Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak to this emergency debate requested by the parties, concerning the climate and our fight against pollution.
Let me begin by saying that all 338 members of the House of Commons are in favour of measures to reduce pollution. That is not the issue. What we are looking for is positive, constructive, effective measures that have a direct impact on what we are trying to achieve. Let us not wax philosophical about lofty principles that will end up changing very little other than weighing down the economy and burdening Canadians who, as we know, get up early in the morning and work hard to earn their daily bread.
We are here tonight in the House of Commons to talk about the last report tabled at the United Nations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was tabled there a few days ago.
This report shows that there is an urgent need to act and that we must limit global warming to 1.5°C to avert catastrophe. We all know that action is needed. However, the report indicates that the best way to act is to impose a tax on carbon, and that is where we tend to disagree.
I hear the government and the other opposition parties say that we absolutely must tax pollution, but we disagree. Let us be consistent and logical. They want to impose the Liberal carbon tax and refer to the UN report by quoting it as though it were the Bible.
What does the UN propose? The UN proposes a tax of $5,500 per tonne of carbon emitted. What does that mean? That means an additional tax of $12 per litre of gas.
I would like all members of the Liberal Party, the NDP, and the Green Party who agree with the UN report to stand up and confirm that they want a litre of gas to cost an extra $12 tomorrow morning. If that is what they want, then let us go ahead, but I do not think that is a very good idea.
We must also consider that we cannot stop global warming without the world's biggest polluters. China, India and the United States must participate in the collective effort. I have news for everyone: Canada does not exist in isolation.
If we want to address climate change, everyone around the world must be on board. In our view, taxing emissions is not the right approach. To reduce consumption and pollution, we need incentives that support research and development, like the ones we put in place when we were in government. Everyone is familiar with the results of those measures, but I will talk about them a little later. Those measures held promise for Canadians and for the planet. That is why our party does not support the Liberal carbon tax.
Let us now review the facts. When the Liberals came to power, the Prime Minister said that this issue had to be addressed and that carbon emissions had to be taxed. That was his position. He also said that the government would work with its provincial partners and that if they did not agree to the carbon tax within two years, he would impose it. The Prime Minister is telling us what he thinks is good for us, and he will impose it even if we do not agree. That is the current Liberal approach.
What happened in two and a half years? One by one, the provinces that were in favour of the carbon tax decided to take a step back because they realized that the Liberals' approach was not only arrogant, but also bad for the economy. Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba had committed to imposing the carbon tax, but they backed out. Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan do not agree with the carbon tax. All of northern Canada, which includes Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, has expressed serious concerns about this approach.
I am not allowed to say who is present in the House and who is not, but if any of my colleagues from Quebec happen to be here, they will remember that, in 2011, the Quebec National Assembly voted on a cap and trade measure known as the carbon market. Quebec decided, on its own authority, to introduce a carbon market, as British Columbia had done. If the provinces want to introduce a carbon tax or carbon market, it is their right to do so.
However, the Liberal government told them that if they do not introduce a carbon tax or carbon market, it will impose one on them. That is why millions of Canadians are opposed to this. The number of people who do not like the Liberals' policies keeps rising, considering that Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba are all opposed to the Liberals' approach. There is a reason for that. The Liberal government's approach constitutes a direct attack on Canadian workers, on fathers and mothers who get up in the morning to drive their children to school or day care, on people who need to use their cars on the weekends to take their kids to sports activities. They are the ones who will pay more because the Liberal government is imposing a carbon tax.
Why is it that all Canadians are being attacked while the big polluters are getting off easy? Does the Liberal government have a double standard? For big polluters, such as manufacturing companies, which use an enormous amount of energy, the tax is going to be softened. The announcement was made on August 1. I have been in politics long enough to know that when announcements are made in the summer, it means the government does not really want to talk about them. This reminds me of the terrible measures announced by the Minister of Finance on July 18 of last year, when he launched a full-on attack on SMEs. On July 18, he made an announcement that was an attack on SMEs, and on August 1, he announced that big polluters will be less heavily taxed than all Canadian families. That is the Liberal approach, which should be strongly condemned.
Then there is the cover-up. The government knows exactly how much the Liberal carbon tax is going to cost Canadian families. Yes, it is going to cost us. The Liberals are not hiding that, but what they are hiding, what they refuse to tell Canadians, is that they have a study and they have an exact figure. They refuse to share it. Unfortunately, the Standing Orders prevent me from displaying a document that indicates the impact it will have on families. The figure has been redacted. It cannot be read at all. The government knows what that number is and refuses to tell Canadians.
I know these people. They are honourable and I have a lot of respect for them. If they have nothing to hide, then let's see the number. When people have nothing to hide, when they are proud of where they stand, they own that stance, so why is the Liberal government still hiding things from Canadians? Because it knows this will be expensive, it knows Canadians want nothing to do with this tax, and it knows that taxing all Canadians but making big polluters pay less is not going to go over well.
If the government happens to go ahead with its plan to impose a Liberal carbon tax on the provinces, even those that do not want it and said as much in a democratic election, it should at least have enough honour, dignity and respect for Canadians to publicly disclose what this could cost them. I would encourage the government to be more transparent and more careful.
