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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

Nov/2/23 3:48:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am curious. The member is from Saskatchewan, so when his constituents call him to ask about home heating oil and why Atlantic Canada will have the price on pollution removed from it, and solely Atlantic Canada because that is the way Conservatives are portraying it, I am wondering if he corrects them and says, no, it is for all people in Canada who use oil to heat their homes. As a matter of fact, he said the majority were in Atlantic Canada. That is not true. There are twice as many people in the province of Ontario heating with oil who will benefit from this than there are in Atlantic Canada. The question is very simple: Does he try to correct the policy and tell people the reality of it, or does he perpetuate the falsehoods that Conservatives are trying to distribute among the population?

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Mr. Brad Redekopp

Nov/2/23 3:49:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, rather than perpetuating falsehoods, in reality, I just want to do a bit of math for the hon. member. The government has said that it is going to give $10,000 to provide heat pumps. I am not sure if it has actually done this math. By my calculations, there are probably 400,000 homes in Atlantic Canada that will need heat pumps, and 400,000 times 10,000 is $4 billion. That is just in Atlantic Canada. There are needs across the country as well. One thing that has not been talked about in this whole proposal by the government is the actual cost of this heat pump subsidy. It is potentially billions of dollars, and nobody has talked about that. I am not sure if they even know that. I just wanted to get that on the record and maybe invite them to do a little bit of homework on that side of the page.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Nov/2/23 3:50:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister was wrong to introduce regional divisiveness into Canada's carbon pricing system, but he was not the first person to do that. Actually, the Conservatives have been talking about taking off the carbon tax as though it would save every Canadian money, when it surely would not. All sorts of provinces have their own carbon pricing scheme, and the federal backstop does not apply there. He talks about an NDP plan, but he did not mention anything to do with our plan, which was to take GST off home heating. Why would we do that? We have an established tradition of not charging GST on essentials. GST applies everywhere in the country, which means every Canadian would get a break. Moreover, it would apply to all forms of home heating, including when people heat their homes with electricity. When we presented an amendment last year to one of their carbon tax motions, they said no. When we presented a motion today to take the GST off in parts of the country where the federal carbon tax does not apply, they said no. Who is practising regional divisions, and why did he fail to mention the actual NDP plan, which has nothing to do with what the Liberals have proposed?

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Mr. Brad Redekopp

Nov/2/23 3:51:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, his NDP brothers and sisters in Saskatchewan voted unanimously to support this measure in the House when we vote on it on Monday. I am curious to know if the NDP in Ottawa will actually listen and take the advice of their very good brothers and sisters in Saskatchewan. They are very close, yet I am not convinced that they are going to listen to them. This is something that NDP members in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are all saying needs to change. I just want to put a bug in his ear and that of the whole NDP here. Will they support this motion, as their brothers and sisters have in Saskatchewan? An hon. member: B.C. has its own carbon tax. You know that. Say it out loud.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/2/23 3:52:25 p.m.
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If an hon. member has questions, they can wait for questions and comments. The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Nov/2/23 3:52:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member mentioned B.C. He knows full well that B.C. has its own carbon tax. It was introduced by the Liberal-cum-Conservative government in B.C., just as there have been carbon taxes imposed by Conservative governments elsewhere in the world. What a bunch of BS that is, just as talking about an NDP-Liberal coalition is BS. We just had a point of order before he got up to give his speech. He sat through the whole bloody thing. If he wants to talk about the truth, he could start by telling some.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/2/23 3:53:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have a great deal of respect for my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, but using the acronym “BS” is definitely not parliamentary.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/2/23 3:53:27 p.m.
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Is the hon. member rising to apologize for saying “BS”?

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Nov/2/23 3:53:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do apologize for using that term. I forgot how difficult it can be to call a spade a spade in this place.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/2/23 3:53:45 p.m.
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I just want to remind members to be careful about the words that they use in the House. We need to be respectful. The hon. member for Saskatoon West.

