44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 17, 2022 10:00AM
- May/17/22 10:27:13 a.m.
- Watch
moved:
That, given that,
(i) Canadians are paying almost $2 per litre of gas at the pump,
(ii) oil and gas companies are making record profits,
(iii) Canada spends 14 times more on financial support to the fossil fuel sector than it does for renewable energy,
the House call on the government to:
(a) stop using Canadian taxpayers’ money to subsidize and finance the oil and gas sector, including by eliminating financing provided through Crown corporations such as Export Development Canada, and excluding oil and gas companies from the $2.6 billion Carbon Capture Tax Credit, by the end of 2022; and
(b) re-invest savings from both these measures in renewable energy and in help for Canadians struggling with the high cost of living.
She said: Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay.
The climate emergency is the existential threat of our time, yet when people are worried about the cost of living, about putting food on the table and about paying rent, it is hard to focus on the climate emergency. At the same time, while Canadians are struggling with the high price of gas and the rising cost of living, big oil companies are making record profits. While Canadians pay $2 at the pump, Imperial Oil made its highest profit in 30 years and Suncor more than tripled its profits, raking in almost $3 billion in the first quarter. Despite these record profits and despite promising to end fossil fuel subsidies, the Liberals continue to hand over billions of public dollars to profitable oil and gas companies, the very same companies that are fuelling the climate crisis. Canadians should not be paying big oil to pollute.
As parliamentarians, it is our job to address these pressing crises, these interconnected issues, to protect our communities and to take action. That is why New Democrats are calling on the government to stop using Canadian taxpayers’ money to subsidize and finance the oil and gas sector, including through Crown corporations such as Export Development Canada and the $2.6-billion carbon capture tax credit, reinvest those savings in renewable energy and provide help for Canadians who are struggling with the high cost of living.
Last year alone, the Liberals gave out $8.6 billion in subsidies and public financing to the fossil fuel sector, over $5 billion through Export Development Canada. Canada gives more public financing to the fossil fuel industry than any other G20 country, handing out 14 times more financing to oil and gas than to renewable energy between 2018 and 2020.
The Liberals have promised to accelerate Canada’s G20 commitment to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies by the end of 2023, but recent testimony from Finance and Environment Canada officials at the environment committee showed that the government has made very little progress on this commitment and still does not even have a clear definition of what an “inefficient fossil fuel subsidy” is, something for which the environment commissioner has consistently criticized the government.
Canada also made a commitment at COP26 in November to phase out public financing of the fossil fuel sector internationally. The mandate letters for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Natural Resources include instructions to develop a plan to phase out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including by federal Crown corporations. Despite this being included in those mandate letters, there has been no progress on this commitment.
In the U.S., President Biden has already introduced policies limiting public financing to fossil fuels, within a month of COP26. Earlier this month, a group of 112 environmental organizations, including Environmental Defence, Climate Action Network and Équiterre, sent a letter to cabinet outlining their concerns that the government's commitments on fossil fuel subsidies are not enough to meet Canada's climate targets. Not only that, but these environmental organizations are also worried about the new subsidies and public financing being made available to carbon capture and fossil-based hydrogen. They are urging the government to eliminate all subsidies, public financing and financial support to the oil and gas sector by the end of this year.
The Liberals say the right things, but then they fail to act. They promised to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, but they continue to increase them. It is clear that the Liberals are going in the wrong direction with their new $2.6-billion carbon capture tax credit, the largest so-called “climate” item in the budget. In comparison, the one fossil fuel subsidy they eliminated in the budget is worth only $9 million over five years: $9 million versus $2.6 billion.
The tax credit is a massive new subsidy for a carbon capture technology that is not proven at scale and is used as an excuse by oil and gas companies to justify increased production and in turn higher emissions. Reducing the carbon intensity of oil production addresses only a fraction of the life-cycle emissions of a barrel of oil; 80% of emissions occur when the oil is burned. Therefore, using carbon capture for oil and gas production, even in the best-case scenario, which currently does not exist, prevents only 3% to 15% of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere.
The Liberals' emissions reduction plan released this spring relies heavily on carbon capture, but carbon capture projects have not been successfully deployed at the scale needed to make them part of a viable pathway to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. More than 80% of the carbon capture projects attempted in the U.S. have ended in failure, and Shell’s Quest carbon capture facility near Edmonton is emitting more greenhouse gases than it captures. It is the equivalent of putting over a million cars on the road.
The IPCC has warned against relying too heavily on unproven technologies such as carbon capture to meet our climate goals. The Liberals will claim that the IPCC says we need carbon capture, but what the IPCC actually says is that while some carbon removal will be needed to reach net zero by 2050, carbon capture is one of the least effective and most expensive options. Experts have also told the environment committee that carbon capture should be reserved as an option of last resort for heavy industry sectors that are hard to decarbonize, such as concrete and steel, but Canada and other countries pushed for carbon removal to have an increased importance in the IPCC’s last report to justify their own flawed approach.
It is very clear that the Liberal government has been listening to oil and gas lobbyists instead of to the science. It ignored the advice of over 400 experts who urged it not to go ahead with the carbon capture tax credit: It refused to even meet with them, but it was happy to meet with big oil, which has lobbied the current Liberal government and met over 6,800 times. Now, despite record profits, big oil is asking for even more government subsidies. Amazingly, at the very same time as Cenovus was announcing $1.6 billion in profits and tripling its dividends to shareholders, its CEO said that the carbon capture tax credit was not enough and that it wanted even more public dollars.
Big oil could not make it any more clear that it does not want to spend a dime of its own money. These profitable oil and gas companies that are fuelling the climate crisis can afford to clean up their own pollution. Canadians should not be paying the price. Not only do we need to stop handing out billions of public dollars to profitable oil and gas companies, but we need to start investing those billions in the real climate solutions we know are so desperately needed to secure a livable planet. Continued subsidies to the oil and gas sector delay climate action, and divert precious resources from the investments in a renewable energy transition and support for the workers and communities that will be affected.
Last month, the IPCC made it clear that the world urgently needs to move away from fossil fuels and make significant investments in renewable energy if we have any hope of keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5°C and avoiding the most catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis. Renewable energy technology is ready. It is available, and the costs have decreased significantly, but the government is not making the needed investments. The IPCC said that countries such as Canada need to boost investments in renewable energy by at least a factor of three to meet our climate goals. Instead, the government continues to throw billions at the big oil and gas companies that are fuelling the crisis. Investing in renewable energy, strengthening grids, electrifying infrastructure and having energy-efficiency retrofits will not only help fight the climate crisis, but will also create good, long-term jobs for Canadians in communities across the country and will help make life more affordable.
The Liberals need to stop the public financing of big oil companies now. It is not time for just more empty promises, but real action. If they are really serious about ending subsidies and ending public financing, they can start by eliminating tax credits for oil and gas exploration and development right away, which could bring in almost $10 billion over the next four years. That is $10 billion in savings that could be reinvested in renewable energy and in help for Canadians struggling with the high cost of living.
Canadians are worried. They are worried about the future for their families and future generations. They are worried about how they are going to make ends meet today. We have an opportunity to tackle some of the biggest issues of our time in a way that supports those who are struggling and a way that safeguards our climate for generations to come. I urge every MP to take a look in the mirror—
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- May/17/22 11:12:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the motion by the hon. member for Victoria is not only timely and important, but very reassuring.
