- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Timmins—James Bay
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 63%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,227.44
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured, as always, to rise in this House. I have been here 20 years, and I have never seen a time when I feel that our country and our planet are at risk as much as they are now. This is a time when people should be looking to parliamentarians to come together to deal with solutions. Instead, we are dealing with yet another Conservative motion, which shows that the Conservative Party leader's entire economic plan could fit on a lapel button.
I think what is missing in the discussion today is the fact that we are in the midst of a global crisis. Europe is worried that it could be dealing with a massive expansion of a potential war with Putin. There is the need for Canada to be a strong ally. Contrary to what the member who lives at Stornoway says, Ukraine is not some faraway land, as he quotes Neville Chamberlain, but it is the front line in the fight for democracy. This is something we should be coming together on.
We are seeing a mass humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza, with Canada cutting off supplies at a time when people are facing starvation. This is a humanitarian disaster that Canadians could step up for. Instead, we are siding with Benjamin Netanyahu. We are dealing with the fact that every hour 30 million tonnes of ice melt from the Greenland ice floes; that is 30 million tonnes an hour. Last year, 200,000 Canadians were forced out of their homes because of climate fires, yet the Conservative leader flew into the fire zones to brag that he would make burning fossil fuels free.
The Liberals do not really have an environmental plan. That is something we should be arguing; they do not. However, the Conservatives refuse to put forward a climate plan, other than to let the planet burn. That is the sum total of what I have heard from the Conservatives for the last three years: let the planet burn. At a time when our young people are facing a future that is increasingly unstable, we are left with yet another dismal debate in the House of Commons on slogans and bumper-sticker excuses.
When Kelowna was facing a potential catastrophic disaster with fires, the member for Kelowna—Lake Country was bragging that if her party formed the government, it would make fossil fuel burning free. In Alberta, when I was there last week, there was just a little powder of snow on the ground in January. It is above freezing now. It is now coming into the fourth year of a serious drought.
There are 13 counties in Alberta that have declared environmental disasters because they cannot get their crops out. In 2021, the cattle farmers were talking about how only 36% of their crops were in good condition; that was in 2021. They made it through that year by getting the holdover pay from 2020.
Now, coming into 2024 with no snow on the ground, we are seeing rivers drying up, and not a single Conservative from Alberta or Saskatchewan has ever bothered to stand up to defend their farmers in the face of the biggest climate crisis since the dirty thirties. They would throw them under the bus to satisfy their leader, who lives in a 19-room mansion, because it is about letting the planet burn.
The Conservatives from British Columbia will get up and falsely try to mislead their own citizens that they are paying a federal carbon tax when there is not one. Not a single Conservative from British Columbia has dared to stand up in the House to talk about the fact that the rising hydro prices in B.C. are from the depleted reservoirs from the droughts. British Columbia, a hydro superpower, had to import 20% of its energy capacity last year because it could not keep the lights on because of the droughts and the low reservoirs. That is the effect of the climate crisis.
We are dealing with real-time planetary breakdown of the disappearance of the ice shelves and of unprecedented fires, where much of last summer, across from Chicago and across North America, children could not go outside without getting sick. What did we hear from the Conservatives? Let the planet burn.
In all my years, there were times we came together on simple things, like jobs. However, that is not in the Conservative agenda because the Conservatives tell people that Canada is broken, even though we were voted number one in the world. If Canada is not broken, the Conservatives will make it broken.
Bill C-49 is a bill so that Canada could get in the game with the clean energy projects that are taking off in the United States, right now. Since 2021, under the Biden administration, $360 billion in clean energy projects got off the ground, and they are not getting off the ground here for two reasons. While the Liberals are trying to get their tax credits and work it all out, Biden is getting that money out the door. We are also seeing the Conservatives blocking sustainable jobs legislation and doing every kind of monkey-wrenching, idiotic stunt to stop workers from having a seat at the table.
