Debates of Jan. 27th, 2016

Presence in Gallery

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I would also like to draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Paula Biggar, Minister of Transportation, Infrastructure and Energy for Prince Edward Island, and the Hon. Geoff MacLellan, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal for Nova Scotia.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Lastly, I wish to draw the attention of the House to the presence in the gallery of Canadian journalist, Mr. Mohamed Fahmy, who recently returned to Canada from Egypt.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

The Environment

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in this House today to report on the historic agreement that was reached by more than 195 countries at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris this past December.

I would like to start with a tribute to a great Canadian, Maurice Strong, who passed away three days before the start of COP21. Maurice Strong had a big impact on international environmental policy. He did not see borders in the world. He saw a world in which resources were the legacy of all humanity. His leadership, determination and vision helped guide and inspire us while we were in Paris.

For the first time ever in history, all of the world's major economies, both developed and developing, acknowledged the threat posed by climate change. One hundred and ninety-five countries reached an ambitious and balanced agreement to fight climate change. This was the first time that all countries pledged to do their part to address climate change.

This agreement is a significant step forward. Canadians can be very proud of the instrumental role Canada played in reaching this historic climate agreement.

Climate change is real, climate change is happening now, and it is the challenge of our generation. Canadians know this. Across our country Canadians can see the real impacts of climate change: from forest fires in British Columbia, to flooding in Alberta, to coastal erosion on Prince Edward Island, to melting ice in the north. The signs are there. This is real. Warmer winters are limiting access to winter roads, which isolates a number of communities and negatively affects their quality of life. Wildlife habits are changing, which has a big impact on the traditional ways of life of hunters. This is why our government is determined to address this challenge through concrete actions here at home.

In Paris, Canada presented a united front and demonstrated a willingness to move forward and to be an active, global leader in tackling climate change. Indeed, our delegation in Paris included provincial and territorial premiers, mayors, and indigenous leaders. It also included young Canadians, environmental NGOs, entrepreneurs, and investors. Our delegation included members from both sides of this House. We must now use the spirit of co-operation to move forward with our commitments to fight climate change.

We now have the incredible opportunity to build a more sustainable economy. Fighting climate change is not only about reducing carbon emissions, it is also about building the clean economy of the future. We must now seize this opportunity.

We can and we will fight climate change without sacrificing growth and prosperity. Our global push toward a low carbon economy will produce new innovations and new companies, new growth and new prosperity.

Canada is blessed with abundant invaluable natural resources. From energy and metals to minerals and forests, our natural resources are and will always be vital to Canada's economy.

In the 21st century, the future of our economy and of our prosperity must be built on the principle that the economy and the environment go hand in hand.

We are also blessed with great minds and tremendous motivation to do better, to lead the world with new and innovative thinking. The more we develop technology and demonstrate ingenuity in the natural resources sector, the more diverse and stable our economy will be. Now is the time to innovative, to invest and to grow our communities in ways that help both current and future generations of Canadians, while tackling pollution.

The world economies are shifting toward cleaner more sustainable growth and Canada must keep up to stay competitive on the world stage. There is a significant potential market to export Canadian clean technology and knowledge, and the demand will only increase. In India alone, clean growth will require investments of $2.5 trillion.

Indeed, there are huge opportunities to be harnessed. This is why the Prime Minister and I and other colleagues were at the World Economic Forum last week, promoting Canada and Canadian businesses and working hard to attract new investments to Canada.

The Government of Canada will double its investment in clean technology over the next five years. These strategic investments will help us to both tackle climate change and create good, middle class jobs. By investing in green infrastructure projects, we will grow our economy in a sustainable way, while protecting our communities from the worst impacts of climate change.

We have high ambitions for Canada and much work needs to be done. I am, however, extremely encouraged by the leadership of our provinces and territories. In Canada, they have been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and moving forward, our actions will build on provincial initiatives.

