SoVote

Nov/24/21 6:19:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member 100%, and I congratulate her on taking her seat. As she was speaking, I thought of our health care workers and those who have been confronted by fairly hostile people. There is important legislation that we will have to go over in the next few weeks. One of the ways in which we can ensure and enable every member of Parliament to vote on this important legislation is to pass this motion.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Nov/24/21 6:19:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as this is our first opportunity for either of the members of the Green Party to speak to this motion, I want to make it clear that we will be supporting it. We very much support a hybrid Parliament. I just came back from being at COP26 in Glasgow, where no one could enter the hall who was not double vaccinated. The health rules were that we should also keep masked, maintain physical distancing, maintain all public health measures and get tested daily to ensure we were not COVID-positive. I do not feel safe in this place, even if every member is double vaccinated, because we are too close. We cannot speak if we are not at our very own desks. We cannot vote if we are not at our very own desks. The situation here is not compliant with public health rules across Canada, and I am very grateful that this motion is being put forward. I deeply regret what happened from March 13 of last year and into the spring. However, we finally had hybrid sessions and we were able to vote remotely. We should follow that practice for our safety and the safety of our communities. Shame on anyone who does not see the importance of protecting public health.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/24/21 6:21:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately it has gone in this direction. It would have been far better if we would have had a non-partisan approach to ensure we would have the hybrid in place. That would have been our preferred route. Let there be no doubt on that. Our first priority was to ensure that all members had the ability to be fully engaged, with the importance of health and safety being at the forefront. Our preference would have been to have the unanimous support of the House to pass it yesterday. That was not possible. Hopefully members of the Conservative Party and the Bloc will reconsider the value of having a hybrid system and come onside, so we can see it passed unanimously. It is the right thing to do. It would be demonstrating strong leadership for the rest of the country.

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Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Minister of Canadian Heritage, Lib.)

Nov/24/21 6:22:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will begin by congratulating you on your re-election and by thanking my constituents in Honoré-Mercier for placing their trust in me a sixth time. I would also like to thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his passionate speech, and I must say that it was an honour and a privilege to have had him as my parliamentary secretary throughout the previous Parliament. If there is anyone who cares about and stands up for our democracy, it is him, especially when it comes to the role of parliamentarians. Our concern here is that a parliamentarian could catch COVID-19 or have been in contact with someone and not be able to appear in the House to carry out their role, debate, discuss, or vote. Is it not true that the hybrid format would allow that member to continue to carry out their role despite not being able to be in the House?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/24/21 6:23:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the kind words from my former boss. It is somewhat ironic that I am standing in my place and actually advocating for the member for Beauce. The member for Beauce, under this system, would be able to fully participate and if anyone, including the opposition House leader, came back with a positive test tomorrow, they would not be able to participate, unless we pass this motion. The motion would enable all parliamentarians on all sides of the House the ability to be fully engaged between now and June. As a parliamentarian, this is the best thing we can do. It also would demonstrate strong leadership to the rest of Canada, that we take this pandemic very seriously. We believe all political entities in the House recognize that.

