SoVote

Nov/2/23 12:02:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, members will notice that my speech is similar to that of my colleague from Mirabel. The thing I have learned in politics is that we need to repeat ourselves often so that our messages are heard. It feels like Groundhog Day, as my colleague from Mirabel said, or like Nietzsche's eternal recurrence. The Conservative Party has plenty to say about the carbon tax. There is something essential that I need to clarify: Today's motion will have no impact on Quebec. It does not concern Quebec. The only good thing about this motion is that it clearly demonstrates that everything the Conservative Party said when it was talking about the two carbon taxes does not apply to Quebec. That is crystal clear. If the government reduces the carbon tax on home heating in Canada, Quebec will never see the effects of that because it does not apply to Quebec. The carbon tax does not apply to Quebec. What we get from this motion is that the Conservative Party is completely out of touch with Quebec's reality. As my colleague said, the Conservative members from Quebec do not carry enough weight in their caucus to push the issues facing the only francophone nation in North America. The representatives of the only francophone nation in North America are unable to carry Quebec's messages to the House. The Conservative members are failing to be a voice for Quebec, but it gets worse. This week, the leader of the Conservative Party made it clear that the carbon tax would become the main electoral or ballot-box issue. The leader of the Conservative Party believes that the ballot-box issue of the next general election is one that does not involve Quebec. At no point has it ever involved Quebec. This is unprecedented. It is a fundamental rejection of the Quebec nation. I would like to clarify something. The Conservatives constantly refer to two carbon taxes. The first tax applies to Canada, whereas Quebec has a carbon exchange. Some Conservatives have actually started to adjust their language. They know very well that lying will not help them win. Whenever they talk about the other carbon tax, calling it the regulations, they are referring to the clean fuel regulations. These regulations were the logical continuation of regulations put in place by one Stephen Harper. I am not sure if my colleagues are aware of this, but he was a Conservative. These regulations will not take full effect until 2030. Now we are being asked to look into the future. They want to fight inflation now, but the effects will not be felt until 2030. Furthermore, there are already parallel regulations in Quebec that are in force today, in 2023. Quebec's clean fuel regulation are already in effect. Will the Conservatives trample on Quebec's regulatory independence by saying that it should repeal its clean fuel regulations? Worse yet, we are collectively subsidizing oil companies so they can introduce low-carbon fuel. We are all paying for this. The Conservatives are also asking why we could not stick consumers with the bill. Where I come from, that is called double-dipping, like when someone takes a potato chip and sticks it into the dip twice. That is not allowed. When it comes to oil, the Conservatives no longer see clearly. This is quite obvious to me. As my colleague said earlier, we are wasting a ridiculous amount of time talking about the carbon tax. Meanwhile, not one Conservative member from Quebec is talking about the issues that affect us all. I have not heard one Conservative member talk about the CEBA loans, even though the National Assembly unanimously passed a motion calling for the December 31 deadline to be significantly extended. I have not heard a single Conservative talk about that. Regarding immigration, they voted in favour of our motion, but I never hear a Conservative member argue that Quebec is losing all of its weight within the Canadian federation. The Quebec minister said it again this morning: One of the effects of uncontrolled immigration is reduced political weight for Quebec. I do not hear any Conservatives talking about that. If we are serious about fighting inflation, then the first thing that we should probably be doing is taking care of the most vulnerable. Among the most vulnerable are seniors struggling to afford housing, clothing and food because their pensions are so meagre. If the Conservatives were serious, they would support increasing old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. That is not all. Since 2015, the Liberals have been talking about reviewing the Employment Insurance Act. Who is more vulnerable than an unemployed worker unable to access benefits? I have never heard a Conservative say that because of inflation, perhaps we should review the Employment Insurance Act. All they talk about is the carbon tax. An important test is coming up in the next few months or next year, especially for Quebec. It is about Bill 21 and Bill 96, which will be challenged in court. I am eager to see how the Quebec Conservatives will react. Today I want reach out to them, because I know we will need them as well. Perhaps one way to do this is by showing them reality. That is why I want to return to the Conservative Party leadership race. However, before that, I want to return to some rather hare-brained remarks made by the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Carleton. For instance, there was the time he offered his unconditional support to the trucker convoy, including its illegal behaviour. The Leader of the Opposition also had the oh-so-brilliant idea of firing the Governor of the Bank of Canada because he did not agree with him. He took quite a beating for that one. He even touted cryptocurrency, saying it could help Canadians opt out of inflation. I cannot speak for my colleagues, but the majority of the people I know are aware that cryptocurrency is not the way to ensure the well-being of the middle class. Cryptocurrency does not reduce inflation. It does not help with the price of gas or turkey, which was another of the Leader of the Opposition's obsessions. Lastly, it certainly does not help people find housing and put clothes on their backs. There are also all the misleading advertisements. I do not know if my colleagues saw the ad that used an image of a Quebec family and said they were struggling to pay their mortgage. The people in this family then came forward, saying that it was a stock image, but that the ad was associating them with a reality that did not in the least reflect their own and that it was making them look stupid. The Conservative Party is unscrupulous. It uses images like that one and claims that these people are struggling to pay their mortgage, when that is completely false. Worst of all was hearing the member for Carleton, the leader of the official opposition, say on numerous occasions in the House that there were people who could not afford food and were asking for medical assistance in dying. How can we trust someone who makes such asinine statements? I am saying these things because it just goes on and on, and the Conservative Party leader's vision is catching. When people from Suncor came to committee, some members tried to prevent me from asking the Suncor CEO questions. They did not want me to make him uncomfortable, like he was royalty. What is more, I heard a Conservative apologize to the Suncor reps on behalf of all Canadians. I could not even make this stuff up. I will wrap up quickly with one final thought. Members may recall that, during the last leadership race, only two Quebec MPs did not take sides, but seven MPs were against the current opposition leader. Let me point out that one of them was the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. He supported Jean Charest, the very same Jean Charest whom he had clumsily accused of being the godfather of the Liberal family 10 years before. The member for Louis-Saint-Laurent chose to support Mr. Charest despite his questionable ethics in Quebec, rather than the man who is now opposition leader. I would encourage my Conservative colleagues from Quebec to get back in touch with reality. There are going to be some interesting debates happening in Quebec. If they do get back in touch with reality, we will be happy to try to help them out.

