House of Commons Hansard #435 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was change.

Topics

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent point. This is about how we all move together collectively. There are so many things we can do and that is why we are making investments. We can help and work with Canadians so they get around faster, cleaner and cheaper by investing in public transportation. Light rail transit in Ottawa will be the largest greenhouse gas reduction in the city's history, but it is also good for families. They can get around faster and cheaper. When we invest in affordable housing, that is great because we have a shortage of affordable housing, but we can also make sure it is energy efficient so folks can save money, so that people who can least afford it pay the least. This is the point.

The problem with Conservatives is that they do not even seem to understand the $26-trillion economic opportunity. We have the opportunity to provide the solutions that the world so greatly needs, and we are already doing that. Let us take CarbonCure out of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. It is injecting CO2 emissions into concrete, so there is cheaper, stronger concrete. These are the solutions the world needs. This is about bringing everyone together and I really hope that everyone will support the climate emergency motion today.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to hear the minister mention that she wants to phase out coal. Does that include our exports? As she is aware, Vancouver exports 36.8 million tonnes of coal a year. Are we going to phase out coal exports also?

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, we are phasing out coal here and we are working with communities. We know that we need to phase out coal. In fact, the whole world needs to phase out coal, because right now we have a challenge that is called climate change, and coal is the most polluting. When we talk about how we heat our homes, there are ways we could do this a lot better. We know that. Renewables are now cost-competitive in many cases, but, of course, we are focused on communities and workers, so we need to ensure a just transition for workers and communities. We have been working with labour and business to do exactly that.

I guess the question is: Will the Conservative Party put out a serious climate plan? Will they say that they are committed to phasing out coal? Will they recognize that a price on pollution is the most efficient way to tackle climate change and that it can be done in a way that makes life affordable?

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, there are really two points we are looking at, the environment package and the closure motion. This is the second time I have been up. The first time was for time allocation. Here we go again. The government is saying it is going to shut down debate on a very important topic.

However, over and over, the minister slams the Conservatives by saying she hopes we do this and she hopes we do that. Then she says that the Liberals have a very serious environmental plan. We know their plan. It is the Kathleen Wynne plan. It is the plan that saw much of our manufacturing leave Canada. It is the plan that saw high energy prices here in Ontario going through the roof so that jobs were lost. That is the plan.

Who else did the minister attack? She attacked the premiers of Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. She has attacked everyone who does not believe in her points as she sees them. That is why we need more debate, but the government is closing it down again.

It is unfortunate that we have a minister who lives in her own little bubble, in her own little circle, and everyone else is demonized. She brings in the Pope's comments to support her, but she demonizes everybody else.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am here speaking on behalf of Canadians. I talk to Canadians every day. What do they say to me? That we need to take action on climate change and we need to do it in a way that is affordable and grows the economy.

I know how much the member cares about growing the economy, so let me tell him some facts. We have created over a million jobs with Canadians. We have the lowest unemployment rate in four decades. We have raised over 800,000 Canadians and 300,000 children out of poverty. We have done that at the same time we are taking action on climate change, because we can do both, because we need to do both.

Let us talk about the costs we are paying, because the Conservatives seem to care so much about costs. We are paying 500% more than over a decade ago when it comes to the costs of insurance related to climate change. That is only going to go up. I would encourage them to read our Canada's changing climate report, which was written by scientists in Canada. It talks about what we can expect if we do not take serious action on climate change. Whether or not we take action, we are going to see the impacts, but we have a choice right now. I am hoping everyone in the House chooses serious climate action, chooses for us to make decisions based on science and chooses that we will meet our international obligations by doing the hard work at home.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the motion before the House.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

All those opposed will please say nay.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further AdjournedThe EnvironmentGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #1364

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Geoff Regan

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed from May 27 consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

Central Nova Nova Scotia

Liberal

Sean Fraser LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, climate change is real. It is primarily driven by human activity, and we are experiencing very serious consequences as a result today.

There is no doubt in my mind that the challenge relating to climate change constitutes an emergency here in Canada. I am so proud to lend my support to the motion on the floor of the House of Commons to declare an emergency in respect of climate change in our country. We need not panic, because we can be optimistic. We know that the solutions to this existential threat are before us, if we can simply muster the political will to implement the solutions that we know very well exist today.

