Debates of Oct. 15th, 2018

Global Warming

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there were some inaccuracies in the member's speech. For instance, B.C. has had a price on pollution since 2008, and it has had an impact since the time it was introduced. Per capita use of gas in that province has gone down by 10%. In fact, emissions have shrunk by 5% even as the province's economy has steadily grown. I note that, recently, the winner of the Nobel Prize, William Nordhaus of Yale University, did his modelling based on the B.C. price on pollution.

I wonder, as his conclusion was that this is the most efficient and effective way of dealing with greenhouse gases, why would the member's party not choose that method instead of doing something that would be less efficient and have less effect on a positive good. I just cannot understand that. Maybe she can help me.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to help the member. The truth of the matter is if I look at my province, there are ways to make a difference in the environment without taxing people. In B.C., that is not accurate. There is a growth in greenhouse gases. I can understand recently a lot less gas being used in light of what it is costing people now to drive their cars, and that is all fine if they can afford it. However, there are all kinds of Canadians who are being significantly penalized by a carbon tax and even though they get a rebate from the government, it is not impacting overall because truckers who need that gas for a living do not get that rebate. Businesses do not get that rebate and it is impacting the economy.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little concerned that we are losing the focus of the concern that was expressed by the emergency debate tonight. The recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an urgent call to action and it is about a very serious threat facing the planet. That is, of course, global climate change.

Thousands of scientists and experts from around the world warn that if major and unprecedented action is not taken immediately, it will no longer be possible to limit global warming to 1.5° C and the consequences will be devastating for people and ecosystems across the globe. I would like to remind the House that without people and ecosystems, there is no economy.

If what we are doing is so good, so efficient and sufficient, why did the IPCC issue such a dire warning?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is a really good question. I appreciate the member a great deal. She does amazing work on the veterans file and I miss her at committee, although I am happy to have the other member there as well.

The member makes a good point. There are scientists on both sides of this topic, however, there are scientists and there are scientists. I understand, but we listen to all scientists. There are 93 scientists in the world. Here is the point the member is making.

The IPCC is suggesting that something drastic must be done by the global community. Those are the key words to me. The global community needs to respond. I keep hearing that we will be the example that shows everyone how to do it. Unless the global community is reaching their targets, has the government checked to see where the rest of them are at? Are they succeeding?

The truth of the matter is Canada has been pulling its weight for a very long time and it is time for the rest of the world to step up.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question comes from the statements she made, in particular about companies that are doing great and innovative things. She talked about one company in agriculture that was developing a new root system that would go deeper than we have seen in so many years. She talked about another company that was exploring different fuel types for vehicles based on capturing carbon.

It is so ironic that this is what she is talking about because this is the underlying principle of putting a price on carbon. These companies did not do that stuff just because they felt like doing it. They did it because the demand was driving it and they saw an opportunity in the demand that was there. That is the whole idea behind the price on carbon. The price will drive innovation and efficiencies for people to do better and to make different choices and they will choose not to pollute. That is the demand that will be driven through the price on carbon.

Does the member agree that not only is it an underlying economic principle, but it is a principle that the Conservative Party promotes all the time?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party promotes enabling people to do what they are capable of doing to make a difference and that has been happening extensively in my province. By the way, the growing of the root systems, humans have nothing to do with that. It is the cattle that the party on the other side of the floor thinks we should not eat. Members need to do more of their science review because women actually need some red meat.

That being said, the truth of the matter is Canada does not need more punitive taxes on top of all of the other taxes that have already been put on our country. We can do this, we are doing it, and we have been doing it for a long time without having to be taxed.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised at what the hon. member is saying. She proposed that we wait for other countries to take action before we do because we have already done too much. I think that the oil sands are one of the biggest polluters in the world. We have some work ahead of us if we want to work with other countries. Many countries in Europe are doing better than we are here in Canada and Quebec.

We have to make an effort. To hear her speak I cannot help but think that if I lived in a small village and I told myself that I would not do any volunteer work unless everyone else did, then nothing would get done. We have to take initiative. That is the strength of a nation. I hope that the Conservative Party will switch gears quickly.

