- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $135,225.85
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member from the Bloc a little, and I am going to disagree with her a little as well.
I agree that this is a shoddy bill. The government has been warned. The Liberals and the NDP want to ram this through, and they have been reminded over and over again, including in some great speeches here tonight, of how this is going to end up in the courts, like Bill C-69. I agree with her on that. They are putting it through and they do not care. It is going to get stalled for years and they are going to blame everybody but themselves.
I find that I disagree with the Bloc, though, too. I agree a little more, if I could, about simplifying the environmental assessment process: one environmental assessment, federal or provincial. We do not need the double red tape taking years. The list goes on of the number of companies and projects that have been caught up in this.
The thing with the Bloc Québécois is that it wants to cancel, as an example, all offshore petroleum or the wonderful oil and gas sector, with a number of jobs in this country. The irony is that when we cancel a project here in Canada, what happens is that countries like Russia, Venezuela and other countries that do not give two hoots about emissions reductions are going to take up that limit. Trust me: They are not having the same conversations about conservation and good measures that we are having here in Canada.
The Bloc Québécois is saying these projects and paycheques belong in Canada, but it wants to export them around the world.
291 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/1/24 10:37:20 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to follow up on our leader's speech about our opposition day motion today, which is calling on the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to support common sense.
After eight years of the Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal coalition, Canadians by the millions are getting increasingly frustrated at the out-of-control tax increases under the Prime Minister. Let me give an example: $27,571.29 on an invoice from Rutters Elevators. I was speaking to Michael Aube in Chesterville yesterday and again this morning. That is the carbon tax bill, the line on the bill, for drying at their elevator for one farm in Chesterville, Ontario, last year.
Canadians believe that this is getting absurd. The worst is yet to come. On April 1, the carbon tax is going to increase by 23%, and the Prime Minister and the NDP, coalition partners together, are going to quadruple the carbon tax in the coming years. This means Canadians are dumbfounded at the fact that the Prime Minister, the finance minister and their government believe that putting a $100,000 carbon tax bill for one farm alone is not going to increase the cost of food and inflation in this country. Nobody believes it. Again, just this week, the finance minister and Deputy Prime Minister went out and said that the carbon tax is revenue-neutral. It is no wonder we cannot balance the budget in this country under their watch. They cannot do basic math and economics to understand that.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed the impact the tax is going to have on farmers; $1 billion in carbon taxes is coming under the current plan and the continued carbon tax increases to farmers in the coming years. Nobody believes that one can add a billion dollars in taxes to the bills of Canadian farmers and not expect food prices, the cost of living and the cost of doing business in this country to go up. That does not even include the carbon tax on trucking.
In my family, I am proud of my father, Ed, now happily retired from JED Express in South Mountain, Ontario. We were in the trucking business for years. One cannot put 61¢ a litre on the price of gas in the transportation business and not have it drive up the cost of food and of everything that Canadians buy. Everything has to be shipped and trucked in this country, driving up the cost. Canadians are tired and have had enough of these tax increases.
We have our common-sense Conservative motion here today that builds on our four priorities: axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. That is resonating because it is what Conservative members heard in every part of the country once again over the Christmas recess and holidays, out and about in our community.
Let us talk about being out of touch. I want people to picture this for a second if they can. We went home to our ridings, to Christmas open houses and to public events, and we were dropping by. I want people to picture a Liberal MP and just how out of touch they are. Apparently they went home and went to the local Tim Hortons coffee shop to grab a coffee and shoot the breeze with people in Avalon, rural Newfoundland. They came back to Ottawa and, after weeks of feedback, the Prime Minister had a great idea this week.
They said they heard the message about the carbon tax loud and clear: People do not like the name of it. The Liberals' idea, after going back and hearing from Canadians, apparently, was that it was not the fact that the carbon tax was going to quadruple. It was not the fact that it is driving up costs, and it was not the fact that we are adding a billion dollars in taxes to Canadian farmers in the coming years. It was the fact that maybe Canadians just do not like the name of the carbon tax. The Liberals are out of touch.
