Bill C-12 (Historical)

Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act

An Act respecting transparency and accountability in Canada's efforts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050

This enactment requires that national targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada be set, with the objective of attaining net-zero emissions by 2050. The targets are to be set by the Minister of the Environment for 2030, 2035, 2040 and 2045.
In order to promote transparency and accountability in relation to meeting those targets, the enactment also
(a) requires that an emissions reduction plan, a progress report and an assessment report with respect to each target be tabled in each House of Parliament;
(b) provides for public participation;
(c) establishes an advisory body to provide the Minister of the Environment with advice with respect to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and matters that are referred to it by the Minister;
(d) requires the Minister of Finance to prepare an annual report respecting key measures that the federal public administration has taken to manage its financial risks and opportunities related to climate change;
(e) requires the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to, at least once every five years, examine and report on the Government of Canada’s implementation of measures aimed at mitigating climate change; and
(f) provides for a comprehensive review of the Act five years after its coming into force.

Motions in amendment

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, with the introduction of Bill C-12, the government indicated it would collaborate with all parties to ensure an agreed upon make up of the advisory board, which is fairly central to the effectiveness of this net-zero legislation.

However, during initial debate on the bill, I asked the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country for more details about the potential make up and powers of the advisory board, at which point he proudly shared that the advisory board members had already been appointed.

I would like the member to elaborate on the fact that, again, this shows the lack of true commitment to working within the House with all members of Parliament to bring forward the best bill and the best results to the advisory board.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege and pleasure to speak tonight to this important bill. I am going to take a bit of a different slant on this.

As members know, I was first elected in 2019, so I am a relatively new member of this House. This period of time just before the session ends for the summer is a very busy time, as I understand. This is my first experience with it. It is the first time I have gotten to see the government trying to complete its agenda, which is kind of lagging. What I have been expecting is the very best the government has to offer to get its agenda through before the House rises for the summer.

My background, really briefly, is that I come from the accounting world, and specifically the management accounting area. Efficiency was one of the things I really focused on. I worked in a manufacturing plant and I helped people figure out the easiest way to do their job so that it required the least amount of labour and we could produce the best product, most efficiently, at the best price. Essentially, it is where I learned one of my mottoes, which is “Work smarter, not harder.”

As I have watched what has gone on here in the last couple of weeks from my lens, a relatively new lens, I have witnessed the exact opposite of efficiency. It has been quite fascinating. In fact, I imagine that when our Prime Minister was on his way back from his vacation trip to Europe a couple of weeks ago, he had to stop in a quarantine hotel like all other Canadians, except that he of course stayed in a special hotel that was close to his house and was only there for a few hours—but I digress. He probably would have called his government House leader to ask how things were going and how the legislation was coming along. Unfortunately, the government House leader would have had to give him the sad news that nothing had happened, that in fact everything had stalled out because of the many mistakes made by the government. In fact, everything was in chaos, as he could see if he looked at Bill C-30 or Bill C-10 or anything else.

As we look at this bill, the government House leader has denied many times that the Liberals are going to call an election shortly, saying it is the event that just is not going to happen. However, in April, on this bill, the Liberals seemed to suddenly realize that they needed to pass something, and that is where Bill C-12 came into the picture. They needed to pass something just in case the event that is not going to happen happens.

After months of inaction on this bill, suddenly there was a big panic. Why is the government willing to ram through a flawed bill just before the summer? It is just in case that event that is not going to happen happens. Of course, the Liberals could wait until September, but here we are instead. It is the last panic time before the event that is not going to happen happens. This is hypocritical, and it is very disrespectful to our democracy.

I want to look at Bill C-12 through my new eyes. I had a front-row seat to this bill because I am on the environment committee. I have been able to see this first-hand. One of the questions I was asking myself was, “How do we have success when creating a new law?” Of course, the first step is to write a good bill. When the minister came to our committee, the first thing he said was that he was open to amendments. I am assuming he said that because he knew that the bill was not well written and that it had many flaws.

He just opened the floodgates, because there were 114 amendments that came to committee, and 17 of those came from the government itself. The bill was only 10 pages long at that point. That is over 11 amendments per page, or four per clause. That is a lot of amendments. Those numbers alone should prove that this bill was flawed.

Every morning we are led in a prayer by the Speaker, and one of the lines in that prayer is “Grant us wisdom....to make good laws....” I cannot sit back and watch this law come into force. It is a bad law. The number of amendments also showed that this was true.

