Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Souris—Moose Mountain.

The motion in front of us today proposes to declare a climate emergency. I agree that there is a climate emergency. Just over two weeks ago, on May 11, something extraordinary happened on the planet that has not happened any time in the last 800,000 years. For the first time ever, the planet's daily baseline of carbon dioxide went over 415 parts per million.

Let us put that into perspective. Humans have been on this planet only for some 315,000 years. For over 99.99% of the last 800,000 years, carbon dioxide concentrations have ranged from a low of 160 parts per million to a high of 300 parts per million. We know that from daily measurements that have been taken from an observatory at the top of a mountain in Hawaii, which is maintained by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of San Diego. We also know that from core ice samples that have been taken two miles deep in both Antarctica and Greenland.

It has just been in that last 0.01% of the last 800,000 years, in other words in the last 60 or 70 years, that C02 concentrations have risen above 300 parts per million. They blew through 400 parts per million in 2013, and just two weeks ago, on May 11, they blew through 415 parts per million.

Clearly, the planet's atmosphere is changing and there is an urgency to address climate change.

However, the motion in front of us today encapsulates what is wrong with the current government and its climate change plans. The government has made grand pronouncements with no action to deliver. It promised to respect parliamentary institutions, yet the PMO shut down two investigations at the ethics and justice committees in the SNC-Lavalin affair. It promised electoral reform, but abandoned that. It promised to lighten the whip and the PMO control over MPs so they could represent their constituents, but it has more control than ever before. It promised to respect the rule of law, but it has failed to do that with the irregular expulsions of the member for Markham—Stouffville and the member for Vancouver Granville. It promised action on climate change.

This motion is an example of a government that is all about these grandiose pronouncements, with little to back it up. According to the government's own data, greenhouse gases are rising in Canada. Yes, members heard that right: GHGs are increasing, not decreasing. The current government has been in power for almost four years. According to the latest national inventory report, submitted last month to the United Nations by the current government, Canada's emissions actually rose in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, by eight megatonnes to 716 megatonnes.

According to the government's own projections released by Environment Canada last December, a mere five months ago, Canada is not on track to meet its Paris commitment. According to that report of last December, under the government's pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, Canada will fall short of its Paris commitments by some 79 megatonnes.

To be fair, this problem of Canadian governments making promises they do not keep is not restricted to the current government. Jean Chrétien's government agreed to the Kyoto protocol in 1997, and the prime minister of the day himself signed it in December 2002. Despite having almost nine years to enact a plan, when the Conservatives came to power and were appointed in February 2006, little action had been taken. We all know what happened next. The Conservative government blew through its Kyoto protocol commitments and withdrew from the protocol in 2011.

The previous Conservative government committed to the Copenhagen accord, setting a new set of targets, which was a commitment to reduce emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by next year. With less than 12 months to go in this calendar year to 2020, we are going to blow through that commitment.

The current government signed the Paris accord, but in its own data and projections, it is on track to blow through those targets.

What is so astounding about all of this, about what Canadian governments promise and what they deliver, is that never in the history of this country has the PMO had so much control over this legislature and its committees. Despite this control, despite this ability to effectively get its way on legislation, little action has been taken.

What is so egregious about the Liberal government on the file of climate change is that it promised to do things differently. It is no secret that the previous Conservative government viewed climate change as a thorn in its side. It avoided the subject to the greatest extent possible and acted only when it was forced to act. However, the government across the aisle promised to do things differently. It promised action on climate change, but it was all words and little action.

It was not always this way. At one time, Canada's word was its bond. There are Canadian war graves scattered around the world, in little places and in big towns, that are a testament to that. For most of this country's history, when we gave our word, that was our bond. We contributed to the defeat of Fascism in Europe and totalitarianism in the far east. As a result, in the post-war period, Canada was a founding member of most of the post-war structure. We were a founding member of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and dozens of other organizations. We paid that price in blood, because Canada's word was its bond. There were some 60,000 dead in the First World War, a century ago, and some 40,000 dead in the Second World War, in places like the Netherlands and Hong Kong.

Have we honoured that legacy, where our word is our bond, in recent decades? We made a commitment in 1970 to spend 0.7% of Canada's GDP on foreign aid, on overseas development assistance. We barely meet half of that commitment, and it has been decades in the making. We promised NATO that we would spend 2% of our national economy on military and defence spending, and for decades we have barely met half that commitment. Most of our western European allies and the United States meet or exceed that commitment.

In fact, I remember a speech in this House, in this very Parliament, in 2016, when American President Barack Obama chastised Canada for not meeting its NATO commitment and told this Parliament that we should meet our NATO commitment. Both sides of the aisle erupted in applause, but we are nowhere closer to doing that today than we were when he gave that speech in this House some three years ago.

On climate change, whether it was the Kyoto protocol, the Copenhagen accord or the Paris accord, we have failed to uphold our word. Our word is no longer our bond. We are squandering the inheritance that we as parliamentarians received, built on generations of those Canadians who came before and who, when they spoke, meant that their word was their bond.

According to a recent report by Climate Transparency from last November, Canada is now the highest per capita emitter in the G20. That is right: We emit more per capita than our friends and neighbours south of the border. Canada has only 1.5% of total global emissions, but we are the ninth largest emitter on the planet. If we are not going to do our part, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, what hope is there for countries 10th through 190th to do their part?

California met its Copenhagen targets four years early, in 2016, despite the fact that its population grew from some 30 million in 1990 to 42 million today, despite the fact that its per capita GDP has skyrocketed in the last 30 years, and despite the fact that it is the world's fifth largest economy.

The motion in front of us today makes a mockery of those who came before; when they gave their word, it was their bond. It belies the inheritance that we received as parliamentarians. The silly motion in front of us today is not a motion that I can support, for all those reasons.

Michael Chong

$499,968.00