Debates of Oct. 15th, 2018

Global Warming

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is referring to the fact that the countries talked a lot about Kyoto but never intended to sign it.

To my colleague, I would say that even though Quebec is not a country, it did fulfill its Kyoto commitments. Other countries could have if they had truly wanted to. However, the United States had no desire to implement it. Canada was all talk but no action.

The Conservatives did nothing on Kyoto. They withdrew from it, so they are in no position to lecture us on respecting international commitments, since they have no intention of working with other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They simply want to rally their base to slow down or stop any chance of collaboration on this international issue.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I remind hon. members that when they ask questions, it is polite to listen to the answer, and when members are answering, it is not okay to shout at or mock them.

That was just a little reminder for the House.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, despite the fact I am feeling very under the weather, which seems to be an appropriate saying for tonight, I had to be here to participate in this. I want to thank my colleagues, colleagues across the way and the member for the Green Party for calling this debate.

This matter of urgency did not happen simply because the IPCC told us to wake up, that we were already at the 1.5°C mark. The urgency was identified a long time ago. I happen to hold a very thick report issued by the Department of National Resources 23 years ago, calling for expedited action on climate change. That report was edited by an agricultural expert. There is a major chapter in that report about the impacts that were already being felt in Canadian agriculture then because of climate change.

This is a crisis that touches every corner of the country. Our colleagues in the Conservative Party represent a lot of farmers, and they should wake up and realize the impacts their farmers are facing.

In my province, we have faced unprecedented terrible weather this fall. We have not had a fall. We had a bumper crop, and so many of those crops have been downgraded in value because of early terrible weather, namely early snow and terrible rains. Those who rely on the construction industry, landscaping and nurseries have been devastated. This represents two months of incomes and this is just the beginning.

Those are what we might call “minor” impacts to small businesspeople, but the impacts are being felt across the globe. We simply need to look at our neighbours to the south in this continent to understand the devastation that has been wreaked upon us. We do not need the IPCC scientists, but we certainly need to heed them.

Many times over, Canada committed to Kyoto and the 2020 targets, which have passed by. The Harper government pulled out of the Kyoto targets and the Liberals have simply brushed away the 2020 targets, which the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has decried. Are we simply going to brush away the 2030 targets? If we do not get serious, we are in serious trouble not only with respect to meeting our commitments in Paris, but even in meeting the reprehensibly low Harper government targets, which, amazingly, remain the targets of the Liberal government. It is time to get serious.

A question was asked about what other country we can give as an example. One of our trading partners, the United Kingdom, achieved 23% greenhouse gas reductions from 1999 levels by 2012, and it is on track for a 35% reduction of 1999 levels by 2020. We are not even basing our reductions on 1999 anymore. We have moved forward to the Harper target of the 2000s.

While the Liberals have supported this call for an emergency debate, sadly their commitments fall far short of responding to the urgent need for action.

It is really important for us to keep in mind, and particularly so given the comments from our colleagues in the Conservative Party, that the federal government does have powers to act on climate change. Yes, it is a good idea to also work in co-operation with the provinces and territories and with first nations, but the federal government has a duty to move when the provinces and territories are not moving. Recent elections in Canada have put a greater onus on the federal government, but it is the federal government that committed to the Paris targets, and it should therefore be the government held accountable.

What are the two key powers? The really important one is the spending power. The federal government collects dollars from Canadian taxpayers, and it decides how it is going to spend those dollars. Regrettably, despite commitments by the Harper regime and the Liberals of the day, the government has still not removed the perverse subsidies for fossil fuels. That would be a start. The investments in renewables and in energy efficiency in no way match those supporting the fossil fuel industry. If we are talking about making a shift toward a cleaner economy, that would be a simple first step.

Could the government please shift from pilot projects to significant federal investments for the deployment of renewable energy? We have had enough pilot projects. We have so many proven technologies, developed in this country and elsewhere, that can be deployed. Our communities need federal support to deploy those energy sources.

We need help in costing the smart grids and the interprovincial grids. There is a lot of talk about Manitoba Hydro being fed into Saskatchewan so that the latter can get off coal sooner, of Quebec hydro going into Ontario and lots of talk of BC Hydro going into Alberta. It would be nice if B.C. would give us a good price. However, the federal government could certainly help.

If we look at Bill C-69, a lot of the discussion during the expert panel was that it was unlikely that the National Energy Board, soon to become the new Canadian energy regulator, would actually deal with a lot of fossil fuel projects except for interprovincial grids. Therefore, the government needs to gearing up and talking about that and having a big dialogue about how it can help to expedite these improved grids.

The government needs to disburse the pan-Canadian funds now. We raised this three years ago. It has set aside this $1.5 billion dollars and some, and then sat on it, supposedly waiting for the provinces and territories to decide what they needed to do. My premier, Premier Notley, said to send it now. Thank heavens the province finally put in place an energy efficiency program and it was grateful for the infusion of dollars. If there were any way to get more people on side to understand that we need to put a price on carbon, we also need to help those who need a leg up to retrofit or build in cleaner ways. How about a little balancing?

