Linda Duncan

[Transportation Modernization Act, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to have put this question to the minister, but I did not get the opportunity. I also had the pleasure of serving on the committee with the hon. member. Of course, she participated in the very long, intensive review on rail safety. I am sure she recalls when the minister used to stand in the House and say, “Rail safety is our number one priority”, yet that is exactly the measure that is not included at all in this legislation, nor have we seen a single measure tabled in this place to respond to our unanimous report.

What I am deeply troubled by is that the Liberals have hand-picked one of the measures that was highly contentious, which has to do with recorders. There was some concern that this information, if made available to the rail companies, would be used against the employees. However, what they have not dealt with is the issue of rail fatigue, which, according to the workers, is the real concern.

I wonder if the member could speak to whether she shares my concern that we have seen absolutely nothing come forward, apart from this one rather prejudicial measure, to address serious concerns across this country about rail safety.

[June 5th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, it was pleasure formerly sitting on the transportation and infrastructure committee with the member. There was a massive agenda in that committee.

I can remember in a previous incarnation, I think it was when I was on the OGGO committee, that we looked at and analyzed P3. One of the big issues with P3 was the lack of transparency. There were a lot of concerns about P3. However, the government decided to go with that. One of the big issues was to make sure we were getting a proper benefit and so forth.

I am wondering if the member could elaborate a little more on P3 versus this infrastructure bank. I was no fan of P3. I know, frankly, that there are some members of this House from my city who were opposed to P3s when they were city councillors, but it was foisted on them by the previous Conservative government to get money for LRT.

Is the member of the view, within her party, that they are beginning to rethink these mechanisms and that perhaps we need greater accountability for the spending of taxpayers' dollars?

[June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, one has to question why we need extended sessions when probably one-fiftieth of the speech by the hon. member was actually with respect to the budget bill.

There is one thing that we do not find in the budget bill that is clearly a budget matter. It is not an issue that is simply being raised by one of the lowly opposition members over here, but a serious concern that was raised by the Auditor General of Canada. It is that the government promised it would expedite the removal of the perverse incentives for the fossil fuel industry. That is an important measure in allowing the renewable and energy efficiency sectors to compete, yet it is not in the budget. Could the member speak to why the government did not include that in its budget bill?

[Petitions, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, on World Environment Day, it gives me great pleasure to table a petition from Edmontonians in support Bill C-202, the Canadian environmental bill of rights, which I have tabled in this place three times.

The petitioners want this bill supported because it would impose a public trust duty on the government to protect the environment, it would extend the right to a protected environment to present and future generations, and it would provide legal tools to hold the government accountable when it fails to deliver on those obligations.

[The Environment, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the current government has been vociferous in defending its legislative and policy agenda, alleging it is protecting the environment while supporting economic development. However, these claims are roundly discredited even by the government's own expert panels, which report that public credibility in federal processes for reviewing and approving major energy projects is seriously broken. Significant environmental impacts are being given short shrift, including those to transboundary waters, indigenous rights and title, and threatened species and habitat, as well as feasible less-impacting alternatives.

The growing number of lawsuits by indigenous communities offers similar evidence of a deeply eroded trust in the government. Canadians, particularly in impacted communities and particularly indigenous peoples, are demanding a voice well beyond individual projects and reviews. They want a seat at the table to ensure energy law and policy reflect their environmental, social, and cultural priorities.

On World Environment Day, is it too much to hope for real change to finally give Canadians a voice in their energy future?

[Paris Agreement, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have no quibbles with the list of initiatives that are listed in the budget. My quibble is that there are no dollars. For the life of me, I do not understand that while the deficit is rising, it is not coming from investments in cleaner energy, or from investments in reducing homeowners' energy costs.

The Liberal government, to its credit, followed in the footsteps of Alberta, which moved toward a faster period to shut down coal-fired power, a campaign that I worked on for many years. That is costing the Government of Alberta a lot of money. When the federal government said it would speed that up, why did it not provide some dollars to help with those costs? Alberta could then have put more money into helping people to retrofit and helping to move toward renewable power.

I would like to see more innovation and more fast-tracked support, with real dollars, and not to support merely thinking and planning.

[Paris Agreement, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has been dedicated to this topic for quite a few decades.

