44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2023 10:00AM
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-337, An Act to establish a national strategy on the reduction of textile waste.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to introduce the textile waste reduction strategy act, with thanks to the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for seconding this bill.
Consumers are currently buying more clothes and wearing them for less time than ever before. This has caused a sharp increase in the pollution, waste and greenhouse gas emissions associated with the fashion industry in Canada. We send nearly 500 million kilograms of textile waste to landfills every year.
This legislation would help address the impacts of fast fashion by requiring the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to develop a national strategy to reduce, reuse and recycle textile waste.
This bill is the result of the vision of a bright highschool student from Vancouver Kingsway, Kaylee Chou, who attends Windermere Secondary School. Kaylee is this year's winner of my Create Your Canada contest, which invites highschool students to participate in our democracy and offer their ideas for a better country. I hope all parliamentarians will support her thoughtful and creative initiative.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Timmins—James Bay and I have, on many occasions, publicly disagreed, but he points to what is surely the heart of this bill and something all Canadians should support. As he rightly says, Canada is burning right now. Alberta has been burning. Right now Quebec and Atlantic Canada are burning. Here in Ottawa, it is hard to breathe. There can be no more powerful clarion call to action.
The good news is that this bill would put into action our clean economy plan. Not only would that help to reduce emissions but, as the member for Timmins—James Bay pointed out, but it would also create great jobs. I want to personally thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for the contribution he made to the labour conditions we have included in our clean economy tax credits. It is so important to us that these credits build a clean economy but that they do it by creating great-paying jobs with pensions and with benefits, at the union average wage.
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Madam Speaker, we know that carbon tax 1 has done nothing to meet emissions targets. The Liberal government has failed to meet any of the targets it has set. Now it is going to impose carbon tax 2. By the time we combine both of these carbon taxes and then the GST, the tax on a tax, Canadians will be looking at spending 61¢ per litre just because of the Liberal-NDP coalition's taxes on carbon. It is again one of those things Canadians need to be made aware of, and I am happy that I can stand to speak about it.
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Madam Speaker, this budget allocates $80 billion over 10 years for a green transition fund. However, there will be no accountability to Parliament for that fund.
Moreover, the eligibility criteria involve being able to invest in the oil industry, even though reducing GHG emissions means reducing oil consumption.
How can my colleague find it logical to invest up to $80 billion over 10 years in the oil industry while pushing for the reduction of GHG emissions?
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- Jun/6/23 2:54:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has risen in the House on a number of occasions to speak on behalf of farmers. In front of me, I have a press release from the Canola Council of Canada congratulating our government on the clean fuel regulations. It states, “We’re pleased to see the CFR provides options that would minimize regulatory burden and allow canola to be used to reduce GHG emissions through biofuel production.” It talks about the $2 billion of expanded canola processing capacity that our clean fuel regulations will provide to Canadian canola grocers.
The member and that party are saying no to all of these investments.
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- Jun/6/23 2:57:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about the agricultural industry and the measures that we are putting in place to help that industry, like all industries, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
I am looking at a news release from the Canadian Canola Growers Association commending the government for its clean-fuel regulation that will make it possible to invest $2 billion in Canada's canola farmers to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural and transportation industries.
What the Conservatives are doing is saying no to those investments and yes to more climate change.
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- Jun/6/23 3:11:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, during Environment Week, I want to acknowledge Canada's progress since 2015. We are reducing emissions with our emissions reduction plan and getting to net-zero nationwide, while creating clean jobs. We are investing in net-zero emissions vehicles and eliminating harmful single-use plastics. We have accomplished a lot, but there is more to do.
Could the Minister of Environment and Climate Change tell the House more about our government's ongoing environmental efforts?
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question that perhaps the member can answer.
Why do the Liberals and the NDP insist on imposing a carbon tax when it clearly is not working?
Emissions continue to rise, so why are they imposing this?
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Madam Speaker, the member says “scrap the carbon tax”, but she also talked about the importance of the free market.
It seems to me there are numerous groups that believe in the free market and support the carbon tax and carbon pricing. For example, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Mining Association of Canada, the Business Council of Canada and the Fraser Institute, which is hardly a Liberal institution.
What would the member say in response to the Chamber of Commerce, which said that carbon pricing is generally the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to lower costs? Does the member not believe in climate change?
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Madam Speaker, I also found it very interesting that the member for Yorkton—Melville, in the exact same speech, said that a $467 grocery rebate was pretty much insignificant and that nobody would care about it because it really did not mean anything, but that later on in the same speech she said that a $330 CPP increase would mean something significant to people. In the same speech, she tried to downplay the grocery rebate because it was not going to be impactful, but apparently a CPP contribution amount increase that is lower than that will have a devastating impact on Canadians. We can see the hypocrisy coming from the other side. That was not just from day to day, but within the exact speeches they gave in a 10-minute period.