As I read the member's motion, I found much common ground across the aisle, including a shared recognition that energy security is ultimately about climate action. How so? The International Energy Agency, or the IEA, defines “energy security” as the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price. As the motion implies, if we want to secure an uninterrupted and stable energy supply, we have to accelerate the switch to lower-emitting energy sources, and we have to do so in ways that are affordable to Canadians. Otherwise, we risk exacerbating existing equity issues and losing some of the political will that has accumulated to drive climate action.
Therefore, we are clearly on the same page with the member opposite when she talks about the need to invest in renewable sources of energy and support both energy security and affordability. In fact, that is a central focus of the 2030 emissions reduction plan that our government released at the end of March. It is a comprehensive mix of new investments, subsidies and incentives that build on the more than $100 billion we have already committed to climate action since coming to office in 2015.
The plan also includes hard caps on emissions from every economic sector, as well as stronger environmental regulations and new sales mandates for electric vehicles, all of them aimed, ultimately, at making Canada a net-zero nation by 2050.
Put another way, our 2030 emissions reduction plan is about protecting the environment in ways that actually unlock new economic opportunities. It is about cutting pollution and creating good jobs. Where needed, it is about providing training, skills, development and other support to workers and communities, so that clean growth works for everyone in every sector of our economy and every region of our country.
Investing in renewable sources of energy is a key part of our plan. There is simply no way to reach our climate targets while ensuring our economy remains strong and globally competitive without a sustainable, low-carbon energy sector. Frankly, renewables have been part of our climate action plan since we sent our first delegation to COP 2015, which was just weeks after we formed government in 2015.
Our level of commitment to investing in renewable sources of energy has only grown from there. Just last year, we launched our $1.5-billion clean fuels fund to support the next generation of fuel production. With this new fund, we are supporting feasibility and front-end engineering and design studies, helping to establish biomass supply chains, creating new markets for waste from forestry and agriculture, and developing essential codes and standards, ensuring that new technologies can enter the market reliably. Best of all, we expect to create more than 35,000 direct and indirect jobs through this fund and leverage an additional $3.5 billion in other public and private investments over the next five years, all while helping to reduce our emissions by up to 12 megatonnes.
Budget 2022 further builds on that and is highlighted by a world-leading $15-billion Canada growth fund and an expansion and extension of the low-carbon economy fund, with a further $2.2 billion. Other measures specifically advance our capacity to produce renewable energy. Electricity is a case in point. We have committed to a net-zero electricity system by 2035, and our new federal budget includes further investments to get us there. They include $250 million over four years to support pre-development activities of clean electricity projects of national significance, such as interprovincial electricity transmission projects and small modular reactors. These projects build on what our government is already doing to advance similar work on the Atlantic loop and prairie link projects.
There are also $600 million over seven years for the smart renewables and electrification pathways program to support additional renewable electricity and grid modernization projects, $2.4 million in 2022-23 to establish a pan-Canadian grid council, which would provide external advice in support of national and regional electricity planning, and $25 million to establish regional strategic initiatives to work with provinces, territories and relevant stakeholders to develop net-zero energy plans.
As we invest in renewables, we are also helping Canadians to use less energy, such as with the Canada greener homes grant that was launched in May of last year. It offers grants of up to $5,000 to help Canadians finance resiliency and energy efficient retrofits in their homes. The program has proved to be very popular, with over 150,000 homeowners applying through the national portal and another 50,000 coming in through our co-delivery partners of Quebec and Nova Scotia.
Of course, carbon capture, use and storage also figure prominently in our emissions reduction plan and our 2022 budget. Carbon capture technologies have also been a part of Canada's plan since the turn of the century, when an international team of scientists descended on an oil field in Saskatchewan to study the feasibility of injecting carbon dioxide into a geologic formation. Almost two decades later, carbon capture has emerged from the laboratory as a commercially viable option, but the sheer scale of these projects demands continued collaboration to reduce costs, which means that we cannot afford to be excluding potential partners as we try to achieve an economy of scale with the technology. That is where I part ways with the member opposite and her motion. We need all hands on deck to fight climate change. With our abundance of natural resources and skilled labour, Canada is well positioned to lead global growth in CCUS as it supports our investments in renewables.
The oil and gas industry, which contributes 26% of Canada's overall emissions but also directly employs over 70,000 people, should not and will not be excluded. That said, it is our intention that the tax credit cannot be used for enhanced oil recovery. Simply put, the tax credit would be an effective way to further mobilize substantial private capital towards clean technologies in energy, driving down costs and encouraging widespread market adoption.
When it comes to climate change, I think colleagues will agree that there is no magic bullet. We need to use every tool in the tool box, and we need every partner we can get to help us achieve our goals. We have the ambition, the know-how and the plan to build a bright, healthy future for everyone.
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- May/17/22 11:43:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate being able to get up and speak to the motion the NDP has put forward. However, as I was drafting my speech, I had to ask myself where I could start here today.
When I look at the motion, in the preamble it says, “(i) Canadians are paying almost $2 per litre of gas at the pump,” which is true. They do pay that. It then says, “(ii) oil and gas companies are making record profits,” and we will analyze what that actually means. The preamble then continues, “(iii) Canada spends 14 times more on financial support to the fossil fuel sector than it does for renewable energy,” which is complete hogwash, and I will address that item first.
The preamble itself is a mulch of misinformation, and the NDP is very good at that. The NDP is very good at putting misinformation on the table and saying, “Here's what's going to happen here.” They then repeat a narrative that is completely false. I tried to participate last week at a forum hosted by my colleague who put this motion forward. I noticed that my party was the only party that was not invited to that forum, and that is because the other parties in the House have members who buy into this nonsense narrative about the way the transition happens.
Now, my party and I have very good ideas about how we actually transition and decarbonize our economy, all of which are based on reason and outcomes, and none of which I have seen from the Liberals, the Bloc, the NDP nor the Green Party. Getting somewhere on the environmental equation is essential, and none of the other parties have presented anything that advances the environmental equation for the world. All they do is kneecap the Canadian industry.
I did some research after that forum. I went to look for where this figure came from of subsidies in Canada for our oil and gas industry being 14 times more than what we fund for our alternative energy industry, and it comes from a group called Oil Change International, which is a proxy organization for Greenpeace. Its leadership comes from Friends of the Earth, and it is funded by the Tides Foundation. It is a splash of the same voices producing louder and more dissonant narratives about how we can actually decarbonize the world.
Frankly, I will take licence on this, Madam Speaker, and you may have to slap me here, but it is a lie. It is something that this misinformation is based upon, and frankly, it needs to be called out for what it is whenever we see it here. As parliamentarians, our job here is to speak the truth and only the truth. When we foment misinformation by repeating lies from the Internet, we are going towards that confirmation bias, which we buy into and which our people buy into. We must get the real facts on the table here. We must ignore these groups, such as Oil Change International, which are just rent-seekers putting money in their own pockets at the expense of Canadians.
I actually asked if there were—
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- May/17/22 12:17:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his support of this motion. I must say that in my 14 years of Parliament, I have never seen the Bloc side with the Conservatives more than I have this Parliament, so it is a pleasure to see it supporting a progressive cause.
