44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 19, 2024 10:00AM
- Mar/19/24 12:21:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, despite the Liberals' pathetic record on fighting climate change, my colleague is absolutely right that the Conservative Party, and the Conservative Party leader in particular, are giving Canadians bad information.
I challenge the member for Carleton and leader of the Conservative Party to quote the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who says that 80% of Canadian households will receive more money in rebates and compensation than they pay in carbon tax. I challenge the leader of the Conservative Party to say that loud and clear in the House.
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- Mar/19/24 1:43:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a true privilege and honour to rise in the House of Commons and represent the wonderful, amazing, hard-working people of Peterborough—Kawartha.
Today, we have a very important opposition day motion, put forward by the member for Carleton, the official leader of the opposition, Canada's next prime minister, to protect and help Canadians.
The reality is that life has never been more expensive after eight years of the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister. He lost his way so long ago that he cannot see the forest for the trees. He has refused to listen to the reality of what is happening outside of this building.
The motion put forward today is, “That, given that 70% of provinces and 70% of Canadians oppose the Prime Minister's 23% carbon tax hike on April 1, the House call on the NDP-Liberal coalition to immediately cancel this hike.”
People watching at home might say that if 70% of Canadians agree with this, how can the Liberal-NDP coalition go along with something that nobody wants. That is Liberal math and Liberal logic. Not only that, the Liberals will tell people that they will get more back with their carbon tax rebate, which makes no sense. There would not even be a rebate if they did not take the money to begin with. There is zero common sense. The average Ontario family is going to pay almost $1,700 in carbon tax, and that is just this year. The numbers in 2030 are $3,583. This has been a lie from day one.
The Prime Minister promised that initially this tax would never go higher than $50 a tonne. Now it is set to reach $170 per tonne. The Prime Minister said that the carbon tax would be revenue-neutral, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer confirms that Canadians pay more than they get back in rebates. The Prime Minister said that the carbon tax would help lower GHG emissions, but the Liberal government will not meet its own environmental targets by 2030. Why does anybody believe him? They do not, and why should they? He tells them one thing and does another. He doubles down and lets his ego lead, because it is way more important to be right than to listen to Canadians who are truly hurting.
According to the “Food insecurity among Canadian families” report, using data from the 2021 Canada income survey, almost 50% of single mothers living below the poverty line struggle with food insecurity. What is going to happen with this carbon tax increase on April 1 if already 50% of single mothers are struggling with food insecurity?
This past week, I had the chance to visit the beautiful province of New Brunswick, and I will give a shout-out to the east coast and the amazing humans who live out there. I went to many food banks that had a double to triple increase in one year. The demographic of who is using that food bank are students, seniors, working middle class and active serving military families.
I could not believe what I heard Jane from Oromocto Food Bank. She said that it had about 50 active serving military families accessing the food bank. I asked her since when and she told me that was about four or five years. The other part was that they had to pay rent for their housing. How are the houses heated? Natural gas. What is on natural gas? The carbon tax.
It gets even better. Not only does the Liberal-NDP coalition charge the carbon tax, but it taxes the carbon tax. That is disgusting. The PBO has reported that the carbon tax on propane and natural gas used for greenhouse heating and cooling, livestock barns and drying grain will cost the farmers nearly $1 billion by 2030. Has anybody visited a farm? I do not know if members know this, but farmers do not have a lot of money. Farmers often have a lot of assets but very little cash flow. If we bankrupt farmers, we bankrupt Canadians and prevent them from being able to eat.
This is the most insane thing I have ever seen. We have to ask what the government is doing and why it is doing it. It makes us question what is happening.
According to Canada's Food Price Report, food cost for the typical family of four is expected to rise by $700 in 2024. According to a Second Harvest report, 36% of charities had to turn people away because they were running out of resources. In addition, 101 first nations communities have taken the Liberal government to court over the carbon tax. They are waking up. It is all virtue signalling.
I have this lovely letter from a woman named Barbara. She said, “I heat my home with propane and a wood stove. Not only are we paying the carbon tax, but we are paying HST on the carbon tax. That is double taxation. I have called and written and spoken, but I can't get any answers.” Barb is not alone, because the Liberal-NDP coalition does not want to listen to her.
Yesterday, in question period, there was an exchange between the Leader of the Opposition and the finance minister, who said that the Liberals would take no lessons from the Conservatives, because they would stand for the least vulnerable. Was that a Freudian slip? I am not sure.
I will read comments that are coming to me. A lot of times, the Liberals across the way will say that Conservatives are making things up. They love to gaslight Canadians or find one person to zone in on their confirmation bias and say that they have toxic positivity, that things have never been so great, that things have never been so wonderful. We know that is not true.
