44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 19, 2024 10:00AM
- Mar/19/24 12:03:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to the greener homes program, which is a Liberal government program. When the member talks about heat pumps, again, it is a Liberal government program. There are many things such as the electrification of vehicles. The incentives that are provided by this government are extensive. However, that is not necessarily what my question is about.
The Conservatives will say that the residents of Winnipeg North will not benefit from the carbon rebate, when 80% of people will get more money back than they pay. They are saying that they are going to axe the tax in British Columbia, but there is no carbon tax. I am wondering if she could address the issue of misinformation.
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- Mar/19/24 12:04:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to quickly start with heat pumps, because that is what the member also started with. The greener homes program was riddled with problems. So many middle-income Canadians could not navigate the system and could not afford to pay the money up front. Low-income Canadians were excluded altogether. That is why New Democrats forced the government, through our supply and confidence agreement, to include a commitment to provide energy efficiency to low-income Canadians. We are going to keep pushing the government. It is unfortunate that it cancelled that program and has not provided a plan to replace it, a meaningful plan to help low-income and middle-income Canadians heat their homes efficiently.
On disinformation, it has been beyond disheartening and atrocious to see Conservatives tour around Canada, not only making up facts or maybe generously telling fiction to Canadians about how carbon pricing works, but also going to my home province of British Columbia and pretending that there is a federal carbon tax there. We just heard similarly from my Bloc colleagues. I am sure the Leader of the Opposition is in Quebec saying that he will axe the tax. It is a disservice to our democracy and Canadians. Canadians deserve better.
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- Mar/19/24 12:06:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. colleague realizes that coal consumption worldwide hit record usage last year. In 2024-25 we are going to hit another record.
I will quote Premier Furey, the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, who said, “The issue for this particular tax is there are limited options to change right now in Newfoundland and Labrador....In the absence of the ability to change, what does the tax really accomplish?” It accomplishes nothing.
What would accomplish something would be to cut the red tape and shorten the approval process for building mines to mine things like lithium, nickel, copper and whatnot, the rare earth metals needed for the green transition. The approval time to build a new mine to mine these precious metals required for the transition is 18 years. In the U.S. it is 40% less and in Australia it is 25% less.
I would like to know what the NDP-Liberal costly coalition's plan is to reduce approval times to mine green metals.
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- Mar/19/24 12:07:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a perfect example of a Conservative climate plan.
Yesterday, I heard Conservatives and Liberals arguing back and forth about who built more pipelines and who could get pipelines approved more quickly. This is not a future for Canada. Once again, we see the Conservatives denying that the climate crisis is real and failing to tackle and meet this moment, while Canadians are worried about not only their future but their present reality.
The member mentioned coal. Thermal coal exports tripled since the current government came into power. Imagine a government committing to phase out thermal coal and end thermal coal exports, but instead it triples them. It does not tell Canadians that it has done this. It waits for a New Democrat to find out that information and make it public. That is why I have tabled a motion in the House to ban thermal coal exports.
We need to tackle the climate crisis like we want to win.
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- Mar/19/24 12:08:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party and its representatives in the House can be criticized for many things, and I point that out whenever I can, but I want to start by saying that one thing we cannot fault them for is their lack of determination. There is a definite consistency in their obsession with the price on pollution or the carbon tax. One thing is for sure: They are not giving up. They keep coming back to us with this fantasy of doing nothing to fight climate change, this climate crisis affecting the entire planet.
Every day, every week, we hear that the situation is worse than what the experts thought, worse than what the experts at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, have been telling us for years. Let us look at some very recent and quite harrowing examples.
Let us start with the price on pollution or the carbon tax, which has been in place in some provinces for a few years now. I would remind the House that this does not apply in Quebec, despite what my Conservative colleagues from Quebec are saying, which is that a trucker who fills up in Ontario could feel the effects. It is minimal. It is almost insignificant. Quebec has had a carbon exchange for years now, which is a slightly different tool from a price on pollution or a carbon tax.
What the Conservatives never say and what the Liberals have such a hard time explaining is that there is a financial compensation program for middle-class families as well as for the poorest workers in the provinces where this carbon tax applies.
According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is a leading authority on Parliament Hill, 80% of Canadian households in provinces where this applies get more back than they pay in carbon taxes, a legitimate price indicator tool to change behaviours.