I cannot understand how anybody in the House concerned with facts could possibly oppose the motion. It says, “Canadians are paying almost $2 per litre of gas at the pump”, and it is more than that in B.C., actually. It also says, “oil and gas companies are making record profits”, which they are, and “Canada spends 14 times more on...support to the fossil fuel sector than it does for renewable energy”.
Those are all facts, and the motion calls on the government to switch money away from subsidizing oil and gas, whatever the figure is. I understand there may be some differences about what the figure is, but there is no question that the federal government is subsidizing oil and gas, whether it is purchasing the TMX pipeline or otherwise. It also talks about reinvesting that money into renewable energy.
My question for my hon. colleague is this. How can any policy-maker in 2022 deny the urgency of dealing with the climate crisis and oppose measures to transition as swiftly as possible to sustainable forms of energy and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels?
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- May/17/22 1:09:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with my hon. colleague from Beaches—East York.
I would like to thank our hon. colleague from Victoria for this opportunity to discuss Canada's climate plan. It is a plan that, as Canadians, we should be very proud of.
I will say at the outset that we as Liberals share the member's objective: a clean and just energy transition that does everything possible to shield our planet from the climate change threat. However, her motion's wording illustrates where we differ, and I will be speaking about that today.
As the member opposite knows, our government is committed to achieving a 40% to 45% emissions reduction by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. We have also promised to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. This is our first area of disagreement, because we do not consider inefficient subsidies to be any of the measures we are using to cut emissions.
This brings me to our second difference of opinion. Unlike her party, the NDP, we support the development of carbon capture, use and storage technology. This technology involves the removal or capture of carbon from industrial processes or even directly from our atmosphere in order to make our planet livable.
However, first, I will put my comments in proper context, because carbon capture is just one tool among many in our climate plan's broad tool box to cut emissions across Canada's economy.
Our plan starts with putting a price on pollution. It also includes using regulatory investment and tax measures to incent the transition to cleaner options, like electric vehicles. The bottom line is that we are looking at all options, because despite wishful thinking in some quarters, there is no single, magical solution that will appear to resolve this existential challenge. Even clean energy sources such as wind and solar, while crucial, are not enough to get us to net zero. That is why we are encouraging all tools, including carbon capture technologies, which will be especially important for major pollution sources like the oil sands or chemical industries.
Carbon capture technologies have been developing through most of the century, but they remain expensive and are only used on a relatively small scale. I will cite some promising examples in Canada shortly. However, first I want to make the point that our government is far from alone in supporting this innovation.
Let us consider the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the one that came with a stark warning from the UN Secretary-General that without urgent action now, the planet is on a “fast track to...disaster”. The IPCC made clear that carbon capture technology is particularly important, and not just to get the planet closer to net zero. It also noted that even if the world reaches our net-zero 2050 objective, direct removal from the atmosphere may be needed to limit global warming.
I will cite a comment from The Guardian newspaper by Robert Gross, director of the United Kingdom's Energy Research Centre. He said, “We will need not just net zero but to start to remove CO2 from the air. We cannot do one instead of the other, but we have reached the point where it is likely that humanity will need to do both to avoid dangerous climate change.” This illustrates how important it is for us to invest in carbon capture technology.
The IPPC's position is echoed by other respected organizations. Just consider the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Its net-zero road map would require carbon capture to account for roughly 15% of global emission reductions.
Another respected global voice on climate is the International Renewable Energy Agency. It has stated that even a very aggressive ramping up of renewables will not be sufficient. That is why it considers carbon capture essential.
Finally, I will point out the Canadian Climate Institute. It also views carbon capture and removal as playing a potentially significant role in our net-zero pathway.
This is why carbon capture is a part of our recently published 2030 emissions reduction plan. It is a blueprint that outlines the technology's economy-wide applications in its sector-by-sector path for Canada to reach our targets. The fact is, we believe that carbon capture can help tackle emissions from the toughest-to-abate but crucial sectors of Canada's economy, such as oil and gas and heavy industry. More importantly, it also opens the door to low-carbon pathways, such as hydrogen, green concrete and low-emissions power.
Carbon capture also presents a multi-billion dollar market opportunity. In hydrogen alone, I note that Germany's ambassador recently described Canada as a potential hydrogen superpower. Carbon capture will play a key role in helping us produce clean hydrogen.
As I indicated earlier, this is not just about potential. Canada has long been an innovation leader. In fact, Canada is already home to leading carbon capture companies, five of which made the 2022 Global Cleantech 100 list of innovative global clean-tech firms.
We have to push harder, and that is why Canada is implementing measures that will help drive the carbon capture market here even further. Budget 2021, for instance, included $319 million to support research, development and demonstrations of carbon capture, use and storage technologies. Budget 2022 includes a proposed new investment tax credit for companies that invest in these projects. The credit is a key part of our government's broader plan to work with industry toward the goal of decarbonization. This plan was designed after consultations with the public, stakeholders and the provinces and territories. It is intended to drive the growth of Canadian carbon capture, use and storage technologies in industries from steel and plastics to fuels and hydrogen.
In addition, our government has been engaging with key partners and stakeholders to develop a comprehensive carbon capture strategy for Canada. We plan to release this strategy in the coming months.
I indicated earlier that I would cite some real-world examples, and in doing so I will note that our government has worked arm in arm with the Alberta government and the private sector to make inroads in this area.
One is the Alberta carbon trunk line capture and storage project, the world's largest of its kind. The Government of Canada is supporting the project with $30 million through the clean energy fund, as well as $33 million from the ecoENERGY technology initiative.
Another success story is Shell Canada's Quest project. Since 2015, this project, which received early funding from Natural Resources Canada, has been reducing emissions at Shell's Scotford upgrader by 1.1 megatonnes per year. Quest remains one of the most successful carbon capture projects in the world.
I would also draw members' attention to our $8-billion net-zero accelerator fund. It contributed $25 million to support Svante, a B.C. company developing carbon capture technology for industrial applications like cement and blue hydrogen.
Canada's petroleum industry is one of the most innovative in the world. It found a way to extract oil from sand in northern Alberta and to tap wealth under the ocean floor in the treacherous North Atlantic. I believe carbon capture holds similar potential for world-class innovation, allowing Canada's economy to thrive by helping us deliver cleaner energy while driving toward our net-zero target.
That is why I believe we need to continue to work on developing carbon capture, use and storage technologies in Canada, and it is why I am proud of the plan the government has to support this important innovation to get us to the net-zero 2050 plan.
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- May/17/22 1:21:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I appreciate the spirit of the motion and, for the most part, I also agree with it in substance. There is one particular point of contention that I will get to, but first I will start with where I agree.
The motion notes that oil and gas companies are making record profits at the same time as Canadians are paying more than ever for gas at the pumps. We have seen Suncor's profits more than triple in a year. Canadian Natural Resources more than doubled its year-over-year first-quarter numbers, and Imperial Oil saw its best first quarter in 30 years. It goes on and on. The shortage of global crude oil, driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has led to significant new profit for these companies.
