Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I will be sharing my time with my wonderful colleague from Salaberry—Suroît.
I am very pleased to rise in the House today to talk about climate change and all the issues related to this incredible challenge we are facing. As legislators, as parliamentarians, we need to realize that this is probably the biggest challenge of our generation and that, in the coming decades, our children and grandchildren will judge us as a society and as an international community based on our success or failure in terms of how we tackle this important issue, namely the risks associated with global warming.
That is why we need to take this issue very seriously, perhaps more seriously than we have taken other issues, because the repercussions will be huge on every level. I would remind members that there is a reason that former U.S. vice-president Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change.
We are in the midst of a migrant crisis, a refugee crisis. There were more refugees around the world last year than at any other time in history. There were more than during the Second World War. Now people face the risk of becoming climate refugees, people who have to leave their part of the world or their country because it will become uninhabitable, tensions will rise, and conflict will erupt around natural resources, access to water, and so on.
I mention this so that everyone can understand the scope of the situation that today's opposition motion gives us the opportunity to discuss in the House. I would now like to explain why, at the end of my speech as the NDP environment critic, I will present an amendment to the motion moved by our friends in the Conservative Party that will improve it and make it more balanced.
The Conservative motion calls for transparency. We support transparency. We need information in order to make sound decisions. The public needs to be kept informed. Having information on the impact of carbon pricing is a good idea, in principle. Upon reading the motion for the first time, one might think, “Why not?”, this makes sense and we could learn from the experience of others. For example, Quebec, California and other U.S. states have been using a carbon exchange, which is one way of pricing carbon and encouraging companies to change their ways and adopt more environmentally friendly ways of manufacturing products that cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. There are other areas where pricing is possible. British Columbia has had coal pricing for a decade now. Let us look into what that means for the people of British Columbia, for the families and businesses and the opportunity they have to innovate and improve how they do things. We could also debate this with other provinces such as Alberta and Ontario, which have their own way of pricing carbon.
The Conservative motion ignores the other side of the coin. The motion talks about the potential impact on families and individuals. Yes, but if we do nothing, if we do not take leadership on this, if we take no action on global warming and its effects, about which there is unassailable international scientific consensus, there is a potential impact there as well. Global warming, which is already under way and could be catastrophic if the temperature rises more than 2°C per year above 1990 reference levels, will result in more natural disasters and climate extremes. I am talking about natural disasters that will have an even greater impact than what we have seen so far to the detriment of countless economic sectors.
If we want to be logical, balanced, and transparent in this debate, we also need to find out the cost of not taking action, the consequences of the extreme temperatures we may be facing. It has already begun in Quebec and across Canada. We already have studies and numbers.
The average number of natural disasters in Canada has doubled over the past 30 years. It is not that there were no natural disasters before, but they were fewer in number, less serious, and had less of an impact on people's lives, our environment, and our economy.
Climate change and the rising number of natural disasters are not unrelated. Quite the opposite, and there is a cost associated with that. Since we are talking about insurance, from 1983 to 2004, insured losses from natural disasters cost an average of $373 million a year in Canada. However, in the next decade, from 2005 to 2015, the average annual losses more than tripled. They were three times as high. They cost an average of $1.2 billion per year. We can already see that climate change is having an impact and that there is a cost associated with it.
The federal government's disaster financial assistance arrangements program helps the provinces and territories recover from natural disasters. In 1970, it paid out an average of $54 million. From 1995 to 2004, the program gave out $291 million per year. From 2005 to 2015, it paid out $410 million per year. In the past six years, this fund provided more financial assistance than it has in its 39 years of operation. The increase in the cost of this federal insurance over the past 20 years is a result of the increase in the number and intensity of large-scale natural disasters. Our Conservative friends like to talk about the impact on our wallets and pockets. There has already been an impact because it is costing the government a lot of money in insurance alone, and that is not even to mention individuals.
There is also an impact on our economic ability to make the transition and maintain acceptable economic growth. The two go hand in hand. Climate change can result in many economic losses. I talked about natural disasters and extreme weather events, but we also have to consider the impact on public health spending, losses in agricultural productivity, financial coverage of risk, or insurance, premature wear and tear on infrastructure, and energy costs. All these impacts could slow our economic growth if we do nothing. We must be fully aware of them.
The impacts of climate change are quite varied and include infrastructure that must be rebuilt, health problems, and destroyed crops. It can be difficult to evaluate their cost, but several studies have been conducted. I will name a few because it is important that this be part of the debate if we want to have a sound, balanced, and well-informed discussion. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, estimates that a 2°C increase in global warming could reduce global GDP by 2% per year. That is significant.
Some of the more direct costs in Quebec are associated with flood damage. Take, for example, the flooding this year and last year. Shoreline erosion resulting from decreased winter ice cover and infrastructure damaged by repeated freeze-thaw cycles are two more examples. I have the pleasure of living in Montreal, and I can say that the potholes are very real. When temperatures vary significantly during the winter, the snow melts and water seeps into the asphalt, which then cracks when the water freezes again. This happens several times a year.
I want to read a quote regarding the impact on the global economy. “Taking action now will not only solve the problems of protecting the planet, but it will be a tremendous boost for economies.” Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank, said this in 2014. I could also quote the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding the potential impact on the American economy.
To have a balanced motion that looks at the overall impact of a carbon tax or climate change, I move, seconded by the member for Salaberry—Suroît, an amendment to the motion:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “indicating” and substituting the following: “to Canadian families how much the price on carbon proposed in Budget 2018 will cost them, and how much the growing effects of climate change will cost them if there is no carbon tax, in order to provide greater transparency to Canadians.”