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Results: 1 - 15 of 1476
View Omar Alghabra Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Omar Alghabra Profile
2019-06-19 17:09 [p.29415]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on the new NAFTA. Before I start, I would like to point out that I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith.
Let me take the time to highlight, first and foremost, our government's record on international trade. Consecutive governments have talked about trade diversification and trade expansion, but most governments have failed. I acknowledge that the previous government, under Mr. Harper, had started some negotiations, but unfortunately, it was not able to close the deals. When it came to the free trade agreement CETA, while the Conservatives started the negotiations, they could not close the deal. When it came to the CPTPP, the Conservatives negotiated the previous agreement known as TPP, but it failed. It took our government's leadership and our Prime Minister's leadership to renegotiate it to include progressive, inclusive elements and revive it, improve it and ratify it.
Canada is a trading nation. One out of six Canadian jobs is related to trade. Our government has recognized the value of trade. However, we also know that it is really important to make sure that when we sign trade agreements, they are inclusive. We keep in mind our middle class, we keep in mind small and medium-size enterprises and we keep in mind gender equality. Those issues are not virtue signalling. Those issues are economic issues. Those issues benefit all Canadians. They help lift many people out of poverty and invite them into our labour force to ensure that everyone is benefiting from those free trade agreements.
I want to talk about how we were able to close the deal on CETA, sign it and ratify it here in the House of Commons. We were able to renegotiate and improve the previous agreement known as the TPP, the CPTPP, sign it and ratify it here in the House of Commons. In fact, we were one of the first countries to ratify the CPTPP. We were also able to renegotiate NAFTA, and now we are in the midst of the ratification process.
If we add all that up, that is 1.5 billion new customers for Canadian businesses and Canadian workers. Today Canada is the only member of the G7 that has a free trade agreement with all other G7 nations. These are not just any free trade agreements. They are fair, inclusive trade agreements that keep in mind the interests of all Canadians, particularly our middle class.
I also want to highlight our investment in expanding trade. Our government has put the largest investment into trade infrastructure and trade support systems in Canada's history. We have invested over $1.2 billion in expanding our trade corridors, including ports, roads and rail. We have invested in the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, which is our best asset. It is our Canadian businesses' and Canadian workers' best asset. It is Canada's global sales force. It is present in 160 countries around the world, promoting Canadian businesses and promoting Canadian interests, and we are proud to invest in it and to expand its presence around the world.
We are creating programs that support small and medium-sized businesses that are looking to expand and trade, because we know that small and medium-sized enterprises that trade pay better, are more resilient and are more profitable. It is in our best interest, if we want to continue to create more jobs, that we support small and medium-sized enterprises that export. Today only 14% of our SMEs trade, and we want to increase that number.
We have created programs such as CanExport that help small and medium-sized enterprises that are thinking about trade but are worried about the upfront costs. We are providing support to those SMEs all across our great country so that they are able to take advantage of those new markets that are available to them.
It does not end there. In 2018, foreign direct investment in Canada grew by 60%. Why? Canada is receiving an unprecedented level of foreign investment, because the rest of the world is noticing that Canada has access to an incredible array of markets. The U.S. market does not have the same access to foreign markets as Canada does.
International businesses are noticing. International investors are noticing. That is why we have seen a 60% increase in foreign trade investment. Direct investment from countries other than the U.S. has increased by 300%. Those investments bring jobs to our middle class. Those investments bring wealth to our businesses. This is good news for our country and good news for Canadians.
Let me take a moment to talk about NAFTA.
We had to renegotiate NAFTA when the current President of the United States campaigned on tearing up NAFTA. He told U.S. citizens that NAFTA needed to be torn up.
We started the negotiations with the new administration in good faith. We wanted to keep an open mind. NAFTA was over 20 years old, and it needed an overhaul. It was a tough negotiation process.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge how Canadians of all political stripes and Canadian businesses rallied around our government as we were in the midst of a tough negotiation with our partners.
However, many on the Conservative benches, and other Conservative voices, were asking us to capitulate. The Conservative Party loves to brag about Stephen Harper's record. Here is a direct quote from a memo written by Mr. Harper in 2017. He wrote, “it does not matter whether current American proposals are worse than what we have now.” He wanted us to capitulate, and he was encouraging people to put pressure on the Canadian government to capitulate.
My colleagues on the Conservative benches were asking questions in question period, and this is on the record. They were demanding that our government capitulate to U.S. demands. I am glad, and I am proud, that our Prime Minister, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, and our team did not capitulate. We stood firm for Canadian values. We stood firm for what made sense for Canadian businesses. We ended up with a great deal.
We did face a challenge with steel and aluminum tariffs, unjust and illegal steel and aluminum tariffs, but we hung in. We pushed and we advocated. At the time, my colleagues on the Conservative benches again asked us to drop our tariffs. They called them “dumb”. Our retaliatory tariffs worked, and we were able to negotiate the elimination of those tariffs with our partner, the United States.
My friends say that we were virtue-signalling. I would like to know from them what part of this new NAFTA is virtue-signalling. Is the new labour chapter virtue-signalling? Is the new chapter on the environment virtue-signalling? Is the new chapter on gender equity virtue-signalling? These inclusive chapters will benefit all Canadians and will raise their wages. They will make sure that we have more productive jobs for the middle class.
I am disappointed in the Conservatives. I am relieved that they will be voting for this agreement. It does not make sense to me, but still I am relieved that they will be voting for it. I ask them to join us and agree that those provisions and this deal are good for Canadians and good for middle-class Canadians.
View Karen McCrimmon Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Karen McCrimmon Profile
2019-06-19 22:15 [p.29448]
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is always someone who contributes in committee work, and I personally appreciate the contributions he has made to this bill.
As always, on the question of judicial review versus independent oversight, there are limited resources that could actually do the work. The government has to decide where those limited resources will be used and whether anybody else can do this work.
It has been the determination that these independent decision-makers can be in the position to do this work without imposing an additional workload at the provincial and federal court levels.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2019-06-19 22:25 [p.29449]
Does the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot have the unanimous consent of the House to regard this time slot as a 20 and 10 for the purpose of splitting his time?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2019-06-18 10:33 [p.29268]
moved:
That, given that the carbon tax will not reduce emissions at its current rate and it is already making life more expensive for Canadians, the House call on the government to repeal the carbon tax and replace it with a real environment plan.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, a beautiful riding in British Columbia.
The motion before us says that the Liberal climate plan, which is effectively a tax plan, should be replaced by a real plan that will move Canada forward to address its emission challenges, addresses the global challenge of green gas emissions and climate change and does it in a way that is respectful to Canadian taxpayers.
The reality is this. Right now the Liberals have brought forward something they call a climate plan. However, it is not a climate plan; it is a tax plan. How do we know it is a tax plan? If members remember back to when they rolled out this plan, a briefing was held by departmental officials from Environment Canada. The minister's own officials said that the foundational element of the government's so-called climate change plan was the carbon tax. Therefore, they admitted right off the bat that this was a tax plan. Of course, today the Liberals are denying that. I think Canadians understand that this is all about taxes.
