Debates of June 1st, 2023

Opposition Motion—Carbon Tax

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am always a bit shocked to see the Conservatives, who believe in the free market and capitalism, refuse to put a price on pollution, when that consists in using market rules to change people's behaviour. I find that to be inconsistent with their philosophical framework. In fact, my colleague is saying that if the rest of the world does not take the initiative, we should not do anything.

The United States, and specifically the states of California and New England, already participate in the carbon exchange with Quebec. We are already competitive.

Why does the member not recognize that?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It seems that there is someone else who wants to reply but, unfortunately, they cannot, unless they decide to give a speech.

I would also ask the member who gave the speech to reply at the appropriate time instead of answering while someone is asking him a question.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I simply want to say to my colleague that he spoke about certain states in the U.S. participating in the exchange, but not all states do. Our economy is essentially based on collaborating with the United States, not just some of the states. That is a big difference.

Need I remind members that after eight years of Liberal governance and the application of the Liberal carbon tax, Canada ranks 58th out of 63 countries?

In the midst of the worst inflation crisis in 40 years, the Liberals want to impose $436 in additional taxes on Quebec families. I am against that.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to contribute to today's debate.

As our allies worldwide are moving forward with measures to make their economies greener and cleaner, it is really unfortunate to see that some of our hon. colleagues still do not understand the benefits of our approach. They like saying that our pollution pricing system is making people poorer, chumming the water with hyperinflated misinformation based on the worst-case scenarios of a future where we do nothing to combat climate change.

The truth is, in fact, that today, right now, pollution pricing is putting more money back in the pockets of Canadian households. In 2022-23, through the climate action incentive payments, an average family of four received $745 in Ontario, $832 in Manitoba, $1,101 in Saskatchewan and $1,079 in Alberta. In addition, those living in rural and small communities received an extra 10%.

Clearly, it appears that my colleagues from the official opposition would prefer that we just wait and take no action to address climate change. They would prefer that Canadian households just keep riding the roller coaster of international oil prices, while the cost to our environment, our health and our communities from climate change just keeps adding up. This is by no means a viable option for our country.

At the end of March, our government released budget 2023, our made-in-Canada plan for a strong middle class, an affordable economy and a healthy future. It comes at an important moment for our country.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Lac-Saint-Louis. He is a proud Quebecker, who I am sure will share his important perspective.

To go back to my remarks, I will begin by speaking about the state of the Canadian economy today. Last year, Canada delivered the strongest economic growth in the G7, and our economic growth was stronger than expected in the first quarter of this year; I think it was 3% or 4%. There are 900,000 more Canadians working today than there were when COVID first hit. Our unemployment rate is just 5%, and it has remained near a record low for five months in a row. We have recovered 129% of the jobs lost to COVID, compared with just 115% in the United States.

Inflation was 4.4% in April, down from a peak of 8.1% last June, and the Bank of Canada predicts that inflation will drop to just 2.5% by the end of this year. Even with a slowing economy driven by elevated interest rates in Canada and around the world, our deficit is projected to be lower than it was last year, down to just 1.4% of the GDP. Our deficit and our net-to-GDP ratio are the lowest in the G7 and lower than those of other large AAA-rated economies, such as Australia and the Netherlands.

This strong economic foundation underpinned the budget our government released in March. Bill C-47, the budget implementation act, is currently at committee stage. It would implement many of the key measures outlined in our budget, including new targeted investments to make life more affordable for Canadians.

As I mentioned earlier, in Canada, inflation has come down significantly from its peak of 8.1% in June. However, we all know that it is still too high, and it is still making it difficult for many Canadians to make ends meet and put food on the table. Groceries are more expensive today, and for many people, higher prices on other essential goods are causing undue stress. That is why budget 2023 announced new targeted inflation relief to help support the most vulnerable Canadians with the cost of living. This includes the introduction of a one-time grocery rebate, providing $2.5 billion in targeted inflation relief for 11 million low- and modest-income Canadian families.

I am pleased to say that, with royal assent to Bill C-46, the grocery rebate will be delivered to eligible Canadians on July 5, 2023, by direct deposit or cheque through the Canada Revenue Agency. This means that eligible couples with two children will receive an extra $467, single Canadians without children up to an extra $234 and seniors an extra $225 on average. However, the Conservatives voted against every one of these measures. This is much-needed inflation relief that will be in the pockets of Canadians in just over a month. This is just one of example of a suite of measures announced in budget 2023 to help make life more affordable.