The federal government is now determined to work in close collaboration with our provinces and territories as well as our indigenous peoples. Canadians voted for a government that understands that the economy and the environment go hand in hand. In 2016, that is a responsible thing to do and the only way we will ensure both our collective prosperity and our future.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for her comments on the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. It is my first opportunity to welcome her to her job and I do wish her well.

I am pleased to note that the new government continues to use the nationally determined contributions set by our Conservative government, namely a 30% reduction of GHG emissions over 2005 levels by the year 2030. These targets are ambitious and much work needs to be done in order to meet them within the required time frame.

That said, and despite the language of inclusivity and positivity infused throughout the minister's speech, I would like to take this opportunity to remind her of some of the very real challenges she faces.

The minister, of course, is right to point out that Canadians do experience the impacts of climate change, especially right here in Canada and especially in northern communities.

That is exactly why we are concerned that one of the very first actions of the government after the election was to drop a bombshell on Canadians.

To the surprise of everyone, the Prime Minister announced, without warning or consultation, that he was spending more than $2 billion of additional taxpayers' money on climate change initiatives not within Canada but outside Canada in foreign countries. Over $2 billion.

This is money that is being spent abroad without a climate change plan, without a clear idea of who will receive the money and without any assurance the money will be spent as intended. What happened to the minister's commitment to “Address this challenge through concrete actions here at home”?

I want to be clear that we understand Canada's responsibility to help the less fortunate countries of our world and Canada has always done its part. However, the government is sending billions of dollars to the United Nations and other agencies without consulting Canadians, without clear oversight, and without effective control over how the money will be spent. Where is the transparency the Prime Minister and his government were boasting about?

It is our view that the government's priorities right now should be to invest in Canada first under a clear defensible plan to address our own environmental challenges before throwing more money at unelected and often unaccountable agencies outside of Canada. Canadians deserve better.

The minister rightly pointed to last month's Speech from the Throne which stated that protecting the environment and growing the economy go hand in hand. But what she failed to repeat was the actual promise in the text, namely, “Working together, the Government will continue to provide leadership as Canada works toward putting a price on carbon--”.

While the minister used today's statement to proudly boast of her government's wild spending on foreign green initiatives, I would have hoped that she would have also addressed the actual elephant in the room and that is to say, what additional burden does she intend to place on Canadian consumers and businesses?

What additional price does she intend to place on carbon? What devastation will she wreak upon hard-working Canadian families at a time when our economy is facing such significant headwinds? How many more Canadians will lose their jobs because of her policies? Does she not realize the dire straits facing our energy sector?

Those are the questions the minister refused to answer today. Where is the leadership and where is the transparency? With a Liberal government which speaks so fervently about transparency and inclusivity, I am perplexed that these fundamental policy questions were not even addressed today.

Yes, we must, as the minister states, use a spirit of co-operation to fight climate change, but we cannot very well co-operate if she spends billions of taxpayers' money without warning, without consultation, and when she fails to address the most serious environmental policy proposals contained in the government's Speech from the Throne, including the plan to price carbon.

The minister also failed to address any of the work being undertaken with our North American counterparts. I have applauded the minister for making co-operation with our American and Mexican friends a priority as we seek to align our climate change policies with those of our North American partners. This was also the policy of the previous government, recognizing that Canada's place and competitiveness within the North American production platform can only be maintained if our climate initiatives are aligned with these partners.

Could the minister not have used this opportunity to share with us the progress being made on joint regulatory initiatives? Were those initiatives not discussed at COP21 in Paris when the Prime Minister wined and dined almost 400 Canadian delegates on the taxpayers' dime?

Were these joint North American initiatives not discussed at Davos, where the Prime Minister was hobnobbing with the International jet set? While the Prime Minister used his time in Davos to cheekily promote Canadian resourcefulness, he showed utter contempt for our resource sector by glibly disparaging and dismissing the critical role that oil, gas, and mining play in supporting the Canadian way of life.

