Mr. Speaker, it is interesting how socialist parties love to laud and praise dictatorships. The Prime Minister praised China and, indeed, my colleague just now praised China for its renewable energy, but I would point out, according to The Straits Times newspaper in 2017:
But new data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants paints a very different picture: China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.
These...corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants....
My friend conveniently obfuscates when it comes to what the Chinese communist government is doing in terms of environmental protection, which is precious little. In fact, the air quality in China is so bad that it has become a social issue, and I gather there has been social unrest because of it.
Interestingly, the member like to trash Canada. I do not. As someone who has been in the environmental field his entire career, I have seen tremendous improvements in industry, whether it is pulp and paper or oil and gas, both industries I have worked in. In Canada, most environmental indicators are improving quite dramatically and much of that environmental improvement was done under the Conservative government.
Why is it that the NDP hates the private sector and our energy companies so much?