SoVote

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

Jun/13/24 11:39:04 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. I have the pleasure of working with him on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. He is absolutely right. When it comes to oil and gas, I find the Liberals are just Conservatives with a complex. They are trying to hide things. Earlier, the Minister of Environment was saying that we were the first country to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels. The devil is in the details. What the government wanted to do was eliminate inefficient funding for fossil fuels. When you ask the government what inefficient support for fossil fuels is, they do not know. We have a long way to go. My colleague is absolutely right.

122 words

Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC)

Jun/13/24 11:39:50 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, on the motion itself, literally minutes, maybe even seconds, before the opposition leader moved the motion to compel the production of documents, the government reluctantly, at the very last second, dropped an 80-page report. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has had to resort to the broken and completely chaotic ATIP system to try to get basic information from the government to do his job. Does the member support the government's penchant for secrecy? Does he not support parliamentarians using the tools available to them to compel honesty from a government that promised to be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history?

106 words

Mr. Mario Simard

Jun/13/24 11:40:40 a.m.
Watch

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.

135 words

Ms. Andréanne Larouche (Shefford, BQ)

Jun/13/24 11:41:29 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, at the end of his speech, my colleague asked us to give him an opportunity to address the Leader of the Opposition's comments on the Liberal-paid lobbyist who was invited to a Conservative event. I would like to hear more about that.

46 words

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Jun/13/24 11:41:49 a.m.
Watch

I will give the hon. member the opportunity to ask her question, but I would like to remind everyone that questions and debates should really be pertinent to the motion itself. I am certain that the hon. member for Jonquière will take that into consideration in his answer. The hon. member for Jonquière.

57 words

Mr. Mario Simard

Jun/13/24 11:42:14 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, at the close of my remarks I was simply pointing out that the Conservatives' motivations when it comes to carbon pricing are to support the oil and gas industry. It was surprising, therefore, to see the leader of the official opposition rise and say that the chief representative of the oil and gas industry is, in fact, a useless lobbyist who says stupid things. I have to wonder whether the Conservative Party is changing its tune. Have its members had an epiphany? Will they suddenly believe in climate warming and realize that the oil and gas sector is responsible for much of it? That is how I wanted to close my remarks.

114 words

Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, BQ)

