Debates of Feb. 23rd, 2017

Opposition Motion—Impact of Carbon Taxes

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. As he said, the problem goes beyond sea levels rising by a metre or more.

We do not like to talk about the risk of going above 1.5° global average temperature increase. At the Paris negotiations, I sought out scientists to find out what we would tell people if they asked what the difference would be between 1.5° and 2°. The low-lying island states will not survive if we go above 1.5° and we will lose large chunks of the Arctic. We are basically playing Russian roulette by hanging on to land-based ice, such as the Greenland ice sheet or the western Antarctic ice shelf. If we lose either one of those, we would see an eight-metre sea level rise for each event. We do not know when that will occur. The Greenland ice shelf is ice on land. Arctic ice melting would not lead to a sea level rise but it would disrupt the climate globally. With ice on land we are playing Russian roulette with catastrophic levels of quite sudden loss of coastlines and major urban areas.

I would ask my friend for any comments he might have on the urgency of the crisis.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the leader of the Green Party for her comments.

I was already quite concerned, but now I am starting to panic. That is why the federal government needs to take this issue seriously.

Let us not forget that the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien signed the Kyoto protocol. We found out later from a former chief of staff that it was in fact just a public relations operation. Under the Kyoto protocol, there was supposed to be a 6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels. What happened under the Liberal government? There was a 30% increase in greenhouse gas emissions. It was all talk and no action.

Today the government is talking about implementing a carbon tax. In an earlier intervention, my colleague said that this tax does not go nearly far enough to achieve the weak targets that this government has set.

A few months ago, on the program RDI Économie, a tax expert and professor from Montreal talked about how this carbon tax was inadequate and would not change much of anything. Marwah Rizqy criticized the Liberal government's targets and how its measures are incompatible with its own targets. The government should take a listen sometime.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his speech because he has identified the three major paradoxes in the subject of the motion presented by the Conservatives today.

I would like to hear more from him about the empty rhetoric of this Liberal government, which literally promised everything but the moon during the campaign. The Liberals probably did not expect to find themselves in government. Today, they are improvising by saying that the targets set by the Conservative government are fine and attainable. Not only are the targets too weak, but we will not even reach them. The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands made that very clear.

How is it that we ended up with a government that congratulates itself and insists all of its plans are fantastic even though nothing ever happens?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

We have a government that is all about image, appearances, and self-promotion. The Liberals like to indulge in such things. However, when the time comes to keep their promises, they are nowhere to be found.

I could talk about democratic reform, but I will refrain from talking about my favourite subject. As for the Liberals' main election promise, social and green infrastructure, my colleague is quite right and the parliamentary budget officer reminded us of this just recently. The Liberals had proudly announced that they would spend about $13.5 billion on infrastructure. Upon verification, only $4.3 billion has been spent.

What does that mean for Canadians? It means that the social housing and the additional buses promised are not there. It means that the Liberals talk about investing in our roads and everything that will help our economy, but they are not keeping their promises. It is absolutely deplorable. That is why we will continue to hold this government to account.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Lakeland.

It gives me great pleasure on behalf of the good people who live in the eastern Ontario riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke to participate in today's debate in support of the motion put forth by my fellow Conservative colleague from eastern Ontario, the hon. member of Parliament for Carleton.

As someone who successfully ran against Stéphane Dion's 2008 carbon tax platform, I find that this debate is a trip down memory lane. I remember very clearly the Liberal candidate who ran against me, although there have been so many I forget their names, showing up at an all-candidates' meeting with a block of firewood, claiming her party had no intention to carbon tax firewood. Her more rabid supporters even claimed that her party would never ban the burning of firewood.

I invite Canadians to read the joint statement made on June 29 by the Prime Minister, the previous U.S. President, and the Mexican President. In addition to pledging to bring in carbon taxes is the promise to get rid of firewood being used to heat homes in rural communities, or ban the burning of firewood.

