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Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)

Feb/7/23 4:18:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to remind my colleague that ExxonMobil raked in $74 billion in profits. That is an outrage, yet the government is not lifting a finger to get any of that $74 billion back. That is the problem. The carbon tax is not a problem for individuals, it is a problem for businesses. Small- and medium-sized businesses are being penalized, compared to large corporations that are prospering and benefiting from carbon tax exemptions and programs. How can he justify that? I would ask my very dear colleague to explain how that is justified.

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Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia

Feb/7/23 4:19:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is true that profits in a given sector go up and down. What should we do? Should we change the tax rate every month to reflect changes in corporate revenues and profits? No, that is not the way to run an economy. I agree that oil companies' profits have increased a lot. However, it is important to encourage these companies to invest in technologies that will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions so that we can produce oil in the greenest way possible, because we will always need to produce oil for various products.

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Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP)

Feb/7/23 4:19:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, New Democrats support putting a price on pollution, but the Liberals' carbon pricing system lets big polluters off the hook. Under their output-based pricing system, Canada's biggest polluters pay the lowest carbon tax rate. These loopholes mean that oil and gas companies only pay a tiny fraction of the cost of their pollution. Of their emissions, 80% to 90% are exempt. For instance, Suncor only pays about one-fourteenth of the full carbon price, and we on this side think loopholes need to be closed so that the oil and gas sector pays what it owes. Does my hon. colleague not agree that these loopholes need to be closed so that the oil and gas industry pay their fair share? Does he think it is also time for hard caps to be introduced on the oil and gas sector so that we can make sure we meet the carbon emission targets we have committed to internationally?

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Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia

Feb/7/23 4:20:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I read just yesterday that Canada is the only oil-producing nation that is bringing in a cap system on methane, which is a very powerful greenhouse gas. It is 30 times more powerful and damaging than carbon dioxide. As such, we are at the forefront, and we are putting in a cap. We are looking at doing so on methane. It is a challenge because we need to have the technology available that can really pinpoint where the methane is being released, and that is through satellite technology and so forth. There is still a lot of work to do in that area.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/7/23 4:21:35 p.m.
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It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Public Services and Procurement; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Climate Change; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

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Mr. Chris Bittle (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Lib.)

Feb/7/23 4:22:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting that we are debating this motion on February 7. I think it would have been more interesting to debate this motion on February 2, which is Groundhog Day. We are at it again and again and again with the Conservative Party, which denies, denies, denies climate change and its impacts. It will come as no surprise to the members opposite that our government and the members on this side will not support the motion. I want to say why. This is a signature policy for members of the Liberal Party. We ran on it in the last federal election not too long ago. We were given a clear mandate by Canadians to implement a price on pollution across the country. This is something that we have been consistent on since 2015; the other parties in the House have been consistent on it as well. It is a bedrock principle, a price on pollution, for cutting the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change and incentivizing a switch to cleaner ways of doing business. Over the past years, Canadians have seen the Conservative Party sorely confused about this. The last Conservative leader embraced the principle. While we disagreed with the specifics of his policy proposal, he understood that he needed a plan to address climate change so that he and his party could be taken seriously by Canadians. They voted on it. They ran on it. Every Conservative member in the House ran on it, including the hon. member for Carleton, who is now the Leader of the Opposition. Over the years, Conservatives across Canada have voiced their support for robust pricing systems. It makes sense. Price something that is bad. Price pollution. It is a market-based policy. If they would prefer a heavy, regulatory approach, I can understand. If so, the members could get up and say that want to regulate this policy rather than having a market-based solution. That would be surprising coming from the Conservative Party, but that is the alternative. They are silent on that. They have not thought it through. Carbon pricing works by putting a cost on the one thing we do not want, and that is pollution. I hope that we can agree that we do not want pollution, although I am not sure we can. Carbon pricing adds value to the things that we do want: clean air, affordable clean energy and well-paying jobs. It adheres to basic Conservative principles about policy-making. It is a policy that any Conservative who wants to be taken seriously on environmental action should embrace, and for a brief time, they did embrace it. Let us look across the pond to the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. Recently, at COP27, the UN conference on climate change in Egypt, we rolled out a challenge to countries around the world to put a price on pollution. The Conservative Party of the United Kingdom understands the market-based value of doing so, and we welcomed the United Kingdom's commitment to meeting the challenge.

