Debates of Jan. 27th, 2020

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

A discussion about energy should never create discord in Canada. We should all be proud to live in a country that has many energy sources.

As parliamentarians, we have a duty to promote all energies for the sake of our country's economic future. We all have a duty to implement a national strategy on energy security, because the economic prosperity of future generations clearly hinges on the decisions that will be made in the 43rd Parliament. We have a duty to talk about energy, to promote energy and to find the fairest way for all of Canada's energy sources to coexist.

We are very proud that our country is an exporter and producer. This is an excellent opportunity to allow all of these energy sources to coexist in our country.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Lévis—Lotbinière for his speech.

I would simply like to point out to the hon. member that the Bloc Québécois campaigned heavily on environmental issues. We got 32 members elected in Quebec by talking about significantly reducing greenhouse gases and stopping pipelines from being built in Quebec.

Quebec is facing a housing shortage. There are 250,000 households that spend more than 50% of their income on housing. What does my colleague think about the housing shortage? Will he support our requests that the Liberal government finally sign the agreement with Quebec to build 15,000 social housing units as quickly as possible?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I would like to remind him that 65% of Quebeckers agree with transporting oil by pipeline and that 65% of Quebeckers are happy to use oil from Alberta. We want 100% of Québec's oil to come from Alberta.

I would also like to remind my colleague that year after year, in Québec, we are consuming more and more oil because there are more and more vehicles. Québec has one of the highest rates of vehicles per household in North America.

Quebeckers are also proud of their hydroelectric power. Quebeckers would like to be able to sell hydroelectric power in Ontario, Manitoba and western Canada. If we bought oil from western Canada, it would make sense for us to sell them our hydroelectric power. It would be so easy for Québec to cross the Ottawa River to serve a third of Ontario with affordable power.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand here and give my first speech in the House today as the member of Parliament for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

I first need to thank the voters in my constituency for sending me here with a very clear mandate. They know what they want, and it is humbling to have received their overwhelming support.

I also need to thank my wife of 12 years, Kyla, for her unwavering support and for being willing to take this big step with me into parliamentary life. We have three of the most amazing kids, Jacoby, Jada and Kenzie, and if I did not have their full support as well, I would not have dragged them along on this journey.

To my campaign team and volunteers, I am thankful for their hard work and dedication in making sure that my first campaign was a successful one. I live in a riding that is 77,000 square kilometres, and it was a joy to meet and campaign with people from so many communities and backgrounds.

Today, I will be speaking in reply to the throne speech delivered by the Governor General, which set out the government's priorities and agenda.

After the election on October 21, when western Canadians overwhelmingly voted out every Liberal between Winnipeg and Vancouver, the Prime Minister went on national TV and told western Canadians, “I've heard your frustration and I want to be there to support you.” Naturally, the throne speech would have been a golden opportunity to show western Canadians that he had in fact heard our frustrations. However, this throne speech is just further evidence that the Prime Minister is not listening to western Canadians. In fact, the Liberals are continuing to ignore what western Canada is trying to communicate to them.

I come from a rural riding. Part of what makes it so great to live in a small town in a rural area is that one has to have a certain level of entrepreneurship and resolve to make one's farm, ranch or business succeed. Agriculture, energy, tourism and the natural resource sectors have always provided opportunities for people to start up a new business, to innovate, and then to develop their product and their business model. However, when there has been a multi-year downturn in the resource sector coupled with the lows that the agriculture sector has encountered, it puts the very businesses and people who keep small towns and small businesses viable in danger of losing everything.

With all that in mind, I will focus on a line that was used in both this year's throne speech and the 2015 throne speech, which is that every Canadian should have a “real and fair chance” to succeed. However, the government needs to understand it is the government's policies that are getting in the way and making it harder for Canadians to succeed.

The first policy we heard in the speech was that the government is doubling down on its carbon tax. So far, this has been the main method it is using to try to eliminate Canada's carbon emissions. However, it has not only proven to be a harmful policy for farmers, energy workers, seniors and everybody else, but it is also an ineffective policy. We are only seeing the cost of living go up, which is hurting the most vulnerable people, such as our seniors and low-income families. It has been nothing but an added burden for a lot of people.

