44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 21, 2024 10:00AM
- Mar/21/24 11:38:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me say at the outset and unequivocally that we do not have confidence in the Liberal government. My colleagues and I have no problem putting that on the record in this Parliament. That is why we have voted against the government on confidence votes, such as budgets and throne speeches, at almost every opportunity over the past few years. Today the Conservatives are calling for a confidence vote, but they did not just move a motion calling on Parliament to declare non-confidence in the government. The motion does not say simply that the House hast lost confidence in the government. Rather, the motion links that confidence to a specific issue.
What, then, could be the issue that warrants the House toppling the government and forcing Canada into an election? Is it immigration? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that. Is it the billions of dollars paid annually to oil companies, which continue to play fast and loose with the price at the pump? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that. Is it the nationalization of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which cost $34 billion to build, and which will mostly be paid for by taxpayers? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that. Is it about outsourcing entire areas of government management to large corporations? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that. Is it about challenging Quebec's secularism? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that. Is it about eliminating Quebec's agricultural model? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that. Is it about first nations issues? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that. Is it about medical assistance in dying? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that. Is it about the national and constitutional issue? No, because the Conservatives agree with the Liberals on that.
We are witnessing the Ottawa coalition in all its glory. How ironic to hear the Leader of the Opposition saying earlier that the only difference between the Bloc and the Liberals is that they disagree on which city should be the capital. For one thing, that is utterly false. For another, we do agree that there is a pretty big difference between a capital where we make up less than one-quarter and a capital where we make up 100%. That right there is an irreconcilable difference, and the Conservatives are Liberals on that subject, too.
These issues are deeply important to Quebeckers, but the motion is not about these issues. The Conservatives say their motion is fully in tune with Quebeckers' interests, so what is it about? It is about a tax that does not apply in Quebec. The Conservatives' motion calls for an election that would serve as a de facto referendum on raising the carbon tax in the rest of Canada. In actual fact, not raising the carbon tax in the rest of Canada, or cancelling it altogether, could hurt Quebec. If the rest of Canada stops pricing pollution while Quebec continues to do so with its own system, the carbon exchange, households will be at a disadvantage. Let me remind everyone that the carbon exchange was set up by a Liberal government that included the current member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, and it was hailed by the current member for Louis-Saint-Laurent while they were both MNAs. That makes sense.
Today, the Conservative Party of Canada is proposing a referendum election to push for a tax and climate injustice at the expense of Quebec’s competitiveness. At least it is clear. We can say that Quebec’s contract with Erin O’Toole is long gone. This also shows us just how insignificant the Quebec wing is within its party. In fact, I find it hard to believe that they themselves do not understand it. Almost all of them stood firmly behind the very Liberal Jean Charest, their leader and the father of the carbon exchange, so I cannot believe that they do not understand this. Even if the leader of the official opposition says today that Quebec is very important to him, we can clearly see that he does not even listen to his own members from Quebec.
There has been quite a scandal surrounding the matter of energy and energy prices, but the scandal is not the carbon tax. While ordinary citizens are struggling to make ends meet, some people are lining their pockets. While ordinary citizens are being hard hit by inflation, a tiny minority is making record profits. In recent years, the oil and gas extraction sector raked in record profits of $38 billion over three years, and half of that was made in 2022 alone.
This is hardly the inflationary reality facing the constituents of all members of the House. Since 70% of the shareholders of these companies are foreigners, that money is not even staying within Canada.
What is even more outrageous is the fact that the gift is doubled. Users pay at the pump, but since they are also taxpayers, they also send their taxes to Ottawa, which sends the revenues from those taxes to the ultra-rich so that they can continue to live the good life. It seems to me that they do not need any gifts given the record profits they have been making in recent years. I do not think they need them.
In the last two budgets, the federal government stated its intention to implement six tax credits for oil companies. According to the information provided by the Department of Finance, oil companies will receive a total of $83 billion by 2035. Is that the green transition in Ottawa? I am relying on the Department of Finance's numbers, but we all know that the government tends toward cost overruns in general. I do not think that it will cost any less than that in the end.
