44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 13, 2024 10:00AM
- Jun/13/24 10:39:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what we are seeing here is nothing more than a desperate attempt by Conservatives to deflect from what is really going on.
The Conservative leader brought forward a motion to the House today, and then he barely even spoke to it because he got the data, moments ago, that he had been asking for: not a report, but data. He got all that data, but the data did not fit his narrative, just like we hear the Conservative leader today go on about his new-found desire to be against a capital gains tax. For two months, Conservatives sat silent and would not say a word about it. Their leader would not say a word about the capital gains tax. Now, after two months, we are expected to believe that he has suddenly come to the realization that this is going to be bad for Canadians. No. He is trying to tap into anxieties and fears of Canadians.
What I want to know about this motion is this: What is his plan for the environment? It cannot be more than slogans about technology.
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- Jun/13/24 10:56:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what we have learned, what the member should have learned, although he probably would have just received the information moments ago, is that if we actually look at the data, and the data is holistic and is all the data the PBO received, it tells us two very important things.
The first thing it tells us is that we have reduced emissions by 25 million tonnes per year, and our reduction of emissions is continuing to increase. The second thing it tells us, point blank and very clearly, if we read the data, is that eight out of 10 Canadians get back more than they pay. I have actually done the math on what I pay versus what I get, and I know I get more. I am wondering if the member has done the math on the rebate he receives.
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- Jun/13/24 10:57:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to say that hearing that that member has done the math does not give me a lot of comfort.
The reality is, I wish he would give us the information he is talking about. The CBC's access to information request was denied. The Liberal government released pieces of information that supports its narrative. It did not release all of the information.
I maintain that the carbon tax cover-up continues. That report and that data, all of it needs to be tabled in this House now.
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- Jun/13/24 10:58:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, while I appreciate the question from the member, what we are talking about here today is a very fundamental obligation of a government to the people. That obligation is to always tell them the truth, and this motion is trying to get at the truth.
It is time for the government to stop stonewalling Canadians, stop gaslighting Canadians and tell us what the data says. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it confirms his results. Where is that data? Bring it here. Table it right now.
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- Jun/13/24 11:53:29 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member spoke about misinformation that Conservatives were spreading and seemed to question why, but the answer to that question is quite obvious. The Leader of the Opposition likes to spread misinformation because he sees political opportunity from it, but what he cannot debate is the data that was released today. The data that was released today categorically shows that the price on pollution, the carbon tax, is now lowering emissions by 25 million tonnes per year and that eight out of 10 Canadians are better off as a result of the rebate that they receive as opposed to what they pay.
Would the member agree with that factual information?
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- Jun/13/24 12:16:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise in this House to enter into this debate. However, I must say that the debate before us is really a colossal waste of the House of Commons resources and the valuable time that we have in this chamber to debate urgent issues and situations.
Why do I say that? The motion the Conservatives tabled is effectively calling for the government to table a set of data by June 17, 2024. What we do know is that the government did table a set of data. In fact, the Liberals tabled it today, albeit they should have made the information available right from the outset and should have been transparent with it. Notwithstanding that, that information is now before us. It begs the question why we are here debating a motion that is, frankly, not relevant anymore. It has already been addressed.
In the meantime, what is happening in our communities? We have a situation in our communities, which is a housing crisis from coast to coast to coast. In fact, just today, I tabled a private member's bill to call on the government to use a human rights-based lens in addressing the housing crisis, something that the Liberals say they will honour under the National Housing Strategy Act. However, in reality, we know that is not being done. In fact, there are encampments all across the country where people cannot access the housing they need, adequate housing that they need.
My private member's bill calls for the government to incorporate into the National Housing Strategy Act provisions that would disallow decampment on federal lands and to work collaboratively with other orders of government, other levels of government, to properly address the housing crisis. That is perhaps what we should be doing: focusing on how we can truly address the housing crisis, instead of having the Conservatives putting forward motions that are moot and have been made irrelevant already.
I would also say that we have a situation with the immigration system, where there are a lot of issues. The government decided that it would bring in a cap on international students very suddenly, impacting international students who are now caught out in a very bad way. They would not be able to renew their work permit or their study permit because of the cap. Some of them are being exploited and taken advantage of.
I just got an email from someone who told me that they were advised to go and marry someone, engage in marriage fraud, in order to find a path to stay here in Canada. That is not the path forward. We know that international students are struggling. They contribute, by the way, to Canada's economy, to our economic, social, cultural and educational communities. They should be valued instead of being blamed for the housing crisis that both the Liberals and the Conservatives have caused.
