Bill C-232 (Historical)

Climate Emergency Action Act

An Act respecting a Climate Emergency Action Framework

This enactment provides for the development and implementation of a climate emergency action framework.

[Christie McLeod]

Thank you for the question.

In the youth brief that I submitted to the committee, I recommended that clause 8 of the bill be amended to require that the minister consider the responsibility of Canadians toward future generations. This is language that the MP for Winnipeg Centre, Leah Gazan, put forward in Bill C-232, which is the climate emergency action act. It calls for the minister to consider “the responsibilities of Canadians toward future generations” in developing a climate emergency action framework.

Considering the responsibility of Canadians toward not only the present generation but also future generations will put at ease people like me who are wondering what the future looks like for our future children and future generations.

Climate Emergency Action Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It being 3:25 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-232 under Private Members' Business.

Call in the members.

The House resumed from March 11 consideration of the motion that Bill C-232, An Act respecting a Climate Emergency Action Framework, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism Act

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Cumberland—Colchester for bringing forward this important bill to address environmental racism. The bill tabled by the member requires the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to develop a national strategy to promote efforts across Canada to redress the harm caused by environmental racism. I certainly hope that the government will support this bill and take meaningful action to really redress environmental racism.

As we know, across Canada toxic dumps, polluting projects, risky pipelines, tainted drinking water and the effects of the climate crisis disproportionately hurt indigenous, Black and racialized communities. We need look no further to see the impacts of Canada’s colonial history on indigenous people. However, even as successive governments say they recognize these historical injustices, so far we are only seeing tiny, incremental measures to right such wrongs.

According to the government’s own website, currently there are 58 long-term drinking water advisories in first nations communities. There are two in British Columbia, six in Saskatchewan, four in Manitoba and 44 in Ontario. I should note that many of these communities have had such conditions for years, and in some cases for decades. The First Nations Health Authority’s Environmental Public Health Services indicate that there are both “do not use” and “do not consume” water advisories in our first nation communities.

“Do not consume” advisories are issued when a community's water system contains a contaminant, such as a chemical, that cannot be removed from the water by boiling. The water should not be used for drinking, brushing teeth, cooking, washing fruits and vegetables, making infant formula or other drinks, soups or ice cubes, for bathing infants and toddlers, or for pets.

“Do not use” advisories are issued when the water system contains contamination that cannot be removed by boiling and consumption of the water poses a health risk. Exposure to the water when bathing could cause skin, eye or nose irritation. In what universe is this okay?

Behind every community are the faces of the people: children, elders and people with disabilities. They are the faces of all of us. Water is life, yet they cannot access basic clean drinking water, which is essential to sustaining life.

This is happening in indigenous communities right now. This is what environmental racism looks like. As an ally of indigenous people, I have attended countless protests and rallies led by indigenous people: the first people, the protectors of mother earth, of water and land. They have demanded accountability. We have protested Canada’s ongoing active engagement in land dispossession and resource exploitation in their territories.

Look at what is happening with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The Prime Minister ignored the voices of the indigenous people, elders and protectors of land. He ignored the science on the climate emergency, brought the Trans Mountain pipeline in and pushed ahead on the expansion.

The Prime Minister is completely oblivious to his own hypocrisy. He cannot call himself an environmentalist and buy a pipeline. Thousands of people have come out as allies to indigenous communities who are opposed to the expansion. Some have been arrested for fighting to protect the environment. Watch houses have been set up to monitor the situation, and people are there in the rain and snow. Land defenders continue to take to the streets to protest the TMX expansion. We must stop throwing away billions of dollars on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and fossil fuel subsidies.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has analyzed the Trans Mountain pipeline and shown that, in all the scenarios it has modelled, there is almost no chance that the pipeline would be profitable. That undercuts the Liberals' claim that the pipeline is needed to pay for green energy investments.

The Tsleil-Waututh Nation conducted an independent assessment of the project and found that there was a 79% to 87% chance of a spill in its waters over the next 50 years if the project is built. In the worst-case scenario, it projected there is a 29% chance of a spill of over 100,000 barrels. The risks are real. The question is not whether there will be a spill; it is when there will be a spill. These risks are exactly the reason the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and other first nations have not given their free, prior and informed consent to the project.

The Prime Minister is buying the TMX pipeline and pushing ahead on its expansion, and this is a clear violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. So much for the Prime Minister's most important relationship. This is no joke. The day the government announced it was buying the TMX pipeline, there were new environmental violations for the project.

The truth is that systemic discrimination has been embedded in our environmental policy-making. Enforcement of environmental regulations and laws is often lax. In fact, most recently, it was found that there have been repeat violations of COVID-19 protocols on the site. According to Burnaby Now, a report by the Canada Energy Regulator found there was “systemic non-compliances” of COVID-19 rules at the TMX expansion project.

Canada’s environmental decision-making process excludes indigenous, Black and racialized communities. Make no mistake about it: This is environmental injustice.

There are other examples of environmental racism in Canada, including the horrific mercury poisoning in Grassy Narrows. In addition to the frightening health effects of mercury poising and cancer from toxic waste, the high levels of contamination forced the community to stop commercial and tourist fishing, one of its last avenues for traditional economic living, while the Ontario government continued to insist the poisoned fish were safe to eat.

In urban areas, 25% of the neighbourhoods with the lowest socio-economic status are within a kilometre of a major polluting industrial facility, compared with just 7% of the wealthiest neighbourhoods. This results in an elevated risk of hospitalization for respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses.

In Vancouver East, our East Village neighbourhood has campaigned for years, fighting against odours coming from the poultry plant in the community. The community has learned that West Coast Reduction is looking at increasing emissions of ammonia, nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxides. Rightfully, my constituents are concerned about this.

I have brought this up with Metro Vancouver, which regulates air quality for our region. Councillor Adriane Carr is the chair of the Metro Vancouver committee that oversees air quality, and she has advised that it will consider input from concerned parties right up to when the permit decision is made.

In another part of my riding, community members are concerned about the activities of the port. They have been raising concerns about the well-being of a bird marsh at Crab Park. They are concerned that the Port of Vancouver's security fence, which has been put around the four-acre empty parking lot beside Crab Park, will negatively impact the birds there, and they note there are 26 species of waterfowl in Burrard Inlet.

Crab Park is a sacred space for the people of the Downtown Eastside. They fought hard for it and of course they want to ensure that it is protected. They also want to see a healing lodge at Crab Park to support people in our community so they are able access a safe place, a place of healing, especially in the face of so much stress and trauma from the homelessness crisis, the opioid crisis and now the pandemic.

In 2019, Baskut Tuncak, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes, wrote, “I observed a pervasive trend of inaction of the Canadian Government in the face of existing health threats from decades of historical and current environmental injustices and the cumulative impacts of toxic exposures by indigenous peoples.

In September 2020, a report entitled “Visit to Canada—Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes” was submitted to the Human Rights Council. It states, “Pollution and exposure to toxic chemicals threaten the right to life, and a life with dignity”. It also says, “The invisible violence inflicted by toxics is an insidious burden disproportionately borne by Indigenous peoples in Canada.” Canadians have the right to a healthy environment.

Both Liberals and Conservatives have failed to put words into action and, in 2019, they voted against NDP Bill C-438, an act to enact the Canadian environmental bill of rights, which was tabled by former NDP MP Linda Duncan.

In this Parliament, they also failed to show up for NDP Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework, which calls for the recognition of the right of all Canadians to a safe, clean and healthy environment grounded in a commitment to upholding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is a bill that was tabled by my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre—

Climate Emergency Action Act

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleagues, particularly from the New Democratic Party, whose wisdom and power today pierce my heart and gives me hope.

It is my pleasure to speak on my private member's, Bill C-232, the climate emergency action act.

We have international commitments to fight the climate emergency and to uphold human rights. This includes the UN Convention on Climate Change, the Paris agreement and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Bill C-232 would uphold these international agreements and would recognize the right of all Canadians to a safe, clean, healthy environment as a human right.

More than 100 countries in the world have recognized the human right to a safe, clean, healthy environment in their legislation and/or constitution. Instead of building more pipelines and investing in companies around the world that violate indigenous rights and hurt Mother Earth, it is time for Canada to follow their lead.

I know many people in the House will shamefully vote against this legislation at a time when we are in the middle of a climate crisis, and we see violent attacks on our Mother Earth. Everything we value is at risk.

Exploitive resource extraction companies continue to contribute to the ongoing genocide and an epidemic of murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, as noted in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The exploitation of our Mother Earth continues to violate the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples and all peoples across these lands we now call Canada.

Indigenous communities and nations continue to be denied the right to traditional land-based practices, the use and management of their own territories, while other human rights to housing, clean drinking water and health go unmet.

Even the Canadian Paediatric Society is raising the issue of climate anxiety being experienced by young people, who are the front lines, fighting to save our earth.

The government introduced Bill C-12, but it is not nearly good enough. In fact, it is a slap in the face to science and will not allow us to meet climate targets.

Bill C-232 proposes a framework for developing a made-in-Canada plan to address the ever-more pressing climate emergency, while it offers a clear strategy for kick-starting our country's green economic transition and rapidly reducing our emissions, while also leveraging this moment as an opportunity to right the wrongs of our colonial past and address violence faced by BIPOC communities in our country.

Despite the opportunity that we have before us, I sense that most members here today will vote no to Bill C-232. Before they do that, I hope they will consider what is at stake: every single thing we know and value; our Mother Earth; our health and wellness, and even the existence of future generations; our air quality; our oceans and coasts; water and food security; more fires, hurricanes and droughts; the further displacement of indigenous peoples, BIPOC and coastal communities; and even an increase in future pandemics. To turn down this opportunity in the middle of a climate crisis and at a time when we need to plan for post-pandemic economic rebuilding is shameful.

I ask the members of the House to think about how history will remember us in relation to this legislation. The science is clear about the actions we must take right now to avoid the worst impacts of a runaway climate crisis. This must be done while respecting the human rights of indigenous peoples and all peoples of the world.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is truly an honour and a pleasure to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework. This bill, which has been tabled by my good friend and colleague from Winnipeg Centre, is such an important bill, and I want to thank her at the outset for her important work in standing up not just for indigenous peoples but for all Canadians and their right to have a clean, safe and healthy environment.

This bill would provide a critical framework, which is lacking right now, for a transformative climate action policy. It is framed around a green new deal that would make sure that all climate action initiatives would comply with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as ensure the right of all those living in Canada to have a safe, clean and healthy environment and that we will uphold our responsibilities to future generations. This bill provides for the development of a framework that we desperately need when it comes to climate action.

We know that the Government of Canada has failed to meet every single climate target it has put out. In fact, as the government tabled recent legislation, it also failed to give people the confidence it is going to deliver a plan in a timely fashion. This is based on the fact that we are not even going to see a progress report on how we are doing until 2028 and that there is no milestone target for 2025.

We heard from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018 that we had only 12 years to reduce emissions to pre-2010 levels, meaning a reduction of over 40% by 2030, yet the Government of Canada still has no plan and has not included indigenous people.

This bill is absolutely critical as an accountability tool for those who are most impacted by climate change. It explicitly outlines the importance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Canada's climate response and it would require the government to consult meaningfully with indigenous peoples and communities and civil society.

Canadians are exhausted. They are tired of governments committing to targets like the ones I cited earlier and then missing them again and again. We are running out of time.

I want to talk a bit about what is happening in my riding and the impact climate change is having on indigenous peoples in the communities I represent.

In three of the last five years, we have had record floods that have impacted wild salmon, of course, and impacted the communities of the Tseshaht people and the K'Omoks First Nation, with both the Somass and the Puntledge rivers breaching.

We had a drought in 2014, and then it rained just in time in August. We were afraid we were going to lose all our wild salmon, which is a critical food source for indigenous people, and it is not just food security; their culture is centred around it, and of course their economy. Wild salmon is critical to their survival and who they are. Where I live, the Nuu-chah-nulth are salmon people, so this is very important to indigenous peoples, who are going to be most impacted by climate change.

We saw the acidification in Baynes Sound, which impacted the Qualicum people and their food security with the shellfish they rely on. My good friend Chief Moses Martin, from the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, often talks about the importance of investing in restoration, in science and indigenous knowledge, of listening to indigenous knowledge, but he cites that the most urgent pressure right now on wild salmon is the warming of oceans due to climate change.

We know our oceans are a carbon sink and that 90% of carbon right now is being stored in our oceans, which are warming right now and making things more difficult. In fact, Humboldt squid, which is normally from California, landed on our shores in Tofino just a few years ago. It is mind-blowing to see the kinds of shifts that are occurring because of climate change. Of course, there are also the wildfires we have seen throughout British Columbia.

Youth are coming forward urging us for changes. We have all been on marches with youth against the impacts of climate change and them demanding action. We cannot wait. We heard from my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley about the impact this is having on the children in his riding, and on my children.

I was really inspired by Ben Mason and Lister de Vitré, who live in my riding in Cumberland, British Columbia. They have been going around the community, to the Cumberland council, to the local legion and to local groups talking about new ways for economic growth, social responsibility and environmental safety. They are asking for a green new deal centred around indigenous values and knowledge. They want to see emissions cut by half by 2030, but right now we do not have the framework in place to do that.