As another example, to support hard-working small business owners, budget 2023 outlined the government's efforts to work closely with small businesses and the payment card industry to lower these fees. Another important measure in the budget includes working with regulatory agencies, provinces and territories to reduce junk fees for Canadians. The budget also takes action to crack down on predatory lending. Predatory lenders can take advantage of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, including low-income Canadians, newcomers and seniors, often by extending very high interest rates. With budget 2023, our government is taking action by proposing to lower the criminal rate of interest from the equivalent of an annual percentage rate of 47% to 35% and imposing a cap on payday loans.

Budget 2023 announced that the federal government will increase the number of Canadians eligible for File my Return to two million people by 2025, almost triple the current number. Budget 2023 also announced that, starting next year, the CRA will pilot a new automatic filing system. This will help vulnerable Canadians who do not currently file their taxes to receive the benefits to which they are rightly entitled.

The government knows that the higher cost of living means that students still need support to afford an education and pursue their dreams. Budget 2023 also proposed enhanced support for students for the 2023 school year. This included increasing Canada student grants by 40%, providing up to $4,200 for full-time students, raising the interest-free Canada student loan limit from $210 to $300 per week of study, and waiving the requirement for mature students aged 22 years or older to undergo credit screening in order to qualify for federal student grants and loans for the first time.

The members opposite like to make up big-cost numbers for the year 2030 and pull them forward as though they are happening right now, all the while ignoring the real damage that climate change is inflicting in our communities, whether it is through fires, floods, coastal erosion or storm damage. Meanwhile, we are helping people in the here and now in budget 2023, with measures that build on significant investments our government has made since 2015 to support Canadians and make life more affordable. These measures include reducing fees for regulated child care by 50% on average, to deliver regulated child care that costs an average of just $10 a day by 2026; increasing old age security benefits for seniors aged 75 and older by 10%; supporting about 3.5 million families annually through the tax-free Canada child benefit; enhancing the Canada workers benefit for our lowest-paid and often most essential workers to support up to 4.2 million Canadians annually; and permanently eliminating interest on Canada student loans.

In conclusion, making life more affordable for Canadians has been a priority for our government since 2015, and it remains a priority. As I have outlined, budget 2023 builds on key investments from our government throughout the years, as we continue to make targeted and responsible investments to build a stronger economic future for all Canadians. As with previous inflation relief, this new support has been carefully designed to have the biggest impact on those that need it most and, at the same time, to avoid exacerbating inflation.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate it every time my colleague gets up to speak in the House of Commons. However, in 2018, an economist from Yale named William Nordhaus came out with his concept of a carbon tax. At that point in time, his concept was for $44 per tonne, far from the $170 per tonne that Canada is moving towards here very quickly. He also said that it had to be efficient, because it is the only mechanism to apply across the economy to make things balanced. With the current government, it has a carbon tax. Now it has a clean fuel standard and clean electricity regulations. There are all kinds of other taxes it is putting on top of this, and the oil industry in Canada is the only industry that pays royalties to the federal government and the provincial governments, mostly. This is a problem.

There are significant regulations and additional taxes being layered on that are far in excess of what any academic, economist or financial person has ever seen. Can my colleague square this with me in terms of how he sees a carbon tax actually working?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Madam Speaker, I enjoy working with the hon. member on the environment committee. We have a good spirit of collaboration there.

I would just start by saying that the party opposite campaigned on a clean fuel regulation and a price on pollution. We used to agree.

The carbon price is not the only thing we are doing, as the hon. member mentioned. There are things on the incentive side of the question. We are working with the oil and gas sector. We are putting forward investment tax credits to support carbon capture, to support hydrogen and, importantly, to support the province of Alberta, where that important sector is located.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. He said that, in the last budget, the government invested a lot of money in carbon capture, which is an extremely controversial technology. It is of absolutely no use in the fight against climate change. That carbon does not go away; it just gets buried in the ground.

In the latest budget, the government is giving billions of dollars in tax credits to oil companies, which, I would remind the House, netted over $200 billion in 2022.

