Madam Speaker, we are gathered today to talk about a report that I found very interesting when it was tabled more than two and a half years ago, in 2022. It was studied at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
Unfortunately, I would have preferred that we discuss a more recent report by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, because things have changed, and not always for the better.
Let us take a look at what the report said.
The report states, “Canada has failed to translate these commitments into real reductions in net emissions. Instead, Canada's emissions have continued to rise. Meanwhile, the global climate crisis has gotten worse.” That has not changed. Everyone agrees that that was the case in 2022 and it still is today. The report adds that the country's greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions “have increased since the Paris Agreement was signed, making it the worst performing of all G7 nations since the 2015 Conference.” That is the overall picture painted by the report tabled by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.
Now let us look more specifically at the various lessons contained in this report.
First, it talks about the need for “stronger leadership and coordination” to end polarization on environmental issues and ensure a degree of consistency. Clearly, this has not been done.
Second, the Canadian economy remains dependent on sectors that emit a great deal of greenhouse gases, such as the oil sector. I do not want Alberta members to jump all over me—we already hear enough from their premier. Canada is an oil country, and thus a polluting country on a global scale. The commissioner stated in his report that “Canada's economy is still dependent on emission-intensive sectors”.
In its strategy to combat climate change, the Liberal government provided a green support during the pandemic to help oil and gas companies make their operations more environmentally friendly. However, according to Environmental Defence Canada, the federal government awarded over $20 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry in 2020 alone. After the pandemic, despite the assistance for the transition, the oil and gas sector continued to collect subsidies. The result is that the sector's emissions continued to rise. I will return to this.
The third lesson we learned is that “adaptation must be prioritized”. If we eventually realize that the fight against climate change and mitigation measures are not working because of a failure to impose a carbon tax or to ensure that the highest-emitting industries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, we must resign ourselves to this fact and turn toward climate change adaptation policies. This is indeed a must.
To that end, Ottawa will have to stop collecting all the money without redistributing it intelligently and will have to give the money to the municipalities, because in many respects it is they who will incur the costs of climate change in dealing with new floods, water and resource treatment or management, increasingly severe storms that will destroy municipal infrastructures, and so on. They will need help. In fact, the Union des municipalités du Québec released a report indicating that the climate change expenses municipalities incur will go up by 12%.
The fourth lesson is that “Canada risks falling behind other countries on investing in a climate-resilient future”. I think we can drop the word “risks” here. Perhaps that was the case in 2022, but today Canada does not risk falling behind other countries. It already has. It is perfectly clear. Canada is a G7 laggard and everyone knows it.
The fifth lesson is about “increasing public awareness”. The public must be made more aware of the fight, but also of the adaptations needed to deal with climate change. Not much was done. Among the few measures taken, there is one that is so absurd that I feel the need to point it out to the House. A provincial minister paid a gas-powered truck to drive 24-7 to protest the cap proposed by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Members will soon find out which province I am referring to, because instead of funding her province's education system and rebuilding Jasper, the premier paid a truck to come here to Ottawa to burn gas just to say we should stop putting caps on things, that we should continue to emit GHGs, that it is important and that polluting the planet is a constitutional right.
It is absolutely ridiculous, I must say. How can Albertans allow their premier to do things like that instead of looking after her people?
The sixth lesson is that “climate targets have not been backed by strong plans or actions”. That has not changed, either. As far back as 2009, G20 countries, including Canada, agreed to phase out and rationalize over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. However, we are still waiting for information about how this commitment will be put into practice. We got amazing commitments in 2009, and the it was radio silence until yesterday, when the minister finally made a somewhat controversial announcement. I will get back to that later.
The seventh lesson is that “enhanced collaboration among all actors is needed”. This is nothing new, and I cannot say that there has been any improvement there either. If the federal government is to finally understand that there are provincial and municipal jurisdictions, it must begin by acknowledging that it should not collect all the money and redistribute it in the provinces' jurisdictions with strings attached. That is not how that works. The government needs to start working with the provinces and Quebec and with the municipalities to give them back the money owed them. Municipalities must be able to do what they need to do without strings attached.
The eighth lesson learned from the report refers to an “intergenerational crisis”. We have heard that term a lot lately. People talk about intergenerational equity. As a young mother, I really wonder what kind of a planet we will be leaving to our children. There is a question of responsibility here. Our responsibility is to care for our seniors and think about the future. One does not preclude the other. We can help seniors by increasing OAS and stop subsidizing the oil industry at the same time. It is a win-win situation. We are helping future generations as well as seniors: a miracle solution, apparently.
The Minister of Environment and Climate Change announced that he wanted to put a cap on emissions in the oil and gas sector. I applaud the initiative. I think it was a long time coming. It was addressed by the G20 countries in 2009. However, we are basically continuing to subsidize an industry, hoping that it will change, hoping that it will adopt greener technologies. We have finally come to realize that emissions do not decrease by themselves and that we need to stop giving the oil and gas industry subsidies. They make enormous profits. Finally, they themselves need to change to ensure a green and equitable transition.
Equiterre was at the committee meetings where we discussed the report. We invited the organization, which was consulted by the commissioner for sustainable development. Its representative, Mr. Viau, told me at the time that we had to wean ourselves from our economic dependence on the oil and gas sector and make a fair and equitable transition. In particular, he mentioned that he was afraid that Canada would put all its eggs in one basket and invest in carbon storage. I think he can predict the future. In 2022, he knew very well that Canada would opt for this bogus solution to give the oil and gas industry a reason to keep polluting.
The answer we recently got from some of the provinces is frankly shameful. How can anyone look in the mirror and say that they want to continue polluting the planet? Seriously, how can a person like that sleep at night? Are they thinking at all about other people?
