44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 7, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/7/23 10:17:21 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to read from the Conservative platform that the member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, ran on in the last election. It says, “Conservatives will work with the provinces to implement an innovative, national, Personal Low Carbon Savings Account. This will put a price on carbon”.
The leader of the opposition at the time, the member for Durham, said, “We recognize that the most efficient way to reduce our emissions is to use pricing mechanisms.” The Conservative member for Calgary Centre, when commenting on that platform, said, “I think it's an evolution for parts of our party”.
We have now seen seven or eight motions similar to this one that have come forward in the House since the Conservatives ousted the previous leader. It has actually been 150 days to the day since this member became the leader of the official opposition, so congratulations to him.
My question—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Feb/7/23 10:19:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for acknowledging the 150-day mark of my leadership. I am just disappointed he did not get me a nice present to honour the occasion. Maybe that question was the present. He often lobs me these softballs across the way.
The member wants some ideas. Here are some ideas: Why do we not use technology instead of taxes to fight climate change? Why do we not support our energy sector in pumping the carbon back into the ground through carbon capture and storage? Why do we not speed up nuclear power so that we can have more emissions-free electricity on our grid? Why do we not get out of the way of the people of Quebec and speed up the approval of future hydroelectric dams so they can produce even more prodigious emissions-free electricity? There are some ideas that would actually protect our environment and our customers.
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- Feb/7/23 10:37:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg South.
I am pleased to take part in today's debate. I would like to say that the Conservatives introduced an opposition day motion to talk about the importance of fighting climate change, but they are not quite there yet.
The Conservative Party has had a new leader for 150 days already and yet it still does not have a plan to tackle climate change. It is anybody's guess as to when its plan will be ready. Last time, it took the Conservative Party nearly a year after choosing its previous leader to come up with a plan to fight climate change.
As many members know already, Canada has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Our 2030 emissions reduction plan tabled last March lays out how we will get there. Pollution pricing is the backbone of our climate strategy. It is foundational, because it has been proven to work all over the world, not only to drive down carbon emissions but also to raise innovation and energy efficiency, and to create jobs in the emerging green economy. It also supports and amplifies every other climate measure, and creates an incentive to invest in low-carbon solutions across the economy.
Conservatives used to know this. In fact, carbon pricing is the kind of market-based mechanism that earlier generations of fiscal Conservative thinkers used to embrace. Many in the Conservative Party, including the Leader of the Opposition's own communication director, used to support carbon pricing, or at least he did until he started working for the Conservative Party. Today's Conservatives are penny-wise and pound foolish.
They have been fighting climate action for years in Canada. Today we face literally billions of dollars in cleanup and adaptation costs from extreme weather events that are stronger and more frequent because of climate change. The fact is that carbon pricing is central to our climate plan, because it is the most efficient and lowest-cost policy to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and the cost of doing nothing is staggering.
When we introduced carbon pricing in 2019, we were not only putting a price on pollution, but we were also putting in place the building blocks for the future we know we need for ourselves, for our kids and for our grandkids.
Our approach has always been based on a set of ambitious but realistic standards for carbon pricing, the federal reference that gives the provinces and territories the flexibility to implement their own carbon pricing system.
Setting the trajectory until 2030 provides certainty for Canadians and the investor community and will be transformative by creating incentives for the new technologies we need, for both our industry and society.
We have just come to an agreement with all the provinces and territories on increasing carbon pricing. I will reiterate that we negotiated a more ambitious price on pollution with each province and all the territories for the coming years.
I want to impress on the House just how foundational this price trajectory is to the success of Canadians' low-carbon economy and the jobs that will come with it.
Last fall, at COP27 in Egypt, I spoke with Brian Vaasjo of Capital Power, one of Canada's largest private sector electricity producers. Brian told me that pricing pollution and providing certainty and long-term predictability in pricing are key to unlocking investment on some very good projects, including a $2-billion carbon capture electricity project that would not go ahead without it. Susannah Pierce, president and country chair at Shell Canada, noted that Shell's big investment will not make sense without carbon pricing in Canada, and that regulatory certainty is the key to good business decisions.