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Mr. Chris Bittle (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Lib.)

Feb/7/23 4:28:57 p.m.
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It is interesting to see members on the other side of the House cosplaying Margaret Thatcher on everything except the one thing she spoke often about, which was the dangers of carbon dioxide. This was years and years before many people were raising the alarm bells on it. Indeed, worldwide, since Canada launched our pollution pricing challenge in 2020, about 20% of greenhouse gases generated across the globe have been covered by a pricing system. That is because it is recognized as the most cost-effective and efficient system to support the climate action outcomes we need. On this side of the aisle and on part of the other side, as there is only one opposition party opposed to this now, although they have flip-flopped, we are proud of the system in place in every province and territory across the country. The matter was already taken to the Supreme Court by Conservative premiers, and the Supreme Court ruled on the pricing pollution system. The decision said, “[T]he evidence reflects a consensus, both in Canada and internationally, that carbon pricing is integral to reducing GHG emissions.” In provinces that are operating under the federal backstop system, all of the revenue is returned to the province of origin, with the climate action incentive payments putting more money into pockets than what is paid for eight out of 10 people. They will receive more. Let me repeat that: All revenues are returned to the province of origin. This is not a revenue-generating scheme for the Government of Canada, although we would not know that by listening to members on the other side. I am surprised they want to keep that a secret and do not want to tell that to Canadians. It is surprising. In the past year, an average family of four received a rebate in Ontario of $745. It was $832 in Manitoba, over $1,100 in Saskatchewan and $1,079 in Alberta. That went back into their pockets. Those amounts will increase as the price on pollution increases. This is where Canadians should be left confused by the Conservatives on the issue. Clearly, under their new leader, they have chosen to sacrifice any semblance of credibility on environmental action and have taken to simplistic bumper sticker sloganeering, which is a favourite policy of the member for Carleton. The Conservatives choose to tell Canadians only half the story, which, again, should not be surprising. They never seem to mention rebates. They also never mention that Canadians in federal backstop provinces receive their climate action incentive rebates at the start of every quarter, which could go toward home heating costs or grocery costs. They never mention that in a rural area, they get an extra 10% on the rebate. They never mention that for farming and fishing, there are exemptions on diesel. Why are the Conservatives only telling half the story? Are they worried that if they told the whole story Canadians would not be behind them? That is quite possible. I would invite members of the opposition to take a different approach. I would invite members to see what we can do as a government to support Canadians on affordable energy, over and on top of the climate action incentive rebates. That includes the half a billion dollars the government has put in place to help people switch from oil to heat pumps. We know people are struggling. We know the cost of living is challenging. However, climate change is contributing to that. I have sat here today and listened to hon. members talk about increased food prices. What do drought and flooding do to that? What do hurricanes that impact farms across Atlantic Canada do to the cost of food? Why are hon. members of the Conservative Party not mentioning that? Why are they silent? If they are only telling half the story, maybe we should question the hon. members on what they are proposing. Maybe they are scared about what Canadians would think if they heard the whole story. Taking action on climate change supports affordability for people coping with the high cost of living right now. This is in addition to all the supports to Canadians we introduced for rental, dental and tax relief, which the Conservative Party voted against. It is big talk from the other side on supporting Canadians, but when the votes happen, they are nowhere to be seen and are voting against. On this side of the aisle, we are helping Canadians switch from the roller coaster of oil and gas prices to a far more affordable and reliable made-in-Canada electricity for their homes and transportation. It is good for the climate and it is good for people's cost of living. It is good policy. What the debate really boils down to is whether the party opposite believes in climate change. I am not sure they do. We never hear the Leader of the Opposition utter the words. He stood in the House today, and for 10 minutes, during a debate about pricing pollution, he did not mention climate change. It is an existential threat to this country and the people living in it, and the Leader of the Opposition is silent. His members are silent. They do not believe in it. They do not believe in the science behind it and it is absolutely shameful. Even though just a few months earlier every single one of them ran on— Mr. Clifford Small: All the dinosaurs are going to die.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/7/23 4:30:55 p.m.
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I just want to remind the hon. member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame that he will have an opportunity to ask a question when it is the appropriate time, should he decide to do so. It is not appropriate for him to be yelling across the way while the hon. member is doing his speech. I also want to remind the hon. parliamentary secretary that while I am speaking, he should not be trying to speak across the way either. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

