44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 27, 2022 10:00AM
- Sep/27/22 1:09:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the amazing member for South Shore—St. Margarets.
I have been looking forward to participating in today's debate to prove once again that the Liberal government is so misguided it actually thinks taxation would cause us to fix climate change. However, its own record shows that it continues to drive up emissions while costing Canadians more by raising carbon taxes on everything we do, not just a certain part of our economy but everything we do, whether it is heating our homes, feeding our families or driving our kids to sports.
We need to address how this is hurting us, especially in my province of Manitoba. I can tell the members across the way in the Liberal Party that the net cost to Manitobans, the fiscal and economic impact is $1,145 per household. If we look at the average cost per household in what we define as the middle class, it actually goes up to $1,600 per family. That is atrocious. The Liberal government is pickpocketing the middle class to the tune of $1,600 and making life more unaffordable.
We are talking about a carbon tax that is going to triple from where it is today, more than triple. It is going up to $170 a tonne. Right now it is at $50. That would keep driving up the costs of everything we do: the cost of living, our affordability, whether or not we could afford to go out and buy a new car or a new home. Everything would be impacted. I really feel for the people in my riding of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. We are a rural riding. People have to drive great distances. It is not like the people who live in a city who can just drive across town to take their kids to a hockey game. We often have to drive hours to get to the next-door community arena so the kids can play sports or to go to the school to watch a basketball game that the kids are participating in. Everything continues to add up.
Canadians who are living on fixed incomes, like our seniors, are the most impacted by the Liberal government's failed policies. We know that often in rural areas we have to drive for doctor's appointments, and specialists are always in the big cities like Winnipeg. That means getting in the car, driving down the highway and paying more and more just to go see the doctor, never mind if they have to go to Winnipeg or an urban centre for shopping or to visit family.
This is impacting our seniors. The Canada pension plan index continues to lag way behind what is happening with the cost of living. It has been exacerbated because of the carbon tax. It is falling farther behind.
I do not think the Liberals understand this, but the lifeblood of Canada is diesel. Everything we do is based on diesel, including the food we grow, the crops we transport and the products we ship around the world. The food is farmed with a tractor, and later it goes onto a truck, a train and a ship. We need to make sure that we are protecting the competitive advantage we used to have as Canada. We need to be protecting our food growers in this country. However, the Liberals are trying to put them out of business.
The Canada trucking industry said that, last year, the carbon tax cost the trucking industry $528 million. They are expecting that next year it would cost the trucking industry $1.2 billion in extra carbon taxes, and in 2030 it would go up to over $3 billion. Those costs are going to be built into the costs of everything we buy. Whether it is shipping clothing across the country, shipping produce in from offshore or shipping our own farm-raised products to markets across this country, it is going to mean higher costs for food for every single Canadian.
I do not know how the Liberals figure they are going to get out of that. Maybe they are going to take more of Canadians' tax dollars to try to buy their votes back, which is a Liberal thing to do, but we are undermining affordability for Canadians. We are undermining the productivity of our industries right across the board with this carbon tax, and we are diminishing our competitive advantage in the world market.
We are an exporting nation. We have to export to create jobs. We have to export to get rid of the surplus goods we produce here, including our agriculture products.
When the carbon tax first came in, it cost an average farmer $14,000 a year. It has gone up since then, and now the Liberals want to triple the cost of how much people pay in carbon tax to put fuel in their tractors and trucks, and to use natural gas to dry their grain and heat their livestock barns. Whether they have poultry or hogs, they have to be able to heat those facilities, and every time they do that, the government is saying, “Gimme, gimme, gimme. I want my carbon tax.” It is not going to change the farmers' habits. It is a necessity of how we raise our food.
This is having a huge impact, and to add insult to injury, the Liberals are charging GST on top of the carbon tax. It is a tax on a tax, and it is something the Liberals love to do. It is not about adding value; it is about adding tax. It is about putting more in government coffers and doing nothing with it to fight climate change.
