- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Foothills
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $161,345.02
- Government Page
- Oct/30/23 2:45:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the carbon tax works only if it is politically expedient.
The Prime Minister's carbon tax exemption does not help 97% of Canadians who are already struggling to put food on the table and heat their homes. Now we have a Liberal minister from Newfoundland and Labrador telling Albertans that the only reason they are not getting an exemption is they did not vote Liberal.
Are the Liberal minister from Edmonton Centre and the Liberal MP for Calgary Skyview not defending Alberta families? Are they not defending the 81% of their constituents who rely on natural gas to heat their homes and will not get a carbon tax exemption?
Will those Liberal MPs from Alberta stand in the House, defend their constituents and admit their Prime Minister is not the worth the cost?
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- Oct/30/23 2:44:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, an election must be in the air because the Prime Minister has announced his re-election campaign: Vote Liberal, and in three years they are going to quadruple the carbon tax on home heating, gas and groceries. After eight years, the Prime Minister is in a panic mode because he knows his NDP-Liberal government is not worth the cost.
Now we have a Liberal minister from Long Range Mountains in Newfoundland and Labrador admitting that only Canadians who vote Liberal will get an exemption from the carbon tax. What about the Liberal minister from Edmonton Centre or the Liberal MP for Calgary Skyview? Were these MPs so incompetent and so out of touch that they could not secure an exemption to the carbon tax for Albertans?
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Madam Speaker, I am a very proud Albertan, as I know my colleague is a very proud Quebecker. Therefore, I find it interesting that the Bloc is so supportive of the legislation. He is very intent about protecting Quebec artists and Quebec culture, which I would agree is a very admirable goal. Why he would be putting the authority to protect Quebec culture, Alberta culture and Canadian culture as a whole in the hands of an autocratic, ballooning bureaucracy and one political party in particular by supporting Bill C-11? It clearly would give the cabinet the authority to influence the decisions of the CRTC.
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- Dec/8/22 10:43:20 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I should have been prepared that this question was coming. Obviously, speaking as an Albertan, those energy companies are critical to our economy. They pay for those middle-class jobs and they ensure our economies, not only across Alberta but across Canada, are operating.
I am not endorsing taking the carbon tax off large emitters. In fact Alberta was the first province in Canada that implemented a carbon tax on large emitters like the energy companies. We understand there are ways we can incentivize improvements and innovation in technology, and there are areas in which those taxes should not be imposed. Canadian agriculture and food production is certainly one of those.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is right. I do care about my constituents, and all Albertans, passionately.
It is frustrating to see what is happening, not only in Alberta but across the country, in terms of the condition of our health care system.
Over the last few weeks, we saw the inability to purchase children's Tylenol, acetaminophen products, for example, and how it took the Liberal government weeks to try to address that. I am proud of the fact that then prime minister Stephen Harper increased health care spending and made it accountable every single year, by making sure that—
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- Jun/7/22 1:25:32 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Simcoe North.
We are talking about an affordability crisis in the House today. I am very confident that I am not the only member of the House who is getting dozens and dozens of calls and emails every single day from constituents who are very concerned about their ability to put food on the table, put fuel in their cars, heat their homes and put their kids in the activities they enjoy the most. What we are talking about here in our opposition day motion is reducing taxes to make life more affordable for Canadians by eliminating the GST on fuel and the carbon tax.
What I am hearing is somewhat unbelievable. The argument from the Liberals and the NDP is that somehow eliminating a point-of-sale tax does not put more money in the pockets of Canadians. I am not sure how one can even argue that. In fact, their argument against this is that retailers are going to collude to ensure that savings are not passed on to Canadians. I can say from experience that in Alberta, where the provincial government has removed the provincial sales tax on fuel, fuel is about 20¢ cheaper than anywhere else in Canada. Albertans are benefiting from a government that has seen the difficulties Canadians are facing, has taken action to address them and has passed savings directly to Canadians.
What I am hearing from my constituents, after two years of the pandemic, is that they are exhausted; they are tired. They want to get life back to normal. While they are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, that the pandemic is all but over and that businesses are opening back up, they see the affordability crisis, where fuel prices are exorbitant, grocery prices are going up and housing prices are going up. A lot of this has to fall at the feet of the Liberal government.
I know the Liberals like to say this is a global issue and that the war in Ukraine with Putin is causing prices to increase. However, I have been in the House pretty much every day and I do not ever recall Vladimir Putin sitting across the way and voting in favour of a carbon tax. I do not recall Vladimir Putin putting forward legislation or a bill to increase the carbon tax on April 1. Maybe I missed that. I am not sure if my colleagues around the House can confirm that Vladimir Putin is the reason the carbon tax went up 25% on April 1, despite an affordability crisis around the world and a war in Ukraine. I am not sure how we put this all at the feet of Vladimir Putin.
