- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,314.06
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to this bill.
The issue of impact assessments and environmental studies is significant, given that Quebec, Canada and the entire world are going through an extremely intense environmental crisis, biodiversity crisis and climate crisis.
I was a bit surprised by the speech by the member for Repentigny, who is a Bloc Québécois member. I would like to remind her that, unfortunately, pollution and greenhouse gases do not recognize provincial borders. What is happening in the Prairies, out west or up north has consequences on the lives of Quebeckers.
I would also like to take this opportunity to give a bit of background, because an important report was released by Environment and Climate Change Canada this week. The report indicated that Canada's greenhouse gas emissions increased by 10 megatonnes between 2021 and 2022. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change was very pleased about that. To quote a well-known film, I could say, “and he is happy”. That is mind-boggling, because he is saying that at least the numbers are better than they were in 2019. They are better than they were in 2019 because something happened in 2020 that had a pretty major impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. It was the pandemic. COVID-19 is saving the current environment minister's statistics. Had it not been for the pandemic, there would be no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Let me put things in context. What we have also learned is that, from 2005 to 2022, Canada's overall emissions decreased by a measly 7%. That decrease is mainly attributable to the pandemic, which all but wiped out economic development, trade, travel and so on. The economy had to be put on pause for there to be a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions. If we factor out the pandemic, the Liberals' plan is not working.
The Liberal government's current target is a 45% drop in emissions by 2030. Emissions have dropped 7% in 19 years. There are five and a half years left to do the rest, that is, to reduce emissions by 38%. We have barely managed to reduce emissions by 7% between 2005 and 2022, and that included the pandemic period. Now they would have us believe that we are going to cut emissions by 38% in five and a half years. This makes no sense, unless we have a pandemic every year. It is our choice. It has to be one or the other.
All this is happening while the Liberals are running hot and cold. They are incapable of really taking on the big polluters and big oil companies who are largely responsible for the current situation. That is because of all their projects, including the Trans Mountain project, the pipeline they bought with our money to the tune of $34 billion.
What we found out through the work of journalists at The Globe and Mail was that the Liberals were about to impose a special tax, a special tax on the excessive profits of oil and gas companies, but at the last minute, under lobbyist pressure, they backed down. It disappeared from the budget. That is what The Globe and Mail is reporting. It just goes to show how much sway the oil lobby has over the Conservatives or the Liberals.
Before I tackle the bill specifically, I would like to point out that the oil and gas sector has the highest share of GHG emissions, at 31%. It is the fastest-growing sector, the sector with the fastest-rising environmental impact and the heaviest polluter. We all know that the best way to stop this insanity is to cap oil and gas sector emissions.
The Liberals and the Minister of Environment, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, keep promising that they will do this, but we are still waiting. Today, during question period, we found out that they have promised to publish draft regulations. Wow, we are going to get draft regulations. We are going to get the beginnings of an outline for some regulations that may or may not materialize someday. If that is not the government dragging its feet and straining people's credulity, I do not know what is.
The issue is urgent. We need a cap on oil and gas emissions, but the environment minister thinks it can wait a while longer.
This cannot wait. The Alberta government said a few weeks ago that the forest fire season had already started. It is expected to be even worse this year than it was last year. My NDP colleague from Victoria said she never thought she would ever see forest fires start in British Columbia before winter was over. That is the new reality.
If people breathed in smoke last summer, they had better brace themselves, because this summer will be even worse. It is possible that last summer will be the best summer we will have for the next 10 years. I take no pleasure in saying that. People are getting sick and dying from air pollution, from forest fires and from fine particles in the air. That is the reality.
We need legislation on the impact assessment process for major projects to ensure that we meet our Paris Agreement targets, uphold our commitments on biodiversity and our treaties with indigenous peoples in the spirit of reconciliation, and show respect for local communities through proper consultations.
I understand where the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent is coming from when he says that we need to avoid redundancy. One process is better than two. I am just saying that we need to be careful. The federal government has specific responsibilities, particularly when it comes to biodiversity and wildlife. I think that it is important to have a process for ensuring that projects comply with our international treaty obligations, particularly the Paris Agreement, and that we meet our specific responsibilities toward indigenous peoples and species at risk, in terms of biodiversity. If the government steps back from the process as this bill suggests, it will give some provinces the opportunity to unilaterally approve projects that will have a major impact on all Canadians. The NDP is worried provinces may rubber-stamp projects, speeding up the approval process to say yes to everything, which will increase the negative impacts on our environment and ecosystems. This is an important issue for us. We voted against Bill C-69 because we did not think that it went far enough, because it did not have enough teeth and because we were concerned that it gave the minister far too much discretion.
