Debates of June 18th, 2019

Opposition Motion—The Environment

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are waiting momentarily for the final decision from the government on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project. Of course, we have been hearing from the community over and over again that climate leaders do not buy pipelines and that it should not be part of our climate emergency plan.

My question for the member is this. How does he reconcile the contradiction of buying a 65-year-old pipeline in the face of a climate emergency?

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no contradiction. It is very simple. The economy and the environment must go hand in hand. Both are important for the progress of our country. Both are important for the advancement of our society. To take one over the other is not a principled approach. The principled approach is to take both together, to make sure that the economy is functioning, not at the expense of the environment, and that the environment is respected, as it should be. There is no contradiction.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned that there will be zero emissions in 2050. I know that the Waterloo region has taken some steps in order to get to zero emissions. We have had the construction of a building.

Can the member elaborate on what our region is doing? We are an innovative region and we are committed to zero emissions as well. Can he comment on that?

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have been doing many things. We have been investing in public transit. We have a light rail system that will be inaugurated on June 21. We have been doing a lot of waste-water management work, making sure that our pipes are functioning properly. Two or three weeks ago, we made a $50-million announcement on adaptation. We are encouraging businesses and companies in the region to invest in more climate-resilient infrastructure.

The cities in the region are also working toward their own environmental plan. They also have support from the government through the low-carbon economy fund and the green municipal fund.

I am very proud that I come from a region that understands the issues behind the climate, understands how important it is to get the solution right and how important it is to make sure that our economy is also functioning. I am very proud to say that our region is very advanced in this way.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Red Deer—Mountain View. Before I launch into debate today, I just want to recognize Bombardier Patrick Labrie, who died tragically this week while serving his country in Bulgaria.

As a serving soldier in Canada's armed forces reserves and as a parliamentarian, I know that the thoughts and prayers of this House go out to the Labrie family. We thank Patrick for his service. I appreciate that we can all come together in this House to support the men and women of our armed forces. It is very important. It is not a partisan issue.

Getting into the debate, it is my pleasure to rise and talk about this opposition day motion on carbon taxes and the environment. It is not an issue that we as Conservatives are afraid to talk about, because we have a very strong record on this issue. At the beginning of the previous Conservative mandate in 2007, greenhouse gas emissions in this country were 744 million megatonnes. By the end of our mandate in 2015, we had brought that number down significantly, below the 744 million megatonnes, while also growing our economy. That is a significant feat that we should be very proud of.

It is all very clear that this was done without the imposition of a carbon tax on Canadians. The government has a clear framework, an example given to it by previous governments, of what can be done to lower greenhouse gas emissions while not putting taxes on hard-working families when they fill up at the pump, when they are heating homes in these cold Canadian winters and when they go to buy groceries or anything that gets trucked in.

I rose today because this debate is important for our country and for the world, but it is also very important for my constituency. The reason is that my constituency, along with the constituency of the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, is the home of Alberta's industrial heartland region. This is a hub in Canada for carbon capture and sequestration technology.

Under the previous government, significant investments were made to partner with industry to find ways to tangibly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This technology has been recognized by the International Energy Agency as one of the key pillars in ensuring sustainable and meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

On the other side of my riding, it is an important issue because Parkland County is home to a significant number, I believe over one third, of Canada's remaining coal-fired generation plants. Decisions by the federal Liberals and the previous provincial NDP government in Alberta on carbon taxes and red tape have had serious consequences in my community, including job losses in the thousands and the loss of tens of millions of dollars in assessed tax revenues for municipal and county governments.

My remarks today are going to highlight the consequences of these policies, but I also want to highlight the opportunities and tangible things we can do to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and support our industries.

Going over the history of this, in 2015 the NDP government came to power in Alberta, and subsequently there was a federal government decision to unilaterally end coal power by 2030. These events presented significant challenges to my community, as well as undermining the livelihoods of my constituents and putting into doubt our ability to supply affordable power.

Under the previous Conservative government, Canada took a responsible, continent-wide approach with our closest ally and neighbour, the United States, to begin phasing out coal power. I recognize that coal has high CO2 emissions and that we need significant action in order to meet our Paris climate change targets. However, I could not disagree more with the path the government has taken on this issue.

