44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 7, 2023 10:00AM
- Dec/7/23 2:36:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Christmas is fast approaching and to me it would make sense to give Canadian families a bit of help.
Our motion today calls on the government to leave more money in the pockets of Canadian workers. Aided and abetted by the Bloc Québécois, the Liberals want to radically tax—even more—with the carbon tax.
Will the Prime Minister repeal his carbon tax on farmers and Canadian families?
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- Dec/7/23 2:46:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, Canadians cannot afford to eat because of the Prime Minister's carbon tax. A new report shows that a family of four will pay $700 more next year on groceries. The Prime Minister had a chance to lower grocery bills by removing the carbon tax on farmers, but once again, he proved he is not worth the cost. The Prime Minister spent the weekend working to gut Bill C-234 to keep the carbon tax on.
Will the Prime Minister finally listen to Canadians and take the carbon tax off farmers, first nations and families?
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- Dec/7/23 2:52:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find the question coming form the hon. member very interesting given he was a member of the caucus of the B.C. Liberal government that put in place the carbon price in British Columbia.
His leader, the former premier, Gordon Campbell, said at the time that putting a price on carbon pollution was a way to reduce emissions, incent innovation and drive an economy going forward. He voted for that.
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- Dec/7/23 3:00:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, released today, the food price report shows that a family of four is going to pay $700 more for food next year. Meanwhile, overall dollars for food spent are going down because of the cost of everything else. That means Canadians are reducing the quality or quantity, or both, of the food they buy.
This morning, Walmart and the CEO of Loblaws, Galen Weston, said the carbon tax charged to the farmer, to the trucker, to the retailer and then to the food producer will get passed on to the consumer.
After eight years, the NDP-Liberal government is not worth the cost. When will the Prime Minister repeal the carbon tax on farmers, first nations and families?
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- Dec/7/23 3:30:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, it is against the rules of the House to mislead the House. The hon. member just said that any Canadian making $250,000 or less is not paying the carbon tax. That is patently false—
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- Dec/7/23 3:46:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about the positives of the carbon tax.
However, the government itself has undermined its own policy, notably with its recent decision regarding heating oil in the Atlantic provinces.
Is the government surprised that the Conservatives are now calling for this exemption to be extended to other target groups? I, for one, am not surprised at all.
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- Dec/7/23 4:05:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have it on good authority that the Prime Minister's favourite Christmas movie is The Grinch. In fact, it may be where the Prime Minister came up with the idea for his carbon tax. Just like the Grinch took the food off the plates of the Whos in Whoville, the Prime Minister is also a fan of taking food off the plates of Canadians.
The Grinch took more of a hands-on approach to ruining Christmas by personally going into their homes and stealing the food. That may have seemed too much like real work for our ivory-tower Prime Minister. He simply used the CRA to collect his carbon tax, but the effect is still the same. He has removed the presents out from under the Christmas trees of Canadians and left the pantries of Canadian families empty. Here is a twist: Even the Grinch came to realize that what he had done was wrong and he remedied his ways.
That is what we are doing here today. We are giving the Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal coalition the opportunity to prove to Canadians before Christmas that their hearts are not two sizes too small and to remedy their ways. We all know that the next election will be a carbon tax election. Even this grinch of a Prime Minister knows that most Canadians will no longer vote for him and are rejecting the inflationary carbon tax, which really does nothing for the environment. Maybe, just maybe, the Prime Minister, in the Christmas spirit and all, will allow Canadian farmers, first nations and families to afford to eat and heat their homes this Christmas and will provide some relief from his Christmas-killing tax.
Maybe he does not understand. We know that he refuses to listen to common sense, but maybe one of his ministers will be able to relay a message. Here is the message, so they should get their pens ready: A tax on farmers is a tax on food, period. It is pretty simple. However, it is worse than that. It is a tax on healthy, locally grown food. Annoyingly, it costs the consumer more to buy food, but that generally seems to sum up the Liberal approach.
The carbon tax on healthy food is where this tax becomes even more nonsensical, but that is also not unlike the Liberals. Take, for example, the produce grown at Big Marble Farms, a large greenhouse operation just outside the city of Medicine Hat. Do members know that carbon dioxide is used to feed greenhouse horticultural crops? Big Marble, and all greenhouses, use CO2 generated from heating and operating their facilities to feed their crops. Just think about how nonsensical the carbon tax really is when considering that.
The Liberals tax the very CO2 that enriches greenhouse crops to utilize their full photosynthetic potential. This environmentally friendly process of using the CO2 generated from greenhouse operations using natural gas helps grow plants. However, the Liberals claim that for environmental reasons, they need to tax the carbon that produces fresh vegetables.