Instead of the government offering relief to Canadians when they need it most, the Prime Minister is travelling around the world with no mask in sight, and here at home he is punishing Canadians over and over again with his draconian mandates and travel restrictions, which are not in place anywhere else around the world. That really seems to be the modus operandi of the Liberal government. It is going to punish Canadians at home and do something completely different around the world.
A good example of that is the fertilizer tariff. My colleague across the way does not seem to think that this is a problem and thinks this is a way of punishing Russia. I would invite my Liberal colleagues talk to any farmer, especially in eastern Canada, and ask them if the fertilizer tariff is hurting Vladimir Putin. The only people this fertilizer tariff of 35% is punishing are Canadian farmers. Vladimir Putin, once again, is not paying this tariff; Canadian farmers are paying this tariff. Even before the war in Ukraine, fertilizer prices in many parts of the country were more than double what they were the year before, as a result, in many cases, of the carbon tax. Do members know what makes fertilizer? It is natural gas. Carbon taxes put on natural gas cause prices to increase.
Canadian farmers are being punished and we have offered solutions. We have asked the Liberal government to provide an exemption on fertilizers purchased before March 2, before Russia invaded Ukraine. The Liberals said no. We then asked them if they would offer compensation to farmers who have had to pay an exorbitant price for that tariff. Again, the Liberals said no.
Let me put this in perspective. Canada is the only G7 country putting a tariff on Russian fertilizer, meaning that Canadian farmers are now at a severe competitive disadvantage to our compatriots around the world. They are paying an exorbitantly high carbon tax and they are paying a tariff on fertilizer.
At the same time, we are in the midst of a global food crisis. Food insecurity is probably the number one priority on earth and we are the only country on earth that is increasing taxes and putting a tariff on fertilizer. How does that make us competitive? How does that give us the ability to carry the burden of helping in a global food crisis, which our farmers absolutely want to do? They want to be there to help, but the Liberal government is doing everything possible to ensure that we cannot do that and do not meet our potential.
Despite the Conservatives offering these solutions, the Liberals carry on with this activist agenda, let us say, or the theatrics they are putting on that this is somehow punishing Putin when it is only punishing Canadian farmers. However, it is not just Canadians farmers who are going to feel the impact of this. If Canadian farmers have to reduce their use of fertilizer simply because they cannot afford it, yields are going to go down and the prices of commodities are going to go up. We have already seen the price of groceries go up. In many cases they are up 15%, depending on the product. This is only going to get worse. We are not only talking about countries that have been relying on Ukrainian commodities such as barley, wheat and sunflower oil; this is going to be felt here at home.
My NDP colleagues have been talking about food insecurity here at home in Canada. A lot of that is the result of Liberal policies. The Liberals are the ones increasing the cost of those groceries by increasing the carbon tax, putting a tariff on fertilizer and having additional red tape, making it very difficult for our farmers to do the job they do best and better than anyone else in the world. We are the only country with a government, in a food security crisis, that is asking Canadian consumers to pay more. It is the only government asking farmers to pay more. How does this make any sense whatsoever?
I want to get to another part of our opposition day motion. I talked about fertilizer, but I also want to talk about the carbon tax.
The carbon tax is something for which the Conservatives have offered a solution. My colleague from Huron—Bruce offered a private member's bill that would eliminate the carbon tax on farm fuels, Bill C-234. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, in assessing the carbon tax, has said a few things that I think are very enlightening: The carbon tax is not revenue-neutral, the carbon tax increases inflation and the carbon tax does not reduce emissions. This is everything the Liberals are saying the carbon tax will accomplish, and the study by the Parliamentary Budget Officer has refuted all of those claims. Why are we charging this carbon tax on our Canadian farmers? We put forward a solution in Bill C-234 to eliminate the carbon tax from farm fuels.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has done the math. In the first year of the carbon tax, Canadian farmers paid on average about $14,000 a year. With the increase on April 1, that goes to $45,000 per average farmer. The Liberals are going to say there is a carbon tax rebate and eight out of 10 families make more off the carbon tax. Again, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, an arm's-length officer of the House, has said that is not the case. In Bill C-8, with the carbon tax rebate, farmers get $1.70 for every $1,000 of eligible expenses. They are getting pennies on the dollar for what they are contributing to the carbon tax. Farmers are price-takers. They cannot afford to carry the burden of the carbon tax when we are asking them to improve yields and their efficiency. It does not make sense.
At a time when we are talking about global food security, we also need to talk about affordability. Our farmers, producers and manufacturers need to be able to do what they do and do it efficiently. I have talked about the carbon tax and the fertilizer price, but there is another issue where the Liberals continue to throw on red tape and obstacles, which is going to be coming out in the next little while. It is front-of-package labelling. That is a direct attack on beef and pork producers in Canada. The United States has already identified this as a trade irritant that will impact our beef exports and increase grocery costs here at home, making things even more unaffordable for Canadians.
In conclusion, our motion is very prudent. It would ensure that we address the affordability crisis facing Canadians, and, most importantly, help our farmers, producers and ranchers, who are doing all they can to address a global food security crisis, ensure that groceries are affordable for all Canadians.
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