SoVote

Nov/7/23 1:06:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the GST was brought in by Brian Mulroney, and the HST was later brought in by Stephen Harper. These are regressive taxes because they punish consumers. They also increase costs, which is an inflationary element. We have had many elections, and we have fought in the House, in this chamber, to eliminate the GST, but no one has ever acted on it. At any rate, we have reduced these taxes on certain essentials for Canadians. Why not just reduce it on this essential, which is home heating in this case, as there is a history of members reducing the GST on many different essentials?

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Mr. Francesco Sorbara

Nov/7/23 1:06:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our system of taxation in Canada is obviously a progressive system. We brought in a number of measures to cut and reduce income taxes for middle-income Canadians. We have asked the wealthiest to pay a bit more, which is the right thing to do, and we will continue to march in that manner. It is important that taxes are collected to pay for all the social programs that Canadians depend upon, from old age security to the guaranteed income supplement, to the tax-free monthly Canada child benefit and the Canada workers benefit, to the Canada dental benefit, which hundreds of kids in my riding depend upon and over 500,000 children in Canada have used. Therefore, it is very important that we have a strong social fabric put in place. Canadians understand that. The residents in my riding understand that. We need to continue down that path.

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Mrs. Anna Roberts (King—Vaughan, CPC)

Nov/7/23 1:07:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to go over something with my hon. colleague. There is a post by What's Interesting Vaughan that states, “Interesting and Frustrating Real Change! It completely wrecked our economy, tarnished our international standing, and unleashed a housing crisis of unprecedented proportions in Canada.” The carbon tax has killed this country, however, the Liberals voted against our motion. My colleague liked the post. Can he explain that to me?

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Mr. Francesco Sorbara

Nov/7/23 1:08:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if that post was liked, it was done in error. What's Interesting Vaughan is a Conservative-run Instagram account. My hon. member for King—Vaughan knows that. She used the language that the carbon tax “killed” Canada. I would ask the hon. member to retract the word “killed”. In the context of what the world is dealing with now, I would say it is an incorrect term to use. With respect to the Canadian economy, we have a very low unemployment rate. We have had very strong economic growth over the last several years. Our fiscal foundation is very healthy. We maintain an AAA credit rating. Our borrowing rates are almost the lowest in the world. Our growth rates are strong. We continue to generate a lot of jobs. There are inflationary pressures on all Canadians, which is a global issue. We are dealing with it, and we will continue to deal with it in a responsible manner by putting in place some measures to deal with affordability, including the Canada child benefit and the Canada workers benefit, the middle income class tax cut and the Canada dental benefit, which the member opposite knows will also apply to seniors next year. I cannot wait to go around the city of Vaughan to tell all the seniors about the Canada dental benefit and how it will help every single one of them.

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Lib.)

