SoVote

Dec/7/23 11:47:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. This holiday season comes at a very difficult time in Canada. People are struggling to get by. Food bank use is at an all-time high, and many families are unable to pay the cost of their heating bills. The Liberals are failing everyday people. About a month ago, I was proud that the NDP presented a motion that called on the government to provide heat pumps to low and middle-income households in Canada, to remove the GST on all home heating and to implement a windfall profit tax on oil and gas companies, which are making record-breaking profits. It is shameful that there are oil and gas executives making record profits and getting millions in bonuses this holiday while Canadian workers are barely scraping by. Our NDP team is fighting to make life more affordable for everyday Canadians. Unsurprisingly, the Liberals teamed up with the Conservatives to vote against our motion. I guess this makes sense; this year, the Liberal government met with oil and gas lobbyists over 1,000 times, which is nearly three times every single day. Not only did it meet with them, but it also invited oil and gas executives to help craft its climate plan. These are the same CEOs who are fuelling the climate crisis to maximize their own profits. It is like inviting the fox to help us design our henhouse. Therefore, it is not surprising that, when it comes to fighting the climate crisis, Liberals continue to drag their feet and disappoint. Canadians voted for a strong emissions cap on oil and gas. Now that it is finally being announced, we find out that it is full of loopholes and gaps that let oil and gas companies carry on polluting. Industry will not be asked to cut emissions in line with the government's own emissions reduction plan. There is compliance flexibility, but what this actually means is that the Liberals are making everyday Canadians and every other sector of the economy pick up the slack. The Liberals are throwing young people's future under the bus to make life easier for oil and gas CEOs. We are in a climate emergency. After the worst wildfire season in this country's history, forced evacuations across the country and droughts leading to crop failures, the fact is that we are already breaking the 2°C threshold. We cannot wait any longer, and farmers are on the front lines of the fight against climate change. Few feel the impact of our changing climate more than they do. We need to ensure that they have the tools they need to keep doing their jobs. This is why I am proud to support the work of my colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, who has been working on the national soil health strategy bill. When we support farmers, the benefits in healthy food and a safer, greener environment are for everyone. It is also important to note the disproportionate impact of the increasing frequency and severity of climate disasters, such as floods, droughts and forest fires, on indigenous communities. In the last 13 years, indigenous communities have faced over 580 evacuation orders, and extreme weather events and climate-related disasters are only expected to get worse. What do the Conservatives propose to do to deal with these climate-related disasters? How do they plan to support first nations, Inuit and Métis communities that are impacted by the climate crisis? The reality is that the Conservatives do not have a plan. They cannot even agree about whether climate change is real, let alone how we fight it. While indigenous communities are often on the front lines of the climate crisis, they are also facing the cost of living crisis more intensely than many other communities are. The price of groceries in remote communities is through the roof. My colleague from Nunavut has highlighted the housing crisis in her riding as well, and her constituents are not alone. The indigenous housing crisis is a serious problem across our country. That is why we forced the Liberals to include by indigenous, for indigenous housing in budget 2023. However, so much more needs to be done. In my community, urban indigenous folks are facing a variety of unique challenges in accessing safe, affordable and culturally supportive housing. This is why I am so grateful that we have organizations such as the Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness. They