Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to enter the debate. Climate change, as we know, is one of the most important and biggest issues, if not the biggest, Canada and the world are facing. The failure to show leadership and to take real action will have serious impacts on every aspect of our lives. We cannot afford to sit back and wait to see just how serious the impact is. There is a real urgency to act, and to act now.
Studies have shown that climate is becoming an increasingly larger driver of human migration, and this trend will only increase as climate change impacts become more significant. According to The Guardian, in 2017, senior U.S. military and security experts informed the Environmental Justice Foundation that climate change would bring about human migration of 10 million to 20 million people seeking refuge in the coming decades if nothing is done. This figure represents people expected to be driven out of Africa and does not include people driven out of other parts of the globe. That is just one global impact we can expect to see from inaction.
At home, thankfully, it was reported today that the unprecedented flooding in New Brunswick is starting to subside. Water levels have dropped from eight metres to 7.75 metres in Fredericton as of this morning. These record floods will impact every aspect of New Brunswickers' lives for years to come as they clean up, rebuild, and put their lives back together. My thoughts are with them, and I hope that all levels of government step up and help immediately to reduce the burden on these families.
While we cannot point to a single event and say that climate change did this, we are seeing a trend of higher temperatures and more extreme events, such as flooding and forest fires in Canada. The cost of these events on lives, productivity, and the economy is immense, and it needs to be taken seriously. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
To have a productive debate on what Canada can do to mitigate the impact of climate change on our economy and to make our economy greener and more sustainable, we need to set aside the grandstanding being done by both the Conservatives and the Liberals on this issue.
The Liberal government promised real change, and the truth of the matter is that we have not see that. The Prime Minister stood on the global stage and said, “Canada is back.” Really, are we? The Liberals have continued to give away $1.6 billion a year, every year, in subsidies to fossil fuel companies. The Liberals kept the Harper government's greenhouse gas emissions targets. The Liberals promised in 2015 that they would “make environmental assessments credible again”, yet they did not. The failure of leadership on this file instead led to Canadians, and especially British Columbians, feeling betrayed that the Kinder Morgan pipeline was approved under the regulatory regime the government campaigned on as lacking credibility and public trust.
In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, auditors general in nine provinces and the federal environment commissioner recently estimated that on its current trajectory, Canada is on pace to overshoot its emissions targets for 2020 by almost 20%. The report found that at this rate, even if all greenhouse gas reduction actions in the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change are implemented in a timely manner, Canada will still be short of our 2030 Paris Agreement targets. The Liberals' grandstanding would have us believe otherwise, and that should not be acceptable to anyone.
The Liberals' approach, through the implementation of a carbon price, further demonstrates their lack of leadership and the difficulty of bringing the provinces together toward a common goal. The policy remains incoherent as they continue subsidizing the fossil fuel industry while claiming to be environmental champions.
The fight must be waged on all fronts.
It is ironic that the Conservatives are criticizing the Liberals on this front, because after all, the Liberals are using their climate targets. The Liberals approved pipelines under the credibility-lacking assessment regime, and they continue to give billions in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
The Conservatives did absolutely nothing on this file while they were in power for 11 years. In their fight against a carbon tax, the Conservatives are ignoring the real cost of not putting a price on carbon, all in an effort to grandstand. The Conservatives simply have no plan for seriously combatting climate change, and we saw that for a decade.
Perhaps in the minds of Conservatives, climate change can be dealt with later. Maybe it is an issue, like some of their failed economic policies, the Conservatives believe should be left for Stephen Harper's grandchildren to solve. Fortunately for Canadians and our future generations, New Democrats do not share that view. Many Canadians do not share that view, particularly younger Canadians, who are very in tune with and aware of the issues, who are taking this issue up, and who are rallying Canadians from coast to coast to coast to stand up and fight for climate action.
We welcomed the announcement of a carbon tax in Canada. The experience of B.C. and Quebec shows that carbon taxes have a positive impact on the environment and do not harm the economy. We see in B.C. and Alberta that there are ways to help low-income households handle any undue cost increases.
However, a carbon tax on its own is not enough. If this measure is not combined with other actions, Canada will not be able to meet its international commitments to the Paris accord. The government must ensure that revenue generated from a carbon tax is used to fund initiatives to make our country greener, more sustainable, and less reliant on fossil fuels. It certainly cannot just be set aside and used to continue funding subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. We need real leadership on this file to ensure that Canada can meet its 2020 and 2030 climate targets.
In September 2015, Canada and 192 other UN member states adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The 2030 agenda is a 15-year global framework centred on an ambitious set of 17 sustainable development goals, 169 targets, and over 230 indicators.
The BC Council for International Cooperation, BCCIC, held a press conference this morning in response to the Auditor General's report, “Canada's Preparedness to Implement the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals”. What was reported, in short, was that the Auditor General concluded that Canada is not prepared to meet the targets. This comes from a completely independent source on the evaluation.
The five government departments identified to lead the implementation of the sustainable development goals agenda are Employment and Social Development Canada; Environment and Climate Change Canada; Global Affairs Canada; Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada; Status of Women Canada; and the Privy Council Office.
The conclusion in the Auditor General's report states:
Overall, we found that the Government of Canada had not developed a formal approach to implement the 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals. The five federal organizations identified to lead the 2030 Agenda preparations worked together with the Privy Council Office after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda to begin preparing a national approach. However, despite some specific action at the departmental level, there was still no federal governance structure based on clearly articulated departmental roles and responsibilities by November 2017. We found no communication plan and no engagement strategy on how to include other levels of government and Canadians in a national dialogue on the 2030 Agenda. We also found no implementation plan or system to measure, monitor, and report on the progress in achieving the goals.
In short, we have no plan, we have no strategy, and now we are falling short. The failure of that impact, sadly, would be for Canadians to bear, so let us quit the grandstanding. Let us get on with it. Let us address this issue locally and globally.