We should be investing in best practices to fight climate change, such as carbon sequestration, which we can do on farms. Actually, with the fertilizer mandate that is coming forward from the Liberals, where they want nitrogen fertilizer to be reduced by 30% because they think this will reduce emissions, members can guess what happens.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. James Bezan: Madam Speaker, if the member for Winnipeg North wants to listen, he will actually find out why the Liberals' policies are so misdirected. It is because they are going to force more and more farmers to try to farm more land. However, guess what we cannot produce in this country. We cannot produce more agricultural land. What we are not farming now is not farmable, but what will happen is that crop production is going to push into what is right now marginal land for pastures and grass and supporting our ranching industry, which is very sustainable, from a climate basis. These are carbon sinks, but now we are going to be forced to till them at lower productivity with less fertilizer, which reduces the potential of that land even further.
I know the member for Winnipeg North thinks he can dig in any part of the country out there and is going to grow potatoes, but he cannot. There is only certain land that can produce potatoes or root crops, but especially when it comes down to growing cereals, soybeans, corn, wheat or canola. We have specific land capabilities, and if we are going to farm that marginal land, we are destroying wildlife habitat. If we are going to farm that marginal land, we are removing carbon sinks and being detrimental to the overall climate change policy.
This is very short-sighted on behalf of the Liberals, and it is something that continues to worry me. As the leader of the King's official opposition said this morning, the Liberals brought forward this policy even though they have been promoting, for the seven years they have been in government, to buy local because it would reduce the cost of transportation of the food we eat. Reducing the transportation distances and using less fuel to get it into urban centres will be good for the climate.
What happens with this model of carbon taxing and tripling the carbon tax is that we are putting the local farmer at a huge disadvantage and allowing individuals who are producing in non-regulated countries around the world, such as those in Latin America, those in South America and China, to bring those food products here. That, to me, is unconscionable. It should never be allowed to happen. Our own food security is being undermined by the Liberals and we have to stop it now.
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- Sep/27/22 1:19:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agreed in part with some of my colleague's remarks, particularly those related to best practices, but I wonder if the hon. member could reflect on the costs of climate change. In our home province of Manitoba, we have had two one-in-300-year floods, costing a billion dollars each, devastating agriculture and devastating first nations. There is only one way to address the climate change issue: reduce emissions. A price on pollution is going to help with that. It is going to drive technological innovation, and it is going to help create clean jobs.
I wonder if the hon. member would provide his reflections on the costs of climate change.
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- Sep/27/22 1:19:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the question is, why does the government hate farmers? Why does the government think that taxes are going to fix these climatic natural disasters we have been experiencing? I do not see any correlation between increasing carbon taxes and reducing emissions.
Instead of producing more food and energy here and exporting to nations that are causing all the exposure to CO2 across the planet, why would the Liberals continue to undermine Canadian jobs, Canadian farmers and our own economy? I believe we have seen an escalation in these dramatic climate change events, such as the flooding we have continued to experience in Manitoba and the drought we have had the last two years, but not this year thankfully, across the eastern Prairies.
I know a tax has not changed one single thing, while emissions continue to rise. If the government wants to get serious, let us invest in the technology that reduces emissions rather than tax Canadians on their hard-earned dollars.
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- Sep/27/22 1:21:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party's ideas never cease to amaze me. Canada's largest greenhouse gas emitter is the oil and gas sector. During an opposition day in March, the Conservative Party proposed temporarily reducing the GST and the QST on gas, ostensibly to give consumers a break, but doing so would just help the oil and gas sector. They like the idea; I see them nodding.
Today's proposal to eliminate the carbon tax is a bid to help the oil and gas sector.
Members are constantly talking about carbon capture and sequestration. The last budget gave the oil and gas sector $2.6 billion to help with that. There were two carbon sequestration projects in Alberta, and 57% of their $2.5‑billion price tag came from public funds.
Now the Conservatives are saying we need yet another layer, because that is the best way to help people. It makes no sense whatsoever.
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- Sep/27/22 1:22:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always surprising to listen to Bloc members get up and rail against Canada's oil and gas sector, when their own province is completely dependent on imported oil and gas coming from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and other places with totalitarian regimes. It is unfortunate that they cannot see the value in producing ethical, environmentally friendly oil and gas right here in Canada, and will instead support their industries by buying from offshore sources.
I do not know where the minds of Bloc members are at, but all their gas-fuelled vehicles, automobiles, tractors, highway trucks and rail system are still based on diesel, and they would rather buy from offshore sources than buy from us in Canada.