The Conservatives have now abandoned the energy investors and energy companies, but they are pretending to be on the side of those facing energy poverty. Canadians have been riding the roller coaster of volatile global oil and gas prices for years, and Conservatives said nothing about skyrocketing profit margins from oil and gas producers. Instead, they make up a lot of misleading claims about the price on pollution.
Here are the facts. About two-thirds of the increase in what Canadians are paying at the pump is due to crude oil prices going up, largely because of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine. Another 25% of the price is the result of everything from provincial taxes to refining margins, which have increased by more than 110% in the last two years. That means, all told, 95% of the price of gas has nothing to do with the price on pollution. In fact, the price on pollution puts more money back in the pockets of Canadians, and it remains one of the best ways to fight climate change and keep our air clean.
Stakeholders across the country have told us that consistency and predictability are essential to promote investment in a low-carbon economy. We also know that businesses and industries are developing innovative technologies and approaches to reduce this pollution. They need incentives and clear support to commercialize and implement these technologies. Carbon pricing creates incentives without dictating a particular approach. It lets businesses decide on the best way to reduce their pollution.
What is most galling are the lies of omission and the things left unsaid, like those quarterly climate action incentive payments that go directly to Canadian households in backstop provinces every three months. For the first time, households in three Atlantic provinces will receive quarterly climate action incentive payments totalling hundreds of dollars a year. The first rebate payment will come in July, which is the same month that the fuel charge will take effect for the first time. The vast majority of households will never be out of pocket, with lower- and middle-income families benefiting the most.
Starting next July, a family of four in Nova Scotia will receive a climate action incentive payment of $248 every three months. In Prince Edward Island, it will be $240 per quarter. In Newfoundland and Labrador, it will be $328 every quarter. For an Ontario family of four, the quarterly payment will be $244 starting in April. In Manitoba, next year's quarterly payment will be $264 every quarter. In Saskatchewan, it will be $340. In Alberta, a family of four will receive $386 four times a year.
In total, 90% of the proceeds from the fuel charges are returned directly to Canadian households through the climate action incentive payments. The rest will be returned to businesses, farmers and indigenous peoples through various federal and provincial programs.
I want to say two things about affordability. First, I know how concerned Canadians are about household budgets in these inflationary times. I understand, and I share each and every concern that Canadians have.
That is why we are making sure that rebate payments go directly to households every three months, and eight out of 10 get more than they paid.
Equally important is the hard fact that if nothing is done about climate change, it will cost us far more. The parliamentary budget office recently estimated the cost to the Canadian economy of $25 billion per year by 2025 if we go about business as usual.
The status quo is not an option. Some may argue that we can simply go back in time and pretend that climate change does not exist. They would probably have better luck buying cryptocurrency.
Our goal is to keep life affordable while developing a clean economy, good jobs and safe communities. A stable, affordable and predictable price on pollution is a key component of that.
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- Feb/7/23 10:48:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech.
I want to talk about the shortcomings of the carbon tax. In April 2022, the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development analyzed carbon pricing, focusing on how the program was designed. He wondered whether a significant portion of emissions was covered by carbon pricing. The conclusion was “yes” for individuals but “no” for large emitters, even though large emitters benefit from relief programs.
I would like to hear the minister's thoughts on that. I would suggest that this aspect of the carbon tax needs to be corrected.
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- Feb/7/23 10:50:29 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can reassure my hon. colleague that I do not supposedly come from the environmental sector. I am from the environmental sector. I have the arrest record to prove it.
We have put in place a number of measures to tackle the emissions of the oil and gas sector. In fact, our emissions reduction plan presented last March is the first time in the history of this country when we have set a trajectory for emissions reduction for the oil and gas sector. We are working on a number of different elements of regulations to tackle the emissions of the oil and gas sector.
We eliminated international fossil fuel subsidies just before Christmas, and we are working with the party of the member opposite on eliminating those subsidies in Canada in the first half of this year. We will be doing this two years earlier than all of our G20 partners who have committed to eliminating those fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.
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- Feb/7/23 10:51:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, indeed it is a privilege to rise today to participate in this important debate on carbon pricing. Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time and carbon pricing is the backbone of our government's climate plan, as the minister has just said.
