Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak to this opposition day motion today.
As the opposition notes, Canadians across the country are facing more and more dramatic impacts from climate change. They are also struggling with the sharp increases in the cost of living.
That is why we have put in place a comprehensive emissions reduction plan, which is the most comprehensive national climate plan ever implemented not just here in Canada but anywhere. It is very ambitious, and its aim is threefold: to reduce carbon pollution, to stop climate change, and to grow our economy and to position Canada to be a leader on the clean technology front as well as keeping life affordable for all Canadians.
My riding, as one of the previous speakers noted, is a semi-rural riding. I have hundreds of neighbours who use home heating oil. These recent measures take that into consideration, recognizing that home heating oil is by far the most expensive way to heat one's home, and it is also the most emissions-intensive way to heat one's home.
We are going to get people off home heating oil. We are going to get them the heat pumps that their systems need. We have highly polluting oil heat that we want to phase out, just like our efforts to phase out coal-fired energy, and we are going to do that in favour of clean and efficient cold-climate-adapted heat pumps.
I am a big proponent of heat pumps because I have one myself. That means that I am currently heating my house with electricity and not with natural gas.
If it gets very cold, I can turn on my natural gas system. It is important that this is about lowering emissions at this stage and not about completely eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels.
I would like to talk a little about carbon pollution pricing because it seems like, in the House, we spend a lot of time debating whether we fight climate change not how we fight climate change, and that is truly unfortunate.