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.