44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 20, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/20/22 11:43:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right, Quebec has, quite frankly, led the way when it comes to clean energy.
Ontario, Quebec and California signed on to the first cap-and-trade deal. It is extremely unfortunate that the first thing a Conservative premier did in Ontario when he was elected was to bail on that agreement. However, what we have seen in the last four and a half years since that happened is that Quebec has continued to innovate and look at more creative ways to deliver and provide electricity, while Ontario has literally been stagnant for the last four years. We see the results in the electrification of the EV grid in Quebec, for example, which is light years ahead of Ontario.
Could the member provide further examples of how Quebec could demonstrate to the rest of the province how to produce electricity and share that technology throughout our country?
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- Oct/20/22 12:10:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing that I think is extremely disingenuous, and I am curious if the member would agree, is that every time the Conservatives talk about the price on pollution, they conveniently neglect to talk about the rebate that Canadians will be getting. They say the price on pollution will triple, triple, triple, but the reality is that the rebate will triple, triple, triple.
I wonder if the member for New Westminster—Burnaby could provide his input on whether or not the Conservatives, when making that claim, are being quite disingenuous given the reality of the program.
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- Oct/20/22 12:15:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on the same point of order, the member from “wherever he is from” is actually from Burnaby South, just so my Conservative colleague knows.
A point of order references the order of procedure. It is to call to the attention of the Chair that the order of procedure did not happen. Clearly the member is debating. He is not bringing forward a point of order.
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- Oct/20/22 1:32:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have heard, time after time, Conservatives come forward and talk about inflation as though it is a specific problem only to Canada. They say that Liberals and the Canadian government created this inflationary problem, but the reality is that just about every developed country in the world followed a similar pattern with their monetary policy in order to support their populations during the global pandemic. If that Conservative member is saying that inflation is strictly a Canadian problem and that monetary policy in Canada is what led to inflation, he is essentially saying the same thing for every developed country in the world.
Is the Conservative Party basically saying that it is against the western world?
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- Oct/20/22 1:51:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for St. John's East.
I think I will start by picking up on the question that the member for Don Valley East asked of the member for the riding that neighbours mine. Specifically, it was whether she believed that climate change is real. This is not just about her response. It is about all of the non-responses we get to that question from the other side of the House.
I think what we have to do is listen to her non-answer, listen to the continual non-answer and ask ourselves why. One of two things is happening: one, the Conservatives and this member do not believe that climate change is real and do not want to answer the question, or, two, which I submit is probably the more plausible explanation, they do believe climate change is real but are petrified of saying it and of their base hearing it.
Imagine being part of a political party that is so petrified of how the base might react to hearing the truth come out of its members' mouths. That is where we see the Conservative Party of today.
Earlier, we heard the Conservatives talk about how the federal government supposedly forced the provinces into this position. I am so glad to hear my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois point out the reality of the situation, which is that unfortunately for the Conservatives' narrative, Quebec and Ontario have been decades ahead of the rest of Canada as a whole when it comes to pricing pollution. It was Quebec and Ontario that met with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, and ironed out the deal for cap and trade. That was back in 2006. The member for Don Valley East was part of the provincial government at the time they did that. A number of members of the House were.
For the Conservatives to walk in here and suddenly suggest that carbon pricing is a brand new concept that is completely foreign to Canadian soil is absolutely ludicrous. We have seen Quebec and Ontario partner on it and get ahead of the game with responsible leadership, going straight to states in the United States, in particular California, and working on this. I find it incredibly rich.
There is another individual who supports carbon pricing whom the Conservatives might listen to. Do members know who that is? It is their former leader Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper believes in pricing pollution. He actually said, in 2008, “our plan will effectively establish a price on carbon”. That is what Stephen Harper wanted.
Where are we today? Ten years ago, people thought, wow, Stephen Harper's government is so non-progressive, but think of where we are today. The current form of the Conservative movement is so much less progressive than even Stephen Harper was.
The Conservatives full-on reject the notion that climate change is real. They reject the notion of a basic fundamental principle of the economic system and how to incentivize choice in the marketplace. Of all people, the Conservatives, who purport themselves to be the saviours of the economy and understand economic principle better than just about anybody else, as they will always tell us, cannot comprehend the simple concept that putting a price on something will change behaviour within the marketplace. How is it that we got to this place where this Conservative movement will not even accept the reality of a fundamental economic principle?
That is where we are. I know they are heckling me because they do not want to hear me say this, but one would think they would have learned over the last three or four years of listening to me speak that the more they do it, the more it encourages and emboldens me to continue, so I will.
I want to talk about a company that recently decided to choose Loyalist—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Oct/20/22 1:56:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is a company that recently chose, over two locations in the United States, Detroit being one and I cannot remember the other, to set up its new multi-billion dollar facility just outside of my riding, in the riding of the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington. She was there when the Prime Minister made the announcement, and she was quite excited about it at the time, as she should be.
