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Nov/30/21 6:07:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I can tell that the member for Mississauga—Malton and I will work well together, given his approach to his constituents in reflecting their visions. Could he comment on the vision of mental health that was mentioned in the throne speech, the importance of mental health to his constituents and our focus on that area?

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Mr. Iqwinder Gaheer

Nov/30/21 6:07:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, mental health is very important, especially in ethnic communities, which seem to suffer more during crises like the pandemic because there is no targeted support for them. This is a conversation I have had with friends, and it is unfortunately a very sad conversation. I am very thankful that the Prime Minister has appointed a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, and I look forward to working with the minister to better serve the constituents of Mississauga—Malton.

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Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)

Nov/30/21 6:08:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to let you know that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Repentigny. If I had a title for my speech, it would be “autopsy of a failure”. Before we talk about the throne speech, let us go back in time, to last spring. I would remind my colleagues that we were in a pandemic last spring. There was only one MP on the other side. I say this often, because I cannot believe it. There was just the member for Kingston and the Islands. All the other Liberal Party members were in their basements or some such place. They were afraid of the pandemic. They were shaking under their desks. Once in a while, the Prime Minister would come and visit. I remember that we would give a start of surprise when we saw him coming. We were shocked to see that there were other Liberals in that party. He would arrive from time to time and answer questions. Then, things improved. Quebec began opening up. We thought the Liberals would eventually see common sense. We talked about it with their leader and their whip. They said that they could not come to the House, that the situation was still terrible and that there was still a pandemic. They continued to hide under their desks in the basement. They said that they could not do it, that they could not handle the light of day and that they needed to adapt. It made no sense. That was the Liberal approach. They were afraid of the pandemic. People say a lot of things, but the Prime Minister can be very persuasive. He convinced those folks over there that it was time to call an election. Even though we were in a fourth wave of the pandemic, he convinced them that the time was right. Even though it was only two years after the previous election, it was the right time to meet the public. An election had to be called, the situation was critical, there was an emergency on the home front. At the end of the day, one by one, Liberal Party members took the bait. They thought they were going to walk around, meet with people and shake their hands. Soon they were making human pyramids. They were happy; they were finally out. They told people that they were calling an election and that everybody would have to line up to vote. We were in the fourth wave of the pandemic, but no big deal. They said they could not make Parliament work because of their minority situation, that it was not going well and that the opposition was behaving outrageously. They all said that. I have been the House leader of the Bloc Québécois since 2019, and I remember that everything was going well. The opposition was making its contribution. There were discussions happening, and that was great. Bills were being improved because we were all working together. I would say that the main problem during that time was more the Liberal government's lack of organization in developing its parliamentary strategy and legislative agenda than the opposition from the opposition parties. There were bills on the table, and the work was getting done. Bill C‑10 got all the way to the Senate. In Quebec, we had been waiting for years for the web giants to contribute to the culture sector. The bill died in the Senate because of the election. Bill C‑216 was meant to ensure that supply management would be protected in future trade agreements. It was on track. Everything was going well. Bill C‑6 on conversion therapy was almost wrapped up. The Liberals are coming back to that now with another bill. The bill that made pensioners first in line to get paid when a company goes bankrupt was also coming along nicely. The one that made sure that someone with a serious illness was entitled to 50 weeks of EI benefits was moving forward. That is something to be expected, it makes sense, but they decided to throw it all away and call an election, because time was of the essence. The Prime Minister looked people straight in the eye and told them that it was urgent, that the government needed their opinion because otherwise horrible things lay ahead. The public voted, and almost all members are back, except for a few changes. The public said to stop fooling around, stop with the elections and get back to work. They said to get back to work because we are in a pandemic. That is what the public said. The public told the government to get its act together and