SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

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

Apr/11/24 11:55:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Lakeland is my friend. Among the things she has said that need correction is that it was possible to participate in COP28 virtually. It was not. That is why the Government of Alberta sent so many people and so did the Government of Saskatchewan. The size of the Canadian delegation ballooned with members of the delegations of those provinces, that did not contribute to the negotiations at all but held side events for publicity against action on climate. I wonder if she wants to correct the record while she has the chance.

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Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

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

Apr/11/24 12:42:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to be clear, I agree with my friend from Provencher on one point. This bill should have been called the just transition act. The government and governments around the world, largely because of the work of Canadian trade unions, which were in Paris at COP21. They worked hard to ensure that climate action would not compromise the jobs of workers in the fossil fuel sector and that they would receive help and support. As a Maritimer, I lived through what was called the “TAGS program” or the “groundfish strategy”. They told workers who had just lost all their work from the cod fishery to trade the fish net for the Internet; these were ridiculous notions. We need to support the workers and communities that are going to be impacted by the climate crisis and by actions to address it. This bill is the result of the Liberals trying to talk out of both sides of their mouths, while accomplishing nothing.

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Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

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

Apr/11/24 3:47:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the only thing that could possibly make a climate activist think this bill was worth more than the paper it was written on is the overreaction from the Conservative benches. Therefore, I would suggest to my Conservative friends that if they would just look at the bill and honestly say that they think it is a nothing burger, then that would also help our side, which wants to see real climate action. We would then ask why we do not go back to the report of the task force on coal sector workers, and bring in really meaningful measures, such as when a coal sector worker or fossil fuel worker is going to lose a job, to make sure they are supported so that they do not have a problem paying the mortgage on their houses and to make sure they get their pensions earlier, and all the principles that were adopted in the work that took place in 2018.

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Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

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

Apr/11/24 4:31:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I made this point earlier to the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, and I just want to reiterate it. Not to be insulting or disparaging to my Liberal friends but, really and truly, the only thing that encouraged people to support the previous environmental assessment legislation that was brought forward as Bill C-69 was that the Premier of Alberta said it was the anti-pipeline act. I could not vote for it, because it just as easily could have been the pro-pipeline act. It was a pile of discretion untethered from federal jurisdiction, which is why the Supreme Court, in its reference case, said that part of the bill that was the designated project list was unconstitutional. It was not that the federal government did too much for climate or too much for the environment. It did so little, but it was aided by over-reaction from Conservative benches. I want to plead with my colleague, let us be honest about this bill. It sets up a secretariat that says it might talk about doing something for sustainable jobs. It does not actually help workers. It does not do what was promised in numerous Liberal political platforms. I lament that. If we oversell on each side of the House, the citizens of Canada are left disappointed and without a climate plan.

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Context: House Hansard - 298 - Apr/11/24

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

Apr/11/24 4:59:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been looking for my moment to also comment on the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for La Prairie. I think the Bloc Québécois member's argument was very strong. When he presented his question of privilege, I thought it was solid and clear. I thought it was a violation of privilege to start seeing budgetary information shared in advance. In the last while, in digging into my own research, I have come to the view that it is less clear than that. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has also pointed this out, and we have heard this from a number of other presenters in this place, including the hon. Liberal House leader. I agree with the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby that it is troubling to see that there is not a clear set of rules around protecting budgetary information from early leak. It appears to me now that, as much as I was convinced by the argument from the hon. member for La Prairie, we probably do not have a convincing argument for a point of privilege here. We do have a clear need for more work to be done, perhaps at PROC or elsewhere. We have a very clear tradition. Over the years, people have faced criminal sanction for leaking budgetary information. However, now it appears we can differentiate between the kind of information that could be used in the sense of insider trading, to create a financial benefit for someone who leaked the information, and public policy, which the government can of course discuss in advance. We have seen, more than one time, information released in an attempt to create some razzle-dazzle effect in advance of the budget. We are seeing more public relations material than we are seeing a budget. In the Harper years, I started calling it the “big, thick spring brochure” as opposed to a budget, because it very rarely actually had a budget in it. We could not compare this year's spending to last year's spending. We could not work through the work tables at the back of the budget department by department and compare what was happening. That tradition of big fat brochures has been continuing without access to an actual budget. Canadians need to know that, and they need clarity around how much of this is now promotional materials, with governments explaining what they want to do. There is less and less rigour around whether the money has been spent, whether it can be tracked, whether it can be compared to previous years, and whether we are comparing apples to apples or apples to oranges. In other words, my advice to the Speaker, for what it is worth, would be that this is not a point of privilege. However, there is an issue here of substance for which greater clarity would be helpful and to which I would urge the Minister of Finance to actually bring some rigour to the budgetary process and make sure that Canadians who pick up the budget can actually find, in the big fat spring brochure, an actual budget.

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