Even more astounding is Bill C-49 where the Newfoundland and Labrador premier and the Nova Scotia premier have called for Ottawa to come to the table because the United States is moving ahead so rapidly on offshore wind development that would set up projects for construction and long-term jobs in the hundreds of thousands of homes that are getting clean energy. However, the Conservatives from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are determined to block jobs because that is what their leaders said: Make Canada broken. If it is not broken, they are going to break it. Their plan is to let the planet burn.
Here is the thing. The Premier of Nova Scotia said that Bill C-49 is the necessary first step in unlocking our energy potential, yet the member for Cumberland—Colchester, a guy who has just been elected for two or three years, is announcing that he is going to oppose offshore development and jobs in Nova Scotia. The member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame said that he thought the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador had been hoodwinked and that the premier was not bright enough to negotiate good construction and permanent jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador. There was a time when we all would have worked to get those jobs off the ground because we know sustainability in every part of Canada is important. However, these are clean-energy jobs, and that is something that the leader of the Conservative Party does not want to have happen, because his environmental plan is to let the planet burn.
The Conservatives talk about affordability. It was the Conservatives who led the fight against taking the HST off home heating. This is not about making it easier for people; it is about making people angrier. That is his one plan.
However, what really concerns me now is that we are in the midst of a climate catastrophe that is unfolding in real time, and we need to bring our plans to the table. We need to debate them. We need to find out how Canada can, number one, get in the clean-energy market that is taking off in China, in Europe and in the United States while we are sitting at the side of the road. Even more, there is the need to reassure this young generation that we will have their backs in trying to address the catastrophic collapse of the ice shelves and the unimaginable burning that we saw last year. We still have fires burning in northern Alberta today. That is unprecedented. The northern boreal forest burned at an unprecedented rate. What do we hear from the Conservatives? They do not have an environmental plan. They have a bumper-sticker slogan and if people push them hard, it is “let the planet burn”.
I did not come here to tell my kids and their next generation of kids, “Guess what. We let the planet burn because it was easy.” Yes, it is easy to let the planet burn and, yes, it is going to be hard to make sure that we stand up for our kids. Yes, it is going to be hard to stand up to Putin. Yes, it is going to be hard to come together, but we need to do that as a nation right now. This is a nation that will be judged on the absolute failure to put forward a plan in the midst of the biggest existential crisis the human race has faced, and it needs something better than a bumper sticker and a toxic lapel-pin slogan.
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Mr. Speaker, the problem is that we have heard a lot of talk and a lot of hot air from the Liberals on how committed they are, but the Americans have moved dramatically ahead with the IRA, under Biden. Over $110 billion are moving projects forward right now. There are 27 offshore wind operations off the Atlantic that will be in operation by 2025. One off Rhode Island will give energy to 250,000 homes and one off Martha's Vineyard will given energy to 400,000 homes, yet we still have not received the promised tax credits needed to compete. They still have not been finalized. We are still dealing with the regulatory framework.
Why has the United States moved so much further ahead on this, taken so much more opportunity? Why are we still standing in Parliament talking about what could be done when we see what is being done in the United States?
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Mr. Speaker, this is a bill about cutting red tape. However, the Conservatives are going to lose their minds over that because it is about creating clean energy opportunities, which they have spoken out against continually. They may not want to admit it, but those are the facts. Therefore, when I say “flat earth”, as Bob Marley would say, if the cap fits, let them wear it.
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Mr. Speaker, the reality is that we are at an unprecedented moment in our history as a people. The decisions we make now will affect one, two, seven or 10 generations ahead. We cannot be cavalier about this and engage in petty politics. We need to ask what we can do to make a difference. We have to do that. We have to take seriously the fact that the planet is on fire and that fire is being caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The most vulnerable regions on the planet are the ones taking the biggest hit, whether it be in the South Pacific or even in the region my colleague represents. Those communities did not cause this problem, but they are living with the consequences and looking to us to make a difference.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. We need to make sure that, whenever we go forward on anything with respect to clean energy, the rights of workers are protected and they are fully covered. We will certainly be looking at that.
