SoVote

Mr. Rob Morrison (Kootenay—Columbia, CPC)

Jun/1/23 4:43:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Prince Albert. The rising inflation costs, housing costs, grocery costs and the additional carbon tax are adding costs that have a direct effect on Canadians, especially in rural Canada. The first carbon tax, including sales tax, will add 41¢ a litre. The second carbon tax, including sales tax, will add 20¢ to a litre of gas. The combination of carbon tax 1 and carbon tax 2 will mean that Canadians will pay an extra 61¢ a litre for gas. Making life more expensive for Canadians in a cost of living crisis by implementing a second carbon tax demonstrates how out of touch the Liberal Prime Minister is. The Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed that both carbon taxes will have a net cost of up to $4,000, depending on the province in which people live. The House recognizes the failure of carbon tax 1 and calls on the government to immediately cancel carbon tax 2. Not only are groceries more expensive in rural communities, but there is also a distance to essential services, such as medical treatment. For example, a resident of Creston would have to drive to Cranbrook for a medical appointment, for a 250-kilometre return trip. If a specialist were needed, that would be a drive of 850 kilometres to Kelowna. That is a lot of fuel, and we can add to the complexity a senior who is on a very limited budget. Living in a rural area also requires our food security to be delivered from Vancouver. With diesel trucks transporting the product on a 2,000-kilometre return trip, the new cost per litre skyrockets. Can we guess who pays for the fuel increase? It is the rural residents, many of whom are on limited budgets. Let us start from the beginning of our food security. We can take farming as an example. The carbon tax increase will have a direct impact on the price of goods being produced. The higher the carbon tax, the higher the price of vegetables, for example. Of course, adding to the complexity and the price is a 30% reduction in fertilizer. The farmer produces 30% less profit, and the cost increases accordingly. For dairy farmers, the carbon tax to heat barns and drive all the farm machinery adds significantly to the price of the products. The price increase is then given to the store purchasing the products. Let us talk about the stores. Our grocery stores receive the products from the trucks. They pay the farmers for the products, the trucks for the transportation and, just to add to the cost, the store has to pay for the heat to maintain the operation of the store, including, of course, the carbon tax that they pay directly. Lastly, consumers come by. We must remember that it is rural Canada. Many times, they have to drive several hundred kilometres, and they pay the price of the products. This includes the farm carbon tax increase, for example, for heating barns and running farm machinery; the transportation carbon tax increase, which is the distance between the urban distribution centres and the rural grocery stores; the grocery store carbon tax increase; and, of course, the carbon tax for the fuel for the person to get to the store. It is no wonder that rural Canadians are hurting so much with the carbon tax increases, with additional costs on top of inflation. Again, many seniors are on fixed incomes. As an example, Mary in Creston had to decide to go to a grocery store to buy food or drive to a medical appointment 240 kilometres away, because she did not have enough money to do both. It is very sad. Mary asked me if it is all because she lives in rural Canada. Then there are Tara and Bill in Yahk, who drive their children to school and recreation events throughout the Kootenays; some of these events are in larger centres, such as Kelowna and Vancouver. The carbon tax increases have put an end to many of those trips, as they do not have the income to put fuel in their vehicle. Many of the businesses in Cranbrook are trying to weather the carbon tax increases to barely stay open. Of course, there has been significant damage as a result of the opioid issue in Cranbrook, and the groups this affects are non-profit organizations and businesses that have always supported them. However, the carbon tax increases, along with inflation and the damage from criminal behaviour, are making it difficult for our small businesses. The donations to non-profits are getting smaller and smaller; in some cases, there are no donations. Another challenge we face is in transit in rural and urban centres. In urban centres, there are trains, light rail transit, the SkyTrain, the TTC subway, the OC Transpo light rail transit, the Montreal Metro subway, extensive bus service, taxi and Uber-type personal transportation, and compact metro vehicles, even scooters, for point-to-point rentals. I know, having lived in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver for many years, that transit is not only affordable but also convenient. From talking with my daughter, who lives in metro Vancouver, I know that many of her friends who are 30 to 40 years old do not own vehicles. In fact, they do not have a driver's licence, and, in many cases, have no plans to apply for one. When I talk with her friends, I hear that many have lived in metro urban centres all of their lives. Until I talked with them, they had not really understood why rural areas are so different. This is a real challenge. The way of life in rural Canada is a bit different than in our cities. In urban centres, we do not have bus service. We do not have light rail transit. We do not have sky trains and we do not have subways. In fact, in many remote areas, there is no taxi service. Again, it is really challenging for residents. The answer for rural Canada is a vehicle: a gas car or a diesel truck, especially in adverse weather conditions, like travelling through the Kootenays. People are going through the Rocky Mountains, the Purcell Mountains, the Selkirk Mountains and the Monashee Mountains all in one day. The additional carbon tax will have the effect of residents not being able to attend medical appointments, or they will have to pay extra to try to get groceries delivered. Students will not be able to attend school events, or children will not be going to figure skating and hockey tournaments as a result of the carbon tax increase. I am a bit disappointed and, actually, surprised. I have had no response from the government with respect to assistance in funding. I am working with a non-profit group on the feasibility of an electric train from Cranbook to Yahk, Creston, Procter, Nelson, Castlegar and Trail. It is a small, 24-passenger electric train to transport individuals, for example from Nelson to Cranbrook for medical appointments, because, many days, the highways close as a result of avalanches, and many residents are elderly. It would also transport tourists from the Cranbrook international airport throughout the Kootenays, and the Nelson-Castlegar corridor is extremely busy, with significant traffic increases. The end result would be to try to reduce the carbon footprint. All I asked for from the federal government, four times, was enough funding to be able to make a comprehensive business case. The Kootenay Rail Service Society has completed some background research to support the electric train, with funding dedicated to helping reduce carbon footprint. It is a fantastic opportunity for the federal government to show leadership and provide funding to complete the business case. The safety benefits are significant. Here is a really positive project to reduce our carbon footprint, with no support from the government, yet the government is spending billions of dollars on buying legal guns from legal gun owners and spending billions on getting a handle on our addictions and opioid crisis, which is truly an emergency. The 300% increase in opioid overdose deaths is truly evidence that we, as a government and elected officials, need to step up and provide solutions and not band-aids. The government spends billions on housing strategies, yet the price of housing has skyrocketed. Even after spending billions, there has been zero impact from those billions of dollars of spending in Kootenay—Columbia. The carbon tax is having a devastating effect in rural Canada and on all Canadians. The proposed carbon tax increase will impose a significant cost on rural residents.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/1/23 4:51:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting hearing the member talk about government investments dealing with the environment, when we get the Conservatives constantly voting against it. They have ridiculed, for example, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which does invest in large projects. That is why it is there, and we have significant amounts, hundreds of millions of dollars, invested in things such as electric buses and so forth. Has the member's group, or the group that he is referring to, approached the Canada Infrastructure Bank? Does the member have some sense of what the actual cost would be? I am encouraged that we have a member of the Conservative Party who is actually talking about how the government can assist in electrifying our transportation industry.

