44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 20, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/20/22 10:04:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I stand here this morning to present a petition on behalf of the non-core fishing enterprise owners of Newfoundland and Labrador to allow transfer of their licences. At last count, the DFO put the number of these licence-holders at 454. Half of these people live in my riding of Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame. They are people like Roy Morey in La Scie, Bobby Gillingham in Seal Cove, Joe Legge in Twillingate and Bob Jacobs and Perry Sacrey of Baie Verte.
Last year, the federal court ruled that similar class B licences in Nova Scotia be made transferrable. The non-core licence-holders of Newfoundland and Labrador must be treated the same.
I thank Ryan Cleary and SEA-NL for their work in gathering names for this petition.
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- Oct/20/22 10:56:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member from Nova Scotia knows full well that his struggling constituents cannot afford the upfront costs to convert from oil to heat pumps. They have to strip out their oil heating equipment. They have to cut up their oil tanks. It is going to cost them about $10,000, and they have to pay that up front. How can they afford it, with the Liberal-fuelled inflation that these constituents are dealing with?
To my hon. colleague from over in the Annapolis Valley, can you explain to your constituents and to the rest of the people in Atlantic Canada the inverse relationship between your carbon tax policy and what we are seeing in the U.S., where they are lowering emissions with no tax policy? It does not make sense. When is it going to work?
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- Oct/20/22 12:38:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the great people of Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame and, in fact, of all Newfoundland and Labrador, and Atlantic Canada, to proudly support our Conservative motion to axe the carbon tax plan on home heating fuel.
This initiative is the latest installment of the cult-like plan to triple the carbon tax on Canadians. According to the chair of the Council of Atlantic Premiers, the energy poverty in Atlantic Canada is nearly 40%, which is the highest in the country.
Even Newfoundland and Labrador’s Liberal premier is begging the Prime Minister not to put carbon tax on home heating fuel. It will drive up heating cost by 20% this winter. The premier, a very close friend of the Prime Minister, said in early September that ending the current carbon tax exemption would place “undue economic burdens on the people of this province”.
The four Atlantic premiers wrote to the federal environment minister around the same time to request an extension on the home heating fuel carbon tax exemption. They were flatly turned down by the Liberal government, whose intent to tax the right to heat one’s home reflects its cult-like beliefs that taxing the essentials of life will lower carbon emissions.
The NDP coalition partners are partial to the very same beliefs. The leader of the carbon tax pact, the Prime Minister, brags that Canadians receive more in rebates than they pay in carbon tax. However, it is time for the Prime Minister to get the memo: Atlantic Canadians get zero carbon tax rebate, and now, the carbon tax deficit of homeowners who heat their homes with oil or propane is about to grow even more with the addition of this tax to their fuel.
As if that is not enough, they will be charged HST on top of the carbon tax. That is right. It is a tax on a tax.
The Liberal carbon tax is thus far a complete failure. Since the government took office in 2015, our emissions have increased, along with the carbon tax, with the exception of 2020 where it dropped, probably because the Prime Minister and his world economic forum buddies were forced to park their private jets.
The failure of carbon pricing in Canada is in stark contrast to the success that Americans have had in reducing their emissions. They did not bend to climate activists, but instead, they used technology and did things like converting coal plants to use natural gas. However, the people of my province do not have the option of converting to natural gas, so they will have to continue, for the most part, with diesel heating fuel, and I will speak more about natural gas near the end of my speech.
When implemented this winter, the carbon tax, combined with the HST on heating fuel, will be about 17¢ per litre, and according to our Liberal premier, this constitutes a 20% increase on the cost to heat a home. This is with carbon pricing at the current rate of only $50 per tonne. That rate is set to rise to $170 per tonne by 2030, which will drive up the carbon tax on that same litre of fuel to about 55¢ per litre.
This is nothing short of a disaster created by a government whose smallest concern is the real lives of Atlantic Canadians. It is a slap in the face to the very people who have put so much faith in the Liberal government since 2015.
I hear from nervous constituents all of the time lately. Constituents are already stretched to their breaking points by inflation that is out of control. Yesterday's food inflation numbers told them what they already know, and now winter is coming. The people of Atlantic Canada will need to choose between food on the table or a warm home.