Over the course of my remarks, I hope to offer some insight into the nature of the consequences we are experiencing, to give some of my insights on the opportunity that could be garnered if we embrace climate change as an economic growth strategy, and to perhaps provide some additional insight, for any of those listening, into the political dynamic that we are facing today as we approach the next election with climate change being a central issue of importance to the campaign.

To begin, I do want to address some of the consequences that we are facing, but perhaps before, although it seems trite to say so, it is important to explain the science behind how we know climate change is real. The recent report from Environment Canada, “Canada's Changing Climate Report”, signals that Canada is experiencing warming at twice the rate of the global average. In some parts of our country, it is five times that rate.

The consequences that we are seeing are apparent in our communities. This science has been corroborated for decades by groups like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A majority of the world scientists who are studying climate change acknowledge not only that it is happening, but a primary driver of what is happening is human industrial activity. It is incumbent upon us to take action if we are going to avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change that we are seeing.

Though I probably do not have to explain to many in this room, we can observe these consequences in our community. If we look at my home province of Nova Scotia, we deal with increased storm surges and hurricanes. The report I mentioned, “Canada's Changing Climate Report”, flags that the city of Halifax in my home province of Nova Scotia in the next few decades is going to experience floods at four times the rate it does today.

We look at our colleagues from New Brunswick, who I have had numerous conversations with about the floods that their province has been experiencing. We have seen pictures circulating on social media of highway signs that are completely submerged under water. We can look at a few years ago in Quebec and Ontario, and we see the heat waves that took dozens of lives. We can see the forest fires in western Canada. We can see the melting of our glaciers in northern Canada. There is not a community in our country that has not been impacted by the environmental consequences of climate change.

It is important to acknowledge that it is not just environmental consequences that we are experiencing as a result of climate change, there are social, health and economic consequences as well. When I see communities next to coal plants, we can observe a higher rate of childhood asthma. There is increased lung and heart disease in communities. In fact, there is a physical threat to many folks, like those who had to flee the fires in Fort McMurray.

The fact is we know that these consequences are having an impact. In addition, we can point to the changing patterns and migration of infectious diseases. I know ticks have become a much bigger problem in Nova Scotia. They were not when I was a kid. With them, we are seeing a similarly rising level of Lyme disease in my home province.

The fact is, we can observe these changes. There are social consequences, like communities physically being displaced, the impact on wildlife that communities have traditionally hunted, indigenous and non-indigenous alike. We are seeing consequences that are changing our weather patterns, our climate systems that are changing the way that we have to live and forcing us out of the habits and traditions we have practised for generations.

If the environmental, social or health consequences are not enough to inspire action, we can see the economic losses that we are experiencing today. If we look at the data from the insurance sector in Canada, we see that they are starting to change the way that they assess the risk of climate change. I take it that most people here would accept that the insurance sector is doing what it is in the best interests of its bottom line.

From the time of the mid-1980s until 2008 or so, the average payout in the insurance sector for severe weather events in Canada was between $250 million and $450 million. Since that time, the average has climbed to about $1.8 billion, exceeding $2 billion most recently. That number is projected to grow. This is having an impact on the cost of insurance.

There are some homes that simply will not be able to be insured. There are provinces and communities in Canada that are spending taxpayer dollars to help relocate families from homes that are no longer in a safe area, places that used to have 100-year floods once every 100 years are now having them every few years.

The fact is there is something happening, and those who are watching their pocketbooks very closely are changing their behaviour. They are reflecting a new reality.

It is not just the insurance sector. Members should look at the costs to municipalities paid for by by local ratepayers of building out flood mitigation infrastructure, for example. That cost is borne by taxpayers. The cost of inaction is simply too great to ignore.

However, it is not all bad news because we actually see an enormous opportunity to invest in the measures that are going to help deal with the consequences of climate change. Canada's Building Trades' projection is that as many as four million jobs for the Canadian economy could be added if we embrace new building codes that would actually bring us up to a standard that can help us reduce our emissions.

I have companies in my own community like the Trinity Group of Companies that have embraced energy efficiency as an economic growth strategy. It started out with a couple of great guys from home who were pretty handy and were able to do some local contracting work. Due to investments of successive provincial governments, we have actually seen energy efficiency take hold and homeowners who want to save on their power bills hire a company to come in, conduct an energy audit and make their home more efficient. It has grown from an operation with just a couple of guys into an organization that has dozens of employees and is present across the entire Atlantic region.

