44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 20, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/20/22 1:07:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I recently did a survey in my community, and affordability and climate change were the two top issues in Don Valley East. People there are very supportive of the initiatives we are taking.
I want to ask the member this. Why is there such a misalignment between the Conservatives and Canadians on this issue?
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- Oct/20/22 1:07:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his advocacy and his understanding that for the people in urban ridings like ours, the cost of living is really high. That is why we have these tax rebates for Canadians across the country. We understand that change is hard, but we need to make this change. The Conservatives are leaving themselves and others falling behind. I really cannot answer why they are dragging their feet on things that are so important to Canadians, like climate change.
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- Oct/20/22 1:07:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what a great contrast between what the Conservative Party, the official opposition, is doing and what the government is doing.
We have a fundamental difference. We want to see an economy that actually works for all Canadians. We believe in Canada's middle class. We want to support those striving to become a part of the middle class. We need to be there for those individuals who need that extra bit of help, directly or indirectly.
From what I can tell, this motion deals with two real topics. One is the issue of inflation and one is the issue of our environment. If I were to pick a couple of issues to show the contrast between the official opposition, the Conservative Party, and the Liberal Party, they would probably be two of the top three issues.
When I think of the price on pollution, it is almost comical where the Conservatives were and where they are today. They are definitely not consistent. I do not think they even understand the issue based on some of the comments we have heard today. Their arguments just do not make sense.
I posed a question to the relatively newly elected leader of the Conservative Party, who has once again changed the Conservative Party's policy on the price on pollution. All 338 Conservative candidates in the last federal election, including every one of the members across the way, had an election platform that supported the principle of a price on pollution. That leader was dumped and a new leader has come in. Now there is a new policy position, that the Conservatives no longer support the principle of a price on pollution.
In 2015, countries from around the world went to Paris. Canada was one of many countries. Some agreements were achieved. One of the most productive discussions and dialogues that took place was on the principle of a price on pollution. Canada came back with a healthy delegation, and we started to push for a price on pollution. At that point, of course, the Conservative Party did not support it, but there were Conservatives from coast to coast to coast who did support it at one point.
The world has recognized that a price on pollution is in fact the way to go, but the Conservative Party, with its most recent flip-flop, has gone back in time. I would argue that the Conservatives are not listening to their constituents. It makes a whole lot of sense to have a price on pollution, but the Conservatives conveniently try to misrepresent the issue.
We all hear the words triple, triple, triple. Every Conservative member wants to stand in question period and say that the carbon tax will “triple, triple, triple.” They love saying that. What they do not tell us is that where the federal government is applying the price on carbon, in the jurisdictions like Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, over 50% of the population of Canada, there is actually a rebate, a credit. That credit is also triple, triple, triple. The Conservatives are trying, intentionally, to mislead more than half the population.
In Ontario, for example, it is a $745 credit. In Saskatchewan, it is well over $1,000 credit. In Alberta, it is over $1,000 credit. In my home province of Manitoba, it is $832 for a household. They will receive, as will other provinces, quarterly cheques. That is money in their pocket, because of the price on pollution. People in Manitoba recently received $208.
These are tangible things. The Conservatives will say that they are paying a tax. The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer made it very clear that eight out of 10 are receiving more than they are paying.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, they can babble all they like, but that is what the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer states. That means that eight out of 10 constituents in Winnipeg North are receiving a net benefit, yet the Conservatives are fixated on trying to mislead the residents of Winnipeg North and, in fact, all Canadians.
Today we had a member from the Conservative Party say that Ottawa is collecting hundreds of millions of dollars on our carbon tax in Atlantic Canada, which is absolute garbage. That is, again, the Conservative Party misleading Canadians, because that is not what is happening. In the provinces where there is no federal backstop, the money is going to the provinces. Ottawa is not receiving that money. We are are not receiving hundreds of millions of dollars, or billions, as the member opposite tried to put on the record.
What we are witnessing is misinformation coming from the Conservative Party of Canada, all in the favour of a catchphrase. We see that, and we will see it in about an hour from now when its members stand up for question period. For them, it is humour. It is a bumper sticker. They are more interested in that than they are in the environment.
What is the Conservative Party of Canada's policy on the environment? It is moving backward. While every other political entity in Canada is moving forward in dealing with environmental concerns, the national Conservative Party is actually moving backward. If Canadians only knew the lack of sincerity, the misleading information and the ideas of the climate deniers in the Conservative Party, they would see the contrast between the Conservatives and the Liberals.