These oil and gas companies are the Conservatives' real friends, not the poor people who have to line up at food banks or struggle to find housing. Someone tell them to stop this nonsense. We do not believe them. We did not believe them before, and we believe them even less now.
If the Conservatives had moved a non-confidence motion to take a stand against the huge profits of oil and gas companies or end the big corporate welfare system funded at taxpayers' and users' expense, we would probably have come onboard. However, a motion like this one just makes me want to tell them to stop wasting our time.
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- Mar/21/24 3:45:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak here on behalf of my constituents, the people of Chilliwack—Hope. I will be splitting my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.
I just want to read again, as we start after question period, the motion that we are debating today, which states:
That the House declare non-confidence in the Prime Minister and his costly government for increasing the carbon tax 23% on April 1, as part of his plan to quadruple the tax while Canadians cannot afford to eat, heat and house themselves, and call for the House to be dissolved so Canadians can vote in a carbon tax election.
I think that a number of my constituents have been calling for a non-confidence vote in the House for a long time. Of course every time we vote against the government's fiscal plan, we are voting non-confidence, but this is the first time we have explicitly stated that it is time for Canadians to have a choice and to be able to have their voice heard on whether they believe that their costs should continue to be increased by the costly coalition government.
We know that this is exactly what is going to happen on April 1. The carbon tax is scheduled to go up by 23%. That will mean higher costs right across the board, because we know that the carbon tax is actually a tax on everything. It impacts dozens of different fuels, and it certainly has an impact at the pumps and on Canadians who need to drive to get to work, to get to school or to take their elderly relatives to hospital appointments. The cost of all of these things will be going up on April 1 because the government has refused to spike the tax hike. That is what has brought about the motion before us.
Earlier this week, we gave the government an opportunity to spike the April 1 tax hike of 23%, because we are out there listening to our constituents and we know how difficult it is for them to make ends meet right now, as 200,000 British Columbians visit a food bank every month. Those numbers, I would suggest, are probably quite out of date and have not gone down. We know that there are a million more Canadians visiting food banks every month; now two million Canadians are visiting the food bank every month in Canada.
The government either does not realize or does not care that by raising the cost of the carbon tax by 23%, it is raising the cost of groceries. When one taxes the farmer who produces the food and taxes the trucker who moves the food from the farmer to the market, one is driving up the cost of the goods that we need to put food on the table. Time and time again we have raised this in the House, and time and time again the government has not been responsive.
We heard from the Parliamentary Budget Officer just recently. He came before a parliamentary committee and made it very clear when he said the majority of households will see a negative impact as a result of the carbon tax. That is his most up-to-date pronouncement on the issue. We hear the government talk about eight in 10 Canadians, or quote statistics that are out of date. It should listen to what the Parliamentary Budget Officer said.
Just to be clear, the Parliamentary Budget Officer was appointed by the Prime Minister to provide unbiased, independent analysis of government announcements and government programs, to ensure that there would be an independent voice. The Parliamentary Budget Officer serves all of Parliament. When he speaks, we should listen. What he has said is that the majority of Canadians will be negatively impacted. Certainly Canadians who live in my home province of British Columbia will be negatively impacted.
We saw two things in the recent budget from the B.C. NDP that made it clear that it had no choice but to jack up the carbon tax on April 1 because that is what the federal Liberal government requires it to do. If it does not jack up the price of the carbon tax, it will be punished by the federal government. I would argue that with the B.C. NDP, it was a bit like pushing on an open door to force it to increase the carbon tax. However, it is a fact that if it had not done it, the federal government would have come down on it and imposed a tax, as it has in many provinces across this country. Federal legislation is driving up prices in my home province of British Columbia even though the British Columbia government has its own carbon tax program.