Jun/13/24 11:43:11 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Jonquière for having gone before me and raised so many examples of the sophistry exhibited recently by the Conservative Party. It was magnificent. I would just point out that he spoke about the motion more than did the member for Carleton, who is after all the motion's sponsor. The motion seeks to make public certain documents. Something rather comical took place at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts this week. The Conservative Party asked the deputy minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada to provide the documents that Environment Canada had provided to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Let us just say that there was a kerfuffle between the Privy Council representative, who was in attendance, and the Environment Canada representatives who had said at the start that these were confidential Cabinet documents that could not be made public. Then they walked this back, because these documents had not been sent to cabinet and were therefore not confidential cabinet documents. This excuse did not hold water. Then they hemmed and hawed, claiming that the figures had not been vetted. It was all very wishy-washy. Clearly, they had been instructed not to release these figures, which is a problem in itself. We are in agreement on that. Something else I found funny was that right before the member for Carleton began to speak, the government decided to release these figures, at the request of journalists, so that they could be accessed. It is nice to finally be able to speak today about what is contained in these figures. In all likelihood, the Conservatives were expecting to find an economic disaster and to be able to say that the carbon tax would create an economic disaster and that Canada's economy would crumble, just like the economy of all the countries that have put a price on pollution. Quebec's economy has completely crumbled, right? No, on the contrary, putting a price on pollution is a useful tool for those who believe in climate change. The question we must ask is, does the Conservative Party believe in climate change? That is another story. According to the numbers released, by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions should be down by 80 million tonnes. This means that we will be able to prevent emitting 11% of the greenhouse gases that Canada is expected to emit by 2030. The trade-off is that GDP is expected to fall by about $20 billion. However, this $20-billion drop in GDP does not include the positive side of a carbon tax, in other words, the new jobs created, the businesses encouraged to develop green technologies and the clean economic growth that would occur. That is the goal of transforming an economy into a green economy. That is what these numbers show. The reason the member for Carleton did not refer to the numbers he so desperately wanted to see is that they do not substantiate what the Conservative Party has been trying to show for ages now, which is that implementing the carbon tax will lead to some sort of terrible disaster. Quite the opposite is true. I will give another little lesson in economics, and I will do so as long as the Conservatives continue to dilly-dally and spread disinformation in the House. The economic and societal costs of climate change can easily be quantified. Let us start with the cost of climate change on the health of Quebeckers and Canadians. Obviously, we are seeing more and more heat waves, which will impact the mortality rate. That is a cost. Climate change will also impact allergies because of a major increase in pollen. We are seeing it. The season is longer and there is more pollen. That is going to bother people. That is a cost because it will be harder for people to go to work and they will not feel like working as much. There will be an economic cost to this drop in productivity over the long spring and summer season. These are direct costs of climate change. One last cost is the cost of zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that are transmitted through a vector, such as ticks. Lyme disease is a good example, as is the West Nile virus. As a result of climate change, species like the ticks that transmit Lyme disease and the mosquitoes that transmit the West Nile Virus are increasingly migrating north to Canada, so there are going to be a lot more cases of zoonotic diseases. If Lyme disease is not treated quickly, it can produce a wide range of symptoms and even lead to death. These are the impacts of climate change. Let us talk about another sector: infrastructure. Do I need to remind the House of Commons once again that forest fires and floods will have a huge impact on society and the economy? I could also talk about permafrost. We know that housing is a huge problem for indigenous people. Climate change is making it even worse, because the ground is changing and thawing, degrading the structural integrity of homes. This means more repairs, which means higher costs. The federal government is totally incapable of providing housing on reserves. We know this because the Auditor General identified it as a major problem. Climate change has many consequences. I will give a final example. Obviously, I could spend my entire 10 minutes listing examples. Let us talk about erosion. Rising water levels are causing more and more shoreline erosion. There are companies in the Magdalen Islands that will literally fall into the water unless something is done. They need to be moved. Sometimes, an entire factory needs to be moved. That costs money. If everyone could accept the premise that climate change exists, that would be a good start. We need to do something, to put a price on pollution in order to counter climate change. That is something the Conservatives were in agreement with barely two and a half years ago, during the 2021 campaign. Now, suddenly, they no longer agree. It is a shift that may have something to do with the populism of the current leader. They could at least agree that we need to do something using existing economic tools. There are tools that already exist, such as the carbon tax and Quebec's emissions cap-and-trade system. Let us take it one step at a time. First, can we all agree that we need to do something using existing economic tools? Then there are the incentives and disincentives that can be created. The carbon tax is a disincentive, meaning it taxes polluters. The cap-and-trade system is an incentive, where emissions are exchanged between different stakeholders, particularly those with different types of economies. Let me take two minutes to explain how the cap-and-trade system between Quebec and California works. It works because it is easier for California to reduce GHG emissions. Industries in California have lower abatement costs. That is an economics term. It means that, for the same amount of money, it costs less to reduce GHGs in California than in Quebec. I am disappointed that my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent cannot hear my speech today. I hope he is listening. It is not true that the cap-and-trade system is causing a flight of capital. All it means is that, if we believe in the need to reduce GHGs, it cost less to do so by investing that money in reducing GHGs in California than it would to reduce GHGs in Quebec. It is a quid pro quo. That is a basic economic principle. The economic tools are working. Quebec's GHG emission cap-and-trade system is working. GHG emissions are lower than expected in Quebec. Moreover, Quebec's economy has obviously not collapsed. It is working. By moving this motion, the Conservatives were likely trying to spread disinformation again. That is a real problem. It prevents us from having a reasonable debate on reasonable issues like the carbon tax, which is an idea that should normally work. The Liberal Party has unfortunately mismanaged the issue, but the Conservatives are spreading outright disinformation, which is bad for the public. Instead of focusing on the tramway in Quebec City, why does the Leader of the Opposition not talk a bit more about what the carbon tax really is? Why does he not simply state the facts, the truth, about what the carbon tax actually does for people? As a final point, I have a message for the public servants who were so reluctant to share these figures with the public. I believe the public servants when they say that they are working hard, that they want to do a good job when they go to work. However, they are caught between the Liberal Party, which does not necessarily believe in transparency, and the Conservative Party, which is spreading disinformation. Public servants need to remember that they do not work for the Liberal Party. They work for the public. Public servants work for Quebeckers and Canadians. It is important that they grasp the important principle of transparency in a democracy and live according to that principle. Public servants who live in Quebec are lucky, because they have a third option, the responsible option. They can vote for the Bloc Québécois in the next election.