On this side of the aisle, the motion is clear. On April 1 the carbon tax is going to increase by 23% as part of the plan to quadruple it from its current rate. If Canadians think it is bad now, just wait until, year after year, it gets to the totals in their plans. They may not even be done after that.
There is no part of this country that is not impacted negatively by the failed carbon tax, and it has been a failure. Emissions are not going down; they are going up. The cost of living and the cost of doing business are skyrocketing at rates like we have never seen before.
I want to point out a couple of things in this country. Just this week, CTV News had an article headline that said, “40 per cent of N.S. households struggle to pay their electricity bill”. The Liberals still plan to quadruple the carbon tax and drive bills up even further.
The part of the country I would like to highlight today are the good people in northern Ontario, who, for years, have overwhelmingly elected Liberal and NDP MPs to go to Ottawa. They are now seeing week by week, month by month, and budget by budget, just how out of touch their Liberal and NDP MPs have been.
It was very interesting here, and I want to call out the hypocrisy particularly of the NDP members. They always talk a big, tough game. They yell and do all their things, whether it be at committee or in question period, and they always claim they have these great ideas. They vote and do all these things that make it look like they are fighting on behalf of folks, particularly in northern Ontario. At the end of the day, when the budget comes, the NDP are just as complicit as the Liberals in driving up the carbon tax.
On hypocrisy, I have to call out the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, an NDP MP who goes on record about the carbon tax and says, “I think it's a black eye for the Liberals for what they have done.” Excuse me to the NDP members, but they have voted with the Liberals every single time, and they are going to quadruple it. The only reason Canadians do not have a choice right now is that the NDP keeps propping the Liberals up time and time again.
I think what is important here is that the NDP members say one thing back in their ridings, but then they come to Ottawa and vote a completely different way. What we say is that rent is up, gas is up, the carbon tax is up, housing costs are up, and for the NDP, time is up. Canadians, particularly in northern Ontario, are not buying it anymore.
One of my favourite parts is the NDP member for Timmins—James Bay, who gets triggered. I am glad he is here this morning. I am glad that at the—
1211 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, no, the Conservatives do not believe that the failed carbon tax is working. If we look at the metrics that the Green Party has itself, we have a carbon tax that has been increasing every year since it came into effect. We were told that emissions would drop when the carbon tax came in. Emissions have gone up every year and they will continue to do so. The government still has not tabled a plan to meet any of the targets it has set.
We can make progress on lowering emissions through removing gatekeepers and by enabling technology, not taxes, to be the solution. There is a lot—
111 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/31/22 6:19:47 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I will respectfully completely disagree with the premise and principle of what the Bloc is saying. At the end of the day, it is using the carbon tax as a tax to add to the price of doing business, whether it be in the oil and gas sector or any other sector.
What we have seen is the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Green Party support carbon taxes over the course of the last several years. We have not seen emissions go down in any meaningful way in the right direction. What we have seen is the cost of living, groceries and home heating rise and a cost of living crisis in this country. When we talk about emissions reductions, we are talking about that coming from technology, carbon capture and storage, small nuclear modular reactors and so forth, which can be in our energy sector. That is a good way to keep the cost of living down and keep our emissions down as well.
166 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/31/22 6:18:06 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I thank my Liberal colleague for raising the carbon tax during this debate and giving me the opportunity to respond. I really appreciate it, because when he talks about 80 euros over in Europe and only $50 here, it gives me the perfect opportunity to remind the Liberal benches and the NDP that they are going to triple the carbon tax in the coming years to $170.
It gives me the opportunity to raise the Parliamentary Budget Officer report that says, “most households will see a net loss resulting from federal carbon pricing” and household costs “exceed the rebate and the induced reduction in personal income taxes arising from the loss in income.”
It gives me the opportunity to remind the Liberal government that, on every single environmental target and promise it has made when it comes to emissions reduction, it has failed. All it is doing is raising the cost of living on people at a time when they need it the least.
170 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