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Mr. Rob Morrison

Jun/1/23 4:52:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, I have reached out, and the actual cost, surprisingly, is about $400,000 to $500,000. That is all the ask was, for doing the business case to show what the carbon footprint would look like after we got the train installed. It is a CPKC, formerly CP Railway, train, so we would have to work with CPKC of course. That is quite a distance, if members know the Kootenays. It needs to go from Cranbrook all the way to Nelson and farther on. There has been a lot of work done by the Kootenay Rail Service Society. The members have been talking with different residents about how much support there would be, and there is support throughout the Kootenays to run with this electric train. Maybe now that it is out here the member across the way can give me a hand in getting some funding forward so we can go forward with that. I would appreciate that.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Jun/1/23 4:53:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when the biofuel regulations came out, parliamentarians asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to assess the cost of that measure. When the Conservatives read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, they decided that there were indeed costs involved and that they should oppose the measure. Now I am trying to figure out whether they are spreading misinformation or whether they simply do not understand the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Have they ever known a situation where, when asked for a program costing analysis, the Parliamentary Budget Officer calculated something other than costs? Also, based on their logic, should we oppose all measures whenever the Parliamentary Budget Officer does his job?

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Mr. Rob Morrison

Jun/1/23 4:54:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we do listen to the PBO actually, because the PBO has come forward with some cost analysis. I think I would rather listen to the PBO a lot of times than listen to the government. So, yes, I do actually have some faith in the PBO, and that is where we are taking some direction from. We do research, and we want to make sure that what we are looking at is fair and honest, and we are open to finding out what the costs are.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Jun/1/23 4:55:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to talk about what is fair, open and honest. What is fair is making sure that big oil pays its fair share. We can look to Britain where they have an excess profit tax of 25% on oil and gas. Here in Canada, we cannot get the Liberals or Conservatives to charge a tax on excess profit on oil and gas, which is having record profits and at the same time is increasing prices for consumers, as the member alluded to in how that is impacting the cost of goods. What I find amazing are B.C. MPs who come here to the House and they know that the carbon tax in Canada does not apply in British Columbia, because we have our own carbon tax that was created by the B.C. Liberals or the B.C. United, however we want to call it. I think about the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge who actually sat in the B.C. legislature that brought in the carbon tax in B.C., but he comes here, sits in the House and rails against it. It is quite unbelievable to see this. The Conservatives always say that they are fighting for working people, but eight out of 10 Canadians on the federal carbon tax will get it back. The two out of 10 who will not get it back, they will not tell us, but that is actually who they are fighting for: the two out of 10. Will my colleague have the courage to push the government to charge an excess profit tax on oil and gas and return it to Canadians? Does he understand—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Jun/1/23 4:56:29 p.m.
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I have to give the member for Kootenay—Columbia the time to answer. He has 20 seconds.

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Mr. Rob Morrison

Jun/1/23 4:56:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the comment. It is kind of ironic though that the Province of British Columbia has to meet the federally mandated carbon tax increases by 2030. So, yes, there is a lot of pressure put on B.C. to meet the federal carbon tax. To the second question on asking about taxing producers of energy, we are not in government. I wish we were, because if we were I would be glad to solve all of these problems. Unfortunately, we are opposition. That would be a great question for the members in government, not for the opposition.

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Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC)

