44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 19, 2024 10:00AM
- Mar/19/24 10:28:39 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative motion today is very short, clear and concise. They are relying on numbers, and I imagine that the Conservative Party is very thorough and does not pull numbers out of a hat. They claim that 70% of Canadians oppose the 23% tax hike that will take effect on April 1. However, if we look at the survey, we see that those numbers apply to the government's decision to exempt heating oil from the carbon pricing legislation, not to the legislation itself.
Did the Conservative Party forget to specify that in its motion?
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- Mar/19/24 11:38:45 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member who just spoke. I dream of having that kind of presence and the skill to deliver that kind of speech.
What I want to do is present the facts that were recently reported by Radio-Canada about the whole carbon tax issue. I think it is extremely relevant to today's debate.
As my colleague said, today's fairly concise Conservative Party motion is based on the results of a survey of Canadians. The motion reads as follows:
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.
The Conservative Party claims that 70% of Canadians are against this carbon tax hike, so I took a look at the survey to see if that is actually true. I discovered that the poll was about the government's measure to exempt home heating oil from the carbon pricing act, not about the existence of the act itself.
The Conservative Party therefore chose to put their spin on the numbers, perhaps because “Axe the tax” makes a good slogan. However, it is not really true that 70% of Canadians are against the 23% increase that will take effect on April 1, because this increase will be gradual. It is true that, at some point, the carbon tax will reach a certain amount, but these amounts will be spread over several years, until 2030. What they are claiming here is a bit of a stretch. As my colleague who spoke before me was saying, this is one of the reasons why the Bloc Québécois is against the Conservatives’ motion.
I looked for other figures. It is funny, because I found the same numbers, that is, 70% and 23%, but they refer to something completely different. I found out that 70% of the global GDP has a carbon price. More than 48 countries around the globe have a carbon tax or a cap and trade system. It is now standard in most industrialized countries to put a price on pollution, and that is what Canada did a few years ago.
The 23% is simple enough. According to the same study, 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions are covered by a price on pollution. I thought it was funny to find these same numbers but then realizing they mean different things. Obviously, I did not pull these figures out of a hat; they were published by France’s ministry of energy transition. It is interesting to see what other countries are doing instead of complaining of what we have at home.
The Conservative motion asks that “the House call on the NDP-Liberal coalition to immediately cancel this hike.” That is interesting because it is the first time the coalition is being called “la coalition entre les libéraux et les néo-démocrates” in French. Normally, the Conservatives use different formulations when they talk about the coalition. In English, they say that it is the NDP-Liberal coalition, or a coalition between the Liberals and the NDP, but when they are talking to Quebeckers in French, they say that it is a coalition between the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals. Unfortunately for them, the motion does not include this nuance. It mentions only a coalition between the Liberals and the NDP.
Let us get back to the famous carbon tax hike. It will indeed reach $170 by 2030. For now, it is set at $65 per tonne. Unlike what the Conservative Party would have us believe, it is not the Bloc Québécois that says we must increase the price on carbon pollution to help Canada achieve its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. It is the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or PBO. The Office of the PBO is a well-respected institution. I think that the Conservative Party should believe the figures published by the PBO. Not so very long ago, he said that, to achieve the Paris Agreement targets by 2030, we would have to increase the price on carbon to $239 per tonne. The carbon tax is a tool Canada uses to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and this tool should benefit people who are a bit more economically conservative. It is therefore a little hard to understand why the Conservatives are so against the price on pollution.
Radio-Canada’s Fannie Olivier published an analysis a few days ago entitled “À quoi ressemblerait un Canada sans prix sur le carbone?” or what would Canada be like without carbon pricing?
The Conservative Party is threatening to axe the tax as soon as it comes to power.
Let us go back to 2016 when the Prime Minister took advantage of a debate on the ratification of the Paris Agreement to announce a price on carbon. He told the provinces that they would have to comply. He gave them two years to do so. Then, he would start imposing a tax of $10 per tonne that would gradually increase. Obviously, a few provincial environment ministers did not take that very well. In Quebec, we were not concerned, because we already had a cap and trade system in place with California that has been working perfectly well since 2013. Therefore, this carbon pricing has no impact in Quebec. My colleague explained that. The carbon tax does not apply to Quebec, despite what some may think, because, unfortunately, people have been spreading misinformation. Some provinces even challenged the tax before the Supreme Court, but they were unsuccessful. There is a real power struggle with the provinces.
It must be said that the Liberal government, as I mentioned earlier, has not done a very good job of explaining this environmental measure. It recently created a loophole in its own legislation by introducing a three-year exemption for heating oil with the aim of quelling discontent in the Atlantic provinces. That did nothing to help its popularity ratings, unfortunately.
