- Member of Parliament
- Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- Conservative
- Calgary Midnapore
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,419.87
- Government Page
- Oct/31/22 4:42:31 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I did not really hear a question there. It was more of a statement and a proclamation.
I will say that while we have always considered the environment, our focus at this time is inflation and the cost of living, and historically it has been the economy. The Liberal government staked its existence, its raison d'être, on the environment, and it has failed. It has failed in every single capacity.
Maybe the hon. member has not seen the results that she wanted from either party in their time in government, but we were realistic, with our focus set on the economy. The Liberal government set its expectation, its future, on the environment, and it has failed.
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- Oct/31/22 4:31:38 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be here today and to speak to Bill S-5. Members may be aware that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act has not been updated since the 1990s. However, my colleagues have pointed out that it is more of a bureaucratic modernization effort than it is an environmental bill. Nonetheless, we as Conservatives, as my colleague just mentioned, will indeed support it.
Certainly, there is a lot of ambiguity within the bill as it would do many things, including recognize that every Canadian has the right to a healthy environment and require the Government of Canada to protect this right. This right is not defined in the act. However, this right may be balanced with social, economic, health, scientific and other relevant factors, and it would require that the minister develop, within two years, an implementation framework on how the right to a healthy environment would be considered in the administration of CEPA.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that we have seen ambiguity from the government. Certainly what comes to mind at this moment is to highlight the failures of the current Liberal government on the environment in particular. I will start with the fact that the Liberal government has never met a single carbon emissions reduction target in all of its years in government. We saw the Liberals do this again in March, when they said they were going to slash emissions by 40% by 2030. They once again released an ambitious climate plan with far-reaching emissions reduction goals, yet to this date they have not met a single reduction target.
Therefore, the Liberals' plan in March answered the question of what the Liberals do when they miss their climate targets. They simply make up new ones. The Liberal government's reaction to each failed target is simply to increase them and to talk louder, as we have heard from a previous minister: If they say it loud enough and often enough, people will totally believe it.
Bigger targets do not mean action and stronger rhetoric does not get results. The Liberal plan will have devastating effects on Canada's oil and gas sector under the guise of increased stringency, which includes a capped production. This confirms the Prime Minister's pledge to phase out Canada's energy sector. As an Albertan, this is nothing new to me.
Canada has what the world needs. When Europe needs ethical energy, the Prime Minister is effectively making sure that Canada will not or cannot meet these demands. The Liberal government is spelling the end for Canada's environmentally and socially responsible energy sector, and it is in fact surrendering the global market to oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela who do not have the same care as we do in Canada for both human rights as well as the carbon footprint. Canada's world-class energy should be taking up more space in the market to keep out producers with lower standards, but the Liberal government has failed to recognize this. Under the Prime Minister, Canada will continue to sit on the sidelines and lose tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to countries who do not share our values on the environment, human rights or freedom.
I will also make it clear that carbon emissions have gone up under the current government. Between 1990 and 2020, Canada's GHG emissions actually increased by 13.1% or 78 megatonnes. That is a significant increase under the current Liberal government. That certainly has to be pointed out.
As well, I will speak to the carbon tax, which we do, as Conservatives, because we want to realistically evaluate this. The carbon tax is an absolute failure. It has not reduced emissions, as I just pointed out in my last statistic. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has made it clear that the majority of Canadians pay more in taxes than they get back in rebates. Again, we see the government tax and tax. In fact, when we look at the report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, we see that when the economic source impact is combined with the fiscal use impact, “the net carbon cost increases for all households, reflecting the overall negative economic impact of the federal carbon levy under the government's [healthy environment and a healthy economy] plan”.
The report states:
Indeed, most households will see a net loss resulting from federal carbon pricing under the HEHE plan in 2030-31. That is, their overall costs—which now include the federal levy and GST paid (fiscal impact) and lower employment and investment income (economic impact)—exceed the rebate and the induced reduction in personal income taxes arising from the loss in income.