Recently, dollars were given to the Northwest Territories. I have talked to my friends and colleagues there, and they are saying that it is merely symbolic. Imagine what it costs to build energy-efficient housing and buildings in the Northwest Territories, let alone Yukon and Nunavut. There are a lot of people interested, such as small energy companies, in deploying clean technology and building energy efficiency. Let us move forward our national building code. For heaven's sake, we learned at committee that it is not going to be in place until 2030. We need to have our housing and buildings built to a higher standard right now.

The transportation sector is on par with the fossil fuel industry in emitting GHGs, so we do not just need a major infusion of dollars, but to make sure that the federal government uses its regulatory powers and sticks with those stricter standards for large vehicles and, frankly, for trucks and SUVs.

The Harper government promised that it would use its regulatory power. In 10 years, it never issued a regulation on fossil fuels. I am sorry, but we cannot listen to what it did. It is more a case of what it did not do.

As I mentioned, the fixation seems to be on whether we should have a carbon tax and how much it should cost. Why are we not talking about the whole bundle of measures that need to happen in tandem with the carbon tax? There is no way that Canadians are going to look at a $50 a tonne carbon tax, let alone a $150 a tonne tax, which is projected to be necessary to stay at 1.5°C, unless there are measures in place to help them get there. In particular, I refer to those who cannot afford to do it, such as small business a lot of homeowners and apartment dwellers. A lot of people who have small businesses are renting from other people who own those buildings. They need support to lower their power bills.

We absolutely need the federal government to issue stronger regulations for controlling methane. Forty per cent is just not good enough. I encourage everyone in this place to take in one of those technical briefings that show that we can reduce far more methane if we require, as the technology exists. However, we need to require the monitoring of methane in tandem with the initial regulations. We can reduce our climate impacts in a large way if we get those industries to reduce their methane faster.

Also, I am concerned about the standards to be set for gas power. People need to be aware that the conversions from coal to gas are going to be much weaker than for new gas plants. Gas plants also emit a lot of greenhouse gases. Where is our timeline? What is the timeline for simply moving to cleaner sources of energy?

We need to be scaling up the investments in northern diesel. It is costing the northern governments hundreds of millions of dollars to transport that diesel to the communities and it is polluting those communities.

In terms of coal shutdown, where is the federal budget for a just transition for those working in the coal fire power sector? To its credit, a year ago Alberta committed $40 million to help retrain and support workers in that sector. All the government has done is to consult. It does not expect to even have a report until the end of this year. We need a major infusion of federal dollars to support both oil and gas, not just coal workers, and to shift to renewables.

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

Mr. Speaker, I knew that wild horses would not keep my friend from Edmonton Strathcona from a debate on a subject as important as this one.

Regrettably and predictably, the politics in this place gets into it when we talk about carbon pricing and carbon taxing. What the IPCC report has told us is that humanity has one chance to protect the world for its kids. We have one chance, and it is expiring in about 10 to 12 years, to hold global average temperature increases to no more than 1.5°C, and if we miss that, we can go to 2°C and to 3°C and end up in a situation where the worst case scenario is not bad weather, but the collapse of our civilization and the extinction of millions of species, potentially including us.

We should be seized with this not as a political and partisan issue, but as one that recognizes that we will need carbon pricing and massive shifts, as the member for Edmonton Strathcona mentioned, to get renewable energy from one province to another, to move off the internal combustion engine and to electric vehicles, and to have ecoENERGY programs right across the country. In other words, it must be a massive, heroic, government-wide and worldwide effort.

Would the member like to comment on the kinds of things that we should focus on, starting with going to COP24 with a new target, one consistent with IPCC advice?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her dedication to this cause.

This gives me a chance to share something I had hoped to share and hope to be coming forward with something on in the House soon. Quite some time ago, the United Kingdom tabled and passed legislation setting binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases. That legislation requires it to review its targets every five years and it has established a separate environment commission, headed, by the way, by a former Edmontonian, that gives independent advice on how best to meet those targets. Then it audits the government's action and makes the results public.

Going into the next COP, I highly recommend that the government tables that exact legislation, as my party has done several times over.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the challenges that we see as a country when trying to implement the dramatic and drastic changes being proposed in the study that came out a few days ago is what these changes would mean for our economy. The reality of the situation is that if we do something that has such dramatic effects on our economy, we could end up in a much worse position than many other countries throughout the world. Could the the member provide some insight into how she sees our squaring away the problem we have with our economy, and what it would mean if we started to take a lot of the dramatic measures being proposed and that other countries do not take?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think those measures are any more dramatic than what we are going to face if we do not take them. In looking at the economy, the most important thing for the government to do is to finally take action on a just transition.

My province alone relies heavily on oil and gas. It also relies on agriculture that is being impacted by climate change. Our national economy depends on fossil fuels, but workers are calling for the federal government to take action and invest heavily in retraining so they can get jobs in the transition. There are many who work in the oil and gas sector and in coal-fired power who have the skills and could work in the renewables sector. There are many technical schools across Canada that have waiting lists for younger and older workers to be upgraded.

When is the government finally going to step up to the plate and invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a just transition?