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Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Nov/24/21 6:24:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House. I appreciate being given the opportunity to give my speech today and again tomorrow. I will look at the glass half full in being able to be here in person after the nearly two years that this place was a shadow of what it should be for Canadians. The work of the House administration and the Speaker's staff was Herculean. They changed centuries of tradition to allow us to participate during times that we had never seen before and could not have foreseen. Through all of that, we were able to work as parliamentarians and serve our constituents and Canadians as we worked to bring life back to normal. Our health care workers have done incredible work. I am so proud to be from a riding in which the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit has the highest vaccination rate in the province of Ontario, reporting last week that more than 99% of residents had received their first dose and more than 96% had received two doses. Why did my neighbours and those in the community encourage and support each other to get vaccinated? So we could get life back to the way it was before. Of course, not everything can return to the way it was right away. We are still wearing our masks when we are close to each other indoors, we have to practise outstanding hand hygiene and we try to keep our distance. However, we have slowly seen the return, because of the steps that folks have taken to slow and stop the spread of COVID-19, of things starting to get back to normal. Public events, sporting events and team sports for our children have come back, and we are doing it safely. What we have done over the last couple of days here is represent Canadians in a safe and effective way. This is what we are looking to do. Folks in my community are struggling. They are struggling with the runaway cost of the living increases they are facing. They cannot afford a full tank of gas. They have to get half a tank, hoping that will get them through to payday. They cannot afford the regular food that they buy for their families because their dollars are just not going as far. They are very concerned about the price of propane. In rural areas where people are not heating with natural gas, propane prices are out of control. People are worried and they want to see their representatives ensuring that the government is doing everything in its power to get inflation under control, that the Government of Canada is being an outstanding steward of taxpayer dollars. We really need all hands on deck, all eyes on the prize to ensure that happens. I was so proud, as a Canadian and as a parliamentarian, to participate in the unanimous decision to take some of the steps that we took so we could continue to meet during this once-in-a-century pandemic that we were facing. However, the situation on the ground has changed. We now have followed the best medical advice, we are following the science and we are able to gather safely. What is regrettable to have seen as a parliamentarian and a Canadian is that the government has taken opportunity to use this pandemic to hide itself from scrutiny of the opposition, from the media and from Canadians. When members were not in the House, they were not facing the media on their way in or their way out. Ministers would be on the Hill, but not appearing in their seats in the chamber. The tools that we had to bring witnesses and ministers before parliamentary committees were interrupted too many times to count by technical difficulties. Now we do not need to subject ourselves to those interruptions, with rare exception. Should one of our colleagues, heaven forbid, contract COVID-19 or any other illness, we should return to the time-tested practice our system has used and pair. We talk about collaboration across the aisle, so let us pair with another member. When folks are recovering from an illness, we should not be asking them to dial in and vote from home. No. They should take the time to get well for themselves, their families and their constituents. The pairing mechanism would achieve exactly what the government has proposed. I look forward to having the opportunity to continue my remarks on this. I appreciate having had a few minutes to speak to it today. I will have more to say tomorrow, and I should note that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill when I resume.

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The Speaker

Nov/24/21 6:30:30 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member for finishing right on time. It was perfect. He has four minutes coming to him when the debate returns.

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Nov/24/21 6:30:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In a way that would not put any of my colleagues on the spot, I ask, as a gentle reminder to members on both sides of the House, that when they are not speaking, perhaps they could follow the best public health advice and wear their masks while they are seated.

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The Speaker

Nov/24/21 6:30:57 p.m.
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To all members who are here for the evening and for the duration of COVID-19, if you are sitting in your place, please make sure that your mask is on, unless you are speaking. Then you can remove it during your talk.

