SoVote

Nov/7/23 12:20:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague will be happy to hear that I completely agree with her on that. However, I do not believe that the proposed measures will achieve the desired outcome or stated intent. I agree with the purpose, but I do not believe that these measures are the best way to achieve it.

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Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Nov/7/23 12:20:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his brilliant speech. I am going to do something I do not normally do and talk about a family member. In a few minutes, my sister-in-law Carole will be going to an extremely important medical appointment. I want her to know that she has always been there for me and I will always be there for her. She can count on my support. My question for my colleague relates to what I just said. It is about being there for others. Could my colleague explain what the role of a member of Parliament is? It is about being there for our constituents. Is it to move motions that we know will not be adopted, simply to score political points, or is it something else? I would like him to explain what “something else” might mean.

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Mr. René Villemure

Nov/7/23 12:21:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my brilliant colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for his always relevant questions. I will keep his sister-in-law Carole in my thoughts. Being there for people is a good thing. It is the essence of an MP's job. Our constituents delegated responsibility to us so that we could act for them in Parliament. We have to be there for our constituents. We have to be there for the public. Electoral considerations will never be entirely absent, of course. However, electoral considerations should be front and centre during election campaigns, not during a session, when we should be there to help the less fortunate and, as my colleague who spoke before me was saying, to reconcile social and economic justice.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP)

Nov/7/23 12:22:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg Centre. Just a few minutes ago, I saw a headline saying “Liberal government set to miss 2030 emissions targets, says environment commissioner audit”. I found the article interesting. It reads: The audit said it had expected to find specific targets for how much each of the measures it implemented would cut emissions, but found there were no targets for 95 per cent of those measures. “Without expected emission reductions transparently available in the plan, it is not possible to know which of the mitigation measures to reduce emissions were key,” the audit said.... We are in a climate emergency. Every day we are seeing the change of our environment. This summer, I watched as many communities across my province of British Columbia were on fire. People were fleeing in circumstances I cannot even begin to imagine. In this province, we have seen communities destroyed by a river that literally fell out of the sky. This is happening, and the expenses of it are phenomenal. Here we are today. We have an actual motion that would address some of these issues. It understands the seriousness of what is happening in our climate; it has gone beyond the pale, and we are in an existential crisis that we need to make right. We need that action. We also know that, in this circumstance, we are seeing Canadians struggle with the cost of living. I talk to everyday Canadians across my region, who are trying so hard to keep up with costs. At the same time, Canada's biggest corporations, including the oil and gas sector, have record profits unlike anything they have seen for about 30 years. We need to address the climate and what is happening; we also need to acknowledge that our society is becoming one that is simply, in my opinion, unfair. Everyday people are working so hard, but they are not getting ahead because the ultrawealthy are scooping up the excess and leaving ordinary Canadians behind. This motion asks this place to remove the GST from all forms of home heating. This is something the NDP has been working on for a very long—

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The Deputy Speaker

Nov/7/23 12:25:15 p.m.
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I believe we have a point of order from the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

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Mr. Damien Kurek

Nov/7/23 12:25:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would ask for a quorum call. And the count having been taken:

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The Deputy Speaker

Nov/7/23 12:26:48 p.m.
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We now have quorum; we may continue. The hon. member for North Island—Powell River has the floor.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney

Nov/7/23 12:26:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear we have quorum in the House. I will go back to the fact the NDP has been fighting for a long time to have GST removed from all forms of home heating. In fact, there have been multiple motions that the Conservatives have made in the House that we have tried to amend to make sure we could see the GST included in these—

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The Deputy Speaker

Nov/7/23 12:27:17 p.m.
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We have another point of order. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

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Secretary

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/7/23 12:27:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, is there a quorum requirement for one member of the Conservative Party to be in the chamber?

