Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
It is a great honour to be back in the House, having been re-elected to this 43rd Parliament by the great people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. Since this is my first speech in this Parliament, I want to take this opportunity to thank them for the trust that they have again placed on my shoulders and the huge responsibility that comes with it.
I am very lucky to be representing such a beautiful riding, which is a 4,700 square kilometre part of Vancouver Island filled with such amazing communities, such as Chemainus, down through Duncan, extending south to the city of Langford, extending out west through Lake Cowichan and including the community of Port Renfrew. It is home to the only Mediterranean-style climate in all of Canada. We are blessed to be able to grow a variety of crops and, indeed, we have a very storied and rich agricultural history in my region. It is also home to many first nations, including Cowichan tribes, Penelakut, Lyackson, Halalt, Malahat in the south and the western communities. These are communities that, of course, existed in this place for thousands of years with the first peoples. I have learned much over the last four years serving as their member of Parliament. I will continue to lean on them for guidance and their teachings as we chart a path forward with true reconciliation.
I would also like to take this time to welcome the class of 2019 to this place. I remember my own experience as a new member of Parliament four years ago, and it can seem quite overwhelming. However, new members should never forget that the people of their ridings sent them here. They placed their trust on their shoulders and every single seat in this place represents a distinct and unique geographic part of Canada. I think all members of Parliament, even though we may have our disagreements, have to respect that first and foremost. The electors are never wrong.
When I look at the election results in my riding and take the aggregate of the vote for all of the parties, I see that there was a clear desire for the people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford to see action on climate change, housing and health care, because the three parties that came out with a huge margin all spoke in their platforms about commitments to those three things. Some platforms had placed varying degrees of importance but, nonetheless, people saw those three items in the parties' platforms, and that is what they responded to.
I would like to start with the issue of climate change. There is absolutely no doubt that this is the top issue of the 21st century. I do not need to repeat everything that has been said in the House in the previous Parliament and the one before that. We are now at a point where, last year, we had a letter from over 11,000 scientists from around the world, in over 150 countries, warning policy-makers that this has to be the top issue and that we have to measure our success with scientifically verifiable targets. Unfortunately, the debates in this place have so often centred simply on the carbon tax, which all experts in this area will acknowledge is just a very tiny part of what our overall response to climate change has to be.
When we start talking about the cost of climate change, what is conveniently left out of the conversation is the economic cost of unmitigated climate change. We have heard experts peg the figure at around 10% of the world's GDP. When we start talking about that figure, we are not talking about billions of dollars but trillions of dollars. Therefore, I would ask people who are fighting against the carbon tax: How much of our nation's tax revenues are they prepared to spend when we are fighting wildfires in British Columbia and Alberta? How much future tax revenues are we prepared to spend to save Vancouver International Airport from rising tides, sea levels and floods coming down the Fraser River?
Canada is a coastal nation. We have the longest coastline in the world, and many of our people live and work in coastal communities. Therefore, we have to find ways as a nation to start meeting those targets and acknowledge our responsibility for the way we have lived for the last several decades, but to also be a leader and show that there is a way. Simply talking about climate change is not enough, because the other big threat facing Canada is growing inequality.
The other thing I clearly learned over my last four years as a member of Parliament, but also on the doorsteps of my riding, is that environmental justice will never happen unless we also have economic justice and social justice.
We can go to the doorsteps of people who are struggling to pay the bills, who are wondering whether they are going to have a job next month and whether they are going to be able to make that hard choice between rent and utilities and putting good quality food on the table. Unless we have a comprehensive climate change plan that includes a place for the most disadvantaged members of our society, it will not work.
We have to have a just transition plan. We have to have this all wrapped up. We need to have, in a sense, what people are referring to as a green new deal, one that tackles all these in a comprehensive plan. Simply leaving it to private citizens and the goodwill of corporations, while important, is not going to be enough. We know we are now at a stage where we have to start treating this seriously.
I would like to move on to health care because that was the other big thing. The NDP, through the last election, committed to a national pharmacare plan. We want to stand by our promise, unlike the Liberals who first made the promise back in 1997. I would like to just correct the record there.
However, another big thing is a dental care plan. I think a national dental care plan will make a huge difference for people. I listened to members of my caucus speaking to their constituents. We have all met people who are embarrassed by the state of their teeth. They even have to hold their hands over their mouths because they are embarrassed by the state of their teeth.
We know that good oral health is very important to good overall health. It is actually a class thing, because people who are well off have healthy teeth but people who are living in poverty have really bad teeth. The best way we can make an impact on people's lives is to make sure that we are covering things like dental care and pharmacare, while not putting people in the unfortunate position of having to make tough choices.
It is all well and good to talk about tax breaks but if those tax breaks are only benefiting people who need them the least, while not identifying the true costs to people who are living in the margins and on the bottom rungs of our society, we are not going to make it forward as a nation.
I have to talk about the opioid crisis. The opioid crisis continues to ravage my community. Every day in the city of Duncan people can go to one part of the city and see it there in front of them. It is a constant reminder to residents of the failure so far of federal policy.
Unless we, as a nation, are prepared to have these difficult conversations about whether we engage in policies that establish a safe drug supply and commit ourselves to decriminalization for small amounts, we are not going to move forward. The agencies that are trying to provide help are still operating under the shackles of current federal policy.
We are at a breaking point, from the business owners who have to deal with it every day, to the RCMP that have made over 300 calls in a calendar year, to the people who are trying to revive people suffering from an overdose. They are suffering from compassion fatigue. They are suffering from burnout. Unless we have the federal resources necessary to properly deal with this problem, we are still going to be talking about it.
We are dealing with an epidemic and it requires us to call a national health emergency. It requires Ottawa to step up to the plate to provide the funding necessary for the provinces and communities like mine to effectively deal with this problem.
I will end by acknowledging that I am very proud to once again serve as my party's agriculture critic. I look forward to working with all parties in the House to advance policies that will benefit our farmers.
I also would like to acknowledge that we are in a minority Parliament and how different and wonderful it is from the previous Parliament. Unlike having the government dictate to us in the opposition which way we are going to proceed, it is now going to require a lot of goodwill and good-faith negotiations to sometimes put aside our differences to make sure that we are serving the interests of this nation.