Mr. Speaker, it hardly makes sense that we should be having a debate and an opposition day today on eliminating an oil and gas emissions cap when no such cap even exists. In fact, the only thing on the table are draft regulations to cap emissions in the oil and gas sector, a sector that is not only growing, but that ranks number one as the worst polluter in the country. There is no cap right now because the Liberals failed to pass regulations, even though they were in power for 10 years and even though, as I would remind members, the government can make regulations whenever it wants. Instead, the government dragged its feet, delayed and wavered, and because of that, no cap exists today.
Why is a cap needed? As I mentioned before, the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the oil and gas sector, the worst polluter of them all, are a major problem in Canada. The sector is growing quickly because the Liberals encouraged the expansion of oil sands production in different ways, starting with their $34‑billion Canadian investment in the construction of the Trans Mountain oil sands pipeline. Obviously, increased transportation and export capacity means increased oil sands production.
Between 1990 and 2022, greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector, the production of oil and gas, increased by 83%. I repeat, 83% since 1990. Again, if we are serious about fighting climate change, we need to lower emissions, not increase them. Yes, emissions have gone up. Yes, the government bought an oil sands pipeline. Yes, the government invested money in addition to Trans Mountain. In 2024, it allocated $28.5 billion in funding for fossil fuels. I repeat, $28.5 billion in 2024 alone was put on the table by the Liberals for the oil and gas sector. If we go back further, we quickly get to $75 billion.
Their budget earmarks $81 billion in potential funding for the oil and gas sector, including $5.7 billion for carbon capture and storage. They love this technology, but it is highly problematic because it does not work very well, it requires a tremendous amount of public money and creates a loophole that allows oil companies to increase production and do exactly what the government is doing, namely claim that their oil will be green oil. That is the biggest joke of the year, in my opinion.
Canada's oil and gas industry has greatly expanded. The oil sands alone produce more greenhouse gas emissions than every economic sector in Quebec combined. While Quebec is making an effort to reduce emissions—not quickly enough, I agree—Alberta and Saskatchewan are increasing their emissions without any constraints.
Today, our Conservative friends are asking us to repeal an emissions cap that does not exist. What is going to happen in this country if a province like Quebec is making an effort to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but the other provinces are not doing their part? It will become completely impossible to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets. That is why, last week, the Canadian Climate Institute published a report clearly indicating for the first time that, according to its experts, it will be impossible to meet the country's greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2030. The main reason is that the emissions from the oil and gas industry are not under control but are increasing. The government should take no pride in the fact that greenhouse gas emissions dropped by 0.1% in one year. Yes, I said 0.1%. These emissions should be dropping dramatically.
If this government were serious about its own greenhouse gas reduction targets, if it were serious about the Paris Agreement and what science requires, and if it were serious about the people and families who are currently suffering the consequences of wildfires, it would be taking a different approach. We are seeing more frequent and more devastating wildfires because of climate change, which is directly related to oil and gas production. We are talking about human lives, health problems and the need for a serious response to the climate crisis. However, the Conservatives are spending yet another day trying to dismantle the only measure we have in the fight against climate change, which, by the way, has not even been implemented yet.
It has gotten to the point where the Liberals across the way seem to be adopting exactly the same game plan as the Conservatives and the oil companies. The first thing the Liberals did when they came to power was scrap consumer carbon pricing. That will result in fewer greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Why did they do that? It is because the Conservatives spent years saying that it was not a good policy, even though economists were all very clear that we need to put a price on pollution and that it was an effective policy to send that message. This is a good policy because, if oil and gas companies are not paying, then everyone has to pay for the consequences of climate change.
The government's current proposal is extremely concerning. The Canadian Climate Institute has made it very clear that Canada is not on track to meet its targets and that it will miss its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target. In response, the government is backtracking. It backtracked on carbon pricing.
It backtracked on the EV incentive program that it had promised to reinstate. It also told people not to buy electric vehicles, on the pretext that they should wait for the incentives to return. Everyone understands that. Who is going to buy an electric vehicle today when the government says to wait until the rebates are brought back? Consequently, almost no one is buying EVs anymore. It goes without saying that sales are falling and oil consumption continues. The government is going even further. It said that some car manufacturers in Canada had asked it not to force them to sell more electric vehicles. As a result, the government backtracked on the zero-emission law, which was supposed to force manufacturers to offer more electric vehicles for sale to the public. More electric vehicles means more choice and cheaper prices. The government backtracked on that, too.