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I suspect if you were to seek it, you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, during the debate tonight pursuant to Standing Order 52, no quorum calls, dilatory motions or requests for unanimous consent shall be received by the Chair.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

(Motion agreed to)

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

Mr. Speaker, the UN report was clear that we are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change, and we are the last generation to be able to act. This is not just about future generations. This is about my kids and the kids of everyone here and the kids of everyone in this country. For children who are 10 years old today, we are talking about catastrophic impacts in 30 years, when they are 40 years old, if we do not take action.

Action on climate change should not be a partisan issue. It will affect all of us, whether we are rich or poor, whether we live in the north of the country or the south, whether we vote on the left of the spectrum or on the right of the spectrum, whether we are urban or rural. We are all in this together, and we need to come together.

Meanwhile, we have one party, the Conservative Party, that has no plan for climate change, and worse, thinks that polluting should be free. There are huge costs to pollution, and these are costs that we are paying as Canadians. Everyone across the country has seen this summer extreme heat. We have seen forest fires that are burning longer and brighter than ever. We have seen floods. We have seen droughts. Our Arctic is literally melting.

We need to act on climate change, and our focus should be on how we do it. How do we implement the climate plan that our government negotiated with provinces and territories, with indigenous peoples, with cities and towns, with businesses, with environmentalists, with hospitals, with schools, with all Canadians? We have a plan, and now we need to implement it.

The other problem with the Conservatives is that they do not understand the huge economic opportunity of action on climate change. It is in the trillions of dollars. There is a huge opportunity to do things better. We did not get out of the stone age because we ran out of stones; we got smarter.

We are seeing Canadian companies that are innovating. These are companies like CarbonCure, which is making cement that is lowering greenhouse gas emissions. They take the greenhouse gases from industry, they inject them, and they create stronger and cheaper cement. This solution is being used in California, where I saw it in a cement factory, and it is being used around the world. Would we not want good jobs? Would we not want economic opportunity? We need to take action on climate change. We need to create good jobs. We need to grow our economy, and that is exactly what we are doing.

I am extremely proud that under our government, we have created more than 600,000 jobs for Canadians. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in decades. Our economy is the fastest-growing economy in the G7, and also we are reducing emissions.

We need to recognize that there is a huge cost to climate change. This is a cost that has gone from $400 million a year just over a decade ago to over a billion dollars. The UN report talks about the cost of climate change: $50 trillion. These are costs that are going to be borne by people. We need to act. As I said, we are the last generation to be able to act on climate change.

When we look at some examples of disasters, we can look at the Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016. It cost almost $9 billion. We know that we are going to continue to see wildfires like that, and they are going to get worse. However, if we take action, we can limit the impact.

In Paris, I was involved in negotiating the Paris Agreement with a delegation that included Conservatives, NDP representatives, the member from the Green Party, indigenous leaders, and premiers of all political persuasions. We all came together with the rest of the world, and we said that we all need a plan. For the first time ever, every country's representatives said that they were going to act on climate change. I pushed very hard, as a representative for Canada, to strive for 1.5 degrees. We, Canada, as a country, knew that we needed to be ambitious, not just for Canadians but also for people around the world.

One of the saddest moments I have ever witnessed was at COP 22, where we had a representative from a small island state speaking to an Inuit leader, and the Inuit leader said, “My homeland is melting, and it is causing yours to go under water.” This is what we are talking about. We are talking about the impacts of climate change that we see around the world. We really do need to come together.

We can think about what we have done as a government. We helped negotiate the Paris Agreement. We pushed for 1.5 degrees. We pushed to recognize the role of indigenous peoples in the Paris Agreement. We pushed for market measures, and then we came home and did the hard work.

We spent one year negotiating with the provinces and territories and indigenous leaders. We listened to Canadians from coast to coast to coast. It is clear that Canadians want climate action. They want smart action that is going to tackle climate change, reduce our emissions, create good jobs and grow our economy.

Let us talk about our plan.

Our plan includes phasing out coal. We know that coal is not just bad for the environment but is extremely bad for human health. The previous Liberal government of Ontario phased out coal, and Ontario went from over 50 smog days to zero. That had an impact, and not just on people's health. It meant fewer kids with asthma and fewer premature deaths, but it also meant less cost in terms of hospital visits. It was a good thing for the environment, for health and for the economy.

We are also making historic investments in public transit. When I talk about the investment in public transit and LRT in Ottawa, that is going to be the largest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the city's history. It is also good for people who live in Ottawa. They can get to places faster, cheaper and in a cleaner way. We are also investing in electric vehicles and a transportation strategy, because we know that we need to reduce emissions across the board.

We also know that we need to reduce emissions in how we build things. We have a net-zero building strategy. We have also made historic investments in social housing. We know that the people who are the most vulnerable should pay the least when it comes to their heating costs.

I was here in Ottawa visiting new social housing built to the passive standard. The cost for a resident in that building will be $12, not a month but a year, in heating costs. That is a huge opportunity.

We are making historic investments in renewables and also in interconnecting grids. We know that provinces that are getting off coal can be linked with provinces that have clean power.

