Mr. Speaker, I have often heard the Minister of Environment boast in the House about 2021, saying that emissions reached record-setting lows that year. This is hardly surprising, considering there was a pandemic going on. Although he denied it, I remember that the vast majority of Quebeckers had to comply with a curfew for half the year, which says a lot about the strict lockdown in effect at the time. Needless to say, planes were grounded, and teleworking meant that cars stayed in the garage.
What did not increase during that lockdown year, but that certainly made up for it in the inflationary year of 2022, were oil company profits. What did not decrease were the billions of dollars that Ottawa supplied to oil companies.
Given that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shown that 80% of oil must remain where it is, underground, can the Minister of Environment promise us that there will be no more new oil development projects?