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Context: House Hansard - 331 - Jun/13/24

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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Context: House Hansard - 331 - Jun/13/24

Ms. Andréanne Larouche (Shefford, BQ)

Jun/13/24 11:10:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for his speech. I listened to it carefully. I have two questions and observations for him. First, we saw in the last budget that his government is continuing to invest in the oil industry. Does he really believe that these industries are in genuine need of help, when other people have much more need for government support than they do? Second, he talked about documents this morning, but the reality is that the following was sent to the Parliamentary Budget Officer: “The data the Department is providing contains unpublished information. As such, I request you to ensure that this information is used for your office's internal purposes only and is not published or further distributed”. On such a crucial issue, what information was not in the public's interest to know? Why wait until this morning to release the documents?

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Context: House Hansard - 331 - Jun/13/24

Mr. Mario Simard

Jun/13/24 11:40:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is precisely it. I want members of Parliament to have access to as much information as possible before making decisions. The gist of my speech earlier was that this information has to be used in a rational manner, which the Conservative Party is not doing right now. When a leader says that people are requesting medical assistance in dying because they have no food to eat, that is not rational. When a leader says that we can catch lightning to light up a room, that is not rational. When an opposition leader says that you can weld two pieces of metal together with your hands, that is not rational. What I have this to say to my Conservative colleagues is that, yes, we need information, but we need to interpret it rationally.

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Context: House Hansard - 331 - Jun/13/24

Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC)

