- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Mirabel
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,073.56
- Government Page
- Nov/2/23 11:47:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the Chair that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Jonquière.
Today is a bit like Groundhog Day. For a while now, it feels like the same day keeps coming back. Once again, we must highlight a very simple fact about the Conservative motion: it does not apply in Quebec. This was already true for the dozens of other motions the Conservatives have presented about the carbon tax. They do not apply in Quebec.
We understand that the Conservative Party is a federalist party, a Canada-wide party. Sometimes, the Conservatives want to look after Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, the Atlantic provinces. In a way, that is their job, since they are a Canada-wide party. Nonetheless, since I was elected in 2021, this has bothered me. It bothers me because I have not yet had the opportunity I so desire, which is to rise to speak on a Conservative opposition day and believe that they are looking out for or thinking about Quebec, that their proposal applies to Quebec, that it is something of interest to Quebeckers.
The first time, we thought they were looking out for their voting base in oil country. The second time, we thought they were looking out for their voters elsewhere. Today, we see the consistent truth: Quebec is of no interest to them. What interests them is the oil sector. Just this week, the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent said as much, in somewhat fancier terms, on a CPAC panel. The Conservative plan to fight climate change consists of three things their leader stated at their convention: subsidize the oil sector, subsidize the oil sector and subsidize the oil sector with Quebeckers’ money.
I am concerned that the Quebec Conservative caucus does not seem to have any influence. They do not seem to be heard, or to stand up for Quebeckers. If they stood up for Quebec, if it were worthwhile for Quebeckers to vote Conservative, we would be talking here about Quebec once in a while. What is interesting about these Conservative caucus members is that they are among those who joined forces to ensure carbon taxes did not apply in Quebec. They were players. They were Jean Charest’s gang. With one exception, they were his cronies.
The member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis supported Quebec's emissions trading system and Quebec's environmental sovereignty in cabinet in Quebec City. She's a friend of Jean Charest, a good friend. She was part of that. When the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent was in Quebec City, he said he was in favour of Quebec's autonomy in the realm of environmental policy. That is what the Bloc Québécois is fighting for. Once he landed in Ottawa, his values evaporated. The member for Mégantic—L'Érable was one of Jean Charest's underlings in Quebec City. He was part of that gang. As one of Jean Charest's minions, he worked to defend our environmental sovereignty, but now it is radio silence. The member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord campaigned in support of Jean Charest's leadership bid. They were so joined at the hip, it was a wonder Mr. Charest did not have to get bigger pants so the member could fit in there with him. Now, there is nothing. Nobody is standing up for Quebec.
There is no more defending Quebec because with the Conservatives, under the current Conservative leader, it is a purity test for a Quebecker to deny the interests of Quebec, to lie to Quebec and defend the Conservative lines which are deeply flawed. Some days I tell myself I am happy there is a gym in Parliament. Members of Quebec's Conservative caucus do not get in their squats and their exercise by standing up for Quebeckers in the House. If they want to firm their thighs here, they do not do so by standing up for Quebec, because they never stand up for Quebec. They are going to get bedsores remaining seated for Quebec. They do not even ask for health transfers for them, which is what the provinces and Quebec are asking.
This worries me because there are Quebeckers who, at one time, trusted these people. They were wrong. On Bloc opposition days, which are focused on the needs of Quebec, these same Conservatives have the nerve to tell us what we should have done. They tell us we should have chosen topics that matter to Quebeckers. Yesterday, Parliament voted unanimously in favour of a motion from the Bloc Québécois asking the federal government to consult Quebec before announcing its new immigration targets.
During the vote, all Quebec members, Conservatives and Liberals alike, voted in favour of consulting Quebec. That same day, the federal government adopted and announced targets unilaterally. It did so without consulting Quebec, as was confirmed to us by the Quebec minister. Today is an opposition day and it would have been a good topic to address. The Conservatives had the opportunity to think of Quebec for the first time in years. They did not do it because a Quebecker in the Conservative Party is useless. It would have had direct consequences on the lives of Quebeckers, on the capacity to integrate, on French language training, on togetherness. Actions count.
I will speak of the Canada emergency business account, or CEBA. The Conservatives, who form the current opposition, have the opportunity to ask tons of questions during oral question period. Right now, tens of thousands of businesses are headed for bankruptcy and we are asking for a CEBA loan repayment extension. That is what chambers of commerce are asking for. We can agree that they are not part of the radical left. However, never has a Quebec Conservative stood in the House to defend our businesses, our entrepreneurial base or the investments people have made. These people have never stood up for Quebec.
