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Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Dec/8/22 1:25:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, while I certainly do not agree with many of the things the member brought forward, it was interesting. He did talk about how we could make things more affordable for Canadians. I think and hope that is something everyone in the House is eager to do. However, the Conservatives have voted against many of the initiatives that the NDP have brought forward, things like dental care, the rent subsidy; taking GST off of home heating. One of the other things that we could be doing, that we should be doing, is what the Conservative Party in the U.K. is doing. It has put in place a 25% excess profit tax on companies that made massive profits during the pandemic. Would he vote against that initiative as well or would he be supportive of something like that?

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Mr. John Nater

Dec/8/22 1:25:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member touched on ideas from different parties and different countries. One of the things I always think is important to do is to look to other jurisdictions and see what they have proposed. In fact, in 2009, the British Columbia New Democrats had a great idea. I am quoting from a headline from the very respectable Toronto Star, which said “B.C. NDP promises to kill carbon tax.” That is a great idea and one that we as Canadians would support.

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Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)

Dec/8/22 1:26:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to follow my colleague who gave a very entertaining speech. It is always a great honour for all of us to stand in our place to speak on behalf of the communities that elected us. The debate today is about a motion we put forward that we think is very reasonable in the economic crisis we are experiencing right now, this cost of living crisis. It is a motion that calls on the government to remove the carbon tax on all those input costs of the food processes we have, whether it is through agriculture, or in my part of the world, elements that are affected by the pricing on fishing. It is important because the carbon tax is really a tax on everything. Most people are probably aware of that, but the primary reason we are having this inflationary, some say a just inflationary, type of period is that we have a tax that is applied to everything, and it is pushing the prices up, combined with government spending. I would like my colleagues here to understand a little bit about the effect of these costs. Some here, as we are paid a fairly good salary, may not feel the pinch the same way as people in my community do, where the median individual income is $20,000 a year and the median household income is only $44,000 a year. We are forced, in our province, to heat with either oil, 53% of which is oil that comes from Saudi Arabia, so dirty Saudi Arabian oil, or with electricity, which is generated in Nova Scotia with coal, of which 60% comes from Colombia. Therefore, we do not have the choice, because of decisions of the government, to use clean Canadian energy in our province. We are forced to use these methods, which is dramatically increasing the cost of living. When one has a median income of $20,000, these increases are huge. Some of the constituents have written to me, and we are all getting calls, I am sure, on all sides of the House, from people who are suffering. I will tell members what Jeff Kinar from riding wrote to me. He said that he was absolutely shocked to pay over $2 a litre for diesel for his truck. He is a pensioner living in a rural area of Nova Scotia trying to enjoy what he considers to be a well-deserved retirement. He did his time in the public service and has a modest pension income. Fortunately, he has few medical issues and he does own his own home, but these fuel prices are unbearable for those who are living in rural areas who must make regular trips to town for groceries, prescription drugs and medical appointments. He said that it was shocking to see that almost the entire crew of Liberals jaunted off to Europe while exhorting, or extorting, the Canadian public to do their part in the fight on climate change. Now, Nancy Celic in my riding wrote—

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Mr. Charlie Angus

Dec/8/22 1:29:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was listening to my colleague. Is he saying that the Liberals are extorting the public?

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/8/22 1:29:56 p.m.
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I have to interrupt the hon. member. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Charlie Angus

Dec/8/22 1:29:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, he said “exhorting”. Okay, I was just worried about what I had heard.

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Dec/8/22 1:29:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I said “exhorting”.

