44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 7, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/7/23 10:07:37 a.m.
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moved:
That, given that,
(i) the Bank of Canada governor has admitted that the carbon tax contributes to inflation,
(ii) the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that households will pay more in carbon tax costs than they get back,
(iii) the government plans to triple the carbon tax, which will increase the price of gas, groceries, and home heating,
the House call on the government to immediately cancel the carbon tax.
He said: Mr. Speaker, after eight years in government, the Prime Minister is out of touch and Canadians are out of money. Nowhere is that more evident than in the words of the Prime Minister's own top minister from Newfoundland and Labrador, who said he is “sick and tired of people talking about the cold winter”. He is sick and tired of hearing the stories of seniors in his riding calling to complain that his tax is making it impossible for them to heat their homes.
If he is sick and tired of hearing about the pain and suffering that his Liberal government is causing after eight years, why do they not stop causing that pain and suffering? If he is still sick and tired, why does he not get out of the way and let another government step in and stand up for the people who are trying to heat their homes? Maybe this out-of-touch Liberal minister needs to hear more, not less, of the stories of his own constituents.
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- Feb/7/23 10:20:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to point out that this is the fifth out of eight supply days that the Conservatives have used to talk about the carbon tax.
Every time, the Conservatives' solutions involve depriving the government of revenue. They are not presenting solutions that would help increase household income. They are not presenting solutions that would have big businesses pay their fair share of taxes. They are also not presenting solutions that would have banks and multinationals decrease their profit margins at a time when citizens are making sacrifices.
There is nothing in today's Conservative motion to address the sources of inflation. On the contrary, it gives a gift to oil companies.
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- Feb/7/23 11:02:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, inflation is caused by more than 20 different factors, one of which is a labour shortage. The Century Initiative, led by certain McKinsey executives, recommended encouraging people aged 55 to 74 to return to the workforce if they had retired. Pensions are fixed incomes, and pensioners are the most affected by inflation.
My question is this. Was increasing pensions for only those 75 and over really just an implementation of the Century Initiative approach, which ultimately hurts those aged 65 to 74?
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- Feb/7/23 11:07:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, using institutions such as the Bank of Canada and the parliamentary budget office to lend the motion credibility in points (i) and (ii) is misleading, to say the least. I am compelled to speak out against this kind of manipulation.
At point (i), the motion states that “the Bank of Canada governor has admitted that the carbon tax contributes to inflation”. Inflation was not caused by the new tax. The tax is a necessary measure designed to change and orient the behaviours of Canadian society as a whole to achieve a net-zero future. Perhaps the official opposition needs to be reminded that Canada made a commitment to the global community to achieve net zero by 2050.
There is a global economic context that gave rise to the conditions we are experiencing now. Simplifying inflation like that is irresponsible, and I think the public deserves a much better motion than this one.
It goes without saying that taxes affect inflation, but any motion we put forward should be grounded, first and foremost, in the concatenation of factors and economic circumstances. One-dimensional motions like this are best avoided, but that is not what we are seeing here.
The official opposition appears to be unaware that there are many sectors of the global economy that have been adversely impacted by the pandemic, and that there has been an associated domino effect. I will spare the House the details of the other factors involved, including the war in Ukraine.
Point (ii) of the motion states that “the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that households will pay more in carbon tax costs than they get back”.
I am not sure how they so carelessly arrived at this conclusion, because what they are really doing is using the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s words for their own ends. They skilfully cut out all the nuances necessary to understand and appreciate the results of the analysis, namely that the Parliamentary Budget Officer is focusing on household net carbon costs for 2030, the year in which the tax should reach $170. Things will change between now and then.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer analyzes both the fiscal impact, namely the levy of the goods and services tax, and the economic impact, meaning the lower income as a result of pricing.
I forgot to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.
When the Parliamentary Budget Officer considers only the fiscal impact, the vast majority of households in backstop provinces see a net gain, as they receive rebates that exceed their carbon costs.
It is also important to note that, even considering the economic impact, net carbon costs have a progressive impact. Pricing affects households differently, depending on the composition of their spending on goods and services. According to one report, “high-income households, which have relatively high carbon-intensive consumption, bear a larger cost burden compared to lower income households”.