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The Speaker

Nov/24/21 6:31:43 p.m.
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The House will now proceed to the consideration of a motion to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the flooding in British Columbia.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Nov/24/21 6:31:56 p.m.
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moved: That this House do now adjourn. She said: Mr. Speaker, I am truly honoured to be the first member to rise this evening to speak to such a crucial issue. I first want to acknowledge that we are gathering today on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. To me, it is clear that we are in the midst of a climate emergency. I just participated in the 26th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow. This was my 12th time participating, and the situation is graver now than it was the first time. I am desperately concerned that the climate emergency is outpacing any government's actions to take control of the situation, and I want to address this issue while cognizant of the time. I take to heart the remarks from earlier today by my friend and colleague the hon. member for Abbotsford, who also wanted an emergency debate. We want to focus on what has just happened in our home province of British Columbia. However, there is a context here, and any action we take now that ignores the root causes of what just happened invites worse to come. We need to take account of root causes and we need to take appropriate actions. With the Speaker's indulgence, my intention is to start with the global, move to the national and then focus most of my remarks on the provincial and the local and what we do now. I hope we can approach this issue tonight, all of us members of Parliament from five different parties, in a way that reflects the best of us in recognizing that we have more in common than in difference. I am looking across the way right now to my friend from Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, who referenced earlier today that it was in his riding that Lytton burned to the ground in 15 minutes earlier this summer. I do not think we can only look at the floods that just happened. A lot of events have taken place and hit the same communities, particularly the same first nations communities, over and over again within the period of time during which the House was adjourned, from the end of June until reconvening on Monday. We have to recognize that we are in a climate emergency, as the House did on June 17, 2019. Some of us were in our seats then. Through a motion from the former minister of environment, Catherine McKenna, the House voted that we were indeed in a climate emergency and had to take account of that. However, nothing has changed. We do not act as though we are in an emergency. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the large scientific body also known as IPCC, has released unequivocal research. It presented a report on 1.5°C in October 2018. The news was so terrible that the IPCC called for immediate action. Three years have now passed, and the situation is even worse than it was in October 2018. We were told by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change in their emergency report on 1.5°C, which is the target of the Paris Agreement, that we are at desperate risk of missing it. It is not a political target. The reason the IPCC was asked to produce the report they produced was to inform policy-makers, politicians and government leaders around the world about the difference between a 2°C global average temperature increase and 1.5°C. I will not go through all the details of the report. I cannot in the time available. However, as one of the government leaders, the Prime Minister of Barbados, just said a few days ago in Glasgow, 2°C is a death sentence for us; only at 1.5°C do we survive. What the IPCC sketched out was not that 1.5°C makes us live in a safe world, but that it is one we can survive in. It would allow coral reefs to survive, mostly. It would protect our Arctic, mostly but not entirely. We would experience permafrost thaw, but it would not be a fatal level of permafrost thaw. Over and over again, that report, which is seminal, pointed out that 1.5°C was essential. Then we had, this summer, the report of the first working group, the sixth assessment report of the IPCC, which was labelled by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as code red for humanity. It said that everything they had warned about in 2018 is happening faster and with greater severity than they had anticipated. We know globally that we are now on track to shooting well past 2°C, well past the danger zone. This is not about bad weather. This is about whether human civilization can survive. That is what we are talking about. No issue could be more riveting and the stakes could not be higher. Still, on a day-to-day basis we have this ability to function as though there is still time. Sadly and tragically, the Government of Canada chose to use only part of the IPCC advice, the part saying that if we hold to 1.5°C, by mid-century, 2050, we should be at net zero. I need to enforce this and I need to say it slowly, particularly for my Liberal colleagues, because I am not sure that the government understands the way this information is being manipulated by someone, somewhere. The IPCC has never said the goal is net zero by 2050 and then we will get through all this and human civilization will survive. They have said very clearly that there is only one pathway to hold to 1.5°C, and it starts with at least 45% reductions globally, which is a lot, against 2010 levels by 2030. If we do not do that, net zero by 2050 is meaningless. It will be too late. We will have taken a very significant step toward the unbearable risks of unstoppable self-accelerating global warming triggered by what some people call points of no return or tipping points. The important thing to say is that we still have time. Time is running out, but it is not too late. We must act immediately to reduce greenhouse gases and make changes to protect nature, and forests in particular. We have just barely enough time, and in COP26 we did not do what needed to be done, not Canada, not anyone. As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, COP26 was not a failure in that 1.5°C, as a possible end point for the global warming nightmare, is possible but it is on life support. That is where we are, so by 2022, and preferably before then, this country needs to do more. I know I risk being heckled, but at the national level, if we are serious about the climate emergency, this must be said: We cannot be serious about the climate emergency while building the Trans Mountain pipeline. We cannot be serious about the climate emergency while subsidizing fracking and LNG and all of the fossil fuels. We must bring in a just transition act. We must take care of workers. We must make this transition. Moving from global to national, we know we have a lot of work to do, and I support many of the measures that have been put forward by the government. However, in their totality they are insufficient to ensure that my children alive today will be in a livable world when they are my age. That is something that affects all of us deeply and personally, and I am grateful that we have a chance to talk about it. As I am talking about the personal side, let me shift to British Columbia. This climate emergency hit really close to home this summer. In British Columbia, the heat dome, as it was called, was more than a heat wave: It killed nearly 600 people in four days. One of those who were affected and did not die is my stepdaughter. She is in her thirties and happened to be at my husband's family farm in Ashcroft, British Columbia, not far from Lytton, where the temperature at the farm hit 50°C. I do not think any of us here can really imagine what that is like. She said it was like having a hair dryer blowing on her face all the time, outdoors. It hurt one's skin. She nearly died and had brain edema. Another family member was a first responder, pulling people out of shacks and trailers and putting them in ambulances and knowing they would not live. We have to do a much better