Jun/1/23 4:57:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was such a great presentation from my colleague from Kootenay—Columbia. I was going to ask him a question, but I will get up and speak on the carbon tax, and I am glad we are getting a chance to talk about that here today. I come from Saskatchewan. It is an agriculture province; it is a forestry province; it is an oil and gas province; it is a province with rare earth minerals; it is a province with uranium; it has a lot of things going for it, yet with carbon tax 2.0, the province's GDP would drop by almost 1%. There would be a 1% hit right off the top with that tax coming into effect. The average family in Saskatchewan, which has a rural population by majority, would pay $2,840 in carbon tax. We heard our Liberal colleague talk today about how Saskatchewan families are going to get $1,360 back every year. They are going to pay out $2,800 to get $1,300 back. How can that be right? How can that be revenue-neutral? It is not revenue neutral, and that is what people have been complaining about and saying all along. I think of talking to my friend, Leonard, about the carbon tax. I just need to sit down and say, “Leonard, what do you think of the carbon tax?” and it is a 20-minute conversation going on to a two-hour conversation. He lives in rural Saskatchewan. He has to drive wherever he goes. He has no options to take a bus. He had no options for electric vehicles, because he goes beyond 200 or 400 kilometres. There is no infrastructure for electric vehicles. He has no options to take a train. What does he do? He has to drive. He looks for the most fuel-efficient vehicle he can buy. He has already done that, because it makes economic sense to do that. He looks for other ways to save costs, so he tries to reduce the number of trips he goes on. That is good, but the reality is that he has no choice. The reality for farmers across Saskatchewan is that they have no choice. If I look at an agricultural producer, he is going to pay carbon tax on the fertilizer coming into his farm; he is going to pay carbon tax on the diesel used to plant his crop; he is going to pay carbon tax to take off that crop; he is going to pay the carbon tax to ship out his crop; and if he has to dry it, he is going to pay the carbon tax on drying his crop. Hopefully, the Senate will put forward the bill that would actually give those costs back to farmers. I hope to see the day this House approves that. That would be a step in the right direction to help farmers, and indirectly would help Canadians with their food costs. The reality is that when we look at these costs on a 5,000-acre farm, it is going to be about $150,000 a year that farmers are going to bear, which their competitors just across the line in the U.S. will not bear, nor their competitor in Australia, nor their competitor in Europe. Those areas do not have a tax as punitive as we do here in Canada, so there has to be a better way. Why do we need a taxing system to improve the environment to the detriment of families? Can we not do both? Can we not have an affordable economy, still attack issues in the environment and make sure we do what we need to do to improve the environment? We have seen the carbon tax have limited results and limited success. Going to carbon tax 2.0 would not do anything more except make it worse. The Liberals are going to make it more expensive for people do things. They are going to make it more expensive for people to do things they have to do. They do not have a choice. They do not have an alternative. Is there not a better way? I look at the U.S. They are attacking climate change. They are looking at ways to do it, but not with a carbon tax, because they understand that a carbon tax is so hard on families and small businesses, that it is not an economical way to get the results we need to get for our country. There are different ways of doing it, yet the current government doubles down, and instead of actually looking at it in a very serious manner and saying that they really look at the environment and make improvements to the environment, they are just going to take the money away from our farmers, small businesses and families, and leave them with nothing. How are people supposed to make the changes that need to be made to meet the environmental requirements that are going to asked of them going forward? If we pull $150,000 a year out of a farm, how does that farmer go and make an improvement on his machinery? How does he make an improvement on his yard, like putting in more solar panels? How does he do the things he needs to do to become net zero by 2050? He cannot; he has just given all that money to Ottawa. Where does it come from? There is no help coming back the other way. It is a one-way street, and it is not help that is going to make a farmer more profitable going forward. There is no reinvestment in the industry, the rail system or the ports. We have seen nothing to assist farmers along the way. It has just been a clear cash grab, and that is really sad, because farmers could actually