Another thing we saw was a partnership between the Liberals and the Conservatives to push through Bill C‑5 under a gag order. This bill focused on building pipelines, among other things. The official opposition actually muzzled itself by not asking the government any questions because it was happy with the bill. This stunt made it possible to roll out the red carpet for oil and gas companies, which asked pretty much for everything that was included in Bill C‑5.
Bill C-5 is fundamentally undemocratic. Not only did this bill pass under a gag order thanks to an alliance between the Conservatives and the Liberals, but it also means that many projects could now escape the scrutiny of environmental assessment. Bill C-5 represents one of the biggest setbacks in environmental law in modern Canadian history. I am not the one saying this. That is the opinion of Ecojustice, a group of environmental law experts. The reason is that Bill C-5 amends 12 statutes, many of which were put in place to protect the environment, and now the government no longer has to comply with them. These include the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Species at Risk Act and the Marine Mammal Regulations. We are talking about a whole range of laws and seven regulations that are being set aside, which is unprecedented.
Why is the government doing this? It is because some projects are bad, and the only way to move bad projects forward is to get rid of the laws that would prevent them from going ahead. The Bloc Québécois's position is clear. We support development, but not just any development and not done willy-nilly. Oil and gas development is incompatible with human health and with our greenhouse gas reduction targets. This is clearly not the kind of project we support.
If there are good projects, they should be carried out in a way that respects the environment and the environmental protections that have been put in place over the past few decades. However, that is not what the Liberals are proposing. They are proposing to take things even further, or in other words they are proposing to eliminate other environmental protections outside of Bill C-5.
What we are seeing here, and we are seeing the same thing with zero-emission vehicles, is a new cabal among our Conservative friends. What are they doing? They are determined to listen to the oil and gas companies and the manufacturers that have been dragging their feet and to remove every constraint so as not to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the transportation sector, the second largest sector. Obviously, the two are related. Oil production leads to oil consumption. That is obvious. They have an interest in doing that, unfortunately.
This is the type of vision and backtracking we are seeing from this government, which has been unable to defend its policies and regulations. Unfortunately, that is what we are also seeing from the official opposition party, which is not being constructive, not proposing anything to fight climate change, and only proposing to go backward and to respond to the agenda that the oil companies want to impose on this petro-state called Canada.
We see that there are things being done right in this country that are good for the environment. There are regulations that are good for the economy, for people's wallets and for people's health. However, none of these proposals are in the Conservatives' playbook, and so far we have not seen the government take any positive measures in this regard since it returned to office. All we have been seeing is the government backtracking on environment and climate change measures and doing nothing to make up for that. We have reason to be concerned.
We have reason to be concerned because we are talking about our children's future. We are talking about our future today, right now. When we see that cities like Montreal and Toronto are among the top 10, or even top five, most polluted cities because of forest fires, that people are closing their windows and that people in Montreal are being affected by the poor air quality even with their windows closed, that is a problem.
What are the Conservatives proposing in this regard? They are proposing fewer regulations and fewer restrictions on oil and gas companies. We are not hearing them say that the government should stop subsidizing oil and gas companies. It has been a long time since I have heard the Conservatives speak out on this issue.
The Liberal government had proposed a half measure in terms of eliminating subsidies to oil and gas companies. This half measure was supposed to be followed by a more ambitious and essential measure, which would have eliminated subsidies to oil and gas companies once and for all. However, we have not heard anything more about this other measure that was supposed to be implemented. This troubles us.
We know what is going on. The Conservatives are campaigning on behalf of oil and gas companies to get the government to back off its plan to implement an oil and gas emissions cap. We will hear them talk about this topic all day. No doubt we will hear them talk about it for the next few weeks as well.
However, what we are asking is for the government to stand up for Canadians, not for the oil and gas companies, to stop listening to the Conservatives and co-operating with them, and to present a real and credible plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This includes dealing with the most polluting sector, that is, the oil and gas sector.
The Liberal government had proposed regulations. Again, it could have adopted these regulations. However, the government is turning its back on its former environment minister, who proposed these regulations. Today, the government has made a 180-degree turn.