We can also talk about inflation, which is the other part the motion attempts to deal with. Conservatives are saying, even though it is not true, they will give a tax break on the price on pollution. Actions speak louder than words. In dealing with inflation, we brought forward legislative measures to assist people during this difficult time. The biggest one was the GST rebate, which is legislation the Conservative Party originally opposed. Eleven million Canadians would benefit from an enhanced GST rebate, and the Conservative Party originally opposed it. After being shamed, they finally saw they were making a mistake and voted for it. I applaud them for that. It is good they voted for it.
Then there is the dental care for children, which would provide assistance for kids under the age of 12 to receive dental care. The Conservative Party is voting against that. Along with that legislation there is legislation to support those who are finding it financially difficult to make their rental payments. Through the legislation, we would see direct payments. We also have legislation dealing with money going directly to people with disabilities.
Conservatives can talk all they want about fighting inflation, but all they are really interested in is what they can put on a bumper sticker. To them, that is what it is all about. As they focus on trying to create havoc, we will continue to focus on being there for Canadians from coast to coast to coast, recognizing we want an economy that works for all Canadians. We want a society that truly cares about social programs, one that values national programs that are going to make a difference.
Liberals will talk about the importance of long-term care and mental health. We will talk about dental care for our children. There are many things we—
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- Oct/20/22 1:18:04 p.m.
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It is time for questions and comments. The hon. member for North Okanagan—Shuswap has the floor.
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- Oct/20/22 1:18:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I continue to be amazed by the hypocrisy of the Liberal government. It baffles me why Liberals can claim they will be paying Canadians back more than they are paying in carbon tax. If that were the case, and the government would be giving them back more than it is costing them, why would Canadians change their habits? It simply makes no sense. It is obvious to me that this is not a plan to reduce emissions. This is simply a tax-and-spend plan, a shell game, from the Liberal government.
Could the member opposite please confirm that this plan is only meant to distract from the fact that the Liberal government has failed to meet any emissions targets in the seven years it has been in government, and that it is really just a shell game for a tax plan?
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- Oct/20/22 1:19:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, ironically, members might be somewhat surprised to know that the principle of a price on pollution actually originated in the province of Alberta. Go figure. Other provinces then picked up on that and started to duplicate it or come up with different forms of it. It is only the national Conservative Party of Canada that is moving backward on this issue, and I do not quite understand why when more and more people are looking for leadership on the environment.
The report said that eight out of 10 people would benefit. The member does not have to believe me. The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer made the statement that eight of 10 people will see a net benefit from the money being paid in and the money being paid out. That is a good thing, and it is why I think the Conservatives—
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- Oct/20/22 1:20:21 p.m.
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The hon. member for Drummond.
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- Oct/20/22 1:20:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier, my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean was lucky enough to get two opportunities to ask my Conservative colleague a very insightful question about the huge profits being made by oil and gas companies.
I myself asked the member for Toronto—Danforth the same question earlier. Like my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, I would like to know if my colleague from Winnipeg North acknowledges and opposes the obscene profits being made by oil and gas companies. If so, what does his government plan to do to balance them out and rectify the situation?
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- Oct/20/22 1:21:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, from day one, the Prime Minister has made it very clear that he expects everyone to pay their fair share of taxes. That is one of the reasons why one of our very first budgetary measures was to increase the tax bracket for Canada's wealthiest 1%. That is something we have taken immediate action on.
With respect to what the member just referred to, in the last budget we heard the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance indicate that we are putting a special tax on banks and insurance companies because of the pandemic profits. We are very open to looking at ways that we can, as the Prime Minister has dictated, ensure we move toward a fairer taxation system.
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- Oct/20/22 1:22:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg North and I share a border. We represent ridings with some of the most severe human rights issues in the country, including his riding, which has the highest number of kids are in care in the whole country. Many families are living in poverty.
Although I know he has given a lot of good news announcements, one thing the Liberal government has failed to do is force CEOs of big oil and gas to pay their fair share. They could be paying for things such as programs that could do more to help people make energy-efficient renovations to not only fight against climate change, but also cut down on their monthly bills. This is critical in our ridings.
I heard another of his colleagues today talk about 2050. Families need help now. Is his government willing to go after big CEOs to get them to pay their fair share right now?