Going back to the previous Conservative policy, we would have phased out most coal-fired power plants in this country before 2030. Now, not a lot of that is different from the current government's policies, but this is where the bulk of greenhouse gas emission reductions are going to take place, mostly from plants that were already ending their life cycle before 2030 anyway. There would have been no major cost to taxpayers, no unexpected job losses, and no unexpected revenue losses for communities.

We also allowed for some of the newest and latest coal facilities, one of which was built as recently as 2012, to run through their life cycles, up until 2045. This would have resulted in significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, while ensuring that taxpayers would not be put on the line for billions of dollars to bail out companies for transitioning from coal to natural gas, which is what many were doing anyways. I will talk about the specific penalties later.

I am proud of the investments of the previous Conservative government, to the tune of billions of dollars, to support industries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through carbon capture and sequestration. I want to highlight a couple of projects in this country.

We have Shell's Quest refinery, which has just celebrated its fourth megatonne. Four million tonnes of CO2 have been sequestered at its facility and put into deep saline aquifers. That is four million tonnes of CO2 that is not in our atmosphere today because of an investment by the previous, Conservative government. We also have the North West Redwater refinery project, which is in my riding of Sturgeon River—Parkland. When this, the newest refinery in Canada, becomes fully operational, it will sequester an estimated 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 a year. These are tangible emissions levels.

As the government is falling short of its Paris climate change agreement by 79 million tonnes, facilities in my riding are, on their own, processing over a million tonnes, with facilities next to my riding already achieving four million tonnes. These are not just chump change numbers. These are significant numbers that, if replicated across the country and across industries, can have a massive effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This can be done with very little support from the government and without imposing a carbon tax on hard-working families.

These projects were the result of partnerships with the federal government. They were expensive when they were first implemented, but we have to remember that with technology there are often high barriers to entry. We certainly saw this with a lot of our renewable industries, including with solar and wind power. We know that the consequences of government decisions have raised the cost of power for everyone in the province of Ontario.

There are high costs to doing this, but we know that once this technology is put in place and we learn from it, it will come down significantly in price. Comments from Shell have indicated that it could replicate the Quest refinery project for 30% less than Quest cost. It was about a $700-million project, and Shell could do it for 30% cheaper. This is an investment that we should be replicating in this country moving forward.

That is why I find it disappointing that with respect to CCS in this country, we have not really seen a lot of progress over the last four years. I just checked out the National Energy Board website today. It indicated that there are four major projects in this country. We have the Redwater refinery; Shell's Quest project, which I mentioned; the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, which is also in my riding; and a project in Fort Nelson, northern B.C., which, at full capacity, could sequester an estimated 2.2 million tonnes of CO2. However, since 2015, we have heard nothing about this project. There was previous government support of about $30 million from the B.C. government and the federal Conservative government, but the current government has taken no action.

How can the government be leaving a project like this on the shelf? We are talking about 2.2 million tonnes of CO2. That is over 2% of what we need in this country to achieve our climate change goals, yet the government, which I believe is ideologically opposed to carbon capture and sequestration, has refused to support projects like this.

I am going to be pushing for the next Conservative government to take up these opportunities and increase Canada's investment in carbon capture and sequestration so we can come up with tangible results on greenhouse gas emissions. I feel very strongly that this will be the case.

I also want to quickly talk about carbon pricing. The government has talked about increasing gas by 23¢ a litre after the election, but Canadians already pay. Up to 30% of the price of a litre of gas is federal levy, provincial levy, the GST and, in some provinces, the HST. We are already paying carbon taxes, and we are talking about 23¢ more per litre. That is going to be nearly 50% of the cost of a litre of fuel. It is just a tax plan; it is not an environment plan, plain and simple.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned Shell and talked about some of the work that Shell was doing as it relates to its carbon footprint. I am wondering if he is aware that there was a CBC report on April 3 of this year that talked about Shell and said, in particular, “Global energy giant Royal Dutch Shell is urging Canada's largest oil and gas organization to get off the fence and support both the Paris climate accord and the pricing of carbon to encourage greenhouse gas emission reductions.” Even the oil producers are talking about putting a price on pollution.