What does the program do? The budget document makes it clear that over the next three years, the B.C. government will collect $9 billion from British Columbians in the carbon tax, and it will give back $3.5 billion in rebates. We hear nonsense about how getting rid of the rebates would be a terrible thing, but in my home province, $5.5 billion more goes into general government revenues, for the B.C. NDP government to spend on whatever it wants. It is a straight-up tax.
We have seen that emissions have continued to go up right across the country, including in my own province of British Columbia. The only time emissions went down was when the government locked everyone down because of COVID. It says very proudly that if we look back at the numbers in 2022, it is great that the numbers went down. However, it was because the government locked everyone down. It is very proud that emissions went down as a result of no one being allowed to travel, go to work, etc.
We are seeing again and again the costs for Canadians continuing to rise on gas, on home heating and on homes themselves. Canadians, including British Columbians, are losing hope. They have seen the cost of rent double. They have seen the cost of mortgages double. They have seen the money required for down payments more than double. In fact it takes almost as much time now to save for a down payment in this country as it used to take to pay off an entire mortgage. It would take many Canadians over 20 years to save for a down payment on a home.
With respect to the costs of a mortgage in the major markets in this country, in Vancouver, for example, over $230,000 of income is required to afford to make the minimum mortgage payments to buy a home. Canadians cannot afford additional costs being layered on top by the government, which is exactly what it is doing.
The government has broken its word time and time again when it comes to the carbon tax. It said that the tax would never go higher than $50 a tonne. Now the tax 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. We know that over the last number of years, the government has collected $20 billion in carbon tax and has given only $18 billion back. It said the tax would help to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but the government has not met a single environmental target it has set, and it will miss its 2030 target as well.
The people of Chilliwack—Hope have no confidence in the government, and the people of British Columbia are increasingly losing confidence in the government and in the 15 silent Liberal members of Parliament from British Columbia who refuse to stand up to spike the tax hike. It is time for an election. If the Liberals and their partners in the NDP are so proud of their record, then let us go to an election. Let Canadians give the final word. When Canadians are given the opportunity, they will vote for a party with a plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. That is what Conservatives will bring home. Let us bring on an election. We will see them at the polls.
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- Mar/21/24 4:00:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Chilliwack—Hope on his excellent speech today. He has once again demonstrated how good Conservatives are at voicing the concerns of people across the country here in the House. My colleague just conveyed the concerns of people way over on the other side of the country, in British Columbia. I want to thank him for that.
I think it is worth taking a few moments today to point out that we are here to debate a motion of non-confidence. What does that mean? Simply put, if the government does not win the vote, it has to call an election.
The motion reads as follows:
That the House declare non-confidence in the Prime Minister and his costly government for increasing the carbon tax 23 % on April 1, as part of his plan to quadruple the tax....
Today, we find ourselves in a situation where the future of the government is in the hands of the opposition parties. We know the Liberal members will vote against our motion, even though some of them would rather not. There is a party line, and they will toe it.
Coincidentally, another party exists within the same party. Together, they are called the NDP-Liberal coalition. It would come as quite a surprise if the NDP decided to stand by its values and defeat this government, which it heavily criticizes every day. It claims that it is keeping the Liberals in power to make gains that it achieves by coercing and manipulating the government. Knowing that the government is being manipulated by another party should be one more reason for us to want to defeat it.
Then there is the Bloc Québécois, which voices its many recriminations against the Liberal government day after day. It could vote in step with the wishes of the majority of Quebeckers. The majority of Quebeckers want a change of government. Most Quebeckers want the Prime Minister to go. This would give the Bloc Québécois an opportunity to fill the role it has claimed for itself all along as the representative of Quebeckers in the House of Commons. Will it vote to defeat this Liberal government tonight? We should not get our hopes up too high. Based on what I heard today, the Bloc Québécois is going to rush to defend the Liberal government and the Prime Minister once again.