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- Oct/20/22 1:23:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to pick up on the member's comments regarding children. She makes reference to our ridings, and there are so many children who need that extra attention. That is why I felt so good when we increased and changed the Canada child benefit program. It lifted literally hundreds, if not thousands, of children out of poverty. These are children who are represented by both of us. We need to continue to work hard at making sure—
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- Oct/20/22 1:23:44 p.m.
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Resuming debate, the hon. member for Miramichi—Grand Lake has the floor.
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- Oct/20/22 1:23:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Hastings—Lennox and Addington, also known as H, L and A. The member is also known as the daughter of the former member for that riding. His name is Daryl, and he is at home watching, so it is a family business here.
Today, I am pleased to rise to support this motion from my colleague from Calgary Forest Lawn, which would see the House lend its agreement to the comments by the Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador calling on the federal government to exempt all forms of heating fuel from the Liberal carbon tax for all Canadians.
Indeed, all four premiers of the Atlantic provinces have written to the Prime Minister urging him to stop punishing Atlantic Canadians with this punitive tax upon a tax this winter season, especially as they have already faced the highest inflation rates, Liberal just inflation rates, that they have seen in decades.
It is the highest inflation since the Prime Minister's father bungled the failed national energy program in the 1980s. Let us take a walk back in time. It is worth resting on this point for a moment. There is an eerie parallel between the failed initiative of the Prime Minister's father with the national energy program, and where we find ourselves today.
We have record inflation, a looming economic recession, western alienation and a government so blind, so out of touch and so reckless, that it truly believes it knows better than Canadians on how to spend their own money. As serious and as concerning as this type of arrogance is, there is hope.
The failed national energy program of the senior Trudeau set the stage for the election of the strong, stable Conservative majority government of Brian Mulroney. The government's mismanagement of the economy and its zealous punishment of its own citizens who work in the oil and gas sector, as well as those who rely on this sector to heat their homes, is creating the perfect storm, which will see Canadians choose another strong and responsible Conservative majority government. This time, it will be led by my hon. colleague from Carleton, our honourable leader.
My constituency of Miramichi—Grand Lake is the largest federal electoral district in New Brunswick. At 17,420 kilometres, it is more than double the average size of other districts in my home province. It is actually three times larger than the entirety of Prince Edward Island.
My constituency is rural. It is extremely rural, and it is vast. I believe that the Prime Minister has probably read some short books about life beyond the limits of the major Canadian cities. I would imagine they were cartoons. I am sure he believes he understands the plight of everyday Canadians and their families from the CBC News, which blindly endorses and reaffirms the misguided decisions of the government as a regular part of its editorial control.
Let me tell the Prime Minister and all the members of his government that my constituents and Atlantic Canadians, by and large, will quite rightly rely on oil to heat their homes this winter, and they want and need the government to understand that fact. They want and need the government to put people before politics and remove the Liberal carbon tax from heating fuel, which has already nearly doubled in price in the past two to three years.
In rural New Brunswick and across Atlantic Canada, Canadians have few choices when it comes to heating their homes. Many, if not most, use oil as the primary source to keep their homes and families warm. Natural gas is not an option. As we have seen with the devastation of the electrical infrastructure across the Atlantic provinces after tropical storm Fiona, even electricity is not always reliable.
It is one thing to lose electricity for days, or even weeks, in September or October. However, if this happens during a Canadian winter, between November and March, homes will freeze, plumbing will fail and homes will get destroyed. In many cases, oil is the only safe and reliable option to keep one's home and family warm through the Canadian winter in rural Atlantic Canada. I know that the government and the Prime Minister at least value the homes of Atlantic Canadians.
I wonder, if the Prime Minister had his way, whether he would still have Atlantic Canadians locked in their homes, for their own safety of course. Perhaps he might consider chipping in with the Atlantic Canadians on their share of his carbon tax to help offset the cost of keeping these home detention centres warm this coming season, just in case he needs them one more time. It is frustrating for me to stand in this House, time and time again, and explain the realities of rural life to the government.
I understand that, as members of the House, we all represent different constituencies and geographies, none being more important than the other, but there is a reality to Canadian life. Our country is large and vast, and a great many Canadians live in rural settings. They understand what choices work for them and their families, and they do not need the Liberal government taxing them in a punishing sequence for choosing the only available option that is safe and can be relied upon. Canadians are better to choose for themselves.
