Mr. Speaker, my ordinary disposition is one of optimism and hope, but I do not have much cause for hope when it comes to the plan we will see later this week. I note that the Conservatives are tabling it in the very last week of Parliament when it will not be subject to scrutiny by the parties in the House during question period.
With respect to the recent tweet put out by the deputy leader of the opposition, I found it unfortunate. I know her to be a reasonable person. I believe she thinks we should take action on climate change. However, to put these harmful messages out there for political gain when it does a disservice to the debate and discourse around climate change in Canada is disheartening. I note in particular that the Conservative leader was recently confronted about his desire to avoid tackling the question of whether there was a connection between climate change and severe weather. This has just become the norm.
I look at comments from different Conservative MPs over the the past few years. One member visited school children in Alberta and told them that CO2 was just plant food, not pollution, saying there was no consensus on this. Some members want to pull out of the Paris agreement. I was in a debate on social media with one of the Conservative members, who cited a pile of snow in Saskatchewan in February as evidence that climate change was not real.
It is unfortunate, but this is the tenor of the debate. Members from British Columbia have suggested that climate change and the rising temperature is similar to more people just being in a room giving up body heat. If they cannot acknowledge that a primary cause of climate change is human industrial activity, then they are not taking part in the debate at all. I do not anticipate the Conservative plan will be worth the paper it is written on.