In answer, the motion highlights the need to speed up our transition to clean energy and also to help Canadians struggling with the high cost of living. It seems reasonable enough, and there are many specific ways to accomplish these general goals. We could see additional financial support for clean energy infrastructure and additional support for skills training for the jobs we will increasingly rely upon. There are many ways to support Canadians in need, and I would highlight the need to deliver on the Canada disability benefit as one example. To pay for some of this, including skills training and clean energy infrastructure, I would have supported a call for a windfall tax on oil and gas profits.
As the environment minister has rightly said recently, for example, these companies are making record profits and they should be investing some of them into ensuring that they have a future. Instead, the motion calls for the government to stop using Canadian taxpayers' money to subsidize and finance the oil and gas sector and to reinvest that money in the transition and in supporting struggling Canadians. Again, in general this is certainly worthy of support.
The motion rightly calls out the public financing provided through Crown corporations such as Export Development Canada. Let us pause for a moment to delve into the work of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. It has acknowledged that federal financing via subsidies amounts to about $2 billion a year, but there is a very large sum that is contributed via public financing. In a recent scorecard ranking G20 levels of support provided to fossil fuels, Canada ranked last among OECD countries by providing the highest amount of support. The IISD estimate is that Canada provides an average of $13.2 billion in support for oil and gas every year via EDC, representing over 12% of the financing committed by that institution. About 30% of that financing goes toward domestic operations of Canadian oil and gas companies. That obviously needs to change.
EDC, in its Canada account, has financed the government's acquisition and construction of TMX, which should also change and, frankly, should not have happened the way it has. It is impossible to see how TMX is economically feasible at this point, with the total project cost ballooning to well over $20 billion. Even back in December 2020, the PBO briefed parliamentarians and noted that the Trans Mountain expansion would not be profitable if we took additional climate action. Subsequently, there has been a lot of additional climate action, including much greater stringency around our carbon pricing. There is no clear explanation as to how the project is a worthwhile financial investment in a world that reduces emissions consistent with net-zero. It is past time we put a stop to public financing and, unfortunately, recently again, we have seen an additional $10-billion loan that is an effective subsidy in the form of protection against credit risk. If Canada expended the same sum toward renewable energy that we have and will expend on TMX, we would all be better off, including workers who will inevitably be affected by the global transition.
Despite my frustration with public financing, including of TMX, it is impossible to ignore the progress we have made since 2015. When this government took office in 2015, projected 2030 emissions were 815 megatons. Fast forward to the first-ever emissions-reduction plan and, if all of the policies hold and if a future government does not roll them back, those projected 2030 emissions have moved from 815 megatons to 443 megatons. There is still more work to be done, including phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and addressing public financing.
In our most recent platform, and in the mandate letters of the ministers, Canadians will see that we have committed to accelerate our G20 commitment to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies from 2025 to 2023, and we have also committed to develop a plan to phase out public financing. It is not soon enough, but important nonetheless, to phase out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including from Crown corporations, consistent with our commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. We have also committed to a more stringent cap that I would say we take more seriously on oil and gas sector emissions.
Where I part ways with the motion's sponsor is with respect to carbon capture utilization and storage. The motion casts the CCUS investment tax credit as a problematic fossil fuel subsidy by calling for the government to exclude oil and gas companies from the $2.6-billion budget allocation: a budget allocation that is over five years. The CCUS investment tax credit is not universally supported. There are some legitimate criticisms to consider and take seriously.
At the same time, there are many thoughtful experts who support encouraging investment in this space. The Canadian version of the policy has rightly excluded enhanced oil recovery, such that eligible projects cannot be used to squeeze more oil out of the ground. According to the Grantham Institute, CCUS could be an essential technology for tackling climate change. The recent IPCC report includes a specific section on the emerging technology. The committee on climate change in the U.K., a model for our net-zero advisory body in a serious way, has called it “a vital technology essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the economy”.
Carbon capture may not be a cure-all for the global climate challenge, but it has a major role to play in decarbonizing heavy industry. In Canada, where industrial emissions make up over a third of total emissions, it can play an even greater role than in other countries.
Those are not my words. Those are the words of a research associate at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
The International Energy Agency, in its net-zero report of last year, notes that CCUS can facilitate the transition to net-zero C02 emissions:
by tackling emissions from existing assets, providing a way to address emissions from some of the most challenging sectors; providing a cost-effective pathway to scale up low-carbon hydrogen production rapidly; and allowing for CO2 removal from the atmosphere...
This is again from the report:
Government R and D spending needs to be increased and reprioritized. Critical areas such as electrification, hydrogen, bioenergy and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) today receive only around one‐third of the level of public R and D funding of the more established low‐carbon electricity generation and energy efficiency technologies.
In that same report, in its 1.5° scenario, the IEA estimates that the world will still use about 25 million barrels per day, or a quarter of current usage. However, these are not for combustion purposes, but for non-combustion applications such as petrochemicals, lubricants, solvents, waxes, etc. The IEA forecasted the demand for natural gas in 2050 would be half of what it is today, again for non-combustion.
Yes, unquestionably, we need to reduce fossil fuel use. Unquestionably, we need to remove public financing from the fossil fuel sector, especially as it relates to combustion, but we also need to ensure that the extraction and production of oil and gas, to the extent that it is going to continue, is net-zero. It will continue even up to 2050.
I want to dismiss objections here. Many experts, led by Canada research chair and University of Victoria professor Christina Hoicka, said:
Deploying CCUS at any climate-relevant scale, carried out within the short time frame we have to avert climate catastrophe without posing substantial risks to communities on the front lines of the buildout, is a pipe dream...
Perhaps they will be proven right. It may be that the technology ultimately fails, and that the $2.6 billion in public financing over the next five years goes with it. My own view is that we need to take every moon shot that we can, given the scale of the crisis. We are doing so much, and this is another arrow in our quiver.
While the policy is designed for clues, and enhanced oil recovery ensures that companies invest a significant amount of their own capital and will require anyone who claims the policy to complete a climate-related financial disclosure report, I can also appreciate the frustration when federal funds are encouraging investment from companies that are currently flush with cash, even if the investment is for a worthwhile end. For me, the objection that lands most seriously is that a CCUS-specific tax credit pushes companies to invest in that particular technology over others that may well be more deserving of support and it may distort investment decisions away from other decisions that make more sense, whether company-specific, sector-specific or economy-wide.
I think there are challenges we want to take seriously, but when it comes to federal support for tackling climate change, we have the carbon pricing regime, our effort to phase out coal-fired electricity, our efforts to reduce methane emissions, including increasingly stringent policies to do so and, finally, our effort in the most recent platform and in mandate letters to cap oil and gas sector emissions. We have our investments: historic investments in public transit, and on and on. There is so much that we are doing and so much more, of course, that we need to do, but emphasizing and battling around the CCUS is, I think, misplaced. Absolutely, we should address public financing. We should do some more seriously and criticism is warranted there, but let us not fight about the CCUS investment tax credit, which is encouraging investment in a space that sorely needs that investment.
To close, I would just say that if the motion were amended to remove that specific element, it would be worthy of my support.
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- May/17/22 1:57:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the latest budget, the Liberal government promises over $2 billion for carbon capture and storage projects for fossil fuel companies. That is more taxpayer dollars to companies that are doing very well. Imperial Oil is making more money than it has for 30 years. Suncor made a profit of almost $3 billion in the last quarter alone.