There is another reason why Canadians have good reason to believe that this is nothing more than a craven tax plan to raise revenues for the government. The minister often gets up in the House and talks about the 50 different elements within her tool kit that the government is deploying to address climate change in Canada. It has a program of 50 different elements and it will let the provinces pick whatever elements they choose to meet their own targets, except for one tool. What is that tool? It is the carbon tax. Out of 50 tools, the one tool that the Liberals are going to ram down the throats of the provinces and territories, ram it down the throats of consumers and taxpayers across the country is the carbon tax.
We have to ask ourselves why this is the only tool the Liberals have made mandatory across the country. The only conclusion Canadians can draw is that this tax is an essential element in the Liberal government raising more revenues, tax revenues, in the future to spend on its own political priorities rather than on the priorities of Canadians. This is what we are left with. It is one of the reasons why we brought forward this motion, clarifying for Canadians that the Liberal climate change plan is nothing but a craven tax plan. Today, Canadians are already paying the price for that plan.
This is a cash grab from Canadians and they understand that this is on top of all the other tax increases they pay because of the Liberal government.
Members may recall that under the previous Conservative government, taxes on Canadians reached an all-time low, the lowest tax burden on Canadians for over 50 years. Today, Canadians pay, on average, $800 more in taxes than they did back in 2015. On top of that, the carbon tax is being layered on families. Fifty per cent of those families are within $200 of being insolvent. Along with the challenges Canadians have to face, where they struggle day to day to meet their mortgage payments, take care of their kids' educations, buy groceries and put gas in their cars, the Liberals are laying a carbon tax on top of that.
What is worse, and what the Liberals did not come out and confess, is the fact that there is GST layered on top of that carbon tax. Therefore, Canadians are paying a tax on tax. I think a lot of Canadians watching right now are wondering whether I am serious about this.
The price at the pump has gone up dramatically already and the government is charging GST on top of that. The Liberals claim that all this money will go back to the taxpayer, which is not true of course. It is a tax on everything. It will cost Canadians more when they fill up their cars with gas, heat their homes and buy their groceries.
The plan right now calls for this tax to move from today's $20 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions to $50 per tonne by 2022. Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer came out with a report that said that in order for the Liberals to reach their Paris agreement targets, they would have to jack up that tax to over $100 per tonne of emissions, more than doubling what it would be in 2022 and more than five times greater than what that carbon tax is today. This is a craven tax plan.
The Prime Minister has said that when it came to gas prices, higher gas prices was exactly what he wants. That is a statement from our own Prime Minister. He said that this extra tax burden on already overtaxed Canadians was exactly what he wanted.
Let me talk a bit about the Paris targets.
We must remember that this carbon tax is a foundational element of a plan to meet the Paris emissions targets that Canada signed onto. Is the government actually meeting its Paris targets? The answer is, no it is not. The government is far off.
We know from internal environment ministry reports that in 2016, the government had already fallen 44 megatons short of its Paris agreement targets. In 2017, it had fallen 66 megatons short of its targets. In 2018, it fell 79 megatons short of its targets. However, it gets worse.
Last year, when the government calculated that 79 megaton shortfall, it had already created something out of thin air called the land use and land use change in forestry component. The acronym is LULUCF. It essentially says that Canada sequesters carbon in its natural landscape, forests, grasslands, wetlands and farmlands. We are sequestering this carbon. The reality is that the government has not done the science to prove that, in fact, a net sequestration is taking place.
Available science, which is spotty at best, indicates that since about 2000-01, Canada has been a net contributor toward emissions from our natural landscape. The government has said that the science may not be there, that the Paris agreement does not allow Canada to account for this 24 extra megatons of emission reductions, but it will take it anyway. It says that Canada is only 79 megatons short. If we factor in this unsubstantiated claim that the government will reduce emissions through natural landscape, it is actually 103 megatons short.
Is the government meeting its Paris targets, which was the goal of the carbon tax, the foundational element of the Liberal climate change plan? The Liberals are not even meeting those targets and they are falling further behind every year.
Is the Liberal plan a failure? Absolutely, and members will have to agree with me. If we look at what is being measured and accountability for what we are delivering for the plan, the Liberals are way off the mark.
Very briefly, we are going to be rolling out our own environment plan tomorrow. It is going to give Canada a better chance, the best chance, to meet its Paris targets.
Therefore, I strongly support the motion before us, replacing the Liberal carbon tax plan with a real plan to address climate change.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my fantastic colleague from Courtenay—Alberni. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate him on all the work he does to promote cycling in this country and help reduce plastic pollution. My colleague from British Columbia is doing an outstanding job.
I listened carefully to the parliamentary secretary's speech, and I want to come back to the final point he raised when responding to our Conservative colleague's question. Indeed, contrary to what the parliamentary secretary said, certain industrial sectors in Canada are getting free passes and handouts in terms of the price they will have to pay for their huge contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. This is all being given to them because of fears that businesses in certain highly competitive industrial sectors will want to move away or shut down their operations in Canada.
In his argument, the parliamentary secretary used the market argument to justify giving these companies a free pass allowing them to emit 10% more greenhouse gases before having to pay. What he fails to mention is that there is absolutely no verifiable objective criterion to justify this exemption, this gift being given to certain industrial sectors. In theory, the underlying logic to this exemption could be justified, but it is impossible to know what objective, rational, and independent criteria the Liberal government is basing its reasoning on. Several environmental activists have already asked this question. This approach lacks credibility. Again, it looks like the Liberals are handing out gifts to their corporate industry friends.
I find it interesting that we are having this discussion on the price of pollution. I have to hand it to the Conservatives, they are certainly consistent. When they sink their teeth into something, they do not let go. They do not like the idea of putting a price on pollution, and they are moving the same opposition motion that they presented a month or two ago, as though nothing else were going on in our society or our country. It seems to be the only thing they want to talk about until the election. Suits me. Let's talk about it.
I am the NDP environment critic. I am pleased to speak about our extraordinary platform called “The Courage to Do What's Right”, which the NDP leader recently presented in Montreal. It is an extraordinary and comprehensive document that includes a multitude of measures to address the challenges of tackling climate change. I will come back to that in a few minutes.
If there is one thing we can fault the Liberals for it is their lack of coherence. The government sheds crocodile tears and plays the violin while talking to us about future generations, the importance of the planet, nature, frogs and little birds, but it does nothing. It has been dragging its feet for years. The Liberals' environmental record does not live up to its promises of 2015 or the speeches it continues to give. What happened last night is proof of that. The Liberal government made us vote on a motion declaring a climate emergency. That is important. Canada is a G7 country. The government took the initiative to declare a climate emergency and to say that we must roll up our sleeves and take action. However, the Liberals had us vote on this motion the day before the announcement about the Trans Mountain expansion. That took some nerve. It does not make sense.