The Liberals hid their carbon tax, a hidden agenda in the last campaign, having learned the lesson of poor Stéphane Dion, who was so recently kicked under the wheels of the broken promises bus of the Liberal Party. It is no surprise the Liberal government refuses to be open and transparent with Canadians and provide the information my colleague, the member for Carleton, has been requesting and is requesting in today's motion about carbon taxes.

In the province of Ontario, a regressive carbon tax is not something new. The carbon tax in Ontario was authored by the Prime Minister's principal secretary, Gerald Butts. Taxpayers pay it every month as an item on their electricity bill. The Toronto Liberal Party calls it a “global adjustment”.

For Canadians who may be curious as to exactly what the Liberal Party is hiding from Canadians about the destructive nature of carbon taxes, I turn to Canada's national broadcaster, the CBC, and an excellent article on its website entitled, “Be afraid: The brains behind Ontario's energy disaster are now running the country”. The author then asks, “Phasing out coal, a feverish pursuit of green energy, new tax regimes—where have we all heard this before?”

Posted December 7, 2016, by Graeme Gordon, it sets out in clear language the carbon tax controversy in Ontario and what Canadians can expect with the same person in charge in Ottawa. Quoting the CBC:

It is uncontroversial to call Ontario's energy situation a disaster. As [the liberal Premier] has herself conceded: Ontarians are now having to choose between paying the electricity bill and buying food or paying rent.

The article then clearly points out who was responsible for the carbon tax on electricity fiasco in Ontario, the Prime Minister's top adviser, Gerald Butts.

...it was former premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal team from 2003 to 2012—including his former principal secretary and “policy guru” Gerald Butts—who set Ontario onto this financially bleak, dead-end road. And now, Butts is headed on the same path, leading not the Premier, but the Prime Minister, on the way down.

Butts was, according to the Toronto Star, “the man they call 'the brains behind the operation” and the “policy architect of the Liberal government since 2003.”

Butts departed from McGuinty's government in 2008, but not before he and the Ontario Liberal team set the stage for the ill-fated Green Energy Act, in part, by signing onto dubious wind power projects and its cripplingly inefficient Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP).

Let us be clear, as the CBC pointed out:

Butts himself takes—credit for initially enacting and seeing through those energy policies.

As the Toronto Star reported in 2012, “On his biography page at the WWF website, Butts cites how he was 'intimately' involved with the McGuinty government's environmental initiatives.” Another Canadian Press article made it clear that Ontario's energy policy was Butts' design, “McGuinty's plan came from his senior adviser, Gerald Butts.”

Butts has graduated to the halls of Parliament Hill as [the Prime Minister's] own principal secretary, leaving behind a province still paying the price, literally, for his tenure. His promise to eliminate coal, for example—a worthy gambit, if done fiscally responsibly—cost Ontario consumers an extra $37 billion between 2006 and 2014, according to an auditor general, and is expected to cost another $133 billion from 2015 to 2032.

Let us read what else the CBC had to say about Gerald Butts:

Now he's doubling down, via the prime minister, on his green energy gambit by promising to enact carbon pricing regimes (read: tax) on all provinces by 2018 and phasing out coal by 2030, even as our neighbour and biggest competitor [the United States] moves in the opposite direction. How team...[Butts] sees a carbon-priced Canada competing against the U.S. on an off-kilter playing field confounds most people's common sense....

The federal Liberals, under the stewardship of Butts, has already run a projected $30 billion deficit in its first year in office.

This comes after promising a $10 billion deficit for each of the first three years. It is a $60 billion broken promise.

Phasing out all coal by 2030 will have a cost that will add to that deficit. (This sounds awfully familiar, no?) Forcing carbon taxes on all Canadians by 2018 will, in theory, be a revenue generator for Canada, yet it also promises to eat up more of Canadians' paycheques, and potentially trigger businesses to flee to greener (and cheaper) pastures down south—a phenomenon that is of real and pressing concern for Ontario's government.

The CBC article finishes with the following warning for all Canadians:

The architects of Ontario's energy fiasco are now stationed in the PMO. The whole country should be wary of the financial disaster of that province being replicated nationwide.