The second way that we could have success when creating a new law is to get feedback. There was a lot of feedback. There were 75 briefs received by the environment committee, which is great. A lot of Canadians put in a lot of hard work to write reports and provide information to the committee. The bad news is that only eight of those briefs were received before we started our study. That was because the study was jammed in. It was rushed into committee with a very short deadline.

That means that 67 briefs were received after we did our study. It means that the work of many Canadians was ignored, and the government was happy to ignore it. It was not particularly interested in listening to the views of people who submitted the briefs. It had a plan, an idea of what it wanted to accomplish, and that is what it was going to do.

The third way we could make sure to have success in creating a new bill is to let the committee do its work. The first thing the government did was make a deal with the NDP. It did not want the committee to get bogged down in any details of actually providing useful information. It wanted to be able to ram things through.

The Liberal-NDP coalition did exactly that. It rammed this bill through the committee. Almost every single vote at the committee was marked by the Liberal-NDP coalition. The Liberals and the NDP made no bones about their coalition.

The NDP member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley posted to his Twitter before the clause by clause started, “[T]he NDP will be proposing amendments that the government has agreed to support.... We have also jointly agreed to a number of other amendments.”

What was the practical result of this? The New Democrats and the Liberals fell silent. They did not ask questions. I am not even sure they read many of the amendments or even understood what they were. They had a plan. They just knew to vote for this and not vote for that. Therefore, it fell to the Conservatives and the Bloc MPs to scrutinize these amendments. As for me, I asked reasoned and thoughtful questions of the departmental experts as to the consequences of certain amendments, but the problem was that there were 114 amendments, as I said.

As I also mentioned, the government put forward 17 of its own amendments. That means that on 17 separate occasions, the minister messed up drafting the bill and he needed his MPs to fix it. That is like us buying a new car, driving it off the lot and just as we are leaving, the salesman says he has scheduled 17 appointments for us to come back for maintenance because the dealer messed up and there are a bunch of problems with the car. Therefore, we drive it off the lot, go back tomorrow and the dealer starts fixing it. It makes no sense.

The Liberals and the New Democrats on the committee were only interested in their amendments. They refused to engage with us on our amendments. To prove my point, there was kind of a funny example.

Subsection 7(4) of the original bill required that the minister would set national targets five years in advance. The government and NDP wanted to change that to 10 years in advance. The problem was the Greens put forward an identical amendment and because they got there first, we dealt with their amendment first.

As was the practice of the government and the NDP members, they did not want to support anyone else's amendments and certainly not the Greens'. Therefore, the Green amendment was voted on and was rejected. Next up was the government amendment that was literally identical. The chair, rightly so, ruled that it was inadmissible because we had just dealt with this at committee and we had decided not to proceed with it. That was a big problem. Everybody wanted to vote for that second one because the members actually wanted the amendment. However, I do not think they read the first one from the Greens, which was the same, and they did not realize they had just voted down, essentially, their own amendment.

In the end, after a very long discussion and a lot of time wasted, the government members finally realized that instead of saying 10 years, they could say “9 years 366 days”, which was different enough to get it passed. I found that quite humorous, that the government members were not able to accomplish this.

I have an amendment that was read tonight, and it is in a section of the bill referring to the work of the advisory body, specifically the annual report that it has to submit. My amendment would require that the minister make the annual report public and, further, that the minister publicly respond to this report. It would require the government to actually take action, which is something we all know the Liberals are quite allergic to. The Liberals tried to make an amendment on this section at committee, but theirs was sloppy and it left the legislation in very bad shape.

Essentially, the Liberal-NDP amendment added words but it did not remove redundant words, so the bill as it is written right now makes no sense in that section. It still includes a long sentence that should not be there and it starts with a partial word. It just does not make a whole lot of sense. My amendment allows that wording to make sense again.

The Green Party put forward some really good amendments. The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was quite frustrated at committee. I want to quote her because it is quite telling. She said:

I have to say that this is the most dispiriting process of clause-by-clause that I've experienced in many years. Usually amendments are actually considered, people actually debate them and there is a good-faith process....

I condemn this government for what it has done: for telling people like me, who believed in good faith that there would be an actual appetite for change to improve the bill and who accepted it and prepared amendments, only to show up here and watch Liberals stay mute, the NDP stay mute and march through their amendments, passing them in force, and not listening and not caring about the possibility that other amendments might work.

