Mr. Speaker, as members will see, my speech has a few things in common with the speech by my colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.

I believe the Greens, the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois all experienced the same frustration during the committee's study. The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C‑12 anyway, despite its flaws, because we agree with the net-zero by 2050 target set out in the Paris Agreement.

I do want to point out, however, that the government chose to delay putting Bill C‑12 on the House's agenda for more than four months. It took pressure from environmental groups for the government to finally introduce it in the House.

It was introduced in November, and the Minister of the Environment announced the formation of his advisory body in December, before we had even discussed it in committee. In April, the Prime Minister declared his climate ambitions to President Biden, setting targets for a 40% to 45% reduction by 2030. It was not until mid-May that Bill C-12 was finally referred to the committee, with only a few weeks left in the parliamentary session. In our view, the government's calculation is clear: little time to hear witnesses, little time to read correspondence or the many briefs submitted to the committee and, lastly, a rushed and truncated clause-by-clause process whose outcome was, as some committee members put it, a foregone conclusion.

The government has run roughshod over important parts of the legislative process by imposing this agenda and the resulting delays. I am not alone in drawing these conclusions. Since urgent action is needed, we are now dealing with Government Business No. 9. The real emergency is the climate emergency. We were hopeful that the parties that had been clamouring for strong, robust climate legislation that provides transparency and accountability and is guided by science would deliver. I can say right now that the result has been disappointing.

For its part, the government, through the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, explicitly said that targets were going to be included in the bill. It did so twice: once in the House and once in committee. At the May 17 meeting, at 2:51 p.m., the minister confirmed the following to my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia: “Yes, the new target range of 40% to 45% that we have announced as a goal for 2030 will be a requirement of the act.”

The two ministers, namely the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of the Environment, lied: no numerical target ended up being included. We worked quickly, and we have had to pick up the pace because of the timeline I mentioned earlier. However, we did listen to what various experts had to say and heard their advice on what key elements were required to come up with an ambitious climate bill.

Even more importantly, given Canada's record on greenhouse gas emissions and its dismal past failures, it was important for us to establish a road map for a bill that would enable Canada to honour its international commitments under the Paris Agreement, or in other words, legislation that would provide Quebeckers and Canadians with a demonstrably viable path toward net-zero emissions, a green and fair transition and a future for our young people. That is what this is about. It is about the life we want for future generations in our communities.

We were given excellent advice, but the government, with the calculated and negotiated support of the NDP, failed to deliver the basics of what was required, despite the science and what it tells us, despite what we have been told over the years by experts from almost every sector of the economy, including those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency, despite the fact that time is of the essence and that we cannot take small steps when leaps and bounds are required, and despite the 33 robust amendments presented by the Bloc Québécois, which were all systematically rejected except for one.

I will not use my time to talk about everything that happened at committee because my colleague already covered that thoroughly, but I would like to talk about the other committee, the one the Minister of Environment and Climate Change created in December. Since December, the government has given that committee a hodgepodge of different names, as my colleagues will see.

The committee started out as an expert advisory panel, which was not bad. It was a good start, but then things went downhill. Next it was known as the independent advisory body, the departmental net-zero panel and the net-zero advisory panel. If my colleagues find that confusing, they are right.

Everything to do with the organization of what Bill C‑12 now calls the “net-zero advisory body” is crucial to Canada's ability to say it has a meaningful climate act, not just to the governing party's ability to call an election and say it has this great climate legislation and everyone should vote for that party.

The advisory body, its composition, its mandate, its responsibilities and powers, its operation and its resources are all elements that the Bloc Québécois tried to clarify with the sole aim of finding in this bill what it was supposed to promote: government transparency and accountability in dealing with the climate emergency. The things I just mentioned were largely left out of the original version of Bill C-12.

In its amended version the NDP simply added the word “independent” to the name of the body. However, getting independent advice and having an independent body are not at all the same thing. By refusing the amendments we proposed, the NDP's minor qualification is unfortunately merely cosmetic and has no real legal scope. The departmental expert who appeared at our meeting confirmed this unequivocally.

Climatologist Corinne Le Quéré appeared before the committee. She is the chair of France's High Council on Climate and a member of the Committee on Climate Change in the United Kingdom. She has participated in several studies conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, so she has extensive knowledge and expertise. She said, and I quote:

…the current design of the legislation makes the advisory group too close to the minister, and the independence isn't quite visible enough. It must be at arm's length. The distance isn't very visible.

Let us now talk about consultations. We want thorough consultations to take place with different sectors of the economy and with government actors, all with respect for Quebec, the provinces, indigenous peoples and civil society, it goes without saying. However, the consultations must be guided by the people who have the expertise and scientific knowledge on climate change, and not the opposite.

When I listen to science, I am not listening to a multitude of positions and propositions coming from all over the place, to interests that are sometimes reconcilable, sometimes divergent. People are best placed to draw up a plan for us when they are independent, either as individuals or as a body, when they consult others, accept positions and propositions and analyze them in light of the demands of the climate crisis and the solutions that scientific expertise has to offer.

I will mention an amendment that the NDP will try to get a lot of mileage out of, I am sure. It is the one that requires the minister's first plan to include an objective for 2026. My colleagues should make no mistake: The expert who was present at the study confirmed that an objective is not the same thing as a target. The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley will tell us that his negotiated amendment is essentially a surrender. He said, and I quote:

There is other wording I would have preferred as well, but this exercise is about building enough agreement to get these changes through the committee, and that was the language that was agreed to that we feel will gain agreement from the majority of the committee members. I think the term “objective” is clear enough for most people to understand…That's certainly my understanding. My hope would be that the government would understand it similarly.

I wish him good luck with that, because hope is not a management tool for dealing with a climate crisis. I think it is good to remind our NDP colleagues of that fact.

The weekend after the first meetings for the clause-by-clause study of the bill, my office voice mail was bombarded by concerned citizens from places like Kingston, Victoria and Sudbury, who had watched the committee proceedings and wanted to express their severe disappointment as NDP supporters. Concerning the environmental file, two people went so far as to say that “the Bloc Québécois is the only real opposition left in Ottawa”. I am not making that up.

Will Canada impose an impossible task on future generations by making this accountability mere window dressing? The government must be accountable now, not in six months or a year.

The Bloc Québécois is a party with integrity that followed through on its convictions. We kept our word on the issue of climate accountability for the common good, for more transparency, for greater democracy, for more rigour and for more results.

We proposed a target of 37.5% below 1990 levels, the baseline year used by Quebec and the 27 EU countries. Canada decided to use 2005 as the baseline year, thus writing off 15 years of pollution.

We are facing a race that we cannot drop out of, but all we have is sneakers with no laces. I am worried about that. Everyone in Quebec and Canada should be worried, too. We were unable to see the process through to the end because of how the government, with the NDP as its ally, conducted this important debate.

We could wait until fall to put Bill C-12 to a vote. After all, the government waited six months to introduce it in the House and then refer it to committee. Instead of calling an election this summer, why not continue our work and wait until the fall to debate the bill and do an outstanding job of perfecting it? This will not happen, however, because the government would rather stand up in front of voters and show them how great it is.

Monique Pauzé

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