44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 19, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/19/23 10:24:19 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise virtually this morning to present a petition from constituents who are very concerned about the galloping climate crisis.
The particular approach of these petitioners, physicians, is to cite the health impacts of the climate crisis and to draw the attention of the House to the scientific consensus as represented in the Paris Agreement, that global emissions must be rapidly reduced for it to hold to a less-than-1.5°C global average temperature increase and to make the cuts that are necessary before the year 2030.
Petitioners direct the House to the finding of the World Health Organization, that the climate crisis represents the single largest threat to human health of the 21st century.
They call on the government to act rapidly to reduce the health threats that they list and that I will only summarize, the impacts from wildfire smoke, the impacts on lungs, the increase in insect-borne diseases such as Lyme disease, the threats created by heat domes and heat-related illnesses and death.
They call on this House to act rapidly to complete the end of the dependence of our economy on fossil fuels and take necessary steps to move rapidly to not just net zero but a zero-carbon green energy future.
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Madam Speaker, what I am hearing from my Conservative friends is scary.
The fight against climate change is probably one of the biggest challenges of our time. Canada is already one of the world's worst performers on this issue according to pretty much any available indicator. We really are one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to climate change.
The Liberals are useless. They are not doing anything. For years, we have been fighting to get them to take action and stop investing in the oil industry. Now I am hearing from my Conservative friends that they want to do even less so we can be even worse than we already are. There were floods this summer and fires all over the place. This is an emergency. The planet is burning right now. My Conservative friends want to do even less.
Where I come from, we have groups like Mothers Step In and Ciel et Terre, which I talked to two weeks ago. We cleaned up the St. Lawrence shoreline. They all came to see me. They said they had seen the polls and were worried about the Conservatives taking power. They wanted me to tell them that will not happen. I could not tell them anything.
These people are worried. What do the Conservatives have to say to them?
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Madam Speaker, thank you for this opportunity today to speak to an incredibly important piece of legislation, Bill C-50, Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act.
For many reasons, the people of Canada are going through challenging times. I think we can all agree on that. Many of them are unprecedented. Canadian workers and jobs, and the global economy, were heavily affected by the global pandemic. On top of that, we experienced unprecedented wildfire levels over the summer. It has been reported that there were 6,118 wildfires that burned 15 million hectares and 200,000 people were placed under evacuation orders. Experts say these were influenced by climate change.
Like the rest of the world, Canada must adjust if we want to give ourselves a fighting chance against climate change. Many Canadians have already had climate change impact their work, including workers in the agricultural, fishing, emergency services and tourism industries. There was the interruption of supply chains. Many elements of mining and mining infrastructure have also been significantly affected by climate change. I could go on, but suffice to say few sectors and few hard-working Canadians will be able to carry on as normal at their jobs or in their lives as long as the planet continues to heat up.
That has been, as noted, one of the hottest seasonal temperatures on record with warm ocean temperatures, category 5 hurricanes and many extreme weather events. We have seen them play out in the media over the last year. All of us are rightfully concerned, and should be doubling down and tripling down our efforts on fighting climate change.
With Bill C-50, our government is determined to help Canadian workers stay ahead of the curve in today's rapidly changing job market. If parliamentarians are committed to supporting Canadian workers through the transition to a low-carbon economy, we must come together across party lines and work together.
Certainly, we do not need more signs from Mother Nature that we need to do this right now. I think Mother Nature has given us plenty signs for decades now, and it is time to get on with this. I think this bill makes a significant contribution to our climate action efforts.
The need to move fast does not mean we need to do this piecemeal, or thoughtlessly or carelessly. Canadian workers, their families and their communities, whether in our largest cities or in the farthest reaches of our territories, need substantive and clear legislation that commits Canada's government to action that supports them.
This act was written after extensive consultation with the people it is intended to help, which is a primary principle of all good consultation work. It has to include the people who are most impacted. Their words assisted us in defining its purpose to help the government facilitate the creation of sustainable jobs for Canada's workers, while seizing opportunities for economic growth.
We want to provide support for workers and their communities in the shift to a low-carbon economy, and ensure transparency, accountability and ongoing engagement with Canadians across every region of the country on issues like training, workers' rights, the job market, economic growth, and, of course, reducing emissions.
This framework and all federal action on sustainable jobs would be guided by the principles enshrined in this legislation. They are principles that would strengthen our collective efforts, ensuring that all of Canada's national policies and programs, and the federal entities that carry out this work, are grounded in the fundamental values that underpin this work. This would be along with international best practices, and would be delivered equitably, fairly and inclusively.