Again, is this an inefficient subsidy? Even if carbon capture projects can be developed that actually work, and there is a lot of evidence that most do not, using them to clean up an industry whose raison d'être is providing oil and gas for the world to burn to create more carbon dioxide is an highly inefficient way to wean the world off of fossil fuels.
What do Canadians get for this multi-billion dollar propping-up of oil and gas multinationals? They get record-high prices for gasoline. The oil barons are doing well, but ordinary Canadians are not. What Canadian families need is help during these times of increasing costs. We all need help transitioning to a low-carbon future. Let us imagine a future where our car, truck and home heating costs were not left to the vagaries of world markets and the international price of oil.
Canada has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. We cannot achieve this goal if we continue to pour 14 times the number of taxpayer dollars into the fossil fuel industry than we provide to the development of renewable energy.
The latest IPCC report had a stark warning. Either we take action now on mitigation and adaptation for climate change, or we risk suffering even more severe consequences from extreme weather events, wildfires and floods.
António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, said some government and businesses have not entirely been truthful in claiming to be on track. In his words, he warned, “Some governments and business leaders are saying one thing but doing another...And the results will be catastrophic.”
Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut in half by 2030, and the good news from the IPCC report is that this can be done. The final cost of necessary actions will be minimal, but will require a massive effort by governments around the world.
Wayne Gretzky once said that a good hockey player plays where the puck is, but a great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. For Canada's energy future, the puck is going to be with renewable energy. Canada is uniquely positioned for becoming a renewable energy superpower. Our nation is rich in hydro, wind, solar power and the rare earth minerals that are needed for that low-carbon future.
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- May/17/22 3:13:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we left off for question period, I was talking about how Canada is uniquely positioned to become a renewable energy superpower. During the natural resources committee's study on critical minerals, we learned that Canada is the only nation in the western hemisphere with all of the minerals and metals needed to produce the advanced batteries, electric motors and wind turbine generators that will be needed in the low-carbon economy. The International Energy Agency's net-zero energy scenario estimates that the global value for select critical minerals will grow substantially over the next two decades, reaching today's level for coal market value of about $400 billion U.S. by 2040.
The opportunity is there for Canada to both reach net zero and prosper, but we cannot continue down the path that Liberal and Conservative governments have chosen when it comes to spending money on the oil and gas sector. Canada currently spends more per capita on those subsidies than any other developed country. We cannot keep paying companies to clean up their own pollution.
New Democrats know that public funds are best spent supporting the transition to renewable energy and helping Canadians struggling with the high cost of living, rather than on profitable oil and gas companies. Instead of spending billions on new oil pipelines, we should be building hydrogen infrastructure for heavy transportation hubs, stronger provincial interties to distribute clean electricity across Canada, and electric vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing, and we should be training and employing workers now working in the oil and gas sector in these new opportunities. They are opportunities that will last into the future.
This is where the puck is going.
We need to stop providing those subsidies to oil and gas companies, which delay climate action, and instead spend that money on climate action. Increasingly, we need to spend money on climate adaptation, since the effects of global warming are locked in. We have to talk about the cost of climate inaction, and that cost is rising every year.
Right now, Canadian governments, businesses and citizens spend more than $5 billion annually to fix the destruction caused by increased fires and floods. That is predicted to rise to over $40 billion by 2050. At the moment, the federal government puts up just over $300 million of that cost. It is past time that we faced up to the rising costs of climate change.
We must realign the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund to spend more on adaptation, so that we protect communities from disaster rather than rebuild them after the fact. Last year, British Columbia communities such as Lytton, Princeton, Merritt and many more, were badly impacted by fire and floods. Small communities such as these do not have the monetary resources to rebuild under present funding formulas.
We must have a clear strategy for the future that faces the facts of climate change, both limiting the extent of future changes and dealing with the changes that have already taken place. Canada's future is very bright, but first we must invest in that future, not in the past.
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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 3:33:39 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 3:54:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Vancouver East.
We put forward this motion for a number of reasons. I want to lay out, first of all, the context. In our country right now, Canadians are paying over $2 a litre for gas. That means that families are being hurt. Families have been isolated because of this pandemic and have not been able to visit their close ones, and now, when they finally have the opportunity, they are considering cancelling road trips to visit dear family members because they simply cannot afford it.
What makes it even more offensive is that oil and gas companies are posting massive profits, in some cases record profits. Imperial Oil is experiencing the highest profits it has enjoyed in 30 years. In light of that, what adds insult to injury is that the Liberal government continues to hand out billions of dollars in subsidies to these very profitable oil and gas companies. That is wrong.
Gasoline costs more than $2 a litre in much of the country. People are struggling, and it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet. At the same time, these oil companies are making huge profits, record profits in some cases.
It gets worse. The Liberal government continues to throw billions of dollars in subsidies at these companies. People are struggling, while big oil is making record profits. That is unacceptable, and we are saying that we can do things differently and fix this problem.
Any time the cost of everything goes up, it hurts families, but there are also winners. While families are hurt as the cost of living goes up, inflation rises and gas rises, oil and gas companies are benefiting from this moment. The sad thing is that the only solutions ever proposed in times when there is inflation are measures that make things even worse for families, increasing interest rates, which only further squeezes families that are already so hurt. Why is it that the only response in difficult times is to put more pressure and burden on the families and workers who are already struggling?
The New Democrats contend that to deal with the rising cost of living, to deal with the cost of goods going up and to deal with inflation, we have to find a solution that does not follow the traditional path of putting more burden on families. We have to find a solution that helps families, does not put the burden on them, lifts them up and provides them with support.
Whenever the cost of living rises, there are winners and there are losers. Families lose because the cost of living goes up and it gets harder and harder to make ends meet. Oil companies win because they rake in huge, record profits.
The only solutions proposed, traditionally, actually make things worse for workers and families. New Democrats believe profoundly that we need solutions that help workers and families, and that is exactly what we are going to put forward.
I want to be very clear. Whenever the cost of living rises and inflation rises, there are winners and there are losers. Families are hurt, workers are hurt and people who are precariously employed are hurt, but the oil and gas companies are benefiting. They are winning. They are making more and more profit, and the only solutions proposed, traditionally, are solutions that put further and further weight and burden on the shoulders of families. That has to end. The New Democrats believe profoundly that we need solutions to deal with the cost of living and inflation that actually support families, help workers and lift people up.
People across this country are paying hundreds of dollars more in their costs, and oil and gas companies are enjoying record profits. On top of that, they are receiving billions of dollars of public money, which is our money. Our solution is to stop subsidizing already profitable companies, end those subsidies and invest that money back into people by doubling the GST tax credit, increasing the child benefit and supporting families that need help the most.
While oil and gas companies make massive profits as the cost of oil rises and enjoy profits they have never seen in 30 years, the New Democrats are calling on the government to end fossil fuel subsidies and use that public money to invest in people, to support families and to invest in renewable energy. That is the way forward.
Right now, families are struggling. They are spending hundreds of dollars more because the cost of living and the cost of gas have gone up. New Democrats want to end fossil fuel subsidies and invest that money to help families.
We want to double the GST tax credit, increase the Canada child benefit and invest in renewable energy in our country. That is what we see as the way forward, a way that will do more to help people.