What happens when there is a flawed committee process? Flawed legislation results. Bill C-12 is flawed legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I would like to hear his thoughts on greenhouse gas reduction targets. At the beginning of the parliamentary session, the Liberals' target was to achieve a reduction of 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. In the budget, the government proposed a 36% reduction. On Earth Day, the target turned into a range of 40% to 50%. Not too long ago at the G7, the Prime Minister joined the other countries in aiming for a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030.

In spite of all these targets—and no one quite knows which one we are aiming for—the government has not managed to put a figure in the bill. Since Kyoto in 2012, Canadian governments have been systematically incapable of meeting their targets.

Does my colleague truly believe that the current version of Bill C‑12 will help us meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets?

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House again today to speak in support of Bill C-12. We are having this discussion at a time when Canada is warming at twice the global rate and the regions in our north are warming at three times the global rate. Meanwhile, Canada is a top-10 emitter of greenhouse emissions on an absolute basis and is firmly entrenched as a top-three contributor to emissions on a per capita basis.

We have signed on to agreements like Kyoto and Copenhagen and made commitments to lower our GHG emissions, but never followed through with the detailed measures that would be needed to meet them. Bill C-12 would change that by requiring transparency in the policies the federal government would bring in to mitigate climate change, as well as hold us accountable to meeting them. Bill C-12 would ensure that Canada follows through on our strengthened 2030 target of 40% to 45% below 2005 levels of emissions that were announced at the Leaders Summit on Climate, held on Earth Day earlier this year.

Bill C-12 would ensure that Canada is on a path to realize net-zero emissions by 2050 and that we can implement our strengthened climate plan that would cut our emissions and allow our economy to thrive in a low-carbon world. For that reason, I urge all colleagues in the House to join me in supporting this legislation, but members should not just take my word for it. They should listen to the calls from leading environmental NGOs in this country for the two Houses to swiftly pass Bill C-12. A recent letter co-signed by the Climate Action Network, the David Suzuki Foundation, Équiterre, Ecojustice and West Coast Environmental Law made that particular case. It is hard to believe that just a decade ago, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the member for Pontiac and I were each working for those latter three respective organizations.

The decade that was lost under former Prime Minister Harper, and the efforts described by some as cowardly or even as a pariah in the context of UN-led climate change negotiations, is a big reason we are here today. Climate accountability legislation is long overdue. Since Bill C-12 was first tabled, I have spoken with hundreds of constituents and dozens of organizations, both within and outside of my riding, that wanted to know more and had ideas for this legislation. People like Daniel Huot have reminded me as recently as today why it is important that people who represent the public are accountable for the commitments they make, and climate change is no different.

I have spoken with members of all parties about this legislation and I know there has been a tremendous amount of engagement with experts across the country since the first reading of this bill. There is proof that improvements have been made. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change stated that he was open to amendments that would strengthen this bill. His actions have shown that he was true to his word. I want to thank all members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development for taking an already good bill and making it significantly better through a number of amendments. In particular, I want to thank the NDP for supporting the government on the majority of the amendments made at committee.

I also want to thank the Bloc Québécois for the amendments it proposed and for voting in favour of sending the bill back to the House.

In my speech at second reading, I raised a few key aspects of this legislation that needed to be strengthened for it to give the House and all Canadians confidence that this bill would hold the government to account sooner and allow for longer-term planning. Originally, this bill would not have required reporting on Canada's track to achieving 2030 targets until a 2026 report by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development and a 2027 progress report by the government.

I argued that the progress reporting in this bill needed to occur sooner so that Canadians could judge with confidence whether our country was on track to meeting our commitments for 2030 and averting the greatest challenge the world faces. To that end, the bill has been amended to require the first progress report to be submitted no later than the end of 2023 and that another be submitted in 2025. Earlier and more frequent reporting will provide enough time to take corrective action, or to vote in a government that will deal with the climate emergency and meet our international responsibilities.

Bill C-12 has also been amended to require that any progress reporting related to 2030 must now include an update on the interim greenhouse gas emissions objective for 2026. This satisfies some people who were seeking a 2025 target. It also addresses a concern I had raised that, due to our federal structure, shared responsibility for policies related to climate and the need to consult and accommodate indigenous peoples would have collectively taken a year or more to go through. Setting a short-term target for 2025 would have made that difficult, and it may have also led us to make short-term changes to cut emissions at the expense of changes that may take longer to pay back, in terms of emissions reductions.