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

Mr. Speaker, that is the whole point, that Canada take the initiative. I am not saying we will start when they step up to the plate. We are already very creative and innovative, doing more and more everywhere, including in the oil sands. If this individual on this side of the floor wants to have clean oil, why are we importing from Venezuela? Why are we not using our own oil? Why did the Liberals refuse to have energy east go to our coasts so that we could refine our own product? This is contrary to solid environmental thinking in Canada.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her very knowledgeable and impassioned speech. It is frustrating to hear some of the messages we have heard today, certainly from the Liberal Minister of Environment. I would love to tell my residents in High River and I am sure the member for Calgary Centre would love to go back to his residents as well and say that had we been paying a carbon tax for the last few decades we never would have flooded. I grew up in High River and we have flooded many times over a century. For me to go back to my residents and say that if we pay a carbon tax we are never going to have to worry about flooding again is ridiculous. It is a horrible message to be sending to Canadians where there is a flood or a forest fire.

We need to start talking about reality. If we want to talk about reality and talk about doing something for climate change and carbon taxes, I would like to ask my colleague this. How does she think we are going to challenge or address global emissions, if that is our goal, if the Liberal government is exempting the largest emitters?

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

Mr. Speaker, exactly. The approach of the current government is irrational. It wants to charge a carbon tax on everyday Canadians and low-income earners but allows large companies to be exempt. Then, to have the minister stand up and say to me that there will be no free rides for big polluters is what drives Canadians crazy. The Liberals say one thing over here and then over here they say and do another. It is inconsistent. It is incongruent. If it is so valuable as a tool to make a difference in the global environment, why are we punishing low-income Canadians and giving a free ride to large corporations? I would love for that to be explained.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I see there is a great deal of interest for questions on that part of our debate this evening. I will endeavour to get all of those members who are standing incorporated into the debate at some point.

We are moving on now to the next speaker. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. She has been such a leader on these issues, and I am really happy to have her here tonight participating in the debate with us. I would also like to begin by thanking the member for Beaches—East York for bringing forward this emergency motion. It is such an important issue and exactly the kind of one that I am so happy to see us all here in the House debating late into the evening. I am happy to have seconded this motion, because this is an issue that touches not only my own heart, but also is important to so many other people in my community and across our country.

It is interesting to have this at the end of our day here in the House because I started my day this morning by meeting with the Citizens' Climate Lobby. I have had a chance to talk with its members several times about their ideas for how to best address climate change. There have been really amazing citizen activists who have been coming out and speaking with us. They advocate in favour of a carbon fee and dividend system, and do tremendous work talking and educating people about how pollution pricing works. They were the ones who came to speak to me three years ago at my office in Toronto. I had conversations with them and am very grateful for their advocacy.

I say all of this on a happy note, yet tonight has been a night of highs and lows. I hope people are watching, or, if they are not watching tonight, that they take the opportunity to go back and see what has been happening. We have really seen the full gamut of the kinds of discussions we can have on this topic. I have heard people who have made really strong presentations about why it is so important that we take action, why we need to take action now, and the importance of the IPCC report in explaining the magnitude of this issue. At the same time, I have also seen a shocking dismissal of the need for action, which has been heartbreaking. We really need to take into account the fact that there have been people who, just moments ago, talked about how we really should not be taking action, asking why we would price pollution or do anything when other people across the globe are not. Well, there we go. If no one else is doing anything, then surely we should not be doing anything here, they argue. How can we ever explain that as a reason for not taking action? That part of the debate has been hard.

That is the challenge, because the report really set out the urgent need for action. This is not something we can keep debating for hours and hours and days days and years on end. This is now a time for action. At the same time, in my own home province I have seen a premier step away from pricing pollution, step away from actions that were working and were not impairing the economy. Our economy was and is doing well in Ontario, but they have stepped away. It is something that has been very hard to debate. When I look at it, it shows me why we need to take action. It is really why Canada needs to take a leadership role.

The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is a UN body that assesses the science related to climate change. We heard some of the dire warnings in its report, but it assessed the impacts of an increase in temperature of of 1.5°C or higher. We have talked about some of them, but for example, 80% of coral reefs would disappear as a result of a 1.5° increase. At 2°, the report finds that pretty much 99% of them would have gone. It is not just that coral reefs are lovely, but also that they support marine life. They are part of the whole ecosystem we depend upon.

