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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 280

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 12, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 280 - Feb/12/24
Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)
  • Feb/12/24 11:57:39 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to close this debate on my bill at second reading. First of all, I would like to say how impressed I was by the quality of the speeches from both sides, by members from all parties present in the House this morning. I would also like to circle back to the comments made by my colleague, the member for Repentigny at the end of the first hour of debate, as well as the final comments made by the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. What we are aiming for here is not a federal strategy at all. In fact, responsibility for forecasting and adapting to disasters, such as floods and droughts, lies with the provinces. We are not aiming for a federal strategy, but a national strategy, meaning that we want to use this structural bill to encourage better collaboration between the provinces, the federal government, indigenous communities and, as my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa also mentioned, the people on the ground, the farmers. This is already happening. Specialists meet informally. However, according to Canada's foremost expert on flood and drought forecasting, John Pomeroy, something more formal is needed. It is important to recognize that technology has evolved. I can confirm that Quebec is one of the most advanced provinces in flood and drought forecasting. Quebeckers are very technologically advanced, but that does not mean we should not encourage collaboration because, in this day and age, with advances in technology and forecasting methods, forecasters are no longer limited to a small territory. Models can now be developed that cover huge, broad territories, even entire continents. That is what is being done in Europe right now. This will require collaboration. The federal government is not interfering. That is not at all what is happening here. I will give an example of the possibilities that we have with the proper degree of co-operation and the possibilities that we have of doing accurate flood forecasting. I would like to refer to something by Dr. Pomeroy. I am paraphrasing him and, in some cases, I am quoting him directly. I notice the member for Yukon is here. In the summer of 2021, Yukon experienced historical flooding along the Yukon River in Whitehorse, a pilot case flood forecast for the territorial government. It is a flood forecast coordinated by Global Water Futures, which is out of the University of Saskatchewan. It was able to correctly predict the flood and show its cause, which was unprecedented glacier and snow melt in the high mountain headwaters of the Yukon River in British Columbia. The problem is that Global Water Future's funding will be sunset, so we will not have the funding necessary for this kind of endeavour, but we need more of these kinds of endeavours. As Dr. Pomeroy has said, this exercise could not have been done by any level of government alone. There had to be co-operation between the federal government, the Yukon government and a university, where the expertise really resides in this area. It is not a question of public servants dictating anything to anybody. The public servants will not be doing this work; it is the experts in the universities and provinces. I appreciate the quality of the speeches I heard this morning and I appreciate what seems to be all-party support for this bill.
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Context: House Hansard - 280 - Feb/12/24
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)
  • Feb/12/24 7:19:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will withhold my comments on the poem itself. I wish I had been given it in advance because I would have taken it line by line and provided a few thoughts. The poem might not have rhymed as well, but it definitely could have been a little more factual. When we are in the House, facts are really important. For example, the member is concerned about inflation, as well member should be, and ties it to axing the tax, along with axing the rebate. I have to make sure we include both of them, which is only fair, because that is telling Canadians what Conservatives would really do, but it would only be for the provinces that both pay the tax and receive the rebate. I would add that qualifier, too. Therefore, B.C. and Quebec would not be included, which is a fairly high percentage of Canada in terms of population. We could ask farmers about inflation and how it is impacting food production into the future, but I believe the greater threat to food production in the future is climate, things like floods. Earlier today, in the first hour of debate, members on all sides of the House talked about floods and the impacts they are having. Floods, droughts, fires and other natural disasters, which are all on the increase, are all based on climate change, something the Conservative Party refuses to recognize. I can tell the member opposite that there is a very good chance they will have a much larger, more significant impact on inflation. When the Conservatives talk about axing the tax, it might sound nice, it might even look nice on a bumper sticker, as I referred to earlier, but, at the end of the day, it is not sound government policy, even if we try to tie it into inflation. The Governor of the Bank of Canada indicated that the percentage of the carbon tax increasing inflation was 0.15%, just a fraction. Let us compare Canada's inflation to countries that do not have a national price on pollution, like the United States. I pointed out some of the states do, but we would find that in many areas, their inflation rate is higher than Canada's inflation rate. This whole idea of cutting the carbon tax and the rebate would somehow drive the price of food down is quite misleading. In the poem, the member said the Conservatives are going to build homes. The leader of the Conservative Party was responsible for housing when he was minister. I need to remind my colleague across the way that he bombed on the issue. He did not even come close to dealing with the housing issue. I want to be nice, so I had best leave that one. On car theft, let us look at Manitoba. It was at its very worst when Stephen Harper was prime minister.
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