job, when we talk about what do we do now and what have we learned. We need health care protocols that are radically revamped, that look at the question of what they do when they find someone whose organs are already cooking. It is not the protocol they were using in the summer in B.C. We had wildfires from early April until the end of September. That wildfire season in British Columbia saw 1,600 wildfires destroy over 868,000 hectares. That also contributed to how bad the flooding damage was, because the ground had become hydrophobic, meaning it expelled the water that fell on the ground. The ground could not absorb water; the ground repelled it. The flooding was worse because of the fires. Of course, the flooding was described as an atmospheric river. We learn new terms as we go through this. During the fire season, we learned that there were things called pyrocumulonimbus clouds. Those are clouds that shoot sparks. They create more fires. We are not in a normal climate situation. We have entered the world of a climate emergency. I should say more, of course. As people know, the flooding destroyed highways. When will Coquihalla Highway ever get repaired? There are massive amounts of damage: 18 highways and five bridges significantly impacted by the flooding; the loss of life; the terrifying experience for people caught in mudslides; the horror of losing farms. I mentioned my husband's farm in Ashcroft. We have, for the second time, taken in climate refugees. In the summer, we took in people who were on wildfire alerts. Now there are people who have lost everything in the floods. This is unbearable, but there are things we can do. We must be serious about doing them and it is a national effort. We know, from the Speech from the Throne, that there is finally a commitment. I have heard it before, actually. I remember the previous Conservative government promised a national adaptation plan. The goal here is to act to reduce the damage of the climate emergency to the greatest extent possible by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible, making transitions to renewable energy and so on. There is an impact that is baked into our atmosphere. There are levels of climate damage that we will not be able to avoid, so we have to avoid those levels of climate impact to which we cannot adapt, such as, as I mentioned, runaway global warming that would mean that we could not really survive on this planet as a species. We have to adapt to those levels that we can no longer avoid. Adaptation involves a lot of elements. Yes, the ministers for public safety, public security and infrastructure must be seized of this. This is a whole-of-government approach. I rarely urge the Government of Canada to consider something that a U.S. administration is doing, but the U.S. President has appointed John Kerry, who used to be secretary of state in the Obama administration, not as the head of his environment department but as a key member of the National Security Council inside the White House. That is because the President of the United States fully understands that climate change is not and will never be an environmental issue. Rather, it is a threat to national security, kind of like a military enemy from a bygone era. We are faced with a national security threat that requires a whole-of-government approach. It is particularly important, as I look at the member for Nunavut, that we have to think about what is happening in our Arctic. We have to think like a circumpolar country. We have to know that we have to keep the permafrost cold enough so that it does not thaw. The permafrost contains methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas, and if we lost the permafrost of the world we would be releasing four times more carbon than humanity has burned since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We know that we have to keep our Arctic cold enough, as Sheila Watt-Cloutier told us years ago. To protect the human rights of the Inuit peoples, we must keep the Arctic cold, and to protect traditional hunting and culture. Also, for the sake of all species on this planet, we need to keep the Arctic cold to keep that methane in the permafrost and keep it from thawing. There are some really significant drivers here. Let us think about what we do creatively. In the immediate short term, we need more resources for British Columbia. We need to help rebuild key roads and railroads so that supply chains are protected and the economy recovers. We need to help individual farmers and homeowners who did not have insurance. We need to find a way to help families rebuild their lives on a very personal level. We have to think about rebuilding, retooling and adapting to the climate emergency that we now experience. We have to think creatively about things that we do not often think about. In this emergency, we needed volunteers jumping into their boats and rescuing people. It is not comfortable for governments to think, “Well, those are uninsured people. Is that really a good idea?” If the people of Abbotsford and Merritt had not shown up and sandbagged key infrastructure, the situation would have been much worse. How do we think creatively about climate adaptation corps to respond to emergencies and create resilient communities where people are deputized to go out and save lives? A major event happened in my community over Christmas two years ago. There was off-the-charts, climate-induced crazy weather. Large trees were blown down across the roads. It was Christmas, and everybody lost electricity. This happens in major weather events. We lose our land line and cell coverage and we cannot move around, and in this case it was because trees were across the road. People in my community are smart people and know that, when the power is out because trees are down, it is illegal to go out with chainsaws to cut up the trees and help their neighbours, but everybody did it. They took care of each other through Christmas. They are not going to leave someone in their 90s who is living on their own because it is illegal to cut trees to move them off the road. We need to figure this out. How do we empower people who know how to react in an emergency and create trained, legal, appropriate responses that engage our volunteers? I know the hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola will agree with me that there were great acts of bravery throughout the communities with individuals acting, and we need to harness that. The bottom line is that we are looking at climate emergencies that have killed hundreds of people in the last number of months in British Columbia, with nearly 600 in the heat dome and more now through the floods. What we need to think about is that the global average temperature is now 1.1°C above what it was before the Industrial Revolution. We are trying to see if we can hang on to 1.5°C, which is not a safe zone and will be worse than what it is like right now at 1.1°C. There is nothing more important than protecting young people, our children and grandchildren, against the major threat of climate change. We are not doing everything we need to do yet. We still do not act on a day-to-day basis as though we understand that we are in a climate emergency. I would urge the government, since we have already bought Trans Mountain and we have all those workers and all that equipment, to just change the mandate of that Crown corporation and put those people and that equipment to work to rebuild, to repair our highways, and to help protect against the next major climate event. We know that in the last 24 hours on Cape Breton Island, where I am from, we see roads washed out, and we see roads washed out near Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Labrador. There is no one part of this country that is safe and secure any more than there is one place on this planet safe and secure in the climate emergency. We have to all pull together, and as the Speech from the Throne said: “Now, we must go further, faster.” I am sad to say that I do not see in the Speech from the Throne the things we must do, but we know what they are. Tonight is a good opportunity to put forward those good ideas and together say, “We work for our communities, we work for Canada and we will save the planet.”

