44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 21, 2024 10:00AM
- Mar/21/24 10:08:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present today.
One is on behalf of members of the Queen's University community and residents of Kingston and the Islands, who are calling upon the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to prioritize funding for a national school food program through budget 2024 for implementation of schools by the fall of 2024. They indicate that Canada is the only G7 country without a national school food program and highlight the importance of having one.
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- Mar/21/24 10:09:30 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition that I have comes from Canadians who are concerned about the environmental panel on climate change's report, which has warned us repeatedly that rising temperatures over the next two decades will bring widespread devastation and extreme weather. The residents of Kingston and the Islands who signed this petition call upon the Government of Canada to move forward immediately with bold emissions caps for the oil and gas sector that are comprehensive in scope and realistic in achieving the targets Canada has set to achieve by 2030.
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- Mar/21/24 10:10:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the final petition I have today, actually, the majority of signatories are from a riding to the north of mine, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston. These are farmers, beef farmers in particular, who are concerned about the fact that the abattoir at Joyceville federal institution has been closed for almost two years now. These beef farmers have indicated that they have been waiting six to nine months and, in many cases, up to a year to have their cattle processed at provincial facilities. The abattoir located at Joyceville Institution is on Highway 15 in Ontario. As I indicated, it closed in September 2022.
The petitioners have indicated the negative impacts that the closure has had, both economically and to businesses and restaurants that rely on their products. Therefore, they are calling on the Government of Canada to explore all options to ensure that the abattoir located at Joyceville Institution is reopened to address the issues noted.
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- Mar/21/24 10:26:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I noticed that the Leader of the Opposition was bringing up headlines from The Globe and Mail, so I would like to bring up another headline that was in The Globe and Mail today. It states that the Leader of the Opposition's campaign manager “established second lobbying firm, working with the same office. The article goes on to say, “Clients who booked meetings on [this new company's] website were redirected to the booking system [of] Jenni Byrne + Associates. That function was removed, as was Ms. Byrne's headshot...[from] the website, after The Globe's inquiries about the connection [of] the two firms.”
Now that we see that the Leader of the Opposition's campaign manager has tried to hide behind a second company in order to continue her lobbying practices, when will the Leader of the Opposition tell his campaign manager to stop lobbying and to start actually working for him?
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- Mar/21/24 10:32:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Leader of the Opposition said that everything I had said was not true. I wonder whether he would step outside, where he does not have parliamentary privilege, and—
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- Mar/21/24 10:47:52 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, a fundamental principle of this chamber is that every member is treated with honour and is considered to be honourable. To say that the member is not even capable of having any respect completely goes against that tradition and that rule we have. I would ask, through the Speaker, for the deputy leader of the opposition to apologize and retract that comment.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Mar/21/24 11:34:21 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague put together his arguments very well and delivered his intervention very passionately, with probably a lot of assistance from the university he attended, which is the best university in Canada.
In all seriousness, what I hear a lot is misinformation coming from Conservatives that somehow the federal backstop is applied in Quebec, when in reality Quebec has been very progressive on pricing pollution through the cap and trade model, with California and other states in the United States. Unfortunately Ontario used to be a part but has now taken itself out of it. Quebec has been so progressive that the tax does not even apply to Quebec, yet day after day after day, Conservatives get up and say that it does.
Why does he think Conservatives are doing that? Does he think they are specifically trying to spread misinformation to Quebeckers?
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- Mar/21/24 12:16:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this member knows exactly what is going on with the Conservatives. It is all theatre. It is all theatrics when they are out there wearing the cult jerseys, doing their videos and talking about what is going on. Let me read what the member for Calgary Shepard put on Facebook. He said, the “NDP-Liberal coalition voted against the Conservative motion to spike the carbon tax hike. It was [the Prime Minister's] last chance to provide relief for Canadians. Brace for impact: Conservatives are now calling a vote of no confidence, steering us straight into a Carbon Tax Election.”
This is the theatre that is being put on by these jokers in order to raise money. What does the member think of that?
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- Mar/21/24 12:21:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will start by saying that I agree with much of what the member for Timmins—James Bay just said. We talk about the Conservative hype. This, as I said in my question for him, is just theatre for Conservatives to motivate their base and raise money. That is all, that is it, and it is nothing more.
