- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Lac-Saint-Louis
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $123,581.21
- Government Page
- Mar/21/24 1:04:39 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is a fact that emissions are starting to decrease, but they would decrease faster if it were not for the oil and gas sector, the sector that is predominant in the member's province and the sector his party is tied to at the hip.
There is no carbon tax. It is a price on carbon. Who said that? The Supreme Court said that. In its ruling on the Greenhouse Gas Pricing Pollution Act, it said, “there is ample evidence that the fuel and excess emission charges imposed by Parts 1 and 2 of the GGPPA have a regulatory purpose.... [They] cannot be characterized as taxes; rather, they are regulatory charges whose purpose is to advance the GGPPA’s regulatory purpose by altering behaviour.”
Why is the member contradicting the Supreme Court of Canada?
140 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/1/24 11:09:51 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to point out that I believe there is an error in the wording of the motion. The motion calls on the Liberal government to cancel the April 1, 2024, carbon tax increase.
However, there is no carbon tax. It is actually a price on pollution. I believe that both the House and Canadians are being misled on this issue.
Why is it not a tax? For it to be a tax, the government would have to put the money into its coffers with a view to spending it on programs or investing it in the future of Canadians.
That is not what the price on pollution does. With the price on pollution, the government is only an intermediary, because the proceeds are returned to Canadians. It is a price mechanism, something that the Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman endorsed as an economic measure for fighting pollution.
How does this mechanism work in terms of carbon pricing? It is very interesting. It involves a little bit of magic. When a consumer goes to spend money and sees that the price is perhaps a little higher, they are not thinking about the quarterly deposit they will receive from the Government of Canada in their chequing account as compensation. They just look at the price and decide that, since it is a bit more expensive, they will consume a little less. That saves them money in the short term, and then, on January 1, April 1 and so forth, they realize that money has been deposited in their bank account.
They will feel doubly lucky, because they saved money at the pump and also got money from the government. That is how carbon pricing works, and it is the key to its effectiveness as a measure for fighting pollution, especially greenhouse gas emissions.
What is very frustrating about this debate, in addition to the fact that it is the same debate over and over again based on a very symbolic and superficial understanding of what the price on pollution is, are these flimsy conclusions that the official opposition wishes to draw about the impact of the price on pollution on inflation and, more specifically, on food prices. However, rigorous academic study after rigorous academic study has pointed to the fact that the impact of the price on pollution on food prices is extremely small.
Now, we know that the official opposition has no respect for the Bank of Canada and that it would like to take the Bank of Canada under its wing and dictate monetary policy, but it is an incredibly credible institution filled with some of the best economists in this country. What does the Bank of Canada say about the supposed link between the price on carbon and inflation? It says that the price on carbon contributes about 0.15 % to inflation overall.
The University of Calgary, is not, I might add for anyone who does not follow schools of thought and academic life in this country, what I would call a hotbed of socialism. What did the University of Calgary say about the supposed link between the price on carbon and food inflation? University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe estimates that the price on carbon I will call it, because I do not want to mislead people as it is not a tax, is responsible for less than 1% of grocery price increases. How did Professor Tombe come to that conclusion? Did he just pull a number out of the air the way the official opposition likes to do? No. He used a Statistics Canada modelling program. Again, we have some of the country's greatest econometric experts working at Statistics Canada, like we do at the Bank of Canada. I do not know if the official opposition members are calling into question the integrity and expertise of Statistics Canada, maybe they are, but I would say that the Statistics Canada modelling program is a credible instrument and that is what Professor Tombe was using.
He goes on to say that in Alberta, because this is very much focused in many ways on Alberta and the oil industry, the price on carbon has increased prices by about 0.3%, which is 30¢ on a $100 bill, in Manitoba it is 0.9% and in Ontario it is 0.4%. These are credible, rigorous academic studies. However, we do not get any of that from the official opposition; rather, we get this kind of false logic, like the shin bone is attached to the knee bone and the knee bone is attached to the thigh bone, etc. It starts with the idea that there is a price on carbon, which means it is going to cost more to drive a truck, or this and that, and eventually it is going to show up on the shelves. The fact of the matter is that is not real logic founded on a rigorous analysis.
The other point I would like to make is that the price of food has gone up. However, according to credible news media like CTV News, and an article posted on its website, there are a number of factors that are contributing to the high price of food.
