Mr. Speaker, this week is Environment Week, and I want to take this opportunity to emphasize the government's hypocrisy, after celebrating Clean Air Day yesterday.
The government claims to want to “recognize how important good air quality is to our health, our environment and the economy”.
Let us talk about health. Health Canada estimates that air pollution contributes to 15,300 premature deaths per year in Canada, including 4,000 in Quebec, and that does not include the non-fatal health outcomes. Those outcomes include 2.7 million asthma symptom days and 35 million acute respiratory symptom days per year.
Let us now move on to the economy. The economic cost of health impacts attributable to air pollution in 2016 was $120 billion, which is equivalent to 6% of Canada's gross domestic product. That is not nothing.
I will now conclude on the subject of the environment. This government keeps blithely subsidizing the oil and gas industry that, I should point out, emits the most greenhouse gases out of all industries, including transportation.
Can someone tell me what there is to celebrate? It is all one big charade.