44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 21, 2024 10:00AM
- Mar/21/24 10:09:30 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition that I have comes from Canadians who are concerned about the environmental panel on climate change's report, which has warned us repeatedly that rising temperatures over the next two decades will bring widespread devastation and extreme weather. The residents of Kingston and the Islands who signed this petition call upon the Government of Canada to move forward immediately with bold emissions caps for the oil and gas sector that are comprehensive in scope and realistic in achieving the targets Canada has set to achieve by 2030.
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- Mar/21/24 11:14:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it feels a little like Groundhog Day in here. Again, we have another speech from the member, which is not unusual in this place, but it was just Tuesday that we had this exact same debate on a motion brought forward by the Conservatives.
This is starting to look, more and more, like a stunt, when the Conservatives continually use their opposition days to do the exact same thing, knowing what the exact same outcome will be. I do not know if they have seen the movie Groundhog Day. They may want to take some time to watch that.
Right now in Alberta, we have an unprecedented drought. The wildfire season in Alberta began in February. I do not trust the that government is doing what needs to be done on climate change, but perhaps the member could talk about the fact that the Conservatives have no climate change plan whatsoever.
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- Mar/21/24 11:50:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay.
Right now, Canadians are struggling. They are struggling with the cost of living and paying for rent, groceries and medication. They are struggling because they are also feeling the profound impacts of the climate crisis. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the wildfires last year. Hundreds of people died in the heat dome that hit British Columbia. There have been hurricanes, drought and extreme flooding. The climate crisis is here now.
Unfortunately, there is a party on one side of the House that denies that climate change is even a crisis. On the other side of the House, there is a party that makes promises, breaks promises and talks about climate action but does not take the action necessary that would match the scale and urgency of the crisis we are in.
I have heard from so many people in my home community of Victoria who care about the environment. They want to protect their families. They are choking on smoke during the summers. They are seeing the profound impacts this crisis is having across our country. They are also very concerned about how they are going to make the rent next month or pay their mortgages. They are very concerned about the skyrocketing costs of food, gas, medication, everything. People are struggling to get by.
Unfortunately, they do not have a government that is looking out for them. Instead, we see the people at the very top, CEOs of the wealthiest corporations, making record profits. The oil and gas industry is gouging Canadians at the pump, continuing to rake in billions of dollars and then getting handouts from the government in carbon capture and storage and billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies that consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments have been giving them for decades.
Grocery store CEOs are making millions of dollars while everyday Canadians are struggling to afford their bills. While the Conservatives today have put forward a motion pretending that they care and want to give Canadians a break, New Democrats know that corporate greed is what is driving up inflation. Corporate greed is driving up the cost of groceries.
Real estate developers and rich investors are treating our housing market like a place to get rich. When they look at the housing market, they see something great that is working for them. When everyday Canadians experience the housing market, it is a crisis. It is scary. It is scary for people not knowing whether they will be renovicted. It is scary for them not to know, if they lose their homes, whether they will be able to find one they are able to afford or whether they are going to be able to pay their mortgages next month.
The Conservatives' governing body, 50% of it, is made up of lobbyists from these very industries: real estate investors, oil and gas, pharmaceutical companies. It is no wonder they do not want to take on corporate greed. It is no wonder they refuse to put forward solutions that would actually tackle the inequity that exists in our country.
On the other side of the House, while the Liberals talk about climate action and affordability, they will not take the action needed to take on these big corporations. They refuse to address the climate emergency with the urgency and scale that is required. To be honest, if we have an option between climate denial and climate delay, the result is the same. It is climate inaction. People will continue to struggle. What people in Canada see more and more is that the climate crisis is a pocketbook issue. When crops fail, when there are multi-year droughts, when wildfires impact communities, the cost of groceries goes up.
When we have oil and gas companies, and rich CEOs at the head of grocery store chains making record profits, and everyday Canadians struggling with the cost of living and with the impacts of the climate crisis, one would think we would have a government that would take action.
There are solutions. We could implement a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies and could put that money into retrofitting people's homes, into building public transit, into the climate solutions we know would make a difference and into renewable energy. Instead, we have a government that has invested $35 billion into the Trans Mountain pipeline. We know that the oil sands have been ramping up production in anticipation of the Trans Mountain pipeline opening.
Imagine, in a climate crisis, ramping up oil and gas production so that they could ship raw bitumen to the coast, threatening our coastal communities, the ecosystems and the very livelihood of coastal communities and threatening indigenous communities. It is so disheartening.
It makes Canadians cynical when a government declares a climate emergency, and the very next day, it approves the Trans Mountain pipeline. It makes people cynical when the Prime Minister gets up and says that he believes in climate change and the climate crisis but then puts forward an oil and gas cap that is so watered down that it does not even meet their own weak climate targets. It does not even meet our Paris Agreement.