Nov/7/23 1:09:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I can see that this topic has been on the minds of everyone here over the last few days. The Government of Canada understands that the effects of climate change have been devastating for many families and Canadians from coast to coast to coast. In fact, the Canadian Climate Institute estimates the annual costs will amount to $25 billion by 2025, and by mid-century, the estimate costs of climate change on our economy in Canada are half of the projected GDP growth of our entire country. That is an astounding and devastating amount of damage, which climate change is already causing. In 2023, we saw a record wildfire season, with some areas burning double those of historic records. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians had to evacuate their homes. It is safe to say we all watched in horror as we saw those fires rage across the country. That is not the only climate disaster or extreme weather event this country has gone through in the past several years. We have seen record floods and heat domes and many other natural disasters. Meanwhile, Canadians are facing an equally pressing affordability challenge as energy prices have skyrocketed. With winter coming very soon, households are facing higher heating bills. The government is taking real action to keep life affordable and to fight climate change at the same time, and now we must go further faster. This is why the Government of Canada recently announced major new funding to help households switch away from polluting home heating oil to efficient and clean heat pumps. We know home heating oil is three times to four times more expensive than other forms of heating. It being the most carbon intensive, and also the most costly, is exactly why recent measures have targeted home heating oil right across the country. Low- and middle-income households are struggling to make the switch to environmentally friendly heat pumps mainly because of the upfront cost, so we get that. We get that the upfront cost is truly the barrier to making the transition. Canadians want to do their part, and we want to encourage people to make the switch as soon as possible. Helping out with that upfront cost would really help them make that switch. That is what we have heard, and that is what we are doing. We also recognize that acquiring and installing a heat pump can take a number of weeks, if not months, and people will still be facing high oil heating costs in the meantime. Two weeks ago, the Government of Canada announced an expansion of the funding for heat pumps, making the average heat pump free for low- and medium-income Canadians. The strengthened oil to heat pump affordability program will partner with interested provinces and territories to increase the amount of federal funding eligible for homeowners so they can receive not just $10,000 but up to $15,000 for installing a heat pump in their house, adding to an additional $5,000 in grant funding to match provincial contributions in jurisdictions where programs are co-delivered. Low- to medium-income households who heat their homes with oil and sign up to participate in the OHPA program to switch to a heat pump will also receive an upfront payment of $250. On average, homeowners who switch from oil to cold climate heat pumps to heat and cool their homes save between $1,500 to $4,700 per year on their home energy bills. That is a whopping $125 to $400 per month of savings. That is a sizeable affordability measure that will help Canadians who are struggling to heat their homes and are using oil to do so. They are obviously subject to some of the highest costs to do that. The idea is to provide households with funding to help make the transition from heating oil to more efficient, environmentally friendly electric heat pumps that much easier. This new heat pump funding is in addition to what we already were doing to support Canadians in these uncertain times. I also want to talk about a few of the climate measures our government has put in place that are funding all kinds of other important initiatives. I do not mean to give the impression that this one program is all we are doing, or the newest measure we have announced is the only thing we are doing. There are many other aspects of the federal government's plan to fight climate change, build a stronger economy and reduce emissions. Under the low-carbon economy fund, for example, a new intake for one of our funding streams has just opened. It is called the low-carbon economy challenge. The Government of Canada remains committed to supporting projects that reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, generate clean growth, build resilient communities and create good jobs for Canadians. So far, the low-carbon economy challenge is providing more than $250 million to support 94 projects that invest in proven low-carbon technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I want to take this opportunity to highlight some projects we recently funded through the low-carbon economy fund. We have supported a range of projects, including replacing oil-fired boilers with electric models at a YMCA in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador; waste emissions reduction projects in Alberta; SaskPower's northern first nations home retrofit program in Saskatchewan; and home heat pump retrofits in Atlantic Canada, starting this year. Projects like these support the local economy, drive clean innovation and help Canada achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The fund also supports climate action by indigenous peoples. We recently funded some indigenous-owned and indigenous-led renewable energy, energy efficiency and low-carbon heating projects. There is the Peavine community solar farm project, which will offset a portion of Peavine Métis Settlement's electricity needs, thanks to a solar photovoltaic system. There is the Tl'etinqox community bio-heat project, which will displace 100% of the propane used in six community buildings, a church building and a healing centre in that community. We have also funded projects through the climate action and awareness fund. The fund is investing over $206 million over five years to support Canadian-made projects that help to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. This fund focuses on supporting youth climate awareness and climate research as well as advancing climate change science and technology. I think about projects like Science North's touring and stationary innovative climate change experience for young Canadians. Under this fund, the Government of Canada is also funding projects that are focused on strengthening Canada's science capacity to identify, accelerate and evaluate climate mitigation solutions and strategies. The idea is to create jobs for Canadians who work in science and technology, academia and at the grassroots community level. These jobs are critical as we continue to build knowledge, skills and a sustainable net-zero emissions economy by 2050. I also want to highlight the climate action fund, which was in existence from 2018 to 2020. It provided up to $3 million annually to support projects delivered by students, youth, indigenous peoples, non-profit organizations, small and medium-sized enterprises, and research and educational institutions. They are projects like the Green Building Council's work on redesigning our architectural landscape, Random Acts of Green's mobile app, and Agriculture in the Classroom Saskatchewan. These projects show us that Canadians are ready to take action against climate change in their everyday lives. These are only a few examples of funding initiatives that the Government of Canada has put in place to support Canadians as well as organizations and businesses in the fight against climate change. By taking the lead on climate action, Canada can become a leader in many of the new technologies the world will need to support action on climate change while unlocking economic growth and trade opportunities. We have seen many other projects. Some of the most prominent ones are the major investments made in incentivizing private investment in our electric vehicle battery supply chain as well as automobile manufacturing. Those are big, exciting announcements, but there is a lot more going on at different scales within our economy. Canadians have asked us to take action on climate change, really because they know that our economic growth and prosperity depend upon it. It is the biggest opportunity for our economic growth, and it helps us address the affordability challenge because climate change, in fact, is the biggest contributor to inflation that we have today globally. We have listened on all fronts, and we are delivering on all fronts.