I also focused on the long term in my last speech. I argued that we should provide targets and plans looking five years in advance, as the original bill required, as well as look 10 to 15 years ahead to allow the government and the private sector to make the investments now that will get us to our medium-term goals and on course to get to net zero by 2050.

This will allow us to have what the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices calls the safe-bet solutions, which are based on existing technologies like electric vehicles, measures for methane reduction and home retrofits and will help us meet our near-term reductions, as well as to work on some of the wild cards, which are the high-risk, high-reward technologies that we need to get to net zero.

These breakthrough technologies include climate solutions like hydrogen. They can be game-changers in hard-to-abate areas like freight transport. For these technologies to do the heavy lifting to help us reach our medium- to longer-term decarbonization, we need to set the minds of our government to where we are going and also show the private sector where we are going, so that those investments are made today and so that those jobs are also created today.

The testimony I heard as part of my role on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources clearly underlined that this is the certainty that businesses are looking for. They also said it was critical to pair this with a steadily increasing stringency of measures like the clean fuel standard and the price on pollution that will make Canada a destination of choice for low-carbon investment. To this effect, the amendments to Bill C-12 have acknowledged this by requiring emissions targets to be set 10 years and a day in advance.

I want to run through a number of the other important changes as well.

The content of the reporting has been improved to require the inclusion of more detail in projections for annual emissions reductions by each economic sector, and also to show what additional measures could have been taken to better ensure that targets are met.

Amendments have also made it clear that the net-zero advisory body will be independent of government and will also have a role in target setting in addition to its role in meeting those targets. This body has already been set up, with a diverse and exceptional group of 14 experts, including several who have been highly critical of the government's efforts to date. Together they will provide wholly independent advice and annual reports to the minister, which the minister will have to respond to publicly.

In what may seem self-evident, another amendment will require that governments make progressively stronger greenhouse gas emissions targets and ensure that Canada's targets are at least as ambitious as the most recent nationally determined contribution communicated under the Paris Agreement. While these requirements may seem self-evident, they guarantee that our emissions targets do not stale and will instead ensure we achieve and maintain a position at the forefront of global climate action.

If my colleagues think that this piece of legislation, with the Bloc Québécois's amendment, does not go far enough to promote climate accountability, a review will be mandated within five years or less.

Ultimately, Bill C-12 will require the federal government to be ambitious with its climate action, to be transparent with Canadians about the measures it is taking, to be clear with how it could do more and to put them in the driver's seat to holding the government accountable to ensure that we do what we must to address the climate emergency.

I will conclude today with the following: Let us not let one party's intransigence on climate change derail our country for a decade, as it did before. Let us not make the same mistake again. Let us ensure that we deliver the climate action that the vast majority of Canadians want to see and let us pass climate accountability legislation today.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-12, An Act respecting transparency and accountability in Canada's efforts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Government Business No. 9—Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion carried.

Pursuant to order made earlier today, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Bill C-12 at report stage.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as members will see, my speech has a few things in common with the speech by my colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.

I believe the Greens, the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois all experienced the same frustration during the committee's study. The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C‑12 anyway, despite its flaws, because we agree with the net-zero by 2050 target set out in the Paris Agreement.

I do want to point out, however, that the government chose to delay putting Bill C‑12 on the House's agenda for more than four months. It took pressure from environmental groups for the government to finally introduce it in the House.

It was introduced in November, and the Minister of the Environment announced the formation of his advisory body in December, before we had even discussed it in committee. In April, the Prime Minister declared his climate ambitions to President Biden, setting targets for a 40% to 45% reduction by 2030. It was not until mid-May that Bill C-12 was finally referred to the committee, with only a few weeks left in the parliamentary session. In our view, the government's calculation is clear: little time to hear witnesses, little time to read correspondence or the many briefs submitted to the committee and, lastly, a rushed and truncated clause-by-clause process whose outcome was, as some committee members put it, a foregone conclusion.

The government has run roughshod over important parts of the legislative process by imposing this agenda and the resulting delays. I am not alone in drawing these conclusions. Since urgent action is needed, we are now dealing with Government Business No. 9. The real emergency is the climate emergency. We were hopeful that the parties that had been clamouring for strong, robust climate legislation that provides transparency and accountability and is guided by science would deliver. I can say right now that the result has been disappointing.