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All Topics

Context: House Hansard - 245 - Nov/2/23

Mr. Mario Simard

Nov/2/23 12:13:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague obviously was not listening to what the member for Mirabel and I said. The carbon tax does not apply in Quebec. Anyone can prove that. The other thing I want to point out is that we do not vote on regulations. During the debate on the Conservatives' last fallacious motion on the carbon tax, I asked one of his colleagues how he voted on the clean fuel regulations. He told me that he voted against them. I challenge my Conservative colleague to show me where in the blues it says he voted against the regulations. I challenge any Conservative to show me where it says they voted against the clean fuel regulations. I would advise them to look up who put the regulations in place. It was a fellow named Stephen Harper.

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Context: House Hansard - 245 - Nov/2/23

Mr. Patrick Weiler (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, Lib.)

Nov/2/23 5:13:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again today, but it does feel like Groundhog Day. It must be a dozen times that we have had this same debate on the carbon tax since the member for Carleton became the leader of the Conservative Party. It is ironic because the same party ran on putting a price on pollution in the last election, and now, for probably the twelfth time, we are having this debate about cutting it. The Conservatives are masquerading about this being an affordability measure and the reason that the cost of living challenges are high right now. However, earlier this week on the finance committee, we heard from the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who said that the price on pollution was only responsible for one-sixth of one per cent of the inflation that we are seeing right now in Canada. Also, since 2020, the carbon price on home heating oil has only increased by 12¢ a litre to a total of 14¢ a litre, while the average price for home heating oil is now 75¢ higher. Canadians are overwhelmingly feeling the impacts of geopolitics and fossil fuel inflation, but this is not because of climate policy. What is boosting the price of fossil fuels in Canada? What is responsible for that other 63¢ a litre, which is five times more than the price on pollution? That, of course, would be the illegal and unjustified war of aggression that Russia is waging in Ukraine right now and what that has done to global energy markets. It is sad we are not hearing the leader of the Conservatives stand up for Ukraine or in support of the people of Ukraine in repelling this unjustified invasion. Also, OPEC is taking on measures that are constricting the supply of oil. However, rather than criticizing these measures, the Conservative government in Alberta rolled out the red carpet for Saudi Arabia and, indeed, said that we should follow the advice and projections that Aramco has for fossil fuel use in the future. Obviously, the Conservatives say nothing about the record profits of the fossil fuel sector, which is soaking up that extra 63¢ a litre, and it is gobbling that up at the expense of everyday Canadians. We know that, since 2022, the oil and gas sector in Canada has made a $30-billion increase in profits, or a 1,000% increase since 2019. We know that putting a price on carbon is the most efficient way of reducing emissions. It is why the right-of-centre government in British Columbia, the former B.C. Liberals, brought this measure in and, of course, the current Conservative MP for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge was part of that team. The economy of B.C. has been one of the strongest in the country ever since. While B.C. has its own system, the federal system is set up in a way that offsets the costs such that eight out of 10 Canadians get more back than they pay. This is not just a measure of influencing behaviour and a climate measure. It is an affordability measure. This, of course, is one of the reasons Canada's current emissions reduction plan has allowed Canada to reduce emissions by more than any other G7 country since 2019. Obviously, we have a long to go after the Conservatives did absolutely nothing for a decade. They not only did nothing, but also caused embarrassment to Canada around the world by undermining climate policy globally. Members know the saying, “If you tell a lie enough times, eventually even you will believe it.” The Conservatives live in a post-truth world, and