François Choquette

[Paris Agreement, October 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question, I would like to provide some background, if I may, so that everyone understands where we are coming from.

The Kyoto protocol used 1990 as the reference year so that meaningful action would be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Conservatives, however, decided to use 2005 as the reference year, which was a huge step backwards, and their targets were weak to begin with: a 30% reduction by 2030.

When the Liberals went to Paris, they said they would be much more ambitious than the Conservatives. They even wanted to limit the maximum global temperature increase to 1.5°C, which is a very good thing, I might add.

However, when it comes time to actually do something, where are the concrete measures to begin the shift towards green energy and to create jobs in a low-carbon economy?

Would my colleague agree that the Liberal is not what could be considered a real, practical plan to combat climate change?

[Petitions, October 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by dozens of people in the Drummond area, who are calling on the government to do more to advance pay equity.

The petitioners note that, given that pay equity has not been achieved in our society, the government should take action to close the income gap between men and women in Canada.

They are calling on the Government of Canada to pass pay equity legislation to close the wage gap between men and women and to reduce social inequality in the country.

[Paris Agreement, October 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I will respond very quickly.

Absolutely, we must do more. One of the things I would like to see the Liberal government do immediately, for example, is to not go ahead with the Pacific NorthWest LNG project, because it did not take greenhouse gas emissions into account.

The increase in greenhouse gas emissions is going to be huge. If the government wants a serious plan, it needs to be serious about assessing major projects like the Pacific NorthWest LNG project.

[Paris Agreement, October 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with an hon. member who is speaking tomorrow to this debate that is being held over three days. This debate is very important for the future not only of our country, but also of our society and of our young people, our children and grandchildren.

I am pleased to speak to this motion to ratify the Paris agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This agreement was signed by Canada in New York on April 22, 2016. Then there was the Vancouver declaration on March 3, 2016, when the Prime Minister met with his provincial counterparts.

Unfortunately, while provincial ministers were gathered in Montreal today, the government made an announcement without having consulted them. It is hard to believe, and I am sure that they were shocked when they found out. That is a poor way to engage in politics if the government wants to sit down with its provincial counterparts and make progress. The Liberals said they wanted to do politics differently.

The Paris agreement and the fight against climate change are of vital importance. Earlier, several reports were mentioned, including the report set aside by the Conservatives. Unfortunately, the Conservatives disbanded the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. The only table that for years brought together the economy and the environment was abolished. It had reported that inaction on fighting climate change could cost up to $50 billion over the coming years.

There have been droughts, forest fires and floods. Unfortunately, there was a flood in the municipality of Drummond this summer that resulted in huge costs not just for citizens, but also for our towns and society as a whole. We are under tremendous pressure to adapt to climate change.

That is why we have to take the bull by the horns, to take our medicine, as I always tell my girls. Though they may not like the taste, we have to find an effective remedy for what ails them.

This is not the first time that the NDP has called for real measures to combat climate change. In fact, we are pioneers in this area. A famous and honourable member of this place, our late leader, Jack Layton, introduced a bill to combat climate change on two occasions. The second time, in the mid 2000s, the House of Commons passed the bill.

Jack Layton tried to pass the climate change accountability act on two occasions, and the Liberals were in agreement at the time. However, when the bill went to the Senate the first time, it died on the Order Paper when an election was called.

The second time, the bill was killed by the Senate, the chamber of unelected senators then dominated by Conservatives. It was scandalous and Jack was furious. It was a truly unique situation that we never want to see repeated in the history of our modern democracy.

Unfortunately, it did. Matthew Kellway, who was my colleague, introduced this bill again. Everyone agreed to support the bill, but, unfortunately, we did not have time to get through all the stages and pass it.

What did the bill that the Liberals supported several times say? It set out the commitments that we need to make if we are taking this issue seriously, and they are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 or by 34% by 2025, compared to 1990 levels. I am talking here about old dates, the old Copenhagen targets that the Conservative government was aware of. I will come back to this.

I am going to engage in a bit of whimsy. Let us imagine that, in 2015, Canadians voted for an NDP government. Our leader would have gone to Paris with the other leaders or delegates of the opposition party. We would have said that we were very happy to limit global warming to below 2^oC, and it would be even better if it was below 1.5^oC. Then, we would have come back here to the House of Commons and ratified that agreement. We would have reintroduced Jack Layton's climate change accountability act. We would have been happy to do this because we would have been serious about it, we would have had serious targets, and we would have led the way.

However, the people chose a Liberal government. That is democracy.