This is not climate leadership. Canadians should not have to choose between bad and worse or between deny and delay. Let us implement a windfall tax on big oil and gas. Let us make sure that all low- and middle-income Canadians have access to heat pumps. Let us make sure that we are investing in our public transit system, in reducing our emissions and in ensuring that we invest in renewable energy.
There are billions of dollars that the Liberal government continues to hand out to wealthy oil and gas CEOs in the form of fossil fuel subsidies that could be going into climate solutions. However, we will not hear either of those parties talking about moving the billions of dollars that they hand out to big and oil gas through carbon capture and storage or though the tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. We will not hear them talking about moving that money into supporting communities impacted by the climate crisis.
We could fund a youth climate corps and could employ young people in the industries, in the jobs of the future, in responding to climate disasters, in making our communities more climate resilient and in bringing down our greenhouse gas emissions, in retrofitting our homes and in changing over our infrastructure to green infrastructure to ensure that we build an economy and a country that are climate safe and that is climate resilient.
Every day I hear from Canadians who are worried about their future, and they are also worried about right now. Canadians are struggling with the cost of living. They are struggling, seeing the impacts of the climate crisis. They want a government that would take on the culprits, the people who are fuelling this crisis and the people who are gouging Canadians. It is time we had a government that looks out for everyday Canadians, not just the people at the very top, not just those CEOs who are ripping people off.
It is time that we take care of Canadians who are seeing their costs go up, who are seeing their communities, sometimes, devastated by extreme flooding, by continued drought and by wildfires. Wildfire season is starting in February. We now know that Canada has the worst air pollution in North America. Last year, we had the best in North America. Now, because of wildfires, the top 13 worst polluted cities in North America are here in Canada.
I want to finish by saying that Canadians deserve better. Canadians deserve a government, and every party, that is fighting the climate crisis like we want to win.
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- Mar/21/24 12:04:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for Victoria for highlighting the tremendous risks that the climate crisis presents to Canadians and in particular to young people.
We have heard recently from young people across the country, from coast to coast, about the need to ensure that young people are at the forefront of action in this country. We know there are solutions to the climate crisis that young people so desperately want to be involved in, particularly their work in promoting the Youth Climate Corps.
Can the member speak about the importance of having youth at the forefront of what will be the devastating consequences of climate change if we do not act?
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- Mar/21/24 12:04:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his ongoing advocacy for the Youth Climate Corps.
We co-hosted a Youth Climate Corps town hall, and we had hundreds of young people join us. There were people from in-person watch parties in 16 communities across Canada who urgently want a government to take action and who want to get involved and to actually make a tangible difference. A youth climate corps could employ young people in the climate solutions, could train them up in the jobs of the future and could give them access to training and to education.
We know that young people feel the climate crisis acutely. Over 50% of them have said that they are so concerned about climate change that it impacts their daily lives. The vast majority of them are so concerned that it is impacting how they live and how they are able to engage. We need to give young people a pathway to make a difference. The Youth Climate Corps is a way we can do this—
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- Mar/21/24 12:53:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, all we are saying is that when we contribute something that is directly impacting climate change, when C02 is produced and it goes into the atmosphere, it is warming our planet whether the Conservative who is heckling me believes it or not. I am sure the member for Dufferin—Caledon is one of the climate deniers. It is a reality.
All we are saying is that we need to put a price on it, just like we put a price on garbage, just like we put a price on any other pollutant. We know that in a market-driven system, pricing something changes behaviour. It baffles me that the only political party in the Canadian House of Commons that does not understand this is the political party that somehow touts itself as being the smartest in the room when it comes to economic models and economic activity, the party that suggests that it knows better than anybody else, but cannot even understand a simple practice like pricing pollution
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- Mar/21/24 1:50:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to set aside the comments on what has dominated in this place, which are carbon pricing and proper solutions to the climate crisis. I wonder if my hon. friend does not agree that the well-being of every single Canadian, as she exhorted in her speech, includes that we face the fact that there is a very worrying fuel load across the country in our forests. The forest fires of summer 2023 continue to burn underground and under the snow and are called zombie fires. The oceans have hit temperature increases we have never seen before.
I ask her this: Is she also committed to finding climate solutions that work?
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- Mar/21/24 2:20:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Conservative Party has become the CEO of Canada, the chief electoral officer. What he is advocating on that side of the House is inaction on climate change. It is inaction on clean growth. It is inaction on green jobs.
On this side of the House, along with millions of Canadians, we believe in action: action against climate change, action to build the economy of tomorrow and action to build the jobs of tomorrow. We are going to fight climate change and make sure that we put more money into the pockets of Canadians. That is our plan.
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- Mar/21/24 2:32:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives need to stop spreading falsehoods. The PBO has been very clear that eight out of 10 Canadian families get more money back. It is true now; it will be true in 2030. The only thing that these folks are going to do by taking away the rebate is make those people on modest incomes poorer. Shame on you for that.
