Elizabeth May
Saanich—Gulf Islands, British Columbia · Green Party · Canada
“It is easy to roll out solar panels, except that our provincial utilities get in the way. In any case, the cheapest source of electricity, reducing the cost for everyone, would come from focusing on renewable electricity. I do think there is some promise, although it needs a lot of work.”
“We are the only party in the House that does not receive a penny of support from the parliamentary budget, being both unrecognized and unfavoured. I am glad my colleagues from the NDP received funding to make up for what they lost when they ceased to be a recognized party. I have less money, but I am here, and I am not alone.”
“When it became clear that children were dying of Reye syndrome in New Brunswick because of forest aerial spraying by the forest industry. He stated, “I don't like to see people dying. This is one of the things I really wouldn't like to see.”
“That is not the only thing I want to concentrate on, although I will take most of the time, and I am grateful for the chance to speak to this bill now, finally, in this place. Regarding the removal of the excise tax, I have asked before about this in question period.”
“There is not even a link in the language used within the spring economic statement, the budget itself or Bill C-30, but it clearly, by inference, rests on this assumption: More pesticides are going to reduce food prices and help the economy. That is a leap. Let us say that is wrong, based on the evidence, in two ways.”
“Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary is a friend, so when I say a friend, it is not just rhetoric, but I am disappointed. When Bill C-30 was first tabled, I asked the hon.”
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“Mr. Chair, I have gone through times in my life when a good salary, or any salary, could not be counted on. Sometimes I was between jobs, facing unemployment insurance, and struggling. However, as parliamentarians, we do not worry, right? We are going to get our paycheque no matter what. However, we have to earn it, and the way we earn it is to never to forget that we represent individual Canadians, and that the personal is political. We fail when people think that the mill's closing in someone's town does not affect us, or when it does not make us so angry we could scream every time we know that raw logs are being shipped out, when mills would love to run more shifts and hire more workers but cannot get the logs. We have to let communities know that we care; that, at least, is some consolation.”
“Mr. Chair, what we experienced in British Columbia, and a lot of people in the rest of Canada may not know it, was the first really large economic impact from the climate crisis, which was the pine beetle outbreak that killed an area of lodgepole pine forest in the interior of B.C. equivalent to two times the size of Sweden. It happened because we lost the cold snaps in winter, when it used to hit -35°C, which was what limited the pine beetle spread. Warming contributed to the dead forest that contributed to the fires, which contributed to economic losses and trauma for everyone concerned. They are connected issues, but as Trump increases his tariffs, we have to protect the communities that have already been through so very much with mill closures and damage from the climate crisis.”
“Let Trump apply tariffs if he wants to, but we will not be shipping them any forest products anymore until they stop their practices that are prejudicial, illegal and unfair to Canadian forest-based communities. I would urge the House to listen to all those strong voices and also thank every member in this place who spoke of the pain and suffering that forest communities are experiencing as mills close and tariffs increase. This is an urgent priority, just as important as aluminum and steel, and every member of the current government needs to recognize that.”
“At this point, it is not as much as it used to be. There is $11 billion to $15 billion a year of Canadian softwood that ends up in the U.S. We could keep it here, process it here and use it to build Canadian homes. We could have structural lumber that creates greener building materials. We could continue to hold our softwood lumber here, use it here and process it here. Even one raw log exported is one raw log too many. We could engage indigenous nations to work with us to ensure the sustainable management and the logging of our old growth and do more to ensure that every log harvested in Canada is processed in Canada. We could get those logs to sawmills and use them in Canada where we need them.”
“I would also like to suggest that it has been more than decades, centuries, since we have thought of ourselves as hewers of wood and drawers of water, having a rip-and-ship mentality to how we handle our natural resources. What if we said no more to allowing a pellet industry to start selling pellets to Japan and the U.K. out of good, solid logs, as proven in research by Ben Parfitt from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives? What if we said no more to this fake carbon credit to the U.K. in taking Canadian logs and turning them into pellets to ship them overseas? No raw logs should leave this province or the country without being processed first. I also want to suggest, in the time that I have, that it is time Canada created a strategic reserve of Canadian softwood lumber that the government buys.”
