Speaker: Ms. May
Time: 03/11/2022 18:51:31
Context: Statements by Ministers
They open up the sluices, the water follows gravity and it drives the turbines and when the cheap wind energy comes over from Denmark they pump it back up. It is elegant. It is simple. It is international exchange of electricity that we cannot do in Canada because we do not have the inter-ties and it is a big project. It needs to be mentioned and it needs to be thought through.
I will just close on these points. This increase in costs that Canadians are feeling is not our normal inflation. It is not demand-driven. This is not normal inflation in the sense that it is not demand-driven, primarily but it is partly. It is largely being driven by a war in Ukraine.
We Canadians support Ukraine. We believe that President Zelenskyy, in his bravery and that of the Ukrainian people, must be reflected in our solidarity with them. However, in that solidarity, we must do much, much more to achieve a peace and to push for it. This is relevant to the fall economic statement because so much of the increased prices we are experiencing here are because of Putin’s brutal, illegal, immoral war on Ukraine.
We must use every lever as a soft power to push for peace talks to push for ceasefires. It is not good enough to say, “We stand with Ukraine” and “Slava Ukraini”. We have to do more for peace because we are a country that can do that, and we may have to say to our NATO allies that if belonging to NATO means we really cannot help Ukraine, maybe we do not belong in NATO. If NATO cannot work for peace and NATO cannot work for nuclear disarmament, maybe it is time to ask our NATO allies what is the good of an alliance that cannot protect Ukraine because of nuclear weapons inside NATO and inside Russia that threaten us all.
We have to face the real costs that are going up. We have to face multiple crises at the same time to avoid a global food crisis and to avoid a global water crisis. We must do more in this country as global leaders on climate change. That means stopping the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, converting that crown corporation to other uses that are actually beneficial for Canadians, such as building resiliency across this country and building the infrastructure we need. We do not need the Trans Mountain expansion. It is, in the words of Secretary-General António Guterres of the United Nations, it represents “moral and economic madness”. So too does expanding the drilling off the coast of Newfoundland and Baie du Nord. So too does continuing fracking across Canada while pretending that Canadian liquefied natural gas is somehow better than coal.
On doit faire face à toutes ces réalités, aux réalités économiques, aux réalités de la guerre et aux réalités des changements climatiques.
We can actually avoid the worst of climate change by changing course quickly. We can follow the indicators that the Minister of Finance has given us in this budget and say that by spring 2023 let the budget stand for Canada laying down the markers that we move according to the science, to move off fossil fuels, protect the workers in that sector and make sure that Canadians are in a house that can stand the coming storms.