- 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
- 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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- Feb/1/24 11:04:36 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with my colleague from the Green Party on this. The reality is that this false narrative or red herring reminds me a lot of the one that we hear quite often from Conservatives about Canada's fossil fuels being the cleanest in the world, as though that is some reason why we should not seek to do better. Rather than doing something about a problem, their solution is to exploit our resources because they are slightly more cleaner than other jurisdictions.
We know that what it really comes down to is that Canada is a leader. We are a G7 country. We benefited from the industrial revolution immensely. It is to the benefit of every citizen in our country, like all our other G7 partners. We have an obligation to the world to be at the forefront, to lead the charge in terms of changing our environmental practices throughout the globe.
This idea that we can somehow dismiss the issue away because we are a bit better than some other countries is a huge red herring. It is what we hear time and time again from Conservatives and it is getting pretty stale.
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- Dec/7/23 3:46:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the premise of the question is wrong. The member is suggesting that it was just for Atlantic provinces. It is not. The carve-out for home heating with oil is across the entire country. In my province of Ontario, there are twice as many people who use oil as in Atlantic Canada. I will say, though, that I believe that this is not the case in Quebec, because Quebec actually has a very ambitious program to get off fossil fuels; one will not be not allowed to build a new house there, as of the end of this year, or even to renovate and replace one's heating system, with a fossil-fuel-based appliance.
Those are the kinds of measures we need in this country. It becomes very difficult to do that when we are fighting against an opposition that does not even believe we have a problem.
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- Jun/8/23 3:53:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is the reason I wholeheartedly support this motion. I will be honest with this member. I informed my whip before I knew that this party would be voting for it that I would be voting for it because I genuinely do not believe that we should be investing in fossil fuels. That is my own personal position. The sooner we can get to a point that we are not doing that, the better. I realize that the government is on track to get to that point by 2025, but if we can get to it by 2023, I would be even happier.
I support this motion. I personally am not in favour of continuing to prop up the fossil fuel industry. I do not think it is good for our environment. I know it is not. I do not think it is good for society as a whole.
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- Jun/8/23 3:49:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do agree that this government could do that. We do need to take a reasonable, rational approach and we need to push the needle as far as we can. I am not personally in support of continuing the exploration, but I also think that what is more important is to create the right economic conditions that naturally, as we are seeing, so many of the large fossil fuel producers are just discovering, which is that the economics of it are not there anymore because the world is changing.
We are in a transition period now and, despite the fact that there might still be some interest in extraction and finding new areas to extract, I think, personally, that we are at a tipping point where we will very quickly start to see that decline. One in 10 cars sold in Canada was an electric vehicle. We are just at the chasm of the innovation curve where we will start to see it take off. At that point I do not think that there will be an interest to continue to explore for fossil fuels.
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- Jun/8/23 3:39:55 p.m.
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As we talk about this motion introduced by the Bloc today, I cannot help but reflect on what I was talking about prior to question period when I started my speech, and that is the absolute reluctance of Conservative members to agree that humans have caused climate change and that we have a role to play in addressing it.
I am reminded of a cartoon that I recently saw that was floating around on social media that shows forest fires burning and firefighters fighting those fires while a plane flies above with a banner off the back of it with the Conservative logo, “Scrap the carbon tax.” Conservatives are ready to burn the whole place down in the name of preserving our ability to extract fossil fuels from the ground. Even the Bloc Québécois, which they are partners with most of the time, the light blue, understands that climate change is a serious issue and we need to move quickly. We need to do more and push the government to do more at all times in order to properly combat the negative effects that we are seeing as a result of climate change and, quite frankly, prepare ourselves to be able to deal with them.
There is a lot that has already changed and a lot that we will not see reversed for generations to come. We have to understand that climate change is with us and that we have to be as prepared as we can be to deal with it in the best ways possible. However, that is not to say that we should throw up our hands and suggest that we should not be doing anything to prevent further disasters and further climate change from occurring. The Bloc Québécois, with this motion, is pushing the government, as it should, as a responsible opposition party, to do more and to do better.
I reference item (e) in its motion, which I am very much in support of. It states, “demand that the federal government stop investing in fossil fuels and develop incentives, while respecting the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, to promote the use of renewable energy and public transit.” In response to that, I would say that we have done a significant amount, whether it is investing in public transit and, in particular, electric buses in transit systems throughout our country, investing in renewable energies or investing in electric vehicle technology and electric vehicle purchases by consumers. The federal government has been there, but that is not to say that we cannot do more; we must do more and we have to be asking the government at all times to do more about ensuring that we are taking this matter seriously.