“Through all of it, one persistent irritant has been the U.S.'s constant raising of objections to the structuring of our forest industry, unfair objections that claim we are subsidizing our forest industry. What I would like to suggest in my time tonight is that, as the U.S. is once again doing this, we need to think outside the box. We have been trying, for decades, to fix the softwood lumber disputes with the United States. Let us think about protecting our industry through new approaches to economic sovereignty. Again, referencing the hon. member for Jonquière , I think it was a solid idea to think about paying some of the duties so that we protect the industry.”
“I want to say from the outset that the forest products industry is terribly important to Canada, and that, as a British Columbian, I grieve for every mill town that has lost its mill, for workers who have no wood to process. As some members have mentioned already, the hon. member for Jonquière , for example, the forest industry is facing a perfect storm, and it is imperfect in its impact on the communities. It is horrific. A lot of the impacts have been climate change-related, with insect infestations, the pine beetle outbreak in B.C. and wildfires, which have contributed to a hard time for supply and a hard time for forest workers. I have been working on forest policy issues for a long time. I wrote my first book on Canada's forest policies in 1998 and the second in 2005.”
“Mr. Chair, it is getting late and I would like to apologize. [ English ] I want to start by thanking many colleagues who have been in the take-note debate tonight. I am only participating virtually because I am simultaneously in the committee doing clause-by-clause on Bill C-12 . Timing is tricky, and I know that I have only five minutes. I want to start by saying that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni . Many of the speeches tonight have been extremely powerful. I have been trying to observe them all, as we can imagine, back and forth between Zoom rooms while defending amendments to protect refugee rights.”
“I am proud to say that my daughter is now a full-time environmental educator in the city of Vancouver, in the K-12 system.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise this morning to present a petition from the constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands. [ English ] These petitioners want to raise an issue related to how critical it is that Canada pay attention to the educational system and improve the education of our young people around ecological and social economic crises, but particularly to focus on the environmental and sustainability concerns in order that the environmental education of Canada lead to Canadian leadership, in which it is understood that we do not trade off economic growth against a livable future. The petitioners call on the House of Commons to take a leadership role in enacting a Canadian strategy to support educators, communicators and community leaders. We need to support them.”
“We must increase our efforts as a country united to end the scourge of violence against anyone, and on this day redouble our efforts to end violence against women.”
“I know that when I walk alone in a parking lot and hear footsteps behind me in the dark, I am afraid in a way that my husband in similar circumstances would not be. (1035) We in Canada can do more. We need to honour the memory of the young, brilliant women engineering students who had their whole lives ahead of them. Thank God one of our colleagues survived the shootings and is now here as a voice against violence against women and for better gun control. Now sheer happenstance has laid in her path the role of Secretary of State for Nature . I want to thank her, honour her and celebrate her work. I ask that all of us together live up to the promise that Canada holds for the world as a place that will condemn the Taliban and a state that practises apartheid against women and condemn violence against women wherever it occurs.”
“Violence against women and girls is a scourge that continues. I celebrate the work of the Moose Hide Campaign and the many men who stand up to say they want to be seen as a man who condemns toxic masculinity. I am being careful; there is much I could say about our failures domestically, but today is a day of internal reflection. We know we have to do more in our society as a whole. We know we need to raise up and thank the courageous women on the front lines who defend the right of women to live in security. I will never forget the words of Margaret Atwood on this point. She said that men are afraid that women will laugh at them; women are afraid that men will kill them. That is a deep reality.”
“[ Translation ] There was an inquiry into the murders of indigenous women, but the recommendations have not yet been implemented. [ English ] The recommendations, the calls for justice, of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry gather dust, and indigenous women and girls continue to go missing and continue to be killed. Globally, right now, there is an extreme increase in gender-based violence as an act of war in Darfur, Sudan, with connections to Canadian arms manufacturers in Sudan now. Women and girls globally are far more vulnerable to violence because they are women. Femicide occurs far more frequently around the world than we see with our male colleagues, many of whom are feminists. There is no question that to be born female in this world means to be more at risk than to be born male.”
