44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 17, 2022 10:00AM
- May/17/22 10:54:21 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's honesty in saying that he opposes affordable gasoline for Canadians. He wants high gas prices. My question to the member is this: Why will his partners in the Liberal government not also claim victory on this?
The Liberals brought in the carbon tax with the stated purpose of raising gas taxes at the pump. That is what happened. Now they are running for cover and blaming it on Russia.
I will give members one example. In my riding, a litre of gasoline is $2.00 a litre. Across the border, 10 minutes away in Maine, it is $1.50. That is a 50¢ difference. Now, all that gasoline comes from the same place, which is the refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. Maine does not have a more efficient refinery with harder workers or lower input costs. It is coming from the same place. That difference is all tax.
I would say it is mission accomplished, as they are driving up the price of energy in this country. Why will the Liberals not also claim credit on this and say, “Mission accomplished”?
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- May/17/22 12:05:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my friend. It is very important to understand that the recent hike in gas prices is partly a result of the cost of the carbon tax applied by the federal government, currently in Liberal hands.
We have often said that it was time to reduce or defer the carbon tax for Canadian consumers. This tax is now almost 12¢ a litre for Canadian consumers—
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- May/17/22 1:05:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member. We are hearing the NDP speak out of both sides of its mouth. The member, maybe in a moment of honesty, said she is concerned about high gas prices. This morning, I asked the member for Timmins—James Bay about gas after he said we cannot have affordable gas prices, and he got up and he said that was wrong—
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- May/17/22 1:34:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would say that there will be a role for oil and gas. I noted that by 2050, that role will be for non-combustion purposes principally. Certainly we are going to see a steady decline over the coming decades in the production and use of oil and gas, especially for combustion purposes.
I suppose my answer is simply to say that I do not have the same challenges with our country as a producer as I would with a regime like Russia, for example. We are rightly prohibiting Russian oil and gas for good reason, but we also need to transition very quickly. We need to support that transition and make sure that we support our workers and our society in a future that is ultimately going to be net zero by 2050.
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- May/17/22 2:26:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, you must be wondering why gas is so expensive. That is such a good question that Radio-Canada analyzed where every penny people spend on a litre of gas goes, and the answer is: into oil companies' pockets. They are the gluttons here.
Their refining margin has climbed steadily since 2008 from 9¢ to 48¢. That is over five times more. Meanwhile, the federal government has been subsidizing them like there is no tomorrow. In the budget, it gives them $2.4 billion of public money. When will it cut these gluttons off instead of fattening them up?
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- May/17/22 2:42:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, rising gas prices are directly impacting all Canadians.
A recent survey indicated that two-thirds of Canadians will forgo travelling far from home this summer. The impact is also being felt on store shelves. Goods cost more to produce and transport and, of course, consumers are the ones who end up paying the price.
Who is actually profiting? The government. For every litre of gasoline sold, more than 60 cents goes into the government's coffers.
My question is simple. When will the government lower taxes?
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- May/17/22 2:45:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Vancouver has the highest gas prices in all of North America. The gas station at the Vancouver airport is advertising regular gas at $2.34 a litre. The Minister of Finance keeps saying that inflation is a global phenomenon, yet we know it is the current government's policy to actually drive up gasoline prices through its taxation policy.
When will it quit blaming others, take responsibility and give us a break at the gas pumps?
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- May/17/22 2:46:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of gas coming from the government.
Lobster bait costs have more than doubled because of the decisions of the minister. Average fishing fuel costs have gone up 140% since the fall. The government's disastrous policies are increasing bait and fuel costs for fishing, making it more difficult to earn a living. Because of these increased costs, fishermen are now only able to go out every second day. In Nova Scotia, 70¢ from each litre of diesel goes to governments.
It is time to lower gas taxes. When will the government do the right thing and lower gas taxes?
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- May/17/22 3:19:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, has my hon. colleague, who gave a good speech, actually read the preamble to this motion, which talks about the increasing price of gas?
In his speech, he talked about the move toward renewable energies as replacing fossil fuels. There is a dichotomy there. I wonder if he has thought about it, because the whole concept of renewable energies and making gas more expensive is so that renewable energies do not look as mountingly expensive in comparison.
Has he thought at all about what the actual outcome is here for Canadian consumers in the critical minerals chain he is discussing?
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- May/17/22 3:50:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague across the aisle. I believe that our government has been working to invest in making life more affordable for Canadians. There are a number of measures that we put in budget 2022 to make sure that families are able to afford life. There are things that we are working through right now, after the pandemic, but we are taking strong measures to have a green recovery, to invest in child care, to invest in families, to invest in young Canadians being able to afford homes.
I understand that gas prices have been frustrating, as the member on the other side mentioned, but the important part is that we are committed to making sure that life is more affordable for Canadians and we have taken measures to do so.
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- May/17/22 4:54:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to say that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I am very much looking forward to his speech. I think we will have a lot to learn from him on this vital topic.
I am very proud to rise in the House to talk about the environment, the climate emergency and the crisis that is affecting us all and will, unfortunately, continue to affect us throughout the coming years. I will also talk about the concrete solutions the NDP is putting forward in this motion.
We could talk about a lot of things. A lot of people are talking about the price of gas right now. It is hurting a lot of people in many provinces and many regions. People are finding it hard to travel or get to work because it is costing them more and more money. I would like to share some data from a graph I found recently by Gérald Fillion, a Radio-Canada economics reporter. He makes it very clear that claims about the price of gas being connected to the invasion, the war, high government taxes or the carbon market are not true.