In recent years, climate change has had unprecedented effects on Canadians. Impacts from climate change are wide-ranging, affecting our homes, cost of living, infrastructure, health and safety, and economic activity in communities across Canada. The latest science warns that, to avoid severe impacts of climate change, the most severe greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced significantly and urgently to hold the global average temperature rise at 1.5°C.
We know that farming, in particular, faces these impacts. As noted in the “Canada in a Changing Climate: National Issues" report, agriculture is highly sensitive to climate and faces risks from extreme weather events. The costs of these events can be enormous, in the billions of dollars. Climate change is already increasing the likelihood and severity of droughts in Canada, and we need to act now to reduce our emissions alongside our global partners to avoid even worse impacts.
On March 29, 2022, our government released the 2030 emissions reduction plan outlining how Canada will meet our 2030 target of 40% to 45% below 2005 levels and the path to net-zero emissions by 2050. The plan builds on a strong foundation, starting with Canada's first-ever national climate plan in 2016 and then our strengthened plan released in 2020. Carbon pricing is central to these plans because it is the most efficient and lowest-cost policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Canadians and businesses understand that putting a price on carbon pollution spurs the development of new technologies and services that can help reduce their emissions cost-effectively, from how they heat their homes to what kind of energy they use to do so. Our government has established a globally recognized pricing system that is encouraging decarbonization across the economy while also putting money back in the pockets of the average Canadian household.
Our approach is flexible. Any province or territory can design its own pricing system based on local needs, or can choose the federal pollution pricing system. The federal government sets minimum national stringency standards, called the benchmark, that all systems must meet to ensure they are comparable and effective in reducing GHG emissions. If a province decides not to put a price on carbon pollution or proposes a system that does not meet these standards, the federal system applies.
On November 22, 2022, our government announced the provinces in which the federal carbon pollution pricing system will apply for the 2023 to 2030 period, as well as the funds that will be returned to households in each province that has the federal fuel charge. Again, carbon pricing systems in Canada are designed to maintain competitiveness and position Canada as a leader in the global low-carbon economy.
Businesses and industries are developing innovative technologies and approaches to reducing emissions. They need consistent, predictable policies and strong incentives and supports to put these technologies into practice. The multi-year carbon pricing regime established by our government creates those incentives without dictating any particular approach. It lets businesses decide how best to cut their emissions.
Federal and provincial carbon pricing systems for industry are designed to ensure there is a price incentive to reduce emissions, spur innovative and encourage the adoption of clean technologies while maintaining Canadian industry competitiveness vis-à-vis global competitors. The federal approach to carbon pricing is designed to maintain the consistency demanded by industry and investors while prioritizing affordability for Canadians, including farmers.
Most households and jurisdictions where the federal fuel charge applies end up with more money in their pockets than what they paid. When federal fuel charge proceeds are returned directly to these households, eight out of 10 families actually get more money back through the climate action incentive payments than they faced in increased fuel costs.
In 2023, for example, quarterly climate action incentive payments for a family of four will increase to $386 in Alberta, $264 in Manitoba and $340 in Saskatchewan. This is the prairie economy I come from, and those payments will be made quarterly. Families in rural and small communities are also eligible to receive an extra 10%.
I would like to emphasize that farmers continue to have significant relief from carbon-pollution pricing under the current federal approach. While farmers are key to reaching Canada's climate targets, Canadian farmers are not required to face the challenge on their own. Emissions from livestock, which represent the majority of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, are not priced. There is also no carbon price on the gasoline and diesel used in tractors and other farm machinery, just as fishers do not pay the price on fuel for their vessels.
Greenhouse operators also get 80% relief from the fuel charge on natural gas and propane used to heat their greenhouses. Recognizing that many farmers use natural gas and propane in their operations, our government has also established a refundable tax credit for farming businesses operating in provinces where the federal fuel charge system applies. There are also opportunities for farmers to earn revenue by reducing emissions, under provincial and federal GHG offset credit programs, which are being developed.
We will be reviewing carbon pricing systems in Canada by 2026 to ensure they continue to be consistent and effective across Canada. This will provide an opportunity to take stock, together with provinces, territories, indigenous organizations and governments, to make any necessary changes in a way that maintains strong incentives and minimizes disruption.