It also seems really strange to me that the Conservatives have spent years refusing to apply a market rule that could change the behaviour of individuals and big corporations or maybe both.
The people in greatest need, those struggling to pay rent or buy groceries, will receive financial compensation. The Parliamentary Budget Officer tells us that 80% of Canadian households will receive more money back than they pay out. The Conservatives say nothing about that and the Liberals, for whatever reason, are incapable of explaining it. The political communication has been terrible.
According to Statistics Canada's models, 94% of households with an annual income below $50,000 will get back more in rebates or compensation than they pay out in carbon taxes applied to their daily or weekly purchases. Obviously, we will never hear that from a Conservative, and that is a real shame. Facts are facts, and I think our debates in the House should be grounded in facts.
The Conservative Party is moving its 29th motion on the carbon tax in a very specific context. We keep hearing in the news that the planet is headed for a dead end. We are being told that we are moving in the wrong direction. This has consequences. The Conservatives have no climate plan, and that is disturbing. Their inaction is troubling. They appear to be wilfully turning a blind eye.
I would now like to read some excerpts from an Agence France-Presse article published in La Presse this morning that reveals some very worrisome information. I will start with this:
Records broken for ocean heat, sea level rise and glacier retreat...2023 capped off the warmest 10-year period on record, with the UN warning on Tuesday that the planet is “on the brink”.
The Tuesday referred to in the article is today. The study came out this morning.
A new report from the World Meteorological Organization or WMO, a UN agency, shows that records were once again broken, and in some cases smashed, for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat.
That is pretty much the perfect storm for making things worse. Even with our targets for reducing greenhouse gases to prevent natural disasters, to prevent people from suffocating, to prevent people from dying from pollution, things are likely only going to get worse.
The article goes on to say the following, and I quote:
The planet is “on the brink” while “fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned.
“There is still time to throw out a lifeline to people and the planet” but, according to him, we need to act “now”.
The report confirms that 2023 was the hottest year on record, with an average surface temperature of 1.45°C above pre-industrial levels.
The objective of the Paris Agreement was to limit the global warming increase to 1.5°C compared with the temperature in 1830 or 1850. In 2023, the increase reached 1.45°C. There is no doubt about it, we are going to hit the 1.5°C limit. Perhaps we will manage to keep it to a maximum increase of 2°C, but at that rate, not only are we not making any gains, we are going backwards, and backwards faster than we thought.
“Every fraction of a degree of global heating impacts the future of life on Earth”, warned the head of the United Nations.
“The climate crisis is THE defining challenge that humanity faces and is closely intertwined with the inequality crisis—as witnessed by growing food insecurity and population displacement, and biodiversity loss”, said the WMO secretary general....
As I said earlier, 2023 marks the end of the hottest decade on record since 1850. The situation is catastrophic.
On an average day in 2023, nearly one third of the global ocean was gripped by a marine heatwave.... Towards the end of 2023, over 90% of the ocean had experienced heatwave conditions at some point during the year.
In 2023, global mean sea level reached a record high...reflecting continued ocean warming (thermal expansion) as well as the melting of glaciers and ice sheets.
Sea levels are rising because the glaciers are melting. In particular, a big chunk of Antarctica is breaking off. If it melts, average sea levels will rise by several metres, so if we are being honest, for Bangladesh, this is going to pose a few problems. For the city of London, it is going to pose a few problems. For New York City, it is going to pose a few problems. What the Conservative Party is proposing is to carry on, to forge ahead. According to this party, everything is going to be fine, we are going to find a technological magic wand and we are going to capture all the carbon with a big vacuum cleaner that is going to go everywhere. That is not how it works. The technology is unproven.
I could talk about last year's wildfires. There was smoke everywhere, in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, over Montreal. Things will be worse this summer. Not enough rain fell and we did not get enough snow this winter. We will experience more drought and have more wildfires this summer. It is happening around the world.
I am going to quote from an RTL info article posted a few days ago about the situation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It says:
Rio de Janeiro residents are looking for “open spaces” and shade in a park as a new heatwave descends upon Brazil, with record high temperatures.
That was the situation this past Sunday in Rio de Janeiro.
The heatwave that Latin America has been experiencing since the beginning of the year brought the perceived temperature up to a record 62.3°C in Brazil this weekend....
