SoVote

Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)

Jun/1/23 10:59:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, since we are talking about fuel, gasoline and the like, today, I would like to ask you a question. It is a rhetorical question; I am not expecting an answer. Do you have a car? I am sure you do. I am sure you drive on two-lane highways and three-lane highways. If you are like me, you see, every now and then, a car that moves from one lane to the next and then back again, sometimes without even signalling. That is frustrating and it is dangerous. I will come back to that car later. The official opposition has a gift for holding two contradictory positions at the same time. It is a clever balancing act, and, in some ways, I am impressed. I find it disturbing in a way, but it is clever in its own way. The official opposition can argue both sides at once. It is as though it wants to have its cake and eat it too. I will give an example. We hear, every day, that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. In other words, it is caused by a record expansion of the money supply during the pandemic. The next day, the official opposition says inflation is cost-driven, principally by the price on carbon, not by any other factor impacting costs, like supply chain bottlenecks and so forth. I will give a second example. The official opposition gets up and says that the horrible drug problem we have in this country is because of the low price of street drugs, which has created high demand. However, when we talk about the high price of gasoline, somehow that does not curtail demand. In other words, it seems like, according to the opposition, only those with addictions respond to the price mechanism. There are contradictions everywhere. I will give a third example. The official opposition has been for the price on carbon, and then it has been against the price on carbon. I would suggest that every Conservative MP in the House owes their constituents an explanation as to why they ran on a platform to impose a price on carbon yet abandoned that platform commitment very shortly afterward. They call the price on carbon a tax, but we are in an alternate reality here. The price on carbon is simply a transfer. They then call the clean fuel standard a second tax, but when it comes to the clean fuel standard, the government is not imposing any kind of charge. The clean fuel standard is not a tax; it is a regulation. This brings me to the fourth example of Conservative contradiction. For years, the Conservatives have been saying no to a price on carbon. That was before the 2021 election platform. Before that, they traditionally favoured regulation, as if regulations do not have a cost. They would say that they are not for a price on carbon, and that they prefer regulation, because, they say, there is no cost to regulation. It is very simple. It is like a magic wand. They will combat climate change through the magic wand of regulation, which, according to the Conservatives, costs nothing. The clean fuel standard is a regulation. No money goes to the government. It will result in the transfer of credits between companies, but only if a company does not meet its intensity target. It is not even clear how many credits a company or an enterprise would have to purchase, and since we do not know how many credits a company would have to purchase in 2030, we do not know what the cost impact of the purchase of those credits will be. The clean fuel standard is something Conservatives should approve of and support, because it will drive innovation. We know that Conservatives like that, because, as the solution to climate change, they always invoke the magic word “technology”, which again they imply is something free. Technological advancement and innovation are often the result of government regulation and involve costs for research and development in order to arrive at new, more efficient technologies. The next thing they will be telling us, and this will be another contradiction in their discourse, is that the methane regulations the government brought into force, which are meant to stop fugitive and controlled methane emissions, are a tax, which they are not. We are in Alice in Wonderland; it is all sleight of hand. Then there is the Conservatives' fake math. They are pulling numbers out of thin air and omitting to tie them to specific dates. Do members remember “Triple, Triple, Triple” on the Conservatives' hit parade? That ditty seems to have fallen from the number one spot recently. It made it seem like the price was going up in multiples overnight, but the price on carbon goes up only $15 per tonne annually, or 30% from 2022 to 2023, not 300%. I think the Conservatives got the decimal point wrong. It will go up in a declining percentage every year: 23% from 2023 to 2024, then 19% from 2024 to 2025. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which is no friend of the Liberal government, estimates that, after the 2023 increase on the price on carbon, the total impact of carbon pricing will amount to an extra 14¢ per litre, not “triple, triple, triple". There is another thing the opposition omits, and that is the rebate, which is what makes the price on carbon a transfer. Milton Friedman, who agreed with the price on carbon, did in fact include a rebate in his formula. We know that the leader of the official opposition is a disciple of Milton Friedman. I think Milton Friedman would be very upset, if he were alive today, to know that the leader of the official opposition here in Canada is against a market mechanism like the price on carbon. Once the clean fuel standard regulations take full effect, according to figures the PBO obtained from Environment and Climate Change Canada, they will increase the price of gas and diesel by as much as 17¢ per litre, but that is in 2030. Conservatives never mention the date when they get up and say, “triple, triple, triple". They forget there is a calendar date that is far off into the future. There is another point I would like to make about the PBO study, which would be apparent to anyone who has studied economics. I do not know how many people on that side have studied economics, but I am sure many other people in the House have. The PBO's analysis is based on what is called “static” economics. It does an analysis based on the idea that everything else stays the same, so it does not take into account innovation, or the fact that companies innovate to meet the intensity target and will not have to buy credits, and so on. It is not real-time economics, and I would say the official opposition needs to get with real time. I will come back to the big, blue car on the highway. Conservatives are for a price on carbon, then are against it. Conservatives are for regulations that drive innovation, then are against them. That big, blue gas guzzler that zigzags incessantly across the highway needs to pick a lane.

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Context: House Hansard - 204 - Jun/1/23

Mr. Francesco Sorbara (Vaughan—Woodbridge, Lib.)