In April, the cost of the carbon tax will increase from $20 to $30 per tonne, which means that life is about to get even harder. If that was not bad enough, we found out a few weeks ago that in a few provinces the government is lowering the carbon tax rebate that families could receive. Those provinces happen to be the ones that have not gone along with putting their own carbon tax in place. My home province of Saskatchewan is getting the largest cutback. When it was first introduced, the Liberals said that the tax would be revenue neutral and that Canadians could expect support for their extra expenses through a tax rebate. This is a perfect demonstration of what we can expect from the carbon tax in actual practice. As the cost and tax rate increase, the support for taxpayers and struggling families will decrease.

The carbon tax is also adding another layer of stress in agriculture. In western Canada, farmers had a year unlike any other in recent memory, from starting out the year with drought-like conditions to having way too much moisture in the fall when it came time to get the crops off. In fact, we have millions of acres of crops still out in the fields buried in snow. For the crops that are now in the bins, the next problem is to dry the grain, and natural gas is the main source of heat generation to accomplish this. It is a necessary part of grain farming, but the price for that fuel has gone up by hundreds of dollars because of the carbon tax, and then the GST is applied on top of that and so we now have a tax on top of a tax. After a difficult year in 2019, this is the last thing those farmers need. They have been calling attention to their desperate situation. I was happy to read in the National Post that the Green Party's agriculture critic agrees that we need to exempt farmers from the carbon tax, but nobody in the government seems to be listening.

Beyond the carbon tax, the Liberals' anti-energy, anti-business policies are killing jobs in resource development all over Canada. We heard a lot about how the anti-pipeline Bill C-69 would shut down energy projects, but there have also been concerns raised in mining and other industries.

In 2016, the Prime Minister said:

I have said many times that there isn’t a country in the world that would find billions of barrels of oil and leave it in the ground while there is a market for it.

But it isn’t enough to just use that resource for our short-term interest.

Our challenge is to use today’s wealth to create tomorrow’s opportunity. Ultimately, this is about leaving a better country for our kids than the one we inherited from our parents.

He was right to say that we should be making the most of Canadian energy while there is a market for it. However, after four years, the Liberals have left a lot of oil in the ground and that has left a lot of people out of work. Over the last four years, the government's regulatory changes have chased over $100 billion in investment, or four and a half per cent of GDP, out of Canada. I fail to see how we can create tomorrow's opportunities with results like that.

I could say a lot more about how the government's current policies do not make sense for either the environment or the economy, but I would much rather talk about what does make sense and what could work.

Just before Christmas, SaskPower, the power utility in Saskatchewan, held the grand opening of the Chinook power station northwest of Swift Current in my riding. It is a good example of how we have made clean, efficient use of natural gas in combined cycle power generation. This facility has the capacity to provide more power for around 300,000 homes. It runs 50% more efficiently than a coal-fired plant. The reason this power station is so important, along with others like it in the province, is that we now have strong enough baseload power generation so that we can invest further into renewables like wind and solar.

The Province of Saskatchewan, while under the guidance of former premier Brad Wall, created an ambitious plan to reduce our emissions. This plan is set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, as well as to have 50% renewable energy by then. This is a far more achievable plan than the one the Liberals have used. By creating a strong enough baseload power capacity that is reliable while utilizing technologies like combined-cycle power generation, the province can now focus its efforts further on growth in renewables. We already have a strong presence in the wind and solar industries, and further investment into these areas will continue to be encouraged.

Therefore, I find it crazy that the government has chosen to ignore the province's plan, which actually reduces emissions and shifts to renewable energy, while the Liberals' carbon tax only drives valuable investment dollars out of Canada that are needed for funding new technology.

I also need to highlight the innovative farming practices, such as zero-till farming, that have taken off in Saskatchewan. These methods remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by keeping more of it in the soil. Our province continues to be a world leader in this regard. When it comes to the promise of this approach, I saw an article in National Geographic that noted the following:

...about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from land use and agriculture combined—but farmers are uniquely situated to be part of the solution.

We are seeing something like this in Saskatchewan. Due to the zero-till farming efforts, just as an example, we sequester 9.46 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, that is the equivalent of removing two million cars from the highway each and every year. That is a real result. This is the type of success that comes from properly respecting farmers and their livelihood. It is a way of life that already deeply understands the close relationship between the economy and being a good steward of the land and the environment. Canadians working in the agriculture and energy sectors do not need to be lectured about it. They need to be supported in the balanced approach that they are already pursuing.