Jun/13/24 12:47:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today's motion is one for the production of documents, arising from the refusal of the government to allow the PBO to release information he had seen that supported the conclusions he had drawn, and that is that the overwhelming majority of Canadians are worse off under the carbon tax when the economic impacts of the carbon tax are taken into effect. This was the latest in the series over time of the carbon tax cover-up. I think the Liberal member for Whitby thought he had a gotcha moment at committee with the PBO, that he would get the PBO to admit that when we took into account the economic impacts, that somehow the carbon tax was not harmful to Canadians. That was when the PBO, who was having none of it, revealed he had seen the government's data and that this data had supported his conclusions. When the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley asked the PBO if we could we see this information, the PBO affirmed at committee that he had been gagged. The government was preventing an officer of Parliament from releasing the government's own data. This is the latest in a pattern that the government has exhibited for nine years now of secrecy, of secrecy by default, of obfuscation and of cover-up, and we have seen this over and over again in a whole series of files. I would like to remind the members of the Liberal caucus who were elected in 2015 that they went door-to-door with their “Real Change Open and Transparent Government” platform. They took it to Canadians in 2015 and said: It is time to shine more light on government and ensure that it remains focused on the people it is meant to serve. Government and its information should be open by default. Data paid for by Canadians belongs to Canadians. We will restore trust in our democracy, and that begins with trusting Canadians. What a sick joke after nine years of secrecy, cover-up and an absolute contempt for Canadians and their access to information. In my time here, I have spent quite a bit of time on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and have studied access to information a couple of times. It is appalling the level of secrecy the government continues to insist on. We saw this with the Winnipeg labs, when the Liberals spent years suppressing information. They actually named the former Speaker of the House in a lawsuit. They went that far as to sue the former Speaker to stop the release of documents, in contempt of Parliament. Kicking and screaming in that episode, they eventually tabled a document and then sought the extraordinary credit for their supposed commitment to access to information. We have seen this in the ATIP system, which I have also studied at both the defence committee and access to information, privacy and ethics committee. The government, when it was elected, brought in an access to information bill that it claimed was in furtherance of that election promise, which I read earlier. The Information Commissioner of the day said that it was a step backward, that the Liberals actually proactively changed the law to make access to information worse in our country. Here we are on the morning of an opposition day, where the Conservatives have put forward a production order to ensure that Canadians can get the truth about the government's own information it possesses, as it misleadingly tells Canadians that the carbon tax is somehow good for them, and the Liberals dumped the documents literally moments before the opposition leader moved our opposition motion and spoke to it. Again, in debate, the government wants extraordinary credit, “Why are we debating this motion? We gave them this information.” Of course, the Liberals gave the information, but only because the motion was on notice and was going to be debated, possibly even supported, by the House, and, if it were supported by the House, it would have held them in contempt if they were to not comply with a production order. That is the MO of the government. It has the idea that it can suppress and hold on to information and conceal the cost of the carbon tax from Canadians. The document dump we had right before the motion began to be debated in the House revealed that, yes, the carbon tax is a significant drain on GDP. The carbon tax makes Canadians poorer. We are in a moment when Canada has the lowest GDP growth per capita in the G7. It is not growth at all. It is negative growth. It is shrinking. The per capita GDP in Canada is shrinking. Canadians are getting poorer. This is not an opinion of mine. This is a fact. This is per capita GDP. The wealth of the country, divided by its people, is shrinking. That is Canada in 2024, and we need to get off that track. The carbon tax is not helping. It is a drain on GDP. This is a crisis of our economy, wherein the OECD predicts, in the decades to come, that Canada will be at the bottom of its peer countries. The carbon tax contributes to this. The carbon tax harms the economy and makes Canadians poorer. We know it. The PBO has said this. The data that the government has released supports the PBO's conclusions. The PBO was clear that this data would support his conclusions when he testified before the finance committee a couple of weeks ago. There are enormous problems facing this country, some of which have been raised by members of all sides in this debate so far today. We have a housing crisis. We have a crisis in the Canadian Armed Forces in recruitment and retention, and in non-availability of equipment and munitions. All of these things are going to require a strong economy. We need a growing economy where people are getting wealthier, not poorer, where people will be able to afford to buy a decent home in a safe neighbourhood, and where we will have the financial and economic capacity to fund a health care system that people can depend upon. We need a strong economy to be able to fund the desperately needed upgrades and enhancements to our national defence and our armed forces. All of these things are threatened by the government's lack of care for the state of our economy. Liberals are insisting that the carbon tax system that they have created is somehow good for Canadians, even though it is suppressing GDP and making Canadians poorer. They are determined to stick to this, despite the officer of Parliament who told us otherwise. For a government that claimed and campaigned to be the most open and transparent in Canadian history, in what scenario would an officer of Parliament have to resort to an ATIP to get information from the government, that they would have to formally file an ATIP and, just like other journalists, politicians, researchers and academics, be denied their ATIP? This morning, the government wants extraordinary credit for the documents it dumped. I took a quick look at the CBC story that came out about this. The CBC's ATIP has not even been complied with. The full disclosure has not been made, yet the government is claiming that it is some sort of hero of openness because, faced with a production order being debated and voted on in this chamber, it came out minutes ahead of it with a document dump. The cover-up continues. The culture of cover-up continues, and it needs to stop.

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Context: House Hansard - 331 - Jun/13/24

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

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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Context: House Hansard - 331 - Jun/13/24

Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC)

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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Context: House Hansard - 331 - Jun/13/24

Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Jun/13/24 6:18:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to repeat my colleague's last sentence. He said that if we do not measure, there is no result. He is right. We have to measure. If there is one thing the Conservatives are right about today, it is that we need information. We voiced our agreement right from the start. Parliamentarians need information to make sound decisions. Does my colleague agree with me that just knowing information on the economic impact of the carbon tax or other measures is not enough? Does he agree that we also need information on the cost of climate change and natural disasters? Should we not know how much more money ordinary people have to pay for their insurance, which is getting a lot more expensive? Should we not also consider the fact that our farmers are stuck in a shocking state of uncertainty, without any appropriate programs? Does he agree that we need to reflect on all these measures, be consistent and try to reduce pollution and mitigate economic impacts? Does he agree with that? Is he interested in the impact of global warming or not?

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