Debates of Oct. 18th, 2017

The House resumed from October 16 consideration of the motion.

Contribution of Farmers and Ranchers

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on Motion No. 108.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #367

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

It being 6:17 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from June 6 consideration of the motion.

Carbon Pricing

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to talk about the environment and the fight against climate change as we debate a motion moved by a Conservative member, whom I know very well since we worked together on the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development during my first term. Motion No. 131, entitled “Carbon Pricing”, states the following:

That the Standing Committee on Finance be instructed to undertake a study on: (a) how the government could examine approaches and methods to ensure maximum transparency for consumers related to the costs of carbon pricing...

In short, my colleague wants to know how the government can illustrate the cost of carbon pricing for Canadian consumers. It is somewhat ironic that the motion addresses only part of the problem facing Canadians. Allow me to explain.

Every day, Canadians are suffering the often far too harsh consequences of the dangerous climate change that we are experiencing. We saw the consequences of the heavy rainfall, droughts, and forest fires that Canadians suffered through this year. All of this comes at significant cost. It is normal for heavy rainfall, forest fires, and other natural phenomena to fluctuate, but the increased intensity and frequency of these phenomena are the direct result of dangerous climate change. In that sense, I would have liked my Conservative colleague to ask the following question: what is the cost of inaction when it comes to fighting climate change? Unfortunately, that tends to be forgotten.

The fact that the Liberal government has introduced carbon taxing is good news, but unfortunately it is not enough. The government cannot just put that on the table and think that it has done its part in the fight against climate change. A lot more needs to be done.

I want to read from a report with the Conservatives in mind since they were the ones who moved this motion. It is a report by the national round table on the environment and the economy, which was around for a while at the end of the 2000s and early 2010s, and then dissolved in 2012 because the Conservatives cut its funding. That was the only round table that conducted studies on the environment and the economy together. It was the only round table that brought together economists, environmentalists, and scientists to shed light on the measures that the government must take to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the round table was abolished.

Since then, we parliamentarians have not had this information and these resources to guide our actions. That is deplorable. The report I am going to quote from was issued by the national round table on the environment and the economy in 2012 and is still highly relevant. The round table found that the cost of inaction is much higher than the cost of action:

Our analysis shows that waiting until 2020 to implement climate policy aimed at cutting emissions by 65% from 2005 levels by 2050 implies close to $87 billion in refurbishments, retrofits and premature retirement of assets.

Merely stating how much carbon pricing will cost citizens is a red herring. We need to calculate much more than the cost of carbon pricing alone. We also need to consider the full impact of climate change inaction.

The NDP intends to vote against this motion. Regrettably, we can see that this motion fails to cover all of the important aspects that need to be studied with regard to the fight against climate change.

Most provinces already have carbon pricing in some form. British Columbia has a carbon tax. Quebec has a carbon market. The NDP is very much in favour of carbon pricing. We see it as a positive first step that deserves strong support.

As I mentioned, the round table was disbanded. However, my Conservative and Liberal colleagues would do well to meet with the scientists who are doing excellent work right now and have no political affiliation. They are not with the NDP. They are scientists from across Canada. Roughly 90 scientists from every field have formed a network called Sustainable Canada Dialogues.

What do they do? They offer suggestions and make proposals for transitioning to a low-carbon economy. It is very important for parliamentarians to listen to these groups. They are scientists from across the country who have recently produced reports on a number of topics, including energy efficiency.

What is the Liberal government doing with the energy efficiency file right now? Nothing. We need a solid energy efficiency roadmap, but right now, we have nothing like that even though the government is pouring billions into infrastructure every year. We need a long-term vision for energy efficiency, and we need to adapt to climate change. We must be prepared, but, unfortunately, nothing is being done. The Liberal government should listen to these scientists.

For the past few years, the Green Budget Coalition, another very important group, has been putting out an annual green budget. A few weeks ago, the coalition published a report containing clear green budget proposals. Interestingly, in every one of its reports, the coalition has called for the elimination of the $1.3 billion in fossil fuel subsidies. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals should examine that expense. Why have we not yet gotten rid of that $1.3 billion fossil fuel subsidy?