What could be in the finance department's own documents that are so damaging to the Liberal Party's flagship policy of carbon taxes that the Liberals are afraid to share it with Canadians?

To get an idea of what the documents reveal, Canadians need look no further than the report of Ontario's auditor general on the new set of carbon taxes brought in by the Toronto Liberal Party under the direction of the federal Liberal Party. According to the non-partisan auditor general, cap and trade carbon taxes, which kicked in at the beginning of 2017, will cost Ontarians billions of dollars in additional heating and transportation charges. They will lead to even higher electricity rate increases than are already expected, send billions of dollars out of the Ontario economy, and vastly overstate any environmental benefits.

The AG's report adds to what other critics of carbon tax policies have been saying all along. The biggest winner from the policy will be Toronto, which will have the power to create and distribute any number of credits it wishes and use any revenue from the program to fund a suite of pet projects that will have little to no environmental benefits.

The auditor general highlighted that carbon taxes in Ontario come at a major cost for the province's households and businesses, which are already struggling from the fastest electricity rate increases anywhere in North America. Between 2017 and 2020, households and businesses will be burdened with even higher taxes. The annual direct and indirect costs to the average household will rise to $285 by 2019. Households that drive more miles will pay more. As to the impact on rural and northern households, which are already suffering from high energy costs, either the information has not been analyzed by the province or, as with the Liberal Party in Ottawa, it is not being released to consumers. Cap and trade carbon tax pricing will make electricity price hikes worse for industrial customers, also according to the auditor general.

Perhaps the province will use the billions of dollars in proceeds of its carbon credit options as a subsidy to lower hydro bills. By 2030, large industrial customers will experience a 7% increase in their electricity rate, which is directly attributable to cap and trade carbon pricing. This price hike is over and above the increases the province has already laid out in its long-term energy plan.

Contrary to the vapid talking points prepared by Gerald Butts for the Minister of Environment, carbon taxes are bad for the economy. In Ontario, the Liberal carbon tax on electricity has eliminated more than 400,000 good, well-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector. Carbon taxes hurt the less advantaged the most. Carbon taxes lead directly to higher commodity prices, higher electricity bills, and a reduction of job opportunities.

The Minister of Environment should throw away her silly PMO/Gerald Butts talking points and take a look at what is really happening in Europe, in Germany. German households paid a renewable surcharge of 7.2 billion euros in the latest year.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always a treat to listen to the member across the way. As I was listening to her today, one thought that came across my mind was of Patrick Brown, one of her former colleagues. He served with the member on this side of the House for a number of years. He then decided to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party in the province of Ontario. Patrick Brown says today that the Conservative Party's position is in favour of a price on carbon. That is what the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party is saying in the province of Ontario. He is not alone. There are many Conservatives across this country who have said that. All political parties across this country are saying that a price on carbon is good for the environment and for Canada. There are countries around the world that are saying that.

My question for the member is this. Why does she believe that the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, the only entity that I am aware of, is opposed to carbon pricing? What is the logic behind the Conservative Party saying it is in opposition?

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Saskatchewan; Saskatchewan; that is a party.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is one province and one leader, that being Saskatchewan. I will give the member that.

However, why does this member believe that the Conservative Party here is so alone on this particular front?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Before I go to the hon. member, I will say this. I do not know what it is, but every time the hon. member for Winnipeg North gets up, the Conservatives want to help him out and shout answers to him. I want to remind hon. members that there is a process, and shouting across the floor is not that process.

The hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in addition, all consumers' indirect costs are rising as industry must pass on its rising costs to consumers in product prices. Similar to the 20-year industrial wind turbine contracts signed by the Liberal Party in Ontario, because Germany has signed onto greed energy subsidies that guarantee prices for 20 years, costs will rise even higher. As more greed energy schemes are signed onto by the Liberal Party in Ottawa, the future looks even bleaker for young people. It is poor young families, the working and productive middle classes, and the elderly who are most hurt by carbon taxes, as we have seen in Ontario.