We are also making investments in energy efficiency. We are supporting Canadian businesses, hospitals, schools and individuals who want to do right by the environment and want to save money. The thing is, that also creates great jobs. It creates jobs for contractors. It creates jobs for builders, and it creates jobs for the people who are building the material. That is good for the economy.

There are so many opportunities for us to come together and take action on climate change. However, we also need to recognize that there is a cost to pollution. It is not free to pollute. It is literally a cost that is now being borne by Canadians.

When we looked at how we could do this, we gave two years to all the provinces to come up with their own plans for putting a price on pollution. Some provinces stepped up and showed leadership. The provinces that have, or had, a price on pollution, which were B.C., Alberta, Quebec and Ontario, until, unfortunately, recently under the new government, were the fastest-growing economies in the country while they were serious about tackling climate change. That is what we want. We want the environment and the economy to go together.

We also told the provinces to design their own plans and decide what they wanted to do with the revenues. The revenues will always stay in the provinces in which they are collected. A province like Saskatchewan could potentially cut its whole provincial sales tax, or it could do like other provinces, such as Quebec, and invest in clean technologies and electric vehicles, or British Columbia, and give money back in the form of tax cuts. However, what we cannot do is let big polluters get a free ride. We are all paying the cost of pollution.

We have a huge economic opportunity. When we say that there is a cost to pollution, businesses innovate. They figure out how to reduce the price of polluting by coming up with cleaner solutions. Those are clean solutions that they can then use and export. They will and are creating good jobs in Canada. That is what we want.

We are always focused on how we grow the economy, how we create good jobs and how we do right by the planet. When we look at what is happening across the country, there are so many great stories of companies that are tackling climate change and also growing their bottom line.

Take VeriForm, a steel manufacturer in Ontario, which is focused on energy efficiency retrofits. It cut almost 80% of greenhouse gas emissions and it saved $2 million. When I met with the owner, he said that even if he did not care greatly about climate change, which he does, he would have invested in these energy efficiency measures, because they added to the bottom line.

In Quebec, GHGSat is a company that uses satellite technology to measure emissions. Now people around the world are looking for this technology. When I talk to farmers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, they are using climate resilient crops for zero-till agriculture. They are part of the solution. Why? Because they also recognize that they are being impacted by climate change. Everyone is impacted by climate change. It does not matter if it is a farmer in Saskatchewan or an Inuit in the high Arctic, we are all feeling the impacts from climate change. We all know we need to act.

When it comes to a price on pollution, we just found out last week that the winners of the Nobel Prize in economics are economists that showed that putting a price on pollution works. What did they use as the best example of that? It was British Columbia. What did British Columbia do? It put a price on pollution. It gave money back in the form of tax cuts, and it has been able to have one of the fastest-growing economies in the world while at the same time reducing emissions. It has one of the top clean tech sectors in the world.

I am proud that under our government, we have supported the clean technology sector and are focused on how to help companies have clean solutions. Those could be mom and pop shops or the big game-changing solutions. We are now punching way above our weight. Thirteen out of the 100 top clean tech companies are Canadian. That is something we should be totally proud of, but I want to see half those companies be Canadian. That is what our goal is. Our goal is to figure out how we do right by the planet, how we reduce emissions and how we create solutions the world so desperately needs.

Let us talk about what is going on around the world. COP24 is coming up. We need to get the rules for the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is like the car; now we have to get the engine. We are working very closely with China and the European Union. Unfortunately, the U.S. stepped back on climate action.

What have we done as a country? We have stepped up. We are committed to the Paris Agreement, which includes being more ambitious. Every five years, everyone needs to ratchet up ambition.

We are also focused on phasing out coal and helping countries around the world do this. Canada and the U.K. have a powering past coal coalition. There are countries and businesses from around the world that are joining. Why? It is because they know that we need to get out of coal. If we are going to meet our Paris Agreement targets, we have to do that, but there is a huge opportunity, because the price of renewables has dropped.

My hon. colleague from the NDP talked about the need to support a just transition. I was just meeting with our just transition task force and talking exactly about how we can do that. This is a task force that went to communities where we are phasing out coal. They talked to workers. They talked to communities. We have labour unions and businesses involved. How do we figure this out and transition to a cleaner economy? It is better for the environment, but it is also a $30-trillion opportunity. That is not coming from me. That is coming from the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. That is coming from the head of BlackRock. That is coming from businesses across the world that recognize that we need clean solutions. They recognize the risks of inaction.

The challenge is that we have one party, the Conservative Party, that does not want any action. The Conservatives took no action for the last decade. The emergency we are talking about right now was an emergency 10 years ago. This was an emergency, and they never took it seriously, and now what do they want to do? They want to kill all climate action—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order. I want to remind the hon. members that normally the way it works is the person who is speaking speaks, and then the questions come after, not while she is speaking. I want to remind hon. members on the benches that the hon. minister is speaking. I will let the hon. minister continue.

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our government has a climate plan. We have worked very hard on this climate plan, and now we are implementing it. Unfortunately, we have the party opposite working with Conservative parties across the country, politicians who actually do not understand there is a cost of climate change right now, that we are paying the price and that the bigger price will be paid by our kids. They also do not understand the economic opportunity. They have no plan for the environment. They have no plan for the economy.