However, it has already been used. This law was used to delay an expansion of the Vista coal mine in central Alberta after civil society groups and activists fought hard for an environmental assessment of the project and for a number of their concerns to be addressed.
Given the ongoing environmental and climate crisis, the NDP is very reluctant to give up a tool that can effect change. We cannot simply say that if the province is doing it, everything is okay, without taking a look. As we see it, this would mean certain Conservative provincial governments could approve some projects that will have a major impact on everyone and that will not comply with our international agreements. We believe in strong, firm measures. The federal government needs to be present, watchful, and capable of shouldering its environmental protection role and going after big polluters like the oil and gas sector.
The Impact Assessment Act is an important tool for keeping our air and water clean and ensuring a healthy environment and healthy surroundings for everyone.
In closing, I would say that we cannot overlook the fact that, as far as greenhouse gas emissions and pollution are concerned, borders, provinces and countries do not exist. We believe in taking responsibility and keeping watch for the sake of our future and our children's future.
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- May/2/24 5:03:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, speaking of renewable energy, a very worrisome report came out this morning about the success in achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets.
We might be happy that we are eventually getting new offshore wind farms, but we all know that the Liberals' record is no match for the climate crisis and that although there has been a slight 7% decline in greenhouse gas emissions since 2005, most of that has to do with the economic slowdown that occurred during the COVID‑19 pandemic. Without that, the decline would not even be possible.
If we managed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only 7% in 19 years and we want to achieve a 45% reduction by 2030, then what is the government going to do to reduce emissions by 38% in only five and a half years?
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- May/2/24 2:31:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, another report, another failure. Under this Minister of Environment, Canada will miss its greenhouse gas emissions targets. That is not surprising.
Everyone will remember the Liberals' environmental legacy: the purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline, throwing $34 billion of our money away on one big pipe; the billions more thrown at the oil companies; the waste of public money; the pollution; the ravaging of our climate. The Minister of Environment must be so proud.
Can the Liberals stop stringing us along and pretending to care about the climate crisis?
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- Apr/9/24 4:11:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I hope my colleague knows that there is no carbon tax in Quebec. I think that would guide him a bit in his remarks.
The Conservative Party is so much the party of big oil and big gas, which have seen their profits increase, that when that party was in power, environmental groups were asking us to keep Conservatives out of meetings, because not only were they not helping, they were hindering the fight against climate change.
If Conservatives do not want a price on pollution, if they think pollution should be free, if they think technology works miracles like a magic wand, and if they want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, let them tell us today what their plan is to fight climate change, if they want any credibility.
The Conservatives do not want to do anything. All they want to do is give carte blanche to big oil and gas.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, which clearly set out the Liberal government's inconsistencies and contradictions when it comes to the environment.
She had an excellent question for the Conservative leader, who does not talk about the environment and the climate crisis at all.
What does she think about the Conservatives' specious solution of using carbon capture to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?
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- Dec/7/23 12:03:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Victoria for her very interesting speech. I also thank her for all her hard work and her passion for the environmental and climate emergency files, as well as for housing and first nations issues, both in British Columbia and across the country.
The Conservatives are still pathologically obsessed with the carbon tax, which is really a price on pollution. When we talk about a price on pollution, we are clearly talking about the environment, climate emergencies and the climate crisis. Speaking of the environment, I cannot help but mention the Liberal government's announcement this morning about a cap on greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector.
Two years ago, at COP26 in Glasgow, the Prime Minister said we had to implement a cap on greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector. We waited two years. What we are seeing today is worse than anything we feared, worse than anything we imagined. I am sure my colleagues will believe me when I say that we have quite a rich imagination.