Agricultural producers are key partners in the fight against climate change and are already taking action to improve the sustainability of their operations. Our government is making other significant investments to support this. For example, we are investing $470 million in the Agricultural Climate Solutions-On-Farm Climate Action fund to help farmers adopt sustainable practices, such as cover crops, rotational grazing and fertilizer management. We are also investing $330 million to triple the funding for the agricultural clean technology program, which supports the development and purchase of more energy-efficient equipment among farmers.
Climate change is a serious challenge, but it is also an opportunity. Analysis by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate estimates that transitioning to a low-carbon economy will generate 65 million new jobs. Canadians want to take advantage of these opportunities.
Just as we are putting a price on carbon pollution, we are also making historic investments in clean technology, innovation and green infrastructure to drive growth and reduce pollution, including $9.1 billion in new investments to cut pollution and grow the economy as part of the 2030 emissions reduction plan.
Canadians know the cost of inaction on climate change. They know it is enormous. This includes more severe floods, forest fires, heat waves and droughts here in Canada, and the potential for massively disrupting the climate worldwide.
Canadians have been clear about what they want. They want clean air, good jobs, a healthy environment and a strong economy. That is what this government is giving Canadians.
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- Feb/7/23 11:00:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague across the way talks a lot about GHG emissions. In the public accounts, we are actually studying the government's plan for greening government, which is called the greening government strategy.
Part of the role set out by the Treasury Board is that the assistant deputy minister has to sign off on the integrity of the government's GHG emissions, but 75% of the ADMs refused to sign off on the integrity of the government's numbers. Guess which department also failed that integrity test? The department of Environment and Climate Change.
How can the minister and his assistant, the parliamentary secretary, stand and talk about the environment when their own ADM refused to sign off on the integrity of their numbers?
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- Feb/7/23 11:01:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, all I know is that for 10 long years, the Conservatives of Stephen Harper did nothing on climate change. They cut $350 million from the environment and climate change budget.
We are investing in the economy of the future, with $9.1 billion in our emissions reduction plan. This is on top of the $100 billion we already invested in climate change. We are making a difference. Our emissions are going down. Our economy is being built for the future, for our kids and grandkids. The Conservatives have no plan for climate change, no plan for affordability and certainly no plan for building the economy of the future.
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- Feb/7/23 11:04:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. friend, the parliamentary secretary, said in his speech that emissions are going down. I have seen no evidence of that. We had a dip during COVID, but the expectation is that our emissions will go up. We have the worst record in the G7 since 1990. Our emissions continue to climb upward more than those of any other country in the G7.
At the same time, subsidies disguised as climate action are increasing. When the Liberals throw out the numbers for how much is spent on climate action, it includes carbon capture, utilization and storage, which is a subsidy for the fossil fuel industry. It helps them produce more oil by getting what they could not otherwise reach by shooting carbon dioxide down deep wells. We are seeing an increase in subsidies, where we have wasted $21 billion on the Trans Mountain pipeline. As a reminder, a billion is a thousand million; it is not just a little bit more. The hon. member will remember the Prime Minister promising in the 2015 election that he would never approve this pipeline. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
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- Feb/7/23 11:05:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her advocacy and for her friendship.
We are turning the Queen Mary, as they say. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper did nothing on climate change for 10 long years. We are reversing that trend. We are investing billions of dollars in climate action and into the new economy. We have eliminated six fossil fuel subsidies and are on our way to eliminating nine. We need to use every tool in the tool box to reduce our emissions, including carbon capture.
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- Feb/7/23 11:19:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, who also sits on the same committee as I do. There is one thing I find a bit surprising in the official opposition's position. The carbon tax is a market-based solution, and usually the official opposition supports market-based solutions rather than direct regulation. This is true of the cap-and-trade system. Every year, new money flows in from different sources.
Another thing I found surprising from the official opposition is that we are talking about a lot of money. Money is important for the Conservatives. However, let us look at a few figures. The current economic cost of the health impacts of pollution represents 6% of the GDP, and that figure is already a few years old. It is from 2018, I think.