In fact, let me go back to those draft regulations that should have been adopted long ago. Even what they proposed was too limited in scope. The Bloc Québécois members were not pleased. Obviously, we reject the idea of forgoing a cap on oil and gas emissions, as the Conservatives are proposing. We would rather go even further than what the government proposed.
The government proposed watering down its climate action yet again for oil and gas companies. It proposed that the oil and gas sector not be required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as much as other sectors in Canada. It proposed that the oil and gas sector not contribute as much to meet our greenhouse gas reduction target. We have a target in Canada that the government is abandoning, and that concerns us a lot, but what the government proposed was to lower this target for the oil and gas sector.
Now, is the government going to backtrack even more and get rid of the target altogether because that is what the oil companies want? That is what we are afraid of. Worse still, when we look closely at the details of the draft regulations, we see possible offsets as well. Oil and gas companies could buy carbon credits, probably for things they would have done anyway.
It was completely insufficient in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, the Conservatives' magic solution is to get rid of that insufficient measure. The same goes for the Liberals. Not only are they doing away with measures, but they are also ignoring the climate crisis. It no longer exists, simply because Mr. Trump is the President of the United States or simply because certain governments, such as the United States, are backing down. However, there are others who are able to move forward, to stand up and look children in the eye and tell them that yes, there are ways to fight climate change and grow the economy.
That is what we are asking of the House. We are asking it to take responsibility. We want to be able to go back to our ridings and look our constituents in the eye and tell them that we are taking our role seriously, that we are fighting climate change and that we are doing so by improving the cost of living, improving health and improving the overall quality of life.
I do not hear the Conservatives talking about the need to develop public transit. I do not see them tearing their hair out because $5.3 billion has already been spent through the Canada public transit fund and not one penny went to Quebec.
I do not hear the Conservatives speaking up in the House to say that it is unacceptable that, during the election campaign, the government sent Canadians $4-billion worth of cheques for a price on pollution that no longer existed and that Quebeckers had to cover $800 million of that cost. Not a single Conservative or Liberal from Quebec complained that it was unacceptable for Quebeckers to have to pay $800 million to send cheques to everyone across Canada except Quebeckers. That is the kind of constructive debate that we would like to have with the Conservatives. We do not want to take part in debates on lifting non-existent regulations in the oil and gas sector.
When we look at the health impacts, it is pretty clear that what is happening right now is not fiction. It is reality. Seniors in my riding are experiencing heat waves described as deadly. This means that people are dying. It means that people are ending up in the emergency room. It means that people with cardiovascular problems are facing a reality that is unlikely to get better. That is the reality. We also need to look at the cost of climate change. This includes health care costs, as well as human tragedies. This includes the record insurance costs incurred last year because of the climate crisis. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, these costs amounted to $8.4 billion. That is just the beginning. On top of that, the current droughts are causing more and more stress for our farmers.
If everyone looked at every climate measure as just an expense and failed to consider the cost of the repercussions of climate change, then everyone would vote for the Conservative Party. The Liberals are going to sit down with the Conservatives and develop their game plan. They are already doing it. However, I can assure the House that the Bloc Québécois will stand up and demand that the government meet its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target. Canada is a rich country because it developed with oil and gas, among other things.
Globally, that is no longer what is being developed. Instead, electric vehicles, solar energy, wind energy, energy efficiency, thermal energy storage and public transit are being developed. These projects have economic and environmental benefits.
Quebec has everything to gain from changing course. In Quebec, buying oil costs us more than $10 billion every year. Instead of doing that, we could electrify our transportation through Hydro‑Québec, a source of national pride. We could electrify heating systems in buildings and industries. We could electrify our SMEs instead of further developing oil and gas. Quebec said that it would not develop oil and gas. It was one of the first nations in the world to make that statement. Of all the places in the world, we are better placed than most to make this shift, this transition, but we are currently being held back by Canada, which only has an pro-oil agenda that is funded to the tune of billions of dollars.
The Liberals have not spoken out in favour of going ahead with the emissions cap, and we are concerned about that. What the Conservatives and Liberals are once again proposing today would mean backsliding in the industry that is contributing the most to climate change in Canada, the oil and gas industry. That is very worrisome.