The Trans Mountain expansion will triple oil sands production, which will rise from 300,000 to 900,000 barrels a day. This project poses an extremely serious threat to British Columbia's coastline and has no social licence. Many indigenous communities oppose it, as does the Government of British Columbia. It is completely incompatible with the Liberal government's ambition to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. To increase oil production from 300,000 to 900,000 barrels a day is equivalent to putting another three million cars on the road.
The government's climate change plan involves putting three million more gas-guzzling vehicles on our roads. Someone pinch me; I must be imagining things. This is a nonsensical and wrong-headed plan.
It is no wonder that groups like ENvironnement JEUnesse are suing the Liberal government over its reckless disregard for future generations. Young people are concerned, they are protesting, they are organizing and they are taking the government to court because it is not fulfilling its responsibilities. It is not taking the courageous decisions needed to do our part to combat climate change, the greatest challenge of our generation. If we do not get greenhouse gas emissions under control and limit global warming to 1.5°C to 2°C, the consequences will be extremely costly. There will be social, human, financial and economic consequences. We cannot wash our hands of this. We cannot stand by. Unfortunately, the Liberal government is all talk and no action.
By contrast, the NDP, with our leader, the member for Burnaby South, has proposed an extremely ambitious and comprehensive plan. I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about this plan today, because we are going after the biggest greenhouse gas emitters.
The government's mistake is thinking that taxing carbon or pricing pollution is a magic wand that will fix all problems. This is not the case. It is a necessary tool, sure, but it is not enough. I think this is very important to point out. This is why the NDP has proposed other measures to ensure that we take serious, responsible action. Our commitment is to cut emissions by 450 megatonnes by 2030. This is achievable and is consistent with scientific findings and the IPCC report.
First, we want to take action on housing. We want to complete energy efficiency retrofits on all existing buildings and homes in Canada by 2050. That will save Canadians money and also reduce our carbon footprint. We want to change the building code so that all new buildings are carbon neutral by 2030, meaning they produce no greenhouse gas emissions. This would be a regulatory requirement that would apply across the board. The government has not had the courage to do this, and it does not even seem to be interested in moving in this direction.
Second, there is transportation. The transportation sector is a major GHG emitter. There are two things we need to achieve. First, we want to electrify personal and freight transportation, and we want to make sure we do both, not just personal transportation. Second, we want to electrify transit.
Electrification of transportation is crucial. We are going much further than the current Liberal government. We pledge to waive the GST on all models of electric or zero-emissions vehicles made in Canada. Not only will this make it easier for consumers to own a zero-emissions electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, but it will also provide an important boost to help the automotive sector make this transition.
Our plan includes major investments in public transit totalling $6.5 billion over the course of the NDP's first term in office. We will work with municipalities to reduce the cost of using public transit. Ultimately, we want public transit to be free, as it is in other places around the world, because we want to encourage people to use public transit more as well as active transit, such as walking and cycling.
Third is renewable energy. This government continues to subsidize oil and gas companies to the tune of billions of dollars a year. That needs to stop. We will divert that money to the renewable energy sector, which is already creating far more jobs in Canada than the fossil fuel sector.
We will make that happen by setting up a climate bank that can issue loans and provide loan guarantees to businesses, investors and people who are building green energy projects and renewable energy developments.
That is the NDP's game plan. I think it is much more ambitious than what any other party in the House has to offer.
Canadians and Quebeckers will judge its merits on October 21.
View Lloyd Longfield Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Lloyd Longfield Profile
2019-06-18 12:36 [p.29286]
Mr. Speaker, I am going to be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg North, and I look forward to his comments after I have had a chance to speak.
Our government is taking climate change seriously. We know that climate change is real and that we have a plan to tackle it. After the Paris Agreement negotiations in 2015, Canada set out a plan to tackle emissions to do its part to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C. We spent a year working with provinces and territories, engaging indigenous peoples and listening to Canadians from across the country. Two and a half years ago, we released our national climate plan, the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change. I went through that plan last week. It is an 86-page document that says what we are going to do and how we are going to do it.
The plan is designed to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. It is going to help us to adapt to a changing climate and spur clean technology and innovation. Our plan includes putting a price on carbon pollution across Canada, something we are talking about today, because we know it is effective and puts money back in the pockets of Canadians. As part of an overall plan, 90% of the revenues that are collected are going straight back to families through their tax returns in provinces where pollution pricing does not exist, such as in Ontario.
The other 10% is going back to businesses to help them reduce their carbon footprints with the climate action incentive fund, which supports these types of projects and measures that are undertaken by SMEs, municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals as well as not-for-profit organizations. The recipients of these funds will benefit from funding projects to decrease their energy usage, save money and reduce carbon pollution. It is also an economic plan for these types of organizations.
Putting a price on carbon is going to reduce emissions by 50 million to 60 million tonnes by 2022. It will also promote innovation, providing incentives to reduce energy use through conservation and efficiency measures.
However, our plan is much more than pricing carbon pollution. Our plan includes over 50 concrete measures in policies, regulations, standards and investments to reduce Canada's emissions, drive clean growth and help Canadians adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The Government of Canada has also invested $28.7 billion to support improvements in public transit. Through this investment, we are making it easier for Canadians to choose lower-emission transit options. The Ontario government has put a freeze on some of these projects, but we are hopeful to see further investments in Guelph, including alternate-fuelled buses through the municipality, greening its fleet, and the incentives in place by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to create charging stations. We invested in 26 new buses a few years ago. Those buses were purchased in a way that is going to help our community to have more people on the bus.
Outside our community, we are looking at the ongoing concern of establishing an all-day, two-way GO train service to and from the GTA. We have a lot of commuters who are getting through traffic on the 401 to get to work and then facing delays getting home to their families. However, the multi-billion-dollar project to expand Ontario's GO Transit network has taken two major steps forward, on May 30 of this year, with the Canada Infrastructure Bank's announcing an investment of up to $2 billion and the province's short-listing four consortia to advance to the next stage of procurement on this project. That project is attracting international investment; it is not all being funded by Canadians through the infrastructure bank, which is one of the measures that our government has brought forward.
The rail expansion that we are talking about is officially known as the GO regional express rail on-corridor project. It involves significant construction work along the greater Toronto and Hamilton area rail corridor, as well as a new train maintenance facility and upgrades at Toronto's Union Station. The wide-reaching project also incorporates rail electrification, refurbishment and maintenance on trains, and oversight of train control and dispatch operations, among many other aspects, and introducing data as a way to help us move trains from point A to point B.
The overall approach that we are taking is strategic. It is something along the lines of what Guelph has developed, a community energy initiative. Now we are looking at the same types of principles nationally to see where the main contributors to climate change are. Industry is the largest, including oil and gas, but it is all industry, amounting to 37% of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada or 269 megatonnes.
We are looking at small business retrofits across the board. In Guelph, we have Canadian Solar that is doing great work on providing solar panels across Canada. Linamar in Guelph is developing the car of the future.