It was the Conservatives who cancelled Canada's national co-op housing program in 1992. It was the Conservative leader who sat at the table and saw the Harper government lose 800,000 units of affordable housing for Canadians. Then it was the Liberals, in 1993, following the Conservatives, who cancelled the national affordable housing program. They also added to the loss of affordable housing in our communities.
Therefore, instead of talking about a motion that is no longer relevant, we should be talking about how we are going to earnestly address the housing crisis, how we are going to ensure that those who are unhoused can live in dignity and how we can ensure that Canada will not only build more housing faster, but also build the kind of housing that Canadians can afford and can live in with dignity. We should be talking about how we should not allow decampment to take place, to further displace people who are unhoused in our communities, to marginalize them and to further put them at greater risks.
If we want to, and we should, talk about the climate crisis, we should not talk about how we can enable the climate crisis to further escalate. I do not know if the Conservatives are blind to the fact that we have a climate crisis. They cannot continue to stick their heads in the sand and to deny this reality. In my community, in British Columbia, we had a weather-related crisis that happened in the heat wave that killed over 600 people. We had a fire that burned down an entire town, a flood that followed and a mudslide that continued to further escalate the climate crisis. We cannot pretend that this is not happening and that somehow the carbon tax is to blame.
Let us just be clear about who is to blame and what action we need to take. Big oil needs to take responsibility, and those companies need to be held to account. The government, the Liberals, refuse to take the action that is necessary to deal with the climate crisis. The Liberals refuse to ensure that big oil pays its fair share. The Liberals refuse to stop subsidizing the oil and gas industry. Why are they doing that when the oil and gas industry is actually making record profit. It is to the detriment of everyday Canadians, to our collective detriment.
When the earth is burning, and it literally is with the wildfires and the forest fires that are taking place, we cannot just sit in the House and blame the carbon tax. What planet are we from? If we continue to go down this track, we are not going to address the climate crisis, which is desperately in need of action. We should be saying to Suncor that we are sorry, but it has made over $2.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, and enough is enough; we are going to make sure that we stop the subsidies for the oil and gas industry and that the industry is made to do its part to address the climate crisis.
Madam Speaker, let me say this. We also have a responsibility in the international community to address the climate crisis because there are more people being displaced as a result of weather-related situations. Therefore, we have a collective responsibility to do what is right. There are many issues we need to debate, and debate seriously, but not a motion to which the very data that the Conservatives want has already been tabled. With that, I welcome questions.
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- Jun/13/24 1:02:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, everything we heard from the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge was quite literally false. Let us just recap what has happened to get us to where we are today.
Conservatives have been asking for data, not a report. It is not as though they were asking for some secret report that the government had that the PBO wanted to see. What they are asking for is data, and they not asking for anything that is really compiled in a way that is presentable. They were asking for Excel spreadsheets, and not even that.
Notwithstanding the fact that the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, amongst others, will go on about how Liberals are being secretive and not supplying information, this is exactly what we have done. I am sorry if it was not in a timely fashion to suit their needs.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.
Notwithstanding the fact it does not suit their needs at this particular time, they received the data. I heard the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge get up to talk about the data and how the data says it is going to affect our GDP. Just so Canadians who are watching can fully understand the impact of this, we are talking about a GDP that was previously projected at $2.68 trillion now being projected at $2.66 trillion. That is what we are talking about.
That is what the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge is basing his entire premise on, on the data. If he is willing to accept the data as it relates to GDP, notwithstanding the fact that he has not even begun to consider the cost of climate change, as pointed out to him by me and an NDP colleague, then he must also accept the data, which was produced for Conservatives today, that clearly says that eight out of 10 Canadians are better off as a result of the rebate they receive and that the carbon tax has contributed to 80 million tonnes of GHG emission reductions to date, which is projected to continue and exceed 25 million tonnes per year.
That is the truth. Conservatives asked for the data. Conservatives got the data. Conservatives, such as the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, are now using the data, and specifying it as fact, and quoting CBC articles as fact. Then they have to, by any reasonable logic, also be able to accept the data as it relates to what the impact is on Canadians, how much money they get back, and what the overall impact is of the carbon tax.
It is a bad day for Conservatives. The reality is that they have now found themselves in a position where they just do not know what to do. They got proof this morning that people are better off. They got proof this morning that the carbon tax is actually reducing GHG emissions. They are fumbling around, trying to talk about people that are being prevented from getting the information they were requesting.