Just to illustrate this further, Big Marble Farms will pay over $500,000 in carbon tax this year alone. It will pay $500,000 for feeding the crops and produce that it grows in its greenhouses. Agricultural producers across my riding will each spend tens of thousands of dollars annually on the carbon tax. In order to remain in the business of supplying Canadians with fresh produce, grains, meat and other food, in most cases these costs are passed on to the consumer. It is a tax that disproportionately affects those in my riding trying to grow food and those wanting to eat healthy and local food.
Let us take that same greenhouse-grown produce and compare it to the food we see in our grocery stores from other countries, which is not subject to a ridiculous tax. They grow it, ship it thousands of kilometres to Canada and sell it in our groceries stores cheaper than we do. Why? It is because they are not subject to the carbon tax on production or transportation. It makes absolutely no sense, none whatsoever.
In fact, “Canadians are reducing their expenditures on groceries, either by reducing the quantity or quality of food they are buying or by substituting less expensive alternatives.” What does this lead to? For starters, projections for 2024 show a 2.5% to 4.5% increase in food prices. Notably, meat is projected to rise another 5% to 7%, vegetables will be up another 5% to 7% and bakery items will be up another 5% to 7%.
Why are food prices rising? Rising production costs are contributing to these price increases, all because of the carbon tax. It hurts Canadian farmers, it hurts Canadian families and it hurts our first nations. In fact, a new food price report shows that a family of four will now pay $700 more on their groceries in the coming year. That is on top of the price increases we have already experienced in 2023 and 2022
Do members want to know why we should care at all about this? Let us start with the fact that we are experiencing the highest level of food bank use in Canadian history. In Medicine Hat, the Root Cellar Food and Wellness Hub is our food bank. It is currently feeding 4% of Medicine Hat and the area, which has a population of well over 75,000 constituents. It is a heartwarming level of generosity by the Root Cellar team and the community that contributes, but it is an agonizing statistic when we let it sink in.
The decisions that were made in this chamber by the NDP-Liberal coalition government have led to hungry families in my riding and across this great country. I hope that if there are any members in this House, or in the Senate for that matter, who lack the self-awareness required to vote against farmers, first nations and families, they are reminded of this by their own families, by their own neighbours and by their own constituents while they celebrate this Christmas.
Food Banks Canada's 2023 hunger count revealed there were nearly two million visits to food banks in a single month, a 78.5% increase over March 2019. It is unbelievable. With that many community members relying on food banks to eat, the NDP-Liberal members must know that some of these visits were made by their own constituents and by their own neighbours. They are going to have to face these people. I do not know how they are going to do that and justify their decisions in those moments they meet them.
I am thankful that the Conservative leader put forward a motion to help them. I have the ability to speak to that motion today, thankfully, and will vote in favour of helping those in my community and across this country.
How could the Liberal-NDP coalition government and the Prime Minister ever vote against the farmers, first nations and families growing our food, heating their homes and eating? To try to understand how they could even consider voting this way, I may have to look back to Dr. Seuss's book about the Grinch for the answer:
No one quite knows the reason.It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of allMay have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
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- Dec/7/23 4:14:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member across the way raised a number of very interesting points of debate. I wish I had more time. He talked about carbon pricing and the fact that some other jurisdictions in the world do not have it. However, there are 77 jurisdictions that do have a form of carbon pricing.
I was tempted to ask whether this is about carbon pricing itself or the fact that we have to get more countries on board and have it built into a carbon border adjustment mechanism like we are seeing in Europe. However, he mentioned that carbon pricing is forming higher input costs, and he did not talk about anything else, no other factors. There was nothing about climate change and nothing about supply chains. He never talked about the war in Ukraine. There are a lot of Ukrainians in Red Deer, a large proportion of them.
We had a bill before this House that talked about supporting Ukraine through a free trade agreement. There is already a carbon price in Ukraine, as we have a carbon price here in Canada, yet the member voted against a simple, straightforward bill that would have supported economic efficiency in that country and could perhaps help Ukraine win the war and get food prices down. Can the member explain his vote?
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- Dec/7/23 4:15:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, while I am a supporter of Ukraine, I know what it is really asking for is munitions, for things that can help it win the war.
I want to focus back on my riding. I want to focus back on Canadians. What is driving their costs up is the high cost of production. The carbon tax is exactly part of that.
The reality is that we have greenhouses that produce huge amounts of food and have to pay $500,000 in a carbon tax. The Liberals always talk about getting money back, but this is what the net cost is for the carbon tax. It is impossible for them to not pass that on to the consumer and still remain in business. Maybe what we should do is focus on the carbon tax and what it is doing to Canadians right here in our own country.
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- Dec/7/23 4:18:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear my good friend and hon. member from Coutts, Alberta. My question for him is twofold.
