Mr. Speaker, once again, I have the honour to rise in the House to talk about an extremely important issue: the fight against climate change and climate disruption.
On December 12, world leaders met in Poland for the 24th conference of the parties on climate change. Back then, I asked the Prime Minister a question about the leadership the government needs to show on climate change.
We see more and more young people protesting around the world, even here at home in Quebec and Ottawa. Last week, I was with young people who were protesting on Friday, demanding that the government do more to fight dangerous climate change.
According to a climate change performance report released at COP24, Canada ranks 54th out of 60. It does not get much lower than that. That is unbelievable. It is really appalling, and it shows that we are performing very poorly. Our record is nothing short of disastrous.
In 2015, the Prime Minister said that Canada was back. He was very proud of that. However, he kept the same weak targets as Stephen Harper's Conservatives. It was the same weak reduction target of 30% by 2030. That is not enough. Scientists are saying that we need a reduction target of at least 45% by 2030 to limit the global temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C to 2°C.
Still, lots of good things happened while the Liberal government was busy buying billions of dollars worth of pipelines with taxpayers' money. For example, the young people of Drummond are becoming increasingly vocal about the environment. We must listen to them. Students at Collège Saint-Bernard in Drummondville organized activities for students at their secondary school to raise awareness about how important water is for us. Water is a limited natural resource that we cannot take for granted. I would like to congratulate Eloyse Marcotte, Laurence Bélanger, Danika Ouelette, Ambre Bérenger, Élianne Simard and Marie-Soleil Desrosiers for their fine project. I congratulate them for their civic engagement on the environment. The environment is increasingly top of mind for our youth, and we must listen to them. I congratulate these young people for this great project. These are the types of initiatives we must carry out.
As I was saying, on Monday, a report from a group of UN biodiversity experts was published. This report highlighted once again the decline of our biodiversity. One of the five drivers of the massive decline in biodiversity and species on this planet is climate change. This is yet another example of why we must take much more action on climate change. The government must show some leadership and take all the necessary measures.
This is why we are asking whether the government will finally adopt our plan to bring back the ecoENERGY retrofit homes program and renovate homes across Canada.