Mr. Speaker, I think this may be the first adjournment proceedings of the 44th Parliament.
I am honoured to stand here before the House to pursue an answer to a question I posed in question period on November 25. That was the day the commissioner for environment and sustainable development delivered a report that one could describe as scathing in relation to the government's record in reducing greenhouse gases and to one particular program. I refer in particular, for anyone who wants to look this up, to report 5 of the commissioner for environment and sustainable development, and to report 4.
Report 5 dealt with a historical overview of what the Government of Canada has done and not done to deliver greenhouse gas reductions. Very clearly, it is a record of 30 years of failure. I have to say I am grief-stricken by that failure. I have had a front-row seat to that failure. I was working in the environment minister's office when the lines were written that are repeated in report 5. It was the conclusion of the first major scientific conference internationally on the climate crisis, which occurred in June 1988 in Toronto. There, the scientists assembled said the following, and it is quoted in report 5, which was released last week: “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war.”
That was the conclusion of scientists in 1988, and we had a chance to do something about it globally, as a species and as economies. Not only did we fail, but we went in the other direction from the commitment we made in 1992 globally, and in Canada particularly, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the coming climate crisis. Both things were a commitment in 1992. We have done neither, and greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in Canada, which has the worst record of the G7, were 21% higher at the last recorded report than they were in 1990.
I have had a front-row seat to a commitment from government after government to treat our children to an unlivable world, and we have precious little time to arrest that. That is why I asked the minister the question on November 25. COP26 left us with a tiny chance to hold to 1.5°C, which we must do, yet this report outlines that with respect to one particular program, a recent one that is only partially under way, the so-called onshore emissions reduction fund, after $70 million being spent, the environmental commissioner within the Office of the Auditor General and Natural Resources Canada, which administered the program, were unable to point to a single tonne of greenhouse gases reduced because of the money the people of Canada were spending.
I will just quote this one paragraph: “Overall, Natural Resources Canada did not design the Onshore Program of the Emissions Reduction Fund to ensure credible and sustainable reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector or value for the money spent.” The minister in response said not to worry, because that program was to help the oil and gas sector during the pandemic. It was an economic problem.
The oil and gas sector got the same salary reimbursements as other sectors. Did they need to double dip? If they did, should we not be able to see some emissions reductions?