There are some observers who claim that the problem with out-of-control electricity prices in Ontario are a result of an unfortunate mix of Liberal greed and incompetence. The situation with British Columbia carbon taxes is no better. According to GEMCo, a not-for-profit corporation formed by Canadian energy companies to demonstrate industry leadership in the development of market-based approaches to greenhouse gas emissions management:

The BC CTax shifts tax burden from large, profitable and, particularly, resource extracting businesses to the public sector, small [less profitable] businesses and low income families.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the hon. member heard the question. She appeared to be continuing with her speech.

I want to ask the member this. In the previous Parliament, the Conservative government cancelled the extremely important and very popular home retrofit program. I think most parties agree that it was a successful program. It reduced energy use, it reduced emissions, and it saved money. It seemed like a win-win-win. Therefore, I wonder if the member would support reinstating that program.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker:

Carbon taxes are before income tax operating expenses and at least partially deductible from royalties payable by resource extractors (while families pay...[more] after tax income). ...the revenue gap in BC’s income-to-carbon tax shift is...[about] $600-million.

There is nothing revenue neutral about this.

It was further demonstrated that B.C. carbon tax credit payments to low-income families were far less than the gross amount of carbon taxes collected from the same families. There was no recycling of tax revenue to low-income families.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Carleton, for leading this motion today and for all his work on behalf of taxpayers and all Canadians, but especially on behalf of the poorest and most vulnerable among us, the people who are struggling to make ends meet every day.

This Liberal carbon tax is already making things so much worse for families and for businesses across Lakeland, Alberta, and Canada. Before the Liberals unilaterally announced they would force a carbon tax on all of Canada, the finance department completed analysis on how the tax would impact everyday Canadians. Both documents were released through an access to information request, but much of that information was redacted and blacked out.

It is clear there is information contained in these reports that the Liberals do not want Canadians to see. Canadians can be forgiven for asking what the Liberals are hiding, just as when the Liberal members rejected a Conservative motion to study the impacts of the carbon tax on natural resources development in Canada in committee.

However, of course, we know why they are keeping facts from us and why they are resisting releasing this information to Canadians. It is because the Liberals do not want us to know how damaging it will be for businesses, families, communities, and the poor.

This reckless cash grab will harm small businesses. A local business owner from Lakeland runs a family-owned trucking operation near Bonnyville. At a town hall meeting, he explained that the price of everything will rise, and the cost to fuel his trucks will increase dramatically. He fears he will have to lay off up to four staff from his already-small group of employees. Trucks that are in perfect working condition will sit empty as he will not be able to afford to run them.

Like him, business owners across Alberta are warning consumers and clients that they will have to pay for this increase in operating costs, which will happen to almost all businesses across all of Canada, small, medium, and large, most of which ship and receive goods that are transported by trucks. Businesses will have no choice. They will have to figure out how to cover off these cost increases through higher prices or layoffs.

The Liberals pledged to be an open and transparent government. In fact the motto on the Liberal website is “Openness. Transparency. Fairness.” How is unilaterally forcing and then hiding the true cost of this new tax on everything open, transparent, or fair?

School boards will need to cope with millions of dollars in extra bills. Alberta school boards have requested an exemption from the tax, warning about the possibility of mass layoffs without it. The answer was that there could be a rebate in the 2017 budget from the provincial NDP, but school boards are already facing the additional burden of this new tax.

The Elk Island Catholic Schools board in Lakeland will incur an additional $82,000 in increased costs for the remaining school year, and $143,000 next year, specifically for transportation and infrastructure costs. School board trustees question the ability to budget for replacement school buses in the future. Rural and small town kids biking and walking to school is not an option.

Municipalities will also struggle with this tax. The town of St. Paul worked to keep spending as low as possible this past year, knowing the carbon tax would make it even harder to stay in the black over the coming years. The Town of Vegreville did a projection of what the carbon tax will cost based on its fuel usage, and it will increase the town costs by $36,438.19 in 2017 and up to more than $54,000 in 2018. These are significant costs for small towns, municipalities, and counties.

