Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure of being in St. John's quite recently, and it was great to see strong opposition to the carbon tax, despite the member's best efforts to sell the policy. With all due respect, his speech was embedded with this sort of bad metaphor and presumption that an idea's time has come, and therefore it has come. Of course, there are many instances in history we could point to when people may have thought an idea's time had come and it turned out to be not such a good idea and there was a better idea in the offing.
My friend, as well as the member for Saint John—Rothesay, have spoken about issues of poverty that exist within their communities, and indeed, they certainly exist across the country. When it comes to the carbon tax, why is the government intent on using the stick instead of the carrot when it comes to responding to climate change? Why does it want to hit people with the stick of higher taxes who, in many cases, cannot afford to make different kinds of choices? They are simply not able to go through the process of replacement or substitution. Why does it not instead do things like we did, such as the home renovation tax credit and policies we undertook, such as regulatory changes affecting heavy emitters? We can do this a different way that does not hurt struggling people in his riding and elsewhere. Is he not open to alternatives to the “all stick, no carrot” approach?