SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22

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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Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP)

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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Mr. James Bezan

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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Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

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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Secretary

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

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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Mr. Rick Perkins

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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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

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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Mr. Rick Perkins

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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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

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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Mr. Rick Perkins

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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Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

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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Mr. Rick Perkins

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

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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Mr. Patrick Weiler (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, Lib.)

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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Mr. Brad Vis (Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, CPC)

Sep/27/22 1:48:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member talked about natural resource development and about all the discrepancies of the Conservative Party. What he failed to outline is that, in 2018, the Prime Minister came to British Columbia and spoke, with great fanfare, about the $40-billion investment by Shell into LNG export capacity in British Columbia. Part of that project and the reason it went forward and was approved by the federal government was that LNG Canada was not subject to the carbon tax. Therefore, I am sick and tired of hearing the Liberals talk all day long about the benefit of the carbon tax, but when it comes to a major investment, they say that it does not need to pay the carbon tax. Why the discrepancy?

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Mr. Patrick Weiler

Sep/27/22 1:49:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when we talk about LNG Canada, one of the main actions the federal government did was to invest in moving that project from gas-powered boilers to electric boilers, which vastly reduces the emissions from that project. We absolutely need to look at ways where we can continue to strengthen the output-based pricing system. One of the things we need to look at going forward is locking in those prices down the road, so we do not have a government come in and roll back that action. One of the ways we can do that is by bringing in carbon contracts for differences, where those companies know that the price on pollution is going to rise to what we say it is going to, so they do not delay those investments that we need to see taking place to reduce their emissions.

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Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP)

Sep/27/22 1:50:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to see if I can go two for two and maybe find some common ground with the Liberal members on the other side. Earlier, we heard the Conservative member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman agree that big polluters should pay for orphan oil wells that were left all across the west coast and the Prairies. Therefore, I am standing here today to see if we might be able to find concurrence in the House. Would the hon. member agree with the NDP and the Conservatives that big oil and gas companies, which are downloading a billion dollars of liability onto municipalities, must start paying for their pollution and their orphaned wells?

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Mr. Patrick Weiler

Sep/27/22 1:51:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, absolutely, big companies should be paying the price of the pollution they create. In fact, provinces right across the country need to strengthen the environmental bond system so that they have this money upfront, so we know it is not going to be downloaded onto communities and that they are going to subject to cleaning all of that up. I know important changes have happened throughout the country. One of the key ways we ensured that this was going to take place in Alberta with the energy sector was that part of the deal for the federal investment in cleaning up orphaned and inactive wells was for the Province of Alberta to commit to bringing in stronger environmental bonding and liability rules. That this is absolutely key, because this should never be falling onto the public purse.

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