Environment Committee on Dec. 5th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I apologize. It's not from the 17th. It's from the 24th.

You've put in a new one since the.... It's from the 24th. You should have it.

Go ahead.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I was stating, the reason for a new one is due to the fact that we are once again awaiting a vote tonight at around 5:30. It's a vote from the Senate on an identical motion to one that was already voted down by that exact same Senate just a couple of weeks ago. If this could be described as anything other than a Liberal delay tactic, I would be all ears. There is no explaining away why, once the Senate has already decided that this amendment is not what should be happening and that the bill should be moved forward unamended....

To see this happening is so frustrating to Canadian farmers. That's why they have sent thousands of pieces of correspondence to senators—these unelected, unaccountable senators—who are unwilling to do the right thing and pass the will of the House.

Now, I believe it would be very impactful if this committee—the environment committee of the House of Commons—would call upon the senators to follow that will. Follow the will of our elected members and defend that collective decision that we have made. We could pass this before Christmas, if the senators stop playing games over there.

The corn that is still standing that has yet to be dried will need to be dropped to 15 points. We can provide a reprieve to those farmers and start our very best.... We can go home to our ridings with our heads held high knowing that we are doing our very best to help lower food prices for Canadians.

I urge all of my colleagues to do the right thing. Pass this motion, so we can get to witness testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Mazier.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Instead of working to remove a carbon tax for Canadian farmers, Minister Guilbeault has jetted off to Dubai. The Liberals don't understand that taxing the farmer who grows the food is taxing those who buy the food.

What kind of government punishes farmers for growing food?

It's become very clear that Minister Guilbeault has no shame in punishing Canadian farmers. In fact, he refuses to—

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

I'm just wondering what talking about the minister has to do with the motion that was just brought forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It doesn't, directly.

Go ahead, Mr. Mazier. Focus on the motion, please.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Yes, it's on the carbon tax and Bill C-234.

It's become very clear that Minister Guilbeault has no shame in punishing Canadian farmers. In fact, he refuses to show up at this committee to defend his failed policies. It's been over 250 days since the minister showed up at the environment committee to answer questions. He continues to hide from Canadians because he knows that his policies are an utter disaster.

The solution is to help Canadian farmers. It's called Bill C-234. Bill C-234 will create a carbon tax carve-out for Canadian farmers. We should be working to pass this bill so Canadian farmers can feed the people.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Mr. Deltell.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think that, as members of Parliament, we are all aware of the fact that the food banks in our ridings are currently overwhelmed. But when we talk about food, we're also talking about agriculture. That's why our party introduced Bill C‑234, which proposes to give our farmers a break on the carbon tax. We were very pleased to see that the elected representatives of Canadians, that is to say the members of the House of Commons, voted overwhelmingly in favour of Bill C‑234. We were very happy to see that the NDP was with us, and even happier to see that the Bloc Québécois was too.

The bill is currently being studied by the Senate, as provided for in our constitution and political system. However, we're finding that some senators are talking a lot and extending the time for debate on this issue. And yet, as we speak, food banks are overflowing with requests and lacking in donations. We have to understand that we need our agriculture if we're going to feed people, and that people need to be fed, especially in the current situation where, as we know, everyone is struggling with the cost of inflation.

Last week, we asked, through a motion and a debate in the House of Commons, that the Senate pass this bill quickly so that we could move forward. Unfortunately, like you, we saw that the members of the Bloc Québécois decided to vote against this request. That's their choice and it's up to them, but it's still curious that Bloc Québécois members agreed on Bill C‑234, but that they also agreed that senators are taking all the time necessary and stretching the time for debate in order not to pass this bill. We can't, on the one hand, democratically accept a bill and, on the other, let senators take all the time they need to delay the passage of a bill duly passed by the elected representatives of the people. That's why this motion seeks to get to the bottom of Bill C‑234.

I would also like to remind you that we were expecting the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to appear before the committee two weeks ago. Unfortunately, during the week he was scheduled to appear before our committee, he preferred to take part in almost every oral question period in the House. He even spent an hour in the Senate to answer questions from senators. It's an excellent idea to answer questions from senators, except that he should have first appeared before the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to answer our questions, as we had requested. It seems that he didn't have time to appear before our committee, but that he had time to attend all oral question periods, make an announcement and hold a press conference, and even go to the Senate. That's a shame.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. van Koeverden.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't know where to start. There have been quite a lot of thoughts shared with respect to this motion.

First, I want to ensure that it's on the record that it is our view that the Senate is independent. They have a democratic right and a professional obligation to ensure that all legislation passed by the House of Commons gets a sober second look and full consideration.

My colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills, the Honourable Michael Chong, who is a good friend of mine, has said that this is a tax bill and ought not to have been considered by the Senate in this regard, but the Supreme Court did actually indicate that carbon pricing does not qualify as a tax, so unfortunately, he's wrong.

Not only is he wrong, but the insistence that the Senate do our bidding is also wrong. My colleague said that he's unfamiliar with the way that the Senate does their business. That's fine. It's not up to us. We don't need to become familiar with how the Senate does their business. It is their business and not ours. On this side, and on every other side in the House, we're not going to be telling the Senate how to do their work.

By the way, the only senators who sit in a political caucus are the Conservative ones, and they still do. We don't have senators at Wednesday morning caucus. You do. The Conservatives do, so you ought to have a conversation with those senators. We don't have senators sitting in our caucus, but the Conservatives do.