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The Deputy Speaker

Nov/7/23 12:27:28 p.m.
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We cannot say whether someone is here or not. The hon. member is fully aware of that. I apologize to the hon. member for North Island—Powell River for being interrupted so many times. The hon. member for North Island—Powell River.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney

Nov/7/23 12:27:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that I have been interrupted so many times and that people do not want to hear the reality of so many Canadians in the riding of North Island—Powell River. Hopefully, people will be listening from here on in. We have also done a lot of work on trying to get this place to understand that one thing we need to do is to finance the changes that are greatly needed across the country by placing a tax on excess profits of oil and gas corporations and holding to account, of course, places such as grocery stores, which are making an incredible amount of profit off the backs of everyday Canadians. We know that Canadians across the country and in North Island—Powell River are scraping by and cutting back. They are trying to make ends meet, but it feels absolutely impossible. They deserve a break on their heating bills, wherever they live across this country, not just in particular parts of the country. Here we are in this reality, and we need to see action taken. I want to come back to the fact that the NDP has called on the Liberals and, in fact, the Conservatives to remove the GST from home heating. We did that in multiple amendments that we offered to the Conservatives when they had motions before the House. For me, one reason that this is incredibly important is that, as a British Columbian, I know that the so-called solutions that the Conservatives are offering leave B.C. out. The reality is, and it is common knowledge, that there is a provincial process for carbon pricing here in B.C. and not a federal one. If federal carbon pricing were removed, this actually would not have an impact in British Columbia. That really concerns me, because the people in my riding are struggling. They need a bit of a break, and the GST would actually offer them one, one that was consistent and reliable, that people could have some faith in. Here we are in this situation, and I do not know why. I do not know why the Conservatives keep leaving B.C., Quebec and the Northwest Territories out. I find that confusing; hopefully, we will figure that out. I think about not only the huge cost of dealing with climate change across the country but also the human cost. In my riding, during the summer when we saw a lot of those significant forest fires, volunteer firefighters, firefighters from my riding, from communities such as Port McNeill, Port Hardy, Campbell River, Comox, Powell River and probably more, all went out to help. They took time, went out there and fought the fires, because there is just not enough people to do that work. These people are making significant sacrifices away from their families, and to their health and well-being, and they are doing it because this is what is happening. Their health and well-being matter to me, as do the future of this planet and the health and well-being of our children. Here we are in this climate emergency. People cannot afford the basic necessities, and it is only going to get worse if we do not see some significant work done on both sides of this. We know that, if people in small communities have to face a forest fire or some sort of natural disaster that is due to climate change, especially in my riding, they often have one road out of the community, or they have the ocean. We are living in a rainforest with drought again and again, year after year. It is very concerning. This Liberal government keeps saying that it is going to do things. We talked about that at the beginning, when we saw the commissioner saying that there are no real targets we can follow that are actually going to show a consistent movement toward meeting those goals. We know that this has to be dealt with quickly. Home heating helps with that. Canada, in fact, has committed to more than 10% of home heating to be provided by heat pumps by 2030, in order to achieve the commitments for the emissions reduction plan. Right now, we are only at 6%. To get to that 10% by 2030, about 560,000 heat pumps have to be installed across the country. That is about 70,000 a year. I believe that, this year, we are at just over 400. We are nowhere near where we need to get to. This is a motion about fairness and making sure that everybody gets a little bit of help during this time of profound financial challenges. It means having stability. It is time for us to see that action. We know that what the Liberals have announced is a temporary pausing of the tax for heating oil in all provinces for three years, but it does not look at it across the country and what we could do. The heat pump program needs to be a lot more resilient. It needs to be affordable for everyday Canadians. I heard a member talking earlier about it going out to the middle class. With respect to the increasing costs right now, the middle class is hurting profoundly and the class below that is struggling in ways that we cannot even imagine. If we are going to take this seriously, we need to be addressing both things at the same time. We need to ensure there is a bar of dignity that people do not fall below and we need to ensure we address the climate crisis at a rate that will get those emissions down and see us progress. We are not seeing that. We are not seeing the federal government commit to this, and we need to get it done. It is time for the ultrarich to start paying their fair share. Therefore, we are going to fight hard and we are going to continue to do that. The oil and gas industry is making huge profits, while gas prices are going so high. We need to make it right. I hope people will reconsider and vote for this motion.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/7/23 12:34:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP is saying, in essence, that for all forms of heating, people would not have to pay GST. There is a considerable amount of confusion on this. If they say that electricity, natural gas, propane and heating oil will be exempt from the GST, two issues come to mind. One is in regard to the fact that a lot of those products are used to do more than just provide home heating. Therefore, is there a way that the NDP would compensate or take that into consideration? The second issue is whether this would be of a permanent nature. Is it something that would be for six months? During the summer, for example, would the GST still be taken off?

