Madam Speaker, it is truly an honour and a pleasure to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-232, an act respecting a climate emergency action framework. This bill, which has been tabled by my good friend and colleague from Winnipeg Centre, is such an important bill, and I want to thank her at the outset for her important work in standing up not just for indigenous peoples but for all Canadians and their right to have a clean, safe and healthy environment.
This bill would provide a critical framework, which is lacking right now, for a transformative climate action policy. It is framed around a green new deal that would make sure that all climate action initiatives would comply with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as ensure the right of all those living in Canada to have a safe, clean and healthy environment and that we will uphold our responsibilities to future generations. This bill provides for the development of a framework that we desperately need when it comes to climate action.
We know that the Government of Canada has failed to meet every single climate target it has put out. In fact, as the government tabled recent legislation, it also failed to give people the confidence it is going to deliver a plan in a timely fashion. This is based on the fact that we are not even going to see a progress report on how we are doing until 2028 and that there is no milestone target for 2025.
We heard from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018 that we had only 12 years to reduce emissions to pre-2010 levels, meaning a reduction of over 40% by 2030, yet the Government of Canada still has no plan and has not included indigenous people.
This bill is absolutely critical as an accountability tool for those who are most impacted by climate change. It explicitly outlines the importance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Canada's climate response and it would require the government to consult meaningfully with indigenous peoples and communities and civil society.
Canadians are exhausted. They are tired of governments committing to targets like the ones I cited earlier and then missing them again and again. We are running out of time.
I want to talk a bit about what is happening in my riding and the impact climate change is having on indigenous peoples in the communities I represent.
In three of the last five years, we have had record floods that have impacted wild salmon, of course, and impacted the communities of the Tseshaht people and the K'Omoks First Nation, with both the Somass and the Puntledge rivers breaching.
We had a drought in 2014, and then it rained just in time in August. We were afraid we were going to lose all our wild salmon, which is a critical food source for indigenous people, and it is not just food security; their culture is centred around it, and of course their economy. Wild salmon is critical to their survival and who they are. Where I live, the Nuu-chah-nulth are salmon people, so this is very important to indigenous peoples, who are going to be most impacted by climate change.
We saw the acidification in Baynes Sound, which impacted the Qualicum people and their food security with the shellfish they rely on. My good friend Chief Moses Martin, from the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, often talks about the importance of investing in restoration, in science and indigenous knowledge, of listening to indigenous knowledge, but he cites that the most urgent pressure right now on wild salmon is the warming of oceans due to climate change.
We know our oceans are a carbon sink and that 90% of carbon right now is being stored in our oceans, which are warming right now and making things more difficult. In fact, Humboldt squid, which is normally from California, landed on our shores in Tofino just a few years ago. It is mind-blowing to see the kinds of shifts that are occurring because of climate change. Of course, there are also the wildfires we have seen throughout British Columbia.
Youth are coming forward urging us for changes. We have all been on marches with youth against the impacts of climate change and them demanding action. We cannot wait. We heard from my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley about the impact this is having on the children in his riding, and on my children.
I was really inspired by Ben Mason and Lister de Vitré, who live in my riding in Cumberland, British Columbia. They have been going around the community, to the Cumberland council, to the local legion and to local groups talking about new ways for economic growth, social responsibility and environmental safety. They are asking for a green new deal centred around indigenous values and knowledge. They want to see emissions cut by half by 2030, but right now we do not have the framework in place to do that.
As Ben Mason said, doing nothing is not an option. The way the government is moving forward without a plan and without the framework in place being proposed by my good friend and colleague from Winnipeg Centre, we are abandoning that generation. This is absolutely unacceptable, because doing nothing cannot be an option for them. We are their voice. We are responsible for their future.
I know there has been a lot of discussion about the cost of investing in climate change. I think about my good friend, the late chief of Hesquiaht, Richard Lucas, who fought so hard to get his nation off of diesel energy and get a hydro project into his community so it could do its part when it came to climate change. However, it also makes economic sense in the long term. We need to continue to listen to indigenous people in our communities who have the knowledge and the wherewithal to get us there.
Members have heard me speak repeatedly in the House about the cost and impacts of climate change. When I started as a member of Parliament, climate impacts were costing the Canadian government about $900 million a year. Now it is over $5 billion in not even six years. The PBO projects we will be running climate emergency costs between $21 billion and $43 billion by 2050. Therefore, spending money right now, supporting indigenous communities and bringing everyone together under a framework to tackle climate change makes economic sense as well.
I share this with the House as the critic for economic development for the federal NDP because it makes economic sense to do that. We cannot leave people behind. We know indigenous people are constantly being left behind. This is the opportunity for us to not only walk together, but to centre our framework and our plan around indigenous people.
I think about my friend Carol Anne Hilton, who is the founder of the Indigenomics Institute. We need to listen to the wisdom of indigenous women, who have ideas on how we can move forward when it comes to climate change and working with indigenous peoples. We need a plan that honours our international commitments and obligations to address this climate emergency. We owe this to our youth. We need a just transition to a green economy that brings workers along, moves away from fossil fuel subsidies and invests instead in a green economy.
Our party has been fighting for this for a long time. I think about the late Jack Layton and his climate accountability bill that he tabled back in 2006. We are ready to work with the government and the Senate to pass this bill now, to take the action that is absolutely necessary.
Canada is being left behind as many countries are moving forward, even right-leaning governments such as in Britain, Germany and Japan. They understand the economic opportunity as well. We need to do this, ensuring we do it with indigenous peoples and respecting them under the framework among others. The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be at the centre of our plan. Right now we have no plan. We need this plan to be in place. We need the government to follow its words with respect to supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
This is the government's opportunity to engage in meaningful consultation with indigenous peoples and accommodate the concerns raised across Canada, including its failure to obtain free prior and informed consent. This has to be addressed.
Once again, I thank my colleague.