44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 1, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/1/24 4:46:07 p.m.
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There seem to be some members trying to ask questions. I would ask them to wait until the appropriate time to do that.
The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South has the floor.
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- Feb/1/24 4:46:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate that, and I apologize. I get passionate as well.
However, the reality is that the rebate is taken into consideration. The Governor of the Bank of Canada looked at the entire picture, including the rebate, and said that if we eliminated the carbon tax today, we would reduce inflation by 22%.
We have had some fun about the math and stuff like that, but that has real impacts. I am sure members in their ridings have heard from people, because I certainly have heard, in mine, from the ones who are about to lose their homes. Why? It is because interest rates are high, as the Governor of the Bank of Canada must do the work that the government is unwilling to do.
The government is blindly pushing people into losing their houses and losing their jobs, as well as sending two million people to food banks. They laugh at this, but it is math. It is 22%. All they would have to do is eliminate that carbon tax. If they believe in that carbon tax like they say they do, let us have a carbon tax election, and let us do it today, because I know who will win that election.
Then we will hear them cast aspersions like, “They're climate deniers, they're this, they're that.” The reality is that the carbon tax has failed. If anyone is a climate change denier, they are on that side of the aisle. The Liberals are failing to achieve their climate targets. Their own climate change commissioner said that they will not achieve their 2030 targets. They have yet to achieve one single target, so if we want to talk about climate change denial, it is on that side of the aisle.
Let us talk a bit about the economy and why it is so important to get a new direction.
The member from the other side said that there has been a recent uptake in investments, which is true. I am glad for that, but let us look at the overall picture. Since 2014, we have had some of the weakest foreign investment in the world, and we are forecasted by the IMF to actually have the worst foreign investment over the next 40 years. Our GDP per capita over the last 10 years is 4%, which is the total growth for GDP per capita. Do we know what it is in the United States? It is 47%, or 10 times ours.
GDP per capita, by the way, is not just any number. GDP per capita is the number one way of measuring the economic impact on the individual. The reality is that the split has not been even. Who has been hurt the most? It is the most vulnerable; those who are in an economically weak position are hurting. That is why there are two million people going to the food banks.
I hope everyone understands the carbon tax math. Hopefully, over there, they will understand this too. GDP per capita is the economic measure of the welfare of the individual in a given state. In the U.S., in the last 10 years, it has grown by 47%. In Canada, it has grown by 4%, which is 0.8% per year. We need change, and we need it fast.
Underpinning that weak per capita GDP number is a lack of productivity. I will be candid: Our weak productivity numbers date back decades, but it has taken on an exponential weakness in the last decade. Our productivity numbers put us near the bottom of the OECD. Quite frankly, I do not mean to be an alarmist, but it is just the reality: On the trajectory that we are on with our productivity numbers, we will not even be an advanced economy in the next 20 years. It is wild.
If we look at the GDP per hour, which is a measurement of how much a worker in Canada contributes, in the U.S. it is $75, in Switzerland it is around $95, and Canada it is $55. Why do we look at this? Productivity has three pillars that underpin it. One is capital investment, and as I said, over the last 10 years we are among the weakest in the OECD. The second is our workforce. We actually have a really strong and great workforce and the best workers, I believe, in Canada.
The other part of it is innovation, and that is where we are falling down. We have great minds here who produce great ideas, but we are not making it intellectual property. What is happening is that many of the best minds are going to Silicon Valley or other places in the world, and we need to make sure that Canadians feel comfortable and that they win.
There is one area where our productivity is among the highest in the world. I said that Canada's GDP is, on average, $55 per hour. In the energy sector, it is $500 per hour. What is the government doing in that sector, one of the few bright lights of our otherwise dim economy? It is crushing it. It is trying to kill the energy sector in Canada. Members over there will say that we have to, for the sake of the planet. In reality, we are shutting down Canadian energy and it is just going to other parts of the world. Instead of having manufacturing in great places like Cobourg, Port Hope or Hamilton in Ontario, or in many of the great towns and cities out west, it is being transported across the world.
The reality is that it could be powered by hydroelectric power in Winnipeg, Quebec or Niagara Falls, or by clean, emission-free nuclear power in parts of Ontario, or we could ship those jobs, as is going on right now, to Guangdong province, where it is powered by coal. The carbon tax plays into and affects this, because it is pushing jobs there.