I will ask the member a much simpler question, a really direct one. The member for Milton, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, said, “Bottom line is there’s no solid connection between climate change and the major indicators of extreme weather...The continual claim of such a link is misinformation employed for political and rhetorical purposes.” The member for Milton clearly does not believe in climate change. Does the member believe in climate change?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

That is an extremely easy question to answer, Mr. Speaker. I do believe in climate change; it is obvious. However, it is quite funny to hear the member across the way talking about political and rhetorical ways, because his question was completely political and rhetorical. However, I will try to get to one of the most substantial answers.

Of course large oil companies are looking into these things, because when taxes get put on all businesses, it is often the large companies that are the most capable of absorbing the taxes and the small companies that suffer. We saw this in Alberta. When the NDP government imposed carbon taxes, it was the small and medium-sized enterprises that went out of business, and it was the large companies that bought those companies for pennies on the dollar.

When we talk about these carbon taxes, they are going after small and medium-sized enterprises. Some of these large multinational organizations that do not pay carbon taxes in their home countries are more than happy to let these companies suffer and reap the benefits.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for saying that he believes in climate change. We can no longer deny this phenomenon.

Young people from across Canada have taken to the streets to demand that the federal government take much stronger action than what the Liberals are doing. However, in their motion today, the Conservatives are not proposing any sort of plan to combat climate change. They will be presenting their plan tomorrow, but they are not proposing anything right now.

That is not very constructive, particularly since we know that the Conservatives were unable to meet their own targets during the 10 years they were in office. They regulated the sectors, one by one, to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they never regulated the largest polluter, the oil and gas industry.

What is more, they never dared to eliminate the fossil fuel subsidies. It is therefore somewhat hard to believe that the Conservatives have a credible plan, and it is even harder to believe their criticisms of the Liberal government, because they are not bringing any alternative solutions to the table to debate today.

What does the Conservative Party have to offer on climate change? We know that there is a climate emergency. We are working to make sure future generations have a planet worthy of the name, where they can breathe, drink water, go swimming and continue to work the land.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member obviously has a very strong viewpoint on this matter, and we disagree on the approach we need to take, but in the end we want to achieve the same goal.

In terms of our positive Conservative vision, I just need to point to our previous 10 years in government, when we implemented significant reforms for tailpipe emissions for automobiles. This meant that all new vehicles used in Canada had to be cleaner and have lower emissions, and this has had a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

It is ironic, because the NDP would probably, and I think has, called the government's investments in carbon capture and sequestration a subsidy for fossil fuel industries. When money is given to fossil fuel industries to lower their greenhouse gas emissions, there is a really big benefit to the economy and the environment. When we talk about investing in CCS, we should not be labelling it as a bad thing. We should be labelling it as an opportunity to grow our economy and significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia, Post-Secondary Education; the hon. member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, Justice.

The hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on behalf of my constituents of Red Deer—Mountain View.

The motion before us today states:

That, given that the carbon tax will not reduce emissions at its current rate and it is already making life more expensive for Canadians, the House call on the government to repeal the carbon tax and replace it with a real environment plan.

How do we know that the carbon tax is not reducing emissions at its current rate? That information comes from the most recent report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The PBO chose a figure of $102 per tonne, which is five times the current rate. If one is to believe the numbers being thrown around by the government, the projections are that the figure would need to be even higher. Apparently, this does not matter to the Liberal government. Nor does it matter to the Liberals that Australia has realized that introducing a carbon tax is a failed plan and has repealed its tax.

If we are going to be competitive in the North American market, we should be working in harmony with the U.S. on environmental policies, not saddling ourselves with yet another barrier to our economic well-being. This is not what is happening today.

The U.S. has no such plan and has lowered its taxes for businesses, and their total emissions have fallen. In Canada, the Liberal government is forging ahead with its ill-conceived tax increases, while emissions are continuing to rise.

This leads me to the next point, which speaks to making life more expensive for Canadians.

The shell game the Liberal government is playing with carbon tax dollars and refunds is simply not logical. For starters, the plan itself is certainly not revenue neutral. Those numbers have been widely discredited as well. However, that is just part of the story.

Canadian farmers will be especially hard hit with this plan. Statistics Canada estimates that the average costs per farm will be in the tens of thousands of dollars as the tax goes from $10 to $50 per tonne. The worst part is that farmers do not have the chance to pass those costs on to their customers.