I am so proud to live in a riding that is part of a comprehensive, serious and practical plan for the environment like the one being implemented in Saskatchewan. However, the sad fact is that my province and my riding are not getting the credit they deserve from the current government. Instead, they have been blamed, neglected and ignored.

The Prime Minister said to western Canadians, “I hear you.” If this is true, then he should scrap the carbon tax and stop punishing the energy sector. If all Canadians are supposed to have a real and fair chance to succeed, then the government needs to listen to the provinces and the industry leaders who are suffering as a result of failed Liberal policies. It just sounds like more of the same from the Liberals, but I want Canadians to know that we hear them on this side of the House and we are ready to help them succeed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, as a western Canadian member of Parliament, I can tell the member that there are many initiatives within the throne speech, and within the budget in the last number of years, that western Canadians would be very proud of and would recognize as progressive measures that have had a real impact on their lives. We need to be sensitive to the fact that some regions of the country, in particular the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, have gone through some very difficult times as governments at all levels have tried to assist where they can.

We respect that. We have a government that understands the importance of the environment, and the price of pollution has a role to play in that. I believe most western Canadians recognize that. I believe that we need to recognize that a balancing needs to take place between the economy and the environment, and this is a government that has recognized that.

I wonder if the member would not concur and recognize that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. Would he not agree that this is an important principle to adhere to?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, the one thing that I want to highlight while talking about the environment and the economy is that we cannot use the environment as a means to tax people into submission. That is what the carbon tax does. As we have seen, it is driving investment dollars out of Canada.

That is not how to build an economy or how to support an economy. It is how to cripple the economy.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to see so much reference to western Canada in the House today. From my perspective on Vancouver Island, most of the people in this House are eastern Canadians, but I will leave that aside.

I would caution the member against speaking so forcefully on behalf of western Canadians. Fully one third of the people in Alberta and Saskatchewan did not vote Conservative, and they were not rewarded the seats proportional to those results because we have an unfair first-past-the-post system. In fact, most people in British Columbia and in Manitoba did not vote Conservative, so I would express some caution on that.

My question to the member is on the subject of agriculture. I would like to hear his comments on our developing some policies in this Parliament that recognize the hard work that farmers do, especially with regenerative agricultural practices that sequester more carbon in the soil, and whether we have an opportunity to give farmers a place to become one of the greatest weapons we have against climate change with their use of good soil practices.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, part of what we need to do with any policy that we can develop going forward is to respect the hard work that has already been accomplished by our farmers, our ranchers and the people who are actively working in the agricultural sector. They have already been innovative in their approach.

In fact, the province of Saskatchewan, going back to the early 1900s, has been responsible for hundreds and thousands of different patents with regard to agricultural development. We are very innovative in the province. Farmers are very good and have a great sense of entrepreneurship and resolve. The more we can work to get policies to support that would be great.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, would the hon. member be able to highlight some of the challenges that regular middle-class, rural Canadians have with regard to the carbon tax?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, the biggest challenge that we have now, as I highlighted in my speech, is the great distance to travel. My riding is 77,000 square kilometres, but the population base within that is only 67,000, with around a third of the population located in the city of Swift Current. It can be a long way for people in our small towns to travel, as some towns do not have a grocery store. For people to be able to go and get their groceries, their necessities for life, they sometimes have to travel great distances. The carbon tax continues to put them at a disadvantage.

When we are talking about supporting small towns, small businesses and regular hard-working, middle-class Canadians, this is why the carbon tax is a very ineffective policy.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise today for the first time this year and at the start of a new decade.

I would like to share my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith. I am very happy that all the members of the Green Party will have an opportunity to speak to the 2019 throne speech, as this is the last day of debate. I would like to thank the people who manage time within the Liberal Party, since my colleague, the member for Fredericton, will share her time with a Liberal member.

I want to start by saying, and this is not a formality, that we are on the unceded territory of the Algonquin people.

I want to acknowledge that we are here on traditional unceded Algonquin territory, and to them we say, meegwetch.

It is an honour to speak to the Speech from the Throne today. There is much in it that can carry one away with inspirational promises, with rhetoric with which we can only agree. For instance, I turn to this bit, which I particularly like: “From forest fires and floods, to ocean pollution and coastal erosion, Canadians are living the impact of climate change every day.”

