Mr. Speaker, I rise to pursue a question that I asked in question period not that long ago, on Friday, June 2. I suppose it is now June 9, as it is a bit after midnight.
The context of my question to the Minister of Environment was that just the day before, the President of the United States had claimed he had exited the Paris agreement. In legal reality, which is the reality, the United States is still part of the Paris agreement and remains legally bound by its obligations. The earliest possible date on which Donald Trump can pull the U.S. out of Paris is November 4, 2020, which, ironically, is the day after the next U.S. presidential election. There is no question that the President of the United States intended to do maximum damage to the global effort.
My question for the minister was about what more Canada could do under the circumstances. I named some specific actions. One was to revisit our target, which is still too weak. It is 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. That is the target that was left behind by the previous Harper administration. It is inconsistent with the Paris goals. If we achieve that target by 2030, it is insufficient to fulfill our obligations under the Paris agreement. We need to do much more if we are serious about avoiding a 1.5° global average temperature increase.
The exciting thing that happened in the days since I asked the question, and I will return to the minister's answer, is that, if anything, Donald Trump has galvanized sub-national levels of government throughout the United States to commit to the Paris agreement. Ironically, his rhetorical flourish that he was elected by Pittsburgh and not Paris led to the mayor of Pittsburgh, Mayor Peduto, to say that Pittsburgh is committed to Paris and Donald Trump should not speak for Pittsburgh when he says he was elected by Pittsburgh. He was not elected by Pittsburgh and it wants the Paris agreement to go forward.
There are 211 mayors across the United States who have recommitted their city governments to reducing greenhouse gases, as have more than 30 states. Just yesterday, the state of Hawaii passed the first law in the United States specifically mentioning the Paris accord and saying that Hawaii and state officials are now legally bound to come up with a treaty with plans within the state of Hawaii to meet those targets.
The answer I received from the hon. Minister of Environment was excellent. She said, “If the U.S. administration is going to step back, we are going to step up.” However, the only specific concrete measure she suggested was that the House would debate the Paris agreement, which we have already done. She said we would vote on it, and we know how that went. It was 277 to one in support of the Paris agreement.
To meet our targets under the Paris agreement and to play a global role that could be called leadership, we need to do much more. Setting a price on carbon is merely a foundational piece. It will not achieve even the weak Harper target. We need eco-energy retrofit programs. We need to make sure that we encourage the transition to electric vehicles far more aggressively than we are doing. We cannot afford to postpone, as the government just did, our methane regulations. We need them right away. We need to do much more and faster on our infrastructure fund. Money that has been re-profiled for after the next election needs to be spent sooner.
In other words, what I am hoping to get to tonight in this debate is the clear understanding that the world is not abandoning Paris and Donald Trump is not going to destroy the Paris agreement, but without more action from governments that support it than what we have declared so far, we will not achieve our Paris targets. Canada needs to do much more than we are currently committed to doing.