Debates of May 1st, 2018

Opposition Motion—Production of Documents on the Carbon Tax

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question on the issue of the carbon tax is what the cost is. She talked about other people talking about it, but the motion today is asking for what that cost is. The government knows what that cost is. Canadians want to know what that cost is. My constituents want to know what that cost is, because if they are going to plan for their future, they need to know how it is going to impact them and how big an impact it is going to be.

The Liberal government presently wants to shut down coal-fired power. Tell that to the constituents of Coronach, Saskatchewan. There are 500 of them who work for either the mine or the power plant. If we multiply 500 by four, that is 2,000 people. Where are the people in that community going to go? Where are they going to live? They have no idea. They have no idea what money they are going to have. Their houses are worth nothing because of shutting that down. We need to know the cost of the carbon tax so they can make their plans.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last year, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles experienced the worst flooding in 100 years. It was because of climate change, which is today's hot topic.

I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. Four provinces already have a carbon pricing system: British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec, which is home to my riding. Carbon pricing will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, spur innovation, and help Canada become more competitive.

In my riding, there is a company that manufactures self-sustaining street lamps powered by wind and solar energy.

I would like to know what our colleague thinks about the fact that the fees and direct revenue from carbon pricing will remain in the province or territory they came from. I would like to hear his thoughts on the subject since he comes from a riding in Saskatchewan.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to hear that the member has a company in her riding that is being innovative and creating jobs. I encourage that company to set that up in Saskatchewan, because no one is setting up anything in Saskatchewan. The innovative ideas the member is talking about on which taxpayers' dollars are being spent are not creating jobs in Saskatchewan.

She talked a bit about the four provinces that have already come on board. The argument is very simple. She said that four provinces have come on board and others have signed on to this agreement. Not one of the four maritime provinces has a plan. Saskatchewan has a plan. New Brunswick's plan is to call the gas tax it already has in place the carbon tax. P.E.I., Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia do not have a plan. Nova Scotia is negotiating how to open up a new coal mine under the ocean.

We in Saskatchewan have a plan, one that is workable, and we should have the chance to implement it.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to join this important debate with an observation I would like to share from my past.

Like many members of this place, I was formerly a city councillor. Those who have served on a city council and in local government will know that at times there are often projects or programs that come along that carry a hefty price tag to the property owners whom they serve. If a council is united, or at least the majority of members of that council believe in the merit of a project, despite those costs, they will make the case to voters. However, make no mistake that we know exactly what those costs are as they are always fully disclosed. This is part of accountable and transparent governance, and I would like to think that all members of any elected office would agree with that basic principle. If government is going to impose a cost on citizens whom they serve, those same citizens deserve to know what the costs will be, yet here we are in what I view as a completely unacceptable situation where the Liberal government is blatantly refusing to disclose to Canadians the cost of its carbon tax.

There is a problem with that. Canadians are forced to ask the obvious question: Why would a government intentionally withhold information on a tax it is forcing them to pay? Is it because to the Prime Minister image is everything and he is worried about yet another hit to his own brand? Is it because the Prime Minister has repeatedly promised he would lower costs on middle-class Canadians, and these data reveal that there will be yet another broken promise? Is it because the Prime Minister cannot blame this carbon tax on Stephen Harper, his favourite bogeyman of late? Is it because there will be GST on this carbon tax, meaning that it will be another tax on a tax grab from the Prime Minister who is making life less affordable? Maybe it is because the United States and other jurisdictions that Canadian employers have to compete with do not have a carbon tax, and this makes us less competitive.

On that note, I want to talk about something on the subject of carbon leakage. Carbon leakage occurs when industries that compete with industries in countries with no carbon price can cause that industry economic harm, and that does not reduce global emissions. Typically those industries obtain exemptions or subsidies from the carbon tax, something we see in British Columbia on an increasing basis. The bottom line is there could be all kinds of reasons why the Prime Minister refuses to come clean with Canadians on the true cost of his carbon tax.

Canadians can only speculate as to the reason, but I can say that if a government truly believes in a program and if it will not disclose the cost of that program, ultimately our democratic process is being undermined. This type of thing leads to increased cynicism in our democratic process.

Let me read a couple of quotes in this place: “We are committed to delivering real change in the way that government works. It means setting a higher bar for openness and transparency, something needed if this House is to regain the confidence and trust of Canadians.” Here is another one: “People want a government that is honest and open, transparent, and accountable.” Who said these things? We all know who said these things. It was not you, Mr. Speaker. It was our Prime Minister.