People are being affected financially. They are sick and going to the hospital with kidney problems, asthma, pulmonary diseases and so on. That also has to be taken into account in the money taxpayers have to pay. All of these public health problems are a result of pollution, of industrial and oil and gas emissions, of all of the emissions that are in the air.
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- Feb/7/23 11:20:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I would like her to talk a little bit more about the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who was attacking the official opposition, saying that it has no plan, that its plan is non-existent. I would like my colleague to talk about the fact that, despite the price on pollution, the Liberal government is failing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
Is that not a result of all the conflicting decisions, such as Trans Mountain, Bay du Nord and oil subsidies, that are undermining the efforts of this government, which talks out of both sides of its mouth?
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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 11:37:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak, once again, on the important topic of climate change. Unfortunately for the Conservatives, I think we have had seven motions on the carbon tax and not a single one that talks about the problem of climate change.
We know that even if we had stabilized climate change in 2015, the costs already would have taken $25 billion off of GDP growth in Canada. Therefore, the economic costs of not acting on climate change are quite large.
We can talk about economic costs all day long, but we also need to talk about other direct costs like fires and floods. We need to talk about health care costs, increased lung problems, asthma problems. We need to talk about the results of fires with respect to smoke, and drinking water quality, as toxins are released into the atmosphere and end up in our drinking water.
In all those things, we also need to talk about the actual losses suffered by families and individuals.
We had a huge heat dome in British Columbia and across western Canada in 2021. In the week from June 25 to July 1 of 2021, the B.C. coroner's office estimated that there were 619 heat-related deaths, 619 families losing loved ones as a result of an event, which the Columbia Climate School of Columbia University studied very carefully and laid squarely at the feet of climate change. It said that there were two factors that caused that heat dome. One was the disruption of the jet stream and the other was the warming of oceans and of the soil.
Instead of expecting something like a heat dome once every 100 or 200 years, the Columbia Climate School at Columbia University now says we need to expect those kinds of events once every 10 years.
During that week, the village of Lytton set a new record for a temperature in Canada, 49.6°C. The next day, after setting that record, a wildfire swept through the town, killing two people and destroying the entire town of Lytton. More than 200 homes were lost.
We can talk about large numbers in climate change, but when we actually look at what happens to individuals, to families and to communities and what will happen increasingly often as climate change proceeds, it seems misdirected to spend all our time talking about a carbon tax, misdirected for two very good reasons. One is, again, the fact that the larger impacts of climate change will cost far more than any climate-related carbon tax. I have not even talked about things like the drop in agricultural yields and the loss of fisheries that are coming up, all of these things we see on the horizon as a result of the climate change.
I forgot to say at the beginning, Madam Speaker. I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver East, so I apologize for that.
When we are talking about the Conservative motion today, the Conservatives continue to repeat and bring back their slogan, and I hesitate to repeat it myself, which has something to do with something tripling.
In fact, we know that nothing has actually tripled. In fact, we know that where families will face increasing costs directly through fires and heat-related costs, they will also face it in increased insurance premiums for their home insurance, as insurance companies attempt to recover their losses from these climate disasters.
In fact, if we look at the increase in the carbon tax, which is designed to reduce our emissions and has been proven as one of the most effective ways to do so, on April 1 of this year, the tax will increase from $50 per tonne to $65 per tonne, and I do not see any system of math where that is a tripling.
When we look at the increase of the tax on a litre of gas, it goes from 11¢ a litre to 14¢ a litre. Again, there is no tripling there. Also, that is way less than the inflated profits that the oil companies have been squeezing out of all of us during this climate crisis.
Focusing on the carbon tax seems misdirected at best, especially when over half the households in Canada are not affected by the carbon tax when it comes to things like home heating.
In British Columbia, we have a different scheme. Therefore, taking the carbon tax off home heating would nothing to relieve costs for British Columbians or Quebeckers, who also have a different scheme.
I will politely call this a sleight of hand with figures. We know right now that eight out of 10 households get more back on their rebates than they pay in carbon tax. The Conservatives like to cite a parliamentary budget office report, which talks about 2030 and about estimates of what might happen in seven to eight years from now. Again, speaking about tripling and using figures like those being used here is at best inaccurate.