It is appalling to ask society as a whole to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to 45%. In fact we could have a discussion about the proportionality and burden of responsibility of every Canadian and the Canadian economy with respect to the targets we need to reach to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees. We are heading more for 2 degrees. We should be prepared to reduce our emissions by 50% to 60%, because, per capita, Quebeckers and Canadians create a lot of pollution and produce huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
Let us consider a 45% decrease. Two years ago, we were told that the oil and gas sector would probably have to reduce its emissions by 31%. That means 10% to 15% are now gone; that is a gift from the government, thank you very much. This morning we learned that the oil and gas sector no longer has to reduce its emissions by 31%, but that the Liberals would be happy with a 16% to 20% decrease. That is ridiculous. It is irresponsible for our children and for future generations. Given the climate emergency, that is a joke. Why is it a joke? Because this government listens only to lobbyists from big oil.
We said it yesterday, and again today: In the past two years, there have been 2,000 meetings with lobbyists and representatives from oil and gas companies. Considering there are 365 days in a year, that amounts to more than three meetings a day between oil lobbyists and the ministerial offices of a government that calls itself pro-environment. That includes Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas Day, Easter, Hanukkah and more. Then we wonder who the Liberals are listening to. There were three times more meetings between oil company representatives and the Prime Minister’s Office, the Privy Council, Treasury Board and Finance than there were meetings with environmental groups.
That is the root cause of what we are seeing this morning. This joke they call a “cap” is nothing but rubbish. There is nothing in it except a blank cheque to the oil companies so they can continue to do business as usual. Not only has the reduction dropped to 16% to 20%, but these corporations have no obligations until 2030. They have carte blanche for the next seven years and after that a bit of flexibility. That means they will be allowed to continue increasing production. I do not know how they are going to achieve a 16% to 20% reduction while continuing to increase production. There is so much flexibility in the document presented by the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change that it reminds me of a yoga class with people able to perform the most absolutely incredible contortions.
This is totally irresponsible on the part of a government that claims to care about the climate and the environment, but then puts this kind of nonsense forward this morning, even though oil and gas is the economic sector that emits the most greenhouse gases. I believe it is responsible for 24% of total emissions. That is huge, even more than transportation.
The increase in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 is mainly due to an 88% increase in emissions from the oil and gas sector. It emitted 100 million tonnes in 1990, 168 million tonnes in 2005, and 189 million tonnes in 2021. Now the government is telling the oil and gas sector that it will not have to worry for the next seven years. The government is giving it carte blanche, or should I say “carte noire”. The oil and gas sector can carry on polluting as much as it wants. There might be a target sometime around 2050, maybe. We will see. Sadly, this is consistent with the Liberals' vision and proposals since 2015.
We learned just this week that the government plans to subsidize oil companies to the tune of $12.5 billion for carbon capture technology. That is a page out of the Conservatives' playbook. The Minister of Environment, once an environmental activist, basically copied and pasted the Conservative Party leader's plan, a far-fetched fantasy in which a magic technological wand solves all our problems. This is public money paying for this, even though we know that carbon capture technology is not proven, has not been properly tested and is not producing the promised results.
We need to shift toward the centre and have a strong energy sector that focuses on renewable energy. That is what the science has been telling us for years, but the Conservatives and the Liberals are going in the completely opposite direction. That is not surprising from a government that bought the Trans Mountain pipeline, which has so little future that no private sector player wanted to buy it. It was also the Liberals who saw to it that everyone here, along with the people we represent in our ridings, is paying for it. At first they were talking about $7 billion. Then it was $12 billion, then $16 billion. Now we are at $30 billion for a pipeline that, in 20 or 30 years, will no longer be used, because it will transport the dirtiest oil in the world, the most expensive to extract, and no one will want it anymore.
It is not surprising that the Liberal government is also authorizing projects like Bay du Nord, which once again means an increase in pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It is not surprising that the Liberals and the Minister of the Environment, in February, issued oil and gas exploration permits off the coast of Newfoundland for 12,000 square kilometres of delicate marine ecosystems. They also issued exploration permits to ExxonMobil and to British Petroleum.
This is the Liberals' record: a government incapable of meeting its targets, as we learned in the environment commissioner's latest report, a government that authorizes oil and gas projects and has just given Canadian oil companies a leg up to continue to do what they do while asking all citizens and companies in our economy to make an extra effort.
The situation is disastrous. Do we remember the forest fires last summer? Do we remember the consequences of increasing natural disasters, as we call them? These disasters are in fact less and less natural: The science and all the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC prove that they are becoming more frequent and intense, and have greater consequences on our economy, populations, and health.