The reality is there is no carbon tax in West Virginia; there is no carbon tax in Guangdong province, and there is a very small carbon tax in Mexico. As we increase costs here, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. We are making emissions in the world higher, because, to a certain extent, it matters what Canada's emissions are only in terms of how we are affecting global emissions. Pollution knows no borders. Our focus really has to be on how we reduce global emissions.
What is happening now and what has happened over the last 10 years is that we have made the cost of doing business so difficult in Canada, not least through the carbon tax, that we are pushing manufacturing and natural gas exploration outside of our borders. We actually increase emissions while at the same time decreasing our economic welfare. This is not a recipe for success.
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- Feb/1/24 4:54:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for giving us this pseudolesson on economics.
It is confusing to me that he does not understand basic economic terminology such as “taxation”, since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the carbon pricing system is not a concept of taxation and is understood in a constitutional context. What Conservatives really want us to do is axe the facts.
I understand that “axing a regulatory charge and the climate action incentive payment” is not a good bumper sticker slogan. What Conservatives want to do is distract Canadians from what is really happening, ignore the facts and ignore science while our country burns. I would like to hear a comment about that.
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- Feb/1/24 4:55:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when the government takes money and no one has the ability to say no, it is a tax. That is just the reality. I do not care what the Supreme Court says on that. If the government wants to take money, but people do not pay it and they go to jail, that is a tax. It is simple.
I went through the math. The Liberal-appointed Governor of the Bank of Canada, not some Conservative, said that even with the rebate it is 22% of inflation. I dare you to go back to your constituents and say you are going to increase inflation today by 20%, because that is what—
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- Feb/1/24 4:55:54 p.m.
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I would remind the hon. member that he is to address questions and comments through the Chair.
The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.
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- Feb/1/24 4:55:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, obviously, just like on any other Conservative opposition day, we are still talking about the carbon tax. People watching the debates might wonder if what MPs do all day amounts to anything. I will let them in on a secret: We sometimes wonder the same thing.
I have enjoyed working with my colleague on bills. I know him to be an extremely intelligent and friendly guy. I will give him a chance to prove it by asking him a question on a different topic that is nonetheless related to the one at hand.
I know that he is passionate about agriculture. What does he think about the federal budgets for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada? Does he think they are adequate? I think they need to be increased significantly.
The most important thing is research and development. Does it receive enough support in Canada and Quebec? Is the federal government making its fair share of the efforts? I do not think so. For everyone in the House, research and development is the future. That is how we are going to adapt to climate change, which is already here, to be able to be productive while polluting less.
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- Feb/1/24 4:57:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have appreciated working with the member. I would say that I take a bit of offence to some of the member's comments. My presentation was full of numbers and data. I was not just meandering about, with whatever insult I felt about the Conservative Party. I had statistics and am happy to share them with the member.
Winston Churchill once said that taxing oneself into prosperity is like a man standing in his bucket and trying to pull it up. It is impossible. Yes, we can talk about funding arrangements and support for farmers; that is all well and good, but the first thing we need to do is get off their back.
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- Feb/1/24 4:58:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry; I do not recall to whom to attribute this, but I have also heard it said that taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society. I often think that to the Conservatives, taxes are a bad thing, but taxes are the monies we collect and pay people to provide police services, schools, roads, ports, highways, community centres, arenas, auditoriums and other things that provide the ability for people to live their lives and connect in culture.
My question, though, is about the climate crisis. I hear a lot of criticism of the carbon tax. There are many economists who have said that the price of not dealing with the climate crisis is in the multiple billions of dollars. What is the Conservative plan to deal with the climate crisis? If we were to get rid of the carbon tax, what would the Conservatives do to help protect the planet for future generations, or do they not think that the climate crisis is real or needs to be dealt with?
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- Feb/1/24 4:59:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will give a brief answer; there will certainly be more to come on this. We believe that ultimately the solution for this, as for most problems, is the Canadian people. We have the most resourceful, most caring people, including farmers who spend every day caring about the land, upgrading their technology so they can protect the soil and limit emissions. We believe in farmers. We believe in manufacturers. We believe in Canadians.
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- Feb/1/24 4:59:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, after such an eloquent speech from my colleague, the bar is set high. I will try to live up to that standard.
I am pleased to rise today to speak to our party's motion to axe the carbon tax.