Canada is, as the minister stated, blessed with great minds and tremendous motivation. However, let us not forget that it is natural resources that pay for our education, our health, and our high standard of living. Canada must engage in the global economy, we all understand that, ever finding new ways to assure our long-term prosperity. Yes, we must always diversify and promote our knowledge advantage, as well as the Canada brand, but we must never, ever trade our birthright, our competitive advantage in the resource sector, for misguided and uninformed sound bites.

I want to remind the minister that transparency and accountability require more than just vague promises of consultations. They require clear understanding of the impact that carbon pricing policies have on consumers, small and medium-sized businesses, and on hard-working Canadian families. They require a clear understanding that Canadians expect their government to invest first here in Canada before dishing out taxpayers' money abroad.

Transparency and accountability require a clear plan for Canadians to review before that plan is implemented. Sadly, we have yet to see the plan and sadly, we have heard nothing new in the minister's comments today.

We are prepared to work with the government to find that balance between our economy and protecting our environment for future generations. That offer still stands.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleagues.

First, I would like to sincerely thank the minister and her team for the work that was done in Paris with the rest of the world. I am sure that that important work was difficult at times and very exhausting.

I would like to start by setting the context of where we are headed in this next, hopefully new, conversation around climate change in this country by suggesting that there are three factors at play.

One, for the minister and her government, the bar is set incredibly low based on the previous government's inaction, denial, delay, and dithering on doing anything about climate change. Therefore, that is helpful, because almost anything seems like something.

Two, I would suggest that the expectations of Canadians are quite high. After so many years of failed attempts to address climate change, Canadians are now looking to the new government for real steps, concrete action, and resolution of this constant myth of the economy versus the environment.

Three, I would suggest that the need to be effective and satisfy our commitments to the world has never been greater. As we have known for many years, the costs of dealing with climate change only go up the further we delay and the longer we wait to act.

It is important to recognize what future steps we must take by looking somewhat to the past. Canadian governments have failed on two significant fronts with respect to climate change.

The initial failure was to over-promise and under-deliver. Commitments were made to the world at Kyoto by a previous Liberal government with no real plan or intention to follow through on them. The results were quite demonstrative. A commitment to go below 6% of 1990 levels resulted in an increase of more than 30% of our levels. By anybody's measure, that is not success.

This should have been a great teacher to the government that came forward, but unfortunately, as the previous government took office in 2006, we saw a government decide to at first suggest that there was no problem at all, that climate change was a myth and a socialist scheme designed by the UN. It was wonderful to hear the Conservatives actually quoting the UN earlier today and yesterday. However, that was a true missed opportunity. We now see an economy suffering greatly by not having much in the way of alternatives to the energy sector, and not having much in the way of answering for the half a million manufacturing jobs that we have lost in this country over the last nine years.

However, it is not right for us to simply look back at what could have been. We have to look forward. Voters, clearly in the last election on October 19, voted for change.

What is different, a skeptical Canadian voter could say, about this agreement? What is different than the previous efforts at the United Nations? What is different by previous efforts of previous governments?

One would suggest that the goal has been placed quite ambitiously. Initially, the Canadian government came into this conference with a 2°C ambition, to keep global temperatures from rising above that, but left the conference committing to 1.5°C, which is very ambitious by anybody's standard.

It is important to note that when the world had gathered together and signed this treaty, all showed up with various levels of commitment, including Canada. The current Liberal government took the previous Conservative government's goals to Paris, not having established new targets, and said that was the floor but it would get beyond that.

I will quote the eminent Dale Marshall, who said:

Current pledges made by countries to reduce emissions are too weak to stay below the safe 1.5 degree warming limit. We are in great danger of being locked into dangerous climate change, as the Paris agreement has no requirement for these commitments to be reviewed or strengthened in the near future.

The concern, if we pull away from the minister's particular comments, is that the world's commitments right now, that we signed onto in Paris, lead to a 2.7°C warming of the earth's atmosphere, which every climate scientist on the planet will tell us would be disastrous for our environment and our economy. Clearly, we need to do more.

