Ms. Elizabeth May – Member for Saanich—Gulf Islands
Mr. Speaker, I do not need to tell members of the House that our country is in the midst of a climate emergency. We see flooding throughout Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, killer wind storms in British Columbia in the winter and forest fires in the summer. What we do not need is to weaken the already inadequate plan that we have from the federal government.
I would like assurances that Canada will stand firm on its equivalency agreement for vehicle emission standards with the State of California no matter what the White House does.
Mr. Sean Fraser – Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment
Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member pointed out, climate change is real and the consequences are too great to ignore. We know that transportation accounts for almost one quarter of Canada’s emissions, and smart fuel efficiency rules for cars and light trucks are going to help reduce those emissions.
When we first adopted rules in 2014 under the previous government, we actually made a commitment to review those in light of the review that was going on in the U.S. We are partway through that right now. We are going to be carefully considering environmental and economic impacts as we make policy that is based here in Canada, not south of the border in Washington.