The science is clear and it has been for decades. A clear majority of Canadians voted for ambitious climate action now. That stirs me to think I will vote for this, but I will not. I will not because the gap between the inspirational rhetoric coming from the Liberal administration and the reality of Liberal actions is so wide it induces vertigo. It is so deep that it is dizzying.

As an example of why I now feel this way, I turn to the 2015 Speech from the Throne, which I did vote for. I loved this promise and will remind people of it. Some of us who also served in the 42nd Parliament will remember the government's promise to “not resort to devices like...omnibus bills to avoid scrutiny.”

I think we all recall that it was an omnibus budget bill in which the deferred prosecution agreement designed specifically for SNC-Lavalin was hidden. Now I read everything, as my colleagues know, so I actually saw the deferred prosecution agreement hidden in an omnibus budget bill. I wondered why it was not stand-alone criminal legislation to go through the Department of Justice, but I was persuaded by the notes and looking into it that nothing nefarious lay there. However, it was in an omnibus bill and I do regret that the deferred prosecution agreement amendment to the Criminal Code never went to the Department of Justice and to the committee studying justice bills, as it should have.

Another fun promise to remember from the 2015 Speech from the Throne was “the government will undertake to renew, nation-to-nation, the relationship between Canada and indigenous peoples, one based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership.”

It was with some shock that I saw within months the Liberal government's approval of site C, ignoring the court cases and concerns of indigenous peoples, as well as the environmental impacts.

Approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline ignored the fact that, even during the 2015 election campaign, the then leader of the Liberal Party, now Prime Minister, said that no project could be approved based on the inadequate and flawed process that had taken place while there were court cases, and strong and clear objection, from the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, Squamish and WSANEC First Nations, whose territory I am honoured to live on. Muskrat Falls ignored the concerns of the Innu.

Quoting from the 2015 Speech from the Throne, many people will remember the following without being reminded, the promise “that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.” One can see where concern arises. How much can we believe in the 2019 Speech from the Throne? I would like to believe it, but then we come to the reality of what is being pledged. We are seeing a commitment in this new Speech from the Throne.

In the throne speech the government said, and I quote, “The Government will set a target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.”

In reality, our target is the same as the one chosen by the former Conservative government under Stephen Harper. The target has not changed by a single tonne.

Here we are with a government that says we can get to net-zero by 2050, and there are some questions. As many will know, we do not whip votes in the Green Party. I am so honoured to be joined by the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith and the member for Fredericton. We cannot vote confidence in a government that does not have a climate target that allies with the science.

We know that the government has said that it is important to face the climate situation as a climate emergency. In fact, it was a Liberal motion passed by this House on June 17, 2019, in which the House agreed that we are in a climate emergency. The motion stated:

...the House declare that Canada is in a national climate emergency which requires...that Canada commit to meeting its national emissions target under the Paris Agreement and to making deeper reductions in line with...pursuing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

However, here we are with a Speech from the Throne that never once uses the term “climate emergency”.

We are in a climate emergency, but there is not a single mention of “climate emergency” in the throne speech.

The Speech from the Throne says that we have to address climate change. While the government says that we must achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, only a few paragraphs later we are also told that the government must take strong action to fight climate change and also work just as hard to get Canadian resources to new markets.

In other words, with the same vigour which the government wants to address the climate emergency, it will also use public funds in the neighbourhood of $10 billion to $13 billion to drive forward the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which is a direct threat to climate action, as it also contemplates approving the Teck Frontier mine project. It also is ignoring its obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the climate emergency by subsidizing and supporting the LNG projects where the gas pipeline is. At this very moment, the RCMP are in Wet'suwet'en Territory prepared to enforce an injunction that should never be enforced because it violates hereditary rights and traditional rights of Wet'suwet'en people.

Here is the reality and it is a tough one. I have worked on this issue since 1986. I have seen government after government, well-meaning Liberals, well-meaning provincial New Democrats, well-meaning Progressive Conservatives, make climate commitments and then find it is too hard. Something political needs to be fixed before we can do the right thing to ensure our kids have a livable world.

Here is the tough choice and it is not one that we can find wiggle room or some medium space to do a bit of this and a bit of that, a pipeline here, an oil sands mine there and still live up to climate commitments. The stark choice is this. Before the next election, we assembled in this Parliament must have Canada's targets align with the advice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That means we must at least double our targets until 2030.