Let us all pause for just a brief moment. The very same man who told us that people want a government that is more honest and open, transparent, and accountable is now hiding the costs of his carbon tax from Canadians, and he will order all members of Parliament on the government side through a whipped vote to support this blatant betrayal to Canadians. That is not open. That is not transparent. That is not accountable. Certainly, it is not being honest to the Prime Minister's original promise.

He is not raising any bar here. He is actually making the bar so low he would need to do the limbo just to slither under that bar. The Prime Minister is doing it all because he does not want to take a hit to his personal brand. If the Prime Minister truly believes in the merit of his carbon tax, and I believe that he does, he should have the fortitude to disclose and defend these costs. Let us make no mistake, that when a politician promises to be honest and open, to be transparent and accountable, and then is anything but, that leads to cynicism in our democratic process.

To me, that is a selfish thing. Here we have a politician who is so obsessed with his own brand that he is willing to undermine this entire place, all because he refuses to disclose the costs and come here today to defend them. Instead, what does he do? He leaves it all to the members on the government side, not unlike the situation we saw recently with Mr. Atwal. Everyone else was forced to do the Prime Minister's bidding, until eventually the Prime Minister and his glee team figured out that doing so caused more harm than good and decided that, yes, they should be accountable, open, and transparent, and then they came clean on the subject. Maybe that will happen again. Maybe lightning will strike twice. Maybe, once a few more unflattering polls come out, eventually so, too, will the cost of this carbon tax.

Right now, in British Columbia, we are witnessing record-high gas prices, which of course is precisely what a carbon tax is designed to do: make things unaffordable and cause hardship for Canadians so they will use less carbon because they cannot afford it. Reduce the carbon footprint, they call it. Did members ever notice that those who most advocate for a reduced carbon footprint are often the ones who also burn the most carbon?

Getting back to B.C., we have record gas prices, and what are the results of that? Many people are simply crossing the border into Washington state, so that we have all those cars idling in border lineups and increasing greenhouse gas emissions, just to avoid paying a tax exactly like the carbon tax. Why are they going to Washington state? It is because the Washington state oil tankers that navigate off the coast of B.C. and feed a massive refinery complex are all unopposed. Of course, those refineries are not subject to carbon taxes, as refineries in Canada will be. That is why no investor would invest in a large-scale refinery in Canada, because the competitors elsewhere do not have to pay carbon taxes that make them uncompetitive. That is why investment is on the decline, but that is for another debate.

In British Columbia, we also have another rising and disturbing trend. People are now drilling out gas tanks so they can steal gasoline. That causes well over $1,000, and in some cases close to $2,000, in property damage to a vehicle.

Let us not forget that in rural Canada, where there is no public transportation, there are no lower-cost alternatives, and likewise in many areas in Canada where people have only non-renewable energy options to heat their homes. They have no alternative. Basically, what this carbon tax would do is make life less affordable, especially for those who have a low income or a fixed income.

I believe the Prime Minister knows all this, and that is why he is trying to hide the true costs of his carbon tax from Canadians, because it is more difficult to justify making life more unaffordable for those who are the most vulnerable.

Recently, we learned that the Office of the Information Commissioner has launched an investigation into why the Liberal government is refusing to release the true costs of its carbon tax to Canadians. I, for one, am very much looking forward to the outcome of that investigation. As we all know, from the Liberal government and the Prime Minister being formerly investigated by an independent officer of Parliament, there is a pattern that they do not have a very good track record.

Before I close, I would like to point out that I may sound a little harsh in my comments today, but accountability is something I take very seriously. That is why I first put my name forward to run for public office. I know that there are many good members on the government side of the House who also value accountability. I have worked with them in committees and in other areas.

To be clear, my comments today are largely directed at the Prime Minister and his inner circle, because I believe that there are members of Parliament on the government side who believe in openness and accountability as much as I do. Some of them have even voted against the Prime Minister, despite knowing full well that they could be personally penalized for doing so. To all those who have done that, I offer my thanks for their efforts to restore trust in this place.

However my colleagues vote today, I hope all members of Parliament feel that we have had a good thrashing of the issues and that we can have an open, honest debate on this. I do hope that we will ultimately see those numbers so that our own constituents can know that their members had an honest debate and fought over facts. However, we cannot have that debate, not just yet. I hope that the Prime Minister changes his mind because of these members.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate all day. The government is open and transparent, and there are all sorts of opportunities. The member might have to do a bit of homework, but I can assure him that there is no hidden agenda here. It is very transparent. We are moving toward a greener, healthier economy and a better environment. We have seen that in a number of policy initiatives taken by this government over the last number of years. We have been working with provinces and other stakeholders. We have a solid plan in place.

