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Sep/21/22 6:22:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would request a recorded division.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/21/22 6:22:22 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-206

Pursuant to order made Thursday, June 23, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, September 28, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

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All Topics

Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Sep/21/22 6:23:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening to discuss some of the changes that seem to be taking place following the election of a new leader of His Majesty's official opposition and Canada's Conservatives. The member for Carleton was elected, and it is drawing a lot of reaction from the government benches. I know that the Liberals are also so excited that there is now a leader in this place who will help give Canadians control of their lives back, a leader who will focus on Canadians' retirements and Canadians' paycheques. That is exactly what we have. We also have in the member for Carleton, the leader of Canada's Conservatives, a member who is a leader who has been very focused on a pain point for Canada's economy. We have heard from border mayors, from our tourism industry and from trade groups such as the Frontier Duty Free Association the pain caused by the failed ArriveCAN app, as well as the unscientific border measures that have been left in place long after there was a public health justification for them. We have now heard through media reports, as the government attempts to scramble to get as much time and distance between it and these failed policies, that the government is finally going to scrap that app and the mandate that goes along with it. However, there has been a lot of damage done in the intervening period. Jobs were lost and the economy suffocated. Visitors were turned away from Canada, not feeling welcome and being told that they were not welcome. Canadians who could not, would not or did not comply with the failed ArriveCAN experiment were fined $6,255. I am not just talking about any one type of individual. I am talking about Canadians who were unvaccinated and Canadians who had one dose, two doses, three doses, four doses and more of a COVID vaccination being fined $6,255 by the government. The contention was that this was to enforce compliance or to make folks safer. We have heard from epidemiological experts who said that this app and the restriction were doing nothing to keep Canadians safe long after all the provinces and territories had moved in a different direction. They have moved forward. Therefore, it is time, when now the government is recognizing the obsolescence of these policies, that it also needs to make right what is wrong. What is wrong, of course, is that Canadians have paid and been fined or just received notice of this $6,255 fine. Some families had multiple people in their vehicles or in their travelling party. Fines in excess of $6,000 per person is an amount that is not manageable for any Canadian family. We are calling on the government to forgive these fines and to return any of the funds that it has taken from Canadians as a result of these failed policies. Will the government do that?

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport, Lib.)

Sep/21/22 6:27:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate having the opportunity tonight to talk about the Government of Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June, the Government of Canada suspended— An hon. member: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/21/22 6:27:15 p.m.
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Can we have some order? The hon. parliamentary secretary is answering the question.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden

Sep/21/22 6:27:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in June, the Government of Canada suspended the vaccine mandate for federally regulated transportation sectors and federal employees. Compared to when the mandates were first introduced, Canada has higher levels of immunity from both vaccination and infection. There is a wider availability of antiviral drugs, and we are better equipped now to effectively manage the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce pressure on the health care system. In Canada, we have seen case counts declining in recent weeks. While there continues to be regional variability, the peak in the latest wave of COVID-19 activity appears to have passed. However, we must remember that, worldwide, the virus continues to circulate, and the pandemic is not over. That is why we need to take some precautions, including staying up to date on our vaccinations. Recently schools have welcomed children back to in-person learning and more people are going into the office. In addition, with summer coming to a close, we are spending more time indoors. These factors could contribute to renewed activity and the possibility of new variants remains. We must stay up to date with vaccination. It is one of our best defences and an absolute priority. This applies to COVID-19 vaccines as well as other vaccine-preventable diseases, as we are seeing outbreaks in the circulation of measles, polio and meningococcal diseases in other countries. It has been almost two years since Health Canada approved the first vaccines for COVID‑19 in Canada. Since then, more than 87 million doses have been administered in Canada and billions of doses have been delivered around the world. Vaccine effectiveness data shows that COVID-19 vaccines provide strong protection against the most severe outcomes of the disease, including reducing the risk of hospitalization and death due to COVID-19. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, our government has implemented policies and public health measures to help reduce its impacts. We have provided access to vaccines to minimize serious illness and death. We have worked hard to preserve the health system capacity and to reduce transmission to protect high-risk populations. As we move forward, we will continue to base our measures on analysis, expert opinion and science. We will also consider emerging variants of concern, the value and impact of public health interventions, and the impact of vaccination and vaccine effectiveness. Our measures have evolved hand in hand with the epidemiological situation and public health advice over the past two and a half years. Unlike the Conservatives, who have been wrong about the pandemic at every single turn in the last couple of years, the health and safety of Canadians has always been our top priority and will continue to be our top priority, now and into the future. I hope the member opposite enjoyed my answer to the question. I could not hear myself because he was talking the whole time.