return to Parliament. Now the Liberals are returning to Parliament. They wanted a majority government, but that turned out to be a flop. Now they are saying that we need to take the bull by the horns, that it is extremely important, that it is urgent. We sat around for two months. We waited for Parliament to be recalled for two months. Our clothes were out of style by the time we came back here. They came back, claiming that the throne speech would be as amazing as a kangaroo on a trampoline and that we would have to wait and see. People were saying that the speech would be amazing, that it would be the highlight of the decade. When we heard the speech, however, there was nothing there. The government should be ashamed of having given birth to a mouse. It is not even a mouse; it is a flea and you would need a microscope just to see what is there. No matter how many times you read it, there is nothing there. In the end, we did find one thing. We learned that the government does not like its jurisdictions and prefers to interfere in provincial ones. The government asked itself how it could interfere in Quebec's and the provinces' jurisdictions. Someone a little smarter said that the provinces and Quebec would be stunned if the government were to interfere in health care. The government talks about health but fails to mention that provincial health care systems are underfunded because the federal government has been starving them for more than 20 years. The federal government is saying that it is going to stop giving the provinces the money they deserve and is going starve them little by little. At some point, however, all hell is going to break loose. That is when the federal government will step in and say that the provinces do not know how to manage health care and that there are all kinds of problems in the sector. However, the federal government has been starving the provinces' and Quebec's health care systems for 20 years. It is quite simple. The government must be told to increase payments as it should be doing and to increase transfers to 35% of the cost of health care for everyone in Canada and Quebec. Everyone agrees on this amount except for the federal government, which does not understand. The federal government is telling itself that it will say that the provinces are not doing a good job, so that it can go ahead and interfere in their jurisdictions. The federal government is steadfast, and it does not like its jurisdictions. The rail crisis fell under federal jurisdiction, but it let the provinces deal with it. It says it will let the City of Montreal and Quebec deal with the firearms issue. When an issue falls under its jurisdiction, it does not want to deal with it, but it will meddle in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. If the Prime Minister wanted to run a provincial government, all he had to do was stand for election in British Columbia. However, he is the Prime Minister of Canada. The federal government thought it came up with a good idea by announcing that it needs a minister responsible for mental health, an area that falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. However, the federal government said that it would be all right and that it would be fun. It went ahead with it. This morning, despite being comfortably seated, I fell right off my chair when the leader of the official opposition said a minister responsible for mental health was a good idea. The Conservatives have been saying for years that they do not want to interfere in areas under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Then, this morning, the leader of the official opposition said he was disappointed and ready to fight. The thing is, one cannot respect the provinces' jurisdiction by leaving them alone and support the idea of a minister responsible for mental health at the same time. That does not work, but that is what the Conservatives did, and they thought it was pretty great. Then they said it was because the government was no good. I think the root of the problem is not that the government is not good; it is that it did not do its basic job. Quebeckers send half their taxes to Ottawa because they want to be taken care of during a pandemic that makes the problem even worse. What Quebec and Quebeckers want is to see the money they send to Ottawa flowing back to where it is needed: health care. The federal government does not have the authority to handle health care. It has never done so. It has never paid a doctor or a nurse, and it has almost never run a hospital, so it must send that money to the people with expertise in this area: my government, the Government of Quebec. That is what the Bloc Québécois wants. We are also thinking about seniors, who suffered in isolation, who were the most affected by the pandemic in terms of health, who are on a fixed income and who are now being financially strangled by inflation. The only thing the federal government did was divide them into two classes. It said that it would help seniors 75 and up, but seniors 65 to 75 would have to wait. In the House, three ministers said that if seniors 65 to 75 did not have the means to live comfortably, they would have to go back to work. Seriously? The federal Liberal government wants to send people 65 to 75 back to work? This government is already worn out only two months in. Good thing it spent two months resting, or it would be dead. With a throne speech like that, I think the opposition will have its work cut out for it.