We must now as humanity, as the world assembled through the multilateral process, change our economies in a transformational sense that gets rid of fossil fuels to ensure that our children, that human civilization can survive in a hospitable biosphere or we defend the fossil fuel industry. We cannot do both. We have to choose. I choose climate action and the Speech from the Throne and the government had better deliver.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I recall when the former leader of the Green Party supported the throne speech. I am a little disappointed that she is considering not supporting it this time around. There are many good environmental initiatives. One of the biggest and boldest is the whole idea of the price on pollution as we continue to move forward. I would be interested in her thoughts on the progress on that file.

I am curious with respect to the LNG. The LNG in British Columbia was an agreement, the largest private sector government sponsored agreement with billions of dollars of investment, with the NDP provincially and with us at the national level. To what degree would the Green Party support something of that nature? When the member makes reference to transition, maybe there is some merit for projects of that nature. Would the member not agree?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, the reality is that in the early 1990s, people talked of natural gas as a potential transition fuel in getting rid of coal and oil. The problem in 2020 is that it is not a transition fuel. It is not natural gas. It is primarily from fracking. Now the international scientific community is recognizing that a big pulse in greenhouse gases is coming from fracking from fugitive methane emissions. The reality is that fracked natural gas from B.C. has the same carbon footprint as coal. It is one of the great lies of our time, that shipping LNG from B.C. to China will somehow have a net benefit in fighting global warming. It will in fact do the opposite. It is a carbon bomb, and we need to stop fracking.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is good to see my friend from the Green Party back in the House. We obviously disagree on many things.

I had some great round tables in my riding over the break, specifically on the issue of environment and climate change. We always have a vast array of different views represented in those conversations, from those who are skeptical about the science in general to hard-core Green Party supporters and everybody in between.

One of the areas in which there seems to be general agreement is people proposing that there may be some promise to nuclear power. I wonder if the member could share her perspective on the role nuclear power could play. Does she agree with what seemed to be consensus in those round tables, that it could be a key part of the solution, or is she more skeptical?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, my friend for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is a dear friend in this place, and I am glad to see him back. I am so glad to see we continue to disagree on just about everything.

The best thing ever said about nuclear power was said some time ago by a critic named Fred Knelman, who said that nuclear was “a future technology whose time has passed”.

We in the Green Party have broken down what it will take to get to 60% reductions in carbon dioxide by 2030 in this country. We do not propose shutting down existing reactors, to be clear, but a single new one makes no sense at all. They are very capital intensive. They cost a great deal, produce very few jobs and reduce very little carbon. On the other hand, solar, wind, district energy, geothermal, all of the other options are cheaper and more readily accessible.

I have one last thought for my friends on the Conservative benches. The sweetheart deal of all time, after all the subsidies to AECL, is the nuclear facilities in the country are now owned and run by SNC-Lavalin. I am very dubious about going that route.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, since this is my first time rising in the House, I would like to take this opportunity to greet my colleagues and wish them all a good session.

I really enjoyed the speech given by my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands.

A little earlier, in their speeches, the government members spoke about how they firmly intended to stay the course on the greenhouse gas reduction targets. I would like to ask my colleague opposite whether she supports the idea of enshrining the terms of the Paris agreement in a law that would require the current government and future governments to keep to those commitments and meet the greenhouse gas reduction targets. Otherwise, it is rather difficult to take seriously a government that buys pipelines and gets involved in oil sands development.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank and congratulate my new colleague. I want to work collaboratively with members who truly understand the climate emergency.

I look forward to the time when the Minister of Environment and Climate Change says that the Government of Canada understands that the current targets are barely 50% of what is needed if we want to avert disaster. It is not possible to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I must interrupt the hon. member because her time is up. I gave her a little more time so she could finish her answer, but I must now intervene. I am sorry about that.

The hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour and privilege to rise today to respond to the Speech from the Throne. I would like to thank the voters in Nanaimo—Ladysmith for giving me their support to stand here today. I would also like to thank my family, volunteers and team that supported me as well.

My electoral district of Nanaimo—Ladysmith faces many serious challenges that are not unique to our area, but are very acute and much more challenging than in other parts of the country.

I am very pleased to see a number of key initiatives and promises in the Speech from the Throne and the mandate letters to ministers that will help address some of the challenges my constituents face. I am committed to working across party lines in a positive and collaborative way for legislation that will benefit all Canadians, and where I see a need for improvement, I will speak up about it.