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Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)

Nov/7/23 1:19:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take to my feet today to ask this random Liberal from Whitby a question. I will give him credit. He is one of the only Liberals who told the truth recently, when he looked in the camera and said that Canadians are going to feel pain because of the Liberals' costly carbon tax. He was honest. The pain has come forward. There is an affordability crisis after eight long years of this NDP-Liberal government because of its policies. He went through a litany of programs where they are trying to give the money back to Canadians through different programs. Why take it in the first place? Leave it in their pockets. Canadians can spend their own money better than the government can. One program that he did not mention was the oil to heat pump affordability program that came out in March 2023. Provinces joined Newfoundland and Labrador in June 2023. How many heat pumps have actually been delivered in this country since March 2023? The number is 43. They failed on the environment. The environment commissioner said they will not meet their targets. This is a tax plan, not an environmental plan and they have never reached a target. When will the Liberals admit their carbon tax has failed Canadians?

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull

Nov/7/23 1:20:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the member and I stand on opposite sides of this debate, as always, in the House. The Conservatives do not seem to really understand that climate change is real. They deny the science and they do not understand what it means to invest in Canadians and take advantage of the clean growth opportunities that, really, our economic prosperity depends on for generations to come. We know that the price on pollution has been documented numerous times to give back more to 80% of the population and, specifically, to low-income and middle-income families. That has been documented by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We also know it is the most cost-effective market-based mechanism for incentivizing and disincentivizing the kinds of changes that we need to see in order to fight climate change. I am sure I do not have more time, but I would love to debate it with the member perhaps at committee.

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Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

Nov/7/23 1:21:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this opportunity to ask the member a question, because I am receiving emails. I want to speak specifically about a member in my riding who has been waiting seven months for the Canada greener homes grant. They were informed that they were eligible, based on the report and the required heat pump that they installed. Their grant is worth $4,600 and they have been waiting seven months for it. They have made calls but have not been able to reach anyone. Will the government reach out to my office, reach out to me, and make sure that this Canadian, who has taken the steps to take advantage of the opportunity and do their part, as the member said, to move forward on climate action, gets the results? The government has to stop announcements and start acting. Will the government respond to my constituent?

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull

Nov/7/23 1:22:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know that some members of communities have had challenges with the administration of the Canada greener homes grant and program. I know there are constituents in my riding who have also taken full advantage of that program and have been able to access both components of it. They have retrofit their homes to get as close to net zero as possible. That included installing an extreme cold climate heat pump, as well as solar panels on the roof and a two-way meter so that they can feed into the grid. That seems to be the recipe for getting a lot of Canadian households as close to net zero as possible. Remember that this saves them hundreds and hundreds of dollars per month on their home energy bills. I would be happy to look into the member opposite's specific question. Obviously, I do not know that specific case and what might be holding up the application of that member of her constituency. I would be happy to look into it.

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Mr. Frank Caputo (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, CPC)

Nov/7/23 1:24:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. The member spoke at length about heat pumps. Can he please tell this House, in 10 or 15 seconds, how heat pumps work in, say, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba?