1577 words

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

Jun/13/24 11:53:29 a.m.
Watch

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?

112 words

Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Jun/13/24 11:54:22 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, it is nice to get a question and an answer at the same time. I am just going to qualify what my colleague said. Those figures are one of the reasons provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada. These figures should be taken with a grain of salt. Saying that 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gases will be prevented is just a projection. Projections are not necessarily facts. This kind of information needs to be taken with a grain of salt. This applies to both sides of the House. On the one hand, the Conservatives should accept that the carbon tax has a cost associated with it, but that the benefits ultimately outweigh that cost. A simple cost-benefit analysis would demonstrate that. On the other hand, the Liberal Party should not want to hide these numbers because it is afraid of how they might be interpreted, nor should it be claiming victory now, when only a few hours ago it did not want this information to be public.

172 words

Mr. Eric Melillo (Kenora, CPC)

Jun/13/24 11:55:17 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the member spoke a bit about contrasting the government's carbon tax with the cap-and-trade system and which is a more efficient policy. On this side of the House, Conservatives believe in technology and working with industry and innovators to help ensure that green technology and green alternatives can be improved to a point where they are more accessible, affordable and attainable for people across the country, including in northern and rural remote areas. Would the member not agree that focusing on technology would be a more efficient way to find green alternatives than the current government's carbon tax approach that is just making everything more expensive and punishing people for heating their homes, putting gas in their tanks or just trying to feed their families?

131 words

Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Jun/13/24 11:56:10 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, technology and green technologies are obviously the way of the future. That said, how are these technologies going to be funded? The whole purpose of a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system is to collect money to be able to fund these future technologies. It is amazing to me that the Conservative Party talks about new technologies but does not realize that money is not going to fall from the sky to pay for them. How do the Conservatives plan to do that, especially if they vote against progressive principles such as raising the capital gains tax? Where are they going to find that money?

109 words

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

Jun/13/24 11:56:48 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the government gave $34 billion to the TMX pipeline, but what it does not talk about is that it is so over-budget that no oil company can use it because of the toll charges that have to be charged per barrel of oil. The Canada Energy Regulator had capped the toll charges at 22¢ on every dollar so that 78¢ was going to be paid by taxpayers. Now Liberals are saying they are going to increase it to just under 50¢ per dollar. In what credible world is it that the taxpayers of Canada will have to pay at least 50¢ on every dollar to ship raw bitumen to the coast on behalf of companies that are making record profits? This is the biggest scam and subsidy that I have ever heard of in promoting the burning of our planet, and yet the Minister of Environment is going along with it. I wonder what the member thinks of this.

166 words

Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Jun/13/24 11:57:50 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question because it gives me the opportunity to demonstrate how the Liberal government is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On the one hand, it is acting in good faith, it is making amazing plans for the transition and it wants to tax carbon, but on the other hand, it is still giving tens of billions of dollars to the most polluting industry in Canada. That is a serious problem. Is this greenwashing? We are not sure.

85 words

Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Jun/13/24 11:58:25 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am rising to speak to the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre regarding the recent comments made by the hon. member for Saskatoon West. I understand you are currently considering this. I would like to urge you to give this question strong consideration. While the member for Saskatoon West has appropriately apologized for his original statement, I believe the member for Winnipeg Centre has raised an important, unresolved issue with respect to how the record is modified in this place. Specifically, when speaking of an indigenous person, the record was changed from “because of his racial background” to “regardless of his racial background.” This fundamentally alters the meaning of what was said. As the Speaker recently stated, “it is understood that the revisions should not alter the substance and the meaning of the members' statements in this House.” As the member for Winnipeg Centre has noted already, from time to time members seek unanimous consent of the House to correct the record. This was not the case here. It would seem to me that this would be an appropriate option that would actually follow the practices of the House. For this reason, I hope you give this question of privilege appropriate consideration.

