Madam Speaker, I will begin by saying that I will be splitting my time with the member for York—Simcoe.
I want to thank my hon. colleague for Carleton for bringing this issue to light. As we get late in the day and late in the debate, it is important that we remind the House of the motion. Somehow we veer off. I have found myself fascinated today by the fact that the Liberals are spinning themselves around in such a tight web trying to convince everyone that taxing the Canadian population is the right way to go and that it is going to solve all the evils with respect to climate, climate change, floods, famine, fire, and feast, whatever the case is.
The motion says:
That, given the government's carbon tax will impose higher gas prices, and making “better choices”, as the Prime Minister suggested, will not help most Canadians heat their homes and buy groceries, the House call on the government to cancel plans for new taxes that would further raise prices on consumers.
As I was preparing for my talk this afternoon, I read an article. John Robson, of the National Post, wrote a really fascinating article. I would encourage anyone who is watching at home to Google the article. The headline is “What do the Liberals know about carbon tax that they won't tell us?” He says:
It’s a signature policy they insist will work. But they are exploiting a hard-won reputation for cluelessness on key promises from electoral reform to marijuana legalization to convince us they have no idea how this one would function either.
I thought, “Boy, did John Robson nail that.”
The member for Carleton, shortly after the last election, asked the government just how much a carbon tax will cost Canadians and how much the impact will be on emissions. He got the answer back from finance department officials, and the answer was redacted, which effectively means that it was blacked out.
The government knows. It knows full well what the impact of this carbon tax is going to be, but it continues to refuse to release that information, in spite of the fact that the opposition has asked numerous times. I would suggest that we have asked this question up to 60 to 70 times in committee and in the House of Commons, through debates like this and through question period. Each time, the government has skirted the answer and said that climate change is real and has given these talking points without directly answering the question for Canadians.
One of the other interesting things Robson said in this National Post article was this:
if they think we won’t find out before the next election, they’d better get marijuana legalized fast because sobriety is doing nothing for their judgment.
That is clearly what this is about. This is why, again, we are spending the day trying to convince the government not to raise any more taxes if it wants to impose a carbon tax.
Excuse me for being cynical. Excuse all of us for being cynical. Excuse Canadians for being cynical, but we have seen the story play out in the past. In the last election, the Liberals made several promises. One was on the issue of electoral reform. How is that working out, hon. members? It is not quite working out, because the Liberals backtracked on that. They also made a promise of no more prorogation or omnibus bills. How is that working out, hon. members? It is not working out too well.
The Liberals also talked about veterans' pensions. They said that they were going to restore lifelong pensions to veterans. Members could go across this country, as I did, and talk to as many veterans as I have. They, rightly, know that the government failed on the issue of veterans' pensions. In fact, the Liberals also said that they would never take veterans to court, and we found out through an Order Paper question that the government has spent $37 million fighting veterans in court since 2016. How did that work out?
There was the middle-class tax cut, the signature policy of the government. The Prime Minister stood with his hand over his heart and said that the government was going to raise taxes on the top 1% and lower taxes for middle-class and lower-income Canadians. The most important thing he said was that it was going to be revenue neutral. We are hearing that about the carbon tax. This is going to be revenue neutral, and somehow it is not going to cost Canadians.
As a matter of fact, on this issue, on the issue of the middle-class tax cut, as reported by the PBO independently, it was not revenue neutral, and it is going to cost Canadians $8.9 billion over a period of six years. Who pays for that? Of course, it is middle-class and lower-income Canadians.
One of the things the Liberals said as well is that they were going to raise taxes on the top one per cent. We found out through further study that higher-income Canadians benefited from that middle-class tax cut to the tune of $800, while lower-middle-class Canadians gained only about $50.
When they say that this is going to be revenue neutral, excuse us again for being cynical and not believing the government. That is the basis of the argument we are talking about today. It is one of sheer trust. The government has said things in the past, and it has failed to follow through on them. The same thing will happen here.
The GST is a perfect example. The member for Carleton asked finance officials today at committee about the GST and the collection of the GST. They said that it is not going to be passed on to Canadians. It is actually going to be collected by the government. This is nothing but a tax grab by the Liberal government, and it is a tax grab to support its insatiable appetite to spend money.
The government does not have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. That spending problem is not for the priorities of Canadians. I would suggest that it is to meet the Liberals' obligations to their globalist pet projects. That is why we are seeing a lot of money leave this country. That is what is upsetting Canadians.
The disproportionate effect this is going to have will be in my riding, particularly with Barrie—Innisfil household incomes. The median household income in 2015, according to Statistics Canada, was $77,904 in Barrie. In Innisfil, it was $83,516, and in Simcoe County, it was $76,489. These are communities of individuals and families that are already struggling with debt. We know that the average Canadian family has $1.70 in debt for every dollar it takes in. By stretching them even more and imposing carbon taxes on those families for heating their homes, for driving around, and for doing the things they do day in and day out, it is going to have a negative effect on those families I represent in Barrie—Innisfil.
It is not going to be the Prime Minister who is going to pay disproportionately. It is not going to be the finance minister, and it is not going to be the Minister of Environment. They are going to be well taken care of. They have great salaries. They get cars and are chauffeured around. They fly all over the place, and it is questionable whether they even pay for their meals, because they get a per diem. The cost of all this stuff that is going to happen is going to increase for these families that are not making what the Prime Minister is making. Nor do they have trust funds. That is the reality of this.
This is why we are saying that if they are going to impose a carbon tax on Canadians, it will negatively affect them and their pocketbooks and their ability to pay. Things are getting more expensive, such as the cost of groceries and food. Interest rates are increasing. Everything is designed to squeeze these families to a point where they cannot do any more. Why? Again, it is because of the government's insatiable appetite to spend money.
The Liberals already proposed new taxes in the past. They proposed dental benefits taxes and an employee discount tax and a business tax. If it were not for the efforts of the opposition and Canadians who rose up against these things, they would have surely imposed these types of taxes.
Our motion is asking that the government stop the new taxes, because the Liberals are hurting the very Canadian families they are proposing to help. Under this plan, the more people make, the more they will save, while those making less will see less in tax savings. Should those making less not see a greater increase in those tax savings? How does imposing a carbon tax, and every other tax that will come from the government and has come from this government, help those families?
As Conservatives, we stand strongly for those families that are going to be negatively impacted by a carbon tax. Maybe people would agree to a carbon tax, but how are they to know, when the government will not release that information? They should stop the carbon tax, and if they are going to impose a carbon tax, they should stop any further taxes on an already overtaxed Canadian population.