For its part, the government, through the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, explicitly said that targets were going to be included in the bill. It did so twice: once in the House and once in committee. At the May 17 meeting, at 2:51 p.m., the minister confirmed the following to my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia: “Yes, the new target range of 40% to 45% that we have announced as a goal for 2030 will be a requirement of the act.”

The two ministers, namely the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of the Environment, lied: no numerical target ended up being included. We worked quickly, and we have had to pick up the pace because of the timeline I mentioned earlier. However, we did listen to what various experts had to say and heard their advice on what key elements were required to come up with an ambitious climate bill.

Even more importantly, given Canada's record on greenhouse gas emissions and its dismal past failures, it was important for us to establish a road map for a bill that would enable Canada to honour its international commitments under the Paris Agreement, or in other words, legislation that would provide Quebeckers and Canadians with a demonstrably viable path toward net-zero emissions, a green and fair transition and a future for our young people. That is what this is about. It is about the life we want for future generations in our communities.

We were given excellent advice, but the government, with the calculated and negotiated support of the NDP, failed to deliver the basics of what was required, despite the science and what it tells us, despite what we have been told over the years by experts from almost every sector of the economy, including those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency, despite the fact that time is of the essence and that we cannot take small steps when leaps and bounds are required, and despite the 33 robust amendments presented by the Bloc Québécois, which were all systematically rejected except for one.

I will not use my time to talk about everything that happened at committee because my colleague already covered that thoroughly, but I would like to talk about the other committee, the one the Minister of Environment and Climate Change created in December. Since December, the government has given that committee a hodgepodge of different names, as my colleagues will see.

The committee started out as an expert advisory panel, which was not bad. It was a good start, but then things went downhill. Next it was known as the independent advisory body, the departmental net-zero panel and the net-zero advisory panel. If my colleagues find that confusing, they are right.

Everything to do with the organization of what Bill C‑12 now calls the “net-zero advisory body” is crucial to Canada's ability to say it has a meaningful climate act, not just to the governing party's ability to call an election and say it has this great climate legislation and everyone should vote for that party.

The advisory body, its composition, its mandate, its responsibilities and powers, its operation and its resources are all elements that the Bloc Québécois tried to clarify with the sole aim of finding in this bill what it was supposed to promote: government transparency and accountability in dealing with the climate emergency. The things I just mentioned were largely left out of the original version of Bill C-12.

In its amended version the NDP simply added the word “independent” to the name of the body. However, getting independent advice and having an independent body are not at all the same thing. By refusing the amendments we proposed, the NDP's minor qualification is unfortunately merely cosmetic and has no real legal scope. The departmental expert who appeared at our meeting confirmed this unequivocally.

Climatologist Corinne Le Quéré appeared before the committee. She is the chair of France's High Council on Climate and a member of the Committee on Climate Change in the United Kingdom. She has participated in several studies conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, so she has extensive knowledge and expertise. She said, and I quote:

…the current design of the legislation makes the advisory group too close to the minister, and the independence isn't quite visible enough. It must be at arm's length. The distance isn't very visible.

Let us now talk about consultations. We want thorough consultations to take place with different sectors of the economy and with government actors, all with respect for Quebec, the provinces, indigenous peoples and civil society, it goes without saying. However, the consultations must be guided by the people who have the expertise and scientific knowledge on climate change, and not the opposite.

When I listen to science, I am not listening to a multitude of positions and propositions coming from all over the place, to interests that are sometimes reconcilable, sometimes divergent. People are best placed to draw up a plan for us when they are independent, either as individuals or as a body, when they consult others, accept positions and propositions and analyze them in light of the demands of the climate crisis and the solutions that scientific expertise has to offer.

I will mention an amendment that the NDP will try to get a lot of mileage out of, I am sure. It is the one that requires the minister's first plan to include an objective for 2026. My colleagues should make no mistake: The expert who was present at the study confirmed that an objective is not the same thing as a target. The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley will tell us that his negotiated amendment is essentially a surrender. He said, and I quote:

There is other wording I would have preferred as well, but this exercise is about building enough agreement to get these changes through the committee, and that was the language that was agreed to that we feel will gain agreement from the majority of the committee members. I think the term “objective” is clear enough for most people to understand…That's certainly my understanding. My hope would be that the government would understand it similarly.

I wish him good luck with that, because hope is not a management tool for dealing with a climate crisis. I think it is good to remind our NDP colleagues of that fact.