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull

Nov/7/23 1:24:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that extreme cold climate heat pumps work in Canada. There are examples of them working all the way up as far north as one can get. They are actually very effective, far more efficient in terms of the use of energy. Really, I cannot think of a better solution for wider adoption that Canadians can take advantage of to get those cost savings on their energy bill. The member opposite does not seem to understand the technology. Maybe he should do his homework.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Nov/7/23 1:25:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the wonderful MP for Edmonton Griesbach. I am very honoured, and frankly excited, to stand here this afternoon to speak to the NDP motion that sets out a truly fair, common-sense approach to deal with two of the most important issues of our time: the climate catastrophes we are living through every year across this country and the struggle that many Canadians are facing just to get by. In a nutshell, the motion recognizes that Canadians are facing increasing costs, both the financial costs and human costs of the climate crisis. At the same time, they are facing rising fuel costs for gas at the pumps and in their home heating, while the fossil fuel companies that are charging them those costs are reaping record profits. On top of that, both oil and gas heating are contributing to the carbon emissions that are fuelling the climate crisis. The NDP motion proposes three straightforward solutions to that situation: to take the GST off home heating; to provide heat pumps for free to lower- and medium-income families in an easily accessible program; and to fund the program with a windfall tax on the record profits made by fossil fuel companies. Listeners at home may quickly realize that this motion is a reaction to both the Liberals' bungled program to provide relief to some Canadians by taking the carbon tax off home heating oil and the Conservatives' motion to extend that relief to natural gas for home heating as well. Both those ideas fail the fairness test of this Canadian federation. The Liberal program benefits predominantly people in Atlantic Canada, where many homes are heated with oil, while the Conservative motion leaves British Columbians and Québécois out in the cold since families in those provinces do not pay a federal carbon tax. I have yet to hear a single Conservative from B.C. admit that fact in this place. The NDP is proposing to take the GST off home heating bills. The GST is not supposed to be paid on the necessities of life. We do not pay GST on food. I think everyone would agree that home heating is a necessity of life in Canada, but right now, everyone across the country has to pay it. Removing the GST from home heating bills would save everyone across the country money on their energy bills, helping people to get by in a truly fair way. We have had bad years for extreme weather and wildfires for the past eight years or so, but this year was in a different league of catastrophes. It started with a hot, dry spring that sent fires in Nova Scotia, Quebec and Alberta raging through forests and communities. As the season progressed, we had fires explode in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. Several of those fires in B.C. were in the coastal rainforest where it is usually hard enough to start a campfire, let alone destroy a forest. Then Nova Scotia, which was still recovering from two catastrophic fires, suffered a devastating flood. I live in the dry interior of British Columbia in the South Okanagan Valley. We all held our breath as we saw fires springing up in northeastern B.C., central B.C., then Kamloops and the Shuswap. At the end of July, the fires began in the Okanagan Valley and Similkameen Valley. One came within inches of destroying a large neighbourhood in Osoyoos. In mid-August, the Shuswap fires swept out of the wilderness and burned through Celista, Scotch Creek and Squilax, communities that I used to live in during the summers of the 1970s. A fire in the mountains west of Kelowna roared down to devastate neighbourhoods on the west side of Okanagan Lake and then jumped across the lake two kilometres to terrorize neighbourhoods on the east side. People struggled to breathe across the country this summer. Hundreds of thousands had to leave their homes in hastily planned evacuations, including the entire city of Yellowknife. People lost their homes. Some people unfortunately died. This was a summer that marked another shift in public opinion. It was public awareness that climate change is not a theoretical event somewhere in the future. We are living it today and we have to adapt to it. The climate data back that up. This year has been literally off the charts. Air temperature records were shattered every day around the world. Ocean temperatures were so high that scientists could barely believe what was happening. This year was even worse than 2021. That year British Columbia, there was a heat dome in late June followed by an unprecedented atmospheric river event in November. The Town of Lytton burned down after reporting Canada's record-high temperature three days in a row. The cost of the climate destruction in 2021 in B.C. alone was over $5 billion. However, even as we said that 2021 was the worst year ever, and now people are saying that 2023 is the worst year ever, the projections are saying that these will actually be the best years for the rest of our lives. Extreme weather events will only get worse as we pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. What many people forget, or do not even know, is that 619 people died in Metro Vancouver in one week during the heat dome of 2021, which was the real tragedy of that year. What most of those people had in common was that they lived in the lower-income parts of the city in neighbourhoods with no access to shady, cool, green areas and in apartment complexes with no air conditioning. They died with their windows closed against the stifling heat. We cannot let this happen again. We need to provide people, especially lower-income Canadians, with air conditioning, even in places like Vancouver and Halifax, where maybe they did not need it very often in the past. They will need it in the future. That would save hundreds of lives during future heat events. If we do that with heat pumps, switching out oil and gas heating units, it would not only save lives but would also cut emissions, and people, including landlords, would save significant money on their energy bills all year round. At the same time, we must make it easy for people to properly insulate their homes. We have to make sure we are not building new buildings, new housing, with fossil fuel heating infrastructure. New builds should have electric heat, preferably heat pumps. There is a growing movement in cities across Canada to ban fossil fuel infrastructure to heat new homes and buildings. Montreal and Nanaimo have done that. Vancouver almost did it but then backed off to a partial ban. It is being discussed by communities in my riding. While Canadians are struggling to pay for fuel costs, fossil fuel companies are raking in record profits. The top five companies in Canada posted $38 billion in profits last year alone. Meanwhile, Canadians saw prices at the pump go up almost a dollar a litre over the last three years. The Conservatives' big bogey man, the carbon tax, went up five cents over that time. The fossil fuel companies are not paying any more to make gasoline or natural gas; they are just benefiting big time from a rise in world oil and gas prices. These are windfall profits. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has determined that a windfall tax on these profits would bring in over $4 billion. The NDP has been calling for such a tax for over a year but has gotten no support from either the Liberals or the Conservatives. Therefore, we are proposing today to bring in a windfall tax on the profits of fossil fuel companies and use that money to fund our proposal for an easily accessible program that would install free heat pumps in Canadian homes. The Liberals are handpicking what regions get help with the cost of living, and leaving the rest of Canada behind. The Conservatives have absolutely no climate plan. For over a year, the NDP has called on the government to remove the GST from home heating and help everyone across the country, but the Liberals and Conservatives have ignored those calls. The NDP wants to make eco-energy retrofits and heat pumps free and easy to access for low- to middle-class Canadians, regardless of their initial home heating energy source. We are calling on the government to fund those changes by finally implementing a windfall profits tax on the excess profits of oil and gas companies. These are common-sense, effective ideas that would save all Canadians money and save lives and heartache from climate disasters in an increasingly dangerous future. I am sure all members here will support this motion to help all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

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

Nov/7/23 1:34:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am wondering whether the member could provide some clear indication of what the NDP policy actually is. Is the NDP proposing to get rid of the GST on all aspects of home heating, everything from electricity to oil, propane and natural gas, permanently and even during the summertime? Is that the intent?