are doing incredible work. However, without stable, ongoing funding and adequate federal funding for their projects, indigenous people in my community have been hit hard. This is an environment where inflation has been high, interest rates are skyrocketing, the cost of living keeps going up and housing is unaffordable even for people with full-time jobs. The Victorian Native Friendship Centre is another incredible organization doing important work. Their executive director, Ron Rice, talks about how they provide housing for grandparents raising their grandchildren, youth attending post-secondary and youth transitioning out of care. He has spoken about how many of the people who stay in their shelter have at least one full-time job. The federal government needs to provide more funding and resources to these organizations, and we need a federal acquisitions fund for the community housing sector to acquire rental housing properties. It is disappointing that the Liberals always drag their feet and need to be pushed into doing the right thing. At the same time, it seems that the Conservatives only listen to indigenous communities when it serves their interest. Why did the Harper government refuse to launch an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls? Why are the current Conservatives not using today to bring forward a motion about the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people or about the water crisis in indigenous communities? Why are they not calling for a solution to the indigenous housing crisis in Nunavut or the housing crisis impacting Métis communities? Inuit and Métis people are not even mentioned in their motion. There are intergenerational cycles of homelessness and colonial violence that pushed Inuit, Métis and first nations people off their lands. Why do the Conservatives only advocate for indigenous people when it is related to the carbon tax? Today, I asked the Conservative leader how he responds not only to the people who are hurt by his comments from 15 years ago, to the effect that residential school survivors “need a stronger work ethic” rather than compensation, but also to first nations, Inuit and Métis people who would like him to apologize for this year, when he chose to speak to residential school deniers at a luncheon in Winnipeg. He responded by saying that he addressed those comments 15 years ago. What about his actions this year? It is clear that he is not who he says he is. These are not the actions of someone who understands or respects the needs of indigenous people. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have responded adequately to the concerns of indigenous people. Neither party has responded to the Assembly of First Nations' call for an additional $30 billion in climate adaptation funding for their communities, nor has it met Métis and Inuit needs. The Liberals are spending more money to help communities evacuate than they are spending to help them prevent a crisis in the first place. This is clearly unacceptable. Canada deserves better than the delay-and-disappoint Liberals or the corporate-controlled Conservatives. Our New Democrat team has been calling for a rollback to the carbon tax loopholes that the Liberals gave to the biggest polluters. Instead of having loopholes, they should be made to pay their fair share. We are taking on grocery store executives. Canadians know that New Democrats are the only party that will stand up to the rich CEOs who are gouging Canadians while raking in record profits. We also believe that Canadians across the country deserve a break on their heating bills, which is why we are calling to remove the GST on home heating and for programs to deliver heat pumps to low and middle-income families. We are calling on the Liberals to finally implement a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies to pay for it. We are also pushing the government to engage in true reconciliation, to properly fund indigenous organizations who are doing for indigenous, by indigenous housing. We are pushing them to make it easier for farmers to burn cleaner fuels, which would help reduce carbon emissions, as well as to create a red dress alert to save the lives of indigenous women who are at risk. We will keep fighting for people from coast to coast to coast. I urge my colleagues from across party lines to do the same.