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.)

Nov/24/21 6:51:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on what the member just made reference to, and that is pulling together. As we look at what is taking place in British Columbia, we recognize that not only the national government but also the provincial government, municipalities and many other stakeholders all have an interest in making sure that B.C. and the people who are so dramatically affected are lifted out of this and that we help build back. Can the member provide her thoughts in regards to just how important it is that the different levels of government continue to show that sympathy and provide the support that is so critically important to help these communities in need?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Nov/24/21 6:52:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is critically important. It is going to have a big price tag. I was struck when the hon. Prime Minister spoke in Glasgow, and made reference to Lytton. Lytton is still there and it needs to be rebuilt. The people of Lytton are there and it is a major first nations community as well, with scattered first nations around it. It is important that we leave no community behind in this, but it is not going to be inexpensive. For decades, studies have shown that the costs of ignoring climate change were going to be far larger than the costs of action. We now find ourselves in the unenviable position where we need to do both harder and faster. Fortunately, rebuilding communities does stimulate the economy, getting all the people possible who can get to work to help farms rebuild. There has been so much loss, a devastating loss, that it is hard to imagine how some families will pull everything together, but they need to know there is going to be a source of funds to get their farm back up and running. They need to know that their home can be repaired, even if the insurance companies say they are not covered for this kind of flood. We are going to have to rethink how we respond to what used to be called natural disasters which are no longer natural.