Nanaimo—Ladysmith has one of the largest homeless populations per capita in Canada. I am glad to see the government step up with the creation of a national housing strategy. However, I do not think the targets outlined will be enough to deal with the crisis that communities face. We have vulnerable and marginalized people who are struggling with affordable housing and homelessness. They need safe and affordable places to live.

It is encouraging to see the inclusion of national standards for mental health support. Mental health care should be part of our universal health care system, so the cost of treatment is not a barrier to people seeking support, especially when they are in a crisis. Many of the people who are homeless in Nanaimo—Ladysmith are struggling with serious mental health issues. The mayor of Nanaimo has gone so far as to call for new institutions for people who are clearly suffering and unable to cope with their mental illness.

Like many other regions of the country, Nanaimo—Ladysmith is deeply affected by the opioid crisis. We have young men, with good jobs and families, who have become addicted to opioids after work-related injuries. They are dying because the stigma of drug addiction has made them fearful to seek help. The war on drugs is a failure. Let us study what other countries have done to deal with this health and social issue and create a made-in-Canada solution.

Alleviating homelessness and improving access to mental health care and addiction treatment services will reduce the criminality associated with these social issues and allow our justice system to focus on violent and repeat offenders.

I am also very pleased to see that the government is committed to strengthening medicare and renewing its health agreement with the provinces and that mandate letters call for a universal national pharmacare program. We need to add a national dental care program to that as well.

Nanaimo—Ladysmith has a serious shortage of doctors in a rapidly growing population. Vancouver Island is a retirement destination for many Canadians.

The Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, which was built in the 1960s, serves the oldest per capita population in Canada. This hospital is overdue for an upgrade to create a tertiary hospital that will provide cancer care, cardiac care and expanded psychiatric services.

HealthCareCAN is calling on the government to green our health care infrastructure and ensure that it is energy efficient as part of the efforts to combat climate change. I hope the government will heed that call and provide major funding to help the provinces upgrade aging health care infrastructure.

It is very important for my community to see an increase in the funding for home care and palliative care, but we also need to see major changes in how senior care residences are operated. The Investment Canada Act needs to be changed to exclude seniors homes from foreign ownership. Seniors homes should be viewed as part of our health care system.

The recent experience with the purchase of Retirement Concepts by Anbang Insurance in China, which is now a state-owned corporation, must not be repeated. The Vancouver Island Health authority recently had to take over administration of three Retirement Concepts facilities due to unsafe conditions. Foreign corporations have no connection to our community and should not be profiting from providing poor-quality seniors care. The non-profit model of community-centred care is a far better way of ensuring that our seniors get the quality care they deserve.

Small and medium-sized businesses are major economic drivers and employ the vast majority of Canadians. I am glad to see in the mandate letters that there will be improved support for start-ups, but what I have heard from the small and medium-sized enterprises in my community is that there is a need for additional support for businesses that want to take the next step in their growth, whether that is innovation for a new product line, creating efficiencies that reduce waste and lower their carbon footprint, or expanding their markets.

Canada has been a great incubator for new businesses, but often these businesses are lured away to other jurisdictions by incentives, tax breaks and programs that help them grow to the next level. We need to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises stay in Canada and continue to provide well-paying jobs for Canadian workers.

I know the language of tax cuts has been a popular mantra, but tax cuts inevitably lead to austerity and either cuts to services or to the addition of user fees for the services that middle- and lower-income Canadians rely on. I support having services that our taxes provide, such as universal health care, and infrastructure such as public transit, roads, bridges, hospitals, schools and recreation facilities.

What we need is fairness. We need to ensure that wealthy Canadians are paying their fair share. Large corporations benefit from the social services provided to their employees and the infrastructure they use as part of their businesses. The government needs to close tax loopholes, crack down on tax evasions and shut down tax avoidance schemes and the offshoring of wealth by corporations and individuals.

There are four first nations in the Nanaimo—Ladysmith riding, and the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Canadian legislation is very important to them and to creating economic certainty in our region. Building a new relationship with indigenous people in Canada requires more than just words; it requires a commitment to respect the Constitution and Supreme Court decisions. In too many cases, especially when large extraction projects are at stake, the intent of UNDRIP is not being followed.