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Mr. Brad Redekopp

Nov/2/23 3:53:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, well, let us call a spade a spade. Every single time the Liberal masters ask the NDP members in the House to do something, they do it. They vote with the government every time. We have a strong NDP-Liberal coalition. An hon. member: Motion No. 79. Talk about that one.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/2/23 3:54:15 p.m.
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The hon. member has had an opportunity to provide input. If he has more input, he should wait until the proper moment. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

Nov/2/23 3:54:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, despite the fact that it may have been heckling, the member's contribution was so good that I think we should have made an exception on this one occasion. I find it interesting that the member for Saskatoon West said, “Let us call a spade a spade”, right after he did not answer a single question he was asked. He just pivoted and went to a completely different place. I asked him about something in his speech, and rather than address the question, he totally went off and started talking about heat pumps, which I did not even hear him talk about in his speech. This just goes to the point that I will be making in my comments, which is the fact that this is all about Conservative hypocrisy. Before I go any further, I will indicate that I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge. I find it very fascinating. At the heart of this is the issue of the price on pollution, and the reason I find it so difficult is that I feel as though, once again, it is Groundhog Day. I have given a similar speech many times before. I am talking about the same hypocrisy that comes from Conservatives in the House. What we repeatedly see is Conservative after Conservative standing up against a policy that they all ran on; some of them did so not once, but twice. Some members in here, 19 members, who ran and were elected in the 2008 election and are still here today, ran cap and trade. Cap and trade is just another form of pricing pollution; it is just done slightly differently. However, the Conservatives ran on it. Again, of course, just in the most recent election, they ran under Erin O'Toole as their leader with their signature platform titled “The Man with the Plan”. They talked about how they were going to put a price on pollution, but rather than just giving the money back to Canadians, which is what we are doing, they would put the money into a special carbon savings account. Then, depending on how much a person grew that account, they could go out and qualify for different rewards. I imagine there would be some form of catalogue, and people would look through it, just as one would with Air Miles. Depending on how much they had built up in that carbon fund, they could get some really good prizes. Maybe they could get a really nice bicycle or something. However, if they had not spent a lot and had not built up a lot in that carbon account, they might get a smaller prize as a result. Despite the fact that it would have been pricing pollution, the problem with that plan is that it actually incentivized people to use carbon and have a larger carbon footprint. The larger the carbon footprint a person had, the more credits they would build into this carbon account, so they could get even better prizes at the end. Their plan was immensely flawed, and our party, and all parties in this House, would never support something like that. That is what they ran on most recently, in 2021. In 2008, 18 of them also ran on “The True North Strong and Free: Stephen Harper's plan for Canadians”. In that, as I previously mentioned, Stephen Harper outlined how his newly formed government, if elected, would bring in cap and trade. It was revolutionary at the time, at least for North America, because it was just a handful of states in the United States; Ontario, which came along a bit after that; and Quebec, which had also signed on, that were part of this North American version of cap and trade among a number of jurisdictions. Did Stephen Harper actually implement that and put in that price on pollution? No, he did not. He completely abandoned it once he had the opportunity. However, the point is that 19 Conservatives who currently sit on that side of the House ran on that in 2008. The hypocrisy is even better than that, because a number of the Conservative members sitting in the House right now actually sat previously in legislatures that had adopted pricing pollution. To take it a step further, they have comments in the official records of those legislatures, where they actually commit to pricing pollution. There are many options, but I will start with the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, now a Conservative member of Parliament in this federal House. He said, while sitting in the provincial legislature in B.C.: In 2008, our government made the decision to implement a tax on carbon. It was designed to help British Columbia reduce greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time be fair to hard-working families. A Conservative member said that, which is literally what we are saying. We did not even come up with that material; the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge did. He ran on it. He said that in the provincial legislature. He also went on to say: I know that the member for Vancouver-Kensington made a comment about it and tried to blame it on the federal government, as far as revenue neutrality. Well, the fact of the matter is that we have the option of how we wanted to bring this about, as far as a carbon tax. Our policy—it's law—is to put it back into the pockets of taxpayers. This is not a Liberal saying this; it is a current sitting member of the House in the Conservative Party who said this. Now, suddenly, he can just blindly abandon his values and principles, in terms of how he at least felt while in the provincial legislature, to follow the lead of the alt-right leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. That is the reality of what is going on. I am always really amazed when Conservatives try to suggest that Liberals are gagged in terms of their ability to speak, when example after example comes from that side of the House. It does not end there. There were two other members who were in the Quebec legislature and voted in favour of pricing pollution: the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent and the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis. Both of them sat in the provincial legislature and voted in favour and helped adopt pricing pollution in Quebec. Now they suddenly show up here at the federal level and act as though pricing pollution is the absolute worst thing one could do. How is it possible that they can be so hypocritical? A lot of people can say things about me, but I am very consistent as it relates to my position on pricing pollution; I have been from the beginning. I want to raise something else, and this is my final point about Conservative hypocrisy. It actually involves you, Madam Speaker, and I would like to tell members what happened in this House back on October 20, 2022. You were presiding, Madam Speaker, and there was an opposition day motion from the Conservatives. Our NDP colleagues tried to put forward a motion to build on to the motion the Conservatives had on the floor; it would basically have eliminated the GST from home heating sources. It did not even require a vote or anything. All the mover of the motion needed to do was accept it, and then it would have carried. Madam Speaker, you said: It is my duty to inform hon. members that an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion, or in the case that he or she is not present, consent may be given or denied by the House leader, the deputy House leader, the whip or the deputy whip of the sponsor's party. The hon. member does not have the support of the opposition; therefore, the amendment cannot be accepted. Conservatives are just playing games with this. They did not want that to be adopted, because if it did get adopted, they would not get the political ammunition they are looking for to hold over the NDP and everybody else. This hypocrisy was pointed out by both the parliamentary secretary to the House leader and the NDP, who have been rising on it all day long. To make matters even worse, today, the member for Timmins—James Bay again tried to amend this motion to add “and to eliminate the GST on home heating in provinces where no federal carbon tax is in place.” The member for Battle River—Crowfoot said no; basically, it was rejected once again. One is left wondering why. Why are Conservatives acting this way? Are they really interested in the best interests of Canadians, or is this all just for political gain?

