44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 1, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/1/23 11:44:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to announce that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley who, I am sure, will teach us a lot about this very important issue.
The planet is burning. It is not a metaphor. Global warming and climate change are real. This is affecting people. It is killing people. It is making people sick and forcing people to leave their villages and towns. The planet is burning and not thousands of kilometres away, but here at home in our own backyard.
Forest fires are currently burning in British Columbia, Alberta, Nova Scotia and Quebec. What bright idea did the Conservatives come up with? They are saying that we should not put a price on pollution. They are completely disconnected from reality, from what is actually happening here at home and around the world.
The ice shelves in Antarctica are collapsing. This is causing ocean levels to rise. If the permafrost ends up melting, it will release an unbelievable amount of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 70 times stronger than CO2. All these phenomena are piling up. The oceans are acidifying and that will also have an impact on climate change.
How is it that the Conservatives are coming back for the eighth time in three years, telling us that we should not put a price on pollution, that it would be good to continue the status quo because everything is going so well and this is good for the economy?
However, if there is no planet, if there is no environment, there will be no economy. I do not understand why the Conservatives keep hammering away on this issue, supporting an industry that is harmful not only to biodiversity and nature, but also to human beings, public health and our economy. Even insurance companies are sounding the alarm. Insurance companies are not the biggest tree huggers in the world, but they are beginning to realize that there are areas and places that are no longer insurable. They no longer want to insure people's homes because it is too risky. It is too risky, whether for floods, forest fires or landslides. It has come to that point.
The Conservatives keep repeating the same old line that nothing needs to be done or we should wait until others do something. If China does nothing, we do nothing. If the United States does nothing, we do nothing.
As human beings and citizens of the world, we have a responsibility to take action to ensure that our environment remains healthy, viable and livable for our children and our grandchildren. As Quebeckers and Canadians, we have a special responsibility because we are big polluters. It is true, we have a small population but we are major greenhouse gas emitters.
In 2021, Canada ranked as the 10th GHG-emitting country in the world. By population, it is ranked 39th in the world. Thus, we should be ranked 39th for greenhouse gas emissions, but no, we are ranked 10th. We are in the top 10 emitters because, on average, our per capita greenhouse gas emissions total 17.5 tonnes per year.
According to the Paris agreement, to perhaps hold the temperature increase to 1.5° or 2°, per capita greenhouse gas emissions must be limited to two tonnes per year, on average. We are at 17.5 tonnes. This shows the gap between how we live and what result we should attain. It is a huge gap.
I would like to take this opportunity to urge caution when discussing the concept of averages in connection with climate change. When we tell people about the need to be careful because a global temperature increase of more than two degrees could be catastrophic, they usually react by thinking that two degrees is not that much, and they wonder what difference it could make. They tell themselves, after all, they often wake up in the morning to a temperature of 15°C, only for it to rise by the afternoon to 25°C. That is a difference of 10°C in a single day. In Quebec, temperatures can drop to 35 below in winter and rise to 35 above in summer, a difference of 70 degrees. All this leaves people wondering what a 1.5°C or 2°C rise in temperature really means.
They say it is going to alter the planet's ecosystems and, to understand that, we need to go back a bit. When I say “a bit”, I mean a very long time ago. If we go back 20,000 years, it was, on average, 4°C colder than it is today. As a result, Europe was covered by 3,000 kilometres of ice. The planet was uninhabitable, because it was colder. It is easy to see that if, when it was 4° colder, there were 3,000 kilometres of ice, then when it is 4° warmer, a whole slew of areas on the planet would simply become uninhabitable. Human beings, the human body, cannot survive in those conditions. French engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici is quite clear about that.
There are beautiful maps that unfortunately show that an additional 2°C would make certain parts of the world uninhabitable, places such as Central America, northern South America, parts of the Maghreb, South-East Asia, parts of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where, if it were over 35° with 100% humidity it would be impossible for human beings to survive. Perspiration would no longer be enough to cool a person's body, so they would die. What happens when people are at risk of dying if they stay in their region, town or village? They move to places where it is not as hot, where it is cooler.
Global warming will lead to phenomenal levels of population migration across the globe, which could give rise to geopolitical conflict, extreme tension and probably even war. That is why former U.S. vice-president Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize several years ago for his work on the environment and the prevention of climate change. Why would someone win the Nobel Peace Prize when we are talking about the environment? I just explained why, and it might be worth reflecting on.