The weekend after the first meetings for the clause-by-clause study of the bill, my office voice mail was bombarded by concerned citizens from places like Kingston, Victoria and Sudbury, who had watched the committee proceedings and wanted to express their severe disappointment as NDP supporters. Concerning the environmental file, two people went so far as to say that “the Bloc Québécois is the only real opposition left in Ottawa”. I am not making that up.

Will Canada impose an impossible task on future generations by making this accountability mere window dressing? The government must be accountable now, not in six months or a year.

The Bloc Québécois is a party with integrity that followed through on its convictions. We kept our word on the issue of climate accountability for the common good, for more transparency, for greater democracy, for more rigour and for more results.

We proposed a target of 37.5% below 1990 levels, the baseline year used by Quebec and the 27 EU countries. Canada decided to use 2005 as the baseline year, thus writing off 15 years of pollution.

We are facing a race that we cannot drop out of, but all we have is sneakers with no laces. I am worried about that. Everyone in Quebec and Canada should be worried, too. We were unable to see the process through to the end because of how the government, with the NDP as its ally, conducted this important debate.

We could wait until fall to put Bill C-12 to a vote. After all, the government waited six months to introduce it in the House and then refer it to committee. Instead of calling an election this summer, why not continue our work and wait until the fall to debate the bill and do an outstanding job of perfecting it? This will not happen, however, because the government would rather stand up in front of voters and show them how great it is.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the comments by the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, and I find his protestations somewhat disingenuous. I was at those committee meetings. I watched the member vote against the principle of climate accountability at second reading and then, at committee, vote against clauses 3, 4, 5, 6, 6.1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. It is like the member is saying that he agrees we need to get across the river, but then he votes against wading, votes against swimming, votes against bridges and votes against watercraft.

Is the member in support of climate accountability, and will he be voting in support of Bill C-12?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I think it is important to say that the Liberals and the NDP rejected a lot of ideas. The Bloc Québécois, the Green Party and the Conservative Party proposed many improvements to Bill C‑12.

This bill was not perfect, no matter what the government believed. The opposition members from the Bloc, the Conservative Party and the Green Party are the ones who had a lot of positive ideas to protect the environment and to meaningfully address climate change.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. There seems to be a bit of a sense of electoral urgency in the air, so let me just say that I have always appreciated the honour to be their representative, and I will always keep fighting for their interests. I am thankful also to my family, who allow me to continue that work.

If we hearken back just to the Government Business No. 9 debate when it originally opened up, we had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment and me. I was interrupted part way through for the proceedings of this place. It happens all the time, so I do ask those watching at home to know I am continuing my speech. In essence, I was giving a litany of concerns raised by the committee process, which was hastened by the Liberals literally steamrolling through along with the NDP. It was a process where people who wrote in to the committee were not heard. There were no indigenous witnesses. In fact, even the Assembly of First Nations' brief along with over 70 other briefs were not translated and sent to the committee until after the period of amendment. This is something that has been raised by a number of people as being a concern, telling people they did not matter.

Returning back to my comments, I was speaking specifically about the need for different aspects to be included in the bill. I will just start where I left off.

What we wanted to do was to include in the assessment report a summary of the measures undertaken by the provincial governments to achieve the national emissions targets. Once again, that seems obvious. However, once again without any debate, the Liberals and the NDP rejected it. There were no reasons given. They just voted against it. Their changes would be to include only the key measures that the federal government was implementing together with the provinces. However, since the provinces will be doing many great things on their own, should there not at least be a record of them?

The Liberals truly believe that the provinces are subordinate to the federal government and that, unless something is done by Ottawa, it is not important. That is not what we believe. A Conservative government would work with the provinces to reach our climate objectives. We believe that the provinces are partners, not punching bags.

There is another problem that I am hearing a lot about, and that is how the big push towards transportation electrification is affecting our electric grid.

Now, I support electric vehicles. Our party included an electric vehicle mandate in our secure the environment plan. We are not against electric vehicles, but Canadians are questioning whether the grid can handle this change. That is why we proposed that the assessment report in the bill include an assessment of the grid's ability to deal with increased demand.

We cannot move forward if we do not have the full picture. This was another reasonable proposal that was rejected by the Liberals and the NDP. We persevered nevertheless.

A lot of concern about the bill, including from me earlier on, has been about the formation of the advisory group. A significant number of briefs, witness testimony and amendments from other parties were about this very topic. We came up with what we believed was a reasonable approach: Instead of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change appointing all 15 members, he would simply appoint six, then the Minister of Finance would appoint three, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry would appoint three and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations would appoint three.