Let us talk about the Constitution. Those who say that this type of thing is anti-constitutional are wearing blinders. We are talking about climate change. Climate change has no borders. Here is a tip for those people who do not understand how things work. A tonne emitted here will have the same impact here as in China, France and everywhere else. The same applies to a tonne emitted in China. It is everyone's business.
The responsibility for climate change is an individual one. Just because a country has an oil industry and is sitting on reserves of black gold does not mean that it is relieved of that responsibility. We really need to look at what we are doing not only as citizens, but as legislators as well. We have a responsibility to future generations.
Let us talk a bit about what was said. Let us talk about the reactions to the cap on emissions in the oil and gas industry and the fantastic slogan. Frankly, there is not much difference between “axe the tax” and “scrap the cap”. It is a different version of the same thing. It is really shameful. Anyone who uses facile slogans thinks people are stupid. Anyone who uses facile, three-word slogans is saying that people do not understand the subtleties of climate change. It is shameful.
We know that the costs associated with climate change are enormous, so this is a matter of responsibility and intergenerational fairness. The studies and the economists are unanimous. Yes, we still need oil, but that is because we still have not come up with a real plan to wean ourselves off the oil and gas industry.
Quebec is leading the pack at this. I could go on and on about how well the cap-and-trade system has worked. We have reduced our per capita emissions. Our reductions are far and away the best in Canada. It would be a big problem if a country were to institute an entry tariff to offset its emissions. There is no risk that such a thing would happen in the United States, but the European Union is considering this option very seriously as a way to avoid importing goods from heavily polluting countries. If that type of policy is put in place, Canada will really be a problem, and Quebec will have one more reason to leave Canada once and for all, not that we need another.
According to a study commissioned by the Union des municipalités du Québec and carried out by WSP and Ouranos, it will cost Quebec municipalities at least $2 billion more per year. That is what I was talking about earlier. Their total spending for adapting their infrastructure to climate change will increase by 12%.
Let us just talk costs. Since 2010, the costs of weather-related disasters have amounted to 5% to 6% of Canada's annual GDP growth, up from an average of 1% in previous decades. A report by the Canadian Climate Institute titled “Damage Control: Reducing the Costs of Climate Impacts in Canada” estimates that by 2030, Canada could experience annual losses of $35 billion in real GDP. Speaking of GDP, the real GDP losses due to climate change are in the tens of billions of dollars.
I myself worked on an Ouranos study commissioned by the Quebec government. The Quebec government had asked us to calculate the cost of climate change. That was just before the Paris accord. This was in a past life, about 10 years ago, but we are still in the same dynamic because not much has changed. The costs and sectors that were analyzed were things that we may not think about every day.
Of the two major sectors, health and infrastructure, let us look at health. Heat waves are becoming increasingly common because of climate change, and they mostly affect seniors. Every year, people die as a result of heat waves. Long-term care homes still have not been adapted to address this issue. There are still major issues with air conditioning in some places. No adaptations have been offered for seniors aging at home. They are paying the price.
Then there are zoonotic diseases, which are transmitted by vectors that are spreading because of climate change. One example is the West Nile virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes. Because of climate change, mosquitoes now arrive earlier in the year and leave later. They are also moving northward. Since they carry the West Nile virus, in some cases, the disease is spreading more widely. Another example is Lyme disease, which is increasingly occurring in Quebec. That is because of climate change.
Lyme disease is spreading because temperatures are rising and carriers are moving northward more and more. We were not really prepared to recognize the symptoms of Lyme disease, because it is a new disease for people living further north in Quebec and the rest of Canada. Lastly, there are allergies, which are also costing the public more and more. When people suffer from severe allergies, they are less productive.
Now let us turn to infrastructure. I do not think there are many people in the House who can say that they have not seen more flooding. Extreme weather events have increased and are very costly. Look at what is happening in Valencia, Spain. It is a disaster. Officials are still searching for bodies after the city was hit by torrential rains. Closer to home, Quebec also experienced torrential rains the night of August 9 that caused a lot of costly damage. We do not know what the insurance companies are going to do about the tens of thousands of vehicles that were lost and the houses that flooded. This is costly. It costs money, and it is something we can see with our own eyes. These events are going to get even more frequent.
Then there is shoreline erosion due to rising water levels. We are going to see more erosion and have more roads, houses and people to relocate. That costs money.
Lastly, there is the permafrost. For the first nations living in places where the ground is normally frozen, climate change is causing the ground to thaw, and their houses have to be completely rebuilt because they are falling down. We know how big a problem housing already is on some reserves and in some places where first nations people live. Climate change is only making the problem worse. We still hear people saying that it is unconstitutional to think about the future of Quebeckers and Canadians. I cannot understand that.
We have come to realize that, despite its grand promises and the good intentions of some of its ministers, who I believe are sincere, the Liberal government still has not managed to do much. The carbon tax will unfortunately be an election issue, not so much in Quebec, but in the rest of Canada. It is a shame, because it should be obvious when we look at Quebec, which has a cap-and-trade system that is working. Has Quebec performed less well economically? The answer is no. On the contrary, before the pandemic, Quebec had the highest growth rate in Canada, even with a cap-and-trade system.
Greenhouse gas emissions can be delinked from the economy. Carbon emissions and economic growth can be decoupled. That is what is known as absolute decoupling. Quebec and France have both shown that it is possible, but Canada is very far off. The Liberals promise the sun and moon but never keep their promises, while some Conservatives do not even believe in climate change and think we should continue to pollute. They look in the mirror and tell themselves they have the right to pollute. Things are looking pretty grim.
All I can hope for, especially when it comes to the environment, is that Quebec gains its independence once and for all.