Families are struggling at the pumps with the cost of gas going up. At the same time, families are struggling with worry about the climate crisis. We have seen the impact in our lives in B.C., with intense flooding and intense record-setting temperatures, the cost of which was a loss of lives. We see flooding and forest fires across the country. We know that the impact of the climate crisis is real and it is now, and instead of giving public money to these profitable oil and gas companies, we must end those subsidies and use that public money to fight the climate crisis, invest in renewable energy, support workers who are hurt by the climate crisis and help families that are struggling with the cost of living.
While the Liberals talk about ending fossil fuel subsidies, their actions are very different. Instead of ending fossil fuel subsidies in this budget, they have increased them by $2.6 billion for a carbon capture tax credit, which we are not very certain is actually going to help in tackling the climate crisis. Either way, we should force profitable companies to do the right thing, be environmentally conscious and make the right decisions to protect our planet and our environment. We should also be spending public money on sectors that need more support, such as the renewable energy sector, so that we can have renewable energy in our country and good jobs that are long-lasting.
At the end of the day, politics is about choices. The choices we make reflect the priorities we have. It is clear that the Liberal government's priority is protecting the profits of billion-dollar oil and gas companies. It continues to give them billions of dollars more in public money instead of standing up for workers, families and people struggling with the cost of living.
The New Democrats would make different choices. Our choice would be to end the billions of dollars in public money flowing to profitable companies and use those financial resources to help families and people and invest in renewable energy. There are better choices we can make, and the New Democrats are outlining those better decisions.
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- May/17/22 4:04:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to remind the member that today's motion is about ending fossil fuel subsidies. How does it make any sense that as a G7 nation we give billions of dollars to a sector that is already profitable and is right now making massive if not record profits? I would contend that makes absolutely no sense. Instead, we should be spending our public money, those precious public dollars, on helping workers who are impacted by the climate crisis and whose jobs go through bust and boom cycles. We should invest it in families that are struggling with the cost of living and invest it in building more renewable energy, which we know we need today and for the future.
This is really the fundamental question here: Why would we be giving profitable companies more public dollars?
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- May/17/22 4:07:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, 30,000 Canadians and 400 academics have said that we must not invest in carbon capture and storage.
When the member for Burnaby South says that the federal government must stop giving subsidies and invest in renewable energy, I would like to know in what year he thinks that should start. It is surely not 2022, because he is supporting the budget, which includes $2.4 billion for carbon capture and storage.
When should the government stop the subsidies?
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- May/17/22 4:07:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we completely agree that the Liberal government's approach is the wrong one and that it will not solve the current crisis. The crisis requires urgent action.
We want the government to stop, cancel and eliminate oil subsidies immediately, this year. We want it to reinvest in the priorities of Canadians, families and workers and in renewable energy.
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- May/17/22 4:08:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of the motion put forward by my colleague, the member for Victoria.
The NDP motion calls for the government to stop using Canadian taxpayers’ money to subsidize oil and gas companies, and to instead reinvest that money into renewable energy and measures to help Canadians with the rising cost of living.
The motion could not have come at a more desperately needed time. This week, constituents in my riding are paying over $2 a litre for gas at the pump. Many of the people scraping together the necessary funds to pay for fuel are essential workers, small business owners, families with young children and people with mobility challenges who need to drive for their livelihoods or to access essential goods and services.
Canadian families are already struggling with sky-high housing costs and income precarity exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. Even before the rise in gas prices, people were living paycheque to paycheque and struggling to make ends meet. Retirees and people on fixed incomes have not seen a rise in income to account for the rise in living costs.
By glaring contrast, the oil and gas companies are making record profits, while being heavily subsidized by taxpayers’ money. This grossly unjust situation is a direct result of the government’s heavily misaligned priorities. The NDP motion calls on the government to fix this dire situation and place people and the planet before oil and gas company profits.
As Canadians are struggling more than ever, we are also faced with the most urgent crisis of our time: the climate change crisis. The most recent IPCC report states:
It is unequivocal that climate change has already disrupted human and natural systems.
It goes on to say:
Societal choices and actions implemented in the next decade determine the extent to which medium- and long-term pathways will deliver higher or lower climate resilient development.... Importantly climate resilient development prospects are increasingly limited if current greenhouse gas emissions do not rapidly decline, especially if 1.5°C global warming is exceeded in the near term.
A new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization pointed out that there is a fifty-fifty chance that the annual average global temperature will temporarily reach 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level for at least one of the next five years, and this likelihood is increasing with time.
Let us just think about that for one minute. They are saying that we are not going to meet our target. I should not need to remind anyone in this house of the importance of the 1.5° mark. Climate scientists have long established that holding global warming to 1.5° could limit the most dangerous and irreversible effects of climate change.
Our global temperatures have already risen by 1.1° since pre-industrial levels. We are already feeling the devastating effects of climate change. B.C., my province, has just experienced one of the most challenging years of extreme weather in recent memory, with a heat dome that shattered temperature records and killed hundreds of people, followed by weather bombs that destroyed critical infrastructure, livestock and agricultural lands with record precipitation and floods. For days, B.C. was cut off from the rest of Canada by rail and road because of the damages from the unprecedented floods.
Left unchecked, extreme weather connected to climate change will continue to wreak havoc on Canadian lives and livelihoods.
Around the globe, we are witnessing how climate change has caused substantial damage to terrestrial, freshwater and coastal and ocean marine ecosystems. We are seeing glaciers melt, mountains change and permafrost thaw in the Arctic ecosystem. Let us be clear: This is the result of human-induced climate change. That is why we must fight the climate crisis like we mean to win.
Despite the urgency of the climate crisis on our doorstep, Canada has failed to meet any of its climate targets to reduce carbon emissions over the past 40 years. In fact, not only has Canada repeatedly failed to meet its climate targets, Canada is also one of the few wealthy countries where carbon emissions continue to rise. Industrialized and wealthy nations are responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions in the world, but the effects of climate change impact developing nations and indigenous peoples the hardest.
Climate justice is justice, period. Continuing to subsidize oil and gas companies while delaying the economic and infrastructure overhaul and transition to green energy is the very opposite of climate leadership that Canadians and the world so desperately need. The new carbon capture tax credit is, in effect, a $2.6-billion subsidy to oil and gas disguised as a so-called climate solution by the Liberal government. It is the wrong path to take.
Earlier this year, more than 400 Canadian climate scientists and academics pleaded with the finance minister to scrap the plan to create the carbon capture tax credit. Professor Christina Hoicka, from the University of Victoria, stated that carbon capture is expensive and unproven in its effectiveness in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Julia Levin, senior climate and energy program manager, stated that by relying on unproven “techno-fixes”, the government is “gambling with our lives.”
Carbon capture projects exist at the demonstration level only, and have not successfully been deployed at the scale needed to make them part of a viable pathway to reach net-zero by 2050. More than 80% of the carbon capture projects attempted in the United States have ended in failure. Shell's Quest carbon capture facility near Edmonton is emitting more greenhouse gas than it captures.
Across the board, scientists are calling for the government to invest in proven climate solutions, including renewable energy, efficient affordable housing and the electrification of transportation as the way to go. The choices we make today will have a lasting impact on future generations.