There is a very interesting article today on Maria Neira, director of public health and the environment at the World Health Organization. She says that the air pollution that is causing respiratory problems and an increased incidence of asthma in young children is directly linked to the burning of fossil fuels. This is not a hypothesis. This is what is happening.
Both the Conservatives and the Liberals are being irresponsible and not taking measures to reduce the consequences of pollution and climate change on human life and health, but also on our economy and the future of our society and our communities.
People can count on the NDP. We will fight and take climate change seriously.
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- Dec/7/23 11:41:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Jonquière for his speech and his calm and reasonable tone.
After today's big disappointment regarding the cap on emissions for the oil and gas sectors, we see that the big difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives is that the Conservatives do not even bother to pretend to take the climate crisis seriously. They want to abolish a tax that does not even apply in Quebec. I do not understand why the 10 Conservative members from Quebec continue to argue about that.
What is more, we have learned from Statistics Canada that doing away with the carbon tax in the provinces where it does apply would benefit households that earn more than $250,000 a year. I would like to hear my colleague from Jonquière's comments on that.
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- Dec/7/23 11:12:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, here is what the Liberal government is actually doing. This morning, after a two-year wait, it finally unveiled its plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector, the emissions cap it has been touting. However, it is worse than anything we could have imagined.
Two years ago, the government said that Canadian society as a whole would have to cut its GHG emissions by 40% to 45%, but that the oil and gas sector would only have to cut its emissions by 31%. Today, we learn that that figure is no longer 31% but 16% to 20%, that the industry has no obligations to meet until 2030, and that it is free to increase oil and gas production in this country.
How does my colleague explain this climate crisis betrayal?
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- Nov/7/23 2:53:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are seeing announcements at every turn, photo ops and great speeches, but despite all that, the commissioner of the environment is giving the Liberals a failing grade on the climate crisis. Canada is going to miss its target because we are still waiting for the oil and gas emissions cap. Under the Liberals, more public money is going to fossil fuels than in any other G20 country. That is unbelievable.
When will the Liberals wake up and take this crisis seriously? Will that be when the planet goes up in smoke?
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- Jun/8/23 12:16:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
It is quite true that Canada, under the Liberals, ranks 58th out of 63 countries when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I agree with him that this is an admission of failure.
However, we cannot blame this solely on the carbon tax or the price on pollution. It is a good tool, a market-based tool, that provides incentives to pollute less. When it is the only tool we have and we do things that are inconsistent and contradictory, we end up with a failure and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The problem is that I still do not see what the Conservative Party's plan is for achieving better results.
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- Jun/8/23 12:12:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is pretty funny to hear the Liberals tell us that greenhouse gas emissions went down in 2020-21. Something happened during that time: the COVID-19 pandemic. The economy slowed down to roughly zero. Of course greenhouse gas emissions went down. There was no economic activity.
Now that the pandemic is over and economic activity has resumed, greenhouse gas emissions have increased. That is what needs to be said, contrary to what my Liberal colleague is saying.
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- Jun/1/23 1:27:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am always surprised by the Conservatives' rhetoric as the planet is literally burning.
Canada is ranked 39th for per capita greenhouse gas emissions but 10th among countries for greenhouse gas emissions. If we want to abide by the Paris accord, the average per capita emissions around the world should be two tonnes per year, and yet each and every Canadian emits 17.5 tonnes. Does my colleague not think that there is considerable work to be done and that using market tools could be one solution?
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- Jun/1/23 12:43:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to quote a document, which reads as follows: “We’ll finalize and improve the Clean Fuel Regulations to reduce carbon emissions from every litre of gasoline...we burn, turning them into a true Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Our improvements will include: Basing our Low Carbon Fuel Standard on British Columbia's policy to achieve a 20% reduction in carbon intensity for transport fuels”.
That comes from the Conservative Party election platform, so it is rather strange for the leader of the official opposition to be rising in the House today to contradict his own political platform. I would like him to explain how he thinks he can lower greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the fossil fuel production.
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- Jun/1/23 11:44:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to announce that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley who, I am sure, will teach us a lot about this very important issue.
The planet is burning. It is not a metaphor. Global warming and climate change are real. This is affecting people. It is killing people. It is making people sick and forcing people to leave their villages and towns. The planet is burning and not thousands of kilometres away, but here at home in our own backyard.