We are looking at new processes within our manufacturing industry. One of the members across the way mentioned VeriForm, which is just in Cambridge, southwest of Guelph, that is looking at how to reduce the climate change impact on businesses.
We have introduced an accelerated capital cost allowance to write down costs in the first year. Instead of paying taxes, people will pay for greening their businesses to reduce the cost of operations.
We have also looked at transportation. Twenty-three percent of greenhouse gases, 171 megatonnes, are emitted through transportation. We are looking at how we can reduce those through EV incentives that we have now introduced. We are also promoting EV within our communities through a not-for-profit organization called eMERGE that has held a couple of car shows to show the community how we can transition to electric vehicles. In fact, we have had many owners displaying their cars and saying what their challenges have been and how they are overcoming challenges to show that it really is not that hard to get into an EV.
We are looking at active transportation, increasing bike lanes, and as I mentioned, increasing the number of buses in our fleet, getting new buses in our fleet, providing fare boxes at bus stops and four special transit vehicles, all of which are funded through the federal government's support.
We are looking at our built environment, the buildings and the 12% of greenhouse gas emissions, or 87 megatonnes, that are emitted through building heating and cooling. FCM now has a green fund that we have doubled so that we can put climate action incentives in place to help people save money on the operation of their building and, at the same time, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
As well, 11% is coming from electricity. How do we provide a better way of getting electricity other than using fossil fuels? We are looking at research into cold-water aquifer development so that we can get geothermal working on our side to provide heating and cooling in urban buildings.
Forestry, agriculture and waste draw a lot of attention with 17% of greenhouse gas emissions, or 127 megatonnes. I am proud to say that Guelph and Wellington County were the recipients of a $10-million fund through the smart cities challenge to reduce food waste and promote clean technology companies that are focused on providing sustainable food and reducing food waste. We are looking at that developing and going into the future.
Beyond all of these, looking at the different areas of greenhouse gas emission opportunities, we are also looking at adaptation and climate resilience. We are looking at the floods and forest fires that are happening and how we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions through adaptation programs.
I was a member of the Rotary Club in Guelph. It just completed a 10-year program of planting 60,000 trees in our area. It is looking at how to sequester carbon and promote more oxygen into the atmosphere. Even though the Ontario government is cutting tree-planting programs, Guelph is looking at ways to increase its tree canopy to a 40% target within the municipality.
Flood resilience is another area. We all experience floods. Even though Guelph is not on a major river like the Ottawa River, we still get floods. The federal government has provided support for sewer upgrades and snow storage areas and flood resilience programs, all helped by federal funding.
Clean technology, innovation and jobs is where we are all heading. It is a new economy. We are looking at the opportunities that climate change provides for us to develop the technology of the future. I co-founded an organization I am so proud of, Innovation Guelph, that is working with Bioenterprise in Guelph. It received $5.6 million and is helping 135 new start-up companies to develop solutions around clean technologies.
Looking at this nationally, Sustainable Development Technology Canada is providing funding support for companies across Canada to develop these types of solutions. It has also launched joint funding opportunities in collaboration with Emissions Reduction Alberta and Alberta Innovates, which I also visited during my term here. It has partnered with the Ontario Centres of Excellence to enhance Ontario's greenhouse gas innovation initiative. SDTC estimates that its projects have reduced annual emissions by 6.3 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent, generated $1.4 billion in annual revenue and supported growth of more than 9,200 direct and indirect jobs since 2015.
We have also funded the upgrade of the community energy initiative in Guelph with $175,000, which is going into projects in Guelph to try to help us move forward into the future.
However, our work is not done. The transition to a low-carbon economy does not occur overnight. We recognize that evidence-informed policy requires ongoing support, so we established a new independent climate change and clean growth institute to provide trusted information and advice for years to come. We are going to review these findings to help us contribute to take strong action on climate change, which includes the price on carbon but does not exclude all these other things we are doing.
I am thankful for the time I had to talk about climate change as it relates to Guelph.
View Larry Maguire Profile
CPC (MB)
View Larry Maguire Profile
2019-06-18 13:09 [p.29291]
Mr. Speaker, I thought all along that the member for Winnipeg North just liked to debate so he could hear himself. However, I digress.
I am pleased to speak today to the Conservative Party of Canada's opposition motion on the topic of climate change and the environment. I will be sharing my time with the member for Perth—Wellington.
I want to say that only the Liberal government could talk about the environment for four years, break its promise to meet the Paris accord on climate change and end up taxing Canadians to cover up its incompetence, overspending and environmental management.
As I get into my presentation, for those who know me and my background, I have always strived to put forward ideas and solutions to the many issues facing my constituency and our nation. While I am not as good as giving one-liners or the pithy comments of social media that seem to attract the most attention, in my own way I have tried to reach out and build consensus to get things done.
Today, I want to apply that attitude to the larger issue of the environment, conservation and climate change. Like many members in the chamber, I represent a constituency that is geographically large. All across Westman, farms and communities dot the prairie landscape, as they have for many generations. Almost half of the people I represent live outside the city of Brandon in the 20-plus municipalities located in the riding.
These are some of the most hard-working, down to earth and determined people we will meet anywhere in this great country of ours. Living in rural Canada has its unique challenges. With those challenges also comes a way of life like none other. Our connection to the land, air and water is strong, because our livelihoods quite literally depend on it.
As someone who farmed for most of my life, I firmly believe that if we take care of the land, it will take care of us. My father raised my brother and me on those words, and I have lived by them. I want to immediately dispel any notion that farmers or rural folks who oppose the carbon tax do not care about the environment. They do care. They care about it immensely. They just have a serious issue about being forced to pay a new tax imposed on provinces that will disproportionately impact rural people.
Let us put ourselves in their boots for a moment. Many families must drive long distances to get to work. Many seniors have to drive into Brandon to go to either the doctor or the optician. Parents have to drive their kids to various towns for sports or choir practice.
Let us never forget students at Brandon University and Assiniboine Community College who still live on the farm or in their rural community and make the daily commute to the city to attend classes. These are not optional things that people can just decide not to do or do less. There are no subways or bus routes for their purposes. Trust me; if people did not have to drive in our blustery winters, they would not.
From the very beginning, I believe the government has mishandled the rollout of the carbon tax.
First and foremost, many Canadians, particularly many of the people I represent, have trepidations about the federal government's priorities at the best of times. Saying the federal government is about to impose a new tax but not to worry because people will not feel the pinch, while at the same time it will combat climate change, is not the best way to get buy-in from those who have skepticism.
Second, when we tried in vain to get the financial data out of the Minister of Finance, it was so heavily blacked out that it was meaningless.
Third, when the Province of Manitoba put forward a plan that would have reduced carbon emissions, the federal government rejected it. Officials were told that no matter how many tonnes of CO2 their plan would reduce, it had to include a $50 a tonne carbon tax.
My province tried to work in good faith with the federal government and was told to go pound sand. No wonder it has decided to launch its own court case. If that is the way federalism now works in this country, it is not hard to understand why premiers are concerned about the Liberal government's other initiatives, such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-69.