We should take that money and invest it in transitioning to clean energy. That is extremely important. Leaving aside this nonsensical motion, we need to do the math properly. We need to bring science back into the conversation about fighting climate change. We need a comprehensive plan that covers not only carbon pricing, but also energy efficiency and the clean energy transition. That is so important.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, having been a critic in the Manitoba legislature for conservation and environment for nearly seven of my 14 years, and a farmer almost all my business life, nature is a great concern of mine. That is why I am pleased to be able to speak to this motion, which instructs the finance committee to undertake a study on ensuring maximum transparency of the costs associated with the carbon tax, including a requirement for a dedicated line item on invoices and receipts. This is important to every one of my constituents in Brandon—Souris.

For months, I have been trying to get the Liberal government to come clean about the full costs of the carbon tax. I know that many members of our Conservative caucus, including the member for Carleton, have tabled numerous petitions, filed access to information requests, and even tabled Order Paper questions. Alas, no information has been forthcoming. The Liberal government either has no idea what consumers will have to pay once the carbon tax is implemented, or it knows exactly what it will cost but is afraid the information will cause the government even further political pain.

Never has a government changed its stripes so quickly and with such abandon as the Liberals who sit across from us today. Just mere months ago, they were touting how they were going to be open and transparent. That promise even got a separate page in the Liberal Party platform. They said they would restore a sense of trust in our democracy and would make all government data and information available by default. They said that access to information requests would start to apply to the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices. So far, the Liberals have failed to even make a remote effort to live up to these campaign promises.

This brings us to today's debate on Motion No. 131. It is almost comical that a member of the opposition has to use private members' business to get the government to provide even the most basic information on the carbon tax plan. Regardless of whether one thinks Canada needs a carbon tax, the Liberal government owes Canadian taxpayers the cold, hard truth of what it will cost them. No taxation without information is not a revolutionary idea. If the government wants to introduce a new tax, it has an obligation to tell us what it will do to our wallets and the overall economy.

I would think that the Prime Minister would want to share this information. It is a significant change in environmental policy, and it is clearly the Liberals' flagship initiative to deal with greenhouse gases. However, after the many unsuccessful attempts by us to get the financial analysis of this, it is clear that the Liberals have failed to live up to their own word about making government data and information available by default. Probably not a single Liberal member of Parliament across the way will vote in favour of this motion, which is a sad state of affairs considering that they all ran on this solemn pledge.

I should also point out that the government refused to respond to a direct Order Paper question asking for a financial analysis on what the carbon tax will do to families' household budgets. The Liberals refused to provide any information on how their carbon tax will impact low-income persons and families. The government refuses to tell us how much the carbon tax will impact inflation and how it will erode the disposable income of pensioners and seniors. It begs the question of what they are hiding.

I imagine that every member of Parliament has received correspondence or has been stopped in the street by a constituent asking for information about the carbon tax. I know I have. Let me just provide one example of what I am hearing from constituents. My office was contacted by a couple who live just outside the city of Brandon, but drive into the city every day to work, shop, and run errands. They drive hundreds of kilometres every week, out of necessity, and take every possible measure to keep their fuel bill manageable. Once their income is taxed, groceries are purchased, and they pay their bills, there is not a whole lot left. They would like the Liberal government to be forthright with them. In particular, they would like the government to spell out exactly how much more money it will take out of their family's budget.

While this is just one specific example of constituents wanting to know more details about the carbon tax, I can guarantee people that every member in the House has a similar story. Not only should this motion be passed, it is also incumbent upon the Liberal government to change its secretive ways when it comes to accessing financial information.

The documents that were released from Finance Canada were so heavily redacted we would swear they must have contained the nation's secrets or maybe even the Minister of Finance's disclosure to the Ethics Commissioner. What we can glean from the documents is that the government knows there will be a cascading effect on prices that consumers, families, and businesses will pay as a result of this new carbon tax.

These documents reference data tables in which those costs are laid out for families, broken down by income brackets: the very poor, the poor, the middle class, the upper-middle class, and the very rich. However, they are all blacked out. So much for a government that ran on a pledge that all government data and information would be made “open by default”.

What exactly is it hiding? The secrets to Area 51 or the whereabouts of Amelia Earhart? The negative financial impact on these income brackets should be laid bare in front of the House so all members, even backbench Liberal MPs, can scrutinize and review the government's carbon tax.