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Sep/21/22 6:30:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it should not have been hard for the parliamentary secretary to simply read the response that was printed for him by the department instead of actually answering the question, which was if the government was going to make right what it did wrong. It fined Canadians who followed all of the rules. He seems awfully quiet about it now. People who followed all the rules were fined $6,200 per person. Does the parliamentary secretary think it is reasonable or acceptable for Canadians to get tens of thousands of dollars in fines in their vehicles when they followed all of the directions that the government gave? Maybe they made a simple mistake at the border, and then they were hammered with a $6,200 fine. It is absolutely wrong. It is no way to treat Canadians. It is unacceptable. The government needs to make it right, give the money back and apologize.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden

Sep/21/22 6:30:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, public health experts use the latest scientific evidence available on effectiveness, availability and the uptake of vaccines when providing guidance and advice regarding vaccine mandates. The original question that the member asked does not resemble the one that he presented tonight. If he would like to talk about this, he has my phone number. I would be happy to chat any time.

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Mr. Kyle Seeback (Dufferin—Caledon, CPC)

Sep/21/22 6:31:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the carbon tax is an absolute failure, and we know that because there are two metrics by which we can measure the carbon tax. The first metric is to ask if it reduces emissions. Emissions under the government have gone up every single year. It has not met a single emissions target ever, so the first metric is whether the carbon tax is an effective way to reduce emissions. The answer to that question is absolutely not. But wait, there is a second part. This is like one of those late-night television shows with “But wait, there's more”. There actually is more. The Liberals said that more people will get more money back in their pockets as a result of paying this tax, but they did not. The Parliamentary Budget Officer made that abundantly clear in a report. In fact, when we factor in the effect of the carbon tax throughout the economy, because it does affect the economy, most Canadian families end up paying more in carbon taxes than they get back. This is not baseball, so they do not get three strikes and they are out. This is the real world, so two strikes and they are out. The carbon tax is an absolute and utter failure. I swam on the Canadian national team a long time ago, and when we were training, the big thing our coaches always said to us was “no pain, no gain”. It is kind of the mantra. The Liberals tried to get that. They heard about it somewhere, but they got it wrong because the carbon tax is all pain and no gain. I had a question for the Prime Minister, and it is even more relevant today than it was in the last session of Parliament. Canadian pocketbooks are running dry. We have an affordability crisis going on in this country. Many Canadian families are a couple of hundred dollars away from not being able to pay their bills at the end of the month, yet the government is going to jack up the price of the failed, miserable carbon tax, making life even more unaffordable for Canadians. My question tonight, a reiteration of my question in the last session, is this: Are they going to scrap the carbon tax, or at the very least stop the increase in the carbon tax? By every metric, it is an absolute failure.

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Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)