Also, the report talked about extreme weather. This is something Canadians might want to note, as Canada is specifically mentioned as a region that would be impacted by increased heavy precipitation from an increase of even 1.5° C. When we look at that degree change having an impact, Canada is thus being singled out as one of the places where the impact would be felt. Even in Toronto, we have seen increased floods. We have seen increased weather events across our country.

This summer, I was in Calgary for a wedding, where the smoke was palpable and heavy from the wildfires in B.C. It was just such heavy smoke. It was something I have never witnessed before and being unable to see far. It was like a fog, but it was smoke in the air that we could smell. We see these kinds of events happening more frequently and they have a cost.

Here, people are talking about the money and cost of pricing pollution, but there is a cost to inaction. We cannot ignore that. It is the cost of responding to these types of extreme weather events. Individually, it results in increased insurance costs. It is not as it were free for us to sit back and do nothing. It is not free. Above all, we need to take that into account.

I want to start talking a bit about how that report provided some hope, because it also shows that if we take action we will reduce the intensity of global warming and allow the planet time to adapt; hence, there is a hopeful pattern set out in this report. As I was reading the report, which is devastating in parts, I was thinking of a movie that came out when I was a teenager called If You Love this Planet. It was about nuclear warfare. I remember being really quite scared and feeling devastated and not understanding what we could do. I needed to see that there was a plan of action, a way to move forward. There is a danger sometimes when we feel overwhelmed by fear that maybe it is better to do nothing because it is just too overwhelming. However, the report does set out some ideas as to how we can move forward.

I was talking with some people who run a group called Climate Conversations in Phin Park, which is part of the Pocket community. They were saying they are trying to bridge the divide in the kinds of difficult conversations that we have been having in the House, where maybe some people feel like they do not want to be feeling shame for doing certain things. They might feel like they are unhappy with the tone of the conversation and so they try to mediate those conversations. That is important because we do need to learn how to talk about this and be better at it. That has been made clear to me tonight.

One of the things they mention is that we have to make these emissions more costly. They do not talk about the individual costs, but that we have to put a price on emissions. In the past weeks, we just saw the Nobel prize going to economists who have singled out pricing pollution as a solution, as a proper way to deal with climate change. That was great to see. Here I have a Clean Prosperity report that shows exactly the same thing, that pricing pollution is a way of addressing climate change. At the same time, the report says that it will not cost individual families more. That is something we have been hearing about, but in fact there are reports that speak against that.

Pricing pollution internalizes the cost of what we do when we go out there, and that is important. It is a market solution and it is something that impacts our decisions to become more efficient. Who does not want to see us to be more efficient in our individual choices and in our business decisions? That is important. I am proud that our government is doing that and we are going to be pricing pollution.

I also want to talk about transit. We are investing in transit. It is something I advocate for because I ride my bike just about everywhere in my community. Active transportation is how we build connected, healthier, safer cities.

In addition to that is the need to invest in clean technology, creating job opportunities and building out. That is the stuff we are doing. Can we do more? Always. I actually believe that is the tone we are adopting, that we need to do more and need to take action. This IPCC report shows us that. I am proud of the measures we are taking and the fact that we are ready to have that brave conversation about taking those further steps. That is why this debate tonight is so important. We cannot allow the answer to be, no, we are not going to pay a price on pollution, but in fact are going to make our grandchildren pay that price because we will not do anything.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I respect the work of the member for Toronto—Danforth in this place a lot.

She thanked the member for Beaches—East York, and I do as well, for his work. In his speech, he talked about a failure of leadership. I was in Argentina with the Minister of Natural Resources in June at the G20 energy meeting about the grand transition to a zero carbon future, where countries gave their reports. The Chinese talked about making huge investments in clean renewable energy in western China, investments in ultra-high voltage lines that would bring energy to eastern China and around Asia. We heard from the U.K. minister, who talked about investing $2 billion in electric vehicle infrastructure and incentives. The German minister talked about investing in solar projects in Chile and moving it with hydrogen cells, all big, bold, expensive projects, things that the IPCC said we have to do, and yet the Canadian minister talked about building a pipeline.

I would ask the member how we can square that. How can she defend her party's actions on climate change, when they are beyond the pale compared to things other countries support? We are just not doing enough.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what we are looking at in this IPCC report is, yes, that we need to do more. That is something the IPCC report sets out clearly, and yet we need to look at what we are doing and, in fact, the challenges we have in doing it.

