44th Parl. 1st Sess.

June 13, 2024 10:00AM

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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House Hansard - 331