That is not livable. Obviously, people are at risk of getting sick. They are at risk of dying. All of the health care professionals who are concerned about the climate crisis and the environment are saying that this is a matter of human lives. It is also an economic matter. Some insurance companies are refusing to cover apartments and houses that are too close to the water. Drought, flooding and forest fires are happening and will only get worse. Quebeckers and Canadians are the ones who will pay the price given the impact on their lives and their bodies. Unfortunately, the Conservative Party is not presenting any solutions.
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- Mar/19/24 12:18:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I salute my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and thank him for his speech.
I will have the opportunity later to say more about what we have been proposing for years now on climate change, because, yes, we recognize that climate change is real and that we need to do something about it. After eight years of the Liberal government, however, the results are not there.
What does my colleague think about the action of his neighbour, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change? After eight years of the Liberal government, the UN ranked Canada 62nd out of 67 in terms of effectiveness against climate change.
Is he aware that the Liberal carbon tax has put Canada in 62nd place, that Canada has never managed to meet its targets in eight years and that we are a long way from the ambitious targets of the Paris Agreement, while this government and his Liberal neighbour, the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, have done absolutely nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
What does he think of his neighbour?
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- Mar/19/24 12:19:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when I said that the Conservative Party is not very good at fighting climate change, I was not suggesting that the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie is doing a fantastic job on this front. I have to agree with my colleague: Over the past eight years, the Liberal government has failed in the fight against climate change. Even the former Liberal environment minister, Catherine McKenna, is very critical of the government.
I would like to remind the House, as my colleague from Victoria did earlier, that, in his mandate letter, the current Minister of the Environment was told to ban thermal coal exports. However, coal exports have tripled under this Liberal government, even though it presents itself as a climate action champion. The Liberals have been totally hypocritical.
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- Mar/19/24 12:20:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I asked the member's colleague from British Columbia a question, and I will be more focused on the question itself in regard to how the leader of the Conservative Party is touring the country and literally spreading information that is questionable and that many would say is intentionally misleading. Examples of that include the province of British Columbia, where the carbon tax does not apply, and the member's home province, where the carbon tax does not apply. To people like my constituents in the province of Manitoba, he is saying there is no net benefit, in terms of dollar value, from the carbon rebate versus the carbon tax, when over 80% do receive more than they actually pay.
I am wondering whether the member could provide his thoughts in regard to the ongoing spreading of misinformation by the official opposition.
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- 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 12:22:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoyed the speech by my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie, who always delivers passionate speeches on the fight against climate change. I agree with him.
The only thing is that the NDP is hard to follow. In the last two budgets, the government, whose record he just panned, brought in six tax credits worth a total of $83 billion by 2035. The NDP is getting all worked up over climate change and the fact that the Liberals are not doing enough about it, but it voted in favour of those budgets.
How does my colleague reconcile these two things?
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- Mar/19/24 12:23:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the NDP has not shied away from criticizing those measures, which are actually hidden subsidies to oil and gas companies. My colleague from Timmins—James Bay is introducing an important bill on behalf of our party to ban oil and gas advertising, similar to how we banned tobacco advertising.
At the same time, we have forced the Liberals to do things they had never done before that are going to help average Canadians. For example, people who make less than $70,000 a year will have access to a dentist.
I have given 15 presentations in seniors' residences in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. People are extremely pleased with our efforts because we are delivering concrete results that will change people's lives and change the face of the world, no pun intended.
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- Mar/19/24 12:23:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, while the common-sense Conservatives focus on their Conservative priorities, which are to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost after eight years.
After eight years of this Prime Minister, everything costs more. Two million Canadians now line up at food banks. A few days ago, Montreal police were forced to intervene when chaos broke out at a food bank that did not have enough food to feed all the hungry people. I would point out that these people are going hungry while living in Canada.
After eight years of tax hikes and inflationary deficits, people can no longer pay their rent. The cost of housing has doubled. In the Prime Minister's hometown of Montreal, the cost of housing has tripled because of his inflationary policies, even as he has spent $89 billion on housing. After eight years of this Prime Minister, we are experiencing a crisis of crime, auto theft, extortion and violence caused by repeat offenders.