Two weeks ago, I asked the Minister of Housing a question in committee of the whole. I am going to ask him that question again. Could that money—those tax credits and the billions of dollars the government is still giving oil companies—have been used to help with housing, seniors and health care?

There are huge mental health issues across the country. Does my colleague think that money could have been used for better things than a technology that actually does absolutely nothing?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Madam Speaker, we need to do both. The energy transition includes carbon capture, an important technology that is going to allow us to take advantage of our energy resources without the pollution. We need to help with the energy transition, and we need to invest in housing.

We have a $170 billion national housing strategy. I was very fortunate to be involved in the early stages. On the housing front, it is a collective effort by the federal government, provinces and territories. We are on it. The hon. member raises a very good point.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, one of the points that the Parliamentary Budget Officer made in his report, when it comes to the clean fuel regulations, is that it is a policy that is regressive for Canadian households. Lower-income households pay a greater proportion of their income to meet the requirements of this policy.

Affordability, of course, is a concern for everyone in this House. Why did the government choose not to put affordability measures in place in relation, specifically, to the clean-fuel regulation?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Madam Speaker, again, I enjoy working with the hon. member on the environment committee.

The clean-fuel regulation is just one tool in our tool box. The price on pollution, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer has pointed out, gives back more to eight out of 10 families. It is progressive. That is right in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report.

We have a plethora of initiatives that have been supported by my hon. colleague and his party. These include the OAS increase, the Canada child benefit, the middle-class tax relief, and the dental and rental supports. Again, we are both fighting pollution and supporting affordability.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, since we are talking about fuel, gasoline and the like, today, I would like to ask you a question. It is a rhetorical question; I am not expecting an answer. Do you have a car? I am sure you do. I am sure you drive on two-lane highways and three-lane highways. If you are like me, you see, every now and then, a car that moves from one lane to the next and then back again, sometimes without even signalling. That is frustrating and it is dangerous. I will come back to that car later.

The official opposition has a gift for holding two contradictory positions at the same time. It is a clever balancing act, and, in some ways, I am impressed. I find it disturbing in a way, but it is clever in its own way. The official opposition can argue both sides at once. It is as though it wants to have its cake and eat it too. I will give an example. We hear, every day, that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. In other words, it is caused by a record expansion of the money supply during the pandemic. The next day, the official opposition says inflation is cost-driven, principally by the price on carbon, not by any other factor impacting costs, like supply chain bottlenecks and so forth. I will give a second example. The official opposition gets up and says that the horrible drug problem we have in this country is because of the low price of street drugs, which has created high demand. However, when we talk about the high price of gasoline, somehow that does not curtail demand. In other words, it seems like, according to the opposition, only those with addictions respond to the price mechanism. There are contradictions everywhere.

I will give a third example. The official opposition has been for the price on carbon, and then it has been against the price on carbon. I would suggest that every Conservative MP in the House owes their constituents an explanation as to why they ran on a platform to impose a price on carbon yet abandoned that platform commitment very shortly afterward. They call the price on carbon a tax, but we are in an alternate reality here. The price on carbon is simply a transfer. They then call the clean fuel standard a second tax, but when it comes to the clean fuel standard, the government is not imposing any kind of charge. The clean fuel standard is not a tax; it is a regulation. This brings me to the fourth example of Conservative contradiction. For years, the Conservatives have been saying no to a price on carbon. That was before the 2021 election platform. Before that, they traditionally favoured regulation, as if regulations do not have a cost. They would say that they are not for a price on carbon, and that they prefer regulation, because, they say, there is no cost to regulation. It is very simple. It is like a magic wand. They will combat climate change through the magic wand of regulation, which, according to the Conservatives, costs nothing.

The clean fuel standard is a regulation. No money goes to the government. It will result in the transfer of credits between companies, but only if a company does not meet its intensity target. It is not even clear how many credits a company or an enterprise would have to purchase, and since we do not know how many credits a company would have to purchase in 2030, we do not know what the cost impact of the purchase of those credits will be.

The clean fuel standard is something Conservatives should approve of and support, because it will drive innovation. We know that Conservatives like that, because, as the solution to climate change, they always invoke the magic word “technology”, which again they imply is something free. Technological advancement and innovation are often the result of government regulation and involve costs for research and development in order to arrive at new, more efficient technologies.

