44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 9, 2024 10:00AM
- Apr/9/24 1:21:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are times that I think we should do away with the video and the actual televised elements of not only the House of Commons but of committees as well, because it has become performative in nature. However, after listening to the comments from the member for Miramichi—Grand Lake, I am quite glad that this is televised so that Canadians can see the way in which members of Parliament engage in what is a really important topic around how we put forward credible plans to fight climate change, to reduce emissions and to follow the science that has been very clear around the world.
I have heard comments, particularly from the opposition benches today, that start to call into question whether they believe there is an imperative to fight climate change and reduce emissions. I look forward to the opportunity for them to ask me questions on that piece.
This is a really important national conversation about the mechanisms we are going to use to fight climate change, but let us get back to basics about why we are doing this.
As I mentioned, the science is very clear that there is a global imperative to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the global warming that is coming as a result. That goal, which is internationally recognized by countries around the world, is to try to keep global warming to 1.5°C or less, but certainly below 2°C. This is recognized as being an existential threat to the way in which we have been able to enjoy this planet, our communities and our country up until this point.
Some of the comments from my colleagues in the House raise the question about whether we are all on board on that initiative to reduce emissions, but let us just assume for a minute that the majority of Canadians are. We know the majority of Canadians know that science is real, that climate change is real and that we need to do something.
How do we go about incentivizing that change? I would submit that there are three ways to reduce emissions in the country. We can subsidize activities, whether they be new innovation or technology, to try to bring down emissions. We can regulate the activity. We can put in a pricing mechanism and allow the ingenuity of the private sector and the markets to reduce emissions.
By the way, each one of those comes with a particular cost. If we subsidize the activity in question, there is a cost to taxpayers. We can regulate, and I will give an example. In my home province of Nova Scotia, we have a goal of being off coal-fired electricity by 2030. The compliance cost associated with that objective comes with cost downstream to consumers. On carbon pricing mechanisms, the Conservatives love to talk about the price signal, the cost. They never talk about the way in which the money under the federal backstop is returned back to households and businesses. This is missing from the actual entirety of the debate, if we want to have reasonable and informed conversation about this.
Of course, we could do nothing, which I know some members in the House may agree with, that there is nothing to be done here. However, I have a statement from the Insurance Bureau of Canada that says that in 2023 alone, there were over $3 billion worth of insurable losses in the country as a direct result of extreme weather. That is a reality. The science is clear on the cost of doing nothing. I do not think any moral imperative would allow us to do that. Nor would the fact that this has a true cost to Canadians today.
Last year alone, my riding had massive flooding. We rebuilt a bridge. Let along the human cost, as we lost four people in my riding, but I do not want to exaggerate that or make that a political point, let us just look at the actual cost of rebuilding in our communities. Each one of us paid out of our pocket to be there on that. Each one of us is paying out of our insurance premium to clean up after the frequency of the storms that are happening more and more often as a result of this imperative. Therefore, we have to do something.
This government, as part of its emissions reduction plan, has said that we want to have a strategy to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030 versus 2005 levels. A carbon price forms a third of that goal. A carbon price is inherently a small-c conservative policy. I chastise some of my Conservative colleagues on why they do not believe in the power of using the private sector and using markets to reduce emissions, as opposed to government programs or regulations. Why do they not want the power of that to happen?
Economists are telling us it is the cheapest way to reduce emissions, but opposition members have made it their mission to denigrate the idea of carbon pricing without providing any alternatives on how they would actually go about this mission.
The motion before us today talks about calling an emergency meeting with the Prime Minister. I have the letter that the Prime Minister sent out about 10 days ago to the premiers, who had been writing to him about the federal backstop as a pricing mechanism. The end of the letter says, “We...remain open to proposals for credible systems that price pollution that reflect the unique realities of your regions and meet the national benchmark.”
The Conservative motion today should be encouraging the seven premiers in the provinces where they oppose the federal backstop to get together and have a conversation to come up with a different pricing mechanism. I guess it comes back to why carbon pricing matters. What is being lost in the national conversation is that there are billions of dollars of clean energy investment in our country that rely upon the fact that the price signal exists. If we sit down with any CEO who is exploring projects around decarbonization, he or she will say that the price signal forms an important basis of their investment decision.
Premiers across the country, including in my home province of Nova Scotia, have a price on carbon at the industrial level. Danielle Smith has talked glowingly about the fact that industrial pricing is a key mechanism to fight climate change and reduce emissions.
I find it ironic that the premiers will support that type of pricing, but they are unwilling to explore what else can be done. We know that the reason a federal backstop is imposed is because provinces had the opportunity to introduce their own pricing plans and either failed to do so or put forward a plan that did not meet the national stringency.
