44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 29, 2023 11:00AM
- May/29/23 8:55:53 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for her very important question.
She is obviously right. The fact that Canada's electricity is green is a major advantage in terms of investments.
Today, we produce 83% of our electricity with renewable energy, but we need to produce more green electricity. We are talking about it with investors. It is a priority. That is why our budget really focused on this very important objective.
As I said, investors agree that with the investments in this budget, Canada is truly the most attractive place for investments in the clean economy.
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- May/29/23 9:48:26 p.m.
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Well she did, Madam Chair. All the Conservatives came out with a platform, before the last election, and it said they would impose a price on pollution, albeit it was slightly different from ours. It was more of an Air Miles-type plan where one got points and got to pick prizes afterwards, but the Conservatives ran on the basic fundamental principle of it. That member did.
Conservatives knocked on doors, 338 of them, trying to sell that to Canadians. I think they do owe an explanation to Canadians as to why they have now flip-flopped on that. That is what the minister was trying to highlight earlier in her responses.
What I really want to talk about is what this budget is doing, in terms of setting a course into the future, in terms of laying the groundwork for the future economies. Just about every political party in this House gets it, except the Conservatives, that the future success of our economy or any economy in this world for that matter, in the foreseeable future, is going to be around clean technology.
We know that clean technology is expected to triple by 2030. We have the opportunity now to be at the forefront of that, not just so that we could do the environmentally responsible thing, but we could benefit from the economics of it, being at the forefront of it and exporting that technology as we develop it here in Canada.
That is why I am very pleased to see that this budget had a number of measures in it to ensure that we have the strong foundation we need, that we have a safe, smart and competitive place to do business, that we have opportunities ahead, and that we do recognize that there are some challenges around it and we suggest ways to tackle those challenges. That is what I really want to talk about this evening, and what I would like to ask the minister about when I get to my questions.
We talk about a strong foundation for providing that economy of the future. What does that mean? It means ensuring that we encourage investment in clean technology, ensuring that we get access to those critical minerals and making zero-emissions vehicles more affordable, like this budget is doing. That means tackling public transit in a way that is meaningful and genuinely impacts the lives of Canadians, that means building housing and encouraging development around transit systems and transit routes, all in the interest of looking towards opportunities to genuinely create the foundation that we need in order to allow this new and future economy to flourish here in Canada. That is what we are seeing, by laying that groundwork and establishing that foundation.
However to do that, to attract that business, we need to ensure that, as I indicated, we have a safe, smart and competitive place to do business here in Canada. One of the underpinnings of that is a stable democracy, one that has the social supports, one that has supports for individuals who, for some reason, become unemployed or need health care or dental care. People want to establish businesses in areas that have those strong social supports.
Corporations are changing. They are not like what they were during the Industrial Revolution or even in the following 50, 75 or 100 years. They are looking for places to do business that have clean energy sources. I am immediately reminded of Umicore. The Prime Minister came to Queen's University last summer, with our provincial counterparts, with some of my Conservative colleagues from neighbouring ridings of Kingston and the Islands to announce Umicore coming to our region in Loyalist Township, just outside of my riding of Kingston and the Islands.
The one takeaway for me on that was when the president of Umicore was asked why he chose Ontario, when he had all these other places in North America that he could have decided on. Why Ontario? He said that they were building a sustainable product. They want to know that what goes into that product is sustainable. He said that there is clean energy here, and they use a lot of energy.
Finally, we are seeing this shift in the corporate world where businesses are now taking on this responsibility to be more environmentally sustainable where perhaps for decades before we never really saw that. I give credit especially to the former Liberal government in Ontario that phased out the burning of coal in Ontario to make electricity. It established and built renewable energy projects like windmills on Wolfe Island, one of the two islands in Kingston and the Islands. It was hugely contested at the time. Both sides of the debate were locking heads repeatedly for years, but the provincial government at the time pushed through and said it was the right thing to do and that Ontario needed to do it. As a result, Ontario now has one of the cleanest grids in North America, and that is why Umicore said it wanted to establish in Ontario.
This is what we talk about when we talk about establishing the right places to do business. It is by making sure that we have put the infrastructure in place, by making sure we have those social supports and a strong democracy, and by ensuring we have competitive corporate tax rates. That is what we need to do.
When we look ahead, we talk about the fact that clean tech and clean energy are expected to triple globally by 2030. We have an opportunity here to be at the forefront of this, and I genuinely believe that some of the measures this government has put in place over the years, and in particular what we have been seeing in this budget and the last one, really highlight how we are putting ourselves in that competitive position to outperform some of our partners.
However, there are some challenges, and I know it is responsible that in the budget the government is discussing some of those challenges, so that is what I would like to ask the minister about: how we are going to overcome some of those challenges.
In particular, there are two things that come to mind. One is that we must build the framework, including the infrastructure, for the long-term investments. That is going to be a big challenge. That is something we need to work with our provincial counterparts on. One of the other challenges is the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act's posing, perhaps, problems in terms of our ability to be competitive.
My questions to the minister will really focus on how we properly position ourselves to be at the forefront of that, given the fact that we do have some of these challenges before us. I would start with that question.
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- May/29/23 10:01:47 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am sure the minister has figured out that I am here to ask questions about the environment.
In budget 2023, she announced clean technology investment tax credits that could be worth up to $80 billion over 10 years. One such credit is a tax credit for clean electricity.
To your knowledge, would a project that uses energy other than renewable energy be eligible for this credit?
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