44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2024 02:00PM
- Feb/14/24 2:14:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the NDP-Liberals are not worth the cost. Guess what: The Alberta NDP agrees. NDP leadership contenders are abandoning the sinking carbon tax ship. Sarah Hoffman said they played dirty politics with it and picked winners and losers.
Do people know who else loses? All Canadians do. Twenty-three per cent is the whopping increase to their carbon tax on April 1. Two million Canadians are lined up at food banks across the nation. A family of four is paying $700 more in groceries this year.
The Prime Minister is so radical that even his costly coalition partners in Alberta's NDP cannot defend his carbon tax. Let me be clear to NDP-Liberals inflating each other and the costs on everything: Axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime and restore the promise.
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- Feb/14/24 2:53:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the crazy, carbon tax minister has done it again. This time he is saying that the federal government is not going to support any new road construction. I quote: “our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure”. He believes that people in Yukon, rural Alberta or rural Newfoundland will have to get to work riding a bicycle.
Why should those people have to pay taxes for infrastructure when they cannot possibly use the tramways and the bicycles he is funding?
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- Feb/14/24 3:02:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition wants to talk about the facts. The Canada carbon rebate will deliver $1,800 in Alberta to an average family of four; $1,200 in Manitoba; $1,120 in Ontario for a family of four; $1,500 in Saskatchewan; $760 in New Brunswick; $824 in Nova Scotia; $880 in P.E.I.; and, $1,192 in Newfoundland and Labrador to a family of four. Eight out of 10 families across the country get more money out of the Canada carbon rebate—
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- Feb/14/24 5:30:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am so glad the Liberal members have to stand up to ask what this has to do with child care because it has everything to do with child care. That is the reality.
I will read the headlines to members. These are just from the last month: “As the Liberals' universal daycare policy unravels, Conservatives could go on the offensive”; “Burlington child care centre leaves parents struggling with one week closing [time]”; “Daycares navigate financial struggles as province aims for $10-a-day child care”; “Rolling closures highlight need for emergency actions to keep $10 a day childcare viable”; “9,200 children waiting for child care in Waterloo Region”; “Alberta daycares brace for losses as [the Prime Minister's] deal kicks in”; and “Parents have yet to get the child care they deserve”.
To the member opposite, this has everything to do with day care. People cannot go to work. That is what is happening. I will continue to list the headlines: “$10 a day daycare is a great idea, but in Yellowknife it’s hard to find a spot”; and “'My son’s daycare can’t afford to stay in the $10-a-day program. Now, we’ll have to pay an extra $800 a month'”.
Liberal-paid media is telling us this: “As a London daycare's waitlist quadruples, a desperate parent opens her own dayhome instead”; and “Child-care spaces remain tight on P.E.I. despite government initiatives”.
Shall I keep going? That is the reality of this failed program. That is what—
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Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to stand in this place and defend and work hard for the people of Battle River—Crowfoot and, specifically, tonight, the hard-working farmers from east central Alberta and coast to coast.
I would be remiss if I did not say a very happy Valentine's Day to my sweetheart Danielle. I am not sure if she is watching, but I love her and I hope that she and those three boys are able to enjoy Valentine's Day back in Alberta.
We are talking about Bill C-234, a common-sense Conservative bill that would eliminate the carbon tax for many of the essential aspects of the work that our hard-working farmers and ranchers from coast to coast pay for and that ultimately drives up the price of their operations.
What is really unfortunate, in this entire process, is that this is where the Liberals lose the plot.
I am honoured to be the fifth generation on my family farm in Alberta's special areas. I know so many classmates and people I have gotten to know across the country since getting elected.
I want to reference, specifically, a young lady named Mady from Saskatchewan. I believe she is 12 years old. She told this story recently in an interview in New York. Her story is an incredible one. She was asked a true-or-false question during a test in school about whether farming was bad for the environment. She knew that the teacher expected the answer to be true. She marked that but put a frowning face beside the answer.
As Mady describes, and I believe she was eight years old at the time, it was this that inspired her and her parents. I have chatted with Mady and her mom. She has had the opportunity to speak to the ministers, the previous minister of agriculture and, I believe, the current Minister of Agriculture, and to advocate for farmers across the country and now even around the world. She knew that it was essential to get the message out about the value, the ability and the solutions that Canadian agriculture brings.