As Ben Mason said, doing nothing is not an option. The way the government is moving forward without a plan and without the framework in place being proposed by my good friend and colleague from Winnipeg Centre, we are abandoning that generation. This is absolutely unacceptable, because doing nothing cannot be an option for them. We are their voice. We are responsible for their future.

I know there has been a lot of discussion about the cost of investing in climate change. I think about my good friend, the late chief of Hesquiaht, Richard Lucas, who fought so hard to get his nation off of diesel energy and get a hydro project into his community so it could do its part when it came to climate change. However, it also makes economic sense in the long term. We need to continue to listen to indigenous people in our communities who have the knowledge and the wherewithal to get us there.

Members have heard me speak repeatedly in the House about the cost and impacts of climate change. When I started as a member of Parliament, climate impacts were costing the Canadian government about $900 million a year. Now it is over $5 billion in not even six years. The PBO projects we will be running climate emergency costs between $21 billion and $43 billion by 2050. Therefore, spending money right now, supporting indigenous communities and bringing everyone together under a framework to tackle climate change makes economic sense as well.

I share this with the House as the critic for economic development for the federal NDP because it makes economic sense to do that. We cannot leave people behind. We know indigenous people are constantly being left behind. This is the opportunity for us to not only walk together, but to centre our framework and our plan around indigenous people.

I think about my friend Carol Anne Hilton, who is the founder of the Indigenomics Institute. We need to listen to the wisdom of indigenous women, who have ideas on how we can move forward when it comes to climate change and working with indigenous peoples. We need a plan that honours our international commitments and obligations to address this climate emergency. We owe this to our youth. We need a just transition to a green economy that brings workers along, moves away from fossil fuel subsidies and invests instead in a green economy.

Our party has been fighting for this for a long time. I think about the late Jack Layton and his climate accountability bill that he tabled back in 2006. We are ready to work with the government and the Senate to pass this bill now, to take the action that is absolutely necessary.

Canada is being left behind as many countries are moving forward, even right-leaning governments such as in Britain, Germany and Japan. They understand the economic opportunity as well. We need to do this, ensuring we do it with indigenous peoples and respecting them under the framework among others. The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be at the centre of our plan. Right now we have no plan. We need this plan to be in place. We need the government to follow its words with respect to supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This is the government's opportunity to engage in meaningful consultation with indigenous peoples and accommodate the concerns raised across Canada, including its failure to obtain free prior and informed consent. This has to be addressed.

Once again, I thank my colleague.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton Centre for his powerful words. I also want to begin by thanking our colleague from Winnipeg Centre for bringing forward this bill, which makes such an important contribution to a conversation about an issue that many of us feel is the most critical issue facing not just our country, but our planet.

I want to acknowledge that I am speaking today from the unceded lands of the Wet'suwet'en people here in my home community of Smithers, British Columbia. It is such an honour to speak to this bill at this juncture in time when we are searching for answers so desperately. After decades and decades of knowing about the severity of the climate crisis and after so many false starts, the sad fact is that, as a country, we are failing. All of our actions over all of that time have had so little impact.

I started becoming concerned about the climate crisis as a teenager. Now I am old enough to have teenagers of my own, yet so little has been done. Time and time again, we have made commitments, and set targets, timelines, and dates. Time and time again, we have failed to act in a concerted and consistent enough manner to realize the goals we have made for ourselves.

What Canada has shown is a commitment to building and expanding the fossil fuel infrastructure of this country. This has erased so much of the progress we have made through things like energy efficiency and clean energy production. With so little time left on the clock, we are still searching for ways to mobilize our government and fight the climate crisis, this climate emergency, with the seriousness and dedication it demands from us.

Canadians, especially young Canadians, and my colleague spoke so eloquently to this, want some mechanisms to break this pattern of complacency and apathy. They want to hold today's decision-makers to account for their promises, not at some distant date well outside the time horizons of our political process, elections and political calculuses, or the investment horizons of the private sector. After decades of failure, we know that does not work. What Canadians want is regular, binding, short-term and enforceable accountability measures that hold today's leaders to account.

This bill before us, Bill C-232, has a number of strengths. To me, its greatest strength and most important contribution is that it centres our work on the climate crisis and it centres in that work the rights of indigenous people. This is such an important thing to bear in mind and keep at the centre as we go forward together.

It was good to see in the government's own accountability legislation, for all of its flaws, a passing reference to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. By comparison though, Bill C-232 calls not only for the full involvement of indigenous people in the creation of a climate emergency action framework, but it also calls for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to ensure that the framework upholds all of the provisions of the U.N. declaration and that it specifically takes into account indigenous knowledge and science.

Reading this bill and reading, in particular, the clauses around the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People made me think of all the indigenous nations in northwest B.C., this incredible part of our country that I am so deeply honoured to represent in this House. Indigenous people in northwest B.C. are on the frontline of climate impacts and the changing climate is affecting so many aspects of their daily lives.

Thinking about our environment and thinking about the resources and goods produced by this bountiful place, there are few species that are more iconic than wild salmon. All five species of wild salmon swim up our rivers from the ocean every single year. In the fall, if someone goes on social media, they will see so many photos of smiling people processing salmon, drying salmon, smoking salmon, sharing recipes, and sharing techniques and traditions that have been handed down generation after generation.

It is at the very centre of the way of life in northwest B.C. However, with warming ocean waters and ocean acidification, the introduction of invasive species and droughts affecting spawning channels, things are looking very precarious for this iconic species.

I spoke today to Walter Joseph, the fisheries manager at the office of the Wet'suwet'en, and he spoke about the challenges in the tributaries where the salmon spawn, but what really has Walter worried, is what is happening in the ocean. He described the ocean as a black box. When the salmon go out to the ocean we do not know what happens. What we do know is that, for so many wild salmon stocks, the numbers are declining every single year, and we know that climate is having a huge impact on that.

On Haida Gwaii, we have seen tremendous die-offs in the yellow cedar, a tree species that is so critical to the Haida people. We know from work done by the University of British Columbia that this is a direct result of low winter precipitation and warmer temperatures. A team from the University of Victoria also found that sea level rise on Haida Gwaii is greater than anywhere else along our coast.

In the eastern part of our region we have seen the mountain pine beetle ravage our forests. We have seen years with extreme wildfires and 2018 was one of the worst years on record for wildfires. It left thousands upon thousands of hectares scorched. It left communities evacuated. It burned buildings from Fort St. James and Burns Lake all the way to Telegraph Creek in the northern part of this beautiful region.

Speaking of Telegraph Creek, I wanted to call to mind a young fellow who is really remarkable. His name is Montay Beaubien-Day. He is a 13-year-old member of the Tahltan and the Wet'suwet'en nations. When Monty saw his family's ranch in Telegraph Creek burn in the massive wildfires of 2018, it inspired him to join with other young people, such as Haana Edenshaw from the Haida nation and 13 others from across the country in a lawsuit against the Government of Canada for failing to attack the climate emergency.

At the heart of that suit brought forward by these young people is a deep-seated frustration with Canada's inaction on the climate emergency. The plaintiffs went to court because they wanted this country to be accountable for its promises and to take responsibility for the future it is handing their generation. How did we get to the point where our children, the young generation, has to take the country to court to ensure that they inherit a basic semblance of a livable future?

Indigenous communities are not just on the front lines of climate change when it comes to impacts, but when it comes to solutions as well. I have been so inspired by the work done by the Heiltsuk's climate action team on the central coast led by climate action coordinator. They are engaging residents and creating a community energy plan grounded in the Heiltsuk community's needs. Their plan is to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, bring the community back in line with Heiltsuk values and laws, improve the health and safety and create a green economy for the Heiltsuk people. Their aim is to have 129 heat pumps installed by the end of March. They are for almost one-third of the homes in their community and they will reduce emissions by as much as five tonnes per household.

I think of the Nuxalk Nation, which is also on the central coast. Their clean energy initiative is focused on building a run of the river hydro project which will be able to reduce the Bella Coola Valley's diesel consumption by up to 80%. On Haida Gwaii, the Swiilawiid Sustainability Society is engaging island residents, especially youth, in a conversation about a clean energy future.

I spoke with chief councillor of Skidegate, Billy Yovanovich, a couple of summers ago. His community has installed 350 heat pumps. The Haida are leading in so many other ways. Many of these communities are working hard to take action on climate change and these are not big communities. They are not metropolitan centres.

These are small villages, many of them with only a few hundred residents, yet they understand inherently that they have a responsibility to be a part of the solution. They are taking responsibility for their part of the challenge, and Canada needs to have their backs. The impacts we are seeing will not slow without our country also taking responsibility and doing its share. The sad truth—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today in support of Bill C-232. It is not lost on me that in the crisis of this global pandemic, perhaps the crisis of climate change has been lost. I have deep gratitude for my caucus colleague for Winnipeg Centre. She has recentred the conversation on catastrophic climate change and the impacts it is going to have, undoubtedly, on society in the years very soon to come.

The thought of guaranteeing Canadians a clean, safe, healthy environment as a human right seems so simple, yet time and again in the House we hear rhetoric from both sides, with consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments debating the merits of climate change. Time is running out. We know that. The youth across this country are telling us clearly that time is running out. Indigenous communities across this country are telling us clearly that time is running out, yet we hear from the Liberals a refusal to hear the calls from our youth.

I stand here today in the House of Commons a mere couple of feet away from what happened on October 28, 2019. A group of youth were arrested for occupying this space under the “Our Time” banner, recognizing that their futures were being gambled with by policies that were not meeting the size, scale and scope of this catastrophe.

We have heard about Bill C-12 here today. The Liberal government refuses to honour its commitments, legal frameworks and international agreements centred on consultation with indigenous communities. All levels of government are guilty of this. All parties have been guilty of this.

I am here today for those youth who were here, putting everything on the line for their futures. I am here today for the indigenous youth who led the protest at the B.C. legislature in support of the land defenders there. If we do not have a clear consultative framework that centres on our obligations to indigenous people across this country, then we know we are not meeting our obligations and our moral imperatives on the agreements that we profess to sign on to in the House. The idea of a right, for those living in Canada, to a safe, clean and healthy environment seems so simple, yet there has been only talk and no action. It is a dream deferred to a future date. We do not have the time.

The science at the interparliamentary committee on climate change has been clear. We have an opportunity right now, in this moment, to change course. If we do not do that, the cost will be far too great. If we do not intervene right now in these critical years, the impacts of catastrophic climate change will become irreversible. We have an obligation to future generations of the world. We have mortgaged their futures on a short-term extractory capitalist system that seeks to squeeze the lifeblood out of our natural resources and our earth.

I am deeply grateful to my hon. colleague for Winnipeg Centre for providing the House with the leadership and the framework to ensure that we have critical consultations in place, and that we meet our United Nations obligations on climate change. The government continues to commit to targets it has no real intention of keeping. It misses them again and again, and we are running out of time.

I am here today for the Water Walkers, and I think about the people who are leading the struggle locally in my city: Indigenous women who honour nibi, the water, and know that they, under the leadership of Grandma Josephine, walk the shorelines. I learned from their teaching that we should be granting our water, nature and air the same rights as we grant the corporations that have been polluting with impunity for far too long.

The idea that we can solve this by 2050 is too late. I have to share with the House the impacts, atrocities and environmental degradation of this planet. I feel that, when future generations look back at us in the House, they will know that we had a chance to do something different. They will read this bill and know that the opportunity was before us, yet it was not supported. It was not taken seriously, and the commitments were pushed down another 20 years.

By that time it will be too late, but the truth is becoming abundantly clear. The corporations that continue to degrade and pollute our world are going to be held to account. I will share with the House another thought. Maybe in the future, when they look at the size and scale of the impending wildfires and floods, and the ongoing diseases unleashed in pandemics, they might meet internationally and convene for real truth and reconciliation globally on climate change, like the Nuremberg trials.

These companies know the impacts and they know the science, yet they spend all of their time and their money to silence activists' voices and silence the science. It is clear that if we do not rise to this moment right now, we are in a significant, dire catastrophe. Climate change is threatening absolutely everything that we value.

We know that extreme weather is worsening, and that the resilience of our communities is constantly under threat. The future of our children and grandchildren depends on our actions here today. Globally we are being left behind, because other countries have a clear plan. They are sticking to their commitments. They know that we have to meet this plan by 2030. Bill C-12 does not do that.

I have sat in the House and listened to Liberals and Conservatives boast, brag and debate about how many pipelines they can build and buy, and how much they can continue to extract. I have been in the House when we have debated the failures of these successive governments to have meaningful, free, prior and informed consent in the legal fiction that is Canada. In unceded territories we have a legal obligation to deal with the rights holders of these lands, and indigenous rights in this country are inherently tied to land rights.

We have a strong, brilliant indigenous woman who has come to us with a private member's bill that lays out, as they have already identified, commitments they have already made. They talk about consultation, when the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre stresses that there can be no reconciliation absent of justice. To vote down this bill today would be a clear signal that the government is not committed to its obligations, because these are frameworks that are already clearly laid out.

