44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 6, 2023 11:00AM
- Feb/6/23 4:25:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I arrived here today ready to debate the matter at hand. The feedback I got from my constituents was about where the $100 million-plus went that the government has wasted on one consultancy over a handful of years. This is something Canadians are seeing right now.
I hope the hon. member across the way will see that addressing the way the government is spending or wasting taxpayers' funds is part of our job in the opposition here. It has risen to the level where the public is very concerned about where the government is spending all the taxpayers' money.
Will the member across the way address how high this number has to go before he thinks it should be of concern to Canadian taxpayers?
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- Feb/6/23 5:20:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the questions and comments he has made in a very scintillating speech.
However, because he is asking the opposition this question rather than the government, I really want to ask him something. When the member asks about expanding this to include the other consulting firms that are involved here, I think the answer from the opposition side is that the Canadian government has spent so much since the Liberal government has been in power, we would look at the expansion of how much it has spent on consulting and where the money went. Especially, we would look at where money has been spent egregiously by the government with no result.
That would be an entertaining study, but it would take years. Right now we have one consulting firm, and the government spent 50 times more on it than it did in the entire term of the last government. We need to say that is an egregious expansion to one firm with well-connected friends. Could we drill into this and get it checked out very quickly? Would the member agree with that?
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- Feb/6/23 5:47:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to say to my colleague from Kingston and the Islands that, in all my time in the House of Commons, that is the best speech I have heard him give. Thank you for that. Thank you for supporting the motion we are putting forward here, in getting exposure on these contracts in particular, and thank you for not bending to opening this up so that we are boiling the ocean, as people used to say in consulting work, where we are going to have to look at things that will take us years to look at. This is one specific contract.
I will ask the member if he will actually commit to doing this as efficaciously and quickly as possible, to get this done within the next few weeks so that we can totally expose the amount that McKinsey has taken from this government and what results the government has actually gotten from that $100 million-plus of advice over the last handful of years.
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- Feb/6/23 6:54:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on November 22, 2022, I rose in the House and asked a question of the government linking taxes, carbon taxes in particular, with the rate of inflation we are experiencing in Canada. I used the example of Japan and the decisions they are making to address inflation in Japan versus the ones we are making here.
I got a response from the Associate Minister of Finance, the member for Edmonton Centre, which was more of a song and a dance than a reply. I hope I get a better response from the government tonight.
Let us address this. In November, Japan was experiencing 4.2% inflation. Canada, on the other hand, was experiencing 6.8% inflation. As a result of the inflation Japan was experiencing, it cancelled its increase to the carbon tax, which was expected to take effect in April of this year, but that has been cancelled. Canada, on the other hand, is increasing its carbon tax by 30%. Notably, Canada's carbon tax right now is $50 per tonne, and it will rise to $65 if the government continues on the path its on. Japan's carbon tax is about $3 Canadian per tonne of carbon, so there is a significant difference between what we are doing here. We can see why inflation is much more of a problem in Canada.
Carbon tax this year is expected to bring in $8.27 billion into Canada. Not to be outdone, when pressed on the issue, the governor of the Bank of Canada actually admitted, after some study, that the carbon tax itself was contributing 0.4% to the inflation rate in Canada. Instead of 6.8%, without the carbon tax, we would have an inflation rate of 6.4%. That amount is going to increase by about 1.3 times, so about 0.52% of our inflation rate is going to be part and parcel of the carbon tax.
Let me bring home what that means. This summer we had oil prices rise. West Texas Intermediate, the grade we measure our oil by, was about $110 per barrel in the world. That equated to about $2.10 per litre filling up in Calgary. Think about the last time oil was that high. It was actually $1.40 per litre, so it has gone up an extra 70¢ per litre. Part of that is inflation, and part of that is the price inflation. Apples to apples, it should be about $1.72 per litre versus $2.10. Where is the extra 40¢? I will tell colleagues. It is in the form of taxes on gas. It is excise taxes. It is carbon taxes. It is clean fuel taxes.
I know the narrative on the other side is going to tell me that x per cent of the economists around the world believe that a carbon tax is the most effective way of pricing carbon and reducing carbon emissions. I could agree.
Let me ask this: If this is so, why are so many other taxation mechanisms required? There is the clean fuels standard; the clean electricity standard, which is on its way; emissions caps, some targeted at specific industries; vehicle mandates; and massive subsidization of chosen paths forward. This is billions of dollars that the government is spending needlessly, and all of them are, by design, inflationary. This is inflation built upon inflation.
The savings of Canadians are at risk. The energy security of Canadians is at risk. Will the government come clean and provide Canadians clarity on what the future looks like in the designed inflationary spiral that it is designing here?
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- Feb/6/23 7:02:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I said the member was going to talk about the price on pollution and how everybody agrees that is the way to go forward here, except when we are addressing inflation. There are certain mechanisms that the government has tools to address. It is going to have to choose which path it is going to take, but inflation is a real concern for all Canadians.
I will also point out to the member that inflation is measured differently in different jurisdictions. If people believe that our inflation rate is lower in Canada than the United States, they should look at the way we measure it versus the way it is measured in the United States. They will find that housing deflation is the difference between the two. There actually is lower inflation in the United States. However, we do measure it, and I appreciate him reading the statistics that say we are lower. In fact, we are not, though.
The member did talk about the Parliamentary Budget Officer. If he is going to talk about the Parliamentary Budget Officer, he is going to have to pay attention to his other report that says the carbon tax is costing Canadians a lot more than he is giving it credit for. This is a problem that needs to be considered in his inflation adjustments and we have to address it going forward.
I do not want more narrative. Let us address the—
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