Quebec has its own housing model. The Conservatives say that they favour decentralization and acknowledge that the provinces have jurisdictions. When Quebec tries to exercise its power in its areas of jurisdiction, it gets no money from Ottawa. How many times have we seen a Conservative from Quebec rise in the House to ask the government to give Quebec the $900 million it was due from income tax paid by Quebeckers? There are over 10,000 homeless people in Quebec, and the cost of housing continues to rise. It is a national crisis. My colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert is working full time on this, but no Conservative has ever spoken on the topic.
The Conservatives have never asked for an increase in health transfers. They bowed to their leader.
The Quebec Conservatives claim to be progressive conservatives. They say this until they look at their values, then their pay, then their values again, then the money they make in Ottawa with their nice Conservative seats. That is where it stops. Suddenly, they are progressive only on statutory holidays and weekends.
When the Conservatives helped to ensure the carbon tax did not apply in Quebec, they were players. They are now on the sidelines and are trying all kinds of tricks to say that it applies in Quebec. They wanted to play wedge politics and say that the tax applies across Canada, but they did a poor job of it, as is so often the case. They were caught misleading the House.
In response, they fooled around with motions and conjured all kinds of convoluted nonsense to say that there was a second carbon tax. This second carbon tax is a regulation that will not apply until 2030. They did not know this because they did not do their homework, because the Conservatives do not listen to Quebeckers. They realized that the Quebec regulation is more restrictive and that this had no effect. They are now bending over backwards to try to explain that it is coming in through the back door or whatever.
The truth is that Alberta made $24 billion this year on oil royalties. Alberta taxes compulsively and is dependent on oil. Per person, for every dollar Quebec makes on hydroelectricity, Alberta makes 13 on oil. Furthermore, this government has no modern sales tax or personal income tax. This is the system Quebec Conservatives defend in their caucus. They are kowtowing to keep their seat.
The member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier promised to resign if the current Conservative leader was elected. Today, we are not hearing the member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier defend the decentralization of Quebec's environmental policy or Quebec's jurisdictions.
My political commitment is to Quebec and it is profound. We are standing up for Quebec and we are standing up for the truth. I appeal to the statesmanship of the Conservative members from Quebec. I hope that at some point they will reflect deeply on what their commitment means to them, and that one day we will be able to discuss a motion that applies to Quebec. However, that is not the case today.
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Madam Speaker, I am talking about the provincial governments that are doing their job and those that are not. That is what federalism is all about. The provinces are given powers and told to handle housing and all the social programs. That means different provinces can make different choices.
Obviously, Quebec has made certain choices, and now it is being penalized for its success in this area. My colleague talked about equalization, and this is kind of the same thing. Alberta's performance on the environment and economic diversification is poor, and it is paying for it. That is the nature of federalism.
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Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed reading my hon. colleague's bill. It is very interesting. The intention is sincere, and it could be impactful. Kudos to my colleague, and I thank him.
This bill talks about concentration in the economy and the importance of diversifying the economy. As we know, having an extremely concentrated economy primarily in the provinces that produce very polluting resources has an important impact not only on those provinces, but also on the rest of the country and Quebec.
The first thing we need to talk about is the environment. We all know that one Albertan produces six times more greenhouse gas emissions than a Quebecker. One Saskatchewanian produces seven times more than a Quebecker. That is substantial.
Next is resilience. A poorly diversified economy is less resilient in the face of stress, recessions, geopolitical uncertainties and pandemics.
There is also dependence. Anytime too much of the economy is focused on a single resource or group of resources, that creates dependence.
Conservative members like to say that Quebec and other provinces depend on equalization. However, the greatest example of dependence in this country is Alberta's dependence on oil. I will give an example. I had a lot of fun looking at Alberta's old budgets. I like public finances. There are normally very few surprises in the public finances of the provinces, but Alberta was pleasantly surprised this year.
Based on last year's projections, Alberta was expected to run a deficit of almost $11 billion for the 2022-23 fiscal year. All of a sudden, a $500-million surplus is announced. The Alberta government appears to be a genius at managing public funds.
The difference between the two Alberta budgets is that royalties on what they very affectionately call “bitumen” have increased by almost $8 billion. That is what magically covered nearly 70% of the province's deficit. Note that if Alberta had a value-added tax, a sales tax like most industrialized countries that know how to tax properly, like Quebec and the other provinces, like Europe, there would no longer be a deficit.
Yes, those provinces need to diversify their economy.