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- Sep/27/22 1:23:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to try to do something rare in this House. I am going to try to find common ground with my Conservative colleague, whom I know cares about farmers.
We are talking about taxes. Would the hon. member at least agree that with the ballooning costs of orphan wells, at over $1 billion, from the Prairies all the way to B.C., oil and gas companies have an obligation to pay their fair share of orphan wells so the cost does not get downloaded onto municipalities and the rural farmers he cares so much about?
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- Sep/27/22 1:23:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will keep it short. I appreciate the question from my friend from the NDP. I can tell him that I agree with him. That should be a cost for corporations that originally mined the land. They are responsible for covering it.
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- Sep/27/22 1:24:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak to the first opposition day motion of the fall. It is one that has great significance given the cost-of-living crisis that Canadians are currently facing. As we all know, this unprecedented situation is due to record-breaking inflation while wages stay the same. People are working harder and falling further behind.
This 40-year record inflation, not seen since Pierre Trudeau, means life has become more expensive for Canadians trying to pay rent and buy food. Housing is twice as expensive as it was in 2015 when the Prime Minister took office. Food prices are up 10.8% on average. The average family of four is now spending over $1,200 more a year to put food on the table. However, the government is resorting to one-time rebates and a bunch of platitudes rather than solving the problem. Life is getting more expensive for Canadians.
Last week, I spoke to Bill C-30 and how the current government’s spending and money printing have caused record-breaking inflation. However, an equally impactful aspect of inflation has to do with the tax that is being applied to everything. The imposition and tripling of this new tax in Nova Scotia will make fuel cost an extra 40¢ per litre by 2030 for moms taking their kids to hockey and for those forced by the policies of the government, like me, to heat their home with oil from Saudi Arabia. It is a tax that will cost families hundreds of dollars a year when they are trying to make healthy meals. It is a tax that will make home heating more expensive for seniors living through frigid Canadian winters. I am talking, of course, about the carbon tax.
If the Prime Minister was serious about making life more affordable for workers, families and seniors, he would cancel the carbon tax increase immediately. The carbon tax hike is coming at the worst possible time for Canadian families, which are struggling with rising costs. Instead of freezing taxes, the Liberals are raising taxes on people who are struggling to make ends meet. Of course, the Liberals will try to pretend that their cherished carbon tax is the only way to address climate change, but this, of course, is false.
Take my own province of Nova Scotia, for example. The provincial government has some of the most aggressive targets in the country for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We have more wind power in our power grid mix than eight other Canadian provinces. We surpassed the federal government's 2030 targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 13 years early. Our electricity generation from coal is down from 76% in 2007 to 52% in 2018 and will be eliminated, as all coal-fired plants will be closed with the creation of the Atlantic Loop. Our clean electricity generation has tripled in the last decade. Energy efficiency programs prevent one million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year. Also, a new 2030 goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% to 50% below 2005 levels has been legislated, and this is more aggressive than the federal targets.
All of that work is in a small province, the vast majority of which was done with no prompting or pressure from the federal government. Nova Scotians have stepped up to fight climate change. We are punching above our weight, all without imposing a new tax on everything.
While the NDP-Liberals stick to their ineffective high tax, we say this carbon reduction can be done through technology, not taxes. Nova Scotia has shown the way and is the model. The federal government rejected Nova Scotia's common-sense environmental policy, which would tackle climate change without making life more expensive for those who are struggling.
The Liberals have blinders on. All they want is more tax and more money from hard-working Canadians to spend on their woke agenda. Nova Scotians live in the highest taxed jurisdiction in the country. The imposition of this tax makes no sense in a region where climate change has been taken seriously for more than 20 years.
The Liberals think that imposing taxes will actually change the weather. They never met a tax they did not love. We reject the point from the Liberal Party that this tax is revenue-neutral, and so does the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
The common rebuttal by the Liberals is that eight out of 10 families will receive more money in rebate cheques than they pay out. We have yet to see any cheques in Nova Scotia from the federal government. That is magic math. It must be the new math where one plus one equals three.
However, members do not have to just take it from me. They can take it from the independent, non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer, who stated, “most households in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario will see a net loss resulting from federal carbon pricing by 2030.” By then the carbon levy will have increased to an incredible $170 a tonne. As the PBO said, “The moment you decide to decarbonize the economy in a relatively short period of time — and we’re talking here less than 10 years to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions — it’s clear that there is going to be a cost.”