After eight years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He only wants to raise taxes on Quebeckers and other Canadians, and I would like to point out that he is doing that with the Bloc Québécois's support. The Bloc Québécois wants to drastically increase the tax on gas and diesel for Quebeckers in the regions. With the Bloc Québécois's support, the Prime Minister wants to destroy certain natural resource industries.
On May 1, a decree will be issued to shut down the forestry sector for reasons that make no sense. This decree infringes on Quebec's jurisdiction. That is why the common-sense Conservative Party supports the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent's bill that would scrap the duplicate approval process for natural resource projects. We want Quebec to have the power to decide how it will protect the environment and jobs. We trust Quebeckers, while the Prime Minister and the centralizing Bloc Québécois are trying to concentrate all the power in Ottawa by destroying jobs in the Saguenay region and elsewhere in Quebec. We are the only party with common sense.
When we say that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, it is because he claims that the tax hike is intended to protect the environment. A headline in today's Journal de Montréal reads, “For the first time, Canada is the most polluted country in North America”. This comes on the heels of the news that Canada ranks 62nd out of 67 countries on fighting climate change.
All these taxes, all the attacks on our natural resources, have done nothing to improve the environment. All they have done is make life harder for Canadians and Quebeckers. Fortunately, the Conservative Party has a common‑sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. That is common sense. That is what we are going to offer.
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- Mar/19/24 12:28:28 p.m.
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By the way, I will be splitting my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, so it is not just the rest of my speech that you will have a chance to enjoy, Madam Speaker, but also his incredible oration. It will be a real treat to hear from him.
After eight years, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He is not worth the cost of food, which has had the worst inflation in over four decades, with two million people, a record-smashing number, lining up at food banks across the country. Chaos broke out the other day at the food bank in Montreal, where the police were forced to intervene, as the food had run out and many stomachs were still hungry waiting in line. A third of charities are turning Canadians away because they no longer have the resources to feed them after eight years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister.
After eight years, we now have a Facebook group called the “Dumpster Diving Network”, where 8,000 Canadians share tips on how they can climb into a garbage can and pull out food to feed themselves because they cannot afford groceries. There is nothing left on the shelves at the local food bank; therefore, people have to go digging in garbage. This is the dumpster economy that the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister has given us after eight years. He is not worth the cost of food.
He is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled after eight years of funding local bureaucratic gatekeepers who block homebuilding and printing cash, which inflates housing prices.
After eight years, he is not worth the cost of taxes. He punishes work. People make it and he takes it. He punishes the people who get out of bed in the morning and work hard by taking the cash off of their paycheques, paycheques that have less purchasing power because after eight years of doubling the debt and printing $600 billion of new cash, he has caused the worst inflation in four decades. That has spiked interest rates, which now force many Canadians to sell their homes or face bankruptcy, which is rocketing higher. In fact, the pace of increase in bankruptcies is vertical. If we look at the graphs, it is straight up, as more and more businesses are declaring bankruptcy because the Prime Minister's inflationary spending has sent interest rates on their debts skyrocketing.
It is in this miserable environment that the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister proposes yet another cruel tax hike. He plans to do it on April Fool's Day. It is an April Fool's Day tax hike. Just like him, this tax is not worth the cost.
Let us go through the facts.
There has been a lot of disinformation spread by the NDP-Liberals and their friends in the bought-and-paid-for media about the economics of the carbon tax, claiming that people are better off by paying the tax. Here are the facts from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Albertans, this coming year, will pay, on average, $2,943 per family while they get only $2,032 back in rebates. That is a $911 net cost. In other words, they pay about 50% more than they get back. In Saskatchewan, the average family will pay $2,618 this coming year and get only $2,093 back, a net cost of $525. In Manitoba, they will pay $1,750 and get back only $1,250, for a net cost of $500.
In Ontario, the average family will pay $1,674 and only get back $1,047, a net cost of $627. In Nova Scotia, they will pay $1,500 and get back $963, for a net cost of over $500. In Prince Edward Island, it will pay $1,605 and get back only $1,055, for a net cost of $550. In Newfoundland, it will pay $1,874 and get back only $1,497, for a net cost of $377.
I dare the Liberal media that have been pushing this disinformation to contact the Parliamentary Budget Officer, run all those numbers by him and ask him if I have it right. We already did, and he confirmed that we do.
