into the atmosphere. It is not just in the summer; every province in this country started having wildfires that were out of control in the spring, in May of last year, and all the way through late fall and some into the winter. When forests burn, we lose all the carbon. Here is something interesting, and scientists are looking at this a lot: When grasslands burn, we do not lose all the carbon. Most of that carbon is stored well below the soil, in the root systems that do not burn. Therefore, if we are offsetting for greenhouse gas, I generally think we are better not to plant a tree but to plant a billionaire; I usually say that in jest, just to make sure everybody understands that. We are better off protecting the grasslands. Where ecosystems exist with grasslands, it is better to sustain them and keep them robust, which means this: What if, instead of just having carbon pricing on the fuel they burn, we pay farmers for every tonne of carbon they sequester? What if we had an actual balance sheet on carbon pricing, thanking and rewarding farmers who have taken on board protecting ecological services, such as wetlands, protecting biodiversity and making sure they are restoring the health of soil, improving the profitability and the health of the food, and keeping carbon out of the atmosphere? I say thanks to farmers.

1537 words

All Topics