Debates of Nov. 30th, 2021

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

It being 6:30 p.m., the hon. member will have three and a half minutes when we resume debate.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

The Environment

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

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?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my esteemed colleague for her decades-long activism on this file.

I am making this address from my service vehicle, a 100% electric vehicle, in transit to Ottawa, which is not to make a statement about my street cred on environmental issues but I would simply point that out.

My government wishes to thank the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development for his work and his report.

As my colleague for Saanich—Gulf Islands knows very well, we have made tremendous progress when it comes to climate change. Let us go back to our earlier years of activism to COP1 in 1995 where very few people were paying attention to this. We only had one IPCC report that started to point to the fact that humans were causing global warming, and the only thing that countries could agree upon in Berlin in 1995 was that the commitments that we had made in Rio in 1992 were inadequate.

Twenty-five years ago in Berlin, the only thing the countries could agree on was the fact that the commitments made in Rio to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels by 2000 were inadequate.

Those commitments did not include any emissions reduction targets, no international mechanism to combat climate change, or any dedicated funding mechanism by the industrialized countries to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

I attended the Glasgow summit a few weeks ago as the new Minister of Environment and Climate Change. More than 50,000 people attend those conferences, and it is no longer just government negotiators, NGO representatives and scientists.

At these meetings, we now have representatives from civil society, indigenous organizations, labour, municipalities, businesses and the financial sector, as well as innovators and investors. They are all saying that they want to be part of this and they want to be part of the solution, which is something we have never seen before. To say that nothing has happened when looking at all of the initiatives that have taken place at the municipal level, in our communities, in many provinces over the years and, frankly, all around the world is to deny the fact that the world has started to tackle climate change.

Now, clearly, as the commissioner's report points out, we need to do more. There is an international agreement on the fact that we need to do more, which was recognized in Glasgow, which is recognized in many of the IPCC reports and which is certainly recognized in the commissioner's report.

As I am sure my colleague has read the commissioner's report, she will know that the report did not study the 2016 pan-Canadian framework plan on climate change that our government presented in 2016, or the enhanced climate plan that was presented in 2020. The commissioner did not study the 100 or so measures that have been introduced by our government since 2016 as well as the $100 billion that we are currently investing in Canada.

I will finish up on this. As our last inventories have shown, we have managed to flatten the curve to 2030. We have taken out more than 30 million tonnes of CO2 greenhouse emissions that would have been in the atmosphere. That is almost equivalent to half of Quebec's overall emissions. So, our plan is working, but we need to accelerate it.

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

Mr. Speaker, if I could have additional time to be the equivalent of the minister's what I would say is, number one, we measure success not by good programs on paper but by emissions reductions in real life. The atmosphere is not interested in negotiating with humanity nor is it interested in the Liberal Party doing better than the Conservative Party. All that matters is that we live within our carbon budgets, and we are not.

If we do not hold to 1.5°C, as the developing world and low-lying island states say, it is a death sentence for them. After the summer we have had in British Columbia with nearly 600 of my fellow citizens dying in the heat dome, with the wildfires and now with the flooding, how many more death sentences do we take if we accept that 1.5°C is the best we can get and we are failing to get there?

We are failing to meet our commitments, and the honourable minister knows it. It is not a prop that he has a bicycle on his wall, it is not a prop that he is in an electric car, but it is a prop to claim that we are doing what needs to be done when we are building pipelines and subsidizing fossil fuels.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. She is right. The objective in everything we do has to be a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations. As she is well aware, our latest records clearly show that we have started to do that.

However, I agree with her. We must pick up the pace and do more. That is the message we got from Canadians in the last election.

Canadians told us they wanted us to do more when it comes to climate change and to do it faster, which is why we have committed to present additional measures in the fight against climate change in Canada. We will not stop until we have achieved it. I am of the opinion that the last inventory we saw shows that it is the last time emissions will grow in Canada. From now on, we will see emissions continue to go down in this country as long as our government and subsequent governments continue to do what needs to be done to ensure that we achieve the targets.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I know we had a bit of trouble with translation tonight because of the unauthorized headset. I know the minister was trying his best to participate in this, but I want to apologize to those who were trying to follow that in French.

I am very disappointed that we did not have access to the French interpretation.

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:42 p.m.)