We spoke with the Liberals again and again about how the clean energy tax credits have to be tied to apprenticeships and standard wage rates, so we are not creating McJobs but actually creating well-paying union jobs. That is Biden's commitment in the United States and needs to be the commitment here, and we will continue to push. I am certainly willing to work with the Bloc on this to make sure that it is clarified in the legislation.
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Mr. Speaker, the issue is that there are huge opportunities. It is like my colleagues over there are defiantly against the cellphone because they believe the typewriter is going to come back. The difference is that the typewriter is not killing the planet; big oil is. They can pound on their typewriters all they want and scream at the moon. The reality is that when we meet with energy workers in Alberta, which I do all the time, they say that they get it, that they want investment, that wind power needs metals like aluminum. It actually creates jobs in the value chain.
The Conservatives are out to ridicule and undermine the creation of one of Canada's main industries, which is auto. They do not want a proper EV battery operation to get off the ground. They want us stuck in the 20th century. They want us to think the world is flat. They want us to think that vaccines do not work. Meanwhile, the planet is burning.
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Mr. Speaker, the issue about private sector investment was very clearly stated. How are we going to have private sector investment in the clean tech economy when we have someone like Danielle Smith, who is part and parcel of the Conservative movement that is over there, shutting down clean energy and telling them to go to the United States?
How can the Conservatives believe that they can talk about private sector development when they are shunting billions of dollars of investment to the United States because of the ideology that if it does not burn the planet, it is not good for us?
That is a false view and we have to challenge it. Private sector investment will only come if we have the regulations and the support in place for a clean energy economy.
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Madam Speaker, I am certainly proud to rise on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay to speak to Bill C-49, an act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act. It would make sure that we can finally embed the issue of getting renewables in wind energy development off of the east coast of Canada.
I want to begin by saying that I extend my deepest concern in solidarity with the people of Atlantic Canada, who have just come through the devastation of hurricane Lee. I was supposed to be in Lunenburg this past weekend. It was the second year in a row that I had attempted to be at the Lunenburg writers festival, both years with planes booked and hotels all set. Last year it was the devastation of hurricane Fiona that shut down the writers festival, with a cost of $800 million in damages for the people of the region. I was invited to come again this year, and then we had hurricane Lee.
What we are seeing is the climate crisis up close. It used to be that hurricanes were spread out over many, many years. Now we are starting to see them regularly, and they are moving further north as we are seeing an increasingly destabilized climate.
This past summer, 200,000 Canadians were displaced by climate catastrophe. Some communities were almost lost, from Kelowna to Yellowknife to Halifax to my region of Kashechewan and Fort Albany in the James Bay subarctic. Fires in the subarctic of James Bay are almost unheard of. As we were scrambling to try to get Hercules aircraft up to get people out of the fire zones, people had to put their families in canoes to stay ahead of the fire. All through this time, of course, the leader of the Conservative Party was running his tour to make pollution free across Canada. In fact, he had to cancel a number of his events because people were being chased out by the toxic fumes of a climate catastrophe.
How do the fires in James Bay, what we just saw in the Arctic and the almost toxic levels of air quality we have seen for the last number of weeks in Edmonton tie into the crisis being faced in Atlantic Canada? The scientists who are monitoring the collapse of the Greenland ice shelves have noticed a very disturbing trend. Soot from fires that is landing on the ice shelves draws heat because it is dark, and ice normally is reflective of the sun. However, the more soot that falls on the Greenland ice shelves, the quicker the disintegration of those ice shelves has become. That is causing increasingly destabilized waters in the Atlantic.
When 14 million hectares of Canadian forest burn in a single summer, we can see that we are at an environmental tipping point. It needs to be said clearly and simply that the cause of this collapse is the burning of fossil fuels. The oil industry bears responsibility. It knows that and it has known that for decades.