Where the Liberals lose the plot is summed up in a bumper sticker. I know that the Liberals hate when we use slogans, but this is not something that I created. This is something that I have seen on bumper stickers and the back windows of many trucks, minivans and tractors across my constituency. It is: “No farmers. No food. Know farmers. Know food.”
This is where the Liberals have lost the plot. They are blaming the very people and they are punishing the very people who are able to solve the problem that our country faces.
I received an email just the other day from a local food bank operator in Flagstaff County. Lynn told me I could share this story. She shared how tragic it was that there were a number of instances where, when individuals come into the food bank, they are lying about the number of people in their homes and where they live.
One would say, “That is not good.” It is never good to lie, right? We are taught that. One has to ask why they are lying. It is because they are hungry. These people, these families, are hungry. In some cases, they are so hungry that they have no choice but to go from food bank to food bank in order to be able to feed themselves.
Where the Liberals have lost the plot is that they blame farmers and believe that punishing them and all Canadians is the solution to somehow helping those individuals who are, in some cases, starving, as Lynn shared with me just the other day.
Instead, the solution is very simple, if one reduces costs for those who produce the food. Like I mentioned the other day, at every step of the food supply chain, one can reduce, ultimately, the price of food for Canadians. That is where we are. We have a simple, common-sense solution. We can get Bill C-234 across the finish line, as it was intended, and allow farmers to get to work, so they can reduce the price of food, and Canadians can afford to eat.
However, the problem is that we saw unprecedented political manipulation by the Prime Minister, the Liberals, and the criminal, socialist, activist of an excuse of an environment minister that we have. This was manipulation at an unprecedented scale, showcasing how the so-called independent Senate is anything but.
We saw the Liberals' carbon pricing scheme, which is now admittedly a failure. In fact, just today they announced they are rebranding it; it is so misunderstood. They do not even trace the emissions that it has reduced because they cannot see that it has even helped the environment in this country. Can members imagine an environmental platform that does not help the environment? What kind of absurdity is this?
We see that the Liberals saw that their carbon tax scheme was falling apart and that the scam was being seen for what it truly is: a scam. The Liberals put on the full-court press and pushed the Senate to pass a number of amendments that gutted the bill. It would have been common-sense relief to farmers. They could have worked at lowering the price of food for all Canadians, but instead, they played politics with the hungry stomachs of Canadians. That is the sad reality. As a result, we are seeing the consequences.
The simple fact of the matter is that if the coalition that is ruling this country would agree to pass Bill C-234, unamended, we could get to work and could see that amended.
For all the farmers and producers watching, the question is simple. They should reach out to their Liberal, NDP or Bloc member of Parliament. Tell them that it is time to do the common-sense thing and to pass Bill C-234, unamended, so that we can provide that much-needed relief for farmers so that they can do what is truly required to ultimately lower the price of food for Canadians.
We have heard from all parties, I believe, this week about Canada's Agriculture Day. It is interesting that there is only one party in this country that truly stands for our hard-working farmers and ranchers, and that is the Conservative Party. Here is the offer I would make, as a farmer and a parliamentarian, as somebody who cares deeply about the agricultural sector and about the hunger crisis that has been caused by the Liberals, the failed carbon tax, the inflation and all the dynamics leading to that; let us get to work to pass Bill C-234. We can show Canadians this thing called “leadership”.
My fear is that the Prime Minister, the Leader of the NDP who is just as weak and, it seems, just as corrupt because he is certainly propping up the corruption of the Liberals, and the members of the Bloc Québécois, seem clueless as to how they are impacted by this carbon tax, by the national mechanisms associated with it and by the national impact associated with it.
Let us pass Bill C-234 in its original form, and demonstrate to Canadians that common sense still exists in this country for the thousands of farmers I represent, who depend on common sense for their daily operations. I see a number of rural MPs. In fact, I think everybody who seems to be left in this debate represents at least part of a rural constituency.
Common sense rules on the farm. It rules in rural Canada, so let us see common sense rule in this place so that we can bring home lower food prices for Canadians. The question is simple: Will those other parties pass Bill C-234 to bring home lower prices and axe the tax?
