44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 25, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/25/22 1:26:05 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I think that the Bloc Québécois motion is designed to distract attention from what they just did.
Yesterday, they voted in favour of a stronger, tougher federal government that is going to triple the carbon tax for Quebeckers.
However, right now, inflation is the highest it has been in 41 years and the cost of living is rising. I am therefore wondering why the Bloc Québécois moved this motion. Do they not see that their motion does not really affect the daily lives of Quebeckers?
96 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/25/22 2:35:52 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, in the lead-up to the last election campaign, every single member opposite was in favour—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Speaker, well, you said so to Canadians.
They told Canadians they were going to put a price on carbon. Were they lying to Canadians then, or are they lying now? That is the question I have for them.
66 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/25/22 2:36:28 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that there is some bickering going on within the Liberal cabinet. The first public indication of this friction was in 2020, when former finance minister Bill Morneau walked away from the job because he opposed his Prime Minister's spending spree.
That friction reached a breaking point last week when the Minister of Finance publicly contradicted her boss by saying that her government would have to tighten its belt. It is clear to us that the government must stop these inflationary measures immediately.
Will the Prime Minister commit to cancelling his plan to triple the carbon tax?
103 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/25/22 3:02:37 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the member is in deficit fantasy land.
Our leader and our party have been calling for weeks for the Liberals to cancel taxes on Canadians, yet the Liberals are still planning to triple the carbon tax. I am going to ask this again today: Will they stop their punishing plans to increase the carbon tax and drive up the cost of gas, groceries and home heating, yes or no?
71 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/25/22 3:06:59 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, honestly, the Liberals need to start listening to Canadians. They cannot afford to put food on their tables, put gas in their tanks or to heat their homes. The Prime Minister insists on punishing Canadians for the crime of just heating their homes or putting food on their tables. He thinks it is a crime. It is just ludicrous.
While the Prime Minister can afford to jet set around the world on the taxpayers' dime, Canadians are just trying to afford basic necessities. Will the NDP-Liberal government have some decency and cancel its plans to triple the carbon tax?
102 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/25/22 6:49:47 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I begin my comments by recognizing those constituents struggling with grocery bills, fuel bills and tax bills from an out-of-touch federal government that has declared war on the average Canadian.
When I asked my question on taxation, Canadians took note it was the natural resources minister responding, not the Minister of Finance. He did so by confirming raising taxes to make life unaffordable was Liberal carbon tax policy. We can now refer to the natural resources minister as the acting minister of finance. This confirms what Conservatives have been saying all along: the carbon policy is a tax policy. Carbon taxes are no substitute for environmental policy.
This also raises the question: Is the hidden agenda behind the carbon taxes to abolish capitalism? Capitalism is undeniably the most successful form of wealth creation and distribution that has ever been devised. The key to that system's huge success is individual and corporate freedom with government getting out of the way to unleash human potential. Capitalism has done more to raise the standard of living, lifting more people out of poverty than all socialist government handouts combined.
As a free market Conservative, I know my Conservative Party believes in freedom and free enterprise. We need an environmental policy that focuses on science-based and human ingenuity solutions to pollution. The Liberals are forcing seniors and other Canadians on fixed incomes to have to choose between heating and eating. Emerging economies will not sacrifice poverty eradication and economic development to follow Canada's crushing carbon tax approach that brings so much pain for so little results.
In Canada today, the Liberals' carbon tax policy designed to make fossil fuels expensive is now doing exactly what it was intended to do: making everything more expensive. This means a very bleak winter is ahead. We should be taking the pathway of innovation. As fossil fuel prices climb, the Prime Minister and his acting finance minister believe people will shift painlessly to renewable energy sources. The Liberal Party ignores the science.
Renewables are far from ready to power the world. Solar and wind can only work with massive amounts of backup power, mostly fossil fuels, to keep the world running when the wind dies down, it is cloudy or at night. Renewables mostly generate electricity, which is just one-fifth of our total energy use. The vast majority is non-electric, like transport, industrial processes and heat. That is why the world still gets 80% of its energy from fossil fuels. Even though private investment in clean-energy technology is increasing, the Prime Minister and his handlers see the weather as an opportunity to remake society, the so-called “great reset”.
Decarbonizing the Canadian economy with crushing carbon taxes means replacing in a few years fossil fuel infrastructure that was built up over decades. This will require hundreds of thousands of square miles of wind and solar farms, enough battery storage to keep the power flowing and at least doubling Canada's transmission line capability. The same laws that Liberal-sponsored environmental groups have used to block fossil fuel projects are being exploited to slow down the transition to clean energy like hydro and nuclear. The only credible environmental plans include nuclear and hydro power generation.
The carbon tax policy goal of achieving net-zero CO2 emissions brings crippling economic pain. Fossil fuel costs have shot up and will keep rising every time the acting minister of finance increases the carbon tax burden on Canadians.
While it may be convenient for the Prime Minister and his acting finance minister to blame Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Prime Minister added $100 billion to our national debt before COVID and $500 billion to it before Russia even opened fire. All that borrowed money is driving up the cost of goods that we buy and the interest charged to service that debt.
662 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/25/22 6:57:31 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, in the absence of affordable, effective fossil fuel replacements, the carbon tax policy espoused by the Liberal Party just means costlier power bills and lower growth rates to achieve unmeasurable changes in the earth's temperature.
The best long-term strategy would be to dramatically increase investment in energy research and development. This Conservative approach would be much more effective while likely being 10 times cheaper than the Liberal's approach of making life unaffordable. It is much more plausible developing countries around the world, including China and India where the bulk of pollution comes from, will implement it.
It is time for the Liberals to actually take responsibility for the carbon tax policy failure. A trillion-dollar debt is bone-crushing for our consumers. When will the Liberal Party reverse its inflationary policies and axe their tax increases?
141 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