At that point, we told ourselves that the Liberal government would practise politics differently, that it would have a different way of doing things, and that it would set much higher targets. However, from looking at the targets, we see that this government is still going forward with the target from 2005. It is no longer the 1990 target. It is the target that the Conservatives set in 2005 to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030.

We do not understand. What happened? Was it the Liberals or the Conservatives who got elected? We are thoroughly confused when it comes to the target. It is six of one and half a dozen of the other. It is the same old story.

This is so disappointing. We recently got some bad news on the climate change front because the Liberal government had promised that major projects would be subject to a proper environmental assessment going forward.

I was a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development in 2012 and the years that followed, during which time draconian changes were made to environmental assessment. For one thing, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was totally gutted. It was stripped of its teeth, its soul, its energy, its power, and its credibility. The Liberals told us they would fix the problem, but major projects are still being assessed using the Conservatives' process. Greenhouse gas emissions are still not part of the equation.

Recently, the Liberals' application of the Conservatives' process resulted in approval for Pacific NorthWest LNG, a liquefied natural gas project. Actually, not natural gas, but rather gas extracted by hydrofracking. There was a big debate about this in Quebec. Our leader has long been calling for the secret ingredients that go into frac water to be made public. Knowing what comes back out is also important. The water that comes out has created some huge pollution problems.

I will close by saying that we still have a lot of work to do. We will support ratification of the Paris agreement, but so much more must be done. For example, it is urgent that we change the environmental assessment process for major projects.

[Paris Agreement, October 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, we hear a lot of talk about economic problems related to climate change. We hear about fighting climate change, about how terrible it is, about how it causes economic hardship.

Still, we cannot forget the problems we are facing right now. Climate change affects the economy on both individual and social levels. Consider droughts and floods, for example. There was another major flood in Drummondville this year. Many people were affected, insurance companies were overloaded, and there was added pressure on the city to deal with all of the needs. Not fighting climate change has its own set of consequences.

According to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, doing nothing to fight climate change could cost us billions, much more than it would cost to take action now. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.

[Paris Agreement, October 3rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I had the opportunity to work with her on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Commissioners of the environment and sustainable development have prepared so many reports. They claim that the Conservatives' plan would fail to meet their weak greenhouse gas reduction targets. Nevertheless, I agree with my Conservative colleague that the Liberals are using the same target that they once criticized.

Does my colleague think it is a bit ridiculous for the Liberals to use the same target that they themselves criticized?

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, who works very hard. We went on an agricultural tour together this summer. I know how dedicated she is to her constituents. That is extremely important, and I am happy to have her as a colleague.

She hit the nail right on the head. There is no committee devoted exclusively to arms sales abroad. Committees deal with a lot of other issues, but the situation has changed over the past 10 years. We used to sell arms primarily to NATO countries. In the wake of the Stephen Harper Conservatives era, we are selling more and more arms to countries with highly questionable human rights records.

We asked the Liberals, and I will ask them again, if they can confirm or deny that Foreign Affairs issued a permit to export arms to Thailand, which is controlled by a military junta. We think it did, but nobody can tell us. That would be utterly unacceptable.

That is exactly why we need this committee. In fact, that is what makes this committee vitally important to our country now that we are selling so many weapons, an increasing number of them to Middle Eastern countries.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I have here a little note to the effect that there are new reports that the Saudi forces used tactical equipment manufactured in Canada during raids against dissidents, which caused mostly civilian deaths. Pieces of equipment were found indicating that they were manufactured in Canada.

That is what the recent assessment of the situation shows and why selling these light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia is so puzzling. We need an additional safeguard, one we could rely on if this committee existed. The committee could make this information public and scrutinize it to ensure that we uphold our reputation as defenders of human rights.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the fine member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to an extremely important motion that was moved by the NDP and that could change many things in terms of our respect for human rights and our efforts to ensure human rights are upheld around the world.

First of all, the motion states that Canadian arms exports have nearly doubled over the past decade. That is significant. It is a huge industry. We need to take a closer look at it. In addition, the motion states that Canada is now the second-largest exporter of arms to the Middle East, after the United States. We are not a small player here. Given that not all countries in the Middle East respect human rights, Canadians expect a high standard from their government when it comes to protecting human rights abroad.

We have talked about that many times. We have also raised some of the problems related to the use of torture abroad and the use, in Canada, of information obtained through torture. We want to repeal the ministerial directive that allows this use, and we expect the Liberal government to come to its senses and do just that. It is very simple. Canadians care about the values of democracy and human rights, and they know that this is tarnishing our reputation.