The Conservatives talk about bringing in a confidence vote this evening. We have 11 confidence votes this evening. We are voting on the estimates; they are all confidence votes. They would rather play this up, put on the cult jerseys they got the other day at their caucus meeting, go out into the lobby, film their selfie videos and tell the world how they are about to bring down the government. They then say, “You better donate here so we can get an extra 20 bucks from you to make it happen.” Then, of course, it will fall flat. Nothing will happen, and the Leader of the Opposition will be at his fundraiser this evening.
I found it very interesting. I listened to the Leader of the Opposition's speech today, and I heard what he had to say. I heard him talk about headlines. There are a couple of headlines he forgot to bring up when he was speaking, such as one that says, “Corporate lobbyists are flocking to [the Leader of the Opposition's] cash-for-access fundraisers.” Members should listen to this: The “Conservative leader...took aim”, and we will all remember this, “at Canada's ‘corporate lobbyists’ in a speech a week ago to the Vancouver Board of Trade, saying [that lobbyists] were ‘utterly useless’ and that under a Conservative government they would no longer ‘write a policy...and expect it to be implemented.’”
However, it goes on to say the following:
But in the past weeks and months, his party has in fact widely opened the doors to them. [The Leader of the Opposition] has rubbed shoulders with more than a hundred active or recent lobbyists at dozens of fundraising events since he became leader in 2022.... Lobbyists for oil and natural resource companies, big banks, telecoms, large retailers, and real estate investors paid for entry to private cash-for-access fundraisers with [the Leader of the Opposition.]
We have an individual who, on the one hand, will go up to the Vancouver Board of Trade, stand there and say, “Lobbyists are utterly useless. I will never listen to them.” However, then we find out through access to information or getting the lists of donors that the people who are actually going to the fundraisers he is having are all lobbyists. It is the hypocrisy that comes with that.
There is another headline that he forgot to mention, and this one is more recent. This one is from this morning in The Globe and Mail. It states that the Leader of the Opposition's campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, established a second lobbying firm from the same office. Members should listen to this:
But on the Monday after [the Leader of the Opposition's] Sept. 10, 2022, leadership win, the president and senior vice-president of Jenni Byrne + Associates incorporated Forecheck Strategies. Many of the staff who work at Ms. Byrne's firm also lobby federally for Forecheck.
Clients who booked meetings on [the new company's] website were redirected to the booking system for Jenni Byrne + Associates. That function was removed, as was Ms. Byrne's headshot posted to the website, after The Globe's inquiries about the connection between the two firms.
Madam Speaker, look at what we have here. Not only did we raise the hypocrisy of Jenni Byrne being an active lobbyist a couple months ago, but she knew it and the Conservatives knew it. The day after he became the leader, she went out and set up a new company to be a lobbyist. She removed her association from it, or at least tried to, but when people went on that new website, it ended up going to the exact same booking information as for Jenni Byrne + Associates. This tells us that not only did they know what they were doing was wrong but that they also actively tried to pre-empt getting caught. Unfortunately, at least for them, they still got caught.
That is what we have going on here. The Leader of the Opposition is no different from Donald Trump in the United States. He will get in front of his rallies, grab that microphone and tell the crowd what they want to hear. He will throw lobbyists under the bus and say they are the worst human beings ever. Then he will turn right around, just as Donald Trump would, and open up his hand to receive money from them.
When the Leader of the Opposition, or any member, says, “Oh, we are nothing like the MAGA Republicans in the United States,” I call BS. That is absolutely not true. He is exactly like Donald Trump. He is employing the exact same tactics, receiving the exact same money and using it in the exact same way as Donald Trump would.
I find it fascinating that today's motion is a confidence motion to trigger an election on an issue they ran on. In 2021, they ran on pricing pollution. We literally delivered to them what they wanted, and now they are saying they need to call an election on it because they do not think it was a good idea. This is what we are dealing with over there. It is absolutely ludicrous and insane. They cannot even be consistent on anything. It is because they deny climate change. As many members from the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberal Party have said, they deny climate change. They deny that it is something we have to deal with. They deny the reality of it.