I submitted a written question to the government recently, specifically to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the department responsible for housing, to find out how the federal government plans to handle the arrival of climate refugees. The answer was that Canada has the national housing strategy, that everything is going to be fine and no one needs to worry about it.
We have a Liberal government that is a climate change laggard on the international stage. It is incapable of planning for what is coming. Greenhouse gas emissions in Canada increased by 2% in 2021. Between 1990 and 2021, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada increased by 14% when the goal was to reduce them by 40%. We are way off target. What is more, there has been a dizzying increase in oil and gas production since 2005. The production of oil in the oil sands, which is the most polluting oil in the world, has increased by 215% since 2005 while, internationally, Canada boasts. It attends COP and says that it is a model, that we need to transition, that it is important and we need to pay attention. In the meantime, there is a 215% increase in production in the oil sands. That means that, since 2005, 200,000 wells have been drilled to find oil and gas.
The Liberals tell us that things will work out, that we will be able to reach our objectives, yet their actions say the opposite. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change is a former founder of Equiterre, an organization that is currently suing him for shirking his responsibilities. Although he claims he wants to be there to change the world and save the planet, he picked up his pen or pencil and signed a ministerial order green lighting the Baie du Nord project, a decision solely within his purview that will ultimately generate hundreds of millions of barrels of oil.
On the one side we have the Conservatives, dinosaurs who refuse to take the matter seriously, and on the other side we have the Liberals, saying one thing and doing the opposite.
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- Jun/1/23 11:54:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to reiterate something that I have said many times here in the House of Commons: Climate change is real, humans helped cause climate change and humans must impose new rules to be sure to mitigate it as much as possible. That takes realistic, concrete measures, not more taxes.
The member mentioned earlier that Canada is climate laggard. That is true, of course. He is not the one saying it, and neither are we. The United Nations said it in a report presented at COP27 last November.
I want to remind the House of one thing. The Liberal strategy, with the support of the NPD, involves imposing taxes. The Liberals have been governing the country for eight years by taxing and lecturing everyone, and yet greenhouse gas emissions are still rising. I am not the one saying it. He said it himself earlier.
Why then is the government continuing with a strategy that is not working? Why does the government not take realistic, concrete, responsible action with real measures to reduce pollution rather than taxing people? We have been saying that for years.
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- Jun/1/23 11:55:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for his speech. Unfortunately, it does not surprise me.
I still cannot believe the Conservatives would refuse to use the tools of the market and the capitalist system to change the behaviour of individuals and companies. I agree with the NDP caucus that this tool must be used, but it would work a lot better if the government did not simultaneously do the opposite.
It is like stepping on the gas and the brakes at the same time. Rarely does anything good come of that. That is the problem with the Liberals: They are sucking and blowing. Unfortunately, the Conservatives would prefer to do nothing at all.
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- Jun/1/23 11:56:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the dinosaurs are presenting the environmental transition as a cost. It is true that polluting may seem like the profitable option when we look just at the economic indicators. During the rise of globalization and the triumph of neo-liberalism, we were told to forget about national production and buying local and to go global instead. We were told to think about the international division of labour. It was basically a religion.
Now we have developing countries specializing in processing electronic waste, which is highly toxic. We can see that those countries are becoming wealthier and that their GDP is increasing. However, what about the hidden costs, such as the future cost of decontaminating groundwater and the effects on health care systems, which are often not very developed, when the workers who handle this waste start to need treatment? Often, those countries do not have very good accounting systems and the costs are really hidden.
There are hidden costs behind the growth and economic indicators. Should we completely change our statistical view of the situation?
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- Jun/1/23 11:57:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very interesting and specific question.
Yesterday, I attended an event organized by Stop Ecocide Canada, a group advocating a new legal concept of environmental accountability. An American was there to talk about responsible investment funds and the use of tax measures to effect change. He spoke about the social, environmental and public health impacts that should be taken into account when it comes to the cost of externalities. I think that is in line with my colleague's question. I think that we should incorporate that into our vision and analysis.