It is therefore absolutely false to claim that, in the current context, households will be paying out more than they receive. That would be in the 2030 fiscal year.
The Conservatives’ motion is first and foremost an attempt to eliminate the measure required in Canada, the country that, after all, still subsidizes hydrocarbons; the country where the most polluting vehicles on the planet are made and driven, according to the International Energy Agency; and the country beset, dare I say it, by a type of political schizophrenia in the fight against climate change, which results in contradictory announcements with meticulously crafted virtuous words and messages.
I will agree that, with this motion, the Conservative member is taking a direction that differs from that of the government. I just presented a few truths about the current situation in Canada and summarily described the government’s approach to climate change, because, as I would remind members, Parliament has a responsibility to be transparent to voters. I am not naive, and I do not believe in miracles, but I believe that it is important to raise the issue of transparency.
It is a well-known fact that the Conservative Party is first and foremost concerned about the oil and gas industry. That is essentially its whole vision. Its approach, which I would call demagogic and populist, is patently obvious.
The carbon tax does not even affect the largest emitters, since the government built in safe-conducts, mitigation measures to ensure that the shock to these poor companies would not be too brutal. This bodes well for a sector with record-breaking profits, a boon for shareholders. Need I remind members that ExxonMobil, or Imperial Oil, raked in $74 billion in profits?
We would not want the shock to these companies to be too brutal. This is absolutely ridiculous. The elimination of the carbon tax seeks first and foremost to help the oil and gas industry. It is the best solution to lock society into negative behaviours that hinder our fight against climate change.
Since I am a proponent of transparency, I must say that I do not believe that the Conservative Party will see the value of implementing any meaningful measures whatsoever to encourage Canadians to change their behaviours and reduce their dependency on oil. I also do not believe that they will see the value of supporting public policy focusing on energy efficiency. I certainly am not expecting the Conservative Party to support the measures proposed by the Bloc Québécois, which would have a direct impact on the very people the Conservatives seem to want to help. For example, we are proposing adjusting the increase in old age security, building social and community housing to meet current needs, improving the energy balance of hundreds of thousands of commercial buildings by fostering energy efficiency policies aimed at breaking our dependency on oil and gas, and taxing massive fortunes, even temporarily.
It is our responsibility to implement measures that will ultimately change people’s behaviours. I will give the example of cigarette companies. In 2015, the British Medical Journal analyzed 100 Canadian and American studies on tobacco taxes. Findings showed that taxation was a powerful tool to reduce smoking. Thanks to the tax, people who smoked either quit or began to smoke less, and that had a positive impact on young people. Measures like this are necessary to change our behaviours, and we need to change our behaviours if we are to take up the climate challenge.
The oil and gas sector has been aware of the impact of its pollution since the 1970s. The harmful effects of air pollution on human health have been widely documented. This is compounded by the impact of the growing levels of greenhouse gas emissions. We need to stop pretending that we are not dependent on oil and gas or that this dependency has no financial, economic or health repercussions. I am not talking about the benefits to oil companies, which, as we know, are considerable. Their senior executives, the insurance sector and the banks continue to allot a disproportionate share of their investment portfolios to the oil industry.
I am talking about the health and environmental costs. Air pollutants such as toxic gases like nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide reduce people’s quality of life and increase the prevalence and incidence of acute and chronic disease. Since air pollution affects almost everyone on earth, it is a global public health priority. Moreover, as the World Health Organization put it, climate change is the greatest health threat of the 21st century.
The stubborn refusal to link pollution to extremely serious health problems and to recognize that dependency on fossil fuels adversely affects human health and the environment is irresponsible. I would even say that it is cowardly not to make the connection. Medical and scientific researchers who study the causal links between the environment and the development of human pathologies are now planning their work on the “multimorbidity” phenomenon.
