Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to follow the letter I tabled with your office on Friday.
Under our Standing Order 52, I want to associate myself with every syllable spoken by the member for Beaches—East York. He is absolutely correct. Following my request, I note that we will hear from the Democratic Party caucus. I appreciate its understanding of the urgency.
If I could just focus on things that were not already said, the reason for an emergency debate is that time is not on our side, not just in the time frame of 10 years, but in the time frame of a number of weeks. The United Nations Conference of the Parties will be convening in Poland, December 2 to 14. That is COP24. It is where the IPCC report will be debated and it is where we will have to see a significant improvement on the targets that governments have accepted from around the world.
Our government has a real opportunity. Our Prime Minister and our Minister of Environment have a real opportunity to leverage up the targets of other countries. As the member for Beaches—East York just said, the changes we are seeing are irreversible. Time is not on our side. A 10-year window to go to 45% below 2010 levels of greenhouse gases will require heroic, massive global efforts, but Canada must change our targets in the near term and be an effective mobilizer at the meetings that take place in less than 30 sitting days time from this Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, for that reason, I hope you will use your discretion. I understand these matters are difficult, but the time is now for us, in a non-partisan spirit, to understand the science and grab the one opportunity we have to protect our children's future.