do a lot of things with that $150,000. Farmers in Saskatchewan were the first to do no-till. In fact, I was with Flexicoil and Case New Holland, and they introduced the technology. We were embedding carbon before carbon was really even talked about. We were reducing fuel costs before reducing fuel costs was being talked about. We were doing those things in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, before it was even popular in the House of Commons. Farmers take care of the environment. They recognize climate change. My dad, in the 1970s and 1980s, talked about climate change. He talked about how the weather has been changing and how things are different now than they were 10 years ago, 20 years ago and 50 years ago. Climate change, to farmers, is nothing new. Weather change is nothing new. The reality is they want to do their part, but if we drain all of the revenue out of their bank accounts, how can they? How can they participate? How can they raise their families? What will the future be like for food production and food security in Canada if they cannot operate and run a successful farm and if they cannot transfer that asset down to their kids because it is not profitable? That is what is happening with the carbon tax 1 and the carbon tax 2.0. Can we not do something different? Can we not find different ways to meet environmental requirements that actually do that? Can we not put together an environmental and climate change plan that does not penalize families, that does not hurt the mom and dad who live in rural Saskatchewan when they want to take their kid to the doctor or just go to town and buy groceries? Why are they the target? The reality is that there is some $1,480 difference in what they get versus what they pay, so we are already hitting them there, and then we have increased the cost of food and increased the cost of everything else. The doubling down's impact on them is substantial. If I lived in downtown Toronto, and I have no issue with people in downtown Toronto, I would have all the options. I could take the bus. I could take the subway. I could walk. I would have that ability. I do not in rural Saskatchewan. That is what the government fails to comprehend. We do not have the options in place. I want to pivot a little to electric vehicles. I have nothing against electric vehicles, but I live in rural Saskatchewan. We do not have the infrastructure yet, although I believe that someday we will. When I look at what the U.S. is doing in regard to emissions, the U.S. did not prescribe what type of vehicle we need to drive to hit emissions targets. It just set the targets. It went to the industry and said, “Here are the targets and this is what you have to do.” What did the government do? It should have done the same but it did not. It said, no, it has to be electric vehicles. There is a problem with that. What about hydrogen? What about new technologies we have not even dreamt of yet? What about new ways of doing things that actually meet those goals and solve the issues that the electric vehicle does not solve? How does somebody who lives 200 kilometres north of Prince Albert charge their vehicle, get it to Prince Albert and get it home in the same day? How do they do it when it is -40°C? These are questions my constituents are asking. They are asking where the charging stations are, where they will be and what will be involved. If they get to a charging station, will they be able to plug in right away or will they have to wait for 45 minutes before the guy in front of them finishes charging? These are questions that should be answered and talked about as we go down this path. If we look at the U.S., it said to those in the industry to figure it out. They are smarter than the government. They can figure it out and tell us the best way. It may be hydrogen. It may be electric vehicles in certain areas. It may be something else. That is fine as long as we hit the goals. That comes back to the carbon tax. Why do we care about how we do this as long as we hit the goals? When we see that something is not working, why would we not change course? Why would we not actually look at it in a different way and say this is not as good a way of doing it as we thought it was going to be? In theory, it sounds really great. In reality, it is killing our small businesses. In reality, it is doing a lot of harm to our families. Can we not do something different instead of doubling down on it? That is the frustration Canadians have right now. We should be listening to Canadians at the doorsteps and talking to them. Why are the Liberals not looking for other alternatives to hit the environmental targets they put out, instead of just doubling down on something that has not worked? That is why we are here today. We are just telling them over and over again that the process they put in place is not working. Look for something different. Can they not do an environmental program without hurting Canadian small businesses and families? Surely they can do that.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport, Lib.)