216 words

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Jun/13/24 12:00:01 p.m.
Watch

I thank the hon. member for the additional information, and it certainly will be taken into consideration as we deliberate on this matter. The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre is rising on a point of order.

36 words

Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

Jun/13/24 12:00:16 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member across the way for his intervention, as I have given. This is a very significant, serious matter in the House. The member for Saskatoon West has made similar comments in the past. However, I will not go into those comments. It is important we have trust in the blues and have trust in Hansard, and that members cannot just alter the record to avoid accountability and responsibility, particularly when making blatantly racist comments in the House.

85 words

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Jun/13/24 12:01:00 p.m.
Watch

I thank the member for the additional information. Again, the hon. member's comments will be taken into consideration as we deliberate on this matter and bring this matter back before the House with a response. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

46 words

Timmins

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

Jun/13/24 12:01:18 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am always proud to rise in this House and proud as well to share my time with the member for Vancouver East. There are moments when I have a hard time justifying what people watch on television, when it comes to the House of Commons. Many of them think that our democracy is deteriorating into this ridiculous Punch and Judy show between the Liberals and Conservatives of refusing to deal with the issues at hand. Today is a really strong example of this, where the Conservatives have lit their hair on fire over an internal debate between the Parliamentary Budget Officer's numbers and the government's numbers over a report that we have access to. There are so many things we could be taking the time to debate, like, for example, the issue of foreign interference, which everyone is concerned with, but we know that the Conservatives will not go to the foreign interference file because the leader, who lives in Stornoway, will not or cannot get security clearance. I have never imagined a situation where a would-be prime minister is unable or unwilling to actually know if there are threats to this country, because ignorance is not bliss in politics; it is dereliction of duty. We could be talking about what is happening on the global stage with the frightening rise of the right in Europe and the threat that it poses to the defence of Ukraine as we see Putin's war machine moving continually against the Ukrainian people, but we do not see the Conservatives wanting to stand up on that, and they have voted against Ukraine a number of times. We could talk about the war crimes findings of the United Nations this week, which I find very disturbing. We find the UN has reported that Hamas's crimes against civilians, sexual violence and kidnapping were extremely horrific on October 7, and of course we know that Hamas is a terrorist organization that has been widely condemned, and justly so. However, it is the findings on Israel in the UN reports that say that “The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based [violence]... against Palestinians” have become part of the normal “operating procedures” of the Israeli Security Forces. It is a frightening finding by the United Nations about a close ally of ours, that it is using widespread sexual violence against civilians. The other finding that the UN raised serious concerns about is starvation as a method of warfare. The reality is, of course, that starvation is not a method of warfare. It is not a military aim; it is an attempt to destroy a people. When one cuts off food to children and families, they are trying to destroy a people, and that meets the test of genocide, yet the Conservatives do not want to talk about that. Canada once had a bright light on the international stage on social justice. We are tiptoeing around the horrific violence being perpetrated against defenceless people in Palestine. The Conservatives will not speak about that, so they would rather we spend our time on this internal bickering about some numbers. The rest of the world is looking at Canada and saying, “Where are they? Where is their voice? Why are they not standing strong for the International Criminal Court and for justice, like so many of our allies, like our friends in Ireland who are not afraid to speak up?” We have come to one more day of a long-going battle between the climate-denying Conservatives, who believe that the burning of the planet by big oil should be made free, and the Liberals, who have continually failed to explain a credible plan for dealing with rising carbon emissions. The fact is that carbon emissions from the oil and gas sector have risen every single year. They continue to rise. They rise under the current government dramatically. There is government talk about how carbon pricing, when I fill up at the gas station or when I travel, is having this great benefit. Canadians are paying their share, and Canadians are willing to do their share to deal with the climate crisis, but big oil has no intention. Then, we have industrial carbon pricing that allows planet burners, like Suncor, to pay one-fourteenth in comparison to what an average person would pay. Canadians know that is not right. The real issue on carbon pricing with the government is that the Prime Minister went to COP26 and announced an emissions