Sep/21/22 6:34:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for being a very thoughtful and constructive member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, which I have the good fortune to serve on. However, I am not sure his question is so constructive tonight. Canadians know taking ambitious climate action today is not just a scientific imperative but an economic one as well. That is why Canada set an ambitious and achievable emissions reduction target of 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. Reaching our climate goals will also help ensure the conditions are right to build a strong, resilient economy for generations to come, with environmental gain and economic gain. Since 2016, the Government of Canada has taken swift and ambitious action to fight climate change, grow the economy and keep life affordable for Canadians. The 2030 emissions reduction plan is Canada's road map to meet achievable greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets to fight climate change and create a sustainable, strong economy for the future. With investments of over $9 billion, the 2030 emissions reduction plan, or the ERP, includes concrete actions across every sector of the economy. Many of these measures will reduce emissions while addressing affordability for Canadians. The Royal Bank of Canada, for instance, suggests the clean economy could create between 235,000 and 400,000 new jobs in Canada by 2030. That is economic gain. Today there is a major market evolution taking place, and Canada has the opportunity to be a world-class leader in clean, net-zero options. Further, the 2030 ERP commits billions of dollars to make life more affordable for most Canadians through the climate action incentive, which puts money back in the pockets of families while ensuring homes and buildings are energy efficient to help Canadians save money on their monthly bills. The plan commits $1.7 billion to extend the incentives for zero-emissions vehicles, which will make it easier for Canadians to purchase a zero-emissions vehicle and help keep the cost of fuelling their vehicles down. The plan also invests an additional $458.5 million in the Canada greener homes loan program to help Canadians reduce emissions and of course reduce their energy bills. I hope the hon. member will agree Canada's oil and gas sector has the potential to be the cleanest global producer, and the 2030 emissions reduction plan will help us get there. In addition to support for workers and a plan to cap oil and gas sector emissions, the 2030 emissions reduction plan also announces a new tax credit for carbon capture, utilization and storage projects. I think it has support on that side of the House, and this is supported by an investment of $2.6 billion in budget 2022. To counter one of the hon. member's statements, I would like to point out that since 2016, the Government of Canada's efforts have been able to reverse the upward trend of emissions. In 2015, Canada's emissions were on a steep climb because the Harper government did absolutely nothing for 10 years and were projected to be 12% above 2005 levels by 2030. According to the 2022 national inventory report, Canada's greenhouse gas emissions decreased—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/21/22 6:38:16 p.m.
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The hon. member for Dufferin—Caledon.

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Mr. Kyle Seeback

Sep/21/22 6:38:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal government has a different definition of ambition than I do and most Canadians do. When I swam on the Canadian national team, my ambition was to qualify for and go to the Olympics. I came very close. I came third at one of the Olympic trials. If I had used the Liberals' definition of ambition, I would not have even jumped in the pool to compete in my event. The carbon tax is not ambitious. It does not work. Emissions go up. Canadians pay a tax, and they get less money in their pockets. When they say that it is ambitious, I think the member and the government do not actually understand what the term “ambitious” means. He can talk about all kinds of things, but if he actually read the report from the PBO, and I know it is hard as it is 20 pages and a lot of reading, but appendix A, on page 18, 19 and 20, show that most Canadians get less—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/21/22 6:39:20 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Secretary