Now in respect to the motion, I am fully supportive of the government having to report annually on the financial impact of the carbon tax. As my colleague from Oshawa has said, transparent government is good government. If Canadians are to trust their government, we need a government that trusts Canadians.

Considering the amount of times the Liberals have had to be forthright but passed on every occasion, they should not be surprised that when they decide to impose their pan-Canadian carbon tax, they will be met with the same fury as their proposed tax hikes on small businesses and farmers.

In this vacuum of information, we can only estimate what the negative impacts will be. What we do know is that a Statistics Canada official testified at committee and stated that any increases in fuel, food, and other basic necessities would increase the number of people living below the poverty line. While the price of fuel, food, heating and electricity, and just about anything else a family buys continues to go up, they will have to find another extra few dollars out of their budget to pay for a carbon tax that we have no idea will even reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I want the Liberals to turn back the clock and think about when they were knocking on doors in the last election. They said that they were going to bring out real change. I ask that they keep their solemn promise of making government data and information available.

I ask every one of them to vote in favour of this motion and send the entire issue of the carbon tax to the finance committee. I ask that members pass the motion so Canadians know exactly what this carbon tax will cost them.

I know some members on the Liberal benches are uncomfortable with the recent direction of the government and I know it will take courage to break ranks. Unfortunately, they know full well there will be consequences if they vote in favour of the motion.

I want my colleagues across the aisle to remember that it is their constituents who put them in the House to represent their interests. Not a single member of the House was given the great honour to be a member of Parliament by the Liberal Party hierarchy. It was their voters who gave those members the opportunity to be their voice in Parliament.

I believe we can all agree the government should be transparent with its carbon tax. Canadians should know what it will cost them. Taxpayers of our great country deserve no less from their duly elected government. I say that because the government even refuses to release that information. It expects us to believe it, it expects us to give it the benefit of the doubt, and it expects us to go along with its plan, while refusing to provide any meaningful data.

This is a government that has made an absolute mockery of answering questions in the House. It obfuscates like no other. Today, all I ask it to do is to turn over a new leaf.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have a fair amount I would like to share with the member. I will pick up on his points about this government and information. The Stephen Harper government actually did something that was historic in its very nature back in 2011, when the Canadian Parliament was the first in the British Commonwealth to be in contempt of Parliament for not releasing information that was requested of it. That was a ruling that put the Canadian parliamentary system in the history books, and that was under Stephen Harper.

For over 10 years, Stephen Harper promised to reform the Access to Information Act. Nothing was done. There was no reform to the Access to Information Act. Within 18 months, this government changed the Access to Information Act, and it did it with great substance, such as allowing access to information officers to provide orders calling for information, something the Harper government stayed away from. We do not need to take any advice or lessons on access to information or being accountable or transparent to Canadians, because I would argue that we have done more on the issue of accountability and transparency in the last 18 months to two years than the Conservative Party did in over 10 years of being in government.

There is always more room for improvement. We can do better, and we will strive to be better.

The member across the way and the Conservatives are saying we should be voting—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I do not know what it is about the hon. parliamentary secretary, but when he gets up, opposition members want to help him out. They are coaching him, and now they are starting to coach him from the other side as well. I want to remind members that the rule is that when someone is speaking, we pay them a little respect and we try to listen and not shout out at them.

The hon. parliamentary secretary can continue.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to give all of my colleagues, on both sides of the House, some advice on what they might want to consider doing with respect to the motion before us. I would highly recommend that they vote against the motion.

We have the Conservatives saying that they want more accountability and transparency. They say that when they are in opposition, but we know the reality when they are in government; they stay away from transparency and accountability. However, that is not so with the present government.

That is their argument, more transparency and more accountability on the whole issue of the price of carbon. There are a number of thoughts that come across my mind on that argument. The first one is that the opposition, particularly the Conservatives, need to realize that this is a pan-Canadian agreement and not just Ottawa saying that it wants to have a price on carbon.

