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Speaker: Ms. May
Time: 30/01/2023 18:30:32
Context: Question

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on our first day back in calendar 2023. I am returning to a question that I put to the hon. Minister of Environment on October 20, 2022. It is important to note the date because of the minister’s response.

My question cited the Liberal platform which was in the election of 2021 which they promised to, “Establish and fully fund a Canada Water Agency in 2022”. It was also promised that they would, “Modernize the 50-year-old Canada Water Act”.

The Minister of Environment responded with, “we are, in fact, working to create an independent water agency for Canada.” He said we needed to pursue this and then at the end of his response, he said, “we will have good news to announce to this House in the coming weeks.”

That was October 20, 2022, and of course, it is true that the last week of January 2023 does fall within weeks after the answer that we received in October, but the nature of the minister’s answer, I think it is fair to say, suggested something a bit sooner than sometime next year and we are still waiting.

We are now in a period of pre-budget work, and I think it is important to focus now on what the government must include in the budget if it is at all serious about creating a Canada water agency. I note particularly, and it was encouraging to me at the time, that the hon. Minister of Environment and Climate Change used the word “independent” to refer to this agency.

I want to cite that we have quite a lot of good, solid work being done in the NGO community by groups like Flow and others across Canada that work on water policy. There is a strong consensus that the Canada water agency must be independent of the Department of Environment and Climate Change, the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, as well as the Department of Natural Resources.

There is a strong call to have an officer of chief water security to work through interjurisdictional blockages and ensure that this country has strong water policy. We know we need to ensure that we have what we used to have in Canada, which was co-operation and shared work between provinces and the federal government, with the federal government in the lead, on programs to avoid flooding.

Flood plain work was shared, anticipating the vulnerabilities of our water system to floods and making sure that we pay attention to water policy, particularly around our freshwater systems, like the Great Lakes or Lake Winnipeg.

It is extraordinarily important that we rebuild the scientific capacity we once had in this country, which is now down to precious little compared to what was there when I worked in the Minister of Environment’s office back in the eighties. We had a robust program, an inland waters directorate, near Hamilton. We had a very strong department with hundreds of people working. It has virtually disappeared.

What happened to the coming weeks? What happened to the good news? When are we going to see an independent Canada water agency that is fully funded to at least $1 billion a year as promised in the platform?

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Speaker: Ms. May
Time: 08/12/2022 19:48:16
Context: Question

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise virtually in the House this evening. I am in the wonderful city of Montreal for the 15th meeting of the the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

However, I am turning my attention this evening to a question I asked in question period on November 24. The question had a response from the hon. Minister of Transport. This is a complex issue. It is one that does not come up very often in the House, so forgive me if I step back and set some context before I dive into this.

It is the question of the use of the waters of the Salish Sea as far up from the tip of Vancouver to areas near Parksville, Nanaimo, Ladysmith and certainly in and around all the five Gulf Islands that are within Saanich—Gulf Islands. Our waters are being used as free parking lots to handle bulk carriers and freighters that cannot be efficiently unloaded at the Port of Vancouver. This costs everyone money. The grain farmers who want their products shipped in a timely way, the grain sellers who want to have the product delivered, and those who are buying the product line up at the Port of Vancouver where their freighters find that their holds cannot be filled. They are sent away and they cool their jets and sit in the waters of the Salish Sea in places Transport Canada has dubbed as anchorages. Under common law, the vessels at sea must be given refuge and safe anchorages at times of storms. This is not storms. This is routine. It is daily and multiplying.

What does this mean? As I pointed out in my question on November 24, it is a loss of quality of life. The constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands and throughout the region do not feel consulted. Right now, there is a consultation process taking place, where it just disclosed a public consultation hosted by the Port of Vancouver. Constituents do not feel consulted. They feel ignored once again and their concerns dismissed as the Port of Vancouver officials informed people of the public that the use of the Salish Sea for free parking was going to continue and that it was an essential part of the Port of Vancouver’s operations. Of course nobody pays for it, except, again, the grain farmers, the people buying the grain, the people selling the grain and the residents of Saanich—Gulf Islands, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford and other regions through our marine coastal zones.

The indigenous nations of this area were never consulted either, and they are angry at the idea that their treaty rights under the Douglas Treaties mean so little that the Port of Vancouver and the federal government have never engaged with them about this use of our waters.
What else does it mean? It means damage to the southern resident killer whales from the noise of these massive vessels moving and parking in our waters. It means damage to the benthic organisms on the ocean floor, of course, because, these being anchorages and not ports, the anchor drops and drags.

This was the point I really wanted to raise in late show tonight: Days after my question in late November, there was yet another incident in Plumper Sound, where a large bulk carrier dragged its anchor and drifted right into a spot where, had there been another freighter parked, they would have collided. We have had 102 incidents in the period from 2015 to 2020. There were 102 times that these large vessels have drifted on their anchors and sometimes collided or nearly collided. In other words, it is large accident waiting to happen.