I am really glad she talked about forest fires and what we are seeing outside. If someone walks outside the doors of this place, they are going to smell the smoke, as we all have for the last day or so. These are the impacts of climate change. I am not trying to fearmonger. I am not trying to suggest that the entire city is going to be burnt to the ground in a couple of days, but we have to be realistic about this. The reality is that forest fires in this country have been increasing significantly since the 1980s. Despite the incredible work we have done with respect to prevention and suppression, they still tend to increase. Why is that? Someone may say it cannot just be climate change. They might ask how climate change does that.
The fire season, the season in which we see forest fires, now starts a week earlier and ends a week later than it did historically. We have drier conditions, which allow fires to start in the first place, to burn quicker and to be more impactful. We also know that half of the forest fires started in Canada are caused by lightening. Where does lightening come from? It comes from increased weather events, and we are seeing increased weather events. It is no mystery to anybody that the weather events happening throughout this country are much more dire than they used to be. Conservatives are heckling at that. I do not understand why they would, as it is a serious issue. These are Canadians' lives we are talking about
We have to make a meaningful impact. We have to realize we cannot do what the member for Yorkton—Melville said, which is that we are just one little country within a globe and this is a global ecosystem, so there is nothing we can really do and we should just throw up our hands. No, we work together with other countries on this planet, like Brian Mulroney did when he saved the world from the depletion of the ozone later. Brian Mulroney brought together 42 representatives from different countries throughout the world, in Montreal, to sign the Montreal Protocol on dealing with the depletion of the ozone layer. That is how we get things done.
Yes, members should clap for Brian Mulroney, a great progressive Conservative.
The problem is that the Conservatives of today do not look at it like that. They say we are just one little country in the world, and our emissions, comparatively speaking, are so low that we should not even worry about them. That is a very defeatist approach, and if that is the approach one wants to take, I guess it is their prerogative. I much prefer the approach of Brian Mulroney, a true progressive Conservative, who knew how to tackle world issues on the national stage and how to tackle world issues. He comes from a country that is so vast in size and limited in population compared to other countries in the world, but he knew what to do. We had a reputation of being able to do that. I find this defeatist attitude of “there is nothing we can do about it and we should just go on living our lives”, while there is literally smoke outside the doors of this building right now, so alarming.
I am very happy to see that, in this budget, we are continuing to support initiatives to get us away from burning fossil fuels. This is a transition we have to make, and it is a transition that is going to happen whether the Conservatives, or the House for that matter, are interested in being part of it or not. We are transitioning away from fossil fuels; it is happening.
One in 10 cars sold in 2022 in Canada was an electric vehicle. Do I have to explain to Conservatives how, when a new technology comes along, it takes off and the curve is exponential? By 2030, I predict, there will be very few cars sold in this country that are not zero-emission vehicles. That is the reality. This budget would provide for ensuring that we incentivize the production of EVs, the production of the batteries and the proper recycling of those batteries, because that is key as well. We want to be at the forefront of the new industries that are coming.
We can have the approach of just pretending it is not happening, and we can just keep burning fossil fuels, turn our backs on it and pretend that the world is not changing around us, like the Conservatives want, or we can be at the lead of it. We can be at the forefront of it. We can be bringing the talent and developing the talent right in our country to produce these products, patents and new ideas and concepts so Canada can be an exporter of that technology and not an importer of it. This is what we are poised to do right now with the countless number of EV manufacturers and EV battery plants that have expressed an interest and have decided to set up in Canada. In my opinion, we are genuinely at the forefront, and that is what is so absolutely key in this budget. This is why, every time I have spoken to the budget, I have spoken specifically to that.
Now, of course, what we are going to hear are multiple arguments about why electric vehicles are not sustainable or how our electricity grid will never be able to handle it. However, I have great confidence in Canadians' ability to innovate, to create and to develop new technologies that will help us deal with the challenges we face on any particular day. I have no doubt we will get through it, but we have to stay focused on the goal, and the goal is to transition to cleaner energy and away from fossil fuels.
I realize that the Conservatives will say that we have some of the cleanest standards and some of the cleanest fossil fuels, which I do not necessarily disagree with. However, I do not think it is fair, from the position of a first world country and G7 partner, one of the leaders in the OECD, to point fingers at other countries, developing countries in particular, and say “Well, look at what they are doing.” We have a responsibility in this world to be leaders, and Conservatives of the past knew that. As I mentioned, Brian Mulroney did that. He knew that about the ozone layer and when it came dealing with acid rain, and he took action. He did not care where the problem originated. He did not care who was ultimately responsible for the problem, but he believed in finding solutions everybody could agree on, and he believed that Canada could be part of the leadership on that.