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Dec/8/22 1:30:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the NDP member from the costly coalition is obviously very sensitive to any accusation that his friends and fellow caucus members are putting up the cost of everything. I will go back to what my constituents have written to me. The member for Kingston and the Islands, I am sure, is getting emails like this. Nancy wrote to me to raise the issues facing those on a federal disability pension. The member for Kingston and the Islands is obviously not aware that people live on disability pensions. She continued with asking us to please raise their pension. She wrote that her oil bill was over $700, and she gets $895 a month. She cannot afford prescriptions, power, cable, phone or Internet, to say nothing of food. She lives in rural Nova Scotia, so everything she needs, she has to drive to, but she cannot afford gas. She says she is usually home anyway, but this is ridiculous. She goes on to talk about her medical needs, and she says she is living a life like the early days of the pandemic because she cannot get out and misses appointments. She then says that the government is giving away millions of dollars, and she understands why it has to do it, and she does sympathize, but she asks about Canadian citizens. She questions if the government cares about them. She then says that she finds it hard to see her mom, as she is 35 kilometres away, and Nancy cannot afford the gas to visit her. Her mother is on an old age pension too and cannot afford food. I would think that the Liberals would care about these issues and vote for the motion. We are seeing, for example, that food inflation is up 10.8% because of the policies of the government. Fish, which is very important in my riding, is up 10.4%. Butter is up 16%. Eggs are up 11%. Margarine is up 37%. I am not buttering members up on this. The reality is it has gone up by 37%. Bread and rolls, which is something we butter up, have gone up 17%. I can go on. The food costs have grown enormously. Fishing is an important part of my riding. It is lobster season and the winter has just started. It is a dangerous job, fishing in the north Atlantic for lobster in the winter during storms, with waves and snow. There are dangers when people are out to sea, 40 to 50 miles off shore. I know I am going to get scoffs from the other side, but the cost of diesel for a fishing boat is $2.70 per gallon, which is triple what it was at the start of the season last year. It is tripling. It is because of the policies of the government that we no longer have access to the necessary bait. We are not allowed to fish mackerel because of the decisions of the government. The reality is they have to buy bait from Europe and Norway, and the bait has now doubled to $1.40 per fish. There are people who have a loan from the provincial loan board. They are young entrepreneurs who have gotten into the fishing business and have upwards of a million dollars of loans, so they could buy their boat, their licence and their gear. Their loans have just rolled over this fall. Do members know what they are now? They were paying 2%. What do members think they have gone up to? They have more than tripled to 7% on a million-dollar loan. This is an incredible burden on and cost increase to the food that we eat. That is why we are putting forward this motion. We are saying we have to give people relief. The government has to give relief to Canadians to stop the cycle of inflation it is causing, which is driving up food prices and making our constituents have to choose between heating and eating. How did we get here? Those tiny deficits were promised in 2015 and balanced by 2019. Before COVID, we had $110 billion of deficits spent by the government, which was supposed to have balanced budgets. Then during COVID, over $200 million was spent on issues that were not related to COVID, which added more debt to the country than all other prime ministers combined in the history of this country. That excessive spending puts more cash into the market, and it is chasing fewer goods, which means our paycheques cannot buy what they used to. It is basic economics. However, if we had a government that understood or paid attention to monetary policy, it would have understood that and saw it coming, as we did two years. We warned the government that this was going to happen. The Minister of Finance said she was worried about deflation. Do members believe that? She did nothing about understanding the basic economics of our economy. I have a lot more to talk about on the wasted government spending that has led us to this point where we are calling on the government to give some compassion and relief, so people can afford to buy food and do not have to choose between food, heating and prescriptions in my province, and in some cases selling their houses. I have asked questions here, and I had Debbie on the phone. Her mother has to sell her family house. She has to sell the family house because the price of home heating has gone up from $200 to $400 a month. We get calls every week from people having to sell their houses because they cannot afford to heat them anymore, and they have to make the choice between maintaining that home or eating, so they have to sell the home. We are calling on the government to show a little compassion and reduce or eliminate its failed carbon tax, which has not met a single carbon target it has set out. The Liberals have not reduced carbon outputs in this country since they have been in government. It is an inflationary tax intended to drive up inflation, and it is not working, so we would urge all members in the House to please support this motion today. It is a brilliantly crafted motion, which would really help Canadians suffer through this terrible economic time we are in.

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Mr. Kody Blois (Kings—Hants, Lib.)

