44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 17, 2023 11:00AM
- Apr/17/23 4:32:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we heard my colleague on the other side of the House talk about a clean, green economy. Why then is there not so much as a hint of any transition plan to end fossil fuel subsidies?
When I talk about ending subsidies, I do not mean tomorrow morning. People who work in the sector are not going to lose their jobs. They are not going to end up on EI tomorrow morning. However, having a plan means that, in a specific number of years, not a single penny more will be spent on this sector, and the jobs will shift to another sector.
Why is it not starting now?
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- Apr/17/23 4:33:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the people we do not want to leave behind are our own children and grandchildren, and at this point, we are running over them as we continue to support fossil fuels.
This budget expands subsidies for fossil fuels by accepting the notion that we can use fossils to create hydrogen. We do that with so-called abated sources. Those are basically weasel words for saying we are going to use fossil fuels to create hydrogen. At the same time, we are expanding access to carbon capture and storage as public subsidies to private sector interests to expand and continue fossil fuels.
Could the parliamentary secretary explain how the Liberals can talk out of both sides of their mouth on climate?
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- Apr/17/23 5:18:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned the carbon tax.
That is something that the NDP agrees with. However, his government continues to give subsidies to oil and gas companies. On one hand, the government wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but on the other hand, it is using taxpayers' money to continue supporting fossil fuels that produce huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
Does he not think that is a contradictory position?
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- Apr/17/23 5:18:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is an interesting point that NDP members always bring up. They say we are investing in fossil fuel subsidies. However, no, the subsidies have actually been going down. What we have been investing in, which makes it look like they have been going up, is dealing with things like orphan wells.
We should not be in a position where previous companies that have gone out of business left wells behind for society to deal with, but the reality is that those wells are there and we have to deal with them. When the NDP talks about our increase in subsidies, they are adding into that calculation money used for dealing with orphan wells, and I would submit that it is not a subsidy. This is something that we need to do as a society because, as a society, we allowed companies to not deal with them effectively themselves when they should have.
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- Apr/17/23 5:48:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to clarify what I think I understood. Tax credits are harder to track than direct subsidies to oil companies, because there may not be an audit for five or 10 years. The information is being somewhat hidden. At the end of 2023, the government could say that it got rid of fossil fuel subsidies, when in fact they have simply been converted to tax credits.
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- Apr/17/23 5:49:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague completely understood the point of my speech and I thank her. That is precisely it.
Now, instead of paying fossil fuel subsidies directly, the Liberals are going to do it in a roundabout way by giving tax credits. It will be very hard for the average citizen to know where this public money is going. It will even be hard for parliamentarians, yet it is their job to know where our money is going.
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