I found it really interesting, and I felt for him, when the member for South Shore—St. Margarets said in a passionate question for the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader that he is a Progressive Conservative, was from the days of Progressive Conservatives, and how dare they suggest that he does not belong to that party of the past, the former Progressive Conservatives. I would say to the member for South Shore—St. Margarets that he did not leave the Conservative Party; the Conservative Party left him.
It is true. Look at people like Flora MacDonald, the last Conservative to be elected from Kingston and the Islands, in 1984. Flora MacDonald went on to be the first female to run in a national leadership campaign. She worked side by side with people like Brian Mulroney. These were Progressive Conservatives who cared about the environment. They brought countries together from around the world and said, “Listen, there is problem with the ozone layer. We need to fix it, and we need to work together.” They were not just protecting the Canadian environment; they were leaders on the global front when it came to saving the ozone layer in the 1990s.
As for acid rain, George Bush Sr. was against doing anything on it. It was Brian Mulroney who pushed George Bush Sr. and kept asking the Americans, saying that we needed to do something about acid rain. It was he who finally got them to sit down and come to an agreement on how we could control acid rain on this continent.
Those were the Progressive Conservatives. Those are the Conservatives that the member for South Shore—St. Margarets is hearkening back to. He unfortunately does not belong to a party that any longer bears any slight resemblance to that Progressive Conservative Party. People like Flora MacDonald, Kim Campbell, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney were leaders when it came to the environment. The current Conservative Party has absolutely no interest in it.
Let us just get out of Canada for a second and look at what is going on globally. Globally, we are seeing a price on pollution, in one form or another, throughout the entire world. The Leader of the Opposition wants to try to suggest that having a price on pollution is an uniquely Canadian situation. I would say to him that every country has a price on pollution in one form or another. We often hear that the United States does not have a price on pollution. Yes it does. Many of the states are part of the cap-and-trade system. It is called the western initiative.
In the early 2000s, the environment ministers of provinces like Quebec and Ontario went to negotiate with California and other U.S. states to implement a cap-and-trade system. Cap and trade is just another form of pricing pollution. When Conservatives get up and imply that we are the only country that has a price on pollution, they are absolutely wrong.
The hypocrisy does not even end there. There are even Conservatives who sit here today who not only ran on pricing pollution, and I have already talked about that, but have also implemented pricing pollution in this country. The member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge was in the provincial legislature in B.C. when it brought in pricing pollution. Two members currently sit here, the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent and another member, who were sitting in the Quebec National Assembly when it unanimously adopted pricing pollution. The member for Louis-Saint-Laurent was the leader of his party at the time when they did that. We cannot make this stuff up.
Now they come back in here and speak as though it were such a foreign concept, and they say they could never understand how anybody would ever be interested in pricing pollution. Given their record, I would be embarrassed to be them, to even stand up to ask questions or even vote on issues regarding this, when they are one hundred per cent doing a 180° turn from where they were before.
What we know, despite the rhetoric, is that pricing pollution works. More importantly, eight out of 10 Canadians get more back than they pay into it. This is Groundhog Day, as NDP members have said. I remember talking about this just two days ago, and I will remind the House what I said. My home is in Ontario. It is heated by natural gas, which I get from from Enbridge. Just before we broke from sitting three weeks ago, in all the discussions about pricing pollution, I looked at all of my bills from 2023. I added up the price on pollution, the carbon tax, that I was paying. It totalled, in my house, $379.93 per year.
I drive an electric car, and my wife drives an electric hybrid plug-in. It would be unfair for me to just stop there. Let us assume that I did also drive a fully gas vehicle. The average gas vehicle consumes 1,667 litres of gas per year. In 2023, which is the year for which I am doing the calculations, that would amount to $238.55 that I would have paid on that car. If my wife and I both drove gas cars, plus I added the heating that I already talked about, it would come out to $855 that my household would have spent on the two highest contributing factors to what people pay on a price on pollution.
I am not trusting what the government tells me or what is posted on a website. I looked at my actual bank statement to see what was actually deposited into my account. When I combined the four rebate payments, it came out to $885 that I got back. In the scenario that I laid out, I am still ahead, given all of that.