When we talk about some of the specific investments, I am reminded of a company just outside of my riding of Kingston and the Islands, in the riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington. The government formed a partnership with Umicore, a battery manufacturing facility, which will establish the largest battery manufacturing facility for electric vehicles in North America. This is a company that has a lot of history and has built similar facilities in other parts of the world. It is based out of Europe. It has expanded in Europe, and is now looking at markets outside Europe. It is looking at Canada.
One may ask why it is interested in Canada and not the United States. We are a relatively small economy compared to our neighbour, the United States, and there are other options in North America. Quite frankly, it chose Canada because it sees our commitment to sustainability. It sees our commitment to supporting the industry that it is part of. That is exactly what we need to be doing now.
Not only is the Bloc Québécois calling on the government to do more from an environmental perspective, but this motion is also asking the federal government to bolster the economy and have a stronger economy as it relates to renewable energy. This is absolutely critical at this point, as we heard the Minister of Environment say earlier. We are at the forefront of new technology. This is technology that is going to change not just Canada, but the world.
We have an option. We can either wait and let other countries develop it, import their technology and what they produce in years to come, or we can be at the forefront of it. We can develop those technologies here, we can harness the intellectual capability, intellectual patents and the ideas that come from people who are working on these projects. We can see them developed here, and then we become an exporter of that technology, selling it to the rest of the world.
Anybody who looks at macroeconomic policy would determine that the far superior way of approaching this is to become a leader in this. Of course, in order to do that, they have to believe that is the future. That is where the divide is in this House, at least as it relates to Conservatives versus every other party. Conservatives do not believe that the future is in those technologies. They believe that the future is in the continual extraction of oil and fossil fuels from underground so that they can be burned and used, and we would not have the opportunity to benefit from those incredible advancements that we are seeing in other parts of the world.
As I wrap up my speech, I again want to compliment the Bloc Québécois for bringing forward what I regard to be a substantive motion that is not light and fluffy and lacking a call to action, but indeed a motion that does call on the government to do more. That is what a responsible opposition party should be doing. I see that in this motion today and I am very happy to vote in favour of it when we ultimately vote on this next week.
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- Jun/8/23 10:24:49 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the members of the Bloc Québécois for the motion they have introduced in the House today. I want to congratulate them on bringing forward a motion of substance that genuinely calls on the government to do something meaningful within its realm of possibility.
I want to express that I plan to vote in favour of this motion, not only because it is well crafted, but also because it is a motion on something we should be calling upon the government to do.
When we talk about the government investing in fossil fuels, I think it is important that we do not invest in the creation, exploitation or extraction of fossil fuels. However, I believe there is still work for the government to do with dealing with abandoned oil wells, for example.
Could the leader of the Bloc confirm that the motion is attempting to distinguish between investing in fossil fuels from an extraction perspective and dealing with abandoned oil wells and other impacts from previous fossil fuels extraction?
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- May/3/23 11:48:36 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, I am curious to know how many of those liquified natural gas plants the former Conservative Harper government was able to build. Just one?
More importantly, is the member sure that the future of our country is so dependent on liquified natural gas? There is no doubt that to some degree it will be used. However, what we are seeing, at least what I am seeing in my own riding, is people who are literally cutting their gas line off at the street because they are converting their heat sources to heat pumps. Heat pumps are the newest thing. They do not require natural gas. There is actually a shift, at least from a home heating perspective, away from natural gas.
I am curious why Conservatives continually put so much of their political capital into fossil fuels.
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- Mar/23/23 12:34:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it certainly is economically viable. It is to the point where there is a company in my constituency called Li-Cycle that is building a new facility 10 times the size of its existing facility. It is clearly something that is economical, because this is going to be a booming industry.
The reality, and this is what I was trying to say in my speech, is that, when we talk about fossil fuels to run vehicles, we are extracting fossil fuel from the ground and we are burning it. When we are done burning it, it is pollution in the air and that is the end of the story. We then extract more.
With electric vehicles, we are seeing this new company. It is just at the beginning of the technology, and it is already able to recycle 97% of the battery. It is taking the battery, ripping it down to its core elements and then giving it to the battery manufacturing plants, which are building brand new batteries out of it. Although lithium needs to be mined originally, every time after, that same lithium can go on to serve many vehicles as the recycling process gives the opportunity and the ingredients to make new batteries.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot believe the way the member ended his speech, by saying the government is the reason Canada is lagging in terms of electric vehicles.
Does it not have anything to do with the way the opposition has acted over the last seven years? We are talking about a political party that does not even believe climate change is real. We are talking about a political party that at every single opportunity goes on and on about extracting more fossil fuels from the ground, and now the member is trying to suggest that, suddenly, Conservatives are going to be the champions of electric vehicles. It is absolutely ludicrous to hear that.
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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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