My friend across the way seems to be somewhat skeptical of British Columbia, which has a price on carbon. Could he share with the House his thoughts on how well British Columbia is doing in dealing with both the economy and the environment? B.C. is often leading, or at least second in Canada, in terms of economic performance, while at the same time having carbon pricing.

More specifically, would my colleague across the way not agree that we can have a healthy economy and work on a healthy environment by having a price on pollution?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's observations and his participation in the debate today.

I can give examples. His leader has allowed a big exemption for Nova Scotia that allows it to use coal-fired plants well beyond what was originally planned. When we put in place things like cap and trade, certain industries that have access to decision-makers like the Prime Minister are given special exemptions. We only have to look at the mess that happened in the European Union when it introduced cap and trade. That is because a lot of the decisions are made by decision-makers in back rooms.

If we are going to have a debate on this, we should have the facts in front of us. We should be able to argue whether or not it is efficient to raise taxes, increase regulations, and give subsidies to businesses. I would be happy to talk about the cement industry in B.C., which gets an annual subsidy that was supposed to be temporary. That industry is losing ground to Washington state all the time. It is causing real issues for that industry.

This is not a conversation we can have in 20 seconds. The Prime Minister is adding costs and making us less competitive in British Columbia.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from central B.C. pointed out how the Liberals continue to cover up how much this carbon tax is going to impact our families and our industries, and ultimately undermine our productivity as a nation.

My colleague understands, as I do, that those of us in rural Canada are going to be paying this carbon tax disproportionately, compared to those who live in urban centres. As he pointed out, we have no options in getting from one place to another. We have to drive there. We have no options when it comes to growing our crops and buying fertilizer. Nitrogen, the number one ingredient in agri-fertilizer, is actually natural gas. All these things become more expensive. They all impact the cost of food. A carbon tax would undermine our productivity and our competitive position against the United States and other nations.

I would ask the member to comment further on that.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Jean Tirole, who won the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in economics, wrote in his book Economics for the Common Good that there is another disturbing aspect to carbon leakage. In this case, Canadians would be paying such high prices that they would not utilize, for example, gasoline manufactured in Alberta. Instead, that gasoline would go to other nations, such as the United States, and because more of it would be available at a lower cost, they would use more of it. Creating a higher carbon price in one jurisdiction not only makes that jurisdiction less competitive, but it lowers the cost in the other jurisdiction and more of that product is burned. Mr. Tirole is a world-renowned economist.

The government has to come to terms with these things, as we do.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Elmwood—Transcona.

I am always proud to rise in the House and represent the people of Timmins—James Bay.

In the 14 years I have been here, I have found a dismal state of discussion on the greatest crisis of our time, the environmental crisis. There is a great book called The Great Derangement. It is as though people do not seem to have the ability to come to terms and discuss what is actually happening to our planet when we see it all around us. I see it with the Conservatives today. I see it with the Liberals today, who went to Paris and took such beautiful photos of themselves, and made such beautiful expressions of change. We have seen under their plan that carbon emissions did go down, by 1.4%, which is a rounding figure, but that may go up again next year.

There is no coherent plan from the government to meet those targets, just as with the previous government there were no coherent plans, because in the fundamental area, over the last 10 years oil and gas upstream emissions have risen 47%. Transportation emissions are up over 11%. For all the other efficiencies we try to find, we in Canada are not meeting a coherent strategy.

I am going to talk a bit about some of the incoherent strategies that have been put forward, and then talk about some of the ways we need to move forward.

I remember when I was here in 2004-05, the Liberals had a great plan. We were going to meet all our Kyoto targets. We were going to diminish greenhouse gases easily. What was the plan? It was called voluntary emissions. I was newly elected, so the idea that we had voluntary emissions standards struck me as one of the most ridiculous things I had ever heard. However, Stéphane Dion, a man I greatly respect, said we must understand that on the voluntary emissions, when we work with industry, they will do the right thing. For crying out loud. I come from mining country. Inco never cleaned up the mess in Sudbury without legislated standards. That is how we clean up the environment.

I have dealt with mining companies over the years. It used to be perfectly legal to just, as in my backyard, take the waste and dump it in a lake because it was the cheapest solution. All over my little town of Cobalt we have these beautiful green beaches, which 100 years later we still cannot swim in the water. Someone said to the mining companies that they were not going to be able to dump arsenic and cyanide in the waters, that they would have to set up proper tailing dams. Of course, we heard from them, just as we hear from the Conservative backbench, “Oh my god, you are going to kill efficiencies. Oh my god, you are going to chase business all around the world. They will leave.” They did not leave, and the mining sector became more efficient and more profitable, just as the oil and gas sector will become more efficient and more profitable when it actually has to meet these legislated targets.