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Ms. Rachel Blaney

Nov/7/23 12:35:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Seth Klein said this, “The fed NDP have a motion coming forward Tuesday trying to shift the debate caused by the Lib's boneheaded carbon tax carve-out. This motion lays out a far better approach. This alternate motion calls on government to eliminate the GST for all forms of home heating, including electric, offer free heat pumps and energy retrofits for low and middle-income households and pay for it with revenues from a windfall profit tax on oil and gas companies.” I will be listening to Seth, and I thank him.

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Ms. Lianne Rood (Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, CPC)

Nov/7/23 12:36:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting that yesterday the NDP voted with Conservatives on our common-sense motion to remove the carbon tax from all forms of home heating for all Canadians, instead of just singling out the 3% of Canadians who use heating oil for their homes. The New Democrats are neglecting the 97% of Canadians who use other forms, such as natural gas or propane, for their home heating. Winter is here. It is going to be -20°C. Why then did the member today decline our leader's common-sense amendment to the NDP motion today to exclude the carbon tax on all forms of home heating for all Canadians? They could do that today by accepting the Conservative amendment.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney

Nov/7/23 12:36:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will remind the member that I was very clear in my speech that we offered amendments more than once for the Conservative motions around their carbon-taxing concerns. We have pointed out that B.C., Quebec and the Northwest Territories are not included. Why are the Conservatives leaving those provinces and territories out of something so that those folks do not get the support they need during this time of huge inequality in income?

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Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Nov/7/23 12:37:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to draw my colleague's attention to something important. At the beginning of her speech, she focused on the climate crisis and the fact that we must take action in light of that crisis. In the measures that the NDP is proposing, however, no distinction is made between different sources of energy. Does my colleague not believe that her party could have proposed something better crafted and more structured to encourage people to move away from fossil fuels and switch to cleaner energy?

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Ms. Rachel Blaney

Nov/7/23 12:38:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is an incredibly important part of what we need to be talking about, moving forward to energy that is more economic and more environmentally friendly. However, what this motion is really addressing, though, is the fact that we need fairness for all people across the country, for people who are dealing with an economic crisis that is stressing them out and making it harder for them to decide on whether to pay for food, or heat or medication. The motion specifically focuses on this. We have offered other ideas and motions that deal with those broader conversation, but we did not want to put all of that into a big motion, because it gets harder for people. This is what we are focusing on today. I look forward to continuing to work with every member in this place to move toward a greener economy that has environmental friendliness at the heart of it.

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Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