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All Topics

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

Nov/30/21 6:18:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not that often that I see somebody with such great passion speak in the House as this member just did, so I applaud him for that. I definitely think that he shows his passion for various issues. I do have a concern over something he said towards the beginning of his speech. The member talked about how the House was working so well together. He talked specifically about conversion therapy and how it had been passed. The member was in the House, and he saw the games that Conservative members were playing just to delay. In the 11th hour, just before we were about to recess, the Conservatives finally said, “Okay, we will let this bill pass.” Then it went to the Senate, and the leader of the Conservatives in the Senate started tactics to try to delay the bill. This happened with a number of pieces of legislation, not just on conversion therapy. Could the member explain to me how he feels the House was working so well together, when in reality we were seeing roadblock after roadblock from the Conservatives?

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Mr. Alain Therrien

Nov/30/21 6:19:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we can look at all the bills and go over their history. I have no problem with that. We could talk about Bill C-7 on medical assistance in dying. The Conservative Party blocked that bill, as my colleague said. The Bloc Québécois, meanwhile, decided to support the bill and move it forward. No, the Conservatives' approach to Bill C-6 was not exemplary. However, an election should not be called simply because one or two bills get stuck, when many bills are going through without a hitch. I know; I was there. Yes, the Conservatives could take a good hard look at themselves when it comes to this bill. They have not been effective, one could say, but the fact remains that this is a democracy. The Conservatives were against the bill and they showed it. What I am trying to say is that when there is a strong, robust, intelligent and effective legislative agenda, things go well. That was the problem in the last Parliament. The government did not get the job done.

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Mr. Eric Melillo (Kenora, CPC)

Nov/30/21 6:20:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was very enjoyable. One of the things he mentioned was inflation and the cost of living. That is a very important issue in northern Ontario and across the country. Does the member agree that it is time for the government to stop printing money, get spending under control and ensure it is doing what it can to address inflation?

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Mr. Alain Therrien

Nov/30/21 6:21:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada has had just one inflation target since 1991. It is the second bank in the history of the world, after New Zealand, to have such a specific target. In 1991, the Bank of Canada wrote that its only monetary policy goal was to maintain inflation between 1% and 3%, ideally aiming for 2%. That is the only goal of the Bank of Canada. I hope that the bank will continue the good work it has been doing since 1991. I also hope that the government will respect the fact that the Bank of Canada is responsible for combatting inflation. This obviously does not mean that the government should spend as it pleases. This means that the government must keep close tabs on its spending. The Bank of Canada has a role to play, and I hope that it will do so.

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Mr. Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ)

Nov/30/21 6:22:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw a parallel between the management of Canada and the management of the Montreal Canadiens. The summer is normally a time to rest, but they both chose to play the game, and they both ultimately got very close to their goal but never reached it. Yesterday, the Montreal Canadiens management decided to do something and finally clean house. Is there still a parallel to be made between the two? I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

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Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne

Mr. Alain Therrien

Nov/30/21 6:22:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is quite the question. I must thank my colleague, who is putting me on the spot. Clearly, the Montreal Canadien players do not skate as well as the Liberals. That is a fact. However, we hope that the Prime Minister will do a somewhat better job as general manager than Marc Bergevin. Aside from that, Canada and Quebec decided that we would have a minority Parliament. The role that the opposition must play and that the Bloc Québécois will play is to monitor the government, be a constructive opposition, provide advice and act to ensure that this government has policies that will truly serve Quebeckers and Canadians. We have a lot of work to do in that regard.

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Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne

Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

Nov/30/21 6:23:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the voters of Repentigny who have put their trust in me for a third time. I would also like to thank all of the volunteers who supported me and helped me achieve victory, which can never be taken for granted. I am thinking in particular of Christiane and Assia. I do not have enough time today to thank everyone by name. Representing and defending the interests of my riding, Repentigny, is very important. It is just as important to be a voice in the House for all of Quebec when it comes to the environment, and more specifically to what the Government of Canada is not doing but has an obligation to do in order to ensure a future for my nation, for my people, of every generation. Let us turn to the throne speech. After an election that nobody wanted, were we entitled to expect a content-rich throne speech, a speech that had substance and that provided clarity about the government's agenda? I think so. I am not the only one who noticed that Governor General Simon's first throne speech unfortunately did not live up to any expectations. We heard a few statements such as: “The Government is taking real action to fight climate change.” Really. “Now, we must go further, faster.” All right. “This is the moment for bolder climate action.” We shall see. The campaign promise to cap oil and gas sector emissions sounded really promising, but here is the problem: the government's behaviour on past commitments and the lack of transparency raised by Commissioner DeMarco suggest that there is something fishy going on. What is needed is a cap on oil and gas production and a phase-out plan if there is to be any hope of getting real results. Again, there is no such thing as clean, ethical oil and coal. The throne speech contained only three lines on the electrification of transportation. It was the Bloc Québécois that proposed net-zero legislation to force auto manufacturers to make a varied fleet of electric vehicles available to Quebeckers and Canadians within a reasonable time frame. Although the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development was unanimous in recommending the adoption of such a policy, the government dragged its feet before responding and eventually called an election. What about the total lack of any reference to the banking and financial sector's responsibility for the climate crisis? My colleague from Mirabel spoke about this at length last week. We are still waiting for the mandate letters to be sent to the various ministers, particularly the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. My colleagues and I are anxious so see that letter. Citizens and organizations continue to be concerned about the federal government's inaction on climate change. With a throne speech so lacking in content, that mandate letter would at least give us a true indication of the government's intentions on this issue, which, we must agree, is urgent. The new cabinet was sworn in on October 26. Five weeks have passed, and the Prime Minister is still keeping us waiting. For a government that kept saying how much it wanted to get to work, I have my doubts about how hard it has been working so far. What we are seeing right now in British Columbia and the Maritimes also happened in Quebec in 2018. Whether it be flooding, heat waves, forest fires or droughts, natural disasters are everywhere, and no region will be spared. Anyone who has doubts about the effects of the climate crisis should go and talk to the communities that are on high alert right now. The combined impact of climate change and the pandemic is serious. The global health of populations is being affected. New pathologies are emerging. Some are worsening and others are taking on an unprecedented scale. In November, researchers at the Université de Sherbrooke's faculty of medicine published the results of a study involving 10,000 people that was carried out over the past two years during the pandemic. I will provide a summary and I invite my colleagues to read the results in their entirety. The study shows that “the longer it takes governments to act on climate change, the greater the psychosocial impacts.” I also invite the government to read one of its own publications from the Public Health Agency of Canada, a special issue devoted entirely to climate change and health. In the first few pages we read the following: While the health sector is already grappling with climate change impacts on public health and healthcare needs, priorities, use, provision, and costs, health adaptation is generally under-represented in policies, planning, and programming. It is important to mention that the impact that the climate crisis is having on the health of vulnerable populations—in particular seniors, people living in rural areas, farmers and indigenous peoples—as evidenced by infectious diseases, food security, water, morbidity, mortality and the entire spectrum of mental health, is now a threat to everyone.

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The Deputy Speaker

Nov/30/21 6:30:10 p.m.
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It being 6:30 p.m., the hon. member will have three and a half minutes when we resume debate.

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

Nov/30/21 6:30:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think this may be the first adjournment proceedings of the 44th Parliament. I am honoured to stand here before the House to pursue an answer to a question I posed in question period on November 25. That was the day the commissioner for environment and sustainable development delivered a report that one could describe as scathing in relation to the government's record in reducing greenhouse gases and to one particular program. I refer in particular, for anyone who wants to look this up, to report 5 of the commissioner for environment and sustainable development, and to report 4. Report 5 dealt with a historical overview of what the Government of Canada has done and not done to deliver greenhouse gas reductions. Very clearly, it is a record of 30 years of failure. I have to say I am grief-stricken by that failure. I have had a front-row seat to that failure. I was working in the environment minister's office when the lines were written that are repeated in report 5. It was the conclusion of the first major scientific conference internationally on the climate crisis, which occurred in June 1988 in Toronto. There, the scientists assembled said the following, and it is quoted in report 5, which was released last week: “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war.” That was the conclusion of scientists in 1988, and we had a chance to do something about it globally, as a species and as economies. Not only did we fail, but we went in the other direction from the commitment we made in 1992 globally, and in Canada particularly, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the coming climate crisis. Both things were a commitment in 1992. We have done neither, and greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in Canada, which has the worst record of the G7, were 21% higher at the last recorded report than they were in 1990. I have had a front-row seat to a commitment from government after government to treat our children to an unlivable world, and we have precious little time to arrest that. That is why I asked the minister the question on November 25. COP26 left us with a tiny chance to hold to 1.5°C, which we must do, yet this report outlines that with respect to one particular program, a recent one that is only partially under way, the so-called onshore emissions reduction fund, after $70 million being spent, the environmental commissioner within the Office of the Auditor General and Natural Resources Canada, which administered the program, were unable to point to a single tonne of greenhouse gases reduced because of the money the people of Canada were spending. I will just quote this one paragraph: “Overall, Natural Resources Canada did not design the Onshore Program of the Emissions Reduction Fund to ensure credible and sustainable reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector or value for the money spent.” The minister in response said not to worry, because that program was to help the oil and gas sector during the pandemic. It was an economic problem. The oil and gas sector got the same salary reimbursements as other sectors. Did they need to double dip? If they did, should we not be able to see some emissions reductions?