We have another one, which is cap and trade. People have been trying to explain cap and trade to me for years. I know there are a lot of brainiacs out there who understand the ins and outs of cap and trade, but the idea that if a whole lot of non-polluters can sell credits to polluters and the world would somehow be a better place always struck me as selling sobriety credits on the highway. If we have 15 sober drivers and one drunk driver, and that one drunk driver can buy sobriety credits from all the sober drivers, I am not an economist, but if I were an economist, we would see a graph that would show that overall, sobriety on the road would actually rise. We could do that, or we could just say to the drunk that it is time to sober up.

This has been the problem. We have always been trying to find schemes to deal with the fact that we actually have reached a limit for carbon. We reached that limit for carbon, and we are now into the Anthropocene, where our traditional relationship with nature has been upended and the costs we are starting to see from flooding, fires, drought, and freezes are becoming more and more of a serious economic issue.

I am certainly more than willing to share the numbers on whatever the carbon pricing is going to be.

I would also like to start seeing some serious numbers on what is happening in terms of our overall economy, which is being hit by increasingly unstable weather, because we are now in the period of what they call another great acceleration. As anyone who has grey hair like me would remember, how often did we hear on the radio 25 or 30 years ago about entire cities under threat from weather? We have see a number of cities seriously damaged. We are in a different era. Canada has been the laggard on this. In fact, Canada has been very sanctimonious on this without taking the steps forward.

I come from blue collar, natural-resource-based communities. The people we need at the table when we are talking about what an economic environmental plan must include are the workers. We do not throw a generation of workers under the bus. The only political entity that ever did that was Margaret Thatcher, and the damage that was done to the U.K. we are still feeling today. These issues of transition and building a new economy are essential, because we do not get environmental justice without economic justice. The two go hand in hand.

I had the great honour last year in Edmonton of meeting with the IBEW workers in Edmonton. The IBEW workers who work in Fort Mac, in Fort Saint John, and in the patch are actually setting up training, because they see the potential for new economies of energy. One of the IBEW workers told me that when Prime Minister Harper talked about an energy superpower, he was right, but he was talking about the wrong energy, because the greatest single source of solar power in the world today is south central Alberta. The potential to transform our economy through the natural geography of the Prairies in the solar and wind economy is immense. Of course, The Flat Earth Society, my friends on the backbench in the Conservative Party, will say that this is tilting at windmills, and, yes, there are windmills there too. However, if we look at other countries, like Germany, they have moved far ahead of us. We even see China starting to move far ahead of us.

The Liberals talk about the economy. They talk about efficiencies and jobs. They need to start to talk about the renewable economy that is passing Canada by, because we are still defiantly defending the typewriter when everyone else is moving into the cellphone age. Canada needs to pick up.

I would say this to my colleagues in the Liberal Party. They have talked the talk, but they have not met the aggressive targets we need. We will not meet the Paris accords. That has been found in numerous government studies alone. To get there, we need to establish a couple of common principles. We have to establish a legislated limit on carbon. Once we have established a legislated limit, we then have to ask how we start to diminish it. That is when we can start talking about subsidies and start to work with industry on meeting efficiencies, but we have to have a solid limit we do not go above.

I refer members to the United Kingdom and Scotland, where they established a national carbon budget. These countries were extreme laggards on meeting their greenhouse gas emissions, and they are well on target now to meeting their economic and environmental targets on renewables, because they had a coherent national response. They had a focus on how they were going to deal with areas where they had the highest level of GHGs, and they started to move it down.

We need a coherent response. The idea that we can do this voluntarily or simply by putting a price on carbon and hope it will all get there will not get us where we need to be. After 14 years in the House, to see the degradation of our planet that has happened in that time, while this House has produced talk and no action, is shameful on all of us. It is upon us to start saying that this crisis is real, to start moving with the urgency that is needed, and to recognize that there is incredible potential if we start to actually move toward efficiencies rather than the same old 20th century vision we have now outgrown.

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

Mr. Speaker, after the last federal election, the Prime Minister and many others, even representatives from provinces, all went to Paris to talk about the important issue of climate change. There was also a historic discussion that took place among the national and provincial governments in Vancouver, in 2016, I believe, where we came to a consensus that a price on carbon is something that has to happen in Canada. It is only the Conservative Party that seems to be in opposition to the concept of a price on carbon.