Anything short of supporting this, and any conversation about kicking this obligation another 20 years down the line, will be remembered by the young people who were arrested here, the young people who were arrested on the steps of the legislature in B.C., and the young people who take to the streets for Fridays for Future. They are watching. The question is, when this is done, when this vote is over and when our time here in the House is finished, what are members of the House going to tell them? What are they going to have to say?

We will be supporting this bill. I will be able to look my son in his eyes and let him know that we did everything we could to stop this.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, we have had three bills introduced in the same session on achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, which I think sends a powerful message about how we need to do what is necessary to reach that goal.

The time has come to take decisive action to combat climate change. Canada needs climate change legislation that is rooted in the principles of good governance, guided by transparency, accountability, equity and, most importantly, science.

I commend and thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for this bill. I also appreciate the references to indigenous nations and the consideration given to indigenous knowledge. For example, we can learn a lot from New Zealand's experience of considering indigenous knowledge and incorporating the Maori people's good governance of the ocean into its policies. Government stakeholders worked in conjunction with Maori organizations and partners to develop the seven principles for ecosystem-based management for this shared governance.

I will now get back to Canada and the importance of protecting biodiversity in our fight against climate change. I cannot resist saying a few words about the large number of programs for indigenous peoples that involve promoting and developing projects that pollute and harm the environment instead of focusing on forward-looking and innovative plans for the future.

Relations between the Crown and Canada's first nations are a topical issue. Reconciliation is a profound and vital act. In order to achieve it, we must listen to first nations' environmental concerns and welcome their contributions. Nothing productive will come of always portraying their environmental concerns as those of opponents.

We recognize that indigenous peoples' knowledge of the land is extremely relevant in managing ecosystems and protecting biodiversity. In that regard, we must not just integrate the indigenous fact into a climate law for aesthetic reasons in order to ease our conscience. The intention must be firm and sincere. Experts have done a great deal of work, but unfortunately it has not translated into political action or legal commitments. The government could start by providing access to safe drinking water.

That being said, the Bloc Québécois agrees with the principles and objectives set out in Bill C-232. Just today, March 11, 2021, Quebec began honouring the victims of COVID-19, but let us look at what has happened over the past year.

Unfortunately, over the past year, the government has done a lot to help the fossil fuel industry, rather than to fight climate change.

According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development's 2020 report, subsidies for fossil fuels neared $5 billion.

The government made promises during the election campaign and once it was in power, but it has not acted on those promises. Whatever happened to the modernization of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act? What about the two billion trees that are supposed to be planted? What have they done to intensify climate action? What is their plan to end government support for the fossil fuel sector?

The Bloc Québécois has always taken a strong stance on environmental protection and the fight against climate change and what must be done to reverse Canada's unfortunate trajectory. Why not show the people that their elected representatives are committed to fighting climate change by being honest about the facts and pragmatic about the solutions available to us? Does Canada not want to preserve what is left of its international reputation for its efforts to fight climate change?

Every economy around the world is struggling, and everything has been disrupted, but many countries are responding with determination and resilience. The Canadian government should pay close attention to countries that are making progress.

It will certainly be crucial for the current and future governments not to drag their feet. In the challenge we are facing, maintaining the status quo would actually be a step backwards. What we really need is to leap ahead.

That is why bills introduced by the opposition parties must be taken into consideration. In that sense, Bill C-232, much like its companion legislation, Bill C-215 introduced by the Bloc Québécois, would benefit just as much from being improved if it is to be considered a legislative framework. Bill C-232 falls somewhere in between, since it is neither an action plan nor a proposed legislative framework. It is a halfway point and needs to be completed. I say that as a point of constructive feedback.

Here are some examples of the clarifications needed.

Clause 4 states that the minister must develop an action framework in consultation with indigenous peoples and civil society. Providing for that kind of consultation is appropriate, but the details of that need to be specified. Public consultation should be supplementary to the consideration of expert opinions. It should include elements that are ultimately incorporated into framework climate legislation.

Dedicating a section to targets is good. The strength of the bill is that it includes the target, specifies it and clearly states that meeting the target is mandatory. It should also clearly outline the policies it proposes, and they must correspond to the area of federal jurisdiction and not that of the provinces. Environmental policy is largely the responsibility of the provincial governments, and successfully fighting climate change depends in large part on the policies of and actions taken by Quebec and the provinces.

Measures for transitioning to a green economy also need to be incorporated. The Bloc Québécois's green and fair recovery plan can be used as a model. I want to be positive and give members something to think about by raising the experience of the United Kingdom, which is garnering a lot of attention, and rightly so. The success of its climate legislation is measurable, and the outcomes have been analyzed. I want to share with my colleagues some important observations.

The success of the United Kingdom's climate change act has been attributed to several factors. However, experts have emphasized the benefits of including the action plan within the text of the legislation. Why? Because doing so lends legitimacy to the act, makes it easier to understand and increases the support of civil society, economic and social stakeholders, and political actors at all levels. That is what ensures long-term stability. The legislation thus becomes permanent and there is less risk of backtracking at the whim of successive governments.

To critics of such an approach who may fear that it would weaken the legislator's prerogatives, I will point out that it is possible to strike a balance between policy directions and the different levels of precision or flexibility of a plan. The United Kingdom has done it, and has even inspired other states to try to do the same.

A recent poll was done of people, mostly elected officials, who were involved in the legislative process. They acknowledged that the U.K. climate change committee owed its success to its independence. They noted that having directions and recommendations from a pool of experts on every legislative aspect contributed to a political consensus. Why? Because the work was done by independent voices and that makes it credible. The elected members found that what had been communicated allowed them to better understand the issues and come up with better solutions. They added that once impartiality was established and in the absence of political or other interests, collaboration and consensus followed.

The United Kingdom has seen its greenhouse gas emissions drop by 28% since 2010, while securing economic growth of nearly 19%. During the same period, Canada had similar results in economic growth, but saw its emissions increase by 3%.

Several observations can be made to show that Canada's climate governance is not working. A healthy climate governance, one that works and is proven to meet targets, requires projects to be assessed annually. Second, the government needs to be required to table a response to the annual report. Third, the interim objectives have to be set long in advance. Finally, the recommendations have to be evidence-based.

In closing, I want to say that, in a spirit of co-operation and working for the common good, a climate law needs to be ambitious. What is more, the government must not ignore what the opposition parties are saying. Let us get motivated. We will get there.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Northern Affairs]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to the bill this evening. I have been following the debate in the legislature today, and I can honestly say that it was a tremendous debate.

I rise today to speak to Bill C-232, an act respecting a Climate Emergency Action Framework, sponsored by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. This private member's bill demonstrates the importance of climate action for all Canadians and highlights the urgency of the situation. I thank its sponsor for putting it forward in the House today and supporting our government's initiatives to address climate change.

Canadians know that climate change threatens our health, and it certainly threatens our way of life and our planet. That is why we need climate action and we need it now. That is what our government will continue to do.

Last September, the Government of Canada made a commitment in the Speech from the Throne to bring forward a plan to exceed Canada's 2030 target and to legislate Canada's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. We all know that net-zero emissions by 2050 is an ambitious target, but we also know that it is a necessary target, which is the reason we are moving forward.

Scientists tells us that if we are to keep global warming under a 1.5°C temperature increase and avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must reach net zero by 2050. They have not given us options; they have really given us firm and solid direction.

Establishing this target in legislation has signalled our government's commitment to taking leadership and real action on climate change and to meet Canada's obligations under the Paris Agreement as well. It was with that goal in mind that the Minister of Environment and Climate Change introduced Bill C-12, the Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act. We are all familiar with that act and what is being proposed in Bill C-12.

We know that the act is a key component of the government's plan to achieve net-zero emissions in the economy by 2050. It would put in place a clear framework for reaching net zero by requiring the minister of the environment to set national targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Those national targets would be set at five-year intervals: for 2030, 2035, 2040 and 2045. The act would also contain an emissions-reduction plan that would encompass important information such as a description of the key emissions-reduction measures the Government of Canada intends to take to achieve the target for a particular milestone year. In addition, it would explain how the target and the key measures and strategies in the plan would contribute to Canada's achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Therefore, we are excited to be moving forward with Bill C-12 .

It would require progress reports. There would be investment reports to check on the progress that is being made and, of course, adjust course as needed along the way. The minister of environment and climate change would prepare at least one progress report relating to each of these milestones in consultation with other federal ministers. The report would also provide updates on the progress toward relevant targets and on the implementation of those federal measures, including any relevant sectoral strategies and federal government operational strategies described in the emissions-reduction plan.

The government must also provide an assessment report for each target, which is a very important piece of this as well. That report would contain a summary of Canada's official greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the relevant milestone year and a statement on whether the government had achieved its targets. As members can see, also included in that would be additional information about any adjustments that might have to be made.

The reason I am outlining all of this is that Bill C-12 provides for further accountability and transparency by requiring the minister to include information about why Canada did not meet the targets and what actions the Government of Canada is taking or will take to address those missed targets. It would also require that the report be prepared no later than 30 days after the government submits its official greenhouse gas inventory reports in accordance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and with the relevant milestone year, or to 2050. We recognize, as a government, how important transparency is and how essential it is to hold governments accountable, whether it is our government today or any government in future generations. All emissions reduction plans, progress reports and assessment reports would be made available to the public once they are tabled in Parliament.

To help ensure that Canadians have the best advice when it comes to the environment and climate change, we believe that Bill C-12 would establish those precedents for Canadians. Also, under Bill C-12, we will establish an independent advisory body. Indeed, back in February, just last month, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change announced the creation of this advisory body and nominated 14 Canadians to serve on that committee. They will provide the minister with advice on the most promising pathways to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, drawing on research and analysis and engagement. We expect that this advice will reflect the priorities and ideas that are being shared by all Canadians.

This evening we are dealing with private member's Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework. The bill aims to legislate government's commitments under the United Nation framework on climate change, which I just mentioned, particularly its 2030 GHG emissions reduction target, while also complying with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It would require the Minister of Environment to implement a climate emergency action framework in consultation with indigenous peoples and civil society, and to table in Parliament a report of the framework within one year and a report on its effectiveness within three years.

Very clearly, Bill C-232 echoes the priorities that our government has already established. That said, Bill C-12, the Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act, would actually go even further than what is being proposed in the private member's bill before us, because it would provide a stronger framework for achieving Canada's climate change plan by fixing, in legislation, the government's ultimate goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. It would create a transparent engagement mechanism for setting those targets and developing the emissions reduction plan and assessing the progress made towards achieving these targets.

Bill C-12 would also create an independent advisory party that would provide advice on the most promising pathway to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and it would give a reporting role to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainability, two components that the private member's bill we are debating this evening does not include.

Bill C-12 is new and an essential component of the government's overall approach to climate change. Recently, the Government of Canada released “A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy” report, which is the federal plan to build a better future with a healthier economy and environment. This plan builds on the work that has been done to date and the efforts that are already under way. It will enable us to exceed our current 2030 emissions reduction target under the Paris Agreement.

While many of the themes presented in Bill C-232 echo the priorities our government has set out, we will not be supporting the bill, because we will be advancing Bill C-12, which, as I said, goes further. It encompasses an advisory committee, it would make the minister fully accountable and would establish broader regulations for transparency and the need for such transparency and disclosure to the public.

What I will say to the member is that I am encouraged to see her coming forward and supporting action on climate change and recognizing—

The House resumed from December 4, 2020 consideration of the motion that Bill C-232, An Act respecting a Climate Emergency Action Framework, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Climate Change Accountability Act

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to start by congratulating my colleague, the member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, for putting forward her first private member's bill, Bill C-215.

The climate emergency is the greatest existential threat of our time, and we are running out of time. Executive director Inger Andersen of the UN Environment Programme stated, “The science is clear that if we keep exploiting wildlife and destroying our ecosystems, then we can expect to see a steady stream of these diseases jumping from animals to humans in the years ahead.” There is a direct correlation between the climate emergency and the current pandemic in which we find ourselves. She went on to say, “To prevent future outbreaks, we must become much more deliberate about protecting our natural environment.”

It is clear that climate accountability and climate action are essential to preventing future pandemics. It is clear that without acting on this emergency, we will increasingly experience food and water insecurity, income crises, conflict and, even further, global conflict. The infinite cost of climate change will continue to rise unless we act now.

The climate emergency poses a serious threat to our environment, economy, health and safety. At the forefront of this issue are indigenous peoples. The government has even acknowledged that. In fact, a preamble paragraph in Bill C-15 states:

Whereas the implementation of the Declaration can contribute to supporting sustainable development and responding to growing concerns relating to climate change and its impacts on Indigenous peoples

This is in reference to the full adoption and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The impacts of this crisis are already being felt in Canada, particularly in the Arctic and along our beautiful coasts. It is disproportionately impacting indigenous nations, rural communities and marginalized and racialized communities. This is what we call environmental racism. Indigenous and northern communities, farmers, food producers and others have been sounding alarms about the impact of climate change on ecosystems, but this has fallen on the deaf ears of consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments, which have failed in their duty to protect our beautiful mother earth.

