- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Board of Internal Economy
Deputy House leader of the government
- Liberal
- Kingston and the Islands
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,228.33
- Government Page
- May/27/24 8:27:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always get a kick out of listening to Conservatives say, “But Canada's emissions are just a tiny drop in the bucket globally.” The unfortunate reality for the member, is that despite the fact that maybe the claim helps him sleep at night, Canada has among the worst GHG emissions per capita. As a matter of fact, if we look at the average GHG per capita emissions in Europe, we see that Canada's are three times those. There is only one country in the entire world that has worse GHG emissions per capita than Canada, and that is Australia.
What I found really interesting about the member's speech is that he talked at the beginning about how Conservatives like renewable energy, but then spent just about his entire speech talking about fossil fuel extraction. I am wondering whether the member could share with the House what his favourite type of renewable energy is.
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- Apr/29/24 5:59:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the member talk about energy in this country, and I hear Conservatives talk in this way all the time. I just want to understand what he means.
Conservatives always say that the government is anti-energy, but, in reality, we are in favour of looking at various different forms of energy. Conservatives talk about energy as though the only possible form involves fossil fuels.
Can the member explain to the House why Conservatives do not regard renewables and other cleaner forms of energy as “energy”? If they did, they would not use this anti-energy narrative.
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- Dec/7/23 3:45:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are aware that, certainly while we go through this transition, energy is going to be a struggle for Canadians. That is why we are trying to work with Canadians to give them the resources and the tools they need to be able to transition away, in particular, from the very expensive fossil-fuel-based forms of energy that create a lot of carbon emissions and, as a result, the tax. That is why we are encouraging people to move toward heat pumps, for example, by giving rebates and giving incentives to do that. We will continue to invest in programs like that.
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- Dec/7/23 3:43:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is a provincial Conservative government in Alberta that also put a moratorium on renewable energy projects. Can people imagine, in the year 2023, when the entire world is moving toward renewable energy, that a provincial government would put a moratorium on the innovation and the progress of where the world is moving to? That is not going to benefit Alberta in the long run. It might help a bit in the short run for a little political gain, but it is not going to help anybody in the long run.
With respect to the member's question about meeting targets, I would much rather have very ambitious targets and not quite achieve them than have some lofty goals that are not realistic or that are overly easy to achieve. It is extremely important that when we do set these goals, we set them in a way that allows us to actually strive for something.
I recognize that we are on target to meet our 2026 goals, and we are certainly on target to meet the 2030 goals, but I know that the member knows, because she cares about the environment so much, that this is not the kind of thing we accomplish overnight. We are talking about societal and cultural changes in the way that people behave in terms of everyday life. It is extremely difficult to encourage people to change behaviour when there is a political party in here, the Conservative Party of Canada, the opposition, that is actively doing the other thing and telling people, “No, no, what you are doing by burning fossil fuels is totally fine; keep doing this because, do not worry, we will get rid of this if we get elected.”
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- Nov/2/23 4:09:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure if I can help the member understand, because she thinks that EV batteries will spontaneously explode and does not think that electric cars work in the winter. If that is where I am starting from when trying to help somebody understand something about environmental impact, I do not think I am in a good place, and I probably will not be successful.
What I will say is this. When we talk about why we are doing this specifically, despite the fact she probably will not understand, it is because we know that oil is the dirtiest form of energy and we need to get off of it. What we are trying to do is give relief to Canadians so they have the ability to move toward a heat pump, which is astronomically cleaner than oil. That is the objective here.
Conservatives always like to talk about half of the equation. They like to completely leave out the other half, and the other half is helping people transition to heat pumps.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's comments recently as he talked about the transition to renewable and clean jobs. Are we to believe that the reason the Premier of Alberta put a moratorium on renewable energy projects is that they were so wildly unpopular in Alberta? Is that what we are to believe?
Would it not be the case that there were so many projects that the premier became afraid that they were—
Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The same policies doubled energy prices.
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- Jun/8/23 1:27:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I indicated earlier, I think that this is a good motion. I plan to vote in favour of it, as I hope many people in this House will.
