44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 1, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/1/23 12:14:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, these are sad times for rural Canada, and specifically for rural Atlantic Canada, its people and industries that depend on fuel to move everything.
The Liberal-NDP coalition has decided carbon tax 1, which will add 41¢ per litre to gasoline when fully implemented, is not enough of a beating to lay on Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Maritimers. I stand here today on behalf of the good people of Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame and on behalf of my province and all of Atlantic Canada to support our Conservative motion.
I will be sharing my time with our hon. Leader of the Opposition.
On behalf of all these people in Atlantic Canada who are downtrodden, I stand here to support our Conservative motion to recognize the failure of carbon tax 1 and to immediately cancel carbon tax 2.
Carbon tax 2 is cleverly disguised as the clean fuel standard. The costly coalition will argue that carbon tax 2 is not a tax. What is next? Will income tax be called the “income standard” or will the harmonized sales tax be renamed the “harmonized sales standard”? We do not know where all this is going, but the Liberal-NDP marriage, which is rumoured to be entering some period of marriage counselling not long after the honeymoon, will never run out of creative ways to tax us. That is one thing that is guaranteed.
Carbon tax 1, let us face it, is a complete failure. Not one single solitary emissions reduction target has been met. In fact, our emissions are higher than they were in 2015 when our country started to head for the toilet.
President Biden recently stood right here just a few feet from where I am standing right now. He is a close personal friend of the Prime Minister. He has decided not to place a carbon tax on fuel in the United States, and guess what, U.S. emissions have dropped since 2015.
For us here and for people in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, they are going to pay an extra $1,316 per year by the time carbon tax 1 is fully implemented. Carbon tax 2, by the time it is fully implemented, will be another $850 a year for families. Can I get a drum roll for the grand total? There is no drum roll as they cannot be proud enough to give that a drum roll. The total is $2,166 per year.
P.E.I. does not have anyone on this side to represent it and stand up for it. For the poor people of P.E.I., it is going to cost those folks $2,081 a year.
I referenced net because these Liberals, including Liberal MPs like those from St. John's South—Mount Pearl and Long Range Mountains, claim that we will get more back in rebates than we will pay. These two federal ministers from Newfoundland are thrilled, according to a SaltWire article from this past November 22. Imagine our own federal representatives in this cabinet thrilled about the extra costs being placed on the lives of their people.
Liberals will tell us that Conservatives are presenting fake numbers. Earlier today I heard exactly what my hon. colleague said when he blamed us for using fake numbers. These are not magical, illusionary or fabricated figures. These are figures that were calculated by the PBO, who is a Liberal-appointed official. According to the PBO, carbon tax has an inflationary effect.
Guess who else said that tax was inflationary? It was the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Our federal members, including the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl, who was sick and tired of hearing about the cold winter and what we are doing about it, do not believe the PBO or the Governor of the Bank of Canada. It is unbelievable. They are expecting the people they serve to believe them instead of experts. Atlantic Canadians are not buying what the Liberal government is selling.
The Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Andrew Furey, close personal friend of the Prime Minister, and three other Atlantic premiers wrote to the Prime Minister last fall begging him not to place the carbon tax on home heating fuel. The silence was deafening.
Last week, the same four premiers reached out to the Minister of Environment and asked him to not implement carbon tax 2. Once they realized that the PBO had identified the big hit that it was going to make to the pocketbooks of Atlantic Canadians, the premiers went to work.
Will the Prime Minister and his climate-change wingman listen to the premiers of Atlantic Canada, or will they barrel ahead with no regard for the people who gave them 32 seats in 2015?
This new tax, disguised as a standard, will cost families in Newfoundland and Labrador $850 a year when it is fully implemented. Who besides seniors and families is going to pay? The answer is simple: everyone will pay.
Carbon tax 1 is crippling the mining, forestry, tourism, and oil and gas industries in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that effect will accelerate as we move toward 2030. Carbon tax 2 will be charged on all fuel in these industries and this new tax will even be placed on fuel used by fishermen to land their catch and haul around their gear as they endeavour to feed their families in this challenging environment.
Farmers are going to pay as well. Not only are these failed tax policies impacting the bottom lines of household and manufacturing industries, now our farmers and fishermen are taking on added costs that will affect their bottom lines.
Farmers and fishermen feed families. Taxing their operations with the new standard is an attack on the livelihoods of farmers and fishermen, and it is a threat to our food security in this country. At a time when people are struggling to survive, the tone-deaf, costly coalition strikes again.
Madam Speaker, you might be thinking to yourself, “Where is the member's seal skin bow tie?” I did not wear it today. My clothes today represent the people I represent.
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- Jun/1/23 12:22:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is not nearly enough time to express the disgust that the people in Newfoundland and Labrador have for the way the people who are here representing them have been voting.
We have come with motions to get rid of the carbon tax, to reduce these inflationary taxes, and now we have another one coming: the standard. Will these members from Newfoundland and Labrador, my six colleagues across the way, vote with their people? This is the $64 question. Are they going to vote to diminish the tax burden that is hauling them down and making them suffer?
The six Liberal MPs who sit over there were not sent here to inflict suffering on the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. They were sent here to represent them, to bring them up and to make their standard of living better.
An. hon. member: And they are.
Mr. Clifford Small: Madam Speaker, I just received a little heckling. Yes, the Liberals have done a great job over there. They delayed the Bay du Nord project by four years. They put well over 100 conditions on the Bay du Nord project. We are now going to lose three years of royalties on nearly 800 million barrels of oil a year because of the great work they have done.
I implore the six members from Newfoundland and Labrador to vote with the goodness in their hearts that I am sure they have. They need to stand up for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and vote yes to our Conservative motion.
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- Jun/1/23 12:25:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what a character. What do I have against heat pumps? I do not have anything against heat pumps, but what I do have something against is that team of Liberals over there that is destroying our country. They are at it again. Bay du Nord was delayed by three years. There is close to 800 million barrels of oil per year, the cleanest oil in the world, that we are going to lose the royalties on, which we desperately need to fund our health care and pave our roads.
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- Jun/1/23 12:27:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate that question, because we have a great project that was built in the sixties, the Churchill Falls hydro project, which has contributed lots to reducing emissions and has contributed a lot to the province of Quebec as well. Quebec has done very well off it. We have been partners, but not quite so equitably from our point of view. However, going forward we have lots of hydroelectric resources in Newfoundland and Labrador that we can produce. We can use technology, not taxes, to reduce greenhouse emissions and to try to mitigate this climate change. We cannot deal with what China is pumping into the atmosphere. That is something that the Liberals can help on with their Chinese friends.
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- Jun/1/23 12:29:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is no doubt a smart individual, but I will tell members who is even smarter than him. It is his soothsayer who is telling him what I campaigned at the doors with. I will tell members what I campaigned at the doors with. I said to the people of Coast of Bays that I am going to fight for their salmon farming industry and that I am going to stand up in the House of Commons and support Newfoundland and Labrador's aquaculture industry and not let it get destroyed, like my hon. colleague is trying to do in B.C.
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- Jun/1/23 3:10:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am disgusted. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are disgusted. After four years of Liberal delays, the Bay du Nord project was approved with 137 onerous conditions attached.
Because of these Liberal shenanigans, we now have the Bay du Nord project put on the shelf for three years. It is costing the Newfoundland and Labrador economy $3 billion in royalties and revenues.
My question to the minister is this: Will he revisit the 137 onerous conditions or will he let this project die and let the province of Newfoundland and Labrador—
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