We are seeing billions and billions of dollars in damages from climate impacts across Canada every year, and those numbers and impacts are always mounting. My Canadian family is from Nova Scotia. I recall 2024 when that province entered a state of emergency three separate times—first for fire, then for floods and then for extreme weather. This is the case across the country. Canadians are feeling the impacts of climate change.
We are being forced into this false dichotomy between the environment and the economy, as if we can trade one off against the other when in fact the two go hand in hand. What economy do we have in an environment that is not able to function and provide the ecosystem services we rely on? I think it's an absolutely rhetorical position that Canadians are being put in. These are the kinds of divisive politics I was referring to in my opening statement.
Let me talk about prosperity for a second.
In 2022, for the very first time, Canada decoupled greenhouse gas emissions from our GDP. This has been a hallmark of success for the United Kingdom and the EU. Separating GHGs from GDP has been a huge part of their growth, prosperity and green economy in the last number of years. In 2024, we could already see that this was stagnating—that the separation between GHGs and GDP in Canada was stopping. I expect, with the decisions we've recently seen, that this trend will only continue.
We're seeing that our most prosperous counterparts in other parts of the world have figured out how to make money while reducing emissions. If Canada can't do that, we're going to keep being stuck and left behind.