We need to keep the fuel tax. We cannot give in and cancel it, which would be dangerous and get us nowhere. I never said it would be easy. It is not easy, but we have to do it. There are solutions when it comes to improving the quality of life for most people in the current environment. I would like to end my speech by saying that all we need is the political courage to implement them and find a way to strike a balance between the most pressing needs and interests. Most importantly, we have to stop repeating falsehoods in the belief they will come true, and we need to be transparent.
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- Feb/7/23 11:21:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what a surprise this morning's motion is. For the umpteenth time, the Conservatives are proposing that the carbon tax be eliminated, because they believe this is the best way to help ordinary people deal with the rising cost of living.
This is the result of the brainstorming they did over the holidays five weeks ago. They racked their brains and looked for solutions. Now they have decided to propose the same thing they have proposed to Parliament four or five times already, even though the other parties said no every time.
Once again, the Conservatives are trying to solve real problems with fake solutions. People are rightly concerned about the rising cost of living, particularly at the grocery store. However, that does not mean that the price increases are a direct result of the federal carbon tax.
Eliminating the carbon tax would have a limited effect. As my colleague so ably explained, it would have a one-time effect, but no real impact in the long term. Inflation hits across the board, so eliminating the tax on one product will have no effect on the overall problem.
The Conservatives are using the skyrocketing prices of food and other goods to pursue their long-standing ideological crusade against the principle of putting a price on carbon pollution, by attempting to link it to the ongoing inflation crisis. However, the price of grain, which includes the price of meat because cattle feed on grain, is negotiated based on the Chicago Board of Trade. It is hard to see how carbon pricing in the Canadian Prairies, for example, could affect the Chicago Board of Trade.
Ironically, of all the tools available to fight global warming, which today's Conservatives claim they want to do, carbon pricing is probably the public policy approach that is most compatible with their political philosophy. It is a solution based on market forces rather than direct regulation.
As we know, since we have often discussed it, pollution pricing is a system that varies depending on the government. The provinces and territories either adopt a pricing system tailored to their needs or join the federal system, which includes a regulatory charge on fossil fuels and a performance-based system for industries. I should remind my colleagues that the federal pricing system does not even apply to Quebec.
I would be curious to hear my Conservative colleagues try to explain how eliminating the federal carbon tax will help Quebeckers save money, since I admit I do not understand. If, as the Conservatives claim, the federal carbon tax were responsible for price increases, then inflation would be higher in the provinces where carbon pricing exists than in the provinces where it does not. That is not the case, however.
The wording of the Conservatives’ motion looks serious and has the ring of truth. However, if we look a little more closely, we can see that that is not necessarily the case, as happens all too often with the Conservatives' motions.
Point (ii) of the motion states that “the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that households will pay more in carbon tax costs than they get back”. We only need to read the document in question once to realize that the Conservatives' motion distorts the Parliamentary Budget Officer's findings regarding the federal carbon pricing system.
Contrary to what the Conservatives have been saying, the tax does not end up costing 60% of households. That is a projection for 2030-31 at $170 per tonne. Moreover, the tax is progressive because of the refund: lower-income families will see a net gain. Currently, 80% of households get more back than they pay in carbon tax. That includes all low- and modest-income households, and that is as it should be. As we all know, inflation hit basic necessities hardest in 2022. Housing prices went up by 8.7%, food by 9.8% and gas by 28%. Core inflation, which excludes the food and energy costs that eat up a disproportionate amount of low-income households' budgets, was 5.3%.
The problem with the carbon tax has more to do with the rules for businesses. Small and medium-sized businesses are being penalized while major emitters take advantage of carbon tax relief programs designed to increase fossil fuel production. Oil companies pocketed the proceeds of massive oil and gas price increases attributed to international tensions and the war in Ukraine, reporting record profits in 2022.
I will repeat something my colleague said, because it is important. Imperial Oil raked in $58 billion U.S. in profits, which corresponds to $74 billion Canadian. That is unprecedented. Oddly enough, the Conservatives are not proposing to tax these excess profits and redistribute them to those who are paying the price.
Why would we not do that? It seems to me that this could help Quebeckers and Canadians cope with inflation. Why should we let the oil companies make billions of dollars on the backs of poor people who are struggling to pay their housing, grocery and electricity bills? Last August, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres denounced the greed of the big oil and gas companies, which are making outrageous profits on the backs of the poorest people and at great cost to our climate.