What has the NDP said about things like home heating costs? At this time of inflation that is certainly a great concern. I remember that one of the times this motion came forward we asked the Conservatives to accept an amendment to their motion to support removing the GST off home heating for every household in Canada and they refused. They were so focused on the carbon tax that they refused a measure that would have helped every Canadian household meet both the costs, specifically of home heating, and the generalized squeeze that they were finding on their incomes and on their ability to make ends meet at the end of the month.
In his opening speech on this motion today, the Leader of the Opposition talked about nuclear power. I have heard some other members in the House, including some on the government side, talking about nuclear power as if it somehow provides some kind of solution to climate change. The member for Carleton said that it would be a good way to combat emissions. Let us take a look at that backward-looking, rear view of the world.
Nuclear power is far too expensive and far too slow to provide any solutions to our emissions crisis at this time. We need to reduce emissions right now. The average planning time to construct a new nuclear facility is over 10 years. That is from start to finish. We know when construction delays are factored in that the actual time for a new nuclear plant to come online around the world now is about 15 years. That is way too late to address the climate crisis we are in now. Let us say we ignore that and nuclear power were to go ahead. What would it cost to build nuclear power as opposed to renewables?
If we take the all-in costs right now, the best figures I could find for solar and wind power, including the cost of storage and the cost of the networks that must be built, is about $2,000 per kilowatt hour of production for renewables. That has dropped 69% over the last decade. Technology is improving and with economies of scale, the cost of renewables continue to drop each and every year.
Over the past decade, nuclear costs in contrast increased 25% in that same period. There is no indication that those costs will drop any time in the future. If we are talking about large-scale nuclear power projects, the costs are estimated at over $10,000 per kilowatt hour. That is five times the cost of renewables. That is five times as much energy one could produce for the same investment from renewables over nuclear, and of course it could be done now instead of in 10 to 15 years.
If we are talking about what some people like to talk about, the new technology of nuclear, which is small-scale nuclear reactors, the cost for small-scale reactors is estimated at $16,000 per kilowatt hour. That is 16% more than a large-scale project and eight times mores than renewables. Therefore, by any stretch of the imagination and by any measure we want to use, it is foolish to talk about nuclear energy as a solution to our climate crisis. Instead, we need to be talking about renewables.
The other part, which I have been interested in ever since I became a member of Parliament, is that these jobs in renewable energy use many of the same skills that workers have in the current energy industry in places like Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland. We need to focus on investment in those renewables and investment in creating those well family supporting jobs in renewable energy.
We cannot really ask ordinary working families to pay the cost of this transition with their jobs and with their houses. We have to ensure that those new jobs in renewable energy, those sustainable jobs, will be in place for workers as we head into a future where hopefully we can avoid the climate disaster that is on the horizon.
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- Feb/7/23 11:48:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I found the member's speech somewhat factually challenged on many metrics, such as the drop in agricultural yields. The method the government is using to try to curb carbon emissions in agriculture is going to reduce yields by 30%. That is food for our country and the world that the government is designing out by manipulating the process so we produce less food in Canada.
I will ask the member about the cost of renewable energy, which he noted. He put down nuclear energy as an option, which is actually a very low-cost option for Canadians. Renewable energy, by itself, is extremely expensive and has continued to escalate costs for Canadians, whose electricity bills are going through the roof.
Can the member tell us how this is actually beneficial to Canadians when their electricity bills are going to quadruple with the unreliable power that will be provided by the renewables he preaches about?
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- Feb/7/23 12:02:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has stated numerous times in this House that the government is putting a price on pollution. Actually, the NDP-Liberal government is putting a price on people, not pollution. Why does this member punish the people of this nation with bad policy instead of supporting technology that would reduce emissions and actually make a difference?
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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 12:37:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is great to be back in the chamber. I hope you had a great holiday. This marks the first time I have had the opportunity to be back in debate. I always love the opposition day motion. I will start by recognizing that I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Winnipeg North, who is no stranger to getting up and making sure he is able to share his wisdom with colleagues here in the House.
Of course, I do welcome the opportunity, and this is the seventh time I have had the opportunity to speak to carbon pricing as it relates to Conservative opposition day motions. It seems as though that is all that party wants to talk about, and I look forward to engaging today on the topic.