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- Jun/1/23 11:58:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts with regard to consistency. The Conservatives are saying they want to get rid of the price on pollution, but at the end of the day, we have other provinces, in particular British Columbia and Quebec, that have a price in place. If they were to get rid of the price on pollution on a national basis, does the member believe that the Conservatives would be obligated to compensate people in the provinces of B.C. and Quebec to be fair?
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- Jun/1/23 11:58:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his question.
This is a complex issue because we have different systems. Quebec has had a carbon exchange in place for a number of years now. The funny thing is that the carbon exchange was implemented by Jean Charest when he was premier of Quebec, and he recently ran for Conservative Party leader, so that idea came from someone within their own ranks.
We do need to think about it. The important thing is that we take action. The systems may be different, but what I want and what the NDP wants is for all of the provinces to make an extra effort because, right now, we are not doing enough. The federal government has this small measure, but unfortunately, it should be doing a lot more and putting an end to oil and gas projects.
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- Jun/1/23 11:59:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this motion.
I am struck by the fact that we are here, yet again, debating a Conservative motion to cancel a climate policy. It is like Groundhog Day, except in this case, every time the Conservative groundhogs poke their heads out of the ground, the weather is hotter, the wildfires are more severe and the floods are more frequent. This is taking place, of course, against the backdrop that my friend from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie described very eloquently. In Nova Scotia, wildfires are raging. In Alberta, there are still 61 wildfires. I checked the portal last night to see how many there are. To date this year, they have had 555 wildfires in that province, and it is only June.
This debate is taking place against the backdrop of oil and gas corporations raking in eyewatering profits, historic profits, profits so great that the CEO of Shell, one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, said that we should tax them. Of course, these profits drive inflation and make life more expensive for average Canadians.
This is the backdrop against which we are having today's debate, yet on Monday I listened to a Conservative colleague from Red Deer, a very decent guy, talk about how climate change is not real, how CO2 is not a problem, how the people who warned us about things like acid rain in the seventies and eighties were snake oil salesmen, and how, without climate change, we would not have rivers. This is the kind of discussion we hear coming from the party that has put forward the motion before us today.
This particular Groundhog Day, the Conservatives' target is something called the clean fuel regulation, a regulation that the government has proposed to reduce the carbon intensity of liquid fuels, including gasoline and diesel. The fuel regulations account for 26 million tonnes of greenhouse gas reductions in the government's emission reduction plan, which, putting aside the merits of the actual policy, indicates that it is being called on to do some heavy lifting in reaching the targets. We know how much difficulty previous Liberal governments have had in meeting their targets.
I think that Canadians should look at this motion before us with some skepticism. I will lay out a couple of reasons why.
The first one is the language that the motion uses. I think we have a responsibility as parliamentarians to communicate clearly and accurately to the people who we represent when we talk about policy, particularly policy that is so important and that can be complex. The Conservatives are calling a regulation a tax, knowing full well that regulations and taxes are different things. We know this. If we call everything the same thing, it does not work. That is the purpose of language, to differentiate between different kinds of things.
I cannot imagine why they would be doing this. The only two reasons I can come up with is, first, they don't know the difference between a regulation and a tax. That cannot be the case because I know that many of my hon. colleagues are intelligent and educated people, so that cannot be why. What could the other reason be? Of course in this place it is against the Standing Orders to intentionally mislead the House, so that cannot be the reason. I cannot think of why they would want to conflate two very different kinds of policies: taxes and regulations.
Perhaps, Madam Speaker, you know what that third reason might be.
The second reason I think that Canadians should be very concerned about the motion in front of us is because the party proposing it, the party calling for this policy of the Liberal government to be cancelled, to be axed, has not provided an alternative. This is a pattern that we see. We just heard it from our colleague down the way. They say, “Oh, no, this plan doesn't work. We need a real, effective plan.” They never bring forward that real, effective plan so we can evaluate it against the plan that the government has put forward.
Granted, the government's plan has many shortcomings. It should be evaluated and it should be costed out, but the official opposition never puts forward a plan that can be costed out or evaluated. In fact, the one time that it brought forward a climate plan that could be evaluated, it contained a lot of the same policies the Liberal government has put forward. I would love to read some of those. I am going to get to that a little later in my speech.