What would happen if we woke up tomorrow and there was no longer a carbon tax in Canada? Sébastien Jodoin, a professor in the faculty of law at McGill University, says that there would be significant consequences, starting with the hit on the pockets of many Canadians. That is interesting. Conservatives often tell us that people have no money, that they are poor, that the carbon tax is making those who are poor even poorer. However, we know that 80% of Canadians who pay the tax receive a refund from the federal government that exceeds what they pay. Should carbon pricing be abolished, they would have less money in their pockets. I find that interesting.
Pierre-Olivier Pineau, Chair in Energy Sector Management at HEC Montréal, says that “the great irony is that the majority of Canadians in provinces that pay the federal tax, earn money from it. Abolishing it would impoverish Canadians.” That is interesting. Unfortunately that is not a speech we hear often from the Conservative Party. Obviously, removing it would also have an impact on greenhouse gases. The government is trying to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions with this measure. Getting rid of it would have consequences in the short, medium and long terms.
The carbon tax currently being used by the Government of Canada seeks to reduce one-third of the emissions in the country by 2030. It must be said that the way things are going, we are nowhere close to meeting our greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030. I would even go so far as to say that we need other measures, starting with the money that is given to the oil and gas companies. These companies make billions of dollars in profits every year and the government keeps taking taxpayer money and giving it to those people. I think we could take that money and help people cope with the cost of living. We could invest in green energy, such as wind, solar and hydroelectricity in Quebec. We need investment in these economic sectors that are good for the planet. We need to find other ways. If the Conservative Party wants to abolish carbon pricing, then it needs to come up with other, meaningful ways to fight climate change.
I want to come back to the fact that 23% of global emissions are now covered by a carbon pricing or emissions trading system. That statistic is also from the World Bank. In her article, Fannie Olivier said that the number of countries that have such a tax has significantly increased in recent years. We are talking about nearly fifty countries or states that have made the leap. Take, for example, Vietnam, or even Turkey. Doing away with the tax on carbon would really go against what is being done internationally.
I still have a lot more I would like to say, but I see that my time is up, so I will stop there.
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- Mar/19/24 12:52:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question. For a moment, let us pretend that he is in front of a jury and has to tell the whole truth.
If we were to abolish the carbon tax or oppose the increase, does that mean that tomorrow morning, no one would need to use food banks, rents would drop drastically, the world would be a better place, the cost of groceries would go down and we would be contributing to climate change?
Is this really what my colleague wants Quebeckers and Canadians to believe?
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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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- Mar/19/24 2:32:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member is actually suggesting is false. We have real-world data to demonstrate that in provinces where the system actually applies, families receive hundreds of dollars more each year than they pay in fuel charges.
The Conservatives pretend to care about affordability, yet they oppose measures to put more money in the pockets of families. They pretend to care about affordability, but they oppose measures that protect seniors' pensions. They pretend to care about affordability, but they vote against measures to remove the interest on Canada student loans.
We will do everything we can to make life more affordable, including putting more money in the pockets of families while we fight climate change at the same time.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the common-sense Canadians in the reasonable riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke to reveal what this private member's bill is really about. I oppose Bill C-293 because it seeks to cover up the repeated failures by the government during the pandemic. I do not believe it is the intention of the member for Beaches—East York to cover up his party’s gross incompetence, but if passed, that would be the effect of this bill.
As more Canadians are forced to attend political re-education camps, they are only learning that intention does not matter, only effect. Similarly, I do not think it was the intention of the member to perpetuate harmful racist stereotypes about people who live in China, but this bill does have that effect. Thankfully, I have not been forced to attend a Marxist re-education program yet. That is why I still believe the intention does matter a great deal.
It is clear the intention of the member for Beaches—East York was to have the federal government undergo a critical examination of how it managed the pandemic, then use that knowledge to inform the next pandemic plan. We have all heard the calls for an independent public inquiry or a royal commission into the handling of the pandemic, but this does not do that.
Instead, this bill would have the Minister of Health appoint a committee of gender-balanced advisors. These hand-picked Liberal advisors would review not just the federal government’s actions, but also the actions of provincial and municipal governments. Barging into provincial jurisdiction seems to be a favourite pastime of the NDP-Liberal coalition. It also has the added bonus effect of diluting any possible criticisms that could come from a report prepared by people selected by the health minister.
That the member for Beaches—East York felt the need to bring forward this bill is a scathing rebuke of the NDP-Liberal government. Despite repeated assurances during the pandemic that the government would conduct an independent review, the Liberal member had so little confidence in his own government that he had to try to pass a law to get them to act responsibly.
At the same time, the Liberal cabinet had so little confidence in its caucus that even while this bill was before committee last October, the health minister was conducting a secret review. When journalist Paul Wells asked the government in November if there was a secret pandemic review, the government stonewalled him. If not for the Order Paper question put forth by the member for Yorkton—Melville, it is likely this secret pandemic review would never have come to light.