We know that the climate emergency is now impacting our food security, and indigenous people across our lands are among the most impacted. It is disrupting traditional ways of life and food security, especially in remote northern communities, where the climate is warming at a much faster rate, which is impacting traditional food sources.

Not only that, when we take away people's sustenance, we force them to find other ways to acquire food. We force remote communities to rely on expensive imported food alternatives, leaving individuals to afford only the unhealthy food options. This has a negative impact on health, so it is not surprising that there is a correlation between physical wellness and the impacts of the climate emergency.

In addition, it goes beyond just climate to include the kind of violence and the increased rates of violence against indigenous women and girls that come as a result of resource extraction projects that bring workers into our communities. They are perpetrating violence against indigenous women and girls, a crisis that was confirmed in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. We need to act now to respond to the calls for justice.

Indigenous people have experienced the greatest impacts of the climate emergency, so it is not surprising that many indigenous peoples from across this country, even as we speak in the House today, are on the front lines to fight against the climate emergency.

Reconciliation and fundamental indigenous rights, the rights that are articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, go hand in hand with environmental justice. With all due respect to my colleague, the fact that she did not even mention the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in her bill is shocking.

Not only that, but I think we see the impacts of climate change on emotional health, particularly the emotional health of young people who are fighting to keep our world healthy. People are tired of governments committing to targets and then missing them again and again. We are running out of time to turn things around.

With Bill C-12, we will not be on track to meet our international climate obligations. We need an action plan that honours our international climate commitments and obligations. We need a plan that addresses the urgency of the climate emergency.

Although the current government proposed Bill C-12, the Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act, it is not consistent with agreements we have made with the international community. For example, there is no target for 2025 and there are no real accountability measures for the next 10 years, even though we know the next decade will be the most critical.

The accountability mechanisms, including the advisory committee, are weak and rely on the environment commissioner, whose office is already underfunded. We will not achieve climate justice without accountability, so it was surprising to me that although there are many good parts in the bill, the accountability measures put far too much power in the hands of ministers, who have a history of destroying our environment and not taking environmental stewardship seriously.

The NDP has a long history of pushing for greater accountability of government for its actions to fight climate change. I put forward, for example, Bill C-232, which provided a clear accountability framework and called on the federal government to take all measures necessary to address the climate emergency. For the first time, a piece of legislation pushed forward a clean, safe and healthy environment as a human right that would be enshrined in law with the federal environmental bill of rights.

We have other examples, such as Linda Duncan, Jack Layton and Megan Leslie.

We need to work together to push forward a bold climate agenda. We are running out of time.

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague talked about having a bold agenda, and the NDP has actually been doing that in real time.

I wonder if the member supports Bill C-213, the pharmacare bill we put forward; Motion No. 46, which would guarantee a livable income and dental care; and certainly Bill C-232, my private member's bill that supports a bold climate agenda. It is a climate action emergency framework that is about bold work. The NDP is doing it in real time.

National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism Act

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank, again, the member for Cumberland—Colchester for bringing forward this important issue in the House.

Environmental racism is a huge, but often ignored, problem. In fact, many people are unfamiliar with the concept. As she mentioned, before becoming an MP, I taught a course that focused on environmental racism, and I had my students read the provincial bill that the member for Cumberland—Colchester put forward when she was a New Democrat member in the provincial legislature. It is such an important topic and such an important bill. I was disappointed that it never passed provincially, but I am hopeful that we can move this forward federally.

Across Canada, toxic dumps, polluting projects, risky pipelines, tainted drinking water and the effects of the climate crisis disproportionately hurt indigenous, Black, and racialized communities. Systemic discrimination has been embedded into environmental policy-making, along with the uneven enforcement of regulations and laws, the targeting of indigenous, Black and racialized communities for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants, and the exclusion of these communities from the decision-making process.

We also need to think about this in the context of the fact that we export our waste to countries, predominantly in the global south, and it is often racialized communities that are experiencing the impacts of this toxic pollution. I support the bill, and I believe we need to take urgent action on environmental justice. I would also like to see the right to a healthy environment enshrined in law through an environmental bill of rights.

Environmental racism in Canada is well documented. It is a direct result of the historic and ongoing impacts of colonization. Many have seen the documentary, There’s Something in the Water, that was referenced. It is based on the report to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO by Dr. Ingrid Waldron. In that documentary, the highlighting of the stories of indigenous and Black communities in Nova Scotia fighting for environmental justice is poignant and powerful.

After visiting Canada in 2019, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes wrote, “I observed a pervasive trend of inaction of the Canadian Government in the face of existing health threats from decades of historical and current environmental injustices”. A report submitted to the Human Rights Council just this September stated that, “Pollution and exposure to toxic chemicals threaten the right to life, and a life with dignity,” and that, “the invisible violence inflicted by toxics is an insidious burden disproportionately borne by Indigenous peoples in Canada.”

It is so clear that we have a problem of systemic racism that our government is doing little to nothing to address. In the absence of government action or legislation, and often excluded from the leadership of mainstream environmental movements, indigenous and racialized communities and their allies have been demanding environmental justice, demanding their rights and demanding to be heard. They have recently had some success in the halting of environmentally hazardous projects in their communities, through community organizing, petition signing and civil disobedience, but they should not have to fight not to be poisoned by the air they breathe or the water they drink.

Negative health impacts caused by toxic exposures compound other existing inequalities and the challenges that indigenous and other racialized groups face: low income, poverty, underemployment, unemployment, food insecurity and poor access to health care. All of these things, in addition to more direct impacts on human health, impact environmental racism, which destroys natural environments, causing the loss of access to traditional food sources and cultural practices.

This disproportionate exposure to toxic substances also contributes to indigenous and racialized people in Canada being locked into a vicious, intergenerational cycle of poverty. The manifestation of illness due to exposure to heavy metals in turn leads to reduced income and reduced earning potential. Lower incomes and poverty are significant factors for why households from racialized communities are less likely than white households to be able to leave environmentally hazardous communities.

Many of us recognize the names of communities that have been devastated by toxic pollution, but what could have been done to stop it?

In the Chemical Valley, there are 62 large industrial facilities, or about 40% of Canada’s petrochemical industry. They operate within a few kilometres of Sarnia and the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, exposing community members to a range of harmful pollutants causing increased rates of asthma, reproductive effects, learning disabilities and cancer.

There is Grassy Narrows, where ongoing mercury poisoning, first discovered in 1970, has had devastating health effects and contaminated the water and the fish the community relied on.

There is Boat Harbour, where an effluent treatment facility for the Northern Pulp mill was built and operated by the provincial government near Pictou Landing First Nation in Nova Scotia. It turned a quiet estuary and fertile hunting and fishing ground into a highly toxic site.

Let us not forget to mention what is maybe the most famous example of environmental racism: Africville.

This is not just about communities that have become infamous sites of toxic pollution. In urban areas across Canada, 25% of the lowest socio-economic status neighbourhoods, which are disproportionally home to racialized people, are within one kilometre of a major polluting industrial facility, compared with just 7% of the wealthiest neighbourhoods, where white families are more likely to live. This results in elevated risks of hospitalization for respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses.

Climate change is taking a disproportionate toll on indigenous peoples. Canada is warming at twice the global rate and northern Canada at about three times the global rate, depleting traditional food sources, driving up the cost of imported alternatives and contributing to a growing problem of food insecurity and related negative health impacts. However, indigenous communities have been fighting back. They have been resilient in the face of this injustice. Canada is not adequately supporting the efforts of indigenous peoples to adapt to the climate crisis and is failing to do its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples needs to be enshrined in law. I am glad to see the government finally tabling a piece of legislation on UNDRIP, but I am concerned its bill is watered down compared with what many indigenous organizers and people across Canada have been fighting for. We need to take into account indigenous science and knowledge in relation to the environment and its protection.

I also want to talk about the right to a healthy environment. The top recommendation of the UN Human Rights Council in September 2020 was for Canada to recognize in law the right to a healthy environment. Over 150 countries have legal obligations to protect the human right to a healthy environment. Although there are environmental bills of rights in Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, as well as provincial and territorial laws that address environmental rights, there is no federal law that explicitly recognizes the right to a healthy environment in Canada. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, CEPA, does not include any reference to environmental justice, human rights or vulnerable populations. It is 20 years out of date and badly needs updating.

For many years, my New Democrat colleagues have been advocating for an environmental bill of rights. I want to recognize former NDP MP Linda Duncan, who put forward the bill, and my NDP colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, who introduced Bill C-232, which calls for the recognition of the right of all Canadians to a safe, clean and healthy environment, grounded in a commitment to upholding the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We remain committed to implementing an environmental bill of rights and strengthening CEPA to better protect Canadians from toxic substances.

We broadly support the bill and the need to take urgent action toward environmental justice. We need to address the disproportionate environmental impacts felt by indigenous, Black and racialized communities. The bill stipulates that the strategy must include measures to address environmental racism, including compensation for individuals or communities and ongoing funding for affected communities—

Climate Emergency Action Act

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak today in support of the member for Winnipeg Centre and her bill, Bill C-232, which would guarantee all Canadians the right to a clean, safe, healthy environment and would provide for a climate emergency action framework, a tool for accountability for those most impacted by climate change.

This is a critical framework for all transformative climate action policies, including a green new deal, and it would ensure we uphold our responsibilities toward future generations. The bill explicitly outlines the critical importance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Canada's climate response, and would require the government to consult meaningfully with indigenous peoples and communities and civil society.

The NDP has a long history of calling for accountability on the climate crisis, leading the way with Jack Layton's climate change accountability act in 2006. Jack's bill passed in the House, but was killed by the unelected Senate.

We have also been long calling for the full implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and for upholding the right to free, prior and informed consent for indigenous peoples. In particular, I want to recognize the work of former MP Romeo Saganash in bringing forward legislation on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the House of Commons, as well as the work of my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre. It is because of their work and the work of indigenous and grassroots organizers from coast to coast to coast that we saw an important step forward this week with the tabling of a government bill on the declaration.

New Democrats have also long called for the right to a healthy environment to be enshrined in law, and the bill continues and builds on that critical work to uphold human rights.

The climate emergency poses a serious threat to our environment, to our economy and to our health and safety, and Canadians are tired of governments committing to targets and then missing them again and again. We are running out of time. We are not on track to meet our international climate obligations. We need an action plan that honours our international climate commitments and obligations. We need an action plan that addresses the urgency of the climate crisis, and we need to ground that plan and that action in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Liberals have acknowledged the climate emergency, but their current plan in no way will achieve our international commitments. The Prime Minister claims to be a climate leader, but he keeps handing out billions of dollars to fossil fuel companies. He declared a climate emergency and then, the very next day, approved and bought a pipeline.

The government recently introduced Bill C-12, the Canadian net-zero accountability act. The Liberals' bill is a step in the right direction, but it would not adequately ensure that we are doing everything we can to address the climate crisis. They promised five-year milestone targets but then left out 2025, so there is no real accountability measure for the next 10 years even though we know the next decade is the most critical. The accountability mechanisms in the Liberals' bill, including the advisory committee, are weak and they rely on the environment commissioner, whose office is already underfunded.

It is important that any legislation on accountability is paired with significant investments in a just and sustainable recovery plan that will support workers, families and communities with training and good jobs, creating a more affordable life while tackling the climate crisis.

There is no climate accountability without climate action. Despite some nice words about a green recovery, the Prime Minister has just rehashed his inadequate climate plan from last year's campaign, while many countries like Germany and France are releasing bold plans to kick-start a sustainable economy and a sustainable recovery. Even President-elect Joe Biden announced a $2-trillion economic stimulus plan, heavily focused on climate-related investments.

Far from being a climate leader, Canada is being left behind. We need a just transition to a low-carbon economy that brings workers along. We need to stop handing out billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies and, instead, invest in a sustainable economy that will create good, family-sustaining jobs across the country.

There are a ton of gaps in the government's bill, Bill C-12. One critical gap is that it mentions the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but the bill is not actually grounded in a framework of upholding these rights and also in upholding the right to a healthy environment.

The impacts of the climate crisis are already being felt in Canada, particularly in the Arctic and along the coast, and are disproportionately impacting indigenous nations, rural communities, marginalized and racialized communities. We know that extreme weather events are continuing to worsen and are creating conditions where the occurrence of intense wildfires, flooding, droughts and heat waves are increasing both in frequency and in intensity. Indigenous and northern communities, farmers and food producers and others have been sounding the alarm about the impacts of climate change on our ecosystems.

The climate emergency is threatening our food security. It is threatening indigenous peoples across Canada, and they often are the most impacted.

Indigenous peoples are among the most impacted by the climate emergency, including disrupting traditional ways of life and food security, especially in the north, which we know is warming at a much faster rate. This has driven up the cost for imported food alternatives, leaving individuals with only being able to afford unhealthy food options, which contributes to greater food security and negative impacts on health, which can have a vicious cycle effect. The climate emergency has significantly impacted the traditional territories of indigenous peoples and, in turn, has impacted their livelihoods.

The national inquiry has also noted an increased rate of violence against indigenous women and girls by workers who are being housed in extractive industry work camps. The severity of this crisis was confirmed in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls with a need to act within the calls for justice.

