Hon. Mary Coyle: Honourable senators, I rise today to regale you with more good news coming out of my home province of Nova Scotia.

This year, three national Clean50 awards were handed out to Nova Scotians: Dr. Dave Risk of St. Francis Xavier University, recognized in the Education & Thought Leadership category; Shannon Miedema and the City of Halifax for its climate action plan called HalifACT in the Cities and Top Projects categories; and Clean Foundation of Halifax for its Clean Energy Financing program for homeowners, which works through municipalities.

The Clean50 awards recognize leaders from across Canada who have done the most to advance climate action and develop climate solutions. Our colleague, Senator Rosa Galvez, was previously recognized with a Clean50 award.

Dr. David Risk and his Flux Lab at St. Francis Xavier University — which happens to also include my daughter, Lindi Coyle — was recognized for delivering societally relevant science at scale. They recently completed the largest bottom-up oil and gas measurement study of its kind in the world as they measured the methane emissions of over 7,000 sites across six major oil and gas-producing regions in Canada.

The resulting data sets will be crucial for improving Canadian inventories and drafting regulation to achieve emission reduction targets within our country and around the world. Also working in the Arctic to measure the gases associated with permafrost decay and conducting measurements in the waste sector, Dr. Risk’s Flux Lab website says:

Whether by foot, truck, drone, robot, plane, or satellite, we work to improve the measurement of greenhouse gases.

Now, to the provincial capital, the city of Halifax, which was voted the Clean50 Top Project of-the-Year in all of Canada for its ambitious and inspirational plan HalifACT: Acting on Climate Together. On January 29, 2019, Halifax declared a climate emergency and began a careful, comprehensive and participatory process to develop a plan to get city operations to net-zero emissions by 2030 and the whole city to net zero by 2050. Approved by council in June 2020, the HalifACT initiative focuses on mitigation, adaptation and resilience for this coastal city and includes a set of 46 actions to help the city meet its goals. The main components are retrofitting existing buildings, building net-zero new buildings, installing rooftop solar, developing large-scale renewables and electrifying transportation.

Honourable senators, please join me in congratulating Shannon Miedema and her team at HalifACT, the Clean Foundation of Halifax as well as Dr. David Risk and his Flux Lab team at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish. These impressive climate solutions are making a difference.

Wela’lioq. Thank you.