All Canadians will feel this pain. A Lakeland resident recently shared a bill on Facebook, which showed an extra cost of $778 on a single truckload of energy products that was delivered to his home. This is the biggest tax hike in Alberta's history. It is not environmental policy. The federal Liberals and the provincial NDP are manipulating caring for the environment, a priority shared by all Albertans, all Canadians, all parties; and it is crass and disingenuous to suggest otherwise, to justify this cash grab, falsely claiming it will earn social licence and reduce emissions.

Alberta has always actually been a leader. Alberta, in fact, was the first jurisdiction in all of North America to regulate emissions, and to apply a targeted $15 a tonne carbon levy specifically on heavy industrial emitters, and only on heavy industrial emitters, including oil sands producers. That was in 2003.

Alberta leads Canada with biofuels and off-gas capture projects in the north, and with wind and solar projects in the south.

This all started more than a decade ago. Here were are, with both provincial and federal politicians falsely claiming this new massive cost increase of everything for everyone will suddenly stop extremist and foreign funded activists and protestors, international attacks from competitors protecting their competitive bottom line to try to push Canada out of oil and gas development and get pipelines built. It is nonsense.

Federal and provincial representatives instead should tell the truth unabashedly, at every opportunity, in every situation across Canada and to the world. Alberta produces the most environmentally and socially responsible oil and gas in the world, and operates under the highest standards and the most stringent regulatory regime of any country on the planet.

The result has been innovation and energy development that has been the driving force of Canadian prosperity and government revenue for many decades, increasing the standard of living of every person in every community, benefiting every province and every region. Alberta has earned its social licence many times over, and so has all of Canada.

I notice repeated misrepresentations, especially from the Liberals and also from the NDP throughout this debate of economists and Conservatives who support carbon taxes for emissions reduction. The fact about those economists is that they almost always also promote equivalent regulatory and red tape reductions and equivalent reductions in corporate and personal taxes.

Those economists are usually proponents to shift taxation from personal and corporate taxes to consumption and carbon taxes entirely. Those same experts, like an economist who helped develop the Alberta NDP plan, also say carbon taxes have to be about $150 to $200 per tonne to be punitive enough to cause significant emissions reductions.

However, that is not what the Liberals are doing, no government in Canada is proposing that, which makes the point. This scheme is a cash grab; it is not about environmental stewardship or emissions reduction. What they are doing will be disproportionately harmful to rural, remote, northern Canadians, to agriculture and energy-based communities, and to the most vulnerable, those who can least afford it, to the unemployed, low-income Canadians, people on fixed incomes, the working poor.

The fact is neither the U.S. nor any of the other top six major oil and gas producing countries in the world are even proposing or adopting carbon taxes. They know it would be harmful for their economies and bad for their people. It is stunning that the Liberals would force Canada down this road regardless of the way it will seriously undermine our competitiveness.

Even in the case of B.C., often hailed as the best example of the carbon tax, every year since 2010, B.C. emissions have increased. There has been no significant reduction in gasoline purchases.

It is not at all the case that the options are (a) carbon tax, or (b) do nothing, as the argument is often framed. That is a false choice to justify a revenue generator that will increase everyone's cost of living, the prices of all goods and services, and will hurt the most vulnerable, the people who can least afford the higher energy costs because they are a higher portion of their income.

I oppose the carbon tax for these reasons, and because it will not do what its proponents claim.

Bad policies that undermine competitiveness, increase costs, and hamper productivity with excessive red tape will deter investment and innovation. It is private sector investment that will generate the development of alternative and renewable energies long into the future, and it is conventional oil and gas companies that are already leading that way. We should not kick them while they are down.

We should be having fact-based conversations about environmental policy and outcomes. We all strongly believe in protecting the environment and in economic development. However, we should be clear what is actually being proposed in Canada right now. The Liberals' carbon tax is not about the environment. It is not about emissions reductions. It is a cash grab and the Liberals need to tell Canadians how much it will end up costing all of us and the damage it will do.