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Mr. Chris Bittle

Feb/7/23 4:31:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member from Newfoundland is upset because he has witnessed the devastation of climate change in his home province and he remains silent. He remains silent when his constituents are suffering. He remains silent and it is shameful. He and his entire party need to step up. What we will see, if we make pollution free, is more pollution, stronger storms, higher temperatures, more drought, more flooding, more atmospheric rivers, more fires and more floods. It is costing Canadians billions of dollars for each one of these storms. We used to say these were 100-year storms, but they are happening every year. The members of the Conservative Party can act like ostriches and stick their heads in the sand, but on this side of the House, we believe in the science, we believe in climate change and we are going to move forward on environmental action for Canadians.

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Mr. Clifford Small (Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, CPC)

Feb/7/23 4:32:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just heard my hon. colleague reference atmospheric rivers. I wonder if he could let the House know if we can dam those atmospheric rivers and make hydro power. That would be a wonderful thing to do to get some emissions down. We always get one thing from ministers in the Liberal government when we question them about the carbon tax: They try to shame us into thinking the carbon tax is going to stop storms that start in Africa from reaching Atlantic Canada. Does the member think the second-largest country in the world, which produces less than 2% of the world's emissions, is going to stop hurricanes from happening by bringing in a carbon tax?

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Mr. Chris Bittle

Feb/7/23 4:33:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we can tell what the Conservative Party believes in by the hon. member's opening statement. He was making a joke about atmospheric rivers and a storm that cost the people of British Columbia billions of dollars, that impacted farms and that increased prices on food. It cut off British Columbians from the rest of the country, through the Trans-Canada Highway, and he is making a joke about that. It is evident in their policy that the Conservatives and the hon. member do not believe in climate change. He is not serious about it, even though he witnessed a 100-year storm, one of the worst storms to ever hit Atlantic Canada. He witnessed it and looked into his constituents' eyes, and here he says, “I do not care.”

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

Feb/7/23 4:33:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is so disheartening. The fight against climate change is important. It is one of the major challenges of our time. Canada, as a G7 country, must deal with this problem. The party on the right has no plan. It could not care less and is incapable of presenting any ideas that would suggest that it wants to fight this problem. Meanwhile, the party in government has a plan, but that plan is not working. Canada is the worst country in the G20 when it comes to average greenhouse gas emissions. It is the worst country in the G20 and the only G7 country whose emissions have increased since 2015, since the Liberals took office. The Liberals can bombard us with quotes about how green and sustainable they are and how they are doing business, but the Liberal plan is not working. The planet is burning, and Canada has no plan to deal with it.

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Mr. Chris Bittle

Feb/7/23 4:35:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I first want to comment on the interesting fact that when the Leader of the Opposition gave his speech, he said everything in English and for some reason did not say any of it in French. Maybe there is a message he is hiding from the people of Quebec. Ultimately, there is no government in this world that has done more on climate change in the last seven years than our government. We have a $100-billion plan to address climate change, which includes a price on pollution. We are working with the provinces and municipalities. We are serious on this issue and Canadians believed us, because they put us here for the third time in a row.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

Feb/7/23 4:35:39 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, I had the pleasure of meeting with the Canadian Labour Congress today, which told me its workers are experiencing challenges because of the rising cost of inflation and wages not increasing. Meanwhile, we know of businesses like Imperial Oil, which is making huge profits. It made $2.4 billion in the last quarter, which was a sixfold increase compared to the same quarter last year. I wonder if the hon. member can explain why the Liberals will not put a windfall profits tax on big oil and gas companies.

