44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 2, 2023 10:00AM
- Nov/2/23 10:34:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on this second day of Hindu Heritage Month, I rise to present a petition, important to many Hindu communities across Canada, to fight Hinduphobia. The petition received over 25,000 signatures of Canadians, thanks to the hard work and dedication of Hindu organizations, which have seen an increase in attacks and threats against Hindu people in their places of worship.
Everyone in this country deserves a safe place free of intimidation, violence, harassment and vandalism to worship, no matter what that looks like. Hindu Canadians are facing growing negative stereotypes and prejudice, as well as discrimination at work, in schools and in their communities, while traditions and cultures are misrepresented and misunderstood.
I am happy to table this petition, and we look forward to a response from the government about what it is going to do about this.
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- Nov/2/23 12:51:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington. I would like to begin today by reading our motion so that folks at home and here in the House know exactly what we are debating today. It reads:
That, given that the government has announced a “temporary, three-year pause” to the federal carbon tax on home heating oil, the House call on the government to extend that pause to all forms of home heating.
It is not that complicated. It is a reasonable, common-sense, fair-minded motion. That is what we are asking for today, and at the vote on Monday. We will see what members of the House do. I am sure those at home will be watching very carefully how each member of Parliament votes on this.
The Prime Minister gave it to some, and now he needs to give it to everyone. I have been in politics a long time, behind the scenes and now on these benches. I have seen rising stars and good public servants. I have seen careers come to an end in good ways and in ways that were truly ugly.
However, I have never witnessed a climbdown as utterly humiliating and so blatantly transparent as the one we saw from the Prime Minister. A government that has spent eight years forcing its carbon tax, its signature policy, on Canadians, insisting that it was good for the environment, that it would not make life more unaffordable and that it was the right thing to do, and anyone who said otherwise must be a climate change denier or dangerous to the future, now admits that the carbon tax causes misery for Canadians. This is all while it is failing to meet its own emissions target, and just months after the Liberals, along with their NDP abetters, voted down the motion to remove the carbon tax from home heating. We cannot make this stuff up.
For eight years, the Liberals ignored the science. They ignored the feedback from businesses, which decided to close up shop or move south, and they ignored the cries from everyday Canadians who could not put food on the table or gas in the car, or heat their homes. The Liberals caused pain and suffering for the economy, for small businesses, and for people who made sacrifices, such as took an extra job or went bankrupt, because of the high inflation caused by runaway deficits and, yes, the carbon tax.
What has changed? The science has not change. The affordability crisis has certainly not changed, although it gets worse every day the Liberals continue to make policy from that side of the House.
Conservatives are now threatening to sweep Atlantic Canada and the future aspirations of the Liberal MPs sitting across the aisle. This announcement is a slap in the face to all Canadians who endured eight years of the hardship of everyone else and who was told that questioning it was somehow un-Canadian and, in some way, was somehow denying climate change.
The Liberal-NDP government now admits that it can take the carbon tax off whenever it pleases. It could have done it a year ago, and it could have done it any day in between.
It gets even worse than that because only certain regions get a break. It is only on certain types of fuel and only for some Canadians. What adds insult to injury is that many provinces still have to pay the carbon tax. These are the people who have to heat their homes with natural gas or electricity, the people who have to drive in a car to work and buy groceries at a store. This move would help 3% of Canadians, while everyone else remains in the literal cold. It will fundamentally threaten our national unity and our constituents' faith in the federal government, if there is any left at all.
We already have provinces refusing to collect the federal carbon tax. We even have provincial NDP governments or opposition parties across the country speaking out against their federal counterparts. If we ask any Liberal why this happened, they ramble on about some national program, some agenda, some public policy. They will fearmonger about questions being dangerous to democracy. It is such utter nonsense.
Even though home heating oil is more polluting and more costly than regular heating, they are now incentivizing it. It makes no sense. The Liberals gave the impression that this was all planned, and I find it hard to believe their Prime Minister, who used to so vigorously defend his carbon tax, planned out the humiliating climbdown that we saw last Thursday afternoon in the lobby of this place.
It was forced, plain and simple, and it was forced by a group of Atlantic MPs, who are running scared, and a government that is scared of the most effective official opposition on this point, and on many others. The Minister for Rural Economic Development, the minister from Long Range Mountains in Newfoundland, was more candid in her remarks. She actually told the truth. She said that if people just voted Liberal more, they too might have a chance at getting the exemption.
Now we know that anything else those members opposite say is simply partisan spin. It is simply for vote-buying. They are trying to win votes and they are even doing that poorly. My neighbours in the GTA have some questions for the minister. She has gone radio silent since Sunday.
This is the largest concentration of Liberals anywhere in the country. I am surrounded. I will not be for long, but I am surrounded for now, yet their voters, Canadians, still pay a carbon tax at the pump, at the grocery store and when they heat their homes. That is everyone around me.
Why are they not as effective as the Liberal Atlantic caucus? Maybe they do not feel that threatened. I assure members that the poll numbers are certainly following there.