Rather than Conservatives sitting on their hands and saying, “Oh well, there is nothing we can do. We are emitting only 7% of the emissions, blah, blah, blah”, why do they not start coming into the House with ideas on how we can encourage other nations to follow in our path and encourage them that the way Canada is doing it is right? That is Canada's role in this world, and it has been its role in the past. Conservative governments in the past have known that. It is just unfortunate that the reform party of today, which wears the colour blue, does not know that.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his fiery speech, as usual. Quebec made a choice to have an emissions trading system. That is its own system, which is why the carbon tax does not apply in Quebec.
My colleague spoke eloquently of the Montreal Protocol on CFCs. Obviously, we eliminated the threats to the ozone layer. The whole reason this came about was that an emissions trading system was implemented, increasing the price of these polluting products.
The higher price was an incentive, as the Conservatives like to think, to develop new technologies, which is why, today, the problem has largely been resolved.
If the western provinces, which do not like the carbon tax, had implemented this strategy that was used by the Mulroney government, they would not be getting the carbon tax in their provinces. Is it not somewhat their own fault that they are getting a carbon tax?
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Mr. Speaker, let me address the first and third questions to begin with.
The reason we have so much foreign direct investment is because of LNG Canada. In fact, much of the manufacturing and investments we are seeing in western Canada are related to pipelines and natural gas development. The natural gas development, which was the largest private sector investment in the history of Canada put forward by the Liberal Prime Minister, was exempt from the carbon tax. That is the only reason Liberals built it. It was because they knew that with carbon tax, it did not make economic sense for that project to go ahead. The Prime Minister and the premier of British Columbia decided not to apply the highest carbon tax in our country when that project went forward.
When that project is completed in the next five years, we are going to have an exorbitant number of skilled workers in northern British Columbia who will not have another project to go to because under the government's Bill C-69 from the 2015 Parliament, barely any single natural resource development project has been approved. We have to get more natural resource projects approved to supply Asia with clean LNG from Canada that is going to reduce global emissions and fight climate change.
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- Jun/7/23 12:14:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, thank you for being here this evening and into the wee hours of the morning. I would like to thank my friend and colleague, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for her question this evening, but not just for that. I want to thank her for her decades of service and her leadership. I would also like to thank her for being an incredible steward and spokesperson, a voice of reason in this House, an extraordinarily knowledge parliamentarian, and a great friend. I thank the member very much for engaging in the debate this evening.
Moving on to the substantive question, indeed, since 2015, our government has, as the member pointed out, invested a lot of money in climate action. We can be proud of this, collectively. We got elected, three times, on promises to take strong climate action, and since 2015, over $120 billion has been invested in over 100 various measures to support climate action and to address the climate emergency that we are all experiencing, highlighted today by many members in this House, who had noticeable differences in their voices. I cannot help but wonder if that is as a result of the smoke outside because of the nearby forest fires, which are not even really that nearby. They are just so big that the smoke has arrived here in Ottawa.
I saw some social media posts from people who have lived in Ottawa a lot longer than the time I have spent in Ottawa, some for over 50 years, saying they have never seen the sky look like it has today. It is really tragic that we find ourselves here.
We must continue to take bold action and be leaders on this issue for the world and for other countries to take note. We have a lot of common ground in the House. There are quite a few members, I would say the vast majority of the House believes in climate changes, believes it is an emergency and believes that we must take action.
It is still alarming to hear members, and I did today, say things such as, “It is weather. It is normal. There has always been climate change.” It is challenging, to be honest, to be in this place, to be a progressive politician and to care so much about climate action, and recognize that there are some of these very antiquated views that are persistent, primarily in the Conservative Party. I have never heard a member from another party in this House falsely describe climate change as “weather”.
We agree that oil and gas emissions must come down. To do that, we must introduce a cap on those emissions for the industry and for the sector. We have also taken action on the consumer side. It is well known and it is extremely well documented that pricing carbon and pricing pollution does result in lower emissions in the long run. It is shocking that we spend so much time in the House debating whether or not a price on pollution is effective, given that 338 members of the House, every single Conservative, NDP, Bloc Québécois, Liberal and Green member, campaigned on a promise to price carbon, yet we find ourselves, in 2023, debating the veracity and legitimacy of a price on pollution.
On this side of the House, including the Green side of the House, we agree that pricing pollution is one of the many ways that we can fight climate change, but we know that there is more that we must do. We have a bold price on pollution, but we also have to take more environmental action and more climate mitigation, as well as adaptation strategies.
I can see that I am nearing the end of my speech, and I will have time for a follow-up, so I will pass it back to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
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