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Mr. Chris Bittle

Feb/7/23 4:36:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her clear passion for workers and unionized workers, which I share, coming from a blue-collar union town in St. Catharines. The hon. member mentioned the cost of living and how it is impacting workers across the country. However, there is silence from the other side on climate change and its impacts, such as droughts and now floods in California; floods across the Prairies; wildfires in Alberta; atmospheric rivers, which the hon. member for Newfoundland joked about; and the hurricane that hit Atlantic Canada, which all significantly increase the cost of food and directly increase the cost of living. If parties are not going to be serious about climate change, both in this country and in other countries, we are going to see more pollution, a higher cost of living and a higher cost of food.

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Mr. Clifford Small (Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, CPC)

Feb/7/23 4:37:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, “I am sick and tired of people talking about the cold winter”. These are the famous words used by the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl in response to a previous Conservative motion to have the carbon tax removed from home heating fuel. Here I stand again on behalf of the great people of Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, and in fact all the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Atlantic Canada, to proudly support yet another Conservative motion to axe the carbon tax. The cult-like Liberal plan to triple, triple, triple the carbon tax on Canadians is a recipe for disaster, yet my fellow Newfoundland and Labrador MPs who sit on the other side of this House continue to push that agenda. Everyone knows the carbon tax is intrinsically inflationary. Carbon tax drives up the price consumers pay for things produced and delivered using fuel. This includes, well, everything. According to the chair of the Atlantic Canadian premiers, energy poverty in Atlantic Canada is nearly 40%, the highest in the country. Newfoundland and Labrador's Liberal premier, Andrew Furey, begged the Prime Minister not to put carbon tax on home heating fuel. It will drive up heating costs by over 20% when it kicks in on July 1. Premier Furey, a close friend of the Prime Minister, said in early September that ending the current carbon tax exemption on heating fuel 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 exemption on the January 1 deadline to end 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. Its NDP coalition partners are partial to the same cult-like beliefs. When asked about this in question period, Liberal ministers try to shame us into thinking that somehow a Canadian carbon tax will magically shield us from hurricanes that start off the coast of Africa. Atlantic Canadians do not buy it. 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, when they dropped, probably because the Prime Minister and his World Economic Forum buddies parked their private jets. The leader of this carbon tax regime, the Prime Minister, brags that Canadians receive more in rebates than they pay in carbon tax. He should stop misleading Canadians while he contradicts the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the PBO, who said in March that 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 that the budget will balance itself? The failure of carbon pricing in Canada is in stark contrast to the success Americans have had in reducing their emissions. They did not bend to climate activists, but instead used technology and did things like converting coal plants to natural gas. The people of my province do not have the option of converting to natural gas, so they will need to continue for the most part with diesel heating fuel. I will say more about natural gas a little later on. When implemented, the carbon tax, combined with HST and heating fuel, will be more than 14¢ per litre. According to Premier Furey, this constitutes a 20% increase on the cost to heat a home. This is with carbon pricing at just $50 per tonne. This is set to rise to $170 per tonne by 2030. That will drive up the carbon tax on that same litre of fuel to about 55¢ per litre with the HST included. This is nothing short of a disaster created by Liberal government members, whose least concern is the real lives of Atlantic Canadians. It is a complete slap in the face to the very people who have put so much faith in them since 2015. I hear from nervous constituents all the time, constituents already stretched to the breaking point by out-of-control inflation. Winter is here. Atlantic Canadians are choosing between food on the table and a warm home. Recently, the environment minister bragged about his new program to switch homeowners from heating with fuel to heating by heat pumps, a plan that can help, at best, 3% of homeowners. Where does this leave people like Corey from Gander? Last year, Corey spent $4,000 on oil to heat his home. The Liberal carbon tax will add $700 to his annual heating bill. Corey considers himself middle-class, but with this inflationary tax increase, he is worried about paying his bills. Felicia from Pikes 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 over $1,000 extra if the Prime Minister does not back down on his tax-hiking plan. Felicia and Corey do not need a carbon tax to force them to adjust their thermostat. The price of oil has doubled in the last year. The people of Atlantic Canada cannot take more of this inflationary tax pressure on their lives. Real people with real bills to pay are really fed up. They are much more intelligent than the Prime Minister and his climate change cult make them out to be. They know that this is a tax-and-spend climate plan, and it is not going to work. The Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador knows it is not working and says that 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 to be, on average, about $92 per barrel this year and will rise to $125 per barrel by 2025. With these prices where they are and where they are going, there is already enough pressure on consumers to cut their consumption. 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 emission reduction will take place? The one thing that is guaranteed is that money in people's jeans will be reduced by this inflationary tax pressure. If the Prime Minister was serious about cutting emissions, he would be supporting countries around the world like Germany and pushing to supply them with natural gas. However, what did he say when the German chancellor came begging? He said that there is no economic case for shipping natural gas from Newfoundland and Labrador to Europe. The island of Newfoundland is 4,000 kilometres from Europe. Meanwhile, in the U.S., LNG plants all through Texas are shipping liquefied natural gas with the value of $1 billion a day to Europe. The Gulf of Mexico is twice as far from Europe as Newfoundland is. Argentina, in a partnership with Petronas, is building a $10-billion LNG facility to export natural gas. The only place further from Europe than Argentina is the South Pole. However, our wise Prime Minister says that the island of Newfoundland is too far from Europe to make economic sense to take on such a project. Meanwhile, Germany has had to convert its natural gas plants back to burning coal, which doubles the emissions it produces. Instead of helping our allies, harvesting the trillions of cubic feet of natural gas on the Grand Banks and boosting the prosperity of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, the Liberal government promotes air pollution in Europe and energy poverty in Atlantic Canada. To wind down, the carbon tax drives inflation. There is one country in the G7 that has managed its inflation, but it does not have a carbon tax and its inflation rate sits just above 2%. That country is Japan. So, the verdict is out. The carbon tax is inflationary and does nothing to cut emissions. That is why I am proud to support our current Conservative motion to axe the carbon tax, and I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the House, especially those from Newfoundland and Labrador and the Maritimes, stand with their constituents when they stand to vote on this Conservative axe-the-tax motion.