Of course, this motion rests heavily on and draws heavily from a recent report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and the many challenges with that report have been well documented in the media and by climate policy experts. I wish that the PBO had provided an explanation as to why he chose the highest possible cost estimate, the uppermost bound, as the basis for his estimations of cost. The $531 per household is not the expected cost. It is the maximum cost. Of course, there are many things that could prevent that maximum cost from being reached. For instance, the update of electric vehicles could be faster than expected or the biofuel industry could advance technology and innovate at a greater pace. All of these things are not only possible, but likely.
Most important is that the PBO's report was silent on the cost of inaction. There is something called “the social cost of carbon”, which in 2020 was estimated by our public service as being $54 a tonne. We cannot compare the costs of the proposal in front of us to cancel a climate policy against the option of no action at all. That is not a fair comparison. We are talking about an existential threat, a threat that everyone in the House has acknowledged in this debate and previous debates. Therefore, we can only compare the clean fuel regulations the government has proposed against alternative policies, yet the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in a footnote, states very clearly that it is outside the scope of his work to compare the clean fuels regulations to other alternative policies that may achieve a similar end.
Finally, the PBO has not explained in adequate detail what other scenarios may take place. We know there is great uncertainty about the path forward when it comes to climate action and how this policy interacts with other policies. There is a great amount of uncertainty, and overly simplistic conclusions, such as the one we have received, do not serve the public interest.
It is surprising, and this has been raised previously in this debate, that the Conservatives do not like market-based mechanisms because, of course, that is the party that worships at the altar of the almighty market, yet the two policies they criticize the most are both market-based mechanisms that leverage the power of markets to find the most efficient and the least-cost way to reduce emissions. This is what economists say is the path forward.
Personally, I am agnostic. What I want to see are effective policies that drive down climate pollution and give our kids a chance at a decent, stable future. However, we do not hear policies like that coming from the Conservative Party. All we hear is criticisms of the policies that have been put forward by so many experts.
I was looking at the 2021 Conservative election platform, and I want to read members a passage because I find it quite interesting. It says in that platform:
We’ll finalize and improve the Clean Fuel Regulations to reduce carbon emissions from every litre of gasoline...we burn, turning them into a true Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
Boy, that sounds very familiar. It goes on to read:
Our improvements will include:
Basing our Low Carbon Fuel Standard on British Columbia’s policy to achieve a 20% reduction in carbon intensity for transport fuels....
The policy from the government reduces the carbon intensity by 15%, yet in the last election, the Conservatives were proposing the same policy, but with a 20% reduction. Therefore, I am not sure how we get this weather vane of Conservative policy. As I proposed before, maybe that weather vane itself could be a source of renewable energy that could drive down emissions. If it were not for all the hot air, that might be an opportunity.
I am perplexed. If not these policies, then which ones? When are the Conservatives going to put forward a plan? Having no plan is not an option at this juncture.
These aspects should concern all Canadians, and we do need to focus on affordability, but we need to have a serious debate in the House about serious matters. I am deeply troubled by the fact that the Conservative Party continues to conflate basic concepts to confuse Canadians on a topic that has so much import for our country and our world.
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- Jun/1/23 12:09:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was interesting to hear my NDP colleague across the way. This is from a party that just had a motion this week to talk about foreign interference, that it was going to tackle it, and then, within hours, it had backed down and said that that it was not going to pull the government down, it is not that serious and it is still going to support the government.
The question is about the carbon tax. He gets convoluted and caught up in whether it is a regulation or a tax, but in the end, what happens is that it costs his citizens in Skeena—Bulkley Valley a lot more. What I am hearing from Skeena—Bulkley Valley residents is that he does not get it. They have plans that do not actually reduce emissions but still keep charging Canadians more and, with the new tax, even more.
When is the NDP actually going to listen to its constituents and deal with the real issue of affordability in Canada?
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- Jun/1/23 12:10:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Skeena—Bulkley Valley is a beautiful spot. It is just to the west of Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies.
On that topic, I want to talk a little bit about my colleague's riding. My colleague represents Prince George, an excellent community full of wonderful people, which has seen a number of investments that relate very directly to the clean fuel regulations his party is attacking in this motion, including a major potential investment by Canfor in a biofuel facility in Prince George, which would employ hundreds of people and create millions of dollars of economic development. I wonder what that company thinks, because the clean fuel regulations are driving the innovation that it is proposing in his community.
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- Jun/1/23 12:11:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with just about everything my hon. colleague mentioned. While it is frustrating that we keep having this debate, it does give us an opportunity to talk about climate policy.