As members can imagine, I am extremely disappointed in this government, not just since last fall, but for the past eight years. In 2015, this government promised to run three small deficits—I will never forget that—and to return to a balanced budget in 2019. Instead, since 2015, it has run eight consecutive deficits, totalling more than $600 billion, which could force us into a recession. I am not the one saying this. Many experts are saying that we are already in a recession. We need only look at the number of companies that are currently laying off a significant number of employees.
Despite all the red lights it is facing, the government continues to do as it pleases. It plans to not only add another $60 billion to the deficit this year, but also add possibly $12 billion in additional permanent spending for a national pharmacare system, in order to satisfy its dance partner, the NDP. It is just doing this to stay in power. It is already planning to run more deficits this year.
The worst thing is that in the fall of 2022, the Minister of Finance said that we needed to stop pouring fuel on the inflationary fire and that we absolutely needed to return to a balanced budget. That was in November 2022. In March 2023, the budget was tabled, but there was no mention of returning to a balanced budget, not a word. It was gone. It vanished.
Under this government, the deficits continue to grow year after year. Now, with its dance partner, the NDP, the government wants to pile on another $12 billion for a pharmacare system. By the way, the Canadian provinces, including Quebec, already have very good systems in place. The government wants to pile even more on top of the things that have been brought in over the past few years. This $12 billion is in addition to the government's recurring deficits.
The Prime Minister said that it made more sense for the government to go into debt instead of Canadians because interest rates were low and were going to stay low. Everyone remembers him saying that during the pandemic. Now it is 2024. About three and a half years ago, he said that the government would take on that debt and that he was not going to let people go into debt, because interest rates were low and would stay low. However, three and a half years after that statement, interest rates jumped from 0.5% to 5%. As a result, our debt servicing costs have ballooned to nearly $75 billion a year.
Members will recall that all of the provincial premiers met and asked for an additional $25 billion to be distributed across Canada for health care. The government gave them a pittance, and that is what they currently have to make do with. Today, because of this government's ongoing deficits, we are paying tens of billions of dollars more to service the debt. It therefore stands to reason that the government, whose Prime Minister said that the budget would balance itself, does not have a clue, is doing nothing to balance the budget and has no intention of doing so.
Our common-sense demands have been ignored for years. This is not complicated. We have been repeating what we want for the past week, ever since we got back on Sunday. We want to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Those are our top four priorities for making this a country that we recognize again, because it is totally unrecognizable right now.
These are simple things that could generate productivity, innovation and greater government revenues and make our streets safer.
When the Prime Minister answers our leader here in the House of Commons, he engages in deliberate disinformation on the assumption that our leader, once elected Prime Minister, would stop funding the programs that this coalition government has introduced in recent years. Obviously, these statements are completely untrue and aim to frighten the public. The member opposite added insult to injury earlier by comparing us to the Americans, among others. Obviously, this is Canada, and we are completely independent of the United States. This is not the first false statement that this Prime Minister has made.
I want to circle back to our proposals, which would make our country more vibrant and, more importantly, less divided. One of the most important of the four proposals I outlined earlier is to lower taxes for Canadians. It is important to do this given the current crises in housing, inflation and interest rates, which are making it difficult for people to afford food, shelter, clothing and home heating in particular. We have to bring back common sense. I cannot say it often enough.
We need to axe this carbon tax. The Bloc Québécois will tell us that the tax does not apply to Quebeckers. Of course the Bloc fully supports the government on this. The reality is that in a country like Canada, which Quebec is still part of, the carbon tax applies in the provinces where it applies. This means that when Quebec imports products from other provinces, this tax inevitably applies indirectly to Quebec as well. That is a fact. There is no denying it.
I think it is important to axe this tax as soon as possible to help all Canadians. As my colleague said earlier, the impact will be huge: It will reduce inflation by 22%. That will leave people with a little more money in their pockets. All of the policies we want to implement are geared toward reducing taxes to put more money in workers' pockets. Canadian workers work very hard, but, unfortunately, their paycheques are decimated by all the taxes they have to pay.
This carbon tax is supposed to help the environment. That is the measure the government opted to put in place, but the evidence indicates that it has changed absolutely nothing over the past eight years. The government has never met the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets that it set for itself. There is no getting around the fact that the evidence shows this is not the right approach.
We keep hearing that the Conservatives have no plan for the environment. Of course we have a plan, as our leader has said many times. We want to work on green projects like hydroelectricity. We want to cut through red tape to speed up project approvals and the like. The same goes for nuclear energy, wind energy projects and more. Canada's advanced expertise in green technology is recognized around the world. We want to go even further by funding innovation and wealth creation through these technologies.