In their motion today, the Conservatives are proposing instead to exempt them from the carbon tax. This is nonsense. Let me remind the House that Canada's greenhouse gas emissions have increased by more than 20% since 1990, largely due to emissions from the oil and gas sector. The real challenge is to create a sustainable and resilient economy, one that creates wealth while respecting nature's limits, and to make this transition to the new economy in a way that is fair to workers and families.
This requires reflection and searching for more far-reaching and perhaps more complex solutions than what is on offer in the usual Conservative rhetoric. We should also remember that most of the Conservative's solutions deprive the government of revenue. That does not necessarily mean that household incomes will increase. It also does not mean that big corporations will pay their fair share of taxes or that the banks and multinationals will reduce their profit margins while people are making sacrifices and seeing their purchasing power decline sharply.
As was mentioned, inflation is real and affects all sectors, including housing, food and motor vehicles. This requires measures that are far more comprehensive than those proposed by the Conservative Party's rather populist position.
I would like to see the Conservative members propose concrete solutions to fight climate change instead of spending their time trying to abolish measures that will fight the climate crisis. However, like the abolishment of the carbon tax, it will probably never happen. In any event, hopefully that will not happen as long as the Liberal government is in power. As parliamentarians, we must force the government to take further action to address the risks of the climate crisis. We do not discuss this enough.
Obviously there are many solutions for helping the public get through the unfortunate effects of inflation. The Bloc Québécois has proposed several. I will leave it to my colleagues to talk about that later, but the solution that really speaks to me is reducing our dependence on oil. The price of gas, which jumped by 33.3% between December 2020 and December 2021, is a major determinant of inflation. It drives up the price of every good whose production requires fossil fuels. Beyond the conditions around the economic recovery from lockdown, the price of oil is chronically unstable and known for its tendency to increase suddenly and drastically, so much so that inflation metrics do not factor in energy. Since the cost of oil is essentially tied to the London and New York stock exchanges, there is little that can be done to mitigate the fluctuations and price hikes.
However, it is possible to make the economy more resilient to these fluctuations by reducing our reliance on oil and by accelerating the transition to renewable energies. We need to take real action to accelerate the energy transition to shelter the economy from sudden spikes in the price of fossil fuels. This can be done in several ways. I will name a few and I invite the Conservatives to pick their favourite one.
There is the electrification of transportation, energy retrofitting and support for businesses that want to move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. Financial flows could also simply be redirected toward green economic development. There are many options, and they would have a real impact on people's wallets. There is another easy solution that I think several parties in the House like, and that is making things fair and taxing the ultrarich. As I mentioned earlier, why not tax oil companies, which are generating enormous profits?
I think that the proposal that has been made several times to do away with the carbon tax is not the right solution. I invite my Conservative colleagues to propose better solutions to help citizens deal with the increased cost of living.
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- Feb/7/23 12:17:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I do not believe those were the specific words I would have used. However, when we were looking at the last snap election in 2021, which was triggered by the government, we had ash falling from the sky in my community. It was really out of touch for the government to call an election at that time. Since then, we have seen record-high inflation. We have 1.5 million people a month going to food banks. We have 40-year-high inflation. It is not a good state. This is not the time to be increasing any taxes on Canadians, including the carbon tax.
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- Feb/7/23 12:19:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate everything the member said, but all of that has absolutely nothing to do with the carbon tax.
The carbon tax is just a tax. It does not reduce emissions. Adding this tax only makes the cost of everything go up, so they are really not related at all. The carbon tax makes the price of heating homes go up for people. The carbon tax makes the price of everything that is transported across the country go up, a lot of which is food and essentials.
Today, we are talking about inflation. We are talking about the cost of everything going up because of the carbon tax.
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- Feb/7/23 12:20:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, fist of all, we have to remember that this is a government that said, when it was elected in 2015, that it was just going to have little, tiny deficits. This is this government that is not exactly known for keeping its promises.