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Mr. Speaker, the Senate amendments to Bill C-234 have drastically changed the contents of the original bill that this House passed with support from multiple parties. It would basically have reduced the tax bill for farmers by about a billion dollars, savings that would have been passed on to my constituents whose greatest relationship with farmers is when they go to the grocery store to buy Canadian produce, Canadian goods that they need to eat. Now these things will not be cheaper because the government seems intent on making sure amendments that the government engineered on the so-called independent Liberal senators are now being reflected in a bill that would remove exemptions for barns and greenhouses, and changes the original sunset clause.
That is pretty typical of the government's actions. It does by stealth what should be done in public, transparently. The government should own the changes it is making to the legislation, but it does not want to do that. I would be embarrassed as well if I were trying to take food out of the mouths of people all over the country. Food banks have reported record-high numbers of Canadians using them to feed their families. The bill before us was intended to lower the cost of groceries.
For all of those people in the riding of Calgary Shepard who are going to be watching this, I say that the bill would lower their bills. It would lower grocery bills. It would lower their Costco bill. People go to the East Hills Costco or the Heritage Costco. Many people in my riding go to the Okotoks Costco because it is actually closer than most of the other Costco stores and grocery stores in my area. However, the Liberals seem to be fully intent on making sure that the carbon tax has the maximum impact on the monthly budget of my constituents, for the worse, not for the better.
None of these farmers gets a rebate of any sort to offset some of the costs of their farm operations. That is the economic damage that the Parliamentary Budget Officer calculated. Even with the rebates, everybody in Alberta is going to be worse off, or is worse off as of now, because of the carbon tax.
The bill would not address that, but it would at least relieve some of the pain that farmers are feeling. Some of them have a thousand dollars or tens of thousands of dollars extra per month in bills; it depends on the particular farm operation. What we know is that the vast majority of farmers are supplying goods, produce and food, that people in Canada are going to eat, and they are going to be more expensive unless the bill passes without the terrible Senate amendments.
We have heard other members say that the environment minister made phone calls to senators. The Prime Minister, according to media reports, was reaching out to so-called independent Liberal senators to get them to amend the bill and force it back to the House, delaying it and therefore delaying lower grocery prices in our stores.
After eight long years, people in my riding just cannot afford this anymore. They cannot afford the Prime Minister's carbon tax. The rebate is not helping in any way, shape or form. We know from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, as I said, that bills are up; they are higher, and it is doing damage to the economy.
The Liberals seem to think that he who cannot pay should learn to pray, to paraphrase a Yiddish proverb. That is essentially what they are saying to everybody in my riding and to every single farmer out there who is now going to be struggling to figure out how they can make their farm operation profitable for another year. How can they keep it running to be able to pass it on to their kids for the next generation? Is it even worth it? Countless members of the House have given examples of farmers who are set to give up. They just do not see how they can make their farm operation work with crushing bills that continue to get higher.
I hope everybody is learning how to pray, because that is essentially the message the Liberal government is sending to everyone. The Liberals just do not care. They are fine with putting a $1-billion bill on the backs of farmers, expecting them to pass it on to consumers. Consumers will then do the logical thing when they cannot afford food: They are going to buy less food, and then they are going to go to the food bank to make up the difference, because they have to eat. It is a necessity, so that is what is going to happen. They seem to be fine with that on that side of the House.
I thought there had been consensus that the original version of Bill C-234 was the right bill and that this House had told the Senate that we wanted it in a particular format. On spending and tax matters, it is not up to the Senate to tell us, the representatives of the people, elected every four to five years depending when the federal elections are, that people do not get the credit, tax relief or spending measures we wanted.
That is not the Senate's job. Its job, when it comes to bills such as this on the reduction of costs, on taxes and on tax credits, and especially getting rid of the carbon tax, should be to get out of the way. This House should vote down these Senate amendments. We should go back to the original version of Bill C-234, and the Senate should pass it expeditiously.
I have not had a single constituent tell me that they think it is a great idea to keep paying high grocery bills. Nobody has told me that Bill C-234 should have serious amendments to eliminate things such as barn heating and greenhouses. They would also question, and many residents in my riding have, such things as why people with home heating oil in eastern Canada get a discount, but people in my riding who heat with natural gas do not get one on their natural gas bills or their really high carbon tax bills.
