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House Hansard - 330

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 12, 2024 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 330 - Jun/12/24
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • Jun/12/24 6:13:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise this evening in Adjournment Proceedings to pursue a question I initially asked the Prime Minister on February 28. Although the topic of the rubric announced earlier today was climate change, I was really asking about a series of related issues in terms of Canada's preparedness to respond to extreme weather events, such as extreme wildfires and flooding, as well as the need to quickly pursue the clean electricity regulations promised by the government. The Prime Minister's answer was certainly on point, but I am grateful for a chance to pursue more completeness where it was lacking. Of course, it is no surprise that, when reduced to less than half a minute to respond to questions, none of the answers are particularly complete. However, in talking about a net-zero grid, the Prime Minister did commit to it again. I agree with everything the Prime Minister said in that answer or those statements. Therefore, this is not a confrontational raising of the issue in Adjournment Proceedings; what I would like to pursue tonight is just the adequacy of what Canada is doing. As we increasingly see, one of the very best ways to respond to the climate crisis and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is to shift to electrifying as much as possible, wherever we can, and to ensure that our source of electricity is 100% green and renewable. In that, we skip over a problem quite often. Perhaps I can just quote from the Prime Minister's response on February 28, where he said, “A net-zero grid will serve as the basis for climate actions across the economy”. That is true. The difficulty is that we have not really grasped a pretty sticky, unpleasant, thorny nettle, which is that we do not have a national grid in this country; province by province, we have a balkanized series of individual monopolistic utilities. Just as we have not yet solved interprovincial trade, we sure have not solved having an effective grid; I would point out that, in the European Union, believe it or not, 27 separate nation-states have a grid system with the ability to have national sovereignty at their borders. We would think that would mean they could not possibly do as good a job as Canada. One country with 10 provinces, three territories and one federal government should be wonderfully well-organized, but we are a shambles. We do not even think like a country compared with what the European Union has done, where it has a fully integrated grid. The members of the European Union were able, after Putin invaded Ukraine, to say that Ukraine deserves to have secure energy sources. It plugged Ukraine into the EU grid. We cannot plug the Maritimes into Hydro-Quebec. We have never had provinces at war with each other. France and Germany were at war with each other and collaborate better now than do Alberta and B.C. Somehow or other, we are going to have to figure out interprovincial-federal co-operation around an electricity grid that works north-south and east-west. Only then can we meet the Prime Minister's goal, the government's goal and Canadians' dream of an electricity grid that works.
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