The government talks a lot about this rebate, yet the Parliamentary Budget Officer has come out and said that all the Liberals are doing inflicts more pain on Canadians than the good they are claiming they are doing. We are seeing in that report that even with the rebate they claim is helping Canadians, this is not the case.
In fact, in 2022 the commissioner of the environment released 10 reports on the performance of the Liberal government's protection of the environment, and more than half of these reports showed the government was failing to meet its targets, as I indicated before. A March 28 article from CBC News states, “Canada has had nine climate plans since 1990 and has failed to hit any of the targets in them.” It has not met a single target out of nine plans.
The article continues, “Jerry V. DeMarco said Canada has been the worst performer among G7 nations on climate targets since the landmark Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015.” I will add that the Conservatives supported it, in good faith, back in 2017.
Here is an interesting quote. The article goes on, stating that a climate plan “is a lot like a household budget, in that if one doesn't pay attention to the details, one won't achieve one's goals. 'You need a plan. You need to break it all out—what are my expenses, what do I need to achieve. And without that, you are obviously not going to stay within your budget.'”
Who said that? It was not a Conservative. Julia Croome of Ecojustice said that. Even Ecojustice, an organization that Conservatives would not usually bring up, is saying the government has failed on its climate targets, like so many things we have seen, most recently of course with inflation and the cost of living.
We are all very concerned on this side about what the fall economic statement will bring on Thursday, despite our leader's asking to stop the taxes and to stop the spending, but we have seen it is often a lack of planning that has led to this.
I will tell the House who has done their part. Industry has done its part, despite the government's demand to ask more and more of it. Enbridge has a plan to eliminate GHG emissions from its business on a net basis by 2050 and reduce the intensity of GHG emissions from its operations by 35% by 2030.
Cenovus is going to reduce absolute GHG emissions by 35% by year end 2035 as it builds toward its long-term ambitions for net-zero emissions by 2050, through methane reductions, carbon capture and storage, and other decarbonization, which is something of great interest to our leader.
As well, Imperial is a founding member of the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero Alliance, as well as determining transformational technology solutions.
The government is marred in ambiguity, and while this bill is necessary, it also is marred in ambiguity. As we have seen from the lawyer from Ecojustice, if one fails to plan, one plans on failing. While we will support this bill, let us clear up the ambiguity, not only with Bill S-5 but in government as well.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be in the House and to speak on behalf of the people of Calgary Midnapore, and here I am today addressing the BIA.
I will start with an anecdote. Last Friday, when my husband picked me up at the Calgary airport, we were making the left-hand turn we usually do in an effort to merge onto Deerfoot Trail. Halfway through our turn, the light turned yellow and my husband stopped in the middle of the intersection. I turned to him and said, “James, what the bleep are you doing here?” Well, that is what I have to say: What are we doing here? What is the government doing here?
When I arrived here in 2017, there was the same sentiment that existed in 2015 when the Liberal government came into place. Among Canadians, although we were disappointed as Conservatives and sorry to see the departure of former prime minister Stephen Harper, I think there was a feeling of hope and enthusiasm across the country. We often think of sunny ways at that time, when the Prime Minister and the Liberal government came in. Those same sentiments existed when I arrived here in 2017. I was just outside those doors getting ready to be walked into the House of Commons for the first time, and there was still that same feeling of excitement and of sunny ways.
I have to say, that is not there anymore, and this budget reflects it. This budget is a mishmash and a patchwork of legislation. Any individual reading through this content could not determine the goals, aspirations and theme of the government. Is that not what leadership really is? What are we doing here?
When I reflect upon the reasons for the lack of direction we now see from the government, I would attribute it to three things. Number one is now the failure to implement any vision the government to the Prime Minister might have once had. The second would be an unuseful and impractical adherence to ideology. The third would be ignoring the real problems affecting Canadians. I will take some time now to expand on each of those.
