Madam Speaker, on October 6, I asked this government if it would ban the destructive practice of gas fracking in Canada. In his response to my question, the Minister of the Environment stated that the government will exceed its 2030 emissions targets. It is important to point out that the current 2030 targets are woefully inadequate. Exceeding a target that is too low is not a win; it is a failure.
The minister also stated that the government has introduced regulations to reduce methane emissions. I appreciate the acknowledgement that the federal government has a role in regulating the extractive practices of the energy industry. This is especially true when those practices poison aquifers and airsheds and release climate-destroying pollutants into the atmosphere.
Fracking is a process for extracting methane that cannot be controlled. Reducing methane emissions at the wellhead does not make fracking a safe and acceptable practice. Fracking leaks toxic chemicals into aquifers and groundwater, releases pollutants into airsheds, releases methane into the atmosphere and increases seismic activity and earthquakes.
Methane is not a transition fuel. It is a climate change accelerator. When methane is leaked into the atmosphere, for the first 20 years, it is 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. The practice of fracking poses a direct and immediate threat to our future and the future of our children and grandchildren.
Using chemical fingerprints, researchers have linked the significant spike in methane emissions to the boom in shale and oil and gas fracking. This spike is linked to the accelerated pace of climate change. An estimated 30 million abandoned oil and gas wells around the world are leaking methane. Methane leaks represent as much a threat to climate change as burning coal to generate electricity. The provinces are not talking about new coal plants. Why are they so fired up about gas fracking?
Many jurisdictions that are serious about climate change are banning fracking and the installation of natural gas in new neighbourhoods and buildings. They know that methane is a climate killer.
After climate change, water and air pollution represent the biggest threat to human health from fracking. Fracking uses huge amounts of water and creates massive amounts of toxic waste water. People who live near fracking operations have had their wells poisoned, leading to increased disease in humans and animals. Fracking releases poisonous hydrocarbons into airsheds, representing another serious health threat.
Fracking has been shown to increase earthquakes. In northwest B.C., fracking in the vicinity of dams on the Peace River is putting the integrity of those dams at risk. The increased seismic activity could lead to the catastrophic failure of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, the Peace Canyon dam, and it threatens the integrity of the Site C dam, which is under construction on geologically unstable ground. Ironically, the Site C dam is being built to provide cheap, subsidized power to the fracking industry and the LNG industry, which, if continued, could lead to the failure of that dam or a cascading failure of the dams upstream.
Ideally, we should have legislation that regulates against illogical decisions, such as building a dam in a geologically unstable area to support an industry that causes earthquakes, but we cannot regulate for common sense.
Any government that is serious about arresting climate change and protecting the health of its citizens would ban fracking.