Yes, British Columbia and Quebec decided to do it. I want to comment on that because I was there for the debate that took place in the National Assembly in 2011. I was representing Chauveau at the time, and I was the leader of my party. We decided to vote against taxing businesses and carbon pollution. We were against it. Some people are for it and some are against it. The people have spoken since then, and they have re-elected me three times, so that's that.
I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight. People have a lot of preconceived notions about Conservatives. People say Conservatives are against environmental measures, they love oil, they love using energy and polluting, and so on.
I know that some will pay close attention to my remarks. According to a report by the Department of Natural Resources, greenhouse gas emissions declined by 2.2% between 2005 and 2015. The facts are the facts. This did not come from us. It is in black and white from the Department of Natural Resources. The same document indicates that GDP also increased by 16.9%.
Even though the ministers opposite like to brag about their lofty ideals and say that they, the Liberals, want to reduce greenhouse gases while growing the economy, I doubt that they have been able to accomplish that in three years. We, the Conservatives, pulled it off. I would like to see the stats on greenhouse gas emissions for the past three years.
There are also some who say that the Conservatives do not support agreements such as the Paris Agreement. What is the Paris Agreement target? It is exactly the same target as the one set by the previous Conservative government. Everyone around the world agreed with the previous Conservative government's greenhouse gas reduction targets. We cannot oppose our own position.
Four years ago, some people were getting all worked up over what they considered a foolish approach by the Conservatives. They thought the targets were no good and were not ambitious enough. The entire world, however, confirmed our targets at the Paris meeting, and we are very happy about this.
I would like to talk about the ecotrust program. Does anyone on the government side know anything about this program? Does anyone from the second opposition party know about the ecotrust program? How about someone from the Green Party?
The ecotrust program was a program launched by the Conservative government to help businesses reduce their greenhouse gases. We invested $1.5 billion of tax money to help reduce greenhouse gases. I challenge any member, and especially those from the Quebec City region, to ask three people at the mall whether they know about the ecotrust program. This would be tough, since no one talked about it, but we took action.
I am very proud to be part of a political party that, when it was in power, worked hard to help businesses reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. My party created positive, constructive, effective, practical programs like ecotrust, in which we they invested $1.5 billion to help businesses cut pollution, instead of taxing polluters but not taxing the biggest polluters.
CO2 Solutions is a company in my riding that has been working with Natural Resources Canada and Alberta's oil producers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce their environmental footprint. Its research centre is in my riding. I have known these people a long time. When I was a journalist, I reported on this company, which I am very proud of, and Stéphane Dion, who was the leader of the Liberal Party at the time, was even there. If I am not mistaken, he is now Canada's ambassador to Germany and the European Union.
Today we are seeing the result of that work. In 10 years, greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands development were reduced by 30%, thanks in part to CO2 Solutions and to the efforts of our government to help businesses reduce their greenhouse gas emissions instead of punishing the producers, but not the largest ones.
That is why I absolutely have no shame in sitting in the House as a Conservative. I am proud of our record. As long as Quebec is buying more than $10 billion worth of foreign oil, I will be very proud of the Canadian oil that we should be using here at home, in Canada, and which is also being exported around the world.
Our economy losing $15.6 billion a year is outrageous. I am not the one saying so; that is what Scotiabank's chief economist concluded in a study last weekend. We are losing $15.6 billion a year because we are unfortunately captive to the U.S. market.
Yes, we need to carry out projects like the Trans Mountain expansion. The Liberals' approach was to nationalize the pipeline and take $4.5 billion in taxpayers' money and send it to Houston. That was the worst thing to do, especially since not a single inch of the infamous pipeline has been built.
Let us be vigilant. Let us be wary of the Liberals' voracious appetite. They are imposing more taxes and taking more and more money out of taxpayers' pockets. They are imposing more taxes on the mothers and fathers who drive their children to sports activities on the weekends and to day care or school in the morning. Those are hard-working individuals.
Those Canadian workers will be directly affected by the Liberal carbon tax. That is why, one by one, the provinces have all withdrawn their support for the Liberals' approach. It is not just because Canadians will have to pay more taxes. The main reason is that the Liberals are imposing it on Canadians. That is not the way to go when everyone knows we need to take action to protect the environment.
This is why I am very proud to stand in the House of Commons on behalf of my party to talk about the fact that the people, the Canadian family, will have to pay for the Liberals' carbon tax, instead of their helping businesses to pollute less, which is what we did when we were in office. When we were in office we reduced pollution by 2.2%, and on the other hand the GST rose by 16.9%. Yes, we did raise things when we were in government. Unfortunately, the current government is imposing a new tax via carbon pricing. It states that whether or not the provinces agree, it will impose it. This is the worst-case scenario for all.
The government pays no respect to democracy. It pays no respect to its provincial counterparts. This is exactly what the Liberals are doing on this issue and on so many other issues. They think Ottawa knows best. No, Ottawa is not a place where everything is perfect and correct, where everything from the House of Commons and the current government are perfect. “Ottawa knows best” may be the motto of the Liberals. However, it is not the motto of all Canadians. This is why, when we think about how to fight climate change, how to address this sensitive issue and how to answer this question, we have to be very careful. However, more than that, we have to realize that the recent report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change talked about a real, true increase for the taxpayer, for the average Joe, for the guy who rises up each and every morning, who works hard and wants to keep his money for what he is thinking of doing.
Yes, we want to protect the earth. We want to ensure that we will give her a better situation than we now have. However, we will not achieve that goal with a carbon tax.