Proposed law would require the government to establish a plan to avoid catastrophic climate change and meet the science-based targets to reduce greenhouse gases to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
Click here for full text of Bill C-619 (pdf)
On June 16, Matthew Kellway (Beaches-East York) introduced the Climate Change Accountability Act, an updated version of Jack Layton’s bill.
Seconded by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, the bill will require the government to establish a plan to avoid catastrophic climate change and meet the science-based targets to reduce greenhouse gases to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
The bill was first introduced by Jack Layton in 2007, and was passed by the House of Commons in 2008, only to die when Stephen Harper called an unexpected election. It was reintroduced and passed a second time by the House in the next Parliament, only to be defeated by the unelected, Conservative-dominated Senate with no study or debate. It was the first time in 75 years that the Senate voted to defeat legislation duly adopted by the House of Commons.
“Taking action on climate change is not an option, it’s a necessity. It’s something that New Democrats know we need to do” said Kellway “I’m proud to join Tom in taking up Jack’s cause, and continuing his fight for a greener, more prosperous Canada.”
“Jack’s bill was designed to hold the government accountable on climate change,” said Mulcair. “We in the NDP won’t give up our principles. We’re continuing the work Jack started, and ensuring that when Canada shows up at global climate change negotiations in 2015 – we won’t be empty handed. The NDP, like Canadians, actually get it.”
Kellway’s speech introducing the Bill:
Mr. Speaker, it is my great privilege to reintroduce into the House, seconded by the Leader of the Opposition, a bill originally put forward by Jack Layton, the climate change accountability act.
Every day in this place we put ideas and different visions of our future in opposition to each other, and that is fair enough. We imagine and hope for very different things on either side of this aisle. However, on this issue, at this time in our history, it must be different.
We have before us the challenge of climate change, a challenge that calls upon us to look beyond ourselves, beyond this time and place.
Arresting climate change is the world’s struggle. Everybody must play their part. However, we in here must lead. To fail to do so would be a failing beyond us as politicians and ours as a political system, a failing more fundamental.
All of us are entrusted with the care of the earth we inhabit and the well-being of all those who inhabit it. We need, now, to act upon that responsibility.
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