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Member of Parliament

Stephen Ellis

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Cumberland—Colchester
  • Nova Scotia
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $134,737.37

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 126 - Nov/14/22
Mr. Stephen Ellis (Cumberland—Colchester, CPC)
  • Nov/14/22 2:44:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us be clear: The majority of Atlantic Canadians still have not seen a penny for the cleanup of Fiona, and the mess is still there. I want to read a quote: “provinces and territories must not implement measures that directly offset, reduce or negate the price signal sent by the price on carbon”. The Liberals want Canadians to pay more at the pumps, and shame on any provincial minister of finance who would dare try to reduce the tax. This is the attitude we are dealing with. Why does the Liberal government refuse to allow provincial governments to reduce taxes on gas, groceries and home heating? They are the essentials.
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Stephen Ellis (Cumberland—Colchester, CPC)
  • Sep/27/22 12:24:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House of Commons on behalf of the good people of Cumberland—Colchester. As we found out last night, we were hit very hard by hurricane Fiona. I think it bears repeating that our thoughts and prayers are with all the folks out there who continue to suffer without power and to dig out from the storm. Primarily, we need to think of the carbon tax as exactly what it is. It is a tax. It is another tax that businesses and individuals have to pay. We are here now, of course. If other parliamentarians are not aware of this, then they must be living under a rock, but we are at the highest rates of inflation in decades. It harkens back to those days in my life in 1999 when we were coming out of those very high inflation years. Indeed, in 1990, when my wife and I bought our first car, we needed a loan and interest rates were at 18%. My lovely father-in-law was a great accountant and someone who always needed to teach one an interesting lesson. Interestingly enough, he was kind enough to give us a loan for 12%. Those kinds of things are where we are headed to now. A big concern that I have is the cost of living. If we are talking about raising taxes, we cannot do so without talking about the cost of living. Every day, my constituency assistants receive calls from people who are unable to afford their lives. As we might say, they are being priced out of their own lives. I have spoken in the House previously about people who have had to sell their wedding bands in order to buy food. We know that where I live, in rural Canada, it is going to be important to understand that winter is coming. I know that is a bit of a cliche from a TV show, but winter comes every year, and it is still coming. I think we need to understand what it costs to fill a barrel of oil now. Many people in rural Canada still live in single-family dwellings with oil heat, especially in Atlantic Canada. It is going to cost about $1,500 to fill one barrel of oil. Of course, if we get a bad winter it may last six weeks, but it may only last a month. When we are talking about $1,500, we all know that is a significant amount of money. We also know that people at the current time cannot feed themselves. We have heard multiple times that the cost of groceries has gone up 10%. On top of that, the carbon tax, of course, will add many more difficulties and much more hardship on the people who live in Cumberland—Colchester. Another thing of interest is that I am very perplexed as to why the government would continue to have only one solution for a complex problem. Why continue to beat Canadians over the head with more taxes, more taxes and more taxes to fund the free-fall spending of the Liberal government? I fail to understand that. Previously, I was a physician. What we do know is that for complex problems there are often multi-faceted solutions. For instance, when people suffer from cardiovascular disease, we know that people may take medications. We could suggest that they just take their pills, go out, eat whatever they want and live their lives. Is that appropriate? Could it make them live longer? Yes, but does it make people any healthier? I would suggest to the good folks out there that it would not actually make them healthier. How do we help people become healthier? We ask them to exercise more. We ask them to get better sleep. We ask them to help their mental health problems. The stretch here, of course, is to understand that climate change is real and to question how we will solve that problem. They continue to push tax upon tax to solve a problem. In my mind, and I think in the minds of Conservatives across this great country, people understand that that is a solution based on only one facet of the problem. Clearly, we know it is, given the significant cost-of-living challenges of Canadians at this time and what they are really unable to afford. As, my great colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable pointed out, gasoline it is costing another 40¢ a litre. In parts of Atlantic Canada, buying a car still poses a great difficulty. There may be many people in larger cities, and perhaps across the aisle, who can afford fancy electric cars for $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000, but we know that in parts of rural Canada there are people who buy cars for $2,500 or $3,500 because that is what they can afford. We know now that adding on top of that is going to be difficult. One of the big concerns I have is that people in Cumberland—Colchester are going to be specifically and proportionally disadvantaged by having to pay more for gasoline. We do not have mass transit. We do not have subways. We do not have those kinds of things. People rely on themselves to get to where they need to go, because that is where we have chosen to live. Therefore, should we be disproportionately affected by another 40¢ per litre on gasoline? To me, that is not really a possibility. One of the other important things to figure out is who is paying this tax? We understand very clearly from the government that large corporations can apply for an exemption from the carbon tax. That does not really make a lot of sense to me, because we know small businesses are not eligible to have an exemption from it. We also know that small businesses are the backbone of Canada; they are the economic drivers. Therefore, small businesses have to pay the tax and large corporations do not. We also know that individuals will end up paying more. We know that an average household is now paying $1,400 more annually for the carbon tax. I always look at this as a shell game, that game where the ball is hidden under shells, then they are moved around and we guess what shell the ball is under. We want to know where that shell is, who is paying the tax and how much is it. These elusive answers make it more difficult to find any type of support for a carbon tax. We need to look at other technological examples of how to do that. We know that our western partners in the great province of Alberta have the cleanest oil in the world. We also know that there are other technologies, such as carbon capture and storage. We also look to things like small modular reactors to produce pollution-free electricity. When we look at those kinds of things, it becomes very clear that there are multiple solutions to a problem as opposed to continuing to talk about a carbon tax, which we know very clearly was originally promised at $50 per tonne and is now set to more than triple to $170 per tonne. I would also be remiss if I did not talk about the specific situation in Nova Scotia. We know that it has made significant strides in greening its economy and reducing greenhouse gas. We also know that Premier Tim Houston has sent very pointed letters to the Minister of Environment to help understand better what Nova Scotia's position is. To quote Premier Houston, he said that his government would outpace federal greenhouse gas reduction targets while costing Nova Scotians less than what they would pay with a federal carbon pricing system. He said, “our path to 2030 is more effective, it’s more affordable and it’s more visionary than a carbon tax.” According to provincial documents, Nova Scotia's legislated greenhouse gas reduction target is to be at least 53%t below 2005 levels by 2030. The objective of the federal carbon tax is to be 40% to 45% below 2005 levels. The other part of this is that it behooves us to understand that if we are to continue to not allow the provinces to be creative and if we are to continue on with this Ottawa-knows-best approach, this again is absolutely untenable. Why would Canadians believe in this carbon tax when clearly, as I have stated in multiple different ways, there are other ways to reach these targets? Continuing to bash Canadians over the head at a time when inflation is at a 40-year high is really an untenable position. Canadians are hurting. Our offices hear from them every day. I am absolutely astounded that the members across the aisle are not hearing from their constituents as well to understand how difficult it is to function in today's world from a financial perspective. Therefore, I would suggest that perhaps the members opposite need to listen to their constituents to understand how difficult it is and then, as we might say in the vernacular, axe the tax.
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