The first is climate change. Devastating wildfires continue to rage across Canada, destroying forests and farmland. Let us use a bit of simplistic logic that maybe the official opposition can understand. If farmland is destroyed, what happens to the supply of food? It goes down. The Leader of the Opposition thinks of himself as a wonderful and great economist, but what happens when the supply of food goes down and the demand stays the same? What happens to the price? It goes up. That is the number one cause of rising food prices. It is basic logic.
The really interesting thing is that greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector are not regulated. There is no price on carbon on greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector. As a matter of fact, a lot of people have been writing to me saying that we have to price greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural lands, but we have not done that.
What is another aspect that is causing challenges to the supply of food? Can members guess what Ukraine has been called? It has been called the breadbasket of Europe. I think it is going through some tough times, which may be limiting the supply of wheat from that part of the world. Again, if we constrain supply in the face of a demand that is stable or even increasing, we get higher prices.
I do not know why the leader of the official opposition does not click into that. It is basic economics 101. Therefore, we have to look at these other causes. The price on carbon is not the cause of all the woes around the world and we have to stop saying that.
What the members of the official opposition like to do, over and again, through these opposition day motions is build straw men, which they then demolish on social media while pretending to be heroes. That is all this is about. It is all about social media hits.
1212 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/28/23 4:39:55 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, here we are having another debate on carbon pricing. It feels like the only thing we talk about here in the House is carbon pricing. Some claim that it is a “carbon tax”.
I know all about taxes. Taxes generate revenues that the government pockets. In the case of the price on carbon, all revenues, all the funds generated are returned to individuals or, in some cases, to businesses to allow them to invest in the transition to a clean economy.
I have been sitting here, day after day, listening to what I consider to be a false narrative on the price on carbon. First of all, it has been given an incorrect name. It is not a carbon tax. A tax is something that generates revenues that go to the government coffers. When one talks about a price on carbon, and this is the beauty of it, as it is extremely effective, all of the monies received from the price of carbon are returned to Canadians or Canadian businesses. As a matter of fact, if the price on carbon were removed, the climate action incentive payment would disappear and a vast majority of Canadians would be worse off. We do not hear that truth from the Conservative Party.
What we hear is what my former colleague and Canadian hero and hockey great Ken Dryden used to call “truthiness”. Truthiness is something that sounds true, but it is just not true. Day after day, we are treated to a simplistic but false chain of causation that the Conservatives trot out. It sounds true and anyone listening would say, “Yes, that sounds very logical”, but the chain breaks all along the length of it if one spends any time thinking about what is being said.
Every day in question period, it sounds like the ankle bone is connected to the shin bone, which is connected to the knee bone, which is connected to the thigh bone, except they say, “If one has a price on carbon, it costs a trucker a little more to ship. That means the distributor has to pay a little bit more, and that means that the retailer pays a little bit more, and then Canadians pay a little bit more.”
That is not how it works at all. As a matter of fact, studies, and we know that the Conservative opposition is not keen on academic studies or rigorous studies of any kind, have shown that the price on carbon contributes very little, an minuscule or infinitesimal amount, to the food price inflation. Although we would not want to let academic studies get in the way of a good “truthy” argument coming from the other side.
I think the Conservative Party is using the price on carbon as a red herring. I get very frustrated when constituents write to me and say, “Please take the price on carbon off”, and I write back to say, “Sir, madam, the price on carbon does not apply in Quebec.” Quebec has been pricing carbon since 2007, and B.C. has been pricing carbon since 2008. It does not apply in Quebec.
I have had other people come to me, and I guess they listen to Conservative propaganda because they say, “Where is my climate action incentive payment?” I have to say to them, “Sir, madam, I am sorry. You do not get the climate action incentive payment because you do not pay the price on carbon.” They write back and thank me for explaining it to them. They did not realize. That is a bit of the job of a member of Parliament, which is to explain the facts about government policy and why government policy is the desired policy.
I have talked about this before in the House, but I will mention it again. The Leader of the Opposition fancies himself to be a great monetarist economist in the tradition of the Chicago school of economics, the school that was made famous by Milton Friedman. However, Milton Friedman thought that the price on carbon was a wonderfully simple and effective policy instrument for pricing pollution. It is what we call an externality, which is something that is not priced and is therefore not reflected in the market, so it leads to a greater use of something that is not necessarily a societal good, which is what the price on carbon is really all about.