What troubles me is that there are many simple things that could be done that are actually on the list of matters in the budget that the government recognizes should be done. The government has said that it will help northern communities to get off diesel, and this would be relatively easy to do. A good reason for that is because diesel is contaminating those communities. However, zero dollars have been committed this year to help in doing that.

Why is that critical? It is critical because at the same time that our indigenous communities are begging for support to build better, high-quality housing, we could be building energy-efficient housing and putting measures in place to switch them over from diesel fuel.

There are so many measures that are not astronomical in price that could make all the difference in the world to supporting these communities. I would like to see the government move forward with more money in the supplementaries for real measures.

[Paris Agreement, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Drummond.

As I said previously in my question for the Minister of Finance, completely baffling is the decision of the government to retable essentially the same motion that was tabled here last fall, which was passed with the support of our party. What is disappointing is the Liberals have come forward with the exact same motion, sadly, missing the amendments we had recommended, which was that they revise their targets to enable them to deliver on their promise in Paris, to at least hold the climate change to a maximum of 2^o, let alone their further promise of 1.5^o.

I think there is an understanding now, particularly since the United States has said it will pull out the agreement. As one of the members pointed out, it will take four years for that to happen and many people in the world may hope we have a different administration in the United States by then, an administration that previously committed to delivering on the Paris agreement. It is very disappointing.

We look forward to the speeches by the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources. Daily we hear their mantra in here, which is to balance environmental protection with economic development, and that this is the path they will take to address climate change. We are looking forward to hearing the details of how they might be doing that.

Why would we be particularly interested in that? While the government has said that it is determined in every decision it makes on our energy future to balance environmental protection with economic development, it has been very good on one side of that balance by moving expeditiously to approve LNG plants, pipelines, and basically back away from a more intensive review of oil sands operations.

We recently received the report from UNESCO where it investigated the impacts of the oil sands and the Site C dam on a world heritage site in northern Alberta. UNESCO has directed that our nation will lose that world heritage site designation unless the government steps up to the plate and starts doing its job and better regulating the impact of the oil sands on the whole Peace-Athabasca Delta. It has called for a second review assessment of the Site C dam because the federal government, before giving the okay for Site C, did not consider the potential transboundary impacts into Alberta on the world heritage site. Why is that significant? Even during the review of Site C, intervenors came forward and said that building dams on this scale were massively expensive. Also, there did not appear to be the demand for that scale of a project, a demand that was realistically forecast to probably be delivered through geothermal, solar and wind. That was dispensed with.

The government is saying the right things, but we are deeply concerned that it is not necessarily moving in that direction.

Also, the government is still sticking with Stephen Harper's targets. It is a complete mystery not just to those of us in our party, but to all of those who are deeply dedicated to a transition to cleaner energy. The non-governmental organizations, the institutes, the scientists, and the people in the solar, wind, and geothermal sector are troubled. If we are to deliver on those commitments in Paris, then we have to come to the reality that we have to dig even much deeper to reduce.

That means the government has to move on another promise as well, which is to more rapidly get rid of the perverse incentives for the fossil fuel sector. We are not just saying that. The Auditor General has chastised the government for not moving more expeditiously. Now, of course, the previous Conservative government also committed to other nations that it would move expeditiously to remove those perverse incentives. It did not. This government has admitted today, through the finance minister, that it has taken one small measure. The Auditor General is saying it is not good enough.

We like the fact that the government is espousing the policy that it wants to move toward a cleaner energy economy. The Liberals agree with us that we are facing a serious challenge in the planet. We share their concern with the United States saying that it is going to pull out. However, I should not say the United States, but the President of the United States has said that. We are delighted to hear, as I am sure many in the country are, that many of the U.S. states, I think more than 80 mayors of U.S. towns, and many in major industries, including the fossil fuel industry, have said that they will continue down the path of divesting from fossil fuels and moving toward a cleaner economy. However, that means we have to step up our pace.

The government has announced again that it will have a big shindig with China and Europe here in the fall. However, what additional can Canada do to fill that gap? The United States of America, as I understand, contributes 25% of the greenhouse gases on this planet. The Canadian government has only committed to reduce part of the emissions that we emit, not even the emissions that are necessary to meet the Paris target. Therefore, one would think that the finance minister and other ministers of the government would have come forward today and told us what additional, deeper, faster initiatives the Liberals have committed to meet the promise they have made to the planet. It is concerning.