When we are talking about hidden taxes, they absolutely add to the cost. They are called “cost of goods” or “cost of sales”. We see it as well in shipping, for example. Costs will be added on as fuel surcharges, and a big part of those is taxes.
I remember hearing from many of my constituents before Christmas, and one was really relevant. He was shipping a very small container of Christmas baking, and the fuel surcharge plus all of the taxes were actually more expensive than the cost to ship the baking to his relative. Those are the kinds of things that showed up on his bill, but many times they will not actually show up on a bill. The hidden charges are definitely increasing inflation across the country.
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- Feb/7/23 12:52:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, over the last number of years, we have seen a government that has brought forward legislative and budgetary measures to ensure that we have a healthier middle class, that we continue to create jobs and that we have an economy that works for all of us, no matter what region of the country we are talking about.
When it comes to issues, I go to the residents of Winnipeg North and listen to what they have to say. We hear a lot about inflation, so I am glad the motion before us deals, at least in part, with inflation. We also hear a lot of concern with regard to the environment and, once again, the second part of this motion deals with the environment.
I would like to spend the next nine or 10 minutes talking about both of those issues. I would like to demonstrate the contrast between the Conservative Party of Canada and what the Government of Canada has been doing.
On the issue of inflation, we have to take into account what is happening around the world. Canada's inflation rate, compared to that of other countries, whether it is the United States, Germany, all European countries or the United Kingdom, is lower. However, we understand that we cannot just sit back and look at what is happening around the world and say that we do not need to do anything because our inflation rate is lower. Rather, we have come up with a number of programs and thoughts to help Canadians through inflation as much as possible.
I will give a few examples that are very tangible. We eliminated the interest on student loans. We doubled the goods and services tax credit for the short term, for six months. We put forward the dental program, which would help children under the age of 12. We brought in rental support and the Canada workers benefit. These are the types of programs that we are bringing in to support Canadians on inflation.
How does that contrast with the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada? I have now heard the second real, tangible idea that the Conservatives are talking about. They want to get rid of the price on pollution. They have made that very clear. That is the second idea.
What was the first idea? It should come as no surprise that it was the cryptocurrency flash. We will remember that the leader of the Conservative Party, not that long ago, said the way to fight inflation is to invest in cryptocurrency. That was the message. That was one of the first policy stands with regard to fighting inflation. I have said before in the House that I cannot imagine those who would have followed that stupid idea. They would have lost life savings if they had invested their savings in it. That was the first economic inflation-fighting policy I heard from the Conservative Party.
We have heard the Conservatives talk about the “triple, triple, triple”. I think they should pay some sort of dividend to Tim Hortons for the double-double. At the end of the day, it is all about misinformation. Their second policy on fighting inflation is to spread false information. In fact, the leader of the Conservative Party proclaimed it today, saying they are going to get rid of carbon pricing or the price on pollution or the carbon tax. It was not that long ago that 338 Conservative candidates, including the member who made the statement that he is going to get rid of it, campaigned at the doors and said in their policy platform that they believed in a price on pollution. How things have flipped-flopped once again.
The Conservative Party, with its spreading of misinformation, is actually going to pay for advertising, which I think kicked in today, coincidental with this particular motion. What Conservatives are telling Canadians is that they are going to save them money by cutting the tax, cutting the price on pollution.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, I heard one member say “woo-hoo” and another say “hear, hear”. Well, I can tell members that this is the misinformation that the Conservatives are spreading.
In Winnipeg North, as in most other constituencies, the PBO, the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer, made it very clear that eight out of 10 households are going to get a net benefit. In Manitoba, a household of four would get over $800 a year in quarterly payments. If we get rid of the price on pollution, that rebate is gone too, and for 80% of my constituents, that rebate is more than they are actually paying. However, the Conservatives are going to try to mislead not only the residents of Winnipeg North but all the provinces where the price on pollution is put in as a backstop to protect our environment. They are going to try to give the impression that cancelling the price on pollution is going to put more money in their pockets. That is balderdash. That is just not true, and they know it.
It is one thing to stand in the House and spread misinformation and even go into communities and possibly town halls that they are having, but now the Conservatives are going to be paying for advertising. They have actually bought advertising spots to spread false facts.