I recognize that towards the end of the motion, the Bloc specifically calls on the government to promote the use of renewable energy and public transit. There are a number of initiatives that are already ongoing with respect to both of those. I am wondering if the member from the Bloc can comment specifically on what more he thinks should be done as it relates to promoting renewable energy and public transit. What more could the federal government do?
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Madam Speaker, I certainly agree with one part of the member's speech, and that is her plea to electrify our grid through the use of more renewable energies. She spoke specifically about wind, indicating there was a lot of opportunity for that, but one critical part to that energy infrastructure change and revolution is our capacity on storage and our ability to store energy in the future.
Could the member speak to other opportunities for us to continue to build upon the transition we are going through?
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- Feb/14/23 12:24:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if we look at inflation throughout the globe and do not look at it just domestically, as the Conservatives like to do, we will recognize that Canada's inflation rate is among the lowest in the G7. Japan has an inflationary rate of 4%, France is at 5.8%, Canada is at 6.3%, the U.S. is at 6.4%, Germany is at 8.5%, the U.K. is at 9.2% and Italy is at 10.1%. When we look at energy specifically, both the U.S. and Canada have a 7.3% inflation rate. The rest of the G7 is anywhere between 15% and 64%. These are January 2023 numbers.
How is it that Conservatives can continually get up in this House and say it is the sole responsibility of the Prime Minister of Canada that we are experiencing the inflation we have? One of two things is happening. One, they are just not paying attention to what is going on in the rest of the world, or two, they think the Prime Minister of Canada is incredibly capable of influencing inflation throughout the world. Which one is it?
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- Mar/28/22 3:59:20 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to this member talk about Canada's GDP. Canada has the best debt-to-GDP ratio among the G7 countries right now. We are actually bettered position to come out of the last two years of the pandemic as a result of having that debt-to-GDP ratio. We are in the best position to come out of the problems that we have had over the last two years.
More specifically, with respect to the member's comment about investing in new technologies, I could not agree with him more. We need to do more right now to make sure that we get those new technologies in Canada so that we become exporters of that technology. I do not see a lot of new technology when it relates to oil and gas. The Conservative Party of Canada refers to anything energy-related as oil and gas being the only options.
Would the member not agree with me that there is a lot of potential and there are a lot of opportunities in renewables and sustainable development as technology that we could start exporting to the world?
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- Mar/22/22 1:55:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was going to say that, in Alberta itself, the renewable energy industry has been employing more people for the last number of years than the fossil fuel industry. It is a signal that we are moving forward, and they are heckling that.
I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary could provide his comments as to where he sees the future as it relates to energy—
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- Mar/22/22 1:54:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, through the discourse today and even through the first question and answer, I cannot help but be reminded of how, whenever the Conservatives talk about energy, they talk about energy as if there were only ever going to be one source of energy and it comes from fossil fuels.
The reality of the situation, as we know, is that different types of energy, renewable energies, energies that are created in a much more sustainable fashion than extracting fossil fuels from the ground, are just gaining more and more popularity. As a matter of fact, in Alberta itself—
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- Mar/3/22 4:28:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree 100% that this is what we should be doing. Do members know where some of the real leadership is in Canada with respect to renewable energies? It is in Alberta. Alberta's renewable energy sector has outpaced the fossil fuel industry for almost a decade now, or at least seven or eight years, but some people do not want that to happen.
I totally agree with the member from the Bloc that this is the way of the future. If we really want to help Europe, we will need to help contribute to that energy security conversation that the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke brought up, because at the end of the day, I think that is where we are going to go with this. We can be leaders in renewable energy. We can be leaders in developing and building the technology. We can export that knowledge and can export that leadership if we seize it now. Otherwise, we will just be taking it from other countries as they develop it.
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- Mar/3/22 4:26:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was not aware that NATO was going to do that, but if, as the member is saying, NATO is going to talk about energy security as it relates to each individual NATO country, I think it is an incredibly important conversation to have. We know that what has motivated so much of the invasion that is going on right now is oil: the consumption of oil and the need for it. That has also limited, in many regards, the response from certain countries, because they do not have full autonomy.
If NATO is going to go down the lane of having those discussions about energy security for independent nations or NATO nations, I think it is an incredibly important conversation to have, and if the minister was seeking my input on it, I would certainly encourage her to have those conversations.
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