We can keep talking about this, I am sure, until the cows come home, and I am prepared to stand up in the House over and over again to set the record straight about the price on carbon. However, let us face it, we are going through an affordability crisis in Canada and around the world, as a matter of fact. Fortunately, in Canada we have one of the developed world's lowest inflation rates. As I said, the challenges remain, but I think we have to look at the international context and see where we fit within it.
Now, the government recognizes that we have an affordability crisis, and it is acting to help Canadians weather this crisis. Fortunately, we have seen the inflation rate come down recently, and this was predicted a couple of years ago. I wanted to wait and see because we want to see the reality, but many economists were telling us a year and a half to two years ago that, by this time, inflation would start to come down. In fact, it seems to be happening, but we will wait and see over the long term. In the meantime, the government is acting, and I will give members an example of one of the inflation relief measures that our government instituted to help Canadians weather the inflationary storm.
Budget 2023 introduced a new, one-time, targeted grocery rebate to provide inflation relief for 11 million Canadians and families who needed it most, which is over a quarter of the Canadian population. That is not peanuts. The grocery rebate provided $2.5 billion in targeted support, with eligible couples with two children receiving up to an extra $467 and single Canadians without children receiving up to an extra $234, which included single seniors. Now, the Conservatives may say that is not enough and does not really count, but they can tell that to somebody who is dealing with the high cost of food as a result of international developments, such as the war in Ukraine. I do not think it is something to sneeze at.
The government, of course, is doing other things. For example, it is addressing junk fees. Junk fees are taking a real bite out of Canadians' incomes, and they are having a disproportionate impact on lower-income Canadians. Through budget 2023, we announced our government's intention to work with regulatory agencies, provinces and territories to reduce junk fees for Canadians and continue to ensure that businesses are transparent with prices to help make life more affordable for Canadians.
At this point, I want to digress a little bit because we have noticed that the price of automobiles has been rising. It is not because of the price on carbon that the new car a person is leasing or buying has gone up a tremendous amount of money. I will explain why this has happened, and it is related to the pandemic. That is not a novel idea. On the other side of the House they seem to have forgotten the pandemic and the impacts of it, but there is a lot going on in the economy still today that is related to the pandemic. What happened in the pandemic with the sales of automobiles is that supply chains were interrupted for car dealers.
I was just getting going, but I am out of time, so I will stop there. Maybe some other day I will talk about why the price of cars has gone up, but it has nothing to do with the price on carbon.
1353 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/19/22 5:12:24 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate. Before I get into the substance of Bill S‑5, I would like to share a brief history of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and before I do that, I want to talk about the harmful effects of pollution on human health and emphasize how crucial it is to keep enforcing tough regulations to minimize pollution.
In 2017, The Lancet commission on pollution and health concluded that pollution is the greatest environmental risk factor for disease and premature death worldwide. An update to the original report published in 2017 was recently released. It finds that pollution is still responsible for a staggering nine million premature deaths per year, which is one in six deaths worldwide. These nine million pollution-related deaths each year are nearly 50% higher than all deaths worldwide attributable to COVID‑19 to date. They are also higher than all deaths in 2019 attributable to war, terrorism, AIDS, TB, malaria, and drug and alcohol use combined. Air pollution is the largest contributor to pollution-related deaths, accounting for 6.67 million total deaths.
I would like to go back to the Constitution of 1867 and remind everyone that there is no reference to the environment in terms of the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments. I would presume that if the fathers of Confederation were here with us and we used the term “environment”, a question mark would appear over each of their heads. Of course the Constitution talks about forests and fisheries, but purely from the perspective of resource development, not from the perspective of resource protection.
The division of powers in environmental matters is not a static thing. It is a result of court rulings or the product of case law. That case law does not grant sole responsibility to any one level of government. In other words, the environment is a shared jurisdiction.
