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House Hansard - 57

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 25, 2022 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22
Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, CPC)
  • Apr/25/22 7:22:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would hope that everybody in this place would agree that lots of Canadians are really looking to us in this place to address the issue of the rising cost of living. Certainly one area where we have seen major increases in the cost of living is energy prices. I would like to say that every Canadian wants Canada to do its part when it comes to ensuring that we have renewable energy and non-carbon-emitting energy. At the same time, the reality is that as much as the government wants to talk about investment in this and investment in that, what it has done is reduce Canada's capacity to produce energy to supply the demand for energy. Now that we are in a time of a global supply crunch, that means higher prices for Canadians when we have that resource here. Again, I think it is wonderful that we are looking for ways both to produce Canadian energy sustainably and to ensure that we have all sorts of good ways to address climate change, but the reality is that many Canadians cannot afford to fill up their cars. For many Canadians, including in my community of Calgary Nose Hill, there are not public transit options available to them. When we look at the price of groceries with fuel as an input cost, those groceries are getting to people based on carbon-based energy. We have to address the climate crisis, but at the same time, listening to a debate that ignores the fact that every Canadian needs carbon energy right now is so out of touch. The question should be how we are producing Canadian energy, which is some of the cleanest and most sustainably produced energy in the world, and meeting this need while looking at producing low-carbon, readily available, low-cost carbon alternatives such as public transit and all of these other good things. People in my community still need to fill up their cars. That is just the reality. Ignoring that reality really says that we, as a Parliament, are out of touch. A while ago, the Americans went to Saudi Arabia and Iran to ask for increased production and exports to the United States to meet the U.S.'s increased demand issue and its supply issues. They did not come to Canada, and that was such a missed opportunity for our country. I had asked the government why the minister of trade had not really addressed this issue of why the Americans were going to these other countries as opposed to coming to Canada. We should be ensuring that we are producing Canadian energy and supplying it, not just to people in our country, to lower prices and reap the benefits, but also to have energy supply security on the North American continent. I just wonder whether the government has made any progress on this, given the increased costs of energy in Canada.
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