We need to come together as a country. We need to make climate change a non-partisan issue. If we make it a partisan issue, we will never do what we need to do, which is to actually be serious about climate action. At the end of the day, we have one planet, so we need to figure out how we are going to save that planet. We need to figure out how we are going to ensure that our kids are not going to face the things that were mentioned in that report, things like acute food shortages, devastating storms, climate refugees, a melting Arctic which has consequences for the entire world. It would mean no more coral reefs and species at risk we all love across our country would disappear. Is that what we want? No.

We all care greatly about our country. We all care greatly about the animals in our country. We care greatly about snow, and it does not matter whether we are snowmobilers, skiers or kids who want to go tobogganing. We need to be serious about climate action, and we have an opportunity to do it, to do it right, and also to create good jobs and grow our economy.

I ask all parties to join us, to be serious about climate change, and help us take the action we have worked so hard to set out in our climate plan and are implementing with Canadians. We are implementing it with cities, businesses, hospitals, schools and kids. We are going to continue working really hard with Canadians. I just wish the Conservative Party would work with us.

Brian Mulroney was the first person to talk about putting a price on pollution. He tackled one of the biggest problems we had when I was growing up: acid rain. I was worried and petrified as a kid about acid rain. How did he do it? He did it through political leadership, through innovation, by working with business and putting a price on pollution. I ask that we work together, that we take these smart measures, that we come together as a country and that we show we can be a natural resource based country and we can still take climate action. We are a natural resource based country. We want to get our resources to market, but we need to do it in a sustainable way.

We have the opportunity to provide the solutions that the world desperately needs. These are solutions that are creating good jobs, that are going to take advantage of the economic opportunity and that we can export to other countries that are also trying to figure out how to take climate action. China is looking for Canadian solutions. When I go to China, I go with companies from Canada. I go with carbon capture and storage from Saskatchewan. I do not discriminate against any good solutions. We do not have the luxury of saying that we are not going to work with people. It is why our government continues every day in every city and town across this country to work with farmers, businesses and environmentalists. We continue working with them because we do not have a choice, and we have this opportunity.

Once again, it is up to us. It is up to people in this House to be serious about climate action, and to figure out how we are going to come together and take serious action. After a decade of inaction and not taking seriously what we knew from scientists about needing to act on climate change, we need to come together now. We can do this. I am an optimist, a realistic optimist.

I have seen Canadians across the country want to be with us. Hospitals that are saving money through investments we have made in retrofits are investing that money in their patients. Schools that are investing in energy efficiency are reinvesting that money in their students. Businesses that are investing in being more energy efficient can reinvest that money in their businesses and employees. We can do this. We can, but we have to be serious and we have to come together.

We need to acknowledge that climate change is real and serious, that we are seeing the impacts, that there is a cost to it right now and that we can act. We can do right by our planet to reduce our emissions and create good jobs, and we can create made-in-Canada solutions that we can export to the world.

I know we can do this, but I also know we need to come together. We owe it to Canadians. We owe it to our kids. We owe it to the world. We have one shot right now to take serious action on climate change, and we should just get to work, come together and show Canadians how it is done.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate all night and I am taking it seriously, as I think all Canadians are. We all agree that something has to be done, but the comments coming from the minister are rich given that here in Ottawa she has a taxpayer-funded chauffeur who drives her to and from meetings. In her riding she has a taxpayer-funded chauffeur who drives her back and forth to all of her meetings. She flies to and from commitments. She does not walk.

She has introduced no real, tangible plan except for a tax that is really going to do nothing to drive down global emissions. Why not come up with innovative solutions like investing in technology or supporting industry in providing new technology that cuts down emissions?

Is this all that Canadians can expect from the minister, a tax-and-spend type of plan? Where is the real innovative technology and the real investment in industry to help provide industries with new tools so they no longer emit or are no longer among the worst emitters? Why do Canadians have to shoulder the entire financial burden for this? Why do Canadians have to do the heavy lifting?

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would invite the member opposite to come cycling with me to the office at any time.

We have a plan to tackle climate change. The party opposite does not have a plan. Why do those members not talk about their plan?

We have a plan and we are implementing it. We have a plan to tackle climate change to reduce our emissions, create good jobs and grow our economy. The sad thing is, the party opposite does not get it. It does not understand that there is a huge cost to climate change. People are facing extreme heat. People died this summer because of extreme heat in Quebec and Ontario. We had forest fires. I have had to call ranchers who lost their whole ranch because it burned down. I have helped sandbag because floods have impacted people's homes. There is a huge cost, and the cost is only going to grow if we do not take action.

The party opposite also does not understand the economic opportunity, which is in the trillions of dollars. If we are smart about this, we can be the country that provides the clean solutions. We would be helping businesses save money because when they are energy efficient, they save money. What could they do with that money? They could reinvest it in their business.