Additionally, the PBO expects that, in the end, Albertans will end up paying $507 per household on average more than they get back. The PBO has calculated that, by 2030, the net loss on average for households will be $2,282. The PBO goes on to report, “Most households under the backstop will see a net loss resulting from federal carbon pricing under the HEHE plan in 2030-31.” He continues by stating that household carbon costs, which now include the federal levy and GST paid on top of the carbon tax, lower income and that the amount they paid exceeds the rebate.
Trudeau’s tax is bad for Nova Scotians. It will have no effect on the excellent work Nova Scotians have done and will continue to do to reduce our carbon footprint. There is an alternative to this dogmatic—
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- Sep/27/22 1:30:45 p.m.
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There is a point of order by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. I am pretty sure I know what it is, but I will allow him to proceed.
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- Sep/27/22 1:30:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the member had perused his notes before he read them, he would seen that he made reference to the Prime Minister by name, and he is not allowed to do that.
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- Sep/27/22 1:31:00 p.m.
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I suspected that was the point of order the hon. parliamentary secretary was rising on.
I would hope the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets will be mindful of what is in his notes.
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- Sep/27/22 1:31:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know how that one slipped by, but I thank the member for Winnipeg North. I will repeat the sentence altered.
The Liberal tax is bad for Nova Scotia. It will have no effect on the excellent work that Nova Scotians have done and will continue to do to reduce the carbon footprint. There is an alternative to the dogmatic approach of Ottawa, which was proposed by Premier Houston. If the Liberal government was serious about tackling climate change, it would encourage innovation and new approaches to the problem. Instead, it has a rigid set of rules that do not allow for programs that go beyond the realm of its tax agenda.
As families across the country struggle to make ends meet, dirty oil continues to be shipped to ports in Atlantic Canada from places like Saudi Arabia. This means human rights-abusing dictators are getting rich on Canada’s oil needs while a single mom in my riding cannot afford nutritious food. There is, of course, a solution to the problem. By unleashing Canada’s natural resource sector and approving good Canadian projects, global emissions will be reduced, which is our goal. That is because we have some of the strictest environmental regulations in the world.
The oil cultivated and extracted in Canada is the cleanest, most efficient energy in the world. On top of that, the emissions produced by shipping oil across the Atlantic Ocean to New Brunswick from the Middle East completely negates any benefit from a carbon tax. Let us green-light Newfoundland and Labrador’s planned increase in oil production, which will allow us to fully replace every single barrel of oil we are importing from abroad to Atlantic Canada within five years. Let us tackle climate change by unleashing Canada’s mining of minerals needed to produce the batteries for electric vehicles. Let us make Canada a place where nuclear and hydroelectricity generation is welcomed and not admonished.
The carbon tax does not work, and it is time for it to go. Canadians just cannot afford the government.
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- Sep/27/22 1:33:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I could be wrong, but I thought I heard the member say in his speech that Nova Scotia does not have its own system in place and, as a result, it is subject to the federal regime, but that is actually not the case.
In Nova Scotia, if one goes to Canada.ca, it shows that it has its own cap and trade system, so Nova Scotia is not subject to the federal regime as it relates to the price on pollution. As a matter of fact, Nova Scotia, at least according to the government's own website, is doing a very good job and, therefore, does not need federal government intervention.
I am wondering if the member would help export from that province the system Nova Scotia is using to encourage other provinces and territories throughout the country to use it, so they will not have to rely on that. Finally, I want to congratulate the member from Nova Scotia for having it.
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- Sep/27/22 1:34:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands is right. We do have a cap and trade system in Nova Scotia that adds 1¢ a litre to gas. The federal government wants that to triple, which would immediately add 14¢ more a litre to gas in Nova Scotia, and it would build that to 40¢ a litre by 2030.
That is the plan of the federal government, to push up the cap and trade system and costing Nova Scotians more, and that is what we reject. We reject that approach when all these other methods, which I have outlined in my speech, show how we can get there with technology and not taxes.
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- Sep/27/22 1:35:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if there is one aspect of my colleague's speech that I agree with, it is this: When it comes to fighting climate change, we need to focus on new technologies. However, money does not grow on trees.