they must think that, by repeating this, they can eventually convince Canadians of the same as well. Not only is the argument they make on carbon pricing factually incorrect, but the Conservatives will also say that we have not met a single climate target, which is disingenuous because our targets on reducing emissions have always been 2030 and 2050, and we are making significant progress in getting there. The Conservatives say that we have not reduced emissions, but by the measures we brought in, we have done the equivalent of taking 11 million cars off the road annually. They do not actually want people to have lower heating bills. They want them to be strapped in to ride the roller coaster of volatile fossil fuel prices. In contrast, we know that we need to decarbonize how we heat our homes and how we transport ourselves. Studies have shown that a Halifax resident can save over $1,400 a year by switching from oil heating to a heat pump. Just yesterday, I spoke to a fellow British Columbian who was able to get over $20,000 in grants from the federal government, from the B.C. government and from Vancity to be able to purchase and install a heat pump in B.C., so there is already a lot of support for these types of measures. Together with switching to an electric vehicle, we know that families can save as much as $10,000 a year. Our government is intent on making sure this happens with a series of incentives and programs. It is working. We know that just last year in British Columbia over 18% of new vehicles sold were zero-emissions vehicles. Unfortunately, the only climate plan we are hearing from the Conservatives is that we need to burn more fossil fuels. Yes, it is hard to believe that we need to increase our production of natural gas as a way of reducing emissions. They say to use technology, but what technology would that be? Is it any technology that is actually available today? They are not going to talk about any of that technology. They are going to talk about technology that is unproven and that maybe a decade from now we will be able to use. The Conservatives talk about things such as small module reactors and carbon capture, which have not been proven and are not ready to use today. This is what we call greenwashing. Instead, we see the Conservatives giving new meaning to cancel culture. We have seen the Government of Alberta very recently put a six-month moratorium on the renewable energy industry, which has been growing rapidly in the province and represents a $33-billion economic opportunity. We have seen, in this very House, the Conservatives filibuster and oppose the changes to the Atlantic accords that would create the foundation for a vibrant green-energy future, including with offshore winds in Atlantic Canada. I will say that this is because the Conservatives do not actually believe that climate change is real. In fact, this is exactly how they voted at their policy convention just two years ago. I would also posit that they do not actually care about affordability because, if they did, they would be saying something about the record profits that are being made, and they would be standing right here with us on measures that would ensure that people can get off the use of fossil fuels for home heating and for transportation. Rather, this motion and the dozen motions that we have debated in the House on the carbon tax are just a distraction from the real reason that the cost of energy is high in Canada. The Conservatives would rather keep Canadians strapped into the volatile roller coaster that global energy prices are right now. We know that they are going to be a challenge as we live in a very uncertain world. We are focused on reducing emissions. That is why we are rolling out this heat pump program and why we have been implementing all these different measures as part of our emissions-reductions plan. It is also why I will be voting against this measure. We need to make sure that we utilize the most efficient program that we have at our disposal for reducing emissions, which is, of course, having a price on pollution. This is a measure that Conservatives used to believe in. We know the government of Stephen Harper was on board with this idea, and the Conservative Party ran on this in the last election. In my home province of B.C., we had a right-of-centre government that brought this in, and none of the doom and gloom that some people said would happen ended up happening. With that, I look forward to some questions and comments from my colleagues.

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