Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to ask a few questions of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
In October of this year, the Prime Minister announced that he would be imposing a massive carbon tax grab on Canadians. This tax, by the year 2022, will require Canadians to pay about $50 per tonne of C02 emissions. That is billions of dollars coming out of the pockets of taxpayers.
The Prime Minister did this without the support of the provinces. Many of them have lamented the fact that this is absolutely the worst time to hammer Canadians with a carbon tax, given our floundering economy. Canadians will be saddled with billions of dollars of extra taxes a year. They would have the right to assume that at the very least, prior to imposing such a heavy tax burden on Canadians, the government would actually do a cost benefit impact analysis, in other words an economic impact analysis on what this tax would mean for the Canadian economy and the damage it could cause.
I was certainly pleased to hear the minister was making one of her assistant deputy ministers available for a briefing. We came to that briefing and we asked whether a full impact analysis of the carbon tax had been done. We were shocked to hear him say that not only had no cost benefit impact analysis been done, but it was the view of the assistant deputy minister and the minister herself that such an impact analysis was premature.
With that in mind, on November 1, I asked the minister in the House whether it was true that an impact analysis had not done on the carbon tax. Sadly, the minister did not answer the question and instead fell back on her bland talking points. She certainly could not provide any answers on how the national carbon tax would impact ordinary Canadians. This is what she actually said. In order to tackle climate change, a carbon tax “is also the way to grow our economy, create good jobs, and ensure a sustainable future for our children.”
Canadians will be very surprised to hear the Liberal government says that the way to grow the economy is to tax the daylights out of Canadians. Canadians will be shocked to hear that.
If the minister is so sure that additional taxes will spur economic growth, where is the government's modelling that proves that?
I have three questions for the parliamentary secretary. In the interests of transparency and open government, which is what the Prime Minister promised when he was running for election, I would ask that he please answer the questions directly.
First, is it true that the government announced its massive carbon tax grab without ever doing an impact analysis on what that tax would mean for ordinary Canadians?
Second, if that is so, could the parliamentary secretary tell us exactly how much additional government revenue is expected to be raised from the carbon tax once it is fully implemented in 2022?
Finally, could the parliamentary secretary tell the House why the government plans to raise taxes on Canadians at a time when our economy is floundering?