In addition to the climate crisis, we are facing a crash in biodiversity. The commitments to protect 25% of the land base and 25% of the marine base in conservation by 2025 is very important. The riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith has very little conservation land put aside because the whole southeast portion of Vancouver Island was privatized as part of the deal for B.C. to enter Confederation. The Nanaimo River watershed is 750 square kilometres in aarea, but only 10 square kilometres are in a conservation area and less than two square kilometres are designated as parkland. The Nanaimo River is very important ecologically and needs greater conservation, and 25% would be a welcomed inclusion.

Like my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, I see a great Speech from the Throne, but it is hard to be optimistic. The previous Speech from the Throne from the Liberal government promised that 2015 would be the last first-past-the-post election. It was not.

There are a couple of other things my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands has highlighted that were promises that were not kept. Canadians were also promised concrete action to combat climate change, but the targets for reducing emissions have not changed from the ones put in place by the previous Conservative government before the Paris accord. We are not even on target to meet those commitments. Instead, the government has approved environmentally destructive projects, has bought a pipeline that guarantees an increase in emissions and has continued to provide subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. It is for those reasons that I will vote against the Speech from the Throne. I am ready to work with the government to establish new targets, because until we commit to do our part and follow through on our commitments, all of the other issues I have mentioned will not matter. Climate change will impact every area of our lives, overwhelm our health care system and destroy our economy.

I was elected on a promise to continue pressing the government for real and substantive action on climate change, and that is a promise I intend to keep.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, with reference to the environment, there are different ways we have approached it as a government. We could talk about the incentives to get people to purchase hybrid or electric cars. I personally like a couple of them that are quite significant. The price on pollution is one, which I think overall has been fairly well received in the different regions of the country. Also, in the last election we talked about the planting of two billion trees over the next decade. That is significant and really tangible. People can see that, understand it and relate to it.

I wonder if my colleague could talk about the different ways in which a government can appeal to Canadians to think more about the environment.

As I said, I like the planting of two billion trees over the next decade. I think that is a very strong, tangible action by government. We see the price on pollution, something that is taking place around the world. Only the Conservative Party seems to be offside with that. We see tax incentive programs, such as the one to encourage people to buy electric cars, which complements the Province of Quebec's program and is really making a difference. Could the member provide his thoughts on progressive measures such as those?

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, in the previous election I listened to the environment minister tell us from Canadian Tire how, as consumers, we can change our light bulbs and do that sort of thing. I have already done that. I have done two home energy retrofits and I have taken care of my own carbon footprint. What we need to do is regulate industry.

We have the Copenhagen agreement, which has its targets due this year. Ten of the provinces and territories, representing 85% of the population, have met their targets, but Alberta and Saskatchewan have not. That is mainly because of oil and gas extraction and because of fracking and the expansion of the oil sands.

We talk about Teck Resources wiping out a whole area of the boreal forest and turning it into a tailings pond when we should be talking about planting trees. Why not leave those trees in place? Why not look at renewable energy and real solutions to climate change, rather than the expansion of fossil fuels. That includes fracking and the LNG projects. We need to stop subsidizing fossil fuel industries in this country.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, a Yiddish proverb says, “All that glitters is not gold.”

The member talked about fleecing the rich, about taxing the rich some more. Looking at the tax numbers in 2017, we see that 54.1% of all taxes paid were paid by the top 10% of income earners. If 54.1% is not enough, how much more taxes would that member like to see being paid by those income earners?

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like us to follow the northern European model of taxation. There is much more equity in that system. There they do not have the kind of poverty that we have here in a wealthy country. The wealth is shared, and the wealthy are doing just fine. They are paying their fair share. They are using the social services provided by those taxes, and their workers are benefiting from them as well.

We should have an extreme wealth tax on people who make more than $1 million a year. What do they need all that wealth for?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a quick question with regard to federal policy.

We have been trying to protect an area in my riding called Ojibway Shores, which has 100 endangered species at risk on it. The federal government wants local taxpayers to spend millions of dollars to pay for their own property. I am wondering what the member thinks about that situation. We have asked the federal government to transfer that so that local taxpayers will not have to pay for property they already own since it is federal land and has hundreds of endangered species on it.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, the federal government has a large role to play in making sure that conservation areas are conserved. This is really important to my area, where most of the land is private land, so putting conservation measures in Nanaimo—Ladysmith would mean that we would need to deal with private land. It is going to need both federal and provincial funding.