44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2024 10:00AM
- May/9/24 8:09:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Lethbridge for her speech. Unsurprisingly, she spent a lot of time talking about the carbon tax.
Now it is important to look at the objective of pollution pricing. The aim is to get people to change their habits. When too much greenhouse gas is generated, it has an impact on the climate and on health, and it puts the financial system at risk too. I always use the example of cigarettes. When we wanted young people to change their habits and smoke less, we raised the price of cigarettes and we also stopped advertising cigarettes.
Given the climate challenges we are facing, what does the member propose to ensure that people change their habits and try to adopt behaviours that are more in line with environmental protection?
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- May/9/24 8:28:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague gave a very down-to-earth presentation describing what the Bloc Québécois had proposed to really help people.
When she talked about the billions of dollars going to oil companies compared to what could have been done, she listed a lot of things. She was full of ideas.
I would like to know which of these ideas she would prioritize if money could be diverted from the oil companies to something else. What would be her priority?
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- May/9/24 8:40:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague ended his speech by suggesting that the government put things back the way they found them.
I have a suggestion for him, and that is to put things back the way they were in the 1960s, 1970s or earlier, before we started seeing rising temperatures and the damage that was causing.
Does my colleague have any idea how much climate inaction costs?
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Madam Speaker, we have been talking about Bill C‑59 for a long time, so I will get straight to the point.
There are both good things and bad things in the bill. The Bloc Québécois is opposed to it. I think that has been said. I have very strong feelings about one of the reasons we oppose it. The government is once again giving gifts to the oil industry.
For the umpteenth time, the government is kowtowing to this sector, giving it $30.3 billion in oil subsidies in the form of tax credits. As a result, taxpayers will be paying oil companies to pollute less, even though they do not need that money. What is more, the companies have no intention of cutting production or undertaking projects that will help Canada meet its climate and environmental protection commitments. Quite the contrary.
Oil companies do not need this money, but they keep asking for it, and the government gives it to them. They have the most powerful and influential lobby, so the government always gives them whatever they want. From pandemic-era asks to arguments in favour of technologies that do not work and increasing deregulation, oil companies always end up with plenty of money.
In recent years, as the pandemic wound down, the oil extraction industry was posting record profits. It raked in $38 billion in 2022, and 2023 promises to be just as lucrative, though the figures are not yet available. Who benefits from these returns? It is the shareholders, 70% of whom are foreign. That is a lot of capital leaving Canada.
The current government's budgets are loaded with goodies for this sector, with plans to introduce no fewer than six tax credits largely intended for oil companies and totalling no less than $83 billion by 2035. The industry is thrilled. Two of the tax credits are tailor-made for the industry: a clean technology investment credit and a carbon capture and storage credit.
Let us start with clean technology. How are the oil companies going to get their hands on the lion's share of the $17.8‑billion pot of money earmarked for clean technology? Let me try to make this simple, but by no means simplistic. It takes a lot of energy to extract the molasses-like substance known as bitumen from the Alberta sands. Right now, the sector uses gas. Selling the gas is a lot more profitable, however, and that is what the oil companies would prefer. The good news is that after punching through Wet'suwet'en territory for the Coastal GasLink project, a new Shell and LNG Canada methane port will make the dream of exporting gas a reality within about a year. This is where the genius of clean technology comes in. Everyone supports it. Everyone believes in it. Just tack on the word “clean”, “green” or “sustainable” and problem solved, the Government of Canada will mind its own business.
With this subsidy to enable the extraction of this toxic molasses to continue and even increase, Bill C‑59 will pay oil companies to buy small modular reactors or SMRs. These are nuclear reactors. The energy from the SMRs will replace the gas that oil companies are currently using, so that they can extract more bitumen and make more gas available for export at taxpayers' expense and especially for their own profit. I am not making this up. It is really well thought out. We still do not know all of the characteristics of the radioactive waste that these SMRs produce, and yet oil companies will be using them in a context where Canada still has no control over the governance of such waste. It is a real model of cleanliness on all counts. Excuse me if I laugh.
For the fervent soldiers across the aisle who might try to tell me that we know that the clean technology tax credit will also benefit renewable energy, no, that is not true. First, there is no qualifying limit for this tax credit. In other words, the astronomical costs of the SMRs are going to drain the allotted budget, leaving very little for the other manufacturing sectors. This is expected to cost the public treasury $17.8 billion by 2035, according to estimates from the Department of Finance. Despite the repeated requests from my esteemed colleague, the member for Joliette, the government has not seen fit to provide the Standing Committee on Finance with a breakdown of the numbers to help us calculate how much of the money would go to the oil companies.
So much for Canada the champion, the leader of leaders, and its much-touted transparency.
What can I say about the carbon capture and storage investment tax credit? There is a lot to say. I talk about it often, but I will reiterate a few points.