Jun/1/23 5:06:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a brief question, but first I have a comment. The member mentioned electric cars. I do not think electric cars are the solution for climate change. I think they are one of them. I live close to a big city, so I drive an electric car. I enjoy it very much. Madam Speaker and I were talking about an electric car purchase and I hope hers is going well. That is not the point. The point is that there are ways that all of us can participate in this. By the way, I looked it up, and Prince Albert has quite a few car charging stations already, so the next time I come through Saskatchewan, I will stop and charge, we will have a coffee and he will realize it is not all that bad. My question is around what I was saying before about picking and choosing. He has referenced a certain number, some $1,000 amount. I looked at the fiscal and economic impact for Saskatchewan in all five economic quintiles. That is how much people earn. In the first three quintiles, it is net-positive or net-neutral. When I ask my colleague who he is standing up for when he is saying this is going to cost people in Saskatchewan a lot more money, I want him to acknowledge that this is in the top two quintiles. The top 40% of earners are the ones he is saying should pay no or less price on pollution. The money is going to people who really need it. Will he acknowledge that he is really only standing up for the highest 40% of income earners?

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Mr. Randy Hoback

Jun/1/23 5:08:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what the member is saying is that it is not actually revenue-neutral. What he is saying is it is turning revenue to somebody else. My numbers come from the Parliamentary Budget Officer for an average family in Saskatchewan. That is where my numbers come from. If he wants to parse them differently he can go ahead and do that. The reality is that the average family in Saskatchewan is going to receive some $1,480 less than what they pay. That is the reality. When he talks about charging stations in Prince Albert, he is right. I have nothing against electric vehicles. I think it is something I am going to own somewhere down the road too. However, the reality is that in Nipawin, Shellbrook, Tisdale, Melfort, Smeaton, Kinistino and Carrot River, there is very little charging capacity. These people all have to drive an hour and a half to two hours to get groceries in some cases, so this does not work. Let us put some thought into that before we mandate it.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Jun/1/23 5:09:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today, during a Conservative opposition day, I heard and carefully listened to many unreasonable arguments. I have to say that, like my colleague, I represent an agricultural riding, and even though I do not share his conclusions, there are several interesting elements in his speech. However, he told us that the carbon tax was a bad thing for our farmers because our international competitors do not have a carbon tax. He gave the example of Europe, which has an emission permits trading system. His argument, therefore, does not really hold water. Moreover, he is making up a second carbon tax based on the biofuels regulations. In that regard, in addition to the California standard, there is a U.S. federal standard, and both Great Britain and Europe have a standard. Everyone has standards. Based on his arguments and his logic, I conclude that he approves of the biofuels standard.

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Mr. Randy Hoback

Jun/1/23 5:09:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is no problem with standards provided that standards are equipped right across the world and are not set in such a way that they create an unlevel playing field for our producers. That is what this has done. We have done it to ourselves. Nobody has imposed this on us. The reality is that there is nothing wrong with standards, but let us have the same standards as the U.S., the same as Europe and the same as our competitors. We do not have that. We pay more. We compete in a marketplace with our hands tied behind our backs because we get charged more by the government than anybody else does around the world.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

Jun/1/23 5:10:34 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, as I said earlier, oil and gas companies are showing record profits. As an example, Suncor only pays one-fourteenth of the full carbon price in the scheme. I agree that carbon pricing is not the only solution. There have to be many potential solutions, and we need to do better to help protect the environment. I wonder if the member agrees that protecting the pockets of billion-dollar corporations is not the right approach for addressing this issue.