We want to work with Canadians. As I said, we can be smarter. We did not get out of the Stone Age because we ran out of stones. We got smarter. We have the solutions we need. We know what we need to do and now we need to implement it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was born in 1963. When I was little, playing with those little green, plastic soldiers who shot at one another was still popular. The concepts of war and global conflicts were still really fresh on people's minds. There was also the notion of war-time efforts. Likely many other people, I believe that we are currently at war.

We are at war against a monster created by every country. The entire planet is at war against the monster that is global warming, which we created ourselves. When I was little, in 1963, nobody cared. We showed off our Plymouth Satellites with their exhaust pipes that emitted tons of smoke, and nobody thought about how this might be a problem.

We are at war. You appear to be sincerely bothered by the useless partisan battles. I agree. People have been shouting nonsense, you are right. However, if you are serious when you say we have to set partisanship aside, are you prepared to introduce a candidate in the House to serve as minister to combat global warming, a super minister of sorts?

Are you prepared to create a non-partisan position, to be endorsed by everyone, who would have full authority to approve or reject certain projects? Are you prepared to go that far? That is where we are at internationally, madam. Let's be leaders.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I would remind hon. members that they must direct their comments through the Chair and not directly to the person to whom they are asking a question.

The hon. Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly must take climate change action. That is why we have a plan. We spent a year developing it by working with indigenous peoples, the provinces and territories, businesses, environmentalists and young people. We worked with everybody.

Now is the time to take action. I urge hon. members of the party across the way, who know that climate change is real, to acknowledge that we must work very hard on this issue. They may not understand the economic opportunities that this represents and we will talk more about that, but we must work together in order for this plan to be effective.

As far as the price on carbon is concerned, we need their help finding companies to invest in, ones that can find solutions for everyone. The cities we are working with are in their ridings.

We have a plan. Now it is time to get serious and band together. We must deal with climate change, reduce our emissions, create good jobs, and grow our economy, but we must do it together.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that the minister cares about climate change. I agree with everything she said about the derisive laughter from our Conservative colleagues. It is shameful.

The minister cares. She is doing a lot more than others would do. However, this IPCC report makes it clear that we have to do about twice as much as we are doing now, and we have to do it fast.

As the minister knows, when we meet in Poland for COP24, leadership from a country like Canada could make a huge difference. If we go there and say that we have ratcheted up our target to 45% below 2010 levels by 2030, and we challenge others to join us, the minister knows that clarion call will mobilize others while there is still time, because the window on holding global average temperatures to 1.5° will close forever in as little as 10 years. We cannot wait to ratchet it up. I beg her to commit and be willing to consider that we ratchet it up in time for December 2 and the opening of COP24.

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member opposite for her tireless action and advocacy on climate change over decades when no one was paying attention. I only wish that previous governments, in particular the Conservative government, had actually heeded her call and taken climate action.

We have a plan. We have a plan to meet a target and we are implementing that plan. We need to implement that plan. The Paris Agreement has a mechanism where every five years we need to be more ambitious. We negotiated this plan with the provinces, territories and Canadians. We are now in a place where we need to do what previous governments have never been able to do, which is to be serious and implement the plan.

With respect to putting a price on pollution, there are Conservatives who think it would be great if polluting was free. We need to make sure that we have a price on pollution across the country. We need to make the needed investments to get the provinces off coal. We need to support those workers as well and ensure we have a just transition. We need to invest in public transportation. We need to do all these things. We need to be more ambitious.

However, the first thing we need to do is implement what we have said we would do. It is easy to have a target. It is harder to have a plan to achieve it. That is what we have made a commitment to do. This year at COP24 what is critically important is that we get the rule book for COP24. I have worked hard all year and I will continue to work hard, including at COP24, to ensure that we get the rules. We need rules around transparency. We need rules around accountability.

We also need the world to get off coal. That is why we have the Powering Past Coal Alliance. We are working with countries across the world to show them they can get off coal and support workers and communities.

My focus right now is on working with Canadians who want us to implement their plan. They want the investments. They want the opportunities to be more energy efficient and save money. They want us to do what we said we were going to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased tonight to join in the emergency debate on the UN IPCC report.

The report states, “the global community still has a chance of limiting the average increase in temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.” The report recommends an extremely high carbon tax that will be applied around the world. However, even if Canada adopts a high carbon tax, it would achieve almost nothing to reduce global emissions. The $5,500 per tonne carbon tax that the report recommends would raise the price of gasoline to more than $12 per litre.

I am going to suggest that in our economy, where we can put the environment and the economy together, the plan from the Liberals is destroying our economy and our opportunity to be that light in the world. In reality, large and developing countries will not adopt such a carbon tax, which means their emissions will continue to rise. Even if Canada dramatically reduces its emissions through a carbon tax, global emissions will virtually be unchanged.

I do not understand the doublespeak of the minister. On one hand she says “no free rides for big polluters”, yet, at the same time, with the development of LNG on the B.C. coast, what have the Liberals done? They have exempted them from the carbon tax. What about the rest of us? What about everyday Canadians? What about small and medium-sized businesses? It does not apply to them.