This will depress a lot of people. I think it is 150 days of the current leadership of the Conservative Party, and it took one of the former leaders, the current Conservative House leader, over 400 days to come up with a plan on the environment. His plan incorporated a price on pollution, and now he is the House leader. The leader who followed him actually made the commitment, which every one of them campaigned on, that there would be a price on pollution.
How many more days is it going to take for the Conservative Party to be more transparent and honest with Canadians as to what their plan is with regard to the environment? Is their only line or bumper sticker going to be “We're going to cut and get rid of the price on pollution” as other jurisdictions around the world are incorporating what Canada has put into place? Eighty per cent of Canadians are actually benefiting from it, and we are dealing with the environment at the same time. There is a huge vacuum there that needs to be filled. We are waiting, and we will continue to wait, I suspect.
How long is it going to be before the Conservatives start telling the truth as to what they are going to be doing in terms of their environmental plan? All we know is that they misled Canadians in the last federal election, all 338 of them. We are going to be reminding Canadians that at one point the Conservative Party, under different leaderships, supported the price on pollution. At the end of the day, they have flipped-flopped, which is to the disadvantage of our environment, and it is going to hurt Canadians.
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- Feb/7/23 1:04:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the PBO, the organization the member just made reference to, also made it very clear that eight out of 10 Canadian households will have a net gain. They get more money in their pockets as a result of the price on pollution. One cannot change that fact, even if one advertises otherwise.
What amazed me is that he brought up Bitcoin. He said that it has gone up in the last month by, I think, 30 percentage points. Do we have the Conservative Party, once again, encouraging people to invest in cryptocurrency? That seems to me what the member is suggesting.
Thousands of people lost their life savings because of cryptocurrenccy, and they are jumping back on to that bandwagon. How ludicrous is that? Is that the type of policy advice the Conservative Party members are coming up with? Today it is to get rid of the price on pollution, because they do not give a darn about our environment, they do not care about the rebates Canadians are receiving, especially at a time of inflation, and by the way, buy more cryptocurrency. Wow.
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- Feb/7/23 1:36:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as Conservatives, we would want everyone to pay their fair share when it comes to taxes, but, again, it shows how no one wants to talk about this important issue. The member is talking about the cost of living and child care. She has mentioned that her constituents are having trouble putting food on the table. This goes directly to that.
The carbon tax trickles down through the entire supply chain. We are seeing food inflation at a 40-year high and one of the key contributors to that is the Liberal carbon tax. If we get rid of the carbon tax, grocery prices will start to come down.
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- Feb/7/23 2:09:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the current Liberal Prime Minister, inflation is at a 40-year high. After eight years of the current Liberal Prime Minister, the average family is paying $16,000 a year on groceries. After eight years of the current Liberal Prime Minister, one in five Canadians is skipping meals, is accessing charity services just to meet their basic needs, and is out of money. After eight years of the current Liberal Prime Minister, rents and mortgages have doubled. After eight years of the current Liberal Prime Minister, his insider friends have made off with billions of tax dollars while Canadians face an affordability crisis. After eight long years of the current Liberal Prime Minister, Canadians are out of money and the Liberal government is out of touch.
It is time to rein in the spending, fire the gatekeepers and put out this inflationary fire. It is time to get the Liberals out of the way so Conservatives, led by the member for Carleton, can clean up this mess and ensure Canadians can keep the heat on by taking the carbon tax off.
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- Feb/7/23 2:21:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, inflation is at a 40-year high.
Former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau said that the Prime Minister spent too much. Another former Liberal finance minister, John Manley, said that this spending caused inflation. The current Governor of the Bank of Canada says that government spending is causing inflation and Mark Carney, the future Liberal leader, agrees.
Will the Prime Minister take responsibility for the inflation he caused so we can fix what he has broken?
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- Feb/7/23 2:23:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, his investments in pharmaceuticals? He gave $170 million to a pharmaceutical operation that is shutting down; that is a prime example.