Let us revisit a little history. It was not that long ago when the Prime Minister, with the provinces, territories, indigenous peoples, and other stakeholders, went to France and came up with the Paris agreement. That was followed by more negotiations and discussions that took place here in Canada. We have a historic agreement on the environment dealing with a price on carbon. There were political parties of all stripes, provincial governments, territories, indigenous people, and many others, who came to an agreement that it is about time we have a price on carbon. I think there was one province at the time that said no, but we had countries around the world, through the Paris agreement, recognize that this is something we need to do.

However, we have the national Conservative Party here, standing alone, not only in Ottawa but in all the different regions, saying that they do not think there should be a price on carbon. They say that with pride. I would suggest to the members across the way that they are so out of touch with Canadians that they stand alone in not wanting to have good sound policies that will have an impact on sustainable development into the future. It is somewhat unfortunate, but it may be fortunate for us on the government side that the Conservatives continue to be irrelevant in terms of not listening to what Canadians have to say on very important issues such as the environment.

The Conservatives are opposing it and not recognizing that this particular agreement is pan-Canadian. That means that the Government of Canada sat down with stakeholders and provinces, and we came up with this agreement. There are all sorts of things that will take place to ensure that there is accountability and transparency. However, the national government would be operating in bad faith if we were to support the motion being presented. We would be saying that we do not care about the agreement that was achieved.

I understand that the Conservatives do not support the agreement. However, if we were to act or vote in favour of the motion, what are they talking about in terms of having that national coalition that has come around, that historic agreement that was signed off? Do they not understand or appreciate the importance of seeing that when we have the provinces, territories, and others sitting down and signing off on an agreement that there is an obligation? There is an obligation that we have to continue to work to develop, and there is an accountability and transparency component to it.

The federal, provincial, and territorial governments agreed to work together to review progress annually, in order to assess the effectiveness of the collective actions. First ministers agreed that the programs and policies will in fact be monitored. Results will be measured, and actions and performance will be reported on in a way that is transparent and accountable to Canadians. Again, you might not like it across the way, but this was agreed upon by not only the national government, but provincial—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order, please. Even when I am standing, members are yelling at each other. I want to remind hon. members to try to keep from shouting. Just whisper. Some of you have wonderful voices that carry very well. I just want you to control them and maybe bring them down to a whisper.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this reporting commitment includes the provision in the pan-Canadian approach to pricing carbon pollution, which I have already mentioned. The jurisdiction should provide regular, transparent, and verifiable reports on the outcomes and impacts of carbon pricing policies.

In addition to the general undertaking to report on the effectiveness of all actions, the pan-Canadian framework also specifically provides that the federal, provincial, and territorial governments work together, and I would underline “together”, to review the pan-Canadian approach to pricing carbon pollution. The review will include working with experts to assess stringency and effectiveness and will compare carbon pollution pricing systems across Canada, including the proposed federal system as well as the various provincial and territorial systems. The review will be completed by early 2022 to provide certainty on the path forward. In addition, the PCF requires the completion of the interim report in 2020.

It is important that we recognize, when we talk about a price on carbon, that for most Canadians, it is not new. In fact, there are provinces, such as British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec, and unfortunately not my province, but I understand that it is getting closer, that recognize the importance of having something in place. The majority of Canadians already understand and have some form of a price on carbon or cap and trade. In the negotiations and discussions that have taken place between Ottawa and the different provinces, territories, indigenous people, and so forth, there has been a general consensus.

My recommendation to my colleagues across the way in the Conservative Party is to listen to what Canadians actually have to say on the issue and vote accordingly.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I might say that was much better, and I thank both sides.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Abbotsford.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Motion No. 131, which is sponsored by my good friend from Oshawa. He has done a great job highlighting the fact that the Liberal government lacks the transparency it promised during the last election.

Effectively, what the motion does is to instruct the Standing Committee on Finance to undertake a study to ensure that the cost of the Liberal carbon tax is disclosed to consumers, and that the government annually reports the financial impact of it on Canadian households and employers. This is important because, quite frankly, Canadians have no idea how it will hit them. They have no idea that the national carbon tax that the Liberal government has imposed will undermine Canada's prosperity, and undermine Canadians' ability to purchase the consumer goods that they have become accustomed to.

If the Liberal government is going to move forward with imposing a national carbon tax, Canadians deserve to know how much it will cost them. It was the Liberal government that promised to be transparent with Canadians. When it comes to the carbon tax, they are doing no such thing.