Quebec is truly a leader in that regard. Not only do we manufacture electric batteries but we also recycle them. We are manufacturing electric buses. A factory in Shawinigan is even producing electric snowmobiles. That is significant.
Money does not grow on trees, and yet the government is handing the oil industry $12 bilion. If the government took that money and invested it in new technologies, that would help speed up the transition to new technologies.
Does my colleague agree?
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- Sep/27/22 1:35:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member is always a very entertaining member in the House.
I can say what we really need, and I applaud the innovation that is happening in Quebec. We have innovation happening in Nova Scotia too, but the federal government is ignoring that innovation. It thinks there is only one way to deal with this issue, which is a tax that is not working. The government has had this in place for almost seven years, and it has missed its carbon target every single year. That is the proof. British Columbia has had the tax even longer, and it has missed all its targets. Therefore, I would ask the government to take the blinders off and look at alternatives that work.
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- Sep/27/22 1:36:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party members are talking a lot about how families are struggling, often including the current new leader of the Conservative Party's mentioning cryptocurrencies as a way out of inflation, and they often mention single moms needing help. I actually was a single mom. When I was a single mom, I needed dental care and universal child care, and I needed parties like the Conservative Party to go after big CEOs from big corporations, such as Galen Weston from Loblaws, who makes $5,100 per hour.
Would my colleague agree with me that the Conservatives' failure to support dental care and universal child care, and to go after the root of the problem, such as leaders of big grocery chains, is actually hurting families more? Will he actually name the elephant in the room?
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- Sep/27/22 1:37:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Nancy in my riding is a single mother living on disability near Bridgewater. She makes $875 a month. In the winter, she has to heat her home with oil from Saudi Arabia. That costs $700 a month. The government wants to increase the cost of that by 40¢ a litre. Why is it that members of the NDP–Liberal coalition do not care about people like Nancy in my riding?
The dental care program proposed by the NDP–Liberal government, one-time payments to duplicate what provincial governments already provide, is ridiculous.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Sep/27/22 1:38:31 p.m.
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I do want to remind members that, when an hon. member has the floor, it is not their opportunity to ask questions or make comments. I would ask members to hold off until they are recognized during the questions and comments period.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country has the floor.
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- Sep/27/22 1:38:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.
Today feels like Groundhog Day because, once again, we are here talking about the price on pollution. It could almost be 2015, which was one of the first times this topic was brought up in a federal election, but there have been three federal elections since then where putting a price on pollution was one of the main items at the ballot box. It almost feels as though, for the last five years, we have not been having discussions with the premiers across the country about whether or not the federal government had a constitutional ability to bring in a price on pollution. It is almost as though we did not have a Supreme Court of Canada case affirm that Canada does indeed have the ability to do this, and that Canada does indeed have to act on a problem that is this fundamental to our country and to the entire world.
I also find it somewhat tone deaf that we are having this discussion today, in the wake of seeing the devastation that has happened in Atlantic Canada, where hurricane Fiona swept through and caused immeasurable damage to communities and loss of life. We know that this event was only made possible because of climate change and warming sea currents. In the past, these types of hurricanes would have died down over colder water, but now, with warming ocean currents, we are seeing much more severe weather events, such as the hurricanes that are now hitting our shores.
I also find it tone deaf given the devastation we saw in my province of British Columbia last year, where we saw temperatures reach nearly 50°C, with heat domes boiling billions of organisms alive. We saw devastating forest fires, and we saw the atmospheric river, which was the most devastating weather event in our country's history.
I find it particularly tone deaf because not only is this motion the first Conservative motion being put forward, but it is also being put forward without any alternative climate policy at the same time. Therefore, it is clear to me that this motion is not about supporting Canadians with affordability measures. Instead, it is really about blocking climate action.
I find it puzzling that Conservatives portray themselves as being in favour of market-based systems for getting value for money in government spending, but in opposing this policy, they are eschewing what is seen quite widely, including by the IMF, as the most effective and efficient way of reducing pollution. This is pollution that we know is not otherwise accounted for but has a major impact on local human health and on worsening climate change, and I just mentioned some of the major events that we have seen recently. By failing to put a price on pollution, we are allowing this externality to not be properly accounted for, and we know that this particularly impacts the most vulnerable among us.