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Mr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC)

Nov/24/21 6:54:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to salute my fellow British Columbian for her comments today and her sympathy for all those who have been affected by the flooding in our great province. The hon. member talked about needing to do things differently. Tonight, I know that we are going to debate lots of different ideas and I do hope we hit some big ideas. For example, I have heard from small municipalities about the DFAA, the disaster finance assistance program, and they cannot afford the 20% that is expected, while senior levels of government are expected to do 80%. What does the member think about that? The member also talked about empowering communities. The last time the federal government arranged with the Province of British Columbia was in the gas tax agreement of 2014. I think there is an area that we can improve upon. Tim Roberts, who is an area director for rural Keremeos, has suggested that small regional districts and municipalities should be able to use some of the leftover gas tax toward flood mitigation and fire mitigation, because many times there is interface area where there is fuel that can easily be removed if they were to hire students over the summer to do so. Can the member comment on some of the big ideas, but also some of the small ideas that are so important to help our communities adapt to climate change?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Nov/24/21 6:55:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the same spirit of working across party lines, I want to salute the hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for attending COP26, not just for a couple of days, but for the full two weeks. I saw his comments in the media recently that the nature-based solutions that were talked about at COP are really important. I would suggest too that students in the summer plant trees restoring what I referred to as hydrophobic soil. On the hill that was burnt off in 2017, the Elephant Hill fire, nothing is growing back because the soil just became baked. The top surface was destroyed by the heat of the fire. We need to get trees, and not just any trees, but trees that are right for that ecosystem. That will help restore our salmon. That will help bring things back. Those jobs and that ecosystem are key parts of responding to the climate emergency. I just say to his point about about small communities, that absolutely, they do not have the money to come up with 20%. We need to be much more creative of how we are going to help particularly small, impoverished rural and remote communities cope with an increased, and I am afraid to say inevitable, level of extreme weather events that wipe out their infrastructure. We need to be really creative.

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Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

Nov/24/21 6:57:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands. She knows how much I appreciate her. I tell her every chance I get. I thank her again today. Since this is the first time I am speaking during this 44th Parliament, I want to thank the people of Lac-Saint-Jean for placing their confidence in me once again on September 20. I also thank everyone who participated in the democratic process in the riding of Lac-Saint-Jean during this federal election. I thank my partner of 24 years, Mylène Cloutier, and my grown children, Émile, Jeanne and Simone, without whom none of this would be possible. That being said, what is happening right now in British Columbia is horrible. We know that it is a consequence of climate change. A person would have to be blind to deny this simple fact. Today, in question period, the Prime Minister suddenly announced that he knows the difference between provincial and federal jurisdictions. He told us that he could not intervene in Alberta's oil and gas industry for jurisdictional reasons. Is that not contradictory, when this government that promised to end oil subsidies has in fact increased them over the past few years?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Nov/24/21 6:58:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague from Lac-Saint‑Jean for getting re-elected, and I thank him for his question. When he talks about his family, I of course think about his father, and I send them my best wishes. It is obvious that we have a problem here in Canada. We say all the right things, but we take very little action. I recognize that it is difficult for the federal government to have a good relationship with Alberta. I am thinking back to the stop acid rain campaign, which sought to do away with chemicals that damage the ozone layer. Here in Canada, we have done great things at the global level to protect life on this planet. We could never achieve our goals without extraordinary moral and political courage.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Nov/24/21 6:59:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands talked about the tragedy of losing more than 500 people in the heat dome. Most of these people were low-income people living in urban heat islands, in apartments without air conditioning. The federal government could come up with the funding to switch the natural gas furnaces in those buildings to clean heat pumps that could cool those buildings as well as heat them, so we could save hundreds of lives across this country and reduce emissions as well. I am hoping this is one of the ideas we have to come up with in this era of adaptation.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Nov/24/21 7:00:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned. The impacts of the climate crisis are understood to be intersectional. Whether we are looking globally to developing countries or within Canada, it is the poor, the indigenous and people of colour who are most often victims of climate events. In the case of the heat dome, I was horrified that Premier John Horgan said they had no way of knowing and they thought it was just going to be hotter weather. I was horrified that both the federal and provincial governments, British Columbia and Canada, continued to increase fossil fuel subsidies at the very moment they should have been cut, but I totally agree there are things we could do. They include things like shade, more urban forests and more opportunities to let people go into parks. It was horrifying to me that Vancouver officials did not want people going into the Strathcona Park area for fear they would set up tents again, but that was life-giving shade. We need more attention to how we survive, more attention to cooling centres and more attention to social networks of resilience that get people out of their homes into safe, cool locations where they are given water and have access to ice. It is saving lives that counts on a minute-to-minute basis, and we need to be much better prepared.