The next thing they will be telling us, and this will be another contradiction in their discourse, is that the methane regulations the government brought into force, which are meant to stop fugitive and controlled methane emissions, are a tax, which they are not. We are in Alice in Wonderland; it is all sleight of hand.

Then there is the Conservatives' fake math. They are pulling numbers out of thin air and omitting to tie them to specific dates. Do members remember “Triple, Triple, Triple” on the Conservatives' hit parade? That ditty seems to have fallen from the number one spot recently. It made it seem like the price was going up in multiples overnight, but the price on carbon goes up only $15 per tonne annually, or 30% from 2022 to 2023, not 300%. I think the Conservatives got the decimal point wrong. It will go up in a declining percentage every year: 23% from 2023 to 2024, then 19% from 2024 to 2025. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which is no friend of the Liberal government, estimates that, after the 2023 increase on the price on carbon, the total impact of carbon pricing will amount to an extra 14¢ per litre, not “triple, triple, triple".

There is another thing the opposition omits, and that is the rebate, which is what makes the price on carbon a transfer. Milton Friedman, who agreed with the price on carbon, did in fact include a rebate in his formula. We know that the leader of the official opposition is a disciple of Milton Friedman. I think Milton Friedman would be very upset, if he were alive today, to know that the leader of the official opposition here in Canada is against a market mechanism like the price on carbon.

Once the clean fuel standard regulations take full effect, according to figures the PBO obtained from Environment and Climate Change Canada, they will increase the price of gas and diesel by as much as 17¢ per litre, but that is in 2030. Conservatives never mention the date when they get up and say, “triple, triple, triple". They forget there is a calendar date that is far off into the future.

There is another point I would like to make about the PBO study, which would be apparent to anyone who has studied economics. I do not know how many people on that side have studied economics, but I am sure many other people in the House have. The PBO's analysis is based on what is called “static” economics. It does an analysis based on the idea that everything else stays the same, so it does not take into account innovation, or the fact that companies innovate to meet the intensity target and will not have to buy credits, and so on. It is not real-time economics, and I would say the official opposition needs to get with real time.

I will come back to the big, blue car on the highway. Conservatives are for a price on carbon, then are against it. Conservatives are for regulations that drive innovation, then are against them. That big, blue gas guzzler that zigzags incessantly across the highway needs to pick a lane.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Madam Speaker, that was quite a show we just had from the member.

In my province, we have regulated gas pricing, so we understand locally just how much the taxes and regulations cost consumers. Right now before the province, we see a request to raise the carbon tax by 3.25¢. What is more interesting is that the clean fuel standard is going to add 7.5¢ a litre on July 1. This is the headline of the CBC back home right now: “New Brunswick consumers may face double carbon charges on July 1”. The total is 12.4¢ with the HST, because, of course, with the Liberals it is a tax and another tax, a tax on a tax.

My last point is this. The CTF, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, has said that the tax will be 14¢, and by 2030 will be three times that, at 41¢. That is where we get the “triple, triple, triple”.

With the Liberals, it is all taxes, more taxes and taxes on top of them all the time. What does the member have to say about that?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I go back to the point that, unlike Milton Friedman's price on carbon model, ours includes a dividend to individual taxpayers, and that is what makes the price on carbon essentially a transfer. That is what I would say in response to the member's question.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer admits that the clean fuel regulations could have a minor impact on some households, especially the most disadvantaged.

I would like my colleague to tell us his thoughts on the official languages action plan launched a month ago, which announces $700 million in funding over five years for Quebec's anglophone community. That is staggering.

Does my colleague truly think that Quebec's anglophone community needs this money? Could this amount not be better spent on helping offset the possible impact of this tax, for example?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am a firm believer in the official languages action plan, but we are talking about fuel today, not official language communities.

I make no apologies for being in favour of funding to help official language minority communities across the country.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I found the speech by my Liberal Party colleague fascinating. He seemed to be suggesting that the Liberal government's record on greenhouse gas emissions is a good one. However, in 2021, greenhouse gas emissions increased by 2%. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions have gone up by 14% in Canada since 1990 despite the climate emergency.

Why is his government not doing better? It is incapable of meeting the Paris Agreement targets.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would point out that, between 2019 and 2021, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada went down. Sure, they went up in 2021, but, as everyone knows, we were emerging from the pandemic, and the economy was recovering.