There is a unique opportunity for the seven provinces that have signalled discontent with the federal backstop to work together to establish, perhaps, a national cap and trade. It is something equivalent to what Quebec has with California, where there is an ability for larger emitters and the price signal to be higher up stream to allow us to focus on larger emitters without having that same price impact at the pump.
The premiers hold the pen on what is possible. They do not need to write to the Prime Minister. They need to write to each other. They need to get in a room and see if they are serious about putting forward a credible, carbon-pricing plan. The reason it has to be in each province is going back to the point I made around the economy, and that is the jobs that are associated with economic investment in the country.
When I look at this opposition day motion, I do, for the record, support the idea of a first ministers meeting. It is really important to get down to the facts of what is and what is not around this conversation. I do not think it has to happen tomorrow. Let us let the premiers come up with a pricing plan and let us get back to what this was about. The Prime Minister has said that if they do not like the federal backstop, there are options. They can either do it alone or they can work together to come up with what that might represent. I support that.
As a member of Parliament in this place, I did a lot of work on this side of the House to amend the federal backstop, not because I do not believe carbon pricing is an effective mechanism to reduce emissions and not because I do not believe that the rebate system back to households is inherently a bad idea, but I wanted that national policy to reflect rural and regional Canada in a way that I did not think it was doing in its original form.
I would invite my Conservative colleagues, if they do not believe in the federal backstop, to present a climate agenda themselves. They use the term “technology not taxes” without any conversation about how we pay for the technology, which the Leader of the Opposition talks about, and they negate the fact that, under the federal backstop, the money actually goes back to households.
The Conservatives will often go to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report and look at the economic cost, so to speak, heading out to 2030. The PBO has made it very clear that he was comparing that plan versus doing nothing. He has made it very clear that both the cost to households directly and indirectly, the energy-embedded costs, still leave a majority of households better off.
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- Apr/9/24 1:32:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member mentioned and rightfully recognized that he was part of the first introduction of a carbon price in North America, in British Columbia. It has worked in British Columbia. It has helped reduce emissions and has not impacted the economy. B.C. is doing well within the federation.
Perhaps what the hon. member missed during my remarks is that the federal backstop is a tool if provinces choose to not come forward with any type of credible pricing plan. I would ask him to engage with corporate leaders across the country, who will tell him that a carbon price, particularly at the industrial level, matters for economic investment in the country around decarbonization.
The member wants to go about it, I guess, in a big-government way, which is not the most cost-effective. It is actually quite anti-Conservative. He wants to use a more expensive way to reduce emissions. Economists are clear that carbon pricing is the most effective way to do so. I guess he also wants government to decide as opposed to letting the private sector decide.
Where have the Conservatives gone? Where are the folks on that side who believe in the private market? They are not really stepping forward at this point.
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- Apr/9/24 1:34:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Miramichi—Grand Lake made the assertion in the House, as I understand it, because I heard the back end of his comments, that fires were not as a result of climate change, that the extreme weather we were seeing was not tied to climate change, that people would go out and set fires themselves. I take notice that some fires are started accidentally, but the idea that all forest fires we are seeing or the extremity of the weather that we are seeing has no connection to climate change is the most tone-deaf thing I think I have heard this entire week in the House and maybe in last couple of months.
To address the other portion of the member's question around having larger corporate entities and businesses contribute toward programs that matter to Canadians and toward the programs that could help reduce emissions, I agree with the concept of how to ensure our larger emitters can be responsible for driving those investments and reducing emissions. I do think we are at a time right now where corporate leadership needs to be cognizant and read the room.
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- Apr/9/24 1:36:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my remarks, I fought very hard for his constituents and mine and all rural Canadians to get a higher rural top-up of 20%, which his party is standing in the way of right now in relation to rural Canadians. On the definition, the member is absolutely right. There has to be a revisiting of what defines a rural community versus what is not.
I know the hon. member is a good man. I encourage him to push the Conservative Party to put forward a serious climate plan, because it is important in the days ahead.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to invite the hon. member to take out a pen. I have two quick questions. I know he can handle them, and I will let him take some notes.
First, he talked about the Atlantic provinces' being part of the clean energy solution to reduce emissions, yet he stands in the way of Bill C-49, a bill that is supported by his home government in Newfoundland and Labrador, without reason. It is a bill that would actually drive really important results for energy jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador. He talked about technology, not taxes, but then voted against the bill. Can he explain his position there?
Second, can he give an indication to his constituents and the House as to whether or not he believes climate change is real and that we ought to do something to reduce emissions? How would he incentivize the technology he is talking about? Would he spend taxpayer dollars in an inefficient way to do it? How would he go about that?
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