Between June 2008 and May 2022, the price of oil went from 84.5¢ per litre to 91¢ per litre. This is not that much. The increase is slightly more dramatic in the carbon market, where the price went from 1¢ per litre to 8.8¢ per litre. The refining margin jumped from 9¢ per litre to 48¢ per litre. The biggest increase in the real cost to consumers at the pump is the refining margin, which is the oil companies' profit.
We could tax these large companies, which are making huge profits. We could put forward very simple solutions, such as those proposed by the leader of the NDP, which include temporarily suspending the GST on heating bills; increasing the GST tax credit, which would help those most in need and a good part of the middle class; and increasing the Canada child benefit, a progressive measure that would once again benefit those most in need, workers and the middle class.
Clearly, the money is there, and the economics reporter's table shows us why oil companies are seeing a dramatic increase in their ability to make profits.
During the first quarter of 2022, in three months, Suncor Energy, Imperial Oil and TC Energy posted $2.95 billion, $1.17 billion and $1.1 billion in profits, respectively.
The Liberals are giving them money. They think that these companies do not have enough. They are taking consumers' and taxpayers' money, even though the government has been promising them since 2009 that it would reduce oil and fossil fuel subsidies. They have still not even begun to do so, other than a few crumbs in the last budget. The government is also behind, in terms of its pairing with Argentina to review progress in phasing out subsidies to oil companies.
What is more, the government found another present in the latest budget in the form of $2.6 billion tax credit for these companies to invest in a technology that most people doubt is even feasible. It is a pointless pursuit, a technological fantasy that distracts us from real solutions for a carbon-free society and economy. Most of the countries that have tried carbon capture have not been successful.
My colleague from Vancouver East asked a good question earlier. With the record profits that these companies are making, can someone explain why they need public money to invest in new technologies? It seems to me that they are on quite solid financial ground. If they believe that it is the right thing to do and want to help reduce greenhouse gases in Canada, it seems to me that they have deep enough pockets to make those investments.
There are two problems. First, the technology is not really reliable nor is it guaranteed. I will come back to that. Second, these companies do not need this money. Unfortunately, it would seem that the Liberals and the Conservatives are addicted to fossil fuels and unable to rid themselves of this dependency and to begin the shift and the transition that is required.
The following saying is erroneously attributed to Einstein: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Everyone believes that Albert Einstein said that, but it is not true. Someone else did. It really does not matter, because it is a good saying.
Why do we continue to double down on this economy?
Yes, it provided for communities, families and provinces for decades. No, it will not go away overnight, but it is not the economy of the future. We need to make this transition. We need to invest in training our workforce. We need to invest in green and renewable technologies that will also help create jobs, but we are not doing that. We are doing the same thing we have always done, thinking it will produce different results. That is not going to work. It has not worked for 10 years. It has not worked for 15 years, but the government still insists on giving gifts to these corporations.
Recently the Liberal government was quite proud to boast that Canada's greenhouse gas emissions had declined for the first time in 2020. What happened in 2020? It was the pandemic.
The economy was shut down. Manufacturing, transportation and foreign travel came to a halt. People were holed up in their homes, no longer using their cars or trucks. It took a global pandemic and an economic shutdown for the Liberals to be able to say that GHGs went down over the course of a year. This is nothing to be proud of. I heard the Minister of Environment and Climate Change recently, and I could not believe it. I think we need to be a little more discerning and take a much safer path, one that listens to science and is serious about our collective future, our jobs, our ecosystems and our future generations, but that is not the case here.
Despite all the rhetoric, all the promises made, and the fact that various environment ministers have attended COP24, COP25 and COP26, aid to oil companies from successive Liberal governments has been, on average, higher than the Harper government's financial aid to oil companies. They all told us, with tears in their eyes, that this is important and that they would be able to do things differently.
Unfortunately, we are going to have to continue pushing the Liberals—both in the House and outside—to finally do the right thing, because the measures currently in place will not get us where we need to go. As a reminder, Canada provides more public funding to the fossil fuel sector than any other G20 country. Between 2018 and 2020, there was 14 times more funding for oil and gas than for renewable energies. I hope my colleagues think that is unacceptable. We are not moving in the right direction, and it is important to say it.
The Liberals promised in 2009, before the G20 and the entire world, to end inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. What is sad and incredibly politically cynical is that several years later, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has to remind us that there is no definition for an inefficient subsidy. Moreover, it is not the Department of the Environment that determines what is efficient or inefficient, it is the Department of Finance.
For the finance department, it is not rocket science. If it makes money, it is efficient. If we want to reduce greenhouse gases, which is more of an environment and climate goal, we need a clear definition of the goal, which is to be a net-zero society by 2050. We need to take specific steps between now and then so we can see our progress and figure out which measures work and which do not.
People often talk about the cost of investing in renewable energy or training, but they never talk about the cost of doing nothing. If we do nothing, we will see more droughts, more floods, more forest fires. The climate refugee crisis will get even worse. Not long ago, it was 53°C in India and Sri Lanka. Massive parts of the planet may become uninhabitable. Those people will migrate. Naturally, they will want to survive. That could cause wars to break out. The cost will be exorbitant. The Liberal status quo will not save us.
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