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Mr. Mel Arnold (North Okanagan—Shuswap, CPC)

Nov/2/23 4:04:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, why is it that only a chosen few of the Liberal-NDP coalition are up speaking today? It is a very chosen few, much like this movement it has to only choose a few who will benefit from this carbon tax relief. We do not see the member for Calgary Skyview or members from Atlantic Canada and northern Saskatchewan speaking today. Why is it that only a chosen few are getting up to speak?

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Nov/2/23 4:05:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader will be speaking shortly. He is from the Prairies. The member makes this suggestion that only a chosen few are speaking on this measure, and then he says— Mr. Dan Mazier: The chosen one.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/2/23 4:05:40 p.m.
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Order. I just want to remind members that if they have something to contribute to wait until it is time to make that contribution. There will be time for questions and comments again, but the hon. deputy government House leader has the floor right now. The hon. deputy government House leader.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Nov/2/23 4:05:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I hit a nerve. The member for Kings—Hants spoke earlier to this issue. He is from Atlantic Canada. I can guarantee one thing. We will fill all of our spots, unlike when we had a debate earlier about India potentially being involved in the assassination of a Canadian. Do members remember that? Not a single Conservative stood up to speak. Every single Liberal spot today will be filled with a Liberal speaking.

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Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

Nov/2/23 4:06:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for showing some of the hypocritical stances that people who used to sit in legislatures and now sit in the House of Commons have. One thing I have noticed over the last number of years during this 44th Parliament is that Conservatives love to talk about carbon pricing and its supposed role with respect to inflation, but they will say almost next to nothing about the oversized corporate profits in the oil and gas sector. Last year alone, it was $38 billion. This year it is another record. Through you, Madam Speaker, given the Conservatives' love for oil and gas corporations, does the member think that it is time for them to register as official lobbyists for that industry?

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Nov/2/23 4:07:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if only I had more time. I could go on about this for a while. What I will say is this. When we look at the rising costs at the pumps right now, 2¢ a litre over the last year is attributed to a price on pollution and 18¢ a litre is attributed to the wholesale margins, in other words, the profits for the wholesalers. Conservatives should be nine times as outraged by the profits being made by oil companies right now as opposed to the price on pollution, but where are they? They are absolutely silent, never once getting up to talk about the extreme price gouging that is going on. I think it is shameful because they are making an intentional, deliberate attempt to look for political ammunition. The member said something very good at the beginning of his question, which was that Conservatives like to talk. I would say, yes, they do like to talk, and that is where it ends.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

Nov/2/23 4:08:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there was a lot of talk about hypocrisy in this debate, but maybe the member opposite could help me understand something. For eight long years, we have been listening to the Liberals try to justify a carbon tax based on driving people to lower their carbon footprint, but then they take the tax off heavy oil and continue to punish people who are using lower-carbon fuels like propane, natural gas or electricity. Could the member help me understand this ridiculous policy the Liberals have come forward with?

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