We have to keep doing more, though. Clearly, the government's efforts since being elected in 2015 are starting to pay off. These things do not happen overnight, as the member should know.

However, I am very optimistic about the future. For example, sales of zero-emission vehicles are on the rise. Demand is outstripping supply. That is why I am very optimistic about the future.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is high praise, coming from the masters of showmanship, to say that one has put on a good show, but it was a very good speech.

We have been talking about the cost of our climate action plan and the rebates, etc. I was just reading a peer-reviewed study, based on science, and it showed that 30% of the total burned forest area in western Canada and the United States between 1986 and 2021 can be traced back to 88 major fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers.

I am wondering if you can comment on the cost of inaction as well as the price of pollution.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member that she is to address questions and comments through the Speaker and not directly to the member.

The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis has the floor.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, any kind of an analysis around environmental measures, including the price on carbon, must take into account the effects of doing nothing.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the champion of the environment, the hon. member for Repentigny.

I am going to do something I rarely do. I am going to make an aside, because today is my son’s birthday; my loyal equerry is 22 years old. My son is studying political science, and I thought that the best gift I could give him was to use one of his university papers. No one will be surprised to hear that the paper was on populism. Everyone will see me coming right away: I feel like the motion before us here today is more populist rhetoric than actual political debate.

I would like to use the reading grid my son presented in his paper. He gives the simplest definition of populism as being the act of developing a simplistic solution to a complex problem. In my opinion, saying that the carbon tax is responsible for today’s inflation is a simplistic solution to a complex problem.

Once again based on the vast knowledge of my son, Émile Simard, populism can also be defined as the political tendency to create division, to simplify and to exacerbate differences of opinion. Later on I will talk about some of the discourse used by the leader of the official opposition. Members will once again see this tendency to create division, to simplify and to exacerbate differences of opinion.

Populism can also be defined as the discourse and behaviours of persons who use rhetoric that combines reality with demagoguery, and that turn the people against ideological adversaries or existing institutions. Lastly, it can be said that all forms of populism berate institutions that do not sufficiently take popular aspirations into account. Populism caricatures political adversaries as elites who are not interested in taking the people’s ideas and popular wisdom into account.

Let us start there and analyze the proposal contained in the Conservatives’ motion today. Populism revolves around populist themes. One of these themes we often see relates to purchasing power. This is telling people that, thanks to the political action of one party, they will have more money in their pockets. The notion of purchasing power is the focus of our Conservative colleagues’ motion. Another populist theme is mistrust of science. Climate change was made up by scientists. Another theme is the irrational need to defend the fossil fuel industry, which, as we know, contributes significantly to climate change.

The Conservatives have tabled a motion here today that is textbook populism. It uses the inflationary context to advance their goal of antagonizing the members of the Liberal Party and the Bloc Québécois, who recognize that measures must be put in place to fight climate change. They are also trying to advance the agenda of the oil companies.

Let us be honest for a moment and say, right from the start, that those who are not populist and remain rational understand that there is no second carbon tax. What the Conservatives are talking about are the clean fuel regulations, which aim to reduce the carbon intensity of fuels. As a result, we can say that the Conservative discourse linking this policy to the current purchasing power crisis is populist; it is doomsday rhetoric aimed at demonizing the energy transition.

Let us say right from the start that the carbon tax that the Conservatives are talking about does not affect Quebec, but only Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. It must also be said that, for many years, the Conservatives have demonized the carbon tax. That was already the case under Mr. Harper. The goal is to score political points in the short term, which is another basic characteristic of populism.

It must also be said that, at the last Conservative convention, 54% of Conservative Party members rejected the existence of climate change. So more than half of Conservative Party members do not believe that climate change is real.

To counterbalance that, I recall that the hon. member for Durham, the former Conservative leader, had said that he wanted to put a price on carbon. I do not know what led to the carbon tax becoming a key issue for the Conservative Party. At the last election, we had a leader who said that we should still have a tax on pollution.

In my view, the Conservatives are using the Parliamentary Budget Officer because it suits them today, but we rarely hear them when the Parliamentary Budget Officer tells us about a phenomenon as important as the fiscal imbalance. I rarely hear the Conservatives say that they will use an opposition day to study this scourge of the Canadian federation that is the fiscal imbalance. Of course, if we synthesize all that, we are faced with simplistic solutions to the complex problem of inflation.