The residents of Saanich—Gulf Islands and the people of this area are absolutely fed up to our teeth with this ignoring of our rights and abuse of our ecosystem.

Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary. I could have asked for a better opportunity for dialogue, because believe it or not, in some ways this is supply-chain hell, and it links our ridings. There are very few issues that will link directly, and it is the rail lines that link us from Winnipeg to Saanich—Gulf Islands, and it is the inefficiency of the delivery of grain primarily.

So, here are two solutions.

One, the Liberals promised to ban the export of coal to other countries. We are getting coal shipped up from the United States, because U.S. coal ports no longer ship it due to climate concerns. So, let us ban coal exports. That will help, and the Liberals already promised to do it.

We also want to improve the facilitation of grain exports. The hon. member will remember when we had the Wheat Board, and the export of grain and the shipment was better coordinated. This is driving the unions. The longshoremen do not like this. CN and CP are behind inefficiencies along with the Port of Vancouver. We need to fix this system for shipping grain, and then we will not have anchorages.

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Speaker: Ms. May
Time: 28/11/2022 18:40:33
Context: Question

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise to take up a point that I debated in this place when we first had the news from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the spring of this year, that we had less time than we thought we had in responding to the urgency of the science. The panel reported that if we did not reduce our emissions rapidly we would lose any chance of holding to 1.5ºC global average temperature increase and that we had to stay below 2ºC.

At that point, I quoted the United Nations Secretary General in my question to the government members. The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, had recently said of the promises made in Paris at COP21 in 2015 versus the delivery on climate action by governments around the world, that some governments are promising to reduce emissions, but emissions are increasing. He said, “Put simply, they are lying.” I asked the hon. government members, when the UN Secretary General was speaking of governments that were doing one thing and saying another, whom did our government think António Guterres was referencing.

Since the time of my question, it has been clear that additional support has come from the current government to the expansion of fossil fuel development. Now we have a very clear difference here and I want to set out the problem because I want to be fair to all concerned. The government of the current Liberal minority, supported by the NDP in their confidence-supply agreement, appears to believe, or at least wants Canadians to believe, that net-zero by 2050 is a target that will ensure we can hold our increase in global average temperature to 1.5ºC or at least as far below 2ºC as possible.

The Liberals put forward this motion and they emphasized it again in the climate accountability act that was passed in the last Parliament, even though it is not true. It is not true that achieving net-zero by 2050 assures us of a livable world. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change science, as delivered in the sixth assessment report, makes it very clear that the 2050 target of net-zero is irrelevant if emissions continue to rise in the near term. In other words, again from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a 2050 target without emissions must peak globally and begin to fall dramatically at the latest before 2025 or any hope of 1.5ºC or 2ºC is gone.

A 2ºC world is unthinkable and yet, we are on track to it. Again quoting António Guterres of the United Nations, when COP27 opened earlier this month in Sharm el-Sheikh, he said that the world is “on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”

Therefore, again, what government does the current Canadian government believe the UN is referencing when it says that some governments are promising and doing the opposite, “Put simply, they are lying”; and, to whom does the government think it applies, to say “foot on the accelerator”, when we have a government that is insisting on building pipelines, expanding production and drilling off Newfoundland? Whom is the United Nations referencing?

Mr. Speaker, the exchange I just had with my friend and colleague, the parliamentary secretary, exactly explains our problem.

Canada’s targets are currently out of sync with what the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change says we must do. Spending billions of dollars on good programs is excellent, but while this government gives with one hand, it takes with the other.

So, for climate action, absolutely promote heat pumps, absolutely promote electric cars, but it is a drop in the bucket while bucketfuls of effort continue to go to increase our production of oil and gas, and goes to other countries where burned there puts us on the highway to climate hell.

Our foot in this country is on the accelerator. If I do nothing before I die, then get this Prime Minister to get his heavy foot off the accelerator, and I will die happy.

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Speaker: Ms. May
Time: 22/11/2022 13:18:21
Context: Debate

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): Mr. Speaker, I rise in this place acknowledging that we stand on the territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation, unceded, and essentially this building sits on Algonquin land. To them, I say meegwetch.

I am very pleased that we have seen another incarnation of Bill C-20. The fundamental essence of this legislation, for those who may just be joining the debate, is to ensure that two really significant federal law enforcement agencies have mechanisms for civilian complaint.

Il y a deux agences: la GRC et l’Agence des services frontaliers du Canada.

The Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP interact with Canadians and foreigners on a regular basis. The RCMP has had a public complaints commission for many years. It has been inadequate. Initially, it did not have powers to subpoena to find out from RCMP officers what really happened in any event. The ability to summon witnesses is terribly important.