In regard to recognizing that we need to have a price on carbon, there is the responsibility of the national government to work with the different stakeholders, indigenous people, and the provinces as we move forward in ensuring that we continue to work towards a greener environment and a greener economy. In fact, we can do both at the same time.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with my hon. colleague. I was very proud of the Prime Minister when he went to Paris and said that Canada was back. However, we then saw that the environmental plan was basically the Stephen Harper plan, which was not credible enough. The fact is that we are going to be 66 million tonnes off the target, from our own reporting. A carbon price alone will not get us there, so we have to start making greater efforts.

I agree with the member on working with the provinces, but right now, much of the success, if any, we have had in terms of environmental changes has happened because of the Notley government putting such serious effort into renewables. I ask the federal government why it is not working hand in hand with Alberta to make sure that we are creating that transition so that people are not left unemployed and we take advantage of the incredible resources we have there.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I just returned from representing this chamber at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which is a multidisciplinary delegation. We had a debate in that chamber on the impacts of climate change, and some of the facts that came up about Canada were alarming.

Temperatures in Canada are rising at twice the global average, and it is three times the rate in Canada's Arctic region. Across the country, growing seasons are shifting. Plant and animal species are migrating, including invasive pests and species that carry disease, destroy our forests, and push out native species. Precipitation patterns are changing, and our polar sea ice along Canada's Arctic coast is breaking up earlier, freezing later, and becoming thinner. Tens of thousands of Canadians have already felt the damage caused by wildfires and flooding associated with climate change, and now extreme weather events that used to happen every 40 years can be expected every six years, yet Canada continues to be one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases per capita in the world.

Where does the member see the progress? Our Prime Minister and the Liberal government certainly talk a better line than the previous Conservative government, but all the facts, numbers, and statistics are showing that we are on track to fail to reach our Paris climate change targets. I wonder if he has any comment on those numbers.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that intervention, because this is such an important issue.

The naiveté I see within this Parliament is that Canada is somehow exempt from the realities of the world and that we can continue to just let the oil and gas emissions rise, the overall GHG rise, while not dealing with the fact that we are in a very fragile situation in Canada. So many of our communities in the far north are on the front line of climate change. So many of our communities in western Canada rely on river systems coming from the melting on the mountain ranges.

We are dealing with a reality that puts us, right now, facing serious issues of climate change. I have seen it in my region with flooding. I have seen it with fires. I have seen the erratic nature of weather, which is having a huge impact on what used to be very stable rural economies. This will and is affecting us, and the inability of Parliament to talk about that, I think, is absolutely shameful.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Calgary Midnapore, Natural Resources; and the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address what I think are two separate components of the motion today. One has to do with the substantive question of a carbon tax and the role that such a price on carbon can play in helping us meet our climate change targets, and hopefully better targets than the ones we have. Unfortunately, we still have the Harper government's climate change targets. That is item number one.

Item number two is the piece on transparency and accountability on the part of the government when it comes to new measures.

On the first bit, I would just like to say that I support putting a price on carbon as part of an overall strategy to try to curb Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, because climate change is real, and it is already having real consequences for Canadians. Over the last number of years, we have seen all sorts of instances where a changing climate has led to different kinds of weather patterns that have caused natural disasters that have had serious consequences for Canadians and people around the globe.

We have a government that has said that it wants to be a climate leader, and that implies some real action. It is fine if carbon pricing is part of that, but it cannot be all of it. It particularly cannot be all of it in the kind of decentralized way the Liberal government has decided to implement this price, where there is no guarantee that any of the revenue raised from that price is going to be reinvested back in alternative energy or the other kinds of things we need to do to fight climate change.

It is a bit of a mystery to me how it is that the Liberal government believes that a price on carbon is going to make progress in terms of climate change, when we are not taking the revenue raised from that, or even any guarantee of any portion of that revenue, to invest back into cleaner energy or things like retrofitting buildings, and not just government buildings but buildings in the private sector. These are ways we can help reduce our emissions overall. We need some initial capital to get those projects going.

They are also ways we can help create jobs as we make that transition to a cleaner economy. Retrofitting buildings, for instance, actually, dollar for dollar, produces more jobs for tradespeople than investments in traditional oil and gas infrastructure. From an employment perspective, transit dollars are also extremely efficient in terms of the employment they create in building the actual infrastructure, such as the roads and the buses; having people drive the buses; and having all the positions that support a well-functioning transit system.

There are a lot of really excellent ways to transition us to a cleaner economy, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and create jobs at the same time. However, we really do need a plan.