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Mr. Ken Hardie (Fleetwood—Port Kells, Lib.)

Feb/7/23 4:47:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a number of questions for the hon. member, like why are the people of Newfoundland not burning Newfoundland natural gas? Why are they sticking with oil? Second, why have we not heard anything from the Conservatives about the fact that big oil is jacking up the price, and its profits, while big oil countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia get together to limit production so the price for everybody goes up? I say, the sooner we get these bandits out of our pockets, the better for everybody. What does the member have to say about that?

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Mr. Clifford Small

Feb/7/23 4:48:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank my colleague, the hon. member from British Columbia, a fellow member of the FOPO committee. I always like to work with him. Since 2015, there has been an attack on the oil and gas industry in Canada by the hon. member's party. I am sure he is ashamed of it. We have oil and gas to produce here that could bring down inflation. We need to produce more of what money buys, including oil. That would take on these dictators all over the world. If we were to compete with them in their own market, that would be how we bring them to their knees and help our own people at the same time.

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Mrs. Caroline Desbiens (Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, BQ)

Feb/7/23 4:48:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I salute my colleague and thank him for his impassioned speech. He is also known to be very passionate at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, of which we are both members. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to work with him. I understand the position of my colleague, who is distraught by the carbon tax and seems to be obsessed with it. I would like him to comment on the Bay du Nord exploration project. The poor got poorer and the already rich oil companies got even richer during the pandemic, and now oil exploration will be allowed in Bay du Nord.

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Mr. Clifford Small

Feb/7/23 4:49:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, even though Newfoundland and Labrador right now is not a have province, we are still paying into the equalization formula here. Bay du Nord is going to produce the cleanest oil in the world. It is going to allow Newfoundland and Labrador to give some equalization payments to Quebec so it can help the poor. It is a great privilege for a small province such as Newfoundland and Labrador, with a population of just over 500,000, to be able to produce our oil, get royalties from it and be prosperous, while reducing dollars for dictators and helping the people of Quebec enjoy some of the royalties we get from our oil.

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