In the early 1980s, Exxon produced some of the best scientific evidence showing that a climate catastrophe would unfold if the diminution of the use of fossil fuels was not implemented immediately. In fact, in 1982, we had a memo from Exxon Mobil warning that if steps were not taken, the damage would not be reversible. Unfortunately, this is what our country and our planet are living through now. Exxon and the other oil players decided to suppress evidence and in fact spent millions on a disinformation campaign falsifying what was very straightforward science saying that the more carbon that is put into the atmosphere, the more heat will be trapped, and the more heat that is trapped, the more the temperature changes and the more the planet destabilizes.
It is therefore really important that we address this crisis straight on. We have to address it with a sense of urgency. There is an urgent need for the government to start moving quickly on addressing this. There is a need to urgently hold the big oil companies to account.
We know that this past summer, Rich Kruger, the CEO of Suncor, said the only urgency facing his company was to make as much money as possible. This is at a time when it is making record profits, yet he sees the urgency of burning more of our planet quicker in order to pay shareholders, most of whom live offshore.
However, there is an impact to that that is not just about this year, next year or 10 years from now. Scientist David Archer states, “The climatic impacts of releasing fossil fuel CO2 to the atmosphere will last longer than Stonehenge...longer than nuclear waste, far longer than the age of human civilization so far.” That is the cavalier attitude of those who are promoting the expansion of big oil to not just the world we have today, but the world that our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren will have to live with. It makes no economic sense whatsoever.
I will refer to last week's really interesting report by the International Energy Agency, hardly a left-wing think tank, that warned we are at “the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era”. It says that since the war in Ukraine, there has been a massive push in Europe to increase clean energy so that they get off Russian oil and gas. The Biden administration's IRA has launched a huge clean energy transformation, something that is not being picked up in Canada. In fact, Danielle Smith has just spiked investments by $33 billion and has shut down numerous projects out of the ideology she has that clean energy is somehow a threat to oil and gas in Alberta, even though thousands of jobs would be created. In fact, Calgary Economic Development says Alberta alone stands to gain 170,000 jobs from clean energy development. Unfortunately, we have a premier who believes the world is flat. It is not flat; it is burning.
To the International Energy Agency's comment that “the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era” is here, Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency says, “We are witnessing the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era and we have to prepare ourselves for the next era.” I am hoping that this legislation to update the accords with Atlantic Canada to increase offshore oil will be part of that process. Birol says, “Oil and gas companies may not only be misjudging public opinion...they may well be misjudging the market if they expect further growth of oil and gas demand across this decade. New large-scale fossil fuel projects carry not only major climate risks but major financial risks.”
Canada as a petrostate needs to get very serious very quickly about the diversification of energy, not just to deal with the fact that our northern boreal forest is on fire and our communities on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are facing more and more climate urgency, but to deal with the fact that our economy needs to shift so that we do not lose the competitive advantage. It is a competitive advantage that is being taken very much by our colleagues and neighbours in the United States.
Why is it urgent to move on Bill C-49? Until now, the Liberal government has talked a good game on the climate crisis, but it has not really delivered. It made numerous promises in the fall economic statement and in the budget about clean energy tax credits, but those clean energy tax credits have to come into force very quickly. Again, as we have seen in the United States, there are huge opportunities and huge investments are being made.
As McCarthy Tétrault notes:
Bill C-49 would modernize the Atlantic Accord Acts by notably establishing a framework for the development and regulation of offshore renewable energy projects in both provinces and their offshore areas. Bill C-49 also expands regulation of current petroleum projects and clarifies jurisdictional rules regarding domestic and internal sea boundaries.
As this also includes petroleum, we have to get a really clear sense as New Democrats of how much the government is going to hold petroleum exploration to account. As the International Energy Agency says, we cannot allow more development of the energy that is burning our planet. The Liberals will have to be clear with us on this.
We really need to catch up with the United States. My colleagues in the Conservative Party seem to think that clean energy projects are some kind of ridiculous, outrageous attack on the 20th century, where they are very comfortable living. We have seen the Conservatives' attack on the investments in the battery plants being put in the auto sector, while huge amounts of investment are happening in the United States. We see their attacks on wind energy, relentless attacks, as though it is some kind of threat, particularly the members coming from Alberta, where we have 170,000 abandoned wells spewing toxic stuff all over farmlands.
