Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. First, I would like to remind him that, in 2021, Canada's economic growth was the strongest in the G7, at 5%. Economic growth in Canada leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions. Second, despite the global pandemic, we had the best record of any G7 country of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The pandemic affected not just Canada, but the enti…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his advocacy on this issue. He talked about the forest fire situation in Canada. It is likely going to be the worst year for forest fires. The federal government is supporting all the provinces and territories, as well as indigenous communities that have requested help from the federal government. I have spoken personally to some indigenous leaders. Parks…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for all his work on these issues. As I said in my speech, in the economy of the 21st century, there is an international race to attract companies and investors in the green economy. Ten years ago, there was 10 times more investment in fossil fuels worldwide than there was in renewable energy. In 2022, it is the opposite. Smart money is moving toward clean tec…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for mentioning climate change, which, unfortunately, on that side of the House, does not happen very often. To answer his first question, we planted 30 million trees in 2020 and 60 million trees in 2021, which is up from eight million trees in 2019. To get to two billion trees by 2030, we need to get to a cruising speed of planting 300 million trees per year.…
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Mr. Speaker, the member quoted a number of people who have fought the forest fires in his communities in Nova Scotia and spoke at length about how the forest fires are unprecedented. They have never seen such intense forest fires. One of my colleagues and I spoke about the linkages between the extreme forest fires we are seeing and climate change. There is abundant scientific evidence out there on…
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Madam Speaker, I am a fan of podcasts and one of them is a Canadian podcast called The Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show! A few months ago, the guest on the show was a so-called well-known NDP adviser to both the federal and provincial NDP. The first question the host asked was, “What do you think the Liberal government will be remembered for?” The famous NDP adviser to the federal NDP and many provinc…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the leader of the Bloc Québécois for his question. We agree with him. We must do more to fight climate change. There is a clear link between the forest fire season we are currently experiencing in Canada and the use of fossil fuels. We must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we will be supporting the motion moved by the Bloc Québécois today in the House of Common…
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Mr. Speaker, the answer is quite simple: We are already doing it. We are investing more than $200 billion in clean technologies and in the fight against climate change. That is half of what the United States, a country 10 times our size, is doing. What is more, we are eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. I agree with my hon. colleague. We need to do more. We need to move faster on both tackling clim…
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Mr. Speaker, once again, I thank the leader of the Bloc Québécois for his question. I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We are not going to wait until fossil fuel subsidies are completely eliminated. We are already doing this, so we can make massive investments in public transit, electrification and clean technologies. That is what we did in the last budget. It is what the Conservat…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that we are in the process of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies in this beautiful country we call Canada with the collaboration of his very own party. We put a stop to international subsidies last year, and we were applauded by NGOs like Environmental Defence and Equiterre and by international organizations like Oil Change International. Accord…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question and for her activism on the issue of climate change. I want to reassure her. Fighting climate change is the reason why we brought in carbon pricing, one of the most ambitious such initiatives in the world. Fighting climate change is the reason why we are implementing zero emissions legislation to put more electric vehicles and zero emissions vehic…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her advocacy on this issue. As she is well aware, last year, we eliminated international fossil fuel subsidies. Canada and the U.K. are the two most advanced countries in the world who have tackled this international crisis, and we are on track to phase out domestic fossil fuel subsidies this year, in 2023, two years earlier than any of our G20 partner co…
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Mr. Speaker, I have good news for my hon. colleague. In 2018, EDC went from $12.5 billion in international fossil fuel subsidies to less than $400 million last July. This will get to zero this year. These are international fossil fuel subsidies. We will also eliminate all domestic fossil fuel subsidies in 2023, two years earlier than all of our G20 partners.
