Why won't you answer the question?
Evidence of meeting #151 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pricing.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #151 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pricing.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
P.C., MLA, Leader of the Official Opposition of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, As an Individual
I'm trying to be brief, Mr. Chair. If the member is concerned about a lack of estimates then perhaps she could ask her own government to be forthcoming with Canadians and to stop hiding the real cost of the carbon tax. I understand the official opposition here has made several motions asking the government to release all relevant documents and estimates about the cost impact on Canadians of the carbon tax, and it's up to the government to be transparent about that, not the opposition in Alberta.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Mr. Kenney, you're coming here as a witness. What's your plan? Why won't you answer the question about the inaction that you and the Harper Conservatives took for this country for so long, and which you want to continue. What's your plan to deal with climate change ? What's your plan to meet the Paris target? You come here and you don't actually offer any insight into your plan, or what you think Canada should do to deal with climate change. Inaction is not going to solve anything. The Harper Conservative plan did nothing and it did not grow our economy. What plan are you proposing that Canada goes forward with to meet our Paris Agreement target and grow the economy?
4:10 p.m.
P.C., MLA, Leader of the Official Opposition of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, As an Individual
Firstly, to correct the record, Mr. Chair, the previous federal government did have the best growth record in the G7 following the 2008 crisis.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
P.C., MLA, Leader of the Official Opposition of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, As an Individual
Secondly, Mr. Chair, with respect to an alternative plan on the environment in Alberta, we'll be releasing a comprehensive plan in our platform for the next year's election. It might very well include a return to the specified gas metre regulations, which imposes a cost on major emitters to support research and development, science and technology. I believe the solution will be found in thousands of technological advances as opposed to punishing—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
P.C., MLA, Leader of the Official Opposition of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, As an Individual
—consumers for simply living ordinary lives. Mr. Chair, I find this line of questioning peculiar. The member doesn't seem to acknowledge that there is no expert advice that a $50 carbon tax gets anywhere close to achieving the Paris climate conference targets.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
P.C., MLA, Leader of the Official Opposition of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, As an Individual
I have one last sentence. According to Environment Canada, the carbon tax would need to be $300 a tonne by 2050 to achieve the same target. I gather that's the member's position. I hope she'll run on that in the next election.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We'll have to end that first round of discussion there. Maybe some of the other people at the table can explain this to me. I understand that under the federal piece of legislation farmers are exempt. I believe there's a marked gas exemption in Alberta, like there is in P.E.I. I'm just not sure. Can somebody explain to me what happens with the farm community? I've been saying they're exempt under this piece of legislation. Am I wrong?
4:10 p.m.
Associate Professor, Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, if I may? You're correct that under division 2, subdivision A, clause 2, charges are not payable on farm-marked fuels, but that exemption would not cover other fuels used on the farm, principally natural gas used for heating. So there's an exemption of your coloured fuel—or purple gas or whatever you want to call it—but not of the natural gas or other fuels used on the farm.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
That's what we call it at home: purple gas.
We have Mr. Poilievre for seven minutes.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Thank you very much. I'll start with Mr. Kenney.
Mr. Kenney, you were part of a government that in addition to presiding over reduction in greenhouse gases also reduced the tax burden on Canadians and had the strongest economic growth in the G7, all simultaneously. Do you believe it's possible to have a reduced tax burden at the same time as making progress on protecting the environment?
4:10 p.m.
P.C., MLA, Leader of the Official Opposition of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely. I think that is the emerging consensus globally. This is why the Liberal government in Australia repealed the carbon tax. I would point out the Australian Labor Party, which initially introduced that, has also given up on the carbon tax because they realize it's all economic pain and no environmental gain. The voters in the greenest state in the U.S., Washington, reflected that in a recent referendum, as did the last French socialist government in deciding not to proceed with increases in a national carbon tax. I can only speak for what polls suggested the vast majority of Albertans believe, that punishing people for simply consuming energy in a cold northern climate is not an effective climate or environmental strategy. Their emphasis right now, with 156,000 unemployed people, is to get our economy moving again, partly by reducing the tax burden rather than increasing it.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
It has increased at the federal level; 80% of middle-class taxpayers are paying higher income taxes today than when this government took office, on average $800 more. That number is expected to rise to 92% of middle-class taxpayers paying roughly $2,000 more according to calculations by the Fraser Institute. None of those calculations actually include the burden of the carbon tax.
Speaking of the tax burden, Mr. Beugin, you said that the damage the carbon tax will do to the economy can be mitigated if the revenues are used to reduce corporate and income taxes. Recently we learned that British Columbia is now collecting more in carbon taxes than it has reduced in income tax and corporate taxes. Can you tell me of another Canadian jurisdiction, then, that has offset the carbon tax revenues with an equal or larger number of income tax and corporate tax reductions?
4:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada's Ecofiscal Commission
There are no examples so far. That being said, the previously proposed Ontario plan, before the change in leadership, would have included a fully revenue-neutral carbon pricing policy with revenue used to reduce taxes.
The Manitoba plan is also exploring that possibility.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I'm not taking up your time there, Pierre, but if anybody else wants to respond to some of these questions, raise your hand and I will catch you as well.
Pierre, you're on and I'm not taking from your time.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
This is our principal preoccupation. As Conservatives, we believe in reducing the tax burden, but that never seems to happen. British Columbia was supposed to have been the example of where the government would offset higher carbon taxes by lowering income tax and business taxes. Now the government is winning and taxpayers are losing in that province.
In Ontario, not only is the government collecting vastly more through its cap-and-trade tax system than it's giving back in tax relief—in fact, it's not giving any tax relief—but the money is being spent on programs that disproportionately help privileged and wealthy insiders. If you're a working-class single mother in Ontario, your gasoline bills go up, but if you're a multimillionaire who can afford to buy an electric Tesla, then the provincial Liberal government has got just the rebate for you, a $15,000 rebate. It is definitely a wealth transfer from working-class people to the super-wealthy. That doesn't even take into consideration all the corporate welfare programs that are typically funded under the guise of green handouts to business, all of which also take from the working class and give to the privileged few.
As you just pointed out through your answer, there isn't a single jurisdiction in all of Canada that has returned the revenues from the carbon tax to income taxpayers and business taxpayers.
Mr. Kenney, do you worry about the impact that these taxes will have on low-income families?
4:15 p.m.
P.C., MLA, Leader of the Official Opposition of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely. If people who are the most vulnerable...and, of course, the proponents of carbon taxes say that is offset by rebates. One of the problems with carbon taxes, unlike other forms of consumption tax, is that the costs of them cascade down through the economy and hit average people the hardest.
What has effectively happened in Alberta is that they've taken, in part, a tax that was on the major oil companies that produce emissions and now impose it on ordinary people through the carbon tax.
Mr. Beugin actually said that was a feature. I think it's a bug. He pointed out that global multinational oil companies like the NDP carbon tax because they don't have to pay for their own emissions. The consumer does. It gets pushed down through the economy.
I was surprised to see parties of the left now supporting a regressive form of taxation, which imposes a disproportionately large burden on lower-income people.