One of the things I am really happy about, for example, is the phasing out of coal-fired plants. That is something we will do by 2030. I saw it in the province of Ontario. I used to look out my office window and see a line of smog on many days, and I could actually feel the health impacts. I love to run, but I could not go out for a run because of the smog. We got rid of the smog days.

The fact is that with pricing pollution, getting rid of coal-fired plants, investing in transit and clean technology, we are taking action, and we have to focus on that.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Toronto—Danforth for splitting her speaking time with me.

Let us say that a building is on fire and there are a whole bunch of children on the roof. It is a six-storey building and we are fully committed to getting a fire ladder that is three storeys high. We are literally running out of time and we need to do twice as much.

I will have an opportunity to speak to what the minister said about the Paris accord. Unfortunately, what she said is not the way the Paris accord works. We can build that six-storey ladder now, and the reality is that we do not have a choice. We must do it.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with the member about the fact that we need to scale up. That is something I tried to incorporate in my speech. I am happy that we have taken steps. I see the challenges, just from the debate we have had tonight, about how hard it is. I have seen my own province roll back. I do not want anyone to be left with the impression that what I am saying tonight is that we cannot and should not be doing more as well.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my riding of Saint John—Rothesay is a riding of two realities. It is arguably one of the most industrial ridings east of Montreal, but it is also a coastal community. Overall, the majority in my riding agree that there should be a price on pollution. We see the effects. We just had the most flooding in the history of the Saint John River.

I saw the Leader of the Opposition on a TV show last week and watched him literally squirm when he was asked about what the Conservative plan was on pricing pollution. He laughed, he was awkward and he avoided the question. He will say one thing in Quebec and another thing in New Brunswick.

We believe that we will be on the right side of history. There is no question about that. The party opposite will not be. Therefore, I ask my colleague, what is wrong with incentivizing industry to innovate and pollute less? What is wrong with that?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing wrong, and in fact, I think it is exactly the right solution.

When we are looking at how to address this issue, creating incentives is one of the strongest solutions. No one has to agree with me or believe me; believe the people who won the Nobel Prize in economics. This is the best way to get there. We have people who have spent a lot of time studying this and working through it. It is a very strong solution. It is not the whole thing, but it is a strong step forward. In fact, the movement to push against it only pushes us further away from where we need to go.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand here today and I acknowledge we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin peoples. To them I say meegwetch.

I am very honoured to be part of an emergency debate tonight on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. I appreciate the Speaker accepting the arguments I made, which were also made by the hon. member for Beaches—East York and the NDP caucus.

I want to begin by quoting some words. “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment, whose ultimate consequences are second only to global nuclear war.” Those words were the opening sentence of the consensus scientific report from the Toronto conference in June 1988, when this country was in the lead on climate change, working with the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. The warnings from science were clear then and they remain crystal clear now.

That was in 1988. I have had a ringside seat for the decades during which we could have arrested climate change before our glaciers were melting, before we were losing the Arctic, before our forests were on fire, before we saw draught and climate refugees, and before we had tornadoes in Ottawa. We had a chance in the 1990s and we blew it. We had a chance in the first decade of this century, but every time there has been a warning from scientists, the alarm bell has rung and society has hit the snooze button.

I am increasingly drawn to the conclusion that our biggest problem is the short-term mindset that preoccupies political parties not just in Canada but around the world. Where is the bravery? Where is the courage? There are all those people surrounding every politician saying, “You cannot win an election by telling the public the truth. You cannot tell people they are going to have to stop using an internal combustion engine and leave fossil fuels in the ground. Do you want to tell them that? That is not going to be politically popular.”

If we are grown-ups in this place, then we should face the science clear-eyed with a serious intent that acknowledges we cannot afford to hit the snooze button on this one report because this time the scientists are telling us that 1.5° is far more dangerous than we thought it was. It reminds me of what Al Gore once said, that if we let the climate crisis continue apace, it will feel like a nature walk through the Book of Revelation.