This would allow a more whole-of-government approach and for different ministers to put forward the priorities from their ministries into the advisory body. Conservatives believed this was the best way to ensure a wide variety of voices, not a body that includes people devoted to destroying a way of life for many Canadians, yet, sadly, the Liberals and NDP rejected it. Why did I list all these changes and talk about why the Liberals and the NDP rejected them without even debating them? It is because I wanted to show how much of a farce this process was.

Everything I mentioned was thoughtful and reasonable. We did not come in with a “Liberals admit they are terrible and should resign” amendment designed to be defeated, no. We came in with good ideas that the Liberals and NDP refused to even debate or consider, all of this after the minister said he was willing to work with all parties. Yes, sure. It was not just the Conservatives affected by this bad-faith deal between the Liberals and the NDP. I have already mentioned how an identical Green Party amendment was defeated. By the end of the process, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands had started to withdraw her own amendments because it was clear the Liberal and NDP members were not even interested in listening.

The Bloc Québécois put forward many great amendments, not ones that Conservatives generally supported, but thoughtful and productive. The Liberals and the NDP opposed them all without debate, except for one at the very end and the NDP decided to support adding a five-year parliamentary review. No one could have watched that process in committee and not be sickened by what they saw. The Liberals and the NDP not only rejected any suggestion that was not their own, but a great deal of witness testimony to boot.

Indeed, the few amendments the Liberals proposed and supported did not do anything. Many were just spelling out that the minister must do things that the minister could already do. The biggest joke of them all was an amendment that the target of net zero by 2050 did not mean net zero could not be achieved earlier, which zero people thought was the case, yet before we were called just as bitter as the Liberals, we voted for a couple of government amendments we thought were good. We came in willing to work in good faith. Unfortunately, the government and the NDP did not.

What did the NDP get for seemingly selling out to the government and agreeing to be its coalition partner in all of this? It was not much, as it happens. Basically, every environmental witness and brief stated there needed to be a 2025 target in the bill, a milestone target. In fact New Democrats themselves said that over and over in debate on the bill, but did they get that by making a deal with the government? No. Instead, they got a 2026 interim objective, which is not actually a thing in the bill and only exists in the NDP amendments as a topic that must be reported on.

In the bill, targets have teeth. They must have plans and reports. The interim objective does nothing. That is what New Democrats got for their undying allegiance in this. They also say that they got the advisory group to be more independent. What that really means is they simply added the word “independent” to the name. Seriously, that is all they did, just added a word. The minister still appoints all of them and decides what they will do unilaterally, but the word is in the title, so it must be true. It would be funny seeing what little the NDP members gave up in exchange for their loyalty if it was not so sad.

I am sure the NDP member will rise after me and proclaim New Democrats made the bill better, that they got the Liberals to make these nothing changes and that means they are doing really good work. The reality is that the Liberal government pulled one over on the New Democrats, gave them almost nothing and got their dignity in return. They will have to answer to their friends in the environmental movement for this sellout. I expect some of those meetings will not be pleasant.

That is how we got to where we are. The Liberals and NDP rushed the process, refused to listen to witnesses or briefs, refused to debate anything and refused to consider any ideas not their own, and that is just disgraceful. While we, the Bloc and the Greens were trying to debate, trying to do the thing we have all been elected to do, the minister accused us of filibustering the bill.

There were over 150 amendments and they were moving through at less than 10 minutes each. We were not filibustering, we were asking questions and debating, the kind of thing one would expect to do at committee scrutiny. To the Liberals, I guess daring to ask questions is tantamount to heresy.

We saw what they did to Bill C-10, stopping debate and passing laws in secret. That is how they want this place to run: a rubber-stamp for their Liberal ideas. I reject that. My constituents sent me here to represent them and to try to make the country better, and yes, to debate.

Therefore, I did ask questions during debate, and it is not my fault the Liberals and NDP refused to. In the Liberal world, even asking questions is apparently now a filibuster, because how dare we question the member for Papineau, whose ideas are perfect as they are and should never be challenged no matter who someone is. Well, I will because that is what I was sent here to do. I will ask those questions.

Since I wrote my speech, we had a closure motion pass today. As I said, the process the government chose was to put forward a bill and let it drag along and drag along. I would have constituents ask about Bill C-12 and I would tell them the government just really has not decided to move it forward.

