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Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees

Hon. Michael Chong

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
  • Conservative
  • Wellington—Halton Hills
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $120,269.09

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 114 - Oct/20/22
Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC)
  • Oct/20/22 3:36:46 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. The government is completely out of touch, and I do not say that lightly. There is a crisis unfolding in rural parts of our country, in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, a real crisis, a crisis the government is ignoring. Here is the crisis. Ten per cent of Canadians heat their home with heating oil or with propane. That is 3.8 million Canadians. About a million and a half households in our country heat their homes during the cold Canadian winters with heating oil or with propane. That is a third of Canadians living in Atlantic Canada. That is over a million people living in the province of Ontario. They heat their homes with oil or propane, and the vast majority of them heat with oil. What many people do not realize, and what the government certainly does not realize, is that these Canadians are in dire straits. They are facing a crisis this winter. The one out of 10 Canadians who relies on heating oil or on propane is going to be bankrupted by the cost of heating his or her home this winter, and here is why. Traditionally, 90% of Canadians heat with heat other than heating oil or propane. They either use natural gas or some form of alternative. However, here is the reality for those 10% of Canadians who use heating oil or propane. For a house that is heated with natural gas, for every dollar of heat that house uses in natural gas, for that same house located in an area where there is only heating oil or propane, it costs three dollars, three times the amount, to heat with propane and it costs four dollars to heat with heating oil, or four times the amount. These figures I give to the House are before the global energy crisis that has hit global economies over the last year or so. This winter the figures now facing the 10% of our fellow citizens who heat with propane or heating oil are truly frightening and that is why this is a crisis. I went on the website yesterday of West Nova Fuels of Nova Scotia, and I will quote from its website: [O]n average a typical house with four people in it should burn about three to four tanks of oil in a year to heat your home and hot water, about 2800 litres of oil. That is now much it takes to heat a typical home in rural Ontario and rural Atlantic Canada: 2,800 litres. I went on the website of a company called Crescent Oil in rural southern Ontario that services much of rural southwestern Ontario with heating oil. Its current price for the cost of a litre of that heating oil is $2. Some areas of rural Ontario and rural Canada have even higher per-litre costs for heating oil. Canadians will understand that if they are told that number two heating oil is diesel. That is what furnace oil heating oil is. If people have driven around in Ontario in the last week or so, they will see that the price of diesel fuel is at record high levels because of shortages of distillates and other heavy crudes, and it is selling for about $2.35 a litre now in Ontario. Therefore, it is no coincidence that heating oil, which is diesel, is selling for $2 a litre. That is $2 a litre for 2,800 litres over a winter. That is $5,600 to heat a typical home in rural Ontario or rural Atlantic Canada. That is before the carbon tax and the HST. There is a carbon tax of roughly 13¢ a litre on that heating oil. There is HST not just on the base cost of the heating oil, but also on the carbon tax, so that $5,600 it is going to cost to heat one's home this winter in rural Ontario or rural Atlantic Canada actually is closer to $6,739, of which $375 is the carbon tax. The government's rebates do not cover these costs. A typical four-person family, mom, dad and two kids, living in these rural areas, heating with heating oil and driving to work in a two-income family and putting 25,000 kilometres a year on each vehicle, because there is no public transit in rural areas, which is the very nature of living in a rural area, will consume about 5,000 litres of gasoline in a year. As well, in Ontario there is an 11¢ a litre carbon tax on that gasoline. That means someone who is paying about $550 a year in carbon taxes for commuting, and add to that the $375 they have paid on their heating oil to keep their home at a minimal temperature of about 19°C or 20°C, is looking at $925 a year in carbon taxes just on commuting and heating. That is not to mention all the carbon taxes that are embedded on shipping, groceries and other costs. The climate rebate of $204.88 a quarter, for a total of $819.52, does not cover the cost. Out of the government's own admission, and we heard it from the previous member, two out of 10 households in this country do not get more back from the rebate than they pay in carbon taxes. The government is ignoring those households and ignoring the crisis facing these households. It is ignoring the astronomical skyrocketing costs it will take to keep one's house warm in rural Ontario and rural Atlantic Canada this winter. The argument that this is somehow working as part of a plan to reduce emissions to combat climate change is bunk. Here is the proof. Liberals have not met a single target. They came to office saying that they were going to meet Copenhagen. We blew through that without meeting that target. They said that they are now on track to meet Paris, which is total baloney. Emissions have been rising under the Liberal government. In 2016, the first full year the government was in office, emissions were 715 megatonnes. In 2019, the last year before the pandemic for which we have data, emissions rose to 738 megatonnes. Now, they dropped in 2020, but shutting down the economy is no way to combat climate change and reduce emissions. I will go out on a limb here. I believe that in 2022, Canada's emissions will blow through that 738 megatonne level to a record high for the government. Do not take it from me; take it from Bloomberg. I was reading the news this morning and I came across an article Bloomberg just published today entitled “[The Prime Minister] Defends Canada's Minuscule Climate Progress”, with the subheading, “A bevy of climate policies championed by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have not yet translated into steep pollution cuts in the country.” I want to quote from that article—
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC)
  • Sep/27/22 2:53:09 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, the weather is getting cool and people are starting to turn on the heat. Millions of Canadians rely on oil and propane to heat their homes. The costs of those fuels, however, have skyrocketed. It now costs upwards of $5,000, $6,000 or even $7,000 a winter to heat their home. The government has now put on top of that a carbon tax that will cost upwards of $400 to $500 a winter. People are getting desperate. Will the government listen, including to the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and cut the tax on oil and propane heat?
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