On the Conservatives, I need to remind them that they ran on a carbon tax scheme with Erin O'Toole in the last federal election in 2021 that would have imposed the same price on pollution that we have now. If they're so against it after two years, hypothetically, if they had won the last federal election, would they have had the same revelation two years after that? They committed to a carbon price similar to ours that would have been imposed on farmers in the same way that ours was, to slowly nudge along innovations with respect to things like grain drying.

Irrespective of the fact that the vast majority, 97%, of farm fuels are exempt from carbon pricing, there remain a few as per Bill C-234 that are not exempt from carbon pricing, and they include some of the fuels used for grain drying. However, our governments also invested almost $1 billion in farmers to make grain drying more efficient and reduce its emissions.

I like baking sourdough—

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

A billion dollars...?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

I have the numbers for you. It's $500 million in R and D, and $493.4 million implemented. I'll provide you with those numbers, MP Leslie, and there's more. I have a list.

I suppose the Conservatives don't listen to my answers in the House of Commons.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Speak through the chair, please.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

With all that, my last point is on misinformation. Four or five times this afternoon, the Conservatives have suggested that the minister has refused to come. The minister was only recently invited.

As soon as the minister was invited, we responded with a date of availability. The calendar up until his departure to COP was full, and he will be here when he returns from COP, which is an important international environmental conference attended by leaders of various governments from various political stripes. I'll leave it there. I hope we can vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Bachrach.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

This is ground that we've harrowed several times now. One assertion that the Conservatives are making here—I won't belabour the point—is that the Senate should pass legislation that has been duly passed by the House of Commons. That is an assertion that I wholly support. Our party, as many folks will know, doesn't support the notion of having an unelected Senate at all.

Perhaps I can pose this through you, Mr. Chair, to my Conservative friends. I would just hope, for the sake of consistency, if in the future when other legislation is duly passed by the House of Commons on any topic, they would also vote for similar motions that call on the Senate to swiftly pass the legislation that we, as the House of Commons, passed.

If we look at the history of the place, that hasn't been a consistently applied philosophy. If it's good for one bill, it's good for another bill. Maybe where we find common ground is the idea that the Senate should swiftly pass legislation that goes through the people's House and is carried by a democratic vote by democratically elected representatives.

I think that's something that all of us around the table would come around to, yet we see that, instead, there is this game-playing that happens. When there are bills that some parties don't like, they try to tie them up or kill them in the Senate, and when there are bills that they do like, they impress upon the Senate the urgency of passing them as quickly as possible.

If I were a member of the public watching these deliberations, I would note the lack of consistency—I'll just call it a lack of consistency to be kind. I would love to see all of the bills that we pass in the House make their way swiftly through the Senate. There are some great senators who I quite enjoy and who I think do excellent work and have extremely illustrious backgrounds. That doesn't take away from the fact that they weren't elected by the people to be there.

If we're going to entertain motions like this.... Really, this has nothing to do with the merit of the actual bill. It just has to do with the assertion that we've heard again and again that the Senate should pass legislation that the House of Commons has passed.

I'll just note that, and I would hope that we could move on to witness testimony, because I know we're all dying to talk about fresh water today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

There's no one else on the list. Can we move to a vote on Mr. Leslie's motion?

(Motion negatived: 6 nays; 4 yeas)

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We will now take a break to welcome the witnesses, who were kind enough to join us a second time so that we can finish our discussion with them.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Chair, I understand we are going to be starting witness testimony for one hour here very shortly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The testimony's been given. It's the Q and A basically.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Sure.

I do have one other motion on notice that I would like to table and speak to very quickly. Hopefully, we can get a vote and get a full hour of witness testimony in, if that is acceptable.

It reads:

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), the Committee order the production of documents related to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change's trip to COP28 in Dubai:

(a) detailed itinerary;

(b) meeting details, including the (i) name and titles of the individuals in attendance, (ii) meeting notes, (iii) purpose of meeting, and (iv) outcome of meetings and;

(c) briefing notes;

(d) and expenses incurred by the Minister;

And that these documents be provided no later than December 14th, 2023.

This, of course, marries perfectly with the minister and our hopes that he will be appearing, that the House will not be rising and that we'll have the opportunity, after 250 days, to finally have the minister before this committee.

Again, I believe this motion is extremely timely. Given that the minister is in Dubai currently, making a number of major policy announcements that impact this country.... There are tens of thousands of participants. I think it's very important to know who the minister is meeting with there, what his agenda looks like, who he is trying to influence on the international stage as we work collaboratively to tackle the challenges of climate change, and who he is trying to be influenced by.

Given that they are living, for two weeks, under an air-conditioned dome of hypocrisy in the desert, I imagine it is quite expensive and high-emitting. We might not be able to get to the entirety of the cost of the COP summit itself, but in terms of the spending that the minister is undertaking alongside his, I'm sure, large entourage funded by taxpayers, I think it's important that.... While there is a significant cost to taxpayers, we deserve to know what the value for that money being spent is. We can really only tell what is happening there during this very long summit if we are able to provide this information and the totality of the price we are paying.

I know the government originally campaigned on being open by default, so I hope we can garner support from all members across this committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Mazier, the floor is yours.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to my colleague for introducing this motion.

The environment minister has jetted off to Dubai, leaving Canadians behind in the cold. This hypocrisy is astounding. Minister Guilbeault has no shame in punishing hard-working Canadians with a costly carbon tax. He has no shame with increasing the cost of gas for the mother who drives her kids to hockey practice.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.