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House Hansard - 194

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 10, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23
Mr. Dan Mazier (Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, CPC)
  • May/10/23 6:08:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my question to the Liberals is regarding their failed, ineffective and ever-increasing carbon tax. The Liberals have misled Canadians on their carbon tax, not once, not twice, but many times. Government members must be held accountable for their misleading carbon tax claims, and they must answer to the Canadians they are supposed to represent. Let us take a walk down memory lane. First, the Liberals promised not to raise the carbon tax, and then they tripled it. Then the Liberals promised Canadians they would get more money back than they had paid, but the government’s own Parliamentary Budget Officer proved the government wrong. In fact, we now know the average family in 2023 will pay between $402 and $847 even after the rebates. Then the Liberals claimed the carbon tax would reduce emissions, but guess what, emissions went up. Now we know the government misled Canadians once again on its failed carbon tax. Let me explain. In 2019, the Liberals announced a program called the MUSH retrofit stream. MUSH stood for municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals. It was a bureaucratic government program designed to return the carbon tax back to the public institutions it was charged to so they could afford energy-efficient retrofit upgrades. One may be wondering why on earth the government is forcing a carbon tax on our hospitals and schools in the first place, or how this reduces emissions, and trust me, I wonder the same. Despite this, and despite promising to return the money the Liberals took from our hospitals and public institutions, no money was returned to hospitals, no money was returned to municipalities and no money was returned to universities. Not one dime. The Liberals took millions of dollars to Ottawa, created their own bureaucratic program, promised to return it and never did. Even the commissioner of the environment pointed this failure out in a recent report, and local governments across Canada were wondering where the millions of dollars they were promised went. We would never have known this if it were not for an Order Paper question I submitted because the Liberals took the money and secretly shut down the program without telling Canadians. I guess we will never know where the money went. My question to the Liberal government is very simple. Why did the Liberal government mislead Canadians and not return any carbon tax revenue to hospitals, municipalities or universities through its own MUSH retrofit program?
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Context: House Hansard - 194 - May/10/23
Mr. Dan Mazier
  • May/10/23 6:15:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government again did not answer my question. I find it interesting that the Liberal platform was to tax hospitals in the form of a carbon tax to heat themselves. That is an outstanding type of platform. Maybe the member should run on it again and call this the actual carbon tax that it is, but I digress. I guess Canadian hospitals, municipalities and universities will never know where the money went. Here is an idea. Instead of forcing hospitals and municipalities to pay a carbon tax, and instead of designing a complicated government program that makes it look like the money will be returned, let us just scrap the carbon tax altogether. I will give the government one more chance: Why did the Liberal government mislead Canadians and not return any carbon tax revenue to hospitals, municipalities or universities through its own MUSH retrofit program?
148 words
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