Forest fires are currently burning in British Columbia, Alberta, Nova Scotia and Quebec. What bright idea did the Conservatives come up with? They are saying that we should not put a price on pollution. They are completely disconnected from reality, from what is actually happening here at home and around the world.
The ice shelves in Antarctica are collapsing. This is causing ocean levels to rise. If the permafrost ends up melting, it will release an unbelievable amount of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 70 times stronger than CO2. All these phenomena are piling up. The oceans are acidifying and that will also have an impact on climate change.
How is it that the Conservatives are coming back for the eighth time in three years, telling us that we should not put a price on pollution, that it would be good to continue the status quo because everything is going so well and this is good for the economy?
However, if there is no planet, if there is no environment, there will be no economy. I do not understand why the Conservatives keep hammering away on this issue, supporting an industry that is harmful not only to biodiversity and nature, but also to human beings, public health and our economy. Even insurance companies are sounding the alarm. Insurance companies are not the biggest tree huggers in the world, but they are beginning to realize that there are areas and places that are no longer insurable. They no longer want to insure people's homes because it is too risky. It is too risky, whether for floods, forest fires or landslides. It has come to that point.
The Conservatives keep repeating the same old line that nothing needs to be done or we should wait until others do something. If China does nothing, we do nothing. If the United States does nothing, we do nothing.
As human beings and citizens of the world, we have a responsibility to take action to ensure that our environment remains healthy, viable and livable for our children and our grandchildren. As Quebeckers and Canadians, we have a special responsibility because we are big polluters. It is true, we have a small population but we are major greenhouse gas emitters.
In 2021, Canada ranked as the 10th GHG-emitting country in the world. By population, it is ranked 39th in the world. Thus, we should be ranked 39th for greenhouse gas emissions, but no, we are ranked 10th. We are in the top 10 emitters because, on average, our per capita greenhouse gas emissions total 17.5 tonnes per year.
According to the Paris agreement, to perhaps hold the temperature increase to 1.5° or 2°, per capita greenhouse gas emissions must be limited to two tonnes per year, on average. We are at 17.5 tonnes. This shows the gap between how we live and what result we should attain. It is a huge gap.
I would like to take this opportunity to urge caution when discussing the concept of averages in connection with climate change. When we tell people about the need to be careful because a global temperature increase of more than two degrees could be catastrophic, they usually react by thinking that two degrees is not that much, and they wonder what difference it could make. They tell themselves, after all, they often wake up in the morning to a temperature of 15°C, only for it to rise by the afternoon to 25°C. That is a difference of 10°C in a single day. In Quebec, temperatures can drop to 35 below in winter and rise to 35 above in summer, a difference of 70 degrees. All this leaves people wondering what a 1.5°C or 2°C rise in temperature really means.
They say it is going to alter the planet's ecosystems and, to understand that, we need to go back a bit. When I say “a bit”, I mean a very long time ago. If we go back 20,000 years, it was, on average, 4°C colder than it is today. As a result, Europe was covered by 3,000 kilometres of ice. The planet was uninhabitable, because it was colder. It is easy to see that if, when it was 4° colder, there were 3,000 kilometres of ice, then when it is 4° warmer, a whole slew of areas on the planet would simply become uninhabitable. Human beings, the human body, cannot survive in those conditions. French engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici is quite clear about that.
There are beautiful maps that unfortunately show that an additional 2°C would make certain parts of the world uninhabitable, places such as Central America, northern South America, parts of the Maghreb, South-East Asia, parts of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where, if it were over 35° with 100% humidity it would be impossible for human beings to survive. Perspiration would no longer be enough to cool a person's body, so they would die. What happens when people are at risk of dying if they stay in their region, town or village? They move to places where it is not as hot, where it is cooler.
Global warming will lead to phenomenal levels of population migration across the globe, which could give rise to geopolitical conflict, extreme tension and probably even war. That is why former U.S. vice-president Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize several years ago for his work on the environment and the prevention of climate change. Why would someone win the Nobel Peace Prize when we are talking about the environment? I just explained why, and it might be worth reflecting on.
I submitted a written question to the government recently, specifically to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the department responsible for housing, to find out how the federal government plans to handle the arrival of climate refugees. The answer was that Canada has the national housing strategy, that everything is going to be fine and no one needs to worry about it.