Look at what is happening in the United States off the Atlantic coast right now. One wind farm off Rhode Island is going to create energy for 250,000 homes. There are 27 major projects on track to be completed by 2025 in the United States on the east coast. The Vineyard Wind project will create power for 400,000 homes. Canada is no where near this.
The Maritimes, with its huge energy costs, has an opportunity to step up right now, create thousands of jobs and dramatically lower the energy costs people face. This is why we need to move quickly on this.
The other huge opportunity we have is hydrogen, and getting a strong hydrogen economy off the ground is essential.
This past November, I was in Berlin. We had excellent meetings with various ministers. I met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The question the Germans asked of us was whether we could deliver them a hydrogen economy. That is what they were interested in from Canada.
My Conservative colleagues have always gone on about how Canada should be selling its LNG to Germany and Europe. They said to us very clearly that they were not interested in Canadian LNG, because by the time we could actually build a pipeline, they would be off that energy. They wanted a hydrogen economy. However, hydrogen is something the Conservatives do not believe in because it does not burn the planet. They think it is some kind of threat.
The Germans are a major industrial economy. They want to know if Canada will partner. When I met with Chancellor Scholz, I told him about the huge potential for hydrogen in Alberta. Now that we have Danielle Smith and her stagecoach to nowhere sitting out on the dead prairie grass, the Germans will not be going to Alberta if she does not get her act together. However, they will go to Atlantic Canada, and Atlantic Canada has a huge opportunity right now.
In Alberta, we saw $33 billion in clean energy projects spiked out of ideology. Again, this is because the Conservatives believe the world is flat.
Let us compare this to the Calgary economic development study that predicted 170,000 jobs in Alberta alone from a clean energy economy. I meet with Alberta energy workers all the time. Those workers want a clean energy economy. They know what is happening in big oil.
Big oil has fired 50,000 people in the oil patch in the last 10 years. Suncor got rid of 1,500 jobs this year alone. Rich Kruger is bragging he is going after work; they are moving toward automation. There is nothing in this for workers, but where the opportunities are going to be is in clean energy. We need to move beyond ideology. We need to address the economic issues and opportunities, because this investment is going stateside in a big way.
I talk with people in energy and mining sector all the time. They are saying that they we need to get a tax credit program up quickly, that the Americans are moving forward on that. How fast are the Americans moving? Since Biden moved forward on a clean energy vision, there has been $240 billion in new clean energy manufacturing investment in the United States. The private sector in the United States has over $110 billion in the clean energy manufacturing investments, $70 billion in electric vehicle supply chain and more than $10 billion in solar manufacturing.
Let us just talk about the electric vehicle supply chain for a moment. The Conservatives have been regularly attacking EV investments to keep our auto sector competitive. If we do not play in this field, it goes stateside, and the states are very willing to get this. It will have a huge impact in regions like mine, which is based on mining. They are looking at the opportunities of the base metal and clean energy critical minerals supply chain in which Canada could be a leader. We can do this, but we need to move quickly. We need to get the regulations in place to make these things happen. These are huge projects.
In Scotland, where North Sea oil is continuing to diminish, the huge offshore wind projects in Aberdeen have been transformative. We have not seen that in Canada. Therefore, we need to move on that.
As for what we see in the United States on the Inflation Reduction Act, it is expected that there will be 1.5 million additional jobs over the next decade based on clean-energy jobs. That is a huge transformation. However, here is the other element that is really fascinating. When the Biden plan came into place, there were a lot of skeptics. It was hard to tell whether this would work or not, but he brought a whole-of-government approach, something that the Liberal government has not done. At every level, the U.S. is focused on making this happen. They are saying now that with the Biden investments, the clean-energy takeoff that has happened, they are going to see 50% to 52% below current emissions by 2030.