We know that our province has many successful climate policies, but we know the climate crisis and the biodiversity crises are intertwined. One area where I have been very frustrated to see a lack of change in policy in our province is the continued logging of old-growth trees. I put forward a motion that would ban old-growth logging on federal lands and the export of old-growth logs and their products, while we work with the province to move toward more sustainable forms of forestry, including supporting conservation.
I was wondering what my colleague thinks of this motion, and if he would be willing to support it—
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- Jun/1/23 12:12:19 p.m.
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The hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.
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- Jun/1/23 12:12:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a very good point. I took note of his motion. He will not be surprised to learn that I support increasing the protection of old-growth forests in British Columbia and around the world, because of course, they are important sources of biodiversity and play an important role in protecting our climate.
On the topic of biodiversity, though, there is an important tie-in to the clean fuel regulation that we are debating today, which is that, if we rapidly increase the production of biofuels, we need to ensure that safeguards are in place so it does not impact biodiversity, especially when we are using wood products to create those fuels, and so it does not impact food security when we are using farmland to create—
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- Jun/1/23 12:13:09 p.m.
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The hon. member for Drummond.
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- Jun/1/23 12:13:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. Earlier we heard the Conservatives touting carbon capture technologies, and we often see the Liberals doing the same. However, just about every scientist in the world criticizes those technologies. The Conservatives praise this technology a lot, saying that it is a cure-all, a miracle, and that, in the end, it will mean oil sands development is not so bad for the environment.
This morning, I heard a Conservative MP push the envelope even further, incredibly enough. He talked about the forestry industry. We know that trees capture carbon. This MP asked whether we should also tax the forestry industry because trees capture carbon.
When misinformation like that is sent out to the public, does it not make things even more confusing for citizens? Does it not make the job even harder for those who want to provide correct information?
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- Jun/1/23 12:14:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would agree with my colleague that attempts to confuse or conflate different issues and different topics is not helpful in the context of such an important debate.
When it comes to the forest industry, we need to ensure that our forest practices are truly renewable. It is an industry that my family has worked in for years and years. If done properly, and if practised sustainably, it can be a renewable resource that actually helps our climate.
We are not there yet. We need to get there.
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- Jun/1/23 12:14:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, these are sad times for rural Canada, and specifically for rural Atlantic Canada, its people and industries that depend on fuel to move everything.
The Liberal-NDP coalition has decided carbon tax 1, which will add 41¢ per litre to gasoline when fully implemented, is not enough of a beating to lay on Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Maritimers. I stand here today on behalf of the good people of Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame and on behalf of my province and all of Atlantic Canada to support our Conservative motion.
I will be sharing my time with our hon. Leader of the Opposition.
On behalf of all these people in Atlantic Canada who are downtrodden, I stand here to support our Conservative motion to recognize the failure of carbon tax 1 and to immediately cancel carbon tax 2.
Carbon tax 2 is cleverly disguised as the clean fuel standard. The costly coalition will argue that carbon tax 2 is not a tax. What is next? Will income tax be called the “income standard” or will the harmonized sales tax be renamed the “harmonized sales standard”? We do not know where all this is going, but the Liberal-NDP marriage, which is rumoured to be entering some period of marriage counselling not long after the honeymoon, will never run out of creative ways to tax us. That is one thing that is guaranteed.
Carbon tax 1, let us face it, is a complete failure. Not one single solitary emissions reduction target has been met. In fact, our emissions are higher than they were in 2015 when our country started to head for the toilet.
President Biden recently stood right here just a few feet from where I am standing right now. He is a close personal friend of the Prime Minister. He has decided not to place a carbon tax on fuel in the United States, and guess what, U.S. emissions have dropped since 2015.
For us here and for people in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, they are going to pay an extra $1,316 per year by the time carbon tax 1 is fully implemented. Carbon tax 2, by the time it is fully implemented, will be another $850 a year for families. Can I get a drum roll for the grand total? There is no drum roll as they cannot be proud enough to give that a drum roll. The total is $2,166 per year.
P.E.I. does not have anyone on this side to represent it and stand up for it. For the poor people of P.E.I., it is going to cost those folks $2,081 a year.