In April of this year, Environment Canada reported that the greenhouse gas emissions in the country were continuing to rise and that the government's 2030 target would not be met. In fact, if we progressed with using the initiatives the government had committed to, we would be almost 200 megatonnes over even that minimal target made by the Harper government. We are glad the government is saying the right things, but what we are disappointed in is where are the hard, concrete initiatives to move in that direction?

We are deeply troubled despite all this talk of the Liberals' deep commitment to assist families to reduce their energy use and to help Canadians get into the cleaner energy economy. Indeed, it is the booming economy in the world these days. I look at at pages 149 and 150 of their budget daily because people ask me questions about this. They want to know exactly what the government is doing to commit to move us forward expeditiously. People are stunned to see that in both columns of initiatives that have been listed by the Liberals, including the support for the pan-Canadian initiative of the provinces and territories, by and large, zero dollars actually have been committed.

As I mentioned previously, the sooner we invest the better, because it will simply become more expensive. Either the carbon tax will have to rise more expeditiously or we will have to invest more money in parallel measures. Therefore, it is deeply troubling that the government says one thing, but it is not releasing the concrete measures to move forward as expeditiously as the Liberals are pretending.

Why in heavens did the government not bring back the eco-energy retrofit program? It is completely baffling. The Liberals go on and on about the carbon tax as the most effective measure to move forward and address the rise in greenhouse gases in Canada. However, review after review, including by people who are very supportive of the direction the government is going, have said that the carbon tax alone will not do it, that the government needs to be expediting parallel measures.

One of those measures is the eco-energy retrofit. If Canadians in their homes and in small businesses are to have a carbon tax imposed on them, particularly in the jurisdictions where the Liberals say they will have to impose a federal tax, then one way to potentially sell that and get buy-in is to say they will help them reduce their energy use. It is baffling. Also, there is the national building code. We need to expedite that. Article after article about this says that we need to be fast-tracking a more modern national building code. How much of the building stock is going to be built again and then go through the process of having to retrofit? It would be welcomed if the government moved forward on these two measures.

We have heard the Minister of Environment recently go on and on about the government looking forward to collaborating with its European neighbours. I would encourage the government to look at the United Kingdom, which has established, by law, binding targets and an independent commission that audits and advises it on how well it is delivering on its targets every five years. This is the kind of measure that we tabled previously, and we would like to see the government adopt it to ensure transparency and accountability.

[Paris Agreement, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, we heard a lengthy dissertation on the costs of addressing climate change, but what greatly disappointed me was that we did not hear one second of discussion by my colleague across the way about the costs of not acting on climate change. The longer we delay, the higher the costs rise, including, as the member would like to go on and on about, the cost of the carbon tax.

There were two measures that the Conservative government promised. When Jim Prentice was the minister of the environment, he said there was going to be cap and trade, but after 10 years in power, nothing had happened. One thing the Conservative government actually did was put in place an eco-energy retrofit program, which was oversubscribed and very popular because it helped to bring down the costs for people who could not afford to pay their energy bills. What did it do when it was over? It yanked the program.

Could the member speak to exactly what measures he thinks are useful and why he is not also equally concerned about the fact that the costs to address climate change are rising, given that for 10 years the Conservative government did not act and the Liberals are thinking about acting?

[Paris Agreement, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say at the outset that there are many in this place who are puzzled by the decision of the government to table exactly the same motion it tabled last October and that this House voted for. We have heard the Minister of Finance speaking to the need to move toward a greener, cleaner economy and the various initiatives the government is proceeding with.

What is troubling, and I look forward to the Minister of Finance responding, is that he speaks about hand in hand. Everyone who is in the renewable energy and energy-efficiency sector knows what is needed. The most important thing in moving forward is removing the perverse incentives for the fossil fuel industry. The Auditor General has already chastised the government for failing to move on its commitment—in fact, the last two governments' commitments—to remove the perverse incentives.

The Minister of Finance also spoke to the pan-Canadian agreement. Indeed, many of our provinces, territories, municipalities, and even homeowners have expeditiously moved forward to invest. However, when we look at the government's budget this year, and we look at all the pan-Canadian initiatives for creating Canada's clean growth economy, it has committed close to zero dollars in support of those initiatives.

Perhaps the minister would like to speak to how deep this commitment is to moving forward expeditiously toward a cleaner economy.