Hon. Grant Mitchell:

Honourable senators, I want to emphasize once again that this was a powerful report. I am grateful that the committee was released by the Senate to spend time in the North. Each member who had the opportunity to take the trip found it to be a powerful, profound and moving experience.

We discovered many things while on the trip, but I would like to emphasize one in particular; the impact of climate change on the North. It has been said sufficiently often that it is almost trite, I am sure, that the North is really the canary in the mine when it comes to climate change.

I would like to list some of our clear observations that climate change is occurring and comment on the response of the people who live there to climate change. It is a telling experience to see the reactions of people who are experiencing climate change.

After arriving in the North, it soon became apparent to the committee members that climate change has progressed to a point where the permafrost is melting. One does not have to be a scientist to figure that out, but can simply observe what is occurring in many ways. One of the most profound indications of climate change and the melting of the permafrost is that the roads are beginning to waiver. Driving on these permafrost roads is almost like riding a roller coaster. It will not get better, honourable senators; it will get worse.

There are many stories of structural problems because homes and buildings are beginning to sink into the permafrost. There is much talk of observation that ice roads critical to supply in the development of the North are forming later and dissolving sooner. Not only is that an indicator of a problem but it creates a problem. The problem it creates, among others, is that it forces prices up. We saw evidence of milk costing four dollars a litre, and probably every one of us in this place has heard of the stories of huge costs.

We were told by the people of Tuktoyaktuk and by others that the caribou herd in that region had dropped from 160,000 animals to 40,000 or 45,000 animals in five years. They told us that there was rain in December, two Decembers ago. Furthermore, there was thunder and lightning in Tuktoyaktuk in December. There is also evidence that the coastline in Tuktoyaktuk is eroding. Many houses in that town, if not eventually all of them, are vulnerable. Why is that erosion occurring? It is not because the ice is melting and creating more water that then fills up the ocean, although the ice that is on land contributes to that problem. It is occurring because much more water is exposed. Generally speaking, water in the seas and the oceans is exposed to higher heat. Water expands and that is what elevates the level of water. That change is what is threatening, among other places, Tuktoyaktuk. There is lots of evidence of animal and insect species moving north that have never been seen there before.

I underline this situation, honourable senators, because we see a drought now in the West, in Alberta. It will probably be a sustained drought this summer — I am not sure, but I hope not. We see evidence of this change in our lives in Canada, with more abrupt and more vicious storms and variations in weather that we have not seen before. The impact is not as vivid and as profound as it is for the people in the North perhaps because it is not as intense. Those people who live in Tuktoyaktuk, Inuvik and elsewhere know there is a problem because they live with it every day. Their traditional hunting areas and hunting patterns, right down to modern construction issues, are exacerbated, changed and fundamentally destroyed because of climate change.

Honourable senators, it is interesting that the people of these communities are taking specific measures to reduce their emissions — as futile as reducing their emissions is. Their emissions are infinitesimally small in the scope of the world, but they are reducing them out of desperation because they see the impact.

Our committee met with the ambassador from Australia to Canada last week. He outlined the program that Australia is now implementing to deal with climate change. It is a strong program. He said that the turning point for the people of Australia was the massive, uncontrollable wild fires that have occurred over the last number of years. They realized that this situation was not ordinary. It was not normal, it was not natural and it should not occur. Australia is taking powerful, major steps to do something about it.

Honourable senators, I hope that the government will consider this report as one more piece of evidence — not quite scientific, but there is a lot of scientific evidence — on an infinitely high pile that says, Yes, climate change is occurring; yes, it is occurring because of the human activity and because of the kind of human activity that we in Canada do; and, yes, we need to do something about it and we need to lead the world in doing something about it.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

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