There are incredible world-leading companies like CarbonCure in Dartmouth that are delivering incredible products when it comes to carbon sequestration, pulling the carbon emissions out of our atmosphere and using it to strengthen products we need like concrete. Another company, just five minutes from where I live today, is MacKay Meters. It has secured a patent to build electric vehicle charging stations into their parking meters. This is truly innovative stuff that is going to help change the world that we live in.

Of course, the value that we gain from researchers who are working in our communities, researchers like Dr. David Risk at the FluxLab at StFX University in Antigonish, is actually developing instrumentation that can help detect gas and methane leaks in oil and gas infrastructure across Canada. He is commercializing this technology, not only to make a profit but to continue doing more research, keeping young people employed in a rural community that has a university that I represent.

There is also a missed economic opportunity if we do not address the worst consequences of climate change. I represent a province that relies heavily on the fishery in order to sustain the smaller communities that dot the coast of Nova Scotia. What we have seen take place in Maine over the past few years, a loss of 22 million pounds in their lobster catch, would be devastating if and when it comes to Nova Scotia, and if we continue to see the acidification and warming of our oceans off Nova Scotia. We can only expect that the lobsters will either move or suffocate inside the waters where they traditionally live and sustain a local economy.

In western Canada, we saw an enormous dip in production in the energy sector when forest fires that are linked to climate change ravaged parts of western Canada. The fact is that we can look at any province and see that.

In the Prairie region, the agricultural sector is under threat. I met with a young researcher, who did a master's thesis on the impact of climate change on agriculture in the Prairie provinces, recognizing that the Prairies are in the rain shadow of the Rockies and do not benefit from some of the weather that helps make our soil fertile, essentially large amounts of rain. They rely heavily instead on the spring melt that comes from our glaciers. When they finally disappear, there may be insufficient water and increased droughts that prevent our agricultural sector from growing.

These are very real and obvious risks, if we just take the time to speak with people who have been studying them. Frankly, we need to take this opportunity because the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, a Canadian, has identified that there is a $26-trillion opportunity in clean growth and Canada should be on the front end of that wave so that we can capitalize on not just the growth but the jobs that come with that growth. We can do the right thing and do the smart thing at the same time.

However, it is difficult to have discussions in this chamber and in Ottawa when it comes to climate policy, because the starting point is not only that we need to address the problem and do something about it. Sometimes we have to turn back the clock and prove the science to one another before we can have a meaningful debate. To me this is completely unacceptable.

What Canadians are going to face come October is a choice between a Liberal government that is advancing an ambitious agenda, trying their best to fight climate change and making a meaningful difference, not only to reduce our emissions but to capitalize on clean growth opportunities, and a Conservative Party that has refused to put forward a plan on climate change to date, despite their leader saying more than a year ago that he was going to find a plan that would comply with the Paris Agreement targets.

With respect, the Conservative Party has said it is going to be releasing their plan later this week. I do not have much hope that it will be worth the paper that it is written on. When I look at some of the Conservative members who would have informed that plan, it gives me great trepidation. We have seen members identify piles of snow in western Canada in February to suggest that that is evidence that global warming is not taking place.

Some Conservatives have indicated that the phenomenon of rising global temperatures is simply like folks walking into a room and their bodies giving off heat. We have seen other members suggest to school children in Alberta that CO2 is not pollution but plant food. Just recently, one of the caucus member sitting in the Senate indicated that a recent power outage was due to the Prime Minister of Canada's anti-energy policies.

The Conservatives are saying we should retreat from the global conversation on climate change by withdrawing from the Paris agreement. Even the the leader of the Conservatives and deputy leader have recently tweeted articles, suggesting that the link between climate change and severe weather events has not been proven.

If this is the kind of information feeding into the plans that are developing, I have great disappointment in advance of the plan being released if these are the kinds of conversations that are taking place behind the scenes.

