44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 17, 2022 10:00AM
- May/17/22 3:04:05 p.m.
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Everyone has the right to ask questions and hear the answers.
The hon. member for Châteauguay—Lacolle has the floor again.
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- May/17/22 3:04:05 p.m.
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Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Across Canada, people have experienced extreme heat waves, their houses have been destroyed by forest fires or floods, and their crops have been devastated by drought. Building a secure and healthy future for Canadians means building houses, infrastructure and an economy prepared to deal with the realities of climate change.
Yesterday, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change launched public consultations to develop Canada's first-ever national adaptation strategy. Could he—
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- May/17/22 3:04:39 p.m.
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The Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
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- May/17/22 3:04:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Châteauguay—Lacolle for her question and her work on the environment in her riding.
When the roof over our heads is leaking, we repair it and then we can think about what to have for dinner. We can and we must mitigate the impacts of climate change and, at the same time, prepare for it.
These consultations will lead to the first inclusive national adaptation strategy, which will ensure that we are prepared to face the climate of today and tomorrow, and to implement measures to ensure the safety and well-being of our families, our communities and the environment.
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- May/17/22 3:05:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the temporary foreign worker saga continues. On April 15, 2022, after eight months of waiting, some businesses in my riding received their confirmation letters of a positive labour market impact assessment.
That is far too long and the process is not even complete. The government has a duty to simplify the process for approving temporary foreign workers. When will it do so?
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- May/17/22 3:06:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, addressing the labour shortages is a top priority for our government, and that is why we are putting additional resources toward processing cases, including work permits, to ensure that people have access to the workers they need. I would advise the hon. member that the average processing time for work permits in the province of Quebec today is 33 days, which is among the very best available in Canada.
We are going to continue to do everything we can to get businesses the workers they need. Our economy depends on it, and it is is going to help kick-start our economic recovery from the COVID-19 recession.
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- May/17/22 3:06:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Cardinal Joseph Zen is a 90-year-old retired Catholic cardinal, much loved throughout China and the world for his deep faith and courageous advocacy for democracy. The Chinese Communist Party now considers this 90-year-old clergyman a threat to national security and has arrested Cardinal Zen. Arrested alongside Zen are a number of other prominent voices for justice and human rights, including Canadian citizen, singer and actress Denise Ho.
Will the government join us in clearly condemning these arrests and also commit to strengthening immigration measures to make it easier for human rights defenders in Hong Kong to come to Canada?
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- May/17/22 3:07:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the relationship that Canada has with China is complex, it is challenging and it is always important for us to be mindful of it. As we engage in that relationship, there are no more important issues than Canadian values and Canadian rights, including the human rights agenda of this country.
We will continue to stand up for human rights at every opportunity and take every opportunity to speak to our Chinese counterparts about the issues the member has raised.
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- May/17/22 3:07:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a recent episode of The Fifth Estate, Canadians were horrified and shocked to see tonnes of plastic waste shipped overseas from Canada where it is being burned and dumped in developing countries. While other nations take action, the Liberals are doing nothing. They even blocked my Conservative bill to ban the export of plastic waste.
Enough is enough. We need action. The world's oceans and the environment are suffering.
Will the Liberals finally stop this shameful practice?
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- May/17/22 3:08:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government is in the process of putting in the first-ever Canadian strategy to reduce plastic pollution, move Canada toward a circular economy, ban single-use plastics and force plastic companies to use more recycled content in the plastic they produce.
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- May/17/22 3:08:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the environment is a very important issue for my constituents in Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne.
Yesterday we announced a major investment in the biomethanization facilities in Varennes, which serve the city of Longueuil, among others.
Could the minister tell us more about this project and what it would do for the Quebec economy and for our environment?
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- May/17/22 3:09:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, members will not be surprised to hear me thank my colleague for the outstanding work that she does.
We are proud to be investing more than $25 million in this expansion project, which will help many municipalities in Montreal divert more organic materials. This will reduce our emissions by more than 13,000 tonnes a year and divert thousands of tonnes of organic waste.
This is all thanks to the hard work of our colleague from Longueuil—Charles‑LeMoyne.
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- May/17/22 3:10:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the public service has gone back in time to the good old days when the foremen gave orders in English and francophones did their bidding.
The federal government is hardly setting an example for CN or Air Canada; in fact, it is doing the same thing. In all, 19% of deputy ministers and associate deputy ministers speak French as their first official language, compared to 31% of workers and 23% of society as a whole. The Prime Minister decides who is to be appointed. He can correct this situation.