Risks to indigenous nations increase with the severity of the global climate emergency and indigenous people have experienced the impacts of the climate crisis for generations and are most often the ones on the front lines, fighting for the protection of lands and resources. Indigenous science and knowledge provides a complex understanding about how to address the climate crisis and it is critical for developing a climate emergency action framework.

Canada's nation-to-nation relationship with indigenous peoples must be respected under the framework, among others, of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Liberals say that they support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but they have failed to engage meaningfully in consultation with indigenous peoples and accommodate the concerns raised across Canada, including failing to obtain free, prior and informed consent.

Reconciliation and environmental justice must go hand in hand or, as my colleague said in her speech, there is no reconciliation without justice. There is now a widespread consensus that human rights norms apply to environmental issues, including the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The lack of a legal right to a healthy environment has a direct impact on indigenous and racialized communities in Canada and people from coast to coast to coast. More than 150 countries in the world have recognized that particular human right and it is time for Canada to step up to follow their lead.

The NDP is calling on the government to live up to our international obligations, including the United Nations convention on climate change, the Paris agreement and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to recognize the right to a healthy environment as a human right.

The New Democrats want to move forward with a green new deal that supports the human rights of all people, while investing in a just and sustainable recovery that brings workers along. Bill C-232 would provide a clear path forward by calling on the Government of Canada to take all measures necessary to address the climate emergency. For the first time, the right to a clean, healthy and safe environment would be enshrined in law. The government would be accountable for implementing a climate action emergency framework that would respect human rights and this framework would save lives, mitigate the impacts of the climate emergency on public health and the natural environment.

This would be an important and transformative step to uphold fundamental human rights and protect a healthy environment for future generations.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a great pleasure for me to speak to the environment and climate change, and I think we need to do so as much as possible in this forum.

I welcome this initiative by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, who introduced a bill on the climate emergency. She and I have had an opportunity to discuss it, and we certainly agree on how important it is for the government to legislate on its climate action. We cannot say it often enough: We are in the midst of a climate crisis, and the government must go beyond good intentions and rhetoric and come up with a truly binding action plan to force the hand of all stakeholders and industries so they take concrete action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

This urgency can be felt everywhere. In my region, the last few days have served as quite a reality check. Last Tuesday, we saw the flow of the Nouvelle River in the Gaspé Peninsula in my riding increase from 20 cubic metres per second to 470 cubic metres per second in just a few hours. Many of my constituents' homes flooded, and roads and culverts in the area were damaged by rivers whose banks overflowed due to the thaw and heavy rains.

These heavy winter rains will become more frequent and intense. A study conducted by researchers at Université Laval shows that damage from flooding caused by ice jams could increase by an average of 30% in the coming years due to climate change. Within the next 50 years, flood damage could increase by about 50% on the Matane river and 75% on the Matapédia river, two rivers in my riding. Passing a bill like Bill C-232 that implements a climate emergency action framework is very important.

The Bloc Québécois subscribes to the general principles and objectives of this bill, including the transition to a green economy, a fair transition, respect for indigenous rights, as well as taking public health and social justice into consideration in efforts to fight climate change. I have to say that the concept of social justice is paramount, as our colleague from Winnipeg Centre pointed out.

One important theme, climate justice, keeps coming up more and more. Climate justice goes back to the idea that the current climate crisis is not just tied to a scientific phenomenon, because it has social, economic and political roots and consequences. What we need to keep in mind is that the climate crisis will not affect all of us equally, simply because we do not all have the same financial, technical and material means to cope with it.

Requiring climate justice means demanding that governments honour their international commitments and take tangible measures to ensure that the burden of this crisis does not rest solely on the least fortunate members of our society. Currently, some 100 million people live in areas that are below sea level. Some are protected by levees, but most have no protection, which is a flagrant example of climate injustice.

Climate change has the potential to reshape cities, economies, shorelines and entire regions of the world, but we need to be asking ourselves the following question: How effectively will coastal protections be able to preserve our coastlines, and for how much longer? Since 2006, the oceans have been rising about four millimetres a year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, better known as IPCC, has revealed a rather compelling piece of information. The IPCC says that this rate could increase 100-fold if greenhouse gas emissions remain unchanged.

Inuit villages in northern Quebec are at risk of disappearing, being swallowed up by high tides or mud as the permafrost melts. Heat waves, drought, flooding, tornadoes, exceptionally high tides and shoreline erosion are increasingly common and are affecting vulnerable populations the most. These vulnerable populations have been exposed to 475 million additional heat wave events around the world, translating to increased morbidity and mortality rates.

According to the most recent report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change, the last 20 years have seen an increase of almost 54% in heat-related mortality in people older than 65, and this high cost in terms of human lives and suffering is associated with effects on economic output, with 302 billion hours of potential labour capacity lost in 2019. That is significant.

The links between the planet's health and human health are increasingly obvious. According to scientists, by 2030, several parts of Quebec will be partially or completely under water, such as Sainte-Flavie, in my riding, the Magdalen Islands, Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, areas around Lac des Deux Montagnes, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, the North Shore, Mauricie and even parts of the national capital.

It is worrisome when we start to see tangible connections between climate change and its effects on our communities. That is why the federal government must immediately implement measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and these measures must consider the most vulnerable populations, which are the first to suffer the consequences of climate change.

Unfortunately, the most developed countries have reached an impasse in their discussions on climate change, but stricter regulations obviously need to be put in place. We are therefore wondering why these countries do not impose greenhouse gas reduction targets on certain industries. It seems rather ridiculous to me that the government believes that it can gently encourage businesses to behave ethically. A drastic change is needed. It will take governments that have the courage to act.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, the Bloc Québécois subscribes to the general principles and objectives of Bill C-232. However, unlike the Bloc Québécois's climate change bill, Bill C-215, that I introduced in the House on November 4, Bill C-232 does not require the current or future governments to set greenhouse gas reduction targets. It also does not provide for the setting of interim targets and does not hold the government responsible or accountable for meeting those targets. There are two elements that are key to climate legislation: reduction targets and accountability mechanisms. That is fundamental.

Canada's international commitments under the Paris Agreement must be enshrined in Canadian legislation to make them mandatory. We must not only raise our targets, but also require the government to announce all the measures it intends to take to reach them. The Minister of the Environment must implement an action plan that satisfies the requirements of genuinely binding climate legislation without delay.

Without detracting from what is good about Bill C-232, it could be considerably improved by setting out mechanisms and tools to ensure that Canada's climate action and its international climate objectives are aligned.

The time to act is now. If Bill C-232 is to serve as framework climate legislation, it must include elements that are essential to framework climate legislation. It is as simple as that.

Just this past Wednesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres deplored humanity's suicidal war with nature. He said that “making peace with nature” must be every person on this planet's absolute priority in the 21st century.

As we all know, the latest climate news is not good. According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2020 is on track to be one of the hottest years ever recorded.

If we do not take immediate action, it will be much more difficult and costly to adapt to the future impacts of these changes. The government seems much more interested in the financial impact than the climate impact, so it would be well advised to act now to save money in the future.

The government talks about achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 without knowing how, exactly, it will do so. I suggest that we start with fossil fuels. According to the UN Environment Programme, governments need to act now to decrease fossil fuel production by 6% per year to limit catastrophic global warming.

It is all well and good to contribute to these efforts on an individual and local basis, but it is clear that the main catalyst for change will be at the government level, through laws and regulations. The government has a responsibility to lead by example.

Furthermore, we are now experiencing a health crisis at the same time as this climate crisis. The health crisis is forcing governments to invest billions of dollars in the economic recovery. This recovery should not come at the expense of the climate emergency, but instead in conjunction with the emergency, with a focus on transitioning to a green economy.

Canada must stop its efforts to stimulate the economic recovery by subsidizing the fossil fuel industries. We must prevent the economic recovery from having a rebound effect of an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. To that end, we must invest instead in sectors that reduce our impact on the environment and that will have a positive long-term economic effect on our communities.

I will close by stating that the Bloc Québécois will always be the first to want to pass legislation on the climate emergency. Bill C-232 is a good step. However, to truly respond to the climate emergency, it would be much more responsible to pass framework legislation, like my Bill C-215, which would require the federal government to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets in accordance with its international commitments. That is essential.

We no longer have the means to postpone the fight against climate change. The emergency is real and the physical and economic health of our population is at stake.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have always really enjoyed Private Members' Business. To hear the ideas and passions of members is always an important part of how one member of Parliament can make a huge difference to his or her riding and to our country. Ideas can draw attention to an issue not yet contemplated by the government or present an innovative approach to a vaccine public policy problem. While they can be extremely divisive or sometimes bring people together, they are certainly good for our democracy and our way of life.

Indeed, when the member's of the third party voted with the minority government to shut down this place earlier this year, my first thought was this: Why would they deprive their members of the critically needed time for Private Members' Business? That said, I am not a member of the fourth party and I trust they were happy with that decision.

Moving to Bill C-232, I must confess to feeling a bit like I am in the movie Groundhog Day, although I will say that with so many Manitoba MPs speaking today, I guess we could call it “Winnipeg Day”. I say that because what Bill C-232 proposes is very similar to what the Liberal government's Bill C-12 proposes. I do realize there are some key differences, though, as I did in the debate on Bill C-12 when I referenced the history of where Canada is at.

We know that, in 1993, former Liberal minister Jean Chrétien promised to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1988 levels by 2005.

We know that Liberal promise was broken. We also know that, in 1997, Prime Minister Chrétien signed the Kyoto protocol, this time promising to reduce our emissions to just 6% below 1990 levels.

We know that, in 2006, when the Liberals were elected, Canada was 30% above those levels, and we know that Prime Minister Harper had to withdraw Canada from the Kyoto protocol because we would not achieve those binding objectives.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not point out that, at the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, Prime Minister Harper followed the United States' lead, signing a non-binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.

After the 2015 election, the Prime Minister sent the largest Canadian delegation ever to the Paris climate change conference at a cost of over $1 million. Canada was back, he said.

We know while in Paris, despite often criticizing the former Harper government, ultimately the Liberal government adopted those same targets it said would be a minimum. Of course, we all know today the Liberal government has massively failed to reach that so-called minimum. In fact, some reports suggest the Liberal government may be off the target by 123 million tonnes.

Obviously that is why we are here today debating this bill and why last week it was Bill C-12. Bill C-12 was quite fascinating from a political perspective. It literally kicks the can so far down the road that it will be up to future governments, and ultimately the government of the day in 2050, to deal with it. How do we get there? There is no road map, no solutions and no costs or penalties for failure. There is more of the same, more promises to do better down the road. They promise.

However, that is enough about Bill C-12.

Bill C-232 proposes that, at a minimum, Canada meet the 2030 targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions set under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Much like Bill C-12, this bill does not say anything at all about how this will actually be done. The underlying promise of every federal government to date has been a return to the targets set by Mr. Chrétien in 1993. It is easy to make promises about targets, but not as easy to meet them.

To be frank, I do not think that we will need both Bill C-232 and Bill C-12 going forward. One of them will be enough. To end the suspense, I will be clear and say that I already support Bill C-12. I will not support Bill C-232 as it now stands, and I will explain why.

It is not realistic to have two different regimes as we would have if this bill were passed in addition to Bill C-12. In my view, we need to ensure that industry and innovation are part of the solution.

One of the things that the Liberals' recent fiscal update proposed, and that I agree with, is funding for the home energy efficiency retrofit program. While Liberals have largely been silent on other climate-related measures, we do know that the Minister of Natural Resources has spoken about the future of hydrogen fuel cells. He has also referenced the potential for small modular nuclear reactors. This is important because we have to recognize that more electric vehicles in our future means we will need more low-emission power.

As I have mentioned previously, I can get excited as the critic for this portfolio when we can use innovation, instead of taxation, to lower our emissions. Why do I say that? It is because taxation, also known as a carbon tax or what Liberals prefer to say, a price on pollution, does not help a senior on a fixed income living in a 70-year-old home in winter temperatures that can drop well below -20°C. No senior should be forced to choose between monthly heating bills or groceries.

We also must be mindful that many rural communities simply do not have any public transit. B.C. has lost Greyhound as a private carrier. We cannot forget about these Canadians, and they should not disproportionately be faced to share a higher burden of the costs.

Before I conclude, I will give you another reason why I prefer the deadline set out in Bill C-12 over the one set out in Bill C-232. We cannot do this alone. Canada is just a small part of a global problem. We need to try to work with our biggest trade partner, the United States, in the hopes of achieving some parity when it comes to the policies and regulations that will help us to collectively reduce our emissions.

I say that because emissions are a global problem and yet climate change has had a devastating impact on many areas of my riding. Forest fires and flooding have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. Changing weather patterns have hit local agriculture very hard.

I am sure that other members of the House could share their own experiences in that regard.

Like Bill C-232, Bill C-12 is far from perfect, but we need to start somewhere and we need a realistic timeline.

I believe that Bill C-12 better reflects that over Bill C-232. As a result, I will be supporting Bill C-12 at second reading, but will not be supporting Bill C-232. I would like to again thank the member for putting forward an issue of debate close to her heart and to those in her riding, and I would also thank all members for taking the time to hear another point of view on this legislation today.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages (Western Economic Diversification Canada) and to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change (Canada Water Agency)]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the bill's sponsor, the member for Winnipeg Centre, and thank her for her advocacy on many important policy matters, including UNDRIP. I hope she will pass on my thanks and good wishes to her partner, Romeo Saganash, who of course played an instrumental role in UNDRIP in the last Parliament.