At this point, I would like to talk about the well-known Hydro-Québec case, when the Supreme Court decided that the federal government did indeed have the right to legislate on the regulation of toxic substances under criminal law. In this case, Hydro-Québec, a Crown corporation, was charged with dumping polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the Saint-Maurice River in the early 1990s under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
In its arguments, the Crown corporation stated that the regulation of toxic substances did not fall under criminal law and that the federal government was using criminal law as a pretext, or colourable device, to infringe on provincial jurisdiction. In a rather close five to four decision, Justices La Forest, L'Heureux-Dubé, Gonthier, Cory and McLachlin said, and I quote:
The protection of the environment, through prohibitions against toxic substances, constitutes a wholly legitimate public objective in the exercise of the criminal law power.... The legitimate use of the criminal law in no way constitutes an encroachment on provincial legislative power, though it may affect matters falling within the latter's ambit.... The use of the federal criminal law power in no way precludes the provinces from exercising their extensive powers under s. 92 to regulate and control the pollution of the environment either independently or in co-operation with federal action.
In other words, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a cornerstone that is rooted in our criminal law. It is serious business. Anyone who says that the act is not robust or strong is minimizing the powers enshrined in the act.
What does Bill S-5 do? No doubt it has been mentioned in other speeches, but it does the following: It recognizes the right to a healthy environment. This is something that many constituents have written to me about. They are asking for this bill to incorporate it. It also confirms the government's commitment to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The bill recognizes the importance of minimizing the risk to vulnerable populations, namely children and those who live in high pollution areas. Very importantly, it requires that cumulative effects, that is, how chemicals interact with each other, be considered in substance risk assessments. That is not nothing; this is something that is value-added to this legislation.
Of concern also to many of my constituents, the bill seeks to reduce the use of animals in testing the safety of products. Also, Canadians would be able to request that specific substances be assessed outside the government's particular assessment priorities. There is a role for citizens in this bill and that is in regard to the role and right to request that specific substances be assessed.
Let us go back a bit in the history of CEPA. Let us go back to 1999. The first update to CEPA was in 1999. I remember that very well because I was working on the Hill as a political staffer and the MP I worked for was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of the environment. There were lengthy consultations with stakeholders on how to amend the bill. The committee hearings were quite extensive and involved.
CEPA, 1999 incorporated for the first time the precautionary principle, which, again, is not nothing. The precautionary principles states:
Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
I remember there was a lot of debate around that definition of the precautionary principle. No doubt many people would like to see the definition perhaps be a little stronger and maybe not mention the term “cost-effective” as in cost-effective measures. Nonetheless, it is there in the bill.
Also in CEPA, 1999, there was a focus away from managing pollution after it had been created, to preventing pollution in the first place. CEPA, 1999 also included provisions for regulating vehicle emissions which, as we know, the government uses in the battle against climate change.
Finally, CEPA, 1999 established a new, more rigorous and timely approach to assessing whether a substance is or may be considered toxic to the environment or to human health. In the act, toxic is defined as having “an immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity” constituting or possibly constituting “a danger to the environment on which life depends” or constituting or possibly constituting a danger “to human life or health”.
Bill S-5, as I understand it, would inject more rigour into the process. Here I quote:
The new regime will retain the risk-based approach in the current Act. For substances assessed as meeting the criteria to be considered toxic under CEPA, the amendments would then require that the Ministers give priority to prohibiting activities in relation to said toxic substances of the highest risk. The criteria for substances of the highest risk would be set out in regulations, and would include persistence and bioaccumulation as well as criteria for such things as carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, and reproductive toxicity. These regulations will be developed in consultation with stakeholders.
We are talking about a bill, and this is a complex area. Clearly, regulations will be required. One cannot put everything in the bill. Much of the detail will have to be contained in regulations.
Another interesting fact about Bill S-5 is that the bill, if it is passed and I assume it will be, would require the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to publish and maintain a watch-list. This is something new. By watch-list, we mean a list of substances that have been determined to be capable of becoming toxic under CEPA. We are not just talking about substances that are determined to be toxic, but those that could be determined, after study, to become toxic, if, for example, exposure is increased. The watch-list would help importers, manufacturers and Canadian consumers to select safer alternatives and avoid regrettable substitutions.
Another interesting fact about CEPA, which I do not think has really been talked about too much is that CEPA is relevant in the context of the fight against climate change. When we talk about the measures to battle greenhouse gas emissions, we refer a lot to the price on carbon, the price on pollution, but we do not really focus on CEPA.
I was elected and already sitting in the House in 2005, and I remember that the government of Paul Martin added greenhouse gas emissions to CEPA, 1999, namely those emissions from large industrial emitters, citing the “worldwide scientific consensus that there is sufficient and compelling evidence to conclude that greenhouse gases constitute or may constitute a danger to the environment on which life depends.”