There is a problem that none of my Conservative colleagues have mentioned. I do not want to address the real problem, because then I would be guilty of populism myself. The problem no one has mentioned is the problem of Canada, which continues to increase the production of dirty oil and tar sands, an unconventional and polluting type of oil. This is the problem we need to tackle today in this federation if we want to fight climate change, which will have a considerable impact on the economy.

What my Conservative friends also often forget is that, historically, what has contributed the most to price fluctuations are fluctuations in the price of oil. We have seen that on numerous occasions. The gluttonous oil companies, which are forever increasing their margins, are earning record profits. We saw that during and after the pandemic. We need to ask these gluttonous oil companies, which are earning record profits, to make an extra effort, and not blame the carbon tax. This distorts reality.

There are ways to fight inflation. I will mention one in particular: increasing retirees' fixed incomes. We have been calling on the government to increase the OAS and GIS for quite some time now. I would have liked to hear my Conservative colleagues talk about that.

This brings me to the favourite topic of the Conservative leader, the member for Carleton and leader of the official opposition. I have heard the opposition leader denounce “wokeness” on numerous occasions. On a trip to Quebec, he said that the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party are woke parties. Here is a quote that made me laugh. While in Montreal, the Conservative leader said:

The Liberals and their woke buddies from the Plateau Mont-Royal are waging a war on cars. So, having listened to the common sense of the people from the Quebec City region, allow me to send an equally clear message: A Poilievre government will not fund a third link without lanes reserved for cars.

“Good common sense” is a populist term. When someone uses those words, they are usually a populist. Let us not forget the ultimate populist theme: driving. The woke are against driving. What is really funny is that the leader of Conservative Party was rebuked by Quebec's premier, who said that it was not the Liberal federal government that put an end to the third link, it was Quebec. The leader of the Conservative Party was rebuked.

I will conclude by saying that I am going to use a little populist discourse myself. Those we consider woke in Quebec are generally those who are against Bill 21, the secularism law, and Bill 96, the French language law. I know that the leader of the Conservative Party is against both these laws.

Is the Conservative Party a woke party because it is against Bills 21 and 96? That is what I want to know. Perhaps my son can give me an answer on his next birthday.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Madam Speaker, what I find interesting in what my colleague across the aisle says is that, in his own province of Quebec, the federal tax on pollution does not apply. Quebec has its own carbon pricing. It is a system that works very well. I congratulate them.

However, what we have heard from the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent raises several questions. The only thing that applies to the province of Quebec is the issue of affordability, which is a concern for all Canadians.

My question concerns affordability. When measures were proposed here in the House to offer dental care for children, subsidies during the pandemic or grocery rebates, the Conservatives always voted against them. In this context, does my colleague find that there is a contradiction in the way the Conservatives voted?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague that the Conservatives' proposal is a simplistic solution to a complex problem.

Where I disagree somewhat with my Liberal colleague is that, in my view, the best way to fight inflation is to support those who do not earn very much. I immediately think of retirees. The Liberal Party has never wanted to increase the OAS and GIS. It created two classes of seniors. The best way to fight inflation would be to support seniors.

I also do not agree with him on the dental care system, which creates a lot of unfairness in Quebec because we already have a dental care system. We lose big under in this system.

I do not completely agree with him, but I am prepared to say that the Conservatives have a simplistic solution to a serious problem.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, my Bloc colleague said that the Conservative Party is the party of populism. Could he define the word “populism”? A large number of Canadians elected the Conservative Party to represent them in the House of Commons.

Now, a second carbon tax is about to be forced on Canadians. Another tax on clean electricity regulation is going to be imposed in July, and yet another tax on electricity is coming later.

Among the Government of Canada's many proposals, is there a tax on logging? We now know that trees store carbon and release it into the environment. Would my colleague agree with me on that point?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure I entirely follow where my colleague is going with this. I have never heard of a tax that would apply to the forestry sector because a tree sequesters carbon.

He asked me to provide a definition of populism. To me, it is quite clear. It refers to politicians who try to oversimplify certain issues, sow division and create antagonism without listening to reason, to common sense, to science.

The science shows that climate change is going to cost us a fortune. If we listen to the science, then we should try to prepare for this looming threat and put in place measures such as carbon pricing. It is as simple as that.