It also troubles me that, in Canadian politics, the litmus test on one's commitment to the environment is now centred on supporting a $50 a tonne carbon tax. While that may be the case in some circles, I can assure MPs that everyday Canadians do not use this lens when talking with their family and friends. It is not that my Conservative colleagues or people who oppose the carbon tax do not care about the changing climate; it is that we do not believe the carbon tax is the best way of addressing it.
Tomorrow, our leader will outline the vision and present an alternative to what is being imposed by the current federal government. Due to the already challenging political discourse on this issue, I can only imagine the over-the-top language being drafted now in response. I want to urge the Liberals to hold off on issuing their canned response before the speech has even been given. The Liberals have been waiting ever so patiently, so I fully expect that they will be paying close attention. I want the government to recognize that there are more ways to deal with climate change than applying a tax on the fuel that families put in their minivans.
I want the Liberals to recognize that applying a carbon tax on the energy used to drive farmers' grain only adds further cost to the industry that is already facing challenging commodity prices and markets that slam shut. I want them to start listening to farmers who have ideas that can reduce and sequester carbon without applying a new tax. The agricultural industry has made great strides in environmental management that benefit society, virtually by its own innovation at its own cost. There are proven models out there that have had tangible and meaningful results.
I have always been a proponent, as examples, of implementing an alternative land use services program and the expansion of wetland restoration programs. For those who have not listened to the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, I can assure them his message about eating more beef and how it is good for the environment is grounded in empirical science.
Over the years as a farm leader, an MLA and now an MP, I have dealt with many issues that impact our environment. Back home, people do not apply a litmus test to determine our commitment to an issue. We focus on bringing people together to work on solutions. Perhaps one day those values will rub off on all of us in this chamber when we must wade through our differences.
I want to give just one example from which we can learn. Manitoba has been prone to floods for as long as history has been recorded. Being at the bottom of the basin, we have had to deal with spring runoff and localized flooding that has impacted communities for generations. It was a Progressive Conservative premier, Duff Roblin, who implemented a series of public works projects that protected communities in the Assiniboine and Red River basins, and particularly impacted the flooding that would have occurred in the city of Winnipeg in 1997. Since then, there have been significant enhancements to flood protection up and down the Souris, Red and Assiniboine rivers. I want to say that this issue in Manitoba is non-partisan.
Our previous federal Conservative and provincial NDP governments both invested in projects that protected the city of Brandon and the towns of Melita, Reston, Souris, Deloraine, Elkhorn and Wawanesa. We also expanded the Red River Floodway, which was completed under budget.
It was after the most recent flood that many people in the Assiniboine River basin decided that we needed to work together. Under the leadership of Allan Preston and Wanda McFadyen, they spearheaded an initiative that brought the governments of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota under one organization, alongside municipalities, farmers and conservation districts. We all live within the same watershed, and we had to stop working in silos.
We know a one-size-fits-all approach to water management does not work, and that is why a one-size-fits-all approach will not work with a carbon tax. That is why it was so frustrating to see how the federal government tossed aside the climate change plan put forward by Manitoba. Without a change in attitude, more and more Canadians will look at the rigid position taken by some in the government and tune out. We also know that climate change is a global problem that requires global solutions. The current approach does not reflect that reality.
I firmly believe that Canada is well positioned to provide these solutions. Tomorrow we will start outlining our alternative to the carbon tax and begin the conversation on what will replace it. I encourage my Liberal colleagues, particularly those who represent rural areas, to join me in supporting this motion. I ask them to please stand up for their constituents, repeal the carbon tax and replace it with a real environmental plan.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
2019-06-18 13:38 [p.29295]
Mr. Speaker, today I will be sharing my time with the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.
I would like to pick up on a point the member for Perth—Wellington discussed in his speech a few moments ago. He talked about his constituent, the unintentional environmentalist, who had only taken one flight and is continuing to do a number of things that are environmentally friendly to protect our world.
The irony is that the member did not bother to tell his constituent the full story. The fact is that although there is a price on pollution, there is also the climate action incentive rebate. The fact is that because the member's constituent lives in a rural riding, he will even get a top-up to the normal rebate. As a result of being so environmentally conscious, the member's constituent is going to be further ahead than the vast majority of Canadians. Of course, the member did not bother to inform his constituent of that very important information.
The Conservatives will stand here and accuse this side of the House of playing politics. This is fascinating to me, because over the last three and a half years, I have listened to Conservatives talk about CO2 being plant food. I have heard Conservatives talk about how we are demonizing CO2. I have never heard them reference anything about climate change, yet suddenly, within the last month, we have started to hear Conservatives utter the words “climate change.”
I would love to ask the Library of Parliament to do a summary of the number of times the Conservatives said “climate change” during the last month versus the preceding three and a half years. I bet they have said it more in the last month. Do members know why? It is because they have started to do the polling, and they are starting to think they might have had it wrong on this one and had better start talking about climate change now.
What are they relying on? I will tell the House what they are doing. Tomorrow they will make their big announcement. They know that they have to thread the needle very tightly, because they also know that they represent Canadians who do not believe in climate change. They need to be careful. They need to make sure that they bring forward a plan that does not offend those people either.
What we are going to hear tomorrow is a whole bunch of rhetoric from the Conservatives about how we have to do more for our environment and that the Liberal plan is a horrible plan and at the same time, we are hoping that they bring forward something that is meaningful that we can have a real and honest debate about.
At the same time as they are starting to change this messaging, someone forgot to tell the member for Milton, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party. In a tweet, she said:
Bottom line is there's no solid connection between climate change and the major indicators of extreme weather. The continual claim of such a link is misinformation employed for political and rhetorical purposes.
She must have received the message right after she tweeted that out, because it did not take long for them to pull that message off the Internet, because it did not fit the new narrative the Conservatives have suddenly adopted.
Tomorrow we will see this “plan” that will somehow try to appease those who do not believe in climate change, because that is their base. We will also see them try to put it just enough over the fence so they can pull in some of those people who do not quite know where they stand. How am I doing? How is that for the war room? I am pretty sure that is bang on with how the Conservatives are trying to play this one out.
Of course, they will scare people by claiming that this is a tax and will not tell them the full story, which is that there is a rebate back-ended on this. All the money that is collected through the price on pollution goes right back into the pockets of Canadians. The Conservatives do not want to tell Canadians that part.
This is not a tax. This is a market incentive tool, a tool used to change market behaviour. That came out in the conversation and the questions I had earlier with the member for Calgary Nose Hill when she proceeded to educate us on economic models and price elasticity. She said that fuel is an inelastic demand, and therefore, it is impossible to change the price elasticity of it or to change demand for it. The reality of the situation is that after time, the price elasticity will change as new options come into the marketplace.
That is why, while putting a price on pollution, this government has also been doing a number of things to help change that price elasticity, such as putting in a rebate for electric vehicles, investing in green technology to change the way business looks at things and making large emitters pay more.