The rest of us are required to pay a tax while the government allows big polluters a free ride. It is all right for large businesses to be exempt. The government is not pushing them. Canada would be the example of a small business trying to change the world without going to the world and saying that before it destroyed its economy in this process, it needed to see something from the world. That means a lot of economic pain for Canada with no environmental gain for the world.

I find it really frustrating when I hear people say “this is for our children”. No one in the House is more concerned about the next generation than the people on this side of the floor. We are all extremely concerned. Let us take a look at the huge debt our kids will be facing 30 years from now because of the reckless spending of the government. The Liberals are trying to tell us that we do not care about the environment and our children. Of course we do. We are not talking about making changes that are progressive and helpful. We are talking about a carbon tax. Why? Because it is not helpful to Canada

The Prime Minister's carbon tax is not a serious plan to cut emissions. It is a tax grab that will cost Canadians thousands of dollars and hurt our economy. It is driving jobs and investments away. In fact, pretty well everything the government is doing in regard to economy is forcing things to go south, and literally south.

Instead, Canada needs a smarter, more comprehensive approach that fully considers the real global impacts and the long-term costs and benefits of its policies. That is what our Conservative plan would do. I know people would love to hear our plan and they will. The Liberals should be telling Canadians how they are going to make this work, but they cannot. We are not going to be rushed into releasing our plan to meet an arbitrary deadline set by the media or the Liberals. We are getting ready for 2019. We will be unveiling a detailed and comprehensive environmental plan before the next election, and I can hardly wait.

Despite having the highest carbon tax in Canada, emissions have continued to rise in British Columbia. A young man in my riding is part of a round table and is in university. He did a full study on the B.C. carbon tax, and in no way has it changed the dynamics of pollution in British Columbia. He got a really good grade on that paper, by the way. As a result, British Columbians are paying more for gas now than they ever have and the carbon tax is not helping the environment. It is just costing people more to get to work and take their kids to hockey and soccer practice.

The Liberals have admitted that gasoline prices will go up by at least 11¢ a litre and heating our homes will increase by $200 when they implement the carbon tax. Saskatchewan has led the way followed by Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. We know this is an issue up north and on the east coast. Canadians, in droves, are standing up against this carbon tax.

It is not neutral when the government implements its carbon tax instead of off-loading it to the provinces. Canadians will not be seeing a neutral carbon tax. There is not a program that the government can run that is not going to cost billions of dollars, just like the gun registry did. The Liberal rebate to Canadians does not address the great cost to small and medium-sized businesses and to farmers.

Giving funds back to everyday Canadians is great, but jobs and opportunities for Canadians are going to be lost in the meantime because the government is not being fair in the way it is talking about implementing this. When this tax is added to tariffs and the other taxes that are higher in Canada than in our competition around the world, our economy will continue to suffer under the Liberal government and jobs will continue to be lost. We will become even less desirable for international investment. Our economy has to be sustained while we make the needed changes.

People in Saskatchewan value their environment. The minister talked a bit about what we have going on there with coal sequestration and yet there has been no recognition of the fact that our province is doing an amazing job already through renewable energy, crop diversification, forest management and infrastructure planning, just to mention a few.

EVRAZ is a huge pipe producer in my province. I would like the minister to hear this. Seventy-five per cent of the product that goes into its pipes is recycled steel. The company is already doing a phenomenal job in creating the best pipe in the world. What is the government doing? The government is allowing cheap, lower quality pipe to come into the country where it is funnelled to other countries rather than championing what we have in Saskatchewan with the production of an amazing quality pipeline.

In fact, when the folks from the union hear that there has been a leak somewhere, the first thing they ask is whether it is theirs. It is never ours. It comes from China, India and from other countries where the steel is not made as good as it is made in Canada, yet we are penalizing our own production.

Saskatchewan is full of innovative people. We just need to look at the modern farm equipment we have, all invented by farmers solving problems without government interference.

Canada has the most educated population in the world and we have an amazing capacity for finding solutions to real problems. A carbon tax is not a solution to our problems; it only damages our economy.

Innovations like catalytic converters, carbon scrubbers, electric cars and solar panels were neither invented by government nor inspired by taxes. Markets, entrepreneurs and researchers are our best resources to create solutions that everyday Canadians are motivated to embrace and implement. We agree on this. It is important that we go forward with these things.

Premier Moe of my province was the environment minister when the federal government started talking and negotiating with all of the provinces. The federal government came up with five options for those provinces and then blindsided them by saying in the end that they only had two options, cap and trade or a carbon tax.

That is not negotiating. That is not working together. That is not taking advantage of the amazing ways we as Canadians have to make a difference in our climate and in the world's climate, and we are already doing it.

Our premier said:

It’s time the federal government stepped back and took another look at what the provinces are actually doing to combat climate change.

In Saskatchewan, we have released a climate-change plan—called “Prairie Resilience”—that will lead to a real reduction in greenhouse gas emissions without introducing a carbon tax that would cost our province’s energy-intensive, export-oriented economy $4 billion over five years.

This plan is full of good concrete things to do. I attended the APAS carbon summit two summers ago because we knew this was coming down the pike in Saskatchewan. I would encourage members to go online and look up the APAS carbon summit.