I will begin with the fact that the government says that the $13‑billion carbon capture and storage investment tax credit will be available to every major emitter, such as cement plants and steel mills, but that is not true. It is pretty obvious that it is available only to oil and gas producers. There is nothing for Quebec's major emitters, unless the intended message is that Quebec should just produce oil and gas. No thanks. Legislation was voted on for this.
A 2022 Pembina Institute report entitled “Waiting to Launch” shows that, despite making record profits, the oil sands industry is not investing in decarbonization efforts in accordance with its climate commitments. The infamous Pathways Alliance is publicly calling for easily available measures such as process improvement, energy efficiency and electrification. Again, the oil and gas industry has more than enough money to put these measures in place. However, its priority is buying back shares and paying dividends.
The federal government fell into the industry's trap. In my opinion, the government saw it coming, but fell for it anyway. Pathways Alliance's game plan depends entirely on major investments by the federal government. Essentially, it sees consumers as the ones responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, it makes the federal government responsible for the costs of carbon capture projects. This is an industry that is transferring all the risks and costs of the transition to the public. It is putting the burden on the shoulders of taxpayers and consumers.
The United States is not always a good model, far from it. However, our southern neighbours seem to be wising up to the truth a bit faster. In fact, just last month, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget and the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability published a joint report stating that “[t]he companies' massive public-facing campaigns portray [carbon capture and storage] as a viable and available solution to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, but the companies acknowledge internally that they are not planning to deploy the technology at the scale needed to solve the warming crisis”. Clearly, these companies know what they are doing. The report also states, “The industry's true goal is to prolong, perhaps indefinitely, the unabated use of fossil fuels”.
There is something deeply disturbing about the federal government's fiscal trajectory. Bill C‑59 and Bill C‑69 share a connection. I will briefly explain.
Bill C‑69 creates a clean hydrogen investment tax credit and sets out the terms and conditions. When the government announced it in 2023, it estimated that it would total $17.7 billion by 2035. It is a refundable tax credit. Even if the company pays no tax, it is entitled to the refund.
With Bill C‑69, the government will cover between 15% and 40% of the investment costs required to produce hydrogen. We are talking about green hydrogen, a net-zero energy source. Costs are still prohibitive. Right now, hydrogen is made from natural gas. It is good for the companies, because it creates another market for their gas. As a result, even if gas consumption were to stagnate, they could continue to increase production if they converted their gas into hydrogen.
The oil and gas industry's agenda is well crafted, Machiavellian even, because it covers all the angles. Still, one would have to be deaf or blind, or both, to not notice and take action. Either the government is drinking the Kool-Aid the industry has been serving at the hundreds of lobbying meetings they have had, or it is collaborating with the industry.
I will close by saying that if oil companies dip into the first pot, Bill C‑59, for carbon storage in gas extraction, they can then get even more out of the second pot for converting that same gas at taxpayers' expense. That is bad for the energy transition, but it is a dream come true for freeloaders.
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- May/9/24 9:08:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, indeed, as I said in my speech, they have no intention of meeting their greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. They say they do, but look at what the United States found out.
It seems clear to me that oil and gas companies in Canada definitely do not want to stop production. The money is for their shareholders, and most of those shareholders are foreign companies. Wonderful. Capital is leaving the country, yet we kowtow to oil companies, promising them billions of dollars.
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- May/9/24 9:10:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member knows the Bloc Québécois's position on that. Yes, there have been improvements and we are not saying that we need to start from scratch. We never said that. What we are saying is that it does not make sense to be giving oil companies billions of dollars, like we are doing now.
It is funny because we were talking about greenwashing recently at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. The commissioner gave a really good definition of it in one of his reports. It is a shame that I do not have it here with me, but I will give an example of greenwashing. Whether we are talking about carbon capture and storage for oil companies or the much-talked-about SMRs, it is ridiculous to think that nuclear energy is clean energy. That is absolutely ridiculous. Nuclear energy has never been clean energy. The more elected members buy into that idea, the further we will sink into another form of greenwashing.
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- May/9/24 9:11:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. She also made a good speech, in which she spoke about the billions of dollars going to oil companies.
We need to look at the root of government interference, which is fiscal imbalance. What does that mean? First, Ottawa takes in more revenue than it needs. Second, Ottawa uses that financial leeway to interfere in areas outside its jurisdiction. That is exactly what the government is doing with Bill C-59 and Bill C-69.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it himself: If the trend continues, eventually the provincial governments, including Quebec, will be virtually bankrupt, while the federal government will see its revenues increase.
What will the result be? The federal government will be able to intervene in areas of provincial jurisdiction. It is an unprecedented centralization of power in Ottawa's hands. That is one of the many reasons why we will be voting against these two bills.
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