Madam Speaker, Canadians are increasingly worried about the broken promises, half measures and watered down policies of the Liberals. Time and time again, we see the government exempt companies that are making record profits while their emissions go up and up.
This summer, we heard from concerned environmental groups that the government was going to once again walk back its promises when it comes to delivering a strong, sustainable finance framework. We were appalled but not surprised to find out the government was looking at including fossil fuels in its sustainable labelling system. This means the government believes that some fossil fuels are considered sustainable. This is completely unacceptable. It is greenwashing the actions of the big banks, it is greenwashing fossil fuel companies and it begs the question of why the Liberals are doing this greenwashing dirty work for them.
Canadian banks are already among the worst in the world when it comes to funding the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas sector is now the only sector in the Canadian economy that is increasing its emissions, not reducing them. For that, it is being rewarded. Recently, the Competition Bureau and Ad Standards have been investigating greenwashing in advertisements about the claims made by big oil on clean gas. If the Liberals include fossil fuel subsidies in the taxonomy, they will join oil and gas lobbyists in misleading Canadians. Also, reports show that when emissions are included from production, processing, pipeline transportation, liquefaction, shipping, and regasification of gas, exporting it will not reduce global climate emissions, as the oil and gas industry claims, but will make global warming worse over the next three decades.
The Conservatives and big oil love to point to China's coal use as the reason we need to continue expanding oil and gas in Canada, yet the amount of wind and solar power under construction in China is now nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined. According to recent reports, new research shows that fossil fuels could displace this renewable energy.
The Liberals are listening to the misinformation spread by Conservatives and oil and gas lobbyists. Maybe this should not surprise me, because the government has met with oil and gas lobbyists over 1,200 times. That is nearly five times a day. Our planet is burning, and the Liberals continue to listen to oil and gas lobbyists instead of climate experts.
Environmental experts are saying they would rather see no sustainable finance taxonomy than one that includes fossil fuels. Greenwashing the sustainable financing labelling system is the wrong choice. Can the member confirm whether the government will be once again caving to the interests of big banks and big oil and gas? Will it make loopholes that allow fossil fuels to be labelled as sustainable?