One person said, “Hello Michelle. I live in Peterborough. I'm a wife and a mother of 4 (ages 13 years -15 months). The increase caused by the carbon tax and 8 years of [the Prime Minister's] Liberal government is killing my family. My husband has a job that used to be the golden ticket of jobs here in Peterborough and now we can barely get by. We used to spend $400 for groceries and have a month's worth of food. Now we are lucky if that gets us more than a week. I can't afford new glasses. My husband can't afford to go to the dentist. And don't get me started on the price of formula and diapers! All of this lands squarely on the incredibly corrupt shoulders of the [the Prime Minister] Liberals and the NDP coalition. Any help you can provide and advocate for is amazing. Please help us.”
Bob Bolton wrote, “There should be no CARBON TAX in the first place Michelle, we have all kinds of trees to look after that issue, thanks.”
Meaghan Ireland Danielis said, “As a mother of three and a small business owner with a partner working full time and a part-time job myself, it's already a struggle to put food on the table and pay bills. This tax increase will raise the prices of everything yet again. I am not sure how people are supposed to survive, let alone thrive. Its a scary state of affairs. I really hope that our next government can find a way to clean up some of the terrible mess that's been made. I know, you know Michelle..., people are suffering and there is no need for it to be this way. Everything has been flipped and the focus is all wrong. I have always been a proud Canadian and a patriot. These last few years for the first time ever, I've considered leaving my beautiful home of Canada. I have lost hope and I know I'm not alone in this.”
She is not alone as 70% of Canadians are experiencing what she is experiencing. Working-class families cannot afford to put gas in their cars, food in their fridges or heat their homes. That is the reality. All Conservatives know this. For some reason, that side of the House, the people who are in charge of the country, fail to acknowledge it, fail to recognize it—
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Tories stood up. They might not like the question, though.
The member for Carleton talks about farmers in Kings—Hants, but he actually stands in their way. He will not allow Bill C-234 to come to the House to be voted on, so I call on the member for Carleton to do that to support farmers.
However, my question is for the minister from Nova Scotia. Can he tell the House, and indeed Nova Scotians, of the work we have done to adjust the federal backstop to support rural Canadians, including the programs we have put in place on affordability around home heating and heat pumps, contrary to those guys across the way?
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Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to be in the House. I am glad to see that my colleagues are starting to appreciate my work and that my name and my title in Nova Scotia are becoming known.
I am living rent free in the member for Carleton's head right now. He has been calling me out a lot, and I hope he will come back into the chamber to ask me questions in a format that I am able to respond to today. I would invite my Conservative colleagues to see if he is in the lobby. I had better be careful, I do not want to say who is present in the House, but I hope the hon. member for Carleton can join the debate and ask me questions in proper form.
This is the first time I have been able to rise in a debate format since the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney passed away. We had the opportunity to visit with his family today and to pay tribute to a great man, a great individual whose contributions to the country all Canadians will recognize. I would be remiss if I did not start my remarks today by recognizing Mr. Mulroney and his contributions to Canada. He served as a member of Parliament in Nova Scotia. In my riding, there is a great reverence for the work he did as a prime minister, as a Progressive Conservative. I have talked about this in the House. He and Kim Campbell were the last of that generation of true Progressive Conservative leadership in the prime minister's office. He did a great service.
I have a quick story. I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Mulroney at the Atlantic Economic Forum in Antigonish. He was so generous with my wife Kimberly. He thanked her for the work she does to allow me to be a member of Parliament. He said that Mila did the same when he was in office. There were obviously two vastly different standards, but I wanted to share that story.
Carbon pricing has consistently been something that the Conservative Party has raised every single opposition day. That is good because this is an important conversation about why the policy is in place and about how we can structure programs that make a difference to the environment but are also important for affordability. I would invite many of my opposition colleagues to reflect on what their own environmental plans are and to reflect on the fact that all of them who sit in this House ran on a platform in the last election, which included carbon pricing. I take note that is no longer the position of the Conservative Party, but I have no vision for what it stands for in relation to this really important fight that I think Canadians want parliamentarians and governments to take action on.
To provide context for Canadians, after listening to the leader of the official opposition, one would suggest that no other country or jurisdiction has any form of carbon pricing and that somehow this is some draconian measure the government has put in place that makes no sense. What would Conservatives say to the 77 other jurisdictions around the world that have a form of carbon pricing as part of their true environmental initiatives? In fact, carbon pricing is inherently a Conservative idea, the idea that we put into the market the ability for consumers and for innovation in the private sector to lead, not necessarily government. I really look forward to what the Conservative Party will present, if it does. I will be surprised if it does come, but it should come because Canadians deserve to have political parties in this place that take that issue seriously.
Today's opposition day motion talks about cutting the carbon tax altogether or pausing it, suggesting that it is a terrible scourge on the country. I do not take that view. I take the view that carbon pricing is a credible plan and a part of the discussion between affordability and environment. I think I bring some credibility to this debate because I have been critical of the government about the way in which the federal backstop worked.