When I talk about the failure to implement the vision, I am talking about the sunny ways and hope and enthusiasm the Prime Minister and the government arrived here with. Unfortunately, when they have tried to execute these sunny ways and implement them in Canada and Canadian culture, it has been nothing but an absolute failure. We saw that with the attempts for democracy reform. We saw it when the attempt was made to go to proportional representation, which was a 2015 election promise. It was failed upon by the previous minister for democratic institutions, who is no longer in the House. That is one example of the failure of the implementation of vision we have seen from the government.
We saw this with the climate plan. We saw this with the Paris climate accord. I sat back there in my second week, having to vote on the Paris climate accord. The fear and division it created in the House, which I will expand upon, was for no reason. These targets that we voted upon and that divided us were never actually achieved by the government, so what is the point?
It is the same thing we saw with the Liberals' grand idea of planting two billion trees. As I look around this room, I see nary a tree. They have failed on these climate initiatives as well.
The third is unity, and I will speak to this from two perspectives. The first is regional. Liberals have pitted region against region in this country, needlessly creating division at a time even before the pandemic descended upon us. Of course, with the pandemic, it was the Prime Minister who used inflammatory language, name-called and attacked Canadians who had valid concerns about the mandates. He actually rejected a Conservative motion to create a plan to roll back the mandates, which could have lowered the temperature, and he then of course invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canada's history. We, on this side of the House, are still reviewing that to this day. It created terrible disunity not only in the House, but among Canadians.
The second is a unuseful adherence to ideology. We have seen this in two places in particular. The first was the killing of the natural resources sector. As an Albertan, I take personal offence to this. How has the current government done this? It has done this by not providing support for Line 5. My colleague, the member for Calgary Centre, has talked and encouraged ad nauseam about this. Of course, at this moment in history, while Ukraine faces its most difficult time, the most difficult time we have seen in recent history, the government failed to pass a motion to get natural gas to Europe. At a time when our natural resources could be used for good in this world, the government turned its back against it. It brought in Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium, and who can forget Bill C-69, the no new pipelines bill, which again showed an unuseful adherence to ideology.
We also saw that with the mandates, the mandates that still rest with us today. I can tell members of the House that the parliamentary precinct, and frankly airports and airplanes, are the only places now where I am required to wear a mask. The government should lift the mandates on that and stop using this unuseful adherence to ideology. It is not helpful for Canadians at all.
What I think is most important here is that, if we look at the ways the government has failed and how this budget reflects that, it shows an ignorance of the real problems that affect Canadians. What are they? I will list a couple.
At the industry committee we saw a rejection to support the lithium mine, which would have been very important for semiconductors, something that is becoming increasingly important as we evaluate supply chains going into the future. In addition, we saw a government that was useless and unwilling to take a stand until the very last moment on the CP Rail strike, which would have had devastating impacts on not only western Canada, but also all of Canada.
We have seen this lack of action in labour shortages. The CFIB's recent report “Labour shortages are back with a vengeance” found that 55% of businesses could not find the staff they needed. Food and Beverage Canada said that it lacked 300,000 workers within its industry and has companies with vacancy rates of over 20%. The government throwing money at this is not helping. It needs to address the backlogs it has within its immigration processes.
We hear about housing endlessly here, with the average price of a home now reaching $874,100, a jolting 27.1% increase over the last year. The initiatives of the government, such as the first-time homebuyer incentive and the shared equity mortgage fund, are failing terribly.
I can talk about the failures of the government and how this budget and the budget implementation act do not address the cost of living and inflation. For the first time in 31 years, prices are up 6.7% compared to a year ago. Families are spending nearly $1,000 more a year on groceries and gas. Gas and home heating are costing more, and housing prices have doubled since the Prime Minister became the Prime Minister. More than half of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills or rent, with three in 10 already falling behind at the end of the month.
In conclusion, the government has run its course. It has received a minority not once, but twice now. It just had to buy a mandate until 2025. When it was elected in 2015, there was a sense of hope, optimism and possibility. That is gone now. This budget reflects it, and the budget implementation act reflects it. What are we doing here?
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