The motion also states that Canadians are concerned by arms sales to countries with a record of human rights abuses, including Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Sudan. Accordingly, there is a need for Canadians, through Parliament, to oversee this practice.

Nobody can do that oversight now. There is no committee devoted exclusively to arms sales abroad. The Liberals have to stop saying the committee or the process would duplicate what is already being done.

That is why we are proposing the creation of an arms exports review committee. Now that we are the second-largest exporter of arms to the Middle East, this is a major issue. Only the United States exports more than we do. Recently, a number of problems, such as winning the largest arms sale to Saudi Arabia, have attracted our attention.

The mere mention of Saudi Arabia shocks a lot of people. Sherbrooke is home to the wife of Raif Badawi, a Canadian who was imprisoned for his political views and was even lashed. We do not know his health status at the moment, and we are worried about him. My colleague from Sherbrooke has worked so hard to support the family and free Raif Badawi. That is not a country that respects human rights.

When we found out that the government signed a huge deal to sell light armoured vehicles, the Prime Minister tried to keep a lid on it saying that they were just small jeeps and it was no big deal. However, jeeps with machine guns attached to them is not something you see driving around the streets of downtown Drummondville. These are not just small jeeps. Theses are military vehicles. We do not want the sale of such vehicles to be taken lightly. This has to be done with as much transparency as necessary.

In fact, the Liberal government was elected on a promise to be transparent.

As I said earlier, none of the committees currently has the necessary information to adequately assess criteria for the sale of materiel to countries such as Saudi Arabia in a way that is transparent and respectful of human rights.

We urged the Liberals to send us the documents on the human rights compliance assessment of Saudi Arabia. It is all well and good to want to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, but we have to know whether an assessment has been done. It is called a human rights assessment. The assessment was finally made public by the Liberals. When we saw it, it was clear that this would not work. We cannot sell light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

The human rights assessment did indeed show that these rights are being trampled and are not respected. These arms export permits should not have been issued.

That conclusion raises the following questions, which I would like to ask our Liberal colleagues. How can the Liberals say that they are following Canada's current guidelines for issuing export permits given the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia? There is a chance that those light armoured vehicles will be used to commit human rights violations against the people of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as the assessment of the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia has shown.

Canada is not able to guarantee how and when the Saudi regime will use those light armoured vehicles. Does the government really intend to rely on the assurances it is given by the Saudi government? That does not make any sense.

Earlier, in his speech, my colleague opposite said that there was no reason to create such a committee because we already have one. I repeat: right now, there is no committee that focuses on foreign arms sales. Yet, Canadian arms exports have recently doubled. Canada is the second-largest exporter of arms to the Middle East. The government may even be in the process of signing weapons contracts with a military junta in Thailand. No one has given us any answers in that regard. We cannot allow that to happen. That is why we need to set up this type of committee.

Obviously, my colleague is going to ask why we would set up a committee like that here in Canada when no other countries are doing it. That is not true. The United Kingdom has had a parliamentary committee on the sale and export of arms to foreign countries since 1999. As my daughter would say, “That is before 2000. We were not born yet. That was the old days.” That committee has been around for a long time, so it is something that can be done and done well. Canada could emulate the United Kingdom. We need to do so because more and more weapons are being sold to countries with questionable human rights records.

The fact that the British committee exists means that the British public now has greater access to information on the arms trade of its country, which was not the case before. If Canada were to create this committee, we would have much more information. For example, we would know whether Canada is preparing to sell arms to Thailand's military junta. We have not been given an answer.

How can we sell arms to Saudi Arabia and ensure respect for human rights? We asked the question, but we have not been given an answer. That is why this committee is vital.

I would like to congratulate my colleague from Laurier—Sainte-Marie, who does a great job on all matters of diplomacy and foreign affairs.

I congratulate the member on moving this motion, and I encourage everyone to support it.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, this NDP opposition day is extremely important, as is this motion, especially when we think of the controversy surrounding the Liberal government over revelations that it recently used evidence obtained through torture.

Let us not forget the sale of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, a country that is still holding prisoner Raif Badawi, a Canadian citizen whose wife is in Sherbrooke. My colleague from Sherbrooke has worked very hard on this file and knows it very well.

There are rules prohibiting the sale of arms to countries that commit human rights abuses. In that case, how can we sell arms to Saudi Arabia, when we are trying to free a Canadian citizen in that country who was charged with having a political opinion? I do not understand it. That is why this committee must be established immediately.