Recently, the environment minister bragged about his new program to switch homeowners from heating with fuel to heating by heat pumps. It is a plan that can help, at best, 3% of homeowners.
Where does that leave Cory from Gander? Last year, Cory spent $4000 to heat his home. With the intended carbon tax added, he will pay an extra $700 on his annual heating bill. Cory considers himself to be middle class, but with this inflationary tax increase, he is worried about paying his bills.
Felicia from Pike's Arm told me that she spent $6,000 in only 10 months last year to heat her home. The carbon tax on just 10 months of fuel will cost Felicia an extra $1,050, if the Prime Minister does not back down from his tax-hiking plan. The people of Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame simply cannot take more inflationary tax pressure on their lives. Real people with real bills to pay are really fed up. They are much more intelligent than the tax master, our Prime Minister, makes them out to be.
They know this tax-and-spend climate plan is not working. Even the Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador knows it is not working, and he says it is completely unnecessary with the price of oil where it is and where it is projected to go. According to most experts, oil is forecasted on average to be about $95 per barrel next year and will rise to $125 per barrel by 2025. With these oil prices where they are and where they are going, there is already enough pressure on consumers to cut their consumption. This is an unnecessary Liberal tax grab.
According to the CBC, which by the look of it is abandoning its carbon tax love affair, Nova Scotians alone will pay $1 billion extra on home heating fuel by 2030. That is quite the tax grab. Can members just imagine: $1 billion and no guarantee that a tangible tonne of carbon reduction will occur? The one thing that is guaranteed is that money in people's jeans will be reduced by this inflationary tax pressure.
The Prime Minister should listen to his friend in Newfoundland and Labrador. He should stop misleading Canadians while he contradicts the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the PBO, who said in March that the carbon tax will deliver a net financial loss to most households. The Prime Minister should listen to experts like the PBO, but what can we expect from a guy who said the budget would balance itself? He said there was no economic case for shipping natural gas from Newfoundland and Labrador to Europe, because of the distance.
We are just 4,000 km from Europe. However, the U.S., with its LNG plants in Texas, more than twice the distance from Europe, exports a billion dollars’ worth of liquefied natural gas per day. Argentina, in a partnership with Petronas, is building a $10-billion LNG facility to export natural gas. The only place further away from Europe than Argentina is the South Pole, but our wise Prime Minister says that the island of Newfoundland is too far from Europe for it to make economic sense to take on such a project.
Right now, as we speak, Germany is converting natural gas plants back to burning coal, which has double the emissions. Instead of helping our allies by harvesting the 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the Grand Banks and boosting the prosperity of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Liberal government promotes air pollution in Europe and energy poverty in Atlantic Canada.
I am proud to support our Conservative motion to exempt home heating from the carbon tax, and I hope my colleagues on the other side of the house, especially those from Newfoundland and Labrador and the Maritimes, stand with the people who elected them when they stand to vote on this motion.
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- Oct/20/22 12:47:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague across the way knows that his leader and his party support forcing Atlantic Canadian premiers to place a carbon tax on home heating fuel. The carbon tax is a federal government initiative, and my colleague knows who invented the carbon tax. I just cannot wait to hear him say later that Atlantic Canada is going to get so much back. I cannot wait to hear him say later that we get so much back in rebates, like the Prime Minister constantly brags about, when it is completely false. Atlantic Canadians get zero back in rebates on the carbon tax.
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- Oct/20/22 12:50:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what troubles me the most is the Bloc's attack on oil and gas. Renowned financial experts have said that if it were not for our oil and gas industry, Canada's dollar would be worth 35 U.S. cents.
I have a little something else. How would my hon. colleague's province do without the transfer payments that arise from the prosperity that comes from our oil and gas industry? They cannot have it both ways.
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- Oct/20/22 12:51:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a great question, but it kind of flies in the face of the support that our Liberal-NDP coalition gave to Loblaws. It gave Loblaws billions of dollars for its freezers while Loblaws was making massive profits.
I support capitalism and free enterprise, not socialism and Marxism.
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- Oct/20/22 7:56:28 p.m.
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Madam Chair, like most Canadians, those in the mental health community are also divided on the issue of MAID. Does the member opposite believe that doctors should be forced to provide MAID referrals if they do not personally believe in it?
I would like to have the hon. member's personal views on this. Are his views in line with the views of the Liberal Party?
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