Chair, I want to quickly move two motions. I'm going to try to be as concise as possible, if that's good with you. Both motions are on notice already.
The first motion I want to move is:
That, the committee report to the House that it calls on the Prime Minister to convene a carbon tax emergency meeting with all of Canada's 14 first ministers, and that this meeting address: 1. the ongoing carbon tax crisis and the financial burden it places on Canadians; 2. the Prime Minister's recent 23% carbon tax increase; 3. plans for provinces to opt out of the federal carbon tax to pursue other ideas to lower emissions, given that under the government's current environmental plan, Canada now ranks 62 out of 67 countries on the climate change performance index; and That this meeting be publicly televised and held within five weeks of this motion being adopted.
I'll give you a bit of background on this. The Prime Minister recently said that he met with the premiers in 2016. A lot has changed since 2016. His poll numbers have tanked. He gave a carve-out to Atlantic Canada and left out the rest of Canada. He was proven false on some of his claims about the carbon tax scam by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, whom he appointed, such that more Canadian families are worse off paying into this carbon tax than in what they get in the so-called rebates.
For example, in Alberta, a family will pay $2,900 on average and, according to the PBO, will get back only $2,000 in these phony so-called rebates. It's the same in Ontario. An average family will pay $1,600 and get back only $1,000, leaving families worse off.
What else is worse off is the environment. First of all, by an admission of the government's own environmental department, they don't even track if the emissions go down with this carbon tax scam. It's probably because they know that it's just like the Prime Minister and not worth the cost. That's why they're not tracking it. Emissions have not gone down either. There is that point. As well, since 2016, 70% of Canadians and premiers, including a Liberal premier, Andrew Furey, have asked the Prime Minister to spike the hike, just like our common-sense Conservative leader has been saying all along, and call for a carbon tax election.
Last, I'll say that he needs to stop hiding and meet with these premiers like they've been asking so they can tell him that we need to scrap this carbon tax scam and get some real policies that a common-sense Conservative government would bring forward.
Thank you.