44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 22, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/22/22 1:42:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on the opposition motion brought forward by my Conservative colleague from Abbotsford.
Members may have noticed that there is an unmistakable air of non-partisanship in the House today and all throughout Ottawa. It is in this positive and productive spirit that I wish to invite my Conservative colleagues to work with us in partnership to serve the best interests of Canadians.
With that in mind, I will start by thanking the member for Abbotsford for raising this very important issue that I know is on the minds of many families across the country, from his side of the country to my own, and that is the rising cost of gasoline. On the surface, it is a bit confounding to see that an issue so very close to home for many Canadians, the price at the pump, is also a story about what is unfolding a world away with Russia's brutal, illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war with Ukraine, an invasion, it is worth noting, that is being funded by the very resource that we are discussing today.
One of the consequences of Putin's illegal invasion has been a sharp increase in oil and gas prices across the globe, including right here in Canada. While Canadians are willing to make sacrifices in order to preserve the freedom of the people of Ukraine and maintain European security, we know that the rise of the price of oil is placing the greatest burden on those who are least able to afford the sharp energy increases. Therein lies the hard truth for us as parliamentarians to consider.
We have a responsibility to seriously examine our reliance on a resource so volatile that a sudden turn of events, such as the heinous actions of a dictator across the globe, can have such a dire impact on how our own residents can afford to drive their cars to work or to heat their homes. However, here is where the Conservatives differ from the other parties in this place. Conservatives see this as an opportunity to yet again double down on this volatile resource, but doing so would only further endanger the financial well-being of low- and middle-income Canadians who will bear the brunt of the next sudden surge in gas prices, just like they are today.
There is a different way, a better way. As my father taught me long ago, when one is in a hole, stop digging.
This rise in gas prices only strengthens the case to speed up our transition to a carbon-neutral economy and to energy sources that will not fluctuate at the whim of world events: renewable energy like solar, wind and green hydrogen. A great example is the solar city program in Halifax, which puts solar panels on residential rooftops and is supported by the green municipal fund, a program of FCM funded by the Government of Canada.
We have a chance right now to signal that the federal government will not continue to put low- and middle-income Canadians in this difficult position again, and that comes down to how we allocate taxpayer dollars to support clean growth and the stable energy costs that Canadians deserve. We have done that already in a wide variety of ways, and here are a few local examples from my own riding of Halifax.
This summer, I announced the federal share of $112 million in joint funding from all orders of government to purchase 60 new battery-operated, zero-emission buses to electrify Halifax Transit, removing 3,800 tonnes of emissions annually by 2030. This funding also includes charging infrastructure for the fleet. In June, I announced a $5.5-million investment to create a renewable district energy system in the Cogswell Interchange redevelopment area in downtown Halifax, which is a project that will provide residents with a rate-stable, clean energy source for years to come by extracting waste heat from treated effluent in downtown Halifax.
I am proud of my past work as parliament secretary to the minister of infrastructure and communities to lead the development of Canada's first active transportation strategy and its associated $400-million fund, the first of its kind in Canada. This is in addition to the $25 million in joint funding from all three levels of government to improve the Halifax “all ages and abilities” bikeway network.
As a final example, I can share that productive discussions are under way between the federal government and the Atlantic provinces toward the development of the Atlantic loop, an interconnected, clean power grid that would serve as the foundation for a competitive, electrified economy across the Atlantic region.
These are just a few of the many measures we have taken, but we can still do more to cut and stabilize energy costs for Canadians so that we do not find ourselves back in this place again. The upcoming federal budget presents that opportunity. I sent out a pre-budget consultation survey to my residents in Halifax and received an overwhelming amount of feedback in return. Many were concerned about the cost of living and indeed the cost of energy.
In response, I wrote to the Minister of Finance with two ideas I think would be worth considering. One is an acceleration of the implementation of interest-free loans for green retrofits, announced in budget 2021. This would allow Canadians to reduce their energy bills, insulating them from further oil price shocks in the future. The second is an acceleration of our government's efforts to support the adoption of zero-emission vehicles, including adding 50,000 new electric vehicle chargers and hydrogen stations to Canada's growing network and expanding purchase incentives for zero-emission vehicles, which have been massively popular.
Work is already under way in Halifax to prepare for this transportation transition, as last year I announced funding to advance cost-effective energy solutions for an electric vehicle smart grid integrated system in Nova Scotia. I believe these are the more productive kinds of ideas needed to address the root cause of the strain being put on Canadians, which is our reliance on a volatile resource to heat our homes and power our vehicles.
Ultimately, this is about using the power of government to help Canadians who need it. However, the mechanism presented by the Conservatives in today's motion is not one that will achieve its desired effect. Although I do believe the Conservatives have submitted this suggestion because they want to provide relief at the pumps, there is still no guarantee that their proposed measure would do anything of the sort. In fact, it could result in energy companies pocketing even more astronomical profits, as they have over the past few weeks, without any benefit accruing to Canadian consumers whatsoever.
Instead of putting more money into the pockets of oil companies and executives, we should instead focus on putting money into the pockets of Canadians in need. That is what our Liberal government has been doing throughout our time in office with means-tested benefits, indexed to inflation, that are supporting Canadian families with the rising cost of living, measures like the Canada child benefit, cutting taxes on the middle class, increasing the OAS and GIS for seniors, introducing the Canada housing benefit for the housing insecure and slashing child care costs to $10 a day. These are the measures that have a positive impact on the pocketbooks of everyday Canadians, not the pocketbooks of big oil and gas, yet the Conservatives have routinely voted against these very measures. It certainly shows us where their priorities lie.
As I conclude, we will continue to be there for Canadians by providing them with the financial support they need to get ahead and to stay ahead, by funding the transition to net zero so that they do not have to live in fear of the next big oil shock, and by putting in place programs that rely on stable, reliable, clean energy sources that protect the planet and the pocketbooks of Canadians for years to come.
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- Mar/22/22 1:51:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Nova Scotia raises important concerns. It is important that we get off this kind of monoculture of fuel we have been on for a long time. The importance is going to have to be in the diversification of transportation options, be that public transit, electric vehicles or the active transportation we have heard many people discuss. It is going to be very important to support rural transit as well as we go through this. The point is that we would like to create conditions in which Canadian families do not have the decision to own multiple vehicles forced upon them when there are alternative options to that.
Likewise, with respect to home heating, there is the solar city program I mentioned and energy retrofits for which we are providing zero-interest loans. The objective here is to diversify our sources of energy so that we never again have to live through a spike like we are right now.
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- Mar/22/22 1:53:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, our government has committed to and in fact ran on the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies and most recently has accelerated the phase-out, which does create capacity in past and upcoming budgets to support the very kinds of programs that the member raised so diligently today.
This will allow us to allocate more money to seniors and those living in need, more money for other methods of low- and zero-emission transit, as well as other means of heating homes and running industries.
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- Mar/22/22 1:56:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague for the wonderful question.
Where do I see the future of this? I look no further than my own home province of Nova Scotia and the Atlantic provinces that surround it for the future. The Atlantic loop, which is in discussions now, is going to create an improved electrical grid that would allow us to phase off of coal earlier than we expected and would allow all kinds of renewable inputs, wind, solar and others, as we electrify the lives of Atlantic Canadians.
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