This was almost 20 years ago. Even back then the Liberal government had the foresight to understand that climate change was a real and growing problem and made amendments to CEPA, 1999 to give itself the leverage, the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. I do not recall the Conservatives being thrilled with this change at the time, although today they happily preach the regulatory route to supporting clean technologies as the preferred alternative to putting a price on carbon.
It has been mentioned and talked about even today in this debate that one of the major steps forward through Bill S-5 is the introduction of the right to a healthy environment. I will read the new section 5.1(1) of Bill S-5, which says:
For the purposes of paragraph 2(1)(a.2), the Ministers shall, within two years after the day on which this section comes into force, develop an implementation framework to set out how the right to a healthy environment will be considered in the administration of this Act.
I will come back to this in a moment.
There is another very important aspect of Bill S-5 which should not be minimized. It has been mentioned; the member for Victoria touched on it. The bill seeks to minimize risks to the health of vulnerable populations. By vulnerable population, we mean “a group of individuals within the Canadian population who, due to greater susceptibility or greater exposure, may be at an increased risk of experiencing adverse health effects from exposure to substances.”
Those with greater susceptibility may include, for example, children and those in poor health. Those with greater exposure may include workers and those living in areas where levels of pollution are particularly high.
In addition, the new law would require that the government conduct research and studies, including biomonitoring surveys specifically in relation to the role of substances in illnesses or in health problems which may relate to vulnerable populations.
This is where Bill S-5 intersects with Bill C-226, which in this Parliament is being sponsored by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, but was first introduced by the member for Cumberland—Colchester in the last Parliament. It has been referred to as the bill on environmental racism.
Bill C-226 is identical, except for a couple of grammatical changes and some wording, to the bill that came out of the environment committee before the last election. This bill goes a bit further than Bill S-5 in being very proactive and prescriptive in engaging with vulnerable populations on the risks they face.
For example, Bill C-226 requires the minister to develop a national strategy to promote efforts across Canada to advance environmental justice, and to assess, prevent and address environmental racism.
The bill requires that this strategy include a study that includes an examination of the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk, information and statistics relating to the location of environmental hazards. It must include measures that can be taken to advance environmental justice and assess, prevent and address environmental racism and that may include possible amendments to federal laws, policies and programs, the involvement of community groups in environmental decision-making, and lastly, the collection of information and statistics relating to health outcomes in communities located in proximity to environmental hazards.
In an effort to leverage the new right to a healthy environment and the protection of vulnerable populations, it has been suggested that Bill S-5 be amended to require that the minister specify what actions the government will take when ever a substance for which an ambient air quality standard has been established, when the average ambient concentration of such a substance in a geographic area exceeds the standard.
I think this is very important. I think it was alluded to by the member for Victoria. Going back to the beginning of my speech, this is where pollution really impacts human health. It is often through air pollution. Many are calling for an amendment to the bill that would require the government to develop actions whenever it is determined that the ambient air quality in a particular area is above standard.
I understand there are some federal and provincial jurisdictional issues around doing this, but I hope it is something that the committee will explore with expert witnesses and perhaps an amendment will be introduced to this effect.
This connects to another issue that I received a lot of mail about in the last few years. The bill seeks to reduce reliance on animal testing. I have many constituents who have written to me in relation to animal testing for cosmetic product development. They have written to me saying that we have to stop this. In fact, the bill opens the door to minimizing the use of animal testing. The Senate made some amendments to make that part of the bill even stronger.
I have met with stakeholders, particularly animal rights groups like the Animal Justice Canada, Humane Canada and the Humane Society International/Canada. They have recommended strengthening this part of the bill even more. The Senate amendment talks about refining the use of animal testing, but that leaves the door open a little too wide according to those I have met with.
2367 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Sep/29/22 12:31:39 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, first of all, the price on carbon pollution does not apply in Quebec. Consequently, my colleague's constituents will not be affected by that measure, although they will benefit from the relief set out in Bill C-30. However, I want to put that aside for a moment.
The price on pollution adds an estimated 2.2¢ to every litre of gasoline, but, in any event, Canadians are compensated for that increase.
Does my colleague believe that this 2.2¢ increase has a greater impact on the price of gas than the war in Ukraine?
100 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