The Conservatives are just trying to divert and figure out what their next strategy is. Their strategy has always been the same. The strategy has been built on tapping into the fears and anxieties of Canadians and trying to put the blame on the federal government. Their strategy has been very clear on the carbon tax. It is a communications success, from my perspective.
They have done a really good job at communicating a false narrative to Canadians. That false narrative being that the carbon tax does not work and it affects everybody in a negative way. They have done a good job. I will give them that.
We have done a bad job on communicating how good the policy is. The reality is that we could have done a better job. However, I prefer to be on the side of good policy and bad communication rather than literally telling people falsehoods to try to capitalize off them for political gain, which is exactly what Conservatives are doing. They are doing it again.
The Leader of the Opposition barely spoke about the motion this morning. He decided to talk about capital gains. Here is another perfect example of how Conservatives are attempting to mislead Canadians. For two months, we told Canadians, Conservatives and the House that we would be introducing legislation to bring in a capital gains increase for people who are making over $250,000. Conservatives were silent on it. They were—
Some hon. members: Where's the bill?
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: I will get to the bill in a second.
Madam Speaker, the Conservatives were silent on it. They did not say a word about it. The Liberals tried to get them to comment on it, and they would not do it. All of a sudden, at 1:30 p.m. two days ago, the Leader of the Opposition came out to speak. He had more Conservatives than normal sitting behind him. He gave this speech about how this was going to be a tax-killing initiative that would wipe everybody out and spoke all about how the Conservatives were against it.
At the same time, the Conservatives blasted all over social media. This is the reality of the situation. After two months of silence, they pushed the rage-farm button that activated all their trolls, who started blasting emails to everybody about it. When I challenged the Conservative members today on that and asked why they waited two months, the response I got was that the bill had not been introduced. Do they actually think that a single Canadian believes that the Conservatives would silence themselves until a bill was introduced?
The Conservatives do nothing but rail on about misinformation. If they saw an ounce of political opportunity, they would pounce on it like a drop of blood in the ocean with sharks swimming around it. That is the reality of the situation. The Conservatives are all about feeding a false narrative to Canadians so that they can tap into fears and anxiety. They are now attempting to do, with the capital gains tax, exactly what they did with the carbon tax.
For those who are just tuning in, when do they think this discussion about the carbon tax started to pop up in our national discussion? Most people probably think it was sometime last fall or maybe at the end of the summer. That is funny because we have had a price on pollution, a carbon tax, since 2018. Does anybody find it interesting that no Conservative said much about it before? Does anybody find it interesting that every single Conservative who sits on that side of the House ran on pricing pollution? They all ran on the concept of it in 2021.
A number of Conservative members will get up to say they did not run on that and that was their former leader. That is for them to sort out with their leaders, in terms of which parts of the policy they are not willing to stand on. I guess that explains a lot about why certain Conservatives are getting up and talking about being pro-choice and how they want to reintroduce a debate about abortion. That is what we are seeing come from Conservatives now. If they actually believe—
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- Jun/13/24 1:13:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is exactly what I was talking about when I said that the Conservatives will mislead and create false narratives. I said very clearly in the beginning that what they were asking for was not a report. This was not a report that was produced with a glossy cover and everything. This is the data. These are literally the Excel spreadsheets that have the data on them. Was that information compiled from those data sheets up until this point? Apparently, according to the member, it was not. However, if he were to actually take the data that is in there and look at it, he should come to that conclusion.
If the member is willing to accept the fact that GDP is affected by this, then he also needs to accept the fact that the data shows that eight out of 10 Canadians are better off and that greenhouse gas emissions have reduced by 80 million tonnes to date.
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- Jun/13/24 1:57:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is very important to clarify something for the people at home. When we talk about requesting data from the government, we are not talking about hypersensitive data or national state secrets. We are talking about bits and bytes. We are basically talking about computer code. It is not even an Excel spreadsheet, as the member for Kingston and the Islands has said.
The headline in the Globe about an hour ago was, “Household wealth jumps to record on stock rally”. We have record household wealth and we have a price on carbon, and we know the Conservatives love correlations.
What does the member have to say about that correlation?
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- Jun/13/24 3:57:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member did not really address the motion. The motion is about the production of documents. We have seen the government withhold information from Canadians.
The member ran in 2015 on a promise to be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history, which would be open by default and would release data to Canadians that is the property of Canadians. Under the government, why did it take the presence of this motion on notice for the Liberals to reluctantly, after weeks of obfuscation, finally release the data? It was some of the data, as they have not conformed with the substance of the motion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, an officer of Parliament, was actually being told to suppress information and had to resort to the broken ATIP system to get data.
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