“She is a woman of extraordinary courage because, after that disaster, after that massacre, she continued to advocate for gun control with PolyRemembers. We can always do more to address violence against women. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women was created because of the massacre that took place here in Canada. It is hard to believe. I remember it like it was yesterday. [ English ] Despite the École Polytechnique massacre and the heightened awareness of violence against women, it persists. Violence by an intimate partner against a former partner and the killing of her children are things that continue to happen. As my colleagues have mentioned, of course we recognize that particularly vulnerable are indigenous women and girls.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for doing me the honour of allowing me to rise today to respond to the speech by our colleague, the member for Châteauguay—Les Jardins-de-Napierville . It is an honour. This is an emotional topic for everyone here. As the other members have already said, our colleague, the member for Châteauguay—Les Jardins-de-Napierville, who is also the Secretary of State for Nature, was one of the victims on December 6, 1989. We will never forget the massacre at École Polytechnique. For years, we have been reading the names of the 14 women who were murdered and the two women who were injured. Everyone knows that our colleague is one of them. The Standing Orders forbid me from saying her name out loud, but it is an honour to work with her in this place.”
“Mr. Speaker, the matter of buying water bombers is long overdue. While the budget commits $381 million over four years, that would only lease four water bombers. The water bombers are oversubscribed and are all being ordered by the European Union. When will Canada buy our own water bomber fleet?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to present a petition from petitioners concerned with the impact on the climate crisis of energy use in Canadian homes. Of all energy consumed in Canada, 17% is used for heating, cooling, lighting and powering our homes, which is warming the outdoors in the winter and cooling the outdoors in the summer because of the basic lack of energy efficiency infrastructure and the lack of work to create cheaper energy-efficient homes. The petitioners call on the government to work with the provinces and territories to develop new national building codes to reduce the overall energy demand to 15% of what current structures use and to contribute to affordability for Canadians.”
“Mr. Speaker, Canadians want to diversify trade, but we want to diversify trade with democracies that share our values and that respect human rights. Now we are cozying up to the People's Republic of China. I have not heard that it is starting to treat the Uyghurs well. I do not understand how we can want to do deals with countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which right now have been caught with personnel carriers carrying out war crimes in Sudan. Do we trade away our values and our souls when we trade with those countries?”
“Mr. Speaker, we are past Remembrance Day, but we are always thinking of our veterans. The petitioners want the House to recognize that veterans have been asking, for more than 15 years, to confront PTSD with the assistance of well-trained, life-saving animals. Trained service dogs make all the difference for veterans who are suffering from PTSD. The petitioners ask that the House ensure we have the funding, the standard-setting and all the steps necessary to implement a framework to enhance Veterans Affairs Canada's provision of animal assistance services to veterans and their families.”
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday in question period, and again today, we have heard allegations that are patently false that U.S. tankers are moving through the Hecate Strait, the area banned for the last 50 years under a moratorium honoured by B.C. and federal governments of all stripes. Any suggestion of what the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle said yesterday, that U.S. tankers are moving “through the exact same place”, is patently false. Can anyone from the Liberal government benches explain whether the Liberals understand the tanker ban?”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to honour a beautiful young woman who died too young. I learned about her story when I ran into her father right after the Remembrance Day service in Sidney, and he told me about his deep pain from losing Joline. December 2, almost a week from now, would have been Joline Robertson's 19th birthday. She was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer when she was only 13. Her whole family loves her so much. She fought so hard. She was not going to give up over the years, the five or six years that girl fought. Everyone in Campbell River, her hometown, was praying for her, rooting for her. People from as far away as Surrey in a motorcycle club with members from Surrey did everything they could to let her know she was loved. We do not forget Joline Robertson. We miss her.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend, and he is my friend, for his remarks tonight. I deeply hope that the Government of Canada will change its approach to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. As I said earlier, we led the way on the landmines treaty, yet we are standing aside. We may say our NATO allies are not signatories either, but they are observers. It is to our shame as Canadians that we do not even show up to observe and signal our support for the treaty. It was a while ago that Albert Einstein said that the splitting of the atom changed everything except man's mode of thinking, “and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” We have been warned. A nuclear holocaust did not occur in the last part of this century through a combination of good luck and divine intervention. We cannot count on luck.”
“I would have been so proud as a Canadian if my country had been a leader in those negotiations, as we were in the Ottawa process to ban land mines. However, we have not signed the treaty. We refused to show up at the negotiations on the treaty. Now that we have meetings of the nations that are parties to the treaty, Canada does not even send an official observer group. Those of us parliamentarians who are concerned about nuclear war go to those meetings, as the only examples of Canadian concern, as part of the global parliamentarians who want to end nuclear war. We see wonderful efforts from the grassroots across Canada, many participating in something called the peace train. We have the work of leaders like our former ambassador for disarmament, the Hon. Doug Roche. Of course, there is no current ambassador for nuclear disarmament.”