We know that the Conservatives' provincial counterparts are pushing forward the same kind of laissez-faire attitude when it comes to climate change. The Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has advanced a policy dismantling flood protection and then has shown up at flood zones and said, “I wonder what could possibly be going on.” He has set aside $30 million to fight climate action, rather than take action on climate change. That money could make a difference. He has launched a frivolous campaign to post stickers on gas stations. At the same time, he purports to support free speech. This makes no sense.

The climate economists who have been covering this issue are suggesting that his plan is not only going to slow down our reduction in emissions, but it is going to be more expensive for households as well.

With respect to my NDP colleagues, I have a lot time for their ideas, because I know they care about climate change and protecting the environment. However, I do have reservations about the policy suggestions they have advanced. I think we can work together to accomplish certain ideas, but others have very serious problems that need to be addressed.

In some of the commentary I have heard around our plan to put a price on pollution, NDP members have indicated that big emitters are exempt. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on. The NDP has advanced a plan that would put a price on big emitters, but, as the Ecofiscal Commission has pointed out, it would not lead to a reduction in emissions globally, because it would simply encourage polluters to leave Canada and pollute elsewhere even more. This would hurt the Canadian economy and would not contribute to our emissions reduction efforts.

Other examples from the NDP include the declaration that we need to immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies. We need to take action on fossil fuel subsidies, do not get me wrong. In fact, to date, we have phased out eight that were embedded in the tax code. However, the blanket ban the NDP proposed on this specific issue would lead to fundamental consequences, which are certainly unintended, because the plan was not very well thought through.

Examples include the denial of subsidies that support diesel to northern and remote indigenous communities, which rely on diesel for electricity, and the denial of subsidies for the potential research I mentioned at the flux lab at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish. Some of the products being developed with those research funds are going to reduce emissions in the oil and gas sector. Similarly, the NDP plans would deny the opportunity for us to invest in certain infrastructure that is helping us transition from gas and diesel-powered vehicles toward alternative fuelled vehicles.

I am happy to work with my colleagues in different parties to advance ideas that make sense. However, we cannot make statements that they will work before we have actually thought them through.

I would like to take some time to mention some of the actions we have taken to date.

We are facing a climate emergency, and a lot of attention has been given to our plan in this place with respect to putting a price on pollution. However, we are not a one-trick pony. Our plan has over 50 measures that would help to bring emissions down.

I want to take a moment to discuss our plan to put a price on pollution to educate the public on how it works. It is pretty simple. If something is more expensive, people buy less of it. When it comes to carbon pricing, every penny generated from revenues related to the price on pollution is kept within the province where the pollution is generated. Those revenues are directly returned to residents living within those provinces.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has stated in a public report that because of the structure of this kind of a plan, eight out of 10 families can expect to be better off. They will receive more money than the price on pollution costs them. The number of families that will be out of pocket will be a modest amount, but they will be among the 20% wealthiest Canadians living in provinces where our plan applies.

This is not some hare-brained idea born simply out of the Liberal caucus in Ottawa. It has broad-based support among anyone who has any expertise in the conversation about climate change and economics. In fact, last year's Nobel Prize winner in economics won the Nobel Prize for developing an approach to climate change that would do exactly what the federal government's plan is doing: put a price on pollution and return the rebates directly to households so the majority of folks are left better off.

It is not just Nobel laureates and Liberal politicians who support this plan. Mark Cameron, the former director of policy for Prime Minister Harper, is behind this kind of an approach. In fact, Doug Ford's chief budget adviser testified in the Senate in this Parliament that the number one thing we could do to transition to a low-carbon economy was to put a price on pollution.

Most recently, the Pope made statements, just this last weekend, indicating that carbon pricing was essential. He said, “For too long we have collectively failed to listen to the fruits of scientific analysis, and doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain.”

When I talk to people in my community, particularly young people, I see them advocating for the kind of change that all of these different folks have been suggesting we should be taking for so long.

Let us look at the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal case that recently dealt with the constitutionality of the federal government's backstop that implemented a price on pollution. The court said that carbon pricing was not just part and parcel of an effective plan to reduce emissions; it said it was “an essential aspect...of the global effort to limit GHG emissions.” It put the word “essential” in italics so folks like us who are sitting in this chamber would pay extra close attention to the importance of advancing this important mechanism, which we know to be the most effective thing we can do to bring down our emissions.

