Mr. Speaker, there is a principle that many of us abide by, certainly on this side of the aisle, and that is no taxation without representation. That is essentially the function of Parliament at this point in time. If we are going to tax the people we represent, then we are accountable to them for how we spend their money. We should be able to explain what sort of impact collecting revenue from them and then spending it will have on their lives.
The situation that is at the core of the motion today is that the government has implemented a very punitive tax on Canadians and is taxing them without information. We have taxation without information. Let me explain what I am talking about.
There was a departmental note entitled “Impact of a carbon price on households' consumption costs across the income distribution”. It was presented to the Liberal government after the election. The Conservative Party of Canada asked for a copy of the document, because ostensibly it is what the government's carbon tax is predicated on.
Again, the government made a decision to impose a tax on Canadians. This is the information it provided about what the cost would be to average households. As the opposition, we should be able to have that information so that we can represent our constituents and see whether this policy instrument will work and what the opportunity cost would be, the cost of taking that money from Canadians through the tax. What would be the return on investment for seeing the cost of goods increase?
I will post this document on my website or my Facebook page later today. When we got it, it was completely redacted. It essentially says, “The cost to Canadian households will be—” and then there is a giant redacted table. It is completely blacked out.
That is the core of the motion today. In order for the House to represent the people who gave us a mandate to be here, and in order to decide whether or not this tax is actually in the best interests of Canadians, we should know the modelling that the government used to determine whether the tax should be implemented now.
Based on what I have seen, external economists outside of the public service have certainly said that the carbon tax is going to raise the cost of goods and everything. Let us think about this. Canada is a very large country. It is geographically diverse. We have to travel long distances to get from one place to another. I am thinking about all the people in this place who have to commute from their ridings just to get to Parliament. Never mind the fact that we are agriculture-intensive and a large portion of our economy is based on natural resource extraction. What do all those things use as an input? They use carbon.
I could spend a whole day just talking about the impact on industry and the loss of jobs, but we can push that down to the household level. Because we have to fill up our cars, and because it is cold here and we have to heat our homes, that tax is going to increase the cost to the average Canadian household. Anyone here who has seen the price of gas these days and who makes that puckering sound or shivers when putting gas in the car understands that the carbon tax is impacting people.
One of my colleagues got up and waxed eloquent about economics, about supply and demand. He argued that if we put a tax on something, people's demand for it will decrease. What he was arguing was that the carbon tax the Liberals have put in place would actually decrease the demand of Canadians for things like gas, heating, and farm implements.
Here is the problem. The other piece of information the Liberals have that they will not release is the assumption about how much demand will decrease. They are not releasing how much this carbon tax would actually reduce demand. Therefore, we have a double problem here. Anyone who is making that cringing face when filling up the tank right now is still filling up the tank. Why is that? It is because we are in Canada. We have to drive to get to places.
The price the Liberals have put in place is not going to decrease the demand, but it is going to increase the cost of living for average Canadians. That is the reason why the government will not release this information. It does not want taxation with information. It does not want taxation with representation. Why? It is because the government has a dogmatic, almost religious, zealotry adherence to the carbon tax it has put in place.
Why is that? It is because its spending is so out of control and its deficit budget is so unimaginably high that it is looking at every possible option to squeeze average Canadians for its poor financial management. It is my job, and the job of everyone else sitting on this side of the House, to say, “No, it stops here.” We need this information. Canadians need this information. The government did not receive a mandate to be completely disrespectful of the hard-earned money that Canadians toil for every day.
We also understand that this information needs to be used to look at lower-income Canadians. We know that taxes like this have a disproportionately higher cost to people who are making less money. Because they have a lower income and still have the same input costs on things like transit passes, food, and driving, that tax has a higher impact on people like single moms and senior women. That is wrong. That is also our job here, and that is why we need this information. That is why we are prepared to make the government sit here for 24 hours over and over again until it allows taxation with information, not blocks of redacted information. That is ridiculous.
The Minister of Environment, the religious, dogmatic climate change spokesperson-in-chief in the House of Commons, stood up today and with great zeal said that she tabled a document on April 30 that shall set us free, except there is absolutely nothing in her document. Members can go on her website and look through it. There is nothing in there that speaks to the cost to Canadian households. Why? It is because this is how the Liberal government operates. It does not want Canadians looking at its books. Why is that? It is because it is a burning dumpster fire that is adding carbon to our environment.
Anybody who is filling up the tank right now understands what this carbon tax is going to do for people. If we are going to put a consumption tax that would increase the cost of everything to Canadians, one, it had better work, which it does not, and two, Canadians had better buy into it, which they do not. The other thing is that the government would have to account for the fact that it is going to have legal challenges from virtually every province in this country saying no. Every provincial government is going to stand in the way of this carbon tax. I am so pleased to see Ontarians, and soon Albertans, rejecting another barrier to doing business.
In closing, let us talk about trade. The government should have been making Canada more competitive, knowing the volatility of the American administration going into the NAFTA talks. What did it do? It put a cash grab in place, making it even more uncertain for investment, which means even more lost jobs.
I want that information. Every Canadian has a right to know what was in that document. Canadians have a right to know how much this tax is going to impact them. If we do not do that, if we do not have taxation with representation, then why do any of us have jobs? That government should not.