“Those two individuals put the world on track to eliminating nuclear weapons with things like the SALT treaty and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Now we are seeing for the first time, with great horror, the nuclear clock ticking closer to midnight. I was gratified when the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs answered me, and I will quote her: “Canada believes in a world free of nuclear weapons, and the current arsenals around the world remain far too large.” Canada's record does not make it clear that we believe in a world free of nuclear weapons. There is now, which has entered into force with enough countries around the world signing and ratifying it, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”
“It has been a long time since we had any bragging rights among the peacekeeping nations. One thing I lament deeply is that the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Centre, which was set up in 1994, was closed in 2011. Not only did we close the Pearson centre for peacekeeping, but we dropped to the rank of 69th country in the world on the level of our peacekeeping engagement. [ Translation ] It is unacceptable for a country like Canada to throw up its hands in the face of threats of war. We are currently witnessing a significant increase in threats of war. [ English ] We did not think 10 to 20 years ago that we could see a land war, with Putin invading Ukraine, but we saw a reversal in the nuclear arms race, thanks to the work of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan and then U.S.S.R. president Mikhail Gorbachev.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in Adjournment Proceedings to pursue a question I asked on October 23. That day may not immediately strike all members as one of deep significance, but October 24 every year is United Nations Day, and October 24 was actually the 80th birthday of the United Nations and the 80th anniversary of the United Nations Charter. I rose and asked a question of the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs , and she did me the honour of answering my question. It was not a bad answer; I want to share that right away, but we need to expand upon it. I asked her where we are in the world of peacekeeping. Of course, former prime minister Lester B. Pearson, who was not prime minister at the time he did this, won the Nobel Peace Prize for resolving the Suez crisis and creating UN peacekeepers.”
“Mr. Speaker, petitioners from my community, as well as others, have petitioned the House to please, in the House, take note of the reality that the signatories and parties to the Paris Agreement, including Canada, have committed to pursuing efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and as far below 2°C as possible. They call upon the Government of Canada to take bold climate action to ensure that Canada pulls its weight in the world. In summary, petitioners call for Canada to reduce greenhouse gases, and to do so by arresting the growth in oil sands expansion, opposing all new fossil fuel infrastructure and working with the provinces to phase out the few remaining places where there is coal-fired electricity, while investing in the transition to a prosperous, decarbonized economy.”
“I do not like knowing from the experts that we simply do not have the data to know how many of the people who receive bail and are on bail conditions honour those conditions, whether bail contributes to crime and whether we could do so much better if we funded provincial courts and funded more judges in provincial courts to make sure that the time between arrest and release is very, very brief.”
“We have lots of anecdotal evidence, and it must not be discounted, because the conscience of a community and the pain and grief of the stories that we have been hearing may be anecdotal, but they are important and cannot be dismissed. However, making significant changes to bail reform should be based on evidence. That evidence needs to be collected. There is no standardized data collection from the federal, provincial and territorial governments on how people conduct themselves on bail. It is not collected, so we do not know. Passing laws in this place is serious business. Passing laws regarding criminal justice that could result in more innocent people being in jail is very serious business. I do not like flying blind.”
“Another really significant issue is that the provincial courts are understaffed and underfunded, and it takes so long to get people through the system to determine their guilt or their innocence that many of the jails can be overcrowded. Provincial and territorial jails are overcrowded, yet 71% of the people within provincial and territorial jails who apply for bail do not get it. Much of the debate in this place since Bill C-14 was tabled has been based on the presumption that people get bail in Canada easily, but the data does not show that. I also want to mention that we have a real problem with the collection of that data. Federally and provincially, we have no data at all on how often a person on bail commits a crime.”
“The expression “out on bail” is used in this place as though we are talking about convicted murderers who suddenly get a free day pass. We do need bail reform, but let us look at it with a larger lens in the time I have. The administration of justice is not purely a federal responsibility. For example, are sureties ever required to provide the money that they put down as a surety for someone who is out on bail? The answer is no. If a person is out on bail and has asked someone to provide a financial guarantee, a surety, that they will abide by bail conditions, and they then violate those bail conditions, almost never is the surety asked to provide the money they have said they would provide. This is all provincial jurisdiction.”