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Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)

Nov/30/21 6:34:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my esteemed colleague for her decades-long activism on this file. I am making this address from my service vehicle, a 100% electric vehicle, in transit to Ottawa, which is not to make a statement about my street cred on environmental issues but I would simply point that out. My government wishes to thank the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development for his work and his report. As my colleague for Saanich—Gulf Islands knows very well, we have made tremendous progress when it comes to climate change. Let us go back to our earlier years of activism to COP1 in 1995 where very few people were paying attention to this. We only had one IPCC report that started to point to the fact that humans were causing global warming, and the only thing that countries could agree upon in Berlin in 1995 was that the commitments that we had made in Rio in 1992 were inadequate. Twenty-five years ago in Berlin, the only thing the countries could agree on was the fact that the commitments made in Rio to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels by 2000 were inadequate. Those commitments did not include any emissions reduction targets, no international mechanism to combat climate change, or any dedicated funding mechanism by the industrialized countries to help developing countries adapt to climate change. I attended the Glasgow summit a few weeks ago as the new Minister of Environment and Climate Change. More than 50,000 people attend those conferences, and it is no longer just government negotiators, NGO representatives and scientists. At these meetings, we now have representatives from civil society, indigenous organizations, labour, municipalities, businesses and the financial sector, as well as innovators and investors. They are all saying that they want to be part of this and they want to be part of the solution, which is something we have never seen before. To say that nothing has happened when looking at all of the initiatives that have taken place at the municipal level, in our communities, in many provinces over the years and, frankly, all around the world is to deny the fact that the world has started to tackle climate change. Now, clearly, as the commissioner's report points out, we need to do more. There is an international agreement on the fact that we need to do more, which was recognized in Glasgow, which is recognized in many of the IPCC reports and which is certainly recognized in the commissioner's report. As I am sure my colleague has read the commissioner's report, she will know that the report did not study the 2016 pan-Canadian framework plan on climate change that our government presented in 2016, or the enhanced climate plan that was presented in 2020. The commissioner did not study the 100 or so measures that have been introduced by our government since 2016 as well as the $100 billion that we are currently investing in Canada. I will finish up on this. As our last inventories have shown, we have managed to flatten the curve to 2030. We have taken out more than 30 million tonnes of CO2 greenhouse emissions that would have been in the atmosphere. That is almost equivalent to half of Quebec's overall emissions. So, our plan is working, but we need to accelerate it.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Nov/30/21 6:39:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if I could have additional time to be the equivalent of the minister's what I would say is, number one, we measure success not by good programs on paper but by emissions reductions in real life. The atmosphere is not interested in negotiating with humanity nor is it interested in the Liberal Party doing better than the Conservative Party. All that matters is that we live within our carbon budgets, and we are not. If we do not hold to 1.5°C, as the developing world and low-lying island states say, it is a death sentence for them. After the summer we have had in British Columbia with nearly 600 of my fellow citizens dying in the heat dome, with the wildfires and now with the flooding, how many more death sentences do we take if we accept that 1.5°C is the best we can get and we are failing to get there? We are failing to meet our commitments, and the honourable minister knows it. It is not a prop that he has a bicycle on his wall, it is not a prop that he is in an electric car, but it is a prop to claim that we are doing what needs to be done when we are building pipelines and subsidizing fossil fuels.

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Hon. Steven Guilbeault

Nov/30/21 6:40:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. She is right. The objective in everything we do has to be a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations. As she is well aware, our latest records clearly show that we have started to do that. However, I agree with her. We must pick up the pace and do more. That is the message we got from Canadians in the last election. Canadians told us they wanted us to do more when it comes to climate change and to do it faster, which is why we have committed to present additional measures in the fight against climate change in Canada. We will not stop until we have achieved it. I am of the opinion that the last inventory we saw shows that it is the last time emissions will grow in Canada. From now on, we will see emissions continue to go down in this country as long as our government and subsequent governments continue to do what needs to be done to ensure that we achieve the targets.

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The Deputy Speaker

Nov/30/21 6:41:45 p.m.
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I know we had a bit of trouble with translation tonight because of the unauthorized headset. I know the minister was trying his best to participate in this, but I want to apologize to those who were trying to follow that in French. I am very disappointed that we did not have access to the French interpretation. The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 6:42 p.m.)

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