When will he show leadership and correct this representation gap at the top of the civil service?
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- May/17/22 3:10:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, official languages are essential to the effective and efficient delivery of our federal services. Over 40% of public servants in the federal government are bilingual.
Our government is also developing a new framework for language qualification standards, supervision and assessment to support a culture of bilingualism in the public service. All deputy ministers have a duty to support and promote the objectives of the Official Languages Act by encouraging the use of both official languages within their organizations.
We will continue to pursue our efforts.
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- May/17/22 3:11:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week the Competition Bureau filed to block the Rogers-Shaw merger. This merger would eliminate competition, hurt business growth and increase consumer prices. Canadians pay some of the highest cellphone fees in the world. We pay close to double what the U.S. does for data alone. Now another telecom giant, Quebecor, is using this disastrous merger to try to acquire Freedom Mobile. This will only lead to more price gouging for Canadians.
Will the government finally do its job, just as the Competition Bureau has, and stop this outrageous fleecing of Canadians by blocking this merger? Where is the accountability?
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- May/17/22 3:12:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, accountability is on this side. I have been very clear to Canadians that affordability is central in my decision. I have even said publicly that under no circumstances will I allow the wholesale transfer of licences from Rogers to Shaw.
This is an experienced member of the House. He knows that in addition to my department, the CRTC needs to make a decision, as does the Competition Bureau. Affordability is key to Canadians. That is what we will defend.
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- May/17/22 3:13:33 p.m.
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We have a few visitors joining us in the gallery. I wish to draw the attention of members to the presence in the gallery of the finalists of the 2022 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing: Mike Blanchfield, Joanna Chiu, Stephen Poloz and Geoffrey Stevens.
Please rise and receive a warm welcome.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
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- May/17/22 3:13:41 p.m.
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When we left this, the hon. member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay had four minutes in debate.
The hon. member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.
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- May/17/22 3:13:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we left off for question period, I was talking about how Canada is uniquely positioned to become a renewable energy superpower. During the natural resources committee's study on critical minerals, we learned that Canada is the only nation in the western hemisphere with all of the minerals and metals needed to produce the advanced batteries, electric motors and wind turbine generators that will be needed in the low-carbon economy. The International Energy Agency's net-zero energy scenario estimates that the global value for select critical minerals will grow substantially over the next two decades, reaching today's level for coal market value of about $400 billion U.S. by 2040.
The opportunity is there for Canada to both reach net zero and prosper, but we cannot continue down the path that Liberal and Conservative governments have chosen when it comes to spending money on the oil and gas sector. Canada currently spends more per capita on those subsidies than any other developed country. We cannot keep paying companies to clean up their own pollution.
New Democrats know that public funds are best spent supporting the transition to renewable energy and helping Canadians struggling with the high cost of living, rather than on profitable oil and gas companies. Instead of spending billions on new oil pipelines, we should be building hydrogen infrastructure for heavy transportation hubs, stronger provincial interties to distribute clean electricity across Canada, and electric vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing, and we should be training and employing workers now working in the oil and gas sector in these new opportunities. They are opportunities that will last into the future.
This is where the puck is going.
We need to stop providing those subsidies to oil and gas companies, which delay climate action, and instead spend that money on climate action. Increasingly, we need to spend money on climate adaptation, since the effects of global warming are locked in. We have to talk about the cost of climate inaction, and that cost is rising every year.
Right now, Canadian governments, businesses and citizens spend more than $5 billion annually to fix the destruction caused by increased fires and floods. That is predicted to rise to over $40 billion by 2050. At the moment, the federal government puts up just over $300 million of that cost. It is past time that we faced up to the rising costs of climate change.
We must realign the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund to spend more on adaptation, so that we protect communities from disaster rather than rebuild them after the fact. Last year, British Columbia communities such as Lytton, Princeton, Merritt and many more, were badly impacted by fire and floods. Small communities such as these do not have the monetary resources to rebuild under present funding formulas.
We must have a clear strategy for the future that faces the facts of climate change, both limiting the extent of future changes and dealing with the changes that have already taken place. Canada's future is very bright, but first we must invest in that future, not in the past.
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- May/17/22 3:17:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have always heard the NDP picking up for unionized workers and picking up for workers in general, but I heard the member come down hard on the oil industry. Most of those workers are union-paying members.
Is he saying to put them out of work and leave them without jobs?
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