Her bill today speaks to an issue of urgency and importance that the government and Canadians also support: climate change. Canadians know climate change threatens our health, our way of life and our planet. They want climate action now and that is what the government will continue to deliver.

Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework, aims to legislate the government's commitments under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, particularly its 2030 GHG emissions reduction target, while also complying with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

It requires the Minister of the Environment to implement a climate emergency action framework in consultation with indigenous peoples and civil society, to table in Parliament a report on the framework within one year and a report on its effectiveness three years later.

Another private member's bill that we heard about a few moments ago, Bill C-215, an act respecting Canada’s fulfillment of its greenhouse gas emissions reduction obligations, aims to ensure that Canada fulfills its obligations under the Paris Agreement to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. The fact that these two private member's bills both relate to climate change and have been brought forward at this time by different MPs demonstrates the importance of this issue for all Canadians.

Canadians continue to face the impacts of climate change during the COVID-19 pandemic. From forest fires and floods to ocean pollution and coastal erosion, Canadians are experiencing the impacts of climate change each and every day. Canada's climate is warming twice as fast as the average in the rest of the world. In the north, warming is nearly three times as fast. The effects of warming are already evident in many parts of Canada, and are projected to intensify in the near future.

It is important to note that climate change is a global issue. The science is clear. We cannot wait for the future to stop polluting, or to take steps to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Climate change action must start now.

According to the 2018 special report “Global Warming of 1.5 °C”, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, human activities have already caused approximately 1 °C of average global warming since the pre-industrial period. This special report also finds that global emissions must reach carbon neutrality around 2050 to limit warming to 1.5 °C. This was an objective that was identified in the Paris Agreement.

There are clear benefits to limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 °C, rather than 2 °C or higher. The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of these findings, and agrees that more action is needed globally and here in Canada. Addressing the climate change issue requires effective policies that will measurably reduce Canada's GHG emissions over the decades to come, while promoting clean growth.

We are ready. We are ready to take the necessary and decisive action to advance Canada's fight against climate change. This September we made a commitment in the Speech from the Throne to bring forward a plan to exceed Canada's 2030 target and legislate Canada's goal of net zero emissions by 2050. We are committed to reaching net zero in a manner that creates a globally competitive economy. Reaching net zero is a long-term project, and importantly a short-term project as well. It is also a tremendous opportunity for a more prosperous and resilient future. Achieving net zero will require a careful calibration to reflect Canada's unique circumstances including demographics, geography, the importance of our traditional resource economy and shared jurisdiction on the environment.

As economies reset, now is the time to set into motion some of these measures. We can take into account the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the context of economic regrowth and the transition to a sustainable low-carbon economy. Yes, we can build back better.

We will seek the advice of experts and Canadians as we chart our path to net-zero emissions in a way that supports sustainable growth, is sensitive to economic needs across the country and makes life more affordable for Canadians. Net zero is not just a plan for our climate. Net zero is a plan for our economic competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Transforming our economy for the future is not something one government can or should do alone. It will take time. To get this right, we have a lot of work to do with industry leaders, civil society, indigenous communities and all Canadians.

In the coming year, the government will seek the advice of experts and will consult with Canadians to identify pathways to net zero that integrate its environmental, energy and economic objectives. We will seek input from Canadians on how Canada should innovate and transform our economy to ensure a just transition to a low-carbon economy.

That is why the Minister of Environment and Climate Change introduced, on November 19 in the House of Commons, Bill C-12, an act respecting transparency and accountability in Canada's efforts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, which is also known as the Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act.

This legislation would put in place a clear framework for reaching net zero. It would require the setting of national targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at five-year intervals, and it would ensure transparency and accountability through requirements for emission reduction plans, progress reports and assessment reports with respect to each target. Plans would contain important information, such as a description of the key emissions reduction measures the Government of Canada intends to take to achieve the target for a particular milestone year.

Clearly, many of the themes presented in both Bill C-215 and Bill C-232 echo our government priorities. I want to thank hon. members who I have seen in the House for their contributions. Bill C-12 aims to provide a stronger framework for achieving Canada's climate change plan, as it is not only a plan for our climate, but also a plan for our economic competitiveness in the global marketplace.

If we want to be competitive in the net-zero emissions economy of tomorrow, we must stay ahead of the pack. It is good news to see that the House is united in finding a legislative framework to get us there. Once again, I thank the member for bringing forward such an important topic. I look forward to further discussions on Canada achieving its climate targets.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

moved that Bill C-232, An Act respecting a Climate Emergency Action Framework, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share how honoured I am to be here today to share my first private member's bill as a member of Parliament. It is a very exciting day, for sure.

Close to 50 years ago, in 1972, the first international meeting on the environment took place where member states adopted the Stockholm declaration, which affirmed our responsibility to protect the environment for future generations. It is 2020. We have failed. We have failed in upholding this commitment and we now find ourselves in a climate crisis combined with a human rights crisis in our failure to recognize a clean, healthy and safe environment as a human right, something that has been recognized by 156 out of 193 member states.

Canada is far behind in the world in taking bold actions against the climate emergency. This climate emergency is threatening everything we know and value. Wildfires, flooding and extreme weather are worsening. The futures of our children's and grandchildren's lives are on the line. All life is now on the line and everything depends now on the actions we take.

The Canadian Paediatric Society indicates that children are among the most vulnerable to the health impacts of the climate crisis. Young people also report frequent experiences with anxiety related to their fears around the climate emergency. The reality is that this anxiety is based in fact. We are running out of time to turn things around.

Canada has not met a single climate target it has set. Young people, indigenous peoples and civil society groups want action and accountability from our government. The impacts of the climate crisis are already being felt in Canada, particularly in the Arctic and along the coasts, disproportionately impacting indigenous nations, rural communities and communities composed of people from marginalized and racialized groups.

The climate emergency has significantly impacted and destroyed the traditional territories of indigenous people, in turn, impacting livelihoods. This was noted by the current UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, as released in a report outlining how the lack of legal right to a healthy environment had a direct impact on indigenous peoples and racialized communities in Canada.

We are witnessing around the country that individuals, indigenous nations and young people want real action to address the climate crisis. I know our party, the New Democratic Party, shares this concern. This cannot be achieved without the recognition and respect of the fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples as affirmed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Canada's nation-to-nation relationship with indigenous peoples must be respected. There is no reconciliation in the absence of justice and this bill would be a step toward climate justice and upholding human rights, particularly with indigenous people, something the current Prime Minister indicated was the “most important relationship”.

People are tired of words. We are faced with the biggest existential threat, and yet we have a government that continues to fail to act, and continues to willfully violate the human rights of indigenous peoples on its own watch. There is no reconciliation in the absence of justice, and that also includes climate justice.

Moreover, indigenous women are experiencing the most direct impacts of the climate emergency. Their interests must be specifically considered under article 22 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states:

Particular attention shall be paid to the rights and special needs of indigenous elders, women, youth, children and persons with disabilities in the implementation of this Declaration.

It also states that:

States shall take measures, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, to ensure that indigenous women and children enjoy the full protection and guarantees against all forms of violence and discrimination.

It is important to note that the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls found that a direct correlation existed between an influx of transient workers, those who arrived mostly in isolated towns and cities from elsewhere to work in mines or industries like oil and gas, and hydro, and higher rates of sexual assault, harassment, STIs and human trafficking. A right to a healthy environment and human rights of women and girls is always interconnected. We are sisters, mothers, aunties and grandmothers. Our bodies and our lives are sacred, like our Mother Earth. The life she provides needs to be honoured, just like our women, girls, sisters, aunties and grandmothers who continue to face unimaginable violence for the purpose of economic gain. We are sacred beings.

In addition to women, girls and transgender people, indigenous peoples are among the most impacted by the climate emergency, which includes the disruption of traditional ways of life and food security, especially in the north, which is warming up at a much faster rate. This has given rise to higher costs for imported food alternatives, leaving individuals able to afford only unhealthy food options, which contributes to greater food insecurity and negative impacts on health. Indigenous people in Canada are among the lowest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the country, yet research indicates that they are the most impacted by the climate crisis.

Indigenous peoples have experienced the impacts of the climate crisis for generations and are most often the ones on the front lines fighting to protect our Mother Earth. I have joined them on those front lines. We must respect indigenous science and knowledge that provides a complex understanding about how to address the climate crisis, which is why it informs the development framework of Bill C-232.

Yesterday I was really happy to see the government introduce Bill C-15, an act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is why I am especially pleased to rise today to present my private member's Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework, the first test of the government's commitment to upholding the human rights articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Bill C-15 requires that all new legislation from this House be consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I am very proud to say that Bill C-232 is consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a bill that supports the development of a made-in-Canada, green, new deal that ensures that Canada takes all measures necessary to respect its commitments under the convention on climate change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and that it does so while fully complying with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

We have international commitments, as well, to fight the climate emergency and uphold human rights, and this includes the UN Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I cannot say that too many times.

This bill upholds these international agreements and recognizes the right of all Canadians to a safe, clean, healthy environment as a human right. There is widespread consensus that human rights norms apply to environmental issues, including the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. In fact, more than 100 countries in the world have recognized this human right in their legislation or Constitution, and it is time for Canada to follow their lead.

The Parliament of Canada has recognized that we are in a climate emergency, so the fact that the Liberal government fails to appropriately react and continues to put forth plans that will not allow us to meet climate targets needs to end. Bill C-232 calls on the Government of Canada to take all measures necessary to mitigate the impacts of the climate emergency and provides a framework to achieve a made-in-Canada, green, new deal with accountability and transparency measures to hold the government to account.

This framework would save lives and mitigate the impacts of the climate emergency on public health, the natural environment and on the economy while upholding, lifting up human rights. If the government is serious about Bill C-15, and I do hope it is, supporting this bill would be an act of good faith and a first attempt by the government to demonstrate that it is serious in its commitment to adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

It is time we begin divesting from fossil fuels and reinvesting in a green economy that brings workers along, increases employment in the green energy sector, and increases investment in green infrastructure and housing in respect of human rights. Bill C-232 provides the critical framework for this transformation to achieve the transformative climate action legislation.

We are running out of time. We must act now. Our ability to survive depends on what we do now.

Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, climate accountability legislation is so important. Why is it important? I had a question asked of me a few times this week by journalists. They asked why people should care about this. When I say we have missed every international climate target we have set, every single one, it does not really get to the heart of what is happening. We are so used to broken promises. We are so used to a government telling us we are on track, that it is taking action and that it understands the urgency, when its actions and urgency in no way match the scale of the crisis we are facing.

Why does this matter? For one thing, it is because we are stealing the future from our children. The young people know it, and they should not have to feel that fear. They should not have to march in the streets because politicians are not protecting their futures.

Before I ran for office, I taught a course at the University of Victoria that covered climate change and social movements. I remember that during one of the breaks, a young woman in my class came up with to me tears in her eyes. She asked me how she should study and work on the things we were talking about when scientists are telling us that we have a decade to turn this around. She said that if we fail, it means the collapse of ecosystems, mass extinctions and millions of people dying, along with our food systems and our future. We talked about how we maintain hope, how we make space to grieve and how to tap into fear and pain while continuing to fight for a livable planet. She went on to help organize climate strikes in Victoria.

Her wisdom and leadership, and the wisdom and leadership of kids across Canada and around the world, often bring me to tears. They motivate me to action.

What this young woman was doing was listening to the science and looking at the challenges we face, straight on. She was seeing and feeling the urgency. When people do that, when they choose not to look away and let themselves feel the real threat of what we are facing, what our children are facing and what it means for their futures, it is devastating, heartbreaking and terrifying. If people are willing to stay with that feeling, then they have no choice but to act and no choice but to act with the urgency that matches the crisis.

When Greta Thunberg said to world leaders, “How dare you...look away”, this is what she was talking about, and given that the government has put forward a bill that puts off climate accountability for the next 10 years, I can only assume that the Prime Minister, the Minister of Environment and every Liberal MP are choosing to look away. Maybe they do so because it is politically inconvenient to feel. Maybe they do so because it is unparliamentary to show emotions while debating legislation. Maybe they do so because it is scary to stand up, speak out, act with courage and face the consequences. However, whatever the reason, I say, “How dare you look away.”

However, it is not too late. We could still turn this small step in the right direction into something meaningful and real, and something that would give those young people some hope that the politicians who have so often betrayed them feel the urgency and are going to do something to turn this around.

We could still amend the bill to put in a milestone target of 2025. We could strengthen the accountability measures in the bill. We could ensure that the targets we set are in line with the best available science, our international obligations and equity principles.

I encourage every member, especially those on the government side of the House, not to look away and to take a moment to feel the scale of the crisis we are facing, the urgency. I hope they will work with us to make the bill something our children can be proud of.

In that spirit, I want to go through the parts of the bill I was really glad to see and then the parts that are missing.