Fortunately, Canadians do not have to wait for the Liberals to release results of their secret pandemic review. The United States National Institutes of Health conducted a review of Canada’s pandemic response. Here is what it wrote:
In comparison with its southern neighbors in the Americas, namely the United States and Mexico, the Canadian experience appears to have been a relative success. However, comparisons with exemplars during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, highlight shortcomings in Canada's pandemic preparedness and responses.
The British Medical Journal conducted a review in 2023. Here is what it found:
Experts found that lessons from the 2003’s SARS-CoV-1 outbreak had not been heeded and Canada’s governments and health authorities were ill-prepared for Covid-19, with fragmented health leadership hindering a coordinated response.
That quote from the journal of medicine really underscores a major problem with this bill. The 2003 SARS outbreak was supposed to be the wake-up call. It was the catalyst for creating the Public Health Agency of Canada. There was a pandemic plan in place, just as this bill calls for. There was an international pandemic surveillance unit, just as this bill calls for, except the Liberals gutted the surveillance unit to focus on flavoured vaping.
They ignored the existing pandemic plan and decades of emergency management practices, which brings us to this legislation. If all this bill was proposing was to have the health minister appoint some advisors and draw up a plan, it would already be moot. The minister already has the authority to appoint advisors and has already done so in secret. The government already has the authority to draw up a pandemic preparedness plan. If the government already has all the powers it needs, what is this bill really about?
Earlier I mentioned that this bill reinforces harmful racist stereotypes. With its focus on regulating agriculture and putting limits on land use to prevent urbanization, it reinforces the racist “wet market” theory. Despite the fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting research on coronavirus carried by bats, which scientists had collected and brought back to Wuhan, many still believe the virus crossed multiple species at a live animal market.
For too many, it was easier to believe that people who reside in China live, work and shop for food in unsanitary conditions. These outdated stereotypes risk blinding us to the growing threat of bioterror and biowarfare.
For all of human history, the viruses which sought to kill us have been the kind which cross species, but we do not live in that world anymore. We live in a world of low-cost gene editing. The rapid development of mRNA shots illustrates just how powerful biotechnology has become, yet the bill is entirely silent on the most likely source of the next deadly pandemic. Instead, the bill seeks to use pandemic preparation as a pretext to advance the progressive ideological agenda, a communist manifesto.
The bill calls for new regulations on farming. It would grant the minister the power to shut down any type of animal farming deemed high risk. Say good-bye to the chicken and pork industries in Canada.
Before my Liberal colleagues begin screaming disinformation, I would encourage them to compare what subparagraph 4(2)(l)(ii) says versus subparagraph 4(2)(l)(iv). Subparagraph (ii) calls for the regulation of commercial activities, including industrial animal farming. Subparagraph (iv) says that any farming involving “high-risk species” is to be phased out. Nowhere does the bill define what a high-risk species is, but a reasonable person could assume that any species that has previously been the source of a deadly virus would be a high risk. There is a big difference between regulating risk and phasing out risk.
If the member were truly concerned about the pandemic risk of productive farming practices, he could have brought together farmers and scientists to come up with legislation to reduce risk. However, that is not the goal of the Liberal vegan base. They want to phase out livestock farming altogether. Using people's fears of another pandemic to push that agenda is diabolical. However, that is the difference between a Conservative vegan and a Liberal one. The Conservative vegans just want affordable fruits and vegetables for themselves, while the Liberal ones seek to impose their vegetables on everybody else.
For the record, not all far-left radical socialists are vegan. That is why the bill also calls for measures to promote “alternative proteins”.
Alternative protein is just a far-left dog whistle that means crickets. What is it with the far-left and their desire to have us all eat bugs? First they claimed we would have to eat bugs because of overpopulation. When that did not pan out, they seized on climate change and claimed that crickets produce fewer greenhouse gases per pound of protein, all the while portraying cows as climate criminals. Now, they are using the threat of future pandemics to phase out pork and poultry, while pushing their favourite alternative protein. Canadians are not biting; they see through this pretense.
What Canadians do not see is any real accountability from this government for the decisions taken during the pandemic.
With the member for Beaches—East York's reputation for independence within one of the most servile Liberal caucuses I have ever seen, it is easy to imagine the bill may have started out seeking real accountability. Unfortunately, the only contribution to pandemic preparedness the publication of the bill achieves is to increase the nation's supply of tissue paper. It would give powers to the health minister that the health minister already has. It seeks an advisory committee the minister has already appointed in secret. It reinforces the racist stereotypes of people living in China. It is a power grab for opponents of modern farming. It remains completely silent on the increasing risk that the next pandemic could originate in a laboratory.
At best, the bill is ineffectual. At worst, it opens an avenue for more regulation of land use and seeks to phase out modern farming. It may have been the intention of the member to use the bill to prepare Canada for the next pandemic, but the effect of the bill is to advance a far-left agenda while blinding us to the growing threat of bioterror. The bill is not worth the cost to Canadians.
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