Why does it feel like we are dealing with a majority government when it is actually a minority government? It is important to mention this for anyone who may be watching us right now. This minority government should not be so self-assured and arrogant as to impose its inflationary spending, for these decisions are creating chaos across the country, particularly in terms of the cost of housing, inflation and the cost of food. Normally, all these decisions should have led the opposition parties to say that enough is enough and that they wanted to put an end to this government. This is a minority government, and there is no reason to keep it in power.
Unfortunately, not everyone is keen to call an election and change the government. In fact, in a La Presse article, the leader of the Bloc Québécois proudly said, “If the next election is two years away, that doesn't bother me at all. It gives us time to properly identify, define and share information about our opponents.” He also said that Bloc Québécois members have been telling Liberal ministers that they are in no rush to head into an election campaign.
If this Prime Minister and his government hang on for another two years, it is also because of the support they are getting from the Bloc Québécois, which is very comfortable with all the consequences, of which there are many.
The Conservatives have a common-sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
Why do we want to cut taxes? Let me talk about agriculture, for one. The Minister of Agriculture bragged about the sector's resilience, with continued growth in farm income. While he was saying that, there were 400 farmers and their families in the Lower St. Lawrence who were making a heartfelt plea and talking about their financial distress.
Martin Caron, president of the Union des producteurs agricoles, said that the annual net income for farmers in Quebec would be close to zero in 2024. It is unacceptable for people who work so hard, who get up before the sun rises and go to bed after everyone else, to have zero net income.
A week after the demonstration in the Lower St. Lawrence, farmers descended on the streets of Quebec City and the north shore to express their frustration. People are not taking it anymore. Why? The input costs for farmers have gone up because the carbon tax has a direct impact on the cost of inputs that these farmers have to buy to grow their crops. The carbon tax has a direct impact on farmers and growers who produce food across Canada. It has a direct impact on the people who process this food because they have to pay the carbon tax. It has a direct impact on truck drivers who transport the food and deliver it to Quebec. When we look at the list of all the taxes that farmers, processors and truck drivers have to pay before the food arrives in Quebec, it is not surprising that the cost of food in Quebec has gone up.
Unfortunately, the Bloc Québécois wants to drastically increase this tax, which is why, yesterday, it voted against our motion to cancel the carbon tax hike set for April 1. That is no April Fool's joke. That is the date the government chose to increase the carbon tax by 23%.
We need to build housing. Has anyone not heard about the current nationwide housing crisis? There is a housing crisis in Quebec, too. When the common-sense Conservatives asked the minister about his housing accelerator fund, he admitted that not a single housing unit had been built as a result of that fund, even though it cost Canadian taxpayers $3.15 billion.
I would like to talk about a Montreal couple, Martin and Marie-Hélène, who are pandemic borrowers. They renewed their mortgage in 2020 at a very low 2% rate and will have to renew in 2025 at a much higher rate. When asked whether they have figured out how much more it is going to cost them, Martin immediately said he is just not ready to calculate how much more it will cost him every month. He knows full well that he may have trouble paying the bill.
When it comes to taxes and housing, the Bloc Québécois has clearly chosen to support the Liberals. Why?
We are going to fix the budget. As everyone knows, this government's inflationary spending has contributed to rising interest rates. That has made housing and food more expensive, and people cannot make ends meet. Unfortunately, the $20 billion in additional discretionary spending introduced by the minister in the last budget update received full support form the Bloc Québécois. In fact, 100% of that discretionary spending was supported by the Bloc Québécois.
Finally, everyone knows that crime levels across the country are going from bad to worse. Just think about car thefts, this government's lax policies and its willingness to allow dangerous repeat criminals to serve their sentences at home rather than in prison. This has created an extremely chaotic situation across the country. We want to fix it. Unfortunately, these lax policies that allow house arrest instead of jail time have also been supported by the Bloc Québécois.
I invite the Bloc Québécois to support this motion this evening in order to truly represent the interests of the majority of Quebeckers who no longer want this government. There is a way to do this. Let us set ideological squabbles aside and focus on the practical. If we want to get rid of this government, then we have to vote for the Conservatives' common-sense motion.
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