Why does this matter? It is because we have to stop the disinformation, the disinformation that has not only polluted the debate but sent countless people to food banks as they cannot afford to pay their bills, the disinformation that will grow in importance as the Prime Minister quadruples the carbon tax. The gap between the cost of the tax and the rebate people get back grows massively, forcing more people to live in these awful tent cities and lose their homes, forcing seniors to choose between eating and heating as they shiver, hungry, in the cold, in their modest homes.
That disinformation is dangerous. It must be corrected because the truth is that the carbon tax is just like the Prime Minister. It is not worth the cost.
Only common-sense Conservatives will spike the hike on April 1. After the carbon tax election, we will axe the tax. Let us bring it home.
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- Mar/19/24 12:34:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the leader of the Conservative Party could explain. When he talks about the spreading of disinformation, I would ultimately argue that he is the king of doing just that through social media.
Why does the leader of the Conservative Party instruct his members not to participate in political panels? I was on CTV yesterday and there were no Conservatives around. I was on other CBC panels and there were no Conservatives around. It is an avenue through which Canadians can find out what it is the Conservatives are saying. However, when it comes time for it, the Conservatives are nowhere to be found because they know that there is more accountability when they are on those political panels.
Why does the Conservative leader support the absence of Conservative members on panels and public meetings?
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- Mar/19/24 12:35:24 p.m.
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I want to remind members that they provided the leader of the official opposition with their attention and they did not interrupt him. I would ask them to do the same when someone else has the floor. I think that this is the respect they can give them.
I also know that the leader of the official opposition is very able to answer questions and comments and does not need any assistance.
The hon. leader of the official opposition.
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- Mar/19/24 12:35:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one can tell that Liberals are losing the carbon tax debate when they say that we all have to spend more time talking to the state-controlled media that covers for him. We know that one of the reasons why the Liberals helped Bell raise the cost of cellphone and other services is that Bell owns CTV, which reciprocates with wonderful Liberal propaganda.
Our focus will be talking to real people, folks who are struggling to pay their bills after eight years of the Prime Minister, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, doubling housing costs and now quadrupling the carbon tax. Real Canadians know the cost. The Liberal media can do anything it wants to try to cover up the fact that this is a tax grab and it is a scam. We will go around the state-controlled media, directly to the Canadian people, and we will share our message that we will spike the hike and axe the tax.
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- Mar/19/24 12:36:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today, the leader of the official opposition brings up the idea that he is interested in Canadians and he is interested in making life more affordable for Canadians, but we know that he voted against a national school program. We know he voted against our motion to take GST off of home heating. He voted against dental care. He voted against child care. Even yesterday, shockingly, he voted against getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians who are starving to death.
He does not care about Canadians. He does not care about people around the world. He has already said he would cut foreign aid. He has already said that he would cut all of these programs that make life more affordable for people. He is a one-trick pony with nothing to offer Canadians and Canadians know that.
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- Mar/19/24 12:37:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is another nasty partisan attack from the desperate NDP. She is an Alberta NDP member who is being abandoned by her own provincial party. The NDP in Alberta is so ashamed and embarrassed of her that it is breaking ties with the federal NDP. In fact, the provincial NDP in Alberta knows that her party sold out Albertans to sign on with the most anti-Alberta Prime Minister in 40 years.
She is now voting to bring in a $2,943 carbon tax on her own constituents. Every family in her riding will pay almost $3,000 in carbon taxes because she voted with the Liberal Prime Minister, against her constituents, to hike the tax.
Only common-sense Conservatives stand for Albertans, to spike the hike and axe the tax.
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- Mar/19/24 12:39:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been looking back in Hansard. In the last few years, 36 members of the Liberals, which is actually 37 because one member added it today, stated that the carbon tax was revenue neutral. Who says it is not? Public accounts actually said, last year, that $670 million of the carbon tax was used for government programming.
Does that sound like the carbon tax is revenue neutral as the Liberals are claiming?
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- Mar/19/24 12:39:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, no, it sounds like the government wins and the taxpayers lose. It takes in more money in direct tax revenues from the carbon tax than it pays back out in rebates. Worse than that, according to the PBO, the carbon tax destroys so much economic activity that it leaves people worse off than the direct carbon tax that they paid, and that is why, when we combine the economic and the fiscal cost to the average family, Canadians are losers.
However, the good news is that when common-sense Conservatives spike the hike and axe the tax, Canadians will be winners again.
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