As I listened to the member for Carleton ask his questions today, and the government took them because of the way the procedure works, I could not help but believe that I have done more than the member for Carleton has done in 20 years to move carbon pricing policy in this country. He talks a lot about it, but I was the one who helped lead the charge to make an adjustment for rural Canada, to have an exemption in place for home heating oil and to put in place a program that matters for affordability and for home heating.
I want to highlight, from where I sit in the chamber, that I see the Conservatives get up on heating oil, for example, and say that they want to axe the tax, which, of course, means axing the rebates that go back to Canadians. They want to axe the 17¢ a litre on home heating oil, and we know that home heating oil is the most expensive way in the country to heat homes. It has gone up by 70% over the last two years. In fact, people in the Maritimes who use heating oil to heat their homes are paying anywhere from four to five times that of those who have been able to make the transition to natural gas, including in places like Saskatchewan.
I see the member for Regina—Lewvan ready to jump in with a question, and I cannot wait for it. He needs to understand that the reason we exempted home heating oil was that we had already identified a million Canadian households that were extremely vulnerable all across this country, not just Atlantic Canada, but, of course, we were disproportionately impacted.
I am proud of the work we did to make adjustments, not just to give slogans but also to give solutions. The good people of Nova Scotia, and the member for South Shore—St. Margarets, the member for Cumberland—Colchester and the member for West Nova, who is a good guy, would have had 17¢ a litre off their home heating bill, no doubt. Now, they are getting 17¢ a litre off their home heating bill for the next three years, and they are getting a long-term solution to save thousands of dollars a year in home heating. This is exactly an action that deals with affordability and the environment at the same time. I invite Conservatives to understand that those two things have to go together in today's context. They suggest they are mutually exclusive. I do not think that is the case. I think there is a way we can construct programs that make a difference across the way.
Again, we have driven up rural rebates. It makes a difference. That is something I fought for as a member of a rural caucus on this side of the House. We provided actual solutions and initiatives that would adjust the policy without ruining a price mechanism that matters on the environmental fight. Of course, the money does go back to households. We have highlighted that.
If Conservatives do not like the federal backstop, do they like any form of carbon pricing? I invite one of my colleagues to get up and say that today. I understand they do not like the federal backstop, but do they like cap-and-trade in Quebec? Do they like the B.C. plan? That is where this conversation should go. Do Conservatives believe in any form of carbon pricing?
I hope a members on the other side will get up and ask a question about the legislature in Nova Scotia today. I would invite the 55 members of the Nova Scotia assembly to encourage the premier of the province, Tim Houston, to work in concert with Atlantic premiers, perhaps Doug Ford, the first minister in Saskatchewan Scott Moe and in Alberta, Danielle Smith. We could have a cap-and-trade system in this country. Imagine that. It could meet the federal standard. It does not have to be the federal backstop. Let us remember why it is here; some provincial premiers decided they did not want any form of price signal that makes a difference. However, I will be inviting the premiers from Atlantic Canada and the MLAs. I am happy to engage on the topic. It matters. All this government ever wanted was a credible price to be able to fight climate change and to help reduce emissions.
I would invite the member for Regina—Lewvan to go into the offices of Federated Co-operatives in Saskatchewan and to talk to its executive team about how the carbon price is helping to drive hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in his province. The executives would tell him that is what is helping to make a difference and what is driving innovation: the carbon price. It actually helps to justify it. If not the carbon price, is the member for Regina—Lewvan just going to pour taxpayer's dollars into helping to drive that? Is that going to be the only play, or is he going to use other types of free market principles to drive the innovation that needs to happen?
When we talk about technology, not taxes, how do Conservatives intend to incentivize the technology? I have yet to hear exactly how they are going to do that. Are they going to rely on the benevolent corporate sector? Conservatives and the leader of the official opposition suggest that corporate lobbyists are useless and that the corporate sector is terrible in this country. How are they going to incentivize them to drive the change we need on climate change? I invite them to start answering those types of questions.
I take notice that Conservatives do not like the federal backstop. I take notice that this opposition day motion does not mention at all the fact that money is going back to households in Nova Scotia and indeed across the country. Let us have an informed debate.
Again, I invite the member, who will be recognized in about 30 seconds, to start his answer by saying that he either believes or does not believe in carbon pricing. If Conservatives do not believe in the federal backstop, which is very clear, that is fine, but do they believe in any form of carbon pricing? Canadians need to know that answer because, at the end of the day, there is a way to be able to do this without the federal backstop, but we need provincial premiers to play a part in the solution as well. That is what I think is important. That is what is missing from today's opposition day motion.
I look forward to the questions, and I see the members lining up.
With 10 seconds left, just quickly on Bill C-234, will the Tories bring it to a vote? My farmers need help. They are sitting on it. They put up six speakers. We need to be able to bring that to a vote.
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