However, we are not a one-trick pony. We are advancing measures to phase out coal. By 2030, 90% of the electricity in our country will be generated from non-emitting resources. We are making the single largest investment in the history of public transit. We are making record investments in energy efficiency to support companies that are advancing green technology. We are changing methane regulations to reduce the fastest-growing sources of GHG emissions that are driving climate change today. We have adopted new vehicle emissions standards. We are working on a clean fuel standard.

We are also taking steps to protect nature. I know Canadians, the ones who I represent in Central Nova, have demanded that we take action to protect nature and to eliminate plastics from our marine environment. We put forward a $1.5 billion oceans protection plan early in our mandate.

More recent, we announced that we were moving forward with a ban on harmful single-use plastics. We are putting the responsibility to deal with the life cycle of those plastic products on the manufacturers rather than on the end user. We expect that this is going to create economic opportunities in the plastics industry. At the same time, we prevent the discharge of harmful materials into our environment and in particular into our marine environment.

I want to spend a minute of the few I have left talking briefly about the impact that climate change and human activity have had on nature.

Since the 1970s, the earth has lost about 60% of its wildlife. This should shock the conscience of every Canadian. Let us look at the largest countries in the world. Canada is one of five countries that represents about three-quarters of the world's remaining wilderness. We have an opportunity and an obligation to address this issue. We are seeing the impacts today with some of our most iconic species.

Caribou herds across Canada are suffering because of immense deforestation. We have seen the southern resident killer whale population dwindle in recent history. We have a number of other species at risk. Globally, it is expected that one million of eight million species in the world are at serious threat of extinction if we do not change direction.

I have spent a lot of time dealing with the southern mountain caribou. In British Columbia right now, there are population units that have just a handful of animals left. They have been there for thousands of years but will disappear. We have made the single largest investment in the history of Canada to protect nature by more than doubling our protected spaces.

However, we know that it is not enough and we know we need help to get there. We need every Canadian to be pulling in the same direction. The time to come together is now. People who are living in a community that has a solar co-op can figure out how they can take part. If they want to take part in a community cleanup, they are doing something. Through collective global action, we can make a difference. Quite frankly, we do not have a choice. It is the smart thing to do and it is in our self-interest.

I am proud to speak in favour of this motion to recognize that we face a climate emergency. I am even prouder to work as part of a government that is doing its best to do something about it.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:35 p.m.

Conservative

Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member's government in its first two years exempted places like Nova Scotia from having to phase out coal. The government exempted it a full 10 years further into the future and then it brought in its carbon tax.

The member talked about needing to understand something before acting upon it. The Premier of Nunavut said at finance committee that 80% of the diesel fuel that was burned in his communities for home heating and whatnot was subsidized by the government. The national carbon tax the Liberal government has implemented basically increases the price of living.

I would like the member to explain to us how does a community innovate using the so-called price on carbon when 80% of it is being paid for by the same taxpayer? How does that work?

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, the member's question gives me the opportunity to point out that where regional realities differ, we have to take those realities into account.

In my home province of Nova Scotia, the member quite rightly pointed out that there has been work toward equivalence agreements because we have traditionally relied so heavily on coal. I am going to be meeting with groups from my province to talk about how we can accelerate the phase out of coal.

We simply do not give a pass to provinces that just want to continue on with the way they have always continued on. It comes with a commitment to change their behaviour in other ways to achieve at least an equivalent amount of emissions reductions through other mechanisms.

In Nova Scotia, for example, by partnering with the province and federal government, we have been able to advance a serious agenda that will result in major efficiency upgrades for homeowners.

On the issue of folks living in the territories that rely heavily on diesel, the pricing mechanism can still make a difference even if the cost is being borne by the same taxpayer. People can make their homes more efficient and have savings. There is a rebate for everyone who pays into this that is greater than the cost of the plan itself.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:35 p.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for bringing this motion forward. We have worked together. I have a lot of respect for him. We are friends.

I have some concerns. Here we are, debating the issue of the government declaring a climate emergency, but we are on the eve of it deciding about the largest fossil fuel investment in Canadian history. It just does not make sense.

The government has already bought a pipeline for $4.5 billion and if the government twins it, we are looking at a cost of $15 billion. The Liberals talk about balancing the environment and the economy. What did they do? They invested $300 million in a home energy retrofit program, something we called for. However, spending $15 billion and $300 million is not balancing the environment and the economy. We need real action.

