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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 83

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 7, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22
Hon. Mary Ng
  • Jun/7/22 3:11:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, all of the information related to this contract was proactively disclosed over two years ago. Let us remember that at the height of this pandemic, it was really critical that small businesses, workers and Canadians understood what was available to them in support. Now the record speaks for itself. Over five million jobs were saved as a result of the wage subsidy, and over 900,000 businesses got small business loans as a result of CEBA.
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Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22
Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)
  • Jun/7/22 8:25:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to bring up an issue the member talked about. I have also heard quite a bit about it from the NDP over the last several months, and it is with respect to fossil fuel subsidies. I do not disagree with the NDP. I do not disagree with the member. In my personal opinion, I would love to see fossil fuel subsidies end tomorrow. I am on the same page, but I have a problem with their narrative when they start saying that fossil fuel subsidies have increased. This information comes from the federal government deciding to invest money into dealing with abandoned orphan wells during the pandemic. That is what the money went to. These are wells that have been abandoned because either provincial regulations were not there to deal with them or the companies no longer exist. The federal government stepped in and said we will take some of the responsibility of dealing with these wells. I know it plays the narrative the NDP like to purport in the House of the subsidies going up, but does the member really think that spending money on dealing with abandoned orphan wells, which is incredibly important environmentally, is really a subsidy for the oil sector?
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Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22
Mr. Daniel Blaikie
  • Jun/7/22 8:27:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would say two things in response to that. The first is that the new $2.6 billion that was just announced in the budget for carbon capture and sequestration, I consider to be a fossil fuel subsidy. That is a major increase in fossil fuel subsidies that has nothing to do with orphan wells. I do think that it is a good idea to clean up orphan wells. I think that the industry should be made responsible to do it. One of the proposals we have to do that indirectly is to take the surtax on banks and insurance companies, which the government has agreed to in our supply and confidence agreement, and do what we have been calling on the government to do, and it has not agreed to, and apply that surtax to oil and gas companies so they can pay the bill for the orphan well cleanup. There is more than one way to do this, but for government to just assume that responsibility and have Canadians pay the costs of cleanup that the industry should have been paying all the way along is not right.
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