It has long been my belief, and the NDP's belief, that a just transition must not only create a healthier environment, but also create better opportunities and improve affordability for Canadian workers and families. A just transition creates good jobs in the renewable energy sector and supports workers and communities in transitioning to jobs in this sector.
Canada could become a world leader in renewable energy development. Investing in energy-efficient home retrofits and affordable energy-efficient new homes, as well as investing in a robust electric public transit system, would make life more affordable for Canadians and reduce emissions. In other words, a just transition would help to build a stronger, resilient economy. It is an opportunity that any government that values people and the planet would jump on. Instead, Canada is spending 14 times more on financial support to the fossil-fuel sector than it does on renewable energy.
The Liberals promised a just transition act in 2019, but have failed to deliver and were recently rebuked by the Environment Commissioner for their lack of a plan to support workers and communities through the transition to a low-carbon economy. At the same time, oil and gas companies are making record profits, and Canadians are being decimated at the pump with record-high prices while the world is on the brink of a climate disaster.
The majority of Canadians are concerned about climate change and affordability as the cost of living continues to rise. If the Liberals eliminated the tax credits for oil and gas exploration and development right now, it would bring in almost $10 billion over the next four years. Instead—
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- May/17/22 4:19:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, instead of subsidizing very profitable big oil companies, the government can provide immediate relief to struggling Canadians by suspending the GST on residential energy bills, doubling the GST tax credit and increasing the Canada child benefit to all recipients by $500. That would be an immediate help for Canadians.
By the way, the oil and gas industry should be paying for the work that needs to be done to make the planet better. It is making record profits and can afford to do it. There is no good reason why the Canadian Liberal government continues to subsidize it. That money should be invested in people and renewable energy.
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- May/17/22 4:37:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would not want to be in any Liberal members' shoes right now, because they are stuck having to defend the indefensible. Trans Mountain was supposed to cost $4 billion, but now it is up to $20 billion. Then we have the Bay du Nord deal, along with everything else.
Canada is the fourth largest oil producer in the world, with 5.23 million barrels per day. Canada gives 14 times more financial resources to the fossil fuel sector than to the renewable energy sector. How can my colleague explain that?
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- May/17/22 4:39:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is wonderful to be here and it is wonderful to be speaking to this opposition day motion brought forth by the member for Victoria. I would like to start off by framing this opposition motion the way I view it.
When I think of a trifecta and of the energy industry where we are, both domestically and globally, and how it relates to affordability and where gas prices are today, I think of three things. I think of energy security, which means security of supply and also security of work. I think of energy affordability, which means being able to afford the energy we buy. We have seen the prices of commodities rise globally due to supply chain bottlenecks and the barbaric invasion of Ukraine by Putin's regime, which imperils energy affordability. Then, we talk about decarbonization. I think of energy security, energy affordability and then a longer-term transition where we have decarbonization. That is important because, when we think about it, Canada is an energy leader.
This morning, I spent some time researching what I wanted to say this afternoon. I went to the Natural Resources Canada website and looked at the “Energy Fact Book 2021-2022”. There is some great information out there for policy wonks and people who want to understand just how important both the renewable and non-renewable energy industries are to Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast. According to the “Energy Fact Book 2021-2022”, produced on the Natural Resources website, direct to indirect jobs total 845,000 folks. These are hard-working middle-class Canadians who earn their livelihoods from this industry. That is very important to understand.
The investments that are taking place, just on the renewable side or clean energy, have totalled roughly $80 billion to $100 billion every year for the past several years. I was looking at the numbers: the total was $92.1 billion in 2021. That is wind, geothermal, nuclear, hydro, solar and tidal. There is this industry in Canada that we need to be extremely proud of, and that I am very proud to support and to speak about on this opposition day motion, from which Canadians are earning their livelihoods. People are putting their kids in school. They are paying for their hockey lessons and swimming lessons, and we are here to support them.
The opposition day motion talks about ending any sort of financial support to the fossil fuel sector. Our budget that we produced states, I believe, that by 2023 there will be no more direct financial support provided to the energy sector, when we talk about the non-renewable side. When we think about energy security, we must think about Canada and areas such as the western Canada sedimentary basin. I know some of my colleagues on the opposite side come from these areas, and I am from British Columbia originally. There are literally tens of thousands of kilometres of pipeline in that area that are moving gas everywhere in North America. In fact, it is being exported via LNG sites in the United States to Europe at this time and helping our European allies. We need to consider that. It is easy to criticize an industry when one thinks it is fun to do so, and I use that word carefully. I do not. There are 845,000 Canadians tied to this industry.
In reference to the carbon capture tax credit, the third pillar I spoke about was decarbonization. With respect to decarbonization, to me the story is to lower greenhouse gas emissions both domestically and globally. We do not want leakage. We will do that in a manner where we work with stakeholders, including industry. Industry has these roughly 845,000 Canadians who earn their livelihoods from the energy industry. That, to me, is what is called “responsible leadership”. That, to me, is doing the right thing and moving this needle and yardstick in the right direction.
In fact, in our budget, and I look forward to seeing the full details in the fall economic statement, we will introduce a new tax credit for investment in clean technology of 30% for zero-emission technologies and battery storage; in clean hydrogen, which is very exciting; and in blue hydrogen, which I have been learning a lot about in the past few weeks. It is very important.
What I think of as the three pillars are energy security, energy affordability and decarbonization. We are on a track that I am proud of, the emissions reduction plan, which is under the umbrella of Bill C-12: the net-zero accountability act. It is accountable, it is tangible and it lays out a framework so that we can decarbonize our economy and, yes, lower greenhouse gas emissions.
To my hon. colleagues in the NDP and the member for Victoria, when I think about affordability, yes, gas prices are absolutely high. Yes, they are absolutely pinching Canadians. We must demonstrate empathy. I know that. I live in the suburbs outside of Toronto, and everyone in my neighbourhood drives two or three vehicles. They have to get their kids to school and sports and they have to drive them home. We understand that and I understand that, but inflationary forces, be they supply chain bottlenecks or how refineries operate, which would take another hour to explain on the refinery margins part, fracking and NAC and all that stuff, and what has happened with Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine have driven up prices across the board. Even the Europeans have reached out by saying they need more gas. That is the energy security component.
On the affordability component for my hon. colleague for Victoria, I think about the Canada child benefit that we introduced in 2015, which all parties voted against, including the New Democratic Party. It benefits the residents of my riding in the amount of over $60 million a month. Almost $7,000 can help a family with one child earning below a certain amount. We returned the old age security and GIS eligibility to age 65. In June and July, over three million Canadians will be receiving a 10% increase in their old age security payments, bringing it up to $766. That is how to help on the affordability side, particularly at a time when inflationary forces are elevated, and we must be cognizant of that.
For seniors who are concerned about how they are going to pay their dental bills, we are going to go down that route, just as we got national child care done after the Conservatives scrapped it many years ago. It is going to benefit Canadians from coast to coast to coast and allow for greater and higher labour force participation rates by parents. It will be a boost to our labour supply and good for our productive capacity. We will do the same thing on dental care. We will ensure seniors and individuals who do not have insurance or a copay will benefit from that. Our government has been there for Canadians, and we need to continue to be there.