I have heard conversations about affordability and about climate change. What this comes down to is how we incentivize the technological and innovative solutions we need to reduce emissions. That is the key element here. Yes, there are other considerations, including affordability and how we actually tackle the existential threat before us, but it comes down how we drive that innovation to get to that solution. That is what I look forward to talking about today.
However, I will start with why we have a carbon price in the first place. The science is clear that we have a major challenge in climate change, and the predominant concern is greenhouse gas emissions. As I am one of the younger members of Parliament in the House, my wife and I think about our future and having a family. At 32 years old, I want to make sure that, when we do hopefully have that opportunity to raise children in this world, there is a good future for my kids. Indeed, I think many Canadians, as well as everyone around the world, are thinking about how we make sure we preserve a planet and preserve a society that we have been able to benefit from. Notwithstanding all of the challenges, we are extremely privileged to call Canada and our world home.
The enemy is emissions, not a particular industry. That is a point I want to raise as part of this debate, because sometimes I hear in the House that certain industries are bad, that with certain industries there are challenges and that we cannot be supporting certain industries anymore. I think the Minister of Labour does a very good job of saying we have to be laser-focused on emissions reduction and asking how we go about accomplishing that.
My colleagues will know I am actually a pretty strong supporter of the Canadian energy sector. I remark on the technology and innovation that drove oil sands in Alberta. Is there environmental impact? Yes, there undoubtedly is. They have also been an extremely important economic driver for the country. They continue to be so. We are the fourth-largest oil producing country in the world, and I had an exchange with one of my Bloc colleagues earlier today. What I think we sometimes fail to remember is that, because of the revenues that are generated in this country and are then available through taxation purposes and shared through equalization, that industry has helped contribute to the social welfare of this country from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland and Labrador and every place in between.
While I talk about the importance of the Canadian oil and gas sector, and the energy sector in particular, I talk about it through a lens of saying it actually has to innovate as well, because this is about reducing emissions associated with that sector. I do not villainize the Canadian oil and gas sector, but I also stand here and recognize that, if we do not drive innovation in that sector, it will not be around by 2050.
How do we focus on the technology and solutions to make sure Canada can continue to be competitive in the global marketplace, while also tackling the existential threat around climate change and reducing emissions, that being the enemy? I do not see those things as mutually exclusive. Some members in the House would say I am trying to have it both ways, but is that not the Liberal approach? We are pragmatic individuals who try to find solutions to be able to get to shared mutual outcomes.
At its core, the carbon price is a market mechanism. It is about actually trying to create incentivized change by putting it as a market price, and I sometimes chastise my Conservative colleagues, because at its core, it is small-c conservative. Many of my Conservative colleagues talk about the importance of the market economy and the importance of the private sector, yet when it comes to actual solutions to tackling the challenges around reducing emissions, they seem to want big, bossy government programs or they actually do not provide any solutions whatsoever. We know from the OECD and from the International Monetary Fund that a carbon price is actually signalled as the most efficient way to reduce emissions.
There of a couple of things I want to mention. First of all, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, contrary to what is said in the motion, explicitly makes clear that eight out of 10 households are going to receive, and do receive, more money back than they pay in on a federal backstop carbon price. The PBO report also mentions that that number is not as high when broader economic costs are recognized.
However, the idea that we can tackle climate change with no cost at all is simply a fallacy. Maybe my Conservative colleagues will not believe me, but hopefully they will believe Stephen Harper. In 2007, he recognized that the government at that time was looking at an emissions-trading type of scheme to incentivize the change I am talking about now. He said, “We happen to believe we've set it up so that those costs are manageable, so that we provide incentives for firms and sectors to exploit the technology opportunities that this regime requires. But the fact of the matter is it will cost.” Mr. Harper was right. There is a cost to transition, but there are also opportunities.
The government has constructed its policy around carbon pricing to seek to drive innovation and technology where it is available, but also seeking to manage the costs associated with that transition to protect households. That goes back to the way this policy was constructed where eight out of 10 households come forward.
That brings me to this question. If not this program, what then? My candid advice to the loyal opposition across the way is that I really believe that our politics and democracy in this country would be better served if the Conservative Party would say that, while it does not believe in what the government is doing on its carbon price system, here is our solution to drive that innovation and that technology. What a better place it would be.