The government just must not have strong enough MPs from the region, who do not listen to their own constituents, the people from there, about the affordability crisis or the need to at least alleviate some of that pain. They are MPs in places such as Thunder Bay and Sudbury, places where it is cold, and they are not good enough advocates for their own constituents to get the exact same break that they have offered to those in Atlantic Canada.
Those Canadians have been let down by their representatives and they have been let down by the costly coalition. They are continuing to be let down. I can assure members opposite that there will be much fewer Liberals on the other side of the House after the next election.
If the costly coalition can remove the carbon tax for some Canadians, then they can remove it for all Canadians. The Prime Minister once said that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. It is time for him to start acting like it too. That is why we are here today, to make this costly coalition put its money where its mouth is. If they truly cared about affordability, about the cost-of-living, then they would take the carbon tax off for everyone, everywhere.
We know they can do that because they admitted it. The Prime Minister admitted it just outside of the doors in this place, and it is his signature policy.
We know that we have more to do, long-term, because lying just behind this announcement, waiting in the wings, is a quadrupling of the carbon tax for all Canadians, bringing more misery and that high carbon hypocrisy that we see so often from the Liberals and from their NDP betters.
A “pause” is not good enough. That should be said in the House. A regional model is not good enough. The carbon tax must be killed for everyone and forever.
There is a clear choice here. The only option is to axe the carbon tax entirely. Conservatives are the only party that would bring that to Canadians, no more pitting regions against one another, no more temporary pause, no more quadrupling of the tax, only a massive tax cut, plain and simple. We would get rid of the carbon tax, and we would do it when we are elected.
We are even willing to fight that election over it. In fact, we dare the Prime Minister to go to the polls so that Canadians can have their say. They can choose to quadruple the carbon tax after this pause for 3% of Canadians, or they can choose to axe the tax. We know what they will pick.
This week is not just humiliating because the Prime Minister flip-flopped on his signature policy. It was humiliating because even Liberals are beginning to see that he is just not worth the cost. These are Liberal leaders such as future leader Mark Carney, who split with the government on this policy, and Liberals such as Senator Percy Downe, the insider’s insider, who used to be chief of staff to former prime minister Jean Chrétien. He says that it is time for the Prime Minister to go. That is a ringing endorsement.
After eight years, he has divided this country between urban versus rural, rich versus those who are struggling, and vaccinated against the unvaccinated. He has left us poorer and weaker at home and less respected abroad. This flip-flop is just their latest attempt at failure. It is their latest attempt to make one plus one equal three. I have a feeling that it will not be their last.
It is fitting that the first snowfall of the year happened this week in Ottawa. Perhaps the Prime Minister should go take a walk in it.
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- Nov/2/23 1:02:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do feel for that member, who has to go back to his constituents to tell them why he has not advocated for them in the same way that the Atlantic caucus advocated for their constituents and why he continues to vote to increase the carbon tax. He has to explain that to his constituents. It is a difficult situation, and I feel for him.
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- Nov/2/23 1:03:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives have consistently in the House advocated to axe the carbon tax because everyday Canadians are struggling. Everyday Canadians are struggling in my region. They are struggling in Atlantic Canada. They are struggling out west, and they are struggling in that member's very own riding.
To pretend she does not vote to up the carbon tax at every given opportunity and put more struggle on her constituents is disingenuous. Frankly, she used to in opposition, and I think she should be ashamed of herself.
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- Nov/2/23 1:05:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have no idea what the member for Timmins—James Bay is going to say to his constituents, but he does have the opportunity to vote against the Prime Minister and vote with his constituents on Monday.
We have consistently advocated to make sure people can buy groceries, buy gas and heat their homes by axing the carbon tax once and for all. We have put this reasonable motion forward, which would put the same pause right across the country that the Prime Minister has done for Atlantic Canadians on home heating oil, and we expect that members in the House, no matter how much they prop up the government, will vote with their constituents and not with the Prime Minister.
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- Nov/2/23 1:06:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canadians know already that, when we collect a tax, more does not come back. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said so. This is the Parliamentary Budget Officer the Liberals appointed. I do not know how many times the member opposite needs to hear it. I can provide him with the report. I can table it, but 80% of Canadians get less back than they give.
We cannot get more back on a tax we pay the government, which, by the way, has not reached a single environmental target. He is going to have to explain that to his constituents. That is not going to be my job.
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- Nov/2/23 2:33:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said Tuesday that there would absolutely not be more carbon tax exemptions under his watch, but Canadians struggling with the high cost of gas, groceries and heating their home want to have a word about that.
After eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, the Prime Minister is only giving relief to a lucky 3% of the country, specifically where his poll numbers are in the gutter. He has already admitted that the carbon tax makes life harder.
Will the Prime Minister let his MPs have a free vote on our motion on Monday to keep the heat on and take the tax off for all Canadians?
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- Nov/2/23 2:34:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what the Prime Minister does when he is desperate and flailing, not confident about his leadership.
Canadians in other parts of the country now have one more reason to regret voting for Liberals, like in northern Ontario where a minister at the cabinet table has sold out her own neighbours and left them out in the cold.
Will she vote with those who sent her to this place and scrap the tax on all home heating or will she vote with the Prime Minister and remind Thunder Bay that she is just not worth the cost?
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