Mr. Speaker, our government does not shy away from the facts, and the facts are that climate change is real. The Canadian Climate Institute points to how much climate change will cost our economy in the year 2025, which is $25 billion a year and 50% of projected GDP growth in one year. That is the estimated loss in damages due to climate change next year.
I know the member opposite comes from a riding he is very proud of, the soup and salad bowl of Ontario, or of Canada, he calls it. I know the Holland Marsh well. It is a beautiful asset to our province of Ontario. I wonder what he would say to the farmers in that area when the derechos and other climate-related events are happening. I am sure he wants them to have a sustainable future for their farms.
Carbon pricing, obviously, is one essential tool in our government's comprehensive climate action plan. It is estimated by many reputable sources that up to one-third of Canada's carbon emissions reductions will come from the price on pollution. That is a significant amount. Our government is making evidence-based decisions that will serve the health of Canadians, of the planet and of the economy for decades to come.
Why is carbon pricing so important? It is because, of course, it deters certain types of behaviour and promotes other types of behaviour. It is a market-based mechanism that the Parliamentary Budget Officer and over 300 economists have signed a letter saying is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions. When I talk to people, they say that this is actually a small “c” conservative policy. Conservatives ran on a price on pollution in their last election platform, under their previous leader.
I get that they have a new leader now, who denies climate change is real and would do everything to take us backward in time, but honestly, does the member really care so little about the farmers and the people in his riding, and about the children and grandchildren of future generations, that he will literally leave the planet to burn? I do not understand how one can oppose the most cost-effective market-based mechanism for reducing emissions in this country as one of the tools in the tool box to reduce emissions.
Does the member opposite actually believe in climate change, or does he just want to abandon all hope for a sustainable future? I think what he is advocating for is that we not address climate change at all, because he wants to abandon the most cost-effective method for doing so and on which economists around the world and the International Monetary Fund agree. I do not know what the member opposite wants us to do. Whether he wants us take a hiatus just because he does not like it for the moment, I am not sure, but I just do not think that he really takes climate change seriously.