Furthermore, what if, while they do not necessarily agree with what the carbon price policy looks like from the government, they offered some suggested amendments that they think would better reflect them, to be able to get to that goal. That is not what we hear. Although, of course, I want it for Canadian democracy and the betterment of this country, politically I encourage them to continue to do what they are doing, because it is going to allow the parties that are actually focused on that to continue to govern and have electoral success. Canadians expect the ability to walk that nuanced line, and the Conservatives are not doing it at this point.
There are areas where I think the carbon price system could be looked at and adjusted. Mr. Speaker, you and I are both rural members of Parliament from Nova Scotia. This is a harder sell in rural than in urban Canada. There is a 10% top-up. That is really important.
I think that there is an opportunity to look at whether 10% is an adequate enough amount to make up for the difference between some of the lived realities of rural constituents and urban. That does not mean I am against carbon pricing. That means I would like to see if we could look at amendments. We never hear about any opportunity to amend and work within the system on the federal side.
I also worry about the definition of “rural”. My understanding is that the way it is calculated right now is on a census metropolitan area. The Halifax Regional Municipality, or HRM, for example, would be considered an urban municipality, but not all areas within HRM could certainly meet the definition of an urban community. Those are little areas I think we could look at and that I think can make sure this policy reflects, attracts and benefits as many people as possible.
The other element is small and medium-sized enterprises. As we move toward 2030, I think there has to be some thought given to their propensity to contribute and how we can incentivize a corporate return such that they are not disadvantaged over the long term. Again, there is a balance between industrial carbon pricing and the household level and how we tackle that as it relates to affordability.
The last thing I would like to say is that sometimes the narrative from the opposition benches is that one cannot both put in place policies to try to fight climate change, to reduce emissions, and also support affordability. I would argue that those two things are not mutually exclusive. Look at programs this government has put in place around the greening homes initiative that allow homeowners to be able to invest in their homes to increase the equity that they have in those, but also to reduce their energy bills at the same time.
In our region of Atlantic Canada, $120 million was announced by the Minister of Environment in October. Additional funding was announced by the Minister of Natural Resources that is specific to individuals who are on home heating oil, so they can make that transition to bring down the cost of their energy bills, put more money back in their pockets and also be able to help reduce associated emissions. Those are examples of policies where we can have the opportunity.
The last thing I will say is that there are also really good ones on agriculture. I hope one of my colleagues will have the opportunity to ask me that question so that I can finish those remarks.
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- Feb/7/23 12:48:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps my hon. colleague missed the core element of my speech, which was, what is the Conservative Party actually going to do to incentivize that technological change? I have yet to hear anything from the opposition benches as to what that represents.
The member talks about the carbon price as a tax. I do not refer to it as a tax, because all of the money is returned back to Canadian individuals and households. Indeed, in his own riding, in New Brunswick, where the premier has actually adopted a carbon pricing system, money is returned back. In my home province of Nova Scotia, in July, when this actually comes in, eight out of 10 families are going to be receiving more money back than they pay in.
The member has to explain to his constituents why he does not support the idea of more money going back to households to support affordability, and also the programs that the government is putting in place to reduce emissions and to actually help fight the rising cost of energy.
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- Feb/7/23 12:50:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree. There is not one single silver bullet solution to tackle this challenge around emissions and fighting climate change. It takes a variety of different programs.
We happen to be talking about carbon price, which is one of the key underlying principles. I agree with the member on energy efficiency. As a member of Parliament, as I have said in this House, what I worry about is how we are going to double electricity generation in Canada over the next 15 to 20 years. As we talk about making a transition to electric vehicles, as we talk about being able to decarbonize, that actually requires more energy and more electricity.
How are we going to do that? Part of that is going to be accomplished through energy efficiency, but we also need to make sure we are focusing on the question of generation. Some of it has to be through hydro. I am absolutely pro-nuclear. I think that is part of the solution, in terms of a zero-emission technology that we readily have, and Canada is already seen as a global leader. There is energy efficiency, but how we are going to double that generation is one of the most important topics that every parliamentarian should be thinking about right now.
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