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- Feb/1/24 5:08:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague opposite would say to Equiterre, a highly respected environmental organization, which states that, according to economists, putting a price on pollution is one of the most effective ways of curbing emissions, but that it is being threatened by the Conservatives, with their false promises of putting large sums of money back into taxpayers' pockets.
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- Feb/1/24 5:09:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not think it is false to tell people that cutting taxes will take money away from them. On the contrary, it will give them money back.
Earlier, I heard one of my Liberal colleagues say that the carbon tax does not cost all Canadians. That is interesting, because the Parliamentary Budget Officer said last week that the carbon tax adds half a billion dollars to government coffers. If this half a billion dollars is supposed to be going into the pockets of Quebeckers and, more specifically, all Canadians, why is the government raking it in?
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- Feb/1/24 5:10:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservatives' idea of cleaning the air is taking CBC/Radio Canada off the airwaves.
They are so determined to try to prove that the federal carbon tax applies in Quebec that their colleague, the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, showed up in the House with a bill and gave false information to parliamentarians. She had with her bill that had to do with the emissions trading system in Quebec. It seems to me as though this member, who was part of the Charest government that implemented that system, should have known she was misleading parliamentarians.
The Conservatives are really desperate to convince Quebeckers that they are subject to a tax that does not apply to them. It showed in my colleague's speech. Does he think that it is a good idea to present false information to Parliament to try to lie to Quebeckers?
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- Feb/1/24 5:10:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, anyone who accuses me of spreading misinformation is spreading misinformation. Our leader has been very clear: There are no plans to make cuts to Radio-Canada.
Making cuts to CBC is one thing. CBC/Radio-Canada are one and the same. However, within CBC/Radio-Canada, there will be no cuts to Radio-Canada. We are even considering eventually adding money for the Canadian francophonie across Canada.
The Bloc Québécois is doing everything it can to make us believe that cutting taxes in Canada will have no effect on Quebeckers' wallets. That is absolutely untrue. There is no question that this will put money in the pockets of all Canadians, including Quebeckers.
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- Feb/1/24 5:11:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague pointed out a very important fact that a lot of Canadians do not hear about, and that is the reality that there is GST on the carbon tax.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has clearly stated, as the member pointed out, that over half a billion dollars has been collected on the GST on that carbon tax to date, this year alone. Where does that money go? The government continues to say it is given back, but it is not given back.
We have service clubs for seniors that are paying $200 to heat their service club, but when they look at the bill, it is actually $100 of carbon tax. They, too, do not get that tax back. Would the member comment on that?
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- Feb/1/24 5:12:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is so right. Plus, he is talking about non-profit organizations. The government keeps telling us that it is sending quarterly cheques to Canadian households. That is nice and all, but it is not just Canadian households that are paying the carbon tax. All organizations are paying the carbon tax. Nobody is exempt.
I think it is important for us to have this debate today. Earlier, my colleague from Mirabel mocked the fact that we want to get rid of the tax on the grounds that it does not apply in Quebec, but the truth is, the carbon tax that applies across the country impacts Quebec, too.
We want to get rid of it and put money in people's pockets, period.
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- Feb/1/24 5:13:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as this is my first to opportunity to rise in the new year on behalf of the people of the Kenora riding and across northwestern Ontario, I just want to take a moment to reiterate my commitment, and our party's commitment, to work to fix what has been broken under the NDP-Liberal government.
We will work relentlessly throughout this Parliament to build the homes, to fix the budget, to stop the crime and, of course, to axe the tax. That is where we start this week, with this motion to axe the failed NDP-Liberal carbon tax, which is doing nothing for the environment but driving up the cost of living for people in northern Ontario and right across the country.
If the Liberal government will not axe the tax, because it is now clear that the Conservative Party is the only party that would put an end this carbon tax misery for good, we are calling on the government to, at the very least, pause its increase. Cancel the planned increase that is coming this spring so that it does not make life even more unaffordable for Canadians. It is a simple ask. We are hoping that the NDP will stop propping up the Liberal Party and will vote with us to make life more affordable for Canadians.
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- Feb/1/24 5:14:44 p.m.
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It being 5:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.
The question is on the motion.
If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Feb/1/24 5:15:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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- Feb/1/24 5:15:44 p.m.
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Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the recorded division stands deferred until Monday, February 5, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
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