First, I heard the hon. member reference carbon dioxide in his remarks in what could only be considered a rather dubious way. Given the context, I have to ask this: Does the hon. member not agree with the overwhelming science that man-made greenhouse gas effects are a major cause of catastrophic climate change? Second, if he was so serious about reducing costs for consumers, how does he justify voting against our NDP opposition day motion to take GST off of home heating?
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- Dec/7/23 4:19:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always great to interact with my NDP friend.
I will tell members this. Plants in a greenhouse require carbon dioxide to grow. If they do not have it, they do not grow to the extent they need to.
When we look at greenhouse farming across this country, whether it is in southern Ontario, southern Alberta or B.C., there is a need for our producers, who are using the latest technology possible on energy efficiencies, to use technology to pipe the CO2 from their facility operations into their greenhouses so those plants can feed on the carbon dioxide that is emitted. That—
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- Dec/7/23 4:32:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not surprised that the Conservatives want to kill carbon pricing. They have wanted to kill it since the moment this government introduced it back in 2019.
I want to explain something to my hon. colleague. Keeping a price signal on heating oil would have been strictly for politics and not for public policy. Let me explain that the 1.1 million households that use heating oil in this country, including almost 400,000 in Quebec, are paying the highest cost to heat their homes in the country, and it is the worst from an environmental perspective. If people are asking themselves why they are paying the highest cost to heat their homes, it is probably because they cannot pay the cost for the transition toward a better source, whether it is natural gas, propane or even an electric source.
The government recognized this in 2022. It put $250 million on the table to help people in Quebec and all across Canada make a transition. However, it would not matter if the price was $3,000 a tonne. People in some parts of my riding cannot afford to make the transition, and that is why the government put a pause on the carbon tax for three years with a direct tie to an enhanced heat pump program to help people make a transition. It was the responsible thing to do. It applies across the country, and it does not undermine the climate program. In fact, the heat pump program is going to make a difference on affordability and for the environment.
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- Dec/7/23 4:35:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is working on this question very closely. There will be more to be said, I am sure, from the government in the days ahead as it relates to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
It is not surprising that Conservatives continue to raise this. I do not know what else they have in their tool kit they want to talk about, but they have vandalized the question on carbon pricing and tied it to affordability, which is a bit disingenuous, in my personal opinion.
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- Dec/7/23 4:35:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour again to join the debate in the House on the price on pollution.
By my count, this is the 13th time Conservatives have brought forward some sort of motion on eliminating carbon pricing since the MP for Carleton became their leader, but it could very well be more than that. I have heard today that it is the 19th time some permutation of this motion has been brought forward. It is ironic, because Conservatives ran in the last election on bringing in carbon pricing. It did not make a lot of sense, but at least it was something. In fact, it was not the only time they ran on bringing in a carbon price. Under Stephen Harper in 2008, they ran on, get this, the green plan, but then, just like now, they flip-flopped. Now they say they want to cut it, and they are masquerading the motion as some measure in support of affordability in Canada, as if carbon pricing were the reason the cost of living challenges in Canada right now are significant.
However, the Bank of Canada has recently confirmed that the price on pollution is responsible for only one-sixth of 1% of the inflation we are seeing. Contrary to the rhetoric we hear from Conservatives, when we look at the facts, economist have shown that the price on pollution is responsible for less than 1% of the increase we are seeing in food prices. Not only that, when Conservatives talk about the carbon price, they refuse to mention the rebates that are returned to individuals through the—
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- Dec/7/23 5:04:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I understand that the member for Miramichi—Grand Lake is concerned about the carbon tax going up in his community. It is true the carbon tax went up two cents a litre last year and the rebates went up more for most folks, but what is also true is that the profits of the oil and gas industry went up 18¢ a litre for every single constituent of his as well.
I wonder if the member is similarly concerned about the excess profits, the gouging that is happening and what he is proposing to address that, for example, taking those profits and directing them toward adjusting the affordability concerns of folks in Miramichi—Grand Lake.
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- Dec/7/23 5:59:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know we are not supposed to reflect on the vote that just took place, and the House generally does not take the same question twice, but if the government does want to avoid a marathon voting session, all it has to do is take the carbon tax off of farmers, families and first nations.
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- Dec/7/23 6:23:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if you seek it I believe you may find support for the following motion: That the House call upon the government to take the carbon tax off farmers—
Some hon. members: No.
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- Dec/7/23 7:15:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just checked and it seems that the carbon tax still applies to farmers and families. I am therefore going to request a recorded division.
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- Dec/8/23 1:48:30 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I had a good look and I see that the carbon tax still applies to farmers and families. For that reason, I request a recorded division.
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- Dec/8/23 4:30:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, on behalf of all Nova Scotians who want to axe the carbon tax, I ask for a recorded division.
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