QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Environment and Climate Change
Climate Plan
November 22, 2023
When you were an environmental activist, I didn’t approve of all your actions, but I recognize that you were committed and made few compromises. However, to play along with Justin Trudeau’s politics, you had to accept the purchase of a pipeline, you had to swallow your personal ideals and let the Bay du Nord project go through, and now you have to accept that your government is taking a step backwards on the carbon tax — which I see as electoral considerations.
My question is this: Are you willing to further compromise your environmentalist ideas to remain in cabinet?
Our government has done more than any other government in the fight against climate change. I already listed several of the measures that I myself have put in place over the past two years, including the Clean Fuel Standard, reducing methane emissions, the incentives for purchasing zero-emission vehicles, the Clean Electricity Regulations and the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies.
No G20 country has eliminated fossil fuel subsidies. We are the first country to do so, even though we are the fourth-largest oil and gas producer. It’s easy for countries to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies if they don’t produce natural gas or oil. However, oil and gas production are essential in Canada, and yet we are still the first country to eliminate those subsidies, and we did so two years earlier than planned. Do we have a perfect track record? Of course not. I’m the father of four children and I don’t win all of my battles at home, so I don’t expect to win all of my battles in a country of 40 million people.
We’re making unprecedented progress in the fight against climate change in Canada, and we’re on track to meet our 2040 targets, but I’m the first to admit that we need to keep working on this and never give up, as the Conservatives would have us do. There is no on-off switch to stop climate change. It’s going to take a lot of hard work on our part as a society over the next few years, if not decades. That said, I think we can do it, but we have to keep working.
There have never been so many environmental regulations and laws as there are since you took office, and never so much investment, to the tune of $200 billion. Despite all of this, officials who measure Canada’s record have found that you never meet your targets.
The Climate Change Performance Index ranked Canada 58 out of 63 countries on its performance. When we look at the overall picture, what is not working? Could you set attainable targets?
I share your frustration. It takes time for measures to be implemented after they are adopted. I suspect that some organizations, like the Climate Change Performance Index, will change Canada’s ranking for the better when they see all the efforts that we’re making and that those efforts are starting to reduce climate pollution in Canada.
We had the best record in the G7 in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 2019 to 2021. Some will say that that that was because there was a pandemic, but all of the G7 countries were dealing with the pandemic. It is called a pandemic because it wasn’t just happening in Canada.
Despite everything, our performance in that regard is becoming more and more respectable, but I’m the first to admit that a lot more needs to be done.