Mr. Terry Duguid

Sep/21/22 6:39:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to point out that a cornerstone of Canada's carbon pollution pricing system is ensuring affordability for households through the return of the funds collected. Under the federal backstop system, the majority of households in jurisdictions that receive climate action incentive payments get more money than they pay in fuel charges. That is the Parliamentary Budget Officer speaking. Direct payments to households not only help make the price of carbon pollution affordable, but also enable households to make investments to increase energy efficiency and reduce their emissions.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Sep/21/22 6:40:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just before we rose for the summer break, I asked a question about climate adaptation, about being better prepared for the increasingly destructive climate disasters that are affecting our country. We have had a series of terrible years of catastrophic weather in Canada. Last year was a terrible year in my home province of British Columbia, with a heat dome that killed 619 people in metro Vancouver, a series of fires that destroyed the town of Lytton and many other rural areas, and then a rainfall event that destroyed all of the highways through the Coast and Cascade ranges. It flooded a huge area around Abbotsford and the interior communities of Princeton and Merritt. This year brought the derecho storm in May that devastated the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, with winds of up to 190 kilometres per hour, intense thunderstorms and several tornadoes. The damage to the power system from that storm was greater than that of the 1998 ice storm. It was the sixth-costliest weather event in Canadian history, with insured losses of $875 million. This fire season in B.C. was quieter than last year. One fire on the edge of my riding evacuated some rural communities and destroyed one house. Another just over the hill from my house gave me and my neighbours some nervous moments, but the heat was in many ways longer lasting than last year and there is still a series of fires burning in coastal forests in British Columbia that rarely face that threat. Now the east coast is bracing for Hurricane Fiona, one of the strongest storms in years to threaten the Atlantic provinces, with wave height predictions of up to 30 metres. That is 100 feet. It is clear that we are not talking about the impacts of climate change in the future tense anymore. This is happening now. At present, Canadians, whether governments, businesses or individual citizens, spend more than $5 billion every year to repair the destruction from weather events. This is predicted to balloon to $40 billion by 2050. The federal government has been covering less than 10% of these costs. It is time that we faced up to the costs of climate change and made significant investments with provinces and communities to minimize the impacts that we know are coming. The federal government has to be a better partner with communities, especially small, rural communities that cannot pay for these costs themselves or even put up front a significant portion. Princeton and Merritt, which were flooded last year, had to face 20% of cleanup costs. That was more than double their annual tax base. Grand Forks, a community in my riding that was flooded in 2018, faced costs of $60 million to repair the damages. The federal government promised $20 million, but even now, four years later, there was a year delay in getting the first payment to the municipality. Ten public servants consecutively handled the file, each requiring the submitting of claims and supporting documentation that had been lost or not passed on. The federal government provided claim template forms, only to have completed forms returned with requests for additional details that were never originally requested or required, and despite a clear contribution agreement signed in 2019, federal infrastructure officials have repeatedly and unilaterally changed the scope of allowable expenses. The government must do better to support communities and their citizens who are being forced to deal with the impact of climate disasters.

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, Lib.)

Sep/21/22 6:44:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague raises the issue not only of the importance of infrastructure, but of the causes and impacts on infrastructure of extreme weather events and climate change and adaptation. I share his concern. We share the concerns on the needs for infrastructure to create more resilient communities. I recognize the frustration he raised with us this evening about some of the application processes. I would like to commit to all hon. members, and this member in particular, that we are in fact looking at how we can make infrastructure projects and programs more accessible, whether it is with communities, community groups, indigenous communities or rural and small communities. We recognize that not every municipality has a full-time staff to apply for infrastructure programs. I cannot get into all the details in this short time, but I commit to working with the hon. member opposite. We have increased program funding for more resilient communities, but in every infrastructure program we are working on, we are looking at how to make improvements to ensure that every community is better protected to deal with climate change and extreme weather events, and to be more resilient. I will continue to work with the communities impacted and with the hon. member to better ensure that Canadians can withstand these extreme weather events.

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Mr. Richard Cannings

Sep/21/22 6:45:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the parliamentary secretary could get her minister to respond to the two letters I have sent about this issue over the last few months, I would appreciate that. It is great to hear announcements of government investments in climate adaptation. In B.C. there have been projects jointly funded by the federal and provincial governments this year amounting to almost $30 million, but that is in stark contrast to the after-disaster rebuilding funding announcements this year in British Columbia, with the federal government funding over a billion dollars to help communities rebuild after floods and fires. Some of these funds are simply advances; the final cost will be higher. If my math is correct, that is about 30 times difference between the investments before a disaster and the payouts after. We need to significantly increase those investments in climate adaptation in Canada. This would not only save communities from future disasters but lower the future costs of rebuilding after these events.

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell

Sep/21/22 6:47:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will commit to ensuring that the member's letters are responded to, and I would also agree that building more resilient communities and investing in infrastructure that can withstand climate change and extreme weather events before they happen is actually much cheaper and helps prevent the disasters, the job loss and the damage to people's homes and livestock that we have seen throughout this country in these extreme weather events. We agree that we must have funds to support communities that have experienced these sorts of disasters, but investing in infrastructure up front to deal with climate change and the realities we face as a result is going to be a better way to ensure communities remain safe and protected as climate change and these extreme weather events unfortunately become more frequent.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/21/22 6:48:03 p.m.
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It now being 6:48 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 6:48 p.m.)

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