This means that this act supports the creation of decent, high-quality work opportunities for Canadians by establishing a framework for effective action. Through this framework, we would be better positioned to address the barriers that have made it difficult for some to join the workforce. This legislation has four guiding principles developed in consultation with Canadians, built on guidelines adopted by the International Labour Organization, and tailored to fit with what Canadians value.
The first principle reflects the need for adequate, informed and ongoing social dialogue between government, workers and industry. Social dialogue is a term used by the International Labour Organization to describe all types of communications that help build understanding of and consensus about issues impacting the workforce. The government believes that this is a must if we want to shift to a low-carbon economy, to succeed for Canada's workers, their families and their communities.
The second guiding principle of this legislation is that the policies and programs that are put in place should support the creation of decent work, meaning good-paying, high-quality jobs, including union jobs. It is work that is productive and delivers a fair income. It is work that gives workers a voice in decisions that affect them.
Labour policies and programs influenced by this legislation should consider job security and social protections to reduce and prevent poverty and vulnerability among Canada's workers, as well as promote ongoing social dialogue. We also need the policies and programs associated with sustainable jobs to recognize local and industry-specific needs.
During our extensive consultations, Canadians told us openly and directly that they want Canada's government to acknowledge, with real action, that regions dominated by fossil fuel jobs have unique needs and opportunities. They told us that our policies need to reflect the fact that workers in high-emitting industries need pathways to low-carbon industries as the world shifts to different sources of energy. I can assure the members of this House that we hear those concerns.
Closely related to that is the need for our policies and programs to reflect workers' cultural values, strengths and potential while we create an environment where workers, businesses, investors and consumers can create sustainable, inclusive economies and societies.
The third guiding principle in this act recognizes that shifting to a low-carbon economy presents an important opportunity to improve the diversity of Canada's workforce and address barriers to the participation of marginalized and under-represented groups in the labour force.
Let me use the mining industry as an example. The industry's need to hire more workers is an opportunity to diversify its workforce. Women and people who have been granted permanent resident status in Canada are vastly under-represented in mining, making up only 15% and about 7% of its workforce, respectively.
While mining is the second-largest employer of indigenous peoples in Canada, accounting for 12% of the upstream mining workforce, the data shows us that indigenous people overwhelmingly hold entry-level manual jobs. We can and must unlock the potential of Canada's under-represented population groups if we are to have enough workers to fill all of the jobs that expect to be created over the next two decades. It is a significant number of jobs. RBC has reported that by the end of 2030, this could create as many as 400,000 jobs in Canada.
Because the need to fight climate change and expand sustainable employment is a global issue, the last guiding principle in the sustainable jobs act is international co-operation. Canada already works routinely and extensively with other countries, and we are proud that international co-operation is widely considered to be one of our strengths.
Canada is playing a leadership role on the international stage to promote an inclusive and people-centred approach, and I highlight, underline and emphasize “people-centred approach”, to the clean energy shift or transition, leading on a range of initiatives to advance sustainable jobs while promoting diversity and inclusion of marginalized groups in the clean energy sector.
Notably, Canada is leading the Equal by 30 campaign, which encourages voluntary commitments from both public and private sector organizations to work toward equal pay, equal leadership and equal opportunities for women and other marginalized groups in the energy sector by 2030. Canada co-leads the clean energy ministerial empowering people initiative with the United States and the European Commission, which brings together like-minded partners to advance people-centred transitions. There is more collaboration I could mention, but I will stop there.
In our extensive consultations with Canadians, we were told to bring our people-centred approach to our international work, and we agree wholeheartedly. People-centred legislation makes it easier for our policies to remain coherent at every level of government, but, more importantly, it is critical to ensuring that Canadians have equal access to a variety of social supports or job training and job opportunities.
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Madam Speaker, obviously my colleague across the way does not truly understand the gravity of the situation of the global climate crisis we are in. The transition of workers from one industry to another, from high-emitting to low-emitting industries, is going to require a significant transition of workforce. That is exactly what this legislation aims to do, to make that transition as equitably, fairly and inclusively as humanly possible and ensure all partners across Canada are involved, especially labour organizations, as well as industry partners and indigenous groups, in making those decisions.
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- Oct/19/23 2:26:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, according to a study that came out two days, in Canada, 60% of small and medium-sized businesses across the country have been affected by extreme weather events this year alone, and 44% of them say that it has had a direct hit on their revenue.
