Mr. Speaker, I am pleased tonight to join in the emergency debate on the UN IPCC report.
The report states, “the global community still has a chance of limiting the average increase in temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.” The report recommends an extremely high carbon tax that will be applied around the world. However, even if Canada adopts a high carbon tax, it would achieve almost nothing to reduce global emissions. The $5,500 per tonne carbon tax that the report recommends would raise the price of gasoline to more than $12 per litre.
I am going to suggest that in our economy, where we can put the environment and the economy together, the plan from the Liberals is destroying our economy and our opportunity to be that light in the world. In reality, large and developing countries will not adopt such a carbon tax, which means their emissions will continue to rise. Even if Canada dramatically reduces its emissions through a carbon tax, global emissions will virtually be unchanged.
I do not understand the doublespeak of the minister. On one hand she says “no free rides for big polluters”, yet, at the same time, with the development of LNG on the B.C. coast, what have the Liberals done? They have exempted them from the carbon tax. What about the rest of us? What about everyday Canadians? What about small and medium-sized businesses? It does not apply to them.
The rest of us are required to pay a tax while the government allows big polluters a free ride. It is all right for large businesses to be exempt. The government is not pushing them. Canada would be the example of a small business trying to change the world without going to the world and saying that before it destroyed its economy in this process, it needed to see something from the world. That means a lot of economic pain for Canada with no environmental gain for the world.
I find it really frustrating when I hear people say “this is for our children”. No one in the House is more concerned about the next generation than the people on this side of the floor. We are all extremely concerned. Let us take a look at the huge debt our kids will be facing 30 years from now because of the reckless spending of the government. The Liberals are trying to tell us that we do not care about the environment and our children. Of course we do. We are not talking about making changes that are progressive and helpful. We are talking about a carbon tax. Why? Because it is not helpful to Canada
The Prime Minister's carbon tax is not a serious plan to cut emissions. It is a tax grab that will cost Canadians thousands of dollars and hurt our economy. It is driving jobs and investments away. In fact, pretty well everything the government is doing in regard to economy is forcing things to go south, and literally south.
Instead, Canada needs a smarter, more comprehensive approach that fully considers the real global impacts and the long-term costs and benefits of its policies. That is what our Conservative plan would do. I know people would love to hear our plan and they will. The Liberals should be telling Canadians how they are going to make this work, but they cannot. We are not going to be rushed into releasing our plan to meet an arbitrary deadline set by the media or the Liberals. We are getting ready for 2019. We will be unveiling a detailed and comprehensive environmental plan before the next election, and I can hardly wait.
Despite having the highest carbon tax in Canada, emissions have continued to rise in British Columbia. A young man in my riding is part of a round table and is in university. He did a full study on the B.C. carbon tax, and in no way has it changed the dynamics of pollution in British Columbia. He got a really good grade on that paper, by the way. As a result, British Columbians are paying more for gas now than they ever have and the carbon tax is not helping the environment. It is just costing people more to get to work and take their kids to hockey and soccer practice.
The Liberals have admitted that gasoline prices will go up by at least 11¢ a litre and heating our homes will increase by $200 when they implement the carbon tax. Saskatchewan has led the way followed by Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. We know this is an issue up north and on the east coast. Canadians, in droves, are standing up against this carbon tax.
It is not neutral when the government implements its carbon tax instead of off-loading it to the provinces. Canadians will not be seeing a neutral carbon tax. There is not a program that the government can run that is not going to cost billions of dollars, just like the gun registry did. The Liberal rebate to Canadians does not address the great cost to small and medium-sized businesses and to farmers.
Giving funds back to everyday Canadians is great, but jobs and opportunities for Canadians are going to be lost in the meantime because the government is not being fair in the way it is talking about implementing this. When this tax is added to tariffs and the other taxes that are higher in Canada than in our competition around the world, our economy will continue to suffer under the Liberal government and jobs will continue to be lost. We will become even less desirable for international investment. Our economy has to be sustained while we make the needed changes.
People in Saskatchewan value their environment. The minister talked a bit about what we have going on there with coal sequestration and yet there has been no recognition of the fact that our province is doing an amazing job already through renewable energy, crop diversification, forest management and infrastructure planning, just to mention a few.
EVRAZ is a huge pipe producer in my province. I would like the minister to hear this. Seventy-five per cent of the product that goes into its pipes is recycled steel. The company is already doing a phenomenal job in creating the best pipe in the world. What is the government doing? The government is allowing cheap, lower quality pipe to come into the country where it is funnelled to other countries rather than championing what we have in Saskatchewan with the production of an amazing quality pipeline.
In fact, when the folks from the union hear that there has been a leak somewhere, the first thing they ask is whether it is theirs. It is never ours. It comes from China, India and from other countries where the steel is not made as good as it is made in Canada, yet we are penalizing our own production.
Saskatchewan is full of innovative people. We just need to look at the modern farm equipment we have, all invented by farmers solving problems without government interference.
Canada has the most educated population in the world and we have an amazing capacity for finding solutions to real problems. A carbon tax is not a solution to our problems; it only damages our economy.
Innovations like catalytic converters, carbon scrubbers, electric cars and solar panels were neither invented by government nor inspired by taxes. Markets, entrepreneurs and researchers are our best resources to create solutions that everyday Canadians are motivated to embrace and implement. We agree on this. It is important that we go forward with these things.
Premier Moe of my province was the environment minister when the federal government started talking and negotiating with all of the provinces. The federal government came up with five options for those provinces and then blindsided them by saying in the end that they only had two options, cap and trade or a carbon tax.
That is not negotiating. That is not working together. That is not taking advantage of the amazing ways we as Canadians have to make a difference in our climate and in the world's climate, and we are already doing it.
