Government Operations Committee on March 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

This is an opening statement, Mr. Long. Please show respect for the premier. You may have disagreements with us, but please show respect for the premier of your province.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Chair, I certainly do have respect for the premier of the province.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

This is an opening statement. Let him finish.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Again, I'm wondering about the relevance.

I'm also wondering, Chair, if you can explain again which of the votable items referred to in the committee contain the Canada carbon rebate. I'm confused. Are you able to let us know that, sir?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We explained that yesterday, Mr. Long. That's not a point of order.

Premier Higgs, go ahead, sir.

[Blaine Higgs]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to continue on the affordability point.

We are one of the few nations that has the opportunity to have it all. We have the resources, which we've always thrived on. We have the ability to have a major climate change impact beyond our borders and beyond the 1.5% of emissions that we're currently focused on internally. We would do what other countries are doing to take advantage of offsetting coal plants, as well as offsetting demands in Europe for oil and gas from Russia. We have the ability in Canada to think bigger and make an impact around the world.

While we can develop these resources, we can use them to develop new technology; to build better, cleaner environmental industries and to actually reduce the impact and the everyday cost to people living and working in the province, which means, ultimately, reducing the carbon tax.

It's not an isolated solution. It's a solution that has a broader impact around the world, and it can be proven very clearly that it has a huge impact on the reduction of emissions worldwide. We may want to think we're going to solve the problems in our own little bubble, but we are not. I only ask the Prime Minister and all of you to let us have the opportunity. Let science look at what potential we can really have to reduce emissions and how we can play a major role on the world scene.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Premier Higgs.

We'll start with Mr. Bragdon.

Welcome to the OGGO committee, Mr. Bragdon. The floor is yours for six minutes, please.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Premier.

I'm sorry that you had to experience the inner wranglings of partisanship here at the beginning of our committee deliberations today.

I'll move quickly here. Canadians, including those in New Brunswick, are speaking very loudly from coast to coast, so we understand very clearly that the cost of the carbon tax is prohibitive. Most Canadians are worse off as a result of its impact on their standard of living and their ability to make ends meet at the end of each month. The PBO has made that very clear.

Seven out of 10 premiers, including you, have called for this hike in the carbon tax to be spiked. They also want immediate relief and would prefer that this tax be axed altogether.

It's punitive. It's prohibitive. It disproportionately affects those of us who live in small towns and rural communities, and there are a lot of those small towns and rural communities here in New Brunswick. It also inhibits development and growth in our industries, especially within our agricultural and natural resource sectors, which, of course, has an impact here in New Brunswick. There are a lot of impacts of the carbon tax overall. I want to give you a lot of ramp to talk about that.

Also, we're hearing very loudly that seniors who are on fixed incomes—

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, Mr. Bragdon. I'll stop your time.

Mr. Kusmierczyk, please go ahead.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I wanted to ask my honourable colleague a question. I really do appreciate and enjoy working with him, but can he just point to relevance to any of the votes that we are studying in the main estimates?

As a committee, we are asked to study parts of the main estimates. Can he point to the relevance, the actual—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The question should be to the chair, and not to other members, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

You're aware, as you've been here for a long time and you've participated in many meandering filibusters, that we always allow a wide latitude.

Please continue, Mr. Bragdon.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

This is beyond latitude, Mr. Chair. This has nothing to do with any of the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Bragdon has the floor. Would you allow him to...?

Again, please, for the sake of and respect for our interpreters and those listening through interpretation, one person has the floor at a time.

Mr. Bragdon, go ahead, sir.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To continue, Premier, we also know the impact this has on seniors with fixed incomes. Their cost of living keeps going up, yet their incomes are fixed. This is having a huge consequence across the country on everything from heating to groceries, obviously, to the cost of living and the price to fill up a car.

I'll end with this point, Mr. Premier. We have such amazing potential in New Brunswick and across Canada. The taxes and regulatory overreach that this current federal government is putting on our industry sectors and on our natural resources and agriculture are prohibitive to our development and growth as a province.

With that, it's over to you, Premier. Thank you for being here.

[Blaine Higgs]

Thank you for the question.

I guess in relation to the cost, by 2030 we'll quadruple our tax costs related to the carbon tax, the clean fuel standard tax and their relation to the HST that goes with that. Is it getting more expensive to live and work in our country? Absolutely. Are we spending way too much money across the country? If you wonder how this gets to main estimates or what's the point of it all, we're spending money we don't have as a nation. We have the opportunity to offset that with real benefits in reducing the emissions and having an impact worldwide.

My point continuously is that we don't need to put the burden of climate action and climate change on the citizens of our country and on the citizens of, in my case, this province. We have the ability to fund it and provide the funds for technology to help people deal with affordability and to help people deal with situations that they're finding too difficult to meet in terms of everyday needs.

My issue is clear: Let's look at options. We need to think bigger. Our situation in Canada is that we're too isolated in our bubble. We're not reaching our potential to help the world. We're causing a huge financial impact right across this country on our citizens. It's unnecessary. We all have the same objective. We just have to figure out an easier way to get there, and a reality, in a way, to get there. Currently, this path is not reality. It's not how we're going to manage the future and meet our goals.

For me, that is the point of all this discussion. Look at the science. Look at the development of SMRs. Look at hydrogen. It's all well and good, but the timing is not going to meet the needs of what the current schedule provides. As a result, people are just going to pay more and pay more. What will the impact on the environment be? Will it be 8% of our 1.5%? Do we think we'll be solving the problems of the world by doing that when we could probably make an impact worldwide of 10% or 15%? That's a calculated number that could be very easily understood.

I want to continue to argue that we just need to let the science let us help the world reduce emissions and not think we're solving it by our own little bubble calculation.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Premier, I have a quick question to follow up. I'm wondering if the Prime Minister and his cabinet have been regularly reaching out to you and other first ministers and talking about the pain this carbon tax is obviously having on Canadians and how it could be mitigated.

Is there regular communication from the Prime Minister and his cabinet on this?

[Blaine Higgs]

Well, there are various discussions internally, and I guess with members locally, but the solutions are only about how we offset this measure and that measure, when in fact you have to get to the root cause of why we have this measure to begin with.

Then you get down to the philosophy of the federal government in relation to the carbon tax and you ask if it is achieving what it is intended to achieve. What was this unintended consequence in the affordability of everything, from groceries right down the supply chain? Was that the intended consequence? If it was, it's a poorly implemented process.

What are other countries doing? How do they manage this? How can we manage it, based on our abilities, and utilize our entire natural resources to be part of that solution?

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

That's great.

Mr. Chair, do I have a little bit more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have 13 seconds.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

All right.

Mr. Premier, speaking of the potential that we have as a province, what immediate impact would removing the carbon tax it have? Perhaps you can give a quick answer to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have a couple of seconds, Premier Higgs.

[Blaine Higgs]

Immediately, 20¢ or roughly 17¢ per litre would have a huge impact, but then, going the full distance, down the road it could take off about 40¢ or 50¢ or 60¢ a litre by 2030.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Premier Higgs.

Mrs. Atwin, go ahead, please.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being with us, Premier Higgs. I have just six minutes, so I will be going pretty fast with my questions. I'm not trying to be rude.

I note today that in the provincial legislature there was to be a debate on removing the provincial sales tax from the looming increases in electricity costs that we'll be seeing in the province on April 1. Your party denied that debate. You're here with us instead. Is this a case of “look over here and not what I have control over back at home”?