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Mr. Speaker, I have four kids who have benefited from the Quebec day care, what was called in those days the $7-a-day day care program. Some studies in Quebec have shown that this program has allowed 70,000 mothers to go back to the workplace and that this has contributed to an increase in the Quebec GDP of more than $5 billion. Yes, everyone heard me right: $5 billion. I wonder if the member woul…
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this important issue today. I thank my hon. colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and commend them for their activism on this issue. I do not doubt their commitment to the issue of climate change for a single second. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for all the members of the House. Forests all over Canada are burning. We are facing what …
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about the agricultural industry and the measures that we are putting in place to help that industry, like all industries, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. I am looking at a news release from the Canadian Canola Growers Association commending the government for its clean-fuel regulation that will make it possible to invest $2 billion in Canada's canola farmers …
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Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I would like to read a weather alert on Environment Canada's website. A “special air quality statement” says that “smoke plumes from forest fires in Quebec and northeastern Ontario have resulted in deteriorated air quality.” Moreover, “High levels of air pollution [have developed] due to smog from forest fires”. The air quality in our nation's capital is worse th…
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has risen in the House on a number of occasions to speak on behalf of farmers. In front of me, I have a press release from the Canola Council of Canada congratulating our government on the clean fuel regulations. It states, “We’re pleased to see the CFR provides options that would minimize regulatory burden and allow canola to be used to reduce GHG emissions through …
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Mr. Speaker, we are, in fact, battling climate change, and we have the strongest economic growth of all the G7 countries. We have put in place measures that will create thousands of jobs in Canada, boosting Canada's economy for the coming years and for the coming decades. We are doing that while we reduce climate pollution by 50 million tonnes, the equivalent of removing 11 million vehicles from o…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in their 2021 platform, the Conservatives were proposing to put in place carbon pricing. It was not a plan for the environment, but at least they were talking about it. It was a plan to encourage people to pollute more. That is not the polluter pays principle, but we are getting there. They even refused last week to let us table their own …
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Mr. Speaker, 2016 was the worst year for forest fires in Alberta, and already we are on the verge of surpassing this on June 4. We have just seen the worst forest fires in the history of Nova Scotia, and this is only June 4. Quebec asked the federal government over the weekend, because it said it could not handle all the forest fires it is seeing, and it is only the beginning of June. What is the …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Calgary Nose Hill for her comments earlier in this House. She actually talked about climate change, which her leader has never done and very few of the members of the Conservative Party have done. She begged us to do smarter things like public transport. Well, every time we have proposed public transport, they have voted against it. She said…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his advocacy on this issue. Happy World Environment Day. I am happy to announce that in just a few weeks, on June 20, the single-use plastic ban will come into full force. Following that date, harmful plastics such as straws and plastic cutlery will no longer be able to be used in, sold in or imported into Canada. This is news worth celebrating. P…
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Mr. Speaker, this question highlights that the Conservative Party of Canada has no understanding whatsoever of the science of climate change. It is as if we can flick a switch and climate is going to be all right. It is this magical thinking that by investing money in cryptocurrency, all is going to be good with the economy in Canada. This is the same thing. If the Leader of the Opposition will no…
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Mr. Speaker, as I was saying earlier, Canadians are battling forest fires right across the country. It is likely going to be the worst year for forest fires in the history of Canada. While this is happening, just last week in this House, the member for Red Deer—Mountain View rose to tell Canadians that climate change is normal. It is not that they do not care about climate change. It is not that t…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that, in his party's election platform during the last campaign, the Conservatives proposed introducing a clean fuel standard. The difference between them and us is that, when they come to power, they do exactly the opposite of what they said they would do. We on this side of the House are doing exactly what we said we would do. We are committe…
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Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but the member is plainly wrong. We have not missed our target. The Conservatives missed their target. I was in Copenhagen in 2009 when former Prime Minister Harper committed Canada to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. They did nothing. We have reduced emissions by 50 million tonnes between 2019 and 2021, the best performance of all G7 countries. We did that while cre…
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Mr. Speaker, setting aside the fact that the members opposite all campaigned to put in place carbon pricing in Canada, let us look at what they are saying no to. They are saying no to clean air and clean water. We were evacuating people in New Brunswick and in Quebec. We had to airlift people outside of Fort Chipewyan last night because of climate change. The Conservatives are saying let us make p…
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Mr. Speaker, I have to admit that it is very disappointing to hear my hon. colleague opposite oversimplifying the issue. He knows full well that the carbon pricing system does not apply in Quebec. Let us talk about carbon pricing. In 2021, not only did all members of the Conservative Party campaign in favour of carbon pricing, but 19 members on the other side campaigned in 2021 and 2008 to impleme…
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Mr. Speaker, as the Leader of the Opposition well knows, I approved that project myself just last year. The company announced yesterday that it is putting the project on pause for three years because of market conditions. That is the company's decision. We will take it as it is.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the commissioner of the environment did not have the benefit of our latest national inventory report, which shows that we have the best performance of all—
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Mr. Speaker, I would remind my hon. colleague that he campaigned during the last election on putting carbon pricing in place. He is saying no to billions of dollars of investment already happening in Canada, in Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Alberta and southern Ontario, in the new economy. That is what Conservatives are saying no to. We are saying yes to fighting climate change.…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and for all his work on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. In the latest budget, we invested $750 million to protect fresh water across the country. We have delivered on our promise to create an independent water agency, which will be located in Winnipeg. By protecting water, we are protecting the health of Canadian…
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Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, when he went to committee the commissioner of the environment did not benefit from the information in our latest national inventory report, which shows that we have reduced emissions by 53 million tonnes, which is the equivalent of removing 11 million vehicles from our roads, between 2019 and 2021. We are landing deals like Volkswagen. We are landing deals with Tidewa…
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Mr. Speaker, with regard to part (a), Environment and Climate Change Canada, ECCC, can only report on the number of environmental occurrences that were reported to the National Environmental Emergencies Centre by Alberta. For the calendar years 2020, 2021 and 2022, Alberta notified ECCC of a total of 4175 environmental occurrences. With regard to part (b), for the calendar years 2020, 2021 and 202…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that Quebec has its own carbon pricing system, a cap-and-trade system. This type of system is completely different than the federal system, which puts a price on pollution. If the member would like a technical briefing from my department on how the Quebec system works, I would be happy to offer him one.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to set the record straight about a question that the Conservatives asked yesterday in the House about a Quebec tax. The member sent us the report on this here tax. The report talks about something called SPEDE, which is actually Quebec's cap and trade system. That is the system operating in Quebec, not the federal system.
