Bill S-15 Would Allow Oil and Gas Activities inside Sable Island National Park Reserve

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands, today expressed her opposition to Bill S-15, designed to convert Sable Island into a national park. “Quite simply, this Bill will allow oil and gas exploration inside a National Park and drilling, including fracking, underneath Sable Island itself, said May. “I’m disappointed that this has already passed ...

Question Period – Northern Gateway Pipeline and Provincial Rights

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, in 2001, the Prime Minister wrote a famous letter to the former premier of Alberta, which he urged him to act to “limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach on legitimate provincial jurisdiction”. Six days ago, the provincial government of British Columbia said no to ...

UN World Environment Day More Relevant Than Ever

The Green Party of Canada celebrates the UN’s World Environment Day (WED) today along with nations and citizens around the globe.  Founded in 1972, this annual event is designed to promote positive environmental action among governments and individuals alike.  It is now one of the main mechanisms the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) uses to expand ...

Oceans at risk like never before

Acidification is the equally evil twin’ of the climate crisis. Today, June 5, is World Environment Day, and June 8 is World Oceans Day, with the full week marked in Canada by legislation as Environment Week. Under other prime ministers, Environment Week was a big deal. When I worked for Tom McMillan, environment minister under ...

U.S. says climate change high risk’ to federal assets, Canada has no infrastructure adaptation plan

One of my favourite political satirical works is Terry Fallis’s The High Road. It should be assigned reading for policy studies on infrastructure. It does a brilliant job of explaining the perils of transferring a fiscal deficit over to an infrastructure deficit. In Fallis’s fictional Ottawa, the Alexandra Bridge collapses, and our hero, MP Angus ...

Petitions – The Environment

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from residents of the Vancouver area. The petitioners are calling on this Parliament to protect west coast British Columbia from the threat of supertankers bearing oil, or more accurately the pre-crude substance known as bitumen and dilbit, and to keep it a tanker-free coast. Print this page...

Adjournment Proceedings – The Environment

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I am astonished that the parliamentary secretary thinks that the consensus statement of the world’s scientists gathered in Canada, at a conference opened by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, constitutes hyperbole. When we look at the statements from our Minister of Natural Resources recently, when he said that “an end to ...

Adjournment Proceedings – The Environment

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat ironic, or perhaps even meant to be, that I rise tonight at the stroke of midnight to talk about the most important issue facing our country and the planet, which the House hears so very rarely discussed, and that is the climate crisis. I rise tonight to pursue ...

Petitions – The Environment

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House to present a petition from residents in my riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands. All of the petitioners who have signed this petition live on Salt Spring Island. The petition is particularly timely as reports by the world meteorological organizations that monitor levels of ...

Chart: Canada’s Historical Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Projections to 2020

Source : 2012 Progress Report, p. 24 More information: Green Party of Canada’s backgrounder on climate change. Print this page...