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

Mr. Speaker, provincial Liberal, Conservative and NDP governments all have come to the table and have agreed with the Prime Minister and this government that now is the time for us to have carbon pricing.

The member made reference to a school division that would need more money as a direct result. She somewhat answered the question by making the statement that it would be the province to determine. We are saying that the time is now for a price on carbon, but the revenues generated from that are going to the provinces. Ottawa is not getting any money out of it. Provinces will deal with the issue the members have raised.

Does the member not agree that with the price on carbon, that it is best that the revenue goes to the provincial jurisdictions? This way they are able to address some of the issues the member has raised today.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, no, because I oppose a carbon tax.

The member seems to have a foggy memory of what happened there. In fact, at the beginning of a debate about meeting targets in the Paris agreement, the Prime Minister, before any debate occurred, or any MP could have a say, before anyone could represent his or her constituents, before anyone had any ability to consider a policy proposal or the impacts on the communities, stood and pre-empted that entire debate. He announced his government would be forcing a carbon tax on every community and every person in Canada from coast to coast to coast.

That happened on the same day when provincial environment ministers were gathered together for a meeting where they thought they would be negotiating a framework with the federal government about how to deal with environmental policy and with international commitments going forward.

I do not know what the member recalls about that. Perhaps he has been in here so long it is affecting his memory. However, environment ministers walked out. A number of—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, there is a saying that “opportunity makes the thief”, and the game the Conservatives are playing here is really quite obvious. It is a bit pathetic. If any party is being dogmatic here, it is the Conservative Party.

I would like to know what the member thinks. It is wonderful that she is talking about transparency, since that was not the Conservatives' strong suit. Their carbon capture project cost Canadians a fortune.

Can the member tell me how much that project cost? That mistake or technological blunder obviously did not produce any results, because the industry did not even buy into it. Let us talk about transparency. How much did that project cost Canadians?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, the debate is about the impact of the carbon tax on all Canadians and the Liberals refusal to release the information, the facts, to Canadians about what the carbon tax will cost them.

We all know what happened. Without debate with members of Parliament, without consultation with the provincial governments, the Liberals announced they would be forcing a carbon tax on every person and every community in Canada. That is the focus of this debate. Canadians are entitled to that information.

If the Liberals believe all their words about fact-based and evidence-based decision-making, about consulting with Canadians, caring for poor people, the middle class, small businesses, families, and Canadians from coast to coast to coast, they would release that information. They would reverse the decision to force every Canadian and every province to undertake a carbon tax that will harm all of us. It will increase the cost of everything, undermine Canadian competitiveness internationally, and do untold damage.

Individual government rebates and token amounts mailed out a couple of times a year, which do not help people pay their bills when they actually have to pay them, will never cover all the costs the carbon tax will incur.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from LaSalle—Émard—Verdun.

It is with great pride and privilege that I stand to speak today to something that is important for the future of Canada, for the future of our economy, for growing the economy, and as we say, for strengthening our middle class and those hoping to join it.

Putting a price on pollution is the most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reach our objectives to protect the environment, while stimulating investments in low carbon innovation and creating a sustainable, clean growth economy. The pan-Canadian approach to price inclusion will give Canadian businesses, investors, and consumers a clear predictable basis for decision-making.

Confidence that the price of pollution in Canada will continue to increase over time in a gradual and predictable manner will encourage businesses and consumers to invest in clean technology and fuel, while avoiding major disruptions. It will also encourage businesses to invest in research into low carbon technology, which will better position them to compete in a low carbon economy.

A strong, predictable and rising pollution price sends an important signal to markets, informing consumer choices and investments in infrastructure and innovation.

Some people claim that pricing pollution is not good for economic growth, but emerging evidence indicates that pricing pollution and economic growth go hand in hand. The World Bank states that “early evidence suggests that a price on pollution is not an impediment to economic growth”.