“Bail is so that people who are innocent can continue to hold down a job, be with their families and contribute to society until we have determined whether they are guilty of anything, so we must recall that our system of justice is based on the presumption of innocence. Lawyers have studied this bill in the Canadian Bar Association. I used to be a practising lawyer, so I used to be a member, but do not hold it against me; there is a recovery program for lawyers as well. The Canadian Bar Association has looked at this and said that the effect of Bill C-14 would be that innocent people would be jailed when they place a reverse onus on someone and they have to prove why they should be allowed to be out on bail.”
“Mr. Speaker, this has been a very difficult debate, and in the brief time I have, I want to thank members for contributing to this from all sides of the House. Canadians are crying out for bail reform, but we are still crying with a certain amount of lack of knowledge. This debate needs more evidence. Now, Bill C-14 attempts to balance things and attempts to recognize that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is fundamental, but there are some other principles here that are being, I fear, so politicized that we are losing track of a basic reality. Bail is granted to people who have not been convicted of anything.”
“Mr. Speaker, we keep referring to the charter, and as somebody who actually thinks Bill C-14 is important because we do need bail reform, I think we need to reflect on the principles of our entire body of law, from the Commonwealth through to Canada. It starts with Blackstone's principle from 1760, which is a hard one to hear right now, but it is foundational. The principle is that it is better that nine guilty men go free than that one innocent man be imprisoned. These are tough choices, and it is not just about the charter.”
“member for Vancouver East , no one knows more about that piece of legislation than she does, having worked on it through many iterations and through many committees. The hon. member may disagree with the way colleagues voted, including me, but it was not because we did not have access to the information. We had more than enough access to the information. We wanted to see Bill C-3 pass.”
“Mr. Speaker, to my hon. colleague, this may seem slightly off topic from the current bill, but it was important for me to rise as a member of a party that has never been a recognized party in the House so that Canadians know that those of us who are not permanent members of committees are aware of what happens in committee. This is prompted by the member's comment that NDP members were not sitting on the committee. I am not putting myself in their shoes, but having been in their shoes many times, I want to assure Canadians that when we bring forward amendments as members of parties in this place but not recognized parties, we have access to what happens in committee. In the case of the colleague who sits right in front of me, the hon.”
“Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. [ English ] Can the Prime Minister agree that it is a deficiency in the budget that our legally binding Paris commitments are not mentioned? Can he confirm here on the floor of the House that in passing this budget, the government is committed to holding to as far below the 2°C limit as possible, to funding climate adaptation, to delivering on the nature strategy and to continuing to engage in meaningful indigenous reconciliation?”
“Mr. Speaker, while many Canadians are looking at the $78-billion deficit number in the budget, many others, while concerned about that deficit, are also wondering about our children and grandchildren and the growing ecological deficit from lack of action on climate and lack of action to protect nature. We look at this budget and want to weep. Those of us who are grandparents and seniors right across this country, and young people, want to know if the government will step up and tackle the generational ecological deficit.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for such kind words; they are appreciated. I will take his advice and pursue it, but I thought that without asking about a specific case, we could at least have clarity on whether there was a case. I do not think that trespasses into discussing a particular case, because at this point, I still do not know, and I do not think any Canadians know, if there was a decision made by the government. It was not communicated to Kneecap. A yes or no would be lovely. Did the Government of Canada decide not to admit this musical group?”
“The minister did not confirm that. I do not need to belabour it. I know the parliamentary secretary is waiting to respond. I really am, in tonight's session of Adjournment Proceedings, seeking clarity. I do not have an agenda here except to know what decision was made, if it was made properly, if it was made based on evidence that this musical group represented some threat to Canada that was otherwise unacceptable under our values. At a minimum, I would like the House to be told who made the decision and was it made under immigration and refugee laws, as would normally be applied, or was this, as it appeared at the time in the media, potentially one rogue MP who decided to announce it for whatever benefit that might be. Certainly, the issue is highly charged. Therefore, people might seek to gain advantage one way or the other.”