Earlier my colleague was referring to the idea of a legislated limit for greenhouse gas emissions. That has to be a key part of the plan. That is how we say, “This is our target, and we are serious about it.” In the absence of having a legislated limit on the amount of carbon that is going to be produced, the plan for greenhouse gas emissions reductions is really just notional. It is a glaring lack of commitment, I would say, on the part of the government, that it is not willing to come out with a hard cap on emissions. Only then can we start to get serious about making the investments it is going to require to bring greenhouse gas emissions down to that ceiling.

I think that is a critical part of the plan. If we have a plan, it is quite possible to create economic prosperity while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but unfortunately, we are not there. That was the upshot of the report that was released just a few weeks ago by Canada's Auditors General. They said that it is not just the federal government but many governments across the country that do not have a real plan when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We need to get on that. Part of that is a price on carbon, but there is a lot more that has to go with it for that to be effective and to make the cost worthwhile for Canadians who are going to be paying it.

On the side of government accountability, I agree with the gist of the motion that there is no reason, if we support a price on carbon, we should not also support Canadians having the information about what that is going to cost. That is part of having a real and informed debate about the cost of these initiatives. It is part of having a good plan.

I would say that the problem with the motion and what we have tried to fix with an amendment that I hope will pass is that it does not talk about the costs on the other side, the cost of continuing to have rising greenhouse gas emissions, how much we think this price on carbon is going to curb emissions, and what the economic benefit of that would be.

I would say that this is sometimes a particular kind of shortcoming or short-sightedness in some of my Conservative colleagues when we talk about many things. We see a similar short-sightedness in the conversation on pharmacare when they want to stress how much it going to cost but do not want to talk about the savings on the other side. They will throw a number at us and say the program is going cost $18 billion or $22 billion. What they are not saying on the other side is that we are already spending far more than that and that overall we are going to save money. That kind of costing is also important.

When we talked about child care in the last election, we talked about having a national strategy. Conservatives and Liberals in this case were quick to point to the start-up costs of such a program, but they were not talking about revenue the government was going to collect from income and payroll taxes from parents, especially from women who were going back to work because they could afford it. They were not talking about the increased revenue from sales taxes as parents spent that money in the local economy and they were not talking about the savings that would be realized through other social programs if parents, particularly mothers, could go back to work and support their families on the income from their work, as opposed to the income from other programs.

When all of that costing is put together, it turns out that not only is the marginal cost of a national child care plan quite low but that it may actually be able to pay for itself, and not by some mystery or magic in the way the Prime Minister seems to think that budgets would balance themselves, but in a costed way, costed by economists who have looked at it and said that the potential to gain revenue out of something like this by having more people involved in the workforce actually counterbalances the cost.

We believe that if we are going to introduce innovative policy solutions that help solve a problem, whether it is decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, whether it is helping Canadians afford the cost of drugs, whether it is helping parents who want to get back to work with a national child care strategy, what is important is that we actually look at the full costing. It seems to me that is an important principle of business.

Business leaders would agree with that too. I am sure that when business people look at an investment, they do not just look at the cost of the investment but also at the potential return. They weigh those things against each other and make a good judgment.

The problem with the motion is that it asks for one side of the equation without asking for the other side. In our view, that is not sufficient to be able to make a good judgment about carbon pricing. It is not just that we need to know what it is going to cost Canadians, although that is an important thing to know and we want to know that; we also want to know what the potential benefits and potential cost savings are over the long run. If we diminish the effects of climate change, what are we going to save in terms of mitigation costs and how does all of that cash out? We think that is important for good decision-making.

We are calling on our Conservative colleagues to appeal to their better selves and accept the full import of their instinct on this one, which is that if government is going to make a decision, Canadians should know the costs and they should also know the potential benefits. That is why we are asking them to accept our amendment so that Canadians can get a costing not just of what they are going to pay in the carbon tax but of what the potential savings are going to be. Then we can look at those numbers and have an informed debate.

I think it is wrong to say that we want the one information set but we do not want the other. That gives the impression that there is an underlying political agenda there, which I am sure is never the case here in the House and certainly not the case with our Conservative colleagues. I would call on them to put paid to that notion and support our amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, in working on the issue of a price on pollution, the government has been very careful in working with the different provincial entities in particular, along with territories. We have this system that is being put in place whereby the provinces will generate a significant amount of revenue. How that could potentially impact the residents depends on the province. For example, the member for Elmwood—Transcona and I share the province of Manitoba, where the government can say that it wants to invest the money it is receiving back into X, whatever that might be. It could be for greener projects, for cash in the pockets of the middle class, or whatever it might be.

