Madam Speaker, the list of things we can do to stimulate the economy while reducing greenhouse gases is very long, and they are proven technologies.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, through its partners and climate protection program, has a litany of examples of where municipal buildings were built that circulated cold water through the building in summer to advance on the need for air conditioning and reduce electricity costs, and also circulated warm piping through. There are so many examples of the use of heat pumps and the use of better insulation, which saves money while reducing greenhouse gases and creating jobs. That is the true meaning of the economy and the environment going hand in hand.
To have an inconsistent statement like, “I can build more pipelines but because I am good person, therefore, the environment and the economy go hand in hand”, those kinds of meaningless bromides do violence to these concepts that are well understood. When one does something that actually reduces greenhouse gases and creates jobs, then the environment and the economy go hand in hand.
The environment and the economy are not going hand in hand when we build new fossil fuel infrastructure and incentivize more greenhouse gases at a moment when a moral responsibility should be on all political leadership globally to redouble efforts. As things stand in Canada, we are nowhere near our Paris targets.