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Mr. Randy Hoback

Jun/1/23 5:11:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I understand the challenges the hon. member must face in the north and that the carbon tax must present to her. However, the reality is that those companies are spending billions of dollars on carbon sequestration. They are changing their businesses to get to net zero. That is where those profits are going. Those profits are going to pension funds that get paid out to people right across Canada, like the CPP. Those profits are distributed to the economy in different ways through investment and reinvestment in Canada. Saying we are going to grab them and give them to the government is a no go, sorry, because the government is horrible with money. I would rather let companies pay it out in dividends and pay it out in pension plans and have it distributed to Canadians that way. I would rather see them spend some money on the environment than give it to the federal government.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Jun/1/23 5:12:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my regards to you and all our dedicated colleagues who are here in the House with us. I very much like being surprised. Today, I was very excited because we knew there was going to be a Conservative opposition day. Yesterday, I scratched my head and wondered what they would talk about. I came up with three options: taxes, taxes and maybe taxes. In the end, I was wrong. The Conservatives are still talking about the carbon tax. So I will make it easier for me by keeping seven or eight speeches on file. When they have an opposition day, I will take out one of the speeches and that should cover it. This time, however, they invented a tax. They are talking about the carbon tax. This tax exists; that is right, it is not a conspiracy. They are saying that there are regulations on biofuels and that that, too, is a tax. Anyone who took first year economics knows the difference between a tax and a regulation because there is always a chapter called “taxation versus regulation”. We teach the very young that it is not the same thing. The Conservatives' speeches are so made up that they made up a tax. I wanted to take the time to thank them for their imagination. They made me laugh. Obviously, when we look at the motion, we see that the goal is to feed misinformation to the public. I showed how absurd that is. The Conservatives oppose any suggestion, no matter what it may be, that could actually have a positive effect on the environment and the fight against climate change. The reason is simple. It goes against the interests of the oil industry, and the two are not often reconcilable. The Conservatives do not want us to put corn oil in gas. Basically, that is what they are telling us. Before, they were saying that Canada was importing oil from dictatorships. They said that we needed ethical oil and that we should no longer import oil from Saudi Arabia and Algeria because that was bad. Now, in Canada, and particularly in Quebec, we almost exclusively use North American oil. However, the government wants to take it one step further. It wants to set a standard so that fuel contains fewer petroleum products and more material from renewable sources. However, the Conservatives are against that because they do not want anything mixed into their oil. The worst part is that they do not even realize that the people who will be asked to process the grains to make the ethanol that goes into the fuel are business owners in their own ridings and their provinces. Having said that, there are complaints about these types of regulations. There is truth to that. It is true that the environmental impacts of biofuels on the whole are modest because we have to grow the grain, use the raw material, use agricultural land, process the grain to produce, for example, ethanol. There are other formulations. Some countries make biofuel with palm oil, and so forth. The fact is that biofuels include elements that are renewable but that still pollute. This reminds us of the importance of reducing our dependence on fuel, whether or not it contains hydrocarbons. The impact of these regulations will be modest. The Conservatives are right about the Parliamentary Budget Officers' comments. They are right sometimes. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that this policy could be regressive. Why? It is because producing biofuels is expensive. At first, to comply with the standards, fuel distributors will have to produce these fuels, develop the infrastructure and purchase these biofuels. There will be an impact on the price at the pump. Several projections demonstrate that the cost will be passed on to consumers. They are looking at me. We are talking about a tax that will be passed on to consumers. Quite surprising, is it not? I am going to play the role of teacher today. It is Thursday evening and we are among friends. An economics course always teaches methods for assessing the effect a tax, a production cost increase, will have on consumers. Sometimes increased production costs, as is the case with ethanol, are fully passed on, as in 100%. Sometimes it is 75%. It is also possible that producers do not pass it on to consumers at all. There are reasons for that. The tax or increased production cost attributable to these regulations is passed on to consumers when they have no choice but to buy the product, when there is no other option. For example, if I decide to tax carrots but not turnips, those who like both will buy more turnips. In that case, producers will not be able to pass the tax on to consumers. However, in the case of oil, in some provinces, dependence is so high that consumers will have to pay the full tax. I have the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report in front of me. It is odd, but the provinces where the tax is hurting the most are Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta and Saskatchewan. These are the places that have had successive Conservative governments, where few alternative sources have been developed, where the economy is dependent on the oil industry and where people are generally extremely dependent on the oil industry. If we do not want these standards to drive up consumer prices, or if we want it to be harder to pass these taxes on to consumers, there are solutions. We can increase public transit, finance infrastructure, electrify transportation and make the power grid more environmentally friendly. Of course, if we power electric cars with energy made from coal or oil, it will not do much good. What we can do is change behaviours. There are plenty of ways to offer consumers alternative solutions. The Conservatives told us today that people would no longer be able to live because of the cost. When we look at the report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, we see that provinces where there is less of an impact on consumers and households are the provinces where more alternatives have been developed. They are also the provinces that are less dependent on oil. We are talking here about Quebec and, to a lesser extent, Ontario and so on. This shows one thing. We have provinces where, because of Conservative way of thinking, they are chasing their tails, in the sense that they are not developing any alternative solutions, which makes people dependent on oil and gas. Since they are dependent on oil and gas, these people will be hit hard if the government ever imposed an economic policy against oil. Since these people will be hit hard, the Conservatives are saying that these policies should not be implemented. If these polices are not implemented, these people do not change their behaviours, and it goes on. We end up with the well-known Conservative model where the Conservatives are always right. That hurts households because the Conservatives are not doing anything, and they are not doing anything because it hurts households. They are against policies that take aim at both the supply of and demand for oil, so the carbon tax, which takes aim at the demand for oil, does not work. Then, all of a sudden the regulations do not work. To show how deeply ingrained this logic is in the culture of some provinces, we need only look at what happened during the election campaign in Alberta. The Conservatives won in Alberta, and a few NDP members took seats. Do my colleagues know how many days of the campaign were dedicated to the environment? The answer is none. How much time was spent talking about the environment during the leadership debates? Almost none. There was a left-wing Albertan who is pro-oil. I heard the NDP yelling “Calgary” and “Edmonton” at the Conservatives this week to irritate them, because the NDP won some seats. It is the pro-oil NDP. Those members are pro-oil. There are clans in the NDP too. That is the big Conservative contradiction. Their motions sometimes seem sensible, but one bad motion leads to another bad motion, which in turn leads to another bad motion, and so forth. This makes the Conservatives believe that they are always right, but they just keep going round in circles, as I just demonstrated. They are number one in the world for contradictions. The Conservatives are masters of contradiction. They are first in their class, perhaps even world champions, or, as we sometimes say, they look like real winners.