To cite just a few examples. British Columbia's direct price on carbon helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the province between 2008 and 2013 at the same time as the provincial economy grew faster than the rest of Canada. British Columbia's growing clean technology sector now brings in an estimated $1.7 billion in annual revenue. Similarly, in Sweden, GDP and industry have grown while its emissions have dropped under the world's highest direct price on pollution, which currently stands at 137 euros per tonne.

The Canadian industry and investors know that pollution pricing will foster innovation and create new job prospects, those jobs that we know the middle class needs and deserves. That is why more than 30 Canadian companies have come out strongly in support of a price on pollution by joining the World Bank's carbon pricing leadership coalition. It is why many leading corporations, including Suncor, Canadian Tire, and General Electric, account for an internal price on pollution in their investment decisions.

In our discussions with Canadian industry leaders since being elected, a common theme that emerged was that Canada's business leaders believed that pollution pricing was one of the most economically efficient ways to reduce emissions, to stimulate the market to make investments in clean innovation, and to be positioned to compete in the emerging low-carbon global economy.

TD Bank's chief environmental officer Karen Clarke-Whistler says her company “believes that a strong low-carbon economy is not only key to reducing carbon emissions but also makes good economic sense. We believe carbon pricing has the potential to play a huge role in building the low carbon economy”.

The impact of the pan-Canadian approach to pricing pollution in terms of costs on households and businesses will vary by province and territory, depending on differences in energy and fuel consumption and electricity generation mix across provinces and territories. It will also depend on the pollution pricing design approaches taken by individual provinces and territories, as well as the decisions made regarding how revenues from pricing pollution will be used.

An illustrative model conducted by Environment and Climate Change Canada estimates that the average increase in the annual cost of energy to households in Canada will be $290 when the backstop pollution price reaches $50 per tonne in 2022. This captures the increase in the fuel price, approximately 12¢ per litre of gasoline, and a modest reduction in the amount of energy used by the average family.

It is important, however, to recognize that these types of projected impacts do not take into account the significant gains in innovation, competitiveness, and economic growth that pricing pollution is likely and will generate. Also, in accounting for costs to households, it is important to account for the ways in which each jurisdiction chooses to use the revenues raised from pricing pollution. For example, Alberta's pollution pricing system includes rebates for low and middle-income households to offset the cost of the carbon pollution levy.

Six out of 10 Alberta households are expected to receive these rebates. The rebate amount for a household with two adults and two children is now as much as $540 per year. Alberta also provides small businesses a cut in the tax rate by one-third, from 3% to 2%. Further analysis on households, businesses, and sectors will become available as each province and territory establishes its pollution pricing systems.

At a macro level, significant economic impact analysis has been done to support the pan-Canadian plan to price pollution. According to modelling estimates produced for the federal, provincial, and territorial working group on carbon pricing mechanisms, the economic impacts of pricing pollution will be modest. The working group considered three scenarios: first, a price on pollution starting at $15 a tonne in 2018 and rising to $30 a tonne in 2030; second, a price starting at $30 a tonne in 2018 and rising to $40 a tonne in 2030; third, a price starting at $30 a tonne in 2018 and rising to $90 a tonne in 2030. These three scenarios were designed to broadly illustrate the impacts on the economy of pricing pollution at various levels of pricing rather than to reveal the impacts of a specific policy proposal. For each of these scenarios, the working group projected very modest reductions in the annual rate of GDP growth. Indeed, as the working group's report concludes, the projected impacts are so small that they fall within the range of forecast error for GDP projections.

Furthermore, the projected GDP growth reduction estimates provided to the working group are likely to over-estimate because the modelling tools used do not capture the full range of likely benefits from pricing pollution. What are the benefits? They include direct benefits from innovation, the development of new technologies, market opportunities, improved health from reduced emissions, and other benefits due to the avoided costs of climate change. For more details, please see the economic analysis of the pan-Canadian framework published by the government on December 9, 2016, which is available on the Government of Canada's website. External modelling analyses, including two studies published in 2016 by EnviroEconomics and a 2016 study by Clean Prosperity, support the conclusion of the working group on carbon pricing mechanisms that pricing pollution at levels comparable to the illustrated scenarios assessed at the 2022 federal benchmark price of $50 per tonne would not have a significant negative impact on GDP in Canada.