When Conservatives say that the vast majority do not get it back, they are absolutely wrong. That is why 94% of households with incomes below $50,000 received rebates that exceeded their carbon tax costs in 2023. I do not even have to believe anybody; I just know that I benefited. I am in the net positive. Therefore when I read stats that suggest that 94% of households with incomes below $50,000 get more back, this is extremely easy to believe, given that I have seen what the impact is on me personally.
Only about 55% of households with incomes above $250,000 receive more back in payments than they paid. This is because when we consider who those two out of 10 are, and members can question and have a discussion about that, they are people who probably live in big houses with multiple vehicles and probably toys that consume a lot of gas or fossil fuels.
Do Conservatives care about the eight out of 10? No, they do not. They care only about the two out of 10. That is why they keep fighting with a false narrative and driving the false narrative based on misinformation back to people, in particular the eight out of 10 people. They would like to dupe them into believing their claims so the two out of 10 can benefit more.
I will close with a couple of quotes. One that I found very interesting was on Radio-Canada recently. The interviewer asked the chair of energy sector management at HEC Montréal, Mr. Pierre-Olivier Pineau, “When you hear [the Leader of the Opposition] say that carbon pricing increases the burden on taxpayers, while this week we also heard [the Minister of the Environment] retort that 80% of Canadians receive more back than they pay, who is telling the truth?” I can understand why people want to know that.
The chair of energy sector management said, “Well, [the environment minister] is telling the truth, and [the Leader of the Opposition] is acting in very bad faith when he claims that it adds to the burden, because in provinces where the federal carbon pricing applies, the federal government sends cheques to all households, which net-benefit the majority of Canadians. So, in fact, in [the Leader of the Opposition]'s plan, if it were implemented, a large number of households would no longer receive these cheques, making them poorer, on the contrary. So it's really playing on perceptions because it's true that at the pump, there's an extra cost, but in the taxpayers' pockets, it's beneficial.”
These are experts saying this. These are the people who are contradicting the Conservatives on a daily basis, and who are out there trying to inform the public as to what is really going on, what the reality is in these situations. Conservatives can continue to harp on ad nauseam about the price on pollution, but in reality, more people get back more.
What do the Conservatives really want to do? What do they really want to axe? Conservatives want to axe the rebate. Conservatives want to axe the measures we have put in place to help Canadians get through the effects of climate change and to help Canadians deal with the reality that when we price pollution, we are putting a price on a bad product.
We all pay property taxes to dispose of our garbage that we put at the curb. We all do that without batting an eyelash, because we accept the fact that producing garbage and putting it in a landfill or disposing of it one way or the other has to be dealt with. The exact same logic applies to carbon that is being put into the atmosphere and that will stay there for generations and have impacts for generations to come.
Putting a price on carbon will do exactly what putting a price on garbage does: It incentivizes people to make different choices, to recycle more, to put less in a garbage bag and to develop strategies and ideas as to what they can do to reduce their impact. The nice thing is that in the process, when people do start to make those choices and transitions, they will end up even farther ahead as a result when it comes to how much money they are getting back.
I certainly will not be voting in favour of the opposition motion today. I am very glad to hear around the room that it appears as though all of my colleagues in the other political parties will be following suit. It is incredible to work with adults in the room from time to time, because they do exist in here, unlike the Conservatives. A couple of minutes ago, I heard a Conservative member ask what the NDP has done. The NDP has done more in the short time that it has had an agreement with the government than the Conservatives have done in the over eight years I have been here. The only thing the Conservatives ever do is whine and complain about everything.
Finally we have adults in the room. New Democrats might be small in number, but the impact they have far outweighs any of the impact that the Conservatives have. New Democrats have actually been able to get things done. They have been able to put forward their initiatives. They understand what it is like to work in a minority Parliament. They understand that at the end of the day, our job here is to do things on behalf of Canadians and improve their lives, not just come here to yell and bark at the Prime Minister and accuse him of everything they can possibly come up with.