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Harper
Fuels

Context: House Hansard - 264 - Dec/7/23

Mr. Larry Maguire

Dec/7/23 1:36:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the only ones running here are the New Democrats on Vancouver Island, who are running for their seats. I just explained to the member from the island, my hon. colleague, about the Parliamentary Budget Officer's findings. There is $1,000 more in costs. If one only counts the price in gasoline and heating fuels in one's diagnosis of this whole process, then one will leave out all the costs of the redistribution of products across Canada.

80 words

Context: House Hansard - 264 - Dec/7/23

Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Dec/7/23 3:46:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the premise of the question is wrong. The member is suggesting that it was just for Atlantic provinces. It is not. The carve-out for home heating with oil is across the entire country. In my province of Ontario, there are twice as many people who use oil as in Atlantic Canada. I will say, though, that I believe that this is not the case in Quebec, because Quebec actually has a very ambitious program to get off fossil fuels; one will not be not allowed to build a new house there, as of the end of this year, or even to renovate and replace one's heating system, with a fossil-fuel-based appliance. Those are the kinds of measures we need in this country. It becomes very difficult to do that when we are fighting against an opposition that does not even believe we have a problem.

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Quebec
Fuels

Context: House Hansard - 264 - Dec/7/23

Mr. Patrick Weiler

Dec/7/23 4:38:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, a recent study has been brought up today in the debate by a well-respected University of Calgary economist, Trevor Tombe. Utilizing Statistics Canada data has shown that when considering both the direct and the indirect cost of the price on pollution, 94% of households with incomes below $50,000 receive rebates that exceed the carbon tax cost. Most of them see a net benefit of $20 to $40 a month, while 4% of them actually see a net gain of $70 per month. Even 55% of households with incomes above $250,000 a year receive more in rebates than they pay in the price on pollution. Therefore, getting rid of the price on pollution would disproportionally benefit the ultrarich, and eliminating it would not only undermine a policy that is responsible for, according to the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development, one-third of our carbon emissions reductions; it would also be a true reverse Robin Hood, which would steal from the poor to give to the rich, and that is not in the Christmas spirit. What is actually boosting the price of fossil fuels in Canada? It is important to look at the facts. Since 2020, the carbon price on heating oil has increased by only 12¢ a litre, while the average price for heating oil is now 75¢ higher. What is driving up the other 63¢, or what is five times more responsible for the increase in cost? Canadians are overwhelmingly feeling the impacts of geopolitics, and fossil fuel inflation is caused by a rise in the global price of oil and gas. This includes the illegal and unjustified Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and the global disruption that has caused to the energy market. It is sad that the leader of the Conservative Party says nothing about this. He is quiet on support for Ukraine and has in fact abandoned it in its time of need by voting against updating a free trade agreement with Ukraine, which President Zelenskyy specifically asked for. As well, since Ukraine is one of the world's breadbaskets, we need to do everything we can to support it to win the war and end the disruption it has had on global food prices. What else has caused fossil fuel prices to increase? It is the measure that OPEC is taking to squeeze the supply of oil. While the Conservatives will rail against so-called dictator oil as a reason why we should massively increase emissions in Canada, Canada imported double the amount of foreign oil when the Conservatives were last in power. What happens when the global price of oil and gas rises? Of course, the oil and gas industry benefits. The oil and gas industry in Canada is making record profits by gobbling up the extra 63¢ a litre at the expense of Canadians. Since 2022, the oil and gas sector in Canada has had a $30-billion increase in profits, or a 1,000% increase since 2019. Where are these profits going? There has been $29 billion returned to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. Where are these shareholders? Overwhelmingly, they are not even in Canada. Do we ever hear the Conservatives talk about this? Of course not. They would rather peddle alternative facts that would make even Donald Trump blush, with their factory discourse on the price on pollution. It is bad enough that the Conservative MPs from where the federal system applies rail on these baseless claims, but many of the Conservative MPs from my province of British Columbia are making the claim as well. The hypocrisy is no more evident than with the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, who was part of the B.C. Liberal government that brought in the carbon tax in British Columbia. In 2017, he said in the B.C. legislature: ...our government made the decision to implement a tax on carbon.... Our carbon tax appears to be working. Independent studies have found that between 2008 and 2012, fuel use in B.C. dropped by 16 percent per capita. In 2015, a review of seven independent studies suggested that B.C.'s carbon tax has reduced emissions in the province by up to 15 percent.... We view this tax as a tool to change behaviour and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, what the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge said in 2017 is the truth. A price on pollution is one-third of the reason Canada has reduced emissions by more than any other G7 country since 2019. However, not only is the argument they make on carbon pricing factually incorrect; Conservatives will say that we have not met a climate target, which is disingenuous, because our targets have always been for 2030 and 2050, and we are making major progress in getting there. Today's update of our emissions reduction plan shows that we are on track to meet our emissions objective for 2026 and also on track to meet our 2030 targets to reduce emissions by at least 40%. Just this week, we have built on our progress to date by announcing two new measures, draft regulations that would reduce methane emissions from oil and gas by 75% by 2030, and, as announced just today, a groundbreaking framework that would cap and reduce emissions from the oil and gas sector and have them steadily reduce over time to ensure we meet our emissions reduction goal. We know what the saying is: If someone repeats a falsehood enough times, even they will eventually believe it. If someone can convince themself so much that they internalize it, they can confidently spread those mistruths to Canadians. In the challenging times the world is going through, people are looking for simple solutions. Enter the Conservatives, who will throw the complexity and the facts to the side and just want to talk about “common sense”. We saw what this jettisoning of the facts has done under the Conservatives before. During the Harper era, they completely gutted science in Canada, specifically anything related to the environment and to climate change. They also eliminated the long-form census because they do not actually believe in making policy based on evidence. We cannot go back to that. They do not actually want people to have lower heating bills; they want them to be stuck and strapped into the roller coaster of global fossil fuel prices. If they truly believed in saving Canadians money on energy, they would support our policies.

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