Suddenly Liberals get to the end of the session and they start remembering there is a bill they have to do. They rush it through committee, a process I have explained, as well as how difficult it was on the witnesses, and even for members. I am sure there are lots of things Liberals would have wanted to ask more questions on so they could do their job as backbenchers holding the government to account, but they could not. They agreed to a strategy and they stuck with the NDP faithfully.

Since then, this very night, the minister tried to say Liberals supported the Bloc Québécois in their parliamentary review. That was fundamentally out of synch with any sort of reality. It contradicts exactly the testimony we heard earlier. The closure motion did not just cut off debate for myself but for all members, including those backbench Liberal MPs who maybe thought their constituents deserved to see their members of Parliament in action, asking questions, showing up to debate and putting forward their own ideas.

Let us be mindful, the House leader actually called the Conservatives out for filibustering a bill. We were asking questions, and he had the gall to say that we were holding things up. In fact, the Minister of the Environment a week ago Wednesday, wrote to different parties and asked us to finish the bill, which we were almost finished anyway.

We finished it Wednesday night, waited to see what happened Thursday and nothing. Eventually, our chair for the environment tabled it Friday and then Liberals said that they wanted to debate it as early as Monday, so we expected it. Then we found out that Government Business No. 9 suddenly springs out of nowhere. It sounded like they did not even want to debate Bill C-12, they just wanted to have something on the Order Paper, maybe because they knew it would not be ready in time.

What I am saying is the Liberals are in control of the agenda. One of the few things the government largely still has control of is the agenda on this place. Despite all their talk about us filibustering, they did not bring the bill forward. In fact, we did not even debate debating the bill, as in this motion, Government Business No. 9, until yesterday, a full week and a half after the bill was tabled.

I hope I have impressed upon members tonight that the government has slowly tabled a bill that many witnesses did not support, and then decided to let it languish on the Order Paper. When the Liberals finally realized they had to get the engines hopping, they jammed it through with only six hours of debate. Then they jammed it through again at committee. Now they are jamming it through today, so that even Liberal members do not get the ability to hold their own government to account, let alone all other members in this place.

I am deeply dissatisfied with the government. Canadians should see that the Liberals, by their own actions, have used a process whereby Canadians do not feel heard and their representatives do not feel needed. This is a minority Parliament. No political party was given an absolute majority in deciding the views of all Canadians.

This is where we are supposed to debate ideas and to force compromise. Instead, the Liberals and the NDP have linked up and said that they do not need to hear from anyone else. During a minority, that is a shame. Shame on the government House leader and the Minister of Environment for doing so.

On this side of the House, we will call out what we see. On this side of the House, we will fight for ideas that help our environment and help us meet our targets on climate change, not simply talk about them and talk a good game. After an election, a Conservative government will do what is right on the environment and do right by Canadians.

The House proceeded to consideration of the motion concerning the proceedings on C-12, An Act respecting transparency and accountability in Canada's efforts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

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

Madam Speaker, I have a very simple question, and I would appreciate a clear, concise answer from the minister.

If this motion is carried, and Bill C-12 eventually becomes law, who will ultimately be held accountable for Canada meeting its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets?

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, two years ago this House declared we were in a climate emergency and it took until November for the government to table this bill, which, when read, looked like no more than a public relations document pretending to be doing something. There is no accountability in this bill; it is hollow. I could not support it at second reading, because there is no principle behind it.

When it came to actually getting it into committee after a very short debate, most of the briefs arrived after the amendment period was over. It made a mockery of listening to concerned citizens. There was no youth or indigenous representation and no climate science testimony. Not a single indigenous witness was heard.

How often can the Liberals say they did not have time to consult indigenous people, while also saying that Bill C-12 respects UNDRIP?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I should say that we have included several elements of Bill C‑215 in Bill C‑12.

However, Bill C‑12 is much stronger than Bill C‑215, which was introduced in the House by the Bloc. Bill C‑215 aims for a target of 30% below 2005 levels. That is only a 30% reduction, whereas the targets in this bill are 40% to 45%, which is much stronger.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

When I think of my son and of Bill C‑12, I wonder: If one day he has the opportunity to sit in the House, will he be forced to participate in the same debates we are having today?

How does the minister, who I believe also has children, see the future of this debate if the fiscal anchors are not mandatory? Are we not letting this opportunity slip by? What concrete steps should we be taking for the sake of our children?