After eight years of the Prime Minister wasting our money, inflation is at a 40-year high. Now home heating bills have doubled. Seniors wonder how they are going to keep the heat on because this tax is going to be tripled, tripled and tripled under the NDP-Liberal coalition.
Will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility for the misery he has put on household heating bills, and will he accept that we are going to keep the heat on to take the tax off?
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- Feb/7/23 2:31:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the current Liberal Prime Minister, Canadians are suffering more than ever. His out-of-control spending fuelled a 40-year high in inflation. Rents have doubled. Home heating has doubled. Even food inflation has gone up. He pile-drove Canadians further by taking more off their paycheques and is going to take even more and cause even more suffering when he triple, triple, triples his failed carbon tax scam.
Will the Prime Minister show some humility and take the tax off so that Canadians can keep the heat on?
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- Feb/7/23 3:04:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, inflation is through the roof. Housing costs have doubled; families will pay $1,065 more for food this year, and 1.5 million Canadians are visiting food banks. That is where eight years of the Prime Minister's government has gotten us.
What is his government doing? It is giving over $100 million in contracts to a single firm, ignoring all the expertise of the public service.
Can the Prime Minister clearly explain how this spending will help Canadians?
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- Feb/7/23 4:06:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will say at the outset that I will be splitting my time with the member for St. Catharines.
Canadians are hurting. That is obvious. We see it every day on the news, and we hear about it in the House. While employment is strong, and this is not an insignificant positive, inflation is at its worst in 40 years. We have always had inflation. Every year there is inflation. Two per cent is inflation, but this inflation is obviously the worst we have seen in 40 years. That is a fact that is indisputable. We also have the first war in Europe in 78 years, and we have the most volatile climate ever.
I will start my speech with a quote, if I may. It is a quote from a Canadian farmer by the name of David Coburn, who is helping put food on the tables of families across this great country. This is from a CBC article from November, just a couple of months ago. Mr. Coburn said, “This is going to drive inflation.... All of our food goes on our truck at some point in time so this is not gonna help the inflationary figures.”
What was Mr. Coburn talking about? He was talking about the price of diesel, the fuel that keeps the global economy moving. Here again, I quote from the article from the CBC website, which says:
Drivers may wince when the price of gasoline goes up, or decide not to drive if they can. But the trains, trucks, boats, and barges that keep the economy moving run on diesel — and they don't have that option.
The article, from back in November, goes on to say:
The average retail price of diesel in Canada has topped $2.40 a litre at various points this month, a previously unimaginable level that has many businesses scrambling to keep up.
There are many reasons why it is happening, but the impact boils down to one basic thing: it's driving up the price of everything, and making inflation worse.
What has been driving up the price of diesel? We know that shutdowns of refineries for maintenance have an impact on supply and the price of diesel in a market that is driven by demand and supply. For example, the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John saw a shutdown for maintenance recently in the fall, taking 300,000 barrels a day of supply off the market. Refinery shutdowns for maintenance happen all the time, but when they happen in a very tight market, then we can see very wide swings in the price of diesel and the price of gasoline because barrels that might otherwise be available to meet local needs are just not there. In this case, in November, in New Brunswick, and therefore in Canada, barrels that might otherwise be available to meet local needs were being diverted to the other side of the ocean.
Again, I quote from the article, which is quoting a gentleman by the name of Patrick De Haan, a Chicago-based analyst with a website called GasBuddy.com. He says:
Europe is trying to move away from Russian oil products like diesel fuel, and as a result of that, much of the product that could be imported into the Northeast or eastern coast of Canada, as well as the Northeastern U.S. is being pulled over there.
Europe was essentially building stockpiles for the winter ahead, and that meant that, when the Irving Refinery shut down for maintenance, the market was very tight, and the price went up drastically.
Another factor that has increased demand for oil and gas is the rebound in airplane travel. I will quote another analyst, Paul Pasco, who is with a firm called Kalibrate. He says in the article, “air travel getting back to pre-COVID levels isn't helping either.” He then said, “Diesel, kerosene or jet fuel, they're basically all the exact same part of the barrel, they're all what's known as the distillate barrels”. Therefore, we have lots of factors that are contributing, or have been contributing, to the very high price of diesel.