I will mention the top three pieces that I appreciate about the bill. First, putting a commitment to net zero by 2050 into law is essential. The bill would not only ensure that the net-zero target is put into law, but also ensure we legislate our other long-term targets. Second, it was good to see the bill explicitly name the government’s commitment to upholding section 35 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Third, I am glad there would be progress reporting two years before each milestone target, with an opportunity to adjust and take additional actions if we are off track.

When it comes to the things that are missing, of course the most egregious omission is the lack of any real accountability for the next 10 years and the glaring omission of a 2025 milestone target. Scientists have been clear that this decade is the most important. The next 10 years are the ones the IPCC says are crucial if we want to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

It is hard to wrap my head around how the government can put forward a climate accountability bill that would put off and avoid accountability for the most important 10 years. It is hard for me to understand how Liberal members of Parliament, especially those with children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, can stand behind the bill, how they can look young people in the eyes and tell them they have to wait another decade. It is an easy fix: Put in a 2025 milestone target.

The second big gap is in the need for stronger accountability mechanisms, both with the arm’s-length advisory body, which only gives advice right now but does not have a defined role in assessments or reviewing progress, and with the environment commissioner, who, in the bill, would only have to do one report every five years. Neither of these bodies have the capacity or mandate in the bill to properly hold the government to account.

As it stands, the minister is mainly accountable to himself. The government determines what targets should be set, opening up the opportunity to set weak targets, and whether the government is on track to meeting those targets.

To fix these issues we need to strengthen and clearly define the advisory body's role in establishing targets, reviewing climate plans and evaluating progress reports and assessment reports. We also must guarantee that this body is composed of independent experts from all regions of Canada, and that it includes indigenous and worker representatives and does not include fossil fuel executives or industry representatives.

These fixes would strengthen the advisory body, but we also need to ensure the environment commissioner is reporting on whether our targets are in line with the best available science, whether our climate plan will actually get us to our target, whether our progress report and the assessment report are accurate and whether our proposed corrective actions are adequate for addressing the times when we are not on track.

The environment commissioner could play an important role in this legislation, but we learned last week that the environment commissioner currently does not have the resources to do its regular environmental work, and that its staff and environmental experts can be reallocated to other projects by the Auditor General. We need to make the environment commissioner an independent officer of Parliament.

The third gap is the fact the government has given itself up to nine months, after the bill gets royal assent, to set a target for 2030 and therefore create a plan to meet that target.

This means it could be up to a year from now until we see a plan to reach our 2030 target, yet in the Liberal government's most recent throne speech, the Liberals said they would immediately bring forward a plan to exceed Canada's 2030 climate goal. They said “immediately”. I do not know who defines “a year later” as “immediately”. I feel like we need to remind the government, again, that a plan to create a plan is not a plan.

We know that climate accountability means nothing without climate action, so where is the government's climate action plan? When will we see the new target that exceeds our 2030 climate goals, and when will we see the plan to get us there? We need to see investments in green infrastructure, in transportation, in building retrofits and in building green affordable housing. We need a just and sustainable recovery, a green new deal that creates good family-sustaining jobs in the low-carbon economy. We need a just transition for workers, and all of this needs to be outlined in a climate plan that will get us to our targets, ones that are ambitious and that are based on keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5°C.

There are a number of gaps that I will not cover in as much detail, but we should be talking about carbon budgets instead of milestone targets, about Canada's fair-share contribution to 1.5°C, and we should be requiring the minister to meet strong standards when setting targets, as well as strong standards when creating and adjusting plans. Currently, the bill would allow future governments to set weak targets and create plans without much detail. If we fail at strengthening the bill, we have to tell young people and tell Canadians that we were not courageous enough to put the measures in place to avoid catastrophic climate change, that we were not courageous enough to protect their future.

For most of this speech, I have been speaking about the future and the severe consequences of our present action and inaction. That future outlined in the IPCC report is scary, but this is not just about our future. The impacts of the climate crisis are already being felt in Canada. In my riding of Victoria and in B.C., it was not too long ago that we were choking on the smoke from the climate fires south of the border. We know that temperatures in Canada are increasing at twice the global rate. The impacts are felt particularly in the Arctic along the coasts, and are disproportionately felt by indigenous, rural, marginalized and racialized communities. Canadians want real action on the climate crisis, and they want a government that not only promises to fight climate change but will actually deliver on that promise.

When I say, again and again, that our government has missed every single climate target and that the current Liberal government is not even on track to meet Stephen Harper's weak targets, I hope that the members in this chamber feel the seriousness of this failure, that they do not look away and that they feel the urgency. We need climate accountability now, not in 10 years. We need climate action now, not in nine months to a year.

It was back in 2008 that the United Kingdom created its climate accountability framework, the Climate Change Act. This act was the first of its kind in the U.K., and it remains highly regarded and has served as a model for legislation in other jurisdictions, including Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark, France, Germany and Spain. The U.K. has set five-year carbon budgets covering immediately from 2008 onward, and regular reporting to Parliament has enhanced transparency and accountability. The U.K. also has an expert advisory committee, the Committee on Climate Change, that is much stronger than the advisory body proposed by the current government.

Two years before the U.K. implemented this bill, in 2006, Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP at the time, originally introduced the first climate accountability act in Canada. The bill passed at third reading by a vote of 148 to 116. The Harper Conservatives voted against it, but the bill died in the Senate. The NDP has introduced the climate change accountability act as a private member's bill in the 39th, 40th and 41st Parliament, by Jack but also by former MP Megan Leslie.

Imagine where we would be if we had passed strong climate accountability legislation back then. Since implementing climate accountability, the U.K. has successfully reduced its emissions over the past decade, in stark contrast to Canada, whose emissions continue to increase despite the government's empty words and claims to climate leadership.

In this Parliament, my NDP colleagues, the member for Winnipeg Centre and the member for Elmwood—Transcona, have both put forward legislation in Parliament that calls for strong climate accountability. I want to thank my Bloc colleague for introducing Bill C-215.

I want to highlight one important piece of the member for Winnipeg Centre's bill, Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework. It provides for the development and implementation of a climate emergency action framework. It explicitly outlines how a climate emergency action framework and climate accountability legislation must be built on a foundation that recognizes the indigenous inherent right to self-government, that upholds the provisions in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and that takes into account scientific knowledge including indigenous science and knowledge as well as the responsibilities toward future generations.

While I was glad to see that the government included a commitment to upholding section 35 in UNDRIP in the preamble of the its bill, so far the Liberals have failed to enshrine UNDRIP into law. When will the government put action behind its words when it comes to reconciliation and put the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into law? We have a lot of work to do and we must come together if we want to do it.

As I wrap up, I want to note again that there can be no climate accountability without climate action. The government has missed every single climate target that it has set. Climate accountability is important, but the Liberals are not only putting it off for 10 years. They are also putting off a new target and a plan. They are putting off a climate action plan for up to another year. Where is the government's climate action plan? Part of that plan has to include an end to all fossil fuel subsidies. Stop giving away billions of dollars to profitable oil and gas companies. Stop throwing good money after bad at the Trans Mountain expansion. Please invest those billions of dollars in creating the good, sustainable jobs that people need right now.

We need investments in green infrastructure, in transportation and in building retrofits. We need a just and sustainable recovery, a green new deal, one that creates good jobs in a low-carbon economy. We need a plan that is based on science and in line with keeping global temperatures below 1.5°C.

We must move forward with climate action and climate accountability legislation immediately. We needed it in 2006 when Jack Layton first put it forward and Jack would not want us to wait another 10 years for climate accountability. We needed it in each iteration of the IPCC report. We needed it when we read about the catastrophic impacts of global warming. We needed it last year when young people were marching in the streets, begging politicians, begging decision-makers to listen to the science, to not look away, and we need it now.

I will be pushing the government to make this bill stronger. We cannot afford to wait any longer. We are running out of time. Young people and Canadians are watching us, and they will not forgive us if we fail them, if we lack the courage do what is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. They are telling us to wake up.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

moved that Bill C-12, An Act respecting transparency and accountability in Canada's efforts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to address the House of Commons today for the second reading debate of Bill C-12, the Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act. It is an act that I believe is extremely important.

Our government's highest priority continues to be the health and well-being of Canadians. That is why we are taking unprecedented action to combat the health emergency presented by COVID-19. As we come through this, and we will, that commitment to the health and well-being of Canadians demands that we put two things in place with an eye on the post-pandemic horizon.

First, we must build back better in a way that makes the economy more competitive, cleaner, stronger and fairer than it was before.

Second, Canadians expect us to have a thoughtful plan to counter a parallel emergency that has continued during the pandemic and will get significantly worse in future if we do not take more action than we are now, that being climate change.

Canadians know how much of a threat climate change is to our health, our economic well-being and our planet. We are already experiencing the ravages of climate change, what with extreme weather events, catastrophic floods and devastating fires.

As with COVID-19, ignoring the risks of climate change is not an option. Such an approach will only increase costs and worsen the long-term consequences. To use a pandemic metaphor, if we want to flatten the climate curve and avoid its worst effects, the best available science tells us that the planet must reach net zero by 2050.

Reaching net zero by 2050 means that emissions produced 30 years from now would be fully absorbed through actions that scrub carbon from the atmosphere, whether through nature, such as planting trees or through technology, such as carbon capture and storage systems. This imperative comes at a time when the world is changing. We are seeing an acceleration of global momentum and healthy competition toward a net-zero carbon economy by 2050 as nations, investors and consumers recognize the ecological imperative and the economic opportunity of moving to a clean economy.

Over 120 countries have made a commitment to be net zero by 2050, including many of our major economic competitors and trading partners. This will likely soon include our biggest trading partner south of the border. Low carbon and climate-resilient projects and technologies are not just good for the planet, they are good for business.

Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, recently said that the transition to net zero “...is creating the greatest commercial opportunity of our age.” On the day before Bill C-12 was introduced in this House, Tiff Macklem, the current Governor of the Bank of Canada, said that “...we need to position Canada to seize the climate-smart opportunities that consumers, workers and investors are looking for.”

Major Canadian companies have already committed to net zero by 2050, including companies such as Cenovus, Teck Resources, MEG Energy, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Enbridge and the Canadian Steel Producers Association. Shell's global chief executive officer says that net zero is “the only way to go” for his company. Canadian companies such as Maple Leaf Foods and CAE are already carbon neutral.

Leveraging climate action as we rebuild Canada's post-pandemic economy is simply the smart thing to do. It will ensure that we emerge stronger, better prepared and more competitive in a low-carbon world.

During the last election campaign, our government promised to come up with a plan that would allow Canada to exceed its pollution reduction targets and create a legally binding process for all future governments to set national climate targets that will achieve the science-based goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Bill C-12, the Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act, is the fulfillment of our commitment to Canadians to put these legally binding processes in place.

This process is essential to our strategy for a sustainable post-pandemic economic recovery and long-term prosperity for all Canadians in a low-carbon world. It reflects our government's desire to stimulate our collective ambition for climate action and to do more than ever before in a considered and pragmatic way, guided by scientific data and evidence.

The proposed Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act is an important contribution to articulating a Canadian vision for a clean economy, and it sends a signal of the depth of our resolve to be a serious competitor in the clean global marketplace.

To do that, we need to tool up for low-carbon advantage and demonstrate that Canada is meeting climate risk head-on. By doing so, we can provide the confidence and certainty required to attract investment and ensure that Canadians are delivering products and services that will be in high demand the world over now and well into the future.

The bill marks the first time a Canadian government has introduced emissions accountability legislation to address climate change and achieve net zero by 2050. One element of its importance is that accountability legislation has the muscle to depoliticize climate action by setting legal requirements on governments to achieve climate headway. It is intended to ensure that never again will Canada have a government like that of Stephen Harper, which established an emissions reduction target but never brought forward a credible plan to achieve it.

The Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act would be the first significant step in the second phase of our government's climate plan. In phase one, during our first term in government, we spearheaded the creation of a pan-Canadian framework to fight climate change that comprised over 50 separate initiatives, including a price on pollution, a plan to phase out coal by 2030 and historic investments in public transit, nature and renewables.

In the coming weeks, the government will be announcing an enhanced clean-growth plan and further investments that encourage, accelerate and support the work Canadian businesses are doing to move to a thriving carbon-neutral economy. The plan will also provide Canadians with visibility on how we will meet and exceed our 2030 Paris Agreement target.

Bill C-12 provides the legal framework to put the emissions reductions goal of that plan and future plans between now and the middle of the century into law. The act would provide a legally binding process for this government and for future governments to set national climate targets on a rolling basis every five years between 2030 and 2050 and to meet the goal of net zero by 2050.

It would provide that this government and future governments must bring forward detailed plans as to how they would meet these targets. In the near term, Bill C-12 would require the Government of Canada to establish the initial 2030 target within six months of the act's coming into force, along with an emissions reduction plan. Both would have to be tabled in Parliament.

A progress report would have to be tabled by 2027. If the government of the day is not on track to meet the 2030 milestone, it would have to detail how it will get back on track. In addition, the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, supported by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, would have to examine and report on the Government of Canada's implementation of the measures aimed at mitigating climate change within five years of the coming into force of this act and every five years thereafter.