The number of things that have been happening in Saskatchewan for three decades is phenomenal. We are the world leader in zero tillage around the world. The root systems in our pasture lands, where our cattle graze, are developing to the point where they are getting deep like they were when bison roamed on this land. We are doing phenomenal things.

I do not remember his name, but one of the researchers has said that within 10 years, as we continue on doing what we are doing in Saskatchewan, a province of a million plus 100,000 people, we will offset any carbon emissions due to oil in Alberta. We are phenomenal and we are doing good things. Why does the government think it needs to tax Canadians to the point where our economy is being impacted? There is not a fence around Canada that goes up and over our whole atmosphere, where we can make a change to our environment and maintain our economy when the rest of the world is not in that place. I am sorry, but all these phenomena going on in the world are not attributable to Canada. Do we need to do our part? Yes, and we are doing it and we are becoming more and more innovative.

A couple of young innovators in Vancouver are developing a way to take CO₂ out of the air and combine it with other things to create a fuel for cars. We are amazing. We are doing these things in Canada without being penalized. The government has put itself in a place where it has absolutely no choice but to go forward because it is another election promise the Liberals will bomb on, and have already bombed on with almost every province in the country. The Liberals say that it is due to the party on this side of the House.

The Liberals need to listen to Canadians. People in Ontario, in Manitoba, in Saskatchewan, in Alberta, a fair number of people in B.C. as well, on the east coast and up north are saying that they do not need or want a carbon tax. If they want to meet these expectations of this new report, where is their foreign plan? Where is their foreign interaction with other countries? They can share our coal sequestering idea with them. That would be awesome. That is coming from Saskatchewan. Therefore, why kill our industry while China is developing a coal plant every other day and does not have what we have?

Canadians keep saying that our coal is the cleanest in the world. Our oil is the cleanest in the world. If the Liberals want to make a difference in the world environment, where we do not have the circumstances going on in Canada, not because of us but because of the entire world, why is that not our focus? Instead, the government wants to totally destroy the Canadian economy. It is doing it already with energy east and with the pipeline to the west coast, shutting us down.

Already Canadians are saying that we cannot handle another tax on top of the punitive behaviour of the government. We have a younger generation. My granddaughter, the oldest of 10, and I am bragging, will be 45 before the government's incredible debt will ever be dealt with. If the Liberals are allowed to continue on in the direction they are going, they are going to destroy the economy of our country. If we do not have a strong economy, we cannot even begin to be innovative.

When we talk about losing the opportunity to eat because of climate change in Canada, I guarantee that other things are going to happen long before that, which will impact our ability to have the quality of life that we are used to and that a lot of Canadians who are on the lower end of the income levels are already struggling with. This priority will only mean it will be that much harder for Canadians to continue to take care of their families and to grow our economy in ways that we can be an example to the rest of the world.

We are that example already, but the government gives no credit. With all that has happened in Saskatchewan already to make a difference in our environment, the Liberals will give no recognition to anything more than five years ago. We have been working diligently. No one loves and cares for the environment more than individuals from Saskatchewan who love to farm, who like to mine responsibly, who love to fish and hunt. No one takes care of the environment more than these individuals.

I will mention as well that in the news recently we have been hearing about going into this new production of marijuana and be the world's saviour on that particular product. However, it is not environmentally friendly, and this is through ScienceDirect.

I also have an article that reads:

To better cultivate cannabis indoors, licensed producers often use high-intensity lamps that consume a great deal of electricity. In addition to lighting, fans, air conditioners and dehumidifiers are also commonly used. ...found that cannabis production was responsible for three per cent of California's total electrical use, which is the equivalent energy consumption of about one million homes.

What is this going to do to Canada's production of greenhouse gases?

“For every kilogram of cannabis that's produced, we generate about 4.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide,” Antweiler added.

Besides electricity, cannabis production also consumes a great deal of water. A single plant, experts say, can consume up to 23 litres per day.

The article highlights that cannabis production, as per a 2012 U.S. study, consumed 3% of California's total electricity usage, the equivalent consumption of one million homes. Every kilogram of cannabis generates about 4.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and I am assuming that is before it is used. A single plant of cannabis consumes up to 23 litres of water per day.

Where was the decision-making on the environment as the government was creating its legislation around cannabis? What is the upstream and downstream impact of this particular industry going to be on our Canadian environment? It seems that the big dollars and, again, the election promise becomes the focus of the government, which is not how we should be functioning if our true concern is about Canadians, and about the next generations of young people who want to maintain a country the way we do and are very proud of.

We work very hard. At the age of five or six, my daughter came home and said that she would never use a drinking box again, because at that point in time they were not recyclable. This generation of young people are very concerned about our environment. Our young farmers are amazing with what they are doing to make an impact on our environment that is positive in the midst of making sure that we grow the food that Canadians need.

We are not saying no to protecting and improving the earth's environment. I do not care how many times they want to say it, Canadians do not believe that. That is not what this is about. What this is about is saying no to a Canadian carbon tax. That is not the answer to protecting and improving the environment in Canada or for that matter, and even more importantly, the environment of our entire world.