Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to be engaged in this debate today. I also want to congratulate my colleague from Ottawa South for his leadership on the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy for many years, which is an organization that did the kinds of analyses that the Conservative member was talking about and showed that taking action on climate change would be positive for the economy as well as the environment.
What I would like to do next is to thank the citizens of Vancouver Quadra for their commitment to action on climate change, and for their support for my various efforts to put this front and centre in the agenda of the government over the past eight years.
Vancouver Quadra is home to many pioneers who understand the challenge of climate change and are committed to solutions. Whether they be members of the David Suzuki Foundation, which raises awareness; professors who have researched this issue and spoken up, such as Dr. Bill Rees, who was the inventor of the concept of the carbon footprint, the environmental footprint; entrepreneurs working on solutions with fuel cell batteries and other clean technologies; the youth who have engaged in a number of organizations and gone door to door to raise the issue of climate change and the impact on their generation; or ordinary people in the streets of Vancouver Quadra, this is a high priority in my riding.
In addition, it is an emotional day for me to rise in support of the important part our government played in the Paris agreement and as a problem solver with respect to climate, and to rise the day after our Prime Minister announced that our federal government would ensure there is a national price on carbon.
A carbon tax has been part of the lives of British Columbians for almost a decade. Our citizens are proud of it. They are proud that the emissions were driven down over a number of years by this carbon tax. They are very proud that our economy outperformed the rest of Canada for most of those years. The carbon tax in British Columbia helped return the B.C. Liberal government to power for its third and fourth terms. This is something that has been proven elsewhere, and it is about time that Canada has a federal government that is prepared to move forward on it.
As everyone knows, during the election campaign, we promised to protect the environment while stimulating the economy. We promised to take a leadership role nationally and work with the provinces and territories to address climate change and put a price on carbon emissions to reduce carbon pollution. That is exactly what the Prime Minister announced in our plan yesterday.
In fact, the Prime Minister has positioned Canada as a world leader on this front. Look at what we have done in the past year. In December, we participated in negotiating the historic new climate agreement at COP21 in Paris. The Prime Minister also signed the Paris agreement in New York on Earth Day.
The first ministers have committed to implementing policies in support of meeting or exceeding Canada's 2030 target of a 30% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels, and there are five working groups helping to build a framework and a plan to turn this into a reality.
At the North American Leaders' Summit in Ottawa this summer, we made an extraordinary commitment. We pledged that by 2025, 100% of the electricity that the government uses in facilities managed by Public Services and Procurement Canada, one of the government's largest real estate custodians, will come from clean energy sources.
To action our commitments, our Prime Minister committed to providing an additional $20 billion for green infrastructure over 10 years. In addition, in our recent budget, almost $3.5 billion over five years was announced to address a range of climate issues, including air pollution and ecological protection, and to improve environmental assessments and restore public trust.
We are also investing to help Canada make up for lost time in the global clean technology economy.
There are $280 million to support the development of clean technologies and innovation in this sector in Canada.
The investments also include $120 million in non-polluting transportation networks and charging stations, an additional $50 million for sustainable development technologies in Canada, as well as $86 million for energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy sources.
This brings me to a subject that is very important to me, since I have been tackling it directly for the past few months, namely, what we are doing to reduce carbon emissions resulting from federal government operations.
The federal government is the largest employer, property owner, and purchaser in the country. As such, it can make a real difference. By getting our own house in order, we are reaffirming our commitment to the fight against climate change worldwide.
As part of the federal sustainable development strategy, we have ambitious targets and a plan to reduce federal greenhouse gas emissions.
To help achieve these reductions, in budget 2016 we announced we would invest up to $2.1 billion in repairs and retrofits to our wide range of properties and buildings and in the greening of government operations. That includes improving military housing, which is so badly needed, upgrading border infrastructure, and modernizing the generation of energy for marine communication and traffic services.
It also includes significant reductions in the carbon footprint and energy use of our buildings in the national capital region and elsewhere. For example, Public Services and Procurement Canada manages six heating and cooling plants that serve 85 buildings in the national capital region. These plants currently generate an annual average of 117 kilotons of greenhouse gas emissions, and they are in need of major updating.
We will therefore take this opportunity to implement more efficient technologies that will reduce both our long-term costs and our emissions by over 45% in the future. This will also enable us to examine the idea of using biomass as an alternative source of energy, which could produce even better results.
In fact, when I spent a day learning about the emission reduction leadership at the University of British Columbia in my riding, I toured the new biomass fuel power plant that is contributing to the university being on track to achieve its goal of a 67% reduction of emissions by 2020. Climate action is about reducing emissions, saving money, and creating jobs.
I wrote my thesis on global warming 24 years ago. I helped build the foundation for B.C.'s climate action as the provincial environment minister for three years, and now I have the privilege of working on climate solutions in this government. I am happy to say we are creating a systematic plan to reduce the government's own greenhouse gas emissions. We will do that by acquiring tools, improving the environmental performance of buildings, equipment, and operations, minimizing fuel consumption and exhaust emissions from the federal fleet, and supporting green or low-carbon procurement. The plan also could include reducing the carbon footprint of employee activities like travel and commuting.
Our success depends on the collaboration of federal employees, so we will be involving them and seeking their contributions so that they can bring their ideas forward. We are also studying their successes abroad and in other provinces.
We are working toward having a coordinated, ambitious approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the federal government, and I ask members to join us in working toward a clean, sustainable economy that is Canada's future.