I am wondering if my colleague would give his thoughts on what he believes Manitoba should be doing with the revenue that is going to be generated as a direct result of the price on carbon, because no doubt that would have an impact—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is obviously important, if we are going to have a price on carbon, that some of that money be reinvested in working toward a cleaner economy, and it is part of the problem with the failure in leadership of the federal government that it is leaving it open to governments like the Pallister government to totally disregard reinvesting in green infrastructure. If that is the case, it will defeat an important part of the point of putting a price on carbon.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for providing some wise and reasoned counsel in debate, as he always does. We certainly appreciate his support for the main thrust of our Conservative motion, which is to respond to a government that says climate change must be countered at all cost but is refusing to answer the essential question of what that cost is.

Indeed, in our previous Conservative government, when we regulated limitations on emissions by the major producers of GHG emissions themselves, whether in the coal-fired industry or in tailpipe emissions, from which Canadians are still benefiting from today and will for the foreseeable future, until the mid-2020s, we provided cost-benefit analysis.

I appreciate the member's suggestion that it is only logical that if we are going to look at the costs of the government's proposed program, which it resists revealing for the moment, eventually we would want to see the benefits as well. However, the problem with the government, as we know, in recognizing its mistakes and broken promises and conceding the error of its ways, is that it has to proceed with one correction of its course at a time. The principal correction that Canadians want to know—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I need to reserve some time for the response.

The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that my colleague did not quite get to his question.

He is quite right that in terms of the main thrust of the motion, there is something there. We need to have an informed debate, but, as I said in my remarks, I am hoping that he and his colleagues will support our amendment, because that amendment would allow us to have a real debate about the cost of carbon pricing. The potential benefits to the planet are important and hard to put a price on, and not talking about them and the financial savings that can be had by reducing our greenhouse emissions means that mitigating climate change is not yet a real debate.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Timmins—James Bay raised this point, but the member may be able to expand on it.

The big issue seems to be disclosure of information, and the government promised to be open and transparent. The Liberals should follow the advice they are given when they travel to all of these international meetings that the commissioner complained about. They should listen to Britain's representatives, who have come here several times to brief us. The British have legislated their reduction targets, and every five years they up the ante on them. They have appointed an independent commission that not only advises on how to meet those targets but provides an audit of how well they have done and reports it publicly.

Does my colleague think that this kind of disclosure would be useful in this chamber as well?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely do. That is part of what getting serious about climate change means. It is about establishing clear goals in legislation and then having the reporting mechanisms to follow up on it.

Frankly, having a government that talks so much about wanting to mitigate climate change but does not do the follow-through is starting to get embarrassing. It makes us look bad on the international stage, and it is a huge disappointment to Canadians who thought they were voting for a government that was actually going to do something when they continue to get platitudes instead of concrete action.

Other countries are showing the way. They are showing that those reductions can be made, and Canada is not doing that.

At some point we have to evaluate the facts.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today on this opposition day motion with my colleague from Red Deer—Lacombe.

There is no denying that the Liberal carbon tax is a significant shift in public policy. While the Liberals use euphemisms such as “leadership” to describe how they broached this issue with the provinces, the word “threatened” would be far more accurate. I can assure them that their approach to federalism will have diminishing returns.

What we do know is that the Liberals' Byzantine carbon tax is going to be complex. They have set aside $109 million over five years for the CRA and Environment Canada to administer and enforce the carbon tax. For a carbon tax that is supposedly now in the hands of the provinces, why is it going to cost the federal government over $100 million just to administer it?

Without a doubt, the Liberal carbon tax will be one of the largest tax grabs in Canadian history. It will raise the price of food, it will raise the prices of electricity, and it will raise the price of fuel we put in our vehicles or use to heat our homes. What is the result? It means that already-stretched family budgets are going to be hit once again.

Even worse than this, however, is that we do not know the long-lasting financial impact, because the government will not tell us. We know it has the information; it was just awfully liberal in using its black Sharpies to cover up the important bits, such as what the carbon tax will actually cost. The only logical conclusion from the government's actions is that it must cost a lot.

In my constituency, almost half of the people I represent live in rural communities. Many of my constituents are farmers, and their families have lived on the same yard site for over a century. Many also live in small communities such as Medora, Belmont, Crystal City, Cypress River, and many others. They have to drive long distances to drop their kids off at hockey practice or music lessons or to go to work, and in some cases they have to drive many kilometres for essentials like groceries and to pick up the mail.

Many MPs from rural Nova Scotia or rural Quebec also have constituents who face the same challenges. If we apply a rural lens to the Liberal carbon tax, we can see beyond a shadow of a doubt that those who live outside of urban centres will be disproportionately impacted by it. While rural communities are already challenged by the mere fact of their geographic location, they can now add Liberal policies to the list of things on which they need to be vigilant.