Nov/7/23 12:39:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of our party’s opposition motion. This is what real climate action looks like: climate action that does not divide people, but brings people together; climate action that gives families and individuals struggling to make ends meet a break, while also reducing our carbon emissions; climate action that asks the big polluters, who have seen record profits, to pay for it. We are in the midst of two different crises that must be addressed: a climate crisis and an affordability crisis linked to growing inequality. Last spring and summer, we were confronted directly by the impact of the climate crisis. Record-setting wildfires covered large parts of the country, causing provinces to declare states of emergency and many residents to flee. Smoke blanketed cities across the country, including Winnipeg, where poor air quality kept people indoors and posed a danger to people with pre-existing health issues, including asthma. What we saw over those months was a window into our future if we did not treat this climate crisis with the urgency it deserved. We cannot allow extreme weather events, which put the lives and health of people at risk, to become the new normal. It is not normal; it is a consequence of our failure to act. Meanwhile, a growing affordability crisis is forcing a growing number of people in our communities to choose between groceries and rent, to choose between heating and eating. Grocery prices have soared, far outpacing the general rate of inflation and wage growth. In Winnipeg Centre, which has the third-highest child poverty rate in the country, food bank use is climbing. In fact, according to a report by Food Banks Canada, food banks in Manitoba have seen a 30% rise in demand. In March of this year alone, there were 57,000 food bank visits, more than 20,000 of whom were children. Life is getting harder and harder for people who were already struggling to get by. Who is not struggling? Canada’s big oil and gas companies. The top five Canadian oil and gas companies reported $38.3 billion in profits for 2022. That is an increase of more than double compared to their profits of $16.9 billion in 2021. That is shameful. Suncor alone made over $9 billion in profit during 2022, an astonishing and shameful amount. Where is this money going? It is not going toward fighting climate change or making life more affordable for people. It is going to reward its shareholders and CEOs. Speaking of CEOs, I want to talk about Imperial Oil. Brad Corson, the CEO of Imperial Oil, is the highest-paid executive in the Canadian energy industry. His pay almost doubled in 2022, up to $17.3 million. Imperial Oil is currently under formal federal investigation for a months-long tailings leak at its Kearl oil sands mine in Northern Alberta. Documents filed by the company showed it knew that tailings were seeping into groundwater for years before contaminated fluid was reported on the surface. When my constituents miss a shift at work, they get their pay docked and they risk getting fired. When the CEO of Imperial Oil presides over an environmental catastrophe, he gets his pay doubled. It is an insult to hard-working people all over the country whose wages have not budged for years. That is just one reason why we need a windfall tax on the excess profits of big oil and gas companies. Why a windfall tax? It is about ensuring that the big polluters, which are worsening the climate crisis, are paying for the action needed to address it. Right now, we know that is not happening. Major loopholes in the carbon pricing framework mean that oil and gas companies only pay a small fraction of the cost of their pollution, while 80% to 90% of their emissions are exempt. To take one example, Suncor, which I mentioned previously, only pays one-fourteenth of the full carbon price. It would also generate significant revenue that we can invest in lowering people's energy bills, with home retrofits that reduce emissions and make life more affordable. How significant? The parliamentary budget office estimated that a windfall tax would generate $4 billion over five years. This could fund a program to make heat pumps and other retrofits free of cost to families that would otherwise not be able to afford them. A windfall tax, as we know, is not a radical idea. The European Union, the U.K. and India are among those that have implemented one. Why? It is common sense. At a time when energy companies are making record profits and people are struggling to pay their heating bills, we need to turn a portion of those excess profits into relief for consumers. We can also use revenue from a windfall tax for a massive expansion of energy efficient home renovations for low- and middle-class Canadians. Home retrofits and heating pumps are a win-win-win. They reduce emissions, lower people's utility bills and create green jobs. In Winnipeg Centre, many people would like to make these changes to their homes, but they simply cannot afford the upfront cost. This program should not be restricted to folks who only use a certain type of fuel to heat their homes. Whether they use home heating oil, natural gas, electric baseboard heating or anything else, they should have access to a program that lets them reduce their carbon footprint and reduces their monthly power bill. It is about how we get to net-zero emissions and how we bring millions of people along in the fight against the climate emergency. Life is hard enough already for families and individuals in my riding who are working three jobs and skipping meals so their kids can eat. These are not the people who should be paying more to address the climate crisis. It is the big oil and gas companies and their CEOs who are fuelling this crisis, and we should be sticking them with the bill. We are running out of time to get this right. Dividing people up by region and putting all the burden on individuals, as the Liberals are doing, will not get us there. Neither will burying our heads in the sand and refusing to even offer a climate plan, which is the Conservative approach. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition, the corporate champion from Carleton, is silent when it comes to the obscene profits being made by his oil and gas buddies. It is no wonder, because when he was sitting at the cabinet table, his government handed out $55 billion in tax cuts to wealthy corporations, including oil and gas companies. It is time for a new approach, one that finally asks the big polluters to pay their fair share of the costs, one that gives families and individuals who are struggling real relief from the rising costs driving them deeper into poverty and despair and one that makes energy efficient upgrades available to millions of households that want to do their part for our planet but cannot because the costs are too high. Today’s motion is exactly the kind of new approach that is desperately needed. I urge the government and all parties of the House to support it and put us on a pathway to real climate action that lifts people up and gives them the help they need.

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Mr. Ben Carr (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

Nov/7/23 12:48:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to hear my hon. colleague use language that is typically attributable to the Conservatives' policy on climate change. I am wondering if she can comment on the following. At no time in the last few years has the price of groceries in Canada exceeded the cost of groceries in the United States. Canada remains among the countries with the lowest price of groceries in the G7. This is versus other countries, our allies, that do not have prices on pollution. Can she comment on the correlation between an increase in grocery prices and a price on pollution? In jurisdictions where there is no price on pollution, grocery prices are still higher.

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