- Member of Parliament
- Deputy whip of the New Democratic Party
- NDP
- Victoria
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 61%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $127,392.53
- Government Page
- May/30/24 1:53:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wanted to ask the member about the mental health crisis of young people who are concerned about the climate crisis. Climate anxiety is at an all-time high. When young people are seeing communities evacuated because of wildfires, multi-year droughts, heat domes that kill hundreds of people and extreme flooding, they are worried about right now and they are worried about their future.
Can the member speak to young people and tell them why the Conservatives have no climate plan?
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- Mar/21/24 12:01:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member has it exactly right. The climate crisis is impacting food costs. We know that there are multi-year droughts in British Columbia and in Alberta and that crops are being impacted. Just this week, the Province of British Columbia created a water infrastructure fund with $80 million to support farmers because they know what is coming. We have seen the impacts of this multi-year drought on farmers and on our crops. It is felt by consumers at the grocery store, and costs are rising. The experts have communicated this very well.
It is not the carbon tax that is making groceries so expensive; it is the climate crisis, and it is also corporate greed. Rich CEOs, the Galen Westons of the world, are making record profits, and they are gouging Canadians. We need a government that will take this on.
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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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- Feb/1/24 12:04:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the Conservatives continue to ignore the fact that what is causing the increases in the cost of food and in so many costs along our supply chain is the climate crisis. The climate crisis has a huge impact on farmers. When I speak to farmers, they talk about the droughts, heat waves and flooding, and how these impact the work they do. Experts have been very clear about what disproportionately impacts food prices in Canada.
Why does the Conservative Party still have no plan to tackle the climate crisis?
The member also raised the issue of other countries. Because other countries are also seeing the need to implement carbon pricing, the borders are soon going to have carbon adjustments. If we do not have a real plan, we will be paying higher prices.
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