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Mr. Speaker, if the Conservatives are going to oppose the clean fuel regulations, which they supported during the last election campaign, they should explain to Canadian farmers, particularly canola growers in western Canada, why they oppose something that will increase domestic canola demand by over five million metric tonnes and support a strong canola price in our country. Canadians do not need…
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Mr. Speaker, I am told that orange is the new black. To expand on the benefits to the Canadian economy of the clean fuel standard, let me talk about the Tidewater $342-million plant in British Columbia. This year, Imperial Oil—
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Mr. Speaker, the truth is that the Conservatives have absolutely no plan to do anything to fight climate change and will set our country back on making promises toward a cleaner economy. When it comes time to ask the oil companies to reinvest their record profits in the innovative solution in clean technologies, the Conservatives immediately back down. We are proud to support the clean fuel regula…
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Mr. Speaker, I am told that orange is the new black. I would like to further expand on the examples I wanted to give, like the Tidewater $342-million plant in B.C.; Imperial oil, all privately funded, $720-million plant for cleaner fuels in Alberta; Federated Co-op's $2-billion plant in Saskatchewan; the Braya's plant in Newfoundland, which received an added $300 million of private financing in th…
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Mr. Speaker, when the Conservative Party of Canada, in the 2021 election, campaigned on bringing carbon pricing to $170 a tonne or putting in place clean fuel regulations, were they trying to fool Canadians? Is that what we are to understand?
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Leader of the Opposition is wrong yet again, because our plan is working. This has led to reducing emissions and climate change pollution by more than 50 million tonnes between 2019 and 2021 beyond COVID. In fact, it was called a pandemic because it was happening all over the world, yet Canada, in 2020 and 2021, had the best performance of all G7 countries.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analysis, which states, “does not attempt to account for the economic and environmental costs of climate change.” The Parliamentary Budget Officer is looking at one part of the ledger without looking at the other side of the ledger. We know that climate change is already costing Canadians billions of dollars every year. In …
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Mr. Speaker, I will leave it to my hon. colleagues in the Bloc to answer the question of whether they are or are not woke. I do not think that is my call. What I will say, however, is that once again the leader of the opposition is saying things that are simply not true. What we are putting in place is a mechanism to ensure that the refineries that made record profits in the past few years will do…
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that Quebeckers listening to us today know how important it is to fight climate change. They know that, on this point, the Conservatives have nothing to say; they have no plan and they have no measures, despite the promises they made in the last election campaign. In fact, they do not even believe that climate change is real, in spite of the flooding in Quebec and Ontario an…
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Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, we can use the Species at Risk Act once projects are proposed. No such projects have been proposed so far. We have already started an impact assessment review of the impacts of said development on Rouge National Park. We did not wait. We are already acting and we are looking at other areas of Ontario where we could launch similar studies to look at the impacts of …
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Mr. Speaker, I profoundly disagree with the characterization that the Premier of Ontario has made about the Greenbelt. Protecting green spaces, so that our kids and grandkids can have access to green spaces, clean air and clean water, is no scam. Working to ensure that our kids and grandkids continue to have a bright future is no scam. The federal government will use all of its available tools to …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. When it comes to climate change, Canadians expect the government to do the right thing and take action. That is exactly what we are doing with pollution pricing that has prompted industry to reduce emissions by over 50 million tonnes in recent years, an emissions reduction plan for all sectors of the economy, an oil and gas emissions cap and…
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Mr. Speaker, the only party playing hot potato with this issue is the Bloc Québécois. I myself acknowledged yesterday in an interview with La Presse that the federal government has a role to play and that it will do just that. Just yesterday, the Minister of Indigenous Services spoke with the community's chief. We are committed to finding a solution. While the Bloc plays hot potato, we on this sid…
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