What is the response from the Conservative Party? They want to make pollution free again, have more climate change, more air pollution and more water pollution. Canadians cannot take any of the propositions that the Conservative Party has for them.
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- Oct/19/23 2:50:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I share the concerns of my hon. colleague. The leader of an important company like Suncor should be working with us to help fight climate change in a time where we are seeing record heat and record flooding all around the world, including in our country. We have record forest fires and hurricanes.
We need everyone to step up to the plate. We know it will not be the Conservative Party, but we are counting on all the leaders in our country, except the Conservative Party, to work with us to ensure that Canada does its fair share when it comes to fighting climate change.
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- Oct/19/23 2:53:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. colleague fully understands that farmers fully depend on what happens with the climate. In Prince Edward Island, we had hurricane Fiona. It blew warehouses down. It blew dairy barns down and killed cattle. In western Canada, where my hon. colleague is from, straw is worth $300 a bale. The Prairies burned and had floods. Quite simply, if we do not deal with the climate, we will not ever do anything about the price of food or be able to help farmers.
We will continue to address the climate issue in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased and proud to take part in this debate since it is an essential debate for the future of Canada and, let us be honest, for the future of the planet. We are talking here about the vision, the perspective we have when it comes to Canada's natural resources given the challenges we are facing with climate change, which is real.
First, let us begin by defining what is at stake. Climate change is real. Humans are contributing to it. Humans therefore need to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and, ultimately, reducing pollution. Over the eight years that this government has been here, what is Canada's record?
Using a mathematical and scientific process, the United Nations, or UN, which is not just any old organization, analyzed 63 countries around the world to see which nations were most effective at countering the effects of climate change. After eight years of this Liberal government, Canada ranks 58 out of 63 countries. That is not our statistic. It did not come from overly conservative observers. It did not come from climate deniers. No, it came from people in the UN. They handed out their report card: After eight years of the Liberal government, Canada is ranked 58 out of 63 when it comes to effectively fighting climate change.
Will people be surprised by this disappointing result given that the government had pumped itself up and bragged about their ambitious targets?
“Canada is back.” That is exactly what the Prime Minister said eight years ago in Paris. People all around the world applauded that Canada was back. However, after eight years, Canada is way back, at number 58 out of 63. That is the result of policies based on ideology, not on pragmatism and practice.
That is why, sadly, Bill C‑50 follows once again in the same Liberal tradition that this government is imposing on Canadians. In other words, the Liberals think that they are the only ones who know what to do, that they will tax everyone and that is going to reduce emissions.
After eight years, that is not what happened. This government has never met its targets. The rare times when there were reductions was, unfortunately, during the pandemic. If the Liberals' game plan is to bring Canada back there and shut down the economy for a few months, that is not exactly the best thing to do. We can all agree.
It is obvious that introducing carbon taxes is not working. That is the reality. Why is that not working? Because we would need all 195 countries in the world to have carbon pricing systems that were equivalent everywhere, with the same requirements everywhere and the same challenges everywhere The problem, however, is that the big polluters, the big emitters, starting with our biggest neighbour, do not subscribe to this system. This is a prime example of how important geography can be. The United States of America is our main neighbour, our main economic partner and our main competitor. Here in Canada, we are always quick and proud to lecture those around us. We tax people. We tax businesses. We tax wealth creators. We tax job creators. As a result, people go elsewhere instead of investing here. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. It is better to go elsewhere. That is the problem with this dogmatic approach.
Our approach is much more concrete, pragmatic and effective. It will deliver tangible results. On September 2, 2,500 Conservative supporters from across Canada gathered in Quebec City for our national convention. We had not had this type of event in five years. We were all under the same roof. The event took place on the evening of September 2 in Quebec City. I am from Quebec City. I am very proud to say that.
On September 2, there was a milestone speech by the future prime minister of Canada, the hon. member for Carleton. He is the leader of the official opposition today, but he will be the next prime minister. It was a milestone speech, the Quebec speech. It framed where we want to go with the next Conservative government, and when he talked about climate change, the leader was crystal clear that the real impact of climate change has to be addressed. That is what he said. This is why we recognize it, but we want to address it with pragmatism, not ideology.
The speech given in Quebec City is a big part of the history of Canadian politics and it will make its mark like many other important speeches in our history. That is why it will be remembered as the vision that the party had when Canadians gave us the honour of putting their trust in us to form the next government.
What was said in that speech?
