Thank you, Chair.
It has been an interesting debate today on the Liberals' amendment, but the fact remains that the green investment bank would be a core element of the Liberals' proposed carbon budget, and a tax is a tax.
I just want to read into the record the history of the Liberals' position on a carbon tax. In June 2006, deputy leader—then Liberal leadership candidate—Michael Ignatieff said, “But we also have got to have popular, practical, believable policies that may involve some form of carbon tax.” That was on June 10, 2006.
Then a few months later, in September 2006, Stéphane Dion said—this is quoted from his release of September 5, 2006—on carbon markets versus carbon tax:
A carbon tax is less effective than a carbon market at reducing emissions. Some of my opponents for the Liberal leadership have suggested that a carbon tax would be the most effective measure to curb climate pollution. This is simply bad policy.
Then in February 2007 Mr. Dion “said he opposed the idea of a carbon tax”. That was on February 26, 2007.
On March 1, 2007, Mr. McGuinty is quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying—He took part in the news conference by Friends of the Earth, and he was quoted as praising the proposal. In the Globe and Mail of March 1, 2007, he says that “Every senior economist and expert who's appeared before the committee [that is studying climate change legislation] has spoken very much in favour of a carbon tax approach.” That was in the Globe and Mail of March 1, 2007.
The next day the Liberal leader, Stéphane Dion, was quoted in the Globe and Mail:
'We have a set of possibilities and it's a possibility," he told reporters when asked whether he is considering supporting such a tax.
Then four days later, regarding a carbon tax the Globe and Mail of March 6, 2007, said:
Liberal leader Stephane Dion will not call for a carbon tax when he releases his party's new environmental platform in the coming days. Mr. Dion's [spokesman]...insists the leader has been clear on this issue.
Yet what we have before us today is the mother of all carbon taxes. A tax is a tax. Our government is committed by mandatory regulation across all sectors of industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What's being proposed here is a carbon tax—billions of dollars of tax, collected and yet achieving nothing.
The Liberal record on the environment, Mr. Chairman, after 13 years is 35% above the target. Canadians want action. They want reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and establishing a carbon tax across the industry does not require reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
It's not the way to go, and we don't support it, Mr. Chair.