Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Chilliwack—Hope, our chief opposition whip.
After several hours now of overheated Liberal rhetoric and revisionist history, it is time to get back to some basic facts. Climate change is real; climate change is a global problem, and climate change demands a global solution.
Canada, which generates barely 1.6% of global GHG emissions, must still do its part. That is why the leader of the official opposition will lay out the most comprehensive climate policy ever proposed by an opposition party in Canadian history, just a few weeks from now.
The motion before us fails to acknowledge that Canada today falls far short of its emissions reduction targets, so let us just take a look at Canada's targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
When they came to office, the Liberals embraced the same targets set by the previous Conservative government, to reduce GHG emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. When those Conservative targets were set, it was not with a carbon tax imposed on commuters and soccer moms and small businesses. We focused on the major emissions sectors. Working with the scientists at Environment Canada and the scientific community beyond, we developed meaningful regulations that did not hamstring hard-working Canadian taxpayers or the Canadian economy.
Transportation was the largest emitting sector, with about a quarter of Canada's total annual emissions. With our American counterparts, we developed continental tailpipe regulations that are still reducing emissions today. These regulations, which came into force in 2012 and built on existing regulations, require that all cars and light trucks built between 2017 and 2025 be required to cut emissions by an average of 5% every year. These regulations will see tailpipe emissions reduced to 50% of what they were in 2008.
There is a cost. The new technology adds somewhat to the cost of each new model year, but there is a significant offsetting benefit. Fuel consumption will also be reduced by some 50% from 2008 levels by 2025.
When the Liberals, with gesticulation and hyperbole, hysterically defend their carbon tax, which is indiscriminately imposed on commuters, soccer moms and small business transport companies, they are actually imposing a cost on top of what these motorists are already paying for environmentally responsible technology and significantly reduced emissions and fuel consumption. The bottom line is that the Liberals are riding on reductions that are still being realized today as a result of the previous Conservative government's regulations on large emitters.
Similarly, the previous Conservative government achieved reductions by regulating the coal-fired electricity generating sector, which effectively banned the construction of any new coal-fired units that use old technology.
It is true that we did not hit our overall targets, but it is also true that we did not compromise the economic well-being of hard-working taxpayers or the competitiveness of our economy overall. We worked to protect the environment at the same time as we worked to protect the economy.
We made progress. Emissions were reduced, in sharp contrast to the world's major emitters, who blithely signed the Kyoto and Copenhagen accords and then did nothing. I am talking about China, which generates almost two-thirds of global GHG emissions, and whose emissions are still rising. I am talking about the United States, India, Brazil and so many other countries whose representatives, along with this Liberal government, partied the nights away in Paris and signed the Paris Agreement with toasts of champagne and foie gras tasties.
That brings me back to the motion before us and its preposterous objective of deepening targets, which would risk our economic well-being and achieve precious little in global terms while the major polluting countries keep pumping out ever-increasing amounts of GHGs.
Again, the motion fails to acknowledge that Canada continues to fall far short of its emissions reduction targets.
We have proposed an amendment to the motion that would recognize the reality we face, that Canada is failing to meet its targets under the Liberal plan. It would demand that the Liberals table a real environment plan, not a revenue plan and not a tax plan, to lower emissions and achieve Canada's targets.
We know that small-business owners and their employees care about the environment and have implemented a wide range of environmental initiatives. However, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has just released a policy position paper that reveals that 87% of business owners in the four provinces where the federal carbon backstop tax is positioned say that they are opposed to the carbon tax and that the majority of these business owners will not be able to pass on their costs to consumers.
The CFIB numbers also show that small businesses will pay almost 50% of the carbon tax, with 50% paid by households. While the Liberals claim that households will get back 90% of their carbon taxes paid in rebate payments, small-business owners will get back rebates of barely 7% of their carbon taxes paid. With just about every aspect of the Prime Minister's climate change policy position, this motion has little to do with meaningful action and everything to do with desperate virtue-signalling politics.
The Prime Minister was elected, promising sunny ways, transparency, accountability, rainbows and unicorns, but he is running away from yet another scandal and trying to distract from it. He finished a dismal fourth in a British Columbia by-election. He is desperate and he is trying to find anything to change the channel.
The Liberals have had three and a half years to come up with a real plan for the environment. Meanwhile, Canada is falling further and further away from emission targets, even as the Liberals attempt to defend the carbon tax, which hits hard-working taxpayers and small businesses, while allowing at the same time massive exemption for the big polluters.
Again, climate change is real, climate change is a global problem, climate change is a global challenge and climate change demands global solutions. In contrast to the Liberals' failed plan, their high-carbon hypocrisy, in just a few short weeks, the Conservatives will lay out an environment plan that our Conservative leader promises will provide the best chance of reaching Canada's targets, the most comprehensive climate policy ever proposed by an opposition party in Canadian history.