We also know that the key elements of success from those countries that have gone ahead and actually followed through on their commitments are twofold. One is that it actually reduces their climate impact on the planet, and also improves the strength and diversity of their economy. It is the true win-win, which is so rare in politics.

I want to take one small moment to compare the current commitments from the government toward those solutions. Oftentimes, the struggle with talking about climate change is that it is about parts per million, reducing carbon impact, and, as my Conservative colleague just framed the conversation, it is somehow about pain and sacrifice, as opposed to the opportunity that this challenge offers us to have a cleaner, greener, more efficient economy.

Often, our friends in Norway are held out. They have an $8-billion commitment over the next number of years, which works out to about $400 per person in that country. The recent announcement by the minister of Canada's commitment of $100 million over five years is $1.61 per person. Therefore, Norway's effort at $400 and Canada's effort at $1.61 leave lots of room for more ambition, more hope, more hard work, more energy into the green energy solutions that we need. Truly, this is an opportunity we must seize. A lot of the decisions that we will be making as a Parliament in the coming months will not impact on us, but, in fact, on future generations.

If we are to hold sacred that trust that the voters have placed in us to do the right thing, to improve our economy, and to answer our commitments not just to the world but to those future generations, we must strengthen the commitments made by the government to this point. We must gather the forces of our entrepreneurial activity and energy in this country and finally give Canadians that sense of hope that the world can respect what Canada's commitment means, that when we say we are going to do something, we do it, and we follow through with the energy and enthusiasm Canadians are known for.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The hon. member for Montcalm on a point of order.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the consent of the House for the Bloc Québécois environment critic, the member for Repentigny, to be given two minutes to reply.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, two reports from the delegation of the Canada-France Interparliamentary Association respecting its participation at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Canada-France Interparliamentary Association in Paris, France, on July 1, 2015, and at the 43rd annual meeting held in Paris and Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, from May 18 to 22, 2015.

National Anthem Act

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-210, An Act to amend the National Anthem Act (gender).

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to introduce this bill, seconded by my colleague, the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. I am quite proud of her.

On September 22, 2014, I introduced in this House the same bill, which advocates a simple change in the English lyrics of our national anthem. It proposes that “True patriot love in all thy sons command” become “True patriot love in all of us command”, therefore replacing only two words, “thy sons”, with “of us”. This change would render the anthem gender neutral.

Although my bill was defeated in the last Parliament, the drive to make O Canada more inclusive has been advanced. Members from all parties supported my bill in what was the first vote on such an initiative in the House of Commons.

I commissioned an opinion poll on this issue which showed solid support for this initiative: a total of 58% supported this measure and only 19% disagreed.

I look forward to engaging with my colleagues as we address this important matter once again.

By the way, it is 2016.

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

Poverty

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

The first petition is about a national anti-poverty plan brought forward by my constituents. It calls on the Government of Canada to work with the provinces and territories to implement an anti-poverty plan based on human rights that focuses on income security, housing and homelessness, health, food security, early childhood education and care, and jobs and employment and to work with partners to get measurable goals, timelines, indicators of progress, and ongoing improvement for the anti-poverty plan and underlying strategies.

Falun Gong

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is based on Falun Gong, which is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline.

The petitioners are calling for the Government of Canada to pass a resolution to stop the Chinese communist party's crime of systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners for their organs and to publicly call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

Social Housing

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by 271 people from several Canadian provinces who want the government to maintain funding for social housing. Funding for social housing also means housing subsidies, which many people need.

I would like to remind the House that less than a month ago, at the end of 2015, 25,000 housing subsidies across Canada, including 5,200 in Quebec, disappeared because agreements expired. Many agreements have expired, and we simply cannot lose that much social housing.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions for Papers

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session.

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I wish to inform the House that because of the ministerial statements, government orders will be extended by 21 minutes.