We have a Liberal government that is a climate change laggard on the international stage. It is incapable of planning for what is coming. Greenhouse gas emissions in Canada increased by 2% in 2021. Between 1990 and 2021, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada increased by 14% when the goal was to reduce them by 40%. We are way off target. What is more, there has been a dizzying increase in oil and gas production since 2005. The production of oil in the oil sands, which is the most polluting oil in the world, has increased by 215% since 2005 while, internationally, Canada boasts. It attends COP and says that it is a model, that we need to transition, that it is important and we need to pay attention. In the meantime, there is a 215% increase in production in the oil sands. That means that, since 2005, 200,000 wells have been drilled to find oil and gas.
The Liberals tell us that things will work out, that we will be able to reach our objectives, yet their actions say the opposite. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change is a former founder of Equiterre, an organization that is currently suing him for shirking his responsibilities. Although he claims he wants to be there to change the world and save the planet, he picked up his pen or pencil and signed a ministerial order green lighting the Baie du Nord project, a decision solely within his purview that will ultimately generate hundreds of millions of barrels of oil.
On the one side we have the Conservatives, dinosaurs who refuse to take the matter seriously, and on the other side we have the Liberals, saying one thing and doing the opposite.
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- Jun/1/23 11:12:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I found the speech by my Liberal Party colleague fascinating. He seemed to be suggesting that the Liberal government's record on greenhouse gas emissions is a good one. However, in 2021, greenhouse gas emissions increased by 2%. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions have gone up by 14% in Canada since 1990 despite the climate emergency.
Why is his government not doing better? It is incapable of meeting the Paris Agreement targets.
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- Apr/20/23 11:05:39 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would not ask my colleague to reveal Pratt & Whitney's industrial secrets, but I am pleased to hear that the company is working on this. I hope it will come up with a solution that allows the aerospace and civil aviation industries to improve their carbon footprint.
I was not trying to minimize the sector's importance. I was saying that 3% is not the same as 40%, although it is important. We have to do better. Every time I take an airplane, I make a donation to a Université du Québec à Chicoutimi program so trees will be planted to offset the greenhouse gas emissions from my flight. However, this is not a long-term solution. The industry will eventually have to improve its carbon footprint. The auto industry is currently making the transition. The inter-city bus sector is currently making the transition.
Yes, we need to do more and the federal government needs to do more to support the sector and innovation for research and development to reduce the carbon record of the air transport sector, which, by the way, is not going anywhere either. I think that everyone will want to get together, meet up and visit other countries. I do not think this is ever going to stop. We can reduce, be more discerning about how often we fly. We need to encourage the industry to have a much more acceptable carbon record.
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- Apr/17/23 5:18:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned the carbon tax.
That is something that the NDP agrees with. However, his government continues to give subsidies to oil and gas companies. On one hand, the government wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but on the other hand, it is using taxpayers' money to continue supporting fossil fuels that produce huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
Does he not think that is a contradictory position?
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- Feb/7/23 11:20:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I would like her to talk a little bit more about the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who was attacking the official opposition, saying that it has no plan, that its plan is non-existent. I would like my colleague to talk about the fact that, despite the price on pollution, the Liberal government is failing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
Is that not a result of all the conflicting decisions, such as Trans Mountain, Bay du Nord and oil subsidies, that are undermining the efforts of this government, which talks out of both sides of its mouth?
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- Nov/24/22 2:51:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the pace of climate change will make part of the planet unhabitable and intensify natural disasters here at home. The most vulnerable will suffer. What was the Minister of Environment and Climate Change's mandate at COP27? There was none. It was to maintain the status quo, salvage whatever we can and keep the oil companies happy. One environmental expert said that what happened in Egypt highlighted incongruities, contradictions, in Canada's positions. Canada has the highest per capita GHG emissions.
Is the Minister of Environment proud to be the worst?
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- Sep/27/22 4:59:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
I feel like we have gone back 10 years. The Conservatives are still talking about the price on pollution and the carbon tax. They cannot seem to get over it. Every time they run out of things to talk about, they come back to this debate that was supposed to be settled.
To anyone who takes climate change seriously, this measure is one of the rare tools that the federal government has that works. The Liberal government does not do enough, but at least we have this measure. Without it there is nothing left. We will keep increasing our greenhouse gas emissions and that will be dangerous for future generations.
To combat inflation, the NDP has offered other proposals that are much more tangible and help the less fortunate.
What does my colleague think of that?
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