The environment commissioner says that the Liberal government's promises to get to 40% below is still very much pie in the sky, very unrealistic, because the Liberals have missed every single climate target they have made. This is a problem with the Prime Minister going to COP26, standing on the world stage and making big, bold pronouncements, but not actually having done the work.
For example, when he announced the emissions cap, the Liberals did not talk to anybody here about what that emissions cap would look like. They went to COP26, made an announcement of an emissions cap and then did not follow through. The Liberals are going to have to follow through on the emissions cap now, because what we are seeing from the walk-away of the big oil companies in the Pathways Alliance is the lack of investment in clean tech, the fact that Suncor has walked away and divested itself through its clean energy projects and that it wants to vastly increase oil and gas production. The emissions cap has to happen and the government needs to get serious about this.
There is another interesting element for why we need to ensure that we get these regulations and tax credits and update our act so we can actually compete with the United States. In the United States, American families are projected to save between $27 billion to $38 billion on their electricity bills from 2022 to 2030 relative to a scenario if they did not have that act. The other thing we have learned about clean energy is that it is much cheaper to produce than gas or oil right now. That is why we are seeing this movement, where the International Energy Agency says that we have reached the economic tipping point. Is Canada going to continue to live in the 20th century or is it going to embrace the realities and the crises of the 21st century, not only the realities of a burning planet and destabilized weather systems that we have to address but also the opportunities to dramatically decarbonize?
The other element we need to really focus on is who is going to pay the cost for the huge damages that are being done to our planet right now, the billions in damages to communities and provinces from these unprecedented wildfires. We were so lucky and thankful that we did not lose communities this summer. We have seen a lot of damage, but we realize that we do not have the capacity anymore to deal with the kinds of fires we are seeing that easily could have taken out Kelowna, Yellowknife and communities in my region. We have to start addressing fires in a new and different way.
Growing up in northern Ontario, firefighting in the summer was a summer job before going to college or coming home from college. We need to talk at the national level. My colleague from the Kootenays has put forward a vision of the need to have a national program, but also who will fund this.
We see that Suncor made $70 billion in profits in two years. Those profits should be put into a fund for the damages that are caused by Suncor's actions. Who takes the risk when fossil fuels are burned? Ordinary Canadians and citizens around the world. If the shareholders are to make a profit, the people who really have a stake in this crisis should be able to get some recompense.
The New Democrats will be supporting this bill. We have a number of questions we want clarified at committee, and we will be more than willing to work to make this happen. We need to move quickly and decisively in the face climate crisis, but also for the opportunities we see.
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Madam Speaker, I have great respect for my colleague. I love being on committee with her, and we have lots of great discussions.
I am really fascinated by my colleague's concern about driving investment out of Canada. Exhibit one is Danielle Smith. There is no place on the planet that has more opportunity for clean energy than Alberta, but it has a premier who believes that the world is 5,000 years old and that dinosaurs existed at the same time as Fred Flintstone. She has shut down huge opportunities in clean energy.
Alberta has lost 91 projects, worth $33 billion, at a time when the Biden administration is moving ahead with $110 billion in opportunities. We have huge opportunity in Alberta being shut down and driven out of the country by the bizarre talk of Danielle Smith.
Is my hon. colleague's leader willing to tie himself to Danielle Smith's stagecoach to nowhere, or will the Conservatives be willing to compete for clean energy in Alberta?
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Madam Speaker, we know that the clean energy tax credits of the Biden administration have created an explosive growth in clean energy opportunities, $110 billion in new projects. On offshore wind, the vineyard project will create energy for 400,000 homes; off Rhode Island, 250,000 homes, so it is a huge opportunity.
At the same time, we see the Danielle Smith government shutting down and walking away on $33 billion in opportunities. Atlantic Canada has a huge opportunity here, but the urgency here is getting the tax credits moved from promises to reality so that we do not lose opportunities stateside like poor Alberta is doing from Danielle Smith's actions.
I would like to ask the minister this. When does he see the clean energy tax credits coming into force so that we can take full advantage and compete with the United States?
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