44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 17, 2022 10:00AM
- May/17/22 11:26:18 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this motion.
I should just mention I am splitting my time with the member for Calgary Centre.
I think today it is important for us to be clear about what is being debated. The NDP has a motion that references the high cost of gasoline, but it does not suggest what could be done. They are actually suggesting that we should see the prices increase.
I think it is good, and I think it is important, for the NDP to be transparent about its position. I think New Democrats have been abundantly clear as to what they want to have happen. They have said that they believe the oil and gas sector in the country of Canada should be shut down. They have been very clear. There is no ambiguity. They have said that the 500,000 jobs should be done away with, and they have an idea as to how they can get them employed in coffee shops or maybe art studios, but they want to see those jobs eliminated. They want to see the energy sector shut down.
They also want to see the price of gasoline driven up even further. They have been abundantly clear in that regard, but I think this is a bad strategy. I think this is a path to destruction and hardship for the vast majority of Canadians. The folks I am hearing from in my constituency are desperately concerned about the high cost of living and, over the past number of months, the devastating impact of high fuel prices on household budgets.
I live in a rural community. My constituency is a rural and northern community, so many of the folks who are employed in my constituency live in rural communities or they work in rural communities. They drive pickup trucks to get to work. Those are essential vehicles. They cannot take the subway, Uber or a Prius. They have to get into their pickups and they have to get to work, and many of these people are paying up to a day's wages to fill the tank of an essential vehicle to get to their jobs.
The NDP and the Liberals have worked together over the past number of months not only to maintain these high prices, but to elevate the price through their additional carbon taxes. As a matter of fact, it is estimated that taxation on gasoline amounts to about 50¢ a litre. Many politicians have talked about how bad it is that there is a high cost for gasoline. It is amazing. There is something we, as politicians, could actually do. As a matter of fact, the Province of Alberta, for a temporary period of time, did something. Its government eliminated some of the gas taxes, which brought relief to households in the province of Alberta. I believe the federal government should take a lesson from that, do what is the right thing to do and make life more affordable for Canadians from coast to coast.
Not only does the NDP want to see the price of gasoline go up, as I mentioned, but it wants to eliminate the industry altogether. Let us just think about that for a period of time. If we eliminate the sector in the country of Canada, a number of things would happen. Canadians would continue to need to use oil and gas, so we would import it. From where would we import it? We would import it from the same places every country does that does not import Canadian oil and gas. This means countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
I can tell members, Canadians and you, Madam Speaker, this, and I am hopeful my colleagues in the NDP and the Liberal Party are listening.
I know that Canadians do not want to see oil and gas flowing into Canada from places like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, which have far lower human rights records and environmental stewardship records. I can tell members that, while the NDP may want to shut down the industry here in Canada, we have seen what happens when other countries attempt this. It means they become dependent on other countries and places for their fuel needs, and they become less able to diversify their own economies.
The price of fuel is at an all-time high, and the NDP is suggesting that the solution should be that we shut down the industry. New Democrats say we should shut down the subsidies.
As has been articulated by the government, and as has been articulated by the industry, these are actually not the subsidies the NDP would suggest. There are subsidies that take place within Canada relating to the oil and gas sector, and those are the significant subsidies the industry makes to the Canadian population. The taxes collected from the industry to the government in Canada amount to nearly $20 billion.
The NDP solution to the challenges that we face today is to shut down the industry, continue to see prices of gasoline rise and shut down the $20 billion in revenue that the industry pays into municipal, provincial and federal coffers. That $20 billion pays for roads, maintenance of our communities, health care systems, schools and universities, as well as the important services that the federal government provides. The NDP's suggestion is that, if we just eliminate this industry, all would be harmonious and we would happily continue on our merry way. The NDP gives no regard to the $20 billion that is invested from the industry every single year.
More importantly, the NDP talks about shutting down the industry, and it never talks about the important jobs that the industry creates, whether it is the 500,000 jobs the industry creates directly or the indirect jobs that are created in every community across this country. In the old days, the NDP used to be the defender of the blue-collar worker. It used to be the defender of rural communities. It used to be the defender of the little guy. The vast majority of the people who work in the energy sector in the province of Alberta and throughout the country are exactly the people who the NDP used to represent. Unfortunately, the NDP have now completely abandoned those folks.