The second part of the motion before us asks all Canadians to look ahead. We need to look ahead to a brighter future, a future without the Liberal government's carbon tax grab. We need to look ahead to a future with a real plan for the environment, one based on Canadian know-how and Canadian expertise.

We are already moving in the right direction. Look at the dairy sector as one case in point. Today in Canada it takes 65% fewer dairy cows to produce the same volume of milk as it did 50 years ago. Improvements to cow comfort and feed efficiency have also helped to make our dairy industry more sustainable.

By embracing innovation and new ideas, furthering research and infusing old wisdom into modern practices, Canada's agricultural sector is continually reducing its environmental impact, while looking for ways to improve its practices on a national scale.

There is a lot of work to do to set the record straight about the cattle industry and about farming in general. We have all heard the story that cattle farming is a major source of greenhouse gases. However, at the Alberta Beef Conference in my home town of Red Deer, we heard from experts such as Dr. Frank Mitloehner who debunked this myth and noted that new processes, new efficiencies and proper management meant that beef cattle methane emissions were effectively zero.

On this and many other issues, it is our challenge to ensure that Canadians have science-based information and science-based facts about cattle farming and about farming in general.

We need to continue to use our Canadian expertise to ensure that all our products get to the global market in the safest and most environmentally responsible way possible. We need a government that will enable industry to do more to help the environment, not a government that will hobble businesses and burden Canadians with huge tax increases.

Canadians have so many things of which to be proud. We are proud of our amazing Olympic athletes, our talented artists and the NBA trophy coming home to basketball's birthplace. These are a few highlights, but there are so many others.

We can be proud of Canada's world-class oil and gas industry, which is the best regulated and the most environmentally friendly in the world. Canadians can be proud of our dynamic forestry industry, which has state-of-the-art rejuvenation projects. How about our farmers and our ranchers? Canadian agriculture produces the safest, most environmentally-friendly products in the world. However, even in this case, vested interests are doing their very best to knock us down.

However, a true environmental plan will do the opposite. It will build us up and it will enhance our efforts to protect and preserve the environment.

Let us look at this as far as the Liberal track record is concerned.

In 2016, Canada was 44 megatons of CO2 over its Paris target. In 2017, that number rose to 66. Last year, it was 103 megatons. The Liberal approach just is not getting the results as advertised.

The same is true for the Liberals' arguments about social license. Three pipeline projects, northern gateway, the west to east pipeline and Kinder Morgan, all to be built by the private sector, never got a fair hearing from the Liberal government. We all paid the bill, but got nothing in return.

However, enough about the failures of the Liberal government.

When we talk about an environmental plan, the Conservatives want to talk about things that matter, things like the amazing carbon sequestration projects that have been developed, whether it be in coal technology, oil and gas development or natural gas processing. These are major breakthroughs that Canada's business leaders and their research teams are gearing up to export around the world. Would members not say that championing our expertise on the world stage is better than wringing our hands and apologizing for the fact that Canada has abundant resources in order to score points with the environmental elites?

Of course we will develop our resources and we will do it in a manner that investors will see as the new global industry environmental standard. It will be our energy that will replace foreign tankers coming to our shores. If we proudly embrace our innovations, it will be our oil demanded by climate-conscious nations around the world.

We will also be championing our other major resource sector, agriculture. As I said before, Canadian beef and dairy producers are the most efficient managers of greenhouse gases in the world. By using technologies developed by amazing Canadian minds, we will not only be helping our soil and producing world-class products, but we will be managing greenhouse emissions in a way well above the global standard.

For the last four years, Canada has had a leader who grandstands around the world and uses every opportunity to apologize for what Canada is and for what we do. Under a Conservative government, we will have a leader who is proud not just to be a Canadian, but also proud to stand up for all of us and to champion our successes.

The incompetence of the Liberal government was plain for all of us to see last week. Just a few nights ago, Canadians witnessed the spectacle of their own government choosing to support the interest of competing oil-producing nations over the interests of Canadians. As many editorials noted, the Liberal government is the only one in the world trying to shut down its own resource sector.