On the recovery from COVID, as I said, we were there for Canadians and we had their backs. We must work with all industries as we come out of COVID, which we have been, and we must keep our eye on the ball that climate change continues to be the transition in front of us, independent of what is happening in other parts, because that is where the world is going.
The auto sector right now is investing roughly $515 billion in transforming itself into what I call auto to electric vehicles. That is something we are participating in, and we are at the table. It is important that we remain focused on that front.
When I read the opposition motion that talks about carbon capture, utilization and storage and other forces at play, I ask myself what we are doing in the economy that allows us to decarbonize, which is an element of working with stakeholders and listening, and at the same time making life more affordable for Canadians.
There are things we are doing on the housing front, such as providing 100,000 new homes and doubling housing construction, allowing Canadians to save for a home with the first-time homebuyers' investment vehicle, getting the froth out of the housing market by ending blind bidding and speculation, and banning foreign purchases.
On the affordability front, we are doing what is right for Canadians not only for today, but for the long term. I am so proud of the $10-a-day day care national child care plan modelled after la belle province that is going help residents in my riding because, frankly, it costs $1,500 to $2,000 for a family to put a child in day care in the city of Vaughan and York Region. Those are after-tax dollars, and we are going to help them.
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- May/17/22 5:09:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is indeed a great honour to stand in this place and once again speak on behalf of the amazing residents of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I am pleased to rise to support the motion that is before us today on the NDP opposition day, which has been put forward by my hon. colleague and almost neighbour, the member for Victoria from beautiful Vancouver Island.
Today's motion is really trying to bring together several themes: the theme of massive corporate profits, the theme of rampant climate change and also the theme of inflationary pressures, both as they relate to climate change and as they are affecting residents like mine in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, but also right across this great country of ours.
Before I delve into the specifics of the motion, I think it is important that we put today's conversation in the context of what is going on with climate change. I want to start by saying that if we look at the history of oil as an energy source, there is no argument that it has absolutely been one of our most volatile energy sources. It has experienced massive booms and busts, and with those decreases and increases in price so have risen and fallen the fortunes of many. It has never been reliable as something that is stable for people. We can see that in the current context. It has always been subject to geopolitical tensions and profiteering by various companies, which have driven the price up for ordinary consumers, and sometimes it has brought about change much faster than ordinary working Canadians can adapt to. I would argue that today's circumstances are one such example.
I also think it is very important because we are talking in the House of Commons a lot these days about inflation, but what we are not talking a lot about is the inflationary pressures of climate change. That needs to be part of this conversation.
We can look at what climate change is starting to cause around the world. Not just the world, but we can look at what happened to my home province of British Columbia last year. In one single calendar year, we had one of the highest heat waves ever recorded, which caused hundreds of deaths in the Lower Mainland and led to raging forest fires across my beautiful province, and a few short months later that was followed by one of the most disastrous flood events ever to happen in the Lower Mainland, a flood event that effectively cut off the port of Vancouver from the rest of the country.
We are talking about inflationary pressures here. We can look at how much the Government of British Columbia, the people of British Columbia and, indeed, the federal government have had to pay to adapt to that climate-related event. We have to ask ourselves this in the House, because we are talking a lot about the money that is to be made and oil as an energy source, but we never quite contemplate the question of how many future tax dollars we as a society are prepared to spend to both adapt to and mitigate climate problems as an event.
Make no mistake, this question is settled and the science is clear. Extreme weather events like the ones we saw last year are going to come more frequently. They are going to come more powerfully. We as a country are going to deal with worsening flood events, extended droughts, forest fires and massive heat waves that will bake our urban centres and kill people. This is going to cost money. It is going to be a real problem. Unless we, as the House of Commons, treat this issue with the seriousness that it deserves, we are failing the Canadian people and we are failing future generations. There has been a decided lack of ambition, action and commitment to effectively address this problem and put in place policies that are going to deal with it.
Going to my riding, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford on Vancouver Island, and looking at the current inflation pressures on working families, we have experienced some of the highest gas prices across the country, over $2 a litre in many cases. I have a farm truck. I remember that a couple of weeks ago I went to fill it up, and it was the first time ever that it cost more than $200 for a fill-up. That is a regular problem for working families in my riding.
We know low-income families are hit the hardest by rising prices because those increases in fuel prices not only affect the vehicles that they have to fill up on a weekly basis, in some cases for their work, but they affect everything that is transported using fossil fuels. If people are in the middle of a renovation or if they are going shopping, we know the price of food has gone up, as well as the price of materials and the cost of labour. These are all very real pressures.
On gas prices particularly, this is where we add insult to injury, because the average family in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford are standing at the pump watching the dollar figure go up as they are filling up their vehicle, and then they look at the newspaper and see the record profits oil and gas companies are making in Canada today. Billions of dollars are being paid out in dividends. Billions of dollars are being paid out in corporate executive compensation. Then to add further to that, they learn that the tax dollars they are paying off every paycheque are in fact being used by the Liberal government to subsidize those very same companies, inefficient subsidies to help them with exploration, but even in the most recent budget, that subsidy to help companies with carbon capture and storage.
Let us make this very clear. Oil companies, with today's prices, are profiteering off the backs of working families, and I do not see either of Canada's biggest political parties standing up, stating that this is an unequivocal fact and putting in place policies that are actually going to help working families. Both of these parties are far too deferential to corporations in this country, and it shows by the way they argue in the House of Commons.
If we look at the federal subsidies to oil and gas, we absolutely have to change course. Canada provides more public financing to the oil and gas sector than any other G20 country. Between 2018 and 2020, Canada provided 14 times more support for the oil and gas sector than for renewable energy, and this is in the face of all the evidence we see with climate change around us. Last year alone, the Liberals handed out $8.6 billion in subsidies and public financing to the fossil fuel sector, but the cherry on the cake is the fact that they have now added a $2.6-billion carbon capture tax credit, which is actually their largest “climate” item in the budget. This is unproven technology. It is money that should be spent in completely different areas if we are going to tackle this problem with the urgency that it so very rightly deserves.
In the final two minutes, in my conclusion, I want to say this. We know Canadian workers want to be a part of the climate solution. Our workers, and let us not call them oil and gas workers but energy workers, have the transferable skills to work in any industry that we put our minds to. They want to be a part of the solution. They have the skills to make Canada a renewable energy leader in this world to help put us at the forefront of the 21st century economy.
However, we need to make sure that the federal government is putting the fossil fuel industry on notice, putting Canada on notice, that we are going to change our direction, that we are going to be where the puck is going, as is the famous quote that comes often from Wayne Gretzky. We need to make those investments in renewable energy. We need to electrify our grid. We need to make those energy retrofits a part of helping low-income families, and we need to make sure that through this process we are creating those good, long-term jobs for Canadians and communities right across the country, which will make life more affordable.
I think that through this motion today we need to redirect the subsidies that we are pumping into profitable corporations and reinvest that money directly into the pockets of low-income families, just like the working families that live in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. We need to make sure that we are converting that money instead into doubling the GST credit and making sure that the Canada child benefit for recipients goes up. By putting that money directly into the pocketbooks of Canadians, we can help them with the inflationary pressures they are dealing with right now. It will make a real difference, and it will send a signal to the world that we are serious about changing course.
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