The Conservatives also portray themselves as the party focused on affordability, but this is going against a policy that we know provides more money in the pockets of eight out of 10 Canadians families, particularly low-income Canadians, who are most at risk with the rising cost of living. Of course, we know that the less one pollutes, the more one saves when one gets the climate action incentive.
I find it particularly puzzling because the Conservative Party just last year ran on a platform that included putting a price on pollution, albeit the proposal was a very inefficient and convoluted one. However, this is very puzzling to a member from British Columbia, where we have had a price on pollution in place for almost 15 years. This policy was, in fact, brought in by the right of centre party in my province. We have seen that, by bringing in this policy, it has not impacted the economic growth in my province, which has been among the leaders in Canada ever since.
It is also puzzling because we know that the alternatives are no better. Focusing on regulations alone, we know, is highly costly. We know that, by simply investing in technologies, the government would then be forced to pick winners, which is essentially gambling to a certain extent on one of the biggest challenges that our generation is going to face.
It is also reckless that by abdicating responsibility to act and to repeal policies for climate action, the Conservative Party is letting its intransigence and opposition to climate action cause uncertainty for business, which is impacting the types of investments we need to see business make in technologies and measures that are going to mitigate their emissions. It is also impacting the way we can see growth in clean tech, which the Conservative Party has said it wants to support.
Over the course of the last few months, the environment and sustainable development committee has been undergoing a study on clean tech. What we have heard from nearly all the witnesses is that having policy certainty in place and having a predictable climate policy is essential to providing the certainty and confidence that businesses need to see to invest now in programs and make investments that are going to take five to 10 years to be fully put into place.
By opposing climate action, the Conservatives are also completely ignoring the catastrophic financial costs of climate change-fuelled weather events in Canada, which have a direct cost on people.
I mentioned the flooding in B.C. last year, which was the most expensive weather event in Canadian history. The forest fires in Fort McMurray cost almost $10 billion to rebuild. We know that hurricane Fiona is also going to cost billions. We all pay for these costs through the rising price of goods, taxes and lost productivity, which leads to inflation when it causes supply chain disruptions, which we saw in B.C. last year. It also impacts the price of the food we are buying when we see climate change-fuelled droughts and other wet-weather events disrupting agricultural production.
I will put it in some other language I know the Conservative Party will understand very well. We cannot opt out of inflation by investing in crypto. We opt out of inflation by getting off our reliance on fossil fuels, where we are at the mercy of global markets that can be upset by the actions of a foreign dictator. To reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, we need to incentivize the switch to clean, domestically controlled energy sources that are not at the mercy of outside influences. The best way to do this is by pricing pollution as well as supporting the switch to cleaner alternatives. Whether it would be affordability, national security, economic growth or climate change, pricing pollution is our most important and effective tool.
The solution to affordability is not to make emissions free again. The solution involves targeted solutions like the ones we have brought in over the last seven years and the ones that we propose to bring in through Bill C-30 and Bill C-31. These new measures include the Canada housing benefit, which will deliver an extra $500 for low-income renters. It includes bringing in the new Canada dental benefit for children under the age of 12 who do not have dental insurance, which will involve payments of up to $650 per child per year. It involves doubling the goods and services tax credit that will provide $2.5 billion in total to 11 million recipients.
This, of course, builds on our history of cutting taxes for the middle class by raising taxes on the top 1% and delivering the Canada child benefit, which has raised over 300,000 children out of poverty and puts more money back in the pockets of nine in 10 families. This year, we have cut child care costs in half right across the country and are going to get down to $10 a day in the next four years.
We know that climate action can be done in a way that saves people money. It is also why we launched the greener homes grant, so people can do home energy retrofits, and the greener homes loan for some of the deeper ones that people need to do, so they can save money on their energy bills. It is also why we are supporting Canadians to switch to zero-emission vehicles, with a $5,000 grant for this type of option.
In my home province of B.C., in the first quarter of 2022, over 15.5% of new vehicle sales have been for zero-emission vehicles. These are Canadians who are going to be saving a significant amount of money on their gas bills.
This is why we have brought in the price on pollution, which is, again, putting more money back into the pockets of eight out of 10 families, and is one of the most cost-efficient and affordable ways of climate action.
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