In a community like mine, where we have a very diversified economy, with oil and gas, agriculture, forestry, a good service sector and a good retail sector, everybody in close proximity understands that their well-being is connected to everybody else's well-being. The retailer knows that if we shut down the energy sector, their energy costs would skyrocket, which they are of course opposed to, but they also understand the importance of their success being connected to the jobs that are created within in our community and the spinoff benefits within our community.
The thing the NDP conveniently likes to forget, when they talk about the environment and the need to transition from oil and gas to new energies, is that it would be following the path Kathleen Wynne's government took here in the province of Ontario. It spent billions of dollars—
An hon. member: Now, that is a dirty personal attack.
Mr. Chris Warkentin: Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague from the NDP—
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- May/17/22 1:47:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if I were a worker in Alberta, I would have zero trust that the government has any interest in supporting me, because it has not shown any interest in supporting Alberta workers. I mentioned in my speech that we asked the government to tie a string so that workers were supported, not big business, and it refused to do it.
In terms of carbon capture, here is my question for the member. Why would taxpayers need to subsidize carbon capture? Why can industry not pay for the carbon capture that it is so proud of and would like to see happen? It should be responsible for funding it.
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- May/17/22 1:48:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have some questions about the member's figures, but I am going to get to something that I think is more important.
We are talking about 53,000 families in Alberta that were suffering during the oil and gas downturn. It is no longer in a downturn, I will point out. The Court of Appeal of Alberta came out last week and indicated very clearly that Bill C-69 was ultra vires of the federal government. That being the case, the NDP leader in Alberta indicated that the main cause of the layoffs in Alberta was a punitive regulatory regime as a result of Bill C-69.
Would the member agree with her party leader in Alberta that it is the Alberta Court of Appeal's decision on Bill C-69 that led to those 53,000 families being laid off in Alberta?
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- May/17/22 1:49:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to give my colleague my deep sympathies, because the Flames are going to lose the next round in the playoffs.
To answer that particular question, I would say there are many things that have contributed to the layoff of Alberta workers. One of the things that I pointed out in my speech is the automation of the oil and gas sector. Even if the oil and gas sector was not causing climate damage and was something that we could continue to go gangbusters with, it does not have the jobs. They are not there. Talk to any worker in the oil and gas sector and they know that. They know the jobs are not staying. There has to be something else.
The longer the Conservatives fail to take that action, the more coverage they give to the Liberals doing nothing. They are helping the Liberals do nothing.
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- May/17/22 1:50:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I very much enjoy listening to my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona talk about Alberta. When we hear her talk about Alberta, we see that there is another type of Albertan, one who is more concerned about the environment and less concerned about oil, one who sees that there are solutions for breaking our dependency on oil and who is open to a transition to renewable energy.
We are voting in favour of the motion moved by our NDP colleagues today. In the motion there is a paragraph that I think is very important regarding re-investing savings from the elimination of fossil fuels subsidies to help those Canadians who have been hit the hardest by the high cost of living. What measures would the NDP want put in place? Practically speaking, what measures are the NDP proposing to help Quebeckers and Canadians?
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- May/17/22 1:50:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have worked very well with the member on committee and enjoy his interventions a great deal.
This ability to take these dollars and investing them in communities is very important. One of the areas that I would love to see better investment in is infrastructure for first nation and Métis communities in Alberta.
Right now, we are looking at a situation in northern Alberta where communities have to make a very difficult choice of whether or not to allow the release of tailings ponds into their ecosystem, because they have not been dealt with. There are communities that do not have the resources they need for clean drinking water and for schools. I would love to see those resources going into—
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- May/17/22 3:33:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, before question period, I was having a conversation with the Minister of the Environment, and we were talking about the green transition. We were speaking about how, in the province of Alberta, through renewable energy and job creation, somewhere in the neighbourhood of several thousands of jobs, just in that one province, have been created.
I think we underestimate, as the Minister of the Environment would no doubt tell us, those nations, countries, provinces and provincial governments that get engaged on the whole concept of green technology and what we can do as provincial or federal entities to encourage and promote it. Those are good jobs for the future, and thousands of jobs are being generated because of some of the budgetary measures we have put in this last budget, specifically, but others also.
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- May/17/22 5:23:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Alberta has one of the most inefficient tax systems in the country because it has a fuel tax but no value-added tax. On March 31, Alberta decided to pause collection of the fuel tax. We see that this idea is gaining momentum here among our Conservative friends.
I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the Conservatives' idea to stop imposing the GST on fuel, even if temporarily. If he is against the idea, I would like him to tell us what could be done to fight climate change with the GST tax revenue collected by the federal government.
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