Thank you, Mr. Chair.
After eight years of this NDP-Liberal government, it's quite clear that times are tougher than ever for Canadians. Challenges are starting to occur, even the fraying of our national unity. It seems like every time there's a Trudeau in power, a unity crisis follows. Perhaps that is not a coincidence. Whether it be energy policies of the past or future, it seems as though this government, this Liberal-NDP government, is intent on creating division across our unity, whether that be across socio-economic classes or across regions. Never has that been more clear than in their exemption with respect to the carbon tax.
Of course, Mr. Chair, we heard in this very committee of the inflationary impact. What really bothered me, because I hold members of this committee particularly in high regard, was the demagoguery in the House of Commons. Everybody heard the testimony here of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Macklem, that the carbon tax was responsible for 0.6%. That equates to 16% of inflation, yet I heard, in the House of Commons, members of this committee saying “0.15%”. That was just untrue. It was factually untrue. Then, when I tried to offer evidence on a point of order, unfortunately the Liberals objected to this. It's as if they're allergic to the truth.
When we look at the impact of the carbon tax on Canadians, it's crushing. To his credit, the Prime Minister seemed to get this message, to an extent, but only for Atlantic Canadians. While that will provide some economic relief to our friends in Atlantic Canada....
Quite frankly, I give our Conservative members in Atlantic Canada—Rob Moore and Dr. Ellis among others, and of course Rick Perkins has appeared at this committee—a lot of credit for pushing those Atlantic members hard and raising the issue to the point where the Atlantic members, I can only assume, were in full revolt to remove the carbon tax on home heating fuel.
Of course, you also hear the demagoguery that, no, this is a Canada-wide project. It is, but it's effectively only Atlantic Canada, because disproportionately, in fact greatly disproportionately, the exemption on home heating oil affects Atlantic Canada. That's just a fact.
The demagoguery on the other side—