If we step back and have a hard look at the larger picture, I would argue that the Liberal carbon tax is one of their flagship policies. One would think they would be excited to share as much information on it as they possibly could.

This is not the first time that I have spoken out on this issue. My good friend, the honourable member from Oshawa, used his private member's business to put forward the concept of giving consumers a better understanding of what the carbon tax will cost. To no one's surprise, the Liberals voted it down. I guess they figured it would not be in their best interests politically if consumers were told in black and white what this carbon tax is going to cost.

When they voted down this motion last year, it was the beginning of a troubling pattern of obfuscation. While Liberals do not mind telling everyone how important it is to introduce a carbon tax, they have this terrible habit of not telling anyone how many tons of carbon it will keep out of the air or, more importantly, how much it will cost the average Canadian household. To provide an example of this lack of transparency, I only have to point out how my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa repeatedly asked the Minister of Environment at committee to reveal how many tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions will be eliminated. She simply refused to answer. Her response to his question would have even made Sir Humphrey Appleby blush.

All of this brings us to the debate we are having today. I applaud the tenacity of my friend and colleague, the member for Carleton. He has repeatedly stood in this House and shone a giant spotlight on this issue. He has not wavered once in his quest to get the government to be transparent on how much its carbon tax will cost Canadians, but yesterday in question period and again today we saw how far the Liberal government will go to avoid answering the most basic questions.

While I respect the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, I feel that his answers were less than forthcoming and made a complete mockery of the whole concept of government accountability. He is an intelligent and well-spoken MP. He is highly educated. I know he understood the questions put before him. What frustrates me and Canadian taxpayers is his government's inability to answer this simple question: What is their carbon tax going to cost?

One would think I was asking for state secrets, like where the alleged Avro Arrow is stored or when the federal budget will be balanced. We are not asking for any salacious or even remotely classified information. All we want is for the Liberals to table the information their departments have compiled and lay it before Parliament, inform the Canadian people, and keep their campaign promise, which was crystal clear. The Liberal platform stated, “Government data and information should be open by default, in formats that are modern and easy to use.”

I implore my hon. Liberal colleagues to vote in favour of this motion. The Liberals must at least be wondering why their party leadership has decided to break this platform promise. It will not be the backroom operatives who have to defend this position. It will be the elected Liberal MPs who have to explain to their constituents why the redacted finance documents must remain clouded in secrecy. They will have to come up with a lame excuse as to why their own government is treating these access to information requests like they contain their map to a lost treasure on Oak Island.

As I have said time and again, there should be no taxation without information. I ask them to make the carbon tax information available, not only to enable members of Parliament to carefully review the figures, but to let Canadians know how much this carbon tax is going to erode their family budgets.

The Liberals are asking us to vote in favour of something, when we have zero idea of what it will cost or even what it will do. I cannot in good conscience support such a massive change in policy, or blindly follow along where there has been almost zero evidence provided in terms of concrete numbers. While there are those who sit in the government benches who will go along to get along, I will not.

No Liberal MPs have openly questioned their government on why this information must remain top secret. They have consumed numerous tons of oxygen in the chamber today, but a single coherent answer on why this information cannot be publicly released has yet to be floated out from the government side of the House. I know there are members on the Liberal benches who are uncomfortable with the recent direction of their government, and I know it will take courage to break ranks. Unfortunately, they know full well that there will be consequences if they vote in favour of this motion.

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

I call on these members to stand up for their constituents and indeed all Canadians, and demand accountability from the government on this issue. I believe we can all agree that the government should be transparent with its carbon tax. Canadians should know what the new Liberal carbon tax will cost them, and taxpayers of our great country deserve no less from their duly elected government.

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

Mr. Speaker, in 2019, when we approach the election and I am knocking on doors, I plan to tell my constituents that for the first time in many years we have a Prime Minister who genuinely believes in improving Canada's environment. We have a Prime Minister who genuinely believes we can still advance the economy along with a cleaner environment. We have someone who genuinely believes in Canada's middle class and those trying to be a part of it.

When it comes to the price on carbon, a lot will depend on what happens in the province of Manitoba. When it generates the revenues, what will Manitoba be doing with it? Will it provide more green leadership? Will it provide tax relief for the middle class? That is something the province is going to have to decide. What we know is that under this Prime Minister we have a national program on a price on carbon. That is something good. Would the member not acknowledge that at times there is a need for strong national leadership on an important file, and that is in fact what this Prime Minister is delivering?