In last week’s report I referenced the closure of the Kelowna International airport (YLW) to international flights and asked: “Do you support the Kelowna Airport being re-opened to International flights as have been many other airports in Canada?”
I would like to thank all of those who took the time to respond and can state the responses were both overwhelming and almost unanimous in support of international flights returning to YLW.
Fortunately, we had some excellent news this week as Transport Canada announced eight more Canadian airports will, as of Nov. 30, again be open to international arrivals and departures. The list of these eight airports St. John’s, Hamilton, Waterloo, Regina, Saskatoon, Kelowna, Abbotsford and Victoria.
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I would like to sincerely thank all of those who worked in support of this announcement.
On the topic of international travel, currently more than 39,000 delegates have registered to attend the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, making this the largest attended COP climate conference in history.
Blacklock’s, a journalism organization out of Ottawa, reports that the official Canadian delegation at the COP26 conference is 277 delegates, 30 Environment Canada staff, 17 press aides as well as a videographer and speechwriter for the prime minister and four CBC reporters.
In the interests of full disclosure, members of the opposition also attend this conference.
I am attending on behalf of the Official Opposition as the Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change, as is the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, Bloc MP Kristina Michaud and Green Party MPs Elizabeth May and Mike Morrice.
Several government ministers including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are also attending this conference and the prime minister has made several announcements of behalf of Canada.
One of the more noteworthy announcements was a promise that “Canada will impose a hard cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector.” At the moment the exact details of this announcement are unknown, however the goal is to get emissions to net zero by 2050 within this Canadian industry.
One of the challenges is that other countries who produce oil and gas are not following Canada in setting emissions caps, nor are they setting a “price on pollution” when it comes to oil and gas.
A further complication is that different regions of Canada use oil and gas that is imported from these countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United States.
That leads to my question for this week: How do you think the government should deal with oil and gas imports from other countries that are not subject to these same types of policies?
Dan Albas is the Member of Parliament-elect for the riding of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.
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