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Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister, Lib.)

Nov/24/21 7:02:22 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Minister of Emergency Preparedness. It is hard to even believe what is happening in B.C.: that after a summer of drought in Abbotsford, people's homes are now under water; that after living with the fear of wildfires months ago, Merritt now faces the devastation of flooding; that whole highways have been washed away; that farmers have lost whole herds; and that families have lost loved ones. Times have been tough lately. To the people of British Columbia, I know that you have suffered a great deal. This summer, on top of the pandemic, you had to deal with record-breaking heat and devastating forest fires. I lived in British Columbia for many years, and I know what strong and resilient people you are. Today, I want to tell you again that our government will continue to be there for you. From the start, we have taken action to help British Columbia as quickly as possible. The minister will provide more details in a moment, but we immediately convened the incident response group to bring the help that was needed to those who needed it. Over 500 Canadian Armed Forces members are now deployed. They are delivering food and supplies to communities and putting down sandbags to protect homes while repairing infrastructure and rescuing livestock. There is also significant support with helicopters and aircraft, with Griffons, a Cyclone and a Chinook now in B.C., as well as a Hercules and two Twin Otters. Reservists have been called in, including to help in Abbotsford. On top of that, there is a team ensuring the essentials, including fuel, keep moving. I know this is a concern for a lot of people and businesses. We are issuing interim orders to get food, fuel and supplies to communities and farms. Just today, we approved a request from the Port of Vancouver for over $4 million to create extra capacity so that ships are not turned away while the port clears the backlog of traffic. Our focus is getting everyone through this crisis, which includes almost $4.5 million in immediate support to first nation communities to keep people safe and start rebuilding. There is no doubt that the scale of this disaster is staggering. What it means for people's lives and businesses is devastating. We are here to help with whatever British Columbians need, and we will work hand in hand with the government of B.C. on direct support. On that note, I want to thank all of the first responders, the women and men in uniform who stepped up to serve. Of course, standing right behind each and every one of them is everyone across the province who has shown what British Columbians are made of. I think of the family that owns a restaurant in Hope and handed out food to folks stuck in their cars, the volunteers in Surrey gurdwaras who sent meals to those who lost their homes, and of the women and men in Abbotsford who last week passed sandbags hand to hand through the night. People across the province have answered the call. Together, we will get British Columbia out of this crisis. Now is the time to do all we can to protect families, help farmers and get trucks back on the road. We need to do everything we can now, but we also need to act for the future because we know that this is not an isolated incident. For British Columbians this fall it has been flooding and landslides; last summer, droughts and wildfires. For people out east it is a state of emergency and washed-out highways because of storms hitting hard right now. For the people in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, we will be there for them, but for tonight we ask that they please stay safe and follow local guidelines. If the last year has shown us anything, it is that the impacts of climate change are here sooner than expected and they are devastating, so on adaptation we have to accelerate our work. I could talk about investments to weatherproof homes or the half a billion dollars we will put towards community-based firefighters and equipment. All of that is key, but when it comes to solutions it is not just about one program, one investment or one community. It is about putting the full power of government and the entire force of our commitment behind real, meaningful climate action. Right now, as we rebuild our communities, we also need to take action for their future. There is no simple or easy solution, but we will continue to move forward and take real action. These are difficult, heartbreaking days and there will be difficult days still ahead, but together we will rebuild hand in hand with the government of B.C., with first nations, with municipalities and with all British Columbians. We will help them recover from this crisis and rebuild their homes, their businesses and their lives. Together we will reach better, brighter times.

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