The first pillar is that climate change is having a real impact and that it must be addressed. We need pragmatic measures to deal with climate change. Rather than imposing taxes, we are going to encourage people, through tax incentives, to invest in new technologies, research and development and measures that can be immediately implemented to reduce pollution. That is the objective. It is all well and good to brag about lofty principles and say that we are going to reduce emissions by 2.3% compared to what happened in 1991 because it was different in 1996, and so on. That is all theoretical. The reality is that there is pollution and we want to reduce pollution.
When we talk about reducing pollution, it is a never-ending story. We hear that we need to reduce, reduce and reduce. If we can reduce by 20% this year, then great and congratulations. What will be done on January 1 to continue to reduce pollution and emissions? Our plan is based on incentives in research and development to help reduce pollution. This is the first pillar.
The second pillar is to give the green light to green energy. People have projects ready to go right now. They want to invest in green energies and they want to do research and development, but there is too much red tape. We need to act efficiently. I would like to provide a very specific example. Quebec is currently engaged in a lively debate about the future of hydroelectricity. Should we relive the great 1950s, when we gave the green light to so many hydroelectric projects in Quebec, or should we do things differently? This is an ongoing debate. Does everyone know that, through Bill C‑69, the federal government has given itself the right to veto hydroelectric projects in Quebec? This is slowing thing down.
We want to do the opposite and speed up the process of giving people greater access to green energy. When I say “green energy”, I am talking about hydroelectricity, geothermal energy, solar energy, wind energy, as well as nuclear energy. These are all avenues that we need to explore further with new technology to make them more efficient and more accessible to Canadians. That is where it can happen.
The third pillar is that we must be proud to be Canadian, proud of our know-how, our energy and our natural resources. Yes, Canada is rich in intelligence. Yes, Canada is rich when it comes to researchers, natural resources and energy. Yes, as Canadians, we must prioritize these Canadian assets and export this know-how. We have extraordinary know-how in hydroelectricity; we are the best in the world. We should be exporting that know-how.
The same thing can be said of natural resources. There is a lot of talk about the electrification of transport. I, for one, am a supporter and I believe in the future of electric cars to combat the greenhouse effect. However, this requires lithium. We have lithium in Canada. Why is it taking years to get shovels in the ground? We need to speed things up.
That is why we should be proud of who we are. That is why we need to green-light green energy. That is why we need tax incentives to accelerate research and development. Concrete, realistic, responsible, pragmatic measures will enable us to fight the harmful impacts of climate change. For the past eight years, the Liberals have opted for their carbon tax and the second tax that, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, will cost over 20 cents a litre, or 16 cents plus tax. We know the Bloc Québécois had two opportunities to say no to the first carbon tax and the second one. Twice, the Bloc Québécois lent its full support and voted with the Liberal government to keep both taxes.
That is not the approach we recommend. We believe that Canadian know-how, smarts and natural resources are the best way to face the challenge of climate change.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise with respect to this legislation and the urgency of moving forward. We have come across the worst climate catastrophe in our nation's history with the hottest summer on record. Normally, September is when fire season is over. Just this past September, in one weekend, more carbon was pumped into the atmosphere from burning Canadian forests than is normally pumped in an entire year of Canada's boreal forest fires. That is one part of the urgency.
The other part of the urgency is that just this past month, the International Energy Agency announced that the beginning of the end of the oil and gas industry is now foreseeable on the horizon. The agency is warning governments that they have to make a plan because they are going to be stuck with stranded assets if they continue to invest in an industry that can no longer compete with what is happening internationally with the rise of—
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Mr. Speaker, I will not be intimidated by a group of climate change deniers. I will continue to speak facts. They can interrupt me all night long—
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Mr. Speaker, I have been clear. I have stood in this House. I have talked about plans for climate change reduction. It is offensive that the member opposite is saying that we are climate change deniers.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I am just seeking clarification on your ruling. Are you saying that the term “climate change denier” is unparliamentary?
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Mr. Speaker, I think of Bill C-49 and Bill C-50. Bill C-49 had phenomenal support, not only from the House of Commons but also from the premiers in Atlantic Canada. It was all about renewable energy and future clean, green jobs. There are literally hundreds of thousands of potential jobs from there to Bill C-50, and we recognize the future. There is a need to develop, promote and encourage those green jobs. However, the Conservatives, as they voted against Bill C-49, are now going to be voting against Bill C-50.
The member often makes reference to climate change deniers. Why does he feel the Conservatives are challenging these good, futuristic middle-class jobs that are going to be there today and tomorrow?
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