Jun/1/23 4:12:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always great to rise in this House to speak to important issues. We are speaking about climate change and how to fight it, how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how to strengthen our economy while improving our environment. That is a very important conversation for Canadians here in Ottawa and across this blessed country. Before I begin my formal remarks, today the International Energy Agency released its report on the global renewable energy market. One of the comments it made was that the forecasted capacity of solar and wind is going to hit 4,500 gigawatts, which is the amount of power output today produced by China and the United States together. That is where the world is going. Before I continue, it is my pleasure to say that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Milton, a wonderful riding just west of mine. He will take the floor after I am done. This renewable energy market report by the IEA goes to show how much and how quickly the world is transitioning to renewable energy sources. We must put that in context, because what we are discussing here today is very relevant to that. We are discussing a price on an externality that we want to reduce, as we say in economics, and it is very important that we continue to put in place policies for that. This is one policy that our government has put in place among a plethora of policies, whether it is tax credits for carbon sequestration, clean fuel regulations or investing in the battery sector in the transition for the auto sector, something I am very familiar with. There is a multitude of different pillars we have put in place that will strengthen our economy and lead to a healthier and cleaner environment. That is the future. That is where the world is going. The United States is going there. China is even going there. Europe is going there too. There will be 440 gigawatts of renewable power added in the world this coming year according to today's report. I will now get to my formal remarks on today's opposition motion. Madam Speaker, today I have the privilege of rising to address my colleagues in the House of Commons to discuss this motion on carbon pollution pricing. Pricing carbon pollution is one of the most effective ways to encourage the reduction of emissions and ensure the investment needed to decarbonize the economy. It allows industry, households and companies to choose the best method of lowering their emissions rather than leaving the decision up to the government. Pricing carbon pollution is a pillar of Canada's plan for meeting its 2030 targets and reaching net zero by 2050. Effective and comparable pan-Canadian carbon pollution pricing is vital to meeting these targets. We must meet the objectives of 2030 and then those through to 2050. Pausing the pan-Canadian approach to carbon pollution pricing or changing it midstream would cause significant uncertainty, particularly for the industry and for carbon credit markets. It would also curb much-needed investments in clean technologies such as carbon capture, use and sequestration. The impact that carbon pollution pricing has on the cost of energy can be mitigated by returning revenues to households and businesses and using other types of federal funds and programs. This is the approach our government has taken. It is returning 90% of the proceeds from the federal fuel charge to Canadians in provinces where it applies and where governments have not proposed their own plans that meet the federal model requirements. In the Atlantic provinces, where heating oil will be subject to carbon pollution pricing for the first time next winter, most households in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island that will pay the federal fuel charge will receive more in climate action incentive payments than they will pay for the increased costs associated with the federal fuel charge. For example, a family of four in Newfoundland and Labrador will receive a $328 rebate every four months in 2023 before they incur expenses as a result of the increased federal fuel charge. Our government is well aware of that increase. That is why we made sure from the start that all families that have to pay the federal fuel charge will have the money to do so or to modernize their appliances that use fossil fuels. When they get their quarterly climate action incentive payments, Canadian households can use that money however they want. For example, households could use those payments to amortize the costs of carbon pollution pricing. That is one of the reasons why those payments are being sent to Canadians before they incur any expenses from the federal fuel charge. Other households may take measures to reduce their energy consumption and come out even further ahead, because they will continue to receive the same amount in climate action incentive payments while using less fossil fuels. In addition to the climate action incentive payments, our government announced, in September 2022, half a billion dollars that will be made available to Canadian households to help them abandon costly home heating fuel, with a $250-million contribution to the low-carbon economy fund and with a $250-million investment by the oil to heat pump affordability program, a new component of the Canada greener homes initiative, overseen by my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources. Or government is also helping small and medium-sized enterprises so that they can also modernize their equipment and their operations in order to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impact of the federal fuel charge when it applies in their province or territory. For example, $2.5 million of federal fuel charge proceeds will be returned by my department through a new program targeting small and medium-sized enterprises in trade-exposed and emissions-intensive sectors in provinces where the charge already applied before 2023, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Through a jointly developed process, our government has also committed to returning 1% of fuel charge proceeds collected in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to indigenous recipients in those provinces under programs co-developed with indigenous organizations. Let me be clear. Our government has demonstrated time and again that a majority of Canadians, over 80%, who pay the federal fuel charge get more money back in climate action incentive payments than they pay in charges in a year, which leaves them better off financially. In the provinces and territories that have created their own carbon pollution pricing systems, the governments of those provinces can use the proceeds of their own carbon pollution pricing as they see fit. For example, they can use them for climate action incentive payments, similar to the federal model, or to reduce taxes for their taxpayers, if they wish. The motion also cites carbon pollution pricing as one of the causes of inflation in Canada. That is simply not the case. For example—

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Context: House Hansard - 204 - Jun/1/23

Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, CPC)

Jun/1/23 5:21:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not so sure that I want to thank my colleague for his speech, because he handed out a lot of insults. He insulted the Conservatives non-stop. What is most fascinating about this is that he wanted to lecture us. He always wants to lecture everyone about economics, and he thinks he is better than everyone. One fact stands out, and he even admitted it in his speech. Whether we call it a tax or a regulation, these new measures will result in a direct cost to Canadians. Is it simpler to talk about a new tax? It is certainly easier for someone to understand it because we do not give every citizen an economics course before explaining a new item. Can my colleague confirm that, in the long term, consumers will be taxed or that the regulations will add an additional 17¢ a litre at the pump, yes or no?

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Context: House Hansard - 204 - Jun/1/23

Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

Jun/1/23 5:22:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, whom I really like, for his question. I think the Conservatives would probably have preferred a tax, because a tax has one benefit that this type of regulation does not have: It generates revenue that enables the government to make the policy more progressive. That is exactly what they did with the carbon tax, which is not perfect but does send money back to some households. The Conservatives are always whining about the carbon tax, saying it does not work. That forces the government to use other types of measures that do not generate revenue and are even more regressive. I have been teaching pretty much all my life, and, if my colleague does not appreciate my professional conditioning, I will forgive him. However, I think he might well benefit from an economics course.

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