- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- South Okanagan—West Kootenay
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 61%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $128,729.57
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, it is past high time for this bill to be adopted. Quebec brought forward the wood charter many years ago. British Columbia brought in its Wood First Act. This is the kind of bill we need in the federal world to push for federal infrastructure to be built with wood and other environmentally friendly products so we can fight climate change, support the forest industry and have beautiful, safe buildings that will last for centuries.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North for that comment, because this is really what is at the heart of this bill. It is not forcing the government to pick and choose winners or losers. What it is aimed at doing, which has been its aim from the start, is shining a light on wood to say that we have been building with concrete and steel for decades and centuries, so let us look at wood. To do that, we need education. We need to not only educate the public to realize that this is a possibility, but also educate architects, engineers and construction people on the benefits and the how-to of building large buildings and infrastructure with wood.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, for his real championing of so many things that give Canadians a better life. One of the things he has been championing is the green new deal, the idea that we have to have a transition to a cleaner future and leave no workers behind. Because of the NDP pressure on the government, we have significant funding for clean tech in this budget that is tied to good union wages so people can have a respectable life in this new future.
I wonder if my colleague could provide further comments on that and on whether this should be standard operating procedure for future government infrastructure funding.
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Mr. Speaker, off the top, I would like to send out congratulations to Kimo Linders of Penticton for winning the small business of the year award from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada last night, as well as to the amazing Penticton Vees, who just won their 21st game in a row in the B.C. Hockey League.
I also want to talk about Bill S-222, which will be debated Monday morning. This is a small, but mighty bill that simply asks the federal government to consider the environmental footprint of building materials when constructing infrastructure. This was my private member's bill in a previous Parliament and I was inspired to bring it forward by the new mass timber technology pioneered by Structurlam in my hometown of Penticton.
With new materials such as mass timber, we can build safe and beautiful buildings that will also help us in our fight against climate change. I hope everyone here will support Bill S-222 to literally help build a better future for Canada.
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- Sep/26/22 10:19:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to follow on that theme of the long term. Will the government be there to help the people of Atlantic Canada in the long term?
We have seen data that, right now, we spend about $5 billion a year in Canada fixing the problems of climate and weather events across this country. Every year, that is $5 billion. The federal government puts up about a tenth of that. Yes, Atlantic Canada gets storms every year, but they are becoming harder, faster and more devastating. It is predicted that, by 2050, we will be spending $50 billion a year. We could get ahead of that if we invested in the long term in some of these things that would make our shorelines more impervious to storms. Where I come from in British Columbia, we can make our rivers less likely to flood urban areas and make our forests less likely to burn cities down.
Could the member comment on this need for investing in the future to save us money in the future, save lives, save infrastructure and save homes by making those investments ahead of these disasters, instead of always reacting?
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- Mar/1/22 2:46:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the IPCC report released yesterday has a stark warning: Either we take action now on mitigation and adaptation for climate change, or we risk suffering even more severe consequences from extreme weather events, wildfires and floods.
However, the government continues to give the fossil fuel industry billions of dollars in subsidies. Instead of bankrolling the multinational oil and gas companies, could the Liberals not fund the infrastructure our communities need to help prevent catastrophe?
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