Beyond that, the market concentration can be calculated. Without getting into any detail, there are concentration indicators, such as the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. When we look at the concentration of Alberta's exports, the index is six times higher than that of Quebec, Ontario and the Canadian average, depending on the year. The most recent reliable statistics that I have date back to 2017. They are a few years old, but when we were debating the situation in Ukraine, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills did not hesitate to refer to a report from 2015 to say that we needed to produce more. I do not think that it will bother anyone that I am using data from 2017, but as an economist, I can say that the basic gist remains the same.
Yes, we need to diversify the economy.
Since I have been a member of the House, I have heard a lot of talk about diversification, in particular from those sitting next to me. Is there a problem with western Canada's public finances? Let us diversify and produce more oil. Is global warming a problem? Let us produce more oil and hope that, in 70 years, when the oceans have risen by three centimetres, we are able to sequester greenhouse gas emissions. That is pretty obvious.
On a more serious note, I would say that the Conservatives even used the war in Ukraine to try to justify the construction of pipelines that will take 10 to 15 years to complete. We are not talking about Keystone XL; we are talking about forever. They are trying to sell us that. It is serious.
I am a relatively new MP. In passing, I would like to say hello to my constituents in Mirabel and thank them for electing me six months ago. Parliament is a rumour mill. We hear things in the halls and secrets in the cafeteria. It would seem the Conservatives are thinking about putting oil in Canada's food guide.
It seems that this would resolve the problem of diversifying our diet. However, they do not agree at all. Some are wondering if it will be in with the fruits and vegetables. Others are wondering if it will be in with the meats and alternatives. I think it will end up with the dairy products because some people will put oil on their cereal in the morning. Since there is a leadership race, this question will likely be settled in September, or at least we hope so.
Let us come back to serious matters. This is an interesting bill that says that within 18 months after coming into force, the ministers concerned will meet with stakeholders. It says that they will have to make recommendations and reflect—it is a smart process, we admit it—that the report will have to be tabled in the House and brought to the attention of members, and that the process will have to be repeated every five years.
However, let us make sure that these reports do not end up like all the other reports, including the IPCC report. The government shows interest for a day and then throws it in the trash.
The same thing happened to the report of the commissioner of the environment. The commissioner blamed the government. We then asked questions in the House, but to listen to them talk one would believe that the commissioner was congratulating them. They need to do something else with these reports other than say that diversification will be paid for with more oil.
I, too, would like to see major research being conducted in Alberta. I have several university friends there, and I know that some research is already being done. I, too, want to see excellence, but this must be financed with something other than royalties.
Alberta must become less dependent. Their public finances indicate just how vulnerable Alberta is. When the price of oil goes up, everything is good; when the price of oil goes down, things are very bad. When things are good, they want more of it; when things are bad, their solution is to have more. Alberta and oil, it is like nicotine. When you miss it, you smoke more; when you smoke more, you cannot stop.
In the process that will lead us to reflect on this bill, I hope that we will find ourselves in a situation where we are constructive, forward-looking and do not continue to invest in an industry of the past. We must look ahead more than 10 years and stop relying on an industry in decline. Canada's history shows us that it has not always been easy. In former times, with the Pearson government, Canada's policy focused on buying Canadian.
We know they are very interested in the price of oil. Well, they were selling us their oil for more than the global price. That profit margin enabled them to develop the western oil sands, which cost a lot more to exploit than conventional oil because of the three processing stages.
In 2009, the Harper government said it would eliminate inefficient oil subsidies, whatever that means. Anyway, it does not matter what it means because the government did nothing. Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, our banks have invested $609 billion of our money, our savings, in non-renewable energy projects, in oil. That is a total of $609 billion, including $84 billion for coal. This is the 21st century, but we are investing in coal. It feels like we are back in the days of old locomotives.
There are solutions, in particular industry-led ones. This has to be a two-way street. The Bloc Québécois has made a lot of green finance proposals because the transition must be financially worthwhile. We need to ensure that the big capital is going to the right place, that investors have an incentive to invest, and that effective price signals are sent. We can use taxation, a savings tax. Transparency in the banking system is lacking. I want to know if my bank is investing my money in dirty oil. I will then make my own decision, but I want to know.
We are talking about maybe working on the fiduciary duties of pension funds, which invest our pensions for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, when this industry is expected to be on the decline. We are talking about norms, about norms from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, or TCFD, about other norms that could be applied to Crown corporations, and so on.
There is a lot to think about. There is a lot of work to be done. We need to get a lot of people around the table. I read this bill with great interest and I hope that it will produce something constructive for the future of people in western Canada.
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