Dec/8/22 1:36:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague, during his remarks, talked about government spending over the last two years, and some of that spending has included a national child care program, which has been rolled out across the country. Indeed, the Nova Scotia minister is actually an MLA within that member's riding. We just announced that child care fees are going to be going down by 50%, and that there will be another 1,500 spaces added in our province of Nova Scotia alone. That will help support families in my riding and in the member opposite's riding. Does that member support that government spending over the last two years? Why does he not support it? Will he support the legislation we introduced today that would enshrine that moving forward, so that families in his riding and mine can be supported with important affordability measures that would make a difference to our young kids?

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Dec/8/22 1:37:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Kings—Hants, who represents a rural riding in Nova Scotia, will know that there is almost no institutional child care available in rural Nova Scotia. I have one institutional child care space that helps nobody in my riding, and there are over 70,000 or 80,000 families on the waiting list in Quebec for this program, and that is a mature program, so it is not going to help. I think it is highly misleading to the families in my riding to think that somehow that would help them achieve their child care needs.

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Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)

Dec/8/22 1:38:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the colleague opposite mentioned two things that kind of caught my attention: the price of diesel, which somebody is burning in his riding, and the price of gasoline for somebody else to get to medical appointments or to visit their mom. How much of that price, because he quoted the actual price per litre in his speech, is a federally implemented carbon tax, or is it a provincially implemented carbon tax? Could he please—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/8/22 1:38:54 p.m.
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The hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets.

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Dec/8/22 1:38:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Avalon does an excellent job chairing the fisheries committee, and I enjoy working with him on that committee. On the question, there is no provincial carbon tax on that diesel because we did not impose a carbon tax provincially in Nova Scotia, and the price has gone up from 90¢ to $2.70 because of the inflationary policies of the government. The policies of the government have also led to our dependence on Saudi Arabian fuel coming into Atlantic Canada, including to the refineries in that member's province, which has energy coming from Saudi Arabia. The—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/8/22 1:39:51 p.m.
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I have to give time for other questions. The hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Dec/8/22 1:39:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in 2013, the Government of Quebec joined the carbon market with California, but the negotiations were held long before 2013. The Conservative government was in power at the time. The good thing about the carbon market is that it puts a cap on carbon emissions. Quebec tried to encourage the Government of Canada to join the carbon market, but it did not. Looking back, does my colleague think that the carbon market is a better alternative to taxation, which only puts a price per tonne without putting a cap on emissions?

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Dec/8/22 1:40:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, no, because the carbon market is basically allowing somebody to pay at the end of the day for continuing to pollute. It puts the price of everything up, even in the province of Quebec, and we have not seen carbon emissions come down as a result of that. The province with the most aggressive carbon tax in this country is British Columbia, and we have seen nothing but increases in carbon in that province for the almost 20 years that it has had a carbon tax in place.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

Dec/8/22 1:41:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech, especially when he read some his constituents' concerns, which he highlighted. The cost here in Windsor, Ontario, is significant as well, and I would like to hear his perspective on a problem we have that is compounding everything. I have not heard the Conservative position on this. The City of Windsor had to spend $5.7 million to clear the illegal border crossing blockade at the Ambassador Bridge, which cost tens of millions of dollars per day to the Canadian economy. Does the member's party support making the city of Windsor residents whole? On top of all these other expenses, we now have to foot the bill of nearly $6 million to clear the illegal blockade for the rest of the country, and most of the people came from outside this region. Does he support that restitution for the City of Windsor?

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Dec/8/22 1:42:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not an expert on the priorities of the City of Windsor's municipal government, but I think it enjoys having the responsibility of policing and not having the federal government do it. When the city takes those responsibilities on, it involves a cost throughout the year, whatever the challenges are.

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Mr. Kody Blois

Dec/8/22 1:42:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Obviously, the procedural rules say that no member should suggest that another member has misled the House, but before me I have a report from the Nova Scotia government that talks about the number of registered day care spaces in South Shore—St. Margarets. Could we—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/8/22 1:42:55 p.m.
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That is debate. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Davenport.

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