The impacts of a changing climate are already being felt and the costs of inaction are much bigger than the costs of addressing climate change. The national round table on the environment and the economy concluded that the costs of climate change could represent approximately $5 billion per year by 2020 in Canada and, depending on the levels of continued global emissions growth, could rise to a range of $21 billion to $43 billion per year by 2050, or even higher under more extreme scenarios. The Insurance Bureau of Canada recently cited estimates from the parliamentary budget office related to the financial costs of natural disasters driven in part by climate change. Between 1970 and 1994, the federal government paid out an average of $54 million each year from its disaster fund, adjusted to 2014 dollars. By contrast, the parliamentary budget office estimated that weather events connected to climate change over the next five years will cost the federal government $900 million annually. That is $900 million that could be spent on social programs, skills training, and education. We must address climate change.

The Government of Canada is committed to continue to work with provincial, territorial, and indigenous governments to ensure clean growth and address climate change. By acting now and acting together, we will build a better Canada for our children and our grandchildren.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am hearing a lot about research, studies, and information the government has on its website describing the conditions of climate change and why this is all so necessary. Since the member is so willing to share all of this information, would the member not see that there is value in sharing the information that was withheld and redacted in the report that our member requested of the government?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would actually recommend that the member look at the Government of Canada website. I would be more than happy to send her the link to the economic analysis of the pan-Canadian framework, which is actually published on the Government of Canada website.

I would add that globally there are economies that have embraced pricing mechanisms and renewable energy. For example, Germany, has an unemployment rate of about 4%, a strong budgetary surplus, and a strong manufacturing sector. The economy and the environment can go hand in hand. Other countries have proven this and we are going to go that way. That is the direction in which this government is going to go.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member a question about the Liberals' commitment to action on climate change. We have mainly seen the downloading of all responsibility to the provinces. The federal government seems to have no plan. It has a framework, and I always worry when I see the word “framework”, but it has no plan to actually do concrete work itself to tackle climate change.

One of the topics that was brought up today is the ecoENERGY retrofit program, a program that was brought in by the former Conservative government. It was very successful. It was so successful that the Conservatives cancelled it. I am wondering whether the member would support the government bringing that program back, a program that allowed Canadians to invest money in their homes to make them more energy efficient and to reduce greenhouse gases and bring jobs to communities. It was a win-win solution all around.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, the framework and approach the Government of Canada has taken is to sit down and work with the provinces and territories to come up with a pan-Canadian framework. Each province and territory has a different electricity generation mix, a different consumption mix. We have said to the provinces and territories that we will work with them and come to an agreement.

Each province has its own set of unique circumstances. The revenues collected by pricing carbon pollution, which leads to a better and stronger environment, a cleaner environment, and job growth, would flow directly to the provinces. It would be up to each individual province to use those revenues in the manner it sees fit to make investments in retrofit programs and assist those who may be impacted by pricing carbon pollution.

At the end of the day, we have to work together to build a stronger, cleaner, and more prosperous country.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, last week in the House, it was mentioned that recreation sites in the province of Ontario received astronomical power bills in December and January, over $10,000 a month. Since the Liberals have taken away the sports tax credit and the arts tax credit coast to coast, I wonder what the solution is for Ontario recreation facilities that are in the red right now and are worried that they cannot keep their recreation facilities open to the public.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, we have introduced what is called the Canada child benefit. This year alone it will put over $4.5 billion of incremental new investment in the pockets of Canadian families, versus the old program under the previous government. That works out to approximately $2,300 more, on average, per family. Nine out of 10 families are better off. It assists families to put their kids into recreational, arts, and fitness programs.