While his climate plan is essentially to let the planet burn, the Conservatives essentially have a policy that is both reckless on the environment and reckless on affordability.
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- Mar/21/24 2:36:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, page 6 of the PBO report indicates that Albertans are $700 better off at the end of the year, thanks to a very real Canada carbon rebate.
In my riding of Edmonton Centre, well over 69% of residents want the government to fight climate change. We could not breathe the smoke in the air on the September long weekend or May long weekend. These guys want to let the planet burn. We are going to defend the planet and put more money in the pockets of Albertans.
They can do what they want to do. We are going to defend Canadians and make sure there is a planet for our kids and our grandkids.
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- Mar/21/24 2:51:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to stand up for British Columbians on this. British Columbians led the way with a price on pollution. It was Gordon Campbell, a right-wing premier in B.C., who actually put in place the first price on pollution, led Canada and was a leader in the world.
My goodness, it is a shame to see British Columbians like that who deny the reality of climate change. I agree very much with David Eby when he says that we should stop listening to the ”baloney factory” over there.
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- Mar/21/24 2:53:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, the Conservative Party is certainly entitled to its own opinions, but it is not entitled to its own facts. Emissions are down and Canada is growing a clean-growth economy for the future.
I was in Germany earlier this week and the German government told me that Canada was a model for the world in the fight against climate change and the work to address the issue that is an existential threat and to grow a clean economy. We signed an agreement on hydrogen that is going to create jobs and economic opportunity in Atlantic Canada.
We believe in climate change, we are fighting climate change, and those climate deniers on the other side of the House should be ashamed of themselves.
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- Mar/21/24 2:55:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are going to say it again. The Canada carbon rebate puts more money in the hands of eight out of 10 Canadians every single day.
What we have not talked about today is the cost of not taking action on climate. I know that the member opposite was impacted by hurricane Fiona. They have had fires. They have had droughts. They have had floods. The conversation we all need to have in the House is what happens to our kids and grandkids if we do not take action on climate change.
We have a plan. I wish the Conservatives did.
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- Mar/21/24 3:11:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the so-called climate debate taking place in this place is the worst of all worlds.
It is unserious and profoundly unfunny. It is a grotesque display of ignorance of the science and a rejection of the solutions that are desperately needed. Our children and grandchildren will not forgive us for this display, but we still have a chance.
Will the Liberal government commit that, when we come back after Easter, we can convene as a committee of the whole to bring scientific experts to this place to educate all members, take questions and focus on facts?
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- Mar/21/24 3:12:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House believe in science, in science-based policy and in ensuring that the scientific reality of climate change is something that is acknowledged and incorporated into all of the work we are doing, whether it is on the environment or the economy.
It is certainly something that we share and agree on with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. We are interested in finding many ways to educate those in the House who continue to deny the reality of climate change.
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- Mar/21/24 4:44:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member, and I thank him for raising the point.
As I was saying earlier, inaction is not a plan. We can decide to make very short-term decisions right now, burying our heads in the sand and letting future generations be responsible for themselves, or we can take our responsibilities as parliamentarians seriously and make sure that we are making decisions today that are going to impact the lives of future generations. That is our role.
We are here, not to make decisions for ourselves today, but to make sure that Canada and Canadians prosper. I have an 11-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter, and the way they speak about climate change is very different from how I spoke about issues like that when I was their age, or from how we do now. This is a real threat for the prosperity of our country, and it is incumbent upon us, all of us, to be serious about this and to come up with a credible plan.
I would ask the members opposite to do the same.
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- Mar/21/24 4:45:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to share how uncomfortable I am with the debate we are having today, and that we also had on Tuesday, about the carbon tax. As a Quebecker who, like most Quebeckers, believes in the fight against climate change, I find this all rather embarrassing.
The Grits have been in power for eight years and are not doing anything to fight climate change. Canada ranks near the bottom when it comes to nearly every quantitative measure of climate change performance. Its allies on the Canadian left get all worked up about climate change but still always vote with the government in power. On Tuesday and Thursday, the Tories moved motions saying that the Grits and the Dippers are no good and that Canada is broken, but they themselves want to do even less for the climate.
I want to ask my colleague a simple question. Is he really proud of his government's climate record?
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- Mar/21/24 4:46:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.
I agree with the member. We need to do more, absolutely. We have a good foundation. I really do believe that we have a good starting point. For once, Canada has a credible plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are starting to see that happen.
The way to move forward is not with slogans. We need to build on this. Climate change is not going to get solved in just one day or overnight. That is why inaction is not a plan. We need to strengthen what we are doing in terms of fighting climate change, and we need to do more to ensure that Canada remains a leader when it comes to building a better and prosperous future.
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