Madam Speaker, it is an honour to join the debate on Bill C-12, Canadian net-zero emissions accountability act, which is arguably the most important piece of climate legislation in our country's history.
This is because Canada should always be striving to act as a world leader in climate change action, but our history has not borne that out. The fact is that Canada remains a top-10 emitter in greenhouse gas emissions on an absolute basis, and that we are firmly entrenched as a top-three contributor of emissions on a per capita basis. For too long, Canada has set emission reduction goals and failed to meet them. Most of the time we have failed to even have a realistic plan to meet them.
In 2005, we committed ourselves via the Kyoto protocol to reduce emissions to an average of 6% below our 1990 emissions level. The Liberals, Bloc and NDP all voted in favour of meeting the targets. Former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin then brought forth project green, which was Canada's first real climate action plan to meet this commitment.
Unfortunately, the government was brought down and we were subject to a critical decade of being a climate laggard under the Harper government. We missed the Kyoto targets, and nothing was done to meet the Copenhagen 2020 targets. Over these years Canada's efforts were characterized as cowardly and Canada was even seen as a pariah in the context of UN-led climate change negotiations, giving us the dubious winning streak for the fossil of the year award, as well as a lifetime unachievement award.
This was not only a source of great national shame. By failing to act in the greatest and most urgent challenge of our world, we also eroded our soft power and our country's standing in the world.
Thankfully those years are over. Canada, led by our former minister of environment and climate change, was a key protagonist in negotiating the Paris climate accord, where the world committed to limiting global warning to 2 degrees Celsius while working towards limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.
Canada and the biggest emitters around the world are now committing to get to net-zero emissions by 2050. We have also committed to bringing in a strengthened 2030 target in time for the leaders' climate summit on April 22 of this year.
We know committing to it is not good enough. We need to hold ourselves accountable to meeting it. That is why the legislation we are debating today is so important. Bill C-12 will act as the legal foundation for Canada's strengthened climate action plan by mandating national emissions targets on five-year increments, based on the best scientific information available, as well as by requiring detailed strategies for achieving these targets and transparent reporting in efforts on the way to get there.
An independent net-zero advisory board will play a key role in informing the government in the setting of targets and the plans to meet them. This body was recently set up with a diverse and exceptional group of 14 experts, including several who have been highly critical of the government's efforts to date. I think that shows leadership.
I know the advice they will give the minister through annual reports on its activities, which the minister must publicly respond to, will be essential to ensure Canada's actions are informed by the specific challenges and opportunities our country faces.
Furthermore, the minister must table both progress reports and assessment reports in Parliament with respect to each target. As such, the public will be kept aware of our progress, two to three years prior to every target, and our prospective success or failure will be analyzed and presented to the House following each target date.
In the event of a failure to achieve a target, the minister must report on the reasons why Canada failed to meet the target, provide a description of actions the Government of Canada is taking or will take to address the failure to achieve the target. This is important both for transparency as well as for an accountability mechanism, because it will provide an ideal evidentiary base for a potential plaintiff to bring forth climate change litigation against the government for an action.
The Minister of Finance would also have a duty to publish annual reports explaining how the government is managing its financial risks and opportunities related to climate change. This obligation will require the government to report on all its operations, including crown corporations, such as Export Development Canada, so we can track how public money, even in organizations where the government is not involved in case-by-case investment decisions, and see how it is impacting our climate action.
This could set the stage for appropriate responses to be made. As such, Bill C-12 will effectively lay government spending bare, and ensure that Canada is putting its money where its mouth is.
The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, who is an independent officer of Parliament, must, at least once every five years, examine and report on the government's actions to date, providing additional scrutiny and transparency for Canadians.
The impact of multiple independent reports will have on climate accountability and transparency cannot be emphasized enough. However, the accountability bill itself does not stand, without acknowledging the importance and interdependence of Canada's strengthened climate plan introduced this past December. The strengthened climate plan, which has been deemed as absolutely marvellous by former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, builds upon the 2017 pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change to ensure that we do not only meet but actually exceed our 2030 climate target.
It includes 64 new measures and $15 billion in new investments, on top of the $60 billion in investments in our 2017 plan. This strengthened plan includes measures that will support the rollout and retrofits of energy-efficient homes and buildings; support more sustainable transportation, such as electric vehicles; support cleaner electricity to power our country; help build a lower carbon advantage for our industries; and invest in nature-based solutions to climate change, such as planting two billion trees.
Importantly, we have committed to continually and predictably increasing the price on pollution, up to $170 a tonne by 2030, to provide an incentive and certainty to individuals and businesses alike. This is so they can make and invest in more sustainable choices, while at the same time ensuring that the vast majority of Canadian households will get more money back than they spend on this mechanism.
The former leader of the B.C. Green Party tweeted, “The tax and dividend approach is the 'gold standard' of pricing policies and Canada should be praised for this innovative approach”.
While this plan provides a blueprint, we need Bill C-12 to ensure it is followed by the current government, as well as to ensure that future governments are held to account as well. I hope that my colleagues across this House see likewise and will be supporting this bill to get to the committee stage.
With that said, Bill C-12 is not perfect. There are ways it can be strengthened, and I hope that the following areas will be looked at at the environment committee. I believe that the progress reporting in this bill needs to be sooner. This is so Canadians could judge and be confident that our government is on track and on the appropriate arc to reach both our 2030 greenhouse gas reduction goals and setting us on a realistic path to get to net-zero emissions by 2050. I think this can be done three or four years earlier on top of the other reporting obligations that will be taking place in the meantime.
In addition, I do not think we need to limit ourselves by setting only five-year advance emissions reduction targets. We must ensure that the government, the private sector and Canadians at large have a clear medium-term picture of where we are going, so actions and investments that will help us get there are made now. In this respect, I believe we can set targets for 10 years in advance, at the same time we are making the targets for five years in advance.
As an example of what this would mean, a 10-year plan would allow for the planning and construction of provincial electricity interties that could connect to B.C. and Alberta electricity grids to support Alberta to transition away from fossil fuel-emitting electricity. This would be stable baseload power from B.C. while Alberta invests in renewable electricity. Alberta has some of the greatest Canada-leading potential in this space.
Canada's action on climate change alone will not solve our global crisis, but we have a strong moral, scientific and economic reasons to play our parts. We are not a first mover in this space, and we can learn from the efforts of our counterparts in bringing in legislation, while fitting it to the particular context we have here in Canada. This bill and our climate plan will ensure Canada will not be left behind by our international counterparts in the massive $2.6-trillion opportunity of the green economy.
Achieving our targets is not something that can be accomplished by the Government of Canada alone, as, by virtue of our federal structure, the federal government does not hold all of the levers on emissions actions. We need all orders of government playing a part.
B.C. has put forth a strong plan with a clean B.C. plan and I am fortunate to have municipalities within my riding taking a leadership role, including the District of Squamish directly intervening in the Supreme Court of Canada case on the constitutionality of the federal backstop price on pollution. We need municipalities on board because half of our emissions come from within municipal boundaries, but we also need to be there in partnership with them, as they often face the biggest costs in adaptation.
I will conclude today by asking my colleagues to support Bill C-12, arguably our most important piece of climate legislation in a decade, to get to committee. The measures I have identified in my speech are potential amendments, and I know my colleagues have identified others that we can make to make this important legislation even better.
We let one party's intransigence on climate action derail our country for a decade before. Let us not make that same mistake again. Let us deliver the climate action that the vast majority of Canadians want to see, and let us pass climate accountability legislation.