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- Mar/21/24 12:45:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are and have brought in many measures to the House to help people, particularly those who are struggling with those increased costs. The member challenges us and asks questions about this. However, then he goes ahead and routinely votes against measures, like he will do tonight. He will likely be a member of the only political party here tonight that votes against the estimates. In case he did not know, we are voting on the estimates tonight, which is an opportunity for him to show his support for Canadians and get the supports to them.
Members can be against the government, they can be critical of the government, they can challenge the government, but they can still support Canadians by voting in favour of very important measures for them. When the member gets up and challenges me on my ability to do my job to support Canadians, we will see where his votes go tonight when it comes to voting on the estimate items.
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- Mar/21/24 12:47:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know about working at Dairy Queen. I worked at Famous Players throughout high school, popping popcorn. I am not sure what the comparison is or if that measures up to working at Dairy Queen.
However, when the member started off this conversation, she talked about what the Conservatives were already getting themselves into. As I indicated today, not only did we all know a couple of months ago about Jenni Byrne being a lobbyist, but we are now finding out today that the day after the Leader of the Opposition became leader, she set up another company without her name on it. When people would book an appointment with that company, they were redirected to Jenni Byrnes and Associates.
Not only were the Conservatives fully aware, but they were worried about the look it would give the Conservative Party if their campaign manager was a lobbyist, so they tried to hide it. They proactively tried to hide the fact that Jenni Byrne was a lobbyist. They know she is working with Loblaw to drive prices up by lobbying governments to get out of the way. We will not stand for that.
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- Mar/21/24 12:50:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot speak to the exact details that the former environment minister was speaking to, but I can say that I do not support subsidizing the oil and gas sector. I know that we phased-out direct subsidies. I also know that there are other things that, unfortunately, we have to take care of, such as abandoned orphan oil wells.
I find it amazing that the Premier of Alberta suddenly wants to get people to pay up front for the disposal of solar panels and wind turbines down the road. However, for some reason, if people dig an oil well, they do not have to worry about this, that society will deal with it later. Unfortunately, we do have to participate in that, because companies gone by did not have to deal with them. We will do the right thing for society and the right thing for our environment.
However, to the member's point about direct and indirect subsidies or whatever it is, I encourage Bloc members to bring forward an opposition motion on removing any subsidies to the oil and gas sector. I will personally vote in favour of that.
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- Mar/21/24 12:52:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an absolutely fabulous idea, notwithstanding the fact that I do not know how it would work within the procedural rules of the House. I certainly support the initiative. I would like to see that. I would definitely participate, if we are successful with something like that. I am not sure if the no-sense Conservatives would be there, but I would hope they would participate as well.
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- Mar/21/24 12:53:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, all we are saying is that when we contribute something that is directly impacting climate change, when C02 is produced and it goes into the atmosphere, it is warming our planet whether the Conservative who is heckling me believes it or not. I am sure the member for Dufferin—Caledon is one of the climate deniers. It is a reality.
All we are saying is that we need to put a price on it, just like we put a price on garbage, just like we put a price on any other pollutant. We know that in a market-driven system, pricing something changes behaviour. It baffles me that the only political party in the Canadian House of Commons that does not understand this is the political party that somehow touts itself as being the smartest in the room when it comes to economic models and economic activity, the party that suggests that it knows better than anybody else, but cannot even understand a simple practice like pricing pollution
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- Mar/21/24 2:08:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, International Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual event occurring on March 31 dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of the discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide, as well as celebrating their contributions to society.
I want to recognize an incredible local artist and activist from the Kingston area, Hill Werth.
Hill Werth's most recent art collection was made into posters in partnership with the Kingston School of Art, the Queen's University faculty of education and Compass Psychotherapy. The posters are proudly and prominently displayed by businesses and organizations on numerous windows and storefronts throughout the city, reminding us that love, acceptance and respect are fundamental to a healthy society.
Using the lnstagram handle “slow_and_intentional”, it is evident that Hill is making a slow and intentional impact on the hearts and minds of everyone in our community and beyond.
I thank Hill. They are right: “Hate has no home here”.
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- Mar/21/24 5:15:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote.
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- Mar/21/24 6:00:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we request a recorded division.
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