Did members know that globally, money is gushing into any kind of fund that has a green infrastructure or green asset attached to it? There is $31 trillion currently available in anything that is labelled green, because even the marketplace knows this. Even economists know this. We are seeing world-renowned, Nobel Prize-winning economists saying that this is the solution. We are seeing religious leaders saying that this is the solution. Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper said, in 2008, that a price on pollution is the way to go. It is what is going to make changes and make us make different choices in the marketplace. Preston Manning, another famous Conservative, said the same thing.
The bottom line is that while we continue to listen to the rhetoric from the other side of the House, we know that having a plan that incentivizes our market to make people make different choices is the right way to go. It is a fundamental principle of any economic model. The Conservative Party of Canada, which says that it is the saviour and the only party that understands how the economy works, is somehow the only party in this House that is fighting against putting a price on pollution. Every single other party in this House recognizes and knows that putting a price on pollution is the way to go.
I stand by this decision. I stand by this policy. I know it is the only way to go. I know it is the right way to go. I know that Canada and the world will be better off when we listen to these renowned individuals, as opposed to the Conservative Party of Canada.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2019-06-18 15:21 [p.29314]
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Cariboo—Prince George, and what a debate it will be. After all, the cat is out of the bag.
Earlier today, I asked the finance minister if he would rule out bringing back his small business tax increases. Members will remember them, the ones he ruled out in the summer of 2017, after the Prime Minister had said that small businesses are typically just wealthy tax cheats. The minister went out and tried to impose tax increases that would cost 73% on the dollar for every small business investment, and then he increased taxes on income and work shared among members of a family business.
We remember when the Liberals tried to double the tax paid when a parent sells a business to a child. We remember when they put forward a proposal that would allow foreign multinationals to pay half the tax if they bought a Canadian family business, and then the kids of that family business would pay. We remember how our farmers feared that this would mean that within a generation we would have nothing but foreign-owned farms where farm kids would be turned into tenants to foreign landlords on their own ancestral lands. That was the shock and dismay that Canadian entrepreneurs felt when the finance minister struck out and attacked them in the summer of 2017.
Then Canadians fought back. Local chambers of commerce, shopkeepers, pizza shop owners, plumbers, farmers, people who had never met all locked arms and said that was enough. For far too long, the government had been picking their pockets and they just quietly went on their way, showing the typical Canadian culture of deference.
However, when this tax increase struck, it went too far, and entrepreneurs decided that they were going to unite and defeat these tax changes. They were only partially successful. The minister then agreed to put some of the most egregious parts of his original proposal on hold. There was a great sigh of relief, but I think people were under a misconception that the government had backed down. In fact, headlines screamed out that the finance minister had backed down from small business tax changes.
The truth is that he never backed down. He simply put those changes on hold, leaving open the possibility that they might one day come back. He never once admitted that the proposals were flawed or wrong. He simply said they were politically impossible so close to an election. He made the pragmatic calculation to put them on hold. On hold until when, one might ask. The answer is quite simple: until after the election, when the Liberals no longer need voters but still need their money.
Of course, the Liberals are running out of other people's money. The deficit is $20 billion. The budget has not balanced itself. In fact, the deficit is growing year after year, and the government needs a way to pay for its insatiable spending habit. What Liberals hope now is that Canadians will not ask them how they will pay for it until after the election is over, when voters cannot do anything about it because it will be four more years until the subsequent election—
View Alexandra Mendès Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, Canada and the world are facing a real climate emergency. This was made very clear with the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's special report on global warming.
Climate-related risks to our health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, safety and security and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5° and increase further if we surpass 1.5° Celsius.
Here at home, Canadians are already feeling the impacts of climate change. Communities in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick have once again suffered record-breaking flooding in the spring. Thousands of residents in northern Alberta were evacuated because of out-of-control wildfires. Last summer, in the province of Quebec, the deaths of more than 90 people were linked to the heat wave.
Extreme events are becoming more frequent, more devastating for Canadians and more expensive in terms of both disaster response and recovery.
My children and grandchildren have now lived through two severe floods and two tornadoes in the Ottawa region in the past four years. We now have to constantly worry about ticks that carry Lyme disease. These impacts have now become their normal, and it is not right.
The Government of Canada recognizes that the impacts of climate change will only continue to be more devastating if no action is taken.
We also recognize that Canada is one of the highest per capita emitters in the world and consistently ranks in the top 10 of the world's highest absolute GHG emitters. How could we expect other countries to reduce their emissions if we do not do the same?
In 2015, this government was involved in the negotiation of the Paris agreement with a delegation that included representatives from the three political parties as well as indigenous leaders. We all came together with the rest of the world, and for the first time ever, every country's representative said that they were going to act on climate change.
Canada pushed countries to limit temperature increases to 1.5°, because this is the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts, such as increases in average temperature, heavy precipitation and severe droughts devastating local ecosystems and the Canadian way of life.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Kitchener Centre.
In 2016, we came together again to develop a national climate plan with concrete measures to reduce emissions, build resilience and grow the economy. Our plan includes more than 50 concrete measures, regulations, standards, programs and investments to achieve our goal, and pricing carbon pollution is an important and effective part of that.
Our plan includes putting a price on carbon pollution, because it is the most effective way to reduce emissions. It sends an important signal to the markets and provides an incentive for businesses to reduce energy use through conservation and efficiency measures. Hence, my mention of cars that consume less. We know it works.
Last year, the three provinces that already put in place their own carbon pollution pricing, British Columbia, Quebec and Alberta, were also among the top performers in GDP growth across Canada.
This climate action is so effective that more than 74 jurisdictions around the world, representing about half of the world economy, have adopted it as part of their plans to reach the Paris agreement targets. Doctors, industry leaders and Nobel Prize-winning experts have all agreed that putting a price on pollution is effective and have demanded that governments take this action.
Pollution should not be free anywhere across this country. Based on analysis conducted by Environment and Climate Change Canada, putting a price on carbon pollution would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 million to 60 million tonnes in 2022. This is equivalent to shutting down about 30 to 35 coal-fired electricity-generating units for a year.
It is also important to note that all direct proceeds from the federal carbon pollution pricing system will be returned to the jurisdictions in which they were collected. Households receive a climate action incentive, which gives most families more than what they pay and creates incentives for cleaner choices. Funds will also be given to the province's schools, hospitals, businesses and indigenous communities to, for example, help them become more energy efficient and reduce emissions, helping Canadians save even more money and improve our local economies.
Again, putting a price on pollution is not the only action this government is taking to address climate change. As part of our climate plan, we are also regulating the oil and gas sector to reduce methane emissions by 40% to 45% by 2025, which will encourage companies to find cleaner, more efficient ways to run their operations.
We are phasing out the use of coal-fired electricity by 2030, as part of Canada's efforts to have 90% of electricity from non-emitting sources by 2030, while working with the affected families, communities and businesses to help them with the transition to a cleaner economy.
We are making a historic investment of $3 billion to spur innovation and bring clean technologies to market, such as funding to support technology to scrub carbon dioxide directly from the air, as well as $75 million to tackle challenges in clean technology.