Our premier said:
It’s time the federal government stepped back and took another look at what the provinces are actually doing to combat climate change.
In Saskatchewan, we have released a climate-change plan—called “Prairie Resilience”—that will lead to a real reduction in greenhouse gas emissions without introducing a carbon tax that would cost our province’s energy-intensive, export-oriented economy $4 billion over five years.
This plan is full of good concrete things to do. I attended the APAS carbon summit two summers ago because we knew this was coming down the pike in Saskatchewan. I would encourage members to go online and look up the APAS carbon summit.
The number of things that have been happening in Saskatchewan for three decades is phenomenal. We are the world leader in zero tillage around the world. The root systems in our pasture lands, where our cattle graze, are developing to the point where they are getting deep like they were when bison roamed on this land. We are doing phenomenal things.
I do not remember his name, but one of the researchers has said that within 10 years, as we continue on doing what we are doing in Saskatchewan, a province of a million plus 100,000 people, we will offset any carbon emissions due to oil in Alberta. We are phenomenal and we are doing good things. Why does the government think it needs to tax Canadians to the point where our economy is being impacted? There is not a fence around Canada that goes up and over our whole atmosphere, where we can make a change to our environment and maintain our economy when the rest of the world is not in that place. I am sorry, but all these phenomena going on in the world are not attributable to Canada. Do we need to do our part? Yes, and we are doing it and we are becoming more and more innovative.
A couple of young innovators in Vancouver are developing a way to take CO2 out of the air and combine it with other things to create a fuel for cars. We are amazing. We are doing these things in Canada without being penalized. The government has put itself in a place where it has absolutely no choice but to go forward because it is another election promise the Liberals will bomb on, and have already bombed on with almost every province in the country. The Liberals say that it is due to the party on this side of the House.
The Liberals need to listen to Canadians. People in Ontario, in Manitoba, in Saskatchewan, in Alberta, a fair number of people in B.C. as well, on the east coast and up north are saying that they do not need or want a carbon tax. If they want to meet these expectations of this new report, where is their foreign plan? Where is their foreign interaction with other countries? They can share our coal sequestering idea with them. That would be awesome. That is coming from Saskatchewan. Therefore, why kill our industry while China is developing a coal plant every other day and does not have what we have?
Canadians keep saying that our coal is the cleanest in the world. Our oil is the cleanest in the world. If the Liberals want to make a difference in the world environment, where we do not have the circumstances going on in Canada, not because of us but because of the entire world, why is that not our focus? Instead, the government wants to totally destroy the Canadian economy. It is doing it already with energy east and with the pipeline to the west coast, shutting us down.
Already Canadians are saying that we cannot handle another tax on top of the punitive behaviour of the government. We have a younger generation. My granddaughter, the oldest of 10, and I am bragging, will be 45 before the government's incredible debt will ever be dealt with. If the Liberals are allowed to continue on in the direction they are going, they are going to destroy the economy of our country. If we do not have a strong economy, we cannot even begin to be innovative.
When we talk about losing the opportunity to eat because of climate change in Canada, I guarantee that other things are going to happen long before that, which will impact our ability to have the quality of life that we are used to and that a lot of Canadians who are on the lower end of the income levels are already struggling with. This priority will only mean it will be that much harder for Canadians to continue to take care of their families and to grow our economy in ways that we can be an example to the rest of the world.
We are that example already, but the government gives no credit. With all that has happened in Saskatchewan already to make a difference in our environment, the Liberals will give no recognition to anything more than five years ago. We have been working diligently. No one loves and cares for the environment more than individuals from Saskatchewan who love to farm, who like to mine responsibly, who love to fish and hunt. No one takes care of the environment more than these individuals.
I will mention as well that in the news recently we have been hearing about going into this new production of marijuana and be the world's saviour on that particular product. However, it is not environmentally friendly, and this is through ScienceDirect.
I also have an article that reads:
To better cultivate cannabis indoors, licensed producers often use high-intensity lamps that consume a great deal of electricity. In addition to lighting, fans, air conditioners and dehumidifiers are also commonly used. ...found that cannabis production was responsible for three per cent of California's total electrical use, which is the equivalent energy consumption of about one million homes.
What is this going to do to Canada's production of greenhouse gases?
“For every kilogram of cannabis that's produced, we generate about 4.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide,” Antweiler added.
Besides electricity, cannabis production also consumes a great deal of water. A single plant, experts say, can consume up to 23 litres per day.
The article highlights that cannabis production, as per a 2012 U.S. study, consumed 3% of California's total electricity usage, the equivalent consumption of one million homes. Every kilogram of cannabis generates about 4.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and I am assuming that is before it is used. A single plant of cannabis consumes up to 23 litres of water per day.
Where was the decision-making on the environment as the government was creating its legislation around cannabis? What is the upstream and downstream impact of this particular industry going to be on our Canadian environment? It seems that the big dollars and, again, the election promise becomes the focus of the government, which is not how we should be functioning if our true concern is about Canadians, and about the next generations of young people who want to maintain a country the way we do and are very proud of.
We work very hard. At the age of five or six, my daughter came home and said that she would never use a drinking box again, because at that point in time they were not recyclable. This generation of young people are very concerned about our environment. Our young farmers are amazing with what they are doing to make an impact on our environment that is positive in the midst of making sure that we grow the food that Canadians need.
We are not saying no to protecting and improving the earth's environment. I do not care how many times they want to say it, Canadians do not believe that. That is not what this is about. What this is about is saying no to a Canadian carbon tax. That is not the answer to protecting and improving the environment in Canada or for that matter, and even more importantly, the environment of our entire world.