They see the politicization of this and the temporary nature of the heating oil suspension on the carbon tax, which is now very similar to what is going to happen with these Senate amendments in Bill C-234. In three years, it would go back up. Even if this passes, what happens then? There could be a federal election by then. This is essentially the same game the government is playing, but it is using its so-called independent Liberal senators to get through this difficult period. We see it in the polls.
I see the polls too. I do not pay attention to them very closely; the only ones that matter are those on voting day. However, I know the Liberals are probably panicking. They are about 16 or 19 points behind, depending on the poll one looks at. Farmers and people in my riding, and there is a great Yiddish word for it, are farharghet. It is a way to say exhausted and worn out. They are worn out by this debate on the carbon tax. It is obviously causing damage throughout the economy, and it has raised the prices of basic goods and necessities. They are farharghet; they are tired of having this debate continue when we know that people want the tax to be axed. They want the carbon tax to go away in full.
The Liberals refuse to do that. I invite them to call a federal election. Let us have one right now. We will call it the “axe-the-tax election”, and Canadians can make up their minds. They can decide which side is correct. Do they want high grocery prices or not? In the meantime, we should get rid of these Senate amendments, send the bill back to the other place and have it pass the original bill. It is a tax-and-spend measure. Constitutionally, the Senate has no right to do this.
I have a lot of ranchers and farmers who actually choose to retire in my riding. It is an affordable place to live compared with some other places in Alberta and throughout Canada. A lot of the condos are actually filled with farmers who retired to be closer to their families. Their farm operations continue with their kids, but they have chosen to retire somewhere small. Their daughters and their sons continue the operations. They like to travel. They have earned it. After 30 or 40 years of farming or ranching, they have earned a bit of rest.
Everybody back home in my riding of Calgary Shepard, and throughout Calgary, should all start calling senators and members of Parliament. They do not have to call me; I am already convinced. I am good. I will vote the way my constituents want. However, they should be calling Liberal and NDP members of Parliament in Alberta, and they should let their views be known politely. They should tell their friends, co-workers and suppliers to call MPs and senators, telling them to pass this bill without the Senate amendments and return it to the original version.
Taxpayers, Canadian voters and farmers deserve a billion-dollar break on their bills, on their groceries, at the end of the month. Grocery prices will come down thanks to bills such as Bill C-234, and it has to happen. As I said, my constituents arefarharghet. It is an exhausting debate to keep having to convince Liberal MPs and the others in the coalition, the NDP, that this will lead to lower grocery prices; the carbon tax has been punishing them for years now.
I hope members on the other side will see the righteousness of the cause, pray on it and vote down these Senate amendments.
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- Feb/14/24 7:51:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the hon. member does not understand how a price on pollution works or why it is necessary.
Canadians expect their elected representatives to pursue tangible solutions to address issues like affordability and climate change. In the past year alone, Canadians have endured severe climate-related events, including wildfires, droughts, heavy snowfall, torrential rain and tornadoes, marking some of the worst in our nation's history. These severe climate events are having a direct impact on food prices. Climate action is an economic necessity, and the government has a plan.
We know that a price on pollution is the most effective and least costly way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while putting money back into the pockets of most Canadians. In provinces where the federal fuel charge applies, the proceeds generated from the price on pollution are returned to Canadians. In fact, eight out of 10 households in these provinces receive more money back through quarterly carbon rebates than they pay. For example, a family of four residing in Alberta can receive up to $1,800.
Canadians are understandably worried as elevated global inflation and high interest rates continue to squeeze their finances. The economic environment has driven up the cost of far too many necessities, everything from housing to groceries. While Conservatives would have us think that carbon pricing is the main culprit, research from the University of Calgary reveals that the price on pollution adds less than a penny for every dollar spent on major expenses by Canadians.
The government is actively tackling affordability issues by introducing new measures to alleviate the financial strain on Canadians. In the fall economic statement, we unveiled a comprehensive plan to bolster affordability and support Canadian households facing financial strain. The government has made significant amendments to the Competition Act, aimed at fostering greater competition within the grocery sector to lower costs and expand choices for Canadian consumers. The government is also cracking down on junk fees like international roaming charges and overdraft charges from banks that are costing Canadians. We are protecting homeowners with new mortgage relief measures.
The government is moving forward with meaningful actions to make life more affordable in this country, all while fighting climate change.
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