We are developing net-zero energy ready building codes to be adopted by 2030 for new buildings, developing a model code to guide efficiency improvements for retrofitting existing buildings and establishing mandatory labelling to provide businesses and consumers with information on energy performance.
As we work to fight climate change, we know that Canadians are feeling the impacts of a changing climate. That is why we are taking action to help our communities adapt and prepare for the challenges that lie ahead.
I have only a few seconds left, so I will be happy to take questions.
View Dane Lloyd Profile
CPC (AB)
View Dane Lloyd Profile
2019-06-18 16:20 [p.29322]
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Red Deer—Mountain View.
Before I launch into debate today, I just want to recognize Bombardier Patrick Labrie, who died tragically this week while serving his country in Bulgaria. As a serving soldier in Canada's armed forces reserves and as a parliamentarian, I know that the thoughts and prayers of this House go out to the Labrie family. We thank Patrick for his service. I appreciate that we can all come together in this House to support the men and women of our armed forces. It is very important. It is not a partisan issue.
Getting into the debate, it is my pleasure to rise and talk about this opposition day motion on carbon taxes and the environment. It is not an issue that we as Conservatives are afraid to talk about, because we have a very strong record on this issue. At the beginning of the previous Conservative mandate in 2007, greenhouse gas emissions in this country were 744 million megatonnes. By the end of our mandate in 2015, we had brought that number down significantly, below the 744 million megatonnes, while also growing our economy. That is a significant feat that we should be very proud of.
It is all very clear that this was done without the imposition of a carbon tax on Canadians. The government has a clear framework, an example given to it by previous governments, of what can be done to lower greenhouse gas emissions while not putting taxes on hard-working families when they fill up at the pump, when they are heating homes in these cold Canadian winters and when they go to buy groceries or anything that gets trucked in.
I rose today because this debate is important for our country and for the world, but it is also very important for my constituency. The reason is that my constituency, along with the constituency of the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, is the home of Alberta's industrial heartland region. This is a hub in Canada for carbon capture and sequestration technology.
Under the previous government, significant investments were made to partner with industry to find ways to tangibly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This technology has been recognized by the International Energy Agency as one of the key pillars in ensuring sustainable and meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
On the other side of my riding, it is an important issue because Parkland County is home to a significant number, I believe over one-third, of Canada's remaining coal-fired generation plants. Decisions by the federal Liberals and the previous provincial NDP government in Alberta on carbon taxes and red tape have had serious consequences in my community, including job losses in the thousands and the loss of tens of millions of dollars in assessed tax revenues for municipal and county governments.
My remarks today are going to highlight the consequences of these policies, but I also want to highlight the opportunities and tangible things we can do to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and support our industries.
Going over the history of this, in 2015 the NDP government came to power in Alberta, and subsequently there was a federal government decision to unilaterally end coal power by 2030. These events presented significant challenges to my community, as well as undermining the livelihoods of my constituents and putting into doubt our ability to supply affordable power.
Under the previous Conservative government, Canada took a responsible, continent-wide approach with our closest ally and neighbour, the United States, to begin phasing out coal power. I recognize that coal has high CO2 emissions and that we need significant action in order to meet our Paris climate change targets. However, I could not disagree more with the path the government has taken on this issue.
Going back to the previous Conservative policy, we would have phased out most coal-fired power plants in this country before 2030. Now, not a lot of that is different from the current government's policies, but this is where the bulk of greenhouse gas emission reductions are going to take place, mostly from plants that were already ending their life cycle before 2030 anyway. There would have been no major cost to taxpayers, no unexpected job losses, and no unexpected revenue losses for communities.
We also allowed for some of the newest and latest coal facilities, one of which was built as recently as 2012, to run through their life cycles, up until 2045. This would have resulted in significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, while ensuring that taxpayers would not be put on the line for billions of dollars to bail out companies for transitioning from coal to natural gas, which is what many were doing anyways. I will talk about the specific penalties later.
I am proud of the investments of the previous Conservative government, to the tune of billions of dollars, to support industries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through carbon capture and sequestration. I want to highlight a couple of projects in this country.
We have Shell's Quest refinery, which has just celebrated its fourth megatonne. Four million tonnes of CO2 have been sequestered at its facility and put into deep saline aquifers. That is four million tonnes of CO2 that is not in our atmosphere today because of an investment by the previous, Conservative government. We also have the North West Redwater refinery project, which is in my riding of Sturgeon River—Parkland. When this, the newest refinery in Canada, becomes fully operational, it will sequester an estimated 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 a year. These are tangible emissions levels.
As the government is falling short of its Paris climate change agreement by 79 million tonnes, facilities in my riding are, on their own, processing over a million tonnes, with facilities next to my riding already achieving four million tonnes. These are not just chump change numbers. These are significant numbers that, if replicated across the country and across industries, can have a massive effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This can be done with very little support from the government and without imposing a carbon tax on hard-working families.
These projects were the result of partnerships with the federal government. They were expensive when they were first implemented, but we have to remember that with technology there are often high barriers to entry. We certainly saw this with a lot of our renewable industries, including with solar and wind power. We know that the consequences of government decisions have raised the cost of power for everyone in the province of Ontario.
There are high costs to doing this, but we know that once this technology is put in place and we learn from it, it will come down significantly in price. Comments from Shell have indicated that it could replicate the Quest refinery project for 30% less than Quest cost. It was about a $700-million project, and Shell could do it for 30% cheaper. This is an investment that we should be replicating in this country moving forward.
That is why I find it disappointing that with respect to CCS in this country, we have not really seen a lot of progress over the last four years. I just checked out the National Energy Board website today. It indicated that there are four major projects in this country. We have the Redwater refinery; Shell's Quest project, which I mentioned; the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, which is also in my riding; and a project in Fort Nelson, northern B.C., which, at full capacity, could sequester an estimated 2.2 million tonnes of CO2. However, since 2015, we have heard nothing about this project. There was previous government support of about $30 million from the B.C. government and the federal Conservative government, but the current government has taken no action.
How can the government be leaving a project like this on the shelf? We are talking about 2.2 million tonnes of CO2. That is over 2% of what we need in this country to achieve our climate change goals, yet the government, which I believe is ideologically opposed to carbon capture and sequestration, has refused to support projects like this.
I am going to be pushing for the next Conservative government to take up these opportunities and increase Canada's investment in carbon capture and sequestration so we can come up with tangible results on greenhouse gas emissions. I feel very strongly that this will be the case.
I also want to quickly talk about carbon pricing. The government has talked about increasing gas by 23¢ a litre after the election, but Canadians already pay. Up to 30% of the price of a litre of gas is federal levy, provincial levy, the GST and, in some provinces, the HST. We are already paying carbon taxes, and we are talking about 23¢ more per litre. That is going to be nearly 50% of the cost of a litre of fuel. It is just a tax plan; it is not an environment plan, plain and simple.