The company, which is called Umicore, decided to set up its brand new lithium battery manufacturing plant right outside my riding, in her riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington. The most telling thing about that was when the CEO was asked why he chose Ontario over Detroit and other options. The answer was that Umicore is making a sustainable product. It sees itself as a corporate leader in sustainability. When it puts inputs into its product, it wants to make sure they are clean. It recognizes that because of great leadership, like that of the member for Don Valley East and other provincial Liberals from a few years ago, we no longer burn coal in Ontario. We have the cleanest energy grid of all the options those companies are looking at.
Where are we in the world right now? We are at a place where it is no longer just individuals demanding sustainability and saying they choose sustainability over profit or over money. It is now companies that are actively saying they do not want to set up in an area where they know the resources going into their product are harming the environment. That is exactly what we are seeing now.
We have come to the point where even corporations understand the fact that clean energy is absolutely key, yet we do not even have a Conservative Party in which a member will stand up and say they believe in climate change. The member was asked a direct, straightforward and simple question by the member for Don Valley East, who asked the member if they believe climate change is real, and it was a complete non-answer. It is just so easy to stand up and say one believes climate change is real, but the member refused to do that. I do not understand why.
They are mouthing “yes” to me now, but now they just need to verbalize it. They need to allow the voices to come out of their mouths and admit they believe climate change is real. That is all we are asking Conservatives to do. I know they have it in them. They are this close, and I am here to be the support they need in doing that.
I know the Speaker wants to interrupt me to start question period, and I look forward to continuing afterwards.
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- Oct/20/22 3:13:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I spent the first eight minutes of my speech prior to question period talking at great length about how the Conservative Party of Canada today is nothing like the Conservative Party of Canada that cared about the environment under the leadership of Brian Mulroney, for example. What I found very interesting between that part of my speech and this part of my speech is this.
During an exchange during question period, one of the parliamentary secretaries on this side of the House talked about the Premier of Ontario Doug Ford being a Conservative. The member for St. Albert—Edmonton put in quotes “Conservative”, as if to suggest that Doug Ford, the Conservative Premier of Ontario, is not Conservative enough for this particular Conservative Party of Canada that we are stuck dealing with now.
It goes without saying that I will vote against this motion. It is the third time the Conservatives have brought it forward. We identify that they are doing things in threes these days. Therefore, I will once again, for a third time, vote against this ill-informed motion brought forward by the Conservatives.
I will reiterate what I said before, which is that pricing pollution is a smart, effective tool based on economic principles that we would assume the Conservatives could somehow wrap their heads around, yet here we are and they are reluctantly refusing to do that, despite the fact that even their former leader Stephen Harper agreed that pricing pollution was a—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are clapping for him. Great. Hopefully, they can clap for his principles too, which was to price pollution, because Stephen Harper certainly felt that way.
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- Oct/20/22 3:16:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I am dismissive about is when Conservatives come into the House and continually purport falsehoods, like earlier today when they said the federal government has imposed a price on pollution in all provinces, which is not the truth. Quebec and Ontario were doing it with California long before the federal government ever got involved in it.
The member seems to suggest that the particular motion before us today is the be-all and end-all to support Canadians. He is asking us just to provide a bit of support. I would remind him of the various different supports that have been introduced in this House just in the last several weeks, legislation that we know they are going to vote against. They changed their minds on increasing the GST rebate. They flip-flopped on that one. Maybe it is time for them to flip-flop on other supports, like providing dental care and housing supports for Canadians.
There are many different ways that we can support Canadians and it does not have to come at the expense of the environment, which is what the Conservatives want to do.
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- Oct/20/22 3:18:32 p.m.
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To that end, Mr. Speaker, had the province submitted a plan that met the standards of the national requirements, it would have been excluded, just like Quebec has. Quebec never even had to touch this issue because it was years, if not a decade, ahead of the rest of the country with respect to this issue. Ontario used to be in that same position.
When the price on pollution was first introduced in the House, there was still a cap and trade model of pricing pollution shared among Ontario, Quebec and California, and Ontario was exempt from the federal program. What happened? Doug Ford ripped up the cap and trade program that had been put in place, excluded Ontario from that trilateral deal with California and Quebec, and as a result was subject to the default, which was the federal program. The federal program has always been the default.
It has been about creating a standard, a benchmark, to which provinces need to adhere in order to be not included in that program. Many provinces have done that. Unfortunately, some provinces chose not to and those are the ones that are subject to the federal rules.
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- Oct/20/22 3:20:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Brian Mulroney spent a decade pushing the U.S. government to improve legislation to control acid rain. When George Bush came along, he agreed to it and adopted what Brian Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative, had been pushing for a decade. Let us just think about that. Brian Mulroney had a massive impact and effect on environmental policy throughout North America. That was a Progressive Conservative government.
Unfortunately, what we have here is something completely different. There is no possible remnant of Brian Mulroney and the representative from my area, Flora MacDonald, left in what is across the way.
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