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House Hansard - 257

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 28, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 257 - Nov/28/23
Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC)
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about her previous comments. The Bloc is saying that the tax addressed in Bill C-234 does not apply in Quebec, but I think that is false. My colleague should look into it for herself. Just last weekend, I met with both chicken and pork producers again. Young piglets need heat, heating in the barns. Could my colleague please explain and prove to me that this does not apply in Quebec?
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Context: House Hansard - 257 - Nov/28/23
Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity, Lib.)
  • Nov/28/23 6:43:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what an absolutely out-of-touch question this is from an urban member of Parliament who clearly has no idea what it is like living in a rural part of the country. There are lots of members in our society who live too far away from a natural gas pipeline, who still use home heating oil to heat their homes. It is not a regional thing. There are lot of people in Atlantic Canada who still use home heating oil, but there are over 150,000 Ontarians, and hundreds of people in my riding of Milton, who still use home heating oil. It continues to be the dirtiest and the most emissions-intensive way to heat homes. It is also the most expensive by far. The market-based instrument that is used to nudge people away from certain products, like home heating oil and other emissions-intensive products, work best when there is a clear alternative. That is what we are doing, we are creating that alternative for Canadians. We are providing free heat pumps. We are working with provinces to get people off the dirtiest form of home heating in favour of an electric option. It is really disappointing to continue to hear this from members. The Conservatives have become a one-issue party. They are really focused on carbon pricing, when they all ran on a promise to price carbon. The member talked about accountability, why we were sent here and under what pretense we were sent here. I hate to tell the member again, for the third or fourth time, but he ran on a promise to price carbon. It was in the Zellers sort of catalogue of green options, “the more you burn, the more you earn” was the byline that a lot of people gave it. The continued insistence that this is a regional program and that carbon pricing does not work is categorically false. Our emissions are dropping in Canada. We are making great progress. We had a lot of work to do from 2015 when we got elected, because the previous Conservative government was completely oblivious to climate change. It did not believe it existed, and it did not want to lead around the world. With this fall economic statement, released just last week, our government is taking further action to support the middle class and to lower our emissions. Our economic plan is all about building a strong economy that works for everyone, with more homes built faster and great jobs that Canadians can count on. As we have seen the rapid rise in interest rates, they have started to really have an impact on Canadians' wallets. That has been a significant financial challenge, but tying it all to climate action and carbon pricing is not just misleading Canadians, it is also completely false. I am glad that, last week, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance announced some new targeted measures to help stabilize some prices and make life more affordable, and protect people who have mortgages to pay. We are meeting the moment. There is an affordability challenge out there, so we are finding solutions to actually help Canadians while the Conservatives just wear their t-shirts, slap their bumper stickers on the back of their trucks, and say “Axe the tax.” That is not a climate solution. That is not an economic solution. That is not a solution for affordability. It will not help Canadians. It certainly will not help lower- and middle-income Canadians who get more money back than the price on pollution actually costs them. It is a very well-known thing. It is not surprising to see the Conservatives always standing up for people who earn the most money. That is what they did with their universal Canada child tax benefit. They sent cheques to millionaires. It was a completely ineffective way to lower poverty. The Conservatives have never really been that focused on lowering poverty. They are focused on supporting oil and gas companies, sending cheques out to millionaires, and taking us years back on climate action and fighting climate change. In his rebuttal, I would just beg the member that if he is so insistent that we stop pricing carbon and he does not want to go back on the solutions that he provided in his—
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