For each subsequent milestone year, in 2035, 2040 and 2045, a target would have to be set and an emissions reduction plan established at least five years in advance of each subsequent milestone year. Both would have to be tabled in Parliament.

Finally, if a target is not met, the government would have to table a report in Parliament detailing the reasons why and identifying specific actions to correct course and catch-up.

Bill C-12 also requires the Minister of Finance to publish an annual report explaining how the government is managing its financial risks and opportunities related to climate change. This information will help the government manage the risks of climate change in its decision-making.

This is in addition to our current reporting requirements, including the fifth biennial report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the official national greenhouse gas inventory that we publish every year.

The five-year targets and the plans for meeting them will be based on the best scientific information available. They will require an inclusive approach that reflects Canada's unique demographics and geography, the importance of our resource-based economy, and the governments' shared responsibility for energy and the environment.

The input and engagement from all parts of Canadian society are crucial. The Government of Canada simply cannot achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of the century on its own. That is why the act would establish the independent net-zero advisory body, a group of up to 15 experts with a diverse range of experience and expertise from across the country. It would include business, labour, indigenous, clean technology and environmental leaders.

The advisory body's ongoing advice to government over the next 30 years would be informed by extensive consultation and engagement with Canadians. Its initial work would focus on identifying actions that support both net zero and economic recovery from the pandemic. The advisory body would provide its advice through an annual public report, and the government would be required to publicly respond to the advisory body's recommendations.

All of the public reporting measures are designed to ensure accountability to Canadians and accountability built on transparency, both of which are vital to establishing credibility with Canadians. Moreover, transparency and accountability are key to fostering dialogue when friction arises on the ways and means of moving forward on climate change. Bill C-12 lays out a framework of accountability and transparency to ensure we reach net zero by 2050 in a way that gives Canadians confidence that as a nation we will succeed in this endeavour.

Should the bill pass, it will be extremely difficult for any future government to shirk its responsibility to take action on climate change. I believe the reaction in Parliament and among Canadians generally would provide severe sanction to a government that did not honour its legal obligations under the act.

I want to say a few words about the parliamentary process.

It takes co-operation and collaboration to bring about real change, and several parties in the House of Commons have proven their commitment to ambitious climate action, including the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, the Green Party and even some Conservative members.

I want to congratulate the member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia for her work on Bill C-215 and the member for Winnipeg Centre for her work on Bill C-232. These bills are part of a long line of bills introduced in an effort to address this problem.

It is important to recognize the contribution made by Jack Layton, who was the first to introduce his bill, the climate change accountability act, in 2007. Unfortunately, that bill was defeated by Conservative senators 10 years ago to the day last month, without debate, despite majority support in the House of Commons.

I would also like to commend the work of my colleague, the government House leader, who managed to get his private member's bill, the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, passed in 2007, before the Harper government repealed it in 2011 and withdrew from the Kyoto protocol.

In developing the bill, I have reflected on the hard work done by my colleagues in the House and on the work of those who came before us. It is certainly my hope that they see their work and devotion reflected in the spirit and intent of Bill C-12. I am committed to taking an approach of co-operation and collaboration and will consider, in good faith, constructive suggestions to improve this legislation further. That is how the parliamentary process is supposed to work, and I am committed to doing my part to make it work.

I am confident that together, in the spirit of co-operation, we can achieve an outcome that allows us to continue to move another step forward to address the threat of climate change. I have engaged in constructive conversations with many of my parliamentary colleagues on moving forward with action to address climate change, and it is my hope that we can work together to pass the bill in this minority Parliament so that we can quickly move forward on its implementation.

At the end of the day, climate change is a science issue, not an issue of ideology. It should not be a partisan issue. It is my hope that MPs from all parties in the House will work together and collectively support this vital legislation.

As a nation, we cannot afford inaction. It certainly will require resources. It will also require pragmatism and, certainly, Canadian ingenuity.

Canada has the tools to do this, including a skilled and innovative workforce that is already rising to the challenge of emissions reduction. From copper to nickel to energy, Canada has the resources needed to develop, produce and deploy clean technologies and proven expertise. We have a productive and resilient manufacturing sector. We also have the innovative spirit, talent and experience to be among the world's cleanest suppliers of natural resources, and we have the drive, born of a chance, to create a future we can pass along to our children and grandchildren with confidence and with pride.

I am sure that many colleagues, as well as their children, nieces, nephews and grandchildren, have watched some of Sir David Attenborough's programs on the the natural world. One of his comments resonated strongly with me. He said, “We are the only species that can imagine the future. Living in balance with nature simply requires the will to do so.”

The bill represents a key step in demonstrating our collective will to do so, and I very much look forward to engaging with my colleagues today and in the days to come as we move forward with this very important legislation.

Climate Change Accountability Act

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very glad to be speaking in the House today in support of climate accountability legislation.

While the world has been reeling from the impacts of COVID-19, the climate crisis has not gone away. It poses an ever-increasing threat to our environment, our ecosystems, our food systems, the health of our families, the future and our children's future. It also threatens the economic well-being and health of our communities. I do not know if I can adequately communicate the fear and anxiety that young people have communicated to me about their future or that parents have expressed about what kind of world we are leaving to our children, but it is not just about the future. The impacts of climate change are already being felt in Canada, in the smoke from the climate fires, the fact that temperatures in Canada are increasing at twice the global rate and the impacts on permafrost. The impacts are felt particularly in the Arctic and along the coasts and are disproportionately felt by indigenous communities, rural communities and marginalized and racialized communities.

There is a broad scientific agreement that an increase in the global average surface temperature of 1.5 °C or more above pre-industrial levels would constitute dangerous climate change. Canadians want real action on the climate crisis, and they want a government to not just promise to fight climate change, but to actually deliver on that commitment. The Liberals have missed every single climate target, and we are not even on track to meet Stephen Harper's weak targets. In a fall 2019 report, the commissioner of the environment said there is no evidence to support the government's statement that its current or planned actions would allow Canada to meet its targets.

The list of Liberal commitments on environmental targets that the current government has missed or is on track to miss is long. We are not even close to being on track to meeting our targets of selling 100% zero-emissions vehicles by 2040. The government committed to plant two billion trees by 2030, and not a single dollar has been allocated to that target. The clean fuel standard, a key part of the pan-Canadian framework on climate change, has been delayed. I could go on, but in many ways, all of these are symptoms of a government that has not been accountable to its climate commitments. Climate accountability is needed. This bill focuses on our climate targets. Reporting on how we get to those targets should include how the government intends to meet all of these vital climate-related policies.

As has been mentioned, in 2008 the United Kingdom created a climate accountability framework, the Climate Change Act. This act was the first of its kind and remains very highly regarded. It has served as a model for legislation in other jurisdictions including Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and New Zealand. The U.K. has set five carbon budgets, and regular reporting to Parliament has enhanced transparency and accountability. The U.K. has an expert advisory committee, the committee on climate change.

Two years before the U.K. implemented its bill, in 2006, the leader of the NDP at the time, Jack Layton, introduced the first climate change accountability act in Canada. This bill passed third reading by a vote of 148 to 116, with the Harper Conservatives voting against it, but Jack Layton's bill died in the Senate. The NDP has introduced the climate change accountability act as a private member's bill in the 39th, the 40th and the 41st Parliaments, by Jack and also by former MP, Megan Leslie.

In this Parliament, my NDP colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, has put forward a bill, Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework, which would provide for the development and implementation of a climate emergency action framework. It explicitly outlines the need for an action framework ensuring the transition toward a green economy; increasing employment in green energy, infrastructure and housing; and ensuring economic well-being.

Importantly, it explicitly states that the climate emergency action framework, climate accountability legislation, must be built on a foundation that upholds the provisions in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The bill we are debating today, put forward by my Bloc colleague, is a really good start. It is headed in the right direction, but I see some gaps and some areas that need strengthening.

First, as outlined in the member for Winnipeg Centre's bill, Bill C-232, climate accountability legislation must be explicitly built on a foundation that recognizes the inherent indigenous right to self-government, that upholds the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and that takes into account scientific knowledge, including indigenous science and knowledge, as well as the responsibilities we have toward future generations.

I applaud, in Bill C-215, the inclusion of interim targets every five years, although 2045 seems to be missing, and applaud the requirement to outline the methods, measures and tools for measuring and assessing greenhouse gas reductions. However, the bill needs strengthening in relation to what these targets will be. It relies on the Paris Agreement, and we need to acknowledge that the Paris targets and net-zero by 2050 are not enough. Our greenhouse gas reduction targets need to be ambitious and consistent with Canada’s fair share contribution. They need to be strong targets that help us stay below a temperature increase of 1.5°C.

The last IPCC report is telling us that we need to at least cut our emissions in half by 2030, and the new targets need to reflect this. Yes, our targets need to be set into law, but we also need to include mechanisms so that they can be strengthened when the experts advise.

The next area that is in need of strengthening is accountability. We need experts involved not only in strengthening targets, but also in reporting and analyzing our progress. It is essential that these experts be at arm’s-length, and their mandate needs to focus on climate accountability.

The NDP has pushed for an independent climate accountability office and the appointment of a climate accountability officer, who would undertake research and gather information and analysis on the target plan or revised target plan; prepare a report that includes findings and recommendations on the quality and completeness of the scientific, economic and technological evidence and analysis used to establish each target in the target plan; and advise on any other climate change and sustainable development matters that the officer would consider relevant to climate accountability.

Environmental advocates and organizations have also called for an independent arm’s-length expert climate advisory committee drawn up from all regions of the country, one that would specifically advise on long-term targets, the five-year carbon budgets and climate impact reports. These experts would also monitor and report on governmental progress toward achieving the short-term carbon budgets, long-term targets and adaptation plans, and would provide advice to the government on climate-related policy.

Another element that we need to look at is carbon budgets, both national and subnational.

While all these areas need attention, I believe they can be addressed in committee. It is essential that we move forward with climate accountability legislation immediately. We needed it back in 2006, when Jack Layton first put it forward. We needed it when each iteration of the IPCC report came out, outlining the catastrophic impacts of global warming. We needed it last year, when young people were marching in the streets begging politicians and decision-makers to listen to science. We need it now.

The Liberals promised climate accountability legislation in their election platform and again in the throne speech. In fact, in the most recent throne speech, they said that they would immediately bring forward a plan outlining how they are going to meet and exceed Canada’s 2030 emissions reduction goals. They also committed to legislating net-zero by 2050. That was back in September. I am not sure what the Liberal government's definition of “immediately” is, but it is now November and neither of these things have happened. If the Liberals vote against this bill, it will be another example of how they are content to make climate promises but are unwilling to take climate action. We need to remember that this is the government that declared a climate emergency one day and bought a pipeline the next.

I implore my fellow MPs to support this motion. I will be—

[Michaela Keenan-Pelletier]

Thank you for your question.

If Bill C-215 were amended to such an extent that it was identical to Bill C-232, that might possibly be an issue. However, for now, that is not the case.

[Michaela Keenan-Pelletier]

The criterion that was flagged for this one was that two bills should not be substantially similar. Again, this is for the committee to determine, but my analysis of this bill is that they deal with the same topic, but they go about it in slightly different ways, and they don't in fact have identical goals, in that one of them is actually broader than the other.

Bill C-232 provides for transition towards a green economy and for upholding the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These are things that are completely absent in Bill C-215. My opinion would be that they're distinct enough that they could proceed, but that is up to the committee to decide.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ginette Petitpas Taylor]

No. Thank you so much for that. That's great.

Perhaps now we can proceed through each item. To be efficient with our time, we could maybe just go through them item by item, and if there are no questions or comments, we can dispose of them fairly quickly. We'll be able to address the ones for which there is debate.

Does that sound appropriate to everyone?

We'll start off, then, with Bill C-210. Does anyone have any issues or comments about that one? No.

Next is Bill C-238.

I see there are no comments, so we'll move right along to Bill C-224. Good.

Next is Bill C-215. No comments.

Next is Bill C-204, and now Bill C-229.

I'm not going to jinx it, but we're on a roll.

Now we have Bill C-218 and a motion, M-34.

Next we have Bill C-214, Bill C-220, Bill C-221, Bill C-222 and Bill C-213.

I love working with women.

Next is Bill C-223, followed by M-35.

Now we have Bill C-206, Bill C-216, Bill C-208, Bill C-205, Bill C-237, Bill C-225, Bill C-228, Bill C-236, Bill C-230 and Bill C-232.

Climate Emergency Action Act

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-232, An Act respecting a Climate Emergency Action Framework.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise to present my bill, the climate emergency action framework act. The bill recognizes the right of Canadians to a safe, clean, healthy environment as a human right.

As we are witnessing around the country, individuals, especially young people, are concerned about the climate emergency. I share their concerns and I honour their understanding that this cannot be achieved without the recognition and respect of the fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples, as affirmed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. There is no reconciliation in the absence of justice.

We must move forward in this country with a green new deal that supports the human rights of all peoples, while investing in a green economy that brings workers along. The bill would provide a clear path forward by calling on the Government of Canada to take all measures necessary to address the climate emergency. We have no more time to waste.

l look forward to working with other members of the House to push the bill forward.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)