I refer the members to the mandate letter that each of the cabinet ministers received from the Prime Minister. It is the Prime Minister's instructions to each cabinet minister. Of course, there is a section that deals with conflict of interest, which we know the finance minister is breaching so flagrantly, as we remind the government every day here in this House. However, there is something else that is written in the mandate letter from the Prime Minister that is directed to the environment minister. It states:

We have also committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government. It is time to shine more light on government to ensure it remains focused on the people it serves. Government and its information should be open by default...Canadians do not expect us to be perfect—they expect us to be honest, open, and sincere in our efforts to serve the public interest.

That is the letter directing the environment minister to be open and transparent in the job that she is doing for Canadians. Has she done that? Of course not. The Liberal government and the minister have repeatedly denied requests to provide Parliament with basic information on the impacts of a carbon tax on Canadians.

I have provided a specific request to the minister's office to provide me with any analyses that may have been done on its impact. I got a response, but it was not what I expected. It was basically a whole bunch of nothing because the attached report was almost wholly redacted. For those Canadians who do not understand what redaction means, it means purging documents of their content. Our request for some information about analyses that have been done on the impact of the carbon tax was completely purged of anything substantive in the response I got from the environment minister. We have nothing to go by or to share with Canadians.

Where do we go from there? The government is not being honest, transparent, and open.

We went to another report that The Conference Board of Canada issued. The Conference Board of Canada is a private sector think tank that has thoroughly analyzed the impact of the Liberal government's pan-Canadian framework on climate change, and the impact that carbon taxes will have on Canada. What is painted is a grim picture of what is to come. It provided a variety of scenarios and it confirmed that a carbon tax will not create jobs, and will not foster investment, despite the repeated claims made by the minister herself. In all of the scenarios that The Conference Board of Canada paints, the impact on real GDP or, in other words, economic growth in Canada, is negative, and its environmental impact negligible.

On the one side we have a negligible impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and The Conference Board of Canada says that on the other side it will suppress economic growth in Canada.

The report says a carbon tax is “insufficient...to achieve Canada's Paris accord commitments.”

The study also found that a carbon tax would weaken real household income through lower wages. It also found that business investment and trade volumes would be eroded. Canada is a great trading nation. To think that our ability to trade with other countries and to remain competitive with them when it comes to trade and investment will be eroded is a thought I do not want to countenance. I am surprised the Liberal government is going down this road runs that very real risk.

The study goes on to say that a carbon tax would depreciate the value of the Canadian dollar. It would disproportionately impact industries with a domestic focus, such as residential construction, finance, insurance, and real estate sectors. Chemical manufacturing, primary metals, wood, paper production, food manufacturing, plastics and rubber production all would be negatively impacted by a carbon tax. That comes from the Conference Board of Canada.

The study found one final thing and that was that a carbon tax and the plan the Liberal government wanted to impose on Canadians would result in federal deficit increases due to a decline in personal and corporate income tax revenues. Imagine that. This is not declining revenues because the Liberal government has found ways of reducing taxes on Canadians. This is a decline in tax revenues due to a decline in economic activity due to the fact that people will lose their jobs because of carbon pricing. That is the message of this report.

Let me quote one more piece out of that report. A carbon tax “not only creates downside economic risk, but also means that domestic policies that are designed to reduce emissions could simply result in those emissions occurring in another jurisdiction.” Essentially, that is called carbon leakage. The government imposes these heavy carbon taxes on top of all the additional business taxes the Liberals have imposed on Canadians recently, on top of all the payroll taxes they have imposed on Canadians.

Eventually Canadian companies that do business here and want to expand will decide they can no longer operate here because it is not profitable in Canada. They will decide to move to the United States or China and do business there where environmental standards are much lower than in Canada. We lose the jobs but overall global greenhouse gas emissions go up. Imagine the folly of this kind of plan, yet that is what is happening.

Today I met with stakeholders from the Canadian chemical industry. They say that they have somewhere in the order of $12 billion that is waiting to be invested in Canada. The told me that this investment was now at risk. This is a fast growing industry, with $53 billion worth of shipments in 2016. It is also a great job creator in Canada. They said that they were paying salaries of around $147,000 for highly trained Canadians to do the work. It is globally the best in class.