We have allowed greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere to increase to such an extent that we have already changed the chemistry of the atmosphere; we cannot change it back. We are leaving that hospitable period within which human civilization took root. We got up and started walking on two legs, and then became the dominant force on the planet in a geological lifespan. In the blink of an eye, humanity became the dominant force on this planet. We are entering the Anthropocene, where what we do has a bigger effect than anything else on life on earth. In the Anthropocene, now we are being told that we as homo sapiens, the clever species, the smart ones, have at most 10 to 12 years to ensure that we stop greenhouse gas emissions rapidly, ramp up sequestration to protect every forest, and replant as many forests as possible. We will have to do some things besides that too if we want to ensure we hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C above what it was before the industrial revolution.

Parts of this report could have been much worse. We know this from those in the IPCC negotiations. Bear in mind that this is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yes, it is composed of scientists, but they were appointed by government and this is a negotiated document. Pressure from the United States and Saudi Arabia led to removing parts of the report that would have warned us further. If we miss the 1.5° mark, it is bad, and that is in the report, but if we hit 2°, it is much more dangerous. They took out the part about runaway global warning. We do not know when we will hit a tipping point of irreversible self-acceleration where the ultimate consequences are not about bracing for bad weather, but about bracing for millions of species going extinct. Even if humanity can hang on now, can we imagine hanging on to human civilization in a world with a 4°, 5°, 6°, or 7° rise in temperature? The answer is no.

We have one chance, one chance only, within which all the nations on earth agree that we meant what we said in Paris, that we must hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1.5°. This IPCC special report contains good news because it says we can do it. It says there are no physical, geological or geochemical conditions of planetary existence, technical or economic, that will prevent us from achieving the goal of protecting our children's future, not future generations in the hypothetical, the children who are here now. I am talking about the grandchildren I tuck into bed at night, those children, not hypothetical children. All of us know those children. They are our children. We have one chance to ensure that in their natural lifespan they enjoy a hospitable biosphere that has sustained humanity since we first got up and walked on two legs.

The issue tonight is not to debate Canada's current carbon plan, Canada's current climate plan. This is not a status quo debate. We should not be scoring political points because one party did this and another party did that. We should be here as humanity, human beings, elected people for our constituencies who know full well that if we do not change what we are doing as a species, we will face an unthinkable world. The good news is we still have a chance to save ourselves.

I increasingly am drawn to thinking about the five days in May 1940 when Winston Churchill was surrounded by people, the Lord Halifaxes and the Chamberlains, who said, “Face the facts. We cannot not defend this island. The Nazis are invading. Our entire army is stranded at Dunkirk. There are 300,000 men, and we cannot get them off because there is no way.” They sat and surrendered. This is the moment when real political leadership steps up. This is when we need our Prime Minister to go to the negotiations in Poland, or to dispatch the Minister of Environment to the negotiations in Poland, and say, “We are stepping up. We are going to rescue everybody. We are going to be the heroes in our own story. We are going to adopt what the IPCC says we must do: 45% reductions by 2030.” Churchill of course, surrounded by naysayers, thought up a miracle, one that is clearly undoable. He asked, “How many civilian boats are there in Dover? We could get those civilians to cross the English channel and rescue over 300,000 men.” Really? It was hardly plausible.

In this time and age we need to face the facts just as squarely. We need to tell Canadians that we have hope, to not despair or think it is too late. They should not turn away from the IPCC reports. They should not be afraid because we cannot breathe in British Columbia in the summer because of forest fires. They should not give up. We will rally and marshal every small town, every big city, every Canadian group, rotary clubs, church groups, and we will tell those naysayers who think that climate change is about a cash grab that they are in the way of our future and that they must get out of the way.

We also sadly must say to our own Minister of Environment that it is not true that we cannot change our target for five years. The Paris Agreement says clearly that any country can replace its own target anytime. The IPCC report has said to us as a country that our target is approximately 50% too little. We need to do twice as much. I know that is hard, but to save the lives of our children, what would we not do? Why will we not rally around the call that we go to COP24 and say we are not going to wait five years? It is an unthinkable thing what the minister has said to us. She said we are going to wait until 2023. “Read between the lines,” is what she just said. We must go to the next climate negotiation as leaders in the world with the target assigned us of totals we must have. Then we must stand up and challenge the others by asking where is their target, where is their goal, because we are not prepared to tell our children we are a failed species. We are not going to do that because we are responsible human beings. We are Canadian parliamentarians and together we can achieve the pathway that has been put before us by world science.