1444 words

Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, CPC)

Jun/1/23 5:21:50 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am not so sure that I want to thank my colleague for his speech, because he handed out a lot of insults. He insulted the Conservatives non-stop. What is most fascinating about this is that he wanted to lecture us. He always wants to lecture everyone about economics, and he thinks he is better than everyone. One fact stands out, and he even admitted it in his speech. Whether we call it a tax or a regulation, these new measures will result in a direct cost to Canadians. Is it simpler to talk about a new tax? It is certainly easier for someone to understand it because we do not give every citizen an economics course before explaining a new item. Can my colleague confirm that, in the long term, consumers will be taxed or that the regulations will add an additional 17¢ a litre at the pump, yes or no?

156 words

Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

Jun/1/23 5:22:42 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, whom I really like, for his question. I think the Conservatives would probably have preferred a tax, because a tax has one benefit that this type of regulation does not have: It generates revenue that enables the government to make the policy more progressive. That is exactly what they did with the carbon tax, which is not perfect but does send money back to some households. The Conservatives are always whining about the carbon tax, saying it does not work. That forces the government to use other types of measures that do not generate revenue and are even more regressive. I have been teaching pretty much all my life, and, if my colleague does not appreciate my professional conditioning, I will forgive him. However, I think he might well benefit from an economics course.

141 words

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/1/23 5:23:36 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, for me, it is the principles behind a policy of a price on pollution. Often, the Conservatives say that the United States does not have it, but there are actually a dozen or more states that do have the principles of a price on pollution. Around the world, the principles of a price on pollution are very much real. However, the far right of the Conservative Party is now saying that the principles of a price on pollution are wrong. I wonder if the member could expand on the principles and how important it is to use those principles to protect our environment.

105 words

Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

Jun/1/23 5:24:33 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I will depart a bit from my colleague's question, but not to avoid it, because it was excellent. We always come back to international comparisons, to what is done elsewhere and the fact that our competitors have or sometimes do not have taxes. That is indeed important. Let me come back to biofuels regulations. Many studies in many places have shown that it is a policy that does have a positive, but modest impact on the environment. In the case of Canada, it is important to make comparisons because if this policy is having a modest impact elsewhere, it is because biofuels are replacing traditional oil. The principle is that the dirtier the oil we use the more effective the biofuels standard will be. Given that Canada produces and consumes the dirtiest oil in the world, we may have the potential here of making this standard much more useful than anywhere else. That is why we need to take the time to compare ourselves sometimes. In this case, our dirty oil may well mean the standard will be better.

182 words

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