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Mr. Richard Cannings

Nov/7/23 1:35:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is kind of obvious. Yes, that is what the New Democrats are proposing. I said in my speech that the GST was never meant to be charged on the necessities of life. We do not pay GST when we go to grocery stores and buy food. However we heat our homes in Canada, and we have to do so, we pay energy bills, whether to electricity companies, natural gas companies or oil companies. We pay GST on that, and we should not. Yes, the NDP is asking that we take the GST off our home heating costs, even in the summer. Maybe in Winnipeg, people have to heat their homes in the summer. I do not usually in British Columbia. That is what we are proposing.

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Mr. Chris Lewis (Essex, CPC)

Nov/7/23 1:36:22 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-241

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion this morning about heat pumps. I have not yet heard anybody bring up the installation of heat pumps. There is a portion that goes outside the house and a portion that goes inside the house, and then there are pipes underground. Not that long ago, I introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-241, regarding a deduction of travel expenses for skilled trades. As we need heat pumps across the country, we will not have people to install them. All but one Liberal member voted against Bill C-241. The NDP was good enough to vote for it. Would the member agree with me that, indeed, the Liberals should have voted for Bill C-241?

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Mr. Richard Cannings

Nov/7/23 1:37:14 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-241

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-241, as I understand it, was an NDP bill before the member, thankfully, took it up and brought it forward again and it was passed. That is what we should be doing: supporting tradespeople across the country who have to travel. Any other business people can charge their travel expenses. As the member mentioned, we will need more tradespeople to do all of this work. Not only do heat pumps have to be installed, but homes also need to be retrofitted to make sure they are properly insulated. That is one of the first things that need to be done. I just finished doing that in my house, and now I am going to turn my thoughts to the heat pump part. We will need tradespeople for that, and sometimes it is difficult to find enough tradespeople because they are doing a lot of work in this regard. Yes, we should be training tradespeople to do that. There is a program for it at Okanagan College in Penticton. It is one of the leading sustainable building trades programs in the country. We have to support people going into those programs and then once they come out.

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Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Nov/7/23 1:38:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague, who sits next to me and often discusses things with me. I would like to ask him a very pragmatic question. The proposal before us today seems well intentioned. Unfortunately, the numbers do not add up. The estimated cost of giving heat pumps to everyone would be at least $75 billion, if not $100 billion. The proposed tax might generate up to $1 billion. Where will the rest of the money come from?

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Mr. Richard Cannings

Nov/7/23 1:39:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we just had a conversation about tradespeople and how important it is to have enough of them. This is not going to happen in one year; it will happen over a number of years. I would have to do some quick math, but, yes, $4 billion can buy only maybe 400,000 heat pumps. There might be three million households in Canada, so it would take maybe five or 10 years to get through the program, but we have to start it now. This is a very common-sense, easy-to-understand approach with a funding mechanism, a clear goal and clear benefits for all Canadians.

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Mr. Kevin Vuong (Spadina—Fort York, Ind.)

Nov/7/23 1:40:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will say right off the bat that I will vote in support of the NDP's motion. I think a lot of Torontonians will struggle to heat, and hopefully keep, their homes this winter. However, I have trouble reconciling this position with the fact that there is only one opposition party that can compel the government to do anything, and that is the NDP. Instead of putting forward a motion to try to score political points, why will it not just compel the government, through the supply and confidence agreement, to actually do it?

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Mr. Richard Cannings

Nov/7/23 1:40:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, maybe the member does not really understand how confidence and supply agreements work. There is an agreement between the parties. The Liberals say they will do X, Y and Z that the NDP would like done, and we will see if that is enough to provide our support in confidence agreements. In this case, there is a list of 20, 25 or 27 things the Liberals said they would do. It was good enough for us to say that we want that, that we want dental care, pharmacare, anti-scab legislation and on and on. Maybe not everything was in there. There were other things we would have loved to have had in there. This is not what we would put forward if we were in government, but it was good enough for us. We will keep pressing the Liberal government to do better. This is an example of that.

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