Mr. Chair, this is an important issue to the Standing Committee on Environment because over the last eight years, the Prime Minister, multiple environment ministers and the entire Liberal government told Canadians that their punishing carbon tax was affordable. They claimed that increasing gas prices by 61¢ a litre was needed to meet their environmental targets. They claimed that increasing the cost of home heating was needed to meet their environmental targets. They claimed that increasing the cost of food production was needed to meet their environmental targets, and the most misleading statement on the carbon tax was that they claimed Canadians would get more money back than they would pay.
None of these statements is true, and even the Prime Minister has started to admit that his carbon tax isn't an environmental plan; it's a tax plan. The Prime Minister finally admitted that his carbon tax was unaffordable. Last week, after noticing that their popularity was sinking, the Liberals announced that they were implementing a temporary pause on their punishing carbon tax, but not for all Canadians. Only some Canadians would qualify for a tax break and 97% of Canadians would not.
When asked why the carbon tax wasn't being removed on all sources of home heating in every province, the Liberal Minister of Rural Economic Development basically told Canadians living in the Prairies that they were being punished because they didn't vote Liberal. That statement was one of the most divisive things I've heard since being elected.
Mr. Chair, as members of the environment committee, we should be alarmed because, for many years, this committee has been misled by the government. The environment minister testified at this committee on March 27 this year that Canadians “get more money back from the federal government than”—