Thank you, Chair.
Thanks, Minister, for being here today, and thanks to all of your officials who are present and who will be taking questions after your appearance.
While the radical extremist environment minister quoted an anti-energy activist group called Environmental Defence in the House of Commons about emissions reductions in Canada, I'm going to focus on your government's federal national inventory report on emissions and ask you some questions about whether or not the carbon tax is worth the cost, since it has not reduced Canada's emissions to date.
The fact is that Canada has missed every single one of your government's emissions reductions targets, despite your increase of the carbon tax every year since you've implemented it. Canadians know that emissions have increased in each one of those years, except for during 2020, when governments locked Canadians down and the economy was severely damaged by those restrictions.
In 2021, you said that 2019 would be the last year of emissions increases in Canada, but just last week, your federal government's national inventory reported that Canada's emissions in 2022 were up from 698 million tonnes in 2021 and 686 million tonnes in 2020. During 2022, they were at 708 million tonnes. Will you just simply admit that your carbon tax is not worth the cost and that it's failed to reduce Canada's emissions?