Time is not on our side. History may not be on our side, but by God, we better be on our side. We better grab this chance and make it real.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made an impassioned speech and I thank her for her advocacy on this file. She has done a tremendous job in advocating for a cleaner environment not only in Canada but around the world and I thank her for that.

A lot of us have been quoting today from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. A summary of the report states, “The IPCC scientific team's current projections indicate we have little over a decade to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid a catastrophic climate change.”

The hon. member mentioned that time is of the essence and that we need to act now. Would she agree with taking a three-pronged approach? Many approaches could be taken to tackle climate change. One is through government legislation, which is what our party wants to put forward. We want to put a price on pollution to ensure that polluters pay for the greenhouse gas they emit. A second approach is to listen to scientists and researchers that provide scientific evidence and data. Third, we need to change everyday Canadians. We need to rethink the way we live, work and travel. We need to change that because 75% of our greenhouse gas emissions is caused by the way we live, work and travel.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would put it this way. We have to do all of those things and more.

This is a heroic effort on a global scale. It means decarbonizing our electricity sector, not just getting off coal but making sure we do not switch to polluting natural gas instead. We have to decarbonize electricity, improve the east-west electricity grid, get rid of internal combustion engines, use electric vehicles, and ensure energy efficiency and retrofits for every building. At the same time, we have to ensure that there is green biodiesel for our tractors and our fishing boats.

All of those things have already been invented. That is the miracle. They are all possible. We just have to tell our fellow citizens that we are ready, it is a challenge, and we are all going to do it together.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank and congratulate our Green Party colleague. She dared to use terms that truly reflect the challenge we are facing. She dared to talk about humanity. We are at that point.

It is completely unacceptable for members to be hurling partisan tomatoes. We are past that point. That is why I would like to ask her a question. She said that Canada could be a world leader by raising its sights and limiting the temperature increase even further. Does she not believe that we could choose a minister responsible for the fight against climate change and invite other countries to do the same? That minister's mandate could even be longer than the usual election cycle to enable him or her to think more long term.

It would take 50 years before we could all agree on someone, but it would be done and then we would not have to argue about every little detail.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I think he is absolutely right. Time is running out, but it is not too late. That is the good news in this report.

We need to do more and perhaps we should create a new cabinet position. However, the reality is that this is a societal undertaking. We need a societal project in which the Prime Minister would ensure that all of Canada's policies are aligned and working toward the same goal of eliminating greenhouse gases before it is too late.

We cannot buy pipelines and build pipelines and approve massive greenhouse gas emitting operations and at the same time say that we are committed to achieving the Paris commitment.

It is a moment again to Churchill, that we have entered an era of consequences and we cannot pretend to be doing something while we are doing the contrary at the same time.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

It is an honour to rise in the House today to speak to the most important issue of our time as we examine the IPCC report. Ninety-one scientists analysed 6,000 scientific studies and are again sounding the alarm. This is not the first time that IPCC scientists have warned all governments that they must act now and that time is running out. To tell the truth, we are almost past the point of no return. They are saying that we are going to hit a wall in 10 or 12 years.

I listened to an interview with Aurélien Barrau, a French scientist, who said that there is no way to avoid the repercussions, but that it is not too late to reduce their intensity. The longer we wait to implement measures to combat climate change, the worse the impact will be. We need robust changes starting today, October 15, 2018, to safeguard my generation and future generations.

Nobody is making the decisions that need to be made now, decisions that should have been made 10 or 20 years ago, and people my age and our children are going to pay the greatest price. As a young Canadian, I find this demoralizing because our air, our water and our planet hang in the balance. I cannot believe that, in 2018, I, a federal MP, do not have more influence over debate in the House of Commons.

Catastrophic numbers are everywhere. On Sunday, a 730-page document sounded the alarm. According to the IPCC's urgent call to action, it is now or never and doing nothing could spell the end of humanity. What are we waiting for? I cannot believe this. They say the planet has already warmed by 1°C. If we do nothing, or rather, if we merely reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 45%, there will be no avoiding catastrophe by 2030, which is less than 12 years from now. The year 2030 is right around the corner. What will it take for the government to take action?

A few months ago, the government bought a $4.5-billion pipeline with taxpayer money. Money aside, the government bought a pipeline to triple oil production in the oil sands, even though we just signed the Paris Agreement and the government says we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Why did the government buy the pipeline?