“However, the fundamental principles of the rule of law honoured by this country, our commitment to human rights and our commitment to free speech should not be something that is questioned by an incident. I admit that the name Kneecap only reminds me of having knee replacements, which is not something I would like to revisit. In any case, I think any artistic enterprise should be welcomed into Canada. On scanty evidence that the band disputes, I am wondering if the Government of Canada itself made a decision to ban this band from touring Canada. If so, the evidence should be available for parliamentary review. Did the decision get made within Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or was it, as I asked in my question, that at least one member of the Liberal caucus said that this particular musical group had been banned?”
“That is why I pursued the matter with the Minister of Immigration in this place. Her position was that no particular case could be discussed, obviously for reasons of privacy. This band had attracted attention in other parts of the world and was quite clear in saying there was no evidence whatsoever that it had ever supported Hamas or Hezbollah, and that the allegations to that effect were unfounded, incorrect and maligned the band's reputation. Meanwhile, the band also said it had not exactly been told by anyone in Canada that it was not welcome, but had merely seen the media coverage. It is a long time ago now, as we are absorbed for obvious reasons in more recent issues, such as the budget that came down two days ago. We have lots of things on our mind.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am rising in debate this evening to raise a question that I initially raised a number of months ago about a decision that is somewhat murky in its content. I have been trying to determine from the government for some time exactly if a decision was made to ban the band Kneecap. This is a question that I think some Canadians will have seen in the media. It attracted a lot of controversy. This Irish band was apparently told it could not enter Canada. Although we do not have a clear decision chronology as to how the decision was made and how it was communicated to the band, it was certainly in the media that this band was alleged to have views that were unacceptable and was refused entry to Canada. It is not clear how this was decided or if, in fact, it was decided.”
“Mr. Speaker, I noted the hon. member's comments about poverty, and I wondered if he had seen the new report from the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. There is no surprise if he has not, as it was just released this morning. It points out that Canada is off track in meeting its sustainable development goals to reduce poverty. The most recent numbers show that since 2020, although we had a drop in poverty during the COVID period, the poverty rate has been increasing, up from 6.4%. In 2023, it reached 10.2% and is rising. I look for the member's comments.”
“Petitioners call upon Parliament to consider that with the closing of the Pearson Centre, of course named for a late, former prime minister, the only Canadian prime minister to ever achieve the Nobel Peace Prize, without campaigning for it, I should note, we need a new centre to pursue excellence for peace and justice, based on research; non-partisan education; and training in conflict resolution, diplomacy and peace operations for Canadian civilians, police and military personnel in the context of multilateralism and in the international community, where Canada has traditionally taken the leading role.”
“Mr. Speaker, in this week of remembrance, as we think of our veterans, this petition is particularly appropriate. Members of the public have asked their members of Parliament to bring forward the following for the House of Commons to consider. In 1948, Canada signed and also led the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We pledged to achieve, in conjunction with the United Nations, promotion of the universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. These calls, the petitioners note, were echoed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the adoption by Canada of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. At the same time, globally, Canada is upholding, we hope, the basic calls for justice, equality, freedom, security, well-being and the prevention of conflict and war.”
“We will not be able to attend COP30, which will be attended by the United Nations and every country in the world except Canada, because we have a budget, a debate, and a vote. I want to ask the leader of the Bloc Québécois what we can do in the House, as members, to compel the Prime Minister to remember his role. His record suggests that he understands—”
“Madam Speaker, I want to thank the leader of the Bloc Québécois because, after the Green Party, the Bloc Québécois is the party most committed to taking action against the climate crisis. I am not just talking about the leader. I would also like to say a big thank you to the Bloc Québécois members who have never wavered in their commitment. They have never forgotten that we are going through a climate crisis and that the situation is urgent. I think I live in a world that is truly crazy. We are signatories to the Paris Agreement and we must act immediately to reduce greenhouse gases. As the leader of the Bloc Québécois said, the Liberal government's budget lacks commitment. There is not a single mention of the Paris Agreement.”
“The basic thesis of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book is that one cannot build anything in the United States. There are just too many regulations and too much red tape. Nothing gets built in the United States. The book is not about Canada. I am fascinated by the fact that this popular book, which is particularly popular with some folks, such as the Prime Minister , is leading us astray in what it really takes to incentivize investment in Canada. I wonder if the hon. leader of the official opposition has had a chance to have a look at why one cannot build anything in the United States, despite MAGA and all of Trump's efforts.”