Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan.
As the federal member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I welcome this opportunity to inform Canadians about the estimates, and particularly vote 40. My speech is going to focus on the cover-up and how the carbon tax has given rise to the need for a $7-billion slush fund. Canadians want to know if the $7-billion slush fund is part of the carbon tax cover-up, so I will begin by summarizing the carbon tax.
I am going to start with the carbon tax cover-up that had been going on for years in Ontario and what it has meant to everyday, average Canadians. I am pleased to confirm that once the taxpayers in the province of Ontario became aware of what is known as the “green hustle”, they not only removed Kathleen Wynne from office, the red rump that remains is not even recognized as an official party in the legislature.
For the benefit of taxpayers listening to this debate and hearing the term “green hustle" for the first time, here is an explanation of the term. An example of the green hustle is when the Conservative shadow minister of finance, the hon. member for Carleton, asks the finance minister when the government will share with Canadians how much the proposed federal carbon tax of $50 a tonne would cost a median Canadian family and the finance minister is prevented from answering the question by the Prime Minister's principal adviser Gerald Butts.
Instead, the environment minister assumes the role of finance minister and invokes the green hustle by claiming some unsubstantiated benefit to the environment, where none exists. In fact, the evidence shows that adopting carbon taxes in Canada raises global carbon emissions by offshoring economic activity from relatively environmentally friendly places like Canada to places with lax environmental laws.
Data from the World Bank reveals that China and other developing countries produce far more carbon per dollar of economic output, at purchasing power parity, than do western nations. China shows no signs of decreasing its emissions any time soon. China is currently building hundreds of new coal-fired plants, which will ensure carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise for decades to come. Taken together, these facts mean that for every factory pushed out of Canada because of a carbon tax, global emissions will actually increase dramatically, and this will be the case for decades to come.
As a Conservative, I recognize there are many things we can do to improve the environment. A made-in-Canada environmental policy by Canadians for Canadians would be an honest start for the government. Carbon taxes are wrong for the Canadian experience. We live in a cold country which, by its very nature, is energy intensive. Carbon taxes are not neutral. No money will be returned to taxpayers. Carbon taxes are not going to save the planet.
The same tactic of using the environment to cover up the greed was used in Ontario, a tactic that resulted in ratepayers of Ontario paying the highest price for electricity in North America, a tactic that resulted in the Liberal Party of Toronto being reduced to a red rump. Green is the new red.
A failed policy led to energy poverty among seniors and others on fixed incomes who have been forced to choose between heating and eating during the coldest months. With the term “energy poverty” a new expression in Ontario, the Ontario Association of Food Banks put a photo of a light bulb on its 2016 hunger report. For Ontario's rural residents in places like Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, there was no environmental benefit.
Industrial-scale wind turbines were forced onto unwilling Ontario municipalities and never demonstrated a benefit in cutting carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, according to a journal in the renewables green hustle racket, the way wind power and the carbon tax cover-up were done in Ontario, by covering up the carbon tax on electricity and calling it a “global adjustment”, is now a textbook example, a black eye so to speak, on how not to do greed energy.
There is a direct connection between the failed greed energy policies, the carbon tax cover-up of the Toronto Liberal Party, and the federal Liberal Party in Ottawa. Gerald Butts, who is the most powerful unelected technocrat in Ottawa today, held the same as an unelected technocrat in Toronto. The greed energy act that was so thoroughly rejected by voters in Ontario was his creation. The failure of the greed energy act has been well documented. What has not been well reported is how rich it made a select group of Liberal Party insiders. They are people like the $6-million man, Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt; and people like Mike Crawley, the former president of the Liberal Party of Ontario, who received a contract for $66,000 a day for 20 years, $478 million, to put up industrial wind turbines. The Liberal Party of Ontario was continually shaking down energy companies for political contributions to keep the money flowing if they wanted to keep their FIT contracts that were making a few select people obscenely wealthy at the expense of Ontario residents struggling with their electricity bills.
Because the wind blows when power is not needed, Ontario ratepayers have paid American border states billions of dollars to take the unusable electricity. The Liberal Party talks about threatening a trade war against our largest trading partner, yet Liberal policy was providing the energy to run American industries in the U.S. border states that compete with Canadian manufacturers. Some of these American industries had been in Ontario, but were forced to leave because of the greed energy act and the high electricity prices it created.
I use the past tense because the new premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has promised to govern with respect for the taxpayer dollars, something that needs to happen in deficit-obsessed Ottawa and the reason we are debating vote 40 this evening. It is too bad the finance minister is prevented by the Prime Minister and Gerald Butts from being accountable directly to Canadians about the carbon tax cover-up and why the Liberals need a $7-billion slush fund. Canadians want to know if the $7-billion slush fund is part of the carbon tax cover-up.
The motion from the official opposition earlier today was asking for a clear explanation of the costs of the Liberal Party's carbon policy, just like we want to know what the costs of the estimates are for. We know they have the numbers because our finance critic has seen the redacted pages and there will be costs and indirect costs that will escalate throughout the Canadian economy. For example, the Prime Minister needs to understand that his failure to effectively manage trade relations with our largest trading partner and his clumsy attempt to respond to his failures by announcing a trade war can only end badly for Canadians.
In my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, tourism is a large employer. As Jeff Wilcox, general manager of Pride Marine Group in Eganville and Ottawa has made me aware, the decision by the Liberal government to target boats as the only recreational product listed for retaliatory tariff will result in millions of dollars in lost wages and taxes. It will have a negative effect on what has been an affordable outdoor activity for middle-class Canadians. Will the $7-billion slush fund help them? Jeff says a single-family house in Toronto has become an unaffordable luxury for middle-class Canadians; so too will being able to afford a boat to enjoy the Canadian outdoors become an unaffordable luxury, thanks to Liberal policy and their failure to secure the North American Free Trade Agreement, and that is just one tariff.
On behalf of all Canadians, I ask, what is the carbon tax cover-up really costing Canadians? By using a carbon tax to rapidly escalate the price of fuel, tourism in my riding, which will be hit by the trade war, will be hit even harder. At $2 a litre for gasoline, the most recent target price from the Liberal government, American and Canadian tourists will be staying home.
The carbon tax cover-up will affect workers' pensions. For too many Canadians, unfortunately, retirement income consists of only the old age security and CPP. The decision by the Liberal Party to push the CPP pension managers to buy into the carbon tax cover-up by purchasing, with workers' pension savings, industrial wind turbines that are being dumped by their foreign owners, jeopardizes the CPP. Already, 77% of Canadians believe the CPP will not be there for them when they are ready to retire.