The opposition will have us believe that all of these huge forces at play internationally are not really what is causing prices to go up. They contend that it is the price on carbon, but all experts will say, and I will quote a professor of economics at the University of Calgary, that the overwhelming dominant reason why prices are higher now compared to a couple of months ago is there are factors other than the price on carbon.
Professor Trevor Tombe said that the federal carbon price adds 11¢ to the cost of each litre of gasoline, and added that the notion that the carbon tax is what is behind high gas prices is a misconception. He said, “While, you know, 11 cents a litre is a meaningful level overall, they don't drive the recent increases that we're seeing.... It's really about global oil prices, and that's really driven by things far beyond the government of Canada's control.”
I do not know what they are talking about on the other side. I do not know what their researchers are telling them or why they are telling them what they are telling them, but they are invoking all the wrong factors to explain what is going on in the economy, and that is quite concerning for a party that claims it wants to govern the country. If Conservatives do not understand basic economics, how could they make big decisions?
We know that the Leader of the Opposition holds Milton Friedman in very high esteem. One could say that he worships at the altar of Milton Friedman, and we know that he carries around under his arm a copy of Milton Friedman's A Monetary History of the United States. Let us see what Milton Friedman would say about this whole issue.
The University of Chicago school of economics, where Milton Friedman was the top economist for many years, held a forum a few years ago called, “What Would Milton Friedman Do About Climate Change?” Former U.S. representative Bob Inglis, a Republican from South Carolina, opened the discussion by playing a 1979 clip of Milton Friedman appearing on The Phil Donahue Show. Phil Donahue asked Milton Friedman, “Is there a case for the government to do something about pollution?” Friedman replied, “Yes, there's a case for the government to do something. There's always a case for the government to do something about it.”
He was basically saying that the market had broken down and was not operating efficiently, so something had to be done. What did he mean by saying the market was not operating efficiently? He said, referring to the cost of pollution:
those costs are real, and they're not being reflected in the costs of that electricity or the tank of gas. Emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere does allow you to produce electricity more cheaply, but there's a whole other set of people who are being punished or penalized. It's a poor idea of economics.
I do not know if the Leader of the Opposition read that quote by Mr. Friedman. He went on to say:
What we need is an adjustment mechanism that will enable us to adapt to what happens as it develops. Everybody in this room knows there is such a system, namely the price mechanism. If we have a problem today, in the air, with pollution, it is solely in my opinion because that system has not been allowed to work.
Then someone else—
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- Feb/7/23 4:16:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad the member quoted Milton Friedman. Of course, that member, being a member of the Liberal Party, is a great disciple of John Maynard Keynes, who used to promote spending as a way out of governments' problems and spending as a way of getting an economy back on track. Unfortunately, it is spending that has gotten our economy off track and into an inflationary spiral.
Will that member not admit that the spending his government undertook in Canada has driven inflation to 40-year highs and has caused the current unaffordability crisis in Canada? Will he now, at least, admit that?
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- Feb/7/23 4:35:39 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, I had the pleasure of meeting with the Canadian Labour Congress today, which told me its workers are experiencing challenges because of the rising cost of inflation and wages not increasing. Meanwhile, we know of businesses like Imperial Oil, which is making huge profits. It made $2.4 billion in the last quarter, which was a sixfold increase compared to the same quarter last year.
I wonder if the hon. member can explain why the Liberals will not put a windfall profits tax on big oil and gas companies.
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- Feb/7/23 5:02:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his passion on this particular topic, but he does not have a lot of facts. I wonder if the hon. member knows that last year's price on pollution went up by 2.2¢. Does the member know that 95% of the increase in the cost of gas was because of inflation caused by international events and various margins in the various provinces, and that eight out of 10 families get more money back than they pay at the pump?
If the hon. member has heard the cries of affordability of Canadians, why did that side of the House vote against rental support, dental support and the Canada child benefit, which has lifted 400,000 people out of poverty? They voted against seniors, who he talked about. We increased the OAS by 10%, and he voted against it.
Why does the hon. member not adjust his sails?
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