Les pouvoirs de la commission d’examen pour les plaintes contre la GRC sont plus faibles, mais c’était incroyable que nous n’ayons pas une seule agence pour les plaintes contre les agences frontalières.

The Canada Border Services Agency has never had any mechanism for anyone to raise a complaint or concern. I do not know about my other colleagues in this place, but certainly through COVID we had a lot of reasons to be concerned about the structure of the Canada Border Services Agency and the degree of powers granted to individual officers. It will be beyond the scope of this act to deal with some of these issues, so I place them before us now as we go through second reading debate. It is concerning for all of us, though I should not speak for all of my colleagues, but I have a hunch, because I talked to many, regardless of party, during the period of time that we were trying to help Canadians come home to Canada.

For instance, those married to permanent residents and not Canadian citizens had to make their pitch at the border to a Canada Border Services agent, whose decision was final and discretionary to that particular officer. This created no end of misery for Canadian families. I do know that cabinet at the time passed another order in council to try to alleviate the problem, but it is still the case that an individual officer can make a decision on the spot about anyone.

My stepdaughter once was going into the United States to take up a new job that she had in California. She had all her paperwork, but the Canada Border Services agent did like her. He said he did not believe her, he did not think she had a job and sent her back. There is no appeal. There is no place to go with that. We need to take a broader look at the Canada Border Services Agency.

Constituents, not my constituents, asked me for help. They happened to be a couple I know from Cape Breton Island, where my family lives and where I am from. The couple was at the New Brunswick border with Maine. They drove up to the Canadian kiosk to say they were going home and the border agent told the wife she could go home because she is Canadian, but her husband could not go home because he is still a permanent resident. They had to leave one spouse at the border with all the luggage while the other was allowed into Canada because they were not allowed to go back into the U.S. together. These kinds of things are nonsensical. We need to look at the Canada Border Services Agency and make some policy choices and raise some other issues.

We certainly know that we want, as a matter of policy, which I have heard from many people in this House today, the CBSA focused on stopping the smuggling of guns. We want the CBSA focused on stopping the smuggling of contraband drugs. We do not particularly want the CBSA at the border to terrorize racialized people from other countries.

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Speaker: Ms. May
Time: 31/05/2022 19:07:47
Context: Question

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): Madam Speaker, I rise tonight in adjournment proceedings to pursue a question I asked on March 28 during question period at two o’clock in the afternoon, the day before we were expecting the emissions reduction plan from the federal government.

My question to the minister was about what we were to make of the fact that there would be an announcement on March 29, and knowing that by April 4 there would be a new IPCC report that could well make the emissions reduction plan outdated and require immediate overhaul. Not surprisingly, the parliamentary secretary who responded felt that we were really on track, but the parliamentary secretary did say that we will need to do more.

What I am going to do with the three minutes I have remaining in my opening statement for tonight’s adjournment proceedings is be brutally honest about the science and where we stand. There is no sugar-coating this. It is not easy. I do not say these things because I want people to be afraid or because I want people to despair, but I desperately want people to wake up, particularly the people who have the power to make the decisions over whether my children and grandchildren survive on a livable, habitable planet, or endure unthinkable deprivations from climate breakdown.

What we did not know when I asked this question on March 28 was what the third working group of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its sixth assessment report would say. It advanced the clock. It advanced our timetable more than I had expected. It shook me and I have been working on the climate issue since 1986 when I was with Environment Canada.

What the IPCC said was that to hold to 1.5°C, which is the target of the Paris Agreement, at most we must try and, at the very least, as far below 2°C as possible global average temperature increase above what it was before the beginning of the industrial revolution. They are hard concepts to get our heads around and long to describe. What the IPCC said on April 4 makes the government’s plan from March 29 completely useless. Doing better, doing more and trying hard means nothing if we miss the main point.

The main point is this: The IPCC now says that we must ensure that between 2020 and, at the latest, before 2025, all around the world we must ensure that we stop addition and start subtraction. It is math, it is a carbon budget. We cannot go up anymore. We must peak and go down, and go down rapidly, such that by 2030, globally, we are emitting about half of the greenhouse gases that we did in 2010 or else. This is the part that gets hard. If we do not do that, we run the risk of hitting tipping points in the atmosphere that we cannot predict, which could lead to unstoppable, self-accelerating global warming.

At the very least, we can look at what is happening right now to us, including here in Ottawa, with a very dangerous storm that killed 11 people and people did not see that coming. That is at 1.1°C global average temperature increase. The heat dome in British Columbia killed 600 people in four days was at 1.1°C. We have had wild fires and floods. We see what is happening at 1.1°C global average temperature increase and we are pretending that we have it under control as we stand at the very edge of “too late”, and because it is not too—

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