The Liberal government has made enough decisions for people who did not want them to begin with. The government has mismanaged the economy in such a way that the price of heating oil has already more than doubled on its watch. Other necessities, like food and certainly the cost of building or maintaining homes with repairs, has at least doubled. The punishment of Liberal inflation never ends for Canadians, but their pain is the government's gain. For every item or service in our economy that is subject to the federal portion of the HST and has doubled in price, the government is now collecting double the tax on these items than it would have only a year or two ago.
To be fair, to any normal responsible government, this additional tax revenue would be a windfall and help to allow a budget to balance itself, as the Prime Minister likes to say, but I understand the government has a severe spending problem. Even this doubling in revenue is not nearly enough for them. They have, in fact, caused inflation. Much of these high percentages we have are caused by the government's inability to have monetary policy and manage the books of this country.
I revert to the fact that the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, a Liberal friend of the government, has publicly called on the Prime Minister to exempt home heating oil from the Liberal carbon tax. This is not Ottawa Liberals whispering to themselves that it is time for the Prime Minister to move on. I can understand why the Prime Minister, with no serious job prospects of his own on the horizon, would ignore these Liberals, but a sitting and popular Liberal premier in Atlantic Canada, in Newfoundland and Labrador, speaking about it aloud in the news is a whole different story.
I implore the Prime Minister, even if he does not listen to the Ottawa Liberals urging him to walk the plank, to at least listen to this one Liberal who has the courage of his convictions to try to explain these bread and butter issues to the federal government, which is so very out of touch. Premier Andrew Furey from Newfoundland and Labrador has made the decision to have the courage of his convictions, and we applaud him for that.
I proudly support this motion to remove the Liberal carbon tax on home heating fuels. This is what my constituents have told me to do, and now I have relayed their concerns to the House. The tax grab by the Liberal government will increase heating costs by over 20% for working Canadians, and as the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador has rightly said, it will create “undue economic burdens” on Canadians who do not have the resources to cope with this burden.
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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 1:33:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an absolute pleasure to answer this question, because while Vladimir Putin threatens to turn the energy supply off to our western allies and while he funds his war machine on Ukraine, the government here does not think we should develop our oil and gas, when we might distribute that oil and gas to our allies so they would not have to rely on Putin. I am going to take that question and say that I think the Government of Canada has turned its back on western Europe completely when it comes to energy.
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- Oct/20/22 1:34:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when I invest in something, usually it is to try to renovate my home, so it lasts longer. I want added value. I want to see a return. In the case of my home, the return is that it lasts longer.
For the last 50 years, we have made massive investments in oil and gas companies and oil and gas development without seeing a percentage of the profits, other than what is received through taxes. This is without any commitment from the companies to clean up.
Now, we have companies making billions of dollars in profit. These are profits like they have never seen before. Would it not be much better for the entire population if the oil companies, which make money on the backs of workers, consumers and the government—which invests heavily in the industry—were taxed on their profits?
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- Oct/20/22 1:35:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just the other day I was speaking to my sons who are in high school and they were learning about climate change in school. Obviously, we want our children to be able to learn everything that is happening in the world and all the issues. What I noticed was not getting relayed was what has driven the Canadian economy for eternity, which is natural resources and the revenue that has come from that.
I do not disagree with my hon. colleague from the Bloc party who thinks that when there are record profits companies should be paying their fair share. I can agree with that statement. However, the New Democrats and the Liberals in this House love companies like Amazon and ArriveCAN. They love to buy new deep freezers for Loblaws when it has had record profits. They love to pay between $12 million and $20 million for new deep freezers for one of the richest companies.
The member's question is a good one. It would have been probably better directed at the NDP or the Liberals, but I will gladly answer it.
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- Oct/20/22 1:36:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is hogwash. The NDP has actually been wanting Amazon and the big corporations to pay their fair share.
While people cannot afford to pay their home heating costs, which is the debate we are having today, the IMF is saying it is actually runaway corporate greed and CEOs who are making record profits in oil and gas, the banking sector and the grocery stores. To help interpret for my Conservative colleague, it is the triple greed that has taken hold of this country. I am calling on the Conservatives to stop being the gatekeepers for big oil and big corporations. Will they today tackle the triple greed?
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- Oct/20/22 1:37:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, why is the NDP supporting the Liberal government, which supported $28 million to a Liberal donor's company? Now they have a $54-million ArriveCAN app that could have been made on a weekend for a quarter of a million by most tech companies. They jumped right into—
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- Oct/20/22 1:37:40 p.m.
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We have to resume debate.
The hon. member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington.
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