SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 204

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 1, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 204 - Jun/1/23
Mr. Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP)
  • Jun/1/23 11:59:26 a.m.
  • Watch
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.
1526 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 204 - Jun/1/23
Hon. Bill Blair (President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness, Lib.)
  • Jun/1/23 2:21:22 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question and also for attending that briefing. In an emergency when the safety of all Canadians is threatened, it is all hands on deck, and it is important that we work together. Premier Houston has, in fact, submitted a request for assistance. It was immediately approved. We have been mobilizing the resources Nova Scotia needs, and, in fact, many of those resources have already been delivered. We will act as expeditiously as possible to make sure Nova Scotians get the resources they need, and that we respond positively. We will work very carefully and closely with Premier Houston.
109 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border