Canada's chemistry industry is already a world leader in low intensity carbon chemical production and an employer of a highly skilled workforce. This industry is considering moving either to the United States or to China to do its manufacturing. Guess what. We will be buying those same products, the very products that are helping us to reduce our carbon footprint. We are chasing all these jobs out of our country, yet greenhouse gas emissions will rise in the rest of the world. Why do we not do it here at home where we have sustainable practices, where we have strong standards with which our companies have to comply?

This is a sad story of another Liberal failure. The Liberal government is a disaster when it comes to tax planning and not understanding the consequences of imposing increased tax burdens on Canadians. We are all going to pay the price for that and for that, the Liberals should apologize.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, transparency seems to be the topic of the week, and obviously, from the parliamentary secretary's speech, the Liberals are running away from it.

My motion being debated here today was brought forward as an opportunity for Liberal and NDP members to prove that they do, in fact, want to be as transparent as possible with Canadians. Motion No. 131 seeks just that. It is a motion that seeks to have the finance committee undertake a study that would determine ways to ensure that the cost of the mandatory Liberal carbon tax is disclosed. The Prime Minister himself has stated that his plan is $10 a tonne by 2018, increasing to $50 a tonne by 2022. To put this into perspective, that is an extra 2.33¢ per litre at the pumps in 2018, and an extra 11.63¢ per litre by 2022. That is a potential increase of up to $2,569 per year for the average Canadian family by 2022.

If the provinces choose not to introduce this arbitrary tax on their citizens, the Liberals will impose the tax themselves.

There is no denying that a carbon tax will have profound effects on every single Canadian, so it seems a bit rich that the Minister of Environment had the audacity to say that their plan was credible and fair for all Canadians. How is nickel and diming hard-working Canadians fair? How is it fair to do it without disclosing the actual costs associated with this new mandatory tax?

As the only party that represents the taxpayer, we have continually pushed for answers on these very questions. At first the Liberals said they did not have the answers, but then a very heavily blacked out Finance Canada document showed that the government did have the answers but was trying to keep them from Canadians. Why are the Liberals hiding the cost of the carbon tax if their plan is credible and “fair for all Canadians”?

Canadians are already struggling to make ends meet under the Liberal government. The Prime Minister's out-of-control spending habits have led to increases in payroll taxes. We just found out that the CRA wants to attempt to tax employee discounts. There is the elimination of the vital tax breaks that help low- and middle-income Canadians, and now there will be another new tax grab that will affect every single Canadian and drive businesses right out of the country because it is not affordable.

Why do I think that every member in the House should vote in favour of Motion No. 131? It is simple. This is a non-partisan issue.

While the Conservative Party does not endorse imposing higher taxes on Canadians, the Liberal Party clearly does. I do not think anyone would argue with the fact that a tax on every single Canadian and business should be studied, and in fact, passed unanimously.

As elected members of Parliament, it is up to us to be honest with our constituents and ensure that their voices are heard in Ottawa. Earlier this year, I asked my constituents a very simple question: do you agree with the Liberal government's carbon tax plan? Ninety-six per cent of respondents said no. They do not agree with the Liberal plan. Why? It is because my constituents know that this tax will empty their pockets. This tax will make manufacturers, a major job creator in Oshawa, think twice about investing in our community and in our future. The tax is anything but affordable and fair.

Unfortunately, the Liberals have made it clear that they will not listen to Canadians on most of their tax-grabbing schemes. However, they can at least keep one of their election promises and be open and transparent. If the Liberals vote against my motion, there is no doubt that they are trying to keep this tax grab hidden from Canadians. There is no doubt that the Liberals have broken their promise to set a new tone, something the Prime Minister said he would achieve by being open and transparent with Canadians.

The Liberals are already being criticized for their lack of transparency. We as Conservatives believe in helping Canadians achieve prosperity and opportunity instead of taking it away from them with overspending and higher taxes. Governments should encourage growth and investment. Instead, under this government, businesses will look elsewhere. Jobs will be lost, and Canadians will have less money in their pockets.

I look forward to seeing the committee's report once the study is complete. I encourage all members of Parliament to vote in favour of transparency for Canadians.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The question is on the motion. Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

[Chair read text of motion to the House]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.