Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague genuinely for his eloquent defence of his position and I agree with many, though not all, of the sentiments he expressed.
I would like to probe his thoughts in particular around the pricing signal that he would like to send and the impact of that. I would contend that the impact of a price signal depends substantially on the relative elasticity of the good being priced. A more inelastic good, obviously, is one where we will see less of a change in purchasing behaviour in response to an increase in price.
My perception is that many of the daily activities people participate in that produce emissions involve things that are, at least in the short term, relatively inelastic. People who live in a particular community that does not have access to public transit cannot choose not to drive. People cannot choose not to heat their homes. Yes, they can buy electric vehicles and invest in major energy retrofits, but all of these are longer-term things that require major inputs of capital. Especially people with limited personal fiscal capacity cannot make those kinds of major up-front investments that allow them to save money.
The effect of a tax on an inelastic good is a higher cost. I would contend there is an alternative path, one which seeks to increase the fiscal capacity of people to make investments in particular in things that will allow them to make the kinds of adaptations that will be advantageous for themselves financially and for the environment, things like an environmentally friendly home renovation tax credit which existed in the past under the previous government.
I wonder if the member agrees with my analysis and thinks there are alternative ways that respond to the realities of the way people have to make these decisions in their lives. They cannot always respond to a price signal if they do not have the capacity to make the kinds of major capital investments in their lives that would respond to that situation.