The government ignored the pleas of nine provincial premiers, first nation leaders, territorial governments as well as millions of Canadians by shutting down debate on Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill. Now, by ignoring further pleas to not move forward with Bill C-48, the Liberal government is creating even more uncertainty in the energy sector. It is a shame when the government's only fallback plan, the TMX pipeline expansion project, is only going forward thanks to billions of taxpayer dollars transferred to pipeline builders in the United States.

With the Liberal government, we know that the whole process is a crass political one, not a responsible financial one. How many hospitals will be built in Canada through our purchase of Saudi oil? How many social programs will be financed from our friends in Nigeria? How many environmental causes and human rights efforts that Canadians hold dear will be jeopardized by the Liberals shutting in the resource expertise of the world's most responsible energy producers?

By following the misguided dogma of the Prime Minister, the Liberals will be following him into the political abyss. The only way to truly protect our environment, to give certainty to job creators and to ensure Canadians' strong social fabric is to make the divisive Liberal leader is a single-use prime minister.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I honestly feel like I am in the twilight zone. I do not understand what is going on. Somebody needs to wake me up, because now I am hearing this from the other side of the House. This member just said that we needed science-based information and science-based facts. He also said that we needed to protect and preserve the environment. Where have these people been for the last three and a half years? All of a sudden, within the last two weeks, there is this gigantic charade that is developing because the Conservatives have this “plan” that they are going to reveal to the Canadian people tomorrow.

I find it absolutely ridiculous that a party that now, today, somehow purports itself to be the environmental champion of Canada would not have voted in favour of a climate emergency a mere day ago. How is this possible?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think everybody understands that the climate emergency was a political emergency for the Liberal government, which is obvious when we look at what is happening around the country right now.

Let us talk about some of the things the Liberals talk about, such as subsidies for Tesla cars—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order, please. The hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View is trying to answer a question and we have shouting going back and forth like we are at a soccer match. I want to remind hon. members that we are in the House of Commons and there is a certain protocol here. I am sure everyone will let the hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View answer the question.

The hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, let me go back to a different point.

I remember a number of years ago when the neighbouring kids came to the farm. They said they were selling compact florescent light bulbs on behalf of the school to replace the incandescent ones. These were projects that helped the school. The kids were advocating for this because the environmental activists promoted this green energy product, something for which we should be so happy. We did our thing and bought a whole bunch of them. Then we realized there were five milligrams of mercury in every one of them, and about 15 million of them were sold. Therefore, we now have an environmental crisis because of those types of activities.

When the member talked about science-based ideas and the like, sometimes the science and the arguments are more related to money in somebody else's pocket than they are about really doing something to help the environment.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Red Deer—Mountain View and I served on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

One of the big challenges we have is to not only reduce our emissions to get to net zero, but to also do something about the carbon that is currently in our atmosphere. The member will know, as do I, that I do not think we have given due recognition to the work that farming does to sequester carbon in our soil. We are both aware of some amazing research that shows that well-managed agriculture practices can sequester up to 50 tonnes of carbon per year in a hectare of well-managed soil.

Therefore, in an effort to maybe turn the temperature down, because we both have such great respect for our agricultural community, I invite the member to talk about the hard work our farmers are doing and the ways in which we can encourage them to do an amazing job in sequestering carbon. I think that will be a big part of the puzzle going forward into the future.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from B.C. and I have had some great conversations. Although we look at things sometimes from a different perspective, nevertheless we have learned a lot from each other, and for that I am thankful.

When I look at the situation as far as agriculture is concerned, there are amazing new technologies there. We have amazing tools that can make Canadian farmers and world farmers do a much better job. The key thing for us in the future is to ensure we do not allow outside forces to take those tools away from our farmers so they can do an amazing job with respect to the environment.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is rising on a point of order.

(Ways and Means Motion No. 34. On the Order: Government Orders)

June 17, 2019—The Minister of Finance—Consideration of a Ways and Means motion to amend the Income Tax Act

Motion No. 34

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the Order for consideration of Ways and Means motion No. 34 be deemed read, the motion deemed moved and seconded, and the question put immediately before the deferred recorded division on the motion for second reading of Bill C-331, An Act to amend the Federal Courts Act (international promotion and protection of human rights) on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, and, if a recorded division is requested on the Ways and Means motion, that the vote shall be taken up immediately.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

(Motion agreed to)