cap that he had not consulted with anybody about and he was going to put an emissions cap on big oil, but at the same time he put aside $34 billion to build a pipeline for which there was no business case. Compare that to the government's work on clean energy. How long has it been since the Deputy Prime Minister announced investment tax credits to kick-start our clean energy economy? We are still waiting. We are still waiting for justice in indigenous communities for housing. We get those promises. In my region, the Prime Minister wrote a letter to the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority saying the government supports getting rid of what is really an apartheid-era hospital, yet none of that has flowed. However, when it came to giving money to big oil, the taps turned on: $34 billion. What does that mean in terms of the credibility of carbon pricing? Right now, in the oil patch, they are talking about a year of record production. Imperial Oil is breaking production records. Why? It is thanks to TMX. Cenovus is going to increase from 800,000 barrels a day to 950,000 barrels a day. Heavy bitumen is going to increase 500,000 barrels a day, thanks to the free gift of taxpayers' money to an industry that has not been serious at any point about reducing emissions. We are going to have an increase of 500,000 barrels a day of raw bitumen, which has the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any fuel on the planet out of the oil and gas sector. Taxpayers are expected to pay for that, but they are not just paying for that. The Trans Mountain pipeline is such a boondoggle that even super-rich companies like Suncor and Imperial and Cenovus could not run the bitumen through it, because it would be too expensive to pay for the toll fees. The toll fees are how we get the money back for the investment in the pipeline. As it stands now, 78¢ on every dollar is going to be paid by the Canadian people as a subsidy to companies that made $68 billion in profit. The government is now saying that it is going to make it a little fairer. It wants the taxpayer to pay maybe 55¢ or 60¢ on every dollar. That is Liberal mathematics. When the Liberals come out and say that the Prime Minister has a Haida tattoo and that the Prime Minister has said that Canada is back on the international stage, what they should have been saying all along is that they were adamant that they were going to massively increase what is the dirtiest oil on the planet. That is not a personal statement. That is a fact. Bitumen has the highest GHG emissions in the world. There is a reason the Liberals had to scramble to spend that money. Certainly we know from the IPCC and the warnings by António Guterres that we are beyond the red line now in terms of a climate catastrophe unfolding, and the United Nations has actually called out world leaders for “lying” about their promises on the international stage while massively increasing fossil fuel production at a time when the planet is on fire. That is what the UN said, but then the International Energy Agency, hardly a hangout for left-wing thought, has been warning consistently against putting more infrastructure into oil and gas because it will result in stranded assets. In fact, the IEA says we are seeing a massive glut that is going to appear in the next three years that will completely undermine the economics of oil and gas production. Since bitumen is the highest cost going, the government had to scramble with our money to expand that, so we could be locked in for decades to come. Under Canada's scenario on oil production, Liberals expect that we will still be burning the same amount of bitumen in 2050 as we are today. They were never serious about dealing with the climate crisis. They were never serious about lowering emissions. They expect the ordinary taxpayers, who are more than willing to do their part to help the planet, to do that, and it is all on their shoulders, while the government is giving gifts to companies that made billions. This is what the government will be remembered for on the climate crisis.

1513 words

Mr. Marc Dalton (Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, CPC)

Jun/13/24 12:11:34 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the OECD, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, has projected that Canada will be among the worst of 40 advanced nations for the next three decades, that we are just going in a totally wrong direction. There has been a war on Canadian industry, on the resource sector, which we hear time and again from the previous speaker. The NDP members are just supporting and are joined hand in hand and joined at the hip with the Liberals. Does the member recognize that they have abandoned working-class Canadians?

95 words

Mr. Charlie Angus

Jun/13/24 12:12:21 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, that was pretty hilarious. I feel like I am being stoned to death with popcorn, with the insincerity coming from my colleagues. Let us talk about the abandonment of working-class people, when the member for Kelowna—Lake Country was bragging about making carbon and pollution free while her city was on fire during a climate crisis. Let us talk about how the member who lives in Stornoway, who has never actually had a job that we have been able to figure out, was flying up to Yukon to say that they are going to make pollution burning free while people were fleeing from their homes. As for the working class, the working class has a right to sustainable living, sustainable jobs and a sustainable future for their children. The Conservatives would burn that in a second if they could, if it meant giving Suncor some more money.

151 words