I hope the government will make the right decision tomorrow and not expand tanker traffic in the Strait of Georgia by sevenfold, going against what it is doing here by calling it a climate crisis.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and I are friends. I want to thank him in particular for his advocacy on the reduction of plastic pollution in our environment through his private member's motion, Motion No. 151.

With respect to the decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline, I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the process. I have no information suggesting it is going to go in one direction or the other. We took seriously the advice of the Federal Court, insisting that the environmental assessment be done in the right way, particularly that we consider the potential impacts on the marine environment and do a better job of bringing the voices of indigenous peoples into the process.

We have sought to correct some of the shortcomings that existed with the previous process by implementing a new form of environmental assessment through Bill C-69, which would do a better job on the front end to air out these concerns.

We have to turn our mind to the fact that we live in a country that has traditionally been heavily dependent on the energy sector for its economic growth. As we grow our economy, we have to rely less on traditional sectors that continue to use fossil fuels and move toward clean energy.

I expect the decision will be a reasoned one based on science, facts and evidence. If the member has questions about investments in major energy products, I encourage him to clarify the position of his own leader on the LNG Canada project, which is the largest private sector investment in the history of Canada.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:40 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, this is a moment of extreme cognitive dissonance. We have before us a motion that there is a climate emergency that was tabled on May 16 and then adjourned for a month. For an emergency, we should not be adjourning debate, nor should we have closure on debate.

I think the hon. parliamentary secretary will probably try to find some way to agree with me on this. The motion calls for us to declare a climate emergency, and then the motion calls for us to ignore it. The motion says we should commit to meeting the national emissions target tabled under the Paris Agreement, which is the one left behind by Stephen Harper, which was developed in a complete void. It had nothing to do with the negotiations, which had not yet happened.

If we are going to hold to 1.5°C, I would ask the parliamentary secretary to please explain and put on record when his party and his government will update the Harper target under which we are still operating, such that it can be consistent with what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned us in October last year must be done, which is approximately doubling current efforts.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I do not think that we are seeking to ignore the nature of the emergency that we are declaring by virtue of this motion. In fact, we tried to use broad-based language that removed most of the politics from it by avoiding discussions of our specific efforts in the hope that we could just address the issue.

The target that is most important to me is the one that would get us to 1.5°C. We know that is where we need to be. With respect to the target the hon. member referred to, the target the government has used, it is a starting point, in my mind, that was negotiated with the provinces and territories as we were arriving at the pan-Canadian framework.

We know we need to continue to aim for deeper and deeper reductions to get where we need to be, and I look forward to the upcoming campaign, when we are going to be not only canvassing the ideas that we have already implemented, but identifying a path forward so Canadians can see how we can get there to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, we all love Pope Francis because he is such a defender of social justice. I would like to quote from the National Post:

Pope Francis said on Friday that carbon pricing is “essential” to stem global warming—his clearest statement yet in support of penalizing polluters—and appealed to climate change deniers to listen to science.

This is extremely important, because we actually have a credible plan, which is before Parliament and before the Canadian public, and we need to do something. I call on good Catholics and on all Canadians to get behind the Pope and get behind this plan to make sure that we actually do something so we have a good environment for future generations.

Is this plan really the only plan that we have before Canadians? It is a very good plan, but we need to get started and not wait and wait and wait and listen to those deniers who would deny us the opportunity, like Doug Ford, or those in Alberta, or those across the country who deny continually, those Conservatives—

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, of course, the Pope's comments over the weekend have come up a number of times today, including in my remarks. They are significant, not just because of who they come from, but because of the content of the message that was being delivered.

He quite correctly highlighted that climate change disproportionately impacts the world's poor and leaves future generations worse off than the generations that are alive today. There is a sense of injustice about it that we all need to recognize. The fact is that the call to obey science is just common sense. We need to be implementing the solutions that we do know exist. It is the right thing to do.

We have perspectives, including some that are represented in this chamber, of folks who will not start the debate on what solutions we need to implement, but on whether the problem is real in the first place and whether people can do anything about it. It is not a healthy starting point.

We are going to continue to implement a plan that is going to get us where we need to be, whether we have to bring folks with us or leave them behind.