I referenced net because these Liberals, including Liberal MPs like those from St. John's South—Mount Pearl and Long Range Mountains, claim that we will get more back in rebates than we will pay. These two federal ministers from Newfoundland are thrilled, according to a SaltWire article from this past November 22. Imagine our own federal representatives in this cabinet thrilled about the extra costs being placed on the lives of their people.
Liberals will tell us that Conservatives are presenting fake numbers. Earlier today I heard exactly what my hon. colleague said when he blamed us for using fake numbers. These are not magical, illusionary or fabricated figures. These are figures that were calculated by the PBO, who is a Liberal-appointed official. According to the PBO, carbon tax has an inflationary effect.
Guess who else said that tax was inflationary? It was the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Our federal members, including the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl, who was sick and tired of hearing about the cold winter and what we are doing about it, do not believe the PBO or the Governor of the Bank of Canada. It is unbelievable. They are expecting the people they serve to believe them instead of experts. Atlantic Canadians are not buying what the Liberal government is selling.
The Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Andrew Furey, close personal friend of the Prime Minister, and three other Atlantic premiers wrote to the Prime Minister last fall begging him not to place the carbon tax on home heating fuel. The silence was deafening.
Last week, the same four premiers reached out to the Minister of Environment and asked him to not implement carbon tax 2. Once they realized that the PBO had identified the big hit that it was going to make to the pocketbooks of Atlantic Canadians, the premiers went to work.
Will the Prime Minister and his climate-change wingman listen to the premiers of Atlantic Canada, or will they barrel ahead with no regard for the people who gave them 32 seats in 2015?
This new tax, disguised as a standard, will cost families in Newfoundland and Labrador $850 a year when it is fully implemented. Who besides seniors and families is going to pay? The answer is simple: everyone will pay.
Carbon tax 1 is crippling the mining, forestry, tourism, and oil and gas industries in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that effect will accelerate as we move toward 2030. Carbon tax 2 will be charged on all fuel in these industries and this new tax will even be placed on fuel used by fishermen to land their catch and haul around their gear as they endeavour to feed their families in this challenging environment.
Farmers are going to pay as well. Not only are these failed tax policies impacting the bottom lines of household and manufacturing industries, now our farmers and fishermen are taking on added costs that will affect their bottom lines.
Farmers and fishermen feed families. Taxing their operations with the new standard is an attack on the livelihoods of farmers and fishermen, and it is a threat to our food security in this country. At a time when people are struggling to survive, the tone-deaf, costly coalition strikes again.
Madam Speaker, you might be thinking to yourself, “Where is the member's seal skin bow tie?” I did not wear it today. My clothes today represent the people I represent.
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- Jun/1/23 12:22:38 p.m.
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The member cannot refer to props even if they are very discreet.
The hon. member has two and a half minutes left.
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- Jun/1/23 12:22:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is not nearly enough time to express the disgust that the people in Newfoundland and Labrador have for the way the people who are here representing them have been voting.
We have come with motions to get rid of the carbon tax, to reduce these inflationary taxes, and now we have another one coming: the standard. Will these members from Newfoundland and Labrador, my six colleagues across the way, vote with their people? This is the $64 question. Are they going to vote to diminish the tax burden that is hauling them down and making them suffer?
The six Liberal MPs who sit over there were not sent here to inflict suffering on the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. They were sent here to represent them, to bring them up and to make their standard of living better.
An. hon. member: And they are.
Mr. Clifford Small: Madam Speaker, I just received a little heckling. Yes, the Liberals have done a great job over there. They delayed the Bay du Nord project by four years. They put well over 100 conditions on the Bay du Nord project. We are now going to lose three years of royalties on nearly 800 million barrels of oil a year because of the great work they have done.
I implore the six members from Newfoundland and Labrador to vote with the goodness in their hearts that I am sure they have. They need to stand up for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and vote yes to our Conservative motion.
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- Jun/1/23 12:25:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is just bizarre, because the Conservatives want to take a tool off the table that is going to fight climate change and put more money in people's pockets. By the way, the Conservatives campaigned on a clean fuel standard and on a price on pollution, and they are sitting there, straight-faced, and it is just bizarre. They never talk about the cost of climate change. There was a $4-billion impact from hurricane Fiona. Houses were washed into the sea. Lives were lost, and the Conservatives are even mocking our measures to transition away from dirty foreign oil to heat pumps. What have they got against heat pumps?
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