View Alistair MacGregor Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House in this final week of the 42nd Parliament on behalf of the constituents in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford to speak to the Conservatives' final opposition day motion which reads as follows:
That, given that the carbon tax will not reduce emissions at its current rate and it is already making life more expensive for Canadians, the House call on the government to repeal the carbon tax and replace it with a real environment plan.
I have some problems with the way the motion is worded and I will go over them. Number one, the motion asks us to basically take a major step of repealing a carbon tax and then putting our faith in a so-called real environment plan. With respect to my Conservative colleagues, if they had wanted us to put more substantive thought into the motion, perhaps they could have timed the release of their environment plan for today so that instead of waiting until tomorrow when debate on the motion will be well and truly finished, we would actually have something substantive to compare a carbon tax to and to see if it is actually going to achieve our goal of reducing Canada's emissions.
That is my first main criticism. If we are going to make the House debate a motion where something is going to be repealed that is already in existence and replace it with something else, it would be nice to know what that something else is.
A large amount of debate on the carbon tax has to do with the price and there are a few things I would like to say to address that. First of all, with respect to my Conservative colleagues, I think they are having a fairly visceral reaction to a carbon tax because it seems to be a policy that was introduced by a Liberal government and that is a problem. There seems to be sometimes a knee-jerk reaction from the official opposition to anything that the Liberals do. We want to examine these policies for the merits to see if they are actually going to do things. I think the basic premise of the argument over the costs of the carbon tax is based on an assumption that we can fight climate change without incurring costs.
Any politician who tells us that they can address this problem without costs to ourselves, to the government, to society as a whole, I am sorry, but they are simply not being truthful. This is going to require a major effort on all fronts. Furthermore, when we look at the proposed costs of a carbon tax, we know at $20 per tonne it is going to equal 4¢ per litre. By the time it goes up to $50 per tonne, which I believe is in three years, it would cost up to 11¢ per litre, so to put that in perspective, that means in three years we will be adding about $7 in cost to fill up of our gas tank. That is what we are arguing over and that is not even in effect now. That is in three years' time.
The reason why I want to underline the cost part of it is this. While we are quibbling about the cost of a carbon tax now, which most experts around the world acknowledge is far too low to have any meaningful action, I want to put that in the context of just what the costs of unmitigated climate change are going to be and how those are going to affect future tax revenues.
If we think that the climate change now is costly, just look what the costs will be when we hit 2°C, 3°C or 4°C of warming and we are already seeing the effects. In my home province of British Columbia, our budget for forest fire fighting is going to be completely blown out of the water. That is the long-term trend.
In my community of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, I live in a rainforest and in March we had 30% of our normal rainfall. The lakes and rivers were at 30% of where they should have been. In future years that is going to require is a hefty dose of infrastructure money to build a new weir so we can hold more lake supply back to make sure that the river flows at an adequate rate. These have very real costs.
This is not even speaking about the extension of the droughts we are going to have in many different parts of Canada, the flooding, the mitigation and adaptation measures we are going to have to employ.
Some of the most expensive real estate in the country is located in Vancouver, which is a flood plain.
Before I continue, Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke.
The Vancouver International Airport is located on the flood plain of the Fraser River. What happens in future years when we have a flooding Fraser River meeting increased sea levels and we have to suddenly build all of that dike infrastructure to keep the waters at bay?
This is going to be a pattern that repeats itself again and again and again. I just really want to underline that fact that while we are quibbling about the costs in the present day, we are actually not doing justice to the issue for future generations and future Parliaments and the costs that those governments are going to have to deal with.
Furthermore, this effort that we are going to have to mount to properly address climate change is going to have to be on a scale of what our country did to fight the Great Depression and World War II. Let us use World War II as an example, because I keep on hearing the argument that Canada's efforts are not really going to amount to much. It has to be sort of a worldwide solution. There is some truth to that.
The fact of the matter is that in World War II, our relative contributions to the wartime effort were quite small vis-à-vis other countries, but did Canada shirk its duties? Did we say that by ourselves we are not going to win the war so we may as well pull back our effort? No, we did not. We mobilized a wartime economy. We put people to work. We got our factories up and running. We increased our armed forces and we sent people off to make sure that the effort was won. We did not shirk our duties. That is precisely the type of mobilization that we as a country are going to need to employ to properly address this problem. I want to use that as a historical context. We as a country have been able to punch above our weight and we have the ability to do so again.
The other thing is that I want to touch on Trans Mountain and the climate emergency motion that was debated yesterday. We just received news that the Liberal government has approved the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and that absolutely undercuts anything they said yesterday with regard to their support for a climate emergency because climate leaders do not build pipelines. The expansion of that pipeline means that the proponents, namely the Government of Canada because it owns the pipeline, are planning for it to be in operation for another 10, 20 or 30 years. Does that mean by the year 2050, with all of the evidence of climate change, we still want to be exporting diluted bitumen at three times the amount we currently are? Is that where we really want to invest our billions of dollars? No, we do not want to do that.
Think of what we could be kick-starting in the renewable energy economy in the future with that kind of money, if we made those kinds of investments and got rid of the oil and gas subsidies that we shamefully still continue to pay out year after year. The government can say all the right words but, looking at the details, it is sadly lacking.
I am very proud of the work that my party has done over the years. Going back to 2006 when Jack Layton brought in his Climate Change Accountability Act, we had Megan Leslie in 2009 talking about a green new deal and, of course the member for Edmonton Strathcona, who has been an environmental lawyer for decades, has brought in a bill to enshrine environmental rights into law. This is the legacy of our party.
We are a party that has proposed an oil and gas ombudsman to look at the price of gas at the pump so that consumers can actually know when oil and gas companies are gouging them. These price fluctuations are not the result of a carbon tax. They are the result of oil companies controlling the supply from the refinery to the pump and they are making billions of dollars of profit off our backs. If we had an ombudsman, we could have Canadian consumers looking up those prices and getting the certainty that they deserve.
Finally, I will just end on this. I am extremely proud of the proposal that we have put forward in our “Power to Change” document because we are not going to tackle this problem with a carbon tax alone. It is going to make a multi-faceted effort where we retrofit homes, and where we help that transition for people who are employed in oil and gas to get those skills so they can so they can transfer to the new renewable energy economy of the future.
It is going to take a Herculean effort, where everyone works together, puts aside partisanship and realizes that this problem is far above us all. We all need to work together to properly address it.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
2019-06-18 21:41 [p.29361]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his thoughtful question.
Before I answer, I do not think I made myself clear in my speech, so I wanted to say again that I will be sharing my time with the member for Davenport. The microphone was off, but—
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
The member had already finished his speech, and I had already announced questions and comments. The member has 10 minutes for questions and comments, unless he wishes to seek the unanimous consent of the House.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
2019-06-18 21:42 [p.29362]
Madam Speaker, I also said that I wanted to share my time with the member for Davenport, but you could not hear me because the microphone was off.
I therefore ask the unanimous consent of the House to share my time.
An hon. member: No.
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