We apparently need to limit global warming to 1.5°C. When people hear figures like 1°C, 1.5°C or 2°C, they are not sure what these figures actually mean. Just think of the never-ending heat waves this past summer. Farmers, those people who feed everyone, or at least we hope everyone, three times a day, are saying that this was the worst summer in 50 years. They are the ones feeding the world. They are telling us that they had poor harvests, which is a rather tangible effect of climate change.

Not even a month ago, six tornadoes hit the national capital region, in Hull and Ottawa. This was unprecedented, and these kinds of events are increasingly common: earthquakes in Haiti, tsunamis, flooding, forest fires in British Columbia, and I could go on.

Why is the government not doing more? Why is it not spurred to action? The government is talking about changing some vehicles to electric vehicles, but it takes more than changing one car for another. It requires a change in lifestyle, a change in mentality. Behaviours need to change, and that will not be accomplished with one, 1,000 or even 100,000 vehicles. That is ridiculous. That is not even 1% of the vehicles in Quebec. What more will it take?

The environment commissioner has shown in successive reports over the past two or three years that the current government and the previous government, which was in office for 10 years, did not reduce fossil fuel subsidies. I believe $3 billion in fossil fuel subsidies are handed out each year when we should be reducing our oil dependency. That does not make any sense. What are we not doing?

Fourteen of the 19 federal departments, including Environment Canada, do not have a plan to adapt to climate change. That is ridiculous. Actually, it is completely absurd. The government cannot say that it is working on the international stage to become a world leader when even Environment Canada could not be bothered to come up with a plan to adapt to climate change. The Liberals are setting targets that they say are ambitious but that are modelled after the targets set by the Conservatives, who received two fossil awards. The government has not even bothered to say whether we are on track to meet those targets. Why? Because the government does not have any models or analyses of possible plans. No one is working on implementing plans to meet the targets.

We hosted the scientist Normand Mousseau from the University of Montreal in Quebec who said that Canada has no plan. Not only do we not have a plan, but we also have no method for assessing how to achieve our targets. If we cannot assess progress and make adjustments, how can we know whether we are going to achieve our bloody targets? It is impossible. The scientists are saying that this is just window dressing and, once again, simply rhetoric without any real intention of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. How are we going to achieve it? How will we make sure that there are not between 200,000 and one billion refugees on the planet 30 years from now? I will still be alive 30 years from now. I will be 66 and my daughter will be 34. Do I really want us to live through that?

I am not the only one saying this. Aurélien Barrau, a scientist, has said that in 30 years, war could break out simply because people will no longer have any land. We are already seeing countries closing their borders to refugees for various reasons. There is a lot of hate speech and fear-based rhetoric. Even right here, some people want us to close our borders to refugees. There will be climate refugees. It will no longer be 1,000 or 2,000 more refugees per month or per year. It will be millions more refugees every year because of climate change. If we do nothing, it will not be just the economies of certain cities or certain countries affected, but the entire global economy.

It will cost us more if we do not than if we take action and implement plans. I sure hope this emergency debate is not all for show just so we can say that we debated it. If this is the case, we will see more tornadoes, more drought, more agricultural problems, and even more transportation problems and traffic congestion. More people will get sick. Lyme disease was an issue this summer, and the disease claimed a record number of victims, all because the number of ticks carrying the disease continues to rise as a result of climate change. This reality unfortunately hit hard in Montérégie. Children in this area are suffering and cannot even get diagnosed because doctors do not have the information they need. This is having a serious impact in all sectors.

We should have more than just an environment department, and it should work with the finance department, as is done in other countries, like Germany.

We need to work together, stop working in isolation, and work with scientific evidence.

[John Oliver, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, Lib.]

Mr. Speaker, when I go back to my riding of Oakville, I am very proud to talk about our government's work in both protecting the environment and growing our economy. It is working.

We have created thousands of jobs across the country while our emissions are dropping. We have put a price on pollution. We are phasing out coal. We are making historic investments in public transit, green infrastructure and clean technologies. In Oakville we are making a difference with our environment.

My question to my hon. colleague is this. We have heard from scientists around the world. We are running out of time. It is crunch time to get something done. Do the hon. member and her party support putting a price on pollution?